Behind-the-Scenes of 'The Happy PharmD' | Founder Alex Barker, PharmD

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

[00:00:12] Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, hello, 

[00:00:12] Alex Barker, PharmD: Alex. Hey Mike. Thanks for having me. Welcome to the show. Excited to be here. Excited to hang out with you. I feel like I'm talking to 

[00:00:21] Mike Koelzer, Host: the man. Oh my 

[00:00:23] Alex Barker, PharmD: gosh. I do qualify that statement. I am a man. Mm-hmm . That's true. 

[00:00:30] Mike Koelzer, Host: I don't get too nervous for these, but you're just like, are you kidding me? You've been kind of my mentor.

Uh, even though I'm a generation older than you. You're the first one that I dabbled in listening to your podcast years ago. And, um, I think you struck a nerve with, with me being a long time in my same role as, as a pharmacy owner and just, you got the, kind of the juices flowing on both sides, both of your leadership in the pharmacy area.

And just some of the hope that you give to people that may not wanna be in pharmacy anymore. 

[00:01:07] Alex Barker, PharmD: Well, it, it certainly is, has been a long journey. Um, I'm, I'm kind of honored and privileged that I get to do what I do for the 

[00:01:17] Mike Koelzer, Host: A couple people out there that don't know who you are. Introduce yourself and tell us sure what's going on hot right now.

What's exciting? 

[00:01:28] Alex Barker, PharmD: So my name's Alex Barker. I am a pharmacist and I joined the profession back in 2012. I, I don't wanna say I was indoctrinated , but I really believed in the idea of practicing pharmacy to its fullest and getting into clinical care. And I, I believed in that dream and I, I, I still do, uh, but through practice, I found out that it really wasn't my passion.

Um, I also found out that. I kind of lack the temperament, personality and even some of the skills necessary to be a great clinician. And so I, unfortunately at the same time, I also, uh, was dealing with a lot of career stuff. Unfortunately, some bullies in the workplace. Some unfortunately things happened to me in my career, in my very first official job after residency.

And I just, I was like, what am I doing? Wow. I had always thought I was gonna be an academic, honestly. Um, it came from a passion of teaching and speaking and I thought, wow, this is a great thing to do for me. But at the same time, I'm like, who would want to learn from someone who isn't enjoying clinician work.

Right. I had a really big self-limiting belief. And while this was going on, I got into entrepreneurship, something I had never considered before in my life. And I was like, oh my gosh, there's this whole world out here that I never had learned about my entire life. My dad, my parents, they were working people, you know, career men and women.

So I just thought that's what I'll do. And so I used a lot of my energies and passions to build some businesses over that timeframe until now. And in 2017, that's when I launched the happy pharm D, which is kind of like my home base. It's where I hang out. And it's where we create content courses, conferences to help pharmacists, uh, engage them in pharmacy.

And as you mentioned, sometimes even out of pharmacy, but that's actually not. Too common now, from what I've observed, the majority of people want to stay in pharmacy, wanna revitalize their careers. But, uh, that's, that's been my work now as of this recording, uh, three years, we started in January, 2017 and it's been a pretty wild ride.

Um, over those three years, 

[00:04:03] Mike Koelzer, Host: It was in August of 2018 that you finally jumped ship, no insurance, no one to blame, no one to, uh, complain about to your wife. And so on. You were gone from there except myself, except yourself. You just could 

[00:04:22] Alex Barker, PharmD: complain about yourself. Yes. Complaining about me. Um, yeah. Wow. Uh, I, I like to think of myself as an academic without an institution.

Yeah. So a lot of my work is centered around teaching, mentoring, and coaching. Um, and, and as a recently researching, uh, topics within pharmacy and specifically careers. Yeah. Um, it's, it's ultimately like if I didn't consider entrepreneurship, uh, I, I would've gone into the career, man. I would've gone into academia.

Mm-hmm um, no questions asked, that was the trajectory of my career and what I wanted. But, um, after doing some interviews at institutions after people, uh, actually rejected me and my applications because, uh, they didn't think I was a great fit or I wasn't a team player. Um, I decided I'm gonna put all my energies into building a business and it's worked out so far.

Um, I'm really enjoying it. I get to hang out with you on a Friday. Yeah. Morning. And then, I mean, I'm living my dream. It's hard to imagine. The five or six years of work it took to get to this point. But here I am, when I was 

[00:05:40] Mike Koelzer, Host: Thinking of our conversation today, mm-hmm I was thinking, Alex is the Moses of pharmacy.

You, you were, that you were leading, you were leading the people, 

[00:05:55] Alex Barker, PharmD: leader, people leading the 

[00:05:57] Mike Koelzer, Host: out, into the desert first, you know, and then the promised land and so on. But what caught my ear right now was you're saying that it's a combination and maybe even weighted heavier on the people that want to be satisfied in pharmacy than necessarily leaving touch on that a little bit more.

[00:06:22] Alex Barker, PharmD: Right. We take everyone who comes to us with a very theme centered approach for a time I considered, when I launched the happy pharm D. The biggest driver I had was people kept asking me about how do I create a business and how can I do something on the side? Like you're doing cuz that's what I had been doing for like five years.

Right. And so I taught some people how to do those things. Some people created businesses successfully. Um, cuz I cut my teeth on mainly business coaching. I learned how to coach and then I focused on business and gotcha. People who owned small companies, six to seven figures, um, businesses. Sure. And I was like, okay, well I know the basics, I've done it myself.

Um, I've been a part of multiple businesses, franchises, uh, selling things online, Amazon selling, things like that. And so I thought, well let's, let's teach pharmacists these things. Right. But I kept getting a single piece of feedback from even my most successful, uh, students. And it was, well, if I create this business, I'm still stuck at my job.

And that's it, I really, I felt really defeated. I felt like this is, I don't know how this is going to work. We shifted focus to helping pharmacists find better jobs and better careers. I have to admit. It's not exactly what I wanted to do. Um, career coaching is something that, um, is much easier by comparison to business coaching and, and consulting, but it was the need.

And we know from the stats 50 to 70% of pharmacists are burned out. Right. And in my, my ideology, I, I really do believe that the majority of that is caused by the workplace environment, not internal things really going on. Sure. Although those contribute, right? So we shifted, let's teach pharmacists to focus on careers.

And an interesting thing has come from this from our, from our students. So, the pharmacists who transition into jobs that they actually love or enjoy. Some just even wanted an environment where there's less stress, but it's a similar environment. What we have found is all of a sudden they're, they're ignited again, they have a passion, a curiosity about something, and many of them have started small businesses or passion projects, nonprofits, or even developing things within their own company that they're pursuing.

And so, you know, my goal for me personally, with the happy pharm D in the beginning to transition, to helping pharmacists create inspiring careers and lives. And I haven't created the best words to describe this, but now what I'm hoping is that what we can do is help pharmacists create jobs because of how bad the job market is and spur on innovation within pharmacy.

You 

[00:09:25] Mike Koelzer, Host: started out by saying, maybe we can help pharmacists. Side projects and businesses could be in pharmacy or outside of pharmacy. Yep. But then you were realizing that some of these may only have contributed 20% of their income. And so a lot of these people said, Hey, this is good, but we don't think maybe our own entrepreneurial business is going to cut it.

And so we need to focus on that 80% still, whether it's in pharmacy or maybe working for somebody else, but it's getting our career better, but not necessarily doing it only with this great idea, startup business. Am I wrong on that? 

[00:10:20] Alex Barker, PharmD: No, it's pretty spot on. Um, I, I have to admit. You know, the past influences your present.

So I was very much in the mindset of business. Mm-hmm that, that's what I had surrounded myself with ever since 2012. It's what my head was in. It's what I was researching reading, uh, talking to other people about 

[00:10:44] Mike Koelzer, Host: being an owner and an entrepreneur and doing this 

[00:10:47] Alex Barker, PharmD: right. And so this could be a whole separate discussion, Mike, but I'm sure that you would.

After talking with all the pharmacists that you've talked to on the show, as well as just talking to pharmacists in general, there's a lot going against our profession when it comes to becoming an entrepreneur. Yeah. Um, specifically our perfectionism attitude, our desire to have everything right. As we should, we're pharmacists.

Sure. But unfortunately you can't be an entrepreneur and a perfectionist right. 

Um, 

[00:11:20] Mike Koelzer, Host: I've never even fallen into being a perfectionist as a pharmacist, so

not a great mix. Just kidding. 

[00:11:30] Alex Barker, PharmD: Well, I can relate to that. I think some of my alumni friends would. I, I don't think they expressly told me during school, like their concerns for me. like Alex, like, you really should care about the details. Yeah. 

[00:11:48] Mike Koelzer, Host: Whatever, 

[00:11:49] Alex Barker, PharmD: whatever, whatever they'll get the drug. No worries.

[00:11:52] Mike Koelzer, Host: Exactly. The average pharmacist wants perfection and wants to have the answers upfront. And that's not always conducive to an 

[00:12:01] Alex Barker, PharmD: entrepreneur. It's not impossible, but, um, and it's not like you have to have a certain personality or innate ability to become an entrepreneur. It's quite the opposite. That's what research shows anyway.

Yeah. It's so it is, it's difficult to go down that path and it's difficult to inspire people, but we're, we're working on projects that we're hoping for. Well, they already are. They are projects that have been somewhat successful in that they are creating revenue streams and they are necessitating the need to hire pharmacists to do certain things.

Hmm. As much as we are like a career development company, like when people ask me, what the heck do you do, Alex? Well, we help pharmacists with career development. My hope is that we can use a lot of our profits and our, and our business to create avenues, to inspire and, and create businesses that need to hire pharmacists.

Gotcha. There's so much that is wrong with healthcare. I think everyone would agree with that, right? So these are big problems that need pharmacists to solve them. And sadly, this is very frustrating. So I'll try not to get too hyped up about it. The majority of people who are solving those problems are doctors, right.

Uh, and good for them. They've always been pretty much the healthcare leader. We hold an expertise that few people know how to communicate or understand the value of, right. So I'm hoping to change that. That's like the big dream, you know, Alex 40 years from now, is creating businesses with pharmacists, probably younger ones, honestly, that wanna take risks and create these startups that solve big problems.

So that's, that's the hope that I'm going for 

[00:13:57] Mike Koelzer, Host: not trying to necessarily remove them from their degree and from their past and so on, but kind of say, Hey, you spent this time in pharmacy. Maybe there's a good fit in the pharmacy for you still, right. That pumps up the pharmacy knowledge and so on and not necessarily leaves 

[00:14:19] Alex Barker, PharmD: it.

Right. I don't think the answer is leaving this profession. I think there's still a lot of good in it, but I do think there needs to be some significant changes. Um, you, you, you probably didn't join the profession thinking, you know, one out of every two of my pharmacists, friends or my alumni buddies are burned out.

Right. You probably didn't go into a profession thinking we have the, the 12th or 14th, highest suicide rate in the country. Yeah. Compared to 400 plus occupations. Um, you, you probably didn't think, well, I gotta worry about being robbed or the worries of addiction. Right. Um, but those are the realities that we, we battle with.

My hope is that we can start inspiring some pharmacists to create some significant changes to improve these problems. And my hope is also to bring light on the things that I don't think are getting the greatest spotlight. So that. Yeah, that's the route we're going. 

[00:15:27] Mike Koelzer, Host: Was your comment there focused on that?

Let's shine the light on the negative more or on the positive more? 

[00:15:34] Alex Barker, PharmD: Hmm. I'd probably say both. I mean, I try to be more positive than negative. It's really easy to complain about the negative, right. Um, in pharmacy. Yeah. You don't have to search very hard online to find out how people really feel in an anonymous way.

Yeah. Um, yeah. I can understand why everyone's angry. I mean, it's very frustrating to deal with these conditions, but complaining about something won't change anything. Um, right. So I do think we need to point a light at some of these things and demand change. And the way to do that, I believe, is by tracking data.

Showing what companies, what companies are doing to change those things. But I also inadvertently focus on the positive. I mean the happy pharm D right? So what we're, what we do is we love to showcase stories, business owners, pharmacists, who they're doing things in those areas, and they're showing those changes.

Um, and we're trying to facilitate as much as we can. 

[00:16:41] Mike Koelzer, Host: Right. Alex, you mentioned 40 years from now. Mm-hmm . What does your physical day look like? 40 years from now? First of all, physical . Well, first 

[00:16:53] Alex Barker, PharmD: of all, hopefully I'm alive. 

[00:16:56] Mike Koelzer, Host: you gotta be in your thirties. I'm 31 31. Okay. So 71. Um, first of all, you gotta get the hell out of Michigan because I would, I think I'm stupid living in grand rapids and now supposedly you can.

Go anywhere you want to. And you're up in the, you're up in the up you guys are really crazy up there. So what 

[00:17:23] Alex Barker, PharmD: if you've never heard of it, it's called the upper peninsula of Michigan. It's basically Canada. It's basically 

[00:17:29] Mike Koelzer, Host: the north pole. That's what we've figured down here. Yeah. Yeah. Um, take me through your day 30 or 40 years from now.

I know your mission. I know your goal, but what does that look like? What does that look like for you now? You might say, well, I solved it and I'm sitting on the beach, but my imagination is saying that you would be in it somehow. Still. What are you doing? What does your day look like in 30 years? 

[00:17:55] Alex Barker, PharmD: Ideally much different, more wrinkly.

I'm sure. Um, I have to believe that I'm doing the same things that I'm doing now, which are coaching, teaching. And, and, and, and probably public speaking. So I know that when I'm doing my best work is when I get a certain inner feeling. Mm-hmm, when I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm more energized than I'm feeling down.

And those, those events, those times happen during those moments. I don't think I'm working 40 hours a week, but I do think that even at 70, I'm probably, uh, doing what I'm doing now, which is being like a board member for businesses. I'm probably coaching a young person. I'm probably working on some innovative projects that are, in a way, a catalyst for future things.

Like what I hope happens now, someone. Probably are gonna steal this idea from me, but who cares? That's great. Hey, if you steal it, just let me come along. Let me help you. Yeah, right, exactly. Um, I wanna create, uh, what they're already doing in so many other industries, which is, you know, startup competitions where innovative people come together and they present an idea and they get funded for that idea.

That's what I would love to see the happy pharm D do. Cool. Uh, I don't know the first thing about venture capital. I don't wanna become an expert, but I do want to fund crazy innovative ideas. To again, kind of meet my mission, which is creating jobs for pharmacists and ideally inspiring more to, you know, compete to in turn, make a better marketplace.

But that's probably what life looks like 70 years from now. Probably just a variation of 70, well, sorry, 70 years. You're gonna be 101. Yeah. By then who knows? I mean, we, well, we might live that long. Were we living that long? Right. So I don't, I don't know, but I feel like maybe I'm not in the upper peninsula.

Sure. Maybe it's Florida or Cancun. My best. Friend's from Iron mountain. Really. Okay. So that's like that's five, 10 miles from me. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Great. It's a great place to be from is what I like to say. yeah. And 

[00:20:13] Mike Koelzer, Host: he fakes it, he comes down here, he wears flannel and, and you know, these goofy Umar FUD hats and all that stuff, but he hates the outdoors.

He just hates it. So he kinda like pretends he's PAPER, but oh, he's not, you know, at heart, he's not like an outdoorsy 

[00:20:28] Alex Barker, PharmD: guy at all, you know, it's, it's fun 

[00:20:31] Mike Koelzer, Host: to pretend. So are you at home doing that or are you at an office that you're owning and meeting with people and talking to people all day and going to lunches and things, how would you actually like to function in your day?

[00:20:46] Alex Barker, PharmD: Probably the way I am now. What is now, now is. Are we doing a schedule recap? Is that what we well, UN until like, 

[00:20:55] Mike Koelzer, Host: until you hear me yawn you're okay. 

[00:20:58] Alex Barker, PharmD: okay. Well hopefully you, the listener, is engaged by Alex Barker's schedule. No, I, I wanna 

[00:21:04] Mike Koelzer, Host: know, like, I wanna know like, like, are you working from home? Are, are you not, are you on the computer?

Are you doing this? Do you like in-person meetings? Do you like to travel? Do you like, you know, that kind of stuff? What does your week look like? 

[00:21:18] Alex Barker, PharmD: The week of Alex Barker's really simple mornings are creative endeavors where I'm working on research projects or I'm working on developing new products or new lectures mainly about pharmacists careers and, and some business.

Um, It's a lot of development on 

[00:21:38] Mike Koelzer, Host: purpose. Are you trying to exclude communication in the mornings? Oh yeah, because that can be a big waste of, or like, you know, covering every email and text before you know it it's 11 o'clock. Yes. 

[00:21:49] Alex Barker, PharmD: So this is a completely new endeavor for me. I recently hired an executive assistant and if you have a business, you, you don't, you need one.

Holy amazingness. It is the best thing that I've ever done. I only check my emails, Mike, two times a week. Nice. And. I don't know why I haven't done this before. It is so freeing. There's so much less anxiety and stress. I don't feel like I have a thousand things on my plate, an executive assistant. That is awesome.

That is, if there's one thing you get, hopefully from my ramblings, is please hire someone, even if it's just five hours a week to be your assistant. And even now 

[00:22:28] Mike Koelzer, Host: Alex, there's fiver and there's ways to do executive assistants. It's not like you have to imagine having someone trailing you there's ways to morph into that basically.

[00:22:37] Alex Barker, PharmD: Right? Yeah. My executive assistant is in Canada, which yes, the up is Canada, but she's thousands of miles away from me. Um, and she's just amazing. Uh, so good. But, um, the rest of the day, usually in the afternoons it's it's meetings, um, either with team members that are, uh, a part of our support team or our coach team, um, or it's doing things like this with you, um, Technically it's still the morning.

Oh, it's 12. My time. You're central time then. 

[00:23:10] Mike Koelzer, Host: Right, right. You're further, right? Yeah. You're further enough. Uh, west. Right. 

[00:23:13] Alex Barker, PharmD: So the afternoons are usually when I, my mind, has been creatively depleted and so it's, it's easy for me to talk. And so I enjoy, you know, afternoon meetings, yeah. Where I get to do stuff like this.

And that's pretty much it. Um, I usually quit work with my kids, come home and I just hang out with them. And, um, that's my day in, in the frozen Tundra. That's the setting. You should know but yeah, I'm in the office. I'd love to have an in-person office, but then it would just be me, everyone that I work with is virtual.

They're all across the country. So, um, yeah, I mean, it'd be great to hire some fellow ERs, but, uh, there's, there's not too many tech savvy people here. maybe my friend, 

[00:23:59] Mike Koelzer, Host: Dave can hang out with you. He's 

[00:24:00] Alex Barker, PharmD: welcome. You know, he's welcome to hang out with me. 

[00:24:04] Mike Koelzer, Host: What do you have? As far as team members. And so on, I know you have your executive assistant now, do you have anybody else that's on your payroll or do you have some contractor kind 

[00:24:18] Alex Barker, PharmD: of thing?

Yeah, we are. We're all contractors. Um, except for myself. I'm the only employee. Um, it's an S Corp. Okay. And we, I think we have like 11, 11 or 12 team members. Wow. So we have, um, including myself, we have five coaches. Um, and then we, uh, have a support team. We've got, um, a lot of like, I don't know, it's hard to describe we, we got like a web guy marketing, um, behind the scenes web design.

We have a video editor. We have a COO, um, she's in the Philippines. She handles like all of the back end stuff. Nice. Yeah. It's nice. It's been so amazing to have this team and, and to have everyone working with us, um, The only problem with, with contractors, as I'm sure you would guess is, you know, the constant change of guard, you know, about every six months, I feel like I lose someone, so I have to go hire a new person, but right.

Um, it, it makes it easy cuz then I don't have to make an employee and pay benefits and all that, but we're yeah, we're getting to that point where I'm starting to wonder, you know, the benefits of going that route, but mm-hmm I, you know, I, for a time I considered going, uh, the route that you're due that you did, which is to create a traditional pharmacist business mm-hmm and I, I like the idea, but I had a lot of hesitation and it's because.

I have to admit I'm a little selfish. I wanted to create a business that allowed for a lot of freedom and rights. That led me down the path of basically side hustling for five years where I yeah. Created things on the side that generated revenue when I was sleeping. And so, yeah, I thought let's pursue that rather than jumping headlong into something that could potentially put me in a lot of debt and something I don't really know.

Yeah. So I chose probably the, I don't know, wimpier route than the safer route in my mind, but there's pluses and benefits to either side, but I have to admit, you know, I'm, I'm really happy how things turned out. 

[00:26:35] Mike Koelzer, Host: There's too much credit saying I created that cause I'm a third generation owner from my grandpa and my dad.

So I guess I'm a businessman, I guess I'm a touch. I'm an entrepreneur, but sometimes you fall into the management role too. And that's not, I hate management. That's not my favorite. 

[00:26:54] Alex Barker, PharmD: Holy cow. Yeah. That's yeah, that, that stuff's the worst, but I mean, you Say you're running the business, right? You've been doing it for years.

[00:27:04] Mike Koelzer, Host: I'm the CEO, about three years ago, I put in a level of three executives. Mm-hmm that reports to me, but they handle all of the customers and the other team members. So that's kept my hair gray, but it's still there. Yeah, 

[00:27:23] Alex Barker, PharmD: no, congrats. You got a full head of hair. It's beautiful. Yeah. 

[00:27:26] Mike Koelzer, Host: Alex, how many hours would you say on average are all the contractors putting in per week?

In other words, how many hours does your system need right now to run? My daughter said to me, "Dad, you should read Tim Ferris's book The Four Hour Work week and I said, "Why would I wanna double my hours? 

[00:27:51] Alex Barker, PharmD: ouch. Yeah. Then you've got it down. That's the beauty of a business. Is it running without you or it should.

That's 25 

[00:27:59] Mike Koelzer, Host: years later though, you know? 

[00:28:00] Alex Barker, PharmD: Oh yeah. Well you, you finally got there. Yeah. Um, one of the things that really helped me was setting really harsh deadlines for myself. So this past summer we were able to go on sabbatical for 10 weeks, my wife and our kids. And we traveled all around the country, living in a van.

Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. Uh, often down by, by the river, down by the river Uhhuh and it was fantastic. It was wonderful. And the business did just fine without me to answer your question. Um, I don't know, off the top of my head, how much our coaches work. Um, Um, two of them are brand new, so they're not probably putting in as much time right now.

Yeah. But I, I would say, I mean, at a minimum, maybe maybe three to four hours, it just depends on how many clients they're working with at a time per week, 

[00:28:52] Mike Koelzer, Host: per week. Right? Let's say you had employees that knew how to do everything and there was no internet and they were all with you in your office. And so on.

You'd probably need like one or two full-time people to kind of spread this. And I know they don't have all these skills and that I'm just saying, sure, you probably need one or two full-time people to churn all this. 

[00:29:13] Alex Barker, PharmD: Yes. To do everything that my team does collectively, I would probably need two FTE. Yeah.

But I don't want that. 

[00:29:24] Mike Koelzer, Host: don't do it. no, don't do it. 

[00:29:26] Alex Barker, PharmD: No, no, no, no, no, no. Thank you. Um, I'm, I'm perfectly happy. I, I, I actually have never read the four hour work week, but I know. Through osmosis, I've adopted a lot of those things and that's the beauty of business is you can delegate, you can hire people to do things and you get to set your schedule.

Um, yeah. And it's, it's amazing. So kudos to you for getting down to two hours. That's awesome. Well, Alex, 

[00:29:57] Mike Koelzer, Host: you and I both. Tim Ferris's book. So what you're doing is, is what he's talking about is the hiring of some of these assistants. And so on the other thing, he gets into which, whatever you called it, wimp nest or something.

But I think it's a great idea that you were able to test out these different businesses and even more now than in the past. I mean, in the past, can you imagine to test a business, you had to lease a building and all that stuff. Yeah. And now within a week, you can do AB testing on two Google ads and you can see where that lands and it might have cost you 20 bucks to test something out.

Yeah. Tim Ferris, in his book, talks about four hours. But when he is talking about that, he's talking about four hours and maybe stuff. That's not his favorite thing to do. if I was an attorney, I'd be billing for. 80 hours a week. So I'm always thinking about it. I'm always dwelling on it and so on. If I had to maybe actually bill for yep.

The stuff I was actually handling. Well, that would be a lot less, but I think the difference is how do you define it? Is it work or something else, but it's time. Right. Unless you can shut your mind off. Mm you're pretty 

[00:31:08] Alex Barker, PharmD: good at that. I can. Yeah. Um, I am, yeah. I made it a priority. Well, my wife and I talked and we made it a priority for me to shut off the brain, to put away the phone, to be engaged with the kids.

You know, when you're not working, occasionally I'll get the shower moment, you know, of something. Oh, wow. I need to do this. Um, but the majority of my time, I, I keep my, my time, my nine to three time focus on doing. Great and impactful work. And I think what I learned from Tim Ferris and a lot of those, you know, internet marketers, the lifestyle design people are you, you have to match up what your life priorities are with what you end up doing.

I think that's actually a good thing for pharmacists to learn. I don't think they talk about lifestyle design when talking about careers in pharmacy . You know, if you get into this profession, there's going to be certain things that you need to be aware of. Um, a lot of people tell me they hate schedules that they have in, in their work regardless of community or.

They, they didn't even consider these things when they started the 

[00:32:23] Mike Koelzer, Host: hours of the nights and holidays and things. Right 

[00:32:26] Alex Barker, PharmD: as, and, and, you know, the VA is the veteran affairs department. It is a great institution. They have a lot of good things going for them. Of course they have bad things going just like every company does.

Yeah. One of the things that I'd never considered and I hated was that I couldn't take off more than a week at a time. And some people would say, oh, that's amazing. Some people would say, wow, that's not great. But my point being is I, I could never take off. Yeah. You know, uh, and have a real vacation because by the time the vacation started, you know, three or four days in, I finally have relaxed.

Exactly. You know, and I wanna start doing things and then, oh, you gotta leave in three days to go back home. Right. That was a real downer for me. But yeah, of course it is what it is. 

[00:33:10] Mike Koelzer, Host: Alex, the reason why you're able to shut things off nine to three is cuz you don't have employees. 

[00:33:16] Alex Barker, PharmD: I, I , I have very little management issues 

[00:33:20] Mike Koelzer, Host: in my area.

It's just a blessing and a curse. Of course it's more of a blessing cuz I'm able to now to have the machine running while I don't have my hands on it. But all of the people, just like a machine, take some greasing and that kind of stuff. You don't have that. So that's well done. 

[00:33:36] Alex Barker, PharmD: Yeah. And the other great thing I suppose about contractors is it's easy to let go of people that aren't a great fit, right?

Yeah. You just don't have any work for 'em right? Yeah. I've struggled with that too, cuz I've thought about, well, what if I hire the wrong person as an employee? Sure. Have, have you adopted any policies on that? You know the whole, the way I treat all my contractors. Uh, higher, slow fire fast. Yeah. Do you have any, uh, you know, methods or policies about that?

What 

[00:34:06] Mike Koelzer, Host: I did, I was a little bit in your boat. And so this is back before 2011, right? About when you were finishing up mm-hmm pharmacy school. And I had three full-time pharmacists and they each had, let's say four or five weeks of pay time off slash sick time and so on. Mm-hmm but you get three pharmacists that have five weeks off and they take 'em from June, July, and August.

There goes my summer. Mm. So here I was the boss and I was working all summer mm-hmm and I could have said no to them. And I took some time off in that, but trying to sorta lead the army I'd buckle down and do it. So starting in 2011, things were a little slower and that was a good time to downsize because I could blame it on the economy and not on myself for, you know, so I was still a nasty guy for doing it in people's minds, but I wasn't oh yeah.

As nasty as you know, doing it on your own. So now we have eight part-time pharmacists and we run on one pharmacist at a time and we run on a great program called one eye work. And so it's just basically cloud scheduling, but with a whole lot of phone interaction and so on. Hmm. Now when a pharmacist is gone, I only lose someone for 12 or 16 hours a week.

If one of them that's doing more shifts in the week is, is leaving. Typically. Then I've got seven pharmacists that have to pick up. 12 hours. And so usually one or two pharmacists pick up two of the shifts and someone picks up the other one. Mm. That was eye opening to me back then. And that's been really nice and they're not contractors.

They work for me, but in theory, it's the same way there that I don't have to kind of answer your question. I rarely commit anymore to a 40 hour employee. That's a big commitment, two things. One is that you have to know the person is productive for 40 hours. And two is, you have to know if you can even stand their personality for 40 hours.

you know? 

[00:36:13] Alex Barker, PharmD: Yes. Um, holy cow, uh, you could probably do a whole episode just about, you know, hiring people and how to find out, oh, will this person annoy me this past summer during my sabbatical? Unfortunately, I had to make geez, an emergency hire because we wanted to produce our, uh, annual virtual summit.

Gotcha. And we had lost our marketer at the time and I was looking for someone and I had one of my team members look for me and she found this person and there were some warning signs in the beginning as I was trying to deal with, like, okay. You know, trying to, trying to vet her. And I should have listened to my gut, my warning signs, because that ended up being just such a mess.

So overpaid and, and unfortunately under qualified to do what I, I needed her to do. Yeah. Um, but you know, I, when you, when you. Go into entrepreneurship, unless you have some sort of lifestyle business where it's just you. Right. Which is really, is really painful. Yeah. Um, you, you have to run the risk of trusting someone else.

Right. And I. I don't have much problem with that, but yeah. Yeah. So I, I, I, I find that interesting that you've, you've pursued that model cuz in, in the pharmacist mind, I would imagine that many of them don't feel safe because 

[00:37:36] Mike Koelzer, Host: they don't trust my benevolent dictatorship. I didn't say that. Well, here's the thing though is because they're all rather part-time it's um, mm-hmm, typically it's not their main income.

Mm well, all of them have another income in the family, their spouse. Mm. And then most of 'em it's just extra money. There's 

[00:37:57] Alex Barker, PharmD: some interesting research being published right now about the work week and about what. You know, certain comp uh, countries are doing, uh, I don't know if you saw this saw, but news New Zealand are.

Yeah. Are we on the same link? 

[00:38:08] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. Like four, six hour days or 

[00:38:09] Alex Barker, PharmD: something. Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember the exact amount, but I know that they, they mandated, I believe Countrywide that you, you, you are not allowed to work five days a week or something like that. And so everyone gets to work, you know, that four day, weekend or four day work week.

And I don't know about you, but a three day weekend, that's, it's, it's the perfect amount by Sunday. I feel like I'm ready to jump back into things. Yeah. Um, and I. Unfortunately with pharmacy, it's really hard to do something like that when you're a required function of a hospital that needs to be open 24/7.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. So I'm not, I'm, I'm curious as to see when the pendulum is going to swing in that direction. Right. Right. Now, that is not even a focus for most pharmacists or yeah. You know, our legislators, because it's all about pharmacy services, pharmacy payments, and you know, that, all that stuff.

Right. And, and the job crisis, of course. Yeah. But you know, I'm, I'm hoping at some point it can get more focus. It sounds like you've, you've adopted a, of a very flexible schedule. Then 

[00:39:16] Mike Koelzer, Host: We used to have more full-time people. And because of things getting frankly business, not as good, we don't have as many full-timers anymore, but we are able to flex that.

Harder or softer, depending on what we think the week is gonna do or, you know, vacations and so on. Now that 

[00:39:37] Alex Barker, PharmD: is a skill that I'm interested in. And my brain can't fathom I've, I've had to delegate out the budgeting and the income cash flow to, um, One of our operations people, just because it takes a certain mind, I think, to understand cash in cash out.

How does that work? What do we need to do? And rather than trying to master it, man, just delegate it. And that's what I've done, cuz it is so 

[00:40:02] Mike Koelzer, Host: difficult. So now when I read the news after you, and I've talked, I'm gonna say, cuz my wife and I will read the news in the morning on our different phones, you know, and chat.

And I'll say, Margaret, look at what they're doing in New Zealand. I'll say before, you know, if they're gonna be working less than Alex does. 

[00:40:18] Alex Barker, PharmD: let's hope 

[00:40:20] Mike Koelzer, Host: one of the goals I always had was I said that I want a job where I'll never be bored and I would take a lot of stuff instead of boredom. I would probably.

And even probably, you know, moments of depression. I'd probably take a lot of stuff over boredom, I guess. Yeah. You gotta 

[00:40:36] Alex Barker, PharmD: come to terms with that. If you pursue entrepreneurship. Um, I Def like you, I went through some depression at times of. Self-doubt wondering, what am I doing? Am I, am I doing the right thing?

I have no idea. Uh, and no one knows, no one can give me this answer. Right. Right. What, what is it that you do that you find so fulfilling about your work that doesn't make it work? If I have 

[00:41:01] Mike Koelzer, Host: to work as a pharmacist, mm-hmm, a shift, which I don't do very often. I just don't like those days at all. 

[00:41:11] Alex Barker, PharmD: do your technicians and pharmacists know that I, I, I, um, do they listen to your show or we're recording, right?

[00:41:20] Mike Koelzer, Host: there's two reasons. I don't like it. The one reason is because I know I've got some other pain in the ass thing to do. I have some problems I have to work on and I know I can't. Now because I've gotta work till, you know, seven or when we used to be open later till nine, I know I'm gonna have to do it later or something.

So that's why I didn't like it for that reason. But then there were times where I've got this idea that I wanna be working on, and I don't wanna be doing this at the time, because it's stopping me from doing the research and so on. So I didn't hate it in and of itself. It's because I either had something worse to do or something more fun to do.

And that got in the way for me. Right. 

[00:42:05] Alex Barker, PharmD: What are those projects that you really enjoy? I like to sit

[00:42:16] Mike Koelzer, Host: I suppose I definitely like to create. I like to create, and that's why I don't like to teach. I don't like to do repetitive things, but I have the blessing of having. A business that allows me to create without any pressure, you know? So for example, the podcast, mm. You know, traveling and maybe creating thoughts at a convention or something like that.

I, I don't have that pressure on me because I already have that income, the good Lord willing knock on wood, at least right now, mm-hmm, I have the income to do 

[00:42:51] Alex Barker, PharmD: that. So you're mainly working on projects that potentially are revenue generating. 

[00:42:55] Mike Koelzer, Host: For example, I'll spend a lot of time now talking to my chief operating officer and chief revenue officer.

So the operating guy is all the HR and stuff in the store. And so on. And my chief revenue guy is all the insurance and those kinds of things. And we work kind of, kind of a neat program called monday.com. It allows me to have ideas. and not necessarily carry all of them out, but if they do get carried out, then I have help to carry those out.

So a lot of time just creating new ways to do things in the business, try to do new revenue streams. That's probably my creativity I'm talking about is creating stuff, working on the business instead of working in the business, you know how that goes. When you think of something for your stuff, Alex, your favorites, not filing the papers and stuff after that, then you're onto the next thing, you know, 

[00:43:58] Alex Barker, PharmD: hate that stuff.

Oh, I hate that stuff. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. Working on the business is the most fun. That was the major transition I made about a year ago. I was spending a lot of time working with clients, mainly one on one and in groups and mm-hmm I had spent a good majority of my time. Tr trading my time for dollars.

Sure. And it was good money, but I wasn't really getting anywhere. Right. I think that's where most pharmacists start though, in, in businesses like that, they, yeah, like the whole consultant world, the, especially like the health consultant. It's a great idea. And I think there's a lot of potential, but you, you end up, you know, trading one job for another.

You're not really creating a business. Yeah. Right. Um, but it has a potential, is it scalable? That's the biggest question to ask. It's why I think the whole MTM idea hasn't panned out. Yeah. Because no one has figured out how to scale this. The MTM model is not working because if it was every local pharmacist, pharmacies would be adopting the model.

Right. Because it would make money. Unfortunately, things are priced so low that the cost of hiring a pharmacist to do the work isn't. The margin is so low. So why even, why even do it? Um, you could argue it's the right thing to do. You could do it as a side hustle and right. Those things are true, but you're never gonna grow it beyond a side hustle because of how low and you're buying 

[00:45:33] Mike Koelzer, Host: another job, basically, maybe one that you like better.

[00:45:36] Alex Barker, PharmD: Yeah. And that's, that's totally okay. If that's what you wanna do, freelancing is a way to make a living. Um, it's just, you're going to be stuck doing that. Yeah. And you have to realize it. I think where pharmacists can make more money and, and scale things at a better rate is being that consultant who can charge a lot more of a fee directly, you know, cash from a patient and provide those kinds of services.

I think that's scalable, but there are so many problems with the route that I see. Namely being, and, and it, it, you can't overcome it, but the biggest one being that the public doesn't see pharmacists, pharmacy as valuable. Right. Because we have traditionally for decades been free. Mm-hmm so when you start charging a reasonable price, hundreds of dollars yeah.

For a consultant. Yeah. You know, you almost have to go the route of like health coaching, which, I mean, I've paid hundreds of dollars for a health coach, um, and, and seen some results from it. But it wasn't because of their expertise. I, I almost wonder if that's the route that is needed for that sub niche of pharmacy and, and entrepreneurship, because to say like, oh, I'm a pharmacist and that's why you need to pay me.

Yeah. So much money. Like it's, it's almost not the approach to take because people Don. People don't care. They're like, well, if I just wanna go talk to a pharmacist, I'll just go yeah. You know, Walgreens, Walmart, and talk to them. Yeah. You, you're not bringing that unique value. 

[00:47:14] Mike Koelzer, Host: Pharmacists have to go the way of, um, stewards and versus flight attendant and janitor versus custodian.

And, you know, Trashman versus, uh, you know, they've gotta re reinvent the name and, and really the pharmacy name is gonna get you practically a lower fee. 

[00:47:33] Alex Barker, PharmD: Yes. I totally agree. Anyone listening to this and maybe is inspired by what I share. Please contact me. So something, a fun project that I work on every Friday is to think about how we can change the public's perception of pharmacy, right?

And the only, the, the two main methods that I see in influencing the public at large is media and, and specifically, uh, television and video games. Right now, if you do a search, there's this game called Euro trucker. Okay. Stick, stick with me. It's interesting. Mm-hmm mm-hmm Euro trucker. The concept of the game is to drive a truck in Europe.

That's what you do. 

[00:48:20] Mike Koelzer, Host: That's what you do. Now. 

[00:48:22] Alex Barker, PharmD: If you had to guess how many people are playing this, what would you think? A thousand, a few thousand, 10,000. Maybe you'd be wrong. There are well over a few million people who play this game. This is one of the most popular games on a platform called steam and it's people driving a truck.

Okay. Yeah. Think about how that impacts, you know, the trucking industry, it gets people interested, more people are thinking about, well, maybe I could do this. The same thing happened to CSI crime scene investigation, which arguably is one of the most boring, uh, jobs out there. Yeah. Any, any CSI would tell you, like it's not CSI.

Yeah. It's not that exciting. So why can't that happen in pharmacy? Why can't we create a game? That shows pharmacists doing weird and wacky stuff and, and changes people's perception of what we actually do. There are so many games about being a doctor, not a pharmacist and in the media, uh, I've, I've done a pretty thorough search on, on television.

We are almost never really portrayed, uh, well on television. Exactly. And if they made it, they made a show in the office about people selling paper. So really boring, not that interesting. Right. And yet they engaged an audience in a very mundane place. I know that we had vials on Amazon, which in my opinion, was not a great show structure wise, nor did it really portray pharmacy and all that well of a light.

So if you have a crazy idea and you wanna change the public perception, please contact me. I'd love to chat with you. Um, But that's like a big vision that I have that I would hope could change the way people see pharmacists, that we are valuable, that we do know quite a bit. And, that should translate into a valuable service that is worth money and not just, you know, going up to the local pharmacy and expecting to pay nothing for the expert's advice.

It's so 

[00:50:23] Mike Koelzer, Host: rare. Devil's advocate, Alex, here's the problem. Yes, pharmacists. What we want to get paid for now, this has to happen is yeah. Is standing up and opening our mouth up and down and talking. Well, what I mean by that is even CSI gets to snap the gloves on and the, the lawyers get to, you know, pick up their briefcase and walk out in a Huff, you know, and doctors get to, uh, have their scalpels and all that kind of thing.

And you know, this is cliche where, when the news wants you on, they say, uh, pharmacists, I'll pick up a violin counter. You're like, no, no, no, we do more than that. We're not gonna have that visual. But the problem is, then what is the visual of a pharmacist? 

[00:51:10] Alex Barker, PharmD: That's the thing that we don't have. Right. We don't have a visual I'll play devil's advocate back and, and point to the reality, which is we do not have a clear vision of what we 

[00:51:19] Mike Koelzer, Host: do now.

We're triple devil's advocates. Even if we, even if we had one, even 

[00:51:23] Alex Barker, PharmD: if we did, what would it be? Even if we did, 

[00:51:25] Mike Koelzer, Host: you can't have a TV show of someone just standing there thinking that'd be about ideas as my goal of 

[00:51:30] Alex Barker, PharmD: sitting. Right? So the vision is, I think what the associations are trying to put us in is we're, we're basically like pseudo doctors, right?

We're PAs and NPS with specialized knowledge. I think that is the picture that they want for us. And it does make sense. But the question I have is then how are, how can the public understand how we are unique? Right. We're an, we're an MP with medicine knowledge. 

[00:52:00] Mike Koelzer, Host: What we can do, not me. , don't come to me for this, but I mean, in general, a pharmacist, what they can do, what nobody else can do is figure out serious drug lineups, right.

Or a patient has to be on this drug. They have to be on this drug, but the two of them together are gonna kill the person. But if you don't use the two of 'em, they're gonna die. They're saying don't take blood pressure and don't do this. And don't do swabs of the mouth because that is a nurse practitioner.

And that is a PA. So what do pharmacists do that only they can do? And is that serious drug interactions? 

[00:52:42] Alex Barker, PharmD: I, I, I mean, I agree with it, but I would go a step further. I think I would go back to what we were, I think all taught poly academia, that we should be the mechanism that chooses therapy. Yeah, right, right.

We should be the ones since we're the experts and doctors only get usually one semester of pharmacology. Yeah. We should be the people deciding what we get. Yeah. Right. The doctor should do what they're great at, which is diagnosing. Right. Um, but I, this is a really complicated answer or question too, but you know, who's response for this.

Why have pharmacists let this happen to us? Is it just because of who we are as a profession? Is it because of how we were nurtured or is it nature? Uh, but I feel like the, the, the picture that we should show the public is we are therapy experts. Um, and we will help you with all of those needs. You don't need to go to your doctor to change a medicine.

Should just be a pharmacist. Yeah. Right. But the sad thing is, and it kind of goes back to our perfectionism roots. Yeah. Do we want guidelines for everything? Yeah. We have to have a guideline on how to do this because if we don't follow the guideline, then we're 

[00:54:02] Mike Koelzer, Host: breaking rules. They want all of this responsibility.

But as soon as someone dies because of a drug interaction there to say, don't look at me. I just, I just put 'em in the 

[00:54:12] Alex Barker, PharmD: bottle. I'm an advocate for provider status. I think it's a good thing to achieve, but the truth is. I don't think many pharmacists will accept it. Hmm. And that's based on the data that we have from Canada and the UK.

Interesting. Um, where in the UK, the, a PHA, uh, they did a report on like provider status and I think it was back in 2014 or 2015, and they looked at Canada and the UK and they brought in two things about it. And they were like, they were talking about it in a light where like, oh, this is good. Well, I think in one of the provinces in Canada, I think Alberta 2% of the pharmacists had taken on provider status.

Wow. According to their report. And then in the UK where they've had provider status, I think a little bit longer, 10% of pharmacists took on the responsibility. So while this may be a good step in the right direction, this shows, I would say that by and large, we say, we want this. W I think in practice, many people are not gonna wanna take it 

[00:55:15] Mike Koelzer, Host: on.

When we said, who was to blame for this, our forefathers and foremothers are to blame too, because if you're comfortable, you're not gonna go too far outside of your, right of your boundary. You know, my grandpa, my dad, I knew coming into the pharmacy that I was riding a wave and I didn't disrupt it too much.

The waves were pretty good. It's kind of crashing now, but it's pretty good for 25 years. And I think that coming up on these salaries, maybe being cut in half for pharmacists, that's maybe when that number goes up, when people have to look for other things, the changes 

[00:55:52] Alex Barker, PharmD: have to force innovation, right? My hope is, is.

As things get worse, people are gonna figure out ways to make it better. They're gonna figure out things. Yeah. The pendulum will swing. It's just a matter of when we don't know 

[00:56:03] Mike Koelzer, Host: don't gimme any dollar figures, but percentage wise, what are your revenue sources? You know? Okay. It's 20%, this it's 10% from this program.

How does that break down for your business at this time? So I 

[00:56:18] Alex Barker, PharmD: would say, um, about 30 to 40% is, uh, services. So that's typically career coaching consulting. Um, You know, the occasional mock interview resume reviews mm-hmm those sorts of things. Yeah. Um, and then the rest of it is, uh, the products that we promote and sell.

So courses, events, um, smaller one-off products, those sorts of things. That's the majority of our revenue 

[00:56:47] Mike Koelzer, Host: things that people would find on your website. We typically 

[00:56:50] Alex Barker, PharmD: don't like, just throw up our courses on our website, because I don't know if you've found this or if other people have who sell, uh, information type products is I, I don't get a whole lot of sales that from people who just come to the website and like just buy something, it's very rare.

Gotcha. And the other problem that we have to deal with is coaching. Most people don't even understand what coaching is like. Right. It sounds like voodoo science. Right. Um, what the heck is this? Yeah. Do you just tell me what to do? Yes. I explained to people like, honestly, we try to treat ourselves like Disneyland.

You have to come and see it to experience it. So we gotcha. We have a policy for anyone who's interested. and changing their careers or starting businesses or helping with a business is how we provide complimentary coaching. And if you enjoy it, if you love it, Hey, you know, we can talk about what that looks like if we're to serve you in that way.

And if you're not, you're like, you know what? I tried out Disneyland, not that great. I don't wanna go back then. Fine, no skin off our nose. Gotcha. It's more about providing, I hope a world renowned experience of what coaching is, which should be to help you develop your goals, to hold you accountable to those things and to help you move past whatever obstacles have been stopping you from doing that, that's always what coaching has 

[00:58:08] Mike Koelzer, Host: been.

You can then introduce to some of your products that you'd rather not just have someone stumble over on their own online. 

[00:58:16] Alex Barker, PharmD: Uh, we do sometimes do that many times when people join our coaching program, we often, we just give things to them. Whereas 

[00:58:23] Mike Koelzer, Host: the 70% from your products, then if you don't have 'em online and you don't have your coaching, people buy 'em 

[00:58:29] Alex Barker, PharmD: webinar.

Email. Oh, so we get people to sign up for our emails, for things that we give away. And then we promote a webinar which then in turn promotes our courses. People 

[00:58:39] Mike Koelzer, Host: don't stumble on it online, but once they're connected through a webinar or email, that's where you're picking some of that up. It's hard 

[00:58:46] Alex Barker, PharmD: to get a complete stranger to trust you, to buy anything from you.

Mm-hmm, especially online, unless you're selling a product on Amazon or something, you know, why should people buy from you? Sure. And so we focus a lot of our time on creating content to show people our expertise, but as well as ideally help them make some sort of decision, whether it's something small, like how do I write a better cover letter, right.

So how do I create a career that fits the lifestyle? I want to make sure we do that through webinars, through blogs, through I see podcasts through YouTube channels. Gotcha. And the main fundamental shift that I have to get people. To believe that instead of saying, not me to maybe me because so many pharmacists right now feel stuck, they feel like the pharmacy has abandoned them.

They feel like nothing good can come from this profession. And, uh, others feel like the job market is so harsh right now. There's no way I can find something that's better than what I have right now. Gotcha. And so we have to show them through stories, through evidence, through, um, case studies of students in our class, our pharmacists mm-hmm and show them, Hey, we've helped people who were burned out and said, I don't even know if I wanna be a pharmacist anymore and help guide them to a profession within pharmacy that they actually love.

Yeah. And we've gone so far as even, it's not that we want to attract people with. Mental illness, but we've helped people who were suicidal. Yeah. Going from my job is making me feel like I'm not worth living. Right. And help them transition into something that is significantly better. Right. I never anticipated that.

I never anticipated getting emails from those people, but in order for them to trust us, they have to see our expertise and our authority in the space and the stories of who we've helped. Right. Because when you're in this, I don't, you know, I, I would be curious to see if your other entrepreneurs feel the same way when you're in this space of, I guess, selling information and selling services, like coaching people, especially because of our industry naturally wanna feel like I'm just selling snake oil.

Mm-hmm, , I'm just selling positivity, which I hate, by the way I hate the public. I do not like those public speakers that are like, rah RA, just believe in yourself, like, yeah. Right. That's it. That's hogwash. You gotta base your, your thoughts and ideas off of research and success from other people. Right? So I have to combat that by first, showing them I understand where you're at.

I was there. These are the things that have helped me. These are the things that have helped other people. This is what research says about career development. Now here's how you apply it to your unique situation. Here's how you find a career path within pharmacy that would suit your desires and your needs and your strengths.

Yeah. And ideally your curiosity. And if not then, well, you know, maybe we can help you find something else. We felt people get into, uh, tech companies. Financial industry we've helped people get into real estate. I mean, wow. Practically anything that they want to do, we help walk them into those things. But the vast majority of people who feel stuck in pharmacy, we help them figure out why they're stuck, what they can do to, uh, transition out of the job.

Or in some rare cases, we help them just figure out how to restructure their current job and negotiate better conditions. Right. Based on their desires and their wants. So many people feel like they need a new job. Yeah. When, but when you already have one, they don't wanna go through the trouble of hiring a new one.

Yeah. You know, so it's possible. In most cases to negotiate something into your job that makes it significantly better. Yeah. Right. But I don't, I don't create webinars trying to sell people like, Hey, just change your situation at your current job. Cause most people think like no way, you know, my, my boss is a jerk.

Yeah. I don't wanna talk to them. There's no way things are gonna get better. So we talk a lot about what are the fundamental things that indispensable pharmacists do to identify where, where are the greatest needs right now in the world? What are the things that I'm most passionate about solving? What problems do I really care about and what is my greatest strength?

How can I put all of these things together to create a career where I don't have to really worry about where my next job is? Yeah. That's the, that's the beautiful thing about entrepreneurship cuz case in point if, uh, the happy pharm D was to totally fail. I lose everything. The internet fails. Okay. Well, if the internet fails, I don't know what I'll do, but , if, if, if those things fail, I have a myriad of skills and most importantly relationships with amazing people to help me bounce back through.

Yeah. Probably freelancing for a while until I come up with my next idea. Yeah. Sadly, so many pharmacists don't feel that way. They don't feel like their skills are transferable or that anyone values them. Yeah. When there are companies out there that do, and some of them don't even know that they're looking for a pharmacist, unfortunately 

[01:04:23] Mike Koelzer, Host: they've gotta trust that you can do something, but they also have to trust that anything can be done about their situation.

They gotta trust both. Yeah. I imagine there's a lot of people going into therapists and things that just don't believe a change could even happen. 

[01:04:38] Alex Barker, PharmD: I mean, I talk with. at least a dozen pharmacists a week. And over the years, hundreds, if not well over, you know, maybe even 2000, I am surprised by the amount of pharmacists on, you know, anti-anxiety meds and depression meds.

Yeah. It's shocking. Um, yeah, sad. I, I don't know if there's like a study out there that looks at mental health and pharmacy. Maybe I should start. Um, actually we have a mental health survey coming out. Uh, as of this recording, we honestly saw that MedCAP was publishing every year, a burnout and suicide report for physicians.

There's not a whole lot of data about pharmacists. And so if you're not burned out, great, if you're burned out cool. If you're depressed, it doesn't matter. Whatever your mental health is. We're, we're hoping people will fill the south 

[01:05:26] Mike Koelzer, Host: Alex. Do you like attention?

Here's what I mean by that? Yes. Tell me, I talked to somebody for the show a bit ago. I asked her the same thing. Do you like attention? Is it cool to have this big group and all this stuff like that? And she's like, no, I did it because I, I really care about this and that. And I said, yeah, but isn't it cool to have started this and do this and have people kind of know you and know you're the mover and all.

No, not really. I just, I'm just out. I said, what would you do? " What would you do if you solved everything and there's no other problems anymore?" She said, oh, then that would be enough. Then I'm thinking, are you crazy? , you know, it's like, it's fun for me too. Build and maybe that's the business person in me.

It's fun for me to build it. Mm-hmm and then later decide how I'll use it. So, for example, I was mentioning to her that 12 years ago I started independent pharmacy owners or something on LinkedIn, a group. Yeah. And, and it grew, and I didn't use it for anything until basically now with my podcast, I can use it and abuse it after 12 years.

Do you like the attention or if your business was doing fine, would you be fine being a non-face in the pharmacy crowd? You're wanting to use 

[01:06:40] Alex Barker, PharmD: this for the podcast, right? I'll answer it honestly. 

[01:06:45] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. If, if you wanna be honest about it. Yeah, 

[01:06:47] Alex Barker, PharmD: yeah. Yeah, I won't lie. Um, the attention is fun. I like it too.

Is a lot of fun to do. And honestly, it comes from my roots. Um, I had more detentions than all of my classmates put together, growing up um, I was constantly finding out how I can make my friends laugh? What can I do? Sure. To cause the most disruption and get away with the least amount of punishment. Um, yeah, the instigator.

Yeah, that was me. And I was voted class clown and I sure. I won't deny that I really do enjoy the attention. And honestly, I think it's because my parents divorced really young that influenced me. I didn't realize it at the time. Yeah. I was seeking out, you know, attention and, and making people laugh was a lot of fun.

I wanted to be a comedian as a kid. Yeah. And, um, I won't deny that there is a certain, when you have a platform yeah. People look to you for your expertise and that does feel good. Yeah. I, I won't deny, uh, that at all. Yeah. That being said, I've learned that even the small, I wouldn't call it fame. No, I gotcha.

Or even infamy. I gotcha. You know, the small amount that I have gained doesn't make my life better. It doesn't make me feel better as a person. No. Um, in some ways because of some of the people who contact me. You know, they're in their fifties, sixties. Right. And, you know, I, I, I feel very privileged to gain their trust.

Yeah. That I can help them. Yeah. Um, I think one day I don't, I don't have to be the face of the happy farm D um, I, I think that I'd be willing to hand that off to someone else. Um, and I'd be okay with that. I think what's more important is what we talked about earlier, which is the aspect of doing work.

That's really, really fun. Sure. Right. Right. And for me that is that that is teaching. Yeah. And I think because, you know, you're a teacher, you gain authority by teaching on things. Yeah. Um, I got to do a burnout CE uh, for, um, free ce.com and. As much as I don't enjoy the realities of burnout. Right. It's so much fun.

Um, yeah. Teaching that and getting the messages that I get from people is just really encouraging to keep doing those sorts of things. Yeah. So in a way, I think it just comes with a territory, right? If you have a podcast, if you do any kind of thing, like this, people are going to look at you as someone with.

At least some answers to the things that you want. I was the 

[01:09:40] Mike Koelzer, Host: same way. I was child number eight of 12 and mm-hmm and probably look for some of that attention, but I think that it all kind of goes together with the technology, whether it's the news or different things. Usually that means that well, in my case, doing something else rather than standing right in the pharmacy, these are means to different connections and things like that.

And that's, I suppose I like some 

[01:10:05] Alex Barker, PharmD: of that, well, you're in the right business, cuz the way with technology and how it's going, you know, connection is becoming, you know, a very popular term and people are willing to pay for connections. Um, an interesting thing that's happening in Japan, which arguably has a much different culture than us, is that you can rent people.

You can rent a mom or a dad or a daughter. A period of time. And it just goes back to the very simple idea that people just want to connect. We are driven by that and by not having it, we force ourselves to be miserable. 

[01:10:42] Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. I hope my kids don't listen to this because I probably see them looking up some father father sites or something like that.

I'm average. That's all right. Hey, Alex, going back now has all these bumps and problems been great for you being a pharmacist because you're able to help solve things. So you found a place to problem solve or what would you do if you would've done it over again? If you're 16 now, what college route would you take?

If any, 

[01:11:11] Alex Barker, PharmD: and I'm back in, uh, 2006 when I graduated. Yeah. And you're 

[01:11:15] Mike Koelzer, Host: up in 

[01:11:16] Alex Barker, PharmD: you're up in the up you're in Norway. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The UPP. Um, I think I would still go down the same path. Because I was arrogant. I think if I was to encourage myself to do one thing differently, it would be, you need to take your career a little bit more seriously and start pursuing some real ideas for something, because just hoping that things will fall together is an awful way to approach your career.

If I was in pharmacy school right now, and I took the same approach, I would be unemployed. I'm certain because I was very just, eh, whatever, I'll figure it out. Gotcha. Um, I waited until the last minute, you know, to do residency and decide on that. Yeah. I wish I took a much more proactive approach. Okay.

There's one thing I would do that maybe would be the catalyst of everything else. It would be to give myself how to win friends and influence people and demand that I read that at 16, because I read that book when I was 22, 23. and I realized as I was reading this book, oh my gosh, I've been a jerk for most of my life.

And, uh, I need to, I need to treat people how I believe I need to be treating others. Um, yeah, by saying I'm a jerk. I literally mean like, I would, I would just make fun of people for the sake of making me feel better about myself. It comes with 

[01:12:42] Mike Koelzer, Host: a class clown thing. Uh, it does. Yeah, for sure. It sounds like as soon as you can in college, you gotta kind of pick your career and also kind of pick your passion.

Almost. 

[01:12:52] Alex Barker, PharmD: I blindly accepted pharmacy as my career path because. Um, basically my mom discouraged the comedian route. Um, , , she's like your funny son, but that's not a career. So I'm good at math and science and I don't wanna touch blood butts or guts. So what's out there for me? 

[01:13:15] Mike Koelzer, Host: I had a guy who's out in Hollywood now.

He does some ads. He was on Jimmy Kimmo once in a while in the skits, but he was a, um, mechanical engineer, went to Michigan tech mm-hmm and, and decided to go out to, um, Hollywood. Have you tried the standup route? 

[01:13:28] Alex Barker, PharmD: No. No. Um, why not? Well, because I'm probably too focused right now on my own thing, but, but, one of my goals for 2019 was to start my own personal channel and I actually have put some short videos of me trying to be funny.

Um, Comedy is subjective. So if you don't think it's funny, I understand. , 

[01:13:52] Mike Koelzer, Host: You know what though, Alex, I don't think I would like comedy because those comedians they're telling the same damn joke. 600 times a year. Yeah. It's 

[01:14:00] Alex Barker, PharmD: very repetitive. Yeah. You know, 

[01:14:02] Mike Koelzer, Host: It's very repetitive even though you're getting a laugh from it.

Yeah. I don't usually do this, but we're with the Moses of pharmacy here. So what tidbit would you have to give to somebody right 

[01:14:14] Alex Barker, PharmD: now? I think the best advice I could ever give is to build relationships. Um, I don't know what it is about pharmacists, but it seems like so many people are scared to approach other people and to even just help people.

Um, it seems like people feel like networking is sleazy and I hate that term, but I wouldn't be where I am today, if it wasn't for the relationships of others. And I think a lot of successful people would say the same thing. So. Reach out to me, I'm sure Mike would be amenable to talking with you as well, but there's a lot of people out there who are really positive and they wanna help.

So simply just reach out, find out a way for you to bring value to them and find out what you could do to help them and build a genuine relationship. I think every pharmacist did that. We would be in a much better place. 

[01:15:05] Mike Koelzer, Host: I'm gonna be a devil's 

advocate on that. Alex, 

[01:15:07] Alex Barker, PharmD: Do, 

Do you do this for all your other guests?

[01:15:13] Mike Koelzer, Host: How many devils do we have 

[01:15:14] Alex Barker, PharmD: I've listened to them? I don't remember. Devil's advocate session. 

[01:15:17] Mike Koelzer, Host: No, only for the ones that 

i have such good advice that I have to crack it a little bit. 

[01:15:22] Alex Barker, PharmD: Oh shush Okay. What's the devil's advocate? What is he saying? 

[01:15:26] Mike Koelzer, Host: Are you just noticing that in pharmacists? Because you're so good at it.

And you spend so much time with pharmacists that, you know, that. They don't easily get into relationships or are able to compare that to other fields and pharmacists really don't seem to have professional relationships as much. I'll give you 

[01:15:54] Alex Barker, PharmD: a story. Yeah. To explain my viewpoint on this. Yeah. If you're a pharmacist, you may have never had the pleasure of going to a conference outside of your profession.

Mm. I would encourage you to do so, because what you will find is a conference with a lot of people having fun. right. This isn't a dig at any particular association, but for whatever reason, even our parties, our places where people are supposed to be having fun are so boring by comparison. Yeah. Um, when I got into business, I started to go to business conferences and like software development, right.

And tech founders. Yeah. And podcasters as well. And these people I'm like, why, why is everyone, everyone here is so happy and willing to talk to you. Yeah. And they're willing to introduce themselves and they find, you know, me engaging and interesting and you go to pharmacy and. I, don't wanna bash our profession.

I know, but it's like, we don't know how to have a good time. We don't know how to talk to other people. We know how to stay in our cliques and who we know. And, um, if I, if I don't know you, then I don't, you know, I'll be, I'm gonna be guarded. I'm not gonna open up to you. Right. So I do, I think it is a profession wide problem.

That's 

[01:17:18] Mike Koelzer, Host: interesting. Some of it I could see because like, I know the independence maybe since the last, let's say the last 12 years since the last recession and things have been tough and so on. So they stand around a bitch and stuff like that. But you're probably seeing that with people who are not affected that way, and you've done the sifting in your mind to say, no, this is just who these pharmacists are.

[01:17:40] Alex Barker, PharmD: Yeah. I don't think it's intentional. Yeah. I think it's just our profession. I think more guarded and, um, it translates into a more difficult time networking. Um, I won't deny that it is easier for me to talk to people. I do feel like I'm more extroverted, but even if you're an introverted simple thing, no, I'm a hard five out 10.

Oh, don't let Mike fool you come on. Um, don't let Mike fool you. I, I have come to terms with, I'm a hard five out of 10. Okay. Maybe a six. My wife thinks I'm a 10, but she's biased. Mm-hmm um, I wish I was good. Looking like Brad Pitt, my business would probably be more successful, you know, to your point about the attention, right?

Yeah. um, but I, um, I, I, I don't know how we change this as a profession. 

[01:18:33] Mike Koelzer, Host: It's gotta be that pharmacy attracts that. Yeah. It couldn't be that you change that much as a pharmacist. Well, it's gotta be either it attracts a set or when they get into the culture, it automatically brings them down to that level.

Maybe that's it. 

[01:18:47] Alex Barker, PharmD: I think it's a myriad of factors, but I do think our psychology as a profession is a major cause of this, a pharmacist. And, um, he has a PhD in psychology, I believe, uh, zoom in Austin. He has written multiple things about the psychology of pharmacists and, and he's brought up these things before: isn't nature or nurture really, are we our own worst enemy?

Are we attracting the right people? There's studies out there. Wow. That shows that the vast majority of pharmacists, um, did not choose pharmacy as their first profession. Mm. That has implications. Like sure. Some of us are self-loathing, you know, some of us have we say many of our clients that we've talked to say things like.

I wish I was a carpenter. I wish I was a plumber. I wish I was, you know, a business owner or I did something completely else because that's what I wanted to do since I was a kid. How do you coach these people who have built up lifestyles that necessitate a pharmacist salary? When, you know, they would be happier making toys?

I mean, right. We have, we, we are a weird and odd profession and I have been looking for other professions that have the same issues we have. And I haven't found a single one. 

[01:20:09] Mike Koelzer, Host: Arguably if someone doesn't have the grades or funding or look of the draw to be an MD, a doctor, they might default to pharmacy.

Well, let's just say versus the other way around, there's probably not too many people that try for pharmacy school and then default to be an MD because they couldn't, you know, You, 

[01:20:35] Alex Barker, PharmD: you know, right. Yeah. There are those few, you know, that complete the pharmacy degree and then they go to school to become a doctor.

There's very few of those, but we do hear stories of them. But on the flip side, I have never once heard of a doctor becoming a pharmacist. 

[01:20:53] Mike Koelzer, Host: Sure. And, so the question would be then in addition to people, maybe having the golden handcuffs and doing pharmacy more for the money versus the pleasure of being a carpenter, it's also people that meant to be a doctor and they feel their second status.

[01:21:07] Alex Barker, PharmD: Now I would agree with you. I think I, I, I don't , I don't know if I would add repressed to our profession, but I do feel like a lot of people, you know, had different dreams for themselves when they practice. I wanted to write a book I wanted to create, I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to do all these weird and other things, but they were unsafe and impractical.

Well, if you feel that way, I would encourage you. You live in one of the best times in the world's history to do crazy things like that and to make a living. Um, but it does take some lifestyle changes to adopt something like 

[01:21:50] Mike Koelzer, Host: that. I tell my kids that all the time, I'm like, you guys don't know you're in the first generation ever that one, you have the options.

You don't have to sleep with Harvey Weinstein or whatever the guy's name is, you know, to get to the next level. It's Justin Bieber's whoever's best on YouTube, just like soccer players, you know, whatever kid running around, you know, in whatever country it is, it can rise to the top. That's number one.

And number two, once you find something, you can do it basically for free. You can do it on your phone or on the computer. We're in a crazy, amazing time. Opportunity, but you gotta be good at it. 

[01:22:28] Alex Barker, PharmD: You do. Um, yeah, but I mean, even right now I have a side hustle where I just do voice over work. Um, typically for countries outside of the us.

And if I wanted to, I could just do that full time. Wow. Um, but it's just something fun, something I do. And it doesn't take much time and I enjoy it. It's so easy to make money. Um, and it's why, again, I love entrepreneurship because you can have a hundred people pay you a thousand dollars. You lose one person, then just go get another.

But to have one person pay you a hundred thousand dollars, they can decide at a whim Mr. Business owner to just let you know you go. And, um, you're done now. You gotta go find another job. That's more risky. 

[01:23:19] Mike Koelzer, Host: I love that position you're in because you trust yourself, you trust yourself that you're resourceful in order to, and, and can do something that's valuable.

[01:23:27] Alex Barker, PharmD: Sometimes I do have considerable self-doubt 

[01:23:30] Mike Koelzer, Host: you put on an air of being able to have that trust in yourself. Okay. On the far side, though, is a job that you get fired from the next day. I've always been in a position that if my business starts going down, I've got like maybe, hopefully like three years to jump off the ship.

But as an employee, I mean, I, I couldn't imagine being a banker or something, having this huge mortgage. And then the next day you have zero 

[01:23:57] Alex Barker, PharmD: income like that, and everyone thinks that's the safe way to go. No, it's the opposite. It's what I thought. Um, you know, you get all this money for doing a job. Now I would argue that it is still a safe route, as long as you are really good.

And you have a reputation for being someone who delivers on the same amount of value. Unfortunately, what happens to most is they just coast in their job, right? Yeah. They just do their job. They go to work, they come home and that's it. Right. They don't, they don't pursue their passions at their job. They don't really develop their skills or abilities.

And so they end up being dispensable. Yeah. So yeah, that's the condition. We find so many people, unfortunately, I 

[01:24:41] Mike Koelzer, Host: like what you're doing Alex, in terms of having people believe in themselves and believe in you that you can find them a better match, a true match, and not just say, well, reach for the stars.

And, uh, and we're, we're willing to have a failure rate for those of you that don't do it, but we're gonna keep preaching this reach for the stars and anything kind of thing. When 

[01:25:06] Alex Barker, PharmD: I talk with people who join our class, mainly our, our main one. Um, I, I tell everyone, look, I wanna brag about you. I, I want you to get into a new job.

I can never guarantee that you're going to get that new one. Right. Right. What I can guarantee is that we're gonna figure out a path to get there. Um, and we're in it for the long haul. Yeah. So we work with people for, you know, a long time. The average, I think there was a recent stat that came out and said, the average job search for a pharmacist is now like 18 months.

Geez. It has been a long time. It's been a long time. And, and it's the truth of the market. And it really it's, but it's also dependent on all the unique things that you have for you because getting a new job is not an easy thing. Um, especially if you have a bunch of limiting factors, like I don't wanna move. Right. I don't wanna work for a startup.

I don't want to, um, You, I wanna work from home. There's all sorts of things that limit people from taking jobs that they could easily get. Right. But maybe, maybe you're not paid as much. Maybe you're, it's only part-time. I mean, there's so much that you could do that you could work up to make more. Yeah. I usually argue that if you get a job that you love, what you do, you're paid less, you are significantly more likely to generate revenue outside of that because you love the work and you create opportunities or you drive more revenue for the company and you get a raise for sure.

Like the, the ceiling for pharmacists is so low. For what we can make. Yeah. 150, 180 and maybe some executive positions, right. Or, or director levels. And that's, it 

[01:26:54] Mike Koelzer, Host: sounds good to a 25 year old, right? Yeah. It's a fairly low ceiling. Mm-hmm well, Alex, I am a big fan. I'm gonna remain a big fan. Thank you. That sounds negative.

Like after I talk to you for a couple hours, I'm still gonna win a big fan. 

[01:27:09] Alex Barker, PharmD: I've you've passed my test. I will continue to talk to you. I'm a big 

[01:27:12] Mike Koelzer, Host: fan. I'm gonna be a bigger fan. Let me put it that way. All right, Alex. God bless. Keep up the good fight. Thanks.