Scaling Down Stress: Dentists and the Fear of Taking Time Off

This week, Casey and Jarrod dig into the secret stress behind long weekends and vacations: the fear that taking time off will tank your finances. From overhead that never sleeps to staff payroll that keeps rolling, they unpack why so many dentists feel guilty, anxious, or downright stressed the moment they try to step away.

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, in studio with co-host Jarrod Bridgeman.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Casey, good morning. How are you?

Casey Hiers:
I'm intimidated.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah?

Casey Hiers:
You've got a shirt with skulls on it-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And witch's hat.

Casey Hiers:
... with weaponry. I mean-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. So it was a Halloween shirt and this morning, I just-

Casey Hiers:
That's perfect for Memorial Day weekend.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right.

Casey Hiers:
This is airing the Thursday before Memorial Day?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Correct.

Casey Hiers:
Okay, cool.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. Speaking of Memorial Day, here at the office, obviously we get that Monday off and on the Friday before, we have a half day, which is super, super awesome.

Casey Hiers:
Clients, we're still available-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes, correct.

Casey Hiers:
... until early afternoon.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Correct. But I wanted to ask you, Casey ... You've got yourself a nice little family there. Do you guys have any plans for the weekend?

Casey Hiers:
I was social chair in the fraternity house. My wife and I split duties as social chair, but I've taken over Memorial Day.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Okay.

Casey Hiers:
Okay? And yes, we are going to have a lot of fun, but we're not going to do too much. Because I need my eight hours.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right. Well, and the tough part is then Tuesday you're back to work.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
So going too hard... If you go hard, it has to be Saturday, so you have two days to recover.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. No, we got a couple pool parties, a little bit of golf, grill out, family, friends, some downtime.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Nice.

Casey Hiers:
It's shaping up to be a lovely ... And I used to go to the Indy 500 base, but that's a full day.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
It's a full day and it's always hot as hell and it just takes it out of you, I feel like.

Casey Hiers:
Well, the last time I went, I got ruined. It was open bar breakfast at the art center, police escort, walk 20 yards, walk into a suite.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Okay, well-

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, so then after that one I'm like-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Everything else pales in comparison.

Casey Hiers:
I can't go backwards. I can't park and walk a mile and watch the race in the heat and walk back. I can't do it anymore. I was not above it until I got spoiled.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I've gotten to that point with concerts. Like live music, I need to sit down now. I'd rather have that.

Casey Hiers:
Well, once you experience first class, it's hard to go back to coach.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right.

Casey Hiers:
But here locally in Central Indiana, all the flyovers, we get to see the B-2 bombers, the Stealth or whatever they're having. They're always flying around the suburbs, so it's kind of cool. And race day's got a lot of juice and energy, but yeah, Memorial Day is going to be badass. How about you?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
This will be the first three-day weekend in-

Casey Hiers:
Oh, hold on. And to honor those who served and passed. That's the whole point of the weekend.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right. It's not just cooking.

Casey Hiers:
Correct. Yeah, it's distraction. But anyway, what are you doing?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
This will be the first three-day weekend in three years where my kids will be with the ex-wife.

Casey Hiers:
Really getting personal here. Which one? Your third or your fourth?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's okay. That's right. Whichever one you want to count. So I'm going to do a whole bunch of nothing.

Casey Hiers:
Nice.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'm going to hang out with some buddies and do some stuff, but I mean I'm.

Casey Hiers:
Do some stuff. We won't dive into that.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Board games.

Casey Hiers:
Oh.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I play a lot of board games because I'm really cool.

Casey Hiers:
I thought it was going to be way cooler that. I regret ... anyway.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
My wife did say, "You could take a couple hundred bucks to go out if you want," but that sounds like a lot of work.

Casey Hiers:
She didn't tell you what you could use it on?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, she said, "Whatever you want."

Casey Hiers:
That's sweet.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. So getting into this kind of thing, and it's nice to get these days off and these time off. The tough part for me can be is making sure I have my work at a good resting spot or a good place where I know I can take a break and when I come back, it's not a complete mess in the office. And that could be a tough thing, I feel like, for dentists too in the whole scheme of work-life balance.

Casey Hiers:
I like my affairs in order and then I like to go have fun. And that's a broad statement, but when everything's in order, I enjoy leisure time.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
You have less to stress about.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
You're not stressing during your leisure time.

Casey Hiers:
And I guess we have to tie this into dentistry because this is a dental podcast.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. It's not just about me and you being cool.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, I've been told I probably shouldn't get into current events. Anyway, strong opinions. But my grandfather was a farmer. I've mentioned this before. And he would be stressed out leaving for a two-week vacation with our family in the summer because he felt like he was away from the farm and things needed to be done and needed to be tended to. And it was stressful. It's a stretch there, but with dentistry, if you have your practice, long weekends maybe not as much, but it's really hard; I've heard from dentists and specialists; sometimes to take those trips because they're 70% present, 30% they're wondering about the practice, worried about the practice, thinking about the practice. And they're still paying their staff, but they're not producing revenue.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I was going to ask you, so what do you think are some of the common stressors and the reasons for them?

Casey Hiers:
I think that's the biggest one. I'm paying my team and my staff, yet the office most likely is closed and I'm not producing revenue and that's stressful. All the things we talk about. If your overhead is high, if your income's not where you want it to be, if you're not saving very much for retirement, if you are anticipating another tax blunder at the end of the year, sometimes it can be hard to have that work-life balance because even when you're doing something really fun, your mind is still-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
As you said, that 30% of your brain is still focused subconsciously or whatever it is on your other stressors.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. And that's something some people never thought about, planned for, but they find themselves in this situation where their work-life balance is out of whack because their affairs are not in order. And that can be really hard.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And that's not to say as well as vacations tend to be costly and can be costly, not just in terms of time, but money as well. And so if you're trying to provide for your family, for your kids a certain level of vacation, in the back of your mind it may be stretching your wallet too.

Casey Hiers:
Well, a lot of people, because they don't take as many vacations because they don't want the office closed, yeah, they'll go big. They'll go have a 20, $30,000 vacation to make sure that they're getting-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
They're getting the power in the one vacation they take.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. And then that's also stressing them out. Right? Cashflow is stressful. So now work-life balance is really important, but really it comes back to the root of ... And we wanted to make this a little more fun coming into a holiday weekend, but it does come back to if your financial house is not in order, if your affairs are not in order or at least trending well, it's really hard. It's hard on your family, your spouse, your children, whoever you vacation with or leisure with to be fully engaged, happy and joyful when you've got this monkey on your back.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right. And your spouse and your kids or your family that are with you can often sense that too. They can sense the far away look in your eye.

Casey Hiers:
Oh, my wife's good. She's like, "What's up?" I'm like, "What are you talking about?" "What's on your mind, pal?" I'm like, "Fine, here it is."

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Is that hard for you as a male?

Casey Hiers:
Well, everybody's got a little ego.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right.

Casey Hiers:
"Everything's fine. Everything's fine." Practice owners start with that all the time. "Yeah, I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing okay." What's pretty good? What's okay? "Well, I hope next year will be better." Hope's a terrible business strategy.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, let me ask you about that because I know sometimes it'll be that way. Maybe I'm feeling aggravated about something or something's off at home and the wife will be like, "Are you okay?" I'm like, "Yeah, I'm fine." What is the reasoning? I know it's more than just opening up and being vulnerable. For me, sometimes it's the idea of even if I talk to you, I don't think you could help so what's the point?

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, I mean, I'll quote 150 practice owners I've talked to this year. Most of them are like, "I'm supposed to be the smart one. I'm supposed to figure this out and the fact that I'm struggling ..." And we've talked about this before, human psychology, but they sometimes feel guilt or shame because they don't have those things figured out and they spin. If you want to lose faith in humanity, walk through an airport, right? So they deal with people all day and most of the time they're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm the smartest person ..." I'm quoting a dentist, not myself. "I'm the smartest person I'm with. I see all this moronic behavior and so by default, who can help me?"

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. It's hard.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I definitely feel the same way being the smartest person I know it. It's just tough. Oftentimes Casey, I feel like people have a hard time stepping away too because they feel like nobody does it as well as them. Like, "If I don't do it, it won't be done right."

Casey Hiers:
That's a very good point. And how about this? Sometimes dentistry or fill in the blank, that's a person's identity and when they're not doing that, they feel different. It's identity and role. I talked about this with a lot of folks here. Your role is whatever you're doing for work or whatever. That's your role. Your identity is who you are. Unfortunately, a lot of practice owners will blur those lines of my role as a practice owner and a provider and taking care of patients and team and staff. That blurs over into their identity and so then when those are blurred and meshed together, a lot of times mentally it's hard to-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Just to separate the two.

Casey Hiers:
Correct.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
You're bringing work home with you basically.

Casey Hiers:
And trash. I don't care what you're doing and how many people you're helping in any industry, you have to have that separation and know who you are. So then your highs and lows aren't attached necessarily to everything that happens in your work or whatever your "vocation" is.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
What I found that helped me, and this won't be the same for dentists, but years and years and years ago I had a job where for a couple of years we all worked from home and at the beginning of that, it was very hard to separate work from home life because you're in the same place.

Casey Hiers:
Sure, yeah. When you put the closed sign on your workspace at home and then actually go do those things and all of that, it's blurred lines. Not the song from-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh, that was-

Casey Hiers:
Alan Thicke's-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Robin? Robin Thicke?

Casey Hiers:
Yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
The Growing Pains dad. His son in real life. Yeah. Blurred lines. Yeah. We'll get there eventually, right? Controversial song, great video.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes.

Casey Hiers:
I digress.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
The video's also controversial as well.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Work-life balance.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Work-life balance. Casey, when you get back from Memorial Day weekend and you're back in the swing of things, how easy is it for you to pick back up and get back to work?

Casey Hiers:
Pretty easy. I don't want to sound cheesy, but talking to practice owners to help them identify areas that could be better and see if that aligns with what we do, that's fun. I enjoy that, but that also gets problem-solving, achieving something, helping people. That's the fun part. Just like in dentistry, people enjoy actually treating a patient, being successful and watching them walk out like, "Thanks doc, that feels good." Versus some of the messes and fires that you can get. But I try to focus on the actual mission. Helping people trying to solve problems.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Because just going off of that made me think about the fact is everybody's job or occupation or whatever they have, there are parts about it that people that you don't like. But it's nice [inaudible 00:11:43] you got to focus on the positives and things that you love about the business, right?

Casey Hiers:
Well, I've probably said this before, to quote my wife. "Whatever you do, you're going to carry a bag of crap around." You have to decide if you're comfortable with the bag of crap that you're carrying, and if you're not, you probably need to do something about it. But ultimately there's no perfect job. People who win the lottery after a while have a lot of problems.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes.

Casey Hiers:
And I saw a Mega Millions winner who's about 5'9", 290 in a pool with this supermodel, and the joke was, "Mega Millions falls in love." He's going to have a new set of problems.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
She just really liked his personality.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
It's fine.

Casey Hiers:
It's not the money.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
No, not at all.

Casey Hiers:
No. But yeah, but ultimately you have to be comfortable with the downside of whatever you're doing and there is downside, but ultimately you've got to enjoy it. And again, for practice owners, it's important to go on vacation. It's important to take time off, even though your friends probably make fun of you because you work three and a half or four days a week. What you do is important and what you do is demanding physically and emotionally. And then the business side of it, people don't even ... When I talk about how the business model of dentistry is so unique and different in medical, a lot of people are like, "Oh, I guess so. A surgeon goes to a hospital and doesn't have to pay for the facilities and the equipment, but in dentistry they do." And they kind of go, "Huh? Oh, what your firm does make sense because that would be a real struggle for a dentist." But some dentists have a hard time admitting even that point that they need help and they can't figure it out. Vacation's important, work-life balance is important. One of the biggest challenges practice owners tell me after they get through the financial aspects of it, it is the stress. The spouse will say, "The stress that my practice-owning spouse feels, I feel at home. Their stress." It all ties in. Vacations are important. Keeping the ax sharp, Stephen Covey's seventh habit. I've said this before, if you're chopping down a tree with a dull ax, you're not effective. Sharpen the ax. Take time off. Don't feel guilty about it, don't feel bad about it. But when you have that time, when you reflect, if you overhead has been high for years and years and years, that's probably not just going to magically change. Do something about it.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Start whittling that down.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, but I'll probably be sun burnt when I get back from Memorial Day.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. On Tuesday. Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
Like an arm or the back of my neck. It's a running joke in the house.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Your prehensile tail.

Casey Hiers:
When I was a freshman in high school, did I burn my feet on spring break and was I on crutches for 13 days because of bad sunburn?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh, yeah.

Casey Hiers:
Yes. Yeah. And you think I'd learn.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Wow.

Casey Hiers:
So that's our message today. Sunscreen.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Because you're really 40 years old, but you look 50 because it's the sunscreen issue.

Casey Hiers:
Thank God you're not the numbers guy here.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right.

Casey Hiers:
Good Lord.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Anyways, Casey, we are going to be taking a break next week on the podcast. We'll be back after that. But if you're interested in hearing Casey or one of our other lovely speakers, make sure to go to Fourquartersadvisory.com/events. We're going to be in Boston, we're going to be in Indianapolis and Westfield, Indiana. We've got a bunch of places. St. Louis, Kansas City.

Casey Hiers:
We're presenting at the Florida State meeting for a couple hours at their show.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's awesome.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Florida State meeting's like a regional meeting. It's big time. Other state shows are smaller, but yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'll come to that one.

Casey Hiers:
You're invited.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
All right, sweet. Thanks, Casey.

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.