The Impact of AI on Pharmacists | Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, Your Financial Pharmacist

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Mike Koelzer, Host: [00:00:00] Tim, for those that haven't come across you online, introduce yourself and tell our listeners what we're gonna talk about today.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: My name is Tim Ulbrich. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Your Financial Pharmacist, where we help pharmacists at all stages of their career and lives achieve financial freedom 

 Today we're gonna build upon the discussion we had last time talking about, the value and the ROI of the pharmacy degree and the college experience. And, we'll touch on that a little bit, but we're gonna shift gears and talk about some of the evolutions that we're seeing in technology.

 a little bit about chat G p T three and how this might impact us as a profession. And perhaps even, look at what are some things that folks are doing to take some risks or calculated risks out there as we look at the impact of this technology and what might be the future state of our profession as a result of this.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Up until recently, a year and a half ago or so, you still had Ohio State on your check and even though you weren't doing something directly with the patient, ultimately some of that money coming to you was because somebody was being cared for in a pharmaceutical way for the first time.

Now though, you are sort of in pharmacy, but if you look at your paycheck, or maybe lack thereof if you're in business, but if you look at your paycheck, there's nothing about that company that is caring medically for patients.

October: With that said, you're never really totally divorced from what you're doing impacting the health of others, or at least the mental health. 

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: My team's working one-on-one, or folks that are engaging with our content podcast or whatever, and it's having a positive impact on their financial plan.

We know from employer surveys and other studies that have been done, folks take a lot of baggage from their personal finances and the stress that often comes from that into. Their workplaces. Now, of course, that's not excluding just a pharmacist. That's true of anyone. I think if you have significant financial stress, that doesn't just go away when you walk into the doors of work and then come back when you walk into your doors of home.

Right? we tend to carry that as an underlying stress of the day. And so I like to believe, and we obviously need some more literature to support this and there's other professions that are ahead of us. Veterinary medicine is one I'd point to that really understands the importance of financial wellness as a part of being a holistic practitioner.

And, I think for obvious reasons, we're starting to see some traction in that in pharmacy as well.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I've always been an owner and so I've never been in that position to feel like, my significant other is on my ass because, you're not standing up to your boss to make more money or, you don't feel like you have to

state your claim with your boss and prove yourself and things like that. We have stressed Tim from the other side of maybe feeling if we're giving enough to the staff and all this kind of stuff, but besides just maybe not having enough money, there's a lot of psychology if you are in the field and you said it takes a toll on their day, of course it does.

Not just because you don't have the money, but maybe you're not proud of yourself or things like that. There's a lot to it.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah. That's a layer deeper, right? I think that stress around finances is really the surface of what we see when we often talk with folks one-on-one. When you start to really peel back the layers of the onion, that's when you get to the stuff you're exactly talking about, right? It could be feelings of insignificance or, I had these hopes or dreams or wishes, and how do we reckon when we start to see that maybe it's not going as we had thought as we had planned along the way.

And, the disappointment, the shame, the guilt that can come in that tho Those are the types of things that I think weigh heavily on folks over time. and that's something that's, It's hard to measure, right? We often look at the financial plan and it's, how much are we saving for retirement?

Are we on track with our nest egg? Do we have the right insurance? I mean, all of that is important stuff, but it's Xs and Os and what we actually see in the industry, which I think is really interesting, is that is becoming commoditized as it should on some level, like, achieving the metrics and checking the boxes.

It's not a very complicated plan. It's the softer, more emotional side of the financial plan that really the value in a coach, a mentor, or a planner, an advisor, whatever you want to call them. Their value in today's day and age is becoming less and less tied to, Hey, have I helped Mike achieve this number, or this metric, or this goal?

And really it's about the things we're really diving into right now, which is why do I care about money in the first place? What does success mean? What does it look like to live a rich life? And yes, the dollars and cents are there to support that, but you know, are we on track with those other things as well?

and that I think takes more time, it takes more relationships to really get there, more accountability, and I think that's harder to commoditize. And so that's really the model we're trying to build. You said, you know, as an owner, you [00:05:00] know, you didn't necessarily have to, you know, have that stress of, of reporting to your boss and advocating for yourself or compensation and things. And, and, and I would agree with that as an owner of the business, that piece of it is obvious. Very different. Now there's other stresses that come into play.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: You mentioned, one, obviously thinking about your team, as an owner and determining what you are going to take home as compensation and how much should I reinvest in the business and my team versus taking home. There's a lot to unpack there, but there's a whole nother layer that is probably one of the areas I didn't really anticipate as much when I made that transition, which is just so much of the, I dunno if you wanna call it inner work or kind of working through your own head trash or your fears or, self-limiting believe, whatever you want to call it, that you are protected as an employee to, I think often not have to face that version of yourself and have those conversations when you are out there, growing a business, whether you have a team or you don't have a team and it's you.

Sitting down with yourself trying to identify where am I going and why am I going, what am I trying to achieve? Wow. Like, that's the hard but transformative work that I didn't see coming into the last year and a half that I don't think that, there's certainly stresses of the business, but I did not see the value of that work being a piece of this transition.

And so I'd love to even hear your thoughts. You've been at this much, much longer than I have. But like, those are experiences that if I would've stayed on my quote, traditional, non-traditional, whatever you want to call it, academic track for 30 years, I don't know if I would've ever had that look in the mirror and have had to dig deep and done some of that self-reflection and

growth. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: yeah. I think the, um, and Tim, you and I have talked on your show about, where do you come up with your visions and. Goals and feelings and so on. And pretty much for me is all of that really starts on my to-do list. It's every thought I have really goes into my do list.

And that could be anything from, um, Whatever, conquer the world. And the next thing on there is, buy more Sharpie markers or something like that, because it's all on your mind. It's all there. And if you spend too much time thinking about your role in the world, you're gonna forget to order the Sharpie markers.

And if you spend too much time on the Sharpie markers, you're gonna forget your goals in the world. And there's a lot of great thoughts on that, quadrant one and two and three, thinking, you know, where is it important in the short term, or is it important in the long term?

And so on. And I guess as a business owner, you don't really get the luxury of even deciding where you're thinking in the moment of what quadrant you're in. you want to be in a spot where you're. in the quadrant of important things that are not urgent. Those get forgotten about a lot.

 It's okay to read the books, but as a parent and a business owner, daily, you've gotta be thinking about your, you know,the dog food and what life's gonna look like.

20 years from now, you're spinning through these thoughts like ever. , 10 minutes, you're going through, okay, short-term goal, long-term goal, and practical. Every 10 minutes you're thinking, why am I doing this?

Mike Koelzer, Host: You don't get the luxury of that when you're not a business owner. And I don't think I would trade that for the world.

 I couldn't agree with you more, Mike and Parenting's such a great example, right? I've got four boys. You've gotten me beat on the, uh, nu number of children category and phase of life that they're in. But, from what I've experienced so far, why it's such a great example of business, I've often said that just like business parenting has really shown a light on so many limitations that have always been there.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: I just don't know if I've been honest with how they've been there and had to, really address them and deal with them. But you know, to your point about the four quadrants, We can plan the best that we can and put all these tasks in these different quadrants. But, whether it's business or parenting, like guess what?

Tomorrow's gonna throw things at us that we don't know are coming. and I would even argue my experience so far in building the business is, guess what? Sometimes you just gotta be putting out the fires. And then there's a time and a phase for, I'm gonna develop the systems and the processes and I'm gonna hire the people and I'm gonna step out and let it grow and delegate and let it flourish.

But I, if we're not careful, like, guess what? Sometimes you just gotta grind it out as you're building something and you just gotta jump in and it's gonna be messy and it's not gonna be perfect. And if you try to overlay all these automations and systems and processes, all the things that we know we need to do over the long run and hire the people, it ain't gonna work until sometimes we just get in there and iterate and test and figure it out.

And then, . And then when it's validated and we know we've kind of worked out the kinks and somebody can probably do it better than we can, okay, now let's bring in the person. We validate a model, let's [00:10:00] operationalize this and scale it and grow it and do all these things. But if we start there, it's not gonna work always.

And so think that even having that flexibility of mindset of, using the quadrants as an example in business or in parenting, I think of my four boys and how different they are and how the different the seasons and the days can be and how I approach my three year old and how I approach my 11 year old, guess what, they need to be very different

Um, so yeah. That's a great point.

Mike Koelzer, Host: It's a between, chaos and order. Jordan Peterson, a psychiatrist online, spends a lot of time on this, but

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah.

Mike Koelzer, Host: That's where I love to be, Tim.

And as an owner, Typically you 

have that ability to, you wake up in the morning and you want a little bit more chaos. So you bring a little bit of that and you think about it, you read about a new online something or other, and, uh, and then later in the day, there's too much chaos and you wanna bring some order in.

So you say, we're gonna touch on that tomorrow. and there's a beautiful line to walk down, right in that middle line. And I think sometimes you get less control of that when you are, you'd think you'd have less control of that when you're an owner, but you really don't have control of that when you're an employee.

and the beauty of ownership, for me at least, is I hate being bored and I hate being too frazzled, but right in the middle is really nice.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah. And I would just add to that cuz I, I'm with you on that, is, sometimes I like to ruffle the feathers and, what can we do that can grow and evolve and test, test something different? And there's other times where it's like we, we need some systems and a little bit of peace right?

Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. This is kind of cliche, but pharmacists are known for, doing what's in front of them, and that's a real beautiful spot to be sometimes too, where, we talked about this author David Allen Tim, and he said one of his times where he felt most at peace was when He woke up and the storm had come up was on his boat that was about ready to crash into the rocks.

 And he looked up at the moon, and said he just felt this overwhelming piece because he knew. Where he was supposed to be in that moment 

October: Which was of course saving the boat and his wife who was sleeping.

Mike Koelzer, Host: and as you and I were talking, we don't always get that. As owners, we think this needs to be tweaked and that needs to be tweaked.

We rarely fall into a space and rightfully so and thankfully that we're not content, but there's a beautiful thing of sometimes showing up to work and someone says, do this for eight hours, and there's some beauty in that.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah. There. I think there, and I think this goes back to. Like some honest self-reflection about who you are and what you want. and as much as I'm bullish on, as much as I'm bullish on business ownership and entrepreneurship, like I recognize that aligns with my personality and my skill set.

I'm not here to advocate, and I often, you know, am wondering like, is that message coming across? And I don't want it to, I'm not advocating that entrepreneurship is for everyone. it's not. And I actually think there's somewhat of an over glorification of entrepreneurship that's going on right now that, in part because of social media and a lot of other factors, we see these companies going in and these unicorn businesses.

And it's like you and I both know that if you look at the success rates of small businesses, they're not great. And for those that are quite successful, many people are grinding it out for a long period of time, and perhaps they're building wealth because of growth in the business over time because of real estate and other things.

But it's not the glorification of going public with a stock and becoming a billionaire overnight. But there's this over glorification that I think is happening and somewhat of a false portrayal of what the lifestyle of an entrepreneur looks like. And I wouldn't trade it for the world.

But I also, your comment about, there's something peaceful for many people about, Hey, I know exactly what's expected for me, and I get here at eight and I leave at five and I don't have to carry this home with me and some of the stress and unknowns. Like, I get it. I get it. and I'm not here to say like, go be an entrepreneur like that.

That's not it.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Jim, so a year and a half ago you left some of the more traditional stuff to finally go full-time into your financial business. Has there ever been a point for you, either a dream or pressure or question to say it's pharmacy too narrow? Sometimes I'll do that just thinking to myself with a podcast, and I'm like, is pharmacy too narrow?

It's like, no, because as soon as I jump out into the non narrowness of pharmacy talking about business, well, who's gonna listen to this old guy instead of, Simon Sinek or some leadership guy, or,

Rogan. There's no reason. Because it's smaller, I can do a better job because I know pharmacy. So there's no way that any of those guys mentioned could do a better job in pharmacy. I mean, they might have some nuggets, but an overall show, [00:15:00] this is the best spot for me.

When you think about that with financial, will this be the best spot for you? Do you dabble in thinking? I could multiply this 10 times if I wasn't with these low life pharmacists?

 it's interesting that you bring up this question because if I had to say what is the most common question I get from other, Pharmacy entrepreneurs out there, it's why just pharmacy like, ha, haven't you thought about, dentists or veterinarians or, why don't you broaden out to at least a bigger niche like healthcare?

Why are you kind of boxing yourself in? And before I kind of answer how I typically think through that, one of the things I've tried to do is not only in answering that question, but also just thinking about where we're going over the next five or 10 years, is how much of the response to that is ego, right?

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: So how much of that is, oh, what, where am I trying to go and what does success look like and what am I chasing? I think another part is really being honest with yourself about, like, are there any self-limiting beliefs that are impacting your answer to that question first? So I say that because I think for some people, maybe the umbrella is bigger than the pharmacy, but it's because of their beliefs of what's possible that they're saying, no, I really needed to stay in my lane.

Okay. . and then I think the third part to answering that question is really, what work is still to be done within the niche before you even kind of consider, what else may be out there, for us as we think about pharmacy and that, that's where I go with really as I answer this question as it relates to Y F P.

there's 300 plus thousand pharmacists that are out there in the country. And if I look at those that we're working with, in terms of monetizing the work and the business that we're doing, scratching the surface is probably the best way that I can put it. And, we've certainly made, I think, incredible progress in growing the business and the awareness of the brand nationally and all these things.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: But I truly believe, the mission of the work that we're doing is to really put a dent in financial wellness. Of the profession of pharmacy so that when I think back in 20, 30, 40 years, maybe I'm doing this, maybe somebody else is picking up the work. It's not about what Tim and Tim have done.

It's about the work of Y F P and the mission towards helping pharmacists achieve financial freedom. That because we can make an impact on financial literacy in the profession, indebtedness of pharmacy graduates can, can we really make some inroads there? Can we implement curricula across all 140 plus colleges that really address this topic?

Can we really move forward pharmacy entrepreneurship and then what is the impact of the tentacles of that work? We are just getting started on that journey. So the other piece I often think about is the reason I got into this in 2015. I started talking about this as a pharmacist to other pharmacists about my financial journey in financial wellness because nobody else was talking about this in pharmacy.

in terms of, sharing about the journeys and the debt loads and the goals. We see examples that were out there in medicine. There's some examples out there in other professions. So our unique advantage, our differential advantage over the last seven years in growing the business has been the inroads in the profession.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: So, I'll never say never, I, I think I'm open to that as we, we look at where the business may go into the future, or who knows, maybe wake up in five years and for whatever reason, we're not in the seat of running this business and someone else is, and you know what's on the horizon in the future?

But for me, when I think about the 10 year vision of YFP, all of that is still within the profession of pharmacy.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. It's an awfully big profession with 300,000, to seem to be able to, have a, I think it's, I think it's easier for people to, when, especially when maybe a business isn't going well, they think that the market's too small, and it's like, yeah, but you haven't done anything in this market yet, Antonio Chacha said it best. We were talking about grassroots advocacy. And a lot of people, they wanna jump right into federal, you know, and he is like, listen, you haven't even changed this thing in your county yet. don't think so high on that. So some people can do it too fast, I suppose.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Well, and he's a great example. I got a chance to work with Antonio here in Ohio 

for the better part of a decade. And I saw the, I mean the playbook of what he did is the playbook of growing a business. It's being patient and getting compounding wins that you can build upon. And he transformed the profession of pharmacy in the state of Ohio, which obviously he's now taken to a national platform.

And through that credibility and through those achievements, has been able to, have inroads. But if you jump into those things on the federal level, I think the same is true in growing a business. And that kind of gets back to my comment about over glorification of entrepreneurship is that, when I look back at what we've been doing over seven years and now really you start to see some of the exponential growth in, whether, whatever metric you wanna look at, is it business revenue?

Is it following the brand, whatever. But guess what? A lot of that time. When building, you're putting one block on top of another. Uh, and I really believe patience is the [00:20:00] name of the game, especially when you're building, business as well.

and that's hard. Cause I think there's so much pressure from folks out there right now of like, grow a business, launch it, monetize it, get a massive following. I think those are so rare. Like, having a big vision that you care about and developing a product, a service or solution that's gonna solve a problem that people are willing to care about.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: And that takes time to build and to do. And I'm just fearful that folks may see that path as being easier than it really is.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Sometimes, unfortunately, unless you're one of the early ones, let's say you see someone on, social media doing something, as soon as you see them doing it, in a way, it's too late for you unless you've narrowed down the niche somehow or something like that.

As soon as you see Neil Armstrong in 1969 on TV walking on the moon and you say, I'm gonna walk on the moon, it's like too late. mean, not just because he's the first one, but because it was years and years of that.

So people seeing even the quick social media burst, on certain networks, that ship has sailed already. two or three years ago, where the big responses were. Now you gotta, open up for the next thing and business in general. And so, yeah, to your point, Tim, it doesn't happen overnight and it's not gonna happen overnight if you see it happening basically.

that is for sure. One of the coolest things, Mike, on this journey over the last year and a half is, I get to have conversations like this on the regular each week, and I'm sure you would say the same, like running the podcast each week. I mean, we're getting ready to get to episode 300, which has been fun.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: But

That is, thank you. That, that one of the neatest parts of that journey has been just having all of these conversations and meeting really interesting people, right. That is on this journey. and one of the things I often hear when I talk with folks that are on the front part of exploring pharmacy, entrepreneurship, side hustles, whatever you want to call it, I think they often.

Are kind of leaving themselves too vague, too broad. as they build out a website or Business u usually I'll be quick to kind of look at that website and say like, what are you offering and who is your target audience? Because it feels like something's being built and you're trying to kind of make it for everyone.

And I think some of that just comes from the conversation we're having. Some of that comes from this fear of like, am I thinking too small? and I can appreciate that thought, but you know, as you and I both know, if I try to build a generic financial business, I mean maybe I'll have success, maybe I won't.

But guess what? There's a lot of those out

there, a lot of those out there. And I really believe in the common and made earlier, I really believe that business is on some level, Becoming a commodity, and I think we'll see that, within my lifetime. And so how do you further differentiate yourself in a market?

Um, what's your differential advantage? What's your unique advantage? That, not to say someone can't enter the space as well, but you know, over time that may become a little bit more difficult to penetrate. And then also something that obviously aligns with, the passion that you have and the impact that you wanna have.

And if all of those things line up and you can charge for whatever product or service in a way that you're building something profitable, I think that's where the magical experience can be.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Seth Goden, I 

like his stuff in marketing and one of the things he says is, build your business on the smallest viable market so as soon as you find a market that you can make it with, stop, maybe do it in another market, if you don't stop and then you go broad, someone else who, that's enough for them, that's their viable market, they're gonna come in and take it.

So you gotta be careful before you go too wide. You have to have enough to get up there, but then if you go too wide, you get in some trouble.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah. And then the messaging becomes really hard. I think if we just put ourselves in the user standpoint, we all open our inboxes. I mean, I just went through and deleted 50, 60 messages before we got onto the call today. all these lists I'm opted into and subscribed. And I think when we're writing them, we think like, oh, everyone's hanging on every word I'm writing, and what about this?

And the broader you go, the harder it is to get attention from people and to actually speak to them in a meaningful

way. And, when I think about our business as one example, pharmacy, finance, on some level. I can speak to the audience, I just know the niche and finance, but even within that, we're often trying to segment like, okay, are you a new practitioner?

Are you a student? Are you in the middle of your career? Are you approaching retirement? Are you interested in taxes? Are you trying to buy a home? Are you more interested in investing? And if we can get to that level of customization of, okay, Mike is a pharmacist who's an independent owner who's trying to optimize his tax situation.

And I can speak to that because of that segmentation, I've got a better chance to cut through the noise. and I think only in a niche can you get to that level of segmentation and then directly speaking in a way that hopefully your product or service, you can draw a straight line between that solution and the problem that someone.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I had that with the podcast. There was a podcast show that [00:25:00] kind of got on me for naming mine the business of pharmacy. And this person's like, that's my niche. It's like, no, your niche is general pharmacy podcasts. The fact that I've gone smaller into the business of pharmacy, precludes me from a lot of the stuff this person could do.

Not that I want to, but I'm not gonna have a show on, the chemical structures and 

all that kind of stuff. And there's gonna be other podcasts that niche down further. They're gonna say, I'm not in the pharmacy business. I'm in the, um, business of independent farming,or women's business.

Something like that. And it's like, that's my fault. I've got to my viable market. I could go narrower, but you're gonna lose out. And if you go higher, you lose out. That's where you fall into your space.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah. And let me challenge folks and I'm not, there is no judgment when I'm saying I, I have fallen into this trap of, maybe I see someone out there who's, doing something on personal finance and pharmacy and if you're not careful, if you get hung up into that, like, to me, that's a really interesting indicator of, some underlying fear and some of the self-limiting beliefs that we have inside it.

And I think that, I'm a firm believer, not to say competition isn't real, um, but with so much need out there, we talked about more than 300,000 pharmacists. Like, there is value in if there's more conversation happening on this topic, whether I'm leading it alone or we have two or three other people, like that's good for the overall efforts, right.

Of what we're trying to do. So, um, I don't know. I just think we gotta be careful about that in, in a niche profession of, com competition among, businesses and pharmacy entrepreneurs and other things like there, there's a lot of work to be done.

 But I, I think there's, there is so much opportunity, within our profession anytime I hear the mass complaints about the profession and the workforce challenges and all these things that all the state boards are looking at. Not to minimize any of those concerns, but that means that we are ripe for disruption and innovation.

Now, we may or may not like the outcome of what comes from that, but it's coming. The train has left the station for disruption and innovation. And so if you're opportunistic and you're thinking like an entrepreneur, when you look at metrics like healthcare outcomes and shortages of staffing and workplace condition challenges, there's solutions in there that are primed for some business opportunities.

Now what do those look like? And does our ego in our profession, like the outcome of that? We're gonna find out,

you know, here in the next decade. But there, there's a lot of opportunity for disruption. Innovation.

Mike Koelzer, Host: , it's interesting that you mentioned the train leaving the station. Most people know it by now, chat, G p t, artificial intelligence writing and so on. It's interesting because growing up, you always heard that artificial intelligence was gonna hit from the blue up, the blue collar up.

It was gonna be hamburger flippers and all that kind of stuff. And I don't think many people thought that this was coming from the top down, attorneys and writers and pharmacists and everything like that. 

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah, there are, and I think, chat G p T is a really interesting example, and one I've been trying to understand and digest and interact with and play with myself. Think about what this means for, you know, my wife and I have had multiple conversations late at night, perhaps with a glass of wine or two, but what, what does this mean for our kids or our homeschool?

And what's important? and I say that because I think what we need to be doing, whether it relates to the professional pharmacy, whether it relates to our children in education, is we need to be engaging with the conversation. And it feels like, in the conversations I've been having, Mike, it feels like there's sort of this two ended discussion of like, chat G P T is, this next huge wave that, e every one of these jobs is gonna be gone tomorrow.

And then there's this other end of the spectrum that's like an instant objection to the technology and like, ah, no, it, it can't really, do 

you know what it says it can do? 

AndI don't know enough about it yet to conclude where we are, but I have a feeling we're in between those somewhere and the only way we can have meaningful discussions. How might pharmacy education be impacted by this? How might the professional pharmacy be impacted by this? What does this look like, challenges of jobs and opportunities for jobs? And I've been thinking about how we can leverage and utilize technology in the business. The only way we get there is by one, having an open mind to learning, understanding, interacting with it, and having some conversations and discussions that perhaps, include both ends of those spectrums and some in-betweens.

And I, it feels like to me, may, maybe this is my bias of spending more than a decade in academia, it feels like to me there's gonna be kind of this instant resistance from like an academic setting where the knee jerk reaction is like, oh, well we need to then test in ways that we can ensure they didn't use chat G P T.

And to me it's like, is that missing the point? Like maybe that's a knee jerk response for the next few years, but, is testing and assessing in a way that we know a student doesn't use chat, G B t, meaning that like they come into the classroom, we watch them, we make sure, [00:30:00] like are we missing the point?

Are we missing the point about what skills are necessary and essential, which are not? And how do we adopt? I mean, that to me is the conversation we need to be happening and needs to be happening. And I just hope that we're going to be open to that. And whether that's in educational models, K through 12 higher education, whether it relates to what this means for patient counseling and education, and big box farms.

I mean, all these conversations I think are really interesting. Um, and time will tell, but I guess my hope and encouragement would be let's have a conversation. Let's talk about it, let's debate it and let's beat it up.

Mike Koelzer, Host: If you think about all the strides that have been made in pharmacy it's like the death rate.

I know Covid is involved, but the death age has gone down, it's like, I don't know, 78 years old in America. Maybe it 

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Mm-hmm. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: a couple years ago. It's like there's a lot of technology out there, but not a lot of it has improved life expectancy. 

And so you look at things like chat, G P T, and you say, can something like that help? So schools are no longer thinking about the stuff you just mentioned, whether it's fake or real, get away from that. And maybe once you get rid of that, maybe some ideas come in because all the monkey work, all the writing and stuff like that has taken place.

So , maybe it allows for more ideas to come to, let's raise the life expectancy up to 85, instead of you and I spending two hours writing an email, you know, multiplying that by billions. And maybe that thought process can go into helping things that matter.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: And that's a great example of like, is it somewhere in the middle here? Right. I've thought of things like, e emails that I'll labor over, about the right word or this or that, that have inconsequential significance in the scheme 

of everything else that is taking up time, But then there, I think there are other things, like my wife and I were talking the other night, our boys in their homeschool curriculum. It's very heavy. It's a classical education, very heavily focused on. Understanding the anatomy of grammar construct, I mean levels of grammar that I obviously never learned or faked my way through 1 1, 1 or the other.

I don't know which. And it's interesting cuz we were talking about like, if you look at the output of Chat, G B T, like it arguably can even in the current version, and we know that the four versions coming out, in a little bit that everyone says who has seen it. Like just wait until number four comes out.

But the output of it, like when I've used it with the prompts, granted you gotta get better at asking the right

questions, which is another skill.

Like maybe we're gonna see a Yeah. But you look at the output and you're like, that's. Pretty darn good. My wife used to work as a, um, PR coordinator for a small community hospital.

And one of her tasks that she often would do is they would write a press release for, a new CEO was hired or they're opening up a breast cancer surgery center, whatever. And so we said, Hey, chat, G P T, like Madison County Hospital, the hospital she used to work for here in London, Ohio, is opening a new breast cancer surgery center.

And we gave it some other parameters to write a press release. And guess what? It was really good. Like it was really

goodand, but what was interesting about the conversation is we said, okay, does that change the need for the early levels of education around grammar and grammar construct and all these details?

And we're like, I don't know, like you, you look at the output of chat G P T and you're like, well, that's really good or bad, and you only know or understand that. Because of having the foundation and the backbone of to, to know what is good or to know what is okay or to know what is bad. And so I heard a podcast last week or the week before of an English high school teacher that was starting to kind of play with it and bring it into the curriculum.

And one of the takeaways that, that she had was, it really challenges you to really think about the questions you're

asking. Um, and maybe less about the grammatical output and the quality and the, and obviously the time spent in kind of tinkering that to go from okay to good to great. So, I don't know, I, there is just so much application and obviously the decision and how this does or doesn't transform our K through 12 educational system versus, hey, could it be used to more efficiently write an email?

Well those are very different conversations and consequences. And I guess one of my fears though, Mike, is. And I'll throw higher education under the bus cuz I lived in it for a decade. Like, can we move fast enough? Are we open and willing? Number one, are we open and willing to have these conversations without fears or threats and really have an open mind?

And number two, if we come to a conclusion or conclusions that maybe involve some type of pivot or change disruption, whatever that looks like, can we actually move quickly enough? Right. You think about accreditation standards or curriculums and other things. And I don't think we can right now. I mean, I don't know how that might change in the future, but my fear is that model at large, , [00:35:00] is very antiquated in terms of its ability to move and move quickly with how technology is progressing.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I guess in a way, it doesn't have to be fast enough, it might be trampled, Google has these six month programs that get certification and so on. And it's like, they trampled over taking a 19 year old and having them learn English again or whatever again.

 Thinking about the chat G p T, I guess in a way you could think of what happened with the calculator, as far as knowing the math versus just 

learning it and just learning it to learn. But it's interesting, Tim, what you said about the right questions, because just for an example I'll do a little social media paragraph to introduce the week's podcast and typically, I would just say, I'm just gonna write the damn thing.

You know, listen to this, if this and that, and here's this and that with chat g p T, you throw it in there and you say, okay, I want this. And you look at it and you say, you know what, let's focus that more on pharmacists. Cause I didn't say anything in there about pharmacists being, you know, we talked about this earlier, the niche of that, and then it's pharmacists and it's like, it sounds like I'm telling people to do this.

Make it a little bit more inviting. The

thing is, is more,

casual and let's put a challenge in there about this or that. That stuff you didn't have time for before when you were writing you were thankful just to get it in there without a spelling mistake and. Saying something too stupid.

and so within a week, you know that within a week of using the chat, g p t, you're like, I gotta phrase this a little bit differently. and how much will that help human interaction, just to say, okay, boy chat, g p t has already taught me to phrase my wants better. that kind of stuff.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah. and I think it's teaching the iteration too, right? you mentioned an initial prompt and then you're going back and interacting with it, which I think is a fascinating part of the technology. But let's apply a pharmacy example here. So, I go to the pharmacy, I pick up my prescription for 

vide.

Um,obviously as I walk into the store, busy phones are ringing. I don't want to bother the pharmacist. I don't wanna ask them questions. Maybe I'm nervous about taking this for the first time. they ask me, sign here, do you have any questions? I walk out the door, well, what if instead, whether it's in the comfort of my own home or technology where there's not that pressure and time involved that I could say, Hey, chat g p t, like, tell me the three most important things that I need to know about taking 

Ferros amide, iterate with it.

Oh, I also take these two other medications. What changes here? Or can you give me that at a third grade level instead of a 12th grade level? Or, could you translate that into a different link? I mean, just the iteration and how quickly it can, without being dependent upon somebody being there at a certain time, being available, who's willing and engaged.

And we might not wanna hear that as pharmacists, but let's talk about that. Like, is that a better outcome for patients or not? I don't know yet, but like us, we need to be open and ready to have these conversations.

Mike Koelzer, Host: yeah. And then, you know, there's things like, you're like, well, since you came up with that, it's like, my lighting's not very good in my house and my left hand sometimes goes numb, whatever. You know? And it throws that in there. It's like, oh, well now we, now we covered that.

 Sometimes I get a little bored taking my medicine, you know, what psychologically is going on with me there? I mean, it does so much that it's like the calculator in a way. It does so much. You're doing things you didn't even think were out there.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah. Yeah. And I think I would just encourage folks, I would put myself in the novice at best category of just listening to podcasts, on this. Re reading articles, uh, downloading apps, interacting with the technology. Um, but just to engage with it and make your own initial conclusions, have some discussions and debates.

And I think for my colleagues that are in academia, I really hope that. This is a conversation at faculty meetings. I really do. What does this mean? And my hope is the response and focus is not one out of fear of, oh, how do we change the way we assess? So we know they're not using chat G P T, and maybe that's necessary in the short term.

I get that, but really is one more of what does this mean, bigger picture and where are we going in the future?

Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, I imagine colleges had never been faced with what some businesses are where, if you own a pharmacy you'd find out a pharmacy's going up across the street and they're gonna be there in two months. something like that. 

Colleges have had the luxury of having their big brick buildings and saying, something might change in 25 years.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Let's start to stroke our beard a little bit and think about it, Yeah. But you gave it a great example, you know, just a few minutes ago with Google, you know, we had one of our team 

members recently that like, we have a real need in our business to kind of better optimize and understand our search engine optimization seo. Um, and she's self-taught on her own pace, her own schedule, uh, SEO course, I think it was through uc, Davis and partnership with Google or someone, and now is directly applying those skills to the business.

And [00:40:00] she's a working mom with two kids, helping her sister watch other kids' busy schedules. So the idea of getting an education at a fixed time of the day with a high price. disruption is coming . Like those are two barriers that, like in today's day and age, I often say to my boys, like, if you wanna learn anything, you can learn anything in 2023.

The key is do you have a curiosity of learning and the willingness to go figure it out like that is the piece, the information is there. And so this construct in this idea, and obviously because of regulations and accreditation, standards and licenses and all other reasons, we're gonna hold onto this model probably longer than I think the free market normally would.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Um, but you know, this idea that I go for this product at a specific point in time, at a schedule, and everyone is on the same track, regardless of their abilities to learn and based on schedules of availability when people are there, oh, and by the way, it's extremely expensive, like, Oh my gosh. Like that without question, that model is going to be disrupted for my children.

Mike Koelzer, Host: We just have somebody do this at home on their own time period, we don't have to have these big brick buildings that there's really no reason to have these big brick buildings and the big brick dorms so that the kids can be close to the big brick buildings that don't really have a meaning 

per se. Yeah. And I'm intentionally being provocative because I'm passionate about the transformation that really needs to happen. and I think higher education has a role, has value, but like us, we need to think differently. and I think there's some handcuffs that are on that, um, one would be accreditation standard.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: You look at the process now we're in pharmacy, we, 2016 were the last standards we're now implementing. I think it's standard 2025. Any academic people, I'm wrong on that. It's been a while since I've been in it. the time period. So we're talking about a 10 year time period where change happened. We got input, and now we're rolling out new standards.

So, you have some real limitations on it. With things like accreditation

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: I'll throw 10 year faculty into the mix. How do you really disrupt a business model when you've got a huge percentage of your folks that are protected? like no other business does. Does that model 

exist? 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Hopefully I'm tenured at my spot, but now.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: but these are real barriers that like, I, when you talk about like, either you disrupting, you evolved, or you get trampled on,

like,the academic institutions are gonna really have to figure this out, as we go into the future. And I think we're starting to see a little bit of it happening, but it's gonna come, it's gonna come quickly.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Plus you got the parents that are dishing out sometimes a ton of money. And then you've got the model where the first couple years are half of its liberal arts and you've got a parent saying, I don't agree with the stuff that's being taught in this university or this university, and my kids gotta sit through that in order to get their degree and things like that.

 I want choices. I think they're gonna take advantage of those choices.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Mike, here's an idea I would love your feedback on. I've been thinking, my wife and I have been talking about this for four or five years now. What? What if we really went back to more of an apprenticeship based model? I've often thought about the concept of a gap year and combining that with an apprenticeship focus.

What if you formed a network? Could be business owners, friends, colleagues or whatever. And it's like, Hey, guess what? My son is gonna spend a month with Mike and his pharmacy after high school. Uh, maybe he goes down to Texas with my good friend who's a pastor and gets a totally different experience, with him and my other buddy up in northeast Ohio who is growing an arm of an insurance company working on healthcare insurance.

My brother, who runs a manufacturing company in Buffalo, New York, like, I mean, to me, like, if I think about it, and I'm not saying there's not then a place for a traditional education. I actually didn't at the time of being in pharmacy school, but can appreciate the value of a really strong liberal arts foundation.

I really appreciate the value of a lot of the on-campus experiences I had and the maturity and the growth through that. But what if that jump, I feel like, hey, you're 18, you gotta know what you're gonna do, what's your major like? , what would happen if we had a year or two of this apprenticeship type of model and almost this concept of forming a network of people that would do that.

Mike Koelzer, Host: A few thoughts on that, Tim. One of my daughters says she's going into becoming a beautician, she kinda runs our household. She's one of the younger ones. Here's the problem, Tim, with kids, our two youngest who were once, two and five are now 12 and 15, but they still get their way, like they're two and

five, you know, 

because they never grow up, right? And so this one who wants to do this, She's got business ideas going through her head. She's got, uh, the marketing already done in her head of TikTok and the next thing that's [00:45:00] gonna come out and think of the difference between now and 15 years ago. Like if your son or daughter says, I want to be a beautician, or whatever you call it, and it's like, are you sure, honey?

You don't want to get a degree. And now you hear the, you hear someone who says they're gonna be a , I know beautician's not the right word, but when I see her, I'm like, wow, what a great thing.

what a

Mike Koelzer, Host: wonderful entrepreneurial business thing. And 

then as someone else says, you're gonna go to, you know, business school, I'm like, oh, good luck but, When you talk about those apprentices, Tim, I had Chad Halverson on from when I work a couple years ago on the show, and that's a scheduling program online.

And if you think about a lot of the reasons why you hire a college graduate or maybe why you want your kids to graduate from college is because it puts a stamp of goal setting achievement on there. This person was able to find the funds, they were able to get a car to work a hundred miles from home.

They were able to live with other people in the dorm and all that kind of stuff. It puts a stamp of approval on it, his program and let's say this Google program, there's different ways to get approval now, on when I work that program. I don't know if it's there yet, but they could show that, uh, Bob was 99.5%,on time.

And in fact he stayed later these times and he got this certificate and all that stuff. And that's just from a little pharmacy in Grand Rapids that could offer this then to other people. And 

so it's almost like an apprenticeship, communication that maybe wasn't there before. and once you have all that data, all those numbers and what certificates they earned in that kind of stuff, how different is that from college and its real world?

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: real world. And as Seth Goden would argue, it's educational experience based on the skill that you need and not the domain of the course. and I think that's a totally different thing. And one of the things I've often thought about my perspective on this shift in Mike, when I was working up at Northeast Ohio Medical University and after going through a very traditional pharm d GPA was everything.

So, so much. So I actually remember we, in our final year, six year pharmacy school, when we were getting 

ready to choose our rotations, they lined us up with all 179 of us by GPA in order to select rotations, right? Like, I mean, tra very traditional model, re residency focused on a traditional model. And then it went to neo at Northeastern Harlem Medical University and its pass failed. And I was like, pass fail. And come to find out, a lot of medical schools actually have a pass fail system or some version of a pass fail system, really trying to. reduce some of the competition, the anxieties, focus more on the competency and the outcomes and not on did you get an A minus or b plus.

And that just ever since, I think, has shifted my perspective of like, are we measuring the right thing and are we even running the right race? Right? So like when we think about what success means for our children or for us individually, whether we're talking about academics here, I think we often would describe that in a very achievement metric based way.

So they get a degree, they have a high gpa, they get a high saT score, they go into this level of a college. And I think what I'm really poking at here, and something my wife and I often talk about just, to challenge yourself with our kids is

like, are we measuring the right things?

Like, is that the race that we need to be running?

Andrew Yang actually talks a lot about this in some of his books and his work as well, but like, there's value in that educational experience for all the reasons we've been talking about. And I think your comment about having some type of metric for achievement or success or completion or whatever.

And I think what's so hard is as we get away from maybe some of those things that are very objective based or that we think our objective base, uh, we get into this more nebulous, harder to measure subjective category of things, right? And so if we create an apprenticeship network, and I send my four boys off to all these experiences over a year, maybe I can't get a nice clean GPA that says how they're doing and what they're achieving.

And so then the question becomes like, how do you measure it? What does success look like? Do we need to measure it? I don't know. Maybe we don't. And how do those experiences evolve and how do they grow and compound with each other? And then how does that inform? , what decision they might take, from there.

So I don't know, it just feels like a really interesting time. Like I wish I could fast forward 20 years and see the disruption that's gonna happen over the next 20 years because it's happening. I'm just really anxious to know, like, what is it gonna look like when we get to the end of this period of disruption, especially in education.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. And if you look at, um, and Tim by the way, as we start to close up here, we're not gonna get to your year of, uh, of fears and hopes and things like that with your job, but we'll [00:50:00] switch it into some, we might even rerecord it. We might even say, um, looking at the future of, might even throw a little technology in there since 

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah. Yeah, it's been fun, but we've definitely gone in different,different directions though. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: We talk about the chat, G P T and the calculators and things like that. And basically the a c t or s a t, I know it's a thinking thing, but it's, I don't remember. It's still probably based a lot on that in English and things like that.

And let's say those things weren't there anymore 

 a lot of stuff can be measured these days. when you think about it with Google, with their watch stuff on, you could probably measure like, this was a 8.5 anxiety producing event that they had at work.

What was the heart rate of this person and what were their brainwaves doing? And you have a little lie detector and you say, how was this person doing in the real world of functioning when they had to give a sales presentation, to this and that.

Mike Koelzer, Host: And it's like, if you can measure that stuff in an apprenticeship, that's even better than the math and the English stuff you're doing. If it can be measured.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: I, I think so. And I even have questions around like, the need to measure and, the anxiety that comes around measuring and are we measuring the right things? And, I think you see obviously a lot of kids carrying some of the anxiety around the measuring of things that are happening.

But when I think of one, one of my fears, Mike, with my own boys is if I'm honest with myself, if I put my ego or try to put my ego aside for a moment and say, I truly want what I think is best for them, and I'm not concerned about what other people think about me as the success of my parent parenting, right?

That they go off and they achieve and do all these things. If I put that aside, then I honestly think that the pressure of going from high school. I use my example zero six pharm d you're pretty quickly put on a track, right? You're put on a track and obviously maybe not as strong or direct of a track if you go into more of a general for your undergrad type of a program, but you're pretty quickly getting boxed into a track.

And I think what intrigues me about this one or two year period, and obviously there's lots of things to work out about how do you finance this and a whole host of other things, but like, what a prime opportunity. At what other point in your life do you have an opportunity at 18, 19, or 20 to. Take some risks, get the experiences you're talking about. Maybe you fall on your back, maybe you get some successes. Guess what? You've got the rest of your life to kind of learn and grow and evolve from that. And maybe there's a place two years down the road where you do box yourself into a track, but you come boxed in 

at a totally different level of experience, I would suspect.

Maturity, self-reflection about who you are and what you want or don't want. Um, and I don't know. I'm just really intrigued by that concept. And as a parent, if I truly believe that, can I hold the space and put my kind of ego and desires for what it looks like for success for my kids, and really allow some version of that to happen. 

I think the beauty of, uh, the technology we're in, Tim, is that it's kinda like my daughter. That's gonna be an aesthetician. I'm gonna say. I don't know if that's right or not, but I gotta say that instead of the beauty 

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: she's gonna let us 

know. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I would say now with social media and,, your personal image and likeness. I would say in nearly any profession, any idea you have, if you've got the drive and you do it right, It's a whole different world.

The moment you have this idea, you become your own production studio and your own, writing, promotion company for yourself and all this kind of stuff. Like with my kids, there's hardly any interest that they would come to me now and say I'm gonna do this.

That I would say that's a bad choice. In fact, Tim, the only place I might do that is if they came and said they're gonna dump a bunch of money into a college, into a certain program. Isn't that funny? That might be like the only thing that I say, ah, you better just watch yourself kind of thing.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: So how much of that might you think is your influence? Right? I would argue that obviously they're seeing you, own and run business conversations they're hearing around the household. You're running a podcast where you're talking like obviously you think differently, right? So how much of that is them in the environment and how much of that is a generational shift, do you think that's happening?

And how we

perceive the value of a college education and the roi.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I think a big part of it, Tim, is this getting rid of the middle man. Which I guess is a technological shift in a sense, even like 10 years ago, if I was sitting here and let's say I had a hobby, or let's say marketing, the pharmacy was a hobby, I'm always at the discretion of how much I can kiss ass to the [00:55:00] local newspapers kind of thing.

And then at best, . I might get on the local news or something like that, but you're always at their discretion. And nationally don't even think about that. But within five or 10 years now, one of my sons is an English major, and let's take him for example. I think in five short years it was Aiden. I hope someday someone picks you up versus Aiden. What are you doing today? Not that I asked him, but what are you doing today? This next half hour, to be a world renowned author and. You know, before you were waiting for permission and now in a half hour you can 

reach across the world and do something.

I think that's where the difference was for me, Tim, and that's pretty much the biggest message I give my kids is there's no middleman anymore.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah, I think this is an interesting discussion because when you look at the impact of removing that middleman and building off the conversation we just had in higher education, like I, one thing I wonder is how quickly will that disruption happen. The more structured degree programs and offerings.

Right? So like a general four year undergrad, I think we're gonna see that disrupted pretty quickly or even some of the broader, MA majors that are out there. But when you get into things like a PharmD right, or an MD or nurse practitioner, vet, whatever, like so much of that requirement is determined by, in order to become licensed as a pharmacist in the state of Ohio, you have to graduate from a ACP accredited doctor pharmacy program.

So it feels like that disruption will take a lot longer to just trickle through the processes of, give the example of the timeline from one accreditation standard to the next. we're looking at what a nine, 10 year 

The period to see those evolve will obviously take longer, assuming we operate in the same model.

I guess the other side of that coin is like maybe there's a complete shift or disruption that happens in that model altogether. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I was talking to one of my guests a few months ago, and state boards are a little bit shiftier than, you know, with things like nepotism and things like that. . I think that's gonna be a long time before things like that happen in the industry. In terms of, I don't know the history of this, Tim, but I can't imagine like the audiologists were too happy about this new FDA law coming down.

Of having hearing aids, in pharmacists. They couldn't have been too happy about that. I think that's gonna take a long time. I think what's going to upset that though, is when somebody comes around, like, we're talking whether it's in pharmacy, whether that's, uh, getting pharmacy services some other way and in, in learning, the Google stuff, it's on its own.

I think things will be slower, but I think when pressed, they're just gonna skip over 'em.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah. I think that's right. I mean, I think what feels like is gonna happen. I'll use traditional big box pharmacies, an example right now. And if we think about it, take our pharmacist hat off for a moment. Think about it from a business standpoint. What is the most expensive resource when you're looking at your p and l?

If I'm a big box pharmacy , right? It's my personnel and my

pharmacist, right? So if I, as a business person, again, let's take off the bias of our pharma set. If I as a business person really felt that model could exist in a way that was as safe and as effective, with a much cheaper personnel option, okay?

What can I press from a lobbying standpoint to push forward tech check tech to push forward some of these other things, automation, remote dispensing, all these other things. And we're already seeing that happen right now. And I think, once that obviously continues to move forward, the momentum's gonna take it there into the future.

But it feels like some of the disruption from the for-profit business is gonna put the pressure back on, whether it's the state boards or the other angle I see is if that disruption really impacts the workforce, then the educational model and the accreditation standards have to react to that accordingly.

Mike Koelzer, Host: You know, Tim, I was so focused in this conversation on the learning side and the institutional side. You're absolutely right when it comes to the boards, they might have pressure to slow things down when it comes to colleges, but when it comes to businesses that grease the boards a little bit,they're gonna be in a hurry for some of this stuff, arguably.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: And I suspect, you know, not to be conspiracy theorists, but I suspect a lot of this is, conversing right now is happening and people are looking at, what are the discussions that need to happen and, how do we build upon the momentum of check Tech or remote dispensing or other things that are moving and happening out there.

So, yeah, I think it's gonna take longer than we talked about with some of the traditional degrees. But, I think again, just the need for us as a profession too. Talking, debating, having these conversations. Maybe we don't like how they make us feel, and obviously the protection we have of [01:00:00] the degree that we went through and the license and the value of that license.

Um, but I think we've gotta be open to, where some of this may be, hadn't in the future.

Mike Koelzer, Host: It can be scary to people, but you know, like I say, the length of. It hasn't really moved. So it's like, let's forget all this stuff we're talking about. And every pharmacist has to start thinking about longevity. And if you don't, you're, and it's sad.

It's sad for a lot of industries go across, I'm not picking on 

pharmacists, go across the board on that. It's sad. But, uh, maybe all of us have been shuffling papers for way too long.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Yeah, I think it's gonna be interesting,you  talked a few moments ago about just the change you've seen in five or 10 years. If you wanna learn something right, the middle man has been removed and you can go figure it out. And, if you're willing to kind of step into that area, and I think we're gonna see here over the next five or 10 next year's, obviously some more, disruption.

I think we're already seeing some of it happen in certain states, but, um, it's gonna be interesting to see how we respond as a profession and, where do the associations take this? Where do the colleges take this? Where do the state boards take this? So, um, I don't know, exciting, challenging, fearful times ahead depends on how you wanna look 

at it.

So 

Mike Koelzer, Host: That's why it's nice to have all this gray here. It means I'm on the way down, I guess. I don't know. 

Well, Tim, boy, you talk about the middleman not being there, and you guys have really taken advantage of that. You know, with your podcast, you're writing your books, your seminars and things like that.

So you're a person and a company to follow, when you talk about , a good example of what people are doing to spread their message. So that's cool and your base message is cool so thanks for what you're doing for the profession.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Thanks for having me, Mike. Appreciate it.

Mike Koelzer, Host: All right, Tim, we'll talk again soon.

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD: Hey, thank you. Appreciate it. Take care.