Get Your Kicks On Route 66

I officially left clinical medicine on February 20, 2017. Some people call it retirement, others call it a job change, I call it repurposing. Now I’m following a new mission; teaching personal finance and lifestyle balance to high income professionals through books, one-on-one coaching and speaking. I enjoy saving/changing lives in a new way now. No more call days, no more clinic, no more committees, and no more ACLS classes. I also have a lot more of some things like sleep, free time, reading time and doing fun things with my family. One of the biggest lifestyle differences in my new career is the ability to work on the road. So I’m about to take it on the road and travel historic route 66.

Most of my work is done on my laptop or on my cell phone now and I can do that anywhere. My wife and I had a discussion about this not long ago. If I can work anywhere, where should we live? All of my years in clinical medicine left me tied to a hospital. Now, I only need to be close to a cell tower. That gives me a whole new level of freedom. The freedom to live anywhere in the world. For now, we can’t think of a better place to live than Southern Oregon. So we are not moving just yet. Instead, we are going to fire up the motorhome and take a long trip across the country, checking another thing off my bucket list in the process.

In a few days we will be heading out for a six week trip that will cover the entirety of historic route 66 by motorhome. I’m sure it will break my son’s heart to get the house all to himself for an extended period. Now it will be his turn to take care of everything. I’m starting the trip by attending a conference in Southern California, Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Academy, to better help my clients as a Certified High Performance Coach. We will then take about three weeks traversing route 66 to reach another conference in Chicago where I will be a mentor at SEAK’s nonclinical careers conference. This conference was a big influence in the writing of my latest book, “The Doctors Guide to Smart Career Alternatives and Retirement.” Then we go down to Dallas, Texas to attend FINCON17, a conference for financial bloggers. We will then work our way back home to Oregon.

I’m providing an opportunity for all of you to live this trip vicariously through me. I will be documenting the trip on my Facebook page with video, pictures and stories. If you would like to follow along and see what it is like to live on the road with a mobile career, or you’d like to travel route 66 with us, then like my Facebook page so you will enjoy all the updates. You can find it here.

The interesting thing about this adventure, is it seems like I’m on vacation, but I’m not. I’m just living my normal life but doing it on the road. I still have a blog to write, clients to speak with, a Facebook page to keep up, Tweets to make, LinkedIn updates, a fourth book to write, conferences to attend and more. My home will just have wheels. It will be almost like a musician on tour. This is not a break from the work I’m doing, which would make it a vacation. I still work each day, on a different level than when I was a surgeon, but instead of taking a break and walking around the neighborhood near my house, I will take a break and explore a new city or visit a national monument. The scenery will change every day as we cover about 6,000 miles in 6 weeks or about 143 miles a day. I’m going to try out a new lifestyle that was made possible by switching to a career alternative, writer/coach/speaker.

I’ve always wanted to drive route 66, but I had to work and the work I chose, general surgery, required me to stay close to the hospital. Now, after reaching financial independence and defining a new mission, I choose to work and since I can do it on the road, I’m choosing to work in my motorhome driving down route 66. It will be a fun adventure that would not have been possible had I not chosen to move to a nonclinical career and use my medical degree in another fashion. If you have not yet read my new book, get a copy today and open your eyes to the alternative career possibilities you have for using your degree. There is life after clinical medicine and I’ll show you a glimpse.

Share this adventure with your Facebook friends so they too can follow along on this alternative to the normal way of working. Let’s get our kicks, on route 66. Like my Facebook page here.