Retiring the Way You Want (E.234)

• What are your plans for the future once you have retired?
• What interests will keep you involved and interested following your dental career?
• What will it take for you to retire the way you want, and what resources can help you get there?

Episode Transcript 

[00:00:00] Announcer: The Productive Dentist Academy Podcast Network.

[00:00:03] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: 95 percent of the dentists out there are not going to retire and be able to maintain their current lifestyle, which is kind of sad. Hello everyone. This is Dr. Bruce B. Baird, and you’re listening to the Productive Dentist Podcast. In this podcast, I will give you everything that I’ve learned over the last 40 years in dentistry, working with thousands of dentists. I’ll tell you, it’s not that my way is the only way, it’s just one that has worked extremely well for me and, and I’d love to share that with you. So you too can enjoy the choices and lifestyle that productivity allows, more time for things you love, increased pay, better team relationships, and lowered stress. Let’s get into it with this week’s episode of the Productive Dentist Podcast.

[00:00:53] Regan Robertson: Do you feel like it’s been a really successful year in your dental practice, but honestly, you’re just drained? You’re tired of the staff headaches, rising overhead costs this year has been a challenge, and you know, there isn’t even any time to talk with your patients to build relationships that you know are necessary. So they say yes to your care in the first place. If you’re feeling this way, PDA can help. We can help you re energize your mindset. and your practice. Go to productivedentist.com right now. Registration is open for the 2025 PDA conference happening March 13th to the 15th in Frisco, Texas. This fully immersive two-and-a-half-day program for dentists and teams can immediately help you tap into productivity, profitability, and leadership tools. So you can create more time for what matters most in your life, like focusing on great patient care and having the freedom to reclaim your time outside of this practice. If you feel like you’re doing well, but you’d like to do great, come on over to Texas and we are happy to serve you. Go to productivedentist.com today and register for the PDA conference. We’ll see you there.

[00:01:52] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: Hi, this is Dr. Bruce Baird with the Productive Dentist Podcast and, uh, welcome to a new topic today. I had another listener send me a message and he said, “Describe life after retirement,” and I thought, wow, that’s a good one. Um, because my wife will tell you I’m not retired because I’m still doing so many other projects, but I thought it was a kind of an intriguing question because what is life after retirement? I can tell you one thing. I, I love dentistry and I have enjoyed my 42 years chair side very much and I still go up to the office and do a little bit, but what are the things that I’ve noticed since I retired and again, one of those things is. I miss my, I miss my patients. You know, I don’t necessarily miss placing the implants, adjusting the bites, doing all that stuff. Although, I enjoyed that. I did it for so long, I felt like it was time for me to be able to travel and not be tied to a schedule and having said that, what’s it like when you’re not tied to a schedule? Well, that can be, that can be boring as hell. I can, I can tell you, you know, when you wake up, you know, the only day that I truly know is Sundays, because my wife and I go to church on Sunday, but the other days are just, they all blend together. You know, some Mondays seem like Saturdays seem like Wednesdays. I wasn’t used to that. So after retirement, it really depends what you do after retirement on what you do when you’re practicing. So you set yourself up for retirement. You set yourself up financially for retirement and we know that 95 percent of the dentists out there are not going to retire and be able to maintain their current lifestyle, which is kind of sad and so that’s really where Productive Dentist Academy can really help you grow your business, build generational wealth and really help take care of your retirement. So life after retirement really depends on how you’ve set yourself up but I don’t think that that was really the total question. I think the question was, “What’s it like after you retire, Bruce?” Well, I know a lot of my buddies have retired now and, uh, those that don’t have something that interests them that they’re doing on a regular basis really struggle because they tend to sit around and watch TV and do, do little chores around the house but they’ve led a fulfilling career in dentistry, helping people, and they try to wonder, “Okay, now, now what do I do?”

[00:04:20] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: I will tell you when I was 32 years old, 33, so about, uh, I don’t know, 35 years ago, all I wanted to do was retire so I could play golf every day. I mean, that was, that was my goal. I just want to retire and play golf every day. Unfortunately, my golf game now sucks, so I’m not near as excited about playing golf every day. I do play probably once a week on average, and I also get to travel to some really great places to play golf, but it’s not what I’m about. You know, it’s not, you know, you got to try to find that, um, what it is that, that gets you going. You know, I, I finally work in our local politics, uh, on the school board election and I found that to be very challenging and I realized that I’m not a very good politician, uh, kind of reverted back to my early days in practice of my way or the highwayand that doesn’t work well, in the political realm, but, uh, I ventured out into that, uh, for our school board bond. So that was one thing that I’ve done. The other things that I’ve done is, you know, things that my wife and I get to enjoy together. I can spend time now, grandkids, we’ve got 13 grandkids and I honestly didn’t get to spend an enormous amount of time with my, my own children when they were little, because I was working that 40-hour week, you know, that, uh, 40-hour week plus 30 hours, you know, the 70-hour week and I just, I just thought I had to do that in order to set Set things up and you guys have heard me talk about the stories previously. That’s probably not the best way to do things. So, um, but now, you know, we built a bunkhouse above my garage. It sleeps 18 kids and probably more and truth be known, we could probably sleep 25 kids up there and they’ve got their Xboxes and they’ve got their foosball table and everything else and we can go up there and I get to play with them there. I get to go out in the back and the pool and, uh, take them out on the lake. So I’m getting to do those things that I really wasn’t able to do. My kids call and they say, “Dad, what are you doing on the 18th through the 23rd of whatever month?” And I’m like, “Oh, let’s look,” and I usually pull up Travelocity to find out where I want to go because you can get stuck as a permanent babysitter. So I don’t really want you to end up that way unless you want to. I prefer, I’m going to be leaving tomorrow for Italy for, um, a month. We’ll be in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, um, I don’t know what else, uh, a few other countries.

[00:06:55] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: But we’re just going to spend the month and travel and do fun stuff. When we get back, I guarantee you, last week I went to three baseball games, three football games, and soccer, volleyball, and I don’t remember what else, but you know, I, I love going to watch the kids. So that, that’s one thing in retirement, you can do things that you. Didn’t really have time to do before but the thing that I see is that people that don’t get involved in something, well, they die. They die quick. Um, and when you start to get to a certain age, you know, I retired when I was 63, but I started working only two days a week when I was 49. So I started my retirement early and enjoyed that and then, uh, the last four years I’ve had no schedule. So I’ve been able to, to travel for multiple weeks and go do things that I wanted to do. Um, I’ve had people say, “Man, I just want to read books. You know, I want to read all the books that I didn’t read,” and, and you know, that’s great and that’s something that I enjoy. I also enjoy reading and after a while you kind of get tired of reading. Um, after a while you kind of get tired of, uh, Well, playing golf, I enjoy seeing my buddies, uh, at the golf course. So, so that’s enjoyable, but is it fulfilling? I’ve talked about in, when we talk about rapport, most guys are in rapport their whole life. You know, I’ve got a few really close friends that I can share anything with, talk to, and that type of stuff but you need to find people like that, that, you know, around your age, share some of the same things that you share. We started a little group that, you know, I would call it the old men’s group that meet up for breakfast. So we meet up for breakfast. So you can just, I don’t know, talk about current events, what’s going on in the world, stay active. Uh, and I say, I have the opportunity now. I had the opportunity to before to work out and to exercise and to eat healthy, but I was in such a hurry to do the things that I was doing and a lot of times I would kind of fall off the wagon. So I’ve been able to, short of a couple of injuries, but I’ve been able to work out. Since I retired and I feel like I’m in the best health I’ve been in, uh, probably in 20 years. So these are things that, you know, I throw out there because you think, “Oh, I just want to hurry up and retire.” Well, I might suggest that you maybe hurry up and retire and practice at first, you know, get to where you’re producing X amount an hour, which allows you to actually make more money than you, than you were making, but docs now have gone just. three and a half days, three days and we’ve got a couple that are moving towards two days, just like I did.

[00:09:42] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: Uh, because I really want you to enjoy your kids now, but gives you preparation for that time where you finally to say, you know, I’m going to hang up, I’m going to hang up the cleats and, and I’m not going to practice anymore. Um, and I, and I think that makes that transition a little bit easier when you’re working four and a half days a week and all of a sudden, one day you say you’re practicing here doing nothing. I’ve had several friends that have really suffered suffering with depression suffering with anxiety of what to do and so it’s a good question. It’s different for everybody I’m certain of that, but I’m just sharing kind of some of the things that that I’ve noticed, um, my daughter, Maggie said, “Dad, I think you’d like the grandkids more than you liked us.” I said, “What’s your point? I mean, I can feed them sugar and send them home with you.” So, I mean, I’m getting to live my best life right now. Although I’ll be honest. I miss my patients and I miss my team. Uh, I still go up there just to wander around the office and say hello to everybody of which, you know, we’ve got new people up there that don’t know who I am and it’s kind of weird, but, uh, I do know that you need to have something in your life, get active in church, get active with friends in church and, uh, you know, celebrate, celebrate with people. You know, we’re, we’re going on this trip to Italy. We’re not just going by ourselves. We, uh, we actually have 18 couples going with us. I planned the whole thing and I like planning stuff like that. So I’ve been planning the whole trip and we’ve got dental friends that are going. I’ve got ditch digger friends that are going, oil and gas people, golfing buddies and so we’re just going to be able to spend the time together and enjoy. Enjoy each other’s company and really have a, have a wonderful time on this trip and when I come back, I know I’m going to have to pay, pay the price and, and when I say pay the price, it’s an easy price to pay is spending a lot more time with the grandkids when we get back, cause they’re going to miss us cause they, you know, they’re used to coming and we’re blessed that they live fairly close. I have a couple of grandkids that live up in Kentucky, but I’ve also got to make some plans to go see them. So anyway, I hope this was interesting podcast. It’s just my thoughts about retirement, but you know, my suggestion, retire in practice for a while and get used to it. That’s going to allow you to transition much easier into what I would call retirement but if, if you love doing study clubs or if you love doing things like that, well, keep that around. Keep, you know, maybe you want to educate. Maybe you want to teach younger dentists, mentor, you know, those are all things that you can do in retirement.

[00:12:17] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: Anyway, thanks, uh, thanks again for listening to us. Uh, tell your friends. That’s how, that’s how word spreads about the Productive Dentist Podcast and again, we were one of the top two podcasts in dentistry last year and that’s because of you guys. So, uh, thanks again and I’ll talk to you next week. Thank you for joining me for this episode of the Productive Dentist Podcast. If you found this episode helpful, make sure you subscribe, pass it along to a friend, give us a like on iTunes and Spotify, or drop me an email at podcast at productive dentist. com. Don’t forget to check out other podcasts from the Productive Dentist Academy at productivedentistpodcast.com. Join me again next week for another episode of the Productive Dentist Podcast.