Freedom of Direction

The following transcription was from the Bulletproof Youtube channel. Here is the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgXvGB3Qzn0

Craig Spodak
0:00:00
A year ago, the guy's like a rock star now. So it's hard to build, but once you've built it, to trim it down and get more efficient when you're clinically and operationally efficient

Peter Boulden
0:00:09
is not a hard thing to do.

Craig Spodak
0:00:11
You know what I have been shocked about? There's two things I want to talk to you about. One is Trump, and then the second is, these are totally not related, and the second is how many, I've been shocked about just talking to dentists in the past five years about how many have a lot of part-time either hygienists or doctors that come into their practice and you hear like, well, I've got three part-timers that come in and two part-time gentists. I'm like, do you understand the logistics of that? Right? The disruption of that is almost like you listen to these sports. I've used the temp hygienist as well. Have you ever used the temp hygienist in your practice? Or I shouldn't say ever, but in the last five years, I've never done that. I mean, obviously early on, you're thinking that you need to fill the position for that one day. It's a very different way of looking at things. When you have someone that's just one day a week, you have three people one day a week for three different days, it's just really hard to get that team gelled together. You basically have three different cultures, especially if you have a small team and that one person makes up 25% of your team if you're a team of four or something like that. But yeah, it's amazing. People don't see it that way. I would say, you know, when you don't want to, if you add someone who's good, if you have a room and you add someone who's good, they will build their own schedule. I even go so far to think that every great dentist you have in your practice, I might need your help trying to get this thought out, but just hear me out with this. Every great dentist you have in your practice grows a practice within three years that can support 1.3 dentists or 1.4 dentists. So if you have an amazing associate that wows the patients, after three years that person that person will not only be able to, to feed themselves, but a third of another one.

Peter Boulden
0:02:07
How would they feed?

Craig Spodak
0:02:08
Would they be triaging for the other third that they're giving out? How would, tell me, tell me why, or they just grow the practice through amazing experience kind of thing? Right. That's what I'm saying. So the amount that they grow their practice, if they're good, not only will get themselves busy, but could feed another person. They'll be overwhelmed with their four days a week in two hands to

Peter Boulden
0:02:33
satisfy all the patients that they'll generate. That's my thought.

Craig Spodak
0:02:37
Tell me about where you were.

Craig Spodak
0:02:52
How was it? Did you catch all your food that you ate?

Peter Boulden
0:02:55
Yeah, for one of the trips.

Craig Spodak
0:02:56
So I was lucky enough to go on two back to back trip cases.

Peter Boulden
0:03:00
I'm sorry?

Peter Boulden
0:03:01
I said one of the trips. That was such a subtle flex. No, no, I'm unpacking it. So I had a trip planned with my buddy Michael and it was to go to the Bahamas on a boat. We chartered a boat and we spear fished, and it's a pretty sporty trip, and it's really cool with the families. We spear fish and fillet and eat it all, and it's really a neat trip. Then I got invited at the last minute to a buddy's trip, and it just happened to be another boat to St. Bart's. I was on two weeks of boating trips, two different trips. But like I told you, you can have, and I hate even saying this because it sounds like I'm being such a jackass when I say it, but you can actually have too much vacation. And I had a Wednesday catch up with Erica from my office on the second week of the vacation. It was probably one of the best days I had because at a certain point you need something to do. And I listened to your podcast that you guys did with Trey and Dwight about to sell or not to sell.

Peter Boulden
0:04:04
And I just absolutely loved that podcast.

Craig Spodak
0:04:06
I'm so, I loved it, man. I really wish you had been there, but we did get a lot of feedback. It's such a poignant topic right now, you know? But it also talked to, you hit a very good topic for me because here I am at the second week. We had Salt Lake City, we had Park City rather. So it went from Park City at the Mastermind to one weekend a boat to one day home and another weekend a boat. So it was really like three weeks of vacationing and you were talking about when you sell and what do you do and there's no purpose, it was really hitting home. So for me, I just know myself well. I just know that, I know I never got to give my opinion, but I just would not wanna sell based on what is going on in my life right now. Well, it's funny you say that. I actually had a conversation with someone who will remain nameless, but he is a friend of both of you and I, Craig, and he was telling me that he has a pediatric group that's doing about, what did I say, $18 million in EBITDA, $20 million in EBITDA. And I was telling him about all these topics, right? And I was like, right now, it just feels like, for me, it's just head down. It's feeling very energized with work, really not, you know, cash flow, you focus on cash flow and a lot of purpose. And he's like, man, I got to tell you, like, that's the ticket. Right? And he's like, because I have a lot of friends who have crossed over the Rubicon of selling. Maybe this is the narrative right now, I want to clarify, but they've crossed over the Rubicon of selling, you know, and there's a lot of depression right the because the the happiness of seeing all those zeros hit your banking out like you've always said It's very short-lived right There's only so much boating you can do and catching your own fish and doing that thing and it makes it is gonna make you feel Good or sitting on the beach or playing tennis or whatever you think you're romantic about you're gonna do But you don't know if you heard from the pod, but I sat there for a long time without any electronics and was really thinking about communicating the pros and cons. And I sat there and wrote things out because I really wanted it to be succinct because I knew it would be a long podcast and B, there'd be a lot of details in that. And that's where I kind of like came up with that, like what we talked about with Paul Goodman yesterday, that freedom of direction. Yeah. And I'm actually adding that, you know, because Norm, your buddy Norm who came and spoke with us, I'm actually adding that to, sorry my dog is shaking the camera, adding that to the end of the stuff that we're going to give out for his, like the financial acumen stuff and the stuff that we're going to give out at Summit for this year. here and you mean Randy right when you're saying sorry what did I say you said norm oh no Randy sorry sorry yeah Randy I don't know why I was thinking about norm anyway and so adding it to it because I just think it's really cool the freedom of direction right that we were talking about with Paul Goodman right and I was saying how dentistry is so neat in that if you can, you can, whatever you want to do, you can drive towards that. So if you want more time, maximize for time and you can maximize your practice for time, you can actually go down to three days, which what an interesting, by the way, when we had the room of very successful masterminders in the room and we were just kind of taking a poll and curious, like talking about the days of profitability, meaning what's been your most profitable cadence of days? Is it five days? Is it four days? For those of them who have titrated down. And do you remember what the consensus was? Yeah.

Peter Boulden
0:07:50
What was it? An overwhelming percentage of three days is

Craig Spodak
0:07:53
the most profitable. Three days. The most profitable is free spot. Yep. And then Dwight and I were talking about how we even tried kind of that two days, like, all right, well, three, then go to two and two was kind of 50% of three, meaning it didn't work. So that, that, that clinical efficiency where you're kind of maximized for, you know, minimal clocks, minimal clinical time, maximum output, right? The relationship between the two, we, we, we saw an overwhelming consensus of people saying three days. And that's not to say that everyone listening to this should do that. I don't think. I think that's a dangerous narrative to start beating our chest about and saying that that's what you should do. Because I don't think it's right for everyone, bud. I think that takes, I think it takes, you have to have some clinical, you have to have enough years under your belt to have some clinical efficiency and kind of know what you don't know kind of thing. That make any sense? Yeah, 100 percent. I think. It's not out the gate. It's not the time to do that, right? I went from five to four to three to two, you know, like you titrate down and you have the freedom back to the direction of free, the freedom of direction. You have the freedom if you wanted to optimize for that. So if you're, if your hair's on fire and you're just like, I'm going to sell because I want to go, I want to go to T-ball games and I want to go to the beach. Well, like you have the freedom because you have the vehicle, the practice as your vehicle, to start driving the narrative of your practice family rather than this draconian move to just sell it. And so.

Peter Boulden
0:09:21
Yeah, I think that's what most people in life do. They make massive course corrections when all you just need is a minor course correction and then a little bit of time.

Craig Spodak
0:09:27
You've been really good on beating the drum on that. I have to say, over the years, we're just reminding that I get to be a very throw out the baby with the bathwater kind of thing. You know, I'd make these big sweeping movements like you've always said. Yeah, well you eat shit sandwiches until you're like,

Craig Spodak
0:09:43
I'm done!

Peter Boulden
0:09:44
Like, you know, it's like, I'll have to throw the whole thing out. Or like your text though, with the last week of February when it's 42 degrees in Atlanta and it's 78 and 40, like hey, is Pop's Gardens or Jupiter better? I'm like, oh, it must be late February because this is your shit again.

Craig Spodak
0:09:58
Well, it's just that lack of vitamin D is starting to become a schedule of vacation.

Peter Boulden
0:10:00
You're always welcome here.

Craig Spodak
0:10:01
That's true. But no, I agree with you. There is, I think to your point as well, that you can't start with two and expect to trim down or start with three. It's like when you hire, I heard so many people hire an associate and we had a masterminder, I think from 2020 class that had this guy that was just one day a week for the last five years. I'm like, one day a week for like the last five years. I'm like one day a week. Well, no, not busy enough. Like do me a favor and get them four days a week. Right. Pay the guarantee. And sure enough, I check back here with him like a year ago. The guy's like a rock star now. So it's hard to build, but once you've built it, to trim it down and get more efficient when you're clinically and operationally efficient is not a hard thing to do. You know what I have been shocked about? There's two things I want to talk to you about. One is Trump, and then the second is, these are totally not related, and the second is, how many, I've been shocked about just talking to dentists in the past five years about how many have a lot of part-time, either hygienists or doctors that come into their practice, and you hear like, well I've got three part-timers that come in and two part-time dentists. I'm like, do you understand the logistics of that, right? The disruption of that is almost like you listen to these stories. I'm a temp hygienist as well. Have you ever used the temp hygienist in your practice? Or I shouldn't say ever, but in the last five years. No, we've never done that, no. Me too, I've never done that. I mean, obviously early on you're thinking that you just you need to fill the position for that one day. It's a very different way of looking at things. When you have someone that's just one day a week, you have three people one day a week for three different days, it's just really hard to get that team gelled together. You basically have three different cultures, especially if you have a small team and that one person makes up 25% of your team if you have a team of four or something like that. But yeah, it's amazing. People don't see it that way. I would say, you know, when you don't want to, if you add someone who's good, if you have a room and you add someone who's good, they will build their own schedule. I even go so far to think that every great dentist you have in your practice, I might need your help trying to get this thought out, but just hear me out with this. Every great dentist you have in your practice grows a practice within three years that can support 1.3 dentists or 1.4 dentists. So if you have an amazing associate that wows the patients, after three years, that person will not only be, if you have the right systems in place and marketing and stuff like that, that person will not only be able to feed themselves, but a third of another one. How would they feed, would they be triaging for the other third that they're giving out? How would, tell me tell me why, but they just help grow the practice through amazing experience kind of thing? Right, that's what I'm saying. So the amount that they grow their practice if they're good, not only will get themselves busy, but could feed another person. They'll be overwhelmed with their four days a week in two hands to satisfy all the patients that they'll

Peter Boulden
0:13:33
generate. That's my thought, if they're

Craig Spodak
0:13:15
Yeah, I mean, I wonder why you're stuck on a third. I mean, I would even say. I don't know, I just pulled it out of my ass. I was just saying, like, it's just not one. If you're not great, you will never grow your own practice to support yourself, all things being equal and your location, your marketing systems being on point. But if you're really great and patients love you,

Peter Boulden
0:13:34
you will grow a business beyond your own practice.

Craig Spodak
0:13:38
And you're talking about an associate, right? Yeah, I mean, I don't… Even if you find a third rate associate, you can figure it out. Even if you don't think you have the means to hire them, meaning from a new patient standpoint, the availability of work, a lot of times, like, you know, when you get a star, they can harvest from just doing hygiene checks and make themselves busy and it's not gonna be in the beginning right but over the course of three to six months all of a sudden start getting some base hits right start encouraging new patients start asking for referrals because they're there's a hunger there right and so when you've got idle time you're saying hey miss Jones I know we just met but like you any friends that you could send in the practice like they're hungry for that so you go so I totally agree you Greg you get the right you get the right person to practice you can almost you know there's a same day dentistry opportunity and then there's a multiplying effect of them just being there.

Craig Spodak
0:14:32
Yeah, I think that's what you're saying.

Craig Spodak
0:14:33
I think that's for a hygienist too, but a great hygienist. We had a specific example of a mastermind back in Park City that was talking about marketing. She's like, I want to pick your brain for a marketing technique. And we started kind of almost going down a marketing rabbit hole with her. And then we said, well, how long is it if you're a new patient and you wanna get in for a cleaning, how long do you have to wait? And her answer was like three or four weeks or five weeks. So she's gonna step on the marketing pedal when a person calls for a new patient, she can't get them in for four or five weeks or whatever it is, that's not a marketing problem.

Peter Boulden
0:15:09
And this person had-

Peter Boulden
0:15:11
What do you think it should be?

Craig Spodak
0:15:12
I know we've talked about, I think we've talked about this in the past at nauseam but like what would you say would be the right mix of hey we'll come in right now if you can because we're so not busy versus eight weeks what do you think what do you think is the right mix? So I think if you're an insurance practice and you're you know 75% or greater participation in PPO I think that 10 weeks is fine totally fine okay if it's a fee-for-service patient and they're willing to pay more for their experience and you say you can't get them in for that same five, six, seven weeks, you're gone. I think my answer is probably a week, a week to 10 days. Oh wait, I was gonna say two, I was gonna say two.

Craig Spodak
0:15:54
Would be probably not.

Peter Boulden
0:15:55
I'd go with 10 days.

Peter Boulden
0:15:56
What if you were, all right, let me go back to that question. So you said it's basically 10 and two are the answers. What if you were a PPO office and you were trying to hybridize, kind of like the model that you have in. So would you be carving off blocks, appointment blocks in your schedule to preserve for that? Do you know what I'm trying to say? Yeah, we always do that. If there's a difference in availability is where I'm going, right? Yeah, so in our practice, I always like to say, and I'm sure you've heard it a million times, it's like PPO practices are like weeds, they grow without any fertilizer, they just happen to show up. You know, patients just show up with the PPO. And the fee-for-service practice is trying to grow like tomatoes in the weed field. The tomatoes will die and the weeds will take it over. So if you have a hybridized practice and you're not really watching your mix, left alone, the practice will become more PPO centric because the PPO patient realizes they have to wait. The fee-for-service patient is used to paying for better service or you know it's like booking a flight two months from now versus booking a flight for this afternoon. The one that's going to go this afternoon is going to be a lot more expensive typically than the one that was booked out two months ago. So if you're going to have a PPO practice and it's going to be hyped or rather a hybridized PPO practice, my You know in your schedule for tomorrow the next day without them being filled Just so that when that fee-for-service patient shows up they can fit into that block I don't know the you know ramifications of that beyond the supply and demand Ramifications, but that's something we've talked about this, you know, this is where I gotta say, but this is where someone was asking me the other day, like, how long have you been on a podcast? And I was like, since like 2016. And so, shit, that's coming up on, you know, seven, that's about seven years now, right? So sometimes I feel it either between the conversations that you and I have just offline and as, you know, as, as confidants in our business and such, and then compound that with the conversations we've had in podcasts. I feel like, I feel like everything is now repetitive.

Peter Boulden
0:18:14
We've had this conversation.

Craig Spodak
0:18:16
If you're listening to this and you've never heard us talk about the block or a fee for service block, please comment below. If you've heard it, and listen, sometimes you need to hear things a couple times. I've gone to a bunch of different seminars over the last 10 years, and a lot of the content is the same in some of the seminars that I've been to, but it lands on me differently. And everybody's in a different life cycle to practice, too, Peter. So maybe when they heard it the first time, it was not applicable. And now they're like, oh shit, they were right. I started taking PPOs or I put my one of my associates on PPOs and now I don't know I think it is 12 weeks to get in a new patient. You know what? Put that frickin block in and like everything else like our blocks go away and our fee-for-service numbers go down our PPO numbers go up we have to change that. So you know it's not set it and forget it in life or business it's a constant tweaking of everything. So you it again at different life cycles of the practice. Can you do me a favor though, Peter? You brought up Trump and I thought that was like a fit of Tourette's. How did that, was it that you were with him? I've never had a fit of Tourette's before, bud. Yeah, I've never heard it before. But you were at Mar-a-Lago, right, for a wedding. I was at Mar-a-Lago this weekend. Which is a palace for Trump, isn't it? That's right. He showed up. He showed up. And I got that vitamin D that I had been craving, so now I'm good on Florida for a while, but I don't need to move there. You could have lost 90 degrees here today,

Peter Boulden
0:19:44
you wouldn't last.

Craig Spodak
0:19:45
Yeah, I would not, I'm heat intolerant. But it was cool, I'd never been there before. I know you've been there a couple times, maybe. And man, you talk about security getting there, you had to present ID and you pat downs, and it was pretty intense. And that was even, you know, I didn't know that he was even going to show up to the wedding. But yeah, it was really neat. It was obviously a very opulent place. I guess it was a… I found out that it was owned by… Did you know the story who it was owned by in the past? Do you know what he got it for? The money wise? No, tell me. So it was owned by the Post Company, which is the Post cereal. The cereal? Yeah. And I think he bought it in like the 80s for 10 million bucks.

Craig Spodak
0:20:33
Right.

Craig Spodak
0:20:34
And I'm sure when he bought it, he was like deliberating like, oh man, this is a lot of shit money.

Peter Boulden
0:20:39
Yeah, he is.

Craig Spodak
0:20:40
Yeah. Crazy. You know, it's just an interesting thing not to talk about him. I mean, let's take him as the controversial figure out of it for a second. Just the ups and downs from zero to billions, back to zero to billions, it must have been the craziest ride on the roller coaster. Also another thing I found out that he did for Mar-a-Lago because it has a golf course, he put his golf course in a conservation easement. Oh, no way. And got a, and said, hey, to the city of Palm Beach and imagine the amount of money. So the way if everyone doesn't know how to conservation easement works if you own a large track of land or even any kind of land and you basically. A valuable track of land that happens. Valuable track. And has great use potential. Has development potential or minerals or oil or whatever it is. Salt. And so if you tell the government hey look I own this track of land it's green space now it's trees it's beautiful it's nature. If I agree not to ever develop this land, you need to give me the charitable deduction of what it could have been.

Peter Boulden
0:21:52
Right?

Craig Spodak
0:21:53
Yeah.

Craig Spodak
0:21:54
And so you talk – I think I need to look it up and see what the deduction was.

Peter Boulden
0:22:06
I'll be your Jamie.

Craig Spodak
0:22:07
Thanks, you are kind of my Jamie. But anyway, I just thought that was interesting too. So I learned a couple tidbits. And yeah, it was awesome. Went on the water for a little bit. We went down to two queens. Is that the name of it? The name of the bar? I don't even know. Okay, all right. Well, yeah, no, Trump's next deal behind Mar-a-Lago, seven-figure tax break, veiled from the IRS. Yeah, wonderful, because listen, the way it works, for those who have developed anything, when you take agricultural land in your city or some use and you want to put a more dense use, you want to build multifamily, your dental office or something like that, you may have to buy land credits from the state, meaning that I'm going to take this piece of land and I'm going to make it, I'm going to put concrete all over it and the state says, well, we need the same amount of green space somewhere else, so you pay these land credits to the state, and the state goes off and buys something else. In that case, they bought the golf course from Trump. So they took that, it's deeded to the state, has a deed restriction, whoever he sells it to, it'll be nothing but green space. And never develop it, ever, in perpetuity. That goes with the deed, it's a deed restriction. So he is allowed to do that. Yeah and people lament about you know these loopholes as people call it everybody's all pissed off at Trump and Trump does give people a lot of reason to get pissed off at him but one of the things you really can't hold anything against him is that he uses tax incentives. You know people who are pissed off call them loopholes but they're actually government incentives and Randy's always famous for talking about that. Randy's you know one of my best friends he's like that's 6,000 pages long, the tax code, and something like only 50 pages is what to pay in tax. The other 5,900 pages is government incentives. So, I mean, like you with, you know, your property as well, hopefully you wind up doing that, but you could be sitting in a huge conservation easement as well, which is amazing.

Peter Boulden
0:23:56
What a great use of your money.

Craig Spodak
0:23:58
Yeah, especially if you were going to, you know, not develop it anyway, right? So it's just, you know, it's learning about these things. I think that it's just fascinating. You know, and sometimes you just don't learn about it until later in life, and you're like, why didn't someone tell me this? Which, you know, honestly, Greg, it would have been a moot point back in the day, because you gotta have capital to acquire and things like that, but anyway. Let's, did you see?

Peter Boulden
0:24:27
So let me just give you the, cause I'm your Jamie.

Craig Spodak
0:24:29
Okay. So the Mar-a-Lago tax break was a hundred million dollar tax break. And by the way, that wasn't, that was investigated by the New York attorney general. That is legit. Cause you were just in Palm beach, that much land that builds a golf course is worth a hundred grand. So they have to stand up, they get audited and the IRS may say like, okay, like your cornfield in Iowa is not worth the money you said. Because yes, you could put condos there, but you're in the middle of Iowa and no one wants to be in a cornfield. But if you own a golf course on Palm Beach Island, it's the most expensive dirt in the entire United States. So what a brilliant move on his part, you know, but it was a 2017 investigation that went through it.

Peter Boulden
0:25:14
And it's legit.

Craig Spodak
0:25:16
And you know, people may have heard about the conservations in the past and the government was cracking down and they were cracking down. Well basically they were doing just what you said. It was these massive syndicate deals where people were going and buying random ass land that had no value and basically saying, oh, well we could have developed minerals in it and then selling the shares of that as a partnership to us. And I think you and I have been in a couple right before you really understand and they are cracking down. Almost all of those have been audited. But when it's a single member like that, like the Trump one, it's like, OK, well, you know, I'm not trying to buy some money. Land is the land. The value of the value. And also, Trump being the shrewd real estate guy, he was, it says in the case of Mar-a-Lago, the deduction had another important goal. It provided Trump with the bargaining chip he needed to leverage permission from the Palm Beach Town Council to convert Mar-a-Lago from a private residence into a money-making private club. So imagine, you tell a city I'm gonna leave all this deeded as green space into perpetuity. That is a huge bargaining chip. Like I was a chairman of the Planning and Zoning Department of Delray Beach for four years, which is an absolute friggin nightmare. So anybody who's listening and wants to get involved in city government, really think twice about that as a private business owner, because no matter what, you're going to off half the people, no matter which way you vote. But one of the things is that when a developer comes to town, it's always a push about less density and more green space. So what a brilliant move on their part. And, you know, for those that are thinking of, you know, developing a dental building or something like that, if you have excess land, there are things you can do like that, whether they be conservation easements of a portion of your property, because let's face it, it's pretty damn cool to have green space around your dental office as well. So these are just interesting tools that had no one talk to us about them, we wouldn't be able to take advantage of them either. I enjoyed, we went live, for those of you follow Paul Goodman. Uh, we went live yesterday with him on dental nachos and, and he was, you know, we've gotten to be close with him. I think he's just, I think he's very, um, what's the word I'm looking for. Um, he was, he's got the gift is on train. He's kind of like you, like he can talk and he's witty and he's on his feet and he's gregarious and charismatic. And, uh, and I've got, I've enjoyed getting to know him. So he was like, hey, y'all go live with me on the nachos, dental nachos, and let's talk about the summit. And he really kind of dug in and was asking, you know, why it's different, X, Y, and Z. And he's also having an event that looks like Craig and I are gonna go to up in Philadelphia in April, right before, Craig, it's right before we go to that AACD and do that do the patient experience lecture. And I'm excited about that April 27th, the AACD. I had every intentions of making you write a book so we have the second book being the patient experience. I'll narrate it. Before, before, see you don't have, I thought you had PTSD from that. That was, you're reminding me what a kick in the ass that was. I was like, hey Peter, it's a three hour book, I'm just banging it out. Now, do you know about AI Whisper?

Peter Boulden
0:28:32
No, but I can imagine, because AI is hooking up to 3D machines that are writing your homework, so I'm sure it will read whatever you need it to read.

Craig Spodak
0:28:39
Yeah, so AI Whisper is essentially, is gonna be able to, you can just load it full of text, pick who you want to read, and it's not even robotic sounding anymore. Basically, I probably could even… So Morgan Freeman can narrate our next book? Yeah, Morgan Freeman or something like that's the new…

Peter Boulden
0:28:56
That's my choice by the way, I like his voice.

Craig Spodak
0:28:58
Okay, well then let's do that. I'll get this book written and then Morgan Freeman can narrate in the deep, thick voice for Bulletproof, the next Bulletproof book which will be The Patient Experience. But it is AI Whisper and there's obviously tons of tributaries from that. Did you know that Snapchat is actually launching a, they're integrating chat GPT into Snapchat, right? So that it's going to become like, huh? How's that? What's the implication? I don't, I honestly, I gotta tell you, I don't know Snapchat as much as people have said you should do advertising or you should get going and you would crush it. Remember Bo, who was my videographer for EverOwnings, the followers of 50 million on Snapchat. He's like, Dr. B, you really should do this. And I just couldn't bring myself to do it, right? I was almost so like burnt out from my personal on Instagram and stuff like that. And I just was like, I just can't do it, bud. So I don't know how it's going to work is what I'm trying to say. I don't know what's gonna happen with it. There's some predictive stuff going on with Google documents I heard, like where they start suggesting things.

Peter Boulden
0:30:09
I mean, it's fantastic.

Craig Spodak
0:30:10
Look, I mean, that plus, think about your emails, right? Sometimes when you write emails, it gives you like the next three or four words that you think you want to write, right? I love it. Craig, that's about the next version is about to start proposing the entire email. Yeah, I mean, listen, can you make it to next week and then you write unfortunately comma and then it's going to come up with I've got another obligation, hopefully you can invite me to the next one. You hit tab and it's all there, enter. I mean, why not?

Peter Boulden
0:30:38
I don't know about the first word. A lot of it.

Craig Spodak
0:30:41
See, we had, I don't know if you remember from the pod with just me, Dwight and Trey, but I think, or maybe you were on one, we're like, we're probably going to have to mention chat, GPT or AI in some capacity on every pod going forward just like the open, just like the all in guys. And there, there's our mention of it. There's our mention of it. Yeah. Um, yeah, I don't know how it's going to work, but it's definitely going to be exciting. And then, you know, there's soon to be, I think like I mentioned on that last pod soon to be GPT four, which really they're on version three right now. I think the consumer is a little burnt out though. I mean, because listen, everybody said that every trend is going to take off. And I do think that shot GPT is real. I don't think that when my blender told me it had Bluetooth connectivity, I was really excited about what the application of that would be. I don't need to connect to my blender or my toaster. That was, remember, that was the IOE, the Internet of Everything, right? We're all right. Yeah. Why is your toaster connected? Or your refrigerator kind of thing? I mean, look, I think that's a different, there's more, there's more applications that are going to happen from that. There's a tige in amongst the consumer. I agree. This shit again. I agree. This is real. This is absolutely real. Yeah. I think it'll just transform into being just, we won't be talking about it anymore, but it'll just kind of be happening no different than like the invention quote unquote of the internet and all of a sudden it was like internet, internet, internet, email, you know, and, and all of a sudden it just became a thing. It wasn't even like no one was saying chat, GPT or internet or whatever. But I do see it, I do see a lot of applications, like there's a lot of dental softwares that are going, not just from the diagnostics, right? But I think insurance verifications are starting to kind of, you know, softwares are starting to do that. I know we're going to have, I'm not sure Airpay does that, but I know we're going to have Derek on shortly, which you and I are fans of the Airpay insurance. Yeah, my team's loving it. Yeah. And we're going to have him on shortly, I guess, in the pod. But I think all softwares are going to be able to kind of like bolt on and become smarter, which is in the end, gonna make us more productive, right? And so it's not a, that's holy shit, turn it off. It's the people who wanna be productive are gonna be 10x more productive, period. Right, well, it's gonna affect everybody, whether you utilize it for your own productivity or your personal productivity. It's just another tool that's not gonna be able to be replaced.

Peter Boulden
0:33:06
So Peter, it is shocking to me how many people, one, have not actually heard about ERC, and two, have gotten the wrong information. And you and Trey being two of them, I mean, I consider you to be an epic business person. And when I talked about the employee retention credit to you, you were really dismissed about me. Like, no, I went through that.

Peter Boulden
0:33:26
I got it.

Peter Boulden
0:33:27
You know, it was great. I got it. It was done.

Peter Boulden
0:33:29
And even Trey just now, we were just talking to him

Peter Boulden
0:33:30
on the last pot. He's like, yeah, I already, you know, my accounting firm, they got it very little. They only got like five or 10 grants. But we know this is totally misunderstood.

Craig Spodak
0:33:38
I was told I didn't qualify until I went to a specialist and they're like, you absolutely qualify and here's the number. And it almost startled me. Like my jaw was off on the ground.

Peter Boulden
0:33:48
Yeah, you don't actually, you don't believe it.

Craig Spodak
0:33:50
You don't believe it.

Craig Spodak
0:33:51
But don't ask your CPA, ask someone who specializes with which is why we actually have this awesome arrangement and we created a link and the company is Bulletproof, go to Bulletproof ERC to help kind of implement this because from this pot of money that Congress has allocated, we want the people listening from Bulletproof to take advantage of it. So this is why this announcement is going on because it's, like I said, don't ask your CPA, ask the people who this is the only thing they do

Peter Boulden
0:34:17
all day every day.

Peter Boulden
0:34:18
That's why we had to do this because initially I was telling everybody, telling you, telling everybody, like, oh, Edwin, we don't qualify. So like, oh, this is not going the way it's supposed to. Like, you have to go to the people that do it. So I'm really proud of that. My buddy, Norm, works for the company. Norm, as you know, is like the nicest guy in the world. He's literally like Ned Flanders. He's like, how do you do what you do? He'll fill out your form. He'll walk you through the process. He'll do the Zoom call with you. It's literally white glove services. You don't have to do anything. And this is what they do. And it's an unbelievable program. You have two ways to pay for it. You can either pay up front or they can just take a percentage when they give you the money. And it is awesome. You did one, I did the other. We won't tell which one, who did what, but it's a government program. It's going to run out. Do not delay. It's amazing how many people are like, I'll handle it a couple of months. I don't have time. You don't need any time. Like, this is like crazy.

Peter Boulden
0:35:09
First come, first serve, right?

Peter Boulden
0:35:10
First come, first serve. And I mean, I know the government's treated you well through the CARES Act, and you're thinking to yourself, well, maybe I don't need this. It is your money.

Craig Spodak
0:35:18
This is part of the CARES Act.

Peter Boulden
0:35:20
Right, it is part of the CARES Act, but I mean, even when I thought about it, I'm like, nah, I'm good. I don't wanna take more money, but this is a program that's allocated for people like you who have kept your employees, kept your businesses open. Do not take it for granted. If your accountant told you, or your friend who's a lawyer told you, do not leave that stone unturned. Go to bulletprooferc.com. Spend five minutes. It's worth the due diligence. Do not assume anything. And even if you filled it out, you got something, but it wasn't, you know, what you think is commensurate for your size business, go ahead and reopen the process. You can amend these things for different years. So do yourself a favor, take the five or 10 minutes, have a zoom call. You may be leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table, which is not prudent for you, your business and the families that your business supports.

Peter Boulden
0:36:09
Do it for them.

Craig Spodak
0:36:10
Not to go crazy, not to go like a crazy, just all on these weird topics. But what about the department of energy concluding that the most likely origin of COVID-19 pandemic was. The Wuhan, China. Yeah, well, I mean, I think we are all over the effing place, this pod, but who cares? Who cares? But I just, anyhow, years ago, the just this conversation that we're having and presuming this is, you know, going on YouTube with what we just said, we would have had warning labels all over. We still may get one. We might have been pulled down, quite honestly. Yeah, so it's really upsetting that people's memories are so short because just the very conversation, just the idea that we have this dialogue was forbidden. And now you have one of the government agencies saying it's the most likely conclusion. Holy shit, seven million people died, Peter. That's a big deal. But I remember- People have such short attention spans You know I was listening to something like when the Cuban missile crisis happened Everyone knew that we were on the precipice of World War three nukes were armed and ready. There was a lot of threats It's not very different from what it is today The only difference is then the missiles were in Cuba or approaching Cuba But now the missiles are so much faster the fact that they're in Moscow or whatever doesn't really make a difference and no one's talking about That if you look at Google Trends right now the most popular search is still probably the freaking kardashians No one's but then you see little drops of things like I'm gonna be the Jamie for a second I think that's fake news some million people. Oh the biggest trend is Well, yeah, look at the oceans by the way. It's oh my god. You are right. Holy shit. I don't know.

Peter Boulden
0:38:03
What is it?

Peter Boulden
0:38:04
Tell me the top three things.

Craig Spodak
0:38:05
It is the Kardashians. Right. So it's like, here we are, you know, no one's talking about it. No one's talking about any of this stuff. So it's like we're almost so immune or over-entertained or over-dopamined that no one's having intelligent conversations around this stuff.

Peter Boulden
0:38:22
And it's such a big deal. Like, oh, aliens. Wuhan was the, Wuhan, actually, it was a lab leak and oh by the way we were at the precipice of World War three. Anyway, do you see what the Kardashians, you see what Rihanna was wearing at the Super Bowl? It's like we're like living in an alternate reality. It's such an interesting time.

Craig Spodak
0:38:40
You know what else is trending is urethritol. Urethritol, the artificial sweetener that down at dentistry you know it doesn't it's a sweetener that doesn't that actually fights tooth decay and it's made in all the keto stuff. Finding a thing to hire. Okay, well it's actually on Google Trends. Yeah, it's the story. That's why it's trending. Erythritol is trending, as well as student loan forgiveness, by the way. Yeah, I think the dental student loan,

Peter Boulden
0:39:05
is that gonna be there too?

Craig Spodak
0:39:06
Dental student loan is not on the trends, no. Okay, got it. But it is a big fight in Congress right now. You know that? Yeah. I do know that. There are people, actually, there are two individuals, as a matter of fact, there's six states kind of fighting, pushing back on not the forgiveness, right, not allowing it. And there's also two individuals that have made big class action suits because they essentially, they don't qualify for it because you cap out at either $125,000 individually if you make more than $125,000 a year or $250,000 married and you phase out of that, you are not the deduction or the forgiveness. You are prohibited from partaking. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, we've asked about the whole dental thing. You and I actually in full disclosure before the pod started, we're asking, I was like, hey, do you know if loan, loan since COVID have been on, you know, there was a pause. There was a pause, yeah.

Peter Boulden
0:40:12
There was a hiatus.

Peter Boulden
0:40:13
I believe that's over, Peter.

Craig Spodak
0:40:15
You do? I think it's still in effect. I think it's still in effect.

Craig Spodak
0:40:18
Yeah, if someone keeps-

Peter Boulden
0:40:19
Can you check on that for us? Jamie, if you're listening to this podcast, please comment below. I don't know if dental student loans are still postponed.

Craig Spodak
0:40:27
I think they are, man. I think they just grouped them all together, but I don't know. All right, bud. I don't know if we've got more agenda, more topic. We're just kind of getting together, getting you back in the mix after all of your vacations. And I appreciate being welcome back on. Yeah, welcome back to your show. Welcome back to your own show.

Peter Boulden
0:40:46
That's all good.

Peter Boulden
0:40:47
You guys did a good job. I'm excited to hear that one. When do I get to hear the one with Randy?

Craig Spodak
0:40:51
Oh, that was really good. Yeah. The Randy kind of going over all the financial things, right? Like Randy's going to be speaking because he spoke to the mastermind, right? And he's going to be speaking because he was so good and captivating. I saw so many financial light bulbs going in people's head. Then I was like, Randy, you need to take these. He has this thing called Randy's 20, 20 basically, 20 basically financial lessons. And he has a PowerPoint that he gives to his kids and study groups and all the things, right? So I was like, Randy, why don't you and I kind of work on this? And he knows, he's forgotten more than I know about this shit. But I was like, why don't we adapt it? Why don't we adapt it to kind of more dentistry? And then you come and kind of speak about this. And it's cool. I can't wait to show you actually, but it's a timeline thing. Because what happened, Craig, when… Oh, I think I saw that already. Yeah, like I'm giving advice for people that are in the adult stage of their practice.

Peter Boulden
0:41:39
And it's falling.

Craig Spodak
0:41:39
Well, you're giving advice for people. The mastermind, for example, I'll just kind of throw you under the bus. You were giving advice for late stage investors, meaning late stage in their life and not late in your life.

Peter Boulden
0:41:50
No, no, people who have reached a certain level of financial acumen of success. Right.

Craig Spodak
0:41:55
You can't get more juice out of investment in your own practice. It's time to go into all. And so that's, that was my calling at the time I said you guys need to stop because this could be falling on deaf ears to someone I was pointing to x y and z right that we are different right we have maybe some of this consumer loans or student loans or want to invest in their practice has 1980s equipment here you're talking about alternate you know put some money in alternate investments when they haven't taken advantage of practice maximization they haven't taken advantage of getting rid of consumer loans they haven't taken advantage of a plumbed chair, a plumbed room with a chair, real estate even. Right. And so it was so I was like, look, I think just I don't know why my brain always goes there just like it has the bulletproof pathway. It always goes to a very linear process. And I try to break things down in a step by step format as you've, you know, over the years always made fun of me for that, which I love because it's I'm proud of that because I I try to break down complex things and distill them down to step-by-step processes because that's what I've done essentially in life. I was never gifted in school. I was never gifted in just a lot of other things, but I was able to kind of take a hard topic and then eat the elephant one bite at a time and really kind of put my nose down and keep eating glass for a while. what I'm excited to kind of present with Randy or Randy present is at the summation of that really kind of adapting the one through twenty of the investment advice and here's the things to check off is also the timeline of things to look at in your progression of your career in like investing and making money and paying off debt and doing it correctly and getting the sequence right, Craig, versus skipping steps three through 10 and going to 10 like you guys were talking about. I think it was like that catastrophic. You are not ready for that level. You're not ready for the alt investments with Kaz you were talking about, for example. Right, right, right. No, it's definitely a step less process. Randy's just a guy who's been through it all. He sold his business. You probably hear me talking about him all the time, but he's one of my closest friends and even back in 2000, 2012, when I was building this building and I got really nervous, then I had an offer on the table from a very large DSO, it was a minor offer, but it was like a way to just punch the clock and, you know, kind of punch my ticket and get out. He wrote me this email and it was amazing. I got to send you this email, but he's like, he, the subject was like dentists, or the concept was like, we want our daughters to marry dentists. Bankers love dentists. You're the ones that we want to rent in our buildings. You never go bankrupt. Charge on, become an entrepreneur, wrecking ball. It was the most beautiful call to self-confidence and self-reliance, and it really saved me because I was in a dark space, I was way over budget. And like we talked about in the beginning of the podcast, there's a micro correction. I needed a micro correction. But when you don't, when you're desperate, and your cortisol's flowing, you're freaking out, you think the only way through this is something draconian. And so he was very instrumental in helping through that. And Randy's also like a very logical guy and a very emotional guy. So I'm often able to help Randy see around corners as well, where he's like, this partner of mine said this. I'm like, what they really mean is blah, blah, blah. So he's just a brilliant guy. I'm really excited that you guys had the time to introduce him to the podcast, because I've been wanting him to come on for a while. We've only had him to the mastermind, but he's gonna be such a breath of fresh air for everybody who listens to them. I think that's gonna be a great podcast. I can't wait.

Peter Boulden
0:45:38
When's that come out?

Craig Spodak
0:45:39
I think it's next. I think it's next. You see here in this, I'll tell you, I'll just give you a sneak peek. So if you're watching, listening on the internet, you can't see the sneak peek. You can't see it. But this is the thing I've been kind of working on. And there we go. You see that, Greg? So that's why I was really called from listening to Randy and then thinking really hard and long and hard when we had our last pie with just Dwight. It was just like thinking about selling versus not selling and why someone would do it. And I said, you know, sometimes we just don't know how many options are available as an owner and the vehicle we're in. We think it's just this, okay, I'm going to work for 30 years and sell my practice, right? I'm just going to have to work and grind and miss all the school plays and all the things. So I was like, look, it's the freedom of direction you have in your practice. You can optimize for scale, right? You can grow, you can build, you can put real estate. You can optimize, you can, freedom of direction to go to a purposeful practice, right? Maybe you wanna make a lot of impact in your community. But I also wanna just tell the listener too, Peter, that this is the freedom of direction of being a dentist and not just an owner as well. That's true. This is true. Some people are owners and they're just getting their ass kicked and their wife is like why are we doing this? I spoke to somebody recently and he's just not doing well in it and there's a lot of shame around that because you know number one we're ill equipped via our dental training to actually own the business. I just had a guy here, Dr. Johann Figuera, and he's like the dentistry is the easy part everything else is the hard part. And one of my associates was having a conversation with like dude dentistry is not easy. Well that's what we spoke about with Paul yesterday too. Right. He's like, what did you wish dental school would have told you kind of thing? Oh yeah, I just thought to myself, how much time do you have? But I realized I was not gonna be allowed to talk that much with Paul. So I just kind of kept it succinct. But it was, if you're an associate and you're actually doing five days a week and you wanna have freedom direction to have more time with your family, you can, you don't need, you know, you can actually fit your lifestyle and, you know, into something that's a little bit less opulent and have the same freedom of direction.

Peter Boulden
0:47:48
Dentistry allows for that.

Craig Spodak
0:47:49
That's really cool. That's why I always say, people hear me say all the time, I think it's the most beautiful profession in the world because you get to help people, you know, we're doing God's work and you also have all these variables in which you can transform or metamorph what you want. You just got to think about what you want. I think that's why I was giving you so many compliments yesterday was that you know it all starts with the first point of a vision and you are just really talented in getting that vision out of our masterminders and you've been great at kind of just talking about really authentically getting someone authentic one not the cut-and-paste one that we always hear about. I think once you do that and then you say hey I really just wanted a lake house or I really just wanted to be I really want to be more present with my family or I want to have some more time or more vacations, whatever. Now you can actually adopt the vision of what you want to accompany that. And that just is super powerful. So it's not this race to grow as fast as possible in order to flip it to a DSO. It's build your practice for sustainability in my opinion. Build it for whatever it wants. If you're feeling overworked, then cut the days down but build it for sustainability, not for this draconian move to flip it to someone else, right? Because you may wake up and be like, oh shit, what did I do? What did I do? Craig, I have an interesting thing. So I listened to another podcast called, what is it called? My First Million. Do you know it? Oh yeah, yeah. You told me to get on that. I haven't done it. I like it. It's kind of like a less formal all in. They don't have the exact form. Is it a long form? Yeah, yeah. And they kind of ramble like we've done this past one, right? There's a lot of rambling, a lot of just them spitballing. They have a good relationship. They're both pretty funny. I'm not saying we are, but we definitely crush each other lovingly. And it's like the energy, like you said, that guy said, we have our energies all over the place up and down and up and down. That guy was in your practice. My point of bringing this, the, the, my first million pot up is a, it's good one B, they have this thing called the gentlemen's agreement. Which I think they should have said gentlemen's and gentlewomen's, but they, they contend they have no female listeners. And basically what he's saying is like, look, if you get value from our pod, we have an agreement. We're going to give you information. We're going to give you years of whatever, the ass kicking and the information and connect this and hopefully advance your life and your career and your practice and your people. The gentleman's agreement is this, that you should engage in some capacity, whether that's you leave a review and thank, not say thank us, but leave a review and just kind of like there's some sort of reciprocation. I'll do this and you do this. And so they, he, Sam Parr is the one who he was at,

Craig Spodak
0:50:32
HubSpot bought his business.

Craig Spodak
0:50:34
I can't remember what it was, but anyway, he said it a little bit more aggressively and a little more eloquently, but he's like, look, we need you guys to engage in something. And I just thought it was cool. Like, cause I was looking at our reviews and we haven't had a, we haven't, you know, it's not the cadence of reviews that I'd like to see Maybe I'm used to the ones in like a dental practice might have it happening all the time But I think it's just like anything else we have to be reminded. Yeah, too like oh that was cool That was a good pod. You know I you know I really enjoyed that like it would be awesome If you left a review for us right well Let's get everybody the way every time I get a nice sausage I'm like did you leave a review no, but I will so like you take the time to write a message But yeah, that would be very meaningful for us.

Peter Boulden
0:51:16
That's awesome.

Craig Spodak
0:51:16
Um, yeah, that and you know, and just checking out maybe the, maybe checking out the book or hell come to the summit and get exposed to what it is. Oh, by the way, it's got the email from Lacey Early Bird tickets are now sold out. You sold out six months ago.

Peter Boulden
0:51:31
Boom.

Peter Boulden
0:51:31
It's cool.

Peter Boulden
0:51:32
It is cool.

Craig Spodak
0:51:33
The, um, okay. Also another announcement, and I'm not sure you even know this. Yes, you do know because it was on the text thread. Bulletproof was voted.

Peter Boulden
0:51:45
Yes.

Craig Spodak
0:51:46
We haven't even talked about this.

Peter Boulden
0:51:48
I know, I know.

Peter Boulden
0:51:50
Listen, we're asking people to leave reviews and we're not even tooting our own horn.

Craig Spodak
0:51:54
No, but look, the reviews is not, I mean the reviews matter more than this award, right? But it was a viewer's choice. It's the only, I don't, I guess I could, hey, Jamie, can you look at our website? Because I know Lacey put it up. But essentially it was the number one podcast for the viewer's choice or something of 2022 by this podcast network. So anyway, that's awesome. So I want to thank everybody in the same tone of asking for a review. I want to thank everybody for listening to us. Craig and I were just talking the other day. I was like, Craig, I feel like we've had this crazy momentum lift in the past seven or eight months. Just a lot more feedback, a lot more text. I hear a lot more. Even Paul Goodman got on yesterday. He goes, guys, I've been on all the podcasts. And he goes, I've never been hit up on the side like I was with y'all to say, hey, heard you on Bulletproof. He goes, never. He's like, it was crazy how much different it was. That's awesome.

Peter Boulden
0:52:49
Yeah.

Craig Spodak
0:52:50
That's awesome. Well, listen, I say that for the right reasons to try to help people. You know, I think we have, you know, what we were talking about yesterday about, you know, between the two of us, we've literally done just about everything we've made, almost every mistake. We've discussed to prove it. Now it's just this idea to just help pave it forward. I just don't want to see other people have to, you know, get crushed as bad as some of the things that we went through. Yeah.

Peter Boulden
0:53:15
That's my thought and I know yours as well.

Craig Spodak
0:53:17
What does it say on the website? I'm curious.

Peter Boulden
0:53:19
Fan favorite.

Craig Spodak
0:53:20
Fan favorite, got it. I forget what the company was. But anyway, thank you for that. And yeah, the Summit's gonna be cool, man. It's, I'm glad to hear that it's sold out. I know the room blocks have been going fast and I hope it's. Yeah, that room block is really important because Somewhere has a room code. I hope that hasn't gone like some viral on the internet because it's like $250 a night versus the shit. What do we what is it like? I'm a 750 800 right now. Yeah, that's crazy so hopefully that's Your dog wants you Peter your dog your dog Yeah, you know what the one time you don't close your door in your studio. This is you think your dogs are being well-behaved They're not. Is that a humble objection, in your studio? Like I don't have a studio, I'm just my home. Well, you know, I've been doing this since 2016, Craig.

Peter Boulden
0:54:12
Oh, that's true, I only joined in 17. You just do it. Anyway, Peter, that was an awesome podcast. I appreciate being invited back on. You're welcome.

Peter Boulden
0:54:20
I thought the last one y'all did was freaking awesome.

Craig Spodak
0:54:23
Super, super pleased. I think the Randy, to your question, I think the Randy one is next, which means that by the time this one goes out, it'll be in the one before this one. Well, can't we change that?

Peter Boulden
0:54:35
We can change that. Sure, sure.

Craig Spodak
0:54:37
At least we can change it up.

Craig Spodak
0:54:38
I don't know. I don't know. That seems above my pay grade, bud, but we can.

Peter Boulden
0:54:41
I'll wait and see.

Peter Boulden
0:54:42
Thanks for listening, guys.

Craig Spodak
0:54:43
Bang, bang, bang, bang We know they call your name a shoot We know they call your name a shoot We gon' die living like the good crew We gon' die living like the good crew Yeah, we bang, bang, bang, bang

Transcribed with Cockatoo