PAC Podcast #8 with Garrett Caldwell and guest Dr. Jack Griffin

This is going to be interesting for many doctors both young and old.  Dr. Griffin is a very accomplished clinician and businessman who has retired twice. You will want to hear his perspective on this-how to get there and enjoy what you do afterwards. Maybe.

For more information contact the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum at https://thepac.org.

Transcript

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Yeah. I'm not saying it's all cracked up to be that. I mean, it's, dentistry still where it's at, to be honest with you. I mean, that's just a hobby. Yeah, but I, I dig holes and then I fill the hole back in, I move rocks and then I move the rocks back where I moved them from. It's kind of the way it is my life now. One of the reasons why Garrett, thought it'd be good to talk to you is because in talking to you, just like you were talking about, he said, you know, Jack, he had the multiple practices he sold, and now he kind of regrets having sold. And so you're kind of the, the story that's a little bit different. You know, most of us are trying to get out of practice by selling our practice to a DSO. And then live in the good life, but your perspective is a little different like you said before, you know Dentistry is kind of really where it's at and you kind of miss it All right. Well, I'm excited to have everybody back on this podcast. We have Dr. Jack Griffin. Now I've known Dr. Griffin for, I don't know, probably a couple of decades now, but he is Just an amazing clinician, a great person and somebody that we all would like to hang out with more. So that's what's so exciting about bringing Dr. Griffin to this podcast. Real quick, Dr. Griffin's one of the most honored and awarded dentists in the country. He's one of a handful of dentists awarded by his peers, the diplomat status with the American board of aesthetic dentistry. He's accredited with the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry and he has his mastership in the Academy of General Dentistry. And he is a faculty member of the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum, which again is supported by Core Dental Lab. Today, we just have Dr. Griffin. We don't have our sidekick Garrett Caldwell, the CEO of the PAC, but I think we're going to have a great interview. Dr. Griffin, Great. Very nice to have you here. Thanks, Mike. I really appreciate it. Although I am a little bit disappointed because I thought I was coming on Joe Rogan show. So is he here or not? Um, you know what? He's in the background. He's okay. All right. Just let me know. All right. He's in the men's room. He's got some issues going on right now. It has some of the meds or whatever. Mike, it's an honor to, to, to talk to you. Honestly, you've got more credentials than I do to be honest with you. So, I just kind of lucked into my stuff. You know, you pay a couple, A couple of Benjamins here and there, and you get a bunch of letters after your name. I don't know how it happened. That's right. No, you know what I will tell you, you know, having been around you, having taught with you, you deserve all the accolades that you've earned in your career. So, yeah, you're drinking, you're drinking already. Amazing. That's right. That's right. All right. Well, thanks, Mike. I really appreciate it. I, it's been a fast, fast career and a lot of things have happened to me and I don't even know how they happened. You know, just, the stars line up. Speaking of that, today is eclipse day. And, so we've got to wrap this up in an hour and a half because the eclipse starts here in St. Louis at 1230. And then we have a 95 percent eclipse at two o'clock. So, We, we can't talk forever, but we get a couple hours. Yeah. You know what, we're in California and California, we only have a 45% eclipse, so I'm not even gonna bother see, e even the eclipses are leaving California You know what I'm saying? That's right. So I, that's the best way to put it. Well, so I, I'm in St. Louis right now and we're, we spend part of the year here and then Florida and, there's nothing like being home to be honest with you, but California is. I'm convinced the most beautiful state that we have in the country bar none. There's no doubt about it. The diversity in California. Incredible. Yeah. Well, we are, we are a sanctuary state for eclipses. So you're at an eclipse with nowhere to go. You come to California. Yeah. And they pay for your housing and stuff too. Right. And medical care. Oh, man, I'm going, we take care of your medical. We take care of your housing. We take care of everything you need. Just kind of, all right. Well, great. Well, again, like I said, Mike, it's an honor to talk to you. nice to see you. And, yeah, Garrett's not here, but, we'll carry on without him. The packs an amazing group and it all starts with leadership and that's you and Garrett and, you know, Lisa and some of the other people there and, great organization. And I'm sure we'll talk about that, but a lot of the things that Dennis are missing in practice, and that's getting plugged in with groups and feeling the need to achieve and learn more. And, you know, it's just, I'm grateful to be a part of all the stuff I've been a part of. So it's all good. Well, let's go back there because, you know, a lot of the colleagues that we have and especially a lot of the new dentists that are out, you know, we're doing virtual learning, you know, a lot of webinars, which we know are very hard to kind of pay attention to. I was questioning about how much we really learn. but you've been. A successful dentist, you've been a successful educator, lecturing all over the world, you've worked doing product evaluations and, have, taken your analytical mind and have created this clinical success with that. What would you, what would you advise dentists to do? Because, you know, today dentists are busy. The new grads feel like they're under a lot of debt. they may go corporate, corporate practices are just kind of, you know, very, Create these very busy days and so I think a lot of the lot of dentists today are having a hard time with their professional growth What comments would you say like if you were if you went back 30 years and you didn't have All the professional education growth that you had, do you think your career would have had a different trajectory? So there's so much to talk about there. so first of all, let's go back to the young dentist today. I, it saddens me to think that most of the CE today is done online. And the reason is, is because, like right now I'm talking to you, I'm in St. Louis, I'm in my basement, I'm on my computer, it's you and me, I'm looking at a screen, but I'm here alone. It's just me all by myself. Sure, you're there virtually, but I have no one here to look in the eyes and share the experience with. And part of dentistry is knowing that the failures, the successes, the challenges, the rewards that you've had. I've also had, we all have the same stuff going on staff issues, insurance issues, overhead issues, all those things. And without Dennis getting together physically, having dinner, a drink or two, going to a meeting, talking at the breaks, talking at lunch. You lose that camaraderie. You lose that feeling of we're in this together. And despite the fact that you're in California, I'm in St. Louis or I'm in Florida, wherever else everybody is, we all have the same things that kind of bind us together. But unfortunately with the young dentists today who can do most of their CE training online, they lose that ability to get together and feel the interaction, feel the. Experience that's being shared by everybody else. In other words, they're kind of on an island and they feel like they're all alone, you know, with the struggles and the problems that they have and that they're the only ones who are having it. And that is not true. And until you can get together with other dentists and share the experience, you really don't know what's going on out there. If you think that you are the first one to have, the issues that you have, that is a terrible way to go through a practice life. And a lot of the dentists that I've seen over the years that don't enjoy practice, that don't, think that it's a great career to be in or wouldn't do it over again. They're the ones that feel isolated. They're the ones that feel alone. They're the ones that don't know what they don't know. Like, like people say all the time. and I know that my life right now, like I've been through a private practice in a fee for service, high end practice, I did that for 30 years. And then I've also been in the environment where I owned eight practices. I merged a couple. I sold a bunch. I sold those a few years ago. So I was in the corporate side. I've been in the private practice fee for service side. I have strong feelings about both of them. Not necessarily that one's way better than the other. Totally. There are advantages to both, but back to what you said a minute ago, and that is, is if the young dentist today, they're not plugged in. They, they, they don't feel part of a group. Yeah. They're on the internet. They're yeah. They listen to podcasts and stuff like this. And I think that's a great thing to do, but supplement that with, In person learning and the camaraderie that happens when you see other dentists and talk to other dentists, that's irreplaceable. And, one famous person said, a failure to plan as a plan for failure. You don't know what you don't know. And if you don't get together with other dentists and see what they're doing, how do you know what to change? How do you know what to improve about yourself? And a lot of times, like in my world, I got involved with research early. And so we were talking about materials, and it's funny that when you do a course, Mike, you know, this, because when you teach, they want to know what you're using, like the magic material, the magic instrument, the magic gadget that I need to buy. That's not it. There's very few bad materials. There's very few bad things to buy in dentistry. What matters more is how you use it, knowing when to use it. And you learn that. From the dentist, you learn that by watching people work and letting them see you work and then getting their advice on what you can do better. And so, like I said, I feel for the virtual world. Now, if that's the only world that dentists are in, like I said, if without supplementing that with live patient learning or having somebody watch you work, man, that's irreplaceable. I don't. I don't know how you can do it without, to be honest with you. I don't know where I went with that answer. I hope it's, I hope it's what you were saying. No, it was good. But you know, you have so much information that we could cover. I apologize. You're going to miss the eclipse. So You're cutting, you're cutting me off already. All right. I gotcha. No. So the, no, I think that's great. I, I, I absolutely agree. You know, I think one of the things that were, we were fortunate is at the time we were kind of in a, I don't know, prime of our career, not that we're out of it yet, but when we were in the prime of our career, we had a lot of programs where we got that. That camaraderie with our colleagues, and I absolutely agree. I think, you know, virtual is great. Podcasts are great to get information to hear the messages. But as far as the connection, that's a very difficult thing to do when it's electronic. And so, every week I'm traveling, three cities. Last week I was, I taught three full days this week. I'll be teaching three full days. Plus I've got my full time practice. I'm doing and people will ask, well, I'm Why would you do that? You know, why don't you just relax or why don't you just do this? And I tell them every time that it's really that camaraderie. I love going out, spending a day with a group of doctors. yesterday. I was in, Houston, Texas, and we were doing live surgeries and things like that. And that's really what kind of fires me up as being able to, share the good and the bad. I share my bad to make the others feel good. But, yeah, I think that is exactly so. There's no greater thrill for me, especially, that I've sharing what you've learned, even the bad stuff, it makes me feel good because if I can prevent somebody else from repeating my mistakes, that's, that's terrific. the other thing too, is that when you teach, publish or share something, one of your cases or just your experience, that's the best reward in dentistry. So back to kind of what you said a second ago, remind me of something. So I've written a bunch of articles over the air and most of them are garbage. but there's something called the getting for the getting for, and it's the dentist. If you broke down a dentist career into four things, it's the gettings, getting busy, getting proficient, getting wealthy and getting out. If you look at a dentist, Those four segments of a practice career. You're so worried about getting busy at first. You want the schedule full. You want the hygiene to be packed. You want as many cosmetic cases or endo or whatever it is you do. You want as many of those as you can get. and then getting proficient. You want to be better at doing those things and faster and more success and less failure. and then the getting wealthy part, as you know, I mean, everybody's, Warren Buffett said. Don't watch the scoreboard, watch the field. So if you're totally focused on the numbers, the getting wealthy part, you're going to miss the plays that happen on the field. And, you got to keep your eye on what's going on. And that is how you treat the staff, how you treat the patients, your clinical successes, and, your, evolution as a practitioner. And then the fourth one's the getting out, getting out. Unfortunately is. All tennis think about, I mean, from your fifth year in practice on you're thinking about getting out. When am I getting out? I got to have enough in an X number of dollars. I've got to have, I got to have a house in this location. I got to have a boat. I got to have this. I'm getting out. Bad way to look at it. If I could lend, Just a little bit of experience. And I've been, I've retired twice now. I retired in 2016. I sold a large fee for service practice in a small bedroom community in St. Louis County. I was ready to retire financially, emotionally, everything. I was ready. But then I started dabbling a little bit. I ended up buying some practices. Long story short, I sold those year before last, to a group. When I did that, I felt like I was more ready to retire for the second time and I was wrong again. The reason I was wrong is not only was I a dentist, I am a dentist. It's, it's me. It's what I've done. It's what I do. It's what I think about. Even if I'm not practicing, I'm thinking about practicing. What could I have done better? To think that you can just all of a sudden shut it off. Like say you work four days a week and you've been practicing 30 years and you're thinking of the get out part, you want to get out. All of a sudden, you're going to shut it off and plant flowers in the yard. All of a sudden, you're going to play golf every day or tennis every day. I'm not sure that that's a good idea. At least for me, it's not. My suggestion would be for someone to consider, Instead of working four days a week, maybe selling your practice, signing a contract and working one or two days a week for that associate or as an associate or something like that. I mean, why just shut it off? You may not like it if you shut it off. so my, my advice would be to sell and then phase it out, but don't quit. And the reason I say that is because once you quit, it's so hard to go back in. And if you don't feel like you're have something worthwhile to do something that is rewarding to you not just financially but mentally rewarding. I'm not sure that that's a good way to go through retirement either. So again, from my point of view. Dentistry is who we are. And if you don't like it, maybe it's because there's some things you didn't learn along the way, or maybe you didn't plug yourself in enough with enough practitioners to help guide you towards what you like. Or maybe you tried too much thinking about getting wealthy and filling the schedule instead of doing what you like to do. And so, Yeah. I mean, there's so many philosophical things that, that go along with dentistry, but, we only get so many days, in this world and, and dentistry is a wonderful way to fill, fill those days. And it's very rewarding in, in many, many ways. one last thing, to make a dentist really feel plugged in and, and really make a dentist career rewarding is to work towards something. Always work towards something. Some of the stuff that I have done, the letters, you know, the alphabet soup, some people call it after your name. Like when I got my master's in AGD, I didn't really try to, but I was involved in CE. So I was around CE all the time. So it just kind of came naturally or like accredited with the ACD. I was already into photography. So taking pictures of cases was pretty easy. I submitted them. They passed. It was just a lucky thing to do. All I'm telling you is that if you have a goal and have something to work towards inside dentistry, not a goal of getting out something to work towards inside dentistry, then that really makes the journey rewarding and wonderful. so. Have a goal, not just a numbers goal, not just, KPIs, not just when to sell your practice, but working towards something inside dentistry to keep you stimulated, motivated and sharp every day, that's the best way to go through dentistry and then, It becomes a way of life. It's just like, it's like who you are, you know, I'm always trying to be better than Mike. Right. Even though that can't happen. Right. but anyway, so much to talk about there, but I, like I said, I feel, I feel for the young dentist who doesn't plug in and doesn't get involved with, even groups like PAC or, or, or any of the other in person learning. It's the best way to go. No doubt. Yeah, no, you made some really great points. And I like the four stages about trying to be busy, proficient, wealthy, and then trying to get out. You know, obviously you perfected those four steps and I think I'm still stuck on number two, trying to be proficient, but, no, I mean, great insights because, you know, I, I think, I'm like you, I, You know, I've been doing this for 37 years and I tell all my patients, I've got at least 23 more to go. So I'm not looking to get out anytime soon. we're staying fee for service and, a highly insurance dependent environment. And, you know, it's got, it's got its challenges because of that, but I'm just having too much fun. And I think when you tie it to everything that we're, that all the great points you made is one of the reasons why the Pacific aesthetic continuum in that program is so important to think is that. When doctors are coming in to learn how to do aesthetic dentistry, which today involves everything implants, occlusion, materials, science and everything. you know, they're working towards a goal. I think that is to just become very successful and proficient at providing their patients with the best. smiles that they can. And then I think with a group like the pack, one of the things that you and I have enjoyed over the years is just, you get that camaraderie, you know, we're doing, we're doing a live patient treatment program. So we're together, we're in the trenches, we share our ideas. The egos are stay outside the door. And we just have a great time being together and providing those great smiles. So, you know, I, I know, not everybody could take a program like Pacific aesthetic continuance programs, but I think they should look for programs like that, that are kind of live patient. I know for me, it was scary doing my first live patient course after being in practice and never having anybody really look over my shoulder. Since dental school, but it really is fun when you have a chance to do it and work together. And it's terrific. Oh, terrific. And you're right. You're not going to be condemned. You're not going to be judged to the point where you're humiliated. Nothing like that. It's about encouragement. So like, if you encourage another dentist to, Hey, I see something here. Why don't you try this? Or why don't you do this instead of. That, you know, you're not condemning what they're doing. You're just showing them, Ray Dalio's a, a, a genius investor. And he says the best way to learn something. It's to learn from someone you disagree with. In other words, you already know what, you know, if you find someone that does something completely different or something that you never thought about, or even something you never agreed with, and you listen to them, that's your chance to learn. And so you can't learn from somebody that's always just feeding your ego and telling you you're the best at everything. You're perfect. Don't change a thing. Now there's always things you can change. There's always little tips you can pick up. And like at a pack course, you got two, two day weekends. It's amazing how, you know, 99 percent of this stuff, you're doing fine. You do good. Your, your clinical skills are good, but a little tiny thing that you pick up just from you or Dudney or, even Garrett saying that. Try this little thing. What a big difference a little tiny thing can make. you know, and you didn't pay for that. I mean, that wasn't on the agenda that wasn't on the outline for the weekend, but it's just something somebody said, and it clicked with you. Hey, that makes sense to me. I'm going to try that. So, but anyway, I, I wouldn't, it, the one thing that you got to do as a young dentist, you've got to, you've got to watch other dentists work because if you don't, You can't get better just digitally. You've got to see it in action 3D. The other thing to, to go along with all this is, it's humbling and embarrassing, for people to watch you work sometimes. If you haven't seen people work, like you've done live patients before. So like I remember, um, my first live patient was, The auditorium in New York City. It's 500 people and the room is packed. It's sold out. People are sitting in the aisles. No, not because of me because it's the only free course in New York. And so people are sitting there watching. And, like a friend of mine, David Little says, doing live dentistry is like a NASCAR race. Yeah, you're there to watch the race, but you're really waiting for the wreck. And so in a live patient setting, you don't know what's going to happen, but it's nerve wracking for the clinician, but it also makes the clinician on top of their game. By the same token, even if you're not going to ever do a live patient course. Doing photography of your work and evaluating your work on a computer screen or a projector or even in front of a study group and looking at your cases, little tiny teeth projected onto a great big screen. It's humbling. Not only is a humbling your works got to get better. Right, Mike? Because, when you see your work blown up, it's not as good as you thought it was, maybe. Or, certainly it makes you become better because, you're more aware of the little tiny things. And if it looks good close up, it's going to look good far away. So, photography, evaluating your work, watching other people work, having them watch you, that's all the keys to getting clinical proficiency. And then, being happy with what you do every day. So, but anyway, and then we've done, I've done the fee for service and I've done the group practice thing. And it keeps popping into my mind. What you said in the beginning, the young dentist coming out of school. So in debt, so the corporate world today, and I see Garrett's on the call now. Garrett, he, he knows numbers. And so KPIs. Key performance indicators are what dentists don't like. We hate that stuff. And it's kind of weird today that dentists practice and then their goal is to buy other practices and then sell to a group because they think that's going to be their Get wealthy part and then get out part. Well, you know what, if you talk to dentists who are practicing, the part that they don't like is the business part. They don't like hiring people. They don't like evaluating people. They don't like firing people. They don't like inventory. They don't like controlling overhead. The part that dentists hate is what they're going to go into in their. Second phase of the practice. In other words, we're going to buy a bunch of practices, and then it's all about that. It's all about the KPIs. The part that the dentist hated is what they're working towards doing because they think that's their get out strategy. Not a very good choice if you don't like the business side of dentistry. And I would say that most dentists are more clinician oriented instead of business oriented. So that makes that choice tough. So the young dentist who's coming out of school so much in debt, they're thinking so much about how am I going to pay back my loan? How am I going to provide for my family? All worthy things, all good things to, to think about. But if your life gets totally wrapped up about KPIs and the number of adult fluoride treatments and the number of bone grafts that you do, I think that's not a very good way to practice. Better way to practice is to find the rewarding. the mentally rewarding part of dentistry that you enjoy doing and then doing it as well as you can. All of that goes together to make a rewarding, happy career. Again, that's what I miss most about practice is that you got the feedback from the patients, just the thrill of doing everyday dentistry, the challenge of making a great treatment plan. Involving the lab on a big case. Like I said before, failure to plan is planning to fail. If you don't involve the lab in a great case, you got this great cosmetic case, walk in or implant case or whatever. If you can involve the lab early and get a plan before you get started, it takes the stresses away, increases the chances of success. It reduces the chance of failure, plan to succeed. And. Involving other people make is what makes that happen. So anyway, sorry. That's great. I mean, we sh we just should call you the deep wall of wisdom. I think, really? You think so? Yeah. But, real quick, just to share an experience, I tell the doctors, cause I think you're absolutely right. When we're working with each other in a live situation, it's different. If somebody shows you a slide or even a video of how they do a veneer prep, let's say what I've learned is when I watch somebody and I'm side by side with them in a live situation, I'm just watching the small things like, okay, what bird did they use? What finger rest did they use? There's these little nuances that you can really, we can learn from each other that are really hard to pick up when you watch a slide. This is step one, two, three, four. You miss all those little nuances in between there. And I think you're absolutely right. Let me say something like I have heard you speak. So occlusion. So my thing, I'm not, I'm not an, I'm not, I don't know everything about anything, but I do know very little about occlusion. You're a genius with occlusion. If I tell you that. Jack's world is centered on the three pillars like, simultaneous centric, anterior disclusion and cuspid rise. Your world is way past that. I don't know what I don't know until I hear you talk about Kobayashi or whatever it is you talk about that. I don't even know what they mean, but it makes me think, hey, there's a big world out there that I don't know about. I got things I gotta, I gotta sharpen up on. It could be materials. It could be anything, but like I said, sometimes you'll hear somebody say something and you didn't know what to ask because you didn't know what was possible. You didn't know what was out there, what other people were doing until you see them or hear them talk about it. It's fascinating. How do you know Kobayashi? He's my cousin in the Bay Area. He's a dentist. You know him? Well, that's a, that's a San Francisco name. So I, no, I don't know. I don't know him. I'm stuck here in the Midwest, you know, it's all Smith and Jones here. We don't have to be smart, Mike. In my world, we just have to get by, you know what I'm saying? Smart people are on the coast. That's right. Hey Garrett. Hello. Morning guys. How are you? Good. Good. We're done with this this morning, Jack, you know that I've been really enjoying listening to you. You both share back and forth and I'm so glad you're with us this morning because I told Mike for the, we scheduled a podcast with you that I was excited to get your perspective because there's just not a lot of guys that have practiced many, many years and then done the DSO GPO thing, in depth and multiple times and then retired All in a very short period of time. You condensed all that in the last five years, a lot has changed. So practicing for 20 or 30 years. And then I think what five years of aggressive practice acquisition and involvement in DSO and then selling everything and then retiring. so I wanted the listeners, you know, that for you to sort of take a look in the rear view mirror and just sum up that journey and what do you think was good. What have you done it again? And that, that's exciting to be able to have you to hear this one to be able to share that knowledge because, because most of the dentists that we're working with now are in level two that you're talking about. Most of them now are in the DSO group. Some of them are trying to learn what KPIs are and what an income statement is. And they're focusing more summer, summer, Just practicing dentistry and don't have any clue, which is not really good enough itself anyway as well. But you've been through that whole process from beginning to end, in depth, not just with one, but with multiple practices. So I think there's some value that for you to reflect to the listeners, you know? Oh yeah. You talk about you like a dentist. So the geeks that we are. You talk about bond strengths and, sheer strength and compressive strength and, and all that stuff. And you're like, well, yeah, that's all cool. But you give a dentist a balance sheet and you watch their head explode because they're trying to put numbers together that you take for granted. But, like I said, we'll talk about, compressive failure all you want, but you give us, a balance sheet and we start looking at columns and what debits and assets. That's stuff that we don't like. It's not our nature. It's not, it's not inside us. but the thing about the corporate world, I will say there are, there are advantages. And that is, there's things that, some dentists feel like they can concentrate more on the clinical side of dentistry in the corporate world because they've got the corporation taking care of all the business stuff. Now that's good and bad. it's good that you can focus on the clinical stuff. The bad part is, is that often you have a third party telling you what you need to do more of, or what you can buy less of, or what you can't purchase, or materials that you shouldn't try because it's not in the formulary or, or whatever. So I don't like the control being taken out of the dentist's hands and given it to some corporate person. and I just don't like that. So the private practice world fee for service world, which I believe is a dying thing. I unfortunately think that that's Going to be gone coming up, but taking the control out of the dentist hands and allowing the dentist to do what they want when they want and how they want. I think that that's a tragedy in dentistry. However, we're going. Down the road of the corporations, we're not going back. And the reason we're not is because of the buying power inside the corporations, whether it's supplies or CE or, digital scanners or whatever it is that you're buying big ticket items like cat scans. The pricing power in the corporate world can't be matched by the private practice or it's very difficult to so even though I think we'll always have some fee for service practices can be a very small percentage of practices at some point, which gets me back to this. While we're alive right now in this practice time, if you're going towards private practice and away from the corporation, you've got to be on top of your game. As far as learning goes, you have no choice. You've got to be sharper than the rest of the people out there. You're not going to have the buying power that they have the purchasing power, but you're going to have. Something that they can't have. And that is the versatility, and the learning ability customized to what your needs are. In other words, you've got to be on top of your game and be sharper than the rest of the people out there. And that's only attainable by CE and getting involved with people that are smarter than you. Again, I hate to beat a dead horse, but of all the things in practice that I believe in, it's hanging around with good people and learning from them. There it's unreplaceable. Yeah, Mike talked about a lot. Mike, I don't know if you just, you obviously just caught what Jack said, but Mike talks about the importance of finding if you're going to be a solo practitioner, private practice, independent, having a niche. And, and developing that niche and how important that's going to be for the future of anybody deciding not to get involved in corporate dentistry and to really make that niche powerful. So yeah. And so think about, I mean, in my practice lifetime, where we have come from. So, when we, when I started in, well, in dental school, we got a. Kit at night. Now, so let's go back. I'm old now, 1987. We got a cosmetic kit in dental school sold by Vivian and I have a car and it was a cosmetic kit with a material called heliomolar heliomolar was an 80 percent filled posterior composite. Now, mind you. That in dental school at that time, we had dental instructors saying, Oh, composites, you can never put them in occlusion. In fact, you can't even put them on the distal of a cuspid because the arch is going to collapse because of mesial migration. It had to be amalgam or a gold foil there. Oh, really? We've come a long way. We had another material called Herculite. William FP Malone was my mentor in dental school. He was a co-author of a pros fixed prosthetic book called Tillman's Pros Prosthodontics. He was the head of pros at our school. I was doing a research project with him. We were comparing concise, hemo, molar, herculite. what else was there at that time? adapt. I, I don't even remember where all, and we are. Talking about all this stuff and you wouldn't believe the people against composites because they didn't know. They didn't know what they didn't know, right? Think about where we've come in the last couple of decades. One visit endo. Are you kidding me? Grossman who wrote Grossman's endodontic book. He was, he's turning over in his grave, thinking that most endos are done in one appointment. Now, how about doing an endo post and core and a crown in one visit? That's all new about bone grafting or placing an implant. The day you take out a molar, this is all new stuff. Also new is, corporate dentistry. Dentists are just now figuring out. How to be, oh boy, I don't want to be mean here. the corporate world is a good world to be in for a lot of dentists, because like I said, it gets rid of the management part that they don't like. However, it can be very, restrictive in what you can do as a clinician. It can take, your freedoms away very quickly. And you just get into the mindset, Garrett, like we just said about the KPIs and the numbers thing. And, until you're involved with a group, you may not know what I'm talking about, but if you are, you'll hear what I'm saying, how many, cleanings did you do last month? That's always been here. How many, how many active patients do you have? That's always been there in dentistry, but now we've taken that a step further. What's your production per hour? What's your production per half hour? What's your production per assistant? All numbers that dentists don't want to think about that you have to think about in the corporate world, because that's how they're going to. That's how the, that's how the world works because we've got people other than Dennis running. our practices again. We could go on forever about that, but, life is so short practice the dentistry. You'd like to practice have a niche like, like Mike says, be the best you can be, be the absolute best. You can be at whatever it is that you like to do in dentistry and the things that you hate to do, don't do them, refer them out. Let somebody else do them. Life is too short. Excel at something, market it very well. Photographs. website, SEO, whatever it is you're doing marketing wise and separate yourself from the rest of the colleagues out there. And remember this, there's no competition in dentistry. We're all colleagues, but separate yourself in what it is you want to be known for, what it is you like to do, what you want to do more of, become the best at that and become proficient, market that well. And then you'll have a happy, rewarding career. No doubt about it. Mike, that sounds like your philosophy. Yeah, no, absolutely right. You know, we were just, I mean, just talking about the niche really quick to clarify that we were, you know, one of the companies I work with is Vista Apex and we have a hemostatic agent called quick step free and the reason why I like quick step free is it's, it's a aluminum chloride, magnesium, surfactant based hemostatic agent. And so what we, what we find is if we take that, and I think it works as good as the ferric hemostatic agents, but if you just take a product, and so it's like a dentist, just going into the, the ocean of dentists, and we say, here's a hemostatic agent. Well, nobody recognizes the name. It's not a viscous dad or a stringent or, one of more popular hemostatic agents, and it just kind of gets swamped and carried away. So my thing is, if it's as effective as a ferric based hemostatic agent, instead of just saying it's a hemostatic agent, we need to say it is the hemostatic agent you have to use for your aesthetic restorations. And so now you've got something that's as effective, but it's clear. And I think it hit, it stands head and shoulders above other similar products. And I think that's what, talking about dentists, that's what we need to do. If you find a niche and maybe that niche is aesthetics and you have to be the aesthetic dentist in your community, that's head and shoulders above the others. And so, when I'm, when I'm talking about niches, that's what I'm, I'm kind of saying is today in corporate, if you're a private practitioner, like we are not corporate and you're trying to compete against the big guys, they've got the money, like you were talking about to get better deals and supplies lab, better reimbursements, and they can do a lot more marketing. I think what, instead of trying to do the shotgun approach, we just have to find it a little niche and try to be head, head and shoulders above everybody else in that one area. Yeah. But, no, I feel like, like even what you were saying, okay, so like the corporate people. So as, as a lot of, credentialing is a big part of getting reimbursement from, from dental insurances. Well, I can't believe how many dentists go through life, not knowing that credentialing is negotiable. In other words, the amount of money that Delta Dental pays you is totally negotiable. You have to sell yourself. You have to come up with a reason for Delta Dental to pay you more money. And they will every insurance will do that. You can hire someone to try to hire reimbursement. You can hire a third party to increase your reimbursement from different insurance companies. Again, that's called credentialing. And until, to do that. You waller in low payments. I'm not saying you're ever going to get some insurance companies to come way up there and payments, but you can certainly make a difference. And, again, same thing with a fee for service practice, trying to separate yourself from the rest of people out there. I will say this about COVID. Corporate dentistry. There is one good side to corporate dentistry that I can see if you're in a town like where I am. And let's say that Aspen Dental and Heartland dominate the local scene as far as corporations go. If you are in that corporate world, you can separate yourself from other dentists. Within that corporation, for instance, Aspen offices will often have a provider in one location that is well known within the corporation for cosmetic stuff or TMJ stuff or, implant stuff within a corporation. Using the model we talk about for fee for service practices within the corporation, you can separate yourself from the other clinicians in there as well and offer things within the corporation to help separate yourself as well. So, inside corporate industry there's definitely room for like for PAC courses and other CE courses and other group learning settings, because you can separate yourself within the corporation. So, so there's a whole parameter of things within those little worlds, that you can change as well. So don't be afraid to learn and get out there and promote yourself, become the best, and then promote yourself as the best. Yeah. No, that's great advice. What I want to do, Garrett, is I know we're cutting up on an hour and, Jack's got to, get his glasses on and get in his lawn chair before, before too long, but I, so what I wanted to do is, and, it'd be great, Jack, to have you back on at some point, because you are like that deep wall of wisdom. You've got a lot of good insights. Oh, there you got that. Now, are those, are those NASA approved, dark glasses? So, so, I don't know if you know, I invented the space shuttle, but my first space shuttle trip was, this is what we wore. So, yeah, that was, that was after I did the internet. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, real quick, those of you that can't see, Dr. Griffin just put on his protective eyewear and it looks like a pair of dark glasses to me. So that's what we're talking about. Don't sell yourself short. These were 10 bucks. Yeah, no, no. Now I can see you. Yeah. So, yeah. So today's a big day. We got the finals of the NCAA men's tournament. And then we've got the eclipse. And, yeah, so it's a big day. Wait, I've got one more big event. When I get done with this, we're going to go down and pick up a new car today. So I'm picking up a new one. No, this one is the Tesla Cybertruck foundation beast. Over 800 horsepower, zero to 60 in 2. 6 seconds. Serious. Is it A-B-A-B-A-B model? Yeah. Well it's a beast. They call it the beast. A beast, okay. A beast. Yeah, beast. So it's a, alright, well you must have been on the list for a long time, huh? I don't even know what that is. For years and years and years. So, wow. Yeah, my buddy calls it just a fast tank and that's basically what it is. You can, Hey Jack, you can shoot, you can shoot at it, which we need in California and bullet bullets won't pierce the doors. Oh yeah. Can't wait to that in Jack in St. Louis. That might be good for Jack down in his area. Well, I, I don't shoot at vehicles very often, so, I'm not sure the need for that, but, okay. When I, when I go down and visit Garrett in Oakland, I need the, I need the car with Bulletproof car I didn't say that. I didn't say that. Well, it's just fact. So real quick, some of the ideas, cause, I'd love to do another hour with you is just, we were, Garrett, we started off talking about live events and just how live events, you have that personal experience and you have the connection and you really garner, we felt more than online learning. Jack said, it's great to have a goal. So those of you that are listening, what is your goal? But going along with that goal is finding something that you find rewarding. So don't just have a goal, like a monetary goal, but find something you like about dentistry. And so you enjoy the journey to get to that financial goal. Jack also talked about photography. Photography is kind of key. It really helps with your lab communication, which helps the lab to help you deliver. better looking restorations and you and the patient will feel much better after that. I thought one of the big things that, Dr. Griffin shared with us is to find somebody who thinks differently than you, because if everyone, everybody that you're hanging out with thinks the same way, you'll never be able to improve yourselves. And so if you hang out with somebody who does, or thinks differently than you, they're going to point out things that they see differently. And through that, you see life through them. through a different lens. whether it be, eclipse solar glasses to protect your eyes or just, readers, it will change the way you see the world. And then I think one of the good things that, Jack shared with us is that there's good change. we don't have to keep doing things the way we've always done. If there's a change, like going from amalgam to composite, if there's a reason why we should make that change, don't get stuck in doing amalgam and gold foils for the rest of your life. Learn to place a good composite that could potentially last the patient a lifetime. another monetary, tip is if you're in an insurance network is maybe think about credentialing yourself to try to negotiate higher fees, which I think for those of you that are in, a practice with insurance involved, that would be something well worth doing. And, I will tell you a lot of other great tips in there. So I'm going to have to listen to this, podcast once more and extract more, but Garrett, anything else to say? No, Jack. Great. Thanks for joining us this morning, Jack. It's great to see you. You're like a ghost. You're the ghost of Ben Hogan. I try, we try to get ahold of you and know where you're at. Well, real quick, I think Joe Rogan's coming up in like five more minutes. I think I see him down the hallway. I just missed Joe. I'm waiting here. All right. Hey, thanks, guys. I really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you all. And good luck. Great to see you. All right. Nice to see you guys. Thank you as always. All right. very much. All right. All right. Bye. Bye. Bye.