Summit Wrap Up 2021

The following transcription was from the Bulletproof Youtube channel. Here is the https://four.libsyn.com/destinations/preview-player/item_id/19950392/height/360/width/480/thumbnail/true/theme/standard

Craig Spodak
0:00:00
Hi everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Bulletproof Dental Practice Podcast. Peter and I are both coming to you from vacation. I'm in Colorado so I may sound a little breathless and Peter's coming from the bustling metropolis of Philadelphia, Mississippi. Tell us Peter, what's going on in Philadelphia?

Peter Boulden
0:00:29
I am at the Neshoba County Fair 2021. It is like Mississippi's house party for Central Mississippi.

Peter Boulden
0:00:38
It's crazy. It's crazy.

Peter Boulden
0:00:39
There's like 100,000 people at this place.

Craig Spodak
0:00:42
Did you grow a mullet just for this, or are you still rocking the same haircut you had the summit two weeks ago?

Peter Boulden
0:00:46
Same haircut.

Peter Boulden
0:00:47
I was considering a mohawk though, quite honestly.

Craig Spodak
0:00:51
That would be awesome. Yes. I wish you'd do that. I want one. Why don't you do it?

Peter Boulden
0:00:58
You got nothing to worry about.

Craig Spodak
0:00:59
You're not going to the office anytime soon.

Peter Boulden
0:01:01
I don't feel like it's age appropriate though.

Craig Spodak
0:01:03
Yeah, but I think it's really appropriate for you actually. I think you'd look great with a mohawk.

Craig Spodak
0:01:07
I'll do it for you.

Craig Spodak
0:01:08
Next time I see you, I'll do it. You'll be the first head of hair I've ever cut. Got it, got it. I'll put a chamfer margin on the edges, it'll be great.

Peter Boulden
0:01:17
You know we are recording, right bud?

Craig Spodak
0:01:20
I do know that, I do know that. Just the mullet got me hyped, I don't know,

Peter Boulden
0:01:24
that sounds cool.

Craig Spodak
0:01:25
So we haven't done a podcast since the summit, and I'm happy we're doing it right now.

Peter Boulden
0:01:29
No, we haven't done one long before the summit because we were getting ready for the summit, right? So I mean, it's been a quick minute, It's been a quick minute.

Peter Boulden
0:01:39
It has.

Craig Spodak
0:01:40
It has. How awesome was that summit, Pete? That was just freaking epic. What an amazing event. I was so happy.

Peter Boulden
0:01:46
It really was good. It was, I mean, we say this every time, like it was the best one, it was the best one, but there was just compounding factors, which I feel like made it really good. And I will illustrate that point. Number one, I told you this story, kind of rounding the corner day one of the summit and seeing a big line. Unfortunately, there was a line, but it did my heart good. Because after two years almost of not seeing people congregating in a dental fashion, it was like, I literally got chills. I'm not a woo-woo kind of guy, but I got chills kind of rounding the corner and seeing all these people that have come. You know, and we had 325 people show up, Greg. And so seeing people just getting ready to learn in a community and environment was just awesome. It really was just awesome. And the space was awesome. The second thing that really made it, I think, the best summit is that we really expanded the curriculum and the manual, right? So we've always, if you've never been to a summit, you have this manual and it's grown every year. And this year, it was like a full blown, I don't know, flight manual almost. It was giant. You know, it's probably 200 pages of just Craig and I's best IP that we share forthcoming as much as information. And it's just gotten really cool. And people had lots of comments about that, saying like, holy shit, I can't believe you guys are giving this out.

Craig Spodak
0:03:10
Yeah, the manual is just absolutely ridiculous. Because remember, I had not seen the actual size of it. So we pulled out all that involved Ravikin stuff that you did. You know there's a couple pages dedicated to the last manual but the thing grew by like 40-50 percent. It's massive. It's literally a dental practice

Peter Boulden
0:03:27
in a book. Well you said you were like dude this is like a DSO in a book. I think that was your comment. You're like this is like a DSO. We shouldn't let people we shouldn't be distributing this

Craig Spodak
0:03:38
because it's like a workbook. I did say that.

Craig Spodak
0:03:39
I did say that.

Craig Spodak
0:03:41
Precious gold, remember when Scott Gallagher

Peter Boulden
0:03:44
gave me precious gold. I think everyone thinks, I think everyone,

Peter Boulden
0:03:46
precious gold, in Scott voice, precious gold. I think everyone thinks they're, it's funny how when you create something, you think it's, you know, you're the first person to land on the moon, you know? I mean, so there's nothing new under the sun, but it is an aggregation of a lot of stuff. And we do give it all away, which is kind of why we said in the beginning of the summit, we said, look, our thesis has always been shared, shared is forthcoming. What we don't want to see happen though, is like you hand this off to your friend, you hand this off to your buddy, if they didn't attend, or better yet, like, don't take this, because we've actually had two people now, or a couple of people take it and try to do webinars on our content, which is kind of just weird and shady, or maybe even summits, Greg, I think you told me. So, you know, we actually had to have a gentleman's and a woman's agreement on the front end and said, hey, like this is for y'all, not for public consumption, full stop. So let's all agree to that. Just because, you know, we don't wanna get in a situation, honestly, Greg, I don't wanna get in a situation where, I know you don't actually, that we say, that we hold back, right? Because we're worried about someone cannibalizing

Peter Boulden
0:04:50
the information.

Peter Boulden
0:04:51
So anyway, enough on that. I know I started this whole diatribe with why it was so good, and that was just two of the reasons. But it just felt healthy. Like I kind of rounded the corner that morning, I was like, nature is healing. Dentistry is healing, we're together again. And it was just, people were playing full out, and it was just so nice to see. So it was just great. The energy was amazing.

Craig Spodak
0:05:15
Yeah. It didn't hurt that we have like two Longhorn steer at the break area and two donkeys with packs and beer. I mean, that was just freaking ridiculous for me.

Peter Boulden
0:05:24
I walked out. I thought that was part of the hotel. I was like, Kim, this is amazing. So Kim, you know, runs kind of the summits for us. She's like, I thought you'd like that. And I was like, wait a second, you hired them?

Craig Spodak
0:05:35
She's like, well, yeah.

Craig Spodak
0:05:36
I hired donkeys. How does one go about hiring a donkey? What do you look up to do that?

Peter Boulden
0:05:43
I guess you Google. So the donkeys had packs.

Peter Boulden
0:05:46
Of beer.

Craig Spodak
0:05:47
Yeah, yeah, packs on the side, filled with ice and beers. And it was just amazing. It was quintessential Texas. It was, the event space was awesome. A lot of learning. We got all the surveys, all the reviews. 13 credit hours. Yeah, I was just real pumped to do it. It was great. So, so-

Peter Boulden
0:06:06
16 credit hours.

Peter Boulden
0:06:07
Oh, that's awesome.

Craig Spodak
0:06:08
Do we get credit for that too, Peter?

Craig Spodak
0:06:10
I don't know.

Peter Boulden
0:06:11
That's a good question. I don't know.

Peter Boulden
0:06:13
Yeah.

Craig Spodak
0:06:15
Can you give yourself CE?

Craig Spodak
0:06:16
That's awesome.

Craig Spodak
0:06:17
I mean-

Craig Spodak
0:06:18
I don't see why not.

Peter Boulden
0:06:19
I attended.

Craig Spodak
0:06:19
You sure did.

Craig Spodak
0:06:21
You played full out, Peter.

Craig Spodak
0:06:23
No, it's great.

Peter Boulden
0:06:23
It was really great. So let's unpack it a little bit. So because people are probably like, what is this? What are we talking about? Why are you doing a podcast on Summit Wrap Up? And I think there's a couple of key points to talk about with this. A couple of which I already kind of just mentioned that, you know, it reinforces, Greg, the fact that like not all learning can't all be done virtual. I think there's power in immersion, immunity, immersion, and, and, and actually like, and people, a lot of people, Greg, which was great is because we have bulletproof team and bulletproof hygiene now, a lot of people really played into that.

Craig Spodak
0:07:00
And, and brought their team.

Peter Boulden
0:07:01
So they got back and felt fully empowered and they had key, key, uh, you know, like the stakeholders really kind of charged the mission, so that itself was powerful. But yeah, that was really cool. What we all thought with COVID, right? Was like, oh, now we can work from home and now we can play on our computers all day. And I think what we found is that the pendulum shifted and that people got really tired of sitting behind their computer and they wanna touch and feel and high five and woohoo and learn together and be together and drink together and eat together and all the things and share notes about best practices. You know, we had our, even our mastermind VIP table. You know, we carved something out because Craig and I wanted to have some time with people just more intimately rather than going into the eating space and just wondering where we should sit.

Craig Spodak
0:07:47
We said, all right, maybe there's people

Peter Boulden
0:07:48
that intentionally want to have some questions and dialogue with us. And so we did that. And that was just fascinating to listen to people's stories and hear what their struggles are, what their successes. It was just, that was such a great idea you've had of doing that, Craig.

Craig Spodak
0:08:02
One of the things that was most, thanks Pete, but one of the things I was most impressed with is that guy, he sat down, I'm gonna remain nameless for privacy, but he sits down and he's at the VIP, he's like, hey, you guys are like my favorite people and learned a lot from you. I'm like, okay, well, in some pack you practice, what are you doing? He's like, yeah, we're gonna do 23 million this year. I'm like, what the hell? I'm like, Peter, do you know about the, do you see this guy? He's like, yeah, yeah. You know, you're like, I just met him. But I mean, it's, it's crazy to see people take the stuff that we're talking about and implement it. And then, you know, run faster than either one of us can run. I mean, 23 million.

Peter Boulden
0:08:38
Well, he did say like, look, he's like, I've listened to every podcast. I've implemented everything. You guys are my favorite people. And I was like, you should be the one teaching this, like what you've done. He's like, no, like literally I'm just implementing and learning and super humble, super cool guy. I remember him saying, yeah, we did 2.3. I thought I heard, and he said this month. I said, you mean this year? He said, no, no, no, this month.

Peter Boulden
0:08:58
I was like, what the heck are you doing?

Craig Spodak
0:09:00
That's pretty awesome.

Craig Spodak
0:09:01
Yeah.

Craig Spodak
0:09:02
It's awesome. And it just goes to show you, it's like, look, everybody takes the information and processes it at their own speed and their own understanding. Like we always talk about Peter, like Tiger Woods is a golf coach and Tiger Woods is golf coach is not the number one golfer, but he just has a way of helping people. So it's really humbling and cool to see the information that we're giving. And some people are just taking it and processing it and making it like 10 times more than we could ever make it. It's just incredible to see that. It was so cool. And there's so many stories of that. And it's a weird feeling, isn't it? Peter, like to hear somebody doing that. It's just awesome. It's like, well, geez, what can we learn from you as well?

Craig Spodak
0:09:35
That's cool.

Peter Boulden
0:09:36
I liked hearing too, was that, you know, that the overall consensus, maybe that's just the people at the summit, because obviously we've already identified that they are growth minded, they are pushing the gas at all times kind of thing. But everyone seemed to be prosperous, right? And I don't know, like I said, I don't know if it's chicken or egg, but everyone seemed to be doing, it was doom and gloom in COVID, and now everyone is like, wow, I've never been busier, right? I've never been more profitable. I've never been more, you know, all these things. And the one pain point that everyone's identifying right now, I think it's not dentistry specific, is that it is unfortunately finding good team members to stay on. Because of this macroeconomic climate that's been, so we are all kind of comparing notes on how we do. And again, it was nice. And you and I were there for four days. And, you know, honestly, as we planned our mastermind from 2020, 2021 class, the first class, we planned our mastermind because finally we were able to get together. And so you and I did the summit and then two days later we did the mastermind. And I thought I was gonna be wiped out, you know, cause I get, I can't do that stuff. And like after four days, I was pretty fired up just because it was so interesting, the stuff we were going over, not only from the summit standpoint, but then when we did deep dives in our mastermind, it was just, it was just fascinating to see and hear people, because I learned something, everyone's story and everyone's question, everyone's answer. I learned a little bit of everything. Every time someone speaks, you know? Oh yeah, for sure.

Craig Spodak
0:11:04
It's funny. If you really zoom out, you know, obviously we're, we're here to help and pay it forward and try to teach the people that listen to us, whatever we can learn or whatever we've learned. But in actuality, it's like you learn so much as well. And each story, like you said, has resonated so, so much with, with all of us. But, um, the mastermind was really cool to see the, the year wrap up, to see people join the mastermind the week or two weeks before COVID started and everybody's, you know, anxious to crush it and then COVID shuts us all down and to see just about every single one of our mastermind attendees hit their projected goal, even though the goal was written, not knowing that they'd be shut down is really cool.

Peter Boulden
0:11:43
Right.

Craig Spodak
0:11:43
And seeing so many of the mastermind attendees come back and sign up again for for 21, 22, you know, for the next class, it's just awesome to know that the

Peter Boulden
0:11:52
learning continues, um, that, that was so fulfilling for me as well.

Peter Boulden
0:11:56
Yeah.

Peter Boulden
0:11:56
And I was excited because like you said, when the first one, the first one launched, we, we had a, we had a quasi curriculum, but then like, look, things change, you know, things change. And so obviously we went into pandemic mode through most of our mastermind last year. But this year is great because we have a curriculum, you know, we actually have more intentionality with all of the months and speakers and all this stuff. We've gotten a lot more sophisticated.

Craig Spodak
0:12:20
Also the team as well, the team as well.

Peter Boulden
0:12:23
The hygiene, it's not just a mastermind. This year is not just a mastermind for the doctor. It's a mastermind for, it's included, mastermind for your key hygienist, your key, either office manager or team lead. And so now, now we all get to row the boat together and we stay in that same curriculum. So I'm really, I'm really excited. And honestly, we, we may be offering about 30 people. I literally think 29 signed up on the spot. I don't, there may or may not be, I don't know, one spot yet. I haven't talked to Lacey, but it was, it was fascinating. So I would say it's pretty much the sold out mastermind, which is just, which is just awesome. It means we're doing something right. And we're leaning into people, Greg, which is, which is a good litmus test for me.

Craig Spodak
0:12:59
Yeah.

Craig Spodak
0:13:00
So I, I, what I, what I'm most proud about is the team aspect, because I think like the crisis and finding people, the hiring crisis, the great quit, as we talked about, 40% of people that are currently employed are projecting to quit their job in the next year because they're, you know, they had a, you know, life reset to the COVID crisis.

Peter Boulden
0:13:18
Um, I called the great quit.

Craig Spodak
0:13:21
Yeah. The great quit or the great resignation.

Peter Boulden
0:13:24
It's like 40% of actually, that's right. Chris was talking about that.

Craig Spodak
0:13:29
So I think, you know, we talk about team culture all the time. I've been talking about that for, um, um, as many literally for months or for years rather. So I think the most important thing is that when you have an engaged team, an aligned team, and you're feeling really good about things and your office is on the same page and aligned, you won't have the same level of hiring crisis or you won't have the same difficulty implementing because everybody gets the CE, doctors go off to their CE, office managers go to ADOM or what have you, hygienists go to their own stuff, but nothing gets implemented because you never leave the scene of the educational point with an implementation strategy in place. So it's literally, it's all knowledge and no execution. So we all know the powers and the execution. So that's what I was really proud about. So walking around the tables, talking to those people, finding out how the hygienists were doing, the office managers, they were fired up, Peter. They're so fired up. And the ones that didn't bring their team like, Oh, I'm so mad. Like, what can I do? How can I, you know, what can I do right now? I'm like nothing, just absorb all this stuff, get the knowledge, but don't really think to, you know, make an implementation plan because it's hard when you try to get your team fired up yourself, like I've never really found it easy to get my hygienist fired up from, on my standpoint, but like when Sharissa talks to them or another group of hygienists talks to them, it makes it really, really easy because they understand they hear it from their point of view.

Craig Spodak
0:14:54
So that's great.

Peter Boulden
0:14:55
That's a great, uh, that's a great contextual point is that, you know, like, well, you're, you're not a dent, you're just, you're a dentist.

Craig Spodak
0:15:02
You don't, you're not hygienist.

Peter Boulden
0:15:03
You don't know my struggles, but you're right. When it comes from a hygienist that has walked the walk and talk to talk and know all the things that the messages received much better. I totally agree with you.

Craig Spodak
0:15:12
Yeah, that's totally agree. One of the doctors that was there is like, look, you know, I'm so mad and bring my hygienist here by my office manager, and I kind of scrambles is the last minute thing. What should I do? Should I listen to you? Or should I go into the hygiene breakout? And like, try to learn that bring it to my hygienist. I'm like, honestly, Alex, it's not going to be good if you just try to do that, because you're gonna get all excited, you're gonna tell them what's possible, and they're not going to hear it from the voice of the hygienist. So that that I think was our special sauce for the summit is having the hygiene, talk to the hygienist, the office manager and team talked to them. That lit people up. Like Erica was swamped, like at the break of her first breakout session, she went to go eat lunch. There was a mob around her, literally a mob. She couldn't even like eat. It's like she couldn't even handle the comments that were coming in to her. So it's so cool for her to see that.

Peter Boulden
0:16:00
Yeah, it was almost, it was almost overwhelming for her.

Peter Boulden
0:16:05
Right.

Peter Boulden
0:16:05
I mean, cause cause this was, this was again, you know, we kind of beta tested the hygiene at last summit just to make sure there was enough demand. They had a curriculum, all the things, and obviously then they launched.

Craig Spodak
0:16:16
And frankly, frankly, we just wanted to see if they could have the chops and to deliver the content, you know, like we know that we know they have it, but like knowing the content and being able to deliver it in an impactful way are two separate things completely. So, um, they just blew us both away last summit. How many hydrogen is for in that room? A hundred.

Peter Boulden
0:16:34
80, no, 67, 67. Well, but I, cause I think they were kind of going at, so about 67 high debt.

Craig Spodak
0:16:40
In the room.

Peter Boulden
0:16:41
That's, um, that's amazing.

Peter Boulden
0:16:42
All I know is the room was filled.

Craig Spodak
0:16:43
It was so cool. A lot of doctors were popping into to listen to what they had to say. It's, but, um, you know, like I always say, knowledge is not power, execution is power. So imagine your hygienist goes, you go, an office manager, a team lead, an assistant, and you're sitting there after two days of intense learning, you're like, just, I can't even imagine the conversations and the amount of value that came out of that, because it's just like, it's a complete and total reset for the office. It's hard.

Peter Boulden
0:17:10
And the thing that, the thing that's important to Greg is like people are saying, I don't know what, you know, it's almost when you get so much information or so many ideas or you collaborate so much, it's like, which one? And you know, so my advice to people was, look, don't come with a list of 10 things that you wanna do. You gotta eat this elephant when you get home. Find out what may be the biggest thing that's gonna turn the lever for your practice that you all can function on with, and do that one, and then move on to the next. But do not try and go home and be like, here's the 10 things we're gonna fix. You know, it goes back to you get what you focus on and you're gonna get, if you focus on one thing at a time, you know, because some of them are gonna be pretty big levers to move. All right, new for 2021, we wanna invite everyone listening

Peter Boulden
0:17:53
to join us on our private network. It's free to join. Join the conversation at bulletproof.dental. You can even download it in the app store. Just look for the Mighty Network app and you can download it there. But just point your browser to bulletproof.dental and join and sign up and start collaborating on some of the ideas we discussed on the podcast. There's content there to download and it's all designed to help grow and stimulate us together. Hope everyone has a great day.

Craig Spodak
0:18:30
I think what really wakes people up is the first day,

Craig Spodak
0:18:32
is like really kind of figuring out what you want to achieve and how rudderless most people are. I mean, even you and I go through phases like, what the fuck are we doing? Like, what's our purpose? And it's that reset, and it changes over time. So, you know, you might have a really great, inspiring purpose when you just first leave in school or maybe your first five years of dental school. And slowly things shift and the reasons become different and you never really reset. So, that first day I had a lot of people coming up to me on the visions stuff and the leadership stuff, like, wow, I realized I didn't really know where I wanted to go. It's just like every day became the same deal, just to survive and produce. And I don't even really know where I'm going. So I feel really good about helping people achieve what they wanna really get to. Because I think there's a lot of consultants and experts out there that will actually feed you all the how to, you know, like, well, you know, between you and I, we can give you just about every how to, how to take on a partner,

Peter Boulden
0:19:30
how to create a hygiene compensation strategy, what marketing strategies would work well. But I think where most people skip over is like, what do you really wanna create? What do you really wanna create? Because if we help you get everything you ever wanted and you wind up being unfulfilled and unhappy. We've not done you any favor. So I don't mind those conversations. I have them all over the place. Like, man, I thought I wanted to do this. I thought I wanted to expand. I don't want to have five practices. I realized I just wanted to have one or two. I thought I wanted one or two and I really wanted 10. So I think that know thyself is so important. And that dentist quiz that we did was so cool. So we had that, we had a series of questions to figure out what type of dentist you are like entrepreneurial visionary, you know, the steady hand and I think it's important to not hijack someone else's vision and we always say that, but it's very common in dentistry to listen to Dr. Jones or whoever the hell he is like, here's the path you got to own 15 houses and five practices. Here's three easy steps to do it. Like, okay, that sounds good. I'm gonna do that. And you're not doing you.

Craig Spodak
0:20:26
And that really sucks. And I think a lot of…

Peter Boulden
0:20:28
Yeah, so you just glossed over something that I want to push on, by the way. So I want everyone… Hold that. Don't forget it. One thing I want to say is my own personal deepest levels of dissatisfaction were that I got my dreams hijacked. And I'm an emotionally involved person. I'm nearing 50 years old next month. So I'm not a kid and all I want to say is that it's still even at the ripe old You know mature age of 50. I still get my dreams hijacked. I still find myself looking at other people being man Why can't I be that why can't I do that only to realize months later shit Craig? You don't want that so the point I'm trying to make is you can't fool yourself, but you got to remember You're the easiest person to fool So even though you think you know yourself you can still get your shit hijacked. You can still get your dreams hijacked and wind up unfulfilled. So you'll be so happy if I just get to blah, blah, blah, and then get there and be like, damn, I don't want to be here. So, sorry, I just wanted to say that, but that's happened to me a lot. I think that happens to a lot of us. I mean, you know, we had something recently that happened where it's, you know, where it makes you test what you think you're chasing and then you get what you're chasing. And it's like, that's not really what I wanted. Right, and so it's nice to live authentically and test yourself and audit yourself. And that's where I was saying this quiz that Chris Tuff developed, you know, Chris Tuff is a partner with us because he's a, well, he owns a marketing company, number one. He's a big influencer in Atlanta, you know, national bestseller of the Millennial Whisperer. And so we wanted him on board to help us kind of MC and help with team and all that stuff. And he's developed a quiz specifically for dentists call. And you just go to take it. We just registered a domain, dentistquiz.com. And so we had all the, and we can open up to all y'all now. If you're listening, go to dentistquiz.com. And what's neat about it is identifies, it shows you kind of where your superpowers are versus where you probably need to look at some of your weaknesses or just identify them as being weak spots. And it's no big deal. Like every category, there's not one, there's not one dentist type that Chris calls it or archetype that is more powerful than the next. It's just self-awareness, like you said, Craig. And I think that is the superpower, regardless of who you are. If you know who you are, that is the power because then you can double and triple down on the things you're really good at and then cover for your weaknesses and step right in front of it and say,

Peter Boulden
0:22:49
yeah, I really stink at this.

Peter Boulden
0:22:51
I am horrible at this.

Craig Spodak
0:22:52
But I am great at this.

Peter Boulden
0:22:54
I am great at this. And say that from the mountaintops, right? Don't try to be the jack of all trades, master of none,

Peter Boulden
0:23:01
saying like, I can do it all. I used to do that, Craig.

Peter Boulden
0:23:04
I sat on stage and told them that. The biggest impediment to my practice was always me. Because I used to say, I'm gonna put the TVs in, I'll answer the phone, this is how we should do it.

Craig Spodak
0:23:11
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Peter Boulden
0:23:13
And once I got my ego in check and got it out of the way, guess what? The practice grew 3X, practice grew 4X. I was the bottleneck.

Peter Boulden
0:23:21
So knowing what's gonna happen.

Peter Boulden
0:23:22
Isn't that so funny though?

Craig Spodak
0:23:23
Isn't that so funny? It's so funny. The choke hold on the business is always the skill set and psychology of its leader. The choke hold on every business is always the skill set and psychology of its leader. Richard Branson has freaking dyslexia. Imagine if he would have said, I have dyslexia, I can't read a financial statement. It literally comes out backwards. He's like, okay, I have dyslexia. I can't read these statements, but I'm not gonna let that get into the way of my future. I'm gonna hire people that can do that and shoot me straight, tell me what's going on. So it's just the conversations that people have, and there's so many limiting conversations. I had a really big dental influencer. I mean, I love this girl.

Craig Spodak
0:24:02
She's really well-regarded.

Craig Spodak
0:24:02
She teaches and she does all this great stuff with their Instagram profile. She actually came up to me and she said, when I am a leader, when I'm a leader, I'm gonna, I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'll use her name Jenny, just as a, you know, protect her identity. I'm like, Jenny, what are you talking about? She's like, well, you know, I'm not a leader yet. I'm like, well, you've got like 80,000 followers on Instagram, every live video is in the thousands. People are paying you for content, like learning, you're dedicated to helping in the profession. What does it mean? When do you have to be a leader? Well, when this and this and this happens, then I'll be a leader. I'm like, that's such bullshit. I'm like, if your actions inspire someone to be more or want to be more, then you're a leader. You know, it's like amazing how we limit ourselves. Everything's just before anything is created. It's a self-limiting or self-affirming conversation. And it's just so big. It's incredible to watch people do that. And I'm really blessed that I have the ears to hear people. I can hear when people-

Peter Boulden
0:24:57
But that is your superpower. And you've known that now in your fifties, right? Being that you've lived in your body, you know that that's what you're good at. You are good at inspiring people, you're good at listening to people, you're good at reading them people. And that is your superpower. And you've gotten out of the way of other stuff and you've just doubled and tripled down. And so I think that's why you're so fit to be able to tell people, Hey, what is your vision? Stop being inauthentic. You're living a freaking lie. What is your vision? What is your what is your path? What is your fulfillment? Stop? What do

Craig Spodak
0:25:24
you want other people's stuff? Yeah, right. And when people tell you what they want, like remember, I'm going to call it Dwight the mastermind. Like Dwight. So he's amazing. Dwight. Amazing, amazing. And every single way the guy is fit to be a CEO or COO of you know a hundred locations like this even though he's just got a handful now I mean his future is so bright he's so he's it's amazing but like even when I want when he wanted to tell me what he wants to do there's guilt around it you know there's guilt around do I want to you know still practice dentistry do I not I mean there's so much shame in dentistry I'm just an associate I don't practice anywhere still practice at one location at five and get the shit it's your life you can do whatever the hell you want. But I think like giving up your clinical practice, that was something we touched on a big, big amount, like that there's guilt around that, you know, that if you don't work in dentistry as a dentist, then you're suddenly not working anymore. Oh, you only work one day a week. Oh, you don't work anymore. Bullshit. How much do you work? Indeed?

Peter Boulden
0:26:23
Yeah, I mean, look, that is the myth, right? We think that it's, if you're not quote unquote working on patients, then you must not be working. And I can attest that, you know, I say that dentistry is sometimes the easiest part of what we do. And that may offend some people, but you know, and look, obviously there's tougher cases than not, but it's very, it's very step-by-step versus managing, leading, CFOing, CMOing. There's always stuff that you have to kind of, it's never the same cookbook approach. And I know clinically not always, but I'm saying that, that, you know, see, I'm trying to backtrack now because people are like, that's not true again.

Peter Boulden
0:26:58
It's so hard. And it is so hard.

Craig Spodak
0:27:00
Yeah, but it ends, it ends. So at 530, there's nothing you can do. There's literally nothing you can do. Yes, you could Monday morning quarterback your case. Oh, maybe I should have prepped from the left to the right, right to the left. Or maybe I'll try this cementation technique next time, or I should have caught talk to the lab. But like when there's a business owner, there's always something to do. Like you could wake up on Saturday and rewrite your protocols, you could do all these different things. And I think it's all I don't want to make one more than the other, because it's not a

Peter Boulden
0:27:28
competition. No, it's definitely not. It's definitely not. I agree. And I'm glad you clarify that because it's not. But I think it's what I guess my point in dentistry is unique, right? Is that a lot of physicians do their craft and go home because of the consolidation. In dentistry, you know, half of our job is literally, if you're owning your practice, less than half of your job is probably the clinical aspect. So it behooves you to kind of just be macro aware on all these things, which is why we, you know,

Craig Spodak
0:27:57
this was the whole thesis of Bulletproof. Yeah, and I want to also highlight at that point too, that the summit is not just designed for practice owners. There was a lot of associates there. There was a lot of value that was given. Associates you need to give yourself a little bit more permission. That's why I did that video, the entrepreneur, entrepreneur and solopreneur, because if you're an associate, you're an entrepreneur, you're working in a business. So that video is going to be on the Mighty Network later today. I'm really proud of that video because I think there's so much shame about I'm just an associate. An associate is actually like you just deleverage your salary and your long-term wealth strategy. Because you know you can kick ass like this. If you're a solopreneur, meaning you're a solo dentist and you work in an office and no other doctor works with you, just your own guy, like most of us are. Most dentists are solopreneurs, single doctor practices. If your practice gets hurt, if you're building, your physical practice gets hurt, you actually lose your income and your wealth strategy. So there's no diversification, whereas not entrepreneur associate working for an entrepreneur inside of organization, you can actually de leverage your salary and your wealth strategy. So if you're making decent money, and I've, I've known associates make six 700 grand a year, Pete 900 granny, I know associates that are real rock stars, because they've invested in themselves. It's not just the practice they're in, but they're the ones taking CE and learning how to refine their craft. When they meet a patient, it's not like a normal dentist meeting a patient. They extract mass amounts of dollars from them because they have value. They bring value. So if you're that guy and you're making these or gal, and you're making decent amounts of money and you're investing all along the way, you could be far better than the average solo per the average guy who owns his own practice, because the myth that it's going to be worth a whole lot of money in some particular moment in the future is not always true, depending on what happens. I mean, you can get injured, for instance, and practice is not worth as much. But anyway, I digress. Yeah.

Peter Boulden
0:29:52
So, well, it's okay. I mean, this is what we do. You know, all the times we talk on the phone, we should record that as a podcast. This is almost like the ramblings we do as just as humans and friends. But I wanna make sure that people take that because I think that dentist quiz is great. And what Chris has also done is put it in the context of the new, the bulletproof pathway, which is something new in the curriculum that we kind of followed from the summit and trying to make dentistry not so complicated because it is in some capacities, it is linear and it is buckets that you need to kind of look at and address. And so Chris has kind of put it in the context of here's the strengths in the pathway that you're probably really good at. Here's the weaknesses in the pathway that you probably need to outsource for or get someone on your team to know. You know, and then we've taken another further step, which I don't know if we want to get into Greg now, but like even the culture index, which is goes like a hundred levels deeper that Dwight did in the mastermind and really just kind of, you know, really showing. So it was focused on a lot of know thyself and it went further than a dis profile and I'm kind of rambling, but I'm just blown away by all the intel that I'm getting now at 45 years old. And I'm wishing like, I wish I had had these quote unquote cheat codes. Like when you're playing video game, you know how you would download this ball, ball, ball to put in. And I was like, I told Dwight, I was like, this is like money ball for dentistry. It's like the cheat codes for your team

Peter Boulden
0:31:07
and for knowing yourself.

Peter Boulden
0:31:08
And I was like, why did I not?

Craig Spodak
0:31:10
Why did I get this at 45? You'll figure it out. You'll just get your ass kicked for, you know, three to five years and then you'll figure it out slowly, or you can just know it up front. You know what I mean? It's like being frustrated that your Labrador Retriever is not like a rescue dog or whatever. It's like we're all programmed with a certain set of strengths and weaknesses. And I think the first several years of your career, you're just super frustrated with yourself that you're not whatever, you're not everything. You know, I think that our dental consulting industry or dental help industry, if you will, is fueling that. I mean, there's a lot of large forces at work from, you know, big corporate dentistry, you know, the big supply houses. And frankly, I talked about this on stage, you know, the other week, but I went to a very well-known seminar that was very widely attended, you know, over a thousand attendees and every single module that was given was a sales pitch for a company.

Peter Boulden
0:32:04
Just every single one.

Peter Boulden
0:32:06
I think, can we start calling people out by their name?

Peter Boulden
0:32:08
Well, I don't know.

Peter Boulden
0:32:09
I don't know because, no, well. Let's get a lawsuit going.

Craig Spodak
0:32:12
I don't feel comfortable, but I was, I was, it was, I think the word I used was like horrify. Like, I don't remember, it was such a travesty to spend two or $3,000 on a ticket to be sold to. And it's how I've gone and spoken at these places and it's the same thing over and over, just being sold to. Like our intention, obviously there's 30 mastermind spots that sold out, but our intention is don't ever call us, don't need us. I mean, you can come back to a summit if you want a refresher, but we gave it all. There's nothing left to give. The only thing that you'd have in a mastermind is accountability. You're not paying for information. We gave you all the information. If you improve, you learn.

Peter Boulden
0:32:48
Right, right. If you want to learn more, if you want to learn more, sign up. You're right. It wasn't that. It was like, here it all is. You're a master of execution.

Craig Spodak
0:32:54
Yeah, it's called a paywall. It's like, hey, here's the five steps. You want the rest? Come on, pay me. No, no, there's everything. If you are like a Dwight, a master of execution, or that other guy that's going at 23 million, by the way, he joined the masterminds, that guy. So he's already an executor. He's already getting shit done, but he just, I guess he wants to be, you know, at another level. So you're not paying for information, you're

Peter Boulden
0:33:17
paying for and well, the cool thing is he knows he hasn't figured it all out just like the rest of us, right? Like think once you think you've got it all figured out, it's time to quit because your growth is going to be your biggest impediment and you're going to go in a downward spiral. And so he, but he's, he's growth minded, staying growth minded. And because now he's at 23, he wants to hit 50. He's got a feel he's got a feel on his, in his, in his, sorry, he's got a fire in his belly. And that's just really neat to watch, right?

Craig Spodak
0:33:43
And it's cool when I asked him like, why, why, why? Because I want to keep getting to the bottom of it. It's all good. There's nothing there. There's not that whole like, yeah, I want to buy a boat and like get champagne and models and you know, you know, that's crap. He's got a noble cause. Money's a really poor motivator. He doesn't have that as a motivator. Of course he's motivated by money, but he's-

Peter Boulden
0:34:01
Well, it's the score, it was the scorecard, like we always said. It's the scorecard for how he's doing and performing and treating people and taking care of people and getting people healthy and treating his team. All those things, it's just a scorecard. I'm sure he likes nice things, Greg, but you're right. It wasn't the, I want to get a yacht and get the heck out of town kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.

Craig Spodak
0:34:22
Very cool.

Peter Boulden
0:34:23
Anyway, I'm excited. What are you most excited about right now? Outside of, let's say in your practice, let's take it away from Mastermind, let's take it away from Bulletproof, let's take it away from the Summit. What are you most excited about right now and what are you most fearful of right now? And let's call it July, mid-July 2021.

Craig Spodak
0:34:42
Well, I had a big reset, Peter. I won't go into the personal details, but my son had a really serious injury a couple of days ago, they're lifted to a hospital, everything's fine, he's gonna be fine. So, but the day before that, the morning of that happening, we had an all day team meeting and I was here in Colorado and there was a really beautiful culture, uplifting experience that happened in a practice where a lot of the doctors were kudos to each other and you know me, I really love the emotional stuff. Some of the team members were teary-eyed praising each other and people promising to do better and be at a higher level. So what I'm most excited about is the cohesion and support of my team, because I know that's the first step to success. Like when you have good vibes, people are cohesive, everybody's centered on the same mission and the line, money and success shows up from that. So it's like, you know, it's like, don't chase money, chase like happy, fulfilled patients and happy, fulfilled team and money just kind of shows up. So that's what I'm seeing. I'm seeing a lot of people stepping up at the leadership of my practice. And I'm also noticing like you, Peter, that maybe like me getting out of the way, because one of the things that I learned from my own culture index is I, there's this thing about like emotional units, EUs or battery life. And I tend to suck away, I suck a lot of oxygen up. I exhaust people, you know, and that awareness is good. So like giving people space so that you don't exhaust them and you let people flourish. It's like, you know, if you, you know what I'm saying? Maybe I'm not doing a good job of it, but it's like-

Peter Boulden
0:36:18
Well, I think it's when people don't have enough context of what the cultural index, and we're actually crafting a deal with that. But basically to give a little context to what Craig is saying, it identifies how much energy you have left when you start the day versus how much you deplete or grow throughout the day. And Craig seems to be the Energizer Bunny versus me. I'm in the kind of the mid range and he just wears me out sometimes. And he's identified that like, man, maybe I'm overwhelming people with my energy and I'm just being too much and too much. And I need really be identified that not everyone is built the way I'm built. And I can't expect the same things, right? And so again, that's another self-awareness that I think you're gonna be able to leverage. And just, even just to have, honestly, Craig, just to have some empathy and just knowing that, having the empathy of knowing that people are different, I think is another superpower. Being able to actually have different dialogues and approaches of conversations. With me, you hit me right between the eyes. You can hit me with a bullet point and say, I need you to do this.

Peter Boulden
0:37:12
And we'll have a conversation.

Craig Spodak
0:37:13
And me too, by the way.

Peter Boulden
0:37:14
Yeah. Other people you need to compliment and then it's called a shit sandwich. You know, like, oh, you know, you did so great, Sally, but I really need you to do this. Oh, but Sally, you're the best, right? You've got to buffer it. Sometimes people need to be doted on before they are willing to hear you. And so it's just, it's just fascinating. And we're getting all over the place, but. No, but I mean, that's, that's what I'm most excited for.

Craig Spodak
0:37:34
So like kind of stepping away, helping people get what they want and giving them the space to achieve it. That's what makes me excited. Like I'm excited about the growth of my team, the personal fulfillment of my team, because I do know I'm a business owner and I want to do well, but I do know that's the precursor to business success. So it's not like I'm saying like I want to make kumbaya and money doesn't matter. No money matters, but I just know that the cohesive nature of the team creates the opportunities, economic As far as what I'm worried about, Peter, I don't really, I don't know, I'm not really too, I'm not really worried because I've gone through so much shit and honestly, the things that really brought me to my knees, looking back at them, are the very same things that brought me the most amount of fulfillment. So if I could take a magic wand and have the ability to erase those things in the past that brought me to my knees, I wouldn't do it.

Craig Spodak
0:38:25
Right.

Peter Boulden
0:38:25
Because even though it sucked going through it, I'm most thankful for that.

Craig Spodak
0:38:30
So it's very strange. I wouldn't want to erase the bad shit.

Peter Boulden
0:38:32
Well, if you truly ascribe to what kind of Tony Robbins says, and I think I'd say, I've said that too many times on the podcast that life happens, if you can believe that life happens for you, not, not to you and you know, every, every daunting thing that's happened, Greg, and we talked about this personally a lot with you and I, just everything that was like, oh, woe is me. And oh my gosh, how could this happen to me? And why me? You zoom out a couple of years and you're like, that was one of the greatest things that ever happened. Like my wife having cancer, right? Recently, you know, like, even, and no one's probably heard that. Like, you know, we were dealing with cancer last year. And, and so it's like, woe is me. And now it's like, all these blessings are coming, you know, and back in 2015, everyone's heard that story. When, you know, like things were just, I was, I was just rocked and wanted to quit dentistry and all these things. And it's like all these silver linings. And I always tell people when they're going through things, just zoom out, just zoom out and have faith that things are happening for you. And you know, and yeah. And-

Craig Spodak
0:39:27
And having said that, by the way, cause you used to say that to me too, it just doesn't make any, it doesn't console you. You gotta go through it. It's like, there's a book, The Obstacle is the Way, you gotta go through it. But anyway, enough about that. So we're thankful for what we suffered through, for sure. So tell me, what are you feeling most optimistic for? What are you excited about?

Peter Boulden
0:39:45
Yeah, I'm actually really excited about a couple of things. Actually, I just evaluated another practice to acquire. You know, I think what, unfortunately, because I know I was excited about that, I'm thinking I'm gonna have to hit the pause button because unfortunately, knowing things now on a very deep level how to how to practices are evaluated where there's valuation is you know what they wanted and what I what I know it's worth is two different things so we're kind of getting there but it's a big practice and there are 20 operatories you know and but who knows what's going to happen but unfortunately when I look at it on an EBITDA level it's just not there yet versus what they need. So, so that I'm excited about.

Craig Spodak
0:40:29
And they're probably like, Ibida, what do you mean Ibida?

Peter Boulden
0:40:32
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Craig Spodak
0:40:32
Don't you see our top line?

Peter Boulden
0:40:34
And look, you never want to offend anyone. These are great people. I actually went to class, to school with this gentleman. Great guy. And you never want to offend anyone because they're great humans and great practitioners and just great for dentistry. But you know, unfortunately we're probably, anyway. The other thing I'm excited about, Greg, is I don't know if I even told you this, another one of my associates is wanting to join and we're going through the partnership process. So this will be my fifth partner. Yeah, we talked about it, it's awesome. Yeah, so he's, you know, and he gets it. You know how this people, he gets it from a business point, I mean, all of them get it, but like, it's just great to see like a thoroughbred that wants to join your rocket ship and understands the valuation, understands all the processes, understands the growth pattern, understands just the thing. Whereas like we all, some of my partners are super clinical. He actually really wants to lean in and help with business dev. And I'm really excited for him. Cause he's just, he's just, again, a great human, great clinician, great thoroughbred, all the things. I'm just so blessed that all these docs want to jump on. And we know-

Craig Spodak
0:41:38
By the way, I just wanna add.

Craig Spodak
0:41:41
I wanna add something that we talked about

Craig Spodak
0:41:42
a lot for those that are listening. When we're talking about buy-ins, we oftentimes use the analogy of like Amazon, I'm an amazon.com stockholder, but I own like literally like a hundredth of a percent. So in dentistry, the narrative is always, sorry, this car is going by. There's always this idea that like, I have to buy 51 or 65%, but like, you know, that's not, you just need a chip on the table. If you were in a multi-doctor practice or a larger practice that, you know, it's multimillion dollars evaluation, having a chip on the table couldn't mean having 50 grand or having a hundred grand of ownership. It doesn't matter if the practice does 15, 20, 30% of the next five years, no matter what your investment was, that was good.

Peter Boulden
0:42:23
Like, you know, I- Yeah, we talked about that a lot at Summit, Greg, where this, unfortunately, this, this, I don't wanna call it brainwash, maybe, but like all of a sudden partners, people feel like it needs to be 50-50. And I always tell people like,

Craig Spodak
0:42:34
well, that's because number one- Because the average doctor is single doctor. So how do you, you know-

Peter Boulden
0:42:38
But even in that scenario, it shouldn't be that way. And a lot of times, like, people don't want that big burden of having to buy 50%. Maybe they do, and that's a different conversation, right? If you're equally yoked and you really wanna run a row and all these things, but sometimes it's 20%, sometimes it's a 10% like you're saying. And it's just like you said, when an ownership chip on the table, wanna have some input, wanna be directive, wanna actually share some of the upside and invest. It's all about like you thought Amazon was gonna be worth more in five years than it is today. Correct?

Craig Spodak
0:43:06
Yeah, 100%, 100%.

Craig Spodak
0:43:08
Yeah. But the amount I put in was like-

Peter Boulden
0:43:10
So because of that, you invested. That's what I tell my partners. If you think we are going to flatline, do not buy in right now. Do not buy in because no one buys in for flatline growth. No one buys in for flatline revenue. But if you think we're gonna be worth more today in five years, you probably should invest. It's the same thing. And like you're saying with your Amazon analogy, Craig, you know, a fraction of, you know, a hundredth of a percent or 0.00001% of the company. It doesn't matter. The pie is really big. Amazon's pie is really big. It doesn't matter how much your percentage is. It matters if you've made it and you want to stay grow.

Craig Spodak
0:43:48
Yeah, I wish I would have actually invested more in Amazon, by the way. I had the capability to do that. And so it's like, for me now, it's like if I get an opportunity to work with a company, I'm like, you know what? I don't really need cash. Can I invest? Can I invest? It's always the same. I just love investing in businesses that I believe in.

Peter Boulden
0:44:04
Equity is the most expensive thing. So don't just offer up 50% of the practice when potentially that's not what the associate wants or whatever. I know we're getting a little granular in partnership stuff, but we did dive deep on that.

Craig Spodak
0:44:16
I also think it's important too. Like, look, I invested in Amazon with a very limited amount of knowledge. I use Amazon. I think other people use it, but I don't have real intimate understanding of how Amazon's doing this leap of faith. If you're an associate, you're working there right now and you're practicing, you've been there for two or three years, you can look around the rooms, you can see how busy things are.

Peter Boulden
0:44:34
You know the-

Peter Boulden
0:44:35
Insider information, insider information.

Craig Spodak
0:44:37
Literally, you'd be guilty of like SEC violations. You're not allowed to invest in companies that you're not a close holder of. So it's like, literally, you know perfectly. You've been there for three to five years. You can look around and smell and look around, okay, well, geez, Lucy's still here and Joanne's still here, this is doing better. Wow, look at last year. So like, I mean, put a chip on the table, put a chip on the table. And if you move to Hawaii or whatever, there's a divorce strategy built in, but I'm proud of your docs for doing that and seeing the future and seeing ahead, that's awesome.

Peter Boulden
0:45:08
Yeah, that has been the reason we have grown, honestly. Again, it's not me. I mean, maybe it was me in the beginning and the vision and executing that, but it's getting people on board that are just fully competent and all want to win together. And that's been my strategy all along. I would have been far less along, Greg, honestly, if I was a solo practitioner, because I don't have the gumption and the mojo like you have to kind of do that. And so, I need to kind of divide and conquer. And so, um, but, but knowing that about myself was why I onboarded, you know, first it started with Dr. Curry and another grunty Hamilton, you know, so I knew this about, um, and I'm, and I have zero regrets about it because they're just, they're just great, great men.

Craig Spodak
0:45:52
That's awesome. Same thing with the podcast, by the way, I just

Craig Spodak
0:45:55
spent my wheels. Same thing with the podcast. I mean, having a partner on the podcast, like, you know, being, you know, associated with you, it's, you get traction, you get shit done. So it's like, you gotta, you know, come in full circle, cover your weaknesses, know where you're, know what, know what you're not good at. It's freeing to know that. So what are you nervous about? What are you worried about? Are you worried about anything?

Peter Boulden
0:46:18
Yeah, really nothing with, yes, I am. But it's more nothing I have control over. It's a macroeconomic climate, you know, like I always talk about, and maybe I know too much about this stuff, but I'm worried about what governments are doing and what economies are doing and stock markets doing and the inflation is doing. I'm worried about all this stuff because, and as it relates to then people on our teams and stuff. So I'm worried about the government printing so much money that it's not gonna make sense for people to work or us being inflated out of having to pay more and more, you know, from a wage perspective. I just don't know. So I think I'm worried, Craig, of things that I can't control, quote unquote, and I can't control much. So I wouldn't say it's a worry. I just think it's something that's on my radar. And then, you know, how did you feel about with Peter Malouf that you spoke at our conference? Wasn't that good context? I'm not the most abusive person when it comes to like speakers. They're just like, yeah, that's good, good, yeah. But like that was probably, his talk was probably the favorite one I've ever heard in five to seven years.

12
0:47:23
Yeah, it was incredible.

Peter Boulden
0:47:24
So much so that we gave him a lot of amount of time and Kim was like, he's five minutes away from being gone. I said, you let him roll. You let him roll because the stuff he was just throwing down people was just blown away. And so- And really, the reason why I brought it up in the context of what you were saying, your fears, is just that he points out that people have an irrational section of fears around finances

Craig Spodak
0:47:48
and the economy.

Peter Boulden
0:47:49
And they have since the dawn of time.

Craig Spodak
0:47:51
Right. Right, so people just think that… And he's saying the future is brighter than you think is essentially what the takeaway was on a whole lot of levels. Yeah, like he was destroying or debunking a myth that, oh, it was better before. He's like, oh, really, it was better before? This is your average lifespan. You know, this is what, how many people were in poverty, so many people, this is what percentage of discretionary income went to food. So in the 1950s, like how little discretionary income you had, like you were actually spending most of your money on food and shelter. So, you know, and he talks about the assets of the US. Yes, we're printing money.

Peter Boulden
0:48:23
Yes, it's, but we have assets like in the population. And that was a feel good. The asset thing was a great thing.

Craig Spodak
0:48:31
Right, so it's just, he has an extreme ability to break things down logically. And when it comes to money in the future, it's always emotional, it drives us, it's always emotion. So it's cool to see that, that was cool. So not, but yeah, I agree that we're doing things now in the economy that we've never done before, but that's not what we're talking about here. But I recognize the fear, but I hope that his lecture put it to some level of context. That things are actually really, really good.

Peter Boulden
0:48:56
Yeah, but again, it's not a, again, clarify, it's not a fear, it's just what I'm concerned about, you know? And so, because I don't, I don't know. I think once you go down too much down a wormhole,

Craig Spodak
0:49:05
sometimes you get too much.

Peter Boulden
0:49:06
Yeah, you might be too much. But nothing I can do about it, therefore it doesn't drive my day. It's just, you know, as you said, as I knew the question would come back to me, what am I thankful for and fearful? Although I was thinking, what am I? And I was, that's probably it. And so that's a good thing to be fearful of because I can't control it.

Craig Spodak
0:49:22
Well, you're making moves, you're making moves though. You're not keeping a lot of cash, you're investing in assets. And if your inflation crisis comes to fruition, which is fair to assume inflation is gonna happen, you've done things that are stabilizing against inflation. And as inflation goes-

Peter Boulden
0:49:39
I am hedging massively against what my hypothesis is, right? And this is a hypothesis based on-

Craig Spodak
0:49:47
Even if it's just normal inflation and your fears never come, it's still a good idea. Because even if inflation is 3% to 4%, you're investing in assets and assets are illiquid. And when you have a lot of money sitting in the bank account you tend to make stupid decisions. So you're putting money to work for you. So whatever the situation, it's a good move. It's a real good move.

Peter Boulden
0:50:05
Yeah, yeah, it is. It is. I actually wanna make sure we have a podcast about something that I was talking to Trey about, Trey Miller, who's been on our podcast. We were talking about student debt and things like that. And I was saying, look, and this is a whole different podcast, but it was a great, it kind of blew his mind about a strategy I had to be getting out of debt and putting it in a tax advantage situation with paying off his student loans and converting it to some of his equity in his house, which I kind of want to talk about because it's a slick move that I utilize.

Peter Boulden
0:50:33
And maybe we can do a podcast about that.

Craig Spodak
0:50:34
That's very cool.

Peter Boulden
0:50:35
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Craig Spodak
0:50:36
Very cool.

Craig Spodak
0:50:36
You got me interested in that too.

Peter Boulden
0:50:37
I'm sure you will. Yeah, well, you don't have any debt, but a student debt.

Peter Boulden
0:50:40
So it's, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Craig Spodak
0:50:42
That's it, bud.

Peter Boulden
0:50:43
That's all I got, man. I think we were going to try to do a 30 minute pod and just kind of do a summit wrap. But of course, true, true to us, it's, uh, we go down lots of little tributaries of, uh, things cause we get so excited and the future is bright. The future is great. If, if, if the summit taught me anything, it's dentistry is just rad.

Peter Boulden
0:51:02
It's just rad.

Peter Boulden
0:51:02
People are bad ass and they come to summits and they want to learn and they, and they're very humble. And, and it's just, it's just bad ass. Like it just got me fired up again about the profession because we've been dark for so long, it feels like.

Craig Spodak
0:51:15
Yep.

Peter Boulden
0:51:16
Dark meaning,

Peter Boulden
0:51:17
Dark meaning haven't been able to partake in stuff, right? So it was just, it was just really fulfilling in my soul.

Craig Spodak
0:51:23
And you know, it's funny, Chris felt the same way. So Chris is in marketing, Chris has wrote that book, The Millennial Whisperer. He's in a total different genre and he's come to the conclusion after a year and a half, two years of working together, he's like, I want to focus my entire job and career on dentistry, because I love it so much. I love dentists. It's so cool to see him. It is cool.

Peter Boulden
0:51:43
It is cool. Dentists are awesome. Hi brother. Yeah, we are. I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip and let's wrap this one and get another couple on the books and let's get rolling.

Craig Spodak
0:51:55
Yes, sir. Let's do it. Good stuff, Peter. Thanks, man. Appreciate you. Yes, sir. Let's do it. Good stuff, Peter. Thanks, man. Appreciate you. Okay, buddy.

Transcribed with Cockatoo