Morning Routines that Will Make You a Better Practice Owner – Episode 105

Is it possible that your desire to achieve is keeping your practice from reaching the next level? Or more broadly, are your ambitions holding you back from a more epic life? In this episode of Dentist Money™, Reese welcomes Dr. David Maloley, owner of Vail Valley Dental Care and host of the Relentless Dentist Podcast. Dr. Maloley reflects on his journey from “deadbeat undergrad” to one of the most successful practice owners in Colorado, and offers his formula for greater fulfillment — both personally and professionally. He describes his daily routines, how he stays in the moment, and two core principles that changed the trajectory of his practice.

Show notes:
http://relentlessdentist.com/

Podcast Transcript:

Reese Harper: Hi everybody. It’s Reese Harper here. I hope you’re having a fantastic day, and I hope this episode of The Dentist Money show makes it even better. You’re about to hear a really inspiring interview of a friend of mine, Dr. David Maloley, who many of you know or at least know about. He’s a successful practice owner in Colorado, and the host of the Relentless Dentist Podcast, which you’ve probably listened to.

Reese Harper: I wanted to bring David on our show because he spends a lot of time interviewing other people, but doesn’t always get to elaborate on his own perspective, which I think is super valuable. As you’ll hear in his interview, David came from humble beginnings in Lexington, Nebraska, and then had a moment of truth when he was an undergrad that changed his outlook on life. It’s a super cool story, and he’s just a really well-rounded guy that I think will serve as an inspiration for a lot of you.

Reese Harper: He’s served in the military. He’s a devoted husband and father. I mentioned he’s also a successful practice owner and he does his podcast. He’s in great physical shape, and he does a lot of community outreach. So we’ve all got plenty to learn from a dentist like Dr. Maloley.

Reese Harper: Before we get started, I want to make sure you know how to get ahold of us at Dentist Advisors if you’re ready to have a conversation about your finances. Whether it’s getting organized, tracking your progress, investing, or understanding how you compare to other dentists in your situation. To schedule a call, just go to dentistadvisors.com and click the link at the top to book a free consultation. You’ll find a time on our calendar that works for you, and then we’ll have a discovery call to assess your personal situation and show you how to make work optional at an earlier age. If it’s easier to just call us, you can always give us a ring at 833-DDS-PLAN. Thanks again for listening to the Dentist Money Show, and enjoy the interview with Dr. David Maloley,

Speaker: Consult an advisor or conduct your own due diligence when making financial decisions. General principles discussed during this program do not constitute personal advice. This program is furnished by dentist advisers, a registered investment advisor. This is Dentist Money. Now, here’s your host Reese Harper.

Reese Harper: Welcome to the Dentist Money Show where we help dentists make smart financial decisions. I’m your host Reese Harper here with Dr. David Maloley, owner of Vail Valley Dental Care in Colorado, and also the host of the Relentless Dentist Podcast. I’m sure many of you heard of him. He’s one of the godfathers of podcasting and dentistry. David, welcome to the show.

Dr. David Malol: Hey Reese, it’s great to talk to you again.

Reese Harper: Most of you know who David is. He speaks all over, and he’s got a really well downloaded podcast. It’s been around forever. And I thought it would be really cool to get a lot of his opinions about some financial questions and dental questions in our lightning round that we do at the end of this podcast. So the first four or five questions I really feel like it will be insightful around practice management topics, lifestyle, work balance. A few topics that David’s really an expert in having been a do everything. From podcasting, to dentistry, to speaking and having his own career outside of the office.

Reese Harper: And also I thought it’d be interesting to get your opinion at the end and a lightning round on a few different topics. So that’s the format for today. I’d like to start with the first question, which is something I really like about your podcast. You focus a lot on lifestyle design. You talk consciously about that pretty regularly, and you talk about building an epic practice that provides an epic life for you. What exactly do you mean by that? What an epic life is and why are you so passionate about helping dentists achieve that?

Dr. David Malol: Well in undergrad, going back several years. I was to be honest a dead beat undergrad student. I dropped classes all the time. I’d sleep in. I’d set my alarm to make sure that I made lunch. I had no purpose. And then all of a sudden for really no apparent reason because literally I wasn’t a very good academic. My mom got me the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and there’s one chapter in there that talks about a eulogy exercise. And I read the book and I did the exercises, which is completely out of character for me at that moment in my life. But I realized that the trajectory I was on, and this would have been ’95, ’96, was not going to lead me to where I wanted to be now in my forties, fifties, sixties. And so that I needed to do almost a 180 to figure that out.

Dr. David Malol: So since that paradigm shifting event, it’s been a real passion of mine making sure that … it may be sound a little bit morbid, but at the end of my days, I don’t want to have any regrets. And so that eulogy exercise and knowing what what my obit might look like or my eulogy, my friends and family and colleagues may say is critically important. And I think it shaped my character. And I think most people are really shortsighted because they want to get through the week, the day, the quarter, whatever it may be. And those building blocks may or may not build the superstructure that you want for a life. So it’s shaped almost every decision that I’ve made for the last 20 plus years. And if I can help give some guidance, particularly to young dentists to help them make sure that they’re not just keeping up with the Joneses and really blueprinting something that they want. What’s an epic life to me is pretty well defined, but it may not work for somebody else. So it’s a customizable thing.

Reese Harper: That’s interesting. When you say that, I literally started thinking about my own epic life right away. It strikes an emotional chord I think with people when you talk about it that way. I guess, can you get below the surface level a little bit and tell us for you personally, what does that mean for you personally to live an epic life? What does that look like?

Dr. David Malol: Well, it’s the single reason that I pursued dental school and got into dental school. I went from that deadbeat student to a 4.0 student pretty quickly just because of that power of purpose. It guided me to take a Army Health Professions Scholarship and serve the country because I’d seen, unfortunately some of my uncles die an untimely death. But I remember at their funerals they had a American flag over their casket, and I knew that was part of the legacy that I wanted to live.

Dr. David Malol: I was stationed in Europe, which for a farm boy from Nebraska that grew up pretty naive I would say. To have that worldview to travel around Europe for four years was pretty incredible. It drove me to start a practice when everyone said I couldn’t do it in 2009, and allows me this lifestyle in the Vail Valley that we started off talking about where I can ski 40 days a year. Have a great small business that serves the community, really being entrenched in serving the community, the patients, and building a team that I’m really, really proud of. So like I said, it’s the foundation of every decision that I make. And I almost do it unconsciously now.

Reese Harper: So do you ever get to a point in your career where you sometimes don’t feel content, like you maybe haven’t lived that epic life, even though what you’re describing seems like dude, you’ve lived it. Completely lived it. Sometimes it seems like that’s a mindset that isn’t easy to maintain. Even if someone is happy with their life, there’s an ebb and flow of feeling like it’s enough and that they’ve accomplished enough, and that it’s fulfilling and that they’re really living that purpose. How do you stay centered, or I guess how do you stay in that moment and what does that mean to always be in that moment?

Dr. David Malol: Well, it’s one of my biggest struggles. Because I think through the podcast and just interviewing and interacting with a lot of high achievers, it is clear to me that that achievement mindset really gets in the way of fulfillment because we’re always chasing that next goal. And it’s something that I really have to work at. In fact, I’ve installed things in my daily routine that perpetuates that to make sure that I’m feeling the gratitude for what I had and I’m not just chasing the next goal that’s in front of me. It’s a real, real struggle with people that are hardwired to be entrepreneurial achievers. A lot of people that I’ve interviewed on the podcast certainly fit that mold. And people inherently who listen to podcasts are hungry. And so that’s something that I think we have to always calibrate on to make sure wow, look how far I’ve come. Look at what it took to get here. Look at the abundance that I have and the freedom.

Dr. David Malol: A lot of us are working 35 hours a week. That’s unbelievable to be making multiple six figures on that. And sometimes we don’t appreciate the abundance that’s around us. So I’m far from perfect there, but I always try and create space and time during my day to make sure that I make that a habit pattern as well.

Reese Harper: So when you say installing habits in your life, are you talking about gratitude, you talking about meditation? What puts you in a state where you can back up and feel, I guess slow things down, if you will?

Dr. David Malol: This year has been bar none the best year of my life because of these very habits that you speak of. It starts off with me getting up really early in the morning. By the time I walk into work, I want my nervous system revved up. So sometimes that means going hard on a stationary bike or lifting weights. Before I hit the door, I’ve always paused and reflected. So a meditation or gratitude or both. I’ve worked out with a pretty high intensity, and I’ve learned something.

Dr. David Malol: So when I’m on the bike, I’ll queue up usually some high profile thinkers, whether that be somebody like an Elon Musk or a Richard Branson. I just want somebody to push me and stretch me because I know that the limits of my thinking are what are holding me back.

Dr. David Malol: So that’s just the start of the day. I have alarms that go off on my phone that remind me of certain ways that I want to be. There’s a doorway trigger that goes off as I’m driving in to work that reminds me as I walk through the door to see a patient that how I want to be is the trigger that I think of is that through this door is a happy man who is ready to serve. And so that allows me to engage patients at a higher level. It’s almost endless, all the little things that I’ve installed this year. It sounds over the top, but once it becomes habitual, there’s no way that people would ever turn back on those habits.

Reese Harper: So how does this affect your, I guess personal relationships too? An epic life that you really have no regrets. How do personal relationships play into that psychology?

Dr. David Malol: That’s a great question. I think again, if you have a natural achiever’s mindset, I grew up around workaholics. So those are all things that have driven me to this point, but they can be barriers to relationships. So along with the gratitude and the fulfillment that we just talked about, that’s something that I have to literally schedule in my day to make sure that I’m having dates with my wife, and taking ski days with my son. Because I love project work. I love being in the practice. But when I’m working from home is when I really feel like I’m crushing it. And those days just fly by because that’s fun for me. But the relationship I have with my team is really important. I’m closer with them and more united in purpose with them than I have ever been. Family, the friends that I have help me again stretch my mindset and raise the bar for me. So it’s so important.

Reese Harper: How many people know this about you? Do you talk about this a lot on your podcast? Because most of the time you spend interviewing other people. I just wonder how many people know that this is a core part of what makes you tick.

Dr. David Malol: I’ve talked very little about it, but every presentation I’m giving in 2018 centers around this psychology, physiology, all those sorts of things. Because I think dentists, high achieving dentists want to be like the hall of fame quarterback of their business, but they’re not taking care of themselves like a hall of fame quarterback. And it’s been the game changer in my practice in 2017. I was terrified going in because I cut from four days to three days because I wanted more time to do other things. I set a goal that I’m embarrassed to mention is that I wanted the practice to be flat this year. And we’ve actually grown 15% when cutting back days, only because I’ve worked on myself as a clinician, as a leader. I get more out of my team because I know how to connect with them. And I think if dentists reflected more on making sure that if they’re the race horse, that the race horse isn’t grumpy and tired. That practice would grow as a byproduct of that.

Reese Harper: It’s really true. It’s so true man, that I think a lot of the time, dentists will wear themselves thin with the intention of trying to do good things. They’re trying to grow and be effective. They listen to the Richard Branson podcast the way you did in the morning, but they came to a different conclusion. Their conclusion was maybe not as conscious or maybe as thoughtful as yours might have been at this point. But I think sometimes when we hear these ambitious people and we hear these stories of achievement, and we see people accomplishing things that are objectively more money, more stuff, more fame, more recognition than we’ve ever accomplished. I think it’s hard to not run yourself ragged trying to be better, bigger, faster, stronger, more money, and more recognition. I think that’s just a really hard part of entrepreneurship, because there’s so much comparison.

Dr. David Malol: For sure. The demands that dentists that I know put on themselves are extreme, because they’re usually hardworking and kindhearted. So they want to be everything to their team, and to their patients, and to their families. If you’re not devoting that time for self care, that’s where we get into all these spirals that you hear about. Substance abuse, and suicide and things like that, that are just heartbreaking to me. I think there’s a better path and we’re just not taught that to any capacity at all along the journey. So you have to dive in deep and be motivated to unpack this stuff, because there’s nothing that even gave me a clue in my dental journey or dental meeting, or any sort of thing that this is really the foundation of something that you could sustain for 30, 40 years.

Reese Harper: Yeah, that’s so true. Did you always feel like you had exercise habits that were healthy and consistent? Or is that something you’ve had to work on throughout your career?

Dr. David Malol: Also a struggle. I will avoid exercise because I’d rather be in front of a screen, and being creative, and things like that. So I have to tap into a bigger why when I do it. One, because I know it makes me a higher performer in the practice, and that’s super important to me. But a bigger picture is my father had a heart attack when he was my age.

Reese Harper: How old are you for those who don’t know?

Dr. David Malol: I’m 43. So he was young, open heart surgery, almost lost him. He’s about to celebrate his 80th birthday. And I think about what my life would’ve been if that would have taken a different turn. And I’ve got a family that I don’t want to go on without me. I want to provide for them and create that epic life that I talk about so much. So if I don’t take care of, use that race horse metaphor again. If I don’t take care of the race horse, it goes out to pasture before you should.

Dr. David Malol: So I enjoy it now that it’s a habit. I don’t fight myself to get out of bed anymore, but it’s a struggle to stay consistent with it. And that’s why I do it every day because one day off to me means the potential of two days off, a week off, a month off. So I just don’t stop.

Reese Harper: What’s your routine schedule? What time do you go to bed, and when do you up in the morning?

Dr. David Malol: Ideally I go to bed almost right after my seven year old goes to bed. So nine, 9:30. Sometimes I’m still revved up then, it’s hard for me to get to sleep. I like to be up by five. Some days, it’ll be earlier than that. Some days not as much because I really value my sleep. For too long, I considered sleep a necessary evil, but the science tells us otherwise that it’s super important. Then if you are not sleeping enough, you walk into work essentially drunk from lack of sleep. So I follow the science and try and get 7 to 8 hours in almost no matter what. But I’m perfectly-

Reese Harper: When do you hit the chair for the first time in the office? What’s the first time a patient comes in?

Dr. David Malol: I meet with my office manager at 7:30. I meet with my team at 7:40, and patients start walking in the door at 8:00.

Reese Harper: What’s a team huddle look like for you? What do you try to accomplish in that moment?

Dr. David Malol: Here’s another game changer that I’ve installed. It used to be just the mundane here’s the schedule, here’s the bottlenecks, here’s the opportunities. Here’s where we’re going to put the emergencies for the day. Here’s the collections. Routine stuff. Team wasn’t engaged. The thing that I would share with listeners that has changed everything and I’ve shared it on my podcast, is that we spend the first five minutes doing greatness and gratitude. And everyone comes to work in the morning ready to talk about something great that they saw from the day before, or that they’re grateful for being a part of the organization. So that changes the attitude immediately. Then we’re starting the day off on a positive. The team has already engaged because they’re obligated to be, and I have a positive mindset walking into the day.

Reese Harper: That’s awesome. We’re not talking about Tom Johnson’s going to be here at eight, and what are we going to do?

Dr. David Malol: We go through that. But it’s secondary-

Reese Harper: After we have that moment?

Dr. David Malol: Secondary. Yeah, absolutely.

Reese Harper: That’s interesting. So you talk about schedule, but it’s always an afterthought to this initial asking every person what they experienced in the prior day that they are grateful for. Is that what you said?

Dr. David Malol: Precisely. Yeah and then everyone, we run through each column of hygiene and production dentistry, restorative for me. And then the admin people get a chance to speak, and then we get after it.

Reese Harper: That’s awesome. Tell me about the front office a little bit. How do you delegate duties up there and how many people do you have working in the front, and what do you have them doing? It’s my understanding that it’s a solo practice, it’s just you, no associate. Is that correct?

Dr. David Malol: Correct. Yeah. We pack here. The cost of living is really high, so I have four ops and 1,124 square feet. So we pack a lot of activity into there. I have a patient care coordinator upfront. Her job is to be really nice to people, and knock their socks off. She does a lot of the scheduling.

Dr. David Malol: In the back, I have an office manager. She deals with most of the finances, does the financial presentation in the operatories. And then I outsource all of my insurance claims. I could easily hire another administrator, but they’re so good at it and they charge me a percentage of collections. So if I don’t win, they don’t win. When I take 10 days off, it’s just nice to have that expert keeping the cash flow. Just set it and forget it, and that’s been a real blessing to us.

Reese Harper: I consciously don’t have sponsors or anything on the show because sometimes I like to get the candid opinion of people about products that they use. Our guest interviews consists mostly of dentists and practice management consultants for that reason. Do you mind telling me who you use for that outsource billing and what your experience has been?

Dr. David Malol: Yeah, I use eAssist. Most of the … it’s phenomenal. I get a report every morning that gives me everything that I’d ever want to see [crosstalk]

Reese Harper: Any challenges you have with it?

Dr. David Malol: Not particularly. They’re better than the best employee that I’ve ever had in that role, simply because they can make it their sole focus. They’ll battle to no end on these claims that a lot of times I think we just wrote off because it got to the point where we thought it was not promising. Like I said, their company doesn’t get compensated unless I get compensated. So they get after it.

Dr. David Malol: Furthermore, they oftentimes serve as advisors to my in office team when they’re stuck or don’t know how to deal with a certain policy or situations. It is so hard to [crosstalk] somebody from scratch there. I couldn’t imagine not having them.

Reese Harper: I know James Anderson pretty well, and I know he’s put a lot of work into building that company. Tell me about outsourcing lab versus a CEREC. You got small space. You probably don’t have a lot of room to do [inaudible] internally.

Dr. David Malol: No, my lab is storage. It’s just a closet basically. We don’t really handle any models unless it’s something really simple. I have an iTero scanner that we digitally send to the lab. So we’re model-less, because I don’t want to store all that stuff. So we use the digital technology and then outsource 100% of our fixed and removable.

Reese Harper: I’m starting to get a picture of your practice man. And it fits right in with your philosophy and lifestyle that you talked about at the beginning. You’re in a great location to live. You’ve picked an amazing place to live. You have fairly low overhead given the minimalist practice you’ve put together. I don’t want to say it’s low, but relatively speaking for other practices in Vail. You’ve probably been able to try to keep your costs within reason because you’ve crammed a ton of production into a pretty small facility and just made that thing home like crazy. I don’t know the details. I’ve never seen your financials. I’m just trying to project, it seems like your lifestyle philosophy fits the practice that you’re building.

Dr. David Malol: I think you’re exactly right. I so many times talk about getting your vision hijacked. I’d start thinking, “What if I just saved a percent here or a percent there?” So I’d go digging into supply opportunities and things like that. The thing I realized that I am only good when I’m on offense. When I start playing defense, then everything suffers. So I like to market, I like to keep new patient flow high, I like to continue to find efficiencies, and just keep tweaking those knobs so that we can get more and more production in. And to me, I don’t love using the word production because it sounds like my goals are only financial. It’s really about the value that we deliver to the patients. And it goes back to our two pillars that we have in the practice of goodwill and case acceptance. If those are strong, and I’d rather the goodwill piece be more strong than the case acceptance because I think that drives case acceptance. That’s when my practice I feel like is firing on all cylinders. And as a byproduct of that production, the overhead plummets as time goes on.

Reese Harper: Yeah, I totally agree man. There’s too much of a focus sometimes on how do I cut, cut, cut, cut. Right? And how do I slash my costs rather than focusing on like you said, this goodwill and case acceptance that ultimately drive your overhead down. If you can deliver more value to more people, over a shorter period of time. That’s awesome. Go ahead and finish your thought on that. I don’t want to interrupt.

Dr. David Malol: My mind doesn’t work well in a scarcity room. It just makes me start to feel small. When I start trying to pinch pennies and not being generous with payroll stuffer hours or bonuses, I just have always struggled when my mind shifts into there. And I’ve been there for long periods of time, and tracked it emotionally. And when I’m not feeling good, those are bad months of the practice.

Reese Harper: Yeah, that’s really insightful. Tell me, if we get into some of these lightning round questions here, we’ve started into some of them. I’ve got a few that I want to just pop through and get your opinions on. We talked about outsourcing a to a lab versus a CEREC in your own practice. How do you view this concept? If a buddy was going to ask you for advice on that and he had enough facility space, what’s your thought on outsourcing your lab versus trying to do most of your work in-house?

Dr. David Malol: I think it has to fit your personality. I’m not really excited about learning a bunch of technology, so I don’t want to tinker with that stuff. Therefore I don’t want to train somebody on it. And so I could send somebody off to train, but then I couldn’t manage and supervise them.

Dr. David Malol: So I think that some people love that sort of stuff, and they’re doing digital workflow on implant placement. I have a cone beam for example, but I have a technician virtually place the implant and designed the guide for me because I just don’t want to spend my time doing that.

Dr. David Malol: So first of all, I think you have to think about your personality and make sure that it caters to that. I like to just keep going. And two, I think you have to know the numbers on it. How much is their machine costing, what is your volume? Can you reduce chair time, or are you tinkering around with the glaze and the shade of it too much? And you’re better off sending it to an expert. It’s a personality fit, and then the numbers are critically important.

Dr. David Malol: If you love that sort of thing, I think you can make the numbers work because the enthusiasm will drive production. But it’s a case by case basis regardless of where you are and what your practice looks like.

Reese Harper: That’s great. Tell me about besides insurance collections, what other services do you outsource or what services do you think people should outsource in their practice?

Dr. David Malol: I do almost everything in office. I really struggled in my startup to get things rolling the first few years. So I love marketing, and understanding the marketing message, and how that triggers human behavior and things like that. So I outsource some of the detailed stuff, but I manage it really closely. I would encourage any dentist to at least have a basic understanding of marketing, and then outsource from there just like you would. You understand what a good hygienist does, you understand what a good assistant does. You understand what good phone skills look like.

Dr. David Malol: I think one of the things where I see dentists taken a lot is marketing. In fact, I have people still to this day trying to sell me radio ads, newspaper ads, and they can’t answer the most basic questions that I have.

Dr. David Malol: And it’s like I throw them for a loop because nobody asks those questions. And so that tells me that we’re being oversold on marketing. So that really concerns me about dentists outsourcing too much of that and not really understanding where the ROI lives. That’s the big one for me where I see dentists probably not having a baseline understanding there of where your patients are coming from, and how to trigger that to overcome a slow month. That’s really it. Other than obvious little cleaning services and things like that, I like to see what’s going on.

Reese Harper: I don’t think very many people do marketing in a proactive way on their own as the manager of the marketing process. That’s a, I would say in my experience, it’s less than 10% of dentists who would claim to really enjoy that. And maybe not just enjoy it. I think everyone enjoys seeing new patients come in. But owning the marketing messaging and the success or failure of different marketing programs, that seems like a unique characteristic for someone to have. Do you see that in your experience as well? Why do you think most dentists tend to not get as involved in marketing?

Dr. David Malol: Dentists aren’t naturally attracted to that, just being stereotypical. But after interviewing all of these dentists on Realist Dentist, I’m actually writing a book called Titans of Dentistry where we’re interviewing high-performing dentists from Rick Workman of Heartland, Dr. [Dawson] of the Dawson. Some of the greatest dentists of our generation. All of them understand business, systems, and marketing.

Dr. David Malol: So I don’t think, it wasn’t a natural attraction for me, but I had a pregnant wife and no patients. So I had to get really resourceful. If you care about your business and you want to grow over time, sitting through another endo lecture or implant lecture is rarely the solution. You have to be able to tell patients what you can do for them, what the value you provide for them, and sending out another postcard for a $69 new patient special isn’t the right answer for most practices. Unless you want to continue to spin your wheels.

Dr. David Malol: So it’s one of those things I think it’s just the responsibility of a smart business owner. Furthermore, it’s where I think the biggest upside is in your practice because in most communities, there’s no real competition there. People either aren’t marketing, or they’re not marketing properly.

Dr. David Malol: There’s a quote that has always stuck in the back of my head that I ran across probably six or seven years ago when I first started studying marketing. It’s from a famous marketer named Dan Kennedy. And he said, “The greatest day in a business owner’s life is when he stops doing the doer of the thing, and becomes the marketer of the thing.” So it’s provided me so much security. And to put it in Dennis language, when you stop being a dentist and start being a marketer of dental services, your business will start to take off at a level that you probably haven’t seen before.

Reese Harper: I think that’s really insightful man. I think dentists could learn a lot from spending a little bit more time on business systems and marketing. I’m glad that you’re putting that book together. It’ll be an interesting read. Answer this question. How do you know when you should fire someone?

Dr. David Malol: For me it’s attitude. I will sacrifice talent if I have somebody that really can build trust and rapport with patients. But I have some people that you just know right off the bat that they walk in the door with their own agenda and they don’t want to look at the mission statement, or talk about goodwill on case acceptance. They want to do their own thing. And especially if they’ve been to several other dental offices or worked in several other dental offices, they have their way of doing it. So if they’re not coachable and they start having chips on their shoulder, the other thing is big for me is somebody’s job performance to me is inversely correlated to the number of excuses they make. So when I’m trying to coach them, if they fire back of, “Well, it was the patient. It was the timing, they showed up late.” Start giving me a litany of excuses, I know that I’m going to have a really hard time getting them to integrate and have that shared purpose that’s really important to our practice.

Reese Harper: Yeah. I love that. Here’s the next question. How much money is enough money?

Dr. David Malol: For me it’s never enough. One of the things that’s super important to me is that it always gets better. So I never want my practice to plateau. It’s grown for eight straight years significantly. And therefore, I want my bank account, my investments, my ability to serve and give to never stall. So I don’t know, I’m not comfortable with retirement, a full fledged retirement. I certainly believe in financial freedom and geographic freedom are things that I want to get to the point where I just do what I want and associate with who I want. But I love work, and I love delivering value, and I love pushing myself. So at the expense of sounding really greedy, I don’t ever want to stop that train.

Reese Harper: I don’t think you sound greedy at all as you describe yourself and the things that you value. I think what you’re saying is that it’s not the money that is in and of itself motivating and driving you. But it’s what it represents about what you’re achieving, and the value you’re providing to other people. And why would you ever want to stop accumulating more money if money’s simply reflection of doing all the things that you love to do?

Dr. David Malol: That’s 100%. That’s a perfect answer. To me it’s a scoreboard. And with money, to me, I don’t buy a lot of stuff. For me, I like to collect memories. So if I can take my family to Mexico for Thanksgiving and be able to have the resources to really create memories, particularly when [Bennett’s] such a young age, for him to see that sort of lifestyle.

Dr. David Malol: When I was seven years old, I couldn’t have dreamt this life. And I want him to not have those mental barriers. Where in Lexington, Nebraska, if you mentioned Vail or Beaver Creek, that was for aristocrats. I’m still a country boy, not very sophisticated. And we figured it out through just clear vision and a persistence I think. So yeah, for me it’s simply a scoreboard.

Reese Harper: Tell me the best investment you’ve ever made and the worst investment you’ve ever made to wrap things up here.

Dr. David Malol: Best investment I ever made was in my business. I did an against all odds startup in 2009. The economy was down. These resort towns have some wicked seasonal trends where the mountain closes and people disappear for a month or two. I was overconfident to be honest, but what owning a business has helped me in growing as a clinician, as a leader, as someone that can give back to the community. It just never stops challenging me. So certainly it has its financial rewards and its tax benefits, but the upside is that I can always better myself and use the practice as a dojo where I can become a better version of myself as time goes on. So the dividends I get from that are multiple. It’s almost too many to really list.

Dr. David Malol: The worst investment I’ve ever made, it was in 2007 I bought my dream home in Huntersville, North Carolina, beautiful double porches, white pillars, beautiful neighborhood. I could walk to the movie theater or wine bar. I bought it with a no money down VA loan after I left the military, and it soon plummeted. After I moved to Colorado, I continued to pay the mortgage on that for four or five years and still had to show up to the closing with a check in my hand.

Reese Harper: Thank you for sharing that. I’m sure that anyone who bought a house in 2006 to 2007 will be able to, or probably 2005 to 2007. Anyone who bought a house in that period of time knows exactly what you went through and is maybe still collecting that rent check and not having the property break even right now. So you’re lucky you’re already out of it.

Dr. David Malol: I’m thankful. We had some evictions in there. It was financially and emotionally just draining.

Reese Harper: It’s so hard, man. That’s a big burden to carry. Totally. Well thanks for taking so much time man. You’ve gone through life balance, you’ve gone through practice systems, you’ve gone through marketing and financial philosophy. You’ve just got a ton of great experience and I love the attitude that you bring to your job and the passion that you have for your work. I’m really glad to hear that another dentist is having a really fulfilling life, and being able to put all they are into their profession. It’s super cool to hear that. So thanks David. I don’t know if you’d like to leave anything with the listeners to wrap up, but I’d like to just give you that last minute to maybe summarize any of your thoughts and leave anybody with any parting thoughts you have about what we’ve talked about today.

Dr. David Malol: Yeah. It’s a thrill to be on your show. I appreciate you truly serving dentists. I talk about the market, there’s lots of vulture circling in my profession. And I try and protect dentists from that. And it’s good to have guys like yourself who really have a vested interest in people are living a life and having financial freedom, and being able to outsource all of those things that some of us are almost know nothing, when it comes to debt, and taxes, and investing. So I appreciate you and what you’re providing for the profession.

Dr. David Malol: How I would close out is we just had a team meeting in my office, and we created a rallying cry, a theme for 2018. And it was courage over comfort. I got that from a book that just came out called Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss. I think it says it all, when I see dentists who are struggling, they’re comfortable with their lifestyle. Or they’re comfortable with the stories they’re telling themselves. And we’ve become risk averse, particularly when we start creating that. But I think safe is the new risky. So we don’t know what’s going to happen with suppliers, and vendors. I just saw something on Amazon were the Schein and Patterson stock plummeted because Amazon’s entering the game. It’s a disruptive time. I’d keep your feet moving, and take risks, and be courageous because I think thinking, deceiving yourself that the status quo is going to serve you is delusional. So I guess my challenge to listeners is when you come to that fork in the road to choose courage over comfort.

Reese Harper: Courage over comfort. David, thanks so much man. That’s really good advice, a great way to leave people today. And thanks again for all that you do. We look forward to having you back on the show very soon.

Dr. David Malol: It was fun Reese. Thanks so much.

Reese Harper: There you go. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. Obviously a really cool guy who’s doing a lot of things right. It’s good to get a kick in the pants like that every once in a while from someone who is super well rounded. When I hear him talk, it just makes me want to be more intentional about how I structure my daily routine, and I try a little harder to make a difference for my family and my team. So thanks again to David for carving out some time for us.

Reese Harper: Again, if you have questions about your financial plan, we’d love to talk to you. When you’re ready, just go to dentistadvisors.com, click the link at the top, and schedule a time that works for you. We’ll keep it low pressure, and we’ll make sure we use the time to understand your specific situation and give you some great advice. If it’s more convenient for you, just give us a call at 833-DDS-PLAN. Thanks for tuning in, and carry on.

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