D’Loreyn Walker, MD With Momma’s Money Tree

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for high velocity radio

Lee Kantor: [00:00:13] Lee Kantor hear another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today. On the show we have D’Loreyn Walker, MD, who is the founder of Momma’s Money Tree. Welcome.

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:00:25] Hi Lee, thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:27] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Mama’s Money Tree. How are you serving, folks?

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:00:33] I’m sorry. Basically, I’m serving moms who are trying to juggle the art of starting a business from home and at the same time meeting their responsibilities to both their creator, God and also their children and their families. It’s been an interesting adventure so far.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:51] So what’s your back story? How did you get into this line of work?

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:00:55] My back story goes way back. It started with a practice that I began in 2012. My career training is actually in medicine. I’m trained as a general adult psychiatrist as well as the child and adolescent psychiatrist. So back in 2012, I was starting transitioning out into my own practice, and I had an interesting realization at that point in time that I had been very well trained in medicine with all that schooling, but I hadn’t really been taught much of anything about money management or starting a business. And that was just really frustrating to me considering how much education I’d had, and I think I pretty much wore up my husband’s ear with talking about the way it should be. So I started that process back then just reading, trying to understand more. Since I’m a Christian, I was also looking to learn more about what the Bible had to say about all of this, and I gradually started to realize that there was information available about a different way of approaching business and finance than I’d ever really been introduced to. And so I just started studying and exploring from there, and that put me down this pathway.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:15] Now you bring up an interesting point about how when you were in school to do the work that you did in your career, they neglected the element of kind of the business side of the work and they focused on. Sure. You know, kind of the work part of the work, and I’m sure it’s not just unique to psychiatry or psychiatrist that this is probably happening for a lot of other folks out there. Is there any advice you could share with somebody who is maybe a working for somebody else doing a professional job like you were at the time and then is thinking about going out on their own to do their own business? And this requires not only all the skills you learned and have been practicing for years, but now these new skills of how to be a business person.

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:03:05] I think I’d say two things, one, be patient with yourself. For me, that was really challenging because I tend to have a classic medical perspective or a personality, which is a plus one everything now and do it yesterday. So when I realized that there was this need for me to try and expand my education in this respect, it wasn’t that there were no lessons, but I can count on one hand and only a few fingers. The number of classes that we had relating to medicine and business, and even those were not very thorough in relation to what you actually encounter as a private practice entrepreneur. For people who are trying to move in this direction, I would say start with the information that’s just readily available to you and use the algorithms. If you train Google and YouTube to bring you information or just simple information from people who are talking about business and money from a layperson’s perspective. Yes, there will be some misinformation in there, but it will at least start you thinking about different things and questioning learning some of the financial vocabulary and begin the. It will give you the opportunity to begin the process of thinking about these concepts and kind of turning them over in your own mind to start to formulate your own opinions and decide where you want to go with things.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:30] Now in your work, you mentioned faith is an important component of what you’re doing and and kind of leaning on Bible based resources, I guess, to help navigate through business money and things like that. Was that something that was intentional that you said, I am looking for that. So therefore I’m going to build something that looks like that and features that? Or was that something that just came about in your research that you stumbled upon this and said, You know what? This really resonates with me.

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:05:02] It was a bit of both. One of the challenges that I had when I was starting my practice was I was very resistant to the idea of. Going after money at all costs or just finding a way to make the bottom line work, I wanted people to feel cared for. I wanted them to feel loved, appreciated, seeing validated. It wasn’t enough for me to just make the bottom line work, and I started to realize that from the perspective of my business, that was an approach that was strongly influenced by my belief system. And at the same time, since so much of my life was informed by my belief in the Bible. I have this curiosity to say, Well, what is in there like? Does it mention anything? Are there principles that can be applied outside of the Bible to finances? And then, with studying the Proverbs 31 woman and other parts of the Bible, I was pleasantly surprised to find that many of the principles were generalizable outside of religion into the world of finance and business. So that was pretty much how I started down that pathway and what caused me to actually move in that direction.

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:06:16] The part that was actually kind of fun to realize over the years was that with making the adjustments that that matched with what I was learning, they worked. At first I was just kind of doing it because it made sense to me. But especially in 2020, I started to see some things in my family and finances that we would not have had the same outcomes that we had if we hadn’t have been years in the process of learning a different way to approach money in business. I know for my business when I was in practice, my patients really appreciated having someone who was willing to take an alternative approach to their care and think of them as people before the transaction. Sometimes that meant that we did things a little bit differently when it came to the financial end of things, but it really worked for them and it allowed them to feel like they were actually getting the type of care that they wanted. So I kind of felt like it was a win win on both sides.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:18] Now what do you tell the people who equate money in a negative way, like as greed or exploitation? And and that prevents them, maybe from making the leap into business where there has to be some money flowing in order to have the business keep providing the services that the business serves. But if they have a negative connotation with money, they might be doing things that self sabotage their efforts.

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:07:50] Well, there, I forget exactly which verse it is, but there is a verse in the Bible that says the love of money is the root of evil. But people leave off the love part instead of using money as a tool. They kind of look at it as this thing that causes problems throughout the world. Whereas when you actually look at how people in the Bible use money, it’s a tool. It’s a tool that tends to amplify whatever your personality traits and character are. But it’s also a tool that allows you to be of amazing service to your fellow man. And what I very much saw while I was studying the Proverbs 31 woman was that her means were. Leveraged to a large degree, to be of service to the people around her, to the people in our household, to the businesses that were around her. She was very much oriented toward finding ways to be of service through her business and studying her actually caused me to realize that when you’re taking a biblical approach to your business, it doesn’t become that you’re chasing money as much as you’re finding ways to serve other people and your business becomes an extension of that desire to serve. Yes, you’re being paid for that. But in a lot of cases, people would be doing it anyway because they want to help and they want to to be a resource to others.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:20] And if your heart is of service and you have more resources that a lot of times means you’ll be able to serve more people, definitely.

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:09:28] And in the case of the proverb Proverbs 31 woman, she ends up being of such service that her entire community is literally singing her praises like they’re hailing her at the city gates, which is very atypical for a woman in that period of time to be so well loved and lauded for the fact that she’s just serving people out of a desire to to generally genuinely see them do well. So in my mind, I start to equate business and money less with something to be hoarded as much as it’s something to be used to help others. Your future generations, your community, people of need. There are so many different ways this world is full of opportunities for people to serve, and so that’s how I start to look at money when I’m looking at it from the Bible’s perspective.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:18] Now in your work, are you doing working, coaching other people? Are you writing and just sharing the information that you’ve learned? Or are you helping people like rolling up your sleeves and helping people kind of manage their business? Like, what are the services you’re providing?

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:10:34] I’m doing a little bit of both. So I do have some people that I’m working with to mentor at the same time, because I’m a mom, I can’t fully dove into that. So I have to automate some of what I’m doing, and that’s where people see the books and other things that are being generated to help them because I realized I have to find a way to multiply myself. There are options for group coaching things like that. I try to be hands on, but I have to go virtual just because I can’t travel as much as I might at this stage in my my life. So finding different ways to get the information out to people. Some of that is one on one. Some of it is one to many be a group coaching and then others is just there are some people that I’m just in communication, going back and forth with emails and things like that, giving them pointers and pointing them in different directions. So it’s it’s a combination. And then the the print and other materials are mostly just to give people who are saying, Hey, I want to go further an opportunity to do that without having to wait on me.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:43] Now have you retired from the psychiatric psychiatry portion of your career and are now full time in this portion or you’re doing a little of both?

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:11:53] I am full time mom when it comes to the business and psychiatry psychiatry I had to transition out of. That was at the beginning of 2020. I had some things that were happening as far as my children’s health, and I really couldn’t juggle both my kid responsibilities and mom responsibilities and give good patient care. And I wasn’t willing to have my patients, even though there were amazing. Try and be patient with that sort of thing. I just had standards that wouldn’t let me do that. So I did close my practice at the beginning of January, in 2020. At this point, what I do is I’m full time mom and then on the side, I’m also working with Momma’s Money Tree and the people who want to learn from me

Lee Kantor: [00:12:38] Now from a from a personal level. Is this kind of work more rewarding than the psychiatry? It sounds like you’re touching people in little different ways.

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:12:48] I wouldn’t say it’s more rewarding. It’s a different hat, and I would say they were both. They’re both rewarding. I saw a lot in my practice of psychiatry how the financial aspects of things can really make it really negatively impact people’s mental health. There were many times where I was just sitting listening to people’s story, and I was thinking, Really, if we could just get the finances, I know so many of these other portions would fall into place for you. And in those cases, you’re doing what you can to help that person transition through that tough time while also doing what you can to support them as as best you can toward fixing the financial aspect of things. So I wouldn’t say one is more rewarding or the other. I still have some patients that I. I’m not in touch with any of them, but I don’t regret the time that I spent as a psychiatrist at all, like I was very privileged to be able to interact with people, and I had some amazing patients who really took life by the horns and made the commitment to work on things and change themselves, which is not easy for anybody to do. So I was just honored to be along with them for the journey.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:59] Now, have you had any opportunity to work with any of the folks in this new hat you’re wearing to see that kind of impact?

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:14:07] I’m starting to work in that respect, I because I’m so early in this process. I wouldn’t say that I’ve had a lot of opportunity to work as one on one as I would like. I have a couple of people that I’m working with at this point in time, and I’m just taking it slow because I’d rather make sure that I have the quality of information and the quality of infrastructure and process to make sure that people feel loved and cared for it, then to try and go whole hog and do things sloppily from my standard.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:41] So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:14:44] I’d love for people to start to explore the information that I have out there if they want to get more information or coaching. I’d love to hear from people. As I said, I’m already working with a handful of people to start to give them more information. And then for those who are saying, Hey, I’m curious to know more about what the Bible has to say about this process. Then I would say, go ahead and grab the Proverbs 31 millionaire. Like, I poured everything that I could get into print media and have work for that type of media into that book because when I wanted my kids to have it, but once I saw just how powerful it could be for helping to get people stable and then move them forward in business, I really felt like I had to make it available to others as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:34] Now, as as 2021 kind of winds to an end here, is there any advice you can give an entrepreneur to maybe kind of be more service minded and as they kind of jump into the next year, is there anything you would like to share?

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:15:51] Yeah. One of the things that I know people are struggling with right now is depending on what your business is like, this could be a really quiet time of year. And then you kind of turn the corner head into the beginning of the year and people are starting to want to move forward with different Leveson chapters of their lives. And if you’re looking to be of service, it can be interesting to know how to kind of keep up with that momentum and get in front of people to say, Hey, I’m here to help. And especially with so many moms at home saying, Hey, I could also use some income. One of the challenges is saying, OK, I’m at home, but how do I start to be in front of people? And so I’m just trying to encourage ladies to think about getting to our meeting people where they are. In some cases, you will have a group of people if there are three groups of people that I try to remind people of when they’re looking at prospective clients. There will be the population that’s looking for your services. And in my case, when I was in psychiatry, that was one of the easier populations to reach because they were already searching for a provider. So if you go and put yourself where they’re likely to look, then it makes it a lot easier for them to find you. So that’s where the search engines, Google places or Google. My business and big places, things like that, as well as professional and service directories can make a lot of difference.

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:17:14] But then there’s another group of people who kind of know that they are needing your services, but they don’t necessarily know to go look for you, per say. And so those people, you’ll have to meet where they are, and if you know that that’s the population that you’re trying to reach, then it becomes very important for you to have an idea of what your prospective client avatar is and where they’re likely to be, and then put your information in front of them. One of the hangouts for entrepreneurs is that they tend to go straight to online because so much is done online nowadays, and I’m not saying not to do that, but don’t forget your offline resources as well. If you know that there’s a mommy group near you or a school near you that pulls a lot of people and you could be of service to them, then send them a card with your information and some cards them that business cards in there or find a way to reach out to them offline as well. The same with going in person. It’s not as easy now due to everything that’s going on, but you can use virtual interaction to start to bridge that gap and meet people where they are as well. And then finally, there’s a group of people that’s kind of like there’s a parable of the lost coin in the Bible where they don’t know that they need you. They would like to need you. They’re open to your services, but they don’t know they aren’t there yet.

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:18:27] And so you’re going to have to find a way to speak their language, put information in front of them, use questions to help them start to think about what they help them see themselves. From the perspective of Hey, this person can actually help me. I like to use the example of a lady who’s thinking, Hey, I want to lose weight. Well, she may not be thinking of it from the perspective of she needs to work on how she deals with her emotional state and comfort eating in order to help herself lose weight as the person who’s going to be a best service to her. Your job is to get in front of her and then find a way to help her see that you can serve her in her area of need, which isn’t necessarily the weight loss that. Will come as she changes her approach to our emotions. So just coaching people in that respect and in the next couple of days, I’ll actually be producing or putting up a hand out for people if they want to download it from almost money tree so they can just pull that. It also lists for marketing skills that people can use to try and help them reach their population or their client audience, and to be memorable so that people will say, Hey, this is somebody that can be of service to me and allow your perspectives to know who that you’re actually there to help them and you’re the right pick.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:41] If somebody wants to learn more about your books and or your practice, is there a website?

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:19:46] Yeah, they can just go to momma’s money tree. That’s W-w-wait Mama’s Mommy’s Money Tree.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:55] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work, and we appreciate you.

D’Loreyn Walker, MD: [00:20:00] Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:02] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on high velocity radio. And.