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On this episode of the Dentist Money Show, Ryan, Matt, and Cody reflect on 2025’s biggest themes in dentistry and analyze the results from a recent survey sent out to Dentist Advisors’ clients. They unpack the results of the qualitative benchmark data and what it reveals about dentists’ burnout, work schedules, vacations, and financial satisfaction. They discuss how dentists are defining their workload beyond clinical days, why leadership days can feel just as draining, and why burnout often persists even when dentists work fewer clinical days. Tune in to hear key takeaways about how dentists are feeling about their careers, work-life balance, vacations, savings, and more. And stay tuned for part two (coming soon!) which includes quantitative data like dentists’ average savings rate, investment balance, net worth, and more!
Related Readings
2025 Financial Benchmark Results for Dentists
Podcast Transcript
Ryan: Welcome back to another episode of the Dentist Money Show where we help dentists make smart financial decisions. I’m Ryan and I’m here with Matt and new guest Cody Barrus Is this new for Cody? Cody, welcome. Number two, Cody’s a natural.
Cody Barrus: Yep, thank you. Yeah, excited to be here
Matt Mulcock: The second time for Cody, I believe. Well, technically Cody did two cents with us a while back and, and, we probably pulled them up to the big leagues.
Ryan: Okay. Yeah, guys are natural. Yeah, he’s batting a thousand. Is that what they say in baseball or soccer or batting?
Matt Mulcock: That’d be amazing if he was batting a thousand is how bad mitten. Yeah. We brought on the, we brought on the only, ⁓ true athletes. we, Ryan and I talk about health and fitness all the time. Cody’s an actual collegiate D one athlete played, played hockey in college and then.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, that’d be sweet.
Ryan: You actually played hockey? cool, man. I didn’t know this.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, I did for a bit, yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. He was team captain for a college hockey team. And then here’s Ryan and I like, well, we used to lift weights and now our backs hurt.
Ryan: Alright. My back literally, I’m standing recording this because I can’t sit this whole week. can’t. I’m supposed to drive. I’m supposed to go on a road trip for like six hours later this week. Don’t ask me how.
Matt Mulcock: We’re getting ready to get started and Ryan’s like, my back hurts. I’m like, I’m getting back surgery. Like we had to bring, we had to bring on the young buck to, to even things out for us.
Ryan: You’re getting back some trees.
Cody Barrus: That’s funny.
Ryan: Did you know it’s even horrible? This is actually a good lesson, Matt. ⁓ This has nothing to do with the episode, but this ⁓ is related to financial decision-making behavior though. So, you know, we talked about this forever. I did CrossFit for 10 years, destroyed myself. It was fun. Good friends, good times, good community, destroyed my body. And then for five years, I followed a coach, right? Marcus Philly, shout out to Marcus. For five years in my garage.
Matt Mulcock: We never do that. Shout out.
Ryan: four or five days a week consistently for five years, not a single injury, felt great, liked the way I looked, moved well, which was his whole program, look good, move well. And the point was I followed someone. This year had some life transitions, started working out in a different space. I was like, you know what, I’m gonna switch to something different. Started doing some kettlebell programs, hired a programmer, a coach, followed it for a while, got bored, started doing my own thing with Kettlebells, Matt. And where am I right now? I’m injured.
Matt Mulcock: I know where this goes.
Cody Barrus: ⁓ no.
Ryan: I’m injured. And it’s funny because, you know, like you, I’ve been doing some form of consistent working out for 16 straight years with really no breaks. I probably could, if I actually spent time, I probably could write my own programming or know what to do on a weekly basis without fail. When I do it, I mess something up without fail. And it’s usually, I usually just don’t have the time. I get lazy. just.
Ryan: do random things, random acts of fitness, instead of random acts of finance, I do random acts of fitness and I get hurt almost every time I do this. And then I just go back and hire a coach every time I get hurt, which I did this last weekend and got hurt again. It was like, all right, I don’t know what I’m doing. I got to stop this nonsense, went back and hired the person I followed for five years successfully. as soon as this heals, I’m back on the old Marcus Philly train. That’s where we’re gonna get back to. So ⁓ Cody, Matt.
Ryan: Cody and Matt, we are here to ⁓ review, this is the fan favorite episode that we do every year. This is the ⁓ dentist advisors wrapped for anyone who’s a Spotify user. You get your year end ⁓ listening data. Don’t ask if Taylor’s switch was in mine.
Matt Mulcock: Wait, we gotta do… We gotta start with this? We gotta start with our wrapped? We’re gonna do this?
Ryan: Yeah, we’re going to name a few things. OK, you guys go first. Name something interesting from your wrapped a little stat from your Spotify wrapped listening data from this year. What do you got?
Cody Barrus: yeah.
Matt Mulcock: I think the most surprised I was of my wrapped was they give you now. don’t know if this is new. ⁓ they give you your listening age. Did you guys see this? mine was pretty young. Mine was like 25, which I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad. I kind of was like, I don’t love that, but
Ryan: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, what’s yours? I’m 31.
Cody Barrus: ⁓ yeah.
Ryan: Well, no, you listen to, why?
Cody Barrus: I was
Matt Mulcock: Yes, that’s a great question.
Cody Barrus: gonna say, are you just, it’s cause Matt listens to Taylor Swift.
Ryan: Yeah, why did you… Normally
Matt Mulcock: So yeah, so here’s my top five artists. You ready?
Ryan: you’re like kind of like country-ish folk music.
Matt Mulcock: So I listened to one of two things. ⁓ it’s either if I’m not working out, is like folk basically like Noah con is my favorite artist. like Mumford and sons, kind of those groups anyway, or you think I shouldn’t even, I don’t listen to Mumford and sons that much, but like that kind of, that kind of brand, right? Or that kind of type of music.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right. Which should put you up into the 40s.
Cody Barrus: lose them.
Ryan: We got, we got, this will
Matt Mulcock: I‘m not like a country guy necessarily. like folk and there’s a difference like camp, no icon, mountain music. Exactly. Like that’s my number one. Um, and so, or it’s like hardcore rap. So it’s, it’s very, but here’s the thing I’ve actually changed it up the last like few months.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mountain music is what my daughter calls it. It’s hardcore 90s rap.
Cody Barrus: Yeah. There’s no in-between.
Matt Mulcock: where I kind of started going more like rock kind of like back to old school nineties. Like we talked about this rage against the machine. I’ve kind of started going back to some of my roots, but it’s, it’s, either, it’s either, or there is no in between. either like if I’m driving in my car, chillin, it’s like no icon. If I’m at the gym, it is like hardcore rap or like rage against the machine.
Ryan: Okay. Yeah. Get back to them roots, dude.
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Ryan: Okay, young listening profile, Cody, did you have a Spotify rap this year? ⁓ do they? ⁓ they copied? All right, what do you got?
Cody Barrus: I’m an Apple music user, but they kind of do this. They kind of do the same thing. Yeah, they I think they kind of copied a little
Matt Mulcock: They copied.
Cody Barrus: But my okay mine’s been consistent the last like four years ready. It’s it’s Morgan Wallen. Yeah, Disney hits exactly. No, it’s it’s Morgan Wallen and Post Malone and then the third This my wife makes fun of me for this. The third one is the Nemo the Nemo album because like
Ryan: yeah, same.
Matt Mulcock: Is it Disney Hits?
Ryan: yeah.
Matt Mulcock: ⁓ great.
Ryan: Yeah, the soundtrack. Yeah. Yeah.
Cody Barrus: Nemo soundtrack because when I’m like working or something especially in the mornings like if I get up early and I’m working it’s yeah it’s not even we don’t have any kids so that’s the embarrassing I can’t even like I don’t even have a kid to use as an excuse to be like yeah my kids listen to the Nemo the Nemo album no it’s like I put it on in the morning because it’s just kind of like nice like it’s just nice and peaceful but yeah so you get Morgan Wallenpost Malone and then the Nemo theme yeah so
Ryan: That’s you that’s not even a kid, okay Don’t aim it on the kids.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I love that.
Ryan: Okay and Nemo.
Matt Mulcock: The Nemo album. Well, it’s funny. I do have kids and occasionally where I was like, look at my whole summary. It’ll like pop up and be like, also you had this like kind of like stage of your life over the last year where you did a K-pop demon hunters. And I’m like, yeah, that’s my daughter. She’s obsessed. I don’t care though. Their, their music’s catchy. I don’t even Golden. Go listen to Golden. It’s it’s fire. It’s good.
Cody Barrus: That’s funny.
Ryan: Yeah, K-pop, likely story. Yeah, it’s good. It’s good. I’m with you. I’m a pretty consistent year of a year. It’s always Blink 182 is always in my top. ⁓ Angels and Airwaves. Yeah, big, big Tom DeLong fan, obviously. This year, Taylor again made an appearance. ⁓ She’s always on somewhere for some reason. I mean, awesome artist. So that’s why. Bieber for the first time ever made an appearance. The new album dropped. ⁓ I didn’t like it right. I’ve never listened to Bieber and ⁓
Matt Mulcock: classic. Ooh, good old Biebs. I heard it wasn’t good though.
Cody Barrus: Really?
Ryan: It’s been in rotation. It’s the new swag too. It’s so good. It’s really good.
Matt Mulcock: I heard it got really bad like just.
Cody Barrus: Do you like it?
Matt Mulcock: I got it. I’ve never listened to it. I’m just going off of what the kids are saying. Apparently, apparently didn’t get great vibes or didn’t pass the vibe check.
Ryan: Really good, really, really good. It was a lot more R
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Ryan: &B and not as like poppy radio Justin, but I was never a Justin listener. And then I’m just gonna throw this out there because it’s super niche. I really would love to hear if anyone else connects with this that listens to this show. it’s likely a big probably not. ⁓ But I…
Matt Mulcock: Okay.
Ryan: OCD listened to one album this year from a new artist. It’s not a new artist, an artist I just discovered called Sleep Token, rock metal genre. Kind of a weirder band. I listened to that album still once a day this entire year. So that was like my top artist. All five songs were five of their songs, top album, tons of minutes. I think I listened for 70,000 minutes this year. Would that be right?
Matt Mulcock: Wow.
Cody Barrus: Holy cow.
Matt Mulcock: you listened to way more music than me.
Ryan: Yeah, music’s always on. But anyway, if anybody. Okay, yeah, yeah, I go off and on with that. If any I’m serious, though, if anyone, sleep token fan, even in Arcadia, the new album, I would love to hear
Cody Barrus: Yes!
Matt Mulcock: I listen to more podcasts. Okay, really quick while we’re on the topic of music, just have to throw this out there. And I asked you guys this in a meeting, but you know how Spotify and these other music apps have like shuffle mode, right? You just like play an artist and then it’ll go like their radio or whatever. I did this a couple, like probably two months ago, I switched over from my hardcore rap and I was like, you know, I’m going to change it up and I’m going to go back to my roots of like, kind of like AC DC type, you know, hard rock, whatever. And I went to.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Mulcock: I was like, let’s just play rage against the machine radio. Well, I’m, I just went to it, changing it up for that workout. So went rage against the machine bulls on parade, of course. And the next song that came up right after was by Incubus. That, that lives rent free in my head. And I was like, I would have never, I would have never put Incubus on rage against the machine radio.
Ryan: We talked about this. It was out of order. I know. This is why AI can’t replace our jobs.
Matt Mulcock: I need, I need someone to like check me. Am I off base when I think they’re not in the same genre? Thank you.
Ryan: No, it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t have been. It’s like when my Spotify AI DJ goes from playing whatever it is while I’m working out to one of my sleep meditation playlists, like songs from there, like rotates in sleep meditation. It’s like, dude, where were you on that one? Anyway, OK. Dentist Advisors wrapped 2025. We have Cody here specifically, I mean, because he’s awesome. Clearly cut out for this stuff. But also he helped compile all this data.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, yeah, This doesn’t make sense. Yeah. Pfft, duh, he’s so awesome.
Ryan: And this is probably the best year we’ve ever had in data and visualization and presentation of the data. Really excited to do this. We’re going to do this in two parts. Today’s podcast, which we probably should have said 15 minutes ago, ⁓ is the ⁓ cool. That’s why we don’t get to be in the same room holding mics anymore. This is the qualitative data. So this is a survey we started sending out over the last few years asking
Cody Barrus: Hahaha
Matt Mulcock: This is what they’re trying to separate us, Ryan. This is what they’re trying to separate us. They’re like, you guys can’t do this together.
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Ryan: you, our audience and our clients, dentists, what life is like, vacations, quality of life, expectations met, what you spend your time on, that kind of stuff. So that’s what we’re gonna go through today is the qualitative data ⁓ from this survey. It’s gonna be fun to dig in and then we’ll do another episode on quantitative data, what the average income, debt load, net worth, that kind of stuff is. We’ll dig into this, if you’re following along at home, will be on other platforms like YouTube. So if you want to see the actual stats, we’re going to show you. Matt’s screen is going to make an appearance here any second. And then I think we’ll have webinars too.
Matt Mulcock: I actually, I also have a little, I also have a little, surprise for us that I got to, I got a text from a client and friend after we send out the survey that I’m going to read. I’m not going to obviously give his name, but I’m going to read, I’m going to read this. I literally told him I’m going to read this on the podcast and we record because he sent me this text. No, when we get, when we get to the question, I will I’ll read his text. So don’t let me share now.
Ryan: Okay. yeah. Name and location. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s jump on the screen. Yep.
Matt Mulcock: Let’s… Let’s do it.
Cody Barrus: While you’re pulling that up, Matt, I also have to give a shout out to Sthuti and the marketing team. They’re the ones that put this presentation together and they actually did a lot of the qualitative work, like the qualitative questions and sending out the questionnaire and everything. It looks awesome. They did such a great job.
Ryan: Ugh.
Matt Mulcock: They did such a good job.
Ryan: That’s so cool. Yep, ⁓ they killed. That’s what I’m saying. This year is the best year we’ve had in terms of like the actual data I think was as clean as it’s ever been. Thanks, Cody and team. And then the visualizations of it all is the best we’ve ever had. So yeah, usually me and Matt were drawing pictures on an iPad.
Matt Mulcock: So good, yep. We were just making crap up as we went. This sounds right. Yeah. Here we are.
Ryan: We were. And look, here we are. still going. So it worked.
Matt Mulcock: Okay, do want to jump in?
Ryan: Yeah, you want to each just take a page and introduce it. So the first one we’re going to look at, I’ll do. This is the total days dentists spend in the office. so yeah, we’re asking two questions here. How many days is the average dentist spending in the office or how many average days? and what are they doing there? So was this surprising anyone? I think this is the career. The majority, 62 % of people four days a week in the office. I think that’s the quintessential dental career, four day a week. I was actually surprised that, okay, so I’ll just read through these. So zero days in the office, I don’t understand that. Maybe that’s just pure owners. No one’s doing any like clinical in person. That’s three.
Cody Barrus: Thank you.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, that’s I was going to say maybe they’re yeah, exactly.
Ryan: 3.2 % of you said no days in the office. One day in the office, 1.6%. Where’s our two days in the office? Is that a teeny one? Is that it right there? I can’t even read that. What is that? That must be.
Matt Mulcock: The teeny, is that the teeny teeny? No, that’s six. I don’t see a two day. I don’t know if there are any two days.
Ryan: Oh, is there a little one between the one and the three? No, no one has two days in the office. I mean, this is the data you guys filled out. So this is your fault if you broke our system. Just kidding. Yeah, so I mean, bottom line, very small percentages, one, two days, zero days. Three days is just shy of 9%, which I was a little more surprised because the five day is 20 % of you. So.
Cody Barrus: No one has two days in the office.
Matt Mulcock: I guess no one said two days in the office. That surprised me too.
Ryan: And I don’t have this on the top of head. Maybe Cody, you know this from the data you dug into. Over the past years, the way we’ve been trending is about 80 to 85 % of our clients are owners and the remaining are associates, non-owners. And so maybe the skew of, and I don’t know if that’s growing, that share of associates and non-owners to owners is growing over the years or if it’s holding steady. I think it’s probably pretty similar. But that would probably speak to the higher skewed days in the office. Like earlier in your career, you’re just working more days, you’re in the office more. So that would make sense to me given our data set, how our clients, like the makeup of our client demographics. But I was surprised that more people are doing three and more people are doing five. Not surprised that majority of people are doing six or four days, 62%.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, that’s set out to me too, Ryan, that’s the four percent of the four days, 62%. I, that is about what I would have expected. Maybe even higher, but I was, I was definitely surprised that we’re seeing over double the responses of five days compared to compared to three. Yeah.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, for compared to three. Yeah, really interesting. And maybe just speaks to ⁓ where a lot of the people filled this out. don’t know, Cody, did we have, I don’t think we had the actual demographic numbers of the qualitative. I was gonna have to say that slowly to remember which one was me.
Cody Barrus: ⁓ Yeah, not of the qualitative. We have the demographics of the quantitative. And I can give you that. I mean, I’m sure they’re pretty similar, you know? But I know that, so as far as like the total number of people that were surveyed, there was around, let’s see, there was around like 350 people that we reached out to. I don’t know how many responses we got, but as far as total number of people that participated in this, ⁓
Ryan: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Cody Barrus: you know, in all the data that we gathered, So between ages 27 and 34, there was 80 participants. And then between ages 35 and 39, there’s 104. So you think about it, it’s like almost two thirds of the people that participated in this survey are between the ages of 27 and 40, essentially. And so that would make sense to me that..
Ryan: Yeah, okay. That makes sense.
Cody Barrus: I guess earlier on in their career, they’re working more four and five days a week than they are three and two.
Ryan: which is why they saw this email and respond to the other older two, the two dayers are like, I don’t respond to emails. What do you mean? What do mean? I don’t know what this is. Yeah. So that makes sense. mean, I think this still speaks to what is the career of dentistry, which there are some slides on this too, some questions about income and expectations and is it worth it? So this speaks to it. Let’s talk about this breakdown here. If you’re seeing the screen, clinical days versus leadership days, Cody, you want to walk us through what this data is saying here?
Matt Mulcock: We’re like, we’re enjoying our life. I’m not going to respond to some dumb survey.
Cody Barrus: Yeah. Yeah. mean, essentially clinical days versus leadership days, clinical days, obviously that’s the number of days they’re chair side. Leadership days is more of, you know, if they own the practice, that’s administrative stuff, maybe looking at, you know, if they look at payroll doing that, you know, looking more of the business side of things instead of just being chair side. So clinical days, six point, so essentially 6.5 % of people that responded say that they do zero days.
Ryan: Right. Hmm.
Cody Barrus: clinical days, which is interesting.
Ryan: So here’s what’s interesting. You have the three and the five is flipped in this one. ⁓ So almost 24 % of you said that you’re spending three clinical days in the office. 6.6 and a half percent said five clinical days in the office, which tells me that maybe in that previous screen, the people who doing four days a week, ⁓ yeah, they might, yeah, or five days, they’re spending a day in leadership. Yeah. Okay. Working on the business.
Cody Barrus: Mm-hmm.
Matt Mulcock: Five days. That’s, that’s exactly what I was thinking too, is that they’re there. This is just total days in office, 20 % saying five days, but this clearly this, this other graph here is showing that, or I think confirming that they’re saying that they spend part of that five days leadership or like just business building.
Ryan: Uh-huh, yeah, uh-huh. Mm hmm. Part of that five days in. Yeah. Working on it. Can you click on that again? The leadership days section. Yeah, there you go. The vast majority of leadership days are in that, you know, basically probably a half day to one day a week spending leadership stuff. ⁓
Cody Barrus: Thanks. Yeah, I think that’s important, I think for dentists to recognize that day that they’re doing, like that they’re having a leadership day. Because you think of how many clients do we have that they talk about, like they’re getting burnt out, right? And maybe it’s because they’re like, I’m working, like I’m only working four days a week, or I’m only working three days a week. But it’s like, what about that other day or those other two days? How much of the, you know,
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Cody Barrus: how much time are you spending running the business, right? Like there’s an email that comes in and they’re like, oh, I need to check on this or this. All of a sudden that’s a whole extra day of leadership tasks that they’re doing that maybe they’re not really accounting for in their their typical work day.
Ryan: Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: I think it’s a really good perspective, Cody. think we hear this quite a bit. People, think a lot of times to your point, dentists equate their schedule to just how many days they’re, they’re chair side and they don’t always think about the, the business part of it, the admin, the stuff that drains you in, in a lot of cases for these, for dentists drains them more than being chair side. So many dentists are like, I got into this to be chair side, the leadership admin stuff.
Ryan: Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: they’re, they weren’t prepared for, and I think is really draining and leads to them to your point, Cody saying, what the heck? Like, why do I feel burned out when I’m only three days a week? It’s like, well, you’re actually not, you’re probably actually putting in, you know, double the hours that you’re even accounting for.
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah, I actually just had a conversation with a client around this exact subject. wonder, I think a lot of people probably could relate. They were just saying, yeah, you know, they work three, three and a half days a week clinical, but they’re still in there one to two days sometimes just doing business stuff. But for them, it was like the business days felt random. Often it just felt like they were in there doing busy work, catching up. They didn’t feel like they were going in into like an intentional process or system, moving something forward.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah.
Ryan: They were just like reacting to a bunch of stuff that piled up during the week. So I think there’s a whole other subject, maybe a cool one for Christine actually. Like a cool podcast would be how to get the most out of your non-clinical days in the office. What should you be doing? What should a typical non-clinical business day look like so that you feel like you’re doing something, you’re moving the needle and pushing it along. Do you hear that? You hear that from people? Yeah, yeah.
Matt Mulcock: I think really quick, really quick on that. think that’s such a good point, Ryan, because the clinical days are so, are probably far easier to, they are, they’re easier to define. Like, did I get stuff done or did I not? Like you’re just, you’re doing a procedure and it’s either columns filled. Exactly. Did I get butts in the chair? Did I actually diagnose all that? So much easier to, to define those things. The leadership stuff or the admin stuff or the working on the business stuff is so much more ambiguous and kind of like.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. Were the columns filled? Did people show up?
Matt Mulcock: So I think it’s a great point and Cody, you, you mentioned the specific example of like, did you just go in and respond to emails all day? And then you wonder like, you know, then you, you listened to a podcast about being an actual CEO and you’re like, well, I’m, I’m dedicating time to leadership days. It’s like, but did you actually, I love the word. Do you just use their Ryan use intention? Was there any intention behind those days? I think that’s a real, that’s a real problem. think for a lot of dentists is they’re sitting in the office.
Ryan: Yeah.
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: dedicating time to that, but they don’t really know how to do it.
Ryan: Yeah, I agree. Let’s get Christine on that for sure. OK, we just sign her up for content. Yeah, Cody, what’s up?
Cody Barrus: Yeah, I wonder if.
Matt Mulcock: We should, that’s a really good call.
Cody Barrus: I wonder if we could add this next year, but I think a good question to pose would be what days are more stressful, admin days or chair side days?
Ryan: Ooh, yeah, yeah. Cody, are you taking notes on this actually? Because you’ll be in charge of this again next in like nine months, you’ll be working on this project. That’s a great, well, every year, Matt and I, when we do the qualitative stuff, we think of more deeper questions and then neither of us write it down and we don’t do anything about it.
Matt Mulcock: You are resident data compiler ever
Cody Barrus: Yeah,
Matt Mulcock: Sthuti will be like, didn’t you guys have things you wanted to talk about or add to this? I’m like, yeah, totally. did. Yep. Totally did. Exactly.
Cody Barrus: all right.
Ryan: Probably. We totally did. Then we split it into five episodes. Okay, let’s
Cody Barrus: Yeah. ⁓
Ryan: keep going. That’s great. Okay, Matt, take us to this one. I do too.
Matt Mulcock: I love this one. So this is talking about vacation. So total vacations taken in 2025. We’ll, break this down. As we’ve mentioned, if you’re listening to this on the road or in your car, whatever, uh, we are looking at visuals. This is on the YouTube. Um, so you can totally check this out, but I’ll break down kind of the left side first. I guess we’re kind of showing this in a pie chart and a grab. Honestly, Sthuti deserves an award for this.
Ryan: Yeah.Mm-hmm.
Matt Mulcock: This is incredible of how she’s done this. but it’s okay. So total vacations taken in 2025. I’ll start with the biggest piece of the pie first. which is five plus. Am I seeing that right? Yeah. Five plus was, ⁓ so 38 % of people said they took over five vacations in 2025. That shocked me. What do you guys. Yes.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah, uh-huh. Which there is a follow-up question here that did come from us last time, because last time we did this, we didn’t have the second part of it, which was, well, what’s a vacation? And you and I, what was, how did you define a vacation? Like to really feel like.
Matt Mulcock: What is a vacation? To me, there’s a difference and it’s kind of one of those things like you kind of know it when you see it type of thing. you kind of know it, you kind of feel it when you’re on it. ⁓ you kind of know when you’re on a vacation or when you’re not, ⁓ to me, I think there’s a couple of components to it. And now again, there’s no exact science here, but I do think duration matters. So I don’t consider like a little weekend getaway to park city for me where I can drive an hour away. Like that’s not a vacation, ⁓ to me.
Ryan: Yeah. You know, you know, you know, yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Ryan: ⁓ Okay, yeah, that’s just like a like a ⁓ long weekend. Yeah
Matt Mulcock: I think. Yeah, I think duration and for whatever reason, distance matters to me. So it’s like, if I’m flying, it’s not for work, but if I’m flying, it’s like, yeah, that’s a vacation. ⁓ but then, yeah, I think duration matters too. So we, we kind of added, well, before I go any further, what do you guys think? What, what is your definition of a vacation versus like a, like weekend getaway or whatever.
Ryan: Always a vacation. Yeah, uh-huh. Sorry. Yeah. You get on a plane, yes, if the car ride is more than three or four hours, yes, and if it’s two nights. Yeah, you gotta go two nights.
Matt Mulcock: Okay, yours is two nights. Cody, what about
Cody Barrus: Two nights to one.
Matt Mulcock: you?
Cody Barrus: I would agree with that. If you’re in the car, I’d say more than three hours. You’re kind of ⁓ out of your element, out of the circle that you’re normally in. And then also two nights, I’d say, Ryan. If it’s one night, kind of just feels like, it’s just a fun overnighter, but two nights is a vacation.
Ryan: Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: So here’s, here’s a real example, right? We lit. Cody, you and I live in, in Salt Lake, Ryan, you’re a trader and went to California. No big deal. ⁓ so you and I, right. So Cody, you and I in Salt Lake get in the car. Of course, like you and I take a trip together. ⁓ we drive down to St. George for as we normally do. So we drive down to St. George four hours away. We leave on a Thursday afternoon and we come home Sunday.
Ryan: Hehehehehe
Cody Barrus: You
Ryan: As you normally do, yeah.
Cody Barrus: Uh-huh.
Matt Mulcock: to St. George is that would you come home and say, I took an incredible vacation with Matt.
Cody Barrus: I mean, it would be an incredible vacation with you for sure. But yeah, I would count that as a trip. I would count that as a vacation for me.
Matt Mulcock: You Got it. That’s interesting. It gets interesting. I don’t know if I would categorize that as like, I went on a vacation. I would say a trip for sure. For sure. Yeah. I I went on a trip with Cody and we had a blast, but
Ryan: trip though, a little trip. yeah, just semantics.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, a trip and not a vacation. Okay, I could see that. ⁓
Ryan: You know what’d be interesting too, maybe this would be a fun podcast. Let’s pretend take notes on this too. Is that like the data around people’s vacation habits, I’ll bet there’s some data and statistics and studies around that. You think back to like childhood, or at least I do anyway, everyone grew up different, but we would go camping for a few nights, maybe twice a summer. And that was the annual family vacation. You know, maybe once every, you know, I don’t know, five to seven, maybe even 10 years, we’d hit the coast, go to California and Disneyland or something with grandparents. And so I wonder, I’m just wondering like how the trends of vacationing has changed. I bet there’s some studies on like average spend, annual spend on vacations. you guys did? perfect. Let’s see if we can find it.
Matt Mulcock: So we did a podcast, Taylor and I did a podcast on this. He wrote an article about this. You can check it out at denisadvisor.com. Taylor did a great job on this. one thing, one data point we talked about on that episode, then the article he wrote was that since 1952 today, inflation adjusted as a population in America, we spend over eight times more on vacations. Inflation adjusted.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Cody Barrus: Holy cow.
Matt Mulcock: Eight times more on vacations and trips than we did in 1950. Yeah. You should go listen to that episode and go, go read that article. Cause it’s, it’s pretty eyeopening how we have changed as a society.
Ryan: Really? Okay. Yeah,
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Ryan: it’s kind of like how the average square footage is in housing these days. I was just on the website trying to find this, but I’m sure it’s somewhere there. OK, that’s really cool. Good enough. you.
Matt Mulcock: Yep, yep. Um, so let’s keep breaking this down. So total vacations taken in 2025, uh, uh, 38 % of respondents said five plus, uh, the next group, uh, was about 27 % more round up a bit said three. Um, the next grouping was about 16 % said four and then 12 and a half percent said two and then 6.7 % said one. However, so again, the biggest grouping was five. And then three, then, the three, four and five took up the big chunk of it. However, to your point, Ryan, we broke this down and said, how many of those vacations are over under three nights? Less than three nights vacation, ⁓ 50%. I’m trying to wrap my mind around this data.
Ryan: So it’s, think, well, Cody, you might be able to say that.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, I was gonna say, think what it’s saying is for those that took just one vacation, 50… Yes, yeah, and then 50 % said it’s more.
Ryan: One vacation.
Matt Mulcock: 50 % said it was less than three nights. Got it.
Ryan: Yeah. And so for those that said they took five vacations, the biggest category, 17 % were less than three nights. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Got it. So of
Cody Barrus: Said that it’s three nights, yeah.
Matt Mulcock: The 38 % who said five plus 17 % of those vacations were less than three. Okay. And then we’ll go to over three. This spreads out actually pretty well. So of the 38 % who said they take five plus, they took five plus in 2025, 12 % said those were of those of those vacations were over three nights.
Ryan: over three nights. So it probably tells us that people who are traveling more frequently are taking more trips than vacations. They’re experiencing more trips. Quick trip, ⁓ quick trip. QT, little QT.
Cody Barrus: Vacations yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yes. Yeah. Quick little weekender, which if, so if you follow the, ⁓ the data provided by our friend of the show, good friend, Dr. Daniel Crosby, he’s coming up at the summit this year again in 2026. he’s, he’s incredible. He talks about this very concept of data supports as opposed to like big, big, big splurges when it comes to like happiness and connection with your money.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Stoked. Yep. Mm-hmm.
Matt Mulcock: He talks a lot about doing like the value and the joy that can come from smaller splurges kind of spread out throughout the year, whether that be vacations or otherwise. ⁓ it’s kind of interesting. I think there is some truth to that of, opposed to having one massive trip at the end of the year, let’s say spreading that out over the course of the year and doing more frequent little trips. He would say the data supports there being more joy in the latter.
Ryan: and Yeah. in the frequent more more frequent smaller little trips yeah yeah
Matt Mulcock: In the more frequent, not every weekend, but he, talks a lot about like still having gaps, like the importance of having gaps between your splurges. But there’s, there’s truth to saying I did five or six like smaller splurges throughout the year, ⁓ for vacation, their trips versus like one all out, like two week thing.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I think about it though. When you plan one gigantic trip here, maybe that’s all you like to do or maybe that’s all you can do. Who knows? But there’s a lot of variables that can affect that experience. Like what if you got the flu that week? What if it was raining in the place that you thought was going to be sunny the whole time? Or there’s there’s just like weather and sickness and you know, maybe that’s the week the airline shut down or maybe that’s the week that that island you were going to had an outbreak. Like who knows?
Matt Mulcock: Yep. A lot of pressure.
Ryan: There’s so much pressure that has to like that that big huge vacation has to perform versus you you get away a little bit more frequently. So I like that.
Matt Mulcock: Well, and think about, so we just did this on Two Cents, still in the dental space on average, ⁓ or across the board, I don’t have it in front of me, but something like still like 70 plus percent of the dental space is a one location and a good chunk of those is a single provider. So if you think about it, it’s really difficult for a single provider, single location
Ryan: Mm. Mm. Go along.
Matt Mulcock: To take a big splurge. Like I just had a client I talked to the day he, he is a solo producer in his solo practice. They decided to take a two week vacation last year. Uh, and you know, right. And then six months later, what happened? They were like having trouble filling seats to, or, you know, filling the chairs. And he said, we obviously realized our recalls six months later for having two weeks off. We’re completely empty, which makes sense. So I think this actually. Verifies that that it’s more likely, especially with majority of the space still being single provider, single location, that you would do more frequent, like less than three nights, longer weekends than you would do like big splurges. I think that tracks actually, anything, anything else you guys would say on this data for vacations? Anything that surprised you?
Ryan: Yeah.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, that makes sense. I would just add one thing. think about, you know, you think about when you’re a kid. For some of us, that was more recent than others. But when you’re, when you’re, I just, I’m not naming names. When, uh,
Matt Mulcock: Whoa whoa whoa whoa just catching strays over here the young buck over here do with the guys
Ryan: Yo ho ho ho ho! Dude looks right at my in my in my
Matt Mulcock: with the back problems he just throwing haymakers
Ryan: jeez. As I’m like standing up like pacing side to side, I’m like lifting one foot up on the chair.
Matt Mulcock: I’m texting my doctor right now like, man, we still on for surgery or go ahead, Cody. After that. Yeah.
Ryan: Go ahead, Cody. Go ahead, go ahead. Younger, yeah.
Cody Barrus: You’re like a little kid, when you think of the vacations that you took, I feel like a lot of times you think about those core memories that you have. It was like the hotel swimming pool. And don’t get me wrong, the big vacations are fun. Going to Hawaii, no one would ever deny that opportunity.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. I was just going to say that about my own kids.
Matt Mulcock: whole lot of it.
Cody Barrus: You think as a kid, there’s these memories that you have and most of time it’s not these big huge trips. It’s just like you’re swimming in the hotel swimming pool with your siblings. You know what I mean? Like little things like that.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, so true.
Ryan: Dude, my kids say that all the time about these vacations that we took when they were little and we had no money to do these things. It was very hard and stressful to pull off. And it’d be like, you know, restaurants or the beach or we’d get on planes or go to Disneyland. They’d be like, remember when you were throwing us in the air in the pool and then we watched Disney Channel and ate cereal in our hotel? That’s their favorite part. And I’m like, yeah, I guess we could have just gone down the road and done that.
Cody Barrus: Uh-huh.
Matt Mulcock: So yeah, gone camping.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah, you’re right though, Cody, for those of us that are younger, just kidding. Yeah, my kids are the same way. That’s totally, yeah, and it speaks to the simplicity. That’s a whole other thing with like, you know, little kids and anyway, yeah, good point. Okay, what’s this? yeah, here’s the question. The question is, yeah, one question is how fulfilled do you feel at work? And the other question was, does dentistry provide the lifestyle you expected?
Matt Mulcock: All right, Ryan, is rotating back to you. Two different questions. Yep.
Ryan: I love this slide because I think maybe the next one or two later feel a little contradictory, which I think is worth just being interested in and diving into. So this one, how fulfilled do you feel at work? This is presented if you’re seeing this in, what are these diagrams called? They’re like word bubbles, you know, the more frequent the response, the bigger the bubbles are. Yeah, so the biggest bubbles here.
Matt Mulcock: The bigger the bubble.
Ryan: Zero to 10, that’s the scale by the way. Zero, unsatisfied, 10, extremely satisfied. The biggest bubbles are seven and eight, not six and seven, lame. Seven and eight. Seven’s the biggest followed by eight and then followed by six and then nine. So we’re seeing basically six, seven, eight, nine being the most frequent scores and the smallest ones. Yeah, zero, two, three, four, tens. Tens bigger than zero, two, three, and four.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, do not. Do not. Doesn’t surprise me.
Ryan: It’s almost the same size as five. So what we’re seeing from this that I feel this reflected in the average conversation with the average client is people are satisfied with the career of dentistry. ⁓ The next question is, it provide the lifestyle you expected? We can bounce back to the other one real fast, but ⁓ it is 87 % of people said yes, dentistry did provide or does provide the lifestyle I expected. 13 % said no which would be interesting to dive into. By the way, if you’re listening to this and you answered any of these that maybe might be in the minority, like if you’re one of the 13 % who said no, message one of us. ryan@dentistadvisors.com , matt@dentistadvisors.com Cody, what’s yours?
Cody Barrus: Mine’s cody.barrus@dentistadvisors.com
Matt Mulcock: Ryan, now who’s just throwing, do you want to throw out our cell phone numbers too or?
Ryan: Yeah socials I was like I email one of us it’s like why if you were one of the 13 % In what context would you say that dentistry does not provide the lifestyle? But this is in line with what I would what I experienced from clients in talking to dentists And it’s still what I believe about the industry in the career Which is still a worthwhile career that provides What you’re gonna want it to provide it’s gonna be cash flow heavy. It’s gonna be high income It’s gonna be shorter work weeks the older you get
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Ryan: nothing surprising here that stands out to me. What about you guys?
Matt Mulcock: Go ahead, Cody.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, I was gonna say it is cool to know that people still enjoy doing dentistry and like it provides the lifestyle that they’re hoping for. I mean, essentially what this is saying is you ask 10 dentists, nine of them are gonna be like, yeah, you should do dentistry like it’s provided a great lifestyle. So that 13%, I would be curious to know why, you know, and what I’d be curious to know what their expectation was going into dentistry. Like did they have in mind? you know, their neighbor that was, you know, he’s like 50, he’s working two days a week. He’s kind of, you know, he’s been in his career for a long time. Is that what they pictured? And currently they’re early in their career and they’re like, man, this isn’t what I was thinking, you know, so.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah, it’s a grind. They’re in corporate. They’re six days a week or yeah.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, so I’d be curious to know like what their expectations were.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Matt Mulcock: And, I’m not, I think in any situation with any profession, you would pro I would, I would actually be super interested in not that we would have ever have this data, but to compare this to other industries. ⁓ cause I think no matter what you’re always going to have a percentage of people in a question like that, like did your career provide the lifestyle you expected? ⁓ I think you’re always going to have some nos no matter what, but I would venture a guess that this result.
Ryan: yeah, huh.
Matt Mulcock: In dentistry with dentistry specifically is gotta be in the top quintile of careers. It’s gotta be higher than most professions. ⁓ the other thing I wanted to point out, we’d mentioned this earlier, but I think it bears repeating here, ⁓ is the data from the respondents skews younger. So this is saying even younger people like the younger professions in dentists or the younger dentists are still saying they’re extremely satisfied.
Ryan: I was just gonna say it’s gotta be higher.
Matt Mulcock: or close to being, you know, there’s seven, eight, nines are the biggest bubbles here. And then almost 90 % saying that it provides the lifestyle they’re expecting. That’s important. I think for the young dentist to hear, like, these are mid to late thirties, early 40 dentists who are saying, yeah, this is still a killer profession. Yeah.
Ryan: They like what they’re experiencing. That’s a good point. I just asked chat for whatever this is worth. If there’s any studies or data on industries with highest career job satisfaction, I could click on a lot of these links here. the top one was science and pharmaceuticals, which does include medical. this survey that they cited had the highest overall job happiness of about 92%. What are we at? 87 %?
Matt Mulcock: 87 where did financial advisors fit in there random scarce?
Ryan: It’s actually advisor at advertising PR, accountant, legal and marketing. So finance is usually like mid to mid high satisfaction.
Matt Mulcock: Got it.
Ryan: it sounds like there’s probably some data out there that backs that. Yeah, I think this makes total sense, actually. So anyway, OK. ⁓
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I agree. Moving on to you, Cody.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, so this talking about work-life balance, the question that was posed is do you feel like you have a healthy work-life balance right now? ⁓ 80 % said yes, 20 % said no.
Matt Mulcock: Is this the data you said, Ryan, that you think… ⁓
Ryan: I think it might be the next one, because this one actually still falls ⁓ in line pretty much with what I would have expected. ⁓ yes. Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. That fits. Again, you look at the average day’s work per week. You look at where income averages are, overall satisfaction. 80 % of people saying, I’ve got a good work-life balance. That’s a lot of why people get into dentistry. And for good reason, you get that kind of balance out of it.
Matt Mulcock: Got it. So 80 % of people saying that it fits, that they have a healthy work-life balance now. Got it.
Ryan: for sure. Or the opportunities there, for sure.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, totally. Yeah, doesn’t, doesn’t surprise me. Do you think part of this too, or these questions like this, obviously it’s all as we’ve already highlighted, like it’s qualitative. It’s just opinion based, but I feel like part of this too, this one in particular, uh, is personality as well. Like I think there’s a huge personality component. Well, I just feel like, um, I think there’s certain personalities that like, no matter what you go into, you’re not going to feel like you’ve got work life balance because you don’t.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Maybe how are you thinking about what comes to mind? Sure, yeah.
Matt Mulcock: want it maybe, you know, like I didn’t know you’ve talked about a personal, client and friend Ryan in the past, but I just, I get, wonder, I think there is a personality component here. also think the last two things we’ve talked about this one included, ⁓ expectations are a huge factor here as well. Like, what are you, what did you expect getting into this? That’s a huge, huge part of this.
Ryan: what do you expect? Yeah, and you know, might be phase of life. Again, the demographics of who answered it could be phase of life. You know, sometimes it’s different phases of life. It’s harder to find meaning, purpose, fulfillment, or even time outside of work or obligations. It’s just phases sometimes, seasons of life. But yeah, this data lines up with what I would have expected. I think it’s the next one. I keep saying this, yeah, yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, well, Cody, there’s another question on here. Yeah, you want to hit?
Cody Barrus: Yeah, so the question that was posed is, is your income a fair reflection of the work you put in? 28 % said no, 72 % said yes. Which, I mean, I feel like there’s a lot of ways that you could look at this question, but I don’t know, this actually was a little bit surprising to me. I felt like the yeses would be a little bit higher, yeah.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Matt Mulcock: a little higher. Yeah. Yeah, again, if you’re listening and you’re one of 28 % of people who said no, income is not a fair reflection of the work I put in, ⁓ call Matt’s personal cell phone at 2 a.m. what’s interesting is the gap here to your point, Cody, there’s a bit of a gap, a pretty significant gap, what 15 % gap of people on the last data point we hit, what was it? 87 % said it’s provided the lifestyle they want, but only 72 % are saying it’s a fair reflection of the work they put in. So there’s a 15 % gap there saying, yeah, I’ve got a lifestyle I want, but I’m working way too hard for it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s kind of interesting.
Ryan: but not the income for the money I’m getting. Yeah, so, okay.
Ryan: That is it, yeah, yeah. Still pretty in line. Those two start to differ, the points you just mentioned, Matt, but still pretty in line, I think, with what dentistry provides. Yeah, where’s the one that I keep saying? Maybe it’s two slides from now. It’s coming up, you are? Okay. Cody, read us through this one. Or is this mine? Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. We moving on. You keep teasing it. You keep teasing it. This is the one I’m pulling out the surprise, the surprise email or the surprise text.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, so these questions I love, they’re kind of funny to me, I think. The first one is, you get more satisfaction from saving or spending money? 79 % said saving, 21 % said spending. I wonder how true this is. Yeah, I’m, you know.
Ryan: Yeah. You liars. You liars.
Matt Mulcock: Okay. Can I, can I read the text? So good friend of mine and decline of ours, ⁓ texts texted me right after this is back in November, early November. ⁓ and this is what he says. I’ll read it. Exact Ryan. Don’t cut me off. Like you always do. Just kidding. I love you. We did Cody. make jokes because Ryan and I’ve done this before where we go to read something and I, we did a Q and R one time and I was like, this is a long question, right? I got to read it. We literally couldn’t get through it.
Ryan: Yeah. I always have questions and I just did it.
Cody Barrus: Uh-huh.
Ryan: We just keep talking. I’m like, wait, what do you think they mean by that, Matt? And let me share the story. Lips are sealed. Go.
Matt Mulcock: Because he, just kept cutting me off and wanting to like talk about it. So I’m going to read it word for word and I will tell you when I’m done. Okay.
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: He says, I just took the benchmark survey you guys sent out. Do you get more satisfaction from saving or spending? Isn’t a good question. There isn’t a black and white answer. I’m satisfied spending money if I know I’ve been saving, especially if I’ve saved for something specific, it’s satisfying or rewarding my, or it’s satisfying or rewarding myself.
Matt Mulcock: I’m satisfied saving money if I know what the purpose of saving is, but I would say that spending just to spend doesn’t make me quote unquote happy. The two are inextricably linked in my mind. I thought that was awesome. I thought that was a really good nuance to add to this. So I told him this is really good nuance and we’re going to talk about it on the podcast. Any thoughts you guys have on that? Yeah, you’re, you’re good. stopped reading.
Cody Barrus: That’s cool.
Ryan: Can I talk now? Okay, I’m out of the penalty box. No, just kidding. That’s really fair. We never get through anything. Yeah, Matt, you’re the quote guy. ⁓ I think Daniel Crosby, part of his presentation in our first Dentist Money Summit 2024. Didn’t he talk about the intentionality behind spending and like satisfaction and happiness? Do you remember that? I just remember generally. You always remember exact quotes, but okay. Just remind me of that.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I mean, I don’t have, I know I don’t have an exact quote on it, but yeah, he,he, so he does, he does talk about, uh, the difficulty of connecting your money with your spending and that providing joy. And he talks a lot about the data around the three main categories. I think this is what you’re getting at Ryan, where he talks about the three main categories of spending, uh, and, it being directly correlated to, happiness and that being. Spending on, ⁓ experiences that create novelty in your life. like travel, he talks about the second category being outsourcing things you don’t want to do. So things like doing laundry, used that as an example, or, know, whatever it may be, some task at your home or at work, you don’t want to do paying to outsource and get your, buy your time back. And then the third category he talked a lot about was spending on other people, specifically like charitable endeavors. So I think that’s what you’re referring to of like that spending data.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah, where it goes kind of to your client’s point, like if it’s to something intentional that they mean to do. I think what, and we find this in ourselves and our client experiences and probably lots of data too, which is when you go through life and it’s easy to get here years and years and you just find yourself, your budget’s like higher than it used to be by a long shot and you just have like high payments and you’re spending on a lot of things and It might have been a product of your environment. You kind of just slowly did what everyone around you does, your neighborhood, friends, family, whatever. And it’s not necessarily your thing. know, like maybe you ended up buying a really expensive home because that’s what everyone is doing. But for you, it might have been living in a different part of the city in a smaller home, would have been more impactful or whatever, whatever the case may be. I think it’s a ⁓ universal experience over time. You kind of just go like, man, I’m spending money on stuff I don’t really love.
Ryan: Maybe and I don’t know why maybe it’s for other people. It’s subconscious didn’t even notice it just kind of happened. But when it’s like intentional kind of like what your client saying it’s more meaningful spending feels good. feels good. You know so I was like you liars come on saving almost 80 percent. Yeah. Cody.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, I would add to that. think it depends. I mean, like this client was saying, it depends on what you’re spending it on. He used interesting wording in that text that he sent you, Matt. He said that spending was spending your money on something that you’ve saved up for is rewarding. And I feel like maybe the you know, thinking of some spending as being rewarding versus satisfying is maybe
Ryan: Mmm.
Cody Barrus: different way to look at it, right? Like saving money is sad.
Ryan: That’s a good point.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, he says satisfying, but then he puts in quotes, rewarding myself.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, like saving money is probably more satisfying, but spending money is probably more rewarding to be like, I saved up for this. I’m going to like buy this and treat myself.
Matt Mulcock: Yep, totally.
Ryan: Hmm. You know, I’m going to say this too. I think, uh, I think he, did he say something about saving money when I know where it’s going or I understand what it’s for? Wasn’t there a line about that?
Matt Mulcock: He says, I’m satisfied. I’m satisfied saving money if I know what the purpose of saving is data supports this too.
Ryan: Yes. So yeah, I think there’s a lot of people who put money in 401k plans or into an insurance policy or a bank account and it doesn’t have a goal or it’s not clearly defined or they just simply don’t understand what it is. Even if it’s good for them and it is like a really good move, it can feel very unsatisfying because they just don’t understand what or why. ⁓ know, maybe this data speaks to ⁓
Ryan: ⁓ a type of dentist who has chosen to hire a financial advisor where their decisions of where money goes is very clearly defined and explained. Dentists probably have like half a dozen to 10 different buckets of money that they’re putting things into at all times. And so maybe this speaks to the data of a client who understands clearly why their money is going to these different places and what it’s for and the meaning and purpose of it. I thought that was really insightful too.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. One thing I want to mention here, and then I know we’ve got to move because we’ve got to make sure we’re getting to all the data here. ⁓ but I think it’s one thing that worthy of pointing out here is one of the underrated parts, one of the underrated challenges with money and financial planning specifically is there’s such that in most cases in the traditional sense, there’s such a binary here of like, I’m in accumulation mode. I’m planning for the future. I’m thinking about the future. I’m saving, I’m investing.
Ryan: yeah.
Matt Mulcock: That’s all the language and rules are built around that. And then at some point along the way, there’s a transition where, and that’s different for everybody, but the rules completely change. And you go into what the CFP would call like distribution mode, right? And now you’re starting to like live off your assets or you’re no longer collecting money or capital that’s been created from like your human energy and effort. And I think one of the most underrated parts or challenges again of this
Ryan: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Matt Mulcock: is learning how to spend properly. Like learn and properly about, mean, by that is like whatever you define, like that’s, that’s personal to you. But I’ve seen this with my older clients, right? I know you have to getting clients to actually spend and enjoy their money after 30 plus years or 20 plus. I see this with my dad and it’s like, what’s the whole point of this? The whole point is to spend your money and enjoy the hard work. And I really do, when I see this, a, think people are lying when they’re saying 80%, maybe it’s a selection bias, but I honestly, sometimes my, my, my ears perk up or red flags go off a little bit. When I only see 21 % say they get satisfaction from spending. I will be honest. I’m like, that’s a problem. If it’s not now, it’s going to be a problem in the future.
Ryan: Very good point, Matt. How often do we run into dentists who actually, believe it or not, have a hard time spending money even when they have plenty of it? It’s common. Yeah. Really common, which directly impacts ⁓ life satisfaction, career satisfaction. Because if you don’t get to put the hard-earned money towards something fun or fulfilling, ⁓ it can’t be. Yeah, die with zero, right? Is that the… Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: So many. Yeah. Yeah. They can’t just be numbers on a screen.
Cody Barrus: Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, Bill Perkins. It’s coming up a lot lately.
Ryan: It is, yeah, that book’s making the rounds. yeah, interesting data here.
Cody Barrus: That was good.
Matt Mulcock: The next question on this, would you tell your younger, this is interesting. Would you tell your younger self to pursue your current career or do something different? This tracks with the data so far, 83 % said they would rather pursue, they would sell their younger self to pursue dentistry only 17%. So they would do something different. What are you guys, Cody, what are your thoughts on this?
Cody Barrus: Yeah, I think it’s interesting. The stats on this question are actually the exact same as if you go back to the previous question where it says, does dentistry provide the lifestyle you expect? That the numbers are the exact same. And so which that makes sense to me, like 83 %
Ryan: Mm.
Cody Barrus: of the people said dentistry provided the lifestyle they expect, those same 83 % would probably tell other people to pursue the same career. So it tracks, it makes sense.
Ryan: Mm-hmm to do it. ⁓
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, it’s a good point tracks.
Ryan: Yeah, again, I was actually, I had to go back to these slides when we were talking. So I’m like, where did I see some contradictory data? And I think it was a little bit before that was different. But again, this is all in line. think this shows that overall, with some exceptions and the nuance of those would be interesting to dive into, overall, think the career of dentistry is satisfying to most people. You get out of it what you think you’re gonna get out of it. You’re gonna make the money. You think you’re gonna have the lifestyle. You can kind of have everything you want in the field of dentistry over time at the right time. You know, can have the lifestyle you want, you can have the stuff you want, you can retire the way you want to. If you do it smart, do it in the right timing, don’t mess anything up too big. But I think this does speak to ⁓ the average experience. We take a lot of calls from younger dentists these days too, who wonder this question. this, especially nowadays where student loans are bigger than they ever have been. And I think it’s a fair question.
Ryan: half a million, 700 grand, a million dollars, is this worth the death? It’s a different situation than your peers who are 20 years older than you, but I still think that these stats hold and speaks to the value of this career path for sure. And I mean, sorry, real fast, the longevity of this career path too. It’s not even reflected in here probably all the way, but the longevity of a career, being able to stay in something you’re an expert at and have done and have control over for a long time is…
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, it’s tough. Tough.
Ryan: extremely valuable the older you get.
Matt Mulcock: I was encouraged to see this, uh, just with the landscape of dentistry as a whole, with the fear mongering that is done by bad actors in the space. Um, I just think it’s cool. I think it’s, and again, we chalk this up to, there could be some selection bias, a hundred percent. saying that we’re acknowledging that.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Matt Mulcock: But it’s cool. It’s cool to see there’s still a good majority of people that are saying dentistry is worth it. It’s providing an income that we want. We would tell our younger self to still do it. Like that’s, that’s cool. And I think in ⁓ a space that’s becoming, or sometimes it’s easy to feel like it’s feeling it’s becoming more jaded where this is encouraging to be like, no, it’s not. think majority of people are still saying like, this is amazing. You still do it.
Ryan: Yeah.
Cody Barrus: I’ll add to something that Ryan, you mentioned earlier that like it is satisfying to be an expert in your field. that, mean, dentists are, they’re an expert and it takes some time. you know, like you’re talking about, you’ve got years of school and then when you start working at it, it takes some time to really be proficient at that. But there’s a quote that I’ve heard. I actually heard it from Jake. I don’t know who he was quoting. So I’ll quote Jake on this quoting someone. But he always says that
Ryan: himself. It’s Jake.
Matt Mulcock: It’s Jake. We’ll give Jake the credit.
Cody Barrus: You can have whatever you want. You just can’t have it all at once. And I think that’s important to realize, like as a dentist, it is a satisfying career. It’s, you’re not going to like, it’s not a get rich quick scheme. You know, it’s not like you’re going to graduate and all of a sudden your net worth is a million dollars, right? Yeah. So I think that’s something I mean, in dentistry and in any careers, it’s important to remember that like you’ll have, you’ll have a great life. You just can’t have everything all at once.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Matt Mulcock: I’m there’s no such thing. Yeah. Yep. So true.
Ryan: At the same time, that’d actually be kind of fun marketing tagline, get rich quicker, not quick, but quicker. I do think dentists, compared to other professions, can get rich quicker. We should throw that into marketing somewhere. I believe that. I do think that dentists can accumulate wealth statistically faster than almost any other profession. ⁓ Anyway, get rich quicker.
Cody Barrus: quicker. Yeah, I like that.
Matt Mulcock: yeah. Love that. Yeah. Let’s do it. Agreed.
Ryan: yeah, this is the last one, I think in the qualitative.
Matt Mulcock: All right, do you me to hit this one? Is it? I think we might have one. Oh, no, you’re right. This is the last one. Okay, so.
Ryan: Yeah, that’s it. Okay. I love this question, by the way. Who would put this in here? I love this question. So good.
Matt Mulcock: I know this is really good. So this is the question, uh, receiving your tax return earlier this year and finding out how much you owe to the government you were. And the responses were either surprised in a good way, surprised in a bad way, prepared and not surprised. Those were the three, uh, answers. And then we’ll jump to the last question on the slide, but, uh, so for that tax return question over 60%, I think it’s over, it’s like almost 65 is 66%.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yes, dude, yeah. Mm-hmm, 65.
Matt Mulcock: Maybe this will give us actually the hone in 66 % said to the tax return. They were prepared and not surprised. How did you guys, what are your, what’s your response to that? 66 %
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Prepared. My response, dude, this is how most people are. So to me, this speaks to the reality of most dentists lived experience with taxes, which is very contrary to all the social media stuff that we see ⁓ these days with like tax evasion strategies and did you know if you put your entire business into this thing that you’ll never pay taxes again and why isn’t anyone else doing this? This is crazy. The guy with the weird hat on TikTok said it like, to me, this speaks to the actual experience of most dentists. They do what they can. They, for the most part, have a pretty clear picture and a heads up of what’s going on with taxes. They’re fairly understanding of and in control of what levers and buttons they can push to lower their taxes. And then it is what it is.
Ryan: And they pay their taxes, they make a ton of money and they move on. I think this speaks to really how it is and the stuff you see on TikTok, like, did you know this crazy secret that every, for some reason, every dental CPA in the whole country has never heard about, but the guy on TikTok knows about it who sells life insurance, crazy, ⁓ knows about. Yeah, so like, I think this is, I like this because this calms down the social media avoid taxes story that everyone.
Ryan: Rightfully gets really amped up about, but I like this. I am a little surprised it’s this high though compared to how much people hate taxes and complain about it, but I think this is good. I like this stat. It surprised me, but I like it. Excited for it.
Matt Mulcock: I was too. Yeah, Cody?
Cody Barrus: Yeah, I was going to say focusing on that. I mean, it’s a small percentage, what it’s like less than 20%. So they were surprised in a bad way. And I don’t know. I mean, that can mean a few different things. My assumption is that they are, you know, they’re paying more taxes than they think that they should. I think it’s so important to remember to just like, don’t do anything crazy when you see that number, right? Like don’t be like, my gosh, we got to do this strategy or we got to.
Ryan: Mm-hmm
Cody Barrus: You know, try and do this profit sharing or, you know, throw all my money into my 401k and I like, make sure to look at your whole financial picture. Like years ahead, don’t just look at your tax bill today, because that could, I mean, that could significantly affect your financial plan. So.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I think that’s a good point. think another reason why this could be, again, I’m, I was a little bit surprised to Ryan that it was as high as, know, going on 70%. So they were not surprised, but of the portion that, know, whatever is 18 % or whatever that said they were surprised in a bad way. Um, I think another part of that is possibly just the quality of CPA that’s out there sometimes that we see. Cause one of the, one of the, one of the biggest concerns we hear from dentists is.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Totally.
Matt Mulcock: They’re not doing actual planning throughout the year. then by the end of the year or going into the following year, they’re like, ⁓ I owe $80,000. Like I, why didn’t you tell me this back when you had my projections in March? So I think there’s a portion of a pretty decent portion of dentists out there too, that are like, I have no clue what’s even going on. just am told by my CPA by the end of the year, like here’s what you owe or here’s what your bill is. So I think there that that and it what with that kind of problem.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Matt Mulcock: That’s easily solved by having just a more proactive CPA, but I think that is probably a portion of that 20 % or so.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that’s gonna totally be a reflection of some parts of the accounting industry out there, which probably overlaps with some people’s ⁓ experience either doing financial planning on their own or with a financial planner that’s just not that involved with their whole picture and their CPA. And a part of that group might just have earned way more money than they were expecting to, which, you know, yeah. Last question.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I say congratulations. Yeah, that’s awesome. All right. Last question.
Cody Barrus: But yeah, congrats, that’s awesome.
Ryan: Yeah, I’ll do this one. How stressed are you about money? Average score is zero to 10. ⁓ well, one was, no, yeah, one being not stressed at all, that threw me off. That makes sense though. One is not stressed at all. 10 is extremely stressed. Average answer, 3.89.
Matt Mulcock: So one, yeah, one being, yeah.
Ryan: Yeah, 3.89. We didn’t get any ones. Is that what this means? The minimum answer was two. So no one said not stressed at all, which I mean, I don’t know how you’d be an adult and never be stressed about money. Even very wealthy people are stressed about money for some reason or another. And we did get some tens in there. The average being 3.89. That feels to me like a pretty average, well, that seems lower than I think what the average person might feel out there.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, we did. Yeah. Yep. And then the max we had some tens.
Ryan: ⁓ especially the average dentist. If we know from the ADA, the average dentist retirement age is approaching 70 years old, and that was the data from a couple years ago. And then we know the conversations that, know, dozens of things dentists have to face in addition to good clinical skills and patient skills. ⁓ To me, that feels like a low number and probably does speak to the preparedness of the average client that’s responding here. The organization, having someone to talk to, having a plan having accountability, having a team to run decisions past, I think that’s be, I think that number’s lower than the average dentist feels out there who doesn’t have help, in my opinion.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I would totally agree. think there’s, is a result of some selection bias for sure. ⁓ with the respondents either being clients of ours or just listeners and like they’re engaged with our content. So I would, I would venture a guess. This is probably a couple of points lower than the average tennis. I would guess I, like, if, I had to guess, I’m just, I’m totally making this up as I do with a lot of things. I would, I would guess that
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Matt Mulcock: If you just said, what’s the, what would you think the average dentist would answer this? I was going to say between six and seven, but I just can’t, I’ll say seven. I’d say they would say seven. I hate it so much guys. I can’t, I hate it.
Ryan: Yeah, but I think you’re right. Well, and I think, I mean, how many new dentists contact us per year? 400 plus, 350, 400, somewhere around there. We have these conversations, Matt and I field most of them these days. And when people are coming to us, having done their own financial planning or investing by themselves,
Matt Mulcock: Somewhere at that range, yeah.
Ryan: or having financial advisors who, like a lot of our industry, are mostly maybe just selling something or they work for a bank or an insurance company, they’re not super involved with things or they have no, like whatever. I do think the stress levels of the average dentist contacting us for the first time out there in the wild, you know, the dentist in the wild, ⁓ I think they’re more stressed than this than a 3.89 and six or seven, I think would probably, I do, jokes aside.
Matt Mulcock: Probably be right. Cody, what do think?
Ryan: I just looked it up and I mean, this is just what the internet says, right? This is just a quick answer, but it says that on a scale of one to 10, based off of surveys that have been taken, it would be in a range between six to eight. yeah. So, and I mean, it says because the main thing is high student debt, like that’s something that weighs on.
Ryan: And as you’ve mentioned many, many times, I think it’s a high student debt for sure. Debt in general, but I actually think a lot of dentists out there in the wild, as Ryan would put it, ⁓ don’t have a focus on liquidity and building liquidity early and often in their career. And I think that adds to a lot of stress for people and just not being organized. It’s huge.
Ryan: Yep. Yeah. That contributes to no liquidity and being unorganized is not knowing what’s going on is so stressful. I agree. let’s wrap it. Let’s wrap the wrapped part one. Okay. Let’s wrap our wraps guys. Um, we intentionally did part or said we’re going to do two parts because we knew we were going to yap and not end up not to, we, we literally do the win. literally think about, think about how, how, think about the audacity that I had when we got on here and I was like, Hey guys, you want to do one episode or two? Oh my gosh, just insanity.
Ryan: Hey, only two is a win. Only two is a win this year. Although, we have one more to do, so we’ll see.
Ryan: That was insane. That was pure insanity. But final invitations, I mean, I’ll say thanks for tuning in. Thanks for participating in this, being a listener, being a client, being a friend of the show, giving feedback. It’s awesome, we super appreciate it. If you ever wanna have conversations with us about this, you can book a free consultation and chat with one of us, dentistadvisors.com Matt, any other invitations as we wrap this up today? Come. Yep. Yep, yep.
Matt Mulcock: No, I you nailed it. I want to give Cody last last words and see did the hard work.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, thanks for having me. This is a fun project. I’m grateful to be on the podcast today. It’s been fun.
Ryan: Yeah, you did a great job. You and the team killed it. Thanks, Sthuti Yeah, way better, way better. Noted, duly noted. Yeah, noted. It’s like a mediator, Matt, that we brought on. Clear, yeah, thanks Cody. Thanks Cody and team. Cody and team. All right, guys, thanks for doing this. Catch you next time on another episode. Bye bye.
Keywords: dentistry, financial advice, spotify wrapped, health, fitness, qualitative data, clinical days, leadership days, vacation trends, dentistry, financial planning, work-life balance, career satisfaction, saving vs spending, tax obligations, stress management, fulfillment, vacations, income.
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