Tiny Changes: Big Financial Results

Adam Cmejla: All of the financial planning is simply balancing the tightrope, if you will, of how do I let my savings habits dictate my spending habits so that I’m setting myself up for Financial Success down the road, but I’m not doing it so much that I’m sacrificing the joy and experiences of the day to day that I can have with the people around me that I know and love.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: I am Bethany Fishbein, the CEO of The Power Practice and host of the Power Hour Optometry Podcast. Welcome back for another episode. I’m excited today to have another great conversation with Adam Cmejla, who has been a guest on the podcast before. Adam is the founder and CEO of Integrated Planning and Wealth Management, where he works specifically with optometrist and optometric practice owners. And this is a follow-up to a conversation that Adam and I started on his podcast the 2020 Money Podcast. Adam was inspired by the book Atomic Habits and started asking me to come and speak about some of the small changes that practice owners can make that deliver big results in their practices. And so I’m turning around the question today and asking him about small financial changes that practice owners can make to help them build wealth and good financial habits for life. So, Adam, thank you so much for coming back.

Adam Cmejla: Thank you very much for having me. Dr. Fishbein. Looking forward to as always our conversations.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Me too. Are we not on a first-name basis anymore, or

Adam Cmejla: You know, it’s one of those things that I still feel like at least in the introduction I acknowledge the effort the title the notoriety the Yeah, so Bethany Beth be I think I even send an email like be like, That’s how polarizing I am. And my response is sometimes because as we were I think dialoguing back and forth pre-record for 2020 Money. I shot up a quick response to you and it was like B comma and then whatever I said and then now on the introduction, I’m like, Thank you for having me. Dr. Fishbein is a pleasure to be here. So I’ll find myself in the middle here eventually in the conversation.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Fair enough, just checking I didn’t know if something has changed here.

Adam Cmejla:  No, not at all. No. But thank you for having me. I’m looking forward to the conversation.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Me too. So I know you were inspired by Atomic Habits, which is a book by James Clear. Just talk a little bit about the premise of the whole thing and what about it really is making you think lately.

Adam Cmejla: It is a book that is on my perennial reads list. There are a handful of books that I read every single year and when I say read ones that I have gone through one of the benefits that I like about reading books electronically, I choose iBooks as my platform is the ability to highlight and take notes and just jot like essentially the the old version, the old school version of writing in the margins, I kind of have the fortunate or I shouldn’t say I, but anybody that does this has the fortunate benefit of kind of reading two books at the same time. Number one, I can go back and read the book in and of itself for the original content. But then I also enjoy seeing what passages I highlighted as being impactful over the couple years that I’ve read the book as well as when I jot down notes where I make notes about specific passages. It’s almost a form of internal journaling within a book so I can not only see what passages were impactful to me, but then I have the opportunity to kind of go back in time and see what frame of mind I was in the mindset in which I was engaging with the words that were written in James’s message in this case. And so it’s kind of, dare I say, therapeutic in one sense because it allows me to go back and kind of measure my progress and sometimes it’s also or it’s measurable in the sense that I can kind of go back and see where I was at that time. But it’s also therapeutic because there have been times where I’ve come across journal entries or notes on something that impacted me and now it’s like, really, that that thing had that big of a change. Well, that’s like old news for me and it just kind of illustrates the confidence that when you read something that resonates with you so much, it can eventually become a fabric of who you are in the beam that you are in the belief structure that you have and Atomic Habits is is right up there at the top of the list because I think the subtitle of the book says it all right “tiny improvements, remarkable results”. And there are so many things about financial management, right the way we view money, the way we embrace money, the way we interact with it the thought process that we have, that, that embody that thought in that process where the most basic example that I’ll give is the rule of compounding interest, right? How many of us have ever came across a blog post or saw social media post or read an article read a book read something that talked about if you save $250 per month, over 30 years, you’ll have X numbers of dollars? And if you see the visual of that graph, you’ll see it’s kind of trying to bring back my math. You’re right. I don’t know if it’s logarithmic or exponential, right? It’s small in the very beginning and you see incremental improvements and it gets a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger, but we’re compounding really matters is in those last phases of the timeline. And I think again, just that’s one of the many examples where tiny improvements remarkable results can be distilled down to how it applies to financial management. 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: It’s so true. You’re talking about compound interest, and it wasn’t even on my list of things that you might talk about as those tiny changes. But even as you’re saying that I’m thinking about being 17 and the first time I was exposed to a what do they call it that a Christmas club or something that every time you got a paycheck you put $25 and your Christmas club bank account, and at the time it was kind of like we made it at the end today. So I’m gonna have over $1,000 Like it just

Adam Cmejla: It was just by saving that wasn’t necessarily due to a lot of interest or compound growth right? Every single year. No.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Interesting. So, I mean, that’s the thing, right? building wealth is just like any other goal that people have. It’s something that they have this idea of for the future that they want to have money maybe it’s just some amount of money, it’s enough money to buy a thing or to provide an experience or to take care of family or whatever it is. And just like any other goal, you can want it but it’s really then developing a strategy and having the discipline to stick to the strategy that ultimately decides if you’re going to have what you want at the end or not. Right.

Adam Cmejla: Well this is something that I would really encourage listeners to reflect on. Meditate on journal about, talk about what their spouse right? There is a very, very distinct difference between wanting and willing. So a lot of people want what you just talked about, right? A lot of people everybody dare I say everybody wants money, and I would not to zoom in too much on that and digress too far down that path but people don’t want money they want what money can provide the end result of what that money is whether that be experiences things memories, artifacts, whatever that might be right it’s the money is the conduit it’s the vehicle is nothing but a transient currency that allows us to exchange some value in exchange for the thing or the experience that we have. So everybody dare I say wants money and again, the things that ultimately come with that money, but the difference is are people willing to make the changes necessary if they’re not on that right track, right? If they can be if they’re self-observant and self-aware to realize even without understanding maybe the basics ABCs and one two threes of compounding interest and the importance of saving I think everybody knows that we should be saving. So if they’re aware and in tune with where they’re at, and they realize that there’s this disconnect, okay? They want these things they want to be at some point financially independent and the best definition of financial independence that we’ve covered that I’ve heard comes from the lead advisor in our firm John Bohnsack when people ask that question of well, what do you mean by high net worth or what do you mean by financially independent or financially free? He says it’s the ability to do what you want, when you want with who you want. And so everybody, I think, wants to be able to say that they can do that, but are they willing to do the things necessary today? Tomorrow? Next week? Next month? Next year? over and over until like I mentioned earlier, it becomes a fabric of who you are, it’s part of your identity and the respect and way in which you steward the dollars that come into your household, by virtue through your practice as an owner, are you willing, if you’re not in that position right now to change how you view money and who you are and the actions that you take in order to achieve that. That’s the difference, dare I say, between the haves and the have nots? Not to make it a binary equation, but that’s that’s its kind of way I think about it.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: It’s the same thing in our industry, where we do with practice management, consulting everyone wants it, they see somebody else who has it, and they think I want that. And that’s one of the first things we’re figuring out in an initial conversation is okay, what is it you want? Are you willing to put in the work to get there? And so, really, that’s what habit change is all about is developing that discipline to do something now, that’s going to change who you are and what you have a year from now, two years, three years or 10 years down the line. 

Adam Cmejla  10:51

Yep, yep. Okay. So you and I, whenever we get together for conversations, it’s always one of those, like, you have something I have something we’ve just got so many nuggets that we volley back and forth, so it’s all good demeanor.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein  11:03

So let’s get actionable. And talk about some of the things that people practice owners, optometrists, anybody with his salary really can be doing right now one of those tiny changes that will lead to remarkable results, what’s on your list for those

Adam Cmejla  11:21

Before we do that, let me just kind of define the framework and guardrails around how I’m thinking about this. So if we think about what a habit is, a habit is basically a four step process that happens and I might have talked about this. I don’t know if it was with you, or maybe on a previous episode of 2020 money but a habit basically is four steps that happen almost instantaneously. That caused us to do something right. There’s a cue, a craving, a response and a reward. And so the most generic basic example that I can give of that is we walk into a dark room and we want to see, okay, we walk into a dark room. That’s the cue, what do I crave? I want to see, what’s the response, I flipped the light switch, what’s the reward? I can see there is light, right? That whole process that whole thought process happens just like that, but that essentially is a habit when we walk into a dark room in the most basic elementary sense. I walk into a dark room I want to see my habit is to flip on the light switch. That’s the most granular or one of the most granular examples that I can give and we can take that as complex and as long term as saving money. What’s the cue? I know I should be saving? What’s the craving the craving is I want to have this version of financial independence at some point down the road. Alright, what’s my response? What should it be? Well, that means I have to save, what’s the reward? Well, that’s where I eventually get to that point to financial independence. The reward in the habits of wealth building is the hardest part to overcome, because it is such delayed gratification. Right. So I’ll talk a little bit that’s kind of the framework of how I’m thinking about that through atomic habits. Now let’s talk about what James mentions and educates us about in the book about how the rules of habits are built. So he talks about there’s four steps to make a habit work, you have to make it obvious, you have to make it attractive, you have to make it easy, and you have to make it satisfying. So how can we think about that through the filter of personal finance? Well, the first thing, right, we want to align action with intention, first of all, get very clear on what it is that you’re solving for three questions that I love, that we apply in the planning conversations that we have, and we encourage people to run a lot of decisions that they make outside of the financial planning conversations just in the realm of critical thinking around life is three questions right? What am I solving for? the service of what? And at the cost of what? If you just sit and ask yourself those three questions in series with any type of major decision that you have personally professionally, financially relationally right. You can apply that through any different filter, what am I solving for in service of what at the cost of what you can take that decision making matrix through this idea and through the framework of making it obvious making it attractive, making it easy and making it satisfying? So if we say, What am I solving for? I’m solving for financial independence, okay. want want want want want? Like what does that mean? I want to do what I want when I want with who I want okay, like the point with this from a brain standpoint is the brain is a wonderful servant, but it’s a horrible master and what psychology and research tells us how we internalize that is we have to give the brain a very easy, concrete and visual goal to work towards just saying I want for financial independence. There’s nothing for the brain to really latch on with that. And so like I said, In the beginning, what we crave we don’t crave money. We crave what money can provide to us and what it provides to us is in direct correlation and alignment with the values and equalities and our relationship with money growing up. For some that’s a ginormous house. For others. It’s exotic cars. For others, it might be an airplane for others, it might be trips with their like whatever that definition for you as an individual is. That’s what money means to you. So get very clear and be at peace with your current Money Story.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So you really need to know and almost be able to visualize what you want to be able to do with that money that’s going to be more motivational than I want to open my statement and have it say a million dollars or $3 million, or whatever it is

Adam Cmejla: Correct because the only way that that quantitative value works is if it’s tied to some type of goal we hear all the time Adam that will have ODS come into our office or come in but clients in 33 states or whatever, so virtually right we’re interacting in talking with clients. And we’ll hear the most common question from a new relationship. And it comes from a place of insecurity. And I think it’s a combination of insecurity, curiosity, and dare I say fear. They’ll kind of lay out their proverbial financial life on the table bunch of different financial puzzle pieces, as we call it. And one of their first questions is How am I doing? Do I have enough? What do you see other ODS have that are in my situation that have this practice that they might have a 600,000 port for the $600,000 portfolio or 1.3 million or $50,000? Suffice it to say an OD in their late 40s that only has 50. Again, kind of back to what I said they probably know that they’re a little bit behind where they should be and I’m being gentle with a little bit. But in that middle, they’re like, how am I doing? And our first response to that is need more information. What are you solving for, right if you want to retire at 50, and you’re 46 in you, quote unquote, only have a half million dollars, but you’re used to spending $10,000 a month. You know, you got some work to do. But if you’re 65 and you’ve got $3.5 million in the bank and you’re spending $7,000 a month Social Security. 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: And some kind of terminal diagnosis,

Adam Cmejla: Even I wouldn’t even say that. Yeah, I mean, if you really want to go on the other end of the spectrum, they’re Bethany but but in a quote unquote, normal retire, right. It’s all relative to what the end result is. So yeah, to that point, it’s, I want a million dollars by the time I’m 65 and I want $2 million by the time 65. Okay, is that enough? Is that too much? Right? All the financial planning, and I do want to come back to the original question was, what do we do? What are the action items? All of financial planning is simply balancing the tightrope if you will, of how do I let my savings habits dictate my spending habits so that I’m setting myself up for Financial Success down the road, but I’m not doing it so much that I’m sacrificing the joy and experiences of the day to day that I can have with the people around me that I know and love. That’s the balance of financial planning. So once we get clear on what this money wants to do right back to my goal, I want to have a new house or I want to live in this type of house. I want this property because I have friends and relationships. They will say I want to be in a bigger house when my kids get older because I want to be the house that my kids friends want to come to. And I want my kids around me I want our house to be kind of the nucleus of their friends. I had a friend when I was growing up where we always went to their house and they had the tire swing in the pool and blah blah like I want that for my family. Great. Awesome. You’ve now given your brain a goal, a concrete physical goal that I can now latch on to. And when you internalize that whether it’s a house or I want to take x numbers of vacations, I want my kids to see all the natural parks or national parks national parks, national parks are natural parts. I want my kids to experience all the national parks by whatever that is. Start with that. So that’s the obvious part. Right? Make it obvious, attractive, easy, satisfying. That’s the obvious part. Okay. Now how do we make it attractive? Well, we have to think about if we want something I mentioned this at the end of our conversation on 2020 money, right? If we want something we’ve never had before, we’re going to have to do something that we’ve never done before. So we have to make savings attractive. How do we do that? I’m a fan of accountability and sharing it with the people that have aligned intentions and aligned goals. Maybe that’s your advisor, your spouse, a friend that you obviously trust when you can have that inner circle to share what it is the attractiveness of having someone to see your success and insert a little sprinkle of accountability, I think is important and again, the vast majority of people are going to do that internally with their family with their circle of advisers. Etc.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: That is an important piece though because the whole thing that you’re talking about is about finding ways to not like trick your brain but to change your perception

Adam Cmejla: No, you are tricking your brain the heck yeah sorry.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Like from a you’re like trying to make yourself understand that a long term reward, it has to be good enough to outweigh all the short term rewards. And that’s what’s hard about this as I’m listening to you. I’m realizing it that like if you buy a really nice car right now, like that’s attractive, you get to drive it, you get to look at it, you get to look at the window and know that it’s there your neighbors go ooh, like there’s a lot right there. And so what you’re planning for for the future has to be big enough and kind of grand enough to say like me looking out the window at my seven year old used car with 110,000 miles on it feels that good because I know that it’s getting me towards my ultimate result like it’s a whole there’s a quote I like that’s Be considerate to your future self. And you’ve got to make that consideration to your future self feel as good as if not better than the immediate gratification of doing or spending or buying something right now. It’s an interesting dilemma.

Adam Cmejla: I love that you shared your car and that just puts one more thing that you and I have in common. I wear it as a badge of honor that and I’m unapologetic about the fact that as the owner of multiple businesses and been in business, right it’s the reason I share that is not to brag or boast but the common “American Way” is the definition of someone that has multiple businesses and a long success track. Oh, you must drive a really nice car. No, I drive a 2013 Nissan Altima base model I have power windows. That’s it cloth seats. No moon roof, with hubcaps. Yes, friends. I don’t even have actual rims on my car. And you know what? I don’t care. Because I have an eight mile commute from the house to the office when I go to the office. You and I are having this conversation at home today because I’m at home for this conversation because (I’m at my home also your home, I’m at my best.) When I do commute, that’s just not where I place value. And we have relationships that will happily spend six figures on cars because that’s what they care about. This is not a judge or jury to say that because you drive an expensive car I’m Judging You know, I wear it as Dare I say proof in the pudding that yeah, I drink my own kool aid because could I go out and lease or buy a new car and depending on the amount pay cash or have a payment? Sure, absolutely. That’s not in alignment with our financial goals both me personally professionally as well as for our family. But again, I go back to aligning intention with action. So you have to make the habit attractive in the sense of what it is that you’re working for and measure that success measure that incremental progress. Making it easy has never been easier in the financial savings round and let me share an example of my grandparents. So when because they’re my inspiration and kind of paved the way of being an advisor and showing up so my grandparents when they first started saving, they didn’t have a 401k they were dairy farmers from Wisconsin, they were German immigrants and or came from a German immigrant family and we’re depression babies and so the joke in our family was grandma and grandpa could rub two pennies together and get a nickel. And when they started saving they always let their savings habits dictate their spending habits but they didn’t have a 401k on the farm. They didn’t have automatic draft from their payroll. Grandpa didn’t get a W two from the farm. I don’t know how he got like my point with that is it has never been easier for practice owners now to start saving if you have a 401k in your practice if you have a simple IRA or maybe whatever savings vehicle that you have, if you’re doing your roth IRAs if you’re doing your HSAs everything has never been easier to I don’t want to say like set it let it and forget it. I don’t want you to forget it, but you should definitely set it and let it outside of the periodic increases that the IRS gives us for savings which happened here in 2023 and 401Ks and IRAs, but that’s the easy part. So again, the bar as far as changing the habit and saying I’m not saving, if you’re trying to go from I’m not saving today to I’m saving tomorrow. It is but a handful of steps to log into your 401K or log into your payroll, adjust your withholding and boom it should be done right the last thing to make it satisfying, incremental rewards work wonders as far as nourishing that habit. So this doesn’t mean that oh, the incremental rewards I’m going to go out and buy this massive toy but whatever that might be. Think of what is it that you can do to make saving satisfying to build that habit? Maybe it is to your point, saving for something small maybe it’s saving, you know what we, we want to plan a trip next year and I want to pay cash for that trip. I’m setting my intention on paying cash for the trip. That is that is a near-term goal. It’s not the long-term big hairy audacious goal of financial independence by 55 Blah, blah, blah, right? But it’s a satisfying goal and it’s a reward that we can tie in the short term to go on that trip and know that I promise you folks if you’ve never done this before, if you’ve always independent position, financing your trips or having to pay off a credit card, months after and I’m not talking about if you put it on a credit card and then pay it off the next month without any interest if you’re doing that, okay, that’s essentially in my world. The same as paying cash I’m talking about if you’re used to taking trips where then you’re paying off that trip over 23456 months. I promise you that trip will feel so much better. If you know that it’s paid for in advance and you don’t have to worry about bringing a payment home with you. Does that make sense?

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Yes, absolutely. So I missed this step though. You got to make it attractive. You got to make it easy? make it obvious.

Adam Cmejla: Make it obvious, The obvious part is just setting the goal right. I have a visualization page. So in I have a routine that I be honest it’s not daily, but it’s definitely at least weekly if not multiple times per week. I am a big believer in the work of Napoleon Hill and thinking grow rich and writing out your affirmations writing out your visualizations. What you essentially want as success, the definition of success writing that out. One of my favorite phrases “I write to think I don’t think about writing.” So writing that out just kind of gets my brain thinking and on my visualization page are pictures of what our family is working towards. It’s not even just written out. It’s pictures because that visually for me is more stimulating than having I want to have a portfolio worth X numbers of dollars by the time I’m 50 and 55 and 60. Like I just have to attach right we have to attach some type of recognizable goal to that. So that’s the obvious part, the first step.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Gotcha. So now you have it, you’re kind of taking your weekly stock of life and gazing at your vision board for it with all the things that you want to have and you’ve got this future. We’ve talked about savings we’ve talked about automatic savings, which makes it your right very, very easy. You never even know it’s gone. You don’t even miss it. It just shows up there. So you’ve got that you’ve got your IRA, what are the other small tiny changes that a practice owner can make that set them on the past for however they define this financial success.

Adam Cmejla: So one thing that has been written about there is a ad nauseam in the personal finance space and it’s been written about almost to the point that it’s become kind of the punch line or the joke of our of our profession as it pertains to financial writing is, imagine if you stopped going out for coffee every week and rather took that cup of coffee and save that into your retirement, compounding at 7% over 35 years. Now those cups of coffees would be worth I don’t know, a couple 100 grand whatever that might be. And I’m not discounting like okay could that make a difference short, but let me tell you folks, you going to Starbucks once a week or twice a week is not what is cramping or inhibiting your ability to become financially independent. The two mistakes the two numerators in this equation that share the common denominator of what I’m about to say our house and car. And what I mean by that is lifestyle creep. The challenge that practice owners will have as their success assuming that their practice continues to grow and go up and up and up and hopefully their margins are following that. So the actual dollars that they’re bringing home are going up and up and up. What can happen is something that I call lifestyle creep, and that’s where you are having the basically your cost of life or cost of living on a monthly basis goes up and up and up as your income goes up. And that manifests itself in the form of bigger houses, bigger cars, bigger car payments, those two just broad-stroke examples. That’s where you can hamstring your ability to grow wealth. Now if that’s your thing, great. Awesome. I’m not here to play judge or jury right? Financial Planning is evaluating benefits and exchanges. And it’s prioritizing and organizing cash flow if I want a bigger house and I want bigger cars or better cars, more expensive cars. Okay, what were those three questions: What am I solving for? in service of what? and at the cost of what? And it’s that third question in those examples if I want the bigger house because of in service of what well? I want you know, what am I solving for a bigger house in service of what well I, My goal is I want my kids friends to view our house as homebase. Like this is the mothership I want. Okay. Awesome. Okay, at the cost of what? Well, I’m gonna have to stop saving to do that or like again, just do that math and be honest with yourself about that conversation. And if you find yourself in that situation, here’s the best news that I can give every single practice that are listening right now. You are in 100% control of your own income my friends, you have the ability and this can be sometimes almost almost I don’t want to say a curse, but it can be the excuse to out-kick our coverage from a spending standpoint. I just go make more money. I just see more patients now just raise fee. Okay? Okay. Again, and this comes back to our whole philosophy from a firm standpoint and from an advising perspective is, what is your intention? With your practice? How does your own practice serve you? Because you can do all those things, but the limiting denominator the most important commodity in that equation is hours in the day. So be mindful of 168 are the number of hours that we have in the week. So if you are solving for this and at the cost of what in your soul for that is well, I’ll just work more and I’ll see more patients or I’ll grow my practice. Okay, grow your practice, but just be cognizant of the constraints that you put around the practice so that you can actually do that. While not ironically sacrificing the thing that you wanted to do the most which is enjoy time with your families like to illustrate my example. I kind of took us on a long journey with that with that little monologue, but hopefully I tied it together, okay.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: It does. it makes circle because now you say okay, I’m just going to work more right to make more money and then you say okay, right. So now you’re thinking about working more for the benefit of what, at the cost of what and that can potentially bring you around to it makes like a circle. So ultimately, you have to have some personal stock in what is most important, is it time now? Is it being home for dinner now? So that is being home for dinner now, but that means that you might not have that house that’s the home base when your kids are older, or are you leaving your infant in daycare an hour longer so that you can have that house etc? Or do you call Power Practice and figure out how to have the more money without necessarily working more hours? That’s what we do. Just saying but yes.

Adam Cmejla: that’s that’s the perfect thing right? That is the pinnacle mountain top if you will, or that’s the summit that every practice owner envisions right how can I have my cake and eat it too? How can I make more while working less? And again, I’m not saying that every practice owner finds himself in that situation there are there are practice owners listening right now that love clinic and wouldn’t trade the patient interaction and the one on one impact that they have with the patient that’s in the chair every single exam. So please don’t misconstrue what I said that said it’s every practice owners goal to make more money even more class like that’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying is if you find yourself playing that proverbial tug of war of saying all right, the things that our lifestyle and our future goals are requiring a bigger dollar amount, but you are aware enough in your practice to say I’m not going to give my practice any more hours than what I’m currently giving you do as a practice owner have that extra arrow in the quiver of being able to control who is the one that is actually generating revenue into practice. If you’re tapped out and saying, I’m only seeing patients three days a week, four days a week period full stop that is a non-negotiable guardrail. Awesome. Solve for more providers, software, higher revenue per patient. Maybe you see more patients in those same days, right again, that’s your sandbox. That’s where Power Practice comes in and says, All right, with these constraints, how do we get you to have your cake and eat it too? That’s your new tagline Power Practice. We help you have your cake and eat it too, right? There’s got to be some optometric spin on that that you can take the have your cake and eat it too. There’s got to be some time on trade. Yeah, right.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein:have your optometric cake, nah I don’t think so. Something you said early on, though, is you’re talking about changing what you do and doing it consistently enough that ultimately it changes the fabric of who you are. And I think that that’s, for me, the ultimate pinnacle of habit change or habit formation, where it’s not even a habit anymore at that point. It’s just its identity. And that’s it’s so important. Like the thing that makes me think of it daily is my husband Jonathan is a streak runner, and we talked about this before

Adam Cmejla: okay, okay, yeah, how many years or weeks but

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: had a streak that was like 1100 something days he commits to running a mile every single day. And he was over three years, I think and then got sidelined by COVID broke his streak like many streak runners and then started up again on his 55th birthday, I think but the thing that makes me aware of it is at this point four-plus years in, it’s not ever a decision for him of am I going to run today? Every day. I’m like, Oh, should I go on the treadmill? Maybe today will maybe today I won’t. For him. That’s not the decision. The decision is what am I going to get my run in?

Adam Cmejla: So you are illustrating one of my favorite phrases, which is if you want better answers, ask better questions. And in this situation we’re talking about if we want better habits, ask better questions, which you would just mentioned. Should I go for a run today or not for someone that wants to instill the habit of running is asking the wrong question. The question they should be asking is what would a runner do today? When we go for a run? Right the runner isn’t giving them a yes no option of what they should do. The yes no option is Who am I and what would a runner do? What would healthy person do if someone is trying to diet and they’re trying to control and increase the quality and decrease the quantity of food that they’re putting into their body? Rather than saying should I eat that piece of cake? Wrong question. The question should be what would healthy person do here? If we put this from a financial standpoint of I want to save the question isn’t Should I save into my 401K or not? The question is Well, I am identifying myself I’m changing the fabric of my being. I am going to be a saver and I promise you folks, there is something to be said for saying things out loud. My wife looks at me with eye rolls sometimes when she hears me set when she hears me talk or I listen to podcasts and I go through affirmations and if you’re rolling your eyes as a listener right now, you do you I’m gonna continue to do me because candidly, it’s worked out pretty well so far.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: I’m looking at you and imagining you in the mirror like doing the you

Adam Cmejla: I write things on dry erase.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Like, I’m good enough.

Adam Cmejla: I had for the longest time one of my favorite phrases that are quotes that I heard from Jocko Willick who is the author of Extreme Ownership and the Jocko Podcast he had a quote that was called getting better as a campaign, getting better as he didn’t action. It’s not a one small step. It’s not just a flash in the pan or lightning in a bottle. Getting better as a campaign. And I had that written on our bathroom mirror as a dry in dry erase. And I would recite that my wife be like what, like getting better as a campaign. And you know what, it rubbed off on her too because she’s done it to us from time to time. So my point again, coming back to what you were saying is, there is benefit in saying things out loud, I’m a saver, what would a saver do? Well, the saver isn’t asking themselves the question should I save in my 401k? A saver is saying how do I save into my 401k? How much should I save into my 401k? Should I have a Roth 401K? if I don’t have a Roth 401K, I should ask my employer “Hey, can we add a Roth component to our 401K?” Should I make a profit-sharing contribution this year right? want better answers? ask better questions that is in because what you’re doing from a habit standpoint and again, this isn’t my I’m just synthesizing the numerous times that I’ve read James’s book. This is all James’s work and all of what he talks about in Atomic Habits. So if you’re thinking, wow, this Adam guy is really really smart. It’s not me. I’m just conscious regurgitating what I’ve learned through reading James. The idea that we’re talking about here is saying to ourselves, and this is who I am and then by the virtue of believing that getting small wins, which just reinforced that behavior. That’s all we’re doing. We’re just reinforcing that behavior. And I might mention, you had a phenomenal example of that when we were talking on our conversation on 2020 Money, putting rocks right these small little pebbles, these visual cues of daily wins if you want to increase the revenue in your practice on a daily basis by $100 per day, or I forget the exact number that you use, but it was a matter of okay, let me identify well here Why am I telling your story you can you share with that brief example because I thought it was perfect and it ties in very seamlessly into what I’m talking about here because this exact principle that you’re talking about. You applied it to increasing improving the metrics in your practice. You can also do this from a savings standpoint as well.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Yeah, I mean, this was practice management strategy, but we had a client who was interested in making $1,000 extra week $50,000 A year which felt unwieldy until we realized that $50,000 A year broken down is $200 per day of work, and $200 can be made by five $40 decisions. And so each time he made one of those $40 decisions, we said put five little stones in your pocket each time you make one you take one out, you put it in the jar on your desk, and it’s a visual reward system like an acknowledgement of I’ve accomplished this and you’ve got to find something where the satisfaction and the feeling and the attractiveness of that accomplishment outweighs the discomfort of those $40 conversations or the action it took to get that $40. So that’s that was the other thing that I would add here. And again, I’m thinking about how Jonathan did this streak running and he used to listen to these I don’t know if he listens anymore. Hopefully he does. But surrounding yourself with people who are what you’re identifying as surrounding yourself with people who are what you’re aspiring to be or it is. So thank you. So as he got into the street running, I think he was probably less than two weeks in where he joins the Facebook pages for people who do this. And so all of a sudden, with his 11 days of running behind him, it’s I joined the page for streak runners therefore, I am one and so you don’t have to wonder what would save or do what would a fit person do? You log in and for a little while you’re in the world where you are one. And so of course you do those things. Because all the people that you’re surrounding yourself with do those things, and it feels very natural. And very easy. So I think that community of like-minded people who are sharing similar goals may be ahead of you in the past, and then after a while, some behind you on the path, let you really embrace that identity, which makes this very, very easy.

Adam Cmejla: When I was in my competitive marathon in days. I haven’t run a marathon since 2018. And prior to that, I think I think I ran I don’t know 20 Some marathons and my friends in our neighborhood here were my friends but also training partners. And one of those training partners. There’s only one of us that are still running marathons, but the other guy has had his streak very similar to your husband. He has run at least one mile every single day. I believe it is going to be August will be five years. And then we have another friend in our training group doesn’t live in our neighborhood but he’s taken it a little bit further his definition of a run of a day of running is at least a 5k outdoors and he hasn’t missed in eight years. And that is in like and he runs a lot like this is a guy that’s pounding 70-80 miles a week like running marathons. He has run through injuries contrary to obviously physician orders and but it’s impressive for people like him that can keep those streaks and have that but the reason I share those stories in the common theme in that for people looking to build habits here is to rules dare I say maybe guides that James will talk about in the book is never missed twice. So if you miss okay, right if you and again is this are you saving daily? Probably not right. So I don’t know exactly how to. This is more just habits in general but take it through the filter of financial as best you can kind of connect the dots never missed twice and don’t have a zero in the day. Or don’t have a zero in the book right? If your goal is to run a mile per day but for some reason maybe a mile is a bad example but okay, get a quarter mile and like just whatever you can do go for a long walk James talks about in the book lifting weights, right if he can’t do a full circuit, I bet he has a kettlebell that he can swing 10 times. All right. Was it everything that you wanted? Was it your definition? No, but he doesn’t have a zero. And so from a saving standpoint, as I as I talk about this and kind of subconsciously as I’m talking think about how to connect this to savings. Maybe the variation of that have never missing twice or don’t having a zero don’t make it binary. Don’t make it if you’re just starting out right now. This is something that we talk with clients that do need to start saving. Saving is sometimes like drinking a cup of coffee if we’ve never done that before. When you pour a cup of coffee you just down the hatch and just open the hatch and drink it all at once. No, right? You got to get used to it. You got to test it, be comfortable with it, make sure that the temperature is good, et cetera. So you sip it from a saving standpoint, just start just start with something and then incremental improvements from there can get you the results. So that’s the version of don’t have it binary in the sense that says Well, I’m gonna go from saving nothing to saving $50,000 a year, start with $400 a month into your 401K or start with just funding your Roth IRA. Right? Then a whole hierarchy of savings. It’s going to be in our retirement toolkit that we’re going to have on our website. So I mean, there’s all kinds of different resources out there that you can learn about where to save, just start.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: I think the idea of don’t miss twice is like if you set that up so that it is an auto payroll deduction, and you’ve got that $400 coming out of your paycheck and one month you have car repairs or your dental work or you know, you need a dental implant or something and you say okay, I can’t do it this time. Just get back to it and move on. So these are all good, easy, small changes that really do have the potential to lead to great results. One of the things that was motivating for me early on was looking at those savings calculators, those compound interest calculators, you know, you see that if you save $200 a paycheck or $200 a month times, how many years? That was pretty motivational for me starting out just to know what you’re creating.

Adam Cmejla: Exactly because it’s not taught right compounding interest and how investing the basics of investing. It’s still mind-boggling that in investing one on one course or basic compounding, you know, basic time value of money coarser calculation, personal finance is not required curriculum in any K through 12. As to my knowledge, it’s not like part of the core curriculum in our education system. And then we wonder why like, Hmm, maybe we might want to anyway I not to digress and get on that soapbox. But if you’ve my point in that if you don’t know how compounding interest works and you want to see it, like you would said go to nerdwallet.com or just google the time value of money calculator and plug in see what happens if you save $300 per month at a six or 7% rate of return and just watch how that grows. It’s as simple as that doesn’t make necessarily easy, right? There’s it might require some as we talked about, here’s some changing of habits and mindset and actions. So that can maybe be a little bit more difficult depending on where you’re at. But the concepts themselves are fairly simple.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Adam, thank you so much once again for breaking it down making it seem easy being so giving with your knowledge and information here on your own podcast with all the free resources on your website. If somebody wants to find out more information, where do they look to find the things that you’re talking about?

Adam Cmejla: Best place to go would be as you mentioned, the website integratedpwm.com. Links on the website to 2020 Money if you’re listening to this show, you’re obviously consuming podcasts. So we’d love to have you check out 2020 as well. I know that you and I have a decent cross-pollination of listener bases as well. So 2020 Money listeners. Thank you as well for supporting Power Hour as well.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Yes, and thank you so much. for listening for information on reaching your dreams in private practice, contact us at powerpractice.com

Adam Cmejla: Thank you for having me, Bethany. I appreciate it. Always a pleasure.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Thank you so much, Adam.