In this episode of ThimbleberryU, we explore the concept of building and maintaining confidence under uncertainty, especially for healthcare professionals who are already accustomed to high-stress environments. The financial world often mirrors the unpredictability of healthcare. Policy changes, staffing shortages, and burnout are compounded by volatile markets and alarming news cycles. Our focus is not on prediction, but on creating confidence through structured, thoughtful planning.
We start by addressing how fear-driven headlines can tempt people into making financial decisions based on emotion. Amy reminds us that headlines are built to provoke urgency, not provide clarity. Market fear is often noise, not rooted in personal financial change. Reacting impulsively often locks in losses and increases risk. That’s why we advocate for responsible inaction, a deliberate choice to stay the course unless personal circumstances demand a change.
A strong financial plan assumes uncertainty. It’s not built for calm seas, but for the real-world storms. That means including flexibility for job changes, a sufficient cash buffer, and the ability to adapt without starting over. Confidence grows from knowing your plan already factors in the unpredictable. It’s not about guessing what’s next. It’s about trusting the structure you’ve created.
We dig into the concept of guardrails. These are rules and pre-decisions made in calmer moments to help reduce decision fatigue. Healthcare professionals already follow protocols in their daily work, and the same concept applies to finances. These protocols guide us through emotionally charged situations and help prevent impulsive, regrettable moves.
Cash plays a unique role in confidence. For healthcare professionals, cash isn’t just an emergency buffer; it’s emotional relief. It offers flexibility, covers transition periods, and acts as a cushion during market downturns. However, it’s also important to avoid extremes. Too little cash creates anxiety, while too much slows growth. The right amount depends on career phase, income variability, and life responsibilities.
We close with the reminder that certainty isn't the goal. Resilience is. When a plan is built to withstand real life, it allows money to support your lifestyle, not compete for your attention. That’s where true confidence comes from.
(00:00) - Intro: Confidence Under Uncertainty
(00:47) - Why Healthcare Professionals Are Feeling Financial Strain
(01:25) - The Emotional Impact of Headlines
(02:12) - Market Fear vs. Personal Risk
(03:08) - What “Doing Nothing” Really Means
(04:51) - Is Your Financial Plan Built for Real Life?
(06:04) - Guardrails and Reducing Decision Fatigue
(07:30) - The Role of Cash in Building Confidence
(10:48) - Cash as a Confidence Tool, Not a Cop-Out
(11:00) - Final Thoughts: Confidence Comes from Structure
(11:33) - How to Connect with Thimbleberry Financial
Jon Gay (00:04):
Welcome back to ThimbleberryU. I am Jon Jag Gay. I'm joined as always by Amy Walls from Thimbleberry Financial. Hello, Amy.
Amy Walls (00:10):
Hi, Jag.
Jon Gay (00:12):
Today, we're talking about confidence under uncertainty for healthcare professionals. If you work in healthcare, uncertainty is already part of your world: policies change, reimbursement shifts, staffing is unpredictable, and the pace rarely, if ever, slows down.
So, when volatile markets and loud financial headlines show up on top of that, it's easy to feel like money is just another thing demanding attention. So, today we're going to talk about confidence under uncertainty. Not certainty, not prediction — confidence.
Amy, this feels like something a lot of healthcare professionals are wrestling with right now as we record this in early January of 2026.
Amy Walls (00:47):
You know, it really seems to be. We hear this a lot from our clients who are in healthcare, and I think a big part of it is that people are already carrying so much responsibility, and when financial uncertainty shows up, or world uncertainty even, that could play a role with financial uncertainty. It can just feel like one more place where you're afraid of getting something wrong.
Jon Gay (01:13):
For sure. Even I can speak to that, Amy. I feel like I'm watching less and less of the news to protect my own mental health lately across the board (laughs). When headlines do feel so alarming, how do you know whether to act financially or to stay put?
Amy Walls (01:25):
First of all, Jag, I'm with you there on the headlines. What we have to remember is that headlines are designed to create urgency, not create calm or give context.
Jon Gay (01:35):
Yeah. You're talking to a journalism major where I totally feel what you're putting down right now.
Amy Walls (01:43):
(Laughs) Yeah, and couple that with the fact that most market fear comes from noise and not from something changing in your actual life. So, changes made in response to fear are usually market timing. Even when they feel reasonable, stress driven decisions often lock in losses or increase risk quietly.
Jon Gay (02:10):
That's a huge point right there.
Amy Walls (02:12):
Because it's happening behind the scenes where you can't calculate that risk ahead of time; you can only find it in hindsight.
Jon Gay (02:22):
Because you're acting on emotion, not on hard numbers.
Amy Walls (02:25):
And it feels safe. So, a strong plan really assumes that scary headlines are going to happen. And if goals, timeline, or cash needs haven't changed, then that's where reacting usually doesn't help. The goal really, when you have a solid financial plan, isn't reacting quickly, it's avoiding the decisions that you'll regret later.
Jon Gay (02:50):
I feel like this underscore’s something we've talked about in so many previous episodes of this podcast Amy, where it's not to react to external forces, not to give into human nature. It's behavioral finance, it's all these things we talk about. People here do nothing during volatile markets, what does that really mean?
Amy Walls (03:08):
Well, first of all, let's talk about what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean ignoring money. What it does mean is sticking with decisions made when emotions were lower and you are in a better mind space to make good, sound decisions.
So, responsible inaction, because that's really what we're talking about when we say we don't do anything, you're choosing responsible inaction, and doing nothing is a choice. That still includes scheduling plan reviews, rebalancing when it's needed, and confirming your cash reserves are still appropriate.
So, even though you might be in this do-nothing phase, there is still structure that's being monitored and managed towards an oversight, it's just not done in a panic. So, really what I'm saying is restraint really is a form of discipline.
Jon Gay (04:10):
I really like what you said there a minute ago about doing nothing is a choice. You're choosing to not act irrationally, I guess, is the way to put it.
Amy Walls (04:19):
Yeah. You're reconnecting with essentially the reasons you made the decisions you did in the first place. Basically by recognizing those decisions you made originally, you can cement that the current situation isn't the right time to make new changes.
Jon Gay (04:39):
Got it. So, you kind of touched on this a moment ago, Amy, but let's dig a little bit deeper. How can someone tell if their plan is built for uncertainty, not just those calm seas and calm markets?
Amy Walls (04:51):
Well, first of all, markets are uncertain by nature. So, plans should expect discomfort and plans are about helping people. So, therefore, the people they're helping need to expect some discomfort at times in there too. That said, a resilient plan includes flexibility for job and career changes, a cash buffer to avoid forced decisions and last-minute decisions, and the ability to adjust without starting completely over.
Plans that only work in ideal conditions probably aren't serving the person they were created for, because there are no lives really with perfectly ideal conditions. So that plan is going to break. And so, confidence, I believe, really comes from knowing the plan accounted for real life and what happens in real life. It's got a Mr. Murphy clause in it.
Jon Gay (05:51):
He has a very famous law, right?
Amy Walls (05:53):
Yes.
[Laughter]
Jon Gay (05:56):
So, how do these guardrails and the rules-based plan that you're talking about, how do they help when emotions are so high?
Amy Walls (06:04):
Great question, Jag. So, what I think you're really talking about here are guardrails, and they're the pre-decisions made in calmer moments. They clarify how risk is going to be managed, when changes are allowed, when they're not, and what that really does is it reduces decision fatigue.
I know we've talked about the decision fatigue in so many episodes and decision fatigue is especially bad during stressful periods, and healthcare professionals already rely on protocols every day. So, the ones that you're using at work as a healthcare professional, they're not the same ones you'd use in financial services, but it's the same kind of guardrails and protocols that you want to follow when it comes to your money.
Jon Gay (06:55):
Think about somebody in, for example, a hospital setting, and there are all these systems in place to make sure someone doesn't get the wrong medication or, to use an extreme example, the wrong limb isn't amputated. There are all these safeguards and protocols in place, and you're talking about doing something similar for their financial future.
Amy Walls (07:14):
Exactly. That's a great analogy. What came to mind for me was Izzie from Grey's Anatomy back in the early episodes when she cut the LVAD wire.
Jon Gay (07:23):
I'll defer to my wife for that analogy; she's watched a lot more grays than I have (laughs).
Amy Walls (07:27):
Got it.
Jon Gay (07:30):
What role does cash play in creating confidence especially in these healthcare careers?
Amy Walls (07:35):
I tend to say that's a great question, but it's a very, very good question, and I bring that up because I have found a lot of people in healthcare either embrace cash or reject cash.
Jon Gay (07:50):
Like one extreme or the other.
Amy Walls (07:52):
And the reality is that cash provides flexibility and emotional relief. It's there for emergencies and opportunities; it can also be there as you are transitioning into needing to use your investments. So, having too little cash creates anxiety, and that's anxiety over where income's going to come from, especially for someone who has retired or is needing that extra cash.
But too much cash can slow long-term progress. If you're sitting on cash and not getting growth, you're not keeping up with the cost of inflation. So, a common baseline on cash is three to six months of essentials.
That said, if you're at a place where you are close to needing to draw out of your accounts, you'd probably need a lot more than that. That three to six months is just emergency funds, but cash can be great if, let's say you've retired, but you're not yet of required minimum distribution age.
So, you're pulling out of investments, you may want to have another year or two of expenses in cash so that if the market does go down significantly, you don't need to continue to sell out of your investments. It acts as a buffer.
And even in 2008, it took the market 18 months to recover. So, when I say a year to two years, that is a pretty good length of time to have cash on hand that could cover those expenses because the last thing we want in a good financial plan is for someone to have to change their lifestyle because they're afraid of drawing out of their accounts. You should get to live the life you want, and so that's what planning's all about.
Healthcare professionals may need some more cash if they do have variable income, talking about self-employed here. Maybe they have burnout or some planned time away, maybe a sabbatical or such, or we've talked about this recently: some have had family or caregiving responsibilities that cause them to need to step away from work for a little while.
Jon Gay (10:09):
As you've mentioned in previous episodes, Amy, a lot of times the folks in the healthcare industry — saddle isn't quite the right word, but they're chosen to be a caregiver because of their medical background.
Amy Walls (10:20):
Absolutely. Yeah, they are people who take on a lot of responsibility and families, parents recognize that when it comes to their own needs.
So, going back to your original question though about cash: cash is a confidence tool. It's a tool just like investments are a tool or insurance is a tool, or your mortgage is a tool. It's a confidence tool, not a failure to invest, and obviously, there's extremes on that too.
Jon Gay (10:48):
So, to wrap up here, Amy, I mean, confidence really comes from trusting the structure you've put in place, not from having a crystal ball and being The Amazing Kreskin and knowing what's going to happen next.
Amy Walls (11:00):
(Laughs) Exactly. You don't need certainty to move forward. You need a plan that was built for uncertainty and the discipline to let that plan work for you. When that's in place, money stops competing for attention and starts supporting lifestyle.
Jon Gay (11:19):
That is your mic drop moment for the day.
Amy Walls (11:22):
Perfect, I'm done. I'll go back to bed or I'll go skiing.
Jon Gay (11:27):
(Laughs) Before you do either one of those things, if somebody listening or watching wants to meet with you and your team at Thimbleberry Financial, how do they best find you?
Amy Walls (11:33):
Yes, they can find us online at thimbleberryfinancial.com, or by giving us a call at (503) 610-6510.
Jon Gay (11:43):
Good stuff, Amy. We'll talk again soon.
Amy Walls (11:45):
Sounds great, Jag. Thanks.
[Music Playing]
Voiceover (11:47):
Securities offered through registered representatives of Cambridge Investment Research Inc., a broker-dealer, member of FINRA SIPC. Advisory services through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc., a registered investment advisor. Cambridge and Thimbleberry Financial are not affiliated.
Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions.
Securities offered through registered representatives of Cambridge Investment Research Inc., a broker-dealer, member of FINRA SIPC. Advisory services through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc., a registered investment advisor. Cambridge and Thimbleberry Financial are not affiliated.