AME: On Mountain Biking and Being Influenced

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[00:01:30] This is a production of the Very Dental Podcast Network. Alan Mead is a dentist with too much time on his hands and too much recording equipment in his basement. Armed with an obsession to bring entertaining and informative content to the dental world in a way that's never been done before, I give you the Alan Mead Experience.

[00:01:58] Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Alan Mead Experience. I'm your host, Dr. Alan Mead. I'm a dentist, podcaster, and a human being with a fitness age of 50. I literally just got that milestone today. And yes, I'm going to put a picture of my Garmin saying exactly that in the show notes because I have a fitness age of 50, according to Garmin.

[00:02:25] I rode my mountain bike tonight. I went trail riding. Excellent. And just as soon as I loaded my bike onto the car, my watch face had like little fireworks going, congratulations, you have a fitness age of 50. And so it has done this every so often. It gives me a little pat on the back and says I'm a little younger fitness wise than I used to be, which is lovely.

[00:02:51] I don't exactly know how it calculates that. It typically does that after I've ridden my bike hard a bunch in the week prior or whatever. I don't know. I'm not exactly sure how they do it, but I ride my bike a lot. And that is one of the things that I'm going to talk about today. I think I've come up with an excellent, excellent analogy.

[00:03:12] And I'm hoping this analogy makes you feel a little bit better. As I often do, I have complaints about the Internet and social media. I have not been brave enough to do what probably should be done, which is to say I I should probably get off social media. I should probably just do like on some level. I'm not sure what I would do with all my time because I feel like I'm puttering around on social media.

[00:03:40] Anytime that there's waiting involved, whether it's waiting for my kids getting out of school or waiting in line at the grocery store or waiting. I just I just I just default to puttering around. It used to I don't know what I used to default to like before social media and the Internet and smartphones. What what did I default to when I was when I was I didn't have anything that was specifically occupying my time at that moment.

[00:04:08] And I suspect there's a lot of you out there that are that are relating to this thing. So in any case, I wanted to talk a little bit about something that I've been thinking about. And I have a good a good analogy to dentistry. So I love I love mountain biking. I love mountain biking. And this has literally come if you've been listening to the podcast for a long time. There was a time before I talked a lot about riding mountain bikes and bikes in general.

[00:04:36] There was a time because because honestly, before covid, I I didn't really exercise very much. And if I did, I didn't exercise consistently. And then covid like literally when they shut us down in March of 2020, I started running, which is crazy because. I'm going to talk about this in a little while, but anyone who really likes running like, man, this is what I really like to do. This is this is I don't I know I don't trust them.

[00:05:05] I don't I don't trust anyone who really likes running running running is. Is great exercise and it's just terrible. It's a horrible mental game. It's just awful for you. It's just like awful on your joints. And and I never got to a point where I was like, man, I just love running. For a while, I was doing it really consistently. But I never there was never a point where I woke up in the morning. So it'll be great to get out and do a run. And I got to tell you, I do think that way about mountain biking.

[00:05:33] I think I think if I had time any given day and that I didn't have to be somewhere, I didn't have any other commitment and the weather was good. I'm going to get on my mountain bike, ride some trails. Now. I started running in what? March of 2020. 2020 and I ran you. You probably heard this story. I've told this story. I ran for 90, 91 days in a row or something like that, which is my feet are jacked up anyhow. And my ankles were in horrible shape.

[00:06:01] And I just I got to a point where I couldn't really run. I was I was kind of injured reserve from running. Not great on your body. But I lost some weight, too. You know, honestly, when you got nothing to do, they shut you down. You can only go to work to see emergencies and you're in it. You're kind of depressed. I was exercise was a good thing to, you know, some structure with the exercise was a good thing to fill my time with because that and I was trying to help my kids with school. And that was a nightmare. It was just it was stressful.

[00:06:32] So on like the 92nd day, 93rd day, I can't remember. I decided, OK, I've got a bicycle. I'm going to go ride my bike instead. It'll be better on my joints. I went out and I rode my bike and I got hit by a car. I really did. Got hit by a truck. I was crossing a crossing an intersection and the guy didn't see me. He was turning left. Luckily, he wasn't speeding. He's on a highway, too. So like if he'd been hit me straight on, he'd hit me 55 miles an hour. You'd have creamed me. I wouldn't know. I would have been in.

[00:07:01] I would have been a little smudge on the road. He hit me, but he didn't hit me that hard. I dented up his front end pretty good. My bike got all bent up. I was in the hospital. It turns out I broke my back in two places, but it was not. It was not a bad injury. If you're going to break your back, do it the way I did, because I was just wearing a brace for 12 weeks and told to take it easy. And it all healed like normal. So what's funny is you'd think that that would make a guy say, you know, I think I'm not going to ride a bike anymore.

[00:07:30] But somehow or another, I got back into biking. I actually was riding a – I had another bike that I bought some years before. It was like a – what do they call a cruiser bike, like a beach cruiser bike. And it was a really fun, comfortable bike to ride. And so I got back into it, and all of a sudden I realized that I was riding a bike for exercise. I was enjoying it. I was really looking forward to riding.

[00:07:56] So I turned 50 in August of 2021. So this was a year after I'd gotten hit – a year and some after I'd gotten hit by a truck. And I'd been riding a bike consistently. I said, okay, for my 50th birthday, I'm going to buy a good bike. I'm going to get a real bike. And what's funny is I used to think that, you know, like a bike, a good bike, if you were going to buy a really good bike, when I was growing up, I remember my parents got me when I was in like sixth grade, got me a Redline BMX bike.

[00:08:26] That thing was like 300 bucks at the time. And that was an astronomical sum to spend on a bicycle. I remember that vividly. And I thought to myself, and I think maybe the bike that I got hit on was a low-end road bike that was probably 600 bucks maybe. And so, I mean, in my mind, you spent several hundred dollars on a bike.

[00:08:51] And when I turned 50, I think I spent like 5,000 bucks on my gravel bike. It was a carbon fiber. It's a salsa cutthroat. I still have it, although it's not completely the same bike because actually last summer, the frame on my original one cracked and it was under warranty. So, I got a new frame. It's also having a new bike. So, I have this – it's a drop-handle mountain bike, they call it, but it doesn't have suspension or anything like that. It's just a carbon fiber.

[00:09:18] It looks like a very fancy 10-speed with kind of fatter tires. Great bike. Man, I started riding like a crazy person. I rode every day. And, of course, I found that the exercise that felt like playing was riding my bike. Going running, I did not feel like – that didn't feel like playing to me. That was work. And it was – I knew it was a great calorie burn. I knew it was good for me, but I didn't look forward to it the same way I looked forward to riding my bike.

[00:09:47] And you get a nice bike with carbon fiber and great – just an awesome bike. I loved that thing. And what I found was that I actually was taking this gravel bike, which is sort of like a hybrid between a road bike and a mountain bike. I was taking it on trails. I started realizing, this is really fun. I like these trails. So, then I kind of realized I bought the wrong kind of bike. I can admit that now. I should have gotten a mountain bike, but I didn't know that I liked trail riding.

[00:10:14] But the more I rode trails on this gravel bike, the more I'm like, man, I really like the trails more than the road stuff and the gravel roads and all that stuff. So, I ended up buying a series of bicycles. I bought a fat tire bike, which was really fun. I still have it. We never ride that one anymore. And then I bought a suspension – a very basic suspension mountain bike. And then I got – probably told the story. Then I got another fat bike that's a suspension fat bike. It's a weird unicorn of a machine. That's what I ride in the winter now.

[00:10:45] And then a couple years ago, I think maybe a year and a half ago, I got a used suspension mountain bike, a carbon fiber suspension mountain bike. And I realized once I got my first real mountain bike that that's what I really liked. And that was the exercise for me that felt like playing. You get me on a mountain bike, and I can go forever, and it doesn't feel like work. I'm not like, oh, man, I'm just over this. I just love every minute of it. I'm crazy about it.

[00:11:13] And so, what's really cool is around my house, we have what's called the – it's the Riverview property, the Little Forks Riverview property. It's this kind of nature conservancy that's along the Tittabawassee River, which is not far from where I live. And so, what I'll do sometimes – the best trails around me require me to put my rack on my bike and actually drive somewhere.

[00:11:43] There's some – Midland City Forest has really good trails for – and then if I want to go a little further to MidMichigan College up in Harrison, Michigan, they have killer trails. That's like my most fun. And then there's other places in Michigan that have trails, but a lot of times I can actually get a great calorie burn just by literally doing some road biking on the roads near my house. It's all country roads. And then I'll come back and I'll switch.

[00:12:09] So, I'll ride the gravel bike on roads for six or eight miles, come back, switch to my mountain bike, and then there's some trails just not that far from my house. They're not great trails. They're sort of like, eh, they're okay trails. They're great trails you got to get in the car and drive for, but this is awesome because I can literally come home from work and I can just ride close to home. I don't have to go anywhere and I get that calorie burn and I love biking. So, it's great. If I'm smart, sometimes very occasionally I brought my bike to work and I'll ride over lunch.

[00:12:38] I should probably start doing that because then I don't feel like I can't get a ride. And in any case, I'm a bit obsessed with riding. And frankly, mountain biking is my favorite thing. It's about my favorite thing to do in the world. If I have a moment, I love mountain biking. So, I made that pretty clear.

[00:12:55] And just like everything, every interest you might have in the world, if you mention it on social media or if you do a Google search on anything, your social media channels will be full of that stuff in some way. First off, they're trying to sell you stuff.

[00:13:15] So, you know, if you show an interest in mountain bikes, you will have a never-ending barrage of mountain bikes for sale and mountain biking accessories for sale. And there's – social media has made every niche product you might be interested in. You don't – it's just like a fire hose of stuff that can be brought to you with the algorithm. It's – I don't even mind it. I don't even mind it because it's fun to know what in the world is out there.

[00:13:43] I've spent money on things that I probably shouldn't have because of it. But I'm not going to lie to you. It's – I'm okay with that. The algorithm works for me in some ways like that. But more than that, particularly on Instagram and Facebook, but really on Instagram, what it will do is it will suggest to you people you should follow that are, you know, mountain biking aficionados or their brands that have gear that you might –

[00:14:09] So, so I – my Instagram page is – okay. It's dogs and cats because I love cat videos and dog videos. I'm a sucker for that stuff. There's some – I really like – I really like these pastry chefs. I like baking bread. I don't really do it much anymore, but I like that. But I love the pastry chefs, especially the really polished video of these amazing pastry and candy chefs. That's – I could watch that all day long.

[00:14:37] And I don't – I don't really make pastries or candy, but these guys just – it's just – just really compelling stuff to watch on Instagram. But most of it is mountain bike stuff and dental stuff. I mean, 95% of what gets thrown in front of me on Instagram is mountain biking and dental stuff.

[00:14:57] And a lot of the mountain biking stuff is channels or, you know, individuals where they show themselves doing amazing things on a mountain bike. So, I have to be honest with you. I live in Michigan. And in Michigan, when you're mountain biking, if you have any kind of a downhill run that's a fun, thrill, faster thing, you have to climb your ass off to get it. Like there's – it's flat here.

[00:15:25] There's no – there's no mountains that we're bombing down on a downhill bike. I'm on a trail bike and every downhill I get, I had to ride uphill to get it, which is fine. For me, it's great because I need to burn the calories. I'm not there – I'm not there to do any world record jumps or speed down a mountain or anything like that. I mountain bike, but it's mostly – you know, it's mostly flat and I'm pedaling on trails in the woods. It's a blast, but it's – but honestly, it's kind of nothing like what I see on Instagram.

[00:15:53] Apparently, there's a whole world of downhill mountain biking. And I suspect that the downhill mountain bikers ride up a chairlift to get a lot of the footage of what they're doing downhill because they're all – I don't see them pedaling very much. I see them going about a million miles an hour over these huge jumps, doing crazy flips and all these amazing tricks and all this. It is nuts what I'm seeing what they do. So, if that's all I ever knew of mountain biking, I would have never tried it. Okay.

[00:16:23] I can't do that stuff. Like I said, I'm very proud of the fact that I have the fitness age of 50. I'm a 53-year-old man who's afraid of breaking parts of his body. I am not an aggressive mountain biker. I love mountain biking. Mountain biking has been amazing for me, but I'm not even in the same – I'm not even in the same sport as these people.

[00:16:48] Like I will watch people that can do these insane – I mean they're riding trails and these trails all have gigantic jumps, gigantic – like they're getting up in the air and they're in the air for, you know, seconds at a time. And this is just like a regular trail. There's some trails where they build these. They call them fixtures. You know, they call them features. You jump over them. I guess that's great, and there's probably people listening to this that are serious mountain bikers who think that's a blast. I can't do that stuff.

[00:17:16] I don't want to get hurt. I know that sounds so dumb, but having been hit by a truck, I've come to realize that the human body can be a fragile thing. So, I love mountain biking, but I am doing nothing like what I see on Instagram. If you took video of me mountain biking, it's great. I feel like I'm going fast. I feel like I'm turning hard. And I feel like I'm – if you took video of me, it would probably be the most boring and embarrassing thing you've ever seen in your life.

[00:17:44] It would probably look like an old man riding slowly on a trail in the woods. And you know what? That is perfect for me. That is perfect for me because I have to say I rode today. I rode at City Forest, and I had a great ride. Like I said, I got the little badge of honor that I have the fitness age of 50, even though I'm a 53-year-old person. But so I drove – I rode for 10.3 miles. My total ride time was an hour and 14 minutes.

[00:18:14] And most importantly, I burned – how many calories did I burn? I burned – I burned 850 total calories, which is pretty good. That's less than normal for me, to be honest, when I'm riding. But that's pretty good. 850 calories. I mean you can eat a lot of stuff for 850 calories if you wanted to. If you're not worried about like having a negative calorie thing. If you're not worried about a calorie deficit, 850 calories. That's like have some dessert, man. That's great. But for me, that's the best thing.

[00:18:44] I mean that's fantastic. But I'm an old, fragile man. I'm not going to do the stuff that I'm seeing on Facebook, some of it. Now, on the other hand, don't get me wrong. Let's say I was less afraid of breaking myself. Let's just say I'm like, man, I love mountain biking, and I want to do what I can see on Instagram. I want to do that stuff. I could do that. I could definitely do that. Now, how would I do that?

[00:19:11] First off, I'd probably have to move somewhere west where there's like mountains and stuff. And I'd probably have to meet people and introduce myself to people and maybe find a coach of some sort or take some kind of lessons or join a team or something where I could learn how to do this stuff. Because what these guys are doing is not something you just get on a bike and do. You got it.

[00:19:37] There's got to be some steps before you get to these gigantic jumps and screaming downhill and all that stuff. And I have a skill set for mountain biking. You know, I've got – I can get – okay. I pass some people on the trail sometimes. It didn't used to be that way. It used to be I was the guy getting passed. I still – I pass some people on the trail sometimes. Sometimes people have to look out for me because I'm going faster than them. I'm glad about that.

[00:20:01] But the reality is I wouldn't know where to start to do some of the things that like some of the big downhill guys and all this stuff. And a lot of the mountain biking competitions, the racing and stuff, it's literally they call it enduro or downhill. And I mean like literally they start at a gate and the goal is to get downhill as fast as they can or to make the most epic jumps that you can. And these are young people with lots of practice and training and frankly lots of injuries. These people go to the hospital broken a lot.

[00:20:31] I'm not interested in that. But if I wanted to do that, there is no doubt that there is a way I could learn how to do that. And if I committed the time and resources and frankly and my body, if I wanted to commit that, I could do that. There would be a way to do that. But what's cool is the mountain biking that I do now fits me perfectly. I'm still happy. Every single time I go out mountain biking and burn some calories, have a good time.

[00:21:00] I'm thrilled. I do it every day if I could. And I don't mind a world where there's people that are doing much more epic things on a mountain bike than I ever could and ever have. I'm okay with that. Part of it is that social media is going to feed you the stuff that's the biggest, wildest story you can imagine. Okay.

[00:21:28] Mountain biking, the people that buy the products that mountain biking companies are selling are people like me. They might have a little extra income. They might be in their aficionados of the thing. But, you know, most of us don't do the things. Most of us don't do the things that I see on Instagram for most mountain bikers. I mean, I should just link to some of these channels. They're a blast to watch. The other thing that's awful is occasionally they'll throw in a video that you think is really epic.

[00:21:56] And then you realize they took video of a horrible injury. And so halfway through this video that looks like an amazing epic trail ride or jump or whatever, someone crashes horribly. And you're like, oh, my God, how did they even survive that? Just crazy stuff like that. So, like, I'm not feeling like I'm missing out on anything that I don't do mountain biking like that. And I also don't feel like there's any judgment of me for not being able to do that stuff. Maybe there are mountain bikers who feel like, oh, man, I can do epic things like that. Why?

[00:22:26] I should be able to do better than that guy did. Or I got to get someone to take video of me doing these crazy downhill things. I don't feel like I need to do that. I'm OK. What I do is OK. If I chose to do more, there are ways I could do more. But I'm perfectly happy right now with what I do. And it really works for me, to be honest. Calorie deficit and me not being bored and tired of the exercise I get, I love it. I don't know that you can do any better than that. That's a great thing for me.

[00:22:56] Could I be a downhill racer as a 53-year-old man? I probably could. There's probably a whole age group of old guys that are willing to put their bodies on the line and do crazy stuff. They probably have a lot of pads that they're wearing if they're smart. But I'm OK not being that. In fact, I might even be interested in watching some of that, whether on the sidelines or even just watching it on Instagram. I'm OK with that. But I don't have to do it. And I can still be a mountain biker.

[00:23:25] I can still be a whole mountain biker and not have to do that stuff. So you might see where this analogy is going right now, because also I'm a dentist. I was trained. I graduated from dental school in 1997, and I knew a few things when I left dental school. Not many. Less than I thought I knew, to be honest. Let's be perfectly honest about that.

[00:23:47] And I mean, right now, if you're a young Instagram influencer, you don't show much weakness in the world, even though God love you. You don't know that much stuff. You don't realize that you don't know that much stuff, but you don't know that much stuff. I spent I spent a whole day yesterday with my dad going up north to to my parents have a place on a lake up north in in Michigan.

[00:24:11] It hasn't really made the news, but honestly, over the last two weeks, northern Michigan, the northern lower peninsula of Michigan, it basically like had basically a hurricane happen, except it wasn't a hurricane. It was a horrible ice storm in like the county that my my dad's my parents houses in. I was reading the newspaper.

[00:24:31] Ninety nine percent of the people who have who have power, you know, ninety nine percent of of the consumers of power in Preskill County did not have power after this ice storm. Can you imagine that? Ninety nine percent. So we were up there. Our house hasn't had power since the ice storm. We literally didn't know what was going on with with it. We'd had some cousins that had been up and said, well, everything looks OK. But there's there's literally we did get up there last yesterday. We drove up.

[00:25:00] It's about a two and a half hour drive from home. We drove up there and luckily our house is in OK shape. Of course, the stuff that was in the freezer in the fridge was pretty bad. So we emptied that out, but we had no damage to the house. But literally, we couldn't even get up our driveway. There's so, so many trees and branches down. I've never seen anything like it. It's this incredible strategy. And frankly, the entire northern Michigan, like north northern lower peninsula of Michigan is still struggling with it. So there's a huge percentage of people don't have power yet.

[00:25:30] There have been people that have been living on a generator for weeks and there's like no coverage of it in news. It's crazy. Like I think of the poor people in in North Carolina in the mountains that got that hurricane and they still they still, you know, are intense and stuff. And I feel like northern Michigan is kind of in the same situation. They've gotten even less coverage. It's a nightmare. But I talked with my dad for, you know, we basically did five hours in the car. We talked a lot. And we were sort of laughing about how how experience counts for stuff in dentistry.

[00:25:59] Like like I know there's people who want to say, oh, but unless it's good experience, it's not, you know, experience not worth having. I'm like, well, you know what? But doing things poorly over a long and realizing that you do them poorly or having having situations that don't work out is a pretty valuable thing as a dentist. And my dad practiced dentistry from 1968 until, I don't know, 2014 or 2013 or something like that. He's I mean. And so he he practiced dentistry for a long time.

[00:26:26] He saw a lot of things and he had a lot of experience and experience kind of counts for something. There's no two ways about that. It really does count for something. So but if you looked at Instagram influencers, for the most part. They're all rock stars and everyone accepts treatment from them and they always do the best treatments. And and that's that's just the way if you if you looked at. People on social media.

[00:26:52] Those are the people that are doing the monster downhill runs on on the mountain biking. Those are the people that are doing these things that compared to me are hard to get my brain around. Now, mind you, if they're young influencers, I should I should say if they're young influencers, they want to seem competent. They want to seem like they know it, but they don't really know anything. If they're really young, I'm sorry. I love you people, but you don't. You haven't been around long enough to see your own failures.

[00:27:21] And I hope things work out for you. Don't have I don't mean to like piss all over your confidence, but man, you got to learn some stuff. And that's why I worry a little bit about these young influencers putting stuff out there so early because you're like, man, there's a lot to learn yet. But whatever. I mean, but there's a lot of people that are competent, really good dentists who put out amazing content on social media. I look at some social media dentistry and it it amazes me that people are doing these.

[00:27:49] I mean, if you looked at Instagram, you'd think every dentist that, you know, is doing all on four cases every day and and changing people's lives from from dental cripples to people who are amazing. But the thing about it is, is that I know a lot of people. Who are doing fillings and crowns and root canals and and treating some perio and and and seeing people on recall. I know a lot of people that are like that. I know people who do a lot of implants, too.

[00:28:15] But but the reality is, like, there's still plenty of dentists out there doing bread and butter dentistry. If you looked on Instagram, you probably wouldn't know that. You'd probably think that you're the only one that isn't killing it. And here's the thing. That's not true. You have to decide that Instagram isn't real life. Or at least it's not your real life, right? Like maybe it is real life. I still think that a lot of the dentistry that's seen on Instagram is sort of the highlight reels that people want to put out there.

[00:28:45] I think that's probably reality. And honestly, I think about my mountain biking heroes that do these amazing things that I think, like I said, remember, I think they're amazing. I have no aspiration to do that stuff. You know, I think I think what can be done on a mountain bike is amazing, but I got no aspiration to do that stuff. I'm perfectly happy burning the calories I've got in the flat state that I live. I'm OK with that. I might do a little tourism down the way down the road someday, but I'm OK with what I've got. I'm kind of like that with dentistry, too.

[00:29:15] Now, that is not to say that a person should not seek out a new skill set, learn how to do new things or even change their practice completely. That is a OK. But you shouldn't do it because other you're influenced by what you're seeing other people put out because you got to remember. Whether it's in, you know, whether it's just peer pressure or social media.

[00:29:41] You're judging other people's outsides by your insides. Remember that. So make sure that you don't feel like you should be doing something because of what you think someone else's world looks like, because that's just not necessarily real. I love my mountain biking and I'll do it as much as I can. And I love the calorie burn. And frankly, it's helped me with my health significantly help me with my health.

[00:30:09] And I didn't have to go bombing down a giant mountain in Utah and break my neck or anything. I didn't have to do that to do that. I could literally just do the stuff on, you know, the little ups and downs around me. And I still enjoy it enough that I sneak away to do it as often as I can. I still get a ton of joy out of that. And you know what? I really like helping patients with a couple of crowns.

[00:30:32] I really like helping patients that don't like their front teeth where I can do some anterior veneers, anterior bonding with composite. I like doing bread and butter dentistry. And it's a good enough living for me. It's a good enough place for my practice. A DSO is not itching to buy my office right now because it's so huge and they want to give me multiples of my amazing production. I do okay. I do okay.

[00:31:01] I like what I'm doing and it's okay that I'm not doing something so huge and big that it would like make a huge splash on social media. It doesn't have to do that. I don't need to do that. I'm okay with that. But there's times when I feel bad about that stuff. There's times when I feel less than about that stuff. And I just want you to know from me to you, that's not real. You don't have to feel that way. You never have to feel less than. Okay. And if you do feel like you want to do more, that's okay. You can seek out the people.

[00:31:31] You know the people you need to go to to learn. If you want to learn implants, you're going to go to Moody. You're going to go to Tarun. You're going to do 3D dentists. If you want to learn veneers, you want to learn composite veneers, you're going to go to Cosmin. You're going to go to Dennis Hartlieb. You're going to go. It's not hard to find these people who can help you learn this stuff. And you should do it if you want to. But you shouldn't feel like you have to. Okay. You shouldn't feel like you have to. And you shouldn't feel like you should because what you see on the internet or what you see out on social media or whatever tells you otherwise.

[00:32:01] You can just do you. It's okay. It's okay. Just like me, I don't have to do. I get a killer, killer calorie burn and a boost to my serotonin and dopamine just by riding my silly little trails close to home. I do well with that. And I continue to do well with that. Some people might need to get bigger and bigger and better thrills. I don't. I'm okay with that. And just remember that it's okay to just be, to just do what you're doing. It's all right.

[00:32:31] I feel strongly about this. That's why I'm kind of excited. I feel strongly about this because I'm easily influenced by a lot of stuff like that. But I've got a grounding that I'm okay. I know I'm okay and I'm doing okay. Remember, you're probably doing better than you're feeling a lot of times. And the world right now in all angles is trying to make you feel less than you really are or that you're not doing enough or something like that. And you know what? You're probably doing enough.

[00:32:58] You're probably doing better than 95% of the people out there. Just remember that. And you know, if you're feeling bad, get a mountain bike. I promise you it'll help. It helped me. It's the best thing I ever did. I still love it like crazy. So if you guys have any questions or comments or you think I'm nuts or you think I'm right or I'm wrong, go ahead and go to the Facebook group, Very Dental Facebook group. And if you're not a member yet, search for it and give me one of five passwords.

[00:33:26] The passwords are Lipscomb, McQuethy, Papa Randy, Timmerman, or Hornbrook. Any of those five will get you in. It's a great place to discuss things. We have a good time over there. It is not a shit show. It is not a garbage dump. It's a bunch of nice people that are podcast listeners and they're like you. And just remember, you're enough. You're enough. You don't have to be that guy bombing down the mountainside in Utah or Colorado.

[00:33:54] You can be the guy riding the flats, having a good time in the state of Michigan if you want to. It's okay. I hope this was helpful. It was kind of cathartic for me, to be perfectly honest. And I sure appreciate you guys listening to the podcast. I keep enjoying to do it, so I'm going to keep doing it. Thanks a ton. We'll talk to you soon.