The First Financial Question We Ask Every Dentist – Part 2 – Episode #553

Debt can evoke a range of emotions—how do you feel about yours? In this episode of the Dentist Money Show, Matt, Will, Jake, and Victoria continue discussing the money questions they ask every dentist. In part 2 of the discussion, they dive into the psychology of debt and explore how feelings and debt tolerance can influence important investment decisions. 

Related Readings

10 Questions a Dentist Should Ask Before Hiring a Financial Advisor

Living Your Rich Life

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Podcast Transcript

 

Matt Mulcock: Welcome back everybody another panel. We love panels. We got victoria. We got jake. We got will we got me Here for a part two, if you, the panel posse,

Victoria Ferguson: Panel posse is out.

Matt Mulcock: it’s not out, it’s in, it’s very

Will Gochnour: Some miracle, Jake and I and Victoria all got invited back for part two of

Matt Mulcock: Yes, they made it.

Victoria Ferguson: Get cut.

Matt Mulcock: No one got cut. I feel like everyone did an adequate job. And so we’re, so we’re all back. so we wanted to do a part two. if you, the first one’s already come out, hopefully you’ve listened and hopefully it was helpful of our discovery kind of call, discovery questions.

So if you haven’t listened to that part, I guess I’ll just give a quick summary again of what this is. And we’d encourage you to go back and listen to part one. But, when a client comes on board with Dennis advisors, this is the first kind of engagement, the first interaction you have with your advisor, what we internally call the discovery call.

to clients. It’s the way we describe it is really get to know you call and we just want to understand the why behind your money decisions. what concerns you have. What are your goals? you know, really the qualitative aspect of your financial life. The stuff that really makes. You unique everything else on the spreadsheet is pretty straightforward, and kind of table stakes.

So this is the stuff that we think makes you unique and really makes it, I’ll say this, like makes us unique in regards to us actually taking the time to have these discussions. So we wanted to share this with the dental community and really just put this out there and say, These are questions that you should be asking yourself, whether you’re working with an advisor, you’re working with us or you’re not.

These are questions you should be really engaging in and thinking about. So let’s jump in. I guess I’ll stop there. Anything else you guys want to add to. Any of that?

Victoria Ferguson: You got it.

Matt Mulcock: Okay. Oh my gosh. My intro was nailed that intro. Let’s jump in, to, to part two. So next question we want to hit, or that we, we talk to people about would be, some form or fashion of how do you make decisions around money? I love this question. Tell me what you guys, what, what comes to mind for this?

Will Gochnour: I’ll say that I think this is a question that I don’t think anyone thinks about like a decision making process around money because I think most of the time it’s pretty impulsive. if you don’t have a plan and you’re not organized and you can’t see your big picture in one place and know how much cash you have and how much liquidity you have and how much investment, maybe.

what you’re spending, what you’re saving. It’s just impulsive, whatever feels right. I think Ryan maybe coined random acts of finance. that’s what a lot of, I think people who don’t have a financial plan fall into is just a random, does my brother in law have a pretty cool startup going? Yeah, let’s make it happen.

Let’s put some money over there. Right. so I think that’s important to just expose. I truthfully, whenever I’ve asked this question, I haven’t had a lot of like, Detailed answers. It’s mostly like, I don’t know. I, I’ve never even thought about that, but I think it’s a good thing to highlight to say we’re going to put in place a process and the steps to make decisions and smart decisions with your money.

Matt Mulcock: I love that. Will, I think one of the most underrated and things that’s a concept that people don’t think about when it comes to like, Money, or maybe just life in general is the idea of awareness. And what you’re saying right now is when you get, you ask this question and you get the response of like, holy cow, I’ve never even thought about that.

Like, I kind of love that answer because I think creating awareness in your life around anything, you’re trying to improve money, health, relationships, whatever, I think you have to ask questions like this or think about questions like this, because. like the step one of any, of trying to improve anything in your life as aware as creating awareness around it.

So this question to me of maybe all the questions is like the ultimate. Bringing that to your forefront of your mind of like, Holy cow. I don’t have a process for making decisions. Like I need to think about that.

Victoria Ferguson: Yeah,

I agree with it. I think a lot of people have never thought about this because you, you make decisions around your finances every single day. You know, whether that’s getting a bowl of Chipotle, Matt, or

Matt Mulcock: Why are you calling me out? Brings a lot of joy to my life.

Victoria Ferguson: I know, wouldn’t you want to be called out for something

Matt Mulcock: I would actually, I’m very proud of that. Yes.

Victoria Ferguson: you make a lot of decisions around your money every single day. and then with dentists, they make very big financial decisions and it should, theoretically, you probably do have the same process. You just don’t really know what it is.

regardless of like size of. And gravity of the decision. Right. So a lot of people have no idea. And I think oftentimes arrive at the answer of it’s probably fine.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Victoria Ferguson: You know, they’re like just back of the napkin type of finances and whatnot. So I think the danger of that is, just not feeling very confident around your money decisions, regardless if it was a good decision or not.

Right. And then you kind of. And that compounds, and then you start to feel just really anxious about if this was right or wrong. but the fact is if you have a process and you can stick with it and you have awareness, you can feel good about money regardless of if you’re just getting started or all the way at retirement.

Jake Elm: I think there’s kind of two main factors that come into play when you’re trying to make good financial decisions or have a process, right? One of the things that we do when we have a new client come on board, apart from this qualitative stuff that we’re doing right now is we do want to get to know their numbers, right?

We’ve kind of, that’s something we want to do. We want to get organized. Yeah. I think being organized is the not very cool, not very sexy or fun part of making good financial decisions, but it’s really important. And so that’s one thing we want to do first, right? Like let’s get to know what’s actually going on in your life before making this big decision.

Let’s look at your cashflow. Let’s look at your balance sheet. Let’s see how much liquidity you have, how much debt you have, how much you’re saving, et cetera. So we want to get all of that in place. But then to this conversation that we’ve been having on this podcast and on the last podcast, We also want to know about your goals, right?

Like what are you wanting to do? What do you want to get out of life? How does this impact you? Right? One of the questions that I like asking when someone has a big financial question, like I’m buying a house or I’m doing this investment is just to keep digging into the why, right? It’s like, why are you doing this?

What are you wanting out of this? What’s your goals? Sometimes we just get caught up in just doing things because our neighbor’s doing it, or this seems like the conventional financial wisdom to do this. And anyway, I just wanted to highlight. There are those two parts. There’s a qualitative kind of mushy gushy side of making financial decisions.

And then there’s the spreadsheet answer of what to do. And in order to have, they have to be organized. And I think a good process on making good financial decisions is blending the two together, right? It’s like, Hey, let’s look at the numbers together and then let’s look at how does this make sense for you at this time in your life?

And yeah, just like you guys have all talked about, I think that’s an awesome way, just having an accountability partner and going through all that stuff. You’ll make a lot better and financial decisions that I feel like you’re more comfortable with going through an official process rather than just, I think this sounds good or this might make sense.

Victoria Ferguson: To kind of piggyback off that, I wonder how expensive it is to not have a process, right? Like how many decisions did you make that you probably shouldn’t have made and you don’t feel good about just because you didn’t have a process and just kind of some way to organize it.

Matt Mulcock: To that point, Victoria, that that’s why truly, that’s why it’s so hard. I just had a conversation today. Uh, with a dentist and his wife, who we had a consultation and it’s so hard to answer that question of like, can you quantify the value of an advisor? And it’s

Victoria Ferguson: Hmm.

Matt Mulcock: or sometimes we get this question of like, you know, are the dentists who have worked with you for years, which by the way, dentists advisors, we still have the very, very first dentist we’ve ever worked with, which is kind of crazy.

but we get this question a lot of like, Are they better off working with you than if they wouldn’t have? And it’s like, I can’t prove that counterfactual it’s really hard to prove it. But Victoria, what you’re alluding to. Is like, how many poor decisions and how much money would you actually, would it cost you with mistakes or boredom or status chasing or whatever it is.

If you don’t have the accountability, it’s hard to prove that, but it’s like, it makes sense in concept, but I can’t show you a spreadsheet and be like, Oh, yeah, here’s how much accountability saves you. I

Victoria Ferguson: yeah.

Will Gochnour: to Jake’s point to like, you need an accountability partner. It doesn’t have to be a financial advisor. I think to make good decisions, you need to have the right team. Like you haven’t got to have some sort of a team, somebody you can bounce ideas off of somebody you can.

Maybe take a different angle than what you’re looking at. We have clients who are, you know, maybe newer dentists that are trying to buy practices all the time. Like we have, I think one of the main things we talk dentists into in a way is like, Hey, you should probably try to be a practice owner at some point in your career if you’ve, if you want to, right.

but your income potential is so much higher. I have clients who send me just like they’re on this list of like practices, right. And they’re, you know, he’ll just shoot me over a P and L from one of the practices. And it’s not to say that I’m some. Practice broker, transition expert. I know how to look at a P and L and see how healthy the practices he’s like, I bet this client specifically I’m thinking of would have bought like the first practice that came across his desk.

Cause he’s like, Oh, it’s got eight operatories. It’s fancy. It’s sweet. I probably talked him out of three practices mostly just because. I don’t think, like they’re not good practices. He’s overpaying for like a really low profit practice. What he’s spending currently is not, and the loan amount that he would have on the practice, like it was gonna be going backwards for a long time.

So to me it’s like, I don’t necessarily think I’m something special, but it’s good to have somebody in

Victoria Ferguson: We do, Will.

Will Gochnour: you out. I think it’s good to have somebody in your life to talk you out of some of your decisions rather than just going with every decision that comes across your desk.

Jake Elm: Yeah. We all have blind spots, right? Even, you know, everyone has blind spots of something they may not be thinking of. So yeah, I love that. We’ll just at a minimum, I think whenever making any significant financial decision, just to have somebody to talk to about it is just at a minimum would be a requirement for me of starting some sort of process.

It’s just, And sometimes it’s hard to do

Will Gochnour: somebody competent, but

yeah,

Victoria Ferguson: say,

Jake Elm: it’s hard to do that. The spouse or family members sometimes, because then you get into the weird mushy, gushy money feelings type of conversation that’s uncomfortable for a lot of people. So it is nice to just at least talk through something with someone who’s.

Matt Mulcock: Well, to these points. I love this. I think a lot of it’s like the process of engaging with what to will to your point doesn’t have to be an advisor. Let’s just say someone who can hold you accountable. Who’s an objective third party, whoever it is, right? I think a lot of that process is like bringing the subconscious to the conscious of the person.

Meaning we’ve had, how many times have we talked to people? We have these conversations. A lot of times we’re just asking questions. We’re just listening and like kind of pushing Jake. You were just saying earlier, like, just tell me why, like tell me what about this excites you or what scares you or whatever.

And a lot of times. the result is the, the client or whoever we’re talking to, we’ll end up at the end of it being like, yeah, I was kind of already thinking this, like, thanks for like, thanks for kind of like

reaffirming this for me. And again, all we did, all we did was bring the unconscious to the conscious, like back to this question, how do you make decisions around money?

They’ve never been asked that question probably, but they kind of know, oh, either I don’t have a process or they’re, what I think they’re going to do is they’re going to say. If they really think about it, they’re going to be like, I default to, FOMO. I default to boredom. I default to emotions or, or whatever it is.

It’s going to bring that unconscious again, that create that awareness around it. Like that alone is so valuable. Being able to have those conversations.

Victoria Ferguson: you want me to bring in a stat here?

Matt Mulcock: Of course. Study buddy.

Victoria Ferguson: Where people get their financial advice? 76 percent partner or spouse, 37 percent family, and then 36 percent financial advisors. So we’re not all evil. Some people like us.

Matt Mulcock: 70, you said 70, what percent

Victoria Ferguson: 76 percent go to their partner or spouse. Um,

Matt Mulcock: It’s interesting.

Victoria Ferguson: then 24 percent of millennials and 17 percent of Gen Zers go to a fortune teller slash

Matt Mulcock: That’s insane. I don’t even know where that, that comes from, but

Will Gochnour: or TikTok, does that count?

Matt Mulcock: tick tocks gotta be, yeah, a fortune teller on tick tock.

Victoria Ferguson: Yeah, maybe I should start dressing up as a gypsy and

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, there you go.

Victoria Ferguson: people will believe

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. okay. Next question. What I love this one too. I love all these questions. what has your attention around money? What are your initial thoughts on this?

Victoria Ferguson: I like it because it brings you more to the present. You know, usually I feel like most times the obvious answer is, Oh, I want to make sure I’m good for retirement. but I think this question allows people to be able to think about what’s happening right now or in the next few years. and I think we talked about this on the last podcast, but I want to know, like.

What’s important in the short to midterm so we can start to get some financial wins. So you feel more motivated to keep going and save for this really, really big goal, the biggest money goal, which is retirement. so the more wins we can get, the more likely you are to be able to save for retirement and be successful there.

Jake Elm: Yeah, I like this question. I try to ask this almost every call I have with the client, you know, just in our check ins and like just what has your attention right now? What are you thinking about? Is anything causing stress? I do. I think Victoria’s point is awesome, where I think sometimes as financial advisors, A lot of people think that our job is okay.

Like all we’re doing is we’re delaying gratification today to try and hit some big retirement number in the future. And I would hope that rather than that, a lot of our job is, can we just feel better about money today? Like what action items or things can we put in place to make you feel comfortable with your budget right now?

To allow you to go on vacation or feel good about your savings, like to increase quality of life right now rather than at some point in the future. And that’s, I think this question, Victoria, like you said, just brings us to the present. Like, what do we need to fix today? What do we need to solve today?

What would make you happier today? And a lot of times if we can do that in the short term, it will end to be, you know, end up being good things down the road. But I like just focusing on the present. I think it’s great.

Will Gochnour: Yeah. I agree. I think it, I mean, what I love about this is it tells you a little bit about what the person cares about too. and I think it will bring not only the present, but like the priorities to the top, it’s like bubble to the top with this answer, whether it’s. You know, if how stressed they are about their student loan, some answer could be like, um, I just hate my student loans.

I want to get rid of it as soon as possible. That’s all that has my attention. And some are like, well, I got to get into my dream house in the next three years, or I need to scale my practice to five locations. And so I think to me, like the initial answers there on the, for on this discovery call, Give you a pretty good idea of priorities for this, for this specific client.

Matt Mulcock: and to that point, I love that will. And to that point, it’s like what Jake was saying earlier, because the other part of this too, is understanding the numbers, the quantitative aspect of this. Right. And I think this question is very telling to that exact point. Well, in saying, okay, here’s what you’re telling me has your attention, but here’s what the numbers are saying.

And sometimes you can find a gap there. Of like, is, and I think there’s a lot to be said there. There’s a lot of like discovery, if you will, for both you and the client to say, again, you’re telling me this is important, but you’re over here buying a Maserati. And again, there’s something wrong with that. I don’t know why I said Maserati, but like, you’re saying you want to go buy your dream home where you’re saying you want to spend more time with your kids, but yet you just dropped a hundred thousand dollars in a car and that’s okay.

I, there’s not, that’s not coming from a place of judgment. It’s coming from a place of curiosity of saying like, where’s the gap. There’s something Jake.

Jake Elm: you’re worrying about something that You don’t need to be worrying about, right? Like just use an example. Let’s say you are worried about student loans and that’s top of mind and your food tastes worse every day because you’re just thinking about student loans all the time. But we look into it and maybe refinance like at a 3 percent rate under student loans and your monthly payments are like 4 percent of your total income.

Like they really aren’t an issue. And then we can go through that and be like, listen, you’re worried about these student loans, but they’re going to be paid off. The interest is not charging you much. It’s not a huge piece of your income. You probably shouldn’t be as worried about this as you are. I think that can be a helpful conversation too.

Matt Mulcock: Totally. Totally.

Victoria Ferguson: to go off what you’re both saying, I heard this once and it really hit me people were not always the greatest storytellers of our own lives, right? We have biases, we have things that influence us. And so I think this type of conversation just gives you a second to really reflect and be able to tell a better story about your life.

And then later on in the onboarding process, we’re going through. The numbers. So really throughout all of this, I think you can tell a better, be more honest with yourself and tell the real story and then make a plan for the, for the future.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I totally agree. And I also love, you said Victoria about the bring you to the present and Jake, you’ve mentioned this too, like there’s a lot more to this than just saying, Hey, one day you’ll live a good life, but for now, just like scrimp and save every penny. That is not a way to do this. We don’t believe in that at all of like, save every dime you have.

Don’t drink your lattes. And like, you know, the, that’s why I always call it like the latte advice is so stupid.

Victoria Ferguson: Oh, you guys pumpkin spice latte season is so soon. Oh my God.

Matt Mulcock: fight, but they’re not,

they’re

Jake Elm: don’t like pumpkin. I don’t like pumpkin pie, any

Victoria Ferguson: Well, I don’t like you, Jake.

Matt Mulcock: Kids. do you, what would start a fight quicker and saying anything even remotely disparaging about Taylor Swift or pumpkin spice lattes? It’s pretty close.

Victoria Ferguson: We came up with a no no list in the office with some people of, like, their topics. Taylor and Travis is one of them. And then anything pumpkin related,

Matt Mulcock: Okay. Well now be warned, be warned, but no. So again, does that, does that point of this question brings you back to the present where I think, again, I think a lot of people engage us, engage advisors thinking, Oh, you’re going to tell me to start putting my money in envelopes and create categories for my spending and stop spending on X, Y, or Z thing.

Victoria Ferguson: Lower expectations.

Matt Mulcock: whatever. Again, there’s some aspects of those things, but the whole point is, how do we find that harmony? How do we get control of our money? How do we. Find financial peace on the path to becoming financially independent. I think that’s the key there. So yeah, I love that question Anything else you guys would add to that particular question?

Okay Next question. This is really more specific. I still think especially for dentists This is a really crucial to get a sense of is how do you feel about debt? What thoughts or maybe just things that you guys hear,

Jake Elm: I feel like there’s a spectrum here, right? With a lot of people. And everybody is different. There’s like a one out of the spectrum. You will have people who are like, I never think about my debt ever. Right? Like a lot of dentists, they will get into, you will have a lot of debt to start your career.

Maybe a student loans and maybe buy a house and have a practice loan. Maybe a practice building. Like we talk about this all the time. It is very easy for dentists to get into seven figures of debt very early on in your career. And so I think a lot of dentists take an approach, maybe a defense mechanism to be like, I know this is going to be huge.

I’ll get to it at some point, but it doesn’t really worry to me in my day to day. And then you’ll talk to other people at the other end of the spectrum who are, like I mentioned before, like, My food tastes worse because I have this data. Like I really hate it. Like it really impacts my life day to day. It causes me stress just knowing the balances that I have.

And then you’ll get people in between, but there’s always a spectrum. And I think it’s helpful to notice for us, where do you fall on that spectrum? So we can make an effective plan for you about your debt payments, right? Some people like I’m fine pushing this off. Other people may be like, Hey, I know it may not be the most.

Financially optimal answer, but I would like to pay off my debt a little bit faster. My student loans or make some extra payments. And so this is a very personal question that I think is just really important is to gauge where you stand. This is where we’re bringing the feelings into it more than the spreadsheet is.

What do you feel about this? And that’s going to guide our plan moving forward.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, love that. Will, go

Will Gochnour: I want, my question is sometimes I think like I hear a client answer this question and I’m like, I kind of wonder how honest they’re being. I don’t know. And I’m not projecting that they’re lying, but I think they, in their mind, they’re like, Oh, here’s what I’m supposed to say. Kind

Victoria Ferguson: Yeah.

Will Gochnour: You know, like I’m supposed to say that it doesn’t stress me out because I, you know, I, I’ll pay it off at some point, but I, I usually push a little bit on this question.

And I think it’s healthy to push on this question. I should push on this question for myself too, is to be like, how do I really feel about it? And if I have some like underlying stress that’s causing me financial pain that I’m just pushing, pushing, pushing down, that’s going to continue to be there no matter what you like fake or tell yourself.

So I’ll sometimes push on this. I’ll, I’ll ask him, get an answer and they’ll be like, okay, I just want to make sure. Is that how you

Matt Mulcock: Tell me how you really feel. Yeah. Yeah. But, but Will, it could be the opposite too, right? Meaning, I think there’s, so you’re saying, on one hand, it could be someone saying, I’m supposed to say it doesn’t bother me. I think it also could be the other way. Where they’re like, I’m supposed to be bothered by my student loans.

And so, yeah, like they bug me, but like, maybe they really don’t, maybe you really don’t care because I think they hear like in their, but there are in their dental peers around how bad student loans are. I’ve had clients who’ve told me this. They’re like, yeah, I don’t, I don’t really care, but maybe I’m so maybe they feel like they’re.

So I’m with you. The, the spirit of this is like, tell me how you actually feel about your

debt. And then Jake, what you’re saying is, can we pair that with the numbers and the quantitative and the spreadsheet and find something that actually, yeah, an optimal way to

Jake Elm: Can I tell you, I think I have, I’m just thinking about the people I work with. I think I have more people who are, don’t care about their student debt than people who do,

Matt Mulcock: I’d probably say that’s true as well.

Jake Elm: or like, no, maybe don’t care is the wrong word, but they’re just not as like, yeah, they’re not thinking about it. They know they’ll get to it at some point.

I think that’s actually more common, than people may think.

Will Gochnour: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Victoria, what, what do you got on this?

Victoria Ferguson: I also was kind of thinking the same thing. Well, I just don’t want to say it. So thanks. Uh,

Matt Mulcock: Thanks for giving her the courage.

Victoria Ferguson: yeah, I think a lot of times clients will want to just like tell you the, what you, the right answer, right? Not how they actually feel. and again, I talked about this. On the last episode, but the whole point of this is I want to know how you really feel about these things so that I can meet you where you are at.

you know, the whole point, not the whole point, but a, a big point in working with an advisor is being able to create something that you can stick with for a really long time, which often goes against the cookie cutter advice. Right. You know? so I think it’s really important to be honest with yourself.

If this is truly stressing you out, fine. Like, let’s try to find a way that we can prioritize this a little bit more. Maybe not a hundred percent, but again, like I want to make a plan that you can stick with and that you feel good about.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I think one of the bigger challenges of this, and Jake, to your point of like how many clients we have that they say they don’t care. I think one of the biggest challenges, and I’d love to hear what you guys think about this is when you’ve got, and this happens all the time with couples, right, where they’ve got different opinions on different things.

But I think this one in particular is one of the hardest ones to handle. for a couple, when one of this, one of the partners in the, in the Has one opinion on it. And then the other one is very opposite. what are your experiences been around this? do you see, I see this all the time and just your thoughts on when you have like this huge gap in how one person looks at it versus another.

Jake Elm: I don’t know about huge gap, but I think a like different point of views about money and especially about debt is pretty common with a lot of the couples that we work with I would say that’s more common than not where it’s like one is like I am very stressed about dead The other one’s like I don’t really care to think about or it’s like I I am the spender They are the saver, right?

There’s that kind of it happens a lot. Just those just differing personalities about money Yeah, I think it just comes back to can we find a compromise? Can we find something that works for everyone here? But again could be that could be A helpful part of having an objective third party, like your finances, where it’s like, can we, I can kind of mediate here between the two and find a compromise.

I think that’s really all you have to do. Oftentimes you can’t satisfy everybody, but hey, can we find something that works for everyone?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, totally. I’d say I agree with that, Jake, in the sense of you see this all the time of like different opinions. The reason I say, I think this is one of the bigger challenges. That i’ve seen for couples Like a specific money topic. That’s a challenge is because it’s usually associated One of the partners usually associates it with a high level of guilt Like I hear this a lot like the dentist in the partnership Is the one who took out the debt for their school?

And to like to make this happen and they feel like I hear this all the time It’s like man, I just feel so guilty. Like I can’t do anything. I can’t get beyond this guilt You That I feel like towards my partner right around this debt, because they supported me. And even if the partner is like, it’s okay.

Like there’s, they’re like, if reassuring them, they, I think that’s where it can become really difficult or Jake, to your point earlier, to a degree of like food just doesn’t taste, I can’t even taste my food until I get beyond this guilt. I think that’s one of the hardest things. Well, you got something

Will Gochnour: Yeah. I like, I was just going to say, I think it’s been, I just had an experience with a client who came on board, I think like three years ago, maybe they came on board with a negative 200 and something thousand dollar net worth. Like last week they were almost over a million dollars of net worth.

And, you know, it’s, it’s, it was really, if I remember correctly, they were ones that were stressed about their debt load and, you know, they came on board and then they bought a practice and it’s, I think it’s part of our job is to restructure, like debt is not the entire picture.

And, you know, we, we really, we track net worth often, right. And net worth is your assets minus your debts. So for us, it’s like, can we just rewire your brain to think how do we. Not just focus on the debts, but also focus on the assets. And if throughout your life, you’re having income and building a practice and purchasing a house, whatever it may be, you’re going to grow your net worth and over time, that’s way more important than your debt balance.

I mean, they still have a million dollars in debt or more, but they have 2 million in assets now that they’ve built over the last three years through building a practice and you know, all

Jake Elm: The ultimate goal is to grow your wealth and become financially independent, not to become debt free, right? Debt free is not the end financial goal. think that’s a good framing.

Matt Mulcock: And you can be financially independent while carrying debt.

That’s what people don’t, yeah. That’s what people don’t understand. You can retire with that.

you

totally can. I think it’s like, whether you like it or not, like you may not like it. Or you may say, I’m never going to have debt in retirement, but it’s possible.

You can be independent. There’s a lot of people out there that are financially independent that are carrying debt loads.

Victoria Ferguson: Yeah. I just feel like it’s a little short sighted, like there, there’s life beyond student loans of eventually. I think what a lot of people don’t know how to calculate or don’t consider is how expensive of a strategy it can be, to pay off your student loans early. I just had this with a couple clients, both of them are dentists.

So very, you know, between the two of them, very high debt loads, one, one of them didn’t care. Even a little bit. He’s like. My rates are super low. Why would I do this? And the other also super low rates. But, that partner was really insistent on paying it off early. And so, all I did was show, okay, this is how much it would save you by an interest by paying this off right now.

Versus the opportunity cost of, you know, not investing in the market, you know, investing assumptions over the same period of time, you’d be paying your student loans and just showing like, this is how expensive this is the cost of the strategy versus another strategy, because I think oftentimes we get really sucked into the feelings of guilt, which.

Totally valid, you know, to have those feelings, but you know, let’s level set and just literally compare cost of strategy here. And that oftentimes helps people a lot feel less guilty, feel better about going one way or the other.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, that’s a great point. It’s what Jake was saying earlier. A lot of times it’s people just don’t know what they don’t know. Right. they’re defaulting to emotions. They’re defaulting to the guilt, which by the way. we have empathy for it. We totally understand why you could feel that way.

but Victoria, to this point, you bring a different perspective to them. And Will, you’re alluding to this too with your clients. And it can shift their mindset. And that’s what a lot of this is to that point. We’ve said this so many times and I’ll say it over and over and over again. the false assumption that I think dentists make a lot is they think their stress levels are directly related to their debt loads, which is not true.

What from our experience, your stress levels are directly related to your lack of liquidity. Like your stress will go. You could have the same debt load. Right in one situation, and it will mean nothing if you have a lot of liquidity versus not any liquidity. Like your debt is just there. It’ll be a neutral variable for you if you have enough liquidity.

So early on in your career, focus on that and you’ll notice your debt low, your, your stress levels will go way down. And I’ve had time and time and time again, dentists tell me, holy cow. Like, I didn’t believe this. And six months or a year later, I now have X, you know, I focused on building up my cash or my brokerage account or whatever.

And I feel so much better and I’m just making minimum payments on my debt. That I think is a really, really important aspect of this as well. Any other thoughts on debt from the good panel? Okay. couple of questions left. love this one as well. Tell me about your experience with investing and then we’ll, we’ll add one to this kind of a two part question.

So tell me about your experience with investing and then how do you feel about the stock market?

Will Gochnour: This is a cool question for people. I think it’s, you know, it gets, gets them that kind of primes the pump to just see, I think what Victoria said, I liked what she said, where it was, just know where we can meet you on this. You know, is this somebody who’s had like years and years of experience researching do it yourself strategies through Vanguard and already doing backdoor Roths and, you know, knows what the S& P 500 is, or is this somebody starting?

from scratch. Right. And so this is more, just let us know where you’re at. There’s no right or wrong answer here. we don’t care if anything, we just want to know how, where we can start. So I don’t necessarily think this is something super fancy and I hope people will just give, you know, the answer that they’re thinking.

And for the first part of the question, the second part, how do you feel about the stock market? That’s always a fun one.

Matt Mulcock: Mm hmm.

Victoria Ferguson: bag.

Matt Mulcock: It’s always very telling.

Will Gochnour: And I think going back to part one, where it’s like, where, how are you raised around money? What are, you know, what shaped your relationships with money? Those kinds of things determine a lot of times the answer to this question. Like, did my dad lose all the money, all his money in 2008, 2009? My answer is going to be.

I think the stock market’s like a casino, or do I have some good experiences early on with investing that might have seen my money go up and I’m excited to just continue to pop, you know, stockpile money for the longterm or do I, you know, do I have a healthy relationship with it or not? I think that’s important to know right off the bat for sure.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah. another part of this. I think to be thinking about if you’re out there thinking like going through these questions, which we encourage you to do and be thinking about these and talking to your partner about these, is how do I feel about the stock market or about investing? And then the second part of that, like second layer of that will, it’s exactly what you’re hitting on is how do they come to those conclusions?

Like, what are my sources for that opinion? Because if you’re, so I’ll just give a really like surface of example, but we see this, it’s like, Oh, I’m scared of the stock market or the stock market is a casino or the stock market’s a scam or whatever. It’s like, Oh, but I got that from Tik TOK. It’s like, I can getting this from someone who’s, who’s selling me a course on.

Whatever, like day trading or not day, like real estate or whatever. Like my question, the source, how did I come to this opinion? and will, you said it like you use your parent or, you know, how would you raise your own money? I was raised my whole life. My dad telling me he’s my dad’s a real estate guy.

My whole life telling me the stock market’s a scam and a casino. as a child heard that, heard that over and over and over again, till I got to a point, I finally was able to like, ask the question as I got more into this industry and understood like, dad, why do you think that? Well, it turns out my dad, back in the day.

When he was probably about my age now, decided to put some money into some penny stocks. And lost everything. So then he started thinking, Oh, that is just the stock market. So again, question the source of like, how you got, like, dig a little deeper. How did you get to that

opinion? And does it, and how, like,

Will Gochnour: There’s a reason you have that opinion. What’s the reason? Is it a valid reason?

Matt Mulcock: Yes. Yes. And is it coming from a place of like, I don’t really understand this. So it scares me. That’s very different than like you understand it or you just have a belief in something else. Like question the source.

Victoria Ferguson: I think a lot of people don’t know how they’re supposed to feel about it, you know, like as your own person, because like you guys are saying, the information out there about the stock market is often the negatives, which is funny because the stock market is up way more. Often than it is down, but we just, we just hear about the downs a lot more.

and so I feel like a lot of folks opinions are just rooted in, you know, what they hear externally and then how their parents were towards it. because where else are you really supposed to get solid information about the stock market, except for spaces like this, really? so I think people have their, their initial thoughts and reactions Based on how they were raised, and how it was socialized to them.

And then as we get through the onboarding process, you know, we’ll educate on what is a stock? What is a bond? Oftentimes dentists don’t really know. They’re like, I know I’m supposed to do this thing. And I’m supposed to probably do the stock market thing, but I don’t really know how it works, how Um, so it’s interesting again, in, in the spirit of meeting you, where you’re at.

Cause I, I never want to talk about people’s heads either. And I also don’t want to, I don’t want to assume that they know this. I don’t want to assume that they don’t know this. So I just, again, I’m really trying to meet them where they’re

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, Jake, I know you got thoughts on this.

Jake Elm: I think you guys have said it. Well, I think most people don’t trust or, you know, anything about the stock market is because they don’t quite understand how it works, which is very understandable. No one has ever really taught how the stock market works, not even just in dental school, but even if you go get like an MBA or anything, it’s not really taught anywhere.

And so we like to, we like to give a lot of education on that. That’s where we feel like one of our primary roles is as an educator, we’re not trying to force you into anything, but just give you the education and the tools that you need. And I just find when we do that, then. Then people’s uneasiness, maybe about the stock market will go down.

I think it’s a pretty good, great asset class for dentists. You know, we talk about a lot of dentists who they get into their careers and they have access to awesome assets. Like they own their own private business, which is great. They will usually get into real estate through a house or practice building, and they have these great assets.

But they are a bit inflexible and a liquid and kind of hard to get out of. And the stock market offers a wonderful way just to get some more liquidity with your investments and to give you some more flexibility in your life. Which again, Matt, you alluded to it, just if you can increase your LI liquidity, that oftentimes decreases your stress levels.

And so I do think it’s an awesome avenue to grow your wealth, especially for dentists and get some more flexibility in your assets.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I totally agree. I would be remiss if we did not sort of joke around and it’s not really a joke, but sometimes it is. It will never cease to amaze me how many dentists will tell us they’re afraid of the stock market and then within the next breath be like, Oh, but my buddy, has this X, Y, Z strategy, private business.

I’m going to go throw my money in. And like, it’s just incredible to me that something that’s been around for over a hundred years, that has proven over and over and over again to, to build wealth. And the system is there. If you treat it right, that is more uncertain and scarier

Jake Elm: I don’t want to invest in the best companies in the entire world run by the smartest people, but my brother in law’s

Matt Mulcock: But my brother in law’s like syrup company is that’s, that’s the. That’s the one it shocks me. It really does. I, that’ll never stop kind of amazing me the questions we get. And again, I try to be very empathetic to it and be like, maybe it’s the familiarity of the person. Maybe that’s what

Victoria Ferguson: the level of trust, you know?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. It’s like the stock market feels like this big, scary thing that I don’t understand where my brother in law I see every day. So I guess I get that part of it, but from the actual like fundamental investment part of it, it’s like. it blows me away. And again, I’m probably taking it for granted because I, I understand how the stock market works, I guess.

Will Gochnour: Yeah, I think there’s a, I agree with that, man. I think there, there’s quite a bit of misinformation out there. I mean, we talked about like how you erase around money, but I think now, nowadays, I think you mentioned Tik Tok, but like I get people sending me Tik Toks all the time of like, truthfully misinformation that I’m just sitting here like, well, this, this person can say whatever they want.

It doesn’t mean it’s like the gospel truth. And same thing for us, but we’re just educating based on factual history. I think the stock market’s like a playground where there’s lots of different ways to interact with it. Right. Yeah. And, you know, depending on how you interact with it can be a lot riskier or a lot safer.

You can day trade if you want to inside of the stock market, or you can take a 40 year time horizon investment approach, which is a lot different than day trading. So I think just depending on where you’re getting your information from. What, like you said, what source, how you’re interacting with a stock market, all of these answers can lead to negative or positive experiences.

It’s all about just understanding what kind of a game you’re playing.

Jake Elm: This is the ironic thing. We have more information and education than ever, but it has not made us better investors. Um, which is the thing. It’s just, we’re just now bombarded with, we don’t even know what to think. We’re bombarded with

Matt Mulcock: it’s almost made

Jake Elm: is right. Some is wrong. It’s almost made it worse. I, yeah, it’s wild.

Matt Mulcock: yeah, it totally has made it worse. And I love that. We’ll always question the source, always realize that one of the most powerful things in marketing is the ability to name your enemy. And the stock market’s a really easy enemy to name for a lot of these hucksters that are out there selling courses and being like, don’t trust the stock market.

Trust me to do this, whatever it is. So I think, yeah, to your point, we’ll always question the source. If it’s coming from Tik TOK, right. Probably shouldn’t follow it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Or you should just dig a little deeper, dig a little deeper.

Uh, don’t take it at face value. So yeah, we love those. Like send a tick talk to us.

I’m like, what do you think about this? It’s like, how much time do you have? Let’s hop on for a couple hours. okay. Last question. I’ve said this before. I love this question. I love all,

Will Gochnour: you like this one?

Matt Mulcock: I do, I do, I do like this one.

Victoria Ferguson: You love the questions that we came up for our

Matt Mulcock: It’s so wild how much I love the questions that we come up with as a team. Uh, this one’s amazing though. And it’s so different, than I think you’ll, you’ll hear out there a lot and it kind of brings people back to like, just center. so the question is. What are you grateful for in your life? We usually try to end with this. What are your thoughts?

Victoria Ferguson: I love this one. I remember the first discovery call where I asked this question and. The clients were really stressed about the practice, the debt loads investing. Like there was a lot of just really stressful energy. And how are we going to do this? Are we ever going to be able to do this? Are we ever going to be able to retire?

Blah, blah, blah. And then I always end with this one because Like the couple kind of just looked at each other and said, you know, we have a pretty great life. We have beautiful kids. We have this house. We have the cars we want. we love having the practice. Cause we have a lot of flexibility in our life where they were just talking about how stressed out they are about the practice and student loans and whatnot.

And it just, I’ll never forget it. Cause they kind of just looked at each other and kind of came down a level and was like, you know what? We’re fine. We’re actually really grateful for this. so I love it from that aspect. If it just kind of brings you down a level. And, from my side, it tells me what they really value.

and oftentimes you hear, you know, I’m really grateful for my kids and my family. Okay. You value time with, with them. How can we, you know, create a life, That allows you to be able to do that more and how can we align your money with that? So it’s, it’s such a good question. makes them feel good.

It makes me feel really good.

Will Gochnour: For me, it’s less of a, I mean, I think the question, I love the question also, Matt. but I just, I think gratitude is such a powerful tool. It catches people off guard when we ask them this question and they’re not expecting it. It’s not

Victoria Ferguson: Yeah. How often do you ask yourself

Will Gochnour: well, and that’s kind of my.

I ask the question, I’ll get an answer.

I think a lot of times, again, I’m not saying people are not being truthful, but I think the easy answer is just the cookie cutter. I’m grateful for my family. I’m grateful for my health. And maybe that’s what you are grateful for. I like to say, think about, like just try to live in gratitude is going to make it.

I know last time we talked about financial peace, but to me, like living in gratitude, asking yourself this question daily, even, or just more often. I know we had talked about maybe asking it on every call, just like, Hey, tell me what you’re grateful

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I’ve started trying to do this.

Will Gochnour: I think it’s such a good reset. It’s such a powerful way to like flip your mind.

Like Victoria said to say, what is life? What is this all about? What are we doing all this for? Like, you know, can we get back to what’s important? And it’s a good reset, a good recalibration in my mind for a lot of clients to just realize this is what life’s all about.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Jake Elm: I don’t have anything to add. That’s great. I think gratitude is. It probably, if we can live in gratitude more often, it solves a lot of these problems like that we have with money of just like always reaching for more, not having enough or getting caught up in the rat race or getting the goalposts to stop moving.

Gratitude fixes a lot of things in our life when it surrounds money. And so, yeah, you guys said it well.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah I learned a long time ago. Don’t even know where I heard this originally I don’t believe it a lot in like black and white thinking I think if there’s a lot of gray in life But I think this one for me is pretty black and white I think we have a choice every day to live either in the camp of entitlement or the cap camp of gratitude And there’s not really in between It was like you can approach every decision from a place of entitlement or gratitude and that’s your choice every day.

And so that’s, to that point, Will and all of you guys have said, that’s a choice that you make. And I think this is so simple to be asking yourself this more often. And this is what we try to bring it up. And will, you said it. I think sometimes we get people that are like a little caught off guard.

When we’re like, what are you grateful for? And they’re kind of like, you’re my advisor. Why are you asking me this? But that’s the whole point is like, what are you grateful for? And I think people are caught off guard because they think we’re going to spend. And we do spend a lot of time on the money or the numbers and the spreadsheet and all that stuff.

But this is the stuff that actually matters. Like resetting your mind, being grateful for your life. Cause every single person we talk to has so many things to be grateful for, as do we. So I think bringing that back, ending a call like that, like this, with that is, I think is really powerful. So, okay

Jake Elm: For you guys. You guys are the

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I’m grateful.

Victoria Ferguson: Right back at

Matt Mulcock: I’m grateful. Truly. I mean, all jokes aside, like we are grateful for the ability to be able to do this share. Hopefully this knowledge hopefully add value to people’s lives. We really do enjoy it. So, Kate, guys, thank you for being here. Victoria will Jake. We love this. As always.

Hopefully you guys got something out of this. so much for listening. If you have questions for us, if you’re out there thinking Man, I’ve been listening to these guys forever. I just want to talk to them. Dennis advisors. com click on the yellow button, book for consultation. We’d love to hear your story, answer any questions that you have, point you in the right direction or see how we can work together.

we are very nice, grateful people. So just, you know, come, come talk

Victoria Ferguson: With great

Will Gochnour: We love all of these questions that we’re going to ask you.

Matt Mulcock: We love all of our questions we’re going to ask you. So again, thank you so much for listening until next time. Bye bye.

Keywords: client discovery questions, money decisions, accountability, student debt, emotions, stock market

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Behavioral Finance