Why Do Dentists Feel Like They Don’t Make Enough Money? – Episode #664

On this episode of the Dentist Money Show, Matt and Ryan explore why many dentists feel financially strained despite earning high incomes. They unpack the emotional toll of peer comparison, the often-overlooked impact of debt and taxes, and the critical role of financial awareness. They also touch on the long-term wealth-building journey for dentists and why true financial freedom takes time, clarity, and patience.

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Podcast Transcript

Matt Mulcock: Welcome back to the Dentist Money Show, where we help dentists make smart financial decisions. I’m just a guy named Matt, I’m here with another guy named Sir Ryan Isaac.

Ryan Isaac: Ryan? So, sir Ryan and Matt, the mountain Mulcock

Matt Mulcock: Are we bringing him back?

Ryan Isaac: It’s back.

Matt Mulcock: It’s, I I mean, maybe it’s

Ryan Isaac: Did it ever, did it ever go away?

Matt Mulcock: It ever, did it ever go away,

Ryan Isaac: Not in the, not in the hearts of the people, you know.

Matt Mulcock: We’ve talked about this before, but it is truly, it’s kind of truly crazy to me how much nicknames like Stick ’cause I, I don’t know how long we did that for, to be honest. But I still go places and I’m not saying I ho at the risk of sounding arrogant, I don’t want this to come off that way.

Ryan Isaac: Recognizable.

Matt Mulcock: But, it does sound kind of weird. Like, I go places and people say that, but like, honestly, I’ll be like speaking somewhere like, uh, happened at a school, uh, last year or two years ago, or like, we’ll be whatever, and people will be like, oh, the mountain, or like, uh, I just got an email. So we did, we were setting up a, a client interview that came out a few weeks ago. We were doing the initial intro to like, just talk about the show and stuff, and he was like, oh my gosh, Matt the Mountain. And I’m like, oh my gosh. this was ago. Like how this still a thing?

Ryan Isaac: No. It, it doesn’t

Matt Mulcock: Maybe we just lean into it. Maybe lean into it.

Ryan Isaac: Matt, didn’t somebody make an illustration

Matt Mulcock: Yes.

Ryan Isaac: Of like a, we were on a bus.

Matt Mulcock: Where is

Ryan Isaac: Do you have it?

Matt Mulcock: I just had it, um, because I was cleaning out some stuff at my house and I found it,

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. Was it it was a T-shirt, right?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I, I just had it, I don’t know where it is,

Ryan Isaac: Somebody made a t-shirt you on like bus and we’re like flying down the road on a bus.

Matt Mulcock: Because we, something about an episode we were talking about get on the bus and the t-shirt says Get on the bus.

Ryan Isaac: Was a stretch of like six months where all we did was was the end of every show was a T-shirt idea.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. And the guy, one of the guys wrote us a

Ryan Isaac: Oh, a country song that, I mean, someone wrote a country song about us on the podcast. I feel like we owe it to just have cheesy nicknames. For that

Matt Mulcock: In the mountain. All right,

Ryan Isaac: Right, mountain

Matt Mulcock: In. All right,

Ryan Isaac: Sir. Reporting for duty, uh, mountain.

Matt Mulcock: We’re, we’re in, uh,

Ryan Isaac: Tap today? What’s on tap?

Matt Mulcock: So we’re talking about, uh, I think one of the most common questions, some form or fashions, kind of some iteration of why from coming from dentists. Ryan, why don’t I feel like I have enough money?

Ryan Isaac: Oh, yep. Yep. One of the most questions ever.

Matt Mulcock: How often are you getting that or some version of

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, it’s all the time. Um, and it comes up a lot when we do something like we, we calculate people’s income for cashflow purposes, which is different than the way that everyone’s CPA does it, and every time we do it, almost without fail. are just like, I don’t, I didn’t make that much money. There’s no way I made that much money because where did it all go? We can see the taxes. It’s always sneaky. It’s the loans. I mean, it’s always loans. Personal spending, very debt and taxes. Yeah. And so it, it comes up all the time. People just don’t feel like they make what they make and where it’s all going and, you know, how are they ever supposed to get ahead is how it feels. A quite, quite often actually. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I think, I think there’s a lot of components to it. I think there’s the, like you said, the actual structural components of like. Just not having a grasp of what, where my money is going. Right? you said, taxes and debt’s always what gets people, we’ll talk about that here in a second, but I also think there’s just aspect of comparison, right? Like there’s like the, well, why don’t I feel like I’m doing better than, or just as well as the people I see online? I think that’s per, yeah, that’s pervasive in society today. But I also, I think it’s even worse in dentistry.

Ryan Isaac: Gonna say that. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: I think it is. I think

Ryan Isaac: Don’t think that, don’t you think like the peer group comparison game is, it’s more intense in dentistry? I mean, I could probably guess at why that is. Why do you think that is? Like, why is it such a, it is prevalent. It’s very

Matt Mulcock: I think anytime you have a situation where you’ve got like a shared experience, like dental school, I think it’s probably the same as like people going to law school or whatever. I. Where it’s like, oh, I, I, I graduated with these people. Like we should be the same. And they’re like, you, you can’t, you stay kind of in contact with them or you kind of follow each other. I think you have this perception of like, well, you, we have this common shared bond, so you kind of like, I think whether you would say or admit it or not, I think there’s this aspect of like, well, we went through the same experience. We should have the same outcome, like.

Ryan Isaac: Be in the same spot. Uhhuh.

Matt Mulcock: But the problem with that inherently is, number one, you assume that just because what you’re seeing on the surface indicates anything of success.

Ryan Isaac: Yep.

Matt Mulcock: Um, so, but I think that’s probably a big, probably a big part of it.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, I think there’s a, a component where, you know, dentists by nature of their education and self-selection, um, in the career path is, uh, just high achieving individuals, intelligent, high achieving individuals with high expectations of themselves and people around them. combined with the image of it all, you know, which is you never know the, the houses, the boats, the vacation. Like you never know the big offices. Um, I mean, how many dentists do you know with. Multi multimillion dollar buildings in the coolest looking offices who are struggling, no, no profitability, they’re not making money, you know? also, you know, there’s the groups, Facebook groups. Um, you know what I

Matt Mulcock: Dentistry’s small.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. It’s, it’s a small world also. I do think there’s so many moving pieces in a dentist’s life. And, it’s really common to not have a really firm grasp on what those numbers are. Even simple things like, what was my income? What did we spend last year? What did I actually pay in taxes? What percentage of that? And so a lot of people’s peers are saying things, I don’t think they totally understand. Like, I made X amount of dollars and maybe they did or didn’t, or I made a million dollars and I paid zero in taxes. And, and it’s like. I don’t know if people fully grasp, grasp some of these things, um, but they talk about ’em or the way they talk about their investments, you know, we hear that all the time. And then it’s easy to hear this information that I’m not sure is always totally the full picture and then feel bad about yourself. So

Matt Mulcock: Totally. And I’d say actually, I don’t think that dentists sit around and talk to each other about how much money they’re actually making. a, I don’t think many of them actually know, which is, I’m not saying that disparagingly, I’m saying like it’s sometimes complicated hard actually know.

Ryan Isaac: Yep.

Matt Mulcock: But what they do do is, signal to each other. What, like, so you just mentioned, like talking about their investments or or the car they drive and whether it’s an intentional signaling or not. I think, and this is human nature at its core, especially in the modern era, you look at people and those signals indicate. or they must be doing better than they have that boat. It’s like, no, they actually just put that boat on a 15 year loan and have a a month

Ryan Isaac: They’ll be fire selling it

Matt Mulcock: It doesn’t mean anything. Like them driving a nice boat or a nice car. Having this massive house means they spent a lot of money, doesn’t mean anything about what their true wealth is. But again, we use these kind of like exterior things as as signals of like, oh, they must be doing better than

Ryan Isaac: They must be better. And then we’re just humans who are insecure and you know, we have our own like things, issues that we have about ourselves. And so it’s easy to look at someone’s success or perceived success and just feel like, well, I’m not, I’m not okay, or I’m, I’m a failure, I’m not doing well. But yeah, I think it’s, it’s really common. And then. How that, you know, I guess we’ll jump into that, but how that ties to like, what are dentists actually, what are they earning? When does it happen over their What is normal? What’s the curve of, of normalcy?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah. Well, let’s, let’s jump into that, but let’s, uh, I wanna talk kind of about like, what’s the risk here of playing these games, right? Of, um, having unrealistic expectations or, uh, not having a firm grasp of the actual numbers and having a, a nice or like a firm perspective. I’ll say the first thing that comes to mind for me is I think a higher likelihood of. Emotional distress and distress in your life? all of us know very well, I think our imaginations are always worse than reality. But until we can bring those two things together and actually have a firm grasp of like truly when, how much money should I be making? Like, am I doing okay? Until you get a firm grasp and grounded in reality, I. I think you will always have like higher cortisol levels. I think you always will kind of have higher levels of stress and I think it’ll impact decision making how you approach certain things. What, what, anything come to mind for you, Ryan, of like, kind of like the risks here?

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. Uh, it actually reminds you of something Christine Yuen said yesterday. where did we land on Chris and Christine?

Matt Mulcock: So

Ryan Isaac: What, what’s the vibe?

Matt Mulcock: Chris tells me that her friends call her Chris, and I said, well, best friends, so I’m gonna call you Chris.

Ryan Isaac: Hi. We’re best friends. Okay, so Chris, Chris Ewen, uh, the famed Chris Ewen yesterday in our team meeting was saying, was asking a que well, we were talking about why dentists make big, associate and partner decisions. That was the specific question or discussion yesterday. And, uh, she posed a question, you know, a lot of times we need to enter these discussions with. Is it possible? We’re just bored right now in life and career in general, and we’re trying to shake things up in, in some way. And, um, the, some of the risks, I think in dentistry, it’s such a double-edged sword, man, because you have all these difficult things, all these moving pieces, these numbers, these components to just being a dentist in general, especially if you’re a business owner. and then you have like the upside, all that is really steady income, high income. you can get to a very secure financial place, like mid-career pretty well, and it does, it can cause a lot of boredom, you know, um, dentistry is a very routine thing you’re doing. It’s dozens of times the same thing dozens of times every single day, every day of the week. And I think it’s easy to get to a spot where. things feel so easy. Like they’re just ex, they’re so expert at what they’ve crafted and what they’ve accomplished, um, and the, the success that they’ve achieved that it almost feels like boring. so I do think that’s a risk too, of like not understanding these things and not seeing a bigger picture is when that boredom does set in, or the complacency or just that part of life where it feels like a plateau and even if things are really good, it kind of feels boring. I know what that feels like. Then the, a lot of the risks come in at that spot because then people start making big decisions that aren’t always in their best interest.

Matt Mulcock: It is so true, and how easy is it to lose perspective? Like you talked about boredom, things things that got you jacked up five years ago. Let’s keep it on there In the context of finances, like something that you would’ve been super pumped about, whatever it is, right? Could have been a bonus or you hit a savings goal or whatever. Something that would’ve gotten you jacked up five years ago, 10 years ago now seems

Ryan Isaac: Mundane or like you’re behind.

Matt Mulcock: Or like you’re behind

Ryan Isaac: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: it’s just so interesting.

Ryan Isaac: I was, sorry. I was gonna say our, our average spending, average client spending is like 17, 18 grand a month There were times in all of our lives where, you know, in all the dentists where. Earning that much would’ve been, oh, if I can only earn 18 grand a month, then how great would life be? You know, now we’re spending it and, uh, yeah, we, we, we adapt hedonic

Matt Mulcock: Hedonistic. I think

Ryan Isaac: It’s hedonistic adaptation. Is that the,

Matt Mulcock: Adaptation.

Ryan Isaac: A shout out to everyone who knows how dumb I am? yeah. It, it is. Yeah. Um, those times creep up on us, man, and, we do, we see, we see a lot of those inflection points where people. They stray out of their lane in dentistry and they start doing things that could derail all that success. And that’s the scary thing too. A big risk is that it’s so easy to undo like a decade of work in a single year or single month sometimes if you make a big enough financial mistake. So totally, totally get it.

Matt Mulcock: So let’s, let’s take, uh, maybe a step back and hopefully this will be helpful. We mentioned something earlier about kind of the hidden, kind of the hidden things that get people like specifically debt and taxes.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Since we’re talking about income today, I wonder if it’d be helpful to break down.

Because I think this is a huge misconception, which is like, how much, how do I calculate my income?

Ryan Isaac: Okay.

Matt Mulcock: I think we’ve done this before, but I, I think it’d be helpful to just kind of talk about the things that we look at. like Ryan, if a dentist is out there saying, I don’t know how much money I even make, a, where does that come from? Would you say

Ryan Isaac: Mm-hmm.

Matt Mulcock: Like, what are the things that they’re missing and then B, how should they be thinking about their income? I.

Ryan Isaac: Okay. So where does it come from? Why? Why do they ask that question and they don’t

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Oh yeah. Like if a dentist is like, I, I, I know dentists always seem to know their collections,

Ryan Isaac: For sure. Yeah. They’ll

Matt Mulcock: I think where they’re always a, a bit mystified is like, well, but I don’t even know what I’m bringing home. Where do you think that comes from?

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. And so they, you’re right, they do, they know collections and they know the balance in their checking account to the penny every single day in their business, in their business checking, for good reason. where it comes from too, I think, is, there’s a lot of moving. I was just thinking in my head, there’s probably six or seven categories of income, that we would pull off of someone’s like. P&L or household income, various income statements to determine what their gross income actually was, which is way more complex than the average American worker who has a paycheck and it’s a line item on their paycheck. The, you know, cumulative total running total for the year of income. so there’s a lot of line items that add up to be income, and then there’s a lot of discretionary things hidden in the p and l too that are smaller items, but it’s hard to, it’s hard to calculate and then also I think, you know. dentists have usually multiple tax returns that they’re filing. They might have a, a personal, a business, it could be a building, it could be multiple businesses. and so really the number I think that people land on is like the a GI on the personal return after a lot of various, you know, discounts or deductions and, and then it ends. It doesn’t end up like matching, you know, if they’re like, we collected $2 million, and I made. I show it on my a GI made like four 50 or something. That’s probably not the full gross number. But then it just seems like such a low number compared to collections. And it’s easy to be like, I don’t, I just, I’m underperforming, I’m underearning, I’m overworked and so there’s just, I just think it’s a product of so many moving pieces and really the only thing that most dentists have to go off of is the personal return, the a number on the personal return. What do you

Matt Mulcock: I think it, I think it’s totally true. I think it’s a, comes from, the result of just poss most likely disorganization. Um.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. Totally.

Matt Mulcock: Just like, and not, not any fault of anyone, just, I just think they’re, you know, dentists have, said earlier, like, so many moving parts. Their life is complex. They have a ton of stuff going on in their life. It’s, it’s, it takes time and effort and consistency to like sit down and also the resource. So, and the other problem here is ccp. Like, let’s say, not to disparage CPAs, but I think CPAs also busy. They have kind of, they look at their job as like. Kind of a singular mandate, which is how do I file your taxes and save you as much money as possible this year?

But very rarely do we find CPAs that are like, let’s sit down with you and like take the time to review this p and l and like actually show you what your cash flow looks like. Like I don’t know many CPAs that do that.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, it’s a time constraint. That’s, It’s, it’s tough to do that. Um, some, some firms have really good reporting, which helps a lot. and then, you know, there’s probably some responsibility on the part of the dentist owners, especially to understand a p and l and maybe. Learn to go through theirs a little bit. Also, how disorganized is the average p and l that you see out there?

Matt Mulcock: Oh my gosh,

Ryan Isaac: You know?

Matt Mulcock: So, yeah, there’s so many bad ones.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. They can be pretty messy, so, I mean, there’s no wonder why it’s hard for a dentist to pin down what their actual gross income number. Like what is the gross amount of cashflow that actually came in out of your collections to you before you had to pay anything, including your loans. Which is just a very different number than they’re used to seeing on any document ever. tax return. Yeah. Which goes back to your point earlier, that’s one of the sneakiest things too, is the amount of, business debt that dentists have to pay off even do see that big gross income number. Were you gonna just say

Matt Mulcock: I was just gonna hit that.

Ryan Isaac: Okay. Say Yeah. Speak Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: I think this is such a good time to emphasize this. We’ve talked about this before, but it bears repeating over and over and over again that this is the number one thing that I think gets dentists is a misunderstanding that your debt is paid with after tax

Ryan Isaac: Tax Uhhuh.

Matt Mulcock: After tax. So just for, let’s just go easy math, you make. A million dollars a year, let’s

Ryan Isaac: That’s easy math. That’s cool. Math.

Matt Mulcock: Math. I mean, I

Ryan Isaac: Cool. Mill.

Matt Mulcock: I thought I would cut my income down a little to like, make it easy math.

Ryan Isaac: An entry level. Associate salary.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, exactly. But, let’s say you make a million dollars a year, that’s taxable to you, right? So that’s taxable income to you. Um, so that, let’s, let’s just, again, let’s say you paid $300,000 in taxes on that

Ryan Isaac: Mm-hmm.

Matt Mulcock: So now you’ve got $700,000 left. Um, the debt, let’s say you’ve got, uh, you know, your annual debt payment is dollars.

Ryan Isaac: Well, I mean, if you’ve got a practice, you’ve got a building, you’ve got, I mean, yeah. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: It could be more. Let, let’s say it’s 240,000. It probably is,

Ryan Isaac: 200 grand.

Matt Mulcock: it probably is 200 grand. So

Ryan Isaac: Equipment practice loan, the buyout loan, the remodel loan, the building. Oh, it’s 200 grand. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: You’re so, so they go, you’re making a million bucks a year, you just paid taxes. You paid th 300 grand, let’s say th 35, 3350 grand, whatever. Um, now you’re down to, you know, six 50. and now let’s say you’ve got $240,000 in annual debt payments, which is more than realistic at that

Ryan Isaac: So 20 grand a month in debt. Yeah, it’s totally common. Oh, common.

Matt Mulcock: So now, so now that million dollars as you factor in taxes, and then you paid your debt again after taxes have

Ryan Isaac: You’re down to 4, 4 50.

Matt Mulcock: You’re down to 4, 4 50

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, before you’ve spent any money or saved

Matt Mulcock: You’ve spent money.

Ryan Isaac: And then there’s the other leaky place too, is uh, how many times do you go through spending and they’re like, I just dunno where the money’s going. And then you go through spending in an not, not monthly bills, not monthly obligations, but what do you actually end up spending after a whole year goes by?

Matt Mulcock: Yep. Yeah,

Ryan Isaac: Big leaks

Matt Mulcock: This is why I think. This is probably, I mean, this is the ultimate like unsexy truth of kind of how you start to solve this or answer these questions is you’ve gotta have a firm grasp of these numbers and, and be organized because it’s just that quick little exercise with, with big numbers, right? Like a million dollars to income. Just that quick little exercise to show realistically how quickly that can to start to turn into someone making that level of money and then being like, but where did it all go?

Ryan Isaac: Dude, this is such a good example. I was just with a client, um, it was weeks ago, but, seven figure earner. Big operation. And, they were saying, they were asking the same question, like, where, where do we think, and this person happens to own quite a bit of personal investment, real estate that’s rented out, but not quite covering all costs. And so we started adding up the shortages of all these properties, you know, little chunks here, little chunks there. And then I calculated, I said, okay, we’re, we’re in a shortfall every year of, you know. Multiple six figure shortfall over real estate. it. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Nice real estate though. It’s like pretty cool real and I said, but that’s not how much it actually costs you at your tax rate. You know, this 200 grand that we’re covering a year in this, these real estate coverages. What did that cost you to actually earn, what was that, a 400,000? Was that a $350,000 pre-tax amount of money? Was that $300,000 you had to earn? Like what was it that you actually had to earn? And so we started chipping backwards out of that seven figure income, like, Hey, three to three 50 of this pre-tax is just what it takes to cover the losses on the real estate every year. And they were like, oh yeah, it didn’t.

Matt Mulcock: Didn’t

Ryan Isaac: Cause in, in yeah. In their mind it’s like, yeah, it’s three grand over here, but it’s good real estate. We’ll, it’ll, it’ll come back, or we’ll sell it one day and it’s four grand over here. But again, nice piece of real estate, uh, worth having long term if we can keep it. But yeah, those little things, they’re, they’re hard to calculate but once you do, you’re like, oh, that’s where the money’s going and fast quick. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Matt Mulcock: And, and this is where you, and you mentioned the other part, piece of this being lifestyle, right? So the big three taxes are kind of. They are what they are debt. If you gotta have a firm grasp of what that debt looks like and then lifestyle like after those three, if you’re not being proactive about it, it’s pretty easy to, to look at and be like, oh, well, how, this is how I can’t save any money.

Ryan Isaac: It’s so easy. And that’s not just a person at the lower end of the income spectrum in dentistry either. I mean, are, these are issues seven figures or seven figure earners are facing all the time. Very commonly, unfortunately. But it’s fixable too. I mean, over time, gradually it’s fixable.

Matt Mulcock: No, it, it absolutely is fixable. Uh, and maybe let’s talk about that. Like, it, it is fixable. anything else you want to add to just the, anything we’ve been talking about here, the mistakes that are, we see people make, or the miscalculation of things? Any, anything you else wanna add?

Ryan Isaac: No, no. Just reiterate, uh, the two places that, and we talk about this a lot as a team, especially the debt thing on income, which is, uh, people underestimate how much pre-tax income goes to just servicing business debts. Oh, it’s after tax income, but how much it costs to earn pre-tax. same with personal spending. I mean, we all could do better and we’re all spending more than we think. Okay? All is dramatic. Majority of us are, we can all do better. Majority of us can.

Matt Mulcock: Of us can,

Ryan Isaac: We can all improve.

Matt Mulcock: No, I mean, and, and we’ll kind of, this will kind of lead again, we’ve already mentioned it, but I just think it, it is worth reemphasizing, like we all can do better in, in this kind of stuff. And what it takes to do better is, number one, first and foremost, maybe stating the obvious is awareness.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Um.

Ryan Isaac: Yep.

Matt Mulcock: Like you have to be aware. You have to first be calculating your numbers and actually have a grasp on this stuff. If you’re out there sitting, if you’re sitting there saying, yeah, I actually am in that camp of like, I don’t even know where my money goes. That is your first sign of like, you’ve gotta take a step back and get organized around this stuff.

Ryan Isaac: Yep. Yeah, a

Matt Mulcock: I think there’s a lot of dentists out there that have not even taken the time to, like they have a CPA, they’re filing their taxes. They just kind of spend their money, whatever, there’s no proactive anything going on, and then at the end of the year, they’re kind of like, Ugh,

Ryan Isaac: Now, yeah. Where did, what

Matt Mulcock: what? Where’s my money?

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. And.

Matt Mulcock: One is you gotta create awareness and get organized around it.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. And you said it earlier about stress and you know, high cortisol level levels of being stressed. Um, it’s interesting that getting organized and even if you see the picture after getting organized and the picture says, yep, you’re spending too much money. Yep. You don’t have anything left over. Just acknowledging that on paper. I mean it’s, you know, on apps, it’s technology, I dunno, spreadsheets. But on paper back in the day,

Matt Mulcock: Yep.

Ryan Isaac: Um, it feels really relieving to just see it and go, okay, now, now, because then you can do something about it once it’s there. But step one always, which is always the funniest. Most boring, un sexy answer to like, how do you make a dentist become successful financially? It’s always step one. Get, get and stay organized. ’cause getting organized is a, an event, staying organized is part of an ongoing planning process that doesn’t end ever.

Matt Mulcock: Yep.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, totally agree.

Matt Mulcock: And I think that’s probably what makes it so hard. That’s what makes anything hard, is the consistency is the key. And consistency with anything is tough.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. That is the, that is the harder part. It’s not, um, it’s, yeah. Uh, we, we say this when we talk about investment portfolios, it’s not, it’s not building the thing. It’s not choosing, you know, like, which fi it’s, can you do this for 10 plus years? 20, yeah. It’s tough. Yeah. Can you, can you organize a p and l and go through it for years and years and years? Can you stay on top of these scenes? Can you stay organized? Which is why, uh, it’s really helpful for dentists to hire people as they can, as their career moves along. It’s very helpful

Matt Mulcock: It, it’s the, it’s the James clear quote, right? It’s the, the 90% of success is doing the simple and obvious for an uncommon amount of time.

Ryan Isaac: In

Matt Mulcock: Key

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. Do wanna talk about going the gym and health and fitness and, um, how that ties it? Just kidding. We, I’ll

Matt Mulcock: How we always, how we always tie everything back to health and

Ryan Isaac: You know, Matt, I was thinking about, uh, the gym and health and fitness and how small and simple things really add up over

Matt Mulcock: So weird. It’s like lifting weights, bro. You know,

Ryan Isaac: Like good nutrition per day.

Accumulate. They do though. I mean, we’re, it is just, you know,

Matt Mulcock: I mean, we, we

Ryan Isaac: Okay,

Matt Mulcock: Okay, but seriously, like, but the gym, you know what I mean?

Ryan Isaac: The gym, you know what I

Matt Mulcock: But you know what I mean, like the gym, like

Ryan Isaac: We do, we don’t look like the kind of guys who would revert, revert back to that on a podcast. Do we the gym?

Matt Mulcock: I, I think we

Ryan Isaac: We we bill.

Matt Mulcock: It’s the, it’s the only, I will say, shout out Kelsey. You know who you are. My client, um, she, she, uh, she won’t mind me re shouting her out. Uh, she came on board and, and one of the first things she said early on was like, Hey, I love how many fitness analogies that and Ryan use. Yeah. She’s like, you should use more. ’cause she’s way into fitness and she’s like a former athlete and she’s like. I love how many analogies you use for fitness, and I was like, okay, well we got signed

Ryan Isaac: Such a part of life that’s we wish we could shortcut and there’s trillion dollar industries that try to shortcut it and then the disappointingly boring real answer every time is just like small, simple things consistently for years and years and years. It’s like, ugh, fine, fine. I’ll get my steps, you know? I’ll get my steps. That’s okay. Over years and years and years. So that, that’s a, a good first step fix, like getting organized, do well, I mean, on that subject, we could do a shameless plug, like, how, how do you begin that as a dentist, you know, but if, if someone, if a dentist isn’t gonna hire somebody, if they’re not, you know, gonna have someone in their, in their life yet because maybe it’s not an appropriate time to hire someone to do that kind of a job. Do you have any tips? Any tips and tricks? T’s and T’s. On, where they can, where do they begin? Where, like, where does a dentist, what does organization mean? Where do you begin with that?

Matt Mulcock: You, you’re saying, where did, where does organiz organization

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. Where do, where do they start?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I think, um, I think a couple of things. The two main areas I’d say to start, keep it really simple. I. We’re talking about income right now. So I’d say number one, your cash flow. You gotta have grasp of your cash flow. So if you’re not actually factoring, or if you’re actually not doing the steps to understand what’s my income, where, where is it coming from? And then understanding where it’s going. So there’s only four places your money can go. So the calculation for cashflow for a dentist is actually relatively straightforward. It’s you’ve gotta figure out your total gross income. Then from there, it’s the four buckets it’s going, which there’s only four of ’em, or you can only, you can save it spend. It goes towards debt, it goes towards taxes. That’s it. So figuring that and then is there excess or is there not? So going, that’s the first place I’d start is what does my cash flow look

Ryan Isaac: Okay.

Matt Mulcock: The the second broad category I would look at and make sure you’re tracking on a regular basis is your net worth.

Ryan Isaac: Okay.

Matt Mulcock: Basically your balance sheet. Those are the two kind of main broad areas of your financial life. If you did nothing else would be tracking all the components of those two things.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, and just those, I mean, if you think about like, well, how does that help? You know, just knowing those two things will help someone make better decisions right off the bat. They’ll know what they can and can’t afford, which is crucial. And seeing your whole balance sheet as a picture, um, just tells you where you’re at. It also tells you where money should go over time. ’cause when you have a balance sheet like that, you can see what you know. Am I overly concentrated in businesses? Do I own too much? is too much of my balance sheet, real estate equity? Am I too illiquid? Do I, am I stressed because I don’t have any cash that I can access? Which is, you know, something we talk about all the time, someone’s stress score is really just the score of how much liquidity they have access to. So yeah, just understanding your balance sheet will help people make better decisions of where money should go, like directionally. I totally agree with

Matt Mulcock: There’s, there’s another aspect here too, Ryan, of something we mentioned earlier, which is this idea of pers we’re, I’m just making this up as like, go, idea of like pers perspective drift, right? this drift of your, like the, the, the idea that we were just saying earlier again, where all of a sudden you are at this level. You never imagined would’ve been possible 10 years ago, but you’re now complaining about different things because again, you’ve lost perspective. I think by like, so for example, we’ve mentioned this before, like now you’re at a place, and I’ve seen this countless times, you’re now at a place that your tax bill is more than you made as an associate.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Right? I think, by tracking, there’s a couple of things psychologically and emotionally that happen by tracking your, your progress on a regular basis. Number one is it keeps things per in perspective. So it keeps, it keeps your, you in a situation where. The bar is being raised, but if you’re stopping to like notice the, the progress along the way, I think it, again, it can kind of like insulate you from that perspective. Drift.

Ryan Isaac: Hmm.

Matt Mulcock: The other part I’d say it, it does is it helps with actually motivation and momentum. So you start to see like that debt being paid off and you’re tracking that on a quarterly basis or an annual basis. You see your, your savings growing and I think it actually gets. Easier as you do it. Those habits are being reinforced by watching the progress, so momentum grows and I think it just becomes easier to continue, like it’s like the compounding of good decisions. I think the only way you do that is if you can see what those good decisions actually lead to, which is the progress.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. And you see them building up. Um, how often, Matt, do you think dentists are doing better than they feel they are and they don’t know until they see these numbers? that happen?

Matt Mulcock: I would say more times than not, they’re doing better than they think.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, really

Ryan Isaac: They, they, they think they’re in a worse spot than they are until they see numbers like a balance sheet and, or you know, how often did dentists think that their debt never goes down? They start getting I’m only making minimum payments. And then you can show like you, you’ve paid off $200,000 Yeah. Of debt in the last 12 from making minimum payments, you know? yeah, you’re totally right. That’s a really common thing actually. People are better doing better than they think often. Quite often. And I’m gonna

Matt Mulcock: Say more times

Ryan Isaac: More times than not, and I wanna say this too. And I bring this up with my clients a lot. Sometimes I’ll go through and I’ll just, I’ll tell them, you know, we’re talking about their age. We’ll talk about where they’re at in their progress in terms of like their total term, you know, their net worth compared to their spending. How many years could they live on their current net worth? And I’ll say words like average, like you’re, you know, you’re right on, you’re right on track, you’re right on average. And then I have to stop and remember, well, I’m talking about an average where a dentist is done working fully in their probably young sixties at a 30 total term. Which is not what the average dental industry is doing. The average dentist in the industry is not approaching that horizon at all. And so I always have to add that caveat, like, okay, client, let me just say, when I say average, I mean for what we’re seeing our clients do, not the industry, not your peers. So it is kind of indus interesting when even you can show someone their, their numbers and it’s like you’re, you’re on track. Like you’re on like right. You’re, you’re on track, but on track to us and our clients is,

Matt Mulcock: Is very different.

Ryan Isaac: Different. And I’m like proud of them for how the, the progress they made ’cause that’s the work they put in, you know? But Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: That’s a really good point. And I, I try to avoid using the word average. I’ve lesson. ’cause I don’t think dentists want to hear that because then in,

Ryan Isaac: No one wants to

Matt Mulcock: In relative terms, they’re not, they’re not average just in

Ryan Isaac: Many funny. Yeah. Oh, Matt, you’re average. No, you’re, you’re

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, you’re, I mean, I am bear maybe not even that, to be honest.

Ryan Isaac: Like, no one wants to hear that.

Matt Mulcock: It’s actually a compliment to me. Um,

Ryan Isaac: Like I thought it was below

Matt Mulcock: To, to that, yeah. To, to, in a lot of areas I am, uh, to that point. I always try to encourage Dennis, or if I’m talking about that is like, you’re on pace. Like you’re, you’re right where we want to see you based on

Ryan Isaac: Pace, on track Uhhuh. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Um, another thing I’d add here to like, just things to be thinking about that. Uh, so we’ve talked about, you know, getting organized in the key areas to be organized in. Um, the other thing I’d say is, super important to systematize what you can, like, use systems as much as you possibly can. Specifically around things like investing and saving. I think that can actually go a long ways. Remove emotions as much as you possibly can. Just have. Uh, once you’re organized, use that information to then set up a cash flow system of just like, how do I save and invest on an automatic basis? Remove that from my thought on a daily and weekly basis.

Ryan Isaac: Yep. It’s gotta be one of the key fundamentals that we really, and we do, we push clients, we do bug them about this, about automating their savings just because, I mean, we, the data and we, we know what that does when you automate things. But we’ve seen that anecdotally with hundreds and hundreds of dentists, just how fast things can pile up and when you automate them, I like to push to a point where it’s like a little painful, but we know we can keep doing it every month.

We’re not gonna go backwards from it. It’s amazing what we as humans can adapt to. Like I don’t, I don’t know if I can save five grand a month and then you just start removing it from the business account before it even comes home. And then surprise, surprise, a year later you’re like, I didn’t even notice.

And now I live knowing that I can do that. Maybe I can do more. So yeah, huge fan of automating. And if someone is in a position where they’re not really sure. What that number is or how high they can push. Just auto, just starting it in general is really key. Like automate something, anything. Just get a habit of something going. And then, you know, with our clients that that’s a, that’s a topic that’s being revisited multiple times a year, and we’ll always just trying to push for sure.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. So you were mentioning earlier, like typical or kind of on pace and you know, those kind things of like where I think it might be. I want to kind of go through this, uh, get your thoughts, uh, hopefully this is helpful of a typical, let’s say, I. A typical kind of dentist wealth timeline, we’ll call it from a cash flow perspective.

I actually wrote an article about this a while ago. It’s on the website. I’m taking it right from that. so, and again, this is typical, this is not, this is not everyone, but hopefully kind of setting people at ease, giving some perspective, from an income timeline, we’ll call it. So, um, generally speaking, I’d say year zero to five of dentistry, like you’re, you’re outta school, we’d, I’d call that survival mode. Is that, is that fair for you you’ve

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. And I was gonna ask you, Matt, in the research that you’ve done or when you wrote that, and maybe just from experience, in years zero through five, how many is it, uh, the majority of people who become owners within the five years, do you think, from what you see?

Matt Mulcock: I’d say still majority.

Ryan Isaac: I still think so too.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I think majority at least, and it’s probably biased because it’s the ones that we work with like.

Ryan Isaac: Who hires us

Matt Mulcock: It who hires us like we have, and we’re getting into more into this, like we are putting out there. Our firm belief and mission in this, in, in our work is protecting and empowering independent practice ownership. So we encourage that. That’s the dentists who are attracted to us and the work with us. So it’s probably a little bias, but yeah. Majority of dentists we talk to are still coming out with a, with a thought, I want to go home. And they should, by the way,

Ryan Isaac: And they should, I totally in that. And also I think that makes the survival mode even more survival,

Matt Mulcock: Yep,

Ryan Isaac: Harder to survive is when that many people are still becoming owners, which again, I think is, uh, usually the right call for people early in career. It’s, it just makes things tough. A lot of of moving pieces. So agree with that survival mode, for

Matt Mulcock: Here’s what I would describe as survival mode. Grinding through debt. You’re just like grinding you’ve, you’ve just loaded up on this debt. top of the debt you already have. You’re still loading your clinical skills. You’re still trying just learn how to

Ryan Isaac: How to do the job. The actual job itself.

Matt Mulcock: And you’re usually in this phase, you’re questioning if it was worth it.

Ryan Isaac: Huh? Uhhuh,

Matt Mulcock: I think you’re

Ryan Isaac: Common that is? How common do you think that is? The, oh, is this all worth It happen

Matt Mulcock: I mean, I think, I think so. I think it’s probably happening more and more, I think the pervasive narrative of like, dentistry’s not viable anymore. I think that’s little bit more. Yep,

Ryan Isaac: Wonder.

Matt Mulcock: And then the next kind of phase, the next five years, I’d say ish. Again, this is all general, I’m calling, I kind of, I called it, I coined it the invisible climb. it’s like this time where like you’re making progress, your income’s rising. but so are your taxes, so are your expenses. debts, your debt payments are staying the same. So it feels you’re not making progress. you’ve got more money or you’re making more money, but you’re still kind of feeling that scarcity. So you’re making progress, you, your clinical skills are up. You probably better practice at this point. You’re in it, but it, so you’re climbing, but you’re not, you’re not really noticing the

Ryan Isaac: Know, feel it. Yeah, I like that. I was actually just trying to put some age ranges from these. What would you say the average, uh, dentist is coming out beginning career at early thirties

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah. like early. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. So that, that puts the struggle is real. Zero through five, probably into your. Definitely into your mid to late thirties and then the, this invisible climb into your young forties, which I very appropriate actually for the phase of life. Yeah. And, and people are starting to make progress. I think this is, um, what would you say, I think this is a really calm, this phase. What’d you call it again? The invisible climb.

Matt Mulcock: Visible climb. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac: Why are you so good at like making titles? Are you like a marketing guru here? I

Matt Mulcock: Um, I think I was thinking of Miley Cyrus at this time when I

Ryan Isaac: Wait, why? is that? I know.

Matt Mulcock: Song called The Climb or

Ryan Isaac: Oh, maybe.

Matt Mulcock: I don’t know. I’m just making crap up. I have no idea.

Ryan Isaac: I’m like, does she cool?

Matt Mulcock: I think does have a song called The Climb. I think so. Well now I gotta look it up.

Ryan Isaac: You better just go, yeah, go on Spotify. Well go Spotify and type in the climb and let’s see. Uh,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, right here.

Ryan Isaac: Oh, that’s a real song. Okay.

Matt Mulcock: The climb. Yeah. There you go. I freaking knew

Ryan Isaac: Can’t, I was gonna say play it, but then we’ll get our, we can’t, we can’t play

Matt Mulcock: We can’t that. ,

Ryan Isaac: Do you think that the invisible climb phase, which I think would extend it from late thirties to early forties, typically is more frustrating than the early years, the five years? Yeah. Okay. I would think so too. Why do you think that?

Matt Mulcock: I think because, that’s where. You’ve been grinding. You’ve been grinding for years, you feel

Ryan Isaac: You’re hitting year

Matt Mulcock: Doing

Ryan Isaac: Hitting a

Matt Mulcock: You’re hitting year, you’re into year 10. You’re like, I think it’s, I think actually what I, now that I’m seeing this, um, I probably should have changed this and put in this phase. You’re probably doubly questioning in a lot of times, like, is it

Ryan Isaac: I, I think so. I really think so because you’re seeing things like, like in the early phase, you’re answering your own phones, maybe you’re doing your own hygiene collections aren’t that high yet, so you’re still kind of like, expectations feel like they’re in line with what’s going on. When you’re hitting that like early forties point, now you’re seeing like mult, multiple seven figure collections numbers and theoretically you’re seeing big income numbers even though you’re like, I’m still broke and using credit cards. I do think that’s a more frustrating time because the numbers do, do start getting bigger, but you haven’t made any personal progress in your net worth. A lot of times it’s very common to still be kind of stuck in frustration.

Matt Mulcock: I also think the peer group you’re comparing to, there’s a higher likelihood at this stage now that you’re into your late thirties, early forties, or well into your forties, it’s far more likely just through peer statistics that, and probabilities that like you’ll be running in crowds or you will have heard stories or you would have seen people that you know that know people that are. Killing it

Ryan Isaac: As a, a professional, as a dentist, your pa, a lot of your patients, younger than me, and you’re just like running circles around me financially, and I’m dying in this chair every day. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: And it’s this gap between what you know is real. ’cause you know all the details of your life and you’re only getting the highlights of others that you were comparing those things. But it’s far, I think, at this stage, like early, early on. I mean, this is a challenge for dentists anyway because they, because they take so much longer to get outta school and get profession. They’ve four extra years post-college. This is an issue as you know, when you’ve got a peer that maybe graduated and has been grinding in a career for four or five years, as you’re just graduating school, there’s a chance that they’re already doing better than you. And that creates some issues. But I think at this stage, this invisible Miley Cyrus, uh, climb stage it’s more likely you’re gonna see people in your peer group that are like, you’re why am I not there yet?

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. It, it does the, the disparity starts to widen your forties, I think, in your career between the people who are like really excelling to the top, per, uh, percentiles of an industry. Um, and it’s so visible. Yeah, really visible these days. It, it’s really visible these days anyway. And then in a small world like dentistry, yeah. Okay. So

Matt Mulcock: Phase. I did ’em by five year increments. I don’t, did, uh, seemed clean and easy. Uh, the next phase I’m calling just kind of building momentum. So I think, I think this is gen, again, these are all generalities, but I think generally speaking, this is where a dentist is gonna start feeling like, okay, like I think I’m, I’m seeing it now,

Ryan Isaac: Yes. This is where gain some li they get some liquidity. That’s really what I think this becomes man, you start to hit that. Like, and for some people this is happening in their thirties for sure. There’s so many

Matt Mulcock: Oh, for sure.

Ryan Isaac: Crushing it, you know? But definitely people start noticing it in their forties and they start. I think the key is people start getting liquidity. That’s really it. Their debt balancers are still there. Might even have more debt. ’cause they’re growing. They got a new space, they added more ops, you know, whatever. They start getting liquidity and then they’re like, oh, we finally vacationed. We finally upgraded that old car.

We finally got the house, the extra bedroom we needed. you move into a next phase of housing, of car ownership, of traveling. You have all these like pent up consumer things that you haven’t been able to get to when, when money was even tighter. And I think you get liquidity at the, at this phase, it starts to feel good and I do think people gain some. Well-deserved confidence at this phase to be like, oh, I can see this happening. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: I, I, I totally think, and you’ve seen some stuff, right? You’ve seen some seen,

Ryan Isaac: I’ve seen some stuff,

Matt Mulcock: You’ve seen it. You’re like, I’ve, made the mistakes. I’ve made, I’ve screwed up, and I’ve, I’ve overcome and I’ve been able to see my hard work starting to pay off. I think it takes about a decade of anything. By way, any career,

Ryan Isaac: I do. And I’m just laughing ’cause it’s just like frustrating how long real things take to build freaking asset class. Like you don’t, you, it it’s real estate. It’s stocks, it’s building these businesses. It’s, it’s a, it’s got a decade.

Matt Mulcock: A grind. 10 years is long time.

Ryan Isaac: so long.

Matt Mulcock: It is, and we live in a day and age Now, not to sound all old and curmudgeony, but it’s like.

Ryan Isaac: We

Matt Mulcock: We just want, we want everything so quick now, and it’s like, no, you gotta be 10 years into something. You gotta be grinded 10 years to even pro, even to claim it’s worth something or

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. Yeah. To you claim that you even have an idea about what’s going on or like handle or any mastery of it. Uhhuh. Yeah. years is so long, which begs the question. I think this is in your outline, so sorry if I’m jumping. I just really like this point, which is. The physical, and we don’t have to go to the bottom. This just was near the bottom. The physical and mental emotional strain. Dentists start taking also at this point in their life because it has been a grind and it becomes this, the whole other topic. But this becomes this balance of how, what else is going on in your life that’s gonna feed you while you are in this 10 year like grinda on trying to make this practice become something, this career become something because of your whole life is only this practice. you’re gonna feel so burnt before you’re even 50 years old. And I’ll, I’ll say this now, as a ripe old 45-year-old, 50 does not feel old anymore. It does not feel that far along or old, and which is scary and exciting at the same time, but it, it just really, begs the attention that we all need to pay to all the other parts of our lives to stay.

Okay. Because you gotta make, and, and the toll that dentistry takes on dentists just physically speaking has been surprising to me in my courtesy. So be rough, man. It can be really rough.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I’ve, we’ve seen that firsthand, last phase, and I, I think this kind of, there, there’s multiple beyond but I think 15 years plus, you get beyond that 15 year mark is where the kind of light at the end of the tunnel starts to come in, where it’s kind of like you, you may or may not be truly financially independent at this point. A lot of dentists are not, but I’d say. What I’m calling like financial freedom. And again, that does not mean you’re financially

Ryan Isaac: Done. You’re not done working. No.

Matt Mulcock: Not done working. But I think what it means, what I’m kind of looking at it is like you’re now starting to make choices from a place of, kind of deliberate, grounded, You have true options now because you’re, you’re, you’ve got your debt paid down or at least significantly. So like you said, you built liquidity, you’ve got a good handle on your practice. You, you, you figured some stuff out. Like I think that 15 year plus starts to become like, okay, like I can start looking elsewhere of like what financial independence actually is gonna, it’s starting to feel more real.

Ryan Isaac: It is. And then from a financial, like mathematical standpoint, projections actually start to become realistic ish. I. You know, we talk in our industry a lot about, in our content, we talk a lot about how. Projections and projection software in this industry can be a little ridiculous sometimes because there’s like 10 different inputs that you can manipulate if you want a better outcome, hold on, let’s just, let’s move that to like a 9%. You know, let’s drop inflation a little bit. but you can, when you’re that 15 to 20 years into your career, which again. Is so long. It’s so long to get to this point, but you really can start to see the path forward, even if you’re not the end yet, and have some confidence in where things are headed.

Matt Mulcock: Yep.

Ryan Isaac: They are, but they become more realistic For sure. More helpful at that point. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, totally agree. So to kind of summarize that, I think, again, I think if you’re out there listening and you’re thinking, where am I? Or when do I actually, when does this all start to feel worth it? Like, you gotta be, I think, a full decade into this thing to really, again, to really know. And if you’re, and if you’re there and you’re thinking. Well, hell, I still don’t know and I’m still feeling like I’m up against it and I still feel like I’m drowning. Well, I think hopefully some things we’ve covered of maybe you’re not organized Have you even, have you even taken the time to, to get a grasp of where you

Ryan Isaac: How do you know? How do you know you’re not Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Exactly you don’t know?

Ryan Isaac: You dunno, like, like you said, so often in client meetings people are further ahead than they feel and they’re relieved. I mean, so many meetings are just about providing little relief of like, no, you’re, you’re, you’re good, you’re good. Keep going. You’re doing exactly what you need to be doing. Yeah, you’re right. It does take that long to get to that point. Question, just to go back to from what we were talking about, where do you think the boredom sets in which phase? Like what, what phase are people getting bored and distracted?

Matt Mulcock: Ooh. I would say it probably happens the most after that 10 year mark.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, I was gonna say between the second and third phase, like right around that transition where they’re like little breathing room, they’re an expert in what they’ve done. It’s been 10 years, but they still have a ways to go and they’re like, it’s, I got 20 more.

Matt Mulcock: Start, yeah, exactly. Starting to make some money, starting to really see their progress build,

Ryan Isaac: Opportunities come up. They’re more people. There’s bigger.

Matt Mulcock: Peer group is starting to, you know, maybe there’s other opportunities coming. Yeah. A different thing. So yeah, I’d say about that 10 year mark, if I had to put a line in the sand, it would be

Ryan Isaac: It

Matt Mulcock: You’re in your forties. Yep.

Ryan Isaac: They’ve got some money. They’ve, they’re coasting a little bit more than they were. It’s not quite as panicky. they’re in a routine. they could do the dentistry part with their eyes closed probably. some do. I don’t know. Maybe that’s just, they’d like to make it harder for themselves. Like challenge, like, I’ll, drill this tooth in my eyes closed. Just kidding. I hope no one does that actually. But yeah. I,

Matt Mulcock: Either, I think it’s either boredom, I think it’s either boredom or it’s like this need for this like misconception that they should be more sophisticated than they,

Ryan Isaac: Somewhere where they’re not,

Matt Mulcock: So I actually was thinking about this. we talked a, a while, about a while ago, like I think last year or two years ago, about the DRO effect, right? Um, Diderot effect being, uh, that you buy something new. And then you need to buy other things around it to match, right? So, so for example, you build a house, all of a sudden you need new furniture and all of a sudden need things to match the, the house. I kind of think this applies somewhat to what you’re talking about here as we think about, because you were asking like, when is a dentist get to this level of boredom or this need for sophistication or like fancier things. I actually do think there’s this cycle and I’m, I truly, this is, there’s no studies to back this up that I can reference. I’m literally just like shooting from the here. But I do think this feels a little bit intuitive, like, and this is why I am reaffirming that I think it happens around this phase of like year 10 or beyond when they’re in their forties because they’ve started to make some money. Now they drive the nice car, they probably have the nice house and I think they, we naturally think, well, I. I’m fancier than I used to be. I should be doing something fancier with my investments. Like I it maybe not even be boredom. I think it’s just this overarching like I’m fancy now.

Ryan Isaac: Like misplaced expectations about what it means to be in a certain part. Like now I’m in this neighborhood, now I, now I have these, these things that signify where I’m at. be any number of things. So now my, what I used to do to build my wealth maybe needs to level up in some way, which is kind of unfounded. But it feels like that, I mean, the, feels like that It totally does.

Matt Mulcock: And, and by the way, there’s people out there selling you crap that’ll play on that all

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. Don’t think for a second that entire billion dollar industries aren’t built on that, that exact emotion. Oh yeah,

Matt Mulcock: You should. Yeah. They’re pressing, pressing that button for

Ryan Isaac: Mm-hmm. Especially in dentistry, because you do, at that phase of life, you do have liquidity, you have steady, predictable income, discretionary income, you a great buyer. Dentists are like perfect target buyers for a lot of stuff. Yep.

Matt Mulcock: Totally. Um, anything else you’d add to this Ryan stuff we’ve

Ryan Isaac: I was I mean, this is gonna come out after it’s all said and done, but, uh, one of our keynote speakers at the summit this year is gonna talk about, when I was thinking about the, the burnout through that first decade, I was just thinking

Matt Mulcock: Oh, yeah.

Ryan Isaac: Our keynote for, for this summit. And I’m sure we’ll have some recaps on that by the time,

Matt Mulcock: Oh yeah. Yeah. Thi this’ll come out in July. We’re, we’re recording before the summit, but yeah, super pumped about a Didi. And time this comes out, I’m sure it’ll be wowed by her

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, thinking about that. I’m, I’m looking forward to it. I think we could all use a little bit of that, so,

Matt Mulcock: Yep. I know I could for

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. Mountain, no Mountain. Thank you. I was, uh, I appreciate the, uh, you know, the discussion here. We only win a 50 55.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I know. We are, we, we, we had a good chat about this. Um, so I guess I’ll say this. we love talking about this stuff. We love, uh, educating the dental space, adding value in any way that we can, but education really is the foundation of our business of everything that we do. So if you’re out there listening, you have a study club, or you have even an informal study club. You have a group of dentists you get together with every month or every so often, and you want to bring in a speaker. We do this all the time. We go speak all over the country. We love talking to dentists. We love being able to add value in any way we can. So you can go to dentist advisors.com/learn and you can submit a request to have us come out. We can either, we have a list of topics we can talk about there that we’ve already done, or we can customize something for your group. So let us know. We’d be, we’d be happy to, uh, to come out.

Ryan Isaac: So cool. Yeah, that’s it for me. Uh, thanks. Thanks for the discussion, man. I thought this was really good and hopefully it was helpful for everyone. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: For listening.

Ryan Isaac: Bye bye.

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