Bobby Bhandal explains why earning ‘good money’ as an associate might be the most expensive decision of your career.
It’s Sunday evening. You’re scrolling through your phone, trying to ignore the creeping dread of Monday morning. You’ve got a perfectly nice life. Nice car. Nice holidays. Nice salary.
So why do you feel like you’re slowly suffocating?
Here’s what nobody tells you about being a well-paid associate: it’s the perfect trap. And I don’t mean that metaphorically. I mean it’s perfectly designed to keep you exactly where you are.
You’re not miserable enough to leave. But you’re not fulfilled enough to stay excited. You’re in what I call ‘the associate comfort trap’ – and it’s costing you more than you realise.
The trap is invisible because it feels like success
Five years after qualifying, you’re earning £85,000. Your non-dental friends think you’ve ‘made it’. Your family is proud. By most measures, you’re successful.
But here’s what’s actually happening:
You’re making good money… but someone else is making great money from your clinical skills. You have nice holidays… but you’re checking emails daily because you can’t fully switch off. You’ve got clinical freedom… except when corporate protocols override your clinical judgment. You’re growing professionally… apart from the fact your skills have plateaued because you’re doing the same procedures you mastered three years ago.
The trap doesn’t feel like a trap. It feels like sensible career progression.
That’s what makes it so dangerous.
The mathematics of mediocrity
Let me show you what ‘playing it safe’ actually costs.
Say you’re an associate earning £85,000 at year five. Assuming 3% annual increases (matching inflation), by year 15 you’re on £114,000. By year 25, you’re at £153,000. After 40 years of professional life, you retire with a decent pension. Comfortable, but nothing spectacular.
Meanwhile, your classmate who opened a practice at year five?
- Year one to two: she earned less than you, probably £60-70k after paying herself from practice profits. You felt vindicated in your ‘sensible’ choice
- Year three to five: she’s back to matching your salary, but now she’s building equity. Her practice is worth £300-400k. That’s wealth, not just income
- Year 10: she’s taking home £150k+ while you’re on £114k. Her practice is worth £800k to one million. She works four days a week
- Year 15: she’s just sold her practice for £1.2 million and opened a second location. Or she’s kept it and it’s throwing off £200k+ annually while she works three days a week.
The gap isn’t just the salary difference. It’s the compounding wealth creation, the professional freedom, the genuine ownership of your career trajectory.
But here’s what really gets me: Every year you wait, you don’t just lose one year. You lose the compound effect of that year. And we don’t have to ask our banker friends at a dinner party what that means, do we?
The comfortable contradiction
‘I’m doing fine. Why rock the boat?’
Because ‘fine’ is the enemy of exceptional. And in your case, ‘fine’ is also expensive.
You’re being paid just enough to not be desperate. That’s not an accident. Corporate dentistry has perfected the formula: pay associates enough to keep them from leaving, but not enough to build real wealth.
It’s corporate genius, really. You’re comfortable enough to stay, but not successful enough to have options.
The permission you’re waiting for
‘I’m not ready yet. Maybe in a few more years when I have more experience.’
Can we talk about this for a second?
You make life-altering clinical decisions every single day. You diagnose pathology. You design treatment plans worth £5,000, £10,000, £30,000. You extract teeth. You place implants. Patients trust you with their health and their appearance.
But somehow you think you need ‘more experience’ before you can run a practice?
The fact is: you’re already running a practice. You’re just running it for someone else. And they’re keeping every last penny of the equity.
The real question
The question isn’t: ‘Am I ready to open a practice?’
The question is: ‘How many more years am I willing to build someone else’s wealth while telling myself I’m not ready to build my own?’
You’re not waiting for the right time. You’re waiting for permission. Permission to bet on yourself. Permission to value your own potential. Permission to stop being comfortable and start being fulfilled.
If you’re looking for permission, you already have it. You’ve had it since you qualified. You just haven’t claimed it.
The systematic way out
Breaking free from the associate comfort trap doesn’t mean recklessly quitting tomorrow and maxing out credit cards to open a practice.
That’s the false binary that keeps people trapped: Stay safe and comfortable, or take a terrifying leap into uncertainty.
There’s a third option. A systematic approach to practice ownership that makes it manageable rather than terrifying. Where you make decisions based on frameworks rather than fear. Where you prepare properly instead of winging it.
The Dental Freedom Blueprint breaks down exactly how to escape the trap methodically – it’s the book I’m writing that reveals:
- How to know when you’re actually ready (hint: it’s sooner than you think)
- The three critical decisions that determine success or struggle
- Why the ‘risk’ of practice ownership is statistically lower than you believe
- The frameworks that turn terrifying decisions into systematic choices.
The cost of comfort
I stayed in the associate comfort trap longer than I should have. The money was good. The stress was manageable. I told myself ‘maybe next year’ for three years running.
Then one day I calculated what those three years of waiting had cost me. Not just in lost income, but in lost equity, lost professional growth, lost fulfillment.
It was expensive. Way more expensive than any risk I faced in opening my practice.
The associate comfort trap isn’t comfortable at all. It just takes long enough to kill you that you don’t notice you’re dying.
It’s your move
If you’re reading this and feeling uncomfortable, good. That discomfort is useful information.
You’re not going to accidentally wake up one day suddenly ‘ready’ to open a practice. You’re either going to systematically prepare to make the move, or you’re going to wake up at 55 still waiting for the perfect moment that never came.
The systematic approach exists. The frameworks are proven. The path is clearer than you think.
The only question is whether you’ll stay comfortable long enough to make it irrelevant.
Dr. Bobby Bhandal is the founder of Squat Success and author of the Dental Freedom Blueprint. After spending years in the associate comfort trap himself, he’s dedicated to helping dentists recognise and escape it using systematic approaches that make practice ownership manageable rather than terrifying.
Ready to see if you’re in the trap? The Dental Freedom Blueprint includes a specific self-assessment that shows you exactly where you are and what you need to prepare. Access it here: squatsuccess.co.uk/dental-freedom-blueprint.
This article is sponsored by Squat Success.
