Transcript
Speaker: Dental Fuel, the podcast that focuses on what no one else is talking about, mistakes. The dental world is full of before and afters, and no one is talking about the middle.
Speaker: Dental Fuel brings you the unspoken in between. Dental Fuel is brought to you by Ignite DDS Coaching, empowering dentists to build self-determined futures. Together, we're shaping the next generation of leaders in dentistry.
Speaker: We are back with Doc and Don Efedi in this last episode where they share their expert advice. Let's tune in. Well, I'll tell you what, you know, time flies when we're having fun. And so we're coming to the end here, but I would love to know a little bit more about the Dental Wealth Group and what you all do for dentists and how you help you know dentists achieve financial stability and success.
Speaker: And I'd also like to know um some, and for myself and for our listeners, some expert advice that you'd like to bestow on myself and on others. Perfect. So the Dental Wealth Group, Generation of Wealth, actually is a podcast. platform and in the den a woke dr wolf group focuses more on the education or it can actually the implementation of consultation component and that's necessary to take the information actual practical use, right?
Speaker: So we we work off a framework of three main steps, excuse me, five main steps. Number one is rich life discovery, figuring out what exactly will it take for you, for your life to be optimized, right? like Again, working five days a week might be what you want.
Speaker: Working three days a week like us might be what we want, right? So what what exactly is a good rhythm? like to say dentistry like a vehicle, right? if If you drive, you know how to drive the car, thinking can get you Anywhere you want to go to wildest. Right.
Speaker: But if you don't know how to change the gears, I'm not sure if you have a driven stick shift or not, but there's gears in a stick shift. Right. So you got to think about it. The different gears are like student debt. That's a year. Right. Then you got to learn how to actually be clinically proficient.
Speaker: That's another gear. Then you got to learn how to manage your finances. That's another gear. Then you have to know manage teams. there's so many different gears in this car dentistry that how can you figure out how to number one, drive the car and then get to a speed that you're comfortable at. Right.
Speaker: Some people people can drive at 80 miles per hour, and that's burning too much fuel, right? Some people might drive at 20 miles per hour, and you're never hit your destination. How do you get that 55 cruising altitude that, you know what, I'm good, I'm hitting all the goals I want to hit, and I can do this for as long as I want to, right?
Speaker: There's a lot of burnout that goes on in dentistry because, again, some people are just going too bad, trying to compensate for some different areas in their life. So that's why step number one is rich life discovery, figuring out what you want.
Speaker: Number two is tax mitigation. oh For most people don't understand, the biggest expense in our life are not houses, are not cars. It's actually taxes, right? For the average dentist, two-thirds of your week, up to two-thirds is what you're taking home, right? One-third is actually going to the government. So think to yourself, if you're working five days a week, you can think about Monday and Tuesday being the government portion. So everything you make on every Monday and Tuesday is the government.
Speaker: And what you make Wednesday, Thursday, Friday is yours to take home. So the question is, how can you start mitigating that in a way that done in a tax-advantaged way because without an understanding of how taxes affect our lives, we can try to outproduce our problems but never really get to that 55 miles per hour speed, right?
Speaker: Next, extreme ownership because once you know what your rich life looks like, once you know how to actually start putting your tax strategy in place, you have to take extreme ownership of your position or you are where you want it to be.
Speaker: If you're not, it's okay, but now you have to look look in the mirror and say, I'm the reason I'm not where I wanted And once you take that ownership that I'm not where I want to be, now you are now empowered to take yourself where you want to be, right?
Speaker: So as as much as it is like, oh man, um I'm beating myself down, but you're also empowering yourself to give yourself the route to be able to get get to where you want to get to. So now the next step after that, the fourth one is asset accumulation.
Speaker: that's the That's the biggest component. It doesn't matter if you're an associate. It doesn't matter you're an owner. It doesn't matter you're a troubled owner. There has to be some form of conversions. of your income to some version of an asset.
Speaker: It might not be real estate, it might not be stocks, but it has to be some form of an asset because the thing about money is if it's not growing, it's dying. right So therefore, when you're making money, number one, you have to automatically think to yourself, Monday and Tuesday I'm working for the government.
Speaker: right For this Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, whatever's left from there, how do now convert those days into an asset so now at least hopefully this asset can start paying me back on Monday. you know That's how we like to think about it. And the last but not least is legacy.
Speaker: Because going into dentistry, earning income, and buying things, that's fantastic. That's that's basic right that' the life that you provided for yourself and God did it. But at the same time, there has to be some bigger legacy that keeps you going.
Speaker: Because again, as we talked about before, burnout hits and hits hard when you don't know why you're doing what you do. You don't understand what's the end game, what's the life at end of the tunnel. Am I really going to come in every single day try to hit highest production goals as possible And that's going be it.
Speaker: Instead, how do you start living in your legacy piece while you're still a dentist? Right. So for myself personally, Generation of Dental Wealth is my legacy piece. Right. To be able to help other dentists do what they want to do. i want to do it now while i'm still in dentistry.
Speaker: So by the time I actually hang up the handpiece, now I can already be having that level of fulfillment for 30 plus years and not just be at the the end of the road trying to now get back into the legacy.
Speaker: So that's one reason that really intrigued me about yourself. doing public health and still teaching, you're living in your legacy hall already, right? So now, we got to get to the crystallization part of it, right? How do you take the legacy component to fall into the next part, right?
Speaker: So now all' I want to turn it on you and I want to understand what's your rich life? What does it look like for you? if you had a, map out what your rich life within dentistry looks like. I guess we can start from a few main aspects. How many days a week you would want to work, right?
Speaker: I'm not going to say how much you would want to make, right? That's a personal conversation behind closed doors. But in your head, think to yourself, you know, what what do you think will be commensurate with the efforts that you put in, right? And then number three, what kind of team around you would you like?
Speaker: So I guess you can answer how many days you would like to work, and then what kind of team would you like around you know You know, I'm still living on the dream of finding somebody and marrying rich, retiring young, but that still hasn't happened yet. So um yeah and we'll put that out there for for any listeners who, you know, may have a connection there. But, you know, i I'd love for me, I think full time, I'd like to do education one day. And so I think that, you know, that probably be something that's still five days a week. But.
Speaker: I think that if I could be, you know, if I could put out ah an ideal schedule without that in mind, it'd probably be like two, three days a week practicing. And then the rest may be either, you know, spending time in education or lecturing somewhere. I think that that would be um that would be great. And as far as a team would go, you know, i'd I'd like a team that um supports a vision of providing quality care to all patients, regardless of what socioeconomic background that they have and just you know, really loving the profession as much as I do.
Speaker: That's really good. That's really good. So now that we have that kind of construct, right, now can start figuring out how do we get to that point, right? Because it's impossible to know how to get there we don't know where we're going. Right. So for us, one of the biggest things that we sat down figured out was, and that really her doing the mental work, was five days a week is not going to work for us.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. She crushed that pretty early. mean, I tried it. he No, he definitely tried it. At least five days a week. The 312s in the office and then out on the road for the other two.
Speaker: But yeah there was just no time for anything else. I mean, we're exhausted even from the three days. Like the three 12 to 13 hour shifts per day. So, yeah, that was very ah early on. We had that conversation that at least if we're going to do three twelves let's do three twelve We can sprinkle in some travel or figure out how to do more of that travel, um but just not to do it every week, every every week of the year, 62 weeks. so It's tough.
Speaker: But now it takes us to the next step, right? I'm not sure how well-versed you are when it comes to taxes, but do you have an accountant? Is there somebody you work with to work through your taxes? I work i have an accountant who helps out.
Speaker: Perfect. So that's that's that's a key component right there. so once That's understood. now we'll move on to the next step, extreme ownership. Now, if you have rate yourself from like a scale of one to 10, one being like, I don't feel any control of my life.
Speaker: 10 to me, I understand component my life. I feel fully empowered. Where would you say you lie on that spectrum? Probably but about a four or so. What factors do you think cause you to be a four instead a five?
Speaker: I think that, you know, you know, just full transparency, my understanding of how the world works and taxes and monies is very, very low. And so I rely on the team that I have behind me, those who I entrust to kind of guide me along the way.
Speaker: And so I think to get me myself closer to attend is grasping that full understanding and perhaps having more of those tangible assets. For sure. So that's that's one of the biggest things, especially when it comes to education.
Speaker: my My goal is not to make every dentist look at MBA, but my goal is to make sure every dentist knows what feels right and what doesn't feel right. If sitting in a room with some just playing strategies to you and you, you're like, I'm not really understanding this, and you've explained this three times, and I'm still not getting it. It's not strategy, right?
Speaker: Like, to be honest, we we we can be Honda Accords, low maintenance, and we can run for hundreds of thousands of miles as dentist because, again it's such a beautiful vehicle that we've chosen in our lives, right? So if you hear a very complex strategy that, you know, we're going about infinite banking, that we can turn your life insurance policy into your income for the rest of your life.
Speaker: Yes, it could work. But honestly, would you want to figure out if it works or not 20 years later? Like and instead, let's let's try to work in the vehicle that we already understand. Right. If you do understand stocks, then good. If you understand real estate, then good. If you understand practical ownership, then good.
Speaker: Whatever you feel comfortable with, because believe it or not, when it comes to investing and just anything, period, you're going to stay in what you enjoy the most. For ourselves, right when we dealt with a $40,000 water issue, it's easy to be like, you know what?
Speaker: Real estate, forget about it. I'm done with this. But when you've been in it for so long and you actually enjoy it's just like, okay. Just figuring out the moving parts and how to rectify the situation and get them back to it.
Speaker: That's the biggest part when it comes to that. So that education component is going to very important for us to at least be well-versed on the basics. what is what is What does taxes actually mean? How much of my income actually does go to taxes?
Speaker: How can I start mitigating things? Can I get a 1099 plus a W-2 if I truly am a contractor? Try to go through those different routes. Then that leads to the next step, which is after the accumulation. so you For yourself personally, what would you say your goal is by the time you retire?
Speaker: What would you like to to have in place? You don't have to give specific numbers, but what would you what would you think your life would look and feel like by the time you do your retirement retirement? I think that I just like to have that financial stability.
Speaker: Yeah. You don't just not worry. Know that ah what I did a few years ago is going to take care of me kind of going into the future. And so I think that just having that peace of mind. For sure.
Speaker: The safest place for everybody to aim for is how can you make what you make now you retire? That's like the safest place, right? Like it doesn't have to be a super ambitious goal. It doesn't have to be, I want to object when retire.
Speaker: But at the very least, can you maintain a life that you live in? Something matters. And if you do that, for me, that's an absolute success, right? And then last but not least, it's legacy, you know? Like, what do you personally, but what would you like to leave behind?
Speaker: I see you obviously, it's obviously important to you because only are you educator, only are you in public health, but you're also podcaster. So it tells me that you're you're interested in making sure you leave a lot of,
Speaker: whos behind forward something behind to make sure they can skip a lot of steps that we haven't driven over, right? So for you personally, what is your legacy? look like That's a deep question. I think that when I think about legacy, I i hope that people remember me as someone who's caring and whose passion in helping the underserved. And I hope that I can empower others and encourage others to also do the same.
Speaker: And so I think that my legacy will help hopefully live on through the actions and efforts of other dentists who help other rural communities who may not have access to dental care. Fantastic. And there's so many ways to do that. Yeah. So I'm glad we were able to hop on podcast together. Hey, this was great.
Speaker: Y'all put me in the hot seat a little bit, but this was really good. okay conversation Yeah, this was, this was wonderful. and and And you both are such a a a beautiful couple and I'm sure that our listeners are going to want to reach out and to connect with you all.
Speaker: And if they would like to what would be the best way? you can find us at, at my dental well, you can find us on instagram and facebook at those particular handles. You can find our Dr. Lead page as well at Dr. NBA LLC. There's different tips on how to handle finances.
Speaker: Don and Don, this was, oh, oh you can find me on, ah you can find me on Instagram. You can find me on Instagram at tsmyestas.dds. And I kind of make some humorous content and some educational content on there. So hopefully I can ah bring a smile to y'all's days in life. And um yeah, if you'd like to connect with me, if I can play a role in any ah any of our listeners' lives, I'd be glad to help with that. And I'm sure that you all would be glad to do the same as well.
Speaker: Love it. It's honor. All right. Well, Don and Doc, thank you so much for your time today. I truly appreciate you all taking time out of your day to connect with me. And it's been such a joy and pleasure to learn more about you all and and how you all are helping so many dentists across the nation. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed our conversation with Doc and Dawn Ifedi. I learned so much from our conversation and I hope that you did too.
Speaker: Tune in next week where we have another guest. Ready to take the next step in your journey? Book an intro call with Ignite DDS Coaching today and level up your future in dentistry.
