5 Steps to Feel Rich Without Producing More

What if the reason you don’t feel wealthy has nothing to do with your income and everything to do with how your practice runs without you? We unpack why so many high-earning dentists still feel one bad month from disaster and lay out a clear path to replace anxiety with real freedom.

If you’re ready to swap bigger numbers for better systems and design a practice that supports your life, not the other way around, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a colleague who needs a reset, and leave a review to help more dentists find practical, freeing strategies that work.

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Transcript

Why Money Doesn’t Feel Safe

Paul Etchison 1:22

You ever notice how you can hit every financial milestone that you used to dream about? I mean, the production numbers, the money in the bank, the income, the house, the vacations, and yet you still don't feel rich. Somehow you're still just one patient breakdown or one big resignation from a team member, or just one bad month away from everything falling apart. It's one of those things. It's hard to feel rich when it doesn't feel safe, when things don't feel certain. And here's a crazy stat. I read an article that quoted a study, and it said that only 32% of millionaires actually consider themselves wealthy, which means that even people with seven figures in the bank, liquid in the bank, millionaires, they don't feel secure. So if they don't feel rich, what chance do we have as dentists? And this happens in dentistry all the time. Most owners are making great money on paper, but their experience of their business and their life doesn't match the numbers. You might feel stretched thin, you might feel overwhelmed and still constantly chasing that next goal. And no amount of income is going to overcome the emotional cost that comes from being a practice owner when it stresses you out, when it relies on you for everything. So today we are going to break down why dentists almost never ever feel rich, even when they are, and how to change that feeling fast by fixing the real source of the pressure. I'm going to talk about mindset with you, but more so that it's a systems conversation that directly affects your stress, your freedom, and yes, your bottom line. Now you are listening to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast, where we teach practice owners how to create team-driven practices that run effortlessly without them. I'm your host, Dr. Paul Edgson. I'm a practice owner, I'm an author, and I'm a dental coach who works just one clinical day each week while my team runs the business. So if you want a practice that lets you work less, earn more, and finally have the time for the things that matter most to you, then you have come to the correct podcast. All right, let's get into it. So, stat number one, the first thing I talked about in this intro, this is a study done by Northwestern Mutual saying that only 32% of people that have a million dollars, you know, a million dollars in stock. 32% of millionaires feel wealthy. That means only one in three millionaires actually feel wealthy. Now, I know you might be thinking, well, millionaire, and you know, million dollars is not that much money anymore. You get the idea. Okay, here's what we're saying: a lot of people with a lot of money don't feel like they have a lot of money. And dentists, we often fall into that same psychological trap. You might be making a ton of money, yet you can easily feel like it's just not enough. So here is some perspective for you. Globally, about 45% of people live on less than$8.30 a day. Now, that is a crazy number. Okay. I think most people spend more money on coffee than that. But that's globally. So, but let's let's bring it back home. Here in the US, the median household makes about$74,000 a year. Yet about six in 10 adults say that they're living paycheck to paycheck. Now, what about us dentists? Are we living paycheck to paycheck? I hope not. But of course, we know some dentists that are living paycheck to paycheck. And it's usually not because of the cost of living. It has more to do with the expenses of being a so-called dentist. I'm, you know, throwing up my quotes here, the expenses, you know, we create these. But just giving you some perspective that, you know, compared to most of the world and most of the United States, dentists were doing pretty stinking well. But the thing is, is that we know that happiness does not rise as we make more money. We've all heard about that study that says like happiness rises until you get to the point where all of your like basic needs are met. And I think the last study said something around like$85,000. Once you get to$85,000 as a household, then you start like the happiness kind of just trails off. It doesn't matter how much more money you make. And I don't care who you ask, most people would say, you know what, if I could just make about 10% more, then I'd be good. But that goalpost is continually moving further and further and further away. Here is another stat that I found. It said that 15% of people, they never get happier with more money. It doesn't matter what they make, it doesn't change. And if that's you, more production is not going to fix the emptiness. But I will share with you in a moment what will. So I want to tell you a story about a point in my life where I realized that my income did not have a whole lot to do with my happiness and how rich I truly felt. Now, the day I sold my practice, you know, I partnered up with the DSO, you signed the papers, the closing. It was all done on DocuSign. So it's not like this big climactic thing like I thought it would be. You sign the things on DocuSign later on in the day, the wire comes in, and then you look at your bank account and then you start looking, oh my gosh, what is the FDIC insurance limit here? Because I have a fear that I might have too much money in a bank account. But the truth of the matter is, is when that money hit, it felt good, but it didn't feel as good as I thought it was going to. And when I showed up to work that following Monday, it didn't feel any different. When I showed up a month in the future, it didn't feel any different. I still had to work for a certain amount of years at that practice before I could truly exit, which was my original plan. But the fact of the matter was, is it felt the same. It didn't make me more happy. Eventually, what happened is I worked on the systems in my practice and I created what I think will truly make us happy and what truly makes dentists feel wealthy. Which brings us to my point, why you as a dentist might be doing very well, but not necessarily feel wealthy. And here's some reason. First of all, you probably don't have true practice freedom because that's what really brought me that feeling of wealth and happiness in my life, is when I got the systems going and that I could truly say, I don't need to be at this practice for it to make me money, and I can do whatever I want with my time. So, you as a dentist, you might be thinking that that wealth, you know, accumulating, like building that NSD is going to bring you happiness. And I will say to some extent, that is true. But most dentists, they equate wealth with income, how much money they're making per year and how much they have saved. When I really think what we should be doing as dentists, we should be equating wealth with freedom, true practice freedom. True wealth is the ability to step away from your practice and your life doesn't fall apart. True wealth is being able to practice as much as you want when you want, and also take off time to spend doing whatever you want with whoever you want, whenever you want. That is true practice freedom. And that's what I think we should all be striving for. Now, as dentists, we have seen our overhead grow immensely since COVID. So you might be experiencing what I call the high overhead culture of dentistry. And usually, this is not an expense problem. For the most part, this is usually a production problem that I've seen in my experience. But nonetheless, it is a problem. And I don't care how much you collect every year, if you've got a 75% overhead, it is going to feel like you're working way too hard for way too little. Now, us as dentists, we are definitely guilty of often increasing our lifestyle faster than our income increases and not saving nearly as much as we should. This is common. Don't feel bad. There is hope for you yet, I promise. And what to say about comparison? Now, I remember the point in my life when I had hit financial freedom. This was right after my practice sale. This is when I'm looking at the income that is coming from like my passive investments, that's coming from my real estate and stuff. And I'm financially free. I no longer need to work. And this was such a big goal for me. I knew I'm like, I gotta hit this by 40. It's so important to me. And I had had everything I wanted. I had the cars, I had a great house. It was taking expensive vacations. I had a lake house, a big boat, you name it. But then one day, you know, shortly after that, me and my wife we went to go see one of her friends' brand new 7,500 square foot house with 17-foot ceilings in the basement and a full basketball court in there, and two islands in the kitchen, and two dishwashers and four ovens, and literally like more bathrooms than a cruise ship designed for everybody who ignored the warning about the shrimp cocktail. And what do you think I said to her, my wife, as soon as we got in that car? I said, you know, we could afford a house like that. I can afford that. I make enough money for that. I could do that. You know, I might have to keep working or I might not be financially sound, but I mean I could afford it. And that's how I felt. I felt like, man, I thought I had made it, but look at this person who has made it so much more hardcore than me. And dentists, we all do the same thing. We're always comparing. You go to Facebook, you see other practices, you see people's Instagram, which is just a highlight reel, and you take it at face value and it makes you feel crappy. You might be flipping through Instagram and you see all these short videos about these houses that appear like they should cost like 5 million, but for some reason that nobody can explain to me, they only cost like half a million dollars because they're in Texas for some reason. Does anyone understand? I mean, I don't get it. It's always like McKinney, Texas. You can get this house for$500,000. I don't understand it. I don't even think it's true. But the point being is that comparison is the thief of joy. And the only thing that you know when you see somebody's house, when you see somebody with a nice car or anything like that, the only thing you can truly say is that person right there, they can afford the payment for that. It doesn't say anything about how much money they have saved, it doesn't say anything about how liquid they are, it doesn't say anything about how good the relationships in their lives are, nothing about how happy they truly are. What are you to do as a dentist if you know deep down you are doing so well compared to the rest of the world? But yet inside you have this feeling that you're just not doing enough. You're just not cutting it. And like I said, I went through this same thing, and I'm gonna tell you exactly how do you feel wealthy even before you make the money? The first thing you got to do, you've got to fix the systems that create stress in your practice and in your life. I'm talking about things like the unpredictable schedule that you do over and over every single day, every single week, and you never touch it, you never fix it, the constant cancellations that are just wasting your time at the practice, the lack of accountability with your team, the fact that you, as the owner, are likely doing way too many tasks, that you need to have more help. That was a big one for me and my happiness. I was doing so much, even though at the time I felt like I had delegated so many things. I didn't have systems of leadership in place in my practice, and I didn't have that true practice freedom. So when things are stressful at your practice, it can often show up as something that you would say it's financial anxiety. You just need to make more money, you just need more collections, you need more profit. But truly, it's just anxiety that's caused by lack of business systems and lack of accountability at your practice. All very fixable things. Now, the next thing that you can do, build a practice that makes money without you clocking more hours. And this is exactly what DPH is about. How can you build a practice that makes you money without you trading time for it? Most of the people in the world, they trade time for dollars. They get paid a certain amount per hour. But that is the beauty about owning a business, is that you can set it up in a way that your income is no longer a trade for time. It's really a trade for the leverage that you can create by the way that you do things and the way that you run that business. So you can make it, so you can go do other things, you can go on vacation, you can just sit on your butt at home, and your practice continues to make you money without you trading time for it. That helps you feel more free and hence more wealthy. And the next thing is I want you to define wealth correctly. Use your net worth. Don't look at your income. I mean, I found some Federal Reserve statistics from this survey of consumer finances and the median net worth. Now, these are people 65 to 74 years old. Median net worth peaks$409,000 in net worth. Now, the average of people at that age group, 65 to 74, is about$1.8 million. So look at those net worth numbers and think about what is your net worth. And I would go as far as to say that most dental practice owners, maybe not right when they own their practice, but at a certain point when that note is paid off and you factor in the value of your practice, you're probably already above that average. So you're way past average. So if you want to compare to something there, compare to that average. Don't compare to the dentist on Facebook or my wife's friend that has that 7,500 square foot house that I wish I owned. All right, the next thing savings. Save for the long term and actually have a plan. And here's what I mean by this: most people have no idea where they're heading. And when you don't have a plan and you don't know where you're heading, there is some uncertainty tied to it, and it can make you feel like you're not doing enough, like you're not rich, like you don't have that wealth. So get a plan and make sure you just save whatever is reasonable to you so that you can continue to live the life that you want. But here's what happens for us: so many dentists, we overextend, our overhead creeps up, our lifestyle creeps faster than our income. Or when we finally get that good income, we feel like we have to spend all our money on the house, the cars, and everything, and there's nothing left. You might be making a ton of money and living paycheck to paycheck. That's no way to live. So make a plan, figure out how much you should be saving and investing every month, and do it with the intention that you're going to work till you're 65. I said I had that goal to get financially free by the time I'm 40. That was one of the dumbest things I ever did. Let me tell you why. Because I worked my ass off when I could have said, you know what, there's no time that I'm ever going to stop working because you can't sit on your butt. If I would have just said, hey, I'm gonna work till I'm 65, I could have saved a lot less money. I could have done a lot more things, I could have had a lot more experiences. I probably could have bought that big ass house that I'm still kind of jealous of. You know, a little, maybe not jealous, maybe a little envious. Yeah, maybe. We'll admit to it. But let me give you a few numbers. Like you know, the power of compounding, the eighth wonder of the world, or whatever you call it. Now, don't hit me on these numbers, okay? I'm just giving you numbers to show you what's possible. Let's say that you invested$7,500 a month every month from 30 to 65. I know that might be unrealistic for a lot of people, totally understand, but I'm just throwing some numbers out.$7,500 a month from$30 to$50, put it in the S P$500, average S P$500, historical return of 10%, you would have over$28 million when you were 65. But what if you just invested half of that? So we're talking about investing$37,500 or something like that, like maybe$42,000 a year. If you invest that, you would have$14 million by the time you were 65. So nothing exciting about it, just plain old, you know, monthly investing. Make sure that you don't overextend so that you can continue to save and have an idea of where you're going to end up because that is going to give you a feeling that I have enough, I have a plan, I am wealthy, I'm rich. And stop the comparison, stop the social scrolling, stop benchmarking against these influencers. Don't pay attention to anybody on social media except for me, because you love me and you love me so intensely, you will continue to follow me. But stop looking at everybody else. Run your own race. And what I'm saying, I'm joking, but run your own race. Don't compare. It's not worth it. There will always be somebody who makes more money than you. There will always be somebody who has something that you want. And that never-ending keeping up with the Joneses is not a good way to live. And I'm talking from experience because I've done this. And which comes to my last recommendation add the joy and presence back in your life. This is what truly made me feel wealthy. Okay. After I had those systems, after I had the practice freedom, it wasn't just having that freedom, it was what I did with it. So there's research that shows older people, like 60 plus, are much more happier than people in their 40s. And this has a lot to do with one, the way that they learned how to regulate emotion, just maturity, but it's that they focus on meaningful activities. So I can tell you from personal experience is that I work one day a week clinically, which gives me time to do whatever else I want that I really enjoy. Now, I really enjoy doing this podcast. I really enjoy coaching clients, but I also really enjoy spending time with my daughters and my wife. And I would tell you that my real happiness in my life came when I got intentional about the relationships that I had, when I got intentional about my meaning, being a great friend of my peer group, spending time with my family. When I stopped focusing on money and income, and I started focusing more on meaning. And guess what? Here's the great part. At no amount of income, at no amount of wealth, do you have to reach this point where you can start focusing on meaning? You can do that at any level of income. So I want you to get introspective about your relationship with money. What does it mean to you? What would happen in your life? Say if you lost half of your wealth. You guys heard me talk about the great investment of N95 masks that I did. We were buying N95 masks and we were selling them to the Turkish government. You're listening and you're saying, how could this not be a Ponzi scheme? Yeah, I look back in retrospect and I say, yes, that was definitely a Ponzi scheme. And actually, the guy who took my money on that just got sentenced to 37 years in prison. So good for him. Guess what for me? I didn't get my money back. It really sucks. But when you lose money like that, it really forces you to examine your relationship with money. I lost a ton of money in a Ponzi scheme. Okay. It felt awful. I had to grieve the loss. But let me tell you what happened with my life. Nothing changed. Nothing changed with the relationships with my people that I care about. Nothing changed with the lifestyle that I was living. Nothing changed. Examine your relationship with money. What are you making it mean to you? Are you making it mean too much? So here are your tactical takeaways for this episode. I want you to figure out your savings and investment goals. I want you to figure out what's going to align with your long-term goals. Stop thinking you're going to retire early. You're not going to do it. Plan on working all the way to 65 regardless and calculate that. Make sure that you don't overextend so much that you can't save. And I want you to shift your income goals, okay? Shift your income goals to freedom goals. Shift it to like the hours that you're actually working, how many days and weeks you're taking off. What are your stress levels that are caused by the practice? Those are the true goals that are going to make you feel wealthy. Those are the things that are give you that freedom. Next, stop comparing. We all hear it, but we're also guilty of it. Sometimes we just need to put the phone down, right? And as well as saving and investing, I want you to invest in the systems that will reduce your daily involvement in your practice. This is what frees up your brain and your mental energy and frees up that time in your life. So that you can finally invest in the relationships, the things that truly matter, the things that give your life true meaning. So, wrapping up, wealth, it isn't income. Wealth is freedom. And what you can do with that freedom is what truly brings you happiness. No dollar amount is ever going to make you feel safe until your practice stops depending on you for everything. And I promise you, the solution to make it stop depending on you is not to sell it and run away from it. Fix the systems and that wealthy feeling, that rich feeling, it's going to just happen. It's the freedom that comes from the systems that allows you to invest in those relationships in your life that makes you happy. And only then will you finally realize that you have enough. It really helps me to feel good about what I'm putting out into the dental community, as well as get this podcast listened by more people. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk to you next time.