Casey and Jarrod touch upon the stresses and struggles everyone faces, especially in this particular time. And how practice owning dentists or specialists feel it even more.
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, this is Casey Hiers and in studio today we have Jarrod Bridgeman, my cohost Jarrod. Thanks for joining us.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Hey, how you doing?
Casey Hiers:
Doing pretty well. Today's podcast is going to be on a topic I'm sure no one can relate to, stress.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
What's stress?
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. When you're a kid, you have very little stress. Life's good. I remember in college, very little stress. It's laughable what my stress was back then. But we're just going to go through and talk about stress a little bit and stress as it pertains to all of us and more specifically stress how it pertains to a practice owner and dentistry. So the obvious, last March, a pandemic, COVID-19, a sickness. It was very stressful for everybody. But as a practice owner who's in the mouth, there was an opportunity for heightened stress and obviously dental offices were closed for at minimum a couple months, some more.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
You know, it's been almost a year. Can you believe that?
Casey Hiers:
No. In some ways no, in some ways, yes, I guess. But the stress that that involved, and I know having less interaction with people, in a good way, if you're a practice owner, even though there was some risk and maybe anxiety involved, you were able to interact with your staff and with your patients because you're very essential. So that was good. Virtual school-
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh boy.
Casey Hiers:
That added a lot of stress. Anyone that's a parent knows the kids don't like it as much. They're not learning as much and to keep child on task is very difficult.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I have a second grader and first head when she was a first grade, and every day we would go through and all her schoolwork would take an hour and then we have the rest of the day to do. What do you do? We can only have so many snacks. And so we went and ordered books online and things that could help add to and supplement, but even then I'm like, I'm tired of, I know it's simple math, but I'm tired of it.
Casey Hiers:
Virtual school has been very, very challenging for everybody. And again, as a practice owner and the spouse of a practice owner and trying to keep it all together, that's just one more layer of stress. And then what happened? Well at the end of the year, we'll call it election hysteria. No matter where you looked, even if you weren't looking for it, there was just a feeling of stress and hysteria regarding politics and elections. People that don't even want to get into politics. It was kind of forced down their throat.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
And both sides were just out of their mind stressed.
Casey Hiers:
And that's right. It just caused more stress. And as our listeners hearing this today it's like, yep. Just keep adding them up, check, check, check. More stress, more stress, more stress. And I mean hell, you and I are probably on maybe different sides of the aisle.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's safe to say. Yeah.
Casey Hiers:
And that's okay. We're good. But man, you hear stories about families they don't talk anymore and all that stuff. Again, more stress, more stress. Have you ever had a ticket, like a speeding ticket?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
A couple.
Casey Hiers:
Maybe. So I remember going to one of those diversion classes where if you go for half a day and it helps with a speeding ticket. And the one thing I learned as they went through the stressors of life, and I even talked about moving. A lot of people like to move into a bigger house, but there's a stress number alloted to it. And if you start adding up good stress, bad stress, the correlation was if you hit a certain number, most likely you're going to have some sort of ticket or traffic situation because you're fried. And I've thought about this on this topic, because as we had these up Jarrod, the stress that almost all of us are feeling right now, it's heightened. It's more than normal.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
And these are things that are just playing on your everyday life.
Casey Hiers:
Can't escape it.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
You can't at all. It's everywhere. And it seeps into every fiber.
Casey Hiers:
And the dental part of this discussion is, a practice owner, their everyday stress before some of this, my cash flow, my tax management, my tax situation. Am I going to get hit with another tax bill? Practice account balances. Everybody's got where they typically sit, where they want them to sit, but they've all got that number where if it gets below it, it causes them to lose sleep. Income; is it structured? Is it high enough? Why isn't my hard work in dentistry? Why am I not being paid like I want to be paid? Retirement. That was always the case. And then we just went through all these other things. Stress is at an all time high, and for dentists they're still trying to provide great dentistry. And so when we talk about solutions, when we talk about solutions to stress, what comes to mind?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I think some pretty standard things you could do to yourself, which would be better eating, being more active. Both of these things I am terrible at. [inaudible 00:05:27]. In fact, I had a very large lunch today and my shirt feels very, very tight at the moment.
Casey Hiers:
And a lot of our practice owners they're thinking, "I'm so busy I'm not even eating lunch." But yeah, diet and exercise. I mean, those are so common, but in a season of the stressors that we have right now, the emphasis of that is more important.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Every little thing helps. Being active will also help with sleep, your sleep habits. I wish I could find the motivation to even do the 15, 20 minutes a day. I have the time to do it. Even with my kids, after they go to bed, I could easily grab a couple of little weights and just kind of like walk around the house, even with the TV on. Just something.
Casey Hiers:
Well, I imagine a lot of our listeners can relate to that. Knowing you should do it, having maybe a little bit of time to do it, but you just don't want to.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
And after a glass of whiskey, do you really want to do that?
Casey Hiers:
Touché. Getting back to that, I know I should, I just don't want to. Talking about practice owners, if you can keep a good attitude and if you can delegate any of these stressors, if you can delegate that to somebody to take something off your plate, surround yourself with positive people. Those who can alleviate stress. And again, for our purposes in dentistry, I wish I had a solution to the pandemic, right? I wish I had a solution to virtual school, but in terms of cash flow, tax management, practice account balances, income, retirement, all the stressors that a practice has, a lot of dentists have that feeling in their gut that they probably could figure out a better way, but they just don't. And in this season where we have a half a dozen added stressors in our lives, now is the time to look across the board at your situation and say, "Where can I minimize stress? Where can I alleviate stress?" And delegation to the right people is a good one. So for some it might be getting a trainer.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. My thought process was, you need a good team. You need a team that you can rely on, that you know is going to get the job done. If you are constantly having to shadow your own employees to make sure they're doing their stuff right, you're adding on top of being an entrepreneur, on top of your dental work, on top of insurance and top of everything else that you're also doing 50% of someone else's job.
Casey Hiers:
Well, let's go back to, you have the time, you could exercise, you choose not to. If you hire a trainer, chances are you're going to work on that. Somebody else here in the office, they got one of those Pelotons. It feels like they are benefiting from the current situation a lot. But just in two months, just getting on there and doing a little bit of work, seeing the difference, feeling the difference. Didn't want to do it. It was hard. First couple of workouts weren't fun. but finding ways to alleviate your stress, to delegate your stress and practice owners, you hear it in a lot of our podcasts, the business side of dentistry and finances, huge stressor. Huge stressor.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Money is the biggest stress I feel for a lot of people.
Casey Hiers:
Health and money. Sure.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep.
Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Health and money. And again, wish we had a solution for the health thing with the pandemic, but for the money thing, for the business side of dentistry, for those areas that we mentioned, now's the time. Now's the time to look across the board and say, "Where can I delegate? Where can I find a team to help alleviate some stress?" And typically when people have that house in order, their stress is reduced 30%, 40%, 50%.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Wow.
Casey Hiers:
And that's not overstating it because to your point, money is half of people's stressors. Sometimes relationships, health, there's other factors. But if there's ever a time to look to potentially take some stress off your plate, I would say 2021 is probably a good time. I heard a quote I want to share. "Negative people will always find a problem with every solution." It was some joker. I think his name was Al, Albert, Albert Einstein.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Frankenstein. No, Einstein.
Casey Hiers:
Einstein, yes. But I read that and I glanced at it again and that's kind of right. A negative person will find a problem with any solution. And don't surround yourself with those people, but be somebody who's looking for a solution. Be somebody who is trying to reduce your stress. And again, my take home message on this podcast to our listeners are it's okay to be worn out and worn down and stressed out and frazzled and unfortunately short with your kids sometimes, but it's not all right to just stay in the status quo. And so look at your situation and see what can you help. Jarrod for you, maybe it's, I'm going to get a trainer because I've got a little time and he will help me achieve my goal. And by getting a trainer, that discipline, it's not all on you. When it's all on you, that can be hard. When you have a trainer, when you have some accountability, when you have a right team and the right people, it can help money, it can help health.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I completely agree with that. In terms of the trainer thing, it's nice for me personally would be that accountability. I have someone else there to be, "No, no, no. You can do this. You can do another push-up. You can do another chin-up," and I'm screaming, "No I can't." But that's okay because sometimes it takes other people to help you realize your own potential.
Casey Hiers:
And my mind instantly goes to, I can do another pull up, in my mind it goes to, you don't need to produce any more practice owner. You can make another hundred thousand dollars a year. You can save an extra $80,000 a year. It's possible, our clients do it all the time.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'd be into that.
Casey Hiers:
Right?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Holy cow.
Casey Hiers:
Right.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
And without producing more, that's crazy. Imagine working three days a week, or however you do it now and making that much more money, saving a ton for retirement. Being able to do things with your family more often.
Casey Hiers:
Winning is a great deodorant. If you can win, it's a great deodorant. It just cures a lot of things. And for practice owners out there, if you all can get your finances and business in order, your tax management, your income, your cashflow, your retirement, your overhead, that will reduce stress a ton. And while we're not doctors, I'm going to challenge y'all. Want to reduce your stress 40%?
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Hey, do you know anybody that can help with that finance stuff?
Casey Hiers:
I've heard of a firm called Four Quadrants.
Jarrod Bridgeman:
Okay. You should probably give them a call.
Casey Hiers:
Amen.
Announcer:
That's all the time we have today. Thank you to our guest 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.
