Dentists Who Invest Podcast
Official Podcast of the Dentists Who Invest platform. Talking all things investing, money and finance with a dental spin. Have you ever wondered how you can grow your wealth and protect your hard earned money as a Dentist? We've got you covered. Featuring famous guests such as Andrew Craig, Edward Zuckerberg and Benyamin Ahmed we delve deep into EVERY aspect of finance to educate and empower ALL Dentists.
Dentists Who Invest Podcast
Why Business Planning Can Save Your Bacon with Arun Sachdev DWI-EP310
You can download your FREE report on how you can avoid financial mistakes as a dentist using the link just here >>> dentistswhoinvest.com/podcastreport
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Think mastering modern accounting software could boost your dental practice’s profitability? You’re absolutely right! In this episode, I chat with Arun Sachdev, a specialist accountant for dentists, who shares his top financial planning hacks. We’ll dive into why ditching old-school accounting methods and switching to tools like Xero, QuickBooks, and FreeAgent can keep you on top of real-time financial data. Arun’s got loads of tips on financial monitoring, tax planning, and how having a dedicated accountant or bookkeeper can ensure your practice keeps growing strong.
Struggling with business partnerships in your dental practice? Arun’s got you covered! We discuss how smart financial planning, clear roles, and leveraging everyone’s strengths can help keep that cash flowing nicely. Drawing from principles in “The E-Myth,” we chat about the habits of successful dentists and why structured systems make all the difference between thriving and just surviving.
And it’s not all about the business – we’ll get into personal finance too. Arun shares a story about an associate dentist facing tax issues and gives practical advice on how to stay financially accountable. He’ll also shed light on why tracking expenses with the right financial tools is essential, and how social media’s flashy portrayal of wealth isn’t all it seems. Don’t miss out – tune in for some brilliant insights and learn how a free initial consultation with Arun could help you nail your financial planning strategy!
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Disclaimer: All content on this channel is for education purposes only and does not constitute an investment recommendation or individual financial advice. For that, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional. The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you invest. The views expressed on this channel may no longer be current. The information provided is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and all tax rules may change in the future. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional.
Hey team, another episode of Dentists Who Invest Podcast. I have been meaning to do this episode since way back when, and you know what I always think to myself we're like 305 episodes in and I'm like when are we going to run out of content? But it hasn't happened yet and I don't think there's any sign of stopping anytime soon, because I still haven't got around to doing this particular subject matter at hand that we're going to talk about today and that is planning hacks for dentists. Specifically from a dental specialist account and somebody who sees this stuff day in, day out because I guarantee a lot of dentists out there from what I'm able to see and listeners of this podcast, we could always have a better, better handle on our numbers, and that inevitably manifests as some sort of saving or increased profitability in our business. Arun, how are you?
Arun:I'm very good, very good Yourself.
Dr James:Hey man, I'm good, I'm busy. You were off on holiday recently, weren't you? Yes?
Arun:I've been on a lot of holidays, a lot of holidays. My tan is still on.
Dr James:Good stuff. Life is better with a tan, they say Arun.
Arun:Yeah, it is, it is. Yeah, I've never quite experienced.
Dr James:Uh, you know, I think that's something to do with my complexion. Well, it is to do with my complexion, but anyway, we're going to talk about business hacks today. We're going to keep a super high level and we're just going to have some fun. Really, we haven't really got any specific set list of things that we want to hit. It's more freestyle than anything else, so we can jump straight in if you like, Arun, if that sounds fun yeah, great let's do that, why not?
Dr James:so, Arun, you and I were actually talking. We were shooting a breeze a little bit just before we jumped on the air and hit the record button, and one thing that you mentioned that you feel would be really helpful to the guests is an understand, a better understanding of their numbers and potentially some sort of what. What's the category of software that zero falls under? What's that called?
Arun:yeah, I think just accounting software. Obviously there are others uh quickbooks, free agent, um, but zero for me is the best uh bookkeeping software on the market by yeah and here's the thing just before.
Dr James:Let's definitely jump into that in two seconds, but I feel like my own business journey. I didn't know what zero was until I was two years in I was just running everything through the accounts and uh yeah for me whenever I got that, well, what it meant was I knew how much I had to set aside for corporation tax and everything along those lines, and I bet you'll be a better person than asking me, but I bet that happens all the time with dental practices. Does it iron in your?
Arun:100. But you've got. You've got to go back in time, and the great thing about your podcast is you've got a wide variety of ages and specialisms and there will be some older accountants and older dentists and some younger dentists who will still relate to what I'm about to say, which is the old way of doing things, which is, if you're a principal this is mainly guided at principals and practice owners you trade for a year. During that year, you're dumping all your nhs statements, your supplier statements, your bills, your invoices, your bank statements. You're dumping them all into a crisp box and then three, four, five months after your years ended, you dump that box at your accountant. He then produces your accounts on 11 or 12 pieces of paper, calls you in and goes this is what happened last year and here's how much tax you have to pay as a result and you go. Thanks very much. My accountant's great. He's done a great job, because that's all you've ever known.
Arun:Fast forward to 2024. We just do not work like that anymore. What is the point in knowing what you did a year ago and what the result of that is? You need to know what you did now. You need to know what happened last month compared to the month before, either doing it internally, which means employing an accountant or part-time bookkeeper within your own business and, let's be honest, most people won't be able to afford that because accountants are not cheap anymore or you invest in technology and you have a proactive accountant who can produce this stuff in real time, because you can give the information to him in real time and therefore get real life data so you can react to what is going on in your business.
Dr James:Seems reasonable, and I know that that's a good thing to do, and maybe if we could just hone in on that a little bit more, what direct benefits would dentists have on that front? Can they plan better? They know how much to set aside for tax both those things and more.
Arun:Well, yes, so they know how much to set aside for tax both those things and more well, yes, so you can know what to set aside for tax, but most importantly, you can see what is going on in your business. You know, unless you are really stepping out of the business and just running it, then you can get a better grip on your financials. But if you're working in the practice, a lot of times you can be oblivious to it. So the point is that you analyze month on month and see what's happening. You know, is turnover going up month on month? You know, if you've got an nhs contract, it's going to be fixed, really, isn't it? Um, what an accountant's not going to do is making sure you're hitting your udas. That's that's on you. But if you're private, we want to be seeing that turnover going up. We're going to expect some quiet months. Generally christmas, january, it's going to be a quiet time. But you know, from april to november we want to see increases by one to two percent month on month.
Arun:You know, and, as a result, what is that costing? It's all well and good putting um, getting your turnover up, but if your costs are going out of control, proportionally or disproportionately, then you need to understand that and take a grip of it. And that's the kind of stuff that we we provide that kind of analytical know-how of your own business how well the dentists OK, and I take a 50, 50 view on this.
Arun:There are dentists who became dentists because they wanted to be involved in the medical field, ok, and their focus is really on the quality of dentistry. I represent a handful of dentists who have very little business knowledge. They really just love being a dentist, um, and that's great. And then you have others, um, who are very much all about the numbers. They're there to make money, um, and I'm not overly keen on what they're actually doing. So I think it's a 50, 50 split, but both sides need to have a grip on their numbers, um. So yeah, I would uh call it straight down the middle listen.
Dr James:There's got to be a balance in there. I think sometimes, uh, where somebody's belief system or mindset mindset can hinder their business, the willingness to think about the business side of things is they think or they have a belief system that the more they focus on the number side of things is actually the more of a how can we say the more of an inferior job they're doing for the patient, or they feel like that detracts from the care. But I actually it can. If you take it to an extreme and it becomes purely about money, I actually think those two things are the same. I really do. I think, really think those two things can be the same thing, because think about it like this if your business is profitable and efficient, you've got more to reinvest in the business, get better staff, get better equipment, better materials, and that actually helps you do a better job for the patient. So you just got to be mindful of that as well. Those two things can actually be linked and linked and synergized with each other.
Arun:Correct. But I also think, as in any business whether it's dentistry, accountancy, whatever you have to know your role. You have to know your role. And where I get frustrated with dentists is they try and be everything the marketeer, the website developer, the accountant, the computer networker. So you, you can't like focus right down the list that you are supposed to do. And one thing I promise you the bookkeeping and accounts are not on that list and if they are, you should consider a change in career. You should come and talk to me and get a job here. You've got to focus on dentistry and therefore you have to subcontract that service out to someone who knows what they're doing so that you can focus on patients, treatment plan, staff motivation, all the key aspects, rather than spending six hours a day working on your books because you don't want to pay the accountant.
Dr James:What other things do you feel like dentists could do better? Whenever it comes to their books, whenever it comes to accountancy, I get that we want to outsource it to somebody who's specialized, but what I mean is the stuff that they can do from their side Like Kiss and Point Zero is a classic example of that because what it will mean is number one they have real time data and also you have digitized data that you can use to create their accounts.
Arun:Correct. Well, implement the process. Other stuff similar to that. Other stuff similar to that. Well, implement the process. Let's be clear on what a dental practice is doing. Okay, so they are selling.
Arun:So let's say you're a mixed practice. So you've got your NHS statements. You can log into that. So give your accountant the login details for your NHS portal and let him log in. He's not going to mess up your contract. You know these are just statements, okay. So, given those, he can download those. Or get your practice manager. Download it. Stick it in a Dropbox. Give him access read-only access to your practice manager. Download it. Stick it in a drop box. Give him access read-only access to your um practice software so you can take the daily sales. So there's your income sorted. Okay, well, if you've got den plan, that's coming in by direct debit once a month anyway, so, um, so there's your income sorted expenditure.
Arun:Get a good bit of software. There's software called dext used to be called receipt bank, um. There's one called hubdoc and then there's a new one on the scene called apron. Personally, I like dext. Give it to your practice manager. Any invoices that come through by email. You get a forwarding email address. Just press forward straight to that address anything which comes in by paper. You know you've gone down to b&q and you bought some shelving for the practice. You've got an app on your phone, physically take a picture of the receipt, bang, go straight to Dex, straight to the accountant. So he's got all that, so he's got all your sales, he's got all your expenditure. And then we have something called a bank feed where Xero will connect directly to your bank account Again read-only access.
Arun:You can't log in and make payments or do anything like that. It downloads the previous day's bank transactions. So there you have it. You've got your bank statements, you've got your receipts, you've got your income. The only other things that might be required might be payroll. If your accountant is doing the payroll, he'll have the records anyway. If you're doing your own payroll, just give that data to the accountant. That's live data. We're not waiting for a year to get all that stuff and we're not making accounts which are relevant to the previous year. We're making it live month on month.
Arun:Especially if you're a new practice, especially if you're growing, you have to invest in that. If you're an established practice, you know you're making two, three, four hundred thousand pounds a year. Sales don't change. Expenses don't change. Making two, three, four hundred thousand pounds a year. Sales don't change. Expenses don't change. Everything goes up with inflation.
Arun:If that's what you want to do, fine, no need, do it once a year. But if you're young, driven and ambitious and really want to push on and you really want to make this a business and you want to focus on the numbers, then you have to do that. You simply have to. And I'm sure a lot of your listeners will have read Rich Dad, poor Dad, robert Kiyosaki, absolute genius. And he says in that book even if you're not an accountant, every good businessman, every good business and I can agree with that for all my clients have a really good basic understanding of accounts, profit and loss, balance sheet, balance sheet, assets, liabilities and cash flow. You don't have to be a qualified accountant, you just need to have a decent understanding and your accountant can teach you that. And once you can read those financials, once you can really see what's happening in your business, the planning you can do off the back of that, you know amazing taking notes over here right now.
Dr James:That is cool. That is cool. I love the saying you master what you measure. Every time I've bothered my backside to measure something. You can instantly see where the choke points are, but you can see what's going on.
Dr James:It's just so obvious. It you kind of pull it out of the ethereal, the indefinable and you're like, right there, that's the ball back. Something along those lines got a question. This is what popped into my head when you were talking just then. Naturally, you've seen the accounts for practices who are doing really well and you've seen the accounts for practices who could be doing better and everything else in between. What is your opinion, from your experience by the people who are doing really well and being really successful when it comes to the numbers side of things not the only metric, but it's we're talking about today versus people who are doing not so well?
Arun:what's the difference? A bunch of practices that we represent, um, instantly come to mind. I won't give any clues to who they are, because they will listen to this, they will get so big for their booze and they'll be asking me for a discount because they clearly realize I love them so much. Um, these guys, they have their systems and their processes nailed down. I I hate partnerships. I probably mentioned this on the last uh podcast.
Arun:When two friends come to see me, we're opening a business together, whatever business, or opening a dental practice together, I beg them not to say, please don't, because you will get this wrong and you will fall out and you'll. Just because you are two different people with two different ambitions, two different drives, two different lifestyles. I'm in a partnership. How do you? How do you decide that? But these two lads have got it nailed on and it's literally like they have written every single task down that the practices require and just done first one's name, second one's name and ticked the box for which each one will do, and never has a box got both of their names ticked in. I have never, ever seen the second partner. The account of finances is done with partner number one. I have never spoken to the second partner. He is kept well away from the books and part number one. He's kept well away from the staff, because part number two is really super friendly. So the most important thing, understand your strengths and weaknesses. Understand what you're good at and focus on that. And whatever you are not good at, keep away from that and find someone better to do it. So that's point number one.
Arun:Point number two stay on top of your finances. You know a number of people I say so. How much money is in the bank at the moment? I don't know. It needs to be part of your routine and when you wake up, you know you brush your teeth and certainly dentists I hope they do. Um, check your bank balance. I can tell you exactly how much money is in my bank account today. Yeah, you have to know that.
Arun:Uh, number three keep a cash flow forecast. Doesn't have to be anything technical, but you know roughly what's going to come in. You know how much comes in each month from the nhs. You know how much you roughly take from patients on the card throughout the month, what's going to be going out, when's the pay you, when's the tax due, what the wage is due. So do a very basic cash flow number of clients who ring me saying we're running out of cash. I thought we were making money. Well, no one told you to go and put a deposit down on the house which you can't afford. Um, I'm just going to grab two books while you're talking, because they're relevant this conversation, but I am continue to listen.
Dr James:I'm just going to grab two books while you're talking, because they're relevant to this conversation, but I am continuing to listen. I'm just going to go over here for a sec, but anyway, as you were saying, I didn't mean to barge in.
Arun:No, no, that's fine, but yeah, understanding your financials, good financial management, is absolutely key, and those who don't do it, surprisingly, they're the ones that struggle.
Dr James:Or maybe not so surprisingly right.
Arun:Yeah, well, yeah.
Dr James:Yeah, or maybe not so surprisingly right, yeah, well, yeah, yeah, surprising to them. Awesome on top of that, any more, any more common ones um, I think I've lost track of what I was saying.
Arun:What was the original question?
Dr James:the original question was so in your wisdom and experience, through seeing successful dental practices and not so successful practices, what are the successful ones doing differently in your view or from your observations?
Arun:Okay, so another one. So are we talking about successful people or successful dental practices? So successful dental practices.
Dr James:Okay, you've made a good juxtaposition there that I didn't consider Originally. I was focusing on dental practices, but we can pull in successful people as well well, I think lifestyle has a massive factor.
Arun:I've got one uh dental practice. He does phenomenal. I mean, we're talking hundreds of thousands of pounds of clear profit and he barely spends 30 grand a year. I think, well, this is easy, um, because there's no strain on cash flow, he gets his debt cleared really quickly and because he's not got a very lavish lifestyle, he has time to focus on what he's actually trying to achieve. You know he's just incorporated his practice, his NHS contract. I think he's acquired two new contracts, so his NHS contract is probably about 800,000. Incredible guy, um, incredible, incredible guy, um.
Arun:And then you've got guys who literally just they are. You speak to them, they're always panic, they're always stressed, everything's hard, everything's difficult, you know, and they're finding things difficult, which are normal parts of life. Oh, sorry, I couldn't get you my accounts over. I was moving house. Yeah, you're not the first person in the world to move house. Sorry, we've had a baby. Okay, guess what? We're humans. We've been having babies since time began.
Arun:Everything for them is difficult. So I think this personality comes to it. And then you know they have to have those three trips to Dubai, they have to have a brand new mercedes or porsche or whatever, and that puts strain on cash, then you're taking too much money out the company that puts the tax bill up. Where do you get the tax bill from the company? Um, and if you enter in this vicious cycle, and lo and behold, you know, you're just constantly chasing your tail, your debt's not going down, you're working every hour, god sends, whereas those that are structured, those that are disciplined, those who have an understanding this is how much I'm making each month, this is how much I need to save for the tax man and therefore this is what I can spend. With a good accountant, with good systems, with good processes in place.
Dr James:That is how you should operate when you were talking just a second ago, I went to grab two books. The first one I'm gonna bet my heart, you've read this book. The e myth yeah, there we go. I was waiting. Bet my house, you've read this book, the e myth yeah, there we go. I was waiting to see if you could fit it. You finished that sentence and yeah you did good, right, you know revisited man every. Okay, everybody. I've banged on about this book before on the podcast. I'm guessing you love this book.
Dr James:You really like it yes, but it's been a while since I read it oh, okay, okay, yeah, just when it, when it came to systemizing and protocols, I really feel shout out. The EMF Revisited today on the Tennessee Observer podcast. There's so many. There's lots of times I talk to principals and I really feel like if they knew what was in that book, they'd be able to get a lot of their time back, because it focuses on how you can make and it's something I'm going to make it sound really dry. It's actually not. It's really interesting. It's actually not. It's really interesting. It focuses on the power of protocols, how to make them and why they're so important and why they're probably the single biggest thing that will get you out of your own business a lot of the time.
Arun:But you bet you're, you're 100% right. Um, but I think our world's dental practice owners, accountancy practice owners, are full of narcissists.
Dr James:Yeah, I'm gonna say well, listen you know what this is fun because we welcome open discussion on this podcast.
Arun:Yeah, I'm intrigued well, you know I have extreme views, um, and I don't mind, uh, sticking to my guns on this. Yeah, look, look. Business owners are narcissists and they love the idea that their businesses can run without them. But do they really want that? Do they really not want to be the center of the spider web? Do they not really want to feel that important that everything has to go through them?
Arun:And I see it in my job all the time and I would like to think that I'm not that guy and that annoys some clients. You know so well, I never get to speak to you. What? Why should I pay you that? Because you don't do anything. I was like, yeah, but I need the money so I can pay the people who do do everything. Yeah, but I want to speak to you. I want to speak, and so well, you can't.
Arun:I run a business here and it runs on systems and processes and people, and that is what we do. And you can see, if that was them, they would hate it. They would hate it that someone wasn't asking them every single question about what to do. They want to feel super important, they want to feel like everything stops with them and all that happens is you're the cause of all the problems, you're the bottleneck, um, and so I think it's a great idea. I think it's a great concept, but I don't think most people, especially small business owners, are fully committed to making that happen it actually reminds me of another book called good to great yeah read it, come across it.
Dr James:Yeah, and the whole book is about what makes a good company versus what makes a great company. Yeah, and the? The book goes into all the details about how they explored this and they created data on this and they found that the great companies were the people who had how can we say they had the? They were. They were willing to take a backseat a lot more rather than force themselves to be center stage Because, as you say, it may not be the thing that you're making yourself be center stage, and A may not be your skill set and also B makes you the bottleneck for these important things, whereas if you can just have the ability to take a step back and not have that need to be the center of everything, you actually go further and faster with less effort. That's the positive of the book correct.
Arun:I always say to people you're the best dentist in the world and your work is a 10 out of 10 and you can operate for 30 40 hours a week. Would you not rather have? So? If you multiply that, you know 10 out of 10, 40 hours, 10 times 40 is 400. Would you rather not have five people working 40 hours a week who are eight out of 10? I need to get my calculator. But four people working five hours a week are eight out of 10, 160.
Arun:So have I got my maths right? Got my maths wrong? Not good for an accountant. But you see my, you see my point. You have to you have to yes, exactly that. You have to um, um, give up a bit of quality. The reality is you just think you're a 10. In actual fact you're probably not. Your associates are just as good as you. But you have to give up that analogy saying well, actually, if I can get my team to produce more than what I can do, then actually, if we're fully, fully focusing on the numbers and as accountants that's generally what we do um, then that's all that matters, right?
Dr James:well, it's, it's. It's how much you can get out of each and every hour. And if you're the constraint on how much you can get out of each hour, then you've got to look at yourself and figure out how you can remove yourself from the process harder easier said than done.
Arun:It's definitely easier said and I think it's easier said than done in in dentistry as well, because what I find with dentistsists I mentioned this in the last podcast, so forgive me for repeating myself I think with other careers there's generally an acceptance that the boss is the best and actually we don't want that responsibility.
Arun:What I find with dentistry is that every associate thinks that he will be a better principal than the principal himself, um, and therefore they're looking at the principal. Look, the junior, the kind of senior tax manager at kpmg is not looking at the senior partner going, um, I can do his job, I promise you. They know that that is a very different skill set and skills that they don't have at a four partner dental for surgery, dental practice. The associate is looking at the partner and one saying he's taking 50 on my income, which I find preposterous. Um, equally the associates, the, the partner saying the associate's taking 50 of his income. So one of them is right, one of them is wrong, um, but also I think a lot of associates have this dream and ambition to be a partner and therefore, um, you're going to have a high turnover of stuff. So building a team in a dental practice, building a team of good associates is very difficult, because associates will one day turn around and say I can just do this for myself and go and set up on their own.
Dr James:There we are, food for thought, and the other book that I grabbed just then is a book called Kakabo.
Arun:Okay, and I haven't read that.
Dr James:Yeah, it's more of a. It's not a novel, it's not like a. There's no real text in it as such. It's more just a diary, effectively. You can see it. So Kakabo is a Japanese art of saving money, so it basically gives you this little system that you can use to apply in order to apply to your life and figure out what your right goals are and your direct debits and everything along those lines, but you can also use it for your business as well yeah, don't promote that, promote our firm remote dentists oh, is it too late to yeah, yeah, don't, don't.
Arun:Don't do that book you. You need a proper firm of accountants with zero at dex to do it.
Dr James:No, I'm joking yeah, look, you know, you can have an account or you can just buy this book Exactly.
Arun:The book is much cheaper.
Dr James:I'm kidding, I'm kidding, but yeah, the beauty of this book is it's just a little system that you can use in terms of applying a methodology that will allow you to understand what your income is, your outgoings are, and, inevitably, when you sit down and figure that out and there's a little system in the book for doing that then what it means is you can see areas in which to save, and I do this. You can use it in your business. It's actually for your personal expenses, but you can use it for your business too. It's very rudimentary stuff, basically, but it's still very powerful, uh. So, yeah, shout out to that book too, if anybody else would like to avail of that. But yeah, anyway, back to what we were talking about. I think we got time. Maybe you know what we're coming up to, like the 30 ish minute mark, so we can either wrap up just now or, if you feel like there's any more tidbits in there, well, I mean, I've been mainly talking about practice owners.
Arun:I, I have an associate who has been struggling to pay her tax bill for seven years, and seven years straight. She's just saying that she just can't afford the tax. And we say, well, the tax is a byproduct of your income, so where is your income going? And so I set her up on Xero and set her up for her personal life. Look, we don't use that much cash anymore.
Arun:Xero leaks into your bank account, so effectively everything that's happening on your bank account. You code it and you can get a little analysis of what's going on. Um, same with credit cards, any kind of modern day bank. The issue is with cash. If people were drawing a lot of cash and spending cash, then you have to do that bit manually. It gets a bit tedious.
Arun:And I set her up and after three months she was using it and then she stopped using it and you know I didn't chase it up. A year later I said how's it going with zero? And she goes yeah, I stopped using it. And I said, well, why? And she was like I wasn't getting on with it and I spoke to her in detail and basically what was happening? It was like look in front of a mirror and she didn't like what she saw. She wanted to live in this ridiculous belief that there was some error with her tax and her tax was wrong and there was nothing that she could do, um to get herself out this hole. The reality was, it's all self-inflicted. She was eating out loads, going on loads of holidays, shopping handbag, shoes, the works. She couldn't afford the lifestyle that she thought she could. And that analysis really shone a light on it.
Arun:And I always think of Galileo when he proved that the earth was round. The church taught everyone that the earth was flat, right, and he proved, told people look into the telescope and I'll prove to you that. And what people did was they say no, I'm not going to look because I know you're right, but what you're about to do is crush all the beliefs I have of myself and of my society. And what have you? If I look, I know you'll be right and I'm just not going to look. And people are like that. You kind of say the reason why you are broke, the reason why your business is failing, is because of you, and people just do not want to hear that. So these exercise that I'm talking about in terms of zero and stuff, using this book. People think they need it because they think that the solution is in that process. It's not. They will just hold a mirror up to you and go here's what's. You already knew that. You already knew you were going out too much. You already knew you weren't saving enough for your tax. Um, people just don't want to be told right, they want to live in this kind of ridiculous notion that it's not their fault, um, but yeah, so that's the difference.
Arun:That is the difference between the successful practice owners and the unsuccessful ones. The real successful ones. They live within their means and they treat their business life and therefore they treat their personal life as a business. You know, which is also key the best businessman, it doesn't stop nine to five at home. They have their processes, they delegate things at home. You know my, my best clients. They're like I'm eating really badly because I'm so busy. My wife's too busy with the kids. They've hired a chef. Chefs, believe it or not, are not that expensive, but you know what the dinner's done and it's good quality food. They're not eating takeaways and stuff. They've got a cleaner. They've got a window cleaner, all the bits that they don't want to do, they outsource, they treat their personal life like they treat their um business life, and that leads for a better, better life overall food for thought.
Dr James:Self-awareness and accountability are a huge hack to life. They're like a skill that we all need to work on collectively and, uh, everybody does, you know in no matter, it's a continuous thing and you're kind of crafting it as time goes on. The other thing to remember is I feel like this is maybe where social media and things along those lines have not done us any favors, because it leads us to believe and think that there's a lot more people who have the means to live these incredibly extravagant lives than what there is. Anybody can rent a lambo although I did rent a lamborghini when I paid by, but when I posted about it, I said rental, it's not my car, just to make it super duper clear. Uh, but having said that, anybody can just go and do that for a day and act like.
Arun:You're right. I always see these girls on instagram that post themselves on a private jet. And you know I I speak to the clients because now everyone's on a private jet. I said, listen, you're seeing the picture of them sat on the seat. Do you know what? You don't see, you don't see the video of it taking off. And I can tell you from first time experience not too close from me is a studio where there is a seat and windows to look like a private jet. Yeah, I promise you, there is a seat and windows to look like a private jet. Yeah, I promise you, there is no private jet taking off in the place where this studio is. I absolutely guarantee it. That's why we always tell people wait for the video for it to take off. It doesn't take off. It doesn't take off. Do you know why? And you don't see the steps going into the plane. You just see one seat and a window. That's it. Because it's not real.
Dr James:It's all bollocks it's, it's, it's certainly something. Yeah, it's worth remembering all this stuff, isn't it, before we go splashing the cash and going wild. I read somewhere that there's only 4 000 lamborghinis sold every single year that's correct, yeah yeah, I read that somewhere and it's like, okay, well, there's 4 000 sold every year.
Dr James:It feels like millions people have them on. You just want Instagram, I don't know. Anyway, food for thought. Anyway, Arun, let's go ahead and wrap up just there. I thank you for your time, wisdom and knowledge on the Dentists Invest podcast today. If anybody wants to reach out to yourself, how are they best off doing that?
Arun:Yep. So if you Google me, you'll find me. Arun, you earn Sachdev s-a-c-h-d-e-v. You can google Sachdev's chartered accountants, or dentatax d-e-n-t-a-t-a-x. Um, and, yeah, that will lead you to our website. Socials linkedin is the biggest one. Find me on linkedin. I'm very active there, um, and yeah, reach out. We don't charge for initial consultations. So if you just want to have a chat, get an idea, and need me to convince you that we are far better for you than your current accountant, then, uh, feel free Arun, thanks so much for your time.
Dr James:No problem, James podcast super soon, no problem.
