Meet Tony PharmD, Podcaster, YouTube Creator, and Author

Carol Bush welcomed Tony Guerra, host of the Pharmacy Leaders Podcast to The Savvy Scribe to talk about being a creator, author, and teaching Pharmacist.

Carol:                        00:32                 Welcome to the Savvy Scribe podcast. Today I'm doing a solo show today without Janine. The productivity queen is working hard or she's working out or working one of her 10 jobs. I'm very excited to welcome our good friend Tony Pharmd on Twitter, also known as in real life. Tony, welcome to the show and Tony is not only a nurse's best friend. Okay. Oncology nurses, best friend is the pharmacist speaking from my clinical background and that he is also the host of the pharmacy leaders podcast where he features interviews and advice on building a professional brand and purposeful second income, which is why one of the things I really love about him, he talks about profit and money and managing finances, which is the number one important thing that we want to do as entrepreneurs and CEOs of our own business. Tony is also a writer and author of several books and he has a Marvey youtube following as well. So welcome to the show, Tony.

Tony:                        01:39                    Thanks for having me.

Carol:                        01:40                   Well, we're excited that you're here. And also we share a love of the Midwest, you know, in the healthcare marketing network. I was talking with one of our new members yesterday who's also in Des Moines, Iowa as a matter of staff. Cool. And that we have a lot of people on the east coast and west coast, but not a ton of midwesterners. So, you're in Iowa and I'm in Kansas.

Tony:                        02:06                    Well, I'm a Washingtonian. That's where I was born. So I'm from Washington DC. But if you marry a Midwesterner, you end up in the Midwest.

Carol:                        02:16                    That's exactly right. Well, Tony, it, we'd love to hear in our community. Everyone loves to hear the story of what prompted you as a healthcare professional to begin this journey of creativity, whether you're a writer or a content creator. So I'd love to hear just in the beginning, tell us about what you do and a little bit about your writing or creativity journey.

Tony:                        02:44                   My full time job as a teacher, I as a chemistry and pharmacology in college, I teach at a community college and part of what I do is also teach pharmacology to students who are looking to become nurses. And I didn't know pharmacology was such a struggle and I kind of understood why a little bit later in that some nursing curricula have chemistry before pharmacology and some don't. So it's kind of like putting the cart before the horse if you take pharmacology that way. And, and my first kind of big hit was writing a book for that group that uh, you know, solve the problem of I don't have chemistry, I want to succeed in pharmacology. Here's a book you can listen to over the weekend. And just anecdotally, since I've been doing this for some, by almost five years, those that have listened to the book had 11% higher grade in their pharmacology class, wherever they went to school, then if they didn't listen to the book beforehand. So to succeed in pharmacology you have to kind of take in pharmacology. So it was just really successful. But I also understand your tribe likes to hear about failures too. So you just let me know what you want me to start with and I'll start there.

Carol:                        04:06                    What's your first audio book? And they are all audio.

Tony:                        04:11                  I've made 14 audio books. Yeah, summer successes. Some are failures, but you want to stick with the 80 20 rule with your writing. And so I think many people beat themselves up when they hear this writing didn't sell or something like that. But 20% of your writing will generate 80% of your money.

Carol:                        04:32                   Okay, perfect. So, the book and the content creation and you focused on the production through audible, is that correct?

Tony:                        04:43                    Yeah, they just hit us pretty hard with the change in reimbursement. So I'll lose about 25,000 every year coming up. But I still sell about 10,000 books a year in all three forms. So I'm still making about five or six a month. But that's all passive income and it's more because I have three, seven year old daughters and, and besides life insurance and those things, it's nice to know that royalties will support my family if anything happens to me.

Carol:                        05:12                    That's perfect. And it sounds like your family is a big quiet, but I understand. And part of the reason that you started the pharmacy leaders podcast is also because as you are connecting with people and you are a thought leader and a social media influencer in that pharmacy space, there's a very particular challenge for pharmacy students that they graduate having a lot of debt.

Tony:                        05:40                   Oh yeah. The average is now a one 65, I think for the average student, closer to 200 for the privates, one 40 for the public's. And we're in a real, real tough job market now for pharmacists. Just as physicians, we're actually in a tough job market in the late eighties if you're, I don't think you're old enough to remember that, but I am.

Tony:                        06:05                    Okay. But it also, we can talk a little bit about this, but I think the, the one thing that I buy with my money is, I have to, this is maybe pathologic, but I have two years of income in the bank. So My, my nest egg is not a nest egg really. It's just that provides peace of mind for me and for my family.

Carol:                        06:28                    And I think that's perfect. As the partner, my husband works for Spirit aerosystems, which is the old commercial Boeing, and he builds the tools who build the planes. And so, especially with the recent issues related to the Max 80, I'm very cognizant of the whole pathological need to put a lot in the bank for savings to weather all kinds of economic situations in downturn. So I totally, totally understand that. So a little bit about as you were writing the books for the folks who now are in our tribe, our freelance writers, so they're writing for other people, but strategies reall