Docs Outside The Box
Hosts Dr. Nii (Ghanaian) and Dr. Renee (Haitian) are first-generation physicians who paid off $662,000 in student loans in 3 years - while figuring out contracts, career moves, and money management that their colleagues learned at home.
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- Paying off debt without family financial guidance
- Building wealth from scratch
- The questions you don't know to ask (but your colleagues already knew)
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Docs Outside The Box
Honoring D’Angelo: What Brown Sugar Meant to Me Growing Up #472 Part1
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In this episode, we paid a tribute to D’Angelo whose albums like Brown Sugar and Voodoo shaped our teenage years. We also talked about how slow jams are no longer there, and the split between what people say online and how we actually treat each other off screen.
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If you want to create wealth for yourself, I'll be honest with y'all. I think we talk about real estate way too much. I think we talk about other types of like alternative typing investing way too much. Like the low-hanging fruit of just getting out of debt, saving money, putting money into a brokerage account, putting money into your individual retirement account, putting money into your HSA if you can afford to, you know, make sure you choose the right spouse, right?
SPEAKER_01That right there.
Wealth Building Without The Hype
SPEAKER_00Those are the most important. It's like the movie Hitch. And he's doing the things with his Q-tips and throwing it away and doing all this stuff. It's like, and what does Hitch say? He's like, listen, just a two-step. Simple. And that's what it is with your finances, y'all. You know what I'm saying? I got my 401k. Ooh, you can do that sometimes. Ooh. What move is that? That's the HSA. That's the HSA. You got a good spouse, you know what I'm saying? Who you can trust. You know what they do at night, you know what I'm saying? Uh-huh. You know where they be at. People try to make it too complicated, yo. Yo, yo, yo. Welcome back to another episode of Docks Outside the Box. It's your boy, Dr. Ni. I'm joined by Dr.
SPEAKER_01Renee.
SPEAKER_00My voice is so horse. Oh, well, we didn't ask for an explanation. What's up with your voice?
SPEAKER_01But I think people would like to know.
Hosts Return And Creative Reset
SPEAKER_00I wanted to tell people that we know that it's been a minute. It's been close to two months since we put out an episode. And I just want everybody to know that life has been lifing. And for me, I'll be really honest with you all. Um, between surgery, um, my schedule, um, the travel between Ghana, and then trying to get back into our normal schedule of work and family, and just honestly, I'll be honest with you guys. Um, I just needed some space to breathe, um, some space to kind of refill the tank creatively. And I found myself watching a lot of videos and watching a lot of content on YouTube and listening to a lot of other podcasts, and just I don't know, I just didn't feel like creating. And I just wanted to consume. And I think that, you know, next year, Renee, next year 2026 will be our 10 years of putting out the show. Um, I just, you know, sometimes you just want to just re-center things. I just wanted to, um, I don't know, I just didn't feel like recording. So that's where that's the reason why I took a pause. So, um, but I do want to thank, because I look at the download numbers, people still downloading this show, and everybody who's downloading this, um, I want to say thank you very much for downloading the show, listening to the show, rocking with us, being patient. Some of you all have reached out and checked on us, um, still pressing play. Um, but I just wanted to be very open with you guys and let you know that I don't want to be someone who just um what do we I just don't want to be someone who just you know presses play to record and creates something just to fill uh silence, right? Like I just wanted whatever I say to be meaningful. So I want you guys to know that we want it to be real, um, I want it to be intentional, and I ultimately want it to be worth your time. Um, so I'm back, plus in record. You should know that I'm rested, I'm ready to go, I'm re-centered, um, and I'm ready.
SPEAKER_01So you got something meaningful to say.
Why We Paused And What Matters
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. But before we get into today's episode, because I'm just gonna keep this intro quick, um, I want to take a moment um because um we have to recognize and honor the life of D'Angelo. Um, it's a big, big deal to me. He died on my birthday, uh, October 14th. And a lot of us, including me, um, who grew up in the 90s and the early 2000s, that first album, Brown Sugar, Alfred, if you could put a screenshot of that up there, it wasn't just an album. That thing was a moment for me. Um, as you know, Renee, I'm still quoting lyrics from that album. You know, ladies, my favorite track from that album. Um, it was a whole atmosphere. It started the whole Neo Soul movement, right? Um, there's a lot of stories that I got to share about this album, how it shaped my teenage years, my teenage brain. Um, and um, I definitely didn't understand it at that time. I definitely understand it now, but it was a time, right? It was it was it was a vibe, right? I don't know if brown sugar, I don't know if brown sugar was big for you as it was for me, because you were older than me. So get out of here, Nee. Start with this mess again. But you wasn't a teenager when this something this album came out, though.
SPEAKER_01Uh I wasn't. What was I 30 or something? I don't know. I don't know, something.
SPEAKER_00So I was a teenager. You shouldn't have been on the high school backyards trying to get with us, though. So anyway, but no, I'm not done actually yet. I'm not done. Because actually, I'm gonna leave a segment for that. Um, and then let me finish my intro. And then we're gonna get into something um that I've been reflecting on for a lot this whole month, guys. Um, the best financial decisions that I have made over the last decade. Um, I've had a lot of time to think about this. And I just want to say, guys, we've tried a lot of different things. And you're gonna hear about the good moves, you're gonna hear about the bad moves, you're gonna hear about the experiments, um, Dr. Renee on the lamb from the IRS. Um, I can look back and can you stop sighing? I'm still doing my intro. I want you guys to know what's actually creating freedom versus what's just hype. You know, for me, it's stability and peace that I'm looking for from these decisions. And I think you guys will would like to hear the real. So, and then we got a question from the audience. You know, I always love that part because that's the best part of the show. So let's get into it, let's jump into real quick um taking some time off. Um so I just want to say this real quick. Renee, I think I have at least three texts that I sent to you that question or that said how many times we're gonna record. Yeah. So I just want to know how many times did you get sick of me saying we're gonna record today, and then um I canceled.
SPEAKER_01I I never got sick of you.
SPEAKER_00Really? No.
SPEAKER_01I figured when you were ready to record, we record.
SPEAKER_00You weren't worried at all? Because it was like, yo, because you would say we don't have a podcast.
SPEAKER_01So we're like something about the clockcast, and I was like, oh, we got a podcast.
SPEAKER_00You know that pisses me off when you say that. That's how you do it.
Guarding Guest Quality And Misinformation
SPEAKER_01Listen, you know, you know, sarcasm, sarcasm is my love language. So You mean antagonism is your love language, change. Whatever, one and the same. One and the same. Yeah, no, but I didn't I didn't get sick of it. I figured when you were ready to record, you would just, you'd be like, hey, let's record. And so, you know, and I I know you, you need to be in the space and you know, in the head space to be able to do certain things. And when you're not, then you know, it doesn't come off right. And then if you force everyone to do it, you get angry and you're like, Oh, that sucked.
SPEAKER_00I can always go back and listen to when I'm like, yo, I forced that. And I think now I'm really, I'm really like trying to recognize that listen, like if you're forcing content, it's gonna come out. I don't know if the audience will catch it, but it matters to me. Um, so I needed that creative rest. Um, so when we did that one episode in Ghana, then we did another episode when we got back, I was like, man, I'm just I'm just not in the groove yet. I'm not in the groove yet. I'm not gonna lie, there's a little bit of ego. I still think we are the best Doctor podcast out there. I do. Of course. Um, and I didn't want to put anything out that was gonna be. But I think to everybody who's listening to us, I'm telling you right now, go listen to other podcasts. Go listen to like we give you the real of the real, right? And it's not shade on any other body, anybody else, but I think we give you real, the real, right? Like you, what me, how me and Renee are on this show, that's how we really are. The topics that we talk about, the people that we have on the show, um, that we ain't gonna have on the show anymore. That's the real. And real quick, yo, one thing I decided. Listen, y'all. We come on, don't, don't, don't. Should I tell him? Should I tell him what? Tell him what?
SPEAKER_01Yo, listen. Like, just I was saying don't, just don't say like stuff that you're gonna say today, and then tomorrow you're gonna be like, man, I changed my mind. Just leave yourself open. I do not know. Leave yourself open.
SPEAKER_00Listen, if you listen to the show right now, if you wonder if you could come on the show and be a guest, I'm gonna tell y'all right now. I'm checking your socials, I'm checking your tweets, I'm checking your affiliations because um I think that matters.
SPEAKER_01But we were doing that before, so I don't understand why this is a special announcement, a special report, breaking news.
SPEAKER_00Listen, I'm telling you, podcasts are a big deal now. Podcasts are a really big deal. You know, like I don't have to say all the names, but you know, like they are part of them, part of some of these podcasts are really determining what's the like how like presidential races are gonna go.
SPEAKER_01Of course.
SPEAKER_00Right? People are determining how they're going to exercise based off of the the information they get on some of these docs who are on these podcasts. Um, some people determine how they're gonna lose weight, some people determine, you know, whatever it may be. Like if you check out, uh I forgot what his name, there was a podcast that Kamala Harris was on just recently. Uh Diary of a CEO. That's a good one. Um, but there are times when he has doctors who come on, or even psychiatrists and psychologists that come on, and I'm like, they're just spitting bullshit. But he doesn't know, he doesn't know, you know, to play.
SPEAKER_01They're gonna be like, wait, did he just say I was spitting BS?
SPEAKER_00But let's talk about that. How how can you like listen? That's why I always say, like, this is edutainment, right? Like, we're trying to educate, but we're also entertaining. Like everything that we say, you if you if I'm giving you advice on what to do for running, if we're giving you advice obviously financially, like you need to double check with a f with a um an advisor.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? But like you look at some of these podcasts, and I'm not just picking on Diary of CEO, like Joe Rogan does it a lot. There's a lot of other uh podcasts that do it a lot. A lot of these doctors that appear on some of these other podcasts, they write to us first, or their PR firm writes to us first. This is true. I don't know if they write to us first, but we get the and they'll talk about like cannabis, does XY nothing about what cannabis like some of the things that these guys talk about, it's like how do you know this? How do you know this?
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_01L carnitine helps you blank blank blank. Can you come and talk about that?
Listener Gratitude And Community
SPEAKER_00No, I'm not coming to talk about L carnitine. That's how I know, that's how I know these PR firms, these people, they don't even be listening to our shows because we don't even talk about these things. Correct. Correct. So if you're listening right now and you like the you're doing research on L carnitine, don't right here. We don't want you here. We I appreciate what you're doing, but you're not gonna come on. Don't worry, they're not listening anyway. But don't send your PR firms because I gotta go through those emails. That takes my time. Kiara and Audrey are like, come on, I want to go through all this stuff, you know. But listen, um, I want to thank the listeners for their patience. Um, I want to thank the listeners for their continued support. Um, that goes a long way. I think that um a lot of times uh people who are creating, people who are starting off at a certain level, like they compare themselves to other podcasters or they can uh compare themselves to other people who are creating content and they see that oh man, these people have a million followers, these people write in all the time, and that can never be me, so to speak. And then, like us, we have our own group of people who write in consistently, listen consistently, interact with us. So I just want to say to everybody, I recognize you all. Thank you for listening, thank you for the support. I really appreciate y'all because it's it's a it's a big deal. Um, and you know, we're sharing about what we've been up to over the last month and a half. Like, if you guys want to write in and share what you've been up to, um I enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_01Oh, we'd love to hear that.
SPEAKER_00We'd love to hear it. So just go to the show notes or go to our website. Is our website even still working? Shit. You really, your whole brain was on hiatus. Yeah, I was on a hiatus. Yeah, that whole creative brain's on hiatus. You guys know how to get in touch with us. Let us know what's going on.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, well, everybody know what's going on with you. Nobody knows what's going on with me. And I see you. But we didn't ask you that. Exactly. Exactly. You didn't ask. You didn't ask.
SPEAKER_00Go ahead, Renan.
SPEAKER_01So, anyway. Okay. Um, no, I've just been as far as a podcast, I've just been following your lead. Um, as far as everything else, most of my time has actually been and cut. It's time for the next segment.
SPEAKER_00Let's go, guys. Sorry, Matt Damon. Shut the fuck up. No, move on. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.
Family Update And School Routines
SPEAKER_01You know what? You gotta come home. You gotta come home soon. Okay. You gotta come home too. Okay, walk with a helmet, Ni. Walk with a helmet, because you gotta come home soon. Um, go ahead. Nah, I'm I was just saying I've been in uh back to school mode. Yo, she's mad though, guys. She's mad. Trust me. I know my wife. Trust me, I'm not mad. I'm really not. I'm really not. You know me. I I'm not mad. Um no, I've been in back to school mode, um, pretty much. Um, so our two boys are now in first grade and third grade. And first grade has definitely upped the ante for a little one. Um, I I think that we've shared that, you know, he um has a diagnosis um of ADHD. Um, which at this point I'm like he's doing actually pretty good considering. Um but yeah, just been in back to school mode teaching them. If anybody knows anything about me, I used to be a teacher back in the day. My first job was as a tutor when I was 10. I had two clients um, then eventually became a teacher years later in high school. So I do love to teach. I really do. And so I I just enjoy, you know, creating work for my boys and you know, so that's that's really what I've been up to, you know, just child rearing for the most part. That's all. That's all I need to share. See, it wasn't it wasn't all that grandiose and you know, oh, I need to ponder life, and you know, I didn't know if I wanted to podcast anymore, and you know, if I create content, blah, blah, blah. Like, don't nobody want to hear you bury us only. Damn.
Honoring D’Angelo’s Legacy
SPEAKER_00And on that note, yo, let's take a moment to give a shout out um to the one and only D'Angelo. Um, this is personal for me. Um, he died on October 14th, 2025, literally on my birthday. Um, yo, when that album came out, that was a big deal for me. So um Brown Sugar? Oh, yeah, Brown Sugar, his first album was a big deal. Um, yeah, a lot of people who are who, you know, if you if you are a fan of Neo Soul, Music Soul Child, Erica Badu, um, Raheem Devon, any of those people, if you are a fan of them, he was the first. He was the first one, I think, officially, um, to really bring in that like RB, jazz, you know, incense in your room, you know, like that type of vibe. You know, beeswax, you know what I'm saying? Like every song is like this, you know what I'm saying? Like snapping, that type of vibe.
SPEAKER_01I sort of clapping, okay.
SPEAKER_00Right, right, right. But uh Brown Sugar was an amazing first album for me. And then obviously he came out with Voodoo. Um, he also want to um send some respects to his family, also, um, because yo, his child lost actually two parents this year, right? Or was it late last year into this year?
SPEAKER_01This I think it was early this year, Angie Stone.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Angie Stone and now um D'Angelo, which is which is crazy. Crazy, you know. Yeah, um But yeah, it you know, for me that going back to that album, like I was a big fan of brown sugar, I wasn't a big fan of Voodoo.
SPEAKER_01Um, that I loved voodoo, but I'm Haitian, so yeah. I so for me, voodoo. You don't see what I did there. Stop and laugh. Stop and laugh. That mess was funny. Stop and play. I got what you're saying. Stop playing.
SPEAKER_00Come on. I got I got what you're saying with that. But um, listen, Serpent. Um the what I'm saying is like brown sugar for me was more like these are like each individual song was a hit to me, basically, right? Whereas voodoo was an experience. Like from track one all the way to the end, it was an experience, but there wasn't the highs that you would see in brown sugar, right? Okay, like like it was like you're going into a club and you're going to experience something for you know two hours, or you're gonna go to a um, you know, whatever it is, you're gonna experience this for two hours, but you won't have the highs of brown sugar. And that was for me, like each song was literally a major hit to me, basically. Yeah, and um, you know, for me, as a teenager taking a bus, you know, riding to school into Newark, you know, with my headphones and listening to that, like that was a great album. And for me, like the it just felt like I was seen, you know, and like I felt like I was grown listening to grown folks music and I wasn't even grown. I shouldn't have been listening to this, right? Why? You were a teenager. I know, but like this is like this is grown folks type things, you know? But it was great. Yeah, yeah, that's how I understood love to be, basically. Because it was like it was it was at that age that I was like, okay, I'm gonna start talking to women, to girls, and all this stuff, and you know, you pin punch, you know, like yo, let me, you know, and then you try to, you know, take stuff from the album, and it's like, man, get out of here. It's like, oh shit, it doesn't work, right?
SPEAKER_01And um, yeah, okay. Let me ask you this question. So I don't know what that was all about, but you know, I've been thinking lately, I'm like, so whatever happened to slow jams, which Neo Soul is not quite slow jams, but it's kind of like the natural evolution from slow jams, you know.
SPEAKER_00I think slow jams encompasses Neo Soul.
Slow Jams, Vulnerability, And Culture
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right. Whatever happened to Slow Jams, and do you think that the dynamic that we see between men and women today are impacted by the fact that there aren't there aren't many slow jams anymore, right? Because in slow jams, men used to profess their love for women.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But you don't you don't see that much anymore, right? Like obviously women women still profess their love for men or whatever, still not through slow jams necessarily. Um, but they still have that. But men don't necessarily have songs where they are professing love to women, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think you got a good point there. I think that uh in society as a whole, uh particularly people who listen to RB, um, like that notion of being vulnerable to say those things to a woman in that way. Yeah, um, that's kind of passe now, right? Um mainly because like in hip-hop, like hip-hop is completely like rap music completely, it feels like kind of just took hold of RB and now it's like a hybrid. And now you basically have rap that is a little bit more RB, but then RB completely is just on a back burner.
SPEAKER_01That's how it's well, but they erased that part, right? They erased that notion of RB where you do have that expression of love for someone else, right?
SPEAKER_00It's there, it's coming back into mainstream. Where? Yeah, you have to look for it. You have to look for it.
SPEAKER_01I mean, you gotta you gotta be like that lady, you know, that meme where the lady's just standing there and looking like but it's there, yeah.
SPEAKER_00There's a lot of artists out there who are doing that, um, men and women aside. Um, but it's not, it's you're not gonna hear it on hot 97. You're not gonna hear it on, well, you I mean, you're not gonna hear it on KISS. Like, like you're just not gonna hear it on well, KISS doesn't even exist anymore.
SPEAKER_01I don't think KISS exists, yeah.
SPEAKER_00People don't listen to the radio really that much anymore, right? So you're not really gonna see it on playlists, it's not gonna be on the top 40 of your playlist, like, but it's there. There are RB people out there. RB has made a comeback. Mainly it has been sparked by women, actually. Right. But the RB is not what it used to be in terms of like you'd listen to a radio station and probably half of the songs would be rap, the other half of the songs would be RB.
SPEAKER_01Or you actually have a whole hour or two dedicated to slow jams, quiet storm, you know. And the reason I was thinking about this because is because, you know, I'm obviously when you're on social media and you're looking at stuff and you know, you you see maybe um, you know, a reel with a man professing some sort of love to a woman, and it's like when you go through the comments, you're like, damn, it's like it's the worst thing he could have possibly done in the world is to profess his love to this woman. You know what I mean? Like, oh, he loves it.
SPEAKER_00He dick riding, he's he glazing, you glazing.
SPEAKER_01It's like I'm like, God, how insecure, how insecure do you have to be to not be able to understand that some people feel a certain way about other people, that it's okay. Like, it's okay if you have strong feelings.
SPEAKER_00But you gotta remember though, the internet, social media, that could be Twitter, Instagram, um, wherever else, wherever else people argue, that's not a real space.
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_00I'm very honest. Let me finish my point. Let me finish my point. That's not a real space, right? Because a lot of people will say things there, a lot of people will comment on things. There's no face, there's no way to identify people. People just say things because they just say things, right? So what happens in Twitter, what happens on social media may not necessarily be happening when people actually interact with each other.
SPEAKER_01So I I'll leave it at that. I I used to think years ago that the internet, social media is not a real space. I don't actually believe that anymore. I think I think social media is actually a very real space. And I think that, you know, you mentioned earlier in the intro that, you know, even political um, you know, elections are potentially, you know, if not determining, but certainly influencing how people vote, you know, what people think, what people do, what people say, how people interact with each other, how people interact with themselves. You know, unfortunately, you have you have to get your teenagers and your preteens off of social media because they're harming themselves based on this non-real space that really is impacting their reality. And so I I think social media is actually a very real space because you are taking things that happen in their lives and you are televising it for the entire world to see, and the entire world is shaming. And so that that to me is real.
Is The Internet A Real Space?
SPEAKER_00That's real. Well, I'll before we get I think we're off the tangent, we're kind of going into a circular conversation, a tangent of D'Angelo. I'll leave it to you like this. So I I think I remember when, like in the early 2000s, you know, there was the Sims back video game where you could, you know, create basically an artificial life and see what people would do. And then it graduated to something else. I think it was called Second Life. And then I remember PlayStation created like this second world where it was almost like a virtual world and so forth. Um, in essence, that's where we're at. The reason I'm saying that is like the internet to me is a place where conversation occurs, people say things. Um, but uh up until what a couple of years ago, there really wasn't any repercussions for what you said on the internet. A lot of things right now, even to this day, that people say on the internet, they can't say in real life. That's why you have a what you I was gonna bring it back to.
SPEAKER_01In person, you mean? Is that in person you mean?
SPEAKER_00In person or in real life. That's what I mean, like off of the internet.
SPEAKER_01Okay, right.
SPEAKER_00So a lot of the comments that people say on the internet, they would not necessarily say in real life, in front of somebody, right? Face to face and so forth.
SPEAKER_01Maybe.
SPEAKER_00Right? Um, maybe I I don't think they would, right? I think most that that's the whole thing, right? But I mean, that's the reason why you in essence, that's part of the reason what you were talking about with men and women in their conversations, right? There's a lot of women right now who complain and say that men don't know how to talk to women anymore because they don't talk to women in public. They text or they send messages through Instagram, they DM and so forth. But the availability to interact in real life is completely different than how people interact on the internet.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they ain't talking there either. They ain't talking in real life and they ain't talking on the internet either.
SPEAKER_00Well, they're talking on the internet, but they're not talking in real life. Um, so that's why I say it's it's really, it's a it's like this artificial made-up world where everybody feels like there's um, you know, everybody's on an equal setting and so forth. But when we get into real life, some of those a lot of those things can't be said because there's a lot of repercussions, right? But I'll leave it at that. But let's let's get back to this D'Angelo, let's finish this up. I just want to say, listen, um, you know, to me, music is like a memory. I always say this. Remember, I used to say this when we were dating, like there's a soundtrack to life, um, or there's a soundtrack to my life, and I I definitely say that um D'Angelo's music definitely was like the soundtrack to like my teenage years.
SPEAKER_01So what's what's what's the soundtrack? What soundtrack am I in? What song am I?
SPEAKER_00Mmm, that's a good question.
SPEAKER_01Don't dirt, don't d't don't dunno, don't dun, dun, dun, move, get out the way, get out the way.
Music As Memory And Closing Tease
SPEAKER_00That's not even on my soundtrack. That's not even on my soundtrack. So shout out to D'Angelo. I gotta give you props, man. Um rest in peace, my brother. Rest in peace.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, rest in peace. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Alright, y'all. We just finished a segment where we gave a special shout out to D'Angelo. In our next segment, we're gonna talk about the top five financial moves um that actually changed my life. So stay tuned.