Dental Practice Heroes

From New Grad to Multi-Practice Owner w/ Colin Myrick

• Paul Etchison, Colin Myrick • Season 3 • Episode 53

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From a four-op office to two practices — here’s how Colin Myrick created something bigger than he ever expected as a young practice owner. This episode dives into the hurdles of taking over an established practice, stepping into the role of owner, and scaling in a small community. You’ll learn how Colin built a collaborative culture and steadily grew his business, all while serving his community. Tune in to hear how he made it happen, and what’s next!

Topics discussed in this episode:

  • Transitioning from dental school to ownership
  • Challenges of taking over a practice
  • Key decisions that helped expand the practice
  • Collaborative dentistry and team culture
  • Colin’s vision for the future and how he’s getting there

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Paul Etchison:

Growing a practice requires more than just clinical skills. It truly takes vision, and, whether it's location, team dynamics or your leadership approach, today's episode is all about taking bold steps and building something bigger than you thought possible. Today, I interviewed Dr Colin Myrick, who grew his practice to over $5 million in just five years and he's now moving into multi-practice ownership. Today, he shares the challenges, the solutions and all the lessons that he's learned along the way. You are listening to Dental Practice Heroes, where we help you create and scale your dental practice so that you are no longer tied to the chair. I'm Dr Paul Etcheson, author of two books on dental practice management, dental coach and owner of a $6 million group practice in the suburbs of Chicago. I want to teach you how to grow and systematize your dental practice so you can spend less time practicing and more time enjoying a life that you love. Let's get started. Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to Dental Practice Heroes Got a really good guest on today and somebody I think you're going to really enjoy his story.

Paul Etchison:

He's got a pretty interesting story of growth. I got Dr Colin Myrick on. He's a 2020 grad. He's got two practices now in Freeport, florida and man dude, he is just crushing it and growing and I want to get him on the podcast to interview him so he could share his story. Welcome to the podcast, colin. How's it going today?

Collin Myrick:

Thanks so much, Paul. I'm having a blast. I reached the pinnacle of my trash talk life today. My brother-in-law graduated alongside Herschel Walker at the University of Georgia and I let him know that he was the second best running back in all of the 80s. Nice, Because Bo Jackson, my Auburn Tiger alum, is the best of all time. So yeah, I'm living on a high right now and I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, that's Auburn, number 32,. I think Bo was right, that's right yeah, absolutely 34. 34, that's right All the same things.

Collin Myrick:

Yeah, all the same, he's the.

Paul Etchison:

GOAT, so tell the listeners if they ever heard of you. I mean, you graduated in 2020. Let's talk about how you entered into practice ownership, and I guess just let's just start there and see where it goes.

Collin Myrick:

For sure I'd love to, and if you've heard of me, I'm so sorry I don't know how that's possible, but I grew up in a small town in Northwest Florida, a small town in Freeport. We had 1,800 people. When I graduated high school and got kicked out of there, went to Auburn University and had the time of my life and decided I needed to start studying. Whenever I got to the University of Texas for dental school out in Houston and if you had asked me in my first year of dental school where I was going to be after dental school, I would have circled Northwest Florida on a map and said anywhere but there. And by the end of my four years, especially being a COVID grad, I looked at Northwest Florida and said I think I had the map wrong. I think that's where I want to be.

Collin Myrick:

So my junior year I started third year of dental school. I started looking at what opportunities existed inside of that market and I saw there was a lot of growth that was happening in a small period of time and I was really fortunate that a community about 25 minutes north of where I grew up had an aging doctor who was looking for an opportunity to start to transition out of ownership. So I actually took that job. Working with him as an associate fresh out of school started in July and I worked with his son a little bit part-time in order to try to put together a full-time schedule, and that practice had four and a half operatories. They turned a closet into an op for me and a new assistant that they had hired and we figured out how to make it work alongside two hygienists. You got a closet, we got a closet, and honestly, that's about all we deserve as a new grad.

Paul Etchison:

Did you get a dental chair, or were they like, just where's the patient? Just sits on your lap. Shut the hell, get in your closet.

Collin Myrick:

They put a dental chair. No, they took care of me. They really did right by me.

Paul Etchison:

Oh, that's great.

Collin Myrick:

Yeah, through all that, we just got to learn what it was like to get started and in the matter of about four months, I realized our patient population really needed a lot of extractions. It's a rural, small community and people didn't want to travel an hour to a specialist and I didn't really know what I was doing. But I thought I could take teeth out, mainly because I had some kind of mechanical background, not necessarily a dental idea. I just thought I can push on this thing enough until it comes out. And, sure enough, that's kind of how the practice got. That's where the flywheel started to turn.

Collin Myrick:

Yeah, it basically came down to a conversation with Dr Gary in October of 2020, where I said all these teeth that were taken out, they need to have implants. Like these people need teeth to go back in those spots. And he said, yeah, but they don't want to go to the specialist. I said, yeah, I think we should do it. And he said, yeah, but you got to have a CT machine. I said, yeah, I think we should buy one. He said no chance, I'm buying a CT machine at this point. He was 72 and he was already kind of laying out that path for transition and he said you know what? What I think makes sense is if you want a CT machine, you should want the practice, you should buy the practice. And that October we kind of traded places from a leadership perspective and on January 1st from a tax perspective, our entities changed places and he became my associate and I took his spot.

Paul Etchison:

So was that kind of like when you're buying a car and you get to the price, you're like all right. You're like I don't know man, throw in rubber mats and we're in. You throw in that CT, we got a deal.

Collin Myrick:

Neither of us could say a price for months. It was the weirdest thing. I love him and if he heard this today he would laugh too. But I didn't want to offend him with the price and he didn't want to push me away with the price. So neither of us would say a price like what do you think? No, no, I don't know what do you think. And I mean it was the worst.

Collin Myrick:

We went back and forth forever and finally one day this office manager had already retired, who knew him and loved him. Well, I kind of adjacently knew. She came to me and she said this is the number I think you'd take. I think 300,000,. He'd take it. And I said 300,000? He would take 300,000? Yeah, I'll do it tomorrow. Like I was on that immediately. And she said he's going to be so happy. And sure enough, I went to him. I said I don't know if this is going to be, you know, respectful to you, dr Gary, but this is what I'm willing to do. It was perfect. And he carried the full note yeah, it was awesome.

Paul Etchison:

It's two people, just like trying to be fair. You know nobody wants it and it was win-win. Both parties were happy. I love it. It's funny. You mentioned the taking out teeth with the mechanical background. I remember they're like you got to put the elevator between the bone and the root.

Collin Myrick:

And.

Paul Etchison:

I just remember reading as a student I'm like it doesn't fit in there, I can't get it in there. What are you talking about? Put it in between there. And then I finally learned you got to push real hard. That's right, you know.

Collin Myrick:

So it's a you figure that stuff up soon. I watched an old guy use a mallet. That's what taught me how they got it in there. I'm like oh.

Paul Etchison:

I've seen that. If that's what, you do.

Collin Myrick:

I'm supposed to do it with my hand. Now I see you got to push.

Paul Etchison:

That is some barbaric shit.

Collin Myrick:

Yeah.

Paul Etchison:

So when you went into this associateship, were you looking for an ownership opportunity or were you just trying to find your associateship and you landed there?

Collin Myrick:

I had owned a small business before I went to dental school. I paid for my first year of dental school by selling a beach chair company. I was one of those guys that carried the chairs out onto the beach early in the morning and let people sit on for a few bucks. And so I kind of understood, like, at some point, I want to be an entrepreneur, I don't want a job, I want a business and I really want to build something. And so I knew that from the beginning. I knew I wanted to own a practice. I didn't know if that was going to be the one, but in the early years of my career I wanted to take that chance. I wanted to jump into ownership so that the compounding interest of whatever decisions I made could start to build up quickly.

Paul Etchison:

Now, eventually you would go on and build a facility or move the practice, and I want to get to that. But before we get there, what were, like, the biggest challenges that you went through when you took the reins at this practice?

Collin Myrick:

The biggest challenges that we went through. He had kind of built a lifestyle practice. He was working two and a half days a week and, honestly, if I'm practicing in my 70s, I hope that that's the same thing that I'm doing. He was really hands off in ownership and I wanted to be really intentional. I want to make sure this investment made sense and that I was going to see it through, and he was willing to delegate a lot of duties and unfortunately his office manager transitioned out of the practice just before I took over some level of leadership and that became a big bite of the apple to take on all at once that not only am I learning how to do dentistry for the first time, I'm learning how to lead a team of people, but I'm also having to figure out you know, bookkeeping was an in-house thing, most of the accounting services were an in-house thing and I did not think I could handle that and I couldn't. That's the truth.

Collin Myrick:

And fortunately our accountant was pretty quick to step in and say, hey, you're not supposed to do this by yourself. You're supposed to have a team of great people who help you as you grow in this journey and if you're not closed-fisted in this, you'll be okay to share in some of the expenses and in some of the responsibilities with us, and that's been a huge thing. I think that kind of reframed my whole thought process through practice ownership. That was the first lesson that I learned, in that I don't have to do this alone, that there's other people who want to help me too, and that their job they actually only have a job if they support their clients well, just like we only have a job if we take care of our patients well. So true.

Paul Etchison:

So do you remember any people leaving? Were there people that left on the team when you took over leadership? That surprised you or maybe made you realize some things that your vision maybe was there too much or wasn't there, or they weren't aligned with your vision.

Collin Myrick:

Absolutely, and I mean you're hitting on the same things that we hear all the time in the industry. Your vision Absolutely, and I mean you're hitting on the same thing so we hear all the time in the industry, especially when the transition is from a 72 year old to 27 year old. There's a lot of vision difference in that space and I say often that I think that team that I inherited had come to expect the lifestyle practice that Dr Gary had created and the office manager was the one who knew it the most, and the reason that she timed her transition up the way that she did was because she knew this is not sustainable. This is not the way this business continues. And as someone else takes over, like, obviously that's gonna change. And something that I hear often is I don't know what an office manager does. I don't either, but especially in the early days of being a practice owner, someone else's office manager sounds like somebody who really knows what they're doing and her leaving felt like, oh, the only person who really knew is gone now. So I'm just here by myself.

Collin Myrick:

But the biggest loss of all and this kind of goes into the segue for the next phase of our growth was a hygienist. Actually, her husband was the initial namesake of the practice and it changed to Daphne X Springs Family Dental when Dr Gary took over. But this hygienist's husband was a dentist who passed away at untimely circumstances. He was young and just unfortunately left us, and she owned the building as well because of their marriage. And when I decided that we needed a bigger space and that we were gonna transition somewhere else, it became a real eye-opener for her that this would be the first time that, even though the name has changed previously, this would be the first time that really the practice has changed and that this young guy I can tell that he's got a vision and even if I believe in his vision, it's different than what my husband had created and that this won't feel like his practice anymore. And when she left I thought the sky's falling. This is half of our patient population. This is the person who's been here the longest. This is the person who really has the she's probably the goodwill of the practice, even more than the selling dentist.

Collin Myrick:

And yet we moved a mile and a half down the road from this four plus an op practice into eight ops initially, but plumbed for 11 and 11 operatories and almost from day one. It was full speed ahead and as difficult as hygiene is, as every listener knows, as difficult as it is to add hygienists, somehow hygienists just want to be a part of our group in those early days and we added a lot in a really small period of time and now we've had six really great, stable hygienists for the last two years. Yeah, we got to six two years ago and it's been unbelievable to see that happen. And now, as we're opening this new practice, I see how hard it is to add hygienists again and I forget that I've kind of lived in la-la land with the crew that we have and yet I still I say that hardest season that we went through it was so short-lived because somehow the right people came along at just the right time, and that the team that I inherited wasn't the team that I needed to go where we wanted to go.

Paul Etchison:

Let's talk about that transition a little bit. What were some pros and cons that led you to say this is not large enough for the vision that I have and to actually cause? I think that's a big decision A lot of owners have when they're in a four, maybe five, ops. Some people are stuck in a three op and it's just one doctor and one chair and then two hygienists and it's like man, it's just such a financial commitment to pick up and start over.

Collin Myrick:

I already got I wish everyone could have the same situation that I did, because there weren't a lot of choices I wasn't faced with a lot of. Should I do this or should I do that? For me, there were so many patients calling our office who wanted to become patients, and they were people that I knew, people that I had grown up with, and they wanted to be a part of our practice and we couldn't say yes, and that hurt me, like that hurt my heart, and I thought, rather than be a good dentist, I want to be their dentist. Like I don't even know what it means to be a good dentist at this point. I've only been doing this for less than a year, wow. But if these people want me to be their dentist, I want to be their dentist.

Collin Myrick:

And I couldn't say yes, and it was because of our facility more than anything. And even if I had fought really hard to expand inside of that building, it wouldn't have been possible to expand in the ways that our community needed. And for us there has been a lot of need since the COVID era and our communities are still growing. Freeport's, the fastest growing community in the state of Florida, which just feels crazy.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, I've got the same experience. Where I where I put my startup, is that it looked like a great location and now, fast forwarding 13 years, it was such a good location, just neighborhood after, and it's still happening. Everybody is moving to this community and there's sometimes where I'm just like man, am I just full of BS and I just had a great location and I just lucked out. Was it something I did? Was it something? Was it just location? It's hard to say, but it damn, it helps and I'll take it. It sure does.

Collin Myrick:

I'll take it on five, amen, yeah.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, seven days a week. So talk about when you opened this new place. You said you were eight ops plumbed for 11. What was like your vision going into that? Did you have a good idea as far as multiple providers and what you want to do, or is it kind of just open up and see how things go?

Collin Myrick:

I didn't have a totally clear vision at that point, and I'm now the guy who says you need to know where you're going in order to get there. If you just start walking, you don't know if you're walking the right direction or the wrong direction. But at that time, I'll be totally honest, I was just walking and I was walking in the path of where patients want to go, and if they want to come to our practice, then our practice needs to get bigger in order to say yes, and that isn't the best North Star, but it's a North Star, and that was kind of my initial mindset. So, that said, I've got to add a doctor, because I can't do any more dentistry and Dr Gary can't do any more dentistry and Dr Gary probably isn't going to be here much longer. The 73-year-old is going to be a 74-year-old, is going to be a 75-year-old and he's going to want to retire. So, even if I get better and better, we've got to have somebody else in order to complement this team. And then the same thing came true of hygiene. If we want to see more patients and we want to reappoint at close to 100%, then we've got to add more hygienists, or else we can't say yes to new patients. So those things kind of all combined to.

Collin Myrick:

Like I said before, I didn't really have choices. If those facts are true, then I needed to grow. I needed to grow our team and our practice was inevitably going to grow. Now, fast forward a year. I hired an awesome associate. He's been a gangster and his family has just added so much value to our lives that I said we need more of these Like this is what dentistry is supposed to be.

Collin Myrick:

And now much of my story is tied into this idea that dental school didn't suck because we were working together. Dental school sucked because we had to do things that didn't feel like what real work looked like and it didn't feel autonomous. We didn't feel like we had any autonomy over our days. But I loved that. I got to walk into an alcove and talk to my friends about this crazy case. That might have just been a class two filling at the time, but at that time was crazy. I need to show this to you guys. Can you believe how close it is to the nerve? And now that same thing's true of doing a sinus bump on an implant at number three. And I think that that's what healthcare is supposed to be about and that's definitely what dentistry is supposed to be about is this collaborative environment where you can make each other better and you can encourage each other through the good times and through the bad.

Collin Myrick:

If you're the only dentist in the office, man, it's got to feel like, hey, let me show this to my assistant and see if she thinks this is cool. And she's probably like, yeah, good job, doc. I don't know what that looks like, but when you can show that to another doctor, they're like, wow, that's crazy, that you were able to do that. And when you show them that you perfed number 18 and that they're probably going to lose it Now, they look at it and say that sucks, man, and I've done the same thing and I really hate the conversation you're about to have to have. And you feel like, man, they get where I'm at and that environment has been awesome for us. So I would say, even if the money doesn't make sense, which we can get into next, but even if that part doesn't make sense, collaborative dentistry just makes for a better workplace, it makes for a better environment and you feel better at the end of the day just because you got to share in those highs and lows with other people who know what you're going through.

Paul Etchison:

I couldn't agree more, man. When I had my first associate, it was you don't realize how alone you are until you're not alone anymore. And I mean, yeah, me and my assistant, we used to call it the thrill of the fill when we did those. Let's go here it comes, here it comes. And a lot of times we give that look like hells, yeah. And sometimes we just go, huh, what happened there? Damn, it Did everything right up to there. That's not what I thought it was going to look like. Anyway, let's focus on your practice now. How many docs? I think you mentioned six hygienists. What are you guys doing? As far as, if you're comfortable, sharing like revenue, wise, like what's that look like?

Collin Myrick:

Yeah, sure, everything. So we we have added a little more than a doctor a year the whole way. So when we moved into the new location, we added a doctor in September of that year. Then the following year we added two doctors, a husband and wife team. That was the year that we retired Dr Gary. That's last year, 2023.

Collin Myrick:

And then this year we added a really experienced quality dentist who used to own a practice in Colorado and moved back to Northwest Florida and kind of saw the vision that we had and said that's something I want to be a part of. And so, yeah, where we found ourselves now is five doctors. We really work somewhere like three and a half full-time doctor schedules. There's almost always only three of us in the office at a time. On Thursdays we kind of set up this funky surgery schedule to where four of us can be in the office, but most of the time there's only three. We work five days a week and our hygiene team six hygiene four days a week and then two hygienists that work Fridays.

Collin Myrick:

So, yeah, it's been a cool thing to see it grow and, just on a numbers side, it's always fun to share because it's crazy a little bit of our trajectory. But in 2019, the practice was doing right at 400,000. And in this year, our WAG, our Wildly Audacious goal, was 5 million and we're going to fall just short, which is a pretty cool thing. But, yeah, it's been a really fun journey and yeah, that's why I would say, as much as the experience is amazing, the numbers make sense too, and I'd be happy to talk about and share, because it's something that's really made us, made our team experience better. What we've been able to create for our team members has been better just as a result of the profitability of the practice and what we're able to get back.

Paul Etchison:

So, yeah, what I hear from like the way you're talking is you're so engaged and passionate about what you guys do at that practice. Anything that you guys are doing special that you feel like just ends up in that team cohesion, that culture that's really helped you.

Collin Myrick:

So the first thing I'll say is I think what we do special is that we practice in an area that most people probably don't want to practice. If you go to the University of Texas in Houston, you're not looking at a town of 13,000 saying man, that's my paradise. But I will say, the cool thing about us is that we're also 25 miles from the beach. So one of the best beaches in the world is on 30A at Santa Rosa Beach and Seaside Rosemary Beach. For all those who are really excited about that community, that, all those who are really excited about that community, that's where we're at and I think that we've been able to recruit because of that. But then to get back to your actual question, we love our team and we try to create the closest thing to a family dynamic, while also still being honest about what it means to be on the team. And what that means to me is that a family is a place that, no matter what happens, you're still family. I mean that whole team aspect of like what it means to add value in those ways is something that we try to hang on to a lot, and that's through our mission, our vision and our core values, and we're sticky on that, like it's something that we talk about often and our core values are something that if you embody them well, you're a great team member, and if you don't embody a core value well, then that should mean that you're not a team member, that it's that important to us. And I think that, as listeners, as you're building out your practice and you're thinking through what does it mean to have core values? You should think that way, because something that we did and I'll tell you a roadblock that we hit we had core values and we thought they meant something and we did our performance reviews based on them.

Collin Myrick:

We did a performance improvement plans based on those core values and at some point we had a group of team members who just did not fit in anymore and they were so negative and they brought down the vibe of the office a lot and we all kind of just like, push them into their corner and said you know we're going to do our job, we know that they're doing theirs, but I don't really want to relate to them. I don't want that shadow to fall over me on a daily basis. And unfortunately, it wasn't just one person, it had become a group and I started to say how is it possible that when I look at our core values, they embody every one of them, they do their job and yet even still they feel like somebody who brings our energy down? And what that meant for us is that our core values weren't right, Because if we really believe in it, then that shouldn't be possible.

Collin Myrick:

And that led to kind of a restructure of our core values. We ended up this year we added a core value, a spirit of positivity, in order to kind of address that issue that we saw that this consistent negative experience inside the workplace was something that brought down the energy of the office. And yeah, that was a hard conversation. Two of those team members are no longer with us and one of them has really made a big turn, but through that encounter it felt like gosh. I think that we learned a lot about each other and we learned a lot about what it looks like to lead well in knowing that if your core values don't actually express what it means to be successful inside of your office, then you probably need to revisit them.

Paul Etchison:

So that's something we do inside of your office, then you probably need to revisit them. So that's something we do. I love that you shared that. I mean that's such a great story because I think so many of us as dental practice owners, we have an issue and we want an if A, then B solution. Well, I got these two team members. They're kind of negative and that might be like, oh, they're not being the nicest to the patients, they're not providing the best experience, they're not chipping in with the rest of the team how do I address this?

Paul Etchison:

And it really like what you just shared it comes back to. It could be as foundational as just declaring your core values and making them mean something by holding people accountable to them and making sure. I love that was such a great short story that you shared there. I think that's going to help a lot of people because I think we all have that at all of our offices. I think that's going to help a lot of people because I think we all have that at all of our offices and I think every dental practice owner has went through that.

Paul Etchison:

It's like somebody I held on to that I probably should let go, and I didn't realize how toxic they were to the whole environment until they were gone. They're not like horrible employees. They're pretty, they're decent. They're not like your A plus. But is it bad enough? But if you stick true to your core values, I love that you change your core values. That's so cool. Talk about as far as long-term vision, like where do you go from here? I mean, let's explore this new practice that you're working on right now.

Collin Myrick:

So back to the very beginning, I mean the roots were I'll either do this thing or I'll do a startup in my hometown. And when I think about this thing that has become Defeating X Springs Family Dental it's really dictated much of my life to this point. I think that I imagined less than what we've become to this point. I did not envision that it would grow as quickly as it did and that any of the things that we've accomplished in four years would be possible in 10. And really any is dramatic. I didn't imagine that five doctors and six hygienists could work in an 11-op practice. I knew enough about how a dental office should work to say that's not real, that's not how it should be. And even still, I think we've just consistently said yes to the right team members each time they've come along and that every step of the way I've thought to myself when the time's right, I want to be in the market. That means the most to me. I want to be home, and my mom always said it takes a village to raise a child, and I think that in our small little town that was the truest statement ever. Freeport was a place that my dad was a football coach and he was a teacher all growing up and my great-great-grandfather was one of the first people into the town many moons ago and there's just something in my blood that doesn't let me leave that place. And I love it and as much as I said earlier, I circled that place and said probably not there and then eventually that was home. I now I realize that as long as I've been back in this area I've had this inkling to serve the community that I grew up in. So it's funny because you look at our practice and you say you know five doctors, six hygienists, 11 ops doing really good numbers, that's gotta be the flagship. But there's something competitive in me that says the core of our growth engine cannot be in my rival's community and I'm still a child at heart that says Defuniac is not my home. So as a result, we've done this stupid thing and we have decided that if Freeport is growing as fast as it is and it now has a master plan community that has almost 10,000 people in it, the neighborhood that I grew up in is on this larger street that kind of surrounds that master plan community and has probably the same numbers in just the outskirts of that little street. I've said they can handle a lot of dentists there and the demographics can make sense.

Collin Myrick:

And I started two years ago having this conversation with a developer of that community and said do you have any commercial goals, do you have any interest in having a commercial center inside of this? And he said you know, actually I do. I said, well, if that's an option, I'd like to start that conversation now. And two years ago we shook hands and said we're going to figure out a way to make this work, and I didn't know how painful that handshake would be throughout many parts of this. He's definitely a better negotiator than me and knows how to play the game a lot better than I do.

Collin Myrick:

But I'll say I think that I have the most prized location I could ever imagine, just in the center of the growth engine of our community, and we are doubling down as much as possible on that spot because it costs more than I thought it would. So you got to have more square footage to make it make sense. So our now vision is what we're building out is a 13,000 square foot, and I say building out. It'll be done in six weeks, but 13,000 square foot two-story building on the first floor will occupy essentially 6,700 square feet of that and the additional is just kind of the common area. That's an elevator and a stairwell to get you to the second floor and from day one there'll be 15 operatories fully outfitted.

Collin Myrick:

We've got an opportunity.

Collin Myrick:

We've gone ahead and plumbed and built out a floor plan to expand to add a little bit more in the future and, yeah, we've got a lot of patients scheduled in that office already and really need some quality hygienists to help us see them.

Collin Myrick:

That's amazing If anyone's listening, but yeah, it's a cool thing that's going to come together and my sister is actually a pediatric dentist and she is going to graduate from Pedo Residency in Houston in just a few months and my dream when we first started this was that maybe there would be some interest from her and coming home and that we would leave the second floor kind of as no plans and that if she was interested, that she would become the perfect tenant to compliment what we've got going on, especially the middle school across the street. And it looks like she's now in some heavy financing conversations. Her risk tolerance is significantly lower than mine, but I think that there's a chance that that happens and if so, man, this place is going to be a really cool dental facility that can serve a huge community. Yeah, we're pumped about it.

Paul Etchison:

That is so cool, man, yeah, you know. Last question, before we close off you know what I love hearing is I love hearing. I don't know if your friends would describe you as just cool and calm, but you sound so calm about it. You're like, yeah, we're just going to build this big ass thing. I might not have gotten the best, it was a tough negotiation, but here we are and it's just like you know. I love your positivity, man. It's contagious. What's your dream for you, man? How much you're going to practice? How much you're going to manage? Do you see building a large group, like what's more long out, or are you just kind day by day?

Collin Myrick:

I've probably spent or wasted money on coaches and consultants from all over the industry and I could go through the list, honestly and some amazing experiences Inspired Hygiene with Rachel Wall, incredible Topps. Darcy Wilson is our coach she's incredible. I'm in DSI Mastermind Group. I've been doing DSN since the day I graduated dental school. I mean, I listen to every podcast and I love what you do and somehow I got introduced to Steve Markowitz as a friend more than anything, and he's the closest thing to a CEO coach that I've probably ever found, and every call with him I feel like man.

Collin Myrick:

I'm getting closer to understanding myself, even in what I really want to do and to this point I'll be totally honest. I think that I just like business. I love leading teams, I love being a part of teams, but I also love taking care of patients. I love doing dentistry and I love doing the dentistry. That challenges me. I want to do stuff that's hard and it's not hard. I don't want to do it.

Collin Myrick:

And at the same time, as you know this, as the organization grows, the hardest challenges the things that only you can do as the leader or owner or entrepreneur inside the organization. Visionary those things aren't inside the operatory anymore. As you bring on really great dentists, as you bring on people who can replace your skill sets, the place that they can replace it is in the decision making and most often, at least in my organization, the person with the highest risk tolerance is the one who has to make the hardest decisions, and that is me, to the highest level. And if we want to keep saying yes to new patients and we want to keep saying yes to doctors and we want to build an organization that doctors like me and you would look at and say I don't have to do my own thing. I actually can live out my full vision inside of that organization.

Collin Myrick:

He's open to partnership, he's open to bringing people in. He'll let others lead the whole practice. He'll open an office and say I'm going to equip you and give you the skills to be the best version of yourself and to be a leader inside that organization. If you are willing to do that and I am then I think that your problems are going to only get bigger and bigger and that'll command your day. So I wish that I could tell you exactly what I knew I was going to do in 10 years, because Craig Spodak has that exercise where he wrote it down, and I think that's just the coolest thing that's ever happened, that he basically lived that out. I don't exactly have that for me. I think that I just know that I want to solve the biggest problems that our organization has and I'm willing to do whatever that is, and yeah, I'm excited about it.

Paul Etchison:

I love that man. I think I'm the same way. I'm always begin with the end in mind. I'm like, what am I doing? Five, 10 years? I might be pretty good at about a year and a half, two years I've been pretty consistent with that, but it keeps changing. You know, it's like I can't look out that far and I don't even know how I'm going to feel in five years with the listeners. Man, I got to get you on back. Maybe in a year we'll do a follow-up and just hear how this is going. And hey, if you are in the, what is it? What are you calling your Northwest Florida? Northwest Florida, yeah, and you're a hygienist and you're hiding and you're waiting for that perfect opportunity. Here it comes, Come find us.

Collin Myrick:

That's right. Reach out to Colin.

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Dr. Paul Etchison

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