Creating Impact Through Partnership: Elevation Association’s Journey In Dentistry – Episode #570

On this episode of the Dentist Money Show, Jared Hill and Dan Nelson, co-founders of Elevation Association join Matt and Ryan to discuss the purpose of Elevation Association and how it all started. They talk about the importance of healthy partnerships in business and dentistry, as well as the significance of leadership and communication skills. Jared Hill and Dan Nelson share their experiences of building a successful dental practice and highlight Dental Legacy Foundations dedication to providing dental care and oral hygiene education in underserved communities around the world.

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Podcast Transcript

Intro: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Dentist Money Show brought to you by Dentist Advisors. We have an amazing show for you today with Dr. Jared Hill, Dr. Dan Nelson. Ryan and I interviewed them. They are from the Elevation Association. They also run a practice called Wood River Dental in Sun Valley, Idaho. We have an amazing conversation about all the things that they’re doing, not only as full time dentists running a killer practice, but also the things they’re doing in a humanitarian space with the Dental Legacy Foundation and what they’re doing for dentists, bring them together every year for international trip to do incredible CE, teach about leadership and how to manage a practice and balance it with your life. And how to design the ideal life. So you, I have no doubts are going to get an incredible benefit from this. I hope you enjoyed the show.

Matt Mulcock: All right, here we are. I’m going to start here. probably a year and a half or so ago, we decided as a company, Dentist advisors decided as a company to answer the question. why are we in business to define our purpose? And our purpose we came up with was to connect, educate, educate, And empower the dental community. And a huge part of that is connecting, with incredible partners and incredible professionals in the dental space. And that is what brings us here today. Ryan, do you like how I did that?

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, geez, I mean, that’s how professionals start

Matt Mulcock: That was pro. was

Ryan Isaac: They go right into a story They don’t send anything out. They’re just like a year ago and everyone’s just like

Matt Mulcock: I planned that on my drive home today.

Matt Mulcock: With That said, we have Dr. Jared Hill, Dr. Dan Nelson here from Elevation Association. Welcome guys.

Jared Hill: Thanks. It’s awesome to be here. Appreciate it.

Dan Nelson: I thought the best way to start a podcast was by drinking Diet Coke for the three hours leading up to it and just being surprised.

Matt Mulcock: And just be wired.

Dan Nelson: That’s what I’ve So prepare yourselves

Ryan Isaac: If there’s four dudes on a podcast, it has to, you have to start with morning routine and, uh, and cold plunge,

Matt Mulcock: There you go

Ryan Isaac: even though those are both great things.

Matt Mulcock: So we have the honor of calling you guys clients but more so friends We’ve known you guys now for four years. I actually don’t even know I was actually thinking about this today as we were getting ready for this I don’t know like how we it just feels like we met And became friends.

Matt Mulcock: Like, can we, do we start there? Like, how did we all meet?

Jared Hill: we started this group, this Elevation Association, maybe 44 or 5 years ago. And one of the early members, we were having a financial discussion and Dan and I were, were complaining about our financial advisors because our financial advisor we tried to get ahold of him for some advice And figured out that he changed jobs and he became a limo driver.

Jared Hill: So we were stuck without a financial advisor for a while. I know, right? Like,

Ryan Isaac: That like the path to financial freedom as a financial advisor?

Jared Hill: Once you make it enough as a financial advisor, you can become a driver, so

Ryan Isaac: Be an awesome limo driver. Just, just

Matt Mulcock: Well, here’s the deal. Here’s the deal. When I hear limo driver, I think he was either very good or very bad at his job.

Jared Hill: So our friend, EA, member, had been working with you guys and so he recommended you guys, so we, I think I’m the one that reached out and just wanted to talk with you guys and then that’s how we started conversing and then realized that we just had so much in common and had a really good, you know, background for both sides and decided that it would be a good fit to work together.

Jared Hill: So then that was. What four or five years ago, I

Matt Mulcock: I think four years ago or so. Yeah. Like I said, I truly didn’t don’t remember. I was thinking about it, Ryan. I don’t know if you were, but like, I just feels like we became.

Matt Mulcock: It just kind of like happened. We were just all friends and like traveling together and together

Ryan Isaac: We just appeared in Panama at the same

Matt Mulcock: And we were just all together surfing together.

Matt Mulcock: So we’ll definitely jump into that, but I want to jump into the elevation association side for sure. But let’s, let’s back up a little bit. Cause before EA, before the birth of EA, you guys are dentists is your day job is your, is your dentist. So maybe talk a little bit about your practice and give us some origins of how you got to where you are.

Jared Hill: Yeah, we’re practicing Dentist. So, Dan and I are partners in our practice at Wood River Dental Care in, in Haley, Idaho, which is by Sun Valley up in central Idaho. And, we’ve been partners, it’s, you know what it’s, it’ll do, there are places on the earth.

Matt Mulcock: Yes.

Jared Hill: It’s a beautiful, beautiful location.

Jared Hill: And Dan and I have been partners since 2017. friends since 2016. And, before that, I had bought the practice up here by myself in 2008. So, I’ve been practicing by myself for a while. I’d had a couple associates here and there. and then Dan came on, Dan did a, I’ll let him talk to you about his experience, but he did a residency in the air force and had some incredible experience that brought a ton of value immediately to the practice that I wasn’t doing. you know, I had some private practice experience, but Dan came and mentored me and the staff on a lot of things and we started humming and going great guns. and then That’s how we started Elevation Association after that, we’ll get into that, but so I graduated dental school in 2006, University of the Pacific and have, and so I’m, I’m coming up on 18 years, 18 years actually now of dentistry, which feels like

Jared Hill: I didn’t think I would ever get, it’s crazy.

Jared Hill: It’s a long time. That’s why I don’t have any hair left. It’s

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Wait, Jared, when you went to Pacific, was it a three year program or four at that

Jared Hill: There’s three. Yeah. Three year.

Matt Mulcock: It’s been a three for a long time.

Jared Hill: It has, it has. And it was right before. So I think I might’ve been the last class where the Dean was Arthur A. Dugoni. Who is now called the Arthur A. Dugoni.

Jared Hill: School of Dentistry. And, and it’s because he raised, I don’t know, 50 or 75 million or something for the

Matt Mulcock: That’ll do it. That’ll do it.

Jared Hill: He made a huge impact. That guy could, that guy could control the room. It was awesome.

Matt Mulcock: That’s wild. Dan. What about you? Give us kind of just your history. You’re also a dentist. tell us kind of how you got to where you are with Jared

Dan Nelson: I think, you know, serendipity, I think is the answer, but we were. My family and I were stationed in Japan because I was in the Air Force as active duty. I had gone to Midwestern University, graduated there, inaugural class. And since 9 11, I wanted to join the military, just kind of give back. I was not overly thrilled with what happened that day and was, felt like, you know, that there was a point of service and giving it my country I wanted to accomplish.

Dan Nelson: And so I joined the Air Force. on a scholarship, and did a residency in Omaha and then they shipped me over to Japan, which was awesome. love my time over there. And while I was there, I was in a, in a meeting. It was actually, in Tokyo cause we were, I lived way up North, on the big Island of Japan.

Dan Nelson: And, happened to be in Tokyo for a, church meeting of all things. And the guy I was talking with, really cool dude was like, he’s like, what do you do anyway? And I said, I’m like, cause you don’t know, like you just white dudes talking to each other in Japan, you know, it’s like, why are you here?

Dan Nelson: And, he happened to work for Nike and was, you know, he was put into Tokyo to kind of run things over there. And then, me being over there, I said, Hey, I’m a dentist. And He’s like, no kidding. He’s like, one of my best friends is looking for a partner and in Haley, Idaho. And I’m like, dude, where’s Haley?

Dan Nelson: I’m like, speak English, man. And he’s like, uh, it’s in Sun Valley. It’s like, oh, yeah. So I know where Sun Valley is. And so, and he’s a go getter. You know, I was used to people saying, You know, oh yeah, well, I’ll put you together with so and so. But he really did. He connected us up. I called Jared, woke him up, and you know, it was late at night for me.

Dan Nelson: I got him outta bed in the morning, and that was the beginning of it. I flew out here, a year before I actually came out here and checked it out. We really liked it, but Jared was like. Dude, I don’t know if I can wait for a year for this to happen. And I’m like, it’s cool. I understand. But through a crazy series of events that we won’t bore everybody with, uh, we ended up here and it was pretty rad.

Dan Nelson: Like Jared and I knew right away that it was a good fit. our skill sets meshed together. Well, you know, our, our values mesh together really well. and what’s cool is, you know, we’ve been friends, as well as partners since then. So like. We’re one of those weird like business partners that travel with our spouses to places and do cool stuff together and you know, have our kids over at each other’s houses all the time. And it’s just kind of a, it’s been an awesome ride. And, you know, from that it spawned a lot of other stuff. We, Jared is an idea guy. He’s constantly, Eight steps ahead of thinking through, you know, where he wants to be and what he wants to do. And so he started dropping all these bombs on me when I got here and I was like, Holy crap, this sounds rad.

Dan Nelson: So he’s one of the things, the ideas that he had was this idea for, for EA. So, it’s his brainchild from that. We’ll get into that a little bit too, but it was really cool that we were able to create something. I think the synergy that we have in the practice translates over to the other aspects of our lives as well. And so we were able to. Not only grow this practice, but, create some other cool stuff from it as well.

Ryan Isaac: That’s awesome, man. as you guys get into the story, I’m curious, today I’ve been on two phone calls where, clients are bringing partners into their practice for the first time, I’d really love to hear, it’s just fresh on my mind. And I think it’s so applicable to our audience to just, um, what has helped you guys be a successful partnership?

Ryan Isaac: And I’m sure that’ll tie into the EA story and the things you guys do to help people be successful, happy in and out of the practice. But that’s on my mind today too. When you, when you get to that part of the

Matt Mulcock: Ryan, hold up. We have worked together so long dude. This is this insane.

Ryan Isaac: Were you gonna say the thing?

Matt Mulcock: I was giving it to you I was letting you go letting you cook You But I would literally was just like, we’re going to go into this partnership thread

Matt Mulcock: For a bit. So anyway, keep going. That’s an amazing question. brilliant.

Dan Nelson: Answer each other’s questions or read each other or finish each other’s sentences and read each other’s

Dan Nelson: Thing is, is that I finished Jared sentences. I just had to finish them wrong. You know,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Dan Nelson: Good. I wasn’t say that at all.

Matt Mulcock: No, I love this thread. I was thinking the same thing though, for real, of just like this partnership discussion, I think it’s so critical in dentistry

Matt Mulcock: With partnerships and how they, you know, how they work. We’ve heard so many horror stories. So yeah, I’d love to hear the same thing.

Jared Hill: I would start off by saying the first thing you have to have in going into partnership is an abundance mentality. If you go into a partnership with a scarcity mentality, it’ll never work. You have to go in thinking, there’s plenty to do, there’s plenty to see, there’s, you know, there’s all sorts of stuff that you have to work on each other’s strengths and play off each other’s strengths because here’s some news, everybody has weaknesses. Everybody has things that drive people insane, and you know what, you can either focus on that, or you can focus on how awesome the strengths are, and when you do that, you come up with this abundance mentality, that was what Dan and I tried to focus on, and that’s what I loved about Dan, is we like, we’re like, How can we bring both of our skill sets together and then just share everything like this is going to create a synergistic effect, which is often hard to do.

Jared Hill: It really is. I mean, it’s easy to say it’s a concept that people get, But as Dentist said, I don’t know what it is, but we have this. Maybe it’s because we’ve been critiqued our whole life as far as you just got out of school. You’ve been everything that you’ve done has been critiqued every procedure and you’re taught to critique every procedure.

Jared Hill: And so as soon as somebody comes in, you can critique somebody to death. There’s no question. Nobody knows. Perfect. There’s perfect. but like Dan said, one of our values. And I think that’s important. You know, when you’re going into a partnership is identify what your values are, what your core values are, and then make sure they align with that person coming in because it may not work.

Jared Hill: And that’s I think that’s okay to realize that it may not work. That’s fine, too. So, I think that, you know, the kind of abundance mentality, the same core values, shared core values and the same vision. You have to set the vision of where the practice is going in order to be able to jump in and work together. With each other. Otherwise you’re just, you’re rowing against each other rather than rowing together. So, you know, the owner doc has to have, a vision of where he wants to practice to go, the partnership to go. And the other doc coming in needs to be able to see that vision and then understand what that means for him. And yeah, you’re right. I mean, it’s not hard. Like Dan and I honestly, I think Dan and I were very lucky in how it all played out with us. I mean, I just. You don’t see the kind of relationship that we have in our practice very often. It’s not very

Ryan Isaac: It’s cool.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, Jared, I’d imagine luck plays, gotta play a little bit of role in that as well, but also the mindset you guys have. I love that idea of the abundance mindset. The other thing that you said, I just talked to someone recently that brought something up I thought was really, critical here of, you were talking about dentistry and like how you approach dentistry and you can critique anything. what I don’t think about often, Ryan, I don’t know if you do, but in this situation with Dentist is like, you’re also dealing with success and failure with a lot of procedures when you’re actually in the technical aspect of it, you’re talking like millimeters.

Jared Hill: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: You’re talking millimeters here. So I can imagine that is. a difficult mindset to get out or to not have in The way you critique each other as partners or whatever, but dan i’d love to hear from you What anything you’d add to that from what jared is saying?

Dan Nelson: Yeah, no, a big part of it is having a common vision. Like you need to be rowing in the same direct immediately. If you both have different visions, it’s going to suck right away. Like if you can’t align your visions, you know, Jared alluded to core values and, you know, that’s a part of what the vision should be.

Dan Nelson: Right. And so we knew right away that we had similar core values. We had the same vision on what we wanted. Like it was, It’s kind of creepy how Jared and I are very different people. He can get along with anybody. Like Jared is one of these guys that just is, people instantly like him. I’m, I’m like a, I’m like a burlap sack t shirt.

Dan Nelson: Like it’s a little rough at first, but eventually it.

Ryan Isaac: Accentuate the

Dan Nelson: You know, it is what it is. And

Matt Mulcock: Takes him getting used

Dan Nelson: Yeah, but, but once you have it on, you’re going to stand out and people are going to notice, you know, so, it is what it is, but no, it isn’t. It is one of these things that, you know, that’s what we learned is that you can come from two very different places in your personality.

Dan Nelson: It doesn’t matter. I actually think that if you’re too much alike, it can be a real challenge. you know, I think, but the, the important thing is, is that you, you share a vision. I think having the same ethos and having your, you know, the same type of. morals and values is huge because if ethically you’re misaligned as well, that’s going to be rough, you know?

Dan Nelson: And so, you know, it’s funny, Jared talked about critiquing. The first thing I did as soon as I could, when I was interviewing here and checking it out, it was, I grabbed some of his model work to see how his hands were and how his preps were. So I could critique his work because I wanted to align with someone that had a high.

Dan Nelson: You know, they were, were skilled and, were a fit, you know, effective in what they did and how

Matt Mulcock: You passed jared you passed

Dan Nelson: Dude, you crushed here’s the thing is, is Jared is, and I’ve worked with some really good docs, but Jared is one of the best. And it’s been, that was important to me. And I think the other side of this guys is that.

Dan Nelson: You have to be willing, like you have to want, not be willing. You have to want to learn from the other person. Right. And so I immediately like picked up on some stuff that he was doing. I was like, he is so much better than me at this, this, and this. And I would ask him, I’d be like, what are you doing here?

Dan Nelson: How are you doing this? Why do that? You know, it’s just, and that, that synergy and that you play off each other and you, you elevate each other’s game. And over time you just get better and better at what you’re doing because you have. That ability and then I think you have to create a structure pay is a big deal money can marriages.

Dan Nelson: So how can it not destroy, you know, a company? I mean, it’s based on making money. That’s why you’re there. Right. And so, your pay structure has to be something that you both, again, when I talk vision, I’m talking about pay structure as well. And you gotta find something that works. And, you know, we have some friends in, in another Jared and a friend named Rick that practice in Salt Lake and their partners and they get along awesome, but their prey structure could not be further from how ours is like, it’s so different.

Dan Nelson: And again, there’s more than, you know, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. so there, you just have to find something that works for your partnership and make sure it stays amicable and to be flexible and willing to change if you need to, you know, that’s the other big thing is that, Pick your battles, be flexible.

Dan Nelson: You know, if you are going to die on every hill, that’s going to, you should probably not be in a partnership, you should probably be on your own, or working for

Ryan Isaac: Don’t die on Jared’s Hill.

Dan Nelson: that’s yeah,

Ryan Isaac: I had to, sorry.

Matt Mulcock: Had to, had to, I love this guys. I’m, I’m curious from, Dan, you mentioned vision. How often are you guys checking in with each other from a communication standpoint, or just like, let’s take a step back and check in on that vision. Cause I’d imagine like every business things are changing, ebbing and flowing with stuff. How often are you guys. Checking in with each other. Do you, do you have set meetings you have, or is it more of a natural thing? What does that look like of when it comes to the vision specifically?

Jared Hill: We check in all the time, to be honest, as far as our, our spouses are great friends as well. And so the conversation when wherever we’re out is always turns towards a vision and the next step as far as what we’re doing. but also on a more formal note, I think it’s, it’s one thing just to talk about it in casual conversation, or maybe when you’re at the dinner, but the actual actually put it down on paper or. you know, digitally put it down on a, on a sheet and actually outline what it is, we do that as well. we have quarterly meetings, we have annual meetings, and every week we’ve got, our daily meetings where we’re, we’re reviewing it and make sure we’re heading towards our goal.

Jared Hill: This is, you know, we didn’t have that maybe at the very beginning. And then we started to use, the program called traction. You guys use it as

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, we do.

Jared Hill: Which is incredible and empowering. It’s totally changed our lives and is, something that we absolutely love and it has, helped us.

Jared Hill: Guide our business in the direction that we want to go. It helps us, helps keep us accountable. Each of us accountable and you’re right. It changes just because you set a 10 year vision or three revision doesn’t mean it has to stay that you may come to a crossroads or you may come to something may inevitably something’s going to come into your life. That is going to make you question that or review it or refine it and and maybe redefine what that means and re look at that. And that’s why it’s important to have that open communication and those set meetings. so you’re on the same page, especially when you’ve got a partner, especially when you got a partner, you gotta, you have to have something like that in place, some system like that in place to keep you on track.

Dan Nelson: Just got done, actually, we took a trip. We did one of, our elevation association base camp up in Montana. Two weeks ago and on the drive back, we actually took the time to go through and kind of revisit our, our vision and say, okay, well, what are our 10 year goals look like three year goals, one year goal, you know, and a lot for us, The business component should be, we really believe that the business should be feeding your personal life. Unless you are absolutely enamored with your job and it’s what you would do. And even when you retire, you’re still going to be in your job. You know what I mean? Like, and I think there are people out there that love their career so much, but mine is always, I’m lucky that I love my career.

Dan Nelson: I love it that much though. Like, you know, I would rather be spending time with my kids. You know, I’m at the point in my life now where my daughter, my oldest daughter lives in California. You know, she’s actually really close to Ryan. Uh,

Matt Mulcock: She’s a chef. A killer chef.

Ryan Isaac: I actually don’t know

Dan Nelson: Yeah, it’s a shame that Ryan’s like, Hey, she can come by the house.

Dan Nelson: And she’s like, she’s a chef. Huh? She can come by the house anytime,

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. she should be like meal prep and

Dan Nelson: I mean, it’s, it’s changed. Right. my son who is now a senior, you know, in high school and my youngest is a sophomore in high school. Even in the short time, you know, that when we originally set out and look at things, you know, my vision has completely changed and likely for, for Jared and I, his kids line up with my kids.

Dan Nelson: And so our visions are similar. It’s like, well, what do you want to do? You know, Jared was telling us like, look, I want to spend, I love summers in sun Valley. I don’t particularly love the winters anymore. And I would like to, you know, maybe be in Panama or El Salvador or Nicaragua instead. Those are names we did on purpose.

Dan Nelson: You had did there. I see. I, was

Matt Mulcock: We’re going to transition there.

Dan Nelson: Are planted boys.

Ryan Isaac: Those names?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Dan Nelson: Seeds are planted. Yeah. So, I mean, but you know, that was something where it’s like, yeah, you know, for me it’s, you know, my vision is wanting to spend more quality time with my family, you know, and what does that look like to the practice and what does that look like for Elevation Association and what does it look like for the Dental Legacy Foundation?

Dan Nelson: Got my Tanzania shirt on, by the way, boys, like,

Matt Mulcock: Saw that. We saw that when we started.

Dan Nelson: yeah, representing

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. That’s nice.

Dan Nelson: But yeah, I mean, that’s, that all factors in is, and you know, what’s sad is I think that, you know, as we work with more and more docs, they don’t really have, so many of them don’t have a vision outline. Like they kind of have an idea of like where they want to be.

Dan Nelson: You guys see this all the time. This is your world, you know, it’s like. You know, what do you want? What do you want? And they can’t even tell you like how much money they need to retire. They don’t know when the exit is. They don’t know how to do it. Nevermind. Like, what do you want to be doing? It’s usually some broad answer, you know, like I just gave, I have, we have very specifics on what we get very granular, but I just kind of gave a broad answer on like what we want to be doing with our vision.

Dan Nelson: But it blows my mind that people get so stuck in the fact that like, They have this big daunting, like whether it’s debt or they have a practice, they don’t know what to do with or whatever, that they can’t think past that to, what do I want out of life in one year, three years, 10 years, you know?

Dan Nelson: And so for us, we talk about it all the time and, you know, and we’re really fortunate that our visions line up, you know, as far as that goes. And as well as, you know, practice vision and what EA does. But, yeah, to me, it’s crazy. And I, and I think that. People, docs need to be spending more time identifying what it is they want out of life.

Dan Nelson: Like, what do I want right now? Like, are you getting what you want right now? Do you know how to get to what you want to in 10 years? Like, one of the reasons that we love you guys so much is we don’t know how to do any of that, you know, on the financial end. And so we’re like, we can show you how to make more money, but we can’t tell you how to strategically plan and like, know how to do all this.

Dan Nelson: So. Let’s come talk to our friends over at, you know, the dentist advisors and get you going here. But yeah, I mean, it’s these things that you guys see it all the time. I’m sure.

Matt Mulcock: Oh, absolutely. We do go ahead, Ryan

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. along these lines too. And thanks you guys for all that feedback. as you still keep going into the EA story and something that I know you all do so well as an organization, a podcast, Matt and I have coming up that we’re going to record. I asked a question to our Facebook group. what do you wish you learned in dental school that you didn’t?

Ryan Isaac: And there was, you know, like 50 plus comments in there. And by far the most frequent response, most common response was, leadership and communication. I wish I had some training around leadership and communication, which when you think about being like a D3 student, I don’t know how you teach leadership, you know? so it just comes with the territory, but, If you, you don’t have to answer this now, or maybe when you get into the story compared to like with some of the stuff you guys do as an organization. But love to hear your thoughts on how to become leader. How do you take on those characteristics?

Ryan Isaac: How do you learn those skillsets? How do you, if you’re like a smooth, buttery t shirt kind of person like Jared, or you’re a burlap sack, like Dan, you both can still be good leaders. You can both still have skills and you’ll both probably. approach the leadership differently

Ryan Isaac: It’ll be valuable to have those different styles. But if I’d love to hear what you, what you’d have to say, cause that was the most common response by

Dan Nelson: I think right away organization is key to leadership. You know, if you can’t get organized, then your people aren’t going to be organized. You’re going to have a hot mess on your hands and you’re going to, you’re not going to be proactive. You’re going to be putting fires out all the time. You know, you’re going to be reactive.

Dan Nelson: And if you’re reactive, that’s not leadership, you know, that’s crisis control, so I think one of the key components of understanding leadership is getting your house in order, get organized and from that will spawn a lot of other things, how can you communicate if you don’t have the organization to do it?

Ryan Isaac: Can you throw out a few things, Dan? Like, what does that, when you say organize, what does that mean to you? What do you think of like in a practice business setting when you say that?

Dan Nelson: Well, there’s a lot of things that I’ll just kind of touch on a couple. I’ll let Jared speak to some of them as well. But, for us, one of the principles that we teach is again, get your vision organized. You’ve got to be able to understand what your vision, have it written down, know your core values, know what your goals are, and then have those communicated to your team. And then when it comes to your team, organize your team. Like one of the biggest frustrations that, and you can, you know, Read this over and over and over again. One of the biggest frustrations that employees have is that they don’t know what they’re expected to do. They don’t know what’s expected out of them.

Dan Nelson: So it’s not clear communication on what’s expected or clear communication on how they’re performing. So if they’re not getting feedback and they don’t know what’s expected of them, they’re going to flounder. They’re going to be insecure in their job and they’re going to be unsure of how they’re performing. And they might be performing well to what they think they’re supposed to do. And in that aspect, maybe they are, but maybe it’s not what you want or need them to do. And so you’re getting frustrated, right? So, I mean, that’s a whole other podcast in and of itself, but, those are two big things right away that, that we’ve identified as, good leadership, you know, modalities and, and how to, implement some key points of leadership into your practice, you know, into your business.

Matt Mulcock: Dan, I love that. I don’t know where the origins of the saying, but something that rattles around in my head a lot is this idea to, to your point of where we think people lack motivation, often they just lack clarity. And that’s exactly what you’re saying is you got to get organized. I love that you’re talking about purpose and sharing that purpose of the team, sharing goals, giving, setting up feedback mechanisms and systems for your team is so critical.

Matt Mulcock: That’s what dentistry or any business, we see that a dentist advisors having a feedback system there and giving people a level of clarity. so I love that. Jared, what about you? Any, any thoughts on that from, from a leadership perspective?

Jared Hill: Yeah, it was you know, that dentist that didn’t know how to have any leadership skills. That was me like in 2014 2015. It really was And here’s the problem with dentistry is you can be sick. You can make money. It’s a successful. profession where you’re going to make money.

Jared Hill: You don’t have to be that good of a leader, but it is so frustrating and it is going to drive you into the grave. if you don’t do this, it will, it will drive you out of the profession. If you don’t, if you don’t get organized and develop these leadership skills. And so I, for me, I had to have a head of a system. I had to have somebody introduced me to a system where I could be Consistent. I think consistency is the key in leadership here, because, how many times do we start having morning huddles or meetings and then they just We stop having them because they turn into complaint sessions or we don’t have a system and organization, a way to do it the same way every time. So, consistency is the key. You know, I, I’ve been on this health journey this last year, year, a little over a year, actually about a year right now. And And for me, it’s been, it’s one thing that I’ve learned. It’s just, it’s been consistent doing the same thing over and over again, you know, the results are slow, but the results are going to come after a period of time.

Jared Hill: So, like Dan was saying, like, the team wants to know the vision. They also want to be part of it. Your team, they don’t just want to show up and get a paycheck, contrary to what most people believe. They want to actually help the team. the organization grow that gives them self fulfillment and value as a person.

Jared Hill: And so, you know, involving them in that. And holding them accountable for what you’ve asked them to do or what they feel like they can contribute and then reviewing that on a weekly basis, daily basis, whatever your system is, or whatever your organization is, that is going to be, that’s the true. Sign of a leader. When they start to follow you and want to do it, you not because you demand respect, but because they see you’re consistent in what you’re doing. And they’re all bought into the vision of what you’re trying to accomplish with your practice.

Matt Mulcock: Love that.

Dan Nelson: We believe so much in, I love that Ryan, that you said leadership and not management because

Dan Nelson: It was right. but how many times do people confuse those? You know, we believe so much in leadership, you know, management comes is born of, of leadership, but, we believe so much in it that we actually, We have three peaks that we call them, you know, pillars, whatever you want of life, leadership, and legacy.

Dan Nelson: And it’s leadership, not management, because leadership, we feel it transcends, you know, not just your work environment, but maybe you’re a mother or a father, or, you know, you have a leadership in some other area of your life. And so, we’ve created in these summits that we call them. So it gets confusing because you have a summit and then we have summit.

Dan Nelson: So it’s we call it the peak progression plan in our peak progression plan, for leadership. There’s actually it’s it’s complicated. It’s not easy. And to be able to be effective in leadership. There’s we have eight steps. That sounds Oh, that sounds like a easy thing to do. Adopt and adapt, but it can be complicated because it takes time and one of the things that we find is that most dentists lack the bandwidth to go and learn to be effective leaders or anything else because they’re smoked by the end of the day of seeing patients and being on like you’ve got to be on all day long.

Dan Nelson: Like it’s like being on stage, right? Like You have not just difficult procedures and maybe challenging situations, but you have to be on with your patients and on with your staff and your staff is in, you know, asking questions, put out this fire, change this, do this. We’re out of that. And so by the end of the day, you’re smoked.

Dan Nelson: You don’t have anything left in you, your bandwidth shot. And so to find a way to like dig deep and now I’m going to go learn leadership on top of all this stuff. Okay. It’s too freaking hard. It’s if only somebody created something where they could go and learn that stuff somewhere beachy and exotic Wouldn’t that

Ryan Isaac: do you know of anything?

Matt Mulcock: A pro Dan’s a pro.

Dan Nelson: Would be awesome, right?

Matt Mulcock: Guys go through this, it just reiterates to me how much respect we have for you guys and how much you, and how inspiring you guys really are because Dan, you’re alluding to this, like what you do as you both, and what Dentist out there listening to this, just dentistry period is tough.

Matt Mulcock: Like you said, you’re smoked at the end of the day. Jared, you alluded to this dentistry as a whole. You have a skillset, like you can go make money, but what about beyond that? And you guys have put your money where your mouth has put your energy, where your mouth has been saying, Hey, there’s more to this and we want to kind of inspire and help the dental community. kind of take this to the next level and this is where EA Elevation Association was born. Jared, you alluded to something earlier, kind of, you alluded to the origins of this when you said in 2014, you lack these skills. And I think that’s a lot of us. I’ve heard your story so many times and literally every time I hear it, I’m so inspired, which is exactly why you and Marin are speaking at our summit coming up and.

Matt Mulcock: Um, but let’s jump into Elevation Association and maybe let’s talk about the, what you guys are doing to help Dan, as you’re alluding to, how are you helping Dentist out there with these skills beyond just chair side?

Ryan Isaac: And how are you helping a bunch of dentists in Idaho? Learn to surf every single year. Like how, how are you doing?

Matt Mulcock: And a couple of idiots like us. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac: Year in and year out.

Jared Hill: Well, I don’t know if we’re actually learning to surf. I just show up and some guy pushes me on my board and I just

Jared Hill: Go from wave to shore. And that’s, that’s what I

Matt Mulcock: And Ryan is looking at us being like these yahoos. Look at these guys.

Ryan Isaac: Is the experience. You stand on your feet on a wave, pushing you. And that’s the experience.

Matt Mulcock: it. Yep. I’m basically Ryan on a

Ryan Isaac: We’re the same

Jared Hill: Right. So yeah, Matt, in 2014, 2015, I often describe it as I was, I was trudging, you know, I was just, I was literally, had my head down and I would just kind of plow through the day and plow through the week and then plow through the month and then plow through the year and pay taxes. And then I would start all over again. And, and I feel like that was it. And I feel like There’s got to be more to this. There’s got to be some sort of, balance between, or if you want to call it harmony, maybe between life and work, and there’s got to be a way that we can do this as Dentist, you know, there’s a lot of great continuing education courses out there you can go to, and there’s a lot of groups you can, you can join, in one way or another, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t find exactly really what I wanted to create. Was I wanted to create a group that was designed to help dentists navigate their business journey, but I wanted to do it through, through peer group interactions. So, I wanted dentists to work together. I wanted us to collaborate together when it come to, I wanted to create a platform where dental professionals. non specialists, we could come together and do more than just share best practices. And I wanted to do it in an environment where it was, non threatening. I wanted to do it where people could be vulnerable and honest. And I wanted to do it in a way where people could share and learn and ask. quote unquote, dumb questions, because I was the guy who I didn’t want to ask them questions because I didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of people.

Jared Hill: And so I wanted to create these, these small group environments, these interactions, and I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to go to a hotel in Vegas and sit around for eight hours on a two day course. And to do this, I feel like that was nonproductive. and so Dan and I, you know, we’re brainstorming, how can we do this?

Jared Hill: We live in this. You know, at the base of the Sawtooth Mountains, basically the gateway to Sawtooth Mountains, really, you know, there’s people like us who like to go, and we like to hike, we like to, you know, do adventurous things, and a lot of these, magical conversations that, that happen, where the true learning happens, the true growth happens, happens when you’re on the trail, you’re talking, you’re just chit chatting, you’re not sitting down officially with a Snickers bar at a lecture, You know, falling asleep, trying to drink your diet coke and stay awake.

Jared Hill: You know, that’s great. And you can get a lot of information that way, but the change doesn’t come when you do that. I mean, it can, and I often found it didn’t for me, it only lasted for a week or two, and then I would. Go back to myself. I needed to be a part of a group or an organization that would hold me accountable that we would hold each other accountable and not, you know, not just one person. That’s why I wanted to create. I didn’t want to be a consultant. I didn’t want to do those things. We wanted to be more known as more of a facilitator. for these, these peer to peer group interactions. and so we did. And so we said, where do we start? You know, how do we do this? And so we just called up a couple of our friends that we knew were dentists.

Jared Hill: I said, hey, is this interesting to you guys? Do you guys want to be a part of this? Does this sound like it would be even beneficial for you guys? And they’re like, yeah. Well, I don’t know, but the hike sounds cool. So we’ll come and do that. so they came actually, the first one was a rafting trip, which was cool. So like, look, come up, let’s go rafting. Let’s chat. And let’s talk. And that first meeting was super raw. Like, we didn’t really have much of an agenda. We had a few things we wanted to share. But we really wanted to just to see what everyone wanted to, what they needed to know, what they needed to learn, how we could help each other. And, that was our baseline and we took some data and it’s grown ever since then. It’s constantly evolving, constantly changing. we’re constantly working on what we’re trying to, to help facilitate people grow. and so, and it’s turned into something that’s, that’s been pretty fantastic.

Jared Hill: It takes a lot of our time, but it is so rewarding for us. And the things that have spawned from this have been incredible. just for one, let me just give one quick example is on our second or third meeting, we were talking with Dr. Brad Smith, who at the time was the Dean of Midwestern university.

Jared Hill: And we said, you know, Brad, we’re kind of thinking about our legacy now at this point in time. We’re, we’re not sure, like. what to do, maybe we should do a humanitarian trip. You know, do you have any connections for to go and help out on a humanitarian trip? He’s like, yeah, you know, as a school, this was right after COVID. We used to go to Tonga. We used to go to Guatemala, but that’s, you know, because of COVID, we haven’t done it for a while. And we’re like, well, keep us in mind when that opens up again, you know, maybe we’ll, we’ll go and do that. And then at our next event, Brad Smith came again and he’s like, Hey, I’ve got this opportunity for you guys, if you guys want to facilitate a humanitarianship over in Africa. and we’re just like, yeah, that sounds amazing. I’ve never even been on one. I don’t even know what, I don’t know how to facilitate a trip like this. And he’s like, no worries, we’ll, we’ll, you know, we’ll help you through this. And so, through him and through a series of, uh, incredible events over the next, that next year, We ended up, organizing and now we run a 501C3 nonprofit humanitarian effort over in Africa, that will forever go down in, in my part as a part of my, my legacy, which I’m incredibly proud of and not like boastful proud, but I want my posterity to know that, that this is something that we do, that we were a family of service.

Jared Hill: We give, this is our legacy. And so, you know, it is that that’s just one of the fruits of, this, peer to peer facilitated group effort, you know, ideas that come and spawn when you are, hiking on a beach, maybe you’re surfing, maybe you’re doing whatever, but you’re, you’re away from the practice, you know, away for more than a day or two. And you put your guard down and you have time set aside where you’re not sitting in a class listening to a lecture all the time. And you’re able just to start conversing and open up. And that’s when we see change. That’s what the members, of EA change. And that’s when they don’t change.

Jared Hill: So that’s how it started. Um, and it’s like I said, it’s evolved since then, like Dan said, you know, we, we really want to facilitate A leadership plan. We’d love to help you or, you know, help each other figure out how to manage or run and operate your practice and become the most efficient, profitable practice you can ever have and ever imagined having, we want to help facilitate your life design. Where does that now, where’s that, that machine that we’ve now, you’ve now created. Where does that fit into your life? Make sure that doesn’t run your life. make sure you use that machine to live the life that you wanna live. And then at the end of the day, you know, how do you want, how do you want your life to be remembered? what do you want to do? And, and your legacy doesn’t have to be dentistry, doesn’t have to be humanitarian. It can be whatever it is. That’s just an example of what ours is, you know? So that’s the beauty of this is there’s no right answer. And we’re facilitators. We don’t come in and say, this is what you have to do. You come to us, the group, and you just pick people’s brains and get ideas and then thoughts flow, and that’s when the ideas come and then that’s when you, that’s when you receive the, you know, kind of the inspiration of how to move forward from that point.

Ryan Isaac: Man, thanks for sharing all that real fast. I just wanted to like, maybe reiterate, and validate what you’re saying about, out of all the awesome stuff you just said about environment in which you learn things. so having been on two of the main retreats with you guys and coming up on our third, um, there is something just makes it, stick. You just remember. it’s a very, vivid, lived experience when you’re out of the practice, out of the business. All of us go to so many trade shows. We sit in so many booths and, you know, like rows and rows of seats at lecture halls and hotel rooms. Like, we do that so much that no longer feels like an experience. something very different to be out of everyone’s comfort zone a totally different environment. It helps that these are all like beautiful five star resorts by the ocean. But uh, there’s something it just like it lands and it sticks when you’re in those environments and it is very personal.

Ryan Isaac: It’s very vulnerable and it’s very real and like the pretense and the show and the egos they’re gone. And I’m glad you said that because it’s, it’s so true. It’s awesome. Thank

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I love that. Dan, go ahead.

Dan Nelson: Two things, you know one to your point ryan, you know, I I don’t think anybody that was in el salvador’s gonna forget When Rachel Nielsen, the host of three and 30, you know, podcast, when she started dropping bombs on us about personal, core values, I was like, you know, I, I preach and learn and read about core values all the time.

Dan Nelson: And I’m like, and I’m a psychology major and I’m like, she’s drawing, she’s blowing my mind right now. This is why I freak out on my kids when they do this thing, you know, and it’s because they’re violating my core value of this, you know, and so I think we all walked away from that, just like, just mind blown.

Dan Nelson: But I like that you pointed out that when you create a unique environment, those things stick with us. And that’s really true. there’s one important aspect about the birth of VA that Jared, left out. And that’s, as we were brainstorming, like this idea of like, Oh, what did, what did we didn’t have a name for it then we’re gonna do this thing.

Dan Nelson: And we’re like, dude, we got to put, we need a wizard. And I was like, dude, do you know any wizards? And he’s like, I, I’m not sure if I know any wizards. I’m like, dude, we need a wizard. And so we went hunting for a wizard and we lucked out and wizard fell in our lap. he’s a numbers wizard and it’s our partner, Ryan, you know, and he really is this, it was how all of us have come together is crazy.

Dan Nelson: But for him, he’s got an amazing story of how he landed at wood river dental. And subsequently how. him coming here and looking at us going, what are you guys doing? And we’re like, you know, that, that’s a good question. You

Matt Mulcock: It’s a valid question.

Dan Nelson: Really, you know, that’s one of those moments where you go, Hmm, what do you mean?

Dan Nelson: You know, and he came in and unearthed and brought this. Cause he’s a retail guy. He had retail, just a long history of retail management, and leadership. And he came in and just. unearthed all these gold nuggets that we were sitting on and, you know, really, really empowered us to take everything to this next level.

Dan Nelson: And he was the missing piece. We didn’t realize that we were missing with elevation association and from him, the three of us, you know, were able to take the brainchild that Jared had thrown at me and said, Hey, it’d be cool if we did this thing that he just talked about. And made it highly applicable to where now we have this component of, yes, we have the collaboration, we have the camaraderie, we have the destination, we have these things that really are the magic.

Dan Nelson: Elevation Association, but we also needed to have that ability and capacity to do data analytics and data interpretation and profit mining and all those other things. And so Ryan comes in here and just like. Opens the world up to what we were capable of and, and he’s truly a wizard at what he does. And so to have, you know, I checked last time and I think we’re the only company outside of LARPing that has an actual wizard.

Dan Nelson: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah I love this. And as you’re going through this and Jared, the things that you were alluding to and Dan, you’re, you’re echoing these points, and obviously Ryan and I, as we’ve said, being able to experience seriously, so honored and grateful to be a part of the last two trips and the one coming up that we want to. We want to allude to here, but the word that’s coming to my mind is you’re talking Jared about like facilitation is, you guys being facilitators is this idea of collaboration. Like you guys have set up the perfect environment to collaborate with each other. And it’s not like you guys stand up there bombastically and you’re like, I’m going to teach you a thing or two.

Matt Mulcock: It’s like, no, we’re here to learn together. And Ryan and I can safely speak for Ryan when we talk about this experience of, of witnessing it and being able to be a part of it. everyone’s learning from each other. Everyone’s bringing in their experiences from each other. And it’s literally just a big conversation all week and the camaraderie.

Matt Mulcock: I love that word. You use damn the camaraderie. We feel I can speak for myself on our first trip to Panama. I was nervous. I was kind of like, I don’t know, outside of Ryan and like Jared, you and I. Had known each other as you know, obviously working together for a bit but like we hadn’t met in person but I was nervous and then I was like man, like this is gonna be kind of weird Like I don’t know any of these people and I can very safely say we left that trip being like we were all friends I was like, this is amazing.

Matt Mulcock: So It was incredible and it continues to be incredible. And we’re so grateful for the opportunity to be a part of it. I want to finish here, kind of final theme or topic I want to hit Jared, you already hit on it, but I want to maybe come back to this. Cause it’s so important is this legacy, this legacy foundation that was created and born out of EA.

Matt Mulcock: Just maybe. Talk Dan, maybe let’s jump to you of just like, you know, Jared gave the origins of it, but what is legacy foundation at this point of where it is today? What are you guys trying to accomplish with this?

Dan Nelson: I mean, I’m pretty shameless in the promotion of it behind me, you know, if there’s a lion behind me, I’m wearing a Tanzania shirt. You know, it’s, you know, I have, you know, again, burlap sack. the,

Ryan Isaac: No, it’s all good.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Dan Nelson: Foundation is a 501 C three nonprofit say that 10 times fast. and so we are structured in a way that we are truly a nonprofit.

Dan Nelson: And we are dedicated to servicing underserved areas with trips or, supplies and people on these trips. our focus right now is in Tanzania, Africa. and there’s an incredible backstory to why we’re in Tanzania. Jared touched on it a little bit, but it’s deeper than that. and, we are.

Dan Nelson: Just dedicated to bringing, health relief to these underserved communities. And when we say underserved community, we don’t mean like, Oh, dentistry is expensive. They can’t afford, you know, unless it’s in written. No, it’s not an option. There’s nobody to go see, in Tanzania.

Dan Nelson: These are areas where people, you know, I have a whole statistic sheet behind me here. you know, of how long they’ll go with tooth pain or how many, you know, docs there are to patients. there’s very few dentists in Tanzania total. And the majority of them that are there work for the government, which means that your average person can’t go and see them.

Dan Nelson: Even if they could, they would have to take an eight hour bus ride to go and do so. So, it’s a next level thing. And I’ve been to, you know, different, you know, countries. I’ve been to Belize through the Air Force. I went and did a humanitarian trip in Belize. I’ve been Honduras. I did that, with smiles for Central America.

Dan Nelson: And I’ve never seen anything like this ever. It is, it’s incredibly underserved and the people are beautiful. They are intelligent. They are, wonderfully kind and, and welcoming, hospitality on another level. And it is something that, is life changing to go and to serve, and, apply our skills and our education, in a way that is a hundred percent altruistic.

Dan Nelson: I don’t think that we get a chance to do that very often. We did a podcast with Mark Costas on his podcast a while ago. And one of the things he said is that he thought it was the ultimate cure for burnout, you know, to go and do something like that. And I thought that was pretty profound because, you know, to go and do this is while we go in, maybe not a hundred percent altruistic, but I think that the most of us have a burning inside us to go and give back and to do something good in our life, to go into leave a legacy beyond just the grind at work, you know, or whatever.

Dan Nelson: So to go into, to make an impact on somebody else’s life that isn’t expecting it, never asked for it, but desperately needs it is. Really a wonderful, fantastic thing. So yeah, dental legacy foundation is simply a nonprofit that we’re dedicated to serving underserved areas. We have some peripheral stuff.

Dan Nelson: That’s pretty cool. For example, we, have been able to, I’m going to give a shout out to Jared Galevich from Centraserve, who’s been pivotal, he’s on our board and he’s an incredible human being. Um,

Dan Nelson: And one of the coolest things that, that he’s done is he’s spearheaded. Um, a water project, so we built a water tower there because their crops were dying before the end of this season and they weren’t able to, uh, harvest a lot of, of what they had planned because it just was too dry.

Dan Nelson: It was dying. the other thing that he is currently working on with Dental Legacy Foundation that we’re doing together is, um, building, and this is, this is gut wrenching. If this doesn’t hit you in the feels, I don’t know what will, but, there’s a trade school that’s a part of the organization that we work with over there.

Dan Nelson: And, um, they have students from a young age of 12 all the way up to early twenties and, they will commute pretty far distances, usually by foot. The young girls are getting sexually assaulted in this commute. And so, the, the group that we work with, the society of the precious blood, um, they have said we would really like to build some dormitories for these girls so that they don’t have to commute and they don’t have to be at risk at this anymore.

Dan Nelson: So Jared, has stood really tall in here and he, said, Hey, let’s do this. Mark Costas has said, I want to be a part of this. so we’ve had some big, awesome heavy hitters step up and, and create, some avenues for more than just dental work. And so we’re seeing the fruits of our labor, you know, bear much broader variety of fruits than we initially thought it would.

Dan Nelson: So, that’s a long, long answer to a very short question.

Matt Mulcock: No, that’s, that’s amazing. I mean, I’ll come back to this as we. As you, I mean, we could I, and again, I know I speak for right on this, we could go on all of this for so long. I think we should do a part two of this to be honest as we go through all this. But I’ll come back to this of just truly how inspiring you guys are that you’re walking the walk.

Matt Mulcock: Like so many, it’s so easy to talk the talk, but just to, we’ve known you guys as we alluded earlier, for years and every time we talk, every time we go on a trip with you guys or hear you speak, I know for me. It’s just, again, the word I use is inspiring to say, like, the intention you guys have of saying, here’s the way we want to design our life, Jared, as you alluded earlier, and you go out and do it.

Matt Mulcock: You go out and execute it and live it. it’s honestly unbelievably inspiring. outside of us being able to go to cool places with you guys. That’s what I walk away with most when we engage with you at these, at these events. Ryan, anything you want to add as we jump in, as we wrap this up? Yeah, I’d love, yeah. Love to hit that.

Jared Hill: I’ll tell you about the upcoming events that EA has and, and, Dental Legacy Foundation. this February, we’re taking a trip. Uh, it’s, it’s our summit trip. We’re going to go to Nicaragua. The resort is called Rancho Santana. It’s a, there’s gonna be some surfing there. Of course, there’s going to be sandboarding.

Jared Hill: There’s gonna be hiking. There’s going to be all sorts of activities. And these are, uh, it’s, it’s a, what it is. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a trip where you come and there are several courses to take throughout the week. Uh, we do not fill the day up with courses. I think that’s ridiculous. I, we, we, we hated that. We went to a course in Jamaica and spent eight hours inside a building.

Jared Hill: Didn’t even get to get outside.

Matt Mulcock: did we fly there?

Jared Hill: I felt like it was ridiculous and I feel like that’s ridiculous. And so exactly, exactly.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Jared Hill: And so we, we, we, we designed this, this summit to be, you bring your, your significant other, because there’s no reason to design your life by yourself and then go home and tell your significant other what, what you’re doing. But how you just designed your life. It doesn’t work that way. Trust me. I’ve tried. Didn’t work that way. you bring your significant other. and then we have an hour or two, sometimes three hours, maybe spread out throughout the day during downtime. Um, when it’s not a good time to surf, when it’s not a good time to hike or when it’s not a good time to get a massage or whatever else we’re doing that day.

Jared Hill: And we’ll talk about important things. We’ll discuss leadership. Your leadership plan, you know, this will be maybe just a dentist for, for an hour, hour and a half. We’ll just sit down and we’ll talk about, you know, traction. We’ll talk about components of data analysis. We’ll talk about KPIs. We’ll talk about, you know, whatever other aspect, accountability charts. We’ll talk about your, your vision. We’ll talk about goals, whatever it is that we talk about for, for that time. And then we’ll have other courses where you and your spouse will come. We’ll talk about life design. We’ll talk about where are you at physically, mentally, what, what’s your health, what, you know, how, how do you gauge that?

Jared Hill: What, what are other people doing? Um, what kind of things, do you want to work on, you know, throughout this, this next one? What kind of things do you want to try out? How do you, how do you want to discover your passion, whatever that we’ll have those discussions as well. And then we’ll also talk about, we’ll have a few discussions about legacy. Hey, what do you guys, what is your financial legacy look like? Uh, what is your, you know, what are your other parts of your legacy plan? Do you want to consider when, when planning this? And then, so we will have these discussions throughout this whole week. That’s why it’s a week long and I get it. It’s, it’s hard to take a week off from work and you’ll think to yourself.

Dan Nelson: It’s not that hard, Jerry. It’s not that hard.

Matt Mulcock: Not for me.

Jared Hill: Yeah, right. If you, if you, if you sit and you, you say, Oh, I’m going to miss this much production, I’m not going to produce this much because I’m going to be gone for a week. You, you miss the value. I promise you’ll make up that time. You’ll make up that production and you’ll go way beyond what that is. So we have some spots open, go to our website, elevation association. com and check it out. There’s a pop up immediately that prompts you to invite you to our Nicaragua summit. We have, you know, a few spots open still. Matt and Ryan are going to be there. They’ve

Matt Mulcock: As a bonus, as a little bonus for ya.

Jared Hill: I was going to start with that.

Dan Nelson: Hey, do you want to come hang out with Matt and Ryan?

Jared Hill: They’ve been such huge supporters and it’s, they bring so much value to our summits. we can’t thank these guys enough for what they do and they come and they, they speak and they’re so down to earth and we have such a, our frameworks are just so similar. You know, they’re financial advice takes your life plan into consideration.

Jared Hill: You know, it’s not their commission that, that they even consider it and get a commission, right? It’s, it’s all about, it’s all about, you know, helping you design your life and then, and then using the finances appropriately to accomplish your design. It’s incredible. it’s such a unique marriage that works so well that we love, love having them, them come.

Jared Hill: the dates of that are February 9th through the, through the 15th of 2025. So,

Dan Nelson: Wait, is that over Valentine’s Day?

Matt Mulcock: Oh,

Jared Hill: Listen guys, normally we fail on Valentine’s day or, or, you know, sometimes it’s a hit and miss. We are giving you guys.

Matt Mulcock: The gift.

Jared Hill: Ultimate, the ultimate experience for you and your spouse. This, you cannot go wrong

Matt Mulcock: Win. You literally can’t

Dan Nelson: My words on this. You, we’ve seen this already. So Elevation Association is, we’re infants. We’ve been around since 2020. So we’re like, we’re the new kid on the block when it comes to this kind of stuff. Right. But mark my words, you’re going to, we’ve already seen it. There will be copycats of what we’re doing because what we’re doing creates such a different experience that Dentist need that they want.

Dan Nelson: Once they experience it, they’re like, I need to go have my like tribe. I need to go and chat with my tribe about this. I need to go and. And recharge the battery. Just watch. You guys will see that. You’ll see these other, you know, groups are going to start doing this. I w we’ve seen it already as soon as they caught wind of what we were doing. And, and some of them experienced it with this. They’ve started to copy it. So just watch, I’m just saying it’s, I’m not saying we’re the best, but I mean, we’re here first.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, but we have, but I mean, to that point, Dan, it’s a compliment, right? And it shows what you guys are doing is valuable to the dental space. And Jared, I love what you were saying earlier of saying, you know, the first thing dentists are going to think of, we know this are going to be like, I can’t miss a week, but it’s the value.

Matt Mulcock: You are going to miss the value. We can speak to that firsthand of being a part of this. not as dentists, but just being a part of this as other humans. and I could not agree more with you, Jared, of just the word that Dan used to kind of earlier on as serendipitous to, to, to frame your partnership. I feel the same way about how EA and DA came together as well, and just the parallels and the synergies that we have. Um, again, we’re so grateful to be a part of this. So, this was amazing guys. Ryan, any other final thoughts or questions you have? We can’t wait. So let’s finish with this. So, Jared and Dan, hit the final ways that people can get ahold of you or find out more about these amazing organizations. So Elevation and then, and then Legacy Foundation as well.

Jared Hill: Yeah, so, so you can go to elevationassociation. com, that’s the easiest way. all the information is there on our website. There’s a contact us, or you can also go to dentallegacyfoundation. org and that will help you as well. we do A trip coming up here in October. Dan is taking a group in, in a couple of weeks to Africa.

Jared Hill: And then, I’m taking a group of 20, 25 people in, in November over Thanksgiving. And so we’ve got, that’ll be our third trip this year. We took a trip earlier in January. So, and then we’ll start setting dates for 2025. So, you know, if you’re interested, just contact us, send us a message.

Jared Hill: We’re always looking for help. And. You know, like Dan said, we do dentistry, we do outreach, community outreach, and we always end the trip with a two or three day safari or, or an amazing experience. Last year, we took a hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti and, this year we’re gonna go to, we’ll do a two day safari.

Jared Hill: Then we’re gonna go, we’re gonna hit the island of Zanzibar for a couple of days as well. Swim with some whale sharks, but it’s an incredible experience that if you want to know more information, go to either of those two websites, contact us and we’ll, we’ll get right with you

Matt Mulcock: We’re going to do a part two at some point to literally just focus on the secrets of how you guys do everything you do. Ryan, I don’t know how you feel, but I’m blown away all the time. Like, I don’t know how you guys fit all this in and do this, but, you pull it off. So, Dan, Jared, thank you honestly, so much for being here.

Matt Mulcock: Such a fun episode. so much value that you’re adding everyone. Thank you so much for listening. Definitely check out

Matt Mulcock: elevation association, check out like a dental legacy foundation. Thanks for listening till next time. Bye bye.

Dan Nelson: Cheers.

Keywords: Elevation Association, dental community, legacy, financial planning, communication, vision, teamwork, dentistry, partnership, leadership

Finance 101, Practice Management, Work Life Balance