Episode 65: The Ultimate Guide to Investing for Dentists

“The level of distraction will ebb and flow, but it’s always there. That’s what we need to get a handle on.” ~Matt Mulcock, CFP

Are your emotions jerked around like a yo-yo every time you turn on the news? So many business owners get sucked into the drama of the stock market and it makes sense: you want a secure financial future for you and your family.

So if you’re tempted to pick up the phone and call your financial advisor every time you listen to the news, I want to encourage you to think about this: Good news doesn’t sell. News reports are designed to keep you on an emotional roller coaster. Hype and confusion are good for keeping viewer attention.

So what should the future-focused dental practice owner be doing in order to reap long-term financial success and freedom?

Today, Matt Mulcock, CFP of Dentist Advisors joins me to wade through the financial muck and share how you can improve your investment results as you build your Investment Grade Practice, including:

• A smart way to think about investments (and your #1 investment)
• How to calm the distraction of the stock market
• The top tip for long-term financial (and business) success

Want to know if you have an Investment Grade Practice? Click here to use the completely free Investment Grade Practice calculator: What’s my IgP Freedom Number?

Want to have a conversation about your Investment Grade PracticeTM? Contact Brent at brent@productivedentist.com.
Never miss an episode! Subscribe to Investment Grade PracticesTM Podcast on iTunes & Spotify.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Victoria Peterson
Have you ever felt like you were in the drama as the stock market turns? Today I have a very special guest for you. His name is Matt Mulcock. He is a certified financial planner. He is a senior advisor and Director of Financial Services with dentist advisors and is also the co-host of the Dentist’s Money Show one of the most popular podcasts in dentistry. Matt, thank you for being here today.

Matt Mulcock, CFP
Oh, Victoria, thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be here. We’ve talked about this on and off a little bit over the last few months and so it’s fun to actually be here and be talking to you today.

Victoria Peterson
Oh, I love it and for all of you listening, Matt and I, you know, we always take a few minutes with all my guests and just kind of prep and what are we really going to hone into and I in the middle of it just said we have got to hit this button because this is absolute gold so I want to rewind a little bit, Matt and talk about your viewpoint about you know, because I said your topics is financial planners kind of move on a daily monthly yearly basis was where the stock market goes because that’s what people think about when they think about financial planning but you had a very different answer to that question about what dentists should be focusing on right now.

Matt Mulcock, CFP
Yeah, yeah, definitely so as we were discussing, the thing that came to my mind that, this is kind of always there right? What I call just distraction and the level of distraction will kind of move ebb and flow for sure depending on where we’re at with the market and obviously individual dentists’ life but it is pervasive, it is always there and that’s something we as advisors to our clients are always trying to like, kind of get a handle on which is again their level of distraction and what we’re meaning they’re you know, thinking they’re bouncing from one thing to the next.

Victoria Peterson
It was just like I call you on a Monday and say Bitcoin, Bitcoins really cool and then you like go down that path to put some things in Bitcoin. I call you on Friday. Good. “No, no, no, it crashed.” I think, I think just a crypto general account, or wait a minute, maybe I don’t even need to be in crypto. That’s scary, let’s I heard that going into pharmaceuticals are better. “Oh, how about oil and gas because yeah, is that the kind of distraction? Like I’m just reactive?

Matt Mulcock, CFP
Absolutely, absolutely and I’ll even take it this coincides exactly with what you guys do so incredibly well, which is talked about and you know, helps to help your clients and audience build an Investment Grade Practice. It’s like, how about we start there, right? Like, there are so many times we talk to our clients of like, “Is your practice where you even want it to be right now? Like, why are you talking about this storage facility investment that your buddy has? Why would you put $20,000 in that storage facility when you don’t even have your marketing? Yeah, like go take that 20,000 and hire a consultant or do some marketing or hire a new staff member to help with some you know, some type of system you’re trying to put in place.” Like I think that is and what I was saying view which will we’re seeing more and more now because of the noise that’s happening in the market and the media has just it’s always there, but it’s gotten worse right now is that they kind of tend to pile on meeting the media.

Victoria Peterson
And you know what, you’re an inside person so I want to ask this, I have a, I have an unsubstantiated theory and my theory is, my theory is that type of confusion is good for business and the big business owns the media and whatever’s on front page news is designed to keep you on an emotional roller coaster and the last thing anybody in the news business wants you to see is what’s happening on page 16. You know, it’s the stuff that’s happening corporately and governmentally and politically so deep behind the scenes, we don’t get to it because Facebook’s now tracking us and throwing us, you know, pictures of garden hoses or whatever we talked about that day, right? Yes.

Matt Mulcock, CFP
Yes, I’m gonna get garden hoses on my next ad, now, you know that right? Like, it’s,

Victoria Peterson
I just put my phone on airplane mode so I wouldn’t see garden hoses

Matt Mulcock, CFP
Yes, yeah. Good call. I

Victoria Peterson
Is that what you’re talking about? Like the media and Wall Street almost, that’s my theory is that they almost work hand in hand to create the emotional response that they want at the moment.

Matt Mulcock, CFP
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don’t even think I mean, someone might call that like a cynical heartache but I actually don’t think so. Like, the media, especially financial media is not meant, is not there to inform you, it is there to keep your attention. Like they’re running, like, that’s what I always tell people is looking at the incentives of these media groups, what are they incentivized to do? It’s to keep your attention and fear and like, like not, the truth is that they’re not going to

Victoria Peterson
The good news doesn’t sell

Matt Mulcock
Yes, good news doesn’t sell, especially long term. Like, imagine this Victoria, imagine, you turn on the news and they’re sitting there saying, “Okay, people, well, today is better than yesterday, which was better than 10 years ago, which was better than 100 years ago, and pretty much every aspect of life. Have a great day.” Like, there’s no way that no one’s ever going to watch that it’s boring, but that is the truth but they’re trying to keep your attention, that’s where the money is and so that their incentives are not aligned with yours so I always tell people, if you want to improve your investment results over the next 30 years, turn off the news and I guarantee you, that you will have better results with investing.

Victoria Peterson
You know what? When I was this is really dating me, when I was pregnant with my second child, I was on three and a half months of bed breast and this was pre-pre-internet. Yeah, what am I gonna do? I don’t knit booties, so I did a mail-order course because there was no Internet, and there were no online classes so I went to the University of Denver, and got a class, I was actually studying to be a CFP. Okay, I’m taking my Series C tests, I like, “Oh, I want to manage it,” and that’s when I really learned like in the early 90s as you have really got to tune in to your own life, and macroeconomics of your life, your micro what’s local here, what moves me forward so I love that you said, let’s start with your number one investment, which is not your home, your personal home, it’s your business that’s why you have a small business so one of the other things you brought up and I want you to go into more was consistency. How does consistency create excess?

Matt Mulcock, CFP
Yeah, there’s a great quote one of my favorite quotes by James Clear, he wrote atomic habits, and he’s an incredible blogger, I highly recommend checking out his blog or his newsletter but his quote is, “90% of success is doing the obvious thing for an uncommon amount of time” and I think so I think about that type of mindset or quote, that quote, and the mindset that comes with it all the time in my own personal life, and helping clients so I look at this, like, the word there that sticks out to me is obvious and obvious and simple. People hear that, and they think that means easy, and it does not mean easy but that’s why consistency is so difficult. It’s you most people know the things that you should be doing right? Most dentists know, at least in general, like the things that they should be focused on and if they don’t, like a group like yours, or you know, you know, people out there can kind of help them identify those things, that’s not really the hard part. I don’t think it’s identifying those things. The hard part is consistently doing those things over and over and over again and not getting distracted.

When you don’t see it working after a month or six months or even a year. consistencies about , we always tell people consistency is a superpower. You don’t see results in even your investment returns, like the compounding of investment returns all happen in the last third. Like if you look at a compounding like calculator, and you look at the results, the real power isn’t that last third, the first two-thirds is brutal because you’re not really, feel like you’re not making progress even though you are In the same thing with your practice, it’s really, really easy to get distracted and that’s why I’m saying we see this a lot more now with a distraction because the market has been down this the first, you know, seven months of the year so people are like, “Oh, this isn’t working, I’m going to do something else.” It’s really difficult.

Victoria Peterson
I, oh boy, I couldn’t, I couldn’t agree with you more, I couldn’t agree with you more. That is so powerful consistency is a superpower and compounding interest in it really takes off in that final 1/3. You sometimes hear that being called the hockey stick and I had a great mentor and I was so like, I read, I actually wrote a whole book on it. I researched the term frustration because the emotion of frustration and what it really meant, because when I’m frustrated, I get excited. Most people shut down and go into disappointment, like you were saying, I’m kind of frustrated with the market right now. I think I’ll pull out you know, when they get these all-or-nothing emotions. For me when I’m at a point of frustration, that’s where I stop and I get curious and I look at the opportunity because typically when I’m frustrated, it’s when I think something should have happened by now and it hasn’t you think I crossed the finish line, but I’m 10 yards away so how do I refortify, focus, get curious, what’s missing, what needs to be added, so that I just push through to that frustration that always comes right before the hockey stick moment of success?

Matt Mulcock, CFP
It really does and I love that it’s again, another quote I’m if you don’t know me to know this by now. Victoria, I’m, I love quotes because I think it’s because my brain, I’m not smart enough. I take people that are smarter than me and I can like regurgitate their stuff but to paraphrase another my favorite financial writer is Morgan Housel. He’s phenomenal. I highly recommend everyone check him out. He wrote a book called “The Psychology of Money”,  It’s like the number one finance book in the world right now but to paraphrase something, he says is like the biggest financial mistakes that people make, and I’d say the biggest mistakes in life are exactly what you’re talking about, which is, they all come from saying I want that, but I want it faster and then you start to make really bad mistakes so think take building wealth, for example, or investing, it’s I want X amount of dollars, or I want this end result but I just want it faster than what it’s coming. They get frustrated, they start to bounce from one thing to the next, you start to get into crypto, you start to jump into this or whatever and the most important part of any investment strategy is having one you can stick with but if you’re not allowing that compounds to grow, because again, you’re trying to fast forward results, that’s where you start to make a lot of mistakes.

Victoria Peterson
Yeah, man. Oh, man, I’ve got to have you back again, because we could talk like an hour and a half or

Matt Mulcock, CFP
Oh, yes.

Victoria Peterson
Where we can talk again about the difference between cost and value, you know.

Matt Mulcock, CFP
Definitely.

Victoria Peterson
Yeah, my son was looking for a cheap car and he got exactly, it was not a good,

Matt Mulcock, CFP
He got a cheap car.

Victoria Peterson
Yeah, cheap car, and it broke down on the way, on the way to the driveway home. You know, it is such a pleasure you know, these are very short, bite-sized podcasts, but just the things that you brought out about distraction and how to cut through the noise, being you know, have a plan that you can stick with long term, look for being creating consistency within your business in your practice. I always say there are three stages to growing dental practice, there’s viability, oh my god, I can pay my bills, this feels good, and I’m getting a paycheck, then you get into predictability, now my stress levels coming down, and I can actually take a vacation or more vacation and things don’t fall apart but then there’s that third piece, and it’s the final third is durability. If I walked away tomorrow, or I wanted to do something different will this business carry on, you know, without me, and that I think is true freedom in business ownership. A lot of dentists have very predictable practices and their cash flowing really well but they’re not yet that third level of durable business and maybe you saw this too. I saw quite a few doctors that reached out to us during or after the pandemic and said, man 2018, 2019 I had a great practice Life was good, but now I’m down like 200 grand and it’s coming back. Yeah, that was all the difference and now I’m five years out I need to retire and I’m not I’m playing catch up and so predictability can create complacency.

Matt Mulcock, CFP
Absolutely.

Victoria Peterson
You just can’t stop there.

Matt Mulcock, CFP
Absolutely. Yeah, I think something like COVID I mean, obviously, there’s no need to be sensitive with this but just from a dentist, business perspective, something like that, I think has created an opportunity to to your point Go back and realize, man, that we did not any no one saw this coming right fine and now has created some urgency to create that durability and maybe we’ll we’ll you know, kind of woke some people up a little bit as far as saying, Oh man, I need to actually maybe rethink this to create more longevity and durability in my business.

Victoria Peterson
I love it. Matt, we’re gonna see you in September, as is the IGP Summit, we’ve got a carefully curated group of doctors, who’re taking their Investment Grade Practice to the next level. Thank you so much for being on our faculty and being a guest speaker during that summit.

Matt Mulcock, CFP
Yes, I’m looking forward to it. Thanks so much for having me.

Victoria Peterson
I love it. How can people hook up with you and get to know more about the Dentist’s Money Show?

Matt Mulcock, CFP
Yeah, so a couple of different places we now are at a place we really made it Victoria, we have two websites so that’s when you know you’ve made it. Dentistsadvisors.com, and then the dentists money.com so you can go to either one kind of get you to the same place and so we’ve released we just released a new model that you can find again at dentistsmoney.com, meaning a new service model a different way for people to engage with us we’re really excited about so you can go to either one of those check us out you can check out the Dentist’s Money Show pretty much anywhere podcasts are, are produced, or you know, put out there.

Victoria Peterson
Well, I wholeheartedly endorse you I’ve been a client of yours and worked with you for more than six years now. What I love is that you practice what you preach, particularly in this area of consistency. Like your whole team is like the calm like Just stay calm. Yeah, get through it. Hey, also, if you’ve got any questions about Productive Dentist Academy workshops or the IGP summit reach out to brent@productivedentist.com he can give you more information. Matt, thank you so much for being with me today.

Matt Mulcock, CFP
Thanks, Victoria. Appreciate it.