The following is an excerpt from Module One of Mark McNulty’s new book, The $6 Million Dentist: Successful Succession in 8 Modules
How Am I Doing Compared To My Colleagues?
I can honestly say that some of the greatest financial minds I know are those of dentists. These dentists didn’t start out this way. In fact, they made a lot of mistakes. But they learned from those mistakes to go on to become what you and I would consider great financial success stories. This group has a great deal to teach us about what works and what doesn’t. In fact, they don’t just have a lot to teach us – they want to teach us. That’s why I wrote this book.
You see, dentists don’t talk to each other about their finances. They may hint sometimes at their successes, but they rarely mention the financial mistakes they’ve made. This means dentists miss out on the opportunity to learn from one another. That’s too bad, because learning from someone else’s mistakes can be far less costly than learning from your own.
I believe one of the problems in our society is that we are all expected to be fiscally intelligent. It is embarrassing to screw up, especially if you lose a lot of money. People want guarantees when it comes to financial decision making and predicting the future. The problem, often, is that those who provide that security don’t know what they’re talking about. As the British philosopher Bertrand Russell put it, “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wise people so full of doubts.”
I have had the benefit of learning from a financially savvy group of dentists during the past twenty years. I have also learned from dentists who did not achieve a high level of financial success. These experiences have had a great impact on my life, my business, and the families I work with at McNulty Group.
My goal in writing this book is to share these experiences with you. I want to help you understand how we structured our clients’ lives so they could best achieve financial success and a sustainable retirement. I also want to provide a venue for this elite group of dentists to share their experiences, in the hope their input will improve your life, your practice, and the lives of those around you.
ONE CHANCE TO SELL- ONCE CHANCE TO RETIRE – ONE CHANCE TO GET IT RIGHT.
Who should read this book? Over the past twenty years, we have written four books on the topic of retirement planning for dentists and for business owners in general. When we published The Transition Coach – A Dentist’s Guide to Financial Independence in 2004, we learned how important a title can be. Many dentists we talked to about the book said, “I’m not transitioning yet”. However, planning for retirement does not begin when you are ready to sell your practice.
This new book is written for the baby boomer dentist. However, I cannot tell you the number of dentists in their fifties we have heard from who have sincere regrets and say, “I would be so much better off now if I had started this type of planning years ago”. While we have written this book for the demographic that is the focus of our practice, our hope is that it will also be a useful tool for dentists at all stages. I know this is also a goal of those dentists who contributed their experiences and advice to the book.
WE ARE LOOKING FOR FEEDBACK.The reason we have written this book in modules is that it provides us with the flexibility to add to current modules, and to add entirely new modules. We expect to do this as we experience new situations, and as things change. Any input you, the reader, can provide to that end would be greatly appreciated.
The writing of this book is intended to respect your time. We tried to make our points concise. Since this will be an ongoing and evolving work, if there is any area you would like us to expand upon we would appreciate your feedback.
