Evan Kinnear: Do want a stronger Full Arch Foundation? Join myself, Dr. Adam Hogan, Dr. Brandon Koford, and Dr. Athena Goodarzi for core boot camp fundamentals with Cadaver Lab. Clinical surgical prosthetic training, also business training with hands on sessions, live patient surgery, and a Cadaver Lab. Register today, theatlanticimplantinstitute.com.

Adam Hogan: Before we kick this off, I want to pay honor and reverence to Memorial Day today. Absolutely. In the United States of America. I am a Marine Corps Navy veteran and it's a very special day. know, people want to say happy Memorial Day. I mean, I don't get mad, but it's not really a happy day. This is the day that we're remembering our fallen. heroes, those that have sacrificed, up the ultimate sacrifice so that we can enjoy our American way of life. And we want to remember and...

Evan Kinnear: The all-in All-INX Pod is brought to by JB Dental Labs. The elite lab, trusted by full-arch surgeons, ⁓ prosthodontists, and digital forward practices ⁓ internationally. JB specializes in precision full-arch zirconia, photogrammetry workflows, and fast turnaround times that don't sacrifice quality. JB delivers a truly digital workflow powered by

Adam Hogan: say, ⁓ God bless and please pray for the families left behind those husbands, wives, children, especially left behind with these fallen heroes. So, that being said, because it's Memorial Day and we just made an announcement, I think we're going to push the next couple of episodes out and air this one this week for Memorial Day. What do think? Sounds good. Yeah, sounds good. So everybody enjoy your Memorial Day and take a moment to remember why you have today off work.

Evan Kinnear: online portal for easy case uploads, real-time tracking, and fast streamlined communication.

Adam Hogan: So, ⁓ With that, I am Dr. Adam Hogan, your host of the All In All On X pod. And today I am bringing a very special guest to you. ⁓ know, people see me online doing surgeries, teaching at the institute, running a podcast, but... The truth is that there's someone else behind the scenes who is sitting across me right now who is holding it all together. She is, she, pretty sure she's a she, she is our CEO, our CFO, our operations manager, our team leader, our real estate business strategist, organizer, our mom, the emotional stabilizer during all of the chaos that you may never see. And I want to introduce you to the person that is quietly building and maintaining the infrastructure behind a multi-company large organization, Full Implant Choice, the Atlantic Implant Institute, the All in All edX podcast, Real Estate Holding, whatever you want to call it, LLC. Everybody, Ali Hogan, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Are we nervous? No. It's a lot of titles, a lot of titles. It's a lot of titles. Well, you know, I find it necessary to...

Evan Kinnear: If you're looking for a lab that understands immediate load, passive fit, and the demands of modern all-on-x dentistry, then JB Dental Lab is redefining what a full arch parter can be. Learn more at JBDentalLab.com. ⁓ Tell them that the all-in all-on-x pod sent you.

Adam Hogan: say that because you know people might think well this is the wife of the doctor right the wife of the doctor gets a bad rap 100 % they think well you got your job by default and you're just there to open the mail and kind of piss off the team i guess pick your favorite no not like that at all to give you all a background ⁓ her resume because she won't She was in law, top paralegal in her field, winning cases, know, million dollar, hundred million dollar cases, serving it up for her attorney, studying for the bar exam in Virginia when she decided that she needed a break from law. Right? It was draining. mean, so we did a state law. A lot of it was elder abuse and then estate disputes. And a lot, most of the time it was therapy. So you bring it home with you. You're talking to families. that typically lost someone or their. loved one is being abused, whether it's by another family member in a facility. So it was draining on me. I loved what I did, but it was certainly draining. during COVID, we talked and I wanted to change for a little bit and change now is that six or seven years and I'm still here. So. Yeah. Well, let's talk about that change, but also you in law, elder law. So you were involved with attorneys that were doing litigation for basically probate disputes. and things like that, inheritance. And you're always, unfortunately, seeing the people that were kind of left behind or abused in that process. Certainly, yeah, because I mean, a lot of people talk about minors being abused and neglected, but there's not much talk in the United States about the elderly that are abused, neglected, don't have family or someone to care for them. I mean, it's a huge problem. And unfortunately, our family is dealing with someone that has dementia right now at a young age. Thank God he has us to surround him and help him, but a lot of people don't have that. Even though, not to get into it too much, but there are private family members trying to take advantage of that and we're safeguarding them, safeguarding him from that. 100%. So it's a good thing that they have you and your mom. But you you even when you're going back to the, we'll get into the practice in dentistry soon, but you, you even researched a couple of cases of abuse with, where people were breaking the law, you know, even felonies served up cases to the FBI here locally. And you know, what did they do with it? Nothing. It's not, I mean, it's hard to prosecute elder abuse, whether it's physical or financial, um, in Virginia, but I think also in the United States. It's not something that's sexy. There's not a lot of money in it. But yeah, we met two particular cases. The attorney I worked for, him and I met with the FBI and we had binders and binders full to present to them of evidence of financial and physical abuse. And it kind of went on deaf stores. Like it's not something they pursued. That's very sad. that and then I know you were helping with the elder care firm and I know I was with you evenings and weekends when you were taking care of these grandmas and grandpas. You weren't getting paid for it. No, and that's not something I care about because ever since I was younger in high school and college, my passion was elderly. Why? I don't know. ⁓ Maybe because I had such a close relationship with my grandparents. ⁓ They kind of helped raise my sister and I. They live locally. ⁓ But my passion has always been helping the elderly and I've always been drawn to them. ⁓ But so was hard to leave and come here because I lost a little bit of self worth, if you will. I didn't feel like I was able to help like I was before with my passion. ⁓ But I soon realized that we do have, most of our patients are elderly in the practice. So connecting with them and then seeing the outcome and their happiness is fulfilling. setting up the story for the transition and before I do that do you want to talk about the contents of a lady's purse and how long that sat in court? So just as we're getting out of law two sisters in court and tell us the story. I think this is kind of the nail in the coffin where I didn't want to do it anymore. It too stressful. We had a family, I believe it was, two sisters in court fighting over the contents of their mother's purse. And that purse, I think it was maybe like a $500 David Yearman bracelet. Two old prescriptions. I can't remember. I think one was antibiotics. One might have been narcotics. I don't know. And then just crap. Preparation H was in there. It's just crap, but they were spending money to pay their attorneys to fight over the contents of this purse and I looked at the attorney I worked for like what are we doing? And he tried to talk him out of it like look you're throwing good money at bad money You're gonna pay me XML to fight this in court for what just be despite your sister Probably $500 an hour for a $500 purse just for anger and spite. You're right. Correct. Yeah, well, that's a probably a topic of another pot. So I I am in full implant choice and I'm between managers. I had good managers in the past, I'm between managers and Allie who's studying for the law and doing very well in law. I said, hey, if you're tired of that, why don't you come help me out for just a little while until I hire the next CEO or whatever, CFO. And she reluctantly was like, well, what am I gonna do? And I'm like, well, you are the most organized person I've ever known. You never miss a trick. You always remember to do everything. And what could be better than to have someone in the family in the practice watching my back? And I said, just for a little while. Just for a little while. Did you ever imagine your life could be all of this. I did it. I really did it. I mean, we were hesitant at first bringing me in. One, we didn't know the outcome of us working together and then obviously going home together. That was a scary part. But also, I didn't want to come into the practice and be that stereotypical or typical. Dennis' wife ⁓ and staff hate me because I mean, I've been around the practice and pop in and out and have lunch with you and stuff. And I came close with some of the employees, one employee in particular, she had been with you since the beginning. So 15 plus years at that point. ⁓ And I didn't want to ruin any relationships that I currently had. So it was hard. We were hesitant. We had a lot of conversations before I came in. And I think honestly, being a stepmom helped me kind of approach that situation of coming into the office because with your kids, I had to become their friends before I could become any type of authoritative figure. And coming to the practice, that certainly helped. ⁓ I didn't want to come in guns blazing and change everything, so I kind of befriended the staff. ⁓ And then that's when I could kind of be authoritative and make some changes and not step on anyone's toes. Yeah, those are all very real fears too. And we... I was... aware of that I'll say. I told the staff, I said, hey, I'm going to bring Ali in and instantly I got looks from people that said, I'm going to quit basically because they're all afraid of what? They're afraid of the wife coming in and disrupting everything and not understanding the practice, not understanding the flow and just kind of like, you see it too often in dental practices or anywhere where the spouse is. And then I'm just saying it's necessarily always the woman. men work for their wives as well. they're worried about it. The first thing I said to them was, if it's problem, if there's ever an issue, we will reverse ourselves quickly. I'm not gonna let this change ruin what Full Implant Choices become. But I also told them, I said, you stand by because this woman is organized and ready to take charge. I wasn't really worried because what happened was they came in and saw you. You came in and you were the hardest working member of the team. Never afraid to clean clean the parking lot, clean a toilet, just you'd be the first one to take out trash, but also doing all of your other jobs. And the team saw that, so I think they respected you for that. Right, and I had to make a point. It's in my background. My mom raised my sister and I to be hard workers, and if you want to get somewhere in life, you have to put the work in. And still to this day, I'm... cleaning trash cans, bathrooms, whatever it needs to make a good practice. But in the beginning, I would show up on time early and be the last one to leave with you. I mean, if I won't expect our staff, our employees to work hard, they see you work hard, so they need to see me work hard too. Yeah. Well, I will say that to you listeners, even if you're the doctor, you need to be the first to roll up your sleeves. If you want them to respect you, I mean, I'll take out my trash. run the sweeper, whatever, even the little things. ⁓ We lost an iCAM Domino of at Scanbody once and you were the first one in the dumpster. We were in the dumpster. That was right when we got our iCAM and iCAM kind of became popular. And if anyone has an iCAM, back then, five, six years ago, Domino's were more expensive than they are now. Six or $8,000. So we lost one. And yeah, I was in the big old dumpster out back. Staff was going through trash, biohazard. It was nasty, but we ended up finding it. and it was not in the trash. Safe to say you earned their respect. Yeah. Because they were like, if Ali's in the dumpster, I can get in the dumpster too. It wasn't like the doctor being like, everyone get outside. By the way, the whole back parking lot looked like one of those plane crash scenes where they have everything laid out. Like evidence, yeah. That was bad. We found it though. Yeah. All right. That was about 60 years ago or so. Yeah. Or more. Yeah. It was. Okay, so what did full implant choice look like in the early days when you came in? When I came to work or when we met? Because they're totally different. Yeah, you know, I was in a different place in my life. That's for another episode probably, but when we met, I think it wasn't even full implant choice at that point in time. was implant dentistry of Virginia. Yeah, it was, yeah. 16 and... came full implant choice, maybe 17. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, and we were still in the early phases of this full arch practice. Oh yeah. Yeah, how did it look then, and what were the challenges coming in, how's it look now? Well, in 16, 17, when we changed it to full implant choice, it was completely different because you were still doing full arch analog. You're still doing analog. You're still doing GP stuff. So you're placing a lot of singles. You're still doing crowns, fillings here and there. That was tough. That was a tough life for you as a clinician. That was a tough life for us at home. And I think at one point you came home at, I don't know, like 10 p.m. and you still had to design a case because you were designing your cases back then. And I looked at you and I said, like, we can't do this. We can't sustain this lifestyle. Like, you aren't sleeping. You're always at work. We need to make a change. And I think at that point is when you looked into doing digital and switching over to digital to have a better... life. Well, it was necessary. mean, so we were a full arch analog practice because, you know, digital technology, wasn't that we were resisting it. We were, we were as digital as you could be in 16, 17. I mean, we had an office mill then and we were designing and all that but I didn't have lab techs so to speak I was my own lab tech and we were analog we were doing you know the the pain of it was verification jigs analog verification jigs models and we had so much stone and putty and impression material and all this stuff all the time remounts I had like 18 articulators in the office I don't know like a ton of them maybe eight I don't know a lot but um You said, our marriage wasn't doing well. I was working 16 hours, 14 hours a day. Seven days a week, Yeah. And something had to give. I almost went back to general dentistry. Yeah. Well then the ICANN became available and then I hired some outside lab and I trained some internally lab technicians. And then it became more manageable because doing... We were probably at eight or 10 or sometimes 12 hours a month analog. As the months crept on, we weren't able to keep up with the production and finishing. because the chair time with analog was crazy. All the callbacks and try-ins, yeah, it just bottlenecked at one point. Yeah. So I'd say digital saved our practice for sure. 100%. Yeah. I think you remember what you said to me when I said I wanted to buy an iCamp? I don't remember. I'm sure it was good. She said, I said, there's this thing out there and I need it. And by the set the stage, I had already invested a half million dollars in the practice and equipment probably over the last two years. Well, I think you had just bought in the Zirconzane too. Yeah, we just bought that. And so total half a million dollars in equipment. Yeah. And she's starting to get a little involved in the practice. And I said, hey, there's a piece of equipment I need to buy. It's fifty five or sixty five. $10,000 and you just I believe you had an expletive and F you're like no effing way Shut the front door. Probably. You're out of your effing mind and I was like wait just do you know how much we spend in impression material alone per month? And at that point I didn't I didn't know the ins and outs of expenses and how much things were so. But we were spending eight or ten thousand dollars a month in impression material and so that's six months no-brainer if there's no other savings whatsoever and then chair time you know when you're doing 20 or 30 hours of chair time to finish a case and you can knock it down to 6 or 8 or 12 even right it's a huge saving so I was like then when I said that to you you were like when can we get it right we got it so a full-on pledge always a little different these days what are the sacrifices You know, people see out there, they see the pod, they see Atlantic Implant Institute, you know. They see full implant choice doing well. And by the way, it is all very real. ⁓ I have been in, I have seen these heroes of full arched dentistry and how they talk online. And then I've been to their practices and it's quite a different story. mean, would you comment on the reality of full implant choice and some of the sacrifices that are made along the way? There's a lot of sacrifices. ⁓ I see your passion for surgery and changing people's lives. So of course I'm gonna support it. And it fulfills you and now it's fulfilling me. obviously brings us income and our family can be supported by it. But there are a ton of sacrifices. I think we have some friends that are orthopedic doctors or surgeons outside of dentistry and... Just because you're not working at a hospital doesn't mean you have similar sacrifices as them doing surgery in a hospital setting. There's late hours, you're in work by seven o'clock. Sometimes you're not home until nine p.m. on the weekends. Like this weekend, if it was sunny out but it was raining all weekend, you're writing articles, you're starting to write a textbook. So there's a lot that goes on at home. aside from being in office. Just because you leave the office doesn't mean you're done with work. It's a lot. It's a lot. There's phone calls from patients, after hours on the weekends, sometimes you have to go in for emergencies, and you can't say no. These are the people you're treating and you care for, so you have to go see them. So what about your sacrifices? ⁓ So we have a 19 year old living at home and one thing that rings in my mind is around 4 35 o'clock if he's not at work, he'll come downstairs. What time is dad gonna be home today? I'm like, buddy, I don't know. Well, does he have a podcast? Does he have the radio? Does he have this? I'm like, honestly, I don't know. And sometimes like that hurts to say like because we all want to spend time with you and then we have a one year old now. So every time he hears the back door open like he just lights up and I all three of us It's like Max Brecken and I just waiting at the back door like a little puppy and Cooper the puppy We're just waiting for you to get in and I know you're exhausted You still have your bags in your hands But everyone just wants the love on you because we haven't seen sometimes like Brecken could go two days without seeing you because You leave before he gets up and then you come home after he's down. So Well, we are making arrangements to change that life a little bit. ⁓ think we're at this crossroad of transitions where we might, it seems like we might have to work harder for a year to get there as we, you know, we hired a prosthodontist. And that might not be the end. mean, I'm interviewing a periodontist this week for part-time work and I'll probably be looking at another surgically minded doc here to handle full implant choice. And you know, these are things Allie and I have talked about. isn't news to you, I hope not. I mean, I still want, the thing about it is, I love what we do. So I love surgery. And every time I think I'm just gonna do surgery for a while, then I get into like, I love consultations. I love meeting new people. I love giving people their final teeth. And if people get their final teeth and I'm not there, I've actually had like this week, somebody made an appointment to come back just to show me. He's like, ⁓ Steven, I don't know if you saw, he wanted to come in just to show me because I wasn't there to get his final. So I love that aspect of it. I'll always do a little part-time, you know, couple of days a week if that's okay with you. Yeah. Do I permission? Yes. But I think like all our friends, our close friends in the full arch world, they have... the same heartache, if you will. You guys love surgery and you love seeing the patient. I mean, there are some full arch dentists out there that can just go into surgery and place the implants and be done with it and not have those connections. But I think in our small circle of full arch dentists, you guys truly love the interaction with the patients and seeing the outcome and seeing their lives change. Seeing them come in five years later to tell you what they've done in their life that they might have not done before without surgery. I mean, I love that about you that you it's not just something surgical and you're just dropping implants in you want to see the full story Well, yeah because it loses meaning with it. I don't want this podcast can keep on reading. Because people want hear from you. But there's doctors out there who just want to, every time they place an implant, just hear cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. And they almost, they'd be okay just flying in and doing surgery and leaving before the patient even wakes up. Never seeing the before, never seeing the after. I feel that's fine, if that's your model, what you want to do, more power to you. I feel like for me and you, I think for us it would be meaningless. This has turned into a ministry for us because we're giving people earthly salvation, earthly hope, that they can have a better tomorrow, so that makes it fun. But we're gonna be expanding the horizons. Do we wanna talk about full implant choice? ⁓ Regionally, nationally, we have, you Well, I think that because this is the next step of our life, because we're not becoming mentors and leaders in the field. plus we've talked about this, where we can change 20 people's lives a month here if we have five, 10, 20 other offices changing five or 10 or 20 lives a month there. Now we can help doctors to have better hope and salvation also and more people. Right. Right. So there's both aspects with the Atlantic Implant Institute. are mentoring a lot of doctors ⁓ to start. Sometimes they're full arch practice or they're in the middle of it and they just need help with a better flow or change or business aspect so you're helping that way and then yeah there are some younger doctors that we want to help get set up that might not have the financial means or the team to help them put everything into place and get going so yeah Well, you know the pain of starting this up ourselves not knowing what we didn't know. ⁓ my God. There's a ton of failures in this story. And if people say they don't fail, they're lying straight to your face. There has to be failures. We're constantly changing SOPs or if it doesn't work for the office and we're open to change. I mean, I joke a lot of times and said as a staff that you're always changing your mind, but I think a successful business always has changes. You can't for years do the same thing and be profitable. Battlefield is gonna change. In the Marine Corps, we say shoot, move, communicate because you never can sit in the same spot long. For obvious reasons, but I think the same is in business. then communicating with each other is huge. Always being able to have a pivot because nothing ever. Like Marty Strong says, and I've heard this in the Marines, you can make a plan for the battle and whatever and you can all talk about it. for days and weeks and months, but the second one shot is fired. Everything goes out the window. Everything changes. ⁓ yeah, absolutely. Marty's story of that exactly is just crazy. He planned this mission for what, weeks, months, it didn't, from the jump, it didn't go as he planned, so he had to pivot. ⁓ yeah, quite a pivot. Right. you guys want to hear that story, come to the business course. Marty will be, he was a team member before there was really a team, before there were teams. So for people that don't know, know a team member, it's SEAL team. But yeah, he's a genius, a tough guy. Yeah, he's a good man. So let's pivot into marriage. Do you want to? Well the day is still young, maybe I don't want to screw it up yet. Let's pivot into marriage. Two questions for you. Should husbands and wives work together? How do we separate marriage from business? So I'm going to say yes and no should you work together. We had multiple, multiple conversations before I even came in. And then I want to say, I don't want to use the word seamlessly, but it kind of was me coming in seamless. I think we have that type of relationship. Honestly, we were, this is cliche, we're best friends before we are. spouses. So I think that has a lot of impact on how we work together. We both have a goofy personality too. So yeah, we can get down to business and work hard, but also throughout the day we're cracking jokes or making each other laugh. So that helps a lot too. But also when I'm in the office, you're either in an op doing surgery for five hours or you're seeing patients. Really the only time we see each other is if I go out in the clinic or you might have 30 minutes to have lunch and we're at our desk together. 30 minutes or three minutes. Or I go in the clinic and shove some food in your face. I mean you keep gas in the tank that's for sure. You're always coming out. Did you order lunch? You ready? Have you eaten yet? Right. So I don't, there's no, I think it depends on the husband and wife relationship. ⁓ We know a couple in Florida that work together. It works for them. We've heard some horror stories, so it just all depends. I mean, obviously if there's tension at home already, then maybe it might not be the best idea of someone coming into the office and being around each other 24 seven. I'm so glad we've never ever had a fight. There have been a couple of days where you just decided to work from home because probably something I did that I deserve. I'm sure. Yeah. Like that way I phrase that. But I would say like the last couple of months I haven't been in the office because I was recovering from surgery and like I miss being here. I miss seeing you at work. I ⁓ miss seeing the staff. I miss seeing the patients and it's been hard. Yeah. It's been hard. Well, I think one of things that makes it work for us is respect. You know, just, you let me do my thing, I let you do your thing. ⁓ But if you want to be listened to or bounce an idea off each other, we do that. Also, being a cohesive unit, like parents at home have this, I think a lot of families have this problem where... You know, the husband and the wife or the parents, don't see eye to eye or they, you know, they, they let the children get between them sometimes. Right. Or even parent differently. Or they parent differently. Right. But I think we parent the same also. We've never let the kids get between us. And I think in the practice, I think that that's been a big part of the success is people will come in here. They want to play mom versus dad, or I love this. They come in and they say, Hey, can I tell you something? Comment in confidence. You don't tell anybody. I'll say, yeah, but you, know that Allie and I share the same brain. So I will tell Allie, you know that, right? And they're like, ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand, Allie can know. Because there will be no secrets between us. Right, right. At all. And I think it works well with the staff. mean, most of our staff are female. We have two male assistants, well, and then three. ⁓ We four men working here. Yeah, four men. But sometimes there's a situation with one of our female staff members and they don't feel comfortable talking to you or Dr. Lish about it, so that's It's a good thing that they have me to bounce it off of and talk to. And I will say this for those listening, know, who running a private, they go, okay, well, that's why, you know, that's why he's so successful. He's got his wife there, which is a big part of it because not only is she, Ali, you're my wife, but you are so strong willed. and strong-minded in business, you're very smart. And so even if you weren't my wife, for those listening, if you have a manager or a CEO, you just have to be on the same page. Basically share a brain. If somebody comes in and says, want to tell you something in confidence, you gotta go, well, know, at least the president of the company's gonna know, I can't keep this secret. Or the CEO is gonna know, I can't keep this secret, the manager's gonna know, this cannot be a secret. So they have to understand that. You have to be very tight. ⁓ yeah, 100%. Yeah, in alignment. I mean, if you're not, I've had to release some managers because... You know, if we make decisions behind closed doors and they say they're going to agree with me and do what I say, but then they go out and their own thing, everything falls apart. And I think both you and I agree. We hate the word manager. I think sometimes when you get people that title, they put themselves on a pedestal ⁓ and their mood can change towards the other staff members. So I really hate that word. Just from past experience in the practice ⁓ with the manager. that we have had here. If it wasn't you, who would you replace yourself with? mean, what maybe what industry would they come from? wouldn't be dentistry. Like 100 percent. It would not be someone from dentistry. Just someone that has grit and is willing to work, is willing to fail, is willing to come up with new crazy ideas and try them. And if it doesn't work, try something else. ⁓ We just need a hard worker that communicates, it definitely would not be someone in dentistry. I what I needed to learn as far as what the practice does. But outside of that, you just need to be business savvy. You need to be organized. You need to be concerned about money coming in, expenses going out. Are we spending too much on Amazon this month? Or can we get products from a different company to save us some money? ⁓ just, I don't know, service industry maybe. There's times we've been at a restaurant and had an amazing server and offered them a job. Two days ago. Right. Both of you and I, when we were in college, were servers and we told the kids that they had to have a restaurant job first before they could have any other job and both the boys did that. And it's hard work. It's nasty. Most of the time you smell when you come home. You have to deal with the public. Yeah, you have to deal with the public. You learn customer service real quick. to deal with other servers or kitchen people, kitchen staff. They both had. Restaurant jobs and hated them and asked if they can find something else We said yeah, you work there for a year and did what we asked go find a job that you really want to do Yeah, they're I agree and by the way for those listeners business talk I'm gonna be in Houston, Texas October 23 24 for our next business class and we'll get in the nitty-gritty on firing and roles and team management So sign up for that seats are limited, but I love this idea of hiring from outside of dentistry because I think I spent 18 of my 23, 24 years thinking that everybody just comes from dental. And what I learned... first is ⁓ salespeople should never come from dental, almost never. Treatment coordinators probably almost never. And also your managers, I think your womangers, if you don't like the word manager. But I love the service industry. think nurses, you we've looked at some nurses that are tired with their hospitals and they're anybody, entrepreneurs, nurses, entrepreneurs, service industry people, especially managers at restaurants. Like they have to do so many different facets of their job constantly. head on a swivel all day long. All day. Yeah. And the other day, there's a girl who works at a local restaurant and she does the takeout and I see her doing the takeout and then she'll be behind the bar and then she'll be helping in the dining room and she runs circles around everybody and she always has a smile on her face. does. She's so sweet. I said, Ali, said, that is a surgical tech right there. Yeah. I want her. surgical op and I'm gonna stay on her until she comes over here and works. agree with it. Every time I see her she always compliments me on something even if I look haggard as hell she's complimenting me on my nails or shoes or something and she's always sweet. Yeah always in the weeds but she's always working hard. So yeah, so hire from outside dentistry, right? Yeah. I mean, two of our three treatment coordinators had no experience in dentistry and we trained them. One came from insurance and then one was a newly graduate, only experienced in marketing and ⁓ they're amazing. One's a manager now and the other one's just been with us for two years and she's doing great. Yeah. So look outside, mean we in dentistry, we just kind of have this totem pole of succession. They come in and they go to the dental assisting and then they go to dental admin and then they think they're gonna go just because they've been around for 10 years and with no other leadership skills whatsoever. And so you gotta, I agree, you gotta look outside. So have you ever wanted to quit? 100%. There's been days where I fire myself and I text Adam, like I'm done. I'm done. Or there's days where they're like, just fire me and I'll collect unemployment. I'm sure I'll be legal. Only in California. True story. You ever remember Craig, the dentist out of filed unemployment against himself because his numbers were down? Yeah. So he filed unemployment for partial unemployment because his numbers were down, which you're my buddy if you're listening. he reports that California awarded him unemployment. That's awesome. Way to go, California. You guys, I apologize you're out there in California listening to this ⁓ and you are really of your state. Anyway, ⁓ so ⁓ what do think can be better at? What am I blind to in this practice? ⁓ That's a tough question. I ⁓ family with kids and stuff and we have to remind ourselves that our employees have that too. So some days they come in and you might just be looking to set up for surgery, have surgery but someone comes in and they got in a fight with their husband on the way to work or two of their kids are sick and sometimes we just need to slow down, listen to them, vent or cry or what. and then go on with our day. So that's a hard aspect of owning a practice. Yeah, well I mean I agree. I get tunnel vision. You do. I think, I mean, it's not a bad thing, but with your military career, you guys have a list of what you're gonna do, how you're gonna do it, and what time you're gonna do it at. And on surgery days, you're in that mode. I have to do this, the patient's gonna be innovated at this time, Am I gonna start planning? But if someone comes in and for whatever reason they need to talk to you, I mean, need to let go of that schedule for five to 10 minutes, listen to them, and then we could go back to the schedule, which might be five minutes behind. So responding, I don't have time for this shit, is not an appropriate response. No. And I think that might have happened last week and I heard about it. Well, you know what, if I wanted these ladies to have a husband or a child, I would have issued them one. That's what we say in the Marine Corps. If we wanted you to be a husband and wife, we would have issued you one. So I think I listen pretty good. You do, but there are some times where it's like, just power in the pause, listen for a second, then go on with your day. Yeah. Well, I fully accept that. criticism of that challenge. But I also, at the same time, I know that there are dozens of times a day that I do have to stop and I go, and so they're just talking to me and I'm like. I know where this is gonna go. Like, where do I get to the point where I say I'm sorry and I give you a hug? Can we get there? No, but I do love them. Yeah, you know, you do. I do. You do. But in the same, on the flip side, our staff also needs to realize if you just walked into your office and sat down for the first time in six hours and the doors closed, knocking on the door is probably not the best idea. Give them five minutes, let them pee, drink, maybe eat a bite of something, and then knock on the door. Yeah, yeah. doesn't, you know, it's like, it urgent? somebody bleeding? the building burning? You just saw me on my feet for four hours and now you're gonna come in and tell me about your cats. Like, can you give me five minutes? Okay, but then I have to go, and I do, I have to be like, in my head, I want you to still turn around and leave, but I have to go, ⁓ tell me about your cats. Like. No, but I love them. They're great. So taking time to understand that they're people. Correct. Yeah. Have you ever thought about taking time to understand that your husband is just a person who needs to be heard and listened to? Maybe I have feelings. The only time you don't talk is when you're sleeping. You accuse me of talking by sleep. You do. All right. Women. Let's get into women. Women. Okay. In business, women in the profession. ⁓ Is it a thing? Is it true? Is it possible that you see things differently than men? or people just people, or what do you think you see that I and other men might miss? I think kind of just what we touched on is just seeing the emotional aspect of whether it's a patient or employees. ⁓ Pausing and listening and letting them vent is a huge thing, especially when a lot of these patients, they're having surgery, sometimes it's the recovering addicts or there's domestic violence involved, car accidents, those type of situations, like they want to be heard on why they're here, why they're spending money, and why they chose you to help with this change. And you are good about that, but again, sometimes someone's here and you're going in to check them, but you hear and see you have five other patients to go see, so it could kind of be quick. You're like, okay, come on, let's go. Not that you say that, but I know you're thinking it. Yeah, well we get behind every day because we do listen. Consults can be the hardest part too. When you're just meeting somebody you think you're going to be in there for three or five or seven minutes and 37 minutes later I got three people at the door. Yeah. But we've got... someone who has a history of PTSD and abuse, trauma, veteran, something. Yeah, and we have a lot of veteran patients and most of them have sought you out because they read your bio online or heard you on the radio. ⁓ We have a lot of veterans that have been listening to you on the radio for years and years and years and finally got the courage to come in and see you because you're veteran yourself. ⁓ One particular man. think he said it was like five years he had been listening to you and came in. has his finals now, but everyone was crying. He's, I don't know, six foot four, big tough guy, and the last person I thought that would be crying when he saw his final teeth. Well, you know... And he doesn't want any media talking about his name or I'm not going to mention his unit. But we've had a bunch of them where they come out of the strongest of all military units in the world. one thing about life for some of these folks is if they survive that and if they get through that and if they can get through their I don't think that veterans that saw combat ever get through their trauma. They just learn how to deal with it. They learn how to compartmentalize it. through a new hobby or therapy. That's one thing you and I have always talked about. We've wanted to help veterans and we're doing that through dentistry, but you've talked to Marty about helping in different ways ⁓ because there's not enough help for veterans. I mean, we live in the biggest military city in the world and we don't have enough help for veterans and it's a shame. just like a teeny percentage, a one percentage point of the federal budget, even the DOD budget. And just put it into therapy, therapy dogs, and some off-label uses of psychedelics. Because the veterans we know that have really gotten better all. psychedelics and oftentimes therapy dogs and therapy. Right, and they're getting psychedelics from different countries and doing it that way. And having to spend their own time to do it. Right. Right. And we just kind of, you know, I was at the skeet range yesterday at Naval Oceania and there was a veteran there and he's got his 100 % disability card checking in and I'm thinking to myself, 100 % and I could tell he has mental trauma. You can just tell by the way that he doesn't finish sentences or he doesn't respond to questions appropriately or it takes him a few minutes to... It's like everything he has to take a breath. Just like surviving is hard for him. And I'm thinking, mean surviving in society, being able to leave and go outside the house is hard for him. And I'm thinking just a little psilocybin and some therapy. But yet they're gonna give this guy 100 % disability card. But really give him nothing. He'll go up to the VA center in Hampton and he won't have good access to healthcare and he won't have good access to dentistry or therapy. mean, because we try to work with VA for dentistry and we started doing a little all on four and then they realized it was going to be expensive and pulled the budget. So the VA now will not support all on four because they say that someone can be made whole and live a good life with dentures. Right. And we know That's not true. All because they saw a $50,000 price tag on something for a guy or a gal, we've got women veterans in there too, who have given a decade of their life for 50 grand a year. and they can't spend 50 grand to fix their face. When all they were doing was going to Navy dentistry and just every time they had a toothache or a problem instead of putting a filling in there, they just re-anked it. And now they're partially dentilists and they can't even give them 50 grand to fix their teeth. And we talked to the higher up in the RVA center locally and what she said is that basically the whole... ⁓ front office was fired and they brought in new staff and they were auditing how much was going out in dentistry and full arch was too much. And it's a shame because you know that not everyone is can have dentures and live a good life. So now, you know, they can't even, they can't even get good, good regular care therapy, right? They just throw a prescription drugs at them. They can't, it's hard to get therapy dogs. You know, you can't get off label, you know, use for like like psilocybin and things that are proven effective in people that we've seen, people that come out of teams and dev group that I have gotten healed over this stuff, and they can't even get their face fixed. And I hope. Pete Segwith is listening to this. Pete, if you need an advisor on your dental board, I'm sure Allie would be happy to take the job. myself. But for God's sakes, approve some humanity, approve some dignity for these veterans. Yeah, it's sad. It's sad because we see so many walk through the door. And I know both you and I have a special place in our heart for veterans. And we want to help as much as we can, but we can't give a free case to every single veteran that walks in the door, unfortunately. I wish we were in a position where we could. I would love to. This business is, the overhead is too expensive. It's way too expensive to do I mean, we can cut deals and do things and sometimes do things at the Institute, but it's just way too costly. And it's just a shame because we went through all the credentialing for you. Dr. Lisch was already credentialed with the VA, but we did it for you. And then all of sudden our office gets a phone call, what, a month ago. Hey, you submitted these claims for full arch. Like we're going to deny them all. And it's a frustrating for me too because I'm a general practitioner and they would not approve me to do surgery for these people. Okay. Because I'm not a prosthodontist or an oral surgeon yet I've got prosthodontist oral surgeons coming to the Institute learning how to do this and we've got a couple of cases this month that were done by oral surgeons that are complete disasters and that a couple of doctors that probably need to come to our courses and so the VA just like they want to you know, they have to operate according to these dogmatic guidelines that are not very pragmatic, know, just they want to say well You can't do it. mean, I could better serve. We could. You can. Our team could better serve these veterans if they would just open their eyes. Yeah. Right. Very fitting conversation for Memorial Day. You get me emotional. So future. Future. Let's wrap this up. Let's talk about the future. What are we building here? What are you building here? Well. We're, right now we're really building an office. We're gonna move our practice with our institute and our labs. It'll be all in one building. We're building. Businesses where we don't have to be in work five days a week seven days a week Take some time off We're building the future for other dentists. We're hoping to bring other dentists in Mentor them and get them on their feet and going I think it's not one single achievement that we're building. We have a lot of goals in mind I think at the end of the day we just you want to be a mentor for Ten plus years to come you want to teach you want to do you still want to do surgery but less chair time if you can Just mentorship, the ministry still, helping patients and helping young doctors. Yeah, amen, I agree. So what matters now more than the practice, more than money? It's never been money for you or I. mean, obviously we have to sustain a lifestyle for our kids and ourselves. We live very humbly. We live in a random... and yes we're at the beach but ⁓ could we live in a bigger house? Absolutely, but we've always said that we want to live in every square foot of our house and that's what we're doing. There's no reason to have a 7,000 foot square house and we never see each other or the kids. We want to be in the same room. ⁓ What was the question? I caught off on a tangent. think, yeah, no, you answered it. I mean, what's bigger than Yeah, it's not about money. If someone says they're going to get in dentistry to make money, then don't. Like, don't. I mean, it's a blue collar job. It's not white collar. You don't make money unless you're in here doing surgery. The practice isn't gonna make money unless the clinicians are in the office. So it's about family and I think at the end of the day, 20 years from now, it's not just one single achievement that we want. There's multiple. We wanna be able to live. with freedom financially, freedom with time, but still know that we're waking up and we're helping people. Amen. think this is probably be a good fitting choice for a spouse, for a partner, for me, because I think we agree. I don't know if you're not doing anything later. We get married. Maybe I couldn't agree more. Hang off. our bills, living debt free, living for the now. mean, we are, we have a couple vacations planned and I'm ⁓ planning one for your birthday in January. like having like, making sure you take time to be with each other. Make sure you take time to be at So hiring Dr. Lish, the prosthodontist, has helped me to take Wednesdays off. so I could spend a little more time with you and Brecken and Max and also do something. yourself. Like just go shoot or something. Yeah. Play golf. ⁓ That's big. So scheduling in those times to be off has been, because I mean, I'll just go, go, go, Well and truly be off. Some Wednesdays you're off but you're at the computer working. So why are we taking the day off? And I'll force you out of the house. Go do something. Go do something for yourself. Turn your phone off. Get off all the dental chats and discussion boards. Just be without dentistry for a few hours. Your brain will thank you. I have to get you out of our pull our chat x one sub chat because I'm on my phone and you're like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm just screwing and she's like, you are talking in the WhatsApp chat, I'm watching you, get off the dental chat right now. Well, I mean, I'm sure there's some women and men out there worried about what their spouses are doing on their phone, but he's either looking at ESPN right now because hockey playoffs or he's on dental chats, dental forums, or looking at a patient's teeth that he just did. Thank God I don't have other problems. These are all vices. Right. We're all gonna have a vice. mean, what would you rather it be? I ⁓ mean it's something to joke about but it's like I look over your phone and some woman might be worried that their husband's looking at Someone else's pictures and I just see a bloody field of teeth It's not there are worse habits to have yeah for the writing though I need a little grace this summer. I've got some writing. I want to put out a textbook. We just got picked up with an article this weekend. We're submitting two more articles to peer review journals this week. I'm excited about that. I've always wanted to write for my life. I want say I am lucky and fortunate to be with a wife that... understands and so not just understands but fully supports my need to grow I like to think that I've been there for you and your need to grow you yeah just started a new family yeah and I'm 101 years old I love it 50 and this has been the biggest blessing I wouldn't I would have thought if I looked at you know with Brecken our one-year-old if I had thought about that even two or three years ago I would said you're crazy hell no like you're tired go retire you know and then but it has given me so much joy to wake up in the morning and come home at the end the day actually want to get home faster I mean no offense but you were there alone I was at work till midnight but now breakfast I'm like I gotta get home. Yeah you want to see them. When we got pregnant with Brecken, so many people were like, oh my God, you're gonna be 40, he's gonna be 50, you guys are crazy. have a 19 and a 24 year old now at the time, it was 18 and 23. What are you guys doing? I'll never forget our friend, Dr. Keith Klaus, he was over one weekend and him and his wife, I think were pregnant with their first together maybe, or just had their first together. And he's like, I... don't care how old we are, just want to have a ton of kids at the dinner table. He's like, I don't want to have a Thanksgiving and it's just me and her. I want to have a ton of kids and a ton of grandkids. I'm like, yeah, like that's what I want. I want a ton of kids at our house. Not that I want to have a ton more kids, but. Yeah, cause I was about to check out. I don't know. I could do one more, maybe we'll talk about it. It's been fun. is the, I don't know. Brecken's been such a good boy. not sure. I'm scared if we had another one be a terror. The second child is always terrible, right, Ellie? Yeah, second child. ⁓ Keith, he's a, Keith Klaus, a buddy at a, you guys have seen him at Digital Workflow. He... Similarly, think maybe the same conversation said, kind of like you make a lot of decisions in your life and you wonder if they're worth it or this or that. And he said, when I'm sitting around my my table and I'm with all my kids or I'm with all my grandkids, he's never going to look around and point, you know, around the table and pick one out and say, you know, my life would have been better off without you. Right. Right. Like never. That would never ever happen. Every kid at that table is there is going to be a blessing for one reason or another. So it's a decision that, you know, you can never go wrong with. ⁓ And I don't think you're ever too old. mean 80 might be a little old but it Brecken happened at the perfect time for us. It's we didn't decide when we wanted to have them. We were trying earlier on but ⁓ I in God's will it was perfect timing. It was. It was definitely perfect timing. Yeah. and it's good to take the time off and spend with him and you. You know, practice is out there for you listeners. They'll be there when you get back. mean, Allie, you just had a kidney removed. We spent a month in Salt Lake. the office production plummeted to zip, you know, because I was gone and the new associate was just like, hey, welcome to the practice. I'll see you in a month. You know, he didn't have a schedule and it just plummeted and I think, are we doing okay right now? We're doing good. Yeah, it was scary, but the staff made it through. We made it through and. It had to be done. We tried to plan it at the best time possible, yeah, the practice will always be here. Well, the best, we didn't plan it. mean, they told us that's what's up. You were ready to have that surgery a year ago and the next available was, we'll call you, we'll call you, we'll call you. And then October, six months later, they call us thinking they're going to say, down, and they say six more months. Yeah. Talk about waiting. You better, you feel better? Yeah, a lot better. It's been years and years of feeling like just a shell of a person and not, I mean, you you've been through it every day. Was I going to wake up in pain, have pain? I mean, I was down to what, 90 pounds, had no energy to just get up and get dressed and do stuff. So feel a lot better. I'm we found one of the five specialists in the US that specializes in my condition and him and his staff were amazing and took really good care of me. Let's finish on this. We've been about an hour, but I think I want to talk about your health and your vascular problem kidney and as it relates to all foreign teeth because you as a patient experience, you are a patient. going to doctors for probably the better part of eight years, feeling, you want to tell your story, feeling neglected, feeling like you weren't heard, and then having some doctors who are under-qualified try to treat it. doctors trying to convince me that it was all in my head, that I was anorexic, that I had psychological problems. was in and out of hospitals, in and out of ERs for years. And to the point, I'll never forget the day I called the office just hysterically crying because I felt so bad and Adam came home. He's like, I've had it. Like, I'm done with it. I'm done with you. I'm done watching you deteriorate. We went to the ER again. He called a friend that was an MD in the area, like, can you do to help us? And it took us pushing, calling connections to get someone we trusted and finally get a diagnosis. ⁓ And the problem is I have Nutcracker syndrome, which is a rare condition. Something's considered a rare condition or disease when less than 200,000 people in the U.S. have it. So it is a rare disease and what we find out is that it's not something that's trained in medical school because there's not a magic pill that Big Pharma can issue to make you feel better. So when I was having all these tests done, I probably had 20 MRI CT scans, CT with contrast. There were people that didn't know how to read it and didn't know what they were looking for. So finally there was a radiologist that knew it was Nutcracker, diagnosed it, and then it was all about finding a doctor that truly specialized in what I needed. Like you said, we found a doctor locally. He told us that he specialized in it after botched surgery. We found out I was just a guinea pig, ⁓ which was unfortunate. He made my condition worse. So how this relates to dentistry and full arch is you know your body, push and advocate for yourself, get multiple consultations, do your research, go to those consultations bring a family member with you. I think in the beginning that was my mistake. I would go to these appointments without you or my mom or sisters, another set of ears or someone to take notes for me. And we always tell patients that come in for consults, get multiple consults, go with a doctor that you can connect with, that you feel is right. And we did research, we found a family, ironically, ⁓ a man that works as a vendor of ours. his daughter suffered from Nutcracker syndrome as well. We got hooked up with a great specialist out in Salt Lake. Doctors in Dejas and Kate, amazing. He truly specializes in Nutcracker syndrome. He's done a ton of research. ⁓ but they just took really good care of me and I feel better. And I think that's what I would tell to any person for any procedure but full arch, like do your research. Yeah, a lot of several lessons on that. ⁓ listen to your patients and don't be so dismissive of them too. If their problem isn't in your wheelhouse of how to fix it, then either go learn that or refer to somebody that does if their condition's too big for you and you can't handle it, be humble. Refer them out to somebody. Put your ego aside. Don't just try and do it. That's what happened to me. was in a hospital that was a medical school and the bleachers were full of medical students and at that point I was like, oh shit, what's happening? I was just the guinea pig for them. They wanted to see someone with this condition and that's what happened. And then these medical students over here at our local medical college, they probably don't even know that that surgery was completely botched up. They went in there for a learning experience and thought they saw something good. You had to go to Colorado, see Dr. Spencer to try to fix what they did there. And that wasn't even enough. Dr. Tejeda. in Salt Lake had to again try to do more fix revision. So for those doctors out here doing all on neck surgery and you you got to be careful not to screw somebody up more and I'm not trying to be a gatekeeper here but you know we have the Institute you can come and learn you don't have to come to our Institute go somewhere and learn it better before you take a human in as a guinea pig. And there's nothing wrong with saying I'm not comfortable doing this yet. Maybe if I bring your patient, maybe bring them in the office for surgery, but have a dentist that has had a lot of reps do it and you just watch or bring your patient to their facility and same thing. It has been hard watching you go through all this because, I mean, eight years before you were diagnosed, and the only reason you were diagnosed is we had connections in the local community, basically went through the back door of the ER to get an MRI because nobody would do anything for you. ⁓ And I think four years of it was you going to the doctors and doctors being like, oh, did you just take a trip? Oh, it's travelers constipation. Or I had one doctor tell me that I had one in on like a Tuesday and that weekend was 4th of July and they kept on asking me if I spent the weekend on a bender. Like what the heck? No, no, I didn't. I remember sitting in the ER with you one night and they're like, you probably just want pain meds. And you said, I don't even want pain meds. Don't give me pain meds and they're like you just want pain meds and they spent the whole night saying accusing you being there for pain meds and you spent the whole night saying you didn't want it and they were like yeah people say that but when you leave here you're gonna ask for them I mean I don't want a band-aid I want a solution I want to know what's wrong with me yeah actually you've been under the knife ⁓ Five times in a year and a half. Yeah, and the first two were completely unqualified to do it and they should have said something to start. But I will say, went to Salt Lake, let's finish on a happy note. Kiddie came out, they tested it, was good, they put it back in your body in a better spot, less congested. you look great. Yeah, feel good. The color's back, you're gaining weight again. You feel good? I feel good, yeah. Yeah? Yeah. So there are a... Success stories. Savior out there. Yeah, doctors in Dejas and Salt Lake. He's amazing. Saved my life literally. I can't give him enough praise. Kate. And Kate. Kate was amazing too. The PA. PA. Yeah. They do this every day out there. That's awesome. Well, God, it's been fun, show. I like it. We're gonna have to come back. I feel like we covered a lot of different, it was a hodgepodge of conversations, but yeah, it's good. One day I'm gonna let you on here and you just, I'll like not be in here and you can just tell everyone the whole truth. I don't know, everyone's like. All right, well, we need to get on with it. We're gonna go see your mom. We have a memorial day to. See some family. For those out there, I want to thank you guys for listening. Yeah. On the All In All On X. If, excuse me. If you enjoyed the content, would ask you to please subscribe. Subscribe on YouTube, subscribe on your pod app, subscribe on the Spotify. I will proudly announce that we just got picked up on a professional podcast platform. They've asked us to come on board and actually asked me to consider doing a couple of their pods for them outside of the world of dentistry. So thank you for that. Podfinity, Podfinity Nation. ⁓ those of you wanting to learn full arch, I want to announce that we have full arch courses starting again. We're filling seats for bootcamp fundamentals in August. Prosthetic digital workflow in September and remote Anchorage in October all here in Virginia Beach, Virginia All three of them are part of the FP3 full arch continuum. You can take for a special discount for a special pricing We have the best cadaver lab in the country for dentistry. You want to DM us about that and business of full arch October 23 and 24 in Houston, Texas. I want to see all you Texas Louisiana Arkansas doctors you guys all in that area you need to come down to voxel I'm gonna teach you guys how you can take a practice from zero or a million dollars a year, probably to seven X that to three to seven million dollars and how to do it smartly and not make all the mistakes that Allie and I made along the way that probably cost us seven million dollars along the way. not. Probably substantial amount of money, the mistakes. So it is an investment. I twenty thousand dollars for that course, guys, but it can make you millions. And if I asked you to put twenty thousand dollars in the stock market and I guaranteed a million dollars next year, you would do it. And that's what this class can do for you. So I hope to see you in Houston, Texas for the business of all on four. Allie, any parting words? Thanks for having me. This was fun. I didn't want to do it at all, but I had a good time. I wanted to do it. And I wanted to do it because you are the brains behind the operate. I mean, when I'm in there operating, you're operating on the practice. And it's just a relief to me to know that I've got somebody who's got my back. ⁓ whether it be that you need a plumber for the toilet or you need to, we're building a building out on Shore Drive and you're undertaking all that construction. But people listening, it doesn't have to be your spouse, but it does have to be somebody that you trust, somebody who's hardworking and somebody that's very closely aligned with you. And so I just happen to find that in my own household. So, I thank you. I want to tell you I love you, Everyone have a good day. Have a good day. We'll see you guys soon. Bye. Bye.