The Key to Big Change Lies in Small Changes with Reese Harper

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On today’s episode, Reese Harper joins us to talk about why many dentists are not retiring or scaling back on working as early as planned. Reese explores the different financial areas where dentists tend to go wrong with their planning and why dentistry in general has an issue with misunderstood and mismanaged finances. He really gives an interesting perspective on why dentists should be focusing on their net worth when it comes to achieving their long and short term goals.

Reese emphasizes why making small, incremental changes will be better for your business in the long run. He also discusses different traps dentists fall into and how to know a good financial advisor from a sales-person. We wrap up with a conversation on what exactly net worth is and explore various ways to keep track of it and make sure your practice and spending are in line with your goals.

Key Quotes:

“We’re so focused on improving the practice that we don’t even care what our own personal wealth is, but man, we know our collections so well. And our personal wealth is not subjective, it’s a number that is as tangible as collections.”
“Personal finance is 80% about behavior and only about 20% about knowledge.”
“Not only are they high achieving, but they’re actually, really kind of giving, benevolent people, so they end up giving to their patients, giving to their teams, giving to their families, giving to their communities.. and not really being a good steward with self-care, whether that be health or finance and that causes a lot of struggle and strife.”
“When we feel like there’s something wrong, we want to make a big adjustment.”
“They become really big targets for people that are selling things to them.”
“When you hire a financial advisor, you just hope you’re hiring someone that can really help you make sense of all your finances, not just sell you stuff.”
“Making a lot of money is not the same as being worth a lot.”
“The definition of financial freedom is just being able to replace your lifestyle without having to work.”
“Look at what you need based on what you spend.”