4 Money Mistakes Every New Dentist Should Avoid – Episode #681

On this episode of The Dentist Money Show, Dr. Tony Schicktanz joins Matt to talk about his early years in dentistry—sharing candid stories of financial missteps, mounting debt, and the stress that comes with both. From tracking every dollar to negotiating stronger contracts, Tony shares tips to help new dentists avoid costly mistakes. Whether you’re fresh out of dental school or in the first few years of your career, tune into this episode for actionable advice to build a successful dental career while keeping your finances in check.

Related Readings

When do Dentist Start Making Money?

---

Podcast Transcript

Matt Mulcock: Welcome to the Dentist Money Show, where we help Dentists make smart financial decisions. I am Matt, and I’m joined here today with Dr. Tony Schicktanz, the educated associate. Tony, how are you?

Tony Schicktanz: I am doing awesome, Matt. I’m super excited to finally get on the podcast. been listening for about two years and, when we kind of started chatting and you had mentioned getting on the podcast, man, I perked up. I was super excited. So, uh, just thrilled to be here.

Matt Mulcock: I know, I feel the same way, Tony, it’s so exciting to have you. It’s so crazy how quickly this came together with, with you and I and, and you and DA because, so we met, I think, kind of like via email, probably a, a couple months ago, and then you came to the summit and like the second I met you at the summit and we started talking, I said it. I was like, man, we need to have you on the podcast for, for various reasons. One of the things that we get, I told you this before we went on. One of the things that we get, one of the pieces of feedback we get rightfully so is, Hey, we’d love you to hit more kind of younger dentist associate type topics, right?

And more focused on the associate. and then, so that obviously in and of itself was, was got me excited of what you do. But then just like what you do, like the platform that you have, what you’re trying to build, you and I have talked and there’s things coming, you know, coming down the line of things that we were, we’re gonna partner on and we’re super excited to, to announce down the road, but just what you do with the educated associate. Maybe let’s start there really quick, if we may, um, as we jump in, we’re good. today we’re talking early career mistakes to avoid, I guess we’ll hit that first, but maybe before we jump in, I want to give you a, a second to just highlight what you are doing, what you are building, and kind of what your focus is with the educated associate.

Tony Schicktanz: Appreciate such a nice introduction there. and I just to re kind of circle back, I felt the same thing. As soon as I saw you guys’ content and everything and I had the opportunity to meet you in person, I felt like it was gonna be a solid connection. so I graduated from dental school in 21. Uh, got out in the world and started working in like many new grads. Uh, none. No one in my family was in healthcare, so I didn’t go work in in mom or dad’s clinic. Uh, I don’t have an aunt or an uncle in practice, so, uh, like most people, I had to kind of figure out my path on my own. And I’m going through the path and I’m seeing things that didn’t go great for me and I’m talking with my buddies from dental school and I’m seeing things that kind of backfired on them.

And the more I’m thinking about it, I’m like, wait a second. These are kind of like the same problems that keep resurfacing, that are hammering everybody. maybe these are some things that should have been. Talked about a little bit more in dental school, or you just had one good class. I don’t know, there’s a myriad of things that could go wrong. Um, and it just felt like it was always the same issues that kept, uh, hanging us all up. so a couple years ago I decided, you know what, I’m just gonna give my story. I’m gonna start posting content around what I’ve done, what I’ve seen that’s worked, stuff that I’ve done that didn’t work. and just try and give green red flags, things like that.

So people had something to look in. I’m like a finance nerd. So like three or four years ago, just started reading all the finance books I could, following all the great podcasts. and if you looked at my Instagram, like it’s Dentists and it’s like finance influencers. So, it’s just kind of been my interest. And so, I’ve started to kind of niche more of that avenue trying to help docs get better associate contracts. Help them understand how their money comes in, how it flows out, what’s actually contributing to, financial growth. And, so really that’s kind of the nuts and the bolts of the business.

Right now I’ve written a book to help you land a dream job. I say that’s the title of the book, how to Land Your Dream Dental Associateship. And really it just walks you through the steps that you could use, leveraging AI to get a good job. we’re all busy people, so my end game goal is to reduce the amount of work you have to do to get to your end dream. So whether that’s getting a contract initially outta school that you love, whether that’s getting you positioned nice financially. today I’m gonna tell a little bit of my story. Uh, I don’t think I’ve ever publicly shared the whole story, so I’m gonna kind of, uh,

Matt Mulcock: My

Tony Schicktanz: Some things that are a little bit, they’re a little bit, I don’t know if embarrassing is the right word. I think a lot of times with finances, people get embarrassed by their situation, and I think if more people were just open and candid, you’d figure out that a lot of people lived a similar thing as you and, and maybe you shouldn’t feel so bad about what you went through. So I wanted to just give like a very honest, here’s what I’ve been through, here’s what I did. maybe even kind of where I’m at now. But, uh, yeah, that, that’s pretty much the nuts and bolts.

Matt Mulcock: I love it, Tony. I love hearing people’s stories of how they started in like their business or their, you know, their, their journey in general. And again, it goes without saying or mentioning again, like, just in this intro here, hearing again why I said we gotta get you on because you can always tell when someone, like the motivations of someone. Uh, when it comes to doing something like this, and it, from the very beginning, again, just as you go through that again, it just reminds me of that exact, when our, when we talked at the summit, was just like, you’re like, man, I have all these, I’ve had all these mistakes that I’ve made and all these issues, and I just kind of assumed other people are struggling with them too.

Or you started to hear those same problems and I wanna help people solve their problems. Like it that is so cool to hear, like the genuine nature of the origins of your story and, how many people you can, you can help from your position and trying to help with your platform. It’s just, it’s just awesome to to hear. So let’s jump in, um, to that story ’cause, so again, today we’re talking, early career mistakes. Four kind of specifically four kind of categories of early career mistakes that. That we’ve for sure seen, um, in our, in our work, working with, with dentists all over the country for, for over a decade. But you bring such a different and such a unique position that we can’t even bring ’cause we’re not dentists. Right. So I’d love to hear more about that story you mentioned, to kick us off, to set the stage for these early career mistakes.

Tony Schicktanz: Yeah, absolutely. So I think like most of us, uh, I, I guess I don’t have like the definitive starting spot, but somewhere around my D three year, my wife is one year ahead of me in training. She’s a physician now. But, uh, we were at different schools, of course, her being a physician, me being a dentist, and during this time, she had matched for residency. In Albuquerque, New Mexico. And, we got a, frankly, a surprise pregnancy. So our first daughter, my wife got pregnant. I’m a D three. She’s transitioning out to residency. We have our

Matt Mulcock: Not stressful at all. There’s no

Tony Schicktanz: Yeah, yeah, they, they give you student loans. I, I guess I lived in the era of, uh, basically uncapped student loans.

So I, we just kind of took out a lot of maxed out our student loans. But, you know, it all started with this, you know, we got dealt a life situation that in retrospect has been an absolute blessing. But in the time, like Matt said, man, I did not sleep for a while. I was like crazy stressed, had no idea what to do. But we had my wife living in New Mexico. We had myself living in Denver. we had a newborn baby. We had to kind of transition the baby from her to me, her to me, depending on whose work situation was worse. and basically that day-to-day life, I, I called it, we were in survival mode.

It was like. Okay, we gotta get money to buy diapers. So we, we did this to get that. I was literally like, we’ll talk about more about this, but I was selling, uh, like Pokemon and football cards and I’d, I’d sell a card that I didn’t wanna sell to get money to pay off something. And I was just in this like truly survival mode. And, and anybody that’s probably lived life has lived in a survival mode financially at some point. and it’s okay to do for a little bit, but after a couple of months and coming up on a year, it’s pretty excruciating. And, the bad thing started to compound. So we had to start taking out credit cards to pay for those diapers. Get my daughter on. She took 37 flights in that first year. Transitioning

Matt Mulcock: Holy cow.

Tony Schicktanz: Yeah, between New Mexico and Denver. And, that wasn’t super cheap. So by the end of all of this time, we had kind of amounted a huge amount of debt. about $850,000 of debt between student loans. Uh, the home that we bought in New Mexico.

We had a car note, um, and then st. credit card debt that got up to around 50 K by the time that, uh, I was out of dental school and I had moved down to Albuquerque to join my wife, like getting all of that transition to happen. I didn’t get a relocation bonus or anything along those lines. So credit cards footed all the bills. And, we lived there for, while she finished up residency, kept kind of plugging along. Uh, for those that don’t know, medical residents make didly squat. So, uh, it’s basically enough to like buy nothing. They, she made a couple grand a month and worked 80 hour weeks. So again, you’re not in terrific financial shoes.

We were still kind of in survival mode, but at this point I started to realize like, Hey, we, we gotta make a change or else this thing is only gonna keep going the wrong direction. So we finished up residency and, uh, decided to sell the home, get outta New Mexico and try and reset financially. Uh, fortunately. And, and really this was a saving grace. The home had appreciated a huge amount in the two and a half, three years we owned it. so we were able to get $70,000, uh, out of it when we sold it, and quickly used that money to then pay off the credit card debt. So boom, the money hit my account, woo hoo. Took a picture of the $70,000 in my checking account, felt happy and within five minutes had paid off credit cards. So I was down to zero credit card debt. and then the extra 20 k, and we’ll talk more about this, but I threw that at the car loan. well the car was just like a standard car. Um, it was a Subaru as.

Good car, but we bought it during COVID and the interest rate on it was like 2.9% or it was like ridiculously low. our monthly payment was manageable, so we’ll talk more, but I don’t think I should have thrown that 20 K at the car note at the time. Probably should have kind of held onto the cash. Um, and, and thought about that, but that was kind of what finally broke us through. And then my wife hit her attending ship. income comes up a lot and then over the next year or two, really stabilized financially. started tracking every cent, uh, that went in, that went out seeing where it was all going. but really it was this like really dire survival mode situation with the moment of truth and realizing like, something’s gotta give or we gotta make a big change or else this is only gonna end up horribly for us. And, and like I kind of said, luckily our home had appreciated enough that it kind of got us out of a lot of hot water, but. Yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s essentially, my initial financial journey in my first two or three years outta school.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, that’s, uh, it is, first of all, Tony, really appreciate you sharing and being vulnerable with, with the numbers and just kind of where you were at. Can you talk a little bit about just the headspace and emotional toll because of that, of that survival mode and, and specifically around. I guess I’ll just, I don’t wanna lead the witness. Like, what, what was the hardest part for you when you’re in that mindset of survival and like really forced to kind of be short-term thinking at that point? Just like one day to the next. What, what do you, what would you say would the hardest, was the hardest part for you and your wife?

Tony Schicktanz: That the very last thing you said, our relationship was in the worst it’s ever been in our marriage. And I think it was just all the stress of, not like each other, but it was all the financial stress and just, both of us thinking about it constantly and worrying about it. And, so probably the relationship toll that it had between my wife and I at the time was probably the most, devastating thing I remember.

Uh, I never slept, that, that was not good for my health or, or my, my dad bought at the time. But, uh, no, I think it, it was truly like the emotional stress on, on my health and then the emotional stress on, on relationships, yeah, that, that was really hard. That was that kinda line in the sand moment where we’re like, we gotta do something major here and, and make a colossal change.

Cause it wasn’t just financially heading in a bad direction, it was kind of everything in life heading in the wrong direction. So had to, and, and we can talk about this too, but I think building your financial life around your life goals and, and having those clearly defined is imperative. And if you have a partner, a family, a big family, then you got more heads that are deciding that that end game with you. Um, but yeah, making sure everyone’s on the same page and wanting to go in the same direction is imperative to get through these sorts of things.

Matt Mulcock: Man, again, thank you for sharing that I, and being so real about it because I think there’s so many people this resonates with on so many levels. First of all, just that survival mode. To your point, we’ve all felt some level of that in our life. I’d imagine anyone that’s around, you know, in their thirties or beyond, I’m gonna say, has vivid memories of, of being able to say, like the second you said, we’ve all been in survival mode. I immediately went back to my stages of my early life, early adulthood, where I was like, heck yeah. Not to the level you were, but some form or fashion of

Tony Schicktanz: Yeah, you everyone can relate.

Matt Mulcock: Everyone can relate to that and especially dentists out. There’s why I’m so, I was so excited to have you on and share this because so many dentists can relate to this. I want to get to one other thing, but, but the other thing I want to mention, and I again appreciate you being vulnerable and sharing the ripple effect it can have in your life that things outside of money, this is why we do what we do truly at dentist advisors. Like, and this is why I’m, I’m so motivated and, and I love being, a financial advisor and, and truly like try to be an educator in this space because it has like most problems in life, especially at this level that you think are around money, have nothing to do with money. It, uh, the ripple effect goes so much farther than that. The influence that money can have, especially when you’re at the level you were talking about, the influence on other aspects of your life can be catastrophic.

Tony Schicktanz: It could be your whole life.

Matt Mulcock: Whole life. And you’re, you’re, you shared like the, it sounds like I could like feel the, like the emotion in your voice of like how on the verge you, you were of it going catastrophic for you.

Tony Schicktanz: It was, yeah. No, uh, yeah. I like it honestly kind of hurts to talk about it, but No, it, it, it was, uh, ‘ cause we have such a great relationship now, and we always did, and we get along on, on virtually everything. And again, it wasn’t like that. We really disagreed. It was just all the stress of like, the situation being like, we don’t have any, like I’m in residency, you’re maxing out your work. You’re working five or six days a week. we got these young kids, There’s nothing else we can do here. What? But it keeps going the wrong direction. So something’s gotta give and uh,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Tony Schicktanz: Yeah. Yeah. It was just that rock in a hard place type feeling. And, no, it totally rippled over into all aspects of life, so, yeah. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Again, uh, thank you for sharing it and one other thing I wanted to ask you was when, if ever during that survival mode, during that period of time, were you thinking like, this is not gonna work and or was this even really worth it? Like, what did I do?

Tony Schicktanz: So, great question. Um, I’m like your classic, uh, I guess probably a male attitude that I, I, I tend to be over biased sometimes, and I have like an overconfidence. I’m sitting there thinking like. Tony, you, you know, you got your dental degree, you got this good job. You just need to like, keep working harder, make a little bit more money next month, and you’ll start knocking these credit cards down and every single month for, for a couple of months, I tell myself the same story. Like, you’re getting better. You’re, you’re, you’re doing more production. finally this month we’re gonna watch the credit card debt go down instead of keep going up. And, uh, no, the end of the month, boom, like wrong direction again. Credit card debt’s still mounting. And I think it was at the point where I was working like full schedule every day of the week I could possibly do.

We cut out every, like, there, we weren’t getting like starbuckses and not, we certainly weren’t buying designer clothes, nice jewelry or anything. It was just truly survival. But it was that moment of like, oh my gosh, I’m doing everything I can and it’s still not getting any better. that was pretty scary. Um. And so that’s when we finally had the residency ended and we’re like, okay, we’re gonna just have to sell the house. And we love that house. We talk about it to this day, how, how we wish we could go back to that house. But, yeah,

Matt Mulcock: It was, it was, when you hit that moment of time, it was, it sounds like it was almost like the crux of it when you were like, I can’t, like it was this really worth it or I can’t do this anymore, that you actually decided to make a change you. That was when you made the move that you

Tony Schicktanz: I finally had the realization that I was over biased and that I wasn’t gonna be able to surmount this thing on my own with the game plan that I had thought would work. Hey, work hard, you’ll make more money and you’ll be able to pay this thing off. I was in, um, a job market for all the dentists that are listening. I would do, uh, an MOD on 30 horizon and I would get $64. Um, around the country. I think the average is $264. So, um, it was really hard to, support. the family off of such a low, reimbursement rate. Now I grew amazing amount clinically, and now I, I will attest a lot of my skills to that grind that I was in, but no, yeah, it was that moment of just, I finally realized that I was over biased and that I wasn’t gonna be able to solve the problem by just putting my, my note, my, uh, my head down and grinding harder. It, it wasn’t working, if anything that kept digging the hole deeper. So, probably, and probably the wife kind of highlighted that for me too. Like, this, you, you can’t just add in a six day of work that’s not gonna do it. So,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. At some point there’s only so much time you can put in.

Tony Schicktanz: Yeah, yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Who, if it, was it a joint decision or did one of you or the other bring up the house sale as like the final kind of push?

Tony Schicktanz: Probably more of a joint decision. Um, we didn’t, so. To, like, full disclosure, we didn’t have friends or family members in Albuquerque either. Now she would, could’ve gotten a really nice position. I, I really enjoyed my position there and it, I was doing better at this point, but, it was kind of like this, do we want to drag this out and try and solve this problem over years or do we just kind of want to cut, cut it off here, make this big. I, uh, I don’t love everything Dave Ramsey says, but it was kind of one of those, like, I was listening to some of his podcasts and it was like, dude, you just gotta do something major, like what you’re doing ain’t working. And uh, and he, he has those talks where it’s like, it’s time to sell your assets, clear those high interest debts, and then, and then you can figure out your next step. And it was kind of probably a mutual choice. Like, all right, we gotta kind of, Dave Ramsey this thing and uh, yeah. And just power,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Tony Schicktanz: Ahead.

Matt Mulcock: That makes sense. And, and you probably know our stance on Dave Ramsey. You know, I, we don’t need to make this a Dave Ramsey episode. I’m just glad you brought him up. ’cause I think in those situations, someone like Dave Ramsey, so someone who I’d say has a, he does, has a very extreme view, that works for the situation that a lot of people are in.

Tony Schicktanz: Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Sometimes you need a big, so a big solution to, to solve a big problem.

Tony Schicktanz: Yep. Yeah, and I think it, it totally did. Um, like I said, I still made the mistake of like throwing the extra 20 at a, probably a loan that I should have maintained and kept the cash and, and learned the value of an emergency fund through traveling or, uh, moving and everything. but yeah, a lot of these things are the things that you kind of have to learn. But yeah, it was kind of the Dave Ramsey approach of just like, we gotta do something drastic. We gotta solve a drastic problem with a drastic solution. And, uh, it did. And, uh, man, I, I slept like that next night. I was, I was sleeping way better. So

Matt Mulcock: Sleeping the best night. Best night of sleep you’ve ever had. Yeah.

Tony Schicktanz: Was probably a top 10 night’s sleep of all time when I went to bed that night knowing zero debt, so, or, or zero high, you know, debts above 10%.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. The toxic day. Yeah. Um, this is great Tony. So, so what we wanted to do today with the, again, appreciate you setting the stage there, sharing your story that I know resonates with so many people out there. What we wanted to do is make this really actionable and take four kind of key mistakes to avoid, or things that you can, that we can share that from your story. And also, like, again, it resonates with so many dentists. These are things that we’ve seen as well for hundreds of dentists in some form or fashion, these mistakes. And then talk about kind of ways to, to avoid them. So, let’s take number one, and you’ve already kind of alluded to a couple of these things, but let’s kind of break these down one by one. So, mistake number one. And I’d say these are in really in no particular order, but I think one is strategically placed because this is where everything else feeds. Number one is waiting too long to get organized, so not tracking, having no strategy, just kind of hoping it works out. Can you speak to this, Tony, and, and how that played into your, your story?

Tony Schicktanz: Yeah, so I think part of this was like that over bias thing that I was alluding to. I’m like, I’m, you know, I never had earned anywheres near a hundred, 150 grand in my whole life. So I’m sitting there thinking like, okay, I’m making 150. I should be able to pay this off. just give me three or four months.

And it was just that over bias confidence that, hey, you’re, it’s gonna be okay. You’ve got this really high income, you can spend money, kind of how you, you just swipe your card and there will be money there. And, uh, that, that, that was not the case. And, um, that turned into me realizing that the debit card didn’t have enough money. So I discovered the credit cards. And, so I think it was just the, the frank ability of overconfidence that it was gonna be okay and not tracking it. So, um. I’ve always been crazy. I’ve always paid really close attention to production and trying to figure out ways that I could increase my production. I was always thinking like, I can add this procedure and it will make my production go here, but I, I never actually sat down and did the dirty work of looking at all the expenses and trying to put them in categories and say like. Oh yeah, we wanted to spend this amount out to eat last month and we ended up spending this amount.

Um, and like I said, we weren’t buying any luxury items. We weren’t going out to the Ritz-Carlton or anything like that, but it’s easy how those little things can just on daily basis start to trickle up and, and you don’t really realize. So I think it was just not tracking every cent that I was making and spending, and one, and frankly, once you start doing that, it doesn’t really take you that much time. But developing the system, I think initially was the painful thing that I wanted to avoid. Um, so not tracking, and it’s painful as a new grad, but I always encourage people to calculate their net worth. It’s gonna be insanely negative, more than likely for most new grads. But I think setting that baseline and maybe even just telling yourself like, you know what, this is the bottom for me baby. I’m only gonna go up from here. and just kind of knowing that we’re gonna start paying, you’re gonna start paying off student loans or, or whatever. but realizing that’s where it is and then automating what you can. So, I think once you have your budget and you’ve kind of figured out where money’s going, automating everything you can, we’re, we’re all busy people.

Uh, if you know that there is gonna be enough money to pay off your credit card each month, we’ll then set up the automatic transfer to pay it off in full, uh, you know, before your due date. so there’s those little things, but it all starts with tracking. I would say you, you can’t, you can’t change what you don’t measure. And so I wasn’t measuring anything, and that’s probably a big reason why nothing improved was I didn’t, I didn’t know.

Matt Mulcock: Such a good point, Tony. There’s so many nuggets of wisdom, even in that first thing that you just said. One thing that you said that I think again, resonates with so many people, I experienced this outside of dentistry, obviously, but where you said, you would just assume coming outta school, you’d never made over six figures before and you were just like, I think it’s really easy to assume like, there’s no way I’m gonna spend all this like

Tony Schicktanz: Yep.

Matt Mulcock: Grand a year. Like, you just kind of assume like that’s

Tony Schicktanz: I’ll be good.

Matt Mulcock: I haven’t looked at what that actually equates to after taxes, but like, I’m gonna be fine. 150 grand a year is a, is a ton. but I love that you said that the tracking, because if you don’t track what you spend, you spend more than you think. Guaranteed.

Tony Schicktanz: Thousand

Matt Mulcock: If you don’t, if you don’t track your calories, you eat more than you think. It is just human nature. And

Tony Schicktanz: Take more.

Matt Mulcock: You’re gonna take more. And I think these are habits that, this is why we’re glad we’re speaking to the younger crowd because. These are habits that have created early and there’s so much, again, there’s a little bit of attrition at the beginning you mentioned of like just you gotta start and once that momentum is built, and it doesn’t have to be anything crazy, right? It doesn’t have to be envelope strategy, track every single category, you, you just gotta have the habit of tracking the actual spend number, even if that’s all you looked at, just what do I spend every month? And establish that habit that’ll serve you very well. I also love that you mentioned the net worth, because I do think first of all, it will be negative if you’re coming

Tony Schicktanz: Should be. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Likely it should be. It should

Tony Schicktanz: Your parents bought dental school for you. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Exactly. Unless you’re, you got your school paid for it, that’s okay. But unless, so, if you paid for your own school with student loans, you are gonna have a negative net worth unless you inherited some money or whatever. Just expect it

Tony Schicktanz: Yep.

Matt Mulcock: And just know it’s gonna happen. And what we have found in studies show. The, the uncertainty is far more scary than the, not, than the truth. The uncertainty of it is far scarier than just knowing the actual number.

Tony Schicktanz: That’s a great way to say

Matt Mulcock: Track it or just figure it out. Yeah. We, we’ve seen this like, people are like, they’ll see the negative net worth and they’re like, oh, okay. We said, know where I’m going, Lisa. I know where my starting point is. At least

Tony Schicktanz: Yep. I think so. I think you said it perfectly and, and I see this, uh, on conversely on student loans, I think where people don’t wanna look at their balance on their student loans almost with the idea like, oh, if I don’t know what it is, uh, it’s not gonna hurt

Matt Mulcock: Gonna go

Tony Schicktanz: And it’s like, yeah. It’s like, well, um, you should probably just know the balance and the interest rates. And so a couple just tidbit details, but no, I think you’re exactly right. If you don’t know, you don’t know. So, uh, yes.

Matt Mulcock: And wrapping up that first part, I would, it bears repeating. You said you can’t manage, you can’t improve or manage what you don’t measure, and you can’t measure it unless you’re tracking it and actually taking the time to look at that. That’s really, really great actionable advice.

Tony Schicktanz: And I think your point was huge too. You don’t need to be a psychopath like me and maybe go into all these different categories. You could just get a straight spending amount and you know what your paychecks are. So as long as the paycheck is always higher, then the spending, at least you can know that you’re growing, you’re gonna be going upwards. So I think that was a simple way to break it down, to start with.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. the last thing too, really quick that you said that I think bears high as well, is. This is the lowest I’m gonna go. So like look at, look at the, have the attitude when you’re tracking your net worth or you’re spending an income and all these numbers when you’re first coming outta school, the only path is up pretty much. Like you’re gonna make a lot more money in five years if you just follow the normal path of a dentist than you do now. So factor that in. Give yourself some grace and look at it as a scientist, you’re just like, I’m just going in neutral. I just need to see the data so we can start putting a plan in place and know that this is the bottom. This is the bottom for you.

Tony Schicktanz: And you’re gonna bounce and start going up. No, I think you’re, and, and your point about the growth in the first, I’ve, I’ve lived that now, and yeah, it’s, it’s pretty striking, how much you can you grow. So No. Completely

Matt Mulcock: Quickly? Yeah.

Tony Schicktanz: How quickly that all can change.

Matt Mulcock: Let’s go to number two. You’ve mentioned this a couple times with attacking debt, particularly the car loan and all this, but I think a number two mistake that we’ve talked about and we wanna highlight here after getting organized, the mistake we see is attacking debt without a strategy. You wanna speak to this a little bit more in detail?

Tony Schicktanz: Yeah, so my thing was like, I was in this debt equals bad phase of my life. Uh, like we had talked about, I wasn’t sleeping. So in my mind, debt equaled bad. At this point. I didn’t think about the different kind of gradients of debt and that, you know, not to go down the wormhole, but good debt and bad debt. Um, but essentially, I just thought if I owe somebody money, that equals bad for me. And, so I got the money and my thinking was, okay, what, what things are foremost in my mind? Well, that was the credit card debt and the car. and even in retrospect, my student loans were on a higher interest rate then the car.

So with any like snowball or avalanche type method, I should have known like, okay, maybe this isn’t my, my best move. Um, and then I’ve seen it with, with people that, uh, like one of my buddies makes a lot of money and I think he throws every penny he gets each month at his student loans and. He’s never bought like a house or a practice, and now he’s talking about how he wants to buy a practice. And I’m like, well, you probably would’ve had like 200 grand cash already. Uh, and you could’ve made that, that, that happen, but you paid off your loans. And that’s not to say paying off loans is bad, but I think in retrospect, he could’ve been a little bit more strategic, got to his practice, and, uh, and probably earn more money there.

But, uh, yeah, I think if you don’t, it, it’s okay to do whatever order you want, but you gotta make sure it fits within your life goals. And, and if your life goals are to become debt free and you just can’t even think about student loans and everything, I, I get it. But you have to understand that you might not be buying the house, you might not be buying the practice. And if you’re cool with that, then I guess that’s okay, but you should at least have a plan with why you’re wanting to pay down one debt. other than the, the toxic debt that you alluded to. That’s anything above like 10, 12%. I think that’s a, like a no brainer. You gotta pay those down as quick as you can. But those more, uh, student loan level five to 7%, you need a plan there. ’cause you might be able to out invests that and, and kind of get some arbitrage. So, uh, yeah, that was my mistake, not getting liquidity. I should have kept a 20 K liquid and had an emergency fund built right then.

Matt Mulcock: Well, I love that you said that too, put it that way because, one of the costs of aggressive debt reduction is a lack of liquidity. And we’ve said this so many times that people often assume that their level of stress is a direct correlation to their level of debt, which outside of being in frantic survival mode that you were in, and I, I have empathy for that. Like, you have $50,000 in credit card debt that keeps growing. Yeah. That’s number one priority. You should be taking care of that as fast as you possibly can and making the changes you did. and I could totally see why you had the mindset of like, because you were so stressed and with, and, and you looked at that credit card debt, you just, uh, you just were like, oh, I gotta get rid of all of this.

Tony Schicktanz: I can.

Matt Mulcock: I totally respect that and have total empathy for that. But again, just in general, dentists often think, or people think my stress is directly related to my debt loads. Again, outside of let’s say, toxic debt, just my student loans or my practice loan, I gotta get rid of all this no matter what. Where in reality, what we see time and time and time again is it is actually, there’s a, there’s an order of operations to this, and ahead of your debt loads, in most cases is your liquidity. And if you have no liquidity, your, your stress levels will be way higher, even if you have the same level of debt.

Tony Schicktanz: I think that is probably, I’m gonna, like, I had never articulated it that way, but I think that’s like my takeaway probably will be from today is You’re totally right. And I’ve lived that where like, even when I got all the credit card debt, um, I started wanting to invest right away instead of like getting the emergency fund. And ever since I’ve had the, the 20 5K just sitting there, I’ve, yeah, when anything that crops up that’s a surprise, I’m like, boom, no big deal. yeah. So that, that was a great point. I think that having some liquidity definitely gives you a way more peace of mind than, than any debt reduction.

Matt Mulcock: Way more piece, but I, again, this is why your story is so pertinent because you’re showing kind of the order of operations in real life of what can happen with a dentist when you were at financially. I think of like emotional, uh, like the emotional parts of being in this di, like the most dire straits you could possibly be in at that point where I’m sure that felt like, that were like, you couldn’t even look past tomorrow. And that was because of negative cashflow. Toxic debt increasing. Like it would be ridiculous if I would’ve talked to Tony at that point in your life. Or if an advisor in general did and said and gave you some lecture about an emergency fund, you’d be like, bro, I’m literally trying to survive. Like, don’t talk to me about liquidity. But once you got out of that, once you got rid of that credit card debt and I talked to debt and you could breathe, then it’s interesting because I love what you’re saying here too about debt without a, that that’s really what we’re emphasizing is debt without a strategy

Tony Schicktanz: Mm-hmm.

Matt Mulcock: Because the mindset needs to be not, what am I doing? Like you gotta get outta that survival mode. But not what am I doing just this year? Like what does my career look like over the next three to five years? I think the only way you can do that is A, have ample liquidity and then b, have the mindset of, I gotta look at this longer term than just like my emotions or you know, my emotions and, and me, what I was taught when I was a kid to like get rid of all debt.

Tony Schicktanz: Yeah. Such a good point. When you’re in survival mode, you nailed it. You’re, you’re thinking minute to minute, day to day. and then once you can breathe, yeah. You, you should start to reconsider your life plan or at least your, your more short term life plan. And, uh, no, and I, I think that’s a huge thing that impacts a ton of dentists is exactly like you said. It’s you, you maybe had to make emotional choices for a long time with the finances, and now you cannot have to make the emotional choice. But, uh, you, you still might kind of feel like you need to.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, the, the way I’ve phrased it before is, uh, I think liquidity is, is change your mind insurance. So like, it’s worth, it’s worth having some liquidity on the sidelines. Even cash where even you could de you, someone could argue like, well, go buy Nvidia, go do something else with like, no, you need an emergency fund to have change your mind insurance.

Um, and I love that you brought up your friend as well because he, that’s a perfect example of. The requirement is, when it comes to strategy is you need to have a mindset of at least looking, taking some time, putting in the work of creating some intentionality in your life and uncovering what do you want out of this? Like you gotta get out of reactive mode If you want to be a practice owner, if you’re out there listening right now, you’re coming outta school, or you’re in year one, year two, year three of associateship and you want to be a practice owner, you gotta think about that and what, what financial pieces you need to put in place. Again, liquidity being top of that list versus just attacking debt with every dollar you have. Those are very, very different situations.

Tony Schicktanz: Yep. Yeah. And every single lender I’ve spoken to, I’m, I’m getting ready to consider crossing that bridge over to ownership. And, uh,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. You are

Tony Schicktanz: I talk to, they, they talk about your liquidity. They, they don’t, it’s not to say they don’t care about your debt, your student loan debt, but I think they’re anticipating student loan debt, but they’re also anticipating you having liquidity. So, uh, yeah, I think having that mindset that if you’re gonna consider a practice, then you should be at least starting to develop that once your, once your financial house is stable, you, I’m with you. Yeah. You should start kind of, um, moving some funds towards that goal. cause yeah, you absolutely, you’re gonna have to have that.

Matt Mulcock: Okay, so I like this. We’re building kind of on this, so we’re just with your story, like get outta survival mode if you’re there. Easier said than done, but like step number one is assess where you are. If you’re in survival mode, we get it. You gotta get outta that, get sta find stable ground and then start building liquidity and then start building a strategy for things like debt or your career and things like that.

A part of this too, overall strategy, a lot of times people come to the idea of investing, and I want to jump to mistake number three. And you’ve already mentioned a couple things that piqued my interest here, Tony, when you said things like Pokemon cards. But I think another, um, mistake a lot of dentists make, and you’ve alluded to this in your story, and I want you if you would to expand on this, but the mistake we see so much with dentists is chasing shiny objects.

Tony Schicktanz: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I, I was going, uh, got outta school kind of during the COVID era and, uh. At the time, like I’ve always been into like football, trading cards, Pokemon, stuff like that. And the market had gone bonkers during COVID. I mean, everyone was just sitting at home pulling out their collectibles. And so Tony thought, Hey, I used to collect cards as a little kid. I should get in on this. I’ve got a little money now, maybe money I can, and buy a couple cards, wait on a couple months, sell ’em, flip ’em for a big profit. And, uh, so I started doing that. I probably spent a couple, maybe a couple grand buying different cards and packages and stuff like that.

And over a year I probably ended up devoting maybe a hundred hours of my life to tracking the cards and putting them in an Excel spreadsheet and kind of seeing where the prices were and all of these things. And, and basically to find out at the end that I lost money on the whole thing. I didn’t create a super successful card trading business. And what I realized was the people that were out there that were crushing it, it was their whole job. All they did all day was think about cards. That’s all they did. and they traded all day long, and they were, they were checking all the different sites. And so for me to think I was gonna outcompete these groups of people, that it was their whole life mission was crazy.

That would be like somebody that never did a filling, walking in and thinking they’re gonna do a better classi than me. It, it, it’s just not gonna happen. They’re putting in the time, so they’re gonna get the wins. Um, I’ve never tried to buy any, uh, real estate that I was going to. Uh. Be a rental or something like that. But I think that’s probably another area where I would assume, and you can probably hit on this map, but where people think like, oh, I’m gonna be dentist in real estate mogul. And it’s like a lot of the real estate moguls that I’ve spoken with, that is their only focus in life, and that is all that they do all day, every day, seven days a week.

And so again, like, are you really gonna be able to out-compete the guy or the lady that’s devoting all of their mental space to that, or maybe even a private equity group that has multiple people and, and, and algorithms tracking things? Of course not. so I think, you know, I’m, I’m pretty classic, and I follow similar kind of age wisdom with you, like get something passive. That’s my perspective now. Like get something passive, buy and hold. But yeah, my, my trick was the five grand or whatever I spent on cards, but the thing that stings me the most now was those a hundred hours. Like, if I would’ve spent those a hundred hours learning implants, even if it wasn’t dental, just riding my mountain bike, like I would be way healthier, way happier than I am today, than taking on what I took on.

Um, so part of me, I always have to learn things the hard way. So that was my moment of learning things the hard way. And fortunately, I didn’t buy a hundred thousand dollars commercial real estate building or something. But yeah, I, I had to learn the hard way that I, I was not gonna be a card trading mogul. And, I needed to focus on dentistry and the avenues that I could predictably use.

Matt Mulcock: Such a good way to put it, Tony, and again, resonates with so many stories I’ve heard and clients we’ve worked with and dentists we’ve talked to at, at various places over the years. ILI, again, the way you put it was so perfect because I think it does get confused often about. whatever the investment is, right?

And there’s only, so if we take a step back for a moment, there’s only three places, three categories you can invest. There’s private markets, public markets, and there’s real estate. Every single category of investment falls pretty much into one of those category or into one of those buckets. Now, all those buckets can get super complex. The public markets being one of them, private markets being another one can get really, really complex. But those are the only few places you can invest. But the way you put it was so perfectly because dentists get confused often about where is my wealth actually going to be made? And I can tell you, for 99% of dentists, your wealth is going to be made being a dentist and generating as much income as you possibly can, whether that be as an associate or as a practice owner.

Tony Schicktanz: Mm-hmm.

Matt Mulcock: And investing in yourself early and often and for a, a lot longer than you think. And then where does this other stuff come into play, whether it be public, private, or real estate. Where do those come into play? Well, those are great ways to diversify your assets and create longevity in your wealth. But so often, and you’ve already highlighted this in your story, we see dentists who think, and I love that you said the real estate mogul. Cause I’ve joked many, many times that man, dental school’s a long time to go to school, A lot of money, a lot of energy to come out and become a real estate mogul. Like you didn’t need you, you did not need dental

Tony Schicktanz: Could, could have done that before. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Could have done that before, you should have started in high school. But it’s just funny. So I just, the way you framed it was so perfect, which was understand the, the role that that investment plays in your life and in your overall plan. And know that real estate can have a place in it, real, it totally can. Public markets should and can have a place in it. Sa same with private markets, the private investments. But it’s taking a step back and thinking, what’s my mindset with these investments? Because I want to come back to this just in your story, Tony, it sounds like to me, and tell me if I’m wrong here. it sounds like to me that you were looking at this as almost a way out. Like, oh, this is my get rich quick card for pun

Tony Schicktanz: Yeah, exactly. No, that’s, that’s literally what I had in my head is I’m gonna buy this Fernando Tati baseball card. He is gonna win MVP here in four months and I’m gonna sell it for 15 grand and that’s gonna pay off this credit card. And then this is gonna happen with this other poke, this charge art. And yeah, you, you’re not going to it. It’s exceptionally unlikely that anybody’s gonna get rich quick out of, out of this. completely agree. And I completely agree and I like when you said that I like raised my hand. ’cause I’m like, learning how to do things with your, with your work in hand is probably gonna be, your best ROI any of us can have.

And like you said, you just spent thousands of hours and probably three or 400 grand on your degree. So, I get the idea of wanting to get outta chairside, but I think at least for a while, leaning into it as best you can, learning skills that you enjoy, Dental school makes you hate a lot of surgical stuff that maybe by the time you get out in clinical practice and start doing it, like, when I got out, just a quick aside, when I got outta dental school, I thought I would never do a root canal again. I, I swore to myself the first guy that, uh, hired me, I told him I will not do a root canal. I don’t care how easy it is. I’m going to refer a hundred percent of root canals. And basically over a year he convinced me to start doing super easy ones and I learned how to do them and now I do even harder ones. And, uh, I have fun with them now. And so I think that, uh, learning to lean into your clinical skills is gonna be your, like you alluded to, bang for your buck and maybe the best happiness that you’re gonna have. ’cause you’re using the skills you spend all this time and energy to do so. Yeah, I think leaning into your clinical side can be a good, a much better approach than becoming a card mogul.

Matt Mulcock: I think to, to, I think leaning into the clinical side and the business of dentistry, both of those two things would be far more, uh, for most people, most dentists, a far greater investment than chasing rentals or chasing Pokemon cards. Uh, or, or any other private investment that’s out there. And I always tell people too, time and a place, there is a time and a place when it comes to expanding or, you know, the whole formula of building wealth is getting really good at something so focused on something. This is where I think people get confused of like this whole idea of diversification. No, true wealth is actually built in concentration. You concentrate on one area, in this case, dentistry, you get so freaking good at it that you can increase your efficiency of pulling capital out of that thing. Right, and then start diversifying it elsewhere.

That’s where the diversification, diversification comes in. So, again, I, I love your specific story and example of like, you saw this firsthand. You saw the mistakes being made there that you made, uh, with Pokemon cards. That would dare say though, what an inve, like in some ways you quote, unquote failed. We’ll say, if we even call it that you made an investment, and I think it’s actually great that you did it with something that was not life-changing money early in your career.

Tony Schicktanz: Yep.

Matt Mulcock: The ripple effect of that in a positive way is going to, is gonna pay off for you in the end, I think.

Tony Schicktanz: Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. It wasn’t like a, a major scar in my life. The, that money stinks to have lost. And like I said, the time that I gave up probably could have been used in so many other more useful ways. But no, I, I learned pretty early on like you’re, you need to focus on, like, we’ve talked about dentistry and things that I can predictably know are gonna produce the fruits that I’m hoping for. So yeah, leaning into dentistry. and kind of like you said, like what The other thing that I realized was I got into cards ’cause it was a hobby. I like to do it. And like you said, there’s a time and a place, so maybe now I could, you know, I’ve got one right here, that I’m still selling off. But, uh, no, like, there is a time and a place, so if you get to a stable spot and you, you just love cards or you love real, whatever it is, I think you could do that when it’s not your goal to get rich quick. Yeah. So the what’s in your mind on what its actually purpose is, is, is imperative. So if it’s meant to be fun and you like doing it well then the time and everything’s fine. But if it’s a get rich quick scheme, it’s gonna backfire.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Such a great way to, to wrap that, that mistake up. The final mistake, Tony, that I want that you have such a unique perspective on this mistake number four for young dentists, associates specifically is not maximizing your contracts. You wanna speak to this one?

Tony Schicktanz: Yeah. So like I would say if I have a secret special skillset, it’s that I can negotiate a really good associate contract. Um, and I, right outta school, I got an amazing contract. I felt like I had negotiated a lot of the things I wanted into that. Uh, one of the things I had negotiated was every month I worked for them, they were supposed to pay $750 towards my student loans, you know, during COVID. And it just ended, I guess, but the, the no interest, uh, was turned on the no interest. So I didn’t have to make payments. Um. And so I thought to myself like, oh, if I don’t have to make payments, maybe I shouldn’t make them make a payment. And it, for about three months, when I first got there, I was thinking this like, you know, it kind of feels weird to ask them to make this payment. I don’t have to be making a payment. And then finally, like I realized, I negotiated this contract, they agreed to it, they knew that there was a pause, um, and

Matt Mulcock: It were reversed. If it were reversed, they wouldn’t. Yeah,

Tony Schicktanz: No. Yeah. You know, they would’ve asked for it. And so that’s why I had that like, realization that, you know what, everyone agreed to this agreement.

Everyone was an adult and they knew what they signed. So, and when I asked her to pay it, she didn’t have any qualms with it. She, she would log into my federal loans, she’d put in her credit card or whatever, and she’d pay it. And, uh. So, but it was basically the, this, I had this idea like, ah, I just don’t want to ask, or I don’t want to like, um, maintain my agreement. And it was like, no, you negotiated this. You agreed to this, so you should ask for it. So I think in my thing, I lost out on maybe $2,100 or so of student loan payments. Again, not like a colossal change in the scheme of my life, but, it was that moment that I said, you know what, whenever I get something negotiated in an agreement, I’m gonna make sure it’s upheld.

And, and like Matt alluded to, you can bet your bottom dollar if you sign something and you’re, it says you’re gonna work, uh, Monday through Friday, you’re gonna work for them Monday through Friday. So, uh, yeah, I think you should maximize, absolutely maximize anything you can out of your agreements. And just to piggyback on that, so many people that I talked to, and I was kind of guilty of this outta school, but they think of their agreement as the cash that hits their bank account. When there could be so many benefits baked into your, your deal that it’s student loan payments. It’s, relocation, money. It was a signing bonus, it was health insurance, it was 401k match, and all of a sudden you’ve got maybe 10, 20, 30, $40,000 coming in. That’s not, again, cash in your pocket, but it’s cash not coming out of your pocket for things that you were gonna be buying. So, I think learning what’s in your agreement, number one, negotiating it to what you want, number two, and then making sure it’s withheld. Number three would be like the three things that I think every associate should uphold. And the practice owners conversely, should do the same thing. They should negotiate agreements that work for them and that they feel they can provide to the associates and everybody wins.

And so, and when I’ve done it, it’s worked out good for everybody. So, um. Yeah, knowing your agreement and maintaining it is, you shouldn’t feel bad about that. I guess would be like, if I could talk to previous Tony, it would be, don’t feel bad about making somebody maintain what they had agreed to.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. How often Tony, would you say young associates come outta school and just accept. First, first attempt, first contract. They just, the doctor, the practice throws something at ’em and they just accept it. They don’t even look at it.

Tony Schicktanz: A sickening amount. Like I don’t have a specific statistic, but I would, I would be willing to bet it’s a sickening amount of people and, and places are good at using things that make you think it’s, oh, our agreements are boilerplate. Big DSOs will say things like that. Our, our, our agreements are the same for everybody. No, they’re not. They’re absolutely not. Um, there might be parts that they’re unwilling to change, and they might be right. They’re not gonna change the writing under the non-compete or, or some sort of clawback, but the agreement in its entirety is definitely modifiable. And if it’s not, I, I would view that as a major red flag if they’re, if they’re truly unwilling to change anything.

But yeah, I know I’ve talked with lots of people that they’ll tell me about their agreements and I’ll ask ’em like, well, did you ask about reducing the radius of the non-compete? No. They, they told me this was the standard thing. And I’m like, Ooh, uh, well, a day late and a dollar short now. But, uh, for future reference, you should at least try. Uh, worst case they tell you, no, that’s not something I’m willing to change. You could ask why that is and, and lean into it and maybe they have a great answer. Oh, I had a previous associate that screwed me over. He bought the building next door and he stole all my patients. Okay, yeah. I get why you want a two mile non-compete radius around your clinic. That makes sense. Um, but yeah, I think there is no agreement that is, this is the agreement and if that’s all that it is, then it, they either have a dream place or, they’re lying to you. So I would say always stick up for yourself.

Matt Mulcock: And Tony, would you say that the sickening amount? ’cause I would agree. I think that’s, that’s very true. The sickening amount of people who just accept it. Is that mainly out of laziness? Is it out of fear? Is it just out of being They just don’t know that they just, they’re just un, they just truly don’t know that they can even ask or push back.

Tony Schicktanz: I would say the la the latter two that you said, they’re either fearful about like getting in a negotiation and feeling, and you know what, you don’t wanna argue, you don’t want to get combative with somebody that could be your future employer. And you have to learn how to negotiate and, and do these things in a cordial way. But, um, I do think there’s some sort of apprehension or fear towards like, oh man, I really want Dr. Bob to hire me and if I, and if I ask him to shrink the non-compete, he’s gonna think I’m a loser or a wimp. No, no. Uh, he’s expecting you to probably negotiate back with him. and then I, I really don’t think on the average it’s laziness. I’m sure there’s examples, but I would say overall fear or just not knowing what to say, not knowing what to ask for, not knowing if what they’re giving you is within normal kind of limits. and I would say I was guilty of this. So in my book I talk about clearly defining like your avatar and things that you want.

I think you need to get really specific. We’ve kind of talked about this in two, three, five-year plans, but you should get really specific on what your dream office is right away. Like, if you need mentorship on business, then you need to make sure you’re getting a place that’s gonna help you there. But I think, yeah, it’s more not knowing or fear of causing like a riff or something like that that causes people not to press on that.

Matt Mulcock: I can see that, that you’d be, that you feel like the dynamics of the relationship, the power dynamics are all on the practice. Like, well, I want them to hire me so I can’t push back or I can’t speak up for myself. But I would imagine just, just hearing you talk about this in the experience that you’ve had, that it’s actually quite the opposite. It’s probably counterintuitive that I know for me of, uh, you know, totally different, you know, adjacent industry, but hired a lot of people. And I actually think from the per, you know, from my position of hiring people. If done properly, like you said, done respectfully, it actually can build trust and respect from the beginning if you’re speaking up for yourself.

Tony Schicktanz: Totally, totally would agree. And, and I think opening up the conversation and, and maybe even you can kind of go both ways with it. Like, you know, I really need health insurance, uh, in my contract because I’m having this kid on the way and my wife’s gonna not be able to work for a couple of months and we really need the health insurance to come through my work, but I’m willing to sacrifice whatever other thing was in there.

Or, or, I think there’s always ways that the deal can be structured that both sides kind of do really win. And I, and I’ve always found in my agreements that the things I’ve tried to negotiate, if we really went through it all, both sides, they were gonna win too. Um. Yeah, no, I completely agree. And then also I would even say in, in specific dental associate position, you kind of hold the cards a little bit. They’re hiring a doc. they need somebody there. And a lot of times if it’s a private clinic, that doc really needs somebody there ’cause they need a break or they need to focus on the business or whatnot. so not like hammering them, but I think realizing that you’re half the equation, they had to have the practice, but they need the associates.

So realizing that you hold some cards too, is part of that negotiation thing. And then the thing I would say that a lot of new docs don’t believe is that you are a very valuable human now that you have your dental degree, um, no matter what, your hands and your mind are worth a decent amount of money. So, just realize that you don’t need to over-leverage that. But I think you, you are a valuable skill now and, and making sure you always are paid accordingly.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I think that’s a great way to put it. And being, again, it’s not being combative, it’s being intentional, it’s being thoughtful, and it’s being collaborative. I think if you approach it in a collaborative way, to your point, it can actually lead to a lot, a positive relationship from the beginning. Uh, I also think it bears repeating what you said and highlighting what you said of that you should be looking at a longer timeframe than one year. And like by identifying the dream practice and what that practice, how that practice serves you in your long-term career. And then looking outside, just the bottom line of what’s coming into your bank, the, all the benefits and things that come outside of that. I think that’s, that’s a really good way to look at it. Um, so much here. Tony, just to re just to, to summarize these. So mistake number one, waiting too long to get organized. Mistake number two, attacking debt without stra, without a strategy. Mistake number three to avoid is chasing shiny objects. Uh, and then mistake number four, not maximizing your contracts. So much wisdom that you brought to this Tony and, and packed into these four mistakes in your story. I want to give you kind of closing thoughts, uh, from, you know, kind of wrapping this all together from these mistakes that you’ve learned firsthand from your story.

Tony Schicktanz: So thanks for summarizing that. Good for us, Matt. You know, I would say my main thing, and it goes back to what we started with, I really want to promote Dentists. I really want dentists to be happy within their careers. And if I can share a somewhat embarrassing story and it helps resonate with somebody that they can avoid the problem that I had and just instantly start better, or somebody that’s maybe going through those issues now to say like, okay, it’s gonna be okay.

We’re gonna figure a way through this and I’m gonna be okay. That’s really what I wanted. So I didn’t want to say all this to like embarrass myself, but I wanted to let people know that there are issues, issues come up. There’s always workarounds. Um, and hopefully all the younger kind of people coming through dental school or just fresh out can hear this and say, Ooh, I’m gonna avoid that, or I’m gonna do this subtly different to avoid that. Um, and that was always my goal was just to make life easier for future generations of dentists. So yeah, hopefully those tidbits, um, provided at least one actionable step for somebody listening and they can make that change and dodge the problem of $50,000 credit card debt or something like that.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. No, and I, I, I don’t think you should be embarrassed at all, Tony, for real. I think there’s power in your vulnerability in you sharing that. I do have one quick question. One final question for you. Um, if a young doc’s out there saying, is dentistry still worth it? What would you say?

Tony Schicktanz: Okay. Good question. Um, dentistry is a challenging job. it’s hard work. You. I love talking to people. I love dealing with people. I have really, if you asked me two years ago, I would’ve said, heck no. but, uh, my perspective has honestly changed. part of that has been finding safer financial waters getting to a, a easier spot in my life with that.

But I think, I would say if, you know you want to work with people and you know you want to help people and talk to people every single day, all day long, then dentistry is still an amazing profession. If you’re doing it to get rich, if you’re doing it to tell your friends or your parents that you’re a doctor, then it’s not a good idea if, if you’re doing it. And I guess we’ll still have to see all the student loan changes, but, If it does reduce the amount of debt, then I would definitely be in favor of it. But that, my main thing is if it’s gonna murder people financially, that’s my main limitation, and I’m gonna be able to get through my loans. My wife’s gonna get through her loans, so I still think it’s easily doable and I love it, but you have to do it for the right reasons.

Matt Mulcock: Great answer. such a good, good, nuanced, thoughtful answer that you gave I, I think you put a lot of thought into that, so it’s really good because I, I get asked this all the time and surprise, surprise, I’m not a dentist. Um, but I work with, we work with a lot and, uh, we see a lot of successful dentists. So I will say somewhat biased, but from our perspective with the clients we work with, we see the ones who have won it, won the game, we’ll say, and who’ve done it with the intention you’re talking about. So from my perspective, outside looking in. I like to ask this question to, to actual dentists because from my perspective, when I get asked this, it’s usually from the context of like what’s happening with DSOs and student loans and all the landscape that’s changed. But from my perspective, I’m like, absolutely. If you and I, but I love what you said, doing it for the right reasons. This is still a killer career from what I’ve observed, from what I’m seeing firsthand,

Tony Schicktanz: Totally agree. And like, I can think of a classmate right now that was doing it for the wrong reasons and she’s already out. so yeah, I think if you’re really doing it for the reasons I said, you’ll get there financially, um, you’re gonna be fine. Um, you’re gonna be better than fine probably at some point in your life. Um, you’ll, you’ll have a lot of struggle at the beginning. But I think everybody in life that’s not a Rockefeller has some struggle in their early careers. So just taking it, realizing that’s part of life and, and growing in every way you can is the only way through. Um. No, I, if I could go back, Tony would do dental school again today.

Matt Mulcock: Cool. That’s awesome. Would it be safe to say, Tony, just on this topic, to wrap a bow on that part, what you said, do it for the right reasons. Would it be safe to say too, to remember that it takes longer than you think, meaning

Tony Schicktanz: Love that. Yes. Yeah. It’s gonna, it’s gonna take longer than you think. It’s gonna be harder than you think, but when you look back in retrospect, it’s gonna be better and easier than it felt. Kinda like all those hard things in life that you get through, you look back and it was all, you just think of it very positively, but when you were going through it, you might be like, gosh, this stinks.

And it’s going longer and harder, but you will get through and on the back end, I think you’ll think that was really, like, I, I’m just texting with some dental school buddies this morning and we’re, it was a picture of us in class and it was from seven years ago. And, uh. I was like, man, it feels like yesterday and I still feel like I’m sitting next to you guys. And, uh, and we hated this class that we’re texting about, but, uh, no, now we have all these positive comments about it. And, but I remember like, we hated all three of us hated this class. And, uh, but yeah, now it’s this, this positive memory

Matt Mulcock: I’m glad you confirmed that. ’cause I think that’s what gets people caught up sometimes is the fact that it, they, they think it’s gonna be like, they don’t realize when they’re in it that it again. Success takes longer than you think. Building wealth takes longer than you think. Any worthy pursuit takes longer than you think. Uh, and I think that sometimes muddies the waters for people. So Tony, this was fantastic. So much, so much wisdom you brought and really appreciate you sharing your story and sharing, sharing your knowledge with everyone. Where can people find you if they’re sitting there, which I know they are thinking, how do I get help from Tony? How do I talk to him? Um, what’s the best way to get ahold of you?

Tony Schicktanz: Yeah. So you can find me on social media, YouTube. I have a website. It’s the Educated Associate. and that’ll be Instagram. That’ll be Facebook. The website is www.theeducatedassociate.com. if you want to get in contact, have a chat. Feel free to DM message me. I’m always, I’m always looking for, I’ll do free talks with people all the time to try and help them through little issues, in their career. But yeah, really appreciate the plug. I had a wonderful talk with you this morning too, Matt. and awesome questions. And thanks for helping direct the conversation. This was, uh, I think, super rewarding.

Matt Mulcock: Of course. I glad, again, glad you could be here and absolutely want people to be reaching out to you and, and getting the help that you can provide. And as I alluded to the very beginning of the show, and I’ll mention it again. Big things coming as far as partnership, uh, or just, just collaboration that we’re gonna be doing together that I’m super, super excited about. So be looking out for that. So definitely reach out to Tony, the educated associate associate.com if you wanna talk to, to us. As you know, Dentists advisors.com. Tony, again, thank you so much for being here. Also, last thing I’ll say is this was helpful. If you’re listening to this and you’re like, man, someone needs to hear this, A dental school friend or, or an associate friend, please share the episode.

We would love you to share this. We want to get this word out, help as many dentists as we possibly can. So please share the episode. But for now, again, Tony, thank you for being here and sharing your wisdom. Everyone, as always, thanks for listening. Until next time, bye-bye.

Keywords: dentistry, financial advice, early career mistakes, dental associates, financial management, negotiation skills, student loans, personal finance, career development, financial literacy

Early Career, Finance 101