The Concierge NP That Engineered His Career For Freedom - Episode 13

Is your career set up to provide you freedom or do you feel like you’ll have to work forever? Theo quickly found out that these jobs will work you to burnout if you let them. Instead he has been able to pivot his career and engineer multiple streams of income so that work is truly an option.

Theo Jones, Sr., CRNP, FNP-BC, MBA, MSN is a family nurse practitioner with a career spanning 8 years serving in specialties such as intensive care and trauma surgery, with a subspecialty in acute pain management after the completion of a post-Masters fellowship.

Theo currently serves as the founder and CEO of Weekend Whitecoat Concierge LLC, a concierge a healthcare company focused on concierge and telemedicine and mobile lab testing.

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Naseema McElroy: what's up? My financially intentional people you are in for a treat today cuz I am joined with my brother. From another mother, Theo Jones, which happens to be the last name of my first baby daddy. So, you know, we got a lot in common here. Oh yeah. I'm in the building. . He's the homie in real life.

But Theo is gonna put you up on game on so many things, and I just wanna say thank you so much, Theo. It is my honor and my pleasure to have you on my podcast.

[00:00:35] Theo Jones: Oh no, the pleasure's all mine. I'm, I got butterflies. I don't know why I'm so nervous. Like we haven't spoke like 8 million times. Right.

[00:00:41] Naseema McElroy: Well we all talk like every day.

Right? Right. . Anyway, Theo, I just wanna jump into your story cuz I want people to understand how bomb you are. So share a little bit of your background. As a nurse, as a business owner, and as a weekend white coat investor.

[00:01:02] Theo Jones: Yes. Yes, yes. I'm, I'm excited about this. So if you guys did not pay attention to the intro, my name is Theo Jones.

I am a nurse practitioner. Before that I was a registered nurse. I. , I C U trauma surgery in the or, and before that I was a L P N, I was a corrections nurse, and before that I was a nurse, a cna as a nursing student. I don't tell people this story, but I was a, a, a nursing student, c a down the va and that was probably one of the worst things I've ever done, but, Not the worst job I've ever had for money, but one of the worst things I've done in this field.

So , that's always

[00:01:40] Naseema McElroy: fun, but the experience you got, the experience is priceless.

[00:01:45] Theo Jones: Oh my God. You know, it's something to be said about being in a hospital overnight with a bunch of combat trained veterans with dementia that think you stole that wallet. , make it interest. . So, yeah, it was, it was fun. It was a very rewarding situation, but that's something I probably won't do again.

But I have been in this field for about eight years now, I think. Yeah, so five, so I'm going on five years as an np. I'm renewing in September this year. So, Ooh, time flies when you're having fun, right? So it's been five years as an np eight years total from like nursing to like NP all the way through and.

I am a practice owner. I am the practice owner of Weekend White Coat Concierge, which is a concierge medicine practice, or would I like to say a healthcare company because we focus on a lot of things. We focus on telemedicine concierge membership. Lab testing, point of care testing, and I'm going to break into workplace wellness at some point.

So that'll be like a business to business kind of gig. So I'm working on it now, actually. Other than that I've been dying to do like a, a flat out, like. Podcast episode with you where we just kind of knock down, drag out, talk about this money and these stories and these businesses and kind of, you know, see where the growth can come from in the future.

You know, cuz we got, we got so much stuff to cover in so little time, so it's gonna be fun. .

[00:03:16] Naseema McElroy: What I, what I want people to understand is just, just listening to The's story. Just like how many opportunities there are for you within the field of nursing, but just in life in general. And I think that oftentimes we limit ourselves.

To what we see or what we're exposed to. But this is an opportunity and the reason why you're hopefully listening to this podcast to know that there are so many things that you can be doing with your life and taking those things that you're really good at, and creating businesses around, or creating opportunities for yourselves or other people around.

So I wanna know what that transition was like from being, you know, a bedside nurse or. To opening your own concierge. .

[00:04:04] Theo Jones: Oh my God. So that was a rough one. Cuz you know, they don't train you on business in nursing school. They don't train you on business in MP school. So

[00:04:15] Naseema McElroy: learning, they don't train you on business.

In business school like entrepreneurialship. They train you how to work for other people by the way. So yes, you, a lot of, most people who are entrepreneurs, like get it from the.

[00:04:27] Theo Jones: Right. For real though. Cuz like, you know, I took an MBA program and I did not learn how to be an entrepreneur. I just, I just learned how to do PowerPoints, run operations and, you know, do enough to get through a marketing session and some accounting.

So, you know, put me on the spreadsheet, that's it, you know. But other than that so, you know, that transition was very interesting because I had to learn how to actually, Sell. We don't learn to sell at all. That's probably one of the biggest things that we need to learn how to do, is like entrepreneurs because we don't all have that ability.

You know, I, I'm not a car salesman. I'm not a, you know, I. . If somebody, if I walk into a patient's room and I say, Hey, this is the treatment option I'm not gonna sell them. I'm just gonna tell 'em, this is your option. This is your choice. So coming from a field where we give so many options and choices to patients, it's, it was kind of hard to make that transition to sell to people on the front end and back end.

When you, when you're like trying to get people to. Because concierge

[00:05:34] Naseema McElroy: medicine. Yeah. I think a, yeah, A lot of people just think if you, if you build it, they will come. But most of your business efforts aren't around the services you provide. It's not about the things that you do within your business.

It's how do you attract people to your business. Yes. And that is hard, especially if you're a na, not a natural salesperson, or that's just something that you were never taught. So thank you for, for acknowledging that. Right, right.

[00:05:58] Theo Jones: I'm an introvert. I'm an introvert with extrovert tendencies. So me, me attracting people.

That's, that's, that's, that's, that's a, that's a feat because I gotta like recharge the battery. , right. Break out the shell say, Hey, you know, I'm Theo, this is what I do, and you're selling trust. Because these days most people don't even remember the last time they seen like their primary care provider.

Right. So I mean, and I get that question a lot. You know, do we, do we even need primary care providers these days when we can just use the internet? Well, the problem is, you know, I put in all these years of. To learn to synthesize that information. You didn't. You can go on Web MD and get your anxiety so jacked up that you might need Xanax before you actually get to the actual problem.

So I think a lot of times, you know, in business you spend some time trying to Tell your customers how you're solving their pain point without them even realizing. I think when you start a business, most people think like, oh my God, I'm gonna get so much support. It is not. Fill the dreams. If you build it, they will not come one.

People need to know that you're there. If nobody knows that you're there, then how in the fuck are you gonna grow your business? Two, your money is in stranger's pockets. You cannot depend on family and. because they won't repost you. They won't retweet you, they won't bring you up at events. They won't, they won't say a damn thing and you'll just be like, why y'all didn't support me?

It's not until you get big, you know, it's not until you, you know, you, you hit a hundred grand, a hundred thousand followers or you, you know, you sitting on the news where, . They're like, oh my God, let's support them. Let's repost them because they've already made it big. It is. Strangers believe in you more than your own people, believe it or not.

[00:07:40] Naseema McElroy: So, but even then, you still don't get the love automatically like you think would think. You still have to sell yourself every day. You have to put yourself out there every

[00:07:49] Theo Jones: day. Yes. I mean, I'm talking about like all a B Hs always be hustling. I mean, sometimes it gets old, but you know, after you learn.

When you cannot sell something, you can't pay your bills. That shit is like brand spanking you every day. It is cause being an entrepreneur, that money come a lot differently than, you know, working at a job because you, you go in, you punch that clock, you know that money come in every two weeks. As an entrepreneur, you know that money is gonna trickle in, you know, stripe payout every once in a while, square, pay out when they ready.

So, you know, all I'm saying. You know, you gotta really get out here and sell as a hundred percent of the time, not half-assed. Cuz if you half-assed your kid's gonna starve. You can't save for retirement, you can't, you can't get stuff done. That was pro that, that was the biggest transition. That was, I would say 100% was selling.

Selling yourself, selling your product and getting out there in front of the faces of the people who are going to be prospective buyers. So that was one of the transitions. The other transition was coming, coming from bedside to a provider. People really sleep on that transition. Being a provider coming from a registered nurse is.

A dog taking his own leash. I mean, I'm not comparing us to dogs, but it's just the, it's just the, I, it's the visual of it, of like, you're usually taking orders, right? You go from taking orders to giving the orders and knowing that somebody's life is in your hands. That is a heavy weight and that is a hell of a transition and you appreciated to deal with because that is one of the biggest things I struggle with.

After my first year, I had a, I had a really cushy, like, like fellowship doing acute pain management and I had a lot of support around me, so I, I could call somebody and say, Hey, I need this. Or I could call somebody and say, Hey, what do you think of this? Or bounce ideas off of them. But once I left that fellowship and I took a a, a hospitalist job full-time, that's when all shit hit the fan.

My first hospitalist gig, I was buried. I was like, oh my. God, I feel I was getting about 14, 15 patients a day. I was, I was rounding on eight patients, admitting like six patients, like minimum admitting, admitting six. Meanwhile, you know, I'm working for this practice and that was the baseline. But the like, you know, the other doctors that were like employed by the hospital, they were like on, they were.

Taking specific emitter shifts. They were only doing admissions and not rounding. They were just doing straight admissions. So I'm like, man, I'm getting worked. I got, yeah.

[00:10:19] Naseema McElroy: But wait, can you explain, can you explain what a hospitalist does for people that don't know? And a lot of people don't know that nurse practitioners can actually be hospitalists, but explain that for the people.

[00:10:29] Theo Jones: Sure. Yeah. So a hospitalist is basically an internal medicine provider that rounds on the med surge floors. So basically we get a, a roster of patients that are coming in for medicine reasons, cuz not everybody coming into the hospital coming for surgery. Not every patient coming into the hospital for emergency.

Sometimes they just get admitted and they need a doctor while they're there to organize their care and just do the general day-to-day things. So most of the time when patients come to the hospital with c o. Or if a patient comes to the hospital with like congestive heart failure, most of the time it's a hospitalist that manages it.

We, we just do medicine, so kind of like primary care, but like jacked up hospital steroids with more power, so

[00:11:12] Naseema McElroy: we can do the, yeah. And then there's a, there's a separate hospitalist for OB services, so labor and delivery and all n gyn and all those services. And then there's an intensivist, which does like the ICU stuff, the more.

Really a acute, serious, critical care kind of hospital. So just for people who don't know and don't work in the hospitals, even if you are in medical field, you might not know what hospitalists do. So just wanna give you a background, like that's a lot of responsibility.

[00:11:41] Theo Jones: It is a hell of responsibility.

My phone didn't stop ringing. It is like I would get there at seven, so it would be two hours a call, so it would be seven in the morning, two hours a call. So from seven to nine I'd be on call. From nine to five, I would work my shift, and then from five to seven I would still be on call. So my phone was constantly ringing from seven to seven every.

Every day from seven to seven. And it's always the same thing. Nurses asking questions the ER flow doctor calling me saying, Hey, we got admissions. So it was a lot of responsibility. And I mean, and if you listen close in, you will start to hear really why I start in my own practice in the midst of all this , because one, I, I build the knowledge up.

Like I, I got my ass kicked so bad. that either I had to either drown or get good at my job and excel. So my only choice was to get good at my job in Excel because I, I, I paid too much money for this degree to be like, no, I ain't doing this no more. . So HO Hospitals was a lot of, a lot of responsibility and eventually I ended up leaving that job, going to another hospitalist gig.

And an Annapolis here in Maryland. And that job was a little bit more cushy, but, you know, I left that job for another reason that I'll probably get into later, which is gonna be interesting. I I ended up getting covid for the first time. And around Christmas, and I had this medical director who just kept asking me to come back to work, and I told him that I was sick and he was just like, oh, well, everybody gets sick at this point.

It's just an annoyance. And I was like, annoyance. Huh? . Okay, here I go. I quit. You feel me? . So it's it's one of those things where it's, it's like after a while after you start to build yourself, it's just what do you want to take and what do you knock on take? And it just kind of goes down to my phrase and you know, fuck that job.

You know, that is , that is a.

[00:13:42] Naseema McElroy: Freeze, freeze. But I think, I think what you're talking about kind of is symbolic to like the healthcare system right now. The burnout that a lot of us are feeling and just like this impending doom that a lot of us are feeling because the healthcare system is broken and a lot of us are, are knowing from the inside.

It's about to implode. Yes. But you know, I feel like instead of you kind of going to that point where you felt like you don't have a lot of choices or you need to leave the profession, you took it upon yourself to start your own practice. as a form of a solution because I feel like that's what's actually happening.

A lot of people are kind of stepping outside of the box and creating their own solutions to our broken healthcare system. Yes. And your concierge service is a representation of that. So yeah, I. It, it sounds like you were kind of pushed out a little bit, but pushed out because you wasn't about to, you wasn't about to take what, you didn't have to take

Not

[00:14:51] Theo Jones: about that. At this point, I had already missed Christmas. Like I was literally like in, in like a protective gown on Christmas. Like, all right guys, hey, happy, happy holidays, but it's like, now you just being rude to me. Come on now. . . Yeah. Yeah. So, so it, it was a whole nother energy and it, it was just so unfortunate cause I was so careful.

Like I got all my boosters and, you know, I, I was treating it, I got it from a patient's a patient's wife while I was getting on the elevator, headed to my car, I took my mask off for like, Point zero zero, one of a second to like get on the elevator and this lady ran behind me and started talking to me.

Next thing you know, I come to work the next day and I'm looking, I'm looking like rundown 10 times as worse as a usual hospitalist. And I was like, I'm sick. That's all I could think. I'm sick and I need to go get tested cuz this is ridiculous. . Yeah. Yep. Yep. , they did me in and you Right. You know, we, it's kind of a renaissance right now, I would say out of the pandemic.

It was a renaissance of nurse practitioners and nurses that just kind of flat out went into business for themselves. You got all these med spas, you got all these I dehydration businesses. You got, you know, other nurse practitioners starting primary care practices. This is kind of our pushback to the healthcare system saying, listen, we ain't gonna take this shit.

No. You know, we even got we got locum Nmps out here, locum 10 Nmps taking, taking locums jobs all over the country and traveling and, you know, making premium going into business for themselves as providers. And I'm so proud of all of these entrepreneurs that are blazing at trails. You know, we, we even got people that are, you know, doing digital digital products like you which I've, you know, from day one and.

Oh yes. You know, I, I love the, I love the manifesto, the Freedom Manifesto series. Mm-hmm. , I was so excited about that, and I was so excited to have you in the have you do a guest chapter. And honestly I was going to tell you Was it Black Friday? Black Friday, I updated the book and I had a great Black Friday.

So a lot of people got a chance to reach a chapter recently. Yay. So that was really

[00:17:00] Naseema McElroy: cool. But we haven't, we haven't gotten there. Cause we're gonna talk about that as well. But we're still talking about your concierge Sure. Service and the origins of that and, you know, just higher change in the game in healthcare.

Yes.

[00:17:13] Theo Jones: So, all right, so I'll, I'll give you the origin story, right? So It's, it's a few. So the first one, you know, how you just, you know when, once you start to, you know, develop this power to do things in your life, right? So I, I had this newfound ability to write prescriptions. I had this newfound ability to, you know, give medical information.

And the first thing that everybody around you start to do is they call you and ask you for advice. And they're like, Hey, you know, I ain't feeling well. Think you write me a note. I'm not feeling well. Think you can, you know, then you can send me a Z pex to the pharmacy and it's just kind of. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I should be getting paid for this. Why am I doing this for free? This makes no sense at all. And after a while, it started to, you know, be one of those things where like, I'm going to charge for this, right? Because everybody's just calling my personal phone and asking me for favors. At this point. It's not really it's not really me doing any work.

They just asked me for favor. So I was like, you know what? I'm in charge for this. My original iteration was, $20 a month. Unlimited telemedicine. Right. That was my first offer. Yeah. I know. It's crazy to think now, right? But that was originally my first offer. It was like 20 bucks a month, unlimited telemedicine, and people were signing up for it to this day.

I still have about two or three patients that were like grandfathered in on that deal. And I mean, they love it. I don't think they're going anywhere. I mean, talk about like low turnover rate, like concierge medicine has a, at least my practice has a low turnover rate because they love it here. It's a, a, a whole different change in how we approach medicine.

But from. I started to come up with a more, you know, with a better idea, with a more cohesive practice. Because what I started to realize, and this is before the pandemic where I started this business, where everybody was like, oh, telemedicine here, telemedicine in. What I realized is that there was a huge gap in healthcare where patients were not getting primary care at all.

A lot of people don't. Like I said before, most people don't know the last time they seen their primary care provider, they can't even name one. They, it's just some person printing on their insurance card. No face, no case. They just, they just there for the, for the hell of it. So , it made me think, you know, how can I revolutionize this game or, or change this idea of how we face our primary care issues.

Because most of the time you don't establish a good relationship with your provider. You just go to do your physical SY labs. That's. It, you know, meanwhile, my idea was to foster relationships with patients where I could talk to them, you know, if they want to, they could text me daily, you know, and I'd be like, Hey, you know, I, I wanna be that provider where you're comfortable enough to invite me to Thanksgiving dinner, but I'm polite enough to say no, I'm good cuz I don't eat everybody food

So the, the concierge game is really interesting because I wanted to make. Old school, but I wanted to give it a new school twist. So what I really, really liked that I did is that I merged the idea of like a mobile app, like a digital first care with old school house calls. So a lot of my patients, they, they get old school house calls, but you know, it's a digital practice.

The beauty of it is that the practice is very lean. Most days I could probably run it for my cell phone, but the backend is very comprehensive and streamlined because, you know, I have I got a tech stack that I use. you working, you, you and the Silicon Valley energy. I have a tax stack that I use to automate a lot of the processes.

I also have like virtual assistants working in the background to help make things make things feasible and to make it work. So, I mean, you're familiar with that, so, With those steps, I was able to create this lean practice that gave me a lot more freedom than I would have if I was continuously working in a hospital as a hospitalist.

Cause what you, what you tend to do as a hospitalist, you walk in and you don't stop running from seven to seven

[00:21:15] Naseema McElroy: and you do that. So you're operating under old systems that are antiquated and aren't really practical. Or safe . Yes. For patient care, like the two things like, because like in healthcare, the way that things get implemented, like we're so far behind.

I mean, yes, I'm in a, I'm in a place, I, I'm in the heart of Silicon Valley where I work, all my patients work in tech. We can't even get high water to the rooms. Like if you understand like that kind of concept, like we are like that, like our buildings are old. Like it's a whole bunch of stuff that needs, that just needs to be fixed.

I mean, Communication. Yeah. Like all those kind of things. So now you're able to take, because you're doing your own practice, you're able to take technology because you can implement it on your own terms. Yes. Instead of being, working under somebody else's systems and Yes. So that changes the game. But being doing this for now, for a couple of years, what are some things that you wish you would've implemented earlier?

[00:22:19] Theo Jones: Oh man. I wish earlier, I wish I would've like automated off the bat because what you'll start to find is that, you know, it's feasta famine. And sometimes with patients requests, when you give somebody unlimited access, some days they feel like, oh, I'm good. And then the next day or the next week or the next few hours, everybody has something that they need.

You know what I mean? And if you don't have a system you're gonna drown. So, you know, most of the time most of the time I'm the full-time provider. I have other providers that pop in and not to do things for me, but most of the time, you know, on the other end of the, of the stack, you know, I'm the one that's, you know, approving the medications and I'm the one that's like overseeing everything because you know what, I'm the CEO of the business.

So everything starts and ends with me in a sense, which is probably unhealthy, but I wish I really put automation in place. I really also wish that I started with my own like E M R mobile app. That wasn't the first thing I did. So that the first thing I started with was somebody else's platform. And then I saw this video by.

What is that gentleman? Ian. Ian Dunlap, and he was talking about owning his own, like owning your own process. Owning your own system, because like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, they could shut you down at any time. I mean, we, we've seen it like several times in the last couple of years where they can just cut you your influence out the sphere.

In like a matter of seconds. And I really wanted to have control over my own data. I wanted to have control over my patients how they interacted with me. Because when somebody else builds a system, it really changes how that patient interacts with you. You know, I can't, I can't take somebody else's system and say, Hey.

I want my patient to be able to directly I want my patient to be able to directly reach out to me and, and, and press a button and get me in the matter of seconds. Right? On other people's platforms, you have to follow by their rules because they set up this generic system, right? And for me, I set the system on specifically tailored to me and how I wanna interact with my patients.

So I really wish I would've started out with my.

[00:24:25] Naseema McElroy: wait, how do you develop your own app, your own EMR app when there's so many compliance issues, when your compliance and privacy issues when you're dealing with healthcare?

[00:24:36] Theo Jones: Yeah, so that's an amazing question. So there are a lot of teams out here who previously developed apps for larger companies and they freelance their work.

So it's easy to. Or reach out to one of these like teams who's already freelanced and work with teams like Epic, work with teams like Meditech or work with teams, you know, like Practice Fusion to help put together your own system and brand it appropriately for your practice. So it's, it's, it's easy as hell, but it's also a pricey upfront investment that, I was gonna say, probably not willing to make

Most people are not willing to make that in. You know, but you know, I'm, I believed in what I was doing. I mean, I still believe in what I'm doing. I didn't mean to make it sound past tense, but I believe, I believe in what I'm doing and the movement that I'm putting in place because, , let's be honest. You know, you don't see too many people, you know, invested in trying to change the landscape of healthcare.

It's more of a rebellion or like a disruption to the, the typical system that we have because, you know, the, the primary care system we have now is broken. And we seen that a lot during Covid because they got their teeth pulled out. Something terrible. I mean, when the, when the first rounds of vaccines went out, it should have been to the primary care offices and not the hospitals because the primary care offices would've been able to offload the stress that was on the healthcare system already.

But, you know, government be governmenting. . So .

[00:26:09] Naseema McElroy: Yeah. But I wanna talk about like you. having the wherewithal to invest in yourself, because I think simultaneously, as you were coming up in your nursing journey, you were also expanding the information that you had around like investing, like monetarily in yourself and growing your wealth.

So I wanna talk about like that journey that was happening simultaneously.

[00:26:34] Theo Jones: Yes. So, okay, so my first, so I was, I have always been an investor, right? So when I was like a freshman in college this was like around the time that the, like the, that the automotive like the big GM in Ford, like when we, when it got bailed out and the economy was crashing, and Obama like bailed out all the big companies that were too big to fail, quote unquote, and you, I was like 19 and I was seeing like Southwest Airlines fail to high heavens.

Southwest Airlines was actually the first stock that I bought. I bought it at like 6 87 and then I sold it like when they hit like 20 something. But I was like plowing money into those shares, so I, that was my first investment foray. and then like after that, you know, I was just like, lackadaisical. I completely forgot about it.

I was just living on my laurels. Cause I was like, I made a couple bucks on this. And it wasn't until after I finished nursing school and I was like at my I was at the, I was at my, the hospital. Working a night shift with a, with a friend of mine who we're, we're close to, to this day Tim, he looks over at me, he says, Hey how'd you do in your 401K this year?

And I was like, I don't know. Let me check. And that, and it was, it was such a weird feeling because like, that's not a question you get every day. Right. How'd you do in your 401K this year? And he was like, oh, well, you know, I beat the market. I did 18%. And I looked at mine and I did like 3%. And I remember thinking to myself like, what the f I did 3%.

How did I lose money? You know? Cause you know, basically

[00:28:10] Naseema McElroy: inflation

[00:28:11] Theo Jones: Yes. Inflation fees. I was like, I lost money. Yeah. On an investment. And from there, I took the time to actually buckle down, read everything that I could get my hands on. I mean, I consumed everything. Like every book. Wait, hard

[00:28:26] Naseema McElroy: pause. Let me just say, if this is not a reminder for you to check your four

First of all, make sure that the money that's in your. 401k, your 4 0 3 is actually invested, but actually look at the returns. Now this year, you're gonna see some negatives, but you need to look at the historical returns. If you, over the last couple of years, have not been beating the market because this is the longest stretch of a recovery that we've had, meaning that we haven't had any recessions in the longest stretch of time in history, you should have seen double digit.

Every year. So this is a time for you to check in. And if you don't know how to do that, call the 800 number. First of all, call HR to get the 800 number. If you don't know, to call your four oh administrators and ask them over the last five, 10, however many years you wanna go back. , what has been my rate of return, and if it hasn't been double digits for any years before 2022, then you need to check with you're invested in.

So this is just one of those hard sauces. I just wanna give you an action item because this is an example of not monitoring your 401k. So now you're at a point, Theo, where you're getting educated in the background. And how did that turn out, ?

[00:29:40] Theo Jones: Oh, listen, I went from zero to one. Because I went from 3% that one year to 18% the next year.

I think the best year I had, I I, I had a 19% year in the stock market in my 401k. I've

[00:29:53] Naseema McElroy: been, I've been having like 20, 21, 20 2% years in my 401k. My four, I mean my 4 0 3 B, well, both my 401k and my 4 0 3 bk, which are with, yeah. Vanguard and Valek. I was blowing a show. We've been doing water.

[00:30:06] Theo Jones: Yes. . I was blown.

Listen, once I figured out what to actually do, because one of the issues that you start to see is that they give you a target date fund. A target. A target date fund is, is so many fees attached to a target date fund that people don't really look at it and understand how much money they're taking outta their own pockets.

Right.

[00:30:24] Naseema McElroy: But I wanna just say, , if that's the only thing that you're investing in, and that's okay, that's fine. But once you know that you don't have to pay all of those fees and you could probably be getting better returns. Like just simply investing in an index fund. And that's all I do. I don't do anything else but invest in an index fund.

I ha I might have like 10% in like a bonds fund. But other than that, I just do index funds, so. , if you know that that's all you have to do. And then not pay all those extra fees. Because what happens, and the reason why target date funds have fees is because it's more actively managed, meaning that there's more human hands involved instead of just like a something based off of an index that can be automated.

Mm-hmm. Those things are gonna cost less because there's no human hands involved. But when you do actively manage, there's hands involved. And so the fees, because you have to pay. Are gonna be higher. So that's why Target day funds are more expensive. But you can even craft your own target day fund. If you want it to look exactly like your target day fund, it'll, you'll go into your target day fund, it'll show you what it's invested in, and then every year, You could just go in and replicate those funds.

You go in, search your funds in your account and say it's invested in X, Y, and Z. I'll invest it myself in X, Y, and z if you wanna do that. But like I said, I don't even do that cuz that's too much work for me. I just put all my money in index funds.

[00:31:48] Theo Jones: Yeah, I mean the easiest way to do it, V T i vx U S B N D.

But yeah.

[00:31:54] Naseema McElroy: But what it's gonna look like in your retirement account is the hack is. You always have to have an index plan in your retirement account. It's actually a legal requirement for 401ks, at least what you do, do a, so a sort of all the funds by fees, , and then you'll see something that says something, something index and you do, it's like a Vanguard Index or a Fidelity index or something like that within your account, and that's your index fund.

There you go. But if you don't even wanna do that, call customer service and say, can you move my funds to an index? Just

[00:32:29] Theo Jones: like that. It's too easy, too, too easy to actually make money. Too easy, too easy. Too easy to

[00:32:33] Naseema McElroy: make money. But people are scared. And I actually had this conversation with my dude this morning because he has a daughter that's 11, and I was like, did you ever get her 401k?

I mean her 4, 5 29 set up. And he was like, no I just haven't had time. You know, life is, I said, okay. We're not gonna do that. So you have a meeting at 12, right? I was like, do it during your meeting. Right. Just, just set it up. He was like, okay, well I'm gonna talk to my investment and everybody, I'm like, no, you don't have to do that.

No, he, you can, you can do it real quick on the phone while you're in your meeting. And literally he did. And like five minutes later he texts me. You know what I'm saying? And it was done. Yeah. Yeah. And that's how simple it can be. But we put all these roadblocks in our head. But anyway, that's my rant. I'm done.

We wanna hear about the we don't wanna hear about how people begin on.

[00:33:23] Theo Jones: So, I mean honestly, I probably mirror a lot of things that she's saying. You know, with the, when they really started to bring trading to the people online, it, it was a revolution because like once upon a time you had to have a stockbroker that you called to invest.

Now you can pick up your phone, it tap a few buttons and then boom, you are in the market. Like it's no problem. And,

[00:33:44] Naseema McElroy: but I think, and that's the whole thing, is that I don't wanna undermine the fact that. Things that have changed recently, like in the last five years, and it was the Robin Hoods and the you know, the other brokerage to discount brokerages that kind of revolutionized this practice.

But these are things that are new, but, so it's Instagram, so it's TikTok and I bet you you have those accounts and it probably took you longer to set it up and if you doing any kind of video, Eddie, and now you can be a fucking traitor, you know? Yes. So it's just like let's stop playing our.

[00:34:15] Theo Jones: Right. We can make money outta our pockets every day.

So yes. Ain't no games here. Chill out. No , .

[00:34:22] Naseema McElroy: And then, then, first of all, these are the rants that me and Theo having a background on Instagram every day,

[00:34:29] Theo Jones: every day. All of the deals. Cause it's just like, look at, look at these people not trying to get no money.

[00:34:34] Naseema McElroy: Right. Right.

[00:34:37] Theo Jones: You go and be broke, you know?

Right. The greatest transformations of wealth of all time is happening right now. You just wanna be broke. That's right. You do that.

[00:34:46] Naseema McElroy: People don't understand. I'm, I'm trying to tell the people, I'm trying to tell the people. If you don't wanna listen to me, maybe you'll listen to a white person that'll tell you, but listen to somebody.

[00:34:56] Theo Jones: Right . Listen to somebody, please help. .

[00:35:01] Naseema McElroy: Right? . But anyway, so, so you learn, you went from 3% to 18% the next year. And from there in no time is just like, and I know how you are cuz you like me. Like we, we all in, like once we were committed to something and we're learning about something, you're all in. And so you'll be putting me up on game on stuff.

Cause I'll be like, What are you talking about? Like what are, what are these all alt,

[00:35:28] Theo Jones: alt

[00:35:28] Naseema McElroy: alternative investments? I'm just like, boy, I can't, so

[00:35:33] Theo Jones: I, so, you know, I started to become a little bit prolific in other areas. So I've, I, I've started to get into alternative investments. One thing that I've really, I've really been all about this, investing in art, like fine art in.

Listen, I've done I think this in the last two years, I did 34% on my investment of fine. So I, you say

[00:35:54] Naseema McElroy: you knocking, you knocking your 18% out the water boo, like 30%.

[00:35:58] Theo Jones: I'm that shit outta the water.

[00:35:59] Naseema McElroy: 4% unheard of the investment returns. Like what? Yeah. You're talking about, I'm talking about becoming a millionaire off of 7%.

Okay. He out here 35%. What? Yeah,

[00:36:12] Theo Jones: it, it, it's so weird because when I say like, y'all not investing in fine. And everybody in the room just look at me like, what the fuck is this guy talking about? And I'm like, listen, I just put my money in a Basquiat and I almost doubled that shit. So you trying to tell me you've never heard of that?

[00:36:27] Naseema McElroy: Or like, I mean, Jay-Z I think Jay-Z is the one who kind of brought it to at least black people's attention. Like, oh, people do that. Like, yes. And it has been around forever. It has kind of been one of those things before that is like it. You have to know somebody that is doing it, and it is kind of like an inner circle thing.

But now, just like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, it's a social media platform. It's a platform. They're platforms that you can use that are accessible to every.

[00:36:57] Theo Jones: Yep. And all you gotta do is jump on there, you know, find, find the piece that you're looking for. Look at the, the investment, the investment prospectus, and you know, if that's the one you want to pick, just ball with it.

I think my first rule foray, I came across this study, well, I guess the numbers mock up by Citibank, and they were saying that fine art investment, beat the s and p, you know, 10 years straight and nobody talks about it. So I was like, let me find my way to get myself into this game to see if I can grow.

And I came across a few things. So one thing that I came across was Masterwork style. I l. . So what masterworks initially when you start out there, you have to be an accredited investor, and if you don't know what an accredited investor is, that's when you have a net worth of a million dollars. Or if you earn over 250,000 in a year or something along those lines.

So those are two qualifying conditions to be an accredited investor. So you had to be an accredited investor to get into the, the door with those deals. As well as some other real estate deals I came across, but I didn't get into those, but. But I came across it and we reviewed, I, I got on the phone with somebody, old school style and we reviewed some current like offerings and I ended up buying into two paintings.

A George Condo painting and a Basquiat painting. and I dumped money into those two. And then over the years I started to buy more art. So I like to buy, I like to buy art from a few different places. This is a website called Touch and Modern. I usually come across like a lot of original sketches from like Matisse or like all of these like artists who had like Hidden Works, but they're like prolific and that they're.

like all these other museums across the country. You or you go on crap. It is evading me, but I go on there almost every, I think it's like d d T or something like that. And that's like a, that's like a, a company that tamed up with the artist. Cause I get a lot of his I get a lot of his work.

If you ever like, At my place, I got like, cause figures and I got the books and like I got all types of cool stuff. Like I got paintings around like boxed up that I'm going to eventually put up once I get another house. But it's, it's like art, like, like it's a really cool investment to get into cuz one, you get a chance to look at it and it, it gets the beautify your space as it appreciates.

And at the same time it's one hell of a text give if you do it. You know, I, I, I see the painting on the wall, so I was like, look at that cool painting behind you, . So I was like,

[00:39:29] Naseema McElroy: Surrounded by my daughter's painting that she insists that I put up every day, though. It's beautiful. I'd rather recycle them.

But, you know, you gotta appease your kids. You gotta, you gotta make 'em feel seen. But anyway, so not only have you upped your game in investing, you actually teach people how to invest, and this is where your. Yes. Come in. Yes. You're, you're, you're a creator. You are you know, you have your own digital products, so tell people you know, what you, what offerings you have.

[00:40:01] Theo Jones: Yes. So one of my favorite things that I've done outside of working with my business partner, mark we did the we did the first book. White coat, green Bands. That was the first book we did. But outside of that I really, really put a lot of love into the freedom Manifesto. This whole concept of saying fuck that job.

It's a, a mindset because jobs have become one of those things that overstep that boundaries in your life these days. They just say, Hey, habitual line steppers, habitual line steppers, . We want you to show. We don't care if you're sick. We need somebody here. The needs of the unit proceed. You. The needs of the unit should not perceive me.

I'm a human being. I have feelings. I'm gonna clock in when I feel right, not when you want me to. So after a while, you start to feel, Hey, fuck this job. And that mindset kind of grows into a lifestyle where you want to use that job or leverage that position that you. To build or lifestyle design, what you want to do with your life so that that job is optional, not you being optional.

People forget that we, we live in a country where employment is at will, meaning they can fire here as at their will whenever they want because they said so when a blue moon. So when you realize how expendable you are to these employers that you, you know, give your life to you, be like, man, fuck this.

Fuck that shirt. Fuck them shoes your manager walked in with. You know, I don't care. I'm going to do my thing. It's it's easy to get into business. This is one of the easiest times in life to get into business. You can literally, Open up an app on your phone, be a Uber driver. Be like a little Flex Amazon deliverer.

Those are businesses. It's a gig economy, but those are businesses. You can go on fiber, you can sell your services, you can sell, you know, video editing. You can sell advice, you can start a consulting business. It's so many things that you can do in this economy. To, I guess what you call side hustling. And the effect that you are still dependent on this job that's pissing you off every day and you're unhealthy, or you know you're depressed.

because all you do is work and you give into the demands of a job and you don't have no free time yourself. That's why we come up with this idea. We say, fuck that job. We need a freedom manifesto. So what I did was I wrote the book on a Freedom manifesto. You know, I give some tools to say, Hey, this is how you can gain your freedom and say, you fuck that job.

And it, and it always starts with the same thing. It's always some dead end ass job. that want you to give more than what they're offering. You know, this, these be those places that, that want you to have a bachelor's degree but only pay 1250, you know? So fuck that job. The Freedom Manifesto is one of my favorite one of my favorite things I've done in a while.

It's kind of like one of those things where. , you always want to add to it to make it a masterpiece. So I always tweak it. So I, I did some like video, I did some video lectures inside of it after I wrote the book. And I, like, I remastered it every once in a while. I just go in and add something. I think I recently added like a, like a business credit.

I added a business credit thing. I added like, you know, travel reward point hacking for freedom. I added I. You know, leveraging income with Bitcoin. So I did a lot of fun stuff with it. Yeah. Yeah, I did a lot of fun stuff. You know, people always like sleep on this cryptocurrency thing.

Actually, in my practice, I started taking cryptocurrency as a form of payment and. Everybody always say, well, what if it tanks? What if it doubles? What if it triples? You know, we seen it go from 5,000 to 60,000 per coin, and you trying to tell me that if you had the chance to take your dollar and turn your dollar to a dollar and 10 cents every day, every hour to the point that is $5 from an original investment of $1, you're not gonna.

So I'm gonna take that payment in crypto. I'm gonna take that payment in cash. Especially when inflation hitting almost like, what? Nine, almost 9% we're

[00:44:10] Naseema McElroy: at, we're at 8% right now. Yeah.

[00:44:12] Theo Jones: So you trying to tell me at, at, you know, you, your dollar is worth 92 cent. Now you trying to tell me if I took a Bitcoin, you know, and I gained on it when the market moved, that I'm in the wrong.

Listen, I, I started, I, I started taking payment on, I started taking payment on crypto when Bitcoin was like 34,000 or something along that line. I was taking payments from like several clients. It went to 65,000 that same year, and I doubled my effective gain in that market. So I doubled the money that I took in business, and I used that to become a cushion for my business.

Just like Elon Musk started taking Bitcoin to pay for Teslas, and he ended up selling off $3 billion worth of Bitcoin, which was cheaper than what he got. I did the same thing. I just applied it on a small scale business that I own. So people overlook that strategy. . But I talked about it a little bit and how to kind of get into it.

So it's a lot of different things that we can do to leverage other systems to create our freedom.

[00:45:16] Naseema McElroy: Well, do you guys understand why Theo was my homie? Because , yeah. He got it going on and he's one of those people that's about that action and one of those resources that I know I can count on and like I said, learn and grow from.

So this, these are like people that you need to have in your network. And I choose my network, Theo is all the way across the country. We never even met in person before, but we talk like , we talk like all the time. And that's even weird to think like, oh, I've never met met you in person, but that's my brother.

You know? So

[00:45:48] Theo Jones: follow social media, you know?

[00:45:50] Naseema McElroy: Yeah. And that's the whole thing is that you need to curate your social media if that's what you're gonna be on to replicate. The people and the situations that you wanna be around. But you know, Theo, you have dropped so many gems. I just want you to let people know how they can connect with you, how they can get these manifestos and the other digital resources that you have.

Or maybe Oh yeah. Even become a concierge client if you're in the Baltimore BMORE area.

[00:46:17] Theo Jones: Yeah, so definitely. So if you are interested in getting a manifesto, you can go to my profile. It is goat in a white coat. ? Yes. Goat in a white coat. He's the, he's the goat. Yeah. Goat in a white coat. You can just hit the link in the bio.

You can just grab the manifesto. It's one of the first things in there. If you are interested in being a concierge patient, weekend white coat.com, or you can just download the Weekend White Coat App from your Apple store or your Android store. I'm not on Amazon yet. I'm not on I'm not on the other marketplaces yet, but I'll be there soon.

Trust.

[00:46:56] Naseema McElroy: So do you take patients that aren't in your area and just do like telephone concierge or do they have to be in your area? Okay.

[00:47:03] Theo Jones: Nope. I'm licensed in California, licensed Florida. Hey, so if you, if you, if you wanna call, if you wanna send 'em my witness in and just let me know.

[00:47:10] Naseema McElroy: Definitely, definitely.

You know, I'll, I'll be sending people y'all back. But anyway, thank, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for dropping so many gems on us and I'm always blessing. Make sure you guys check him out. Don't miss out on all the services that he provides. But most importantly, I hope you guys just understand the journey and the opportunities, cuz there are many times where he could have looked at it as defeat and gave up, but instead he, you.

what do you tell? What's the saying? U-turn lemon into lemonade. Yay. . Oh yeah, .

[00:47:46] Theo Jones: You know what I saying? You know? Yeah. If you, if the door is locked, jump through the window. . Hey,

[00:47:50] Naseema McElroy: that's what I'm talking about. That's a

[00:47:52] Theo Jones: little, little toxicity from Right.

[00:47:57] Naseema McElroy: Tell you from Baltimore. Okay. Anyway, . Thank you Theo. ,

[00:48:03] Theo Jones: thank you so much.

I appreciate you. Of course.

Hey there I’m Naseema

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