Unlock Your Financial Potential: The Power of a Good Coach – Episode #479

Want to improve your relationship with money? Then you need help developing solid wealth-building strategies and good financial habits. So, who is best equipped to do that, an experienced investor or a skilled financial coach? On this Dentist Money Show, Matt and Victoria explain how a recent company ski trip illustrated the power of good coaching vs. real world know-how.

 

 

 

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Podcast Transcript

Matt Mulcock:
Okay, here we are. We have started. Victoria, how are you?

Victoria Ferguson:
We’re here. I’m doing well, how are you?

Matt Mulcock:
I’m doing great. Let’s get the small talk moving on. Um, I’m just kidding. All, all business. Uh, okay. So we were talking recently about a recent experience that we had with part of our team, right? We went skiing. It is that time of year. We have not everyone here is a skier, but we have, they should be.

Victoria Ferguson:
Wow! Right to business! Yep, yep. They should be. If you live in Utah, how else do you get through winter if you don’t ski?

Matt Mulcock:
That’s if we had, I wish we had Ryan on here, we could talk about this, but because I’ve lived in Utah now and I’ve lived in California and I always feel like in Utah, I feel the same way. It’s like, how do you live in Utah? Especially like for a long period of time, like I was born and raised here. Uh, so it’s like, I know people who were born and raised in Utah and have never skied and it’s like, what do you, yeah.

Victoria Ferguson:
Mm.  Right.  That is so wild to me. I mean, I’m a transplant. I’ve been here eight years and I started skiing as soon as I could, when I could afford the student pass in college that I was up on the hill skiing. Am I good at it? No, but we are constantly working on it. I need to get on to your level, Matt.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. Well, you know, the only thing I have on you is experience and time. That’s it. That’s the biggest thing. So, uh, but I was going to say, so like I lived in California, I feel like it’s the equivalent in California. And I’m sure Ryan would feel the same way. It’s like, how do you live in California and not surf, but I, I lived there for three years and I attempted to surf one time there and was not a fan. So

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, I mean, I grew up in Southern California. I never surfed, but my family is at the beach once a week. It was pretty regular.

Matt Mulcock:
And I guess maybe that’s more what it is. It’s like, do you enjoy, are you at the beach? Are you enjoying the ocean? Cause you’re so close to it. It’s kind of the thing.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, yeah, you should enjoy the surroundings in which you live in.

Matt Mulcock:
Exactly. Uh, okay. So we were, we had an interesting experience, right? We took, again, there wasn’t everyone. We had a handful of our team up there. One of them being, uh, our loved and our beloved, our beloved Robbie, uh, who you all know and love. And so we were up there and Robbie Hiskey, this was his fourth time ever. In his whole life. And let’s say, first of all, the level of enthusiasm this man had.

Victoria Ferguson:
Our beloved. Our star. Yes.  Ever in his life.

Matt Mulcock:
Going up, he was talking about it for days and days and days going up there and got me, got me so excited. Let’s.

Victoria Ferguson:
Wait, it cut out for a second.

Matt Mulcock:
That’s okay. It’s fine. Yeah. No worries. Am I still cutting out? Okay.

Victoria Ferguson:
Okay. Nope, you’re good now. I heard the level something. Yes.

Matt Mulcock:
The level of enthusiasm of this man was palpable and so, it was like inspiring me as we were going up there to go ski. It was so contagious, so much fun. I’ve skied my whole life and this dude got me more excited to go skiing than I’ve ever had before. Anyway, so we get up there again, it’s his fourth time, right? And so we’re, and we’re all at different levels here.

Victoria Ferguson:
It was contagious. So contagious. Yeah!

Matt Mulcock:
When we’re skiing so we’re just like let’s just hang on the first hill We’ll just kind of like get a feel for it and Robbie This is again probably his total of like 10 runs in his 10th run of his whole life. Oh No, did it freeze it froze?

Victoria Ferguson:
Yes. Did mine?

Matt Mulcock:
What is wrong with our internet?

Victoria Ferguson:
I’m trying to get this to work.

Matt Mulcock:
Is this just never going to happen?

Victoria Ferguson:
I feel like this is the sign from the universe. No, I think you froze for a little bit. Do we just keep going? Okay, cool. 10th run.

Matt Mulcock:
Let’s just keep going. We can edit it. Okay. So, so it’s like the probably his 10th run of his whole life. So he’s, he’s like getting his feet underneath him. Right? So he starts going, I hang back with him. You just like took off.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah.  Okay, okay, to be fair, before you continue on with the story, you said, go for it. And so I said, okay. And then I just skied not the whole way down, but halfway. Disappeared. I disappeared.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s okay. It was a good opportunity for me and Robbie to hang out and it was, it was awesome. So you’ve slowly ditched us, slowly ditched us. Justin and I hung back a little bit and he ended up kind of moving forward. So that last, or that, sorry, that first run was, it was me and Robbie basically. And so here we are, as I was thinking about this after, so here we are. I’m 30 years into skiing, right? I’ve been skiing since I was probably five or six years old.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, but I did ditch you guys fully. Yes, I’ll take accountability for that. I did. Yeah. Yeah, yep.

Matt Mulcock:
So it’s over 30 years of skiing. And then there’s Robbie, who’s literally not even gone 30 times total in his whole life. And so naturally he looks at me as he’s, he’s starting to kind of get a feel. He’s just trying to like get down the mountain and he’s, he looks at me after probably a quarter of the way down the mountain and he stops and he’s like, Matt, like, what should I do? Like help, help me get better. Like, how do I turn? And I, my response.

Victoria Ferguson:
Mm-hmm. I’m sorry.

Matt Mulcock:
First response was, I don’t know. Like I can’t help you. Because, and so, I literally didn’t know. I was like, man, the key here, you just got to relax. You just, that was my only thing I could say. It was like, you got to relax. Right? So we get down the mountain, he’s exhausted. He, legs are shaking. Yes. He collapses at the bottom. Because…

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah. His legs are shaking visibly. Yes.

Matt Mulcock:
We all know that feeling right. When you’re doing something physically, like for the first time or you’re really new and it’s like mentally, emotionally, and physically just exhausting. He gets down to the bottom and he collapses. And so he takes a break and then we go back up later or he comes back up on like the third run. So then here’s the whole, here’s kind of like crux of the story, right? We get up there, then you decide to hang back. And I even said, Hey Victoria, I think you’d be better to like help Robbie with this.

Victoria Ferguson:
Ugh. Yeah, yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
And you immediately jump in and start showing him some drills and like, you’re able to like articulate step-by-step the things he should be doing, the weight shifting, how to turn, like you’re giving him step-by-step instructions of how to do this.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yes, and context that is important here is I’ve only, I’ve, I’ve skied here and there, but I’ve only been a committed skier for a season. And last season, I really wanted to learn because all my friends ski and I wanted to be able to hang out with them. So I took six lessons, I think last year. So this is all still very fresh in my mind. I remember learning the drills. I remember how to go from wedging or the pizza french fries, most people know it. I remember going from the pizza to the french fry. And so I could, I knew exactly how Ravi was feeling at from falling and how frustrating it can be. Although he was such a good sport about it. I would have cried fully a lot, but he was beaming the whole time. Such a good sport about it. But anyways, all I did was have him.

Matt Mulcock:
Yes.

Victoria Ferguson:
try to kind of follow my tracks and he had questions about how to turn. So I was able to say, Oh, think about your pinky toe and lean into that. But you were just like, Oh, just turn. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
I think even you mentioned, I think the example you gave, you were like, think about explaining something as basic as like, uh, explaining how to drive a car. Like if you have.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, to somebody that’s only seen cars in the movies. You’d have to think like, oh, open the door, sit down. Yeah, but it would take you a lot to think about.

Matt Mulcock:
Exactly. You take your time and take a mental load. So, so we got done and you’re right. There’s a whole other like podcast and life lessons around how Robbie just was again, so inspiring. The attitude he had was so fun. He would fall and literally, so just a quick example, he would fall and I would go ski up to him and I’m like, all right, man, you good to go. And he, his response every time was yes, I love this. It’s all part of the process. And I was like,

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah. Yes! Such an inspiration! Yeah. Yes.

Matt Mulcock:
You’re the man, dude. I just love you so much. I love Robbie. And so he’s like already so jacked up better next little ski day we’re doing. So go ahead.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yep, yeah. Well, I was going to say we all ended up kind of fitting in the role of I go first and show Robbie the drills and have him follow me. He’s in between and then you were in the back to pick him up. So he had a great support team of kind of a, I don’t know, quasi expert instructor, me. And then you’re well, you picked, I could not pick up Robbie. I’m five, four and tiny. And so I, if he, when he fell, I was like,

Matt Mulcock:
Yes, for real though. And then me just as the cheerleader, I was the cheerleader.

Victoria Ferguson:
I can’t do, I can’t help you. Yeah, he had a great team.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, I was there to kind of support him. Yeah. So it was great. It was awesome. So we got done, right. It had a wonderful time. We finished and we’re driving down the canyon and then we get back to the office the next day and I was thinking about it the whole rest of the day for various reasons, again, mainly because of Robbie was just, it was just so fun, but I was thinking about it and this whole idea again, when he asked me, uh, can you like, Hey Matt, what do I do? And I was like,

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
My assumption, your assumption would be that because of the, of the group there, I’ve been skiing the longest probably me and Justin. And so you’d think that I would be the one to be, to be the one to help him to be like, Oh, I have the answers here. I’ll be able to help you. But, but I couldn’t, I literally could not. I I’m so far removed from where he was. I couldn’t put myself in his position and I didn’t know, I didn’t know what to say.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yes. Right.

Matt Mulcock:
And then here you come along and it’s like, you’re so much closer to him as far as your experience level and you were far ahead of him, but you, you’re so far or you’re so close to him as far as what period of time you were at that level. Like you remember that, like, I don’t remember that because I was five. I don’t remember that period of time. I don’t even remember learning. It’s like, I don’t remember learning English. I don’t remember learning. No.

Victoria Ferguson:
Right, recent. Yes. Yeah, you remember learning how to walk? Like, could you teach someone how to walk? No. Yeah. I don’t know. Yeah, it’s just second nature. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
That’s a great example. I would know. I wouldn’t. I was like, how do you, how do you walk? I don’t know. I just do it. Exactly.  So we started thinking about this, right? And I was like, there’s a, I think there’s some parallels here to what we see with clients and dentists out there. All over the country, right? And this very much parallels again, the stories we hear. And I think the, where dentists are seeking advice and it’s not always the places that you think, right? And there’s several examples that we can go over, but I think, I think for today, we wanted to just hit like four or five main points from this story.

Victoria Ferguson:
Right.

Matt Mulcock:
of sometimes where you think you need to be getting advice is not always the best place. Right. It’s kind of counterintuitive of where you think you should be getting advice from and almost like detrimental depending on where you’re going, where you’re looking.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, I think the experience bias is a big one. Like just because somebody has so much experience, decades of it doesn’t mean they’re a good teacher and they can help you do it. Like that doesn’t really, I mean, it’s relevant. You definitely want someone with good experience, but ultimately you want them to be able to translate that to you in a way that’s meaningful. That’s what you’re going after.

Matt Mulcock:
Totally, totally. And it’s this whole idea of like to that point, that’s point number one, right? Just because someone has exceeded at something or they’re good at something or they have something that you want, doesn’t mean they’re the person to help you achieve that thing, right? Like someone has the outcome that you want, but you’re not always like, because you’re seeing the outcome, you’re not always thinking about the process, the time, the energy, the experience it took to get to that point, but you immediately assume that’s the person that’s going to help you get there.

Victoria Ferguson:
Right. Yeah, well, and I’ll bring your favorite example, a person, Dave Ramsey. You know, he’s done, he’s been wildly successful in building wealth, right? And he loves to give advice in his own personal way, which you, you wanna try that? Yeah, try that again. There we go. Right? Like he’s built this.

Matt Mulcock:
I love Dave. I don’t love Dave.

Victoria Ferguson:
tried to help so many different people. And as we’ll say time and time again, Dave is not talking to dentists for a variety of reasons, right? He’s so far removed from that demographic. And so in listening to that, just because he has found that level of success and he’s been doing it for a long time, he’s almost the worst person to listen to if you’re a dentist.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. And there’s various reasons why Dave’s not a great listen for, or why dentists shouldn’t listen to Dave, but that’s a great example. I think another example, like that I hear a lot or see a lot, you know, when we’re talking to clients is, uh, and even worse than the Dave Ramsey, uh, meaning a worse place to look a lot of times is we hear these situations where a dentist, a client will say, Oh, well, my friend or a friend, a friend of a friend.

Victoria Ferguson:
Uh, yeah. My buddy.

Matt Mulcock:
Owns 10 rental properties or even more so like, you know, they own 30 rental properties. They own 50. They’re like, they’ve been doing this for 30 years and I’m going to go and like, they’re going to teach me how to do this or whatever. Or it’s this person is doing what I want to do, which is quote unquote, get into real estate. And so you assume that that’s the person to help you do it, which may be the case, but it has nothing to do with the fact that they own rental properties.

Victoria Ferguson:
Right, right. Yeah, well, there’s so many other things that come into play too, like luck, you know?

Matt Mulcock:
I’m sorry. It just hit me. We’re going to take a quick pause. I’m going to grab some gum. We’ll edit this.

Victoria Ferguson:
It’s just me, Victoria. This is now The Victoria Show. DA after hours? Maybe.

Matt Mulcock:
What a shit show of an episode.

Victoria Ferguson:
I have been trying so hard!

Matt Mulcock:
We’re working so hard. We’re trying so hard. I’m going to edit this one myself, so we’ll be fine.

Victoria Ferguson:
It’s good! But I was just like… I was gonna keep going, but you were dying!

Matt Mulcock:
I’m dying. I’ve been a little under the weather. The last, like, not like bad, just like a little tickle in my throat.

Victoria Ferguson:
Oh! So tickle in your throat, bad knee, your jaw hurts, your back’s jacked, huh?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, I’m getting old.

Victoria Ferguson:
Oh, yeah, that’s totally it.

Matt Mulcock:
OK, where were we?

Victoria Ferguson:
Real estate, my buddy can do it. Oh, and then I was saying there are other things that go into people’s success. Just because they found success in it, don’t discount all the help they would have gotten. And help meaning, did they actually start where you are starting or did they have a leg up?

And can they help like meet you where you are at or did they start from a completely different place number one number two? Luck luck is huge, and I don’t think people well. I don’t know maybe people don’t realize just how much luck comes into play I mean even thinking on my own career I don’t really know how I ended up in the dental space, but as such good luck for me right like I didn’t plan on this I don’t think you did either But there are so many

Matt Mulcock:
No.

Victoria Ferguson:
Other factors that go into somebody’s success and we will over we’ll just overlook it and get so mesmerized by the success and immediately equate that to oh you did it so I can replicate it.

Matt Mulcock:
Totally. Well, there’s this concept, right? Like we talked about this before. We’ve talked about this a lot. You and me, even before we started recording this is like, just because someone’s a good player, doesn’t mean they’re a good coach. Right. And so that right there is like, Oh, again, this person has what I want, or they live the life that I want, or that I perceive it, right? I perceive that they have something I want. And so again, they’re a good player. They’re good at whatever they’ve done. And to your point, they’ve gotten lucky. They’ve, they’ve maybe under different circumstances, whatever.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yes. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
But you immediately assume, here’s the key to this point though, is you immediately assume that is the person to help you get it.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m sorry to put a sports reference in here and I’m stealing this from you. Like, who would you rather teach you how to shoot a basket? Steph Curry or Steph Curry’s coach who taught him how to do it?

Matt Mulcock:
Exactly. I mean, yes, Adam Grant just wrote about this in his newest book, uh, hidden potential, and he talks about this very concept and that’s the quote. That is a perfect example. I love that you’re using sports references because you were a sports fan. Um, I would rather have Steph Curry’s coach teach me cause he’s coach Steph Curry, but Steph Curry is his coach is far better equipped to teach me how to shoot a basketball than Steph Curry is even though Steph Curry is

Victoria Ferguson:
Mmm. Yes.

Matt Mulcock:
far better at it than Steph Curry’s coach at this point. I would guess.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, yeah, special, yeah, well, specializing in a subject is very different than specializing in teaching the subject. Doing and teaching are so, so vastly different, right? So, sorry to bring the sports reference in there, but had to. Ha ha ha.

Matt Mulcock:
Don’t ever say sorry about that. I love it. Okay, so point number one is just because someone has succeeded at something or has something that you want, doesn’t mean they are the ones to help you get it. I think is big. I think you’ve already kind of alluded to this, but I think point number two is specializing in a subject is very different. You just said this, specializing in a subject is different than teaching that subject.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yes, yeah. I mean, ultimately to bring it back to the story, Robbie would have been far better off with a ski instructor rather than his makeshift team between you and I. I mean, he made it and he had a great time and he’s stoked about the next time we’re going up, but the best thing for him would have been a ski instructor. And I can speak to that because that’s…

That’s how I learned. I had so many friends who were like you, oh, just ski with me a day and I’ll help you. And then we get up there and I ask, how do you turn? And you’re like, I don’t know. So a ski instructor does this every single day. They know how to help people shift their weight, turn. They know the problems. They know the common problems and fixes. And so ultimately that would have been what’s best for Robbie. But hey, we did the best we could.

Matt Mulcock:
You know, we did the best we could and he had a great time. Uh, and that’s the whole key is like, I’m teaching my kids right now. And my whole point with them is like, can I basically as a successful day with my kids skiing is are you leaving, having fun and wanting to go again? That’s my key with them, right? That’s the whole thing I care about right now. I mean, they’re four and they’re two. And so like, do you just enjoy this? Right. I mean, no, they’re not, but they’re, they are, they are catching on quickly, which is amazing.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, and they’re better than me. Ha ha ha. That’s awesome.

Matt Mulcock:
But you just made a really good point that I don’t think I’ve thought about until you just said this, which is thinking about the person who’s giving advice and the overconfidence that can be created from experience. Right? Cause you said this when we were going up, I said to you that what you just said, I said, let’s go one time and you’re going to be, you’re going to be great. You’re going to, we’re going to be out doing whatever I’m so like that is me being, first of all, an arrogant a-hole.

Victoria Ferguson:
Mm-hmm.  You’ll be skiing black diamonds. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
But, but truly like I have overconfidence based on an overconfidence bias based on experience, I assume. Because now skiing is second nature to me, but I’m sitting here being like, well, yeah, doing, doing this for 30 years. So I’m not, I even assumed like, Oh, I’ll be able to teach you easy. Which is so, so again, so, so you think about the people that you’re seeking advice from the people we’re talking about, that they’ve, they have an outcome you want, they’re going to be overconfident.

Victoria Ferguson:
Right.

Matt Mulcock:
that they can teach you how to get there. And you see this with people selling courses or whatever. And it’s like, no, just because again, they have that experience or they have that result does not mean that like you assume and sometimes they assume that they’re the person to teach you. And it’s just not the case in most situations.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah. Well, and I did that too. And that’s part of the reason why I skied off kind of immediately because I was like, oh yeah, Matt’s been skiing so much longer than me. He’s gonna be way better for Robbie. And I just assumed that. And then when it took you guys like 30 minutes to get down, I was like, oh, there’s something wrong.

Matt Mulcock:
That was, that was because of me, not because of him. I was just, I was getting warmed up. Yeah. And it is true. Like the, once you started helping him on that second and third and fourth run, like the speed in which he was getting down was so much better, so much better. He was getting so much more comfortable.

Victoria Ferguson:
Uh-huh, uh-huh. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I agree.

Matt Mulcock:
So the third point here that you, I want to see, get your thoughts on this or expand on this. But the third point here is you’ll learn more from failure stories than you would success stories.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yes. Yeah. Well, I have been somebody that’s a huge perfectionist and I fear failure and mistakes and I’ve always tried to be perfect, but I’m trying to switch to this mindset of you want to have failures, you want to have mistakes because that’s where you learn the most. And wasn’t it Warren Buffett’s quote, he said, like, it’s best to learn from your mistakes, it’s better to learn from other people’s mistakes.

And so that’s why I say a ski instructor would have been ultimately who’s best for Robbie because they’ve seen the mistakes they know the failures they know the frustrations and so You want to get guidance from somebody who can teach you from other people’s mistakes so you don’t make the mistake yourself so I think This just broadens the guidance there if you have somebody who can talk you through the failures and share those findings.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, I think that’s a key point there too. There’s this idea of not all experiences created equal, right? There’s specific personal experience of like my life, your life, an individual’s life, and then there’s collective experience. And those are two very, very different things. A ski instructor is going to have the power of the collective.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, well, and that’s why we hammer the point home all the time. Having a dental specific financial advisor is incredibly valuable. And the reason why is we’ve built this brain trust of knowledge over 15 years of doing this and working with hundreds of dentists all over the country. We’ve seen dentists at their tallest, tallest peaks and their lowest valleys and everything in between. And so the, between all of our advisors is incredibly valuable because we can educate from other dentists’ failures or learning opportunities as I will pose. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, no, they really, it’s so true. This is, we preach this all the time, right? It’s having a dental specific team, advisor, CPA, attorney, the dental specific team is exactly what you’re saying Victoria is, let’s take a DSO offer as an example, you might be getting offered DSOs or have DSOs knocking on your door and you can go to, and this happens all the time. You can go to your, you can go to your buddies and say, Oh, well, my buddy had this offer, I want to talk to him about that or, or my buddy.

Victoria Ferguson:
Right.

Matt Mulcock:
My buddy sold to a DSO. I’m going to go talk to him. I think you still could and should.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, it’s helpful.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s helpful, but the difference between that and let’s say you go to a dental specific CPA or you go to, you come to us, we’ll receive these things. Week in and week out, we’re able to give you a different perspective than that one individual would.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, that’s the collective knowledge rather than just an individual. If you’re listening to just one story and then taking action on that, that’s a really high risk because you’re assuming so many things you’re assuming you’re starting in the same spot. You’re assuming that person’s, uh, luck and everything else that came into play is going to be your same situation. And that’s. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Their office, their culture, their staff. Yeah, exactly.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, and you always go for the diversity of knowledge and the collective experiences rather than an individual. And even if they were so successful at it and you want the same thing, there’s a danger to that and listening to just one person’s story.

Matt Mulcock:
I was just going to say that I think to this point, you’d rather to your whole point of you learn more from failure stories than success stories, if you just go to a friend who or buddy or whoever, a friend of a friend, again, the into the you it’s counterintuitive to think. I wouldn’t go to them and get advice from the person who succeeded talk, talk to someone who’s seen it go wrong five, 10, 15 different times, at least get.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah. Right.

Matt Mulcock:
More of that collective experience from both sides of it to be able to make the right decision for you.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yes. Yeah, I fully agree. Cause somebody who’s successful, they may not know as many of the obstacles as somebody who failed at it. Like ultimately, and this kind of leads into our next point, but you want to get advice from somebody who can help navigate the obstacles because there are going to be obstacles. Nobody’s path in success is linear at all. So…  you want to be able to navigate that, learn from both the success stories and the failure ones. Like don’t discount the failures just because they are just that. There’s a lot of learning you can find from failure stories and mistakes.

Matt Mulcock:
I love that. And again, this not that I would just rehashing this point, but it’s true. It bears repeating when you talk about navigating the obstacles. I think it’s a great point. If you go to one single person who again has the outcome you want, or you assume that because they have that outcome that they’re going to be the ones to help you navigate it, they might be able to share some obstacles that they faced, but their, their obstacles are so isolated and specific to them and their situation, which may or may not help you.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yes. Yep. All right.

Matt Mulcock:
Or they, I’ll be honest, let’s be honest. You forget, you whitewash, you romanticize the past. You forget and the further removed you become, just like this whole idea with skiing, I’m so far removed from those obstacles I faced as a kid learning how to ski that I can’t, even if I’m looking back, I can be like, oh yeah, I sort of remember these obstacles I faced. No, I don’t at all. I don’t at all. But if you…

Victoria Ferguson:
Right, right. Huh. That’s such a good point because like, I remember the feelings of walking back to my car with my skis over my shoulder, crying and wanting to snap my skis. That was just, yep, this was, yeah, like 12 months ago when I actually started ski lessons and I actually.

Matt Mulcock:
Exactly. Because it was last year.

Victoria Ferguson:
got demoted in a ski group. I started in like the kind of more advanced group and I felt really good about myself and then I got demoted and I was crying and I remember the feeling of feeling so frustrated and all of that. So yeah, but you don’t remember falling as a five-year-old, right?

Matt Mulcock:
No, I do remember one time, I will tell you this, back in the day at the ski resort, they don’t do this anymore, but all the slow signs used to be literally wood framing, wood framing with like a canvas orange sign that said slow. And there was a gap between the ground and where the bottom of that frame started. And so it’s probably three or four feet. Yeah. So it would become this, it’d become this thing where like I’d see my sit, my older siblings or whoever.

Victoria Ferguson:
Oh gosh. Bye. Did you shoot the gap? No.

Matt Mulcock:
would go, would go underneath the sign. Right. And when I’m first learning, I remember I was probably seven or eight. I thought it’d be cool to go underneath. Well, most of the time, if you’re good enough, you’d sit down and literally lay back on the ground, right. And don’t underneath the sign. Well, I couldn’t do that. So I, but I still wanted to replicate what my friends or my siblings or whatever did, going to the sign. So I decided to just crouch down.

Victoria Ferguson:
Uh huh. I’m sorry. Yeah, you had to do what your buddies did. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Put my head down and see if I could go underneath it. I didn’t, I actually hit the wood frame, cut my head open. Crawled all over the snow, blood everywhere. It literally, I mean, head wounds as we all, I think, know, like bleed like crazy. Dentists know this, I’m sure. Uh, and blood everywhere. Yeah, it was bad. So I do remember that. I could tell Robbie, Hey, if there’s a wooden sign, probably don’t go underneath it. I could tell them that part. Beyond that, no, I don’t remember any of the obstacles.

Victoria Ferguson:
bleed like crazy. Yes. EWWW. And don’t plunder it! No! Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m surprised you remember doing that at all, you know? You can cuss! Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, I think I really like the point you brought up that if you go to an individual person, they will know their obstacles and

Matt Mulcock:
I know. I mean, this is why I have my tick. You know, I think that’s probably, yeah, this is why, this is why I drool a lot too.

Victoria Ferguson:
if they can even remember them, right? And the further removed you are from those obstacles, the less you remember how awful they were at the time. But I think that’s important to note. That person will know their specific obstacles and cannot necessarily help you with your own.

Matt Mulcock:
Well, and to your point, you know, you had those experiences you remember so vividly because they were so recent. So you’re, you know, you’re better off teaching Robbie than me as we’ve already highlighted, but then think about the teacher that you were with who has how many in the class with you, like how many of them you’re worth five, 10 of you. Okay. So five to 10 of you multiplied by how many seasons that teacher had. Again, it, it start, you start to see the compounding effect of experience beyond the

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, like 10 of us, 5 to 10 of us, yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
personal individual experience of one individual. It’s, oh, I’ve seen this so many different ways and times I’ve seen Victoria struggle and do this and that I’ve seen this person do that. You know, when you go to Robbie and you see him doing this or that with his feet as a teacher, you’re like, oh, I’ve seen this. It’s just a whole different set of tools that a teacher or someone would have as their profession rather than just an individual that’s had success in one thing.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, yeah, because I would struggle with one certain thing and the rest of the class wouldn’t. So she would give me, my ski instructor would give me a specific drill to work on for that because I was experiencing an obstacle nobody else was. I mean, I just really wasn’t that great. I think I was the worst one in the class. It’s okay. I can ski now-ish and it’s fun. But they could tailor it to me, right? Like to your point, because they’ve seen so much and they’ve seen it all, they could

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Victoria Ferguson:
really give me specific guidance. Could I do that with Robbie right now? No, I mean, we’re doing the best we can. But that’s like really the power in getting guidance from someone who has seen it all.

Matt Mulcock:
I love that the idea of tailoring or customizing the advice as well is really huge. And that kind of comes back to this point of, or we haven’t even mentioned this, but I think this is another key point here, which is outside the realm of skiing. If we’re talking about dental practice or finance or building wealth or whatever, it comes down to like, what are your specific goals? What are you trying to accomplish? What kind of practice are you trying to build?

Victoria Ferguson:
Yep. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
What kind of life are you trying to have? Don’t assume that person, whoever you’re seeking advice from, like is in again, the same situation that you are from a, from a standpoint of like what you actually want out of life, it’d be like going to a, sorry, I’m going to cough again.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah. Yep.

Matt Mulcock:
There’s gonna be some major editing on this podcast, required. But, uh, it would be like going to a, uh, a personal trainer or let’s say going to a friend who’s fit, who’s in shape and you say, Hey, uh, I want to. What workout regimen should I do? Give me a workout. And it’s like, well, what do you want to do? Are you running marathons? Are you powerlifting? Like there’s a huge difference between, between like what’s it, you have to define what success is for you.

Victoria Ferguson:
Ohhhh, yeah, yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Before you’re even there seeking advice. And a teacher to your point would be able to help you navigate that discussion as opposed to just a friend who’s good at something.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yes, yeah. Well, I just laugh because that’s exactly what I did to you. I was like, you’re fit, you can help me. But you had those questions for me like, oh, well, what are you going for? And I was like, I don’t know, the gym, is it that hard? There’s so much that I didn’t even know about that world too, but I just assumed.

Matt Mulcock:
I mean, yeah, we, we use a lot of analogies to fitness, uh, not only cause I mean, we’re just very, we like it with a hobby of mine and Ryan’s and yours. And like, but again, I think there’s also a lot of parallels. I’ve worked in that world as well. There’s a lot of parallels to like being a coach or a trainer versus being an advisor, and it’s not exact thing. You come to me and say, help me with a workout plan. It’s like, well, what do you want to do? Like there’s so many different ways to approach this and so

Victoria Ferguson:
Right.

Matt Mulcock:
You can’t just say here’s a workout plan. Um,

Victoria Ferguson:
Right. And to kind of draw a parallel like back to personal finance, I think like it’s exactly that. You know, someone’s like, oh, I want to save for retirement and I want to do all these things. Well, it’s not like the cookie cutter advice is a great starting point, but the most successful dentists personalize it, make it a game they can win, actually work towards what you’re supposed to do, right? That’s different.

Matt Mulcock:
Yep. Make it a game you can win, which is the game of wealth, not the game of status. And the game of wealth, success in the game of wealth is something you get to define. So that’s why I love that you just said that. Make it a game you can win. That’s such a good point. And that’s so personal to you. You get to define success to you.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, well that’s why we start off every single client relationship with what are your values? What’s important to you? What are your fears with money? Before we even get to all the numbers and the spreadsheets and analysis, we want to customize it for you so we can meet you where you are at to give you the highest chances of succeeding and whatever that means to you because success, you get to define that. Nobody else, right? So let’s succeed the way you actually want to succeed.

Matt Mulcock:
Yep. Or at least you want to be the ones that define your own success. You should. If you, if you, if you let society or other people do it for you, that’s going to be a lifelong journey of being dissatisfied. So we’ve kind of already hit this, but we had one last point here. I think it does. It does bear repeating just that we say, just because someone has succeeded at something doesn’t mean you can easily replicate it. I think we’re speaking here. We’ve mentioned this a little bit before, but just the idea of survivorship bias.

Victoria Ferguson:
Right, you should. Yeah, I agree, oversimplifying the process to get there, really glorifying the success and discounting all of the failures and all the people who’ve tried and failed before. It’s a dangerous line of thinking.

Matt Mulcock:
Yep. It exactly. We, we should, I think we’ve actually done this before. We should probably circle back on this and do like, do a show specifically on survivorship bias. There’s so many parallels in the investment world, the financial planning world that we could, we could point to on the survivorship bias. But I think that’s a key point there. So I guess, I guess the whole thing here, Victoria is like, so what, right? What’s the, so what here? What’s the, what’s the takeaway we should be kind of finishing this up with?

Victoria Ferguson:
Yep. Yeah, ultimately this all ties to be careful where you source advice from. Don’t fall for your own biases, like just because somebody looks the part or they’ve had success. Like don’t discount other things like failures, the luck they’ve had. And I think, and we’ve already talked about this a lot, but the best advice you could get is somebody who has the collective knowledge. Hundreds of iterations and learning opportunities that they can share and don’t get advice from just one singular success story, no matter really who it is, right? You want the collective knowledge.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. I mean, I think that pretty much sums it up. I think, like you said, be careful. When I say be careful, it kind of makes it seem ominous. We’re just saying be, be thoughtful, be thoughtful with where you’re getting advice from, we’re not saying don’t talk to friends, we’re not saying don’t seek out advice from family members that have, who have, who have a different level of experience than you, right? And we’re not saying just completely throw it out, you know, all the way.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, spooky. Right.

Matt Mulcock:
We’re just saying there’s kind of second order, kind of second level, um, thinking here, which is be thoughtful, question everything, um, seek out more, I guess we’re saying seek out more than just that buddy or just, or just that family member who, you know, got lucky with something that you’re like, Oh, I want to do that too. There’s a, again, there’s a big difference between someone being a good player and someone being a good coach. And I think kind of thinking.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yes.

Matt Mulcock:
the difference between those two and always question the motive of the person that you’re that you’re that you’re talking to or the advice that you’re seeking.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yep, I agree.

Matt Mulcock:
Okay. Well, there’s our ski story, uh, and, and hopefully some lessons to take away from it, hopefully it was helpful. We, uh, as always appreciate you listening. If you want to talk to us and you want to share your story, uh, with us and get advice or, or just get some questions answered, and this is something we do for hundreds of dentists all over the country every single year, uh, and again, a lot of times it’s just answering some questions. We, we’d love to hear stories, hear your story.

And hopefully add some value for you. Even if that’s again, something as simple as answering a few questions. If you have any interest in that, you want to talk to us and you want to share your story with us, go to dennisadvisors.com click on the, it used to be green button, now it is the yellow button rebrand. Click on the yellow button says book free consultation. You can talk to one of our very friendly advisors. Uh, if you hit the lottery, uh, you will get Victoria, you’ll be able to chat, you’ll be able to chat with her, uh, and get, get tons of good.

Victoria Ferguson:
Oh, stop.

Matt Mulcock:
Advice not only about skiing, but also about, uh, hopefully some, some money tips as well. Uh, so with that said, we appreciate everyone for listening, Victoria. Thank you so much. The last plug as always. We have the Dennis money summit coming up this June, June 20th through 22nd is going to be an incredible event. Uh, if you have any questions on that or want to see the speakers and want to see the lineup, the agenda, the location, we have all the information you’d ever need.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, we do.

Matt Mulcock:
At Dentist Money Summit.com check it out. Thanks again. Till next time. Bye bye.

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