Podcasts about gary it

On our website: https://www.thebereancall.org/content/t-mcmahon-gary-gilley-part-2More topics on our website: https://www.thebereancall.org/topicsFree eBooks: https://davehunt.orgDownload our app: https://www.thebereancall.org/appFollow us on Social Media: https://www.thebereancall.org/socialTom: Thanks, Gary. Our guest today for the second week is Gary Gilley. He's the pastor of—Gary, tell us the name of your fellowship again. I…Gary: It's Southern View Chapel. It's a small community right outside of Springfield, IL, and our church is named after that community. So it's an independent Bible church.Tom: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And Gary's the author of a number of books—actually a series of books that we offered until one went out of print, but it's available for free, and it began with This Little Church Went to Market. The other books are This Little Church Stayed Home and followed that--the latest book which we have-- is This Little Church Had None. Gary, I can't wait till This Little Church Had Roast Beef!

Welcome to the Selling from the Heart podcast with Darrell Amy and Larry Levine as they feature Dr. Gary Sanchez, an international speaker, author, a dentist for over 3 decades, and an inventor who discovered the 9 WHYs and developed the WHY Operating System (WHY.os).He is known as Dr. WHY and he is the founder of the WHY Institute, who also developed the WHY Discovery Tool. He shares that knowing your why attracts the people you want to do business with because they believe what you believe too.Gary discovered that there are just 9 WHYs that drive us, and if you find yours, then you can start connecting with people on that level, create trust, and you guessed it, sell from the heart. Find out more about the WHY.os and how you can start articulating your beliefs so your prospects will choose you!HIGHLIGHT QUOTESAlign your heart, head, and hands to sell authentically - Gary: "It goes back to some of the things we did in my dental practice, which we talked about; head, heart, and hands, right? If they're all in alignment, then it will feel right emotionally, it will feel right. But one of the things that are always important to me is the sequence. The sequence in that we think about things. So I wonder if the head, heart, and hands are in the right sequence. Should it be heart, head, or hands? If it feels right and then you know it's right, then you're going to do right."Sell to people with the same beliefs, but know what you believe first - Gary: "I started talking about what we believe. When you start with I believe, that connects to the limbic brain of the other person. And then they can say “yeah, that's what I believe”. I'm in, Or No, that's what I don't believe, I'm out, which is also okay. Have you guys ever had a bad client? Yeah. And what is that like? How much fun is that? None at all. They don't believe what you believe, so that's why that's so valuable. And if you're in sales, being able to articulate what you believe is so powerful to attracting the right people to you." Connect with Gary:LinkedIn | WebsiteLearn more about Darrell and Larry: Darrell | Larry | Website Selling from the Heart Experience tickets available HEREPlease visit WHYINSTITUTE.COMClick for your Daily Dose of InspirationCheck out the 2023 Authentic Selling ChallengeGet your Insiders Group FREE PASS here

In this episode, we meet ‘The People Mechanic', Gary De Rodriguez. He is CEO of Peopleistic LLC, who partner with small to mid-level organizations to resolve and evolve their people-centric issues in strategy, leadership, operations, team performance, and project execution. He is also Associate Professor at The Business Education Institute, is a Master Trainer in Humanistic Neurolinguistic Psychology and has coauthored ‘Humanistic Business: Profit through People with Passion and Purpose. His knowledge and skills in Business and Psychology allow him to offer services in Business Consulting, Brand Consulting, Training, Change Management, Leadership Development, Team Building, Public Speaking, Corporate Training, and Life Coaching. John and Gary talk about how his career developed, familial trauma and relationships, alignment with our true selves, the nature of partnership and limiting beliefs. KEY TAKEAWAYS Gary started out running the first AIDS educational seminars in San Diego during the early days of the epidemic in the 80s. This is when he started studying Hypnosis, Psychology and then Humanistic Neurolinguistic Programming. Our trauma is often triggered in a partnered relationship as this is where we become most vulnerable. If we are out of alignment with ourselves we start to seek outside of ourselves for the something or someone to make us feel whole. The role of the villain in relationships always shifts back and forth as we search for a hero to heal our trauma. Own the fact that you are the architect of your emotional states. We are all here to be loved, seen, appreciated and made psychologically safe. Challenge your belief systems. If you think you don't deserve it, then you will only see evidence to support that preposition. BEST MOMENTS ‘I was so driven to try to find something that would help because so many people were dying and no one was doing anything. The Government did nothing, they never funded any kind of research for about seven years into the epidemic.' – Gary ‘Wherever love is present, everything unlike it shows up. At some point in time, we get triggered by being in a one-on-one, partnered relationship because that's where we show up in our most vulnerable states. Our original wounding always comes from our family of origin.' – Gary ‘It's really getting into that aligning with yourself and understanding who you are as a human being.' – John ‘You have to own the fact that your emotions are your construction because you created the meaning that you're ascribing to the outside circumstances.' – Gary ‘When someone drops the light for themselves you have to hold up the light for them so they can remember who they are rather than look at them and condemn them.' - Gary ‘One of the things we have to remember in our relationships is if we do not have our own self-leadership, we don't learn how to manage the complexity of how we are creating our day-to-day subjective experience.' – Gary VALUABLE RESOURCES Company Website: https://www.peopleistic.com/ Gary's Course: https://garyscourse.com/ - coupon rg100 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garyderodriguez/ Peopleistic's Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/peopleistic/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/concentricshow/ Link to my workshop -   https://www.johnkennycoaching.com/5- things-you-need-to-create-a-healthy-loving-relationship/ To get in touch - email – john@johnkennycoaching.com  or book a complimentary call – https://calendly.com/johnkennycoaching/30min If people want to order a copy of the book then they can just pay postage of £4.95 (RRP £8.99) - www.johnkennycoaching.com/podcast-book-offer Want to be able to address the relationship issues in your life? - Why not book in for a complimentary call and we can discuss how you can get the new started with some new types of relationships - https://calendly.com/johnkennycoaching/30min   The Relationship Guy Podcast - https://omny.fm/shows/the-relationship-guy           ABOUT THE HOST   I am John Kenny, Award Winning Relationship Coach.Coaching people to experience healthy loving relationships. Having spent a life choosing unhealthy relationships and self sabotaging my own success, I now coach people to live a life they choose. www.therelationshipguy.co.uk   CONTACT METHOD   Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/johnkennycoaching 
 LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-kenny-coaching 
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 YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHTj9x6Tlo7lcIJITyx-tgQ   Clubhouse - @relationshipguy  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John Burns co-authored Big Shifts Ahead: Demographic Clarity for Businesses, a book written to help make demographic trends easier to understand, quantify, and anticipate. Before founding John Burns Real Estate Consulting in 2001, John worked for 10 years at KPMG Peat Marwick—2 as a CPA and 8 in their Real Estate Consulting practice. John Burns founded the company to help business executives make informed housing industry investment decisions. The company's research subscribers receive the most accurate analysis possible to inform their macro investment decisions, the company's consulting clients receive specific property and portfolio investment advice designed to maximize profits. Gary Beasley is CEO and Co-Founder of Roofstock, the leading online marketplace for buying, selling and owning single-family rental investment homes. Recognized as a leader in the future of real estate, Roofstock was featured on Forbes' 2019 Fintech 50 list. Gary has spent most of his career building businesses in the real estate, hospitality and tech sectors. After earning his BA in economics from Northwestern, Gary ventured west to earn his MBA from Stanford, where he caught the entrepreneurial bug and still serves as a regular guest lecturer. Immediately before starting Roofstock, Gary led one of the largest single-family rental platforms in the U.S. through its IPO as co-CEO of Starwood Waypoint Residential Trust, now part of Colony Starwood Homes. In this episode, we discuss the current state of the real estate market and the economy more broadly. Gary and John share their thoughts on what has been happening year over year in the housing market; what 40-year highs of inflation, rising interest rates, and geopolitical unrest mean for real estate investors; and highlight some of the risks that investors are faced with today.    Episode Links: https://www.realestateconsulting.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/john-burns-real-estate-consulting/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-beasley-956647/ https://www.roofstock.com/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me I have two very heavy hitters in the real estate space. John Burns, CEO of John Burn's real estate consulting, and Gary Beasley, co-founder and CEO of Roofstock. So without further ado, let's jump into hearing their thoughts and opinions around what's been going on in today's real estate market.   John Burns and Gary Beasley so happy and excited to have you both back on the podcast. Thank you for taking the time to hang out with me today.   John: You bet.   Gary: Hey, Michael, great to see you.   Michael: So I of course, know a little bit about both of your backgrounds and who you are. But for those of our listeners that might not be familiar with who you both are, if you could give us a quick two minute, two second intro of who you are, where you come from, and what it is you're doing in real estate and John, if you want to go ahead and start, that'd be great.   John: Okay, I'm the CEO of John Burn's real estate consulting, I founded it back in 2001, to figure out what's going on the housing market for a lot of people, mostly big companies and that's what we do.   Michael: Love it and Gary?   Gary: Sure, I am Gary Beasley, I'm the co-founder and CEO of Roofstock and we've been at this for about six and a half years now. Building out really the complete ecosystem for single family rental investors and I've known John now, I think, John, since about when you started the company, it feels like we've known each other for a while we when we I think when we met we we both had dark hair. Remember that?   John: It's been a very long time.   Michael: That's great. Well, I wanted to chat with you both around a lot of things that I've been getting questions about, and I'm sure that the two of you have as well and that's just kind of what's been going on with the housing, market and economy over the last couple years since the pandemic started. So I would love to just jump into things get into the meat and potatoes and get both of your thoughts on really year over year, what's been going on at the macro level in the housing market.   John: Well, I guess I go first, if you let me go back maybe three years, so but pre the pandemic because I think it's relevant. The housing market was extremely hot. We have a different view than a lot of people on on how undersupplied the market was, we don't think it was I just applied at all actually until about 2019, then it started to be under supplied and with interest rates. So damn low everywhere in the world, people had figured out that single family rental housing was a great investment just to get some yield and we were seeing a lot of investors come in to the market, then COVID hit so you know investors are very volatile. They stopped for a few months, and then they came back very strong and probably the biggest difference in the last year is the fear of inflation has piled in on top of the need for yield and it's double the reason to invest in rental homes. So we're seeing money from all over the world focused on housing in America.   Gary: I would agree that clearly the residential market has been booming and I would say despite a number of factors that you would have thought might have slowed it down. We went through a global pandemic, and housing chugged right on through and we could talk later perhaps about why some of those things happen. But the reality is really kind of across price points and geographies. You've seen robust demand for housing and if you look at price increases year over year, John, I know you track the SFR space really closely and it kind of mirrors what's been going on even if you look at owner occupied sales, but home prices have been going up call it 15 plus percent, year over year, pretty consistently. That's a big number, when you think about historically, it's been about 4%. If you go back 40 years on a compounded basis. That's how it had been up until fairly recently.   So a lot of you know in rents have lagged that a bit but you've seen high single digit to low double digit rent increases as well in a lot of these markets and so in oftentimes, I feel rents are a little bit of a lagging metric because especially a lot of the mom and pop owners don't raise rents every year don't raise them, really even to market so we're seeing a lot of homes come to market today that have rents that are 10 or 20%, below where the markets are today. So, so you've got just a lot of demand for the product and, you know, we're at an interesting time now, and I'm sure we'll talk about, you know, some of the current dynamics in the market, interest rates have moved up quite a bit in the last, you know, month to six weeks, we've got a lot of interesting things going on geopolitically, we're not yet seeing that impact, demand or pricing. One would think that those factors should that have an impact over time. But for now, I think just the supply demand dynamics very, very much in the favor of demand over supply.   Michael: Okay. Interesting and I'm curious to get both of your opinions on this, I mean, we are at such a unique time, kind of in history and curious to know your guys's thoughts on do you think that real estate investing fundamentals have it all shifted because of where we find ourselves today? John, I'll let you go first on this one.   John: I don't know if the fundamentals have shifted, because I've seen this game before. But what is different is that by investing in rental homes has become a very easy thing to do, thanks to Roofstock and others. I mean, prior to 2012, you couldn't get on your computer and figure out exactly how much a home was worth and how much it could rent it for in about five minutes, you can now there's all sorts of vehicles where you can invest in funds and completely passively invest in housing and I think it's become an asset class that really was very illiquid, and pretty lumpy before that now has become more liquid and I think that is a permanent change in the market, doesn't mean things can't go down. But I think it's actually had a permanent positive increase permanently on home prices.   Gary: I would agree with John, I don't think the fundamentals, I don't think the fundamentals of real estate investing have changed. But I would say perhaps some of our maybe preconceptions or assumptions about how it would perform is I kind of mentioned earlier, or maybe a little bit challenged, and that there's just so much demand for the product and in the pandemic. You know, it was almost counterintuitive that home prices would go up and rents would go up. But when you think about the fact that people really demanded shelter, safe shelter, and there was an exodus of from a lot of the coastal cities to secondary and tertiary markets drove a lot of that demand. So but I think still, the fundamentals of real estate are very much about location and supply and demand. Those things, those fundamentals I think are true. I think one of the things we're seeing though is perhaps there are different things get that can drive, demand and pricing for different types of real estate assets. So if you look at for example, housing, and industrial, which have done quite well, throughout the throughout the pandemic and the aftermath, and then you had some real estate asset classes that really suffered, because you look at office and retail and and REIT in hotels, things like that. So it's it. I think real estate broadly can be influenced by different things. The fundamentals of each have to be examined, but certainly for housing. It's been it's been very strong, despite what might you might have considered some some headwinds.   Michael: Okay, interesting and you both touched on inflation in the conversation thus far and so I'm curious to know, how much of the demand do you think is being really driven by inflation? And do you think that folks are right or wrong to be considering real estate investing as a hedge or as a defense against inflation?   John: People's expenses are going up and your investments should beat inflation and nothing in the treasury market does it in fact, nothing in the high yield bond market pretty much does it now too, I don't know how you earn returns. But this was going on pre COVID and that's why I mean that there was a surge of money coming into the market pre COVID. We at our conference at the end of 2019, we had Bruce flat, the CEO of Brookfield asset management, who at the time manage more than $500 billion was fundraising all over the world and he literally said that this is the most significant thing he seen in the last 15 years, is everything that produces cash is gonna go up in value, and that was pre COVID and so that this this has just got even more accelerated because inflation wasn't even part of the equation. Now if you're now if you need to beat inflation in your return and inflation is right now the latest print is seven 8% where you're going to get seven or 8%? And so housing, if wages go up which they are, you can raise rents, if the cost of the structure going up is going up, which it definitely is, every single component in the house has gone up, their cost of construction has gone up at least 10% in the last year. That's an inflation hedge too, because nobody's gonna replicate what you own for the same amount of money. It's very much an inflation hedge.   Gary: Everything points toward continued inflation, in my view in the housing market. Now, that being said, interest rates going up, you would think should moderate that. That's an offsetting influence, but the cost of the inputs, the labor and the materials, clearly upward pressure, everything that's going on in the world, disrupting the global supply chain, and the cost of transport and all that putting upward pressure, Pete wage inflation to keep people in their seats, and to hire people. That's allowing people to have more and more money to spend on housing that's also pulling pricing up. It's hard to see how much that's going to, in an absolute basis reduce the price of housing, I do think that we will see some moderating of the rate of inflation of homes over the upcoming quarters and years, I think that 15% is gonna come down naturally. But I don't see, I don't see it coming down to the point where it actually reverses and you see absolute price declines, like we saw in that really unusual time in the Great Recession, which was, arguably a once in a generation adjustment to housing prices there. I think, a lot of fundamental differences between what we're seeing today and and what we saw back then this is not a credit bubble.   John: So I agree with everything you said until this is not a credit bubble. I mean, maybe you meant a credit bubble on housing, because I agree with you.   Gary: That's what I mean, I mean that there's a lot of embedded equity, as opposed to people, you know, having 3% or less equity in their homes, they've got 20 plus percent equity. Now, you can talk about the I wasn't speaking to the global kind of free money, credit bubble, but…   John: Well, that's a I think there's a credit bubble going on in the world on pretty much everything else. I mean, Dodd Frank, made it impossible to do it on a mortgage going through a bank. But people are lending against crypto, it's the highest borrowing and stock prices ever. We're seeing deals even in single family rental that well, I would say are being done with pretty much no due diligence, because it's a mess piece. So there's a little bit of equity in front of me and what I worry about is a recession caused by a credit bubble outside of the housing market, which impacts housing demand and you know, that's when housing was struggle, but I think everything else in the world would struggle at the same time, maybe even more, so. So I'm not, I'm not saying get into stocks or bonds, because it's just that, that that's what caused the great financial crisis, and it was housing last time. I think it's other stuff this time. We were seeing flip flipper loans are being securitized on Wall Street. I mean, there's, you know, I see that in my business, one of my clients is lending against crypto balances. You know, I think another famous person just came out and said, if you've got if you can put up crypto, I'll give you the value of your crypto to make a down payment for a house, that there's some different stuff going on. That concerns me but not on buying rental homes or Roofstock more concerning on the economy.   Michael: Okay and so curious, John, just, you know, personal thoughts. What's a good defense?   John: You know, normally it would be cash, but holding on to cash it goes down 7% in a year. So I think Howard Marks who's a famous investors calls this an everything bubble. We're in an everything bubble right now and how do you invest in an everything bubble? I have no idea. That's why I run it…   Gary: Maybe maybe negative interest rate German bonds don't seem so crazy.   Michael: Yeah.   John: Well, no, exactly. So, so if you're, if you know, in the coming world, losing 3% is probably a good deal relative to everybody else if that's if that's how that plays out.   Michael: All right, well, keep both you keeping your eyes and ears peeled and let me know if you hear something great for hedge against the everything bubble, I'd appreciate it.   John: Well, it's it's still specific. I mean, that that's what the smart people aren't doing. They're just, they aren't going to do just a sector. They're looking at everything carefully and in this industry, if you don't have a lot of competition going around where you're making investments, that's a far safer place to be if there's some great job growth in your conference. In a job growth because those employers are profitable and making money and going to be there all the time, that's a different story than the job growth being in a sector that's currently losing money, for example.   Michael: That makes total sense, that makes total sense. I'm curious if we could take a step back and understanding that neither of you work for the Federal Reserve, but I'm curious to know your thoughts and kind of get some insight into? I mean, you talked about the wage growth going up, and then the cost of goods and services going up? How do we not get into this upward death spiral? And I know, Gary, you mentioned, you know, raising interest rates could curtail that, but it seems like there's just so much money out there how to, how do we kind of ease down from this?   Gary: Yeah, well, I think there's it I don't know, if there's been a tougher, it's never easy being involved with setting Fed policy, but you have a lot of things to balance here. This is a tightrope act. So you want to slow the economy here, enough to curtail inflation, yet, not necessarily throw it into a big recession, you've got a lot of things going on overseas, that should you could argue are already going to cause things maybe to slow a bit because of what's going on over there. So do they need to pump the brakes as much here. So maybe that means that the Fed doesn't raise as aggressively here and what that may mean is, you know, rates grow a little bit more slowly and maybe the economy tends to overheat despite the global weakness. So it's a really, really challenging balancing act, I think that the Fed is under enormous pressure to curtail inflation and so I think, despite that, we'll probably err on the side of pumping the brakes a little bit heavier, even though that may mean we're risking recession. That would be I'd be curious, John, if you have a view. But if I had to, like on the continuum of what they're more worried about right now, normally, they're, you know, I would say that they've been historically more worried about not wanting to put us in the recession. But we've never, in a long time had these sort of inflationary pressures and in particular, where I think people feel it, it seems to be at the gas pump, right? We're always talking about fuel prices people feel that very deeply and there's a lot of political pressure, even though the feds, in theory, a political, political pressures tend to work their way into those decisions.   John: Yeah and my 30 plus years of paying attention to this, I've never seen the Fed more politically tied than they are right now. They frankly, they seem to me to be puppets of elected officials. I mean, the fact that Powell had to announce for months and months and months, they were going to raise rates, but never raised them once until he got reappointed will tell you something. So I mean, I always honestly think it seems to me like elected officials are calling the shots right now and I think the ultimate fear is a recession or we want to get inflation down, because inflation isn't good either and then, you know, the way I think about this, too, is there's, if you really talk about people's true costs, there's a huge variation in inflation. So if you're a homeowner who owns your car, you know, your your housing costs haven't gone up at all, maybe you got a little bit of a property tax reassessment, you haven't had to go back and purchase a car or release a car and if you are close to work or working from home, frankly, your cost of living might be down over the last year or two.   If you're somebody who's commuting to work, Rance had to you know, really your lease was up had to get another car. I mean, your cost of living can be up to 15 to 20% and the Fed seems to be focused on those people, rightly or wrongly. But that that's how I'm thinking about this is it's a huge difference in what's actually happening depending on what you are, and then the wage growth. You know, if you're in the hospitality sector, you haven't seen anything. But if you're a construction worker or a truck driver, your wages are up dramatically. So and those are the ones I that we're seeing that are buying homes, renting homes, people that are affluent, able to work from home, hey, I can I can now go out to the suburbs and rent a really nice house and my housing costs are gonna go down, not up because my boss says I only need to come into work twice a week. So it's it's very complicated story on picture painting here, but that's exactly I think how the Fed is looking at it.   Gary: Yeah. And then you also have, obviously those who own assets versus not I mean, this is similar to what John was talking about, but not only can you have the cost of living impacted a lot, a lot less if you own your assets. But in fact, John, you may know this figure I read it, I think last week, some fairly sizable percentage of the US population made more off of their homes this year than they did from their jobs. The power, the power in an inflationary environment of owning assets, it's kind of hard to overstate it. That I think one of the reasons, I think we're seeing more and more kind of first timers wanting to own their first investment property, even if they aren't in a position to own the home they're living in right now. Going to some of these lower price markets, and getting on the ownership bandwagon and just writing that asset appreciation. It's, you know, it's a powerful force.   Michael: Yeah, absolutely.   John: I think you were going to say, it's a powerful drug.   Gary: Well, some people do become addicted to it…   John: We're starting to see that. So people are taking the $200,000 in price appreciation of their house with a refi out of their investment, and then using it to buy three or four more homes, right, that that's what's going on right now. So it is it is addictive.   Michael: Yeah. That makes total sense.   Gary: Yeah. Well, it's been it's been a, a tried and true, a tried and true way for real estate investors to make money, right is to buy that first property, refinance it, take that money, buy more properties and build. But I think, John, to your point, what's happening is, a lot of people are doing that with their primary home equity to get started, as opposed to being more of the intentional investor who just started to do that, I think more and more people are doing it with, you know, equity in their homes, which I think in many ways makes a lot of sense from a diversification standpoint, rather than having so much of your wealth, personally tied up in a single property address, where you happen to live, where you're really subject to the vagaries of your local real estate market, local job market, all that kind of stuff, because that's where you tend to work to diversify into other markets and other assets, I think does make a lot of sense.   Michael: John, would you agree?   John: Yeah, no, diversification makes a lot of sense. I just, I also think it makes a lot of sense to watch how much leverage you've got and to make sure you've got the cash flow, you know, just in case something bad goes wrong. And I think people that are investing like that, and doing exactly what you're saying, are going to be great. But last time, what we saw was, people just were ignoring that and then you lose your job, and then you lose your tenant, and you're your host. So you got you got to be careful here and I think the more I'm a generalized a little bit here, but the more mature people that have seen this before doing that, and I'm sensing the younger people only think home prices only go up and I are more willing to take more risk than I would recommend.   Michael: John, kind of to that point. I'm curious to get both your guys' thoughts if someone is taking out equity their home, because interest rates are so low, and they've seen the value go through the roof and they're going to go buy investment properties. What's the harm? What's the risk there? I mean, and how does someone know if they are over leveraged? If their cash flow is covering their mortgage payments? I mean, if the value dips, nothing really changes for them from a payment standpoint. So how should people think be thinking about being over leveraged or how much risk is too much?   John: I mean, that's a very personal decision for folks. You know, confidence in your employment situation is probably the most important thing and depends on what you do.   Gary: Yeah, I think, Michael, I mean, to your point, as long as they think it is an important point, in a rental home portfolio. Yeah, even if prices drop of that home and you've got a fixed mortgage, your payments don't change, right and unless rents come down, which they traditionally have not, they tend to be more sticky in single family rentals than say in apartments. We followed a lot of that data over time. So you should be okay. Even if on paper, the value of your home, your rental home has gone down. But I think in the primary residence, which is where John I think was going is if you let's say you have you know, 60% equity in your home and you lever it up to 90 through various means, then all of a sudden, you may be at a point where if you lose your job, and you don't have the reserves, you may be in a little bit of a tougher spot because you don't have that home equity to tap, which historically has just been a really nice thing to have as as a safety net and so when that if that were to happen you might have to sell some of your other properties or you have your equity elsewhere and it's not like you can't necessarily get at it.   But I do think in times where you do have some uncertainty, some global uncertainty and some things like that, having some reserves, make sense, not being over levered, make sense, play the long game, I think that's one of the things that we talk to people a lot about is, this is not a, you know, get rich, quick fix and flip, you know, strategy when you're buying investment properties?   Michael: Are you serious?     Gary: So over the long run, Michael, you're going to do just fine. But you have to be patient. So no, but there's plenty of there's plenty of ways you could make bats to win quickly win or lose quickly. But that's generally not what people are doing with us and I think there's times when people are more risk on is a lot of confidence to maybe lever up and things like that, I think this is a time to be more a little bit more thoughtful about all about leverage ratios and so yes, you give up some levered return, potentially. But if you're in a, I would argue if you're in a place where home prices are going up at such an extraordinary rate, you don't need as much leverage to get a phenomenal return. Even if you're only 50% levered, and your home's going up seven or 8% a year, that asset level, you know, obviously, you're doing much better than that, and the return on equity level, so I would say just don't get greedy. It's a long game and you know, make sure you're, you're around to, you know, fight another day, in case there's any sort of corrections.   Michael: To play the end of the game.   John: I mean, that that's the perfect, that's how I see it, too, is cut the long game. And that's how everybody who's been doing this for decades will all tell you that that's exactly the way to play it. I am I am seeing and hearing and running into 20 somethings who aren't listening to Gary's advice and I have no idea if that's 1% of the market or 40. But they're out there and fortunately, they're not getting loans from banks that 90% LTV, at least that I can find, so that's, that's good.   Gary: I mean, Michael, you talk to a lot of people all the time, what is what is your assessment are people do you think people are thoughtful about this? Do you think that is? Do you agree with John, that people who might not have seen a down cycle might be overly optimistic or do you think that they're better informed?   Michael: Yeah, you know, I think it's really a mix of the two, I think that there are two big camps. One camp says this is going to go on forever and that tends to be the folks that haven't seen a recession before and then there's the folks that say, you know, we're it's got to come down at some point and so let's just kind of see what happens and those tend to be the more seasoned folks. So I'm curious, I'm curious to get your guys's thoughts on for those two camps and someone who's just trying to get started trying to get their foot in the door? How should they be thinking about that, is this something that they can kind of catch on the upswing or is do they really need to be a bit more timid and reserved and say things are maybe a little bit too hot right, now let me let me just take a seat on the sidelines and see how this all plays out?   John: So we've been calling this the high risk high reward the part of the cycle now for 13 months. So I would have told you 13 months ago to be cautious and the person who would have taken a lot of risk what I made far more money than the person who listened to me so but that's how these things play out at the end at the end of the cycle. When you take a lot of risk you should make a lot of reward right? But you know, you also need to know when to take some chips off the table you know, unless you believe we're never going to have a recession again which I don't believe that and then also what Gary said has been very true for single family rental rents. The rents have been very stable over time compared to apartments because there's basically been very little construction of rental homes forever and there's always been a ton of construction in apartments and that's when you get hurt killed is when you know three huge apartment complexes open up down the store down the street totally empty and have to lease up 500 units you're done that even though billed for rent is growing pretty significantly in Phoenix right now it's still a lot smaller level of supply than apartments. So this is a more stable investment than comparative some other rental classes for sure.   Gary: Yeah, it's it's really we like to say it's a lot easier to go up then sideways because if you could you go vertical with apartments and it takes a lot more land and it's typically much more difficult to add the single family rental supply and then over time, you also have more than one on exit on the on the rental homes because you could you could exit to a yield investor or ultimately, an owner occupant. So that's I think one of the things that I've always liked about single family rentals is you've got built in optionality. It's very rare in a real estate investment, to have two very distinct buyer sets on the back end, right. You have an office building, you're going to sell it to an office investor. Same with a hotel, they would, but so this is, you know, I think a unique aspect of single family rentals, which gives, you know, it kind of gives investors a bit of a of a hedge.   Michael: Yeah, that makes total sense. Curious, what do you tell investors who come to you and say, John, Gary, you know, I can't seem to break in, all my offers are getting outbid by all cash offers that are 10 to 15% above asking, I can't go that hi, how can I get my foot in the door? What should I be doing? What tactics should I be using?   John: I mean, I might be the wrong person to ask because my clients tend to be very large companies, and this is for their capital partners, this is less than 10%, or maybe of what they're investing in the spectrum of certainly less than 20%. So they may be all in in this industry. But it's it's not, what you're alluding to, is maybe somebody with 100% of their net worth or 80% of their net worth getting in. That's, I don't advise on that, I mean, people are building rental homes, with the appropriate amount of leverage in good locations. That's where we're coaching people to go, there's also people building rental homes, with a lot of leverage in tertiary locations, right, where there's a lot of other construction going on and that that would be to me a higher risk scenario. I think I think there's room for 100 unit rental community, brand new built in every city in America of size, because you can pull it there's 1000s of people that rent ratty old homes with lousy landlords, and there's a percentage of them that would really love to rent something new. Well, and what's your biggest fear is the tenant that said, they're going to sell the house you live in it, you're gonna have to move out? Well, you know, if you're in a rental community that's owned by a public REIT, they're not selling the house, you know that that fear is gone. They may charge you a little more, because it comes with better service and other things. But I think that's a tremendous long term opportunities to build rental homes.   Michael: Interesting perspective, Gary?   Gary: Yeah, well, I would say, people should do their research, and be patient, be opportunistic, but but not be afraid to act with conviction when they find things that make sense for them and so I think, what we find is, on Roofstock, a lot of times people will come and they will look at properties for months and months and months and talk to people and kind of develop their strategy and eventually, something is going to hit your radar, that's going to check most of the boxes and in this market when that happens, as long as you've done enough work to kind of know this, then be ready to act, you know, I wouldn't recommend somebody come and buy the first home they see because then you're not you just don't have enough data. But when you see where these things are trading and all that, and so that's why I say you know, be disciplined, but also act with conviction, when you find something that does work if you do want to get exposure.   Otherwise, you could sit back and just sort of watch things. But you can also wait a lot of times with stock market, also people want to buy on a dip and just wait, maybe there is a little bit of a correction and that could be a time for people to want to wade back in. The challenge with waiting for a dip is, as John pointed out, there just hasn't been even throughout COVID there's been no dip, it's just, you know, been up into the right and, and so, you know, I don't recommend people just, you just buy because of the momentum, right? You want to, again, you want to feel good about the markets you're buying in and the home that you're buying. But also, it's really hard to time a market. It's just it's almost impossible. So heard that that's why overtime, we recommend people not, you know, even if you're only in a position to buy a home now once but, you know, have a design to own a portfolio of them over time and buy them at different points in the cycle and over time you get that market exposure. It's just, it's hard to time your ins and outs perfectly.   Michael: Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Well, I'm curious now to get your guys' thoughts and opinions looking forward, which I know is always a dangerous thing to do, but I'm going to ask you both take out your crystal ball and in talking, John, you mentioned about new newly built homes built to rent communities and so I'm curious to hear your opinions around, if the housing starts that we're seeing, since COVID, are going to have an impact, you know, several years down the road 8-10, you know, 5-10, eight years down the road, kind of like we're seeing now, as a result from the 2008, lack of home starts.   John: Yeah, we've done more research on that than anybody else. There's a couple people with some very simple analysis that says we're short, about five to 6 million homes. I think we're short about 1,000,007, which is still a lot of homes and that's not the same shortage in Buffalo as it is in Dallas. So you know, this is we've got the numbers by market. But at a high level, if we're short, 1,000,007 homes, there's 1,000,007 homes that have brand new homes that have paid for our permit that haven't been finished yet. So we've got all of that under construction and it's taking about nine weeks longer to build a house for the best production builders in the country. So this is taking a very long time, so it's going to be at least a year before we satisfy that, because there will be some growth along the way, too. So I'm not what is different about this cycle is the lack of construction. But what I want to point out is there's this notion that the low level of supply just means that this is almost a sure thing and I think the most important thing for housing has always been job growth always, even rates can go up dramatically. But if everybody's got their job, okay, we're, you know, maybe prices will be flat for a while, but we'll be fine. It's when you see massive job losses that we cycle down hard.   So that's why I was I was bringing up earlier the whole credit cycle issues. You know, know, if we if we knew exactly how much debt every company had in every industry had and how much they could cover their cash flow, I think I'd have more certainty. Some analysis I've seen is there's quite a few publicly traded companies that aren't currently generating enough cash to pay their debt service. That makes me concern they're not in the housing industry. In fact, the homebuilders have never been better capitalized like, they're amazing. They have the lowest debt levels ever and the bonds that oh, yeah, and the bonds they borrowed, they don't mature for like four or five or six years. So I mean, the homebuilt talk about a safe play, in terms of going through the cycle, I think it's the builders. I'm not recommending stocks, because I don't do that for a living, because I think all of this is priced in. But I'm telling you, publicly traded home builders are very, very strong, right now.   Gary: Yeah. You know, it's interesting, because John does such good research. So I have no reason to doubt the million seven. But I have seen, you know, estimates between four and 6 million homes deficit in in. So I don't know what the right number is and I'm sure that the method, there's methodologies that but but it's still, it's a couple of at least a couple million homes. The question is what, you know, what does that mean, going forward? Do we catch up as quickly? Can we catch up in a year or two?   That's, I think, optimistic. I think it'll be interesting to see if we do. One of the things that John mentioned was job growth, and that historically has been a real driver. What I think is so interesting now is jobs are so distributed and because companies are adding jobs doesn't mean the jobs are going to be where the companies are located and that kind of makes everyone's head explode. If you're trying to forecast, what's the impact of job growth, it really comes down, arguably, more to population growth. So local jobs are one thing and some things have to be localized, right? If you're going to work at a hotel, the hotel is in a particular place, if you're going to be a software engineer, working for Apple, you know, maybe you could be anywhere or any of these other places and so it's a it's a different calculus than I think it was 10 years ago of treatment, trying to forecast job growth from companies and then okay, well, people are going to need to live within a 30 minute commute or 45 minute commute it that's all upside down. So I think it does bode well for some of these secondary and tertiary places that have seen disproportionate growth. But then you also have these places like in Austin that continue to explode and arguably housings no longer very affordable but they keep building more houses and people keep buying them and keep renting them and there's plenty of land in a place like Austin and so I think almost looking at where taxes are low, and people can still get relatively affordable housing almost seems to be more powerful than local job growth. But I'd be curious about, you know, John's view of that.     John: No, he's right. There's a there's a large sector of the economy where you can live wherever you want and I mean, we, we've been doing this since before COVID, as I was never, never believed that all the best people to hire on the world, we're always within commuting distance in my office. So we've been hiring in good locations, and but you got to get the right person who can do that and companies have figured that out now. So your it is about a great location, it is about where I can get a lot of house for my money if I'm a tenant, or if I'm a homebuyer or I can pay lower income taxes, or I can have better weather. So it's really the same place as people were moving pre COVID. It's just more people have been given the permission to move. So you're right, the job growth. It's pretty correlated to the metro area. But I would say the more outlying areas should see more price appreciation, and they are seeing more price appreciation right now, because more people are being allowed to go there.   Michael: Okay.   Gary: Yeah and it's almost interesting. It's a little bit like the job, the jobs are almost coming with the people. So you think of a place like Boise, Idaho, where people move there not for jobs, necessarily, but because they could bring their jobs with them and they all had all this embedded equity in their homes for more expensive markets. So now you have all these people moving into a market like Boise, and you get incredible growth in the prices of homes in Boise. But now people are working from Boise. So are those jobs created in Boise are there jobs that now exist in Boise because it was inexpensive, and it's a nice place to live?   Michael: Yeah, I was gonna ask John, does that make it kind of squirrely to nail down that job growth metric because of this new phenomenon?   John: Yes and no, so there's two jobs surveys, there's one where they call the employer and said, how many people did you hire this month? That's based on where the employer is located. But the one where they call people and say, are you looking for work or not, that comes up with the unemployment number, that's where you live. So actually, we always triangulate the two. So I'll use my example. So we perfect example, I'm in Orange County, California, we hired somebody in Boise, but she could live anywhere. She's showing up on my here in Orange County on one survey, and she's showing up in Boise and the other, so you just you need to look at both the sample size on where the company's located is higher and better and the unemployment number at the Metro levels more volatile. So you got to look at a trend over time and not just overreact to a month or two.   Michael: That's super interesting. Okay, and great to know, too. So, the last question I have for you both, and I think I already know the answer. But for everyone listening, I'm gonna ask on their behalf and your guys' opinions, have there been asset classes that have become more valuable and less valuable as a result of the pandemic and if so, what, in your opinion, are they?   John: You can handle crypto, Gary. I am not going to touch that one.   Gary: Why don't you start then?   John: As I as I said earlier, I think new technology which was not around prior to 2012, has allowed the single family rental business to just blossom permanently And it's, it's now gonna be a permanent part of people's portfolio passively investing in real estate And that has already pushed up prices more than it would have been going forward. Whatever price appreciation would have been otherwise, it'll probably push it up a little bit more. The only thing you have to concern to certain yourself where there is, you know, the government doesn't like that And they tend to be pro homeownership. So you gotta watch regulation. I am seeing a lot of our clients tend to avoid California because they're afraid of rent control. So and there was just a Bloomberg article that 12 Different states have had rent control proposed because of all of this. So you just got to keep your antenna up on on that side. But the rent control is being proposed seems to be more reasonable. It's at the rate of inflation or maybe 1% higher than that, that you can raise rents. It's not, you know, zero or something ridiculous.   Michael: Okay and what in your opinion has been devalued or become less valuable, if anything?   John: Um, I can't think of anything that's become a …Cash!   Gary: It's it makes sense, right? I mean, you're you're losing. I mean, John, John mentioned, if you're literally if you have money sitting in your checking account, right now it's point 001% and we've got 678 percent inflation, that's how much you're losing by sitting in cash and so that does create a risk incentive to put it somewhere. And you know, I would say, Michael, I mentioned this earlier, but I think housing and industrial, which is driven a lot by distribution for E commerce, a lot of those have been really darlings of, of, for investors, they've become very much in favor and I do think you're still seeing some challenges with in some questions about office space demand and you know, not that there aren't always office investors, and there are always going to be people in offices, but there's probably structurally some percentage of less space that companies are going to utilize and so that puts maybe some uncertainty into the minds of investors, if there's another I think, I think a lens people investors are looking at today is okay, there's going to be another pandemic someday, what are the likely implications of this and, you know, office, retail, traditional retail was hurt by the pandemic, but it was also being crushed just by Amazon, right, and so you, so that's, I think, got its own challenges. And then hospitalities is very cyclical anyway, if people stopped traveling, you know, they didn't travel for a while.   So those those I think are, you know, maybe a little slightly more challenged than housing, which is, which has proven to be much more resilient than, than I think most people thought and, as a consequence, you have a lot of a lot of investors, not just, you know, traditional or not just individual investors or institutions from here. But yet people from all over the world saying, well, US housing looks pretty interesting, relative to other places that they could invest.   Michael: Yeah.   John: There's something we take for granted here called Title laws that don't exist in other countries. I mean, people in other countries don't want to buy real estate there, because the government could take it away from them. You know, and I hear that from foreign investors. That's one of the things that they love about investing in America.   Michael: Pretty scary notion if you had to be overseas   John: …Or get I should have mentioned everything that Gary said to I mean, there's a lot of huge funds, pension funds, who like to put a percentage of their assets a 10% in real estate all the time, and it would traditionally go into retail and office and hotel. Do you think they're ever going to go back to the same percentage of retail hotel and office? Probably not, it's going to be far more in this business. Because retail is now industrial. I mean, it's a warehouse and in line, you know, the best retail centers are all going to be fine in the best locations, but they're in line space is dead. So, so you're right, that's gonna push more money into our business.   Michael: Okay, well, guys, this was super informative. I know I had a lot of fun. Hopefully our listeners did, too. If people want to learn a little bit more about each of you, where's the best place for them to do that?   John: Oh, we've got a website https://www.realestateconsulting.com/ I post pretty regularly on LinkedIn. So you can look up John Burns on LinkedIn and get some free stuff every day.   Gary: I love the free hoodie that you got right there, Michael. John, I know you've got a Roofstock hoodie as well. I don't know if you ever wear it.   John: I do, I should have bought it today, I'm sorry about that I should.       Gary: So yeah, I think I would just encourage people, if they want to learn more about what we're doing at Roofstock just come to https://www.roofstock.com/ you could also follow me or hit me up on LinkedIn, I post pretty regularly there as well. But yeah, and keep checking out the podcast I know Michael's been doing a great job along with Pierre and the rest of the team here trying to get they couldn't get any interesting guests this this time so they got John and me but I know they've been otherwise doing getting some pretty interesting folks and doing a great job.   John: Well I saw that you're then the one of the top 1% of podcasters in the world. Hopefully we didn't push it down to 2%.   Michael: A filler episode though this this was great you guys. Thank you so much for taking the time and I very much looking forward to chatting again as we continue along this crazy trajectory that we're on.   Alright, everyone that was our episode, a big thank you to John and Gary for taking the time out of their extremely busy schedules to hang out with me and chat about what's been going on in the real estate market and where we might be headed going forward. As always, if you liked the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever it is you get your podcast, and we look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing…

Gary Piazzon is the founder of Porter, a new breed of online travel agent matching you with the right hotels. He's a serial entrepreneur having previously started a direct-to-consumer subscription business and prop-tech business. He also has 11 years of experience with an FTSE 100 company working across product, marketing, business consulting, and finance roles. Gary Piazzon is the founder of Porter, a new breed of online travel agent matching you with the right hotels. Listen to this episode to find out more about the intention of the company. We also discussed topics like: how did the pandemic affect the company and investors. Advice from Gary: It's a great journey, but it's definitely not for everyone. Books: Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh contact Gary via Linkedin or e-mail: garypiazzon or gary@portertravel.co.uk more about the company: portertravel.co.uk --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/innovationfriday/message

1. Ride-along 警民共乘 本集的名称ride-along是这样的。芝加哥警界有这样一个传统：普通市民可以坐在警察巡逻车的副驾驶座上，观察警员的日常工作，这个过程被称作「共乘」ride-along. Ross和Chandler随菲比的警察男友巡逻就是Ride-alongKevin Hart有一部喜剧片就叫做Ride Along讲的就是共乘的市民和警察误打误撞办案的故事。 Phoebe: (entering, with Gary) Hey!Gary: Hello!Monica: Hey!Gary: How are you?Phoebe: Monica, I'm sorry I didn't come by last night. I was out with Gary; he let me ride around with him in his cop car. We saw and prevented crimes.Joey: You got to go on a ride along?!Phoebe: Uh-huh!Joey: I want to go on a ride along!Ross: Me too!Gary: Okay!Chandler: Yeah, yeah! Me too!Gary: Really?! You?Chandler: Yeah.Gary: Well, it's kinda dangerous.Chandler: Well, I like danger.Gary: Okay, you guys free tonight?Joey and Ross: Yeah!!Chandler: Tonight? You-you didn't say it was going to be at nighttime.2. Rachel把Monica的照片给弄乱了，所以说oops, sorry. Oops! 感叹词 表示惊讶、狼狈、谢罪等的叫声,相当于，哎哟! 小甜甜布莱尼当年一曲Oops! I did it again 红遍全球。Rachel: Ohh, it's me and La Poo! Wow! I miss that dog.Monica: You can also find him under umm, dog and dead.Rachel: Great! Thanks!Monica: All right, hand me that other box of photos; that's the very last one.Rachel: Okay.Rachel:Oops. Sorry! Well, good thing you number all of them, huh?Monica: I hadn't! Photo 152 was a prototype.3. lean on 依靠，逼迫 Chandler夸奖Gary制服嫌疑人用了lean on. Lean on 除了依靠以外，还有逼迫，给某人施加压力的意思。Ross: (to Gary) That was so cool man, the way you leaned on that guy.Chandler: It is starting to get dark out there.Ross: (to Gary) He told you everything! I mean you totally cracked him!Gary: Yeah well, being that he was the victim, they're usually pretty talkative.Chandler: (laughing) Okay. (Deadpan) But it is officially nighttime4. out of the blue 突然的 Ross的前妻Emily又要结婚了，忽然想打电话给Ross看看是不是还有挽回的余地。她给Ross打电话也是心血来潮，所以用了out of the blueout of the blue 突然地，毫无预兆的Emily: (on answering machine) Hello Ross? It's Emily. (Rachel runs back into the room with the tequila.) I know this is out of the blue but uh, I'm getting married tomorrow. Well, maybe I am. I keep thinking about you and I'm wondering if-if we made a mistake giving up so fast. Are you thinking about me? Of course you're not, but if you are, call me tonight. Okay, bye.Rachel: Oh. Oh! (Takes a slug of tequila.)5. squeeze one's shoes 给某人施加压力 三个老友在跟Gary出警时，Joey问Gary是不是要squeeze the perps shoes.Squeeze sb's shoes = break sb's shoes 给某人施加点压力Ross: So where are we going next?Gary: This witness won't return my calls so we're gonna see if we can surprise him coming home.Chandler: Sur-surprise him? We're not, we're not gonna make anybody mad are we?Joey: Come on man! (To Gary) Listen so uh, are you gonna squeeze the perps shoes a little bit before he lawyers up?Gary: It's a witness not a perp. And no one talks like that!Ross: Yeah, no one talks like that!Joey: Oh what? Like your Mr. Cop!Ross: Hey, I'm more cop than you two!Chandler: How do you figure that?Ross: Hello! I'm in the front seat, okay? I'm Gary's partner!Chandler: Y'know, when you say partner it doesn't sound cop. It, it sounds gay.6. live every day to the fullest 每天要活得精彩 Ross离婚以后精神不够振作，所以自己给自己打电话留言给自己鼓励。有这么一句话说的很不错，Live every day to the fullest. 每天都要活的精彩。Rachel: Oh, maybe that's Emily calling back to leave the exact same message.Ross: (on the machine) Hey Ross! It's you! I just want you to remember this feeling. You are lucky to be alive! So live everyday to the fullest. Love yourself, okay? Okay. Oh, and also get stamps. Bye! (He hangs up.)Monica: Wow! Play that message for Emily and this whole problem goes away!Rachel: Right?7. join the forces 参军，加入警队 Joey在警车上勇敢保护Ross的行为让大家对他刮目相看，Gary问他是否考虑过加入警察队伍。join the forces 参军或加入警队8. ramble about sth 唠叨 Chandler不想听Ross叨叨，所以就回屋了。Ramble about sth 唠叨，絮叨Ramble about 也有闲逛瞎逛的意思。Ross: Okay, okay, so we're in the car. Right? And bang! A shot was fired. And Joey with no regard for his own safety throws himself on me!Phoebe: My God, Joey!Chandler: (pouting) It was a car backfire!Ross: Yeah, but-but he didn't know that!Joey: Yeah, I didn't know that.Ross: And it could've just as easily have been a bullet.Gary: Hey Joe, you ever think about joining the force? We could use a guy like you.Chandler: Who jumps at loud noises!Ross: Wow! I could've died tonight.Chandler: Yeah! If the car that backfired had run over you! Y'know what, I think I'll go home before Ross starts rambling about his newfound respect for life. (He gets up and starts for the door.)Ross: I do have a newfound respect for life.9. out of the picture 彻底消失 Chandler对于Joey在发生所谓的危险时先救Ross感到耿耿于怀，跟Joey理论起来，Joey误认为Chanlder想要Ross out of the picture. Out of the picture 某人或某事从生活中彻底消失Joey: Dude! How come you took off?Chandler: Oh, I just went for a walk, around the living room. Whatever…Joey: Is something wrong?Chandler: No. No I'm just tired. Y'know, from-from the walk.Joey: Okay.Chandler: You dove in front of Ross! Ross!Joey: That's what this is about! Oh my God, you hate Ross!Chandler: I do not hate Ross!Joey: Of course you do! I saved him! You're mad at me! It all adds up! You want Rossout of the picture.Chandler: What picture?Joey: I don't know, but I don't like what I'm hearing!10. a drop in the bucket 沧海一粟 Rachel在Ross家跟Ross说了这样一句话this is just a drop in the bucket mister! 意思说我不请自来到你家跟你不请自来到我家比起来根本不算什么。a drop in the bucket 沧海一粟，九牛一毛，小巫见大巫Rachel: Hey! Hi!Ross: Rach, what uh, what are you doing here?Rachel: Hey! Y'know what? You are in our apartment all the time! Okay? This is, this is just a drop in the bucket mister!Ross: Y'know, it-it doesn't matter. The important thing is that you're here. You're my friend, and you're here. 11. number is up 气数已尽 在描述自己晚上的奇遇时，Ross说认为自己number is up. number is up 死期到了，气数已尽例句：But this time I think his number is up -a he has a smart young man running against him with a lot of new ideas.但是这次我想他是大难临头了—一个干练又富有创新思想的年轻人成了他的竞争对手。Ross: The most amazing thing happened tonight. I thought my number was up. I had an actual near death experience!Rachel: What?! What? What happened?!Ross: Okay, okay, we were on the ride along with Gary, right?Rachel: Yeah!Ross: And somebody took a shot at me!Rachel: (gasps) Really?!Ross: No, a car backfired, but (Rachel suddenly calms down) I thought somebody was taking a shot at me. 12. close call 侥幸脱险 Ross 觉得这一天过得特别惊险，自己险些没命，所以说这是close call day.close call 侥幸脱险，幸免于难，千钧一发我们最常见的用法 That was a close call 好险！Rachel: I mean, look-look today you escaped (Pause) (Not believing it) death, y'know? And maybe this is a chance for you to escape getting back together with Emily?Ross: That does make sense. Because I do wanna seize some opportunity, but I-I really don't wanna see or talk to her.Rachel: Well, there you go!Ross: Yeah. Maybe today is just, close call day.Rachel: (laughing) Close call day.Ross: Hey, thanks Rach. (They hug.)

The changes Delta makes to contracted fees have a major effect on your practice’s profitability. In this episode, Gary examines the impact when Delta changed it’s contracted fees recently and the likelihood of that happening again.  Listen to this episode to find out how you can deal with this eventuality and what you can do to regain control of your practice.  Intro to today’s topic > 01:58 State of Washington incident > 03:25 High overhead > 08:50 Breakthrough > 20:17 Schedule your coaching program > 24:58 Resources LEARN MORE TALK TO GARY CALCULATE INSURANCE ADJUSTMENTS LEARN MORE Transcript Naren: This is the Less insurance dependence show with my good friend Garry Takacs and myself Naren Arulrajah. Gary: We appreciate your listenership, your time, and most of all we appreciate your intention to reduce insurance dependence in your practice. Our goal is to provide you information that will successfully reduce insurance dependence and convert your practice into a thriving and profitable dental practice that provides you with personal professional and financial satisfaction. Naren: Hello everyone welcome to another episode of the less insurance dependence podcast show. We have an amazing episode for you and the topic of today’s episode is: Is Delta Planning to Lower Your Contracted Fees? The reason we picked this topic is a few years back I remember Garry sharing the story of how Delta first tried this in the state of Washington. Since then, this has become a cascade and I want to kind of talk about it, and then we are going to figure out as a practicing dentist how do you respond to this trend. Gary: Naren you have introduced this topic brilliantly. You know we know that Delta is the gorilla in the dental insurance profession, absolutely because of the fact that they are the largest dental insurance company and for most dentists, Delta has the largest number of patients within a practice – that is almost always the case. Occasionally we will see another big insurance company be number one in a practice, but 95 times out of a hundred when we ask you know what plan do you have the most number of patients, 95 out of a hundred the answer is Dental dental – so it is literally you know the gorilla in the room and if I may Naren I would like to share the story of what happened in the state of Washington a number of years ago and why it is so important for all of our listeners to know this. May I share that story Naren? Naren: yes, please Gary: So this goes back to 2012. And on June 1st, 2012 the Delta provider in the state of Washington then known as WDS Washington dental service sent out a certified letter to all member dentists – so these were all dentists that accepted delta in the state of Washington and they said basically what the letter said was effective June 15th fifteen days later we are cutting your fees 15 percent. 15 percent – and then you know introduced it by saying in an increasingly competitive world our clients are asking for more competitive plans and as a result of that we are forced to cut your fees by 15 percent – reluctantly we are forced to cut your fee. So the language on it was very important because who is the client? Who is the client of Delta in the state of Washington – it is not the dentist Naren: Yeah it is not the patient it is the employer Gary: Then it is not the patient, it is the employer! So it is the employer that is forcing us to cut your fees – and heads up on June 15th we will be cutting your fees by 15 percent. Now you might look at that Naren and on the surface now you will not be a good person to use as an example as you know your math so well. But you know someone that was not so savvy about math might look at this and say – 15 percent that is not good but I can probably live with that right? You know dentists might ask that – I can try to live with that. Naren: But think about it - imagine you saying this to your employee or you say this to your associate – ah you know what? I have a lot of expenses starting Monday instead of making 5 grand you will make four thousand two hundred and fifty bucks – I am just making this up. Gary: Well let me amplify this on your first example – imagine a team member, how is this going to go? Naren: Right Gary: Hey Susie you are making 20 dollars an hour now – Naren: Right Gary: However with the increase, you know my costs going up I cannot pay 20 dollars an hour so imagine we are having this conversation on Friday Naren: Yeah Gary: On Monday you are going to be making 17 dollars an hour Naren: Yeah Gary: By the way how do you think that conversation is going to go? Naren: She would not stick around! I mean forget about the conversation she will be out of there like she will not just because she has not found the next job yet but Gary: Say what? Naren: Ha-ha Gary: When Delta did this in the state of Washington I truly believe that they did their research because you know multi-, multi-million Dollar Company Naren: Yeah Gary: They did their research and I believe they thought that it would go well for them. Or they would not have done it. I believe they thought we kind of got these guys over a barrel we kind of got the dentists over a barrel, they don’t really have a choice we are going to lose some as members but the ones that we retain will be paying them so much less we are going to be way better off – but in their mind, they had to do some cost-benefit analysis and say ok – imagine that board, imagine that board meeting. I would have loved to have been at that board meeting in that house in that board meeting listening to their rationale – hey guys we are going to lose people, we are going to lose some members – but we will retain many more than we will lose. Let’s roll the dice and let’s do it. Ok so now this goes out on June 15th and oh let me back up and say what the effect of a 15 percent fee reduction is? Watch this Naren – if your overhead is 70 percent and I am deliberately choosing numbers to make my math – to demonstrate a point here Naren: Yeah so let’s say I make a hundred grand I take 30 grand – a million bucks I take 300, three hundred thousand out after my overhead Gary: Right Naren: So now I am going to lose and let’s say all of that money is coming from Delta must for argument sake Gary: We have to make an assumption for the purpose of the analysis that all of your patients come from Delta which will never be true Naren: Right Gary: But if that is the case if your overhead is 70 percent Naren: Yeah Gary: Which by the way is a good number to use because even the ADAs says the average dentist overhead is 74 percent Naren: Right Gary: And doctor let me just state it right here – if your overhead is 74 percent you are working too hard too little and the number one reason why your overhead is that high is because you are writing off too much money doing insurance adjustments. But if your overhead is 70 percent and they cut your fees 15 percent Naren: Yeah Gary: It has the effect of cutting your income 50 percent. Five zero Naren: Yes Gary: So now imagine that conversation with the team member. You know hey Susie I know your income now is 20 dollars an hour but on Monday it is going to be 10 dollars an hour – it is just how this I sorry Naren: Because I only get to keep half so I am going to give you half so Gary: Right, but did everyone follow the math on that? Naren: Yeah Gary: Because the math on that is if your overhead is 70 percent your net is 30 – your fees are cut 15 percent – it is half of your 30 percent Naren: Profit Gary: And so literally your – you took a fifty percent hair cut on the fees Naren: Yeah Gary: Now here is where the story gets rich, I was not part of that meeting of course I wish I was a mouse on the wall – they had to be thinking we are going to lose some – four thousand members at the time, four thousand a very close number to 4000 almost around three thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight I believe. Naren do you know how many dentists resigned? When they sent that letter out? Do you know how many resigned? The actual answer was 3. That is it. I do not know what their projections were but I guarantee they thought they would lose a lot more than that Naren: Hmmm Gary: I guarantee they thought more. Naren: Hmmm yeah Gary: I do not know what they thought they would lose Naren: Let me ask you this Naren: 3 are as a function of four thousand it is less than one-tenth of one percent. These guys had to be dancing in the aisles. Can you imagine the celebration after everything shut down – yep can you imagine whoever presented that to the board and said remember when I told you, you were going to lose people? Well, guess what? We lose 3! Ha ha ha! These knucklehead dentists – 3! And here is the interesting part this is a fun little sidebar – two of them were clients of mine –two of the three and we were already getting ready to gloat and the network with delta was the last one – and this became the start that broke the camel’s back. I never knew who the third one was – I never knew. Until about a year ago – I was teaching at Pankey and I was telling them this story and one of the instructors at the back who’s eyes got really big – like big as saucers and she could not wait to come up to me – one of the instructors at Pankey came up to me after the class and said Garry meet number 3. I was the third one Naren: Ha ha Gary: So I now know who it was. But three out of four thousand now some of you will be thinking I am sure as heck I am not in Washington. I am not in the state of Washington. Those poor fools there - but this has emboldened every other delta organization. There are not 50 delta organizations because some of the states they combine there is actually 37 Delta, but what do you think the executives of the other 36 are doing when they saw the success of Washington, can you would you agree Naren that this is an unmitigated success story if you are Delta dental Naren: Oh yeah I mean when you lose 3 out of four thousand there is one in a thousand – I mean it is it is a home run, it is like a grand slam! Gary: Grand slam! Gary: Yeah and so what has happened now is and we are seeing it all over WDS – Washington dental services considered to be a certified innovator in the world of delta and so the other delta organizations are looking at them and are looking at what happened there and they are being embolden by those results and we are seeing this happen all over the country. So I am going to answer the question that our headline asks – is Delta planning to lower your contracted fees? Absolutely yes, absolutely yes. They will not be raising it and the only way to tell Naren: You have seen this in state after state after state right and this is not the only one, may many may states Gary: It happened in December in Arizona Naren: Right Gary: The state of Arizona delta set the letter out and the same thing and it is happening all over because of the success if you look at the economics of this you know – they cut your fees that you are paying out – 15 percent look at the profitability inside delta – you know of which the executive team and the board benefits from. It is amazing so I am going to answer that question very directly. Is Delta planning to lower your contracted fees? The answer is yes. So doctors if you think it is bad now their fees you look at that fees schedule you now and it causes you grief to look at it – it is only going to get worse. It is only going to get worse. So you know that is the lesson there – think about it. Naren think 3 dentists resigned! Naren: Absolutely, Garry talking about the 3 dentists who resigned Garry, I know we share mutual clients and I can think of three dentists – one is a lady doctor A and two men doctor b and doctor d and I mean of course for confidentiality reasons I am not going to mention their names Gary: Those actually are their first name initials! Naren: Yes Gary: We will keep the rest of it confidential for hipo reasons – doctor A doctor B and doctor D Naren: Right and they are literally I remember being in a kind of being a fly in the wall in a conversation you were having in a group meeting – they are kind of working with you as we speak to actually resign from Delta Gary: Well to use a dental term Naren – they are literally right on the cusp of Naren: Cusp ha ha Gary: Of resigning. And we have done all the- these are coaching clients – and we have done all the necessary prep work, we have checked everything off the checklist you know I am pretty careful about this because none of this is done irrationally or emotionally it is done analytically – there are readiness factors that have to be in place before we- before we send that resignation letter and all 3 of these clients have systematically checked off each one of the readiness factors and they are ready and that strikes me as kind of amusing as I have 3 right now in my client base which would equal the entire state of Washington Naren: Ha ha Gary: Provider list in 2012 and they are so excited about breaking free from the shackles of Delta and it is one of in our coaching, it is one of our most prideful you know sources of our work is to help dentists successfully break free so they are, there are so many positive things happening in their practice after they have done that. And so really the message I would like to continue with in this podcast episode is doctors it is – do not stick your head in the sand. Pull your head out of the sand and realize that it is only going to get worse and if your discounts today are 42 to 44 percent which is what they are and it gets worse than that – would it make any sense to remain a participating provider under delta dental and I am going to say absolutely not. Naren: Garry can I Gary: Now is the time Naren: Can I make an observation – two of the three clients in you know back in the day who resigned from Washington was your client’s right? That is 66 percent and just in the last couple of weeks – you know you are literally working with 3 clients who are doing the same – so the thing that kind of was sitting in the back of my head is, on one hand you have almost 60 I mean a hundred percent success rate in resigning with your client, even delta including the other plans, on the other hand you have one in a thousand – that is zero point one percent – what is the difference? I am thinking again I am just sharing my thoughts and I want your fed back on it – perhaps it is fear. And perhaps what you are doing is you are giving people clarity and confidence. Clarity meaning here are the steps one by one this is not rocket science this is what you need to do – and of course not just a list of steps but the details of how to do them precisely and then helping them to do those steps and then confidence – you have done this hundreds and hundreds of times and you have done it personally it is like Gary: And Naren let me emphasize in every practice physical environment Naren: Mhmm Gary: Urban areas, big cities, large towns, medium sized towns, small towns, were all practices and so we have been successful everywhere with this now you know it takes some work. And it takes some effort and you know there are occasions on the coaching side where a doctor wants to go out of network and I have to deliver the bad news to say that you are not ready for it – it is not that you could not do it sometime, but you are not ready for it now Naren: Well I am going to out you n the spot Garry – have you ever started the process of reducing insurance dependence meaning you said ready and failed? Gary: Yeah not once. Not once have we gone down made the decision and had – now there is a fall back, there is a fall back and I want every dentist to know this you have a plan B. we had it in place when we went out of network and the plan B was if it was no working you can always sign back up for the plan – I mean Naren: Ha ha Gary: Essentially Naren: But you did not have to do that with your clients but you are saying that option was there? Gary: No no not any of our clients but you do have that I mean Naren: It is like you are jumping from the plane but you have a parachute – I mean you have ha ha ha you want to enjoy that feeling of flying and jumping off a lane but you are not going to – you know you have a plan B Gary: Truly there is no risk. Naren: Yeah Gary: You can always sign back up – now you would never want to do that – that would effectively be like flying the surrender flag Naren: Yeah Gary: You know you never want to do that – but what I noticed which is the break through which often moves doctors off of the indecision path. You know there is a turn that we hear quite a bit about optics – you hear that term on social media and in the media it is all about the optics – it is all about those things, and I believe that that comes in to play in this discussion because how many times have we heard Naren in our common clients Garry I do not know if we can do this because 80 percent of my patients have insurance, plug in whatever number you want – 80 percent of my patients have insurance, 85 percent to my patients have insurance, 90 percent of my patients have insurance – so their optics and they are real Naren: Yeah Gary: Or they can’t see a way forward because of what they currently have and in our own practices it was 80 percent, but what I was sharing with them was that your future does not have to be your past the truth is your past you brought people in because you took their insurance. So reason only one out of thousand resigned was because in your case, you know every one resigned is because they were not afraid they were not afraid of this optic – you give them the confidence and the plan that they could execute from and I notice the break through Naren Naren: Mhmm Gary: Now certainly there could be individual reasons why you want to go out of network of any dentist you could have your own set of reasons but what I noticed most commonly is that when I explained to them that those insurance adjustments are a marketing expense and they are spending say four hundred thousand dollars a year – you know on marketing or let me use five hundred thousand dollars which would be more common – they are spending forty one thousand six hundred and sixty six dollars a month on marketing when I show them that, that is when many dentist realize oh my gosh there has got to be a much better way – there is a much better way to do this Naren: Right Gary: because you could spend a fraction of that like you know our clients are sending around 2 percent of their revenue on meeting – so what would you rather spend doctor forty four percent which is the average adjustment from delta – or two percent? Take as long as you like – you know while we playfully have those discussions Naren: And I love that exercise you did where this one particular client Garry, they were doing one point five, I mean they were collection 1 million 80 percent insurance dependence average write off of forty forty two percent – they were giving up five hundred and thirsty seven thousand dollars a year and what you did with these particular client was you had them realize in the next 10 years he is going to give the insurance firms 5.37 million Gary: Yeah Naren: The next 20 years he is going to give ten point seven million dollar Gary: Early mid careers – he is in his early 40s Naren: Mhmm Gary: So to say he is going to practice another 10 years is pretty obvious Naren: Yeah Gary: And that is not much 0 Naren: 5.37 Gary: 5.37 million in 10 years – and he is the one that said it is going to be more like 20 so do the math Naren: 10. 7 million in 20 years Gary: 10. 7 million dollars difference over a 20 years career Naren: It is mind blowing Gary: and I pointed out he was spending over forty one thousand dollar  month on marketing he was like no man I am absolutely going to choose a different path forward – well Naren I wanted to answer that question so in terms of answering the question – is delta on planning to lower your contracted fees – the answer is yes Naren: yes Gary: the question doctors that you need to answer is what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? And I would, I have always like this analogy – we all know the parable of the frog in the boiling water – if we drop a frog in a pot of boiling water it jumps back up Naren: Mhmm Gary: It is a life saving measure – it jumps out but if you if you put a frog in a pan of Luke warm water and then turn the you know turn the burner up Naren: Yeah Gary: Turn the heat up what will eventually happen is that the frog will boil itself to death – doctors you are the frog in the pot. Because that is what they are going to you know inch by inch they are going to be turning up the heat and they are turning up the heat by dropping your fees. And it is time for you to regain control of your practice it is time for you to discover a new way of marketing instead of just signing up for the plan – lets attract people who are choosing you for reasons other than you are on their insurance – the end result of doing so you will spend 2 percent instead of 44 percent and if you can just take a leap of faith in me – the result if you will truly have a legacy quality practice that provides you with  personal professional and financial satisfaction Naren: I am going to invite our listeners to take a couple of next steps – the reason I am doing that is because every single one who has listened to the hundred and one episodes here is committed to reducing insurance dependence and by the way we are having a record month in October – so thank you so much for that – this is the best month ever and this is 2 percent better than the last best month ever so thank you for that Gary: Thank you for sharing the pod and Naren is listening to our listenership on the less insurance dependency podcast – so thank you from the bottom of my heart and thank you for sharing this with your friends and colleagues you are committed to reducing insurance dependence that is why you are listening that is why you are sharing this podcast – Naren: one of these next steps I would recommend is go to thrivingdentist.com forward slash coaching and check out the coaching program, in a nutshell, it is you know virtual coaching, personalized virtual coaching with practice management support – what that means is you have a Garry supporting you meaning working with your champions making sure they are doing their part – setting goals – achieving those goals, so you have Garry support kind of the same kind of support Life smiles enjoys – and while life smiles are within the one-fourth percent – plus there is an entire array of coaching calendar events – verbal skills, case acceptance you name it there are many many many hours of content that helps you become a better clinician helps your team become better at you to know influencing people and getting people to you know to say yes to the treatment that they deserve. So check it out it is fifteen hundred dollars and Garry wanted to make to affordable because he was thinking of the next phase of his career and he wanted a program that everyone can afford and everyone can say yes to – Gary: Yeah Naren we have structured that there are no onboarding fees there are no upfront fees there are no travel expenses it is 1500 dollars a month there is a 12-month agreement – we want to be of much value to you that you would never want to practice without us but we simply do that in 12-month increments and we would love to work with you – our primary focus for the majority of our clients is successfully reducing insurance dependence and if that is you and if you want to do something proactively ahead of time before delta delivers that letter to you then I would politely suggest that our coaching would be a good decision. Naren: Yeah the other thing is there is a coaching strategy meeting and if you are interested just go to thriving dentists. com again the coaching page and you can book it, or just type in the URL thriving dentist. Com slash CSM and you can you know talk to Garry and you know Garry here has turned several people down because for whatever reason he felt that they were not a good fit for Gary: Yeah you know what I do with that call – it is with me – what I do with that call I get to know a bit about your practice and the purpose of the call is to determine if our coaching would be a good fit for you and if so we would love the opportunity to work with you but I am also not shy about being very candid and direct if it is not a good fit. Well on that note – and Naren we will just put those links, we will put a link about our coaching in the show notes, we will also put a link to schedule that coaching strategy meeting if they like and on that note thanks again to all of our listeners, thank you for sharing this with your friends and colleagues – thank you for helping us enjoy our strongest month ever in terms of downloads we appreciate each and every one of you – thank you for the privilege of your time today.

“Life is gray. It's not black and white. It's possible to admit that the FBI made mistakes and at the same time recognize the ultimate responsibility of Koresh to have led his people out peacefully, as we encouraged him to do every single day.” Gary Noesner Gary Noesner, author of the book Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator, retired from the FBI in 2003 following a 30-year career. During this career, Gary was named the first chief of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit. As a negotiator, he was personally involved in numerous high-profile crises, cases, and seizures, including the Branch Davidians in Waco, recently dramatized by the Netflix series. I had the pleasure of speaking with Gary about the gray nature of life, what distinguishes wants vs needs, and the game-changing power of making adjustments at half-time. Listen in to find out how Gary’s discomfort with conflict in his youth led to his career as a hostage negotiator for the FBI.   Show Highlights [7:29] The fatal mistake of assuming that high rank equals expertise [14:07] The realization that life is gray [19:00] Saving the most lives possible [22:29] Making adjustments at half-time [26:40] Distinguishing between wants and needs   Links | Resources Gary on LinkedIn Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator   About the Guest Gary Noesner, author of the book Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator, retired from the FBI in 2003 following a 30-year career. During this career, Gary was named the first chief of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit. As a negotiator, he was personally involved in numerous high-profile crises, cases, and seizures, including the Branch Davidians in Waco, recently dramatized by the Netflix series.   About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control   Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: Today I’m with Gary Noesner. Gary retired from the FBI in 2003 following a 30-year career, during which he was named the first chief of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit. As a negotiator, he was personally involved in numerous high-profile crises, cases, and seizures, including the Branch Davidians in Waco, recently dramatized by the Netflix series. He's also author of the book Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator.  Welcome to the show, Gary. Gary: Thanks. It's a pleasure to be with you. Douglas: So, Gary, I'm always fascinated to hear how people got their start, especially in the world of facilitation. And I’m sure negotiators are no different. While there’s certainly a course at Quantico, there’s not readily degree programs, like, “Oh, I’m going to go become a negotiator or become a facilitator.” It's a quite circuitous path a lot of people take. And I'm curious. All the way back to the Lakeland High School, you know, talking about some of those early situations you found yourself in, at what point did you really start to realize that you had this gift of kind of working with people? Gary: Well, I think as an early age, I was always uncomfortable around conflict and always sort of stepped up to the plate to de-escalate confrontations and arguments, whether it's between friends or others. It just seemed like a natural and appropriate thing to do for me. So when I got into the FBI, after wanting to do that since I was young, I had no sense that anything about negotiation existed because it didn't when I joined. But when I first got in the early part of my career, the FBI had sort of taken on this hostage-negotiation concept that had been started by NYPD. And there's something about it that really attracted me, and I thought it fit my personality and skill set. So I got the early training, and it was an auxiliary function for me for many, many years. And eventually I became a full-time negotiator and chief of the Crisis Negotiation Unit for the last 10 years of my career. But it was very challenging, and, yeah, there's a lot of similarities with mediation, facilitation. It's all about building relationships and influencing people in a positive way.  Douglas: And it must have been kind of—it's like coming full circle as you were one of the first to take the course, and then you ended up taking the program over. What did that feel like when you remember it? Like, what was that like? Gary: Well, in those days, when I first got involved, the FBI, perhaps more so than today, played a pretty significant role in training police departments. Police departments didn't have a lot of money for training back then, so part of the FBI's mission was to provide it at no charge. And one of the areas, of course, was negotiation. It eventually became the thing we taught more than anything else, except for maybe firearms. And it gave me an opportunity to really interface with a lot of police officers in ways that I might not have had a chance otherwise. And that was a really valuable piece of my learning as an agent, as a human being. And, you know, I certainly got as much from those officers as I gave. It became apparent to me very quickly that the skills and the approaches we were teaching had a real impact. It wasn't theoretical. It allowed officers to exercise some specific skills to prevent violence and come home alive to their families. So immediately I recognized it as rewarding and meaningful and certainly something I always enjoyed. Douglas: Something that really caught my eye—and I kind of can parallel it back to even the theme of the show, which is control, and how much control do we lean into, and how much do we back away from? And I really struck a chord with this notion of maintaining balance. And you were talking about managing yourself and the people around you. And in fact, I think there is a quote that really caught my eye, which was, if you cannot control your own emotions, how can you expect to influence those of others? Gary: That's literally the first line that comes out of my mouth when I teach negotiations, because it's so true. I mean, if you want to influence others and yet you yourself are emotionally charged or dealing not in a logical, thoughtful, empathic way, then you're probably not going to be as successful as you would otherwise. So self-control is terribly important. And you tend to see people that perform at the highest levels in certainly law-enforcement negotiations are typically people who have a lot of self-control.  And one of the chapters in my book, Stalling for Time, I start each chapter with a quote. And a quote I always like, it's a partial quote from Rudyard Kipling about if you can keep your head about you when all else are losing theirs.  And I think that says a lot to me about the kind of person that makes a good negotiator and what is required. It's somebody that can think clearly in the midst of a situation where others might be so overcome with various forms of reaction that they're not optimally performing. You know, it's kind of like—I always do the comparison of a trauma surgeon. You know, when mass casualties are brought into an emergency room, the trauma surgeon, it's not that they're not human and don't see the damage that some people have suffered or perhaps been deceased, but they focus immediately on what has to be done, which is to save as many lives and determine which ones need their most immediate care. So they put those emotions aside so that they can function at an optimal level or highest level they can. And I think negotiations is very akin to that. Douglas: Yeah. It reminds me of the, never confusing getting even with what you want. Gary: Yeah. And it's a good phrase we used to use for our commanders because even law enforcement, somebody can be a fairly high rank and have a lot of different experiences in an agency. It doesn't mean that they've had a lot of experience managing with these kinds of crises.  And law-enforcement officers are human beings, and when a perpetrator, particularly one that is maybe not a model citizen or somebody that may not have any attributes that we would find commendable, when they refuse to do what we want and they don't cooperate and they back out of promises, they engage in any number of problematic behaviors, you really got to maintain your self-control because if you respond and react to that, you may get even with them, but are you really accomplishing what your goal is, which is to get your way? And “to get our way” in the context of negotiation means we get people to peacefully surrender, to comply, to do what we think is not only in our best interest, but in their best interest. We don't want anybody to get hurt. So I found a lot of my career time was helping on-scene commanders and decision makers, chiefs of police, sheriffs, understand that concept.  There's always an assumption that people of a high rank know how to do everything. And of course, that's a fatal mistake you can make, because they don't necessarily understand, especially—someone might be a great internist as a doctor, but can they perform brain surgery? Probably not. So, you know, just because you have the MD in front of your name doesn’t mean you can do everything there is that could possibly come before you. So we have to know our limitations, and we have to understand that there are people who have more expertise that we probably would be wise to listen to. Douglas: Yeah. It reminds me of your points in the book around just the crises within the crises and these other negotiations that have to happen. So you're managing quite a lot at the same time. Gary: Yeah. I mean, and of course, I know we'll be talking about Waco shortly, but I got asked this on a recent interview, and I never really thought about it from that complexity point of view that while out there, I had three very distinct roles. I had to manage the negotiation team, maybe 15 or 20 people, and ensure that it was functioning properly and proceeding in a strategic way, the way I wanted it to. And at the same time, I had to convey what we wanted to the bosses and convince them to support the strategic approach we were taking, and that could often be a challenge. And then, last but not least, is dealing with David Koresh and all the unique issues and problems that he brought to the table. So, you know, you find yourself sometimes being the ringleader in a three-ring circus, you know, and trying to keep everybody functioning in the right way so we can achieve the outcome we want. Douglas: Yeah. And speaking of Waco, let's talk about that for a moment. I was really curious to hear your thoughts on how well it portrayed the negotiation process, because from a storyline perspective, when I compare your book to the show, there's definitely some sensationalism on the Branch Davidian side. My depiction was that it demonstrated the conflict with the kind of more forceful approach and also just the kind of slow, intentional approach ya’ll were taking. But I’m just kind of curious as far as, like, anything about the negotiation process that you felt was maybe skewed in the presentation. Gary: It's a big question, and there's a lot of variables. Obviously, they bought my book to show the FBI side of the story and what perspective we had from outside looking in. And then they bought David Thibodeau’s book—he was a surviving Branch Davidian—to get the perspective of someone inside looking out. And I liked that approach, to look at it from both angles. But specifically addressing the negotiation part, they got a lot of parts of the negotiation very right. What was the Hollywood dramatization part is they had my character doing all these things on his own, when in reality I'm leading the team, and there's eight, nine negotiators per shift. It's quite a complex and many-moving-part operation. So obviously, Hollywood doesn't want to pay those additional actors and introduce their characters and get the audience to know them. It's a whole different level of challenge, that they wanted to showcase Michael Shannon, who was one of the two main stars of the TV show who played me.  Douglas: I got to say, if I'm ever played by anyone, I would say Michael Shannon wouldn't be a bad—that’s not a bad deal to get. Gary: I had seen Michael Shannon in Boardwalk Empire, that TV show.  Douglas: Mm-hmm. Gary: I was very impressed with him in that show, and I didn't even know his name, to be honest with you. And they came out and said, “This Michael Shannon's been hired to play you.” And I looked him up right away. I said, “Oh, it’s that guy.” Well, he is just an incredible actor and human being. And, you know, during my time on the set, we had an opportunity to become quite friendly and had basically drinks and dinner every night while I was out there. And what an incredible actor. And he certainly was not trying to imitate me, but he captured the tenor of my philosophy, which goes back to your earlier question. I think those issues that came up, including the conflict between the tactical side of the FBI that wanted to take a different approach, I think that's very accurately reflected. Again, not so much in the exact form, but certainly in terms of substance. And he had it down very, very well and, I think, did an incredible job. And let me add another thing, Douglas. You know, what I found is I felt that part of the reason I wrote my book was to educate current and future FBI leaders. And one of the things they need to be educated on is to understand not only the mistakes that the FBI made there, but the good things we did. And there were far more of those than not. But if someone doesn't write that down and record it, those things fall through the cracks and they're forgotten, and sometimes mistakes are repeated, and good behaviors are not appreciated or replicated. So I wanted to write it for that reason. And I also feel that in the FBI, we serve the American people. If we do something wrong, we should step up to the plate, admit what we did, demonstrate that we are making changes and corrections, and I think we owe it to the American people that we serve to do those things. So for all those reasons, I wrote that book and stand by the portrayal of the FBI overall.  What I'm not quite as happy about is I think the portrayal on the other side of David Koresh came up a bit short for me because in reality, David Koresh was a far more dark and sinister, manipulative guy than was portrayed. The other great actor there—there were several of them—but Taylor Kitsch, who played Koresh, was just phenomenal. And he's such a nice guy in real life that I think that came through. And the producer, directors wanted to show the charismatic side of Koresh, what allowed him to attract followers and gain their total allegiance. And they did that, but I just don't think they showed sufficiently. They showed some dark things from him but not enough to my satisfaction. And I talked to them about that and tried to change that. But what you find out is when you sell your book to Hollywood or somebody else, you have some influence, but you don't have control. Douglas: Yep. I think that echoes my read on it as well. It’s a little sensationalized on the, like, kind of making people want to have a little more sympathy than maybe you would have if you were watching it go down from the sidelines. Gary: You know, you’re into facilitation, and I think the biggest takeaway for facilitators, if you want to use Waco as sort of an example, is the realization that life is gray. It's not black and white. It's possible to admit that the FBI made mistakes and at the same time recognize the ultimate responsibility of Koresh to have led his people out peacefully, as we encouraged him to do every single day. So you don't have to say, “Oh, these guys were all good, and these guys were all bad. The big old bad government came in and just wanted to kill people.” I mean, it's actually intellectually lazy to take on those extreme views and not very realistic. There were good people in there who were practicing their faith, and there were highly dedicated FBI agents who wanted nothing but everybody to come out alive. So to make those general derogatory statements, I think, is just showing you haven't done your research, and you haven't read about what really happened, and you don’t understand. Douglas: Coming back to your goals for the book around really cementing the positive impact so they're not lost, it also jumped out to me when you were talking about these post-incident reviews and applying these lessons learned, it was interesting because it seemed like the popularity of the techniques within the FBI began to grow as you started to celebrate some of these wins. But the irony of it all was, maybe one of the ones that I was the most tickled by and I thought that you guys did such an amazing move was the steaks and gravy and cakes for the prisoners. So they're all having a Thanksgiving coma while the tactical thing went in, and clearly, not much credit was given after the fact for that. Gary: Yeah. You know, it's funny. A lot of people in law enforcement are really not well versed on what negotiators do and why we do it. It's sort of a soft science, and you know there’s more to taking action than here's a bad guy. We're going to do this to suppress them, arrest them, whatever we have to do. And, you know, when you do negotiate people out, which we do, in the 90 percentile, people say, “Well, it must not have been so hard. That guy must not have been that dangerous anyway.” And they sort of make some excuses for it. Of course, I always want to say, “Well, you try doing it when somebody's life is on the line.” But it's a hard thing to define.  But just as in facilitation, we're building relationships, and people expect in these situations law enforcement to show up and be very confrontational, very demanding, very dictatorial. You will do this and you better do that, or we're going to do x, y, z. And instead they get somebody like me show up and say, “Hey, David. This is Gary. What's going on in there? I'm here to help. I don't want to see anybody get hurt.” It's something they don't expect, and it gives us an opportunity to listen to them and to better understand what their motivation is, what their feelings are, how they interpret what has happened. It allows us slowly and steadily to lower the tension, to de-conflict and de-confrontate. And it allows us to begin eventually to have some influence over their behavior. And, you know, you typically will get to a point where a guy like David Koresh, which you didn't hear, he said, “You know, I just don't know what I can do. I don't know what to get out of, how to get out of what I got into.” And you say, “Well, you know, here's some ideas for you, and here's something you might want to think about. And come out to jail and tell the world your side of the story. It needs to be heard.” You know, those are things we did, and with some effect, we got 35 people out during the first half when I was there, including 21 children. That’s a fact that many people forget. And it was not an easy task, and I'm very proud of it. I’m no less disappointed that we didn't get more out or everybody out. But you got to recognize that human emotion is a really challenging thing. And when there's been loss of life, like it was at Waco before we even arrived as the FBI, I mean, we were already in a deep ditch, and we got to dig out of that. It's pretty tough. Douglas: You know, as you were speaking, it reminded me of some notes I wrote down around there's a lot of similarities between facilitation and negotiation, but there's some clear differences as well. We’re not dealing with—life and death is usually not at stake. And the fundamental contradiction that you mentioned, which I thought was really fascinating, we don't really struggle with that so much, right? Like, we're all about building trust, but we never, ever have to bend the truth, or we never have to potentially send them into harm's way. And when I think about that story, was it in West Virginia, where Cheryl's husband, her and her child. And there was a lot of interesting dynamics there from the perspective of opening up options and demonstrating a future when you know that that future may not exist. So I’m kind of curious how that unfolds, just as you're kind of regulating your emotions. Gary: Well, it's a tough case. And, you know, my book is about the importance of negotiation and how it is a tool that law enforcement should even use more, and then I start off the first chapter of my book with a situation where we have to use deadly force to resolve it. But it was a very dramatic case. It showed how even in those cases where the behaviors, the actions of the perpetrator are so extreme that our chance of getting them to comply and resolve it peacefully are pretty slim and, thereby, someone else is going to die. So then the negotiator has to segue into a role that allows you to become more supportive of the only option we have left, and that's using force.  In Sperryville, I talked him into coming out to a helicopter, where a marksman ended his life. In the Talladega prison, that you alluded to earlier, we knew hostages were going to die, so we gave in and gave them a very sumptuous meal for the first time in eight days to sort of, excuse the expression, fatten them up and to lure them into a sense of victory and empowerment. And they took the bait and gorged on the food and basically went into sweet slumber that allowed the Hostage Rescue team to make a really terrific, well-executed entry and save everybody's lives.  So there are times where negotiators have to recognize reality, that while we will be successful most of the time, there's nothing in what we do that guarantees success and certainly not 100 percent of the time. So we have to be adaptable and flexible. And the bottom line is, how do we save the most lives possible? Douglas: Yes. That was the thing that was going through my mind in both of those scenarios because Sperryville, you saved a woman and her child; and then the prison example, I mean, how much more carnage would have happened if they would have been bracing for it? Gary: That’s right. I mean, if we had continued to deny them food until they released the hostages, I mean, I think we stood a good chance of having them kill one of the hostages to try to force us to do what they wanted, and that's one less human being alive today to survive that. So we have to take all that into consideration. And you make the best decisions you can, and you have to weigh all the facts. That's why we function—in Waco, I get a lot of credit operating by myself, but in reality, we're leveraging a team of very skilled and talented negotiators that bring a lot to the table from their training and their personal experience. We said, “What do you think? What are your ideas? Did you hear something I didn't hear?” And we really use that to full advantage to try to come up with the best approach that we think will achieve what we want in this particular incident. Douglas: That brings to mind something else I wanted to bring up, which was the comment of you write good notes. And it really resonated with me because I often love to facilitate with a co-facilitator, and I find that when, especially when we're exploring really tough issues that, like, a team is really struggling, like, they can't seem to get past some personal issues, or they're just stuck on some things, when you’re there working directly, it’s sometimes hard to see the big picture because you’re in the content, you're in the moment. But if you're on the sideline kind of just observing, you can see interesting things. So I was just wondering, is that similar in the negotiation world? When you're observing and writing these notes, do you find that you see things you wouldn't have seen if you were just on the phone, in the moment with them, like, watching every word, that kind of thing? Gary: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's akin, Douglas, if you want to do a comparison, you think of a college or a professional football game. You ever notice how sometimes—not all the time—the second half is dramatically different from the first half? I mean, dramatically different? And you say, “Boy, what happened? That must've been a hell of a speech that the coach gave.” Well, what it really was is the coaches up in the booth, they’re studying what happened. They're making adjustments at halftime. It's coaching. It's not being personally involved in playing that position out on the field, but watching it and seeing where changes or improvements can be made to get the outcome we wanted.  So negotiations is no different. If I’m the negotiation coordinator, or the coach, it allows me to listen to the interplay between the primary negotiator on the phone and the perpetrator, and then either in between calls or through passing a short, cryptic note, help nudge them to something I've seen that I think they may not have fully appreciated.  The quote you're talking about is in Waco. This mother was very angry that her son was by himself. He had been released in the Child Protective Services, and we sent a video in of all the children. And she was very angry at us for his forlorn status. And, you know, rather than just trying to defend ourselves, I passed a note to John Dolan, our primary negotiator at the time, and he read it, and he smiled. And it just said, “You know, Kathy, what little Brian needs now is a hug from his mommy.” And you could almost hear the arrow strike her heart. And, I mean, it was the one phrase that kind of brought it home to her that she was the missing piece. It wasn't us that was causing trauma to her child. It was the fact that she sent him out, and she stayed in to fight for Koresh, that it was her maternal responsibility to do this. And I think that shot hit home, and she came out the next day, and she was the first, essentially the first, adult that came out. And that was a very meaningful goal that we’d achieved. Douglas: It really struck home for me when I read that because sometimes people aren't even necessarily self-aware or why they're upset. And if they're lashing out to you, and you can—it's almost like judo, which is redirect their energy, kind of become more aware of where the center is. Gary: Yeah. You know, when you look at negotiations broadly—I'm not talking specifically Waco here—really, very few of them are actually hostage-taking events, where someone's being held to force somebody else to do something. Probably 90 percent of what police do around the country are dealing with highly emotionally charged situations. Often the jilted lovers, romantic situation gone bad; somebody holding an employer who fired them; an argument with a neighbor. There are people who are expressing anger, rage, and frustration who don't even have a clear goal of what they're trying to achieve. In other words, they've gotten themselves into something they have no idea how to get out of. And that's the role that the negotiator could play to try to understand those emotions and those drivers of their behavior, and to try to deal with those and diffuse those. That's what makes us successful. It's an approach that people don't expect from law enforcement. We certainly got that from the mental-health counseling community. And it's very effective in getting people to, for the first time, hear themselves what is driving them, and they may not appreciate, you know? Douglas: Yeah. It reminds me of another note that I had taken around you had talked about the role of the negotiator was to help people express their fears, so allowing them to open up. And it was interesting because as I read it, it was definitely similar to things that we're trying to do in the workplace, because often people have these unstated fears. It's just they're not vulnerable enough to say it out loud because they're worried someone's going to judge them or maybe they haven't even figured it out yet. And so simply stating what might be clear to you but not to them and allowing them to acknowledge it or even just to say yes, I thought that was pretty interesting.  Gary: You know, we used to talk about helping people understand the difference between wants and needs. So somebody involved in one of these situations may say, I want this and I want that, but it's our job to find out what they really need. Do they really need their job back? Or is it the loss of respect and the embarrassment of having to go home and tell your wife you haven't got a job anymore? I mean, you know, we don't always get that right. But that's kind of our goal, you know? And when we're communicating with them, and we say, “It sounds like you're really embarrassed by what happened,” and if he hasn't articulated that and that, in fact, is what he feels, then we've just really scored some big points because he said, “Yes, that's exactly right. I’m embarrassed by having been fired.” Well, that’s important for us to know if we're going to deal with how he's viewing what happened to him. Douglas: So, I had this—it was one of the last kind of sentences in your book. And I wrote it down because I thought it was pretty spot on. So I'm just going to read it, and then I'd love to just hear your thoughts today on this. But, “The happiest and most successful people are the ones that can remain calm in difficult times and put aside emotions like pride and anger that stop them from finding common ground. We need to be good listeners and understand the problems and needs of the other side.” Gary: Yeah. I guess it's never been more true than it is today in our very acrimonious political climate. And I'll bring up some recent events: the protests around the country. When people go out on the street and they carry signs and they're yelling and singing songs, whatever they're doing, what they're basically saying is, “We want somebody to hear us.” Douglas: Mm-hmm. Gary: And if instead of finding ways to creatively listen to them, we simply attack them, we're probably not going to be successful. I suspect if you had 100 people in a room and 50 were pro-life and 50 were pro-choice, you could even have great meaningful discussion all night long, and at the end of the evening, you'd probably still have 50-50. But that's okay as long as we've avoided name calling and shouts and threats and violence and so forth. That's the major goal. It's a slow, steady process to try to create an atmosphere where we can listen to others and appreciate their point of view, even if it's different. And I just hate to see that today, particularly in our political environment, we seem to be going in the wrong direction. Douglas: Yeah. I think that there's a real beauty—I had underscored the statement you made at the end of one of the early chapters, which was, “Listening is the cheapest concession we can make.” Gary: Yeah. It is. It costs you nothing. And, you know, you can acknowledge someone's point of view, “Let me make sure I understand. You're angry at your boss because he fired you. You don't think he appreciated your work, and you felt as though he mistreated you,” and so forth and so on. I'm not saying to him, “Yes, I think you should kill your boss.” I'm saying to him, “I understand how you feel about what happened.” I mean, that's a powerful thing. If you think about it, the whole evolution of communication between human beings, and we're social animals, we want other people to understand what we're saying and how we feel about it. And if you do that as a facilitator, as a negotiator, you're going to be successful. Douglas: Gary, it's been so great having you on the show today, and fun chatting and hearing about just the riveting life and career you’ve had in negotiation. Would you like to leave the listeners with any final words? Gary: Well, I would suggest that people really work on listening. Listening is such an important tool. So when you go out, not so much these days with COVID, but when you have an opportunity to have a social interaction, pick out somebody you don’t know very well or somebody that's a little quiet over in the corner or whatever, and go and talk to them and find out about their life and ask good questions. “Can you tell me more about that? That sounds very interesting. I'd like to hear about that hobby that you have or that trip that you took.” And you'll find that people are far more interesting than you might have realized, that people have done and seen things that you had no idea, and you will learn a lot. And they, in turn, will appreciate the fact that you have taken the time and demonstrated the interest in learning more about them. It is a very, very powerful tool.  And you know, what we all want to achieve is cooperation with other human beings, and we get that through being likable, plain old likable. Just be a person that strives to be likable and to automatically not think the worst of others and blame others, but seek to understand. Even the business guru Stephen Covey says, first seek to understand, then to be understood. So I’m not sure if that helps, but I would urge people to really make an effort at that.  Douglas: Well, thanks again for being on the show. It's been great.  Gary: My pleasure. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together, voltagecontrol.com.

You know that choosing to be less insurance dependent is favorable for your dental practice. However, it's important to convince your patients that this choice is beneficial for them too.  It may seem challenging but, using the right words will help you gain the trust of the patients. That will result in customer loyalty and ultimately increase the retention rate of your existing customers.  Highlights Intro to today's topic > 01:01  About the built-in support system > 02:00 Addressing a question that makes almost every dentist cringe > 03:15 How to answer the question "Doctor, is this covered by my insurance?" > 09:15 About Gary’s upcoming MBA program > 21:39 Resources DOWNLOAD PLAQUE #1 DOWNLOAD PLAQUE #2 DOWNLOAD GARY'S LANGUAGE LEARN MORE REGISTER Transcript Naren: This is the less insurance dependence podcast show with my good friend Gary Tackas and myself Naren Arulrajah. Gary: We appreciate your listenership, your time, and most of all, we appreciate your intention to reduce insurance dependence in your practice. Our goal is to provide information that will help you successfully reduce insurance dependence and convert your practice into a thriving and profitable dental practice that provides you with personal professional and financial satisfaction. Gary: Welcome to another episode of the less insurance dependence podcast. I’m Gary Takacs, your co-host and we have a great topic for you today. As you saw in the headline, the topic is how to respond to the dreaded question from your patients, is this covered by my insurance. We're going to get into that question in detail and share some wonderful responses that will help your patients think differently about their dental insurance from this day forward. Hey before I do that, I just have a comment I want to start with on this episode. Recently I had a chance to talk to a number of our clients who are in the process of going out of network with PPO plans and one of my clients made the comment to me that he really appreciated having a colleague that he could talk with about the journey. Another dentist that is midway like him going through the process of successfully reducing insurance dependence and he said it's almost like a built-in support system where this dentist could talk to a colleague about the things that they were experiencing in their practice and he just made the comment that he really appreciated the fact that he could speak to someone else that's a colleague that was experiencing the same things, not only for support and encouragement but also just for perspective. So, I have a request. My request obviously if you're a listener of the less insurance dependence podcast, you're interested in reducing your insurance dependence, I bet someone that could maybe be a colleague like that for you, maybe it's someone you went to dental school with, maybe it's a dentist that you've really connected with in your CE courses, but I invite you to share the less insurance dependence podcast with a colleague, with a friend, plural even because i do think the idea of having others that speak the same language and are on the same journey can be very helpful. So please share this with one of your colleagues and that can help you as well. Anyway, let's dive into this topic, how to respond to the dreaded question, is this covered by my insurance Naren: Hello everyone this is Naren your co-host of the less insurance podcast show. Today we are going to be addressing a question that make almost every dentist that I know cringe. The reality is that if the number one way your dental office attracts new patients is by signing on to PPO plans, the number one question they'll be asked is, is this covered by my insurance? This is going to happen day in and day out and as more than 90 percent of practices in the United States and Canada have some type of insurance, you're going to hear this every day. Of course, this question gets so frustrating both for the dentist and the team member, sometimes they just accept it, they accept this is the reality. But in today's episode Gary will share some effective ways to respond to this question. So instead of letting it kind of frustrate you and instead of giving up Gary's going to talk about how you can respond to the dreaded question, is this covered by my insurance Gary: Hey Naren, I hear that question from when I’m in offices and listening, I hear that question almost incessantly when doctor is presenting treatment to the patient, especially treatment that's asymptomatic, that doesn't hurt or that's elected, doesn't necessarily need to be done and I’ve actually heard dentists in an experience of lower emotional intelligence actually sigh when they get asked that question. The patients say doctors just covered by my insurance and I’ll hear the dentist say, they're so frustrated. They know they can help the patient. They have the clinical skills and they know how it's going to benefit the patient but the truth is, the only way the patient wants to have it done is if it's covered by their insurance and if dentists hear this enough, it’s kind of creates a defeatist perspective. It's like here we go again, you anticipated happening. If something happens enough you pretty much accept it as reality. Well here it comes, here comes, here comes, and what happens sometimes Naren is that dentists quit recommending ideal treatment or elective treatment because while here comes, here comes, I don't need to bang my head against the wall. I’m not even going to present it. Naren: Can I share? Gary: It's a downward spiral, it's a downward spiral that doesn't help the dentist the practice or the patient. Naren: Yeah, let me share something that our mutual inspiration Doctor Stephen Covey said. He talks about his time quadrant and he talks about urgent and important, right, things that hurt are urgent. Of course, we're going to do it, right, like the ring phone, the burning house etc. But the benefit comes from working on the important stuff, the elective stuff, the things that you're doing today to prevent future problems, benefit both for the practice as well as for the patient. What you're saying is the patient who's typically on insurance is trained to just deal with the urgent and the doctors also give up, they're also dealing with the urgent. So, neither the practice is growing nor the patient's health is growing. So, they all are like stuck in this urgent loop and never working on the importance. So, this I think is, I mean, just reminded me of what you're saying work on the important stuff, not work on the urgent stuff. Gary:  The by-product if that happens is the practice evolves into a tooth at a time practice because you think about what are the benefits covered by insurance whether it's a thousand dollars a year twelve hundred dollars a year or rarely fifteen hundred dollars a year, that's basically one tooth. Naren: Right Gary: And so, doctors start subconsciously evolving the way they diagnosed to basically just the tooth of the year club let's just treat the most urgent tooth because that's all the patient's going to accept because that's all the insurance is going to pay for and you think about Naren: Right Gary: Think about how contrary that is to their training, to their training to be comprehensive, to help people prevent future problems Naren: Right Gary: They're literally just doing the tooth of the year club. Can you imagine if let's just relate it outside of dentistry and let's say someone wanted to carpet their house, re-carpet their house but that isn't something that would be covered by homeowner’s insurance but if there was such a thing as homeowners’ dental insurance, the insurance company would say what, one room at a time. You'd only do one room at a time and how long would it take you to re-carpet your house? Of course, that's how many rooms you have but that could take years and years and years. Is that what the consumer wants? Naren: No Gary: Does the consumer want and it'll never match, even if you buy it from the same mill if you're buying the carpet a year apart, you can guarantee where there's seams that's never going to match, Naren: Even the shade, right, one's going to have a different shade the older one then Gary: Even if you use the same lab Naren: Yeah Gary: When it's a year apart, it might be a different ceramic, there might be different materials a year later. It's never going to match; you're not serving the patient. So i want to share a response that I have taught our clients, my coaching clients to use, and i have to tell you that they have reported back to me, they say Gary I can't believe how powerful that response has been and i can't believe how looking into my patients eyes, I see them literally changing how they're thinking about their dental insurance. So, drum roll please Naren, here it comes, here comes, the patient says, is this covered by my insurance? And let's say the answer is no. Which is what it's going to be most of the time. Of course, we're not going to say no just outright like that. We're going to say no, but we're not going to say it like that. We're going to say it like this. So Naren asked me the question is if you're a patient doctor is that covered by my insurance? Naren: Doctor yeah, I would like to do it but is it covered by my insurance? Gary: Naren, unfortunately your dental insurance doesn't care about your health. In fact, they ultimately, their ultimate goal is to have you never visit the dentist because Naren if you never visit the dentist, guess what, they never have to pay claims. So, their goal is to have you never visit, they don't care one bit about your health as you know Naren, I care deeply about your health and my team cares deeply about your health. So, the ultimate answer to that is unfortunately your insurance company doesn't care about your health and as a result of that they aren't going to provide any benefits for the care that I’ve recommended. I’d like to switch the conversation here Naren, to why this treatment is beneficial to you. Now let's pause on the role playing, think about that for just a minute. Let's break it down for a minute. What did I say? In the beginning unfortunately your dental insurance company doesn't care about your health? Now let's pause here. Is that a true statement? Naren: Yes Gary: Absolutely, absolutely. In fact, they ultimately hope you never go to the den. Now some of you might be thinking, oh my gosh, that's absolutely right. Wow, and when you say that to the patient, unfortunately your dental insurance company doesn't care about your health, ultimately, they hope you never go to the dentist. What's happening now when it comes to helping the patient understand whose side, we're on. Whose side am i on, as a dentist in that role? I am on the patient side. Naren: Exactly now you're my colleague you're my you're my partner. Gary: Yeah and I’ll tell you what else is likely happening in the patient's mind. They're thinking, right, you're right. I had to fight my auto insurance company because they didn't want to pay on a little fender bender I got into. They tried to do everything they could. I had to fight my homeowner’s policy when my homeowner's policy tried to fight. They’re wonderful when it comes to taking your payments, accepting premiums, but as soon as you have to submit a claim, they're now the enemy with you and that's what goes on because everybody I know and I know that's one of those absolutes. Everybody I know has had, tried to have the wool pulled over their eyes by auto insurance, homeowners’ insurance, other kinds of insurance Naren: Speaking of that Gary just today my mother-in-law, had a leak on a roof and there's a lot of damage and they wanted to call the insurance company and they said nope. It's the guy who did the works fault, the rufus fault. So, we won't cover it. Gary: Always trying to always trying to get out of honouring their commitment Naren: But she has paid thousands and thousands maybe even tens of thousands of thousands Gary: Tens of thousands but I want you doctors I want you to really think about this. It's a great way to respond to the question. Unfortunately, your dental insurance company doesn't care about your health. Ultimately, they hope you never go to the dentist. If you never go to the dentist, they never have to pay a thing and now the patient is suddenly making a shift and notice how I finished that role playing, I said I’d like to switch the conversation to a conversation with you about why this treatment would benefit you, would benefit you. Now I’m not saying 100 percent of the patients are going to go, oh okay then let's do it, but it's changing the dialogue, it's changing the context, it's changing the dialogue and I believe our listeners here at the less insurance dependence podcast, I believe that their patients do understand the doctor and dental team is on their side. They get derailed because they fall back into those patterns of that, this is covered by my insurance but they get derailed and one of the reasons why I wanted to have this conversation and do this episode is that when you go out of network, when I’m not if, not if, when you go out of network, doctors did you hear that subtle optimism in my word selection there, when you go out of network, one of the things that's going to happen is you'll have much more patient retention of your existing patients that are in network when you go out of network because they know you're on their side. They trust you and they know you're on their side and they don't want to roll the dice and go to someone else that they may end up not trusting and they don't want to go through all of the emotional effort to re-establish trust as trust is emotional and they already have it established with you. They don't want to have to go do that somewhere else. My clients have reported they said, Gary when you first taught me that I had to take pause because it was very different from the way I’ve responded in the past three years, well unfortunately this is one of those uncovered benefits and that is an answer. It's just not the most effective answer. Naren: Gary, can I add something real-quick. We both are fans of Doctor Robert Chaldini and the number one thing he teaches as the most powerful influence principle is what he calls commitment consistency which is mindsets. So, the patient is coming with the mindset of, does is it covered by my insurance. Before you can before they are ready to listen, you need to shift that mindset and what you did just then Gary that language you used about saying insurance doesn't care about your health which taps into a mindset they already have which is insurance doesn't care about me, it's home insurance or whatever. So no point trying to convince them anything till you switch that mindset. So, I really think what you're teaching is it's so simple but from a psychological perspective, it's so powerful. Gary: Naren, years ago, I found a wonderful plaque in one of my clients, one of my clients offices in their room where they present dentistry, in the area, in the office within their practice where they present treatment and financial options and the plaque said this, think about this, this number of years ago, said beware of bargains in parachutes, hand grenades, and dental treatment, and this is a client who you'd have to understand the appropriateness of that plaque because he has a wonderful sense of humour and all of his patients know that he has a sense of humour and it said it was printed on a brass plaque that hung on the wall and it said beware of bargains in parachutes, hand grenades and dental treatment and it was kind of tongue-in-cheek but not really. Naren: Yeah, you're setting the mindset you're just making them realize guys, if it's cheap, you're going to be on the watch out Gary: Think about this Naren, can you imagine, now you're a marketing genius. Naren: Yeah Gary: Marketing savant. Can you imagine a billboard in any major city in North America? Naren: Yeah Gary: That says, the cheapest open-heart surgery available, go to can www.cheapopenheartsurgery.com. Imagine that Naren: Exactly Gary: Why doesn't that billboard say that? Naren: Because nobody will buy it and actually there is an interesting case. My daughter is in an MBA class, I mean she got into an MBA school and one of the classes, one of the professors talked about a case where India launched the cheapest car. It's a 100 000-rupee car. Nobody bought it because nobody wants to be seen as buying the cheapest car. It flopped. Gary: Conversion, how much is that in I think US dollars? Naren: I think in the us dollars you're looking at two-thousand-dollar car. So, the car was good they really, really, worked on the engineering they spent hundreds of millions but the minute they called it the cheapest car, they don't want to touch it at that time Gary: As a car nut, car aficionado, I have a two word answer no thank you. I guess that's three words, no thanks. So I have, you're going to see this in the show notes, we're going to we're going to provide this for you in the show note. So, I want you to go to the show notes, it's at lessinsurancedependence.com. Consider a plaque in your office that says something like this. Have an open mind, have an open mind, if your insurance dictates the quality of treatment you expect to receive, please let us know so we may refer you to another dentist. We choose to treat our patients better. Let me, let me read that again. Imagine a brass plaque in your consultation room or somewhere in your office that said something like this. If your insurance dictates the quality of treatment you expect to receive, please let us know, so we may refer you to another dentist. We choose to treat our patients better. Radical Naren: Yep Gary: Radical but it's the truth Naren: Yeah but I love the other quote, the other one that your client had. Gary: Hey if you have a sense of humour use the other one, the other one. Beware of bargains in parachutes, hand grenades, and dental treatment. So, if you're more serious, use the comment about we choose to treat our patients better, if you have more of a sense of humour, consider the other one. Naren: We'll put that in a pdf format. So hopefully if anybody wants to even just take it and do something with it, they can we'll do that in the show notes. Gary: And maybe it's something you could share with your team members and the point is that it is sadly nothing short of a war, a battle between your office and the dental insurance company and in between in the middle of the crossfire, are your patients, and that's what it is. If you think about it as anything less, you're not thinking about it in a clear-headed way and I think it's perfectly okay to be so bold as to say unfortunately your dental insurance company doesn't care one bit about your health. In fact, they hope you never come to the dentist. If they if you never come to the dentist, they never they never have to pay a claim. However, as you know, we care deeply about your health. That's a conversation doctors I want you to be comfortable having with your patients and our client my clients tell me that Gary I had to had to referred, I had to work on this but once I worked on it and worked on how I could present that to patients it has been received extremely well and patients have said you're right doc, you're absolutely right and I do trust you. Many times, the patient would say, tell me why I should have this done? And then it opens up a wonderful conversation about health, instead about insurance. Naren: So, you said Gary just before I wrap up, you said after that part one, then you talk about the benefits, right, just want to make sure that if somebody else Gary: You have to have a benefit statement, Naren: Yeah. Gary: Yeah and you talk about the benefits and talk about it in in the framework of the patient. Well hey I want to go ahead and put a ribbon on this one. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the less insurance dependence podcast. Hey as a closing announcement, we have a thriving dentist MBA workshop coming up on the first Friday of December, first Friday of December, and we have very attractive tuition for that. That one will sell out. In that workshop although it's a live stream it's done virtually, although it will sell out. We offer the lowest pricing in advance of the workshop. So, go to thrivingdentist.com. Look at the one day thriving dentist MBA workshop. You'll see some very attractive tuition. In that workshop I cover the ten elements of a thriving practice and one of those elements just one is how to successfully reduce insurance dependence in your practice. Hey thanks again for listening and thanks for sharing this with your colleague’s thanks so much.

Many dentists, even though they know that they might be writing off hundreds of, thousands of dollars, in PPO write-offs, still choose to stay in-network. In this episode, Gary and Naren discuss the consequences that can impact your dental practice and cause your business to suffer, if you stay in-network with PPO Plans. Gary also shared solutions to all the consequences dentists may face due to being in-network. Highlights: Introduction to today’s topic > 01:05 The backstory about this topic > 03:00 What are the consequences? > 04:22 Consequence #1: Overhead will go up > 06:48 Consequence #2: You will remain dependent on patients who come from Insurance > 10:19 Consequence #3: Frustration over patients who only want treatment covered by insurance > 11:24 Consequence #4: Challenge growing the high-value service component of your practice > 12:46 Consequence #5: If you continue to stay in-network, your practice will be vulnerable to the next crisis > 15:24 Recap of the five consequences for staying in-network > 18:27 The solution for these Consequences > 19:25 Resources: CALCULATE NOW REGISTER LEARN MORE SUBSCRIBE Transcript Naren: This is the Less Insurance Dependence podcast with my good friend Gary Takacs and myself, Naren Arulrajah. Gary: We appreciate your listenership, we appreciate your time and most of all we appreciate your intention to reduce insurance dependency in your practice. Our goal is to provide information to you that will allow you to successfully reduce insurance dependency and convert your practice into a thriving and profitable dental practice that provides you with personal professional and financial satisfaction. Welcome to another episode of the Less Insurance Dependence podcast, I am Gary Takacs your podcast cohost and I am very excited about bringing a topic to you that I know you are going to benefit from and the topic is what are the Consequences for Staying in Network with PPO Plans? Hey before we get tot to that episode though a quick announcement about our September thriving dentist MBA live stream workshop and man we had a great time on that you know that MBA workshop is all about the 10 elements of a thriving practice – it is an 8 hour course and during that 8 hour course I go through all of the 10 elements in detail it actually is a true workshop we have 11 workshop exercises throughout the day the exercises are all about helping you apply the information that you are learning we also have a 64 page workshop workbook to support you in applying this information and apply it in your practice – so they come join us in October we have another live stream format it is October 23rd and 24th that is a Friday Saturday, and you can find that we will put a link in the show notes just click on that link and it’ll take you right to the landing page where you could learn more about that October one day thriving dentist MBA live stream workshop – we have got some very attractive pricing, we have got some early bird pricing available for you. I will give you a heads up our workshops have been selling out we limit attendance because of the workshop format and they have been selling out if tickets are still available you can see that on the website and you can see some very attractive pricing. Hope to see you join us in the October one day thriving dentist MBA live stream workshop. Naren: Hello everyone this is Naren your cohost of the less insurance podcast show – I am excited to talk about today’s topic but before we jump in I just want to kind of give you the back story as to how you know we picked this topic recently Gary did a book club for his coaching clients and he discussed case presentation – a book on case presentation by none other than Doctor Frank Spear. It is an amazing book and everyone who was part of this book club conversation loved all the insights and the lessons Garry shared, and one of the things that stood out to us was what frank taught or talked about in this book – he makes it a point to talk to potential patients, the consequences of not doing anything and that kind of gave us an idea – many many many people even though thy know that they might be writing off hundreds or thousands of dollars in PPO write offs – still choose to stay in network. So we thought why not talk about the consequences of staying in network with PPO plans today – Garry does that sound good to you? Gary: Yeah let’s recognize Naren possible choice is to stay in network – in fact I might even go far s to say that that is the popular choice – Naren: Right Gary: That is what the vast vast vast majority of dentists will do however this choice has consequences and as you framed it so well – the book that we did in book club written by doctor Frank Spear – I love the way frank introduced the concept of always let your patient know in an informative way not a scary way – in an informative way what are the consequences of not doing any treatment. you know Naren I remember when Paul learnt that concept – he took a workshop from spear education and that was one of the core elements of this particular workshop and I remember when Paul applied it in our practice we were a solo dentist at that time and I remember when Paul applied it – and it was quite literally a break through when you present that for example Naren – I want to share this because I know our listeners can benefit from it. Let’s say our patient has old amalgam fillings – a mouth full of old amalgam fillings that might have been placed 25 or 30 years ago – maybe when they were a young adult when these old amalgam fillings were placed and the doctor can clearly see that they are breaking down but the one problem is nothing hurts and now what do some people think when nothing hurts? Naren: Those things are fine Gary: I don’t need to do anything! And as Frank would do that with a patient I would say something like you know Naren you might be wondering why do I need to do anything about this when nothing hurts and so I wanted to share with you what are the possible consequences of not replacing these amalgam fillings – well one possibility is because of the fillings now decay can get underneath those filings and cause more decay. Decay never solves itself – it only gets worse and if you wait till it hurts that decay maybe much greater than it is now – and we may need to do more aggressive treatment like a root canal and crown if we wait. If we can treat it now –we can treat it more conservatively and save more tooth structure and maybe save something a lot more complicated in the future I just wanted you to know what the possible consequence of not doing anything whatsoever Naren: That is a great tip Garry thank you for sharing it. Gary: So hey let’s talk about the consequences of sating in network because it is a choice – you don’t have to go out of network. However there are consequences to that choice – let talk in my mind there’s many many many consequences however I have thought of 5. Let me go through those – I’ll number them one through 5. number 1 – your practice overhead will continue to go up – because dental insurance companies will reduce your PPO fees even more so in the future now Naren I made that statement pretty badly – they will be lowering your contracted fees, now we can I say that so confidently Naren? Naren: Because they have done Gary: Because they have done it may times before! Naren: Exactly Gary: And that’s what they do yeah it happened recently in Arizona it happened recently as December – December of last year – they send a certified letter out all Arizona contracted providers with Delta and they just unilaterally said hey due to pressure from our clients – we are cutting your fees 15% - now notice the languor they used in the letter – due to pressure from our clients we have no choice but to reduce the reimbursement you have received so who’s the client? Naren: The employer not the dentist Gary: The employer – not the paint not the dentist – it is the employer. So it is safe to say that I have seen this go on throughout my career that they have reduced the fees that they are paying – right. Not paying more. As they reduce the fees and think about what is happening – as they lower the fees they are saying you and as your overhead goes up – for example right now because of PPE expenses and other expenses as your cost go up and your income goes down – it creates an ever widening gap and having the effect of increasing your overheads and decreasing your profitability even further as if it isn’t bad enough already – Naren: Right - Can I share a resource Garry? Gary: Please Naren: I know you and I did a math exercise not too long ago and we looked at a practice doing collecting a million dollars and 80% of that money will be coming from PPO patients and we discovered that particular practice was writing off half a million dollars in PPO adjustments every single year – so what you are saying I – if you don’t do this they would end up writing off let’s say hundreds of thousands – in this case half a million dollars year after year, and is it okay for us to add that resource – that PPO resource? Gary: The resource why we created that resource for our listener’s benefit Naren is that – many dentists don’t know what their insurance adjustment is Naren: Right Gary: They don’t know and they don’t know because they have entered in their fees schedule – they have entered their contracted fees – 90% of dentist in the US enter their contracted fees in their dental practice management software – so we want to create a quick way to estimate and our estimation is accurate to plus or minus 2 percent so pretty darn accurate – and we’ll put it and I think we will call it our insurance adjustment calculator? I think it’s called the PPO write off? Naren: The PPO write off calculator Gary: The PPO writes off calculator - we will put a link in the show notes. If you don’t know what your insurance The PPO write off calculator write offs are the calculator will help you determine it with a ninety eight percent degree of accuracy. Okay so that is the consequence number one – is your overheads are going to keep going up. Consequence number 2 – you will remain dependent on the fact that the majority of your new paints will come from the dental insurance companies. Practices that are PPO practices – majority of their patients come from the insurance companies and if you stay in network that is going to be a cycle that just keeps continuing you know Naren in social circles there is a lot of discussion about cycles of poverty. Gary: If you are born into a poverty situation, and perhaps you live in a city that is experiencing your deceased and decades of poverty it is kind of hard to break that pattern – to break out of that pattern – and I think the same thing can happen here if all the new patients you get only come from the insurance companies you are stuck in that pattern – and that is another consequence that you will experience if you stay in network. Number 3 – you will continue to experience fruition with your patients who will only wan treatment done that is covered by their insurance, this causes a lot of dentists frustration Naren – they know they can help the patients the know they have the skillset we have the technology we have the treatment predictability where we know we can help someone but the patient will only want – the only criteria they care about is –doctor is this converted by insurance, f the answer is yes – then they say let’s do it – if the answer is no then they say – no I am not interested and that causes such a I think – a frustration on the part of dentists knowing you can help some but in fact being limited by this crazy insurance plan. Naren: I remember the story shared with e when you purchased your prates – you know the shaggy carpets and you know pretty much and it is all infected with 33 insurance plans. Gary: 34 Naren: And I guess at some point the dentist jut gives up and does what the people want which is what covered insurance is – he doesn’t try to do the right kind of dentistry he doesn’t have the money to invest in his practice – he just gives up. Gary: It’s a cycle that just perpetuates that just keeps going – which kind of leads me to the 4th consequence, if you continue to stay in network you will have a challenge growing the high value services component of your practice – you know for us high value services are things like – placing and replacing implants, adult orthodontics, cosmetic dentistry, complex restorative dentistry, oral conscious sedation – those are things that are typically aren’t covered by insurance. When you have patients that only want to have things covered by insurance do you think you are going to get to do much of those high value services? No. you know they are not interested in those – now you have the skill set you have invested time and money in your continued education – maybe even invested in technology to be able to do XYZ service – and now your audience is not receptive. Naren: Let me understand this Garry – so you are saying you have a challenge growing in the high value service component of your practice – is it because you have an audience that is not receptive or is it because you have said no so many times. Gary: Yes you don’t even bother asking anymore. Well it could be both – if you hear not enough at a subconscious level you quit presenting it. Because you anticipate the no and this happens subconsciously. It’s not conscious – doctors don’t consciously say jeez I have heard no to adult ortho a hundred times I am not going to present – they don’t process it in a conscious way that way Naren: Right Gary: However at a subconscious level if you keep banging your head against the wall – pretty soon you will figure out I am not going to bang my had against the wall anymore and you sort of just resign. Naren: Right Gary: Resign to just to the everyday drill stuff, because that is just what the insurance part is – but I actually think it the answer is another level as well and that is if you have an audience that is only interested in what is covered by insurance – then you are not going o have a lot of success presenting into that audience because they are not interested. Naren: It’s like if somebody is at McDonalds you can’t present them a steak meal for 50 bucks – just Gary: Right? Because that is not why I am here! Naren: Exactly – Gary: Hey! If that is what I wanted you know I would go to the restaurant the high ends I would go to the Chris which is in the other part of town Naren: Right Gary: You’re right Naren: Exactly Gary: That’s why McDonalds doesn’t have a 50 dollar fillet entre – you know it doesn’t. leads me to consequence number 5, and this one is very timely for us to talk about right now if you continue to stay in network with the PPO plans your practice will likely be very very vulnerable to the crisis. Now I am not a fear monger in fact I am the opposite *laughs* I am very much an optimist, however one thing I can safely say based on history is that the current crisis we are still experiencing – the Corona virus crisis is not the last crisis any of our listeners are going to face in their career – not at all Naren: Right Gary: There will be I mean – al we have to do, let’s just go back 20 years and I can name two other crisis – the 07 08 which we now call the great recession and the 9/11 recession that happened after 9/11 and that just happened in the last 20 years Naren: Yeah Gary: And that just happened in the last 20 – and if we go even further back I can name 4 other crisis you know that cropped up now I certainly hope we don’t experience another virus crisis like we have with the corona virus now I would hope that, but I think it is very safe to say that we are not done navigating crisis in your career doctor is that safe to say Naren? Naren: Absolutely Garry I mean every ten years or so we tend to have some kind of a major major shock. Gary: Something! You know something crops up and you know when you look at the offices that we were all affected by corona virus – there is no denial we are all affected by it, but when you look at the offices that were biter positioned to deal with it they had lower overhead higher profitability higher practice reserves in other words money in the practice account to deal with a rainy day – they had higher personal reserves, they had money in personal savings accounts to deal with crisis Naren: Right Gary: and those practices and those doctors navigated the corona virus crisis much biter than those that were on the other end the opposite end those that had higher overhead, lower profit as a result of higher overhead and lower profit they had less money in their practice bank account to deal with a rainy day they had less money in their personal bank account as an emergency fund and the single most significant factor is lowering your profitability is that 42 to 44% you are writing off by participant gin PPO plans – that is the single largest contributor to your high overhead and your low profitability so Naren there is 5 consequences so I just want you to be informed and want you to have all the information in hand so you can make informed decision with proper information so let me recap – 5 consequences of continuing to stay in network or PPO plans – number one your practice overhead will continue to go up because dental insurance companies will reduce future PPO fees – number 2 you remain dependent on the fact that majority of your new patients will com o you from the insurance company hence the cycle jus continues, the cycle just perpetuates – number 3 you will continue to experience frustration who will continue to want services covered by their insurance treatment plan . Number 4 as a result of that you will have a challenge of high value services that you love to do and you like to do more of – you are kind of hitting a brick wall with your patients and you will have trouble growing that component of your practice and number 5 sadly your practice will likely be very vulnerable to the next crisis like it was in this crisis. So what is the solution to all of this Naren? The solution is to go through all of your preparedness – get ready to successfully go out of network and then step by step by step start to successfully resign from these PPO plans – Naren much of the plan of how to do it successfully is found in past episodes of the les insurance podcast – and also a sled promotion – if you are interested in coaching to help you with it, that is one of the core elements that we cover in our coaching services as well veritably welcome the opportunity to work with you doctor to he you successfully reduce your insurance dependence but I would start by perhaps binge listening to some episodes of the less insurance dependence podcast and just know that if you would like some specific coaching and guidance on that we would love to help you with this in our coaching program. Naren: Thanks you so much for everything you do we can’t do this without you we love that you share this with your friends and that you write your views for us and also another extra bonus– of you haven’t checked out thriving dentist. Com Garry has done 400 and fifty episodes- he is the podcast Godfather – he is the first one to do podcasts in dentistry – so you can go back and binge listen and we will put a link to the thriving dentist show so you can go and binge listen to all those episodes. Thank you for your time and we really appreciate you and everything you do for us.

Gary believes that nearly every dentist would love to resign from PPO Plans but only very few of them actually do. "Why is that?" In Gary’s 40+ years of coaching 2,200+ dental practices, he discovered the 5 most common reasons why dentists don’t resign from PPO’s. In this episode, Gary and Naren talk about these 5 reasons in-depth while also sharing suggestions on how you can overcome each one of them. Highlights: Introduction to today’s topic > 00:51 About the number one dental podcast: The Thriving Dentist Show > 01:10 Reason #1 - The Dentist doesn’t actually know the financial impact of being in-network with dental insurance > 07:09 Reason #2 - The dentist doesn’t know how to market to patients without insurance > 08:47 Reason #3 - The dentist doesn’t have any role models to inspire them > 09:38 Reason #4 - Lack of support from team members > 10:53 Reason #5 - Dentists feel like it can’t be done in their city or town > 13:22 Resources DOWNLOAD The PPO Write Off Calculator FIND WRITEOFF AMOUNT SCHEDULE A FREE MEETING SUBSCRIBE WRITE A REVIEW NOW Transcript Naren: This is the Less Insurance Dependence podcast with my good friend Gary Takacs and myself, Naren Arulrajah.  Gary: We appreciate your listenership, we appreciate your time we appreciate your intention to reduce insurance dependency in your practice. Our goal is to provide information to you that will allow you to successfully reduce insurance dependency in your practice and make this your best year yet. Thank you. Naren: Welcome to another episode of the Less Insurance Dependence podcast, I am Naren your podcast cohost – today we have an exciting topic. The topic is The 5 Biggest Reasons Dentists Don’t Resign from PPO Plans. Before we jump into the episode I have a quick announcement – many of you know that Gary is the pod-father, he is the very first one in dentistry to start podcasting, and that podcasts called the Thriving Dentist Show. You can access it by going to the website the thriving dentist. com, now a couple of trivia points – number one it is your first podcast that was every launched in dentistry – number two it is listened to in more than one hundred and eighty five countries across the globe and the farm ad is also very interesting, every week without fail Gary goes through a topic that is based on the question he gets either from his clients or from him many many many fans all across the globe and for example the latest topic was – this s the last episode we published and as we are publishing this, it is called the one metric you must know if you are a PPO practice – so if you love listening to the Less Insurance Dependence you are going to love the thriving dentist show that is four hundred and forty eight episodes that are already live and by the time you listen to this we have already crossed four hundred and fifty episodes, so binge listen to it if you want or just listen to one or two episodes that you like so that is just our invitation to you to go check out the thriving dentist show and lets jump in – Gary how are you doing today? Gary: Hey Naren I am doing great – thanks for talking about the thriving dentist who we know we get new listeners every week that find the Less Insurance Dependence podcast and it occurred to us  that some may not know that we have another pod act called the thriving dentist show and we know that if they loved the  Less Insurance Dependence show that they are going to love the thriving dentist show, now they are different but they go hand in hand because they both help develop a thriving practice Naren: Yeah, the way I see it they get to listen to their number one coach on the planet when it comes to the business and people side of dentistry and it is free you know and they can listen to it anytime they want – so that is two big benefits! So feel free to check it out any time you want. Gary: we will be sure to put a link in the show notes so if you are driving don’t take your hands off the wheel, but when you are stationary got to the show notes – right here in the Less Insurance dependence if you scroll down you will see al ink and it will take you directly to the thriving dentist show - or you can fund it on iTunes or Google Play. And we have a fun topic for today - The 5 Biggest Reasons Dentists Don’t Resign from PPO Plans. It is interesting because I believe that nearly every dentist would like to resign from PPO plans but very few of them actually do – so why is that? I sort of started asking this question a couple of years ago – well why not? And I discovered some commonalities – so there was some common thread so I actually identified 5, 5 of the biggest reasons – there are more than that, but I will bet that every one of our listeners will identify with either one or more of these reasons, because it is these reasons that are blocking you from taking action, so there is some kind of fun here Naren. I’m going to identify the 5 Biggest Reasons and then I am going to suggest how to overcome each one  Naren: Awesome Gary: And I think maybe this will inspire our listeners our doctors to identify their own reasons and you know and maybe they will recognize and say they wait a minute that is me! That’s what I was thinking! And that is why I am frozen. Naren have you ever set out to do something and whatever it is whatever realm it is kind of just frozen because you did not know where to start or you did not know how to overcome some hurdle you saw? Has that ever happened to you? That happens to me every week  Naren: I mean absolutely – I will give you a personal example. Early on in my career I did my own taxes and I hit you know those details and numbers and just hated it – I just liked big ideas and the 10,000 foot – I mean every bill and every dollar – and twenty-four cents so what I would do is I would ignore it ignore it and then finally when something bad is going to happen – I wake up and realize – I do not need to do this – I can hire someone who can do this and take care of me. Gary: Right Naren: And version one was we just took all these papers and gave it to them, but now we found a  better firm that just lets us automatically upload things – so it is all in the cloud and it Is connected to our bank we do not upload anything it just magically everything shows up and the only thing we have to do is kind of categorize and make sure it is in the right bucket so it is the same situation but my mindset and maybe the approach that changed and all of a sudden no big deal – it was handled. I don’t know if that is a good example but – Gary: that is a great example – oftentimes, when we are handling something we hit, the big hurdle Naren: Yeah  Gary: and the big hurdle just stops us and in this hurdle, you are going to find out how to burst through each one of those hurdles and take some action on reducing your PPO involvements. So kind of fun, can I dive right in? We have 5 of them Naren: Yes Gary: I have numbered them one to five and they are not numbered in importance – they are of equal importance but I will number them so that there is some structure to the podcast. So number one – remember that these are the five biggest reasons dentist don’t resign from PPO plans. Number one - the dentist does not actually know the financial impact of actually being in network. Now think abbot that for a minute Naren. Naren: Yep Gary: They don’t know and I think this is a big one – because if they truly knew it would be perhaps the most inspiring information they could have as to why they should be out of network, so let’s list each one of these and come back to suggest solutions – so before I go to number two though I think what is common is I think the dentist knows that PPO participation has a negative effect but they just don’t know how bad, how much Naren: Yeah Gary: You know it is like I know I shouldn’t eat this but you plug it in Naren: Yeah McDonalds Gary: Yeah fast food – I know I should not eat this I know that but they don’t really know how bad it is  Naren: Right Gary: And if they knew how bad it is they would say no no I am not good to do that  Naren: Right Gary: So number one the dentist doesn’t actually know Naren: Gary really quick – is it okay if we include that podcast episode that you did? Gary: Yeah that is what I am going to- you got ahead of me Naren that was the solution Naren: Oh okay never mind okay keep going  Gary: We are going to help them understand what happens in their practice including the PPO write off calculator so they can know what that actually is. I’ll come back to that Naren: Perfect Gary: Okay number 2 - the dentist doesn’t know how to successfully market to get patients other than being on an insurance plan  Naren: Right Gary: The practice is infected with PPO plans which means the vast majority of ways in which the patient chooses them is that they are on the plan and as a result of all of that activity coming in they have never really been inspired to market any other way to attract patients other than the ones on their plan so they do not know how to market Naren: Right Gary: And there is a good solution for that one – each one of these have a solution which is I hope you are interpreting this as good news. Number 3 – the dentist doesn’t really have any role models to motivate and inspired them to let them know that this can be done – you know if the entire world that you live in and all your dental colleagues are in dentistry network then you might kind of resign to the fact that – well I guess that is just the way this is  Naren: Right Gary: Apparently nobody is out of network – I mean they kind of are the kind of unicorns do they really exist? Naren: That is a saying isn’t it – you are the five most people you spend time with  Gary: Yes you become the 5 people you spend the most time with an if most dentist statistically are your colleagues are going to be PPO providers if that is the world that they travel in – they network in then that is all they see and pretty soon it becomes kind of a self- perpetuating process – well I guess that is just how it is and you kind of resign well as much as I would like to do that I really think it is actually kind of wishful thinking g I can’t do that, so that is reason number 3. Reason number 4 – lack of support from their team members, the talk to their office manager and their office manager goes oh no no doctor we could never do that, if we do that we would lose all of our patients and the doctor just got confirmation of a fear that he or she has. Can you imagine that Naren?  Naren: Yeah Gary: Going to your office manager and saying Linda I am thinking about resigning from Po plans what do you think, oh no no no doctor we will lose all of our patients – right oh okay never mind Naren: Just give up exactly Gary: And I am not faulting the tam member there- the only experience she has in dentistry is with the PPO practice and so the lenses that she looks through, I believe her heart  is in the right place, but it is  - she is not informed and she does not have an experience base outside of that and I don’t believe she is trying to torpedo the dentist I believe that she is genuinely concerned for the dentist which is fair but imagine if it were that blunt oh no doctor no doctor we would really lose all of our patients – that would really, if the doctor was kind of fragile on thinking about whether I can do this or not and they get that from a trusted team member that’s going to kind of heavily hit the brakes you won’t tap the breaks  Naren: Right Gary: You are going to hit it as hard as you can Naren: Right Gary: And no I am not being disparaging to a team member who holds that perspective that is a fair perspective Naren: Absolutely and again then again that is all they know so I mean like we went to school in Chicago and my school IIT is outside of Chicago was in the south side of Chicago where there are a lot of projects and t is very sad because most of these buildings have bullet holes and if you are growing up in an environment where this is everything you see and this is everything you know it is hard to kind of you know escape that  Gary: Yeah it is really a cycle that is hard to break Naren: Yeah Gary: Yeah that cycle outside of Chicago is a terrible cycle for many but also the cycle of PPO plans is something that is hard to break through – the reason number 4 – lack of support from team members and reason number 5 – they think thy can’t do it in their town or their city or their area I don’t think I will be able to I adjust don’t think I will be able to do it here and you lug in the reasons why and it becomes irrational – I think this can be done somewhere but I do not think I could do it here. So those are the 5, so those are not arbitrary those come up after me asking that question from thousands of dentists, doctor what stops you from resigning from a PPO plan and those are the 5 common answers, so let’s go through and find a solution for each one. Naren: Right perfect so let’s jump in Gary let’s give the solutions Gary: right so let’s go back o number 1 – actually know the financial impact of being in network.  You know we mentioned at the top of the show of the other podcast we do called the thriving dentist show. We did an episode recently about the one metric that dental insurance companies don’t want you to know and it is all about essentially covering up what the discounts are what the adjustments are so you don’t know the impact of that. So what I would like to do is put a link to that episode in the show notes and that’s our thriving dentist show link, and while we do that, in that episode we talk abbot PPO insurance plan calculator to calculate exactly what your adjustments and discounts are from PPo plans and we will put a link to that calculator in the show notes here as well and the reason why – if I can just know the top off it, the reason why dentists don’t know is – nine out of ten dentists enter their adjusted fees into their practice management software – no the actual fees but the adjusted fees and that is on the guidance of their dental insurance practice management – their practice management software – so whether it is Dentrix eagelsoft open dental or soft dent, whatever software they use nine out of ten dentists enter their contracted fees not their UCR fees. Naren: Right Gary: And they don’t know as a result they never know, you know I ran through this exercise earlier this week with a potential client and this was a nice strong practice and I asked him do you know what your write offs are – your insurance write offs? And he said Gary I don’t know I entered my fees I followed the advice of Dentrix and I entered my contracted fees. I asked him if he would be interested in knowing he said yeah and I went through the calculator with him and we discovered that this office had over 400,00 dollars a year in insurance write offs  - 400,000 if you, let’s use 400,00 as a round off but it was actually more than that, but 400,00 divided by 12 a month is 33,333 dollars a month so I told this doctor – doc you are spending 33,333 dollars a month on marketing and he said no no Gary I think you are looking at the wrong this on my profit and loss statement, I know I spend money on marketing but I am not spending that much. We were on a zoom meeting like this and he can see my face and I can see his face in the video. So I said doc look at my face in the video and I said doc you are spending and I used air quotes and I said doc you are spending 33,333 dollars a month on marketing and when I did that the light bulb went off in his head – and he said oh my gosh I am paying that. The reason why I say you are spending that much on marketing is because the insurance comp any is providing you with patients  Naren: Right Gary: And as soon as I said that to him it was literally like the flood gates of understanding were opened to him. That’s why I said the number one reason is that they don’t know the financial impact to participate in the plan. When I tell you that – did you realize that you are spending 33,333 dollars a month on marketing? Instantly they think wait a minute there is a better way – I may be doing that now but I am not going to do that in the future. Naren: Right makes sense because they don’t know like you know out of sight out of mind 0 you don’t realize it because they don’t know and it doesn’t hurt you and you don’t see it Gary: You don’t know Naren: Yeah Gary: And know they know, you know that would be a good quote to accompany this episode when we know better we do better. Naren: I love that quote – yeah. Gary: You two when we know better we do that – and that is just a specific example, of hat quote and that can apply in may avenues of our life but certainly it applies to this area making decisions right, okay he second one – the dentist doesn’t know how to market for patients other than being on the dental insurance plan. And I am just going to be very direct – follow my lead just do what I do. We are an EKWA client – EKWA is your company Naren. My practice - Life Smiles is a paying EKWA client and it’s the best marketing return on investment that I have ever got on my 13 years of ownership of my life smiles dental care. We are one of your platinum clients  Naren: Yes Gary: And we play 1200 dollars a month for all inclusive comprehensive services, it ids a flat fee and it is all inclusive, it doesn’t go up it is fixed and it provides us with 80 new patients a month and every one of those are choosing us for other reason – other reasons hat were influencing them to choose up – and just do what we do on that one – what a great way to instantly get on the oath to mastering marketing in your practice. Naren: Right and you spend 1.8% compared to the 38% that you used to spend  Gary: I mean think about that – if I analyze that – the doctor who is spending 33,333 dollars a month if he was to go with EKWA he is now going to spend 14,400 a year? Naren: Yes If I get my math right, let’s call it 15 just to round that up – so let’s spend 15,000 dollars a year instead of 400, and get t the added benefit of having his patients choosing him for other reasons on their plan – Gary: Right So there you go, okay – role number 3 – no real role models to inspire the dentist to break free and move from insurance. Here I would like to invite our listeners I can be your role model. Naren: We were just talking to a client of yours recently Gary – he first was our client and he then became your client – he has been listening to you to two years now since your launched the Less Insurance Dependence show and he literally told me that every day I am surrounded any someone who really knows what he is doing had done it before and is part of the community he is part of the I love dentistry Facebook group so he gets positive reinforcement every day along with the other 5500 members. So I believe you have created tribe of people – you know I love that quote – if it has been done before it must be possible something- Gary: I was about to; say doctor reed taught me that one. I believe it came from somewhere else but I always give him credit because that is where I learned it from – it has been done before so it must be possible and let me go a step further Naren. On the thriving dentist show I am owing to put a link in the show notes her of three dentist who have done fee for service practices and they are youg dentist who have successfully created fee for service practices – we are going to put a link to those 3 in the show notes here so they can listen to these again because it is not just me but others who have done this Naren: Right Gary: It is very cool ND these are awesome young dentist – and it gets better I had to think about it, all 3 started a fee for service practice from scratch in a highly competitive area by the way what do you think all three of these dentist heard as they announced their plan to their dental friends?  Naren: Yeah not possible  Gary: You cant do that that’s not – don’t you realize how competitive it is?  Naren: Yeah Gary: And all three of these docs seemed to have the same kind of temperament that I do – I love it when people tell l me I cannot do something.  Naren: Right Gary: Sometimes I think my wife does that to me because she knows exactly how it triggers me in a positive way Naren: exactly Gary: She knows something you know literally at the core done at the cellular level I can go yeah just watch. So how cool is that – they can have 4 mentors and 4 different voices different areas different perspectives – all showing them that it can be done. Naren: Right Gary: Number 4 lack of support from team members – here’s what I want you to do on that one doctor start talking to your team members about what is in it for them – as you work to resign from PPO plans – think about that. Think about Linda the office manager – think about what she said, oh doc you can’t do that. Think about this is what would our life be like as my office manager if we didn’t have people from the PPO plans? Start talking to them about what is in it for them – and I don’t mean a one bullet point conversation – multiple bullet points. Doctor if you feel like a hamster in treadmill as a dentist providing care in a PPO practice how do you think your team members feel? They are also hamsters on a treadmill Naren: Right Gary: And you know how you feel how patients say I don’t want to come if they don’t have my insurance and imagine how your team members feel when thy – your team members want to help people and the truth is when you are in network you are not able to help people as fully as you can, start talking to them about these things. Naren: The other thing you taught me Gary was you didn’t make your podcast – this one no insurance you said less insurance dependence right so one step at a time, one foot in front of the other – it is not over whelming but if I tell you need to do a full minute mile tomorrow you are going to say forget it, but if I tell you les go for a 7 minute I don’t know what your response would be  Gary: You experienced that! Naren: Yeah  Gary: Use the process that we can follow Naren: Exactly  Gary: It is baby steps that I cn do that Naren: Yeah Gary: I can do that –  Naren: It is like driving at night all you can see is the next hundred meters but that all you need. Gary: Yes that’s all you need to start – yeah that s a great point so we want you to provide you some information to your team members so that they can support you in this. Number 5 they think they cannot do it in their town. Well I would like to answer that right now – we have been successful as a coach, I have been successful as a coach with dentists in every type of location environment big cities suburban locations big towns smaller towns small tons, rural remote and every kind of practice environment has been successful. Hers how I want you to think about this – how many patients do you need to have a great practice? Really again it all depends on your goals your size as so on but I think that any of our listeners would agree that somewhere between 1500 and 2000 active patients would make a really good practice –  Naren: Right Gary: And you can find those people in every kind of location and you can find people who don’t have insurance because when they don’t have insurance they don’t ask you two questions – one are you in network? And two when you resent treatment they don’t ask you to cover by insurance  Naren: Right Gary: And three groups of people you can find think of them as silos of people – one would be retirees – retires wouldn’t have insurance –typically another group would be the other end of the age spectrum – millennial, people who in their 20s and 30s – they have not reached the point in their careers where they have accorded benefits and then the third group which is kind of  a catch all group and is kind of a big group is the gig economy workers – gig economy workers are independent workers they are freelance workers, independent contractors – Uber drivers, lift  drivers, freelance workers Etsy shop owners BnB owners and that group is expanding so I ask myself are those people – we found those people in every type of location , and If you are in an area that is highly corporate maybe you are in an area like Huston or a city like Chicago that is highly corporate – ask your self could I find myself patients who are retirees millennial and gig workers and every time the answer is oh yea and those groups of people are much larger than you think when you start to circulate in those areas, it’s like that comment about buying a new care that is a red car what happens? We start to see red cars everywhere. Naren: Exactly Gary: And when you start trying to attract retirees you think here is all the places I can find retirees in my community  Naren: Right Gary: And so there is the 5 ways, the 5 biggest reason and then the counteract to all of those is how to overcome each one f those well Naren I hope this has been inspiring for our listener to overcome what I hope have been the hurdles for them and I hope that this inspires them to take action and to continue down that path just to successfully reduce insurance dependence – we are in the middle of creating our grass roots movement and I am so encouraged by the results we are seeing  you know it’s all about helping the dentist – it is about providing personal professional and financial satisfaction and perhaps the most strategic thing you could do to achieve those ends is to successfully reduce insurance dependence  Naren: Absolutely Gary and going back to what I said at the beginning of the podcast – if you are a fan of the less insurance dependence show you are going to be a fan of the thriving dentist who and we are going to put in a link and we want to give away some swag so do us a favor go to the thriving dentist show – you can listen to one episode, 5 episodes or even 50 you can binge listen if you want and then write us a review so if you write a review of r the thriving dentist show and you do I in the next week or two we are going to pick a winner and you are going to get swag – so you will get a thriving dentist swag Gary: And we have some cool swag Naren I have to admit we’ve got some very cool swag so yeah jump on tunes and write us a review and get some fun swag to go along for it and if you write us a review for less insurance dependence we will send you a less insurance dependence swag so we will pick on the winner each week. Naren: Well thanks so much for listening I look forward to the next less insurance dependence podcast.

The permission statement is a really cool way to introduce comprehensive dentistry to your patients. It’s truly a game-changer! In this episode, Gary and Naren discuss the permission statement and how it allows you to introduce the concept and involve the patient, in a conversation about their oral health. Highlights: Introduction to today’s topic > 01:29 About the upcoming MBA workshop > 01:37 How the permission statement can be a game-changer >04:23 What the permission statement is > 04:50 How to Introduce them into a conversation with your patients > 05:49 The six photos for patient education > 09:13 How to present the necessary treatment > 15:08 How to ask for a Google review > 17:38 How to schedule a follow up > 21:10 Resources REGISTER DIGITAL PHOTOS FOR CASE ACCEPTANCE SUBSCRIBE SCHEDULE A FREE MEETING Transcript Gary: Welcome to another episode of the Less Insurance Dependence podcast, I am Gary Takacs your podcast cohost along with my great friend Naren Arulrajah. Hey Naren, how are you? Naren: Hey, Gary, I am doing great, I am just enjoying the few months of summer that we have in the city of Toronto. Gary: You are enjoying it and we are ready to turn summer off! *laughs* Naren we are so not- it has been a record heat summer for us – July, the month of July has the hottest month, in the history of Phoenix Arizona *laughs* Naren: Wow Gary: So I think it is time to turn the corner of this so kind of looking forward to some reasonable temperature for sure. Hey Naren our topic for this week is a really cool topic, we are going to talk about The Permission Statement and this is going to make a lot of sense as we go through this episode, but before I get to that one I want to make an announcement about our upcoming MBA thriving dentist live stream workshop – this is on Friday, September 11th, all day it is an eight-hour workshop. It is from 10 am eastern time to 7 PM – if you do the math that is actually 9 hours because we kind of give you a lunch/dinner break in there, and the workshop is all about the 10 elements of a thriving practice, and Hey Naren as you know one of those elements is guessed what? Naren: Reducing Insurance Dependence! Gary: Reducing Insurance Dependence! And we go into a deep die about all the things you need to do to successfully reduce insurance dependence so that is covered in detail along with the 9 other elements that make up a thriving practice – hey so consider this an invitation to come to join us on September the 11th 10 AM to 7 PM Eastern time and that is 7 AM to 4 PM Pacific time. We will put a link in the show notes and by the way, there is some very attractive pricing now that we do theses as live stream we have much reduced expenses to put on these workshops so no air travel no meeting rooms no catering and we have cut the tuition to the bone and you will notice some very attractive pricing for you, so come join us and get a massive amount of CE and as well as everything you know, everything we know that will help you develop a thriving practice, and I also want to read a really fun review that we have received on iTunes for the Less Insurance Dependence podcast you know for those of you who have taken the time to write a review for us on iTunes – we want to take the time to say thank you. A review for us on iTunes is very much like a Google review for your practice let me read one to you; ‘What a perfect podcast with very valuable information – insurance is ruining the great profession of dentistry and these guys are saving it – must hear – 2 exclamation points’ Gary: Thank you! I will not repeat the doctor’s name as we did not ask for his permission - but thank you and Naren I do not think I can say it any better when he said insurance is running the great profession of dentistry – and we are on a mission a grassroots mission to change that Naren: Absolutely Gary: So thank you for that review. If you haven’t done it already if you could be kind enough to jump on iTunes and write us a review much appreciated – it would help more dentists find us and it will help us on our grassroots mission to save and preserve private practice dentistry. Hey, Naren this topic - The Permission Statement – I learned it many years ago and it is a game-changer. Naren: Yes Gary: And I do not want to buy hype-y about it, it is not like there is some magic phrase that everybody is going to accept your treatment recommendations I truly wish we could bottle that if there was such a thing and sprinkle it over every practice in the country but it doesn’t work like that. What the permission statement is a really cool way to introduce the concept of comprehensive dentistry. Let’s face it – do you think comprehensive- the term comprehensive dentistry, do you think that is on the mind of the average dental patient? Naren: No Gary: No it is like, they think of it more as ‘I have a problem – fix it’ Naren: Right Gary: Right? So the language we use inside a dentistry which we would love our patients to you know experience as a comprehensive treatment plan and accept comprehensive dentistry – that is not a concept that is even bouncing around the mind of our patients Naren: Correct Gary: It is more – just like I said, ‘I have this problem …’ Naren: ‘Fix it’ Gary: ‘I want you to fix it’ and what the permission statement does is to allow you to introduce the concept and invite them into a conversation about dentistry in a different way – you know that term invite you into a conversation is something our dear mutual friend – Dr. Leanne Brady Naren: Yes Gary: And I want to give Lee credit for that because I first heard it from her and she may have heard it somewhere else but I want to give Lee credit for it I really think it properly describes what we are doing, and it is so intrusive Naren: Yes, and it is kind of linked to doctor Robert Cialdini most important principles of influence which are mindsets or you know commitment and consistency and stuff so when you ask for their permission and they say yes – now they are inviting you to help them and they are inviting you to tell them more and take them down that journey. Gary: Can I be blunter about it Naren? Naren: Yeah Gary: You ask their permission and they say yes, if you do not do it is being rude! Naren: Right *laughs* exactly Gary: It is not giving them what they want Naren: Want – right it flips the who equation to you preaching to them wanting it Gary: Now let’s just kind of – let’s do some fun little sidebar here and I guess we have to kind of think about this in the pre COVID world. Naren: Yeah Gary: So back when we all used to go to restaurants you know all the time and you know we would enjoy our time at restaurants, and there will be a time again where that will happen but Naren can you imagine maybe you and your wife going to a restaurant and can you imagine the server at the restaurant, the waiter or waitress at the restaurant and this is someone who loves their job – and totally believes in the restaurant that he or she works for – they love it, and as they are sharing the menu imagine the waiter saying something like you, as you are looking at the menu let me take a minute to share with you one of my favorite appetizers from the menu? What are you going to say as a guest? Naren: Absolutely! Gary: Please! Naren: Yes! *laughs* Gary: Now you may have different- you may not act on it Naren: Yeah Gary: You may have a different choice or different taste, you know that is on the appetizer menu but I think that would be a cool discussion – hey man can I share something with you that is one of my favorite appetizers on the menu Naren: Right right – I mean it comes from a different – as opposed to hearing the three specials you are asking for their permission and they want it now – they are saying yeah if it is one of your favorites I want to know, I am here like you know – I took the time to come here and I do not want to waste my time here having the wrong stuff tell me all the good stuff Gary: And in fact, I would be the kind of person that would engage Naren: Yeah Gary: In what he would say – cool why do you like that one? Naren: Yeah Gary: and he might say it is a seasonal appetizer it is not always on the menu, I want to make sure our guests know about it as it is not always on the menu Naren: right Gary: so I would say count me in, bring two of them Gary: but let’s go to the – let’s go back to the permission statement again – I have to set this up a little bit but I believe that our listeners will be on board – I am going to make the assumption that you are using the 6 digital photos for patient education, okay and now if you are new to the Less Insurance Dependence Podcast we are going to put a link in the show notes about the 6 photos for patient education so we will put a link in the show notes about that but I am going to assume that you are using the 6 digital photos for patient education and also part of that Naren one of the big details about that is that we show the photos on a laptop as opposed to showing them on a screen – now Naren I will put you on the spot – you can call a friend if you want but in case we have new listeners who have not heard that can you take a minute to summarize why we have them shown on a tablet and not upon a monitor. Naren: It is for the very same reason – because when there are no tablets they are engaging, they are playing with it they are looking at it and they go oh I see that coloring and I have to change it or that there is a gap in my teeth and it doesn’t look very nice, as opposed to it being on the big screen, I can’t engage, I can’t – it is kind of another way of asking questions – giving permission to you to answer those questions without giving them the Ipad they cannot engage – Gary: It is passive on the screen Naren: Yeah Gary: I do not care how big the screen is Naren: Yeah Gary: when of course now we have technology where you can get really big screens but it is still passive but as soon as we put the tablet – now I am an apple fanboy, I will declare it, my allegiance – it could be any tablet by the way I happen to like the apple products the iPods, the Ipad excuse me – I would recommend the Ipad pro because it is big – it has a twelve-point nine-inch diagonal screen and it is big – the bigger the screen real estate the better, Naren: right Gary: because now the patient can zoom in and they can see everything in micro detail but the simple reason is that when it is on the tablet – it converts it to an active process that engages – it becomes multi-sensorial for the patient to engage with Naren: Right Gary: and they become much more engaged as opposed to the passive act of just watching or just looking at something on the screen – Naren: Right Gary: So imagine now, the patient has the tablet in their lap and now remember there is one more detail, I am sharing this in case there are new listeners who have not heard the strategy behind the photos – we also make an excuse to leave the room and leave the tablet in the patient’s lap, it is a theatric move that is done intentionally and we will say something like – Naren if you were the patient, and Carly one of my new patient coordinators would say hey Naren remember when we, remember when I took the photos of you earlier today? Naren: Yeah, yes Gary: have them with me and have uploaded them to the tablet – the tablet looks just like your smartphone if you want to see the next photos just take your finger and flick it and if you want to zoom in just take your fingers and kind of pinch on them to zoom into infinity. Now the doctor and I need to take a look at your digital x-rays – while we are doing that will you do me a favor and take a look at these photos? And make a mental note of any questions that you might have and when the doctor and I come back in the room we will be happy to go over any questions that you have. We will leave the room for 2 or 3 minutes. Now the psychology there Naren is that it is an important detail – the psychology there is that when the patient is left alone with the photos with nobody looking over their shoulder and with nobody being critical, of course, the intention is never to be critical of course but the patient might feel you know of course might feel that – so when the patient is left alone they could totally get into those photos. Naren: Yeah, autonomy –people are much more engaged when you give them some freedom to – Gary: Yeah I give them the freedom – you give them the freedom to do it and no imagine that Doctor Paul and doctor Tim come back in the room and the patient may have some questions – nowhere is the permission statement, now Naren I would like to go over those photos with you but before I do that as you and I are going over these photos do I have your permission to share with you absolutely everything is see? Naren: Absolutely – so you are asking for my permission and you keep your mouth shut Gary: And your specific question is ‘you and I are going over these photos do I have your permission’ and let me slightly change the wording here ‘do I have your permission to share every concern that I see’ Naren: Right Gary: do I have your permission to share every concern that I see’ now I do not think I have ever heard- I do not remember every hearing patients say no – oh no no no no if you see something please keep it a secret - would not want that Gary: I mean It is kind of silly if you think of it that way in fact sometimes the patient can even resist- if you have a patient who can be sarcastic or has a sense of humor, they would say well doc that is why I am here – Naren: Right Gary: Of course *laughs* which is really what you want him to say right? Naren: Exactly Gary: And what do you think most people Naren just role play what do you think ninety-five percent of the time people say, Naren as you and I are going over these photos do I have your permission to share with you every concern I see – what do you think most people say Naren: So ninety-seven percent would say yes absolutely or some variation for that – absolutely a hundred percent Gary: and I think this solves the biggest decision matrix that dentists struggle with and let me put that on the listener’s screen – I think every dentist on the planet struggles with this – when do I promote just necessary treatment vs. the who enchilada Naren: Meaning the ideal treatment? Gary: Meaning ideal treatment Naren: Right Gary: And I get it and I get the dilemma because you might think I know that they are here for this thing on the upper left but if I present comprehensive treatment am I going to blow them out of the water, you know it is either am I going to blow them away and have it be something they were in a position to hear Naren: Right Gary: And when you ask them their mission statement you have their permission now Naren: Right Gary: To be thorough and to be comprehensive Naren: Right let me ask you a question Gary just to make sure I got it – I have heard you mention this type of a concept not just in this context but in many other contexts I can think of examples where you have shared this with me, can you maybe – rapid-fire give us a couple of other, a few other examples where you could ask for permission, one example that comes to my mind is I did not feel that shot and you say thank you so much for sharing that with me I am repeating so why do you not repeat it Gary: Yeah so the context that you are using as an example there is when a patient is delivering a compliment Naren: Right Gary: And it could be – one we hear a lot you know Paul and Tim all our hygienists in Arizona all hygienists can give an anesthetic and all our hygienists give a significant portion of shots in their practice and they are awesome – they are like as smooth as can be and you know we hear it all the time, the patient will turn to doctor Paul, ‘doctor Paul my goodness I never felt a thing – did you give me a shot? I never felt a thing’ and think about what the reaction is if you are not really intentional about what you are doing – what the natural reaction is to kind of stick your tail between your legs and say thanks Naren: Right Gary: Instead of a bold response that is – Naren thank you so much for sharing that you just made my day Naren: Right Gary: Now that made my day – of course that is our goal – to make every visit as comfortable as and do not stop there Naren: Exactly Gary: Keep going Naren – there are many people in phoenix who are afraid of going to the dentist because of the shot – would you do me a favor when you get a chance and write a Google review and you can say the same thing you said about me – about the shot and that is going to help more people overcome their fear by going to the dentist because now you have taken away the dragon – you have taken away the fear of the shot and you will be helping people get good oral health – thanks in advance. Naren: Right Gary: To remove an aversion Naren: Their permission, you are asking for their permission – you are not saying write a review you are just asking for their permission – would they do this? Gary: Yeah Naren: Ninety-eight percent of the time they are going to say yes – that is the beautiful thing about the permission statement it is a question but really the answer is a yes I en you have tested it for about a thousand times Gary: Yes - Yeah I mean we will do a future Less Insurance Dependence podcast on the whole concept of the benefit statements Naren: Mhmm Gary: The benefit statements and I love benefit statements because it answers the question of why should I do this and a lot of time people – the high Ds on the DISC and the personality styles Naren: Yeah Gary: The high Ds might even ask you why should I do ti – but ninety percent of the people that are high Ds may not ask it but they might be thinking it so what was the benefit of the benefits statement in that example – the benefit was you are going to help people Naren: Right Gary: And we all want to help Naren: Yeah Gary: You are going to help people overcome their fear but when you and your team really get onboard doctor with benefit statements you are going to see the figurative light bulb g off you know in a patient’s mind because now they know why they should do something Naren: And another example real quick – you have told me this – is sorties you have a certain an out of patient time for an appointment – let’s say you are coming in and checking on hygiene patient starts asking questions you start asking permission – do you mind if we set up 30 minutes to ask a question no charge -where we can really sit and discuss, can you give that verbiage can you- Gary: A lot of times this happens when you are going through photos it is a blessing and a curse and all of a sudden the patient is totally into their mouth because they have never seen their teeth before and they keep asking questions that are going down this rabbit hole and you can quickly see the train wreck of you know really messing up your time, Naren: Schedule Gary: Schedule that day – so what I – I teach my clients to do this – figuratively call a time N– obviously we are not doing this but I like the thinking around this - figuratively call a time out, say something like Naren I wish all my patients were as interested in their mouth as you are about yours *laughs* you are such an amazing patient. I want to take the time to answer all of your questions so you have the information you need to amok the best decision about your health, I also want to be respectful of your time today – Naren we have you scheduled for 2 o clock and we are kind of fussy about being a long time office but I want to make sure we get you out of here at 2 o clock as promised but here is what I would like to do – I would like to – before we leave set up a follow up appointment – now we can actually, now this is where we have the fork in the road - in the old days before we had virtual consult, we used to bringing them back for a face to face consult – so that, we could still do that with Naren we have a cool way to do this with technology where we can do that ad follow up virtually and do that via a zoom call, I am sure you are familiar with that Naren – I know we can do that, so that is another example of you know that way to sort of you know direct permission and to basically give the patient what they ask for – but let’s go back to the specific verbal skills that they ask for on the permission statement – Naren as you and I are looking at these photos od I have you permission to identify every area of concern I see – and doctors watch that – watch the magic of that and watch your patients nod their head and say yes of course not – please do, an now you have solved the biggest dilemma of comprehensive vs. episodic recommednations Right And as you are making recommendations one of the things you could say – I love this, I would kind of put a ribbon on it with this – you could say and I in response in going over all these concerns I want you to know that whatever happens next is completely up to you – we can go as fast and as a sow, as you like – we could get started with the immediate concerns and face thigs in overtime or we could get you healthy as quickly as possible – notice what I said, it is kinda like I think I like that one. Right I like that one, I mean right? So it si a great way to combine that with a permission statement – well doc I want you to get comfortable with using that phrase if you, use the the photos the photos are a great way to make the patients see their teeth in a way that they have never seen them before and this has made a big difference not only in our practice but also in clients all over the country and of course this fits our topic so well – because when we present comprehensive dentistry so much of that is going to be about being outside of what is being covered by insurance because basically insurance is kind o meant for the tooth of the year club you know and now you are breaking outside of that and you know many people are going to be interested in moving quicker that the tooth of the year club because the insurance plan is sort of designed for that – well I am glad you have enjoyed his episode, practice it – Naren thanks for being my cohost and also thanks to you and your team at EKWA for all you do for us to generate new patients that allow us to sustain our new growth I our practice -we will put a link in the show notes for EKWA and if you have not already set up a free marketing strategy meeting with EKWA – I would encourage you to do that, you meet with Lila Stone - Lila is director of EKWA’s marketing that is normally a service they provide at a fee at a fee of nine undred dollar s howwver they have done, naren has been kind enough to offer that to our listeners at no cost we will put a link in the show notes to encourage you to shcedue thanks so much and I look forward to connecitn gwith you on the next less insuarance dependence podcast

In this episode, Gary and Naren discuss the question most existing patients ask when you go out of network, and how you and your team should handle those patients and how to answer those questions.  Are you and your team prepared on what to say? Highlights: Introduction to today’s topic > 01:00 About Gary’s Practice management support system > 02:20 How to communicate with patient > 04:28 How to make quality dentistry affordable > 05:32 Begin with the end in mind > 07:52 What your team members should say > 11:18 How to shift the way you think > 18:15 Resources: REGISTER NOW REGISTER NOW SUBSCRIBE SCHEDULE A FREE MEETING DOWNLOAD Podcast Transcript Naren: Hello everyone! Welcome to another amazing episode of the less insurance dependence podcast show. This is Naren, your co-host. We have now been doing this for a long time and we have quite a lot of episodes for those of you who haven't listened to the past episodes jump in and binge-listen. Today's topic is going to be an awesome topic. It's a topic that will make everyone in your practice stronger. One of the questions people ask you if you start resigning from the insurance plan is, Why are you not taking my insurance anymore? And you as a person, as a doctor, as a team has to be able to answer this effectively. So, this is an episode that you may want to listen not just once, but multiple times with your team. This is something you need to bookmark and use it as a tool. We'll also give you some scripts like a pdf so definitely take advantage of that and keep it, but before I jump in I want to share some feedback I’ve been getting from some clients of Gary’s who have signed up for the virtual practice management support system, sorry virtual coaching and practice management support system. The thing I hear a lot Gary from these clients is, I always wished I had someone like Gary in my practice just like Paul and Tim have Gary for the business side of LifeSmiles and that's why they are in the top one-fourth of one percent I could do the same if I had someone like Gary and I think this practice management support system you created and you continue to tweak and improve Gary is really, really, the answer for that. So, this way the dentists can do dentistry which is what they love while your team and the practice management support system make sure all this all the systems are working and all the elements are working and they get better and better at it. So I just wanted to say that Gary and any comments on that what is your experience with that Gary? Gary: Naren, I’m so excited about what we're doing because so often I’ve heard from dentists that say  I wish I could just put my head down and just focus on nothing but the dentistry and man I get that, I  get that. That's your superpower, right? That's what you love but the truth is there's an outlier dentist that enjoys the business side, there's an outlier. Often times they have an MBA. They're a DDS or DMD, MBA and the outlier dentist kind of enjoys it but I would say 95 percent of the dentists in the world, the business stuff is just a necessary, it's a necessary thing they have to do. They don't really love it and as a result they kind of stumble with it because it's not their thing. Conversely, I love it and by the way, our team loves everything about the business side of dentistry. So we put together a really cool system to provide the support, the ongoing support, so that the dentist can pay attention to what they love which is the clinical side of their practice and then they can know if they can rest easy and know full well that everything's being taken care of on the business side in a way that's consistent with their value system that's consistent with the way they would like to do it and it can be done with without a lot of time and effort on the doctor's part and so I’m super excited, it's really that practice management support system that I want to put an exclamation point on it. I have to say I have heard from many dentists over the years and it’s kind of embarrasses me but they say Gary I wish I had someone like you in my practice and I appreciate that I know it's meant as a compliment. I appreciate the kind words and I think we've put together something that allows that to happen and I’m excited about it and super excited about the results we're seeing with clients and we're on a mission to preserve private practice dentistry, Naren, it's nothing it's a revolution, nothing short of a revolution. If there's a little rebel side of you that listens to this and you want to join our revolution come join us, join us on the coaching side and you'll get the benefits of it and maybe feel like, hey we're preserving private practice dentistry for the future too. Naren: And I know you're very humble. You will never say this, but for this level of support other consultants charge 80 000 a year, 90 000 a year I mean they charge five times what you charge. So, I know one of your goals is to help as many dentists as possible. Gary: yeah and that's consistent with our practice. At LifeSmiles I don't often talk about it but one of the things I will talk about here. One of our goals Paul, Tim and I is to make quality dentistry affordable and I grew up in a blue-collar working-class family. My dad was a lunch pail caring guy. I was the first to go to college on either side of the family and I treasure my blue-collar upbringing. I’m very grateful and I want to make what our avatar when a think about an avatar, a fictitious patient. I want to make quality dentistry affordable y to a single parent school teacher. Naren: Yeah Gary: I have a soft spot in my heart for teachers. My wife taught kindergarten for many years and one of our daughters is the fifth-grade teacher and I think teachers are underappreciated heroes in our profession and if hopefully if she happens to be a single-parent school teacher, I want to make it affordable for quality care affordable for him or her. So that we’ve extended that to our coaching, we want to make it affordable and I think we've done that and if you're interested come join us. It's thrivingdentist.com forward slash coaching, come join us. Naren: Thank you, Gary! Let's jump into today's topic. So, someone has listened to your podcast. You have 80 plus episodes. I think close to 90 now and they have gotten ready. They have done all the prep. They are ready to drop insurance. They drop the first insurance. Does a patient say why are you not accepting my insurance anymore? Gary: and I want to emphasize that this is the existing patients. Naren: Right! Gary: It's an existing patient and in a past episode we've talked how do you handle the caller, do you take my insurance? Similar but different, similar but different, and by the way if you haven't listened to that one that is our most downloaded episode on the less insurance dependence podcast. How do you handle the call, do you take my insurance? Just scroll and you can find that. Let's put a link in the show notes for that one. Naren: Yes Gary: Okay so this is for your existing patients and let me back up and state a goal. Begin with the end in mind. Who's one of my favorite authors Naren? Naren: Stephen covey, “Seven habits of highly effective people”. Gary: And what is habit number two? Naren: Begin with the end in mind. Gary: By the way, we did an episode on the leadership lessons from seven habits of highly effective people. Let's put that in the notes as well. Naren: Absolutely Gary: number two is beginning with the end in mind. So, let's begin with the end in mind. Now, this might shock you in a pleasant way. Here's what the goal is. Remember when we went out of network in my practice, we kept 84 percent of our patients that were in-network when we went out of network. We kept 84 of them. Our goal with all of our clients is to do better than we did in 07 and 08 because frankly, we didn't know what we were doing. I mean we had, we knew intellectually what we were doing, but we didn't have the practical experience. That's why I wanted to own a practice to have the experience. So, my goal always with this is to have you retain more than we did because we know more now and let me define it for you very specifically. I want you to retain between 85 and 90 plus of your existing patients when you go out of network. Now, you might be thinking oh no Gary that I think we're going to lose like almost all of them. I mean that's what that's a fear, right? Naren, can you imagine that. If you had a practice that had 90 percent insurance you might think well, Gary that's just a pipe dream. We're not going to lose way more than that, right? Not if you are we have the track record now with clients all over the country, not if you do it right, and so the goal is to retain 85 to 90 and we have the track record to prove that and one of the things that's in the readiness checklist is that every one of your team members needs to be able to answer the question at a surface level, why aren't you taking my insurance anymore? Now if a team member hasn't had training on that, it's who knows what they might say. Especially if it was a clinical team member where that isn't in their skill set. So just pre-empt that and provide the training for every one of your team members because it and what I don't want to have happened on the first question, the first time it comes out of a patient's mouth I don't want the team member to just fold and say I don't know, go talk to the office manager. How would that sound if you were the patient? Remember the filter I always like to use is, how would it feel if I was a patient. So how I mean just role play with me Naren, I don't know, I’m just an assistant, I have no idea Naren go talk to the office manager. How's that going to, what does that say to you, what message am I communicating to, not intentionally but what am I communicating to Naren: Yeah I mean relationships are built on confidence, right? So that my like I mean already I’m kind of not happy about this because I don't know what's going on Gary:  and what else, what else don't you know Naren: yeah exactly and now exactly and now instead of growing my confidence and reassuring me you are like, it's like there's a tiny wound you make it bigger. It's just Gary: Or it can't even be worse and again  I’m always saying this because I’ve heard it. I’ve actually heard this with my own two ears. I heard a team member say I don't know the doctor got some crazy idea and now we're not on insurance. Naren: wow Gary: I mean so let's solve it. Here's the type of and we'll provide a script for this. Here's the type of communication I’d like to have come from your team members and let's say the patient asking the question is Linda. Linda, I’m so glad that you asked. Every one of our patients is important to us. You are important to us and Linda we've discovered if we were to continue to stay in-network with your plan we simply couldn't deliver the quality of dentistry that we insist on and the doctor will never compromise the quality of dentistry and that's why I work here by the way because I totally believe in everything our doctor does and our doctor would never compromise the care in any way. So we've made the difficult decision to no longer be contracted with your delta dental insurance. Now Linda here's the good news. The good news is you can still use our benefits in your practice. We will still file claims for you like we always have and Meg our insurance coordinator. She will still be here being your advocate to help you get every nickel of benefit you have from that dental insurance. We think it's great that you have it and we're going to help you get every nickel of benefit and Linda we hope that you appreciate the quality of care we provide that you appreciate our attention to details as the doctor is a detail-oriented doc, that you appreciate the way we invest in technology for your benefit and you appreciate the individual time and attention we provide to you as a patient. It's our fondest hope that you continue to come here for your dental care because we appreciate you. Now Naren, I didn't ask you to listen as if you were the patient but how do you think that sounds to you if you're a patient. What do you think most people say when they hear that? It's like oh okay I’m in. Naren: Yeah exactly! I think if that is no communication, I can make up any story I want. This kind of communication now I’m on your side I’m on your team like I want the best care I want to get every penny of my dental insurance because I know dental insurance doesn't want to pay me anything. I mean everyone knows that insurance companies number one goal is to pay as little as possible, I mean like, I mean you talked about your experience with your Gary: Everybody in the United States, yeah I mean I don't know that I can use absolutes but I want to say everybody yeah had a negative experience doing battle with an insurance company to get them to pay what they what you paid for and everyone knows this and when you start framing it that way people get it and what we found is  with that level of communication with the example that I just gave and again imagine that coming from a dental system coming from a hygienist coming from someone they just bump into in the hallway in your office I mean patients don't discriminate who they ask their questions to they'll ask whoever's next to them. When they get that level of support most patients like oh okay, I mean I get it now yeah, I mean I get it. Now if they get into really detailed questions there's nothing wrong with saying Linda you're that's a really good detailed question and I’m going to go get Laura our office manager she's our expert in that let me grab her there's nothing wrong but I don't want you to start there, because I want everyone to communicate confidence Naren: I think Gary: this will do it you're just having that script and generally I’m not a fan of scripting Naren: yeah Gary: but if the scripting helps if it helps you get your voice, if it helps you like if you feel like well that just isn't my thing just tell me what to say, well now you have the script and it works we have it it's proven it works and obviously you've got there's more than just the words there's facial expression there's a tone of voice there's what I said at the beginning that Doctor will never compromise your care. If that's true, by the way, that needs to be true right? Naren: Yeah Gary: Yeah and it's the patient of course and that's why I come here then everything else you say is going to be put in that context. So we got to back it up but I’m going to assume that you are backing it up in terms of the quality you care and so on but this works and this now this would be a really good episode to play in an office a team meeting, and I would encourage you to go around the room just repeating the script just go around because then you can practice on Naren: yeah Gary: facial expressions and tone of voice and the way you communicate passion in your voice and so on and then just get to the point where it’s like a habit and you just do it because you're going to get the question, how come you're not taking my insurance anymore? Right, and now you're ready for it and I’m telling you when you can answer that question, you're going to retain 85 to 90 percent of your patients. Let's bring it back to that, bring it back full circle. You're going to retain 85 to 90 of your patients. Now let me as we kind of come to the finish line here Naren: Gary, can I say something, if it's okay? I know you never talk about yourself but I feel like I have to say it like you're experimenting with thriving dentist verbal skills with a limited number of your private virtual coaching and practice management support system clients and a couple of the feedback I have gotten is this alone is what my entire year's fee just because I have not met a communicator in dentistry who is even one-fifth as you Gary, I mean I’m being Gary: I’m very blessed to have inherited that from my grandmother. My grandmother was an amazing influence in my life and she and I have the same DISC personality type we've talked about that we're both high eyes. Now she's been gone for 38 years but she was the entrepreneur in my family and she taught me how to communicate and I’m very blessed that if I was asked a question she would say Gary stand up and answer that question and then she would critique me in a loving way but I’m very blessed to have had a tremendous, I think the best communicator in the history of mankind was my grandmother and if I can measure up to even a fraction of what she was I will consider myself very, very, successful Naren: so, there are two things that I wanted to say. one is so you not only teach your clients and their teams on how to communicate but you also help shift the thinking because many practices when they start with you they come with the idea that oh this is what I know this is what works this is the way the world is going to be tomorrow. so, you shift that thinking, the dentist thinking the office manager is thinking about the team's thinking. so, then they all realize now that we can keep that 40 or 38 that insurance takes for ourselves, we can do so much with it for the patients for the team. So, I want to thank you for that Gary and I want to commend you for what you do for the industry what you do for the profession and I’m going to ask our listeners one thing if that's okay with them. if you like the lesson insurance dependence podcast show, binge it, if you have a weekend catch up on five episodes you will learn a ton and of course like this other dentist we met recently who shared her experience binging all of Gary’s knowledge on the I love dentistry community, do that and of course, if you are serious, I would say check out the thrivingdentist.com website. maybe sign up for an MBA it's pretty much, there are different formats, easy to do, easy to digest and of course, we love reviews so it's just like a review on google for your dental practice we love reviews on iTunes as well as google play. so please share your feedback. Thank you so much and I want to take a moment to thank you Gary for everything you do for the industry. Gary: Thanks for your kind words Naren and I want to bring it back for a closing comment. so if we're going to keep 85 to 90 percent of your existing patients, we can look at the reverse of that for a minute and say well we're going to lose some and boy I’d be thrilled if it's only 10 or 15 but maybe you're thinking that but you're going to want to replace those 10 or 15 percent that you're going to lose, you're going to want to replace them you're going to want to place them ahead of time just as we did. So that way you are doing this from a position of strength and the best way to do that and Naren I’ll turn it right back on you, the best way to do this is to become an EKWA client like we are EKWA your digital marketing company. We are LifeSmiles, is a paying client of EKWA and you are my support system to attract quality new patients and Naren I know you've been kind enough to offer a free marketing strategy meeting with Lila stone your director of marketing for any of our listeners here on the less insurance dependence podcast. if you haven't taken advantage of that take advantage. We'll put a link in the notes. Lila will spend time with you in a scheduled call to let you know exactly how you're doing with your digital marketing relative to google analytics. So she'll be able to tell you exactly how you look in the eyes of Google, and whether you choose to work with EWKA or not I think you'd be nuts not to, but whether you choose to work with them you will get information that you didn't know about marketing and about how your practice looks in the eyes of google. So, click that link. It's free normally you charge 900 for that marketing strategy meeting but you waived that for our less insurance dependence listeners. On that note let me simply say thank you for all of our listeners. Thank you for the privilege of your time and we can't wait to connect with you on the next less insurance dependence podcast.

Becky doesn't like her carpet. This episode is not explicit. Written by David S. Dear. Performed by Sarah Golding and David Ault. David is an Audible Approved Producer produces and performs in numerous audiobooks as well as the audio drama A Ninth World Journal and performs in several other audio dramas. https://ninthworldjournal.com https://sarahgoldingvoiceactorandmore.weebly.com/ http://www.davidault.co.uk/ TRANSCRIPT BECKY This carpet is so stupid. I need to get rid of it. GARY You don't like the color? BECKY No, I mean it's actually pretty stupid. Watch. Carpet, what does one eat between breakfast and lunch? GARY It's spelling something out in the naps... it says ""A snack"". BECKY See what I mean? GARY Yes, indeed. You are absolutely right. That carpet is a complete idiot. Music is "Music to Delight" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Gary Myers: Hi, my name is Gary Myers. Joe Fontenot: And I'm Joe Fontenot. Gary: We're the host of the Answering the Call Podcast. Joe: This is the podcast where we talk to people who are answering God's call. Gary: It's a real treat today to have Frank Turek, the Apologist. Joe: Frank is a nationally-known name. He was one of the speakers at our recent Defend Apologetics Conference so this is the first in a series of podcast that were filmed or recorded rather at the conference. And so he's going to talk about the philosophical breaking point of atheistic arguments. Gary: He's very good at this, and I caught his lecture at Defend. It was wonderful. Joe: It was, and I got to sit in on the podcast that Marilyn actually interviewed him, and it was solid. Gary: Let's hear from Frank. Joe: Let's do it. Marilyn Stewart: I'm just kind of go through some of these and see if they're okay with you. Frank Turek: No, you can just ask them, don't worry about it. Let's just do it. Marilyn: Okay. Well I really planned on two, but I'm sure we can go... I might interrupt, Frank: You can interrupt me. Whatever. Just have a conversation. Marilyn: Alright, sounds great. Frank: I'm I close enough to this? Producer: You're good. Frank: It's Mardi Gras, let's throw beeds. Marilyn: You can't make me laugh too much- Frank: Why not? Marilyn: I was in tears there a couple of times. Okay, are we ready? Producer: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Marilyn: Frank we are glad to have you on campus with us this week for defend, and you've given us a lot to think about, but I wanted to address atheism for moment, and your book I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist with a Dr.Geisler- Frank: Dr.Geisler, that's right. Marilyn: We have heard pretty often that many atheists are atheists because of some trauma or emotion that they emotionally reject Christianity. And you made the statement that many of them are on a happiness quest, not a truth quest. Marilyn: And you said the only way to find happiness is straight through the truth. I wanted to give you chance to talk about that. I thought that was very interesting, how can we use that as we were talking to atheist? Frank: Well, I think when you're talking to somebody, if they're not a Christian, you might want to ask them, why are you not a Christian? And a lot of times you're going to hear responses that don't strike at the heart of Christianity. Like for example, they might say, well, there's too much evil in the world. Well, that doesn't mean Christianity is false. Frank: The entire reason Christianity exists is to resolve the problem of evil. That's why Christ came to take evil upon himself so we could be reconciled to him. Or an atheist might say, "Well, evolution is true." Say for example, even if it's true, it doesn't mean Christianity is false, right? Marilyn: Right. Frank: It'll give us problems with biblical inerrancy and the Old Testament but doesn't mean it Christianity's false, doesn't mean God doesn't exist. In fact, even if evolution is true, you need God, why? Because you need a being to create the universe set up the universe, set up the laws of nature that if evolution is true, drive evolution. Frank: So even if it were true, you don't get rid of the need for Christianity. I very rarely hear people say, "The reason I'm not a Christian, because I think there's a better explanation then the resurrection for the evidence that we have." Whoever says that hardly anybody. I think you should ask them why you're not a Christian first. Frank: Then I normally ask them and I do this a lot on college campuses where atheists come to I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist presentation, I'll ask them, "If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?" And many of them will be honest and say, "No." They don't want it to be true, they don't want there to be a god. Why? They want to be God, they want to be god of their own lives. Hey, half the time I do too, don't you? Marilyn: Sure. Frank: It's natural you don't want God to exist. I don't know if it was Nietzsche or Russell or one of those old atheist who said, "The biggest problem I have with God is I'm not him." Right? Marilyn: Says it all right there didn't it? Frank: No, I can't say this is true of all atheists don't get me wrong. I'm just saying, many of the ones I run into they admit it's a volitional problem, It's a moral problem, It's an emotional problem It's not an intellectual problem, It's not like there's not enough evidence out there. And I think God has given us enough evidence to know that Christianity is true, but He's also left enough ambiguity that if you want to go your own way- Marilyn: You can make that choice. Frank: He is not compelling you to follow him. In fact, that's what hell is, it's separation from God. He doesn't compel you to follow him, He separates himself from you. Marilyn: So, we can give the evidence, some may not accepted. Frank: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Marilyn: But it's a matter of addressing the head as well as the heart. Frank: Yes. Marilyn: Unpack that a little bit more about if you're talking to an atheist, and you understand that there's a lot of anger there, a lot of hurt. Do you have any other specific pointers about dealing with that? Frank: Turn or burn doesn't work. Marilyn: Right, Yes. Frank: So that's not going help, no. I think you just got to love the person and maybe not even talk about Christianity at that point because if they have a visceral reaction to it, it's not helpful to bring it up. Frank: But I can almost guarantee you this, if you love that person enough at some point something's going to happen in that person's life and your phone's going to ring and that person is going to be on the other end because when something happens, they're not going to call they're atheist, buddy- Marilyn: That's exactly right. Frank: Atheist buddy is going to say, "Well, these things happen where there's no rhyme or reason, we just dance to our DNA, there's no purpose to life, fuck up." No. You'll be one that can then at that point say, "Well, there's a reason for this and Christ came to ultimately take our pain and suffering away and you can have that taken away and your sins forgiven by trusting in him." Marilyn: It was a powerful story that you told a few minutes ago, a true story about a Christian who did the unthinkable and at least he claimed to be a Christian and abused a little child. It does just make us angry at this person who did such a thing. Marilyn: It makes us wonder like they do, why did God allow this one thing to happen? We need help us Christians understanding that one horrible thing to a child and then we also need to help those who are rejecting Christ because of that action. Do you have anything you'd like to say more to that? Frank: Well, see there's always two answers to the problem of evil. There's the philosophical answer and then there's the pastoral answer and since I'm from New Jersey, I don't have the pastoral answer. There are people way better than me at compassion and reading people well and really comforting them. Frank: I give the more philosophical answer, I tell people when I ... Yesterday we had a breakout session If God were evil basically. I pointed out that the answers I'm going to give, if you're going through difficulty are probably not going to resonate, they may annoy you. Frank: But I think the first step toward recovery is to intellectually recognize that while you might not know what the reason for this happening is, God has a reason even if you never figure out what that is, this side of eternity. Marilyn: Now that's very interesting because yesterday we did a podcast with Gary Habermas, and he deals with a lot of people who have doubt, who are suffering, and he says kind of the same thing. Frank: I think the way out of suffering is some intellectual muscle that you put your theology to work, that you remind yourself of scripture that God doesn't leave us, He doesn't forsake us, that we can trust him, that He doesn't lie, that He all good. Marilyn: It's kind of a good reminder, I think to us as Christians that we do have to think properly to understand these really difficult situations and then to help anybody else. Frank: Right. In fact, Gary does a great job talking about cognitive therapy and Philippians 4, think on these things, the first thing you have to think about is things that are true and that's the first step out of there. But let me just say one other thing about evil Marilyn, that is it doesn't disprove God it actually shows God does exist. Marilyn: Yes. Frank: Because none of this would be evil unless there was good and good wouldn't exist unless God exists because God is the standard of good. If evil exists, I know it sounds kind of counterintuitive but if evil exists, God exists because God is the standard of good by which we would even know what evil was. Frank: You can always ask the question, "Why did God allow this evil to occur?" And there are many answers to that. One of course is free will, If God interfered with us doing evil all the time, we wouldn't be free creatures at all. This wouldn't be a moral universe we'd be robots. Marilyn: Sure. Frank: He allows evil to take place because He can get the greater good of love by giving us free will, but He can redeem evil even if we can't see why God would possibly allow say, an awful child abuse or something like that. Frank: We might not be able to see any good coming from it now, but it could be that ultimately God can recompense that individual, not only here but in eternity. Infact I think the writer of Hebrews talks about a better resurrection, whatever that means, it means something and about enhancing our capacity to enjoy God in heaven. Frank: But also the idea that there's the ripple effect out there, that one event can ripple forward and does ripple forward to affect trillions of other events. Marilyn: I tell you that heartbreaking story as you shared and I thought if nothing else, it should be a reminder to us of how serious our sin is, how that ripple effect that our sin has and that we answer to the Lord. Marilyn: You did mention this morning that if there is no God, there is no justice because I believe if I heard correctly that she was unable, this victim was unable to really testify on the stand and so as I understand it, the man walked free. Frank: The man's free and everyone knows he's guilty and he's never going to get justice here on earth if she doesn't testify. Marilyn: Yes. Frank: He'll only get justice in the afterlife if there is one. Marilyn: So without God, there is no justice. Frank: There is no justice, there's no standard of justice and there's no justice done because there's nobody with the authority and the knowledge and the power to make something just ultimately. Marilyn: Now that kind of brings me to another question that I jotted down, we have also talked about Islam this week in some podcasts. Marilyn: My question is why does it have to be a good God that is the basis for our sense morality? That every human feels this deep sense of right and wrong and why can't it be Allah? Why does it have to be a good God that really gives us that sense of morality? Frank: Because as Muslim scholars will admit that Allah is arbitrary according to them that his nature isn't good, whatever he does is good. Kind of a mild example of that would be in the Gulf War, when the allied forces hit the Iraqis with overwhelming force, some of the Iraqis were surrendering to CNN camera crews why? Because Allah must want us to lose now it's a very fatalistic whatever Allah does is good, not is Allah good? Frank: Now if Allah isn't good, there must be a standard beyond Allah that is in order to judge what is good and what isn't good and that standard is God's Yahweh's nature. Ultimately you have to arrive at an unchanging source of goodness and justice and righteousness and that standard is what we mean by God. Frank: In theology, you well know here at New Orleans seminary, you know there's a difference between essentialism and voluntarism, I don't know if our podcasters may have heard this but essentialism is that goodness is grounded in God's nature. Voluntarism is that God is arbitrary and does whatever he wants regardless of any nature. Well, as Christians er are essentialists we believe that God's nature is goodness and that's where the buck stops, so to speak. Marilyn: Interesting, now on Allah, I wonder if this goes back to the old philosophical dilemma. Is it good because Allah says it is good? Frank: Yeah. That's called the Euthyphro dilemma that Plato brought up and it's why I should bring that up Marilyn because I get it a lot on college campuses. People will say, "Well, is God good because he does it or does he do it because God's good?" Frank: And this is supposed to be a dilemma for the Christian who goes, "Well, look, if God does it because he's good, then he must be looking at a standard beyond him and if it's good because God doesn't think Allah is arbitrary, why you need God for good then?" Right "God's not doing anything he's looking at a standard beyond him or he's just arbitrary and making it up" Frank: And they think it's dilemma, but it's not a dilemma, this is what's called a false dilemma. A true dilemma is A or non A. Marilyn: Right. Frank: This is A or B. Well maybe there's a C, In other words, maybe there's a third option here and there is. The third option is not that God is arbitrary or not that God looks at a standard beyond him, the third option is God is the standard, right? Marilyn: Yes. Frank: If God has to look at a standard beyond him, then God is not really God. The standard beyond him is and so it's not a dilemma. The Euthyphro dilemma is not a dilemma there's a standard beyond or the standard is God not a standard beyond him. Marilyn: When I ask you about this question that Christians face quite a bit or this challenge of, don't judge me. You talked about Matthew 7 or where someone will say, "Who are you to judge?" Or "The Bible says judge not." Marilyn: You mentioned this last night about Matthew 7 and you said, "It's not that we're not to judge, but they were to judge correctly." I wanted to give you a chance to talk about that a little bit. Frank: First when someone says, "Don't judge." They're actually judging you. It's a self defeating claim to say, don't judge. It's like saying, "I can't speak a word in English." It's doing what you say you should do so Jesus doesn't just stop after he says, "Judge not." he says, "Judge not lest you be judged by the same standard you judge others you'd be judged by that standard, so before you try and take the speck out of your brother's eye, you hypocrite take the log out of your own eye." Frank: He's not telling you not to judge, he's telling you to take the speck out of your brother's eye, which involves making a judgment. He's simply saying, "Get that problem out of your life so you can better help your brother." So it's not a command not to judge, it's a command on how to judge. Frank: Everybody makes judgments, atheists make judgments, they judge there's no God, the Bible is wrong, you're wrong if you're a Christian, all these things, they're judgments. The question isn't whether or not you can make judgments, the question is, are your judgments true? Frank: In fact, the next verse after that, I think if I remember correctly, Jesus either says don't throw your pearls before swine Or it says something about dogs. He's making a judgment about certain things, so everybody's making judgments. The only question is, are your judgments true? Marilyn: I think that's a real important point for Christians who are trying to share with other people to understand and you went through quite a few challenges last night and you said, "Turn these on their head, turn it back." Give us a couple of examples. Frank: Turn the claim on itself, this is the most important thinking skill you can have. In the book, I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist we call it the road runner tactic. It reminds us of Wile Coyote and Road Runner like Road Runner stops short in the cliff and Wile Coyote goes over the cliff and he's hanging in mid air until he realizes there's no ground to stand on well, that's exactly what you do when you turn a claim on itself. Frank: Somebody says there's no truth you say, "Is that true?" You're claiming it's true, there's no truth. Somebody says, "Don't judge." Then why are you judging me for judging? Somebody says, "There are no absolutes, are you absolutely sure?" Someone says, "All truth comes from science." Frank: You say, "Does that truth come from science?" No, it doesn't. You should doubt everything, "Should I doubt that?" I mean, you can't know anything, "How do you know you can't know?" These are relativism and postmodernism or just they're intellectually vacuous. It's logically self defeating. Frank: Once you get good at turning a claim on itself, you can avoid a lot of error and that's important because if you start believing error, reality will hit you in the face ultimately you're going to get hurt. Marilyn: And it's a great skill for every Christian learn just if nothing else, it puts a back on them, gifts that Christian a moment to kind of collect themselves and make them answer the question. You may not have a snickers bar, but if you learn this skill, that gives you just a moment to kind of back up and not be on the defense all the time. Marilyn: All right, let's see. You said so many good things but I loved what you said this morning about miracles, that sign of the great king. You talked about that when a king wanted to send a message, he would send a messenger that, when he signed a document, he did it with a seal of a ring. Tell me about how miracles are really a sign of a great God that we serve? Frank: The purpose of miracles in the scriptures anyway is to show that somebody speaks for God. The great periods of miracles in the Bible and there aren't many of them actually, people think miracles are occurring all the time in the Bible, they are not actually occurring very often. They are occurring about on average, once every eight years. Marilyn: I believe he said 230, 250 something- Frank: 250 over so to make the math easier, just check it from Abraham to Jesus and that's 2000 years, it's one miracle every eight years. And they're there to say, "Listen to this person." God is going to pour out miracles on Moses so the Israelites listened to Moses and Pharaoh listens to Moses. Frank: God's going to pour out miracles on Elijah and Elijah goes there trying to prevent Israel from going into apostasy. God is going to pour out miracles on Jesus and the apostles because they have a new message that people need to understand and know that this is from God that's why miracles are done. Frank: They're never done to entertain, they're never even done for the personal benefit of the miracle worker. For example, Paul says, "Pray for Timothy" Or pray for so and so. Timothy, take a little wine for your stomach because, well, look, if Timothy has a problem why don't you just heal him? Frank: It's never done for the personal benefit, God can heal him directly don't get me wrong. I'm just saying when the apostles and others in the scriptures are doing miracles, they're doing miracles to show everybody that they speak for God and that's why we ought to believe in what they say. Frank: This new revelation needs new confirmation, this new sermon needs a new sign, it's kind of like a miracle is like a seal from the king who sends you a message that seal says, "This is from the king." Marilyn: I think that's a great picture, I think that really communicated the message very well. Now, you asked this question and in my mind I got it wrong. You asked, "What was the greatest miracle?" And I was thinking resurrection. Frank: Yes. Marilyn: But you said, "No, it's in Genesis 1:1." That's interesting, I'm going to have to give that some more thought but tell me- Frank: Let me say technically you're correct. Marilyn: True. Frank: The resurrection is the greatest- Marilyn: Good, I like to be right. Frank: Because when we think of miracles, we think of acts of God inside the universe technically, the creation of the universe is an act of God, but it wasn't inside the universe it was the creation of the universe. Frank: If you want to be technical but in terms of the amount of power that it would take to create the universe that appears to be greater than say to resurrect Jesus from the dead. Marilyn: True. One of the things that I wondered about that might be helpful as we're talking to people is that that is accepted across the board in scientists that there was a big bang, that there was a moment when everything came into existence and that, that might even be helpful as we're sharing that here we had the greatest miracle ever right here at the beginning. Science sees that from there, everything else is easier to accept perhaps. Frank: That's right. If Genesis 1:1 is true and the atheists are admitting the data for Genesis 1:1 they don't think it was God, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that a space matter in time had a beginning, whatever created space matter in time can't be made a space matter of time. Frank: The cosmos must be spaceless timeless was in a material, powerful, intelligent, personal to create the universe out of nothing those are the attributes of God. It's hard to avoid that conclusion and if God does really exist, then obviously miracles are possible. Frank: I see as Lewis said, if God exists ... How did he put it? He said, if God exists, must we believe in miracles? Indeed, you have no security against it, that is the bargain. Marilyn: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Frank: If God exists, he can intervene in the universe anytime he wants. And the question is why does he intervene? It appears when it comes to the Old Testament, he's intervening to show people that these people speak for me, listen up. Marilyn: I don't know if we can underestimate just how powerful the big bang is for our case because and by the way, you pointed out just how old I am and Bob and everybody else when he had us raise our hands this morning. Yes, I do remember the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Frank: Yes I raised my hand too, but I was only two. Marilyn: But as we talk about the big bang, I remember when I started I taught school many years ago and taught science and those textbooks back in the 80s were still saying that many scientists believe that the universe was eternal. Frank: Really in the 80s? Marilyn: Yes. Frank: Wow, it takes- Marilyn: It takes a long time for textbooks to change over and- Frank: Wake up. Einstein knew it through the theory of general relativity, he knew that the universe and time, that space time and matter are co relative, he knew that back in like 1916. Marilyn: Oh yes. It takes a long time, especially in schools, but they were still talking about universe eternal maybe expanding contracting universe and I could see it right there. So I would point it out to the kids. I said, "But here's an option, and they're talking about it, it has significance." Frank: Well, you can even lay the science aside. Because I was actually with a Muslim philosopher many years ago who came up with what some call the column cosmological arguments that time had to have a beginning in other words, today never would have gotten here. Frank: Regardless of the Big Bang, regardless of science and all this, we know time had to have a beginning. If time didn't have the beginning today, wouldn't have never arrived because you'd always have to live another day before you got to today because there's an infinite number of days before today. Frank: Now, whatever created time must be timeless, and if you're timeless, you don't have a beginning, which means whatever created time is eternal, I.e God is eternal. So you could lay all the scientists aside and still arrive at the beginning of the Genesis 1:1. Marilyn: Sure. You mentioned that last night, and this is one of the reasons everybody loves your talks. We are out of time, I do appreciate it very much- Frank: We are out of time? I thought we had infinite time. Marilyn: We have infinite time, we're not even yet to today's. Frank: All right. Marilyn: But thank you so much for all you do and for being with us today. Frank: My pleasure. And if people want to know more about this Marilyn, they can go to our website, crossexamined.org and we're on YouTube @crossexamined.org and we have Facebook, cross examined.org Frank: And we do a lot on the college campus so people can watch the Q and A or the entire presentation including the Q and A from our college campus if they feel like our Facebook pages because we stream it on Facebook and we stream it on our website as well. When is this podcast coming out? Marilyn: Joe will have to be the one to answer that and we'll let you know and we'll send you the link because we want others too and we want you back for defend. I'm sure you will be. Frank: Oh, sure. Marilyn: And we'll do some more podcasts how about that? Frank: Absolutely. Well, if this comes out at the end of January, at Ohio state, people can watch it. And then we're at Winthrop university and several others, so they can check our calendar, crossexamined.org and see those. Marilyn: All right. Thanks so much.

We talk to Bullfrog and Lionhead legends Gary Carr and Mark Webley about the design of PC cult classic Theme Hospital, and how their careers twisted and turned to see them return to create a spiritual successor. Learn more about Two Point Hospital: https://www.twopointhospital.com/ Play Theme Hospital: https://www.gog.com/game/theme_hospital Download CorsixTH: http://corsixth.com/ iTunes Page: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/noclip/id1385062988 RSS Feed: http://noclippodcast.libsyn.com/rss Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/If7gz7uvqebg2qqlicxhay22qny Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5XYk92ubrXpvPVk1lin4VB?si=JRAcPnlvQ0-YJWU9XiW9pg Episode transcription: http://noclippodcast.libsyn.com/02-the-return-of-theme-hospital Learn About Noclip: https://www.noclip.video Become a Patron and get early access to new episodes: https://www.patreon.com/noclip Follow @noclipvideo on Twitter Hosted by @dannyodwyer Funded by 4,197 Patrons. -------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPTION; - [Danny] Hello and welcome to Noclip, the podcast about video games and the people who make them. On today's episode, we pay a much needed visit to the video game doctor, as we celebrate the return of a PC cult classic. Bullfrog are synonymous with a wonderful period in time for games development in the United Kingdom. Producing many cult classics including Populus, Dungeon Keeper, Syndicate, and Theme Park. But to me, the jewel in Bullfrog's crown has always been their lesser-known follow up to the theme park management game. While becoming an instant classic in the UK, Theme Hospital is much lesser known here in the United States. So it was quite the surprise to me when, on a date with an American, the girl across the table from me mentioned it as one of her favorite games ever. I think that was the moment I decided I wanted to marry you, was when you mentioned you liked Theme Hospital. - [Lindsay] Oh yeah, that's, like, an important aspect of our relationship. - [Danny] Yeah, what do you remember about that game? - [Lindsay] I remember all the little goofy components of it, like how the people look, and how you can pop heads, and how you can deal with a million Elvis' and the helicopter comes in and has a thousand people on it, and the fancy man comes around with his top hat. - [Danny] Oh yeah, I forgot about the VIP. - [Lindsay] The fancy man. - [Danny] Yeah. And you had to make sure that he didn't, like-- - [Lindsay] See all your rats and shit, like-- So you be, like, "This way, Sir." - [Danny] Or somebody would get sick right in front of him. He kind of looked like the Monopoly man. - [Lindsay] Yeah, he was so fancy. And he, remember when he stopped by all the wards and looked in all the windows, he peaked in. He'd be like, "Oops, not that one, "no one works in there." - [Danny] I wonder how much it mattered. Because when he was walking around, I always thought, oh, I better make sure that wherever he walks we have fire extinguishers. - [Lindsay] Totally. - [Danny] But I bet it was just, like-- - [Lindsay] It was predetermined before he even landed on his helicopter or however he got there. - [Danny] I think this might be the first time I've ever worked on a Noclip project which is a game that you care about? Is that true? I guess Rocket League you liked. - [Lindsay] Rocket League I liked for a few minutes. None of the other video games you've ever done a podcast on, I mean done a documentary on, I've ever even heard of. - [Danny] Yeah. You're not a final fan of C14 fan? - [Lindsay] I've heard of Final Fantasy. I didn't know there were 14 of them, but-- - [Danny]There's way more than 14 of them. - [Lindsay] I've heard of it. Oh, really? - [Danny] Yeah. And since it is the first time I've kind of worked on something that you actually have a deep knowledge of-- - [Lindsay] Oh, I'm excited. - [Danny] If you had any questions, let me be those sort of the translator between you and the developers. What would you ask if you had any questions? - [Lindsay] Well my big question is when they are going to make a sequel. Because as fun as it is to play that pixelly thing, they better make a sequel. My real questions are about the silly things, like how the handyman could smell cabbage or just little silly components that they put in there. - [Danny] It's the doctors, isn't it, it smells faintly of cabbage. - [Lindsay] It smells faintly of cabbage, yeah. - [Danny] When you were hiring them. Oh yeah, I guess the handyman, too. - [Lindsay] Anybody could smell like cabbage in real life. Anyone could smell like cabbage. So I had that question, and also about shooting rats. Like, what that's about and sometimes you could unlock that secret level where it was just rat shooting. And that was really cool. - [Danny] It was kind of random, though. - [Lindsay] Yeah yeah, it was just like-- - [Danny] Like, why does this happen? - [Lindsay] Right, I have some experience in hospitals and I've never once shot a rat, but they thought it was important that we have that component. - [Danny] I can answer the first question. - [Lindsay] Oh, when the sequel's coming out? - [Danny] Yeah, so I decided I wanted to do this a while back, and it took a while for me to hunt down the two main dudes who worked on Theme Hospital. It turns out both of them ended up having really prolific careers and getting to the top of Lionhead Studios, who made a bunch of games. - [Lindsay] The Movies. - [Danny] They made The movies, I remember you love, which is so funny, you love The Movies because it's probably Lionhead's most obscure game. - [Lindsay] The Movies was really hard. I've never made any progress at all in that game. I think I'm doing something wrong, actually. - [Danny] And the guys who, I think both of them actually worked on The Movies as well. - [Lindsay] Well then I have further questions for them of how you achieve anything in that game. - [Danny] We'll have to leave that for another podcast. - [Danny] But I ended up finding them because they're working on a spiritual successor. So after, I think it's been eight, 19 years? Around two decades, and finally you can play a new hospital management game, it's coming out really soon, so-- - [Lindsay] Yes. - [Danny] Let me ask the questions and I'll get back to you. - [Lindsay] Report back. - [Danny] Like report back to you-- - [Lindsay] Thank you. - [Danny] On the condition of our patient. - [Lindsay] Of our fair game. - [Danny] Yeah. - [Mark] Yeah, I'm Mark Webley, I'm one of the founders and I guess I'm game director at Two Point Studios. - [Gary] I'm Gary Carr, I'm also a founder and I'm creative director at Two Point Studios. - [Mark] I kind of heard about Bullfrog, I didn't really know that much about them until I saw this EA poster, a friend of mine worked at EA, and it was a poster with all their games on, it kind of looked like interesting games. You saw this one in the middle, which is, looks incredible, I said, "What the hell was that?" And it was Populus, and I thought, wow that just looks insane, I mean, you kind of looked back at it and you might not see it, but at the time it was, in my view, whoa that looks so different and cool. - [Gary] I think I started a couple years before Mark, I think I started in 89. - [Mark] Yeah, you were definitely before me. - [Gary] So I done my first game at Bullfrog was Powermonger, I was there at the back in the Populus and I did a little bit on the data disks but not very much if I'm honest. I did a little bit actually on Syndicate, but it was called Cyber Assault when I worked on it. - [Mark] I thought it was called Quaz at one point. - [Gary] It was called Bub as well. - [Mark] Bub? Yeah. Just something easy to type. - [Gary] That's the game that we could never actually decide what it was going to be. It was in production forever. - [Danny] Back in the early 90's, the team at Bullfrog was only around eight people led by the excitable hand of a man called Peter Molyneux. The studio operated out of a makeshift office crammed into an attic above a stereo shop and a flat occupied by a chain-smoking old lady. Peter had used his charm to persuade Commodore to lend them a suite of Amiga's and it was on these computers that the team worked on games, games like Powermonger, Syndicate, Magic Carpet, Flood, and Dungeon Keeper. Gary, an artist, left for a time after they had completed the iconic Theme Park. He went to work at famed UK developers the Bitmap Brothers for a number of years before being tempted back to Bullfrog by a devilish dungeon keeper. - [Gary] Yeah, Peter has got a great way of, kind of, sort of making people believe that these things are going to be what they want them to be and he's brilliant at that and I loved the guy for it. But I wanted to come back and do something that wasn't Theme, so I kept saying, "Could the game idea possibly be a dungeon-y game?" And he sort of said, "Could be." What he meant was it could be, but it's not. So I came back, but actually it was the best decision of my life, it really was because it was great to work with Mark. We're very different people, and we both have sort of different things we bring together and we had-- - [Mark] We argue a lot. - [Gary] We argue a lot and we had total freedom. I mean, back then there was only about three or four people that had the luxury to sort of take an idea and own it, and we were one of those few. So it was a great time in our careers, we were at the right time, I think, to sort of build a team together and make that game. When Mark and I were probably at similar age and different types of experience, I'd had a bit more games experience at the time, Mark had had a lot more management experience at the time. - [Mark] But I was a lot smarter. - [Gary] Yeah, I think so. But at this point in time, I think it was when Bullfrog was splitting up into creating teams within Bullfrog because we'd gotten a little bit bigger. So Mark kicked off what was called Pluto, believe it or not, which was the design and series team that was gonna do all the theme games and I was brought in to sort of partner with Mark on this game, we had no idea what was going to be coming and it ended up being Theme Hospital. - [Mark] Well at that time, it was just me and you to start with, it was just, I mean, the team at its maximum size was probably about five or six. So it was pretty small teams, there's no producer, there's no designer, so I was programming, Gary as doing the art and-- - [Gary] And we were kind of making it up as we went along so that process kind of carried on for a while and I think that kind of originally it was a game about a hospital, a game about a theme park was kind of great, you got rides and exciting things and lots of fun just without even having to go outside the box. - [Gary] Try too hard. - [Mark] And then afterwards it was different. We kind of thought about the flow of the game the patient, the diagnosis, and the treatment of patients, but the sticking point was after. In fact, we were on the research back in Gilford, it's right next to the hospital, so we'd often spend out lunchtime walk around Dart U we'd probably get choked out now. - [Gary] Trying to get inspiration, weren't we? - [Mark] Yeah, just walking around the corridors, and just kind of seeing what's in the hospital. We're going to have lunch in the cafeteria and it was, it came to a point where I think you just, you said, "This is it, isn't it. "There's nothing more, it's just "boring corridors and plain walls." - [Gary] They're all very similar, it doesn't matter if it's the US or the UK, I think hospitals share, they always have the same floor tiles. They have these slightly curved floors where obviously they're easy to wash in up corners so the floors slightly curve, they have this kind of shiny, painted up to about waist-high where I think that can be washed down as well. - [Mark] Hosed down. - [Gary] Hosed down. And they have a few machines with little screens on them and they all sort of makeshift beds that seems to be some sort of crash unit near it. And that's it, and we just suddenly thought, Oh my God, how does this compete with things like roller coasters, and water fluids, and all that kind of color? And we got really scared and we also spent about, and this has been said many times, but we spent about a month in different hospitals trying to do some research, trying to find a game out of all that. - [Mark] Integrate on the street. - [Gary] On the street, we went to Brimley and Rolsory, and we just spent time in all these hospitals and we just kind of got so weary. - [Mark] Gary even got circumcised. - [Gary] No, I didn't. We viewed operations, we were invited to go and look around the morgue and we went into business meetings about how one hospital could strategically beat another hospital to people that have been in injuries. And it just sounds like, oh god this is so grim. - [Mark] We were setting up the ambulance. - [Gary] That's right. Do you remember that? - [Mark] Yeah yeah. - [Gary] And then we sort of went for lunch and again in the canteen that looked very much like a real canteen, they have lots of really unhealthy food. And, uh, we just suddenly I think just landed on this idea at the same time to sort of just let's just make it up. Because we actually knew nothing about hospitals, we didn't know how they really worked. - [Danny] Mark and Gary did their game design due diligence and visited hospitals all around the Greater London Area. They were kicked out of an operation for distracting a surgeon once, and almost visited a morgue before losing their nerve. It was these experiences that brought the boys to the conclusion that they were better off distancing themselves from the grim reality of hospitals as much as they could. They knew that the subject matter wasn't really the focus of the gameplay experience. It wasn't like people who played Theme Park all wanted to run Theme Parks, and the same could be true here. Through their experience they understood that the drive of this game came from the problems players would encounter and the ways in which they would solve them. So they didn't have to make a game about running a real hospital, they just had to make a game that was fun and challenging. It was around this time that Bullfrog was acquired by Electronic Arts. And when their new bosses turned up to see what the team was working on, they were, a bit confused. - [Gary] And when they'd come to the studio and have a look at all the games, it's kind of like, a hospital game? No, I don't get it. It's like, oh, think about ER and things, we were trying to jazz it up. It's actually a really popular, exciting show. They'd say, "But this isn't like ER, is it." - [Mark] I guess that's the problem. I think everybody probably would assume science fiction or fantasy-- - [Gary] Or killing or blowing up. - [Mark] Making some sim game around that would be the best possible subject matter, but I think coming up with, if we stay in kind of reality, and relatable subject, but then you twist that into something else is, makes it way more interesting. - [Danny] EA was right. It wasn't really ER. For one, Theme Hospital didn't have any real illnesses. The people in this world suffered from conditions like Slack Tongue, Bloaty Head, Kidney Beans and Third Degree Sideburns. One condition originally called Elvitus had to be changed when Elvis' estate got wind of it. The character art, which did look a lot like Elvis, was slightly changed, and the condition was renamed King Complex. Another legal faux-pas came with the original box-art of Theme Hospital, which carried a red cross. The Red Cross wasn't too happy about that, so they changed it to a green star. The guys were starting to warm up so I figured it was probably about the time to ask Lindsay's questions. First of all, what was with all the doctors that smelled faintly of cabbage? Who wrote this stuff? And why did Theme Hospital have a rat shooting mini game? - [Gary] One thing I think Lionhead and Bullfrog haven't probably promoted enough is the great writers who have actually made us look even, well, made us look way better than we actually are. Because it's actually, it's interesting, there wasn't that many visual illnesses in Theme Hospital, but a lot of people remember the wonderful names and they paint their own pictures. - [Mark] Yeah, and the descriptions of how they're contracted, so. - [Gary] So I think, but the writing was really important to us. - [Mark] There was a guy called James Leech. - [Gary] But James Leech did the original, but James also worked with a guy called Mark Hill throughout, on and off through the Lionhead days, and that was something we wanted to bring, keep that consistency of writing. So, it was probably Mark, probably is, he's really strong. - [Mark] Yeah, if you've got enough, if you've shot enough rats in a level, you could unlock a secret in between levels, you rat shoot. And it was basically just a lot of rats. You had a certain amount of time to kill as many as you can, and if you kind of chain them together, if you've got enough, if you've got a streak as it were, you could level up your weapons. - [Gary] That's right. - [Mark] And they were really difficult, I think the rat was two by one pixels, you know it was some of my best work, and you had to get a headshot. So you literally had to be almost pixel perfect, certainly in the harder levels. - [Gary] It was hard, yeah. - [Mark] And it's weird, things like that used to happen because we didn't have design documents. We didn't have, you know, we weren't scheduled to do, this week we're on this, next week we're on that. So, you know, this is just when developers just start dicking about really. - [Voiceover] Could people please try not to be sick in the corridors. - [Danny] Theme Hospital was a critical and commercial success, but once they were done post-acquisition Bullfrog saw an exodus of developers as Peter Molyneux left to form a new studio, Lionhead. Mark followed his old boss to Lionhead while Gary was part of another group that founded the studio Mucky Foot. There, he worked on the art for Urban Chaos, Startopia, and Blade 2, and left once the studio closed in 2003 whereupon he joined Lionhead to work on The Movies. By this stage the two friends found themselves in lead positions at the company. They shepherded many games through the studio during this time including Black and White, Fable, Kinect Sports, and unreleased projects such as Project Milo and "BC". They worked together at Lionhead for a decade, but as time passed the job became less like the good old days. Microsoft had acquired Lionhead in 2006 and the now 200 person studio had run into financial difficulty. So as the years wore on, the influence of their parent company was having an erosive effect on the team's creativity. Gary found it especially difficult to get his ideas to gain traction, and so he decided to leave. - [Gary] I guess the thing I enjoyed most of the Bullfrog era was definitely Theme Hospital. It just was, because it was a point when I was ready to do more than just the artwork on a game. So I felt I was much more stepping into being a kind of a co-creating role rather than just making things look as pretty as I could. Then, I enjoyed my period with Mucky Foot, which was a company I sort of helped formulate, and we had some great years there. Lionhead, I guess the challenges were always working with Peter on such ambitious ideas because Peter would, I was in a team that wasn't Fable, so my part of that was Peter would throw some incredibly outlandish ideas around and it was kind of my job to get a little group of people together to try and realize that ambition. And it was really exciting, I mean, we literally went from making things on Kinect or things like Milo and Cabige, which was a bit nice for a while, it was just weird and wonderful opportunities to try and make a difference and do something strange and interesting, so I enjoyed that, too. - [Danny] By the time Mark's tenure was coming to a close, Peter Molyneux had long left the company and Mark was creative director of Lionhead. His final act at the studio was to help get Fable: Anniversary out the door, and it was then that he stepped away from a job where he'd spent most of his adult life. - [Mark] Yeah, I mean, I was there from the beginning, and my tenure was 15 to 16 years. - [Gary] It was 16 nearly, I think. - [Mark] Yeah, I left in the beginning of 2013. But it was a long and anxious period that I was kind of working through. I mean things had changed, obviously Peter had gone, and the kind of vision for Lionhead was, well, a vision for the Europe Microsoft was free to play console stuff and it wasn't really, I wasn't really enjoying it anymore. I think that's the best thing to say. You know, I kind of, if I was going to do it again, I wanted to fall back in love with making games and-- - [Gary] You're quite an emotional person, if you don't like something, you let people know about it. - [Mark] And I sulk about it. - [Danny] Mark and Gary were free agents and worked odd jobs here and there for old friends. They enjoyed the easier workload after years of grind at the top of one of the UK's largest developers. Perhaps it was then, given the benefit of hindsight, that the two remembered just how much fun they had had working on those old games together. So it was then, one evening, when Mark was picking up pizza, Gary pitched him an idea about starting a small, independent studio, and working on games sort of like they used to, in a cramped old flat stuck above a stereo shop and a chain-smoking old lady. - [Gary] Yeah, I kind of didn't think. I thought, well who'd be interested in, you know, revisiting-- - [Mark] Two old farts you know, making old games, who's interested in it? And I think that was kind of-- - [Gary] We had to go on a journey of discovery. And actually it was when we started sort of talking to some people when we were still trying to find a partner to make this, we certainly realized there was a lot of interest. - [Mark] We did a tour, didn't we? - [Gary] We did a tour, we sort of went on the roads, and met up with a bunch of either, we were looking to either sell publish, initially, maybe do a kickstarter, or partner with a small publisher. We didn't know, you know, who would go for this. So we just sort of started looking into it. And we just literally got in the car, booked into a sort of cheap hotel, motel-type places, and just knocked on doors and that's how we started. Which was great fun because this was a couple of 50 year old guys, basically in a band back together again. - [Mark] And going on tour, so we just, our wives probably thought, look at them, they're pathetic. What do they think right now? - [Danny] Mark and Gary thought there might still be a thirst for their old sim games. The classic Bullfrog titles were still selling well over on GOG and new games like Prison Architect and City Skylines were creating a whole new generation of fans. They had considered crowdfunding the project at one point, but they were warned away by some of the developers they talked to during their road-trip. So, they wrote a pitch for a new hospital game that would evolve the ideas of a game they had made almost two decades earlier. They knew they needed financial help. The guys were experienced and understood the type of game they wanted to create would require more money and time than they personally had. They shot the pitch around to publishers, and while some were receptive, there was one in particular that seemed very keen: SEGA. They negotiated terms with SEGA from the end of 2015 right up to the summer of 2016. And as it happens, right as the deal was signed, news broke that Microsoft would be closing Lionhead Studios. So, somewhat ahead of schedule, Gary and Mark rushed to hire their new team. - [Gary] We kind of imagined we'd take them over a period of time, but Lionhead closed, and it was suddenly these brilliant people were out of work. - [Mark] Tons of brilliant people. - [Gary] And they weren't around for long. - [Mark] No, we were going to lose them. - [Gary] Companies were coming to Gilford doing presentations just going, "You should come work for us." And we, you know, we had to kind of promise-- - [Mark] That was a risky thing to do. Because obviously we had to sort of lay out a huge amount of our expenditure earlier than we would ordinarily do it, but the point thing is we made a huge advancement in the development in the game and also this team, I wouldn't swap them for the world. They're amazing bunch of people. - [Gary] Some of them have worked with us for over twenty years. But Alan, who's sat behind Mark right now, I think he was your best mate at school, wasn't he? - [Mark] Pretty much. I mean Pram, Pram reminds me of Chris. Pram literally knocked on the door, and one of the guys we've worked with for over twenty years, I hired him out of college. And now he's absolutely integral to this team. So that's the kind of things we like to do. It's to build those relationships. - [Danny] Mark and Gary founded Two Point Studios, and over the coming years built a team of 16 people to help make this game. Some were old friends and colleagues, others new kids on the block. Their game was going to be called Two Point Hospital. The spiritual successor to a Bullfrog classic. But it wouldn't be enough to simply re-make an old game. For one, Theme Hospital was a 2D game. When Edge Magazine came to visit the studio in the mid 90's, they barely took notice of it, as gamers were far more interested in 3D screenshots of games like Dungeon Keeper. But time would prove to be kinder to Theme Hospital. While those early 3D games aged quickly as 3D technology improved, 2D games have a sort of timeless, inviting quality to them. Plus, to create these sophisticated sandbox they were aiming for, Two Point Hospital would have to be in 3D. - [Gary] We knew how Theme Hospital had done better over 20 years and some of it's contemporary. - [Mark] So we needed to come up with a style which incorporated something that felt like it was fresh and up-to-date, but we felt if the game does have legs, if people do love this game and we can keep it around for long enough, won't look out of sorts in two, three, four years time. So, we went for something quite organic feeling, it doesn't feel like it's rendered, it feels more like it's made of clay or plasticine, and it feels drawn rather than engineered, - [Gary] And I think also that that art style back then was, with was certainly Theme Park and Theme Hospital had, we had quite a big proportion of female players, which back then was certainly unheard of for our types of games. Obviously something like the sims, which came later, it just blew their market wide open. But I think we didn't have an art style that was-- - [Mark] Exact not footing. - [Gary] Yeah, it kind of, it was accessible, I'm not going to be patronizing and suggest that, you know, we made something that was appealing to girls, Because I wouldn't even have a clue how that would, you know-- - [Mark] I think it felt accessible, it felt like it wasn't aimed at any particular type of gamer. - [Gary] Because you're looking at the game not from a fixed angle, you could be above or sort of, like, low down, you could kind of twist the camera. So a lot of these kind of considerations were kind of worked through and then, - [Mark] And then the US, is it Where's Wilbur in the US? Where's Wally? - [Danny] Oh yeah, Waldo they say over here. - [Gary] Waldo, that's it. And we, you know, to make something readable when you've got so much on screen, and I don't know if you need a screenshot with some of the later levels where you've got absolutely vast marks with hundreds of people on screen. To get a clean read and not get it to look noisy and kind of, I don't know, slightly put you on edge because everything's moving and they've been shimmering because everything's trying to fight for your attention was a real consideration for us. In fact, I've seen some footage that's just gone out last night, and the guy's captured all his footage top down. - [Danny] Right. - [Gary] Imagine being a designer or an artist trying to design a game that looks good from anything possible conceivable angle. It's really difficult. - [Danny] Theme Hospital was accessible, not just with both men and women, but with gamers and non-gamers, and young and old too. It was one of those games that was effortless to pick up. But after the first few missions, Theme Hospital's rough edges began to show. First of all the game got rather hard really quickly. And secondly, there just wasn't any interesting progression. Each level in Theme Hospital was almost identical to the previous one. So to combat this, the team created a world where each hospital takes places in a unique region with its own biome and its own unique needs. - [Gary] Because the regions are very different, the people in that area are very different, some are rich, some are poor regions, and some of the challenges are different. In some cases, you may be running a hospital that's actually funded rather than you get paid for curing people from the individuals, they don't pay, you just get a budget at the beginning of the level. And that just makes the plagues spin completely different, so we wanted to kind of make it stay fresh as much as possible. And also give people the opportunity to circle back and go back and do things that they probably struggled earlier on and keep that fresh by putting new challenges in there. - [Mark] And you have the ability to progress through the county reasonably easy. But if you really want to max out the game, you can kind of return to earlier hospitals, you can unlock things in later levels, you can do research, maybe unlock certain qualifications, come back to one of the earlier hospitals and train the staff in those things, upgrade those machines. - [Gary] So the game doesn't have that pinch point, which the original game had where it just got too hard for me, I think I got to about level seven and would find it a real struggle. And we didn't want to do that again. - [Danny] When I ask the guys about the features that excite them most, there's one that immediately stands out. Two Point Hospital features characters with a variety of personality traits that are not only affected by the world around them, but also by the people around them. They want you to care a lot more about your employees in this game, but more than that, this system has the ability to create wonderful emergent moments as doctors and patients clash with both each other, and the rules of the world. M This is what's real new cutting edge stuff is we've got this, the brains the little people now, is they've got these traits and of course they also have the conditions they're under combined to make quite unique animation blends, which means they do things, they react almost uniquely. It doesn't feel like it's pre-canned. You see somebody walk up to somebody and they'll respond completely different to the next person based on how those two people feel about each other. - [Danny] Could you give an example? Like is it, if two doctors don't like each other, or if they have a tough patient, or how does that sort of manifest? - [Gary] It's just patient is a good example, I mean, they as well as the personality traits, the things that are going on, if doctors has just treated a patient and they die, that has an effect on their happiness, they go on a break to the staff room, and that could end up in an argument with another doctor, and then just that argument could just-- - [Mark] And it's not all emotional, sometimes it's just that the habitual things, like you have a fantastic doctor who may just never wash his hands when he goes to the toilet. - [Gary] Right, now that has an impact on the game. It's not just funny, it actually has an impact and in fact, there was somebody who was showing the game to in San Francisco the other week, and this person has an amazing hospital, doing really well, but when you put the filter on to look at hygiene, the hospital is really clean, but all the staff are really filthy, and I mean you couldn't work it out, and she'd built this massive facility with a toilet which only had two cubicles and she put no sinks in it and no hand dryers and put no sanitizer units anywhere in the hospital. So all these doctors were working on all these patients, filthy. And we put this kind of filter over it and showed her all the instants of filth trails in the game, and Mark just went, I can see your problem. He said, "Do you ever wash your hands "when you go to the toilet?" And this girl was just so embarrassed and immediately went and put this bathroom, a sink into the bathroom, to the toilet. And all the staff just ran to cure, to wash their hands, it's that stuff. - [Mark] Everything in the game affects something else so the people, the machines, the way and the sick, and everything in your world is important. - [Gary] If you have a brilliant surgeon but he's an angry man or woman, right, your job is to try and work out how to diffuse that situation to get them to do even better. And that's kind of the fun depth that the game has. Maybe this person just needs more caffeine in their life. Maybe this person needs more weird executive toys in the office. Those kind of things, it's just you getting that extra ten percent out of their performance which is the real depth I think this game supports. - [Danny] As Gary just said in Two Point Hospital you can have an angry surgeon, man or woman. Another evolution from games past that shows not only just how far games have come in terms of representation, but also in terms of technology. If there's one thing I keep hearing when I interview designers today, it's that technology provides, it provides answers. Many design problems that used to exist in the past have been rendered moot by the advancement of technology. And Two Point's character variety is a perfect example of this. The original Theme Hospital had four main character types: A nurse who was a women, a doctor who was a man, a receptionist who was a woman, and a janitor who was a dusty-looking old man. So I asked Mike and Gary, why? - [Mark] It covered respective times people have said that we made a sexist game, but we had to make the game run in four megabytes. I mean, it was a time and memory, and it wasn't a question of, like, well doctors are just men and nurses are just women, it was just a question of like, we had to make a call with it, and I think you had new, you had different heads, but it was pretty much the same body, different jackets and stuff, and we couldn't have made-- - [Gary] I was really keen on skin tone was important. I did not want to have a particular skin tone, but we just did not have the time or the memory, mainly the memory. - [Mark] The character variation was important to us back then, and it was only 21 years ago but you very rarely got very different clothing variations and we did manage to get an element of that in. But the basic model of the man and the woman, that was the huge memory part of this. You know, so rightly or wrongly, I could have made a male nurse and a female doctor, I could have made a young janitor, I could have made a male reception administration staff. All of those things are absolutely true. You know, 20 odd years down the line it just seems critically incorrect but it wasn't our intention, I'd like to think we're quite right on. But the decision was made that the doctors were male and the nurses were female, rightly or wrongly, it was a call I made but I certainly didn't mean the offend anybody. - [Danny] But it sounds like that's something that's been changed for Two Point? - [Mark] Totally. - [Gary] Absolutely. I mean, you know, that would have, that's absolutely goes without saying, he's not trying to correct anything, it's just that we had no choice back then to make a decision, rightly or wrongly, but it was just never going to be a situation. I mean, we've got so many more other types now of staff anyway, and what they do is very different. I mean, and thank God our initiative stuff in this game do all sorts of things, they're not just manning, I mean the little bit of footage you've probably seen, it may look like, oh look, there's somebody on the reception desk again. They do all sorts of different roles. - [Mark] Yeah so we've got a marketing department which you open up later in the game, so the assistants can work, if they have the qualification, they can work in marketing, - [Gary] They're kind of civil-servant-y type people, aren't they. They do a cross of different things, but the other things is we've taken a variation to a ridiculous level now. You can have hundreds of people, in fact, somebody took a fantastic screenshot within the studio, it's on our Twitter feed, and it's just about three hundred people just jammed into section and no two, they're all completely different characters. We've got this amazing modular system which puts on things such as steam goggles if it wants to, you know, boots, every component can be different and it just randomly generates them. So you really are lucky if you see two characters that look vaguely similar. Certainly more similar people in Yorkshire than there are in our game. - [Danny] What excites me most about Two Point Hospital isn't replaying a style of game that I enjoyed in my youth, it's that this game seems to be free of the technological restrictions of its predecessor. It's full of neat little features like teaching janitors to vacuum up gDannys. So even that old dog has a new trick. The guys are busy finalizing the game so I didn't want to take too much more of their time. But before they left, I had to ask them the most important question: What new illnesses could we look forward to treating in Two Point Hospital? - [Mark] Turtle Head is an affliction where the head shrinks down to a very small and it has to be a, I'm only saying that because I know it's on our website. - [Gary] There's another one where the guy's foot is like a camel's foot and it's called Camel Toe and that has to be, that's not in there, it's just hardly been-- - [Mark] That was one of my favorites ones. I thought you liked it. - [Gary] Mark, he's trying to get that in the game. I have to say as well-- - [Mark] I say we've talked about it now in the press, so we have to put it in. - [Danny] Lads, you sound like you're having a great laugh. This sounds like a very professionally exciting period in your lives. Is that fair to say? - [Mark] I mean, 21 years ago, releasing Theme Hospital, that was an amazing time. We had such good time, and just kind of starting a studio and going "Wouldn't it be cool to be able to "recapture some of that kind of--" - [Gary] Actually we started our families. I mean, we both got married, you might have been before me. Side having your family at the beginning, I think-- - [Mark] Yeah, I hear you, Sam was born just as we started. - [Gary] There's a story: Sam actually worked with us here. Sam's Mark's firstborn, was born right at the beginning. - [Mark] Pretty much as we started. - [Gary] As we started, and he's one of the engineers and creatives on this, it's very odd, it's very strange, but that's what makes it fun, right, because we got to a stage in our careers where we just want to actually enjoy coming into work, not have to be some, the problem with games is you get promoted, that's the problem with games. And when you get promoted, you stop making games. You start becoming that person nobody likes. You have to get a game done, and it has to be done like this, and nobody likes people telling people what to do. So we've basically set up this company so nobody, we don't have to tell people what to do and no one tells us what to do and yeah, it's great fun coming into work everyday. I don't think we've had one day where I haven't felt this is the best thing I've done in my life. - [Danny] Two Point Hospital should be available to purchase on PC, Mac, and Linux around the time you hear this podcast. You can learn more about the game at twopointhospital.com. If you're interested in playing the original Theme Hospital and you should be, it's really good, it's available on GOG.com. If fact, if you're a fan of GOG, you should check out our documentary on the company and their game preservation efforts over on our YouTube channel: YouTube.com/Noclipvideo. I'd also like to recommend a patch for that game: Corsix TH. It's a tremendous community-created wrapper that updates the GOG version of Theme Hospital to work with modern resolutions with sharper graphics and updated menus. A wonderful testament to the fan passion that has surrounded this game for 19 years. As ever thanks to our Patrons for supporting our work. You can support our documentaries, this podcast, and more by joining up at Patreon.com/Noclip. You'll also get access to this podcast early via a special RSS feed. Thanks so much to Gary and Mark for their time, Lauran Carter over at SEGA for setting the whole thing up, and my wonderful wife for chatting to me about one of our favorite games. Sorry for the delay in getting this episode number two out. It was supposed to be up about six weeks ago, But then my baby girl decided to come a couple of weeks early. So we've been rather busy here in the O'Dwyer household. We have a bunch of fun podcasts planned for between now and the end of the year, so of course, keep this feed running. Until then, play some games. We'll talk again soon.

Gary has been an entrepreneur and owner of multiple businesses in Missouri since 1990. He created an acronym that has shaped his life's foundation: CHARGE (Create Habits Around Real Goals Everyday). He studied entrepreneurs such as Sam Walton, Brendon Burchard, Brian Tracy, and Charles Red Scott and learned their principles. Then he built his roadmap for personal success.  Gary created a framework, The High Achiever Mindset, using his success as the foundation. He now shares his message as a keynote speaker, trainer, and coach in order to help others reach their goals, dreams, and ambitions. He is a certified High Performance Coach from the High Performance Institute. Gary has also published his first book titled The High Achiever Leadership Formula: The 6 Ingredients of an Inspiring and Influential Leader. His new book, Positive Culture Wins: In Business and Life is available for pre-order at: www.positiveculturewins.com There you will find: 7 day CHARGE video series PDF download of the book Audible Version of the book Free Ticket to the book launch party on April 1st, 2018 For more information on Gary and High Performance Coaching: https://goascend.biz/high-performance-coaching/ Quotes shared by Gary: "It's your life. Why not live the life you want to live?" "Goals: It's like having your headlights on because you know where you are going."      

In this episode, I'm chatting with Gary Jones. I'm honored to have Gary on the show. He is your go-to person when you want things done right. He is a huge asset to the Genesis community and shares his knowledge in so many ways. If you spend any time on Github - you are sure to see his name as a contributor on so many open source projects. Let's get started. Meet Gary Jones Gary Jones is a UK-based WordPress Engineer, code consultant and father of extremely premature twins. Driven by a passion for excellence, he creates elegant WordPress plugins and theme solutions for clients, and provides services, including code audits, for other web designers and developers. He's worked on projects for SiteGround, Yoast, StudioPress, Web Savvy Marketing, Daniels Trading, Rolls-Royce and many smaller design and development agencies and individuals. Gary is a key contributor to the GENESIS FRAMEWORK and has contributed to all except one major branch of WordPress Core since 3.3. He has contributed to many open source projects in the COMMUNITY, and is a co-host on the UK GENESIS PODCAST. A former teacher in schools and prisons, Gary's goal is to educate WordPress professionals on how they can improve their code. His motto is knowledge is power. Show Notes Gary's site: Gamajo Tech Twitter: @garyj Podcast: UK Genesis Github: GaryJones Genesis Slack Channel: Request Invite A Few Valuable Links & Resources : WordPress Coding Standards WordPress Coding Standards for PHP_CodeSniffer PHPStorm Atom StudioPress and Genesis Framework Transcript Open PDF version of this transcript in new window Jackie Hey, everybody. It's Jackie D'Elia with another episode of Rethink.fm for you and today I have Gary Jones who is a UK resident and a Genesis expert in our community. Hey, Gary. Gary Hi. How are you doing, Jackie? Jackie Very good. Thanks for joining me on the first episode for season 2, which is kind of awesome to have you here. Gary Thank you very much. Jackie For anyone who doesn't know who you are in the Genesis community, would you tell us a little bit about yourself? Gary Absolutely. My name's Gary Jones. I'm based in Basingstoke in the UK. I run a small virtual agency creating technical WordPress solutions for clients, including integrations with their business critical systems. I'm a contributor to the Genesis Framework and WordPress core and many plugins and open source projects. I'm cohost of the UK Genesis podcast, although we haven't done many recordings recently, general translation editor for the British English locale in WordPress and organizer of WorkCamp London, father of five-year-old twins, and my background is teaching in schools and prisons. Jackie Wow. That was awesome. You just went right through the whole thing. That is great. Gary It helps being prepared ahead of time and actually writing my introduction down this time. Jackie Yeah. If you're working in Genesis and you're in GitHub at all, it's hard not to see your name all around as a contributor for, like you said, numerous plugins, many open source projects. I see your name as a contributor on a lot of things. Gary Yeah. A lot of the things that I contribute to are effectually under other people's names. It's under their repo or their GitHub name. One of the things I like doing is helping others. Irrespective of the context that might be helping clients or, in this case, helping other developers. If I can contribute something to their plugin then I'll go ahead and fork it and make the change and send it back to them. If it makes their plugin better and people recognize that there's a slightly better plugin or slightly better package that has got their name on it, that's fine by me. I'm actually fine with that. Jackie I have to say, whenever I see a plugin if I need something in the GitHub repo and I see your name associated with it, I usually think it's okay to use because I kind of ... Gary Probably, yes.