Starting 2024 Strong: Why Dentists Should Return With Momentum

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, how are you?

Casey Hiers:
Doing well, man.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Hey, Happy New Year.

Casey Hiers:
Happy New Year. What Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm said, up until January 7th, you can say "Happy New Year," but according to Larry David, after that,

Jarrod Bridgeman:
It's done.

Casey Hiers:
... pass.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Over and done with. Now we took a week off between Christmas and New Year's, which is a really nice thing that our bosses let us do. Did you have a good time off? Good break?

Casey Hiers:
In Stephen Covey's book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, rule number seven is one of my favorites. Keep your axe sharp. I've mentioned this before, but if you're trying to chop down a tree and your axe is dull, you can be chopping and sweating and exhausted and not effective. If you stop to sharpen and shine your axe and get some electrolytes, you're going to be more effective.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep. That makes me-

Casey Hiers:
That's a long way to say 10 days off was excellent. I need-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
You really melted. The day we were supposed to come back, you walked in one second before you're supposed to be here.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, no, it was a great break. Great time off. What we do for practice owners is a lot, and it's serious, and so time off is important. Yeah, it was a great time. Friends, family, rest.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Food.

Casey Hiers:
Lots of food.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Little bit of booze.

Casey Hiers:
Adult beverages could be found.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. I had a good break as well. What was nice for us as we got-

Casey Hiers:
Oh, yeah. Was I supposed to ask you?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes, thank you.

Casey Hiers:
Just about me, right?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right. We were able to knock out all of our Christmas gatherings in one weekend.

Casey Hiers:
Nice.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Which was awesome. But you talking about sharpening the axe made me think of my younger brother. The last couple times I've gone up to visit my mom and stepdad, my brother's come over with his kid and stuff, and my brother he always brings his own knife sharpener, and we'll go through my mom's door and sharpen all her knives.

Casey Hiers:
That's nice.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
It's nice, but it was like four times last year. It's just funny to see him over the corner, sharpening a knife. It just makes me laugh every time.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, no, I like that. I'll tell you what, when you go on break, a lot of times you're just relaxed and you're like, "This is great," and so many people are dreading coming back to work.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
What? I love working.

Casey Hiers:
I mean, I don't dread it, but it is nice, but it's also-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
[inaudible 00:02:38]. But a couple more days. I wouldn't have complained about a few more days off.

Casey Hiers:
Three times the devil's playground, too.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right.

Casey Hiers:
Sometimes we all need structure. But my point is that that general feeling of, "Oh, it's just been great, and I'm so relaxed, and I wish I didn't have to go to work. I wish I hit the power ball," or "I'm independently wealthy and didn't have to work." That's a sentiment out there. It comes back to even a campaign we're working on in the dental community, of why do so many dentists work so long? 68, 70, 75, I mean, we just talked to one with Adonis that's 88 and just hung it up. Why do they do that?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And I think it's hard to even contemplate that for people who don't know the insides of the dentistry business. To a layman out there who just goes to the dentist is like, "I know you're making good money. You're making great money. Why are you still here at 80?" My grandmother did that, but she worked at a factory. You know what I mean? And making 20 bucks an hour versus...

Casey Hiers:
Well, and the take-home for me on this is truly if somebody can retire five or ten years sooner, that's worth looking at. How can someone make that happen? And in the world of dentistry, there's an opportunity, if you can make hay and just crush it for 15, 18 years, you can be in a position to retire with millions and millions and millions of dollars.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I mean, it's almost a lottery ticket in itself to have more money and stop earlier.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. It's one of those, "Oh, I wish I hit the power ball." But in dentistry, there's a lot of struggles and challenges. Overhead insurance, not making what you want. There's shame, there's imposter syndrome. There's all these things that dentists deal with that they don't talk about.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And of course, a lot of that might've been fixed, but hindsight is 2020 with everything,

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Yeah. But ultimately, mastering the business side of dentistry can put you in a position where you could have an extended Christmas break and be off for the rest of your life if you want to. And again, you can always-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And take that Christmas break somewhere really nice.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. You can always go practice dentistry. Like, "Oh, I miss it. I'm going to go practice for a day at my study club buddy's practice." But you can't always retire early if you don't do the right things. And so it's such in reverse. "Oh, what's your retirement plan?" "I'm going to teach, and I'm going to speak, and I'm going to practice." And it's like, "Okay, why don't you just crush dentistry now, and retire and then still do those things, but not because you need cash flow.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
No, because you love it.

Casey Hiers:
That's right.
So we'll be

Jarrod Bridgeman:
If you get burned out by the time you're 70, are you really one to want run around and teach?

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Yeah. But we're going to be, what, probably 60 events this year if we look at national meetings, state meetings, study clubs, dental societies, our own events. I think we're rocking about on the tour about 60 this year, and we're going to be going to the Yankee Dental Congress here at the end of this month.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, that's last week of the month, isn't it?

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Yeah. Boston.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Boston.

Casey Hiers:
And I always joke, Boston in January, very serious. Why can't we go to Boca? But boy, it-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
But we are going to Boca.

Casey Hiers:
We are going to Boca.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
That's right.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's our own event. But you're talking about the Yankee, and so I know you're going to be speaking at the Yankee.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, we do two hours of CE Saturday, the 27th, 9:00 to 11:00. If you're in the northeast and you're going to the Yankee Dental Congress, register for it. The course code is 752, S as in Sam, L as in Lisa. But yeah, it's two hours on the business side of dentistry, and if you're going to the Yankee, absolutely register. You'll hear things that can help you, you'll hear things that might make you a little sick to the stomach, but we get to it.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I've seen you speak a few times now, and it's mind-boggling to see what we speak about, what you talk about, and how much that resonates with so many people from all over the country.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. About every third one, somebody goes, Casey, did you look at my... How did you get access to my profit and loss statement, my balance sheet, my taxes, and how do you know that I am frustrated by all this?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. And the thing is, it's a frustration that a lot of people feel, but the ones that come up and talk to you are the ones that realize, "I think I do need help."

Casey Hiers:
And we talk to people that make 400, 500, 600. We've talked to people that make a million dollars in dentistry or in orthodontia, and they're still frustrated. So many times, people think, "Well, if I can just make this or do this," mastering the business side and the tax, it's hard. It's difficult. And so, wherever you're at, it can be better. You can make more. Again, we can't help everybody. We'd love to have more conversations with practice owners, because if we can help you, we're going to show you. But yeah, we'll be in Boca this month doing our own event. We'll be at the Yankee, which is a nice one, a nice opportunity for folks to hear us. And yeah, we'll be doing these podcasts weekly this year in 2024.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. That's right. I'd also like to bring up, we're also going to be in San Antonio soon, in February, doing two different events there as well. And then following up with that, we're going to be in Tampa, Florida, and Nashville, Tennessee.

Casey Hiers:
And we only go to the best venues.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right. That's right.

Casey Hiers:
No joke. We find whatever city we're going, we find the three top places that are like you take somebody on a 10-year or 20-year anniversary, that's the venue that we go to. The subject matter, we could present it at a Bob Evans, and we can still help people.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
We're starting this year off strong. We're going to be out there, and we're going to be talking, and we're going to be trying to help as many people as we can get our hands on that can work with us.

Casey Hiers:
Well, it's ironic. We're going to 60 places, we want to talk to as many dentists as we can. But we vet them out, and we don't take near as many as we say no to, but the point is, let's see if we can help you, and if we can, we'll show you. And if we can't, or it doesn't make sense, or it's not a good fit, we're the first to tell people about it.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And worst case scenario, coming to one of your speaking events or one of these types of things, is you learn, "Oh, shoot, maybe I need to talk to my accountant. Maybe I need to talk to my finance guy."

Casey Hiers:
Oh, yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
You'll learn something.

Casey Hiers:
I give some tips. Hey, if we never talk again, here's some things you need to demand from your current external team to get better, so we're good.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And some of those things. I know we have a couple planned podcasts coming up. We're going to have Kevin Rorton in here as well, who's one of our really awesome CPAs. And so I'm really, really excited about us coming out of the gate and really trying to help as many people as we can. Just on the podcast alone, you and I help in talking advice and-

Casey Hiers:
Like public service announcements, things that your accountant maybe should be telling you that they're not. We're going to be doing more of that this year, trying to get some information to help the masses.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
If your accountant is telling you it's okay to eat the yellow snow, it's time to move on.

Casey Hiers:
Right. On that note...

Jarrod Bridgeman:
No. Casey, thank you so much for stopping by. Folks, if you're interested in coming to seeing us at one of our events, go to fourquadrantsadvisory.com/events. You'll be able to register there. Again, we're going to be at the Yankee this year on Saturday, the 27th of January. Make sure to register for our course. It's from 9:00 to 11:00 AM. And our course code is 752, S as in Sam, and L as in Lisa. Thank you so much, 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.