What Financial Indicators Should You Track? – Episode #366

Want to know how to prevent unexpected money woes? To ensure you’re following a healthy strategy, make sure you track these financial indicators. On this episode of the Dentist Money™ Show, Ryan and Matt highlight Elements scores that quickly help you understand your financial health. There will always be uncertainty on the road to financial freedom—unless you follow the right signs.

 

 

 

 

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Podcast Transcript

Ryan Isaac:
Hello everybody and welcome back to the Dentist Money Show brought to you by Dentist Advisors. Dentist Advisors. Who are we? We are a no commission fiduciary comprehensive financial advisor just for dentists, have been for 15 years all over the country. Check us out at dentistadvisors.com. Today on the show Matt joins me and we talk about a few stories about a baseball commissioner some medical issues and Bob Marley. And why do we talk about these stories because they relate to financial organization, how to spot and diagnose financial problems especially early and ahead of time so that you can get back on track make smart financial decisions and be healthy financially in the future. Many thanks to Matt for joining me. As always, fun conversation, fun storytelling. Great message. And thanks to all of you for being here. We really appreciate it. Enjoy the show.

Announcer:
Conduct your own due diligence when making financial decisions. General principles discuss during this program do not constitute personal advice. This program is furnished by Dentist Advisors, a registered investment advisor. This is Dentist Money. Now here’s your host, Ryan Isaac.

Ryan Isaac:
Welcome to the Dentist Money Show, where we help dentists make smart financial decisions. I am Ryan and I’m with Matt. And we’re in the studio.

Matt Mulcock:
Physically.

Ryan Isaac:
Physically finally.

Matt Mulcock:
In the flesh.

Ryan Isaac:
It happened. Here’s what I was just thinking about this morning. Shout out to Robbie CFA at Dentist Advisors.

Matt Mulcock:
He’s so great.

Ryan Isaac:
Many of you know and love him. He is taking his, citizenship nationality test. What is it called?

Matt Mulcock:
No, he took it.

Ryan Isaac:
He took it, passed it.

Matt Mulcock:
Took it passed it. Now he’s going through the naturalization process. That’s like all this stuff, whatever.

Ryan Isaac:
Born and raised in Lebanon. Is that correct?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
And then, I don’t know when he came here, a few years ago or longer than that.

Matt Mulcock:
I think it was like, I wanna say like four or five years ago.

Ryan Isaac:
Robbie’s so smart. Anyway, Robbie, today we did our end of year, end of year meetings right now. We made Robbie repeat the Pledge of Allegiance in front of the whole group ’cause he had to memorize it for part of his…

Matt Mulcock:
It was incredible.

Ryan Isaac:
So here’s what I was just thinking when I was saying welcome to the Dentist Money Show, where we help dentists make smart financial decisions. It’s the cadence that you get used to that makes it sound if it’s like on or off, if it’s right or wrong. ‘Cause he started saying, I pledge allegiance to the flag. No. How did he say it? I pledge allegiance… I pledge allegiance…

Matt Mulcock:
To the flag of the United States.

Ryan Isaac:
Yes, he said it in one phrase and it sounded wrong. We said start over ’cause instead of I pledge allegiance, to the flag.

Matt Mulcock:
I honestly was like he was saying it wrong, but it wasn’t ’cause what the words he was saying, he was…

Ryan Isaac:
He said, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States Of America. And it was like, no, that’s wrong. But it was right.

Matt Mulcock:
But it was exactly right. He had it down.

Ryan Isaac:
So I was saying where we help dentists make smart, and I was like, oh, this sounds wrong, but those are the right words. Shout out to Robbie.

Matt Mulcock:
The cadence was off.

Ryan Isaac:
Shout out to Robbie. We have some stories, today for you. Matt and I like doing episodes like this where you don’t know what I’m gonna talk about. And…

Matt Mulcock:
The surprise episode.

Ryan Isaac:
The surprise episode.

Matt Mulcock:
You literally wouldn’t tell me. I was like, okay, what are we gonna talk about?

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t want to.

Matt Mulcock:
Like I have a story, I’m not gonna tell you.

Ryan Isaac:
These stories are Cool. It’s kind of funny. I don’t know if it’s funny actually. These aren’t funny stories. It was ironic. I found these two stories kind of back to back how they lined up. Today’s, the whole theme of today though. The whole theme of today is gonna be around how in your financial life can you have some kind of indicator that you’re on the right or wrong track before it’s too late. So mostly that you’re not doing well before it’s too late. Now if you think about a dentist’s normal financial life, really, the indicators most people have would be like, they’re checking account balance in the business. I mean, think like what a dentist check. Okay. Not our clients. What does a dentist check to see like if they’re, like if they’re okay. Bank account balance, login.

Matt Mulcock:
Bank account balance. I would say you’re saying business or personal?

Ryan Isaac:
Anything.

Matt Mulcock:
Anything. Collections.

Ryan Isaac:
Just financial. Collections. You’ll see if they’re on track for like maybe their schedule.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. Scheduling for sure.

Ryan Isaac:
Maybe they’ll pull up their stocks app and see if markets are up and down.

Matt Mulcock:
Their crypto.

Ryan Isaac:
Their…

Matt Mulcock:
Maybe. Don’t check that.

Ryan Isaac:
Don’t check your crypto. [laughter]

Matt Mulcock:
Your money’s probably gone.

Ryan Isaac:
When another asset class makes a, the S&P being down 15% look really nice, then you know it’s bad.

Matt Mulcock:
And it feels… We keep doing this, but it feels really good only because of how many times I was told that like…

Ryan Isaac:
Have fun staying poor.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh well, half’s done, have fun staying poor. But no, even just like the disparaging comments about like, oh, you just have like a portfolio of stocks like that’s boring.

Ryan Isaac:
You lame stock investor. So the indicators that the average, I mean dentist probably has, or bank account balance, the stocks app, maybe the feelings they’re getting from the news or friends or Facebook groups, collections, numbers.

Matt Mulcock:
I would say on the business side, if they’re doing reviews, like maybe checking reviews, like maybe like Google Reviews and things.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
You know, surface stuff.

Ryan Isaac:
So what we here at Dentist Advisors, Matt.

Matt Mulcock:
Here, over here at dentistadvisors.com.

Ryan Isaac:
We’ve tried to… We built our company like, we didn’t work for anybody when we started this. We didn’t work for a firm that was already up and established, had processes, a way of doing things. We really tried in the beginning to just say like, what does a dentist need to have in order to make progress, avoid big mistakes and like end up in the spot where they want to get to. And one of those things was not sexy.

Matt Mulcock:
Nope.

Ryan Isaac:
But it was just an incredible amount of.

Matt Mulcock:
Like us.

Ryan Isaac:
Very much like Matt and I. Not sexy, but it was just a lot. It was a lot of organization that was needed. There was just a huge lack in a dentist, the average dentist life of things being organized enough to a point where they could just look at something or somebody in their life could look at something and tell them, hey, you’re on track or you’re not on track. Because the business account having more than you hope it… I mean, there’s a number you should keep in your business account. Keep two to three months worth of business spending in there. But it also is kind of an arbitrary thing. Like a lot of people when you ask them like, what’s your comfort? What’s your sleep at night number in the business? They’ll be like, 150. You’re like, Why?

Matt Mulcock:
It’s always like a round.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s just a round number that ends with a zero. Never a two. I wish someone would say like 132.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. 137,000.

Ryan Isaac:
164. But like, that’s kind of arbitrary. There just needs to be a set of indicators somewhere that could tell us like, are we on a healthy path? Is anything lagging behind? And that could tell us how to diagnose. Dentists do business this way, like my teeth get taken care of in a systematic approach like that but people’s finances don’t. And that’s what we really have tried to really strive to build at Dentist Advisors. A lot of the systems and processes that we’ve built around planning, a lot of you know it as the Elements. We’re gonna be talking about that today. But I read two stories recently, that just reminded me of this. So let’s dive into a little history, Matt. There’s a guy named Bart Giamatti. Bart Giamatti was, is, was the dad of famous actor Paul Giamatti.

Matt Mulcock:
All right. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Do you recognize Paul Giamatti from any movies? If you saw him, you would be like, do you?

Matt Mulcock:
I know the…

Ryan Isaac:
Do you know the name?

Matt Mulcock:
I know the name. I mean, I want to say Godfather, but…

Ryan Isaac:
Paul, it sounds like a very godfather to me.

Matt Mulcock:
It does.

Ryan Isaac:
This guy.

Matt Mulcock:
Let me see. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. If everyone Googles Paul Giamatti right now, the story’s not about him, but everyone knows Paul Giamatti. The guy’s a pretty legendary… My favorite role that I saw him in most recently was a TV series called Billions.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, I haven’t seen that for good things.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh yeah. Watch Billions. Anyway, it’s kind of fascinating. But this story is about his dad.

Matt Mulcock:
He was in Straight Outta Compton.

Ryan Isaac:
I did Not know that.

Matt Mulcock:
Just so you know.

Ryan Isaac:
Thanks Paul.

Matt Mulcock:
I’m sure he wasn’t a rapper in that, but…

Ryan Isaac:
He was not. Paul Giamatti was not a rapper in Compton. I can confidently say that. I never saw the show. His dad… Okay. So his dad, Bart Giamatti and this article I’m reading is from late ’80s. So this probably spans back into the ’70s. I don’t know the time he was, but his dad was the commissioner of Major League Baseball. And Tad, our producer, said that he, we were just talking about this. He said…

Matt Mulcock:
He’s like, oh yeah, Bart, go, Bart.

Ryan Isaac:
Bart Giamatti. He said Bart Giamatti was the last great baseball commissioner because he wasn’t just a business guy. He was very, very smart. He was a fan first. That’s what Tad said. So someone who knew about Bart Giamatti.

Matt Mulcock:
He said he was the last commissioner that was actually a fan.

Ryan Isaac:
So, alright, this article’s from 1989, which is a great year for me. I was nine. I was really happy at nine. I guess, I actually don’t know if I was.

Matt Mulcock:
I was three. I was probably wreaking havoc.

Ryan Isaac:
Giamatti ’89. He’s at a Mets Dodgers game at Shea Stadium. It’s August 1989. And there’s a guy in attendance named William Cahan or Cahan I guess. He’s a senior attending surgeon at a cancer center in New York. And the surgeon’s watching on TV. So Giamatti is in attendance at Mets Dodgers and the surgeon was called William.

Matt Mulcock:
He’s watching him on TV.

Ryan Isaac:
He’s watching him on TV. And this doctor is watching an interview with Giamatti and he’s like, “Oh my gosh, somebody needs to get in touch with that guy immediately.” And so he finds a way to reach out to Giamatti’s people and he reached him and it’s August 30th when he reached him and Giamatti is 51 at this time. And he reaches him with the news. He said, “Hey, I watched you on this big television screen and as you were bringing your cigarette to your mouth, I looked at your fingernails and I noticed what’s called a four plus clubbing.” That’s the medical term, actually. “A four plus clubbing of your fingernails. And this condition is when your fingernails curve up from the sides and in the front.” So Giamatti’s on TV, smoking a cigarette, and this guy, the surgeon…

Matt Mulcock:
Because it’s 19…

Ryan Isaac:
‘Cause it’s 1989.

Matt Mulcock:
’89. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
And this guy’s like, “Look at that guy’s fingernails. Holy crap. I gotta call this guy.” So August 31st, the news, he gets in touch. He said, “I saw you on TV. That four plus clubbing in your fingernails is a… It’s like a high chance indicator that it shows the presence of emphysema or lung cancer.” So he reaches him on August 31st, Giamatti dies the next day of…

Matt Mulcock:
No.

Ryan Isaac:
Lung cancer. Undiagnosed. What?

Matt Mulcock:
Oh my gosh.

Ryan Isaac:
Nuts. Crazy. So I heard this story and I was like…

Matt Mulcock:
And there were no other symptoms or.

Ryan Isaac:
Apparently this was not something that he was like, it wasn’t on his plate. Yeah, wasn’t. He died the next day. So I heard this and I’m thinking, holy crap. This person watched on a… This person noticed a detail on a television… And I’m sorry, but do you ever go back and see footage from even like early 2000s?

Matt Mulcock:
That’s the grainiest TV ever.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s like an 8-bit Nintendo game.

Matt Mulcock:
Yes.

[laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t know how you noticed the curvature of fingernails on TV.

Matt Mulcock:
That actually is kind of wild. I’ve even seen games like I’ve rewatched like an old whatever, games, sports game. Sports game. I sound like an old sports game. But I’ve even watched like old games from not that long ago. And it kinda shows you how fast technology has come with like TV and stuff ’cause like you said, watching something from like, even like when I was in high school which was maybe longer ago that I’d want to admit, but like, even like early to mid-2000s and it’s…

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, I’ll see sports footage from early 2000s.

Matt Mulcock:
Which is 1975.

Ryan Isaac:
You could convince me that footage from the early 2000s was from the ’80s and ’70s.

Matt Mulcock:
Easy, easy.

Ryan Isaac:
You could convince me of that. I would be sold.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. I agree.

Ryan Isaac:
So this person watches crappy Tv. And at least, I mean, I guess the point is I read this and I thought, that person is such an expert in their field, they clearly do like one thing only and one thing well, that they noticed the curvature of fingernails on someone on TV and reached out. Really sad story that there weren’t apparently indicators earlier than that, that anybody caught, and he died the next day. Really, really sad.

Matt Mulcock:
That is wild. And yes, very sad.

Ryan Isaac:
Very, very crazy. Another thing I read right after that, it was like a day later, in 1977, freaking legend Bob Marley.

Matt Mulcock:
Such a legend.

Ryan Isaac:
He Was diagnosed with melanoma under a toenail, which also, begs a lot of questions for me, but we can’t get into, I don’t know how you find melanoma under a toenail or how you get it. That just freaks me out. I’m a kind of a warrior. So, that you can get melanoma under…

Matt Mulcock:
You surf every day with sharks. You’re not that much of a warrior. You’re not that much.

Ryan Isaac:
I also have a high degree of tolerance for cognitive dissonance.

Matt Mulcock:
Yes. Yes. This is not what ended… Is that what ended up killing Bob Marley?

Ryan Isaac:
Bob Marley died of cancer too, but in 1977… Okay, so this isn’t the exact same thing, but, I’m gonna relate this in a second. He was diagnosed melanoma under a toenail, but he rejected the advice to have his toe amputated. And it was, he cited religious beliefs. That was his choice. He got the advice, he was conscious of it. He died four years later at the age of 36 of melanoma.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh. Oh wow.

Ryan Isaac:
Bob Marley and Bart Giamatti. So sorry to bring down the tone.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. You really killed the vibe.

Ryan Isaac:
Geez, the vibes are low.

Matt Mulcock:
I didn’t realize these stories were gonna be like this.

Ryan Isaac:
They’re heavy.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
But I listened to these and I just thought, you know, as it relates to someone’s like financial health, there’s two big parts that these stories taught me. Number one was that there are indicators of financial health. They exist, they exist in what percentage of your money did you spend last year? What percentage of your money went to some form of savings or investing? How big is your net worth compared to what you spend? How liquid is your net worth? How illiquid is it? Right? How much insurance do you have if you were disabled or you died or you got sued by somebody? How much risk are you taking in your investment accounts? Are you diversified? Do you have really expensive mutual funds? There’s indicators and they kind of exist out there in this big unknown universe that most people don’t really want to look at or even know where to go find them, but they exist. And when somebody is able to spend a lot of time on a small set of indicators in one part of somebody’s life they can become an expert. Right. And having these indicators exist and in the hands of someone who’s watching them constantly can prove to be very valuable to somebody. Obviously we’re talking about like someone’s money and not someone’s life per se. Money translates to life quality.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s an aspect of their life.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, totally. So I’m not trying to compare like, you know, having a high savings rate to being like, you know, have your life saved by a doctor by any means, but…

Matt Mulcock:
What we’re basically saying is we’re like that surgeon.

Ryan Isaac:
We’re right under the importance of a surgeon.

Matt Mulcock:
We’re saving lives.

Ryan Isaac:
But then the… Then I read the Bob Marley story and I thought, okay, well that’s interesting because there’s another part to this because you can tell somebody, “Hey, I noticed this thing about you, or there’s a problem with your savings rate, your net worth or your liquidity, your insurance or whatever.” But action has to be taken too. There’s another part.

Matt Mulcock:
Or not at least.

Ryan Isaac:
Or not.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. You understand the trade off.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Someone has to understand it. And so like in our financial plan we would describe financial planning to someone who’s new to learning about it or anyone who just is still learning about it as… What’s our phrase, Matt, organize…

Ryan Isaac:
Thank you. Decide and act.

Matt Mulcock:
Decide and act.

Ryan Isaac:
Organize, analyze, decide and act. What we mean by that is we don’t know anything until it’s organized and put it in the right categories. Once it is in the categories, you have to analyze it. So that’s like saying, and we’ll get into this, but what you… Is making a million dollars a year good? I mean…

Matt Mulcock:
Compared to what?

Ryan Isaac:
Compared to what? Right. Is having a $5 million net worth good? Is saving a hundred grand a year good?

Matt Mulcock:
I mean you get used to these things after a while, you know. I get used to these things.

Ryan Isaac:
Saving a hundred grand a month.

Matt Mulcock:
Did you pull my stats?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. These are all your stats. These are your stats. Yeah. Like are they good or they bad? Well it depends. That’s where analyze… That’s where analysis comes in. You have to compare things to other things, which we’ll talk about. Then you have to make decisions. Hey Bob, there’s melanoma under your toenail. Here are the possible things you can do. Right. And then you have to act or you can choose not to act, but then you have to take action which, you know, when we’re talking about financial progress and financial success or business success or health and fitness success, it’s not necessarily just about the action. It’s like, will you still be doing that action 10 years from now or even one year from now? Because if not, then that action is not really gonna be that beneficial to you.

Ryan Isaac:
So anyway, I read these two stories. These were the lessons I pulled in from them and I want to relate them to kind of just generally why we built a process around organize, analyze, decide, and act, kind of how that gets implemented with our element system. And we’re really excited because we’ve been working on this app. We’ve been running Elements out of spreadsheets and PDFs and really cool reports forever. But now we… Elements company has built their app and now we can implement it. And so I kinda wanna talk about how they get to use, but before we dive into that, any takeaways for you from these stories at all? Anything like just comes top of mind? Anything you wanna add to any of that?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, I mean, I think about that first one with, Giamatti first. Again, both of these stories you really like got me down. I’m feeling like…

Ryan Isaac:
It was a really bummer of a…

Matt Mulcock:
You’re really starting to be honest.

Ryan Isaac:
Thanks Ryan. Thank you.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, thanks a lot.

Ryan Isaac:
We’ll go out after this and do something funny. Okay.

Matt Mulcock:
Exactly. No. So I’m just thinking like, I can’t imagine that there was not things, indicators in that guy’s life that he was not…

Ryan Isaac:
Must have been.

Matt Mulcock:
Thinking about. Right. He knew something was wrong.

Ryan Isaac:
He was a smoker, obviously. So like, was he like coughing like crazy every day and no one… Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Well, let’s just go with the… I don’t know this for sure.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, I don’t either.

Matt Mulcock:
But I’m going to guess that there were signs that there was something happening.

Ryan Isaac:
Especially if he died the next day after someone noticed it.

Matt Mulcock:
The next day. Yeah. Like, there’s something he was noticing.

Ryan Isaac:
Totally.

Matt Mulcock:
So, I think the first thing I thought with that and the relationship to what we do and what we’re talking about is like, how many times do we hear people finally call us or we see someone at an event and we’re talking to someone and they’re like, “Man, I know I need to get my crap together. Or I know that I have this problem or I’ve always had this question or how… ” And obviously we’re not claiming you’re going to die. Right. It’s not… The consequence are not that.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. That was the disclaimer in the beginning. This is not as serious as your, like life or death, physical, safety or health. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. But if we look at this with like, comparison is like, the consequences can also be very high. I can think of some very, very sad stories unfortunately of people we’ve talked to who have like set up consultations. Their situation is they’re 62 years old, they’ve saved nothing or just not nearly enough. You all I’m saying is I was thinking, man, the level of, the consequence of not doing something when you know something’s off with your finances can be significant.

Ryan Isaac:
So knowing it’s half the battle but you also have to act on it and if you… And that’s cool too but if you’re not still taking that action a year later, five, 10 years later, you’re still not gonna get anywhere.

Jess Reynolds:
Hey everyone it’s Jess Reynolds with Dentist Advisors. You’ve heard us talk about Elements. Our system that provides a scorecard to monitor your financial health. Well, Elements is now a cutting-edge mobile app recently featured in Financial Planning magazine and we wanna give our listeners a chance to try it for free. So here’s what you need to do. Go to dentistadvisors.com/scorecard and book a free financial assessment. We’ll send you an invitation for you to download the Elements app and then after you enter your info you’ll have a free no obligation meeting with one of our CFP advisors to understand if you’re doing okay financially. Again to get your free financial assessment all you have to do is visit dentistadvisors.com/scorecard. Do it today.

Ryan Isaac:
So let’s back up a little bit. Matt, you joined our company at a time when we were really really digging into this process called the Elements that we were building. What do you remember about that time like what was getting built? It wasn’t in its first stages but it was being developed and built and really implemented. It just was making a lot of sense as we were going along. What do you remember about that when you jumped, when you came on?

Matt Mulcock:
Having my mind blown.

Ryan Isaac:
You offered your service for free you took no salary, you just wanted to be a part of the vision.

Matt Mulcock:
Still I’m not. Still I am not getting paid.

Ryan Isaac:
You’re still not getting paid.

Matt Mulcock:
No. I remember I mean the first thing to be honest that popped in my head were those videos we used to make.

Ryan Isaac:
Wait what was… What were we doing when you got here? Did we have the actual Elements grid and everything going?

Matt Mulcock:
So we had the grid on the website.

Ryan Isaac:
Reports?

Matt Mulcock:
We had reports.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, reports were coming out.

Matt Mulcock:
We were starting to like… When I came on we were really starting to like evolve that process of like sending out those reports.

Ryan Isaac:
Those PDFs.

Matt Mulcock:
You and I were the ones that started testing out the videos.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, doing videos on the reports.

Matt Mulcock:
Doing videos.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. I remember that.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s just so funny thinking back to that and thinking where we are now with all the stuff we’re trying to figure out and it’s like it’s never changed. It’s like oh and you said it, I think today and then on another podcast we did of like we’re constantly asking like what would the client want?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. What would be cool?

Matt Mulcock:
What do they want? Do they need this? Do they not? Stop this. And it leads to a lot of change but so what I remember first is just being blown away at the simplicity of how organized it is for advisors like to be able to like deliver the advice.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. I am glad you said that.

Matt Mulcock:
To be able to like very quickly see, oh this seems off, and like you were saying before, in relationship to what? This is off because compared to this other element. So anyway it was so new to me of like I came from a world that was not doing like we, you know, we’re not doing full real comprehensive financial planning, so this is my first like real experience with like, oh, this is real financial planning. We’re actually hitting all these different topics and this is something that no one else has like truly, until recently no other advisor group had this because we invented it.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. We created it here.

Matt Mulcock:
Anyway I just, I remember thinking about the simplicity of it, how cool it was to be able to very quickly see something that was either off or needed to be fixed.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. I like what you said about the, how useful of a tool it is for advisors. I’m still to this day not convinced dentists need more dashboards reports.

Matt Mulcock:
No.

Ryan Isaac:
Notifications, apps, tabs, analytics, charts, graphs, data. Dentists have enough of that stuff. Some are nerdy like us and really want more. They want more graphs and charts in their lives, a few, a select few.

Matt Mulcock:
I think there’s a couple that build their own spreadsheets.

Ryan Isaac:
You know who you are.

Matt Mulcock:
You know who you are.

Ryan Isaac:
But what you said is true. We invented that tool not because we felt like the customer or the client needed more data sitting you know in their hands whether it’s a report or a PDF or a chart a graph or app or whatever. We knew that there were no tools in the field of giving financial advice to have that kind of insight. It’d be like doing dentistry where x-rays don’t exist. And like certain hand pieces aren’t invented yet. It’s just kind of weird to think about the financial advice is given in a way like on our industry, I mean, even the term financial advice is a little silly ’cause it’s more just product sales.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, a lot of it is.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s what happens in our industry. So it’s like even trying to, even people who want to get financial advice, what can you do? You can log in and see someone’s investment account balances, you can calculate returns.

Matt Mulcock:
Sure.

Ryan Isaac:
I mean, you can… I mean, what do people have? They kind of have like a partial balance sheet, maybe their investment accounts and a couple debts or something. I mean, the tools just didn’t exist.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. And I think the hard thing is we’ve talked about this so many times and this is just such a problem in our industry that like with dentistry, you mentioned this earlier today, in dentistry there’s a pretty much a standard of care. Right?

Ryan Isaac:
Yes.

Matt Mulcock:
Like every dentist can do other like different things as far as like specialty. Right.

Ryan Isaac:
Totally.

Matt Mulcock:
You could do CE and do certain procedures [0:24:43.4] ____.

Ryan Isaac:
And some might do a crappy job because they’re just not, they’re not great.

Matt Mulcock:
Totally. Totally. But the standard of care is pretty much consistent across the board and the barrier to entry is the same. The problem with our industry at its core in my mind with financial planning is you can call yourself a financial planner or a financial advisor but that doesn’t mean the standard of care is the same. You and I can be different advisors across the country, both of us get on a call with someone and be like, yeah, I’m a financial advisor. You are just selling insurance.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, as I do.

Matt Mulcock:
Of course, yes. Your side hustle.

Ryan Isaac:
I prefer annuity sales.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, of course. Index annuities. And I could be a true comprehensive advisor like we are.

Ryan Isaac:
By calling ourselves the same thing.

Matt Mulcock:
By calling ourselves… And how confusing is that?

Ryan Isaac:
And held to different legal standards.

Matt Mulcock:
Yes.

Ryan Isaac:
I could be as the annuity salesman throwing out wild return predictions and actually have it be legal, where you have your hands tied to even say that you have a satisfied customer. [laughter] You’re almost not even allowed to say that.

Matt Mulcock:
We just got that, law passed.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. You’re not even allowed to use like a testimonial from a real human.

Matt Mulcock:
That just says they did a good job.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. You’re totally right. Our industry is so scattered there is no standard of care. Which is why like someone can engage with us and be like, I don’t like that. I don’t think that’s helpful. Okay, that’s fine. But we at least try to say, here’s a standard of care for dentists. And that’s where the Elements was born. If you don’t know what we’re talking about you can pause this or just go while you’re listening to dentistadvisors.com, you’ll find it on the website. It looks literally like a table of chemistry elements. There’s 12 of them.

Matt Mulcock:
We knew that dentists were nerds and…

Ryan Isaac:
That was a shtick.

Matt Mulcock:
That was a shtick.

Ryan Isaac:
That chemistry table was a shtick. But there’s 12 of them. Originally we tried to… Well we had a huge list of them. I mean we… The Elements were born out of an old checklist system we used to do with clients. Any early clients will know this. We had this checklist of like a few hundred different things and they were ranked in like stoplights like red, yellow, green. All these categories.

Matt Mulcock:
This is before I got here.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
And so all of those hundreds of things were kind of grouped and we narrowed them down to about 12 and we liked that because we thought like, well, maybe that could apply to, each month of the year has its own category that we’ll focus on and that kind of began that way. But as it’s evolved we’ve learned some of those, some Elements should be visited for sure once a year. But some should be visited more than once per year and those are the most important ones. So where it’s at today is we’ve got this system, again, dentistadvisors.com, you can see all this. There’s a picture like this grid of boxes and there’s three on the top row, four in the middle, five on the bottom. So it’s kind of like a little staircase on the right hand side.

Ryan Isaac:
The top row you have Elements of investments. So like how are your investments built and structured? Are you taking the right amount of risk? Are you diversified? Do you have the right types of accounts for your situation? Is the right amount of money going to each of those types of accounts? Are the right costs there? It’s just how are your investments doing more than just performance too. There’s way more questions with investments and how they are performing. Another one on the top row is your income and for a dentist a lot of that relates to profitability. So if you ask the average dentist what did you make last year, they…

Matt Mulcock:
They won’t know.

Ryan Isaac:
If someone… Yeah. Most people will like think of their collections and be like, well, that’s not totally it. Or they might think of their own personal…

Matt Mulcock:
No, they’ll tell you their collections, that’s how you can say.

Ryan Isaac:
They’ll tell you their collections or they might think of like the taxable AGI number that ended up on their personal return after all of the write-offs possible which is what it should be and neither are true. What is your true gross income after you get your W2s from all businesses that you have in your whole household, so spouse too. What is all… Where do… All of the net income from all the businesses and adding back depreciation and amortization expenses you took that were not real expenses, that’s cash flow you actually got. What’s your gross income number, because from there we’re going to be doing calculations on where that money actually went. So even the power of knowing what you made in a year is something most dentists don’t have and so that’s an element. We in no shape, way or form make a penny anywhere on insurance product sales like whatsoever. No one kicks us money. We don’t transact insurance but we consult on it. And we have indicators that will tell us how healthy someone is in the range of disability and life and liability. If you get sued, is your net… If you have a five million dollar net worth it’s like four of it’s exposed to a lawsuit. So how are you insured? That’s an indicator. That’s the top row.

Ryan Isaac:
Middle row. Middle row is our cash flow row. And there’s basically four places where your money could go. Again if you ask any dentist, average person, where did your money go last year? Everyone will be like, pfft, exactly that’s what I want to know.

Matt Mulcock:
You tell me.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Seriously, that is one of the biggest pain points of anyone we ever talked to. They’re just like, says… My CPA said I made half a million dollars. I literally feel like I made 100 grand because I don’t have any clue where it all went. Well, your money can get spent. You can save it. So spending, saving, debt and taxes. And there’s… Those ratios matter a lot. So this is what you were saying, Matt. The question of like, is a $500,000 income good? Well, it’s like, well, compared to what. What percentage is going to taxes? What’s going to debt? How much gets saved? What’s an appropriate savings rate for 500 grand and how much can I spend? And so the middle row helps us organize that. And in that middle row… The top row probably has, let’s see investments you could probably talk about a few times per year. That’s probably a pretty important one just depending on what’s going on. Income calculation is an annual one. Once a year, I like to dive into someone’s P&L, maybe project income out, which by the way this is like, well, this relates to the tax element in the middle row. We have one that’s called tax rate. What percentage of your gross income, gross cash flow income went to taxes? It’s an issue where people are surprised at tax bills. Right?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. It’s a big issue.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s an issue. It’s like February 27th and someone is getting…

Matt Mulcock:
Well, I might as well just stop making money ’cause it’s all going to taxes.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. So you can pull up your P&L in August or September and then just go, “Okay, well my income is on track to be more than it was last year.” And then you can go to your last year’s tax return and go, “Well, what do I typically write-off in itemized deductions and is that similar this year? Do I have any more write-offs? And you can get a sense for if you’re going to be close to your… Are you gonna owe more than you thought? Calculating income once per year on your P&L is really important.

Matt Mulcock:
Hopefully your CPA is helping with this but it’s a whole another story.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, and some really do. Some CPAs knock it out of the park and they do incredible job. Many just don’t. I just don’t think they have the time to do it and so they don’t get to. But this middle row is like where is all this money going which is the question people want to know. Where does it go? Save, spend, debt and taxes. And one of the cool things about this middle row is budgeting the B word. No one likes the B word.

Matt Mulcock:
Four letter word.

Ryan Isaac:
We throw around the B word a lot. No one likes it. Budgeting isn’t sustainable. Everyone thinks… Everyone does spend too much. That’s probably true. Most people spend too much.

Matt Mulcock:
Everyone spends more than they think.

Ryan Isaac:
Everyone… That’s the right… Everyone does spend more than they think. Not everyone spends too much. That’s the right way to say it.

Matt Mulcock:
But everyone does. If you’re out there thinking, I don’t spend more than I think, yes, you do.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s where this middle row is so helpful to me because… Probably my second most important or favorite, if I had to rank them, indicators on this chart is savings rate. And what color have we got? It’s like this beautiful… What is it? It’s like a purplish but my wife wouldn’t say purple. She would call that a… Am I color blind?

Matt Mulcock:
Bro, it’s blue.

Ryan Isaac:
Dude, shut your mouth.

Matt Mulcock:
Savings rate is blue.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh sorry. Savings rate. I was looking at purple.

[laughter]

Matt Mulcock:
I was like, what are you looking at? I feel like I’m talking to my wife right now.

Ryan Isaac:
Is she color blind?

Matt Mulcock:
I think.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, we almost discovered something.

Matt Mulcock:
I’m pretty sure. We get into color fights all the time.

Ryan Isaac:
Savings rate is a beautiful blue color. It’s in the middle. Middle of [0:32:53.2] ____.

Matt Mulcock:
Okay. What are you looking at?

Ryan Isaac:
I was looking at burn rate.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh yeah. That’s like a purple-ish, pinky thing.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s kind of chart like magenta. Savings rate is really the budgeting indicator because if your savings rate is healthy enough for your income level for any given year and your goals, then what’s left over for spending doesn’t have to be micro-managed. But again who’s doing this? I mean, like unless you’re nerdy like us or you’re paying someone to do this job, like no one’s gonna do this, that’s the middle row. Middle row is where did my money go? And then bottom row is what people really want to know which is, when is work optional? When am I financially independent and I don’t have to do dentistry if I don’t want to anymore? And that is the most important row. The bottom row has five indicators and basically it’s just what is my net worth and when is it big enough to sustain the spending that I’m used to. And then the other four boxes on there tell us how your net worth breaks down. How much is liquid? How much is sitting in real estate? How much is sitting in your business? How much is sitting in 401K and profit sharing and IRAs, you have to pay taxes on later?

Ryan Isaac:
And the way that those buckets all interact, I mean, that’s fascinating too because the person who retires at the end of a career with a huge real estate portfolio isn’t right or wrong but they’re in a different spot. They’re gonna have a different experience than the person who retires with all of their net worth in liquid accounts. And that’s gonna be different than the person who retires with a huge net worth that’s sitting all in dental practices. And so the bottom row is like our, how we are doing on retirement? Am I making progress? And would you agree with this, Matt, that total term which is the indicator that tells us when we’re able to be financially independent, is that your number one indicator on the Elements you think?

Matt Mulcock:
Oh yeah. Yeah. It depends on where they are in their career.

Ryan Isaac:
Totally like starting out when it’s like zero. Who cares?

Matt Mulcock:
You are just like, oh, you actually have a negative total term right here.

Ryan Isaac:
Don’t worry about it.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, don’t worry.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s true.

Matt Mulcock:
So, I think it depends on where they are in their career. I think early on savings rate for me is huge. Or so let’s take for an example, someone who is relatively early in their career or even mid-career and they want to start attacking debt more aggressively for various reasons.

Ryan Isaac:
Good point.

Matt Mulcock:
Well, I’m gonna look at the liquid term as your number one indicator for that specific discussion. But overall, yeah, I’d say total term is like it is the one, right, where…

Ryan Isaac:
It’s like the mother of all indicators.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, we call it the mother of all Elements. That’s the one at the end of the day that we’re wanting to make sure that you’re making progress on.

Ryan Isaac:
And that’s the one people want to know. And that’s the one that on the app it’s really cool because it’s like you can look at it and go, “Okay, based on my current spending I spend 10 grand a month, and based on my current spending I could live for 14.6 years. And I want that number to be a 30 before I’m done working.” You can go in the app and like use a little thumb or a big thumb. I don’t know, if you got a big thumb.

Matt Mulcock:
If you’re like me like my daughter tells me I’ve got fat fingers all the time.

Ryan Isaac:
She has big thumbs? Your daughter told you that?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, all the time.

Ryan Isaac:
Kids are telling the truth.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, fat thumb.

Ryan Isaac:
You can like slide the indicator and you’re like, well, what if I wanted to be spending 15 grand a month? Well, okay. Well, my total term just dropped.

Matt Mulcock:
A lot.

Ryan Isaac:
A lot. But that just gives you the power to start making those kind of analytical decisions. So this part of the conversation, I just wanted to probably take more time than we should have but that’s just to illustrate like what does it mean to be organized and why is it the foundational part of like of being able to notice somebody’s fingernails and tell them that they’re unhealthy is like you have to have all this data in the first place to even know what you’re looking for. Like that doctor has a set of data that he has studied, presumably, I’m not a doctor. I don’t know. I’m just assuming.

Matt Mulcock:
We’re going to make the assumption that he’s done some type of work and schooling to become a doctor.

Ryan Isaac:
Some kind of study. But there’s like studies and there are sets of data and there’s evidence and there’s history that he has studied…

Matt Mulcock:
YouTube videos.

Ryan Isaac:
Tons of TikToks.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh man, in 2022. Yeah. WebMD.

Ryan Isaac:
What if our kids could become doctors in the future from like TikTok?

Matt Mulcock:
I mean, I think some kids think they are.

Ryan Isaac:
They probably think they are. They could, I think they could. I think that applies to adults too. But like…

Matt Mulcock:
Maybe more to adults.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, probably. There has to be a set of organized data to even look at before you can become an expert in spotting things. You have to see enough upturned fingernails to know that it’s an indicator of something as a surgeon, right? Like that guy would had to have seen enough case studies of curved fingernails to even know what he’s saying.

Matt Mulcock:
In relationship to something too.

Ryan Isaac:
In relationship to the cancer that he was a specialist in. Like a financial advisor has to be looking at somebody’s profitability and their income and their cash flow row and their total term indicators and their liquidity to even know like what things are healthy when you compare them together. Like, oh, you have a five million dollar net worth. That’s great. Well you spend $500,000 per year. So that five million dollar net worth is not the best.

Matt Mulcock:
Or I have a five million dollar net worth, 4.7 of it is in my personal residence.

Ryan Isaac:
4.7 is in my personal residence that I don’t want to sell and I don’t want to take a loan on.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, it’s like great. You’re okay. Cool.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, then you… You don’t really have a five million dollar net worth.

Matt Mulcock:
You’re not retiring anytime soon.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Oh, you don’t want to use your multi-million dollar house for your retirement. Totally fine. That’s a normal thing but that changes the way we’re gonna look at that.

Matt Mulcock:
You will work for 30 more years. That’s okay.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, you got it. So like, just a lot of organization is the… That’s why the foundation, that’s why it’s there in the four pillars, organization is the first thing that has to happen. That’s why we built it the way we did. And it’s funny because a lot of people will engage with us in the beginning as they become clients and they’ll get anxious, they’ll be like, “Well, what’s our portfolio going to be? What are we going to do with money?” We’re like, “I’m not telling you anything about where to put your money or how to invest or not invest or building a portfolio until we just build a basic organizational chart of what everything looks like.”

Matt Mulcock:
So isn’t that funny? We were just saying earlier, there’s no stand… These are probably the two biggest problems in… With our industry. I didn’t realize this podcast was gonna be railing on our industry but here we are, we’re going for it.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, you know, to be fair we don’t realize what the podcasts are going to be when we…

Matt Mulcock:
Until we start.

Ryan Isaac:
What did Michael Scott say? Most of the time I just talk without knowing where the sentence is headed or something?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, I can’t remember but that’s exactly how I feel sometimes.

Ryan Isaac:
Yes. Okay that’s fine.

Matt Mulcock:
But so we talked about earlier, there’s the standard of care issue with financial advising. There’s also a conditioning issue of what you’re describing right now. We are conditioned, the public is conditioned to think that financial advising and not only that but like, success in all of this, all comes down to like the investments.

Ryan Isaac:
The strategy.

Matt Mulcock:
Or like some strategy or tactic, that…

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. That’s the expectation.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, that’s the expectation. And this is like, it’s kind of wild, because this is kind of a relic of like the 1980s that has just continued forward. And I think, I mean, it’s not a surprise why. Number one, I think it’s just easy…

Ryan Isaac:
Profitable.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s profitable, it’s easy to sell with that, like with that model, to sell a strategy. I think it’s becoming harder probably now because of like how much…

Ryan Isaac:
Education.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, how easy information is to get. But it is… Anyway, I think it’s interesting that, that is like you just said right there, because I’ve seen this too with many people, they get antsy to like talk about investing. Like, “Well, where are we going to put our money? And what are the returns gonna be? And what about the portfolio?” It’s like…

Ryan Isaac:
“What strategy?” Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
That’s not what’s going to set you apart from success or failure here.

Ryan Isaac:
No. No.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s going to be a job to be done. It’s gonna be part of this.

Ryan Isaac:
We have to get to it.

Matt Mulcock:
We have to get to this. But I just finished this up with a client recently. We had… It was our third strategy discussion after they got done with onboarding. We didn’t even talk investing until the third meeting because it’s like that… That is a part of this. But you have a lot of other problems we’ve got to figure out.

Ryan Isaac:
I remember the early days, sitting in a conference room with Reese and somebody would come in and let’s say they had a million bucks that they had in random accounts all over the place. And I remember being kind of taken back, that it would be second, third, fourth, fifth meetings before we even got to the point of like, “What are we going to do with your million bucks now?”

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Because it mattered so much more to get the full picture of what’s actually going on around that million bucks before you can even say what to do. But it’s… Like that’s how our industry works. It would be absurd if dentistry worked that way. Like, you just show up and they’re like, “Hop in the chair, we’re going to throw in a few crowns. I’m gonna drill this hole over here. I’m gonna pull that tooth and I’m gonna add this thing.” And you’re like, “Why?” And then if they were honest they’d say, “Because it makes a lot of money.”

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. Because I’m getting paid a lot.

Ryan Isaac:
No, that would be insane. Like, first you sit down and you take pictures and x-rays…

Matt Mulcock:
And all they say is, “Don’t ask questions.”

Ryan Isaac:
Don’t, don’t…

Matt Mulcock:
“I’m the doctor.”

Ryan Isaac:
“I’m a doctor, don’t ask me.” That’s how our industry works.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
In dentistry you get pictures and you get poked and prodded and checked and looked at and you get x-rays and you get swabbed…

Matt Mulcock:
Swabbing.

Ryan Isaac:
You get brushed, you get flossed. You get examined and x-rayed before you get a diagnosis and a treatment. And that’s what we were trying to provide while serving dentists, it was like, “Let’s build an x-ray and diagnosis process and system before we start doing treatment and implementation of treatment.” Because it doesn’t exist in financial planning. So when you have that organization, you said this earlier, then you can take that organization, and you can analyze things. Like, “What is my net worth compared to my spending? What is my income compared to my savings rate? What is my liquidity compared to my net worth?” Then that’s analyzing, that’s analysis. And that’s why again, we’re not in this realm, okay? I mean jokes aside. But that’s where like we can do the job of the person like spotting something from afar, right? Like we can look at the curved fingernail equivalent of a savings rate. Not as dire. Well, you know, but we as an advisor, like you said this earlier, we built this tool for us because this doesn’t exist. So, if we’re not in… Like most of the time in our relationships with clients we’re not in meetings all year long, most of the time like you’re working.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
You’re in the chair, or you’re in your practice. So having this like dataset and this tool in the system, even if it’s not perfect, even if a little bit of data, like, we haven’t talked in a little while and we don’t know that you paid 20 grand down worth of debt and so we need to update that. And maybe we haven’t gotten your latest collections number, so we haven’t updated your practice value in the balance sheet yet. But even if it’s… It doesn’t have to be perfect, but those indicators are there so that like proactively behind the scenes, us as advisors, we can actually have tools to say like, “I’m kind of worried about this person, I should reach out. We need to have an appointment. Let’s make sure we set up a meeting. Let’s communicate about this and strategize together.” But that’s how you analyze things. Then together you can decide what to do. And the action is the most important part and that’s why a third-party like human that’s not selling you something is the… That’s the accountability piece that actually makes sure whatever you decide to do can get implemented and done.

Matt Mulcock:
Totally. Well, and I was gonna say too, the one thing we haven’t referenced, I don’t think, is when we talk about in relationship to what, like compared to what. We’re talking, number one, about like the relationship to the element… Like, element to element. Right?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Uh-huh.

Matt Mulcock:
The other thing that we haven’t hit on yet is like, overlaying on top of all this is like your actual…

Ryan Isaac:
Life?

Matt Mulcock:
Life.

Ryan Isaac:
Totally.

Matt Mulcock:
Your goals, your priorities. What do you value? Because there is a vast difference of someone who is 35 years old who wants to retire, move out of the country, they’re not married, they have no kids, that wants to retire in seven years, in their early 40s and just go like float around in the Bahamas somewhere, versus someone who’s like you know, “I actually love this, I’m going to do this the rest of my life. I don’t see, unless physically, I can’t… ”

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t need to rush.

Matt Mulcock:
“I’m going to do this till I’m 75. And then, but while I’m in this I want to be able to only work two days a week.”

Ryan Isaac:
Yes. Uh-huh.

Matt Mulcock:
Right? And have a lifestyle… There is a vast difference between all of these different scenarios, and so, when we say, “In relationship to what?” The real big one is…

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Your life.

Matt Mulcock:
All the aspects of your life.

Ryan Isaac:
Your life, your values, your goals.

Matt Mulcock:
What are you trying to accomplish? What’s your vision?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. We might say a 30 total term is where you need to be to be financially independent and it needs to be outside of your house or any other private assets you don’t want to sell. Another person might say, “Actually I don’t mind tapping home equity.”

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
“And I don’t care if my money lasts the same dollar amount when I retire as when I die. I don’t mind spending it down a little bit within safe… So I don’t need a 30, I need a 25. And it can include my house.” And so, you’re like, “Well, that might make a seven to 10 year difference in your retirement picture.”

Matt Mulcock:
Yes. I have a client right now, we just talked a couple weeks ago. They have… I mean, who knows? This could change. But as of right now, their plan is to 100% sell their house and live in a camper for several years into retirement. They’re like, “We’re just gonna go drive around the country for like five years.”

Ryan Isaac:
Amazing. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Now again that could change. But that person, I’m looking at their indicators way different…

Ryan Isaac:
Than… Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Than the person who…

Ryan Isaac:
Than someone even with the exact same numbers, but a different life.

Matt Mulcock:
But, way different life.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
And different goals.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. So that analyze piece, that’s… Yeah. I’m glad you brought that up, because that analyze piece isn’t just data to data or comparing pieces of data but it’s like the data overlaid to your life. And that’s where like, frequent communication is a whole other story, we actually just recorded a podcast on that. But yeah, I think the point to drive home today that you did so well, thank you, Matt.

Matt Mulcock:
You’re welcome.

Ryan Isaac:
Was, you know, you hear these stories about Giamatti and Marley and you just go, “How do we do something like that in our financial lives where somebody can be looking out for us, when we’re doing our thing? Giamatti was like doing his job. He was having a press conference as the baseball commissioner. So how can we have somebody looking out for us with like a set of indicators that will protect our financial health while we’re doing our job?” While you’re coaching Little League or taking a hike or mountain biking or working in the chair, building businesses. Whatever you’re doing, what can happen proactively behind the scenes so that someone’s looking out for you and your financial health? And that is the question that led us to build what we built today. And I’m excited to see what we build 10 years from now too, because it’s… Nothing’s ever done. Nothing’s ever perfect enough. And there’s always things to like add and improve and change and alter and our interactions daily with clients help us like help inform that and it’s really, really cool.

Matt Mulcock:
So nothing’s ever… You don’t mean that, nothing’s ever perfect enough?

Ryan Isaac:
Nothing’s ever perfect enough.

Matt Mulcock:
I mean, look at you.

[laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
I was like, “Where is that going?”

Matt Mulcock:
It’s been a while since I’ve seen you in the flesh and let me tell you…

Ryan Isaac:
It has been a while. It’s good?

Matt Mulcock:
It’s good. You’ve been…

[laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
We’re gonna end it on that. Thank you, Matt.

Matt Mulcock:
You’ve been working.

Ryan Isaac:
I’ve been working, dude. [laughter] Matt, thanks for being here. Thanks…

Matt Mulcock:
Thanks for having me.

Ryan Isaac:
I’m glad we were here together in the studio. This is really nice.

Matt Mulcock:
It feels good.

Ryan Isaac:
It does feel right. It feels natural.

Matt Mulcock:
It doesn’t feel good to you coming from San Clemente over here.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s a little chilly in Utah right now.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, it’s the first thing you texted me off the plane. “It’s cold here.”

Ryan Isaac:
It’s cold and dry.

Matt Mulcock:
And I’m like, “It’s actually pretty warm.”

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, you’re like, “It’s warm.”

Matt Mulcock:
It’s 48 degrees right now, it feels good.

Ryan Isaac:
But dude, below 65, I don’t like it. Everyone tuning in, listening, we really appreciate it and we mean that a lot. Even at our biggest, that we’ll ever be as a firm we will never work… We’ll only work with a small fraction of everyone in the dental industry. So, our chance to do a podcast or videos, or come speak to your study club is just a chance to hopefully give some help and education to people who otherwise wouldn’t get it as our clients. So, thanks for listening. If you have any questions for us directly, dentistadvisors.com. Hundreds of hours of content on there and you can book a free chat with any of our advisors at any time at your convenience. We love to talk with you, answer any money questions that you have. Matt, thanks again.

Matt Mulcock:
Thanks, Ryan.

Ryan Isaac:
Everyone, thanks again, we’ll catch you next time on another episode of the Dentist Money Show. Take care now. Bye bye.

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