Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to Red, White and Brown, the podcast that discusses the interesting upbringing of desi American immigrants and what happens when eastern culture meets the western world. I'm Pre Rock.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: And I'm Sophia. And what I want to ask you today, preock, is how do you feel at age 30?
During our break from this podcast, during residency, we both turned 30, and I kind of want to talk about that just because it's such a milestone birthday. What do you think?
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, 30 is a hallmark. And every time someone says the number 30, the only thing that comes to my mind is that clip from Friends where they have an episode where every single one of them turns 30. And Joey goes, why, God, why? Why did it happen to me? And it's always stuck in my head because it reminded me that 30 is like a big milestone. At least growing up, I was like, oh, my God, 30 is so old. So let me play that clip here and we'll go from there.
Why, God, why?
We had a deal. Let the others grow old, not me.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: I personally feel a lot younger than I thought I'd feel at age 30. My guess is that you're gonna agree with me, but what do you think? Do you feel the same way?
[00:01:15] Speaker A: Logistically, our responsibilities have increased. So let me give you an analogy, because I run a lot. I feel like our whole life is a relay race between our families and us. And for the first 30 years of my life, the baton was in my parents hand, so they were running the race of life. And now that I'm 30, they handed the baton off to me. And you're now supposed to do this life thing on your own and also try to take care of the family. And you're. You're essentially the person with the baton now. And so that's kind of what it feels like being 30, because logistically, I feel like, oh, my God, I'm supposed to be having my own salary. I should be thinking about a mortgage, about a family and other people. Like, I should be carrying that burden. But I still feel way younger than I would have thought 30 feels like mentally. So, for example, I don't know. I still have the same mental loops that I had when I was 20. And honestly, even 15, I still chuckle at a lot of silly, immature jokes in my head.
Maybe not out loud, which I assumed would stop as I got older, but it hasn't. I still very much feel like a kid in my heart. You know, I'm just like, how do I not know this? I should know this by now, but I still don't I still call my dad for a lot of simple things where I'm like, what is a 1099? What's a W2? Like, all of these basics, which I'm hoping and I'm sure I will learn, but I just am like, oh my God, there's so many blind spots here.
But physically, I still feel older, right? I still feel much more fatigued if I stay up late, I feel exhausted if I'm not taking care of my body appropriately. And these are all things that I assumed would never happen when I was like 18. Do you agree or is that your experience?
[00:02:55] Speaker B: No, I mean, it's interesting because like, you kind of mentioned like the duality of aging, right? Like, on one hand you still feel young, but you also, you also don't. Like there are, there are signs of aging.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Kind of makes me feel like, I'm sure that's how our parents feel too. Like even at their age, I'm sure they also still feel like they're still figuring it out and also still feel young.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Like there's a lot of faking it, right? Like you're like, yeah, I think I should know this. I feel like I should know this. Okay, well, let me just try it and see.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: And the other reason I think 30, 30 hits really different is this shift in responsibility I alluded to earlier.
And so, like, I just feel much more responsible. Like, I'm like, oh, my dad really shouldn't have to work this hard anymore, or my mom really shouldn't have to be doing this, you know, And I'm like, I should try to take on this responsibility.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely, I, I agree with that.
I also think in some ways, like living In Manhattan, a 30 year old is almost like, I don't know, a 25 year old in other parts of the country, just in terms of the lifestyle that people are living. You know, the average age for a woman in Manhattan to have a first baby is 31. Whereas like in the rest of the country, it's kind of between 26, 27. And then in sort of the highly educated community, you know, in the medical community, it.
That kind of gets pushed even later, right? Having a, having a baby. So I think a lot of the people around both of us are not having kids until later and later.
Homeownership rates are kind of getting lower and lower at age 30 today compared to previously. So some of those, like, traditional markers of adulthood, like a home and kids feel like they're coming a little bit later and later. And so especially in big cities, and so I think people tend to feel a bit younger for. For longer. Would you agree?
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Yes. And I think your point about this happening in big cities is also well taken. I'm going to link an article in the show Notes, but there's basically multiple studies and theses thesises that have shown that over the past decade, as more women of social classes have prioritized education and career development, delaying childbearing has become a very broad pattern across almost everywhere. And, and of course this is going to be very skewed in cities, but just more broadly, like even 26, 27 is much later than it would have been, you know, 50 years ago. I'd hypothesize, of course.
And there's also a very interesting graph that I'm going to link as well, but it basically just shows that birth rates fall more in counties with strong job growth, which sounds very intuitive, but it's just something that again reinforces that when you put something as a priority, as education increases or career demands increase, something else sometimes does have to fall.
And so in this case you're noticing that as we have more jobs or people are working much more, it's harder to prioritize family. And all of those things that would have happened at 30, 50 years ago. And now technically 30 might just be the new 40, which we'll get into later.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I think you mean 40 is the new 30. I don't think you mean 30 is the new 40.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: 30 is definitely not. Yeah, 40 is the new 30, which we'll definitely talk about.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And one thing that I notice that I'm now thinking more about is finances, like for both of us and for anyone who's graduate school and stuff, like when you are living on loans or you have like a resident salary, which is the training that you do after medical school. So that salary is pretty low. It's barely enough to cover your expenses. No one's really thinking about like saving for retirement and buying a home and things, because all of that feels very far. But now that we have real jobs and mind you guys, it's only been a few months that Priyak and I have had attending jobs.
It does all feel real, right? Like in some ways it's daunting too, because now those expectations to save for a home and kids and retirement are suddenly real.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: Yes. And I fully acknowledge that Sophia and I have an insane selection bias because we didn't have real big boy or big girl jobs until literally six months ago.
I feel like I need to understand money much more Because a lot of the burden for everything is now entirely, to a certain extent, on me financially. It's not entirely on me, but I am getting to the point where I'm saying my dad probably to retire soon, I have all these loans that I need to figure out what to do with. And a lot of that heavy lifting has to be on me now and not necessarily on my family. I'm sure this is a factor as well for others because it just, probably just started earlier in 25, 26. But I think now that you're 30, you should definitely be thinking about all of that aspect and much more as you grow older, decide to start a family, plus or minus, decide to buy a house.
Not to mention you're going to have to think about how to deal with emergencies, because you will have. You will face them. Right. Like Sophia, we see this all the time. A person's life turns upside down because of a medical diagnosis, turns upside down because of an accident. And now that you are 30, you have to prepare for those because it might not be you, it might be someone you love or care about. And you have to kind of bear the responsibility for that.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And so with all these new big goals and this pressure that we're starting to feel, I am curious about what things you have noticed that the people you really admire who are maybe past their 30s, people in their 40s or even older, what things have you noticed that they do that you think set them up for success?
And I have a couple things in mind, so I'll also share. But do you maybe want to go first for your first one?
[00:08:34] Speaker A: So I have a few people I look up to, all in my family, and I think the biggest things that they have done and prioritize that set them up for success in their latter 30s is three big components. They have wanted to be financially free. They have wanted to have decent control over their time that then ultimately allowed them to prioritize whatever it is that they wanted to prioritize. And for the most part, that tends to be family quality time. And let me go into each of these. What does financial freedom mean? I think, like, to a certain extent, it means working relatively hard, being smart with your investments, and, and being able to get to a point where you are working because you want to work and not because you have to work. And I think that can obviously be challenging, but it also means that you set up your investments, your retirement in such a way that you have a pretty big safety net that ultimately lead to time freedom as well. Right. Because if you are now working because you want to work and not because you have to work, that gives you full autonomy over your time. I don't think I'll ever have a day where I don't want to be a doctor, but I do think I will have a day where I want to be a doctor that works when I want to work and not because I have to work 200 days out of 365. And having that freedom will then give me a chance to say, oh, I have a soccer game that I want to watch today for my kids, or I have this really important appointment for my parents I want to make. And having that is really important because at the cornerstone of all of that is this big value that I think I want to anchor a lot of my life around, which is family. And so financial freedom leading to time freedom, which then leads to this ability to prioritize whatever you decide you want to prioritize. So if that's time with family, great. If that's time till you can run and run a marathon, great. If that's time that you want to spend on your business side, hustle, great. But I think all of that at the foundation has this aspect of really being smart about your money. And so once and you asked about habits, Sophia so one specific habit is basically investing. And what I mean by investing is putting money from your paycheck into an individual retirement individual investing account, specifically into what's called exchange traded funds and doing that on a regular basis. So a lot of family members I have, they will basically take a portion of their paycheck and automatically create a avenue to invest part of it into these exchange traded funds. And for anyone who doesn't know what an ETF is, which is what these are abbreviated, it basically takes the most common stocks in the S&P 500 or a very common index, basically merges them into one thing that you can buy. You can buy this on anything. You can buy this on any exchange. Like you can buy it on Robinhood, which is what I use, but you can use anything else. And basically that has now inspired me where part of my paycheck automatically gets invested.
And that allows me to not only have a retirement account, but also a personal investing account that I'm not going to touch as I get older. And that really helps secure this compounding effect which we will get into and really helps secure another line of income down the road so you can be saving. And that's something I have just grown to realize and learned as we have started making Real money, Sophia. But what about you?
[00:11:38] Speaker B: Okay, that is awesome. I really need to get more into investing myself. I'm not too educated on that, of course. Like, I have a 401k and everything, but I think the ETFs and just additional investing outside of the 401k is. Is also really important.
So one big habit kind of relating to what you just mentioned that I've noticed in people who I consider to be successful is financial prudence and just overall living a bit below their means.
And I am thinking of people that I admire who have a similar kind of financial background to myself, right? Like, not super trust fund babies who were born with money, but kind of regular people who built up careers and are now earning pretty well.
I do notice that a lot of these people tend to be pretty wise with their money. Like, yes, they'll get a nice home or pay for a good school for their kids, but there's often not too much focus on, like, designer clothes or fancy cars, even though maybe they. They could afford those things. In theory, they tend to be good about kind of prioritizing what is really important to them and what they want to spend on.
And I do personally think that, you know, I want to make sure I'm avoiding lifestyle creep because I'm a big shopper. Like, I. I love to shop. And so it is really important for me to kind of make sure that I avoid lifestyle creep as we move further along into our 30s. And I don't know, I mean, do you feel similarly? Is lifestyle creep something you worry about? I kind of sometimes feel like, do guys have to worry about that as much? Because usually, like, I don't think you're such a big shopper and stuff. So is this something you're thinking of?
[00:13:23] Speaker A: I am thinking about it, actually. I think I wasn't a big shopper because I didn't have money. And now I'm like, wait, I can use all of this.
I am already a little bit guilty of lifestyle creep because as you said, Sophia, we are now working big boy jobs. And my paycheck is so different than what I'm used to. And in a way, medicine is like the epitome of delayed gratification. And our attending salaries are insanely different than our resident salaries. And I'm already seeing a big bit of a skew. For example, I guess this is a really silly example, but for when I go to Chipotle Extra Guac, I can just like, get it now without thinking about it or. And I do this now with a lot of things, right? I'm like, oh, I should just get a large instead of a medium or whenever at the airport. I will easily just sneak in an extra meal at the airport, which before I would never buy because food at the airport, so expensive.
And so I'm seeing myself do a lot of this. And it's not necessarily in shopping, as you said, Sophia, but in like other places. There's never a scarcity of where to spend our money. There's so many upgrades that we can all pay for.
And so that's the big thing I'm guilty of and I think I need to honestly cut down on that.
[00:14:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's hard because, like, you wanna, you wanna use your money to like, make your life easier and like you wanna outsource things in order to kind of, you know, buy some time back for yourself. But it's hard, It's a fine line, right, between like, what is excessive and truly unnecessary versus what is a reasonable place to spend a little money on in order to really improve your quality of life. It's hard to kind of toe that line.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm lucky. I have a really diligent wife. So we've been tracking our spending and so there's a certain amount of money after which you'll just be like, okay, this needs to stop.
But I think for now, because I am just slowly like learning where this steady state is, we are still figuring it out. And for me and her, we've both agreed we can have like one guilty thing that we can be interested in. And so for me, it's obviously food. And so I get like really cool food or I'm really interested in food. And for her it might be shopping. And we've allowed ourselves some leeway to buy things if we want in those domains, but obviously we have to like track all of it. And that way we can set pretty good limits to ensure we're saving appropriately.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you're lucky that you have a wife who's good at that. Farzan is not lucky because his wife, me, is really bad at that. So it's, it's tough. But the other thing that I do notice people who I admire, who are older than me have done is really focus on their health, make time for movement every day, or at least five or six days a week.
And I think that the people who consistently make time for fitness and eating healthy and all of that really reap the benefits. Even if it's not obvious, like these people might not have six pack abs and they Might not look like models, but, you know, they generally look healthy. They look good, but you might not notice anything special right about them. But the reward that they get is it's invisible. It's that they don't get cardiovascular disease. You know, they don't get other chronic health conditions. That's the reward.
And it's like we expect our bodies to just keep functioning perfectly, but sometimes the reward for years of being healthy is just that things don't go wrong. You know, like, things just carry on as planned. And that's the reward.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: That is the beauty of medicine. And I think, like, you see, that's the beauty of us in our careers where we see people, where things don't go right, like, oh, I used to be able to do this 10 years ago, and I can. And I'm like, well, yeah, that's kind of expected.
And much like etf, Sophia, health also compounds. And the habits you build now will compound into your 40s and 50s. And the habits you don't form now will also compound into your 40s and 50s. I have family members that don't get more than 3,000 steps a day because guess what, they never were used to exercising. And so it's not a habit for them. And that has now compounded to a point where that's not happening. On the other hand, there's family members who are exercising all the time. And so for them, getting 10,000 steps a day is a given. And that has compounded now. And you can just see their health trajectories completely diverge. And you and I have seen it too, right? The people who get admitted a lot are the ones who don't have those habits in place. And then you see that 80 year old who has run 20 marathons in their 30s and 40s, and this is the first time they're even coming to the hospital.
And I think that just says a lot about how important it is to focus on health. Because mortality, I promise you, will become more and more prominent, because the biggest risk factor for any sort of bad thing happening to your health is age. And so making sure you get that in is very, very important.
So that is, that's, that's also why I run a lot. And I see Sophia also prioritizing her exercise, and that's so important.
Um, I wanted to also ask another question for you, Sophia. 30 is just the beginning. We have basically another 10 years where we'll still be in our 30s. So what does a good 30s decade look like for you based on those two habits? You just Talked about and what are your priorities for the next 10 years?
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh, that is such a heavy question. And I'm not going to get into every aspect of this, but I think the big hitters would be fitness. Especially, like, going through pregnancy is obviously a huge thing in, in a woman's life, and there's just so much change that comes along with that. So if I hopefully am able to have a baby, getting through that and sort of getting back to myself at the end of that. Right. And so just maintaining a good fitness routine, eating healthy, and then of course, like, career wise, just being the best pediatrician I can be. Even though, like, we both have taken our board exams and passed our boards and there's no more exams for either of us. But I think, you know, still making time to read and study every week. Just because you, you have to do that in medicine, right. In order to be a good doctor, you have to stay current. You have to put in that time. And so that's another big piece for me. I do want to just make sure that I'm like the absolute best, best pediatrician I can be. And then outside of that, I think, you know, I have these other hobbies, right, like podcast and fashion and, you know, I'm on social media. You're on, you're on social media as well. So kind of those pieces of me outside of work just continuing to pour into them because I know that, you know, after having kids, that might be a little bit harder to do. But I do think it's still really important to not lose sight of those pieces of your identity. So hopefully I'm able to continue to do that in my 30s. What do you think?
[00:20:07] Speaker A: Oh, that's such a good answer. I think you hit on everything.
I don't know. You were like, oh, I don't know if I'll hit everything. Those are all the things that are honestly probably important for me. But my big theme is to care for myself and then care for those who have cared for me the last 30 years. Obviously, that means maybe having kids, my mom, my dad, my wife. And then obviously really spend right now the next 10 years hulking up or bulking up my adulting muscles, getting good. I heard this quote recently, getting good at getting better. So, like, understanding. Okay, I don't, I don't know anything about retirement. How do I figure this out? How do I make sure everyone is taken care of? Oh, I know nothing about a mortgage. How do I figure that out? Oh, I know nothing about family planning. How do I Figure that out. Right. Like just kind of bulking all of those things. So that way, when we hit our 40s, we have a good foundation. I think it's going to come with a lot of change, at least over the next decade. Maybe a bigger family and all the challenges that will come with that. And as I said, the baton's in our hands now. Like, we are flying the plane, so to speak. So we have to think a lot about what we're going to do.
I'm excited. It'll be nerve wracking, but at the same time, I think we can really make. This is the decade where you can either make the next 30 years a bit easier for you or you can make the next 30 years a bit harder. And this is where the compounding aspect will come in. And I think I'm excited for that.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, hopefully we'll be able to share our journeys with our audience through.
Through the next 30 years. I mean, it's kind of crazy to think about, like, if we keep up with this, are we eventually going to be 50 year olds podcasting and our audience is also going to be 50. That's crazy to think about, but hopefully, hopefully we can share our journey.
[00:21:53] Speaker A: That would be the dream. If this is still alive in 20, 2055, I will be very happy.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: Let's see.
All right, well, thank you guys for listening along. This was the end of our season three and a half, if you want to call it, where I know we just dropped four episodes all together and then we are going to be back every week with one episode starting season four.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: I'm excited for that. Thank you guys for being with us and hopefully see you for the next 30 years.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: Bye.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: Bye.
