Podcasts about michael yeah

Michael: Hot, tasty. Reminds me of college. Lived on this stuff. Brain food. Mmmm... You know what I really, really miss about college? The parties. Everybody'd go. The athletes, the, the nerds, professors. Pam: The professors would go to the parties? Michael: Yeah! They were the most fun. We always invited them. Grab your lunch, coffee, and notes about the microwave—this week we're talking about the kitchen! We devote this week's episode to the small space in between the bullpen and annex that acts as the stage for some of the best and most memorable moments from The Office. We discuss what that space means for the show, recount our favorite moments in the kitchen, and wonder aloud why the bathrooms are so close to it. Then we head to the Conference Room for an Ordinary Things segment where we discuss our own moments with workplace kitchens.  Sincerely, disappointed. Support our show and become a member of Scott's Tots on Patreon! For only $5/month, Tots get ad-free episodes plus exclusive access to our monthly Mailbag episodes where we casually pick through every single message/question/comment we receive. We also have Season 2 of our Ted Lasso podcast Biscuits with the Boss available to our Patrons, as well as our White Lotus Christmas Special, Party Down, and unreleased episodes of this show. Oh, and Tots get access to exclusive channels on our Discord. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

‍Did you know that up to 40% of calls could be going unanswered even during working hours in your practice?In this Monday Morning Episode, I chat with Miles Beckett from Flossy, whose challenging the status quo with an audacious question—should you fire your staff to make way for cutting-edge AI technology? We explore the persistent staffing hurdles in dental offices and unveil how AI can redefine efficiency and service quality. Miles introduces us to Flossy's AI receptionist, Fiona, who skillfully handles appointment scheduling and patient inquiries while significantly reducing no-show rates. This conversation promises a riveting insight into the practical and financial advantages of incorporating AI into dental practices.We examine how incorporating AI like Fiona not only economizes but also enriches team dynamics, fostering a more cohesive and productive work environment. With Miles' expert insights, we tackle the looming question all dental entrepreneurs grapple with: How can AI propel my practice forward while maintaining high standards of human interaction? As we explore the potential future developments in AI, Miles provides a visionary roadmap that could very well be the blueprint for modernizing your practice. Get ready to rethink your staffing strategy, elevate your service offerings, and embrace the future of dentistry with open arms.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The rationale behind considering AI technology in dental staffing.Challenges faced by dental practices regarding staffing and scheduling.Insights into Fiona, Flossy's AI receptionist, and her functionalities.Strategies for integrating AI to enhance team dynamics.Potential future developments of AI in dental operations.Tune in now to discover how AI could augment your dental practice operations!‍‍You can reach out to Miles Beckett here:Website: Flossy.comTwitter/X: x.com/mbeckett‍Other Mentions and Links:‍AI Tools:ChatGPTGeminiDeepSeek‍Education:Board Exam‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey Miles, so talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Miles: Thanks for having me, Michael. My piece of advice that's controversial is fire your staff. Michael: Interesting. Fire your staff. Why so? Miles: I'm obviously being a little bit facetious, but I think you should raise your bar.I know that one of the biggest issues in dental right now is staffing challenges, both finding good staff, retaining staff, dealing with churn. And you know, it's oftentimes a rotating door at dental practices. And the way we think about things at Flossie is that we can help bring AI workers to help you out.And those AI workers really make you reassess How good is this person doing? Do I really need them on this task? Maybe I can have them do something else instead. Michael: So then what was the specific problem that you saw in practices that inspired you to create? I guess or the suite of it, right? Like Fiona and how does AI solve challenges that traditional front desk systems can't?Miles: the new technology around generative AI, which is really the most recent type of AI that we're seeing out there. We've had things like machine vision and learn machine learning and stuff for a while now. It's created voice technology that allows you to build these agents that really sound like you're talking to a human.So I would say over the last year the technology has improved dramatically such that a year ago we were looking at some of this stuff and it didn't really work. But within the last six months or so, all of a sudden, you could really build these agents that you could talk to that sound like you're talking to a human.So we were kind of playing around with this technology. We had already built out a dental discount network that was kind of our core business before. so we were looking at it for some of our own uses. And we sort of had this aha moment where so many of the dentists that we work with were complaining again about this rotating door, particularly with the front desk.And we were like, wow, actually, we could build a receptionist that would sound and function basically like a human. And so that was the first pain point that we really wanted to solve. And it's kind of shocking the amount of calls that go unanswered. not just nights and weekends where typically people are just getting a voicemail that kind of just goes nowhere.But also during the day, about 30 to 40 percent of the calls coming into a dental practice during the day actually go unanswered. Michael: Really interesting, yeah. That's a good, stat right there. Now when it comes to that, did you kind of see, okay, hey, these calls that are being unanswered, the nights and weekends and everything, it can kind of cover all this?Or was there hiccups, problems with that? I mean, I would assume there's like a ton of questions that AI has to be prepared for, right? That a human can do, but I mean, how did you kind of overcome that? Miles: it already works for nights, weekends, overflow. We have practices that, are starting to use it to fully replace the voice reception duties and to be able to have that staff focus on people that are actually in office.And oftentimes front desk workers aren't just answering the phones. They're usually doing a ton of other things. So, I mean, the short answer is that there's an approach in AI development called rag, which basically allows you to marry, Specific proprietary technology databases to the LLMs that are already out there.So things like chat, GPT or Gemini, for this new model that China released deep seek, these are all generic models. And then there's other. Companies that have built specifically models that generate voice for the conversational aspect of the call. But obviously they don't know anything about dentistry.They don't know anything about your specific practice. and they certainly don't know anything about scheduling or scheduling software. So a lot of what we've built is leveraging those generic LLMs. And then adding in dental specific knowledge that comes from, hundreds of thousands of data points that we have from patient visits and patient interactions with dentists over the years.And then also with the practice, ingesting their data to fine tune it even further to their practice. Both in terms of taking, like all their call log data and actually use that as part of the training for the model, and then also basically taking their rules around scheduling and their rules and information about the practice when they're open, when they're not, when the dentist is there.And all of that is loaded into a database that is available to the AI in real time as a person is talking to Michael: them. Have you seen any. Like hesitation on this as far as people taking it on were you kind of hesitant a little bit as far as taking it on And then like it, blew your mind out of the water kind of a thing Miles: Yeah, I think definitely there's a lot of interest.So, you know, we immediately had people signing up for the product right off the bat. However, in the initial conversation, for sure, there's a lot of skepticism. Part of that is because the technology is so new that if I were to tell you what I'm telling you now, that There's an AI you can talk to, and it knows everything about your dental practice and can book you.Sounds a little bit science fiction. And then second, there are, you know, a lot of people broadly in the industry saying, Ah, we have an AI receptionist for this vertical or that vertical, for dentists, for doctors, for plumbers, blah, blah, blah. And frankly, a lot of that technology is not very good, so if people have had some prior experience, they've maybe had sort of a negative experience.And the big reason for that, again, is that if you just sort of slap together a receptionist on top of a generic model, it's not going to work very well. You have to train it on the data brought for that industry. And even specific, like, the model that we have for a pediatric practice is different than the one for an orthodontics practice, as an example.And then again, Providing other data, that is specific to that practice itself. So there's some like initial skepticism, but once they hear it, once they interact with it, once they talk to other customers that have been using it, they're like, Oh, wow, this is pretty awesome. And then once they actually get it live, you know, they're pretty blown away.Michael: Yeah. So patients now expect, and you've seen this I'm sure, 24 7 communication, right? Right. Whether it's like, but on their time. Like, hey, I need it now, emergencies, whatever. So then, how does Fiona personalize patient interactions to improve that satisfaction of patients? And also, how does it help reduce no shows, or does it do that?Miles: Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. So I mean, there's kind of a few ways that she works. So, most calls coming into a dental practice are for scheduling. majority of the calls are about I need to schedule an appointment. So the primary use case for Fiona, In general, but then really specifically for after hours and overflow is There's a huge amount of call volume that dental practices are getting that literally goes unanswered and goes to voicemail. And what is that person doing? They're calling the next dental practice. That's what we all do. You don't get an answer. You go to the next one. You go to the next one. And so it's giving these dentists an opportunity to actually capture that patient and book them for appointment.Yeah. And she can perfectly book appointments for new patients, answer questions about the practice. Again, it's, uncanny. The second is, as you're saying, no shows. So, people call in a lot and say they're running late or saying they need to reschedule or whatever. typically, that, happens during the day.It also happens, interestingly, a lot before the practice opens in the morning. So, practices will often see a lot of morning no shows and it's because they didn't, hear from the patient. So, She's also capturing those and rescheduling the patient, and so when the doctor gets in, their calendar is actually correct.So I would say those are kind of two of the main use cases. And then there's a lot of question answering, right? So there's, in a pediatric setting, there's, know, how's the first visit going to be? Is it going to be painful? What's it going to be like for my child? They've never been before.If it's a person that has like an immediate issue, can you get me in today? What is your schedule look like? What's the procedure going to be like? I've never had a root canal before. And she can answer all that. So she's actually trained on again a massive clinical data set as well.In fact, she technically passed the board exam. so she's very knowledgeable about dental information as well. Michael: Wow, that's incredible, man. So then I can see how this improves the call, right? It also, I'm assuming saves the practice owner, the business, a lot of money. in some many ways. So can you share a quick example of numbers that illustrate how fast practice could see the ROI?With Fiona. Miles: Yeah, I mean, the ROI with Fiona, literally, if you get one patient booking that you otherwise would not have gotten, she pays for herself that much. Okay. also to give you another example, Fiona costs about one tenth of What a human employee would cost, okay, to answer the phones.So we're talking about a massive cost savings. Above and beyond even the alternative that some practices do, which is like outsourcing to other countries. It's less expensive than that as well. So, the ROI is effectively immediate, especially given the are getting such a large percentage of calls going unanswered.Michael: Interesting, man. So is it like tiers? So, Miles: yeah, we, and again, we really think About these A. I. S. As employees as co workers. And so it basically comes down to like hours of utilization effectively. But you know, like the lowest here is basically nights and weekends and overflow coverage. The middle tier is sort of during the day in a copilot capacity.And then the highest here is just fully taking over all the calls being the first point of contact broadly. That's how we sort of think about it. Yeah. And as we think about all these agents too, I mean, the thing that's kind of cool is that you can interact with them as well. So you can actually have a one on one with Fiona, just like you would with an employee where you can provide her feedback in chat or in talking to her.And then that feedback that you give actually gets incorporated to how she functions going forward. Michael: Interesting. I like that. So then how does this, I mean, maybe you might've seen it miles. Maybe you haven't, does it improve like the team dynamics? Is it more like, Hey, this may take over your job and then the team members are iffy about it, you know what I mean?Miles: Yeah, no, I think it's been fine. I mean, we think of each of these A. I. S. as being co pilot to the workers that are there. And I think the reality is for any practice in particular that's growing or if you're buying other locations, you're constantly hiring more staff. You also, again, there's, a huge amount of churn with dental employees.So oftentimes you have people quitting and then you're hiring new people. So I think what this really lets you do is have a leaner team, not because you're firing people, but because you don't have to hire quite as many people. And for the staff that's there, they can focus on what they, you know, ultimately got into the business for, which is on patient care.You know, most of the staff in the practice are dental techs or hygienists. And oftentimes even front desk people like might even have a credential like that, and they're sort of doing double duty. And so now they can really focus on delivering patient care and also the in office interaction.So talking to the patient that's actually there at the front desk and that you know is getting a treatment, right there in the practice Michael: Yeah, I can definitely see this also a benefit for the startup practice, right? Like somebody who's on a lean budget starting up and then They just need to have someone in the front right now, kind of covering, maybe somebody last minute didn't show up for work because that happens quite a bit.They ghosted him, right? Or something like that. Yeah, right. They just show up and this, is a really good, do you feel like this can a hundred percent replaced? The front desk or more like, Hey, no, we're still going to need somebody there. Miles: I would say that within six months, 99. 9 percent of the phone calls will be able to be handled fully by Fiona.cause she's already can handle. 80 percent of the use cases right now, because again, most of the calls are scheduling related. There will be some edge cases, of course, and those edge cases will require a person, but it's going to be very few and far between. I think it'll be a question of how the practices want to use her and some may be.Just want her in an overflow capacity, regardless of her capabilities. And that's fine. And obviously there's very large DSOs that have call centers. I think we're going to see heavy adoption by them. You know, we're talking to all the major DSOs, rapidly. Yeah. And I think as we think about these other agents that we're building, we really think of it as a suite.Of AI agents for dental practices that all work together. So as a simple example, we'll be launching an insurance verification AI that will automatically verify insurance either through direct connections with insurers, or actually by calling, because sometimes you still can't get the data via their APIs or publicly available sources.And you actually need to call well, great. We have call technology where that AI can just call. The insurance company and now get the verification. And so you can imagine where a patient calls. They talked to Fiona. They're booking to give their insurance info now behind the scenes. Our insurance AI is verifying that data and providing it to the dentist.So they now have a package all ready to go for when that patient shows up. And so for each of these different ones, we're thinking about them working together. And I think in different domains, they'll be able to do, you know, more or less of the work. Some things are more complex, the one that we're thinking about for helping you run your practice, which is kind of like, Sort of a business intelligence product.But again, in the form of like an AI that's actually giving you recommendations, it's not going to be perfect and you're still going to have to run your practice, but it may actually take over the work of, you know, some of the consultants that you use and maybe you can do it a little more efficiently.Michael: Wow, man. Oh, so you guys got a lot, got a lot going on, which is great. It's exciting. So for practice owners who want to explore this further, where can they learn more about Fiona and Flossie? And do you guys offer any type of like demos or trials? Miles: Yeah. Yeah. So they can just go to flossie. com F L O S S Y.com. there's a bunch of info about Fiona on there right now. We offer demos. And we have like Sort of a trial period that we can offer people in, some cases as well. Michael: Awesome, Miles. I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find them on the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?Miles: I am on Twitter or X, I guess it's called. I feel like we'll always call it Twitter. Um, and my handle should be M Beckett on Twitter. Michael: And so all that's going to be in the show notes below. So definitely check it out. And Miles, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning episode.Miles: Awesome. Thanks so much, Mike. I really appreciate it.

‍Is your dental practice ready to break free from the ordinary and embrace new marketing strategies that truly make a difference? This episode features Shane Simmons from Crimson Media Group, who walks us through unique approaches that transform how dentists connect with their local communities. By leveraging the power of local Facebook groups, Shane shares the secrets to building meaningful relationships and promoting dental services through community engagement. Whether it's through exciting collaborations like organizing yoga sessions or axe throwing events with fellow local business owners, the insights shared in this conversation will open your eyes to the potential of grassroots marketing.But it's not just about joining any group—it's about authentically positioning yourself as a part of the community. Shane shares the value of engaging with these groups using a personal profile to foster trust and connection. These small steps can lead to significant benefits, including cross-promotion with businesses boasting strong social media influence. To cap it all off, Shane extends an exclusive offer to the audience—a complimentary marketing analysis aimed at unveiling the intricacies of local advertising and helping you position your practice for maximum impact.What You'll Learn in This Episode:Innovative marketing strategies tailored for dental practices.How to effectively use local Facebook groups for community engagement.The benefits of collaborating with local businesses for mutual growth.Why personal profiles are better than business pages for building trust online.How Shane's marketing analysis can help you understand your local market.Discover new marketing insights that could reshape your dental practice—tune in now!‍(This episode originally aired on December 26th, 2022)‍‍You can reach out to Shane Simmons here:Website: crimsonmediagroup.comFacebook: facebook.com/crimsonmediamarketing‍Love the Podcast? Let Us Know How We're Doing on Apple Podcasts!‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey Shane. So talk to us about uncommon marketing methods. Tell me one or a couple tactics or strategies that will help bring in new patients. Shane: Yeah, so Michael, we've got one that a everybody can do. So if you've ever been in, you know, these local, like Facebook groups in your communities, you'll find that there's a Facebook group for everybody, moms, dads, but one in particular is small businesses in the area, and it's usually like shop small business or shop, you know, the community that you're living in.And one of the things that we're starting to have clients do is get into these groups and find someone who has a small business in that group that's in your community that could come to your office and do some sort of, Event or just like team building exercise at the practice. so I'll get where, how this kind of comes into getting new patients in a bit.Mm-hmm. . But the first way that you can look at this, is like as a team building opportunity. So think of people like, Yoga instructors or think of someone who maybe teaches people how to meditate. Invite that person to do a session at your office for your team one day. And one, it's gonna be a great team building exercise.It's gonna be something that's beneficial to, you know, everybody on the team. But what you can then do is say, Hey, we would love for, you know, you to post this on your Facebook and your Instagram account. You know, talking about how you had this session here. We'll share. To our audience that way in case you know, people can go check out your yoga studio or whatever the case may be, but then if they're sharing that they came to your practice, they're going to be putting your practice in front of their entire audience too.So it's obviously ideal. To find somebody who has a decent social media following, like, you probably wouldn't wanna do this with a yoga instructor, or somebody who teaches medication who's not on social media. Mm-hmm. . But, finding someone who has an audience and, and cross promoting with each other, um, through that.But then the second piece of this, which is, you know, really the cool thing is if you're in with the Facebook group where you found that individual, you can then, Pictures and videos of that day where that yoga instructor or whoever came to the practice and give them a shout out and tag them in their business in that post saying, Hey, we wanna thank, you know Michael's yoga studio for coming to our dental practice and Rancho Cucamonga and doing a full day, you know, or a half day session or whatever the case is.It's like definitely go check them out. And oh, by the way, if you guys need a dentist in the area, we would love to, be your dental home. So it's a way that you can promote yourself, but while doing so, you're promoting another business and you're not going to get kicked out of the Facebook group because it's not like you're just going in there.And dropping a promotion, it's like you used somebody's services in that group. You supported another local business. So it looks, you know, it shows that you're supporting the community while also just putting yourself out there that, hey, you know, we're also here. We would love to, to help those in the community.So that's really what we're starting to find is Almost like a ground marketing technique really, but just doing it through these Facebook groups, and again, there's so many different options that you could do with this. You could do an onsite, somewhere else where you actually go and do like, a obstacle course.You know, somebody like that owns like an obstacle course thing in the area, whatever it is. I know one thing that's like really popular right now in the Midwest, I don't know if, it's like nationally. Ax throwing is like a thing Okay. That a lot of people like go and do now. So, you know, it's, it's all about just how can you get and support other businesses in the area and then talk to that person and ask about how can we, cross promote each other to our audiences to drive more business.And the great thing about it is, it's free with the exception of whatever you may pay to get the person to come out and do the event, or if you go do. , activity at their place of business. Yeah. Okay. Michael: So then how would you recommend we go about doing this? From step one, we're going inside the Facebook group.We're looking betting, and then we're like, okay, let's see who has a good following. So would that take some time, I would assume, right. . Shane: Yeah. So, yeah, it's just a little bit of groundwork at the beginning. Mm-hmm. . So the first thing you wanna do is, you know, go to Facebook and search small business and then type in whatever, city, town you live in.That's the first thing. And join all of those groups, um, and you would join those from your personal, profile, your Facebook profile, but make sure it has. Listed on your profile, owner, dentist at such and such practice, so that that's listed in there. So first thing you wanna do is join the group.Once you've joined the groups, you can then search the group members. And the first thing that I would personally do I would scroll through the Facebook group and look at. Who's actively posting in there? You know, who are people that are regularly posting or promoting something in that group and looking at what it is that they, do.Are they real estate agents? Are they gym owners? what is it that is their profession? If you find somebody who's really active and you can. , that person could really benefit. my team, we could do something fun with them, have them come out to the office, do a day session, whatever the case is. Then that would be the person, you're trying to, reach. So I would just scroll through the group, look at, see who the active posters are, and then just make a list of, how could we use this service? Could we use this service? And, and then, you know, from there you can check out their.Page profile and see how many followers they have, and then it's from there, Michael, it's just about sending a message to them, on that group and introducing yourself as a fellow small business owner in the community who had saw one of their posts and was like, Hey, I would love to, do this or have my team do this.How can we, get set up with you guys and maybe promote each other, um, in the community. So it's really kind of three steps joining the. Researching the group and finding out, who would be a good fit to kind of partner with. Mm-hmm. and then just reaching out to that person and so far the offices that have done this that we work with, nobody's been turned down because everybody wants to partner with another local business if they can to help mutually benefit each other. Michael: Yeah. Do you think they should also kind of like once they come in, let's just say it's like the ACT's throwing, right? You go to them. We ask like, Hey, is the manager here or the owner here, kind of thing. Like that. Or, Shane: that's a great question, Michael.Usually what we're finding as of right now at least, is it's usually the owners or like the main, manager, branch manager, who is like the member of these groups. Mm-hmm. , um, because they're the actively, the ones that are trying to. Grow their, footprint in the community. So if for these smaller businesses, it's usually, you know, the owners that, that we're seeing in the groups.So it's a lot easier to, you know, be talking to the, the main person rather than going to their website and then having to see, you know, hey, who's the owner or the manager and contacting them. That way you may have a hard time getting through. that initial gatekeeper, but if you're reaching out to the owner directly on Facebook and you'll be able to find that out, you know, obviously by clicking on their profile and it should say if they're the owner slash operator or whatever the case is of mm-hmm.such and such business. Michael: I like how you mentioned join from the personal Facebook because that, I mean, I get that question.Everybody gives that question like, should we, they wanna join with their like business Facebook? Why is that Shane: not a good idea? Yeah, because I think we're the business. if you create, you know, business page and you try to join through the business group, it just doesn't have that personal connection that, you're looking for.And it can sometimes raise red flags with group admins. I mean, you know, Michael, you're group admin. It can raise red flags of us. This person just gonna come in and spam the group, nobody wants that who's running one of these Facebook groups. So when you join in from your personal profile, it's showing that you're actually there trying to. Meaningful connections. You're not afraid to hide your face right, or hide behind the business, and you're just more likely to be looked at as like a legitimate person or poster contributor to that group, rather than going in and joining through the business page where in that case there's just no personal, touch to that.Michael: Yeah, I can see that a hundred percent. Awesome. And then so when we go in there, we're talking to them, let's just say we're going in there, talking to them and then, The owner's like, Hey, yeah, yeah, come on in. Should we do something where're like, Hey, if your employees Or like, wait and then have them, you know, until you guys interact more.What? What do you Shane: think? Yeah, no, I'm glad you asked this because we would, suggest, or the way we're suggesting it right now is go in, you know, u utilize their service, whatever the case is, kind of use that the first time. And, and that's kind of it. but then follow up, a month down the road and saying something like, you know, Hey, we just wanna say how much we appreciated you guys.Maybe you drop off. to go whitening boxes, you know, crest whitening strips, something along those lines to the, business and to the group, and put some membership. If you have a membership plan, which hopefully you do in the practice, practice, put some membership plan, graphics or a QR code that goes to your membership plan in that gift box as well.And so when you give that to the, the manager there, let them know, you know, Hey, we just really enjoyed, you know, utilizing your service. Obviously, you know, we're another small business in the area. If you don't have, currently any like dental insurance that you're offering your team, because, you know, we understand small businesses, a lot of them don't have that.here's an option for the people who work here where they can come to our office and join this membership plan. And so that's a way where you can then start to. Build that, relationship a little bit more, taking it to the next level and kind of showing them how you can, you with their team and, and provide those type of benefits.But I would say wait at least a month after you've kind of really connected with that person, utilized their services already. That way it doesn't look like you're trying to get something from them. and that's it. You know, you want to look at this as, you know, how can we show them we're wanting to utilize their services as much as possible, we value them. And at that point, reciprocity just comes into play where they're gonna wanna be able to do whatever they can for you to help promote you and your business, um, because you've shown support to. . Michael: Yeah. Awesome man. Awesome. I appreciate this, Shane, and I appreciate your time and if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find 'em on the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?Shane: Yeah, no. So they can, uh, always find us@crimsonmediagroup.com. It's a great way to reach out to us, through that platform. And yeah, we'd be happy to answer any questions you have about your current marketing or what marketing maybe we, you wanna explore doing, you know, definitely reach out to us and we'd be happy to be a resource.Michael: Yeah. And real quick, you, y'all still do the free analysis, right? For. Shane: Yes. So we do, just for Michael's audience here, we do a free marketing analysis for, any practice owners in this group. So we'll go through, we'll look at, what people are looking for when they're, when they're searching for a dentist, who's advertising in the area, what are they advertising? That way you get a really good glimpse of the kind of landscape in your community, and it's just really great insight, if anything. So, yeah, if you wanna check out. what that's all about. You can reach out to us through, again, crimson mediagroup.com and just let us know in the comments that you'd like to request a marketing analysis and, uh, we'd be happy to to do that for you.Michael: Awesome. So guys, that's gonna be the first link in the show notes below, so go check it out, get your free analysis and shin. Thank you so much for being with me on this Monday morning marketing episode. Thanks Michael.

Can focusing on just ONE aspect of your life or practice truly enhance your overall fulfillment and success? Join me as I delve into a fascinating conversation with my return guest Dr. Avi Patel, an expert in the concept of singular focus. Avi eloquently unpacks the transformative power of honing your energy on one dimension of your life or practice. From personal anecdotes of bettering his marriage through therapy to using this single-minded approach in his dental practice, Avi provides a fresh perspective on achieving unparalleled results through the art of simplification.As we explore this captivating topic further, Avi demystifies the age-old conundrum of juggling multiple goals. His advice? Shift the lens from defining a myriad of large objectives to establishing non-negotiable standards. By laser-focusing on mastering one skill at a time and leveraging consultants or mentors who've tread the same path, we can optimize our efforts and enhance our personal and professional lives. Avi shares his current focus which involves expanding his scope beyond the clutches of conventional dentistry and into the intriguing realm of content creation in the dental industry.What You'll Learn in This Episode:How channelizing your energy and resources into one facet of your life can reap more fulfillment and success.The power of simplifying your goals into non-negotiable standards.The benefits of seeking advice from consultants or coaches who have experienced similar situations.The importance of focusing on one KPI at a time and allowing your brain to problem solve and improve other areas organically.Avi's current career pivot - stepping away from clinical dentistry and moving towards content creation.Ready to dive in and discover the untapped potential of singular focus? Tune in now!‍(This episode originally aired on February 5th, 2024)‍‍You can reach out to Dr. Avi Patel here:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doctor.avi/Avi's Clear Aligner Course: https://www.clearaligneradvisor.co/launchpad‍Other Mentions and Links:‍Podcasts/Publications:438: DR. AVI PATEL | CLEAR ALIGNER ADVISOR‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey Avi. So talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Avi: So I, my piece of advice would be to kind of simplify, I. Everything you're doing and focus on one thing. And I think a good place to start is with yourself. So, and then even with yourself, right? There's different aspects.There's your mental self, your physical self, your emotional self. And I think if you first focus on your mental self and you do what you can to get that in order and get that into a place where. You have more control. Uh, I'm not talking about mind control, but something, something close to that. But if you, if you focus on your mental self, everything from that point I believe flows.So, um, for example, myself, about two and a half years ago, I started doing therapy. I was doing it because I wanted to improve. Um. My relationship with my wife. Mm-Hmm. And I just wanted to be a better person. I wanted to be able to support her better, but then also myself, just be better. I think that was like the goal.Mm-Hmm. And what I noticed from that point on was I started creating these habits because my focus was on improving. Essentially my mental health or myself. I started creating a morning routine. And so that morning routine was journaling, meditating, stretching. That then led to me being more organized, more focused during the day, uh, less stressed.so that's kind of how it went into the business way of how it helped me in life. But then physically, um, I got into the best shape of my life. I started being more intentional about what I was eating, what I was kinda spending my time on in terms of working out movement, stuff like that.And so just by starting on focusing on one thing by myself or on my mental health rather, all this stuff flowed. And I think you can translate this to other aspects of your life, your business, and everything. Because whenever you're focusing on too many things, right, and I think especially this time of year in January, everyone's got a million goals going on.Probably by the time this thing airs, most people won't have any of their resolutions continuing. But, ' cause I made the same mistake, right? And everyone hears it. Mm-Hmm. And I think I, I felt. So much relief when I looked at the multiple goals that I wanted to basically achieve this year personally and business-wise.And, uh, I felt so good when I eliminated like 90% of them because. I think people get confused on like, having a goal and then actually having something to do, right? So when you have too many goals, then there's so many things to do to achieve all of those goals. You're never gonna get it done. Mm-Hmm.And I kinda just went back to my roots of like, when was there a time in my life where I was growing rapidly, feeling good about myself, achieving a lot of success, and it's back when I was just doing, or focusing rather on like one thing. and so. I kind of remembered that and then I went back to it. Uh, simplified the morning routine again, these days to we're not trying to do 10 things before I start.It's more so just keeping it very simple, very efficient, because what happens is when you start getting those wins, those wins start to stack, and then next thing you know, when you look at it, you know, a year in review, you've achieved so much more just because you were focusing on one thing at a time and kind of chipping away at it.Michael: Gotcha, man. So right now you're kind of mentioning or you're letting us know that have one thing to focus on. Mm-Hmm. so in a specific aspect, we have to have one thing to focus on or like just in general, like, I want a better life, Avi: I would say. So if you are someone who is trying to, like, if you feel lost and you actually don't have a sense of direction or whatnot.Yes, only one thing because what's gonna happen is you're gonna pour, you know you're gonna pour more resources, more time into that one thing, your one big thing, and then from that other things will flow. Right. So if you wanna have a better love life, if you are spending a lot of your free time, you know, focusing on your business, focusing on your health, and like having all these diets working out and all that stuff, and then you're then trying to find time to like do things that would help your love life, you are, it's gonna take you longer to achieve that.Where is, if you say okay. The priority for right now is my love life. That doesn't mean don't do anything for the rest of your, you know, the other aspects of your life. Yeah. But that should be the thing. That should be the main thing. And then once you have that, you, I. We'll find that when, if that is truly what you want to accomplish and like improve your happiness, and there's almost gonna be like a spillover effect, right?Because we're human beings, we're dynamic. It's things are not just, you know, in solitude, but when you're able to focus on one thing, you're able to see, um. More results in that area. And then from that there will be an overflow. Because if you feel more fulfilled in your love life, you are gonna probably have higher energy levels.When you have higher energy levels, you're going to be able to probably do more things, whether it's in your business or for your own health. but it all flows from that one thing where if you're trying to take your limited resource, which is energy, and then spread it out all over the place, a lot of things are just not gonna really move.Yeah. Michael: Could I ask this this year? Like what is it? You're, the thing you're focusing on. Avi: So it's, right now it is, I'm doing it kind of in, in chapters or phases. So we're expecting our first kid in two months. Oh, nice. Okay. Yeah. So I know that's gonna be a huge change.Um, yeah, so basically I was like, cool, well, since life is gonna look different after that, what do, what do I need to do now to be in a place to where I can, 'cause my big thing is all about optionality. I love having optionality. I love, you know, not having to be limited by things. And so the biggest thing that I hear from parents is, you know, the biggest thing that.They get a a, there's a big crunch in time and your energy because now you are kind of giving to this human being. and, and you, you also, and everyone also says it's the most rewarding thing and it's, they always wish they had more time when their kid was younger and they could be there. So I'm like, cool.I need to simplify. Other things in my life to create that space so that way when the baby is here, I can receive that. So for me, from a business standpoint, I have, or I'm trying to currently simplify all the processes in the business. So right now, um. My business is the online ClearLiner Education Program.and a big arm of that is supporting the doctors in the program, but then also creating content on social media to provide free value for people. So I am working on simplifying the content creation part and also simplifying, um. The program itself, so that way it provides the most value for doctors in it.but then also doesn't take up, an extraordinary amount of my time to deliver that support and that value. Gotcha. Okay. Michael: So this, are you only doing now the online Uh, course, yeah. Or are you also working at a practice still? Avi: Nope. So I, I stepped away from clinical dentistry back in September. I was doing it full-time and then slowly went down to part-time, and then with the growth of the program and I.Content creation, social media and all that. I decided to go all in on it because it's just, it's the passion of mine and it's, I feel like it's my calling to help innovate and, um, help move the industry forward And, mm-Hmm. I feel like a quote that kind of stuck with me, or I don't know if it was a quote, but basically someone told me it's like you're either working in an industry or you're working on an industry.Mm-Hmm. And it's hard to work on an industry when a lot of your time is kind of. While you're working in it, right? Mm-Hmm. I think there's kind of like a balance. So I'm kind of using this chapter in my career to kind of step away from the chair and, and dedicate more time and resources into ways that I can help kind of work on the industry.Michael: Yeah. Okay. Man. I like that though. I like that. Um, part of simplifying goals because I feel like goals is like a, sometimes like a shiny, fast, cool word, right? Like, Hey man, I wanna have these goals when it's more, um. Non-negotiable standards. Right? That's what it is. Like I wanna have a non-negotiable standard.This is it. And then I gotta reverse engineering on how to make it happen. And it's easier to do that if you have one, right? Mm-Hmm. One specific one. Boom. Did it next. Right? But if you have all these big, shiny goals and you're like, man, I wanna lose a ton of weight, and you don't know how to do it kind of thing, right?Avi: Correct. Correct. And even just like. Relating it to dentists, right? Like if you've got a practice and you, you have a goal if you want to increase the revenue, right? Mm-Hmm. Where then it's, everyone always tells you, okay, well cool, you pick a number, then you reverse engineer it. How are you gonna get there?Um, from my personal experience, when it came to just like leveling up as a clinician, I found that when I was trying to learn how to do multiple procedures clinically at once, like when I wanted to become a better clinician, I wasn't like. Immersing myself in it, so I wasn't actually able to get as good as I wanted to.The example here is when I started with like implants and aligners, I pretty much learned them both at the same time. and so I was splitting my time between it. Implants. It was a little bit longer for me to kind of get going just because it is surgery and it just, you know, it's very, I mean, it's surgery, so it's, it's, it's pretty crazy.Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Um, but then with aligners I also just started to see, um, more success with it. And then I slowly started to like, immerse myself in that. And so when I was focusing on that one procedure, it wasn't just about moving teeth. It's how do you talk to the patient? How do you get the team on board?How do you schedule them? What do you do? So I was able to like work through all that by being focused. Where if I was trying to like iron out implants, learn it, implement it, and do aligners and like, you know. Do other procedures and, and work with the team and all that, it would be too much. And I know a lot of dentists probably feel that way, but I think the answer is, is like until you're like proficient in something, you should pick like one skill, whether it's business right, or clinical, and focus on that for the year to grow.You will know when you get to a point where you can kind of now choose a different area to focus on. So that's why it's like. I think a lot of dentists, right? Stress comes into play. There's always a lot of hats to wear. but I think kind of taking the pressure off yourself by just wanting to focus on one thing, knowing that other people are going to tell you, oh, you need to look at the KPIs.You need to look at this. You need to look at that. Yes, you do. But what you have to do in the beginning of anything new is focus on one thing. Get good at it and then move on to the next Mm-Hmm. Gotcha. Michael: So then how does that kind of play a role in, for example, software? Right? They're like, Hey, all these features and everything like that, and you're gonna be able to look at your dashboard and your analytics and then you're like, cool.'cause that contributes to the goal that I wanna make more collections. I wanna make a million dollars this this year, right? Like I wanna be Mm-Hmm. A million dollar in collections this year. And then you look at it. I feel like there's too many features of everything. You know what I mean? To just be like, uh oh, we'll focus on this one thing.'cause then like, what if your new patients drop 'cause of the time, or you know what I mean? And all this other stuff. How do we, I guess, keep our blinders Avi: on? So I would say the best thing to do in that situation is talk to someone who's done it before. Right? Talk to the, there's a bunch of dentists, coaches, consultants, people out there who already know what these like successful practices look like.Talk to them, ask them, Hey, if you were to start over again, or if you had to go back, what is one area that you would focus on for 90 days? What is one KPI metric that you would focus on that you feel like has the highest leverage? Right. When you say that, now you're able to lock in for 90 days, you're able to see that metric.And the thing, what's gonna happen is once you go down that rabbit hole, you're gonna find all these other things along the way. So it's not that other things are gonna drop off, you're just, you're shooting your shot. To get better at one KPI, but then when you're doing that, your brain will start to problem solve for ways to improve that KPI.And when you're doing that, you're gonna touch other parts of your practice. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes Michael: a lot of sense. I like that question. What's the one thing you, you know what I mean? Like for, for you looking back, right? Starting out? Yeah. Because I think you told me one time we in one, a previous episode, and I'm gonna put a link to it in the show.It's below, but. You were looking to do practice ownership, right? But then you're like, uh, I don't know. Or kind of thing, right. Or an acquisition, I wanna say Avi: no. I don't know if I went that route. I think it was more my, my story kind of high levels. I was always an associate, but I'd worked in a bunch of practices and so it was like I was looking at okay, like what can practice ownership give me that I don't currently have?Mm-Hmm. And also like. Is it worth for me to go down that route with all the resources, time and everything like that? And I think, I don't have a knock on practice ownership. I think it's great if you're, you know, doing it the right way. But for me, this route of going into like education and like uplifting other doctors to learn this procedure was like the bigger kind of pull for me in terms of my career story.Yeah. So Michael: looking back. What's one metric you focus on for 90 days? If you had to start over, Avi: uh, as a dentist wanting to like do aligners or just as like a dentist in general, Michael: as a dentist wanting to do aligners, like what you're doing, education. Going down that route. I Avi: would, yeah, if I knew, if I started back and knew nothing, I would get with somebody that knows how to do it.Pick their brain to know what cases are easy to treat, what should you not do, right? And then, um, how to get patients to do it. I would focus on those three strategies. And then the actual, like metric, I would hold myself accountable to the point where every week I would start tracking how many patients did I talk to about it, and how many patients said yes.Like very simple. And then. I guess over time I would see like how many patients on average am I talking to a week? How many you're saying? Yes. And then from there, try to figure out, okay, why aren't they saying yes or how can we get more patients to say yes, or how can I talk to more patients, you know?Mm-Hmm. Like that's how I would do it, but how many people I talk to and how many people said yes would probably be the two metrics I'd focus on. Michael: Nice. Okay. Awesome. I mean, thank you so much for being with us on this Monday morning episode. If anybody had any questions or concerns, where can they reach Avi: out to you?Uh, Instagram is the easiest. My handle is doctor.avi and uh, yeah, just shoot me a DM and I'd be happy to chat. Michael: Awesome. So that's gonna be in the show notes below. And Avi, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning episode. Avi: Thanks Michael.

‍Having trouble hiring and retaining GREAT hygienists?In this episode, we're exploring how to redefine your approach to attracting and retaining valuable team members like dental hygienists. I'm here today with Kari Carter-Cherelus, who shares transformative advice for creating more welcoming and inclusive work environments. By advocating for flexible work schedules, Kari sheds light on how dental offices can better accommodate the diverse needs of their staff, particularly women navigating caregiving responsibilities. From job sharing to customized shifts, our conversation delves into practical solutions that satisfy both employee and employer needs.Kari brings a wealth of insights drawn from her interactions in various professional online communities, where she observes the power of communication and fairness in fostering productive workplaces. She emphasizes the importance of respecting cultural diversity and personal commitments, encouraging dental practices to embrace policies that are not only beneficial but also compassionate.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The impact of flexible work schedules on staff retention.Practical examples of successful job-sharing arrangements.The role of open communication in creating a fair workplace.Strategies for respecting cultural diversity and personal commitments.How to cultivate an inclusive and supportive office environment.Unlock strategies for a happier, more cohesive dental office workforce by tuning in today!‍‍You can reach out to Kari Carter-Cherelus here:Website: Bit.ly/burnoutdentalhygienistEmail: cherelussmiles@gmail.comLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kari-carter-cherelus-rdh-da-65094b49Instagram: instagram.com/kmc.smilesFacebook: facebook.com/kari.cartercherelus‍Other Mentions and Links:‍TV/Characters:Michael ScottThe Office‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey Carrie, so talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Kari: I'm going to say that if offices can be more flexible with their team members, then they probably will be able to attract more and retain more team members. A lot of dentists complain about not being able to find a dental hygienist.Where, statistically speaking, most hygienists are women, even though it is a diverse field, so there are different genders in the field as well. However, that's just the fact of the matter, and most women are caregivers, they may have children they have to take care of, or someone in the house that they have to take care of.So if they can actually make that schedule more flexible, instead of just being straight eight to five or eight to whatever it is, or whatever that time is, and actually maybe job share, then they actually will probably be able to fill that position that they've been trying to fill for a year or two.Michael: Job share. You mean like sharing the position? Kari: Basically. Yeah. for example, I'm a mom. My child is three. I have to drop them off to preschool and pick them up within a certain period of time, or I would have to pay for aftercare before here. And so there's many people in the same positions and they would dream of having a schedule from eight to three where somebody else would like to have a schedule where maybe they could work.12 to five Or seven. So you would be able to have someone who could fill that initial bulk of time that you need. And then if you're trying to accommodate patients by having the office open to a later period of time, then they may be someone who is actually looking for that schedule.Michael: Hmm. Okay. Gotcha. So can you share examples of flexible work arrangements that have resonated most with team members you've worked with or your team members? Kari: Online, I have a Facebook group of about almost 10, 000 people, but I'm in a lot of Facebook groups, and a lot of hygienists would love to have that schedule from like 8 to 2 or 8 to 3, whereas other people need more hours, and so they would like to have a longer period of time I've worked All different types of schedules.And so maybe I've worked full time five days, six days a week sometimes, or I've only worked three days a week. And then there's been times where I had worked from eight o'clock to five. And times when I worked from 11 to seven, sometimes that was broken up throughout the week, and sometimes that was consistent. So when you have different changes in your life, such as being a Becoming a mom or some are widows or different things, then they may need some variations. So not having that cookie cutter schedule, of course, a dental office is a business and they need those hours filled and patients need to be seen. However, just finding something that works. For everyone really has helped a number of hygienists that I've spoken with and dentists have been happy that at least they have someone filling their Chairs, and they're not just having to continue to have temps or to not have patients being seen They're not turning away patients because they have no one to see them.Michael: Got you. sounds awesome would a practice owner or someone be hesitant to do this? Kari: Probably because they just want someone to feel that time. So they just, you would have to be open minded and sometimes in dentistry, not all dental professionals are open minded. They want a certain person to fulfill that job, or sometimes it's a certain look, or a certain gender, and so you would have to actually be open minded to be willing to have a schedule that isn't the normal schedule, and then also we're open Sometimes they're afraid of other employees being upset. Recently I had someone upset in my Facebook group because they had kids and they had to negotiate that schedule. So they felt that the hygienist who had negotiated that schedule, who got off at two 30 to go pick up her kids was a slacker and lazy, so they may not do it because they may feel like other team members may feel jealous.So why does this person get to get off? I have family too. I have kids too. So they're. Jealousy or just treating everyone the same, but in that sense, then you don't have someone who's filling that chair. Now, some practice owners have seen that if they don't do this, then that loyal employee who's been there for a long time is going to leave.They're going to find other employment or they're just going to choose the temp. So it really behooves the office to come up with different ways to make everyone happy, which is pretty, pretty important. Difficult to make everyone happy, you know, that's very hard to do, but to think of different ways to be able to attract and retain team members, because that is hard.People constantly complaining about the dental shortage. instead of just complaining about it. And complaining about maybe having to pay more in wages or not being able to find someone or name calling, actually coming up with different solutions that are going to help the office out as well as the team member and showing that you care that you actually would work with someone allows them to be more loyal to the practice because they see that the office bent over backwards to really help them to maybe have that flexible schedule for whatever the reason is that they've had it.Michael: Yeah, that's true. That's a good point. What happened in your Facebook group too, because I feel like if that starts happening, you start noticing disunity, right? Like, Oh man, the one person's like angry at another person. Is it just because of this reason?Or was there an underlying solution there? Did y'all guys really not like each other this whole time? Kind of A thing, right? Kari: I mean, The whole post got deleted because so many people were like do you just not like the person because of the schedule or are they actually slacking?Like, What is the actual things? Because some people said that's my exact schedule. That's the schedule I have. My doctor bent over backwards. I do a lot of remote work now. And all the different things that I do. So I temp because of having my child, you know, it's very hard to find that schedule.It's very difficult to find it. When I do look online like, what will happen if everything falls apart and I need to get a clinical job? The jobs, they want you to work four or five days a week from eight to seven. So how am I going to raise my child? And that's one reason there is a dental shortage among hygienists because of that offset of the work life balance.Many people feel that they are not actually paying attention. playing an active participant in their child's life or in their own life. So they're wanting to have more balance. So somewhere we got lost in the profession. Quite honestly, I've been in a dental profession for 25 years. One of the reasons I chose it is because it was built to me as a great job for moms.So if everyone wanted to have a kid, then, it was flexible. I can maybe work three days a week and somewhere, maybe because of the insurance industry, I don't know. We kind of lost sight of that and that we are trying to cater to patients so much that we're not really allowing the team to get what they need out of life as well.Michael: that's Something we've been seeing a lot too, but I feel like whenever we talk to a lot of practice owners, hygienists, things like that, right? And dads too. Dads too, but like moms specifically there's a lot of that. Have you heard of mom guilt? Kari: Come on, don't mansplain it. I just gave a course on mommy bird out from mommy dentist and business.Yes, mom guilt is thing, You they have a special thing for my son Friday at his school, he didn't go to school the other day, but I saw the volunteer thing, and they only had three volunteer slots, and it was already filled, and I was like, I would have wanted to go to that, I wish I had, So yeah, we deal with a lot of guilt and a lot of moms who are dentists or hygienists or assistants or whatever, they're missing out on key things with their kids lives.So key events that the office is saying they can't go to, or one dentist she wrote in a Facebook group when I was doing some like research she wrote that she missed the kid's first day of school. And so she asked the kid, how was your first day of kindergarten? And then you're like, Oh, I told dad already, ask him.Michael: no, yeah, you miss out those key moments. You're absolutely right. So then you have to have a team that also wants to support that as well. Not just for the practice owner, but for like the hygienist for even assistant for everybody. Right. Like Understand Hey man, that's, She has to go see her child or something has to happen right, with the child.So how do you train them to be like leaders, to truly support an inclusive and flexible work environment? Kari: It's gonna have to be really having that flexibility. Open communication and then making sure that everyone is on board. So having a positive office environment, does have to be fair, so if other people aren't able to leave or they can't have that schedule, then what are you doing for them?So if they don't have kids, it's not fair that they never get to leave early sometimes too. So how are you allowing them to leave or allowing them to take PTO and things? So that's what's important, making sure that you're there for everyone. Because when I didn't have a trial, sometimes I face like discrimination in a way at the office.Because maybe I didn't get to see a patient that was as productive and I'm, if I'm being paid base and on bonus structure, I was told well, you have a husband, he's got a good job. It's like, what does that have to do with anything? Or I'm a single mom. So it has to be fair because that coin can go both ways.So you have to be able to understand how someone can feel that it's unfair that someone gets to leave every day. But at the same time, do they ever get to leave or can they come in later? How are you accommodating everyone in the office, which although difficult to do, with good communication and making sure that the team, feels that they are part of the practice.They all want the practice to do well. They're invested in the practice almost like an ownership, then they're going to be more inclined to support one another. Michael: Okay. I like that. So then how do you make sure, I guess your diversity and flexibility policies. Are truly felt by the team and not just formalities.Kari: That takes time. So it may be having someone like a coach or consultant come in and make sure that you're actually implementing those different policies, because I'm sure we've all worked in places that said that, Everyone has that little federal guideline that they're supposed to acknowledge as far as we don't discriminate against race or religion or everything like that.But I've been on plenty of interviews where it's not said, but you know, oh, that is actually discrimination going on. So for that to actually not happen or for it to be a diverse environment, then they have to make sure that they're recognizing all the team members. So Think about the holidays.So not just recognizing one particular religion's holidays, recognizing that other team members may celebrate different holidays. If the office has someone, let's say, who's Muslim and they're, dealing with Ramadan, then are you respecting that and what takes place during that time or Jewish or Christian, whatever.So making sure that you're respecting everyone in their Particular beliefs making sure that you're giving people grace just constantly learning about it. One thing that the office could do is to take continuing education courses together, and that way it's not just put all on one person and everyone's not.Awkward and everything, ideally outside of the office, probably, unless you have someone who's training that to come in, you don't want it to be like the office situation with Michael Scott and how it like goes, I love that show, but how it goes contrary to the whole thing. It's like, this is worst uh, example.So actually making sure that everyone feels supported and included. I know even yesterday. I saw on a Facebook post about is it okay for people to take the day off or a mental day and everything? And so sometimes people need to take a mental day. Sometimes what may be affecting one person isn't affecting the other person. Or you may not understand what's going on. you know, there was a lot yesterday since it was the day after election. So just seeing that there are so many different, Thought processes. So recognizing that obviously not everyone may feel like you feel. Just giving everyone grace and being kind is important.So fostering that team is important. Sometimes having team building exercises can definitely help. Going places as a team conferences are the best, making sure that the office is supporting the team. If they're mandatory going somewhere, they should be paid so that you don't have people who are resenting this mandatory.Event is important as well. Michael: Interesting. Okay. Yeah. When you were mentioning the example of different, make sure you acknowledge it. I thought of the office to media was like, Oh yeah. And Michael Scott. So that brings me to one of my last questions besides like the holidays and stuff like that, how do you celebrate different cultures while making everyone feel equally important?Kari: I guess bringing it up, but not bringing it up. I don't know if it's done regularly, then it's not going to be cringe. Because we know it can be cringe around like certain months it's Black History Month. It's like, uh, you know, so why aren't we just doing it all the time?So why are we just celebrating everybody all the time instead of waiting to a particular month and week and it's like, okay, we got that checked off and everything. We got Asian American month checked off. So it's like, stop just checking boxes and actually just living it. So regularly doing it.And One cliche way is to do potlucks, but I don't necessarily like potlucks, honestly, because see on Instagram and TikTok, not everyone has the same standards. So one way is to maybe go to different restaurants. Yeah, you know, they're, the Board of Health has to come in and everything like that.But at least talking about the differences the food and exploring talking about differences and how ones grew up is a way that can be helpful. I think talking about different culture, I've learned from, different colleagues and, talking about different languages, talking about different places that we visited.So just actually being open to having different conversations where we can talk about things that aren't going to be controversial, but just respecting one another, because when we do that, then we can see things from other's side of the coin or different opinion or perspective. Michael: Awesome. I appreciate your time.And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find her on the dental marketer society, Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly? Kari: Social media is really the easiest thing. So they can follow me on Instagram. KMC dot smiles. My name, Carrie Carter Shirelles is on LinkedIn, Facebook, all those different platforms. And then my email is shirellessmiles at gmail. com. And my link is Bitly Burnout Dental Hygienist. Michael: Nice. Okay. So that's going to be in the show notes below. And Kyrie, thank you so much for being with me on this Monday morning episode. Kari: Thank you for having me.

‍What happens when patients don't pay their bill? In today's episode, I'm diving into a revealing conversation with Andy Grover Cleveland, the expert behind Collection Agency Ninja. Forget everything you've heard about the conventional timelines for involving collection agencies. Andy advocates for a proactive approach, suggesting engagement as early as 60 to 90 days post-EOB. This strategy not only streamlines financial operations but also nurtures patient relationships through clear communication.Andy reveals the secrets to choosing reputable collection agencies that enhance, rather than hinder, patient rapport. You'll learn why early intervention is a game-changer in maintaining your practice's financial health without compromising on patient satisfaction. From identifying common pitfalls in the collections process to crafting effective patient communication strategies, this episode equips practice owners with pivotal insights for balancing financial well-being and patient care.What You'll Learn in This Episode:Why early intervention with collection agencies can benefit your practice.The importance of notifying patients about balances promptly.How to choose the right collection agency for positive patient interactions.Best practices for encouraging patient payments gracefully.Common mistakes dental practices make in collections.Strategies to balance financial health with patient relationships.Listen now to master the art of patient payment collections in your practice!‍‍You can reach out to Andy Grover Cleveland here:Website: collectionagencyninja.com‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey Andy, so talk to us, what's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Andy: I'm going to give something that probably goes against everything that everyone has ever heard in the dental business. I Believe you should use a collection agency at 60 to 90 days. After the EOB, which is probably very unpopular, but it's really crucial in the business of dentistry.Michael: Interesting. there specific communication strategies that we should implement at 30 or 45 days mark or to avoid escalating to the 60 days? Andy: Yeah, great question. Of course you want to notify. You don't want this to be blind. you do want to notify them that they owe the balance.And even before that, you want to try to collect it at time of service so that you never create the problem. However, you know, you have a real world and you have the perfect world. And sometimes those planets are just not aligned. So if someone does not pay that full balance, After that service is provided, you definitely want to notify that patient at least a couple of times that they owe, letting them know to please pay, but about 60 or 90 days, that's when the tide turns, Michael.That's when people decide, Hey, I'm either going to take care of this obligation or I'm not. So that's the ideal time to use it. Now, if you had interviewed me five years ago, Or 10 years ago, I wouldn't be as staunch on this opinion. It's kind of like merchant services. I don't know if you've seen this trend where now merchant services fees are being passed on to the patient.Have you been keeping up with that? Michael: Yeah, I've seen that. Andy: Okay. So if you asked me five years ago, I would say that's the worst idea. It's cheesy. Don't do it. It totally devalues your practice, but guess what? Every time I order tacos, every time I go to the doctor's office, every time I go to the car dealership, and now every time I go to the dentist, it's passed on. So we're in that kind of spot where it was unpopular, but now everybody's doing it. So why shouldn't the dentist? Michael: Okay. Interesting. So then three steps points or takeaways that you have to streamline this or make it easier, smoother. What would be number one then? Andy: one of the first takeaways is by implementing some type of collection agency strategy that's going to reach out.Number one, it doesn't make you the bad guy anymore. When you think about it, do you want to be known for chasing people for money or do you want to be known for treating patients with clinical excellence? So it's nice to have a scapegoat that you can blame for reaching out for the balance because it's strictly a financial driven practice.So I guess the number one is, it's much more convenient to blame your billing company. Then is for people to complain about someone in your office reaching out too frequently. I think we can both agree the optics aren't that great. Michael: Yeah. I think that's where I guess the patient relationship can get iffy, right?how do you do that then Andy? How do you balance maintaining patient relationships with the need to use a collection agency? Andy: there's no one right answer, but at the end of the day, if you hire someone to help you with the financial part of the practice, you can basically, just stay out of it.So if you're clinically driven, to help patients. That's your focus. Let someone else basically deal with the headache. Now, another part of how that works is it will motivate a certain part of your patient base to come back to be a patient of record. So a lot of times when dentists are doing these procedures, patients will say anything to get out of pain.So once you make that pain go away, it's sometimes could be a little too convenient to not pay. So by having a company reach out, you can actually help motivate that person to communicate with the practice and pay. And ultimately, You want that patient to be a valuable member of your clientele. So you have a divide where you can motivate people who generally value the service you're providing and keep them as a good patient of record. Also, if people choose not to pay the bill, they probably don't value the services that you rendered anyway. And arguably they're going to go somewhere else. So that kind of helps push them in another direction to maybe go down to the practice down the road and not pay them rather than come back for more service and not pay you.Michael: Does that make sense? yeah. So then I guess break it down for me. How does it motivate the patient versus sometimes like, stress them out or irritate him or anything like that? Andy: So it's pretty simple, Michael. If you, you got two phone calls today, once from someone, you owed money to.And it's just their office calling you, Hey, Michael, please pay. And then you get another phone call, Michael, from a collection agency. Again, same thing, you know, you owe the bill, but the collection agency is calling. Who are you going to pay first? Michael: one's a friend and the other one's the collection agency. Andy: They're both the same. you owe two parties. You have no preference one or the other, but one is that business calling you for money, the other one is a collection agency calling the question is, who are you more inclined to pay first? Michael: Oh, I don't know. That's a good question.What are the, data show?Andy: Generally speaking, people are going to pay the collection agency first. Middle class America wants to protect their credit. Michael: So Andy: generally speaking, people are going to pay the agency first. They're going to give it more importance because there's nothing negative that happens if they choose not to pay that original vendor, they'll get another statement or call next month and they'll address it Michael: Interesting. Okay. I like that. So then can you walk us through the process of selecting a reputable collection agency? Like What key factors Should we consider? Andy: Yeah. I mean, You really want to, interview multiple agencies. I would say the number one most important thing that you can do, assuming that people are being ethical, providing good service and being cost effective, which most are is having an agency that works directly with. Your practice management software. So we're in, a digital age and the collections business as a whole has done a very poor job on getting involved with technology. So I would definitely steer any dentist to work with the company that works with the technology. Well, You might ask, why is that important?There's numerous reasons. That's important. Number one. You're going to ensure safe and secure and rapid exchange of information. So accounts will be sent by their team by pointing and clicking, not manually updating a web form. The second thing it's going to do is it's going to tell who's paid. So in the collections business, Michael, and it's obvious you haven't been in collections from some of your responses, which is great.We don't want that for anybody. But sometimes the patient will actually pay as a result of that collection company contacting them. So with companies that work within the software, they should be notified when that happens. So let's paint a picture. Let's just say you're working with a collection company manually. Okay. You've sent patient ABC over for collection and the collection company has been calling them and they will call them incessantly to motivate that person. And let's just say that person paid the bill. Well Guess what? If your front office doesn't contact that agency by logging into the website, calling them, emailing, however that feedback loop is. That agency is going to continue to call that person for money. And it's going to further damage that relationship when they did the right thing and paid. So you want to have like an automatic feedback loop so that if someone does pay, it's automatically reported to the agency. So the agency doesn't cause any further harm. Those are probably the two top biggest reasons. There's many more. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So collection agency is just essential to have in this process, So number two, what would that look like? Bullet point number two. Andy: Yeah, so that was identify and motivate your ideal patients coming back into the practice as opposed to people that are just dentist shopping So we want to motivate people to pay and also be a patient of record. So when you turn people over to collection Granted, they're not happy about it, but it will motivate people that value that relationship with you to communicate and pay the bill. It will also motivate some people to leave the practice because they had no intention of paying to begin with. Michael: Okay. Got you. Got you. Now, how do you measure any of the success of a collection agency? What benchmarks or KPIs do you track? As a practice owner. Andy: So any agency that has technology to support you is going to give you metrics on how you can judge their efficacy. I will share with you as weird as this is, it's not all about the money. I specialize in working with independently owned dental offices. So it's a little more holistic and how they judge you. I would say that most independently owned practices, it's not about the money. That's more of a group practice thought process.Yes, money's important, but not the most important thing. Independent dentists, they don't compete. With corporate offices on cost, right? They can't, the economies of scale are not there. The flip side is also true. corporates can't compete with independent dentists on culture, right? They have turnover, you're getting new associates every six months. It's just a constant churn. So they don't really compete with one another, but at the end of the day, I think most dentists, will gauge the efficacy of their collection company, not only on the money recovered. And of course it has to be cost effective, but even more importantly than that, does it generate negative reviews?Does it motivate people to accept treatment? Does it allow their staff to focus on other things that are more important? So there's an opportunity cost To chasing your own accounts receivable. So it's much more multifaceted than just dollars in dollars out. Most dentists will hire a collection company basically to make their office run better.Michael: Have you seen that a lot, Andy, where some are hesitant to, bring on or call or ask about, money more for the review. Like, Oh man, I'm going to get negative. Andy: Yeah, of course. But in my experience, if you continue to chase your own money, you're much more likely to generate a negative review for yourself.If you hire somebody else to do it for you, they can give a negative review on that collection agency. Michael: Yeah. Andy: And certainly they could tie it back to you, but you can always, claim indifference, right? Hey that's what our billing department's for you know, you need to deal with them and it absolves you from some of that responsibility. Michael: Interesting. Okay. So then what are the financial risks and rewards of sending accounts to collections at 60 days versus waiting longer or not using collections at all? Andy: Great question. So you have this kind of traditional paradigm with collection agencies working with dental offices and that one is a very traditional approach where the office will work the account for months and months and months and years and years and years. And then they turn it over to collections, and then that company's working on a percentage basis. That's the way it's always been, but that is just not an effective way of running a modern or contemporary dental office. Sometimes you cause more harm than good there because if you wait that long, the accounts aren't collectible anyway. Right. If you wait a year or two, they're basically uncollectible. So I'd recommend just writing the accounts off if you're going to do that. The advantage to turning it over at 60 to 90 days is that's a very fresh account. It's still top of mind for that consumer and from a statistical perspective, it's much more collectible than something if you wait a year or two down the road to go after.So it's more about being proactive with that balance. The other thing you also have to measure in here, Michael. is a lot of times these practices are already getting hit with the PPO fee and basically reducing their billable amount. So they're already losing 30 or 40%. And then if you let that patient balance go unpaid. You're losing the rest. So in this environment, it's just too competitive to run a business like that anymore. You have to be responsible with not only the insurance portion, whether you're in network, out of network fee for service, but you also have to address that patient portion. It's crucial because again, you're taking such a big write off a hit in the beginning. It's really not cost effective for you to take another hit later down the road. You're essentially giving it away. Michael: Interesting. So then what common mistakes do practices make that you've seen when sending accounts to collections and how can they avoid these pitfalls? Andy: one of the things that clouds all of our judgment is emotion.So a lot of times, People get upset, and listen, if someone owes me money, I get upset about my own business, right? It hurts, but people still have that mammalian part of their brain that wants revenge, or maybe the patient was really rude last time they came in. So you have this, Emotional part of being owed money that clouds our judgment.that's a big mistake I see some practices, they just want revenge. That's usually where bad things start to happen when you think along those lines. So as a practice owner matures and goes through practice ownership, there's developmental stages where right in the beginning, it really hurts. Then you can start to kind of objectively step back and look at things more objectively. But at the end of the day, recommend the practice owners look at this from a very non emotional, like a CPA would, right? If you're producing a million dollars in revenue annually, and you have less than 1 percent of the people that owe you money, not pay you, write it off.You're collecting 99%. No one gets a hundred percent. I don't care how cool it is to say in the Facebook groups, nobody gets a hundred percent. There are times where it makes sense to write things off rather than pursue it. Especially if those services are disputed or you're dealing with a really difficult person, a lot of times it's just not worth it and you just have to let it go.Michael: Interesting. I love that. Thank you so much, Andy. I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find them on the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?Andy: Probably the best way to do it is going to my website. collection, agency, ninja. com spelled just like it sounds. Michael: Awesome. Collection, agency, ninja. com. that's going to be in the show notes below. So if anyone's interested, want to pick Andy's brain a little bit more and so forth, definitely reach out to him there and Andy.Thank you so much for being with us on this Monday morning episode. Appreciate you having me. Thank you very much and keep up the great work. I'm honored to be here.Andy: Thank you.

Our Global Head of Macro Strategy joins our Chief U.S. Economist to discuss the Fed's recent rate cut and why persistent inflation is likely to slow the pace of future cuts.----- Transcript -----Matthew Hornbach: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Matthew Hornbach, Global Head of Macro Strategy.Michael Gapen: And I'm Michael Gapen, Morgan Stanley's Chief U.S. Economist.Matthew: Today, we're going to talk about the Federal Open Market Committee meeting and the path for rates from here.It's Thursday, December 19th at 10a.m. in New York.The FOMC meeting concluded yesterday with the Federal Reserve cutting rates by a quarter of a percentage point, marking the third rate cut for the year. This move by the Fed was just as the consensus had anticipated. However, in its meeting yesterday, the Fed indicated that 2025 rate cuts would happen at a slower pace than investors were expecting. So Mike, what are committee members projecting in terms of upcoming rate cuts in 2025 and 2026?Michael: Yeah, Matt, the Fed dialed back its expectations for policy rate easing in both 2025 and 2026. They now only look for two rate cuts of 50 basis points worth of cuts in 2025, which would bring the funds rate to 3.9% and then only another 50 basis points in 2026, bringing the policy rate to 3.4%. So a major dialing back in their expectations of rate cuts over the next two years.Matthew: What are the factors that are driving what now appears to be a slightly less dovish view of the policy rate?Michael: Chair Powell mentioned, I think, two things that were really important. One, he said that many committee members saw recent firmness in inflation as a surprise. And so I think some FOMC members extrapolated that strength in inflation going forward and therefore thought fewer rate cuts were appropriate. But Chair Powell also said other FOMC members incorporated expectations about potential changes in policy, which we inferred to mean changes about tariffs, immigration policy, maybe additional fiscal spending. And so whether they bake that in as explicit assumptions or just saw it as risks to the outlook, I think that these were the two main factors. So either just momentum in inflation or views on policy rate changes, which could lead to greater inflation going forward.Matthew: So Mike, what were your expectations going into this meeting and how did yesterday's outcome change Morgan Stanley's outlook for Federal Reserve policy next year and the year thereafter?Michael: We are a little more comfortable with inflation than the Fed appears to be. So we previously thought the Fed would be cutting rates three times next year and doing all of that in the first half of the year. But we have to listen to what they're thinking and it appears that the bar for rate cuts is higher. In other words, they may need more evidence to reduce policy rates. One month of inflation isn't going to do it, for example. So what we did is we took one rate cut out of the forecast for 2025. We now only look for two rate cuts in 2025, one in March and one in June.As we look into 2026, we do think the effect of higher tariffs and restrictions on immigration policy will slow the economy more, so we continue to look for more rate cuts in 2026 than the Fed is projecting but obviously 2026 is a long way away. So in short, Matt, we dialed back our assumptions for policy rate easing to take into account what the Fed appears to be saying about a higher bar for comfort on inflation before they ease again.So Matt, if I can actually turn it back to you: how, if at all, did yesterday's meeting, and what Chair Powell said, change some of your key forecasts?Matthew: So we came into this meeting advocating for a neutral stance in the bond market. We had seen a market pricing that ended up being more in line with the outcome of the meetings. We didn't expect yields to fall dramatically in the wake of this meeting, and we didn't expect yields to rise dramatically in the wake of this meeting. But what we ended up seeing in the marketplace was higher yields as a result of a policy projection that I think surprised investors somewhat and now the market is pricing an outlook that is somewhat similar to how the Fed is forecasting or projecting their policy rate into the future.In terms of our treasury yield forecasts, we didn't see anything in that meeting that changes the outlook for treasury markets all that much. As you said, Mike, that in 2026, we're expecting much lower policy rates. And that ultimately is going to weigh on treasury yields as we make our way through the course of 2025. When we forecast market rates or prices, we have to think about where we are going to be in the future and how we're going to be thinking about the future from then. And so when we think about where our treasury yield's going to be at the end of 2025, we need to try to invoke the views of investors at the end of 2025, which of course are going to be looking out into 2026.So when we consider the rate policy path that you're projecting at the moment and the factors that are driving that rate policy projection - a slower growth, for example, a bit more moderate inflation - we do think that investors will be looking towards investing in the government bond market as we make our way through next year, because 2026 should be even more supportive of government bond markets than perhaps the economy and Fed policy might be in 2025.So that's how we think about the interest rate marketplace. We continue to project a 10 year treasury yield of just about three and a half percent at the end of 2025 that does seem a ways away from where we are today, with the 10 year treasury yield closer to four and a half percent, but a year is a long time. And that's plenty of time, we think, for yields to move lower gradually as policy does as well. On the foreign exchange side. The dollar we are projecting to soften next year, and this would be in line with our view for lower treasury yields. For the time being, the dollar reacted in a very positive way to the FOMC meeting this week but we think in 2025, you will see some softening in the dollar. And that primarily occurs against the Australian dollar, the Euro, as well as the Yen. We are projecting the dollar/yen exchange rate to end next year just below 140, which is going to be quite a move from current levels, but we do think that a year is plenty of time to see the dollar depreciate and that again links up very nicely with our forecast for lower treasury yields.Mike, with that said, one more question for you, if you would: where do things stand with inflation now? And how does this latest FOMC signal, how does it relate to inflation expectations for the year ahead?Michael: So right now, inflation has been a little bit stronger than we and I think the Fed had anticipated, and that's coming from two sources. One, hurricane-related effects on car prices. So the need to replace a lot of cars has pushed new and used car prices higher. We think that's a temporary story that's likely to reverse in the coming months. The more longer term concern has been around housing related inflation, or what we would call shelter inflation. The good news in that is in November, it took a marked step lower. So I do think it tells us that that component, which has been holding up inflation, will continue to move down. But as we look ahead to your point about inflation expectations, the real concern here is about potential shifts in policy, maybe the implementation of tariffs, the restriction of immigration.We as economists would normally say those should have level effects or one-off effects on inflation. And normally I'd have a high confidence in that statement. But we just came out of a very prolonged period of higher than normal inflation, so I think the concern is repetitive, one-off shocks to inflation, lead inflation expectations to move higher. Now, we don't think that will happen. Our outlook is for rate cuts, but this is the concern. So we think inflation moves lower. But we're certainly watching the behavior of inflation expectations to see if our forecast is misguided.Matthew: Well, great Mike. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk.Mike: Great speaking with you, Matt.Matthew: And thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

‍Imagine a dental practice where team well-being takes center stage, resulting in enhanced patient care!In this Monday Morning Episode, Josey Sewell reveals groundbreaking dental practice management strategies, particularly focusing on effective recruitment and retention of hygienists. Emphasizing that the team's wellness is as crucial as patient care, Josey shares how attending to the needs of your dental staff can transform your practice. We get an insider's view into the common pitfalls in leadership that often drive valuable employees away and discover Josey's transformative "Connect, Measure, Coach" framework designed to uplift leadership and engagement.Dive deeper as Josey introduces her comprehensive five Ps framework—Purpose, People, Power, Prosperity, and Performance—where each facet plays a pivotal role in creating a thriving work environment. By setting and tracking goals within these realms, leaders can mitigate burnout and boost workplace satisfaction. Josey also shares valuable insights on how the delicate balance between vulnerability and authority can cultivate trust among the team. This episode empowers dental leaders with practical tools to enhance their leadership skills and build a dedicated, satisfied dental team.What You'll Learn in This Episode:Innovative strategies for enhancing dental practice management.Key leadership mistakes that lead to high employee turnover.Insights on the "Connect, Measure, Coach" framework.An introduction to the five Ps framework for improved engagement.Techniques for reducing burnout and boosting workplace satisfaction.The role of balancing vulnerability with authority to foster trust.Dive into today's episode to learn more about team growth and the team-centered approach!‍‍You can reach out to Josey Sewell here:Instagram: instagram.com/joseysewellEmail: josey@joseysewell.comOther Mentions and Links:‍People:Simon SinekJohn C. MaxwellBenjamin HardyDan Sullivan‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey, Josie. So talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Josey: Oh, I'm so excited about this. My piece of advice is that your number one customer is absolutely your team. Over your patients. And I know a lot of dentists probably panic when I say that, but we spend a ton of time and effort and energy on marketing and taking great care of our patients.But when we take great care of our team, that's going to translate to great patient care. And today I'd actually like to talk in particular about recruiting and retention of hygienists. Having been a hygienist myself, been a hygiene director, I've been a COO of a dental group. And what I will tell you now as a coach helping people across the country is that every single one of the clients that I work with, they are struggling with finding and retaining dental hygienists.And what I find is that a lot of people typically use COVID as an excuse. They'll say, Oh, COVID happened. It shut the world down. And we saw hygienists leave the profession. And we know that about 10 percent of hygienists did leave the field. And I think that that's really unfortunate. But now what we hear is that people just say, there's just not any hygienists available.They just don't want to work. They don't want to be in clinic. And what I would say from being a hygienist and being in the hygiene community is actually that hygienists do want to work. They do love clinical, but the reason that we've seen some of them leave the field and the reason that we see a lot of hygienists who have chosen A permanent job as temping is because we have a leadership crisis.And what I mean by that is hygienists are choosing not to work in your company because you're not leading them in a way that is meaningful to them. Michael: Okay. Gotcha. So then what specific leadership behaviors have you observed that push Hygienist and team members to leave and how can practice owners correct these behaviors before losing valuable staff?Josey: Yeah So I have a very simple framework That I find works really well for you to remember when you're thinking about leading and that is connect measure coach and so what I mean by that is to connect with people in a meaningful way and I mean trying to get to know them as a human being understand what's going on in their life even You Taking time to find out what their dreams and their goals and their aspirations are.So that's connect. Measure is how do we appropriately measure success. And that includes utilizing key performance indicators or KPIs. But with hygienists in particular, sometimes they're afraid of numbers and metrics. So they feel like if a practice is asking me to be a high producer or to track my numbers, that means that they care more about money than about patient care.And so what you have to do in helping hygienists understand metrics is you have to connect Those metrics to patient outcomes and to clinical care. And you also have to teach them a little bit about the business of dentistry, because when they have a greater understanding and they know how these numbers fit in, they absolutely will engage and appreciate those numbers.So there's a special nuance into introducing numbers and metrics. And the last one is coach. I love the quote by Dan Sullivan, that he says, people don't want to be managed. People want to be coached. our team members, whether they are hygienist or not, have a very different expectation in what they want from us as employers and in our work environment.And they want to be coached. It is not just about their job. It is about their life. And so we need to coach people up into a position. So maybe I'm a front office person and I'm growing into a manager position or I'm a hygienist and I'm going into a hygiene lead.That's up in my position is primarily what we do in dentistry is we're helping people achieve mastery over time. But so many hygienists feel like there's a very short ceiling to their career. I will tell you, I left clinical because I thought there's nowhere for me to grow. And yet I was motivated and excited about advancing what I did as a clinician, but I felt limited because my doctors did not actually engage in the same CE or passion that I had.for prevention or treating periodontal disease. So providing a pathway to grow. And then sometimes, Michael, we have to coach people out of our business. Because sometimes our business outgrows our people and sometimes our people outgrow our business. For those of you who are especially getting started in dentistry, some of you have this expectation that I'll graduate from dental school.I'll have my practice and I'll find this amazing team. And this amazing team is going to be with me forever. However, lifelong employment is a thing of the past. And a lot of people don't. grow up as a little girl or a little boy dreaming about answering the phone at her front office. And so we have to just know and recognize that people are going to come and go in our business and our relationships don't have to be dependent on an employment agreement.So again, connect in meaningful ways, measure performance, be very clear what your expectations are, and then coach people up in or out knowing that sometimes it is better for them in their life to move on. And that doesn't mean we can't still remain friends. Hmm. Michael: How would you connect in meaningful ways?Josey: Great question. So we actually have a framework that we've developed after working with literally thousands of employees and helping hundreds of managers grow. we call it the five Ps, and that is the various different parts of their life where we will have people.Take a look at these five important critical areas of their life and challenge them to set a vision for themselves and then also to set 90 day goals. So a very specific example is we have one of them that's called power and power is my physical, mental, and spiritual health. And it's encouraging people to have healthy habits for how they take care of themselves.In dentistry in particular, one of the saddest things that I see is when clinical careers are cut short due to different musculoskeletal things or injuries, and so Are we encouraging our people to have regular habits of exercise or mindfulness or whatever that is? And so we have a framework that we have people fill out what their goals are.And we sit down within the first 90 days of employment and we go through that and we just get to know our people in a meaningful way. And then we check in on them occasionally about every 90 days on their goals. So some people, it makes them feel really uncomfortable to think am I really going to ask?My people about their personal goals. And the answer is yes, you are because they are a person with dreams and goals and aspirations. And the more that you understand who they are and what's important to them, the more that you can connect those goals to what the business goals are. And then we can win together.Michael: So you said there's five P's, right? Josey: Yeah. You want me to go through all five? Michael: Yeah. Real quick. That'd be Josey: great. So the first P is purpose. And that is like your personal Y or your personal core values. And so this one is probably the toughest one for to define a vision for themselves or their 90 day goals.But what I have seen after working with so many incredible entrepreneurs, and I'll speak to you as the owner dentist for just a second. Is dentists have been successful their whole life. They probably did well in high school and got great grades. They got them into college and then they did well in college and they got into dental school and then they get out and they buy a practice.And so often I see people attach their personal worth. To their practice and yet the practice is going to struggle. Not if it's going to struggle, it's when it's going to struggle. So things like struggling to make payroll or having a team walk out or not being able to fix, you know, marketing, your practice is going to struggle and you have to have a purpose in your life beyond what your practice is.So that's what we help people do in purpose. The next one is people. So people is about relationships. And our relationships really are the greatest indicator of longevity and health. And what you will find is that when you're struggling in your relationships, whether it's with a spouse or a partner or with kids, or your people are, they're not going to show up as a 10 at work.And so how can we encourage people to take care of the people that they love and to have positive relationships. Number three is power, which is physical, mental, and spiritual health. The fourth P is prosperity. And so prosperity is going to be, it might be wealth, especially for you as a practice owner, but for some of your team, prosperity might be more autonomy of their time, or it might be saving for something like a house or a car, or, preparing for something in their life.And then the last one is performance. And that's what connects this personal stuff to the professional stuff. So performance is how are we doing in our job? How are we performing in our position? And that is a critical part of having this whole life. We talk about how everybody has one life space.And if we're not minding those five different areas, we will struggle. Now I'll quickly say, we hear a lot about burnout. We hear a lot about overwhelm and most people are blaming that burnout and their overwhelm on work on what they do on a day to day basis and they're quitting their job and they're hopping around searching for greater work life balance, which is the lie.right? There's no work life balance. It's work life harmony. And what I find is actually that burnout may not be happening from what we do every day in the dental office. It may be because I'm not minding my relationships or I'm not taking care of my physical health I'm not in alignment with my personal values.So what I find is as you utilize these five P's and helping people set goals, Long term and short term, you might find that there's decreased overwhelm and burnout because they're actually taking better care of something that's going on in their life. Michael: Interesting. So I feel like that's so complex though, Josie.every 90 days, do you follow up and be like, where are we deficient on which P Cause I feel like it would always change, right? every level. Josey: absolutely changes. So first of all, if you are a manager or a practice owner, it is not your job to ensure that your employees are checking off the boxes and achieving their goals.So you're not going to like, Hey, you set a goal of saying, saving 5, 000. Why are you still getting Starbucks every day? That is not what we're going to do. It's actually just about creating a safe place where people can verbally share their goals and feel as though they're seen as a human being. And so I do it once a year.I'll really just dig deep into their goals and I'll ask them questions. Then every 90 days, I recommend doing what we call a quarterly check in. That is a structured conversation where we use this idea of connect, measure, coach, and on that connect part, I just simply say, how are you doing on your goals?You know, How are your five P's? You said last quarter you were going to call your mom once a week. How's that going? So I check in so that they feel heard and seen, but it's not my job to track. To manage, to ensure that they get it done. It's really just about seeing and knowing who they are. And it's incredible.The experience that the employee has, I've had many people come back and say, I was shocked, Josie, how many tears there were. And not that it was tears of sadness or discomfort. It was that nobody had ever asked them what their vision for their life was. Michael: Yeah. Now that's interesting. I like that a lot. it opens the door a little bit more, So Josie, in your experience, how do leadership blind spots practice owners contribute to team frustration and disengagement and how can owners uncover and address these blind spots? Would it be? doing this? Josey: This is one great way to absolutely uncover those blind spots.I think that in many ways if we're a dentist and a practice owner, so much of what is happening is about achieving our goals. The practice is mine. This is, my business, my dream, and everybody's helping me. And that's actually not what most employees are excited about is helping you build your dreams.They want to build their own dreams too. they want to help you win, but they also want to win. So I think that that is a blind spot that sometimes we can be very self centered as an entrepreneur. And that is not shame or judgment. I am an entrepreneur myself and totally know. But the other blind spot that I would say is that we just don't have a good system for this and you need a good system for leadership.And so I'm sure if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably also a pretty avid. Reader or listener to other podcasts and there's incredible people who talk about leadership like Simon Sinek or John Maxwell or, Ben Hardy. There's all of these authors that we love, but how do we take the idea of what it means to be a leader and how do we actually execute on it?And that's where you need a system. And I think that's what I've seen. spent the better part of the last 10 years of my career doing is how to create a systematic leadership approach, meaning how do I do this connect measure coach, but how often should I be meeting with my employees? What should we be talking about?How do we have difficult conversations and how do we align with what I need in the business and what you want with your life? So I think that one of the blind spots is there's not a good system or there hasn't been a good system. And that's what we're trying really hard to build. Michael: I like that. I like how you mentioned how can I, ask these difficult questions, talk to them, play like, just for example, when you're approaching them and asking them about, did you call your mom this week?Kind of a thing, right? It's kind of weird asking your employee, right? So I guess, how can owners or leaders, right? Balance vulnerability with authority to foster a culture of trust and support, especially during times of high stress or change. Josey: Yes, I love that. That is the constant need of how we do. I love that you called it out vulnerability and authority.what I share is that I want to help you create an environment of high love and high accountability. a lot of people think those are two things on the opposite end of a spectrum. spectrum, but we can't have high love and high accountability. Now there is absolutely an important nuance and that is that I can love and care for you as a human being without being your buddy, where it's like not appropriate for us to go out on the weekends together or us to go on vacation together or, doing things like that.There absolutely has to be a professional line in how much we're sharing our life, but I do think that vulnerability. allows other people to be vulnerable. So a specific example is where business owners or managers feel like I have to have all of the answers and I can't tell people that I'm struggling.And yet, when you're real about the struggle or real about the fact that you don't have the answers, it actually gives your team permission to do the same. And we create an environment where it's a greater partnership and we work together. So, There is absolutely a nuance in understanding who people are and what motivates them and not getting like too involved in their lives, right?Not inserting ourself or feeling like we know too much or ask too many questions. Michael: Awesome. Josie. I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find her on the dental marketer society, Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly? Josey: So my email is just Josie at Josie Sewell.com. Make sure you spell it right. j O S E Y S E W E L L. And then on any social media platform, you'll find me at Josie Sewell. Really happy to answer any questions that you might have on how to create a healthy, happy team. Michael: Nice. So that's going to be in the show notes below. And Josie, thank you so much for being with me on this Monday morning episode.Josey: Thank you.

‍How often do leaders find themselves in situations where silence could have been their most powerful tool? In this episode, we dive deep into the leadership journey of Dr. Manrina Rhode and learn about the transformative lessons she's embraced as a business owner. Dr. Manrina candidly reveals her shift from a leader eager to express every thought to one who masterfully chooses her words. She shares intimate reflections on learning when to "shut up," a tactic that has redefined her approach to managing teams and maintaining a harmonious workplace environment. Her story is a compelling exploration of the inner changes she made to lead more effectively.Drawing from her own experiences, Dr. Manrina offers a toolbox of strategies vital for any leader aiming to foster accountability and support within their teams. From scheduling regular meetings to address concerns in a steady, composed fashion, to the importance of documenting and constructively addressing recurring issues, her advice is both practical and refreshingly honest. This episode is not just an insightful peek into her leadership evolution but a guide filled with actionable ideas any practice owner can implement to refine their communication style and team dynamics.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The power of silence in leadership and when to "shut up."Strategies for managing emotional reactions in the workplace.How to foster a supportive and accountable team environment.The importance of scheduled meetings for conflict resolution.Effective techniques for documenting and addressing recurring issues.The impact of calm and constructive communication on team morale.Tune in to discover how to communicate more effectively with your team!‍‍‍Sponsors:‍‍Gusto: Dentist payroll for the modern practice. Gusto's cloud-based software provides all the payroll and HR tools you need to run your dental practice efficiently. Having it all on one platform keeps our prices low, and makes your job so much easier. Enjoy best-in-class support, benefits like health coverage for your team, and more. Visit or copy and paste the link here for a special offer! https://gusto.com/tdm‍You can reach out to Dr. Manrina Rhode here:Instagram: instagram.com/drmanrinarhodeOther Mentions and Links:‍Brands:Botox‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: amen. Rena, so talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Manrina: My piece of advice is to learn to shut. Michael: Expound on that a little bit. is that advice? Manrina: I think it's something that I've had to learn as a business owner and it goes against everything I learned before I was a business owner. So as young lady growing up and then as an associate dentist, I always believed it was important to speak my mind. And if someone had upset me, offended me, done something that felt like an injustice, To speak out loud about it, and I kind of pride myself for being that person and doing that. and as a business owner, I've learned that's not always the best way to go. And with your team, if every time they do something wrong that upsets you, like, I don't know, like I had someone today send out one of my patients, the wrong skincare product. They wanted one product and they sent them another product, you know, and I was like, why, why did you send the wrong product?And, you know, they said, oh, they were next to each other. And I think, you know, the, the old marina and the way that had been brought up and what I'd always believed to be correct. would have really wanted to talk about that and explore it and understand it and be like, but how is that an answer to sell me that because they were next to each other?If someone's ordered hydrate lip oil, you send them, hydrate lip oil, why would you send them plumpbut what I have learned, being a boss. Is it's not my place to then have that conversation. it's just my place to listen and accept and say, okay, and that's it.Shut up. Okay. And that's such a journey for me. because it went against my essence of just like really explaining how I feel. and to the point of like, then when you see the,person later on and, you know, in the staff room and they say, Oh, I'm really sorry about that. skincare thing. just smiling at them genuinely back and saying, okay, maybe how I was feeling, but I've had to learn this mass suppression of emotion opinions. So just, obviously it's important to take note of everything that's going on around you. I'll make notes understand what's happening with my team and bring it up at the right time in the correct way. But what's not correct is like my life has been up until now dealing with friends and colleagues that you can just be quite open about how you're feeling, about what's happening Michael: at the time. Interesting. So then how do you know when to bring it up in the right time in the right way, especially like that scenario? Manrina: Yeah, so we have meetings, scheduled meetings. with everyone, right? So I have a daily huddle, definitely a group environment. I bring things up in a group environment as team learning for everyone, not using a specific person as an example, but doing a reminder saying, Hey, we're all going to have a this morning. what product is this? What does this product do? Let's do a spot test. Does everyone know what's going on here? we have weekly meetings, which are designed to go through these things. which be a more appropriate place to do the spot skin care test. We have monthly practice meetings. we have monthly reviews for new team members and three monthly, reviews for team members who have been with us for longer. do it monthly for three months and then it moves on to three monthly and eventually six monthly. I also have, like, different team members, with my practice manager, for example, I have a weekly meeting. if she does something that I can make a note and in the weekly meeting, if I don't want to make a big deal out about it, then in the weekly meeting, when we're having a one on one, I can say, Hey, by the way, this happened this week. And that's made me feel a certain way. And is everything okay? And I guess it's also that it's being like, is everything okay? Rather than getting upset with someone and saying, I don't want to say it, but like, are you stupid? You're just going to be like, is everything okay? Well, you know, is there a reason why you felt like, did this happened or these mistakes happen this week?Is there something that I can support you in? so it's a whole like reframe you think when you're open to practice, everyone might think they're going to be the boss and they're going to tell everyone what to do, but I think it's almost the opposite. It's easier to be the boss when you're an associate, Whereas as a boss, to actually keep a happy team, you need just very calmly, Go through anything that goes wrong then put actions in place to make sure it doesn't happen again and obviously know everything down.So rather than acting on it immediately, make a note of it and then decide the appropriate action to take, the correct time to have that discussion. it's not necessarily something that you have immediately. Michael: interesting. So then it's almost like as if. Shutting up is part of the calming down process, could you think of something in that moment to, you know, I just need to be nicer, but I'm going to tell it to you straight. Yeah, Manrina: when like the skincare thing happened today, then I responded and said, Oh, okay. That's unfortunate that you're not familiar with our, with our sentence. read about them and watch all the videos. if you could do that for me, then when I see you next week, I'll schedule a time for me to go through that with you and test you on them. So this doesn't happen again. Could you please send an apology message to the person you sent the wrong skincare to? Arrange when you want to be sent out, just to let you know the cost of the skincare will be deducted from your wages. So that was my immediate response. Which was quite measured and, fair, with all the points for what needs to be done. there's nothing emotional in that.It's just very fact. This happened. This is what we're going to do about it, to make sure it doesn't happen again. And this is how we're going to fix what's happened right now. and these are the actions I'm taking because you've done something wrong. Michael: How do they react? Manrina: They said, okay, I, um, yeah, I was going to say you should deduct it for my wages as well. And yeah, sorry again. Michael: Oh, okay. Interesting. So then how did this come out to be Minrina? Like, how did you realize I probably should start shutting up more? Manrina: I think it was really early on. I had a nurse and He gave pounds worth of Botox. To the lab guy, like the lab guy came to collect lab work and he picked the lab work out of the fridge and picked up a bag of Botox as well.And gave the lab guy my lab work and 500 worth of Botox, which is a prescription medication and it's useless once it's kept out of the fridge. So couldn't even be returned. and then the lab called and said, Oh, you've given us this bag of Botox. And I think at the time I was so shocked like, you know, early boss days.And I'm just like that's incompetent. I feel like that's incompetent behavior. What do you think about it? And then he was like oh yeah, I made a mistake, but you can't call me. incompetent. That's not allowed. then I, you know, asked my, my HR and they were like, yeah, youcan't tell someone that they've done something wrong.Like say that this is what you are. You can only say to them, do you think that was competent? Do you think that was competent behavior? And so I was like, Oh, it's so interesting. Like in normal life, normal conversations up until now it's just been a conversation that you'd have about, this is what you are in my opinion, but you're not allowed to have that opinion as a boss.You have to ask what their opinion is. Michael: Okay. I like that. Interesting. Yeah, no, it's good. So then in the moment of you trying to create this relationships with your team whether it's like, Hey guys, we're a team or we're more than a team, we're friends, right. or we're a family or anything like that.Where's the line to where you're like, Hey, for example, you're really close with the team member and you're like, Hey, you know, you know me, right. you've seen my children and everything. But then you. Decide to be like, Oh, I didn't know that offended you me calling you incompetent. I apologize. Right. But then it kind of,creates a riff there or something like that. So where's the line for that for you? Manrina: I don't have an issue now. We're just talking to everyone very calmly. And I feel like as long as I'm telling them all very calmly and not in a bullying like, This is incompetent.That's, you know, I would never, I wouldn't say it like that. Anything they do now. Oh no. Did you give the Botox? how do you feel about having done that? what do you think we could do to make sure it doesn't happen again? It's almost quite maternal. It's almost like a family.or maybe it's like a really nice mom, rather than a mom that shouts at people and says, are you stupid? It's a really nice. Oh, okay. This happened. What should we do about it? What can we put in place to make sure it doesn't happen again? But also I make a note of it. I've got a folder where I make a note about all these things with the date and what happened with each team member.So if we see a pattern and it's recurring, then I've got, series of evidence. And obviously if it's recurring issues, then need to do something more. always calm now. passionate response to anything is gone.Everything's like, Oh, Michael: You ask questions right to your response. You're like, oh, why'd you do that? What were you thinking right in that moment? Manrina: anything, I'd just be like, why do you think that happened?What do you think we could do to stop it happening again? Michael: Yeah, no, that's interesting. So then with that being said, what are some exercises you're doing to remind yourself, especially in the heat of the moment where you're like, what the heck? What are the. Exercises that you're doing to remind yourself to shut up or be calm.Manrina: Yeah. So when um, feel myself having an emotional reaction that's not positive. So it's fine when I'm excited when things happen, then it's all good and let's celebrate. If something happens and I can feel it inside me that I'm like, Oh, that makes me want to make that noise. Take a deep breath in.Then I know that's when I need to shut up. So as soon as I feel that something goes off in my brain, it says, shut up, because you're feeling an emotion and better to respond to this when you don't, and there's no rush to respond to anything. So just take it in and say, okay. And then work out how you want to respond to it once that, it's calmed down.Michael: You started doing this like a couple of weeks ago or? Manrina: a progressive. So my clinic opened just over two years ago and it's been a progressive change, but it's something that I was only conscious that I started doing when I sent it to someone this week.I said, Oh yeah, when things happen, then I just don't say anything because it's just easier that way. And then I just deal with it when it's the right time. And then I was like, Oh, I didn't even realize I started doing that. That's what I do. I don't respond anymore. And I've always been, I've always been that person that you're, you know, how I'm feeling at all times.If I get upset about something, I'll tell you I'm upset about it. And then, you know, five minutes later it was done and it's gone and we've cleared it. But I don't tell you I'm upset anymore. Michael: That's so funny. No, that's awesome. Thank you so much for that advice. We appreciate it. And we appreciate your time.And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find her on the Dental Marketer Society, Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly? Manrina: On my Instagram is a really popular way to do that. It's Dr. Manrina Road, D R my name, Manrina Road. I manage my own account.So that's a good way to reach out. Michael: Nice. Awesome. So that's going to be in the show notes below. I'm Marina. Thank you so much for being with me on this Monday morning episode. Manrina: Michael.

‍Balancing life and business can often feel like a precarious tightrope walk, but Dr. Desiree Yazdan shares her personal journey of mastering this art. In this episode, Dr. Yazdan opens up about her transformative shift from a demanding workaholic schedule to a more sustainable, lifestyle-friendly business model. After becoming a mother, she realized the need to create a professional life that reconciles with her personal values and priorities. Dr. Yazdan candidly discusses the trials and triumphs of setting new boundaries, the pushback she faced from her team and clients, and how she triumphed by maintaining a steadfast positive mindset. Learn how Dr. Yazdan adheres to her revamped work hours and maintains her productivity without compromising her well-being.What You'll Learn in This Episode:How to build a business that aligns with your lifestyle priorities.The challenges of setting and enforcing new personal boundaries.Strategies for handling resistance from peers and clients with grace.The impact of a positive mindset on achieving work-life balance.Ways to maintain well-being and productivity through effective time management.Dr. Yazdan's personal tips for prioritizing mental health in business.Don't miss this chance to learn about balancing your business and your lifestyle—tune in now!‍‍The Pediatric Dental Marketing Course is open for enrollment!This comprehensive course, developed by Minal Sampat and myself, is tailored specifically for pediatric practice owners and their teams. It is designed to turn your pain points into stepping stones for success, and to help you become the trusted dental home for countless children in your community. Head over to our site to enroll now! pediatricdentalmarketingcourse.com‍You can reach out to Dr. Desiree Yazdan here:Instagram: instagram.com/dryazdanEmail: drdyadzan@gmail.com‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey, Desiree, so talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Desiree: I would say the piece of advice is to build your lifestyle first and then build your business around that. Michael: with that being said, what if we want to grow in our community that we are at, or we decide to listen to the demographics and think, Hey, this is the best ratio to patient.Okay. Thanks. Let's move here. And then later on, we realized we don't really like where we're at. Desiree: Yeah. So obviously you have to like, look at what's around you and what you're doing. But, when I said that, I think because I'm a mom, I have two little kids. And before I had kids, I was working always kind of at the expense of myself.I was open all the time, like 12, 13 hours a day. If somebody needed me in the middle of the night, I was available. Like, and I thought that that is what I needed to create a successful business. And then once I had my first daughter, I was like, okay, this just isn't sustainable. And so I started to analyze, what can I do to.Make my patients still feel like they're being really well taken care of, but also make sure that I'm taking care of my family. that's when I started to think how do I want my day to actually be? And yeah, you can't just be open for like three hours a day and then expect to have a super successful business, but you can decide what times you want to be working, what days you want to be working and then build your success off that.I just.Requires you to be much more efficient with the time that you are working. So like understand business, you have to know your numbers, you have to learn how to have a positive mindset consistently, take yourself out of the negative spirals quickly, and then just get yourself to a place where you could be really efficient in a smaller amount of time.Gotcha. So then how did you realize this wasn't sustainable? Yeah. I mean, I was just working so much. I was always working and I thought it was like a good thing. I would pride myself on like, Oh, I'm like a workaholic. And then, I think one of the times that really stood out to me, it was Thanksgiving and I just pulled up to my parents house with my husband.And I had a phone call from a patient who broke a temporary. And she wasn't even like super concerned. She was just like, ah, is this okay? And I remember walking upstairs to my parents house. And then being like, oh, I have to go. There's like a patient that broke a temporary like I'll go in and see her and whatever.and then I remember when I was driving there. I'm like, why would I do this? the patient's not in pain. And I understand it could be an emergency but it's also like it's thanksgiving and you know I need to change my boundaries And I think that moment was one that I was like, okay Like I don't know if I want to do this forever And then once I had my first daughter that just like really solidified it because you know when you have a newborn They really need you especially as the mom and so I was like, okay, we're just gonna change things up Michael: So then what efficient systems did you have to implement in order to actually change boundaries? Desiree: Yeah. So it always starts with mindset. I always go back to this. Anything that you want as far as streamlining your practice growth changing your boundaries always starts with your mindset first.So you have to first get really comfortable in your mind with your new hours and whatever it is that you're wanting to change. And then when you go to implement that, like there's no gray area. So it's like, Hey, I'm done seeing patients by this time and I need to leave at this time. And then you do that, right?So when your office presents to you, Oh, this patient just called and they want to be seen for an emergency and it's a new patient. And you're like, Oh, well, I need to leave in 30 minutes. You know, It's really hard to say no, because you're leaving money on the table andyou know, it's your practice and you're trying to grow and build it.But when you take your boundaries seriously, then you say, Ooh, I can't give good care in the little time that I have. let's see if we can get them in tomorrow instead. And the patient might not want to be seen tomorrow. They might call somewhere else and you just have to be okay with that.Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So then how did patients or your team react when this started happening? Desiree: Oh, personally for me, my team was very unhappy with it. you know, cause they were just used to me saying yes to everything. I was a big people pleaser. I was like, yeah, sure. Yeah.I'll stay late. Yeah. It's 7. 00 PM. And I've been here since, 00 AM. Yeah, sure. Let's just do it. Or somebody would call it 10.they were like on board with that. They were like, Oh, we are available all the time. But like,now what I say is what's best for the doctors best for the practice best for the business owners also best for the practice.So like.when I was working that way, I didn't want to be there. So it's a difference.Whereas when I had my daughter, I didn't want to be there as much. I wanted to be there and enjoy the work that I did, but I didn't want to do it at the expense of my newborn. when you're working against yourself and you feel obligated, you're taking that in the treatment room with you to the patients.even if you're not saying it, even if you think Oh, I hide it really well. There's some level of annoyance or obligation that you have that does come off, whether you like to admit it or not, to be honest, nobody wants an overtired, overworked, stressed out doctor working on them.Right. So like, I always think if I was going to go get a nose job and the surgeon was like, if I heard what's going on in his head, he's like, I'm just so tired.I haven't slept. I'm like, so over being here, I'd be like, let's just not do the surgery, you know, so I think the same as my patients don't want me, they want me when I'm happy and I want to be there and I'm excited about their treatment, right?Even if they're not excited about it, I need to be happy and excited doing it. Right. So, What's best for you, it's going to be what's best for your patients and your staff. And I think over time, once I stuck to the boundaries and they got used to it, and I think that's why I said. You have to be really firm in your own mind about it because there's going to be pushback when you're implementing change.but when you're really sold on it, then it's easier for other people to get on board eventually. even the patients that originally were like, what, she can't see me at that time. Like, and I would to them, I'm so sorry. I just had a baby.And I do have to be home and, I'd love to see you, but, you know, it's not like I'm abandoning you. I just also need to put my priorities now is like my children. Michael: Interesting. So then how do you take yourself out of the negative spiral that you mentioned? Desiree: Yeah, that's a good question.I have learned a lot of really amazing life coaching tools and I think that's the way I'm able to do it. But to explain to others, you have to be really aware of what you're thinking and how you're feeling. And I think a lot of times we don't really know what we're thinking. We can tap into how we're feeling like we feel bad about something.And it's important to like pay attention to that feeling and then try to identify the thought that you're having that's creating that feeling because every feeling is created by a thought. So you have to just be like, okay, what am I thinking that's making me feel anxious or that's making me feel stressed or nervous or whatever it is.And then you have to like analyze, is that thought true or is it serving me? So sometimes we think things that may or may not be true, but like, it's actually not serving you like somebody might look at their, statements or their reports at the end of the month and be like, Oh, I made no money this month.And then they might be stressed and that might be true, they might have not had enough take home to pay their bills. But is that serving you know, it's just making you feel worse. And so you have to really be conscious of how you're thinking and what you're thinking. I think honestly that's the hardest part because we just go about our day thinking and feeling how we think and feel and then to just realize that you have to be conscious about it, and really train your brain to think differently.That's hard to do on your own, but it's well worth it. Michael: Yeah. No, that's interesting. Especially when like a negative situation kind of arises, right? Interesting. Awesome, Desiree. Thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure. But before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners where they can reach out to directly?Desiree: Yeah, absolutely. So you guys can find me on Instagram. I'm just at Dr. Yadzin, D R Y A Z D A N. And then you can also send me an email at D R D E Yadzin at gmail. com. Michael: Awesome. So that's going to be in the show notes below and Desiree, thank you so much for being with me on this Monday morning episode.

‍Can a dental practice function on a NO-hygienist model? In this Monday Morning Episode, I sit down with Dr. Ron Schefdore, a trailblazing dentist who dared to challenge the conventional hygienist-dependent model and hasn't looked back since. He bravely shares his transformative journey, detailing the hurdles and victories of running a practice without hygienists. By prioritizing time with patients and refining diagnostic capabilities, Dr. Schefdore not only enhanced patient care but unveiled significant financial benefits. He offers a candid look into the operational dynamics of his practice, demonstrating how a focus on customer relationships can complement financial growth in the dental industry.Further into the conversation, Dr. Schefdore delves into practical strategies for managing the shift, particularly in scenarios involving the exit of hygienists. His methodical approach includes a gradual dropping of insurances to attract and maintain loyal and high-quality patients, while emphasizing the pivotal role of training and teamwork. Ron passionately challenges the traditional mindsets that dominate dental practices and invites you to do the same!What You'll Learn in This Episode:The compelling advantages of a no-hygienist dental practice model.Steps to overcoming operational challenges without hygienists.Financial benefits of spending more time on patient diagnostics.How to navigate network transitions for retaining top-tier patients.The critical role of training and teamwork in a restructured practice.Strategies to shift the mindset of traditional dental practices.Tune in now to explore the no-hygienist model with Dr. Ron Schefdore!‍‍Sponsors:‍CareStack: Modern, Secure, Cloud-Based Dental Software for Growing Your Practice! With state-of-the-art features including Online Appointments, Integrated Payments, Text Reminders and more. Click the link here for a special offer: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/carestack/‍You can reach out to Dr. Ron Schefdore here:Website: https://www.pharmaden.net/Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dentalcoachingsystems/‍Mentions and Links: ‍Education:Loma Linda University‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey Ron. So talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Ron: Don't worry about not finding a hygienist or having hygienist issues because I did a no hygienist model very successfully for decades. And I teach that to dentists now and how to do the same thing.Michael: Interesting. Okay. So if you can a little bit expand on, how did you first transition to the no hygienist model and what were the biggest operational challenges you faced? Ron: The first 17 years in practice, we built three practices. I owned the three buildings. Staff of 36 associates out of network financially.It was fantastic. It was like every dentist's dream, right? And what I realized after that long of managing people that that is not my forte drove me nuts somebody offered me some stupid money and I took it And thank God because it gave me an opportunity to grow up now being a dentist and say, you know, what do I really want to do?Why am I here? What excites me? And for me, it was spending more patient time, which a lot of doctors want to do. So I says, if I want to spend more doctor time, and I really want to help people with their perio, get them cure basically of perio, get them to look better, the things that excited me and the work I wanted to do, that means that I can't be chair hopping.Forget the chair hopping. I don't know a dentist that likes it. I mean, There is some weirdos that like it, but who the hell wants to keep jumping from chair to chair? This never excited me, never interested me. And not getting paid, they're all joining these cut rate insurances.Why you went to all the schools, spent all this money and you're an expert. Why are you doing that? I never bought into that and I had, a bunch of money. So I didn't really need to worry about the money when I opened up the second practice of a new hygienist model. we figured it out and very quickly in today's dollars, we got up to doing a million dollars and bringing home ham and I did that for a couple of.and I had six weeks vacation, sometimes a little bit more, took a month off. A lot of times, it was the best of all worlds. And so once I retired the second time, five years ago from clinical dentistry, I started getting on Facebook and just telling dentists, Hey, you guys could still have it all.It works out really good. You're having so many hygienist issues. You don't need those anymore. Hygienists are valuable. However, they're getting theirselves. Out of the market, they're pricing themselves out of the market. They have quite an attitude. So many of them think they're doctors and it's like, no, you're an employee.You might be a colleague, but you're still an employee. So let's not cross that line, it's just a weird dynamic. Now, I've met hygienists that are awesome. I'd hire them in a second. That's 5 or 10 percent of them that I've met. And this is a real problem with most dentists that I've talked to.Don't do a hygienist model. Get out of network or minimize the PPOs. Keep just the best ones. You only need 400 active patients. For this. That's it. If we all only had 400 active patients, there's plenty of patients to go around. All these dentists are fighting over. I need 1, 000. I need 2, 000. I need 3, 000 patients.That's crazy. No, you don't. You know, just, Just stop the nonsense already. So that's my advice. Michael: Okay. Okay. So then when you apply this or what systems or workflows did you have to adjust to maintain or improve your patient care without a hygienist? Ron: One column, see one patient at a time, minimize the amount of re cares that you do, and it's assisted hygiene.No, it would be stupid for a doctor to do hygiene all day long. Get that out of your brain. Oh, I'd rather do something else where I make more money. I could prove to you, any dentist can make six to seven hundred dollars an hour doing a re care visit. I've done this on dozens of practices.How many doctors are making 700 an hour without even breaking a sweat? I mean, That is about the easiest appointment you could do. Why not have some appointments during the day that are easy on us both emotionally and physically? There's nothing wrong with that. So, you know, 800 an hour and you get a 50 percent overhead, that's a million a year and bringing home 450, 000 pace.Why do we need a hygienist? Most dentists, if they made a half a million dollars a year take home, they would be very, very happy with that. I did that for decades, took six weeks off, and it was, dentistry's still hard, but you know, I only had three cross trained staff. So when you're doing hygiene, you minimize the amount of re care that you do, and you use a great cross trained assistant with you.That's all you need to do, and you fit those half hour appointments, it's half hour doctor time, half hour assistant time on the recare, that time that you spend with them is so much more fun, and it's relaxing in between all the hard work that we have to do, look, I don't have any physical problems, it didn't burn me out, it was so much easier than what dentists are doing.Please do this, please look at this. Michael: Gotcha. Yeah. if we are already, we have a hygienist our new patients are coming in, we're pretty bustling office, right? And then right now our hygienist left. We're listening to this episode and we're thinking, man I, I want to do this, but we just have too many patients at this time.would you recommend in that situation? Ron: That's when you strategically over 18 months get out of network and half the patients will fall off, which is fantastic because the ones that stay will stay pay and refer because they like your service, but you got to change the mentality of a PPO doctor to an out of network doctor.It's a big change and you need some coaching on it. If it's not me, get a successful other network doctor to talk to you on how to treat, how to present treatment to patients, how to make the appointments in your schedule. It's. It's way different than a PPO. You can't expect a network patients to get the care that they receive in a PPO setting.It's much different. So you gotta learn that. Michael: Okay, interesting. So then, how have the dentists you've taught responded to the model? Like What are the most common difficulties or misconceptions they have when transitioning? Ron: Number one, oh, it's going to cost me money to do a recare visit because I could make so much more money by going and doing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.And that's their belief. And I say, well, why are you making half the income that I am? And I'm seeing half the patients. I had to change their belief system. And it's the common belief with dentistry that they miss. The biggest reason they missed that is because. Where do we make our money in dentistry?Every dentist misses this. It's the diagnosing. The PPO doctor spends two minutes diagnosing. Why would you do that when I could spend 30 with the patient? If I spent 30 minutes with the patient and you spend two, who's going to diagnose more work? Who's going to get more acceptance? Who's going to do bigger cases?Me, all day long. the thing that makes dentists the most income and the most fun is the diagnosing and helping the patient get through that process. They're not doing that. So when you get the hygienist out of that, and the doctor does more of that, it's great. Keep your hygienist. Keep her doing the scalings.Most of the office I see, 16 percent to 10 percent of their patients are going through scaling and replanting, or less. Where 50 percent of the public has periodontal disease. If you don't have at least 30 percent of your practice going through scaling and replanting, there's a lot of bloody profits being done.It's just a fact. And your two minute exams, I'll fly anywhere in the country. I'll follow you around, doctor, after you do the exam, and I'll find five to fifty thousand dollars worth of treatment every week that you didn't even diagnose or talk to the patient about. So don't give me that bullshit.Thirty seven years, I can't be bullshitted. There isn't nothing you're going to tell me that I haven't seen in dentistry in thirty seven years. I challenge any doctor at that one. I've done this already. Michael: Yeah. Okay. So then how has the dynamic when this happened your team changed the removal of a hygienist?Like, did you need to train your dental assistants differently? And how does this affect the efficiency? Ron: Yeah. I mean, You have to spend time with the hygienist, which was a lot of fun teaching them dentistry. My assistants knew almost as much as I did, and technically with their hands, geez, I had two assistants.They were better with their hands than mine. You should see their temporaries. Their were awesome. They were very good with their hands. So you might be surprised that one of your team members might be just as good, if not better than you. And they're quick. they come up with ways to make things more efficient.So you just spend time with them, nurture them. And there are a lot of smart people that really appreciate that can really help you, but yeah, you have to train them and be patient. It's like a child. You know, If you're at home, what are you going to do? Scream at them all day? You got to be very patient.Michael: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. So then, did you communicate the change to your patients? Or, like, did you face any resistance? if so, how did you overcome that? Ron: At first I did, there's always remarks and dentists, this is one of the things the challenges they have is the patients will mentioned something about the hygienist and most dentists look like, oh, you're doing so bad that you can't even get the hygienist.I flipped that around. I said, look, I spent eight years in school. Would you rather have somebody clean your teeth that's been in school for eight years or somebody that's been in school for two years for the same money? And I had to shut up. Every patient then laughed and says of course, eight years.I go, good. Then you win me today. All right, let's go. And that was the end of it. You built more of a concierge service and a better service. It's like, holy cow, no doctor in this community spends this kind of time with their patients. That's what made us unique. And those are the kind of patients that you're willing to attract, that are willing to pay your fees.Most of my patients were not rich. They were middle class America, but they were looking for better service and they found the money or payment plans in doing a treatment in stages. Michael: I like that. So then is there any fear, Ron, where it's Oh man, I don't ever have time off almost a thing, right?Like I'm going to be called for emergencies for any little thing, for cleanings, all these stuff. It's too much on me. I want to start delegating these things that I kind of don't like like pro fees and stuff like that Where does that mentality go? Ron: Okay. The mentality is Doctor do you like to make money?Well, Of course Well, then you better find a way on how to do a recare and do part of the pro fee You're not doing the full pro fee you're doing part of it. So my sonic cleaner I thought of it as a perioprobe, it just wiggles up and down, because I go through every pocket and look at every tooth and take pictures along the way.To me it was a diagnostic tool. So doctors, it's how you look at things, I looked at it as this has given me an opportunity to find the work that I want to do. All of a sudden I'm doing cases I want to do. So it's the bad attitude that they have, the belief that they have. you got a lemon, make lemonade out of it.It was great. I'm lemonade all day long like this. I was in such a saturated market in Chicago that there was like 15 doctors within walking distance. I was always busy. I made more income. I took more time off and they all were doing the opposite of what I was. And when I told him about it, I go, no, that'll never work.Okay. You keep doing what you're doing, because others clean up here. Michael: Yeah, Ron: works. It works every time. You just have to change your belief system and I'll prove it to him. I've been doing this for so long. Michael: Yeah, no, that's wonderful. Now, real quick. One of the last questions is this model.Cause you mentioned where you were at in the location. Is it scalable for practices in different settings, like urban, rural, large or small, what adjustments would need to be made? Ron: It's easier to do in the rural area because you're the only one there. And if you give better service than any dentist, within 30 miles, 40 miles around, holy cow, they immediately drop all the insurance.They can't believe it. I can give you a bunch of names of a bunch of doctors that haven't to in urban areas where there's a lot of competition. New York City, Chicago, big cities that are wealthier. This is perfect because you don't need a lot of patients. There's patients that want good service in urban areas, period.you don't need a lot of them because it's so condensed. It's not that difficult to find 400 patients. you gotta get a really good marketer, but you gotta learn how to answer the phone. the doctor has to present treatment and treat people well.You have to learn those leadership skills and those presentation skills too. Michael: Awesome, Ron. Thank you so much for this. I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find them on the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly? Ron: Okay.DRS Coaching Systems, Facebook page. Just go there. You'll hear what a bunch of doctors are saying about the coaching. And go to make an appointment with me at pharmaden. net. That's P H A R M A D E N dot net. Yep, at my calendar. that's my nutraceutical company. we figured out at Loma Linda, we did a double blind test and figured out the periodontal disease.If you give them a certain nutraceutical during treatment the outcomes are much better. The bleeding pocket depth was much better. We created that 20 years ago, used that on so many patients. go to there, go to the website, go to the calendar, make an appointment. I'll talk to anybody for free.I'm not an expert, I'm just going to tell you what worked in our office. what worked really well and what we achieved, most dentists are trying to achieve. So I'm not saying I'm some guru, I'm just going to tell you what worked for me. and I'd be happy to show you exactly the same way.I got no special skills. If I could do it, you guys could do it. Michael: Nice. Awesome. So that information is going to be in the show notes below and Ron, thank you so much for being with me on this Monday morning episode. Ron: Thank you very much for inviting me.

How can a dedicated CEO day skyrocket your practice growth? In this episode, Dr. Rehan Shahid shares his wisdom on transitioning from merely being a dentist to embracing the role of a CEO. Discover how to "work less and earn more" by implementing efficient systems that streamline operations and enhance patient care. Dive into the nuances of building a robust practice, where patient feedback is the compass guiding success and training your staff is the keystone to maintaining excellence.Dr. Rehan opens up about his personal journey, taking you through the trials and triumphs of managing a practice from the ground up. Explore his strategies for time management during the challenging startup phase and understand the critical importance of dedicating time to strategic business planning. Through practical tips and heartfelt stories, this episode sheds light on creating sustainable growth in your practice by sharpening operational efficiency and elevating the patient experience. Whether you're a new practice owner or a seasoned dentist, Dr. Rehan's insights are your roadmap to redefining dental success.What You'll Learn in This Episode:Key strategies for shifting from a clinical role to a CEO mindset.How to work smarter with efficient systems for patient care.The art of effective staff training to ensure consistent quality.Importance of patient feedback in measuring practice success.Time management techniques for startup practice owners.Significance of scheduling CEO time for strategic planning.Steps to enhance operational flow and patient experience.Tune in now to discover how to elevate your practice's growth with Dr. Rehan's expert advice!‍‍Sponsors:Studio 8E8: Dentistry's story-driven marketing agency. Traditional marketing repels. Story-first dental marketing attracts.We bring your story to life in a way that captivates and connects: https://s8e8.com/affiliates/tdm?utm_source=tdm&utm_medium=affiliate&wc_clear=true‍You can reach out to Dr. Rehan Shahid here:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drrehanshahiddds/Email: drrehanshahiddds@gmail.com‍Mentions and Links: ‍Terms:LMS - Learning Management System‍People:Dr. Scott Leune‍Books:Buy Back Your Time‍Businesses:Breakaway‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey Rehan, talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Rehan: Hey, Michael, the best piece of advice I would give would be work less to make more money. Michael: Work less to make more money. Expand a little bit on that. What do you mean? Rehan: Yeah. So it's kind of, ironic when you actually play less dentist and play more the owner or the CEO of your company, you'd actually end up making more money.And a lot of people find that counterintuitive, but when you actually really dive deeper into that, it makes 100 percent sense. Michael: So for example, when you're doing your startup, you're opening up things like that, you kind of have to be on the clinical side, don't you? Rehan: Yeah. So you have to be on the clinical side, but in a startup example, someone has to be actually creating the systems that you do in your office.Figuring out your marketing campaigns, figuring out, Hey, if I want to do this amazing new patient experience. What does that look like from someone walking into the door to leaving the door? And that's not going to be your team, really, that's coming up with all of that because it's a startup.Like you have to, as an owner, create that. And so a lot of people make that mistake and they just jump right into dentistry. And that's good as a producer, but then you're not really playing the owner at that point. So you don't want to be your own associate. You want to be the CEO of your company. Michael: So that just Rehan: happens to do dentistry. Michael: Yeah. I like that. So then I know many practice owners, struggle with, streamlining their operational flow. So for you right now, what specific systems or processes have you implemented that have made the biggest impact do you measure their success?Rehan: there's a couple of ones that we've done, but one of the most important ones is what I call. Follow the patient. And that means from the moment the patient literally stops their car and walks in the building from that moment, all the way until they're leaving the door, really mapping that out.So when they're walking in, What are they looking at? So, Aka, what's on the front door? What's your signage look like when they open the door? What are they walk into? Do they just walk into a huge smelly dental office or is it nice aroma, a refreshment center on the side, etc. So, Really mapping out every single moment from that patient walking in to walking out has been a game changer for us.Michael: Okay. So follow the patient. Interesting. I like that a lot. And so then that operational flow that came from where, why did that come out to such specifics? Rehan: I think a long time ago and you might've heard of Scott Luna before. I took a course a long time ago when he was previously feeling with breakaway.He had a thing called the five senses, which was as a patient, what do you smell? What do you touch? What do you see? What do you feel? What do you hear? And all the five senses and just expanding that further. I took it on myself and just call it the follow the patient from walking into walking out.And when you started doing that, you really get to put yourself in the patient's shoes. AndIt allows you to find all the areas of improvement that you're not probably doing, but also really to focus on areas. So when a patient comes in, as a patient, I want someone to greet me and even tell me where the bathroom is or offer me some water, little things like that.Now that I'm mapping it out. Helps me provide the best experience, but then also allows me to create an operational flow for the team to be able to, do just that. Michael: So you created that system. And then how do you measure its success? How do you know? It's like, Hey guys, we're doing it.We're making it happen. And everything's going greater. Rehan: So there's something called NPS. Something score. I forget the word off the top of my head, but just random audits and then getting feedback from patients. So occasionally we'll get patient feedback and say, Hey, actually describethe flow.Hey, when you walked into walked out,what was the amazing things you saw? What was some areas of improvement? And then just asan owner. I like to just randomly walk in and not say anything, but every morning when I'm walking into the office, I'm pretending I'm a patient. So I get to kind of see that almost daily when I'm walking first thing in to see, their aroma?Am I seeing that, when they're greeting the patients? It's just really auditing it every single day and then allowing the patients to audit it at a frequency that you're comfortable with. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. That's interesting. So then when you're doing this training staff, and I know possibly the operational flow is like new patient calls, things like that.Right. And we know that's crucial. But how did you go about creating an effective, training program for a lot of these things? Especially like new patient calls or, yeah. The things like that, what key metrics do you track for that? Rehan: first is always just understanding the why behind it, meaning, hey, why do I even care about this?For example, a new patient call, why do I even care about how it goes? If the team's in alignment with why it's so important, then you get to actually, when they understand the why, talk about now how do we actually make it better or even improve it? Things that we then track is one, how's the quality of the call?So if you're using some sort of phone tracking vendoryou get to actually write that and you put a frequency on that where some former of leadership team or manager. Is listening to a call once a month, which is, you know, very, very easy to do, spot auditing calls where I have literally my family members call my office and just tell them, Hey, give me your feedback right after that.And I'll record that, date and time or they'll record it and then I'll be able to listen or have a leadership team member listen and say, Hey, here's X, Y, Z that they didn't do. And believe it or not, you can actually tell if a person is smiling through the phone. Just by their tone of voice.And so that's one of the things are great on is, Hey, is everyone smiling a few seconds right before they pick up the call? And then just, you know, there's certain parameters in the call that we look for. Like, Did you mention the patient's name? Which is the most beautiful word in the English language is what people say, patient's name.Did you repeat that name multiple times throughout the conversation? Did you offer. A scheduling opportunity. And then did you follow the two concepts of yes. Meaning instead of saying, when would you like to come in? Did you give them a, Hey, we have Monday at two and a Tuesday at four, meaning either way, it's a yes.So we're looking for certain key things that they're saying in that call, and if they're not allowing training opportunities to help get them there, members like that, Michael: I like that, man, real quick, how long have you been Rehan: I'm a COVID grad. It's a 2020. I have four offices and so I work clinically about half the week and then I focus on running the actual organization the other half the week.Michael: Wow. So since 2020. you graduated and then you opened up four offices. Rehan: Yeah, so 20, 20, I mean, a Covid grad, we got tipped off on our education, so I had to kind of learn a little bit on my own. But I was the very big, from dental school I was gung-ho on hey, I want to learn as much as I can about business because my goal was to be my own boss and have an empire really. And so just been really. Spearheaded toward that. And blessed to be able to hit the goals that I want and just continue to keep that path growing. Michael: Interesting, man. Okay. So then I have a question, like when you were doing these, I guess the operational flows and the systems, do you, cause I feel like a lot of the times, Rehan, we focus on.got to get new patients. I got to get patients just in general. Right. I opened up, it's just my family. I'm seeing right now. I got to get more. So we focus on like filling that up and then sometimes we create systems based on mistakes, right? That are we're seeing are based on flow. Is that what happened with you or no you, you created this infrastructure.First, Rehan: you have to really focus both at the same time, a lot of people will focus so much on that new patient acquisition, throw a bunch of dollars in marketing, et cetera. But then their phone call system sucks. So they're getting all this influx of calls, which they're not even tracking.And they're wondering, you know, why am I not getting patients? I'm spending crazy amount of dollars on marketing, but they never realized, Hey, maybe it's not the marketing dollars. It's the training that's lacking or the system flow that's not there. we kind of talk at the same time where, Hey, I'm going to pay a marketing company to do the marketing.but I'm also going to focus on my time on leading the company. And so when you tackle it from both ends you're tackling all the variables that are involved. that's super important. You can't just put all your marbles in one bag, so to speak. Michael: Okay. Gotcha. So you're kind of doing both at the same time.Now, how do you balance your time between producing as a dentist and playing the CEO role? Rehan: Yeah. So I think as a startup, you have the privilege of time. versus, you know, when you buy an office, let's say, or have already producing office, you don't have that as privilege because the startup, you have the time because you're not as busy, like you said, if you're just seeing predominantly family members or, one or two patients a day, utilize that time like crazy to create those systems, because that is the time to do it When you have that luxury of time after you've, you get busier now, you have to buy time. I'm a big fan of Dan Martell wrote the book, buy back your time. And what I do now is the reason I have an admin day is I purposely created time where I have to have time to actually focus on the company. So for people that struggle with that, you know, taking half a day, like an afternoon to where you're still produced a morning.And then the rest of the afternoon, you're not saying.Doctor patients. Maybe hygiene can still go without exams. So your flow is still going over the office, but now you're focused on What actually needs to happen doing half a day, once a week is not a hard thing to do, especially if you recognize the need for it.you have to be able to give the company time to be able to work on the company instead of in the company. That's a big mindset shift. Michael: Yeah. have you ever seen it where it was like, Hey man, I'm the only doctor and I just have one assistant, one office.Rehan: Right.At the end of the day is where I can likeeither have time for myself to focus on, But then you also have your family you have to think about and then you know all these other thingswhat advice would you have for a doctor like that where it's likehey money to friday And then I have to work my associate too because i'm not making enough yet So I think you just described the average dentist, Michael: right? Rehan: And that's the reason the average dentist, if you really survey people, they're really are unhappy because they're working on Monday through Friday. moonlighting at an associate on a Saturday. They're coming home now and actually working on their business and now they've taken away time from family, loved ones, friends, and that's where they become unhappy and experience burnout.So my big thing is. I don't think it's hard to get half a day. If you can't get half a day, then getting two to three hours during a workday, I'm a strong believer of don't bring work home because it never works out for the better for anyone. When you bring work home, you're already drained from the day.Your significant other is upset with you, et cetera. But if you choose like, Hey, if you work till five, three to five is my CEO time. Now you actually have two dedicated hours when you're still mentally in work mode. You're in scrubs or whatever you're in work mode. You're not chilling at home on a couch.Like you're actually still in work mode and you're able to dedicate to creating something for your company. So I always tell people, you know, start with something two hours a week. That's enough for that point until you get to the next level, which is half a day, and then finally the full day. every single owner that I know, they all have some form of admin time to work on the company instead of in the company.And it is a mindset shift. you have to value your time more than, money because you see the bigger picture at the end of it. Michael: So what specific tasks do you focus on during your dedicated CEO time? And how have you seen it drive your practice growth?Rehan: So for example, today during my CEO day I'm focusing on the operational component where, we're revamping all of our, operational flow. So that's the job descriptions. That's every system for every position, every system for every role, every system for. Every task that a team member has to do.So I'm revamping it creating it into video formats. So when new people come onto the company, it's not dependent on me running the show anymore. It's now they get to watch a video, get a handout and essentially creating this LMS, the learning management system. So people can actually be set up for success from day one.A lot of dentists rely on the manager that'll train them or they'll train them themselves and. It's kind of so dependent on a person rather than the system. And when the person quits you're stuck right there. You have to now go and train and you're, you get more burnt out from that.I'd rather create something, spend some time and then let the system do the teaching with a mentorship position created as well to help guide that teaching. Michael: Interesting. So right now you're creating that, right? Systems in your practice, because you have four.Yes. Rehan: So we have the systems already. What I'm doing is revamping them. So every once in a while we hit a level of growth where we have to go and revamp something. Previously, for example, we had systems on paper. I'm adding the video component to it. So just to give it a little bit more of a, more detail, more, takeaways, more tips, et cetera.Michael: Can you give me like clear signs when you hit a new level of growth? Rehan: For us it was when we hit four offices we had to hire Levels of leadership. For example, we have an operations manager. Now, some people would have a regional manager at that point. Now the regional manager or this person operations manager, they have to have certain things that they look for.And so I have to create certain things now for that whole position. You start creating an HR position now at that point. So you have to create new job descriptions that you didn't really have those issues at one office. So you may not need an HR person because the manager is the HR person in one office or the doctor is.Now when you grow, you start having to develop different positions because you're tackling that level of growth. Michael: Interesting. Interesting. Rehan, man, thank you so much. This has been awesome, and I appreciate your time, and if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find them on the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?Rehan: They can always find me on Instagram, Dr. Rehan Shaheed, or my email which is drrehanshaheeddds at gmail. com, or just tag me in the Facebook group. I'm a part of your group, Michael. I think it's an awesome group where a lot of people get to learn a lot of different things and feedback. Michael: Nice.Awesome. I appreciate that. And that's all going to be in the show notes below. And Rehan, thank you so much for being with me on this Monday morning episode. Rehan: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

Does the DIY approach lead to success in the dental startup world? This Monday Morning Episode launches into the realities of starting a dental practice with insights from Stephen Trutter, president of Ideal Practices. Throughout the conversation, Stephen dispels common myths surrounding DIY methodologies and unveils critical insights into building a successful practice from the ground up. He emphasizes the indispensable role of demographics, advising against relying solely on generic ratios when choosing a location. Instead, understanding competition, patient trends, and the unique characteristics of a community can create a foundation for lasting success.Real estate considerations and marketing strategies also take center stage in today's episode. Stephen cautions against the temptation of skimping on real estate investments and stresses the role of thorough representation in negotiations. Moreover, he discusses how DIY marketing efforts often fall short, advocating for a balanced strategy that incorporates professional guidance to maximize long-term ROI. As the episode wraps up, Stephen invites listeners to deepen their knowledge with additional resources like his two-day "Startup Practice Blueprint" course and his insightful book, "The Startup Dentist."What You'll Learn in This Episode:Why understanding demographics goes beyond simple ratios when choosing a location.The essential role of proper real estate representation for long-term success.Why DIY marketing may not suffice and how to execute a robust strategy.How Stephen's strategies balance short-term savings with long-term ROI.Resources to advance your journey with specialized industry education.Tune in now to discover if the DIY approach is right for your practice!‍‍Learn More About the Ground Marketing Course Here:Website: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/the-ground-marketing-course-open-enrollment/‍You can reach out to Stephen Trutter here:Website: https://idealpractices.com/Startup Practice Blueprint Course: http://www.startuppracticeblueprint.com/Stephen's Book - The Startup Dentist: http://www.thestartupdentistbook.com/‍Mentions and Links: ‍Groups/Communities:Dental Society‍People:LeBron JamesMichael JordanElon Musk‍Publications:Oxford Dictionary‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey, Steven. So talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning. Stephen: The one piece of advice I give you, Michael, is DIY practices are cheaper. There you go. DIY do it yourself. It's going to be cheaper.And I know that feels awkward because. Wait a minute. Like, I am the owner of ideal practices. And if most people don't know who we are, like we are one of the largest, if not the largest startup dental consulting in the country. What I'm saying is you don't need me. You don't need anybody.You can do a DIY practice. It can be cheaper. Now I did look this up this morning. You and I were laughing a few minutes ago in the Oxford dictionary the Google Oxford dictionary, whatever there is one cheaper means inexpensive because of inferior quality. So can you build a cheaper practice on your own?Sure. I think the challenge is that's kind of the undercurrent that's, existing today. So can you do it yourself? Absolutely. Can it be cheaper? Depends on if that's what your goal is and depends on if that's who you want to be in the community or are used to be known as that cheap dentist on the corner.most people when they ask ideal practices, there's like 3 things that are on most associates mind. There's these 3 areas of. Their startup that they're most concerned about and it's demographics. It's real estate and marketing. These are three hot buttons Here's what you need. You need space money and chairs. There is a practice you can start a practice tomorrow with space money and chairs, but there's a lot more layers that are there when I talk about these three layers of demographics real estate marketing These are probably the three biggest Components or probably the mosthot buttons that mostassociates think about now funny story.I was just in one of the facebook's groups And doctor was asking about some questions about buying a practice he said, Hey, this thing is going to fall through. What do you think? And this and I responded and I gota DM from I'll call him Dr Jake Dr Jake said, Hey, that deal is going to fall through.I was looking to do a startup. Can you help me? I contacted this company that does demographics and they said, basically, just best ratios are the best thing to go for. But that's what everybody says. Everyone thinks that demographics is about finding the best ratios. thing is, you could get a demographics report, find great ratios, and the best ratios are going to be somewhere maybe you don't want to be.They could be rural areas. a lot of people say, go for, if you're a general dentist, a 3, 001 ratio. So that means 3, 000 patients for every one provider. of the almost 1, 000 startup practices I've been a part of, maybe less than half have attained that great industry standard, yet we have highly successful practices, million dollar practices in 12 months.So you got to look beyond the ratios when it comes to the demographics. You got to look at things like, who is that competition? Is that my competition? How many other startups are in that marketplace? What are the travel patterns within the area? Here's a big one. Are my patients actually there? If you just chase a ratio, folks, because somebody on some forum said, chase ratios, then you're going to find yourself in an area that you don't love.And I've seen a couple of posts even recently this week where doctor said I'm here. I'm making great money It's an underserved area, but my marriage is taking a toll My marriage is suffering because my wife doesn't want to be here. My kids don't want to be here. So If you just want to open your doors and find some high ratios, you can go do that, but it may not be the best area for you, for your vision, or not even have the patience there that you want to serve.Michael: So that's number one. Demographics is the big part. And I've seen that so many times where they're like, hey, the demographics don't make sense. But this is, I love this town. Like I, this is where I grew up. This is what I want to do. Yeah. So they go against the forum, say, right. so there's a lot more to it. Stephen: Yeah. And sometimes the advice is I see people out there say go rural. Not everybody wants to be in the middle of. Central Illinois, by the way, that's where I grew up. Like it's great. That's home. I'm surrounded by windmills and, cornfields and bean fields.Is it underserved? Yes. But if that's not where you want to be and that's not where you want to grow up, or maybe that's even not the patient base you want to go for, then don't do that. So be aware when people say go find high ratios. It may not be the best place for you or don't skip over demographics.A lot of DIY doctors, what they do, they chase the second big thing. They chase real estate So the second big topic is real estate. Most people skip demographics because they think it's expensive. Cheaper save money. Don't. Hold demographics, just go chase real estate. All right, real estate, big signs and visibility.What most people say is, you'll be successful if you find the space with big signs and visibility. But, you could overpay for that real estate. Sometimes a DIY means, I'm gonna go negotiate it myself.Unless you have transacted hundreds of commercial real estate associate dentist, don't do it because you may think you're going to get cheaper because someone told you somewhere That the landlord won't have to pay for the commission for your agent if you negotiated it yourself.No, what the landlord did was take that money that they were going to pay somebody that's going to represent you and slide it back in their pocket. Because they're going to save that money themselves as opposed to saving an agent. don't chase the big signs when it comes to real estate. The other big thing on real estate is Ownership so many people i've had clients that have been at dental society meetings one of our clients up in connecticut He said want to own and I said, okay cool.You want to own real estate? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to own. Well, why well, I was at a meeting and this doctor told me I should own Said, oh, okay. Why? She said, I owned my real estate and I bought it 12 years ago. What happened 12 years ago is irrelevant to that doctor today and what this doctor's looking for.So I think real estate. you're chasing the big signs of visibility, you may actually, instead of being less expensive, you may end up saying, Oh, I'm not properly represented. maybe I don't have an attorney. Okay. You can save money. Maybe negotiate with an agent, but agents are paid to transact.And the other part about this is at the end of your lease, let's say you end up leasing space. What most people don't understand is If you skimp on things like legal representation or you hire an attorney that says charge a flat fee for a lease negotiations, that attorney is built in only a certain amount of hours to negotiate that.Once they hit that mark, they're going to say, good, here's your lease. It's good enough. Good enough may be a really big death sentence for your practice 10 or 15 or 20 years from today. Because one of the biggest sticking points that I see with acquisitions is this. Everybody agrees to the deal. one doctor is going to buy another doctor's practice But there's a lease problem.The lease is not transferable. The landlord won't transfer the lease. So folks, DIY your practice. Find out what happens 10 or 15 years from today. What you save today, you may lose hundreds of thousands of dollars tomorrow. Or maybe you've got to pay a huge buyout to a landlord or proceeds of the sale of your practice because you thought, if I did it myself, I will save money today.You save money tomorrow. You lose. Hundreds of thousands of dollars when it comes to real estate. So be aware, make sure you're properly represented when it comes to your real estate. Michael: man. Okay. So then the first one would be demographics, right? Stephen: Demographics. Don't chase ratios,Don't just look at the number and say, yep, that looks good. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. And then second is real estate. Stephen: Real estate don't chase big signs and visibility and make sure that you are properly represented. Do not do it yourself. So actually I'm saying, sure, it's cheaper to do yourself, not pay an attorney, maybe an agent does it, but the agent, whether it's representing you or not, they are paid commission based upon how high the rent is in the total economics.Michael: And then what's the third, would there be a third? Stephen: There is a third marketing without marketing, Michael, we don't have patients. And here's the thing I see all the time. seen this and I cringe. They go online, they go into one of the groups and I'm not talking about groups as a bad thing.I think doctors go for free advice. They go into a group they type in this question. Hey everybody, this is a question I've seen before. I'm opening my doors in a month or two. who's everybody using for marketing or what's everybody doing for marketing? Marketing is not just about an agency.Michael, you, of all people know, ground marketing is so key to a successful startup. But what I also hear is, ooh, marketing's expensive. Okay, maybe you can bootstrap it. Maybe you can figure out a way to build your own website, do your own Google ads. Now, when do you have time to then actually go out and get More patients.How do you train your team? How do you go out in your community? Marketing is not about Trying to save money because you have two choices when it comes to marketing either spin less or earn less make a choice you need to understand your marketplace when it comes to marketing diy approach to marketing isn't just hiring an agency simply and saying I hired an agency Now i'm going to sit back and wait for all these patients to come through And then a couple months later, you're going to say, I'm looking for a new agency.This one stinks. No, the agencies don't stink. You stink. You stink at ground marketing. if you're not in your community and if you're not in your community with a bigger purpose to make connections with other business owners, to make connections with the community, you're missing out on a huge opportunity to drive more patients into your practice.So what you'll end up is the typical startup, typical practice in America gets in a roughly 25 ish new patients per month, 20 to 30. That is the average dental practice in America. You could be that average one. You could DIY and to say, I hired an agency, check the box and say, I have marketing or I built my own website or found it on online source.They could build a website for 500. Cool. You have a 500 website. That isn't responsive, doesn't drive patients there, has no information, doesn't tell your story, doesn't connect to your community, but you opened your doors. Congrats. Michael: Interesting. So, Stephen, do you feel like sometimes we're just trying to run a race to open the doors?we're not really taking the time to meditate to okay. Marketing. If I really did it all on my own, probably gonna not be the best where's my mind gonna go with real estate? Where's my mind gonna go with? We're only one person. Can't do it. That's right.Oh, on your own. So do you see, the mindset fall here? Stephen: I think the mindset falls in if IDIY, this practice. I'll probably save because I want to pay for all these other services or I'll find free advice online But where's that free advice rooted in? Is it rooted in your vision? Is it rooted in hundreds of examples or hundreds of experiences with startups or is it rooted in one person's one time experience?Like my client in connecticut 12 years ago. So a dentist bought a building 12 years ago. That is not applicable to today's advice And I think there's a rite of passage or a bragging opportunity that I see sometimes it's like maybe there's that one doctor who says, I built my first startup for 100, 000.Michael: Yeah. Stephen: That is not reality. know nothing about the story of like, okay, was the space already built out? Was there chairs in there? Was it technically a shell practice? There's so many things that I think people chase like cheaper will get me open and beLess risky. . Mm-Hmm. . What if you skimped on your budget in the wrong areas?What if you didn't prioritize marketing? What if you ended up with the wrong space on the wrong side of town? What if you chased the wrong demographics because you found a ratio? There is the race to DIY, but there's also a little bit of a blind spot for some associates where it's like if I trudge through over a couple of years, I'm going to feel better about myself. No, you could have just had a fast track. There's a lot of great people that are out there that are skilled at guiding startups. They're skilled at what they do. while it may have a greater investment, what is the return that you get?there is the race of the DIY of getting open faster, but there's also the blind spot that most people think is like, if I do it myself, I will have a greater sense of pride. I pick on people like LeBron James, Michael Jordan, and lots of other people in the world.Elon Musk, you think about they all have coaches, they all have advisors. Why? Because they want somebody that's smarter than them that can say I've done this hundreds of times. Dentists, you're trained by dentists at dental school that have done, what, hundreds of crowns? So think about your first crown. If they've done one crown, they don't have experience.If they've done it hundreds of times or someone's mentoring them, then they're going to have a faster path and an easier path. So ask yourself where this advice is coming from. Is it rooted in hundreds of experiences that applicable to me, is it just, fished for information. Michael: If, If Steven, one of the last questions here real quick, it just might be going a little over time, but I just want to know, for owners who are concerned about upfront savings versus long term ROI How can they balance both without cutting corners?I think there might be some areas when it comes to maybe equipment, maybe there's some elements there. If you find some used options that are out there when it comes to equipment, you can find a balance of some savings on some hard things.Stephen: But for example, when we look at demographics, I have analysts that look at hundreds of demographics studies For a year, we look at hundreds of real estate transactions. pulling upon those experiences. Demographics. If you have never looked at a demographic study, you may just be looking at numbers going.I don't know what these numbers mean, but I think they're good. think by skimping on that, you're missing out on a big piece. So could you save some money on maybe some equipment elements? Yeah, I think so. But at what cost, what other things are losing on a long term basis? Michael: is Stephen: a marathon.Michael: Yeah. I like that. I like that analogy. It's not like a super sprint, right? It's just, it's a long marathon, but awesome, Stephen, I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find them on the dental marketer society, Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?Stephen: I say this, if you wanna learn more about a startup, I got a couple spots for you. You can either attend one of our courses is atwo day course called Startup Practice Blueprint. You can go to startup practice blueprint.com to register. Do it twice a year with 30 Associates immersive.We're gonna feed you with a fire hose, or you can check up my book, the Startup Dentist,at the startup dentist book.com. Pick up a free copy today. Michael: Nice. That's all gonna be in the show notes below, so definitely check it out. And Steven, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning episode. Stephen: Thanks, Michael.‍

Imagine enjoying the freedom to focus on visionary leadership while your business runs like a well-oiled machine. This Monday Morning Episode dives deep into the art of systemization in business operations, partnering with systems expert David Jenyns to reveal transformative strategies that liberate business owners and team members from monotonous daily tasks. Discover insights behind legendary organizations like McDonald's and Netflix, as David sheds light on the benefits of implementing documented processes. This episode not only highlights how these processes lead to career growth, job security, and streamlined workflows but also tackles the common hurdle of team resistance, providing actionable advice on engaging early adopters and ensuring positive introductions to new systems.David emphasizes the importance of clear communication and tailored processes that strike the ideal balance between systemization and empowerment. He discusses how business owners can remove non-compliance excuses, set clear expectations, and build a team of systems-driven individuals, paving the way for sustainable success. Tune in to learn how to transform your business into a systemized powerhouse, where creativity and structure coexist seamlessly, all thanks to tried-and-true methodologies.What You'll Learn in This Episode:Benefits of documented processes for career growth.Strategies for overcoming team resistance to new systems.How clear communication and setting expectations lead to smoother workflows.Techniques to remove excuses for non-compliance.The impact of surrounding yourself with systems-driven individuals.How renowned companies like McDonald's and Netflix utilize effective systemization.Tune in now to transform your business with expert strategies for systemization!‍‍You can reach out to David Jenyns here:Website: https://www.systemology.com/‍Mentions and Links: ‍Accounting Software:MYOB‍Brands:McDonald'sNetflix‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey Dave, so talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? David: When it comes to stepping out of the day to day operations as a business owner, you've got to capture your systems and your processes. And most importantly, you've got to get your team on board. And I feel like that's probably the biggest challenge for a lot of business owners.They try to systemize, they try it for a little bit, maybe one team member follows, maybe most of them don't, and then before they know it, everybody's forgotten about it, and it's just back to the way that things have always been. And it really, this one piece of advice I've got centers around how do you get your team on board?How do you get your team to follow process? And even. resistant team members. How do you get them to go, Oh, this is how we do things here. And key here is the way in which it's introduced to your team. A lot of business owners, when they go, Oh, we're going to start documenting our process. And we're going to have a particular way of doing things.The team member in their brain, they start to think, Should I be worried about my job? Is he trying to document what I'm doing so that he can replace me? Is he going to take my job offshore? I kind of like having this little black box where no one really knows what I'm doing because. It creates some level of job security for me.I don't want to capture my process and have that available and accessible for everybody else. So that's some of the things that go on in their head and that's what can make them resistant and then fall back to the ways that they may have done things in the past or not even want to share what it is that they're doing.So the bit of advice and the secret here is to really think about How it's going to benefit the team member. rather than just introducing it where the team thinks, Oh, the business owner is doing this to replace me, or maybe they want to go on a holiday. And, don't want to support that.Show them how, hang on, if you document your process or capture the way that you're doing things, this can help you move up in our organization because, by documenting process, we could delegate down to some newer team members. And that doesn't make you less valuable. It makes you more valuable because now you can work on higher value tasks.You can start to work your way up and work on these higher value activities. That's might appeal to some people. For other people, you might need to say, Hey, when you go on holiday and you tell me you want two weeks off and I say fine, but then I call you up every second day to go, Oh, where's that client's file up to?Oh, is that job up to? Do you remember where we saved that thing? And I'm on the phone calling you every second to try and find out what's going on. By documenting our process, it means that other people can step in and do some of those tasks, and the team can keep things moving while you're on leave, so when you come back, those things are done, and you can have a proper, restful holiday.So that might appeal to someone else, or, maybe it's, hey, there are going to be times when you're going to need time off for family. So, having process and the enable systems just means that people can step in and keep things moving. And that makes your job more secure and this business more secure.So again, a lot of it has to do with how you frame it and how you let them know this is going to benefit their situation. That'll dramatically increase the adoption of a systems culture. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So then, David, can you share specific communication strategies you've used to address this type of resistance?How do you ensure the message is understood and embraced by team members? David: Well, The first thing to do and it's a little bit counterintuitive, is you actually don't think about who's going to resist it up front. Think about who's going to support this initiative. So when you first introduce the topic and you say, Hey, we're going to look to build a systems culture and want to capture some different processes.Hey, I've got, this book or this podcast that I want to share with you, just that talks a little bit about what we're doing and then see who resonates with it, who listens to it, who gets it and say, Hey I'm looking for some people who want to help me drive this forward. Who sticks their hand up.And then start off by leaning into them. So that's kind of step number one. You start to empower them, you get the first set of systems down and then you start to celebrate system wins. when a team member does something, you go, Hey, we just documented this new process. Jenny did an awesome job over here.Hey, Sarah, we normally have this frustration when someone goes on leave, but Sarah documented this process. And then we had John step in and do the task. Hey, Sarah, you're awesome. And you shine a spotlight on that. Maybe you give out a monthly most valued player award to the person who really embraces this idea.that's the best place to start because then you start to go, Hey, we're going to celebrate and showcase, and this is what we want more of. So that's the first step. And then you start to watch out for the. resistant team members. Now, the best thing that you can do for them is firstly lead by example, and then by shining a light on the people that are, doing it.And then you want to give those team members every opportunity to jump on board because new things you have to figure it out. And some people are going to embrace change more than others. And you try and support them. And then you need to really think about every team member and their situation.And the real key is a lot of times team members, their default excuses. Yeah, but I didn't know how, or I didn't know that was expected of me. So one of the first things that you need to do is. To remove that. So by capturing a system and a process, you're then saying, Hey, well, we have a way of doing things.You want to make sure that's never more than one click away from when they actually are doing the task. So if it's, setting up something in the dental practice, we'll have a QR code that they scan on their phone. Maybe it's on the printer or something, and it jumps to the. System or the process after scanning that QR code, or maybe it's setting up the dental practice in the morning and here's the 10 point checklist that needs to be done.It's got to be so obvious. So front and center. So you can remove that. And then the conversation can start to change. Okay, you did know we've got a process. It's listed out here. My expectation is that you follow the process. I don't care if you've got it open or not, if you're doing it right, but since you don't yet know the process, you've got to have it open, but once you get it right, then fine.You don't have to have it open every single time, but at the start, this is my expectation. And that's kind of just the start of how you address it. You've got to remove excuses. Michael: so then what consequences do you implement for team members who continually resist systems? Even though you've, done these systems, you've,Remove the excuses or try to, have you found incentives to be effective in encouraging this type of adherence? David: you can, like I said, have something like the MVP where you might reward the system wins and shine a spotlight. You can even link it towards KPIs either the generation or the following of process.can do a few things like that. I think the reality is. A lot of business owners don't realize up front how important it is to have someone who follows process. And it's not something that they've, incorporated into their recruitment process. Once you get this moving forward, it actually gets a lot easier.Because you look for people who will adopt this way of doing things right from the get go. The challenge is always the existing staff who are used to doing things a certain way, who there may actually be some people in there who aren't processed people. you'll need to navigate through that.Am I saying that you might need to jump in and do a whole bunch of, layoffs? that's definitely the last resort. And I know in certain different industries, finding labors can be challenging, but the reality is a business is infinitely easier when you surround yourself as a business owner with systems driven people.And that goes double if the business owner, or maybe the. dental practitioner owner isn't a systems person. If you don't see yourself as a systems person, then you better make sure that you're surrounded by systems driven people. Because again, business just works better that way.So do have to navigate through it. I've not seen, incentives. work amazingly well, generally you want people to do it, who do this naturally and then naturally organized people and you giving everybody the chance to jump on board and then addressing the ones that don't, oftentimes you're the employer, like the person listening to this, you're paying, they're there to do a job and it's okay for you to have, A set of expectations around the way that you want things done.That's your right as a business owner. But just persist with it. Cause it's, challenging at the start, but you get over this hump and then business just gets so much easier. Michael: Yeah, I like that. Okay. So then you mentioned KPIs to like, do you track and measure whether team members are following the systems specifically as a leader?Like what role do you personally play in and ensuring systems are followed? David: there's a couple of different ways that you can do it depending on the task, depending on who it is. If you've got some sort of project management software in how tasks are signed out, you can look at how they complete the tasks many times they're checking certain things off.You can have a look at error rate depending on if certain tasks causing you some challenges because people aren't following process and it's causing errors. So you can track that error rate and you're looking for reduction in that by following the process. it comes down to this whole idea that, to improve something, you have to track it.So you just have to think about what is it that you want to improve? If you want to improve the fact that they're. Opening the process or successfully completing it. Maybe there's some final step that they have to complete, which confirms that they have reviewed and followed the checklist.And then you're monitoring how often they're doing that, or are they doing that? depend on the situation and the task. Michael: Gotcha, gotcha. I like that. that in mind, like at the end of the day, make sure you're,you let me know, or you send me an email or you do this checklist.And then office manager at the end of the week, we'll look at how many people did this. How do you balance being hands on with empowering your team to take ownership of these systems versus it's seeming like, man, he's just micromanaging everything. David: Yes. Yeah. The main thing there is depending on what the work is, you've got to Systemize all of the things that need to happen in business.There are certain things that kind of just need to happen a certain way. patients will need to be checked in a certain way or they have to fill out certain forms, maybe The practice or the studio needs to be set up a particular way, try and systemize all of the mundane pieces or parts of business that just need to be done a certain way.And sometimes leaving out the creative part or doing those types of systems a little bit more high level, You, you've got to think about who's doing the task and documenting to the level that's required for that person. If they're a skilled operator, you don't need to tell them well, here's exactly how you log into MYOB.Here's the exact buttons that you need to check. it can feel, like you're micromanaging at that level. It's art and science, to try and find the right balance for this. look at something like McDonald's, And McDonald's has systemized every possible aspect down to the minute detail, but they're also running a hamburger business that is taking very unskilled operators, flipping hamburgers.So they've got to go down to that level and it can really feel. Like micromanagement, whereas a lot of people are going to be running, a successful business with high quality team members, and you've mightnot need to get down to that level. A quote that Reed Hastings said from Netflix and he said, when we started systemizing, we wanted to systemize every possible aspect of the business. We wanted to make sure our business was dummy proof. The only thing was once we got it to that level, only dummies wanted to work there. Because they'd gone too far on the systemization spectrum.So again, lot of this has be with, thinking about the situation, the individuals and what they need to do a great job. If it feels like micromanagement chunk up a level, have a higher quality or higher level checklist that has, key milestone levels instead of these super micro details.Michael: Nice. Awesome, David. I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find them on the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group or where can they reach out to you directly? David: Yeah, best to just go to systemology. com and there's some links through to, all of the ways to contact us or follow us on social media.Michael: Awesome. So that's going to be in the show notes below. And David, thank you so much for being with me on this Monday morning episode. David: Pleasure. Thank you.‍

Is sobriety an all-or-nothing proposition in dentistry? In today's Monday Morning Episode, we've brought on Laura Nelson to uncover the nuanced conversation around alcohol use in the dental industry. Laura challenges the common perception that only those classified as "alcoholics" need to consider sobriety. Through personal insights, she stresses the importance of making conscious, sober decisions and explains how even social drinking can impact professional performance and practice culture. Dive deep into the pressures dentists face that often push them towards alcohol, and learn why open conversations about this topic need to happen more frequently and with less stigma.As the discussion unfolds, Laura passionately advocates for a supportive work environment, highlighting how unaddressed stress can erode a team's ability to thrive. She sheds light on the critical role leadership plays in maintaining mental well-being by demonstrating vulnerability. By setting the stage for honest, stigma-free dialogues, leaders can foster a space that encourages healthier lifestyle choices. The episode wraps up with actionable insights, including how individuals can connect with Laura and her community at Sober Life Rocks, to access peer support and resources for alcohol-related challenges.What You'll Learn in This Episode:Understanding the spectrum of alcohol use beyond alcoholism.The impact of alcohol use on dental practice culture and performance.How to cultivate a supportive environment for discussing mental health.The role of leadership vulnerability in promoting workplace well-being.Strategies for addressing stress and burnout in the dental industry.Ways to engage with communities focused on sober living.Tune in to uncover empowering perspectives that can redefine your approach to sobriety and well-being in dentistry!‍‍Sponsors:‍CareStack: Modern, Secure, Cloud-Based Dental Software for Growing Your Practice! With state-of-the-art features including Online Appointments, Integrated Payments, Text Reminders and more. Click the link here for a special offer: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/carestack/‍You can reach out to Laura Nelson here:Website: https://soberliferocks.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soberliferocksprofessionalsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/soberliferocksdental/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@soberliferocks‍Mentions and Links: ‍People:Dr. Brett Kessler‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey, Laura. So talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning. Laura: You don't have to be an alcoholic to stop drinking. Michael: Interesting. Can you expand a little bit more on that? Laura: Yes, for sure. I was one who was the typical casual drinker through my life, conferences, events, mommy wine culture, growing up, the whole thing.And couldn't see life without alcohol because I thought to stop drinking, first of all, I wouldn't have fun. Second of all, I had to hit rock bottom. Like I would, didn't consider myself an alcoholic. And I think there's a lot of people who are in that same space that I was in. But I wasn't educated in this area, and so it's important for me to talk about this because I want to make a difference in dental because there's a lot of people who choose not to drink, who feel the pressure to drink alcohol, and don't realize that you can choose not to drink, and it's okay.We can normalize sober choices in our industry. So. Alcoholism is not a yes or no. it's a spectrum. And if we understand wherever you are on the spectrum, it's your decision, what you want to do with your life and it's everybody else's decision. And we need to stop peer pressuring each other into the need to drink alcohol.Michael: Interesting. So on the spectrum here, where do you kind of see most in the industry as far as when it comes to like events and things like that? Laura: Sure. Yeah. So, Alcohol use disorder, if you've ever drank for the wrong reason, drank too much, or woke up in the morning and regretted drinking, you are on the spectrum, because alcohol is an addictive substance and it doesn't usually serve us well.long term, right? So if you ever regretted drinking at any point or drink for the wrong reason, you're on the spectrum. Now, where is everybody in our industry all over? But the thing about alcohol is it is the number one self prescribed way to celebrate or numb feelings or emotions.And it is the most standardized use of drugs that we use our life. we celebrate with wine, we go out for champagne, we have beer tours, we go on wine tours, we go to conferences, it's all about alcohol. So it's so prevalent in our life that when somebody is questioning their use their,relationship with alcohol, or they're at events and they feel the pressure to drink, that's where it goes too far in the spectrum where we're really pushing in on each other.So, In our industry specifically we have an issue in the sense that we have lots of people who are licensed professionals who worry about their license who Have a lot of stress in their lives running practices and alcohol is where we tend to lean When we're dealing with the hard stuff and so, you know, I would say for that regard.There's probably a few who are secretly having the discussion in their head, based off of what they have in their life Michael: What psychological barriers do you think prevent? Practice owners or dentists from admitting to or seeking help alcohol use as a coping mechanism And how can leaders effectively dismantle those barriers?Laura: Yeah So the number one reason isas a society for a long time, it's been something that you hide if you have concerns about your relationship with an addictive substance, with alcohol specifically, in the past, there was a stigma around if you were in recoveryit was real, but it's not like that anymore, Overcoming an addiction, especially with alcohol, it is a personal battle that many people do privately, and we're already shaming ourselves enough when you are like, I don't understand why other people can drink and don't have a problem, but I do, and it's already something you're beating yourself up about.And then as a society and in our industry and with people in our circle. there's the shame of like, what are people going to think about me? What are people going to question? and so it's just, prevalent and everywhere. it's such a personal decision and conversation and a lot has to do with the shame around it and the fear.Michael: Okay. So then when it comes to that, especially when it comes to the burnout and stress and your experience, how does unaddressed stress and burnout. Silently erode the culture and performance of a practice over time. Laura: Oh, the fact that we can and we do go to other ways to forget about or numb the bad stuff Doesn't have us deal with the actual issue at hand. So stress depression suicidal thoughts Yeah. you know, All of the things that we deal with as humans, because at the end of the day, whether you're a dentist, a hygienist or a receptionist, you're human. And if we are using a substance to numb the pain, what ultimately happens is we're not dealing with the true issue and we're not dealing with the real emotion.And because we're numbing the pain with a substance that is addictive. Everybody will get addicted to alcohol at one point or another. When do you get addicted? Depends on so many variables. But when we know that we're leaning in to using the alcohol for the wrong reason and not actually dealing with the true stuff going on, that's when it becomes a problem.Michael: What would be using alcohol for the right reason then? Laura: well, To be honest I could sit on a soapbox now and tell you how alcohol is not good for us, but there are people who are in their head right now, they're like, Oh gosh Laura's, reading my mind, right?Having a glass of champagne to celebrate a wedding, you know, having a one glass of wine with a friend, once in a while, alcohol is it's been in our society forever. It's not going away. But if you start with one and now you're, instead of one glass of wine, you're a bottle of wine.Instead of one glass of champagne, you did drinks before you went to the wedding and at the wedding, and then you're post drinking, like there's lots of, we all have stories, right? But research shows the first 20 minutes of alcohol is fun. The first 20 minutes of alcohol, you have the endorphins, you have the dopamine.It's great. But then your body suffers for the next two to three hours. if you're drinking for the 20 minutes and you recognize the next two to three hours and your body is recovering from every glass of alcohol that you have, right? So I could talk about where alcohol is not actually serving you.But if you're using it to numb the pain, if you're using it to get away from true emotions, then that's where I would question why you're drinking the alcohol. Michael: Yeah. Cause I've always understood it in the sense of nutrition, right? Protein is, one gram is four carbs. One gram is four fats.One gram is nine calories, right? But alcohol, one gram is seven and our body doesn't utilize it, right? It doesn't need it for any building blocks or anything like that. So we're just literally poisoning our body, uh, to the sense of that But now we're talking about the psychological part and mental health part, which is increasingly important.Laura: Now, when it comes to this, What are the long term psychological and cultural implications, maybe in a practice that ignores mental health issues, particularly around burnout and depression? Alcohol use. not to get extreme, but we know suicide is a significant issue in our industry.Depression is a significant issue in our industry. And alcohol is usually tied to, a lot of the problems that people have. And soWhen you're suffering, people have a glass of wine when you're upset, let's have a drink.Let's meet over the bar and talk about it and have a drink. And so it's just that it's used so much, and that it's pushed so much. It's just our societal norm to lean into alcohol. I mean, I went to the doctor recently and he's like, how much are you drinking before I stopped? And, I told him what I was drinking.He's like, that's normal. That's not normal. Like we shouldn't normalize that alcohol is our friend. And so when it comes to the stress in the practice, the realities of what's going on, we need to recognize that that is an issue in itself, working on the depression, the stress, the financial issues, your relationships, your whatever it is.if you're band aiding it with alcohol, using that as the crutch to get through life, that is the problem, and the longer you do that, the higher chance you have of bigger problems in the long run. Michael: Interesting. So then how do you ensure. That discussions about alcohol use in the workplace go beyond surface level awareness and truly shift the mindset and behaviors of your team and leaders.Laura: Yep. My bandwagon, my thing I talk about is alcohol others. It's, suicidal thoughts. It's depression. It's divorce. It's financial problems. Like we all have life things. We all have our own dark places, whatever it is. What we need to build and can build is an environment where people can just be okay with what they have.we know our own secrets. We know what's going on in our head. We know the things that have happened in our life, the things we've done. And we always compare the worstof us to the best of other people. Right. The Instagram side of what other people are.If we could actually just build an environment, build a team where people can just have the space to be okay, to communicate their issue, to be allowed to feel, we are humans, you know, no matter who's on your team, we all have real things going on. And if you can build a space that it's okay to Be transparent, be vulnerable and allow somebody to be able to talk about their thing, whatever it is.And so like for me with alcohol, my whole goal in this conversation is just to get people talking. Because if we can't get people talking, we're not going to help people. And so normalizing the okayness to talk about whatever your issue is. Find people who have dealt with what you're dealing with and lean into that because The more we can fill the gap between people who need help and the people who can give help By getting rid of that gap of shame and fear and allowing people to just be vulnerable and be real will change lives and change your practice Michael: Yeah, I agree getting people to talk about it is huge, then I feel like there's that fact of like vulnerability, especially if you're a leader.So I guess, in addressing alcohol use and burnout, do you balance vulnerability and leadership strength, especially when,you may be struggling with similar issues Laura: as a leader. Your team is going to follow you if you set examples, right? So being vulnerable is a completely agreat leadership skill to be able to say, I don't know.Now, I'm not saying that as a doctor, you need to tell everything going on in your private life and in your brain and all of the stress that you have, but To be vulnerable with your team to say, you know, I have some mental health issues. I have some personal concerns I'm dealing with. I have some things and be real with your team.They're going to respect you follow you that much more than trying to fake. that you have it all together because nobody has it all together. And then going and getting the help that you need. Like again, when you can lean into getting help, you can see how it improves in your life as a doctor and as a leaderand then be able to offer that to your team, talk about turnover that we have if your team knows that you really trust and believe in them and you're vulnerable and you're real and you care about them, they're not going anywhere, They're going to be on your team forever.So just be real. It's all we really want. Michael: Yeah. And so that shows strength. Okay. Gotcha. So then, in your work, Laura, how have you seen unresolved personal struggles with alcohol among dentists affect their ability to deliver patient care and are there any interventions or what interventions have proven most effective in these situations?Laura: Yeah, the reality is when I started this journey of sharing my storymy story is a little bit easier than a dentist and a hygienist, cause I'm not licensed. So I can stand on the mountaintops and say, I'm happy to be sober. And this is why I chose it for my life. but for a dentist, there's a real reality of, your team.Your license your patients. And so, the reality is there's a lot of licensed professionals in our industry struggling, struggling with mental health issues, struggling with addiction issues, and they're not getting the help they need. I actually have a hygienist that I'm affiliated with. she was more worried about losing her hygiene license than she was about getting a DUI when she was actively drinking because.That's her livelihood. Many team members are dentists. We know that they're suffering and that's our livelihood. If our dentist has to go to recovery or rehabilitation or, take time out of the practice, what about our jobs? Right. And so it's the reality of what's going on. Luckily I've become really good friends with the incoming ADA president, Brett Kessler, Dr.Kessler, who that is what he wants to change for our industry isto allow and have support for. Licensed professionals. They're bringing in a third party company where you can actually call and get help. You can have real conversations because our jobs are our jobs, but our life is way more important, right?So I'm hoping that the worst cases that I know and the things I've seen, we can make a difference by just starting the conversation. Michael: Awesome. Laura, thank you so much for your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find her on the dental marketer Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?Laura: Sober life rocks that is our new Community and group sober life rocks find me on all the social channels or just come to our website sober life rocks Michael: Awesome. So that's going to be in the show notes below and laura Thank you so much for being with me on this monday morning episode.Laura: Thank you

Are traditional retirement plans holding you back? In this eye-opening episode, I dive into a conversation with Kyle Christensen, where he disrupts conventional financial strategies queued up for dentists. Rather than funneling earnings into several miscellaneous traditional retirement savings like 401ks and IRAs, Kyle introduces the novel concept of "fake assets" that might not serve you as you imagined. He advises dentists to channel their investments into their sphere of expertise—into themselves and their practice—in order to craft paths towards abundant wealth genuinely.Kyle breaks apart the paradigm of diversification and advocates for other arenas like real estate, intellectual property, and personal development ventures such as coaching. Discover the lengths to which specialization can forge wealth without waiting decades!What You'll Learn in This Episode:Why 401ks and IRAs might be considered "fake assets" for dentists.The importance of investing in one's expertise and practice for optimal wealth creation.Strategies for maintaining high liquidity to seize strategic opportunities.Understanding the value in real estate, IP investment, and self-improvement coaching.Kyle's take on why diversification strategies might be outdated.How specialization, rather than diversification, leads to increased wealth.Ready to reshape your financial future and mastering the art of specialization? Dive into this episode now!‍‍Sponsors:Studio 8E8: Dentistry's story-driven marketing agency. Traditional marketing repels. Story-first dental marketing attracts.We bring your story to life in a way that captivates and connects: https://s8e8.com/affiliates/tdm?utm_source=tdm&utm_medium=affiliate&wc_clear=true‍You can reach out to Kyle Christensen here:Website: https://uniqueadvantage.biz/Kyle's Book "Principals Based Planning": https://a.co/d/8576RD3Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unique_advantage/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558072766116LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uniqueadvantage-planning/‍Mentions and Links: ‍Terms:Fica Taxes‍People:Bill GatesElon Musk‍Books:FAKE: Fake Money, Fake Teachers, Fake Assets: How Lies Are Making the Poor and Middle Class PoorerThe Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie and the Gospel of Wealth‍Videos:Why diversification is for suckers: Warren Buffet and Mark Cuban‍Businesses/Brands:MicrosoftAppleBerkshire HathawayWalmart‍Places:Wall Street‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey, Kyle. So talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Kyle: My advice is to don't gamble with your financial future. And there's a reason I'm saying that. Michael: What's the reason behind it? Kyle: I think most of your listeners are probably being pressured, by the conventional wisdom out there to start quote, saving for retirement.And basically the way I look at that is they're divesting money from their control and their use and their expertise, and they're putting it in things that they have no control, expertise or use. And that's generally encouraged by the financial planning industry. Okay. Michael: So would you say, Don't start putting funds into that. Kyle: I know. Sounds crazy. Doesn't it? Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. The financial institutions that are promoting the philosophy of retirement and retirement planning, they only have one objective, and it's actually a huge conflict of interest.Their objective is to get asset center management. Their objective is to get your audience to send them money on a regular and ongoing basis and not touch it for decades and not receive any income for decades from those supposed assets, Robert Kiyosaki in his most recent book called fakecalls 401ks and IRAs mutual funds.He calls them fake assets. And the reason is he says a real asset is something that puts money in your pocket. And a liability is something that takes money out of your pocket for years. And that's why he calls those kinds of things, fake assets. Michael: So then from your expertise, where should we be putting our money then?Kyle: They should be putting it in what they're experts in. I've been to plenty of dental industry events, conferences. throughout the country. And I can tell you by looking at all the exhibitors of these events, there's plenty of opportunity for, dentists to invest in themselves and to grow and to expand.They're being convinced, however, to, move their money and invest in things that are not in their expertise, which I just finished reading Andrew Carnegie'sautobiography earlier this year. And in his book, he talks about that exactly. He says, I've never seen a man be embarrassed by investing in anything other than things outside of his expertise.his recommendation, which he's the richest American thatthat's ever lived. You know, we think, Bill Gates is super rich and Elon and they are, but comparatively Andrew Carnegie would be worth 300 billion in today's dollars. So he knows what he's talking about.And I think there's some wisdom in what he's saying. He's saying that, look, you should be investing in thethings you can control, and influence. Michael: Interesting. So then what are some strategic investments specifically for dentists that they should be investing in?Kyle: Yeah. So number one, I would say, don't be afraid of having cash. Don't be afraid of accumulating cash because cash means opportunity, think everybody's heard the phrase cash is King and there's truth to that. The people who have cash have opportunity. I'm sure most of your audience has dealt with loans, practice loans, or equipment loans, or things like that, right?What if you could get to a point in time when, you're only using loans strategically. You're not using them because you have to, but you're using them strategically. Maybe when the interest rates are really great and you're making more interest in where your cash is at, right?So at that point in time, it might make a lot more sense to just maintain the cash, take the loan, right? But in most people's cases, they're taking loans because they don't have the cash. So I would say, don't be afraid to build and maintain high levels of cash because cash equals opportunity. I'm thinking about one of my dental clients that's in Oklahoma.I started working with him whenhe bought into his first practice and he was making about 250, 000 a year. so that was in about 2014 when I started working with him this year.in fact, a conversation that I had with him last week, he's buying in three more practices.So he'll have a total of six practices. He has over 10 doctors working for him, his annual income just from what he does managing the practices, he makes over 2 million per year. That's where people should be investing right in their own ideas, in their own business, in their own property. Investment, for a dentist could be, investing in coaching.That's a great investment. In fact, this particular client, that was one of the first big investments that they did is they invested into coaching for their practice. And the amount of increase in efficiency in their practice went through the roof. So those are the kinds of investments that I think that your audience should be considering and, should weigh heavier than things that they have no expertise in.Michael: Yeah. Interesting. was that revenue profit or cash? Kyle: That was net profit per year for him. Michael: Oh, interesting. I like that, man. So then how would you plan for long term, I guess, like financial security and wealth building Kyle: So one of the things that you can do is you can start to invest into real estate, right?For example, maybe the property that your practice is in, that's an opportunity, right? And that's actually a way to, change the character of your income. Let's say that you're paying 20, 000 a month in lease, for your office lease if you were to own the building And now you're practice is paying that to you that twenty thousand bucks a year.You're Recharacterizing two hundred and forty thousand dollars a year now. It's not going to be subject to fikaSo you're saving fifteen point three percent of that money in taxes And now you're going to pay ordinary income tax, which you would have anyway, but you save a huge chunk of money over time if you sell that practice in the future, you could still Keep the building, it's a cash flowing asset to you.You can look at investing in other, what I would call real assets. Real assets are basically things that financial institutions can't sell you. So real assets might be owning a franchise. It might be owning, other real estate property, intellectual property. I think about the inventions that have taken place in the dental industry in just the last 10 years.And it's incredible. If you've been to the dentist regularly, you've seen it, the way they take x rays, the way they do imaging, everything. It's amazing how much technology, how much improvement has been made. What's the genesis of most of that improvement? Is it somebody who's not in the dental world or is it somebody that's in the dental world that came up with those things?And I would say it's mostly things that were brought up or invented Or at least thought of by people in the dental industry. Your audience might be, as they go along, be coming up with ideas that are multi million dollar cash flowing ideas.And what I'm saying is, that's the sort of thing they should be investing in. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So then how do you balance reinvesting in the business with diversifying your portfolio for long term wealth here? Kyle: So diversification, just submit is a marketing idea. Really? Michael: Okay. Yes. Kyle: in fact, I would encourage everybody to look up what Warren Buffett says and Mark Cuban says about diversification on YouTube.Diversification is an excuse for lack of knowledge. So specialization is what creates well, it's having an inch wide. Knowledge, but it's a mile deep, versus the Jack of all trades that has a mile wide basis of knowledge. And it's only an inch deep the whole way.People get paid for what they know. this idea of diversification, it's wall street. Wall Street is encouraging diversification because an excuse for their inability to pick winners and losers, which all the research actually says that they cannot do. And so we pay all these mutual fund managers and these money managers a lot of money right, every year, so that they can pick winners and losers, and yet all the research says that they can't, and what do they tell us we have to do?Diversify. We have to diversify. We have to asset allocate, We have to change that so that if something goes down, which is out of our control, which is a key point, I think then not all of our money will go down. So my question is. Should Bill Gates have diversified out of Microsoft should Steve Jobs have diversified out of Apple should Warren Buffett diversify outside of Berkshire Hathaway, I would say no, I think that those guys know exactly what they're doing.And they're investing in the things that they know that they're experts in. Michael: Interesting. Okay. So then if we do have a portfolio and our consultants are, are, you know, financial advisors are telling us like, yeah, you need to diversify. We did it already.How can we start scaling back? Or do we just take everything out of our mutual fund 401k RAs and stuff like that? Or, Or what are your thoughts? Kyle: Here's my question. How much controller influence do you have over how that performs?Michael: None. Like If I bought Walmart stock, how much influence do I have over that? buy something at Walmart, but nothing happens. Kyle: But it's not going to move the needle, right? It's not going to change the stock price, right? So I have no influence over that. So in reality, if you look up the definition of the word invest or the word gamble, What is that more like, Is it really investing or is it really gambling? I think that's the first thing we need to do. Let's call it what it is. And some people like to gamble and that's fine. for some people it's exciting. It's a fun game, but I don't think that people want to rely, put their entire financial future on gambling, right?But they're being told that that's what they should do. So what should you do if you already have, most of your investment in that kind of situation? Well, number one, does it make it better to put good money after bad? in the business world, don't put good money after bad, right?So if we're already doing something and we realize maybe this isn't the direction I want to go, then don't keep putting money in that direction. Does that make sense? So that's the first thing I would stop contributing If you realize that, hey, you know what? I really do have more confidence in what I'm doing than I do in putting it into something I have no clue and I have no control, no influence over the outcome, right?I'm actually penalized if I touch my money, Here's the other thing. Don't let the tax tail wag the dog. So what I mean by that is, taxes, yes, are an important factor to keep in mind, But they shouldn't be the sole deciding factor, if my entire goal is to avoid taxes, you know what the easiest way for me to avoid taxes is?Don't make money. And I don't know of anybody who has that as a goal. That's not a goal for anybody. It's not a good goal. I don't think to not make money. So avoidance of taxes isn't really the goal. Financial freedom is your goal. It should be your goal. And I think that's what most people have in mind when they think about retirement, even though that's not what the word retirement means.I think that they think about financial freedom, you know, I want to be able to do what I want to do when I want to do it. Well, The problem with retirement accounts is that they don't provide you with any. income. They don't provide you with any velocity. That's the principle. It's called velocity of money.So you put money into a retirement account and you can't touch it for a long time. Michael, you seem like you're in your thirties, maybe. Are you in your thirties? So if you're in your thirties, when can you touch that money without paying a penalty? 30 more years. Yeah, it's 30 more years. And who benefits from that?Is it you or is it the financial institutions? Michael: I don't know if I'll be here in 30 more years, even like so. Kyle: that's true. It's absolutely true. There's no guarantee that you'll live that long. Here's the thing. Those products, those accounts are not designed for financial freedom. They're designed for retirement, which is an age.Retirement doesn't mean capability. And so here's the question. Would you rather pay the tax? And maybe even the penalty. Right now we're at, the market's still at, near it's all time high. It might make sense actually, to cash out. And pay the tax and the penalty. Which seems totally crazy. I'm the only financial planner that you'll ever hear that suggests that that might be a good idea.And here's why. Because I believe in you. I believe in you more than I do Wall Street. They have a conflict of interest actually. Their conflict of interest is this. If you take out your money, they make less. That's the reality. that's an actual financial conflict of interest. So when do they want you to take your money out?Never. Michael: Yeah. Kyle: Yeah. It's never. that's the game. They're just pushing it down the road for 30 years. And if you've put money into the retirement accounts, you've agreed to that condition that you won't touch your money for 30 years. Which only benefits them. It doesn't benefit you in any way, but they're trying to convince you that that's true And then when you get to 30 years from now because we just said what's their conflict of interest?They don't ever want you to touch your money. They get financially injured if you take the money out when you hit 30 years from now, do you think they're going to still want you to take your money out at that point? Nope. They're going to give you every reason why you shouldn't because you might outlive it.It's not enough. it didn't grow as much as we thought it would and so on. I would rather you have half of that money in your full control and your full use. Michael: Love it, man. Awesome. I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find them on the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?Kyle: You can go to my website, uniqueadvantage. biz. And the last letters are B I Z, Boy Island Zoo. Our email addresses are on there. You can, reach out. I'd love to answer any question.Michael: couple other ways you can find out more, right? You can go to amazon. com and you can buy my book, principles based planning, a better approach to financial planning. The other ways you can find us we're on Instagram.Kyle: Facebook and LinkedIn. So we'd love to have you follow connect. We'd love to see on there. Michael: Awesome. Yeah. So that's going to be in the show notes below Kyle's book. I saw social media handles. Please reach out to him if you have any questions and Kyle, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning episode.Thank you.

Trying to decide whether to purchase a practice or a home first? In this jam-packed episode, I sit down with Morgan Stump to unravel this complex decision-making process. With 15 years of diligent industry experience, Morgan delves into a point-by-point comparison of these life-altering choices, examining the ramifications for your long-term financial health, risk profile, and adaptation to shifting market conditions. Whether you're a first-time buyer or reconsidering your next investment step, this episode is brimming with expert advice tailored just for you!Morgan doesn't stop there. To help doctors looking to relocate, he dishes out practical tips to ease into new markets while understanding the challenges posed by mortgage lenders. He explores why top-notch financial health and liquidity remain crucial, sheds light on economic telltale signs, and navigates the turbulence of market fluctuations. Wrap up your listening with direct access insights from Morgan—offering personalized advice just when you need it most.What You'll Learn in This Episode:Detailed comparison between buying a practice and a home.Key factors in assessment: financial health, risk, market conditions.Practical tips for medical professionals relocating.Tackling mortgage lender challenges.How to maintain strong financial health amid economic uncertainty.Interpreting economic indicators for informed decision-making.Take a deeper dive into financially transformative decisions and smart relocation strategies by tuning in to Morgan's episode today!‍‍Sponsors:‍CareStack: Modern, Secure, Cloud-Based Dental Software for Growing Your Practice! With state-of-the-art features including Online Appointments, Integrated Payments, Text Reminders and more. Click the link here for a special offer: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/carestack/‍You can reach out to Morgan Stump here:Website: https://www.getprovide.com/Phone: 503-686-3284Email: morgan@getprovide.com‍Mentions and Links: ‍Terms:Escrow‍Communities:Dentaltown‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey Morgan. So talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Morgan: Sure. Thanks for having me, Michael. I really appreciate it. So the one piece of advice is surrounding a question that has been brought up over and over again during my 15 plus years in the industry.And that question is, should I buy practice or should I buy a home first? So what do you think about that? Michael: Interesting, man. I think a lot has to go into that like, the financial health of the person, risk assessment. Economic market considerations, right? All these things. But what are your thoughts?because we see this a lot on the forums, Facebook groups, even downtown, right? They want to do one or the other. Morgan: Well, I see this specifically come up a lot when a doctor is looking to relocate to buy a practice. And, the housing market, the rental market is really crazy.And a lot of folks that are especially going to be larger earners, a lot of folks that might already have a family or be married, they don't want to put off buying a home for two years, Pretty much every bank, every mortgage bank has required that you own a practice for two years before they're going to lend to you to buy a home.The really cool thing is that some banks have adapted to that. And that includes us. In a practice scenario, we're able to actually use the target practices historical cash flow to qualify the new buyer for a home. So as soon as you close on the practice, you can close on the home simultaneously.There still are a few mortgage lenders don't go that route. And so to speak to your larger audience. while it might be a little bit painful to think about renting for a couple of years and then moving again, one of these assets is going to earn your household money.The other is going to be your largest debt. So if it comes down to one or the other, I would always go with buying the practice first. Usually when you're buying a practice, you're buying it for a reason. The demographics fit the procedures that are being done in that practice fit.You might have a good relationship with the seller. And I would argue even in times like this, where, the housing inventory might be a little bit light, I would say the practice acquisition and target practice. Inventory is even lighter. Particularly if you're looking for the right fit, we see doctors have all sorts of, different risk tolerances, where some folks just say, Hey, do you know what?I'm going to buy this practice. I'm going to invest in myself. I see that the seller is somewhat declining. Maybe they're referring out a ton of procedures, that the buyer is going to be able to capture. So now they're not referring out that business, and they're keeping that revenue in house. But I would say eight out of 10 times, nine out of 10 times a buyer is buying that practice because it's a really good fit for them.And that is not an easy thing to find. So I would typically default to buying the practice before you buy the home. Now just to kind of, Back up a little bit. The reason why it is so difficult for mortgage lenders to wrap their head around financing a new buyer is mortgage holders and mortgage banks are much more comfortable underwriting to W 2 or 1099 income.So if you absolutely need to buy that home first, And the bank that you're working with, the practice finance group that you're working with does not offer the option of closing them simultaneously, then your best bet is to qualify for that home as a W 2 or 1099 associate. That's going to allow you to get into the house.And then once you're in that house and it closes, you are free to go, because you've already bought the home. As long as you're making payments on time, there's not going to be any issues with your mortgage. So that's my advice there, but I am very encouraged that banks are starting to adapt and recognizing the difficult situation that this puts doctors in.So this is a topic that has gotten easier to answer over time. Michael: Nice. Okay. So then what would. Those conditions look like where you tell them like, yeah, can see why you do that. Morgan: where they want to buy the home before the practice?Michael: Yeah. Morgan: So in that scenario, they're already making income as an associate in the area that they want to practice. That is really key because if you are trying to buy a practice and you know, okay, we've got 90 days to close. But it's out of state or more than a couple of hours away from where you currently live, then the mortgage bank is going to be collecting bank statements.They're going to be collecting paycheck stubs. And if you're trying to buy a house in another state, but you're showing bank stubs, and paycheck stubs that are out of state or hours away, it's going to raise some red flags saying, Hey, why are you living? Here, meanwhile, you're working hours away or in another state.So you really got to be aware of that because you don't want to put yourself in a really bad position of getting far down the road in the mortgage process, the home buying process, and all of a sudden you get qualified and these questions start coming up, which could really blow up escrow, really, Kind of turn things a little bit sour.So that would be my one big piece of advice to look out for if you are trying to buy a home before the practice, utilizing your W 2 or 1099 income from a job that you know you are going to have to leave. So out of state or multiple hours away, You're not going to have too many options unless you secure some sort of associate position closer to the home that you're buying So be very aware of that And if you are going out of state and the practice finance group that you're working with doesn't have this Mortgage option for youunless you've got a spouse that also makes money might be able to qualify for loan on their own Then you're probably looking at a situation where you are going to have to rent for a couple of years before you buy that house Michael: So when it comes to the mistake here, your eyes, it's like, Hey, you should have gotten the practice first. Right.assuming they're not an associate there. Is it more an emotional decision?Morgan: It's absolutely an emotional decision, especially people with families. You know, If you're married, you've got kids, you want a stable home, and you've also got a partner that's probably pushing for you to buy a home. The flip side of this is, when you're qualifying for a practice, the liquidity level, so the cash in the savings account, cash in checking, stock market, life value life insurance.All of those are considered liquidity. And that is a very important metric when you're buying a practice, most lenders want to see that you've got at least seven, sometimes 10%. If you're buying a big practice. They're wanting to see that you've got 7 to 10 percent on hand that you can show as verifiable liquidity when you're qualifying for that practice.So the banks aren't typically going to take that money, I want to point that out. They just want to verify that you've got it. That makes the bank feel warm and fuzzy, that you've got some reserves sitting there, that you've been reasonable, saving your money with your eye on the prize of buying the practice.So Usually buying a home, there's some good docker loans out there that have very minimal money down, but oftentimes you have to put 10, 15, or even 20 percent down to secure the lowest interest rates. So that's another thing to consider because if you're trying to buy a practice, but then you want to buy the home beforehand, let's say you're looking to buy a million dollar practice.That's a pretty standard average number. In that scenario, most banks are going to want to see that you've got about 70, 000 liquid. So using this example, if you're buying a home that is. 500, 000 and you're trying to put 20 percent down to secure the lowest interest rate in the best terms for yourself, then that 500, 000 home is going to cost you 100, 000 of your liquidity.So you really want to avoid a situation where you're buying a home, you put money down, which completely drains your liquidity position because that is going to then put in danger your ability to buy a practice until you build that back up to about the 7 percent range of the practice that you're looking to acquire.Michael: Okay, so when it comes to that liquidity and financial health, what advice do you give? about maintaining financial health and liquidity when taking on significant investments like a home or a practice and how can they avoid overextending themselves? Morgan: That's a great question. And to be honest, the answer is pretty nonsensical.I grew up on a farm in Oregon, right? Pretty conservative, from a fiscal standpoint where I was raised to not carry debt. That was just, How it was, you pay your bills on time, you don't accrue debt. And we're seeing the average dentist and doctor come out with 400, 500, 000 of student loans, sometimes six, 700, 000 for specialists.So a lot of people have that mindset of I've got to pay this down, that's how they were raised. That's the mindset that they have. If you're looking to buy a practice. Well, and a home, I guess you're looking to buy a practice, soon after graduation, maybe you're going to associate for six months, a year, two years.You've got to put yourself on that income based repayment program. I know it's painful. sometimes you're going to watch the balances rise during that short period, but it's a means to an end because you need to start stacking your liquidity, stacking cash. To get to that 7 percent mark. So let's say you come out of school, you've got 400, 000 of student loan debt.It's stressing me out, but you do know that, Hey, I've got my eye on the price here. I know that making 150, 000 as an associate is not going to, pay down that debt quick. It's going to accomplish my goals of, saving liquidity to be able to buy a practice. Because if you buy that million dollar practice, now you're looking at income levels, likely of 300, 000 plus.So the way I talk to my doctors is, put that out of your head, right? When you get out of school that, Hey, that loan balance on the student loan might be growing a little bit, but this is a path to being able to get out of debt sooner because I'm going to put in a position to be earning more money.Then I'll go pay down those debts as I'm bringing in more income for me and my family. So that'll help you accomplish not only the goal of buying a practice quickly, But also buying a home because liquidity is the name of the game for both of those products. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. I like that. So given like the fluctuations in real estate and business markets, how should practice owners weigh the timing of these purchases? Are there economic indicators that should heavily influence their decision? Morgan: I try to stay away from looking into that crystal ball because this is such a unique time, with so many homeowners holding on to their houses because they're, in a 30 year fixed rate at 2.675. That's what I got in at back in 2018. If I was to try to sell my home and buy a similar house at today's rates. I've been taking on an extra 1, 500 to 1, 800 a month in monthly payments, So my advice to doctors is look at their current situation, prioritize what is the most important thing for you and your family.Is it buying a home? Is it buying a practice? Do I need to relocate? I also try to tell my doctors to go back and look at history. I'm kind of a nerd when it comes economic history. So if you look at the prime interest rates in 1980, 1981, they were upwards of 20%. So I think that a lot of us got very spoiled, coming off of 2008, 2009.Coming off of the pandemic, lenders and the Fed were basically giving money away. The cost of funds for banks were down near zero. So you were seeing people secure these mortgages at two and a half, three percent, three and a half percent, which historically is just. Not relevant, nor is it sustainable.So if you're able to get in right now, The fed just came out and said, Hey, the indicators are that inflation has slowed. He's indicated that we are going to be lowering rates. The prime interest rate, maybe multiple times this year and into next year.So if you do have a little bit of time to wait, I am a believer that interest rates will be coming down a little bit, but at the same time, if you're able to get a 30 year fixed interest rate, or maybe you're confident that rates are going to go down in the future. You could get a 30 year amortization that keeps your payment low, but only lock that rate for five years.So you would have to refinance before five years. But there's usually as much as almost a full percent discount to that interest rate, if you're willing to take that shoulder money. So right now you can likely get into a home for five, five and a half percent interest on one of those adjustable rate mortgages, which historically is incredibly low.So I tell people to not get too wrappedup in the past or the future because all you can do is live for right now and what you and your family need to do over the next year or two. And quite frankly, in this crazy world, nobody really knows what's going to happen. There's so many, global factors involved.There's elections involved. There's all kinds of things that you can't control. So you need to focus on what you can control. And that is Hey, I found this house that I like, the mortgage rate is this, that equals this payment. Am I able to afford that? That should be the bottom line. You shouldn't start speculating about too much in the future because then you're going to get, decision paralysis, which, in my world doesn't usually lead to the best decisions.Michael: Nice Morgan. I appreciate it and appreciate your time as well. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find them on the dental marketer society, Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly? Morgan: I try to make myself super available. So, Name of our bank is provide.My email address is just Morgan at get provide. com. You're also welcome to text me. I don't mind giving out my cell phone number. Set up a time to speak that's five zero three. 686 3284. Michael: Awesome. Thank you so much. That's going to be in the show notes below. And Morgan, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning episode.Morgan: My pleasure, Michael. Thanks so much.‍

Are you a provider or a healer? In this warm and insightful episode, Dr. Alan Stern shows us the transformative power of leading with love and empathy, seamlessly balancing professional duties with genuine human connection. Dr. Stern shares actionable advice on nurturing compassion in the most trying situations, offering vivid examples of handling conflicts empathetically, whether with team members or patients. He imparts deep wisdom on how these principles not only foster better professional relationships but also personal growth.Throughout our conversation, Dr. Stern also shines a light on the importance of self-compassion and the value of learning from our mistakes. He passionately advocates for reframing how we view our roles—from merely providers and professionals to empowered, evolving healers. By the end of the episode, Dr. Stern extends a heartfelt invitation to listeners to continue this pivotal discussion, emphasizing that both empathy and professional growth can flourish in tandem.What You'll Learn in This Episode:How to lead with love and empathy in challenging office environments.Ways to maintain your humanity in an increasingly digitized world.Effective techniques for resolving conflicts with team members or patients empathetically.The vital importance of self-compassion for personal and professional growth.The powerful shift from seeing yourself as a "provider" to a healer.Real-world examples of balancing compassion with professional challenges.Boost your journey with empathy and stay attuned to our core humanity by listening to this episode today!‍‍Sponsors:‍‍Gusto: Dentist payroll for the modern practice. Gusto's cloud-based software provides all the payroll and HR tools you need to run your dental practice efficiently. Having it all on one platform keeps our prices low, and makes your job so much easier. Enjoy best-in-class support, benefits like health coverage for your team, and more. Visit or copy and paste the link here for a special offer! https://gusto.com/tdm‍You can reach out to Dr. Alan Stern here:Website: https://betterricherstronger.com/Email: alan@betterricherstronger.comFacebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/betterricherstronger‍Mentions and Links: ‍Brands:UPS‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey, Alan, so talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Alan: Michael, thank you. The one thing I would like people to think about in a digitizing, commoditizing, depersonalizing and often dehumanizing environment we live in. we got to remember to approach our work with love in our hearts because when we have love of humanity.And love of humanity is not the same as the love of our spouse, love of our children, love of our parents, siblings, et cetera. But if we love the people and extend love out to our teams, to our patients, to the UPS guy, to the mailman, to anybody, life gets a whole lot better. We forget sometimes when we're trying to do that perfect crown prep or when the endo just isn't right.Or if, oh my heavens, a crown falls off, we go into offense, defense, right? If we approach people a little bit differently and just be in there to love them to listen to them and to treat them as human beings who are scared or anxious, all of a sudden, we become healers. We're no longer providers. I hate that word, Michael.Providers, we are practitioners of a profession. And we know that and it emanates from the pores of our skin. Life gets better. But it's got to start, Michael, with yourself. You have to look in the mirror each morning and see something really good, a well trained, well intended human being who's not perfect and never will be, but gets out there and gives with everything they've got from their hearts, from their minds, and from our well trained hands.Love in their heart is the magic ingredient, Michael. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So then if you can give me descriptors of what this four letter word love, looks like specifically. Yeah. a scenario of a. Practice owner with their team. And then in the scenario with their patient, Alan: Beautiful. All right.So a team member screws up. Why wasn't that scanner set up right on that table? Alice, the assistant, what the bleep is going on with you? That's how not to do it. That's a tug of war, that's a power struggle. That's the owner dominating and saying, Bam, I'm in charge here, you better listen. Because you and I both know that doesn't work.That's one of the reasons for massive turnover in dentistry today. How about this? Hey Alice no big deal. the scanner wasn't set up quite right. And we had to spend a little more time. Alright, we got through it. Tell me what's going on. How can I help you? So that everything is exactly the way we need it to be or as close as possible Tell me what's going on and alice might say oh man doc, I got a lousy night's sleep My baby was up all night or heaven forbid, you know, I got into it with my spouse That's cool alice.And by the way If you need five minutes to air it out, I'll listen to you. I'll sit down with you at the end of office hours. And if you need an outlet, I'll be there for you because I'm there for you, just as you are there for me. We need each other and we support each other. Align with the problem. Don't talk back and forth, Mike.Align Alice, the assistant with the problem that she had, get to the why and help her figure it out With a patient. Dr. Arias, That tooth didn't hurt until you started drilling on it until you did I had no problem at all doc and you can say I work to the standard of care and if you hadn't been so negligent and stupid if You had invested in a simple toothbrush.This wouldn't have happened Mm we could send that passive aggressive message in many different forms I'm being a little cute But how about this? Hey, Michael McNasty, I understand. Oh my goodness, your tooth hurts. Did it keep you up at night? Yeah, it did, Doc. Oh my goodness, nothing worse.we gotta get you out of this. Let's get you back to the operatory. Let's sit you down. We'll take an x ray. We'll take a look at what's going on priority one right now. Let's get you out of trouble. You good with that, Mr. McNasty? Yeah, alright. So now you have empathized with him, instead of confronting him and just saying, dope, don't you know you get inflammation when you drill on a tooth?you let it go so deep that your tooth blew up. Not my problem, but instead it still isn't your problem, but you are doctoring him. You are helping him heal Both emotionally and of course dentally and you may go on to explain to him the reality that 94 percent of the time When you drill on a tooth nothing happens, but just like in surgery when you cut somebody open There's inflammation around that surgical site and you could gently explain to him that this is how it goes with a tooth but first and foremost Align yourself with that patient, empathize with the problem because the patient is hurting.The patient is angry from being up all night, who wouldn't be? And also the patient in the back of their minds is thinking, this is going to cost me more money. And they're thinking falsely. This wouldn't happen if Dr. Arias had not talked me into doing that cavity.Michael: I like that a lot. So I guess. Whenever these scenarios come up, it's easy to have that motivation to say these things when we're having a wonderful day, right? It's, a beautiful day. I woke up great. Everything's going good. And you're like, you know what?Not everything's bad. Flip side, we're having a horrible day, horrible week, right? Somebody just quit, we've been patient with someone, another team member, they didn't care, spouse, family, I don't know, all these things, and then this patient comes in like this, and now we're at our wit's end, how do we know then, Alan, whether we're replying in a fantastic, loving way, or we think we're replying in a loving way, but then we blanket it where it's I'm just giving you the facts.Alan: Sit down for this one. Because you're gonna blow it every now and then. You all have bad days. And, leading with love means loving yourself first and you have to forgive yourself. Michael, that happened to me. Shortly before I sold my practice and retired, the denture bag lady came in and you know what I'm talking about.and I really thought that I had the answer for her. And I was patient. She also was mentally ill. And I knew that going in, she was referred by a friend of mine, a dental colleague, and I was having a bad day and I snapped and I said, nothing more I can do. I'm giving you your money back.Please find somebody else. literally at the end of the day, I was very upset with myself I wasn't my best self that day, but we do have a filter. We do have an executive brain that if we are careful and we can recognize, wait a minute, what good is going to happen when this verbiage comes out of my mouth.If we just keep our filters on but we have to be forgiving enough with ourselves And compassionate as compassionate with ourselves as we need to be with our patients and with our families. Sometimes you're going to blow it. You're not perfect get over it, but forgive yourself learn from it and move on can't undo that.Michael: Yeah, so you can't be dwelling in it. So it sounds like alan a good indicator You Whenever you start feeling like this like you're about to blow a gasket or something or anything like that. Two things, right? What good is going to happen when I say this, but before that, what you said, ask ourselves, what would love look like in this situation?Yes. And then go with that. Alan: Very good. Exactly. And sometimes your best friend is time. So when you're feeling that, with me, it's in my upper thorax and in my throat, I feel that stop, say nothing, pause. It's okay to take a moment to reflect on what was said and even use my three magic words. Tell me more. And that will allow the upset assistant or maybe the assistant who's demanding this, that, or the other, and you can't give it to them. Tell me more. And let 'em drain their limbic system. Let 'em get it all out. Get to the bottom of the issue as you process and ponder, what can I do here that will result in something good?Michael: How do you not dwell on this? Let's just say you did do that. All that happened, they walked all over you. They felt like, okay, he listened. Thank you, Alan. But then in your mind, you're like, Oh, I could have said this. I could have said that. And then you start playing the scenarios in your head.Alan: Although it's already Michael: passed. Alan: So instead of saying, I blew it, say, what did I learn from this? What can I do better next time something like this happens? you can't turn the clock back. Look, we could turn the clock back, you and I would be in different positions maybe than we're in now, but you can't.So every mistake you make. I read this from Adam Grant, there's no such thing as win lose. There's such a thing as win learn. So if we can learn from things we can do better and get that phrase, I blew it out of your head and say, all right, it's done. It didn't turn out good.And yeah, I'm going to feel lousy about it for a period of time. I accept that and I'll let it pass, but what did I learn from it? And then the other thing to heal yourself. is go to your Google reviews, please. Because an overwhelming majority of people have great things to say about you. And look at that and see yourself the way most others see you.As something really good. if one person thinks you're lousy, and 999 other Google reviewers or people you know think you're wonderful, who do you think is right? And if you're questioning your own self worth or self efficacy, and you see 999 Google reviews that say, Dr.Arias is the best thing to come to dentistry or come into my life, who are you going to believe? 999 or two. Michael: Yeah. The 999. Any final pieces of advice that you can give to our listeners about this? Alan: Yeah. I would like you to understand that doctor is not provider. Get that word out of your vocab.You're a doctor. You didn't go to provider school. You went four years and how many thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars to become something special. You were a healer. You're a professional. You do the right thing. And you're a practitioner. That means you're practicing. That means you'll be better tomorrow.And you are today and just keep growing, have a growth mindset and don't let anybody convince you that you're anything other than something very special who does sacred work in the world. Michael: I love it. Alan, I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find them on dental marketer society, Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?Alan: Reach out direct to me, Alan, A L A N, that better? Richer stronger. com My facebook group is better richer stronger find me any way you can I will speak to you I will give you a half hour of virtual coffee whenever you'd like Michael: Nice, so that's going to be in the show notes below and definitely reach out to alan and alan Thank you so much for being with me on this monday morning episode.Alan: My absolute pleasure michael‍

As business owners, we often feel imposter syndrome or worry about our status. Have you ever wanted to elevate your image and be more relevant? In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth expert Jason Hull sits down with Michael Sartain, CEO of Men of Action Mentoring to talk about how to make high-status friends and attend VIP events. You'll Learn [03:27] How to Utilize Networking [19:03] Becoming High-Status Using Social Media [26:54] How to be Relevant [38:58] Social Media is Fake [53:21] Authenticity vs Effective Content Tweetables “You need to be the person who always solves problems for other people and ask for nothing in return.” “You're building a brand. Status is status.” “A lot of our beliefs that we're holding on to that are holding us back.” “You make millions of dollars from solving other people's problems, not by doing what you love.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Michael: Your ability to grow is based on your perceived status, your perceived trustworthiness, your perceived know how. Not your actual know how.  [00:00:11] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing a business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. [00:00:30] DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. [00:01:10] Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:13] So I have an awesome guest today. I actually joined his program just for kicks. This is Michael Sartain. Michael, welcome to the DoorGrow show.  [00:01:22] Michael: Hey, what's going on, man? Hey, I gotta be honest with you. Two years ago, I didn't know what doors meant and then I started hanging out with Justin Waller and he's like, "yeah, man, I have 300 doors." [00:01:29] I was like, "bro, what are you talking about?" [00:01:31] And then he's like, now he's got 400 doors. And I was like, "oh, it's like all these different properties." And then my buddy Myron he's got 17 homes that he owns up in Connecticut. He told me about, and I didn't understand how this whole thing worked. And then the property management side of it, like "my company, we're like, we're buying properties because we want to use the depreciation. And we need someone to keep, you know, these places rented, blah, blah, blah." And then the property management, I don't know that much about it. So that's why I was really excited to come on here and check this out.  [00:01:57] Jason: Cool. Well, yeah. And I didn't know very much about like maintaining a presence. [00:02:03] Looking cool, like actually looking cool on social media instead of just trying to look cool. And and so I've learned some good things by being in your program. So let's get into a little bit of background about you for those that are like, who's this Michael guy? And maybe how you kind of got into entrepreneurism and I think that'd be relevant to anybody listening. [00:02:25] Michael: So I'm originally from East Dallas. I grew up on the good side of the tracks and went to high school on the bad side of the tracks. And graduated from my high school, barely like did anything. It was not a very good experience. And I got into UT Austin because I was in top 10 percent of my class. [00:02:39] Went there four years, studied astronomy and business and then got out of there. And then I ended up managing a nightclub for a while, for a couple of years because MCI Worldcom and Enron had gone out of business. So if you know, UT Austin, Enron was like a huge supply of jobs once you graduated you know, as a Longhorn. [00:02:56] Once they go out of business, none of us can find jobs. I ended up working at a strip club for like several years as a DJ. And this is the first point in my life where I'm like, "okay, there's something going on here. There's things that I've been taught growing up, but there's something different now." Of course, I want to preface this. [00:03:10] By no means am I saying that people who go to a strip club or people who work in a strip club are indicative of the median of society. They clearly aren't, clearly are not. What I am saying though is that you can see the extremes in society when you go to places like that and from those extremes, you can see overt reactions. [00:03:27] One of the things that I do in my course is I teach how people can network, get invited where the cool kids sit like that phenomenon of where the cool guys are and the not cool guys, the hot club versus the not club that the club people don't want to go to, or the party everyone's trying to get into. [00:03:42] What is it that causes that phenomenon of popularity and status? There has to be something that can explain it. And so what I've been trying to do for the last 15 years is use evolutionary studies in order to figure out a way in order to do that. And so a lot of times when you do that, you know, you can see subcommunication between a man and a woman and you don't really know what's going on. [00:04:02] They have the internal focus of what's going on, but when you see it in like a nightclub or a festival or someplace like that, you see very overt communication. And from that, you can learn a lot of cool stuff. It's like watching, you know, crows you know, pick at a carcass versus watching a giant white tiger go kill a gazelle. [00:04:18] Like that is overt examples of predation that you can see and be like, okay, this is how biology works. This is how natural selection works, et cetera. And I know for your audience, you're like, "where the fuck's he going with all this?" Yeah. The reason why, just to explain. I got fascinated. I did seven years in the military after 9 -11. [00:04:33] I joined and I flew a KC 135 as an instructor navigator. And then I was I did counterintelligence for about the last two years I was there. And then, so, in that time period, I learned how a very structured business could work and like how accountability works. Accountability and leadership, I learned very much during that time period. [00:04:49] But at that same time period, I was also going out a lot and I was like very interested to me in like, what is it that caused certain men to be phenomenally good with women and get a lot of people to show up to an event and then what caused other men to just not get it. And I always, I also noticed that there was a very small group of men that got it. [00:05:05] And then a very large group of men that didn't understand this concept whatsoever. So I became fascinated with that idea of 2011. I ended up retiring from the military and I ended up moving to Las Vegas and this is the first time when I started going out to some of these nightclubs and these venues here in Las Vegas. [00:05:19] And I meet a lot of real estate agents. I meet a lot of accountants. I meet plastic surgeons, doctors. And it was very clear to me like that some of them got it and some of them didn't get it. I threw a real estate event recently where we took a blue heron home. And then we had a charity event for animals. [00:05:33] And while we're there, I invited every single female influencer in the city to show up. Well, these, some of these girls were interested in getting into real estate, but I just want you to imagine it was just like a regular real estate event that you have, except you're doing it for animal rescue. [00:05:47] So now all these people who are in real estate, mortgage brokers, et cetera, property managers like yourself, they would show up to this beautiful three story house. It was catered. It was beautiful. And then every pretty girl in the city in Las Vegas who wasn't working that night showed up to this thing. [00:06:01] So now you're drinking champagne. There's three times as many girls as guys. Some of you guys are listening to this and you're like, "okay, now I understand. I'm starting to understand what he does." You're able to create these incredible environments and in doing so, just imagine, everyone... I try to teach networking through events. [00:06:17] That's basically how I try to teach networking through small events at your house or large events, you know, like a CES conference. I try to teach networking through those mechanisms. And then I try to show how evolution created humans throughout history. Dr. David Buss writes in his book the evolution of desire throughout history. [00:06:34] The men who have worked in groups and in tandem with one another always had access to more resources and always had access to more women. And so that's the reason why, you know, I teach these concepts. And so what happens is that blue Heron thing that we did, the guy who ran it, he's at the forefront and he goes, "I want to just thank you guys for coming out here and helping me, blah, blah, blah." [00:06:52] He had endeared so much goodwill with every mortgage broker, real estate agent. It was really crazy. All these other real estate agents wanted to train under him. People started sending him business. His business blew up. Another example I give, that's Jeremy Green's name. I have another example of my buddy, Mark Pearlberg, who's one of those also in my program. [00:07:09] Mark is an accountant. Mark started to see the way that I would use zoom calls and on the zoom calls, Mark would go on and show. How he understood accounting backwards and forwards better than everyone else who was listening, he showed himself to be a subject matter expert in the zoom calls. He was hosting in doing so, just imagine Jason, like, you know, I don't believe accounting is your specialty, but if you listen to accountant at first, it's interesting, but after like an hour and a half, you get to the realization, like, "this is interesting, but I don't want to do this." [00:07:37] And then at about the two hour mark, you're like, "This is interesting. I don't want to do this. How much do I have to pay you to do this?" And so because what we did and he started hosting a podcast and because he started hosting these zoom calls with other professionals, now he tells me, he's like, "I actually had to slow down the podcast because I can't handle all the business that I have. [00:07:55] There's not enough of me. In order for me to be able to do this." And he works from home. He just, an incredible lifestyle that he's created. So when we go back to what we're saying before, you know, I learned initially, "okay, what are the mechanisms that cause people to be cool or not cool, to be popular, not popular, to be low status or high status?" [00:08:13] I learned that when I was working in Austin, you know, nightclub, I learned that when I was in the U S military, like what good leadership and bad leadership was. And then I learned it in the last 13 years here living in Las Vegas. And I took all those lessons and I, from the last say, 25 years, and I put them into a course called the men of action course and try to concisely take this 25 years of knowledge and put it into one space so that everyone can learn how to do these kinds of things. [00:08:35] Now, here's where it might be confusing for some of your audience, the mechanisms that men use in order to show status with women in order to date them and the mechanisms that men and women use in order to pitch an idea or to sell a product are the same mechanisms. They are the same. This is difficult. A lot of people don't grasp this. if you guys ever want to see a great example of this, great book you should all read is Oren Klaff's book called pitch anything. Listen to some of the words he uses. Jason, you remember eliminate neediness. [00:09:06] Do you remember that? Eliminate neediness. Where does that come from? Where does that come from? It didn't come from self help. Eliminate neediness is a dating concept. Okay? Avoid beta behavior. Do you remember? Oren Klaff says this in his book. He goes, "avoid beta behavior." Where does that come from, Jason? [00:09:21] That is a dating concept. So where do these things come from? At the highest level Jordan Belfort, he calls it goal oriented communication. So goal oriented communication is, "will you go on a date with me?" Goal oriented communication is, "Ken, will you invest in my project?" Goal oriented communication is, "will you come work for me?" [00:09:36] Goal oriented communication. I'm doing this because this is like the apex of community of goal oriented communication. All these places meet at the apex, and that is the understanding of basically Dale Carnegie's how to win friends and influence people, get people to talk about themselves. You can find common interests, figure out ways to break rapport, all these different things. [00:09:53] And like what I teach my clients, Jason, the number one thing I teach my clients when it comes to high stats networking is you need to be the person who always solves problems for other people and ask for nothing in return. A great example is, do you remember Harvey Keitel in the movie Pulp Fiction? [00:10:08] You remember he's the wolf? Do you remember Pulp Fiction? I haven't seen Pulp Fiction. Okay, so tonight you're going to watch Pulp Fiction. Every single other person watching this has watched Pulp Fiction. [00:10:17] Jason: I know, everybody else has watched it but me, so.  [00:10:19] Michael: There's a point, there's a point where they have to clean up a dead body and they have to call this guy named the wolf and he just, he fixes things. [00:10:25] He's a cleaner. The wolf shows up in his Acura NSX, it's Harvey Keitel and he just fixes things. He goes, "are you going to listen to me or do you want to go to jail?" And he does, he just fixes everything. That's what I become. I'm the guy who fixes things for other people. I have a bunch of friends. I help them find people for their sales team. Most of my friends have met their boyfriends or girlfriends through me. I help people find their employees. I'm the hub. I'm the hub of the social wheel. And that's what I teach you to do in my course. If you cannot replace your social circle, your girlfriend, or your job in 15 minutes, you don't have enough abundance and I need to teach you how to have more abundance. [00:10:56] And so how do you do that? There's just certain mechanisms that people who have an abundance mentality and understand networking have, and when they use those techniques, then they can have anything they want. They get into any door. So another example, Jason is like the guy who goes to the Tai Lopez conference or the Taylor Welch conference or goes to see Cole Gordon or goes to see Wes Watson or goes to see whoever. [00:11:17] The guy who is like, "Hey man, thank you for your time." The one who like goes and pays Patrick bed David for his counseling. And then there's the guy who Patrick Bet David who goes to see Patrick David for his counseling. And then Patrick David was like, "Hey man, can I come visit you and hang out? Come meet my wife. Let me take you out to dinner." Does that make sense? There's a mechanism you'll see, like with a lot of people have asked me this before. Why is it that, you know, other people are like paying to listen to Justin Waller speak, but like Justin Waller and I are like close friends? [00:11:42] Why is it that other people like buy Rollo's book, but Rollo is one of my best friends? Why is it like all these other people call me and I'm not trying to say this to brag, but the reason why I'm trying to say this is there's a status line that you get to where you're a customer, and then you're his friend. [00:11:56] How do you cross that status line? This is such a key for those of you who are like, trying to get into sales or trying to understand networking. It's just like, I'm paying this guy, like how much, like I'm paying Tony Robbins. I'm a customer. I'm customer. Now Tony's like sending me messages on my birthday. [00:12:09] What is that status line? Some people's like, "well, you just need to have more money." And I'm telling you that is not what the case is. That's definitely not what the case is.  [00:12:15] Jason: Who would want to connect with people that they're only connecting with you because of money? I mean, that'd be a really shitty reason to be connecting with somebody.  [00:12:22] Michael: In the beginning, you will. But after a while you learn, whenever I go up and talk to my favorite influencer, let's say I paid for his coaching program is my voice cracking or my eyes getting big is my vocal tonality changing because I see this person as high status. [00:12:38] Am I dressing too fancy to try to show off? Am I doing too much or am I just like just the normal dude? I am. Oren Klaff, one of my favorite YouTube content creators. I don't know if you are not Oren Klaff. I'm sorry, Orion Terriban. All right. His name is Psych Hacks. Well, I had him on my show a couple of days ago. [00:12:54] He kind of converges behavioral economics with evolutionary psychology. And he basically talks about the sexual marketplace as far as economics is concerned. Okay. Really great person. Have him on my show. Ask him a bunch of stuff during the show. One of the things I talk about is like, "Hey, Orion, I know that you do some sales stuff, some coaching stuff. If you want my help, I'll help you how to, you know, put out a low ticket offer, high ticket offer, how you can like buy back your time." he's like, "yeah, you know, I can't scale myself that much." I was like, "okay, so you're going to read buy back your time by Dan Martell." [00:13:21] And then I gave him a bunch of books, you know, that would probably help him. And then at the end, I was like, bro, anytime you want to call me and you ask me about any of this stuff, I'll help you. The guy who has the world, you guys look it up. The guy with the world record in the high jump on planet earth is a guy named Darius Clark. He went to Texas A& M. He's the leading scorer in slam ball. Have you ever seen slam ball, Jason? Remember the trampolines and the basketball, they go dunk on each other. Anyways, I bumped into Darius at a slam ball game. We started talking and I'm, and then Darius is like, "Hey man, I want to level up my social media." [00:13:50] And I'm like, "Darius, let me figure out ways that I can help you level up your social media." So it's like one guys are like a professional athlete. Another guy's an accountant. You might be saying like, "why is it you're able to do all these different things?" And the reason why is because these are evolutionary problems. [00:14:04] These are evolutionary challenges that all men we're looking for. There are three things that really differentiate men from women. Three massive things. There's more than three, but these are the three biggest ones. Jason here. Number one, this is the most obvious one. It's upper body strength. Men are about two standard deviations stronger than women as far as upper body strength, meaning the medium grip strength for a man it puts them in the top, you know, 98 percent and top 2 percent of women. Makes sense.  [00:14:27] Jason: Yeah. Which also throws off our balance is higher. Yeah.  [00:14:31] Michael: Correct. Also. Yeah. It also, there's a reason why some of the reasons why men live shorter lives is because they keep their weight up here around their waist. [00:14:37] Whereas women keep it below their hips. And that's really, it's further away from their heart. There's a couple other things according to that now that's the first thing. The second one is a variety of sexual partners. Men are again, two standard deviations. Yeah. Far more like meaning the median man is interested in more women than the other way around but puts them in the top 2%. [00:14:55] But the third one, and this was a really interesting one and I knew this one, but it was Tai Lopez I was at his house last Wednesday. And he was explaining this, do you know the main thing where women just do not care that much about at all? But men are obsessed with, you know what it is? It's in your title. [00:15:09] No, it's in your title.  [00:15:10] Jason: Let's see, friends, high status, what I don't know?  [00:15:13] Michael: Status. Women in general do not care as much about status as men do, meaning women don't kill each other over status as men have been doing for the last hundred thousand years. So in fact, Dr. Buss, women care about men having status. [00:15:26] Jason: Women care about men having status.  [00:15:28] Michael: Women care about the men that they're with having status, yes. Yeah, okay. Yes. I see. Meaning they care about status as an object to obtain, but not as a something for themselves. Or rather, if you've ever, if you've ever lived on a military base, it's one of the strangest things. [00:15:41] Whoever the base commander's wife is, she's like the leader of the wives. It's so weird. She did nothing. She didn't go to officer school. She didn't do shit, but because she's married to the 06, the base commander, whenever they have engagements, she is... it's so funny. Anybody who's been in the military, you know, this is true. [00:15:58] Whoever the base commander's wife is. She's all of a sudden like the leader of all the events, even though why? Because she's married to the base commander. That's the way it works. So men, women in general in gendered into themselves, don't care as much about status as men do men severely care about status far more than women do. [00:16:16] And so because of the, these concepts, that's why you'll see like with a lot of the stuff I'm saying when it comes to sales, this is for men and women, but when it comes to dating, women do not sit there and have to show their status in order to attract men. But the other way they do. Does that make sense? [00:16:29] Yeah. And that's why it's like an important differentiation to make. And that's one of the other things I teach in my course. Like when you also, when you're selling to men versus women, it's something that you need to understand. You don't necessarily need to sell to women based on status. Like how, "Hey Sherry, how'd you like those big shoulders to show off those muscles to get those guys?" No, they don't. It's that's a status thing shoulder to waist ratio is like a male strength machismo testosterone status thing that women just aren't as interested in, you know, so there's just interesting concepts like that. [00:16:59] This divergence innate differences between men and women and where do we find these differences? We find them in evolutionary studies.  [00:17:05] Jason: So I think it's really interesting what you talked about earlier. You mentioned like this gravitation towards basically what works, right. And we see this everywhere. [00:17:14] Like I've been in lots of different programs. I've worked with lots of different mentors, coaches, read lots of different books and I'm noticing more and more I evolve as a human being. I'm noticing more and more parallels between the best ideas. Like I just read a book on kids. It was like how to talk so kids will listen and how to listen so kids will talk. And it's probably one of the best communication books I've ever read. Like anybody could learn from reading this book because to some degree, we're all little kids in bigger. [00:17:44] Michael: Even without kids.  [00:17:45] Jason: And also I was like, this is brilliant, like self talk like psychology even in this book. [00:17:51] And I'm like, this could be applied to so many different things. And it talks about empathetic, like being empathetic in your communication. I'm like, this is brilliant. This will work so effectively for sales or for anything. And people think, "oh, it's for kids." Right. And so what works works. [00:18:05] And I read another book, something about relationships by David B. Wolfe. It was a really good book, and this was for grownups, but there were so many parallels between these things. And you had mentioned also with dating and you know, for example, sales really, there's so many parallels between going out and trying to get clients and trying to get dates. [00:18:27] Michael: The higher you go, they're not parallels. They're exactly the same. When you get to the top, they're exactly like what I'm saying is when you get to the top, meaning like Hugh Hefner, like when you're at the top and then you just see, it's just a total presentation and it's nothing but just showing status. [00:18:42] Oh, it's the same thing. It's the same. I bought a Tesla that like Playboy is a brand. Tesla is a brand. You start to see they're doing the same thing to your brain.  [00:18:51] Jason: So for the business owners, listening to this, who are not trying to be Hugh Hefner. Right. They're not, and maybe they're married like me and they're not like trying to get women, but they do want to increase their sales. [00:19:03] They do want to increase their status and they want to figure out how to attract more business. What are maybe some of the things that they could do to be more attractive to the real estate investors that they're trying to get as clients?  [00:19:18] Michael: Yeah, I will tell you the first thing is you need to be a way more cognizant of how you are perceived socially and for a lot of people, one of the things you have to understand is the more things become digital and the more your image can be spread across social media platforms, the less your actual merit of your business matters and the more the perception of your business matters. [00:19:40] Jason: Yeah. How do they get an accurate view of how they're perceived?  [00:19:46] Michael: You could ask other people. I mean, generally the market is going to tell you, right? What is the price of of a commodity? The market's going to end up telling you right. In a free market economy, but it's like when you make social media content, you need to make them the content to market your business in a sexy, fun way that catches people's attention, but it doesn't have to be extremely representative. And I know this is really hard for a lot of people to do because they're like, "no, I'm just going to be myself and make content that feels organic." And I'm just telling you that doesn't work. [00:20:14] I don't care what Gary Vanderchuck told you. That is not the way the world works. Everyone else is stunting. Everyone is using FaceApp and Facetune. All these other people are just showing images and pictures of the best parts of their life. I post on social media all the time. I did not post anything about me feeding my cats this morning. [00:20:30] Like, the people want to see the cool stuff. That's just generally the way it is. So, you're, the way you are perceived on social media again, that's what we, you know, Men of Action, our group, is when you're in a community that gives you accountability and feedback to let you know, hey man, this is not a good post or this is a good post. [00:20:45] When we are on Instagram specifically instagram trades, a currency and that currency is called status. That's all Instagram is. Facebook is not like that. By the way, you guys will notice for those of you do any kind of marketing, Facebook is going to work really well for your 38- 40 year old audience and older. [00:21:01] And Instagram is going to work for your audience below 38 to maybe 28 and then maybe to 25 and below 25, it's going to be TikTok. And you'll notice, depending on which audience you're trying to get to, that's where you're going to see the most prevalence on those different platforms. Also, you're also going to see the most politically progressive of those platforms will be TikTok and the most politically conservative all those platforms will be like Twitter or X. So you, these are kind of the things that you have to learn. What you need out there is a perception that people have of your business and you have it as an entrepreneur. So you need to be trustworthy. You need to seem like, you know, more than everyone else, like you're a subject matter expert and you need to seem extremely motivated. [00:21:40] And in doing so as well, when you show images of your business and you personally, you need to show relevancy, competency, access to scarce resources, and social proof. Those are the things that will help. So what I mean by social proof? Other people in the industry following you on Instagram is a great way to almost look like a testimonial or maybe they leave comments. [00:21:59] That's a great way to show social proof, relevancy. Are you trying to use banner ads from 25 years ago? Or you're like, "Well, I'm still using email blasts." Okay. If I'm talking to a guy in real estate and he's telling me about email blasts, I know he's not relevant anymore. If I'm sitting there talking to stuff, if that's all he's talking about, right? [00:22:17] If he's sitting there being like, you know, he doesn't use Instagram, but he's got an SEO guy. I'm like, okay, he's not relevant anymore. He doesn't know. He hasn't changed things. But when I talked to a guy and he's like, "yeah, what I did was I started a podcast and in my podcast, I do 20 minute interviews with different people using restream. And then I have a guy come through and make clips and then I have, and then the best clips I end up promoting those clips on Instagram or using meta. Facebook Ad manager, meta ad manager, and in doing so, then I make the best ones and I turn them into advertisements and I put a CTA at the end." I'm like, okay, that guy's relevant, that guy gets it. [00:22:49] Jason: Then we're relevant here at DoorGrow.  [00:22:51] Michael: What you're doing is extremely relevant.  [00:22:52] Jason: If they have an AOL email address, they're like, "what's your email?" [00:22:56] Michael: That's exactly, it's not relevant.  [00:22:57] "It's aol.Com." [00:22:58] "I have a Facebook, but I don't have an Instagram." You're just not relevant. Like I can tell you're not relevant. When people are like, "well, my audience isn't on Instagram." It's like, it doesn't matter if your audience is on Instagram, you're trying to grow your audience. And by the way, the market will tell you what it wants. And every day, I'm sorry for those of you who don't want to hear this. Every day, each one of these platforms becomes slightly less relevant. Okay? [00:23:19] TikTok is on its uprise right now. Instagram is becoming less relevant because of TikTok, Rumble, YouTube, and Facebook to a certain audience is also already completely irrelevant. You'll see women below a certain age do not have a Facebook, but they do have an Instagram. [00:23:32] So the answer is to have all of them. All of you should have, you should be making 30 to 90 second content, the up and down type of content. Not landscape of profile content. You should be making that and it should be going on Snapchat. It should be going on X. It should be going on YouTube. It should be YouTube shorts, TikToks, and Facebook and Instagram reels. [00:23:50] It should be going at all those different places. You can use HubSpot or some other platform in order to post that content. And the content doesn't just have to be clips that go viral from podcasts. You can do man on the street videos. And here's a big one. All of you can do this. You can do reaction videos. [00:24:04] All of you can do reaction videos. They're so easy to do. And by the way, you don't even have to like, you're just like, "Michael, I don't know how to use OBS and I don't know how to do a reaction video." All you have to do is sit like I'm sitting right now. I'm in my den. You know, obviously I put some soundproofing behind me, but I'm in my den, I got a big ol ring light in front of me, and somebody comes up to me and goes, "Michael, what do you think about the Trump assassination attempt?" [00:24:23] Or "Michael, what do you think about, you know, Kamala Harris or whatever?" And I'm like, and I just turn my camera like this, like I'm talking, "Man, I'll tell you what I'm thinking. I'm thinking, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And you just say, and as soon as people watch the video and they're like, "This guy's about to tell me what he's thinking." [00:24:35] Then everyone will watch. And then some of you are listening right now and you're like, "I'm just a property manager. I don't want to talk about politics. Really go watch Ryan Pineda. Go watch Bradley, go watch Codie Sanchez, go watch Tom Bill. You go watch any of these guys who are crushing it in their fields. [00:24:51] They give their opinions on everything. Did you guys hear Alex Hormozi now talks about dating? What? Yeah. You're building a brand. Status is status. Like nobody cares. This is the other thing, Jason, a lot of your clients, and this is something I've talked to you about, and everyone in my program hears me talk about this ad nauseum. [00:25:08] Is the concept of like, I'm afraid that I'm going to post the wrong thing and nobody holds you accountable for anything you have to say, like, I was just looking at a video of Kamala Harris at a P Diddy party, walking around with Montel Jordan. No one seems to care that ever happened. No one cares about Joe Biden talking about, "I don't want to send my kids to school with the monkeys." [00:25:26] Nobody cares about it. No one cares. Like you said, like Donald Trump had sex with a porn star while his wife was pregnant and they brought it up during the debates and no one cares. Literally one of the most popular movies of all time The wolf of wall street is a about a man who did 15 months in prison for securities fraud, punched his wife in the stomach, kidnapped his own kid, did quaaludes and slept with prostitutes, and then afterwards, he is one of the top sales trainers in the world today. But you guys think anyone cares. Caitlyn Jenner runs over someone, kills them, and then four months later is named woman of the year. But you're like, "Michael, I'm a property manager. What if I post the wrong thing?" Here's another thing, Jason, and this is a poor reflection on humanity, but it's absolutely true. [00:26:09] If you get popular enough, they will forgive you for anything. And if you don't believe me right before OJ died, I had a conversation with him and they had offered him millions of dollars to do a fantasy football podcast, and I was like, OJ, what about those people you stabbed 56 times? Nobody cares. So many of you are watching this right now and you're like, you have 400 followers on Instagram and you're like so worried about posting the wrong thing, bro. [00:26:32] You don't have 400 followers on Instagram. You have four followers on Instagram and one of them's your mom. No one cares what you're doing. Most of you on social media are irrelevant and because you're irrelevant on social media, in reality, you're invisible. Listening to this, when you ask me what the advice is, your job is to become visible. [00:26:49] Some of you will be offended by what I say and the rest of you will be successful. You've got to decide which one you want to be.  [00:26:54] Jason: So I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second here, right? A lot of property managers, they think "I'm going to go start posting about property management. And maybe I'll get some investors that want to like work with me." [00:27:06] And so they start posting property management with this false assumption that people really care about property management, right? And so the analogy I'll usually share with property managers is I'll say, "how many plumbers are you following on social media?" And they'll say, "none." [00:27:23] "Why?" I said, "they want your business. Why aren't you following them?" And so there's this false reality that these social media marketers will sell to property managers. They're like wasting their time. And some of them spend a lot of money and time with these social media companies, wasting time promoting their property management business on social media, when nobody gives a shit about property management, even their clients don't wake up in the morning and go, "man, I'm thinking about property management." [00:27:50] Jason, what should they be doing instead?  [00:27:52] Michael: Yes. Jason you saying that just got me. I want someone who's watching this to do this and then tag me in the video when you do it. Jason, as a property manager, do you ever have nightmare tenants?  [00:28:03] Jason: So to be clear for those listening...  [00:28:05] Michael: yeah,  [00:28:06] Jason: I'm not managing properties. I'm coaching property management business owners, but they would say, "yes," they have nightmare tenants. All the time.  [00:28:12] Michael: Do you ever have nightmare vendors? Like guys who come like when I say vendor, what I mean is the plumber, the carpenter, the guy who comes...  [00:28:18] Jason: Yes, they have problems with vendors constantly, they have nightmare owners. [00:28:21] They're managing properties.  [00:28:22] Michael: What about, well, I wouldn't do nightmare owners cause you're trying to get business. I wouldn't talk about nightmare owners. What I would talk about is. I would start off a clip just like this. "I had a nightmare tenant. This guy was destroying," and then it would just show pictures. [00:28:34] "This guy was destroying everything in the place. I swear. He didn't know how to, he couldn't aim and hit the toilet. He has just destroyed the place. And this is what I did to fix it. And here's three tips for you to deal with a nightmare tenant." Viral. Yeah. Viral. Not only are you viral. Everyone's coming to you. [00:28:52] It's like, "man, I don't want a nightmare tenant. I just bought this two bedroom, two bathroom. I don't want a nightmare tenant. I'm going to go do what he does."  [00:28:59] Jason: I don't want it to be a meth house eviction. Like, yeah.  [00:29:02] Michael: Yes. Yeah. You know what i'm saying? Like that's what I would do. I would go over like what are these and because what you're going to do is what are the biggest fears of the people who are hiring property owners, my nightmare tenant, my tenant who doesn't pay. Like those kind of things, and I would make content. What are the three steps that I did to do with the five tips that a lot of people's in this place don't do right? I would make content like that. And you could do opus there's these ai software apps that'll basically take the clip and then they'll just inject B roll that fits whatever the words you're saying. [00:29:33] You don't have to hardly do any work when you do it and then all of a sudden it's like, "it was a nightmare. This guy's made my place look like a roach house. Roach infested." And then it'll actually pull up an image like a whatever, a stock Shutterstock image of a roach infested home, whatever. [00:29:47] Jason: Now they're using ai. Even I'm seeing a lot of AI images Just flashing. Yeah. Yeah. Or, yeah. Correct.  [00:29:51] Michael: It could actually illustrate using artificial intelligence, illustrate the image for you. You could actually do that. So you don't have run into any copyright issues. Right. Or any permission issues. [00:30:00] There's just so many ways to do this. But what are you doing? You're showing relevancy and competency. You know how to use Instagram. You know how to create a clip using artificial intelligence. You have good audio. You have good lighting. You're showing relevancy. You're showing competency. You're showing high intelligence. [00:30:15] You're showing high social status. And then in the comments, you're like "LMAO." Like people are laughing my ass off. "This happened to me." "Oh my God, Jason, same shit." "100 percent true." And now I have social status. I have all these things. Why? Because I made some content that was engaging about something that is incredibly unsexy, which is property management. [00:30:35] That's how you do it. What are those ultimate fears that your prospective clients have? And I would just do nothing but make content about that. I have a friend of mine, FedEx fearless. His name's Bismarck. And this guy, he goes, "these are three reasons why you are ugly." And I'm like, "what?" [00:30:48] And like, he really goes after people. "This is the reason why your girlfriend is cheating on you right now." And everyone just, I'm like, "what?" And I don't want to watch, but I'm like, I need to watch this video.  [00:30:57] Jason: What's going on there? Yeah.  [00:30:59] Michael: It's so great. It's so great. " No, Michael, you need to be authentic with your social..." no, you don't. You don't need to be authentic. You need to capture people's attention. You need to be attractive. Your primary job is to be attractive on social media. Now what happens is now you got them with the hook, "Here are the top three things that I do to deal with this horrible tenant that I have" And then when they come in the hook now throughout there you give those three, explanations But you also throw in a little piece of advice that shows just a little humble brag that shows "In my 27 years of property management, this is the thing that I've learned." [00:31:30] Okay, little humble brag. And at the end, it goes, "if you want to learn more, comment, the word guide below," or if you're on YouTube, you'd be like, "go down into the description and click the link. And then blah, blah, blah." And it just ends up right down your sales funnel, maybe to a low ticket offer, maybe an ebook that you wrote something like that. [00:31:45] And the next thing, you've 10xed profits. You've 10x revenue. You're selling a course on property management while writing a book on property management, while having a podcast on property management, while being a property manager, all of it at the same time. And then you got to hire a new accountant because you got too many write offs. [00:31:59] Like you don't have enough time to pay your taxes. You got to get too much money. That's it. That's how this works. And that's about what I just explained to you. It's just the difference between getting it and not getting it, being relevant and not being relevant. And so a lot of people, what they're, they listen to me and they always make me out to be the bad guy because cause what I do is I tell people, no one cares about you. And no one likes to hear that. They like to think that the rest of the world cares about property managers. But like you said, no one's following plumbers. Right. But if I was a plumber, I would do the same thing, "man, I walked into this house and this toilet had exploded and just have an image of it." [00:32:30] And it'd be like, "okay, I need to hear what this is." "And then a monster crawled out of the toilet." I'm just kidding. And like, I would just, that's what I would do just to keep people's attention.  [00:32:37] Jason: So for those listening, can we qualify you a little bit related to social media, because you've got a good following? [00:32:43] You've got a sizable business because people listening if they don't know who you are, I want them to recognize you're very qualified to talk about this. Not so humble brag about yourself for a second.  [00:32:55] Michael: I have a men of action. We have 1600 clients that have gone through there. [00:32:58] 200 video testimonials if you go on the school server. And also we have a free community a free school server. What's about 43-4,500 guys in there. You're welcome to message. One of the things that I've told people is that if I join a group and they tell me not to talk to the other people in the group, I know this is a scam. [00:33:12] You'll notice sometimes with MLMs, you'll see that. I implore you to talk to anyone, any client that's ever gone through my program and they will tell you how incredibly satisfied they were. Also you, Jason, I'm sure you've seen my course is extremely comprehensive. It's about 65 hours long. That doesn't even include the live calls. [00:33:29] And then also there's a book, there's a required book list that you have to read in order to go through the course.  [00:33:33] Jason: I'll tell you right now, like an eight figure business for you.  [00:33:36] Michael: Just today, we've done eight figures in total, but as of this month, this is the first month we'll recross the mark. [00:33:42] It was what? 833 a month or something like that. We cross that this month. So that's about, yeah. So we're doing about a little bit under eight figures in revenue per year.  [00:33:50] Jason: This is more than any property managers probably listened to my show. So just for perspective. Okay. Yeah. Got it.  [00:33:57] Michael: Yeah. I mean, because coaching is scalable. [00:34:00] That's the reason why. And like the other thing I want you guys understand is a lot of people got into real estate because they were trying to find a scalable way of making income and they're using you to make their lives scalable. So if you guys read, buy back your time by Dan Martell, they're paying you to buy back their time as real estate owners. [00:34:15] That's what their job is. And essentially you're going to eventually do the same thing. You're going to pay someone to buy back your time from them. So the main difference, and I'm sure many of you entrepreneurs already know this, but. When you start off in the workforce, you are trading your time for money. [00:34:28] You're working at Chick fil A or McDonald's and you're being paying an hourly salary later on. You're trading your money for time. I pay one guy. He comes into my house. He turns on my computer, he turns on my camera, he turns on my lights, he sits me down, and then he just starts yelling at me to talk about certain subjects, and I have no idea, I'm just like, drinking coffee, and I'm like, what up, and he goes, "what do you think about this?" And I'm like, "oh man, let me tell you something, and then they record it," and then it's just a reaction video, and I do nothing. [00:34:53] I pay to get my time back. I have several editors that live in Romania and Nigeria and all these, because I don't want to edit videos anymore. I used to be a video editor and a videographer. I don't want to do it anymore. I pay one place to do the live editing for my podcast. I don't want to do that anymore. [00:35:07] I pay to get my time back. For those of you who are considering hiring a personal assistant, once again, highly recommend Dan Martell's book, Buy Back Your Time. In the book, he talks about taking your yearly salary and divided by 8, 000. And that's what you pay the guy hourly. Take your yearly salary, how much you make in a year, your yearly income divided by 8, 000. [00:35:24] That's it. They go over the reason why, but it ends up becoming like a 40 hour work week. You end up paying him one, you pay him half of what one hourly wage for years. So if your time is worth a thousand dollars an hour, you might pay him 500 an hour to get certain things done for your life. And one of my favorite sayings in that book is something done 80 percent right is 100 percent awesome. [00:35:43] And like, it was one of the hardest things to give up. The guy who does my timestamps, that was really hard. I love doing timestamps because timestamps were giving me clips and those clips would go viral and the virality would make me money, but I had to give that up. And eventually you're going to give up all these processes. [00:35:57] Another thing I'll explain for you guys who are entrepreneurs, one of the greatest tools you will ever find is an app called loom. Look up loom. What loom is allows you to make videos, but the video it's like, it's showing the screen on your phone or it's showing the screen on your computer while they're listening to your voice and you send it to your person. [00:36:12] So like, for instance, I do mass invites for certain events that I do. So I'll go on loom and I'll have a guy, maybe he speaks you know, Farsi or maybe this guy speaks like his English. Isn't that great? What I'll do is I'll go through my invite slowly and I'll do it like for 30 minutes, I'll just do invites and I'll show so he can see what it looks like. [00:36:28] And then I send it to him and then he looks at it and he has no questions. And my invites are done like that. Loom is one of the greatest way of passing along SOPs to people and then using them in order to buy back your time. So understanding all these concepts, it makes you more relevant, makes you more competent. [00:36:43] It gives you higher status. It gives you more access. And these are the things that you're looking for. In any walk of life, but especially in something like property management and you guys also understand as property managers Your job isn't sexy So what you have to do is you have to show the sexy parts of your job, right? [00:36:57] When I my favorite one are accountants and dentists. They're not my friend my friends who are dentists who know what they're doing, they show the fucking horror job teeth, You know car accident, messed up teeth, meth addict, whatever, and then they get the teeth back to 100%. And like me, as someone who doesn't care that much about dentistry, I'm just like staring like, "Oh my God, that was incredible." [00:37:17] Yeah. what you do is you figure out people's primary driver emotion and their biggest fear. And then from those things, from the primary driver emotion and their biggest fear and from those things then you make your content attacking those primary driver emotions and those biggest fears, okay. And when you do so it doesn't make any difference if you're an accountant It doesn't make any difference if you're a property manager doesn't make any difference what it is that you sell people will watch and they will be obsessed. [00:37:42] My brother, he watches videos of horseshoes. They basically, you know, they shave off the end of the horse's hoof and then they put the shoes on. He said it's like the most relaxing thing in the world to watch. And I wouldn't even think about that, but why is it? It's like something we don't even think about that much, but it's pretty amazing. [00:37:56] Like when you see, it's like very relaxing to watch stuff like that. You can do stuff like that.  [00:38:00] Jason: There's a guy that's viral for just, he finds distressed houses. And he just cleans up their lawn and the sidewalk. He's like, "Hey, could I mow your lawn? And it's like relaxing to watch the transformation." [00:38:12] Yeah.  [00:38:12] Michael: Another one that's great was if you guys watch the early Ryan Pineda stuff, what was he doing? He was flipping couches. He would find crappy couches, clean them up, and then he would sell them again. And he made a living from flipping couches. There's just all these different things. And like the concept of it sounds so boring, but I want to watch someone do it. [00:38:28] Right. It was the one where you'd buy those storage units and then you'd see whatever's in this. Oh, I forgot what that was. It was pawn shop, pawn stars or something where the people would buy storage units and open up in there. And there's like, sometimes there'd be nothing in the storage unit. Sometimes there'd be like a dead body in there or some crazy shit. [00:38:41] Like they find like a skull and like all of a sudden. Bag full of money. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, you guys know the producers were putting that bag of money in there, right? Like that wasn't real. That wasn't real.  [00:38:52] Jason: Reality TV isn't real either. You like to say social media isn't real and that's okay or something. [00:38:58] Michael: So rule number four in men of action is social media is fake and I'm okay with that because the money's real. And the world isn't fair. And I'm okay with that.  [00:39:05] Jason: Yeah.  [00:39:06] Michael: The world isn't fair and I'm okay with it. Rule number four in a, in social and of action is about acceptance. It's about accepting the world the way it is and never being a victim. [00:39:14] It's sure things are hard for you, but you're never a victim. You might be too short. English might not be your first language and you're having a hard time speaking it. You might be born poor. You might be born with some kind of ailment or disability that you feel like holds you back, but that's where you are. [00:39:27] You start from where you are. And then you create from there. Okay. You were saying something before about how you notice like all these books kind of converge in to the same place, three books that have nothing to do with each other, but it's the same concept. Ready? The power of now by Eckhart Tolle, the subtle art of not giving a fuck by Mark Manson and sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. [00:39:45] You're like, wait a second. It's all the same thing. It's all the same. It's all this. I get to choose how react. I get to tell myself stories that change my behavior. It's all three of these books that have nothing to do with each other end up being the same book, not exactly the same book, but similar books. [00:40:00] Because once you get to the highest levels of enlightenment, transcendence, goal oriented communication ends up being the same thing for everyone.  [00:40:07] Jason: There's a one of my favorite books is by Byron Katie called Loving What Is. And basically, she takes you through this process of just asking yourself these four sort of questions to challenge your current view of reality. [00:40:21] And it takes you out of this victim sort of view. It's very much like cognitive behavioral therapy, maybe, or something like this, right? Yes. Or CBT or something. But yeah, so asking this question, is this belief that I have actually true? And a lot of our beliefs that we're holding on to that are holding us back. [00:40:36] And like, if we're not getting results in life, it's because we currently have beliefs that are not working for us. And so, if you see people that things are working well for them, even though you think, like, somebody might be watching right now going, "Michael is completely full of shit. He's throwing out all these crazy stuff and he's, he worked at a strip club" and somebody's like, so against that or whatever. [00:40:56] They're like their own stumbling block and they're in their way and they won't pay attention to the truth or the things that you're sharing that are good because they're so stuck on everything in the universe having to look a certain way that they are not even open to receiving more, they're not willing to challenge their own thinking. [00:41:13] They're not going to progress. They're going to stay stuck.  [00:41:16] Michael: They identify more with their identity than they identify with success.  [00:41:20] Jason: Yeah. Good way of saying it. And I love how you talked about kind of these currencies. One of my mentors in the past was Alex Charfen. And he's from here in the Austin area as well. [00:41:30] And he was talking about time, energy, focus, cash, and effort. He calls the five currencies. And Hormozi went through Alex Charfen's like coaching with me. I met Layla and Alex in this. And one of the things that I then saw Alex talk about these currencies. But what I thought was interesting is Alex said the most significant of those five currencies in order to scale and grow your business is focus. [00:41:52] It's the most important to scale, grow a company. And then Dan Martell, I once saw him teach this framework that was, it was like about the power of one. He's like, "the most effective business is a business has one sales funnel, one product, one..." it was like all ones, like, And I see property managers, a lot of times they'll try and like start five different businesses. [00:42:14] They're like, I'm going to start a cleaning company, a maintenance company, like all these other things.because they're complimentary real estate brokerage. And then they wonder why none of them are growing because they lack focus. And so all these things kind of converge, making sure that we have focus. [00:42:28] You also mentioned Dan Martell, who I think is a brilliant entrepreneur, he generally was coaching like software companies, SAS companies to help them grow and scale, but his stuff's applicable to coaching businesses. I've noticed it's applicable to anything because the principles are valid. [00:42:44] And one of the things I've had my clients do to get them to that next level, to basically get their time back is to have them do a time study to where they become accountable for their time, which things are positive and which things are negative, like plus or minus, which things give them energy in life and which things take it away in their own business. [00:43:00] And I have them do this like usually once a quarter. And when I did my first time study, I realized I was doing like four hours of podcast production in a week. It all added up and I was like, holy shit. So then I just hired a company to do it. It was a no brainer to let that go because it was stupid at that point for me to hold on to that once I could see that challenge. [00:43:20] And you mentioned loom, awesome tool for like one of my favorite tools, like it, which is next level. It's like loom, but it's Wistia's video recorder. It lets you actually record the screen and yourself. And then after the recordings made. You can then have it mid recording. You can switch which parts are showing and have segues between the two. [00:43:42] And it's super fast. It's like super cool. But we use tools like that.  [00:43:46] Michael: Productivity. Yeah, definitely.  [00:43:47] Jason: Yeah. So, I love all these ideas for collapsing time. Michael has dropped several awesome tools, knowledge bombs, ideas for those that are listening and also how to leverage content social media wise. [00:43:59] So what you know, if we were to bring this full circle what would you say is the most important thing that maybe business owners or property managers could be doing to scale and grow their business?  [00:44:13] Michael: Right now? Again, one more time. It is: understand, your ability to grow is based on your perceived status, your perceived trustworthiness, your perceived know how. Not your actual know how. Like, I can tell you so many guys that I know that are real estate experts on YouTube. And then I have my friends of mine that are real estate agents. And they're like, "that guy doesn't know shit." And I'm like, "no, he's coaching the white belts." That's the why, the reason why he says the things that he says. [00:44:39] And they have a hard time dealing with it. So, understanding that concept. And then. You have to leave yourself. You have to subvert your own ego, go on places like TikTok or Instagram places you'd never think to go to, and then look at who's going viral, who's in your exact industry, and you're going to need to take pieces from what you see. [00:44:56] Like, what are the kinds of videos that do really well? And you're going to be able to find those very quickly. You can literally right now would go on Tik Tok and look up property management and you'll find a bunch of videos, like just pick the ones that go the most viral or a real estate, a podcast, and then pick the topics that go the most viral and just blatantly steal them, steal, blatantly steal everything. [00:45:19] You in the beginning, no creativity necessary, just steal. Okay, and you do that for a while and then you start to sort of get your footing And then you start to realize wait a second, I've been running ads and my ROAS per dollar my ads is x 1. 2 or 2. 0 or whatever but in organic my cost per lead is like nothing because my organic traffic, it costs me so much less to get a lead. [00:45:44] It's incredible. Then I go on someone else's podcast because my content is getting better and better. And then all of a sudden now, you know, Rich Summers and Ryan Pineda want me to come on their show to talk about, you know, maybe I'm on ice coffee hour or whatever, talking about real estate. [00:45:58] And then I get on bigger and bigger shows and now my cost per lead decreases even more because I just had this simple understanding that the way it works is my perceived status my perceived know how and my perceived trustworthiness to other people are the reasons why people will buy my product. Now you may already obviously everyone who's listened to this if you have any success in property management You already have your funnel is probably dealing with either word of mouth shaking hands, or it's dealing with some sort of paid advertisement, but I implore you try organic. Try to use organic and then organic meaning using Instagram posts or Facebook posts. [00:46:33] And then once you do that, try to take your best content and turn your best content in an advertisement and promote those, promote that content. That's something we've also been doing. And if you want examples on everything I just said, a great book, a great place to start is the 100 million offer series by Alex Hormozi. He goes over every single thing that I just talked about. It's absolutely fantastic. It's really great stuff. The difference is with my program, MOA, we're a little bit more bespoke for what it is exactly that you're doing. But we're mostly talk about networking. And then the other thing is, When you actually meet that person in person that you want to work with, do you come off as a fan boy? [00:47:06] Do you come off as too eager? Do you, does your body language show signs of neediness or signs of low status? Are these things that you can watch? And then how do you figure that out? You watch yourself on camera. Do you watch yourself on other people's podcasts? Because that's one of the things is like as social media grows and more people are exposed to more people, just remember like if you consider in the plasticine, you know, we live in hunter gatherer societies of 150 people and now we can legitimately have a hundred thousand friends on social media in that kind of situation because we're exposed to more people, we are more attuned to status, physical appearance, et cetera. And so now what happens is humans essentially become more shallow. [00:47:46] They become more attuned to other people's status and rightly or wrongly. Is it a negative commentary on humans? Yes, it probably is, but it's the world you live on. And if you want to get rich, you need to listen to what I'm saying. And if what I'm saying, offends you, get ready to stay poor. Like, I'm sorry. [00:48:01] If you guys are listening to this right now, and you're like, "No, social media is going to go away and we're going to go back to walking up to doors and do an email blast and buying banner ads." If that's what you think, go back to your AOL. com email and just keep believing that's the case. [00:48:16] It's all about the handshake. It's like, if that's what you believe, that's fine. But for the rest of you who are ready to understand that if you think things are bad, I got news for you. They're only going to get worse. Meaning people aren't going to put their phones down at dinner. People aren't going to take fewer photos. [00:48:30] People. I was reading something. It was like, like in one day, now more photos are taken in like an hour than were taken during the entire year of 1985 or something like that. It was like the amount of photographic and video data that's uploaded in one hour exceeds the total photographs taken in an entire year back in the 1980s. [00:48:49] Some absurd number like that. If you think things are going in one direction, things are getting faster. They're more virtual. They're more digital. Digital, they're going to be controlled by artificial intelligence and they're going to be more scalable. You need to get on that train. The train is leaving. [00:49:05] You need to get on the train. Now, if you don't want to get on the train, that's fine, but notice as the world passes you by and the rate at which it passes you by only increases every year. If you want to learn about that, read Ray Kurzweil series called the singularity is near, and you can see how he talks about the rate of change is increasing, and then the rate of change is also increasing. [00:49:24] Jason: Okay, so this is awesome stuff. So Michael one thing I want to point out for those that are listening. Because I think you've sold your Men of Action short a little bit. So I'm gonna, I want to say something about it because what I think is in, what people think is in there probably based on what you're saying is it's a bunch of social media stuff and it's like how to, maybe how t

Could intentionally limiting your practice's growth be a good thing? In this eye-opening episode, I'm sitting down with Joshua Scott to discuss some unconventional but powerful advice for practice owners. Joshua reveals how focusing on controlled growth can actually protect cash reserves and stabilize operations. Drawing from his experience with Studio 8E8, he explains how capping client intake helps manage expenses more effectively and enhances profitability. We dive deep with Joshua into identifying early warning signs of unsustainable growth and effective strategies to manage them, offering you insights into managing your own business effectively.As we break down these concepts, Joshua sheds light on the typical cycle of increasing expenses tied to rapid growth, from hiring more staff to expanding facilities. We also cover the critical role of marketing investments in ensuring long-term stability and how priorities should shift once a business reaches the $1 million revenue mark. Rounding it all off, Joshua shares thoughts on self-awareness and continuous personal growth, emphasizing the importance of not becoming an obstacle in your own organization's path to success.What You'll Learn in This Episode:Why limiting growth can lead to greater profitability.How rapid expansion affects your cash reserves and expenses.Key strategies to recognize and manage symptoms of overgrowth.The importance of investing in marketing for business stability.How to adapt your role and focus as your business scales.Insights on building infrastructure and effective scaling.The significance of self-awareness and personal development in leadership.Ready to discover how smart growth can transform your practice? Listen to the episode now!‍‍Sponsors:Studio 8E8: Dentistry's story-driven marketing agency. Traditional marketing repels. Story-first dental marketing attracts.We bring your story to life in a way that captivates and connects: https://s8e8.com/affiliates/tdm?utm_source=tdm&utm_medium=affiliate&wc_clear=true‍You can reach out to Joshua Scott here:Website: https://s8e8.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshuascott/‍Mentions and Links: ‍Terms:EBITDA - earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization‍Books:Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: hey, Josh will talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Joshua: Hey, Michael, this is for our business owners out there. And it's probably going to be a piece of advice. That's definitely unconventional, probably a little controversial, but I'll tell you, it's based in my personal research.It's based in my personal experience. I've done this. I know people that have done this, it's limiting your growth. In order to be profitable. Now, as a company and you're growing a business those two things sound at odds, right? You're like, no, I'm trying to grow because I want to be profitable and have a profitable business.But often what happens, especially in the dental profession, because practices can grow and they can grow quickly. And we begin to Keep up with that growth and chase that growth, which just sucks cash out of the organization. we have so many expenses and we're hiring new team members. Andwe've got 30 new patients a month, but we could probably see 45.So now you're looking at bringing on an associate. We're expanding, you're remodeling, you're renovating. All these things continue as we chase growth. And what that does is it just eats up the cash from the organization. the upside is you're growing a more valuable organization. So I get that we don't need to talk about, equity all that stuff.I understand that's one side of it, but in order to actually see profit, you know, when we talk about EBITDA being 10%, 20%, pushing 30 to 40 percent of dental practice, that's like super amazing. You oftentimes have to get to a place where you're limiting your growth in order to let the fixed expenses kind of cap and the profit begin to rise.Michael: Interesting. Okay. So then how does growth suck cash from the initial start? What are some of the early symptoms where you're like, okay, maybe we need to start slowing it down. And then what are some of the barriers or boundaries we can put to start slowing it down properly? Joshua: Yeah.No, it's such a great question. And a lot of times we get into the cycle before we even realize it, you know, like you've got to start up a lot of times it can be you and a clinical assistant, and then all of a sudden you start getting patients. You're like, okay, I'm gonna stop doing my own hygiene.I'm gonna hire a hygienist. that's a financial commitment, early on you're wondering if it's even the right time. Do I have the money to do that? And then more new patients come in. So you hire another assistant and then you hire front office.Then you hire another hygienist. And this whole cycle keeps going as new patients start coming in. The patient base is growing because now all of a sudden you're like, I only had three ops outfitted. Okay. Let me get the next two built out. Then you're like, okay, now we're full again. Now let me bust out through the side and add, another, three ops and rent that space.Then you're like, okay, now I need an associate. the more you grow, almost the more big ticket these expenses get, because now you're hiring an associate. Now you're expanding your space. Now you're moving locations. Now you're buying a building to do it. And so you just get all these expenses going.And I'll tell you from personal experience, what we did with Studio 88, this was about three years ago. And I was having lots of conversations around this with other business owners way ahead of me. And I said, how do you grow and be profitable? Cause we were growing, but man, it was almost like expenses and revenue were just in line with each other.We were never seeing that separation. But we were like having to hire people like, Oh my gosh, we got these more new clients. We got to hire all these other people. So I had these conversations with about three or four business owners. I said, how do you grow and be profitable? And all three of them were like, you can't.There's seasons where you're profitable, but usually it's because you're spending less money. And then there's seasons where you're growing and you're really spending, you're investing in the business and putting out capital. And those are very hard seasons to be profitable. So what we did about three years ago was, said, okay, we're going to cap our client growth at eight a month.I already have a team in place. We can handle eight a month. So let's go this entire year and let's just do eight. Okay. And see what happens. And all of a sudden when we controlled that fixed cost that kind of leveled out and then our profit began to rise. And then by the end of the year, I think we were hitting like 12 to 14 percent profit.And I was like, Oh my gosh, this was amazing. And then we added more team to go to 10 new clients a month. expenses kind of jumped up a little bit, but again, we became. And so there are seasons like of growing a business and then you may just be like, man, I just need to grow. Cause I'm trying to hit some like number and I just want to build a million or 20 million organization.Cool. But then there's some of us where it's like, we're growing, but we want to be profitable as well. How do we do that? And it could just be looking at your new patients and going, It's okay if we cap it at 25 a month, at 30 a month. And I maintain that team. And let's just have a year where we grow and you control those fixed costs.Don't renovate. Don't hire an associate. Don't bring on another hygienist. Just serve that patient base really well for that year and let that profit begin to expand. Michael: Interesting. Okay. So then real quick asking you, what made you come up with eight Joshua: Oh, like eight new clients a month.Michael: Yeah. Joshua: It had nothing to do with our name. It was just, I was like, yeah, no, it honestly was like, that was the capacity of the team. I went to our creative team, photographers, videographers, designers, developers, account managers.And I said, what do you guys feel comfortable with us taking? And we kind of reverse engineered it. We were like, I think if we did eight a month. We would feel great about the level service, the level creativity, and not overwhelming our team consistently. And so we said, great. And that's kind of how we capped it.organizations that go from zero to 1 million. it's a whole different dynamic. key is selling. when you're growing from a startup to a million in revenue, it's just sales. And we don't like to talk about that in the dental practice, but it literally is get as many new patients in as possible, create revenue, like just go, go, go.It'scall it like sell like hell, man. You just like it all to get the revenue in. But organizations, once they get above a million, they start to switch. now you've proven a market fit, you're doing a million dollars in your community. you're a solid practice.You've proven your practice fits in that community. You've got something. Now you've got to start focusing on scalable infrastructure. Now you've got to realize that growing like that begins to suck cash. But as you go from like 1 million to 10 million, the complexities increase a ton. you need cash not only to grow, but you got to bring on somebody for HR.You got to bring on somebody for as like a practice administrator, of a sudden youhave people on your team that are now making six figures. and it's just infrastructure. It has nothing to do with selling or creating revenue. These are just people that the structure needs.And so you realize a lot of times when practices get above a million and they're just grow, grow, grow, grow. All of a sudden they find themselves strapped for cash because they never created profit. And now they've got to invest in infrastructure and how the organization begins to scale towards the next complexity.Michael: So then what do you recommend when we pass that million, Mark, can we start looking into books or instructions or advice where it's like, Hey, help me to build infrastructure? Cause we don't I wouldn't know that. Once we hit this specific amount of employees and numbers and you know what I mean, kind of a thing. Joshua: Yeah. No, it's interesting, Mike, because work with larger groups and you can be acquiring practices. Okay. A million dollar one here, a 1. 5, 2 million one here. But all of a sudden you're like, Oh crap, I need a CFO. that's a high level want to call it an expense because I'm a P and L it shows up as an expense, but it's really an investment in your leadership team. But like, that's, a hefty, person, a COO. All of a sudden you're sitting on three practices doing 12 million in revenue.And you're like, I need somebody to run all this. You need a COO. These are high level people. And my point is if you've been buying practices nonstop, renovating them, hiring teams, putting in high paid doctors, all of a sudden you're in a situation where there's no cash. To bring on the COO, the CFO, the people you need.And so part of this is yeah, it's a race to get to a million, Get all the revenue and get all the new patients. But once you get past that point, start to figure out how to build a profitable organization because you're going to need it for the next step. And the thing I have found that I've seen proven I can't write a book on it yet.I don't have that body of like research, but I've seen it over and over again is if you can limit your growth. Then you'll start to see that profit increase. And so don't keep chasing that expense structure. Go, okay, we're going to be good for this year with this team. And we're going to serve 30 new patients a month.And that's just how it's going to go in the next year. We're going to expand or hire more team and we'll take on 45 a month, but begin to put that in place to create that profit. Michael: Do you think it gives you time to think time to plan look into the details of, Oh, we do need a COO or we do need an associate As well, Joshua: made such a good point because oftentimes growth it controls us. we get caught up in it and we're just running. it really takes discipline because That scarcity mindset really kicks in when you go, we're only gonna take 30 new patients a month that freaks people out because they're like, I'm turning away 15 or we're scheduling 90 days out or 120 days out.And I'm like, I know. you know what? They'll be there in the future. They will, you keep growing and make amazing organization. They'll be there. This is what's best for your organization right now. And even you create that head space to where you're not just chasing growth all the time.You're now turning your eyes as a CEO to what the organization needs. Michael: And then what if you're in a season where. You've already decided I'm only going to take in 30 new patients a month, but then something external happens, COVID, right? Or anything, right? I mean, something external happens where you're like, crap, I should have been selling this whole time. And now I'm like, you know what I mean? and maybe just for that season, how do you feel? What do you do? What should we? Look into it. Joshua: Yeah, this is why I love talking to you.I feel like you read my mind. You keep asking me like the next question and you and I didn't rehearse this, here's the thing when you're in that zero to a million, it really is about sales and it's about getting new patients in the door, create revenue, right? When you get past that million dollar mark, and now you're in that kind of million to 10 million range.It has to shift to marketing. And here's what I mean by that. We often look at marketing as solving our needs today. Josh, I need 45 new patients a month. So I need the market. I'm like, okay, that's a need for today. And Michael, to be honest, marketing doesn't often solve that. We're not going to change that in the next 30 days.You know, that we all know that marketing ispositioning you for the future. the reason why, like in the first phase of business, it's so important just to sell, cause you need revenue. You got to keep the lights on, keep people paid. The second phase is exactly what you just said. We don't know what the market's going to do.We don't know what the economy is going to do. We don't know what the community is going to do. So you'll face these kinds of ups and downs, these dips and challenges. But if you're investing in marketing, you're securing your future, you're creating momentum and attention, not for today, but for 90 days, for six months, for a year, And so you begin to shift that, put it in the marketing and build this brand that becomes resilient during times like that.So to answer your question, the best thing to do to solve a downturn is to have been investing in marketing six months ago to get you through that. Michael: have to have man, I guess a lot of more insight when it comes to Passing this 1 million mark, When it comes to your team, what you need, profit marketing.So what can help us with that? Cause we're not all. Immediately once a million passes, we know these things, right? We just continue to sell sometimes and that's it. So is there something specific kind of like a check Mark, a checklist or anything like that? Joshua: That's a good question, man.I think you're right. So much of this for me was trial and error. There's a lot of good books, scaling up as one of those books that I would say super impactful. It talks about these three phases of business and even gets into 10 million plus, and what we're trying to do at that level.first step is probably just realizing the grind of a lot of us know how to grind out a million dollar business and to be honest as we're sitting here in 2024, I don't know that that's as unique and as special as it used to be. It's absolutely an accomplishment, 100%. Most people will never accomplish that in their life, but I think we realize with some humility.A lot of people can just grind that out, but that skill set is not going to get you to the next level. And so people out there are going to be listening to this where it's like they've acquired practice two, they've acquired practice three, and they're trying to apply that same skill set, grind it out, sell, create revenue.And you have this like sneaking suspicion that it's not going to work. It's not going to get you where you need to go. And at this level, it becomes leadership. It becomes marketing and it becomes a scalable infrastructure. So turning your eyes from those things. Onto what's going to get you to the next step probably the first step is just self awareness Michael: Self awareness.So noticing these things, cause a lot of the times I feel like you bottleneck yourself and then you're like, no, I can do that. you know what I mean? And then you're,why would I pay this associate this much? If I can just double down and block out my schedule and do this and that it might work, but I don't know.Joshua: And dude, I'm so aware, Michael, probably one of the things I internally struggle with, not struggle with, but I'm very aware. Most founders of companies like agencies like ours. Only get to a certain level and they can't get to the next point. we're kind of at that point where like most founders kind of bail because they just don't have a skillset to go to that next level.I know that I am intentionally investing in myself. Cause I want to get there, man. I feel like I can, and I don't want to become the main limiting factor of this organization. I'm investing in myself. I'm aware of it. I'm trying to grow. Cause I'm like, we can do this. I can do this. Michael: Nice, man.Awesome. Thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure. I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find Josh in the dental marketer society, Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly? Joshua: Guys, I'm at Instagram at Joshua Scott. I'm still in my account.So hit me up. Tell me you saw this, heard this episode. We'd love to hear from you, but also a website s eight e eight. com. Michael: Nice. And at the same time, studio 88. Does have an exclusive deal for you. So if you want to go in the show notes below, click the link, check it out, if you are a need or a marketing company or a website, especially a website, if you like my website, studio 88 did it.So go ahead and check it out. And Josh, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure. And we'll hear from you soon. Joshua: Thanks man.‍

Are you a business-minded or clinical-minded dentist? In this Monday Morning Episode, we're bringing on Brian Mills to unpack the true nature of preparing for practice ownership. Brian emphasizes that while clinical skills are vital, being business-savvy is equally crucial. He dives deep into why adopting a do-it-yourself mindset for critical business operations like marketing and website development can set you up for failure, and why focusing on ROI can be your saving grace.Brian also sheds light on the often-overlooked emotional and life-driven catalysts that typically prompt someone to own a practice. Is it a financial calculation or a significant life event that usually pushes the button? If you think owning a practice is the only route to professional success, think again. Brian reassures listeners that thriving as an associate can be just as rewarding, providing valuable insights for both aspiring practice owners and seasoned dentists.What You'll Learn in This Episode:Why being business-savvy is as essential as clinical proficiency for practice owners.The risks of a DIY approach to critical business facets like marketing and website development.How to focus on ROI to navigate financial and operational challenges.Common life events or internal drives that lead to owning a practice.Why it's completely acceptable to excel as an associate and not own a practice.Ready to discover if practice ownership is truly in your future? Tune in for a revealing conversation that might just change your perspective!‍‍Sponsors:‍For DSO integrations, startup solutions, and all your dental IT needs, let our sponsors, Darkhorse Tech, help out so you can focus on providing the amazing care that you do. For 1 month of FREE service, visit their link today! https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/darkhorse-deal/‍You can reach out to Brian Mills here:Website: https://www.roamcommercialrealty.com/Email: info@roamcommercialrealty.com‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍‍Michael: Ryan, talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Brian: Oh, first of all, always be prepared for a video call and don't think it's just audio, but a better teacher on number one. Oh, I may lose all my business with this piece of advice, but I'm going to tap some people in the chest and I would say, you got to grow up in the business world. I have too many great clinicians, great doctors who are amazing care side, what they do, they take their craft to the highest level clinically, but when it comes to business, they haven't matured whatsoever.And when I say that, I mean, Don't take pride in doing your own website. Guess what? We can all tell Don't drive around and think, Oh, I'm going to go, look for a space by seeing what's cool out there. You're not maturing in the business world. You may be a great clinician, a great doctor, but your business mindset is not where it should be.You are not functioning as a high level. If you're thinking about how do I. Save the most amount of money. You have to think about return on investment. that would be sort of my tap you in the chest advice and say, Hey, you got to grow up. You got to get serious about your business acumen.Michael: So then. Brian, how do we start doing that, especially like we're fresh out, we want to do a startup or we're in that process and acquisition or whatever, right? And we're like, so Like I got to count my costs. I just took out a 500 plus thousand dollar loan and I have student loans and all these things and I need to count everything.Brian: You may not be ready. If you're constantly thinking and having this anxiety and agita about the cost associated with it, it may not be your time. And guess what? I always say when I speak, you may never be ready and that's okay. you can be a great associate for the rest of your life and that doesn't make you a less than doctor, person, et cetera.But if you can never get past that anxiety and you can never get past that fear, practice ownership may not be for you. There's always a healthy level of fear, but if you're always. Thinking about how do I cut corners to make it easier to save my way into success. That's not a good way to run a business.That's not how any other business would operate. before we were on, we were speaking about multi practice owners and emerging groups and DSOs. That's not the mindset that they operate with. They're always thinking, how can I drive the most production? Where can I get the most ROI?Not how do I success. Don't get me wrong. Overhead is very important and keeping your overhead contained within certain budgetary constraints and buckets is very important to a business, but it's not at the forefront of driving production and driving business. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. if you're Brian: not prepared to do marketing and things like that, then you're not ready for it yet.Again, you don't think, how do I create my own website? is your brand and you have to be able to lead with it. So you have to put the most force, the most effort, the most financial incentive you can behind your website, your marketing your technology. Michael: Okay. So then if it may not be your time, what can I ask myself to know when it is my time and just to like swallow that pill and say, I got to outsource this to marketing.Brian: I know I have enough, I just got to do it. usually there's some event that happens. You get tired of working at your corporate gig or there's something that, you want to do clinically or business wise that you're not able to do, and you feel sort of these constraints on you and people have that, and it's like this light bulb goes off or this moment we have clients that, Sort of boy with this idea for years, they'll sit down, we'll have two hours at Starbucks, they're ready to go. And then I never hear from them again. And I'm like what the heck happened? Did I do something? And then I'll see them at one of my seminars and then they'll call me like a year after that.And I'm like, okay, now what's different from two years ago. And I can tell when they're really ready. Cause then they say, you know what, something happened and I'm just tired of it. I'm completely ready to go. So sometimes you have this life event that may be. in the negative. And it drives you into doing your own thing.people always look at me for this magic pill. Like, Tell me something, Brian, that would give me this injection of confidence that will make me go do it. I think you have to come to it on your own. And sometimes, unfortunately it comes to it when you've just had your full of all the negative stuff or somebody telling you to do something that you don't want to do or, asking you to do something clinically that you don't feel comfortable with or whatever that may be.But there's usually some sort of crossroads in your life where it's just like, all right. I've had enough I've got to get out and do my own thing or I'm actually going to go crazy. Michael: Yeah. No, that's true. Have you ever seen someone who've has had the confidence, but they have no money? Brian: Oh, yeah, lots.Yeah, that's a little bit of crazy. That's my kind of crazy. I've had people who have had really big dreams. They can't get the financial support to do that. that's good. That's ultimately what keeps dentistry so safe is you have some people that graduate from dental school and they're like, I'm ready day one.And I had this Amazing idea. And I just need a million dollars to go do it. And the bank's going to say we get it. But our job is to keep you safe. So let's wait a little bit, Let's get some experience under our belt and see if that idea that you had, upon graduation is the same in two years, or maybe, you've morphed or changed a little bit.So it's great to have that passion and that energy, but it's also great to have it. Institutions behind you saying, Hey, we appreciate that, but we also want to keep you safe and there's some structure to these deals and that's what keeps the failure at almost, 0%. Michael: So it sounds like it's better to have that.Let's go get it. Confidence kind of thing. And then there's institutions that tell you like, Hey, slow it down. Right. There's little speed bumps instead of. You being the guy who's like, I'm going to take it super slow and safe and everything, but you'll still have institutions that say, slow it down, kind of a thing.Brian: I'm a serial entrepreneur. You got to be a little bit crazy to be an entrepreneur, right? You have to be able to, at some point, throw caution to the wind and say, I don't know what's going to happen, but I feel like this is a mitigated risk. I've done everything that I can possibly do. And now I'm going to look over that edge and I'm going to make that leap of faith.There has to be a point where you make a leap of faith. I would much rather have somebody be a little bit wired crazy and have. The lenders, people like me other institutions say, okay, I love the passion, but let's make sure that we're being responsible versus a lot of great doctors who have what we call paralysis by over analysis.They're always analyzing everything to the nth degree and they're frozen in fear and they can never get off the starting blocks. Michael: So then, in your experience, Ryan, specifically, if you can be like almost like a script, what do people normally say where you can tell like, You're not ready.Brian: when they start focusing immediately on overhead, right? The conversation automatically goes back. Well, How much is the rent, How much is the build out cost? And we're not thinking about how do I drive business? Who's sitting in my chair? What's the demographic? How do I appeal to them?What is my brand? What is my image? there has to be a passion that's driving this business. It can't be well, if I can keep my rent to, 2, 500 a month, I'll be successful. Do you know anybody who could do a website or half the price everything is brought back to how much is that going to cost?That's how I know you're not ready. Cause it's going to cost what it's going to cost. Nobody ever gets an award for doing the cheapest startup or the cheapest practice. You never want to be cavalier or foolish with your dollars. but you have to think about where am I going to wisely invest my money and what's the biggest return I can gain from that when it always comes back to How much is that going to cost me?How do I do it cheaper? You're not ready because you're not thinking about driving business. You're only thinking about overhead overhead, overhead, and your practice is going to suffer. Michael: And so do you tell them that you tell them like, Hey, you're not ready. Or do you try to shift their focus in that moment?Brian: I, Would hate to be the one that says you're not ready because maybe there's something inside that I'm not seeing. Maybe they go home and they do some soul searching or et cetera. But it is my job to educate and say, if we're solely focused on the overhead and not production, we're never going to be a high performing practice.And I don't want you just to open. I want you to open and succeed at the highest level possible, I want you to make 10 times more money than I make. I want you to make. 50 times more money than you ever thought you could make. I want you to be a high performing startup. I don't want you to just check the box and say well, I opened my practice and I made as much as I did as an associate.I want you to open your practice and say, wow, that was life changing for me and my family. So it's my job to say, I understand what you're saying. I understand why you're nervous. These are big figures. But we have to think, how are we going to drive business or you're going to miss the mark. And if you're not prepared to drive, business may not be something that I want to be associated with.Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So make sure they have the confidence, make sure. They don't save their way into success. And then at the same time, if you feel like they don't have all that, then it may not be their time. They may not be ready. May never be ready, right? Kind of Never Brian: be ready. And again, don't think of yourself as less than, you know, You have colleagues out there who never open a practice. They're called physicians, Most physicians go work for a hospital network, and that's what they went to school for. least when I started in this business 25 years ago, most dentists went to dental school to own their own business.But Just because you graduate today and you go work as a great associate at a corporate gig or private practice or something else doesn't mean that you're not a phenomenal doctor, clinician, person, et cetera. So don't do it just because you think that's the path that you're supposed to do. Do it because you have this drive within you and you feel like if I don't do it, it's going to eat me up when I look back on a life of regret.There's nothing worse than a life of regret, but don't think that Somebody else's path has to be your path. If you're not wired to be an entrepreneur, don't do it. Go do something else that you're passionate about. But if it's eating you alive, just know that what you're about to embark on is the safest thing you can do.You just have to approach it like a business and not purely from clinical standpoint, because it's a business first and foremost. Michael: Gotcha. Awesome. Brian, I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find them on the dental marketer society, Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?Brian: You can hit us up on our website, which is Rome, R O a M Rome commercial realty. com. You can email us directly info at Rome commercial realty. com. Michael: So that's going to be in the show notes below and Brian, thank you so much for being with me on this Monday morning episode. Brian: Thanks for having me.‍

Are you thinking about launching a dental startup but don't quite know where to begin? In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Chris Green to dive into the essentials of setting up a new dental practice, beginning with the crucial steps of demographics analysis and site selection. Chris shares his insights on the "windshield test," a simple method to augment data analysis with hands-on site evaluation. He also reveals practical strategies for identifying promising locations, accounting for natural barriers, and balancing commercial and residential areas—all keys to making sound, long-term decisions for your practice.The conversation continues with essential advice on how to work effectively with real estate agents and what to consider during site visits. Chris also discusses his book, "The Eminently Qualified Dentist," which includes a valuable self-evaluation scorecard to help dental professionals assess their leadership skills. As the episode wraps up, you'll get tips on regular self-assessment and Chris' philosophy on being always a work in progress.What You'll Learn in This Episode:Why demographics analysis is critical for dental startupsHow to perform the "windshield test" to evaluate potential practice locationsEffective strategies for identifying the best areas for a new dental practiceTips for navigating natural barriers and balancing commercial-residential zonesHow to collaborate with real estate agents to find the perfect siteInsights from Chris' book on self-evaluation and leadership in dental practiceThe importance of regular self-assessment for continuous improvementTune in now to equip yourself with the tools for a successful startup!‍‍Sponsors:Studio 8E8: Dentistry's story-driven marketing agency. Traditional marketing repels. Story-first dental marketing attracts.We bring your story to life in a way that captivates and connects: https://s8e8.com/affiliates/tdm?utm_source=tdm&utm_medium=affiliate&wc_clear=true‍You can reach out to Dr. Chris Green here:Website: thepracticelaunchpad.comEmail: cmgreendmd@gmail.comChris' Book - The Eminently Qualified Dentist: https://a.co/d/3AgXjbI (Reach out to Chris for a free copy!)‍Mentions and Links: ‍People:Dr. Thomas Reed‍Software/Tools:CoStar‍Podcasts:Jocko Willink Podcast‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: Hey, Chris, we'll talkto us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Chris: Hey there, Michael. I'd like to talk about demographics and actually the analysis of driving and having the area or the location you pick pass the feel and the site test more so than just the numbers test.talk to me a little bit about that like driving around and just looking or.Yeah. So it's a little bit.more intuitive than that. we have our demographics reports. We might be looking at them. We're looking for that 3, 001 dentists to population ratio, you know, the high income area.But then we have to look at how does it feel? Does it pass the windshield test? When I drive by behind the numbers, what does it feel like? So that's what I like to do. Michael: What's the windshield test? Chris: Yeah, so just. behind the steering wheel, you know, you're looking out the windshield and you're looking around and you're like, oh, cool.There's a lot of homes being built or. Oh, wow. You know, The demographics report said this was only like 1800 to 1, but I'm not really seeing the dentists. where are they at? so does it pass the eye test? So to speak would be maybe another way to say that. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. I like that.So then if you can, let's just say we're listening to this and we decided to do that. We're taking a drive strategically. How should we start? What are we mainly looking for that are red flags and what are some things that. We can probably let pass. Chris: Sure. So one thing that's well, known, if you've researched anything on demographics with a startup are natural barriers, like a highway that maybe people wouldn't want to cross or by us, there's the foothills in Colorado.So there's no real homes along the foothills. So now I've just eliminated growth to the West of me completely. Right. So if I'm butted up too close to there. And a couple more dentists come in and there's not a lot of room for new homes. I could be in trouble long term and I'm praying for turnover of the existing home, so to speak.The other thing would be, how much commercial real estate is in the area. Is there more commercial than residential, We want a nice balance of both and a lot of times in these newer areas that are up and coming The residential is there before the commercial is developed. So a lot of these projects are ground up commercial that we see a lot of startups going into they're waiting for the developers to finish to give them that great show Michael: How do we know that's a good balance then the commercial? And then the residential, Chris: some point you got to go with your gut and say, this is the location, right? You've worked with plenty of startups over the years. I'd turn the question back on you. What's your opinion on, some of that?Michael: Oh man. so when we focus, we focus just on ground marketing, right? So if it's commercial. We do want a lot of commercial, if it's residential, you have the HOAs, you have a lot of other specific things that you can be a part of. So I don't know, I guess it just depends on the type of practice you want to be right in the city, specific suburban area.Chris: Yeah, that's a great point. Are we talking a city and urban type atmosphere, rural or suburban for me? Just, I would say 80 percent of people are going to go to a larger suburb close to a major city. Let's say within 20 minutes to an hour outside a major city, Denver, Chicago San Francisco, whatever it may be.Michael: Yeah, gotcha. Okay. you're investing so much money into this, right? Your startup. Why wouldn't, not everyone just want to do this? Chris: And you said, hey, bring something that's unpopular. It's a little ambiguous, right? What I'm saying, it's not quite a science. It's a little bit of driving around, analyze the competition.Maybe your real estate agent didn't show you place that was available that has great visibility that meets the demographics and everything. But it just isn't on their radar and you have to say, Hey such such real estate agent. Would you mind looking into this place? It looks like it's vacant.Looks like it could be a good opportunity. I've seen situations like that work out really well for startup clients. Michael: Okay. So when you talk to them, real estate agent, is there a way you would want to bring that up to let them know like, Hey, you missed a lot of stuff. Or no, Chris: Some of them might be directing you where they know they're going to get a nice commission on it. But other times it's just not on the market, right? Maybe the hasn't listed it. maybe it's just doesn't show up on their searches on, what is it? CoStar or whatever. or maybe they didn't realize it was in a good demographic zone.Based on your demographics reports. So it's a team approach. Remember no one is more invested in this than you, the startup doc, So they're dealing with maybe, 20 clients at a time or something like that, you have your one little baby, you gotta do everything possible to make sure it's a home run.Michael: Nice. I like that. So Chris, you also have a book that you just came out with, right? Chris: Correct. So the book's called the eminently qualified dentist. I was listening to the Jocko Willink podcast and he talked about the eminently qualified Marine and I printed out this sheet and itit's about Marines and likethe levels of leadership what would signify that you're good at your job as a Marine.And I was like, wow, what if there was a scorecard that we could more objectively evaluate ourselves as dental practice leaders. so myself and Dr. Tom Reed compiled with or 12 categories the practice culture.Marketing leadership so on and so forth.And then some descriptions and ranking yourself from zero to five. And at the end, you could fill out the scorecard let's say you did that today, and maybe you've been working on some things you check in, six months from now, take test again and you see, Hey,it looks like I'm doing a little bit better as a leader.It looks like I am growing in the trajectories in the right direction.So that was the idea behind the book and it's quick read, more of an evaluation something that you might take on a flight,fill it out, read it, and then, reevaluate yourself. Michael: So if you can, one of the main things on there that you do, would you recommend, Hey, we should probably reevaluate ourselves every how often, Chris: maybe quarterly, there used to be a scorecard that I would use and evaluate quarterly, definitely annually when you're doing your maybe annual goal setting and things like that.but for maybe a book like this, twice a year, Michael: If you can let us know right now, where do you feel like, okay, I need to improve on this? Chris: Sure. I would say if a hundred percent, means. You've got it all dialed in. I would say we're probably lying to ourselves. I would say where I could improve a little bit more is with hard So you could always get better at having those hard conversations and not putting hard conversations off. I would say that would be an area for me to focus on. Michael: Yeah, man, that's interesting. So it does dive deep into the, not just like, what's your production looking like? What do you want it to be? But it's. goes into the granular part of conversations, which honestly Chris like, I feel like that's hard for anybody. You know what I mean? Like that's a, a difficult, nobody loves to be like, I love coming in and having difficult conversations.Maybe like 01 percent people, but that's good, man. Okay. So then this is available where? Chris: This would be available on Amazon. It's called the eminently qualified dentist. I it's 19 or 20. I've sent out a lot of free copies as well. So just hit us up if you want a copy I've got some good feedback so far for the people that have actually gone through it.It's, a reality check, right? When we introspective and evaluate how we're showing up to the world. we're always a work in progress is how I look at myself. So. There's always room for improvement and it's like when one category starts to do well, maybe another one suffers and it teeter totters.So it's hard to find that balance and everything. Michael: Yeah, no, a hundred percent, man. We go through seasons all the time, but awesome. Chris, I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find them on the dental marketer society, Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?Chris: Sure. I'll just give my personal email. C M green D M D at gmail. com. You can also find me at the launchpad. com, which is our startup coaching group. Michael: Nice. Awesome. So that's going to be in the show notes below and Chris, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning episode. Chris: Hey, I really appreciate you having me, Michael.Thank you.

Are you feeling burned out or stuck in your profession? In this Monday Morning Episode, we're sitting down with Don Barden, an esteemed economist with over 25 years of experience on Wall Street who now dedicates his expertise to the dental industry. With a Ph.D. and deep understanding of financial markets, Don shares his unique perspective on the mental roadblocks that dentists face. He introduces a compelling framework that categorizes dentists into four types: failures, frustrated, traditionally successful, and transformative practitioners. Don's goal? To guide dental professionals in shifting their mindset, reigniting their passion, and paving the way for enduring success and fulfillment in their careers.Drawing from his vast experience, Don lays out concrete strategies for developing the right mindset while steering clear of unproductive social expectations. He talks about the transformative power of focusing on personal and professional growth and stresses the importance of a self-managed practice. The discussion is packed with valuable advice for dentists aspiring to elevate both their career satisfaction and financial success. By the end of the episode, you'll be equipped with actionable insights to embark on a journey toward a thriving and lucrative dental practice.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The four types of dentists and where you might fit in.Why mindset is critical for overcoming frustration and burnout.Practical steps to shift your thinking and reignite your passion for dentistry.How social frameworks may hinder your progress and how to block them out.The benefits of committing to continuous personal and professional growth.Strategies for developing a self-managed, successful dental practice.How to unlock potentially lucrative opportunities within the dental industry.Let's listen in to these transformative insights with Don today!‍‍Sponsors:For DSO integrations, startup solutions, and all your dental IT needs, let our sponsors, Darkhorse Tech, help out so you can focus on providing the amazing care that you do. For 1 month of FREE service, visit their link today! https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/darkhorse-deal/‍You can reach out to Don Barden here:Website: https://donbarden.com/Email: don@dwbarden.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donwbarden/‍Mentions and Links: Books:The Self-Managing Company: Freeing yourself up from everything that prevents you from creating a 10x bigger future.‍People:Dan Sullivan‍Places/Economy:Wall Street‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey, Don, so talk to us before we jump into the one piece of advice. If you can give us a little bit about your background, who you are. Don: Yeah, I appreciate this. First of all, before we even get going, I want to thank you for what you're doing. I tell you, this show is as good as it gets for getting people pumped up and ready to go and getting that information out quickly to people who need it the most.So forget about me, man. I just want to thank you for for what you're doing. And yeah, I'll give you a quick background I'm a classically trained economist, Ph. D. S.25 plus years on Wall Street. I know economics inside and out, but I'm really a frustrated anthropologist.So I care more about the decisions people make I care about yield curves and interest rates. So we can talk about that, but it's boring. What's important and I think this is so applicable to the dental industry. is what's happening. How does it make you feel? And most importantly, what do you want?And I think that's one of the big struggles right now in dentistry. I've worked with dentists literally all over the world. It's my favorite group to work with. And for a couple of reasons one, most dentists out there are very frustrated right now. And they're frustrated because they fallen out of love.With their first love or their first career love and that's dentistry and they didn't fall out of love with the active dentistry. They fell out of love with all the crap that comes with it, Cause nobody tells dentists how to run their business and what to do. money comes in, money goes out, you keep what's left over.but then you wake up one day and you don't feel good and you're frustrated. But here's what I've learned is why I just love dentists. Dentists at their core are caregivers. They got into it with some unique path. Every dentist has got a cool story. But at the end of the day, when they get into it, they are caregivers and dentistry is a way to continue to care for people and the better they are at it and the more excited they are about it, the more the universe gives them opportunities and new patients and things to go out there and help and serve people.Dentistry is a self fulfilling prophecy. for a love and it's a love that dentists have for their craft and for caring for people. Dude, of all the people I work with around the world, they're the best because they have that thing, that just makes them special. So, I've had a good career as a professor, as a consultant, as a wall street guy.And at the end of the day, if I could just spend the rest of my days with dentists, I'd do it. Cause they're, that cool. Michael: So like, what would be the one piece of advice you'd like to give us that can move the needle here?Don: Yeah. When I say dentists are frustrated, a really unique proposition because there's only four times a dentist out there. There's the failures, the frustrated, the traditionally successful, and then transformatives. most people in the consulting world or whatever, they prey on. vendors are the same way that people are trying to sell you folks stuff.They go after the failures because you're drowning and you'll do anything not to drown so they can sell you more stuff or they go after the traditionally successful. And those are the dentists that are just sitting around. They got a good, you're a member of the country club. Kids are in a private school.You feel good about your spouse. Everything is good, but you're not going to do anything to disrupt that. Those folks take no risk. But what's interesting is where the market goes. Cause they think, everybody knows you, or, oh, you have a thousand new patients a month, or, oh, you got this. We need to do it.The reality is you're not gonna do anything. It's because you're traditionally successful. You made it. Okay. You're not going to do it. The two types of dentists that I like are the other two, the frustrated, who are folks that are just raising their hand saying, I need help, but I don't know where to go.Can you help me get from here to here? And then the transformatives. Those are the dentists that are always looking forward, always saying, I want to try something new. I want to continue to grow. I want to serve more people. How do I continue to transform? So I think the first thing dentists have to do right now is ask themselves, Are you a failure?Or you're just frustrated. Are you a traditionally successful person, which means you're pretending, you don't want to risk anything. You're just going to pull up in your cocoon or are you transformative?either way, the dentists that are going to survive and be happiest in the future or the frustrated and transformative, it's not going to be traditionally successful. It's certainly not going to be the failures. So if somebody's listening to this, they're like I'm a little frustrated.Okay, let me tell you what to do. Or even if you're transformative, I'll give you the same advice. You might want to have to write this down. You need to change the way you think about how you think, about the way that you think about your thinking. You got that? So don't change your mind on something.Change the way you think. About how you think about your thinking. And then what happens if you look out there and you realize, I need to get rid of all this social construct, this framework of what I read and what my buddies are telling me and what I see these other people who aren't even in the industry doing.Forget that. Here's what dentists really want, whether they're frustrated or whether they're transformative, they want the same thing. They just don't know how to voice it. And this is what we try to help them go, wow, you're right. So many dentists right now are frustrated. They want out, they want to just quit.They want to dump, they want to say, I'll sell it. I'll make a few bucks and I can brag to the country club that I sold my business and my spouse will be fine. And my kids will be okay. I'm not going to do the math about being broke when I'm 75 or 80, but we'll figure it out. I just want to go.That's what the industry is telling you to do. You need to change the way you think about that. Maybe your frustration doesn't warrant selling and then transforming is the same way. When you're transformative, the universe brings every opportunity possible to you. And when that happens, you're going to get some people coming in and going, we love you.We want to be a part of you. We'll pay you X amount more than what you're worth because we like what you build. And frankly, we think we can do it better. Yeah. Don't fall for that. So here's what I tell people when you're frustrated or when you're transformative, what you really want is a choice.You don't want to say I can sell out and just put some money in my pocket. You want to commit to changing the way you think about how you think about the way that you think about your thinking and say, look, if I can roll up my sleeves and over the next 12 months, I really get back into this. I really put my head down.I really start focusing on team development. I start focusing on the economics of what's happening. I start looking into the future and create a plan. First thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna fall in love again with the craft. You're gonna fall in love and say, Oh my God, when I start blocking all the noise out, I stopped worrying about the social construct or the framework about what everybody else is saying and doing.I forget what my buddies at the country club are saying. I commit with enormous amounts of courage and capability. I commit to 12 months of real focus. Which means I'm going to become self managed as Dan Sullivan said. So I'm going to be a guy or lady in this business who I can walk away for a month, take my kids to Europe and Asia and Australia and come back and I made more money than I would have made if I was here.That's what you want. But to do that, you got to change the way you think about how you think about the way you think about your thinking. what happens if you roll up your sleeves for 12 months and really get in, you're going to get some help. Sometime bring in people who are going to help you out.Here's what's going to happen. You're going to wake up in 12 months. And 1st of all, you're gonna be in love with the business again, which is a beautiful, wonderful feeling. But number two, you're going to find that that choice has two sides to it. And it's both in your favor that you sit there and look at it and go, Oh my God.Thankfully I've spent 12 months getting my life back together, focusing on my practice, team development, everything I need to do. I've got so many new pages coming in. I'm frankly in love again, and I'm making so much money. Why would I sell I'm making money when I'm not even here.Why would I sell? Or when opportunity does knock, guess what? You're going to sit there and go, yeah, man, we're making a fortune. You don't even need me. This is a self managed practice. My name's not on the marquee. This is a machine that is just pumping out money. I'd sell it to you, but how serious are you?And now you're gonna see a premium kick in. So imagine that in 12 months you went from frustrated or transformative to so unbelievably happy that you have a choice. I love my business again. I'm making so much money. It's crazy. I can take months off and make more money by not working than working.I am in love and I'm making a lot of money and there's no end in sight to it. Why would I leave? Somebody might come up and offer you so much money. It's ridiculous. Real money, adult money, because you've created a self managed business that runs on its own. It's growing and it's got so much enthusiasm that it's contagious.That gets you a premium. So don't think about what am I going to do to sell. Don't think about what am I going to do because I'm miserable. Think about how can I change my thinking? How can I commit with courage to seek the capabilities necessary to go out and just rock it? And when I do, I'm going to have some ups and downs.during this next 12 months, and I always tell people this, if you're really committed to doing this, You're going to learn the art of being a successful manic depressant. Because one minute you're up, one minute you're down. One minute you're up, one minute you're down. But then it starts shortening and then before you know it, you say to yourself, holy cow, these swings aren't like they used to be.My company's running on its own and it's great. And you sit back and you're in love again, you're making money again, and now you have a choice. And I think that's the biggest thing dentistry is facing right now is they don't think they have a choice anymore, but the only person that owns that is you, the dentist.And if you say, I'm willing to change the way I think about my thinking and I'm willing to commit with courage and I'm going to go for these next 12 months and roll up my sleeves. So I know in 12 months I'm either going to be making so much money and it's crazy that I wouldn't ever want to walk away from my first true professional love.dentistry or because of that, these folks that are throwing money around and throw real money around and when they do, that's a good day too. But either way, you now have a choice. You've got the high ground and you're driving it, but it comes from commitment and courage to change the way you think about how you think about the way that you think about your thinking.And it puts a bogey out there that if you do it, man, it's just like working out, 90 days. It's going to be better if you focus on yourself and your business to drive not to sell Not to not feel miserable, but to drive to a point of nirvana where you have a choice Dude, there's nothing wrong with that And I see dennis all the time And it usually changes the mind when I just say the one thing Would you like to fall in love again with your career see men and women tear up because the real answer is yes I All right, it's going to take some work.It's going to take commitment and courage. We're going to get the capabilities out there. dude, in the blink of an eye, it's going to be 12 months down the road. And since you had the courage to change the way you think about how you think about the way that you think about your thinking, you now have choice.And both those choices are good. And the ultimate scenario is when you're in a position where you can't make a bad decision. You stay and keep it? Great. You sell it for a super premium? Great. They're both good decisions. So that's it, You know, Change the way you think about how you think about the way that you're thinking.Be honest with you. Am I a failure? Am I frustrated? Am I traditionally successful? Or am I transformative? Either way, if you're honest, and you say, I want to fall in love with it again, change the way you think about how you think about the way you think about your thinking. Have commitment and courage and go out there and rock it.And there's so many scholars out there, Dan Sullivan, all of them, who talk about that. You get out there and do that, you'll be in love again, and that's all anybody wants, right? Michael: Yeah. Don: It's a great thing. And dentistry is set for some big economic upturns right now. But it's going to be those who follow that path.there's nothing wrong with having a good choice. Michael: Yeah, to change the mindset of it. Awesome, I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions Where can they find you? Don: Yeah, they find me on LinkedIn. Just say, Hey Don, I heard you on this show. Anybody who I do a podcast for, and I'm happy to do this for your listeners.we wrote a book years ago that's, I think in 39 countries that talks about this type of mindset. I'll send anybody a free eCopy of it if they want, but they can reach out to me on LinkedIn or you can just send me a direct email at don@dwbardon.com. It's DON at dwb. A. R. D. E. N. dot com. I answer every email myself.I talked to everybody. We got a great team here, but man, I'd love to help anybody out if they want to reach out and you just need a kind word. I'll be happy to move you from failure to frustrated. Or if you say I'm stuck in this loop of being traditionally successful, and that's not really me, but I'm stuck.I want to get back to being transformative. Love your work, man. And I really appreciate what you're doing here. Michael: Awesome. So that's going to be in the show notes below and also on the dental marketer society, Facebook group. And Don, thank you so much for being with me on this Monday morning episode.Don: Hey man, keep it up. You're doing great work and just thrilled and honored to be here. So thank you.

Could subbing in multiple offices before starting your own be the key to clarity? In this episode, we're bringing on Dr. Lara Saleh, a seasoned dentist, to reveal some game-changing advice for aspiring practitioners. Lara shares her journey from working in various offices to finally opening her own practice, highlighting the invaluable lessons she learned along the way. She candidly discusses the protocols and strategies that have made her practice thrive, from managing financial challenges to implementing clear emergency protocols. This episode is packed with real-world insights that could make all the difference for anyone dreaming of establishing their own dental hub.Lara delves into the critical importance of working in multiple dental environments before taking the plunge to start your own practice. Recognizing what works and what doesn't has helped her shape a practice that not only meets her standards but also ensures patient safety and satisfaction. She pulls back the curtain on the must-have protocols and the potential pitfalls, including which stress-inducing sedation techniques to avoid and why hiring adaptable team members is crucial. With a focus on continual learning and adaptation, Lara's advice is both practical and inspiring for any dentist looking to elevate their career.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The benefits of working in multiple dental offices before starting your own practice.Key protocols to have in place for a successful practice.Financial challenges of running a dental practice and how to manage them.Non-negotiable practices that will ensure the smooth operation of your clinic.Effective team management strategies and the importance of hiring adaptable team members.Why continual learning and adapting to new systems keep your practice competitive.Tune in now to empower your career with Lara's expert advice!‍‍Sponsors:‍Oryx: an all-in-one cloud-based dental software created by dentists for dentists.Patient engagement, clinical, and practice management software that helps your dental practice grow without compromise. Visit Oryx today for a special TDM offer! (Just click or copy and paste the link here) https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/oryx/‍You can reach out to Dr. Lara Saleh here:Website: https://drtoothfairy.com/Email: lara@drtoothfairy.com‍Mentions and Links: Terms:Demerol‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey, Laura. So talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Lara: my one piece of advice for anyone who is thinking about opening their own practice. is if it's possible to do what I did. And I think it's a wonderful start of a career. If you want to do private practice is to take some time off, but not completely off.You'll be doing subbing or replacing doctors. Either because of an injury, or they go on maternity leave, or for any other reason, they just want to go on vacation, you just cover for them. So I did this exclusively for about 18 months before I opened my own practice, and that really opened my eyes to what I wanted to implement in my office, what were the non negotiable things that I wanted in my office, what I could compromise on, And the definite no no's. And I gained a lot of perspective by knowing what not to do in my office. And actually it set my priority list on what's really important and non negotiable all the way down to what's really a kind of forbidden to be done in my office. And that I do not want to go down that path.And that was. The best thing that I did throughout my career, because when you work in one office for a long period of time, you're an associate, you get sucked into that office and the policies of that office. I think I covered about, 21 offices in the whole state of Virginia, where I worked, I just got to see so many things that I never thought I would implement in my own office, or I didn't think it would have been, a good idea.But when I was there and practice in these offices, it turned out to be fantastic ideas that I would have never thought about had I not been in that situation in this office at that time. Michael: After the 18 months, did you feel ready?Were you like, okay, this is all I needed. I'm good to go on my own. Lara: Absolutely. I felt I'm ready to do everything that I needed to do clinically to open a practice. But also there's not a lot of transparency when you're actually visiting an office. There's not like that huge door that they would open for you to look at their finances and to look at billing issues.So that part, I just had to learn when I opened my own office because you learn it hands on, like the first time I saw an EUB is the first time I learned how to deal with an EUB. I've never seen one before until I opened my own office and that's how I learned it.Michael: Yeah. Interesting. Okay. And then what were some of the non negotiables or the no nos that you mentioned? Lara: most of it were protocols. That I did not want to implement those. Emergency protocols. really learned it the hard way in one of the offices you never think that it's going to happen to you, but it might happen to you.And the worst thing is not to be prepared for it. So even subbing at those offices, I had it in my contract that I had to look at their emergency protocol before actually going into that office and making sure that. Their emergency kit is up to date and well stocked. Michael: Gotcha. So emergency protocols and you immediately implemented that into your absolutely now.Lara: Yes. Michael: Okay. And then what were some things that you watched that you said, I would never want to do this. I thought I did, but I would never want to do this with my team or my practice. Yeah. Lara: Honestly, oral sedations. my training program was very heavy on oral sedation. some of the practices wanted me to do.To sedation at a time and then sedation fell out of favor, but some offices still were heavily sedating kids some of the offices would advise you to use their protocol, which might be something that you're not trained to use, like Demerol. I was not trained to use Demerol. they had good record with Demerol. my stress level was much higher with sedations. And I knew that right there. And then when I wanted to open my own office, keep in mind that I opened my office after 10 years of practicing. So I've had a lot of experience experience and I saw a lot of things and I was okay doing sedation the way I learned how to do it.But once I started seeing how these sedations are and how little control you have after the sedation for monitoring, I decided that is something that I do not want to do in my office. Michael: So do you get a lot of parents who ask? Lara: Actually some parents don't really know the difference between nitrous, mild sedation, moderate and deep sedation.So there's a lot of people who don't know, so kind educating them. And I do refer some cases to other providers who do them. It's just I learned to be true to my comfort level and to listen to myself. If I'm not 100 percent comfortable with a procedure, I'm not doing it. And I learned that from, age and just stress levels.I don't want to be stressed for the rest of the day or for two days after my sedation. Michael: you ever feel Laura, like the ones that you feel super stressed or not comfortable, do you think okay, you know what, I'm gonna get there. I want to get there. I'm going to get some training. Or you're just like, Nope, that's just not how my practice runs.That's not how we are. Lara: After 10 years, I kind of learned, what really stresses me out. I just want to avoid it. let's say it's an advancement in pediatric dentistry, I definitely want to learn about it. So if it's something that we were not heavy on in my residency, I would want to learn about it.But sedation, I had, a lot of training on it. And we were super competent doing sedations. We did this every morning in our residency. So every morning we started with a sedation three days a week. So we're super, super comfortable doing the sedation. It's just my stress level was high after doing them that I decided I do not want this chronic stress, even if it's not super high stress, chronic low stress, I feel is very detrimental for your health, your mental health, your physical health, and for everybody around you. Michael: Yeah, no, a thousand percent. So then You worked at 21, that's a lot, 21 Lara: Sometimes it was just an afternoon.So it still counts, but it was just an afternoon. But it was quick in and out. It would be an emergency. They'll call me and can you come in this afternoon and I'll show up for the afternoon. Michael: Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So the 21 offices that you worked at, which were the things that you saw when it came to systems that they implemented?Were a good idea or were not a good idea, but it turned out to be fantastic to you in your eyes. Lara: Some of the systems that I thought were a great idea are system implemented by someone on site. There was that office manager that she ran this office.lovingly being respectful to everybody and in an emergency situation, you have the team leader, you have everybody knowing their roles, things just fell into place. And the day went by so well. Another thing is an office manager that was super tight with the owner, I feel like everybody liked that nonchalant, but nobody knew what they were doing. So instead of doing your job, a hundred percent, everybody was getting by, by doing 50 percent and people just getting confused, who does what and when should it be done? So I feel like these kind of situation I wanted to avoid.Michael: All the confusion and everything like that. So be more specific. Lara: Yeah. having like a role for everybody and a very well defined role. So these are your responsibility. And it's kind of hard sometimes when you're a startup, cause you really don't, know everything.And then you start making lists. And that's what I did. I started making lists and start as I go adding on to these lists of responsibilities, but it's so well defined that people have their boundaries and also like, this is what's expected of you and.this is the outcome that I want. So you can do everything that is expected of you, but not have the outcome that you want. That means maybe you didn't give them enough training on it, there's something that needs to be fixed within those boundaries that you've set.Michael: I like that. So then whenever you're making this list and you add new technology, new practice management software or something. Do you put it on there like, I expect you guys to get it, to know it, or do they sometimes say like, I don't like this practice management software, it's not working with us, Lara: some people express this pleasure with some things. It's just cause you're adding things on their plate. But I was very clear that I am learning with them. So as I learn more things, they need to keep up with me. And that's how we're a team. If I'm just learning, that means everything is falling on me.That's not teamwork. So as I learn and every CE that I go, I try to take at least one or two people with me, even though it will not be super beneficial for the dental assistant to come to a trauma. for me, it's just keeping that teamwork. If I learn something, I want them to learn with me.If I evolve, I want them to evolve with me. And that's how I think the best thing for a team is to evolve together. So we have actually blocked time on our schedule when you're a startup, you have a lot of time, but I do block time for us to go through pediatric dentistry articles and I have also blocked time to go through our software.everybody needs to know how to schedule an appointment, how to cancel an appointment, how to collect payment. Everyone in the office, no matter what their role is, everybody needs bare minimum. And then with our current software, we have a lot of evolution in it. And requests, so they keep adding stuff to the software and we block time to actually go through every additional feature, whether we use it or not, it's going to be determined later, but we all go through it together.Michael: I like that. And then the software you guys use is what right now Lara: is Oryx cloud based. Michael: Gotcha. Is there a reason why you guys went with cloud based? Lara: I think this is the future of everything having your software, your radiographs, everything in the palm of your hand, anywhere you go was just a non brainer for us and not having a server and depending on backing up those servers was just I feel like it's a dinosaur age to have anything that is not completely cloud based. Michael: Okay. I like that. So then any final pieces of advice that you would like to give to our listeners? Lara: If you're thinking about opening your own practice. Open it with the mindset of the future.if you're going to hire somebody, hire them thinking that they need to be open to all the newer technologies that you want to implement. Do not hire someone who's so attached to their previous, say software, or do not hire someone who's attached to their previous practices who are not open to learning new things. Most of my hires have no dental experience. And it worked out great for me. Michael: Wow. That's fantastic. If anyone had any questions or concerns, where can they reach out to you? Lara: They can reach out to me at my first name, Laura at Dr. Tooth Fairy, which is the name of my practice. Laura at drtoothfairy. com. Michael: Nice.Awesome. Laura, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it. And thank you for being with me on this Monday morning episode. Lara: Thank you for having me.‍

Have you been wondering how AI could revolutionize dental practices and patient care? In this Monday Morning Episode, we chat with Mike Buckner from Pearl, an AI company dedicated to transforming the dentistry landscape with cutting-edge technology. I begin by asking for insights on integrating AI into dental practices, Mike emphasizes that, despite the confidence many experienced dentists have in their diagnostic skills, patients increasingly expect advanced technologies that offer precision and unparalleled care. He delves into how Pearl's AI assists by marking pathologies on dental x-rays, making dental issues more comprehensible to patients and boosting acceptance of recommended treatment plans.Mike shares compelling statistics from the CDC on undiagnosed conditions and highlights how AI offers a valuable second look, ensuring no critical details are overlooked. He discusses the reliability of AI, acknowledging its occasional false positives or negatives but likening it to a TSA scanner that identifies areas warranting closer dentist inspection. Throughout the conversation, he emphasizes that AI aids rather than replaces dentists, providing them with robust tools to enhance diagnostic accuracy. A deeply personal story about his wife's missed breast cancer diagnosis underscores the broad potential of AI to elevate diagnostic care across medical fields. As the episode wraps up, Mike encourages listeners to explore Pearl's offerings and consider a demo to experience AI's benefits firsthand.What You'll Learn in This Episode:How AI is transforming the field of dentistry and patient expectationsThe advantages of using AI for diagnosing dental issues through x-ray analysisKey statistics on undiagnosed conditions and the role of AI in mitigating theseThe limitations and reliability of AI in diagnostic proceduresPersonal anecdotes highlighting the broader significance of AI in healthcare diagnosticsDon't miss out on discovering how AI can elevate your dental practice and ensure the best patient care – tune in to this episode now!‍‍Pearl AI: The Future of Dentistry, Powered by AI: https://hellopearl.com/ (Don't forget to mention you heard about Pearl AI on the podcast!)‍You can reach out to Mike Buckner here:Website: https://hellopearl.com/Can You Beat AI? http://play.hellopearl.com/‍Mentions and Links: Podcast Episodes:402: DR. KYLE STANLEY | BEVERLY HILLS DENTIST – THE DENTAL MARKETER PODCAST‍Products/Brands:iPhone‍Sources for Referenced Stats: Development of a Deep Learning Algorithm for Periapical Disease Detection in Dental RadiographsDiagnosis of Occlusal Caries: Part I. Conventional MethodsProducts - Data Briefs - Number 307 - April 2018‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey Mike. So talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Mike: A little background. I work at a, an AI company, right? Pearl. and so what we're doing is we're helping dentists see and analyze everything that's on the x rays that are taken.And oftentimes, you know, it's really interesting, but oftentimes talk to dentists who say, you know what, I've been looking at x rays. for the last 20, 30 years, I don't need help. I don't need technology to help me look at or diagnose or find things on x rays. I never miss anything on my x rays.And I guess a piece of advice that I would give is that it's not necessarily about. You know, that sounds really bad, but it's really about the patient and what the patient is expecting. oftentimes we get an influx of patients that reach out to us at Pearl are asking us, Hey, can you help us find a dentist in the area that we live in that utilizes artificial intelligence?because they've been burned before. They've had bad experiences before they needed to go and get a second opinion before. And so it's really about what the patient's expectations are. What is going to give your patients the peace of mind that they are going to a practice that leverages the latest and greatest in technology so that they are going to someone who's going to provide them with the best oral care available.Michael: And so you guys have been bumping into this a lot with regular population, general population asking. Mike: Yeah. So we, we get a lot of patients that,have an interest in what we're doing with artificial intelligence and highlighting all of the pathologies on the x rays because really what it does is it's giving the patients as a patient's in the chair.It gives them the opportunity really for the first time to kind of see what the clinician's seeing, to see what the doctor's seeing. The dentist can look at the x rays and he can see and analyze almost everything that's on there. But when he's pointing out the treatment to the patient, the patient's like, I'm sorry, everything looks Kind of gray or this dark color gray, because the doctor's like, do you see this area right here? That's a little darker and for them. They're not seeing it But when AI can come in and highlight all of those areas on the x ray it breaks it down for them It helps them see it and understand it and when they see it and they understand what's going on in the x rays it makes sense to them.It truly leads to an increase in case acceptance. Michael: Do you, Mike, by any chance have stats on how much missed things have happened you know what I mean? like my own self trust. I got this. Don't worry. I've been doing this for years. Compared to AI. Mike: I do. In fact, I'm glad you asked that. We did not rehearse this before, but I actually have some stats up that I wanted to share.this is right off of the CDC website. are some studies show that 43 percent of carries in x rays are undiagnosed. 20 percent of carries diagnosed in patients are not actually carries. here's the big one, 49%, almost right down the middle, almost a coin toss 49 percent of periapical radiolucency and x raysare undiagnosed.That's huge. Yeah. That's massive. And even if it's just one that's missed, now, unfortunately we're seeing it more than ever. We're seeing, law firms that are advertising to patients. saying, Hey, did your dentist miss this or miss that? Cause if so, click here and submit a claim and we're going to go after him and get you some money.It's, unfortunate, but that's really the way that things are going. So, This just allows that second set of eyes, that peace of mind, especially as you have associates, you've got other people working with you in the practice to make sure that everyone is seeing all of the detections.It's not diagnosing. But it's just helping highlight and find things earlier or sooner than human eye might be able to. Michael: the human eye can only see between 30 and 50 different shades and tones of gray, artificial intelligence, it has the ability to really pick up and highlight between 500 and 700 different shades and tones of gray, it really is able to catch things earlier than what a dentist might be confident in finding diagnosing. Gotcha. Okay. now this is a question I've seen floating around. Can AI make mistakes? Mike: Absolutely. In fact, what I would say is that when you do install or implement AI, there will be times that you'll look at it and it might be a false positive.It might be a false negative. And here's really kind of reasoning behind it. if you go onto your phone, your iPhone. And they have that search in your photos, you can go to your photos and you can search and type in something fairly generic into the search. You can type in like a dog or a cat and it's going to go in and it's going to give you all of the pictures, all categorized, all bunched together, all the pictures of dogs in your phone.But you might have a couple of those that are going to be cats or might be deer or might be something else, but it looks very similar to that. Now, this is where it's not a replacement for the doctor. It's not a replacement for the human eye, because if you look at that, you can easily see, Oh, you know what?It's actually a deer. It looks like a dog, but I can tell that it's a deer. The same thing applies with the x rays. Sometimes the x ray might be taken on a poor angulation or with a lot of overlap and it might pick something up. But looking at it, oftentimes the doctor will say well, yeah, I can see why it might be highlighting or showing that as carries.But I know that there's just massive area of overlap or something else that, they can easily see and pick up. Michael: So would you recommend if we're utilizing Pearl or AI, right? We use it Hey, this is our first round and then I will double check it as a doctor and make sure it looks good.Or the other way around,Mike: because it works instantaneously, I would almost suggest look at the areas that the AI is saying, Hey, there might be a curious lesion here. Very similar, Michael, when you go through like TSA at the airport, you walk through that scanner.And when you walk through, there's a little box that it shows kind of an outline of a person and it shows a little box to the TSA agent saying, Hey, you should probably check this area. And that's very similar to what the AI is doing. showing you the areas to the dentist that saying, Hey, you might want to check this area based upon the pixels on the x ray in this area.There's a high likelihood that there's, radiolucency that's found within this area. Michael: Gotcha. it's really good. To always keep that alert on this thing. And so with AI, you mentioned that patients reach out to you. Is there a specific thing that you guys do where you're like, Hey, there's doctors near you who have, you know,Mike: So we don't have anything that's programmed yet that we, have released, probably coming soon, kind of a little teaser there but, is something that AI is huge in medicine. we talked about this, right before this podcast where, it affected me as well. In fact, my wife's breast cancer was missed on a mammogram. And I started researching where is AI in mammography we're seeing more and more of it, but patients are aware of this.Patients know that AI is here to stay. It is really elevating the standard of care because humans are prone to mistake. Humans are prone to errors and missing things. And the AI is really kind of that, unbiased, able to just highlight all the data that's shown and let the clinicians, let the doctors make the final decision.Michael: Gotcha. Can I ask Mike, what made you, when it came to the breast cancer with your wife, get like a second opinion and not just depend on that one doctor and say, Hey, cool. Mike: Yeah. It's funny. there was a phrase that was shared with us when the oncologist, showed us the mammogram and then he said, we can do an ultrasound.We did the ultrasound. Same thing. It's not really typical to what we see with breast cancer. And then he said, we can watch it. you're young, I wouldn't worry about it. You can come back next year. We'll get another mammogram.We can see if it's changed in size or anything. I'm like, there's no way there's no way I'm watching it. Cause I know what that means. What are we going to watch it do? We're going to watch it get bigger. I don't want to play with that. that's really where I thought, you know what? kind of. wanted to research where is AI in mammography? Because this all happened while I'm working at Pearl, while I'm working at a company that is bringing artificial intelligence, aid or detections to x rays. those words, we can watch it. To me, it was like, okay, the doctor sees something there, but is not certain enough.To give a diagnosis. went ahead with the biopsy and the biopsy came back positive. She's doing well now, but the biopsy came back positive and I went home and I was like, Oh my gosh, of course. humans make mistakes.don't blame him because here's the thing that I don't know. Was that his first mammogram that he looked at on Monday, or was that his 500th mammogram that he looked at on Friday and where everything is kind of all blending together, can't blame him for that, humans just make mistakes, but that's really where after we got the results back from the biopsy, I went back and I started researching this.And, AI in medicine is making massive strides all across all the different fields in medicine. And it's exciting because I do think that it will improve the overall standard of care. Michael: That's interesting. Man, that you mentioned that because for a lot of patients. Dental or not, like this is their, visit, whether they're in the chair, right?And then they're getting checked up on and stuff like that, that could be their first most terrifying experience ever. But for the doctor, it's it's Friday, my last pay, I just want to get out of here kind of thing. Right. I have stuff to do. And so the doctor could be super experienced.But the time of day and how they're feeling and everything plays a huge factor, and that's what can miss it, right? And so I guess we're not really thinking of, oh, this is the patient's first and most terrifying experience ever here with us. And they're depending on me to get everything on point, but I'm like, I gotta get Mike: out of here Michael: kind of thing, right?Mike: Yeah. you look at those x rays, we've been looking at the same black and white and gray technology for a long time now oftentimes it is kind of on the fence, like, should we treat it? Should we not? We don't want to be too aggressive. But I remember I've been to the dentist before and the dentist has told me like, ah, there's something here, but might want to just keep an eye on it.And I'm like either there is, or there isn't. Can we stop it? Can we do something to remineralize whatever? But don't just let me walk out of here. If you see something there let's take care of it. I want to fix it. Michael: Yeah. A hundred percent, man. That's true. Awesome. Mike, thank you so much for your time.I appreciate it. But if anyone has further questions or concerns, where can they reach out to me? Mike: Actually you can go to our website. Hellopearl. com. If you go to our website, you can sign up for a demo of Pearl. see how the AI interfaces with your x rays.what it can do for your practice. So we really have designed different features and different tools for all areas of the practice, whether it's front office, whether you're a hygienist, you're a dentist. We really have, explored ways to leverage artificial intelligence to really increase overall efficiency and the standard of care in the practice.Michael: Awesome. So that's going to be in the show notes below. So you can reach out to Mike and get that free demo. Mike, thank you so much for being with us on this Monday morning episode. Mike: Thank you very much.‍

We all love when our peers agree with us online, but could this be hurting our mindset and creativity? In this episode, I sit down with Jennifer Pearce to explore the perils of groupthink and the profound impact of mindset on success in the dental industry. We dive deep into how maintaining a healthy, critical approach is crucial for dentists, especially when transitioning from larger DSOs to private practice. Jennifer passionately discusses the dangers of groupthink, revealing how it can obstruct innovation and stunt personal growth.Through examples and insights from her coaching experience, Jennifer sheds light on the necessity of evolving one's mindset. Whether you're just starting in the field or looking to make a significant career change, this episode is packed with practical advice and thought-provoking ideas. Tune in to discover how critical thinking and self-awareness can become your greatest assets in navigating the complexities of a dental career.What You'll Learn in This Episode:What is groupthink, and how does it affect personal and professional growth?Why mindset is critical for success in dentistry, especially in private practice.How to transition from working in DSOs to establishing a private practice.The importance of critical thinking and self-awareness in overcoming industry challenges.Real-life examples and insights from Jennifer's coaching experiences.Practical tips for evolving your mindset at different stages of your dental career.Strategies to maintain an independent and creative approach in a collaborative environment.How to identify when you're falling into the groupthink trap.Let's get into our episode with Jennifer Pearce today and learn how to steer clear of groupthink!‍‍Sponsors:Studio 8E8: Dentistry's story-driven marketing agency. Traditional marketing repels. Story-first dental marketing attracts.We bring your story to life in a way that captivates and connects: https://s8e8.com/affiliates/tdm?utm_source=tdm&utm_medium=affiliate&wc_clear=true‍You can reach out to Jennifer Pearce here:Website: https://prosperitydentalsolutions.com/Email: jennifer@prosperitydentalsolutions.com‍Mentions and Links: Terms:Groupthink‍People:Travis Kelce‍Events:Super Bowl‍Football Teams:Dallas CowboysKansas City Chiefs‍Insurance Companies:MetLife‍Companies/Brands:American Airlines‍‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey, Jennifer. So talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Jennifer: Good morning. Um, the first thing I would like to say is group think is a powerful thing. It's also can be a very harmful thing and your mindset is pivotal. But how you establish that mindset is more pivotal, and this is why I bring up the subject of groupthink. Michael: Okay, so groupthink, and then you, one thing you mentioned is how you establish your mindset. First and foremost, how do we establish a good mindset? And what would be good? Jennifer: I don't think that you wake up one morning and say, I'm going to get a good mindset. I think it's an accumulation of experience. things that you do right, things that you do wrong.We all tend to learn more from things we do wrong. But I do feel that it needs to be, um, critical as to what you're trying to accomplish. Because. What I see a lot of today, and this is why I talk about groupthink, is, oh, I'm experiencing this. Let me go on social media or Google and Google what I'm facing and see what other people say or think about.current conundrum, problem, or whatever. And so when you're a dentist and you're raised in the critical thinking, genre in your schooling, that's great. But sometimes I feel like the critical thinking or the awareness of the mindset thinking gets a little bit muddy when we're looking for a solution to a problem.So this might seem a little like a vague answer and I don't mean it to be, but mindset is. It's not something you wake up one morning and say, okay, I'm going to do a through Z. And then I'm going to have a good mindset. It has tributaries. It has things that take you off of stream. And then you come back onto the stream and being in the ebbs and flows of your mindset, awareness, and growing sometimes for dentists being highly technical thinkers, this gets scary, muddy, um, overwhelming And that's part of it, too. It's part of the process. So I think mindset a little bit is an overused word or a misunderstood word, but your mindset and how to fix your business is pivotal. So let me give you an example, if I may. Michael: Yes. Jennifer: So when you're a new practitioner, you've decided I've come out of school and I'm going to go work at a DSO and I'm going to get some skills, whether it be becoming faster at your skills.better at your skills, whatever. your mindset at that time is knowledge acquisition, time inefficiency, learning how to be with a team, what you need from the team, those kinds of things. I coach some people, some doctors who have come DSO environment, go into a private environment, and it's not the same they've evolved.What they expect from their team could be different and they haven't done enough work on their mindset. They've mainly worked on their technical skill sets. So there's technical prowess, there's a mindset, and there's leadership. And all of these are pivotal pieces to your practice growth.If you decide to have one or your own, clinical growth. If you decide not to have a practice and be within a DSO environment. could be DSO. It could be ideas. So it could be a number of things. I use DSO. It's a very broad term for private. Versus corporate versus anything you do not own. Okay.So a lot of the doctors don't realize they have been put into a mindset and leadership, path or story. And sometimes they're not aware of that's what's happening. And they adopt some of that as their own. So this is where I say your mindset is very important because it's almost like you've been kind of in a cult and you may not know it.And then you come out of the cold and you decide I'm going to open a practice or I'm going to do this. Your mindset has to be your path. Your mindset has to be where you take it. It becomes your vision. It becomes your, your style of business. I often say with mindset, I'm from Texas, so pardon my frankness, but if you do not choose your saddle, your saddle will choose you.Michael: And it may not be a good saddle for you. So people choose to go into different business models within dentistry for whatever reason. There's, so many reasons we can give for why people choose. But. the mindset that got you there when you choose whatever you choose. And then the mindset that takes you along your career, five years, 10 years, 15 years in has to evolve because what got you the first five years won't get you to the next five years.Jennifer: What got you through the first 10 years may not get you through the next 10 years. Um, because I probably am not telling anybody anything they don't know, but we are in what I consider to tonic shifts in dentistry. which I've been in for 30 years. So over the last, I would say 12 years, I've seen tectonic shifts, whether it be from technical disruptions, team disruptions, COVID, you know, incidents, which has changed us all.So, mindset is something that has to always be, brought to awareness and, challenged with inquisition of what you really want, not just challenging, just to challenge. Yeah. Michael: Yeah. Cause I feel like, well, then let me know, Jennifer, when it comes to mindset, let's just say we come out of a DSO.This happens a lot, right? We come out of a DSO, we enter into a private practice, then we start liking the private practice. Oh my God, the doctor was amazing. I love the way she works and everything, but it's time for me to open up my own practice. Right. And so they open it up. They take systems from the private practice.They take some things they like from the DSO, but they hated it. They're like, I hated the, the non. You know, we were like a drill and fill and get out kind of thing. Right. And so where is it with the doctor who's opening up the practice where they're like, all of this is mine, my mindset, or is it okay enough for us to kind of take pieces of stuff that we like and things like that.But maybe later on, we never questioned it. And then we're like, I never really liked that. I, it just worked to make money kind of thing. And I guess. Jennifer: It's called the status quo. I coached two practitioners right now that did just that. They were very successful in a DSM environment.And so yes, event, they knew eventually they were going to have their own. That's no big secret. It's something that happens, right? But they love the, the systemization. Yes. Of what they had at the DSO. And they were then in this illusion and bubble of what the DSO had created as far as the continuity of how things went, whatever leadership had been established.They may have liked pieces of the leadership as a doctor, but not the other pieces. Michael: You Jennifer: know, there's so many little intricacies to this conversation about that, but they never realize. The stress. The amount of personal time everything's going to take till they buy it. And then, uh, one that I have been coaching now for a year and a half, but unbeknownst to her, a dumpster fire, she did not know what she bought because.A lawyer told her it was okay and a broker told her it was okay, but she never really looked the business itself and in got in the practice management software and all those kinds of things. So, and many times she has said to me, I was really good at this and a DSO environment, but in this environment, it's completely different.And I said, so yeah, we've got to work on. Your mindset towards now that you own it, your leadership style. Now that you own it, which systems did you like? Which systems did you not like? Let's make this saddle fit your ass. you now own the saddle, you own the horse, you own it all. and they just don't realize it's like anything else.None of us realize till we jump into something. And then we're like, wow, I can't swim this fast or chew this fast. What do I do? How do I get it? Right. And I think the hard thing for all this is then we're talking to somebody who now has a husband or a wife. and children and life and those things may not have been part of the stressors to begin with, right?So your mindset towards what gets your attention at what times and then focusing that attention, um, cause usually dentists, as you know, and it's no big secret that they're technical. they're the technical tinkers. They want to work with their hands and all that stuff. So. Michael: Interesting.Okay. So internet show group think Jennifer: yeah Michael: is powerful. You said, but horrible sometimes. Jennifer: Yes Michael: In the sense of when can it start becoming horrible for someone? Jennifer: So I'll see something being said. let's just talk about, you know, on Facebook because it's something everybody understands, right? And you'll be in a group and there'll be, you know, a doctor will state something and then 60, 70, 500 comments come along with other doctors and it's.Same, same, same, same, same. Michael: Yeah. Jennifer: So, one of the things that I really work individually with people on is standing in your rightness. R I G H T N E S S. But when you get a hundred things of agree, agree, agree, agree, and you realize there's, there could be some nuances to that answer, not judgment or this is wrong, whatever.Um, you realize they're all group. Think group. Think feels comfortable group. Things feels vindicating group. Think feels, Oh, I must be right. If I can just get everybody else to listen to me. My pain will stop and no, you're all actually maybe only a skosh wrong, but you're wrong, you know, in how maybe you're leading or how you're trying to get something to be accomplished or whatever, which then over time leads to status quo, where they just.Pull back. And they just say, this is too hard. I pay my team. They're doing okay. We're doing okay. I want to be with my wife and children or my husband and my children. This is okay. This is enough. This is, this is what dentistry was for a very long time. You know, it was a cottage industry business. and the dentist would show up to do his or her work, tinker.Michael: Yeah. Jennifer: They'll go home. Now we have more entrepreneurial based dentists. We have more competition. We have the insurance derivatives. DSOs, you know, different models. And so it's like a pressure cooker now. And I think the pressure cooker. gives groupthink a place to go and kind of hang out for a minute and yeah, yeah, yeah. So funny share. Okay. Michael: Yeah. Jennifer: I love football. I'm from Texas. I'm a football girl. If I could buy the Dallas Cowboys and flip that team, I would. Okay. So watching the super bowl, most people tend to watch the super bowl. So it tends to be a good bonding discussion. And Travis. Kelsey, and his coach with the, Kansas city chiefs, you know, they were having a moment. They were having an intense, passionate moment with a top performing athlete. Okay. Did the coach get all reactionary and bench him because he was like misbehaving or speaking inappropriately to the coach at the moment?No, that coach has been around a while. That coach just looked at him and he heard him. But is that the time to punish him, get into it or whatever? No, he let, he let him have his moment and they went on to win in the celebration of the super bowl, what were that coach and player doing, loving on each other, high fiving.They just made a ton of money. And one of the group things I saw in one of the chats on Facebook was he was disrespectful, he should have been benched. He should have been this. Very much standing in rightness at the end of the day, that coach was very wise with a very talented person. Let him have his moment, let him blow some steam and then let him ride, let him fly, let him get out there and do what he needs to do.And I think sometimes this is what I see in group thing in dentistry, killing a little bit of our ingenuity, our creation within our team, our advancement. Really crucial talent in our teams. So sometimes the doctor's like, well, they did this and I'm going to, you know, and I'm like, Hmm, that person closed 500, 000 in your books last year.Is this a battle or is this a war? Cause you're making it a ward. It might just be a battle we might just let this one go. So this is mindset. This is mindset. And you can tell how much I love this. I'm very passionate about it. I can go on, about it because I think in dentistry, one of the most, the biggest blessings I had is my clinicians that I worked for, male, female.I've, I've had both that I've worked for as an employee. Michael: Mm-Hmm. . Jennifer: they empowered me. They let me take my passion. They let me. You know, grow and do things. And they allowed me also to challenge their mindset at times about how they were thinking about something. the first one happened very young in my career when my dentist wanted to get in network with MetLife, we were completely fee for service practice, like literally the patient came and got a crown, they gave us a check.We gave them a super bill to melt to their insurance. And he says, we, we need to go in network with MetLife. And I said, tell me what that means. Not a clue. Michael: Yeah. Jennifer: We were right down the street from American Airlines hub at DFW Airport. We had pilots, we had flight attendants, we had baggage throwers, and he said, well, we can get more patients.And I said, we have three operatories. We're booked out six months. in hygiene right now because we have one hygienist. look at the fee schedule. So I looked at it and I said, you want us to take a 40 percent decrease in our pay. You want us to see more patients. We don't have capacity. Why would we do this? He said, they're going to leave us. Who told you this? Mindset. Michael: Mm hmm. That's why. Gotcha. That's nice. That's nice, Jennifer. Awesome. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure. If anyone had further questions or concerns, where can they reach out to Jennifer: you? You can find me at Prosperity Dental Solutions.That is my website. Um, my email is jennifer at prosperity dental solutions. I'm reachable through there. That's probably the easiest way to get ahold of me. Michael: Okay. Awesome. So that's going to be in the show notes below. And Jennifer, thank you so much for being with us on this Monday morning episode.Jennifer: Thank you for having me.‍

Have you heard claims like "less than 1% of dental practices fail"? Today we're exploring how that may not be the case! In this episode, I'm sitting down with Ali Oromchian to debunk common myths about the failure rates of practices and uncover the essential strategies that can help you mitigate risks in this challenging field. From the critical importance of due diligence when acquiring a practice to the necessity of robust HR practices, we delve into the nitty-gritty details that can make or break your career. Ali's insights are not just theoretical; they are drawn from real-world experiences and seasoned legal advice.As we navigate through this discussion, Ali emphasizes the transformative power of creating a positive work environment to attract and retain top talent. You'll learn the subtleties of maintaining compliance with ever-evolving legal requirements and avoiding common HR missteps that many practice owners fall victim to. Whether you're just starting or looking to optimize your existing practice, this episode is packed with actionable advice that can help elevate your practice to the next level. Stay tuned until the end to find out how you can get in touch with Ali for personalized guidance and support.What You'll Learn in This Episode:Why the "low failure rate" of dental practices could be a misconception.Key strategies to minimize risks as a practice owner.The importance of thorough due diligence when buying a dental practice.How to establish solid HR practices and stay compliant with legal requirements.The vital role of creating a positive work environment in recruiting top talent.Common HR pitfalls and how to avoid them.Let's learn how to minimize risk and maximize peace of mind in our practices today with, Ali Oromchian!‍‍You can reach out to Ali Oromchian here:HR for Health Website: https://www.hrforhealth.com/ (Don't forget to mention the podcast sent you!)Ali's Website: https://www.dmcounsel.com/Phone: 925-999-8200‍Mentions and Links: Software/Tools:IndeedMonster.comCraigslist‍‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey Ali, so talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning. Ali: All right, Michael, thanks for inviting me on here. You know, I'll tell you, you know, business owners, whenever you talk to these lenders, they always throw this statistic out at you. They say.You know, less than 1 percent of all dental practices, you know, fail. and they, they always throw that out there because they're excited to want you to kind of be energetic And, empower to start your own practice, um, or to buy a practice. but the reality is, is that it's really not 1 percent or less than 1%. you know, there may be very few practices that don't do well, But a lot of people suffer, right? A lot of people suffer. you know, the way to avoid suffering, the way to make the practice ownership kind of process, um, exciting and fulfilling is to limit and minimize your exposure to risk.Right? and so, with that, you know, if you're buying a practice, making sure you're doing all of your due diligence, right? you know, making sure you're looking at. you know, the patient, you know, charts, you know, looking at all the financials, looking at everything that you need to look at from a legal perspective to make sure that you're actually buying what you're buying.if you're doing a startup, you know, making sure that you have a lawyer or someone looking at your leases and making sure that's done well. Um, and then finally, I would say, you know, making sure in either scenario that you have your HR house in order, that you are hiring your employees correctly, you're giving them lunches and breaks when you're supposed to you're giving them overtime when you're supposed to doing all those things that you're supposed to do, you're actually doing from a legal perspective.And, And I think if you do those things, your risks will be minimized, and then you can not suffer. Right. And so, you know, it's a little bit unpopular, but people, people are like, Oh my gosh, less than 1 percent of dentists fail. So let's all go do it. And it's like, yeah, everybody should be in, you know, a practice owner.Absolutely. But I want to prevent you from suffering. Right. And the suffering is when You know, you don't do the right marketing, you don't have the legal, components done well, and then, and then over time you struggle and you grow not as fast as you should, you get sued, you know, you get all those things happen and, that can really impact your happiness and your drive to continue growing the practice and, uh, and, and that's one of the things, Michael, that's been my mission throughout my career has been to help young doctors get empowered to become practice owners.But doing it in a way where their risks are minimized so that they don't have those exposures long term. Michael: Got you. Okay. I like that. So one thing you mentioned is, which we appreciate that, right, the preventing the suffering, right? Because it is true. You can say you're not going to fail, but is it worth the, you know what I mean?All that, man, we've been suffering for like 20 years, 15, 10, five, right? But you mentioned have your house in order. And I know something right now, and maybe you've been seeing this, Ali, where it's like It's hard to maintain or retain those great employees sometimes and then sometimes it's even just hard to find Ali: yeah Michael: team members So what are your thoughts like on that when it comes to suffering in that sense?Ali: Yeah. Oh my gosh I'm, so glad you asked about this because this is like one of those areas that we get so many questions about here's the thing i'll tell you the number one recruiting tool hands down year over year over year Is not indeed. It's not monster. com.It's not Craig's list. It's none of those things. The number one recruiting tool for finding really good employees is your current team, Because guess what? They're going around saying to people. Yeah, because they have friends who are RDAs, DAs, hygienists, you know, whatnot and they're going to them and saying, you know what, I love where I work, you know, you know, my doctor does this and my doctor does that and, and we have so much flexibility in this regard where I get these benefits and then their friends want to join the practice, right?So I always say, It's really important from a recruitment perspective that you create an atmosphere that people want to come and the best way for people to come is by the current team recruiting them in, you know, inviting their friends. And so I always say, talk to your team and say, Hey, if you know anybody that's good, that's looking to change, please invite them in for an interview and whatnot.And you'll be surprised how many people do that if it's a good environment. If it's not a good environment, then they won't. Right. They don't want to do that. They won't invite people to come in and interview and whatnot. So, so I would say from a recruitment perspective, I would focus on that. from a legal perspective, I think, uh, you know, making sure you've got all the basic documents that you need when you're hiring everybody.Uh, you know, making sure you have an employment manual and things of that nature. I think those basics that companies like HR for health provide, I think are, great. You know, and if you do that. then that suffering goes down because the chance of a lawsuit also goes down dramatically. Michael: Well, that's interesting.Where do people normally, in your experience, drop the ball when it comes to the basics? Ali: I think they rely on companies that they shouldn't rely on for their HR. Like, for example, a lot of people will Rely on their payroll company to provide them HR documents. Well, the payroll company is a payroll company, they're going to provide you the basic documents they need for running payroll They're not an HR company, right? So so I think I think that's the first Um, the second is not having an employment manual that's up to date, and I think you know, especially with all the rule changes since covid it's super important to You To have an updated employment manual.Um, and then the third is what's called wage and hour and wage. An hour is something that's a problem nationwide because it's about paying people correctly for overtime, giving lunches at the right time of the day. Giving breaks when you're supposed to, making sure the paychecks are correct, you know, all the, things around the financial side of, payroll, um, that people make mistakes on.So, I think if you do those three things, and you do them well, you're well on your way. Michael: Ali: for health from a HR perspective. We'll make sure your hands down compliant from A to Z a hundred percent. Michael: Okay. Wow. That's amazing, man. I know you guys have a software too.Is that true? Ali: so HR4L is a SaaS based software, so it's all online, you know, the employees, you know, clock in and clock out, they sign things electronically, so everything's very sort of streamlined. Michael: Do you guys ever, if I needed like a person, you know what I mean? Like, can I need a consultant to talk about this type of like compliancy or something's happening a unique situation, right?Do you guys have that too? Ali: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, we have a unlimited hr support actually, where they can be on the phone Uh with some one of our you know, hr experts at any time of the day Uh, really all day long, um and as many times as they need if for some reason they can't answer it then it goes one level higher to lawyers And depending on where they are in the country, they'll either be talking to, you know, our firm and someone like me or a friendly firm that does a lot of HR.but either way, you know, we take care. Michael: Yeah. Cause I know that's super important, Ali. I feel like sometimes maybe you might've seen this. We ask questions like on a forum, right? Like dental town or Facebook groups and things like that. Yeah. And people give their advice and opinions, but it's a different state.Right. Different rules, different things. And so like maternity leave, right. Or when it comes to, I don't know, like, depending on should we pay them for, lunch and learn, right. Kind of things like that. And so do you see that a lot? Ali: I do. Yeah. People, I like to think that people are good intention, Michael.And so when they go on these, uh, blogs and whatnot, whether it's Facebook groups or it's, uh, you know, like using like dental town or other things that they contribute. Because they want to be helpful, right? And they're using their own base of knowledge, but you hit it on the head. I mean, I can't tell you how many times somebody has given advice to someone else without even knowing what state they're in, you know, and if you don't know what state they're in, then you, how can you advise on any of these rules? But what people are doing is they're giving their own personal advice based on their experience, which may not be right. And what's scary is we see it sometimes where somebody takes that advice, And does something with it and then they get in trouble because it was the wrong advice, you know, and this, this happened actually recently where, you know, a young doctor coming out of school on the practice for a few years and, uh, hadn't been paying their, uh, assistance minimum wage.They weren't paying the minimum wage in the state that they were in. Why? Because they had gone on one of these groups and asked the question and the person replied with the minimum wage in their state, not in this person's state. and what's even worse, and you'll, you'll laugh at this. The payroll company that was running their payroll didn't even tell them, right? Wouldn't you think, Michael, that if you're using a payroll service and you're paying someone below state law in terms of minimum wage, they would tell you what that is? I mean, it's just like crazy. And they didn't, they didn't. And of course, You know, the employees got upset, and, uh, when they found out and it's funny because they went like almost a year, almost a whole year, like nine months without saying a word.And then that January, the law changed and, the minimum wage increased. And then the employees saw it in the news and they were like, Wait a second, like I'm being paid 14. 25. It says minimum wage went up to 16 from 15 like something like what the hell just happened, you know? Yeah, yeah.And so, so like it was a disaster, but that's what I mean by, you know, payroll companies are not HR companies. And there's so many ways of, doing this wrong. And, and remember what we were talking about in the beginning about suffering, like how bad does that doctor feel? Yeah. Right. Right. It's not like, I mean, you know, you work with doctors all the time.They're not trying to steal from employees. They're not trying to not pay them the minimum of what they, but they just make mistakes and like, it's just, you know, that's the suffering that I want to avoid. Michael: Yeah, that you want doctors to avoid. Awesome. Holly. I appreciate your time. If anyone has further questions or concerns, where can they find you?Ali: you can just go to our website if you'd like. It's, uh, d m council. com C O U N S E L. Uh, or you can call the office at 9 Um, and of course, if you just Google my name, you know, I'm everywhere. And so you guys can find me there so Michael: awesome. So that's going to be in the show notes below. If you guys want to.Go in the show notes below and check out and ask and pick Ollie's brain a little bit more. Right? Ask him any questions or concerns about this. So awesome, Ollie. Thank you so much for being with me on this Monday morning episode. Ali: Thanks, Michael. I appreciate it.‍

Health anxiety is a common yet often misunderstood condition that can significantly impact one's quality of life. Whether it's worrying excessively about potential illnesses or constantly seeking reassurance about your health, the effects can be overwhelming. Understanding the nature of health anxiety and learning effective strategies to manage it can make a world of difference. In this article, we explore five essential things you need to know about health anxiety and offer practical tips for recovery, with expert insights from Michael Steer. 1. UNDERSTANDING HEALTH ANXIETY: WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT ISN'T Health anxiety is a term often misunderstood by many. It's not just about being overly concerned with your health or frequently looking up symptoms on Google. Health anxiety can be categorized into two main disorders: Illness Anxiety Disorder and Somatic Symptom Disorder. Illness Anxiety Disorder involves a preoccupation with health despite not having significant physical symptoms. On the other hand, Somatic Symptom Disorder includes severe and persistent physical symptoms that cause substantial distress. It's essential to understand these distinctions to recognize that health anxiety isn't simply a matter of being overly cautious or paranoid about one's health. Moreover, health anxiety can often intertwine with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), involving obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors centered around health concerns.  2. NAVIGATING THE MEDICAL SYSTEM WITH HEALTH ANXIETY Dealing with health anxiety within the medical system can be particularly challenging. One of the critical aspects to remember is the importance of finding a healthcare provider who listens and validates your concerns. If you feel dismissed or unheard, it is perfectly acceptable to seek a second opinion or switch providers. Additionally, distinguishing between different types of symptoms can help manage health anxiety more effectively. Medical symptoms require immediate attention, such as severe chest pain or sudden numbness. Physical symptoms, like a sore back from yard work, are often benign and manageable with self-care. Psychological symptoms stem from anxiety and can include manifestations like tightness in the chest or dizziness. Understanding these differences can help reduce unnecessary panic and improve communication with healthcare providers. 3. TRUSTING THE RELIABILITY OF YOUR THOUGHTS A common challenge with health anxiety is differentiating between real medical issues and anxiety-driven thoughts. Think of your anxious thoughts as spam emails—they're real, but their content isn't always reliable. Health anxiety often triggers false alarms that feel urgent and terrifying. Learning to question these thoughts and not take them at face value is crucial. Techniques like cognitive diffusion can help change your relationship with these thoughts. For instance, if you've convinced yourself numerous times that you're having a stroke and it hasn't happened, the likelihood that your current fear is another false alarm is high. Questioning the reliability of these thoughts can help manage the overwhelming fear they generate. 4. THE ROLE OF COMPULSIONS AND SAFETY BEHAVIORS Health Anxiety Compulsions and safety behaviors, such as constantly checking symptoms or seeking reassurance, often exacerbate health anxiety. One significant trap is becoming inwardly focused, constantly monitoring your body for signs of illness. This behavior leads to a vicious cycle where anxiety increases symptoms, which in turn heightens anxiety. Shifting your focus outward and engaging in meaningful activities can help break this cycle. It's essential to become more outwardly focused, enjoying life and participating in activities that bring you joy and fulfillment. This shift can reduce the power of health anxiety over your life. 5. EMBRACING LIFE DESPITE HEALTH ANXIETY Health anxiety often steals the very things we're afraid to lose—time, relationships, and enjoyment of life. The constant preoccupation with health can make us miss out on living fully. Therefore, the goal isn't just to reduce anxiety but to reclaim your life. Engage in activities you love and focus on adding value to your life. This shift in focus is incredibly powerful and can help you live a more fulfilling life despite health anxiety. It's not just about feeling less anxious; it's about living more fully and enjoying the moments that matter most. CONCLUSION Health anxiety can be overwhelming, but with the right strategies, it's possible to regain control and live a fulfilling life. Michael Steer's book, "The Complete Guide to Overcoming Health Anxiety," is a fantastic resource for those seeking further support and information. Additionally, his website, overcominghealthanxiety.com, offers a wealth of resources, including a free virtual support group. Remember, while health anxiety can take a toll on your life, effective strategies and a focus on meaningful activities can help you reclaim your joy and well-being. TRANSCRIPT: Kimberley: [00:00:00] Welcome back, everybody. Today I have Michael Steer here talking about the five things you need to know about health anxiety and how to recover from it. So welcome, Michael. Michael: Thanks for me. I'm really excited to be here and talk a little bit about health Kimberley: Yes. It's actually a very, very requested topic. It there's always questions about it. So I think this is really, really wonderful that we're doing it. Okay. So first of all, what is health anxiety? Let's just do a little bit of a, you know, intro, uh, tell me what it is and then tell me what it isn't. Cause that's point number one. Michael: Absolutely. Yeah. So we'll jump into point number one, which is I kind of was breaking down if I could have people know five things about health anxiety, what would I want them to know? Or people that support people with health anxiety. And number one point that you're going to bring it up is the first thing that I would want [00:01:00] people to know is exactly what health anxiety is. I feel like health anxiety is one of those things where, you know, you see somebody on their phone looking up symptoms and everybody kind of knows, right? They're like, Oh, I've been there before, right? We all kind of know what health anxiety is, but sometimes we don't know exactly like what it looks like or even more so that there's actually treatment that people can get that actually works. Not medical treatment, but maybe psychological treatment. So, um, I break down health anxiety in a couple of different ways, which is one is that. if you actually have a medical condition, so if you were diagnosed with cancer or, you know, whatever that might be. Um, there can still be anxiety around those types of things, but that's not exactly what we would be calling health anxiety. Uh, you know, kind of in a professional community, that would be an adjustment, Kimberley: Yeah. Michael: a massive adjustment, right? It's like you get this scary diagnosis, you're trying to go undergo treatment, those types of things. So that's kind of one category. And then, We also have this other category, maybe [00:02:00] what we would love them to call health anxiety, which actually is kind of awkward, too, because there's really no such thing as health anxiety, like, oops. Um, but there are some categories under health anxiety that we would say, these are actually what we're talking about. One of them is what we call illness anxiety disorder. Um, the other one is what we call somatic symptom disorder. And, uh, these are kind of the two things that we would call health anxiety. Now, Illness Anxiety Disorder is really a very basic way to break that down, is a preoccupation with your health, but you don't have a lot of symptoms that go along with it. I mean, you might have some here or there, and it's like, Oh, one day, like maybe my vision is a little bit more blurry, or I got a kind of weird pain over here. But the, usually the symptoms kind of come and go pretty, pretty quickly. Um, now, Somatic Symptom Disorder is still the preoccupation with your health. But the one big difference that people run into is usually the symptoms are pretty severe. They're [00:03:00] pretty significant, and they're usually a little bit long lasting. So, you know, maybe people are dealing with, you know, chronic stomach pain or pains in their stomach that they really become preoccupied about, but those symptoms are pretty significant where it's like impacting life, those types of things. Um, and then the other category that we can just throw in there real quick is also OCD. Um, and what we'll talk about here and, uh, maybe towards the end of this part is a lot of times I put health anxiety and OCD kind of as hand in hand. Uh, they're not the same thing, but they share so many of the similarities and how they work. And, um, if you ever look through some of the OCD literature. OCD can have health themes and so those would be times where we can be very, become very, you know, have the obsession and compulsion cycle go around health. So that's, that's really what health anxiety is, is usually one of those three things, which is either you don't really have many symptoms and you really worry [00:04:00] about it. You're actually having a lot of symptoms. you're worrying about it, or it may be a bigger dynamic of OCD, where maybe you have other obsessions and compulsions, and then maybe one of them is also just the obsessions and compulsions around your health. Kimberley: Amazing. Michael: yeah. Kimberley: What about hypochondria? Do we, where would you put that? Michael: So that's an older term. Kimberley: Yeah. Michael: So we've kind of, you know, and a lot of times, um, I feel like I'm kind of glad that that term has kind of shifted as just kind of like, you know, illness, anxiety, and somatic symptom. Um, just because there's a lot of judgment and a lot of negativity also around kind of, you know, as soon as somebody is like hypochondria, right? And it's kind of like, it comes with this like really negative experience and like, Oh, you know, they're, they just worry about their health all the Kimberley: Right. Michael: it kind of gets dismissed pretty quickly. So, um, that's just, if you ever see hypochondria, um, it's just an older term or sometimes it's still used in the medical community. [00:05:00] I think it's, even when you look up in some of the, um, Um, things to, uh, you know, for some of the coding, it still comes up as hypochondriasis. Um, however, it's just, it's the same, it's a different terminology just for what we would now call illness, anxiety disorder and somatic symptom disorder. Kimberley Quinlan, Thank you for sharing that too. Cause I think Googling, because that term has been used for decades, that is often what people are looking for. And I think, as you said, people get dismissed like, Oh, you're being such a hypochondriac about it. You know, that. I think is, I'm glad that you, you shared that. Okay. So that was number one. Number two, um, what is the second thing we need to know about health anxiety? Michael: So number two is kind of going right off of what you're saying is a lot of times, you know, what I would really want people to know is to, a lot of times people do get this mess. and even clients that I'm working with, because I work with a lot of health anxiety clients are still trying to navigate [00:06:00] that relationship between, they probably really do have some anxiety around their health, but they're also trying to work with the medical community. and that makes it quite challenging, um, because you know, there can, um, there can be some times where it can be challenging. People can get written kind of off of like, well, this person, you know, they've, they've been anxious about their health before, and then they've sort of become. Um, what could be an obsessive worry but also could be a very realistic worry of I go back into my doctor and they kind of know that I deal with anxiety around my health, they going to take me seriously? Michael: know, if I come in and I say, wow, I've been really having a pain here or here, are they really going to be listening to me? Like really take me seriously and investigating this or are they just kind of writing it off You know, this is, you know, awful, you know, this person has been anxious about a lot of those different things. So the one thing I, I think that we, um, that I think, I think is really important for people to know [00:07:00] is you're working with a medical provider and you don't feel like they're listening to you, they're not validating some of your concerns, they're, they're, you don't feel like they're really invested in some of these things. Um, it's always okay to go find somebody Kimberley: Mm hmm. Michael: That is totally okay to do. You can take it from me. Hell, like, you know, what I would, I don't know if there's no delineation of a health anxiety specialist, but I think there can be some of those times where things are not taken serious. So Kimberley: Yep. Michael: do feel like that is a relationship that you're having with a health provider, find somebody new. Go find somebody that really does listen to you, right? Now if you're also working with somebody that you feel like you really trust, you feel like They feel like they got your back, like they're, they're, you know, but maybe you're kind of running to the end of the road of like, I, don't know really what else we could test for. That's something different, right? Because at least there's that level of trust. So the second thing that we like when it goes into this piece of, you know, like Val or validating people's [00:08:00] symptoms is we also have to realize that there is a difference between physical symptoms, medical symptoms and then also psychological symptoms. And so here's how I break these things down. Medical symptoms is usually the ones we're really afraid of. medical symptom could be like if I have chest pain. And a medical symptom would be I need to go to the hospital because I'm having a heart attack. That is an explanation, a medical explanation of a symptom that I'm Kimberley: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Michael: ER, those types of things. one category or one bucket that sometimes we put those in. A second bucket is what we call physical symptoms. And a physical symptom is something that's actually really happening in our body, probably don't need to run to the ER or the urgent care because of that. So like, for instance, if I went and did a bunch of yard work over the weekend, and my back really hurts, um, arguably because I'm getting [00:09:00] older or because I've done a lot of yard work, who knows? Um, Um, I don't, that's a real physical symptom that a lot of times our mind could try to catastrophize, but it's probably not something that I need to go and run to the doctor about. I probably need to take it easy, put a little bit of ice on my back, et cetera, et cetera. So we have medical symptoms, we have physical symptoms, but then also we have psychological symptoms and this is the way that our mental health can also affect our physical body. So for instance, if we're becoming anxious, I'm sure that, you know, if anybody has ever been anxious before, which I'm going to assume everyone has, If we become anxious, sometimes our chest gets tight. That's a real physical symptom. That's a real symptom that we have. But the origins of the conclusions of that is from a psychological standpoint. Now, here's why I think these buckets are important, why I want people to know about them. Surprise, surprise, health anxiety always usually goes to one bucket. Medical symptoms, right? It's like, Lower back pain, medical. You know, my chest is tight, medical. This weird kind of [00:10:00] feeling in the back of my head, medical. You know, all of those different types of things. And one of the things is being able to have this context of if I could start to separate some of these symptoms out to maybe there are some symptoms that I could have that are medical, but maybe there's also physical symptoms that are just happening. There's a great article that I always like to give all my clients The Noisy Body by, uh, Abramowitz, that's just a wonderful handout, a wonderful article. And it just speaks to the nature of like, well, we get signs and symptoms and weird feelings and burps and farts and all these things all the time. The hard thing is, is when our mind gets really preoccupied and starts to put them into the category of, oh no, what if, could this be this really negative thing? So I'd like to, that's the second point that I would really want people to know is. We have to realize that even though there is always this scary explanation of symptoms, it's important to have this perspective of noticing that there could be, there could [00:11:00] be medical symptoms that I need to really do something about, physical symptoms that I need to do to some TLC, and then also psychological symptoms. And then one last thing I just throw in there real quick before we can go on to the third one is, um, the most important part about this is regardless of what bucket you put this in, all of them are valid and real symptoms. that's the other piece that we get into this kind of like stigma or negativity, that sometimes people will talk about a real symptom that they're having, and then they'll be like, Oh, well, that's just your anxiety as almost as if the symptom is not happening. And so I think what I would really want people to know with health anxiety is regardless of what bucket it's coming from, it's always real. You're always valid and feeling it. The one question that we have to just ask, which is going to lead us into number three at some point is. Or can we trust that the explanation for the symptom that our brain has brought us really the explanation of what's happening? Kimberley: Mm. [00:12:00] So, I have a question, which you might answer it in, you can even use this for the, for an example. So, a lot of my followers know that I, in, um, in 2018 was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardic Syndrome. Michael: Mm. Mm Kimberley: one of the main symptoms of that is that you faint and a lot of, I'm very well in recovery of this right now, but one of the things was me without using this terminology, which you've beautifully put out. And I actually learned this terminology from you is it was about passing out, passing, like not, not, not passing out, like, uh, differentiating, sorry, my accent got it, differentiating. Um, is this dizziness from my anxiety? Is this dizziness evidence that I'm going to pass out, like faint? Um, Michael: hmm. Kimberley: because a lot of [00:13:00] having this condition is tolerating dizziness 24 seven of the day. Like it's a symptom of the condition. Um, so in that case, just as that as an example, how would you, which bucket would you put this in? Michael: For sure. Good. Great question. And this is where, like, health anxiety, I think that's why it's really important to, to really notice the stickiness of Kimberley: Mm. Michael: Because, you know, as an, also as an OCD specialist, a lot of times when we deal with OCD themes, not often having people, like, deal with, uh, you know, harm obsession. And also undergoing evaluations to see if they're a Kimberley: Yes. Yes. Michael: Uh, that doesn't really make sense. health anxiety starts to become this kind of interesting dynamic of, well, what happens if we have anxiety around medical Kimberley: Yeah. Michael: And also we have to like, go get evaluations and other things that are actually Kimberley: Yep.[00:14:00] Michael: that's a great point. And it's like, okay, so what if the, um, Um, you know, the symptoms that I'm feeling could be an explanation of a medical condition that's happening, or it also could be, you know, from the place of, um, you know, from my anxiety. Um, think the answer comes down to, um, is going to this, what I usually like try to call a pretty, a best guess. Which is, now, when we're thinking about passing out, the one thing I think is always important. as a person that works on a lot of needle phobias and blood phobias is that if you feel like you're going to pass out, get yourself in a safe place, right? Like sit down, make sure you don't hit your head. You know, Kimberley: Yep. Yep. Yep. Michael: But also there's this kind of conclusion that we can come through with our experience that says, know, um, if I, if I think about the symptoms that I'm having right now, where would I put my best guess on those, right? And if we're putting this, that medical side, then we could say, okay, well, [00:15:00] Um, I need to do whatever the doctor has recommended that I do in those situations because that's just what's most helpful. If I'm feeling like it's more on the anxiety side, that's maybe where I could use some of my tools that we learned in therapy to be able to manage that. Now is it a perfect system? No it's not, right? Because there's always this little piece of uncertainty and the unknown there Kimberley: hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Michael: that's, I think that's what's also really important about being able to kind of discuss those things either with your doctor or a therapist to be able to really walk those muddy lines. Um, I have quite a few clients that we try to walk that line all the time where, I've had clients where thought that maybe this was or maybe it was assessed as like, Oh, this is just something anxiety related. That's why you're having symptoms. And then it's like, months later, surprise, I'm allergic to this, right? And so, that's why we don't always know the answers to all of [00:16:00] those things. Um, but as we kind of go, we can kind of walk that line to say, could I make my best guess about what this is at this current period of time? And if that was the case, what would I do in that Kimberley: Yeah. Michael: You know, and so do I need to go a medical route? Do I need to go to a psychological Kimberley: Yeah. Which I think takes us to next step number three so beautifully. So go ahead and share what is the third thing we need to know. Michael: Absolutely. So number three talks about. Um, a lot of times our brain can bring us to a lot of different conclusions and we just talked about the conclusions that a lot of times our brain Kimberley: Yeah. Michael: into in terms of medical, physical, psychological. And a lot of times we just take those conclusions as the truth. go with them because they're terrifying, they're scary, right? And they feel really threatening. And so one of the things that I think is important for people to recognize is I like to use the example of a spam email. is I'm sure we've all gotten spam emails. And if you haven't gotten a spam email, please let me know your trick because that would be I could clear out like [00:17:00] 75 percent of my email box. So but a spam email to me is kind of walking this line between is a spam email real? Oh, of course, we all get them in our email box, right? Like they actually come through to us. They have a time stamp, et cetera, et cetera, right? But the one question that we have to start to kind of wrestle with with health anxiety is. is the conclusion or email that I'm getting a reliable source of information. so if you get an email from tomjones1973 at AOL. com that claims to be from the FBI, why would the FBI be sending you from AOL? That doesn't make Kimberley: No. Michael: Now, is that email real? You betcha. However, if we can question its reliability to say, can, you know, do I trust this email to be what I think it is? Kimberley: Mm hmm. Michael: Then that can really start to dictate some of the actions that we take. So when we think about health anxiety, right, is your brain can give you a lot of really scary a lot of really unknown possibilities that could be going on with you. And [00:18:00] so, you know, one of the things that I think we have to really kind of start to become curious about is, do I just go with them? You know, am I there just responding to all of my spam emails in my email box? And if you do, we probably need to help like. Credit monitoring and all those Kimberley: Yeah. Michael: besides, from that point, do we get ourselves into a lot of actions that could be very unhelpful when we take these emails as as reliable? So, like, for instance, if you, you know, you have the dizziness, right? And you're, you're, you know, the initial evaluation or conclusion that your brain comes up with, aka what we could also call an obsession, right? Is like this could be an aneurysm, right? Or maybe you have a stroke or all these different types of really scary things. If we take that as a reliable piece of information, it starts to make Kimberley: Mm hmm. Michael: that we would be like, well, I need to figure that out. I need to be like, look up some symptoms of online or I need to go to the urgent care, whatever those things are, right? but if we get a, oh, by the way, I should have included this earlier, but [00:19:00] that's okay. We'll include it Michael: This is all on the premise that we have a relatively good answer. if you don't. If you're getting dizzy for no reason, and you have no idea why, I don't want you practicing anxiety Kimberley: Yes. Michael: Go to the doctor, right? Like, explore those things, figure those things out, try to get a pretty good answer. However, if we get a pretty good answer about something, and we are going to say it's like, I think this is because of my anxiety, but my brain wants to really convince me of all these other conclusions. can we use some of those tools in terms of, you know, Becoming curious about, can I really trust my brain sending me right Kimberley: Mm hmm. Mm Michael:  if this is like the 937th time that I'm convinced that I've had a stroke, what's the chances the 938th time is going to be it? Probably not. so, I could go look on things online, or probably got a lot of other things to do, too, that I could go and get involved with as well. So, that's it. One of those tools is, is really being [00:20:00] curious about, yeah, your brain's going to give you a lot of really scary medical possibilities. If we can ask that question of not if it's real or not, because those things are totally real, but can I trust the message that I'm being sent? It can start that process. Now, the other tool that I really like to use with people is diffusion. Um, and, and to kind of give it a quick breakdown of cognitive fusion, even though some people may be like some of the listeners may know, is just being able to like what kind of relationship that we have with some of our scary thoughts. so sometimes I kind of describe as like, well, it's not really necessarily getting away from them. It's just about changing our perspective towards them. So like, I kind of think about this example. It's like if you go out into like a really busy highway, you set up a lawn chair right in the middle of a busy highway and you have cars whizzing by you, you can see the traffic, but man, oh man, is it overwhelming. And so if we can use some diffusion skills and those would all be the great things, like, you know. Uh, just repeating or thanking our mind or my favorite is always just [00:21:00] singing, like, you know, the tune to happy birthday, Kimberley: Yep, Michael:  be right is sometimes those start to kind of be able to take us from this position of, could you just take your chair and put it on the side of the highway? And if we can do that, we can still see the traffic that's out in front of us, but it's much less overwhelming at that point because you don't have cars whizzing by Kimberley: all right Michael:  these cognitive interventions, I think, can be really helpful. Um, because a lot of times our brain is leading us to all of these conclusions, giving us these really scary ideas, and it might really start to go against the information that we have at that time, at least medically. Kimberley: Amazing. And I, the reason I love this is that was a big piece of it for me, just to sort of give a real example of me having health anxiety and a chronic illness when you are you're dizzy. My brain was like, this is it. You're going down, you're going down. And I had to get used to just having the thought like, yeah, you're dizzy. It could be it. But we know the symptoms of when you are, and you're just, you know, again, like you [00:22:00] often say, like, it's about being uncertain and being able to just to have the thoughts whenever they show up. So would you add anything to that or, Michael:  Know it. And I think what's important with that is, there's a piece of uncertainty Kimberley: um, Michael:  but we can also act within a reasonable Kimberley: yes, Michael:  right? It is like, you know, we can, we can always make those, you know, I always love delay in these situations Kimberley: um, Michael:  is if I start to become dizzy and I'm concerned that like this is going to be, this is me passing out, right? And if you just like, if you're dizzy and you remain dizzy and you remain dizzy, you know, those types of things and it, you know, you're just kind of like working through it and it's like, okay, maybe that's one thing if you're dizzy and then the wall start closing in, right? And you start to get tunnel Kimberley: yeah, Michael:  Well, that's what you can always make a different, Kimberley: yes, yes, um, Michael: I think the lay, but. nothing about health anxiety that likes delay, right? Because whenever these [00:23:00] symptoms come up, it's always going to be about you need to do this Kimberley urgent, Michael:  to the E. R. Currently, like right Kimberley: yeah, Michael:  wait, Kimberley: yeah, yeah, Michael:  if even if we're able to kind of like practice some type of delay, right? We'll be like, okay, this is what this feels like now. I understand the concerns my brain has, like not quite sure if I can trust it. I don't know. It's giving me some bad advice before. I But could I just wait that out and kind of see how that Kimberley yeah, Michael:  And, you know, if it continues to get worse or you start to get tunnel vision, go take care of it. There's probably something going on. But if those experiences, you know, I think what happens a lot of times for people is they, they try to move themselves on to something else, right? They get back to dinner or whatever it might be. And then they kind of have that reflection point or like later of being like, Oh yeah, I was like dizzy Kimberley: um, Michael:  earlier. And it's like, Oh, Kimberley: um. Michael:  to that? Right? So I think delay can be a really helpful Kimberley: Fantastic. Quickly, just because I have a couple of people in mind, and I know what their questions would be here, is in regards to [00:24:00] the, the point number two, where we were talking about the difference between medical, physical, and psychological. Let's say somebody. Um, has just intrusive thoughts about like, what if, actually maybe no, let's say they have a headache, a physical symptom and their brain is just constantly telling them like, this is a brain aneurysm, or this is a brain tumor, like this is cancer and it doesn't quit, um, Um, and the person also experiences this sort of intuition that this is what it is. What, how would you, what, what bucket would you put that in and would you use the same skills? Michael:  So, yeah, so the, the questions that I would have for that situation, which is number one, have you been to the doctor? You know, have you gotten it checked out? Have you like evaluated some of these, you know, headaches that you've been Kimberley: Mm. Michael:  Now if they say, uh, no, I've never been to the doctor about that. I'm, I'm not a doctor. I'm going to say would be [00:25:00] kind of silly of me at that point to be like, you're Kimberley: Yeah. Michael:  You know, that's Kimberley:  Just tolerate the uncertainty. Michael:  Yeah, that'd be good, right? We're like, that's probably not great. So because nobody would do Kimberley: No. Michael:  Like we, well, hopefully most people would not do that because if there is, so that's the first question I would always Kimberley: Mm. Michael:  is if you're having a physical symptom that's different, that's changed, that's more significant, whatever it might be, question needs to always be, have you gotten this Kimberley: Mm. Mm. Michael:  part that it's, I really wish there was a better answer to this. but there's not the least that I found, which is like how much is too much, you know? So if you're like, okay, so let's say the answer is yes, I have gotten it looked at and they can't find anything. Um, sometimes the conversation starts to become, well, how much, like, should I go for a second opinion or third or fourth or fifth or sixth? Um, and what's really difficult about that [00:26:00] is no one really knows that answer. Okay. And, um, what I try to really do to level with people, too, is that, you know, if you were having that headache and you're like, I don't know, Mike, like, this is like, I've seen like four doctors, still feel like there's something, like the intuition Kimberley: Mm hmm. Michael:  feel like there's something wrong. There's something going on. I can't, I can't fight you on that and being like, no, you shouldn't, right? Because I, the fifth time might actually be the time where it's like something comes back and you're like, oh my goodness, like, I'm so glad they found that. So. always this kind of difficult time that I get these questions where people would say like, what, what, what is too much now getting like a fourth or fifth or sixth opinion, whatever that might be, could just be reassurance Kimberley: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Michael:  you know, getting another clear scan or whatever that might be. And it just kind of gives us that temporary relief of like, okay, goodness, like nothing's going on. But I think it's reasonable for us to know it's like it's not a very clear cut kimberley-_1_06-04-2024_101032: Mm hmm. Michael:  Of saying, like, [00:27:00] everybody's in their right to go get another opinion. you know, to, you know, however much you want to pursue that. We have to be on board and somewhat of being like, okay, like, go do that. But the other thing that I would always throw in there, too, that I like to try to work with people is, there's going to be productive ways that we can pursue that, there's going to be unproductive Kimberley: Mm. Michael:  you're having those headaches, and you're, and you're like, I've seen three people, I kind of want to go see four, I would say, I can't fight you on that. You should go see that fourth person, see what they say, but that's a productive method of trying to figure something out, right? Like, cause you could possibly, they could give you some scan, right? And be like, Oh my goodness, like right here, we found something, right? also other unproductive behaviors that sometimes people get into, um, that like your brain at 3 a. in the morning while you're ruminating about if there could be something going on in your brain or not, right? have no access to scans, like you're not gonna figure anything [00:28:00] out. You're not gonna come to some revelation of like, Oh, now that I can see inside my brain, I can see what the problem is, right? So, there's, there's kind of an encouragement that I try to give to people, too, is if you really feel like there's something wrong, and even though you've gotten a lot of things that have said maybe nothing is wrong, if you want, if you feel like it's necessary to continue to pursue those productive ways, set an appointment with a doctor. Go to that appointment when it's the time, right? Great, go do those. But some of these other things when we're thinking about like, but are we like ruminating about this for hours on end during the day? never going to become anything Kimberley: Mm. Michael:  not going to come to some insight of like, ah, I see everything clearly now, I see what's wrong. And so we try to practice those tools in those situations of saying, you know, if that's kind of an unhelpful thing to do, could I find something better to do? Uh, to do with my time than just endlessly going over this in my Kimberley: Yeah. Amazing. Which [00:29:00] ties us right into the thing number four. Um, tell us. Michael:  four, the four, I almost held up five, so that's good. Number four is, now, when we think of like, like, you know, for some of the viewers who might be a little bit more familiar with OCD, a lot of times I just use the terminology of TOs Kimberley: Mm. Michael:  triggers, obsessions, and Kimberley: Mm. Michael:  you might be saying, it's like, well, I didn't think health anxiety was really OCD. It's not. But. The functionality of these things kind of operate in the exact same way. So number four is talking about compulsions, or if you just wanted to view it as safety behaviors, that's cool, too. They kind of do the same thing, which is there's going to be physical or behavioral compulsions that we could do or mental. and one of the things that we really have to account for is just their ability to not really be able to give us an answer that we really want. and how sometimes it actually, especially with health anxiety, one of the things that I'll point with health anxiety. Usually makes things [00:30:00] worse. So there's always like pretty classic different mental or behavioral compulsions, you know, googling or, you know, going on Web and D and clicking on the little body right and being like, you know, we get the huge list, you know, you put in fatigue and it's like, gives you all these terrible things, right? It's like, Oh, maybe I don't Kimberley: There's like cancer at the bottom of every single Urban D article. Michael:  Yeah. Yeah, it's just like this. Just put it on the Kimberley: Yeah. Michael: you know, it'll be there. Um, the one thing I think is really important to consider specifically with health anxiety is the tendency for us to become really inwardly focused. And I think this makes it really difficult people to be able to have any chance of being able to move on from any of their health worries. a lot of times what we all want to do is the one thing that we want to monitor is the thing that's wrong. And so for instance, if you go back to your dizziness, right, we might continue to check in on that being like, well, my dizzy now or my dizzy now. How about now? [00:31:00] But the problem is, is that now you're like now you're swapping buckets, Because we have the medical that we have the physical and we have the psychological bucket. But what's a, um, I don't know. You feel dizzy because you drank a little bit too much coffee this morning. You're kind of feeling a little whoa, right? That's a physical symptom. not medical. You don't need to go to the doctor and be like, I've drank too much coffee and be like, great, just go run around for a little bit. Work it off. Right. Um, but the hard part about that is like, so that's a physical symptom. However, then we could start to get that conclusion that we talked about of like, Oh, my goodness, like, what does this mean? And maybe the conclusion is medical. You know, it's like, Oh, maybe I'm gonna pass out. but then the result of that is psychological. We start to get anxious about it. We're like, Oh my goodness, like this could be really bad and like, I don't want this to happen. However, now the byproduct of anxiety a lot of times is lightheadedness, right? And so we work into this catch 22. The [00:32:00] hard part about it is we keep checking in on those and there's a lot of body monitoring with health anxiety that really gets people stuck, um, paying attention to feelings and sensations and symptoms. And the hard part is it keeps going back and forth between these two things of we get really concerned about a symptom. It makes us feel anxious, which increases symptoms, which we notice more. And when we notice more, it makes us feel more anxious. And when we get more anxious, and so we just keep getting into the step ladder. So one of the things that I think is important when we think about this Catch 22 that starts to happen, is I try to really encourage people to think about, If often you get, start to get stuck within your body, your, your focus is inward thinking about how do I feel, what do I notice all of these different things? biggest goal that we can do with any of these things is how do we become more outwardly focused? That doesn't mean that you have to like [00:33:00] pretend that you're not feeling some of these things. Um, I'm a huge fan of dialectics in terms of using and Kimberley: Yes. Michael:  which is noticing like I'm feeling dizzy right now. And also I could try to be as best of my ability really involved in whatever is going on around me. Um, and so think it is, like there's a lot of different compulsions and things that we could talk about, but the biggest one I would want to bring up, at least for people to be aware of. it's becoming more inwardly focused, gets us stuck Kimberley: Yeah. Michael:  And, and it's, and understandably it's scary. to direct ourselves away from those, right? Because then it starts to feel terrifying of like, oh my goodness, if there's something that's really going wrong with me and I'm not paying attention to it? And that's where we start to get to the feared consequence, Kimberley: Yeah. Tell Michael:  some of the work starts to become, which is if I can recognize I have a pretty good answer about [00:34:00] this, maybe my brain isn't being all that reliable. I think this is just a psychological symptom. Um, maybe I'm willing to take the risk that maybe it could be something bigger, better. Um, but in service of being able to get back to my life do the things that I would like to be able to do, maybe that's a risk I'd be willing to take. Kimberley: me about number five. Michael:  That leads into number five. realize whenever I wrote these out, these were going to blend so well, but Kimberley: It's like we're flowing. We're in, we're jiving today. Michael: I know, right? The number five just goes back to this piece of The hardest thing about health anxiety is that one of the things it's not always about death because that sometimes that's what people always think is like, Oh, you're just afraid to die. Um, Kimberley: Mmm. Michael: people's faces whenever I always had the pre face, know, we always like to ask that question of like, what would be the worst thing about that? And health anxiety is always the really like, [00:35:00] uh, interesting one where it's like, well, I'd probably die and be like, what would be the worst thing about that? And people look at me and they're like, Kimberley: I'd be dead. Michael:  that'd be dead. And I'd be like, yeah, I know, but what would be the worst? And so for some people it is, Kimberley: Yeah. Michael:  death. But there's a variety of different, um, feared consequences that I think it's important for people to wrestle with too, which is some people it's around Kimberley: Mmm. Michael:  Some people it's about just the struggle. It's about treatment. It's about just how miserable it'd Kimberley: Mm. squadcaster-48hd_1_06-04-2024_121032: You know, uh, it would be about, you know, the whole process around, you know, getting treated and. You know, saying goodbye to people. For some people, it's not just about death, but it's also about, um, like, the impact that they would see a huge increase in health anxiety when people usually have, like, big life events. Uh, not just in terms of stress, but like, they get married, and now it's kind of like, it's up the ante of their health anxiety. It's like, well, now it would be kind of bad if you Kimberley: Yeah. Michael:  But it would be even [00:36:00] worse because now you'd leave like your spouse behind or even worse like Kimberley:  Yeah. Michael:  kids search into the picture, right? And it's like, Oh my goodness. And so I think it's really important to kind of start to look at is a lot of things that we could really fear to lose. The dirty trick that health anxiety plays it kind of makes us lose those things before we've even lost Kimberley: Yeah. Michael:  And what I mean by that is that sometimes we become so preoccupied with our health. Going to the ER, you know, running to the doctor again or, uh, just ruminating her mind or, you know, the family's around or you're having dinner and you're on your phone, right? Like looking up symptoms, right? things that we're afraid to lose might already be Kimberley: Yeah. Michael:  they're there in front of you to be able to engage in. the really hard thing is, is we're afraid that those would go away, but they've already gone Kimberley: Yeah. Umm. Michael: other process. So. think the one thing we have to kind of really wrestle with is [00:37:00] it's not just about trying to get rid of anxiety. I mean, that's part of the picture. Um, I'm sure for anybody that's ever in the helping profession, they'll always have somebody come in and saying, I really want, you know, this to go away, to be less pain, to feel less anxious, to feel less sad, whatever that might be. And those are cool goals. Like I'm on board with those, right? Like, I don't want people to feel more anxious. Um, I want people to feel less anxious. But if that's the extent of our goals for ourselves is just to, like, worry about my health less, I mean, that's kind of good, but we're missing a big part of the picture here, which is really, what can we add? You know, because health anxiety wants to steal all these things away from you in your life, The things that we're so scared to lose in the first place. And so a big part of number five, I think, is important for people to really recognize, is that Health anxiety is going to want to take those things away from you. And I wouldn't want people to work just like feel less anxious about their Kimberley: Yeah. Michael:  I would want them [00:38:00] to work in what are the things that you're really afraid to lose. I want you doing more of Kimberley: Yeah. Michael:  Right. And that is going to get to the point of having to work to give up some of the things that often would make us feel like we need to do to be able to keep ourselves safe. And that's hard. That is, that's the Kimberley: Yeah. Michael:  Is being able to lean into those things. But, the work also becomes, also gets with the reward, which is, we're actually being able to live life and be able to do those really meaningful and valuable things that we really are afraid to lose in the first Kimberley: Yeah. And when you start living your life, you tend to be focused less inward on all the symptoms as well. So it's sort of like a reverse snowball effect. Michael:  That one of the, absolutely. Good, I'm glad you bring up that point, right? Because that's what happens, Kimberley: Yeah. Michael: we get involved in something else, we start having fun, and then it's that tendency for our mind to want to go back to be like, well, how does this[00:39:00] Kimberley: Yes. Michael:  How does this feel? And so my encouragement for anybody is that about trying to get away from those. I try to draw a quick, line between distraction and redirection, which is a distraction is like an escape, right? Be like, I can't think about this. I got to get away from it. You know, like, let me focus on this movie, Kimberley: Mm hmm. Michael:  Where a redirection is really just trying to make a place for that of just noting of like, yeah, I am feeling this way. I noticed my brain is like yelling at me to be like, look this up on Google right Kimberley:  Yes. Michael: I could notice that. And also, I know it's going to be more helpful for me to make a place for that. Get back to the movie. Really try to get into that. Pay attention to it. that gives us a chance to do, just like what you said, is now we're focusing outside Kimberley:  Yeah. Michael: Instead of all the things that could be going on in our body, which some of them could possibly be serious, but most of them are probably just our bodies being Kimberley: and I think that's cool too is like our bodies will be bodies there, especially as we [00:40:00] age. I see a lot of people's health anxiety go up as aging. You said aches and pains, sleep issues, like it's so common. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Michael: and it's like sleeping on like something like really uncomfortable floor and And then like, I'm like, oh, I slept really good. And then like me, as I got older and there was like a sock in your bed that you slept on and you're like, oh my goodness. Like, and, and age is gonna Kimberley: Yeah. squadcaster-48hd_1_06-04-2024_121032: had to remember as, as age goes up, health kimberley-_1_06-04-2024_101032: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Michael: you know, the question real quick, I'd just like to add with this is a lot of times I do get the question of like, well, what if you've had cancer in the past? Right? Like, is that still health anxiety? And it's like, well, you know, if you're in remission you're doing all the things that you need to do, you know, you're probably getting more frequent scans, all those different types of things. We can still become preoccupied with the [00:41:00] possibility of like, what if this new thing, whatever we're feeling is cancer again, right? And that's, I think we have to walk that, that piece of like, that's an incredibly understandable place. And also we go back to number three. which is, is like, are we getting information from our brain that's reliable? And if all the other information that we have in the current period of time, working with an oncologist, whatever it might be, is saying, Hey, your markers look good. Blood work looks good. Your scans look great. Then that's maybe what we challenge ourselves to say, maybe I need to get back the things that are most important. Kimberley:  I love this so much. Thank you so much for sharing these points and bringing so many applicable skills and tools as well. Tell us where people can hear about you. Tell us about your book. All the things. Michael: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, A couple different things with that. One is we did release a book in the mid December. Um, [00:42:00] it's right here. The Complete Guide to Overcoming Health Anxiety. Uh, How to Live Life to the Fullest Because You're Not Dead Yet. Kimberley:  Punchy little yes. Michael: Still here. So, um, there is a book out on Amazon. You can get it, uh, soft cover or you can get a Kindle version. It's written, wanted to write it. Uh, so the, my coauthor. Uh, Josh Kimberley:  Yes. Michael: and I wrote it, um, and we really wanted to write a book that didn't feel too clinical, didn't feel too like, um, you know, that, you know, like you're reading like a, an academic book or something like that. So I think if you appreciate maybe a little bit of a lighter approach, at sometimes funny, some points, uh, cringy, maybe not cringy, I'll just blame it on Josh. Maybe that was all his cringy points. I, I did all the good jokes. Uh, just kidding, Josh. I love you. Um, uh, it is, it's just written in a little bit of a different way that I hope that, you know, some of the feedback [00:43:00] is for people have said that like it's written differently, but it's just written and they feel like they can connect Kimberley: Yeah. Kimberley:  make sense. Um, but that's also very back to, you know, number three that we talked about in terms of cognitive interventions is that you know, it's really important to start to change our relationship with those. So the book is out there, but also we, we also started a website, um, overcoming health anxiety. com. Um, and it has a ton of different resources. We just redid it and try to add a bunch of different other stuff. So we have a health anxiety one on one section. We have treatment resources. have videos, you know, different podcasts. Um, we have a link to our free virtual support group that meets every Thursday of the month. Michael: So, um, uh, so, uh, we have a link to there. Because we really just want to be able to try to reach out. And like I said when we first started [00:44:00] is, a lot of people know that this is a thing, right? Because they, they know and there's even the term cyberchondria out there, right? Like people know about health anxiety. But very people do know that you can actually like get Michael: this not necessarily just through a doctor in terms of like, Oh, here's your medical treatment, but there's psychological tools that you can use that with that. So, yeah, those are our resources. We got that website. We got the book. Um, and, um, we're just trying to connect with health anxiety sufferers to show them that there's some hope to feel better. Kimberley: So good. Thank you. So many wonderful resources and amazing book. Thank you so much for coming on. Um, those folks are the five things you need to know about health anxiety. Thank you so much, Mike, for being here with us today. Michael: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

https://theapsocietyorg.wordpress.com/news-and-events/suntree-retreat-2024/   Episode from 2022 Suntree: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/live-from-suntree-retreat/   ----more----     Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark, Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: and today we have a really exciting group of people to talk about a really exciting upcoming event, which is the Sun Tree Retreat, which is the second of these retreats that we've held in person for atheopagans from all over the world who can come. Held in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and it's going to be over Labor Day weekend this summer. So, I'd like to introduce our two panelists here, who were at the last one Rana and Michael. Michael: Hello. Yucca: Rana, we Mark: I can't hear you at all. Rana: Oh, thank you for having us. Yucca: Welcome. And I think both of you've been on the podcast before, right? So, welcome back. Michael: Oh, thanks. Can Yucca: Yeah. Michael: put that Yucca: So let's, let's start with the, some of the details because that's coming up really soon, right? That's Mark: It is, Yucca: two months, which is not very long. Mark: nope, not very long, especially if you have to get plane tickets and that kind of thing, so, Really encourage folks that want to go to get registered and get organized around it, because it's going to be a really good time. So, details. The event is August 30th, which is a Friday starting in the afternoon through noon ish or one o'clock or so 2nd. Registration includes nine meals. As a part of your, your registration fee you also need to register for lodging, which is very affordable and you can find all the information about it by going to the Athe O Pagan Society website, which is the ap society.org, THE ap society.org, Yucca: And the lodging has several diff oh, Michael: notes as well for this Yucca: absolutely, yeah, we'll put that in the show notes so that people can just go ahead and click on it. I was gonna say the lodging has several different options including tent camping, and yurt and Mark: guest house, you're. Yucca: I think it's dry camping, but you could, if you have an RV and you're in the area, you can do an RV too, is that correct? Mark: Yes, there are no hookups, but but there is parking for RVs. We had a couple of people, at least one couple came last time, actually in a school bus, Yucca: was really cool. Mark: was converted. It was really cool. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: So, Michael and Rana we wanted to talk some about why this event was so cool last time and what we're looking forward to going into this next one at the end of this summer. So why don't we start with kind of golden moments. Michael, you want to go ahead? Michael: I wanted to just say beforehand, you mentioned the meals, and one of the high points of it was the options available. Like, every dietary requirement was accommodated, I think. Mark: Yeah, Michael: The catering team there are fantastic, and I think people shouldn't feel concerned about food at all because the options were great the food was really high quality I think everybody felt really good about the food, so that was an important, that was a real high point so just wanted to make sure we got that mentioned. And, Mark: Yeah, great. Thank you. And, and eating together was really a high point for me. Just sitting down for meals, you know, they had these round tables that I think seated eight or ten or something like that, and different combinations of people would sit together for different meals. And so we got to know one another better in those mealtimes. So that was a high point for me. Somebody want to go with another cool thing that they remember from Suntree in 2022? Yucca: well, I remember Robin led these I'm not sure what you would really call it,  Rana: yeah, the meal acknowledgement. We have talked about them in the group, but it was really different being able to experience it together. And it was things like bringing to mind the history of our food or thinking about the systems that brought it to us today or the hands that it passed through. And we've had some discussion in Mihal's full moon. We were doing like a full moon lunch thing for a little while as well where we kind of continued that conversation and, and thinking about that, which is something that I find really enriching and really enjoy. Also want to strongly second the dietary accommodations that they had. I really, really appreciate it because I have a little bit of an odd diet and I felt. Really good and definitely did not lack for good options for food. Mark: Mihal, you want to go? Michael: yeah, what I found really interesting about the, The whole experience was how quickly we created a community in space particularly when we did our Fire Circle get togethers. And the kind of spontaneous sharing that occurred at those events was really amazing. People really just suddenly kind of created this family. in situ and it was it was great to be part of that. Just sometimes if you go to other kind of retreats it can take a while to kind of break down those those barriers we put up. Just as just as being human but it seemed within a just a few hours we'd kind of already started to create a special Sun Tree community and I thought that was fantastic. Mark: Yeah, I really agree with that. I mean, I've been to a whole lot of various kinds of pagan gatherings and retreats of various sorts. And it seemed as though we just kind of got at this visceral level that we were among, you know, people that were of like mind and similar values. And so that we were safe. Right? We were all, we were all going to play nice with one another, and so we could talk about really deep stuff in our, in our lives, and in our, our experience. And I found that really moving throughout the whole long weekend. It was, it was, it came up over and over again. Yucca: I was also really struck just by the immediate level of respect and consent that was just part of the, Everybody had going in. So I had my five year old with me and in a lot of situations in our culture, people you know, will go up and touch five year old's heads and give them hugs and, you know, all of those sorts of things. And I remember it just being great because people automatically were so great with her about asking for her permission. Like, do you want a hug? And would you like to shake hands? And that was just the culture of it. And it was just so refreshing and wonderful to just be in that space, just from the get go. Like Mark: and I mean, we had, we had laid out guidelines around consent and around conduct because, you know, we wanted to be very clear about, you know, what the expectations are, but it seemed like people read them and were like, yeah, that's civilized behavior. That's how I'm going to be. And the subject Honestly, never came up. There was never a situation where somebody felt like they had been inappropriately touched or or somehow invaded in that kind of way. And I thought that was, that was really pretty amazing. Michael: I just wanted to talk about the actual place as well. The Retreat Center is Really, really phenomenal. There's this beautiful forest. You're kind of just on the edge of Colorado Springs, so it's not too far from any stores or anything that you might need. But once you get in there, you suddenly feel like The outside world has disappeared just in this beautiful forest really a fantastic place just to go for walks just to go into the forest by yourself if you want to go for I think one of the big highlights was that we had a lunar eclipse while we were, while we were there, and being able to all, for the whole, all of us to go out there onto this big lawn and just stare up at the, at the moon together, and people howling at the moon, it was It was just a really fantastic experience as well especially just having that, we, we had the the Ponderosa Lodge, which is this big log cabin lodge that we can use for a lot of our activities, for rituals, and for our workshops. And that's a real, that's, that's a really nice space as well, there are different rooms, so you can kind of break off and do different things with people, or you can kind of come to the main room and have a bigger discussion. We had dance parties there, we had the Carnival of Change, which was a chance to kind of take on a different persona, like dress up. be a different version of yourself for the evening. So I think the whole, the whole retreat center just kind of facilitates that. There's a, there's a labyrinth there as well, which we didn't really incorporate too much into any rituals the last time around, but I think we're going to try and bring that in more this time around. Mark: Yeah, it's a beautiful spot. Rano? Rana: Yeah, the, the shared experience of the lunar eclipse was pretty special and it, it just so perfectly aligned with what we were doing. It was the same night as the Carnival of Change and it just felt like great, like the weather cooperated and we got to see this cool celestial event. It wasn't even at a super late time, like it was, it felt like a Yucca: like eight or nine. Yeah, Rana: Yeah, yeah, it felt like started our evening, kind of, or, you know, it didn't, it wasn't, you know, too far on late night or anything. The Carnival of Change itself was really fun, just to be able to play dress up together and listen to some music and, and just have fun. And I also like, like Michael said being able to split off into other little rooms and areas. It And I think for me, something that I really appreciated was the ability to have these just kind of unplanned moments where so much of our online interactions are very scheduled and it, you just show up at a certain time and there's a group of people and that's kind of mostly how it's gone. But, like, I just remember some folks were up later one night just all chatting and hanging out. And I love that feeling of if you're up late and feeling a little bit chatty or sociable, you can just kind of see who's up and just take a seat and hang out for a bit. And that's something that otherwise has felt like not really something we have access to. So it was particularly nice just to be able to connect in a more organic way, depending on how you're feeling. Mark: hmm. Yeah. Nihal? Michael: Yeah I think we, there was a lot of, there's been some learnings from that event as well, and I think there, we were really concerned about accessibility this time around, because there was a lot of movement between different areas. And so this time around we are definitely going to be making it more accessible as well. There's going to be designated drivers, so we want to make sure that everybody feels comfortable and everybody's able to take part in all the different events that we're having. So, I, I know that there's going to be a lot of more accessibility this time around, especially just in terms of shuttling people around the property. Yucca: Because there were a few hills and we were moving from the bottom of the hill back up to the dining room and then back down. Michael: Yes, yes, yeah, but I think we, Mark: and we were at 7, 000 feet. Michael: that was another, yeah  Mark: yeah one of the things that we learned from the Sun Tree Retreat in 2022 is that we had programmed a lot of the time, but some of the most memorable and wonderful moments were the unscripted times. The, the, The break periods when we could just gather together and socialize, or plan what we wanted to do for a rite of passage during the rite of passage period that we had later on, which was one of the most moving things to me. That was really an experience. So this time we've programmed in more free time. There's still plenty of workshops and, and rituals and experiences to have, but we've made it a little bit looser so that people have opportunities just to hang out and experience the place and one another. Michael: yeah, yeah, I just wanted to I might talk about the rites of passage a bit more because that was quite a unique experience. I guess we didn't really know how that was going to go because it's kind of like, it's a make your own ritual event, basically. You, you just DIY it with some help from some friends. So I think people were, they had various things that they wanted to celebrate or commemorate and or mark the end of a period in their life, or the start of a period in their life. And we all came together and celebrated those those events together. And I think what was really amazing was just the creativity that people brought to their rituals. Really very moving and even though they were very personal, I felt that We all kind of, as a community, came together and it became something for all of us. Mark: Yeah. I felt so included in all of those rituals. I felt like my being there mattered. And even if just as a witness and that. You know, that there was room for everyone to have the kind of experience that they wanted to have. And it, and we, we ended the rites of passage with a wedding, which was sweet. It's kind of, you know, the classic act four of the movie, right? And that was really lovely. So, I was, I was super happy with that, and we're doing that rites of passage process again this summer. Michael: Maybe we could talk about some of the workshops that took, that people liked. Mark: Oh, yeah. Michael: I really, I think one of the highlights was the Cosmala workshop, bead workshop, which is basically making a bead necklace that, with each bead representing an important part of, in the life of the universe, or in your own personal life, or just various different events that you want to commemorate. That's, that's kind of right, isn't it? Or was there any Mark: John Cleland Host, who is our friend and a real innovator in the whole realm of naturalistic paganism, one of the earliest people to write about it in its new resurgence. He has this amazing more than a hundred bead string. Of, that all, it starts with the Big Bang and it works all the way until, at least until the Sun Tree Retreat, because he had special beads made for the Sun Tree Retreat that he distributed to people so they could put them on their own cosmola. That was very, very cool. And some of them are signed by people like Starhawk and Jane Goodall and just really a fascinating, wonderful ritual tool and evocative piece of art. Yucca: so there were a lot of different styles of workshops too. There was a, like a history one and there was a John did another one which was like the Wheel of the Year, which he had some really cool handouts for too for that. Mark: We live the year for families, which I thought was really wonderful. You know, a lot of people in our community have families that they're working to build traditions with together, and so, and John has really, you know, pioneered some of that, you know, working with his, with his wife and his sons. And just had a lot of great ideas about different things he could do at different times of the year and was, you know, freely sharing all that stuff. It was great. Rana: There was also a group guided meditation that we did outside overlooking Pikes Peak on their big, expansive, beautiful lawn with all the ponderosa pines, which I'd never, I don't think I'd ever seen them before. I'd never been to Colorado before. And that was really lovely just to kind of take a moment to be there and be present. And there was also a body painting. Which, I appreciated the, like, especially interactive stuff because it's something we're normally restricted about online. And I really loved Mihal's presentation about virtual meals because I think food is just such an integral way to connect with other people and you can infuse it with all this symbolism. And it gave me a lot of ideas. I need to revisit my notes on that and thinking forward to the next one a little bit too, just that ability to share food and those meal acknowledgements really adds to that feeling of making meaning with other people and making community. Michael: Yeah, we had a food altar as well, which was kind of cool. An abundance of food. People brought stuff to share. And I thought that was fantastic as well. Just, uh, one, one person brought some really good kimbap, which I love. So that, if you don't know what that is, it's Korean sushi, basically. And it was just really good. Mark: Yeah, there, there was there was just a vibe of generosity and mutual support. Mutual affirmation. You know, I came away from it feeling like, you know, I've got these amazing, super cool people in my world, and they feel the same about me, and that's just good for my life, generally. Even if I'm not going to see them for a couple of years, except online, just knowing that we shared this experience together just helps me to feel affirmed in who I am and what I do. And I, I, I think I think that was the general vibe that people got out of the event. Yucca: That certainly was, I felt that strongly as well. I was, you know, riding that for several weeks after coming home. Michael: Definitely an afterglow of, kind of like, hard to come down from the high of the event as well. It took a while because it was so special. Mark: yeah, absolutely. So we want to talk a little bit about some of the offerings we're going to have this time. Some of them are repeats from last time, but some of them are new. Let me see if I can pick one. Oh, go ahead. Michael: I was just going to say, maybe everybody's had a chance to look at the program and if you, if there's any particular highlights you want to, that you'd like to talk about that maybe you're looking forward to. Mark: There's so many things. Um,  Michael: Well, should we talk, let's talk about the theme first. Mark: sure, of course. That's a great Michael: we didn't, we didn't have a theme last time, but we do have a theme this, this time. Mark: Which is Solarpunk, a chosen family reunion. The idea being that Solarpunk being a very kind of optimistic movement for the betterment of the world, the betterment of our relationship with nature rather than kind of the doom and gloom that we, that we see everywhere around us now, Solarpunk is a, It's a genre of of writing and of art that is optimistic and looks to the future as, yes, filled with challenges, but also filled with opportunities for us to grow and change and do better. And the chosen family reunion part is I mean, I certainly felt and I think that a lot of us felt at the last Sun Tree Retreat that these, these people were my chosen family. It was, it felt like, oh, wow, all my cousins and uncles and, and nephews and nieces have all shown up and now we're having this great sort of family hoopla together. It was, it was great that way. Yucca: And one of the workshops is going to be on solar punk and atheopaganism more specifically, right? That's Mark: yeah. Michael: Yeah, Hanna is going to be leading that one. Mark: Mm hmm. I'm looking forward to that one as well. And of course we'll have some some elements that will be around, you know, learning how to organize rituals or to you know, to design them. Or you know, kind of learning the observational skills about getting more in touch with the processes of nature around you. Mm hmm. That was something about the, the lunar eclipse last time that it really dovetailed with something that, that Yucca and I talk about on here all the time, which is just about, you know, paying attention, about being present and experiencing the moment and observing what's happening in nature, and That was such a dramatic event. It really, really riveted our attention for about an hour or so. Michael: We're bringing back the Cosmala again, because that was so popular, and I think, I'm sure that new people are going to want to try their hand at making Cosmolas. Mark: I've never made one. I, I'm, it's an oversight. I have to do it now. Going to do a reader's theater. I'm organizing that of a reworking of the myth of Hades and Persephone and Demeter in Greek mythology. Because, even though that's a very popular myth in pagan, kind of modern pagan circles and a lot of different groups have done reenactments of the Eleusinian mysteries that enact that story, it's a pretty terrible story, really. I mean, Hades, Hades captures the innocent daughter Kore, drags her away and makes her his wife. That's terrible. Not so cool in modern, Yucca: way of putting it, Mark: yes, that is a very polite way of putting it, yeah. So, so I rewrote it. I rewrote it to have a different kind of ending and a different set of teachings than the original story did. And we're going to do a reader's theater where people who come to the workshop can pick up a script and take a part and we'll all read it together. And and it'll be fun and hopefully people will enjoy it. So that's another thing we're going to do. Michael: Yeah, we've occasionally done death cafes online which are kind of opportunities to talk about death and, you know, I think our movement's kind of a death positive movement, and we want to kind of honor that, and so something I'm going to be leading is an Irish wake kind of experience, and, you know, at an Irish wake, it's not just mourning the dead, it's kind of celebrating life. And kind of celebrating chaos and causing mayhem. So we're gonna have we're gonna have a bit of an Irish wake experience and I'm, people are gonna be invited to bury the things they want to bury, or remember the things they want to remember. And then we will also cause some mischief as well. Mark: Sounds great. I'm up for all of that. Yucca: And on Saturday, at lunchtime, we're planning to do the same thing that we did last time. to do a live podcast episode, and that may be an opportunity for folks who can't attend in person to zoom in and connect. Yes, Mark: Yes, cross, cross your fingers for the internet connection at the Retreat Center. Yucca: that's why we say May, we're going to try really hard, technology willing, right, Rana? Rana: So, the last time we had Sun Tree, we hadn't yet started our adult salon. Which we recently rebranded as Adult Forum, and I'm really excited to be able to have that in person for the very first time. I've really valued it as a space to connect and share resources and share a little bit about our experiences and our lives. And for folks that might not be as familiar with what it is, it is a peer support space to discuss adult topics openly, and it is, we consider it kind of semi structured. We usually start with a topic just as a starting point of conversation, and then we let things naturally flow depending on what the participants want to talk about, what's on their minds, can go through multiple topics in one session. It is a confidential and non judgmental setting where we're really there to learn from each other's experiences, share our knowledge, especially if you have a range of ages. There's folks that have just lived different lives or experiences that may have things to share feel less alone. In a lot of things that we encounter in life I know. There's a real epidemic of loneliness, especially in America, and it's something I always have felt really deeply about, but don't really know what to do about it, so I appreciate being able to be a part of this space and have this space together in order to continue that kind of connection and We're going to have a way for people to anonymously submit topics or questions while we're at the event so that the people that are there attending are really crafting what it is that we want to talk about and the topics have really ranged in the past and included things like money, relationship styles, aging, death, altered states, sexuality, and more and Yeah, I've just been really looking forward to it. It is an 18 plus event, and I just, I can't wait to have that in, in person. I think it'll be a great version of it, just because we've always had it remote. Mark: Yeah. Michael? Michael: I know there's one of the FAQs we get around this is that you know, is it going to be recorded? Am I going to be able to participate online? And unfortunately, no, it's just for some of the reasons we discussed. First of all, technology, it's not always reliable, so we can't really do live stuff. I think it's possible that some of the workshops will be recorded. That depends on the presenter. And, but we don't want to, we want to also, honor people's confidentiality as well. So it's possible that we can record some of them, but maybe some of them won't be recorded. But that's why we also offer our totally online conference every other year as well. So if you can't make it in person to SunTree, we will be doing our web weaving online conference next year. So that is just a way of bridging that gap where if you can't make it in person, there is still an online space for you to take part in. Mark: Right. Right. And I, and I should point out the adult forum will not be recorded. It's, it's a totally confidential, just live action space for people to, to have discussions about sensitive stuff. So you needn't worry that you're going to find yourself on the internet talking about personal things. Yucca: Right, and for any of the presenters who do choose to have their, their presentation recorded, it would just be of them, not of the audience. So there'll be the private, privacy for the folks in the audience. Mark: Yeah, because, I mean, there are, in our community, there are people who are You know, in various stages of outness in relation to their non theist atheopaganism, right? Some are out as atheists, but not necessarily the pagan part. Some are completely solitary in, in their You know, practice of their path, and we want to be respectful of all of that. So, it's really important to us that people be able to participate without endangering something that, that is important to them. Mijo? Michael: Something that's New this time around, as well, is that we will be kind of having formal vendors. I will be sharing a sign up sheet for people in the coming days, where you, if you want to, if you've got anything you want to sell, or products or services we will have a space for you to do that. So, if you're, it could be anything, you could be selling, selling your own craft, or, I guess, doing Readings or things like this. We'll just sign up and we'll we'll reach out to you if we need, if we have any further questions about the kind of stuff you're going to be sharing with us. Mark: We should say, though, that, that the vending is going to be during a particular window of time at the event, because what we don't want is for a vendor to be there stuck behind a counter, and for the entire event and unable to participate in the various activities, right? Because they're part of the community and we want them in with us doing all the stuff. So we're going to have a marketplace slot in the program, and that's when you can do your vending and, you know, promote your services and all that kind of stuff. So what else should we say about this? I mean, we know because we've been there, it's really cool. Hope that our listeners Yucca: to just put that out there for that part of the world. It's a nice warm time of year. Last time Michael: Will the swimming pool, Yucca: May, which was a little bit iffy, we got really lucky. last Mark: we did. Yucca: I think it started snowing right after we left, Mark: Yeah, something like three days afterwards it started snowing at the retreat center, but that's not going to happen this time, because we're on Labor Day weekend and it should be pretty temperate and nice. Michael: I think there's a swimming pool there as well. Mark: Oh, that's right, it was closed when we were there before, but there is a swimming pool there. Yes, Michael: We should double check if we have access to that, but I think we will, but we should probably double check that. Mark: yes, that's true. Ha ha ha! Michael: I guess you should definitely get booked in quickly if you are intending to come. Because we're, it's coming up fast. I can't believe it's only two months away, so you really need to start thinking about getting your, making your way there and booking your tickets. Mark: Yeah, yeah it's very affordable especially when you consider that it includes nine meals and the lodging for the, the Yurt guest houses is only 75 for the entire event. So it's you know, we, we, we set price points low because we wanted people to be able to access it and we know that there are travel expenses associated. We if you, if you want to come, but there are, you know, financial issues, we have limited scholarship support, so please contact us. You can use the the Wonder Podcast queues at gmail. com, podcast email address to contact us, and we'll get back to you about that. But we'd really encourage our listeners, you know, if you like what you've been hearing on this podcast for the last five years now come and, come and meet us. Come and, and, you know, meet the community and, and check us out. Michael: It was just, I don't know if I expressed how Amazing it was, but it was just such a unique, a singular event and kind of a highlight of my life, I'd really say. It was just spectacular, and I don't know if I, I don't know if I captured that before, but I just thought it was just an amazing thing to be part of. And I think it's going to be just as amazing this time around. Mark: Me too. Yeah. I, I, I can't wait to see you all. And and other folks that, you know, I met two years ago. I'm just, I'm so looking forward to it rana, I Rana: so for me, it, it really felt like coming full circle, like I'd connected with you all, and we spent so much time together during the pandemic. so much. My personal life was also going through some transition and Suntree was actually pretty emotional for me. It was good But I don't know it's a little hard to explain But it just felt like I did a lot of emotional processing while I was there But I very much felt like I was in community I was able to finally meet these people that I had connected with and So now it just feels like I have something to look forward to You going forward knowing that we're gonna do this with some regularity. And for myself as well, it also gave me some more confidence traveling alone because I'm used to traveling with a partner if I go somewhere, especially airplane travel. And so it helped me feel a little bit more adventurous and confident feeling like I went to a state I've never been to before and met up with some people and everything went great. Like, no, no complaints. Mark: really felt that same sense of just really being able to be myself. And I was surprised by that because as one of the organizers last time, I thought I was kind of going to have to be on and sort of be a host. You know, for the whole weekend. And that really wasn't the case at all. I, I, I just felt like, you know, I was, I was welcomed there, warts and all, and there were plenty of other people to help. And it was great. It was just really a good, good time. Well, listen, thank you. Oh, Michael: Hopefully we can do the, the firewalking this time, because last time we couldn't do it because there was a burn ban, but there is potential for doing a firework walk. So people are into that, that might be available. So we'll see what happens. Yucca: Keep our fingers crossed. Mark: that would be exciting. I've never done that, and I'd like to try it. I don't know why I'd like to try it. I, but I would. Michael: That's the ultimate ritual, I guess. And for anybody who's kind of, their ears are pricking up when they hear that the person leading that has got decades of experience. Mark: Yeah. And, you know, very, very careful rules around, you know, everybody having to be absolutely sober, you know, being, you know, a lot of focus, doing this in a really sacred kind of container, so that's that's That's all to the good. Let me see. So, we're gonna put the link to the the event in the show notes. You can go, you can read the program, you can read about the event, you can see a picture of the Ponderosa Lodge and Atheopagan Society website, there's also a gallery of photos that were taken at the last Suntree retreat. So you can take a look at that.  Michael: Could you add in the show notes as well? Could you add the episode we actually recorded? Yucca: Oh yeah, let's link to that because we, yeah, that would be nice to go back and listen to actually. And what was it like in the moment? So that'll be in the show notes too. Mark: yeah, yeah, I just, I just remember we're sitting there and we're talking and people would cruise up to the table glowing and sit down in front of the microphone for a little while and talk about the experience they were having and then toddle off and somebody else would come by. It was just, it was lovely. So listen, folks Sun Tree Retreat, you don't want to miss it. Please come join us, visit with us. We, we would so love to see you. And we will be back next week with another episode of The Wonders of Science Based Paganism. Thank you, Rana and Michael. Thank you for being here. Michael: Thank you.   

In this profound episode, Jonathan is joined by esteemed theologian and author Michael Horton to discuss his latest book, "Recovering Our Sanity: How the Fear of God Conquers the Fears that Divide Us." In a world teetering on the brink of chaos—from unsettling politics to the lingering effects of the global pandemic—Horton's book offers not a typical self-help guide but a deep theological exploration of how a proper fear of God can liberate us from our myriad earthly fears.Dr. Horton, Professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary, explains what it truly means to fear God—both biblically and theologically—and how this reverential fear can effectively drive out fears of the future, others, and even death itself.Throughout the episode, Dr. Horton discusses the different types of fears that plague our society—from cultural anxieties to personal struggles—and how these stem from a lack of genuine fear of God. He emphasizes confronting our earthly fears with the hope found in Christ, rooted in the Gospel, and the shift from self-preservation to a Christ-focused life.This episode is a humbling, thought-provoking, and hope-igniting journey that challenges listeners to replace false securities with the profound joy of knowing Christ, who commands us, "Do not be afraid." Join us as we explore how cultivating a healthy fear of God can recover our sanity in these turbulent times.To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/CandidFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/candidpodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/candidpodTwitter: https://twitter.com/thecandidpodTRANSCRIPT:This transcript recounts Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef Episode 249: Recovering Our Sanity: How the Fear of God Conquers the Fears That Divide Us: Michael Horton.  [00:01] Jonathan: My very special guest is Mike Horton. He is a professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Westminster Seminary in California, and he is the author of many books, including The Christian Faith Ordinary and Core Christianity. He also hosts the White Horse Inn radio program. He lives with his wife, Lisa, and their four children in Escondido, California, and it looks like he's on his back patio,  having a conversation with me and being very gracious with his time. Mike Horton, thank you so much for taking the time to be on Candid Conversations.[00:45] Michael: Thank you, Jonathan.[00:50] Jonathan: I do thank you for your time. Now Mike, I've read your books, I have subscribed and I do recommend all of our listeners subscribe to the White Horse Inn. If you could just give us a quick, whirlwind tour of your story, we can talk a little bit about the podcast and some of your books as we progress through the interview.[01:19] Michael: Well, thank you, Jonathan. Yeah, I was raised in a Christian home and came to understand the doctrines of grace partly through my older brother. Kind of had my own little, not little, my own Romans revolution and then started digging deeper into Church history and theology and biblical studies, and eventually went to Biola University, Westminster California, then to Oxford for doctoral studies and then post-doc at Yale and came back to teach at my alma mater and have been here for 25 years. Blessed to be able to have a hand, with my colleagues, in training pastors; pastors training pastors.[02:17] Jonathan: I've been a recipient of many of the students of Westminster Seminary who taught me at Reformed Theological Seminary in Atlanta, and I've been really blessed by your work. You've got a very jovial, friendly, California vibe to you, but when you speak, you're like a double-edged sword. It's so penetrating. And I think there could be a theological issue that I've been struggling with for months and you'll say it so concisely in a few sentences, and I'll think, Where was that when I needed that?[03:09] Michael: You're too kind. Thank you.[03:11] Jonathan: Tell us a little bit about the White Horse Inn. It has been on for something like thirty years.[03:17] Michael: Yeah, thirty-plus, almost thirty-five years now. It has been such a fun thing. I've learned so much from my colleagues on the program. I still learn from the new team. We produce a magazine, too, Modern Reformation Magazine, which is really—I encourage people to subscribe to that. It's a good digest of topical theology related to culture. The umbrella organization is called Sola Media, and one of the things that we do that I'm so excited about being a part of is called Theo Global, where we host theological conversations (like we do on the White Horse Inn) between Baptist, Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican traditions and bring people together from a particular region. So we've been doing it for eleven years in India and also almost that long in Nigeria or in Kenya, in Nairobi. And then also Cairo for the Middle East. We just did one in Thailand that Pakistanis and Indians were able to come to, because they're not able usually to see each other. And then we are, Lord willing, starting another one in Southeast Asia, probably Singapore.So these have been so rich. Out of them are coming, a series of theology books from the global church to the global church. And so instead of having just regional theologies or theologies that pretend that they're not culturally contextual, we want to hear the voices of people from different locations testifying to the same Gospel, and that's just really been lots of fun.[05:42] Jonathan: Well, having ministered near that area of the world in Australia, you're right, there can be a disconnect between the cultures. We read each other's books and that sort of thing, and those are Western cultures, but I think we miss out on hearing about what is happening in Southeast Asia, Because they do face similar obstacles but also some quite different. As one of the points of your book is, there is still the one true God and the one Gospel that reaches across those cultures and reaches across so many of those things that we would consider barriers. And I think that's wonderful. I pray the Lord would bless that.[06:30] Michael: Thank you. One of the things I find, Jonathan, is there is a sweet unity around the Gospel that binds us when I go to these other places. Wherever I am in the world, I don't feel like I'm a stranger because I'm with my brothers and sisters. I wish I felt the same way in America. It's very different here.[06:51] Jonathan: Yeah, I was going to say it's interesting that what you're doing is you're unifying and uniting across denominations, across cultural things, and yet that's working almost in the opposite direction of where we see things here, which is there's division within denominations; there's division within small regions. You're undoing what is happening on a bigger scale in some of the Western parts. It's exciting to hear that's not happening everywhere, that there's actually some unification taking place and that's encouraging. And I know that's going to be an aspect of what we talk about in our conversation about one of your new books.Now, I know that you had some health issues with your heart a couple of years ago. Maybe for some of our audience who didn't know or having heard any updates, are you healthy?[07:54] Michael: Thanks for asking. Yes, what it was was a valve that just exploded in my heart, so it was an emergency open-heart surgery. But they said—they know my arteries and my heart better than anybody, they said, you'll die of something, but it won't be of heart disease. You have a good heart; you have good arteries; this was just a fluke.[08:24] Jonathan: Unbelievable.[08:25] Michael: So—yeah. I'm fully recovered. They said I could go bungee jumping again if I want to.[08:32] Jonathan: Again. I'm glad that you were already doing that—I picked up your book a while ago and I've been wanting to have you on the podcast ever since reading it. And the book is called Recovering Our Sanity: How the Fear of God Conquers the Fears that Divide Us. And my goodness, what a perfect title for everything we see. Give us a little bit of the reason for writing and the timing of the book.[09:18] Michael: Well, it had been percolating for years now, actually. I wrote a book many years ago called Beyond Culture Wars: Is America a Mission Field or a Battlefield? And this is in a similar vein, but really in light of the fears that really divide us today. And the center used to be the Bible, the Gospel, getting the Gospel right and getting the Gospel out. We have our doctrinal differences across the evangelical mainstream, but basically we had different political views and those political views didn't divide between brothers and sisters and churches.And what I've seen lately has just been like a food fight in a cafeteria, and political issues and social issues raised to the level of the Trinity. And it's like, okay, well, we can argue about that over coffee, but we don't bring it into the church. That used to be kind of how people thought about things. These things are important, but they're not as important as our unity in Christ. But I hear people attacking pastors, pastors attacking their flock, back and forth over these issues. And I think people don't get this heated over the doctrine of election or justification or the Trinity. Does it suggest that these issues are deeper in our hearts than the truth of Christianity, so what really binds us?And I looked at it and I said what really binds us is salvation, what we think we're saved from. If we think we're saved from the people over there who are threatening our values, or the people over there who are different from us ethnically, or the people over there who have a different view of economics and social justice? What are we really afraid of? What are our ultimate fears? And I argue that we have all these secondary fears. The real fear deep down, the mother of all fears, is the fear of death. And none of the solutions that can be offered by FOX or CNN, there is no solution to that. But we have it. Why isn't that on our dashboard as central, getting it right and getting it out?[13:01] Jonathan: In the book you cast a broad net in kind of what you've just said up here, picking out a few of the issues that you're seeing so much division over. But then you lay out some of the theological framework to reorientate your reader to where fear should rightly be placed. And it's away from the fear of one another and having a right fear of God.And you use the word sublime in the book, which I found really helpful as an aspect of God. I wonder if you could give us a little bit of explanation and walk that out for us.[13:52] Michael: Sure. I love that word. Sublime is really, I think, what we're talking about when we talk about the fear of God. Some people will say, “Well, it's not really fear. It's reverence, awe.” Fear is a big part of it, but it's a kind of fear that attracts. Think of what happens if you've ever stood at the mouth of a volcano, looking over it, watching the lava flow. Or I live in Southern California, so we have fires, and there's a kind of weird attraction to going to the fire and seeing it. Or you're out on the ocean and you're terrified. A squall comes up you're afraid, but you're also kind of your heart is racing not just because you're afraid, but also because you're kind of in awe of what's happening. In awe of the waves.God, you know whenever an angel shows up in the Bible, an emissary of God, what's the first thing? You know the number-one commandment throughout Scripture? The number-one command is “Be not afraid.” Because when even the mailman of God shows up, people are terrified.[15:31] Jonathan: Yeah, or Moses's face is a little too bright.[15:36] Michael: Yeah. Hey, put a napkin over that or something… That's what, really, is the basis for all sublime events, encounters that we have is really the fear of God. And so it's … A Jewish writer, John Levinson, puts it well. He says, “In the Hebrew Scriptures God beckons with one hand and repels with the other.”So there's a kind of don't get too close. Even Jesus in His Resurrection, “Don't touch me. I'm different.” God is different from us. And that sense of awe, of majesty, of even terror. Think of the disciples in the boat with Jesus. They were afraid of the storm, and then Jesus calmed the storm and they were afraid of Jesus. Who is this who has control over the winds and the waves? They were terrified. And that's the kind of Who is this? What am I dealing with here? The kind of shock and awe, the surprise is something that is missing, I think, from a lot of our experience as Christians today.[17:11] Jonathan: Well, and I know in the book we've seen a lot of the statistical evidence that comes in support of what you've just said, which shows that evangelical Christians really don't know what they believe. They have a complete misunderstanding of God, of the nature of Christ, of their roles.[17:51] Michael: If the fear of God is not the beginning of our wisdom, then something else will be. We'll fear something else. We will fear other people who are different from us and we'll fear cancer, we'll fear losing our job, we'll fear environmental collapse and catastrophe, we'll fear these other people taking over. It's not that those … that there aren't legitimate concerns of a political and social and cultural nature. But we have a disordered fear. And if we have disordered fears, we have disordered loves.God is not only the source of our greatest fear, legitimate fear; He's also the only one who conquers our fears and says, “Welcome home, prodigal. Welcome home, here's the feast.”[19:22] Jonathan: And deals with our, as you refer to it, the mother of all fears.[19:27] Michael: Death. We're dying. In California, people aren't allowed to die; they pass away; and we put these cemeteries out, far away from view, or we turn them into parks and things. And it used to be every time you walked into a church there would be headstones, and it reminded you as you walked in why you're going in there. The Gospel is for dying people, and we're all on that road. And so the question is, How do we face death? … How is that ultimate anxiety relieved? We mourn, but not as those who have no hope. So what does that mean for my daily life now? I could be twelve years old and I'm dying. I could be eighty and I'm dying. So what … Let's talk about that. Let's talk about the dying and the resurrection of the dead and being attached to Jesus so that what He is in His humanity right now, glorified, we will be. Let's talk about that. That's a lot better than anything on CNN or FOX.[21:00] Jonathan: I love it. I think in the book you tell the story of when you went to a debate with, I might be messing this up, but I think it was with an atheist and you sort of said, “Yep. Great. Can I talk about Jesus now” and kind of put him off, and he sort of like, “I wasn't prepared to debate that.”[21:22] Michael: Yeah. This was years ago. Bill Nye the Science Nye.[21:24] Jonathan: Bill Nigh, that's right.[21:25] Michael: He was talking about how religion is based on false fears and so they develop myths and so forth.[21:37] Jonathan: And you were like, “Well, that's true.”[21:39] Michael: Yeah. I don't disagree; that's a pretty fair analysis of religions. I guess you'd have to take one by one and analyze it, but as a generalization, now can I talk about Jesus and His Resurrection? Let's keep getting back to the main business here.[21:59] Jonathan: The main issue. Yeah. In the book you draw this distinction between naturalistic and hyper supernatural, but then you sort of carve out this third option of ordinary. Can we talk a little bit about that and how we see that playing out in our world today, particularly in the Church?[22:23] Michael: Sure. Often what you see today is a naturalism underwriting the progressive agenda and John Lennon's “Imagine.” On the right, you tend to have a hyper supernaturalism wedded to a conservative agenda. And so what do I mean by that? Well, a naturalistic worldview says, of course, God isn't involved. If God exists, then He's not involved in this world. He didn't create it, it's self-evolving and so forth.A hyper-supernatural worldview says that God works miraculous. You know, to say that God did it means it's a miracle.[23:34] Jonathan: Yeah.[23:35] Michael: Whereas in the Bible God does all sorts of things. Mostly, He doesn't perform miracles. What about all the times when we cut our finger and it heals after a week? What about that? What about a child [who] has a brain bleed in NICU and it resolves in 24 hours. How about those? Those aren't miracles. People say, “the miracle of childbirth.” There's no miracle of childbirth; it's just a spectacular example of God's providence. That's part of our problem is we're looking for God only in the spectacular, only in the extraordinary, only in places where we can point to and say, “Oh, God did that.”So we can't explain how somebody recovered from cancer; we say, “Well, God did it, not the doctors.”[24:46] Jonathan: Right.[24:47] Michael: Well, how about God did it and the doctors did it. God did it through the doctors.[24:52] Jonathan: How much control does God have here?[24:55] Michael: Right. He has control of everything. It's not just supernatural events; it's not just miracles. God's in control of every second, every breath. Every breath that you and I take is under His dominion.[25:11] Jonathan: That's right. He holds all things together. You know, I hear that phrase a lot, “That was a God thing. That was a God thing,” and I always have to stop and say to them, “Everything is a God thing.” I mean, conversations. The fact that your brain works. The ability to read. The ability to understand and reason. It's like I hate when you get that narrow scope, as you're saying. We've lost the sublime. We've lost an understanding of how much—you know, it's almost a deistic view that, you know, God sort of—[25:42] Michael: Yes![25:43] Jonathan: He's put some things in place and then He occasionally steps in and—[25:47] Michael: That's why I argue that actually naturalism and hyper supernaturalism unintentionally conspire with each other against Christianity—[25:57] Jonathan: Right.[25:58] Michael: —you know because, you know, we get to the place where we don't see God in our ordinary, everyday existence, but only in these punctuated events, and we've got to raise things. I think we do a lot of pretending. We pretend that things that have an ordinary explanation are miracles because we have to have God in our life. These large swaths of our lives where there are no miracles are upheld by God's marvelous providence.[26:40] Jonathan: Right. Amen to that. In the book, one of the fears you mentioned is fear of losing your job. And I think in the book you helpfully distinguish between calling and vocation or job and helping us understand and distinguish the two things. I wonder if we can talk a little bit of bringing clarity to that, because we're longing for something to put our identity in. Is it a football club? Is it a university? We're currently, I don't know when this will air, but we're in the middle of March Madness. Who did you pick? What's your university? What's your background?And vocation is very much one of those things we can put our identity in, and yet I think you talk about the ultimate and the penultimate between calling and vocation. I wonder if you could bring some clarity to that, and then we'll turn to some of the practical outworkings of the division we see after that.[27:53] Michael: Yeah. Well, one of the things I try to maintain throughout the book is, look, the things I'm talking about are not unimportant. They are legitimate fears. There is a legitimate anxiety. The question is, where do we go with that? But yes, let's affirm it. It's real, it's a deal, but penultimate not ultimate.For example, if I am in a circle of people I've never met before, we're having breakfast, and I ask them, “Tell me about yourself,” very ordinarily they'll say, “Well, I'm a dentist. I'm a …”Now okay, there's an example. That is part of our identity. Vocation is a gift of God; it's a calling. So to say, you know, we shouldn't place our identity in our vocations, well, not ultimately. That's the problem. It's a part of our identity, just like being a father is part of my identity. That's a calling. And we have to realize, as Luther said, we have many callings, many vocations during our life. We're parents, we're spouses, we're children, we are extended family members, we're dentists, and cleaning movie theaters. We have all kinds of callings/vocations. Sometimes we have a vocation to suffer, to carry a cross. Sometimes we have a vocation to be a friend. We have lots of vocations, and keeping them in balance is very important.Keeping them penultimate, not ultimate, is my point. My ultimate identity is chosen, redeemed, justified, being sanctified, will be glorified, in union with Christ. That's my identity and that's really who I am. Paul talks about himself as if he's almost collapsed into Jesus. His identity is so bound up with Christ that he can even say his suffering is something he glories in because it shares in Christ's suffering. That's my identity; that's where I really find who I am. The other stuff is not just stuff I do, that turns it back into a job. It is part of my identity, but it's penultimate, not ultimate.[30:57] Jonathan: Well, as we said at the beginning, we see division in so many different places. We're, of course, as you know, we're in another election year, and that—fear is going to be used as a … it's going to be weaponized this year, particularly this year, in America. And we have an international audience, so I want to be sensitive, but I know that internationally also they see a lot of American news as well. I think you talk about how, in the book, two sides to the fear coin. You mention both in the book. One side, fear is easily exploited as a motivator. On the other, fear is a weak motivator in the long term. Why is that? Let's kind of unpack that a little bit.[32:07] Michael: Yeah. I use the analogy of deer who are … there is this fight or flight that God gave us and the animals as well. It's purely instinctual, instinctive. You don't … Whether you're a deer or a human being, you don't really think about, you don't contemplate, you don't calculate, you don't explore what … You have a car coming towards you, you flee. You get out of its way if you can. But what happens is—That's adrenaline. That adrenaline rush is just a marvelous gift of God's providence. The problem is what would happen is deer had this disease of constantly being afraid, every crack of brush of another deer drove them wild running in fear? That's what I see us doing now, and what happens is it works in the short term. If you're going to cynically use fear to get a herd of people to do what you want them to do, that might work in the short term, but long term, people can't live like that. Long term, people actually become cynical. They won't participate at all. They'll just turn it off because “I've had this scare a thousand times and I'm not going to have it anymore. I'm tired of it.” It just runs out.And that's what I think a lot of people are feeling right now with American politics. So I'm not an analyst of American politics by any stretch of the imagination; I'm simply looking at it on the pastoral side. What is driving us to be like the deer in the headlights every five minutes? And it's exhausting us.[34:33] Jonathan: Yeah.[34:34] Michael: Each side whipping up the other side against each other. If I don't win this election, dot, dot, dot. If the other person wins the election, dot, dot, dot. It's apocalypse not. I especially find offensive any use of God or the Bible or Christ for that fear. Anyone who does that, particularly cynical leaders who don't even go to church, aren't professing Christians really, but they use the lingo to gain the nomination of particular groups. When Christians participate in that, they carry crosses to the U.S. Capitol to storm it and talk about hanging the vice president, and they're carrying crosses with Bible verses, this is the sort of thing that must just aggravate our Lord and Savior whose name is taken in vain.And yeah, is that a critique especially of evangelical political conservatives? Yes, it is. Because they are my brothers and sisters closest to me. The secularists aren't really invoking the name of Jesus and Bible verses and carrying crosses. I'm more worried about evangelicals distorting the gospel than I am about who wins this next election.[36:54] Jonathan: What is that doing to your testimony to those people who don't know the Lord? What message is it giving them?[37:10] Michael: That Christianity is about power.[37:11] Jonathan: Right, exactly.[37:12] Michael: It's not about a cross with God who has all power becoming flesh being spat upon and then being crucified upon a cross, bleeding for our sins. It's about basically choosing Caesar over Jesus, making Pilate our hero rather than Jesus.[37:45] Jonathan: I found that chapter, I can't remember if it's the Christian nationalism chapter or the one before, but it was really helpful the way that you walked out American history in a way that probably a lot of the readers might say, “I don't know if I understood that.” Or “I don't know if I fully understood Thomas Jefferson and his letter to the Danbury Baptist Church in Connecticut.” Understanding separation of church and state, understanding like how we got to where we are and the creating of even thinking between the British … French revolution and those different paths that were laid out before us. And even just understanding our own history and how we got to where we are, I think a lot of it is just cast as Christian nation. And I found it helpful the way you distinguish that.Because I hear this a lot in the church in terms of America being the new Israel, are there blessings that have come with certain things? Sure, fine. Our Constitution is well put together. I love the history of Witherspoon, the Scottish Presbyterian, and you can see some of that in the language that comes out through the Constitution. Again, I think it's helpful to have your historical understanding rather than this reinterpretation that we have now that it's, as you said, it's this feeling like someone's come in and taken this from us. And now, to use the title of your other book, now we're at war, right? It's not a mission field, it's a battlefield. We're fighting for the honor of our country. And all that's done is create us and them division and a lack of clarity and a lack of what we're called to in a mission sense as Christians. Where was I going with that? Who knows? Anyway, I found it helpful.[40:10] Michael: You said it better. Preach it, brother.[40:16] Jonathan: Just random thoughts. Just reading your books and regurgitating it to the people. So later on in the book you sort of walk us through the areas where division has come in. So we have Christian nationalism has certainly seeped into churches. Then you have some really helpful, short chapters with issues with LGBTQ+ community, cancel culture, racism. Let's just kind of walk through some of these and help Christians who are listening to this who are saying, I thought this was the right way to handle that situation but you're saying something else. Let's kind of walk through maybe even just one or two of those. Again, you had a really great illustration under your LGBTQ+ chapter of the young man whose family had sent him to you and you were pastoring him and what happened with all that. If you could tell us a little bit about that, just to help kind of encapsulate what we're talking about here.[41:35] Michael: Sure, this brother struggling with homosexuality, his dad was on the board of a prominent evangelical organization, and his pastor had told him that we basically don't want your influence in the church, so he was considering leaving the faith. But then he read Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, a book I wrote a long time ago, and came out to work at our organization as just a pretext for just hanging out and shepherding this guy. He became a part of our church and a lot of people looked after him and we got a lot back from him.He went back home, and his pastor said that all this reformed teaching he was getting was heresy and so forth, and no, you've lost your salvation. Romans says that He gave them over to a depraved mind. So he committed suicide and …So what is it? Why do you do stuff like that? Well, you do it out of bad theology, to be sure, but also out of fear. There are a lot of churches that just don't want to deal with it. They don't want to have this problem. They don't want to say that they have people in their congregation who are really, really suffering. If you're a secularist, you don't suffer from homosexuality. You don't suffer with gender dysphoria. Only Christians do. And only Christians suffer with greed and envy and malice and other sins that are listed in these same sin lists in the New Testament. You don't lose your salvation over those.The key is repentance, right? We're called to a life of repentance. Whatever our tendencies are towards particular sins, we're all corrupt in heart. We're sinners and we're sinned against and we are in a sin-cursed world. And so where do we go with that fear? And then once that fear is solved objectively in Christ, having been justified through faith, we have peace with God. That's an objective fact. With that now as an objective fact, how do I respond to this brother or sister who's justified just as I am, and who is being sanctified just as I am, but has propensity toward a particular sin that I think is particularly serious, particularly great? How do I love this person? How do I respond to this person?John Calvin said a pastor needs to learn how to have two voices: one for the sheep and one for the wolves. And what I've seen in some very close cases to my own experience, what I've seen sometimes is pastors confusing the sheep for wolves and treating them as apostates or as people who, you know, if you really were a Christian, you wouldn't be suffering with that. Well, they're not saying, “I have a right to this sin.” They're not saying that it's okay. That's why they're struggling with it—and they're struggling with it in your church.So one of the surveys, actually a couple of the surveys concluded that about 80 percent of people in the LGBTQ+ community were raised in conservative Roman Catholic or Protestant churches.[46:39] Jonathan: Give that statistic again because I think we need to hear it again.[46:42] Michael: I don't know exact, it's in the 80s, 80 percent.[46:46] Jonathan: Over 80 percent.[46:49] Michael: Right. And what's even more striking is the same percentage said that they would come back to church, even if they didn't change their rules, but listened to them and cared for them. That's what I found amazing. I was glad that they asked … they added in that survey even if they didn't change their beliefs but they were kind and they listened and they cared for me.So if I'm fearful, here again the adrenaline, the deer in the headlights, that's a gift God gave us for fleeing something that is imminently threatening. This is not imminently threatening. If I come to understand that, then I'm not a deer in the headlights; instead, my brother or sister, my friend, parent, I'm someone who is looking out for the best of this person and now I can actually get ahold of myself and think and make judgments and articulate things. And ask questions and get information. That's a big part of it. It's not all spiritual. People are suffering from mental health disorders, and that's physical, that's brain chemistry. All kinds of things.People are suffering from sins that have been committed against them in the past. A lot of this is very complicated, and it's not all that person's direct fault. Again, we're all sinners, sinned against, and live in a sin-cursed world. And all those factors play into what we have to consider when we're not the deer in the headlights but can sit down with people over a long time, be willing to walk with them over a long time, be willing to read up on things, ask them questions, we're that interested in them and understanding what they're going through, understanding their pain. It's like if they have cancer we'd be at their house with casseroles, but if they have these things, you know … So let's … fear of the Lord drives out the fears of everyone and everything else. This is the beginning of wisdom.[48:52] Jonathan: Exactly. Well, I think we could probably have this conversation for probably another four more hours, which we might do just because we're having so many technical difficulties. You know, I can't recommend this book enough. Mike Horton, Recovering Our Sanity: How the Fear of God Conquers the Fears that Divide Us. I told my team I want to re-air this as we get closer to November so that we can all be reminded once again of what we're called to. Mike, what are you working on at the moment?[50:35] Michael: I've been kind of obsessive compulsive about a project, three volumes with Eerdmans. First volume is coming out in May, titled Shaman and Sage. This is a very different project. It's the history of spiritual not religious. Where does this come from? You have this divine self within trying to break out of all constraints. And so I trace it all the way back to ancient Greece and to the Renaissance. And then the second volume, Renaissance to the scientific revolution. And then the third volume is covering Romanticism to the present.[51:31] Jonathan: Oprah.[51:32] Michael: Exactly.[51:35] Jonathan: That's going to be a massive help for believers, because that's the one we see a lot in those statistics. Yeah, I hear that from quite a few people, spiritual but not religious, or whatever the phrase is. But well, Mike Horton, it's been such a privilege. I'm so grateful for your time and coming on to Candid Conversations and sharing with us.[52:10] Michael: Jonathan, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.[52:14] Jonathan: Thank you, brother.  

At the AI Pioneers Summit we announced Latent Space Launchpad, an AI-focused accelerator in partnership with Decibel. If you're an AI founder of enterprise early adopter, fill out this form and we'll be in touch with more details. We also have a lot of events coming up as we wrap up the year, so make sure to check out our community events page and come say hi!We previously interviewed the founders of many developer productivity startups embedded in the IDE, like Codium AI, Cursor, and Codeium. We also covered Replit's (former) SOTA model, replit-code-v1-3b and most recently had Amjad and Michele announce replit-code-v1_5-3b at the AI Engineer Summit.Much has been speculated about the StackOverflow traffic drop since ChatGPT release, but the experience is still not perfect. There's now a new player in the “search for developers” arena: Phind.Phind's goal is to help you find answers to your technical questions, and then help you implement them. For example “What should I use to create a frontend for a Python script?” returns a list of frameworks as well as links to the sources. You can then ask follow up questions on specific implementation details, having it write some code for you, etc. They have both a web version and a VS Code integrationThey recently were top of Hacker News with the announcement of their latest model, which is now the #1 rated model on the BigCode Leaderboard, beating their previous version:TLDR Cheat Sheet:* Based on CodeLlama-34B, which is trained on 500B tokens* Further fine-tuned on 70B+ high quality code and reasoning tokens* Expanded context window to 16k tokens* 5x faster than GPT-4 (100 tok/s vs 20 tok/s on single stream)* 74.7% HumanEval vs 45% for the base modelWe've talked before about HumanEval being limited in a lot of cases and how it needs to be complemented with “vibe based” evals. Phind thinks of evals alongside two axis: * Context quality: when asking the model to generate code, was the context high quality? Did we put outdated examples in it? Did we retrieve the wrong files?* Result quality: was the code generated correct? Did it follow the instructions I gave it or did it misunderstand some of it?If you have bad results with bad context, you might get to a good result by working on better RAG. If you have good context and bad result you might either need to work on your prompting or you have hit the limits of the model, which leads you to fine tuning (like they did). Michael was really early to this space and started working on CommonCrawl filtering and indexing back in 2020, which led to a lot of the insights that now power Phind. We talked about that evolution, his experience at YC, how he got Paul Graham to invest in Phind and invite him to dinner at his house, and how Ron Conway connected him with Jensen Huang to get access to more GPUs!Show Notes* Phind* BigScience T0* InstructGPT Paper* Inception-V3* LMQL* Marginalia Nu* Mistral AI* People:* Paul Graham (pg)* Ron Conway* Yacine Jernite from HuggingFace* Jeff DelaneyTimestamps* [00:00:00] Intros & Michael's early interest in computer vision* [00:03:14] Pivoting to NLP and natural language question answering models* [00:07:20] Building a search engine index of Common Crawl and web pages* [00:11:26] Releasing the first version of Hello based on the search index and BigScience T0 model* [00:14:02] Deciding to focus the search engine specifically for programmers* [00:17:39] Overview of Phind's current product and focus on code reasoning* [00:21:51] The future vision for Phind to go from idea to complete code* [00:24:03] Transitioning to using the GPT-4 model and the impact it had* [00:29:43] Developing the Phind model based on CodeLlama and additional training* [00:32:28] Plans to continue improving the Phind model with open source technologies* [00:43:59] The story of meeting Paul Graham and Ron Conway and how that impacted the company* [00:53:02] How Ron Conway helped them get GPUs from Nvidia* [00:57:12] Tips on how Michael learns complex AI topics* [01:01:12] Lightning RoundTranscriptAlessio: Hey everyone, welcome to the Latent Space Podcast. This is Alessio, partner and CTO of Residence and Decibel Partners, and I'm joined by my co-host Swyx, founder of Smol AI. [00:00:19]Swyx: Hey, and today we have in the studio Michael Royzen from Phind. Welcome. [00:00:23]Michael: Thank you so much. [00:00:24]Alessio: It's great to be here. [00:00:25]Swyx: Yeah, we are recording this in a surprisingly hot October in San Francisco. And sometimes the studio works, but the blue angels are flying by right now, so sorry about the noise. So welcome. I've seen Phind blow up this year, mostly, I think since your launch in Feb and V2 and then your Hacker News posts. We tend to like to introduce our guests, but then obviously you can fill in the blanks with the origin story. You actually were a high school entrepreneur. You started SmartLens, which is a computer vision startup in 2017. [00:00:59]Michael: That's right. I remember when like TensorFlow came out and people started talking about, obviously at the time after AlexNet, the deep learning revolution was already in flow. Good computer vision models were a thing. And what really made me interested in deep learning was I got invited to go to Apple's WWDC conference as a student scholar because I was really into making iOS apps at the time. So I go there and I go to this talk where they added an API that let people run computer vision models on the device using far more efficient GPU primitives. After seeing that, I was like, oh, this is cool. This is going to have a big explosion of different computer vision models running locally on the iPhone. And so I had this crazy idea where it was like, what if I could just make this model that could recognize just about anything and have it run on the device? And that was the genesis for what eventually became SmartLens. I took this data set called ImageNet 22K. So most people, when they think of ImageNet, think of ImageNet 1K. But the full ImageNet actually has, I think, 22,000 different categories. So I took that, filtered it, pre-processed it, and then did a massive fine tune on Inception V3, which was, I think, the state of the art deep convolutional computer vision model at the time. And to my surprise, it actually worked insanely well. I had no idea what would happen if I give a single model. I think it ended up being 17,000 categories approximately that I collapsed them into. It worked so well that it actually worked better than Google Lens, which released its V1 around the same time. And on top of this, the model ran on the device. So it didn't need an internet connection. A big part of the issue with Google Lens at the time was that connections were slower. 4G was around, but it wasn't nearly as fast. So there was a noticeable lag having to upload an image to a server and get it back. But just processing it locally, even on the iPhones of the day in 2017, much faster. It was a cool little project. It got some traction. TechCrunch wrote about it. There was kind of like one big spike in usage, and then over time it tapered off. But people still pay for it, which is wild. [00:03:14]Swyx: That's awesome. Oh, it's like a monthly or annual subscription? [00:03:16]Michael: Yeah, it's like a monthly subscription. [00:03:18]Swyx: Even though you don't actually have any servers? [00:03:19]Michael: Even though we don't have any servers. That's right. I was in high school. I had a little bit of money. I was like, yeah. [00:03:25]Swyx: That's awesome. I always wonder what the modern equivalents kind of "Be my eyes". And it would be actually disclosed in the GPT-4 Vision system card recently that the usage was surprisingly not that frequent. The extent to which all three of us have our sense of sight. I would think that if I lost my sense of sight, I would use Be My Eyes all the time. The average usage of Be My Eyes per day is 1.5 times. [00:03:49]Michael: Exactly. I was thinking about this as well, where I was also looking into image captioning, where you give a model an image and then it tells you what's in the image. But it turns out that what people want is the exact opposite. People want to give a description of an image and then have the AI generate the image. [00:04:04]Alessio: Oh, the other way. [00:04:06]Michael: Exactly. And so at the time, I think there were some GANs, NVIDIA was working on this back in 2019, 2020. They had some impressive, I think, face GANs where they had this model that would produce these really high quality portraits, but it wasn't able to take a natural language description the way Midjourney or DALL-E 3 can and just generate you an image with exactly what you described in it. [00:04:32]Swyx: And how did that get into NLP? [00:04:35]Michael: Yeah, I released the SmartLens app and that was around the time I was a senior in high school. I was applying to college. College rolls around. I'm still sort of working on updating the app in college. But I start thinking like, hey, what if I make an enterprise version of this as well? At the time, there was Clarify that provided some computer vision APIs, but I thought this massive classification model works so well and it's so small and so fast, might as well build an enterprise product. And I didn't even talk to users or do any of those things that you're supposed to do. I was just mainly interested in building a type of backend I've never built before. So I was mainly just doing it for myself just to learn. I built this enterprise classification product and as part of it, I'm also building an invoice processing product where using some of the aspects that I built previously, although obviously it's very different from classification, I wanted to be able to just extract a bunch of structured data from an unstructured invoice through our API. And that's what led me to Hugnyface for the first time because that involves some natural language components. And so I go to Hugnyface and with various encoder models that were around at the time, I used the standard BERT and also Longformer, which came out around the same time. And Longformer was interesting because it had a much bigger context window than those models at the time, like BERT, all of the first gen encoder only models, they only had a context window of 512 tokens and it's fixed. There's none of this alibi or ROPE that we have now where we can basically massage it to be longer. They're fixed, 512 absolute encodings. Longformer at the time was the only way that you can fit, say, like a sequence length or ask a question about like 4,000 tokens worth of text. Implemented Longformer, it worked super well, but like nobody really kind of used the enterprise product and that's kind of what I expected because at the end of the day, it was COVID. I was building this kind of mostly for me, mostly just kind of to learn. And so nobody really used it and my heart wasn't in it and I kind of just shelved it. But a little later, I went back to HugMeFace and I saw this demo that they had, and this is in the summer of 2020. They had this demo made by this researcher, Yacine Jernite, and he called it long form question answering. And basically, it was this self-contained notebook demo where you can ask a question the way that we do now with ChatGPT. It would do a lookup into some database and it would give you an answer. And it absolutely blew my mind. The demo itself, it used, I think, BART as the model and in the notebook, it had support for both an Elasticsearch index of Wikipedia, as well as a dense index powered by Facebook's FAISS. I think that's how you pronounce it. It was very iffy, but when it worked, I think the question in the demo was, why are all boats white? When it worked, it blew my mind that instead of doing this few shot thing, like people were doing with GPT-3 at the time, which is all the rage, you could just ask a model a question, provide no extra context, and it would know what to do and just give you the answer. It blew my mind to such an extent that I couldn't stop thinking about that. When I started thinking about ways to make it better, I tried training, doing the fine tune with a larger BART model. And this BART model, yeah, it was fine tuned on this Reddit data set called Eli5. So basically... [00:08:02]Alessio: Subreddit. [00:08:03]Swyx: Yeah, subreddit. [00:08:04]Alessio: Yeah. [00:08:05]Michael: And put it into like a well-formatted, relatively clean data set of like human questions and human answers. And that was a really great bootstrap for that model to be able to answer these types of questions. And so Eli5 actually turned out to be a good data set for training these types of question answering models, because the question is written by a human, the answer is written by a human, and at least helps the model get the format right, even if the model is still very small and it can't really think super well, at least it gets the format right. And so it ends up acting as kind of a glorified summarization model, where if it's fed in high quality context from the retrieval system, it's able to have a reasonably high quality output. And so once I made the model as big as I can, just fine tuning on BART large, I started looking for ways to improve the index. So in the demo, in the notebook, there were instructions for how to make an Elasticsearch index just for Wikipedia. And I was like, why not do all of Common Crawl? So I downloaded Common Crawl, and thankfully, I had like 10 or $15,000 worth of AWS credits left over from the SmartLens project. And that's what really allowed me to do this, because there's no other funding. I was still in college, not a lot of money, and so I was able to spin up a bunch of instances and just process all of Common Crawl, which is massive. So it's roughly like, it's terabytes of text. I went to Alexa to get the top 1,000 websites or 10,000 websites in the world, then filtered only by those websites, and then indexed those websites, because the web pages were already included in Dump. [00:09:38]Swyx: You mean to supplement Common Crawl or to filter Common Crawl? [00:09:41]Michael: Filter Common Crawl. [00:09:42]Alessio: Oh, okay. [00:09:43]Michael: Yeah, sorry. So we filtered Common Crawl just by the top, I think, 10,000, just to limit this, because obviously there's this massive long tail of small sites that are really cool, actually. There's other projects like, shout out to Marginalia Nu, which is a search engine specialized on the long tail. I think they actually exclude the top 10,000. [00:10:03]Swyx: That's what they do. [00:10:04]Alessio: Yeah. [00:10:05]Swyx: I've seen them around, I just don't really know what their pitch is. Okay, that makes sense. [00:10:08]Michael: So they exclude all the top stuff. So the long tail is cool, but for this, that was kind of out of the question, and that was most of the data anyway. So we've removed that. And then I indexed the remaining approximately 350 million webpages through Elasticsearch. So I built this index running on AWS with these webpages, and it actually worked quite well. You can ask it general common knowledge, history, politics, current events, questions, and it would be able to do a fast lookup in the index, feed it into the model, and it would give a surprisingly good result. And so when I saw that, I thought that this is definitely doable. And it kind of shocked me that no one else was doing this. And so this was now the fall of 2020. And yeah, I was kind of shocked no one was doing this, but it costs a lot of money to keep it up. I was still in college. There are things going on. I got bogged down by classes. And so I ended up shelving this for almost a full year, actually. When I returned to it in fall of 2021, when BigScience released T0, when BigScience released the T0 models, that was a massive jump in the reasoning ability of the model. And it was better at reasoning, it was better at summarization, it was still a glorified summarizer basically. [00:11:26]Swyx: Was this a precursor to Bloom? Because Bloom's the one that I know. [00:11:29]Alessio: Yeah. [00:11:30]Michael: Actually coming out in 2022. But Bloom had other problems where for whatever reason, the Bloom models just were never really that good, which is so sad because I really wanted to use them. But I think they didn't turn on that much data. I think they used like the original, they were trying to replicate GPT-3. So they just use those numbers, which we now know are like far below Chinchilla Optimal and even Chinchilla Optimal, which we can like talk about later, like what we're currently doing with MIMO goes, yeah, it goes way beyond that. But they weren't trying enough data. I'm not sure how that data was clean, but it probably wasn't super clean. And then they didn't really do any fine tuning until much later. So T0 worked well because they took the T5 models, which were closer to Chinchilla Optimal because I think they were trained on also like 300 something billion tokens, similar to GPT-3, but the models were much smaller. I think T0 is the first model that did large scale instruction tuning from diverse data sources in the fall of 2021. This is before Instruct GPT. This is before Flan T5, which came out in 2022. This is the very, very first, at least well-known example of that. And so it came out and then I did, on top of T0, I also did the Reddit Eli5 fine tune. And that was the first model and system that actually worked well enough to where I didn't get discouraged like I did previously, because the failure cases of the BART based system was so egregious. Sometimes it would just miss a question so horribly that it was just extremely discouraging. But for the first time, it was working reasonably well. Also using a much bigger model. I think the BART model is like 800 million parameters, but T0, we were using 3B. So it was T0, 3B, bigger model. And that was the very first iteration of Hello. So I ended up doing a show HN on Hacker News in January 2022 of that system. Our fine tune T0 model connected to our Elasticsearch index of those 350 million top 10,000 common crawl websites. And to the best of my knowledge, I think that's the first example that I'm aware of a LLM search engine model that's effectively connected to like a large enough index that I consider like an internet scale. So I think we were the first to release like an internet scale LLM powered rag search system In January 2022, around the time me and my future co-founder, Justin, we were like, this seems like the future. [00:14:02]Alessio: This is really cool. [00:14:03]Michael: I couldn't really sleep even like I was going to bed and I was like, I was thinking about it. Like I would say up until like 2.30 AM, like reading papers on my phone in bed, go to sleep, wake up the next morning at like eight and just be super excited to keep working. And I was also doing my thesis at the same time, my senior honors thesis at UT Austin about something very similar. We were researching factuality in abstractive question answering systems. So a lot of overlap with this project and the conclusions of my research actually kind of helped guide the development path of Hello. In the research, we found that LLMs, they don't know what they don't know. So the conclusion was, is that you always have to do a search to ensure that the model actually knows what it's talking about. And my favorite example of this even today is kind of with chat GPT browsing, where you can ask chat GPT browsing, how do I run llama.cpp? And chat GPT browsing will think that llama.cpp is some file on your computer that you can just compile with GCC and you're all good. It won't even bother doing a lookup, even though I'm sure somewhere in their internal prompts they have something like, if you're not sure, do a lookup. [00:15:13]Alessio: That's not good enough. So models don't know what they don't know. [00:15:15]Michael: You always have to do a search. And so we approached LLM powered question answering from the search angle. We pivoted to make this for programmers in June of 2022, around the time that we were getting into YC. We realized that what we're really interested in is the case where the models actually have to think. Because up until then, the models were kind of more glorified summarization models. We really thought of them like the Google featured snippets, but on steroids. And so we saw a future where the simpler questions would get commoditized. And I still think that's going to happen with like Google SGE and like it's nowadays, it's really not that hard to answer the more basic kind of like summarization, like current events questions with lightweight models that'll only continue to get cheaper over time. And so we kind of started thinking about this trade off where LLM models are going to get both better and cheaper over time. And that's going to force people who run them to make a choice. Either you can run a model of the same intelligence that you could previously for cheaper, or you can run a better model for the same price. So someone like Google, once the price kind of falls low enough, they're going to deploy and they're already doing this with SGE, they're going to deploy a relatively basic glorified summarizer model that can answer very basic questions about like current events, who won the Super Bowl, like, you know, what's going on on Capitol Hill, like those types of things. The flip side of that is like more complex questions where like you have to reason and you have to solve problems and like debug code. And we realized like we're much more interested in kind of going along the bleeding edge of that frontier case. And so we've optimized everything that we do for that. And that's a big reason of why we've built Phind specifically for programmers, as opposed to saying like, you know, we're kind of a search engine for everyone because as these models get more capable, we're very interested in seeing kind of what the emergent properties are in terms of reasoning, in terms of being able to solve complex multi-step problems. And I think that some of those emerging capabilities like we're starting to see, but we don't even fully understand. So I think there's always an opportunity for us to become more general if we wanted, but we've been along this path of like, what is the best, most advanced reasoning engine that's connected to your code base, that's connected to the internet that we can just provide. [00:17:39]Alessio: What is Phind today, pragmatically, from a product perspective, how do people interact with it? Yeah. Or does it plug into your workflow? [00:17:46]Michael: Yeah. [00:17:47]Alessio: So Phind is really a system. [00:17:48]Michael: Phind is a system for programmers when they have a question or when they're frustrated or when something's not working. [00:17:54]Swyx: When they're frustrated. [00:17:55]Alessio: Yeah. [00:17:56]Michael: For them to get on block. I think like the single, the most abstract page for Phind is like, if you're experiencing really any kind of issue as a programmer, we'll solve that issue for you in 15 seconds as opposed to 15 minutes or longer. Phind has an interface on the web. It has an interface in VS code and more IDEs to come, but ultimately it's just a system where a developer can paste in a question or paste in code that's not working and Phind will do a search on the internet or they will find other code in your code base perhaps that's relevant. And then we'll find the context that it needs to answer your question and then feed it to a reasoning engine powerful enough to actually answer it. So that's really the philosophy behind Phind. It's a system for getting developers the answers that they're looking for. And so right now from a product perspective, this means that we're really all about getting the right context. So the VS code extension that we launched recently is a big part of this because you can just ask a question and it knows where to find the right code context in your code. It can do an internet search as well. So it's up to date and it's not just reliant on what the model knows and it's able to figure out what it needs by itself and answer your question based on that. If it needs some help, you can also get yourself kind of just, there's opportunities for you yourself to put in all that context in. But the issue is also like not everyone wants these VS code. Some people like are real Neovim sticklers or they're using like PyCharm or other IDEs, JetBrains. And so for those people, they're actually like okay with switching tabs, at least for now, if it means them getting their answer. Because really like there's been an explosion of all these like startups doing code, doing search, etc. But really who everyone's competing with is ChatGPT, which only has like that one web interface. Like ChatGPT is really the bar. And so that's what we're up against. [00:19:50]Alessio: And so your idea, you know, we have Amman from Cursor on the podcast and they've gone through the we need to own the IDE thing. Yours is more like in order to get the right answer, people are happy to like go somewhere else basically. They're happy to get out of their IDE. [00:20:05]Michael: That was a great podcast, by the way. But yeah, so part of it is that people sometimes perhaps aren't even in an IDE. So like the whole task of software engineering goes way beyond just running code, right? There's also like a design stage. There's a planning stage. A lot of this happens like on whiteboards. It happens in notebooks. And so the web part also exists for that where you're not even coding it and you're just trying to get like a more conceptual understanding of what you're trying to build first. The podcast with Amman was great, but somewhere where I disagree with him is that you need to own the IDE. I think like he made some good points about not having platform risk in the long term. But some of the features that were mentioned like suggesting diffs, for example, those are all doable with an extension. We haven't yet seen with VS Code in particular any functionality that we'd like to do yet in the IDE that we can't either do through directly supported VS Code functionality or something that we kind of hack into there, which we've also done a fair bit of. And so I think it remains to be seen where that goes. But I think what we're looking to be is like we're not trying to just be in an IDE or be an IDE. Like Phind is a system that goes beyond the IDE and like is really meant to cover the entire lifecycle of a developer's thought process in going about like, hey, like I have this idea and I want to get from that idea to a working product. And so then that's what the long term vision of Phind is really about is starting with that. In the future, I think programming is just going to be really just the problem solving. Like you come up with an idea, you come up with like the basic design for the algorithm in your head, and you just tell the AI, hey, just like just do it, just make it work. And that's what we're building towards. [00:21:51]Swyx: I think we might want to give people an impression about like type of traffic that you have, because when you present it with a text box, you could type in anything. And I don't know if you have some mental categorization of like what are like the top three use cases that people tend to coalesce around. [00:22:08]Alessio: Yeah, that's a great question. [00:22:09]Michael: The two main types of searches that we see are how-to questions, like how to do X using Y tool. And this historically has been our bread and butter, because with our embeddings, like we're really, really good at just going over a bunch of developer documentation and figuring out exactly the part that's relevant and just telling you, OK, like you can use this method. But as LLMs have gotten better, and as we've really transitioned to using GPT-4 a lot in our product, people organically just started pasting in code that's not working and just said, fix it for me. [00:22:42]Swyx: Fix this. [00:22:43]Alessio: Yeah. [00:22:44]Michael: And what really shocks us is that a lot of the people who do that, they're coming from chat GPT. So they tried it in chat GPT with chat GPT-4. It didn't work. Maybe it required like some multi-step reasoning. Maybe it required some internet context or something found in either a Stack Overflow post or some documentation to solve it. And so then they paste it into find and then find works. So those are really those two different cases. Like, how can I build this conceptually or like remind me of this one detail that I need to build this thing? Or just like, here's this code. Fix it. And so that's what a big part of our VS Code extension is, is like enabling a much smoother here just like fix it for me type of workflow. That's really its main benefits. Like it's in your code base. It's in the IDE. It knows how to find the relevant context to answer that question. But at the end of the day, like I said previously, that's still a relatively, not to say it's a small part, but it's a limited part of the entire mental life cycle of a programmer. [00:23:47]Swyx: Yep. So you launched in Feb and then you launched V2 in August. You had a couple other pretty impactful posts slash feature launches. The web search one was massive. So you were mostly a GPT-4 wrapper. We were for a long time. [00:24:03]Michael: For a long time until recently. Yeah. [00:24:05]Alessio: Until recently. [00:24:06]Swyx: So like people coming over from ChatGPT were saying, we're going to say model with your version of web search. Would that be the primary value proposition? [00:24:13]Michael: Basically yeah. And so what we've seen is that any model plus web search is just significantly better than [00:24:18]Alessio: that model itself. Do you think that's what you got right in April? [00:24:21]Swyx: Like so you got 1500 points on Hacking News in April, which is like, if you live on Hacking News a lot, that is unheard of for someone so early on in your journey. [00:24:31]Alessio: Yeah. [00:24:32]Michael: We're super, super grateful for that. Definitely was not expecting it. So what we've done with Hacker News is we've just kept launching. [00:24:38]Alessio: Yeah. [00:24:39]Michael: Like what they don't tell you is that you can just keep launching. That's what we've been doing. So we launched the very first version of Find in its current incarnation after like the previous demo connected to our own index. Like once we got into YC, we scrapped our own index because it was too cumbersome at the time. So we moved over to using Bing as kind of just the raw source data. We launched as Hello Cognition. Over time, every time we like added some intelligence to the product, a better model, we just keep launching. And every additional time we launched, we got way more traffic. So we actually silently rebranded to Find in late December of last year. But like we didn't have that much traffic. Nobody really knew who we were. [00:25:18]Swyx: How'd you pick the name out of it? [00:25:19]Michael: Paul Graham actually picked it for us. [00:25:21]Swyx: All right. [00:25:22]Alessio: Tell the story. Yeah. So, oh boy. [00:25:25]Michael: So this is the biggest side. Should we go for like the full Paul Graham story or just the name? [00:25:29]Swyx: Do you want to do it now? Or do you want to do it later? I'll give you a choice. [00:25:32]Alessio: Hmm. [00:25:33]Michael: I think, okay, let's just start with the name for now and then we can do the full Paul Graham story later. But basically, Paul Graham, when we were lucky enough to meet him, he saw our name and our domain was at the time, sayhello.so and he's just like, guys, like, come on, like, what is this? You know? And we were like, yeah, but like when we bought it, you know, we just kind of broke college students. Like we didn't have that much money. And like, we really liked hello as a name because it was the first like conversational search engine. And that's kind of, that's the angle that we were approaching it from. And so we had sayhello.so and he's like, there's so many problems with that. Like, like, like the say hello, like, what does that even mean? And like .so, like, it's gotta be like a .com. And so we did some time just like with Paul Graham in the room. We just like looked at different domain names, like different things that like popped into our head. And one of the things that popped into like Paul Graham said was fine with the Phind spelling in particular. [00:26:33]Swyx: Yeah. Which is not typical naming advice, right? Yes. Because it's not when people hear it, they don't spell it that way. [00:26:38]Michael: Exactly. It's hard to spell. And also it's like very 90s. And so at first, like, we didn't like, I was like, like, ah, like, I don't know. But over time it kept growing on us. And eventually we're like, okay, we like the name. It's owned by this elderly Canadian gentleman who we got to know, and he was willing to sell it to us. [00:26:57]Michael: And so we bought it and we changed the name. Yeah. [00:27:01]Swyx: Anyways, where were you? [00:27:02]Alessio: I had to ask. [00:27:03]Swyx: I mean, you know, everyone who looks at you is wondering. [00:27:06]Michael: And a lot of people actually pronounce it Phind, which, you know, by now it's part of the game. But eventually we want to buy Phind.com and then just have that redirect to Phind. So Phind is like definitely the right spelling. But like, we'll just, yeah, we'll have all the cases addressed. [00:27:23]Swyx: Cool. So Bing web search, and then August you launched V2. Is V2 the Phind as a system pitch? Or have you moved, evolved since then? [00:27:31]Michael: Yeah, so I don't, like the V2 moniker, like, I don't really think of it that way in my mind. There's like, there's the version we launched during, last summer during YC, which was the Bing version directed towards programmers. And that's kind of like, that's why I call it like the first incarnation of what we currently are. Because it was already directed towards programmers. We had like a code snippet search built in as well, because at the time, you know, the models we were using weren't good enough to generate code snippets. Even GPT, like the text DaVinci 2 was available at the time, wasn't that good at generating code and it would generate like very, very short, very incomplete code snippets. And so we launched that last summer, got some traction, but really like we were only doing like, I don't know, maybe like 10,000 searches a day. [00:28:15]Alessio: Some people knew about it. [00:28:16]Michael: Some people used it, which is impressive because looking back, the product like was not that good. And every time we've like made an improvement to the way that we retrieve context through better embeddings, more intelligent, like HTML parsers, and importantly, like better underlying models. Every major version after that was when we introduced a better underlying answering model. Like in February, we had to swallow a bit of our pride when we were like, okay, our own models aren't good enough. We have to go to open AI. And actually that did lead to kind of like our first decent bump of traffic in February. And people kept using it, like our attention was way better too. But we were still kind of running into problems of like more advanced reasoning. Some people tried it, but people were leaving because even like GPT 3.5, both turbo and non-turbo, like still not that great at doing like code related reasoning beyond the how do you do X, like documentation search type of use case. And so it was really only when GPT 4 came around in April that we were like, okay, like this is like our first real opportunity to really make this thing like the way that it should have been all along. And having GPT 4 as the brain is what led to that Hacker News post. And so what we did was we just let anyone use GPT 4 on Fyne for free without a login, [00:29:43]Alessio: which I actually don't regret. [00:29:45]Michael: So it was very expensive, obviously. But like at that stage, all we needed to do was show like, we just needed to like show people here's what Fyne can do. That was the main thing. And so that worked. That worked. [00:29:58]Alessio: Like we got a lot of users. [00:29:59]Michael: Do you know Fireship? [00:30:01]Swyx: Yeah. YouTube, Jeff Delaney. [00:30:03]Michael: Yeah. He made a short about Fyne. [00:30:06]Alessio: Oh. [00:30:07]Michael: And that's on top of the Hacker News post. And that's what like really, really made it blow up. It got millions of views in days. And he's just funny. Like what I love about Fireship is like he like you guys, yeah, like humor goes a long a long way towards like really grabbing people's attention. And so that blew up. [00:30:25]Swyx: Something I would be anxious about as a founder during that period, so obviously we all remember that pretty closely. So there were a couple of people who had access to the GPT-4 API doing this, which is unrestricted access to GPT-4. And I have to imagine OpenAI wasn't that happy about that because it was like kind of de facto access to GPT-4 before they released it. [00:30:46]Alessio: No, no. [00:30:47]Michael: GPT-4 was in chat GPT from day one. I think. OpenAI actually came to our support because what happened was we had people building unofficial APIs around to try to get free access to it. And I think OpenAI actually has the right perspective on this where they're like, OK, people can do whatever they want with the API if they're paying for it, like they can do whatever they want, but it's like not OK if, you know, paying customers are being exploite by these other actors. They actually got in touch with us and they helped us like set up better Cloudflare bot monitoring controls to effectively like crack down on those unofficial APIs, which we're very happy about. But yeah, so we launched GPT-4. A lot of people come to the product and yeah, for a long time, we're just we're figuring out like what do we make of this, right? How do we a make it better, but also deal with like our costs, which have just like massively, massively ballooned. Over time, it's become more clear with the release of Llama 2 and Llama 3 on the horizon that we will once again see a return to vertical applications running their own models. As was true last year and before, I think that GPT-4, my hypothesis is that the jump from 4 to 4.5 or 4 to 5 will be smaller than the jump from 3 to 4. And the reason why is because there were a lot of different things. Like there was two plus, effectively two, two and a half years of research that went into going from 3 to 4. Like more data, bigger model, all of the instruction tuning techniques, RLHF, all of that is known. And like Meta, for example, and now there's all these other startups like Mistral too, like there's a bunch of very well-funded open source players that are now working on just like taking the recipe that's now known and scaling it up. So I think that even if a delta exists, the delta between in 2024, the delta between proprietary and open source won't be large enough that a startup like us with a lot of data that we've collected can take the data that we have, fine tune an open source model, and like be able to have it be better than whatever the proprietary model is at the time. That's my hypothesis.Michael: But we'll once again see a return to these verticalized models. And that's something that we're super excited about because, yeah, that brings us to kind of the fine model because the plan from kind of the start was to be able to return to that if that makes sense. And I think now we're definitely at a point where it does make sense because we have requests from users who like, they want longer context in the model, basically, like they want to be able to ask questions about their entire code base without, you know, context and retrieval and taking a chance of that. Like, I think it's generally been shown that if you have the space to just put the raw files inside of a big context window, that is still better than chunking and retrieval. So there's various things that we could do with longer context, faster speed, lower cost. Super excited about that. And that's the direction that we're going with the fine model. And our big hypothesis there is precisely that we can take a really good open source model and then just train it on absolutely all of the high quality data that we can find. And there's a lot of various, you know, interesting ideas for this. We have our own techniques that we're kind of playing with internally. One of the very interesting ideas that I've seen, I think it's called Octopack from BigCode. I don't think that it made that big waves when it came out, I think in August. But the idea is that they have this data set that maps GitHub commits to a change. So basically there's all this really high quality, like human made, human written diff data out there on every time someone makes a commit in some repo. And you can use that to train models. Take the file state before and like given a commit message, what should that code look like in the future? [00:34:52]Swyx: Got it. [00:34:53]Alessio: Do you think your HumanEval is any good?Michael: So we ran this experiment. We trained the Phind model. And if you go to the BigCode leaderboard, as of today, October 5th, all of our models are at the top of the BigCode leaderboard by far. It's not close, particularly in languages other than Python. We have a 10 point gap between us and the next best model on JavaScript. I think C sharp, multilingual. And what we kind of learned from that whole experience releasing those models is that human eval doesn't really matter. Not just that, but GPT-4 itself has been trained on human eval. And we know this because GPT-4 is able to predict the exact docstring in many of the problems. I've seen it predict like the specific example values in the docstring, which is extremely improbable. So I think there's a lot of dataset contamination and it only captures a very limited subset of what programmers are actually doing. What we do internally for evaluations are we have GPT-4 score answers. GPT-4 is a really good evaluator. I mean, obviously it's by really good, I mean, it's the best that we have. I'm sure that, you know, a couple of months from now, next year, we'll be like, oh, you know, like GPT-4.5, GPT-5, it's so much better. Like GPT-4 is terrible, but like right now it's the best that we have short of humans. And what we found is that when doing like temperature zero evals, it's actually mostly deterministic GPT-4 across runs in assigning scores to two different answers. So we found it to be a very useful tool in comparing our model to say, GPT-4, but yeah, on our like internal real world, here's what people will be asking this model dataset. And the other thing that we're running is just like releasing the model to our users and just seeing what they think. Because that's like the only thing that really matters is like releasing it for the application that it's intended for, and then seeing how people react. And for the most part, the incredible thing is, is that people don't notice a difference between our model and GPT-4 for the vast majority of searches. There's some reasoning problems that GPT-4 can still do better. We're working on addressing that. But in terms of like the types of questions that people are asking on find, there's not that much difference. And in fact, I've been running my own kind of side by side comparisons, shout out to GodMode, by the way. [00:37:16]Michael: And I've like myself, I've kind of confirmed this to be the case. And even sometimes it gives a better answer, perhaps like more concise or just like better implementation than GPT-4, which that's what surprises me. And by now we kind of have like this reasoning is all you need kind of hypothesis where we've seen emerging capabilities in the find model, whereby training it on high quality code, it can actually like reason better. It went from not being able to solve world problems, where riddles were like with like temporal placement of objects and moving and stuff like that, that GPT-4 can do pretty well. We went from not being able to do those at all to being able to do them just by training on more code, which is wild. So we're already like starting to see like these emerging capabilities. [00:37:59]Swyx: So I just wanted to make sure that we have the, I guess, like the model card in our heads. So you started from Code Llama? [00:38:07]Alessio: Yes. [00:38:08]Swyx: 65, 34? 34. [00:38:10]Michael: So unfortunately, there's no Code Llama 70b. If there was, that would be super cool. But there's not. [00:38:15]Swyx: 34. And then, which in itself was Llama 2, which is on 2 trillion tokens and the added 500 billion code tokens. Yes. [00:38:22]Michael: And you just added a bunch more. [00:38:23]Alessio: Yeah. [00:38:24]Michael: And they also did a couple of things. So they did, I think they did 500 billion, like general pre-training and then they did an extra 20 billion long context pre-training. So they actually increased the like max position tokens to 16k up from 8k. And then they changed the theta parameter for the ROPE embeddings as well to give it theoretically better long context support up to 100k tokens. But yeah, but otherwise it's like basically Llama 2. [00:38:50]Swyx: And so you just took that and just added data. [00:38:52]Michael: Exactly. [00:38:53]Swyx: You didn't do any other fundamental. [00:38:54]Michael: Yeah. So we didn't actually, we haven't yet done anything with the model architecture and we just trained it on like many, many more billions of tokens on our own infrastructure. And something else that we're taking a look at now is using reinforcement learning for correctness. One of the interesting pitfalls that we've noticed with the Phind model is that in cases where it gets stuff wrong, it sometimes is capable of getting the right answer. It's just, there's a big variance problem. It's wildly inconsistent. There are cases when it is able to get the right chain of thought and able to arrive [00:39:25]Alessio: at the right answer, but not always. [00:39:27]Michael: And so like one of our hypotheses is something that we're going to try is that like we can actually do reinforcement learning on, for a given problem, generate a bunch of completions and then like use the correct answer as like a loss basically to try to get it to be more correct. And I think there's a high chance I think of this working because it's very similar to the like RLHF method where you basically show pairs of completions for a given question except the criteria is like which one is like less harmful. But here we have a different criteria. But if the model is already capable of getting the right answer, which it is, we're just, we just need to cajole it into being more consistent. [00:40:06]Alessio: There were a couple of things that I noticed in the product that were not strange but unique. So first of all, the model can talk multiple times in a row, like most other applications is like human model, human model. And then you had outside of the thumbs up, thumbs down, you have things like have DLLM prioritize this message and its answers or then continue from this message to like go back. How does that change the flow of the user and like in terms of like prompting it, yeah, what are like some tricks or learnings you've had? [00:40:37]Michael: So yeah, that's specifically in our pair programmer mode, which is a more conversational mode that also like asks you clarifying questions back if it doesn't fully understand what you're doing and it kind of it holds your hand a bit more. And so from user feedback, we had requests to make more of an auto GPT where you can kind of give it this problem that might take multiple searches or multiple different steps like multiple reasoning steps to solve. And so that's the impetus behind building that product. Being able to do multiple steps and also be able to handle really long conversations. Like people are really trying to use the pair programmer to go from like sometimes really from like basic idea to like complete working code. And so we noticed was is that we were having like these very, very long threads, sometimes with like 60 messages, like 100 messages. And like those become really, really challenging to manage the appropriate context window of what should go inside of the context and how to preserve the context so that the model can continue or the product can continue giving good responses, even if you're like 60 messages deep in a conversation. So that's where the prioritized user messages like comes from. It's like people have asked us to just like let them pin messages that they want to be left in the conversation. And yeah, and then that seems to have like really gone a long way towards solving that problem, yeah. [00:41:54]Alessio: And then you have a run on Replit thing. Are you planning to build your own repl? Like learning some people trying to run the wrong code, unsafe code? [00:42:03]Michael: Yes. Yes. So I think like in the long term vision of like being a place where people can go from like idea to like fully working code, having a code sandbox, like a natively integrated code sandbox makes a lot of sense. And replit is great and people use that feature. But yeah, I think there's more we can do in terms of like having something a bit closer to code interpreter where it's able to run the code and then like recursively iterate on it. Exactly. [00:42:31]Swyx: So you're working on APIs to enable you to do that? Yep. So Amjad has specifically told me in person that he wants to enable that for people at the same time. He's also working on his own models, and Ghostwriter and you know, all the other stuff. So it's going to get interesting. Like he wants to power you, but also compete with you. Yeah. [00:42:47]Michael: And like, and we love replit. I think that a lot of the companies in our space, like we're all going to converge to solving a very similar problem, but from a different angle. So like replit approaches this problem from the IDE side. Like they started as like this IDE that you can run in the browser. And they started from that side, making coding just like more accessible. And we're approaching it from the side of like an LLM that's just like connected to everything that it needs to be connected to, which includes your code context. So that's why we're kind of making inroads into IDEs, but we're kind of, we're approaching this problem from different sides. And I think it'll be interesting to see where things end up. But I think that in the long, long term, we have an opportunity to also just have like this general technical reasoning engine product that's potentially also not just for, not just for programmers. It's also powered in this web interface, like where there's potential, I think other things that we will build that eventually might go beyond like our current scope. [00:43:49]Swyx: Exciting. We'll look forward to that. We're going to zoom out a little bit into sort of AI ecosystem stories, but first we got to get the Paul Graham, Ron Conway story. [00:43:59]Alessio: Yeah. [00:44:00]Michael: So flashback to last summer, we're in the YC batch. We're doing the summer batch, summer 22. So the summer batch runs from June to September, approximately. And so this was late July, early August, right around the time that many like YC startups start like going out, like during up, here's how we're going to pitch investors and everything. And at the same time, me and my co-founder, Justin, we were planning on moving to New York. So for a long time, actually, we were thinking about building this company in New York, mainly for personal reasons, actually, because like during the pandemic, pre-ChatGPT, pre last year, pre the AI boom, SF unfortunately really kind of, you know, like lost its luster. Yeah. Like no one was here. It was far from clear, like if there would be an AI boom, if like SF would be like... [00:44:49]Alessio: Back. [00:44:50]Michael: Yeah, exactly. Back. As everyone is saying these days, it was far from clear. And so, and all of our friends, we were graduating college because like we happened to just graduate college and immediately start YC, like we didn't even have, I think we had a week in between. [00:45:06]Swyx: You didn't bother looking for jobs. You were just like, this is what we want to do. [00:45:08]Michael: Well, actually both me and my co-founder, we had jobs that we secured in 2021 from previous internships, but we both, funny enough, when I spoke to my boss's boss at the company at where I reneged my offer, I told him we got into YC, they actually said, yeah, you should do YC. [00:45:27]Swyx: Wow. [00:45:28]Alessio: That's very selfless. [00:45:29]Swyx: That was really great that they did that. But in San Francisco, they would have offered to invest as well. [00:45:33]Michael: Yes, they would have. But yeah, but we were both planning to be in New York and all of our friends were there from college at this point, like we have this whole plan where like on August 1st, we're going to move to New York and we had like this Airbnb for the month of New York. We're going to stay there and we're going to work and like all of that. The day before we go to New York, I called Justin and I just, I tell him like, why are we doing this? Because in our batch, by the time August 1st rolled around, all of our mentors at YC were saying like, hey, like you should really consider staying in SF. [00:46:03]Swyx: It's the hybrid batch, right? [00:46:04]Michael: Yeah, it was the hybrid batch, but like there were already signs that like something was kind of like afoot in SF, even if like we didn't fully want to admit it yet. And so we were like, I don't know, I don't know. Something kind of clicked when the rubber met the road and it was time to go to New York. We're like, why are we doing this? And like, we didn't have any good reasons for staying in New York at that point beyond like our friends are there. So we still go to New York because like we have the Airbnb, like we don't have any other kind of place to go for the next few weeks. We're in New York and New York is just unfortunately too much fun. Like all of my other friends from college who are just, you know, basically starting their jobs, starting their lives as adults. They just stepped into these jobs, they're making all this money and they're like partying and like all these things are happening. And like, yeah, it's just a very distracting place to be. And so we were just like sitting in this like small, you know, like cramped apartment, terrible posture, trying to get as much work done as we can, too many distractions. And then we get this email from YC saying that Paul Graham is in town in SF and he is doing office hours with a certain number of startups in the current batch. And whoever signs up first gets it. And I happen to be super lucky. I was about to go for a run, but I just, I saw the email notification come across the street. I immediately clicked on the link and like immediately, like half the spots were gone, but somehow the very last spot was still available. And so I picked the very, very last time slot at 7 p.m. semi-strategically, you know, so we would have like time to go over. And also because I didn't really know how we're going to get to SF yet. And so we made a plan that we're going to fly from New York to SF and back to New York in one day and do like the full round trip. And we're going to meet with PG at the YC Mountain View office. And so we go there, we do that, we meet PG, we tell him about the startup. And one thing I love about PG is that he gets like, he gets so excited. Like when he gets excited about something, like you can see his eyes like really light up. And he'll just start asking you questions. In fact, it's a little challenging sometimes to like finish kind of like the rest of like the description of your pitch because like, he'll just like asking all these questions about how it works. And I'm like, you know, what's going on? [00:48:19]Swyx: What was the most challenging question that he asked you? [00:48:21]Michael: I think that like really how it worked. Because like as soon as like we told him like, hey, like we think that the future of search is answers, not links. Like we could really see like the gears turning in his head. I think we were like the first demo of that. [00:48:35]Swyx: And you're like 10 minutes with him, right? [00:48:37]Michael: We had like 45, yeah, we had a decent chunk of time. And so we tell him how it works. Like he's very excited about it. And I just like, I just blurted out, I just like asked him to invest and he hasn't even seen the product yet. We just asked him to invest and he says, yeah. And like, we're super excited about that. [00:48:55]Swyx: You haven't started your batch. [00:48:56]Michael: No, no, no. This is about halfway through the batch or two, two, no, two thirds of the batch. [00:49:02]Swyx: And you're like not technically fundraising yet. We're about to start fundraising. Yeah. [00:49:06]Michael: So we have like this demo and like we showed him and like there was still a lot of issues with the product, but I think like it must have like still kind of like blown his mind in some way. So like we're having fun. He's having fun. We have this dinner planned with this other friend that we had in SF because we were only there for that one day. So we thought, okay, you know, after an hour we'll be done, you know, we'll grab dinner with our friend and we'll fly back to New York. But PG was like, like, I'm having so much fun. Do you want to have dinner? Yeah. Come to my house. Or he's like, I gotta go have dinner with my wife, Jessica, who's also awesome, by the way. [00:49:40]Swyx: She's like the heart of YC. Yeah. [00:49:42]Michael: Jessica does not get enough credit as an aside for her role. [00:49:46]Swyx: He tries. [00:49:47]Michael: He understands like the technical side and she understands people and together they're just like a phenomenal team. But he's like, yeah, I got to go see Jessica, but you guys are welcome to come with. Do you want to come with? And we're like, we have this friend who's like right now outside of like literally outside the door who like we also promised to get dinner with. It's like, we'd love to, but like, I don't know if we can. He's like, oh, he's welcome to come too. So all of us just like hop in his car and we go to his house and we just like have this like we have dinner and we have this just chat about the future of search. Like I remember him telling Jessica distinctly, like our kids as kids are not going to know what like a search result is. Like they're just going to like have answers. That was really like a mind blowing, like inflection point moment for sure. [00:50:34]Swyx: Wow, that email changed your life. [00:50:35]Michael: Absolutely. [00:50:36]Swyx: And you also just spoiled the booking system for PG because now everyone's just going to go after the last slot. Oh man. [00:50:42]Michael: Yeah. But like, I don't know if he even does that anymore. [00:50:46]Swyx: He does. He does. Yeah. I've met other founders that he did it this year. [00:50:49]Michael: This year. Gotcha. But when we told him about how we did it, he was like, I am like frankly shocked that YC just did like a random like scheduling system. [00:50:55]Alessio: They didn't like do anything else. But, um. [00:50:58]Swyx: Okay. And then he introduces Duron Conway. Yes. Who is one of the most legendary angels in Silicon Valley. [00:51:04]Michael: Yes.So after PG invested, the rest of our round came together pretty quickly. [00:51:10]Swyx: I'm, by the way, I'm surprised. Like it's, it might feel like playing favorites right within the current batch to be like, yo, PG invested in this one. Right. [00:51:17]Alessio: Too bad for the others. [00:51:18]Swyx: Too bad for the others, I guess. [00:51:19]Michael: I think this is a bigger point about YC and like these accelerators in general is like YC gets like a lot of criticism from founders who feel like they didn't get value out of it. But like, in my view, YC is what you make of it. And YC tells you this. They're like, you really got to grab this opportunity, like buy the balls and make the most of it. And if you do, then it could be the best thing in the world. And if you don't, and if you're just kind of like a passive, even like an average founder in YC, you're still going to fail. And they tell you that. They're like, if you're average in your batch, you're going to fail. Like you have to just be exceptional in every way. With that in mind, perhaps that's even part of the reason why we asked PG to invest. And so yeah, after PG invested, the rest of our round came together pretty quickly, which I'm very fortunate for. And yeah, he introduced us to Ron. And after he did, I get a call from Ron. And then Ron says like, hey, like PG tells me what you're working on. I'd love to come meet you guys. And I'm like, wait, no way. And then we're just holed up in this like little house in San Mateo, which is a little small, but you know, it had a nice patio. In fact, we had like a monitor set up outside on the deck out there. And so Ron Conway comes over, we go over to the patio where like our workstation is. And Ron Conway, he's known for having like this notebook that he goes around with where he like sits down with the notebook and like takes very, very detailed notes. So he never like forgets anything. So he sits down with his notebook and he asks us like, hey guys, like, what do you need? And we're like, oh, we need GPUs. Back then, the GPU shortage wasn't even nearly as bad as it is now. But like even then, it was still challenging to get like the quota that we needed. And he's like, okay, no problem. And then like he leaves a couple hours later, we get an email and we're CC'd on an email that Ron wrote to Jensen, the CEO of Nvidia, saying like, hey, these guys need GPUs. [00:53:02]Swyx: You didn't say how much? It was just like, just give them GPUs. [00:53:04]Alessio: Basically, yeah. [00:53:05]Michael: Ron is known for writing these like one-liner emails that are like very short, but very to the point. And I think that's why like everyone responds to Ron. Everyone loves Ron. And so Jensen responds. He responds quickly, like tagging this VP of AI at Nvidia. And we start working with Nvidia, which is great. And something that I love about Nvidia, by the way, is that after that intro, we got matched with like a dedicated team. And at Nvidia, they know that they're going to win regardless. So they don't care where you get the GPUs from. They're like, they're truly neutral, unlike various sales reps that you might encounter at various like clouds and, you know, hardware companies, et cetera. They actually just want to help you because they know they don't care. Like regardless, they know that if you're getting Nvidia GPUs, they're still winning. So I guess that's a tip is that like if you're looking for GPUs like Nvidia, they'll help you do it. [00:53:54]Swyx: So just to tie up this thing, because so first of all, that's a fantastic story. And I just wanted to let you tell that because it's special. That is a strategic shift, right? That you already decided to make by the time you met Ron, which is we are going to have our own hardware. We're going to rack him in a data center somewhere. [00:54:11]Michael: Well, not even that we need our own hardware because actually we don't. Right. But we just we just need GPUs, period. And like every cloud loves like they have their own sales tactics and like they want to make you commit to long terms and like very non-flexible terms. And like there's a web of different things that you kind of have to navigate. Nvidia will kind of be to the point like, OK, you can do this on this cloud, this on this cloud. Like this is your budget. Maybe you want to consider buying as well. Like they'll help you walk through what the options are. And the reason why they're helpful is because like they look at the full picture. So they'll help you with the hardware. And in terms of software, they actually implemented a custom feature for us in Faster Transformer, which is one of their libraries.Swyx: For you? [00:54:53]Michael: For us. Yeah. Which is wild. I don't think they would have done it otherwise. They implemented streaming generation for T5 based models, which we were running at the time up until we switched to GPT in February, March of this year. So they implemented that just for us, actually, in Faster Transformer. And so like they'll help you like look at the complete picture and then just help you get done what you need to get done. I know one of your interests is also local models, open source models and hardware kind of goes hand in hand.Alessio: Any fun projects, explorations in the space that you want to share with local llamas and stuff? [00:55:27]Michael: Yeah, it's something that we're very interested in because something that kind of we're hearing a lot about is like people want something like find, especially comp

In today's CIHAS episode, I'm speaking to online personal trainer and performance nutritionist, Michael Ulloa. Michael is on a mission to make the fitness industry a more welcoming and accepting space for all, which is exactly what we dive into in this ‘sode. We are unpacking some toxic myths about exercise, Michael spills the beans on his feelings about Joe Wicks, and we discuss what really goes into professional fitness models' photo shoots. Plus we answer loads of your questions like how to find a more joyful relationship with movement after a lifetime of using it as punishment for eating. Find out more about Michael's work here.Follow his work on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to Laura's newsletter here.Enrol in the Raising Embodied Eaters course here.Here's the transcript in full:INTRO:Michael: The way that we're being sold health and fitness just isn't sustainable or achievable in any way and then people blame themselves and feel worse and then therefore they're more likely to spend money on all these other programs repeatedly and it's just a vicious cycle that just doesn't ever end.Laura: Hey, and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? Podcast, where we talk about appetite, bodies, and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas. I'm an anti diet registered nutritionist, and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack? Newsletter. Today, I'm talking to Michael Ulloa.Michael is an online personal trainer and performance nutritionist who is on a mission to make the fitness industry a more welcoming and accepting space for all. In today's episode, Michael and I are shooting the shit about the fitness industry, unpacking some toxic myths about exercise, and answering loads of your questions: like how to find a more joyful relationship with movement after a lifetime of using it as punishment for eating.Some of you have been asking for more episodes on movement and fitness, so I think you're going to enjoy this conversation. We'll get to Michael in just a second, but first, I want to tell you real quick about the benefits of becoming a paid subscriber to the Can I Have Another Snack? Newsletter and community.For just £5 a month, or £50 a year, you get access to the extended CIHAS universe. That means exclusive weekly discussion threads, links and recommendations, you get commenting privileges and access to my monthly Dear Laura column, as well as the whole CIHAS archive and a few other sweet perks, but more than anything, you're supporting independent evidence based nutrition information free from diet culture and anti fatness. I can't do this work without the help of paying subscribers. So if you get something out of being here, then please consider upgrading your subscription today. And if you're still not convinced, then check out this recent review I received from a reader. They said: "Laura's podcast and newsletter are always thought provoking, filled with care and compassion, and a respite from one size fits all health and nutrition advice."So if that sounds good to you, then head to laurathomas.substack.com and become a paying subscriber today. Alright team, let's get to today's episode, here's Michael. MAIN EPISODE:All right, Michael, I need to know what the deal is. Because you're like one of maybe five PTs who isn't pushing aesthetic or weight loss goals on us.Has that always been your deal? Or is this more of an evolution for you? Michael: Yeah, it's definitely an evolution and it's funny you mentioned that because I get a lot of angry messages from personal trainers that don't think that my approach is right, which is always quite funny to me. I don't know, it's, I definitely, when I first started off in the fitness industry... I've been a personal trainer now for nearly 10 years.And in terms of personal training, that kind of makes you a bit of a veteran because a lot of trainers are quite short lived on average. When I first started off, I definitely did have your typical, like, mainstream slightly bro approach to fitness and nutrition. And I know most people that maybe work in the kind of space that, like, you operate in, for example, there tends to usually be a reason or a thing that caused them to go down that path.But I didn't have that at all. It really has just been a really slow evolution of just actually reading the research, working with people on a day to day basis, getting feedback from clients about what is working and what isn't, and then just really tweaking things over a very long period of time. I've also had some very honest clients, which have been great too, who kind of really follow my content on social media and they would message me like, oh, that's not very helpful. How about approaching it like this? And i'm always open to feedback, I always want to improve my practice and my messaging and I was always just quite receptive to that and I don't know... 10 years later I now finally feel like i'm working with people in a way that genuinely helps them long term and i'm actually creating content that is useful for people rather than just almost creating content for other personal trainers, which seems to be what a lot of fitness professionals do.Laura: Tell me about the angry messages. Why are other PTs up in your shit about...? Michael: I really don't know. I wish I knew the answer. I think... I guess if you're attacking someone's entire being and their work and their ethos that they've believed in for so many years, then I guess that a lot of people will react to that in quite a negative way.I really don't understand it at all either. Usually male coaches too, are very angry in the way that I approach social media and some of the names and things I've been called are pretty grim, but I only... I wish I knew the answer to that, but some, for some reason people get very angry in the way that I am approaching fitness and nutrition.But yeah, I really don't mind. Like I, as I said, I feel like I'm really helping people now and I'm happy to keep championing that message. Laura: I mean, I'm just wondering if part of it is because that myth, certain myth of no pain, no gain. And that you need to like, basically punish yourself with exercise in order to achieve a particular body type.You're saying, actually, we don't need to do that. It's okay if you don't kill yourself with exercise. We shouldn't be weaponising it against ourselves. For me, it speaks to how deeply internalised people's anti fat bias is. You're challenging the fundamental sort of premise that their beliefs are resting on, which is that, you can't be fit and fat.Or you...yeah, like I said before, that you have to punish yourself with exercise or like that... it's somehow okay to exist in a body that isn't fulfilling this ideal that we have been told that we should not strive for. Michael: Completely. And I mean, if we're completely honest about it, the way that the fitness industry is set up now is way more profitable for these people too.So if you do start attacking the way that they're approaching their lives or their businesses too, then they're probably going to be a little bit grumpy about that. It's so much easier for me as a personal trainer to make money saying, here we go, come sign up for the six week program and we'll strip body fat off you in such a short space of time, rather than me saying, cool, let's work together for three, six, 12 months. And let's really work on those habits and have you feeling and performing better. Like it's just such a hard sell. I mean, especially for, as I mentioned, like, personal training tends to be quite a short lived career for a lot of people. And I appreciate that when people first start off, the best way to get clients is shock and awe, like showing before and after photos, like having the secrets or whatever it is. And the best way to get clients at the start is by doing that. So people are going to follow that path rather than doing it the right way. That is a bit of a slow burner. I know that a lot of coaches aren't really up for that, sadly. Laura: Yeah, no, I think you make a really good point when you're talking about... the financial aspect of things, because, yeah, there's no money to be made in being like, yeah, take a rest day or go for a gentle walk and look at the sky. Yeah, those like making huge promises of around body transformations and then making people sign up for some sort of like intensive bootcamp situation. Of course, that makes sense from like a business model perspective, but as so often is the case, anything that involves capitalism is probably not great for our health overall. Okay, so I am absolutely not in the fitness space at all. I've purged my social media account. I think I follow you and maybe a couple of other personal trainers, because I find it really annoying, honestly, watching fitness content.Michael: I strongly relate to that. And first of all, thank you for following me, but yeah, I honestly, I feel exactly the same way.  Laura: And I think, especially since having had a baby and because I have some enduring physical stuff going on as a result of my pregnancy in terms of, like, pelvic health, even the stuff that is like geared towards women who have had babies and like postpartum stuff.It's just anyway, so I've just checked out of it. So I have no idea. What is going on in that space, really? So I need you to like, translate it all for me. What are some of the most pervasive and toxic fitness myths that you're seeing at the moment? Michael: Everything. Honestly, every topic is so toxic at the moment.It's really frustrating. And I speak to... There's a few coaches that I'm really good friends with, who I think you probably know as well, that I tend to follow their content, I like engaging with them and talking about the fitness industry, but I have also removed myself from a lot of the mainstream approach because...I don't find it motivating or helpful in any way. Like I think a lot of the... Laura: You don't even hate follow some people just to have like stuff to...? Because I hate feed a lot of big feeding. I hate-feed?! I hate-follow a lot of big accounts. I just have this folder on my Instagram called Ammunition.And I just save posts in there that I want to come back and get angry about at some point. What are you seeing from... I know you do it! But what are you seeing from those folks? Michael: So I do a little bit of that. And I, so I've also, I've got an Instagram account for my dog, but I started up ages ago. I don't post anything to it, but every time I see something pop up on, like, the explore page or I see another trainer share, I'll send it to her account. And then I'll use that as fodder for, like, creating content and coming up with ideas. But I do not, I don't hate follow that many people now because like I spent a lot of time on social media, right?And I know that because of that following these accounts and seeing them on a day to day basis all of the time does massively negatively impact my mental health. And I think if i'm feeling that way as a fitness professional who knows the research, knows what these accounts are doing to us and can see through the nonsense... how are everyday people feeling? When they're seeing this content and they don't really know if it's the truth or not. So I actually don't follow that many trainers. There's probably a lot of trainers who... . Laura: So very evolved of you. Michael: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. There's a few trainers who, like, I know through just from working in gyms or whatever, I'll follow them, but I mute them so that I don't have to see their content.Laura: Yeah, that's smart. Michael: But yeah, I don't know. There's so many myths about every topic. Like you mentioned there about, like, women's health and pelvic health and anything pre and postnatal. The stuff around that is really gross because it's not even just the fact that they're spreading misinformation. They somehow always tie in with just losing weight, like this is pretty much what it all comes down to, right? Laura: Yeah. Yeah. That's the subtext. It's always there. Michael: It's always like improve your pelvic health and slim your waist, like it's everything. It just pushes people down the route of still obsessing about body weight and focusing on body weight rather than focusing on general health and wellbeing and health promotion, and it's infuriating.I guess the same as, like, building muscle. Like it's nearly always advertised by these guys that are absolutely jacked, clearly taking steroids, using images of themselves going... you can look like this if you work out like me and buy my programs and my nutrition plans, and you're just never going to look like these people. So you're always going to fail. Like everything within the fitness space is geared towards repeat sales and having people come back for more because the way that we're being sold health and fitness, just isn't sustainable or achievable in any way. And then people blame themselves and feel worse. And then therefore they're more likely to spend money on all these other programs repeatedly. And it's just a vicious cycle that just doesn't ever end. And that's why with my page, I'm trying to step away from any aesthetic goals. Like you'll probably see through my social media, I don't, I'm not against people having aesthetic goals. I just don't really ever talk about it because I don't think it should ever be the focus of someone's fitness journey. I mean, I think that's the bit that seems to piss people off. Laura: Yeah. And I mean, there's some interesting research that shows that people who exercise for aesthetic goals, they're less likely to engage in something that is sustainable for them.Like, it's more likely that they will give up. And I don't mean that in, like, defeatist kind of way, but it just won't be sustainable for them. Versus for people who are approaching, I don't know, a type of exercise or training or whatever it is from a place of maybe wanting to feel stronger or feel more comfortable in their bodies or because they have mobility stuff that they're working through or something like that.So it's really difficult though, because And we'll get to some of the listener questions in a bit where they're asking this, like, how do you uncouple the aesthetic goals from, those more internally motivated goals from the perspective that we are just constantly being drip fed, idealised images of people all over the internet? And then, like you say, half the time those images aren't even real, right? There's people on ‘roids. There are people who are like starving themselves, like making themselves dehydrated, like posing in particular ways. I don't even know what other tactics people use to stylise these images.But I feel like the sort of falsification of these pictures is huge in the fitness industry. Michael: It's honestly horrific. And I would probably go as far as to say, like, every professional fitness model has taken or is taking steroids of some form. That's like the level of manipulation that the fitness industry...I don't know, I don't think there's any issue with... having aesthetic goals. Like I always like to hammer this point home because I think sometimes with my content, I can... people misconstrue that I'm against anyone having any aesthetic goal at all. I'm not, it's just, I think that the emphasis needs to be elsewhere.For example, when I first started in the fitness industry, I was in that loop of must build muscle, have to build muscle to show that I know what I'm talking about and also to be seen as manly and capable or whatever, and I would do a lot of strength training. I would never do cardio because cardio is bad.It ruins your gains. Laura: It's for girls.Michael: Yeah, it's just exactly that. And it's so frustrating that I would... I spent years just, like, strength training, nothing but strength training, even when I was going through cycles of really hating it. Like I had to do strength training, got to build muscle. When I switched up my training... I still do strength training now. I enjoy building muscle. The challenge of building strength and muscle is really fun, but I also do a lot of cardio because I really enjoy it and it makes me feel great in terms of physical and mental health. And actually since switching up, dropping a bit of strength training that I was doing and doing more cardio, the exercise I really enjoy, I've made so much more progress with my strength building and muscle building gains.And I've just got such a better balance with it all. So if someone listening to this is really struggling of knowing like what they should really be doing, what should they be focusing on? Honestly, just like enjoyment and mental health, that needs to be the priority. And then everything else just tends to fall into line after that.And the fitness industry, just the tactics, as I said, like the trainers use. The one thing that really annoys me is a lot of personal trainers will, anyone who follows any trainers will... I've seen this in the past where a trainer goes through a really extreme cycle of dieting, exercise regime because they're training for a photo shoot - in quotation marks - Where they'll go and get professional photos done that they've dieted down to within an inch of their lives. And they'll get a little snapshot image of look how amazing I look and then they'll use that in all their advertising of promoting healthy behaviour change or whatever other nonsense. It's if you're not using healthy, sustainable habits in achieving your physique, then you should not be allowed to use that in terms of advertising it to say that you're going to help people improve their health and their life, their health and their lives.It's just, it's incredibly infuriating and... Laura: it's false advertising. Michael: Massively. Yeah. Massively. Laura: Need to get that fucking, is it ASA, advertising...? Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Standards Agency. Absolutely. Yeah. Laura: I'm on the case! But two interesting things that I wanted to pick out from what you were saying.First of all, I think there's some complexity and nuance around this idea aesthetic goals, isn't there? Because we are all aesthetically driven, right? We are all, like we're aesthetic creatures in some ways, like when you brush your hair in the morning or I don't know, you trim your beard, Michael, or like I chose clothes that I thought looked somewhat okay together. Like those are all aesthetic goals, right? And so I think it's really, like, hard for people to decouple aesthetic goals from their overall movement, exercise routines, whatever you want to call them. But I think what you're saying, and certainly what I would advocate is that the fitness industry has just blown... yeah, they've blown up aesthetics to be like the sole purpose that people should exercise, right? And that I think is the problem is that yeah, they've just coupled exercise and aesthetics to the point that it's like you were saying, people are engaging in disorderly eating behaviours. They're using illicit drugs, they are, like, punishing themselves to look a particular way, and that's when it becomes problematic, right? Michael: Completely agree. Laura: And you end up on that slippery, slippery slope to disordered eating and eating disorders. Michael: Yeah, it's so true the barometer of success or health or knowledge within the fitness industry is body fat levels. That's pretty much what it all comes down to. Like a trainer who is absolutely jacked and really ripped is seen as being an authority figure without really knowing anything about them. And whereas you'll have a trainer who's in maybe a naturally larger sized body who naturally carries a little bit more body fat, has a much healthier balance of exercise and nutrition, a far better trainer. Just look at the comments under the content that they push out there onto social media and people will criticize them and say they don't know what they're talking about. Like our barometer of success is leanness. I don't know what the answer is to trying to combat that other than just keep churning out content, calling out this nonsense.But unfortunately you feel like you take a few steps forward when it was like two, three years ago, when you see, started to see a lot more body diversity on fitness accounts and kind of big companies like Gymshark and Nike and stuff were using people in larger bodies to advertise clothing.That's now disappearing again because it's no longer.... and it's just toxic. And you just have to go on like TikTok, the latest platform, even though it's been around a few years, I felt like we were maybe making a bit of progress. Then TikTok just flips that again, and you just got to search the hashtag fitness on TikTok.And it's just white, slim, muscular people clearly taking steroids that are the main bulk of the content that you're going to see. It's infuriating. Laura: Everyone in the fitness industry really collectively needs to be speaking out against this, but I think there's a simultaneous thing that has to happen whereby we are amplifying and centering experiences and the work of fat fitness creators, right? And I'm using fat, for anyone who's not listened to the podcast before, fat as a neutral descriptor, as a reclamation of a word that is often used to weaponise and hurt people and harm people. So, yeah, I'm just thinking of some people off the top of my head.Like Intuitive Fatty, Jessamyn Stanley is fantastic for yoga content. Lauren Leavell does a lot of barre stuff, but there's loads. I mean, is there anyone that you would want to give a shout out to like anyone that's doing...? Michael: The Instagram handle Decolonizing Fitness? Ilya. The content is amazing. We're trying to set up a time for Ilya to come into our podcast to chat about this at the moment. And I just... there's so many voices that need to be amplified. And I know that I always have to check my privilege in the content that I'm creating. Like you see very few men within the kind of body neutrality, body positivity, space, whatever you want to call the area I'm working in.So I always like to acknowledge that, okay, I'm creating content for a space that isn't really for me, but I do think that can be really powerful. And we still need more voices of guys, especially within this space, calling it out because I rarely ever see male fitness professionals creating the kind of content that I am.They tend to go down the more mainstream approach. And I like to yes, fitness can look like me. I look how the fitness industry says you're supposed to look, but it doesn't have to look like that, right? This is one way it can look, but it doesn't need to be like that for everyone. And I think that can be really powerful whilst amplifying the voices of those who are marginalised and don't get the airtime that I do.Laura: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, yeah, you make a really good point about men in this space. Like just in body neutrality, body positivity and again, there are some really great people doing stuff in that space. I agree like it's still underrepresented, but like the 300 pound runner. I don't know if you've come across his stuff? Michael: yeah, Martinus Evans.Laura: Yeah, His stuff is really cool as well. But yeah, anyway, just wanted to shout out some accounts and I'll link to them in the show notes as well. Yeah, so you mentioned that fitness professionals will embark on this really extreme diet, they will really bulk up, they'll, probably restrict what they're eating for a really long time, and then they'll do all their photos, and they'll probably go back to whatever they were doing before that. And it just reminded me when... and this is it's like really sad, but do you remember when Joe Wicks was talking all about binging? He went to America, and then it ... he just started talking about like he was eating all this chocolate and pizza and like stuff that he obviously was restricting so hard that when he went to the States, he had this like backlash against all of that and his body was just like, fuck this, and he just started eating like all of the food that he'd been denying himself.It just made me think of that and how he's... how disordered like this space is and how normalised that kind of thing is like that just like binge restrict cycle. Michael: Yeah, I mean when your entire business model relies on getting people really lean. If you're not sticking to those rules and keeping your body lean 100 percent of the time, then your business model kind of goes to shit. And I guess that's probably why he was having issues coming to terms with that. Joe Wicks is a really funny one because I don't like his content at all. I'll throw that out there. Some of the nutrition stuff he's spouted has been... I was going to say nonsense, but it's actually just damaging some of the stuff he comes out with.Also, on the other hand, I feel like, maybe this is giving him too much credit, I always feel like his heart is in the right place, but he just goes about it in completely the wrong way. I don't know if you would agree with that. When I hear him being interviewed, I feel like he's a really passionate guy who feels like he's doing the right thing, but he's just absolutely not.Because all of his content is focused on being lean and weight loss. And I just wish that... he's got such a huge platform now. It's terrifying. That if you had someone like him who could start promoting like a balanced and sensible message, it's never going to happen because he makes too much money now, then it would just be so powerful.Laura: But I don't know, like this piece around heart in the right place. I think we say that about a lot of these actually quite problematic white men. Joe Wicks, Jamie Oliver, I'm just gonna say it, don't @ me. But, of course their heart's in the right place, but their heart's also in their fucking bank balance, right?Michael: Completely, 100%. Laura: So that's one part of it, but also, I don't know when we can, when someone is, like you say, promoting harmful messages around food and around nutrition. And I don't. I think it matters where their heart is. Michael: Agreed. I wonder whether this... Laura: A murderer could use that justification to be like, Oh, well, this man is really toxic to women, so I'm just going to kill him.But that's not the solution. Michael: I know. I wonder whether kind of in my head, the reason I use those words is because I think of kind of the fitness industry as like a huge, like a line of like how problematic someone is. And I feel like he feels he's trying to do the right thing despite doing it very badly.Whereas you have a lot of people within the fitness space that go far beyond that, who are intentionally doing the really bad thing, trying to make a lot of money, it's still very bad. And Jamie Oliver is one of those as well, where he's got such a huge platform, thinks he knows what he's doing is the best thing, but it's just not. Like trying to ban the buy one get one free offers when people are really struggling to feed their families right now.It's just, I feel yes, hearts in the right place, but just no, like they need to be more informed and go about it in a better way. Laura: And especially when they are being given this feedback, right? Like it's one thing if you fuck up and you say, I was really wrong about that and I've learned some new information now like you have, right? And like I have. And you hold your hands up and you say, yeah, I was really fucking wrong and I'm sorry that I've caused harm and I don't want to do that anymore. I'm gonna learn and I'm gonna do better. And Michael: that's the sign of a good practitioner, right? And yeah. Laura: But speaking of Joe Wicks... Michael: Oh god!Laura: So, so you are a new ish parent, right? You have a seven month old. Michael: Yes, my son is seven months old, yeah. Laura: How do you feel about the prospect of Joe Wicks teaching your kid PE someday? Michael: Oh, just no, like awful. Yeah it's terrifying, isn't it? And these people do wangle their way into every aspect of our society of fitness.And there's just no getting away from them now. Personally, I never watched any of his school fitness things throughout lockdown. I know they're very popular. What was his wording? Did you watch any of them then with your kids? Laura: I didn't cause my little one was just a newborn at that point. And he's only three now.It just wasn't on my radar. I've seen his books. He has the burpee bears. And I've written a couple of like book reviews. They're super like, just tongue in cheek. But it strikes me as really problematic that he feels that we need to teach specific moves like burpees or other things like that to children, like to young children, like primary school age kids, and I don't really have a good justification for that because I'm not a fitness professional that other than does a five year old need to learn how to plank? Right? Or should we not be focusing on embodied movement that is climbing on play equipment in the playground or running or skipping or jumping or like, all of these things that kids, depending on their level of mobility and ability that they would intuitively do?Michael: I am completely with you there. I don't think we need to be teaching a five year old how to do a burpee. It's a bit ridiculous, to be honest. Yeah, that's the way that movement should be promoted and advertised to kids, if you want to use those kind of technical terms. It should just be about play and fun and movement, and that's... what it should be. Like if a kid sees their parent doing burpees or lifting weights and they want to try a bit out and get involved yeah, absolutely. But it just, it shouldn't be the go to, right? Yeah, absolutely. Laura: Yeah. My kid has seen me do a downward dog and he like gets involved and we do the cosmic kids yoga. I feel like that's a slightly different thing because it's a, it's so gentle and b it's animal poses. I don't know. All right. So I got sent through loads of questions from listeners and I thought they were really fun. So I just thought we could go through them. I think we've touched on a bit of it already, but maybe you can just give me your quick fire answers.Michael: Sure. Yeah. Laura: So this is an interesting question that Gwen from Dieticians for Teachers sent in. She said she would like to know more about the messages in your formal training. I think we can take a good guess, but I guess what she's getting at is, like, what toxic messages were in your formal training?Michael: Unfortunately, when you're learning to become a personal trainer still so much of it is about weight loss, still. You'll get taught, right, this is what we're going to learn about nutrition and this is how you help someone lose weight. So that is still at the core. And I guess a lot of the training for personal trainers, in terms of nutrition anyway, It's still very like basic government guidelines, which you can take those as you will. Some recommendations are maybe okay, others not that helpful. The training for nutrition for personal trainers is so, so, so, so basic that I would encourage any personal trainer who has recently qualified and not done any further nutrition study from there to please sign up to another course and learn more because what you learn as a personal trainer at the basic level is just nowhere near good enough to work with clients in depth.Laura: I have a lot of thoughts about personal trainers and nutrition, but I'm going to keep them to myself! Michael: No, no feel free to talk about it! It terrifies me. And it's very rare now that... a lot of the people I work with have had personal trainers in the past. The large majority of them have had negative experiences, and it's quite scary that's now just the norm.And I'll ask questions of my clients in consultations whilst working together and they'll be like, Oh, I've never been asked that before. I've never even considered that. And it just blows my mind that these things are being missed out or neglected by coaches. But the training is just not there. Laura: It's so interesting that the focus, I mean, it's not surprising, but that the focus is still on body size and not like flexibility or mobility or like rehab or like any of these, which I'm sure they like get touched on, but it sounds like from what you're saying that the real central focus is not mental health or like overall wellbeing. It's here's how you try and get people shredded, which we know is like biogenetically, if not difficult, if not impossible for most people. Michael: Pretty much. Yeah. Like I'm sure... I don't want to call out every personal training course. Like I did qualify a few years ago now, but I know there's some personal training qualifications that are trying to shift that, but it is still a large majority.And that is why a lot of the coaches coming through now, it's still very much before and after photos, weight centric. Yeah, unfortunately. Laura: Well, it's good to know that maybe there are some shifts coming down the pipe a little bit and I guess it just goes to show why again, you need to keep, like, pushing these alternative messages.Okay. This I thought was a really interesting question. And so this person asked, is exercise truly necessary? I don't enjoy exercising, but I do move a lot during the day, running errands and running after a toddler, all while baby wearing a newborn. And then the follow up question is, and if it is necessary to exercise intentionally, what form of exercise is best for someone who wouldn't otherwise prioritise it? Michael: That's such a good question. And it's very nuanced as well, depending on the person's situation. I would say, I mean, no, it's not necessary if you're moving around a lot throughout the day. However, so many health benefits come from incorporating some form of like direct exercise that it would be really sad to not explore all the potential areas that people could incorporate exercise into their life that maybe might not be the mainstream approach, right? If you are someone who moves around a lot throughout your day, if you say running errands and your general movement and step count is actually really high, then you could argue that as long as you get your nutrition, right, you're doing pretty well.However, strength training. Every time someone comes to me, no matter what their fitness goals are, I try and incorporate some form of strength training that I can, but that can take so many different forms. Laura: This person is carrying a baby around! Michael: Right. Yeah, exactly. Which is strength training, right?Exactly. So it's... when I say strength training, a lot of people listening to this episode right now will automatically... they'll think, like, gym, barbells, dumbbells, heavy weights, and it can come in so many different forms and it can be with resistance bands, body weight, dumbbells, kettlebells, barbells at home. It can be like TRX, it can be like so many different ways that you might enjoy at some point. So don't just think, Oh, I'm not an exercise-y person. I've always hated it because there are so many different ways that we can incorporate exercise. That is a very vague answer. without me knowing much more about this person. However, if you can find a form of exercise you enjoy, that should be a priority because the health benefits are huge. Laura: I'm going to push back because this is my opinion, not necessarily based on scientific fact, but it does feel as though there is this tendency, and I'm also conscious of your bias as a fitness professional, that exercise is held up as the pinnacle of health.And it's like the one thing that we need to do in order to be healthy. And I'm not disputing that there are health benefits. I also am like curious about the magnitude of those benefits within the broader context of health and health behaviours, but also nesting that within sort of social determinants of health and like, how do we measure the effect size of exercise individually from, I don't know, sleep, other elements of mental health, community? I guess what I'm maybe trying to temper is like that there are so many, like, variables and factors that contribute to someone's overall picture of health and I appreciate that movement can be an important facet of that.Michael: Yeah, no I really like that point because it is so important and I think that's why it's important to approach exercise and hence why I said without knowing more about this person, it's hard to give an exact answer. I think it's important to look at all of those things in terms of context when you're trying to prescribe or recommend exercise to someone, right?Let's say that this person is, they're likely lacking in sleep right now at the moment, right? Because their life is very busy running around after small humans. If that person is exhausted and they have no free time at all. I'm not then going to say, right, you've got to go and exercise 30 minutes a day for three times a week, because it's just not going to be helpful. There's other areas of your lifestyle that we can focus on to improve your health. However, if there is a bit of wiggle room, if you have a bit of time, then maybe there are things that we could explore that you could quite comfortably fit into your day without it taking over your life like a lot of the fitness industry wants us to do. Laura: Yeah. I think that the, maybe the TL;DR there is you don't have to sweat it when you are running around after a small child and doing other, all these other things. But if it feels like it's something that you want to explore, and you're curious to give something a try, then yeah, you could have a think about some gentle movement or something, see how that feels and how that fits in the context of your life But yeah, it's tricky to prescribe something without knowing, yeah knowing someone's life and what they want to get out of it. Michael: So true and you're never gonna know if it was directly the exercise. It could be so many other things that then, yeah, that then causes the health benefit.I would just say, once again, like anecdotally, rather than looking at research, every person that I've worked with that we've tried to think, right, how can we incorporate exercising today in some format? The large majority of the time, everything else feels better and improves as a result.Laura: Yeah, no , it can, it has a knock on effect on like sleep and pain and like all these other things. So, okay. How can I move my body without shame and guilt driving it? These are two separate questions, but I'm just lumping them together, and then this, another person asked, how to find the joy in movement after a life forcing it?Michael: I think first of all, it's really important to, like, vet where you're getting all of your inspiration and information from is a really important one because a lot of the time, if we're following the kind of general societal recommendations when it comes to exercise and nutrition. It's always going to have quite a prescriptive image focused approach to movement.And if you can shift away, like what we spoke about at the start of this, you don't follow many personal trainers because you don't think that they're motivating or helpful to you. They actually just make you feel worse. I'm the same. When I constantly see gym bros. telling me that I have to lift weights X amount of times a week, and I've got to get shredded and have low body fat levels, it has the complete opposite impact on me. So if you can first of all vet where you're getting your information from, that is absolutely huge. And then, yeah, I guess also once again, it's not beating yourself up for having the more mainstream thoughts that you used to have. I know a lot of people when they're trying to shift into kind of taking a more intuitive eating approach or a more intuitive eating approach with like exercise too, as well as nutrition, we can sometimes feel really guilty when we start slipping back into older habits that maybe are slightly disordered.I'm just... like giving yourself a bit of leeway and a bit of space to grow and learn. I'm still doing that. I still probably get things wrong and have room for improvement, but I think by doing that, removing the pressure on yourself can be really helpful. Laura: Yeah. Two things that I might add to that are something that I've explored with clients as part of working on the relationship with food and body and movement often comes up as part of that, we might explore this idea of, what it feels like in your body where you've had a period where you haven't moved at all, right? Maybe it's because you're recovering from an injury or because you just were so burnt out with exercise that you just really didn't move. How did that feel in your body? Did you get any pain or did it feel nice to rest or what was that experience? And then also thinking about periods of your life where maybe you've been really deeply invested in fitness culture. And maybe doing the punishing exercises, maybe also getting injuries because of that, maybe getting ill a lot of the time, maybe losing your period, like all kinds of different things, like different experiences that you could have in your bodies.If you've got that framing of this is what no exercise feels like in my body, and this is what too much feels like in my body, then it can help you explore what some sort of happy balance might feel like. So that's something that I encourage people to think about. And I also just wanted to shout out Tally Rye's Intuitive Movement Journal.It's her book Intuitive Movement as well. It is isn't it? Clients have found that those are helpful resources for navigating stepping back from exercise and just exploring what rest feels like through kind of the framework of, or a similar framework to intuitive being. So if intuitive being resonates with you, then maybe Tally's work will as well. So I'll link to them in the show notes. All right, this will be our last question. And it is: I cut out all deliberate movement for a while, by which I mean, I walk to get places and that's it. I'd like to try some movement. and see how it makes me feel. But where on earth do I even start? Michael: Okay, once again, without a lot of context, this is very hard to give specific advice.So I would say think about where you would feel most comfortable exercising and start from there. So I know that for a lot of people, the gym environment can be incredibly intense and intimidating for many reasons. So if you think that maybe that feels a bit much and it's going to put you off. Let's write that off. Don't do that. So let's think, okay, maybe we could start some movement at home. Is there a form of exercise that you really enjoy? Do you like dancing? Do you like jump rope? Do you like bodyweight workouts? What is it that kind of you think, Oh, actually that sounds quite fun to me and start there.And then let's say that there's so many decent content creators online, depending on what you like that I could recommend. Feel free to reach out and just start from that point. If you're thinking that kind of back to my earlier point that, okay, strength training doesn't have to look like that in the gym. What can it look like? A set of basic resistance bands from Amazon for 10 quid, you've got a gym at home. Like you don't have to go to a gym. There's so many different ways that it could look start from that start from what gives you that, Oh, that's interesting. I might give it a try, and start really, really small and build from there and that's probably the best place to start. Laura: If someone hasn't done much movement other than, like, incidental daily movements for a while... there's obviously a lot of privilege in this question but I'm wondering if you would recommend like doing a couple of one on one sessions with a trainer, like a safe trainer that could help build up strength or make like a bespoke kind of program for someone or just help them with their form so that they... I'm maybe thinking of myself here, but I know that I have to be really careful what I do at home because I'm more likely to end up injuring myself just because of my like, specific needs and in terms of managing pain. And so what I've ended up doing... and again shitload of privilege in this but, I'm, after three years of pelvic girdle pain, I'm like, at my limit. So I've started seeing a physio one on one who does clinical Pilates. So it's like very much helping me build my strength, which I could do... like I was going to a barre class before that, but I was walking away with more pain, even though it was supposedly like a supervised class, like there were no adjustments. There were no like modifications for my body, like nothing. So I personally, I have found that trying to build my strength and reduce pain, like finding someone who's really specialised has been a game changer for me. Michael: Yeah, I would say... I was gonna say one of the benefits of COVID. That's not what I meant. I was gonna say for the benefits of kind of the lockdown that happened as a result of COVID is the fitness industry got pushed forward by about five to ten years in terms of the way that it can support people, especially on a tighter budget as well. There are now so many... Laura: oh, you mean like online?Michael: Online support, right? Because I know that personal training is an investment for a lot of people. It's not a cheap route to go down. If you can afford it, absolutely, yes. If you can have the support of a professional who's got years of experience, it does speed things up and it makes things a lot more kind of personalised and perhaps more enjoyable.However, the way that the online fitness space works now, it has improved massively. And for, kind of, much cheaper options, monthly options, you can get the support of a trainer online that will be able to do a video call with you to check your form. You can send them videos. Like I speak to people that follow me on Instagram all the time and they'll ask me a question. I'll say, just send me a video of you doing the exercise. I'm happy to give you some pointers. If you find people online that are truly passionate and care. If you send them a video of you doing an exercise, they'll happily help you out. So there are so many different routes that you can go down to get the support that don't cost a huge amount of money.Once again, even the cheaper forms are still an investment, but there are different routes that you can go down now. Yeah, absolutely. Laura: Yeah. Okay. I appreciate that. And then just to add to that, like I've done some sessions with this, like a one on one physio. And now I'm going to, like the group classes as well.So it's, I think, helpful to just... if you have any kind of rehab that needs to be done, or if you just want to feel more confident in the movements. Cause like Pilates can be tricky if you don't know exactly what you're doing to just be thrown into a class situation. So it's helped me at least like doing a few sessions, even though I've done Pilates before, but just having that refresher to then go into a class setting, it's just helped build up my confidence a little bit. And it's also, I'm not going to like this, like a gym. Sorry, I said that with so much disdain, realizing you're a personal trainer! Michael: Ugh, these disgusting personal trainers!Laura: It had, like, a visceral effect. Michael: It's so funny though, isn't it? That it's so sad that's what the fitness industry has become. And especially as a trainer who is one, every time I meet someone and they'll ask oh, what do you do? I have to like preface, Oh, like I'm not like the rest of them, but I'm a personal trainer, like it's really sad.Laura: I do the same thing, but with nutrition, I'm like, I'm a nutritionist, but I'm not that kind of nutritionist. Michael: I'm not going to sell you a cleanse, I promise! Laura: All right, Michael, this has been so fun to have you on and just shoot the shit about fitness culture. But at the end of every episode, my guest and I share something that they have been snacking on. So it can be a book, a podcast, a TV show. Yeah, just about anything that, that you feel like. So what are you snacking on at the moment? Michael: So one podcast I'm listening to, this is going to be a bit of a curve ball, there's probably quite a few people, especially in the UK listening to it... I don't like politics because in this country, it's so gross the way that politics is at the moment, but I like being well informed in what's going in politics because it has such a huge knock on impact to like societal changes.Laura: I was really glad that you said that, because when you said I don't like politics, I was like, argh where is this going! Michael: no, I do, but I get so infuriated by it because it's so important and I feel like coaches need to be informed because it does directly impact everything we're doing with our clients in terms of like socioeconomic impacts and food access and education and stuff, so I've been listening to The Rest Is Politics podcast. I don't know if you've ever listened to it. It's actually really good. It's Alastair Campbell, Rory Stewart, Labour side, Tory side. They chat about all daily topics and I quite like that they disagree and argue. I, depending on what you think about those two individuals, I'm still very mixed on what I think of them.However, I think it's very good to have a nice balanced approach there. So that's the podcast I've been listening to a lot recently. I really like it. In terms of food. So I can't eat eggs and dairy. I'm lactose intolerant and intolerant to eggs as well. Laura: I think you were probably going to wait for like the bummer, yeah, for me to be like, oh, that's such a bummer. But I'm vegan, so I don't eat any of that stuff . Michael: Yeah, I know. I was saying, I'm like the worst gym bro ever. I can't have whey protein shakes and I can't eat like 12 eggs a day. So maybe that's another reason they all hate me. So I found a vegan chocolate bar from Aldi. I don't know if you've ever had it. I don't think so. What? So they do milk, in quotation marks, milk chocolate and a white chocolate. They do a dark chocolate too, but a lot of vegan chocolate is dark. Anyway, so I haven't even tried that but their milk chocolate and their white chocolate is so good .And i'm getting through far too much of this chocolate at the moment but I finally found a chocolate bar that tastes amazing. They're by far the best chocolate you can get that's vegan, hands down Laura: That sounds really good, but we don't have an Aldi near us. We have a Lidl. Michael: So it's worth commuting. Laura: Oh, is it? Michael: Yeah. Yes. Laura: Okay. Might have to go to the dark depths of Dalston too.Okay. So I'm actually going to do a podcast also, and it's Getting Curious with Jonathan van Ness, which everyone knows who JVN is, obviously. He's amazing. Yeah, love them. There was like a bit of a thing a while ago where on their Netflix show they talked about like food addiction and it was just really problematic and icky and fatphobic. But JVN seems to have really been on a bit of a journey with this stuff and the latest, well, at the time that we are recording, they've just come out with a podcast called... well, an episode of their podcast Getting Curious called What's the Cultural History of the Calorie? With Dr. Athia Chaudhry. They're a fat activist and it's immersed in like fat politics. So, yeah. I would recommend going and giving that one a listen, because yeah, JVN has been on a journey, it seems. Michael: That sounds awesome. And that is my afternoon listening. Thank you very much. Laura: I will link to all of those things in the show notes.Michael, before I let you go, can you tell everyone where they can find out more about you and your work? Michael: Of course, so, most of the content I create is through Instagram, so it's just my name, which is very hard to spell, so probably best if you check it in the show notes. Laura: Yeah, I will link to everything.Michael: Thank you very much. So it's @MichaelUlloaPT, and that's on Instagram, Threads, Twitter, TikTok, whatever platform, it's all the same. Laura: All right, Michael, I will make sure that... It's all fully linked in the show notes so that everyone can find you. Thank you so much for coming on and yeah, like I said before, shooting the shit with us about fitness culture was really fun.Michael: Thank you so much for having me.OUTRO:Laura: Thanks so much for listening to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast. You can support the show by subscribing in your podcast player and leaving a rating and review. And if you want to support the show further and get full access to the Can I Have Another Snack? universe, you can become a paid subscriber.It's just £5 a month or £50 for the year. As well as getting tons of cool perks you help make this work sustainable and we couldn't do it without the support of paying subscribers. Head to laurathomas.substack.com to learn more and sign up today. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas. Our sound engineer is Lucy Dearlove. Fiona Bray formats and schedules all of our posts and makes sure that they're out on time every week. Our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser, and the music is by Jason Barkhouse. Thanks so much for listening.ICYMI this week: "I'm Not Your Target Audience" - How Do We Get Men To Care?* Reclaiming our Appetites* MORE Teens, TikTok, and some Good News for a Change.* Dear Laura: I'm freaking out about what my kids eat - but is it really about them? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurathomas.substack.com/subscribe

Michael Sullivan is a property management entrepreneur who has grown his business to 275 doors. Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull as they chat with former DoorGrow client Michael Sullivan to learn about his experience starting and growing a property management business. You'll Learn [01:44] Getting started in the property management industry [07:49] Growing a property management business [24:01] Having support and feeling fulfilled in the business [28:13] Growing and scaling to the next level Tweetables “To go faster, you need to invest the currency of cash if you want to get more of the other currencies and to get the business to the next level.” “If you're not making mistakes, you're not learning.” “A lot of us business owners, we have a bit of ego.” “Being an entrepreneur can be one can be very lonely, and it is really important to have people in the same industry kind of in your village.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: To go faster, you need to invest the currency of cash. If you want to get more of the other currencies and to get the business to the next level. Welcome DoorGrow hackers to the DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow hacker. DoorGrow hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management, growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, along with Sarah Hull, the co owner and CEO of DoorGrow. [00:01:09] Now let's get into the show and our guest today is Michael L Sullivan. Michael Sullivan is here hanging out with us. He is a client of ours and of Sullivan property management. Did I say that right? MLS ullivan property management. All right, your initials. Got it. And Michael, welcome to the show.  [00:01:33] Michael: Thank you. Thank you very much. Good to be here.  [00:01:36] Jason: We're glad to have you. So we've really enjoyed having you in our program and it's been really amazing seeing your progress. So maybe to kick things off, let's start with talking about how you got into this crazy industry of property management. Like you woke up when you were like maybe five years old and said "property management is the thing for me" maybe. [00:01:57] Michael: Yeah, like every little boy and girl, dreams about being a real estate agent or a property manager.  [00:02:03] Jason: It's right there next to veterinarian and firefighter. [00:02:06] Michael: I think that's right. That's right or professional baseball player so, I left the teaching profession in 1993 and became a real estate agent, a general brokerage real estate agent here in the Greater Research Triangle region of North Carolina, and I did very well. I, on average, sold anywhere between 5 and 15 million dollars worth of real estate when our average sale price was $150,000. Yeah, we were shifting a lot of shacks, and it was a good life. And for the 15 or so years between 1993 and the Great Recession of 2007, 2008, my biggest fear was, "what is going to happen when the market flips?" Because inevitably, real estate flips. It goes from a boom market to a bust market, a buyer's market to a seller market. And so during those years, I socked away cash. When the market crashed in 2008, I had an inventory of 40 general brokerage homes that were for sale. I had clients that were still moving to Massachusetts or Plano, Texas, or Austin, or Seattle, you know, to the other tech hubs in the United States and my clients were like, "All right, problem solver, what are you going to do because we still have to move?" And I was like, "we're going to rent them." And so with an Excel spreadsheet and time, because I had lots of time then I started managing property and in the first year, our goal was 30 homes and we had 50 and it was me and one part time assistant and an Excel spreadsheet. Well, after about 18 months, that didn't work anymore. So I went out and I found what I thought was a reasonable property management software. And then over the course of the next decade or so, we got up to 110 properties or so and things were good, you know, we were chugging along and profits were good, but I really didn't know what I didn't know, I kind of. [00:04:22] Believe that once you had an Appfolio or a Buildium on board that you had won the day and that your business was set and you know, it should be easy. And I soon discovered when I got to 115 doors and just kind of got stuck there that the business wasn't growing the way it should be. And I couldn't figure out why. I was on Facebook one day. And there was this guy, Jason Hull, talking about this company called DoorGrow. And so I did the click, click, clickety click. And then I started listening to some of his podcasts and I started researching DoorGrow and I thought, " huh, this guy knows a whole lot about this industry and maybe this is someone I need to engage with." and so that's how I came to DoorGrow about two and a half years ago, I think.  [00:05:21] Jason: And now you're on one, you're on one of the podcasts.  [00:05:24] Michael: I know.  [00:05:25] Jason: So what challenges did you start to realize you were dealing with at the time? Because generally, you've made a ton of changes in your business since working with us, and you know, it's been impressive to watch. What do you feel like were your challenges at that time? Like, what did you not know that you did not know? So  [00:05:43] Michael: I knew that there were currencies in a business, but I didn't know that there were five of them. And I knew that I was working really hard. So the currency of effort was there. Yeah, my bank account showed me that the currency of cash was there. Yeah, the currency of focus was really lacking because I was still doing a lot of general brokerage and still trying to do property management. The focus of energy was lacking. Because it was draining me kind of going in these different directions. And then there was a lack of time. I didn't have time to take off. I didn't have time to turn it off because it was me and an assistant property manager at that time, I was still doing all of the day to day operations and the round pegs in the round holes work. And figuring out those currencies and how to better divide them and focus on them was one of the things that I didn't know and that once I could put a name to it and once I could focus on fixing where there was a deficiency, then I kind of won the battle. I felt, you know, before you launched all of your different systems to help property managers, I listened to you and I went out and got Lead Simple. I went out and got Property Meld and kind of brought them into the fold. And I recognize that those tools, which you paid dearly for using these outside vendors, really bring you a wealth of time that didn't exist before. So I was able to capture that currency and by extension, the currency of effort was able to kind of tamp down because I had systems now in place to deal with the endless maintenance requests that having a practice that. Goes up over a hundred percent in growth is going to require.  [00:07:48] Jason: So let's talk about that growth. You had mentioned you'd gotten up to maybe, where were you when you started with DoorGrow?  [00:07:56] 118. [00:07:58] 118. Okay.  [00:07:59] And where are you at right now?  [00:08:01] Michael: 275.  [00:08:03] Jason: I mean, it sounds like you had pretty decent profit margin before. Well, what was that? If you don't mind sharing, what is it? [00:08:09] Michael: So, on a gross per door basis, when I joined DoorGrow, we were right at about $122 a door per month. Yeah. And today we're up. $153 and 82 cents per door per month.  [00:08:26] Jason: That's very specific. So, you know, your numbers, which is good.  [00:08:30] Michael: Well I try. Yeah. And year over year revenue increases from last year is up 58.7%.  [00:08:36] Jason: Wow. That's awesome. So money's up. So the cash currency has improved the focus currency. Have you been able to do less in the business and narrow your focus?  [00:08:48] Michael: Yes. So Saturday is my benchmark. I call it my Zen day. And if Saturday can be a Zen day for me, where I don't feel like I have tasks that I have to accomplish, that I can do the things that I want to do, still working on the business, not in the business, then I feel like the week has been a win. If I feel like there are pressing tasks that I have to work on within the business on Saturday, then I feel like the week has not been a win. So if Saturday is Zen, if I come into it feeling very kind of centered and relaxed, then I feel like things are in balance the way they should be. [00:09:34] Jason: So what percent profit margin are you operating at now?  [00:09:37] Michael: So coming into this year 2022, we were at 27 percent profit margin, but a lot of that was really underpinned by very robust general brokerage sales. I made a concerted effort this year to pour gasoline on the fire to really grow the business. The goal is to be over 300 doors by the end of the year. So we're 25 away. Nice. I'm pretty sure we're going to make that, you know, that goal. But our profit margin right now is at. 11 and a half, 11 and three quarters percent. So it's down substantially, but that was deliberate.  [00:10:14] Jason: Got it. And is deliberate because  [00:10:18] Michael: why? [00:10:18] Because we're making an investment in people. We're making an investment in systems and we're making an investment in things like vehicles and computers and marketing.  [00:10:30] Jason: Yeah. So I think that's an important thing for business owners to recognize that. To go faster, you need to invest the currency of cash if you want to get more of the other currencies and to get the business to the next level. And you can grow faster if you have thinner margins, which can feel a little more dangerous. And you know, if you're investing into the growth of the business and into the future, but you know how to add doors, so this isn't a concern for you. [00:10:57] Michael: It isn't. My bookkeeper and my accountant were a little apoplectic until I told them like, this is where we're going. And what I said to my bookkeeper was before the great depression of 1929, Ford motor company was the preeminent motor car company in the world. They had an amazing market share. Then the stock market crashed and the economy tanked and Ford circled the wagons, folded their tents and got very conservative. They scaled back. General Motors, by extension, said, "ah," and they saw it as an opportunity and they poured gasoline on the fire. And for the next 70 years, General Motors was the dominant car company in the world. And so I kind of am using that model.  [00:11:47] Jason: Yeah. So, now a lot of people listening to this might think, well, cool, I can get Property Meld, I can do something, you know, get something like Lead Simple, or we have a better tool now, which is DoorGrow Flow. " I can go and get tools and maybe I can do it on my own." Because I think this is the challenge. A lot of us business owners, we have a bit of ego. " I've made a lot of mistakes in the past and we think I can do it myself. Maybe if I watch enough YouTube videos, listen to enough podcast episodes, I can figure it all out on my own. I don't need DoorGrow or I don't need it." Like, so what would you say to people that listening to this or thinking that?  [00:12:22] Michael: So I would say to them, when I think back to me and one assistant and 115, 110 doors and good profit margins. You know, and a good life. I was in a really kind of felt very isolated and very alone I didn't have other friends or colleagues in the property management space that I could talk to. I felt like I was the only person in the world that was doing this, and once I joined DoorGrow and made very valuable, long lasting friends within the organization that I can call on off hours to discuss specific problems related to property management, that burden of feeling on my own and alone disappeared. Being an entrepreneur can be one can be very lonely, and it is really important to have people in the same industry kind of in your village. And that's why that's 1 of the benefits of joining DoorGrow is that I can call friends in Texas, Idaho, Pennsylvania, California and say, "hey, I've got this going on. What do you think?"  [00:13:40] Jason: Yeah, and I think you know, that's a testament to you is that you've been such a contributor that in the mastermind that it's allowed you to connect with all of these people, you know, there are some people that join the program and they still stay somewhat isolated. They're like, "I'm going to watch videos I'm going to learn stuff and do my own thing and they maybe don't get some of those advantages or benefits But I think that's key. [00:14:02] So yeah Yes. I mean, Sarah, when she had her property management business, I imagine you experienced some of the same sort of things of thinking it's. You know, this is, you're the only one in the world doing this. You're on your own.  [00:14:17] Sarah: Yeah, very much. And especially in the area that I was in I was always different and I just kind of do things differently and I think differently and oftentimes people are like, she's nuts, like, why would you do that? [00:14:29] Even my mom, sometimes she's like, are you sure you're going to do that? Like, are you sure? Like, I'm kind of nervous. But I've just always done things a little differently. And it's so, it is really lonely. And I think the mindset that I had back when I was in Pennsylvania versus, you know, the mindset I have now really has a lot to do with who you surround yourself with and that can. [00:14:53] I think it can just give you hope and it can show you like, Hey, like, I'm not so crazy. Like I've got it. Like I've got it figured out and I'm like doing the right thing and I'm on the right path. And you know, it feels right, but sometimes it's just, you know, you're like, Oh, is this really right? [00:15:07] Because it feels good to me, but man, everybody else is doing something so different.  [00:15:12] Michael: Yeah. And that's another benefit that DoorGrow has given me is. I now have the ability to say no. So I am the business development manager. I have someone in charge of maintenance. I have someone in charge of tenant experience. [00:15:28] I have someone in charge of ops within the office. They color within their lines and we are good. My job is to go out and build the business to work on the business, not work in the business. And until I joined DoorGrow, it didn't matter what came my way. Property wise, I was going to take it last week. I turned away more properties than we took on because they weren't the right fit. [00:15:53] And I have a very nice conversation with prospective clients about qualification and that they're qualifying us to make sure we're a good fit for them. But at the same time. I'm qualifying them, their mindset, their properties, their attitudes toward spending money, their attitudes toward maintaining their properties, and if those things don't align with what we believe here, that housing is a human right that people have the right to live in nice homes that are maintained and maintained properly, then We're not going to accept the business. [00:16:30] We're also not going to accept people that are rude, mean and abusive. Because I've learned since kind of letting the stress of being a general brokerage real estate agent. Slip away that there is plenty of good business out there and that it's more important to have the Philosophical fits with the business than it is to take just any property no matter what the cost  [00:16:57] Jason: Yeah, your ability to say no in business Gives you a business that you feel you can easily say yes to each  [00:17:03] Michael: day. [00:17:04] That's right.  [00:17:05] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. It's nice to not have to wake up and go, man, I really don't want to do this today. And that's because we're setting boundaries for ourselves and that boundary in those containers allow us to create a business that we really like to be inside.  [00:17:20] Michael: Right. That's correct. Yeah. Now,  [00:17:22] Jason: when you came. [00:17:23] To us DoorGrow initially. I remember like you really had this mindset that you, and now you're doing business development, you had mentioned, you really believed you were the operator. It all was on your shoulders to operate the business, do operations, and you were good at it, but you believe that was your primary gift, I think, to the business and what your contribution needed to be. [00:17:45] And and I know you had some conversations with Sarah and some shifts in that, so could you touch on that a bit?  [00:17:51] Michael: Yeah well, control freak and always have been a control freak. I know one of those. You know, own it. And to a certain degree, I still, I observe. I trust and verify, but I don't get involved. [00:18:07] My number two said it best the other day. He said, yeah, with you. I only have to come to you if I know it's a problem that I can't solve. So I have kind of empowered the people who work with me to color in their lines. And when they are in trouble, come here and ask and we'll figure it out. I have also given them permission to make mistakes because if you're not making mistakes, you're not learning. You're static, and I let them see that I make mistakes and that I admit when I make a mistakes above all else. I expect complete honesty here. We make mistakes. We admit our mistakes. You know, if we have to eat it because it's a financial error that we've made well, then by golly, we're going to eat it because it was our mistake. And we come by it honestly the empowerment of becoming a business development manager is I don't have to worry that the books are balanced every week because I know that there is someone who I've paid good money to who has balanced the books and they can't hide because the system has been created where I can see that it's been uploaded into the accounting software and that the books are in balance. [00:19:25] I can verify that the financial piece of the puzzle in the business is running properly because I get a report monthly from my accountant and my bookkeeper that says, "this is where we are. This is your cash flow. This is your profit. This is where you're spending a lot of money. Are you okay with that?" and I pay them good money to do those things. I have a maintenance coordinator who deals with maintenance and on the Property Meld dashboard, which I log into every morning. I can see the tasks picking off or I can see things progressing and I can see that we're handling our maintenance requests in 3 to 4 days on average and that's fine. I've also told him to maintain his sanity because he's a bit of a control freak. If it's after hours and it's a garbage disposal in a dishwasher and it's after 5 o'clock, you don't need to deal with that today. If it's a leak and we have a catastrophe, then you deal with that after five o'clock, but the small stuff can wait until tomorrow. [00:20:26] It's still important. It's important to get it done and move it off our plates, but you don't have to deal with it when you need to be spending time with your children at soccer camp or baseball practice or whatever he does in the evening with his four kids. And then my other teammates, I can see that they are moving their tasks forward and that I don't have to worry about the job that they're doing. And that's empowered me to go out and find the right properties to bring into the practice for us to manage.  [00:20:56] Jason: You know, one of the gifts that I see in you, which I think really sets you apart, Michael, is coming into the program you're really intelligent. You know this. You're an intelligent guy. I think everybody can pick that up just by hearing you and listening to you. But even though you're intelligent, you have humility about, you know, and this openness to learning. And you've come into the program and you just started to do stuff. Like you tried it out. You experimented, and you allowed yourself the time to prove whether or not it would work or not. And some of the times we get clients that are intelligent, but they're not humble and they're usually the biggest stumbling block to themselves. So I just wanted to point that out. I'm curious what Sarah's experience has been of you as well, because she worked closely with you on like reviewing some of the systems, reviewing your team assessing you and some of this kind of stuff. [00:21:54] Sarah: So, yeah, I think I definitely agree with what you just said about being open to learning and trying things just a bit differently. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, we do things differently. We're okay with that. But sometimes if it's not our idea, then we're like "I don't know if I want to do it because I didn't think of it." right. So, I think Michael is, he's open to thinking differently. He's open to trying things out and implementing a system. He'll do the research. He doesn't just, you know, blindly jump and he's like, well, Jason said to do this, so I'm going to do it, but he'll do the research and he's very thorough. And I really appreciate that about Michael. He's all into the details and he knows exactly what's going on in his business. He's not like, "Hey, I'm just going to kind of sit back and like, let the team run everything, and then I just, I'm going to cross my fingers and hope and pray that everything is going well, right?" like we know that it's going well because you're not the one who's doing it, so you've been able to get out of the hot seat in a lot of different ways and get yourself more into the things that you actually enjoy. because I remember that conversation with you about the operations and you said, "well, I really just, I love to sell" like, okay, then let's let you sell. Like if you're doing things in the business and you're just holding on to them going, "well, I have to be the one to do this." I think it's really common for us to think that like, " well, I own the business, so I have to do this piece or I own this. And it has to be me. It doesn't always have to be you." do you have to know what's going on? Absolutely. Do you have to have the right people on your team? Absolutely. And do you have to set it up so that things can run smoothly? Absolutely. But do you have to be the one who's actually like doing the work? Right. And I think that's one of the biggest shifts that I've seen in you is that you're able to say, okay I don't have to do this part and I don't want to do this part. [00:23:54] This is where I want to be. So I'm going to move closer to this and I'm going to figure out how to get these pieces kind of offloaded.  [00:24:01] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. When you taught me how to write R docs and after I had a disastrous hire two years ago, disaster, and I had to fire someone, something I'd never had to do, but it was my fault. There was nothing wrong with the person I hired. She was just the wrong fit for the job. And then we sat down, we wrote R docs. With detailed job descriptions and parameters and that made bringing on the next person who is now in that role a dream because she fit the culture. We knew what her profile was before she even interviewed with us. We knew who the person was and then she walked through the door and poof, there she was. And that's one thing I didn't know. I just thought you could teach someone into a position. Well, you can teach skills, but you can't teach the human touch. And that's what I had missed with the disaster, the mistake that I made.  [00:25:02] Jason: Yeah. You'd learn some concepts from us, like the three fits , mapping out R docs. One of you explain what R docs are for those of us. This is DoorGrow speak here.  [00:25:11] Sarah: I know it is. So an R doc, it's just basically a fancy word for job description. We call it R doc because every section on it starts with 'R.' [00:25:20] Jason: There you go. So the ultimate job descriptions. Awesome. So, yeah, so all of these little pieces and systems and mindsets that you've installed in your business have really, I think, primed your business for a lot of growth. Like, where do you see the business going in the future?  [00:25:37] Michael: Oh, so that's another thing I learned. And it was at, I think, Austin at the Austin meeting. And it was you said it in the first like two minutes and I got my nugget and I was like, okay, I can go home. I got it. You said, don't limit your growth. And I had constantly said 200 doors, 200 doors. That's where I'm going. That's where I'm going. And you already passed that now. Yeah, you said that. And I was like. " Why would I create like this false ceiling that I'm going to just bump into and stop at?" Yeah. So, ultimately, and I'd like to retire in the next 10 to 12, 15 years, maybe. We're realistically thinking in the neighborhood of 1,000-2,000 doors. Yeah, people have started to come a calling about, "Hey, do you want to sell your business?" And the time is not right. Some of the financial offers that have been made already are very intriguing. Yeah. But then I'm like, " what will I do with myself?" You know, "what's the next iteration?" And I think until I figure that out, we're going to just stay the course. [00:26:47] Jason: Yeah, I think that's one of the key things that I think a lot of people realize in the program that if it was just about money, then maybe you'd cash out, but it's not just about money, right? There's other things we want out of our experience here on this planet. And that's something else you got a lot of clarity on is what really personally drives you, which allowed you to build the business and the team around you so that you really could move into those plus signs and out of those minus signs. [00:27:13] Michael: Yeah, so the key is I went to the Netherlands in May to see art because it's my thing. Cool. And a little ostentatious to fly to Europe to see Vermeer, but I did it. And I was gone for a good long time and things here chugged right along and it was beautiful. And I knew then that we were doing things right, that I could leave and not be here for 10 days, and the business continued to operate. I continued to watch and check in. But they didn't need me.  [00:27:49] Jason: And how's that different from before you came to DoorGrow?  [00:27:53] Michael: Oh my God. Like the first meeting in Austin that I came to, I had I came really close to not coming because I was like "I can't leave. I just can't leave. I can't leave them." I was wrong. I was wrong and I went to Austin and I went to Vegas and you know, things were good. Yeah.  [00:28:12] Jason: Yeah. So awesome. Well, it's been really cool to see your progress. We really appreciate. Seeing your growth and yeah, there's no question in my mind. A lot of people hear you say, Oh, maybe a thousand, 2000 doors. And they probably think: this guy is ridiculously off his rocker that he could just believe that and the audacity to have that mindset. And I'm sure when you first came to DoorGrow, a thousand doors was like, probably magic, some magic, like pipe dream in the ethers that you would never even consider. I don't know, but. [00:28:40] Michael: 300 seemed unimaginable.  [00:28:43] Jason: Yeah, but now it seems very doable. And you're aware of the DoorGrow code and like we've got clients breaking a thousand doors. We've got clients doing it. And there's no question in my mind. You could easily do this in the next two to three years. If you really wanted to easily.  [00:28:57] Michael: Yeah, I work my golden 100. That's another thing I learned at DoorGrow. To have people that are valuable people that I love and care about that. I have to touch every 30 days because they love and care about me and buy it. So they send business. They ask questions and we share information. Yeah. And for that, I'm indebted to you.  [00:29:19] Jason: Not at all. Well, great. Well, yeah we, it's been really awesome seeing your growth. So cool. Anything else we should ask Michael? We've got him hanging out here with us. What's next for you, Michael? What's next?  [00:29:31] Michael: Well, once we go over 300, then the double it again. [00:29:34] Jason: Yeah. So what I see next for you is you've got some of the systems installed. And then I think what it will be next is to level up your three key systems of. People, process, and planning and maybe starting to build out even a little bit more of that executive team. I think you've got a good team going now and I think then what would be next would be maybe starting to acquire you'll be the one eating up some of these other companies. And I think, maybe working with us on acquisitions, and I think that'll be the quick pace to grow. And that also bring you really great people too, if you want. So [00:30:07] Michael: we're working on two. They're on a slow simmer because companies that I'm looking at have some. Bookkeeping issues. We'll just put it at that.  [00:30:17] Jason: It's an opportunity. Yeah. Always do.  [00:30:20] Michael: So we may be able to fix the problem. Definitely.  [00:30:24] Jason: You'll be able to fix the problem. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Well, I'm excited to see what you do in the future. I know like, I've seen companies hit all these different stages. I know. We know the challenges that you're going to hit at these different stages in growth. We're here to support you. And for those listening here on the DoorGrowShow if you are struggling, you're hitting some of these sticking points, these milestones, you're stuck in your mindset, whatever. Be like Michael, be like Mike, not Mike, but all the reference, be like Michael and you know, talk to us and let us map things out with you and see if we could help you out. We'll be sure with you. So, well, Michael, appreciate you coming on the show. We appreciate having you as a client and grateful for you.  [00:31:09] Michael: Thank you. Thanks. I appreciate it. Have a good day.  [00:31:12] Jason: All right. Cool. So, if you're wanting to get into our free community of property management entrepreneurs on Facebook, go to DoorGrowClub.Com. We have some free gifts that we want to give to you. You'll provide your email as you join the group, we'll give you an, a drip, an email drip of some free gifts, including a fee Bible and some vendors that you can use and some different tools just to help you help yourself and help the industry level up. [00:31:42] And we, and if you provide your info, we will also reach out to see if you'd like to have a conversation with us and see if we could help you grow your business, which the answer usually is. Yes, we can. So we would love to support you and help you out. And if you're wanting to test out your website, which you think might be amazing, go to doorgrowcom/quiz and test your website. A lot of times, this is a great gateway to realizing that you have some blind spots in your business. When you see that your website is leaking lots of money. Which is something we can help you out with. There's a lot of other leaks you can't see, and this might crack your mind open, get you to be open minded like Michael and allow us to be able to help you and support you and make a lot more money, have a lot more freedom and make a bigger difference out there in the marketplace. [00:32:34] We appreciate you listening to our show. If you could do us a favor and leave us a good testimonial on, if you're hearing us on iTunes or like, or comment all of these things help us out and help us get the message out to enact our vision and our mission for this industry of helping it level up. [00:32:50] And until next time to our mutual growth, everybody, bye everyone.  [00:32:54] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:33:21] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

We aren't able to record a new episode this week, so here is a great interview we did with Michael H. of the Atheopagan Society Council. See you next week! S3E41 TRANSCRIPT:   Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm Mark, one of your hosts. Yucca: and I'm Yucca. Mark: and today we have a really exciting episode. We have an interview with a member of the Atheopagan Society Council, Michael, who is joining us today, and is gonna tell us about his journey and what this community means to him and his vision for the future and all kinds of cool stuff. So welcome. Michael: Well, thank you very much for having me. Mark: I'm delighted to have you here, Yucca: Thanks for coming on. Michael: Yeah, no, I'm excited. Yucca: Yeah. So why don't we start with so who are you? Right? What's, what's your journey been to get here? Michael: Gosh. Well, I kind of have to start at the very beginning. So my name's Michael and you know, I've, I start, sometimes I go by Mícheál, which is my Irish, the Irish version of my name. And that's something I've been using more as I've been involved in the Pagan community. My parents are both Irish and. They moved to the United States in their early eighties cuz my dad got a green card working over there Mark: Hmm. Michael: and I was born in America. And then they decided they want to move back to Ireland then in 1991. So already I had this kind of dissected identity. Was I American or was I Irish? I never really lost my American accent. When I, when I moved to Ireland my sister who was born in Ireland, she actually has a slight American accent just from living with me. So she never people always ask her, are you, are you American? And she's like, I've never lived there. So it's funny that it's kind of stuck with her, but I moved to Ireland and I suddenly was kind of got this culture shock at the age of five and moving to this new country. And my mother has a very large family, so she has like, two, two brothers and seven sisters, and then I've got like 30 cousins. So , it was a big, a big change from AmeriCorps. It was just the three of us. Moving back to Ireland and. It was a very, you know, Ireland, you know, is, would've been considered a very Catholic country, and it's been kind of secularizing since the nineties up until now. But back then it was still quite Catholic. Like homosexuality was only decriminalized in 1992 and divorce was only made legal in 1995. So, I guess the first kind of sense of, of what I meant to be Irish back then was, You know, you learned Irish in school, you learned to speak Irish in school, and this was very it wasn't taught very well, I would say, and I think most Irish people would agree with that. It's kind of taught like almost like Latin or something as a dead language rather than as a living language. So you're spending time learning all this grammar. And you don't kind of develop that love of it that I think you should. I did go to like Irish summer camp in the Gaeltacht . The Gaeltacht  is the Irish speaking area of Ireland, and I kind of became aware of my Irishness, you know, just through being part of all this and also. I would've introduced myself as American when I was little but people didn't really like that. It was kind of a, like a weird thing to do. So my mom eventually told me, maybe you should just stop paying that. And so throughout my I, you know, as I mentioned, it was a very Catholic country. And when I was in the Gaeltacht in Irish summer camp one of the kids said they were atheist. And I was like, what does that mean? I'm like, I don't believe in God. And I was, and in my head I was like, I didn't know you could do that, I didn't know that was an option. . So I kind of thought about it for a while. I became, we started studying the Reformation in school when I was about 14. And then I learned that Catholics believed in transubstantiation and nobody had really mentioned that before. They didn't really teach the catechism very well, I guess. I'd done my communion and my confirmation, but nobody ever mentioned that. We literally believed that the, the body and blood, you know, was that the bread and water? Oh, sorry. The bread and wine actually became literally, And the body. And I thought that was a very strange thing, that that was a literal thing. It wasn't just symbolic. And then we also studied Calvinism and all that stuff. And I was like, then I started to read the Bible and I was like, then it fun, it finally just dawned on me that I didn't believe any of this, and it was kind of liberating. But it was kind of a way of being d. In a very homogenous society too. You could be a bit of a rebel. So I think I was one of those annoying teenagers who was always questioning everybody and having, trying to have debates with everybody about religion and they didn't enjoy that . And so I went through school and I just remember hating studying the Irish language until eventually when I left school. On the last day, I actually took all my. My Irish textbooks and burnt them and I feel I . Yeah. I mean I feel so much guilt and regret about that and I think about that how important it's to me now and that, that was a real shame that, but I didn't, partially I didn't put the work in, but also I just think the structure. Was not there. I mean so many Irish people come out of outta school not really know, knowing how to speak the language, you know, and I think it is an effective col colonization as well, where, you know, you consider English is a useful language and learning French or Spanish, that's a useful thing, but there's no use for Irish in people's minds, which is a, and I find that a real shame and I. could go back and change that. In university I studied anthropology and history because I was very interested in religion. All throughout my teenage years, I was obsessed with learning about world religions, you know, there was a world religion class in, in secondary school. I didn't get into it, but I begged the teacher to allow me to. Into it because I was so interested in the topic. And he was like, fine, fine. And he kind of thought he'd humor me in one class one day and he was like, well, Michael, maybe you could talk about satanism. That's the topic for today. And I was like, well, let's start with Al Crowley. And he was like, okay, maybe he actually knows what he is talking about So, I went, I. I went to the university sorry, national University of Ireland, Minuth Campus. And it's funny because that used to be known as so it's actually, it's two campuses. They're St. Patrick's college, which is like a, a seminary for priests. And there's the I, which is like the secular version, and they're both, but they both share the same compass. So it's funny, it used to be the, the biggest seminary in Europe. They call it the priest factory cuz they pumped out so many priests that sent, sent them all over the world. And it's when you go out and you walk down the corridors, you see all the graduating classes. So you go back to 1950 and you see a graduating class of like a hundred priests. And every year as you're going down the corridor, it gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Until I think the year I graduated, there was like two people graduating as priests. Yeah. So that was, that was a, I decided to study history and anthropology at n Y Minuth and one of the books that I read. Was kind of a gateway into thinking about land and language, which are two things that are really important to me in my, when I think about Paganism. It's a book called wisdom Sits in Places by Keith Bato, bass by Keith Bassell, and. I'm just gonna read a little bit here from the book because he was an anthropologist working with the Apache, the Western Apache, to try and remap the land using the Native Apache words rather than the, the English words. So trying to make a native map and working with Apache people to find all the true, the true names of all these. so this is the quote, but already on only our second day in the country together a problem had problem had come up for the third time in as many tries. I have mispronounced the Apache name of the boggy swale before us. And Charles, who is weary of repeating it, has a guarded look in his eyes after watching the name for a fourth. I acknowledged defeat and attempted to apologize for my flawed linguistic performance. I'm sorry, Charles. I can't get it. I'll work on it later. It's in the machine. It doesn't matter. It matters. Charles says softly to me in English, and then turning to speak to Morley. He addresses him in Western Apache, is what he said. What he's doing isn't right. It's not good. He seems to be in a. Why is he in a hurry? It's disrespectful. Our ancestors made this name. They made it just as it is. They made it for a reason. They spoke it first a long time ago. He's repeating the speech of our ancestors. He doesn't know that. Tell him he's repeating the speech of our ancestors. And I'm gonna just there's another section here, a little, a few pages. But then unexpectedly in one of those courteous turnabouts that Apache people employ to assuage embarrassment in salvage damaged feelings, Charles himself comes to the rescue with a quick corroborative grin. He announces he is missing several teeth and that my problem with the place name may be attributable to his lack of dental equipment. Sometimes he says he is hard to underst. His nephew, Jason, recently told him that, and he knows he tends to speak softly. Maybe the combination of too few teeth and two little volume accounts for my failing. Short morally, on the other hand, is not so encumbered though shy. Two, a tooth or two. He retains the good ones for talking and because he's not afraid to speak up, except as everyone knows in the presence of gar women no one has trouble hearing what he. Maybe if Morley repeated the place name again slowly and with ample force, I would get it right. It's worth a try, cousin. And then he, I'm just gonna skip forward a bit and he successfully pronounces the name, which translates as water Lies with mud in an open container. Relieved and pleased. I pronounce the name slowly. Then I, then a bit more rapidly and again, as it might be spoken. In normal conversation, Charles listens and nods his head in. . Yes. He says in Apache, that is how our ancestors made it a long time ago, just as it is to name this place. Mm-hmm. So this became important to me when thinking about the Irish language because something similar happened in Ireland in the you know, we have all our native Irish place. But in the 1820s the British Army's Ordinance survey came and decided they were gonna make these names pro pronounceable to English ears. And so they kind of tore up the native pronunciation and kind of push an English pronunciation on top. So you have these very strange English Anglo size versions of Irish Place names Yucca: Mm-hmm. Michael: Soin in is is probably better known in English as dingle, but doesn't really have anything to do with the Irish. And there are plenty of, there are so many examples of this and I think when you're trying to learn about a landscape in your relation to a ship, to a landscape, it is important to know the native place. It's something that I think about a lot and I try to learn. One of my favorite writers is named Tim Robinson, and he's well he died in 2020. But I had the opportunity to meet him in 2009 and he was an English cartographer. But he moved to the west of Ireland, to the Iron Islands and also to Kamara. So he kind of moved between those two places. He lived there for more than 30 years, and what he actually did was he went out and mapped the landscape and talked to local people, and he was able to find some of the place names that had been lost over the years that weren't on the official maps, and he was able to help recreate a Gaelic map of those areas. I think that's a really kind of religious or spiritual activity to go out onto the land and walk it. And to name it and to name it correctly. And I think that's what I think my pagan path is in a way. It's to go and walk the land and learn it, what to call it. Cause I think language is the most important tool we have as pagans. Mark: Hmm. Michael: So those are, that's kind of when I started to think about this stuff. I've always been interested in folk. It was actually funny. There was, it started with a video game one of the legend of Zelda video games called Major's Mask Mark: Hmm. Yucca: Yep. Michael: in, in the game, they actually have like a mask festival and they dis they discuss the the history of the festival. Anna was just like, wow, I didn't, I ended up making masks with my sister and we kind of pretended to. A little mask festival of our own Yucca: Mm-hmm. Michael: that you're, you're familiar with that? Yucca? Yucca: Yes. Yeah, I played a lot of it. Michael: Yeah. So, but I guess I really started to think about folklore when when I watched the Wickerman as um, as a teenager. I was probably at 16 when I watched it, and it kind of opened my eyes completely. And we've talked a lot about this in the group. And I. It's watched as a horror movie in a way, but I think I really got into the, the paganism idea of, of paganism as a teenager because of watching the Wickman and just the symbolism and the pageantry. And I also just like the idea. These island people turning on the state in the form of, of the policeman. So that's kind of been something I've that I've really enjoyed over the years, watching that every every May as part of my, my, my annual ritual so, you know, after university, I, I moved to South Korea to teach English, and, but at the same time I was quite into Buddhism. I had been practicing some Zen Buddhism from about the age of 18, and, but not like, more as just a practice rather than believing in any of it. Not believing in reincarnation or anything like that. I just found the ritual of it very beautiful. And I ended up going and doing a temple stay in a, in a place at, at a temple. Up in the mountains and it was very beautiful and really amazing. You know, something you'd see in a movie because the monk, the head monk actually brought us out into a bamboo grove and we sat there meditating just with all surrounded by bamboo. And it was waving in the wind and it felt like a correction, tiger Hidden dragon or something like that. And one of the powerful events that happened on that trip. Doing the Buddhist meal ceremony where we ate in in the style of a Buddhist monk. And the idea is that you do not leave any food behind. After you're, after you're finished eating, you've, you eat all the food, and then when you wash the bowls and they kind of put the communal water back into the, the, the waste bowl, there should be no no bit of food, nothing. It should just be clean water. That comes out of, after everybody finishes washing all their bowls. So we followed all the steps to do that and, you know, some people really, really weren't into it. They didn't wanna do the work of, of being extremely thorough. And there were a few rice pieces of rice in the water at the end and the head monk said to us oh, that will now get, you're, you're gonna cause pain to the hungry to ghost. Because the hungry goats ghosts have holes in their throats, and when we pour the water outside for the hungry ghosts, the rice particles are gonna get stuck in their throats. And a lot of people were like, what? What are you talking about Mark: Hmm. Michael: But I thought that was beautiful because it doesn't, not, you don't have to. It's a story that has a purpose, and that's why, you know, It made me think about the superstitions that we have. And I don't know if I like superstition like these, calling it that. Cause I think a lot of these things have purpose and you have to look for the purpose behind them. And the purpose of that story of the honky go story, maybe for him it is about not causing harm to these, these spirits, but it's also about not wasting food. And I think it, it has more power and more meaning. And you remember. More thoroughly when you have a story like that to back up this, this practice. So I think it kind of made me rethink a lot about the kind of folkloric things that I, in my, in the Irish tradition and that, you know, I think about things like fairy forts, which are, you know, the, these are the archeological sites that you find around Ireland. Like, I think there's like 60,000 left around the country. These, these circular. Homesteads that made a stone or, or saw, or saw that you find all over the country and people don't disturb them because they're afraid they'll get fair, bad luck. The, if you, if you disturb the, the fair fort the ferry's gonna come after you , or if you could, or if you cut down a tree, a lone tree. Lone trees that grow in the middle of fields that don't have a, a woodland beside them, just singular trees. These are known as fairy trees and it's bad luck to cut them down. But I feel like these folk beliefs help preserve the past as well, because, you know, farmers who don't have this belief, they don't have any problem tearing down fray, forts and that kind of thing. They just see it as a, something in the way of them farming, especially in the kind of age of industrial agriculture. Yeah. So it just made, that was when I started to think about how important it is to keep folk belief alive. And I've really, and I really started to study Irish folk belief after that point. And I lived in South Korea as I mentioned. I met my wife there, she's from Iowa and she was also teaching in, in South Korea, and we moved to Vietnam after that. And we lived there for a couple of years, and I might come back to that later. But fast forwarding, we moved to Iowa then in 2013, and I'm teaching a course in Irish. At a local community college, but I always start with this poem by Shama Heini Boland. And I just wanted to read two extracts from it. So the first stands out is we have no prairies to slice a big sun at evening everywhere. The eye concedes to encroaching. And then moving downwards. Our pioneers keep striking inwards and downwards. Every layer they strip, they, every layer they strip seems camped on before. So I, I started with that initially, kind of trying to, as, it was almost like a gateway for my students to kind of look at. Look at Iowa with its historic prairies, which don't really exist anymore. It's all farmland. There's very little prairie land left. I think maybe 2% of the state is prairie. But that idea, that idea of our pioneers strike downwards, and I've been thinking about that a lot as well, that that's kind of a, a colonial look at the land because this land, the American land has is just as camped. As Ireland, and I've been kind of experiencing that more and more. I have a friend who's an archeologist here and just hearing them talk about the kinds of fines that they have. You know, we lived in a town where there was a Native American fishing weir was a couple of hundred years old. It you could kind of see the remains, but it mostly washed away by the time we had. But I did see an old postcard of it from the seventies, and you could see it very clearly. And so just make, and then we always it's become a ritual every every autumn, we go up to northeast Iowa to these, to these effigy mounds, which are some Native American mounds up there on a bluff, just overlooking the miss. Mark: Hmm. Michael: And that's really amazing to look at that and experience and experience that. And you know, I'd love to go back, unfortunately, Shamus, he died more than 10 years ago now, but I'd love to go back and ask him if he would consider rewriting that line, you know, because this land is just as a count on Yucca: Mm-hmm. Michael: and I'm trying to, trying to make sense of that and what it means. As an Irish person living in America, Yucca: Mm. Michael: Cuz we, Irish people are victims of col colonialism, Mark: Hmm. Michael: Irish people, when they moved to America, they just became white as well and had the same colonial attitudes as everybody. And I'm trying to kind of, but you know, there's, there's, there's kind of stories of reciprocation as well. Where during the famine, the Irish famine the, I think, I believe it was the Chota Nation sent Emin relief to the AR to Ireland. Even though they didn't have much themselves, they still saw this. People in need across the water and they sent money to help. And, you know, there's that connection between the Chta nation and the Irish has continued to this day. But I am just trying to figure out what it means to be an Irish person and a pagan living in this country. And that's kind of where I, where I am right now. But to get back to how I got into Ethiopia, paganism I mentioned earlier that I was really into the Wickerman and I found this group called Folk folk Horror Revival on Facebook. And somebody one day mentioned that there was this group called Atheopagan. And so I decided to join and I found a lot of like-minded people. And I've been kind of involved in the community for, for, I think that was maybe 2018. Mark: Mm-hmm. Michael: And I've been involved in the community since then and maybe on a bigger, I've been much more involved since Covid started and we started doing our Saturday mixers. And I think I've made maybe 90% of those Mark: something Michael: and we've, yeah, and we've been doing that for the last three years and it's just been. It's a really amazing, it's one of the highlights of my week to spend time with with other people in that, in that hour and 45 minutes that we spend every Saturday. Mark: Mm. Michael: Mm-hmm. Mark: Yeah, I, I really agree with you. That's, I, it's a highlight of my week as well. Such warm, thoughtful people and so diverse and living in so many different places. It's yeah, it's just a really good thing to do on a Saturday morning for me. And. We'll probably get into this more a little bit later, but the idea of creating human connection and community building I know is really important to you and it's really important to me too. I think there have been other sort of naturalistic, pagan traditions that have been created by people, but they just kind of plunked them on the internet and let them sit. And to me it's. That would be fine if I were just gonna do this by myself. But when other people started saying, I like this, I want to do this too. To me that meant, well then we should all do it together. Right? Let's, let's build a community and support one another in doing this. And so the Saturday mixers, when we, when Covid started, I think. I mean, to be honest, COVID did some great things for the Ethiopia, pagan community. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: yeah. Kind of accidentally, but that's, that's Yucca: Well that's the silver linings, right? That's one of the things we, you know, life goes on. We have to find the, the, the benefits and the good things, even in the challenging times. Mark: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Michael: yeah. I think. I'm just thinking back to when we started. So it's kind of, we have maybe six or seven regulars who come to every meeting maybe. And then we have other people who join now and then, but I'm just trying to think back to the first meeting. I think we, that's when the idea of doing virtual ritual began as well in that first meeting. And we were trying to figure out how to do. Yucca: Was that was the first meeting before Covid or was it as a response to Covid? Mark: You know, honestly, I don't remember. I think it must have been in response to Covid because everybody was shut in and, you know, everybody was kind of starving for human contact. Michael: I think the first one may have been March or April. 2020, Yucca: Okay, so right there at the. Michael: Yeah, right at the beginning. Yeah. And I think, I remember in the first meeting we were talking about ritual ideas and I think the first suggestion I came up with was like I'd love to somebody do like a, describe what an atheopagan temple might look. Mark: Oh yeah. Michael: Yeah. And I left, and I think you were recording the meetings at that time, but we don't record 'em anymore, just so people can feel free to be themselves and not have a recorded recording of themselves out there, . But I know that, I think James who you interviewed recently he, he was listening to that one, I believe, and he came the next week and actually had prepared a guided meditation. Of what a pagan temple would be like to him. And it was a walk through nature. I think that was the first, our first online ritual together. Mark: Yeah, I remember that now. Yeah, and it's been, it's really been a journey trying to figure out how, how can you do these ritual things over a, a video conferencing platform. In a way that makes everybody feel like they're participating and engaged. Right. So that there's a, a transformation of consciousness. But I think we've done pretty well, to be honest. I mean, some of the rituals that we've done have been really quite moving. Michael: Yeah. And I think the ritual framework that you've worked at translates very well to. A Zoom conference as well. I dunno if maybe, if he wants to describe that, what the usual atheopagan ritual would look like. Mark: Sure. We've, we've talked about this before. The, the, the ritual structure that I proposed in my book is basically a, a five step process where the first is arrival, which is sort of, Transitioning into the ritual state of mind from the ordinary state of mind, and then the invocation of qualities that are a part that we'd like to be a part of the ritual with us, which is sort of the equivalent in Wicca or other pagan traditions of invoking spirits or gods or what have you, ancestors, what have you. And then the main working of the ritual, which varies depending on what the purpose of the ritual is. But it can be, well, we've done lots of different kinds of things. We've braided ribbons and then tied, not tied magical knots in them. We've made siles, we've we've done just lots of different kinds of things. And then gratitude expressions of gratitude. The things that we're grateful for. And then finally, benediction, which is sort of the closing of the ritual at a declaration that we're moving back into ordinary time. Yucca: So how does that look in, in a meeting, like a Zoom meeting In a digital format? Mark: Michael, you want to take that one or should I? Michael: So you know, you have maybe, I think usually when we have a ritual more people attend that and so we might have 12 people there and often Yucca: cameras on. Michael: Camera's on. Well, it's optional. Yeah. If you don't feel comfortable having your camera on, that's completely fine and you don't even have to speak. We do encourage people just to you know, leave a message in the chat so you can just listen in. You can engage as much or as little as you want. And you, you, so. We have all the people on in the conference, and maybe we'll try and get some more of the senses involved as well. So sometimes we'll like candles and everybody will have a candle in front of them. I do know for for some of our sound rituals. Mark, you've used two cameras where you, you aim one camera at maybe a focus, like what's one of the examples of that that you. Mark: Well we did that both at Sown and at Yu. So both the Halls ritual and the Yule ritual where I would create a focus or alter setup with thematic and symbolic things relating to the season. and then I would point, I would log into Zoom with my phone and point my phone at that. And then, and then I'd log in separately on my laptop for myself as a person, and then I could spotlight the focus so that it's kind of the centerpiece of what everybody experiences on their screen and sets the atmosphere. Michael: Yeah. So just a virtual focus that everybody can, everybody can virtually gather around. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Michael: Yeah. And I think we've also used a Pinterest board in the past as well for people. I think it was at Sound again, we had that Pinterest board where people could put up notes about. Their ancestors or loved ones that they were That's correct, isn't it? Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Or pictures of people that had passed recently or. Yucca: mm. Michael: yeah. So yeah, there's a lot of digital space that you can use for this ritual. We also try not to involve too many props as well. Because we wanna make it as easy as possible for people of all abilities. And just if you don't have the space for something, for a large proper if you don't wanna make a lot of noise, you know, we're not gonna have you using chimes or things like that. So we try and make it as easy as possible. Sometimes we do invite you to bring some food to eat as well, because, you know, a lot of these are feasting rituals. So we maybe, if you feel comfortable bringing some refreshments, you might want to do. And just have a friendly meal with people online. For example, we're actually gonna start doing I'm gonna be leading full Moon meals every month on the, on the, so the first one's gonna be December 7th. And I'll post, post about that on Discord, and I think Mark will post about that in the Facebook group. Yeah. And so the idea is everybody just comes. Joins the Zoom meeting and everybody should have their meal. Whether you're, whether that's lunch or if you're in a different time zone, maybe there'll be dinner or maybe it's just a snack. And then we'll spend a minute just thinking about the providence of the food and then we'll eat us and maybe people can talk about the food that they're eating and what it means to. And I'm hoping to make that a monthly event that we meet every full moon to share a meal together Mark: That sounds. I, I, I really I have pagan guilt over how little I pay attention to the full moon. I'm, I'm always, I'm always aware of what phase the moon is in, but I, I don't do a lot in the way of observances of the phases of the moon. And so, I'm excited to have this added in to something that I can attend. Michael: Mm-hmm. . But yeah, as you can see from that format, it's very simple. And again, you, if, if people listening would like to attend as well, there's no obligation to keep your. Your camera on, there's no obligation to speak. You just, you can just listen in and just feel part of the, part of the community that way. Yucca: Mm-hmm. So in the mixers sometimes ritual, are there discussions or what else do the mixers. Michael: Usually the mixer is kind of a freeform thing. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Michael: Maybe we'll have a topic sometimes, but usually people just come and do a check in and talk about how they're, how they're getting on that week and if there's anything they wanna discuss, we just open it up to that. Depending on the size of the turn, we may require some kind of etiquette stuff. So if there are a lot of people and we don't want people to. Shut it down or have spoken over. So we'll ask people to raise their hands if they wanna speak. That's, that really is only when there's a lot of people and, and often I, I know I'm somebody who likes to talk, so it's a, I think raising hands also gives people who are less confident, or, I'm sorry, not less confident, just not at, don't feel like interrupting. It gives them an opportu. To to have their say as well and be called on mm-hmm. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Mm. Mark: I think it's really good that we've implemented that. It, it's, it helps. Michael: Mm-hmm. I think one of the really cool rituals we had recently was for like the ATO Harvest, so that was when was that? That was in September or October. In September, yeah. Yeah. So. We were trying, I mean, usually it's, you could do some kind of harvest related and I think we've done that in the past. But I have a book called Celebrating Irish Festivals by Ruth Marshall. And this is my go-to book for, for, for ritual ideas. And this is, and I like to. Kind of some of the traditional holidays and maybe just steal from them. . So Michael Mass is is the holiday around that time in Ireland? It's a Christian holiday, but it's also it's a Yucca: were older. Michael: yeah, yeah, Yucca: Christians took for the older Michael: yeah, yeah, yeah. you know, it's about St. And he's known for slaying a dragon as just as St. George was known for slaying a dragon. But I thought, well, let's turn this on this head and let's celebrate our inner dragons. Let's bring our dragons to life. So it was the whole ritual was about dragons. And we actually drew Dragons, drew our inner dragons and shared them. Talked about what they. And kind of we were feeding our inner dragon so that they could warm us throughout the coming winter. Yucca: Hmm. Michael: Mm-hmm. Mark: as well as watching the home. Star Runner Strong Door, the Ator video, Michael: Oh yeah, Mark: which you, you have to do if you've got dragons as a theme. It's just too funny to avoid. Michael: That's an old flash cartoon from the early two thousands. That was pretty popular. Mark: Mm-hmm. Michael: Yeah. Track toward the ator. Google it, and in fact, I did a, I did the hot chip challenge as part of that ritual as Mark: That's right. Yeah. Michael: where I ate a very, very hot tortilla chip on camera. And. It was it was painful, but I'm sure, I don't know if it entertained other people, but it was, it was fun Mark: Oh yeah. It was fun. Michael: So, yeah, they're like, I mean, these rituals aren't all, they're, they're fun and they're kind of silly and goofy and but I mean, I thought at the same time they're very meaningful because people really opened up in that one Mark: Yeah. Michael: and shared some really profe profound truth. That was one of my favorites actually, and I hope we do another, another dragon invoking ritual in the future. Mark: Maybe in the spring Michael: yeah. Mark: you do it at, at both of the equinoxes. Michael: Mm-hmm. Mark: so you've joined the Atheopagan Society Council, which is great. Thank you so much for your, your volunteering and your effort. What do you think about the future? How do you, how do you see where this community is going and what would you like to see? What's, what's your perspective on that? Michael: Yeah, so just before I discovered the Pagan Facebook group I had attended A local cups meeting. So that's the covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans. And so it was just a taro reading workshop and, you know, I was, I, I like kind of using these kind of rituals just for their beauty and, but not, for not, not seeing anything supernatural in them. I was, it was amazing to, to find a group that was interested in these kind of things too, but without the they weren't incredulous. So I guess what I'm hoping for is that as we, as we kind of find more people who are, are, are aligned with us, maybe we can have more in. Experiences. That was one of the great, the great highlights of, of last year was attending the Century retreat and meeting all, all these amazing people in real life and being able to spend time together in real life. And I hope that as we kind of, as the word gets out about this group, more and more of us can meet in person or as we are able to, Mark: Mm-hmm. Michael: That's what I really hope for the future that you're finding your, your people that we are, we are being able to get these local groups together and then spend time on these important days of the year. And I believe the Chicago Afu Pagan group was able to do that not too long ago. And I know Mark, your local group meets quite regularly as well. Mark: We, we meet for the, for the eight holidays, for the eight Sabbath. So yeah, we're gonna get together on the 18th of December and burn a fire in the fire pit and do a, a ritual and enjoy food and drink with one another. And yeah, it's a, it's a really good feeling that that feeling of getting together is just You can't replace it with online connection, but online connection is still really good. So that's why, that's why we continue to do the mixers every Saturday. And Glen Gordon has also been organizing a mixer on Thursday evenings. Well evenings if you're in the Americas. And. Yeah, there's just, there's, there's a bunch of different opportunities to plug in and it's always great to see somebody new. Michael: Yeah, I think that would be another hope as well that, you know, if you've been on the fence about coming to a mixer I hope that what we've described today maybe entices you to come along. You know that there's no expectations and you can, you can share, you can just sit in the background and watch, or you can participate. There's no expectations and it's just a nice way to, to connect with people, so, Yucca: how would somebody join in? They find the, the link on the Facebook discord. Michael: that's right. Yeah. So I think, mark, you post it regularly on the Facebook group, and it's also posted on the disc. As well. So, and it's the same time every Saturday, so it's 12:15 PM Central for me, so, and that's like 1115 for you, mark, on the, Mark: No, it's 1115 for Yucca. Michael: Oh, okay. Mark: It's 10 15 for me. Michael: Okay. Okay. Yucca: one 15 for Eastern. Then Michael: one, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yucca: Hmm Mark: And. Michael: and it's always the same time, and I think we've, I think we've only missed one week, maybe in the last three years. Mark: Yeah, I think that's right. I wasn't available and I couldn't find somebody else to host or something like that, but yeah, it's been very consistent. And I see no reason to think it isn't gonna keep being consistent. But yeah, we, you know, we welcome new people. And if you're not in the Americas, that's fine too. We've got a couple of Dutch people that come in all the time. There's a, an Austrian woman who lives in Helsinki who participates. So Yucca: E eight nine ish kind of for Europe, Mark: Yeah. Michael: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We've even had on the Thursday night mixer, we've even had Australians join occasionally too. So Yucca: That sounds like that'd be early for them then, right? Michael: yeah, Yucca: getting up in the. Michael: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. But I'd I'd love for some of the listeners to come and join us on one of the mixers and then cuz you know, you bring new ideas. And I we're always looking for new ritual ideas, Mark: Mm. Michael: That kind of bring meaning to our lives and to everybody else's. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yeah, cuz that's, I mean, that's what we're doing, right? We're, we're create, we're, it's a creative process for us. We've got these sort of frameworks like the Wheel of the Year and the, the ritual format that I laid out. Although people can use other ritual formats too. That's fine. But it's, it's an ongoing process of creation and of taking some old traditions and folding them in where they fit but creating new stuff as well. One of the innovations that we, that we've been doing for the l past year or so is if people want to be done with something, if they want to be finished with something in their. They can write it in the chat and then I take the chat file and I print it on my printer and I take it and I burn it in my cauldron. So it is actually being burnt physically. But it just takes a little bit of technical processing before that happens. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: And it's those kinds of innovations that are really useful for online rituals. And boy, if you have new ideas about things we can do for online rituals, I, I would love to hear 'em. Yucca: So thank you so much for sharing your story and your visions or the future with us. This has been, it's, it's really been beautiful to hear and to get that insight. Thank you, Michael. Michael: Well, thank you for having me on. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: It's been delightful hearing from you and, and I, I gotta say, I, I feel like our community is very lucky. You've been exploring religion and and folklore and ritual for a long time in a lot of different frameworks and I feel really fortunate that you've landed with us cuz I like you so. Michael: Okay. Well thanks very much. I like you too, Mark: Okay folks, that'll be all for this week. And as always, we'll have another episode for you next week on the Wonder Science Based Paganism. Have a great week. Yucca: Thanks everybody.

In this episode:Mike and Ed continue their discussions on what the original Avengers are doing in their post-Avengers lives. For instance, Thor now seems to be working for the American military in Vietnam. Was he drafted? Or did he consider deserting to move back to Asgard? Will super-powered individuals become the next weapon of war? Will heroes sell their services to the highest bidding country? Is there a way to stop the escalation, or is this just the new way of the world?Behind the issue:Stan had Thor appear in Vietnam, but never had him coordinating with the US military. Comic books in the 1940s were practically US-propaganda, and the heroes were expected to be fighting against Hitler. But in the 1960s, the writers mostly kept the heroes out of real-world conflicts. It wasn't until the modern era that writers considered the possibility of heroes fighting in Vietnam.In this issue:Thor is spotted in Vietnam and shot by a hunter. The hunter then comes across an ancient temple and, through the machinations of Loki, the hunger takes over the Destroyer armour with his mind. The hunter pilots the Destroyer in a fight with Thor. Meanwhile on Asgard, Loki is imprisoned.This episode takes place:While people are still adjusting to “Cap's Kooky Quartet” - and missing their “old” Avengers.Assumed before the next episode:People are wondering what Thor was doing in Southeast Asia.Full transcript:Edward: All right, Mike. Continuing our, where are they now? Series. We now know where Thor has been for the last couple of months.Michael: Yeah. He's decided to take his retirement to Vietnam.Edward: Vietnam, you'd think with his hair like that, he would've been a conscientious objector, but no Siri, don't stereotype Thor. He is right there with the military. Right in the thick of things.Michael: All kidding aside, it's pretty wild that this man, or this being Thor, who's associated with, the American military and the military industrial complex has gone to Vietnam, clearly on behalf of the Americans, and intervened in international affairs. Clearly as an agent of America, or at least on America's interest. Yeah, for sure. Doesn't that make it a little more complicated over there? Is that what we wanna,Edward: I think it makes it less complicated. ANCO was clear before that the Avengers were an American superhero organization that had American interest at heart. Their leader was Captain America. It's pretty clear that they were into America and hey, they were supported and run by, stark Corp, who are like basically a big American company. They're an American team now, Thor leaves the American team that he leaves the Avengers.What does he do next? He doesn't go back up to Asgard. He goes and works for American interests in a non Avengers way.Michael: It seems a little, isn't it? I don't know. I find it uncomfortable that we would entrust, international diplomacy to, well, it's costume adventures.Edward: Well, it's not diplomacy. He's not negotiating peace treaties. He's swinging his hammer and like on a hitting North Vietcong.Michael: But this. But there's consequences to that though. Like aren't you worried that that's gonna lead to say, other Superpowered beings that might be drafted in by the Vietcong to fight American soldiers overseas in,Edward: do the Viet Cong have a superhero?Michael: Not yet. Well, there you go. Not yet, but there you go. But you don't think the Chinese might have an interest in this. Have a say in it.Edward: That's, that, that is true. We know the Chinese do have their own superheroes. Radioactive man. Radioactive man. So, you're saying it's an escalation of the conflict. And maybe this means China sends in radioactive man, but China is not like US is directly involved in that war. China is only indirectly involved, right? They have plausible deniability. If they send in radioactive man, there goes their plausible deniability.Michael: Well first of all, there hasn't been a military briefing or any kind of official report in that Thor is going there on the direction or in service of the United States. So, I think the United States is trying to do this if they're doing it under some kind of plausible deniability scenario, and China could do the same thing, like we don't control radioactive man.He's just a guy who believes in our values and that's why he is fighting. He's just showing up and fighting. Showing up and fighting, and that's why he is fighting the Americans in Vietnam.Edward: But there's no Chinese soldiers in the vie, they're supplying them with weapons and stuff, but they're not supplying them with people I don't think. Here's the question. That's an ex escalation though. Here's, here's the question. Was Thor just drafted? Maybe he was just part of the draft.Michael: I don't know. Well, he might have been, but thatEdward: his number came up and he off he went.Michael: He, had to go.Edward: He had to go. He had no choice.Michael: He was gonna fly away to Asgard. But No, but I'm still thinking about deescalation,Edward: other deserters run to. Canada, but not Thor. He heads to a whole intervention, flies to another, another realm, a mystical realm. Yeah. But he knew he wanted to come back to America. So he knew that if he abandoned us, we weren't gonna let him back in.Michael: So if I look at it and you look at it, the Vietnamese will probably look at it and the Chinese look at it that America has sent a superpowered individual to fight a battle on their behalf.Clearly that what has happened. So I would think that the natural response would be that the Vietnamese through some kind of connection have one of their own. And then now we have, are we having our superpowered heroes and villains or people fighting each other?Not just fighting each other, but fighting regular powered humans? Well, I think so. It's like if they think if they we're getting to a different era, I guess,Edward: but I think, these people have powers and they're outta capabilities. It's almost like, if we had a really good tank, let's not use it because the other guys might bring in a big tank.We have airplanes, let's not use airplanes cuz the other guys might have airplanes. We have an advantage over the Vietnamese right now because we have superheroes and they don't. Not using them, I think would be irresponsible. Americans would die if not for Thor. Thor is probably saving American lives right as we speak.Michael: Yeah, but Ed, right now, America could use nuclear bombs in Vietnam, but they're not gonna, they're not, not,Edward: we're not gonna use nuclear. But nuclear bombs have all sorts of like side effects that a lightning bolt from Thor, there's no radiation when he fires a lightning bolt and blows up a, nothing like a depot.Michael: Lightning, basically Radiation?Edward: No, it's, no, it's not radiation any more than the light is radiation.Michael: Not basically, but I'm sure there is radiation that comes off of, there's certainly the light part of it and that part of the spectrum.Edward: Yeah, but there's no radiation. It's not radioactive.When you get hit by lightning, you're not gonna cause cancer when you get hit by lightning. Now you may die when you get hit by lightning, but it's not gonna cause future cancers.Michael: But my point is that America could use nuclear weapons, but they don't because they don't, they know that that could lead to an escalation.So isn't sending a superhero in kind of similar thing?Edward: It's more than an escalation response. Yes. Yes. I think it's a big, we should not be using nuclear weapons. We don't want to go down that route. But a superhero is not a nuclear weapon. We use superheroes all the time. We use superheroes all the time for, we use superheroes when stilt man attacks New York City, we're not gonna drop a nuclear weapon on Stilt Man.Michael: No, but the difference is that there's a difference between fighting crime in the city and then going to another nation. To affect foreign policy through, excessive force similar to a nuclear bomb sending, I think a superpower person's gonna do the, achieve the same result.Edward: I feel that the Vietnam War is already at the excessive force stage. We're, we're not like, this is devastating. Let's have a, let's have a very stern conversation with them. Like there's people shooting at each other there there's war happening, there's helicopters and bombs and Tanks and so why shouldn't Thor be involved to, to help put an end to this thingMichael: But this is a devastating next step. I mean the fact that you say it's irresponsible for them not to use Thor means, cuz you know, he's gonna be particularly effective. Much like individuals are bombed. Yeah, I think so. Why don't, so doesn't this lead to other nations around the world saying like, well better get some more superpowered individuals and then it gets into a bidding war. We've already talked about how the Avengers used to be a bunch of strangers who kind of got together very powerful and they've basically disbanded. And now it's like a bunch of former villains, you know, who are now with Captain America, which is pretty bizarre to say that they,Edward: Maybe this makes even more sense now, right? If you have these people like. Quicksilver and the witch and the Hawkeye. And your choice is, hey, bring them onto the Avengers and make them part of our team. Or let them become free agents and join the Soviets. Maybe that makes the most sense that we brought them onto the team.Michael: Maybe, but are we not getting to an era? Mercenaries, the superheros turning to mercenaries. What keeps them loyal to one particular ideology over another? I don't know, like is the American structure better than, the American democracy better than other forms of political philosophies in governments? You talk to every American I've ever spoken with, they'd say, no, it's the best. But other nations have different approaches to, policy, politics, and governments and structures and say, no.Edward: We had this in World War ii, right? We were the most attractive there was a lot of scientists that said, oh, you know what? Let's help the US build the atomic bomb because we want them to have it not the other guys. And those, a lot of those scientists came from Germany, but they said, no. Mm-hmm We wanna work for America. Or they came from Soviet Russia with, no, we wanna work for America because we think that you guys. We are freedom loving and as problematic as the US has been over the years doing many, many things they probably shouldn't have.The alternatives seem to be a lot worse and superhero superheros are lining up behind that. They're realizing that better to work for America than work for the other guysMichael: for now. But what happens if , For instance, let's just pick our neighbor to the north, let's say in Canada. They just decide to say up the ante to get a superpowered individual that could lead to say, battling other nations. So they became more war monering because you know that America's, you know, mightEdward: Canada becomes the, the war Moner. Yes, the war moner. You can call me either their hockey sticks, you can call me captain. Boring. That'sMichael: not boring captain, but they go. But my point is that, is that any nation.If they for the right price could get a superpowered individual who might think, you know, I like their philosophy too and we know that American might has led to American, financial benefits as well, right? I mean they, people don't just think America's great and that's why America does so well financially.No, we're great because they make great movies. Make great movies and actually use their money and their might to influence world markets. And so who's to say that the long plan might be like, say, great Britain might just start building up their SUPERPOWERED individuals so that they can basically go and effect world affairs through the superheroes.That that would then lead to increasing their financial, um, that's, that'sEdward: okay with that. Take America with that. They're not gonna take out Amer London is gay. This is not the American Revolution. America. If Britain, Britain, Britain is our ally, if Britain is more successful, now's good. That's good.Michael: Thor just, Thor just got sent into Vietnam. I'm just saying that we're on the prey, I think of changing how, international affairs are structured and how disputes are resolved if we're getting into sending superheroes to other nations. To fight on a base, on an ideological basis against other nationsEdward: superheroes, adjust the next technology.I feel like Mike, you'd be against using the airplane in World War I. You'd be like, no. If we use the airplane, maybe they'll use the airplane. Oh no. That'd be terrible. That'll be planes flying everywhere. That'll be the end of world order. No, as long as we make more airplanes than they do, we'll be fine.And we're making more superheroes than everybody else in the world combined.Michael: But I think one of the main things that came out, the difference between World War Well, sorry. World War I, what was a game changer was the machine gun, right? The mechanized instruments of slaughter and death and destruction.Edward: Well, now you're just giving the machine gun a bad name.Michael: I. Who would, right. But like, and it, andEdward: it, it think of all the good the machine gun did, could like, butMichael: it affected the world. It definitely affected the world and you might say, well, it's better. I don't know if it is, but it certainly changed it. I'm saying that we're the press p where we might be getting outta control because now wars are, so, the reason why we don't get into a war with the U S S R right now, is because it'll be so destructive. Because we've evolved our technology to the point that we could just destroy the world many times over.Are we not just pivoting towards superheroes where we could destroy the world many times over through them? Frightened dead. I'm frightened.Edward: All right. Well, I think it is what it is though, Mike. I feels, it feels like, just like we couldn't hold back the machine gun in World War I, I don't think we hold back superheroes anymore.I feel like the cat's outta the bag or the Thor is out of the. Helicopter.Michael: The hammers outta the clasp towards bellsEdward: the hammers outta the clasp. It's the new catchy phrase, and you heard it here first.Michael: Kids. Kids these days and their sayings. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss the Avengers' public search for a fifth member: the Hulk. What are they thinking? Is strength the only requirement for membership? How bad is “rampaging” before you decide not to let someone on the team? Should someone take Captain America's license away?Behind the issue:Stan Lee is leaning into the idea that the team is under-powered after losing the original Avengers. The team feels the same way until they discover that when they work together as a team they can defeat powerful villains — maybe they don't need the Hulk after all?In this issue:The new Avengers meet for the first time. Rick Jones - teenage sidekick with no discernible powers or abilities - is jealous that the three new members - Scarlet Witch, who can warp reality; Quicksilver, who can run at the speed of thought; and Hawkeye, who has an uncanny martial abilities - are members and he is not. Anyways, Captain AAmerica announces to the fledgling team that their first mission is to find the Hulk to see if he will join their team. They then go to train, and a giant robot sent by the Mole Man breaks in and attacks them while informing them that they can find the Hulk in the desert. It's a trap, obviously, but the Avengers still set out for the desert and battle the Mole Man's Minotaur underground. Meanwhile, the Hulk chases down his foe, the Leader. The issue ends with the Avengers realizing that they are quite formidable on their own and do not really need the Hulk.Assumed before the next episode:People are still wondering what the deal is with this odd team of Avengers.This episode takes place:While the public considers whether the Hulk would be a good addition to the Avengers or not.Full transcript:Edward: All right, Mike, we know who the fifth member of the Avengers is or not. Is, is going to be, is going to beMichael: wild man. It's actually crazy. It's actually crazy. How do we get here?Edward: You thought given the fact that The Thing is leaving the fantastic f. For, they'd bring him in. Mm-hmm. As the big strong man. And they said, no, no, no. That's not crazy enough, Mike. That's not crazy enough. We're no, we're gonna go back to our roots and find the most powerful man in the world and bring him onto the Avengers cuz the Avengers are not the second best mark. They're not the second strongest person in the world. They're going for the strongest.Michael: Yeah so they're out there trying to find the Hulk because the Hulk is the strongest one there is. And it's like, hold on a second. He's caused a lot of damage. He's fought you guys.Edward: Of course, of course. He's caused damage. He's the strongest man in the world. How can the strongest person in the world not cause damage?Michael: He, he, He's a, well, I dunno if he's a man, he's a monster.Edward: They're, they're calling, they're, they're calling him a man. They're calling him, man.Michael: Okay. And I shouldn't be, so I don't want to be negative towards him. I don't wanna use pejorative terms.Edward: You're like monstrous. Is that a word?Michael: But he has acted monstrously, you know what I mean? Like, so he, he has,Edward: he's a person who acts like a monster. He's not a monster himself.Michael: Well, yeah, sure. That's right. And he's out there causing terror and mayhem and. Battling the Avengers.Edward: Fair enough. And so then, not just Avengers, he's fought the Avengers, he's fought the fantastic F, he's f the Avengers more. I think he's fought the Avengers more than he's been on the Avengers in terms of like Right. Which side he's been on. He's been anti Avenger more times than he's been Avenger.Michael: So, I should say, gee whiz, you know, I'd like to get married. I'm gonna marry my, the worst girlfriend I've ever had because, you know, Because she's been my girlfriend in the past and she was a great girlfriend for like a week and then a terrible girlfriend for like a month. And so,Edward: yeah. But Mike is this girlfriend the strongest girlfriend in the world.Michael: Well, okay, how about this? The most attractive, my most attractive girlfriend in the world. That's all I'm going for if I'm super superficial. There you go. And so that's kind of what it is, right? They're picking one serious trait. So yes, the Hulk is the strongest one there is, but he is the best teammate? Like, yes, this woman. Is the most attractive woman I've ever dated. But is she the best girlfriend? And it's like, I don't know. I don't care. She's like the hottest, so I'm gonna go marry her.Edward: You presumably, you only have one girlfriend at a time. The Avengers have five at a time, so they need different pieces. They have Captain America who's probably the best teammate in the world and they have I dunno, the quick silver Quicksilver was the fastest in the world and the. The witch who's the most magical in the world. And so now they don't need another great teammate. They need someone who's just they have no one who's strong. They need someone who's strong.Michael: And I think my analogy holds, it's like you're my friend and you're one of the smarter friends I have and I've got other friends.Edward: Somebody say the smartest in the world would you say that,Michael: you know, I'm not gonna say, but you might. And, uh, and then you get, and then, and it's like, gee, on outta my friend network, I don't have the hottest one. So I'm the hottest one. The hottest, craziest person, coming into my life. Which is, what the adventures are doing. So, No, I think it's weird. I think it's wrong. And also,Edward: are you saying the Avengers don't have the best judgment in the world?Michael: Yeah, I am. And then on top of that, on top of that, it's hard not to notice that the Avengers are recruiting people who, a year ago we considered to be villains.Right?Edward: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. A month ago, no, two months ago.Michael: You're right. Sorry. Time flies. So we have quick Silver Scarlet Witch who used to be in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. That's terrorists. They're, they're terrorists. They're terrorists. Terrorists. Terrorists.The Commonwealth War Hawkeye Hawkeye, who was like, oh, no. Criminal?Edward: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He was also a super spot. He was working with the Russians and the Soviets.Michael: That's, that's right. And then they're like, you know what? Okay, we've covered, we've covered those areas. Let's get a guy who rampages.Edward: We have, we have no vandals. We need a vandal. Vandal, the terrorist, we have the communist. We need just someone who's pure, pure anarchy.Michael: Like is Captain America a right? Is he making the decisions right now? It's like he's a little older. I guess he's been around since World War ii. Do we just step in and say like, you know, you step in and take away your parents' driver's license. You gotta say cap. You know, if you're the one driving this bus, we gotta, we got some questions, we got some concerns here.Edward: What's what's amazing to me, it's not just that they want the Hulk, it's that they haven't spoken to the Hulk. It's not like they just gotta put it out there. It feels like, it feels like, yeah, exactly.If you want the Hulk, let's get the Hulk in the room and ask and be like, Hey, listen, it's like selecting a vice president. You don't go and say, Hey, I'm looking for you like, uh, uh, Mr. Uh, vice president. Um, do you, uh, are you, uh, are you out there? I'm just gonna put an ad in the newspaper and maybe you'll. Come to me. No, you take them aside one by one and be like, Hey, if we were to ask you, would you join? And oh, by the way, if we were to ask you to join, would you stop rampaging? Would you stop destroying cities? Because that's kind of a requirement for the organization. But right now they've reduced all their ability to negotiate.The whole comes along. It's like, yeah, I'm gonna join. You want me to join? I'll join. But here's my requirements. I get to destroy five buildings every week. Take it or leave it, then what do you do? And then what do you do?Michael: And I might get into fist way with you, you know, so just, just like it or lump it, but it's happening and it's like, well, okay, maybe we shouldn't like it.Edward: Maybe putting ads and newspapers across the country was not the right choice. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss life after being an Avenger. What are the responsibilities? What are the privileges? Do they get top secret briefings? Are they like ex-Presidents? Or like ex-FBI? Who pays for the damage they cause when Giant-Man decides to grow to 35-feet in the middle of the city and starts knocking down buildings? These are unprecedented times, but someone has to figure this out quickly!Behind the comic:This is the first adventure of Giant-Man and the Wasp post-Avengers. The story continues into the next issue, but at that point they “retire” and the title converts to dual stories of Namor and the Hulk. It turns out Giant-Man just wasn't that popular. It didn't help that Tales to Astonish had consistently been one of the weaker titles for the previous few years. Something needed to change. Also in this issue, the Human Top, who was originally introduced as a “normal human” who just happened to be able to spin quickly, has now developed the ability to fly…In this issue:Giant-Man and the Wasp are practicing just outside the city. A plane intentionally flies into Giant-Man, and the pilot, the Human Top, considers killing him but does not have time before Giant-Man wakes up. The Top splits, and Giant-Man returns home. Giant-Man practices his growing ability in downtown Manhattan. The Human Top then returns and battles Giant-Man and the Wasp, and Giant-Man is enraged when the Top leaves with a captured Wasp.In the Hulk story, the Hulk saves Major Talbot from dying during the Leader's attack. Then, when the Hulk has turned back into Bruce Banner, General Ross places him under arrest for treason. The leader sends his humanoid minions to the base where Banner is being held, and while they attack Banner, he turns back into the Hulk and battles them but is knocked out as they steal an invention of Banner's for the Leader's use.Assumed before the next episode:People are fed up with Giant-Man leaning on their buildings, carelessly causing damage.This episode takes place:After Giant-Man has leaned on one too many buildings.Full transcript:Edward: Mike, what do you do when you retire from the Avengers? What's next? What's next on your plate?Michael: I don't know. It's hard to go higher in the superhero community, but it's also harder to get a better job in even the military or that kind of like super diplomacy communityEdward: and super diplomats.Michael: Well, that's what they are, right? Like they're like, I don't know, like Warrior Kings in a way. Right?Edward: Thank you for your service, giant man. I'd not like you to be the diplomat in charge of Poland. Over there with the wasp. You can help us deal with geopolitical situations in the Eastern Republics.Michael: But that's what they've been doing though. They've been acting asEdward: the last time giant man went into the Eastern Europe, he was crashing through the Berlin wall. It's not diplomatic, it's not known for diplomacy.Michael: No, but his actions, whether they're clumsy or not, were actually affecting international relations. So that's what I mean, like the general sense of whatever they are.Edward: Yeah. So causing diplomatic relations is not the same as being a diplomat, just cuz they both have the word diplo in them.Michael: No, no, no. I'm not saying that they're, I'm not saying that that's the job. It's just that what have the Avengers been? They've saved the world. They've battled villains. They have taken upon their self to go to other countries, to act in America's interests.And then at times we've found that they've acted secretively to the same extent, further in the interest and theory of America. So I don't know what you want to call them, but they're not regular. And so you're, they're not regular. And, and your question at the start was like, well, what do you like, what do you do when you retire?Well, it's not unprecedented, but it's unusual. And so it's a good question.Edward: And so what's unusual, you're saying retiring as a superhero is unusual or retiring as an avenger is unusual. What's unusual?Michael: Retired from the Avengers is unusual because, well, yes, it's Avenger.Edward: Avengers have only been around for a couple years. No one has retired until now. But now we've had, now we have three retirements, sorry, four retirements, 1, 2, 3, 4, all at the same time.Michael: Yeah. And my point is that it's unusual. We have an experience where someone with that much power who's had such a fascinating role and influence on world affairs, is now no longer in that position? I think there's a qualitative difference between being on the Avengers and being the go-to team for. Pretty much any big problem to be on their own. Are they still on the payroll or at least getting the status and the influence they had on Avengers?Edward: I wouldn't think so. If you're not, you can't be like, not on the Avengers, but still getting all the Avenger privileges.Michael: That's right. So that's what I mean. Somebody that tied in to International affairs in such a highly visible way and such an influential position, I would think that they don't just retire and, then our intelligence organizations are like, that's cool.I guess you just. Have all this knowledge and this know-how, and you just go off and do what you want. So I'd imagine that there's something that must tie them closer. Oh, I see what you're saying. It's like maintain them and to be still being sort of a post adventure, but still in the family. You know what I mean?Edward: Got it. You're a post, you're not in ave anymore, but now you're a post a event. It's like a presidents. When presidents retire, they still have the secret service. Follow them around everywhere. They still get paid. Right., if you're an ex-president, you still get a salary.Michael: I think so. Or some kind of pension, I don't think they'd wait till like they're, you know, like most of 'em seem to be quite old when they're president, when they retire. I don't think they, they have to wait long before they get the stipend. Right. Which makes a lot of sense as well, cuz you don't want them to Go out and say, I've been the president of the United States for eight years and now I'm interviewing for this job at General Electric.Or I might go, I think I'd like to go work in Hungary. You know what I mean? I don't think that they're gonna be like, what's next for me? As if it's just like anybody in the world. They're just not. And so I think get to pay them enough to keep them on the bench in a way, and still get to know-how and the benefit of the expertise and still have them available to contact them.I would think.Edward: Okay, there's an ex-presidents club. You think there's gonna be an ex Avengers club where they all get together and come back together and talk about, I dunno, I guess the new Avengers can ask the old Avengers for advice the presidents do that sometimes. Yeah.Michael: I think so. I mean, I'd like to think so because the alternative would be that the Avengers, so somebody who's been so tied into our security and the intelligence organizations, but also our military and our political affairs is just suddenly like, huh. Well, I gotta make a living not an Avenger anymore.Edward: Maybe I'll go rob Banks,Michael: right? Or maybe I will go maybe work for, another country. I mean, like they could, and it's unusual, like the adventures started as this voluntary group, but very quickly became integral to our security intelligence organizations, et cetera.but I bet that there are those types of organizations and associations already. I bet they just attach that type of structure over to the Avengers to make sense.Edward: Paul, you're saying there's other structures like the Avengers out there?Michael: You used presidents ex-president, as an example.I think there has to be some kind of process they can follow to say, time.Edward: But the difference is the presidents, like that's part of the constitution, like that's built into the fabric of our country and there are rules and regulations that go back. Hundreds of years. The Avengers are a couple years old.We don't even know exactly how the Avengers are affiliated with their government, how they're affiliated with Stark Corp. They're all part of this military industrial complex, and I don't think we understand what's going on. It's definitely not the way we understand what happens with the president.Michael: Well Ed, I'm not saying I'm cool with it. I find it to be the most weird you know, and people that listen to our show know this. I've always found it to be the weirdest thing that the military, the government, our intelligence organizations are like, I don't know, better get the adventures involved. I've always found it to be strange, but whether it's strange or not, they're tied in and they have this connection and they have this. Powered authority in our society. So just to have them float off and possibly just what, decide that they want to, take what they know and not do anything with it, or,Edward: yes. You're basically say we should bribe them so that they don't do that. We should have tax dollars go towards paying giant man and Thor and Iron Man in the wasp and tell them, Hey, here's a hundred grand. Uh, please don't work for the Russians.Michael: I think, I wouldn't use the word bribe, but I think it's incentivized, I suppose, but's be honest, let's be honest. You, I've had shows where, where your solution is like, I guess we gotta kill them. Or lobotomized them. I'm like, no, I'm just following your well trod path on this one. Like probably need to pay them is the better alternative than like, Like, where I know you want to go on these things where it's like, too dangerous of your life. See you later.Edward: You know, I'm gonna tell your wife about the things you've been doing, unless you give me an incentive to not do thatMichael: well yeah. It's, like, protection, money protection.Edward: I'm not gonna, uh, bust into your shop, but, you know, I need some incentive to make sure that it stands up. Okay.Michael: But Ed, you wouldn't characterize it as bribing that you say, Let's say Kennedy, who's a young president, let's say. He hadn't been assassinated and he continued on, and he retired after, let's say he served two terms. He would've been in his early fifties, you wouldn't have considered bribery to pay him a pretty healthy pension.Edward: No, you're, right. It's not bribery to have to pay someone to do their job.Michael: It's a role.Edward: It's an incentive pay. It's an incentive. So that you go and do The Thing that we we're paying you to do. I think bribe, connotates something illegal, right? Or something underhanded. What's what's going on here though, is, it kind of is underhanded, because it's not public, it's not well-known. Is Stark Corp paying their post avenger salary? Is it the government? That's to me the, big question. And the other thing is that well at least giant man is still active. We haven't heard much from about Thor Iron Man, but, it's Giant man is out there. Experimenting and doing more stuff. Like the latest things on Giant Man is he can now grow to 35 feet tall. He's getting bigger and bigger, so his power levels are increasing. And he's doing it right in the city. He's damaging buildings, he's doing practices. He weighs tons with tons and tons of weight, and he's walking through the city causing damage.And so in the past when that happened, the Avengers had some sort of fun that paid for that stuff. Is there a post Avengers payment fund now too?Michael: That's part of the reason why I was thinking about this, there has to be some kind of structure in there. Not just about the idea that they have information that would be damaging, to our interests if they went somewhere else, for instance.But also if giant man is practicing growing in the cities, and holding onto buildings so he doesn't fall down. He's causing damage. And in the past, it's still irresponsible them to do that. But at least there is some kind of recourse for the regular person or insurance companies. He get some kind of, kind of like, you know, fix, fix the masonry on this. You know, likeEdward: fix, it's like an irresponsibility reading. As an avenger you can have a 10 on irresponsibility, but now that you're post Avengers, let's bring that irresponsibility level down to a six or a seven.Michael: And he hasn't, you know what I mean? Practicing growing around buildings when you wait tons and could knock one over if you just tripped, is not responsible.Edward: And also grabbing, grabbing onto the edges of buildings and like having bricks fall off. It just seems a little dangerous.Michael: It's super dangerous. So that's why I think that there must be something in the way, some process or some similar continuation of coverage.Really. Like I know when lawyers retire, we have mandatory insurance and then when you retire you can have runoff insurance, which would cover you. So you might get a claim, there's only so long you can Sue your former lawyer there's limitation periods and then you'd wanna make sure you cover. So if you did get sued,Edward: the insurance covers you, not for the time that you were a lawyer, but the insurance is covering you for right now. Like, for example, if you stopped your insurance today, And you got sued for something you did yesterday, the insurance wouldn't cover you.Michael: No, so insurance covers terms, so as long as you have occurrence base and claims based policies, but the most common policy would be like if you get into a car accident, you have insurance policy with company A, and then you get sued two years later. B, you no longer are insured you by that company. You're run to another insurance company. It's the company that was on risk that would cover you. And so I'm saying for, Lawyers when they retire, they wanna make sure they've got insurance and coverage, to continue a bit longer. I see I'm diving into stuff. I'm not a hundred percent sure I'm far from retirement, but I just know that there is coverage up.Edward: There's something, there, something, there's something's something there that's a giant man probably has some sort of insurance policy that's covering him post Avengers, some sort of runoff policy that lasts for some period of time.Michael: Or you just have the Avengers have so much money at their disposal. They're either self-insured in a sense, or they just have money to pay. But whatever it is, I think that you don't have these retired Avengers running around causing damage and then not, and then what you're gonna Sue giant man, you're gonna find out where that guy, who he really is. Or do you still follow the process that is in place that we we're aware of where they could make a claim. Because of the damage that the Avengers caused, which I think is a way that's kept people kind of okay with them in general.Edward: So if he has to have this coverage that keeps lasting, like we're kind of paying for giant man for the guess for the rest of his life or for some time period.Does he have responsibility then too? This is like reserves in the military. I think we can call back up giant man if the Hulk was rampaging through the city and we're like, you know what? The Avengers are a little weak right now. We need some, uh, we need some more bench strength.Can he be called in?Michael: I don't know. I mean I would think so. I would think that's part of the deal. Like we said at the beginning, it's unusual and unprecedented about what they are in our society, but they are unusual. They are unprecedented is so, you and I are just trying to speculate about what should make sense.And I think what makes sense is that if they're out there, Having information or abilities that could harm us if they were no longer on our side. I think that there's a built-in incentive to have them close to home, really. But also if they're out there doing activities, and they're more or less government agents, which they have been.I think there should be some kind of recourse for regular people. Otherwise people would not be as keen about Giant man doing his calisthenics in the middle of the city.Edward: Like you're sounding more and more like the Avengers are like the mafia. Once you're in, you can't get out. You think you're out and we pull you back in.Michael: I'm not saying that they're not like that. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

Apologizes for the delay on this episode. Edward has been traveling more than usual for business making it difficult to record. But we are back, and we should have a few more episodes recorded in time to be back on schedule next week. Stay tuned true believers!In this episode:Mike and Ed skip over the tornado that Dr. Doom used to terrorize the city, the capture of the Baxter Building, and the use of Reed Richards' technology against himself, and jump right to the shocking news that the Thing, Ben Grimm, is leaving the Fantastic Four! Why is he leaving? Is it too hard to keep egos like this together for more than a few years? What is he going to do next? Is it a coincidence that the Avengers recently lost their four strongest members? And does this mean the Fantastic Four need to go into recruiting mode now too? The “Fantastic Three” does not have the same ring to it!Behind the IssuesA lot happens in these issues: The after effects of the nuclear bomb in issue #38 cause the FF to lose their powers. Then Dr Doom attacks the team while they are helpless and they need to defeat their arch-nemesis without the benefit of powers. But all of that is secret. The FF manage to hide the fact their powers are missing while they get help from Daredevil. By the end of issue #40 they have their powers back, and Ben Grim is back to being the Thing. But in the course of the battle Ben felt un-appreciated and uses it as an excuse to leave the organization. This continuing storyline with every issue ending on a cliffhanger is Stan's new style and we are seeing it in almost every title now, but none as connected as the Fantastic Four.In these issues:Fantastic Four #39:The Fantastic Four are rescued at sea, and they have lost their powers. Reed uses his technology to replace their powers, and they keep this information from the world. Meanwhile, Dr. Doom, who had been hypnotized by Reed previously, has this spell lifted by a local hypnotist. Doom, now in a rage at being tricked, heads back to New York City and battles the Fantastic Four, who have Daredevil on their side. They have a wild battle, with Daredevil doing a lot of the heavy lifting, leading into the next issue.Fantastic Four #40:Daredevil continues to pull the Fantastic Four's bacon out of the fire. Meanwhile, the Four head to their headquarters, where Doom is holed up, with the local police sectioning off the city around the Four's headquarters to allow these superpowered enemies do battle. At just the right time, the Four's powers return, due to the ingenuity of Reed Richards, and they are able to best Dr. Doom and reclaim their headquarters. The Thing pushes them over the finish line, and they let Doom escape. And at the very end of the issue, the Thing decides that he has had it, and quits the team.Assumed before the next episode:People are wondering if the team should be called the Fantastic Five.This episode takes place:After the Fantastic Four/Five have defeated Dr. Doom and reclaimed the Baxter Building. Full TranscriptEdward: Mike, there is a lot to talk about.Michael: No kidding.Edward: We could talk about the fact there's a tornado rampaging through the city destroying buildings. We can talk about Dr. Doom using Reed Richards technology against him and against all of us. We could talk about Doom. Taking over the Baxter, Building again, and threatening the Fantastic Four. These are all things we can talk about, but we're not gonna talk about any of those things.Michael: No man. We're talking about teams. We're talking about teams. Eddie, this is exciting news.Edward: Yeah. Not just teams. We're talking about The Thing. After all this stuff happening. The Thing announcement that he is leaving the Fantastic four.The Fantastic four have always had a challenge with their brand name in that they needed four people. Now they have to deal with that problem in a real way because the Fantastic Three doesn't have the same ring to it.Michael: No. So let's look at who's leaving, right? It's the strong man of the group and he's leaving.And first of all, we don't know why. And I'd be curious about that because branding alone, you're right, you need to have four people. But we should speculate cuz it's interesting. But why would he leave? It sounds like a sweet gig. I mean, the fantastic war, they went through their hard times in the beginning of their partnership, but they've been making some good money they own the Baxter Building. And through Reed's inventions, they must make still SCDs of money. And they go on these amazing adventuresEdward: And it's the status perspective. They're loved, right? They're invited to the White House and they're doing pretty well for themselves.Michael: They're the only team where we know who they are in real life too.They don't have secreted s I mean, it's an incredible thing that they have,Edward: but they also, they're close-knit group. There's only four of them. And we all know, there's rock bands that break up all the time, and you're like, why did they break up? They should never have broken up. They were so good together.But the truth is you have four people. And they're human as much as they have superpowers, they're human. And so it's not surprising that sooner or later somebody's not gonna get along. The Avengers recently broke up. We don't know why they broke up either, but I imagine personality conflicts came into it.Michael: I think you're right. And the Fantastic Forum or a special case, because they work together and they live together. They function really as a family. And you're right, just like much like rock bands break up, familiarity does breed contempt.Edward: And hey, if you're talking about family, Ben Grimm was already the odd man out. Right? Sue Storm and Johney Storm are brother and sister, and Sue is getting married to Reed. They're engaged like that. Mm-hmm. That's a legit family and well, who's Ben? Ben's a good friend.Michael: Yeah. Yeah. He's good old. Ben is hanging out with the fam and it's, yeah,Edward: college roommate or something. They're college roommates from, but like college roommates aren't the same as husband and wife or brother and sister?Michael: No, and I'm sure your wife appreciates you hearing that, talking to me, roommates, butEdward: as my college roommate, I will tell you that you do not, you're not the same as my wife.Michael: That's fair. That's fair. But in a way it seems unfair to speculate on what happened because I think we know what must have happened there. There's some kind of grievance that must have blown up and so he's leaving so, Now that he's leaving the fantastic bar. The question is where does a one ton Orange Rock monster super powerful. Super strong? Where does he go? And you mentioned it earlier where I think he's gonna go, he must be going to the Avengers. Clearly this makes sense. Total sense, right? Yeah.Edward: He's probably not gonna go and start a law firm.Not Ben Grimm thing. So security. What was Ben Grimm before he was an airplane pilot, right? I also don't think, American Airlines is looking for a new pilot Ben is not the guy. Meanwhile the Avengers have lost Thor. They lost giant man and they lost Iron Man.And they didn't, they replaced them with, we talked about this. They replaced them with a witch and a guy who runs fast and a guy who shoot bows and arrows, they have no strong man on the team. Right. It seems like a very natural fit. If they are calling up Ben Grimm and trying to recruit him right now, then they don't deserve to be in hr.Michael: You know what's funny? I would imagine that there would be some kind of between these groups have worked together before, right? And so I would imagine there would be some communication. So it almost looks like there's almost a trade going on. Not a formal trade, but, in a lot of ways, Ben has, The Thing has been a bit of an odd person to have on the Fantastic Four team, whereas in he seems like a natural fit with the Avengers. It's sort of like how so the fantastic, how so? What do you mean? Well, the Fantastic Four are kinda like these, what I would consider to be science adventures, right? They're not there brought in to, to feed the heavy physical hitters, they're actually there to solve, more challenging problems like, dealing with outer space and other dimensions, like science type problems require science type heroes. And that's why they're led by the scientists being Reed Richards. So they're more than math club.Edward: And if again, you're, you're like, if you look at the battles the Fantastic Four has have fought. They've been won not from Bran, but because Reed Richards came up with some master plan.Michael: That's right. And I think that it doesn't hurt to have a very strong person on the team, but you're right, it's more brain over bra. So they're like the math club, if we're using high school analogies. Whereas the adventures have always been kind of the football team, you know what I mean? Like, like they're more the jocks.Like they're not the nerds like the Fantastic four doing with science problems and coming up with science solutions. The adventures are more like the bruisers who are going in just going in and fighting the Hulk, you know? And, andEdward: I'm picturing Captain America, giving, Reed Richards a wedgie.Is that what you're saying?Michael: Yeah, but that's, that's what it seems to be. And soEdward: you can stretch, sir, but can your underwear stretch?Michael: So you think about it , it kind of makes sense that the Avengers need someone like Ben, like The Thing, number one and number two, it does make sense that someone like, say, Iron Man, who's a science hero when you think about it, invented his own suit or has this mechanical suit that allows him to fly through.Edward: Oh, we don't know that. Maybe there's some dude in there, someone else made the suit. He's just along for the ride.Michael: He might be, but if he isn't Ed, he might be another science genius that belongs on the science team. Just like giant man. I mean, maybe it's a fantastic five. We're looking at, you know, or Fantastic Six, where you get like Iron Man, giant man and the was, we were all kind of science-y kind of heroes I would say because they have science-y type costumes.They probably could add to the bench strength of the Fantastic Four. Just like Ben, The, Thing. Could add to the physical strength of the Avengers, which they've historically needed.Edward: Yeah, Reed, Richards scientist mind, he could probably improve on the shrinking and the growing technology and, I dunno, make them shrink even more. Make them grow even more. But we'll have giant man the size of a building next.Michael: Yeah. So while I'm disappointed that, something clearly happened within the Fantastic Four, I'm kind of excited about the idea of having a new shake up amongst the teams because, and especially if the shake up is along the lines that I think they will do, which makes a lot of sense to me. You know, when I think of the high school dynamics that I've articulated, Kind of exciting, isn't it?Edward: So who are the X-men then? Are the X-men the goths? Are they the weirdos, the outsiders? The guys smoking?Michael: That's right. They're the ones cut in class and out the smoking doors at recess.You know, they're not bad kids. They just misunderstood. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss the shocking loss of scientific skill among the country's top scientists. It clearly seems purposeful, but what is the purpose? Aliens trying to keep humanity from developing new technologies? A domestic test to take away targeted abilities from exceptional people? Will they be able to take away superpowers next? And if so, is it ethical? If we can't keep someone in prison, is the choice really between lobotomizing their abilities or capital punishment? What is the ethical choice? Ed and Mike disagree!Behind the issue:The after-effects of this issue result in Giant-Man unable to shrink smaller than a normal human for the remainder of his time in this title (which is ending soon and will be replaced with Namor. More on that when it happens!). Otherwise, nothing special here. In this issue:A guy is driving around town while being directed by a man in a hidden laboratory in a funny costume named the Supreme One. When the driver sees Giant-Man, he decides to zap him in a green ray, which causes Giant-Man to grow weak. This is because the ray is designed to steal power. The Supreme One becomes obsessed with stealing Giant-Man's power, as he was unable to do that the first time he had someone try. To that end, he has his minion drive around town bathing scientific geniuses in the green ray, stealing their next-level scientific abilities, i.e. a top physicists forgets everything he knows about physics, etc. Giant-Man and the Wasp investigate, eventually tracking down the Supreme One, who escapes in a spaceship (turns out he is an alien).In the second story in this issue, the Hulk fights the army in a foreign nation, and when he turns to Bruce Banner, he is captured by some locals. Major Talbot is sent in to rescue Bruce Banner, and the episode ends on a cliffhanger - will Talbot and Banner fall to their deaths as they escape? Tune in next week!Assumed before the next episode:People are wondering what is happening to all the smart people. They are getting … less smart? How does that make any sense?This episode takes place:After people learn of the de-smartening that is happening.Complete transcript:Edward: All right, Mike, we're gonna change it up this week. We're gonna change it up a little bit because I have a story I think we should be talking about that's not, well, maybe it is superhuman. The scientists around the world are losing their scientific abilitiesMichael: right?Edward: So these are top physicists who are losing the ability to do physics or top geneticists who can't do genetics anymore. Top chemists who can't do chemistry anymore. And their brains can still do everything else. They can still have conversations, they can still love their families, but they're losing their scientific abilities. And so I think this is a super thing. We don't know who's doing it or why, but it sounds superhuman.Michael: Okay, before we get to this superhuman, if they're superhuman. Not saying that what you're saying is thatEdward: No, I'm not saying human. It's a superhuman, some sort of superhuman thing. I don't think we know any scientific way to remove parts of knowledge from someone's brain like that feels like a superhuman thing.Michael: Right. So you're saying that there must be a purpose to it. This phenomena that's only targeting extremely intelligent and highly accomplished and specialized people like physicists. They're being targeted and their abilities are removed, which. Yeah, it doesn't sound normal.Edward: Um, well, it's never happened before, so therefore it is by definition, abnormal. Although it's abnormal, it's happening more and more now. So is it becoming normal? It's becoming normal. It was not normal, but now it is.Michael: It's normalized almost, and so normalized.So I guess the first question is, what's the purpose of it? So your first thing is that you're thinking that there's a super villain possibly, or an alien or something that is doing this for a reason. Right. In that it's making humanity weaker. It's making our ability to defend ourselves worse. Worse. Is that where you're kind of going on it,Edward: it sounds that way. Like, oh, you're right. Maybe it's a villain who's doing blackmail, but it seems purposeful. If it was a virus, That was just spreading around, right? And causing brain damage to people. First of all, that'd be terrifying, but secondly, it feels like that viruses don't work that way. The viruses wouldn't go and attack just the most intelligent top scientists in the world and just attack their scientific knowledge and leave everything else untouched. So you're right, it seems purposeful.Michael: And that's alarming because we know that in the last few years, in addition to what appears to be naturally occurring superhuman abilities and extraterrestrial or, paranormal, superhuman abilities, we have seen that there's been greater advances in technology, in science that have allowed humanity to reach new levels. So Iron, Man and other, you know, giant. Giant man have been able To create things that are just impossible they're fantastical. It's basically modern magic, the science that they've been able to wield so is this a preemptive attack, a taking away the ability of other people to create such modern miracles?Edward: Oh, you're right. Yeah, it could be stopping the creation of new superheroes. We know, if you look at the superheroes that are out there, a handful of them, like the X-Men seem to be that this people who are born with this weird gene that's being activated by something.But for most superheroes out there, or, super villain for that matter. It seems to be either, Some sort of science that science is doing it. That's right. Captain America is experimented on and turned into Captain America, like the Reed. Richards took fantastic four up into space and space stuff turned them into the Fantastic four. Sandman was like atomic research, whatever turned him into Sandman. So it feels, or to your point, Iron, Man and Giant Man was actually, or the porcupine, they're actually building technological wonders. And so if our top minds, the people who can like do the engineering, the people who can understand the atomic science are losing their ability to do that.Hey, maybe it is aliens. Maybe aliens are trying to put humans in their place and say, Hey, stay on the planet Earth. Stop leaving and stop developing powers.Michael: It's wild. It sounds paranoid, but at the same time it's starting to make a lot of sense. This will fundamentally weaken humanity. By taking our top scientists off the board. That's right. Quite frightening. That's right. But then the other part of it is leaving side the motivation which is alarming and I'm hopeful that say the Avengers or the various federal agencies are on top of this, you gotta wonder how they're doing it. Like how is it that they're doing almost micro lobotomies. Is it a technological basis for it or is it magical? How exactly are they doing it at all.Edward: You're right. Clearly, it's not something that anyone has done before, but someone has found a way to go and do, lobotomy is a good word. It's a very, it's like a targeted lobotomy. Because what's fascinating about this is it's not like these scientists are coming in with other brain damage. They're able to continue on their lives. Normally. They are still able to, whole jobs. Not even like they can't do normal stuff. They can do all the normal things. They just, it's like this piece of knowledge. They're cutting edge brain power and I don't even know if their intelligence was affected so much as their knowledge was affected. So if you're a scientist who's like really brilliant and spend 40 years of your life diving deep into physics, you're not gonna be able to spend another 40 years we just don't live long enough.Michael: It's quite a violation of their autonomy too. I don't want to discount that, but, however they're doing it, it's wild. And you gotta wonder if it's not some extraterrestrial kind of thing or some kind of super thing. What if it's actually a, just, it's something more domestic? We talked before about, What do you do with these super villains that you capture and have these amazing abilities? Like say, let's say Sue Storm turned into be a bad person and she has force fields and can turn Invisible. Like how do you deal with that and make, and IM prisoner if she was a villain, is this. Some technology that somehow got into the world where they've been experimenting on how to turn off abilities and it's got into the wrong hands and they're using it to turn off the abilities, for lack of a better term, of regular humans.Edward: If you're right, maybe it is just an experiment then, and they're testing to see if they can turn it on and off before they say, Hey, let's turn off the superpowers of. Sue Storm or Reed richards. Let's turn off the brain power of some physicists and you're right, if it doesn't work and they can't turn it back on again, that would be really bad. But not as bad as if we like turn off the superpowers of the Avengers because hey, that's irreplaceable.Michael: It does lead into to a consideration of like, how if this is like a deliberate thing that might be done by people on our side, say a government kind of project that got the wrong hands, that tells us I guess I've ever thought about the idea that turning off, say, superpowers is akin to a pure violation of a person's autonomy, right? It's more relatable in a way to basically make a very intelligent person, less intelligent in a particular area that is actually, it's so remarkably unethical, cuz it is effectively targeted Phlebotomy.Edward: Clearly whether it's just happening to Random intelligent people, it's unethical. But if we did this to get against the guy who was building the porcupine suit or the wizard who is like notoriously committing crimes and breaking outta prison and committing the frightful fore attacking the Fantastic four, if we just reduced his intelligence and stopped his ability to go and create these fantastic suits, I dunno, is that still unethical?Michael: I think so. Yeah. Yeah. It, definitely is it is a version of lobotomizing those intelligent people. We don't do that right now. There have been super intelligent people in history and if the choice is to build a better prison or to lobotomize somebody, you would choose you should choose to build a better prison.Edward: That's fair. And I guess I feel like we haven't really. On that route, far enough. We still are building these terrible prisons and allowing these criminals to escape again and again. But I guess let's go further. Remember there was the vanish. Do you remember the vanish, right?Yes, I did. So that's, yeah, so the vanger had the ability to teleport and, I'm not sure how he was dealt with, I assume, like we assumed at the time maybe that they just killed him. There was just a extra, judicial murder to take this guy out because otherwise what do you do?You can't put in prison someone who can teleport outta prison. He was teleport into the Oval Office. He was threatening the president. You, can't stop someone like that. And so if we had, if for the vanish or. Let's say what they had this ability to turn off his power. Or, and along the way it also turned off his ability to do complicated differential equations. It feels like that's a better alternative than allowing him to go free or a better alternative than murdering him.Michael: Yeah. But it's the same, you know, The Thing with ethics is that they're not relative. This goes to, the question I suppose, is the ability to have like a superhuman power, and you, if you remove that, is that the same as effectively doing a version of a targeted lobotomy? And I think the answer is yes. I mean, I think that the Vanger, even by basis of just looking at his name, He identifies, that's a core part of who he is.Edward: He enjoys vanishes, and if he stops vanishing, then who is he anymore?Michael: Well, exactly. And so to remove that from him,Edward: it's, I'm the talker. If you take away my, if you make me mute, who am I?I can't, I can't, I can't do The Thing that I do.Michael: But it, but it's the same thing, like, so it is the same thing removing an ability for somebody to solve differential equations as a top physicist is the same as taking away a person's ability to, in this case, do a unique thing, which is the ability to,Edward: so I'll grant you that, but the difference is, is that the guy doing the differential equations isn't trying to murder the president. It feels like that. Like that's the difference. You're right. I don't think we should go and find everybody who can teleport and then go and take away their abilities. That seems like a draconian a totalitarian government that would do something like that. But if there's somebody teleporting around murdering people, I think by all means we should stop that person. And if that means taking away their ability to teleport, I think so. Be it.Michael: I guess the question is, what is a worse and more abominable crime towards an individual or harm that you could cause them? Is it one to give them effectively a brain injury so that they are not the same person as they were before, because that's what you're doing if you turn up abilities. I think it's similar to making somebody less, less intelligent to like solve differential equations either argues the same as turning off their ability to do what they're born to do, which is teleport. So it's a better termEdward: to murder. I was born to murder precedents.Michael: Wait, so you either give them effectively a brain injury, so you actually violate what they are as a human at who they're as a person. Their core being or you killed them, is what you're saying. Or you build a better prison. Yeah. Yeah. And you're saying you handled a better prison. It's only two choices.Edward: That's right. That's right. So I think we are all agreed that if you can build a better prison, you build a better prison that feels like the right thing to do, I think. Mm-hmm. When you can't build a better prison, when you have someone like the vanish or the absorbing man who can, if you put him in a prison, whatever you. Put him in, he can absorb the strength of that thing and bust his way out. And so what do we do? The absorbing man, they set him into space to drift aimlessly for eternity. Like that seems worse. It feels like if you had a choice between, that's the worst one. Drifting through space for all eternity, or losing the ability to absorb the strength of materials around you. I think most of us would give up the ability to absorb, even if our name was the absorbing man. It feels like you can get a new name.Michael: Hey. They sit him down and say, listen, here are the two alternatives. We've been up all night thinking about the options here, and one is that we turn you into a race that'll float through the empty space forever, or we give you, effectively we change your brain chemistry. And I think that, historically, it's a pretty slippery slope when you start messing around with people's brains and changing who they are. I don't know what the right answer is, ed, but I have to say youEdward: really don't know the right answer. You really think that maybe the right answers to have 'em drift through space for all eternity.Michael: I don't know. You're forcing me to say that. I think it'd be better. I think it would probably be better to actually like, uh, And I'm against a death penalty. But that seems to be preferable to actually really lobotomize againstEdward: sin. Bomb the ball. No, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, imagine. So let's put you in that, those shoes. Okay? Now, Mike, you now have the ability to fly. You are flying, man, and you could fly around and so on. But you know what? You used that, you used that flying power for evil, and you started killing presidents. And so now they're like, Mikey, you need to go to jail. Unfortunately. This metaphor is falling apart because we could put a flying guy in jail. You,Michael: you put a, the ceiling solved the problem, ed.Edward: Okay, Mike, you have the ability, we're gonna use this vanish again. You can teleport Mike, you can now teleport everywhere and you're murdering people left, right, and center. Because you know what, maybe the teleporting also meant your brain go, went crazy, and the government comes to you and says, Hey Mike, we have two choices.We can take away your ability to teleport and you'll go back to being old Mike. Or we can murder you. Are you really, are you like, have you given that choice? Like you think the right choice is to murder you?Michael: Uh, it's, it's just such a hard It, it is. It's not hard. Murder. Murder is a problem. The slippery slope stuff is terrible.Eddie, you're actually,Edward: yeah. But one of them, one of them has a slippery slope. The other one is a giant hole of death.Michael: You know what I think because,Edward: you can recover from a slippery slope, you can't recover from a murder.Michael: Eddie, I'm a lawyer. I'm not a judge. I'm not making that call right now. But you're, but clearly I know where it goes with you. You'd be like, take away my ability. Give lobotomize me so that I don't go out and vanish anymore and I'll live the rest of my life.Having you having fundamentally changed what, who I am as a person? Yes. Yes. How is that any different than Lobotomizing people that. The state didn't, consider to be, desirable?Edward: Well, we've already, I think the difference is, is we've agreed that you are only doing this as a last ditch effort. We're not saying, Hey, you're a murderer, a normal murderer who like walks around with knives and guns. We'll just take the knives and guns away from you. Even though you call yourself gunman and you define yourself by using guns, we're gonna take away the guns. And then, and you're like, oh, but I can't be gunman without guns.Well, too bad you're no longer gunman. You are now just man, and we're gonna put you in a jail. And that jail is not gonna give you access to guns and that's the preferred choice. But if you can't, but if you can't put them in the jail, you need another choice. And the second choice should not be killing them indiscriminately.Michael: So I guess the problem and hear me out on the slippery slope, but like if the technology is developed and you can use it on these, in these extreme situations, my fear is that you use them. Even if you could rationalize that, you would use them in more mundane situations where all prisoners, all people convicted of violent crimes are now gonna get, effectively get a lobotomy because it's safer.Because you can't keep them in prison forever. Or if you do, the prisons are unsafe, et cetera. There's gonna be a rationalization for actually using this technology to effectively lobotomize them too. So it won't be limited, I'm afraid to this very unique situation that. The teleporters of the world. I wish we know there's one. And it could extend and it could, it would extend what I consider to be an abomination throughout. Oh, again, you're worried Our society.Edward: Well, maybe we just put in rules in place that the person needs to choose to have this. We just get to a certain point where it's like, Hey, you can choose to be lobotomized or murdered, and if you prefer murder, we can do that for you.The state's really good at murdering people.Michael: I think it's what, I think one of those, that's what they consider to be actually not a real choice. Ed, I thinkEdward: know that's the point is, but like, we're stuck at this point where we have to choose the choice. We don't give them three choices if it's not like we can take away your powers, murder you or put you in a jail that you can escape from in two seconds. Which do you choose now? Well, clearly the guy just escapes from jail and so that's not an acceptable choice for our society. We need to stop the vanger and people like him from murdering people. And so far it seems like what we're doing is we're just murdering. We murdered the vanger and we sent the absorbing man into space. And this molecule, man, we don't know what happened to him. These people who are extremely powerful. They seem to just be disappearing and we're not talking about it. That is the slippery slope. And so this is a way to reduce the murdering this against villains.Michael: Well, if I had to guess. I suppose the murder's been working out. At least that's what's been happening and I think it's unfortunate. I think it's horrific. And so what I hope will happen is that maybe if the government is secretly funding this research into this technology, maybe they should direct their attention. Towards better prisons that would solve the problem and avoid these thorny issues. That, that you're pushing on me.Edward: Teleportation proof prisons. That's the next scientific achievement. Read Richards. Go do it.Michael: Send them to Asgard Ed. We know that they must have their, they're superpowered.God's like Thor. They must have the technology up there to deal with strange, unique powers. Let's, let's, let's start talking about that.Edward: Vanisher, get off Earth. Go murder Odin. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

Michael Isbitski, Director of Cybersecurity Strategy at Sysdig, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss the nuances of an effective cybersecurity strategy. Michael explains that many companies are caught between creating a strategy that's truly secure and one that's merely compliant and within the bounds of cost-effectiveness, and what can be done to help balance the two aims more effectively. Corey and Michael also explore what it means to hire for transferrable skills in the realm of cybersecurity and tech, and Michael reveals that while there's no such thing as a silver-bullet solution for cybersecurity, Sysdig can help bridge many gaps in a company's strategy. About MichaelMike has researched and advised on cybersecurity for over 5 years. He's versed in cloud security, container security, Kubernetes security,  API security, security testing, mobile security, application protection, and secure continuous delivery. He's guided countless organizations globally in their security initiatives and supporting their business.Prior to his research and advisory experience, Mike learned many hard lessons on the front lines of IT with over twenty years of practitioner and leadership experience focused on application security, vulnerability management, enterprise architecture, and systems engineering.Links Referenced: Sysdig: https://sysdig.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-isbitski/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Tailscale SSH is a new, and arguably better way to SSH. Once you've enabled Tailscale SSH on your server and user devices, Tailscale takes care of the rest. So you don't need to manage, rotate, or distribute new SSH keys every time someone on your team leaves. Pretty cool, right? Tailscale gives each device in your network a node key to connect to your VPN, and uses that same key for SSH authorization and encryption. So basically you're SSHing the same way that you're already managing your network.So what's the benefit? Well, built-in key rotation, the ability to manage permissions as code, connectivity between any two devices, and reduced latency. You can even ask users to re-authenticate SSH connections for that extra bit of security to keep the compliance folks happy. Try Tailscale now - it's free forever for personal use.Corey: Do you wish your developers had less permanent access to AWS? Has the complexity of Amazon's reference architecture for temporary elevated access caused you to sob uncontrollably? With Sym, you can protect your cloud infrastructure with customizable, just-in-time access workflows that can be setup in minutes. By automating the access request lifecycle, Sym helps you reduce the scope of default access while keeping your developers moving quickly. Say goodbye to your cloud access woes with Sym. Go to symops.com/corey to learn more. That's S-Y-M-O-P-S.com/coreyCorey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud, I'm Corey Quinn. I periodically find myself in something of a weird spot when it comes to talking about security. I spent a lot of my time in previous lives having to care about it, but the word security was never in my job title. That's who my weekly podcast on the AWS Morning Brief and the accompanying newsletter goes out to: it's people who have to care about security but don't have it as part of their job title. They just want to know what's going on without all of the buzzwords.This promoted guest episode is brought to us by our friends at Sysdig and my guest is Mike Isbitski, Director of Cybersecurity Strategy at Sysdig. Mike, thanks for joining me.Michael: Thanks, Corey. Yeah, it's great to be here.Corey: So, you've been at Sysdig for a little bit, but your history is fascinating to me. You were at Gartner, which on the one hand would lead someone to think, “Oh okay, you talk about this stuff a lot, but might not have been particularly hands-on,” but that's not true. Either. You have a strong background as a practitioner, but not directly security-focused. Is that right?Michael: Yeah. Yeah, that is correct. I can certainly give the short version of the history lesson [laugh]. It is true, yes. As a Gartner analyst, you don't always get as hands-on, certainly talking to practitioners and leaders from all walks of life, different industries, different company sizes, and organization sizes.But yeah, as a Gartner analyst, I was in a different division that was much more technical. So, for me personally, I did actually try to tinker a lot: set up Docker, deploy Kubernetes clusters, all that fun stuff. But yeah, prior to my life, as an analyst, I was a practitioner, a security leader for close to 20 years at Verizon so, saw quite a bit. And actually started as enterprise architect building, kind of, systems and infrastructure to support all of those business needs, then I kind of transitioned over to application security towards the tail end of that career at Verizon.Corey: And one of the things that I find that I enjoy doing is talking with folks in positions like yours, the folks who did not come to the cybersecurity side of the world from a pure strategy advisory sense, but have been hands-on with these things at varying points in our careers, just because otherwise I feel like I'm sort of coming at this from a very different world. When I walk around the RSA show floor, I am consistently confronted by people trying to sell me the same dozen products over and over again with different words and different branding, but it seems like it's all buzzwords aimed from security people who are deep in the weeds to other security people who are deep in the weeds and it's just presumed that everyone knows what they're talking about already. And obviously worse. I'm not here to tell them that they're going about their business wrong, but for smaller companies, SMBs, folks who have to care about security but don't know the vernacular in the same way and don't have sophisticated security apparatus at their companies, it feels like a dense thicket of impenetrable buzzwords.Michael: Yes. Very, very fair assessment, [laugh] I would say. So, I'd say my life as an analyst was a lot of lengthy conversations. I guess a little bit of the secret behind analyst inquiry, I mean, a lot of times, they are hour-long conversations, sometimes multiple sets of them. But yeah, it's very true, right?There's a lot of nuance to how you work with technology and how you build things, but then also how you secure it, it's very hard to, kind of, condense that, you know, hours of conversation and many pages of documentation down into some bite-size nuggets that marketers might run with. So, I try to kind of live in that in-between world where I can kind of explain deep technology problems and business realities, and kind of explain that in more common language to people. Sometimes it's easier said than done when you're speaking it as opposed to writing it. But yeah, that's kind of where I tried to bring my skills and experience.Corey: It's a little counterintuitive to folks coming out from the other side, I suspect. For me, at least the hardest part of getting into the business of cloud cost optimization the way that I do with the Duckbill Group was learning to talk. Where I come from a background of heavy on the engineering and operations side, but being able to talk to business stakeholders who do not particularly care what a Kubernetes might be, is critical. You have to effectively be able to speak to different constituencies, sometimes in the same conversation, without alienating the rest of them. That was the hard part for me.Michael: Yeah, that's absolutely true and I certainly ran into that quite a bit as an enterprise architect at Verizon. There's kind of really need to work to identify, like, what is the business need. And typically, that is talking to the stakeholders, you know, what are they trying to achieve? They might not even know that, right, [laugh] because not everybody is very structured in how they think about the problem you're trying to solve. And then what is their daily workflow?And then you kind of arrive at the technology. I'd say, a common pitfall for anybody, right, Whether you're an engineer or a security practitioner is to kind of start with the technology or the solution and then try to force that on people, right? “Here's your solution to the problem that maybe you didn't know you had.” [laugh]. It kind of should work in reverse, right? What's the actual business need? What's your workflow? And what's the appropriate technology for that, right?Whether it's right-sizing the infrastructure or a particular type of functionality or protection, all those things, right? So, very similar kind of way of approaching the problem. It's just what you're trying to solve but [laugh] I've definitely seen that, kind of, Kubernetes is all the rage, right, or service mesh. Like, everybody needs to start deploying Istio, and you really should be asking the question—Corey: Oh, it's all resume-driven development.Michael: Yep, exactly. Yeah. It's kind of the new kid on the block, right? Let's push out this cool new technology and then problems be damned, right?Corey: I'm only half-kidding on that. I've talked to folks who are not running those types of things and they said that it is a bit of a drag on their being able to attract talent.Michael: Yeah, it's—you know, I mean, it's newer technologies, right, so it can be hard to find them, right, kind of unicorn status. I used to talk quite a bit in advisory calls to find DevOps practitioners that were kind of full-stack. That's tricky.Corey: I always wonder if it's possible to find them, on some level.Michael: Yeah. And it's like, well, can you find them and then when you do find them, can you afford them?Corey: Oh, yeah. What I'm seeing in these other direction, though, is people who are making, you know, sensible technology choices where you actually understand what lives were without turning it into a murder mystery where you need to hire a private investigator to track it down. Those are the companies that are having trouble hiring because it seems that an awful lot of the talent, or at least a significant subset of it, want to have the latest and greatest technologies on their resume on their next stop. Which, I'm not saying they're wrong for doing that, but it is a strange outcome that I wasn't quite predicting.Michael: Yeah. No, it is very true, I definitely see that quite a bit in tech sector. I've run into it myself, even with the amount of experience I have and skills. Yeah, companies sometimes get in a mode where they're looking for very specific skills, potentially even products or technologies, right? And that's not always the best way to go about it.If you understand concepts, right, with technology and systems engineering, that should translate, right? So, it's kind of learning the new syntax, or semantics, working with a framework or a platform or a piece of technology.Corey: One of the reasons that I started the security side of what I do on the newsletter piece, and it caught some people by surprise, but the reason I did it was because I have always found that, more or less, security and cost are closely aligned spiritually, if nothing else. They're reactive problems and they don't, in the general sense, get companies one iota closer to the business outcome they're chasing, but it's something you have to do, like buying fire insurance for the building. You can spend infinite money on those things, but it doesn't advance. It's all on the defensive, reactive side. And you tend to care about these things a lot right after you failed to care about them sufficiently. Does that track at all from your experience?Michael: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I'm just kind of flashing back to some war stories at Verizon, right? It was… I'd say very common that, once you've kind of addressed, well, these are the business problems we want to solve for and we're off to the races, right, we're going to build this cool thing. And then you deploy it, right [laugh], and then you forgot to account for backup, right? What's your disaster recovery plan? Do you have logging in place? Are you monitoring the thing effectively? Are your access controls accounted for?All those, kind of, tangential processes, but super-critical, right, when you think about, kind of, production systems, like, they have to be in place. So, it's absolutely true, right, and it's kind of definitely for just general availability, you need to be thinking about these things. And yeah, they almost always translate to that security piece of it as well, right, particularly with all the regulations that organizations are impacted with today. You really need to be thinking about, kind of, all these pieces of the puzzle, not just hey, let's build this thing and get it on running infrastructure and we're done with our work.Corey: A question that I've got for you—because I'm seeing a very definite pattern emerging tied to the overall macro environment, now, where after a ten-year bull run, suddenly a bunch of companies are discovering, holy crap, money means something again, where instead of being able to go out and gets infinite money, more or less, to throw at an AWS bill, suddenly, oh, that's a big number, and we have no idea what's in it. We should care about that. So, almost overnight, we've seen people suddenly caring about their bill. How are you seeing security over the past year or so? Has there been a similar awareness around that or has that not really been tied to the overall macro-cycle?Michael: Very good question, yeah. So unfortunately, security's often an afterthought, right, just like, kind of those things that support availability—probably going to get a little bit better ranking because it's going to support your customers and employees, so you're going to get budget and headcount to support that. Security, usually in the pecking order, is below that, right, which is unfortunate because [laugh] there can be severe repercussions with that, such as privacy impacts, or data breach, right, lost revenue, all kinds of things. But yeah, typically, security has been undercut, right? You're always seeking headcount, you need more budget.So, security teams tend to look to delegate security process out, right? So, you kind of see a lot of DevOps programs, like, can we empower engineers to run some of these processes and tooling, and then security, kind of, becomes the overseer. So, we see a lot of that where can we kind of have people satisfy some of these pieces. But then with respect to, like, security budgets, it is often security tools consolidation because a lot organizations tend to have a lot of things, right? So, security leaders are looking to scale that back, right, so they can work more effectively, but then also cut costs, which is definitely true these days in the current macroeconomic environment.Corey: I'm curious as well, to see what your take is on the interplay between cost and security. And what I mean by that is, I did the numbers once, and if you were to go into an AWS native environment, ignore third-party vendors for a second, just configure all of the AWS security services in your account, so the way that best practices dictate that you should, you're pretty quickly going to end up in a scenario where the cost of that outweighs that of the data breach that you're ostensibly trying to prevent. So—Michael: Yes.Corey: It's an infinite money pit that you can just throw everything into. So, people care about security, but they also care about cost. Plus, let's be very direct here, you can spend all the money on security and still lose. How do companies think about that now?Michael: A lot of leaders will struggle with, are we trying to be compliant or are we trying to be secure? Because those can be very different conversations and solutions to the problem. I mean, ideally, everybody would pursue that perfect model of security, right, enable all the things, but that's not necessarily cost-effective to do that. And so, most organizations and most security teams are going to prioritize their risks, right? So, they'll start to carve out, maybe these are all our internet-facing applications, these are the business-critical ones, so we're going to allocate more security focus to them and security spend, so [maybe we will be turn up 00:13:20] more security services to protect those things and monitor them.Then [laugh], unfortunately, you can end up with a glut of maybe internal applications or non-critical things that just don't get that TLC from security, unfortunately, for security teams, but fortunate for attackers, those things become attack targets, right? So, they don't necessarily care how you've prioritized your controls or your risk. They're going to go for the low-hanging fruit. So, security teams have always struggled with that, but it's very true. Like, in a cloud environment like AWS, yeah, if you start turning everything up, be prepared for a very, very costly cloud expense bill.Corey: Yeah, in my spare time, I'm working on a project that I was originally going to open-source, but I realized if I did it, it would cause nothing but pain and drama for everyone, of enabling a whole bunch of AWS misconfiguration options, given a set of arbitrary credentials, that just effectively try to get the high score on the bill. And it turned out that my early tests were way more successful than anticipated, and instead, I'm just basically treating it as a security vulnerability reporting exercise, just because people don't think about this in quite the same way. And again, it's not that these tools are necessarily overpriced; it's not that they aren't delivering value. It's that in many cases, it is unexpectedly expensive when they bill across dimensions that people are not aware of. And it's one of those everyone's aware of that trap the second time type of situations.It's a hard problem. And I don't know that there's a great way to answer it. I don't think that AWS is doing anything untoward here; I don't think that they're being intentionally malicious around these things, but it's very vast, very complex, and nobody sees all of it.Michael: Very good point, yes. Kind of, cloud complexity and ephemeral nature of cloud resources, but also the cost, right? Like, AWS isn't in the business of providing free service, right? Really, no cloud provider is. They are a business, right, so they want to make money on Cloud consumption.And it's interesting, I remember, like, the first time I started exploring Kubernetes, I did deploy clusters in cloud providers, so you can kind of tinker and see how these things work, right, and they give you some free credits, [a month of credit 00:15:30], to kind of work with this stuff. And, you know, if you spin up a [laugh] Kubernetes cluster with very bare bones, you're going to chew through that probably within a day, right? There's a lot of services in it. And that's even with defaults, which includes things like minimal, if anything, with respect to logging. Which is a problem, right, because then you're going to miss general troubleshooting events, but also actual security events.So, it's not necessarily something that AWS could solve for by turning everything up, right, because they are going to start giving away services. Although I'm starting to see some tide shifts with respect to cybersecurity. The Biden administration just released their cybersecurity strategy that talks about some of this, right? Like, should cloud providers start assuming more of the responsibility and accountability, potentially just turning up logging services? Like, why should those be additional cost to customers, right, because that's really critical to even support basic monitoring and security monitoring so you can report incidents and breaches.Corey: When you look across what customers are doing, you have a different problem than I do. I go in and I say, “Oh, I fixed the horrifying AWS bill.” And then I stop talking and I wait. Because if people [unintelligible 00:16:44] to that, “Ooh, that's a problem for us,” great. We're having a conversation.If they don't, then there's no opportunity for my consulting over in that part of the world. I don't have to sit down and explain to people why their bill is too high or why they wouldn't want it to be they intrinsically know and understand it or they're honestly not fit to be in business if they can't make a strategic evaluation of whether or not their bill is too high for what they're doing. Security is very different, especially given how vast it is and how unbounded the problem space is, relatively speaking. You have to first educate customers in some ways before attempting to sell them something. How do you do that without, I guess, drifting into the world of FUD where, “Here are all the terrible things that could happen. The solution is to pay me.” Which in many cases is honest, but people have an aversion to it.Michael: Yeah. So, that's how I feel [laugh] a lot of my days here at Sysdig. So, I do try to explain, kind of, these problems in general terms as opposed to just how Sysdig can help you solve for it. But you know, in reality, it is larger strategic challenges, right, there's not necessarily going to be one tool that's going to solve all your problems, the silver bullet, right, it's always true. Yes, Sysdig has a platform that can address a lot of cloud security-type issues, like over-permissioning or telling you what are the actual exploitable workloads in your environment, but that's not necessarily going to help you with, you know, if you have a regulator breathing down your neck and wants to know about an incident, how do you actually relay that information to them, right?It's really just going to help surface event data, stitch things together, that now you have to carry that over to that person or figure out within your organization who's handling that. So, there is kind of this larger piece of, you know, governance risk and compliance, and security tooling helps inform a lot of that, but yeah, every organization is, kind of, have to answer to [laugh] those authorities, often within their own organization, but it could also be government authorities.Corey: Part of the challenge as well is that there's—part of it is tooling, absolutely, but an awful lot of it is a people problem where you have these companies in the security space talking about a variety of advanced threats, of deeply sophisticated attackers that are doing incredibly arcane stuff, and then you have the CEO yelling about what they're doing on a phone call in the airport lounge and their password—which is ‘kitty' by the way—is on a Post-It note on their laptop for everyone to see. It feels like it's one of those, get the basic stuff taken care of first, before going down the path to increasingly arcane attacks. There's an awful lot of vectors to wind up attacking an infrastructure, but so much of what we see from data breaches is simply people not securing S3 buckets, as a common example. It's one of those crawl, walk, run types of stories. For what you do, is there a certain level of sophistication that companies need to get to before what you offer starts to bear fruit?Michael: Very good question, right, and I'd start with… right, there's certainly an element of truth that we're lagging behind on some of the security basics, right, or good security hygiene. But it's not as simple as, like, well, you picked a bad password or you left the port exposed, you know? I think certainly security practitioners know this, I'd even put forth that a lot of engineers know it, particularly if they're been trained more recently. There's been a lot of work to promote security awareness, so we know that we should provide IDs and passwords of sufficient strength, don't expose things you shouldn't be doing. But what tends to happen is, like, as you build monitoring systems, they're just extremely complex and distributed.Not to go down the weeds with app designs, with microservices architecture patterns, and containerized architectures, but that is what happens, right, because the days of building some heavyweight system in the confines of a data center in your organization, those things still do happen, but that's not typically how new systems are being architected. So, a lot of the old problems still linger, there's just many more instances of it and it's highly distributed. So it, kind of, the—the problem becomes very amplified very quickly.Corey: That's, I think, on some level, part of the challenge. It's worse in some ways that even the monitoring and observability space where, “All right, we have 15 tools that we're using right now. Why should we talk to yours?” And the answer is often, “Because we want to be number 16.” It's one of those stories where it winds up just adding incremental cost. And by cost, I don't just mean money; I mean complexity on top of these things. So, you folks are, of course, sponsoring this episode, so the least I can do is ask you, where do you folks start and stop? Sysdig: you do a lot of stuff. What's the sweet spot?Michael: Yeah, I mean, there's a few, right, because it is a larger platform. So, I often talk in terms of full lifecycle security, right? And a lot of organizations will split their approaches. We'll talk about shift left, which is really, let's focus very heavily on secure design, let's test all the code and all the artifacts prior to delivering that thing, try to knock out all quality issues, right, for kind of that general IT, but also security problems, which really should be tracked as quality issues, but including those things like vulnerabilities and misconfigs. So, Sysdig absolutely provides that capability that to satisfy that shift left approach.And Sysdig also focuses very heavily on runtime security or the shield right side of the equation. And that's, you know, give me those capabilities that allow me to monitor all types of workloads, whether they're virtual machines, or containers, serverless abstractions like Fargate because I need to know what's going on everywhere. In the event that there is a potential security incident or breach, I need all that information so I can actually know what happened or report that to a regulatory authority.And that's easier said than done, right? Because when you think about containerized environments, they are very ephemeral. A container might spin up a tear down within minutes, right, and if you're not thinking about your forensics and incident response processes, that data is going to be lost [unintelligible 00:23:10] [laugh]. You're kind of shooting yourself in the foot that way. So yeah, Sysdig kind of provides that platform to give you that full range of capabilities throughout the lifecycle.Corey: I think that that is something that is not fully understood in a lot of cases. I remember a very early Sysdig, I don't know if it was a demo or what exactly it was, I remember was the old Heavybit space in San Francisco, where they came out, it was, I believe, based on an open-source project and it was still taking the perspective, isn't this neat? It gives you really in-depth insight into almost a system-call level of what it is the system is doing. “Cool. So, what's the value proposition for this?”It's like, “Well, step one, be an incredibly gifted engineer when it comes to systems internals.” It's like, “Okay, I'll be back in five years. What's step two?” It's like, “We'll figure it out then.” Now, the story has gone up the stack. It originally felt a little bit like it was a solution in search of a problem. Now, I think you have found that problem, you have clearly hit product-market fit. I see you folks in the wild in many of my customer engagements. You are doing something very right. But it was neat watching, like, it's almost for me, I turned around, took my eye off the ball for a few seconds and it went from, “We have no idea of what we're doing” to, “We know exactly what we're doing.” Nice work.Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Corey. Yeah, and there's quite a history with Sysdig in the open-source community. So, one of our co-founders, Loris Degioanni, was one of the creators of Wireshark, which some of your listeners may be familiar with.So, Wireshark was a great network traffic inspection and observability tool. It certainly could be used by, you know, just engineers, but also security practitioners. So, I actually used it quite a bit in my days when I would do pen tests. So, a lot of that design philosophy carried over to the Sysdig open source. So, you're absolutely correct.Sysdig open source is all about gathering that sys-call data on what is happening at that low level. But it's just one piece of the puzzle, exactly as you described. The other big piece of open-source that Sysdig does provide is Falco, which is kind of a threat detection and response engine that can act on all of those signals to tell you, well, what is actually happening is this potentially a malicious event? Is somebody trying to compromise the container runtime? Are they trying to launch a suspicious process? So that those pieces are there under the hood, right, and then Sysdig Secure is, kind of, the larger platform of capabilities that provide a lot of the workflow, nice visualizations, all those things you kind of need to operate at scale when you're supporting your systems and security.Corey: One thing that I do find somewhat interesting is there's always an evolution as companies wind up stumbling through the product lifecycle, where originally it starts off as we have an idea around one specific thing. And that's great. And for you folks, it feels like it was security. Then it started changing a little bit, where okay, now we're going to start doing different things. And I am very happy with the fact right now that when I look at your site, you have two offerings and not two dozen, like a number of other companies tend to. You do Sysdig Secure, which is around the security side of the world, and Sysdig Monitor, which is around the observability side of the world. How did that come to be?Michael: Yeah, it's a really good point, right, and it's kind of in the vendor space [laugh], there's also, like, chasing the acronyms. And [audio break 00:26:41] full disclosure, we are guilty of that at times, right, because sometimes practitioners and buyers seek those things. So, you have to kind of say, yeah, we checked that box for CSPM or CWPP. But yeah, it's kind of talking more generally to organizations and how they operate their businesses, like, that's more well-known constructs, right? I need to monitor this thing or I need to get some security. So, lumping into those buckets helps that way, right, and then you turn on those capabilities you need to support your environment, right?Because you might not be going full-bore into a containerized environment, and maybe you're focusing specifically on the runtime pieces and you're going to, kind of, circle back on security testing in your build pipeline. So, you're only going to use some of those features at the moment. So, it is kind of that platform approach to addressing that problem.Corey: Oh, I would agree. I think that one of the challenges I still have around the observability space—which let's remind people, is hipster monitoring; I don't care what other people say. That's what it is—is that it is depressingly tied to a bunch of other things. To this day, the only place to get a holistic view of everything in your AWS account in every region is the bill. That somehow has become an observability tool. And that's ridiculous.On the other side of it, I have had several engagements that inadvertently went from, “We're going to help optimize your cost,” to, “Yay. We found security incidents.” I don't love a lot of these crossover episodes we wind up seeing, but it is the nature of reality where security, observability, and yes, costs all seem to tie together to some sort of unholy triumvirate. So, I guess the big question is when does Sysdig launch a cost product?Michael: Well, we do have one [laugh], specifically for—Corey: [laugh]. Oh, events once again outpace me.Michael: [laugh]. But yeah, I mean, you touched on this a few times in our discussion today, right? There's heavy intersections, right, and the telemetry you need to gather, right, or the log data you need to gather to inform monitoring use cases or security use cases, a lot of the times that telemetry is the same set of data, it's just you're using it for different purposes. So, we actually see this quite commonly where Sysdig customers might pursue, Monitor or Secure, and then they actually find that there's a lot of value-add to look at the other pieces.And it goes both ways, right? They might start with the security use cases and then they find, well, we've over-allocated on our container environments and we're over-provisioning in Kubernetes resources, so all right, that's cool. We can actually reduce costs that could help create more funding to secure more hosts or more workloads in an environment, right? So it's, kind of, show me the things I'm doing wrong on this side of the equation, whether that's general IT security problems and then benefit the other. And yeah, typically we find that because things are so complex, yeah, you're over-permissioning you're over-allocating, it's just very common, rights? Kubernetes, as amazing as it can be or is, it's really difficult to operate that in practice, right? Things can go off the rails very, very quickly.Corey: I really want to thank you for taking time to speak about how you see the industry and the world. If people want to learn more, where's the best place for them to find you?Michael: Yes, thanks, Corey. It's really been great to be here and talk with you about these topics. So, for me personally, you know, I try to visit LinkedIn pretty regularly. Probably not daily but, you know, at least once a week, so please, by all means, if you ever have questions, do contact me. I love talking about this stuff.But then also on Sysdig, sysdig.com, I do author content on there. I speak regularly in all types of event formats. So yeah, you'll find me out there. I have a pretty unique last name. And yeah, that's kind of it. That's the, I'd say the main sources for me at the moment. Don't fall for the other Isbitski; that's actually my brother, who does work for AWS.Corey: [laugh]. That's okay. There's no accounting for family, sometimes.Michael: [laugh].Corey: I kid, I kid. Okay, great company. Great work. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.Michael: Thank you, Corey.Corey: Mike Isbitski, Director of Cybersecurity Strategy at Sysdig. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this has been a promoted guest episode brought to us by our friends at Sysdig. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry, insulting comment from your place, which is no doubt expensive, opaque, and insecure, hitting all three points of that triumvirate.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

Sean: Now that you opened this topic where we are moving towards a more emotional world today, what do you think drives this being this more emotional population? I mean, we are, you know, especially here in the Philippines where like 90% of the population are Facebook users. Sean: And if there's a voting contest in the Philippines, can you be sure that everyone's voting? So what do you think drives this movement towards being more emotional as a global population? Is it social media? Is it because we can, you know, let out on social media or can be honest and we can put out our opinion there? Michael: Yeah, there's I'll give you two answers, Sean. So the first comes from numerology, astrology, you know, kind of Hindu beliefs, right at its core, which is Earth moved in 2012 from what's referred to as the age of Pisces into the Age of Aquarius Michael: And so this is a very energetic, a very quantum-level transition that Earth is going through. So if anybody listening, or watching wants to explore, just type in Age of Aquarius into your search engine and learn about the shifts and the changes that are happening on Earth as a result, that'll be very helpful. Michael: Number two, in a more business sense, is that when the lockdowns and the stay-at-home orders started in March of 2020 around the world from COVID, 2020 and 2021 were a time of astronomical change for humanity because everybody's habits and routines and rituals were changed almost overnight. Right. Because they weren't able to go to an office, their kids didn't go to school. So families. Right. Were forced to homeschool kids. Michael: So this year, 2022, we started to see people integrate those emotions and they've become better at being okay with the change in their way. So what we're seeing now and we're going to continue to see into next year is a much more proactive assertion of people living life the way that they want to. Michael: So you're going to see fewer big companies and you're going to see smaller companies and more entrepreneurship and more solopreneurs. You're going to see a big shift to that because people learned in 2020 and 2021 that they could do it right, because before they only thought that they could work for someone else and be safe. Michael: But they had two years of transformation and change and high emotion like, Oh, I can do this for myself. I can be like Sean or I can be like Michael. Yeah, right. And now they want to, yeah. So you're going to see a big transition through the remainder of this year and into 2023 where people are much more proactive at going after what they want and standing in their truth, standing in their authenticity because they want to live a life 100% under their terms, on their terms. Michael: So Astrologically Earth moved from the age of Pisces into the Age of Aquarius, but in 2020, 2021, as a result of stay-at-home orders and the pandemic, people learned through emotion that they could change. And when they learned that, they started to realize, I don't like this part of my life. I want it to be this way. I want to change this part of my life to be this way. So they're changing gyms. They're changing employers as some people are changing spouses, right? They're moving to different places. So there are a lot of things that are changing because people now believe that they can. - - - Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/ - - - Michael Seaver Website: https://michaelsseaver.com Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelsseaver Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaelsseaver/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelScottSeaver/

Next week is our 200th episode! It was fortunate timing that it ended up landing right on our episodes about Avengers #16, which was one of the most important issues of the era. If you are enjoying What If Marvel was Real?, now would be a great time to spread the word! Thanks for your help in getting our little show out there, and for all the listeners who have been here from the beginning.In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss the surprise announcement that Hawkeye, the supervillain, will be joining the Avengers as a new member. The Federal Security Agency has given Hawkeye a thumbs up, but how is that possible? What do they know that we do not? Do we need to talk conspiracies again? The rumors are that Captain America and Thor are out of the organization. If true, we will only be left with heroes with technological powers - have the people behind the technology (and masks) been replaced? Is this the end of an era?Behind the issue:This is one of the key issues of the mid-60s. The Avengers were originally Marvel's answer to the Justice League, whereby the publisher put all the heroes from different titles into one book to get the readers excited and turning over their hard-earned cash for tales of camaraderie and adventure. But the individual hero titles continued, and Stan had to keep his developing Marvel universe consistent. He had to juggle the storylines in, say, the individual title Tales of Suspense with what was happening in the team title Avengers. If Thor had been called away to Asgard, then how would be be around for an Avengers adventure that same month? Making it all make sense every month was challenging for Stan, and he wanted a solution.The answer was to take most of the heroes with their own titles off the team. He kept Captain America, and maybe rationalized it by knowing that the Captain America stand-alone stories could be set back in World War II whenever he wanted them to be. Then he filled in the rest of the team with supporting characters from other titles - characters who did not have their own books (and would not get their own books for many years, i.e. Hawkeye did not get his first solo title until 1983; Scarlet Witch, with Vision, until 1982; and Quicksilver until 1997).In this issue:The issue opens with the Avengers once again emerging victorious over the Masters of Evil in New York, with Captain America defeating Baron Zemo in South America. It continues with Iron Man, Giant-Man, and the Wasp in New York having a team meeting and deciding to take a break from being on the team. At the same time they are having the meeting, Hawkeye breaks into their headquarters and asks to join the Avengers. His beloved Black Widow has been murdered by her employers behind the iron curtain, and he has had a change of heart on his line of work. The team decide to take him up on the offer, and on top of that, seek out new potential teammates, with the papers reporting this initiative. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver decide to apply to join the team, and they are admitted to the ranks as well. By the time Captain America returns, the team has been completed reconstituted, with Iron Man, Giant-Man, and the Wasp out, and Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch in as their replacements.Assumed before the next episode:People are excited, and a little nervous, that the Avengers roster has been changed so completely.This episode takes place:After the announcement that Hawkeye will be on the team, but before Captain America returns from South America.Full transcript:Edward: Mike, I told you that Hawkeye was a superhero. I told you. I told you. You were like, oh no, he's not that good. He can't even fight anybody just as Arrows. Oh, go back to the 14th century. But no. Now Hawkeye is an Avenger. Mike. He's an avenger.Michael: Yeah. I guess the Avengers, they already had a man who's basically a one man rocket and can shoot energy from his fists as an Iron man. They needed to get somebody who could. Arrows on the team.Edward: Hey. The last time Hawkeye faced Iron Man, first of all, last time he faced Iron Man, he was a villain. We should talk about that. But when he did, yes, he defeated Iron Man, right? He blasted him with his energy discharge arrow and took him out. So, hey, this guy is versatile. We've had this debate. We don't need to debate it again. I think you are against Team Hawkeye. I am on Team Hawkeye. I think that it's absolutely fine from a power perspective that he's on the team. I'm not sure from a, ethics perspective, he's the red venture.Michael: Well, okay, let's break into, those two points then. So from a powerless perspective there must be something to him that he brings into the team, right? I can't imagine that it's solely just really good aim. There must be some other, maybe he's got some other ability that like he's, um, some kind of likeEdward: oh, maybe his really, maybe his really good eyesight. HawkeyeMichael: In the name, I mean alone, but he's got, there's some kind of, maybe, I'm just thinking maybe this is a signal that the Avengers are going from less, overt action to be more in the shadows.Edward: And nothing says sneaky like a purple costume carrying a bow and arrow.Michael: It's a dark purple ed. It's a dark, dark purple. No, but there must be something to it. Like he did take on Iron Man. He did seem to defeat him. So in a skills-based contest and maybe he's. Like you notice that Captain America wasn't at the press conference when they announced Hawkeye, so maybe he's a replacement for Captain America's, who's also similarly strategic and stealth based in a lot ways.Edward: There you go. There you go. Cause the rumors are right now that Captain America and Thor are being replaced and Hawkeye is the first edition to the team, but there will be,Michael: and your second point was the ethics. It does strike me as being a little odd that there's a guy who's worked with a known terrorist. The Black Widow. Correct. A Russian agent and he's fought Iron Man a few times. And, I would imagine in the course, Committed some crimes may, maybe he did, maybe technically he didn't commit any crime.He's justEdward: He did. No, I just did. I think they were doing something robbed. They were robbing Stark Corp or something. Yeah. They kidnapping somebody he was doing bad stuff.Michael: They kidnapped, they kidnap people. Yeah. Yeah. That seems a bit much to sweep under the rug.Edward: That's right. Where I come from, kidnapping is a crime, Mike. It's a crime. But come from planet, but not according to the federal security Agency. The federal security agency has approved Hawkeye as a member of the Avengers, says that his record is clean, that he is totally allowed to be on the team.Michael: Well, I know when I became a lawyer there is a requirement of good character to become a lawyer and. I think that there's a lot of lawyers, soEdward: I think the bar should be higher for the Avengers. Shouldn't the bar be higher than the lawyers?Michael: I think it should be. I think it should be. It should be higher than the bar for lawyers. The bar for superhero should be much higher and it turns out that it isn't. And let's be honest, the Avengers are the super team that people are in, are interested in, and it that are called in as the heavy hitters. So this seems like. Quite a promotion for somebody who, as you say, committed the crime of kidnappingEdward: That's interesting. Let's go back and talk about your issue with, Hey, lawyers have a high bar. I think part of the reason why we can hold lawyers to a high bar is that the supply of lawyers is really high. We're graduating more lawyers every year, and if there's an unethical lawyer, we can say, no thank you. We don't need you. We can replace you with an ethical lawyer. I wonder if the problem is, People who are powerful enough, superheroes who are powerful, super people who are powerful enough to be Avengers. There's not an excess supply. There's a handful of these people. Mm-hmm. There's like a few dozen maybe on the planet. And so if you're looking to augment that team and your bar is high from a power perspective, maybe you have to bend a little bit on the ethics perspective.Michael: Or maybe, if you believe in rehabilitation, which I do, maybe there's a steep rehabilitation curve? Because as you say, demand exceeds supply. And so if we need to have, Superpowered or super skilled people either we're willing to turn a blind eye or we're willing to go through the process that hopefully allows him to achieve rehabilitation. So behind the scenes there's been this sped up process. Yeah. Because we need to have this person. I know what you're saying. It does seem a little fu butEdward: it does. I'm stretching a little bit, trying to make sense of the fact that we have a known super villain on the team. And not just on the team, but specifically signed off by the federal government, the federal security agency has come on and said, Hey, this guy is clean. He's totally, totally legit. Now, and maybe the other possibilities that maybe the whole villain thing that Hawkeye was doing before was a misunderstanding, like the, the Avengers declared martial law on America. Turns out it was a mistake. Right? It wasn't actually them maybe and we're okay with that because Avengers do good, Avengers do. We'd say, oh, the bad was a mistake. We're all good. And Hawkeye just didn't do the good part at the beginning. He was just doing much of bad, but then like, oh, nope, we are okay with it. It was a, it was kind of a mistake. It was a misunderstanding. He's actually a good guy and maybe we just have to accept that.Michael: I guess, and the fact that it's Iron Man who he's fought, who's come forward and vouched for him, must mean there's something to the idea thereEdward: that's assuming Iron. Man is Iron Man.Michael: I know it's the Iron Man with whomever that person is has come forward and voast for him? For, for Hawkeye, andEdward: well, no, no. Let's say a Iron Man has come forward and Vos for Hawkeye. Yeah. But that's a whole other point. We've talked about this conspiracy. Do we know that the Iron Man inside the Iron Man suit is the same as the Iron Man who was in the Iron Man suit fighting Hawkeye. Maybe the Iron Man inside the suit. The individual inside the suit has been replaced and now he's like, I was an enemy with the old guy in the suit. Let's bring on some more of the people who are also his enemy onto the main team.Michael: So a hostile takeover, Eddie, like you got. This Iron Man. That's not real. Who's recruiting a villain and who's left on the team? Who are the other people on the team? Ed?Edward: Well, we know that I think giant man in the WASP are still people on the team, and so, hey, we, know that giant man in the wasps, their powers come from technology, right? We know this now too, right? There's some sort of helmet or pills or something they take and they wear masks. We don't know who they are. Maybe they've been replaced at the same.Michael: It's Wild Day, so the three members of the team of the Avengers, who are technology based, Iron Man, giant men in the Wasp are still on there and they could be swapped in. And interchangeable. For all we know. Thor isn't exactly interchangeable.Edward: That's right too. So the two people that are not, that looks like they're being replaced are Captain American Thor and Thor is, that's right. Clear. Like whatever. Thor is magical, powered, mutant. We don't know exactly what he is. We know that he is not an armored suit. He's not taking a pill. And turning to Thor and Captain America we know is some experiment from like the 1940s during World War ii, who is Un aging and like super strong. And he's a super powerful individual. He's physically fit and he's not replaceable either. He's not like, you can just put someone else, put the,Michael: there's footage of him going back to the forties as well, so maybe hard to just replace him. Whereas you have the, you're right, you have the only three members of the Avengers left are one second, easily be swapped out, and now they're. Pac a villain, or at least a criminal.Edward: I think somebody should be taking photos of the lower half of Giant Man's face and matching that up to previous photos. I guess you could still replace him with someone who's lower Jaw looks the same, but maybe they didn't go to that much trouble. I think someone should at least investigate.Michael: Or get his dental records, or photos to get a sense of his teeth and then compare them to old photos and say, aha, aha, I can see that that front tooth is shifted over quite a bit. That's not the same giant man.Edward: He's like, but I was punched in the face. I'm an avenger. I can punch in the face a lot.Michael: Uh, maybe wouldn't be the best one. But the nose, even like noses are pretty distinctive. Or even ears that they pot. Well, I don't think ears pot though, butEdward: his ears are covered. We don't, we don't know what his ears look like,Michael: but this all goes through our fundamental problem is that we, as a public and as the fifth, the state, have a hard time, Getting a sense of who these people are or possibly being fooled because they wear masks. And I guess, if we see that the Avengers as basically a very public facing, paramilitary organization that's to some degree manage or governed by the government say the Federal security agency in this case, then I guess there must be some safeguards. I good, good guess, but it's hard to say.Edward: And even if there are, it feels like, it's not the first time that you can imagine some corruption within the government, right? Maybe it's not even, a giant corrupt thing that we're talking about, but maybe that giant man in the wasp, our agents of the government, Iron Man is an agent of the government and somebody in charge. Whoever we don't know who that is. Someone in charge decides to bring on Hawkeye, and let's say all five members of the team are. Forget it. We don't want this guy on the team and the government guy's like, no, no, no, no, no. We've done the checkup. He's totally fine. He's totally legit. But they're like, no, we, we all quit. And so Captain American Thor are gone. You can't replace them, but you're like, oh, well hey, you three, you can't quit. You can quit if you want, but whatever. Tom Jones and Bob Smith can quit, but a giant man and the Iron Man in the was, they don't quit. They just get replace.Michael: Yeah, this deserves investigation. This deserves further inquiry. There's too many moving parts of the story to just let it sit. It's easy to be distracted by a new member of the adventures for the public, it's the first new member that they've added since they formed,Edward: no, no, no. That's not true. That's not Captain America came on. They, and he joined the team. Wonderman came on and he joined the team. Now, Wonderman died almost before we knew he was on the team. But he was an official Avenger for Okay. Some period of time. So this is the third new member of the team.Michael: Okay. It's still relatively unique though, let's just say that it's a big deal. Like Captain America is a new Yeah, it's a big deal. So it's, but it's distractingly. Interesting. And so other people, other journalists, and if I don't think we would consider ourselves journalists, but maybe we should, in this instance, should be asking these tough questions. And then I would think if they are truly a paramilitary organization, there is an interest, a public interest in perhaps knowing their identities in the same way that you would of any kind of, Government agents, unless they're spies, which the adventures aren't.Edward: Okay. Can we talk a little bit about speculation? We've done this conspiracy stuff, but now we have so it's true the Captain American Thor are off the team. I think your argument is that Hawkeye kind of replaces Captain America and I can buy that, right? Like they're both extremely talented individuals in some way, shape, or form. Both of them have projectiles that they incorporate one arrow and one a shield. I would argue arrows. More effective than shields start in terms of projectiles. But so that leads Thor. How do you replace an as guardian thunder God?Michael: Maybe with a Hulk. I don't know. Like, I mean, like what?Edward: Yeah, that went well last time.Michael: Maybe. The Thing, maybe.Edward: Oh, maybe The. Thing. Oh my gosh. That's a great call. Great call. Maybe it's time to shift things up.Michael: Yeah, I mean like maybe he's tired of being I wouldn't say that the fantastic four second tier, cause they aren't, but they do serve a different niche right, than the Avengers. And maybe that's true. Maybe Ben Grimm who was in the military. His interest might align better with a paramilitary organization rather than a more adventuring kind of organization. Fantastic.Edward: That's a great idea. Now, here's another theory is that Hawkeye was a villain that they got over to the hero side. Why don't we look at the list of villains out there? Radioactive man. Radioactive man from China. They decide to he's gonna defect and join America and join the Avengers. Because I would argue radioactive then wasn't evil. He was just serving the wrong master. And people have defected from China to America all the time.Michael: I mean, it'd be hard to get notice to him over in China, but Sure. He does have a skillset. He is extremely powerful. Similar to, I don't think he's the same strength level as Thor, butEdward: hasn't he battled Thor? Isn't Thor and radioactive man, aren't they arch.Michael: It's hard to tell. How many battles do you have to be an Archie enemy? I think you need a few, but,Edward: Just a regular enemy.Michael: Yeah, he's an enemy. Well, how about, okay, there's two. I'd say if you wanna go straight on, as guardian to as guardian, it would be the executioner. Executioner, yeah. Or Loki. Are the, oh Loki. If you could rehabilitate in the way that they rehabilitated, Hawkeye presumably, but I'd imagine rehabilitating an ancient immortal being that it might be a little tough. Tougher it. A little tougher to serve the interests of America or the world.Edward: No. You've been focus, we've been focused on like strength though too. Mr. Hyde is another strength strong guy. Yeah. Right. Maybe Mr. Hyde. But I wonder Thor is more than just a strong guy. He's more than. Pure muscle, the guy can fly. Remember we talked about how fast he can fly across the ocean?Yep. So do we need a guy who can fly? Like how about the wizard? Can we bring the wizard back?Michael: Yeah. But it's not like he's made a couple mistakes. Like you suggested maybe hot guy. He's a career criminal now. He just broke bad. How about, how about that guy with the, the wings from the x.Edward: Oh, angel Fly. Angel could fly Fly Angel. Yeah. Angel. Angel could fly. Yeah. You know, I think the point is it's gonna be hard to replace Thor cuz there's people who are strong that we could find. There are people who can fly. We could find, but trying to find somebody who can do both, that's a pretty unique spot. I think maybe there, there were, they made a mistake to let Thor go.Michael: Like I say, it's a developing story and I'm still distracted by the idea for lack of a better term, a super villain. Hawkeye is now in the Avengers, seems kind of funny. For a couple reasons. And then longstanding Avengers are just, I just disappeared. The only ones that remain are ones who are basically, are suits, where power suits seems kind of strange. Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder what's happening. You know, we gotta get into this.Edward: There's also the point that we, this is all speculation too, because they did not say the Captain American Thor off the team. There was questions asked, and it was all just no comment. No comment, no comment. We're not gonna talk about it. What did he, he said something about the lives of Avengers are private citizens. We can't comment on them. Like, it was a definitely a very sketchy statement of we're not gonna go there.And so, hey, I guess stay tuned is the answer. More to come. More to come. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

Sean: Now, I'm wondering, Michael, with, um, let's, let's shift a little bit too business and hiring. So everyone says that EQ is so important, it's more important than IQ. There are a lot of articles that write about that, right? When you hire someone you want to hire for a higher EQ than a high IQ. Why is it more important than IQ? Sean: Why do you think that they say that? And should we if they score lower in the EQ tests that are available out there, should we just throw in the towel and say, oh, it's a low EQ kind of person, we should not hire this person? Michael: Yeah, it's possible. So you're right. So Daniel Goldman, back in the late 1980s, and early 1990s, did a bunch of research, and published kind of the first work about emotional intelligence globally. And in his research, it was that 20% of performance or success comes from IQ, and 80% comes from EQ. And so his book was really, really good to kind of dive into those things. Michael: And then there was a great book called Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Bradbury and Greaves that gave a little bit more specificity to this. So I think that when we're going through the hiring process, yes, we want to be mindful of someone's DISC profile or the things that motivate them, maybe their core values, definitely levels of emotional intelligence. Michael: So when I'm thinking about it, there are certain things that can be taught, there are certain things that are innate, like a DISC profile or motivations are pretty much the way that we're born. We're kind of born with them. We navigate them throughout life, but our core values are that our level of emotional intelligence can be taught to us. It's learned. - - - Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/ - - - Michael Seaver Website: https://michaelsseaver.com Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelsseaver Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaelsseaver/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelScottSeaver/

EPISODE NINE: SYSTEMS‍We're getting into Dr. Naomi Sedani's world!‍Follow her journey, week by week, as she creates her start-up: Lil' Dente‍Naomi is scheduled to open up her practice in February 2023... that's only a couple of weeks away!‍Listen each week to hear the raw truth and the "behind the scenes" details that not many talk about publicly when it comes to starting up a practice!‍We uncover unexpected struggles she is facing, what "life-saving" practice tips she discovered, how much everything is costing, what equipment/ companies she decides to go with and why, her vision to grow in the community, all her financials, how all of this is affecting her personal life, and everything in between!‍Naomi may need your help and advice, so please feel free to engage with each episode, share your feedback, and ask questions here:‍The Making of a Dental Start-Up Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1511481045554890‍The Making of a Dental Start-Up Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themaking.of/‍Message us through our website here.‍Find Out MoreThank you for listening to this series "The Making of Smile Oasis" on The Making of a Dental Start-Up. If you enjoyed it, please share with anyone you think will gain value from the show by clicking on one of the sharing tabs above.Also, please consider leaving an honest review on iTunes. It helps other listeners find the show, and I would be forever grateful.Questions or comments? Feel free to contact me here.Follow me on Instagram or Facebook and improve your dental practice every day!Have you subscribed? Don't miss a single episode!‍You can also find us on Spotify now, just type in the search bar "The Making of a Dental Start-Up".‍Listen to podcasts and learn more about The Making of a Dental Start-Up on the website.‍Remember that Naomi's dental practice is being built in real time. Follow her incredible journey and message her here:‍Naomi's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nks7499‍Naomi's Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.naomisedani/‍Naomi's Practice Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lildentesmiles/‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your start-up.‍[TRANSCRIPT]‍Michael: What's up Naomi? How's it going? Good. How are you doing? Doing pretty good. T today a snowstorm. Snowstorm hit you, right? Naomi: Yeah, unfortunately, supposedly the biggest one, New York has gotten ak. The only one New York has gotten. Are you serious? Yeah. That's the first snowstorm in the area, basically. It's crazy. It's like in March. Michael: Was it, was it like a legit one or were you like, uh, Naomi: I feel like they were making it out to be like something really bad. Um mm-hmm. . I mean, it definitely snowed and there was freezing rain last night, but it was like all the schools canceled. Everyone was two hour breaks. Businesses were closing and then we drove, or like we came in by train just so we didn't have to deal with the highway, and it's totally fine. , Michael: is it real? So there's nothing No. Is it, has Naomi: it passed? Uh, yeah. It's not even snowing. Like The snow has stayed and it's definitely there and it's like slushy icy status. now, but. Nothing wild like New York, it was fine. I don't think Connecticut knows what a snowplow is, but that's all good. Does the snow in Connecticut? No, it definitely does. It's just like the roads here are way worse off than New York roads. Michael: Oh, I get you. I get you. You don't, they don't, they don't know how to like, to plow in people get, just get stuck. Gotcha. You. That makes sense. Yeah. So has that set you back today or what has it done? Naomi: Yeah, um, I had four or five patients on like the calendar today. And three of 'em canceled, yesterday just because of like the snowstorm and snow days and they were gonna have to be home with the kids, blah, blah, blah. And then we had, I had an op this morning, like a nitrous op and then her brother was gonna be getting a new patient exam and we kept trying to contact them to see if they wanted to reschedule, but she was insistent on coming in, so we opened up the office to be able to see them. Michael: Were you trying to reschedule people today Naomi: or. I mean, I was just asking them, I didn't wanna force the appointment or anything. I know some people just don't feel comfortable driving in snow and mm-hmm. right now. My schedule has a lot of flexibility in open spots, so I didn't mind like being like, Hey, if you're not comfortable, I totally get it. Yeah. Michael: So then were they all able to reschedule or were they like, oh, I'll get it back to you, or, Naomi: um, one of them's getting back to me, she tends to only come here because right across the hall is like that pediatric therapy group. Mm-hmm. and their therapist is supposed to come in on my dental visit with him, so she has to re coordinate that whole thing. And then the other one is my cousin and her kids . So you better come, we rescheduled her. I was like, you better be coming. Yeah. Yeah. And then the other ones were just the op and the sibling and they definitely came and it was actually good because I got to spend more time with them and. . It was like easier for sure, and I, it turned out to be a good visit, so it's all good. Now. I'm just here doing admin work. Michael: Oh, that's good. How long is normally like that new patient or that patient visitation that just happened? Naomi: I mean, I think if it was like recalls and then more frequently, I wouldn't say it would be take more than 20 minutes, but just because you're trying to get to know the families, you're talking, you're trying to understand what they're coming from. I would say it takes 30 to 40 minutes and I did some like same day like sealants and all that stuff on him, so. Michael: Hmm. Yeah. Are you asking for like reviews and referrals already or No. Naomi: So the mom today, she on her own says she's gonna refer a family friend to us, which was like really sweet. But like I'm starting to ask Beatrice to. say at the front like, Hey, if you had a great experience, which it sounds like you did, we really love a review, I'll be happy to send you a link once you're home. so we're starting that dialogue here. Mm-hmm. , no one has done it like in our face quite yet. And then 24 hours after the appointment we always send like a follow-up text Hey, we're hoping blah, blah, blah. Did. Well as you know, we're a brand new business and readings and reviews mean a lot to us. if you enjoyed your experience, we'd love to hear about it and here's a link. Gotcha. So you're doing that now? Yeah. Yeah. We started like those texts. So I have to work with Casper on like if it can be automatic because right now Yeah. I'm the one that's going in 24 hours after the appointment and sending that text Michael: message manually all the time. Naomi: Yeah. Right now. But I think there has to be a way to do it through Casper. Yeah, I was Michael: gonna say there has to be. Yeah. I would assume, Naomi: I dunno, they're very good at automation, so Michael: that's good. That's good. So far out of all the, I guess, software that you have, has any of 'em been like, I didn't really need this, or, eh, I expected more from you or kind of thing or No? Naomi: Mm-hmm. , Casper truthfully has been like my, I don't wanna call it saving grace, but I think it's the one that's like showing like a lot of great feedback. Beatrice, my front desk slash assistant, she loves it. she loves the patient communication, like she loves, like the ease of being able to see everything. the forms are something I'm just still trying to get a little bit more used to, but everything has been like really seamless so far in terms of like, at least the communication side, being able to do whatever I want. And so I'm, I'm extremely happy, but I love the fact that I don't have like Mango Flex. I don't know what else. Swell. Michael: I dunno what's like in those Ed Dental, all Naomi: that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Next health, whatever. I'm very happy and as a minimalist myself, I just really appreciate it's a one all be all and one program. I don't have to like contact all these different people. it's just there. And what's also great on Casper, if none of you guys have like ever demoed it, they have like a little chat button, like on the main desktop page itself. So it's kind of nice that while I'm dealing with an issue or a question comes up, I can still have a chat text with them and they'll be able to fix things. While my day is going and it's up on a web browser, it's not like a software program that's integrated onto your desktop so I can access it from anywhere. Hmm. Michael: When it comes to the forms you mentioned, you're still getting used to that. . Naomi: So theirs is definitely more set up for gps, I think just PS just has a little bit of a different need. So like the extraction form, ? Mm-hmm. . Um, it's saying please don't smoke after the extraction. . I don't think my , my little seven year old today is gonna be having a cigarette afterwards. Yeah, yeah. Michael: Yeah. Naomi: I keep telling the parents, I was like, I'm so sorry. This is an adult form. I'm still working on the kids form. . Please ignore this part when you're signing the paperwork. . Michael: Yeah. They're like, oh no, he does. He does. They're like, Naomi: I, I, I assume Luna is not like smoking. Right? And she's like, no. I was like, okay. Just making sure , Michael: uh, that's funny. Okay. So just stuff like that you have to adjust. Naomi: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's good. I'm learning. I'm learning as we go. So far it's been Okay. . Michael: And then you also started your work, huh? Or your associateship. Naomi: Yeah. Yeah, so that's, I'm actually gonna be there for three days this week. Um, my boss that's usually there three times a week. He just got married last weekend, so he's kind of escaping for a couple weeks. So I opted to cover him cuz I haven't had a job since December. The bills are gonna be coming, so I figured might as well work the next three days and I'll just consolidate everyone as much as I can. Michael: Okay. That's cool. You're working what, three days? Naomi: typically I'm there Wednesdays and Thursdays, but this week I'll be there Wednesday, Thursdays, Friday. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. Have you done any marketing since last week? Naomi: So I'm trying to reach out to one of the most local schools. right now, the daycares, we had dropped them off cupcakes and like tote bags for the employees. So I've been trying to contact the director. like about doing a presentation for the little kids. turns out like a few days after we went, some other pediatric dental office went and dropped off toothbrushes. So the director was getting us confused with them and blah, blah, blah. But basically he just said send him over an email. What we'd like to do, he's gonna forward it to the teachers and see which teachers wouldn't mind us Michael: Did you Naomi: forward the email? No, I literally just found this out last night, so, okay. That was part of my plan today to send an email, but I also don't wanna just send like a little text, email with like, bullet points. I think it would be a good idea for me to have maybe a small presentation or p d f like thing about this is like what I usually do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. just so I can have it for like future daycares or school presentations. Michael: Do you have something like a presentation already, or No? Naomi: I have an idea of what I would wanna do, but it really depends on the age of the kids. , like I think for more of a daycare sort of developmental thing, like having them, for example, you can do a happy tooth and like a sad tooth and kind of put foods mm-hmm. that like go towards a happy tooth or the small sad tooth. Another one would just be taking like a toothbrush and they can dip it in white paint and paint the tooth with the toothbrush. There's like little things like that just kind of just depends on what the teacher is up to. But I wanna be able to have, marketing materials also available as well. So outside of like the toothbrushes, I wanna be able to have like a small little, not just business card, but like a little detailed sort of like, I don't know what you call postcard. Yeah. Mm-hmm. , I guess a postcard. Mm-hmm. like some more bullet points that are a little bit more, um, catchy and stuff like that. So I'm just trying to make sure I have all the right stuff. Like available too. Yeah. And then the other marketing thing is we're having like a five day local business giveaway. starting next week. Mm-hmm. So I've been in contact with a few of the businesses in the Darien area. Um, three or four of them have offered to donate some product or services, and we're just gonna be matching each other on the days of the giveaway. Uh, so some like local people can get some swag two of them have been like really, really sweet and like totally on board to help promote me, like both internally as well as like on their social media. Mm-hmm. . So one of them is a local soccer league that just opened up in the past like six months. So we obviously definitely have the same age groups, like two to eight. they have currently like 50 people in the, 50 kids in the area that are part of their. Soccer league thing. And then in April they're gonna be doing spring registration, which is definitely gonna be even more people at that time. So they said that I could come in with swag bags and they would be giving it to all the parents for me, which is like really nice of them. So I'm trying to create like marketing materials dedicated to that. Like I'm trying to go the trauma route if your kid has this, here's a few bullet points. Don't forget to call us. We're also here. You know, stuff like that. And then, um, there's another business, it's like a stretching sort of thing. It's called Limber. Mm-hmm. . But, uh, they have a lot of middle school and high school students, so it's a little bit of a different age group than the soccer one, but they have a lot of like sport athletes as well who come and like, get their services. Um, a lot of the families like come into their thing and she was like, yeah, just drop off your business cards or whatever else you want. And I'd be happy to give it to anyone who I know who's a family. So. Nice. That's gonna be good. Michael: Yeah. we literally just came out with an article on the dental marketer.org website about how to do a presentation and get into schools. I'm reading it right now. There's a sample email reaching out to school administrators if you ever wanted to use it. Um, it's kinda like a good outline, you know what I mean? On saying like, the presentation will be approximately like, you know, this long and we'll cover topics such as the importance of brushing and flossing. Then you can kind of ensure what you're gonna do, the role of diet, oral health, blah, blah, blah. I don't know. Naomi: Wait, that sounds like right up my alley. I know that in the marketing course you guys have really awesomely covered, like this thing. So that was my goal tonight, which was like, part of why I also didn't wanna send anything out like quite yet. I wanna be able to go in like sounding like a little bit more professional. Yeah. I was gonna re-listen to that part of the course and like, well Michael: read this, read this article about you. Like this one is a little bit more like up to which I'm gonna, we're gonna add it to the. Of course here pretty soon. But if you want to, um, look into this one, cause I think that would be cool. Also, at the same time I wanted to ask you social media-wise, what are you doing? Naomi: So I have, uh, someone who's doing graphics for me, she's putting out 12 graphics like a month. Um, I don't know if you can even get access to it, like right now while we're talking, but, Michael: it Instagram or Naomi: what? My, my Instagram. it's a little Denti Smiles, but basically I just sent her my branding stuff. I sent her some like pinpoints of like things I wanna cover for the month. So we just actually had a call like yesterday. My goal is obviously this giveaway for the next, like for next week we're gonna start promoting it. I'm starting to try to promote educational content through reels, um, and then. . I also have just, one of the things I keep getting a lot of questions from parents, just because it's on my website quite yet, is what insurances am I in network with? And that's something A, I'm working on the website side, but B, I wanna now start like publicizing through social media. I was waiting to get in network with few more before I started putting the word about it out there. And I also created an in-house membership plan, so I just sent her all those details. So that's gonna be starting to get pushed out during the month of March. Michael: Gotcha. So do you guys have like a specific day where you're like, this is the day we're gonna create a ton of content for Instagram? Or is Instagram your main, I guess what's gonna be your main. . Naomi: Yeah. And anything that's going from Instagram is going straight to like our Facebook page at the moment. And I'm still playing with Facebook ads like a little bit, but what I, I haven't created any specific ad just for Facebook. I've just been boosting some of the posts that are a little bit more engaging, more educational or more about come to little DTI for X, Y, Z. And I'm just kind of seeing right now like what is biting and what's not biting so that then I can kind of know where do I want my efforts to go into a little bit more. Am I getting more engagement on reels and cool, I'll make a reel. Um, am I getting more from some of the stuff that I spent more time on artistically fine. Then I'll try to come up with a little bit more creative posts. I just don't wanna keep bleeding money out into something that's not actually gonna be working for the sake of saying it's a Facebook ad. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . So I'm just trying things out right now with Michael: the little things that you've been trying out. Mm-hmm. , I mean, not the little things, a lot of things that you've been trying out, but the little time that you've, I guess, been trying it out. Mm-hmm. , what have you seen where you're like, This looks like it's moving the needle Naomi: Interestingly, um, one is like my business card logo. I don't have it with me right now, but it's, I had done like a specialized like photo shoot months ago that I'm gonna plan on be putting out on like social media. Um, they're just like basically taking everyday objects and it's gonna be the way I speak about like dental education mm-hmm. . But in that photo shoot, one of the images was specifically for my business cards and like any sort of related content. when I posted that on Facebook as like we are opening up February, that one just blew up. Like the amount of dms I was getting about like, oh, I love the creativity, I love this. It got a lot of engagement, I think just like from maybe the way it looked. and then secondly was anything that's been involving my. which I wasn't expecting. . , Michael: you're like my face, which I wasn't Naomi: expecting. . like, that's a good thing though, I guess, right? No, it's great. Like, thanks guys, like for liking, but I kind thought uh, initially Little DTI was the office and I'm kind of like an actor for a little enti. Hmm. So I wasn't planning on like promoting me solely as this is Dr. Naomi's office, this is Little Denti. So as a provider I started showing the staff a K, me, and Beatrice. So when I start putting my face out there like a little bit oh, this is Dr. Naomi, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Those have been getting a lot of more engagement than I was like expecting. So I think I'm just gonna start trying to promote things like of me doing stuff around the office or whatever, not specifically for Dr. Naomi, but just. little dentists, providers, or whatever you wanna call it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. . Michael: So, yeah. Are you, are you also taking pictures of you going to these places, where your ground marketing or doing events and stuff like that? Like, that'd be good, I think. Naomi: Yeah. That was, uh, a mistake I made when we went around and I didn't do that. Mm-hmm. , but, as a small, like refresh, I'm in a medical building and there's seven other businesses in my particular building, but we have a neighborhood build, literally right next door to me is another medical building full of 10 businesses. they're all owned by the same like landlord. And he gave me all their information so I could connect with them. So I'm gonna be doing stuff with them and I think through them I'm gonna. Showing that like, I'm coming to these businesses, going to the pediatrician's office, blah, blah, blah. The hardest part that I'm actually finding, and maybe it's just because I'm in a suburb and I'm coming from like a city in the city, pretty much every single location and company has a social media page. Like it's probably one of the most widely used ways to connect with like customers in New York City here. Like not so much, if they do have an Instagram, I would say 60% of them are actually active. There's been some that are just, haven't even been touched since 20 20, 20 21. And then at least like 15% of them just simply do not have Instagrams. So for example, the pediatrician here, there's two of 'em, Stanford Pediatrics and Healthy Child. Neither of them have Instagrams and I don't know how to show, Hey, I went to blah, blah, blah, and have them possibly repost it or something like that. Just because they don't have an account. . Michael: Yeah, I wouldn't, try to be a collaborator with them. I'd just more just take it for the content, you know what I mean? Like, hey, like we're here. And people would be like, oh my God, my kid goes there. Mm-hmm. , you know, and then that's it really. And then you can like, do the hashtags of their, the community. Not so much like, cuz they have one. That's Naomi: actually funny you were saying that because I'm trying to figure out now now that I'm getting my groove and I'm kind of understanding things a little bit more, I wanna do something silly for St. Patty's Day. Get a little bucket and fill it up with like gold Hershey kisses, even though I'm a dentist, whatever. I like to give out candy . Yeah. Just like little things like that. Easter is coming. So like, the fun of these holidays that are coming up my way along with delivering them to like other kids, kid-friendly places like around here, e pediatricians, um, maybe like even nursing places, lactation places, doulas, like, all of that sort of stuff. I wanna try to find these businesses and just start connecting just like have some fun with it. Michael: Yeah, I think it'll be nice. I think you'll, you will, but yeah, I'm looking at your Instagram right now. It's pretty good. Like as far as like the colors and everything, you know? Yeah. And then the, the content, I think last time it was at in the hundreds and now we're looking at it and it's in the two hundreds. So, . Naomi: Yeah. It's slowly like getting built out, like a little bit more. It's kind of fun, like seeing it grow. I remember, last, I think you and I spoke last, like Wednesday maybe and mm-hmm. when I saw Beatrice on Friday, I was like, Beatrice, we're at 1 99. I can't wait till we get 200. And then at the end of the day, we had 2 0 2 or something. And I like high-fived her. I was like, yo, , Michael: this is, this is fame bro. This is fame. . Yeah, . Naomi: I was like, do we get our blue check? Mark Michael: a message Instagram right now. Be like, I'm ready for it. Like Naomi: this. You right. I'm ready to be Michael: verified. . No, but it's gonna be good. It's gonna be cool. I think that's the key though. You have to, um, everybody I talk with who, you know what I mean, obviously has a lot of followings where they do have the blue check mark. They kind of do say that. They're like, yeah, even though it's your business, you gotta somehow make it your own kind of thing. Right? Unless you're like a big brand like Nike, you don't see the c e o posting his face or anything like that, right? Naomi: I'm taking all, like the little wins, like when Charlie, my dog comes and visits, I'm constantly showing him, like throughout the day we had the photographer come in yesterday for the giveaway, so we kind of showed him sitting in like the midst of all of this. People are like, oh my God, he's so cute. it's nice to get those like little engagement stuff. today before we walked into the office, Beatrice and I took a picture in like the snow for example, the snow day. And it's just like little silly things. And now I'm starting to get a little bit more patient, um, content. So like today I extracted a tooth. she took a picture with her tooth fairy certificate that I give for any kid that whose teeth I take out. Um, and so she looks like miserable cuz she was like hardcore like standing, but it's still a cute picture Nonetheless. ? Yeah, . She's like wearing a mask and like her eyes just look like she. So intensely . Michael: So I'm like, Naomi: who's the sweetest person? Um, oh, just not in front Michael: of the camera. . Maybe like if, if you could, but that you make people, the parents sign a consent Naomi: or? We, I have been like having them just sign something. But through Casper, again, I need to actually create like a real social media form because I'm not loving like what I do currently have right now. What are you doing right now? so when I hired Beatrice, there's like a thing that says like, oh, you'll be allowed to be on like the social media, blah, blah, blah. I just kind of took that blurb and I like send it to them and I'm like, Hey, just like acknowledging this. Yeah. So yeah. Worst case scenario, they yell at me to take it down. That I take it down, Michael: but yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's like the worst case I think. Yeah. Wanna say. But that'd be cool, like to post that up and make it like a caption contest. , what is she thinking? Like best, funniest one wins or whatever Right. Kind of thing. That would be, that would've to be really funny. Naomi: Yeah. Yeah. Like I swear that Luna really had a great visit, but what do you think she's actually thinking? . Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Funniest catch wins. Yes, exactly. . Think about that. Think about that. Awesome. Okay, so this episode we're gonna talk a little bit about systems that will be implemented and ones that you implemented already. Okay. What have you implemented already? And what I mean by systems is like, it can be anything from not software related, right? But like anything from like morning huddles, downtime, protocol, patient experience, new patient experience, uh, recalls, things like that. Naomi: I guess first I'll start with uh, we had Jean, my consultant come in for two days before opening, and she kind of went through the idea of systems, like with us a little bit. some of the systems that she's pretty rigid on is obviously she's a consultant, so she's always thinking like financially. Mm-hmm. , she. Was very big about making sure that you don't lose track of your patients. Um, so she set up if a patient like requires treatment, say, I don't know, an extraction of a tooth, she has like paper forms that we have to fill out that stays in a binder right by the front desk that we constantly have to refer to. So on down days, like when Beatrice is like here at the office, when I'm at my associate job, she has like a stack of papers that she can go through and make sure there's no unscheduled treatment. She also has like in that same binder, kind of like a follow up schedule of every seven day, seven days you contact this next batch. And so she put in a lot of paperwork systems, if that makes sense. Um, she just believes that like electronically, like things are really great. . There also needs to be a paper trail as well. Mm-hmm. tracking patients. so that's been like one thing we've been trying to work on. It's a little bit weird doing it. It seems kind of excessive only because it's just me and Beatrice right now. We don't, we only have 20 patients, like in our roster, . Mm-hmm. . But I'm pretty sure once we add on like more staff, more front desk and all of that, it's probably gonna be a system that's good to implement just so that anyone and everyone who's involved in the office knows where to find unscheduled treatment. now in terms of morning huddles, that's not something we're doing per se officially, mostly because Beatrice and I traveled together. When we come to the office, um, we either take the train together or we're both in the car. That's kind of when we connect and we sort of talk about like our day. Hey, we have X, Y, Z coming up. Hey, we have these tasks. we're just constantly checking in with each other. So we haven't exactly done that. properly in the office itself, but we do have the talks that we expect. So for instance, what I usually bring up whenever I'm talking with Beatrice is like, okay, what patients do we have for the day? Anything special that we need to know about them? I would like you to do X, Y, Z. Mm-hmm . Then she'll bring up, Hey, I've been following up on this claim. I haven't done this. I need to do this with Open Dental doc. You have to also like call this person, like she also does like her check-ins, and then we just kind of talk about other things that. Kind of feeling need to be adjusted and stuff like that. So that's just a daily conversation that me and Beatrice always have together. when we do plan on like adding on a third person, I am probably gonna make it more of an official morning huddle, but right now it's just working for us because of the way that we travel together. Michael: Yeah. That's kind of like your morning huddle right there you know Naomi: what I mean? Yeah. . Yeah, exactly. But I do think it's actually vital. I remember in my associate jobs, they kept trying to push like morning huddles on us, and we had like treatment coordinators that we worked with individually, and it just always felt like a waste of time. Maybe it was just the way that the office was set up or something, but I'm finding personally a lot of value in them and just having those check-ins. And God, I feel like I'm promoting Casper, like hardcore in this, in this. But, um, Casper also has like a task list that I can assign Beatrice. So it'll be like, Hey Beatrice, I need you to do like this, this, this, this. And I can even put due dates on it. Mm-hmm. . And then I can see when she's checking it off and if she needs something from me, she can also task me. And it's just like really nice that I can go back home and she like put in something like, yo, you need a, I don't know, email Mike about like changing the podcast. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Or something like that. It's nice to have that system there as well and that all of us have access to so we can kind of see what we all need to do. , patient experience. That's actually funny that you bring this up. Um, this is something that me and her have been having more conversations as of late. I think the past like couple weeks, I've only been open 20 days. Wow. So it feels like Michael: longer. Have you been open 20 days? 20 days Wait, 20 working days or like 20 days? In Naomi: just 20 days in total. I open up. It's still a lot. That's a lot. That's a, that's a lot. Yeah. It feels kinda weird though when you say that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's good though. Out loud. I think the past couple of weeks though, have been a lot about like just us getting our footing in like our own space and like just trying to figure out we're both friendly people. We're nice people. So I think just naturally we're like, Hey, how are you? Blah, blah, blah. But everything I'm doing right now really needs to have a foundation so that when my team grows, all those people are acting in the same boundaries that I want for my brand to have. does that mean like for example, when someone walks in, do you stand up or walk around the desk? Do you give 'em a tour of the office? Do you go by first name? What are all of those like little minute like patient experiences and interactions that are part of your brand and also part of the patient experience that you want? So now that we're having a little bit more downtime on like during the day, Beatrice, I am trying to make our focus on stuff that has nothing to do with me on the days I'm not here. But yesterday we were having like a pretty good dialogue about like patient experience and what we really want and what does that mean. those are systems that we're just trying to create like a little bit more and whenever we decide on something, I'm having her create like a manual in a way that, so when someone, or, yeah, hopefully soon, but like whenever someone does join the team, they have the words that we're using, the dialogues that we expect and blah, blah, blah. Michael: What? How would it work if, when someone comes in, right? Mm-hmm. and then they're, they come in from a practice that, you know what I mean? Like another practice. they come in how would you know if you're like, Hey, no, use what we have, but what if they're like, but this works better. Naomi: I think better is different for each person, right? but I think that's also on me to be open and receptive to hearing what they say. Cuz it could be true, it could be better, right? Mm-hmm. , I, I might not know. I don't know everything, and I might be like, oh, whoa, wait, that's actually like a really good thing to use. Yeah, let's like implement that and let's like all try it out. , but better to them might just be that they don't understand little density quite yet. And like what I want out of the patient experience and maybe hopefully through conversation or seeing the way that we interact, they'll actually be like, oh, this actually works for you guys. But I'm always open to hearing what someone thinks is better. it's kind of nice for someone else to be thinking about it instead of me . Um, but it doesn't mean that it will Michael: work. . Yeah, no, a hundred percent. Yeah. Because I know sometimes people want to come in and you know what I mean? Depending on Yeah. I've felt like it's depending on a couple things, like their experience and also like age, if that makes sense. Yes. You know what I mean? Like you hire like a old like, no, I don't wanna say older, but like a really, really older right person. And then they're like, no, older than you, is what I mean, right? Naomi: Oh, no, totally. Totally. it's amusing to see even like for example, gene Gina is older than both me and Beatrice. , she's fantastic with communication. She's dealt with it on multiple different levels throughout her career, but the way that we even would go about something, what she views as like a great patient experience, I'm like, we could do one step better. I'm valuing like these minute details while she is like, well, I'm valuing this part. So it's like funny to kind of like see the differences, like right Michael: there. What minor details or minor details are you battling then? Naomi: I think what makes your practice stand out besides like maybe your demographic reporter and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All that's fun stuff is really like when a patient, the moment that they contact your office, right? Mm-hmm. , even if something as simple as like how many rings before your front desk picks up the phone. Is it two or is it. . all of those like tiny, tiny little details make such a big difference. for a patient experience when they're placed on hold, how long do you keep on, on hold for? How do you communicate with them? when they walk through the door are you saying, hi Michael, it's really great to see you and what's your name? And things like that. Do you stand up at the desk? Do you offer them a water? Do you do all those things? Those little details I think is what's gonna make your office stand out versus the office, like down the street if they have the exact same thing. So those are the experiences like I value, I might, I do think I'm a good clinician, but like I think dentistry, like the actual clinical dentistry is maybe 10% and eighth of what it is that you're actually doing on a day-to-day. Mm-hmm. , you really need to make sure that a patient, and in my case, the parents are really getting care and value and like trust within our office. and the way I might interact with a new patient would be different than maybe a recall patient. I haven't reached a recall phase. , I've only been open 20 days. Right? Uhhuh? . But , maybe the time that I'm taking with a new patient and just like discovering who they are. Like those interactions, those little details, like what is a kid's favorite color right now, for example, it's gonna be different than a recall patient, which I've already built up that rapport with a little bit more. So all of those, like I think details really, really do make a big difference. And I would hope that when I bring on an associate, that's the stuff that I have written down of what I expect of them to be doing as Michael: well. Okay. Okay. Interesting. Do you have a protocol or like system for like the end of day, like this is what everybody, Beatrice is what you need to do At the end of the day, Naomi, this is what I need to do at the end of the day kind Naomi: of. Yeah. So I think we just naturally fell into the roles versus like it being listed. But since I'm the one in the back, like kind of dealing with the kids and like more of the op stuff, I'm the one that's basically cleaning up the rooms. I run the autoclave, I run, I do all of that behind the scene stuff. Beatrice is like confirming everything was checked out. Okay. She'll run the production reports, she'll make sure like the phones are being forwarded to my cell phone. Um, there's no pat last minute patient communication stuff. Um, any admin related things, that's what Beatrice is taken care of at the end of the day. So I'm definitely the one who's in charge of making sure all the sections are off, all of this is off, blah, blah, blah. Um, and it's just, it's been working for us so far. Um, but we'll see. I'm open to it changing, but it hasn't been too drastic right now. Yeah. Michael: I think when you get like an assistant and stuff like that, it's, it is gonna, you know what I mean? Hmm. Change the Oh, yeah. Naomi: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely. Michael: What's the like. Have you guys, or did Jean ever give you guys like a weekly maintenance, monthly maintenance kind Naomi: of thing? Yeah. So that's actually funny that you're saying that because me and her name Beatrice have been talking about like how we wanna implement this. Jean gave us like just through her training manual, kind of like what you should be doing weekly, what you should be doing monthly. And me and Beatrice have been trying to figure out what's gonna work for our office. So for example, I don't even think this is written Gene Sing, but I have AAC chairs. when the guy came, he was like, you have to make sure that you maintain them a certain way during the week. Definitely cabby, wipe them down, do whatever it is you need to do, but you need to actually like, rinse off the cabby, wipe residue with some simple soap water and a microfiber cloth, but one time a week. It doesn't have to be anything more than that, but you have to do that to maintain the longevity of your chair. So now like, When do we do that? ? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Could be every Friday. Cuz Fridays, I'm trying to close a little bit early just so we can use like the last hour to do those little catchup things. It's right before the weekend. Mm-hmm. , maybe every Friday is when we do all the cabby wipes up. That's when we do anything autoclavable and like blah, blah blah. So we're now approaching that one month mark where we have to like kind of run through the stuff with my chairs, my autoclave, all that stuff. I just haven't figured out what day of the month I want that on. so T B d . Michael: Okay. That's good. Wait, the chairs are a weekly maintenance thing or a monthly? Yeah, Naomi: so definitely he told me just like once a week, just wipe down the cavi, wipe residue. That's all you need to do and it's going to expand the length of your chair. Michael: Yeah. I wonder if that's every chair or, cause I don't, I don't remember Never doing, I mean the CBI wipes here all the time. Right. after every patient, but. The sofa. Yeah, Naomi: I know. I never, I personally haven't seen that myself, but like I haven't worked in an office that had eight x chairs, so I don't know if it's because like their leather is like a little bit softer and like more malleable. Like I think I've used Peloton and cranes chairs and I've used uh, forest chairs and you can definitely feel the difference in the leather. It's like way more like firm, so Yeah. As porous. Yeah. Yeah. So I dunno if that has anything to do with it, but I'm listening to the guy right now. best Michael: you do? Yeah. Listening to the guy. Yeah. Okay. That's good. So you're gonna have, now are you writing all this stuff out, Naomi? Like the weekly maintenance, are you thinking about it throughout the month or how Yeah, Naomi: so just because I'm running the OP stuff, like the backroom stuff, like at the end of the day, I'm the one that's like remembering it. But I think what I might do is. Uh, calendar, in the back, and then just like for the entire year, like right on the Fridays with the checkbox, like next to it. I, I don't know what system to really implement right now. Honestly, if anyone has one for like, how to handle that, that would be great. But I can easily, assign tasks, I can do all that stuff. But I think it's important that it's written somewhere, almost like a monthly, like repetitive thing. We have a Google calendar that Beatrice and I share for like the office. office. I don't know if I should put it on there, but I have room in my sterilization to put up a calendar, so I was like tempted to kind of just put it up on there. Michael: Hmm. you, you and Beatrice have your own separate Google Naomi: calendar? Yeah, we both use like Gmail, so I just, Before we physically were coming into the office so that we could like kind of, she knew like when I wasn't gonna be available, um, what I was expecting when I was expecting her to be in the office. We have a shared Google calendar on there and also through Dark Horse. All of my email platforms are through Gmail. So even though it's like hello little denti.com, it's a Gmail workspace. Mm-hmm. . So everything is done through Drive and the calendar. Michael: Okay. That's nice. So that's like a little, or not a little, but like a whole system in itself kind of thing, right? Yeah, Naomi: exactly. Exactly. Michael: Are you gonna add more of your team members on that calendar or no? Naomi: I think so. I think especially who whomever's third, I'm assuming it would be an assistant, but, whomever is on there. I think they need to be on there as well, because just because your assistant doesn't mean you wouldn't be doing admin and all that stuff, so, Michael: mm-hmm. when it comes to admin work and your systems for that, how do you know what to do? . Naomi: so Jean did kind of like guide us like a little bit about what your expectations should be like in terms of the insurances, blah, blah, blah. I think just an understanding from working as an associate in other offices, I've been able to get a grasp of what needs to be done, but quite frankly, if I'm really honest, I'm still learning. for example, yesterday was the first time I got an insurance check like ever to the office. it's just like a fuzzy feeling. I finally got paid . I haven't put Beatrice on like my checking account yet for the office. So I'm the one that has to go and deposit it at Chase. I'm trying to figure out like that system for it. Am I comfortable yet with her doing it? Am I not? Even in putting in the check number into open dental, having her like input the things like properly, are we scanning every single e o b in the check? all of that stuff. I'm just trying to figure out the systems, like as it comes and I'm hoping to make a proper protocol as it's like kind of Michael: echoing right now. You're doing all that though, Naomi: kind of slash I'm telling her to do it. So . Okay. . Like for example, the checks came yesterday. Me and her were driving in my car, so she was opening it up. We got it like right before we left. , I kind of thought they were gonna be claim denials just because I've been dealing with issues with Delta Dental. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Then we thought they were checks, and I was like, okay, great. I took the checks home with me, and then when I brought them in today, I was like, all right, let's like get this scanned into each patient's chart because it has the EOBs on there. I was like, let's make sure that all the insurance checks are like put into like their accounts. So I kind of tell her, but then she actually does it and then, I mean, one of her best qualities is her problem solving, so we we're having some issues like understanding some like minute things with like payments on open dental. She immediately gets on the chat with them and like, we'll figure it out. and then she'll update me. She'll be like, yo, by the way, this is like how you do this. I'm not doing it per se, but I'm letting her know what to do. Michael: Makes sense. do you trust her already to be like, go to the bank? Make this deposit? Naomi: I think so. Um, I have Chase for my bank account. Um, it's literally right across the street. Mm-hmm. , so I don't think I care so much if she deposits and stuff, but I'm just trying to figure out the system of am I, do I want the, we're gonna be doing EF fts soon, it's not gonna be these personal checks. So will she have access to a checking account of any sorts? will I give her access to electronically deposit all the checks, or is that something I should be doing? I'm trying to figure out where my comfortability is when I research online or just see what others are doing. It seems to be a 50 50 split. I just have to figure out where my personal I think one of the hardest things for me, and at least anyone else I'm talking to is that it's hard to give up control. But there's gonna be a time that I just don't have the bandwidth to be doing this. There's a reason I'm paying someone to take care of like, ,, all this stuff. Mm-hmm. . But it's just, I think right now it's a little bit hard to kind of give up that control because then I know exactly what checks are coming in. I know exactly what this and this is, but I do know I need to let someone do it and start to learn to kind of let go control a little bit while keeping an eye on it. Michael: Yeah, no, makes sense. Makes sense. Awesome. Okay, so then monthly performance reviews. are you gonna have those or not really? Are they gonna be quarterly, weekly? I don't know. What are you thinking? or yearly. Naomi: Definitely quarterly. I think that's really important. Quarterly, it allows me to do the three and six month checkup, which I think is really good. Mm-hmm. , um, once again, Jean, she had created like an employee review sort of thing about are you up to standards on X, Y, z I just have a personal angst against objective criticism of someone. And I mean that in the sense of giving someone a, say for example, a score of four out of five that just. Sounds awful to me. I don't know why. I'm just, I don't know. Like maybe it's because I've been in school for too long, so like numerical grades or like anything on this sort, yeah. Just doesn't really like work for me. I do think it's important though, to always like, highlight someone's positive traits and what they're really, really doing great on. and then things I would like for them to work on. But I think those are so individually based versus even like somewhat agree, agree, strongly disagree, like all of those sort of like things, I don't know. I, I'm just trying to figure out like what works for me on that front. But I think would, like for example, bhs just because I have her, I think probably sometime in May, I do wanna catch up with her and be like, Hey, I'm noticing you're doing a really great job with like, communication, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I would like for your role to start including, more responsibility with the back. So I've noticed like we haven't really like done that before, so now I want you to do this. Mm-hmm. and let go of like X, Y, Z I think it just needs to be like almost like a dynamic dialogue Michael: a little bit. That's interesting. Yeah. in Jean's performance review, I guess outliner template, is it like, hey, number them from one to one to five, one to six, and you're not comfortable with that. You're not like, I don't wanna number, but you kind of have to see it. Like maybe you don't have to do it that way, but You know what I mean? Kind of like how good are you doing? Naomi: I know I. . I think if I had an office manager underneath me, for example, and she was the one that was like doing these, I would want her to probably do it. But I think with just such an intimate team, I feel uncomfortable doing that at this moment in time. I do think it's important to like let someone know where they need to improve. Because for example, these quarterly reviews are also to see if and when they get a raise, right? Mm-hmm. , if I'm constantly just only giving positive feedback and then suddenly I'm like, yo, you're not getting a raise. That's not gonna make any sense. . Yeah. Yeah. but if I'm, for example, say in three months, I'm like, Hey, I need you to be on time a little bit more. I'm just noticing we're having some, a lot of discussion around like your, timeliness. Mm-hmm. . And then in six months I am still noticing it. At least that's documented even though they're doing a great job and everything else. And then when it comes time to the raise, then I have it the ability to be like, you know, this is just a common theme that we've been like bringing up. So I just need to figure out how I actually wanna do it. I, I guess I'm just taking it how I personally am, and I would hate to be graded out of score of five or even 10. I think I would prefer like more specific bullet points that are just related to me, but maybe I'm just being like sensitive and Michael: need I agree. But at the same time, I think, if I were to like, okay, yeah, you're a Naomi, I'm sorry, but when it comes to like interpersonal skills or personal or whatever, I don't know. Right. Like Picking up the phone, timeliness, timing, let's just talk about that timing year or two, but here's why. Right. Kind of thing. Here's the thing, there's two ways I think you can do this. Have you heard of the sandwich compliment? Naomi: Oh, like start with a compliment about them. Yeah. Michael: Yeah. I've heard of that. And then do you know who, um, Irene Iku. Naomi: Sounds very familiar. I feel like you've brought her up Michael: before. she's been on the, on the podcast. She's, um, on Instagram, tooth life, Irene. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's what, yeah, she's, I think she has a practice in Canada or something like that. She thinks that's, she hates that sandwich compliment. She, on the, she says, she's like, I think if you're giving enough good appreciation to your team, then you won't have a hard time saying what the heck? You're late. Right. Kind of thing. Um, but obviously in a better terminology, right. You're not gonna be like, what the heck? You're late. You know? You're gonna be like, Hey man like, is everything okay? Like, You're, you're, you're late, you know, again, this time. But I've gotten enough good feedback and appreciation from you to be like, okay, all she does is tell me negative stuff, which is not true. I don't know. Which one do you prefer to those two? Naomi: The latter. I think Irene's for sure, I think you really need to motivate your staff and I think sometimes motivation comes in positivity. I don't think it always needs to just come in what? What they need to work on. So let me just use Beatrice for example again. Mm-hmm. , she has been getting actually a lot of compliments from parents about her communication through text. people who haven't even seen us yet, they're like, Beatrice, you've been, you're so great at like your job. Thank you for communicating. This is like the first time I've ever gotten like such good communication before. And she's feeling very proud of that. Mm-hmm. . And it makes me happy that she's feeling proud. And that's one of my biggest pillars, like in this office, is like transparency and communication with my patients. So the fact that she's doing it, I couldn't be more thrilled. I constantly motivate that side of her by letting her know, I see this and I appreciate a hundred percent that you're doing a good job. At the end of the day. If she handled, for example, an insurance claim that. Has been one of our biggest pain in the butts. Mm-hmm. all I have no problem. And think it should be said like, good job, like high five, like you're doing really, really great at this. It did make it easier when I did have an issue, with her, it was a miscommunication between us. I wanted her here at the office not working from home and she like misunderstood what I had said and landed up like working from home. It was a quick fix, not a big deal. Yeah. However, when I was able to tell her, hey, let me just like restate like kind of what I expect from you, blah, blah, blah. This, these are the days I expect you to be in the office. It made it very easy for me to talk to her about it. And she knew I wasn't coming from like a bad place. She was receptive to it cuz she was like, oh, normally, like Dr. Naomi would never say this. Mm-hmm. . So, and it was received well and so. , would it also work in that manner as well? If someone was constantly critiquing me, I'm just gonna be like, let down and would wanna distance myself. So Michael: yeah. I think sometimes people feel, or back then, I feel like it used to be like that where it's like you can't always compliment them or else, you know, when they, you do give them a compliment, they're gonna be like numb to it and it's, I don't think that works like that. You know what I mean? I don't think it's like that. I think you, it it's building blocks. You're getting built, built, built. Naomi: Yeah. But you also have to be confident to actually let someone know, like when they're not doing a good job. I think that's like where a lot of this stems from. It's like that anxiety about letting someone know that they're doing something wrong. I think that one of the reasons I don't love the sandwich technique is o oftentimes when people implement it, they use that word, but. instantly negates any of the positivity that's been said either before or after. Mm-hmm. . Cause you just send me, you focus on like the meat of the sandwich, , you're just like, Ugh, they're mad at me and this butt, it doesn't even matter. It's Hey Naomi, you're nice, but . Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, okay. And you can say all these different things, but I still know the technique enough to know that you're just trying to soften the blow. Yeah, Michael: I agree with you. I feel like it does that, or I've noticed what I do is I'm like, Naomi, man, like I appreciate you coming on the podcast. You know, you're a fantastic person, but you need to say more things, right? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then I'm like, but you know, other than that, you're really great. So don't even worry. You know? Don't even worry about then now I just like the one thing, the negative thing. Yeah. I like even undermine that myself even more. I'm like, don't worry about that. You know? So, It's kind of um, that's weird. Naomi: It, it does undermine it. And then honestly, like if you would've just told me that right now, then I think I leave confused. I'm like, but isn't really that big of a thing cuz you just complimented me too. So . Yeah, yeah, yeah, Michael: yeah, yeah. I'm like, uh, . So it's better to just do the other thing than how what I, yeah. Yeah. What new idea. Okay. That's good. That's good to know. I also Naomi: think, I don't know if this has been something that's been talked about like with Irene, maybe I should look into it, but I think intentionality behind someone's mistake also is a big thing too. I don't know, just I'll even use dating or relationships or whatever. Mm-hmm. sometimes when like our partners like do something that irritates us, it doesn't mean that they came from a bad place. They might have no idea. They might not. They might just be going about their day and they're like, oh, I like this person, but I'm still acting as me. And then you're like, Ugh, what you just did is so annoying. Um, it doesn't mean that they did it to annoy you, it's just whatever they did was just like the wrong thing. I think that kind of goes the same in business. for example, if Beatrice like misunderstood me or did something that I don't really love, I don't think that she came from a bad place. She's not purposely like, I wanna screw you over Dr. Naomi. why would I go after her with like such judgment? Michael: No, yeah, I agree. But then let me ask you, how much of that would you tolerate where you're like, you know, that's not her intention, you know, but she keeps not maybe the same thing but different things. It's like you're just misinterpreting, or I'm misinterpreting your actions and we're not hitting the ball Naomi: here. . Well, I think it's like dating. Then you gotta break up. It's like, I love you, but our communication sucks and no matter what we're doing, it's not working. So , I just think maybe we're not suited for one another. Michael: Do you have a system for that firing Naomi: policy? Yeah, through HR for health, but I don't remember it. . Michael: Wait. HR for health Naomi 9 DRAFT: fires? Naomi: People for you or if I remember when I made the employee handbook, there was like a section about if you don't do X, Y, Z, there's like the right to it or termination or something. So they wouldn't do it for me, but they have all the paperwork and all the stuff that I would. Need to kind of go about it. But yeah, I would probably have to just be like, this is not working. It's like breaking up with a patient. They don't believe in what I'm doing. Audios. Michael: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. There has to be systems for that too. You know what I mean? Yeah. Naomi: But you know about the firing. I'm hoping it doesn't come anytime soon. never Michael: happening is open . I know, but would, would you prefer having to fire someone or someone just ghosting you? Fire you Naomi: prefer firing? Yes, 100%. I don't do well with no communication. Michael: Was it me? What happened? What's going on? Naomi: Oh my gosh. I would be questioning it like all the time. I'd be like, what did I do? What was wrong? Yeah. I'm totally the girl that like needs answers. Michael: closure. You're like, I need this closure right Naomi: now. Yes, Michael: closure. There we go. Got you. . Gotcha. Gotcha. Awesome. Okay. Uh, so then what's. Naomi: so definitely, and I think marketing is just gonna be a really big push for the next four weeks. So we're starting off March strong with like our five day local giveaway. I'm trying to get more personal, um, relationships going with gps, orthodontists, oral surgeons, pediatricians, like just in the area. I just really wanna start developing, ties with the community and that's just something I w really wanna dedicate, like my admin time and like time off to. So that's kind of like the goals for the next, next month. Yeah. Nice. Michael: Take as many like videos and pictures as you can with all that stuff. That's the key. That's gonna be it right there, you know what I mean? I think Naomi: the content is just something I'm I need to like remind myself that I have to do it. I'm also. Beatrice has also gotten to the point. She's like, I'm taking out my phone doc. I'm like, thank you, . Or I'll be like, Beatrice get out your phone. Cuz her camera's better for some reason on hers, even though we have the same iPhone, it makes no sense. But , Michael: I know the consistency with iPhones is weird, man. Naomi: But yeah, it's so annoying. Like mine is always hazy and I'm constantly having to wipe it down. Hers is like clean as a button, every single time and I'm like, what the heck? But do you Michael: think you got in the lens dirt and stuff or? No, Naomi: I, I have a gut feeling there's something wrong, but quite frankly I really wanna update my phone anyway. So maybe I'll just write it off as a business expense sometime soon. Michael: Yeah. , which one do, which one do you Naomi: have? the 11 Promax. Michael: Oh. Oh, that camera's good. I don't know why you, I know, that's Naomi: but like hers is like awesome. So I don't know. But yeah, like I think getting content's gonna be the other thing. Um, I'm just trying to really push out reels now. Someone messaged me saying I should really try to go on TikTok. She was like, it just allows you to branch out like further than just your community. So that's something I'm gonna consider. I don't know if I really want to, I had one viral video go on TikTok, and it had nothing to do with dentistry and then I got freaked out that it went viral. So I made my account private. . Michael: What was it about? It was Naomi: something so dumb. It was like about, um, there was like different sounds. It was like, uh, ambulance, gunshots, like all that stuff. Then there was like a sound of no more fan going in the background. And what it was, was just basically like New Yorkers can sleep through all these noises, but the moment the AC turns off, we all get up out of our bed. And it was just solely because I just wanted to see what TikTok was about. Yeah. I think I did it in like 2021 or something, and all of a sudden it just blew up. I think it got like a million views and then I was like, oh shoot. And then Oh yeah. Michael: Can you share it with us? Yeah. Yeah. I'll send play That'll be, yeah, yeah. Share it with us. So I was on the, literally right before this, uh, recording I was with, do you know who Dr. Simon Chart is? I don't think so. Okay. He's, um, he was telling me a little bit about, if you want, you can look him up on Instagram right now if you want, while I'm letting you know. But, um, he was telling me how he grew his, following and his patience and everything through Instagram. . But he said if he had to do it again, it'd be through TikTok. And he's like, and I know I would instantly kill on TikTok. Like, it would be, it'd be amazing. But, um, it's a whole different reach, a whole different, ballgame, like a machine. So if you want, Naomi: Well, dental, I just feel it's taking over and it's actually kind of fun because I think Instagram is all about like professionalism, making things look good. And I think Instagram is trying to make it toy with the reels. Yeah. I think the fun part about TikTok, at least when I'm enjoying like other creators, is like, , you can just go on like TikTok and you can mimic a kid just like acting up and like how you feel about it. But everyone finds humor in it because they expect TikTok to be lighthearted and mm-hmm. , I kind of wanna take advantage of that because like with kids it can be like funny, it could be horrible. It could be like, you could just like kind of make fun at it and parents could enjoy it. So my might as well, it's just like putting yourself out there is so hard sometimes and I just don't wanna be like, talked about or teased. So I, I just have to suck it up and do it. But I think you're right. Oh yeah, Michael: yeah. Him, him, yeah. Yeah. So he, he doesn't have TikTok, but he's like, if I did, if I did have to do it again, it would be on TikTok and he gave us like the reasons why. So, I don't know. It's something to think about. Something to think about. If you wanted Naomi: to go, why doesn't he go for it though? Like did he say anything about why he wouldn't just start right now? Even with a large Instagram following because he Michael: knows it will take time. . So he, he has like a family. He has some kids and then he has a wife and he has a practice. He has that business. He's running the toothpaste, right. Company. Yeah, yeah. All this other stuff. Um, and so he's like literally . Yeah. Yeah. He's like my pa Literally, I knew I would have to take some time out in order to make content for that. Right. And so that's the only reason he, I mean, he hasn't yet, I don't know if you will, but it was interestin

In this episode, we welcome House Canary's Director of Research, Brandon Lwowski to look at what has been happening in the real estate market over the last years and where we are headed as an industry. We discuss the health of the real estate market, the residual effects of the response to COVID-19, and the main challenges facing investors today. Brandon Lwowski built his career after studying Computer Science Mathematics at The University of Texas at San Antonio. In his role at HouseCanary as Director of Research, Brandon distills what is happening in the real estate market through data analytics and machine learning to help investors make more informed decisions about their portfolios. Links: https://www.housecanary.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-lwowski/ --- Transcript Before we get into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The SFR show is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions, and strategies of the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance, from Roofstock. Make sure to run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everyone, welcome to an episode of the SFR show, the place where you get all of your up to date SFR investing information. I'm Michael Albaum, and today my guest is Brandon Lwowski, the director of Research over HouseCanary and he's gonna be talking to us about all of the things that have been going on in the market over the last several years and months, and how we can use that information going forward. So let's get into it.   Hey, Brandon, what's going on? Thanks so much for taking the time to come jump in chat with me today. Appreciate it, man.   Brandon: No, of course, it's good to be here to get an opportunity to discuss the real estate market for sure.   Michael: Yeah, I'm super excited. So you're the director of Research at HouseCanary. Give us all just a quick little bit of insight background on who you are and what house canary is and what they do as a company.   Brandon: Yeah, definitely. So HouseCanary, you know, it's basically a national brokerage and so it's really known for its real estate valuation, technology and accuracy. This company has been around since 2013. It was founded by Jeremy Sicklick, our CEO and our Chief of Research, Chris Stroud, kind of off of the 2008 housing crisis, they did decide to form this company to kind of help speed up the transactions and speed up and really gain knowledge and just competence in the real estate market through using analytics machine learning to provide 100 and 14 million valuations on properties as well as 91 million rental valuations. So if you think of how scary it's built around the analytics and valuations of the United States real estate market.   Michael: It was at $114 million valuations that you said since it since inception.   Brandon: No, that's monthly, we produce 114 million property valuations. Of course, the 114 million is a subset of you know, every property in the United States and that repeated monthly, but we train this very complex machine learning model AI model to produce 114 million property valuations.   Michael: That's incredible. Well, I want to come back to HouseCanary as a company here in a minute. But I want to first start by asking you, Brandon, because it is so analytics and data driven, what is it that HouseCanary as a company and you as an as the director of research are seeing in the numbers in the data with regard to just where we are in the market, there's so much chatter about market cycles and ups and downs and bubbles, give us a little bit of insight to what are the numbers and facts supporting where we are right now, as we're recording this brand new into the new year 2023.   Brandon: I think kind of the one of the biggest headlines to kind of drive home right now, especially in the market, we have this unique combination of these elevated interest rates and you know, the slow buying season that we typically see during the winter months, this has really impacted across the board, our new inventory coming into the market, our new listings, listings going under contract, all of these metrics that we typically look at to understand the health of the market and the health of the real estate market, have really had significant declines year on a year over year basis, that's across the board inventory listings under contract, the Feds kind of you know, their fourth straight 75 basis point interest rate increase, you know, as the thing is, the fourth month straight or the fourth, fourth one straight, has really had that negative impact on net inventory. But this is just providing more evidence that you know, supply of homes is still squeezed and it's remaining negative over time, we've kind of seen this trend since August, right where our supply of affordable housing and actually all housing in the market has really continued to drop and this is basically you know, the biggest driving factor here is that interest rates shot really driving down these new listings volumes to like a multiyear low since pre you know, I don't use the word pre pandemic because you know, we're still in the pandemic, but that pre pandemic peaks we'll call them we're seeing you know, all its multi-year lows in terms of new listings, everything going on the real estate market. The biggest picture here is even as these interest rates come up, our supply just remains extremely negative and still going in a downward trajectory.   Michael: And when you say downward trajectory is that From 12 months prior, or is that from the prior month?   Brandon: We're looking at a year a year basis right now. If you think about the month over month basis, we are still seeing declines. But when we're talking about these multi year lows in terms of net new listings, on the purchase side of the market, we've reached those multi year lows. I think, you know, the reason why this supply crisis is also happening right now is, in this current real estate environment, it's really difficult to convert homeowners and current renters and convert them into future homebuyers, right. In this elevated interest, interest rate market, it just doesn't make sense financially for a lot of people to enter the market, you think of this large group of, of homebuyers that purchase homes at record low interest rates, they refinanced during the peak of a call it the peak of the refinance, boom, that happened during the pandemic and for them to reenter the market, it just doesn't make financial sense for them. So in order to move out of their current home and into a new loan, they're going to be paying a higher premium for the same quality of home. So they're available availability to spend money has definitely decreased and I really don't see this inventory shortage, kind of relieving itself or beginning to increase well into, you know, the first quarter, second half or first half of 2023, the supply just remains super squeezed.   Michael: Okay and so that, like the supply aspect is, I'm guessing one ingredient in the recipe, so to speak, what are some of the other things that you're looking at, and that you're seeing, to give you an indicator of where we're headed and where we are currently.   Brandon: Right. So I think so the supply is, has been squeezed, I think since COVID, there's been a really tight squeeze on the flat supply side of the market. But with those low interest rates that were happening, I mean, 1- 2% interest rates, people were getting their home loans that the demand for property shot up, which is why we really saw that two, three years of just record breaking price growth and the real estate market. Now we're looking at the demand side, and we're actually in the seventh consecutive month of double digit declines in on a year over year basis, we're looking at the listings that are coming under contract in the market. So if you look at inventory as a supply of new listings coming in, if we look at listings of those listings, and the existing market, this existing supply, existing supply, listings under contract is still seven consecutive months of double digit declines since November, are all of our data right now, it's kind of up to that first week of December 2, so we kind of think of it as, as of November. This is this kind of is the driving force behind this is, you know, we've never seen this kind of seventh consecutive month of double digit. So it's kind of driving a lot of fear into homebuyers and home owners and the way we kind of know that this is not normal, it's kind of beyond the typical seasonality we'd expect during the cold winter months to have seven consecutive months, this kind of uncertainty in the market around interest rates, economic downturn, the inflation, they just continue to force homeowners and would be buyers, you know, to play the waiting game, they're, they're gonna sit in the sidelines, they're gonna stay away from the market and so they're a little more competent in in where this kind of roller coaster is going.   Michael: As I'm thinking about such a visual thinker. I'm thinking about this as almost like a race to the bottom in a sense of like supply versus demand once because it sounds like they're almost moving in lockstep negatively, we were having a reduction in supply, but we also have a reduction in demand and once right is that is that the right way to think about it?   Brandon: The demand has definitely began to decrease or is decreasing at a faster rate than supply because supply has been squeezed since the pandemic whenever the shutdowns happened. People just stop selling houses. They stopped listing their home so the supply side of the market has been squeezed since the shutdown the pandemic. The demand side due to the interest rate hikes the economic uncertainty, that's where we're really seeing the decrease on the supply side where the decreases are coming from. So even though you know supply is always been net always been tight. We've been tight recently in recent years. A lot of the continued decrease on supply side is actually coming from net new listings so people aren't putting listings on the market right now. For the reason that we discussed earlier. It's hard to get homeowners back into the game. They're actually down around 25% on a year over year basis, in terms of like how many new listings are coming into the market, but even a bigger piece here is on the supply side is our removals of listings are up 65% on a year over year basis. So houses that were listed last month six are being removed from the market further impacting supply, while supply has been remained squeezed like very, very tight supply of properties over the years, there still is a decrease in net new listings, and also an increase in removal. So in that supply is being affected. But when it's so squeezed already, that that impact in the market will not be as significant as the impact of a decreasing demand side of the market.   Michael: Yeah and that makes total sense and so what are you seeing with regard to sale, as opposed to sale of percent of this price and then also days on market?   Brandon: Yeah. So I think some other key indicators, the market, you kind of just discussed, you know, we have days on market, I think price lists ratio is important, I think, the median price, right, the time series of how is price behaving in this environment, all important and understanding kind of the overall health of the market and I kinda like to go with the big one first, in my opinion, which is the median price, right? Where is the market going? I kind of macro at a national scale. The, if you look at the year over year basis, median price of all single family listings, right, so single family dwellings, that those are actually up 10%, on list prices, and actually up 2% in terms of actual close prices. So even though we're seeing the storyline of these prices really starting to decline and kind of freefall, we're still seeing as a year over year basis, because we hit such a huge peak in the middle of 2022. We're still up year over year, by those two percentage I meant mentioned. On a month over month basis that compared to last month, we are slightly down, but it's very, very small. We're down around one and a half percent on listings and down and less than half a percent on close prices. So we see a lot of the storylines and the headlines across the news, that these prices are falling drastically. We're in a deep decline. The roller coaster rails are off and we're down to 2008 again, but just looking at the data alone without any sort of human interjection or opinions. I'm not an economist, I'm a data scientist. But by heart, I'm just looking at the data because we had such a high peak in the middle of 2022, in terms of the median house prices were still up year over year and on a month over month basis, the declines in price are very, very miniscule, to what we're kind of hearing in the media. So that's one thing, right? The median price is definitely a driving factor. Everyone's concerned about like, what am I going to get for my property? Where's the trend of our nationwide real estate market heading and even though we're in a slight downtick month, over month, if you look at long term, we're still up 10% on listings and up, you know, 2% on closed prices.   Michael: It seems like there has been so much resiliency, if we're seeing such a miniscule price reduction month over month and year over year, there seems to be a lot of resiliency to interest rate increases for folks, and that they're still closing transactions, even at this much higher interest rates, and they're not saving a lot or really anything at all, in terms of the price that they're paying out the door.   Brandon: Right, I think what's causing these prices to, I don't wanna say remain elevated, but kind of not declining at the pace that we would expect is that tight supply. Now, we're still a few months probably away from seeing how this kind of mass layoff and technology could affect the real estate market. Because, in my opinion, what's really going to drive these prices down is when we see supply, increase at levels that the demand has decreased and that imbalance in the market is what will really drive those prices down and the reason why kind of refer to that technology, layoff if that same style, that same volume of layoffs, hits other sectors of employment, then we're going to see defaults and people need to give up their homes because they can't afford it anymore. So unless something in outside of the real estate market really drives the demand. I'm sorry the supply side of the market to escalate at a very fast rate, that safety net is there to kind of keep our prices from really crashing, like we saw in 2008. We don't have the same supply that we saw in 2008. So we're kind of have that safety net there. Unless like I said, something really drives that unemployment up and forces people to default and give up their homes or sell their homes because they can't afford the mortgage anymore.   Michael: But it's interesting, because from all the news that I've been hearing, and correct me if I'm wrong, maybe you've been hearing, the unemployment rate is super low. Like there just doesn't seem to be those mass layoffs that we saw in the tech industry, yet anyhow, affecting so much of the so many other industries. So it doesn't feel as imminent.   Brandon: 100% right, I'm hoping I mean, just for the health of our economy, I'm hoping that that mass layoff doesn't reach other sectors and I hope that we're done with majority of it. But we're probably a month or two away from really understanding did that actually have an impact on our median, price per square foot or median close price of a property and then we can track those defaults, and those the supply over the next few months to see if that really impacted the real estate market or not.   Michael: And that makes total sense. We'll talk this Brandon about those other two factors that you mentioned the price to list ratio, and then the days on market.   Brandon: The price to list ratio has actually been on a pretty big decline. I think back in May 2022, it may have been June or May, I think we're at a multiyear high of around 102%. So most properties, were selling 100 or 2% higher than the list price, which means that it's definitely a seller's market, right. If I if I can list my house for X amount of dollars, I know I'm gonna get 102% return, I mean, I happen to present a 2% return on that is definitely a seller's market. We actually for the first time in about mid-August of last year, we're now down below 100. So that's just an indicator that the markets kind of switched right now buyers kind of have that power and that ratio now stands around 98%, which is kind of the levels before COVID emerged, and actually the lowest number since the first half of 2020. So we're not we went from a high of 102 in May to now we're down to about 98 which is definitely a key indicator that buyers now have more power than the seller's because of you know, just multiple aspects that we've been talking about the high interest rates buyers be a little more choosy. Even though the supply is down sewer buyers, there's not enough buyers in the pool to compete with me anymore. So I have a little bit more pool, which is why we're seeing that sale to list price or price to list ratio, starting to decrease. That kind of in parallel, what we see with that is to kind of tell that same story that we're now entering that buyers' market, even though demand is low, if you look at the volume of price drops, right, think about how many times a listing comes on the market for 100k. It sits there for 30 days, they come back and they say hey, you know what, let's list it for 95 maybe we can get more buyers, those price drops in terms of volume are actually up 142% year over year since the last time. It's just more evidence that buyers now because demand is so is so squeezing this high interest rate environment, they get more power listings are staying on the market longer list to or sale to list price ratio is down and then but yet the because supply still squeezed, we're not really seeing a huge impact that we're kind of seeing in the news right now, on the actual median price of all listings.   Michael: Brandon, just out of curiosity, I think I remember if my memory serves me correctly, which it often doesn't, but like in the height of 2022, the max or the highest median home price in the country was like 395k. But do you happen to recall what that number was and maybe what it is now today?   Brandon: Yeah, so if you look at the peak of 2022. So kind of that halfway mark, I think it was right around the ending of H 122. The actual median price is actually higher, at least according to our data, right? The data that we have availability to our actual median price was actually above 400,000. We're sitting right around like 420,000 was kind of that median price for closed listings for active listings was actually even higher than that. So for closed listings were around that for 120,000 range, right now as of the first week of December is kind of our data cut off. Right now in terms of the data that I'm giving you, we're sitting right around $380,000 as the kind of median price per square foot, I'm sorry, median price of closed listings, it sounds dramatic, and we go from, you know, that 420 ish down to three, it's a pretty big drop. But as you look at the entire time series from, we'll call it the pandemic, the start of the closed downs, all the way to today, if you bought a house, during those pandemic years, you're still doing really well in terms of the amount of equity, it's still in your home prices haven't dropped that drastically to where you're now upside on your loan, you're still well above you know, what you bought the house in, during the bottom of the pandemic years, what's really going to cause kind of some worry, and headaches is these people who kind of bought later in the year, kind of towards the end, or middle of 2022. Now, they're beginning to worry the most because they didn't have that same amount of cushion that these homeowners bought when they don't worry about houses a year or two years ago. So that number does seem like a big decrease. But if you look at the longevity of the time series of the pandemic eight pandemic shutdowns to now, you're still up quite a bit in terms of percent and you have a large cushion before you even have to worry about being upside down in a mortgage or, you know, losing a large amount of equity in your property.   Michael: Does the data give us any indicators as to what's coming down the pike because obviously, data is rear looking. But how can we use that to be forward looking or is there a way to be?   Brandon: Yeah, so I think you're talking about forward looking, you know, the next 6,12,18 months. If you look back slightly, we hit this topic quite a bit. It's a big topic right now in real estate is these large interest rate hikes. If you look at the timeline, the time series of the real estate market in terms of medium price terms of you know, list to sale rate of sale to price ratio, you look at, you know, the days on market, it seems that with the large amount of growth that we experienced in two years, you know, record growth, that was actually able to absorb a lot of the impact that people would assume, continuing to month over month raise this interest rate to higher and higher levels, they assumed that it was going to impact the real estate market at much a much quicker, much faster way. So then they can stop, right, the goal of raising interest rates tend to raise them forever. They're just raising them until they kind of see the market growth kind of settled down and adjust and kind of normalize. But it's kind of shocking when you think about how much and how quickly that interest rate rose and until a few months back. I mean, most of 2022 there was very little impact from those rounds of interest rates. So it's one thing that we can we can learn as, as we saw record growth, even that dramatic increase really did not impact the real estate market as we thought it would. Secondly, what's really kind of driving any sort of kind of negative view of the real estate market right now around this interest rate, is you gotta think of like purchase power of our homebuyers, right?   We didn't see salaries raised at the same rate as the real estate market, we didn't see household income raise at the same rate as real estate. So the really big question here and the kind of the, you know, the driving force here is the purchase power of homebuyers. We actually seeing and this is from Freddie Mac, I believe a 32% decrease in purchase power, based on this 30 year, you know, FRM, that's given the same monthly payments for a loan made at the end of 2021. So we're really seeing a decrease in what homebuyers can afford and that combined with hopefully the Fed has definitely signaled smaller rate hikes in the future. We're hoping that housing fundamentals can hopefully come back to a quote unquote normal seasonality cycle and the expected returns, but into early 2023. I think we're still going to see you know, a real estate market that's just characterized by this continued tight squeeze on supply tight squeeze on demand. With the exception of what we discussed earlier, which was a major economic event causing mass layoffs or firings, then I'm thinking early 2023 is going to be characterized the same kind of, of patterns we're seeing now, which is tight supply, shrinking demand, days on market, increasing. median price is slowly decreasing month over month, until we see hopefully towards the second half of 2023, a market that's brought back to its normal seasonality and its normal housing market fundamentals.   Michael: Brandon, I want to be super respectful of your time and get you out of here, man. But before I do if people want to learn more about you and the research team HouseCanary has a whole services that y'all provide. Where's the best place for them to do that or get a hold of someone?   Brandon: Yeah, I would definitely just go to https://www.housecanary.com/ . From there, you can get a list of all the products services, there's probably people on our company that can explain the better business use cases and appear researcher, I'm all about the data. But if you go to https://www.housecanary.com/, there's plenty of people to contact through there and also, I'll attach my email. I'll pass it on to you, Michael after this. So you can share it with the listeners.   Michael: Thank you so much for taking the time. This was super informative and definitely again, curious to see how things all pan out.   Brandon: Yeah, stay up, same tune. I think next week, our new market pulse comes out as well. So if you're interested in different states and how the market is performing, and also at the national level, it's a free report and that report will be valid all the way up into the end of December. So it will have kind of our December numbers added to that report and you can see those trends going on there as well. So usually is dispersed on our website. Also LinkedIn, if you follow HouseCanary on LinkedIn, that report is shared monthly for free and you can see all those metrics that we talked about updated on a monthly cadence. So you can kind of have competence in your decision making process.   Michael: Love it, love it. We'll definitely check that out as well. Well, thanks again, Brandon. Appreciate you and we'll chat soon.   Brandon: Appreciate it, thanks, Michael.   Michael: All right, everyone. That was our show a big thank you to Brandon for coming on and dropping so much knowledge, facts, data and statistics on us to help us guide our investing through these kind of tumultuous times. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, we would love to hear from you all ratings and reviews are always appreciated as are comments with additional topic ideas that you are interested in learning about. We look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing…

This episode features the masterminds behind Roofstock OnChain, Geoffrey Thompson, and Sanjay Raghavan. We discuss the revolutionary product of tokenized real estate, how it works, the problems it solves, the incredible scaling power of this new technology, and who it is for.   Geoff Thompson built his career at top-tier law firms practicing in the areas of capital markets, banking and credit, structured finance, private equity, and cross-border transactions. Geoff's prior role at Roofstock was as general counsel where he advised on partnerships, product innovation, fundraising, deal structuring, real estate matters, securities law, international expansion, and all other legal and compliance matters. Sanjay Raghavan is the Head of Web3 Initiatives of Roofstock onChain where he leads the real estate investing platform's blockchain initiative. After being accepted into Cypher Accelerator, Sanjay continues to build connections between real estate investing and blockchain. Sanjay is also an advisor at Pudgy Penguins NFTs. Roofstock onChain is the Web3 subsidiary of Roofstock, the leading digital real estate investing platform for the $4 trillion single-family rental home sector. Relevant links: https://mobile.twitter.com/eth_sanjay https://mobile.twitter.com/_gthomps     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: What's going on everyone, Michael Albaum here from the Remote Real Estate Investor, we're actually in the midst of a pivot and so we're changing the name of our show to be the SFR show. Reason being is we really want to double down on the single family rental industry as a whole and so we wanted to pick a title and a name that's reflective of that. So join us here on the new show, the SFR show where we're gonna be bringing you everything you need to know about SFR investing from what the market is doing at the micro and macro level, to what the factors are influencing and changing the space. So let's kick it off with this first episode. We hope you enjoy.   Hey everyone, welcome to the SFR show. We're going to be talking today with Geoff and Sanjay on Roofstocks web three team about cryptocurrency tokenization, alternative investments, portfolio theory and risk management just to name a few. So with that, let's just jump straight into it.   Geoff and Sanjay, good to see you both. How have you been?   Sanjay: Great. Good to see you again and, Michael, you look really different from the last time we spoke and so much younger and much more refreshed, I think after the holidays.   Michael: Thank you. Yeah, I came back from the holidays ready, you know, cut, put some 10 pounds on and took 10 years off my face. So I'm doing the best I can, so…   Geoff: That's it.   Michael: That's it. So for anyone who didn't catch our prior episode together, I'd love if you could give a really quick intro who you guys are and what is it that you're doing here at Roofstock.   Geoff: So yeah, we are co leading the web three business unit every stock. I'm Geoff Thompson, this is Sanjay Raghavan and we have been at Roofstock for several years and over the last year, we've spent all of our time focusing on how to use blockchain and web three technology to improve the real estate transaction process and to generally make single family rentals more accessible and asset class.   Michael: And for anyone who isn't familiar with what web three is definitely go back and give that prior episode a listen. Sanjay gets into it and kind of what the technology is. So I'm curious gents where we are today, where are you seeing blockchain and tokenization playing a role in the single family space.   Sanjay: So first of all, we had a sale of our Genesis property in mid-October. So for your audience who may have read about it on crypto Twitter or on media publications, that was a very successful launch of this product, we spent about 10 months working on legal and tax analysis of how to structure this product so that it would be compliant and when somebody was purchasing this property in a web three as a web three home, they were in fact getting, you know, ownership of the underlying assets. So that took us about 10 months to engineer and the sale. The first sale that happened in mid-October was a huge success, went viral on crypto Twitter, and was picked up by all the leading crypto and non-crypto publications and the reason for that was because for the first time, what really happened in crypto and blockchain, which, if your followers are looking at the market, in general, this has been a really particularly bad year in the industry for the stock market. Inflation has been at a 40 year high feds have been drastically, like we went to 475 basis point interest rate hike and so, you know, we're going through this very tumultuous time in the industry and crypto has not been an exception, either, they've, you know, Krypto has been having an unprecedented winter, where either like Bitcoin and Aetherium lost 60% of their value since last year to this year and then a bunch of crypto companies went insolvent, because of various either it was just poor risk management or just, you know, for whatever other reasons, you know, they didn't have the capital to withstand the, this bear market. So during these times, you know, this was sort of like a ray of light in this industry, because we had successfully demonstrated that it was actually possible to sell a single family rental property, which normally is a three four week closing process was done instantaneously using battery technologies. But we were also able to find a leverage partner who was able to provide a loan for that property at a 65% LTV and so the combination of all of this really was a very positive thing in the industry, and we got a lot of outreach because of that.   Michael: Hopefully it wasn't FTX, right…   Sanjay: No, the leverage partner was not FTY, it was Dehler finance. But specifically, you know, about your question about, you know, with respect to blockchain tokenization, what does that really mean for real estate is that, you know, we've been able to now demonstrate that it is possible to have a better sale experience, right? When you typically look at the three week closing process on a real estate transaction, there's a bunch of contingencies on an offer, both the buyer and seller are extremely nervous about what happens during the diligence period in those three weeks. You know, like, for example, as you're aware, you know, the inspection results come in, and then you find out something about the property that you were not aware of before and then there's typically some kind of negotiation that goes on the offer price after the fact. There's an appraisal, contingency financing contingency, and, you know, so anything can happen during this three week period, the seller and buyer, even though an offer was accepted, may have a disagreement later on, you know, based on the results of further analysis, and sometimes the offer can be rescinded and then you're back to the drawing board trying to relist the property and sell it. So it's a particularly stressful time, both for the buyer and seller and doing it through this web three mechanism essentially allows us to take a lot of that diligence, which still has to happen, but we're just moving it, you know, upfront in the process, so the buyer and seller have access to the same information about the property, and the buyer is able to perform all of their diligence upfront. The way Geoff talks about his experiences, you may spend a week or two looking at Amazon Prime to figure out what you want to buy for Christmas. But once you've made that decision, you want it to be delivered, you know, on Amazon Prime, same day or next day, you don't want to wait four weeks for it to be then shipped from China to you know, get to Los Angeles, and then from there to be transported to, you know, San Francisco. So, you know, we really want to make this process easy for people, right. So you do all your diligence upfront, but when you decide to make that purchase decision, it happens instantaneously and on top of that, when you add that financing in a way that's asset based and not based on your personal credit underwriting, you're not trying to find a lender and you know, sending them two years of tax returns and bank statements and as you as you're aware, Michael, what happens in this process is you send all this information, you get a pre underwriting approval and then as you're getting ready to close on the property a month or two have elapsed, and all your information is outdated, and you're resending all the information back to the lender. So you know, you want to avoid all of this as well, because that's also incredibly stressful as you're going through a purchase process and here, because it's a rental property, it's cashflow generating, you based on the value of the asset, you can actually underwrite the loan and say, you know, it's a $200,000 property, I'm comfortable giving you $100,000 loan against it and that makes the lending paradigm a lot simpler as well. So overall, it's generally a better experience, both for the seller and the buyer, when you bring in the battery technology into this process.   Michael: This is mind blowing, you guys. So, I'm curious, like, how are you seeing really or rather, are people doing this at scale? I mean, is this we did it once we've, we've proven that it can be done once. But what is the scalability factor look like here? For both buyers and for sellers?   Geoff: It is yeah, I can jump in here. It is scalable. It's scalable in the same way that buying and selling homes today can be done, you know in bulk, or you can assemble your own portfolio over time. It's not you know, there isn't a delayed production process in creating these and preparing them to be sold on the blockchain. We do get that question a lot. Well, how much does it cost to mint a token? You know, is it 10s of 1000s of dollars? No, that's, that's essentially free. How long does it take, it's essentially instantaneous. The work that we do to prepare this to be sold is, is what Sanjay alluded to the diligence and inspection making sure everything photos have been taken, taxes have been paid HOA square all of those things. That's what we do up front, which has to happen in any real estate transaction, we just package that up in a very short timeframe of you know, call it five or 10 days, once the home has been purchased, and rehabbed and you know, it's ready to be listed for sale. So this can be this can be scaled and then once the home has been put on chain, then this is where the seller really is going to feel the scalability and the ease of interaction because imagine that you own five or 10 or you know some number of homes, you want to rebalance your portfolio. Maybe you want to get into one market and get out of another market. Right now you know, you'd have to do that through the traditional process. It might take a few months and involved a number of different intermediaries. In our case, if you if you own those homes as tokenized properties, we can get them ready for sale in five or 10 days, and then they can be listed immediately and once they've been listed on an NFT marketplace, the sale can happen with one click. So you don't as the seller, you don't have to go through a you know, a prolonged and painful back and forth with the buyer countering after they get the inspection and you know, trying to haggle on the price or trying to get a discount here, whatever it might be. That's all taken care of up front. So in that sense, it's it does make this much more scalable and much more liquid than the traditional process.   Michael: Should audience and listeners be thinking about crypto almost like a foreign currency and so just quick anecdote. So I've invested in Portugal, I signed my purchase agreement to purchase the property in Portugal back in 2020, just before the pandemic, then where the dollar was really strong against the euro than the Dollar tanked against the Euro and so I changed money after the fact and just got totally hosed on the exchange rate. How should people be thinking about exchange rate, if you will, between cryptocurrency and whatever currency there?   Sanjay: Yeah, that's a that's a really good question, right and when you think about a cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin or Aetherium, these are the two sort of more commonly discussed cryptocurrencies, in a way it is, you can make the analogy that these are almost as though they are, you know, sovereign currencies of their own and there is an exchange rate between the US dollar and Bitcoin or Aetherium. The only difference here being that, you know, unlike Euro, or the British pound, where they have their own fiscal and monetary policies that, you know, determine what happens to their bank against the dollar, in the case of cryptocurrencies, they are highly volatile and we see that there's, they're very, actually strongly correlated to the stock market today. So, when, for example, the, there was an indication that the feds might slow down the rate at which they're increasing the interest rates and I think the expectation for, I believe this week the Fed is meeting and the expectation is that this week, it will be a 50 basis point taken sort of a 75 basis point high, the stock markets rallied and sorted Bitcoin with that and however, even though they're kind of strongly correlated, they're also highly volatile and so when we talk about people having cryptocurrencies that they can use to buy these properties, we actually suggest that they buy and keep their money in stable coins, which are pegged against the US dollar and there are companies such as circle which have USDC, and Paxos which has its own version of dollar pegged stable coin. And having your money in stable coins means that you're not subject to the same volatility, as Bitcoin or Aetherium might be which can drop or go up in value by 20-30% in a single day and that's, that's how we will really think about it. If people want to, you know, have an allocation, if somebody is really long on Bitcoin or Aetherium, and they want to have an allocation in that asset class, that's fine. As long as they're aware that those are highly volatile and in the short term, they could be, you know, fluctuating quite a bit.   Michael: Yeah and that makes sense and so when are you seeing people make the change from the stable coin to whatever coin they're going to be using to purchase the properties?   Sanjay: So the stable, you can actually purchase properties with stable coins and because, you know, we have a way to when we received those stable coins, for example, if we are the seller of the property, and, you know, property is purchased using, let's say, serpents, USDC. Once were paid in USD C, we have a way to convert that back into US dollars. So that's, you know, it makes essentially, you can think of the stable coins as programmable money meaning this whole transaction is happening on the blockchain, and it's happening through a piece of computer code, there's no you know, you and I are not sitting across the table signing documents and you know, giving a check and receiving title and in return. So, this is all happening because a piece of computer code is transferring money from you to me and transferring the, the LLC through the NFT giving you the LLC that I own, which has this property and since this is all being executed by computer code, this stable coin is really, you know, we refer to it as programmable money because a piece of computer program is able to move money from you to me, and, and allow this transaction to happen in that one click process that Geoff was talking about earlier.   Geoff: You know, it feels like this is the way things should work, right? If you think about the system that we have right now for closing property transactions. It's basically inherited from England 800 years ago. You know, we've made small advancements, but not really and it shouldn't you know, it all of everyone who is involved in these transactions, and every step that's taken is taken for a reason it's solving a particular problem. But if you stop and rethink how this is done, you realize that by reordering some things, and maybe, you know, using a splash of new technology here, you can actually dramatically change the experience for everyone and it's not necessarily, you know, a zero sum game, I think it's best, it's better for everyone, everyone who's in the industry is going to be better off, there will be more transactions, because it's easier to transact, there'll be more demand because people are interested in getting in, if they know they can get out easily, right? Right now, you know that if you're looking at buying a property, you're probably going to have to hold it at least five years to recover your closing costs and wait for it to appreciate a little bit and you know, it's going to be a headache, when you do have to sell, if you don't have those constraints, you know, transaction fees are less and the time involved is less, you'll be more inclined to get in the market, because you know, you can get out when you need to.   Sanjay: And, you know, I'll also add one more thing to that, right. So Michael, if you think about, you know, back in the day, when there were these kind of all day, buyers, a lot of them were like businessmen that, you know, one year, they might have made half a million dollars, but you know, then another year, it was only 150, or something and so it's very hard to underwrite those types of folks through a traditional underwriting process, because you're looking at two years of, you know, income and tax returns, and all of that, and a lot of them may not can qualify for more conventional financing. However, in an asset based lending type solution, you know, as long as you have the money, and, you know, you're not constrained by, you know, your income for the last two years or three years, as long as you have the money to buy the, you know, to put in as down payment on the product, and the asset itself has the value, you're able to borrow against it much more easily. So, you know, we just talked about the complexity of closing a real estate transaction, in general. But once you add in the financing layer, on top of that, it gets even harder because, you know, there's, again, in a in a, you know, when the market is going up, you just, you just don't know, if you know the max, you want to make the best offer, you can but at that offer, you don't know if you will qualify for the loan, because the also the rate might have moved since the time, you initially got underwritten and suddenly, with the new rate, you don't qualify anymore for that and you have to find that little bit more down payment to offset it or buy some points. You know, you and I have gone through this numerous times in our lives. But you know, you can avoid all of those types of issues because in an asset based lending program, you know, that when you buy this asset, which is worth $200,000, there's a lender, if they're willing to come in at 65%, LTV, you know that based on the value of the asset, you're going to get that loan.   Michael: And if we just decouple the crypto piece of this and blockchain piece of this, I mean, asset based lending, is that available for regular folks?   Sanjay: So in the traditional finance world, it is available, right, but it becomes it becomes harder, because when you're buying an investment property. As you know, Fannie Mae puts limitations on how many investment properties you can get financing for as an individual. Once you get past that limit, then you're looking at pretty much private money, hard money type lending solutions, until you can get up to a scale where you have enough properties where Citibank or Wells Fargo or Goldman Sachs might be interested in working with you. But there's this pocket where after you know, your first 10 properties till you get to a few 100, we are primarily working with, you know, non-bank lenders who are generally, you know, where the rate could be 10 or 12% and then, oftentimes, some of these lenders will also ask for a personal guarantee on top of it. So it's not, you know, while it is possible to get financing on investment properties in the traditional finance world, at some point, it doesn't scale very well and, you know, you're sort of in that desert for until you can somehow figure out a way to get to 200 properties when suddenly the larger lenders are willing to talk to you. So that problem goes away when you're using Blockchain, and specifically decentralized finance or defy as we refer to it, because they're incrementally each property that you're buying is getting financed based on asset value and so you know, you're able to get a much more sort of a pleasurable experience to get through the lending process on the blockchain than on the traditional work.   Michael: Let's pivot just a little bit and talk about risk management and portfolio theory and as folks are starting to scale their portfolio or really as institutions have already a sizable portfolio, where does tokenization fit in to their playbook? When's the appropriate time? When should people be thinking about it in general?   Sanjay: The way I like to answer this question is if you as an individual, if you went to your financial advisor, and said, okay, you know, I have, you know, a million dollars, I want to invest, and I want to make sure there's, you know, come up with a portfolio allocation, that makes sense for me, typically, they're going to, like, in the old days, it was just a sort of a 60,40 rule, there was 60%, in stocks, 40%. In bonds, yeah, but I think people have gotten smarter over the last 10 years and nowadays, when you go to a financial advisor, they're going to say, some allocation in stock, some allocation in fixed income bond products, and then an allocation to alternative investments, because that's where, you know, you can get non correlated yields, because the stock market moving in one direction should not and like, you know, God forbid, if you have an emergency, and you need some cash, like this would be a, you know, if you bought at the height of the market last year, this would be a really bad time to sell, you know, your S&P 500 shares to, to, you know, pay for whatever you had to write, whether it's a wedding, a doctor's thing, education, whatever it is. So, generally speaking, financial advisors these days suggest that you should have an allocation in alternative investments that are non-correlated to the stock and bond markets and, you know, you can access that pool of capital, you know, when you need to, right. So from that, from that perspective, diversification, and then when you talk about alternatives, there's, obviously, there's a wide range of assets there. But real estate is on top of mind, for almost all the, you know, anytime we talk about alternatives, real estate, sort of is one of the top things people talk about. So from that perspective, you know, almost every investor should probably be looking at some allocation, and it will depend on their individual circumstances, whether their age, their income, their marital status, and you know, their need for cash there, this cauldrons and all that, but, you know, advisors might ask you to put five to 10% or, or more into alternative asset classes and so the same financial hygiene should also be applied by corporations and institutions, because you're sort of being asked to manage the treasury of your company, let's say you are a venture funded company, and you just raised $100 million, well, you are going to keep a good portion of that money in cash and cash like instruments, money market, and so on, because you have working capital, you have other things that you need to be spending on. But some allocation of that you might put in US Treasuries, for example, right and in the crypto world, crypto institutions may keep some allocation in Bitcoin and Aetherium and other protocols that they have high conviction and but nevertheless, whether it's a web two institution or a crypto institution, it's just basic financial hygiene to have an allocation in alternative asset classes and specifically, with our product, being a web three product, you know, that money can stay, you know, essentially, the token they're purchasing is a is an NFT and it is part of the blockchain ecosystem, so they can keep their assets within the crypto world without having to continuously off ramp into US dollars and then on ramp it back into crypto when they need to switch back and forth with respect to how they receive rental income, of course, you know, if your properties are managed by a property manager, which they should be because institutions are not in the business of managing properties, you can collect your rent in cash if you have, you know, if you have to, if you have expenses that need to be paid out in US dollars, but also if you want to collect your rent and USDC or DDM, you have the option to do that as well.   So whether you're a two institution or a web three institution, depending on your cash needs and your crypto needs, now you can have a yield generating crypto asset, and the yield can be collected in Fiat or in or in cryptocurrency. So, you know, it is good financial health to do it. We encourage everybody to have some allocation, whether it's through Roofstock, or through any other channel channels that they would like to pursue, but they should have some allocation and alternatives if it just makes sense. Geoff, if you'd like to add something back?   Geoff: No, that's it. I mean, in our case, because we've designed a solution that allows you to transact with crypto natively. This is something that we've heard from a number of crypto or web three institutions that it's potentially very interesting for them, as opposed to maintaining all of their assets in a cryptocurrency or a stable coin, this isn't a way to get access to, you know, a diversified asset that does create yield and it does have a price appreciation component. So there are a lot of, you know, we've heard from the web three community in particular that this is a perfect diversification play.   Michael: And if I'm someone that owns a sizable portfolio, maybe I own it all in cash, because that's been my mantra and I do need that quick capital injection. I mean, could I tokenize these properties and then go get asset based lending and convert that into cash very quickly.   Geoff: Yes, that's your thinking ahead, I like that. Yes, the properties can be tokenized. Basically any point in their lifecycle. If you own them, now, you bought them through a traditional sale and settlement, you can, you know, basically what it means is you have to drop it into an LLC and the LLC has a particular structure that we've worked out, it is very particular. So you know, we'll work with you to set that create that LLC, to help transfer the property into the LLC. In most states, I think the vast majority of states that transfer from an owner to an LLC that's owned by the owner doesn't create transfer tax obligations. So there's, you know, there's a little bit of the traditional closing costs, recreation fee, or whatever that might be part of that. But it is perfectly possible to onboard existing assets that you own into the system and similarly, for if we're talking about other points in the lifecycle for builders, we've had a few builders reach out and say they're close to completing a community and they might want to try to sell some of these as in an NFT form, those can those new assets as new properties that really have never been titled before, those can also be titled directly into an LLC. So it's a very flexible structure, it accommodates property at whatever stage of the lifecycle it's in.   Michael: Anyone who's got conventional financing experience under their belt might be listening to this and saying, Well, you're talking about lending or talking about LLCs. Those two things often don't jive play nice get in the sandbox. So the acid base lender that we're working with, or that we are going to be working with, I would imagine has no issue lending to an LLC. Is that right?   Geoff: Yes, that's exactly right. The lenders that we're working with are the web three lenders, we have talked to numerous traditional lenders, and some of them expressed a lot of interest in digital assets and maybe they've even created a team. But in most cases, the underwriting aspect of it isn't, isn't there yet. They're not ready to take this to credit committee and make a loan on the structure that we're proposing here but that's okay because there are there's a lot of money that's available in the web three space, and it is more flexible in terms of what it requires. They don't necessarily need to have all of the same checks and balances that a traditional lender would be in terms of underwriting against the individual. They can be comfortable underwriting against the asset, because they're comfortable that in the event of default, that asset, it is already in their vaults. So it's in the lenders wallet at the time of default and because we're building this system where you can sell them through an NFT marketplace, there is liquidity that there wouldn't otherwise be if you were holding this you know the traditional way so you to your to your question. Are Trade Fi lenders, the traditional finance space interested? Yes, we've heard some say they're interested we haven't seen anyone actually show up to engage in detail. But there is an entirely separate pool of capital into web three space that's much more flexible and willing to work with Blockchain structure.   Michael: I think my last question, guys before I let you out of here is like I'm sold this sounds obviously like a really great product, like a really cool technology that exists. Who isn't this for who, who listening to this should think about that. It's not a good fit for me because XY and Z.   Sanjay: Yeah, I mean, I can start with a couple of things and then Geoff, you can add to that as well. So if the property already has financing in the Trade Fi world, this structure is hard, because we can't really transfer unencumbered property into an LLC and then tokenize it right because there's a traditional mortgage on the property and there's a whole kind of thing that's a fillip off chain, in terms of financing. So it's not going to work. If primarily you're looking to get off chain financing, then this is not for you. You have to you know, sort of follow the traditional sense. But anybody that's open to purchasing this as a web three property and open to looking at web three financing alternatives. For those people, this absolutely should be something they should consider. The one kind of drawback or question we've heard from a lot of people as they need to become familiar with how to use crypto wallets and how to essentially convert money into USD C or some stable coin, and then use that to go and make a purchase. We're here to help with those types of Q&A, right? The, you know, until you do it for the first time, it's hard, but after you've done it, then it's you know, it's easy, right? Just like when we, the, you know, iPhones first game, and people didn't know, you know, how do you which way do you swipe to do what, but then over time you get used to it and so we're absolutely happy to help anybody that's staying in the sidelines, purely because they don't understand the technology aspects of it, we can help them out. But for people that have financing constraints or other things, and you know, for them, it is until they can, you know, overcome those issues and look at sort of a pure web unencumbered property in the web three world with, then financing added to it on the blockchain. So for those audiences, that might, you know, until they figured out that, it might be a challenge.   Geoff: I'd also add for owner occupants, the financing isn't fully worked out yet. So the financing that we added to the initial home sale a few weeks ago, that was very much geared towards an investment property, and for the immediate future, to the extent that we're building out the different options for defi lending, it looks like most of them will be focused on these as investment properties, as opposed to owner occupant properties and that's for lending law reasons, not wanting to cross over into a mortgage lending licensing requirement and it also just dealing with, you know, the people that are different in the, at that point, the underwriting is different as well, because it's not as easy to necessarily sell that asset if the owner is living in it and so that type of thing. So for at the at the moment, we're thinking of this mostly for investment property, use cases.   Michael: Really, really cool stuff. For people that have questions that want to reach out that want to learn more, what's the best way for them to do so?   Geoff: Reach out on Email or Twitter. We're, we can drop our emails here, but it's: gthompson@roofstock.com or is it sraghavan, right?   Sanjay: Yeah, it's a sraghavan, so: S R A G H A V A N @roofstock.com. I'm also @eth_sanjay, Sanjay, Y on Twitter, so you can also reach out to me there. One thing before we sign off for today, we're super excited to say that we are in the process of closing our second property, that's going to get tokenized. Soon, this one's going to be in Georgia, at CES Atlanta suburb and we'll be going through the process as soon as this is closed in the next few days, we will be going through the process of documenting what the property looks like when we bought it and any Rehab we end up doing on it and you know, they'll be you know, talking about it on social media quite a bit as well as people who are new to real estate investing, maybe this is an opportunity for them to understand, well, you know, what are the kinds of things people should be looking at when they're analyzing a rental property and so as we go through the process of rehabbing this will sort of document that a little bit. But that, you know, once the rehab is completed that that'll get, they'll get tokenized soon, but once the rehab is completed, we'll have it available for sale.   Michael: Awesome, we'll definitely have to keep my eyes peeled for the process and for the property once it's finished. That's super exciting. Well, guys, it's always a pleasure, great seeing you both. Thanks for hanging out with me.   Sanjay: Thanks for having us.   Geoff: Always great to chat.   Sanjay: Bye!   Michael: Take care and talk soon. Hey, everyone. That was a wrap to our show. Thank you so much to Geoff and Sanjay. Super, super, super interesting stuff. Definitely leave us a rating or review wherever it is you get your podcasts and definitely reach out to those guys if you have any questions about web three, about tokenization about cryptocurrency home purchases. Again, really cool stuff. We look forward to seeing you on the next one. Thanks so much for listening. Happy investing…

Being only an employee leaves you vulnerable to the ups and downs of the market. Real estate investing is one powerful defense against job loss and economic downturns. In this episode, Neil Timmons provides insight into the real estate business and shares his experience with overcoming economic adversity to secure a robust financial position. Neil Timmins is the CEO of Legacy Impact Partners, where they invest in real estate opportunities ranging from houses and apartments to industrial and medical offices. In 2021 Neil published his first book, Unicorn Hunting for Real Estate Investment Companies: How to Easily Attract, Screen, and Land a Unicorn. The book is tailored to helping real estate investors find and retain top talent through the strategic systemization of hiring. Neil also hosts his own podcast, “Real Grit” where he pulls back the curtain on real estate investing through interviews with industry titans. “Real Grit” provides listeners with the tools they need to secure their lasting real estate legacy!   Episode Links: https://legacyimpactpartners.com/ https://legacyimpactpartners.com/podcast/ --- 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: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me I have Neil Timmins, who is an author, a podcast host, entrepreneur, real estate investor and he's gonna be talking to us about going from an agent and employee to building a significant business in the real estate space and what it takes to do so. So let's get into it.   Neil Timmons what is going on, man, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for taking the time to come hang out with me today.   Neil: Good. It's so good to see you again. I appreciate the invite. Looking forward to this for some time now.   Michael: No, likewise, the pleasure is mine. I'm super excited. So you and I of course know each other. We were chatting offline just before we hit record. But for anyone who doesn't know Neil Timmins, give us the background quick and dirty. Who you are, where you come from, and what is it you're doing real estate.   Neil: High level out of Des Moines, Iowa, born and raised, started as a residential real estate agent built a built a brokerage there on to REMAX for a number of years was a top REMAX guy with my 20s and then eventually found my way stumbled into investing worked my way through single family investing, we still do a little today but morphed into commercial investing. And that's a primary focus today.   Michael: Love it and I hear this this theme so often with agents start as an agent, got my teeth cut, then went into the investment side. My guess if you're a top performing agent, in your local market, you're making a lot more money on an annual basis than you would if you're investing. So why did you make that transition? Why'd you make that jump?   Neil: Yeah, no good question. Well, the not so fun story is I was probably 31 ish at the time. Maybe 32, I came home one day to my wife of a decade in our three little kids, all about five or younger, and my wife had them all packed up and said she was leaving, leaving for good. I had spent the better part of seven years or so working like a dog every day of the week, I worked. My second year in real estate, it worked 355 days. So that business was built, ultimately, you know, I was able to put his team in place and that business, but it largely was built on my back and my effort and so it was at that point that, you know, I had an ultimatum and I begged and pleaded with her to go, you gotta give me give me an opportunity. I understand. So give me an opportunity. She did thank God. 45 days later, I sold my REMAX and took a whole bunch of time off to decide, well, how am I going to how am I going to do this? How am I going to make a living in contribute because I like doing what I was doing and not the not to the degree in which I did it. But I enjoyed real estate a lot, right? The people, all the fun things around it. So it took some time off to evaluate things and then ultimately plugged back in largely on the investment side.   Michael: And today you own a business around the real estate investing space. Tell us about that.   Neil: Yeah. So I own a couple of things. On the on the investment side of things. We're primarily focused on commercial investing, right, we buy by multiple asset classes, you're on a primary ladder, Des Moines, Iowa, we still do fix and flip in the office. Although I'm not largely involved, we've got a nice little machine that runs that really good. Contractor base in place, literally same contractor. Don't quote me on how many but we've done probably nearly 200 with the same exact crew. So it makes running things and the efficiencies there of all awfully simple. I love talking to people going you know what I don't like flipping because then I gotta go pick the carpet, I gotta pick the paint whatever else I'm like, What do you mean, you have to do that we picked it once. It's the same carpets, the same paint, same countertops, the same appliance, nothing, nothing changes. You're not doing a whole block of these things. It's not like anybody notices. You just pick it once yeah and so then also, I run an education business, which we launched this year, which has been very well received from folks who want to make that bridge want to leap into commercial real estate and, you know, figure it out either how to do their first deal or how to do their next deal.   Michael: And I'm curious, Neil, because I also come from the education space, and the folks that you're working with, are they the DIYers or are they the folks that have heard of commercial and want to get exposure to it in some form or another are a mix of the two?   Neil: Yeah, no, it's really DIYers. Yeah, that's not largely the passive investors, if you will, it's people who are active in real estate like, like using… if you will, you know, in my career was it just laid out you know, as well cradle to grave if you will, coming through I'd like if you were to go, how should someone progress? Although most don't do that, you know, they end up in one thing and often stick there, but I kind of work my way through that. Is this constant evolution of how do we elevate oneself and one skill set to take it to a to a new level and that's where these folks are they know they've done, they've done single family, they've largely been exposed to it, maybe they've been exposed a little commercial, but just haven't gotten to the results. They haven't they haven't been on a foundation, a legacy had been on a foundation of financial freedom and, you know, arguably, in mice that that commercial gets you there faster and easier.   Michael: And within commercial because it is such a diverse asset class and really name where do you see folks going that are having the most success?   Neil: Oh, good question there. You know, we bring people in, and we do a lot of things from a training standpoint, want to be in an asset class exercise to go alright, well, fill this little asset class matrix out, we have my hand if answer a handful of questions to go, you know, do you resonate better? Would you rather work with people or businesses, and we just bring them through a series of questions, and that lines it up to go well, top to bottom ranked, we focus on six level six largest asset classes, there's top to the bottom, here's what here's what it looks like and then my encouragement from there is, Listen, if number two resonates a whole lot better with you than number one on that list, that's what you should do, because it's just easier and you know, this, if we were to go work on something you can get passionate about, it's a whole lot simpler, then put a little more effort into it and something you're just like, huh, maybe?   Michael: Totally, totally and, you know, I'm curious, so many folks, I think can go invest in single family on the side as a project as a test as an experiment, the DIYers that are doing commercial real estate, are they doing it on the side? Are they really jumping in with both feet, kind of like you did, and making this their full time gig?   Neil: Yep, great question most are doing on the side, most are either stacking it on to their single family business or, you know, if they've got a day job and several folks do is they're doing this, you know, in the evenings, nights and weekends, side hustle, if you will and you think about you know, from makeup, a number of you were to go market to single family or markets or commercial just by being in commercial, the number of available prospects has been largely diminished. It's a much more manageable group of makeup, an asset class, let's say self-storage, you're going to go market self-storage is in your county, well, in comparison to houses, it is a mere fraction. So your ability to call text or you know, mail somebody or connect with a broker, perhaps it's very manageable. You don't have to do it full time. In fact, that would not encourage it, because you're gonna sit around, you're gonna get discouraged. Because there's candidly not enough to do versus the single family side, you could always find something to do.   Michael: Interesting. Talk to us about kind of the exits and the thought process around the exit from that business. Because in my mind, and I think in a lot of other investors' minds, a house is a house is a house, you know what it is? I know what it is everybody on the street, you know, that you bump into knows what it is, and knows how to buy it, versus a self-storage unit. I could maybe Name one person that I know that's involved in that business and so if I'm trying to sell it, who's gonna buy it?   Neil: Yep, no, exactly. So that's, you know, what I do on the training side is bring people through, even if you know, largely set some goals, understand why you want to be in this business, and perhaps what you'll do get through the training go, I don't want to be in the business. And that's okay, too. That's okay because what you don't know or what you what you now know, empowers you, right? To make a better decision about what the path you should be going down. So we bring people through that large infusion for retraining to expose them to what this world looks like, and then how to, you know, identify an asset class that really resonates with you how to price something up, how do we get leads, so largely from a marketing standpoint, from a lead standpoint, what do we say then? How do we value it? How do we actually put something a price to it to go alright, this looks like a potential really good deal, then how do we put it under contract and then from there, you know, the exit plans largely are or we get to resell the property. Occasionally, we get a property that comes in our wheelhouse, what I call, it's not our perfect seller, so it's a good deal, just not for us. Now, can we move that along, so to liken that to single family wholesale it double close it novated right, do all the same things in the commercial side or, you know, we decide, hey, this is our perfect seller with the property we want to own. So how do we how do we close it up or we get to raise equity? How do we go get debt and then how do we bring the whole thing together to properly manage it? So that's what we show folks how to do and ultimately starts you know, on the front end of the process to go Alright, how are we buying this because I know what our required returns are and if it doesn't hit that I'm that's gonna lead us down a different path to either go it's either a non-deal or we're gonna get this moved along to another investor and cash up the big check that we can utilize for the next year.   Michael: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense and you use the term that I'm not frankly familiar with novate. What does that mean?   Neil: Novation is that this has become very popular on the single family side. So there's a lot of buzz on the single family side, especially for those in the wholesaling business. Okay, it is to replace one contract with one another with another contract. So essentially, if I was to, you know, say, for example, I was to buy a property from Mr. Jones, I have a contract in place with Mr. Jones, I decided I want to move this property along under innovation process, you would then provide me a contract that would replace mine, there's typically a difference in pricing, right, you're gonna pay more than what I've just paid and that delta ultimately gets paid back to me. As part of the process. I'm high level in here. There's some moving pieces but high level?   Michael: Yeah, okay okay. Great to know. Neil, I'm curious if we can zoom out for a little bit, because you went from realtor agent, which is a kind of a unique profession and that, yes, you are an employee, but also you are kind of the business owner, your own of your own little business, your own little domain, and then you went and put a team in place, and then you ultimately sold that business. But for so many people that are employees in a traditional nine to five w two employee position to make the transition from employee to business owner, I think is a big leap for a lot of people. What was that like for you mentally going from? I'm going to be an agent to now I'm going to start and run and operate a business.   Neil: Yeah, no good question in it. I think that's, it comes in incremental gains, right. So how do you how do you elephant, right, one piece at a time and so the same thing occurred from me mentally and I think that is? It's a terrific question because I think so much of this business, in business in general is mental, right? It's a six inch game in between your ears and so how do you combat that I read a book when I was probably 20 to 23 years old. The Millionaire Mind by Dr. Thomas Stanley. He wrote The Millionaire Next Door, that's probably his most famous book, The Millionaire Mind was incredible and it broke it down to, you know how millionaires think and my thought process, of course, is well, if you just think like a millionaire eventually, and then, therefore, act and operate like a millionaire, I will eventually become one, right. So it's not it's not hard success leaves clues. So there was a lot of things in there that that impacted me at a very deep level and one of them, the biggest takeaway for me was, the largest risk that one has is being an employee. They can let you go any day of the week, this is what I came to believe in, it's still my operating beliefs today are just risky, if you have no control and I, I am well aware that as a business owner, as an operator, as a real estate investor, we take tremendous risk. There's no doubt about it but I still think they pale in comparison to putting all eggs in one basket, men have an employer of someone else.   Michael: Yeah, it makes total sense. So as you started moving things along, and created and formed and founded your business, how did you figure out who the right people were to put on the proverbial bus because I think, again, so many people have either a great idea, and they're really good at maybe doing that one thing. But doing that one thing isn't a business and so how do you scale it and have a proper functioning, running operational business?   Neil: Yeah, no, great question and that's, that's probably, if I was to attribute any of our success over the course of last three ish years, two and a half years, somewhere in that range, we've had significant success in that period of time, it's largely been correlated to my evolution as a leader, knowing that the only way forward is ultimately with and through other people. And so I've had a focus internal so go back to a question you just asked earlier, from a mental attitude of taking that leap. For me, it's how do I develop as a leader how to become a better a better person, somebody that people look up to somebody that people want to be around, so many people want to listen to, and, and be on the same bus with going rowing in the same direction and so that has largely, that's been a big focus over the course the last couple of years. When I was at a spot where he's gone, it's time to grow. You can't hire and retain a player's unicorns as I call them. You can't hire and retain unicorns if you're not one. So how do you how does one improve their personal self to be able to get to that level? That other a players want to be around?   Michael: Yeah, that makes total sense. So what it what did you do? Can you open the vest a little bit, let us peek under the curtain…   Neil: Yes, you know, it's, I wish there was a silver bullet here, but it's largely just been, you know, what do they say what's mentionable is manageable and for me, it's just having that Cognizant thought that okay, well, now, I'm mindful of this and so now I need to give thought to this. How do I say things how do I handle things? How do I handle certain situations? What is the impact when making this isn't with an employee or with a team or with a customer in front of folks, how's this gonna resonate? What does this look like and then having the vision as a leader, as any leader, doesn't any organization, that vision to go, where are we going and this isn't about me, this is about us and so oftentimes you'll hear me say, we did this, I almost, you know, I try very hard to say that 100% of time, I didn't do anything. We did this collectively, all the results are collective right. It is us together and that reading, continuing to stay focused on that, stay ahead of what's transpiring, trying to, you know, hosting a podcast being around other people like yourself, other people in the industry having an understanding what's going on. So been trying to be on that curve from a knowledge base standpoint about what's transpiring that's helpful, too.   Michael: Yeah, yeah. I love that and asking for a friend. I hate people and I don't think I want to interview people and screen people and that sort of thing. Does that mean that I shouldn't start a business with my great idea?   Neil: The first part is I don't like people. So let's just call that the introverted, right? They don't want to interact with other people. My right hand gal is an introvert. She's not very gregarious as it relates to people. She's very good with people. But she wants to she's far more task oriented about how do we execute on what we're doing? I think that's terrific and now, what hadn't you hire her because she's the Yang, right? It's Ying and yang. She complements me in a perfect opposite fashion and I do the same thing. The other way around. Yeah, it's, I think that's terrific. I think it's wonderful, if you can, what you just expressed was, you know who you are, if you know who you are, you can identify a path forward and I would encourage you absolutely. Knowing what your deficiencies are is wonderful. We're all we're all given strengths someplace, just balance this balance your weakness with somebody else. Don't try to what are the what don't master in the weaknesses, right? So anytime we have a weakness here in anybody, you know, largely for me, it's going just don't do it. Don't master in the minors, because at the end of the day, you're still going to be a d minus for you, no matter how good you get at your weakness focus on your A's.   Michael: Yeah. Oh, that's such a good expression. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, oh, I wanted to visit with my best friend. We're so similar that I'm like, that doesn't sound like a good partnership.   Neil: Sounds like sounds like a great bar and I but not a good business decision.   Michael: Yeah, I know. Totally, yeah right.   Neil, if we zoom back into the commercial side of real estate coming from the single family space, what is it that you see is the biggest hurdle of barrier to entry for folks that want to make that leap into commercial but utilize someone such as yourself to help them get there?   Neil: You'll never guess us? Are you ready for this?   Michael: I hope so.   Neil: I know, you're it's a mental barrier. It's all made up in their head. It's they don't think they can't. Yeah, but they don't think that that is it because past that, the ability to go well, okay. Well, if you've ever let me let me liken it to single family. A duplex is like a single family rental house, right? It's just two doors and the numbers change a little bit? Well, a 20 packs is the same thing. There's largely, there's not much difference in these things you're adding some zeros are calculated a little differently, but it's pretty much the same. In fact, management, in my opinion, gets easier. The more doors you have, right, you get professional management, you get it, it becomes simpler. Yeah and then to make a change to go into some other asset class, we just have to make a bridge. What does that look like? They have to go to an industrial buildings on a triple net lease, which is probably the simplest thing to calculate and get one's head around when you're going, well, they just pay a lease rate, and then they fix all the stuff that goes wrong with it, right? That's it your true and your true and why is the rent, we've got multiple properties like that and we're the management company, which means we just get the rent and never hear Yeah.   Michael: Yeah, that's by far the easiest piece of property in my portfolio is triple net.   Neil: Yes, correct. But people are, you know, we're scared about what we don't know and that's true of all of us, right? We're scared about what we don't know, afraid to make mistake, which is totally understandable and so we just help folks, we educate them as we go answer questions as we go and show them the exact path to be able to get from, you know, I want to learn more about commercial real estate, I'd love to be able to buy a deal to actually get to a close.   Michael: That's awesome. And I'm curious, Neil, what's your favorite asset class and why?   Neil: My favorite asset class, although I own I'd have to calculate up four or five different asset classes, but my favorite today is going to be industrial.   Michael: Industrial why is that?   Neil: Yeah, industrial is in demand like crazy. Secondly, in 2021, had the second largest rent increase across all asset classes, only trailing two apartments. But in comparison to apartments, they're far easier to manage, right, I get a triple net deal, or a double no deal, there isn't much to do, there's very few moving pieces you end up with, on average, let's say a five year to 10 year lease is pretty straightforward.   Michael: Okay. So if I'm playing devil's advocate here, and we're looking at this industrial building, this is suited only for a business. This is not for people can't come live here and the type of business you might have to build to suit it out for that particular business 5-10 years down the road, that might be a future Neal problem. But let's drive down that path that tenant leaves goes out of business, what have you economy turns? If businesses aren't doing well, in the area, are you stuck with this vacant building now?   Neil: 100%. If businesses are doing well in the area, meaning they're laying off or not employing people, my thesis is you still have you still have an apartment problem relative to occupancy and or rent rates. This goes back to earlier question is, admittedly, we have to take a risk someplace, right? It's just my comfort level and I like the box, you know, not a somehow engineering building has been added on to or defined for one, one person's exact use, I like a big giant box, just a rectangle, that's it, a business of multiple businesses come into that and fill it out in which way they want to. So like the fact that if I can buy my, my preferred buying is for buying some older not buying brand new stuff, buying some older buying something with a value add or on buying at a discount of some managers, the intent is to buy it correctly. And if I can buy a property, let's call it make up a number right now 70 to $80, a square foot brand new construction is gonna be 120 to 130 a square foot, I think I'm in pretty good shape over the course of coming years, I think that my dollars, and my rent rates get pulled up to the fact that sheer cost of new construction is gonna be 60% higher.   Michael: All right, I dig it, I dig it and for anyone, I'm just realizing now, some of our listeners might not be familiar with the term double net triple net lease, can you give us a quick definition of what it is?   Neil: Yeah, it just defines what people pay for double net, for example, is probably one of the least likely terms that use but let's say triple net triple net means ultimately that the tenant pays for everything, there may be some nuances inside the lease, but taxes, insurance, repairs maintenance, the tenant pays for that. So if your releases 100 grand a year, your net is 100 grand a year before, before your mortgage, any sort of debt payment you have on it. A double net means they don't pay for everything they pay for perhaps taxes and insurance, but not all the repairs and all the maintenance, and therefore your NOI is gonna be a little lighter, depending on what you have to maintain and pay for.   Michael: Okay, perfect and I'm sure some of our listeners are hearing that and thinking like, this is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm gonna go put all of my single family homes and all my apartments on Triple Net leases. Why is it only a thing that's been heard of in the commercial space?   Neil: Yeah, no good question. You know, to liken it to single family, you're like lease with an option or a contract sale, that's probably the closest thing you get to a triple net in the in the single family house side, right? So you kind of contract sale, somebody that mean that contract buyer is now responsible for everything associated with that house, right? That's what it looks like. If you look at the closest thing, there's some differences there. Obviously, a contract sale into a down payment interest rate. That's not the same as a triple net lease on the industrial side but that's probably the easiest way to liken it to single family.   Michael: Yep. Yeah, that makes total sense and for anyone listening, like Neil mentioned, it's just the cap rate is like the easiest thing ever in the Analyze easy thing ever, you got a million dollar building cap rate 6% they're paying 60 grand a year, then bam, boom, end of discussion. You're not paying taxes, you're not paying insurance, you know, capex and maintenance. So you can calculate your true return, and then look to calculate what your debt service payments gonna look like and determine what your return looks like after that, versus the traditional single family rental or apartment or traditional residential space. They pay you a set fixed amount, the rent, and then you have to go figure out the taxes, insurance, repairs, maintenance, capex, that sort of thing.   Neil: So hey, just because I like it or you know, in other investors likes something else doesn't mean it's right. There's only what's right for you.   Michael: Yeah, yeah. I love it. Neil, this has been so much fun, man. I want to be very respectful of your time. Let's get you out of here. But before we go, like where can people reach out to you find out more about you continue the conversation if they're interested?   Neil: Yeah, no, great question. Well, if you want to learn more about commercial real estate getting rich in what I call the 20x niche, why do I call it that? Well, because our target internally is to produce in a monthly return that's 20 times that of us Single Family return so we're scaling up largely is just go to my website give you a free download free report just you can learn more about the industry getting into commercial. So www dot legacy impact partners forward slash gift JF T legacy impact partners Ford slash gift: https://legacyimpactpartners.com/   Michael: Right on thank you so much and before I let you go I mean I'm not gonna let you out of here without mentioning your podcast you're also the host of a podcast was that was a you're kind enough to have me on what is that called and what can people expect to hear on it?   Neil: Real grit is the name of it it's about the trials tribulations anybody from real estate. So we talked about single family talking about commercial talk about everything in between. But really, so that we fully admit that you know, life isn't all about Lambos and big houses on cash and checks and everything on Facebook that or social media wherever you'd see it right? That there's ups and downs there's, there's we have to go through stuff and many times to be able to find our own personal success and so we talk through that and people's personal stories and how they got there because all bunch people, they get their different ways and it's really exciting. It's, we get into some really interesting, very dynamic conversation a lot of fun, love it. You and I had a great conversation.   Michael: I had a ball. I had a ball.   Neil: It was a blast, man.   Michael: Awesome. Well definitely go check out that podcast, real grit, a lot of fun, really cool stuff going on there. Neil, thank you again. Any final words thoughts for our listeners?   Neil: No, you're going to find me you know, like I shared it though the website I'm also on all the all the social media platforms. Facebook's the best place to find me Neil Timmins, or there are many Amin just spell it right you got me   Michael: Right on, many thanks again. Appreciate you, see you soon. Bye.   Neil: Bye, bye.   Michael: All right, well, that was our episode. A big thank you to Neil for coming on the show. Really, really interesting stuff that Neil's been through seen and experienced. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, we'd love to hear from you with a rating or review wherever it is get your podcast, and we look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing…

In this final episode with Aaron Chapman, we discuss how adversity can shape your legacy. In this current market environment, many investors will be challenged, but that does not mean they must fail. Your mindset, work ethic, and ability to learn from the external forces that turn your world upside-down will be the deciding factor of your long-term success. Aaron Chapman is a veteran in the finance industry with 25 years of experience helping clients better understand, source, and finance cash-flow positive investment properties. He advises over 100 clients a month in the acquisition and financing of their investment properties and primary residences. Aaron is ranked in the top 1% of mortgage loan processors in the country, in an industry of over 300,000 licensed loan originators, closing in excess of 100 transactions per month. Episode links: https://apps.apple.com/uy/app/qjo-investment-tool/id1533823468 https://www.aaronbchapman.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: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the remote real estate investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me I have for our third and final episode of this series, Aaron Chapman and Aaron's a lender, and he's gonna be talking to us today about how well you take a beating determines your legacy. So let's get right into it.   Aaron, what's going on, man? Welcome back for part three of our conversation. How are you?   Aaron: What's up, brother. Man, it's looking forward to this one.   Michael: Me too our last few conversations. If you didn't catch them, I highly recommend you go back and give them a listen to Aaron drop some amazing wisdom and knowledge. Today we're talking about how well you take a beating determines your legacy as a theme. But for anyone who didn't catch the first two episodes, give us a quick and dirty who you are. And what is it that you do, Aaron?   Aaron: So I am in the Real Estate Investment Finance space. I'm one of the few conventional lenders that focuses on real estate investments. And I do about 1300 transactions a year for investors, I've been doing that since 1997. Got a great big team of 30 plus people, and we're into heavy into the education and helping people build a business while at the same time getting financing done. And it cost them nothing to have all the experience and the the wisdom, we're trying to give them the guidance while it is getting their financing done like they would do anywhere else.   Michael: Yeah, I love it. And so many lenders, especially conventional lenders, I've come across and you might have shared experience are just trying to push the biggest loan that someone qualifies for on them. And they don't really care what that's gonna be used for. They don't really care what how it's gonna affect the end user. But it sounds like you take a little bit of a different approach.   Aaron: It does bother. Well, there's two things about this industry. You know, I think I may have even referenced it, maybe not among the last two episodes is that humans are the apex predator, we fall prey to no other species except other humans. And I found that our industry is just full of predators. They don't care what you do, as long as you close, they will use every sales technique, everything they've ever been taught to try and find a way to get you to close on that transaction.   Myself, I'm of the mindset is I'm gonna do everything I can to ensure that you close and are successful in that transaction. Because if you're unsuccessful and what you end up doing, you're not going to do deal number 2-3-4-5, I don't care about deal number one I care about deal number 10. Why do I care about deal number 10. Because if you made it to deal number 10, you're a badass, you're getting stuff done, you're achieving your goals, if you get to deal with and pretend that I'm a badass, because I'm getting more deals done, right?   But one, if you have that bad experience, man, I'm never gonna see 10. So we don't when people come to us, and they've got questions that they've never had before. They've got decisions they got to make that they've never had to make before. There's a good chance they've never had to really experience what it's like to make that kind of decision. Well, what I do 1300 transactions a year and I've been doing it as long as I have, I don't answer the question with an answer. I give them stories, what I've seen people do in that same scenario, and then give them the outcome of those decisions. So they're making decisions based on practical data, not speculation, in theory.   And then I also if they're questioning a deal, like, I'm not sure if this is right, if it's wrong is like Well, let's take a look at some things I tell them what to look at, and what questions to ask and who to go get the answers from. Take notes and bring them back to me. And we'll evaluate those answers together. And what I'm doing is helping them to determine whether they move forward or they walk away. And they also got to education about it at it. And they also learned about the other people they're working with are these people that are in it for the closing, or they're in it for them and the longevity of their business. And we get to find that out. And you get to talk to people really, really quickly.   And sometimes it takes time you have to investigate things. You have to spend money on appraisals, you have to spend money on on inspections, and things like that. And it could be costly, but you never stay in the deal because you spent money that you spent the money to walk away from it. And we help them understand that they're their CEO, their real estate investment business, and we're here to support it.   Michael: Yeah, no, I love it. Sunk cost was definitely something I got exposure to early on in his business. And it's could be a very tough concept to wrap your head around. If you're not familiar with it, you know, don't throw good money after bad.   Aaron: And that's a heavy duty sales tactic to get people to follow the sunk cost, thought process and process and get really, really caught up a man have already spent this money. If you understand why you're spending the money. There's never a sunk cost. Yeah.   Michael: Yeah, no, it's so true. It's so true. So let's talk about I mean, where we are today is very different than we were six months ago, a year ago, 18 months ago. And I think people might be in for a little bit of a whirlwind. So let's kind of talked through this concept of determining how well someone takes a beating really determines your legacy, which I think is a really great theme. So why do you think it's pertinent to talk about today, Aaron?   Aaron: Well, we're going into what could be a rarity A very big beating. And the fact that, like you just said, we're coming into something we were this different than what we experienced the last little while. It's different. It's something we've ever experienced. When you go back into the market and started researching what's happened in history of these markets that we that we've been following all the way back in the 1800s, we don't have any data to tell us how the economy and how the market or the world is going to react to the last What is it 12 years, 13 years, since 2009, January 1 2009, we started the quantitative easing, and it's continued to keep going $8.9 trillion $8.9 trillion that put into the market. And now we don't know we have no idea how the markets can respond to that as they're, as they're trying to back off of that 40% of the of the world's currency, or I guess the US currency has been produced in the last 18 months. So for people to tell me, Hey, markets go in cycles, and we can get this particular loan, and we'll just refi later, like, Dude, you can't think that way. Because we're not in any cycle we've ever seen.   The last cycle last tilt since 2009, was really the cycle. Sure, there are some little mini cycles in there. But for the most part, we had extremely low interest rates, never seen before we had a housing market has just been on a tear for 13 years. And now you're thinking that some cycle is gonna come along the next five that you can risk getting a five year loan, and do that. No, I think weren't, it was. And I just know, I think Warren Buffett said the 30 year fix is one of the greatest instruments in the world, because it's a one way bet. If you bet on the 30 year fixed and you're wrong. Worst case scenario is you refinance the house. But if you bet on the 30 year fix, and you're right, you're save yourself 1000s and 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s of dollars, depending upon the size of your portfolio. So don't get suckered into these short term loans on a long term investment.   So now going into what we're going to be experiencing here, one, I don't know what it's going to be. But if we go back to 2008, here's my own personal story in 2008. You know, I shared my story about coming into the industry and the beatings that I took getting into it, right, and now we're getting into what happened in 2008. Everything starts crashing, everything's falling apart. I at that time, was still doing pretty well. I was making a good six figure income. I had decent clients coming in in 2008. And I was doing kind of a night thing for two throughout two months. I had a buddy of mine I I'm a former fabricator, I've worked on vehicles, I built a hot rods, all kinds of stuff, build jeeps, a lot of things and I have that kind of a background. Well, a buddy of mine says hey, we need you in on this deal. I need another fabricator on this and what we were doing was taking a double decker Bristol bus an English bus. We cut the top off of it, turned it into basically a mobile strip club is what we did. And we did this for a guy that wanted to take it to Burning Man, you guys can look it up. It's called shaggileic. Rapping it's this white bus wrapped in for a cruise ship horn on the front. I mean, it's just it's one of the craziest things you've ever seen. What a trip, I was fabricating everything up top building in the DJ booth. There's a bed going up there places for the poles, all that and that's what I was building.   While I was doing this thing where I was sleeping maybe three hours a night I go to the office, keep working on my lending business. And at night I was fabricating all night long for these guys. Because they were doing during the day and I was doing my part at night. Well then August 8 rolls around am I lucky numbers always been eight. And so as a result that this is August 8 of 2008. I was jumping on the bike, heading out of town for a three day ride through New Mexico just to clear my head. So it's a crazy time in my life and mind that my head was not in the right place. I'll guarantee I just tell you that. Cruising down the highway and right next to this guy is in a black truck and I've been by him for a while so I knew he knew I was there. But Donald suddenly flips on his blinker and he starts coming over to me. Well, I quickly looked over to my right, nobody was there. So I hit my throttle, I leaned that bike. What I didn't realize is somebody just then started to pass me and I clipped her front bumper, and I went flipping. So I don't remember the accident self except for my bike kicking sideways. And then I remember waking up in the hospital and we're looking around and this this really bright light and really quiet area and I remember sitting up and I noticed kind of fuzzy there's somebody sitting in a chair and my lapse my vision got clear is my wife. So I asked her where am I at and what seemed like was kind of an exasperated going to tell me for the 40th time you're in the hospital. You had an accident, and she started explaining things.   Well, what what ended up happening is when I went flipping, I used to race mountain bike so I would instinctively talk I realized this because I had such a massive bruise. This is where I initially hit my my my helmet had big ol crack in it. When I hit it just obliterated my collarbone and a bunch of ribs. It collapsed my right lung when I flipped my legs hit and I shattered my legs and ended up skidding to a stop. So if you've ever been to Arizona in August, but the pavements not nice to lay on in August so I had a lot of burns. A lot of road rash And so I was in there for a couple of weeks in the hospital that a bolt me back together my memory at that point because the head injury we had pinwheel would basically flip every three minutes. I could only remember every three minutes and never reset, but little things would would stand out.   So there's some things I do remember, but a lot of it's gone. And then there's actually some stuff in my history that's gotten my I was with my sister and brother in law, and they showed me some pictures from their wedding. I'm like, I don't remember this. And they showed me pictures of me being there. And then they played the video Like, I have no idea about this night. So there's certain things in my history that are gone because of that accident. So kind of the point behind all that is, I wheeled into that hospital I was I was a mountain climber. I was a marathoner. I was in phenomenal shape, best shape of my life at the time, I weighed in at190 pounds, maybe 12% body fat, worse about on paper, because of my investments worth about three ish million dollars. When I wheeled out of that hospital weeks later, I was 156 pounds at six foot one, and I had a negative net worth of 1.5 million everything was taken from me.   So I had to start over from there. So I had to learn how to walk again. I had to train my memory back. And then I had to negotiate with everybody who is foreclosing on all my rental houses, they're coming after me for all the other debts. And because if it wasn't for the fact now, to me, it was a blessing. There's a lot of people that went through the crash. And they lost everything I know of people that ate bullets, they went back to their office and they shot themselves. I know people who did that. But I had the blessing of being able to negotiate with these creditors, and I'd send them my first week's medical bill for $1.7 million, and then immediately back off. And what I have is a certain amount of money left in the bank, that was all I had to my name. And it was about I think it was like five grand or something I don't remember exactly.   Well I called every creditor up that I owed money to that was calling me and I said here, here's how much I have in my account, you look at my credit report and how many people I owe, I will give you that if you agree to that and wipe the credit clean. So I negotiated that with every single person. And what I did then is then I had an underinsured motorist thing finally kick in months later. And I was able to use that to pay off everybody that one negotiated amount. So I got clear of the whole world and they let me do that because the nature of my accident. Not a lot of people had that. So they didn't have the blessing getting their *** kicked, and be able to leverage an *** whoopin to be able to get out of that right.   The other thing that was real tough about this *** whoopin was I came back to an obliterated business. The lending industry was not doing well and I got back on my feet about eight months later. And all the people I was doing business with before the realtors and people like that they were out of business. They were doing something else. There was two left in the industry, my mom and a gal by the name of Carolyn Irby with Coldwell Banker, they at that point, they were still doing business, they're getting deals done. And they call me up say, Hey, I got a client for you need to call this person, they would got to the point that they'd call me back five minutes later say, Hey, did you call that person like what person they said, Get your pad and write this down. So I got to I was carrying a notepad with me all the time, I'd write down what I do all day long. And the calls are supposed to make the outcomes of those calls. And then if it was crossed off, that means I did it. If it wasn't crossed off, then I would have to make this call. I can't tell you how many people I called that weren't crossed office. We just talked on the phone. Right? It's like well, can you can you tell me what we said.   So talk about earning trust, right? That's a real hard way to earn trust with somebody when five minutes before you don't even remember the conversation by explain the scenario. And people were very, very, very kind to me. Now. There were some saying, Hey, I can't do business with that does have a memory. There's a lot of people that were that did. And I rebuilt my business on that. And because of that notepad, I rebuilt my memory and I read, I was able to reconnect those wires in my head by the grace of God. And by just being very, very religious about maintaining my my pad, I wished I had my stack of pads, I throw them away, oh, I don't know why throw them away. But that was how I lived my life at that point. And I recovered back to a business that I built back up from zero to now. I get I start the the real estate investors coming into Arizona, and they're buying these houses that are undervalued. And so I started to do those loans. They were really little loans. There's like 50,000, or loans. Nobody's making a bunch of money on 50,000 our loans by doing a ton of them. And then I went from there to doing more and more they went from from Arizona to Indiana, Indiana, Missouri, Missouri, to Texas, and then over to Tennessee. And so I started doing more and more loans.   Well, then I had one of my biggest competitors, who was also a guy call and he'll give me pointers on how to do some of these loans are a little bit tougher. He decided in 2015 that we should merge our businesses. So when he flipped, they flew me out to Utah, I sat down with him and some of the executives in the company. Let's do that. So I merged the business with him. But you can only do the loans under one person's name. Well, since we're merging into his company, well, the company he worked for as a loan originator was put on to his name. Six months later, he pulled it all apart, took it off himself and left me at zero again. And it took my entire database.   Well, the executives called me up to say, um, we're probably at the fire your staff, and you're just gonna have to start over like, No, give me 90 days. So me and my staff have two or three, we sat down and we said, what are we going to do when the phone rings is going to ring in 10 minutes? What are we going to do with these deals, now, you don't have our big team anymore. And we mapped out a plan. And within six months, I was ranked number nine in the company. And within a year, I taken over the number one spot within the company. And now years later, that guy's out of the business. Because he I mean, that's what happens when you become selfish you and it's all about you, everybody leaves you he ended up all by himself, he end up not having a business anymore. He's completely out. I haven't heard anything from him, he got away from doing investor loans like three, four years ago. And I would venture to say I'm the number one guy in conventional lending for real estate investors. And last I saw by statistical numbers that was just published in a mortgage originator magazine, if you look at how many trends looking at by how many transactions closed per year, I think I'm right, number six or seven, the United States.   Michael: That's wild Aaron. That's so insane.   Aaron: And to me, a lot of people is like, how did you do all that and I'm like, you just every single day you have an objective and you keep moving forward. And it was actually, to me the noise of the world getting turned down around me and I was stuck to my own thoughts. You have to decide whether or not you agree with the person that you were and I would did not like the person I was at that time. I was a really arrogant, cocky prick before that accident. You know, I was dressing the part and acting department being the man. Now it's like, you know, I decided I'm just gonna be me. And if people don't like me, then then that's fine. I don't need to we don't need to do business. It's not about that I would do whatever I need to do to close a deal before. Now. I just want to make sure I get along with a person. And like one guy told me this last week, I thought it was really interesting. He says, Do you you just collect people? Like what do you mean I collect people because you collect relationships, because that's that's your investment, you invest you invest in things, but you spend money to make sure you have more relationships with people. And that's the truth.   And that came up because we talked about flying first class, one guy said he's really really cheap. The other guy said no, I love first class, I got pampered by it. They say you fly first class all the time. So yeah, I'm Executive Platinum with American Airlines, I spend more time in seat 3D and I do at my house. But it's not for the seat, or for the free drinks. It's for the person next to me. Because you'd be amazed at the kind of people you sit with in that environment and the kind of conversation you get to have. And they're all very, very memorable. If you'll just reach out and say hi.   Michael: Yeah, that's such a different way of approaching it. You know, so many people are going for the drinks or going for the big seat. Sounds like you could care less about that. Aaron: No, I mean, it's comfortable being a sibling I hate sitting in the back, because because of how much Americans have the room. Let me I'm not I'm not a fan. I do have to I do fly Allegiant from Arizona to to Missouri. So it's only one one stop to go to my place out in Missouri. So I still do it. I'm not a fan of it. I don't love it. We in fact, my family is dubbed at low rider of the sky. But when we go to kind of fly American, I'm, it's gonna be a long flight. I need to be comfortable. For two reasons. One, I've just gotten used to it. And I like sitting next to people I sit next to number two, I've lived the last What is it now? 12 years, 14 years in pretty heavy pain. And because of that pain, when we hit the sky, and they start pressurizing. I was doing a lot of pain in my shoulders, a lot of pain in my legs, my ankles are just both my feet were snapped off in that in that accident. So the extreme pain I was dealing with that. It's now gotten a lot less because I really took the time to rehab this last year, I went to rehab to physical therapists like crazy and we had loss and I got back to working out I got in a lot better shape than I've been in a long time in 14 years, honestly. And I feel awesome. But now the reasons I sit up there is not for the same reasons. It's for the it's for the relationships and like yourself, right? Well, I'm collecting people right here now. And now wherever I go. I see you as there's my guy. There's Mike.   Michael: Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. So Aaron, I mean, you've been like literally to hell and back again and came out on top. So for people that have maybe been never been through a downturn or a market cycle, if that's what we're headed into. And it sounds like that might not even be the case. I mean, what should people be doing to prepare, if they do find themselves with those shorter term loans coming due now?   Aaron: Well, and they're gonna come to at some point, even if it's not now, I think they need to be on the watch for any opportunity to put themselves into a longer term loan and have to bite the bullet or whatever that expense is. Do I believe, I mean, I think interest rates going to keep climbing to an extent they're gonna have to taper off because I can't see us continuing down this path. Interest rates are just, you know, mortgage backed securities are getting slaughtered, but I also can't see why anybody, anybody want to invest money in the mortgage backed security. Honestly, I don't understand why that money is flowing in there. Because if inflation is as high as it is, and you're going to lend somebody money, potential for 30 years risking it for 30 years, you're not getting your money back, you're losing money. But the marketing engine that is the real estate, the mortgage lending world, for the banking world, the marketing engine has convinced people, if you drop it 1%, you should refinance. And so the majority of people will refi, within the first four to five years, you're looking at an amortization, amortization table, the first four to five years, they're taking advantage of you, because you're all you're doing is paying an interest and then you put you back into a heavy interest period, they're gonna continue to keep them just just sucking money from you is what they're doing.   So they're, I believe, there's going to come a point that we're going to taper off, things might get a little bit better. And if it does that, within the next year or two, I'm going to highly encourage you, if you got suckered into a short term loan on a long term hold, get into a long term loan, get yourself comfortable. I always say control what you can control for as long as you can control it. And you can't do that in a short term loan. It's just not going to work that way. Michael: Yeah. No, I love it. And from a mindset perspective, I mean, it, I could see it so easily where you could have given up when you lost everything in a weight when you woke up from when you came out of the hospital, you know, went from a positive network to several millions and negative net worth overnight, seemingly? I mean, how do you get out of that? Because I think, again, it's so easy to go into despair and poor me. What kind of mindset does it take to lift yourself up from that?   Aaron: Yeah, that that was an interesting question to have to answer. Because not only do you have when you stack it all up, and I have to ask myself several times, how did I get where I'm at? Now, when I look back on that particular thing? It it was, like you said, you get your *** whooped that heavily. You're the everything's taken from you, you can't get you can't walk, you can't think you can't pay for anything. And they're giving you free drugs. And it wasn't just, it wasn't just weak drugs. This was good, good stuff. I don't know if you've ever had a lot of bad stuff. Is that amazing?   Michael: It's not Advil.   Aaron: No, it is definitely not Advil, and they were just willingly handing it to whatever you wanted, I had to get off of that. And I had to point myself in the right way. And I was still in a wheelchair, I was still having to deal with all this intense pain, I still had a lot of rods and stuff, multiple surgeries still being done. And I threw the stuff away and like, I don't want it, I gotta get my mind, right, I gotta get focused on where I needed to go. And what it was, as I've never sat still I just never had in my entire existence. So it was the drive to get up and get moving again. It was also that I always had an objective and a goal and where I was heading in life, even if it was just it was never really defined, but it was just kind of floating out there. I decided I was going to go after that I was going to continue after that. But I don't like to do is what was in front of me that day is day after day after day, day after day after day. But I think to the biggest driver at that point was I did not like the person I was before that accident. So I want to do everything I can to be anything but that man. And I am grateful that he was there to show me the way you shouldn't be doing things. But he was the biggest driver to continue to become something different.   And then after that the next big driver was I had a good friend of mine. His name's Joel. He's like a brother of mine. And it's it's a really long story to tell you how we met because we hate each other first. But now he's basically like my brother. And we went out one night with our wives. And at the end of dinner or after the event, we went to walk into our cars we have the opposite direction goes, Hey, by the way, I'm making a big deal happen right now me and my business partner, and it's going to change your life. Like how's it going to change my life? If you're making a deal, he goes, I can't tell you, he goes, but it's going to close here real soon. But it's going to change your life, believe me, I'm gonna change your life.   And as we parted ways, give him a hug. He turns around and walk in his car with both his hands and he goes, I'm going to change your life. And he yells out to me from like, 50 yards away, not knowing what that is. My colon changed my life, dude. Well, let's see what this is. Well, then, short time after that I found out he closed on the second largest. It's now the second largest real estate brokerage in the state of Arizona. And they'd made a deal with another lender to be their premier lender inside. What he wanted me to do is contact that lender and he told them call this guy, I want this guy in your company to work with us. So they called me and we talked about me coming over there. And to go over and meet with them and went through all the back contracts and everything. I'm like, Okay, well see how this goes. And they said we want you to come meet the CEO of the company, but you can't meet the CEO until you do this exercise and they hand me this five year vision that the CEO had for himself, you know, his five year plan and then they told me gave me the elements of the five year plan.   Cool. So I wrote this out like this is all bullcrap. Nobody does this. None of this crap works as goal setting stuff is stupid. But Fine, I'll do it. Just so I can meet the CEO, Joel opened up the door on going to do a jewel asked me to do like sat down. I wrote out this audacious freaking plan, right? The best month I've had before that was 18 Maybe 18 transaction that due in a month. And I think I closed maybe 20 Some million a year or 25 million, maybe 30 million year my best year. Well, I wrote this thing I was going to do 100 million a year and my staff is gonna grow by this and that in that net over the five year window, no ideas, I set it up as a story. I'm sitting on along Rubicon Trail in my chair with a fire gun. My wife's next to me, we got the Jeep parked there were searing steaks on the on the trail grill, and I'm thinking back on my life or last five years, and I'm writing a letter to myself of everything that happened.   So then I went forward, I met the CEO, he's like, this is the most unique five year plan I've ever seen written, we would love to have you come work for us. Now, incidentally, I didn't go work for those guys. It didn't work out. But I stuck with that five year plan. And I continue to follow that five year plan to go back and look at it look at it. I blew through everything on there and doubled it. Because I wrote it down. And then I discovered a few write things down things happen. So one of the next things that I'm doing, I have a book out there shows people I'm working on another book with Robert Allen, if you know who Robert Allen is, but we're working together on a book. So he wrote the book, no money down in the 80s. The guy was basically   Michael: Oh, yeah. Okay.   Aaron: So he's an absolute bad***. I mean, Robert is awesome. And we're writing this book as if me sitting there talking to an eight year old about how life or 18 year old about how life works. And it's taking a beating. So it's how to take a beating. And that beating is actually how you learn. And explain why believe that. And so on and on be teaching people within the first chapter, then all the way through the book on how to write this out, and then help people come to me will sit you down, I'll take it in an environment. And there's more stories about how that got done. And other ways I've used writing it down to become successful, and show people you write this stuff down. It's amazing how the universe starts to line up to get things done for you.   Now, when it comes to a beating, right, the one thing is that we have noticed that we as humans learn better by getting our butts kicked. And I believe that there's this Bigfoot that wakes up at about 7:30 Every day, this big, ominous invisible foot to kick your *** all day long if you let it. If you so think about this, I wake up at 4:30 in the morning, I get up way before the foot does and I do what I want to do, right I sit down, I send a message to my team, every single morning, I read, I write, I do the stuff that I need to do I have prayer before I get started all that and then I go and I work out every single day. So but if you're a person who wakes up at 7:45, and you got to be the office by eight, the foots already up, right, it's already kicking your *** the second you put your foot on the ground from from the from your bed to try and get to the bathroom, you stumble into this, you stumble into that your day is just wrong from the very beginning.   Get up before the foot does, you got to figure out where your personal foot wakes up. That's out there to kick your butt. And you got to get up before the foot doesn't plan your day and start executing on that. The other things that I've noticed with people, you know, how we learn, we do have to take a beating learn so you need to dissect every beat you've got so what am I learning from this? And how do I need to take from that, and let me illustrate how I know that. That's how that's true. I was six years old. And my parents put me in a Pentecostal school for my first grade year. I didn't go to kindergarten straight to first grade. And it was this Pentecostal church in this small town. And they had everything from first to high school senior all in one church and everybody had their own little thing and you had different teachers for all of it. And I segmented us first graders off for the first three months and we're meeting in the little room and they were teaching us the alphabet and numbers. And as they're going through the alphabet every letter was had a nursery rhyme style Limerick to it and a filmstrip. Now you may be a little too young to remember filmstrips. But it's up…   Michael: No I got it, I got it.   Aaron: Okay, so you got the film strips got the little thing. You'll play the music and here's the beep and you flip it to the next next slide, right? It's basically slides. Well, it was a it was the we got to the letter M. And the letter M was about this mule named Milton. And the way the nursery rhyme when it says Milton the mule he made a mistake as you read a map, you walked in a lake. And as it's going through those filmstrips, you've got this cartoon mule walking down the road, in a suit holding this map, and then you see him falling in this lake. Well me being me, even at six years old, I redid the limerick, and I said it out loud. So instead of having Milton falling out falling in a lake, I had him ******* in a bucket. I know it's stupid. Right? The six year old stuff. The little girl sitting next to me did what you just did, she laughed about it. That didn't go over well with the teacher. Now the teacher happened to be the wife of Noah, who was also the pastor. She heard all this so she grabbed both of your ear lobes. Walk the straight to the principal's office and sat us down in these chairs.   This guy was not a small guy. He was a big man. So he's the pastor. He's the principal. He made me repeat exactly what I said. When I was done. He turns around he picks up this old aircraft aluminum style briefcase, sets it on his desk, puts in the code opens it and very ceremoniously turns it so I can see the contents had a padded interior cut out to houses pattern. So then he pulls the paddle out makes us both stand up and turn around and put our hands on the on the chairs. She got one swap I got two because I'm the one that came up with the limerick. Now it wasn't that hard. My dad's Irish my mom was Spanish Believe me I that way harder buttons for a lot less than what that guy gave me. But it was The gravity of the situation that caused the tears to flow. And then I also knew I had to face my dad that night. He always told me if you go to the principal's office, you're getting an *** whoppin. Well, I did. I got a pretty good one. But ultimately, the main reason I bring that story up is there's how many letters in the English language?   Michael: There's 24   Aaron It's 26?   Michael: That's so embarrassing.   Aaron: I know. I googled that I thought it was 24 as well very recently, and I go, so yeah, there's 26. So 26 letters, which we just established. How many guy remember the limerick for?   Michael: How many did you remember the limerick for? You probably remembered him for all of them. But for sure M.   Aaron; Just one. That's the only one I remember. I remember the letter M. I don't know anything about the other ones. That was 42 years ago, I can only recite the one for letter M I don't remember what the other ones were about. I can't remember you even articulate what the letter A would have said for it be what it stood for. But remember what M step four? Why do I remember it because I got my *** beat. That's why.   So we as humans learn very well through a beating. So what I tell people don't take, don't take a beating is something that's bad, learn whatever you got to do, just don't take the same beating. There's nothing wrong with making mistakes, just make new mistakes. Because you're making new mistakes, you're still advancing. There's nobody, that people who fail to get ahead in life make the same mistake over again. The other there's another thing that they say is there's two types of people never amount to anything. A person that can't do it, they're told, and a person that can do nothing but. I would say take the time, and analyze that to people that will never amount to anything, a person that can't do what they're told, and a person that could do nothing but.   Those are some very, very powerful words to sit and think about. And you have to figure out who am I? What am I getting done? What kind of *** whopping am I taken on a daily basis? And I said the same one over and over again. What do I got to do to make adjustments so I could advance myself and get away from this beating I keep taking.   Michael: Man Mike drop exit stage left Aaron Chapman, everybody. This was so much fun, man. How do people get in touch with you if they need you?   Aaron: Best way is Aaron chapman.com Or just go to Google and type in Aaron chat and you see a bald bearded redneck lender you got the guy.   Michael: That's you awesome, man. This was so much fun. Aaron thank you again for coming on for the third time. This was definitely the one that did it. We'll do it. We'll be in touch man.   Aaron: Thanks, brother. Appreciate you man.   Michael: Likewise, you got it.   Okay, everyone that was our episode A big thank you to Aaron for coming on today and the other two episodes as well. If you didn't catch those, I highly recommend you give those listened to Aaron dropped some really fantastic wisdom, knowledge and thought perspective on where we're headed in the next couple of months and yours with the market.   As always, if you enjoyed the episode, we'd love to hear from you with a rating or review wherever it is get your podcasts and we look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing

Today, we welcome Billy Keels back on the show to discuss how he went from living the corporate life to running his own business. We discuss his motivations, the mindset shift, the challenges, and finally, the rewards of his decision. Before becoming a real estate entrepreneur, KeePon Cashflow's founder Billy Keels worked in the corporate world. In fact, he was one of the best “corporate soldiers” you'd ever want to meet. Billy says that he was happy enough in his J.O.B., but something was missing. An emptiness and longing for a different life chewed on him, pulling him to what he knew he wanted to do more than anything else. Billy wanted to be an entrepreneur who brought two worlds together. So he took steps and kept on the path to his goals. Today, Billy is an international real estate entrepreneur, problem-solver, author, coach and mentor. He sees opportunities where others often don't in real estate. --- Episode Links: https://www.firstgencp.com/ https://www.firstgencp.com/paylesstax https://www.linkedin.com/in/billykeels/?originalSubdomain=es --- 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: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum, and today with me I have Billy Keels back on for another episode. For anyone who missed it Billy is an entrepreneur business owner ex former tech sales guy, and he's gonna be sharing with us today about how he started his business, why he started his business, and really the mindset shift around going from employee to entrepreneur. So let's get into it. Billy Keels, welcome back for round two, man. How are you? It's so good to see you. Billy: Michael, what's up man? I, um, super excited to be back. This is nice.   Michael: I'm super excited to have you here. So for those listeners that did not catch our first episode together, give us the quick and dirty who you are, where you come from, and what is it you're doing in real estate.   Billy: Very cool. But you know what? You know what I have to do first man, because you're very kind to welcome me back and I just wanna say everybody, by the way, if you haven't already, Leave Michael a nice, wonderful, honest written review as well as rating. It helps to… Michael: Oh my gosh…   Billy: Bring guests to you, which is phenomenal. No, I mean seriously. I mean.... The energy, you all bring the organization, you bring the structure. Uh, and also I know a lot of the things that you are doing are making positive impact cause you're helping to educate people and also inspiring them to take action. So it's the least I could do also as a fellow podcaster, um, to go out. Uh, and, and, and ask of that. So, um, but yeah, Billy Keels, I'm still the, the same guy from the Midwest, uh, of, uh, of Ohio, who has spent the last 26 years of his life, uh, in corporate up until recently, uh, no longer, uh, in the corporate world. I've also been spending the last 21 years, uh, living in Europe. I know Michael, that's close to your heart as well? Michael: Very much so. Billy: And specifically, yeah, specifically between, uh, France. Italy and most recently Spain. I am someone who really, really had a great corporate experience. I really enjoyed it. It was fantastic. Some personal things happened in life that helped give me some clarity that was time to do some other things. Uh, and now I am very, very fortunate to be living, uh, you know, I'm living my, my best life and, uh, was able to make my nine to five optional and doing that in a point in time where I'm still in my forties and, uh, living between, uh, the US and, and Europe and that was part of my life goal. Uh, very, very fortunate and super excited to be back here and share another conversation with you, man. Michael: Oh my God, I love it, I love it. Billy, before we jump into it, I'm just curious, do you remember the best compliment you've ever received? Just outta curiosity. Billy: The best compliment. So you've kind of putting me, putting me on the spot, man. Um, I don't know. I think that's when you have to ask my parents. I don't know because they're , you know? I don't know. I just, I don't know. I, I, I can't remember. But usually it's, it's probably something that's not related to me, but something that I would've learned from my parents. More than likely. Um, but I don't remember specifically why, Why do you ask? Michael: I love it. I'm just curious, man. I'm curious to know if people remember, like human psychology, if people remember the compliments more, or do they remember the insults more? Billy: I spent 26 years of my life, uh, 20, one of the 26 years in sales and sales leadership roles. So the, the bad stuff I've learned to just kind of let it go. , the good stuff. I try to. Um, but if it, like, one of, part of the process that's happened with me is I try not to internalize too much of this stuff because then I kind of keep that and there's a tendency to say, Well, I've heard this so many times, therefore I am, um, I always try to work and be in the best version of myself, so even if I get a compliment, it's kinda like cool. I appreciate that. I probably learned that from my mom, from my dad. It's something I've seen from my brothers or something that my, my wife is helping me to be better in. Michael: I love that man, I love that. Can we turn back the clock a little bit, Billy, and talk about. Your corporate career, because I think that you have a, a similar story to a lot of folks, especially listening, have an amazing corporate job, are killing it in whatever it is they're doing. Um, and they can see themselves doing that maybe forever you had kind of a life change. I'm just curious, like why did you decide to go into business for yourself? Billy: So, you know what, Michael, this is actually super, um, such a wonderful question and I can tell you, I think the last time I told you that there was something that happened to me when my, um, it didn't actually happen to me. It happened for me when my son turned three, I missed his birthday right and I, because I chose to go to a business meeting that was in Germany because I was chasing the corporate dream. I was, you know, that was the thing that I was supposed to do, I was a really young father in that day. It was, I felt an incongruency in my, like, in my being right. I was, I woke my wife and son up to, you know, wake them up and our one year old just to give a hug to our three year old and kiss and then I was out the door. So that was the thing that made me realize like, hey, look, I've gotta kind of take action. I really like my, my corporate career, but I got lost somewhere along the way and my priorities got outta whack and so that helped me to take, start taking action, stop reading a lot of books. Cause I'd been reading books for probably three or four years, right? I knew all the numbers, all the theory, all the stuff, but I didn't take any action and I'm very, very proud to say that I've just celebrated a decade later, right? A decade later, I was able to accomplish the goal, which was being able to make my nine to five optional and even though I went in probably for the last three years and I didn't actually financially need to, I chose to go because, um, the life balance that I had was much better than it had been the previous years. Um, I was still enjoying the things that I was doing in my role. I was really well recognized. I was, you know, making way more money than I thought I ever should be, Uh, making and a decade later, like I literally just came back from, uh, Ohio, uh, where I was, uh, over visiting some friends, got to go to a, a sporting event, which was fantastic. Saw family members and then was able to be back here. Uh, for my son's 13th birthday. So a decade later, I recognized that the action that I took for a decade while I was working my day job, having this side hustle, like it really, it's paid off and it hasn't been perfect. Michael, Um, not even close to perfect, but the fact of the matter is I got outta my own head. I started taking action. I started seeing results, and then I started multiplying on that action and. Even though I left the corporate, because something also non-financial, and I think we talked about this last time, happened with my dad, and it helped me to realize like, okay, I really like what I'm doing, but there's some other things that I can do now less than a year later and my son's, you know, 10 year, 10 years later, his 13th birthday, I'm at a point where I'm like, wow, you know, all these things that I dreamt and wrote about on my dream board. They actually came to fruition. Um, not perfectly, like I said, but you know, being able to be in this point now is, I, I, you know, I'm glad that I started taking the action and I'm glad that I started that side hustle and I know that I worked through a lot of, you know, a lot of crazy hours during some of that time, but it wasn't all for nothing. Michael: Yeah. That's amazing, man. Well, first off, congratulations. That is super, super exciting to hear and I'm sure your family is super thankful as well. Let's talk about like, I think so many folks get it in their head that they can't have a side hustle, or they can't go build a business of their own either because they don't feel creative enough, they don't feel inspired enough, they don't feel called to do something, or they just feel like they don't have enough time. So talk to us about the mindset around. I'm working my nine to five scraping by or doing really well, not even scraping by just doing really well, but I'm exhausted at the end of the day. How does someone like that even think about doing something else? Billy: Yeah, so, and you know, I, I guess I kind of put it in a, there's a couple different things inside of me. I kind of always knew that I wanted to do something else as well, because I think one of the best things about working in a corporate role is in specifically like I was in the IT sector, right and not only in it, I was in software. So this is like super cutting edge, massive profits, and so it was great place to be every single day and so there are so many, like I realize like for a while, I just wanted to continue to work and be an employee and, and things were great and I was really, really fortunate because I had great salary. Um, you know, I was given opportunities to learn to grow leadership opportunities, great training and so for that period of my life that I didn't really wanna do anything. This was like, this was the most amazing thing ever. But then also as I started getting into the other phases of my life, I realized like, hey, listen, there are other things that are really important to me. I want to be able to be here or be there, or just be nowhere when I want to do it and not have to worry about somebody else telling me when and so when those things started happening for me once again, I started realizing like, okay, well, number one, the things that, because I didn't grow up with money at all, but I got into a point where I actually was not just saving money, but investing money, but then I realized that it was outside of my control. Like the stock market couldn't control that, but that was the only thing that I'd been taught to do, which was buy low, sell high, not really a winning strategy, and I didn't take enough time to get educated on that. That happened in 2000 when the DOT combo will happen, and the same thing happened again in 2008 I lost 33% of my portfolio, so I knew that even though I was in a really great c. Opportunity and create corporate experience inside of me. I needed something else. I wanted something else. I just didn't know what it was and so it wasn't until I came across that little purple book that so many people have read that that started turning like the idea on in my mind. But even with that, my goal, like I said, it took me like three and a half, four years to go from theory to practice and it took me missing my third, my son's third birthday to actually start to take that action and so, once I started, uh, you know, being able to, to take that action, I realized like, hey, listen, as long as I continue to give the outputs, cause I was in sales and sales leadership, like what are the outcomes that are expected In my role, I always performed at a high level. Like I was in the top talent program. I was going to Hawaii every other couple years for, you know, overachievement against quotas and stuff like that. So I felt like it was always important to be able to give everything that I gave during my corporate time because that was also providing me the income to be able to do the investments in the other stuff, which is actually creating my runway for my own life, like the one that I was building for my family. So it was finding that balance between being, a really good sometimes great. Uh, corporate employee, I think even, well, I don't think for on my, for a while on my, um, on my LinkedIn it said, hey, you know, happy corporate employee like that was my moniker. So that, that was like the thing and people were like, You really a happy corporate employee? Like yeah, I mean it's treated me really, really well. Yeah. Um, but it was something more that was inside of me that said, hey listen, it's time to do something else and I was afraid for a really long time because I was a high paid executive who was visible and people, you can't be doing anything else, man. You like, you need to be client facing all the time. You make a lot of money, you're doing this, you're doing that. But I knew that it was, um, it was something that I, I really wanted to do and there was sacrifice that also went on, right? Cuz you, you, you're in that type of role, you're expected to be on. Almost 24 hours a day. So I was waking up really, really early in the morning and I was staying up really, really late at night and fortunately both my, my, my wife and my kids understood that, um, once I got back on track, um, and, and it was about being able to find that balance. So I know it's maybe a little bit of a, kind of a longwinded answer, but I think it was about, you know, recognizing how fortunate I was in the corporate role that I was in and I did like it. Uh, I liked it a lot and at the same time, at a certain point I knew that I wanted something more. I knew that I wanted. The control. Initially it was of the financial, uh, outcomes of my life and what I realized it was, I really wanted to have more control over my time and it manifests itself just a couple days ago, which was a decade later, which was me being able to fly to my hometown, stay there for a week, hang out, and then be back for my son's 13th birthday. So, um, yeah, so that's. Hopefully that answers your question. Michael: Freaking amazing, man. So let's talk about like the next obvious question because you were an executive in it, tech sales. So what did you end up doing? Like what kind of business did you start?   Billy: Yeah, so, um, so the thing that I started to understand was it was a thing that came across. It was really, this is kind of dumb luck. It happened, it just really happened that I read that low purple book. The proof of concept was really simple. He was like, okay. I was working in this intangible world selling software. You can't touch it. You pay multimillions for it and then there was, hey, you pay a couple hundred thousand, then a couple million, and you get this actual, physical, tangible thing that you can touch. People wanna sleep in it, so they'll pay you for it. So that's the revenue line. By the way you've gotta make sure that this place stays in order. So you've got some operating expenses, you know you gotta pay your insurance taxes, maintenance and operations, maintenance, repairs, things like that. Then afterwards you get to this line, which is net operating. Well cool and if you have some debt service or mortgage, you pay that mortgage and everything else you get to keep. I was like tangible, simple business model and there's a need for it. So I went and started investing in real estate and I think we talked about it last time, but here based in Barcelona, Spain, but investing always back in the United States, exclusively in the US. So I started with the, with the smaller multi-family and then I bought a mobile home park and then I opened my mind to thinking about new things and I was like, okay, cool. Once I understood that, I get the education, start to build a network around people and then start to continue to take action on this imperfect information I started seeing my asset base grow and those assets, you know, the smaller multi-family, the mobile home park, the ATM machines, and then I started investing with other people because that made a lot of sense for me because I was a high paid executive. So I started realizing like, this is really, really cool, but it's taken a lot of time. I need to do something where I can actually leverage the e efforts and expertise of other people and I was somebody who was a credit investor. I figured that out later and so then I started giving, or not giving, but investing my capital with other people and things like the ATM machines and things like, um, larger multi-family buildings and some development projects in the hospitality space and then I kept having this one specific problem, which was, I was investing in all of these, and I don't wanna get too technical, but passive streams of income, like IRS definition of passive income and I kept still paying 40 plus percent in income tax, and I was like, this doesn't work. So then I started realizing that I needed to start asking different questions. I got into a specific area within the energy space, and that energy space helped me do a couple things, which was continue to build my asset base. That was generating income. This time it was active income, but it was also helping me out as a high paid executive. It was really helping me on my income tax because there were some specific, um, tax code rules related to energy production that helped me not just generate, you know, income moving forward, but it also helped me keep more of my income through income taxes and income tax deductions. So it was looking at all of these different things. At a certain point when I left my corporate career, I thought, I really like this building the asset base. I like continuing to do it and I'd build a lot of relationships and the one thing that really made the biggest impact on me as a high paid executive was the, the thing that was helping on the generating active income and, and keeping more of my active income. So today I really focus, uh, my company in that area through syndicating capital with accredited investors, uh, for those people that are very similar to the way that I was when I was in my corporate role. Uh, and that's, my business has continued to evolve, uh, today. So hopefully that answers the question as well. Michael: I love it, I love it. And Billy, can you give us, I mean, because you're in the energy sector and if anyone's been paying attention to the news or the world or living not under a rock, the energy sector has gone a little bit haywire over the last couple months, years. So can you walk us through like, what has your business gone through over the last couple years with Covid and the war in Ukraine and this sort of thing? Billy: Yeah, man. So this is, so this is really, really interesting, right and one of the things that I appreciate us as, uh, as investors in real assets, right, is number one, it's just, and whether we start in real estate or we start in something else that's tangible, it, it starts to open up our mind to way of thinking, right? I remember when I was just doing stocks, I just thought about stocks. But then when I started investing in real estate, it was like real estate. Oh my gosh, this is simple. this makes sense and okay and yeah, and then it opened my mind to other things and so I was then open to, uh, doing other things and it's very similar, right? If I think about now what I'm understanding about energy, like energy has always been super important, right? If you think about it at a very high level, every single output that we have, it has two component. The first component is labor and the other is energy and I thought, wow, okay, well yeah, that kind of makes sense and as I start realizing that, and then I started saying because of some of the incentives that are related to energy and energy production specifically, it made it a place that I really wanted to learn more about right and, and it, I've now started learning about a lot of different types of energy. But to your point, because energy is everything and everything is energy regardless of what's happening at, um, at your house down the street or even across the world. There's always something that is going to impact energy and the need for more energy, and so, It's very similar to what I started thinking about from a, um, basic needs perspective. When you need a place to live or you know, you need or want a place to live, the proof of concept already exists and so being able to explain the need for energy, to your point, I don't, you don't, I don't really need to explain it. It's just a matter of how is the energy being produced. That's where more of the, the explanations come. Um, and because of that, because it's something that most of us understand or understand the need for um, that part has made it relatively, uh, easy to have conversations about. Of course, there's always, um, very specific conversations or if I'm speaking to somebody who's in, uh, for instance the energy or oil and gas space, and they may be an expert, I always learn stuff, uh, as well. So, um, so just recognizing all the different things that have happened, uh, in the energy space and also having now a real focus on it. It's something that I've seen my business expand exponentially. Like what do I mean by that? So remember I was, uh, a high pay professional. I was, you know, very visible and at the same time I was, you know, syndicating capital, bringing people together around common goals and common dreams and just to kind of give you an idea from the first year, more or less that I was doing this, or a little bit year and a bit, Um, while I was still working my corporate role, since I've left my corporate role and have now done focus just specifically on helping accredited investors that are looking for these, uh, types of investment opportunities that generate returns and also help with income tax problems, um, our business has multiplied by seven right and so what that means to me is one, I have more of a focus now. Um, I'm understanding the accredited investor base that we are serving because also it helps that I am one of those people. I understand, uh, what it's like to go every single day, all day from early morning to late night and recognize that you're doing a hundred percent of the work, right? I was doing a hundred percent of the work, and many times I would bring home, you know, 50, 55% of the work at a certain point, I didn't like that, especially because I was open to learning about new investment opportunities because the real estate that helped open my mind is now continued to keep my mind wide open and so, now being able to look at new opportunities, evaluate those new opportunities, understanding the teams behind those opportunities, it's just, it's one of the things that's now an extension, uh, of where my business is and how we're serving, uh, those accredit investors and why and the energy spaces is one that's, I think, gonna be around for quite a while, kind of like real estate. Michael: That's great, man. I'm curious, Billy, for yourself, I mean, you're clearly a super bright individual. You're very open, you're very curious for the person that is just getting involved in the investment space or maybe in the real estate space that's new for them. They're high paid professional, they don't understand that world. They don't have maybe the same curiosity that you do. I mean, what's the mindset shift around hey, I know stocks and bonds. This is what I've always done and it's worked for me. Why should I bother with this alternative asset class this, this, something different? Bolly: Yeah. So I'm gonna probably, um, cheat a little bit here because we're asking the question and you are asking the question of me and the person that's listening that had that question. Here's the good part, You're already here listening, so you know that something inside of you knows that something's wrong, knows that there's something more that's out there. So what I would suggest is that you've already taken the first step, right? You're already here listening to Michael. You're learning from the guests that are here. So, you know, continue to go down that path. The curiosity's already there because you're already here, right? Yeah. Um, and the, and the reality find out, listen, um, you know, talked about it before. I mean, you have an opportunity to even leave an honest review and in your review, say, hey look, I would really like to have this question answered. I guess what, somebody's probably gonna respond to you and it's about being able to take the steps that you feel comfortable with, um, as an investor. The curiosity's already there. You're already here you heard the question asked, so give, you know, I would say I would give. The ability to continue down this track. Listen to more of the podcast. Start to read about the things that you believe will help to, um, move you forward, move you closer to whatever your, your goal is, um, because everyone has a, you know, have as an investing goal and allow yourself to get educated, move towards the things that you really want to be able to do and ultimately that's gonna help you. So, um, I only say that because I know that they're listening. If they're here, they're listening to the question that you ask, and they just need to give themselves the, uh, ability to keep going down that path. Michael: I love it, I love it. I'm curious, Billy, for most of the clients that you work with, the credit investors you work with, are you having to sell them on this idea of, of your business model and what it is that you're doing or are they already here coming to you saying, hey, I've already done the research. I know who you are, I know what the asset is, like, let me give you money and, and or throwing money at you. What does that look like Billy: Well, so I'm, I'm pretty particular, right? Like, I don't, um, if our relationship started that way, it wouldn't be a relationship that would last very long and, and what I mean by that is, is yeah. What I mean by that is if someone just wants to throw money, uh, at you, I don't want a transactional relationship right I want to build a long lasting relationship. It, that may be the person's intention. Hey, look, I, I eventually want to invest with you, but the type business culture that we're building is we're building an investor family. And so in the same way that we want to get to know one another, you know, I'm very intentional. Hey, let's you know, let's invest 20 minutes in getting to know one another. At least have a 20 minute conversation, 30 minute conversation, understand a bit more about your goals, your dreams, priorities, and also understand about me and my business, what are our business goals and priorities because if there's an alignment, then it makes it really easy for us to take the next step and say, okay, well listen, you can, I know you have an investment, uh, opportunity. You've probably seen something about me somewhere online, or you've listened to this wonderful podcast and you're thinking, okay, well listen. I think because we sound pretty similarly aligned, so what's the harm in investing 30 minutes to get to know one another, right? I'm doing that multiple, multiple, multiple times a day. Um, and so from there that, that's the first part is to, to be able to, to start the relationship on the right foot. Getting to know one another, getting to, to like one um, you know, one another, you like one another, eventually you trust one another. But also, like, one of the things, and this is probably comes from, you know, the 26 years of, of working in, um, you know, really a relationship based type of roles in the last 21 years in, you know, high value type of, of selling, um, and relationship building.   It's really about like, I wanna always help and I want our company to always help those accredited investors that we're serving to make an informed.  because what we do, like the solution that we offer, it's the solution. Like it does what it does. So you have to be comfortable, you have to be informed, you have to ask all of the questions that you feel uncomfortable asking, and my team and I have to be able to give you the information or the data in the way that makes the most sense to you, so that you ultimately can make an informed decision. Because the worst thing that can happen is you look at something, you're like, Wow, this looks absolutely awesome. The numbers are fantastic. You don't spend time getting to know the person or the company that you are going to invest with. You don't know if you're aligned and you're making a decision just based on some numbers that you saw and when as soon as things don't go according to plan and you haven't done the prep work on the front. That's when things get really, really wild and out of, out of control. Like at least that's what I've seen at least in the last 21 years of my experience and so I do have a lot of focus on, you know, being aligned up front, being able to get to know one another, and then also being able to help someone make an informed decision and then after that, you know, if they're informed decision things go. Hey, listen, at least they were informed, they knew about the risks and you know, we will also wanna protect on the downside and, and talk about risks, because that's something that's also very, very important to helping someone make an informed decision. So, um, I don't know if that's a little bit long winded, but hopefully that answers the question. Michael: No, it's, that's great, man. I mean, as you were saying that, I had this, this question you were saying, you know, we're not transactional. We wanna develop this relationship and in my head, I'm, I'm thinking, why, why, why, right? Because from a, from a growth standpoint, from a revenue standpoint, Yeah. I mean, people could look at, at you and say, well, Billy, you're doing it wrong. You're taking too much time with this person. You're spending too much time there. But I think you've explained the why so eloquently and it is because you're protecting the downside when something, if something, probably when something goes side based when something happens, you've got, you've got that foundational relationship to look back on and say, Hey, this, you know, we trust each other. There's not a finger pointing game going on, I would imagine. Billy: Yeah. Well, that's part of it and then also too, you know, I guess this goes back to the company, is that I've worked, been fortunate enough to work for, a lot of this is about business models. It's like I was talking about earlier, Well, let me, let me put it this way, maybe so, I like food. My kids like food and there are things that, like my son, when he's given the opportunity to go somewhere, well, he chooses to go to McDonald's, right and so that's where he likes to go and he likes to eat McDonald's.  Um, I don't so much, but, um, the, well, sometimes when you used to a lot when I was smart, younger, and then there's other places… Michael: There Mc Flurry outta control, right? Billy: All right, I'll go agnostic, I'll go agnostic. Some people like fast food. I probably should have done it that way. Some people like fast food, right? Um, and there was a point in my life where I like fast food as well. I'll change it up a little bit. Um, there's also another point in my life where I like to be able to sit down and I wanted to have more of a, you know, you wanna sit in the booth and you wanna talk and you, um, you just wanna spend a little bit more time and then there's also a.  in my life where I like to take my wife to. Very nice. Sometimes one, two or three Michelin star restaurants, right? The thing is, each one of those business models work. They can all be profitable. But the thing is the business models are very, very different. Do you like fast food? Do you like slow dining or do you like Michelin restaurants? All of them are profitable and it coming back to… Michael: It's got tingles, man, that's such a… Billy: But it's, but, but it's coming back to the question that you ask. , our business is not a high volume business, right. I would rather invest the time to build a deep, valuable relationship and that also means that the, the, the, the investor base that, that my company is serving, I is the investor base that we've decided to do is a, is an accredited investor, is typically a busy high pay professional. That once they have more control over their time and I recognize that for some people that's gonna be a challenge, but it's also for the person that's willing to invest the time. I know that that person has a much higher probability of getting to the goals that they're, that they're really wanting because they're gonna invest that time outside of the stuff that they're, that's keeping them busy and they're gonna be investing the time on the things that's gonna get them closer to their life priorities. That's our business model. There are other models that pretend that will prefer to go to a high number of, right? It's, but there's no wrong business model. That's just the one that I think works the best for me because I'm kind of that person today. Uh, that's the person that I understand the most. Michael: Yeah, man, I love that I love that so much and, and your analogy, the restaurant, different service types just was like, loved it… Billy: Use it whenever you want. Michael: Yes, Yes. I'm gonna, It's, you know, tm Billy Keels. Um, this has been so much fun as always. For everyone who's stung, who stuck with us this far, and there's like on the edge of their seats, what is the name of your company if they're like, I have to invest with this guy. Billy: Yeah, it's first Generation Capital Partners that you can find it at firstgencp.com and actually for people who are the credit investor, having that challenge around, um, being able to find things that where you can find investment opportunities that are gonna get you closer to your life goals, generate income for you, as well as provide tax benefits earned income side of things. We have a guide for you. You can go to firstgencp.com/payless tax. Um, that's a probably the best way to find out exactly, you know, what we're doing. Have a nice little white paper there and if it makes sense for you to continue to move forward, love to be able to get on the phone call and talk. Uh, have a conversation with you, Michael the other thing is, and this is the kind of, people can find out more about me as well, but they should go. Um, the going Long podcast, episode 2 21, where you absolutely crushed it . So going long, podcast episode 2 21 with your buddy Michael. Uh, and then from there, I, I think I'm the only Billy Keels in Barcelona, Spain. So if you wanna look me up on LinkedIn, you can go there. Uh, like I said, Billy Keels, Barcelona, Spain, just let me know that you heard Michael and I, uh, having a conversation here and it's gonna help us to, uh, keep our conversation going. So, uh, with that, I, you know, I love being able to be back here. I, I feel very, very thankful, grateful, uh, for the, uh, for the ability to be back here and share a little bit more of my story. Uh, Michael team really, really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Michael: Oh no. The pleasure is ours, Billy. Thank you and we will definitely be in touch, man. I'm looking forward to doing this again soon. Billy: Thank you. Michael: Take care. All right, everyone. that was our episode. A big thank you to Billy for coming on again, opening his vest a little bit, showing his cards, being a little bit vulnerable, and sharing some of his mindset and what was going on in his life when he made some of those massive transitions. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, we'd love to hear from you with a rating or review wherever it is to get your podcast, and we look forward to seeing you on the. Happy investing…

In this episode, we welcome Public Adjustor, Andy Gurczak to speak about the role of PAs, and how you can make the most out of the undesirable experience of haggling with your insurance provider -- ensuring the highest possible settlement under the terms and conditions of the policy.  Andy Gurczak started in construction as a laborer and got his in as a public adjustor through a contractor he worked for.  Quickly climbing the ladder, he helped grow the business by attaining new clients and further building relationships with existing clients. Andy started his own company, AllCity Adjusting, where he and his team process over 1000 claims per year. Andy's Contact Info: https://www.allcityadjusting.com/ c: 708 655 4186 --- 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: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of The Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me I have Andy Gurczak with All City Public Adjusting. And he's gonna be talking to us today about what a public adjuster is, and why anyone who owns property should consider using one if they have an insurance claim. So let's get into it.   Andy, what's going on, man, thanks so much for taking the time to hang out with me today. I really appreciate you coming on.   Andy: Mike, thank you so much for having me on. It's a pleasure. It's always it's fun to do these. So I'm excited.   Michael: No no. It's truly my pleasure. You're the first like we've done I think this is episode 300 and change and you're the first public adjuster we've had on so anyone who knows me knows that I'm a total insurance nerd and insurance buff so but for anyone who's not familiar, like what is a public adjuster and kind of give us a quick and dirty of what you're doing in real estate.   Andy: First of all, Bravo on 300 episodes. Plus, that's awesome. So thanks for you guys. And I'm lucky PA so this is pretty cool. Yeah, so public adjuster is is licensed by the state, he's legally able to represent the insured in their claim process, negotiate and settle the loss for them. Whether it's commercial or residential. It's basically like having an attorney on your side or an accountant doing your books. It's the same exact thing. They're licensed by the state that they work in as well.   Michael: Okay, okay. And I mean, it just seems like kind of counterintuitive. I go and pay an insurance company every single month, every single year to give me insurance. Then when I have a claim, an insurance claim, I go to the insurance company said, Hey, insurance company, here's this claim, pay me for the claim what I'm owed. So why do I need a public adjuster? Like why does your job even exist?   Andy: Yeah, that's a that's a great question. The reason our job exists is because insurance companies don't pay claims and don't pay them fairly. We've talked about this before the show, Mike, you work the insurance side. So you know, that claims, actually two people that work in our office work the insurance side, and they've got they seen how bad a guy and came to our side. Because claims are handled, I mean, horribly every year, it gets worse and worse. And our we just had a meeting with a couple of attorneys just discussing what's going on and what we could do in some situations, because it's getting so bad, that, you know, insurance companies aren't responding for a month or two months, or just I mean, so having a PA on your site, even though it's your claim, and you think you have to remember that insurance adjuster, that staff adjuster and every one that they send out every vendor contractor they sent out, they all get paid by the insurance company. So they're all working for this one entity. And then you're by yourself. And you're thinking, well, they're on my side, no doubt on your side. It's all about profits, margins, all that good stuff. So…   Michael: Yeah, I know it's so the word of news is sick. When you find out kind of what's going on under the hood. It's really what should be a partner relationship. Like you mentioned, everyone on the same team working for the same goal can be come very contentious very quickly. So you said it's like having an attorney or like having a bookkeeper on your side? I mean, it sounds expensive. How much do public adjusters charge? Like, how does that work?   Andy: Easy. Yep, Pa is most of the time charge a contingency fee. So there's no retainer is nothing, it's all contingency on what they recover. And you know what the claim settles for. And standard is 10%. Like our company has adopted just a 10%, nationwide, whatever claim we're handling, whatever the size is now, some situations where we come in, let's just say months after a year after the claim has been paid, and we're just trying to figure out maybe another coverage or paid additional than it might be a higher fee of maybe 20-25 on the money that we recover above that amount that would the only difference,   Michael: Okay, and so just so we get it crystal clear for all of our listeners, because I just went through this on a claim to fire claims I had on a property. If the insurance company comes into my claim, and says, Hey, Michael, we're gonna give you $100,000 For your claim, and I'm like, There's no way it's gotta be worth way more than that. You will come in or a public adjuster comes in, you end up getting me a million dollars, you're gonna take 10% of that additional 900k That you got me above and beyond what I was originally awarded.   Andy: Yeah, exactly. And something in your situation. So when we have claims, and we have large investors and management companies, we have a pay scale that actually the percentage goes down once it reaches a certain amount. So reaches, you know, half a million that 10% may become nine, right for every client, we kind of work with them, just because we kind of know their position. And again, we want to create a relationship that is long term, because then we're getting called when before the claim even starts right because we want to be there. You know, another question is when do you want to hire PA for the day you have a claim, because you want to make sure if that claim is a legit claim, if you should even file that claim, whatever your deductible is, is that even a covered loss?   A PA will, you know, we do this for our clients all the time we do their policies with their claims without making any money or charging any fee. It just part of our relationship with our clients.   Michael: Okay, I'm so glad you brought that up, Andy, because I get this question all the time. Because so many people don't like, insurance, education is not something that's really provided out there. And I'm wondering if that maybe is on purpose by the insurance companies, but like, how should people if they have something happened to their property? And statistically, if you own a property or enough properties long enough, you will probably have a claim?   So what's the process? Like if you could articulate and paint us a picture of as a property owner, whether it's our own property or an investment property? What should that process look like? What should what should owners be doing? Who should they be talking to?   Andy: Yeah, if you don't have a PA, and you're kind of going to try to do this on your own, you want to first stop whatever loss happens, you want to mitigate the loss, right, you want to get first you want to you want to get your copy of your policy to you want to see if your agent because you most likely don't have a copy, because no one knows that they don't have a copy until they have a loss to be like, Oh, I have this page, I'm gonna get your declaration, you need your policy, your booklet, you know, no one gets that usually, until something happens. And then it's hard to get it from the insurance company, it's like, they don't want to give you your own policy, very normal. Then you want to mitigate the loss. So if it's a fire, you want to board it up, protect it, make sure no one can get in there. Or if it's a roof, you want to cover the roof, if it's a roof claim, and then you want to go and take pictures and document as much as you can, and then call the claimant.   And when you call on the claimant and you're trying to set the reserves high enough. So then when they come in, and let's just say you have $100,000 loss, but when you told them the claim, you might have said, well, it's a small fire in the kitchen, small smoke, they might have reset the set the reserves at 25,000. And now the claim is actually 100. So now when we're trying to fight it, we're going to five managers like what's the example at State Farm, for example, once it goes past the reserves, you're going through letters like five managers to approve one payment are one extra additional line item, it's it gets really crazy.   So the most important is mitigating, mitigating the loss, getting your policy, reserving the claim calling the claimant, right? And if you don't know the answer, when you're discussing that claim, when you're calling it in, just say I don't know, because a lot of people get into trouble by trying to say too much to be too honest. And it's not about being honest or not, or, or lying. But people say the wrong words, they might use the word like mold, I see mold. Oh, well, molds not covered. Here's a denial letter. Well, the water, you know, the water happened three days ago, we have there's mold, because you know it's wet, it's humid mold molds catch up, but there's still water damage that's covered.   So different words they use. So you gotta be careful with words you so you want to do your due diligence, or even call your agent to call that claimant for you. If you need help.   Michael: Let's talk about that for a minute. Because in the agent world, you have captive and non captive agents. And so just like you were saying all the vendors are paid by the insurance company. I mean, in a lot of instances, aren't these agents paid by the insurance companies as well?   Andy: 100%. And I have friends that are agents and I know people are agents, and agents have a bonus if their clients don't file claims. So there is a bonus, there's a perk of them if their clients don't have claims or the correct. So everyone's got a benefit if the claim is not filed, and if it's underpaid, everyone gets points on that.   Michael: So can we surmise that if you have a claim, you should just call a public adjuster immediately?   Andy: 100%. Because it's a free review, what's the worst is going to happen? He's going to come in there and say don't file it. You don't have to sign with that PA but at least get that expertise. Now you want to make sure you find the right one. But if you do you have them looked at it and in depth look at the claim inspect the roof, inspect the fire damage inspector water damage and let you know everything you should do.   Michael: Yeah, I am. I had my first big claim to have them back to back couple years ago, I had two fires in a commercial building back to back a week apart, which I used to work as a professional fire protection engineer. And it's like statistically impossible to have that happen. I'm the one exception, right? So I went through the claim process I had the insurance company come out do their inspections like oh, it's small fire just like you said, you know teeny tiny claim payout. And I'm like dude, that doesn't even cover the materials that were sitting on the roof when I had the roof fire. So I brought in a public adjuster and they know about 15Xed that claim. So I can't sing their praises enough. When someone is searching for a public adjuster and you just mentioned this, you want to find the right one, like what does that process look like? What questions should you be asking?   Andy: I've never been on the other side. When I look and talk to our clients how they found us obviously they were looking online Googling and stuff and they were doing a search engine and kind of we came up online we do a lot of blogs and stuff. So we'll come up there with a lot of tips and stuff for people so they'll find our name. Otherwise, so if you're not looking online, you know, you can check websites like patio, which is Texas associations of public insurance adjusters, California has their own, some states have their own. There's the NAPIA National Association of Public Insurance. So there's different associations that you could go on, and find adjusters pas that have been screened and have backgrounds and pay their dues, because they're part of an organization. So that would be your, you know, your best bet. Referrals. Again, if I, if I knew you, I would say, Hey, Mike, you had a couple of fires, you know, did you hire who's a PA, you have someone to recommend. That's, that's your best bet. Someone that they worked for referral.   Michael: That that has had the actual experience with them? Yep. Okay. Are there certain questions that someone should be asking? I mean, what separates the different pas that are out there? Because I'm sure if I google that would get tons of different results. Is one better than the other? Like, is it just based on the fee structure? What should people be be considering? If they're going to hire someone?   Andy: That's an awesome question. So a lot of what you should be asking, and when you go online and look for PAs, a lot of them say, you know, fire water, they do all these things. But 90% of PAs handle just roofing claims, usually residential, some commercial. So it's, you have to make sure that hey, how do you handle fires? And how many fires have you handled? Or what do you specialize in? You might say, Well, we do a lot of roofs. That's not the PA, if you had a fire, you don't want the guy that's handling roofing claims. Right? For us, we do large loss, fires, water, hurricanes, we don't if someone calls for a residential roof. We don't we don't do residential roofs, we would love to, but we don't we don't specialize it. There's other PAs that do a great job, here's a couple of names you can call or, you know, Google and and find the problem just and it's in that it's just a committed, you know, attorney, some attorneys do, you know, personal injury, some do properties. Same thing with PA some PAs are better at some coverage than others.   Micael: Yeah, that makes total sense. Andy, let me ask you a question. Because it happened to me. And I'm curious now with the hindsight, what the proper move is, so I had this fire, and it was on the roof. And it was during a reroof. So they had all the materials up there. So all the materials burned up. And my public adjuster said, Don't touch anything on the roof. He said, We got to come out, we got to photograph everything we need to take care of, you know, we need to document everything. And meanwhile, it's really windy. There's debris blowing onto the neighbor's property into their, into their, into their courtyard and their fence. And so the neighbors called me complaining threatening to sue, they got crap blown everywhere. And I'm like, I can't it's like an active insurance investigation.   So you were talking about you want to mitigate the loss stop the loss from getting any worse. But are there instances where physically mitigating the loss than is like evidence tampering is the wrong word, but you understand how it's changing the scene.   Andy: Double edged sword? Yes, a double edged sword. We walk into properties all the time. And you know, or let's say we go into a hurricane area, or right now in Florida, and we see people outside with all their contents, right? Like all their house stuff, just in a pile. And I'm like, did you guys order material? Everything's gutted? I'm like, did you guys inventory take pictures? Well, no, but the insurance company said to just throw everything up. That's the worst idea ever. That's what they want. You just get rid of all your evidence. So that's a double edged sword. So when I say mitigate, you're supposed to mitigate the loss because they can technically your duties after last say you will mitigate. So if you don't, they can deny it. But what's mitigate right? If I had a pipe burst from the third story water comes as floods my whole house right? The insurance company is going to want to send a vendor out to pull some drywall or spray everything or dry everything and leave it. That's the goal. That's mitigation. But mitigation is you turning off the water. That's already mitigation, because it doesn't specify what technically mitigation is. It just says mitigate. So by me turning off the water, I have mitigated the loss. And I will tell my insurer just leave it because it's already all damaged. Whether you dry it or not, that's just gonna go against your thing. It's already damaged. It can't be its category three water. So it's got to be all replaced. Instead of paying a vendor all this money, this has got to be gutted, all that money should just go to you instead of that vendor.   So yeah, there is instances. So in yours, just because we have insurance, karma saying any Can we start rebuilding? Well, now because we're still fighting with the insurance company, and we're still negotiating, and if you start the repairs, then you you can date that's what they want. They want to keep holding, holding until you actually accept it and start the repairs.   Now, if they don't start the repairs, then they'll go well, why didn't the insured start the repairs? Right? So it's, we're trying to keep our clients in the best situation to make sure it's the best possible outcome. But it's hard sometimes, especially with landlords when they have tenants, right? Hey, my tenant is going to sue me or my tenants gonna go this if I don't do the repairs. Then do the repairs, I guess. And this is the settlement we're getting. So an insurance company knows this. So, in your situation. That's a tough call. What do you say like either the PA say, Hey, we got to do it this way. And he was doing it the right way. Because if you did mitigate or clean up that thing? And they come in? They're like, ah. Even if you document it, I'm telling you, it's like they don't even look at your photos. They don't care. Yeah, so they did the right thing.   Michael: Okay, good. Well, that's good to hear. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go send them another thank you text after this episode. Yeah. Andy, can you give us like, maybe two scenarios to stories that you've experienced one where things went perfectly well, or as good as they could have gone and what you you're insured what your clients did to get there. And then maybe a scenario at the opposite end of the spectrum where things just like, just like, give us like the worst thing you've ever seen happen? Just so we have a little bit of context that…   Andy: Part of like claim handling or like? Okay, so I'll tell you, we were just like I said, we had the attorney, we were kind of going over claims and we have one, and I won't say the insurance company. This is in Gary, Indiana. This this poor lady that waged her claim has been handled, and it's by an adjuster that we've seen handle bad claims for other people in that area. Whether it's color, race, area, I don't know. But the way this this claim has been handled this lady the under oath and everything she's been through, like we thought we had it all over, they finally after six months, say okay, well pay the claim. And here's the money, we got to argue with them. They started at 30,000. It's $160,000 claim. But then we have contents another 160 that we sent wants to go and now we're asking what's going on with the content. So they come back well, well, which which was the insurance and which was her daughter's. Why does it matter? If you had a fire Mike, and you have your kids and your wife stuff in the house? That's all personal property? They're not on the pile? Are your kids on the policy now? Yeah, no kids are on the policy, but their stuff is covered. Right? So why are they're asking her so now they want to examine her again and her mom. So this is going to drag on for 10 months. So this and this claim is ongoing. So to us that to me, it's like, well, now I'm powerless as a PA. But what can I do?   So the only way is the attorney can help. But again, she's still going to have to do that examination. But it just shows how long they'll drag it and try to find ways of however, to underpay or just deny that claim. So that's bad. Yeah. And we have a bunch of those. So those hurt a lot of them, we win, this one again, we got the structure paid and figured out. Now we thought the contents was going to be a slam dunk, easy. Here's everything, even your vendor said, you can't clean this stuff. Great. Here's the list. Here's the pricing age of items. And now they come back with this. So, another tactic to delay the claim.   On a good note, we had one, it was a it was from another podcast, one of the investors students called us, he got the number to us and he called us he had a 16 unit in Champaign, Illinois, burned down here to ACV policy, you are familiar with actual cash value. Your listeners might not but meaning he would not recover depreciation, he would not get that amount even if he rebuilt. So he was just getting what's what it's worth now. So that building, he had a fit 550 limit that just came in, he wrote like 560. And they depreciated and cut him a check for maybe 300,000, something like that. So when we got hired, we sent our letter representation, and the adjuster called and said, Hey, Andy, you know, I paid this, I paid this to Max, I don't know why he hired you. I'm like, Well, you didn't pay loss of rents. And also you haven't paid demolition expense, and you only paid 300 when it's a 550 policy, you stopped writing, because our estimate is like 900,000. With no like edit, like this is just it.   So then we reconcile and the insured ended up getting 100%. So 550 plus 5%, debris removal, some other endorsements, plus he maxed out everything. So he ended up walking away with another 400, like 300K. So again, when an adjuster says, you know, we don't need you. And that's it again, there's many claims like that, those are the positives, it's the ones that drag on, and that you like, you know, you're close, but they're still like delaying, delaying, delaying. And it's like they want the insurance to just finally say, Okay, well, I'm done.   Michael: I'll just throw in the towel.   Andy: Yeah, it sucks. And, you know, there is statutes in each state, which they have to follow, but it's never followed, because no one ever calls them out on it. Because unless you actually go to court or litigation, that's when they show okay, we didn't do this. They didn't do this. But other than that, they don't really know. They kind of do their own thing.   Michael: Yeah, because they're so big. And you bring up you bring up a really good point ACV versus replacement costs for anyone that's not familiar with the to give us from from like the PA side of things. What is the benefit of one versus the other? Because I'm sure your clients have seen like the reason your client probably had the ACV was because the replacement costs value on that 70 unit 50 unit was just probably astronomical. So it's often a cheaper policy to get like what's the downsides of going with one versus the other and what risks do people run by choosing one versus the other?   Andy: So the riskier is with the actual cash value policy and most most policies are RCV based. And then they have the actual cash value endorsement that says we only pay actual cash value, what happens is why you would do that policy where some people might get that policy and our insured wasn't even aware of it. But the agent sold it to him didn't explain to him the differences. He didn't know that he had that extra cash value policy. So you know, that's another story. He went on his own. But, so what happens is you, it saves you a lot on your premium, especially if you're investing you're trying to make margins and you know, it could save you on a property like that 2-3-4K a year, right? Well, it's great until you actually have a loss, when you have a loss. You know, it's especially on older buildings, it's cutting your payment by half. And you can't recover that money because it's actual cash value. So the replacement cost of you know, your home today is 300,000, but the actual cash value after depreciation, your actual cash value is 150. Well, you're only getting that 150. Even if we got the settlement of 300. With insurance, your policy will only allow for the actual cash value of 150, which will leave you with only half the money to rebuild.   So you're always as an as an insured, you should always have a replacement cost policy. And now they have you know, different like guaranteed replacement costs and all this other openly, openly insurance actually has it. They don't even have its guaranteed replacement, because they don't even have a limit. I think it's up to one like there's no limit on structure a   Michael: Holy smokes.   Andy: So there's some new carriers that are really, really, really good, actually.   Michael: Okay. And that brings me to my next point. And I'm so glad you brought it up. Like Should folks be involved in public adjusters in their insurance carrier decisions as they're looking to go place insurance on properties?   Andy: I would hope so. Because all we do is read policies every day. All I do is read policies interpret policy. So I know when I'm looking at a policy, I'm like, Well, you have a good policy, but you don't have you have a finished basement, you don't have any water backup, you your roof is actual cash value only. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know there's a lot of stuff you you should be aware. So yeah, our longer term clients will actually inspect their properties, look at their policies to make sure they don't have any exposed liabilities. Right. Now, it's not our job. It's the agents job. But most of the agents now are just, you know, selling policies instead of actually doing their due diligence and ensuring the claim the right way, they insured.   Michael: Yeah, I just want to echo exactly what you said, for all of our listeners, like now the public adjuster that I worked with on this on these fire claims, I sent him every policy and every quote that I get for properties, and he told me he's like, happy to do it. He's like, Yeah, this is a great carrier. But this is the other thing. And also, he can tell me like, Hey, I've run up against this insurance carrier, we see them all the time, like they don't pay claims, we're going to be working together a lot more if you have a claim if you go with this company, which is super great insight to have.   Andy: That's, that's awesome. And that's the same thing. I would say, I would say this carrier, we have a lot we have, you know, this many claims every year. And you know, maybe it's a lesser policy, and that takes longer, but they'll pay the claims, right? These guys just don't pay or they didn't know, I have a list of insurance companies that I know that are easier to deal with. Now, it's your claim guarantee you're gonna be paid when you file a claim with them. No, it still might be a hard process. But they're much easier than these eight other carriers that they're that are out there.   Michael: Yeah. This has been so great. Andy, my last question for you, man. How many claims do you handle a year just out of curiosity? So I can we give people an idea of…   Andy: Yeah, we do over 1000 claims a year?   Michael: Well, but how many how many public adjusters in your office?   Andy: Oh, right now we have four. Right now we have four and we're just we just keep growing. We do a good job marketing and, and building our social media presence. And yeah, it's, it's, it's good. And I mean, I guess it's bad for the insurance. Maybe these claims are handled. But yes, tactically, we, our business grows and we get more calls.   Michael: That's awesome. And I want you to share with everyone your contact information where people can get a hold of you and like what kind of I know you said you don't do residential roofs, but what kind of claims should people consider reaching out to you for?   Andy: Any fire, you know, water claims, you know, whether it's broken pipes sewer backup, we can inspect those or at least advise sewer backups, usually, or water backup limits, they usually have a limit. So I see your limit is 10,000. I look at the photos and I'm like, Well, you max out the limit. You don't need a PA this one's just a max policy easy. A lot of people that call us if we get to two calls, three calls a day of clients that we just kind of give them advice because there's no need for a PA in some instances, they will but we can give them at least advice and help them out.   But fire claims hurricane even commercial roofs we do commercial roofs a lot. Residential roofs is just the one thing we don't really do. Just because we we don't have the staff to do it. So…   Michael: Yeah, okay, fantastic. And for people that want to reach out learn more about your take advantage of your services, what's the best way for them to do so?   Andy: The easiest way is my cell phone. It's literally for your clients they can for your listeners, they can call me it's 708 655 4186 that's literally my cell phone. They can text me call me I'm really easy to get a hold of while I still can. I'm able to get my phone away so write it down because I might have to switch here I might not be able to give my phone away and my wife gets mad with more calls.   Michael: I hope you're so busy that happens.   Andy: So ya know so far so far. Okay, wife's not getting mad, so…   Michael: Awesome. Andy, thank you so much, man. This was super great anyone watching the video could tell I'm super giddy talking about insurance stuff. It's so great to meet someone that's also as giddy so no, I really appreciate the time.   Andy: No, it's fun to actually have a host that actually knows that that area and yeah, it's fun. You You know you've been through it now yourself. So you kind of know the you know, you know, you know what we do and what a PA can help. So it's, good.   Michael: Big time, big time. Well, thanks again, man. I'm sure we'll be in touch.   Andy: Mike, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.   Michael: All right, everyone. That was our episode with Andy, A big thank you to him for coming on and sharing some great information, some great knowledge and wisdom with us. Definitely. If you are someone that is going through an insurance claim or will go through an insurance claim in your lifetime with the property you own, definitely consider hiring a public adjuster they are worth their weight in gold. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, please feel free to leave us a rating or review. We'd love to hear from you all in the comments section and ideas on future episode topics. And we look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing