Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Dentists, Puns, and Money is a podcast focused on two things: The financial topics relevant to dentists leaving clinical practice and the stories and lessons of dentists who have already done so.
1. The stories of dentists who have transitioned from full-time clinical dentistry.
2. The financial topics that are relevant for dentists making that transition.
If you’re a dentist thinking about your exit from clinical, and you’d like to learn from the experiences of other dentists who have made that transition, be sure to subscribe to your favorite podcast app.
Host Shawn Terrell also dives deep into the many financial components of exiting dentistry, including tax reduction strategies and how to live off your assets.
And, we try to keep it light by mixing in a bad joke… or two.
Please note: Dentists, Puns, and Money was previously known as The Practice Growth Podcast until March 2022.
Shawn Terrell (00:02.284)
Welcome to Dentists, Puns and Money. I am your host, Shawn Terrell. This podcast is brought to you by Dentist Exit Planning. At Dentist Exit Planning, we help dentists within five years of leaving clinical practice build their financial treatment plan for life after dentistry. So I was at the gym a few weeks back and I bumped into a former coworker from probably 20 some years ago.
Let's call him Kurtis. Kurtis is now retired and in his early to mid 60s. And we were kind of just catching up, making small talk about a number of things as you do when you bump into somebody at the gym. And I told Kurtis that he looked pretty good for his age and his lifestyle and that his physique, like it looked like he kind of stayed on top of it. And he told me something or said something that
I didn't quite process in real time, but as I reflected on it and thought about it a little bit more after the gym, I think is really applicable to being retired and leaving clinical practice. And he said that the key to being in really good physical shape is, or staying in really good physical shape is never actually getting out of shape. And what I think he meant by that was that
If you can sort of monitor your physique and your health and your diet and never really get too far overweight and always work out regularly, that's a lot easier than getting way out of shape and getting overweight and then trying to get back into shape and to lose weight. And it sort of resonated with me on a couple different levels. One, I think everything in life is compound interest and that
It's either good or bad depending on how many drops you're putting in, whatever bucket that is. And then the second way it resonated with me is that I spend a lot of time talking about the financial aspects of retirement. And The more time that passes and the more that I read and the more that I interact with people who are actually retired, I think that there's actually a lot of other things that go into being retired.
Shawn Terrell (02:24.484)
and leaving clinical practice that are important to keep up with besides finances and besides your money. That's my area of expertise, but it's not just about that. So sort of with this story as a backdrop, I want to dive into that. And some of this I've touched on in a recent podcast and some of these could probably be their own standalone podcast, but I'm going to try to hit a few things at a high level today just to kind of talk about things besides money that I think are important. So
We've already hit on it, but your physical health, I think it's really critical for people to stay somewhat active. Just, and this is my personal experience, I think that helps my mental health a lot. And I also think it's important to be able to move and not have functionalities. I think it's really important to be able to move and maintain your functional health. Now I'm old enough and maybe you're old enough too, to
know someone or I've heard of someone who was in peak physical condition and ate right that dropped out of a heart attack or a stroke or developed cancer despite doing all the right things. So this is not an exact science that could still happen. But I think you improve your chances of being healthy post-clinical in retirement if you can maintain some level of physical fitness. And to me, that's just
going to the gym regularly and kind of monitoring my diet regularly and kind of like what Kurtis said, just never getting too far out of shape. And as I mentioned a second ago, everything in life really is sort of compound interest, good or bad. So if you're also of a certain age like me, you can probably think of some examples of people in your life who you saw at a class reunion and while everyone ages at a different rate.
Just kind of like notice that a few people maybe have not taken care of themselves as much as you have and kind of how that starts to show up over time over long periods of time, so Physical health one of the other important things about retirement post-clinical life besides money The other thing or another thing is maybe a better way to say it Another thing that I think is important and I did a podcast about this a few months ago is just staying up-to-date
Shawn Terrell (04:46.631)
Another thing that I think is really important and I did a podcast about this a few months back is staying up to date with technology. I think a lot of people out there are still living in a CD-ROM world and it's an iPhone 16 world now. And so trying to keep track of technology and stay up to date on that and keep pace with technological changes.
I think is a really critical piece of life post-clinical. An example is I was not one of the early adopters of the iPhone when they came out back in 2007, but I it was like four or five years later, I got an iPhone and I loved it. And I remember the first time I went to get a second iPhone to trade the first one in and they were trying to help me at the Apple store, backup all my contacts and all my information in my original iPhone. And they told me that I was like,
five or six software updates behind where the iPhone was supposed to be. And I didn't even know that that was something that you were supposed to do with your iPhones because I never owned one before. Point being like it took a really long time to get all the contacts and all the information on my iPhone backed up to get a new one just because the software was so out of date when I went into the Apple store. So that's just kind of an example of how.
getting out of shape with technology in that example with me is kind of like a hard thing to catch up on once it happens. And this is not to say that everyone has to be a technological expert, but I just think it's probably important if that's not something that's your strong suit to have someone in your life who can kind of help you with that piece of things as you transition from clinical to retirement and kind of all the pieces that come with that, getting your money.
out of different retirement accounts and using technology to do that. A third thing that I sort of thought of as an important piece of post-clinical life besides money is friendship and relationships. Another thing that I thought of as sort of an important piece of post-clinical life besides money is friendships and relationships. So I've just sort of seen how
Shawn Terrell (07:07.298)
different people of retirement age thrive or don't thrive based on how well they've maintained friendships and relationships in their life. And this is actually easier to do now that it used to be just because of technology. I was sort of thinking back as I was preparing to the podcast how while we all sort of kind of eye roll Facebook and other forms of social media that it's really a good way to stay in touch with a lot of different people.
good or bad. I remember I graduated college in 2000 and between that time and the time that social media came around in like the mid to late 2000s, I really lost touch with a lot of people that I was friends or friendly with from college. Like they had moved, their phone numbers had changed, their addresses had changed, and I really had no way to get in touch with these people. And then social media came around and it was sort of nice to be able to reconnect with a lot of people.
from my past life through technology. I just think that life will ebb and flow and I'm in a stage of life right now where it's really hard to maintain relationships and friendships just because of having younger kids and all of the work that goes into that and the responsibility that goes into that. But I can see how people who are of retirement age really
thrive and find a lot of fulfillment out of retirement if they've maintained relationships and friendships when they reach that point in their life. And like I just said, it's never been easier than it is right now thanks to social media. One of the good things that comes with that. And then the final thing that I'll touch on today, that's really important to have with retirement besides...
And the final thing that I'll touch on today that's really important about life after clinical, besides money and all the things that go into that is having some sort of meaning or purpose that can kind of go into your days and weeks and months after your clinical career is over. there's a saying out there, retire to something instead of retire from something. That's a little cliche. It's kind of true, but
Shawn Terrell (09:27.777)
I think more important is just making sure that once the initial excitement of leaving clinical kind of subsides, the first few months are sort of like vacation, right? You're all excited and you can do it or ever you want every single day. And that's fun for a while. And that's cool that you have that kind of freedom when you get it at first. But I think over long periods of time, months and years, it can.
not be a positive thing. Sometimes like having something to get out of bed up, sometimes having something to get out of bed for every day is actually a good thing. It gives you purpose. And I sort of got a glimpse of this when I had all my health challenges a couple of years back and I couldn't work at all for a period of time in that having young kids that I had to get up and help take care of on a daily basis was both the hardest thing about that.
And also probably the best thing that could have happened to me because I don't think it's good to have just all sorts of, I don't think it's good to have just sort of all kinds of time and no structure or script around that for an extended period of time. I think that can lead to some unintended negative consequences. So having something that gives you purpose, having something to do on a regular basis post-clinical that gives you meaning.
seems to be from everything that I've read and from the anecdotal experience that I've seen with people that I know that no longer work, seems like a really positive thing. So maybe to recap real quick, the things I think that are important about post-clinical life, about retirement besides making sure that you have the money to pay for it and to no longer work are one, maintain your physical health, two, make sure you stay on top of technology and the changes there so you can sort of interact in the real world.
Number three, maintain friendships and relationships as best as you can. And then number four, make sure that you have something in your life once the honeymoon phase of retirement, if you could call it that, is over, that gives you meaning and purpose, something to get out of bed and focus on on a regular basis. So hope that is helpful. Again, a lot of the focus here has been the technical side of money and the technical aspects of money. But as I
Shawn Terrell (11:47.933)
kind of put this podcast out and think about retirement and experience more people that are now retired and living their post-clinical lives. I've just started to notice some of these things and I thought I would mention it for people in the hopes that it benefits them in their post-clinical life. So a couple of reminders before I go, as I said off the top, Dentists Puns and Money is again sponsored by and brought to you by Dentist Exit Planning, which helps dentists leaving clinical
Within the next five years, build a financial treatment plan for life after dentistry. The second reminder is that dentist exit planning is a registered investment advisor. The information presented here should not be interpreted as investment, legal, tax, financial planning, or wealth management advice. It's for educational purposes only and past performance is not indicative of future results.
That's it for now. That's all I have for now. I am Shawn Terrell and we will talk to you again very soon.