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Scaling Down Stress: Dentists and the Fear of Taking Time Off · The Millionaire Dentist™

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  Hello, everyone, Welcome to the Millionaire Dentnist Podcast, brought to you by
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  four Quadness Advisory. On this podcast, we break down the world of dentistry,
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  finances and business practices to help you become the millionaire dentists you deserve to
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  be. Please be advised we do speak with an honest tongue and may not
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  be safe for work. Hello and welcome. This is Casey Hires back at
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  the Millionaire Dentnist Podcast in studio with co host Jared Bridgeman. Casey, good
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  morning, how are you. I'm intimidated. You've got a shirt with skulls
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  on it which is had weaponry. I mean, yeah, so it was
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  like a Halloween shirt and this morning, I just that's perfect for Memorial Day
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  weekend. This is Thursday before Memorial Day, correct, Okay, cool?
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  Yeah, yeah, So speaking of Memorial Day, you know here at the
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  office, we obviously we get that Monday off and we on the Friday before
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  we have like a half day, which is super super awesome. Clients were
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  still available, yes, until early afternoon. Correct. But I wanted to
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  ask you, Casey. You know you've got yourself a nice little family there.
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  Do you guys have any plans for the weekend. Mm hmmm. I'm
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  I was social chair in the fraternity house. Okay, my wife and I
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  split duties of social chair, but I've taken over Memorial Day okay, okay,
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  And yes we're getting we are gonna have a lot of fun, but
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  we're not gonna do too much, okay, because I need I need my
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  eight hours, that's right. Well, And and the tough part is is
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  then Tuesday, you're back to work. Yeah, so going too hard.
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  If you go hard, it has to be like Saturdays. You have two
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  days to recover. Yeah. No, a couple of pool parties, a
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  little bit of golf, grow out, family friends, some downtime. It's
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  it's shaping up to be a lovely and I used to go to the NY
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  five hundred. We're right, but you know that's a full day. It's
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  a full day, and it's always hot as hell. Yeah, it just
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  takes it out of you. I feel like, well, the last time
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  I went, I got ruined. It was open bar, breakfast at the
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  Art Center, or police escort, walk twenty yards, walk into a suite.
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  Well, and so then after that one, I'm like everything else pales
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  go backwards, you know, I can't park and walk a mile and watch
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  the race in the heat and walk back. I can't do it anymore.
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  I was not above it until I got spoiled. I've gotten to that point
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  with concerts like live music. Yeah, I need to sit down now.
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  I'd rather well once. Once you experience first class, it's hard to go
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  back to coach. But here locally in central Lediana, like all the flyovers,
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  we get to see like the beat you bombers of the Stealth or whatever
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  they're having. They're always flying around the suburbs. So it's kind of cool.
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  And Race Day's got a lot of juice and energy. But yeah,
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  Memorial Day is going to be badass, how about you? This will be
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  the first weekend three day a weekend hold on and to honor those who served
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  and passed. That's the whole point of the weekend, right, it's not
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  just cooking, correct, Yeah, it's distraction. But anyway, what are
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  you doing? This will be the first three day a weekend in three years
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  where my kids will be with the ex wife. MM, so early good
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  and personal here which which one you're third or that's right? But whatever one
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  you want? Account But so I'm gonna I'm gonna do a whole bunch of
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  nothing nice. I'm gonna hang out with some buddies and do some stuff.
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  But I mean I'm do some stuff. We won't dive into that board games.
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  I play a lot of board games. I'm really cool, so I
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  thought it was gonna be way cooler great Anyway, My wife did say you
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  can take a couple hundred bucks go out if you want, But that sounds
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  like a lot of work. She didn't tell you what you could use it
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  on. Yeah, she's whatever you want. That's sweet. Yeah, And
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  so getting into this kind of thing and like it's it's nice to get these
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  days off. In these time off. The tough part for me can be
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  is making sure I have my work at a good resting spot or a good
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  place where I know I can take a break and when I come back it's
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  not a complete, you know, mess in the office, and that could
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  be a tough thing. I feel like forretentists too. In the whole scheme
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  of work life balance. I like my affairs in order, and then I
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  like to go have fun right if something's and that's a broad statement, but
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  when everything's in order, I enjoy leisure time with less to stress about.
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  Yeah, you're not stressing during your leisure time. Yeah. And I guess
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  we have to tie this into dentistry because this is a dental podcast. Yeah,
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  it's time just brought me and you being cool. Yeah. I've been
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  told I, you know, probably shouldn't get into current events anyway, strong
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  opinions. But my grandfather was a farmer. I've mentioned this before, and
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  he would have he would be stressed out leaving for a two week vacation with
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  our family in the summer because he felt like he was away from the farm
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  and things needed to be done and needed to be tended to, and it
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  was stressful. It's a stretch there. But with dentistry, if you have
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  your you know, your practice, long weekends, maybe not as much,
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  but it's really hard. I've heard from dentist and specialists sometimes to take those
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  trips because they're they're seventy percent present, thirty percent they're wondering about the practice,
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  worried about the practice, thinking about the practice, and they're still paying
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  their staff, but they're not producing revenue. And that's that. I ask
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  you, so, what what do you think are some of the common stressors
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  and the reasons for them. Yeah, and I think that that's the biggest
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  one. I'm paying my team and my staff, yet the office most likely
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  is closed and I'm not producing revenue, and that's stressful. All the things
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  we talk about. If your overhead is high, if your income is not
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  where you want it to be, if you know you're not saving very much
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  for retirement, if you are anticipating another tax blunder at the end of the
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  year. Sometimes it can be hard to have that work life balance because even
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  when you're doing something really fun, your mind is still, as you said,
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  like that thirty percent of your brain is still kind of focused subconsciously or
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  whatever it is, on your other stressors. And that's something some people don't
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  they don't never thought about plan for, but they find themselves in this situation
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  where their work life balance is out of whack because their affairs are not in
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  order. And that can be really hard. And that's not you know to
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  say as well as like, vacations tend to be costly and can be costly
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  not just in terms of time but money as well. And so if you're
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  trying to provide for your family, for your kids, a certain level of
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  vacation and you know in the back of your mind it may be stretching your
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  wallet. Well, a lot of people because they don't take as many vacations
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  because they don't want the office closed. Yeah, they'll go big, they'll
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  go have a twenty thirty thousand dollars vacation to make sure that they're kind of
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  getting. Yeah, they're getting, they're getting the power and the one vacation
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  they take. And then that's also stressing amount, right, cash flow is
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  stressful, so that work live balance is really important. But really it comes
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  back to the root of and we wanted to make this a little little more
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  fun coming into a holiday weekend, but it does come back to if your
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  financial house is not in order, if your affairs are not in order or
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  at least trending, well, it's really hard. It's hard on your family,
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  your spouse, your children, whoever you vacation with or leisure with,
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  to be fully engaged, happy and joyful when you've got this monkey on your
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  back, right, and and your spouse and your and your kids or your
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  family that are with you can often sense that too. And since the far
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  away looking at right, my wife's good, she's like, what's what's up.
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  Yeah, I'm like, what are you talking about? It's on your
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  mind, pal, And I'm like, fine, yeah, here it is?
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  Is that her for you as as a male, Well, everybody's got
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  a little ego, that's right. Yeah, everything's fine, everything's fine.
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  I mean practice practice owners start with that all the time with him. Yeah,
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  I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing okay. What's pretty good? What's
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  okay? Well, I hope next year will be better. Hope it's a
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  terrible business strategy. Well, let me ask you about that, because I
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  know sometimes it'll be that way. You know, maybe I'm feeling aggravated about
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  something or something's off at home, and the wife will be like, are
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  you okay? I can, I'm fine? What is the reasoning? I
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  know it's more than just opening up and being vulnerable? Is it? For
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  me? Sometimes it's the idea of like, even if I talk to you,
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  I don't think you could help, Like, so what's the point?
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  Yeah, I mean, I'll quote one hundred and fifty practice owners I've talked
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  to this year. I mean most of them they're like, I'm supposed to
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  be the smart one. I'm supposed to figure this out. And the fact
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  that I'm struggling. And we've talked about this before human psychology, but they
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  sometimes feel guilt or shame because they don't have those figure things figured out right,
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  And they spend this will if you want to lose faith in humanity,
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  walk through an airport. Right. So they deal with people all day and
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  most of the time they're like, oh my gosh, I'm the smartest person.
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  I'm quoting a dentist, not myself. I'm the smartest person, you
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  know, I'm with I see all this moronic behavior, and so by default,
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  who can help me? Right? Yeah, it's hard, and it's
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  it's I definitely feel the same way being the smartest person. I know.
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  It's just tough. It's just tough, you know. Oftentimes, oftentimes,
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  Casey, I feel like people have a hard time stepping away too, because
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  they feel like nobody does it as well as them, Like if I don't
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  do it, it won't be done. Right. That's a very good point.
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  And how about this sometimes dentistry or fill in the blank, that's a
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  person's identity, and when they're not doing that, they you know, they
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  don't feel do they feel different? Right? It's identity and role. We
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  talked to I talk about this with a lot of folks. You know,
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  here your role is, you know, whatever you're doing for for work or
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  whatever, that's your role. Your identity is who you are. Unfortunately,
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  a lot of practice owners will blur those lines of my role as a practice
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  owner and a provider and taking care of patients and team and stuff that blurs
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  over into their identity. And so when those are blurred and meshed together,
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  a lot of times mentally it's hard to just separate to do yours, bring
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  in work home with you basically, and I don't care what you're doing and
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  how many people you're helping. In any industry, you have to have that
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  separation and know who you are so that then, like your highs and lows
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  aren't attached necessarily to everything that happens in your work or whatever your quote unquote.
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  Location is what I found that helped me, and this is you know,
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  won't be the same for dentists. But years and years and years ago,
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  I had a job where for a couple of years we all worked from
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  home, and at the beginning of that it was very hard to separate work
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  from home home life because you're in the same place. Sure, yeah,
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  yeah, when you put the clothes sign on your workspace at home and then
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  actually go go do those things and all of that. It's just it's blurred
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  lines. Not the song from that was all Alan think's Robin Yeah the growing
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  Pain's dad his son in real life. Yeah, burd lines. Yeah,
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  Yeah, we'll get there eventually. Right, controversial song, great video,
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  I digress. The video is also the counter versi as well. Yeah,
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  work life balance, work life balance, casey, When you get back from
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  a Memorial Day weekend and you're back in the swing of things, how easy
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  is it for you to pick back up and get back to work. Pretty
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  easy? I mean, and I don't want to sound cheesy, but you
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  know, talking to practice owners to help them identify areas that could be better
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  and see if that aligns with what we do. That's fun. I enjoy
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  that, right, But they also get you problem solving, achieving something,
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  helping people like that, that's the fun part. Just like in dentistry,
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  people enjoy actually treating a patient, being successful and watching them walk out like
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  you know, thank stock, Like that feels good versus some of the messes
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  and fires that you can get. But I try to focus on the actual
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  mission, right, helping people trying to solve problems. I mean, because
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  just going off of that, maybe think about the fact is like everybody's job
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  or occupation or whatever they have, there are parts about it that people that
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  you don't like, but you got to it's nice to you got to focus
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  on the posits and things that you love about the business, right too.
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  I've probably said this before to quote my wife. Whatever you do, you're
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  going to carry a bag of crap around. You have to decide if you're
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  comfortable with the bag of crap that you're carrying, and if you're not,
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  you probably need to do something about it. But ultimately, there's no perfect
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  job, yep. I mean, people who win the lottery after a while
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  have a lot of problem a lot of problems. And you know, I
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  saw a Mega Million's winner who's about you know, five nine, two ninety
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  in a pool with like this supermodel and the joke with you know, Mega
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  millions falls in love. You know, like he's going to have a new
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  set of problems. She just really liked his personality. Yeah it's not the
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  money, no, but yeah, but ultimately you have to be comfortable with,
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  you know, the downside of whatever you're doing and there is downside,
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  but ultimately you've got to enjoy it. And again for practice owners, it's
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  important to go on vacation. It's important to take time off. Even though
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  your friends probably make fun of you because you work three and a half or
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  four days a week, what you do is important. What you do is
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  demanding physically and emotionally. And then the business side of it. People don't
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  even when I talk about how the business model of dentistry is so unique and
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  different in medical, a lot of people are like, oh, I guess
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  so, like a surgeon goes to a hospital and doesn't have to pay for
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  the facilities in the equips, but in this issue they do, and they
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  kind of go, huh, oh, what's your firm? Does make sense
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  because that would be a real struggle for a dentist, But some dentists have
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  a hard time admitting even that point that they need help and they can't figure
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  it out. Vacation's important. Work life balance is important. One of the
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  biggest challenges practice owners tell me after they get through the financial aspects of it,
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  it is the stress. The spouse will say, the stress that my
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  you know, practice owning spouse feels. I feel at home. They're stress
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  that it all ties in vacations are important. Keeping the axe sharp Stephen Covety's
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  seventh habit right. I've said this before. If you chop them down a
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  tree with a dull action, not effective, sharpen the acts. Take time
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  off. Don't feel guilty about it. Don't feel bad about it. But
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  when you have that time, when you reflect, if your overhead has been
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  high for years and years and years, that's probably not just going to magically
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  change. Do something about it, but start that down. Yeah. Yeah,
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  I'll probably be sun burnt when I get back from a moial day.
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  I forget, you know, like an arm or like the back of my
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  neck. That's a running joke in the house. I mean one of your
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  prehensile tale. When I was a freshman in high school, did I burned
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  my feet on spring break and was on crutches for thirteen days because of that
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  sun Britain? Yes? Yeah, and you think i'd learned. Wow.
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  So that's our message today. Sunscreen. So I mean, because you're really
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  like forty years old, but you look fifty because of the sunscreen issue.
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  You're thank god you're not the numbers guy. Good lord. Anyways, Casey
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  were we are going to be taking a break next week on the podcast.
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  We'll be back after that. But if you're interested in here in Casey or
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  whatever other lovely speakers, make sure to go to four quarters Advisory dot com
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  slash events. We're going to be in Boston, We're going to be in
• 14:39
  Indianapolis and Westfield, Indiana. We've got a bunch of places. Saint Louis,
• 14:43
  Kansas City, wherever. We're presenting at the Florida State Meeting for a
• 14:46
  couple hours at their their show. That's awesome. Yeah, so Florida State
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  Meeting is like a regional meeting. I mean it's big time. Other state
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  shows are smaller, but yeah, I'll come to that one. You're invited,
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  all right, sweet, Thanks Casey. That's all the time we have
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  today. Thank you to our guests for their insight and for sharing some really
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  great information, and thank you to you the listener for tuning in. The
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  Millionaire Dennis Podcast is brought to you by four Quadrant Advisory to see if they
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  might be a good fit for you and your practice. Going over to four
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  Quadransadvisory dot com and see why year after year they retain over ninety five percent
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  other clients, thank you again for joining us, and we'll see you next time.