Howard Farran's Unfiltered Advice: Why Dentists Need More Courage, Less Fear

Welcome to the Navigating Dental Insurance Podcast where we [music] don't take from insurance companies. Here are your hosts, Mr. Jordan Comtock and Mr. Ben Tuy. [music] This podcast is sponsored by BoomCloud Dental Membership Software, www.boomcloudapps.com [music] boomcloudapps.com and veraritoss [music] dentalresources www.veritas dentalresources.com. Enjoy [music] the show. What's up everybody? Welcome to another exciting episode of the Navigating Dental Insurance Podcast. I am your host today, Jordan Comtock. With me, I've got Tessa. She is hanging out because Ben is out on he's going to Florida having a

good time over there. Tessa, what's up? Oh, I think I lost her. >> Will rejoin us. That's all right. >> She got hit by liquid nitrogen. >> She got hit by liquid nitrogen. Well, we today we have an awesome guest. Uh Dr. Howard Farane. Howard, how are you, man? How you doing? >> Doing great, man. Loving life. Uh how's how is that a real live window? Is that a screen? That's a real live window. >> This is my background here. I'm over I'm here in Utah

and this is the freeway system. Welcome back. >> Where whereabouts in Utah? >> I'm in Lehi. Lehi. Yeah, Lehi. >> Yeah, right where like all the tech companies are. It's just kind of how it is. >> It's a Silicon Valley of dentistry in that area from Provo to Lehi. I mean, >> gosh darn. I mean, I I think the majority of high-tech startups in dentistry. >> In fact, I even wrote an article on it on in dental town uh years ago that Utah is becoming the

Silicon Valley of dentistry. >> There is so much dental tech here. It's it's weird. It must be the fluoride in the water. Just kidding. [laughter] They just took fluoride out of the water actually here. So, never mind. >> They did. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, no. Howard, I'm I'm so glad you're on the show. Tessa, welcome back. I introduced you, but you got cut off and spit out, >> buddy. You're good. Tessa, Tessa's joining us today. Welcome, Tessa. >> Thank you. >> So, Howard, we got some

questions for you because I mean, you you've seen the the dental industry for a long time now. H how long have you been in dental? Everyone knows who you are. >> Yeah, I mean I graduated in ' 87 and uh so uh you know that's uh most boomers I meet were born in the twos. They they they think you're old if if you're before the 2000s and I graduated in 1987 [clears throat] and the main things haven't changed at all. I I mean dentistry goes goes

all the way back to um I mean GV Black was the the founder of the American dentist but it goes back to France uh um Pierre Fischard and we were suh s bar barber surgeons and um and and he wrote a textbook on it and he was the first one to tell get the guys to say hey quit doing shoes and beards and bloodletting and all this stuff and let's just focus on dentistry and when a patient goes to the dentist and gives them a coin

and you get them out of pain, which in the early days was always an extraction, then later turned out to be a root canal and now it could be an extraction and an implant. Um, that part has never changed. And the whole 40 years that I've been in it, it it always gets messed up when instead of the patient paying the dentist a coin now you say, "Oh, well, you know, I'll buy my own car, but only only the insurance company can decide on what's going

to happen to my teeth." You know, I'm a victim to Blue Cross and Blue Shield or Delta and um and uh you know, same thing. So, you know, if if if uh and dentists did not go to school for eight years to be somebody's employee. I mean, that just and I and I can prove that because when I sat there in my dental office for four decades, you know, these kids would be in grammar school and they first they'd say, "When I grow up, I want

to be a dentist like you." And then maybe you refer them out to or get braces and they come back and say, "No, I want to be an orthodontist like the like the orthodontist." And you you send them to get their wisdom teeth. Oh, no. I want to be an oral and all the and then and then they come in and they're they're going to, you know, UFA or ASU and and um none of them go to BYU because BYU you just have to visit because

if you drive through BYU real slow with your windows down, they'll just throw a diploma in your back seat. You don't have to actually register and get a degree or anything. But but then but then they're coming from ASU and UFA saying Flagstaff saying, "Will you write me a letter? I want to get into dental school. I can't wait to graduate. Be just like you." And then the minute they graduate from dental school, >> their whole personality does a shift and goes from all excitement to

fear and they don't understand it's fear. So they start saying, "Well, I know I graduated May 11 and my dental office is open September 21st, but no, no, no, I I need more experience and I don't I don't want to dive in the swim pool. I just want to walk around it and dip my toe in it and I think I should get a year or two under my belt and I should learn how to do more root canals." And then they start just crazy Well,

I think I should get married. I'm like, you are married. Well, I think we should have a kid first. And you know, it's like [laughter] it's like, why don't you just say you're afraid? And that's the thing about fear is fear, you know, Justin Gates, the best UFC fighter that ever ruled from Safford, Arizona. He's our hometown boy. I've seen him fight in Glendale. Um, he won't even take a fight unless he's scared death. I mean, he would not sign up with with Jordan if he

thought, "Oh, I can beat up Jordan." If if he thought, "Holy Jordan's going to kick my ass." He he he says he needs that because that's what gets him to roll out of bed at 5:00 in the morning, do his five mile road work, and then and then um the Sugar Show. He's in Phoenix, too. Sugar The Sugar Show. What's his name? Sugar Sugar. Uh but um same thing. He won't fight anybody where he knows he's going to win. And and so it's really smart, successful

people. Of course you're afraid. You just got out of dental school. But no one fails. I mean, when you look at Bank of America and when you get a loan for a dental office, less than 1% go bankrupt or default on loan. In fact, it's not even close to a percent. It's like 0.57 or something like that. And everyone who gets who goes bankrupt had their license taken away. And usually that's going to be a wild activity involving drugs and sex and crazy stuff and hidden

cameras. And unless you're a freak, I I mean I mean I worry about my my four boys and eight grandkids when they're out driving on the highways, but I I don't worry about them getting their professional license taken away. And um so so your only fear is, oh, you dive in the pool, you're not going to drown. Your feet touch the bottom. you know, they're, you know, the dentistry is not going and and here's another thing about AI and all this stuff like that. All the

predictions on AI have been wrong. You know, when uh I remember when Jensen, the top dog of Nvidia and um >> Yeah. >> And it shows you how early we are in this cycle when a chip maker still thinks he's important. Remember, because I'm old. Remember from 94 to 2000, there are only four Magnificent 7. It was Intel and Microsoft. They called that Windel and Intel was the chip and then Dell whose father was an orthodontist um was selling the computers and then Cisco was the

routers and and and then the internet bubble popped and went to almost down to almost all the way to rock bottom and I think Amazon lost like 96% of its value. Yeah. And that's when the internet just started going and and all the great companies were built on top of the Intel chip. Intel. So, so, so the fact that everybody thinks Nvidia is the big deal, that's just like Intel in '94. It's like all the great AI companies in the world haven't even been launched yet.

And 10, 20 years from now, there'll be a magnificent the the the four horsemen like in uh Intel and all those or the Magnificent 7. There'll be seven companies in 20 years that no one can live without and you've never even heard of them to this day. I mean, you've never even heard of him. So, um it it's uh but anyway, one of Jensen said that the first first uh profession that's going to be eliminated was oral and maxillary facial radiology. >> Interesting. Well, he couldn't

have been more wrong because because the an oral radiologist's job is to talk to let's let's pretend Tessa is the the doctor referring you and you're the one the patient and my job is to explain to Tessna what this um blood work and and imaging and and what type of cancer and what stage it's in and what to do and my job but to read the actual X-ray. Obi-Wan Kenobi could read the damn X-ray. Who cares? and and and Jensen said that he thought they would

be eliminated and now there's a massive shortage of them because now that the cost of reading the C the CBCT or the MRI since it's so low now 10,000 more people are wanting there's oral surgeons now that said oh I would just have an oral maxacial radiologist read it if there was something serious now it's so cheap and fast they're just saying I want all my CBCTs read there's orthodontists that just say I take a pano seph on every start. I'm just going to So now

you have a shortage of oral. So So the main and Yomi Yomi is uh has placed 40,000 implants now and they're plus or minus a micron. There's no surgeon in the world that can do it that good. And they're scaling. So they're ne the time it took to go from 40,000 um to I'd say 20,000. The next scale will be 400,000. But there's eight billion people and and you still go to oral surgery school and we you still need someone you know there still needs to

be a captain of the ship. But I can see an oral surgeon >> 20 years from now. Uh just like a dentist has four operatories and each operatory is Obi-Wan Kenobi and R2-D2 and [laughter] you know doing the X-rays and doing all stuff. But someone needs to be able to talk to the referring Dr. Tesda and Dr. or boom cloud that uh hey buddy it's going to be fine and you know talking you know cuz they want that trust and what dentistry is like like a

lot of people ask me they'll say things like well how come you know you go get a uh a Manny Petty and she assumes that she's going to get a tip. You go to you go to a restaurant the waiter assumes they're going to give a tip. Why does everybody get a tip? But I'm a hygienist. I'm a dentist. I just shaved your tooth in the root canal. that hygienist just busted her buffer. Why doesn't she get a tip? >> And it's like be because it's

it's it's a completely different industry. Everybody at the at the Manny Petty and the restaurant knows it's a service and it's a service and it's retail and they're trying to upsell you. >> But in healthcare, they're not in that mode. They're in trust mode and they're thinking big time. Tesla, I hope you're saying I need a fluoride treatment because I need a fluoride treatment, not because you want $35 more dollars and you're paid on commission because if that's the going down, I need to find a

new hygienist. I need to find a new doctor. And um in dentistry was born, raised and will die in trust mode because some human has got to touch you, diagnose you, give you a shot, perform surgery on your teeth, and give you advice. And you know, I can tell if I need a manny petty or not. I can look at my fingernails and say whatever. >> So I guess the question is, do you need a manny petty right now? >> Yeah. you need, you [laughter] know,

you know when I need a man. Um, so the b the bottom line is um if if you tell me do I need a manny that I need a manny petty. Now I don't know why I need salt rocks rubbed into my cab, but I figure, [laughter] you know, it's an upsell. This is her deal. I'm not going to I'm I'm a millionaire. I'm not going to cheater out of a r salt calf rub, whatever. I mean, >> it's [laughter] worth it. >> I I always

say that or you can read my palm, whichever one. uh whichever one you prefer to do. Why don't you read my palm while you're rubbing sea salt in my calf? But but the thing is that um dentistry, if if I tell you that you got four cavities on your x-ray, well, you can't chat that. You can't Google that. You I mean, it it's got to be trust and and and these DSOs that you know, the dentists are scared and they're cranky and they're they're cranky because

>> student loans went up really high. They're graduating half billion dollars in debt. DSOs came out and that's competition. Four out of five dentists own their own practice in the United States of America today. Only 20% are DSOs. And you would think the dentist lost the race and they should just hang up their license and go get a job at Home Depot. I mean, it's just uh crazy and the DSOs are having their first pendulum swing because when when they had zero money from uh the

Federal Reserve for over a decade, how do you go wrong? But now that the cost of capital is a real nickel on every dollar, um now DSOs have to be profitable. And so you're seeing a lot of shakeouts. You you got three of them. You got the three three big ones right now uh that are um that are shaking out right now. And and that's um that's what you would expect. And I know the minute I said that I I should name them, but I I

want to um make sure I name them right. Um but um let's see. I just posted this uh on Dentl Town uh yesterday. Um Oh my gosh. Seems like on Dentl Town all they talk about is soccer. Um yeah, it was >> No, that's appropriate. Yeah. >> My gosh. And nobody has said the obvious that I look just like Erland Holland, especially with my my long [laughter] hair. But um Affordable Care, I I mean um I mean Affordable Affordable Care, Dental Care Alliance, Aspen Group. Um

the these guys are all trying to unwind billions in debt. Interesting. >> And um so but but that's not that's not even a dental story. That's a that's a finance story. Tons of companies borrowed too much money and needed uh outside investor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You go to Bloomberg. I mean, this is not a new story. So, dentistry is good. Their attitude is bad. They're mad at the ADA. There's a uh there's a really really um funny thread where um >> gosh uh let me see

uh uh but anyway, it's the uh president and I I I've been uh teasing myself that I'm going to push it out on social media, but I'm not uh because [laughter] I'm not I'm not uh >> around the ADA. Uh well, the president that uh where where the hell is that thread? Um um what uh but anyway, it's the president of the ADA having dinner with f [snorts] with four or five big insurance >> insurance. Yeah, I've I've I've heard a lot about that. Yeah, >>

let's talk about that because we got a big dilemma in the dental industry right now where growth revenue growth is is flat >> but costs are are increasing by like 4.9% over the past 5 years where revenue is at 1.4%. And I I believe a huge contributor to that is the the low reimbursements from insurance companies >> 100%. >> Yeah. You see it all the time. What do you think about that Howard? >> Yeah. Go ahead. >> No, no, Tessa. Tessa was gonna say something. Go

ahead, Tessa. >> I was gonna say I mean I the the low reimbursement rates are very hard, but I was gonna speak to what Howard's been saying is like the fear basis that these doctors kind of go into of like fear mode of like I and feeling like they have no control over those reimbursement rates and they start flailing out of control kind of trying to figure out what to do, locked into that low reimbursement rate and somehow affording to do it. So insurance companies I

think unintentionally hopefully um have created this dynamic where now quality care dentistry is going down because doctors are trying to cut in areas to afford to do dentistry in this box of the low reimbursement rates and it's very scary. It changes dentistry in a big way. Don't you think Howard? [snorts] I I I do um you know one you know couple one one thing I got to say first like take the fluoride treatment you know if you know dentists charge $25 $35 for that that that

could cut the cost of your hygiene in half if the hygi would you like a fluoride treatment your insurance doesn't cover it >> as opposed that's like an upselling that's what someone should say based on commission instead of just saying hey Tesla Um, I really think you need a fluoride treatment. You know, you've you've you've already had 13 fillings in your life. You have two cavities now. You have some root surface. You're telling me these are sensitive. And I really think you need to have a

prescription fluoride treatment. It is $35. I have no idea if your insurance pays for it or not. That's between you and Geico, but um I'd really recommend. And then they just say, "Yeah, because you said it in a high trust way." I tell I I tell patients all the time, they'd say, "Well, well, will will the insurance company pay for a root canal or an implant or an extraction?" I said, "Hey, buddy. Um, after I had four kids, I wanted a vasectomy, but my insurance would

only pay for a castration." So, guess what I did? [laughter] I paid out of pocket and I saved both my nuts. So, uh, [laughter] I don't really care, you know, what your benefit plan that's. That's between you and your boss and Blue Cross and Blue Shield. I don't give three shits. But this is what I would do. You know, you're a 25year-old kid. You don't want to lose your damn mer cuz you know what you're going to do with that money? You're going to go to,

you know, lake what's what's the lake up there? On a Hoover Dam. What's that big lake up there? >> On on Hoover Dam. Bye-bye. >> Lake me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lake me. Yeah. I said, "Because you're going to take all that money for the root canal and you're going to go to Lake me for the weekend, get a house boat, you're going to go to Disneyland, you're going to buy whatever, but uh you know what I say? Uh I say save your nuts and get

a root canal [laughter] and let's save that tooth." Okay. >> Yeah. >> And uh and when I say that like that and [clears throat] when I you just talk to him like you do your kids and um and once you establish that you're a high trust authority >> Yeah. >> you know, and I never got I never got sued. um by a patient because when they came in and they were upset and wanted their money back, I'm sitting there thinking, "Okay, Walmart refunds 1% of sales.

No question." You could buy a tent, go camping, bring it back with rocks and twigs and mud in it and show a tear. And they're like, "I'm not going to go into Tesla. I don't know if she's crazy. I don't know if she's legit, but we're just going to take it back." So, same Walmart does it because it's not worth the hassle, but a dentist won't give a refund. [cough] And [clears throat] then he goes to the board. Now he's got to cancel patients. He needs

to hire an attorney. >> Yeah. >> He's losing sleep. He doesn't love dentistry anymore. He's thinking truth, liberty, and just says, "God, all you had to do is refund a denture." I mean, I mean, come on. Come on. Just refund the damn denture. >> Yeah. So what I'm hearing Howard is that still that hygienist or the clinical person is presenting required treatment or highly recommended treatment from a fear basis that maybe the patient will turn them down or say that they don't have money or bring

up insurance care instead of addressing it from the necessary clinical aspect. there's still that underlying fear of like the patient's going to turn me down or the patient's going to stay this instead of being confident in our clinical good quality clinical care. Right. >> Yeah. I I watched I was in college for way too many years and some of my best friends good looking. Going to be a dentist someday. Just baller. They could have married any one of my five sisters. And they you go to

a bar and they couldn't even ask a girl to dance cuz she was afraid she's going to say no. Yeah. >> And I [laughter] said I said, "Look, that girl's she's 5 foot. She's 100 pound. She's not going to like shoot you. She's not going to beat you up. The worst she can say is no." And then my dad trained me that when I was a little kid, he said, "You know how he um he made me go um one of his friends, Les Donovan, was

having a Saturday course for a new car salesman at Pontiac in Witchaw, Kansas. And he made me uh he he talked to Less at church and le said, "Yeah, how you can sit in the back, but don't say nothing." And the main takeaway I learned was that you need 25 people to come on this lot and say no to sell a brand new car. So when someone says if test comes in and says no I was just looking like great that's you're number seven boom cloud's

number eight you know and I'm I'm getting my way to so you never lose that ambition of like Winston Churchill said success is going from one huge problem to another without lacking any enthusiasm or excitement or whatever. And uh people are so complex, but just like a dog knows that you're scared of the dog. They sense that fear and they treat you differently. >> Patients know when you're upselling, when you're scared, when you don't have confidence. In fact, I had one dentist that one of the

most successful dentists I know, >> he said he would never let anybody in his office present a treatment plan unless they had at least $25,000. If if they didn't have the amount of money that treat plan in their own savings account, you're just going to go like a like you're afraid of dogs and the dog's just going to pick up on this is way expensive and wayfair. And he said he had a um he had an older lady had paid off her house. She had paid

off her car. She probably had, you know, 100,000 in retirement and she could just go in there fearless to the dog and just say, "God, just imagine." And then I always tell people that it's it's not their patients fault because they're always going to say, "Oh, well, you don't understand. I live in Lehigh, Utah, where people people can only buy groceries if they get plasma." And it's like it's like, "Look, dude. >> Everybody I know, everybody I know at my age has bought one new car

in their lifetime." And a new car in their lifetime and and present day, which which mo some people say 90% of all Americans before they die will buy a new car. And the average value of a new car held for inflation for today 50,000. >> And right now, Clear Choice, >> uh, which added the, uh, procedonist, the implant surgeon, and the laboratory, >> they sell $25,000 an hour. They sell a $50,000 upper lower >> several times a day. They have a hundred locations spread out. And

then you say, "Oh, it'll never happen in Pennsylvania." Really? Well, let's go to the Clear Choice. I went to the one the other day. Um I was I was shopping for something else. I saw a new Clear Choice location. It was on uh McCormack [clears throat] and I believe uh like um POS and McCormack. And I mean the people walking in there are so excited. Every time one of your friends buys a brand new car, they always got to drive it by your house and show

you and you got to go out there and fawn all over it and lick the hubcaps and listen to the music. [laughter and clears throat] And um it's um and and then I'll ask Dennis, 95% of dentists will retire and they never did one new car treatment plan for $50,000. Now, do you really think no one in that doc's town ever got a new car? Do you think that women didn't buy a new car because they uh uh or or think think of the cosmetic surgeries,

a facelift, a tummy tuck, because they're going back to their high school reunion, their college reunion, some um I I'm on a diet right now just cuz my baby is getting buried at the end of uh next month and I just uh you know, and you know, so that motivates me. He's like, >> "Really? You can't quit eating Oreo cookies and rocky road ice cream for one month. You loser piece of fat crap." And and now, you know, I got my celery and my carrot stick.

And I called up Zachary on the way to work and I told him I give him $10,000 if he moved his wedding up till tomorrow so I could get off this damn diet. But the the the deal [laughter] is the the the deal is the deal is Clear Choice is a DSO. It's not even owner operators that have skin in the game. They're employees selling $50,000 treatment plans. Not once, not twice, several times a day, a 100 locations. And you, my scared ass doc, has never

sold one in your whole life. And you're going [cough] to the PY Institute. >> And you're going to Spear, and you're going to um who's the Greek uh um in Seattle? I love that guy. Co, you're going to all these classes. >> Dude, you don't have the balls to go to one of those classes. I went to all those classes. I went to Panky for five weeks, but I had my balls before I went there and I could look a person in the eye. And here's

how I would do it. I would when they come in, you know, I would just look at them and say, "Hey." I'd look in the mouth and I'd say, "Um, hey, you need to tell me what you want to do." I mean, okay, look, you're 30 years old. I see you've already got like 13 existing fillings. I see you got three new cavities. Uh, you need a cleaning. We can do that. U, but um maybe um maybe you just like to take all that crap out,

all that old stuff out and put it all in porcelain veneers. Dude, you would leave with a with a movie star smile. So, we're looking at I mean, do you want to do like the $1,000 whatever insurance once or do you want to do the $25,000 leave like a movie star? Now, before I even said that, I knew I had to say that seven or eight times before someone to get excited said, "Oh my god, I got I got a 25-y year class reunion. Oh my

god, I would love to walk in there with a movie star smile." And I go, "Baby doll, if you got 25 grand, you're going to go back with a movie star smile." And then and then that's the psychology. Now, now it's like they bill insurance. Who cares? Who cares what Delta does? And then the presentation which I was taught this in Larry Rosenthal's office. So you had me lecture at one of his extravaganzas and I stayed a couple days with him and and it was amazing

because the patient could not see the veneers till every employee was in the operatory and then they would show it and then EVERYBODY WOULD JUST OH AND IT LOOKED LIKE A IT LOOKED LIKE a gender reveal party except teeth flew out and they loved it and they told everybody and she probably went back to reunion feeling like a million bucks just like you feel like a million bucks when you get a new car. But see, dentists aren't going to do that cuz it's a lot easier

to blame the American Dental Association, Delta Dental, Blue Cross of Blue Shield. Uh, and I DSOs and I just tell people, you know what? Let's make this simple. Just blame your mom. She's the she's [laughter] the fool that had you. I mean, she she gets blamed for everything. You always blame everything on your mom. Yeah. Yeah. Forget the therapist. Just go straight to MOM AND SAY, "MOM, YOU ruined my entire life. I can't even sell I can't even sell fullmouth reconstruction cuz you didn't even give

me a decent set of testicles at birth. I mean, you know, just uh you know, just so so attitude [laughter] attitude is everything. And right now they're cranky and cranky is cuz they're scared and they're scared of DSOs. DSOs, you know, it's always the pendulum and it's coming back. When I got out of dental school, the bad guy was was capitation HMO. Oh, yeah. And then it was PO and now it's DSO and now it's ADA. I told ADA they changed their name to ADO, you

know, just [laughter] anything. >> And what is the mom? [clears throat] Just an O with a big M on each side. And [laughter] um you know, >> she just blame everything on her. So taking ownership as a dentist is uh and having a good attitude versus blaming is uh probably the right approach in this environment instead of blaming ADA and blaming uh PPOs. Take ownership and figure out how to figure it out for yourself. >> And you know I I have a lot of uh advantages

of from the law of unintended consequence. I didn't know when I started lecturing that eventually I'd get invited to 50 countries around the world. So you got to see a big distribution and America's got this big Henry Ford style production unit, four, six, eight, 12 optoatorries. Whereas you go to like Singapore and Japan, >> a dentist has one. You know, I'm a dentist. Here's my chair and I split it with another guy. I'm I'm here six hours in the morning because land in Tokyo is a

million dollars a square meter. But the bottom line is you saw this in co >> the honest government shut down all the dental offices while Costco and Walmart and you know anybody that had a anybody that had a functional lobbyist. Obviously the American Dental Association does not have sufficient lobbyists because I couldn't have someone come in my office for infection control for COVID. But then I could go to Walmart and Costco and push a card around a thousand people sneezing, farting, breathing, bumping into me. But

anyway, but during that CO deal, how many dentists are in dental town saying, "Oh my god, my patient called me up and um she's had a toothache and I told her we're closed, but I could go down there. I got a stair machine. I could go down there and do the root canal bell and crown, but it'd be $2,500 and I can't bring in my staff. I can't turn on the insurance. I mean, if you brought me down a [clears throat] check for $2,500 uh or

if they get their I'll do it." And then the assistant would meet there instead of paying your assistant $20 an hour. The dentist if she met there and they knocked us out and give her a couple Benjamins and and he'd do $2,500 and he said, "Wow, I was closed. I need $2,500." I mean, that was like $1,1500 of net income. And I see these individual dentists in Singapore where they got, you know, you come into them, this is their phone, this is their office phone, they

have one chair. um maybe their daughter after high school will come by and help for a bigger case or instruments. Sometimes the wife will stop by if they needed her for something. They only do about $300,000 a year, but they take home $225. >> Yeah. Yeah. And then I I'm over here and I see dentists doing a million dollars a year, taking home 140, and they have five times the volume exposure for root canals to fail, people to sue, board complaints, stress out of your mind.

And I I think that uh that dentists um dentists don't realize that dentistry can be a very efficient, fun game of volume. If you got the Henry Ford assembly line going on great and you got a great team, you can you can run that. >> But if that ain't your deal and you just got out of dental school and you just go to Gilbert and you just rent 500 square feet and put in one office and say, "Hey, I'm girly girl Dentl and I just got

out of dental school." And I I No, I'm I'm talking about these are Tik Tok videos that I see. and it goes, I just opened up and if you want to be my patience. And then I go and I I go check out their followers. They've only had this page like a month. They got 300 followers. Busy as hell. But when that person comes in, you I mean, you could open up and say it first, well, sorry, Tessa, I haven't figured out how to do insurance

yet. But for now, you're just going to have to pay me on your debit card LIKE YOU DO EVERYONE ELSE ON THE planet [laughter] and then file your return and um and and you know, and whatever. But but man, if you have no overhead and you have one chair, >> I mean, it's your game to lose. You can't lose. And I know people who kept that cur I know a girl in San uh Francisco, uh Gina, she she did that her whole life. >> She never

wanted the high overhead machine. Ryan and I went and visit her office. I mean, so so you're not going to go bankrupt in dentistry. >> You don't have to compete with it. I I actually love DSOs. I really do because I raised four boys and I told my boys I said you know you notice if you fall off your bike and break your arm and ambulance will pick you up. You fall break your head and ambulance pick you up. And Chandler Hospital is open 24 hours

a day, seven days a week and they land helicopters. But if you fell off this bike and broke your two front teeth out, there's not one dentist open. None of them are in the yellow pages. None of them get up their home number. All you can get is an answering machine. And it was and the first DSO that came here was Ed Silker from Minnesota and he opened up Sunshine Dentl and it had four locations and it was open 10 to 10, 7 days a week

and that's where I worked for 4 months while they were building my office and I told Ed I said you are the salvation because you always knew when the dental offices were closed and um you know you go to the hospital and in fact if I was going to start a DSO I would start one I'd call it emergency room dental And I'd go rent free space. I bet I could get because about 15 about 8% of the emergency room is a donogenic in order in

origin and they can't do anything. They could remove a tumor in my brain. They could do a bypass, remove my appendix, gallbladder, kidney stones, >> but a molar in your face, they're like, "Where did that come from?" I mean, what what [laughter] up with that? We don't know what to do. We're And um and I and then and then the and then when you have a busy emergency room, the receptionist could just stand up and say, "Hey, hey, if anybody if if this is tooth and

origin, you need to go down that hole. It's the first door to the left because the MDs uh don't do dental stuff." And um so so I'm sorry that you're scared. And by the way, the $500,000 student loans, that that's another lie. Let me let me tell you why that's a lie. There's two dental schools in my backyard. >> Sure. There's at still in Mesa. There's Midwestern Glendale. You drive through that student loan lot, it looks like a baller convention. You see Teslas and Range Rovers

and BMWs. And I thought, man, they must be the P faculty good. They're like, "No, that's the students." And then on spring break, they're always going on cruises and so you gave your daughter a credit card and you're shocked that she charged $500,000 on it by the time she got out. She could have got out of dental school for 140 if she took the bus, had an old beater car, no vac. And then they get out of school and they go, you know, I got $500,000

student loans. I said, yeah, but you had a rockar eight years [laughter] to get ready for now you're going to have to work like no man has for 10 years and you'll reap like no Dennis has for 30 years. And I'll say I'll say, you know, you need to buy a practice. Well, I don't know. So, um, you know, I'm I'm working for a DSO and I hate it, but we are buying a home in Gilbert. I'm like, how much is that home in Gilbert? Oh,

600,000. And I know your mom and dad. And you already had a baby in dental school. Your mom would kill to have you move in, no rent, no mortgage, no babysitter. They don't even want you to come home. Just go work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and pay off all your student loan debt. Oh, no. No. They they stay working at the DSO. Now they got $500,000 student loans. They got a $600,000 home in Gilbert. And if you don't believe me, I'll give

you the damn address. I'll all outer all outer on your podcast. No, I'm just kidding. But I I've seen it a dozen times. Yeah. >> And it's like, man, the the key to wealth >> is living below your means. And the key to a successful marriage, if you if you have two people that get married and they both live below their means, oh my god, there's no stress. But you get two people that spend more than they earn. They're always stressed at work trying to get

a raise. Oh, I want to change jobs. I'm making $26 an hour here. I think I get 28 hours here. And then he's like, "Well, I think we can get a job transfer. I got a job transfer to Utah. I'll make more money." Yeah, but now your mom's not going to babysit. So now we won't have a babysitter in Lehi cuz our gosh darn grandmother is in Gilbert and Mesa. I I mean just just as you know you know you studied the mouth for eight years

and if there's anything you learned about the lips what's the number one rule about the lips >> is you keep them together and shut the f you know just stfu [laughter] and go get a job and work and live below your means and treat other people like you want to be treated. And it was so easy for me to present a treatment plan because I always looked deeply into their eyes. And you know when I look deep into people's eyes, they look so beautiful because I

can always see my reflection in their eyes. And [laughter] um I >> think that's where you were going with that. >> And then that's what And then I would just I would just tell that patient exactly what I would want them to tell me. And imagine going to the doctor the dental way. Well, I don't want to tell her that. I could do all this. Well, one of the doctors says, "I can't tell Howard that he's 63 and he's got prostate cancer and liver cancer and

erectile dysfunction and and I'm I'm just going to tell him I'm just going to tell him he needs some antibiotics." I you know, no, I I don't want that, doctor. I want you to tell me straight what's going on and what would you do and what if if I was you, what would you do? And um and if you just keep it real and you just, you know, keep keep the authentic, passionate communication, treating other people like you want to be treated, but you got to

get out of the fear zone. And the whole world's living in fear. And you know, I've noticed that that um >> when I started traveling around the world, the first thing I noticed is like, you know, I'd always have Dennis picking me up on the other end. >> And I go I I told him I always want to sleep in their home, but I don't want to I do not want to sleep in a hotel. I didn't come to Indonesia to stay at a holiday in

I didn't go to Poland to stay at a high regency. I want to know what what Polish dentists do. I'll never forget I was in a merchand invited me in there and and I got up in the morning and uh I opened his refrigerator and I almost gassed because everything I was expecting in a refrigerator wasn't in the refrigerator. We're in Poland. It was sausages and different fruits and vegetables and plates and I was looking for a bowl and milk and some Froot Loops and uh

>> I was zero for three and uh but same thing and and going around the world and you realize they're all in the top 10% um they're all in the top 5% a year's education. They're all in the top 10% income. They all love their family. They nobody likes their government. I mean we've had 10% approval. Americans only 11% of appro of of of Americans have told Gallup that they approve of our government. Okay. Not so when people are saying well the government it's like the

government has sucked all the way back to the Roman Empire. It sucks in every country on earth. I've never gone to a country say well you know what's great about Finland is our government. Gosh darn those are some good smart hardworking. So it's not the government. It's not the oral condition. It's not, of course, they're humans and they're gonna eat sugar cane. Remember, there's only two animals that get into cavities, right? Brown bears cuz Winnie the Pooh eats honey and humans cuz we eat sugar. So,

we're we're fighting a completely preventable disease. You're bringing your daughter in and you're drinking a 64 ouncez thirst buster telling me that the daughter inherited your bad teeth. And then you're pipetting Pepsi into the infant's mouth that doesn't even have teeth. I mean, they're crazy wild animals. And I love them to death because if you woke up tomorrow in downtown Hawaii in Maui and you were the only human on Earth, think of how empty of an existence that would be. Yeah. >> Everything that's great about

life is people and everything that sucks about life is people. And everybody's going to be that. You're going to have you're going to have the patients you love the most. You're going to patients you hate the most. You don't have to reschedule the ones you hate. Uh you know and uh you know and uh and same thing you work at DSO. There's amazing DSOs, but there's amazingly horrible ones. But it's not about all DSOs, but I'll tell you about DSOs. I want to give you the

Burger King tip. You know, when the reason McDonald's became number one and the re and I went to Ray Croc, my dad had nine Sonic Drive-ins and I actually when I was like 10 years old, we went to a restaurant convention and me and my dad sat in the front row and I listen to Ray Croc and um and then Chick-fil-A come out and blew away. McDonald's is doing about three million a store. Chick-fil-A comes out doing 5 million and they're closed on Sunday because they

only give each franchisee one location. So, if you're ever going to feed your family, you got one location. So, the bathroom's clean, the lot's clean, there's no graffiti. It's perfect. Burger King, you can buy nine locations. You walk into a Burger King, I mean, you order French fries and you start eating those French fries, half the time you find half an onion ring in the French fries. The other time you'll find like half a tater tot. You go into the bathroom, it looks like a camel

just used it. Um, Subway. Subway. I I know I know a lady in Subway that owns eight of them. Well, you know, so when you go to the DSO and your [clears throat] office manager runs four locations, you need to turn around and run. When you go to a DSO and you say you want to meet the staff, you'll say, "Oh, hi Boomer. Boomer boom cloud the boom. How long have you worked here?" And if nobody's worked in that office for three years, you need to

turn around and run. And then you walk into this uh solo practitioner, owner, operator right next door, and his new hygienist has been there eight years. The office manager has been there 20 years. The assistant looks like she should be taken to a vet and put down. She looks like she's 103 years old. And that's a relationship trustbased business. And that's the part you're going to need a mentor. Like a lot of dentists say, "Well, I want to go work for someone who's going to mentor

me in implants or endo." No, you don't. There's 12 specialties. You're going to need 12 different mentors who specialize in this all day long. You can't have some general dentist doing endo on the side mentor you and endo. Are you out of your mind? You know what you need mentor on? Mentorship on trust, reducing staff turnover, having patients come back. I mean, I can't tell you how many DSOs they would come in to me from the biggest DSOs in Phoenix. They say, "Well, I went in

there and the first doctor said I had three fillings, so I need to come back and uh do two on the right and one left." Well, when I come in, I did two on the right, and then I came in to do the one on the left, but now that doctor's gone, and the new doctor says, "I don't have a cavity there, but whoever did these two fillings did them wrong, and they need replace, and I have another cavity up here." It's like, "What the hell?"

They run back to the office. They say, "What the hell's going on?" And it's like, well, they they're they're attracting, retaining young kids straight out of school, just like Walgreens. Walgreens got up to 8,500 locations and then got delisted and now private equity took over. Now they're down to 8,000 locations. And I could have called it 10 years ago. I remember one time I was going in to buy some magnesium. And my the magnesium uh deal I was reading on dental town saying, I forgot what

it was. It was like, you need magnesium oxalate, not magnesium some. There's like three different kinds. So, I walked into Walgreens and I got the magnesium and I walked up to the pharmacist and I says, "I think I need magnesium. I'm going to say oxalate. I'm not sure. Magnesium oxalate." And this is magnesium on oxalate. And I said I said, "Do you have the right one?" She goes, "No." She goes, "I'm sorry." She goes, "I buy all my vitamins at Sprouts. I mean, they they just

buy the cheapest, shittiest vitamins. Just go to Sprouts. If you buy a vitamin at Sprouts, it's actually the one I would recommend. I haven't seen a vitamin at Sprouts that I don't recommend. And by the way, when you leave Walgreens, you can buy a carton of Marboral cigarettes as you go out the door. And I thought, man, and it was 5 10 years later, delisted, closing down 500 stores. and and then the Walgreens um pharmacist that I knew the most that worked right next to my

office, the most coveted job was to get out of retail and go to the mail order machinery deals just so you have to uh deal with crazy people. And I just thought, man, there's something so structurally wrong. I mean, you be you're a pharmacist. Your job isn't filling a script. There should be a CAD CAM ATM OB1 Kenobi that has all the pills dumped in it and you say, "I need 20 Vicodinid." Boom. I need 20 penicellin. Boom. You know that because that's the oral radiology.

That's not why you went to school or you didn't go to far. Did you really go to pharmacy school for six years to go, okay, here's one pill, here's two pills, here's three [laughter] pills. No, you you went to pharmacy school to say, well, why why do you why do you worry about magnesium? And I heard, "Well, it makes you sleep better." Well, you know what really makes you sleep good >> is as soon as it gets dark, start winding down and go to bed and

wake up at sunlight. Cuz after you get after you get your early burner doesn't get to worm, it gets it gets um it gets sunlight to to hit you to suppress your serotonin because when sunlight's hitting you, there's no serotonin. So, when it gets dark, it starts oozing out of your bloodstream. And and when you're buying serotonin and you have a pharmacist explain, "No, dude, you don't need a pill. You need to get sunlight right when you wake up, right when it's coming up. That'll turn

off your serotonin. And then when it gets dark, it's going to come flooding out. You get sleepy. And when you look at humans that are very close to their circadian rhythm and go to bed within 30 minutes plus or minus every night when they go to bed and wake up their all cause morality is down like 20% their blood pressure their obese I mean I mean you you can't and if you want to wake up if you want to stay up till 1:00 and take dopamine

or serotonin and then wake up at at 6:00 and drink a monster and have a coffee. I mean I mean I mean we're beyond we're beyond a pill. That's the conversation I want to have with a pharmacist and I don't give a who fills the bottle of pills. I don't care if it was a spider monkey while riding a unicycle um filled the bottle. You know that that's that's not the service. >> Yeah. >> You're giving gold Howard. I love it. I love it. So, I

hope everybody is listening when they replay this like the gold you've been giving and I want to touch back on some of it just to make sure that people understand this awesome gold that you're giving like that clinical and clinical matters matters huge doing good quality dentistry and I want to get your thought on this too but that good quality dentistry and dentistry is not going away. We talked about it being fear-based, right? And then we also talked about early on, Jordan, those low reimbursement rates

kind of causing that that clinical care to go down, right? So, in medical there are um you're able to show that you are doing a higher standard of quality care and you can negotiate those reimbursement rates to be higher based on that higher clinical care. And in dentistry, we haven't been advocating for that enough. We haven't been doing that enough. And the doctors in turn are are in this fear-based and letting that drive their quality down instead of like you said um you said the difference

between somebody being successful is not based on um how many insurance companies they take. It's based on the fact that they deliver their treatment plans based on the quality of care they're providing, not whether or not their insurance covers it. Right? And so if we're focused on providing really good quality of care and then we are able to prove that and show that then we can negotiate those reimbursement rates based on our quality of care. And that's where doctors aren't sure how to do that. I

don't know if you've heard about this. I'd love your thoughts on it that because you're just giving so much gold today. Um that there's IPA groups. I don't know if you've heard of these. They help doctors show and improve that higher quality clinical care and then use that as grounds to reim uh negotiate the higher reimbursement rates and that can change the world of dentistry I'm feeling like so for good because now we're able to support that higher quality dentistry and like you said a lot

of them don't even have to build insurance you don't have to you can still be successful dentistry is not going away but we don't have to try to exile all insurance companies we just need to speak with them differently, show that proof of quality of care and then get them to reimburse based on that higher quality of care that we're providing. What are your thoughts on that? >> Yeah, I I I Well, I think first I think first of all, in my mindset, I always ask

myself, is this walking up the hill to the summit or is it going back down the hill to the parking lot? Obviously, doing this skill going through it. I mean, I got my FA GD, my MG. I mean, I would go through it just to learn all about it because it's a lot harder to submit the apex than it's just, ah, screw it. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go back down the car and eat M&M's. I mean, you're you're on a hike,

you know, go for the hike. Um, I still think that, um, you know, I mean, as far as what insurance pays, like I say, like on hygiene, if you just I mean, you could get a $35 co-ayment on everyone with a fluoride treatment if you truly believed it and it came from your heart and you said that and then that would cut the hygiene wages in half on fillings. Um, all my fillings are gold and if you can't if you can't convert upsell 10% of your

patients to from a filling to a porcelain inlay or an onlay on sak or gold, I want gold. And you know what I love the most about my gold? It's called the law of unintended consequences. The neatest thing about, you know, I got eight perfect grandchildren. And and for the first time in my life, I'm so glad that I didn't drown all four of my boys in the bathtub like I wanted to so many times. And you The reason you don't drown them is cuz the

grandkids are better. >> Grand kids. Yeah. >> And when they sit on your lap, they're so enamored with my gold teeth. They got to touch them and pull them out. And And Audrey went next door to tell her friend. And then her friend came over. both of them sitting on my chair [laughter] looking at my teeth. I mean, gold gold inlays and onlays. I mean, if you want to be a baller grandpa get gold and and so so if I just want to say this, if

you've never sold one new car's worth of dentistry, you need therapy, you need you need help, you got a bad attitude, um you you got depression, you got you know, you didn't fall in love with dentistry. And um and look how far dentistry's come. You you know that you know when we were barber surgeons when they would get done with the rags they would hang those rags up to to dry and they'd swirl in the wind. That's why when you go to a barber shop today

it still has that red spinning deal. That was to mimic the spinning red bloody towel drying out. And look how far dentistry has come from a barber surgeon to JV Black to today. And you're and and you're and the dentists are bitching more today than they were in Pierre Fishard's day. Well while while plagues are wiping out half the population, you know, I mean, you've never you've never had it better. I mean I mean could did you wake up this morning because you're living for four

years in a trench warfare during World War I or World War II? I mean I mean did you did you live in Kansas? You know, I grew up in Kansas and all I heard was about all I grew up hearing was about was a dust bowl and the Henry Ford plowed, you know, they they they they plowed all the soil. They got rid of everything cuz they could plow it down with this new tractor. Well, they got rid of all the soil, all the grass, all

the trees, and then the wind whipped up the air and that it was a it was a dust cloud for four years. When the cloud went down, onethird of all the homes were empty. No one saw a dog, a rabbit, a deer, a cat for years. And then people today are bitching about Delta Dental. Oh my god. [laughter] Oh, I'm so sorry. How could you be surviving through such rough times? It's all right here. It's all right here. Only focus on what you control. The minute

I find out I can't control it, well then it's it's like it's like the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean. I mean, I love both oceans. I love Antarctica. I love the South Pole. But right now, this is what I can control. the people that I work with, the people that I see, the the the person that lives in between my ears, what stories do I tell myself? Do I walk out every day and say, "Dentistry sucks." And then do I go hang out on some of

these? I mean, I mean, yeah, I own dental town, but I got 300,000 followers on Facebook. I got 47,000 on LinkedIn. I mean, 35, whatever. But in some most of those Reddit groups and Facebook groups, it's like you five people should just if you all just chipped in for a therapist, you guys can see one every day for lunch, just FaceTime each other with because you guys are seriously the sky fall and then and then you think that that's everyone. So you get onto a Facebook

group and the first five people say, you know, I'd rather have my head knocked off by a torpedo than do a, you know, whatever. But I I grew up my next door neighbor Kenny Anderson was a validictorian at Kraton University. He loved dentistry. I went to school at UMKC. By the way, all the girls in my class had bigger baller practices than their dads. And I think a lot of it's because I think a lot of the ones that that their dad was a dentist, they

were just coming out with the same beliefs and doing everything their dad said. But a lot of these girls were just fresh and they were just fresh and having fun and they crushed it. And you just need to get happy. You need to clean up the cobwebs in your ears. You need to realize that I don't care where you go where you go. I mean there what what's that country is? Um uh Jabata. It's it's the only country that's in all four hemispheres. North, south, east,

west. It's out there in the middle of Pacific. They have like a hund They have like 300,000 people. They only have eight dentists. My god. Why don't you just leave everything behind and be the ninth dentist out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with beaches and my ties and and just you know it it's it's all you're just having a bad attitude. So get your attitude out of gutter. Stop hanging around with people that are doomed. If if your five best friends all think dentistry

sucks, you need five new friends. >> Change them. Yep. >> Yeah. [clears throat] I I don't I mean I mean there's dentists that I block cuz every time they call it's just and it's always from all this stupid that they did. So it's like okay so you do stupid and then it catches up with you and then you want to interrupt me while I'm trying to be with my grandkids to listen to your And I tell him I said dude dude get a therapist. I'm not

your free therapist. I'm blocking you now. At least if you're a dentist, I block you. You know, I blocked you. In fact, I had an email the other day. Some guy, he said, "Hey, I haven't drank for three years. I went through therapy. I was in a really dark time and I'm good now. Will you unblock me?" And I said, "Yeah." And then I called him and we talked. And he's just in a dark space. But, you know, I can't fix your boozing. I can't fix

your bad habits. I can't fix that your five best friends hate dentistry. Um, just be positive, have fun, treat other people like you want to be treated. A >> and and worst case scenario, you're being going to be in the top 10% income and top 5% education. >> Wonderful. >> Cool. [laughter] Again, >> awesome. >> By the way, Tessa, your teeth are beautiful. You were born for dentistry. >> Was that all natural? Was that our Invisalign? Did you cheat and get braces or is that all

or is that all natural? >> No, I did have them uh straightened and I did have a fantastic um veneers placed. So, yeah, I love I love dentistry and I'm grateful for the opportunities we have to enhance things. Worked out very well for me. >> And see and see did do you love your smile? >> Yeah, I do. >> Yeah. How come? How come 95% of all the dentists have never sold one new car smile? Not one new car smile. Your teeth are gorgeous. And um

>> and I know Boomer here. I know his teeth come out. He's got a denture. I've seen [laughter] >> he he soaks them in a glass at night. >> Exactly what I do. >> But but but the b but the bottom line is bottom line is love dentistry. And the other thing when bleaching came out when bleach came out what did we do? We had everybody in the office bleaching their upper teeth and not their lower. Then we talked about bleaching. They would take out and

their uppers would look like yours and their lowers look like they were soaked in coffee and tea and tobacco. [laughter] >> And um when Invisalign came out, same damn thing. I mean, why were we selling so many bleaching cases and Invisalign cases? because everybody in the office and then I see on on like uh some of these Reddit groups people say, "Well, I work for a DSO and they don't uh cover dental for their employees." >> It's like it's like, do you know of any owner

operated dentist who's been running a practice for 25 years in small town America that doesn't offer free dentistry for their employees? >> Free dentistry. Yeah. And that's what happened for me and I use it as marketing all of the time when the patients start out just wanting whitening and then they come to the front and they would see me and they would say how do I get them as white as yours and I would say get veneers get crowns like that's the way to go and

we would sell a whole new case just based off of my smile as they left. So my doctor like was like it was so worth the investment to do your veneers because we sell case after case for that. So yeah, >> very good. >> So I just want to end end this in one thing. It's I don't want you to do something new. I don't want you to add something new. I want you to subtract I want you to subtract people in your life. When you

pull up to your dental office and you see that car and I don't care what your hygienist receptor, you go, "Oh my god, there she is again. My god, I hate that woman." You don't pay a woman you hate >> no >> to play with in the sandbox. I used to stress me out. One of my big stress I had to have Dennis in town where they had boys the age as my boys and some of them their boys were like best friends with my boys.

Then other ones my boys just say well we don't we don't like those boys and it's like I can say well tough I like the dad and he's bringing him over here and you will it's like I had to I just had to sit there and say okay I need to go do something with him at his place whatever because my boy you know and and and it doesn't matter there's no right or wrong. You don't go to religion and politics and law and say they

just I mean if you go work in office and everybody listens to country music um you know they um um you know I don't listen to country music but I don't want to uh I I don't want to make anybody feel bad that listens to uh country music. I just I I mean I don't know if it was congenital. I mean they might have been born that way. Um you know they might have had a head injury. They might have fallen down on a rock. But

the the bottom line is, you know, it's just your genre. If you like country music and bowling, you should have worked in my office. If you hated country music and bowling and softball, I mean, for for two decades, all they did is country music, bowling, softball, and if you were uh you know, uh what's the new one now? Paddle Creek, paddle ball. P What's the new one? >> Whatever. Yeah, I don't even pickle ball. >> Pickle pickle ball. And maybe you're a pickle ball girl. And

there's nothing wrong with being a pickle ball girl and and maybe you like rock and roll, but if you need pickle ball and rock and roll, you need to find a culture that's like that. And sometimes it's it's personal. Like I know a receptionist the other day and she's so down and depressed and everything. And her 24 year old son still lives there and he won't get a job and he won't move out and all that stuff like that. And I said, "Well, you don't you

don't have a man in the house. You can't you don't have an uncle." I said, "Then call the police. Call a lawyer. have your son serve that says, "Look, I'm tired of your Get out of my house because you'll be doing him a favor." And but but you need to subtract what what's what's taking the smile off your face. What's taking the smile off your face? And um and and that's why I love continue education the most because as much as I loved >> going to

Carl Mish when he was at University of Pittsburgh, seven three-day weekends once a month for seven months, looking back, oh yeah, I fell in love with implants and Carl Mish and all that stuff. But it was the three or four guys that you were going back with every month that was the the relationship. Same same thing every this guy uh yeah this guy um building uh building your uh practice in Atlanta uh went down there for that symposium. Absolutely loved it. Brought my staff. But the

fun of it was going with the dentist who lived four miles down the street who was telling me for 5 years, you really need to go to this guy in Atlanta because uh you you don't you don't know how to answer your phones. You should be recording your phones. They should all be answered. And so I waited 5 years. I didn't want to go. Had the most fun, you know. So I that's why I joined my the the AG and got my F AD and MAG

because I realized wow every time you go to a course there's this one group of guys that are always there. Those are your AG trying to get fellowship and they're always upbeat and positive and you were sitting by some negative Nelly on the first half that was interrupting half the lecture telling you how much everything sucked in dentistry and how the sky was falling. It's like like I have empathy for you, but I'm selfish and I need to suck the positive energy out of these out

of the AG group. I don't need to be drained by some doomscrolling negative Nelly club. And I assume that, you know, everything's ying. Half the dentists love it and are going for it and half the dentists hate it and think the sky is falling. Go to religion. I mean, my gosh, you go to religion. 20 my my two older sisters are Catholic nuns. I swear if 10 Catholics open their mouth at the same time, two of them were talking about the end of the world. It's

like, okay, I don't want to start my day about the end of the world. Okay, I want to start my day on, you know, positive and um, you know, so so every finance, there are Wall Street bears who have been calling for the Great Depression the whole 40 years I've been following them. Okay. I don't need to hang around with perpetual bears, you know. So, just be careful of who you hang around with. That's who I'm talking about. >> I love it. >> I I love

this advice. You You've had so much practical advice >> uh for our listeners on running a practice and mindset and being with the right people. I think that's like everything, right? cuz I've I've woken up and some days running my own business and you know there's those people that I didn't want to be with and they made it miserable today you know I I run a a a lean team and I I absolutely love coming in and that changes everything you know for us running practices

and business but Howard I really loved all of your practical advice um and I hope our listeners uh gain some value listening to Howard and his experience in in this dental space for as long as you've been in it. And once again, Howard, I I really appreciate you coming on the show today and sharing everything. And we hope everyone has a rocking day. >> All right. Well, if you're ever feeling down, you know where to call. We'll do round. >> I'm gonna give you a call.

Just don't block me. Yeah. [laughter] >> All right, guys. Thanks so much for having me on the show. It was truly an honor. Thank you so much. That was awesome. >> Awesome.