20/20 Money Episode 22 – Managing the Stress of Practice Ownership with Dr. Steve Vargo, OD, MBA

Welcome everybody to the first episode of the newly renamed/rebranded podcast “20/20 Money!” Since inception, this show has been called The Dose as it primarily discussed financial concepts and strategies that would apply to white coat professionals in the dentistry, optometry, pharmacy, and physician landscape. However, as we continued to record episodes, I started to realize that more and more of the content and ideas that we were discussing had a definite lean towards optometry…and as my presence as a wealth adviser in the optometric community continued to grow, I felt that it would be appropriate to rename and rebrand the podcast accordingly. With that, 20/20 Money was born.

Having said that, there are still topics that we’ll cover that will be applicable to dentists, pharmacists, and physicians, so I’d encourage you to stay subscribed to the show so you’ll still receive new episodes as they are released every Monday and you can decide at that time whether the topic is of interest to you or not.

My guest on today’s show is Dr. Steve Vargo. Steve is an optometrist that, after practicing 15 years as a clinician, transitioned from patient care into practice management and has been working with IDOC for the past 4+ years. What’s unique about Steve is his commitment to help develop ODs into better leaders and, because of that, help them live better lives themselves (personally and professionally). In this episode, we cover many topics and digress down a few rabbit holes, but they all come back to one common theme: managing stress. We talk about the typical journey that ODs go through when they first start their practice and why improving one’s practice typically must start with a shift in mindset before addressing the actual practice management tasks. He talks about why it’s important to challenge conventional wisdom and provides certain examples in a practice where they can challenge the status quo. He introduces us to the concept of the CEO Model at IDOC and how it helps practice owners. We also dive into the power of habits and how habits affect the stress level we feel and we wrap it up with specific action items that you can take away from this episode and implement into your own life to help you live the life you want. And with that introduction, I hope you enjoy this conversation with Dr. Steve Vargo.

Resources

IDOC

Fear Setting with Tim Ferriss

Dr. Steve Vargo, OD, MBA LinkedIn

Atomic Habits

The Miracle Morning

Simply Being Meditation App

Headspace