Three Ways to Align Wealth with Well-being – Episode #614

On this episode of the Dentist Money Show, Ryan and Matt record live from Nicaragua during Elevation Association’s Summit Retreat where they talk about the “gap” between what people think they want and what they actually regret later in life. They talk about the idea of harmonizing financial planning with personal fulfillment and how financial growth should serve a purpose beyond just accumulating wealth. Finally, they touch on the intersection between the physics and philosophy of money and conclude by encouraging dentists to find harmony in their careers and lives rather than only chasing financial growth.

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Podcast Transcript

Intro: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the dentist money show brought to you by dentist advisors. We have a very special show for you today recording from Nicaragua. Ryan and I are down here with the Elevation Association, Dr. Jared Hill, Dr. Dan Nelson and Ryan Passy, founders of this wonderful group. We were down here for the third year in a row on their annual retreat, and we were speaking down here with, and hanging out with this, with this amazing group of dentists and we thought we would take what we were talking about down here and share it on the show. So, this episode is a two part episode from Nicaragua, uh, where we’re sharing our thoughts and insight around money and how to pair kind of the science and the art of it. And we share our experiences working with dentists all over the country. And, uh, the message kind of being, how do you blend the two, what we call the physics of money with the philosophy of money, as always, we hope you get something out of this and we hope you enjoy the show.

Ryan Isaac: Welcome to the dentist money show

Matt Mulcock: Welcome. A Central America version. We are international.

Ryan Isaac: Okay, here’s the funny thing We’ve traveled with podcast gear a lot, but a small percentage of the time have we actually opened up the podcast gear and recorded while traveling. So we’ve been out of the, this is the third time that we’ve been out of the country on, let’s, you know, shout out Elevation Association. We’re here supporting their Life Summit Couples Retreat 2025 in Nicaragua.

Matt Mulcock: Honestly have to check it out. If you are a dentist. It doesn’t get better than these summits with with Jared and Dan and their crew, Ryan.

Ryan Isaac: Jared and Dan. So the thought of this, here’s what we want to do today is we’re giving a presentation tonight. Matt will kind of tell us what it’s about in a little bit. it’s interesting when anyone who speaks, a lot of people who listen to this speak, and you know, they give presentations, they speak, it might be clinical. A lot of our clients and dentist listeners

Matt Mulcock: On the topic you’re given. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac: Guard that I left at the surf shop. A lot of people do speaking engagements and everyone knows what it’s like to build a presentation. You have a topic in mind, someone assigns you a topic, you might list it out, you might build the whole thing, but it always feels weird to build something based on the topic you’re given and then show up and get the vibe of the people, the venue, even, even just the way everyone’s sitting, it always makes you want to make some adjustments a little bit. So we’re giving one tonight, Matt, you can intro the topic, but we wanted to talk about the thought process of. Building what you’re going to say to an audience and it’s very helpful and applicable to talk about it But it’s kind of just an interesting thing to show up and be like never mind scrap half of that And rebuild it from the ground

Matt Mulcock: But it’s kind of just an interesting thing to show up and be like, nevermind, scrap half of that and rebuild it from the ground up.  And we have a ton of time during the day to like sit and think and reflect on what has been said and build upon it. But, I actually never thought, when you, cause you and Reese have done this so much. And when I first got to DA, this would happen with Reese all the

Ryan Isaac: To BA, this is what happened with Reese.

Matt Mulcock: Stories of like him, Scrapping a presentation like an hour before he’s supposed to go, uh, and then completely recreating it in his hotel room. So famous. So I never, I never really like could resonate with that, especially early on because I was just new figuring

Ryan Isaac: Well, it’s nerve wracking to think like, wait, what are you talking about? You build a presentation in the hotel before you go give it the day of? Yeah. That’s, that seems insane. Yes. Right.

Matt Mulcock: But now it feels really comfortable. so we texted Jared Hill, Dr. Jared Hill. He he’s the kind of a leader, him and Dan Nelson, run elevation association with Ryan Passey. And so we texted Jared like a month or so ago, and we were like, Hey, just like want to check in, what do you want us to speak on? So the, the subject he gave us, The Soul of Wealth, Insights on Health, Happiness, and Success.

Ryan Isaac: Think of when Soul of Wealth

Ryan Isaac: Daniel Crosby His new book, The Soul of

Matt Mulcock: Is amazing if you have not read it. Which is the first thing I thought of, I literally was like, wait, is this like a, did you think we’re Dr. Daniel Crosby? Because we are definitely not

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. I don’t think not. Sorry.

Matt Mulcock: So you said to me you were like, hey Why don’t you just do like the four rules of

Ryan Isaac: of Yeah, that you gave at our summit

Matt Mulcock: The summit? I was like, oh, that’s a good idea and it makes it like less work and we’ll just go out there and I can present it again and then which I was going to do. I had full intention to just do that and we were going to like, kind of just work off of that together. And then I got on the plane and I busted out, uh, Daniel’s book and started reading through it. And it just like, all of a sudden, like, other ideas came and I was like, what about this? What about this? I actually texted Daniel. And was telling him about it, and he was like so pumped, we’re gonna give away books

Ryan Isaac: Get books in everyone’s

Matt Mulcock: So, and he gave me some thoughts. Anyway, it just kind of like all of a sudden morphed. And then we got here, and there was a couple of speakers. And,

Ryan Isaac: Unfair advantage I was going to say to you. We get the advantage to go like fourth or fifth. And so we can build off of the really killer messages that have already been given by Ryan, Dan, Dr. Mark Costas. It’s cool because then it just builds, it builds on the things everyone’s already listening to and talking about, and it’s not like new concepts from everywhere. It feels very collaborative. I like it. I’m excited for

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I think it was cool. And again, we started with some themes from The Rich Life, but then literally After today, yesterday, and then today, we kind of rebuilt the whole thing, literally, so it’s full circle.

Ryan Isaac: get what is the show up and you’re like, yeah, we’re totally just going to rebuild this. So, yeah, let’s walk through a little bit of the concept of it, but the, place where I’d like to spend a little bit of time describing, it’s not something we’ve. Yeah. done in our content before is this kind of, um, this concept of the gap between two places where we all are trying to be, but there’s gap in the middle maybe describe a little bit, we can get there in a second, maybe describe a little bit about what the thought process, what do you want to teach people tonight? So podcast too, but what’s the main thing we’re trying to teach tonight? And then I want to talk about that gap concept,

Matt Mulcock: yeah. So we try to do as much as we can is present like, okay, what’s a what’s a main kind of problem that kind of sets up the whole discussion and then Can we, how do we offer solutions like during the discussion of the presentation? So the main problem we’re going to present tonight, this comes right from Daniel Crosby’s book. So Daniel has a early, early chapter in his book. He talks about this very thing, which is. This, issue of what we think we want versus what we end up regretting later. And so, the example he gives, which we’ll give tonight, is if you look at basically year after year after year, New Year’s Resolutions, Uh, the top three topics of New Year’s Resolutions are goals that are set every time, are always around money, career, and then fitness. Like, those are top three

Ryan Isaac: I think we need to have everyone raise their hands tonight. Like, I want to physically see who set goals in those categories. That would be really

Matt Mulcock: I, I mean, it’s, it’s top three every year.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, it’s all, yeah.

Matt Mulcock: It’s like, I want to be richer. I want to be, have a better career, like, you know, hit these career goals or I want to be healthier. And so he talks, so that’s the, what we think we want. Right.

Ryan Isaac: It’s because it’s what we all do.

Statistically. We all do

Matt Mulcock: Which makes sense. Yeah. but then he compares that to the five regrets of the dying

Ryan Isaac: The dying. And the book from Bronnie Ware, the top five regrets of the dying.

Matt Mulcock: Was a hospice nurse for years.

Ryan Isaac: Journaled her experience, interviewing people who are passing away and mostly their old age, asking them the same question. What do you regret in your life? And then categorized. Their top regrets into five categories. That was for me. We talked about this last night. You read a book sometimes, and if it’s just the right message at the right time of your life, it just hits so deep. And that for me was if I had to name one of the most influential book in my whole life, that would be it for me. And it’s all when I read it and, you know,

Matt Mulcock: I read it, and you

Ryan Isaac: Brony Wear Top Five Regrets of Dying. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: These two things, which

Ryan Isaac: Compares these two things, which

Matt Mulcock: Was really eye opening for me when I was reading On the Plane, kind of the same thing. I’ve read the book before, and I was going through it again, and this part just hit me really, like, strongly. Holy cow, there is this huge gap

Ryan Isaac: What we all

Matt Mulcock: What we think we want now, like in the, in, like in the present day when we’re younger, we think we have all

Ryan Isaac: Think we have time and control. Yep.

Matt Mulcock: And then he, and then again, what people actually end up regretting, which have, has nothing to do with anything we said we wanted initially.

Ryan Isaac: This, but now that I think about it, the top common goals are more money, Yep. Business, and health, and It’s usually in career. Something

Matt Mulcock: Something to do with money, career, and then fitness.

Ryan Isaac: Those are the top ones. And then you think about, which we’ll get to, the regrets of the diet. Like, they don’t regret. Those aren’t on the list. No,

Matt Mulcock: The number two regret she has on that book is I wish I wouldn’t have worked

Ryan Isaac: Related

Matt Mulcock: Hard. That’s the only thing related to money or work is the opposite

Ryan Isaac: You have the opposite. I wish

Matt Mulcock: Which is, I wish I didn’t work so hard.

Ryan Isaac: Could probably tie in one of them was I wish I’d let myself be happier. Yeah. And you could probably tie a lot into the health of your body.

Matt Mulcock: Oh, sure.

Ryan Isaac: To your own happiness, but

Matt Mulcock: Oh, and, and, and by the way,

Ryan Isaac: Like

Matt Mulcock: Uh, I’ve had a lifelong goal of over 400, but again, that’s so that to that point. And even this is changing for me. We talked about this, right? Even like fitness goals later on.

Ryan Isaac: You started reading that part on the plane about the gap between these things, I was just asking you about your bench goal and how that’s not on the top Regrets of the Dying. No. Bench 400. Bench Well and

Matt Mulcock: It’s not. Well, and even this has changed as I get older and older, right? Like, just this idea of fitness, and we talked about this, where

Ryan Isaac: Think back

Matt Mulcock: You think back to what your goals were.

Ryan Isaac: Actually

Matt Mulcock: This is actually a good exercise to do, is like try to think back to what your goals were like five, ten years ago. You know, I think about, my very, I emphasize very, very amateur powerlifting kind of like hobby, I won’t even call it a career, hobby. My only goal in my early to mid twenties, late twenties, was to be literally as strong as I possibly could.

Ryan Isaac: Kind of just generally undefined, just be as strong as

Matt Mulcock: Literally be, and I had goals, like, very specific goals around hitting certain numbers and, but I didn’t care what I looked like, I didn’t care what I felt like, like, as long as I was just, like, hitting numbers.

Ryan Isaac: Everything’s broken and all your joints are shot. Yeah, but it

Matt Mulcock: Now, it’s like I want to get out of bed and not hurt. And I want to feel good, I want to look good, I want to be able to play with my kids. Go on a walk and not be like huffing and

Ryan Isaac: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: It’s just completely

Ryan Isaac: It’s totally, totally different. Yeah, I agree. We were talking about that this morning in the group about around goals, specifically around fitness. And yeah, as you age, uh, you’re, they do change. It’s, it’s sad. It’s not sad, but it is ironic. And it’s funny to think that my, just like you, my fitness goals at this point in my life are the types of goals that used to make me shake my head when I was younger and be like, if I’m ever that

Matt Mulcock: Shake my head

Ryan Isaac: Those fitness

Matt Mulcock: Younger and be like,

Ryan Isaac: And I’m like, here I am. And I’m happy about it. It’s fine. Yeah. Huge difference though. Between what we think that we want, while we do believe that we have more time and control, and then what some of the data says about people feel about the end of their lives. Huge, huge difference

Matt Mulcock: The data says about people feel about the end of their lives. Huge, huge difference there. And talked about this concept on Twitter, when Twitter was still a thing, now it’s X. Uh, he put it out on Twitter, and he got some pretty, like, poignant responses. One person just wrote back and said, We are confused creatures that don’t realize the truth until it’s too late. Yeah. Just kind of like, poignant and a little bit disheartening, but true. so, what he emphasizes and what we want to emphasize tonight and on this show is

Ryan Isaac: And on this show

Matt Mulcock: I think the here and now is more of like the measures, like the measurements of life, like the, the outcome based goals. Like I want to hit this in collections. I want to make this much

Ryan Isaac: This less money. Yeah, so we started going through this

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. So we started going through this and again, this is what’s so

Ryan Isaac: Through the process. I started really

Matt Mulcock: We, we started going through the process, I started really thinking about it, I’ve been thinking about it for like the last two days as we’re trying to present this to the group, and I was like, man, I, I think kind of what this, what I take from this is, you’ve got what I’m calling, like, money has two sides of it, generally speaking, and the words I used, and I’m not saying this is perfect, but it feels right to me, it makes sense to me, is you’ve got like the physics of money, the laws, the,

Ryan Isaac: Do this, get that.

Matt Mulcock: The quantitative,

Ryan Isaac: It is the

Matt Mulcock: Is the quantitative,

Ryan Isaac: The brain.

Matt Mulcock: The brain side. And then you’ve got the philosophy, you’ve got the heart, you’ve got the personal, the personal, the qualitative pieces, the wise. Exactly, exactly right. And so when we, most people, especially dentists being the type of people they are, and when I, I mean that as a compliment, super high achieving, ambitious type A. Ranking themselves in class in their class and beyond and have these really like distinct outcome based quantitative type goals They’re really high achieving people But I think they tend to lean too far on to that physics side of money

Ryan Isaac: Sure. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Where they probably lack in a lot of cases We found is the philosophy side. So what? The visual we created was these two circles and then showing the two sides and then bringing them together via a Venn diagram and then the centerpiece of that being what we’d call the soul, like the soul of wealth. So, I like what

Ryan Isaac: Daniel Crosby

Matt Mulcock: What Daniel Crosby calls the soul of wealth, we’re gonna credit that. Uh, but so, again, physics being the brain, the philosophy being the heart, you bring them together. And so, this is what we’re saying is We’re not saying you shouldn’t care about the physics part of

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, the logistics, the, yeah,

Matt Mulcock: Our whole business is

Ryan Isaac: Metrics, the KPIs.

Matt Mulcock: The measurements. Like, you should be tracking your income, your spending, your

Ryan Isaac: You can get lost in those so And to your point Why do dentists get a lot of it is personality? They’re just highly driven people ambitious high producing Kind of people but also how many things do dentists have to measure like that a hundred things that are put on a dentist plate That could possibly be measured from marketing to PNLs to KPIs and it’s never ending list of things It’s kind of no wonder besides the typical personality The environment, the dentists are in that kind of shape them into being so stereotypically, not everyone, but obsessed with like just KPIs and numbers and targets without sometimes pausing and asking like, well, why? Like why, why the third location or the second or why three million in production? Like what if the life I want could be done when half of that, you know? So it’s no wonder. It’s just the environment they’re in. There’s so many things to obsess about and you know, to validate their experience, like, I imagine there’s a lot of stress around if you don’t focus on some of those metrics and KPIs and you let any of them slip, you could find yourself in a pretty tough, irrecoverable position in a practice standpoint. Like, oh man, now we’re so behind the competition, or like, we can’t keep employees, or, there’s just a lot of things for them to constantly be measuring, but they can get lost in it, stuck in it,

Matt Mulcock: Can get lost in it, stuck in it. Like, I think we all understand conceptually, I think if you asked most people, is money a means to an end or an end in itself? Most people are going to say it conceptually and theoretically, oh yeah, money is a means to an end. But the question is, do we act like that?

Ryan Isaac: Act like

Matt Mulcock: Your actions, does it match your behavior and how you actually act? Because I would say most people understand the concept of that, but they don’t act. We actually tilt way more on that physics side, more on the metric side, the measurement side, and we lose some of that.

Ryan Isaac: We do. Again, there’s so much to be done. You think about even in a client, a typical client’s typical financial plan and all the moving pieces that have to get done. I mean, there’s so many of them that we don’t even execute. You know, we’re not insurance agents, we’re not CPAs, we’re not consultants, we’re not attorneys, but we’re like quarterbacking a lot of these things. I mean, just in our little corner of the world with dentists. There’s dozens and dozens of things to measure and track and perform. So yeah, it’s just so easy to get stuck there. Not just lost there, but stuck there.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I think this is actually really good. And we should talk about this tonight. We’re kind of like going, we’re like

Ryan Isaac: Thanks everyone for helping us build our

Matt Mulcock: Is brainstorm as we

Ryan Isaac: If anyone has any opinions on what our slides should look like or design, let us know.

Matt Mulcock: But I like this and what we’ll talk about tonight that just as you went through that thought or made me think of is like talking about the risks of leaning too far to one or the other, like you’re highlighting all of the risks of. Leaning too far to the left, too far to the physics.

Ryan Isaac: Side though.

Matt Mulcock: Can’t just be all like in your feels and get nothing

Ryan Isaac: Okay. I don’t want to like call anything out here any specifically, but there’s kind of like, um, how do you put this there’s like a

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, like I don’t want to be offensive man because again, these are these are important things But there’s kind of um, it might be a personality. It might be certain kind of cultural things. It might be just like Trends of people. It does seem to be younger people that are just like, ah, nothing, none of that stuff, man. It’s all just good vibes, dude. You know, it’s just like, what’s my, why, what’s my purpose? You know, like nothing, nothing matters. It all just all happened. And that’s probably actually true. Those are the probably, they might be the people with less regrets when they die. I don’t know, but there are people, what I’m hearing you say, I don’t know if you mean this, what I’m hearing you say is there are people who live in that. It almost feels a little out of touch with reality, like it’s all just feelings and, and there’s no like discipline, no metrics. There’s no like, okay, that’s cool that you want to like live and flow, but you have to like not spend more than you earn. That’s a math equation.

Matt Mulcock: You earn. There’s no

Ryan Isaac: If you want some later, you have to save some now. I mean, there’s some basic things that you’re going to have to do. You can’t just, like, love your way through

Matt Mulcock: Totally. Well, uh,

Ryan Isaac: Is that jerky of me? I sound like a

Matt Mulcock: No, no, like you, we

Ryan Isaac: It’s important.

Matt Mulcock: Still live in the real

Ryan Isaac: That

Matt Mulcock: Well, the reason I think we need to acknowledge this side of it is because I think sometimes we get like, I’ve seen this where we go to present somewhere and we lean a little bit, I’d say a lot of times to the philosophy side of money. And helping people understand, like, the why, how important it is to understand your why, the values, all that. And sometimes with dentists, I’ll fully admit, like, we get eye rolls sometimes. Of kind of like, okay, cool. So, I want to, I just like, I guess I’m bringing that up to say, I want to acknowledge

Ryan Isaac: Say, I want to acknowledge

Matt Mulcock: A, sometimes it’s difficult to understand the reasoning behind, leaning onto the philosophy side or the heart side of money. but also acknowledging that it can also go too far and we’re not saying you shouldn’t like the foundation of what you’re doing should also very much include the physics side, the metric side, the measurements, like understanding where you stand. They have to, they have to come together. I think for you to live a fulfilled life with money.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, fulfilled, that’s the key. Because there’s plenty of people with lots of money who are not. There’s, there’s plenty of people who have hit Mathematical financial independence numbers and they don’t feel independent of their money. They still feel like they’re, they’re kind of owned and controlled by their money issues or anxieties. And so that fulfillment word is the key.

Matt Mulcock: Well, in another word, I will give again, Dr. Dan Nelson credit for when his, when he talked, elevation uses the, when I like this word, they don’t talk about balance

Ryan Isaac: It’s not real. It’s

Matt Mulcock: They’re like the whole idea of, of balance is kind of, and I agree with

Ryan Isaac: To live

Matt Mulcock: A little bit, it’s a bit of a misconception. Yeah. It’s a nice tagline, but I don’t think it’s real. The word they use, which I really like, is harmony. And you get to define what that means for you. It might mean that you’re a little bit out of alignment from a quote unquote balanced perspective. But as long as that is like, you found the harmony in your

Ryan Isaac: And the harmony of the seasons of your life. I mean, it’s not, I mean, maybe young people, and, you know, argue with us in the comments. JK, there are no comments. Uh,

Matt Mulcock: Spotify there are.

Ryan Isaac: Oh, there are argue in the Spotify comments. I’ll never

Matt Mulcock: Go leave a review.

Ryan Isaac: Um, I mean, maybe a younger generation person would argue this, that, yeah, that, that just the balance part of it, you know, that you can’t achieve it or that the, the harmony of the seasons, your life. What I was going to say is I believe that in a lot of careers, it’s just, it’s just the nature of careers. When you build a foundation to work a little bit more. When you’re younger, you just end up working. I mean, at least in our audience, when you’re a dentist and you come out of school, you’ve not only worked so hard in school for years, those early years of practice are kind of a grind and they’re kind of supposed to be. You know, they’re kind of supposed to be, but to your point, that’s the harmony of the season. The season is, you’re in your 20s. You’re broke and you have nothing but time on your hands. So you grind and you work really hard and you start building a foundation for a career, which I believe actually is still important. Maybe that’s old school of me, but I think that’s really important to do. But I, I, I’m just saying I like the word harmony that they use and that you brought that up because harmony is the harmony of where you’re at. You know, cause harmony for you at 45 is not gonna be the same as 25. It’s just not gonna be the same

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. There’s no balance in that. Yeah. Yeah,

Matt Mulcock: Of my life was

Ryan Isaac: the average. The

Matt Mulcock: Did I find balance in my

Ryan Isaac: I love the visual. Maybe Jared was doing this when he was giving his presentation. I love the visual when he was saying, I don’t like the word balance. And he was using the visual of actually standing on one foot. Or at least I was imagining this. Maybe he totally wasn’t. I thought he was standing on one foot and kind of doing, you know, stand on one foot and put your arms to your sides. When you’re trying to balance, you’re always teetering to one side or the other. Always, you’re always moving when you’re in balance to one side or the other. That’s how you find balance. You picture someone on a tightrope or something, or a slackline. Like, you’re teetering constantly. That’s why balance isn’t real. You don’t sit in the middle, like, still. You’re never still in the middle. Balance is slight movement adjustments side to side. That’s what balance is. That’s why harmony is so

Matt Mulcock: The, the dangers of focusing too much on balance, like the actual hindrance it could have in your life. The anxiety it can create because you’re so

Ryan Isaac: Oh, I’m not balanced. I’m

Matt Mulcock: Balance exactly and then you feel like oh, man I should be going after balance. It’s like well Probably not. It’s probably not something you actually can have on day to day week to week basis again I think harmony is a much

Ryan Isaac: And, okay, I’m going to argue myself. I’m going to give myself a counterpoint.

Matt Mulcock: Let’s argue with

Ryan Isaac: You? Is that schizophrenia?

Matt Mulcock: Watch

Ryan Isaac: Is that schizophrenia? Arguing with myself? What if you are 25 and you’re like, you know what? It’s going to be. Harder to be free and travel, uh, and live as cheaply as I do now and be as free as I am at 45. So I will, someone’s like the harmony for me is actually spending my 20s in more travel and exploration, and then I’ll work harder later when I have less mobility. That might, someone might not agree with that, but that might be harmony for them. That might be harmony for their personal values and their life goals.

Matt Mulcock: Though. Cause someone

Ryan Isaac: That’s someone living intentionally because someone might buck the system. Be like, I don’t want to spend my twenties grinding like you old people did. That’s a dumb system. I’m going to travel like you guys never did. I’m going to go explore the world, find myself, whatever, and I’ll work hard later. Okay. Maybe that, maybe that

Matt Mulcock: And I’ll work hard later. And then at some point that starts to kind of like even out, and then eventually you’ve got, it kind of flips and goes the

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, or the stress of like doing that and then hitting your thirties and being like, I wish I would have laid more of a career foundation.

Matt Mulcock: To that

Ryan Isaac: So yeah,

Matt Mulcock: Person, Celebration. Yeah, if that person said that, I’d be

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, if that person said that,

Matt Mulcock: like, cool, if that’s what you want to do, go do it. Yeah. Like

Ryan Isaac: I totally

Matt Mulcock: That’s fine. I

Ryan Isaac: I totally agree.

Matt Mulcock: That might be, again, that might be harmony for

Ryan Isaac: harmony. Yeah, so I like that. I’m glad you brought that up. That’s cool. Okay, so taking it back to what we want to try to illustrate, and it was Dan who talked about the gap.

Matt Mulcock: The gap.

Ryan Isaac: Comes from, oh yeah,

Matt Mulcock: One thing I want to add on the other side that we, I want to quote because it was such a good quote and I wish I had this years ago at another conference that we did, uh, but Dr. Jared Hill was talking about and used a quote that, so we talked about kind of the risks on the, the, the philosophy, the heart side, the risks you highlighted some, but I want to just kind of summarize the risks that I think is a bigger risk for dentists of getting lost in the numbers and getting lost in like money becoming an end as opposed to a means. Yes. chasing, chasing outcomes, not taking any, yeah, not taking any time to step back and just think and ask myself, ask yourself why the quote Jared used, which I thought was so good. And we’re going to talk about it again tonight, which is growth for growth sake is the ideology of a cancer cell

Ryan Isaac: Okay. Growth for the sake of growth, or growth for growth’s sake is the ideology of the cancer cell, which is just growth for no reason at all costs. That’s the ideology of a cancer just to grow. Yeah. Which is the ideology of a cancer

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, which I thought was so good. And I was so annoyed that I did not have that at a conference a while back during a Q and a session.

Ryan Isaac: Just share this,

Matt Mulcock: I’ll just share this. I was at a Q and a session and this clearly has still bothered

Ryan Isaac: Bothered me. And it doesn’t, it doesn’t bother me, like it keeps me up at night, it’s

Matt Mulcock: And it doesn’t, it doesn’t bother me. Like it keeps me up at night. It’s just, and it’s actually a good bother. Cause it makes me think about this stuff all the time. I never have forgotten this. I was at a conference. I spoke, Kind of a similar thing to what we’re here tonight or this week, but it was like a two day thing. So multiple speakers and then one of the days we did a panel. And it was me and I won’t name any names, but me and some people, prominent people in the industry and we were doing Q and a,

Ryan Isaac: And

Matt Mulcock: And a guy in the audience raises his hand and says, I don’t remember his exact question, but the spirit of his question was something like, Hey, I’m really struggling with this concept of enough and, and like, when do I know I have enough? And he kind of

Ryan Isaac: Like, when do

Matt Mulcock: Incredibly valid

Ryan Isaac: Have enough? And he kind of Incredibly Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Yes. So he, he’s, and he could tell, he’s like, I’m struggling with this. I’m super successful. I’m making all this money. I’ve done all the right things, but like, I struggle with this idea of enough. And so I don’t remember my answer, but just imagine it was amazing. Um, but no, it wasn’t. It was probably fine, but I, I did answer something along the lines of like, look, I think the biggest, one of the biggest risks in finance or biggest challenges I’ll say is getting the goalposts to stop moving and being super intentional with when you do have enough and like what, when is it time to start focusing on the things? And I, I gave him some thoughts around like, I think the first thing is like, you got to get organized, know where you stand, like everything we talked about on the show,

Ryan Isaac: Principles.

Matt Mulcock: Principles. And I kind of said like, come back to first principles, understand your values, start with the end in mind, all this stuff. So I answer it and this guy next to me and I normally, well, great guy. Super smart and he grabs the mic immediately. I’m like barely finishing my

Ryan Isaac: He says,

Matt Mulcock: And he says yeah, but if you’re not growing you’re

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, which is a phrase everyone’s used at some point that seems like a cool thing to

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, yeah, it’s like really logical and he kind of looked at it like he was kind of like mic drop like got it

Ryan Isaac: End of discussion. Everyone go home.

Matt Mulcock: And so and I it happened so quickly and I clearly I haven’t stopped thinking about it. What I would have said, like, even a few minutes later when I thought about it, like, Q& A ended and walked away, and I was like, Man, the

Ryan Isaac: It didn’t sit

Matt Mulcock: It didn’t sit

Ryan Isaac: Didn’t seem like the best advice to tell people like, just keep growing because if you stop you’re going to die, so just never stop growing. Like, what does that even mean?

Matt Mulcock: Exactly. So, so my thought at the time afterwards, and I thought about it all that night and clearly since for two years since, my thought the whole time was like, if I could have answered it again, or if I could have responded back to this, I would have said, yeah, I agree to a certain extent that like, if you’re not growing, you’re dying. But does all growth perpetually have to be showing up on the balance sheet? Is that the only growth we’re talking about? But I heard this quote from Jared

Ryan Isaac: This

Matt Mulcock: Uh, growth for growth sake is the ideology of a cancer cell. And if I would have had that locked and loaded and ready to go, that’s exactly what I would have said. Like you can’t growing just to say like, I guess that’s the next thing I should do. Like, I guess I should just add another location. I guess I should just keep making more money and go buy another bigger house. Like that truly is.

Matt Mulcock: Behind it. No why behind it.

Ryan Isaac: iIt, no why

Matt Mulcock: This is where I think a lot of times people end up super wealthy and successful, rich, and they’re miserable.

Ryan Isaac: A lot of times people end up wealthy and successful, rich, and miserable. Well, and if you bring, bring something else

Matt Mulcock: Well, and if you bring, bring something else in. If you look at the work of Renee Gerard and a book that was written, uh, that basically like summarized his work called Wanting, I’m failing to remember the guy’s

Ryan Isaac: So it’s, it’s,

Matt Mulcock: So it’s, it’s amazing. It’s called, it’s called Wanting, uh, so he, I can’t you look up the guy’s name. I can’t remember his name, but he basically takes the work of a guy named Renee Gerard, and basically the entire book is around mimetic desire.

Ryan Isaac: Wanting. The power of memetic desire in everyday life. Luke Burgess.

Matt Mulcock: Burgess. So Luke Burgess, it’s amazing. It’s amazing. It’s one of those things, like, you’ll read it. And you’ll start to see it everywhere.

Ryan Isaac: See it everywhere.

Matt Mulcock: And so mimetic desire and it’s what you’re, it’s what you just described.

Ryan Isaac: Just described. Oh, okay. Like the cycle

Matt Mulcock: Living on a hamster wheel, looking around at like, what is everyone else doing?

Ryan Isaac: Else doing? Yeah, okay.

Matt Mulcock: And we don’t even know

Matt Mulcock: So this work was done by again, Renee Gerard. And then Luke Burgess took it and made it this really successful book. but I think about that all the time, too, is, I think it plays in really well with this of sometimes we’re just like looking around, even not knowing it, and just living a life that other people, like we, again, we think we should, because everyone else is doing it, and we never stop and be like, is this what I actually want?

Ryan Isaac: Like, is this what it actually was?

Matt Mulcock: Amazing. Can you retire on that? Live a good life on that? Yeah. A lot of people keep, for the sake of growing the number.

Ryan Isaac: Can you retire on that? Yeah. Can you live a good life on that? Yeah. A lot of people will keep going past that number just for the sake of growing the number. Could someone stop at a million and a half or two? Whatever. Arbitrary numbers. Could someone stop at a good enough level of collections that mathematically supports, you know, the stuff they’ve got going on and their futures and everything? And then say, maybe growth from here isn’t the number. Maybe growth isn’t on the P& L like you’re saying. That’s a really good, it’s not measured. Maybe growth from here is like, I want to spend time now learning what it feels like. To actually become like a, a much more, let’s say engaged, connected leader to the people I work with. Maybe I’ve been just like grinding so hard and we got these numbers and we’re profitable and we’re producing. But I feel like a little disconnected from my team and these are my people. These, I’ve spent like most of my days with them. They’re my family. Maybe growth for me now isn’t the number, it’s not revenue, but it’s like I want to dig with these people. I want to dig in and it’s an interpersonal thing. Growth can mean so many different things. If, like you’re saying, you stop and you’re like, Who am I chasing on this wheel? Why am I chasing it? And what is in it for me? Like, what do I want? Yeah, it’s totally

Matt Mulcock: Which it’s funny you say that because I actually think there’s a lot of situations where you’d see if you did something like that It’s a great example

Ryan Isaac: You probably end up making

Matt Mulcock: All the sudden you’re making more

Ryan Isaac: How many times have we seen that though?

Matt Mulcock: So much

Ryan Isaac: We do financial plans for people, we give them data and metrics and we’re like, Hey, mathematically, like you’re kind of done. And then they, they work less days. They push off the gas pedal. They, they have more fun at work. They engage with their people and their patients and their community more. And then what happens? Oh, we’re making more money.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, well and to that point this is why these work so well together. I like this word again We keep coming back to of harmony because to that exact point. If you’re not focused on The physics side of it. You don’t put enough focus on that. Like, let’s say, for example, on the physics side is Having enough liquidity, right? That’s a very like strategic. You just have to have enough cash

Ryan Isaac: Have enough

Matt Mulcock: Eliminates so much anxiety and nobody operates very well from a place of anxiety So you can’t even dig into the other side of things if you are like living in

Ryan Isaac: Dig into the other side. You are like living in survival mode. The number one freaking tool. I, I’ve been saying this a lot lately because I’m just always surprised and these are just real life case studies. I’m never not amazed at the amount of reasons dentists need liquidity in their lives and their careers without, like unexpectedly. I’m never not surprised

Matt Mulcock: Estate deals, office

Ryan Isaac: Real estate deals, office floods, raw sewage could be opportunities.

Matt Mulcock: uh, news

Ryan Isaac: Oh, there’s a guy with us here. He had a famous news case. His office literally blew up, literally blew up. And then, I mean, I’ll stop there. I’ll share anymore. Like, I’m just never not amazed after all these years of doing it. How often dentists need money that they didn’t expect needing. And it’s a frustration for me as an advisor, just being a little candid here when dentists don’t want to prioritize you know,

Matt Mulcock: places

Ryan Isaac: Saving money into liquid places because they want to chase things or put it in other places or, or even a lot, not liquid or even noble goals. Like I don’t care how much liquidity you have. I just have to get rid of my debt. And I’m like, I know, I know, I know. It’s a valid thing. Debt sucks. It keeps us up at night. But I’m telling you in your long career, there are so many things that are going to come up that will require, I mean, to think about the amount of clients we have with, like have had unexpected medical bills, house construction issues, real it’s always freaking real estate, real estate problems, liquidity issues, practices, exploding people problems. Like there’s just so many reasons dentists end up needing to grab cash in their lives constantly. Even really successful people. That is the number one. Just do that as a dentist. Build liquidity. Forever. All the time. Even if you’re like, I’m real estate. I’m a real estate person. Okay,

Matt Mulcock: That’s great.

Ryan Isaac: Need even more

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, exactly.

Ryan Isaac: You need more.

Matt Mulcock: Do. And by the way, it doesn’t even have to be the practical like risk mitigation type things. It could just be psychological. It’s amazing how many times dentist come to us and say, holy cow. you told us so many times that debt isn’t the direct correlate to my stress. It’s actually lack of liquidity. And tell us, come back and talk to us when you have enough liquidity, even with the same level of debt. And it is like 10 out of 10 times, dentists will say it like works 60 percent of the time. Every

Ryan Isaac: Hundred percent of the time.

Matt Mulcock: Every time, the dentist will say, holy cow, I didn’t think I, I didn’t believe you guys, but I did it anyway. And now I realize,

Ryan Isaac: It’s amazing how the exact same level of crushing debt all of a sudden loses it’s sting when you have money in the bank. So, if

Matt Mulcock: So if we take this even further, right? So again,

Ryan Isaac: Further, right, so again, uh, So,

Matt Mulcock: You know, we’re just out here in the

Ryan Isaac: Out here in the elements. I do feel like Dr. Mark is behind us because

Matt Mulcock: I do feel like Dr. Mark Costas kind of because I’ve heard several of his podcasts where he’s like, hey everybody I’m in Hawaii on the beach just doing that and it’s amazing. And now I’m like, are we Mark?

Ryan Isaac: Are we Mark? We’re not. Spoiler alert.

Matt Mulcock: Spoiler alert,

Ryan Isaac: Saw him with his shirt

Matt Mulcock: Was gonna say I saw him with a shirt off today. We are

Ryan Isaac: We’re not Mark Cossus.

Matt Mulcock: Absolutely not But takes even further So again these things that work in harmony the thing that we’re gonna talk about tonight as well if we’re going even Down the road to like the ultimate question people often engages for which is when can I retire that? Firmly lives on the physics side of things and we are not saying that’s not a good

Ryan Isaac: Well, no, and, and, like, Liquidity, when can I retire, how much do I need to save in order to retire, what things do I need to do or not do in order to, like, those are checkmark, checkboxes, logistical, KPIs, that you should manage, track, organize, and report on, constantly, and have accountability to. Oh yeah.

Matt Mulcock: But there’s another question and other things you should be thinking about the other side the question that I think compares directly to when can I retire? That’s kind of the later you should be thinking about that. The other question, you’ve probably heard it if you’ve listened to us for a while, which is, on the philosophy, the heart side, which is, Am I using my money in a way that improves my

Ryan Isaac: That improves my life. Am I spending in alignment with my

Matt Mulcock: Am I spending in alignment with my personality? And what actually brings joy, because don’t get it twisted, money can absolutely bring, increase your well being if spent in alignment with your values and personality. Like, this has been proven. It can absolutely do it.

Ryan Isaac: Been proven.

Matt Mulcock: But you have to put in the work to actually uncover that and

Ryan Isaac: Have to do it. I mean, that’s a real thing. There’s a lot of miserable, rich people.

Matt Mulcock: Tons of miserable rich

Ryan Isaac: I’m actually jealous right now of one of the dentists, Dr. Michael Allen, running to the beach with his board in

Matt Mulcock: He really is. He was taunting

Ryan Isaac: Oh my gosh, man, this actually hurts. That actually hurts so much. Well, here’s what I was going to ask, and yes, um, I don’t have my board with me though, so I can’t, but um, what I was going to ask is, what do you think, and maybe this is just good brainstorming for tonight, um, But what do you think?

Matt Mulcock: Selfish podcast, by the way.

Ryan Isaac: Kind of is. Thank you for being with us. What is the, what closes the gap then between not being too obsessed or stuck in all the quantitative stuff and all, but also respecting and valuing the qualitative stuff. Like how do you marry those two? What is the key to bridging the gap? I have an idea, but what would you say to that?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, this is actually, again, great brainstorming, so we should talk about this tonight and hopefully it’s a discussion. Yeah, offer

Ryan Isaac: So the things that come to mind for me, uh,

Matt Mulcock: It’s on your mind. It’s on your mind. Um, so the things that come to mind for me, uh, would be. I mean, this is going to sound like, duh, but I think number one, you got to put in the work, like you got to actually create awareness for yourself. You actually have to acknowledge where you are on the spectrum and acknowledge, like, do you even believe in this framework at all? Right? So acknowledge and create awareness, right? I think the more practical stuff is stuff we’ve talked about before, which is you’ve got to build a system. You’ve got to have a system on the, again, on the physics side of things of like.

Ryan Isaac: Things

Matt Mulcock: Try to create the best of a system as you possibly can. I think another part of this, said this many, many times, is having someone in your corner, having an accountability partner.

Ryan Isaac: To have a

Matt Mulcock: Oh, that’s, okay, that’s what you said, self serving. You have to sell you

Ryan Isaac: Isn’t trying to sell you something that can see both sides, cares enough about you as a human being to see both sides and not just be like, yeah, invest more money, but also why?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Well, and by the way, it is self serving because we’re obviously advisors. We act as accountability partners for people all the time, for our clients. But To be fair, like coming back to this idea, coming back to Dan and Jared and Ryan, they’re all business partners. I think they act as accountability

Ryan Isaac: It can be, you don’t, it doesn’t have to be someone you hire.

Matt Mulcock: They had the conversations they have that I’m a part of, or I just like witness and they’ll share

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. Well, they happen on trips like this. This is why, this is why elevation association puts these things on for their members is because the conversations that happen bridge those gaps. Like, yes, these are, we’re all dentists. We’re not, but they’re all dentists here. And these are the KPIs and this is what

Matt Mulcock: They just let us tag

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, these are best practices, but they also care deeply about, like, does it matter to you? Did it get you anywhere? Do you regret not doing something else? Like, yeah, I think it’s accountability. I think it’s a third party in your life that is not incentivized to sell you something, which can happen in a lot of industries. It doesn’t have an agenda for you other than helping you achieve harmony between these two

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. But look, okay, so look, but I totally agree. But let’s say someone’s out there listening and saying, Cool guys. But I don’t want an advisor. I don’t want accountability partner. I want to do this on my own. Cool. That’s awesome. So I think some practical things, let’s assume, so I think on the, again, coming back to this idea of this physics side of this, this measurement side, that’s relatively straightforward, right? So I’ll give you some practical things to go start doing. If you’re not doing this already, know where you stand when it comes to your net worth

Ryan Isaac: Balance

Matt Mulcock: Balance sheet, your balance sheet, your spending, your savings rate, your cashflow, your P and L.

Ryan Isaac: P& L, your profitability.

Matt Mulcock: That fits within that side. That seems pretty self explanatory, I think, right? If you’re not doing it, go do it. Hopefully you’ve got a CPA or

Ryan Isaac: You’ve got a few people there. On the other side, is again, you don’t want to have someone in your corner, that’s okay. Here’s

Matt Mulcock: On the other side, if, again, you don’t want to have someone in your corner, that’s okay. Here’s a practical thing, and this is what we’re going to share again tonight, of something you can do, an exercise you can do, and you should be doing on a relatively regular basis, hopefully with you, your spouse or partner, business partner, whatever. Both on the personal side and the business. So on the personal side It’s creating what we call a statement of financial purpose. And there’s actual like tangible steps to this. So take a piece of paper. And write out on a piece of paper,

Ryan Isaac: Question, but

Matt Mulcock: You can choose the question, but the spirit of the question is something like this. Why is money important to me? Another version of this question could be what, what purpose does money serve in my life? Doesn’t matter. Something along those lines. But start with why is money important to me? Round one, you start a timer for like ten minutes. And you just answer the question. There is no limits to how long your answer can be. Just write, write whatever comes to mind. No rules, just what is your answer? Stop. Read it. Reflect. Talk to your spouse or partner. Round two. Set another timer. Let’s say five minutes. And you make it shorter. If it’s two pages, try to cut it down

Ryan Isaac: You start trimming it down.

Matt Mulcock: Exactly. If it’s one page, cut it down to half a page. Cut it down as much as you possibly can. Stop. Reflect. Read. See if it resonates. Round three. Get it down to one

Ryan Isaac: Cool. Oh, yeah. State. Oh, you did this at the UDA

Matt Mulcock: We did. We did it at UDA. Um, it actually went

Ryan Isaac: It was awesome,

Matt Mulcock: Well. People were super engaged. Really, much better with the crowd demographics that were there.

Ryan Isaac:  Not think that was gonna fly

Matt Mulcock: Dude, it actually was great. We’re gonna do it tonight. I mean, we’re gonna

Ryan Isaac: You just surprised me. I didn’t

Matt Mulcock: Oh,

Ryan Isaac: I’m excited

Matt Mulcock: I mean, I don’t know if we’re gonna do the full exercise, but we’re gonna at least Depending on time, we’re going to allow them to like, at least maybe share or talk about it. but honestly, if you do something like this, if you actually take it serious, and give it some good faith effort, and then you align that with the practical balance sheet tracking KPI side,

Ryan Isaac: Balance

Matt Mulcock: Like, I promise you, and just the conversation alone, whether it be with an accountability partner or just your spouse or partner,

Ryan Isaac: be with meaningful. I’ve yet to have anyone ever say, This wasn’t

Ryan Isaac: I’ve yet to have anyone ever say, this wasn’t helpful. Spam Mark Costas inbox and his uh, DMs on Instagram for this, this uh, thing. If I remembered his cell phone, I would just give it to you. Uh, he gave it out, he gave it out. A smaller group than his public audience. But I was also gonna say, last night Mark Costas did an exercise where we all contemplated. which is hard to do and it’s not comfortable, uh, writing our own eulogies and kind of to tie back in this end in mind, top five regrets of the dying, thinking of yourself at that point in life, reflecting backward. I like tying it into what you’re saying and just trying to get yourself in a space. I wonder if you Google it, literally reach out to Mark Costas. I’m sure he’ll get in touch with you. He has a whole worksheet on it, but writing your own eulogy. And there’s like different steps of this. I’m sure if you Google there to ask chat GPT to break it down into steps of writing my own eulogy for a reflective standpoint, I’m sure you could find some good stuff. But I love this whole concept of trying to put yourself in the shoes of your future self years down the road. And then your dead self and then look backwards, look backwards, and then try to tie that back into the actions you’re taking today, knowing that there are still principles and systems that just universally work all the time, saving liquidity, healthy profitability. They

Matt Mulcock: Still important.

Ryan Isaac: Matter a lot. Yeah. All right. Well, I want to go serve.

Matt Mulcock: About the gap?

Ryan Isaac: Um, that was the gap. That’s filling the gap. The gap is the distance between those two things. And we do, we get stuck and more for our audience, way more for our audience. Our audience gets stuck in the logistics, KPIs, chasing numbers thing. Sometimes just for the sake of chasing. Our audience tends to get stuck there way more. So trying to pull ourselves out of that through accountability, through value statements, through trying to put yourself in your future self’s shoes. Those are all things you can do, um, to work through that. And get out of it. Get unstuck. You know, don’t chase the next location just because you think that’s what you have to do.

Matt Mulcock: The next location just because you think

Ryan Isaac: there. Don’t grow like a cancer cell. Matt, 2025 in June.

Matt Mulcock: it there. Don’t grow like a cancer cell. Matt, uh, 2025 in June?

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, we’re here. But, if you’re sitting

Matt Mulcock: If you’re sitting there thinking like, Holy cow, I wish I could have been there. And I love what you guys are talking about. And I love the idea of coming to a summit. That has great speakers with great messages around maybe a theme like called plan for the present You might want to check out The dentist money summit June 20th and 21st speaking of Jared Hill and his lovely wife Maren They are actually going to speak. They’re one of our main stage speakers. They’re sharing their great story and his journey through dentistry and how he got to where he is today and, and, um, started Elevation because of his experiences in dentistry. It’s, it’s incredible. Uh, so DentistMoneySummit. com, check it out. We’d love to see you in June. Come hang out with us.

Ryan Isaac: And, uh, peace out and big shakas from, uh,

Matt Mulcock: Also Go Birds. Uh,

Ryan Isaac: Go birds. He did it. He called it, man. Alright, alright, alright. Thanks everybody. Bye bye.

Keywords: Financial advice, wealth, happiness, success, personal finance, life balance, intentional living, financial growth, liquidity, personal values, harmony, accountability

Behavioral Finance, Work Life Balance