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Issue #108

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I love the stories of Misfit PharmDs. Those of you who want to use your degree outside of traditional pharmacy roles.

To me, stories are the most encouraging way to teach a principle.

That’s why this week I brought in a good friend, Dr. Marina Buksov to share her journey from being stuck & disillusioned to building her own herbal empire. Or, as she put it, “from pharmacy to freedom.”

I’ll let Marina take it from here and I’ll summarize my favorite parts of her story at the end. 👇🏻

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Background

Like many of you, my background is in the allopathic pharmacy field:, holding a PharmD from St. John’s University. Graduating Summa Cum Laude in 2013, I was honored by Rho Chi and Phi Lambda Sigma honor societies and tied for the third highest GPA in my College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences graduating class.

Bushy-tailed and wide-eyed, I was super excited to put my newfound knowledge into practice. However, I soon discovered that none of the myriad of pharmaceutical paths available to me truly aligned with my values. Neither the diverse rotations nor internships I experienced as a student called to me, and the prospect of additional training in a residency or fellowship program didn’t either. I should’ve been on top of the world, proud of my achievements, and ready to jump into the next chapter. Instead, I found myself at a major conundrum and on the verge of depression.

At the precipice of graduation, I realized I may have just made the biggest mistake of my life. My skills called on me to be a drug expert, but I wanted nothing more than to see people thriving without drugs.

A Different Kind of Expertise

What I learned in pharmacy school was so much more than drug therapy. I also learned about the value and power of non-pharmacological approaches as first-line therapy, no matter the disease state. Working in the retail setting and experiencing the healthcare system myself reinforced this deep truth. The reality as I saw it was that the health system was rigged for failure and wasteful use of resources. We were focusing on changing clinical outcomes and endpoints utilizing targeted drug therapy very late in the game, rather than identifying earlier markers of health and disease.

We were overly focused on prescribing a ‘pill for every ill’ rather than focusing on prevention and public health. We systematically followed the guidelines but did not question how the guidelines were established in the first place, and by whom, and who they really served. We started on the healthcare path to help people with selfless compassion, but found ourselves powerless and lacking autonomy to make any real changes in the one industry that wasn’t supposed to be corrupt.

From Conundrum to Clarity

I identified with my patients and deeply cared about finding better, less invasive, and more sustainable solutions to support their health. I believed with all my heart that there was a better way and wished I knew more about alternatives so I could educate others and make an impact.

So, the next logical step for me was to stop beating myself up for choosing the wrong major and getting a useless degree. Instead, I understood that I learned powerful lessons not in spite of becoming a pharmacist, but because of it. Being behind the counter and dispensing countless amounts of medications that did little to address root causes, and had lots of potential risks and toxicity associated with them, was what pushed me to seek deeper answers and solutions.

The Path Less Traveled

Instead of starting over in a completely different industry, I chose to repurpose the skills that I already had and channel them in another direction. Of course, this didn’t happen overnight. I worked in the retail pharmacy setting by day and spent thousands of dollars and hours gaining additional skills and planning an exit strategy from an unfulfilling and unaligned role by night.

But this pursuit for a better way beyond the “straight and narrow” was not done alone. I attempted to figure it all out on my own, but eventually realized I needed support and guidance. I’m grateful for it now because it has made me a better coach and mentor, but I made A LOT of mistakes along the way. Most of them were very simple business strategies I knew nothing about and I accidentally made life way harder on myself than it needed to be.

Once I worked up the courage to ask for guidance, the path was still challenging but no more challenging than school or anything else I pursued in life. I hired a number of mentors and coaches to help me bridge the gap in the areas I was not proficient in. When I started, I knew NOTHING about business. But the guidance was only one element. It also took me sitting down with my partner and truly communicating with him where I was at, the change in direction I wanted to make, and the support I would need from him to get there.

The Roots of My Passion

After meandering through various training programs in health coaching, nutrition, and functional medicine, I was drawn to explore an alternative way of practicing pharmacy. It was something that never occurred to me, even though I was always fascinated by blending natural therapies with modern medicine. I just never thought to become an alter ego of traditional pharmacy by literally turning to the roots of our profession, which indeed are steeped in herbalism.

So I explored a local herb shop and arranged for an unpaid internship. Fascinated with all the plants and their properties, I decided to dive even deeper and pursued a formal 3-year clinical herbalism program.

Finally, I felt at home. Everything I’d learned in and outside of pharmacy school had come together in the herbalism field. Moreover, I found myself at a great advantage over my classmates in regards to digesting and absorbing the material. Knowing the jargon of pharmacy and having an understanding of pharmacology gave me a huge leg up.

Bridging Pharmacy and Herbalism

Pharmacy gave me a strong backbone, and now I was layering in a variety of diverse colors, textures, and shades of herbal therapeutics. What I learned about plant medicine went way beyond reducing plants to their mechanical parts and extracting the coveted pharmacological activity from various constituents. I was immersed in learning about the energetics, the qualitative properties, the botany, and the intricacies of the spiral lattices that govern every living being in the natural world. I felt connected to all of the brilliant humans who studied and classified herbal medicine before me – because this knowledge was universal and transcendental.

In addition to learning how and what plants can do for us, I gained a deeper understanding of the interdependence of all living ecosystems and the importance of diversity in the natural world. Seeing that we are all connected and in constant relation to each other ultimately gave me a grasp of how to live a meaningful human existence.

Paying It Forward

I wanted to pay it forward and show the next generation of pharmacists that it’s possible to have a successful career as a natural-minded pharmacist. I began researching and interviewing others on this path, creating a podcast featuring the stories and trajectories of pharmacists and other industry leaders in holistic, integrative, and functional medicine.

Before I knew it, more and more pharmacists inspired by my path started reaching out to me and asking to pick my brain. Suddenly, people began asking to pay me for my guidance. At that point, I saw an opportunity to continue paving a new path for many to follow after me.

The Birth of the Mentorship Program

I quickly learned that there were a lot of people like me out there who just needed someone that understood them and could actually support them in making a scary but courageous and fulfilling change. I greatly enjoy helping others cut the learning curve and watching them thrive. Not to mention, the beautiful domino effect of other practitioners helping to advocate for and spread awareness to clients of their own, which ultimately empowers the end consumers with education and choices.

As I continued building my business, my knowledge base, and relentless research, it became clear that the demand for this work was far greater than what I could supply alone. To fulfill the demand for holistic approaches to all the health ailments out there would require a movement.

All of this reminded me what fulfilling your purpose actually feels like, and I realized at that point there was no going back, only forward. Creating my herbal mentorship and coaching program not only changed my career but also gave me optionality, translating to more freedom—my ultimate value in health and in life.

I knew I would have a long road ahead of me but the ability to compare how I felt working at the pharmacy… and the feeling I felt being able to serve my clients with autonomy, compelled me.

I had to figure out how to work full-time, take care of my family, while going through one program after the other, building all the tools and skills I possibly could around herbalism, as well as business. As if it wasn’t hard enough to juggle all of that at once, we were in the midst of COVID-19 and I became pregnant with my second child.

For me to build my business on the side, launch it, and scale it successfully while juggling everything else, required me to learn how to build my business around my lifestyle and other responsibilities that were non-negotiable.

Of course, I didn’t do it alone. I invested over $100,000 in the last couple years on courses, coaches, consultants and mentors in order to find ways to serve others with the knowledge, experience and passion I had in the most efficient way possible.

That is how AND why I pivoted to helping other pharmacists build their holistic practices while giving them the freedom and flexibility to work remotely part-time and for some full-time.

What Work Is Like For Me Now

To date, I have created a mix of high and lower-ticket services, in the format of self-paced, real-time, virtual and in-person classes, workshops, 1:1 and group programs. I have also launched a product line of my own herbal tea and tincture formulations, and currently earn residual income from my virtual dispensary. And I even managed to run my first retreat in the middle of the pandemic, and international to boot!

What I love about Marina’s Story

You’re a Misfit PharmD too. You don’t have to stay in traditional pharmacy. Take courage from Marina’s story to build your own thing online (and before you know it you may be selling products for me to grab too).

PS, she has awesome physical products I’ve been enjoying with my family. Not a sponsored product, just a happy customer!

See you next week, fellow Misfits!

👋🏻 Jamie

PS-Whenever you're ready, there are 2 more ways Jamie can help you:

• 👉🏻 I'm building a waitlist of 212+ PharmD’s for my private incubator community that takes you go from lurking online to owning a strong personal brand in 90 days without being an extrovert. Join here

• Hit reply to this email with a problem you’re facing as you navigate exiting pharmacy. Chances are I’ll write a newsletter to solve your problem if it applies to others.