Spring 2018
THE COLLEGE E-ZINE THE COLLEGE OF DIPLOMATES OF THE AMERICAN BOARD OF ORTHODONTICS
“Keeping Our Members Connected”
40 ANNUAL th
SUMMER MEETING
2018
Where: Lake Buena Vista, Florida Walt Disney World® Resort Disney’s Boardwalk Inn When: July 7-10th, 2018
TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION DR. MICHAEL GUESS............................................................................................................... 3 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE DR. TERRY SOBLER.................................................................................................................. 5 CDABO LAKE TAHOE 2017 MEETING DR. PAUL E. MILLER.................................................................................................................6 DOCTOR AND STAFF TIPS FOR TIME MANAGEMENT DR. MICHAEL GUESS............................................................................................................... 8 TEN THINGS TO DO WITHOUT TICKETS AT THIS SUMMER’S MEETING (MAKE THIS AN UNFORGETTABLE FAMILY EXPERIENCE) ALEXANDER GUESS............................................................................................................... 14 CDABO UPCOMING SUMMER MEETINGS..........................................................................15 ABO PRESIDENT’S REPORT DR. CHUN-HSI CHUNG........................................................................................................ 16 NASHVILLE 2019 DR. ERIC DELLINGER..............................................................................................................17 SIX REASONS YOUR PRACTICE NEEDS SOCIAL MEDIA DR. MICHAEL GUESS............................................................................................................. 18 TWENTY-THREE SIMPLE TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL FACEBOOK SOCIAL PAGE DR. MICHAEL GUESS.............................................................................................................20 FOUR MONEY BLUNDERS THAT COULD LEAVE YOU POORER A “NOT-TO-DO” LIST FOR THE BALANCE OF YOUR LIFE RICH ARZAGA, CFP®, CDFA, CLTC®..................................................................................... 27
Disclaimer: “The views and opinions expressed in this ezine are those of the author and not necessarily reflect the views of the College of Diplomates or Council. ©CDABO 2018
INTRODUCTION Welcome to the Spring 2018 edition of the College Ezine! Amidst the many fine orthodontic magazines available for our College members to read, what’s different with our e-zine? First, as a member of the College we want to recognize your efforts to be the best orthodontist you can. The e-zine is an attempt to keep all members up to date on pertinent information about happenings in the College and other information that may not be available in other publications. Second, the e-zine organizes a variety of information in our field and compresses it to a size that easily fits into a lunch break. Your time is very valuable and we want to place as much as we can at your finger tips. Past issues have many scientific articles, financial planning, latest practice integration technology and efficiency tips that are nicely explained and can be shared with staff to keep them up-to-date and offering the latest in our field. The E-zine can be part of a study club topic or staff training. In this edition, some of the articles have pre-holes so that they can be distributed and discussed in a group setting. This is all meant to help in managing your practice, helping your staff or imparting additional knowledge to your dental, orthodontic or other professional study group. The Resort at Squaw Creek hosted this past summer’s meeting. The location was pristine, lectures interesting, daily events exhilarating, and evening company satisfying. We even e-mailed you two of the video lectures this past fall! Many thanks to Drs. Gary and Perry Opin for their generosity. We are equally excited about this year’s meeting celebrating, our 40th annual meeting. It’s being held from July 7-10th at Walt Disney World at the Boardwalk Inn. President Sobler and his team have worked for months to make this meeting a memorable one and we’ve already received overwhelming response. If you’ve not registered yet, please don’t delay as the meeting is filling up fast. We are providing the link
The Samir Bishara Award goes to both Dr. Brent Larsen and Dr. Raymond George for their invaluable contributions to the College and our profession. In addition, the Founder’s Award for 2018 recognizes the efforts of Dr. Dorothy Whalen. Dot was the first woman President of our College and was always active in pushing the College forward. Congratulations to all three members for their tireless work and representing the best of organized dentistry. On a sad note, we recently lost one our jewels: Dr. OB Vaughan. It was a pleasure and honor knowing him and I always looked forward to his presence at our meetings. He will be sorely missed. Our deepest condolences to his family! It has been a privilege and honor to produce this magazine for the College for the past few years. All your suggestions and comments are welcome. You can contact me anytime at: mbguess@aol.com Best Wishes,
3 Michael B. Guess, DDS, MS, MA
PS – See the college E-zine on www.issuu.com https://issuu.com/search?q=CDABO PREVIOUS E-ZINES AVAILABLE HERE: Spring 2014 36th Annual meeting - QR Code Review https://issuu.com/cdabo/docs/e-zine_summer_ meeting_-_19_march_we
Fall 2014 36th Annual Meeting
https://issuu.com/cdabo/docs/e-zine_s-f_issue_ii
Spring 2015 37th Annual Meeting
https://issuu.com/cdabo/docs/e-zine_summer_meeting_ may_29-_2015_
Fall 2015 38th Annual Meeting
https://issuu.com/cdabo/docs/e-zine_38_th_summer_ meeting_okt_27_
Summer 2016 38th Annual Meeting
http://aao.informz.net/AAO/data/images/reg%20 form%202018.pdf
https://issuu.com/cdabo/docs/cdabo_e-zine_38th_summer_ meeting_20
Fall 2016 39th Annual meeting
This issue includes the President’s message that outlines the summer meeting’s program. You can also read a report compiled by the ABO President, time management keys, Facebook tips and even a little financial planning.
https://issuu.com/cdabo/docs/cdabo_fall_2016_lake_tahoe
Spring 2017 Annual Meeting
https://issuu.com/cdabo/docs/cdabo_spring_2017_lake_ tahoe
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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Dr. Terry Sobler
It has been a pleasure and privilege to serve as the President of the College of Diplomates of the American Board of Orthodontics during this past year. The experience has been enjoyable, fruitful, humbling and, personally enjoyable. The College is an organization that orthodontists join with the purpose to become the best orthodontist they can be. The core value of the College is to promote and support the pursuit of enhanced quality of care through the process of ABO certification, recertification, and continuing education. The College meeting offers rare and insightful information in our field that is freely shared among our members. This setting is unique to the entire orthodontic specialist field. During this past year, The College has continued our Annual Awards Luncheon for the ABO, Prep Course at the AAO, Resident Attendance program (RAP) for our summer meeting, and Resident Case Display. ABO/CDABO Resident Advocacy Program has been implemented, as well as the CDABO Mentor Program and a special breakfast with a Case Presentation Speaker. We have recently started a FaceBook social media platform (many thanks to Dr. Bryn Cooper) to benefit our members. During this past year, I’ve had a very good working relationship with the President of the ABO, Dr. Chun HSI-Chung. The Board is looking at methods to increase the ability of our AAO members to become Board Certified. The Council has worked well this year and we are well-poised to offer assistance to the ABO. This year’s College of Diplomates meeting is being held at the Boardwalk at Disney World from July 7-10th. Disney will be the ideal venue for our lectures, guests, members and families. Registration information can be found here:
http://aao.informz.net/AAO/data/images/reg%20 form%202018.pdf My appreciation and acknowledgment to the dedicated work of Dr. Robert Vaught, the General Chair and Dr. Ravindra Nanda, Scientific Chair. They helped me enormously along with others in the College. And I must recognize the efforts of our CDABO team: Scott Cant, Jan Beck and Darrin Crittington. I want to thank Dr.’s Whalen, Larsen and George for their contributions to the College. Dr. Dot Whalen was nominated and awarded the Founder’s Award while both Dr. Brent Larsen and Dr. Raymond George are co-recipients for the Samir Bishara Award. What these impressive individuals have in common is a boundless energy that they uncork for organizations like the College. Such individuals are keystones required for the advancement of any organization. We have been blessed in the College over the years with such people. And on a sad note, it’s always terrible to hear about the loss of a loved one. We recently lost a legend and wonderful College member. He was very special and I was disheartened to have learned of the passing of our friend, Dr. OB Vaughan. The Council and I extend our sincerest sympathy to his family. In closing I have one thing to request: Come this summer – you’ll make lifetime memories with your friends, colleagues and family. And remember, lectures are in the morning and leisure time is in the afternoon. Registration materials are posted at www.cdabo.org. And as a reminder, if you have orthodontic buddies that aren’t boarded, have them attend this meeting. Our bylaws allow any non-boarded orthodontists to attend one time to evaluate the meeting. Encourage them because I am certain that once they attend they’ll want to come back! Sincerely Yours, Dr. Terry Sobler President, College of Diplomates of the American Board of Orthodontics
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CDABO LAKE TAHOE 2017 MEETING Dr. Paul E. Miller
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ake Tahoe is a breathtaking place where you get a chance to breathe in pristine mountain air.
Everywhere you stood, you witnessed God’s beauty. It was one of the best meetings held so far.
The 39th Annual Reunion of CDABO was held in Squaw Valley at the Resort at Squaw Creek, Lake Tahoe, California. The theme of this meeting was “Controversies: Stability of the End Result”. Speakers included Drs. William Proffit, Wick Alexander, Peter Buschang, Jason Cope, Gary Opin, James Vaden, and Perry Opin. A separate lecture was also arranged for the staff. It was presented by Rich Arzaga, CFP, CCIM and the topics included “Investments and Retirement”.
A welcome reception was held where all CDABO families and friends met and many made new friends. While on the Resort Sun Deck, our families had a great time in fabulous weather and we all enjoyed great food amidst snow-capped mountains. Everyone enjoyed music featuring a local Lake Tahoe band.
Scientific Chair; Dr. Eric Dellinger, General Chair; Dr. Robert Vaught, Social Chairs; Dr. Seus and Adeline Kassisieh, Children chair; Dr Dan and Julie Rejman, Logo & Fun Run Chair; Dr. John Carter, Golf Chair; Dr Bruce Goldstein, President's Attendance Program; Dr. Peter Ngan. In fact, our College Council has some of the most talented and knowledgeable individuals, all of whom I wish to personally thank for support and help. It was a pleasure working with them over the past few years. Terry Sobler; President Elect, Eric Dellinger; Secretary; Bruce Goldstein; Treasurer, Robert Vaught; Senior Councilor, Dan Rejman; Junior councilor, Ken Hrechka; Immediate Past President, Perry Opin; Parliamentarian, Howard Fine; Editor of the CDABO Bulletin, John Carter; Historian, Michael Guess; Councilor at Large and Editor of the E-zine magazine, New & Younger Members; Bryn Cooper. The 39the CDABO meeting at Lake Tahoe California was great and was held at a beautiful location. Everything ran smoothly and all the speakers were excellent. The Squaw Creek resort in beautiful Squaw Valley is definitely an awesome venue for this meeting.
There was a bonanza style video at the Opening Family Breakfast that showed a burning map of Lake Tahoe. There were cameo shots of many council members on horses. Many awards were presented during the breakfast. The Samir Bishara Award of Merit went to Dr. Tom Skafidas for his outstanding commitment to the College, and it was presented by Dr. Robert Vaught. This award is given annually to outstanding College members who've been offering exceptional service to the College and/or orthodontic community with complete commitment to excellence. Dr. Skafidas is a past president of The College of Diplomates of the American Board of Orthodontics, and has held many leadership positions. Dr. Wick Alexander was the recipient of our College award, “Legends in Orthodontics”. He was honored with this award for his contribution to the orthodontic profession and for his exceptional commitment and lifetime achievements. He has always given a 100% commitment to excellence and relied on research for solutions to orthodontic complications. Samuel Clemens was our special guest at the CDABO Welcome Breakfast. On the next day many group tours began and all families enjoyed California-Nevada Lake
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Dr. Paul & Kristy Miller
Dr. Peter Ngan & his residents
Tahoe Basin which is one of the most beautiful drives in the U.S. Many scenic activities were enjoyed by our families and friends. This is the place to regroup, reignite and re-focus that conviction and passion we have in our practices while enjoying research oriented lectures by first rate speakers. I was with my family and took a hike with Alex Guess and Mike to Cascade Falls, we were overwhelmed by the exhilarating adventure. The scenery was beautiful while hiking along the edge of a cliff and will remain in our memories forever. This meeting ended at High Camp with the 2017 President's Dinner. All guests took a shuttle ride to the picturesque village at Squaw Valley, and then ascended via cliffs on a 10 minute Goldola Ride taking in breathtaking sights. Once at the top of the summit, family and friends enjoyed a buffet, as they looked at a beautiful sunset among snow capped mountains, Lake Tahoe and Squaw Valley. This was one of the most unforgettable experiences for everyone. A big thanks to my wife Kristy, who planned extensively for our meeting. She was instrumental in the introduction of the new Spouse Auxillary program. My thanks to our two sons Micah and Solomon for supporting us with the CDABO meetings since 1993. Our family was given the privilege of enjoying relationships that we've established with our CDBAO family. We now look forward to meeting many new friends in the College each year.
The college also presents an Annual award to the best case report that gets published in the American Journal of Orthodontics and Dento-facial Orthopedics the prior year. The judges for this award are CDBAO officers. CDABO Mentor Program and CDABO/ABO Resident Advocacy Program has been implemented, website has also been updated, and a special breakfast with a Case Presentation Speaker and we also continue to recruit younger members. A program in which the College continues to invite spouses of deceased members to our annual meeting to enjoy the annual fellowship with members and friends of the College. Special recognition to CDBAO Executive Director, Scott Cant, Executive Meeting Planner, Darrin Crittington, Executive Secretary Jan Beck for their contribution to this meeting. I have always said, let the beauty you love be what you do. God surrounded us with the beauty of Lake Tahoe. I look forward to seeing you again next year at the Boardwalk at Walt Disney World. Meeting theme is “Stability and Failures” and Dr. Terry Sobler will be the President at the meeting.
The Colleges Residents Attendance Program (RAP) was developed to bring orthodontic residents to the Colleges Annual Summer Meeting. It provides the food costs and lodging for the residents. In this years College Annual Summer Meeting, nine residents were in attendance. During the past year, The College has continued our Annual Awards Luncheon for the ABO, Resident Case Display and Resident Attendance Program for our summer meeting, and prep courses in preparation for the ABO Board Certification Clinical Examination.
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Thank you and it's been a pleasure serving as your President this past year. God Bless, Dr. Paul E. Miller 2017 President The College of Diplomates of the American Board of Orthodontics
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DOCTOR AND STAFF TIPS FOR TIME MANAGEMENT Dr. Michael Guess
R
egardless of how much we’d all like to have extra hours in our day to get things done, we’re limited by what we have to work with. Instead of wishing for more time, there are ways to make the most of the hours available by applying some practical time management tips.
The majority of hard working people want to practice good time management and even start out well, but they forget to calculate the biggest things that sabotages time. Ultra- successful people have learned to manage these ‘robbers’ of productivity.
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up a lot of their time. If that sounds like you, there are several easy ways to end a phone conversation.
Time Management for Interruptions Interruptions are one of the biggest time thieves in your life. You may not have actually tallied how many minutes or hours have been stolen from your day by other people or situations barging into your day. Here are twenty-five tips to help eliminate or better deal with time thieves:
1. Build time into every aspect of your day for those interruptions that we all experience. You will never have a single day that’s not interrupted by something unexpected. This is usually what throws people off course. It can break your concentration, making it harder for you to get the flow back. If you’re at work and someone pops in for “just a minute,” you’ll notice that it always turns into a lot longer. Before you know it, half an hour to an hour will have passed and you can’t get that time back. You want to allocate time for these interruptions by looking at your day and figuring out how much time you have to give these. For example, when someone walks into your office, you can say, “I’m working on a project so I can only spare five minutes.” At the end of five minutes, if the other person is still there, you say, “I’m sorry, but my time is up and I have to get back to this.” If you respect your time, others will, too.
You can say that you’re in a time crunch and have to go or that you need to take care of something. Usually, that will cause the other person to say goodbye and end the call. It’s okay to tell someone you can’t talk at the moment and will have to get back to them. The second you start being someone else’s sounding board for all of their problems, on an endless loop is when you get taken advantage of constantly.
4. Don’t let technology interruptions disrupt your time management. When someone isn’t dropping by your office or home, they’re reaching out to you through technology like email or on social media. These can quickly take up hour after hour of your day because it’s easy to get sucked into playing a game while you’re handling something business or personal related online. If being on social media is a must for you, le t it be a scheduled interruption. For example, you just write it on your planner that at lunch, you’ve scheduled ten minutes to be on social media. Stick to that time just as if it were an appointment. If you have to, use an alarm on your smart phone or set an egg timer so that you’re made aware of the end time of this distraction.
2. Plan your day the night before. This gives you a go-to launching place. You know what you have to start on first. It helps you to manage time if you have a map to follow - even if it’s simply a list of what you must accomplish that day.
3. Plan your phone conversations. This is a huge time waster. But if you plan your conversations before you make the call, this helps you stay in control of how long the conversation lasts. If someone calls you and you need to get off the phone, you just say that you have to go. Most people don’t want to risk sounding rude, so they’ll remain on phone conversations that are taking
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may not get to it by the time the day ends – and then anxiety sets in.
7. Refuse opportunities that will take up too much of your time. You can’t be involved in every activity and you can’t attend every single meeting that you’d like to. You’ll end up overworked and frazzled. If you work from home and there are several webinars you’d like to attend, but you’re already struggling with time management, there’s a way to decide which ones to choose.
5. Separate the interruptions between what must be dealt with and what doesn’t You look at the ones that will give you the most benefit both personally and professionally. Sometimes there have to be dealt with at that time. You don’t have to make someone else’s urgency your priority and you’ll see this a lot when it comes to work things. Someone didn’t get what they needed or didn’t accomplish what they needed and all of a sudden, they want to drop it in your lap.
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Or, they want you to stop everything you’re doing to help them get out of a jam. There’s something to be said for good teamwork, but if this is a recurring situation, it’s time to put the brakes on bailing others out. Prioritizing Your Time There are billions of people and billions of things that have to get done each day. But there’s only one you and you can’t do it all. So you have to prioritize what gets done and what gets moved to another day or delegated to others.
6. Look at your day’s to-do list and begin your day by starting with the most important item on your list. There’s a psychological reason you want to do it this way. When you do the important tasks first and finish them, it gives you a feel-good release of hormones and it makes you feel more energized and more like tackling other items on your list. Plus, you get to see that you’re making progress. If you start with the easiest task or the fastest task and put off the most important task, there’s a chance you
might be something you’re interested in, but it’s not conducive to a good time management schedule. That means you have to pass.
8. Get your rest. If you push yourself to go beyond what you should do by cutting back on sleep, this will eventually catch up to you. When you lose sleep, it can cause you to lose focus. This means you’ll start doing sloppy work and you’ll find yourself having to redo work – or you’re sluggish to begin with. Not only that, but when you start giving up your needed rest, it weakens your immune system and you’ll be more susceptible to catching whatever virus is going around. You’ll end up losing time rather than being a good manager of it. You might want to stay up later and wake up earlier to get more done, but being well rested means you become far more productive – and quality improves, too.
9. Take care of yourself in other ways, too. Make sure that you get the exercise that you need because exercise is something that actually helps you with time management. It keeps your energy levels high. Plus, taking a break from personal and work responsibilities gives your mind a chance to be refreshed and come back to the task with a fresh outlook. Increased focus helps with productivity and saves you time in the long run.
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10. Take time off. There can be a tendency to work full speed ahead, whatever it takes, to get all of the things done that you need to get done. Many people give up time with friends and family to try to gain more time. They bring work home on weekends or they work on a to-do list all weekend around the house in an effort to get things done. Some people haven’t had a vacation in years - not because they can’t afford it - but because they don’t feel like they have the time. But if you take time off, away from everything you need to do, you end up getting more done because your body as well as your mind needs time where it has absolutely nothing it “must” focus on. Let Go of Perfectionism When someone is a perfectionist, the job has to be done perfectly. These types of high achievers can experience more stress than someone who is not a perfectionist. When it comes to time management, perfectionism will work against you.
11. Know that it’s okay not to do it all. Forget about multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is synonymous with doing several jobs poorly all at once - and that’s very frustrating to someone with perfectionist tendencies. You don’t have to accomplish everything in one day. Instead, concentrate on what’s right in front of you that has to be done first. Get that finished and then move on with the next item.
12. Give everything you need to do a time limit. Whether you’re a perfectionist or not, this is a good rule of thumb for anyone looking for better time management. Open-ended tasks have a tendency to pile up because there’s no finish line. So when you look at the whole picture of what has to be accomplished with the time you have, it can feel overwhelming. It’s better to break the things you have to do down. For example, if you have a project that has to be completed by a certain deadline, you need to divide that project up by how long it will take to get the work done.
If the project will take 40 hours to complete and you have two weeks to get it done, you know you have to work on it 20 hours per week or 5 hours per day. And take into account interruptions and other obstacles that will get in the way.
13. Don’t schedule anything back to back. You have to have some time - even if it’s just a few minutes - where your mind can relax and get away. Mental exhaustion is often more draining than physical exhaustion. Like your body, your brain can’t go full speed ahead on something without needing a time out every so often. In between your to do list tasks, break and do something enjoyable – or do nothing at all.
14. Divide all of your tasks up in your personal and professional life by hours, days, months, seasons or year. For example, if you know that every fall the gutters on your home have to be cleaned from the leaves that fell, you’ll want to put some time for that task on your schedule. If you know that every year, there’s a Christmas party at work and you’ll need to bring something as well as show up, put that on your calendar, too. If you own a business that has seasonal items, you’ll want to schedule to take care of releasing those products, press releases or email newsletters ahead of time. You don’t want to wait until December to talk about December projects.
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15. Look over your to-do list - you should have one for both home and office - and cut it down. Most people end up with poor time management because their to-do list has too many items on it. That’s because we all like to achieve things and even the possibility of achieving things makes us feel good. But people often set up tasks that they can’t accomplish because there’s not enough time. It’s like setting yourself up for failure. Whittle the list down and if there’s time left over, you’ll feel a bonus that you got something “extra” done rather than failed to complete something imperative. Get Organized for Better Time Management Everyone has areas of life where there’s a lack of organization. Whether it’s at home or the office, we misplace things and we can’t find things when we need them because we’re not organized.
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But getting organized is a big help with time management. Declutter your home and office before you attempt to tackle staying organized and managing your time better.
16. Forget the elaborate systems. Any system you use for organizing your life that takes a lot of time to keep up with is actually a waste of time. An organizational system should enhance your life, not detract from it. You can use simple means such as an expandable folder to keep track of bills that need to be paid or projects that need to be completed. You can use a filing cabinet with hanging folders. A classic accordion “Time Machine” works great! Don’t overcomplicate your organization system. Invest in simple solutions and watch how it transforms the way you manage your time and act in a more productive manner.
17. Don’t procrastinate. This is a big problem for a lot of people in all walks of life. We don’t like to do the things we don’t like to do. It’s as simple as that. No one wants to do the hard jobs that seem boring.
We don’t want to do the job that’s going to take us five hours to complete when the sun is shining and we’d rather kick back and go to the beach or spend time with friends. When you get the most difficult tasks over with, they’re done and you have that sense of satisfaction that it’s now behind you. One of the biggest time management problems is with paperwork. If you haven’t switched to electronic file keeping, then it can be easy to get overwhelmed and disorganized just by the volume of documents. Since you don’t want certain sensitive information stored online, you’ll want to keep that at home. When you get important paperwork, take care of it immediately. Put it where it needs to go. If there’s something that requires you to make a phone call before you can put that paperwork away, put the paper in your desk inbox and make a note in your planner to schedule a time to make that call.
18. Group similar items together at home in order to save time. For example, when it comes to better home time management, if you have to run errands, group all of the errands that are within the same area together. Try to work it out so that you only have to deal with one errand day a month. Do the banking, post office needs and any medication pickups on the same day. Driving can be a big leak in your time management success - and since you need to pay attention to driving, you can’t do much else except maybe listen to a podcast or something else you need to listen to.
19. Do the same at the office. You can do the same when it comes to work tasks. Things that have to be done every week can be grouped by days and according to difficulty and length of tasks. If you know that you need to drop something off at someone’s office and you have a meeting, you can drop the item off while you head to the meeting. This also helps prevent time wasted chatting when you have to be somewhere.
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20. Have a calendar for both home & office. Keep it where you can see it every day. You can put it on the wall or on your desk. The ones with the large blocks that enable you to write appointments in them work best. This way, you can see your day at a glance and your week and month as well. These larger calendars often work better for time management than the smaller ones you can keep tucked away. Finding Opportunities to Improve Time Management You can manage time better by finding lost time. Lost time is that which you didn’t even realize you were wasting in the first place. It’s almost like keeping change in a piggy bank and one day you realize it’s totaled over $100!
21. Don’t waste the time that most people do. There are ways to find time that’s often overlooked because people tend to think of time management as being large blocks of time available. But you can do a lot with just ten or fifteen minutes. Don’t waste the time you have while waiting in a doctor’s office or while exercising. If you like to use a treadmill, you can get one that has a desk so that you can take care of something that has to be dealt with.
24. Delegating is a great way to help with time management. Most people like to do things themselves because they know then that the job is done correctly. But if you do the things that others can do, it’s draining your time. For example, some time drains are things like mowing the grass or cleaning the house, scheduling meetings, handling social media updates. What you can do is to look at how much it costs you do the tasks that you do. If someone else can do them, then you’re not only losing time - you’re losing money. If you earn $200 per hour, then an hour of mowing the grass costs you $200. But if you pay someone $50 to mow the grass, then you saved an hour and $150 because you gained time.
25. Deal with emails the right way. Handling email causes more people to get off track than any other online task beside social media and online games. Manage your time wisely with email by setting aside a specific time to deal with email and setting a time limit on how long you’ll take responding to the messages. If they’re not important, don’t save them to look at later because they’ll only pile up in your inbox. If your life allows you to, hire an assistant to deal with handling your email.
22. Realize that not everything that seems important is. It only seems that way. Look at your life and stop doing the things that aren’t important that drain your time. If something isn’t a matter of you being happy and succeeding personally or professionally, then it’s not important.
23. Run ahead, not behind. When you get behind schedule, it can make you feel a lot of pressure and it adds stress to your life. Try to get things done ahead of time because this gives you a buffer in time management.
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TEN THINGS TO DO WITHOUT TICKETS AT THIS SUMMER’S MEETING
(MAKE THIS AN UNFORGETTABLE FAMILY EXPERIENCE) Alexander Guess
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1.
Enjoy golf at five great golf courses. Call 407-938-Golf for more information, tee times and reservations
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Become the next Robin Hood or William Tell at Disney’s Archery Experience.
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Fantasia Gardens and Fairways Miniature Golf
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Go waterskiing, wakeboarding, parasailing, or tubing at Sammy Duavals watersport located at Contemporary Resort’s Marina.
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Rent a watercraft.
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Enjoy an Indy racing experience. For more info visit: http://indyracingexperience.com/
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Fishing excursions are available daily. Dockside fishing is available at many places. Call (407) 939-BASS for chartered excursion reservation.
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Discover the dueling piano bar at Jelly Rolls Boardwalk
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Drive NASCAR style at Richard Petty’s Driving Experience. It’s Disney World’s own on-site track.
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Take an off-road Segway tour at Ft. Wilderness on a specially designed Segway. You can reserve tour at (407) WDW-TOUR
CDABO UPCOMING SUMMER MEETINGS 40th Annual Meeting July 7-10, 2018 Lake Buena Vista, Florida Walt Disney World® Resort Disney’s Boardwalk Inn
41 Annual Meeting st
Nashville, Tennessee
42st Annual Meeting Coeur D’Alene, Idaho
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ABO PRESIDENT’S REPORT Dr. Chun-Hsi Chung
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he American Board of Orthodontics is pleased to announce a change from the current Clinical Examination process to a Scenario-Based Oral Clinical Examination. This examination is designed to objectively evaluate an orthodontist’s knowledge, abilities and critical thinking skills to certify orthodontists based on proficiency and clinical excellence. The decision to change the examination format was a result of extensive research and collaboration with leaders in the industry, reviews of other specialty board examinations, and input from educators. This process identified the need to improve the testing methodology to assess clinical proficiency and critical thinking skills to ensure each orthodontist has developed exceptional expertise and is capable of providing the highest level of patient care. The new examination offers an improved testing method that compliments what residents are learning in their programs The examination will be composed of four domains for assessment: • Data Gathering and Diagnosis • Treatment Objectives and Planning • Treatment Implementation and Management • Critical Analysis and Outcomes Assessment
case-based exam by petition only in September 2018 and February 2019. Petitions must be approved prior to registration. The ABO will not be accepting electronic case submission for these examinations. Pre and post physical models will be required (no digital models accepted) along with the traditional notebook style submission. The Scenario-based Oral Clinical Examination will also be offered in February 2019. The November 2019 examination will only include the new examination format. We realize there will be many questions regarding the new examination. The following communication resources are available to you: • ABO article in the March 2018 edition of the AAO’s American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics (AJODO) • AAO Podcast Q&A with Dr. Myron Guymon, AAO Trustee, and Larry Tadlock, ABO President-Elect. • ABO website outlining details on the changes and reasoning behind them. The ABO looks forward to continuing to work with CDABO on the ABO/CDABO Resident Advocacy Committee. Updated portal materials for our advocates will be developed to ensure everyone is up-to-date and informed of the changes.
In order to transition into the new examination format, the ABO will continue to offer the traditional
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NASHVILLE 2019 Dr. Eric Dellinger
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he College, President Elect Dr. Eric Dellinger, and our families, welcome you to join us in Nashville TN, for the 40th anniversary of the formation of the College. The Grand Ole Opry, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Johnny Cash Museum and more music venues than you can count await you. The meeting will be at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center from 7-1119 to 7-15-19. The Gaylord includes first class dining opportunities all within walking distance of your room, which include the Old Hickory Steakhouse and the Jack Daniels Restaurant, both provide a true southern dining experience. Additionally, some of the best sushi in Tennessee is available at the Wasabi's Sushi restaurant, as well as fantastic Mexican is available at
Solario Cantina. Kid friendly cuisine is easily available at Stax burgers, and Paisano's Pizzaria & Vino, while a more sophisticated Itallian experience is awaiting your pleasure at Ravello’s. The atriums surrounding the resort allow a beautiful view at every turn, as well as walking and jogging opportunities despite the weather. The world class spa and exercise facilities, including an outstanding golf course also provide fun o ptions for other healthy entertainment. Your family will enjoy the indoor boat tours as well as the newly opened water park, including slides and a lazy river. The College room rates are discounted from the standard price and will allow our College members to enjoy this incredible venue at a truly affordable rate.
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SIX REASONS YOUR PRACTICE NEEDS SOCIAL MEDIA Dr. Michael Guess
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arketing online continues to evolve and expand and these days social media takes a front seat in most marketing strategies as supports the growth of business. The reasons to use social platforms to engage and reach customers are plentiful.
Reason #1: Reach Why do social media managers spend countless hours planning, posting, testing, and perfecting their social media presence online?
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• There are 3 billion active Internet users and 2.1 billion of them have social media accounts. • YouTube has more than 1 billion users, more than a 1/3 of all web users. Each and every day web visitors view hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube that generate billions of views. • Facebook has about 1.4 billion users, that’s 47% of all Internet users. 4.5 billion Likes are generated daily and nearly 75% of Facebook’s revenue comes from mobile advertising. Nearly 940 million Facebook users login in at least once daily and 52% of marketers found a customer on Facebook in 2013. • Twitter has 315 million monthly active users that 500 million tweets each day • Google+ has over 360 million users that hit the +1 button on 5 billion times per day • Pinterest has 100 million users, 85% of which are women. 47% of Pinterest users purchase a product based on pins, with the average sale being $58.95. 67% of pinned content is from a business site and 82% of Pinterest users would rather follow a brand than a celebrity.
Impressed yet? These stats are just one reason to use social media to market your practice that really illustrate the reach that social media can have on your office. Here are five more reasons to make social media a part of your marketing plan.
Reason #2: Building Relationships Social media allows you to reach people at a more personal level. Even during it metamorphosis and growth the credo: Know, Like & Trust is still the key to successful online marketing whether it be a single piece, offer, promotion or campaign. Why is getting to know, like and trust your office important? Many social media marketing experts explain that social
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Reason #6: Place Holder for the Office
media is about relationships building, that as a sideeffect brings about conversions for calls to action. When you connect with people and they connect with you, they are more likely to follow your office and all it has to offer.
Reason #3: Show Your Best Content Social media allows you to show off your best content, and highlight all you have to offer. Whether using text, images, video, or all of the above, you can tailor your campaign to present and impress your target audience with the very best content, products, and services that you offer. Tailoring a complete campaign through social media allows many objectives to be met, including: building brand reputation, patient & parent engagement, a better patient experience through valuable information and any other goals that meet your marketing needs.
Reason #4: Steady and Reliable Traffic Who isn’t sick of fighting for organic traffic when Google keeps wiping sites off their SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) with one after another of their ongoing updates and changed alogrithms? Social media can bring a steady, long term, reliable and ongoing stream of traffic to your office sites and blogs, without having to worry that some entity will come along and wipe you out.
Having some control, even a small amount, of your social media presence is helpful for your office. As time marches on, social media will become stronger while traditional methods of attracting patients will decrease. The phone book has been replaced by Yelp. Referring offices are being replaced by recommendations/reviews and information about you online. Social media can help custom tailor that message for you. Bottom Line Now is the time to immerse your practice into social media and all it has to offer. If you have a practice and do not have a social media presence then you are behind the times, it’s really as simple as that. There are many free expert guides online to get you started, and educating yourself on the intricate process that is social media marketing is critical to your overall success. There is also the option of hiring a social media marketing expert. But take care to choose a competent professional that is familiar with the nuances of our profession. Much time and precious money can be wasted if care is not taken to choose a competent professional. Good experts will not be cheap, but may well be worth it when they bring the results your business needs to succeed. Just like any piece other money that the practices invests you should be able to achieve a five to one return on money invested after six months. Graph your progress via expenses and income generated and the graph should begin to change in 6 months.
Reason #5: Control One of the greatest benefits of social media is that you have full control of what is presented about your company, brand, and website to your target audience. You can tailor your marketing plan to meet specific goals and not leave anything to chance. The multitude of tracking, and testing tools available, such as, Klout, SumAll, BuzzSumo, and TweetReach, just to name a few allow you to enhance and tweak your campaigns as needed to constantly improve your efforts to boost conversions.
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TWENTY-THREE SIMPLE TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL FACEBOOK SOCIAL PAGE Dr. Michael Guess
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acebook is known to be one of the most important social media platforms, quite a few even consider it ‘the platform.’ But who believes that he could simply create a Facebook fan page and ….success? It can sometimes be a rocky road to reaching your own expectations. This short article will try to clear the biggest obstacles and give some tips for an attractive fan page.
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Facebook fan pages continue to grow
Tip #1 PERSONALITY
For the time being and foreseeable future, Facebook is and will remain the social media platform with the most active users, even if the trend towards emigration is currently being discussed again. Big and small companies, brands and organizations still rely on a Facebook fan page as a marketing tool. This past summer, Facebook announced official numbers. So there were already 18 million Facebook fan pages at the time, The growth is also impressive: From July 2012 to July 2013, seven million new pages were created, from March to July 2013 alone there were three million. On November 19, 2013, Facebook recently announced new figures for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) via press release. According to this, more than 25 million SMEs worldwide currently operate a Facebook fan page. However, as so often in life, success is by no means self-evident, even though "Love Brands" often come up very fast because they bring along a large number of fans from the offline world.
No success without strategy Which role the number of fans actually plays for a fan page also depends on which objective is to be pursued. It makes a big difference whether a brand wants to build a support channel, increase sales, or just want to increase visibility in terms of branding. Therefore, the most important task for companies is to define this goal before starting on Facebook. When this step is done, it continues with the consideration of the entire social media strategy. How does Facebook fit in, which differences should there be to other channels and which target group should be addressed? Basically, all this preparation is a separate topic that makes it easy to write a book. An answer to the questions asked here would go beyond the scope, so it must stay with a brief reference. The following sections therefore already require a thorough preparatory work, in which one has defined the objectives and worked out a holistic social media strategy.
Successful Facebook pages have personality. The site operators, whether business or individual, give their fans insights into their lives and their everyday lives. Fans get the feeling to be there. Successful sites express their opinions and views expressive in words and images. Fans who identify with it feel empowered in their relationship. Entrepreneurs who have a strong mindset that sets themselves apart from the masses are becoming more visible. Key • Share snapshots of your everyday business life. • Write as you would with someone. • Take your stand - especially if it is different from other opinions.
Tip #2 POSTS What sets Facebook pages that are busy apart from everyone else? Conversations! Entrepreneurs of successful Facebook sites initiate conversations by asking questions or sharing controversial opinions. In addition, they answer the requests, messages and comments on their own page - immediately or in a timely manner. That goes without saying? You do not believe how many pages completely ignore their fans' requests. Key • Ask short and easy to answer questions. Ask the questions at the end of your article. Studies show that questions are answered more frequently in the end. • Use graphics to visualize your questions, eg left or right, which logo do you like better? • Make it a rule to answer all inquiries, messages and comments within a few hours. Post regular news and tips about the status line of your Facebook corporate page. These messages appear in the profile of your fans. In addition, you should look on other pages for postings relevant to you and comment on and like. How many posts should you post on your Facebook company page?
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Facebook means interacting with your fans Many social media managers think that more important than growing a Facebook page is the interaction with the fans. One of the most effective ways of doing so are competitions: the prizes can be virtual, for example the "fan of the month / year", but also material. But much more important is the everyday work: Almost 95 percent of all brands do not respond to user comments. So you should not scare your fans: Respond to requests - even critical promptly and friendly. Key: Facebook itself, by the way, provides you with important analyzes of your page: Insights is the name of this service, where you can look at your most successful posts, your fan development and much more. Insight has just been launched by Facebook and will be gradually released for all sites.
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The first measure should be a content-related one for you: Above all, post especially if you have something to say. Rely on statistical values, then the statistics of Dan Zarella can help you: He has examined 2600 large Facebook pages and their fan development. The result: 0.5 posts per day, better one more post every two days are the statistically best number. Another statistic showed that too many posts had a negative impact on fan development.
When should you post? Basically, do not post when you have time, but when the fans have time for your information. Fans are active on Facebook, especially in their free time or at off-peak times: Accordingly, the best posting times are early in the morning, shortly before noon or at closing time at 17.00 clock.
Tip #3 NETWORKS Successful "Facebookers" think outside the box of their own Facebook page. They participate actively in own or foreign Facebook groups. They recognize that Facebook groups are the best way to reliably reach and engage with many potential fans. They regularly comment and share posts from other Facebook pages that are interesting to their own fans. With this, they attract attention to other Facebook pages that like to reciprocate for the shared content. Thus, the networking helps them to fast growing awareness within and outside their industry.
Keep an eye on the engagement rate In addition to your own activities, it is above all the activities of your fans that will make your page a success. The so-called engagement rate, which means the average number of likes, comments and shares per fan, helps you with this. Basically, the higher theEngagement rate, the higher the growth. On average, this applies to both the best pages and mediocre pages. And you can also raise that rate: Give your fans a reason to share your content. This could be a good corporate video of you, an exclusive offer or even a surprising text.
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Key
Tip #5 GREAT GRAPHICS
• Create your own Facebook group and build a community around your topic. • Join existing Facebook groups and join in conversations. Answer questions from members without selling your services or products. • Create a list with relevant Facebook pages and regularly share and comment on exciting articles for your fans.
Show me a successful Facebook page that does not need any nice graphics. Jupp, they do not exist. Photos and graphics get more attention than any other format on Facebook. The most successful sites share photos and graphics that catch your eye. But not only that. They burn their graphics to be better recognized.
Tip #6 IRRESISTIBLE OFFERS Successful Facebook pages use irresistible offers to thank existing fans and win new fans. They have understood that the success of sweepstakes, giveaways or fan actions depends on WHAT is given away or raffled. Here is the example of a friend’s client XYZ for a successful action to activate existing fans. We included the fans in the naming of a new product. The most beautiful name suggestion among all commentators was rewarded with the stool. More than 280 people participated. We thanked for the active participation and raffled another 10 smaller products among all commentators.
Tip #4 INSPIRATIONAL CONTENTS Successful sites succeed with their contributions, fans to read, click, comment and the supreme discipline of moving parts. Their contributions are in the newsstream of their fans, which consists mainly of friend contributions, so that they are not bothersome. Successful sites never talk in corporate business marketing slang with their fans. Their contributions always seem so interesting and good that their fans can not help but to acknowledge the post. The contents can be quite different. The most successful content on Facebook inform or teach on a topic, motivate and inspire or entertain simply. Key • Get to know your dream customer as well as possible. I mean - go drink coffee. Find out what motivates, challenges and entertains him or her. • Get to know your fans better by evaluating your Facebook statistics . • Create variety by teaching, informing, inspiring or entertaining your contributions. • -Say the language of your fans.
Why are such actions more useful than the giving away of iPads? Because the fans had to actively deal with the product in order to participate at all. So the action has only addressed people who are actually interested in concrete furniture and represent potential customers. In order to win new fans for xyz, we are giving away lots of products from the xyz range on big occasions, such as birthday or Advent, and are promoting this campaign on Facebook to fans and their friends. Participants will be simultaneously enrolled in the betoniu newsletter, which will build a long-term relationship. The irresistible offer has not only the growth of the fan base to the goal but the transfer into the email distribution list over which a regular communication works more reliably than on Facebook. Key • Choose your raffle prizes so that you only win people who are interested in your offer. • Be sure to translate the participants into your newsletter at the same time. • Share your lead magnet on Facebook regularly. This is a giveaway, webinar or similar, for which you will receive the email in exchange.
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make an editorial plan. Hold there all planned actions, hangers, appointments so you can respond to them in your posts. Here is a template.
Tip #7 MEANINGFUL TITLE PICTURE The cover picture is the first thing people see from a Facebook page when they are hovering over the page link on Facebook. Successful Facebook pages use their title image as a branded sales area, which provides the offer in a short time.
• Consider one or more fixed rubrics that repeat on a weekly basis. This will make planning much easier.
Key • Use the cover picture to draw attention to your offer or give-away. • Add an action prompt, such as "click here for download," "learn more," and so on. When visitors click on the photo, the image opens in a lightbox, where you have space on the right for a picture description. Here you can add more information and the link to the offer.
Tip #10 ACCURATE FAN ADS Sites that have won several thousand fans in a short time have not only relied on organic growth. That may have worked 5 years ago. Today, the competition is far too big to become known quickly without ads. Megalomaniacs prefer to buy fans for $ 50 to $1000 & do not get it that they did not win at all. Key
Tip #8 VARIED CONTENT
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Facebook sites with an active fan community keep their fans happy by sharing videos, photos, text updates and links. Videos are currently experiencing a boom on Facebook. Other people prefer texts or links. Key • Think about how to pack your content into different formats.
• Make regular advertisements with the goal of winning new fans. Be very precise in the target group selection to attract the right people. • Apply your lead magnets to Ads for Website Clicks. These ads will bring you new fans.
Tip # 11 Make a Facebook communication plan
• Share your blog articles as a link post, not a photo. Link posts are clicked much more frequently. (This is how you get the much-anticipated traffic to your website.)
Before you invest all your efforts to attract many fans to your Facebook company page, you should first make a plan. Because what you tackle here is not a fluke - if you want to be successful with your site, then you have to work long-term by your side.
• If you share videos, upload them directly to Facebook. Videos downloaded on Facebook get more coverage than Youtube videos.
Tip #12 Free up resources
Tip #9 STRATEGIC PLANNING Do you think Facebook pages like t3n Magazine or Spiegel Online , which share multiple posts daily, do so without planning? Hardly likely. And if you look closely, you see that many pages have fixed headings, like Marketing Friday or Motivational Monday. Key • Even if you only want to share one post a day,
Nothing is worse than having your Facebook page link after just a few weeks because you can not take care of it anymore. So make sure when, how often and by whom the Facebook page is maintained. In fact, only a small proportion of small and mediumsized enterprises, or 15 percent, have the capacity to spend 2 to 3 hours daily on social media channels.
Tip #13 Name milestones for your social media activities
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So that you do not lose your joy on Facebooken, you should not put too high demands on the streaming fan masses: German Facebook pages are growing rather slowly: As a study by Fanpage Karma showed, half of the analyzed 60,000 Facebook pages did not grow faster than 0.64 percent per week. For example, for a page with 1,000 fans, that means winning only 25 new fans a month. By contrast, the top 10 percent of the sites surveyed grew about 9 percent in one month. So put yourself realistic goals and then pursue them consistently.
Tip #14 Care for interaction! Your fans expect reactions from you! If someone comments on your post, post on your page or writes you a private message, then answer! Keeping the interactions on your business constant, which in turn has a positive impact on the reach of your posts.
Tip #16 Be authentic and provide insights behind the scenes Facebook is a personal network where users reveal a lot of privacy and share it with their friends. Always keep in mind: Your practice’s contributions, appearing in your fans' news feed, are among the contributions of their friends. So you're competing with holiday selfies and pictures of lunch: placid, intrusive advertising, edited graphics with a lot of text or scanned print ads (the absolute no-go!) So here are not good. Show your company on Facebook from the personal, human side. Gain insights into everyday working life, introduce employees and take your fans behind the scenes. Also advertising or offers represented in a personal way, are fare more effective. For example, shoot a short mobile video, post a photo with one of your co-workers or show satisfied customers (of course, only with their consent).
Tip #17 Post at the right time The time when post will determine how many people will see it. The more people online at the time of posting, the higher the chance of reaching a high reach. Since these times are known, you can relatively easily follow them and pre-plan the posts accordingly. Many users are online in the morning (breakfast break, about 9:00 am) and at noon (lunch break, about 12:00 or 13:00). By far, however, most users romp around in the evening (about 20:00 or 21:00 clock) on Facebook.
Tip #18 Watch for events in the area
Tip #15 Â Take care of variety! Your Facebook page should not just show your business from one page. Add variety to the topics on your site - serious, business-related information is just as important as casual and emotional content. These generally provide for higher interactions and should therefore not be missed. In addition to thematic variety, Facebook also offers many different ways to post a post: post with photo, post with video, post with an event, post with a link to another webpage, etc. These different post types should be tailored to the topic ,
Not every post posted on your Facebook page must necessarily have something to do with your business. Also refer to events and Facebook events in the area to show that your business is connected to the region and interested in people. The next city festival is coming up? Wish the visitors a lot of fun! A well-known artist comes in the context of his tour for a concert in the city? Recommend the event to your fans - or even better, raffle tickets and use Facebook sweepstakes ! It's often easy to connect your business to the event. Also a Facebook live video can be a great way to show that you are there.
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Tip #19 Quality instead of quantity There is no perfect number of posts per week. The frequency of your posts depends on the nature of your page / business and what your fans expect from your site. Do you have a shop where something interesting happens every day and new offers come along? Then with a clear conscience you can post a contribution once or twice a day. Do you run the side of an insurance company and want to inform your fans rather than entertain? Then three posts per week are enough. Adapt to the behavior of your fans and see how they react to your posts. More important than the frequency of your posts is their quality (reach and interactions), so how much benefit do you actually have for your fans.
page in the long term. It does not always have to be complicated tools, but the internal statistics on the Facebook company page are enough for that.
Tip #23 Timely answers: If questions have been asked on the company side, they should be answered promptly. If someone receives an answer only days later, they have lost interest and may get a negative opinion about the company. These are just a few items that we can manage ourselves with our practice FB page and a staff member that enjoys working on this platform. By following these tips and working with them a little every day will put your practice in much better “view” within 60 days .
Tip #20 Varied contributions:
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Many companies post only pictures on Facebook, as these have long been rated by Facebook as the most interesting. By changing the algorithm, you cannot rely on this fact anymore. Meanwhile, links are very popular on Facebook, but only if the link is deleted from the status and only the thumbnail and the link text below the post indicates a link. The safest and most successful, however, it is the nature of the contributions to alternate.
Tip #21 Write regularly: In order to keep in conversation, it is important to appear regularly in the newsfeed. In doing so, everyone has to find out for themselves what goes down well with the fans, but also how often one manages to make a good contribution. In general, something should be posted 1-3 times a week.
Tip #22 Evaluate statistics: Often, Facebook is something that happens in companies so casually. Here and there something is posted, but what achievements are achieved (or not achieved) is often lost. It is important to evaluate his page regularly. What can be improved? Which posts were the most successful? Why were they so successful? What can you transfer from it to other posts? This is the only way to invest in a Facebook
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FOUR MONEY BLUNDERS THAT COULD LEAVE YOU POORER A “not-to-do” list for the balance of your life Rich Arzaga, CFP®, CDFA, CLTC® How are your money habits? Are you getting ahead financially, or does it feel like you are running in place? It may come down to behavior. Some financial behaviors promote wealth creation, while others lead to frustration. Certainly other factors come into play when determining a household’s financial situation, but behavior and attitudes toward money rank pretty high on the list. How many households are focusing on the fundamentals? Late in 2014, the Denver-based National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) surveyed 2,000 adults from the 10 largest U.S. metro areas and found that 64% wanted to make at least one financial resolution the next year. The top three financial goals for the new year: building retirement savings, setting a budget, and creating a plan to pay off debt.1 All well and good, but the respondents didn’t feel so good about their financial situations. About one-third of them said the quality of their financial life was “worse than they expected it to be.” In fact, 48% told NEFE they were living paycheck-to-paycheck and 63% reported facing a sudden and major expense last year.1 Fate and lackluster wage growth aside, good money
habits might help to reduce those percentages. There are certain habits that tend to improve household finances, and other habits that tend to harm them. As a cautionary note, here is a “not-to-do” list – a list of key money blunders that could make you much poorer if repeated over time. Money Blunder #1: Spend every dollar that comes through your hands. Maybe we should ban the phrase “disposable income.” Too many households are disposing of money that they could save or invest. Or, they are spending money that they don’t actually have (through credit cards). You have to have creature comforts, and you can’t live on pocket change. Even so, you can vow to put aside a certain number of dollars per month to spend on something really important: YOU. That 24-hour sale where everything is 50% off? It probably isn’t a “once in a lifetime” event; for all you know, it may happen again next weekend. It is nothing special compared to your future. Money Blunder #2: Pay others before you pay yourself. Our economy is consumer-driven and service-oriented. Every day brings us chances to take on additional consumer debt. That works against wealth. How many bills do you pay a month, and how much
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money is left when you are done? Less debt equals more money to pay yourself with – money that you can save or invest on behalf of your future and your dreams and priorities. Money Blunder #3: Don’t save anything.
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Paying yourself first also means building an emergency fund and a strong cash position. With the middle class making very little economic progress in this generation (at least based on wages versus inflation), this may seem hard to accomplish. It may very well be, but it will be even harder to face an unexpected financial burden with minimal cash on hand. The U.S. personal savings rate has averaged about 5% recently. Not great, but better than the low of 2.6% measured in 2007. Saving 5% of your disposable income may seem like a challenge, but the challenge is relative: the personal savings rate in China is 50%.2
doing things that are halting your financial progress, remember the old saying: change is good. A change in financial behavior may be rewarding. 1 - denverpost.com/smart/ci_27275294/financialresolutions-2015-four-ways-help-yourself-keep [1/7/15] 2 - tennessean.com/story/money/2014/12/31/ tips-getting-financially-fit/21119049/ [12/31/14] Editor’s Note: Mr. Arzaga, CFP® is an Honored Instructor at UC Berkeley Personal Financial Planning Program, and the Founder and CEO or Cornerstone Wealth Management in San Ramon, CA. His firm specializes in business owner and business exit planning. Rich is a registered representative with, and securities and advisory services offered through, LPL Financial, a Registered Investment Advisor, Member FINRA/SIPC. He can be reached at 888.290.9900 or www.cornerstonewmi.com. He is scheduled to speak at next year’s meeting in Nashville.
Money Blunder #4: Invest impulsively. Buying what’s hot, chasing the return, investing in what you don’t fully understand – these are all variations of the same bad habit, which is investing emotionally and trying to time the market. The impulse is to “make money,” with too little attention paid to diversification, risk tolerance and other critical factors along the way. Money may be made, but it may not be retained. Make this the year of good money habits. You may be doing all the right things right now and if so, you may be making financial strides. If you find yourself
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40th Annual Meeting July 7-10, 2018
Lake Buena Vista, Florida Walt Disney World® Resort Disney’s Boardwalk Inn Registration:
http://aao.informz.net/AAO/data/images/reg%20form%202018.pdf
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