Simple Nutrition Insights
Welcome to Simple Nutrition Insights, your practical guide to understanding nutrition in less than 30 minutes. Join us as we break down the science of healthy eating into digestible insights and actionable tips. Whether you're a busy parent or just short on time, our goal is to provide you with straightforward advice to enhance your well-being. Tune in for expert interviews, evidence-based advice, and quick, easy-to-implement strategies for nourishing your body and living your best life.
Simple Nutrition Insights
What They Don’t Tell You About Being a Private Practice Dietitian
The journey of a dietitian is often filled with aspirations of helping others while navigating the challenging waters of private practice. In our latest episode, join hosts Leonila Campos and Naz Maduro, both registered dietitians, as they explore the dual worlds of nutrition and entrepreneurship. This engaging conversation reveals the complexities of running a private practice, highlighting crucial factors such as the business side of dietetics, cultural relevance, and the personal struggles faced by practitioners.
Naz shares her experiences and her recent work, *Latino Nutrition: The Easy Weight Loss Guide for Latinos*, a book designed to empower the Latino community through easy-to-follow nutritional advice. Both hosts delve into the importance of cultural competence in dietetics, emphasizing that comprehensive resources for underserved communities are essential for improving health literacy. As they navigate through the realities of private practice, they share hard-learned lessons about the financial pressures, emotional resilience, and necessary marketing strategies for success.
With an emphasis on diversifying income sources and understanding the complexities of insurance billing, this episode serves as both an eye-opener and a guide for aspiring dietitians. Listeners will walk away with actionable insights and a deeper understanding of the commitment involved in building a sustainable nutrition business, all while staying true to their passion for food and health. Don’t miss this insightful discussion and be sure to tune in for practical advice that can help shape your dietetic career!
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Hey everybody, thank you so much for joining me today in the Simple Nutrition Insights Podcast. I am your host, leonila Campos, registered Dietitian, and today I have a special guest, naz Maduro, who is also a Registered Dietitian and a friend, and I am really excited to have her in my podcast. Today's episode is a little bit different from the other ones, where I usually talk about some kind of nutrition tips, but we wanted to do this episode more so around business and like what it really takes to be a private practice dietitian, all the things that go into it. So, yeah, welcome Naz. I'm so excited to have you today.
Speaker 2:Thank you for inviting me. Yeah, I am excited to be here as well, and it's definitely something new to me. This is my first ever podcast, so yeah, let's see how this goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, you are pretty calm, which is great Sometimes I get. I remember when I first started my podcast this is a little bit over a year ago, in like mid January, and I had been wanting to do a podcast for a long time. But you know, we get imposter syndrome and we have like these eight type personality where, like I need to have ABCD and like be ready. But I had another dietitian colleague, kim Terapelli, who started her podcast and she was like yeah, you know, it's not that complicated, you can totally do it. And so the following week I said you know what? I'm just going to go for it and do it. And it has been amazing.
Speaker 1:You know, I started with like one podcast every week. I started with one podcast every week and then slowly I increased it to two episodes a week and then more so later in the year. Last year I decided to do an episode in English and an episode in Spanish. So that has been great. So, yeah, but tell us a little bit about yourself and where you're located, and in your book too, because you're an author. So that's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2:Yes, so well, I'm in very hot, sunny Florida right now and it's actually it's hot in my room. My AC went off this morning, so yeah, not so exciting, so I'm trying to keep it calm so I don't sweat too much, because it's definitely hot in here. So yeah, I'm in Florida and I'm a registered dietitian. I've been a dietitian for over 10 years now Closer, it's been over 10 years, but in private practice, 10 years for sure. I started my practice out of New York City. That's where I grew up.
Speaker 2:I was actually born in the Dominican Republic and then I came to the US at the age of 10 and I grew up in New York City, which is so great Like. Now that I moved out, I realized how much of a great, how great that city is for creating a career and having a lot of exposure to different things, different people, very smart people. I got the luxury of working with a lot of great other dietitians and other people who are not even in dietetics doctors, other business people. So yeah, I've been a dietitian for 10 years out of New York City. I have my office in New York. I have my office here in Florida, specifically in Miami, but soon to be moved to Boca Raton, which is a lot closer to where I live.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, that is crazy how and it's been for me I'll be a dietitian for nine years.
Speaker 2:in March, and it's crazy to think like, wow, it's been that long. Yes, right, I feel old sometimes.
Speaker 1:Like, how the hell did that happen, right? You're like, oh yeah, that definitely happened. But it's amazing to see, too, that you have been able to write a book, right, and I'll make sure to add the link in the show notes. So if you know it's an amazing book, check it out. But tell us about your book and like, maybe, the reasons why you decided to create the book.
Speaker 2:Yes, so the book is called Latino Nutrition the Easy Weight Loss Guide for Latinos. So it's a book that is very near and dear to my heart, because when I think of resources for this community, there's not a lot out there and the resources that are out there are not really from registered dietitians. They're like, usually, other people that write but they don't have the same expertise as dietitians and I wanted to make sure that it was something relevant for the people that I typically see, which is the people who don't have a lot of health literacy. So it had to be something that was easy to understand, like if you were five years old. So my book it's recipes, so there's a lot of Latino recipe. It's a recipe book that also teaches you how to create your own meal plan that is culturally relevant. It's very illustrated, heavily illustrated. It's not your typical recipe book where you have a picture and you have the instructions and the directions. A lot of our directions are not just written but they're drawn Like. I had a designer design the book because I wanted to make sure that somebody could look at the process of creating the recipe and know, without even reading, what they're supposed to do, and we accomplished it. I had a really talented artist helping me create this book and my social media manager who helped me create the recipes and then myself really put it all together into this way.
Speaker 2:That makes sense for people to want to start eating healthy without leaving their culture, the cultural foods aside, and really make it sustainable, find something that they could implement in their lives. And the great thing is that the book is both in English and in Spanish. It's available on Amazon in all platforms. It's available for Kindle. You know you have all the options that you want available there. So the reason that I wrote the book. Also, it was because I was in a period of my life where I was not motivated to be an entrepreneur and the book kept me going. It was a passion project of mine. More than anything, I was not looking to make any money on it, and I told you this before. It was not a strategy for money. It was a strategy for two things to keep me going and to branding. For branding, because I really want to be known as the Spanish speaking Latina dietitian who helps people lose weight in a healthy way, not your typical way that you diet based approach. Diet based approach. It's really with a plan.
Speaker 1:That's kind of my slogan create a plan, not a diet, because it can't be done that it's um, it's so amazing to see that we we get up into these projects, the personal projects, to keep us going by especially being private practice dietitians or business owners, because we know that it's so difficult, and I think one of the reasons why we decided to do this podcast is that not a lot of people talk about these.
Speaker 1:It is so hard to keep going at times when you're like, oh my gosh, everything that I'm doing is not giving me the results right, and it could be for different reasons, but I think going into private practice right, it's something that you really have to love, but also understand that it's not going to be easy, right, it's not like your eight to five job that you go in, you do the work and you come home and you forget about everything else.
Speaker 1:No, you're going to be working after 5 pm. You're going to be working on the weekends right, because you're not only the dietitian in your private practice, you are the business owner, you are the tax person, you are the administrator. You have all these roles right. And so I think, either for our RDTVs right, or for dietitians that are thinking about private practice, being able to understand that right, not to only listen to all these beautiful things about you're going to make this X amount of money and you're going to have the freedom and the flexibility, you also have to understand what it really takes, right? You've been, naz. You've been in private practice longer than I have, so I'm sure you can share.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I started, I always wanted to be in private practice. I never thought of myself as being a dietitian working anywhere else but in my own practice. So I knew that was what I wanted. So I kind of started it very early on. You know, two, three months before I passed my test, I began to work with a GI doctor under his private practice with the idea of growing my practice, and that was his consensus that we had, that I was going of growing my practice. And that was his consensus that we had, that I was going to grow my practice. So I really had his help in terms of, you know, putting in the resources, the staff and, of course, getting a cut of anything that I was going to make. But I was going to be responsible for growing it. I was going to be out doing my marketing.
Speaker 2:He would teach me so many ways of like how to market myself and my practice. And you know that's how we took off, since three months before he kind of hired me, trained me and I say trained me with quote unquote, because it was not something that he necessarily trained me how to do things. I kind of just saw him do it and replicate what he was doing and for covid and in new york city we were all at home for many, many, many months. I think it was really like this year or a year that we were at home. I wanted to do telehealth and that was kind of the time that I decided to go solo, in part ways with the GI doctor, because I wanted to be telehealth and you know the only way that I was going to be able to do that because he wanted me to go to.
Speaker 2:You know, part of our partnership was to go into the office Because, honestly, new York City City, that works really well because people have people want to be in the office, people want to see you in person, especially back then where telehealth was such a new thing and it was really hard. It was really really hard for our communities to kind of even understand how to put the video on their phone. I was like, no, I going to try to do this and that's part ways. And that's how I went solo and I'll tell you it's been rewarding.
Speaker 2:I definitely have grown this thing more than I could ever imagine, but the risks are high and I tell RD2Bs or just dietitians who want to go into private practice, this is not a walk. You're going to be invested mentally, financially, emotionally and as your life changed. You have to accommodate sometimes your life around this thing, because it's a baby and it doesn't be you. It's up to you to grow this thing from being a baby to a toddler to eventually an adult and you're gonna have those teenage years that are gonna be so hard that you would wish you want to stay, uh, sometimes in a w-2 job because the risks are high, especially in healthcare.
Speaker 2:It's a risky business because it's very highly regulated. We're in a very regulated industry. It's not like we're opening up a laundromat and that's it. We have to make sure our comply with all these laws and we know them all of a sudden, because you kind of have. You're responsible immediately after you open your doors. You're responsible to know it all, otherwise you are at risk of being penalized because you didn't know but you were supposed to know, and that's really hard when you're starting out. So, yeah, yeah, you're starting out.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, you're absolutely correct. I give you props for going solo in 2019, when it was like you know just when, during COVID time, because it was so unknown, we don't know what's going to happen. And it's so interesting because that's when I, at the end of 2019, that's when I decided to create my corporation or my company to go into prior practice. Same thing as you right, I was like I want, when I decided to create my corporation or my company, to go into prior practice. Same thing as you right. I was like I want to be able to help more people, help my community, and I know the only way that I can do it right is to go and like open my business. And I think I was more conservative because I didn't know what was going to happen.
Speaker 1:I opened it in 2019 and the idea was like okay, 2020, I'll start doing my marketing and my outreach. And then everything closed and I was like, oh my gosh, should I still do it or should I just be in the background working on things and still continue to work at the dialysis clinic? Because that's where I was working at that time and I hesitated so much and I said you know what, I'm just going to work in the background, still have my job just to supplement that income. And that's when I decided to deal with the insurances and just that process, to like deal with the insurances and just that process. That process usually the credentialing and contracting usually takes three to six months but that, you know, for some insurances took me like a whole year because it was, you know, pandemic time, so things got lost and it was chaos. But yeah, it's so interesting to see just remember what the process is of like starting your business and growing it and then being in that time frame over, like what am I doing right? Like is this worth it?
Speaker 2:yeah, because you do get to that point where you question yourself yeah, all of that you know you, like I said, you're going to get tested mentally, emotionally, financially, spiritually, all ways, and as your life changes it becomes like you have to understand your why very clearly to keep doing this, because it's not easy. Like, for example, I started when I was 20. I literally turned 21 in my first RD job and I was like how am I seeing kids? I just turned 21. You know, I remember thinking about this. But if I were to start now, at 30, it will be totally different. My risk tolerance is much less now because I have a lot I have a mortgage I have.
Speaker 2:I want kids. You know, I have all these things that I have planned for my own personal life that may not fit for the type of business that I want now, that I have now and that back then I wanted. So I was way more risk, bigger risk taker back when I was in my 20s and now because my priorities were different. So if you're a mom out there our D2B who is thinking about this, that's important to start thinking about it because again, it's another child that you're going to give birth to and if you want to keep it for a long time, you're going to have to invest a lot of your time, your energy, your emotions into it. The good things that we have a lot more community, I feel, in this space than when I started. There was like not everything. Every information out there was like doctor based, like these are the codes you got to be like they're not the same as RD codes. That's why I got so like.
Speaker 2:I lost so much money when I started. I was living with my mom, so thank goodness. But again, the money that I've lost for the first five years is crazy and I worked other jobs before I went in full-time in my private practice. So that's another thing. You can grow these things as little or as big as you want. I think all RDs should be business owners to some capacity, whether that is just taking self-pay or just commercial insurance, just one insurance. You don't even have to go into Medicaid or Medicare if you don't want to open that can of worms, because it's part of growing your brand, it's part of growing your income, it's part of creating legacy. Tax-wise it's beneficial. I see the benefits of having a business.
Speaker 1:Everybody should be a business owner, not necessarily own right, yeah, it's so interesting, in a way funny, what you said about losing money. I think it's part of being a business owner. Right, you're going to lose money. I definitely lost a lot of money.
Speaker 1:Uh, starting and like not either billing wrong or like seeing somebody for like so many sessions and then the insurance was like no, we're not covering. And you're like, shoot, what do I do now? Like I can't ask the patient to pay because that's that was on my end, that was my fault. So you just eat the cost and you tell the patient you don't know why your insurance is not going to cover. Give them the option if they want to continue. Or you know you eat the cost essentially. But yeah, I've lost so much money and sometimes you know, because I remember my why I asked you like why I wanted to open my business and helping. You know the underserved population, and sometimes you're not keeping them pro bono and you're just losing, right, and you're like, well, I can't really do this for everybody because I'll be probably broke if I don't charge anybody. So you do have like these conflicting situations where you want to help but you cannot get paid right To help everybody because you're still a business owner.
Speaker 2:Already a profession that doesn't have a lot of economic opportunity, because our profession is great and we do so many great things, but we simply just don't get paid well, that's one of the reasons why I had to leave New York, because I hated it At the beginning I did. I was like I got to get out of this place, especially coming out of COVID and being at home. All this time it was not the city that I grew up with. Now it's becoming a little bit like that and it's still the greatest city in the world, I think for many reasons. Financially, I had to leave a highly taxed state to a state that could save me more on taxes.
Speaker 2:Like when I graduated in 2017, the average home in Long Island was $384,000. That's kind of like the price range. 2024, it's over $700,000. And the average in Long Island is kind of like the suburbs in New York, which was closer to where I lived in Queens. The average dietitian salary in New York City in 2017 was $63,000. And 2024, $75,000.
Speaker 2:The big gap between can you actually afford a home in New York? It's like before it was hard, like you kind of had to have a partner to have the second salary to be able to do the down payment for a $384,000 home. Now the gap is you have to jump from a $75,000 to over $700,000 home in Long Island. So I had to leave. I had to move out of New York to be able to buy my first place and even then you know we're right now in 2025. Interest rates are high, home prices are high.
Speaker 2:It's not like Florida is cheap anymore. We just have better taxes. You can save more on taxes, that's it. It's not like Florida is cheap anymore. We just have better taxes. You can save more on taxes, that's it. It's not cheap here. So you know, these are the things that, as you get older, you have to begin to think about where you live, what are the economic opportunities you have there and the profession that you're in. We are, unfortunately, in a profession that doesn't pay well. We work a lot and if you don't become an owner or a manager outside of dietetics, you know, like a manager of a program or something, you're probably not going to make enough to sustain just enough money to have a family and a home, which is the basics in my view.
Speaker 1:Right, it's frustrating in a way, right, because, well, now, even more so for the new dietitians that have to have a master's right, and yet they're like, well, we might not consider that as in your salary, but you know, we almost have as much schooling as a doctor, right, because we have, now we're gonna have a master's degree by that's six years, and then we have to do an internship which is 1200 hours of of supervised practice, right, so we have this, such higher education, but, yeah, the, the salary is not matching, right? Sometimes it's so crazy and frustrating to see that, like when I'm just browsing LinkedIn or Indeed and they're like a dietitian position and they want to pay them $20. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Like that's below what our education means, right? So it is so definitely frustrating to see that that you know we should be compensated better because of our expertise. We are specialists, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, and we know our stuff. I mean the problem with nutrition. It's like the Wild West of wellness. It's like the Wild West of wellness, you know, like if you open your mouth and you really have somebody contradicting you around anything. So, because we all eat as human beings, we all have an experience with nutrition, we all have an opinion about it and we live in an attention-seeking society. Now, like, if you have, if you are an influencer let's just put it like that and you have the attention of a hundred people and I am a doctor or a dietician and only have the attention of 50 people. Who do you think you are going to listen to the attention seeking person? So that's, that has created a lot more problems than solutions in our space.
Speaker 2:I think now we have to also be great at communicating. Do things like this, which is podcasting, or you know, it's just. You know, in our space it's very difficult. I find it difficult because, again, it's a wild west of wellness and you're going to have a lot of negative comments or I. I'm not ready for that. I already have enough mental things that I have to deal with with the business, and then on top of that, you put social media and people's comments that you know very deep inside of you. If you get a negative comment which I haven't, thank god, but I haven't been out there, you know very deep inside of you. If you get a negative comment which I haven't, thank God, but I haven't been out there, you know like here's the sexiest thing that could ever happen. I don't do that. So you know.
Speaker 2:I think that the newer generations have to really think about this when they want to get into a career like ours, because if you need to be a good communicator, you need to try to grab attention.
Speaker 2:If you want to be in business or do private practice, like we do and we see patients, we don't have to do all these attention seeking things because you know, thank goodness, insurance still pays for our services. It's not going to be a lot. But the way that I see it, scaling this is by grabbing attention from hundreds of people and have them, you know, buy something for me. That's really how I see it as a scale. I don't see the business of insurance being easily scalable because every year since I have started this 10, again, I've been doing this for 10 years we've seen a reduction in coverage and or payments 3%. This year we got a pay cut from Medicare. I don't see it being very scalable personally long term. Having other dietitians under your practice, I just think it'll be really financially difficult. I think as a solo provider good, but having more dietitians long term it's hard because you know you're at the mercy of the government for a lot of these things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's definitely a lot of things to consider, right, and keep in mind, and it's not to scare anybody, right? But I think it's important to understand what it really goes behind the scenes and, like the things that we have to do day after day. We just don't only see people and build insurance and you're going to get paid, right. There's so many technicalities that you have to go through and they might pay, they might not pay right, or they might have a copay or whatever the case may be, and so all those things matter, but I think, at the end of the day, right, being able to still provide services for our communities and those people that are reaching out, sometimes that's all you need to keep you going.
Speaker 2:At times, too, or knowing like, wow, I'm making a difference, right, this person is seeing a change in their health and like they're getting better, and so sometimes that's all you need, right to to keep, to keep you going and you know what I'm doing now just to keep me going, also financially, because, you know, I feel like it's important to talk about this because for young people, one of the things that they're struggling with the most and I I include myself is having economic opportunity for things that say our parents have the option to buy a house with their salary or have kids and have money to have kids. Things like that. People my age and I mean my age and people you know I'm in my 20s and people in their 20s just have a big struggle and I think people younger than me feel today like hopeless and that is not a good feeling because then you're not going to try. If you feel hopeless, you're not going to try. I don't feel hopeless. I feel we need to diversify as business owners.
Speaker 2:I don't see my private practice in the future to be my only source of income. I need to learn other stuff, you know, like the market, how does um, the stock market works? How could I if this thing, if, if nasma, their nutrition, doesn't grow to be something sellable in the future? If I cannot sell it for like anything, at least I have this retirement account by the time I'm 60 or 65, at least I'm gonna have a good living. You know, like things like that, that you have to have to begin to learn that.
Speaker 2:I did not learn in school. My parents, of course, did not learn, because they're immigrants, so I had to learn this myself to try to create this safety net for myself, because I know, I am very aware that I chose the hardest path, which is entrepreneurship, and it's hard. So every business owner needs to begin to diversify and look at their portfolio of how they're going to be making money now and in the future, because we can't keep doing this forever. I think private practice at some point needs to either be sold or it needs to be closed, because I can't see patients until I'm, you know, 70 years old, at the same rate that I'm seeing patients patients now.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I think that is a really good point to remember. And when you see these other successful business owners, right, and just successful people in general, they are spending or not spending, investing. They are investing in the market. They're investing in, like different things, right, because that is what's going to help them when they retire, right, or that investment is going to grow, passively grow, and so, which is something, first of all, these are things that we don't learn in our undergrad, right, as dietitians, we don't learn private practice or business at all.
Speaker 1:I decided to go back and get my master's in business administration, right, so I know some of those things, but it wasn't to the point where I felt comfortable, right, to be like oh you know, this is what you know, what I need to do, and so if you're not in, you don't have that business background, right, it's definitely a little bit more difficult, not to say impossible, because there's so much information. You can even take classes at community colleges to help you with like business. But I think investing is definitely something that we should all do at a younger age and I love that. You mentioned, right, that this is not something that we learn from our parents, because our parents and, just like your parents, my mom is, you know, immigrant too, and so that's not something that we learned.
Speaker 1:She is a business owner, though, like she's always been, she's always had a business. So I think that's part of why I wanted to become my own business owner, because she's always had some kind of business right A salon, a barber shop. I mean, this woman, she's so resourceful. So I think it's amazing you know that to see that from someone that didn't finish elementary school right. So just having that ingrained right and like just understanding like, hey, we are resourceful, we can make it right, like whatever you need to do.
Speaker 2:I think immigrants are the risk takers because they don't have the when they come here. They don't have the same access to corporate america like we have. Like I could potentially, you know, go back and say business school and try to work in corporate america. I have, I speak, I know the culture, I have chances to get to that.
Speaker 2:Our parents did not, so the only chance that they had to really take care of their family was to be resourceful and to be risk takers and to open up businesses that could allow them to take care of their family, and that's all they care they didn't care about.
Speaker 2:Okay, when I'm 60, I need to have enough money because they can't. You know like now I am my mom and my dad's bouquet. You know like I am the person that needs to take care of them, which it's hard for me, you know, because I am also figuring things out in this economy. So I think now, taking the good thing that came out of all of that you know that risk-taking ability that they had, and combine it with the knowledge that you have now and make it much more impactful for your life, for the future of your kids' lives, and really break a lot of barriers that people our generation and not from our background really are trying to do. I genuinely think people are trying to, you know, break a lot of cycles and break a lot of barriers, because they know there's got to be a better way.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I definitely agree 100% of the time. You know, I didn't ask you this question at the beginning, but because nutrition is something that we don't really see in our culture, right? Nobody knows what a dietitian is. Why, like what made you want to be a dietitian?
Speaker 2:I was a nursing major when I started because I have family members who are in the healthcare field field and I kind of always wanted I wanted to do a career, a major that will lead to a career. Like I didn't want to do political science, like I couldn't connect that with a career, so it had to be something that kind of was certified, lead to a very clear path. So nursing sounded great and then I started my clinicals, which is kind of second part of nursing that you're like really at the hospital, and I hated it. Every nurse, I have to say every nurse at the hospital I was, I was. I hated it, so that made me hate it even more. Then I kind of had to think what else can I do?
Speaker 2:My mom had bakeries and restaurants when I was growing up so I was good at food. I did not want to be a baker, I didn't want to cook for a living. I thought that was a very hard job but I was good at it. So I went to Google and I'm like I literally Google food healthcare job or it was something like professions that you can do if you're really good at cooking. So a nutritionist came at that.
Speaker 2:A dietician really came as one of those options and I began to Google it and I really did a deep dive research on dietetics before I switched, because it was a big thing, you know, like I needed to make sure this was something that I thought I wanted to do. So that's kind of how it happened. I searched about it and then I saw there was a dietitian in my neighborhood that had a private practice, and then I reached out to her. I volunteered at her office, which I still talk to her to this day, and I tell her listen, you are the person I look up to all the time because I wanted to have something like you have practice.
Speaker 2:And again, taking that background from my mom, who was a business owner and I wanted to do that and combining that with a career, that's really what drove me to nutrition. And then I began to like it, as I began to, you know, explore more and be more hands-on. But it was not like, oh, I've always wanted to be a dietitian because I never, ever saw a nutritionist or dietitian in my life and I should have, but never, you know, because that was not a thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so wild, right, and even until this day, you would think that people might know more about nutritionists, dietitians which is not essentially the same. I did a presentation for a company around the holidays and obviously introduced myself and I said, who here knows what a dietitian is? Zero, nobody knew. And I was like, oh my God, this is horrible. But then I said, okay, how about who knows what a dietician is? Zero, nobody knew. And I was like, oh my god, it's horrible, yeah. But then I said, okay, how about who knows what a nutritionist is? So people knew more what that was.
Speaker 2:But it's probably not very correctly because they I think people think we just give that and give a handout, because that's honestly, that's what you get at the hospital. You, you get a handout, but you know we don't do that. Fyi, if you're listening, that's not all we do and in fact, a lot of the good dieticians probably won't do that. So, yeah, it also comes down to like also our background In our culture. That's not a thing, that's not something that our parents grew up with. You just eat, you know, and rice and beans or whatever we have, and that's you. Don't think about it too much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. The reason why I went into dietetics is because my grandma. So she has diabetes, right. She would always come home from her appointments frustrated, right, because they were. First of all, they didn't talk in her language, spanish. She understood a little bit of English, but they would always tell her well, you just need to stop eating beans, rice and tortillas because of her diabetes. And so she would be frustrated by saying, well, what am I going to eat? That's all I can eat. You know, I grew up eating these foods. So in my mind I was like that is wrong, like there has to be a way to teach people, right, teach the community, that they can still eat these foods and be healthy, right, be balanced. So I looked into, like, nutrition, diabetes, and I forgot what else. And, yeah, as soon as I got into that, um, that undergrad program, I loved it and you know it's great. It has its ups and downs, but I think I don't know. I love what I do as a dietitian, I love my career, um, and yeah me too.
Speaker 2:I think we just you just gotta be creative in this career. That's all you need, because the sky is the limit. And going back to new york, new york allowed me to dream big because in it's like in this city you're really, you have way more options. I find that where I live in court, there's not a lot of options. It's limited and limiting here, whereas in New York I never had that feeling.
Speaker 2:I felt like, okay, if this doesn't work out, I'll go and do this. There was never a shortage of doctors that I could talk to, and if I got on the Internet to look for a job because I tell you this doesn't work out, I get a job. And that's the great thing, by the way, about being, I felt, at least as a dietician. If this thing doesn't work out, I can get another job Like I've never found, like it being a difficulty ever. And again, I think this may be where you're at, located In New York, you just not have that issue. You have a lot more jobs, a lot more opportunities. If your whole thing private practice doesn't work out, you have this license that is so valued and you know it's up to you to take it where you want to take it, that's how I do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. You have the education right and that nobody's going to take that away from you right? You did all the heavy lifting, all the work, and you're going to find a job right. Like you said, if your prior practice doesn't work out, you can always find a different path. And the other amazing thing, too, right, is that now there's so many dietitian jobs right, and positions that are so interesting right Like marketing, or like working for another food company or whatever Like. There are so many other areas, too, that might be of interest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think now, way more than before, you can be very creative. Like I say, I'm into sports nutrition now, and when I was, I thought sports nutrition and I learned this after I became a dietitian which, how did I not know this before? I thought sports nutrition was somehow this fat loss thing.
Speaker 2:Like weight loss, fat loss thing, and that's it, you know. And then I saw all these other dietitians working for teams like the Yankees and, you know, the national football team or whatever. You know, like I was, like this is the coolest job. I mean, like I want that job right. Unfortunately you don't get paid. Well, that's one of the shittiest paying jobs, dietetics but it's cool. I mean, you definitely have. I think you would have a great experience.
Speaker 2:If you're young, I feel like that would be a job I would have had like to have when I was in my 20s because I could have afforded to not get paid, you know and this sounds horrible to even say, because I think you should not get paid 25 bucks an hour, like as dietitian, and a lot of these jobs are $25 an hour, you know, because you're working for this big, amazing organization. But you know, I think that's still a cool job. So there are so many interesting things that you can do now as a dietitian, but it depends on where you're at in life Corporate. There's a lot of corporate opportunities. I like more the business side of nutrition more than anything now, because that's where I see more potential for growth and not just being doing the same thing doing the same thing.
Speaker 2:Marketing is a big one. I don't love it. I think it depends on from what lens I see it. There's a lot of healthcare startups now that are popping up, like you know, like you said at the beginning, some of these big companies. I saw a job the other day from a big telehealth company that they were looking for a dietitian management position to manage a team of 15 dietitians. But you didn't have to see patients, like you were the manager, you were just going to manage. Like okay, that is an interesting job, but the pay was $65,000. I'm like how am I going to be a manager of 15 dietitians and get paid $65,000? This is of 15 dietitians and get paid 65. This is again we're going back to the low pay issue that we've had in our profession.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is wild because you are in a management position.
Speaker 2:And one thing I have learned being in a management position, like me, as a private practice owner, I have five, four dietitians I would not have. I am not going to hire anybody until I can overpay them. This is kind of my mentality, because I have great talent. The dietitians that I had. They were so talented and I really enjoyed the work that they did and I could close my eyes and have them see the patients and I trusted them.
Speaker 2:But unfortunately I cannot pay them adequately in New York City because it's expensive. New York City is expensive and the insurance didn't pay me enough to pay that. So, going back to what I said at the beginning, if you want to have good talent, you have to be able to offer them at least the very least adequate pay or ownership. That's the other route that I would potentially consider. Give them some ownership of the company so they can actually, if you want them to behave like owners, make them owners, you know, give them a percentage of it so they can also get the dividends of the revenue from whatever you make at the end of the year.
Speaker 2:So I don't know. That's what I think now. If I ever hire dietitians, I'll make them owners or overpay them.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, you're absolutely right. I think compensating them adequately right one helps them, helps us to keep them right, but they also see it as like okay, they are compensating me for what I'm actually value, right, they're valuing me and my expertise. So, okay, naz, I know we've been chatting up, but what do you think? What are some final thoughts, final tips that you would want to give out in terms of business or life in general?
Speaker 2:Diversify. I think that's the really key. Once you start making a little bit of money whether you are a W-2 employee or business owner begin to diversify your pool of income so that when something crazy happens, you're not get too much affected. I feel like it's harder to lose $100 than to make $100. It feels harder. So, in order for you to not get that mental stress, you want to diversify once you have a chance to do it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I know, at least here in Fresno, where I'm at, there are community groups like, for example, I'm part of the Central Valley Women's Community and they have so many free workshops on how to invest or how to diversify. Sometimes, like I mentioned, the community colleges, they might have that. Or, if you work for a corporate job, they usually have someone that works for them, like BenefitWise and 401k and investing. If you have no idea what that is, sometimes companies match you and you have to take advantage of that. So, you know, look into those things, and this goes for anybody, not just dietitians, just anybody that has a corporate job. If your company is matching you, take advantage of that. That's free money.
Speaker 2:So, um and yeah, I also think to add on to that for savings. I'm a big fan of it, so I use things like Acorn, which is an app that takes money out of your check every week, out of your account every week, and matches your whatever dollar amount to your investments. For savings a big one you set it and forget it. So forced saving is a big one you set it and forget it. 1k If you're a W-2, I think having a little private practice on the side is a way to diversify. If you're an employee, if you're a business owner looking into the stock market perhaps, or the acorns, or just really diving into other businesses, like I have my book that's one way to diversify. I might not be making much of it, but who knows?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So things like that are going to eventually help you balance things out. When one asset class is not working well, you can at least rely on the other.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, absolutely. There's a saying don't put all your eggs in one basket. I think some financial um people might say but awesome, thank you so much, nas. Yeah, for this episode. I'm sure we'll be doing one in spanish about nutrition or something but absolutely where can the listeners find you? Where can they? They know more about you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm on Instagram as nasmaduronutrition and my website nasmadurocom.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I'll make sure to add all that in the show notes and then a link to your book. Again, thank you so much for this amazing episode To all the listeners. Stay safe and stay strong. I will talk to you and see you soon. Bye-bye for now.