Dr. Brian Capra: Everyone, this is Dr. Brian Capra from the UAC Podcast, Best Practices Podcast. We’re really excited to have you here today. Let me introduce Dr. Allen Miner also from UAC.
Dr. Allen Miner: Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. This is of course, a podcast where we have so much genius in the UAC group, and we try to tap into that to share with the profession. And our guest today is Dr. Andrew Williamson. Dr. Andrew, I met you in UAC, but I also knew you as like everybody in UAC, the other gigs you have going on. And I met you from selling tables at Parker Seminars, and we’ve bought our tables through you as a rep for Elite… Can I say that?
Dr. Andrew Williamson: Yep.
Dr. Allen Miner: Elite Tables. But what I wanted to talk with you about today, Dr. Andrew, is you have had an abundance mindset that’s unique, even with a room of ultimate achievers. And I’m wondering if you can share some gems or wisdom. I mean, did you always have that mindset? Is that something you’ve cultivated and learned? And maybe a best practice of how that’s gotten you to where you’re at today? And as we were talking before starting recording, I shared with you something I heard in chiropractic school was the idea that it’s really difficult to become truly wealthy as a chiropractor, but there’s enough money if you’re doing it right, that if you’re smart with your money, you truly can become wealthy. And I just, I think you epitomize that, so share some knowledge with us, man.
Dr. Andrew Williamson: For sure, for sure. So, I guess one of the big motivating factors I had as a young practitioner, I’ve been in practice for now for 23 years, was that I wanted to have financial abundance. You know, did I make it my primary pinnacle of what my practice was going to represent? No, not at all. It was a byproduct of me. But I did want financial abundance, because I like the when you have an abundant mindset in abundance, you can do other things with that, whether give more to your church, give more to charities. I love Mother Teresa’s quote that says basically, “No one’s ever gone broke by being too charitable.” So, I’m a big guy on that sort of thing, and I feel like money is a great tool that you can spread your abundance. And I think one of the big things that was my driving forces coming up, I didn’t come up with much at all. And the conversations around the dinner table were all about lack and different things, about money doesn’t grow on trees, it’s going to be I can remember… I could probably count on my… Every single Christmas was it’s going to be a lean Christmas and those type of things.
Dr. Andrew Williamson: And I remember those things and my parents were well intentioned and they did as best they possibly could with that. However, I knew that I didn’t want to have that conversation with my children. And so, I worked on my breaking myself of that poverty consciousness. And from there I just, I grew abundance. And from the abundance I’m able to help out other people with that abundance. It’s neat because there’s a quote that says, “Money won’t flow to you, unless it flows from you.” So, it has to flow from you, and I’m big on charities. I’m big on giving to my churches. I don’t do charitable work necessarily in the office as much, but outside of the office, I feel like my practice is a profit-producing machine. And I use that profit, those profits to further my mission and to further the mission of what I want to see out of humankind.
Dr. Allen Miner: So where are some areas for a young practitioner, they start to have a few extra dollars. What was your plan? Where do you direct people? How have you structured that?
Dr. Brian Capra: Understood, let me ask you a question that kind of feeds off of that. You’re coming out of school; you got a mountain of debt and no money. So, it’s very easy to get stuck in the mindset of scarcity and fear and maybe a tip or a trick of how do you get yourself out of that and switch to abundance when you don’t have anything?
Dr. Allen Miner: Yeah, that’s right. Absolutely.
Dr. Andrew Williamson: It’s said that you become your goals, which is a neat thing. So, and I just, I feel like if you can be charitable and abundant when you have very little money, you can be charitable and abundant when you gain that money, and you’re going to gain that money because of the charitability and the abundances you have. I went deep into books, right? I went to go deep in the books, whether they were investing books or whether “Think and Grow Rich”. I mean, if you haven’t read that’s like the Bible as far as I’m concerned from an abundance standpoint and rework in my mind, and I’ll kind of give you a kind of a playbook as to far as how I work my finances, and it’s been a great way, it has worked for me. And the disclaimer is obviously I’m not an accountant, I’m not a financial planner, but this is how I work my financial. So, I basically am a big index fund guy, I buy index funds. I have very little as far as that just sits in very stationary accounts that are not generating for me, I like my money to work for me as soon as possible, so I buy them often.
Dr. Andrew Williamson: But I also believe that you definitely want to have enough, that is six to 12 months, I think 12 months is better for being a self-employed person of expenses covered, if you ever need to get to those expenses. And the way I look at that, that could be in a form of a line of credit or could be in a savings account. I like the line of credit idea for myself because if it’s a savings account, it sits there again, stagnant as opposed to letting that money work for you. I remember years back that, because of me being an aggressive saver, one of my coaches said, “At one point in your life, if you keep going with this, your money will make more than you do.” And that’s been a blessing that I’ve seen that for many years now. So, it’s a neat thing. And when money gets out of the picture, and you’re able to do bigger things with that money, you’re blessed with more, you’re blessed with more.
Dr. Allen Miner: So, pause there Andrew, that’s a unique perspective, I don’t think I’ve heard, is I was going to ask you. So, you have the six, 12 months of cash sitting there. Do you really just let it sit there and you immediately answered that with no, I actually have a line of credit. So, do you run the line of credit through your business or through a HELOC home equity line of credit, or what do you recommend there?
Dr. Andrew Williamson: The answer is yes on all those.
Dr. Allen Miner: Okay.
Dr. Andrew Williamson: I like Mark Twain’s quote that says, “A banker is someone that’ll give you an umbrella when it’s raining and ask for it back when it’s not.” So, the biggest time to get these lines of credit are when you are abundant, and things are going well. So, yes, I have lines of credit through my business, I also have lines of credits on my buildings and also on my home as well. Now they sit there dormant, right? Obviously, I’m not pulling any money out those, but things go bump in the night, I pull from that first. So, the money in the market can still work for me, because if they go bump in the night, it might be at a time when the market is in a downturn, do you really want to cash out at that time? No. So, kind of buy those lines of credit, get those lines of credit put in place, grab that when you need it, and then once you’re back on line with that, pay that line of credit off, that’s sort of thing. So…
Dr. Allen Miner: Absolutely brilliant, where did you learn that? That’s something you came up with or did you…
Dr. Andrew Williamson: No, it’s just one of those things I started thinking about. I always wanted my soldiers to work for me, I wanted them to go and go to work for me. And now it takes a comfort level and it’s not for everybody. Again, I’m not a planner or an accountant but at the same time, that’s how I worked it. I would much rather that money worked for me, and if things go bump in the night, I have lines of credit everywhere I can get to before I have to pull that money there so. And thankfully I’ve never had to get into those situations where I need to get through those lines of credit, but that’s my six to 12 months of… And knowing that on the backend the money in the market has enough to cover those lines of credit as well.
Dr. Andrew Williamson: So, it takes a little bit of time to get to that point but that has been a better way and I do believe when you’re first starting off, it’s probably a better idea to have a certain amount of money just living expenses, that sort of thing. But as you become more abundant and you can get more assets that you can leverage your assets to get that, that’s a better way of doing it for me.
Dr. Brian Capra: Andrew, do you have any investments that cash flow or I don’t think the index fund, that they’ve cash flow…
Dr. Andrew Williamson: No. Well, my building that I have here, cash flows for me. I own the building here and I have renters that are here. I have a rental property as well that cash flows for me right now. And these are just sitting there, they’re the cash flow properties for me. So, it’s nice diversification. The other ones, the index funds that I have, they’re sitting, I reinvest the dividends and just keeps on buying and buying and buying.
Dr. Brian Capra: Oh, there are dividends on those?
Dr. Andrew Williamson: Yes, and they get reinvested in, now I could take the dividends if I wanted to, but I’m at a point where I don’t need those.
Dr. Brian Capra: Gotcha, I didn’t know you got dividends on index funds, that’s cool.
Dr. Andrew Williamson: Yeah, well, they spit off a dividend and I just… I reinvest them.
Dr. Allen Miner: So, Andrew, that’s genius, that’s exactly what this podcast is all about, is unique perspectives on really successful chiropractors. Question, what’s UAC been for you? You’ve been in it, in an accountability group for many years, I’d love to hear… Yeah, why is it something you participate in and staying in and what has the value been for you?
Dr. Andrew Williamson: Absolutely so I love UAC it’s a great thing and to be quite transparent and honest with things. Early on when I was in practice, I’ve been part of… I was part of UAC early on, the second year that was… It was done and I took a little pause from it. I felt like I was in a room with great minds, and I always felt less than, and it was a neat thing. I was, “Man I’m just… These guys are bigger… These guys have bigger practices” and that sort of thing than I do and those type of things. But I come to realize that we’re all on the same playing field with this, which is a great thing. And a rising tide rises all boats. So, and that’s a neat thing. I feel like UAC has brought my practice up to a level, and I do a lot of things that I wouldn’t do if it weren’t for UAC and my accountability group. And because I have a very comfortable life and my comfort can enslave you. And it’s, and if my life was supposed to be comfortable, then I should have exited out a chiropractic a long time ago.
Dr. Brian Capra: So, my goal is now to see more people become successful in chiropractic, because I have a lot of associates and students that are joining in with us with that which is a great thing. A great thing about UAC also is, you mentioned about my accountability group, yep, we are the APES it’s Andrew, Patrick, Eric and Stephanie and as of this march, we’ll be together for nine years. One o’clock on Tuesdays you will not get me. I’m with them and it’s been a what a growth metric for me as well and I really feel like for that, that has been a good blessing. Because again, we push each other with a gentle nudge, and we keep on moving forward. Of course, you can make chiropractic a great career, you can make it a beautiful profession. And that’s where I am with things and that’s where my group is with things, too, “Let’s make this a beautiful profession that carries on for years and years and years.”
Dr. Allen Miner: What have you seen with… I’m not asking numbers, but collectively of nine years in a group, have you seen the needle move on the net worth of the group and their practice sizes? And I mean, speak to that a little bit.
Dr. Andrew Williamson: Oh, yeah, absolutely, I’d say within the nine years that we’ve been together, we’ve… Each of us has easily doubled our net worth easily, very easily, so it could have been double and possibly triple so…
Dr. Allen Miner: Yeah, there’s just something about that accountability of this group that really gets to know you intimately well in your business and they’re not… It’s not coaching, it’s not even really… Its friendship evolves out of it, but it’s accountability. It’s a different thing and it’s and then there’s this best practice share when somebody hits a vein that it’s just… It’s just so cool to see how that works inside of these groups.
Dr. Andrew Williamson: Yes, yes, absolutely It’s because like in a lot of times what we do is we set ourselves goals for the following week for, “By next Tuesday I’ll have this done, I’ll have this done.” And the biggest thing with the accountability group is I don’t want to get on the call and say, “I didn’t get it done,” so I get it done. That’s it, I don’t want to be like that guy.
Dr. Brian Capra: It’s funny how that works, that accountability.
Dr. Andrew Williamson: Yeah, it’s like, “I’m getting it done.” It’s like, “Come hell or high water, I’m going to get it done.”
Dr. Brian Capra: Yeah, it’s like week to week sometimes you don’t realize, but it’s like you said, when you look back over nine years, “Wow, I did a lot of stuff that I probably wouldn’t have done had I not had that accountability.”
Dr. Andrew Williamson: Absolutely, it’s because we set the pace for the year with our yearly goals, and we could look back at those yearly goals and “Man, did we supersede those, it is… Crushed them. It’s great.” So, it’s neat basically everything that we ever wanted to has come to fruition, which is awesome.
Dr. Allen Miner: Well, Andrew, we appreciate you, we love you. Thanks for sharing that.
Dr. Brian Capra: Bye-bye. Thank you so much. Good to see you.
Dr. Andrew Williamson: Yeah, absolutely, rock and roll. Y’all did a great job, a great job. Thanks so much, guys.
Dr. Brian Capra: See you in Arizona. Okay. Thanks, brother.
Dr. Andrew Williamson: I love and appreciate you guys.
Dr. Brian Capra: The same, okay.
