All-Star Practice Spotlight with Dr. Cody Calderwood

Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.
00:00
Welcome to Dental All-Stars. I’m Eric Vickery, President of Coaching at All-Star Dental Academy. I’m so excited to interview our guest today. It feels like a long time friend now. This is Dr. Cody Halderwood of Park City, Utah. And we’re gonna be doing our All-Star Practice Spotlight with him. I just want you guys to hear him as we talk to him. He’s another amazing business owner. He’s another amazing leader. And we’re just gonna talk about how to create success in our lives and what made

00:29
his practice successful, what made him successful and everything he’s doing. And I think there are four types of wealth that are more important than money. And that’s something that we can just talk about and touch onto these things. And what’s more wealthier? How do you get wealthier without money? So we’ll talk about some of those things today because I think Dr. Cody has a good vantage point on that. So Dr. Calderwood, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Yeah, awesome.

00:56
So what would you say is your, I don’t know, for lack of a better term, your go-to move? What is, I mean, when we started working together, we started working, I think late 2019, is that right? Yes. Yeah, I think that’s right. Yeah, late 2019. Yeah, yes, this is true. And just for, I think just as for credibility’s sake, as I share these numbers, I got your approval to share these, right? Yes, absolutely.

01:24
I’m sorry to interrupt you. I am a huge fan of transparency among dentists. I think I’ve mentioned before that one of my biggest frustrations is understandably dentists are real quiet about their numbers. One some are ashamed of their numbers and two others don’t want to be judged by it. And I think-

01:46
As a result, there’s a lot of dentists out there that don’t know what’s possible. They don’t know where they should be and they aren’t able to tap into their potential. So for that reason, I think numbers are great. It’s great to chat and share numbers. So true. I think sometimes when I’m coaching offices, I’m looking at them going, you don’t really know what potential you have yet. You don’t really know where you can actually take this. I mean, pre-COVID, we were talking about $83,000 a month practice, a million dollar model with two doctors and a high, sorry, one doctor and two hygienists.

02:16
Now that is gone. Now it’s 100,000 a month, it’s 1.2 million, or we’re losing ground. And it’s hard to keep the doors open and you’re struggling. So when I first met you, we did your KPI numbers, I’ll just give collections only. You were in network with a lot of insurances at the time and you guys were doing 77,000 a month, which got you to just over 900,000 that year. Last year, you were just shy of $1.5 million. So…

02:45
nearly a $600,000 per year increase. You didn’t add more days, you didn’t add another doctor, more providers. We went the opposite, less days. So now you’re increasing, you’re collecting $48,000 more per month now, five years later. Now it’s been steps to get there, but every single time we turn the page and we go another calendar year, another month, whatever it is, you keep hitting goals. You’re just sharing with me like, wow, February was kind of tough. And yet here you were.

03:14
in that 120 range, even with a tough month. So, and again, not the wealth thing, this is number five. This is not the number one thing we’re after when it comes to wealth. This is what the money does for us. What it displays for us is that your patients are getting healthier faster. That’s what I see. I see a healthy patient base, a healthier patient base, and I see a healthier practice. So shed some light on this. What are some things that if you had to talk to yourself,

03:44
you know, 10 years ago, or just a younger dentist right now, what would you say, hey, these are some things you’ve got to be thinking about or a must do three to five things. Just, just throw some things out there. Um, must do. First of all, this, I’m not going to count these as three to five, but I would be very encouraging of hanging there. It gets better. Um, I, we were in our mastermind group. I was talking the other day to one of the young dentists in our group. It’s when you’re in your thirties,

04:11
You’re early to mid thirties as a dentist. It’s hard. You’re in the grind. You’re trying to build your business. You’re not seeing the, um, the income that you thought you’d have. You’re not seeing the free time that you thought you’d have. You’re not, you don’t have the lifestyle that you envisioned you’d have. So my advice is, hang in there. It’ll come. And, um, the, the best things that you can do, I’d say is. Hire the right people.

04:37
I think that’s number one, because if you don’t hire the right people, nothing else is going to work. So you got to get the right employees and not to sound cliche, because it’s easy to say hire the right people. When I say hire the right people, I mean hire people with the right attitude. In fact, I’d say the majority of outside of my hygienists who obviously have to have licensure and experience in dentistry, every one of my other employees has come to me without experience in dentistry.

05:06
So we hire based off of attitude and personality. Oh, true. Attitude over skill. Yeah, yeah. Attitude over skill. I like to say I started in dentistry without any experience. You definitely did. We all start in dentistry without any experience. And we’ve got to start somewhere. And if you have the right model for training people, then that’s going to help. So would you say, I mean, have you had struggles hiring? Oh, yeah. Oh, especially lately. I mean.

05:35
I forget the term that they’ve used, like, what was it? Three years ago, they called it the great resignation where nobody would go to work. Yeah, it’s been a nightmare. And we’re in a smaller resort town in Park City, Utah. So we’re not able to tap into a larger metropolitan population for dental employees. And it’s been tough, but right now we’ve got a really good dental team to the point where we have our patients notice it, our patients love it, our patients comment on a lot. It’s like, I love the energy.

06:05
with your office. So yeah. Yeah. Build the right team. You’ve had 50% growth. I’m just rounding numbers here, but you’ve had incredible growth over five years. So, you know, more than 10% per year. And same team in 2019 that you have in 2025, or what percentage would you say? Half. Yeah, 50% of your team is the same. We’ve had some turnover, some employees moved.

06:31
out of state some decided to stay at home mom, so we’ve had some turnover but Rear shift there was a career shift in there for yeah Yeah, or there and yeah, and and I think that’s what some dentists get hung up on is like well I’m not gonna hire anybody unless they have you know five years experience. They need to be familiar with dentrics They need to have your late Eagle soft, whatever. I just think that the mistake with dental offices because

06:58
You know, oftentimes that they have dental experience and they’re leaving another office is because they’re not the great employee. Yeah. So I’ll throw two things in that we look for. If, if they have experience, what we’re looking for is they just moved to the area or somebody bought their practice or there was a huge shift in their existing practice that created a bad taste in their mouth and they’re, they’re, they’re looking for the right culture to be a part of. We’re not looking for people who are looking for a bump in income or big raise. We’re not looking for people who are like, I’m tired of the drama there.

07:27
That’s a warning sign, those are red flags. So I love what you’ve done with the team. You really have almost like the ground up, just built this team up and trained them. And you’re always hiring, you’re always looking for really good people. I remember we hired a clinical position in your practice last year, it just didn’t work out, but you had someone right ready to go because you were still prepared that, hey, if this doesn’t work out, we got someone else in the wings and you were able to pivot pretty quickly. So nice leadership there. All right, so number one, so hang in there.

07:57
Number two, team together, everyone accomplishes more. I think a team will make or break you. They’ll give you the best thing in the world for you, or they can be the absolute worst thing in the world. So I completely agree with you. What would you say? And they’re going to mirror the doctor. If the doctor is the right leader, they will mirror his attitude, his approach. I mean, if you’ve got a, if the doctor is a negative curmudgeon, the other employees are going to be negative. If the doctor’s a, and.

08:23
enthusiastic, you know, happy kind of guy. I think they mirror it. So one thing that we do, for example, in our morning huddles is a daily wind from the day before, because we’re trying to highlight the positive. Cause it’s easy. You can sit and complain and, you know, point out this stupid patient or that dumb procedure, you know, but if you get caught in the negative, it just becomes a cycle that perpetuates itself. So the, I do believe the dentist has a lot of control on the culture of the office by how they.

08:52
act and respond. You don’t attract who you want to be, you attract who you are. So we tell in our leadership retreat, we talk about your team is a mirror of who you are as a leader. And when the team is functioning, it’s because you’ve created clarity of expectation, you’ve had really good conversation with them, you have systems and training in place, they have vision, they know what direction you’re going, I mean, on and on and on, all of those things.

09:21
play a huge role. I couldn’t agree more. It’s a great place to start. So you mentioned a couple of other things now. Leadership, uh, the leader initiates a culture and sharing your daily wins at huddle. Those are a couple of good coaching tips. Good. All right. So, so next in their team. Yeah. What’s the next one? Um, hang in there team. Next one would be customer service above all else. And there’s a big umbrella under customer service, but you know, big shout out to all start dental academy, which is what brought us here in the first place is.

09:49
I knew we needed help with phones, phone skills in particular. And one thing that I love about All-Stars, it’s not just phone skills. It’s the whole big picture. It’s answering phones, greeting patients, scheduling. It’s everything with customer service to create that value so that when patients come in, they can justify spending money in your office. For example, I’m out of network.

10:16
I know that my patients have a lot of options to stay in network. So I have to provide an experience for them where they justify like, Oh, I am fine paying out of network fees and paying more out of pocket so that we can get that experience. And you know, it’s not going to happen if we were just treating patients like every other office did, there’s no reason for them to go out of network. No, I think the couple of things you make me think of, I love exactly where you’re at. So we make the mistake.

10:44
in dentistry to think that we’re in the tooth industry. We’re not, we’re in the relationship business. Okay. Number two, there is a tooth attached. There are legs attached to the tooth walking the door. No, there’s just teeth with a human being. And it’s like teeth don’t walk through the door. Teeth don’t call you. You have to earn the right to do the dentistry. And there’s a whole section of training. Alex and Heather have done an amazing job on the online all-star training.

11:12
And there’s a whole section on just customer service. And Heather is a master, you know, with her background of training in sales and everything she’s worked in, customer service. It’s just translating that into dentistry. And these are simple things that you can do to make sure you guys have a great experience. Doesn’t mean you’re gonna be perfect, but you know that I have to wear that hat. Which if you go back to your number one thing on team for attitude, if you don’t have the attitude that customer service matters, nothing else is gonna matter. It’ll never click. Nope. Yep.

11:42
And we spend only 20 minutes a week is what we spend. We just come in a little bit earlier every Thursday morning and our entire team is there and we watch one, two videos and we chat about it. So we usually spend 20 minutes a week on that customer service. And it’s not a lot, but those little, uh, 20 minute sessions a week add up over time over a year or two years to where it becomes part of our culture of the team.

12:11
And I love it. And it makes me laugh after the team members. If there’s a new team member, they’ve gotten used to the training of second nature to them when they interact with another dental office or even like a medical facility and they see how poor the customer service is. It’s shocking. And the stories that they share, it just warms my heart knowing that they get it. They’ve captured the vision and they see how valuable customer service is because there’s a lot of people out there that are completely blind.

12:40
the customer service and they’re just going the motions and don’t get up. Totally agree. I mean, you can be a phenomenal clinician. You could be a technical master and yet not get to utilize your skill because your personality, your attitude, your customer service, your communication skills are just poor and you don’t think there’s value in that. It really does take both. I talk about all the time. If your, if your clinical skills are a 10, one to 10 and your clinical skills are a 10.

13:08
and your communication skills, customer service skills are a five, to what level does the patient perceive your clinical expertise? They’re only gonna be able to perceive the level of which you can communicate that skillset. So if you’re grumpy or you have a bad attitude, people don’t like that. They’re not gonna pay for that. And that’s gonna keep you stuck in that hamster wheel. So I love where you’re at. There’s a lot of little things. So the reason I said there’s an umbrella, there’s so many little things. Example, just this week.

13:36
I had a patient that came to me because she’s tired of her old office and she says, you know what, I’ve never actually seen the dentist’s face. He comes in the room after my hygiene and he sits behind me. He’s like, hi, I’m Dr. Avery. Let’s do some work. And then he’s done. He’s like, see you out. He’s like, I’ve never seen his face. So I pointed that out to my employees. It’s like, if you notice, whether it’s a hygienist or the dentist, we come in the room, we bring the chair around, we’re eye to eye, you know, sitting down, same level as them.

14:05
having a conversation with them and we’re, you know, like you said. With human beings. I’m not treating teeth, I’m treating a human being and trying to help them. So just lots of little things like that. Yeah, yeah. I can’t agree more. I love stories. I just was working with a client who has an associate and this associate is, you know, can’t see without her glasses. She doesn’t change from loops to glasses. So therefore, and she’s got a shield, mask and cap on.

14:34
So she meets every single patient dressed like that. And all because, you know, very, you know, but there’s nothing wrong with being analytical. She’s just very, very analytical. And like, how much time does it take for me to take all this off and put it all back on? That time is well spent to connect with someone. How are you gonna get them healthy if they’re not willing to let you get them healthy? Because they don’t even know who you are because you’ve got barriers in the way. Was it PPE? Is that the right phrase for that? Is that?

15:02
You know, PPE is in the way of the case acceptance. So you’re a human being, they need to see that first. You have to put all that stuff on separately. It’s just how it has to be. And remember we used to talk about greeting a patient, they’re laying horizontal and you’re hovering over them with these loops on, hi, how you doing? You know, I’m a doctor. That’s not where you wanna be. So the system that we utilize has to do with the 93% nonverbal communication. Sitting down, like you said, eye to eye, knee to knee,

15:32
matching, kind of mirroring, not necessarily mirroring, but getting a sense of their personality style. That disc profiling. Disc profiling, we talk about that a lot. So disc, you can just email Heather at alls and we’ll send you a free link to a disc profile assessment page if you guys are into that sort of thing. But all of our coaches are trained to be able to teach that to you. And what you’re doing is you’re getting to know that patient and okay, this person likes the bottom line. They like details. They like to talk and have fun and laugh.

16:01
They like to be peaceful and they feel a little maybe uncomfortable. We don’t make them feel comfortable here. You just able to connect with them. So how, how have you grown in that area over the last five years? Is that something you were aware of before? Are you aware of it now? How are you doing with that? I’m doing way better. Um, I’ve always been a very, like engaging personable dentist, but it’s a whole different level, uh, that I was unaware of and it, it was awkward.

16:29
just extremely awkward at first when I tried to start to implement some of these, these techniques or these approaches. And, um, over time it started to become a little more natural. And now it’s just second nature in a way that I communicate, you know, asking questions, um, and yeah. Yeah. That’s it. That’s a system asking questions as a system. So instead of just telling them, and this is what you need, there’s, there’s that, like you said, the system that

16:56
through the coaching and some of the all-star retreats that I’ve been able to work on and get better at to where now it’s a lot more natural. And I’ve actually used it effectively with my own children, my teenage children, instead of telling them like, you need this and I recommend this. These do have real-world applications too to help them come to some conclusions on their own where they are more ready to accept it than me just telling them, you need this, you’re doing this. So. Yeah.

17:24
So you’re talking about number two, since we’re gonna slowly reveal some things, I think over this podcast, so what makes you wealthy besides just money? Money is number five on the list. Number two is relationships. Having wealth in your relationships is so huge. And the things that we teach and train are not dental specific, they are life specific. So you’re exactly right. How you engage with your kids, your EQ.

17:51
that we’ve been talking about, you know, disc is an entry to that. So, and you’re such a phenomenal student. I know I shared this with you, like your ability to regurgitate what we talk about is impressive. So I think that gives you quite a bit of a advantage and a hack of some sort of implementation. Cause I can tell you how many times I gotta repeat things to dentists and team members and they just need to hear it, hear it, hear it. You hear it like once and you’ve got it. It’s very impressive.

18:17
Thank you. My wife likes to joke, it’s because I was hit by a truck when I was a kid and you can see that my head dented. So she’s like, that gave me some extra ability to retain information. It’s your superpower. It’s your superpower, you got space there. All right, so let’s review here. So we’ve got, hang in there, it’s gonna show up. You gotta have the right team with the right attitude. Good leadership is a part of that. And then customer service and training the customer service as well. All right, what would you say is next? The next that I would say is…

18:46
Don’t be afraid as a dentist to expand your clinical repertoire, have more arrows in your quiver so to speak. And over the years, you know, I remember, what was it? It was like 12, 13 years ago. I talked to my brother, my brother’s a dentist in Seattle, by the way. And I talked to him and he was like, Hey, we should go do some continuing education together to learn how to place implants. And it was like a $10,000 course at the time, which seemed like a lot in my early 30s.

19:15
trying to build my business, it seemed like a lot, but I was like, you know what, I really wanna do this as an investment for my future. Crazy, because just running some quick numbers off the top of my head, so let’s even just make it 10, just for the even number. I average probably about two implants a month. So there are 24 implants a year, over 10 years, and this isn’t even including bone grafting and membrane and all that other surgical stuff that I learned with it, but just off the implants.

19:46
And for ease of numbers, again, $1,500 in implant times 24 times 10. So we’re looking at what’s that going to be. Um, and we should have thought of that before we started doing this. I have a math geniuses here. So I got my calculator here. So we’re doing 24 a year. Yeah. Sure. Just let’s say 1500 surgical, just the surgical part, right? Yeah. Just that’s pretty cheap. That’s, that’s 36,000 a year. And then times 10. And you, you’ve done that 10 years ago.

20:15
That’s $360,000. So this is way on the low end too. Way on the low end. Like we said, we’re not adding the surgical bone grafting, ridge preservation, membrane, all of this. Crown part of it, any of that. And like I said, it’s longer than 10 years, but just easy math off 10 years, that $10,000 investment has turned into well over $360,000 of production. So you look at that, implants.

20:42
Visalign, I think you and I talked about that. You were very instrumental in gently nudging me to pursue that. Cause I was late at bringing that into my practice, but that’s another one. You know, you pay six, $7,000 for a course. You go learn it, you practice it. And thankfully I’ve got good relationships with my orthodontist where they can help me too, to the point where you get comfortable and then you start turning out some of those cases again, your profit start production starts to go up. So I don’t think it.

21:11
needs to merely be all cosmetic. Yes, cosmetic is good, but I think that’s a trap that some pitfalls, some dentists fall into is they all think, I wanna be a cosmetic dentist. Like, you know, there’s other ways to make a lot of money without getting in over your head either. Cause the implants I do, I’m pretty conservative. If it’s difficult, I send it off. Same with the root canal, if it’s difficult, I send it off. Orthodontic case, if it’s difficult, I send it off. I know my limits, but just bringing in some of those. Yeah, that’s good.

21:38
and getting the continuing education. There was a while there that I was averaging about 75 hours of CE a year earlier in my career to make that difference and help. Yeah. Now I would say that that KPI for me shows up on the tracker, your coaching tracker, that shows up, the ROI on that is your production per patient increase. So I just so happen to have your.

22:05
your tracker here for 2019 and your production, oh, cause you started late that year. Let’s say it was under 400 per patient, let’s say. So it looks like, okay. Now your production, this is just on the doctor’s side. Now your production patient is 627. Oh, almost a $200 per patient increase. Another 50% increase. Yeah, just to give everyone an idea, it’s like.

22:32
You can’t really do that in hygiene. You can keep the hygiene schedule full. You can increase your fees. You can go to network insurance, but getting the patient healthier faster is really one of the key cogs in making this all transpire for you. The schedule’s gotta be full, but too many patients is a problem. Not enough patients is a problem. It’s finding that right number of patients and getting them doing as much dentistry per sit down as possible. We’ve shifted in that over the years.

23:00
and it’s great to watch on the tracker. Well, you and I have talked about it before. Off the top of my head, I want to say there’s only three ways that you can make more money. Grow practice, yeah. Yeah, to increase your production. One is be faster, which obviously there’s a limit on that. You’re not gonna just always gonna be able to go faster, faster, faster. Number two, oh sorry, there are four. So number two is see more patients. And again, there’s a limitation there. You’re gonna cap out. There’s only so many hours in a day.

23:30
Uh, number three is, um, do more of the high dollar items. Like we said, like cosmetic dentistry, ortho root canal implants, that kind of stuff. And then number four is charge more. So when you started working with me, I was already pretty fast and it was already pretty full with the chair time. So we just needed to bring in some more of the high dollar. You were super busy. Way too busy in fact. And then the last one was where we really made the big difference is charge more.

24:00
And if you’re in network with every insurance and all your patients are in network with those insurance plans, you’re at a set limit. You cannot rise above that. So that’s why you have to. Would you say that’s one of your key factors here after expanding in clinical expertise? Would you say insurance freedom is another thing? Absolutely. And like you said, wealth is number five on that list. Going out of network has benefited us so much in many other ways with. Yeah.

24:28
We all as an office enjoy our job more because we’re not diagnosing by what the insurance says. You know, if there’s a patient that has a vertical root fracture, I give them the options. Like you can do a flipper, you can do a bridge, you can do an implant. And there’s some of those insurance companies like, yeah, we’re not going to pay for an implant. And the patient’s like, well, then I’m not doing an implant. So now that I’m out of network, we have that freedom to give them the best option. And they’re like, you know what? I really like the idea of that implant. We’re having to take this flipper in and out.

24:58
So it’s just patients love it more, we love it more. It’s great. Yeah. When, and you did a, so let’s just, it’s like, I hate it when people go, yeah, go insurance free. All right, go do that, you know, but give some, maybe pull the curtain back a bit and just, what was your vision on that? How did you go through that? You don’t have to get in the nuts and bolts of it so much, but maybe just give a few things that you’re like, okay, I didn’t know this, I did that, I didn’t do this. How did you go about changing your practice from this in network?

25:27
PPO type practice that was maybe had a ceiling to now, really you decide the ceiling. Yeah, I’d say it went better than I thought it would. Just give that preface, it went a lot better and a lot smoother than I thought it would. I was a lot more fearful than I should have been. But the reason it went better than we thought it would was because we had laid the groundwork already with creating that value for our patients. Like I said, the customer service. Because the value was there, it went.

25:56
Way better. We were afraid that, okay, we’re gonna drop this insurance plan and we’re gonna have a bunch leave. And the reality is because of creating that value and the conversations we had with them leading up to dropping it off and preparing our patients, we lost very few patients. And in fact, the funny part of it is, the ones that did leave, which we, you know, we didn’t put up a fight, we didn’t try to be the used car salesman. We just told them, it’s like, look, we understand. Just know that we’re here for you. If you ever decide to come back, we’d love to have you.

26:25
And it’s funny, the six months, they’d go to the other office to get a cleaning. Six months later, so the one year mark, we had so many of them calling us out, like, you know what, we don’t wanna go anywhere but with you guys, we’re coming back. So. I have a saying with insurance freedom, it’s like, this is your checklist. I need you to be, this is a gut check. You know, are your patients in love with your PPO contract or are they in love with you? Yeah. If they married you, if they married you for the money or they married you because they really fell in love with you, then being insurance free.

26:54
And let’s be honest about that too. You still get insurance checks sent to your office. Yeah, that’s, we’re not trying to pressure people to be fee for service. That’s different, but being free of restrictive insurance is where you got your place. So now you set your fees. You’re not gouging patients, but you’re not taking a 40% hit. And it shows the numbers. Patients are still saying yes at a higher rate. Yep. And we still submit their insurance for them. We still help them out. So yeah, we’re still helping them. They’re not.

27:22
you don’t let their insurance go by the wayside. It’s still a great benefit for them. Yeah. Are you in network with any insurances anymore? No, we have been completely insurance free for eight months now. Yeah. And Delta was the last one. Yep. So which we like to put Delta last. So again, if you’re interested in something like that, just email Heather, Heather, alls We’ll get you started, no charge. We’ll just get you going in the right direction and help you out. And then if-

27:50
If coaching is a thing for you, we’d love to help out. So I think for me, that’s giving you number one on the types of wealth that are better than money. Number one is time. And you know, Warren Buffett might be a billionaire, but nobody’s trading lives with him, the guy’s 95, you’re not going to swap lives with him just because he’s got billions of dollars. Why? You got one to five more years left of life. So there’s nothing more valuable in time we have. And I.

28:16
I can’t, I love following you and Christian like on social media. It is just an absolute hoot. You guys have how many kids? We have six. Six kids. You guys are gone every other weekend? Pretty much. Yeah. We, when we try to take a one week vacation every quarter, every three months. So we play a lot. You guys play a lot. You’re, you’re pouring into your kid that time and relationship, one and two on the list, you do a alternate schedule. You work.

28:43
three days and then four days. Is that how you do it? No, so I work. Oh no, Monday, Friday, that’s right. So I will do Monday to Thursday one week, and then I take Friday off, Monday off, and then Tuesday to Friday the next week. So every other weekend’s a four day weekend. Love it. And those are the weekends that I’m seeing on social media where you guys are blowing up some lake or some ski mountain somewhere. Yeah. Yeah, we love to play. And you know, it really truly is number one time. And I think another is talking about the pitfalls dentists fall into.

29:13
They are trying so hard to build and grow their practice in their 30s and 40s. And unfortunately, that happens to be the same time when your kids are young and at home. And I think far too many dentists are buried in their work, working too many hours. And while their kids are home, they’re not creating those memories. They’re not creating those experiences. They’re not developing that relationship. And then I see…

29:39
You know, when the dentists finally hit, you know, 50 years old, they’re like, okay, I’ve got the wealth that I want. I’ve got the freedom I wanted. Let’s go play. And their kids like, well, who are you, man? You weren’t around at my football games or my choir practice. You weren’t there. So it’s critical to have that balance. Couldn’t agree more. I got to coach or assistant coach my boys growing up, you know, and all, all the way through high school. It was, it was amazing to be able to be there and all those experiences, not just be.

30:08
You know, I would love to have been a fan of the stands. That’s part of it too, but to be, you know, so connected and be on the school trips with them and do that, you can’t do that if you don’t set your time up properly. And I love how you guys have set your time up for your family. It’s wonderful to see. And I think your team really loves it too. They do. And I’ve told all of them, I said, look, families first. If you’re, if you get a call from the school that your child’s sick, please go, go take care of them. If something else comes up with family, it’s like.

30:36
Yes, we need you here at your job. We need to make money. But at the end of the day, I want you to know we have flexibility that there’s a day that you need to duck out at three 30 instead of five because your kids, you know, in this baseball tournament that you want to go to, please do so. Yeah. It’s what matters. And it’s honestly what drew me to dentistry way back when I was in high school and I was trying to decide what I wanted to do for profession. I loved the lifestyle of dentists because I also two other

31:03
I was looking at was thinking to be an attorney like my grandpa and I was thinking of being a physician and let me tell you the word life balance of attorneys It’s horrible. They saw and I remember I would ask all of the professionals that I was interviewing When I was shadowing them I’d ask if you could do it all over again Would you do the same thing? I never met a single attorney that said that they would do it again They’re all like no this sucks. I hate it I do something else the physicians and this is back in the 1990s before insurance was

31:31
horrible like it is now for medical physicians were split 50 50 50% of them said I hate it. I wouldn’t do it again. At that time I had never met a single dentist that wouldn’t do it again. And I, I, again, I’ve served as president of the Utah dental association. I’ve interacted with thousands of dentists and there are some, but compared to most professions, I think the work life balance that you have to be able to spend time with your family, friends and have that autonomy. Yeah, it’s rare. It is rare. So true.

32:01
And I know that what you’re speaking is facts because I’ve seen the TV show Suits and I’ve seen Grey’s Anatomy. So I know that those are facts. Holy truth. All right. Wonderful. What else would you say is on your list of, Hey man, I want to, if I had to go back and give some myself some advice or a young dentist out there, if I could just get them to do this, what’s one other thing you’d suggest? Um, lastly, I’d say don’t neglect your physical health. Um, it’s.

32:29
It’s so critical to just stay healthy, stay in good shape. Um, man, now I’m, I’m drawn deep on, I cannot remember the statistics, but I want to say something like 35% or so about a third of all dentists are going to end up having, being forced to retire early due to health problems, you know, bad back, bad neck, um, cardiovascular disease, whatever it is, they, there is a, it’s a, it was a lot higher than I anticipated.

32:58
So about a third of all dentists are going to be forced to retire early for health problems. And, you know, it’s, I view it as a marathon, not a sprint. I’m in this for the long haul, you know, aiming to retire at the age of 62. And I want it to be something that I enjoy. And I don’t want to be miserable. I don’t want to be suffering as I’m in the dental chair. And our, we have a lot of control over that. If we start early and work on our physical health.

33:24
So first of all, 72% of all statistics are made up on the spot. So you’re fitting right in, okay? But I did go, I went to the chat. 30 to 40% of dentists retire earlier than planned with a significant portion citing health related issues as the primary reason, musculoskeletal, chronic hand and wrist, vision, stress and burnout. So- Now that I’m a statistic, I was right there. Yeah, British Journal 1997, premature retirement, same sort of thing.

33:54
29.5% of the cases, while other health issues in addition to that, cardiovascular and everything. So yeah, physical wellbeing. So funny enough, number three on the list ahead of money is healthy mind and body. So how do you do that then? What’s your trick? What would you say? Hey, this is, you’re not feeling it right now, young dentist, but here’s what’s gonna happen. What would you say? A few things. First and foremost, you need to…

34:23
put it on the calendar and schedule it. It needs to be, if you’re not scheduling it, it’s not gonna happen. You’re gonna find excuses or things are gonna come up or they’re gonna distract you, but you need to find, for physical health for example, find a time of day that works for you, whether it’s morning or evening. For me, morning works better, because in the evening, speaking of distractions, there’s this meeting, there’s this activity for my kids. So I get up, my wife and I, we just get up in the morning. It’s on the schedule, it’s expected. We get up at 5.30 and.

34:52
get in a good workout. So I think that’s probably one of the most important things is just commit to it and put it on the calendar. What’s the book? Why do I have this thing sitting here that I squeeze every day? What’s that book? You gave me this, you gave me this thing. I’m squeezing it. What’s this thing called? It’s this to work on your grip strength. Yeah, it’s a grip strength thingamajig. And my clients will hear this clicking when I’m sitting here and all they like, I’m sitting here all day long. And I’m like, well, gosh darn it, Cody told me I better be able to grab a handrail when I’m 90. So.

35:22
My grip strength is really getting up there. So what was the book that you got that from though? The book is Outlive by Dr. Peter Atiyah. Amazing book. It’ll be eye-opening for people. And then with that grip strengthener, what it is, they have found a great predictor of how long you’re gonna live is grip strength. That’s especially in your 60s, 70s and 80s. If you have a good grip strength, you most likely will live healthy longer. Whereas if you are really weak,

35:52
with your grip strength. It was just one of many, but it was just kind of fun for our mastermind retreat to get that. That was a hoot. That was a hoot, and watching you do the splits was a hoot too, that was impressive. So this guy’s in good physical shape. He’s still on the wakeboard. He’s on the, are you snowboarding or are you ski? He, so I did, started skiing when I was five years old, and then in my early 20s I converted to snowboarding, which love, snowboarding in powder is pretty close to heaven. But.

36:20
When I went to dental school, I realized talking with a friend of mine who’s an orthopedic surgeon, the number one injuries for snowboarders is broken wrists. And, and I was like, yeah, that’s kind of problematic as a dentist. Whereas the number one injury for snow skiing is knees and legs. Oh, I can stomp on the rheostat with a cast on my leg. That’s fine. As long as I check my hands. So I went back to skiing. So now I’m a ski. So good. So true. So I’m going to go back to this list for everyone and we’re going to correlate this.

36:48
to the four types of wealth that are more important than just monetary wealth, okay? So you said, I don’t know why I knew we were gonna correlate that today. That was not the plan. I just knew knowing you, this is what we were gonna look at. Number one, hire the right people team. Always be hiring and always be training. So number four on the list is personal growth. People want a place to grow. The money is good, but I also gotta pour into my people and they gotta be training. So.

37:16
All-Star obviously plays a huge role in that for you, your clinical training, et cetera. Customer service was number two. You said training there as well. Quality of dentistry is a part of that as well. Number three, expand your clinical expertise. Implants, Invisalign, full mouth, restoring dentistry. Hardly personal growth to do, by the way. Yes, it is. It’s not just money, the personal growth and satisfaction of being able to help people if you enjoy it. Now, if you hate root canals and never wanna do it.

37:44
It’s awesome that in dentistry we have that ability, but I get a lot of satisfaction from helping people in many different ways. Yeah, yeah, there’s reward in that. You’re getting, you just, you’re getting paid and you’re loving what you do. I think that’s a part of this. So one, for me, this is just my list, by the way, I reorganize this however you want, but time, relationship, healthy mind, healthy body, and then personal growth opportunity, then financial reward. Those are the five, just that people are trying to pay attention to what those five things are.

38:14
You said, hire the right people team, customer service, expand your clinical expertise, insurance freedom, physical health is a priority. Anything else you wanna add to that list? I think you hit on it too, you touched on it in terms of health, it’s not just physical, you’ve got the physical, the emotional and spiritual health. You’ve gotta have that balance because if you’re struggling with anxiety, depression, which dentistry’s a grind, I mean it’s like a millstone on dentist work.

38:42
Oftentimes working alone, we’re not surrounded by other colleagues and it can just wear you down. I once had it explained to me why dentistry is so hard. I can’t remember who said it, a professor or a friend said dentistry is like having the expectations of performing things to the level perfection of Swiss watch but doing it in a dark, damp environment while you’re wrestling with cheeks and tongues. And I was like, yeah, it’s true. We were expected

39:11
to do perfect work, the precision level, and yet it is highly anxious. You got people that are wiggling all over the place while your hand piece is 300,000 RPMs. You’re juggling all these hats of being the accountant, the marketing agent, the CEO, the CFO. It’s like all these hats that you’re doing in addition to being a dentist, it’s hard. It’s a grind, so you gotta work on mental health. And they don’t believe you, because it doesn’t hurt. They don’t wanna pay you.

39:40
They’re terrified of it. Your team is complaining to you about things. I mean, the three hats you wear, if we go back to that, so you’re an artist, you know, clinically, you’re an entrepreneur, because you own a business, and you’re a leader of people. And you have to wear all three of those hats. And most people neglect the bottom two, and they just wear the artist hat. They just want to do amazing dentistry and all that. It’s like, okay, yeah, but again, it’s not just about the teeth. Now,

40:08
which comes first, the chicken or the egg here. You gotta be a clinical master. You gotta simultaneously work on your leadership skills. You gotta simultaneously know your KPIs and work on your business skills and your interpersonal skills. When you’re talking about being a leader, you’re leading your patients to health. That’s a verbal skill to learn. So it all falls under that umbrella of leadership or manager, however you wanna do it. To do the artistry, you’ve got to be someone who could communicate well.

40:36
I love Daniel Pink’s book, To Sell as Human. I hate the word sell. And he talks about hating the word sell in there. And yet, at the end of the day, he’s talking about, hey, selling just means moving a human being. And what we’re doing is moving a human being to health. So by definition, call it whatever you want, case presentation, case acceptance, treatment planning, co-diagnosis, whatever that is. But the process of moving someone into a better position,

41:06
whether they pay you or not is still a sell. It’s still a process. And I don’t like the S word. I really don’t, but I don’t know how else to say it other than we got to communicate effectively to get to the artistry. You know, and I’m right there with you. I hate sales. I did a summer sales program once when I was in college. I just, I don’t like sales. I don’t like being pushy. I don’t like forcing on people. And it’s funny, the older I’ve gotten and the more I’ve done the training with you with All-Star Dental Academy, the more my eyes have been opened that it’s…

41:35
The reason we hate sales is because we do it wrong. And I remember I heard a quote, I saw this interview with Jordan Belfort, anybody that’s seen Wolf of Wall Street, that’s him. He made gobs of money. But they were interviewing him about sales and he said whenever he was interviewing- Sell me this pen, sell me this pen, is that him, right? Sell me this pen and people were like, oh, this is the best pen ever, this and that. He’s like, that’s what we think of as sales. And he said, the reality is the people I hired were like,

42:04
So tell me, you’re looking for a pen? What kind of pen have you had in the past? What have you liked? And he said, true cells is learning about the person that you’re trying to sell to, learning about them, what do they want? What do they need? And then you’re better able to help them. So with dentistry, an example, I’m not pushing things on them. I’m learning like, what do you need? What do you want? And then we can help them see what helps them. That’s right.

42:29
I think honestly, the reason most of us hate sales is because we do it wrong. And we’re doing it the pushy way and it’s not how it’s meant to be. We call it relational sales. I still don’t like the S word, but I don’t know how else to get there. Relational communication. If you want to call it that at the end of the day, we don’t have jobs. We don’t get people healthy. If we don’t understand a technique, a process, a system for communicating. So our case presentation system, I think is a phenomenal system. It’s long to learn.

42:58
You’ve mastered it quickly, I think. You’ve done our level one mastery, you’ve done our level two mastery, you’ve done coaching, in addition to your online training for phone skills and customer service skills. So you guys are in the personal growth pattern for sure. And I think it’s paying off for your ROI is incredible. But to go back to your point, emotional, spiritual health, my wife is a therapist, she does therapeutic coaching for our clients at All-Star and dentistry needs that.

43:27
Burnout is a normal thing. Stress levels are very high for dentists because of those three hats they wear. And we all need to support each other in those. And it’s okay to talk about that. Back to, I don’t think we’re transparent enough. So, you know, being healthy in mind, spirit, emotion, completely agree with you. What have you done, I guess, to be emotionally healthy? A few things. One, I love to read. I love books. You know, I try to read a couple books a month.

43:57
I love a lot of those. I mean, I kind of hate the term self-help books, improvement books, whatever you want. There’s a lot of great books out there. Personal growth books, personal growth books. I like that term better. Personal growth books is a lot better. I love learning and just constantly doing check-ins with myself. Like, what can I be better at? What am I doing well at? So that one’s helped me a lot with my emotional health. Yeah, that’s good. You mentioned too, I think just getting up early and going to the gym, that’s probably really…

44:27
You know, of course it’s physical health, but it’s connecting physical and emotional health to you. You know, we have, my wife says the same human being that’s at home under stress is the same human being that shows up at work stressed. And we have to deal with all of that at the same time. We can’t compartmentalize and think, oh, if I just push that down, I’m gonna be okay at work. It’s gonna shine through. And you may not think it is, but people are noticing it for sure. Okay, I laugh because I can’t believe I forgot this. I’m sitting and thinking, what else do I do for emotional health?

44:56
up vacations and playtime. Hello. It’s huge. So by increasing our production, like you said, showed my 2019 numbers, like 2024 numbers, by increasing my production, I was able to then still pay all the bills, my student loans, my mortgage and all that. And I was able to back it off to a strict four day work week. I was no longer going in that fifth day a week. So we, what year did I do that? I want to say it was.

45:25
It was the first year I made that strict goal. So I lost about 12 working days that year and we still produced more money. So finding the time off, finding vacations, finding hobbies outside of work. I’m fortunate that my wife and I share a lot of the same hobbies. We love to snow ski, wake surf, mountain bike, hike. We love to get outside and be outside and have fun. And that is huge for your emotional health and wellbeing. And there’s

45:54
Again, that book outlived, there’s a lot of things in there that point to it, that getting outside, you know. Yeah. You, you went in 2022 from 1400 hours to 2023, less than 1300 hours. You took 114 fewer hours worked in one year. Yeah. And, and, and grew in that insurance. Freedom’s a part of that case. All of it’s just this mix, this DNA strand of how you really put it together so beautifully. That’s why you’re on the practice spotlight. Because.

46:23
It really is a model for people to follow. And what we need to do, my wife hates when I use this word, tangibleize it. It’s not a word, I don’t care, but we need to make it so that people can grab this, this, one of my first mentors said, don’t invent mediocrity, copy genius. And I don’t need to pick it, and I don’t need to mimic you, I don’t need to be exactly like you, but I’m gonna pick something out of this and go, oh gosh, I always thought, should I do that? Or should I do that? Okay, let me just do one of these things right now. Master that.

46:52
and then go on to the next thing, master that. You’re not gonna get it all at once. Is that fair? And I love that point because I’ve often told my wife, I am not a visionary. I’m not the kind of guy like a Steve Jobs that can see something that hasn’t been done before and be like, this is what I wanna do. Or an Elon Musk with like SpaceX and be like, you know what, we can do it. I’m not a visionary. What I am good at, I would say one of my great personal skills is observation. I can observe those who are successful.

47:20
or those that are not successful. And I can start to see, you know, just like, I remember back in undergrad when I was taking a molecular biology class and my professor was just saying, he’s like, all I’m really trying to teach you to do is recognize data, recognize charts, try and get a takeaway and be like, this is what’s happening here. So I’ll observe successful practices around me and I’ll see, okay, what are they doing that’s working? And then I will copy it.

47:46
And same thing in my personal life. I’ll look at successful husbands, fathers, and I’m like, hey, what is that husband doing that he’s so happy, such a successful marriage? I wanna copy that. Cause I am not a visionary. It’s just, I was not blessed with that ability. I’m the same as you in that regard, and that I love, for me, it’s reading books. Like we’ve mentioned some today. It’s you are the five people you hang out with the most. It’s mentorship, it’s mastermind, it’s connection with people.

48:15
I want to surround myself with people that I think are doing the right things, moving in the right direction and just start to glean and start to pull. And there are some people I’m like, okay, I know I’m not doing that. And I think that’s fair too. And to each his own, that person may love what they’re doing, but that’s not my ideal. So I love what you shared today. I think this has been wonderful. For those that are listening, before I wrap up, anything else you want to add? Any, any little flavor, or do you think, think we hit the nail on the head here with these topics?

48:44
I think we hit the nail on the head. Yeah. Okay. I think so too. It’s possible, again, going back to those young dentists, it’s possible to love what you do in dentistry, which I know after the grind of dental school and the grind early in your career doesn’t seem like it, but I really do. I can go on a week long vacation. My wife and I went to Turks and Caicos for our anniversary in January. Amazing island. Had a ton of fun. And when I was on the plane trip back home, I was legitimately kind of excited for some of the cases coming up at work. Yeah.

49:13
Do you look forward to Friday or do you look forward to Monday? And, you know, you got to look forward to both. I need a reward at the end of my week, but I also am so excited that I get to work in this profession. I promise you there aren’t many professions where you can work like this four days a week, earn a living and hit these five types of wealth and be fulfilled. Now, here’s what I’d say to you. If you’re not loving it, what would it take for you to love it?

49:42
start writing out the things that would have to change for you to love them. And then the second question becomes, what would it take to make those things happen? And we just, and that’s what we do in coaching every year. We’re all right, there’s your goal. What’s it gonna take to make that happen? We start laying out an action plan and going for it. So thank you again, Dr. Calderwood for doing this. We can spend another hour talking about this stuff. I love what you guys are doing in your practice in Park City, Utah. Love the team you have. I love your outlook, your family’s beautiful. And so thank you for shedding some light and pulling the curtain back for us on this month’s

50:12
All-Star Practice Spotlight. I really appreciate you. Well, thank you. And thanks for all your help. You’ve been amazing. Thank you. Yes. Coaching, coaching helps. And, uh, part of the, it is part of that case acceptance training, you know, you, you spent time and money and invested in yourself to do that. And the ROI has been. 20 fold. I don’t know what it is. We have to do the math sometime. We should probably look at it and see what you spent with All-Star and your CE and all that and what that’s turned into for you. Cause it’s definitely a plus you’ve, you’ve implemented well. All right.

50:41
So for those that have listened this long, thank you so much for listening. Please do me a favor and forward this to someone that you think needs to hear it. Just forward this to one or two people. I think that would be amazing blessing for them. And of course, like, subscribe to the channels, YouTube, the podcast, all of that. And if you just want some help, if you just need someone to help you, please don’t be shy, just email Heather at alls She loves that, she loves to help. We’ve got a group of 10 coaches who would love to help you.

51:10
Check out AllS for more information. Come to our May event in Austin. It’s May 14th, sorry, May 15th, 16th to 17th. You hear all of this in a nice, pretty package and we’ll welcome you into the group and love on you. So again, thank you guys. Have a wonderful rest of your week and until next time, go out there and be an All Star.