2024 Dentist Financial Benchmarks: How Do You Measure Up? (Part 1)- Episode #612

On this episode of the Dentist Money Show, Ryan and Matt reflect on the past year’s biggest themes in dentistry and analyze the results from a recent survey sent out to Dentist Advisors’ clients. Tune in to hear the key takeaways from the survey including how dentists feel about their careers, work-life balance, vacations, home buying, and more. Keep an ear out for part two of our 2024 benchmark series which will include key financial benchmarks for dentists like savings rate, investment balance, net worth, and more!

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Podcast Transcript

Intro: Hey everybody, what’s up? Welcome back to another episode of the Dentist Money Show, where we help dentists make smart financial decisions. Today in the show, Matt and I are covering part one of the 2025 wrapped data. This year we did it in two parts. We of course have the data itself, the quantitative side that’s coming soon. And then we have the qualitative data. This was new. This was a survey we sent out that had questions about Work life balance, vacations taken. Do you live in a dream home? Do you like your career? Would you do dentistry again? Many thanks to the people that respond to this survey. We also did this as a webinar. It’s at dentistsadvisors. com in the education library. You could check that at any time, but this was a fun different type of wrapped data to get a sense of how our clients are feeling about the career and lifestyle and the fulfillment of dentistry. So thanks to everyone who responded to that. Thanks to Matt. Thanks to all of you tuning in. If you have any questions, as always, go to dentistadvisors. com. Enjoy the show.

Ryan Issac: We’re going to start

Matt Mulcock: We are, here we are. Ryan, do you know how many people that I know that have asked about where’s this wrapped

Ryan Issac: Oh, what are you talking about? What do you mean?

Matt Mulcock: Least three

Ryan Issac: At least three

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Which is actually for the amount of people that I, for the amount of people I talk to, that’s pretty amazing. The amount of people that I actually know, uh, or that are my

Ryan Issac: 75%. That represents

Matt Mulcock: That’s it. That’s like 70 times. Exactly. That’s like three fourths of my friends

Ryan Issac: Yeah, that’s

Matt Mulcock: Have asked about where’s Wrapped. So, uh, you said what is Wrapped?

Ryan Issac: What is wrapped Matt? What are you talking about? What are the people asking? What are they

Matt Mulcock: Uh, well, we’ll say this, Spotify

Ryan Issac: And they listen.

Matt Mulcock: They, they totally listen. We are on Spotify So, if anyone knows the Spotify wrapped, where every year they do, you know, you’re wrapped. It’s like your summary of your top lists and songs and your top, artists and, You know, all hours played. And it’s a summary of your listening for that year, few years ago, I think it was you, Ryan, we’re going to give you the credit thought of this idea, you’re the reason we stole this of doing this exact thing, but with our clients data and benchmarking it and sharing it with people of like, Hey, what does this look like? we didn’t do it last year cause we had some glitches on our end and we didn’t feel confident with the data. So we didn’t do it. And truly we did get a ton of people, you know, at least a handful, which I consider a ton that we’re saying, Hey, where’s wrapped. And so we not only brought it back, we actually added

Ryan Issac: We doubled

Matt Mulcock: things to, we doubled down added some stuff.

Ryan Issac: I’m just gonna tease this at the end. We are, we are gonna reveal our actual top artists, me and you, for the year. At

Matt Mulcock: Oh, we are? I gotta, okay, I gotta get that ready.

Ryan Issac: So while you’re, while you’re thinking about this, yeah. So this year for all the people wanting, we brought back wrapped, but we, it’s basically doubled and what we’re doing today, and there’s a webinar on dentistadvisors.com and the education library under the webinar section where we cover this live, uh, with a live studio audience. Hundreds of you,

Matt Mulcock: Hundreds,

Ryan Issac: But yeah, but we, we split this up into two parts this year and by we, I mean, smarter, harder working people at the company. Not me. I didn’t do this. Other people did. Who do we shout out for this? By the way, who like did this job? Cause it’s huge. Cody.

Matt Mulcock: Sthuti, Becky, huge shout out to

Ryan Issac: Thanks everybody. Yeah. So, this year they actually sent out a survey, so we could not only have quantitative data, which we’ve always done, we’ve got, you know, um, Yeah. That’s average spending and income collections, debts carried on personal residences, that kind of stuff. That’s part two. That’s coming soon to a theater near you. but part one is new and that’s what we’re really excited about. today’s qualitative, which means we asked in a survey of all of our clients, are we over 600 people around the country?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, yeah. And, and And we got easily over a hundred responses on this

Ryan Issac: Yeah. And this was cool to see. So this was qualitative. This is more about things that they’re feeling in their lives around their money, around their jobs, their happiness, their level of, uh, well, you’ll see, you’ll get the point as we get through this, but yeah, I’m stoked for this. So if you miss the webinar and you want to watch it live, cause there was some Q and A through that. It was pretty cool. dentistadvisors. com has that, but let’s jump into this, Matt. Let’s jump into

Matt Mulcock: Jump

Ryan Issac: Qualitative. All right, since I’ll use the word correctly. The first thing we asked here and by the way, like this ended up being a lot more than I thought when we did the webinar So we’ll try to we’ll try to be timely on this But the first thing we asked people we want to know How many days per week people are spending in the office? now next year, we’ve already like made some notes on this for next year on how we want to dive into this more, because I want to know out of these days per week answered, I want to know how much is clinical

Matt Mulcock: Yep. That’s what we were saying on

Ryan Issac: But I, but I do think, yeah, I do think the context of this question is clinical based on the answers, um, and the data that came back. I’m really positive that this was a clinical based question, but we’ll be, it’d be nice to be specific next year. We’ll do that.

Matt Mulcock: I think most people assume clinical when they

Ryan Issac: Clinical. Mm hmm. Which is kind of, okay, just on that topic, it is kind of interesting Matt, I mean this speaks to the complexity and the Man, the overwhelm of being a dentist sometimes, a dentist business owner, because if you ask a dentist, like, okay, in this data set, almost 71 percent of people responded, said four days a week clinical, but I guarantee out of those owners doing four days a week, I mean, there’s at least one more, but maybe two days of non clinical business days in there, right? They call them admin days, leadership days, whatever. You know, it’s, I don’t think dentists, Like quantify or count those in. I think those are just like extra things they have to do. And to me, that just speaks of how the business of dentistry can make burnout happen so much quicker than people think it’s going to, because you might in your head be like, yeah, I’ve got four rigorous days in the chair, but then they’re going in to do a little admin here, a little admin there, a little business stuff there, take care of some stuff over here before they know it. There’s another 10, maybe 20 hours a week of non clinical non chair side time. And I don’t even know if people mentally account for that. That’s what I’m getting at. They feel it. They’re going through like the burnout of it and the exhaustion of it. But I don’t know if they count it. Like the mental accounting. What do you think? Do you think that’s

Matt Mulcock: I think it’s a

Ryan Issac: I just think there’s a lot added to them.

Matt Mulcock: I think it’s a great point. And I think this speaks to a broader mindset shift. We feel a lot of dentists need to have, which is that. Just take this question to your point. As an example, we say how many days a week in office, I think that speaks to this idea of like, dentists only kind of thinking of their job as a dentist being chair side. And to your point, they kind of treat the business side as like, well, yeah, I’m doing that, but that’s not counted. It’s like, what level of impact could you have to the KPIs, the metrics of your business and the growth and all these things that you’re trying to focus on? What kind of impact could you have just by shifting that focus of saying? No, no, no. Like the business part is actually just as, or more critical than you being chair side. But I think most dentists are like, well, if I’m not, if I’m not chair side, I’m not making money.

Ryan Issac: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: I think that that mindset needs to. I’ll say this. I think the ones that take it to another level versus the ones that are just kind of like making good money, but not like not running an actual business. I think a lot of it comes down to this mindset.

Ryan Issac: Okay, so to a follow up on that one that I’m thinking of is, do you think the difference is a dentist who doesn’t count the business and admin time because it’s like, it happens randomly throughout the week whenever they can fit it in versus a more, maybe higher caliber, higher producing dentist schedules that time.

Matt Mulcock: Yes. I think a higher.

Ryan Issac: On a calendar

Matt Mulcock: I think they’re saying that’s exactly right. I think the ones who treat it as fill in. I got to go in and just like do this.

Ryan Issac: Just whenever. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Reactionary, which is why they’re not counting it. They’re just like, well, it has

Ryan Issac: More burned out too.

Matt Mulcock: More burned out because they feel less in control. Whereas a dentist who’s like you said, that’s more intentional, more proactive, more like I’m going to work on the business. Like, like I’ve built this out in my schedule and it counts as my day of like working on it. Like we’re building this thing. I think those are the ones that feel more fulfilled, less burned out, more proactive and see better results, better business results.

Ryan Issac: I like that. I’m glad you brought that up. Okay. So that was, I mean, 71 percent of people are for clinical days. We’ve got, five and a six, let’s see, five, five days a week was 11 percent of people three days a week was 13 percent of people. So, you know, three and five people doing three and fives are close to the same percentage. Fours are the vast majority. And then two and six days. are low single digits.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, six was like less than two percent.

Ryan Issac: Yeah. So, I mean, you know, we’re seeing that, I guess that just plays, I now was struck by this when we did the webinars, how much the data is showing what we feel anecdotally for people, except for there was one metric in here. I remember that was a counter. Yeah. That was like a counter. So anyway, that’s days per week. by the way, as we’re going through this, here’s what I think would be cool. Maybe we’ll go post this in the group after this. Probably go post in the group after this comes out to say like, what did you think about when you heard this? You know, what feedback did you, what were you thinking when you went through this? So anything else you want to say on days per week, Matt?

Matt Mulcock: No, no, I, I, the four didn’t surprise me at all. That’s what I expected. Study,

Ryan Issac: So, and some of this is just so visually stunning. I wish we could show this on the pod. Shout out to the marketing team who built this.

Matt Mulcock: You know what also is visually stunning that people don’t get to see? I get blessed with every single time we do this.

Ryan Issac: Stop, stop.

Matt Mulcock: Always think that. I’m like, you know what? Ryan is visually stunning and people only get to hear your soul ship voice and not see you. But I get to see you. I get both.

Ryan Issac: As I thank you for

Matt Mulcock: Podcasting.

Ryan Issac: That as time goes on, um, almost every day if I can, if there’s waves, I sit in the ocean and I stare at the horizon where the sun is and I squint. And as I

Matt Mulcock: Got a little crow’s feet. You got a little

Ryan Issac: As I go on camera these days, I’m always asking my teenage daughters, like, what can I do about it? And they’re like, nothing, dad, you’re old. Just give up. They literally tell me that they do so much. My daughters have so much. Equipment for their skincare routine. I know what gouaches are, by the way, FYI. Do you know what a gouache is?

Matt Mulcock: Wouldn’t even know. Like I thought I literally thought of like, like a collage or what I’m going to wash. No idea.

Ryan Issac: Yeah, dude. So, so they have stuff and I asked them and they just look at me and I’m like, you’re just old. Like, give up. It’s fine. You know, you look like a catcher’s mitt and I’m like, all right, whatever. Um, okay. Deep creases. All right. Next one is vacations taken in 2024. I thought this was really cool. So this is presented as a, like a bar graph from left to right, uh, starting at one vacation per year, all the way up to five vacations per year. Now, the first thing you said when we did this slide was what, do you remember

Matt Mulcock: I remember, I think I was, my first response was I was shocked at the spread, just how spread, but I think the first thing I thought of, if I remember correctly, and I’m having the same reaction now, which is, well, what are we defining as a vacation?

Ryan Issac: Yeah. How did you define that when we were talking about this?

Matt Mulcock: How do I define a

Ryan Issac: Yeah, like, what do you think a vacation

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. So I think a vacation, it’s different for everyone. Like you mentioned, you’re in a very large state where I’m not as much so, but I think leaving your city,

Ryan Issac: Yeah. Gotta

Matt Mulcock: Leaving your city, and I think minimum three nights. Like that’s kind of what I look at as a vacation Like something longer than a little like weekend getaway

Ryan Issac: Yes, gotta be longer than a weekend.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, like you leave friday night you come back sunday It’s like it wasn’t really

Ryan Issac: That’s not a vacation. No, no,

Matt Mulcock: But like if I leave yeah, if I leave friday night and come back on tuesday, and i’m gone for four days and i’m leaving salt lake city Even if I’m going down south to like Zion’s or whatever, like that’s, I, I’d still say that’s a, that’s like a level one vacation, I’d say, but I’d still consider it a vacation.

Ryan Issac: I’m just thinking to myself, what a position of privilege it is to be able to rank how you would define a vacation.

Matt Mulcock: Was thinking the same thing. I was thinking the same thing.

Ryan Issac: You know, that’s a, that’s a quick stayover. And then you’ve got vacation, but hold on, you know what’s above that that I will never, yeah, you know what’s above all that that I’ll never experience because it’s a whole other world,

Matt Mulcock: But to this point, Ryan, I am fully acknowledging, I am fully acknowledging I’m part of the problem. And the problem being that we have completely, meaning me, I’m going to say me, I’m part of this, we have completely lost the script on what it means to live a good life versus what it used to,

Ryan Issac: Why why are you saying that cuz I there’s been on my mind too. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: This is case in point, like, 30 years ago, it was like, a weekend camping trip was part of, like, was, that was your summer plans, like, that was it. Yes, now it’s like, if I’m not taking two, three trips to Hawaii a year, like, I’m asking the question, how do people live? How do people live? Life is so expensive, and it’s like, no, I actually think your expectations have gone through

Ryan Issac: Through the roof. I was just thinking this The other day that my, it was a kid going up to the cabin and it was handmade by my grandpa. So we’re not talking about the cabin a lot of dentists are referring to in their minds right now. Or, or camping in a tent. That was family vacation. Once every handful of years we might road trip from Utah to California. Stay in like, we’re talking motels, but yeah, you’re right. And now it’s like, it’s got to be a spring, a summer, a winter vacation. And now it almost feel this is just the pressure I feel, but it’s like, did you leave the states though? Did you leave the country? Because if you didn’t go to like Prague or Japan or Fiji,

Matt Mulcock: And what are you even doing? Are you even living?

Ryan Issac: Vacation? Yeah. Oh, you went to Albuquerque.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Ryan Issac: Actually, we did. Yeah. I mean, you know, like I actually have some friends who just went to Albuquerque and they had a lovely time. Anyway, shout out to Albuquerque.

Matt Mulcock: We love you.

Ryan Issac: Just saying there’s a lot of pressure on this. Alright, let’s get to the data. You said another interesting thing from this data was the, the spread between one vacation and five vacations a year. And so, just for everyone knows, it’s ranked in percentage of people that answer this question. So, for example, the lowest year was one vacation a year. That was 15 percent of respondents. However, the highest percentage was four vacations a year at about 23 or 24 percent. So we’re talking of a spread of the, and five vacations a year is about 22 percent. We’re talking about one vacation is, yeah, it’s 15 to 22%. Which, what does that tell you? It’s like really narrow. It doesn’t really jump anywhere.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. The other thing it could tell me is we need to do a better job again, defining what we mean

Ryan Issac: What is a vacation?

Matt Mulcock: But I was shocked by this, just the spread. I thought for sure we’d have like One, you know,

Ryan Issac: Be like a 60%

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. But your point, the lowest is one at 15 and then, you know, 9 percent higher is that is the top one.

Ryan Issac: Is is the top one.

Matt Mulcock: This spread one vacation a year. I’m like, what is this? 1980? Like, come on,

Ryan Issac: Who

Matt Mulcock: We doing people?

Ryan Issac: Anecdotally? Matt, do you? Okay. This is one of the slides that caught me a little off guard because when I think of my clients, I mean, I have some who vacation well, but just anecdotally off the top of my head, I feel like. I hear more of a lack of getting away. So when I, when I see that someone’s ranking four and five trips a year, and I’m thinking of the majority of the people I work with are not doing what they would probably define as a vacation four or five times a year. So this is one of the data points that. Um, but anecdotally in my interactions with the clients don’t seem to align. So maybe it’s the definition of vacation. It’s gotta be,

Matt Mulcock: It could

Ryan Issac: Seems like in my climbing needs, people are like, Oh man, I gotta get away. You know, we did a week, we did a weekend here. Yeah. We went somewhere last month for a couple of days. It was just in town

Matt Mulcock: I,

Ryan Issac: Like you’re saying,

Matt Mulcock: I think part of this is showing how easily we forget things and how easily we like,

Ryan Issac: You’re saying forget. Like you can go somewhere and actually forget that you went

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, or it just doesn’t feel like, I think, I think you do, but like, because we are, we are constantly inundated with comparing our everyday life with other people’s highlights. I think we come back from our vacation, which was a, which was a highlight, but then we’re living our everyday life and a month goes by and we see. All of these other people that are out there traveling and it feels like they’re traveling once a month and we’re only traveling three times a year and it’s like, well, what, but it’s, it’s not true. We’re just mismatching what is our reality, which is all the in between moments of our three vacations a year and what feels like everyone big. I literally remember having this conversation with my brother. He said, dude, it feels like my friends and people I follow are vacationing like they just live on vacation.

Ryan Issac: That’s

Matt Mulcock: And I’m like, But I’m like, but no, it’s just the people that are on vacation are always posting about it.

Ryan Issac: Yeah,

Matt Mulcock: That’s all it is.

Ryan Issac: Well, vacation posts are fun things to post.

Matt Mulcock: If you didn’t post about it, did you even vacation?

Ryan Issac: It is really, that is really interesting though. Like the perception of getting away. yeah, it makes me wonder, it’ll be fun to define it a little bit more narrowly or just more detailed next year to say like, what are, what are people calling a vacation?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I think we should get more specific about

Ryan Issac: You know, it makes me wonder too about, this would be a whole podcast topic. This would be fun to discuss. Like, where people choose to live and build a career, you know, was it just hometown took over someone’s practice? Was it a destination place? Was it the best job you could find in the country? Who cares? Was it the cheapest place to live so I could have the most money left over? And what is it? Do you want to live in a place like Matt, you live in a place where you could do things 12 months a year that are, you know, world class activities like Outdoor activities that people literally travel to from all over the world to come do things. Same, same here.

Matt Mulcock: I’m so spoiled, you’re spoiled. I actually got, I was thinking about this the other day, talking to a friend, and I’m like, if you really think about living in Salt Lake, and there’s a lot of amazing places, I’m just,

Ryan Issac: Oh yeah. There’s a lot of places like

Matt Mulcock: Of where I, where I live, but, someone was asking me, And I was relaying this to a friend because a client was asking me about skiing in Utah. And they were like, Hey, remind me, like, so where you live, how many resorts are like around you? And I was

Ryan Issac: 30 minutes.

Matt Mulcock: Literally, I was like, from where I live, like where I’m currently living, um, to, I think I counted, I think it was like, I think it’s eight. Or nine like world class resorts within an hour or less.

Ryan Issac: Oh, an hour? Oh, yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Oh, within an hour or less. Yeah. And I’m like, probably 45 minutes. Right. And I’m like, Holy cow. And then I thought, I’m

Ryan Issac: Of those are within 15 minutes.

Matt Mulcock: Oh, I, from, yeah, from our new office, from the new DA office, by the way, I’m going to be 20 minutes away from four world class resorts at the Cartwood canyons. Um, Which is crazy, but then I thought about it and I’m like, speaking of vacations and getaways and what you define as what, I’m like, I could be down in world class national parks, you know, within less than, probably less than four hours on a weekend whenever I want. Like it’s, it’s pretty wild.

Ryan Issac: Mm hmm. Yeah, so is

Matt Mulcock: Amazing place.

Ryan Issac: Yeah and that that subject is interesting to me about why people choose to live where they live and then the discussion of if you live in a place and you use it for what it offers What is a getaway then? What is a vacation, you know? Like, and how many do you need if your own backyard is a place where people are coming from all over the world to visit? Like, you go on one hike within ten minutes of where you live, Matt? And that’s a place that people will see once in their lives that they planned for for years to come see that canyon,

Matt Mulcock: I’m up there every weekend.

Ryan Issac: And you’re just like having a bad day walking up Mill Creek Canyon, like, like honoree.

Matt Mulcock: It’s so true.

Ryan Issac: Know?

Matt Mulcock: Wait. Well, hang on.

Ryan Issac: I think about this all the time because I’m in the ocean and dolphins will swim by and I’m like mad in my head at something and then I’ll think.

Matt Mulcock: Dolphin. Get out of my way. I’m trying to get pitted over here.

Ryan Issac: Try to get pitted and I’ll think like why am I mad in the ocean right now people save up For years to just come visit this place that I’m angry at right now. I mean, it’s just interesting the

Matt Mulcock: Like me at Disneyland.

Ryan Issac: That’s fair though. That’s a whole other thing. Yeah, just the psychology of where we live why we do do we use the places? Do we live does that substitute the need for vacation and getaway? Is it a satisfying whole other subject? but thanks for answering the

Matt Mulcock: I’m glad you said this. Just a really quick comment on this. what I’ve tried to start doing more recently, and it still was a work in progress, is to your point, treating the place I live like a tourist. Right. So like being, being more of a tourist in my city, because I speak of these places down south of us, four hours away, national parks, like crazy. And there are people coming from all over the world. I’ve been there. Like I haven’t even been to a lot of them and I’ve been lived here almost my whole life, like

Ryan Issac: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: I said, I have a small stint in California, so. To that point, it’s like, why am I planning my next vacation to Thailand when it’s like, or I’m not going to tell him by the way. Um, but like, why am I planning this next trip? Like, well, how about you try to, for the next year or

Ryan Issac: Be a tourist.

Matt Mulcock: Be a tourist in your own city. And if you really think about it, I know I’ve done this and be like, holy cow, there’s so much that I haven’t taken advantage of here because I just take it for granted.

Ryan Issac: Yeah, you take it for granted. It’s like, eh, it’s over there. I’ll do it later. Okay. Next one. Next question. Do you currently live in your dream

Matt Mulcock: Was interesting. Yeah.

Ryan Issac: What do you want to say about the phrase dream home first, Matt? What do you How do you want to like break that down? How do you want to break down dream home real fast? Dream

Matt Mulcock: Uh, I got spicy on the webinar on this one. Um,

Ryan Issac: What came to

Matt Mulcock: So I, the first thing that comes to mind is like. amount of times I’ve heard someone say dream home, and then they’re out of it in three years is like astonishing. I think it like the definition of a dream home, I think is extremely misleading. And I think, and by the way, I don’t, I truly don’t blame anybody on this at all. Like I’m in the same camp with all of these things that I call out on some of this stuff. But. I think the whole idea of a dream home just highlights, for me and my experience, how much we don’t care to admit how our desires change over time. And we don’t, we don’t re we don’t even know, like to pretend like you’re going to know what a dream, your dream home is in five years from now. It’s just crazy. And by the way, you know, like my parents, they lived in the same home for 40 years. So I’m, I, yeah, that’s generational. I just don’t think that happens as much anymore.

Ryan Issac: It’s not, it’s not a thing anymore. How many dream homes have you seen become nightmare homes

Matt Mulcock: Oh my gosh.

Ryan Issac: Because of the money, yeah. Is that the most common nightmare scenario story of a dream turning into a nightmare? It’s gotta be the home.

Matt Mulcock: That’s what I’m. So exactly right. If you do not call it a dream home, if you’ve got no money left over, that is truly the definition of a nightmare

Ryan Issac: That’s a nightmare

Matt Mulcock: And we want to, we want, we want to rationalize it by saying, well, this is my dream home. And it’s like, again, to your point, it won’t be if you have nothing left over, if your

Ryan Issac: I was just gonna say, is that term a sales job we’re doing to ourselves?

Matt Mulcock: Yes.

Ryan Issac: To like, it’s, oh, but it’s the dream home. I’m gonna, yes, I’m gonna wipe out the emergency fund. Yes, I’m gonna stop contributing my 401k. No, I have no idea how to plan for emergency moving forward. But it’s like, it’s the dream home.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah,

Ryan Issac: The dream. We’re just like selling ourselves a story that we know we shouldn’t be buying.

Matt Mulcock: 100%. And by the way, we’ve all done it and we’ve all done it with other things in our life. My whole thing with this is like, Hey, it is. And I’ve had this conversation so many times. It is perfectly fine to prioritize a home as your number one lifestyle kind of investment or priority.

Ryan Issac: Well, I mean, it’s like, it’s everything. Where you live is, it shapes everything about your whole life. So, yes. I mean, it makes sense why we do that.

Matt Mulcock: Exactly. but a couple of things you’ve got to just realize like any of this, the trade off you’re making the trade off you’re making. And this is where I think it becomes a problem. You said it, Ryan. We want to say this is a dream home. The other thing that we will always say, and this will drive me nuts till the day I die, which is I’m doing it for the kids. No, you’re not. Please, please stop saying you’re doing it for the kids. They, you, you’re doing it for yourself. That’s okay. but the problem is we want to sell ourselves on it and then say, well, in the future, we’ll just take less vacations or in the future we won’t buy the cars. And again, it’s really easy to be disciplined in the future,

Ryan Issac: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: The future then becomes the present and all of a sudden your dream home becomes just a home and then you still want to go to Hawaii and that’s where this becomes a problem.

Ryan Issac: Still want to escape. Yeah, we, I think we severely as humans underestimate how fast novelty wears off and, uh, we discount that heavily. yeah, for the kids thing, I mean. I’ve done that myself. I’ve heard, you know, I mean, it’s just a human thing to do be like, but the kids, they need two acres. I mean, the kids need two acres. Can you imagine them growing up with like a quarter acre,

Matt Mulcock: No, can you, can you imagine the kids not having the master bath that I won’t even let them into because they’ll make them like, no, I can’t even imagine what would their life be like if, if mom and dad did not have the master bath with a steam shower.

Ryan Issac: Have, if we didn’t have the indoor fill in the blank, not to shame it. I’ve done the same thing. I’ve done the same freaking thing. So it’s all of you and

Matt Mulcock: Make fun of it because we’ve all done it,

Ryan Issac: Thing. This is what we do.

Matt Mulcock: Thing. We

Ryan Issac: Alright here’s the data. Do you currently live in your dream home? 30 percent of you said no by choice. No, I do not. And that’s a choice I’m

Matt Mulcock: Which is cool. That shocked me.

Ryan Issac: Another 30%, I mean, this is almost, yeah, it’s like another 30 percent of you said, uh, no, I can’t afford it. So

Matt Mulcock: Are not living in their dream home.

Ryan Issac: Yeah. And half of that is by choice. And then, okay. And then obviously the other 40 percent said yes. So here’s the question though, if I’m asked this, like Ryan, do you live in your dream home? I’m like, I’ll never live in my actual dream home. Cause my dream home would be so many millions of dollars above my Pay grade. So I mean, are we defining, like when we asked this question, I wonder if people are defining this as like within your reach, are you living in your dream home? I don’t know.

Matt Mulcock: That’s a really fair, that’s a really fair

Ryan Issac: Cause my dream home would be probably, yeah, four to 8 million simply because it’s sitting in one of the best, like in front of the best surf breaks in the world. And it costs that just to be there. It could be a crappy house for all I know. That’s not reality. Anyway, that was kind of an interesting one. Yeah. 40, 60. Yes and no, you know, good for you 40. That’s cool. I would wonder if you’re in the 40 percent what that means to you All right, let’s

Matt Mulcock: I would want to know that too. We’ve got to define these a little better.

Ryan Issac: Yeah, it’s kind of cool though. Let’s get into work fulfillment. This is fascinating Question was how fulfilled are you at work? By the way real fast Matt? Are we publishing like this data visually that we are

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. We’re going to create like a full breakdown of this. Yep.

Ryan Issac: I saw this is so well laid out though. I feel like we could just like publish this in like a PDF download form. Cause this really looks really good.

Matt Mulcock: Really cool.

Ryan Issac: Um, how fulfilled are you at work? Zero. It’s a scale of zero to 10 zero is unfulfilled and 10 is very fulfilled. And so the average answer from everyone is a 7. 23. And when we did this live on the webinar, before we read this out, we, um, you and I both kind of ranked where we were. I think we were both in the sevens as well. I mean, you might’ve said eight.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. So we talked about like, where’s your kind of like your baseline.

Ryan Issac: Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Think my baseline is

Ryan Issac: Week to week, month to month, how you

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I think I baseline probably

Ryan Issac: Don’t ask me on Monday,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, exactly. Don’t ask me after a board, don’t ask me after a board meeting. I would say my baseline is like seven and a half to eight in that range, 7. 7, let’s say. Uh, and then, yeah, it can kind of vary from there depending on the situation. Yeah,

Ryan Issac: Yeah, it was interesting. The average dentist is a 7. 23. Do you, I can’t remember how we felt in the moment in the webinar, but do you feel like that’s reflective of what you hear from dentists?

Matt Mulcock: No

Ryan Issac: You feel like that’s too high

Matt Mulcock: I feel, I thought this was, I thought this was high compared to what I normally hear now. It’s tough because I actually do have a lot, like when I meet with clients, I think a lot of my clients, if I’m thinking about it, are like really fulfilled and really happy, but I think it’s probably just my brain, like pointing out the negative, remembering the negative more. I just think there’s a lot of dentists out there. There’s like a narrative in dentistry that like this, it just sucks to be a dentist and it’s not what I thought. And so I guess maybe I just kind of clung to that. This seemed a little high for me. I was expecting something lower, but I was glad to see it. Really glad to see it.

Ryan Issac: Yeah. And then I also wonder what’s the bias behind, us hearing this information from clients like us as financial advisors. So are we more likely to hear the raw story? Like are we a place where people come to talk about more hard things and they’re going to talk about with someone else in their life? Like if we were a consultant maybe, or, An attorney or a marketing team. And we ask people how, you know, and like our day to day month to month interactions with clients, we ask, you know, how you feeling about work and career? I wonder if the story just changes based on who they’re telling that to.

Matt Mulcock: That’s fair because I mean, I’ve been, I’ve been told multiple times, Ryan, like I know you have of comments around, like, it feels like you’re my therapist, uh, and I’ll say absolutely not. I am not qualified to do that. Please do not

Ryan Issac: Dude, don’t make any

Matt Mulcock: I’m your therapist, but, um. yeah, I think that’s really fair. I think the situation that we get in a lot of times is like a place of vulnerability, people feeling safe to be able to like share their concerns and things they struggle with and their stresses. And, they’re reaching out to us at their most stressed moments,

Ryan Issac: Yeah. Yeah, that’s another one,

Matt Mulcock: So I could see that being the case.

Ryan Issac: Yeah. They’re reaching out when they are feeling stressed. For me, anecdotally, I think that’s a 7. 23 on average answer. It seems close to what I hear

Matt Mulcock: That what you would have expected?

Ryan Issac: Close to it. I would have said high sixes. Yeah,

Matt Mulcock: So yeah. So if you would have asked me what my answer I’m going to get, I would have, I would have guessed six.

Ryan Issac: Somewhere in the 60s. Okay. Next question was, does dentistry provide the lifestyle you expected? So again, think about average fulfillment is a 7. 23. Okay. 40 percent of people said they have their dream home. So does dentistry provide the lifestyle they expected? This is 83. 8 83. 6. I’m, you

Matt Mulcock: 84 percent baby.

Ryan Issac: 84 percent of people said, yes, dentistry provides the lifestyle you expected. What is the, okay. First thing I just think about is what does this tell me? 84 percent of people said it provides a lifestyle they want, but only 40 percent are in their dream homes with another 30 percent that said no by choice, which is almost the same data. So, This is kind of an interesting take for me on fulfillment and lifestyle that has nothing to do with the dream home. I think this is just another data point for housing too, but how did this strike you? This, what was it again? 84 percent of people?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. the thing I thought was just a super, like I was super, excited about this and like, uh, you know, I was, I was the opposite of disheartened, which I think just means I was heartened. Um, I was, it was just cool to see, like,

Ryan Issac: You be heartened? I

Matt Mulcock: I don’t think he heartened. I was just out of making crap up. No, it was just really cool to see that because it’s our belief and what we experience and what we see in the space, we, you know, we speak to young dentists a lot, or we talk to young dentists, a lot of events, or again, when we speak at things, and I think a pervasive question is, Hey, is dentistry still. Uh, like a quality career. So is dentistry still something to be pursued? And our answer unequivocally all the time is absolutely

Ryan Issac: It still worth it? Yeah,

Matt Mulcock: Worth it. It’s still an amazing career. And, and this again, just kind of solidified or confirmed that data validated that or that the data validated the feeling, which I thought was cool to your point about how this relates to the dream home, 30 percent said no by choice. That’s cool too. And this, with this data backing it up to say that chunk of people I think have been, I would imagine super intentional about their lifestyle and like what we were saying earlier, I think they’ve just, maybe they’ve realized like they’ve gone through the work to say, you know, the home’s not. Like I’m fine to live in a, a, a quote unquote worse home because it does mean I can take trips and be less stressed. Like, I think that’s, that’s cool. And by the way, not saying the 40 percent of people living in their dream home are not doing the same thing. Maybe the dream home is their intentional priority. It’s

Ryan Issac: And maybe they’re vacationing tons too on top of that. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. I mean, I’m with you. It’s encouraging to see because my answer is to when people are like, is dentistry worth it? I still, I totally think it is. despite the changes and challenges, cause there’s new benefits and opportunities too, but we’re talking about in most of these surveys here, three quarters of the people answering some kind of yes or affirmative to dentistry is good. It gives me the life I want. The next question is, do you have a healthy work life balance? And it was about 75 to 80 percent of people that said yes, dentistry is, gives me the healthy work life balance. Now, the other 25 percent though, that said no, that is, that is interesting and it is, that’s a good chunk of people that aren’t happy in dentistry. I mean, you know, if that played out across the whole industry, I guess, assuming our survey encompasses every single

Matt Mulcock: It does. It totally

Ryan Issac: 000 dentists in the whole

Matt Mulcock: I, I remember stats from college. And so

Ryan Issac: That’s that’s how it works. That’s how the stats works. You could just like extrapolate to the whole entire data set. Um, but I mean, I do think, the other side of this conversation is to acknowledge and validate that there are a lot of people in dentistry who are unhappy. And there’s probably for a lot of different reasons. we could name a few about, uh, the financial side of it is incredibly stressful. The pressure of being a business owner and an entrepreneur when that sometimes for a lot of people isn’t even the, the path that they wanted to take, they wanted to be a purely a clinician. Um, these days there’s a lot of pressure, there’s a lot of pressure outside of being a good dentist. I mean, these days you not only, it was kind of like the evolution of watching it for a long time. It was just like, be the good community dentist, you know, set up three chairs and a lease space on the corner and just do that for 40 years. You know, you’re the person in town, but, and then it evolved like, Oh, now you have to market. Now you have to like spread a good message because there’s more competition and you know, insurance companies are paying less now with like corporate dentistry. Now not only have to be a exceptional dentist and a really good marketer and have public visibility and be good on social media or whatever, but now you have to be a good employer. So now there’s this other, yeah, good leader. You have to have good benefits. You have to have like a good team environment. So there is to acknowledge like added pressure being stacked on top of dentists who many of them wanted to just be a good dentist. So I don’t know anything that you, anything come to mind on either side of these, like people who say, yeah, this is a good work life balance or people who are like, no, it’s, it’s not good work life balance.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. One thing I’d say is I guess I’m not, like, I don’t want to assume that somebody is saying, like, the 25 percent who say they don’t have healthy work life balance,

Ryan Issac: Hmm.

Matt Mulcock: Even though they’re acknowledging it, they’re not necessarily unhappy with it.

Ryan Issac: Okay. maybe

Matt Mulcock: What I’m saying? Like,

Ryan Issac: Of, of life where it’s just, they’re just getting crushed right now. It’s like early building stages or,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, so, like, exactly. Or it could be, I, I, I know there are dentists out there that are, like, super, Intentional and just saying like, by what society calls healthy work life balance. Like, no, I don’t have that, but I prioritized how I want to do this. And like, I want to go build a five location ortho practice. And I know that’s going to require me to go all out for the next 10 years. And I know it’s not quote unquote healthy, but like I’m super fulfilled because that’s what gets me up in the morning. And that’s how I show up to my kids when I’m with them, because if not. If not, if I’m trying to force myself in a box of like, what’s healthy work life balance when I am with my kids, I’m actually not really there. Cause I’m wishing I was at work. Like I’m just giving an example of

Ryan Issac: No, I think you’re onto something interesting. I think the data shows this because the work life balance is like 75, 25, but then the F or the, the lifestyle expected is 84, 15, 84,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. So there’s a little, yeah,

Ryan Issac: To what you’re saying. And average fulfillment is 7. 23. So. I think that’s speaking to what you’re saying. People can say two things at the same time. Yeah, I don’t have a great work life balance right now, but I am very fulfilled in what I’m building. It’s worth it. You’re totally right. You’re totally right.

Matt Mulcock: So the question, the question being is what percentage of those 25 percent are saying, no, I don’t have a healthy work life balance and yes, I want to change it.

Ryan Issac: yeah, and yes, I, and it’s not worth it. I am unhappy. I am unfulfilled.

Matt Mulcock: Exactly. I think there’s a

Ryan Issac: Where do those overlap?

Matt Mulcock: Exactly right. Exactly

Ryan Issac: That’s, that’s a good point.

Matt Mulcock: I can admit for myself, like, I will admit, it depends on the situation, depends on the time of year, depends on where I’m at with work. But like, I would say, there’s a lot of times I’m not totally healthy with the work life balance. I’m working on it, but I’m extremely fulfilled. Right. And I love it. And so again, I’m working on it. I’m trying to find ways to be really proactive and really strategic with seeing my kids go the ages they’re at and all this stuff. But I just don’t think it’s as cut and dry as saying like, Oh, these people said no. So that means they’re not happy.

Ryan Issac: Yeah, you’re right. And then the data would also show that they’re like the way you define things. So, you know, only 16 percent of people said that it wasn’t a, what was it? they didn’t provide the lifestyle, but then, you know, 25 percent of people said work life. So that also goes, it speaks to how people define what lifestyle is because. Not everyone says like, Oh, this tremendous, perfect balance between work and life is what lifestyle is. For some people it’s like, I, you know, I work 10, 12 hours a day and then I have just a ton of money to splurge when I do have time. That is lifestyle for them. So, that’s interesting. Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up. The next one is, is your income a fair reflection of the work that you put in? This one mirrored almost exactly the work life balance. 75

Matt Mulcock: Almost to the exact number. I, uh, I’m just looking, I think the healthy work life balance, the yes was a little higher, but I don’t know. Like it’s, it’s pretty dang close.

Ryan Issac: yeah, a little bit.

Matt Mulcock: 25,

Ryan Issac: It’s right in there. So about the same amount of people feel like you get paid for the work you do. Um, I love this question. How stressed are you about money? Okay. If you were just to answer this for your, uh, general interactions from your clients, a zero is not stressed at all. A 10 is extremely stressed. Where do you think the average client would answer?

Matt Mulcock: Six and a half to seven.

Ryan Issac: Yeah. Leaning, leaning more stressed. I would say

Matt Mulcock: I would lean, I’d say lean more stressed and that’s across the board, by the way. That’s like, I have clients worth, you know, multiple, multiple seven figures and ones that are just starting out in their practice and. Although the stimulus is different, the stress is the feeling is the same, right? And again, I think, I think you hit it on the head though earlier. It’s the it’s it’s bias because of the situations in which we are engaging clients. It’s the context.

Ryan Issac: What we’re going to hear is different than what someone else might

Matt Mulcock: Yes. Yep.

Ryan Issac: The average answer here was 4. 75. So it leaning less stressed. I did find it interesting. No one put a 10 is extremely stressed, stressed. But there were zeros, meaning not stressed

Matt Mulcock: There were zeros in the highest went to nine. Yeah.

Ryan Issac: That’s really cool. Another question here, is it more satisfying saving or spending money?

Matt Mulcock: Liars is what this data shows.

Ryan Issac: Okay, it’s 80 20 saving to spending. 80 percent said it’s more satisfying saving. Now these are clients of ours.

Matt Mulcock: So 80 percent said

Ryan Issac: But your first instinct, you said this on the webinar too, you’re like, you

Matt Mulcock: He’s liars.

Ryan Issac: Why do you like the human behavior anecdotal side? Why, what are you

Matt Mulcock: Oh, I just think, I mean, I’m again, I’m going off of, we joke obviously about this stuff, but we tell stories, you know, the. The random texts, the random email, like, Hey, can I, I just got one the other day. Like, can I buy this? What do you think about it? It happens just all the time. So again, I’m just going off of like what I feel it’s bias. it’s anchoring to the copious amounts of like these random, like I want to buy my dream home or I want to buy this new car. Like, what do you think? It just makes me think that people like spending more than they care to admit.

Ryan Issac: Yeah. And then it’s probably, if we were being detailed about this, I think the qualifier here might be the timeframe. Like what makes you happier in the next 30 days?

Matt Mulcock: Yes,

Ryan Issac: What makes you happier in the next 12 months? I’m going to, I’m going to say after, I mean, okay, I’ll ask you after how many months do you think that switches? Like when it’s really short spending wins for me and I think for anyone, is it after Three months of saving that that beats spending. Or is it more like six to 12?

Matt Mulcock: I think it depends on the person depends on how much you’re saving But I think it’s probably around six ish

Ryan Issac: Cause then it has enough time to like, start to build up where you’re like, Ooh, that’s significant. That feels nice.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I think it’s I think the longer time frame you go. I think you’re right I think one of the most powerful things we do with clients It’s so cool is when you do like a year end Review with someone and you show them their quarterly report and you’re like showing them What they’ve done as far as like savings and showed that showed the progress. I think that is super satisfying. It’s just that say, or spending is just more salient. It’s more on top of people’s minds.

Ryan Issac: Urgent, fulfilling. We talk about some of the scoring that we do for people. We call it various things. People would know by liquid term, which is just our measure of how many years worth of spending someone has in available liquidity to them. And we’ll, we’ll, but we’ll reference that as like your stress score. You’ll know how stressed someone is by how high or low that number is. And, I think it speaks to that too, because we know that over time when that liquid score turn that score number is up your stress score, your stress goes down. So clearly like the savings over time is more satisfying.

Matt Mulcock: I, I think, I think the key word here, probably where I would, uh, like we joke around people lying, but I, I think the key word here is the word satisfying. if you relate this to like eating, let’s say like eating right, like nutrition, is it more satisfying to binge on junk? Like on a Friday night. No, I think it’s like, what’s it’s a, there’s another word it does. It’s fun maybe, but it’s way more satisfying. I think if you really thought about that word of just saying like eating a healthy meal, getting up early and going to the gym, like that’s more satisfying

Ryan Issac: Yeah. It’s more satisfying than like having drinks till 2 a. m. and then. Being hungover,

Matt Mulcock: Exactly. Exactly.

Ryan Issac: What’s more there’s like a fun and then there’s satisfying and then there’s sustainability too. Like what’s sustainable? Okay, there’s the last one and I think this is kind of interesting. Would you pick your current career again? This was 80 percent Yes, 20 percent No. So to me This no percentage of 20 is lower than the 25 percent who said work life balance, but it is higher a little bit higher than does dentistry provide the lifestyle that you expected. Would you pick your career again? That’s, that’s interesting. Would you pick this career again, Matt?

Matt Mulcock: What I’m doing? 100%.

Ryan Issac: Yeah, me too. 100%. 100%. Yeah, really interesting. 80 20.

Matt Mulcock: Again, that was cool. That, that was cool to see. The positive data was, was Again, I was really, really excited to see

Ryan Issac: Encouraging to see that.

Matt Mulcock: Very encouraging.

Ryan Issac: Okay, so, Matt, as we wrap up here, there’s something going on in the summer of 2025. Forgive me in my old brain, but I’m forgetting what it might be. And I’m curious if you could help me remember what that

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I’m just sitting here thinking like, if

Ryan Issac: Of your mind.

Matt Mulcock: No matter where you fall on this data, the data we just covered, you would benefit, I believe, from coming to park city in June of 2025, where we are having the second annual dentist money summit theme is plan for the present. Whole new slate of speakers completely different than any event dental event. You’ll ever go to we’re not Not talking hand speed. We’re not talking clinical. We’re talking everything. We just covered like are you satisfied in your career? Or do you have a healthy work life balance that isn’t that is aligned with your values and goals and things that you’re trying to live? That’s the whole purpose of this Now I will say we did also add based on feedback. We took feedback from everyone and we wanted to listen and actually make changes based on that feedback. One of the things that was mentioned last year that we didn’t have that we added is more talk around investing. So we’ve actually brought in a speaker. Specifically to talk, have a whole keynote about investing in the markets and some details around that. So it’s going to be really cool. But, uh, park city, Utah, June 20th and 21st. it’s going to be, we had so much fun last year and we have no reason to believe it’s only, it’s only going to be better.

Ryan Issac: Yeah. where do they sign up, Matt?

Matt Mulcock: dentistmoneysummit. com. if you don’t know already,

Ryan Issac: are free! And clients are free!

Matt Mulcock: Are included. So, uh, if you’re a client of DA, there’s no reason not to come, come meet Ryan, come hang out with your boy. Ryan, maybe, maybe he’ll take you out golfing. Maybe I’ll take you out golfing, you know,

Ryan Issac: Listening. The company joke is I’m gonna take my clients golfing. I haven’t golfed in 17 years. And for the record, I can’t even do top golf. So I always, I go to Topgolf, I hit a few and then I’m like, I’m just going to eat a burger

Matt Mulcock: For the record, the last time, the only time I’ve gone quote unquote golfing with you, you were sitting in the cart with me. Uh, I’m not a huge golfer either, but we were sitting in the cart. You had your, your flip flops on. I think that, I think by a whole two, they were actually off your feet. You had bare feet just kicked up on the side of the cart. Uh, the front of the cart is you were just cruising with us. We had a

Ryan Issac: Cruising around. That’s the time that you hit a ball, you hit it clean and the entire head of the golf club

Matt Mulcock: I snapped my nine iron. It was brand new, brand

Ryan Issac: And you hit the ball. It wasn’t like you diffed

Matt Mulcock: I made great contact one of about three times I do every round and it just snapped my club in half.

Ryan Issac: Is that the time I got allergies and my eyes were swollen shut by like the ninth hole? I remember that. Well, okay. All right. Well, thanks everyone for tuning in. Thanks again, Matt. We’ll catch you next time. Bye bye.

Keywords: Dentistry, Work-Life Balance, Scheduling, Vacation, Dream Home, Intentional Living, Qualitative Data, Client Insights, Work fulfillment, Career satisfaction, Lifestyle expectations

 

Behavioral Finance, Tracking Progress, Year-End Planning