In this episode, Casey and Jarrod shift their focus to future pain and what it entails. They examine how decisions made in the present can influence outcomes and potential sources of pain in the future. Through thought-provoking conversations and practical examples, the hosts explore strategies for mitigating future pain, emphasizing the significance of proactive planning and mindfulness in navigating life's challenges.
What is a future pain? Casey and Jarrod discuss what is considered current pain, what is considered future pain, and what can be done about it.
Announcer:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Millionaire Dentist Podcast brought to you by Four Quadrants Advisory. On this podcast, we break down the world of dentistry finances and business practices to help you become the millionaire dentist you deserve to be. Please be advised we do speak with an honest tongue and may not be safe for work.
Casey Hiers:
Hello and welcome. This is Casey Hiers back at the Millionaire Dentist Podcast with co-host, Jarrod Bridgeman in the studio. How are you, sir?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Good, how are you?
Casey Hiers:
Doing well. Wanted to talk about maybe an uncomfortable topic, but-
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's your specialty.
Casey Hiers:
-something that's important. A lot of times people have their current issues, their current frustrations. We'll call it pain, causes pain. But there's also future pain. There's also future issues and a lot of the conversations I have with dentists and specialists deals with, "Life's okay right now, but I know this is coming up on the horizon." And really prioritizing that and trying to make good decisions. It's just like anything else. Try to make good decisions before the bad thing happens.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, instead of waiting for it to hit the fan kind of thing. Which is something I think is pretty standard in human nature to really just deal with constantly putting out the fire instead of fighting the source.
Casey Hiers:
Absolutely.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Potentially. You know what I mean?
Casey Hiers:
If your house is on fire right now, you're going to do everything you can to eliminate that fire. If somebody tells you, "Hey, sometime in the back half of 2022, your house may burn down." It's important. But just in that example, how's that make you feel? You go from, "I got to fix this now." to-
Jarrod Bridgeman:
"I've got two years"
Casey Hiers:
"And this is going to be an issue and I got a little time."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's a good example. That made me think about just having done work with home inspection companies in the past. Foundations, that's a big one where someone will come out and be like, "You've probably got eight more years on this slab here." And people just wait.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah, it's one of those things. And we'll probably have to edit this, but you never think your car's going to be stolen. You always hear about bad things happening to other people and there's a level of concern, so when it happens to you, you go from a two to a 10 in the blink of an eye. And so with what we do and with practice owners that we talk with, there's folks that I talk to and they go, "Listen, my stress level is too high. I have to fix this now."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Let me ask you. What are some good examples of current issues or pains that people would run into?
Casey Hiers:
Financially a lot of these practice owners, it's when they get a, "Hey you owe $80,000." And that's that whole, "Hey, your house is on..." It's like, "Wait, what?" And that is current pain, current issue, current frustration, that really leads to change.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, and something as large as 80,000, or even more in terms of taxes owed, that's really going to put such a dent on this year because you're only paying on last year's taxes.
Casey Hiers:
Well, and again, that tax surprise means you've already paid what you thought you were going to pay, and then there's another 80,000, yeah.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, and then the rest of your year could be shot.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah, other current things it's, "I'm not making what I should. My income's low." Now that's kind of has a foot in both camps, because while it's low, most practice owners are bringing the money so they think, "Well at some point I will start capturing more of it." But that's some overhead. Stress, taxes, a lot of times those are the big current frustrations that will get people.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Got you. Even, this might not be on the same topic but just in today's climate, staffing issues.
Casey Hiers:
Oh yeah. That's like [inaudible 00:03:47]. And so what happens is that's very real right now and that current pain can blur all the other important things because that is... If you don't have a staff, we're going to have a hard time practicing dentistry. No, that's a great example of what that looks like. And retirement can be current pain and it can also be future pain. So I talk to a lot of people that are, I don't know, maybe in their early forties and they know they need to be doing more, but it's out in the future a little bit. The folks that call me when they're in their late fifties or sixties and they're physically giving out and they have lived well, but haven't saved well, that is current pain come to life.
Casey Hiers:
But ultimately for this conversation, it's kind of prioritizing as a practice owner. "Okay, what things are happening to me right now that need to be addressed?" Prioritize them. But then ultimately what's on that horizon, because for practice owners, what we're getting at is there's a lot of folks that are living well and they're in that moment. But on the horizon with their overhead, with their income, with their retirement savings, and some of the plans that they have, a lot of folks they want to open another practice. They've got some big expansion ideas, but ultimately we can see what that's going to look like down the road because that's just what we do. But a lot of practice owners, they have a hard time dealing with the future pain because again, somebody tells you the back half of the year your house is going to be on fire, that's concerning.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, and there's always going to be some form of current pain or issues. No matter what happens, there's always going to be something happening now. It may not be major. It could be minor, but you're always going to be working on that. You may think, "Oh, I'm 20 something years away from retirement." And the next thing you know, that's now a current pain on top of all the other things that's happening.
Casey Hiers:
Well, and it goes to current to future real quick. Like, "Hey, I want to bring on an associate. I want to have a partner." That's great. That's exciting. And then all of a sudden, maybe it doesn't work out the way you want it to. Maybe you opened up another location, having a hard time staffing it, overhead's a little high, the loan is just keeping you up at night. And so that's exciting to have a new location and it's all future issues you'll deal with. Well, then all of a sudden they're right on your doorstep. So I guess the point of this is if you're a wise, astute, smart, high achieving practice owner, take a self-assessment and look on the horizon. What could potentially be a problem? Am I getting over my skis with, again, we've done some EBITDA and multiples and all the locations and partners and associates and all the grand ideas that I hear all the time, and sometimes they're great, and sometimes they're not.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Not so much.
Casey Hiers:
But it's, "What could these things be and how can I be best prepared?" Because the folks I talk to that are in current pain, half of them, it's too late, and the other half, it works out and it works out quickly because they want to get this solved real fast. But the most fascinating folks are the ones that have a whole bunch of future pain out there and they're somewhat aware of it, but they're content being in the moment because it's uncomfortable to deal with.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
It is, extremely, yeah.
Casey Hiers:
And so it's almost like a defense mechanism. "That hurts too much."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
They kind of shut down.
Casey Hiers:
"I'm going to ignore that for another day, week, month, year, decade."
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's future me problem.
Casey Hiers:
There you go.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
So when you are doing your initial calls with prospects, potential clients, and even newer clients, this is something you obviously talk about, correct? The current pains, future pains.
Casey Hiers:
Oh, sure.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
So in what situations, in your experience, has a future pain either helped someone realize that they actually do need help versus them shutting down and being, "I don't want help."
Casey Hiers:
I just try to ask those questions. "Hey, first of all, what are the issues or what are the future issues?", "What could these potentially cost you?" And, "Are you committed to fixing them?" Those are important things, but running out of money, that's a big one. That's a big future pain one for people. They got some money saved. They're going to sell their practices. Maybe they'll have five or 6 million bucks. They don't know if they're going to run out of money or not. Most of the people I talk to they're not getting sound advice to really know personal cash flow and spend versus what you're making versus what all that looks like. But a lot of times there is a fear of running out of money.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Do you find that when you ask people these questions, do they tend to get defensive or upset?
Casey Hiers:
All of the above. Most of them know, and most of them can at least appreciate that we're having a big boy or girl conversation around it.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Because oftentimes, and this is something my wife and I have discussed many times over the past couple weeks honestly, is if someone says something and you get mad at them, most of the time, you're not mad at them, you're mad about what you've done or what you said.
Casey Hiers:
That's exactly right.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
So they're more pissed that you brought this up or like "Crap, I'm 45 and I haven't really done anything." They're not mad at you for saying it, but they're projecting it onto you because you're the outside force.
Casey Hiers:
I was in a course that they said... I'll give everybody the cliff notes. The exercise was lengthy, but what it said was some of the things that make us each personally the most frustrated, the reason they make us frustrated in terms of behavior in others is because we have those and exhibit those very same behaviors that we wish we didn't. And it kind of goes along those lines. That's very astute.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
And that probably explains why I hate people who are just like me.
Casey Hiers:
No. No one can hate you.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
No, no, no, but it's an interesting thing. And not just practices, just people, in general, do need to think about future pains, but you're right, that's a hard subject and if you don't have someone that can be non-emotional about it, it can be tough.
Casey Hiers:
Well obviously here you have a proactive team to get out in front of it for you, right?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes.
Casey Hiers:
That's inside baseball of what our clients. But a lot of folks, they don't know. They're taking it to their study club and asking over a half glass of Chardonnay what they should do with this serious situation and that's just not good enough.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
And it's not because everybody's practice is different. Everybody's personality is different and we've got people here-
Casey Hiers:
Get out in front of it.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
A whole team of people get out there in front of it and help you.
Casey Hiers:
Well, here's some future pain. If you're not talking to your CPA on a monthly or minimal quarterly basis, that's future pain. Because if you're not talking to your external team and your accountant, you're going to have some issues.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
You're going to get that $80,000 bill, huh?
Casey Hiers:
Ugh. Well, when it's half that, but it's a refund.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yay, look at me.
Casey Hiers:
No, same problem underlies. But yeah, I just wanted to do a quick talk on that and obviously encourage all of our listeners to address that. And we all can in our life, but especially as a practice, [inaudible 00:10:25], there's so many variables and things to zig and zag and there's plenty of issues today to deal with, putting out fires, adult babysitting, all those things that there is involved with owning a practice. But my goodness, there's a whole bunch of future pain that the ones that realize, "That's a lot. I don't like that." And so I'm going to try to figure out a way to not have to have that happen, which for our clients, it's find somebody to help out. For some of our listeners who aren't, hopefully, they have other avenues.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Maybe we should send everybody home with some homework today. Maybe come up with a list of future pains that you can foresee coming or things that you're afraid of.
Casey Hiers:
Be smart. Have a conversation with your partner, your spouse, and what's the plan to potentially not have this happen.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Let's figure this out now before it becomes a major problem 10 years, 20 years, next year.
Casey Hiers:
I'm in the same boat. I should probably go make that list too.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I know. Me too.
Casey Hiers:
All right, thank you, sir.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Thank you.
Announcer:
That's all the time we have today. Thank you to our guests for their insight and for sharing some really great information. And thank you to you, the listener, for tuning in. The Millionaire Dentist Podcast is brought to you by Four Quadrants Advisory. To see if they might be a good fit for you and your practice, go on over to fourquadrantsadvisory.com and see why year after year they retain over 95% of their clients. Thank you again for joining us and we'll see you next time.
