The Cost of Following Financial Influencers – Episode #657

On this episode of The Dentist Money Show, dive in with Matt, Taylor, and Will as they break down the risks of applying general financial advice to highly specific situations–especially for dentists. Context matters when listening to advice, tips, and tricks given out on social media and playing the long game is especially important. Tune in to hear why timeless financial principles still matter, how to vet advice online and what to watch out for in the age of influencers.

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Podcast Transcript

Matt Mulcock: Welcome to the Dennis Money Show, where we help Dennis make smart financial decisions. I’m Matt, I’m here with Will and Taylor, our dream team. You guys said you were the guys on the bench, but

Will Gochnour: The other guys

Matt Mulcock: is no longer the case. Also, I missed the maroon memo today.
Will Gochnour: Yeah, it’s a good one. I got a light, a little light salmon.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, the salmon color.

Will Gochnour:  It was there. We didn’t actually send a message. It was just brainwaves.

Taylor Sutterfield: It is just Will Will and I share the same birthday and we actually share the same start date with Dennis Advisors. Not the same years, but the same days, so it’s, we just have this thing going.

Matt Mulcock: you guys. Same brain cell. Well, I missed it, although I will highlight that we are all looking pretty dapper if I do say so myself. So, excited to be here guys. We’re talking today all things, the world of influencers. I want to ask you, have you, what are the, what are the, the funnest things you’ve heard either from clients or online, things like. Uh, 4 0 1 Ks are a scam. Other one that come to mind for me is like, be your own bank. Uh, what other things come to mind for you when you think about like, influencers and these hot takes?

Will Gochnour: I mean, it’s, it’s kind of evolved, right? Like there was a period when interest rates were super low, that like every other video was some real estate acquisition. How to, how I built my Empire, empire on real estate. Those have those, have, those are backed off since interest rates went up. But that, that was always a fun one.

Will Gochnour: Yeah. 4 0 1 Ks are the worst are a scam. Uh, whole life insurance is something that everyone but permanent life insurance is something that if you don’t have, you’re an idiot. What else? My favorite one on the whole life ones or the permanent life insurance in general are like, they never say permanent life insurance. They always call it something different or they kind of talk around it like it’s this like. Insane strategy that no one’s ever

Will Gochnour: Yeah. It’s always a solution or a strategy and you have to, you have to do something to get more info on what it

Matt Mulcock: Exactly, exactly. Um, another kind of general one being, you know, just kind of a general theme of like, you could make all this money in x, y, z investment with no risk. You know, all this stuff that, that people say. Taylor, anything come to mind for you?

Taylor Sutterfield: It is to insert something with taxes, right? Do this, pay no taxes, do this, and you’ll save X amount on taxes if you’re not doing this with your tax return. You know you’re missing out on hundreds of thousands. You name it,

Matt Mulcock: yep.

Will Gochnour: Those are the best. ’cause you always see, look at the comments. You’re like, oh, this is smart. You just basically outed yourself for full blown tax evasion.

Matt Mulcock: It, it’s crazy if you ever, um, there’s some funny, there’s some funny videos online, like some pretty big influencers out there that will do like funny videos. Kind of like making fun of different things. So like, for example, Cody Co is one where like he’ll just like watch videos and clips of tiktoks or whatever and then just kind of make fun of him. He’s got a couple on fin influencers and they are unbelievably funny. Not even just his commentary, but just like watching them in batches of how ridiculous people are. it’s makes for some good entertainment for sure. So today we’re talking all, again, the whole world of influ, of influencers, um, kind of what makes them so compelling.the problems and the risk and kind of how to protect yourself from general advice. Taylor, this is something you’ve said a lot in past episodes around. The risk of taking advice for your personal situation, kind of in a general format. So thinking that people can, even, even us by the way, right? Like we acknowledge it. Like being able to give specific advice in a general format is, is impossible.

Taylor Sutterfield: Yeah, I’m, you know what? This is me trying to just get a famous quote out there. You know, if there’s anything I want, it’s just one quote to be attributed to my name. So, yeah, I, I think good general advice is horrible, specific advice. And so anytime you’re out there listening to. A influencer or social media or whatever it may be, like, even if in principle, the idea is solid, right?

Taylor Sutterfield: You have to be really, really careful when you apply it to your specific situation because you are very, very different than anybody. Your best friend, your neighbor, especially this person giving this TikTok advice.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. So true. And we’re gonna push that, we’re gonna push this Taylor original quote and principle. It’s like a T-shirt. It’s gotta be a t-shirt. So, um, yeah, I think you’re, you’re totally right and I think the world of, I think we’re just, it’s kind of crazy to think about because the Dentist Money Show has been going on now 10 years almost this, this fall. Um, but I think we’re just like, I truly do think,
Taylor: like, are.

Matt Mulcock: am I.

Taylor Sutterfield:  Is that a thing? Are you

Matt Mulcock: I don’t know.

Will Gochnour: This is spin zone right now.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Wait, what the heck? Are we all fin influencers? I’m not really sure.

Will Gochnour: well, there are good influencers. Yeah, like I think there are a lot of good influencers.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. Yeah. And I, and so we’re gonna talk about that today, where that’s gonna be part of our discussion is around, this is not a binary, like all thin influencers are bad

Will Gochnour: All TikTok advice is bad. There’s, there’s some good TikTok advice.

Matt Mulcock: Totally. And we’re gonna talk about that, of like how to basically use these, like how to put it in proper context, I think is the key. But what I was gonna say is I think, um, I truly believe we’re just scratching the surface of like the content economy. Uh, I really do. Like, I think we’re just kind of entering and like how, like we already see so much out there. But I, again, I think it’s just beginning. And so this is really critical to understand, With how much is out there, how inundated we are becoming with content and all these people out there, and how easy it is to get caught in these traps because someone is like super confident or charismatic and we kind of confuse that with quality or with with good advice.
Will: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: uh, anything else you wanna add to that guys?

Will Gochnour:  I was just gonna say on, on, like, kind of on the same lines of what Taylor was saying, where good general advice is not good. Usually good specific advice. I, I butchered your quote Taylor, so we’ll have to have you give it again, but, um, I, I, I think that my, kind of, my thoughts around it is. It’s not that advice you get on Instagram reels or TikTok is necessarily, I guess you say air quotes wrong. Most of the time I think it’s just incomplete and it’s because it’s such a six, it’s, it’s such a short time period there that you can only learn so much in a short time period. You can’t get enough information to then apply it to your life or how it actually affects you and your life. And so that’s my take on it, is it’s incomplete and if you take it for face value off a 62nd video, then it’s, it, it’s probably gonna be a bad decision for you.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I mean that’s a great point. Will, how many times have you guys received a message from a client? I get this pretty regularly. Uh, or a client will message you with a video from some so social media platform and we’ll say, what do you think about this? Like, should we do this? And first thing I’ll say is, I’m glad they’re at least coming to me. ’cause that means that they are trying to get context around it. But how often does that happen to you guys? And kind of what’s your response or thought around that type of interaction?

Will Gochnour: You wanna take it Taylor?

Taylor Sutterfield: Yeah, so I guess my initial reaction is always like. I, I, it shouldn’t be, but it’s kind of an eye roll. Like I know that you saw this while you were scrolling through your social media. It, you know, it was interesting. For 30 seconds you shot me an email and you never like, thought about it or put any effort into it after the fact. And now I have to spend, you know, however much time. Going into it, researching it, seeing what I, what are they actually saying, and then, then, does this actually apply to your situation? Which is fine. I think, Matt, you’ve, you had a good reaction where it’s like, oh, I’m glad they’re reaching out, which is really what I should be focused on first, but nine outta 10 times. I just feel like people do that without thinking. It’s just like a reaction. Oh, this, this sounds great. What do you think? And they just send it off. Right. And so my initial response is I was like, oh gosh, this 32nd hit is gonna cost me a good half hour to hour of my day. But, uh, that’s what I’m here for. So happy to do. So if you’re out there listening

Will Gochnour: usually, I think it’s more, I, I, I agree with that. It’s kinda like, I saw this, it sounds amazing. What am I, I, I love the clients who ask, like, gimme your thoughts on this, because I think they’re asking what, what’s the catch? I, I think so, like, I think for the most part, they’re not saying, let’s do this. They’re sending it to then say like, this can’t be what’s, yeah. This can’t be as good as they’re making it seem to, and, and you’re right Taylor, it does take some time to kind of think through how are we gonna respond to this? But usually it’s something along the lines of. This is not complete or accurate, and here’s why. And you know, it’s resolved pretty easily, but I to me it’s just, yes. If, if it’s a really good place to get ideas, it’s not a really good place to get. I, I would, I don’t know, actual knowledge, wisdom, right? Like, it, it,

Matt Mulcock: It’s entertainment, right? That’s what, yeah. And we’ll talk here in a moment about like why this happens and, and, and again, the empathy we have for people. ’cause we’re all humans. We, we all fall for the same things in some form or fashion in our life. So, um, and I’m with you Taylor, you know, sometimes I get these and I’m like, oh man, like I’m gonna have to spend some time on this and explain this. ’cause sometimes it’s something I’m like, I’ve never even heard of this crap. Like what is this? And I’ve gotta go do the research. But it, it does get easier. There’s a kind of a compounding effect the more you get these things to be able to respond to them, them properly. But I, I, let’s take a quick step back and talk about, coming back to, to Taylor’s quote Taylor, let’s hit the quote again ’cause we’re gonna start making t-shirts. What is it?

Taylor Sutterfield: Uh, good general advice is horrible specific advice.

Matt Mulcock: Love that. Okay, we’re getting a t-shirt made with Taylor’s face on it. so I think we take that a step further, right? Let’s talk about the risks, of this, right? If we’re saying general advice is horrible, specific advice, I agree with that. Um, and by the way, again, we are highlighting ourselves too, uh, saying that this, on this podcast, we are very education focused, and, but it is, it is impossible for us to give specific, specific advice to everyone listening to the show. And we, we call that out. I guess therein lies one of the inherent problems with the quote unquote bad influencers is they try to claim, they, they don’t acknowledge that. They’re not transparent about that truth, right? But let’s talk about the, the risks here, right? So if we’re, we’re all agreeing. General advice or good general advice is horrible specific advice. Like what are the risks that people, the dentists face, if they get this wrong, right? If they’re following the general advice and making it and trying to make it specific to their situation. The first thing that comes to mind for me is just the dollars and cents of it all. Like the worst case scenarios is that these can lead to massive monetary mistakes.

Matt Mulcock: We’re talking six, seven figure mistakes over your lifetime. Like that’s the first thing that comes to mind for me. Um, what comes to mind for you, if anything, of like what’s at stake here for dentists if they get this wrong?

Taylor Sutterfield: Well, I just think to, to your point, just like if you actually put the numbers in play, like one of my favorite things to combat people with when they say like, you know, you can’t put a. For example, right. Dave Ramsey gives a lot of good general advice, right? And I think he’s done a really amazing thing for a lot of people, right? But some of his things that he preaches just do not apply to Dennis. And you have to know, well, who’s the audience that this person is talking to? Right? When they’re talking generally, are they talking to you or are they talking to the general public? Right where the general public doesn’t have a thousand dollars in their bank account, where the general public has, you know, masses, massive amounts of credit card debt. And so specifically, like I get why the influencers or uh, Dave Ramsey has to speak in absolutes because if you’re talking about certain things to a wide audience, right? You have to be really careful what you say. And for example, if you are a Dave Ramsey and you’re saying debt is a bad thing, you should avoid debt at all costs, right? I can get why he says that. Because he comes across people all the time that go into bad consumer debt to pay for travel, to pay for Christmas, to buy things that they don’t necessarily need. But that is terrible specific advice for a dentist. Right. And when you have a dentist who, and this happens a lot, right? A dentist who may be a practice owner and has a lot of cash on hand and has the option to. Pay off debt, right? Let’s say it’s a mortgage or a practice loan, and we’re talking, you know, specifically with mortgage rates, what they’ve been over the last couple years, you’re gonna have a lot of clients with a sub 3% mortgage. And if they choose to take that money and pay down their house, you know, you’ll hear, you know, uh, you can’t put a number on what it, what it feels like to be debt free. Right. And my argument is, you can.

Matt Mulcock: Yes,

Taylor Sutterfield: can put a number and you should put a number, right? You should actually calculate what you are giving up, paying off that debt versus what the opportunity cost of doing something else.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. Yeah, such a good point. Will, do you have anything to add to that?
Will: Yeah. I mean specifically to that, I, I agree a hundred percent in, in the fact of dentists should, dentists are such unique financial profiles that, for the most part, we’ve seen this in our clients, they are targets of sales strategies in finances, right? Where they become these. High income earners that don’t have, you know, don’t have a ton of financial education background and end up getting targeted by, whether it’s insurance salesman or I don’t know, other private investment type people. And so again, I mean, in a vacuum, all of these things sound great. They all sound perfect, but once you apply them to your life and how it actually affects you and going all in on any of these strategies or it, it’s just risky to me. It’s the, like you said, Matt, the risk is there to say, Hey, I’m actually gonna pivot and do, you know, go all in on this real estate strategy because, uh, it’s this structure that I saw online that I can, you know, lead to more passive income and do all these things that I, I’m gonna be just printing money and it’s all, but, you know, in a vacuum it sounds great. In real life, it, it, there’s a lot of times there’s much more nuance and, and, uh, and complications.

Matt Mulcock: it’s so true and I love that you brought up Dave Ramsey because I think he fits into the, what we would consider, I think a general category of a good, a good influencer, generally speaking. Yeah, I think he’s good.

Taylor Sutterfield: I, I’d much rather client follow him than some of these other.

Matt Mulcock: a hundred percent, a hundred percent. I, I totally agree with that. I think he fits into that good category. However, as you guys have both pointed out, there’s some nuance to this and, um, you know, we’ve done some content around Dave Ramsey of how he doesn’t fully, he’s not speaking to dentists and I, I, I stand by that. I think both things can be true, that we can say Dave Ramsey is a good influencer if it’s in that bucket. He’s also an incredible mark marketer, and one of the core principles of marketing is be super opinionated and name your enemy. So he’s named his enemy, which is debt. He’s super opinionated. He’s borderline kind of a, an a-hole, let’s be honest. And I think that really opinionated, kind of like gregarious, um, really binary way of thinking. Is polarizing, and that’s what makes him worth $300 million that he’s worth today. Basically by giving some foundational debt is bad advice. Right. So I did, I just think there’s nuance to this and this is why we talk, and I love that again, this theme around good general advice is really bad, specific advice. And I’m, I’m so happy you brought Dave Ramsey up because he, he brings up this conversation of how nuanced this can become. Um, and, and he’s, again, he’s a good example there for every one of Dave Ramsey, uh, uh, Dave Ramsey. There’s a hundred thousand or more horrible influencers out there that are like super dangerous to listen to,

Taylor Sutterfield: Yeah,

Matt Mulcock: you know, if you do. So I’m really glad you.

Taylor Sutterfield: point earlier, Matt, like you said, a lot of times when you make these choices, right, or choose to act on these. Influencers or whatever they may say. If you’re not paying attention to the cost of that, it, it can cost you hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in net worth by the end of your career. Specifically with debt, right? If you handle debt improperly as a dentist, considering you’re gonna have several hundred thousand in student debt, probably a million dollar practice loan at a million dollar plus home. On top of that, a lot of times the million dollar plus practice real estate, we’re talking three to $5 million for an average dentist. And if you mismanage that or you take bad advice when it comes to that management, it will cost you hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in net worth difference. Just following one piece of advice of like pay off your debts as quickly as possible, right at all costs,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Will Gochnour: We’ve, we’ve seen that time and time again. I have a client who every time we talk, she’s like, I can’t believe I, all I did when I got outta school was try to pay off my student loans. I can’t believe I spent five years trying to pay off my student loans. She made a, a medium to small size dent in it, and then opened a practice. Her income kind of dropped, so she went back on just like an income deferral plan and the interest ac accrued again back to where it was. So she’s just like, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t even believe I spent years of my life. Kind of just spinning my wheels.

Matt Mulcock: Well, and you bring up an interesting point there Will, I’m really glad you told that story because I think a foundational principle to highlight in this moment would be the idea that the most important part of any strategy, whether it be debt, investing, tax, whatever, is having a strategy you can stick with. And so I think what you’re highlighting there when I hear that is it may not. It may, I mean it is, I mean she sounds like she regrets specifically going after her student loans, but. I’d almost argue in some ways when I hear that, and I want to hear your thoughts on this, knowing the situation is

Will Gochnour: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: one of the risks here is bouncing from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next, if you’re following these influencer type things. Because it’s just kind of like the idea of the weak, you know, what’s hot? Like you were just mentioning the very beginning of like where interest rates were low and, and when they popped out. Like kind of influencers kind of follow trends, right? And I think that can lead to this bouncing around. So would you, when you, when you, when we think about it in that context, would you say her biggest mistake was attacking her debt? Or was it more so She just couldn’t, she just didn’t stick with the strategy and then bounced around and then it ballooned again.

Will Gochnour: Yeah, I think, yeah, I think it was, she knew she wanted to open a practice. She didn’t know it was gonna win. And I think the default financial plan for a lot of dentists and people in general, when you don’t have a financial plan, the default is pay off debt, any extra income you have, I guess we just throw it at debt. ’cause I don’t really know what else to do with it. I know I’m supposed to invest and save and buy real estate and whatever, but it seems more complicated where debt that’s always, you know, the first easiest way to start. I guess digging out of a hole. Right? And she had a large debt balance and so I think she was like, I’m working as an associate. I’ve got a decent gig. Uh, I haven’t started her practice yet so I’m just gonna start chipping away at debt. She couldn’t see the future.

Will Gochnour: She didn’t know what was gonna happen. She didn’t know COVID was gonna hit and she was gonna take a couple of years to get her practice off the ground. She’s doing well now, but it took her a couple years to get her income back up to even where it wasn’t as an associate. And so she then had, you know, on the pay plan, the interest was still accruing and for a good chunk of time up until now even. And so yeah, interest piled back up on our loans and she’s like, it just feels like it was all for Naugh. And so, you know, I mean in hindsight is 2020 she going back, she probably would’ve got into practice ownership sooner. And we’re pretty big advocate for that is like the sooner you can get into practice ownership, the better. We always say like, you’re kind of on this path to grow your income and. If you work as an associate, yes, you’re building your skills, but then you kind of have to hit the reset button to start a practice most times.

Will Gochnour: And your income’s gonna take a little bit of a drop before the lower floor, higher ceiling, right? And you always say this, Matt, you’ve always said this is, there’s a time and a place to pay off your student loans. That a time and a place to pay off your debt. And usually early career isn’t the time and the place, it’s usually later career, right? Be so that you can use your money instead of putting it towards your debt, you can use your liquidity to do other things or, uh, you know, prepare yourself to be a business owner or buy other assets or things like that, so,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, we, we’ve said this many times, uh, throughout the years around debt and the, I think, misconception that dentists have that that debt is the, the number one indicator of, um, stress in, in your life where we actually have seen time and time and time again that that’s actually not true. Um, it’s actually liquidity. It comes before debt, and I’ve seen this so many times around. Trying to encouraging dentists, you know, clients to, uh, to say, let’s increase your optionality early and often by putting away money, building up your liquidity, make your minimum payments for your debt for a while, and let’s just see what happens. Let’s just see how you feel in a year. And it never, it, well, I should say it rarely fails that a dentist doesn’t come back and say, holy cow, it has completely changed my, my view of all of this when I, now I have some money in the bank. I’ve got some liquidity, even though the debt load is basically the same. So I, I’m glad you brought that up, will Taylor, anything else you’d add to this? Um, just around kind of the kind of what’s at stake here for following general advice? The, the risks the dentists face, by following influencers.

Taylor Sutterfield: Yeah. Well, and I think the only thing I wanted to add here is. You know, we, we’ve highlighted debt specifically. Right. And you could pick and insert so many other things, right. That fin influencers talk about. Right. They can talk about specific investments or tax strategies or whatever it may be.

Matt Mulcock: You just need the big three. I think debt, taxes and investing. I, I really do

Will Gochnour: crypto have its own? I think crypto can have its own thing. I guess that’s investment.

Taylor Sutterfield: Subcategory within investing. Um, and it always, it’s so funny, it’s like laughable at this point, how often it’s like these buy-ins or these investments or whatever the strategy is requires a hundred thousand of capital. It always feels like it’s a hundred grand. Like when I have a client come to me,

Matt Mulcock: round number.

Taylor Sutterfield:they need a hundred thousand dollars loan for a, and my client wouldn’t mind sharing that. It was a robot cinema business. And I was like, what’s a robot cinema business? And he’s like, I don’t know.

Matt Mulcock:A movie theater for robots.

Taylor Sutterfield: yeah, apparently it was a, a business where, they have a bunch of robotics and that’s what the capital was for, was to buy robots that then you could use in filming certain types of special effects. Right. So again, I, you hear a lot of different things, right? Uh, one was a Airbnb knockoff, right? Uh, you name it, like, there’s just so many things that people hear about, and it’s always a hundred grand, right? They always need a hundred grand. And then I get, and when you’re dealing with clients who, you know, produce over a million or 2 million, like a hundred thousand doesn’t sound like a lot, right? And so they’re always like, well, it’s only a hundred grand. Right. Even if it goes to waste, it’s only a hundred grand and my, with anything, right? With the debt with this, it’s like, well, you can calculate what a hundred grand will be for you down the road if you don’t do this. Right, and if you take a hundred grand and you invest it over 30 years and you get an eight to 10% rate of return, that a hundred grand is anywhere from a million to $1.7 million of net worth for you 30 years from now.

Matt Mulcock: Yep.

Taylor Sutterfield: So even though it’s just a hundred grand, right? It can have major, major implications on your net worth if you had just taken that a hundred grand and done something, I don’t wanna say safer, uh, but probably smarter, safer, more conservative, more predictable. Right? More dependable. so it, it’s crazy to me how often people just ignore the numbers and the math and just go on like blind faith that it’s gonna work out.

Matt Mulcock: What what’s crazy to me, Taylor, when you say that, and that’s such a good point, is. I had to laugh when you said that. ’cause I’m like, how crazy is it? ’cause I’ve had this so many times too, where a dentist will say, it’s just a hundred grand, it’s just 50 grand. It’s just this. But then they will freak out when the market’s down 2% in a week, you know? And you know, they’re down 10 grand in their portfolio or whatever. It, it just, it’s, and this will kind of lead us to our next section here of talking about like, kind of why this happens, the human psychology of it all. But I just think it’s so interesting how our brains work, how dentist brains work. I’ve had multiple situations where clients have had this like really flippant kind of cavalier attitude towards these private investments that they can’t explain. And then again, have these freakouts with the stock market. Like, will, have you heard this? Like, what are your thoughts on that? And have you, do you have examples of a, of a similar kind of, funny psychology you’ve had with clients in that, in that regard?

Will Gochnour: Yeah. It, it’s definitely, it, it’s always a little bit like, to me, a hundred grand feels like an insane amount of money at, maybe at the stage I am in my life. And you’re right, Taylor, like it’s an indi it’s a totally different game that we’re playing, but it does feel like some charisma and some excitement gets, I think that’s just the way our brains are, you know, wired to say yes to something that sounds exciting and something that seems like it’s gonna be a good return. This is why gambling is so prevalent. Right. And it’s, it’s something that everyone is super, I. Uh, I guess not everyone, but it is something that gets people going because there is a, a big, a pretty good reward if you get it right. And so a lot of these deals like this robot cinema, I’m sure there was some path to tripling your money in five years and, you know, getting acquired and going public and all of that. So the, and they’re always gonna have that story. Any type of private investment like this is gonna have that story. But it is funny how Matt, to your point, like it’s, it, it is, it should be apples to apples, but in their brain it’s not. It’s like, oh, you know, I can throw this away. I don’t need this. And Taylor, to your point, it this kind of, that, that amount of money, if you lose it, yeah. I, it’s not gonna probably ruin their retirement, but it could mean a heck of a lot of money later down the road if you don’t lose it.

Matt Mulcock: But, but this brings up another interesting principle. This actually comes from a boy Jake m shout out. Uh, he said this a long time ago and I’ve never forgotten it. Maybe another T-shirt. Who knows? But, uh, I love this where this kind of idea of if it’s too little to lose, it’s too little on a matter. And so like, if you win, right?So to this example, we’re using a hundred k as an example, which I agree is insane. If we’re saying that’s too little to really care if you lose. Um, but if it’s, uh, so lemme say that again. If it’s too little to care to lose, it’s too little to matter If you win, like, so meaning to will, you’re just your exact example there. Let’s say that this investment top end is gonna take a hundred thousand and it’s gonna triple on a year. Is that really gonna be like some life-changing thing?

Will Gochnour: No.

Matt Mulcock: No. So it is, it, it is like, what are we even doing? So you, if you’re saying like, oh, if I lose a hundred grand, who cares? It’s like, well, what is it gonna have to do to even be a life-changing thing? I’ve had some clients come to me and spend. A ton of time, energy, and stress about a $10,000 investment that I’m like, what is this gonna have to do for you to even like matter to your life?

Will Gochnour: Right.

Matt Mulcock: It a thousand x it, it just, it, it, it seems kind of ridiculous to even think for you to have life changing results on the upside, you’re gonna have to take life-changing results on the downside and nobody wants to do that. So you’re gonna put your $5 million portfolio in a robotics cinema like investment. No, you’re not.

Will Gochnour:  One comment, and I, I agree with you a hundred percent. I, one really common tweet from influencers or just people in general that you see a lot is the, if you would’ve invested a thousand dollars in Amazon 30 years ago, or if you would’ve invested a hundred dollars in Tesla, or a hundred dollars in Nvidia 16 years ago, you would have $400,000. And I, I think that is such dangerous, like it’s, it’s a dangerous tweet because that’s what gets this, you know, oh, I’m just gonna throw two, uh, two grand in Trump coin. If I lose it, it’s, you know, no big deal. But if it goes to the moon, I’m rich, or fart coin, or Dogecoin, or you name it, like all of

Matt Mulcock: fart coin?

Will Gochnour:  Oh yeah. It’s a, it is a hundred percent a thing.

Matt Mulcock: Whoa. Okay. I

Will Gochnour:  Oh, again, these are all the things where it’s like, okay, if it doubles or triples, you go in from two grand to four grand or six grand. Big whoop. You should have, yeah, that’s great. But I, I think there’s so many people trying to hit these home runs of, oh, I should have bought Bitcoin when, you know, it was the price of two pizzas and now that would’ve been $7 million for me or something.

Matt Mulcock: I, I hate this take so much and I know what you’re saying and it’s so disingenuous. I have thoughts on it, but I want to get Taylor back in here if you’ve got thoughts on that.

Taylor Sutterfield: Well, I think, Matt, you alluded to this earlier, like the scary part with any of these things honestly is that it works out for ’em. Right. Because if it works out for ’em once, it’s just reinforcing bad behavior and the behavior is this more scary thing than the actual investment itself to me. Right. And that’s, that’s the scary thing with influencers, with TikTok advice. It’s, I mean, you, you said this earlier, Matt, it’s jumping from one thing to the next. It’s moving your direction and investing in this and then this, and then you know, changing your strategy completely and following whatever, whatever the winds of change, throw your way. Right? And if you look at anything when it comes to building wealth, the worst thing that you can do is bounce around strategies. I. What you need to do is create a sustainable model that can last you decades because there’s going to be a lot of quote unquote winds of change along the way, and you have to weather a lot of storms within your investment portfolios to be able to actually generate and build wealth within them. Right, and the behavior is the scary part. The scary part is they do follow and fall for one of these things and it works out and it gives ’em a false sense of confidence where they’re willing to keep trying this and keep trying this because, well, I made it big to your point, will of gambling like it worked out. Right. I

Will Gochnour: Well, it’s like hitting a hole in one on your first swing ever of hitting a golf ball, and then you’re gonna spend the rest of your lifechasing another hole in one, probably dumping money into like courses and lessons and trying to get the hole in one back. Right. And so, yeah. I’m with you.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, it’s so true. I think that the enemy of long-term wealth is the early success and bad decisions. Right. Just luck. It’s early luck. It’s what you’re saying, Taylor, and I love that analogy. Will, you’re gonna be let spend the rest of your life chasing that. and I, I, we talked about this in one of our meetings recently, and I quoted our friend, uh, Daniel, Dr. Daniel Crosby, uh, who says he wrote in one of his books, I think it was, the Laws of Wealth, who, who he said, you can be right and still be a moron if, and I love that. I think about that all the time, truly because it’s like, it’s not about the outcome, it’s about the decision. And can you, can you replicate this time and time and time again? Not can you get lucky once? Can you build a sustainable strategy for the rest of your life to build wealth around this? And if you put that framework to whatever investment you’re thinking about. I think it helps you eliminate a lot of these, a lot of these big mistakes. the other thing really quick will, I wanted to, to, to respond to your comment about, and I I, I, I loved your take. I hate that respone or the thing people put out there of this whole, like, if you would’ve just done this back in, you know, back in the day or Nvidia or Apple, whatever, what they never tell you or show you is what you would’ve had to sustain, like the rollercoaster you would’ve had to live through.

Matt Mulcock: Just take Nvidia as a quick example because I don’t have the data in front of me, but I think it was 2022. I think you can correct me if I’m wrong. You can yell at me online or something. Uh, I think it was 2022. Nvidia had an 80% drop just in 2022 in one year. So you look at the history of Apple from like the last 30 years, it is like multiple 30, 40% drops. So it’s super easy to look and say, oh, look at this. But it’s like, who in their right mind would’ve ever actually stuck that out? Yes, you would’ve been super wealthy if you did, but it’s so disingenuous to just get to the finish line and be like, yeah, look, if you would’ve just done this, you would be here. It’s, it’s just, again, I, I, I hate those little ploys people, people,

Will Gochnour: Prevalent Yeah. But, and I think it trains people. Go ahead, Taylor.

Taylor Sutterfield: I was gonna say, the funny thing about those people that say this is none of them actually did the thing that they’re

Matt Mulcock: No,

Taylor Sutterfield: Because if they had, they wouldn’t be looking for money on TikTok and trying to generate ad revenue, right? They’d be set. Right. They wouldn’t be out here on TikTok saying, Hey, you put a thousand dollars in apples 30 years ago.

Taylor Sutterfield: ’cause none of ’em did that. Right? So they’re out here slinging advice that they can’t follow.

Matt Mulcock: Taylor, I’m so glad you brought that up. We could just like, literally mic drop it here. You’re suppo. Let’s just take day trading as an example. First of all, the data supports this. no one’s good at day trading basically. And I promise you, the ones that are, are not selling you a course about it. Guess what they’re doing? Getting rich day trading. Like they’re not teaching you how to do it. They’re making money off of telling you they’re good at it. They’re, but they’re not actually a good day trader.

Will Gochnour:  Anyone who sells a course making money has anyone who sells a course that teaches you how to make money in some way, shape, or form, feels disingenuous because they should just be out doing the thing that they’re teaching people and making money.

Matt Mulcock: I’ve said this before, guess what their passive income is? You. It’s you. It’s, it is selling the course to you. So I, I totally agree. There’s like this inherent conflict of interest that is so bad when it comes to these people claiming they’ve made all this money doing x, y, or Z thing, and it’s like, well then why are you trying to sell me a course about it? Why aren’t you just off making a money or making money sitting in a hot tub in Tahiti somewhere? let’s, let’s jump to this next part. We kind of alluded to this, but I think kind of, to, I want to emphasize the empathy we have. Like, not sitting up here, sitting here, like lecturing people saying, you’re an idiot.

Matt Mulcock: Like we, we understand this, right? We totally understand this. This is human psychology. This is our human brain. All of us working against us. We’ve all in some form or fashion, fallen prey to this what we’ll call, call kind of like shortcut mentality. I think in some, in some fashion. We don’t have to call anyone out here, but I think we probably all have some example of like how we fallen prey to this. I, I’ll admit you guys don’t have to. a couple of years ago I decided to put money in, uh, to a private investment. I had a, connection to this, this company through a friend. And, I put money into it. Uh, am I ever gonna see money? I had to put a decent amount of money into this thing. Off of a, pretty much, if you look back on it now, being like, oh, that sounds like it could be a good idea.

Matt Mulcock: And that was it. So I fully admit I’m, I’m, I’m willing to be vulnerable that I did that and, uh, am I gonna see money back from this? Absolutely not. If I were to run the growth projections on that money, if I were to just put it in the market over the last, I think it was probably five years ago I did this, I don’t even wanna know, I don’t even wanna know what I’d be sitting on right now. It would be depressing. But I want to emphasize that this is human nature. That this is something that we’re, we, we have empathy for super busy dentists who are, who are very easily caught up in like, the shortcut. I think that’s just kind of how our brains work. I, I actually, like you can tell, I’m a huge fan of our friend Daniel Crosby, another part of one of his books he writes, um, that our brain consists of about two to 3% of our body mass, but takes up 25 to 30% of our energy. Every day. So what he’s highlighting there, the reason he brings that up in his book is our brains are constantly looking for shortcuts, constantly looking for ways to shut down and ways to conserve energy. And I think that helps kind of explain the actual, like, physiology of this, of why we are giving into these shortcuts. Um, I’ll stop there for, for a moment and get, get your guys thoughts on any of that.

Taylor Sutterfield: Yeah, I, sorry, I don’t know if there’s a delay there. Um, I always remember back to my first ever meeting, it was my first training I had as a financial advisor. Um, my mentor at the time sat us down and he asked everybody in the room, do you know what the long-term average of the s and p 500 was? Right. And a bunch of people put out guesses.Someone said 10 and he is like, yeah, it’s 10%, right? And then he said, do you know what the long-term average of the average investor in the s and p 500 has gotten? Right? And we all said 10%, right? 8%, 9%. And he was like 4% And I think this just highlights, you know, I always thought going into this industry that my job before I knew anything was to beat the market.
Or as these influencers or other people out there is like, you gimme your money and I’m gonna do something I. Impressive. Or I’m gonna do something that no one else knows about and I’m gonna double triple your money, or I’m gonna, you know, have these amazing returns. And it always stuck with me. And he said, Hey, your job is never to beat the market, right?

Taylor Sutterfield: Your job is to prevent people from getting that 4% return when they’re invested in something. Right? He said, your job is to get people to get market returns because. It is so hard for everybody, right? Ourselves included as advisors to ignore all of the noise and all of the different things that are happening around us and stay the course. Right? And that’s just like, reminds me so much of what you were saying, Matt is like. It. We really, our goal here, and the reason why we have so much compassion for our clients and people we talk to is because it is hard and there are so many things pulling your time and attention. You jump on your phone and you have TikTok just screaming at you with all these different things. It is so hard to ignore that noise and consistently make smart financial decisions. And as advisors, that’s all we’re trying to do with our clients, right, is help them along that way.

Matt Mulcock: So true. Yeah. Will Go ahead.

Will Gochnour: I love it. We have a quote in our investment kind of presentation that we go through with new clients where says, investing should be more like watching paint dryer, grass grow. If you want excitement, take 800 bucks and go to Las Vegas, and I. kind of a, I mean, we are advocates for that. there is a little bit of like, you’re going to get pitched, you’re going to see tweets about stocks that are going off, or cryptos that are going off, and you’re gonna, probably, human nature is gonna say like, man, you’re gonna have fomo. You are like, that’s just human nature. That there’s no one in the world who would be like, ah, like maybe you, maybe you are like, ah, I don’t need that. But maybe there is a little piece of your mind that’s like, oh, admit It would’ve been sweet to like double my money pretty quick. No, why would you not want that?

Matt Mulcock: Of course

Will Gochnour: So, for sure. So from our perspective as advisors, knowing that that’s gonna be the case. We do, I mean, to Jake’s point, if it’s too little to to care about, then it’s probably too little to matter. But that’s fine. If it scratches a itch, then in my opinion, do it. If you need to take a thousand bucks and throw it at something that might. Triple do it and buy yourself some new golf clubs or something, right? Like, to me it’s, it that is a, a solution here for the, the inevitable in a way where there are gonna be things that come to you. We gotta avoid the big mistakes that, like Taylor said, we gotta avoid the big ones. We gotta avoid the a hundred grands that just fly off into thin air, right? Like, it’s okay to scratch the itch and maybe there is a, a psychological benefit to scratching the itch with something that, you know, would be a, a smart amount of money to scratch this itch with.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, that’s a really good point. Will, it’s, it’s avoiding the big mistakes here and I love that you’re highlighting this context of, I think we’ve all had situations. I know we have in our conversations we’ve had about clients, we’ve all had situations, I’ll speak for myself personally, where I’ve told the client, Hey, if this is something that you need to protect yourself from, like taking a huge risk, meaning if, if we need to carve off a piece and build it within kind of guidelines and rules of your. Overall kinda long-term wealth plan, if this is gonna help kind of alleviate you taking that big risk, like let’s do it to your point Will, if it’s gonna scratch that itch, let’s do it. And you know, I’ve had some clients, I’m like, let’s set up a fun play account and we carve out a certain amount of money that you can go play with and, and kind of it’s, I think it’s no different than if you think of like your cash flow and savings strategy. Savings plans, right? And it’s like once you have your savings kind of set up on automatic system and you’ve got extra cash left over, go wild. Go do whatever you want with it. I think that can really help psychologically and emotionally and really be a protective kind of mechanism around making those, really big mistakes.

Matt Mulcock: But again, the one thing I think we really want to emphasize here is that we truly do understand, we truly do have empathy for people. Because you also think about the environment we live in, where. No one’s out there. For the most part, I don’t think. This is why it’s so hard to do what we do as far as in regards to like sell, kind of quote unquote selling what we do, which is like selling good behavior, right? I don’t know if many people are out there being like, Hey guys, just stick to this for the next 30 years. Just get market. Like no one’s building a massive following on that, on TikTok,

Will Gochnour: No.

Matt Mulcock: right? Like it’s, we are, we are over-indexing on hot takes, over humility, and, and we’re, we’re over-indexing on like these kind of pipe dream returns over just good behavior. So we, we get that it’s a really tough environment to live in. Um, with Instagram and TikTok and all, and YouTube and all these things that are out there. Not to mention our brains are constantly working against us, to want the shortcuts. let’s, let’s wrap up here guys. I think to give kind of like a, so what, so like what do we do?

Matt Mulcock: We’ve highlighted the problems we’ve highlighted. The environment we live in. Um, and then how this is really difficult, I think hopefully a takeaway we can offer is, you know, a few things to be thinking about, to kind of arm yourself against, uh, against this kind of stuff, against influencers and hopefully being able to just take a step further in, adding a little bit more nuance before you just take advice and not, and not think about it.

Matt Mulcock: So, I think a, a really easy thing and I, I’ll kind of just go one by one of the things that we’ve put together and then we can kind of just talk, talk about ’em really briefly. I think number one is probably, to me, I think probably the most obvious of like, what to do instead, which would be, you know, first number one, vet the source.

Matt Mulcock: Kind of like, where is this coming from? I think that’s a first question to ask is this per, who is this person? What is their motivation? What is their background? What are their incentives? Uh, what are

Taylor Sutterfield: Who, who is their, who is their audience? Right? Who are they speaking to? Right. so I

Will Gochnour: they selling a product?

Taylor Sutterfield: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. What’s the, what are the thing they’re trying to get you to do? Right? So at the end of this episode, like, we’re gonna sell a whole life policy, obviously. So, so, you know. No, but I, I just think, again, vetting the source is a, probably a pretty obvious thing. kind of along with that I already mentioned, like following the incentives, you guys just hit that. What are they selling? What are they incentivized, what do they get out of me? Listening to them, I think is a, is a big thing to be thinking about. Anything else you guys would add there?

Will Gochnour: No, I, I mean, one question and, and I think this will be our next topic, but the third one is ask better questions before taking action. I, I, one, one question that I would always ask is like, what’s the catch? Anytime you hear something that sounds too good to be true. It probably is. So ask what the catch is and then do some research on what the catch is and try to figure it out rather than just blindly trusting that it’s, it’s prob, you know, again, too good to be true.

Will Gochnour: It probably is. So.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. So true. And I think just, just ask better questions before taking action. This gets to like the specifics of an investment. Like Taylor, you’re bringing up that example earlier of the robotic cinema. Still don’t really know what that is. but I think that like even knowing what questions to ask, so having resources, people in your corner to like vet a specific strategy and ask the right questions. It’s, it’s, you know, the, the questions are far more important in, in most cases, than even the answers. It’s like, are you asking the right questions to be able to help you determine if this is the right move for you? So Taylor, anything you’d add to that?

Taylor Sutterfield: No, I, I just think, you know, if you can’t explain the investment yourself right to someone and, and if you can’t explain it to a fifth grader and they can’t understand it, then you probably need to ask more questions until you can. Like, and that’s the thing with any type of investment is you need to understand it well enough that it’s so easy for you to explain that a fifth grader could, understand what it is.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. Love that. I think that’s a really good principle to follow. Uh, another thing I want to add here, just a couple more things kind of like this. What do we do? Um, I think this concept of kind of know where you are on the spectrum or on the scale of, of whatever domain we’re talking about. So we mentioned this a while back, but there’s kind of this principle I often think about when it comes to, again, any domain. We talk about money, you talk about fitness, you talk about business. Yeah, every one of us is on kind of an invisible scale or spectrum. So an example I’ll use, and I’ve, again, I’ve used this before, is if I am 50 pounds overweight and I haven’t been to the gym in five years, why would I care what Chris Hemsworth’s supplement routine is? Like, he’s, I’m nowhere even close to where he is on the spectrum or this scale of advice. But so many times we have this like misalignment of like where we are in our life, or again, on this scale of money, business, whatever, fitness, but we’re taking advice or seeking advice from a source, from someone who is far and away in a different level than us. And the gap is so wide that there’s about a thousand steps you should be following. Using the Chris Hendrick example, if the goal is to look like Chris Hemsworth, there’s about a thousand steps between where. this hypothetical person is, that’s 50 pounds overweight. And we’re Chris Hems with this. So like his supplements are like level 1000. You’re like at level one.

Will Gochnour: Right

Matt Mulcock: Does that concept make sense? What are your thoughts on

Will Gochnour: a hundred percent. I mean, we have, I, I have had clients that are barely even able to like fund their IRAs for the year and they’re coming to me with like, I gotta get into this, this fund. I gotta get into this crypto investment that my buddy’s doing. And it’s like, man, we gotta get started on like the 20% savings rate before we can get to that point. We have to establish the fundamentals. You gotta, like you said, you have to be eating healthy and working out before the supplements are gonna make a difference. So, you know that that’s my point. That’s a great point. Is. Yeah, start with, you gotta start with the fundamentals. The guys that are, you know, maybe throwing around a hundred grand. Maybe you are at a point in the spectrum where you’ve got some extra money, but it doesn’t mean you still should make the decision. and I, I. think it to, just to echo this, will, like, you need to have systems in place first, right before you can. Go for those home run dollars before you can. As you guys mentioned, scratch that itch, right? And if you are going to scratch the itch, you need to have systems in place around that itch.

Taylor Sutterfield: You can’t just go buck wild and do whatever you want because you have some systems in place, right? You need to make sure that you’re very healthy. And then you put, just like if you’re gonna go to a casino, right, that you put limits on yourself, where you walk away, if you know for whatever reason it, it gets too big or, or. You know, the loss is too great or whatever it may be. So you need to be maxing out your Roth IRAs and your 4 0 1 Ks and have consistent brokerage drafts and achieving a 20% savings before we’re scratching that itch to do all of the other like fun things that you hear about on TikTok through your friends and neighbors, through your best friend, right?

Matt Mulcock: Did, did you just say Tic-Tac?

Taylor Sutterfield: I probably did.

Matt Mulcock: Also, we keep saying this is probably gonna get edited out from our marketing team. They’re gonna hate this so much, but we keep saying he’s got Tic-Tacs there. Uh, we keep saying, scratch that itch. I’m just gonna say it. I know I’m nearing 40 when you keep saying this. And I’m like, all I want is a good back scratch. Like it’s a top three thing in life is just a good back

Will Gochnour: Or a head scratch. A

Matt Mulcock: a nice head scratch, come on. Right. That some of the young people in our office make fun of me, chip and Justin and some of the older dudes, like they’ll walk by and I’m just like, kind of rubbing my back up against a back a, a wall like I’m blue from Jungle Book.

Matt Mulcock: We keep saying back scratch, I’m like, oh, that’s what I need right now. Um, so no, that’s a, that’s a great point, Taylor. And I think the last couple things we’ll just hit here. You’ve already alluded to, we’ve already alluded to this a lot, but just sticking to timeless principles, like things that work, a quote that comes to mind that we’ve alluded to a bunch over the, you know, over the months and years of this, um, is a James clear quote.

Matt Mulcock: I love and I, this is constantly running through my mind, which is 90% of success is doing the simple and obvious for an uncommon amount of time. It’s so, it, it’s will, it’s what you said earlier, it’s, it’s boring. It’s not super exciting. Like find your fun outside of your systems and, and strategies for building wealth. Like, it, it shouldn’t be fun, right? So, uh, I just think sticking to those timeless principles, focusing on the things you can control, uh, you know, the boring, those boring principles beat the viral takes online. Probably a thousand out of a thousand times. If it’s viral, it’s probably not a, it’s probably not based in reality or these, these core principles.

Matt Mulcock: And then the last thing I’ll say, I think we’ll kind of wrap up with this, you know, get you guys’ thoughts on this. This kind of last comment here around kind of what to do is, again, coming back to this theme of like being empathetic and saying that we’re not saying all influencers are bad. Don’t ever listen to anything online. I mean, we joke, but like, I guess we are kind of in this space we of like, quote unquote financial influencers, uh, in some form or fashion. So I’d like to think we’re on the, kind of like, on the good side of this, hopefully, but there’s, I think the key here is seeking ideas to then take further and, and vet rather than like step-by-step instructions. I think that’s probably the distinction I’d make. I. I want to get your guys’ thoughts of like, the general advice can be for ideas and, and thinking about things of like, you know, kind of going a direction to start looking into further, but not necessarily like, oh, I gotta do this step by step.

Will Gochnour: How many, how many movies have you seen where the trailer’s like, looks really good and then the movie’s just completely horrible.

Matt Mulcock: That’s a great point. So many.

Will Gochnour: I, I think that’s a pretty good analogy. Like treat the, treat the TikTok or the whatever the, the content that you’re consuming. Like a, like the trailer. And then you gotta go watch the, you gotta go see the movie. You gotta like, think about what the movie’s like, is it gonna end horribly or is it gonna be a really good movie and, and do the extra research to actually get past just watching the trailer.

Matt Mulcock: Yep, Yeah, and it’s so tough because it’s like what’s easier watching a 32nd TikTok video or listening to a 50 minute podcast episode? Yep. No, that, I mean, that comes back to the psychology, our, our brains. We want the quick, we want the quick, easy, painless solution. And we think it’s the same thing, but it’s not. You gotta, you gotta do the work if you want the results. At least it’s sustainable results. Uh, guys, this is great. Any other final thoughts that you guys want to add? Any final uh, influence or words of wisdom you’d share with the audience? I mean this, this may be a hot take, but I think just avoiding social media as much as possible as a whole is pretty good. Pretty Totally with you. I’m, I’m pretty anti-social media myself, but I’m an old man now. Will, what about you?

Will Gochnour: Yeah. I mean, I, I agree with that to an extent, but I also think like, just use your brain. I don’t know. Think, think through stuff. Ask second opinions before making decisions. Talk through it with either your advisor or somebody else in your life that you trust. Um, and again, a plug for an advisor is have, have a sounding board for a lot of these decisions.Right. I think there are a lot of good, I think there, I truthfully think there can be good advice on social media. Like you can, How many people learn how to make sourdough during the pandemic and how many people like, I. you know, I, I follow a ton of Blackstone. I have a Blackstone like cooking grill griddle thing, and I follow a ton of like, people that make food on Blackstone. That’s great because then I can learn how to do it and it teaches me, and I’m inspired to like, make cool dinners on it. But, you know, I think there’s, it’s, it’s not apples to apples with how to cook a steak on a Blackstone and how to, get the right investment return on something. So,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I think the best description I’ve ever heard about, uh, social media comes from Brene Brown when she says that social media is like a fire. It either can warm your home or burn your house down. It’s all how you use it. It’s a tool. And will, I love that you just highlighted those things. Like there’s so many positive things that can come out of this. I alluded to this on a 2 cent show with Robbie of like our perspec like our perspective on social media and its quality and efficacy in our society totally comes from where you live. Like I think in America we have a general negative take on it where like someone like Robbie who shared his view, um, coming from Lebanon, completely different situation. He’s like, social media is the best thing to ever happen to the world. It’s like literally been the tool for like freeing populations of people against like total interior and government. So we’re going a whole different road. But I, I do agree that Taylor, I’m with you personally in my life. Like I pretty much stay mostly away from social media, but I also don’t want it to just be don’t use it.

Matt Mulcock: That’s the answer. It’s just, I think maybe have some more intention behind it. Will, I love what you’re saying, like get a second opinion, ask the right questions, have a sounding board. Just give a little bit of thought. If, if you’re sitting here watching a 32nd video and you think you’re gonna upend your entire strategy after a 32nd TikTok, you might want to second guess some things.

Will Gochnour: Yep.

Matt Mulcock: Um, okay guys, great conversation. Really appreciate it. Um, so I guess the final thing is our, I don’t know if we’re influencers or not. If we fall into that category, maybe

Taylor Sutterfield: you, Matt, I think you made it Matt. I still think I’m, you know, will, will and I are on the up and up on.

Matt Mulcock: I’ve made the sad-leberty. I’ve made the sad-leberty list. I will tell you quick, quick story here. We were in Arizona, Ryan and I, for, for an event, and uh, we did at the same time, there was a spear course going on. We were not there for that. But there was a spear course with tons of dentists around at this resort. We were at dinner one night and two dentists come up to us out of nowhere and they were like, Hey, like, are you Matt and Ryan? Like, anyway, we sat there and chatted with, it was like a very weird experience. It, it did make me feel like a sad liberty. I think at that point, I think I’ve officially made the sad liberty list.

Matt Mulcock: Um, but either way, whether we’re influencers or not, we do love financial education. That is the core of what we do, uh, is education and, , hopefully again, influencing in a positive way, the dental community, it’s a huge focus of ours. So with that, one of the ways we do that is by speaking all over the country. We speak at events, we speak at study clubs. Um, if you’re out there listening and you’re thinking. We have a study club. We bring in speakers. We would love to have someone in to talk about things like finances, investing and, and, and money. Anything along these topics, we would love to, uh, to come out and speak at your study club.

Matt Mulcock: So you can go to dentist advisors.com/learn and get more information there and sign up if you want us to come out and, and speak at your event. Uh, and then last thing I’ll say is if you find this episode helpful, if you’re listening to this and thinking, man, one of my dental buddies from school needs to hear this, uh, we’d love for you to share the episode, uh, with, with a friend.

Matt Mulcock: For now though, will and Taylor, thanks for being here and sharing your, uh, influencer knowledge and wisdom. Everyone. Thank you for listening and, uh, till next time, bye-bye.