Hey guys — I know I’ve been quiet on the newsletter for a while. A lot has been happening behind the scenes, and today I finally want to share something I’ve been working through privately over the past year:
I partnered with a DSO.
I never thought I’d make this move so early in my career. Like many dentists, I assumed the standard path looked something like this:
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Selling when you’re young — and still on the upswing — always felt wrong to me. It felt like giving up your future, giving up the most valuable stretch of your career. I used to believe it meant you didn’t have what it took to keep going.
But the more I looked at my life, my goals, and what actually mattered to me, the more obvious it became that partnering now was the best move I could make — not just financially, but for my health, my family, and my future.
This wasn’t about quitting dentistry.
It was about building a future I was excited about.
As a solo owner-operator, I kept imagining the future version of my life — and I realized I wasn’t excited about it.
After I got married, Charlotte started to notice how the anxiety from practice ownership showed up in me. She’d catch me staring off into space once or twice a year, completely drained. It worried her. It worried me too.
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Once I admitted I didn’t want to do this alone anymore, everything became clearer.
Partnering didn’t remove the people component — but it gave me support, structure, and backup.
And financially, it let me do something I had avoided for years:
de-risk my life.
If someone told you they had 95% of their net worth in a single stock, you’d tell them to diversify immediately.
That was me.
Except the “stock” was my practice.
The more I learned, the more I realized selling part of my equity wasn’t giving anything up — it was trading volatility for stability, risk for optionality, and stress for a future I could actually be excited about.
This past year taught me more about myself than any other year of my life.
Going through the sale process forced me to grow quickly:
I had to confront what I really wanted.
I had to get honest about what was burning me out.
I had to admit that my goals were changing.
I had to let myself imagine a life that wasn’t built around survival.
Partnering wasn’t giving up, the way I used to think.
Partnering was leveling up.
It was choosing my future before burnout chose it for me.
In the next few episodes, I’ll walk through the realizations that led me here — the emotional ones, the financial ones, and the ones we don’t talk about openly in dentistry.
There’s a lot to unpack, and honestly, a lot I wish I had known earlier.
If you know another dentist who’s stuck in the endless grind, feel free to share this with them — nobody should feel like they’re going through this alone. We can commiserate together.
Thanks for reading FUTURE // NOW.
More soon.
— Kevin
