How To Be Recession Proof

The following transcription was from the Bulletproof Youtube channel. Here is the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJF3mczjqH8

Craig Spodak
0:00:00
Feeling bulletproof today, Craig?

Craig Spodak
0:00:11
I'm feeling very bulletproof today. Although I don't want to be shot to be tested.

Peter Boulden
0:00:15
I don't want to figure that out. Yeah, you've been traveling a lot lately, which is good. I know you do that a lot in the summer, which is how you set up your whole year, is to kind of prepare for that with your kids and your family and you know you grind it and then you go and then you go travel and you've been what you've been Aspen Scotland and Italy yeah I've been away away quite a bit and we were talking earlier Peter it's kind of like well we just did a podcast with share with Richard from shared practices and we were talking about this a little bit but go ahead yeah it's just you know at a certain point to recognize whether you have a business or not you have to leave it alone for a while. And just like teaching a kid how to ride a bike, you have to let go of the seat. Oftentimes, it's quite scary what you find, but at a certain point, you have to let it go. There's no real litmus test for what you have until you depart it. I've got great qualified people, and in many ways, it does, in some ways, better without me. It's nice to be there, but it's also nice to extricate yourself. I've taken a lot of advice from you, Peter. You've entirely extricated yourself, although you don't physically move out of the state, you could. I mean, when's the last time you were really stepping into the practices and doing things in there? It might have been months. So kudos to you for showing me the four-minute mile. Well, I think you're right. I think you're right. Basically, I had to pressure test it and say, like, let me figure out a way to orchestrate myself physically out of that operation. Which then, you know, honestly, there's some psychological things that mess you up with that, Craig. And you will experience this. Meaning, if you get back from being gone, let's say, three months, and all of a sudden now your practice is doing far better, people are far happier than when you were gone, kind of as a gut punch a little bit to you, like, as opposed to you should feel proud because you set up the infrastructure and the scaffolding to do that. But there is sometimes, like, wait a second, no one really needs me here anymore? And I kind of went through that permutation, right? Like my team, quote unquote, doesn't need me. I operate from afar. As much as you say you shouldn't be the nucleus of all things, sometimes you like to be the nucleus of all things, right? It makes you feel important. Like who doesn't like to feel important? So I'm just telling you, get prepared that when you're doing better, when you get home,

Craig Spodak
0:02:24
don't take it personally.

Peter Boulden
0:02:26
Yeah, I wouldn't.

Craig Spodak
0:02:27
That'd be a great outcome is that, oh, things were great without you. But listen, for me, I get a lot of nourishment, and I love my people, and I love being around them, so I'm looking forward to getting back. It was funny, bittersweet leaving, actually, because I knew I'd be gone for so long. I was really kind of – I said, like – I went back in the building like three times to say goodbye to people. Like, you say goodbye, or you get out of here.

Peter Boulden
0:02:50
Oh, when you were leaving?

Craig Spodak
0:02:51
Yeah, it was funny.

Craig Spodak
0:02:53
I didn't really wanna, you know,

Craig Spodak
0:02:54
I think there's a saying, it's like, and there were many times in my life where I couldn't do that, or I felt I couldn't do that, and so it's been a long process, actually.

Peter Boulden
0:03:03
And you know, as dentists, I think, you know, we talk about this, there's a lot of guilt or shame in our profession. I think this is another area that presents itself, is like, well, I have to be in the office because people need to me, right? Like, it's not, and you know, and then you never take vacations, especially when you're a solo provider. Remember back in the days when you were, like when you were the only provider. You didn't take vacation. And I always tell people, I said this at our last summit, I was like, I didn't take a vacation for seven or eight years, mainly because I was riding by myself. And if I took a vacation, it meant that everyone was closed. Everything was closed. It wasn't just that we didn't make money, but it was also the opportunity cost of not making money. Right?

Craig Spodak
0:03:42
Oh, but you're spending money.

Peter Boulden
0:03:43
So you're spending not making money.

Craig Spodak
0:03:46
You're not telling your hygienist to take a one month vacation. So you're spending money on your vacation and you're spending money keeping your office open without generating revenue. So it's a double cost. It's very important. Yeah, my father said he never went away on a vacation. As you know, he's a dentist. He's like, I was always fearing like the broken temporary or whatever.

Peter Boulden
0:04:02
And I think that causes burnout. I mean, your father loves dentistry and seems to be unburnoutable, but still practicing. But I think that contributes to the narrative of I'm burnt out, I'm too tired of dentistry, you know, is not taking these scheduled breaks that is necessary for humankind. Not just the dentist.

Craig Spodak
0:04:22
Yeah, being in Europe for so long and talking to so many different people there, it's just such a better way of life. I know we have a lot more opportunity in America We're capitalistic and we can go from you know son of a shoemaker to a Jeff Bezos or whatever But and there they don't have the access to capital and things like that but they do have four and six weeks of paid vacation and I was interacting with a guy in Copenhagen is a medical doctor as a cardiologist and it's such a difference you're not gonna you know make the money that we make but then again, they don't have the mass shootings and the antidepressants and all that stuff that we have. So I think the balance is somewhere in between not quite them and not quite us.

Peter Boulden
0:04:59
I was gonna say, especially for people who wanna hustle and love that flow, you know, like we were just talking about in the podcast with Richard from Shared Practices, like there are some people who just know who they are, like they wanna hustle, they love swimming like a shark upstream and attacking things. So that would probably, the European model would probably not be good for. What have you been learning? Whenever you, the reason I say that is whenever I travel, I seem to be able to learn about things that potentially I wouldn't have had structured in, meaning long plane rides, or I'm having a little more time alone, or things like that, that, so what is on your mind these days?

Craig Spodak
0:05:36
Well, I think perspective is always really valuable. So I think what you're talking about is getting away from your daily life and seeing it from afar. I think what I've learned is that I really like my life back home. You want family time and I want to be able to be there for my wife and children, but it's also really important for me. My work life fulfills a lot of my needs, personal needs. I actually feel less, potentially less fulfilled and less complete without my work life, which is interesting. You know, I think that… No, it fulfills you.

Peter Boulden
0:06:10
That doesn't sound… Like, but there's a little bit of guilt in that.

Craig Spodak
0:06:14
You know, does that mean I don't, you know… Oh, does that mean you don't love me?

Peter Boulden
0:06:18
Yeah, you know, like being with my wife and my children

Craig Spodak
0:06:21
24 hours a day for weeks on end, it's like, okay, there needs to be some separation here. I think what I've learned, and I've been talking about this a lot recently, is a lot of people are struggling with this work-life balance.

Peter Boulden
0:06:34
Maybe you're a female dentist and you're struggling, am I a mom or am I a mompreneur, am I a dentist,

Craig Spodak
0:06:39
what role do I have?

Craig Spodak
0:06:40
I think it's really important to collapse all of your identities and realize you're being a great father by being a productive member of society. You don't have to just be there for every single baseball game and sit and dote on your children. You can actually be a great father by being a great role model. In between the break of going to Europe and now in Aspen, what are we going to have for work? And my daughter came in to work with me and was doing sterilization and shredding documents and stuff like that, minimum wage type stuff. But it was really good for her and our relationship really improved when she saw my work identity. She had a whole other level of respect for me. So it was really, really interesting. It actually was exercise. But I'm not, if anything, I'm just missing my life a bit, which is what I want.

Craig Spodak
0:07:20
I think you should go away to have appreciation for your life.

Peter Boulden
0:07:23
Yeah, if you don't have context, right, then how do you know? And so that is great. I think that speaks volumes. And that's what you want to do. Like you don't want to have to take a vacation from your life, quote, unquote, a vacation from your life because, you know, that's the one constant.

Craig Spodak
0:07:36
It does take a little bit of time, though. Just some advice that I would like to tell you as well. It's like the first week, it's like, ah, relaxation, you know. Or if you have a one-week vacation, you're enjoying yourself, but you're also focused on the impending return date in four or three days. So at two weeks, it's a long time. At three weeks, you're like, what is my purpose here? You know, like, what am I actually doing? Like, this is not normal. So I took a three week vacation, I think my first one was maybe six or seven years ago. And I remember going to morning huddle the day I got back, like, thank God I've got you guys. Thank God I've got something to come back to. It's an interesting feeling.

Peter Boulden
0:08:14
So here's, I'm going to take a hard pivot, but I think the exercise that you just said, I always recommend when someone tells me, like, I'm going to go sell my practice and sit on the beach and like, that's what I want to do. Like, I want to do the Corona and sit there and blah, blah, blah. And so I say, look, before you decide to do this,

Peter Boulden
0:08:32
look, you do whatever you wanna do.

Peter Boulden
0:08:33
It's your business, your practice, do whatever you wanna do. But before you do that, have you ever taken a vacation longer than a week? Typically the answer is no. Okay, so I encourage you, take a month off before you make this draconian move of selling your practice. I encourage you, go try this out for size. Grab a case of Corona's, get your beach chair, and do it for a month on end. Because a week it'll feel great. Two weeks it starts to feel like, hmm. Three weeks you might start getting bored. Four weeks you may say, I miss what I just sold, right?

Craig Spodak
0:09:07
There must be something about the human brain, Peter. I think the way our brains work in the decision process, that we start the machine of our brain working towards a decision and then we blind ourselves to the other thing We just left and now it's like after justification. We're constantly rewriting our own internal monologue and we go so far So like everything in life is micro adjustments There's two or three millimeter shift on a daily and the problem is in your own mind by the time you process You are like 15 miles from where you're supposed to be and then it's almost like you're just a ping-pong ball

Peter Boulden
0:09:40
Balancing back and forth only to so that that ball that swings back and forth just a subtle micro corrections is I think you nailed It right like these big swinging movements where it's I own 100% and now I own 0% right? It's like whoa Why didn't you just look for for something where you had invest? You know like there could have been a micro movement in there, but I agree. I see this in dentistry a lot I think I think you'll give it myself time to time, just thinking

Craig Spodak
0:10:03
about that process. What else have you been kind of… I have a good talent that's like I can really kind of disengage from everything, for better or for worse, because I know that when I get back, I'll just pick up all the pieces. Everything's kind of on hold for me. As far as business-wise, I've got two new doctors that started this past week, which I've never brought in a new doctor to start when I wasn't there. So it's a very interesting process to have that level of delegation. Yeah, I built the team that I wanna have and I'm excited about just coming back and seeing how it all fell into place.

Peter Boulden
0:10:35
I'm gonna read an interesting email that we got and I'm not gonna mention names, but it was funny. You and I got this email and we love feedback from people. And 99% of the time, Greg, it is good. Like, thank God you saved this, you did this. I just wanna thank you for the content you put out 99% of the time. This one was a little bit more of, I don't really understand what it was, but I want to read it because I like to step in front of things like that. You think that's a good idea?

Craig Spodak
0:11:00
Please, go for it.

Craig Spodak
0:11:01
Listen to me.

Peter Boulden
0:11:02
Okay. All right. So the message goes, hey, you two have been recently broadcasting about your investment acumen. Peter, in a recent podcast, Craig asked you how we get out of a bond inverted curve. You had no answer. What do we need to do to reverse this? This talking point about the inverted curve has been talked about from many. And many just parrot this and don't tell us what our economy has to do to reverse this. Please talk about the solution on the next podcast. You two are very good, but recently you have gotten off your original charge and in my opinion are floundering a bit, beating your chest like a grub.

Craig Spodak
0:11:39
Oh God, I didn't know you were going to read this. Yeah, listen man.

Peter Boulden
0:11:42
If a dentist spent 20 plus years in our profession, one can be very successful as you've become. Bring it down to a more humble discussion. Craig, let your guest talk instead of telling us about each of you in the podcast. You're great. Oh God, Peter, why do we have to talk?

Peter Boulden
0:11:57
I don't care.

Craig Spodak
0:11:57
Hey, listen, there's a really easy thing to do, whoever this is. It's a button on the upper left or right side of your screen, unsubscribe.

Craig Spodak
0:12:07
It's fine.

Craig Spodak
0:12:08
No, because listen, Peter, I'm just telling you, if you knew the answer to how to reverse the economy, all we're saying, and we've been saying this for a really long time and many have listened, is there's a darker, more, a slower growth period coming.

Peter Boulden
0:12:23
So if you're listening. This was my segue, this was, look, you nailed it. I didn't really wanna talk about the email, even though I thought it was interesting, because I was thinking the same thing. If I had the answers, you think I would have a podcast and I would be the world's most foremost economic professor. It was a segue into, since you've been gone, Craig, not that we're going to beat our chest like gorillas, but there has been another negative GDP print, which means technically we are now in the recession that you and I have been talking about forever. It's not us talking about our financial acumen, it's just get ready just in case. So I was asking you questions about what have you been learning about? And as you know, I'm kind of like a pseudo macroeconomist. I like it and I think that's driven from my, the fact that it affects crypto so heavily and that's gotten me interested in it. I have been following Patrick Bet-David a lot who I know he's your patient and he's been on our podcast even though I blew it. See, there's some humility right there, I blew it.

Craig Spodak
0:13:16
You didn't blow it, you're the one

Craig Spodak
0:13:17
who got him on the podcast, brother.

Peter Boulden
0:13:19
Right, and that was before he was your patient, right? Long before, you're like, who is this? BBD, I was like, dude, he's badass. I saw him at the Bracers. He's such, and he's blowing up as kind of a different, you know, I'd say he's blowing up, not competing with the likes of Tony Robbins, but I think he just has great interviews, like he interviewed Kobe, and he just has all these amazing interviews.

Craig Spodak
0:13:38
Yeah, he's brilliant, he's a brilliant, brilliant man. Humble and brilliant.

Peter Boulden
0:13:41
Humble and comes from, you know, is not American born. So he really appreciates the opportunities in America. Anyway, so where I'm going with this, Greg, is that I have been learning about, you know, kind of other people's takes on what to do. Because to this point of this email, like, that's great. Beat your chest and tell us it's coming, but give some action items, give like some things that you can do to circumvent this. And so I watch this, I subscribe to watch a market webinar that Patrick Bette David or PDB, PBD, PDB is my initials actually, so that I get-

Craig Spodak
0:14:17
And PDD is Bob Sompop.

Peter Boulden
0:14:18
No, PBD, Peter Dawson Bolton or Patrick. So I get those initials. I know.

Craig Spodak
0:14:22
Everyone calls him-

Craig Spodak
0:14:23
I just make sure there's a PBD.

Peter Boulden
0:14:24
Patrick Bette David. And so I listened to the whole thing and it was like, what are the steps to do in a market crash? And so I think that's where Patrick, but David shines is that he gives, instead of saying like, Kumbaya, hold your hands. He's like, do these things, do these things, learn this, go about this, go talk to this person. Like he gives you actionable things to go do. And what I thought was very interesting about this is as it related to Bulletproof. There were some things kind of that is related to dentistry, right? There's probably, there's gonna be a market crash, but you need to monetize your fear. It's good, sometimes market crashes are good because they over leverage, the people who have been over leveraged in the market, they get washed out. But one of the things he spoke about was like, get in a group, get in a community that supports you because anyone can make money in a bull market. And I'm going back to now dentistry. So I encourage people, as we talked about this, I think, Craig, my parting words to this past mastermind class was like, look, if you're leaving and not continuing on to a second year, which many people were, I said, here's what you want to do. Find a group where you can continue to have discussions, where you stay accountable, where you feel safe. Because if you look back, remember the first one we talked about, Craig, when we had the COVID crisis hit? And my God, that was the value of having the group, was being able to say, holy shit, I don't know what's happening, but I'm gonna get in a group and we're all gonna talk about this. I almost think you need a group when times potentially get tough, when the winter is coming, when the COVID has come.

Craig Spodak
0:16:01
Oh, for sure, man, for sure.

Peter Boulden
0:16:03
Well, look at the last podcast we had.

Peter Boulden
0:16:05
You actually don't need it in the bull market. But so I thought that was really great that Patrick was saying, like, find yourself in a group of like-minded people who want what you want, who want success for you. And I don't know, I just thought it was interesting. Let me just go back to the, now you

Craig Spodak
0:16:22
got me thinking about that guy who had the interesting remarks for what I said. But let's go back to the last podcast, because the last time you and I had a more in-depth conversation, the Canary in the Coal Mine. The bottom is the dental intel guys. The bottom 15 percent got worse during COVID, significantly worse. And the top 15 percent expanded. So it is it's your psychology. It's the people in the room that predicate your future. And there's no better time than when the bull market's coming, bear market's coming, and winter's coming, there are creative ways to do this. That market share that's going to be lost by the bottom performers will flow to somebody. It's going to flow to the top-level people. But as far as like, you know, when September came around and everybody said inflation's going to be transitory, and, you know, it was literally a year ago, almost a year ago. They're like, this is not really gonna happen. This is just transitory, it's supply chain. Inflation's not really happening. They're still denying it today. We're saying the same thing in September. Had you, you know, for those in the mastermind who refinanced their buildings 2.5%, 3%, I mean, that is an unbelievable move.

Peter Boulden
0:17:31
We did, I did, you did it. Yeah, we went through the process. We were like, refine now, because it's cheap, cheap, cheap money. And if you had done it, you saved hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of your loan. And so many people didn't even know, it was interesting, they didn't really even know what their rate was.

Craig Spodak
0:17:47
But also, there's still a good time now, Peter. I think that even though when you say, oh my God, our interest rates are at 6%, 7%, there's still, for businesses, I don't know about buying your dream house right now, but historically these are still low interest rates. They're gonna get worse. It's gonna get higher. Inflation's not gonna be curbed that quickly,

Peter Boulden
0:18:08
in my opinion.

16
0:18:09
Maybe, maybe.

Peter Boulden
0:18:10
You know there is a new Inflation Reduction Act, Craig.

Craig Spodak
0:18:13
Yeah, it includes like sending money overseas, I know that.

Peter Boulden
0:18:16
Yeah, well, here it is right here.

Craig Spodak
0:18:18
More printing for us.

Peter Boulden
0:18:18
You can see, I've got the highlights here that it talks about. It's a $739 billion act. And it's interesting how it talks about, it has nothing to do with inflation, quite honestly. It's a deficit reduction to fight inflation, which the inflation hasn't been caused from our deficit.

Craig Spodak
0:18:39
Right, but it's been caused by printing. Right, so we're going to print more money, right? No, we're not spending it, we're printing more money in order to relieve inflation, which will work out marvelously.

Peter Boulden
0:18:52
Yeah, it's gonna work out great.

Craig Spodak
0:18:53
It's gonna work out great.

Peter Boulden
0:18:54
Are you, can you see my-

Craig Spodak
0:18:56
If you wanna see a good example of how government works, go to the DMV and change your address or get a new license. That's gonna be how this Inflation Reduction Act is gonna work, unfortunately.

Peter Boulden
0:19:07
I'm gonna come back to, I've got this slide up and hopefully you can see it where I'm showing you these 10 steps that Patrick Badavid talked about. And when it's titled make millions during a market crash and market crash, he's talking about a recession. And so he had hundreds of thousands of people sign in for this kind of webinar. But he actually gave like, here's the 10 things. So this is like the last few minutes of the presentation. And so I shared with you number four where it says strengthen numbers. But I think these are all really good, good tactics or things to think about as it relates to your practice, right? So would you allow me, if someone's working this, would you allow me just to kind of walk through these real quick? I won't explain them, but I want to at least list them so people have context. Number one is monetize fear. Number two is the lazy, the arrogant, and the overlead which will be filtered out. Number three, become bankable. Number four, strengthen numbers. Number five, create a cause your company can rally behind. Number six, cut the fat. Number seven, find your running mates, which relates pretty much back to number four in my opinion, Craig. Number eight is double down on positive distractions. And number nine is equip your team with all possible audibles. And then 10, which you can't see on the screen, is increase your level of urgency, meaning like you need to act now, is what he was saying. Do you see any of those that are jumping out at you, Craig, in terms of anything to relate back to the business of our practices? Well, I see it all as just psychology. like you were during the economic downturn of 2008 and the psychology and how people believed how bad it was going to be and made moves in preparation for a downturn. And I've seen other people that didn't listen to the news and expanded. I mean, I was really proud from 2008 to 9 and 10, those were the years I was going 45 and 70% per year. There were things that I did like take over, buy another practice's records during that time. It's easy right now and I think people have been lured into this false sense of entrepreneurial skills because they've expanded so aggressively over the last three and five and seven years. So when the playing field is favorable like it is, everybody gets a false sense of their abilities. So there is a little bit of like, hey, if you haven't been doing really well these three to five years, you have to pay even more attention. And if you have been doing really well these last three to five years, it's not because you're so great.

Craig Spodak
0:21:48
And I at one point felt like I was the Jeff Bezos of dentistry, only get my ass handed

Craig Spodak
0:21:55
to me.

Peter Boulden
0:21:56
Yeah, it's that everyone, yeah, it goes back to that. People think they are geniuses in bull market. I mean, in the past 10 years, actually the past 13 years, you could have thrown a dart at the stock market.

Peter Boulden
0:22:09
Think of the stock. 14 years. 14 years.

Craig Spodak
0:22:11
We've had an economic expansion for 14 years. We skipped two downturns that we should have had. We should have had. Recessions are important, downturns are important. It always happens.

Peter Boulden
0:22:22
We're just not. Well, it's a cleansing process. But like a lot of times people, you know, I know, I actually know several people who made a lot of their wealth in 2009, right? People get scared, they drop things and so other people who are ready pick things up. That's what's going to happen now. That's what's going to happen now. I think more dentists, more business people are going to go and become, you know, millionaires that drive the worth up by tens of millions over the next three years than over the last five. And it's going

Craig Spodak
0:22:48
to be a big shakeout. You'll see who was real and who wasn't.

Peter Boulden
0:22:51
Like we talked about at Summit, Greg, I think that the messages or the narrative that you hear around you dictates your actions in your life. Meaning, people who listen to, I'm not gonna get into politics, but say Fox News versus MSNBC. I'm saying like the groups that you listen to

Peter Boulden
0:23:11
will dictate a lot of your actions.

Peter Boulden
0:23:12
So surround yourself with people who are saying, I can't wait, look at all this opportunity versus, woe is me, what's gonna happen? Like, I'm gonna add another zero to my net worth kind of people in this downturn versus the people who say, holy shit, we're gonna get wiped out and this is gonna be terrible, run, run, run, run in cover.

Craig Spodak
0:23:31
That's what I think.

Craig Spodak
0:23:32
That's been like one of the big secrets to years and my individual success is being in the right circles, Peter. It's always about being in the right circles. If you're in the wrong circle with anything, if you have friends that are unhealthy and fighting with their spouses, it's going to be hard on you as well. Peer pressure adds a lot to this.

Peter Boulden
0:23:58
The people that you choose to hang out with is super important. It really is. It really is. I'm leaving this slide up just because I think it's especially people looking at this on YouTube can kind of see these kind of the steps of what I had to go through the two hour presentation to get to, which was still good. It was still good listening to PDB talk. Pbd talk, I should say. Yeah, that's good, but that's good. So, you know, I think things still I just want to leave a couple tactical things for people as we go through this. Oh wow, going tactical.

Craig Spodak
0:24:30
Yeah, I must not be feeling well. It must be the altitude out here. So one of the things to think about is sending letters out to the people in your communities. If you belong to a study club, if you have friends in your community that are dentists, colleagues, you can actually send a letter. Take them to lunch, check in with them because there might be people who are really worried about what's going to happen. If they're so worried and they're not making that three millimeter shift and they're going 15 miles, I got to sell everything. Obviously, encourage them and try to be a resource for them to stay put in their position and weather the storm. But if they're not and they really want to create some action, there's possibilities to merge practices into your practice or combine. If you're thinking about building a location and you might be taken off more than you can chew, there's a possibility to bring other people in that might be being scared. There's a lot of things that can be happening.

Peter Boulden
0:25:20
Well, that's a very abundant mentality with local study clubs. And here's why I get scared about local study clubs. They're great for learning and being exposed to things, but lots of times, as dentists, we're just humans, it's a zero-sum game. Meaning that if you're doing really well, that means that I have to be doing bad because I'm in the same community as you. So you operate from a very abundant mentality, Craig, and you're saying, hey, check in on people and learn, and maybe there's some merger opportunities and there's some things, but a lot of times, and I know people are shaking their heads listening to it, that study clubs are maybe, on the offset, it's like, hey, let's come together and all learn. But really, in the back end, it's like, I really want to do better than you, kind of thing. Because you're in my town.

Craig Spodak
0:26:01
I know, so case in point, I had this dentist, the name is Oralee, I've known her forever. She's just left her job, wasn't philosophically going the right way, they split up, and I'm putting her together with my competition. So there's a guy in my town that I know is nearing retirement age, awesome provider, fee-for-service practice, $1.8 million a year. I'm like, call him up. She's like, what am I going to say? I'm like, I'll call him for you. Because I just think, you know, if we can help each other, and maybe it's just my delusion, or I live in some alternate universe, but I wanna see them kick butt. And if I create a good relationship between those two, it may just be great for them, or maybe it can come back to me, but just trying to elevate dentistry. And that's the spirit of that type of conversation.

Peter Boulden
0:26:46
Even in your own town, you're saying.

Craig Spodak
0:26:47
Even in my own town. So doctors, That's rare, right? Yeah, but I'm doing that. They're going to be a force to be reckoned with and they're probably three miles away from me. So if the spirit of the letter is like, hey, during these challenging and uncertain times, this is not a letter, but conversation, you know, you know, we all know a winner's coming. I want to be a resource. You know, if you guys want to get together and strategize, it could just be that it's like not, hey, Dr. Jones, want to hang it up and call it quits? Well, I'll take over and cannibalize your business. It's like, why not create something where we can get together and have weekly, monthly get-togethers and that could raise it. Then you'll start seeing who's in your tribe and who's not coming full circle. You can't have – if someone really disagrees with you, that's a good thing because that means you stand for something. You have to have outsiders to have insiders. And meeting with those people and having philosophical discussions about their business will show you who your tribe is. I know instantly when I'm in the wrong group. I just have to get out. There's no more feeling of being alone when you're in the wrong company. It's better to be alone with yourself than being with a bunch of people

Peter Boulden
0:27:49
who make you feel like you're alone. I had to process that for a second. It's better to be alone yourself than it is to be with people who make you feel alone. Right. Because when you're with… Did I get that right? I don't remember. I forgot what I said. But if you're with seven people who are like talking about how bad things are, you really feel like what they're, they feel like, where am I?

Craig Spodak
0:28:11
Because it makes you feel super alone. So I just think there's unique opportunities. And to modify the sphere.

Peter Boulden
0:28:17
To loop this back in, the reason I went down this pathway, Craig, was A, reading that email and then getting to Patrick Pitt David is I think that it's going to go back into your wheelhouse of your vision. Meaning the interest rates should not define if you're wanting to expand or you're wanting to do something or you're wanting to build a new office or you're wanting to do whatever, an interest rate shouldn't define your plan. But you say this, of course not, but many people, myself included, have looked at me like, huh, maybe I'll pause until I figure out what's going on. But if your pull is so strong, then the interest rates don't matter. And like you said, contextually, we've had interest rates as high as 20%. Of course. And by the way, tax rates for the upper bracket is high as 90%. That was news

Craig Spodak
0:29:07
to me. I didn't know that during Carter, the top tax rate over $400,000 had a 90% rate.

Peter Boulden
0:29:14
Yeah, so we've been sloshing around in good times of like free money for so long that 5% seems, ah, it seems aggressive.

Craig Spodak
0:29:20
I'm gonna pause.

Craig Spodak
0:29:21
But you've got, you've got out.

Craig Spodak
0:29:22
I'm gonna pause.

Craig Spodak
0:29:23
Right, but look at how many things are working against you. If you enjoy or watch a full YouTube video about winter's coming, the YouTube algorithm will give you more winter's coming. You better crawl in a hole and die. So it's not even your friend circle, it's the algorithms and the bots that are actually going to feed you more than the narrative you watched. So your YouTube feed looks very different from Peter's for those that are listening. And I also just want to circle back to the comments that are made. Listen, this podcast is designed to help. And when you go out in front, whether you're a podcaster or you're leading a team, you're going to get arrows in your back. And you just have to take those arrows and keep moving forward. If I listen to every negative comment, whether it's from someone that loves me or someone that doesn't love me, I would do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. And the challenge to the people that are listening is you have to provide value and you have to believe in the value you're doing no matter what feedback you get. Howard Schultz was shit on for so long that he persisted, he created Starbucks. I'm not trying to compare Peter or myself to Starbucks because we're not here to take over the world of dentistry, but we're here to add value. Those types of comments do not bother me whatsoever. Yeah, I agree. I think they probably bother me more

Peter Boulden
0:30:40
just because I get hypersensitive. But I think it's a good point to just say, look, you and I came together not because we thought we had it all figured out. There are some things that we've gotten our ass kicked and we're like hey, this works and this doesn't and let's share that. But if you're, we are not the, there's so many permutations of how you could be an entrepreneurial, growth-minded dentist that we don't have all the answers for. We talk about our experiences, we talk about things that we can do in the context of things that have worked or haven't worked for us and that's it, full stop. It is not the Bible.

Craig Spodak
0:31:14
History will prove it right. Right or wrong. So like you know when we were saying you know it's fine it is what it is. I just think that the most important thing is while the narrative is dark if you if you believe in what you're doing there's no better time to do it than now. I think waiting for that right answer. I think there's things about the housing like if you love this house and you know I would be cautious to invest in a house right now, potentially in certain

Peter Boulden
0:31:41
markets.

Peter Boulden
0:31:42
Unless you're going to live in it forever, who cares, right? Because you just wait until you get refinanced. I actually posted that on…

Craig Spodak
0:31:47
Yes, it's really the same anyway, right? Because you pay more and you have a higher – or you pay less and have a higher interest rate or pay more and have a lower interest rate.

Peter Boulden
0:31:55
Well, I posted this on our Mighty Networks, right? I was saying, isn't this interesting? Yes, we're dissuaded from the fact that there are higher interest rates. But guess what? I can go and I lock, I can lock in 30-year money at, let's say, when interest rates were good, let's call it 2.5%. Well, they're good now, though. So, yeah. Okay. All right. So just bear with me. It's a rigged game in our favor. Here's where I'm going with this. I was thinking, it's interesting that, like, I can lock it in and I can say, I want a 30-year mortgage bank. And as long as I keep making payments and do that, I am locked in at that amount. But for me, the bank doesn't have that same reciprocity, meaning that as soon as interest rates, let's say I was at 7%, the bank doesn't get to lock me in for 30 years at 7%. As soon as interest rates are good, I can refinance and change the arrangement of that thing, right? So it's not a fair game, meaning I can lock in cheap money for 30 years, but they can't lock in expensive, quote unquote, expensive money on my end for 30 years. I can refinance. So it's a rigged game, and it's just saying in our favor a little bit. So don't let it be an impediment. Don't let it be an impediment to your, going back to the mission, the growth, the vision, if that's the plan. Don't let temporary interest rates, if they are temporary, be an impediment to your plan. Because as soon as they go back in your favor, you can refinance. That's a good gig.

Craig Spodak
0:33:17
That's a good, that's understanding business because when you understand business, everything's in your favor, including the tax code. It's a 6,000 page document that, you know, the first 20, 30 pages tell you how to pay your taxes and the rest, how to take advantage of the loopholes, you know, or incentives as a really dumb. So business acumen, if you're surrounded by it, you realize how to make the system work for your advantage. The government actually doesn't need your money, they need your innovation, they need your buying, they need your hiring. That's what it's really about. So I think that the same thing that goes. Unfortunately, we live in a time where financial illiteracy is so extremely high. And we're working with dentists who have like literally four and seven years of postgraduate education and they know nothing about this stuff and it's really unfortunate So if we could advance the needle just by opening the conversation That's I think a good thing

Peter Boulden
0:34:10
Yeah, I'm uh, I guess in cloud will wrap it here because I know you I need to go on a hike and Live your life live your best life out there in Aspen But I want to say that I'm a little bummed our mastermind came to a close, but at the same time I'm really excited because we're having a new one starting in September and we get to go through now the new stuff, the pathway again, but now with new context and more information and more people on board. And some repeaters, by the way, three peats.

Peter Boulden
0:34:41
Three peats, right.

Peter Boulden
0:34:42
So first, attendees of the first one,

Craig Spodak
0:34:43
attendees of the second one, and now attendees of the third one, which is cool.

Peter Boulden
0:34:47
And I know that we have left it. At first we left some in. We had some impediments to people joining by an application process. And it was really just to make sure it's a good fit that we could provide what someone was looking for. But it actually is still open because we found some interesting things in that process. And honestly, we didn't get the chance to talk about it that much at Summit, Craig. So if you are at all interested in getting in a group, I think it's important. I think it'll be more important than ever. If you're interested in getting in a group, check it out at bulletproofmastermind.com. It's gonna be open, I believe we're starting September 1, is the, or maybe September 8th, is gonna be our first day.

Craig Spodak
0:35:26
Yeah, so basically a little over a month to enroll. Yeah. And for those that are thinking they have it all figured out but wanna jumpstart their team, we've had masterminders in the past just say I've joined because of the office manager on hygiene benefits and they reap massive benefit.

Peter Boulden
0:35:39
You're squared away. I know Tish did that a lot, you know, to speak of that. And I think he's joining again for that same, and he didn't join Calls and there was no shame in that, but he did it for the benefit of his hygienist and office manager. He's like, dude, I'm getting so much value, by proxy, from what they are learning, right? It's amazing. You wanna know the biggest kick in the groin too, Peter?

Craig Spodak
0:35:57
You can have all the answers, but you have a third party come in and see the exact thing that you would say all the time, and people actually take it. It's just so funny. I'd like to say that.

Craig Spodak
0:36:06
I'd like my wife.

Craig Spodak
0:36:06
Exactly. Exactly.

Peter Boulden
0:36:08
It's valuable.

Craig Spodak
0:36:09
It's valuable to have a hygienist tell you

Craig Spodak
0:36:11
how to master your schedule.

Craig Spodak
0:36:12
It's different from a consultant that's not a hygienist or someone that's actually walking the talk. It's huge. Or an office manager is actually practicing in office management with Erica.

Craig Spodak
0:36:27
All right, buddy, well go enjoy your day.

Peter Boulden
0:36:28
What time is it out there? It is 1.40 p.m. Enough for you to go out and get your ass kicked with your wife who can help hike you by 100 miles probably.

Craig Spodak
0:36:39
Oh yeah, no joke, she's a machine.

Craig Spodak
0:36:41
I think I must stress her out,

Craig Spodak
0:36:43
that's why she takes all that physical exercise to release. It works for her. Well, all right, buddy.

Peter Boulden
0:36:49
We'll chat later.

Peter Boulden
0:36:51
Enjoy it.

Peter Boulden
0:36:51
And for those of you listening, we'll see you next time on the Bulletproof Dental Practice Pod. Oh, and don't forget to contribute to the conversation on bulletproof.dental. If you haven't joined our mighty network, it's really awesome. Some of the things I was actually even talking about were some comments. Actually, what I did post, Craig, I posted a question, which I want to do next podcast with us. It's talking about things things that you should and should not say in dentistry as it relates to things you say in front of a patient as it relates to like magic verbiage and enrollment. I think there's just some great terms that we need to get rid of. There's some great terms that you should use instead of X. You should say this in dentistry and and I think you're you're I don't know the culture will increase the enrollment will increase, people will not be scared. It'll make the experience better. You know?

Craig Spodak
0:37:43
For sure, I mean, words define the experience.

Peter Boulden
0:37:45
Yes, yes.

Peter Boulden
0:37:46
So I've been getting a lot of good feedback from that question about things to say, like, Mrs. Jones, you need a gross debridement. Like, how many of us doctors have ever said that?

Peter Boulden
0:37:54
You're saying I'm gross?

Peter Boulden
0:37:56
And 1,000%, correct? Like, that's just a little example, but 1,000%. The patient doesn't question, did you just say I'm gross? But they just, all they heard was gross. And like, this practice stinks. They just, it's gross.

Craig Spodak
0:38:07
Hey, by the way, I wanna add something to that podcast if you don't mind.

Peter Boulden
0:38:10
It's about self-talk as well. Because it's the words you choose in your practice and the words you choose to talk about yourself. Well, that may be a long pod then, bud.

Craig Spodak
0:38:18
No, it's simple.

Peter Boulden
0:38:20
But I like, you know. Part one and part two. Maybe it's part one of the external and part two in the internal.

Craig Spodak
0:38:26
Yeah.

Craig Spodak
0:38:27
Yeah.

Peter Boulden
0:38:28
All right, everybody. All right, everybody.

Craig Spodak
0:38:28
♪ This time baby I'll be playing through this time baby. ♪

Transcribed with Cockatoo