Very Clinical: Changing Our Minds About Life

[00:00:01] This is a production of The Very Dental Podcast Network. Welcome to The Very Clinical Podcast. In about the time it takes to do an MO on three, we will entertain and amaze you with tips and tricks on regular daily dentistry. Here's Kevin and Zach.

[00:00:29] What is up Very Clinical listeners? Welcome back to yet another episode of the podcast. And this is Zach Miners coming to you from Kansas City, Missouri. With me, as always, my trusty co-host, Dr. Kevin Hair Fryer. Kevin, what is cracking in Cleveland? I'm contemplating my life

[00:00:47] and all my choices my whole life. Really heavy. Wow. All my choices. All your choices. Yes. Returning, as promised, Dr. Alan Mead, all the way from Michigan. Alan, what's going on, man? Nothing. Nothing's going on. OK. Are you ready to contemplate your life? I am ready to.

[00:01:07] This is our heaviest podcast ever. It's very heavy stuff. All time. This is it. This is the one. Kevin, what's the... I think I blew it. I'm going to have to go last on this. It's like... Like, I have a mental block right now. Holy smoke.

[00:01:27] You're the bit tonight. So first of all, this is the third episode of our Things We've Changed Our Mind On podcast. First up, a couple of weeks ago, we talked things we've changed our mind on in clinical dentistry. Last week it was business dentistry.

[00:01:44] This thing, this time, we're opening up to just everything. Anything. So yeah, we're going to start off with if there's a book, movie, song, poem, whatever. Change your life. OK. I like it. Alan, you got one? Yeah. So here's the thing. I listen to a lot of Rush.

[00:02:08] I've been a fan of Rush. I've been a fan of Rush for a long time. And I'm going to argue and I'll fight you. I think Signals is their best album. Moving Pictures is the one that everyone knows. It's also an excellent album.

[00:02:20] But one of the reasons that I feel like it's changed my life so much is that my son, Sean, is a huge Rush fan because I've played it in the car since he was little, like really little. Jacob is more into electronic music.

[00:02:36] He's a big video game guy, so he kind of likes it. But Sean is a bit obsessed with Rush. And I feel like I mean, I was probably not as obsessed with Rush when I was his age that he is. But I really I really liked that.

[00:02:49] I saw them in concert multiple times on stuff. So they and I mean, there is nothing that will bring me into a nostalgic place more than, you know, some of the songs that I basically, you know, I had cassette tapes that I wore out.

[00:03:01] You know, I mean, I had a lot of different kinds of musical tastes over the years. But but the the nostalgia that brings me back and then the one that I like because Sean likes it so much is I like listen to Rush early 80s Rush Signals,

[00:03:14] Moving Pictures, that sort of thing. So there you have it. Kevin, you still want to go last? Yeah. OK. He's struggling. He's striking. He's he's struggling. That's OK. Back to the Future, the movie. So I mentioned it before on this podcast is my favorite movie of all time.

[00:03:32] It changed my life as a kid in ways just because I love the sci fi and all that. But as I've gotten older, like just that that entire concept of like. Going back and yeah, meeting your parents and wondering, like, would you be friends with your parents?

[00:03:50] Would you would you want to hang out them and then having kids? And now they've got no we've watched it together relatively recently. And we had that conversation like, well, you know, because they've seen pictures of me when I was their age.

[00:04:04] Do you think we'd hang out if you like went back and could hang out? It's just it's just the concepts of time travel and the implications of it and all is just sparked a lot of conversations and neat things.

[00:04:17] And it's just always something I've kind of come back to is like a just makes you think in a lot of ways. So that's that's always been a bit of a life changer for me. And it's continues to be as I've introduced a new generation to it.

[00:04:31] So that's mine. Oh, God, you struggle. Yeah. So in terms of changing my life. You know, I love music. I thought for sure is going to be a Beatles thing. Just I'm just I'm going to go down the Beatles route. So as a very young child,

[00:04:58] I went into the our extra room. There was a record player there. I didn't even know how I just put a record on. Didn't even know what I was doing. And it was a Beatles record. And whatever I heard, I would love to go back to that day

[00:05:15] and watch my face. And, you know, it just. It just struck something inside of me, but I'm trying to boil it down to like one song or which is very difficult to do. But if we're talking about songs that might have changed my life,

[00:05:42] I would almost have to say the whole catalog. It's so I've got to cop out your thing, man. No, it's not a cop out. That's I mean, one band is a is enough. You know, there's so many things. There there's a song that I share

[00:06:00] with my birth mom. That's very special to me. There's a song that I share with Missy. That's very special to me. And then there's a song that I share with my mom. That's very special to me. So, you know, very cool.

[00:06:18] It's just been a big part of my life. It is. Okay, so we're talking things you've changed your mind on over the course of your dental career and just in terms of in terms of life things. Non-dental. Yeah, this is life, man. This is life, man.

[00:06:38] But I mean, it can, I mean, it can meld into it, we're not talking about fixing teeth. Sure. Is it okay if I go first? Can I go? Please do it. Okay, so mine is, so I think that if you follow enough of our,

[00:06:58] you know, dental CE and stuff like that, eventually you're gonna get some kind of a financial course and they're gonna talk to you about how many all these millions of dollars you need to retire. And I got caught up in that.

[00:07:11] Like I went to a financial seminar early on in my life and it like, and also the first five years of my dental career went kind of rocky and I was like, I gotta save up as much money as I can.

[00:07:22] I gotta get the hell out of this thing for one and for two, if I'm gonna need all this money, I gotta get started somehow. The thing, it took me having kids and for them to grow up a little bit to realize that

[00:07:37] that's dumb to save up for and only have money to spend down the road in retirement. And it'd be like, oh, you're gonna do all your traveling in your golden years. I completely changed my mindset on that hard right to I wanna do all that stuff now.

[00:07:56] I only get to experience these kids once. They're only gonna be here once. I'm only gonna, and this ties back into the health podcast from a few weeks ago. I'm probably about the healthiest I'm going to be right now. I'm working on it, I'm getting better,

[00:08:12] but I mean my ceiling isn't much higher than it is right now. So all these things that require physical activity, all the boat stuff I do, all the, I guess Grand Canyon's a hiking trip, the skiing I do. And the mule. And the mule riding, of course.

[00:08:29] Mule potential anyhow. But everything that I want to do that requires physicality, it's like tomorrow's not guaranteed, and today is. And as soon as you can at least get to a semi-comfortable point, you gotta enjoy yourself now. And like I said, that's one of those things

[00:08:46] kind of in a back to the future moment. I wish I could go back and spend more money in my 20s and have less nest egg now because, man, you don't get those again. So financially I've made some big moves.

[00:09:02] And I realize when you come out of dental school, you have a huge mountain of debt, and it's very tough to make some of those choices. And you certainly should save, but you really gotta balance that out. Don't do what I did and wait until you're 40-something

[00:09:20] to realize you can treat yourself a little bit. So that's mine. That's my first one, and most important one. So let's go start younger listeners. Alan, you ready? I'm gonna go to- I've talked about this before, and shoot, if you guys knew me before, probably around COVID.

[00:09:36] I was fat for my whole life. And I don't call it overweight. I don't really pull any punches. I was fucking fat. I got diagnosed with diabetes before we started the podcast. So it was more than 10 years ago. Oh my God, has it been that long? Oh yeah.

[00:09:53] It's completely, completely- Yeah, we started the podcast- 2014, right? Yeah, it was June 2014 was the first episode. So we're approaching 10 years. Is this the 10th anniversary coming up? We're approaching 10 years, yeah. Wait, June 10th, is that what you said? June 14th, I think, was the first episode.

[00:10:08] It was Lance Timmerman episode one. Oh my God, Lance Timmerman, happy 10! Well, we're getting there, we're getting there. In any case, I was fat most of my adult life. And honestly, I was overweight in high school, and it only got worse after that.

[00:10:22] And part of it was because I drank beer a lot, but I also never, I ate like crazy, and I just didn't pay attention to stuff. And I'm gonna tell you that like, what's super funny is that at any of those points

[00:10:36] in my life, if I could have been the weight and fitness level that I am now, I would have killed to do that. I'd have killed to do that, I didn't even know. But like, also, it takes a long time to get there.

[00:10:54] You can't just like decide you're gonna start eating differently, exercising, blah, blah, blah. And when you're fat, it takes a long time to get there. And it's not like, if you don't see progress, it sucks and everything, it's hard. But like, I'm looking back on it,

[00:11:10] and I'm like, I'm not giving it away again. I'm not going there anymore. And I mean, all I'm saying is it's just way better not being fat. It's way better to not carry all that weight. And I know that there's tons of dentists that,

[00:11:24] look, you look at pictures of yourself. Most people, when they compare themselves to their high school photo, are heavier. A lot of us are a lot heavier. I weigh less now than I did in high school. Good for you, man. Yeah, it's crazy.

[00:11:43] And now I've had some help. I got some diabetes medicines that are pretty good for losing weight, but I also ride my bike like crazy. So as a corollary of that, you have to exercise. And it's not just like, walking's great, but you have to exercise consistently.

[00:12:02] And by exercise, you have to work up a sweat. Lifting weights, you'll do that too. It doesn't all have to be cardio, but you have to exercise and you have to do it on the regular. Like, best would be if you work up a sweat every day,

[00:12:14] that'd be awesome. But honestly, you have to do that. And that's not even great for weight loss. Diet stuff is more important for weight loss. But the reality is your body, you have to exercise. So if you're thinking, man, I'm too sedentary. You gotta do something about it.

[00:12:29] And here's the trick. Find exercise that doesn't feel like exercise. And so of course, you know me, if I have a second to myself, I'm gonna go trail riding. I'm gonna go mountain biking. Like I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed and continue to be obsessed. And that's been years now.

[00:12:53] I started kind of doing more road stuff. I think road biking is incredibly boring. You found exercise that doesn't feel like- It doesn't feel like exercise. Like I wanna do it more than I wanna do anything else. And oh, by the way,

[00:13:04] I rode for almost two hours on Saturday. It was like 1400 calories burned according to the computer. Like I was just like- I mean, so yeah, you gotta find something that you like to do and everyone's like, oh, that's... I mean, but that is the solution

[00:13:18] because if exercise feels like a chore, you're not gonna be able to gut that out and do the willpower all the time. And so you'll start skipping and it's really important to keep consistent with that. Mind you, like I have a long ways to go

[00:13:34] and there's still a lot of problems. I got trouble with my feet. But I mean, life is a lot better not being a fat person. Seriously, it is so much better. I mean, more confidence, but also I just feel better all the time.

[00:13:48] And I mean, I have bad days all the time, but it's like I look back and I look back at pictures of myself four years ago. I don't even recognize myself. It's amazing. So like if you... And I know that fat people do think about,

[00:14:02] oh, I gotta do something about this. You say it all the time. You do gotta do something about it and you gotta start now. You gotta do it. Because once you get on the other side of it, you'll wonder why you waited so long.

[00:14:11] I can say that with experience. And frankly, I lost a bunch of weight back in 2005 and gained it back. So I know how that works. I know how that works. It takes a lot of consistent action, but it's a lot easier to keep it off

[00:14:25] than it is to lose it. So I just, that's a huge thing that I've learned in life. All right, Kevin, your turn. Well, I'm gonna piggyback on Alan. I was never fat in high school. And since you guys have known me, known me, known me,

[00:14:45] I've been around the same weight. But prior to that, I had slowly ballooned up to 40 more pounds approximately than I am right now. And part of that weight loss came from a procedure that I had. I had an antibiotic where I just,

[00:15:05] I didn't have an appetite for like two weeks and I shed like 20 pounds really quickly. Yeah, what is that again? I think I need. What, what antibiotic? Well, clenamycin cocktail, that'll do. No, I'm sorry. And so, and then I changed my diet. I was definitely addicted to sugar.

[00:15:28] And that was, you know, I did the keto diet and was very strict with that for two years and I got uncomfortably low in weight. And so, you know, I would say that I'm low carb now, but I definitely, you know, like,

[00:15:49] you know, if you offered me some ice cream right now, I'd definitely have some. But I was not exercising regularly when Charlie was in baseball and I was coaching, I would throw a batting practice every night and that was exercise, but it's not the same.

[00:16:07] It's not the same as what Alan was doing. So like with our podcast with Jessica a couple of weeks ago, really getting into that zone two state, I'm trying to do that every day. So a mix of cardio and kettlebells, weightlifting,

[00:16:29] and I've gotten into a area where if I don't do it, I feel off. So there's a mental and physical part of that. And you make time for it in a weird way, like your day is planned around being able to do that. It is. If you can.

[00:16:51] And for years I would hear people like me say that, like the mental aspect and, you know, that you need to move your body and all that. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm not fat. So, you know, I don't need to do that, but I did.

[00:17:06] And that was a big change for me. So there's an effort to move my body every day. You know, I'm, well, I'll skip that, but it's, that was a change where I didn't feel like I needed it because I wasn't overweight, but you definitely do.

[00:17:32] Alan, what do you got? What's your second, you have a second one today? You know, it is, I do. I will say, I was gonna say, so I am not well-traveled. I have not been to a lot of places. I've never been to Europe.

[00:17:45] I've only been off the continent a couple of times. I'm just not well-traveled. And it is a lot harder to do that stuff with kids and activities and stuff, right? It's not impossible. And if I made the effort, I think I'd probably be able to do it.

[00:18:03] But the reality is, is like, it's, you know, you sort of said something about this, Zach, but the reality is the best time to do that kind of travel is when you're not married, you don't have kids. Also, you're just out of dental school

[00:18:17] and you got no money. But it is the easiest way to travel. And it's like, frankly, a lot of the experiences, I mean, I love having kids, but it has definitely limited a lot of that. And mind you, you know, my oldest is 16.

[00:18:32] He's going into his junior year next year. So he's gonna be done with high school soon enough. But my suspicion is he'll be around for a while just because, and he's actually a really, really great travel partner. But the bottom line is like,

[00:18:46] I just didn't do a lot of that. My wife did better than I did. She traveled way better than I did before we even got married. But I mean, like, do those kinds of experiences when you have an apartment, you don't have a house,

[00:18:59] you know, you don't have a, like the reality is you're not tied down in the same way. I limit myself before I'm even given the options because I know that I've got kids stuff, you know, the entire fall there's so much- You have a farm and a mule?

[00:19:15] Yeah, I mean, we've got a lot of stuff that ties us down. It isn't that we couldn't do it, but the reality is, is like you, to make those moves, you gotta pull out. Kevin said he was planning his Croatia trip over Christmas break, you know.

[00:19:29] We don't put the kind of effort in to do that stuff. So you gotta do those experiences early on. But also I gotta tell you this, it kind of goes the same way. I guess my whole thing is like, don't wait.

[00:19:40] So I moved into my new office in 2013. So that was, we're working on 11 years ago. And my office is, you know, it's not a T-H-E beautiful, you know, it's nice. It's a nice place, but the reality is it's probably average compared to-

[00:19:57] I like the setup and I really like it. But I worked for 16 years in a complete dump, complete dump, it cost nothing. And I thought to myself, I'm saving so much money. I don't, yeah, I mean, I paid three times as much for rent

[00:20:11] as I did in my old place, but it was not very expensive. I never even think about that because I love where I'm working so much more. And I'm like, why did I wait so long to do this? So there's a lot of don't wait, you know,

[00:20:26] especially if it's something that's in the back of your mind that's bugging you, don't wait. Cause you might not want to do it later or you might not be able to do it later, whatever. So there's a lot of don't wait in what I'm thinking.

[00:20:38] All right, here's my part two of things I've changed my mind on. So I grew up with parents who were always very dialed into the news and what was happening. And they always impressed upon me that it was important to be informed. Current events, yeah.

[00:21:00] And what's going on with the government and the events and all that. And I did that and I was interested in, heavily interested in politics as a high schooler. I couldn't even vote. And my parents would always listen to these talk radio shows and what was going on.

[00:21:16] It was like, wow, this is all very, I need to know all this stuff. This is super important. And about six, seven years ago, thankfully almost right before all the COVID crap and all the most recent election, toxic election stuff, I decided, I made the very conscious decision

[00:21:36] that I was going to eliminate almost all of that from my life. I will read headlines that I don't, so I know what's going on. But sometimes like in some of our group threads, people talk about like this political thing

[00:21:52] or this person, I don't even know who the hell that is. That's so good. There's a lot of them. Like I'm almost woefully uninformed. I will do the due diligence to read about stuff before I vote on it and whatnot.

[00:22:04] But that's it, no CNN in my house, no MSNBC. I follow the stock market and my sports teams and some basic headlines, but no news. And my life is much better for it. I can't control any of that crap. You can control your office, your family.

[00:22:26] You can really only control yourself. Yeah, realistically. Okay, true. But I mean, I'm agreeing with you. So I try to focus on the things that I can actually control. My health, my exercise, what I put in my body

[00:22:43] and I can make a lot of the choices at the office, not all of them, but I can control a good portion of it. Those are the things I think about. And getting rid of the news. Sometimes my parents give me a hard time like,

[00:22:56] did you hear about this such and such bombing in this kind? No, I didn't. And who gives a shit? Yeah, well- I mean, I care, but I don't care. The president, whoever it is, has not really ever directly affected my life.

[00:23:13] None of it does, none of it directly. You can get so, I mean, I have this conversation all the time. It doesn't change at all. Here's the- Some of those government COVID shutdowns might, I don't know, those were pretty, those affected us.

[00:23:27] I would argue that at least to start with, there was a lot of peer pressure that went along with that. But I will say this, separate from COVID, the person who votes by boning up on who they might want to vote for the day before the election,

[00:23:46] their vote counts the same as the person who's been engaged for the last four years. It counts the same and it doesn't affect your life. And I am saying this as a complete hypocrite, because I listen to a lot of podcasts that have some political valence.

[00:23:59] Not typically one side or the other, but the reality is like, I am more tuned into that stuff than I should be because my life is worse when I get up in my head about that stuff. You're exactly right, Zach,

[00:24:10] but your life is better when you don't worry about that. Kevin, you got the- Take us out, Kevin. Take us out. So in terms of changing my mind on my life, I thought that as a young dentist

[00:24:30] that I would have made it if I had a fancy car or I had a fancy boat or I was taking fancy vacations all the time or had a giant house and all of those things. And very quickly, that the materialism just doesn't sit well with me.

[00:25:00] So one of my favorite things to do, and it's not gonna happen this year because we're not going to the beach, we're going to Croatia instead, but we go to this restaurant in Delaware, shout out to Michael Keller.

[00:25:17] We get a big table and my whole family is there. Nearly my whole family is there. And I pay for that meal and it's a relatively fancy restaurant and it's gonna be food that some people may not have been able to afford or eat,

[00:25:35] but I can look out and my whole family's there. That's life right there. Yeah, it is. So there's sometimes a discussion afterwards, like someone wants to help with the check or whatever. And I will say, I don't have a fancy car, I don't have a fancy boat.

[00:25:56] This is what I like to do. Well, along those lines, we had for Mother's Day, we went to the country club and there's nothing quite like fighting with your dad over who's gonna pay the check for everyone. It's like, I mean, cause you know what?

[00:26:13] There's a certain privilege in being able to do that. Being able to do that without thinking too much about it is pretty awesome. One of the other things you're talking about though, Kevin, is buying an experience rather than a material item.

[00:26:30] When my first topic was in terms of spending, I do have an ice boat. You use it though. You use it though. But that's an experience more than anything. An ice mule. Yeah, an ice mule. But that's an experience more than it is a,

[00:26:47] but I've seen people buy a lot of stuff, man. And it's like, I don't know if you guys have ever seen Fight Club. They say the stuff you own owns you. Right there. That should have been the movie. I don't know if Fight Club made you think,

[00:27:03] but it doesn't really change my life necessarily. But that line kind of like made me think. I think it encompasses a lot of everything we've been talking about because really what part of this is about is being manipulated by what you're supposed to have or supposed to do.

[00:27:22] And we're supposed to think. We're supposed to follow. And supposed to think and follow politically and all that stuff. And freeing your mind from that is where it's just you. Sure. The only thing I can control is me. And all the rest of that crap doesn't matter.

[00:27:42] But we have talked about this before, buying the experience or being generous in that realm. That's what I love. Things like freedom and health are wealth to me more so than a vehicle or a home or. I agree. If you're in a nice cars, that's cool too.

[00:28:08] I'll say this. I'll say this. Like Zach, you use your boat. Now here's the other thing. A lot of this stuff. As an experience, as a family experience. And I spend more money on bikes than I should. But you know, the one thing I've been able to do,

[00:28:23] I use the hell out of them. I use the hell out of them. Look at your bikes are making you healthy. Yes. My boat is a purchase of family time and swimming. I can justify that. I have bought stupid things because I felt like

[00:28:36] having cool, stupid things would mean something about me. I had a, when I was still using just a couple of years out of dental school, I had a BMW Z3, which is a cute little car. Cool car. That's awesome. Yeah, here's the thing.

[00:28:50] But it was, I also had what I drove around was a 1991 Q45, which is the old infinity because that was a better car for. That Z3 had about three months worth that I could use it well in Michigan. And I had a gravel driveway.

[00:29:12] So I didn't want to ever drive, like, I mean, it was just, and I, more than that, worse than that, I had a loan on that car that I drove for two and a half months a year.

[00:29:23] Cause I was stupid and I wanted a Z3 more than I, like that's the kind of car you buy when you got some cash sitting out there to buy. It's not a car you freaking take a loan on. It was just stupid, I didn't know.

[00:29:33] I do want to say I have nothing against nice cars or any of that. It's just not for me. I had this conversation with a friend a couple of weeks ago, like cars are cool. Yeah, we have friends who are car connoisseurs

[00:29:46] and I would never hold it against them. If you see a fancy car roll by, like I'm going to look, you know, like a beautiful model walking by a woman, but I appreciate the art of them and all that. It's just not for me.

[00:30:05] That's, I think we're all in agreement on those. I think it's good stuff. Awesome. Hey, I enjoyed this. I enjoyed this series a lot. It was a challenge. It was tougher than I thought it was going to be. We're hoping to get some of our other colleagues

[00:30:21] to weigh in on their things they've changed on in the upcoming weeks. So we were hoping to continue the series in one way or another. So anyway, thanks Alan for taking time out. Thank you. Your evening. Thanks Kevin. Appreciate it.

[00:30:35] If you liked our ideas or totally hate them or want to post a picture of your awesome car that makes you happy, check out the Very Clinical Facebook page and Kevin's still not charging for that yet at this time, but hurry. Anytime now. All right.

[00:30:52] Okay, thank you guys for listening and we will see you next Tuesday. See ya.