Overcome Money Shame, Gain Freedom, & Get In the Room

What an amazing conversation with one of our GoBundance members, doctor Lati Fath, who is a gastroenterologist, certified life coach, and the visionary founder of Women MoneyFitMD and the Mandy School for Women Physicians. As host of the MoneyFitMD podcast and sought after speaker, she empowers women physicians to achieve financial liberation and build wealth without burnout. Through her work, she's helped hundreds of women grow their net worth, gain financial peace of mind, and make bold moves in their money and lives. She's the author of two Amazon bestsellers, Done with Broke and The Power to Choose. Doctor Latifah is also a proud mama of three daughters who loves traveling and staring at the ocean. Here's Latifah. Welcome to the Power Up Your Life podcast brought to you by GoBundance Women. I'm Kelly Resendez.

And I'm Mandy McAllister.

And holy moly, do we have an amazing guest for you today, doctor Latifah. How are you?

I am doing fantastic. I get to hang out with you fabulous, powerful women on this beautiful day. I'm Yes. Feeling great.

Awesome. Just seeing your face brightens my day. So, you know, share a little bit in your own words about your journey and and Kelly what you're up to these days.

Absolutely. Like you mentioned, I'm a physician. I'm a gastroenterologist practicing GI doctor I'm mama of three ladies, real estate investor, business owner, married, been married for fourteen years. I still like my husband. We like each other. And I have the pleasure of actually being a part of GoBundance for a couple years now. And the work that I do is I work specifically with women physicians to teach women that have never been taught about money, how to own their money, how to grow their wealth, and create a life of choice that they actually want. And I do that through a platform called Money FitMD.

I love it. So, really, you talk about two things women don't wanna talk about, poop and money. Right? Like, honestly, like, nobody wants to talk about those two things, but it's so important. So tell me a little bit more. Like, you started off as a doctor to go through that much education and then to make this pivot because I think you spend more time really influencing other people than you do working in in the hospital now. Correct? Life, how did you tell me about what that journey Mandy thought leadership look Life.

Absolutely. I had zero plans of doing this. My dream as a little girl was I wanted to be a doctor. And even when I got into medical school, I went to UCSF, got to, you know, have amazing mentors, and my goal was to be amazing like them. I wanna be a good doctor to be able to diagnose things from, like, far, far away, and that was my goal. However, after going through many, many years of training of med school, undergrad, Kelly you know, residency, fellowship, that was, like, ten years of education outside of college. What I had was a lot of loans and no knowledge about how I was going to pay off the loans. Everyone had said, don't worry about it. You'll figure it out. You know, as physicians, we're taught how to earn money, but we're not taught what to do with it. And everyone just assumes that we will be able to figure it out. And I did not know what to do. So I was, you know, smart physician, mom of two at that time, and I knew that if I did not figure out how my finances were gonna work, I was going to show cough in medicine. And someone may be hearing that right now and go cough in medicine. What does that even mean? I believe in order to be a good physician, in order to be great at the work you do, you cannot be afraid of what would happen if you lost your income. And so for me, I wanted to be a doctor that could advocate for my patients, that could treat them with with you know, ethically, but, also, I was you know, as a GI doctor, I would take Kelly. And I wanted to be in a position of not needing to apologize in Your my children. Like, you know, I don't have a choice. That's what the life of a doctor is no. I did not want that. If I'm gonna be on call, I wanna own it and go, yes. I get to serve people. I get to take care of people. So for me, when I thought about all the things that I wanted, money was gonna be the solution, and it had to be money outside of what was coming in clinically. So I went to figure out how to do that for myself, and that's when financial education came into the play. And then I'm like, okay. A lot of the financial education out there is not made for people that think like me. It's made for dudes Mandy being honest about this. Right? It's Life one size fits all. And I'm like, I don't think this way. I'm a relational person. I want to have money, but it's because of what money can do for me. And so I had to take the traditional way of thinking about money and make it into a language that Mandy sense for my brain. But, also, here's the deal. As doctors, we're highly educated. We're like, we we are trained to take care of our patients, and we'd we would never do something we feel unqualified to do. And that's the truth about it. And so I was bringing that into money. I was waiting for me to become an expert at all the terminologies before I could do money. And what I realized was, like, wait a minute. I don't need to know what all the terminologies mean. I just need to do the thing. And so that became, like, the vehicle that changed the game for me. And, of course, like many of us, when we find out something good, we teach others. So I started teaching my friends, and they were making moves. They were paying Up their, you know, unhelpful debt. They were growing their net worth. And at some point, I sat down and I was like, okay. I'm a doctor. I'm doing great. I love medicine. I love my patients. I'm not dependent on this for my income, for my family's roof. I felt like I had no choice but to teach other women physicians. And that's where Mandy Feed MD started Mandy, you know, I it's been about five years now. We've written books. We have a podcast. We have a virtual school, and we're continuing to help women physicians, again, lead their life, grow their wealth, and do whatever they wanna do with the life they've been given.

Preach, girl. There were so many gems in that. I I believe so firmly. And one of the reasons I love you so much is we're given two arms for a reason. One to pull yourself up and one to pull other people up with Your, and that is what you were doing. Mandy my so my little brother is a doctor too and I always tease him. He didn't get his first job until his middle thirties, right? And homeboy needed to call me to help him open up a checking account when he was an undergrad because he didn't know how. Just because you're really smart in one thing doesn't mean you're really smart in another, and, you know, doctors can get really taken advantage of because they are high earners that have that don't have that, education. So big high five to you in terms of making, all of that happen. And, you know, I just wrote a book called Return on Brain Space that, you know, it's this idea of your choice. Money equals choice Mandy you choose to serve people and stay in medicine. It's not this, you know, I don't want a W-two, W-2s are icky. I applaud that in a really big way too. So, thank you for all of the work that you do and put into this world. You know, one thing that I love to talk about is, you know, I have had a similar journey to you in that wanting the choice Mandy you now, as a coach, have this sample size that's a lot more than my one life that I've seen, right? I'm curious about the patterns of the getting out of your own way in money when it comes to highly educated people like, the doctors that you work with. Talk to me about the the big things that they have to get over on average.

Oh my goodness. So I love that you said getting out of their own way. Many times we see that, but most people don't know they're even in their own way. Right? It comes up as I don't have Life. It is busy. And especially they're the first in their family to wanna do anything bold or brave. Everyone around them is an example of average. Right? And so to even think about getting out of there, like, it's not conceivable. Right? Because their their eyes cannot see. Their mind cannot even begin to conceive it. And so a lot of what I find is, you know, there is the mindset part of things, the way we think, but there's also the emotional part of things. And I will say that shame, unfortunately, is one that I see a lot of that comes up. And most people don't think about it. It's, oh, I have shame about money. I have shame about what I don't know, but this is how it shows up. And I'm a living example of that. When I started my journey, I remember walking in the hospital. Okay? I'm walking in the hospital to go into the room where the doctors Women in, and I hear someone talking about money, about the stock market. Guess what I do? I make a u-turn, and I run back. Because I'm like, god forbid, they find out that I don't know about this conversation. Because my brain is like, if I don't know about money, then it's like, how can I be trusted with anything else? I cannot even be a good doctor. So, like, my brain even though nobody told me that, that was what I was telling myself. So a lot of what I found for women physicians is the power of community, which I know you guys are such a firm believer in. And what community does is it removes the shame that we have because I'm yet to meet a woman that does not have the ability and the capacity to grow money, lead her life, and grow wealth. But what happens is the shame we have. We think we're the only one. Everybody knows this but me, and we're quite in meditating on those thoughts that keeps us hidden and shamed. And that's why people don't come to get the support that they need. But when you come in a community of other badass people, which this is why I love the work you guys do with GoBundance, when Your not coming to a community of other badass Women physicians are like, oh, yeah. Or even women in general, they're like, yeah. I feel that, and I'm doing amazing. I'm killing it. Oh, yeah. I definitely get what it feels like to be a mom and balancing all of that. I get how it like, the whole generation of work. Like, we acknowledge where we are, and then we say, but girl, there's another place you can go. Then, girl, there are so many examples, and we start to connect them with people that are just like them, the single mom that had those things too that could barely talk about money a year ago Mandy now, like, managing her own, like, you know, retirement account, like, income outside of clinical medicine. So when you surround yourself, it's a good kind way to unshame yourself. So that's a huge one. You know, the other one that I see as well is, like, the thinking. Right? The thoughts we think about. And I know you guys are, like, very familiar, Life, bosses at this. You know, what we think about really determines who we become because how we think affects our decisions. Right? You know, most physicians don't wanna be full time, and I agree with that. I truly believe that no physician should be full time because full time as a doctor is, like, two x in the world. So I can I do not believe that you can be a healthy doctor and work full time because there's more to life than practice? There's more to life than just the money. You know, relationship is part of wealth. Growing your assets outside of your clinical income is part of wealth. But when our brain is only focusing on the things that keeps us limited and stuck, then all we're gonna create is the same. So what I always recommend for people is challenge yourself by finding a thought that does not feel familiar to you. Like, find a thought that gets you in the direction you're trying to go that feels like that's not me. Because what feels like you is what has created everything you can right now. And unless you're willing to choose a thought that feels a little bit strange, a little uncomfortable, a little bit stretchy, you cannot create something different than what you have. So those are some of the most common things that I find with the people that I work with.

Holy moly. Number one. Like, yes. You know, you said Mandy and I are good this good at this area in our life. The truth is we still have the thoughts. Right? We still have those thoughts that don't serve us. You know, like Eckhart Tolle says, like, we just become a watcher of the thoughts, and we do whatever we need to do anyway. And Life you said, like, really getting outside of that comfort zone. So such important work that you do. You know, being in lending, for a very long Life, I loved my doctors because they literally knew nothing about money, which meant they called me every time they needed to do anything, whether it was invest, I'd have a referral for them, buy a car, what do I do with this, what do I do with that, estate planning, you name it. Like, they needed support because they were they were in time scarcity. They were working so much that they didn't they didn't focus on these things. So thank you for sharing this with the world.

The Power of Your Life podcast is powered by GoBundance Women. I could tell you stuff about it, or you could hear from some of our members. Here you go. GoBundance has connected me with an amazing group of entrepreneurial women

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GoBundance gave me a boardroom of sisters who refused to let me settle. You know, within the first two months of me being a member,

I enrolled someone to help them with their high ticket sales. I got double back my investment within the first, you know, sixty days of being a member. So it was it's incredible. You guys are just amazing, and there's always somebody to look up to in in, in GoBundance. So I love being a member.

That's why you owe it to yourself to check out goabundancewomen.com.

You did something really incredible with your family in the last several years that I think so many people would wanna do Mandy something that we're really passionate about at GoBundance and on the Power of Your Life podcast is that we get to create our life experience. So share a little bit about what you and your, you know, beautiful family did.

Absolutely. And this speaks to the power of being prepared even when there's no reason to be prepared. I think many times we talk about preparing for the worst case scenario, but we don't talk about preparing for the best case scenario. And at no point did I think I was ever gonna not be a w two. But in 2022 or 2023, my husband and I went to go give a talk in Aruba. And, you know, while speaking with the locals and all of that, I was really impressed by how many languages most people spoke. And so I spoke with my GoBundance. We were he went with me on this trip, and I was like, it's just imagine what would happen to our children's brain if they could be exposed to that kind of environment. I was like, imagine being able to be in Aruba for six months, but I'm a doctor. We don't do that kind of thing. So we went back Women. Our regular Life, my husband is an IT consultant. And then about two months later, he's like, oh, that thing we talked about, I'm ready. I'm like, what thing you talked about? It's Life like traveling for six months. I was like, dude, I was just joking. Right? I was like, I was shoot. I can't even joke in that family. I, like, would joke about that. Right? But what that meant, though, was six months later, we were out of the country. Six months later, we Life, and so we took our kids out of school. We have three kids at that point. They were five, nine, and 11, I believe. And so we took them out, and we traveled around the world. Our goal was, you know what? Let's see how this goes. We, we said let's do maybe six months Women it had been gone for a year. We visited 20 countries. And I remember when I was leaving my job because, guys, for those that are listening, I know Your people. I always like to remind folks that we are people of excellence. We're people of value. This is what we do. And wherever you are planted because sometimes it's like, well, when I get there, I will do better. When I have my own business, I'll become good. No. You become good where you are. And the value that I'd given even as a physician was part of why even my CEO called me. I was like, if you wanna leave, we can keep your position. Just tell us what you need. We'll we'll keep it for, like, however long you've gone, and you can come back. And I thought about it, and I honestly was like, you don't go away for a year and come back the same. I did not know who I was gonna be when I came back, so I did not think it was kind to tell them to hold a position that I may end up not coming back to. So I said, you know what? I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna quit when I come back. If I decide that this is what I'm still meant to do, I will get in Life. And if it's meant to be, it will be. And so we left, changed us, best things, like Mandy, guys, I want you to keep in mind, like, the context here. I'm a doctor that's been in school forever. Continuously been in training, never really taken much time off Your anything. And here I was traveling with my family and doing mostly nothing. It was healing to the deepest parts of me that I did not even know exist. I still remember a day we were in Curacao. We went to about 20 countries during that trip. We were in Curacao. There was nothing crazy going on, meaning it wasn't like fireworks happening. My kids were at the beach on a swing. And I stood there. I had nowhere else to go but where I was, and I remember just, like, just looking at how beautiful they were. And I was just like, Mandy, these kids are so gorgeous and so beautiful and the details of them. And the truth is this, many times we're living our lives, but we're living it so fast that we're not in our lives. And I remember I wish I remember who quoted this, but this was something that I read many years ago that really stuck with me. And it's about the importance of memories. And that memories is not just about doing that thing because you could travel around the world when you're an IT. Hopefully, your hips still work. But it's about how long you get to enjoy that memory. And so many times, we're like, we'll do it in future. We'll do it at some point. But I want to ask you a question. If you are listening right now, maybe you're, like, 57 years old, and there are things you wanna do with your Life, and you're like, maybe I'll do it in fifteen years. If you did it in fifteen years Mandy you Life another three years, you could enjoy that memory for three years, or you could enjoy that memory for seventeen years. And so while we're talking about living a life of richness, it's not just about the checklist. It's about how much joy and how much enjoyment. And I Life to break the word enjoy into the end Mandy the joy. How much joy we can actually extract from those things that we we have done. And I think that that's part of what helps us pour into others when there is nothing missing. You know? And one of my, mentors actually, I got this definition of freedom from him, and I loved it so much. It's really stuck with me. And the best definition of freedom that I've gotten heard Mandy I can't I haven't found anything better is nothing to gain, nothing to lose, and nothing to prove. And I truly believe that in order to be in that space of freedom, this is how we create it. It's by doing the things you guys are so outspoken about with the financial freedom, Life freedom, enjoying life community relationship, and just doing whatever works it takes to get to that space of freedom as early as possible

so that you can create more Life with nothing to gain, nothing to lose, and nothing to prove. I love this so much. It's it's that concept of, like, don't get so busy building a life that you forget to live. You know? Kelly, thank you for embodying that in such a big way. I, I think that in this is an identity piece. Right? I I I love talking about this. So some people might be listening and be like, okay, doctor doctor Latifa, that's that's great for you, but that that wouldn't work for me. Like, it's it's I love that you are you made the decision that you can leave and not come back, but that's just not how the world works for me. And I I just I I want you to double click on that a little bit. And and what's the identity? Because I I cannot wait until my surgeon sister-in-law listens to this too, because you you have this identity and then kind of a mourning of what you thought it would be and what you're required to do and what society tells you that you need to be doing. You know, tell me a little bit more about identity shifts that you've felt through this whole thing.

You know, I wanna just empathize with whoever is having those thoughts because it's Life, you know, I empathize with that part of you that thinks this is not possible for me. And for you, it may be about what I just shared, but I think we all have that at some point. We've all had that at some point. And I'll share a story of a woman physician who came to, my event. I organized, like, a money and wealth event for women physicians, and she came there last year. This was in 2025. And I remember her. She was brave enough to share this in the room, and she said, you know, I'm hearing all of this, that all these women, this real estate, this working part time, this being a speaker Mandy doing all this impact work. I'm hearing all of this, and I'm like, that's nice for them, but it's not possible for me. And I remember her crying in the room. And she had gone through a relational you know, she went through a divorce and all of those other stuff. And so her sense of self worth was low. Because at the end of the day, that's what it comes down to. It's the self worth. And we can sit down and do all the work that it takes to do the self worth, or you can do the laziest thing ever. And I love the lazy way because many of us women are so hardworking that we always find the hardest way to do things. But let's do it a little lazier. And when I say lazy, I know that a lot of your audience are, like, in their forties, maybe late thirties, fifties, and our energy matters. The laziest way to do this is by surrounding yourself with the people that are doing this. K? Because when you surround yourself with the people that are doing this, you don't have to thought work your way out of this. First thing that happens is your nervous system starts to relax. And when your nervous system starts to relax, because now there are people surrounding you that are doing this, you've gone from, I don't think this is even possible, to Life, okay. How many heads they got? They got one head. If they can do it, maybe it could be possible. So your nervous system starts to relax. And when your nervous system starts to relax, you stop fighting, and you become in a position of receiving. That's more of the abundance things that Kelly always talks about, the abundance frequency. You become a person that is now able to relieve Resendez, not because you are working hard at it, but because you chose to put yourself in the environment that makes it more possible. You know, in science, we talk about diffusion. We talk about osmosis. Those principles are still true. Things will go from an area of lower energy. Like, we're trying to move from, like, high energy to lower energy, from high concentration to lower concentration. So if you put yourself in the right room and decide that no matter what my brain tells me, I am gonna show up consistently and just be in the room. Latifah, I'm just gonna be in the room. I'm just gonna be in the room. Usually, I tell people, give yourself about a month for this defrosting to happen. And within a month, your shoulders will start to relax, and then you'll start to hear systems. You start to hear strategies. You start to hear thoughts, and then you start to borrow thoughts. And then you give yourself another three months, and you're gonna look back and go, oh, crap. What have I created? And that doctor that I mentioned, her life a year later, radically different. She messaged me, like, two weeks ago, and she said at the bottom of her message, she's like, I remember being in the room a year ago, and I was crying. I'd gone through all of this. My level of self worth was low. But do it, ladies. Do it the Your, unquote lazy way. And Women I say lazy, it's from the perspective of energy management.

And the best, shortest, most effective, most energy efficient way is get in the room and let the room work its work. That's how this works. Oh my gosh. And I've never heard it called lazy before. I love this idea. And you have shared so many truth bombs. I wish we had way more Life. But, you know, my favorite thing that you really, you know, have shared with us is just that we've gotta be open to infinite possibilities. And our thoughts, our beliefs are really what anchor us in where we've been. And if you wanna go somewhere new, you gotta get in that room. So if you're a doctor out there listening, man, you gotta get in the room with her. I know for me, when we get to spend time together, I I feel, you know, amazing and inspired. So thank you, Mandy. What was it for you today?

Oh, yeah. Limitless when you're next to, that huge energy. You know? I love the idea of naming money shame. I have another friend, who calls herself the money shame slayer. I just I think that to to realize that that is a real thing that we need to name so that we can put it to bed. Doctor Latifah, you have served us so greatly Mandy and me personally with your friendship, so grateful for you. How can we and your audience, and our audience here today serve you? What's an introduction that changes the ballgame for you?

Wow. What a powerful question. Thank you for saying that. And I'm not sure I've ever been asked that question before in the podcast. I wasn't expecting that. So thank you for asking such a generous question. You know, my goal is I wanna serve more women physicians. And the reason why I wanna serve more physicians is because the work of being a physician is connected to the community. When doctors are well, our system becomes more well. It trickles, and I love serving people that serve others. So women physicians are my people. So if you have a connection of a conference, organizations where women physicians are, I want them to see that they can have the life that they want. I work one week a month in clinical medicine. I have clients that have taken time off. I have clients that work part time that have real estate. It is possible. And so I wanna connect more with women that I can serve in that capacity. That was such a generous question. How did you find your Mandy. How did you find your go to my website, moneyfitmd.com is how they find me. Moneyfitmd.com. And if I if you guys don't mind real quick, I just wanna say, Mandy and Kelly, the work you guys do, powerful. Mhmm. Powerful. You literally are bringing people from across the country, women that are sparse together so that they can see that they are not alone. They can do this. They can move mountains. They can build wealth. And this is why I'm such a huge fan of the work you do Mandy also the events that you guys are hosting. So if you guys are listening right now, find the event. Like, I just told you the laziest way. Find the room that they're in. Find the event, the retreats they're hosting. Get in this room. These women are generous. The women they bring together are potent, powerful. So just thank you both for the work you do. Mandy, ladies, if you're listening, ditch your kids. I love your kids. I'm sure you probably love your kids too. Ditch them and go get in the room so you can find the energetically lazy boss woman's way of doing more with this life that we have without burnouts.

I love you. This was not planned. Thank you for that well planned commercial for GoBundance Women. Doctor Latifah, you've been absolutely an incredible guest Mandy just blessed to have you. We'll have you back on again sometime soon. And just thank you again for the work you do. So if this message resonated Your you know a doctor that needs to get in this room with her and really Up their financial situation, make sure that you check out moneyfitmd. And we look forward to seeing you on the next Power Up Your Life podcast brought to you by GoBundance Women. Thank you. Thanks for joining us today on the Power Up Your Life podcast.

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