May 14, 2025 • 26 mins
You can be a great dentist and still struggle to grow — and here's why: your mindset. It's what keeps some practice owners stuck and helps others build the type of practice they want.
In this episode, find out how to shift out of "survival mode" and run your business instead of just working in it. From perfectionism and fear to day-to-day fundamentals, we discuss common mindset traps and habits that stall growth and how you can move past them. Tune in for tips to build a strong team and become a better leader!
Topics discussed in this episode:
- The mindset of successful practice owners
- Fundamentals of an efficient dental practice
- Common mental roadblocks to growth
- Tips to accelerate growth and lead more effectively
- Why you should stress test your practice
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
One thing we don't learn in dental school is how to
be a successful practice owner.
You can be a great dentist,work hard and still struggle to
grow your practice the way youwant to.
If this is you, keep listening,because today we're digging
into what separates practiceowners that reach their goals
from the ones that stay stuck.
You'll learn what you need tochange in your mindset to reach
(00:23):
the next level, the number onething holding most owners back,
and the fundamental practicesyou need to build a
multi-million dollar business.
Let's get to it.
You are listening to the DentalPractice Heroes podcast, where
we teach dentists how to stepback from the chair, empower
their team and build a practicethat gives them their life back.
I'm your host, dr Paul Etcheson, dental coach, author of two
(00:46):
books on dental practicemanagement and owner of a large
four-doctor practice that runswith ease while I work just one
clinical day a week.
If you're ready for a practicethat supports your life instead
of consuming it, you're in theright place.
My team of legendary dentalcoaches and I are here to guide
you on your path fromoverwhelmed owner to dental
practice hero.
Let's get started.
(01:11):
Welcome back to the DentalPractice Heroes podcast.
I'm your host, dr Paul Edgerson.
Today I am joined with my DPHcoaches, dr Henry Ernst and Dr
Stephen Markowitz.
Dr Henry's got a large practicein North Carolina with 18
chairs and Steve's got amulti-location group outside of
Boston, massachusetts.
Today we're going to talk aboutwhy do some dentists make
millions and others juststruggle?
(01:33):
Because, we see it, there'sgoing to be a whole spectrum in
anything.
There's going to be the onesthat guys, the outliers on this
end, outliers on that end.
I'll start with you, steve.
Like what do you see?
Like what is the difference?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
What's that X factor in people that are doing really
well in dental practiceownership versus the people that
just struggle and don't knowwhy?
I knew we were going to talkabout this topic.
I wrote down the word mindset11 times.
It is purely just how someonethinks of their world.
It separates good people fromgreat people.
It separates people who aremaking millions from people who
are unable to get a fullschedule.
And what I know about dentistryis yes, there are challenges.
(02:10):
Yes, insurance has challenges.
Yes, patients have challenges.
Yes, team members havechallenges, but dentistry is a
license to print money.
We have such a privilege to makeas much as we want, work as
hard as we want and take care ofpeople in what I think is such
a privilege to make as much aswe want, work as hard as we want
and take care of people in whatI think is such a unique way.
I share this with every singleperson that I talk to about.
(02:33):
Why do I think that our groupis growing?
It's because we surroundourselves with people who say
we're going to do great, we'regoing to take care of a patient
a certain way.
We want to surround ourselveswith people who make us feel
good about it and I don't evenlook.
I've never looked at whatinsurance someone has who walks
in my office.
I know.
When I'm sitting there andlooking at the insurances that
(02:54):
we take, I want to have anunderstanding of what makes the
most sense for our business, butthat doesn't even cross my mind
when there's patients that walkinto my operatory or walk into
the practice.
And if we're going to get sobogged down with the details
that why patients suck, why teammembers suck, why insurances
(03:15):
suck, we're missing out on allof the opportunities that
Dentistry can provide us.
And if we can put ourselves inthat place every single day, we
have the opportunity to print asmuch money as we want.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I mean, I agree with you, Steve, it's totally.
Mindset is a big part of it.
I think there's a lot of crappymindsets out there.
What do you think, henry?
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I'm going to jump right on your back, steve
Mindset.
I wrote that down right overhere as I was trying to make
some notes to myself.
It's all about the mindset andI think dentists have a specific
mind that coming out of dentalschool, most people have zero
business training and I was kindof like that.
I didn't really know anythingabout business or running a
business and I had to educatemyself and I think there's a lot
(03:57):
of fear.
Also, you come out of school.
I don't know what the goingrate is of what people have in
debt now.
Is it 400, 500,000, somethinglike that?
That sounds about right.
So there's a lot of fear andthere's also the mindset of
dentists of they're suchperfectionists because we want
to perfect this margin.
It has to be perfect and thisis the way we're trained in
(04:17):
millimeters in dental school andessentially you're letting you
know perfection be the enemy ofgood as an owner sometimes,
because you're lettingperfection be the enemy of good
as an owner sometimes becauseyou never learn to pass things
off to others and train them andgrow and stuff like that.
So I think it's a combinationof lots of these things of fear,
mindset being very scared andcautious for making business
(04:39):
decisions.
I mean, I trusted when I wasgrowing the practice and every
time we had a decision to make,okay, we're at capacity, what do
we do now?
I knew the numbers.
I trusted when I was growingthe practice and every time we
had a decision to make, okay,we're at capacity, what do we do
now?
I knew the numbers, I knew themetrics, I knew that we had to
expand and I knew it was goingto work.
And I was really confidentevery time.
And I think sometimes you see,like on the dental forums, on
the Facebooks and stuff, it'slike doing that is like the
(05:00):
enemy.
It's like some people just havethis mindset like, hey, I'm
going to stay in the fouroperatory practice and I'm going
to take care of a family-basedlifestyle practice.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But that's going to be theperson who's going to be limited
.
They're going to have a ceiling, right, I never want to have a
ceiling.
I want to always keep growing.
But the thing I've learned overtime is grow efficiently.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
So what comes to mind for me is just general
fundamentals, like what is themanagement fundamentals?
This is what I see in mycoaching clients that do really
well and the people that workwith me and work with us in our
coaching is that we're holdingthem accountable to do the
things that you need to do torun your business effectively.
It's like if you make sure I'mthinking about me two, three
(05:40):
years ago, maybe four years ago,about four years ago, with our
lead meetings.
We did them once every otherweek and then we stopped.
Sometimes I showed up,sometimes I didn't, and then
when I did show up, it was kindof like we were just talking
about problems and reacting tothem and after a while they
started getting real stale and Iwas just like man, do you
remember when we used to come tothis lead meeting and we would
talk about what are our primarygoals right now in this quarter
(06:02):
and what are we trying toeffectively create and move
forward?
And we stopped doing that.
We just started showing up.
We stopped like being sogoal-oriented and just started
going through the motions.
Same thing with team owners,where they stopped meeting with
their team, they stoppedcommunicating with their team,
they stopped creating policies,they stopped saying what is the
best way to do these things.
So when I say what is making anowner make millions versus
(06:24):
someone who's struggling, it'sthat person that's taking the
time to do.
All those little things, by allmeans, are not difficult to do
I mean, anyone can do them butthey're hard to do when you get
so sucked into the dentistry andthe day-to-day that you don't
set aside the time and you don'tmake it a priority.
So prioritization,prioritization of the
fundamentals that keep theneedle moving forward.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Why do you think you stopped doing those lead?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
meetings.
What about it?
You know I think a lot of ithas to do with is your attitude
changes slightly when you sellyour practice.
It's hard to have that sameamount of like engagement, and
I've just like I don't know ifthat's just the time kind of
burnout thing or if that has todo with the less percentage of
ownership, but I felt like Ijust didn't want to go to those
meetings anymore.
(07:08):
I wanted to go in and out andyou know what, maybe it was
because we just stopped gettingstructured with it.
We were just in there shootingthe shit and it seemed like kind
of a waste of time.
Like morning huddles, like whenwe used to do morning huddles
and then they got boring as hell, we stopped doing them.
So I bet it was a combinationof all those things.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, the consistency is so hard.
What I find is, when it's newand exciting, it's easy, and
then when you shift from thisentrepreneurial, really
fast-growing business to a moreestablished, mature practice,
it's no longer new.
So it takes a different mindsetas a leader and we need to be
(07:41):
able to evolve and adapt and thethings that got us to that
point of being like manic aboutall the details and knowing all
of everything about every singleperson that works for us and
who's doing what, when, as wemature and our practice becomes
larger in size, we no longer cando that, and that's where I
(08:04):
find a lot of doctors hit walls,and that can be when you go
from a startup where you'redoing your hygiene to now you
have a hygienist, and that's achange.
So finding a way to understandand mature as a leader that will
allow you you to give thebusiness what it needs not the
(08:25):
business, you what you need isreally hard, and I think that is
that mindset of always evolvingdoes leave people behind,
meaning that what we say somepeople struggle.
I don't think they'restruggling, they're just not.
They're not fulfilling thecapacity or the greatness that
(08:46):
this practice can become,because they're happy enough
with what they have now andthey're unwilling to change, to
grow yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
I think complacency is very easy for it to set in.
I mean, I was just doing somemath in my head the three people
on this group right here wehave about $38 million in
collections between the three ofus.
We did it already, you know.
We know that we can do it andit's easy for complacency Like
hey, we're not doing the teammeetings every week Like we used
to, or every other week that weused to, and it's so easy for
(09:16):
that to happen.
And another point that I wantedto make is like the premise of
the whole podcast today is likehow do people like sit in that
wall of like gosh, I make thismuch money.
But how do people like sit inthat wall of like gosh, I make
this much money?
But these people over here likeway up here and I'm not saying
that one's better than anotheryou have to do what makes you
happy.
You could have that lifestylepractice that makes you
completely happy and you have agreat family life and that's
(09:37):
perfect.
But if you want to ascend right, don't listen to the naysayers.
This goes for anything insociety nowadays.
Don't listen to the naysayers.
This goes for anything insociety nowadays.
Don't listen to the naysayers.
You put something up onFacebook, there's 50 naysayers
that say don't do this.
If these three guys are doing$38 million, they probably crown
every single thing.
They probably never put afilling in there.
They probably overcharge.
You know they do all these.
Don't listen to that.
Charged anesthetic Never turndown an opportunity to have a
(10:00):
conversation with people.
That's probably where I've madethe most progress in my career
is just being at certain eventsor this or that and just having
lunch with somebody and justshooting the breeze of how they
do things and pickingeverybody's brains and then
eventually seeing what works forme.
I didn't want the fouroperatory lifestyle practice.
I wanted the practice that wastruly a business that didn't
depend on my hands to sink orswim all the time.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Henry, that's awesome because it makes me think of
just.
We all have people that we canaspire to grow from, and I think
when the people that are, atleast in my experience, that
struggle the most to get totheir goals think that they have
all the answers and they arethe least humble, anytime that I
wanted to grow, the first thingI did I was like, all right,
(10:45):
let me look around and see who'sdoing that, because I want to
talk to them, I want to learnfrom them.
So I think part of that mindsetis knowing that, yeah, you may
be considered successful, but Iguarantee there are people way
more successful.
Go get into another room, starttalking to those types of
people and you'll learn so much,and then that itself can be
motivating.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah, I've noticed, like getting going to events,
and depending on who you hangwith at an event, or if you go
into a masterminding event or ifyou're just going to like a CE,
you will find people moresuccessful than you and they
will light a fire under yourbutt.
Like I've come back from so manyevents where I'm just like man,
I thought I was good, I thoughtI was like happy, and now I
want to do all this shit.
I want to do what that guy isdoing.
You know, what comes to mindwhen I'm thinking about some
(11:27):
clients that I've worked with isthat I see some because
occasionally I'll see clientsthat will just struggle with the
people stuff.
It's not a comfortable area forthem and it's something they
don't really like to get tooinvolved in and it really hurts
their growth because they can'tkeep a solid, cohesive team in
order to grow.
So they might get to the pointwhere maybe 1.5, 1.8 million,
(11:51):
but they can't bring on anassociate because they can't
keep team members or they don'thave a good culture and it stems
from them not being able tohave those conversations.
And I think if somebody, ifthat's not your strong suit,
it's something you have to workon.
You either have to get good atit or you have to find somebody
that really loves to do it andyou need to delegate that to
them.
Have you guys seen that withsome of your clients Just the
(12:14):
people avoiding the difficultconversations?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I think there are two aspects of it that I see.
One is avoidance of difficultconversations, which I think we
could do every podcast foreternity on.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I'm guilty of it too.
Yeah, I'm not going to say yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, no, because it's.
It's really hard, but I thinkeven more so than that, it's
forming true relationships atwork.
When people love who they workfor, like truly love who they
work for, they will go through awall, They'll do some crazy
stuff and they will be soconnected, not to dentistry, not
(12:51):
to the purpose of or the vision, but they're connected to you
as their owner.
So if I were to tell anyonewhere to start, it's like you
got to surround yourself.
If you're going to be the ownerand the leader of your practice
, people have to love, love,love you, and that in itself can
get you really far.
Where I would start is makesure you're setting up time for
(13:12):
that.
So if your patient day ends atfive and at 5.05, you're running
out the door for four or fivedays a week and you have lunch
by yourself, you're not doingthe right thing and you're
complaining about you're notgrowing to where you want to be,
I would first say I'm going tohave lunch, I'm going to sit at
that table and we're going tohave lunch together and I'm just
(13:34):
going to start talking to myteam and have them understand
what I'm doing or get to knowthem better.
And then I would go and I wouldpurposely find two or three
people a day doing somethingthat is pretty awesome, that's
making my job easier, and Iwould go up to them and I'd say
thank you for doing easier.
And I would go up to them andI'd say thank you for doing this
, or I would send them a text atthe end of the day.
(13:55):
It used to be my checklist, mypersonal checklist.
I would have to write a textmessage to two people every day,
just thanking them forsomething specific that I
thought was awesome or thathelped me, and just continue to
form that bond.
And next thing, you know, youhave eight, 10 people that just
love what you do and speak sohighly of you.
It's contagious.
(14:16):
And then you can bring in thatassociate because they're coming
into a place that's alreadyfull of that type of energy.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
So I'm going to disagree with you.
One point is we haven't foughtHenry yet Sitting down and
eating lunch with the team.
And the only reason I bringthis is fresh in my mind,
because I was coaching a dentistpractice and there was an older
dentist who just came into thepractice and he was trying to
like be everybody's buddy andstuff like that, and he sat down
with them and had lunch likefor two or three days and the
staff hated it because thelunchtime was like their sweet
(14:44):
time to just like shoot thebreeze about their boyfriends or
this or that and talk shitabout or do whatever they do,
right.
And then you come in there andnow you're messing up their
whole like it's like the teachersitting with them.
So I love everything you said,but I'm just gonna punch holes
here and I would say I don'tlove the lunch thing because I
think that you're coming intotheir space and I'd say stay
away.
While I had it in my mind.
(15:04):
As far as the growth aspect andgetting the mindset, it's not
natural for most dentists tohave these personal skills.
It just doesn't.
Most of those things don't cometogether and if you're not
comfortable I love science Ifyou're not comfortable in that
space, find a mentor, findsomebody who can give you those
(15:25):
skills, or even a coach that cando this for you.
And I will tell you thisbecause it always stuck with me,
is, whenever you're in a roomof, let's say, dentists and
maybe there's some successfulones and non successful ones
what I found over the years theones that are the nervous ones
or don't have all the answers ornot so successful those are
going to be the loudest voicesin the room.
The people who are the mostsuccessful and quote unquote
(15:46):
have all the most of the answersand are very knowledgeable.
They're usually the quietestones in the room.
So always take note of that.
And I always wanna see if I'vegot somebody talking to me and
coaching me.
I wanna know the worst stuffthat's ever happened to them,
because I want them to be honest, I want them to be open,
because we could all again, wecould do a podcast for a year
(16:08):
and talk about all the bad shitthat has happened to each one of
us, and we'll be open to dothat, because that's who we are
and you learn from the mistakesthat you make.
So I just want to get thosepoints in, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I'm with you, henry.
I don't like eating lunch withthe staff.
I feel like they would just belike get out of here.
Old man, maybe when I was likein my early 30s.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I'm not saying every day, bring your roast beef
sandwich, paul, and sit downwith them and watch them eat.
But what I'm saying is I'musing that as an opportunity,
because if someone's not willingto at least sit with you for 10
, 20 minutes, you don't have areal connection with that person
.
And what?
I would say to that old guy ishe's making my point?
(16:46):
Those people, they're not evengoing to sit with you for 10
minutes because they don'trespect you enough to want to
spend 10 minutes of their breakwith you.
They sure as hell aren't goingto help you.
Bring on an associate, yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Steve, I was just picking on you.
You can bring your old schoolroast beef sandwich in your
little brown bag and sit withthe staff.
We're Boston pastramis.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
It's a turkey and cheese header.
You know I get the same thingfor lunch every day.
How dare you.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
You're just that guy, I just pegged it.
You're so that guy that has thesame turkey sandwich every day.
Dude, I used to eat so like.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I never take a lunch and I never did and we're like
when we open our practice,everyone used to give me shit
because like I'm like what can Ieat really fast?
And I could throw down fouruncooked hot dogs in like
literally a minute and everyonebe like you are disgusting.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Is there not some disease you get with that when
uncooked hot dog?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Dude, I don't know, they're already cooked.
You don't have to cook them,they're just ready to go.
And then people give me becauseI would eat spaghetti.
I was right out of the can,cold and I would eat pork and
beans out of the can cold.
They're like you're sick, butI'm like I was looking up like
(17:52):
what is the absolute worst thingyou can eat for your body.
It is a hot dog.
Congratulations, that's for aday.
It was like a staple of my diet.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
As we were going through this, one thing that I
kept thinking about wasovercoming fears.
I really think that is thebiggest obstacle in what makes
dentists unable to be assuccessful as they want.
And what I found is, even atthis point in my career, I still
have these giant fears of likeis this a deck of cards and it's
(18:24):
all going to crumble?
Or is this doctor so importantto the organization that, if
something, if I don't give themeverything they want, then this
thing's got to collapse.
And what I think has beenhelpful for me is just
experience and that's reallyhard to tell someone as they're
starting out is that I've seenenough bad times.
I've seen us get through itenough times to know like I
(18:44):
can't care that much about thissmall thing.
I've really been able to takemyself and look at like, all
right, what are the eight to 10things that I really can
influence that are going toimpact the business?
And how do I make sure we'reupholding ourselves to that and
not get stuck in the minutia ofall the stuff?
And I think, as business owners, there's so much that can
(19:07):
happen in a dental office in aday and if we, if we try and fix
and control every single thing,we lose sight of what we're
really trying to do, which isgrow a healthy business and take
care of people in a dentaloffice.
And that always starts with myfear fear of losing control,
fear of it not working, fearthat I suck all that stuff.
I'd love to hear you guys'thoughts on how do you overcome
(19:29):
these fears.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I think, education.
Looking back on how I alwaysmade these like snap decisions
when the business needed to growand grow.
I made those decisions becauseI had the fundamentals of
understanding the dentalbusiness and it didn't come from
dental school.
I remember I had somebodyasking me oh, do you think they
should teach the business partin dental school?
And I said hell, no.
(19:50):
And the reason why is becausethe people who are going to
teach that are people who don'teven do it.
They're going to set you backfurther.
Yeah, so I think the main thingthat comes from this is
education and understanding theeducation of your dental,
because you're trained on allthe dentistry stuff.
That's great, but now we needto get educated in business,
dental business and what thislooks like and what you
(20:12):
mentioned there.
I love to stress test thepractice even to this day, like
you know.
Stress test.
Hey, what would it look like ifin the next year, our business
expenses went up 10% and ourrevenues went down 10?
How long would the businesslike be okay?
What happens if their shitreally hit the fan in this world
?
And 20% expenses and 20% lessrevenue?
What would that look like andwhat decisions would we have to
(20:35):
make.
Those are the kinds of thingsthat when you get knowledge
you're not just flying by theseat of your pants, you feel
comfortable because you know,like you've kind of done this in
your head, and we never haveall the answers, but being
educated gives us like the pathbetter.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, I think the period that I want to put on the
end of this episode is that ifyou're paying attention and
you're engaging with your team,you can't go wrong because you
will always know what the nextthing to do is.
And to your point, Steve, Iremember when we were coming out
of COVID we were just kind ofkissing everyone's ass and
didn't want to ruffle too manyfeathers or upset people, and I
(21:14):
got to the point where I saidyou know what?
Things are not going the way Iwant them to and I'm kind of
tired of it.
And I said things are going tochange here and the people that
didn't change.
We got rid of them.
We lost a lot of people in ashort period of time.
But damn, going through thatprocess, let me realize that
nothing can kill the culture ofthis practice.
Our practice is too strong.
We have reached a level where,no matter what happens and I'm
(21:35):
going to go to that bad spot andsay, holy cow, this whole house
of cards is about to tip over,it's about to fall, it's not
going to happen that's where Ithink this resilience and mental
toughness came in my career.
Was me just realizing everysingle thing that happened over
my career.
It didn't kill the practice andnothing is going to kill this
practice.
We might have a bad month, wemight have a time where we're
covering for each other andwe're a short staff, but shit,
(21:57):
it is not all falling down.
And I think we're all guilty ofhaving that thought at some
point in our career, becauseit's just fear.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So when you realize that the threshold that made you
feel comfortable with it it wasjust you, yeah, absolutely
Nothing changed.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Nothing changed.
I thought my practice was twomonths away from tanking for 12
years.
You know like when you'retaking a tooth out, you're like
two seconds away for like twohours.
That one tooth, that likeyou're in there for two hours
You're like I've got two seconds, I get this thing out in two
seconds, but you think that fortwo hours straight.
That's what I've thought for mywhole practice career.
It's all about, yeah, maybe 10years in.
Yeah, okay, where to go now?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Just let the silence sink in.
It's all about mindset.
You said so.
Just let that sink in Nice andwe're overcoming our fears.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
And we're going to take you out of this episode.
Steve's going to take us in aguided meditation.
Go ahead, Steve.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
With his turkey sandwich.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Oh dude, it's so good .
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Thank you so much for listening everybody.
If you're looking to take yourpractice to the next level
because you want to take moretime off, have more consistency,
make more profit and just havea better practice life, please
check us out atdentalpracticeheroescom.
Try working with a coach.
You know we didn't even talkabout that.
You know, one of the thingsthat I see in a lot of
successful dentists is they workwith coaches.
One thing we don't learn in dental school is how to
be a successful practice owner.
You can be a great dentist,work hard and still struggle to
grow your practice the way youwant to.
If this is you, keep listening,because today we're digging
into what separates practiceowners that reach their goals
from the ones that stay stuck.
You'll learn what you need tochange in your mindset to reach
(00:23):
the next level, the number onething holding most owners back,
and the fundamental practicesyou need to build a
multi-million dollar business.
Let's get to it.
You are listening to the DentalPractice Heroes podcast, where
we teach dentists how to stepback from the chair, empower
their team and build a practicethat gives them their life back.
I'm your host, dr Paul Etcheson, dental coach, author of two
(00:46):
books on dental practicemanagement and owner of a large
four-doctor practice that runswith ease while I work just one
clinical day a week.
If you're ready for a practicethat supports your life instead
of consuming it, you're in theright place.
My team of legendary dentalcoaches and I are here to guide
you on your path fromoverwhelmed owner to dental
practice hero.
Let's get started.
(01:11):
Welcome back to the DentalPractice Heroes podcast.
I'm your host, dr Paul Edgerson.
Today I am joined with my DPHcoaches, dr Henry Ernst and Dr
Stephen Markowitz.
Dr Henry's got a large practicein North Carolina with 18
chairs and Steve's got amulti-location group outside of
Boston, massachusetts.
Today we're going to talk aboutwhy do some dentists make
millions and others juststruggle?
(01:33):
Because, we see it, there'sgoing to be a whole spectrum in
anything.
There's going to be the onesthat guys, the outliers on this
end, outliers on that end.
I'll start with you, steve.
Like what do you see?
Like what is the difference?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
What's that X factor in people that are doing really
well in dental practiceownership versus the people that
just struggle and don't knowwhy?
I knew we were going to talkabout this topic.
I wrote down the word mindset11 times.
It is purely just how someonethinks of their world.
It separates good people fromgreat people.
It separates people who aremaking millions from people who
are unable to get a fullschedule.
And what I know about dentistryis yes, there are challenges.
(02:10):
Yes, insurance has challenges.
Yes, patients have challenges.
Yes, team members havechallenges, but dentistry is a
license to print money.
We have such a privilege to makeas much as we want, work as
hard as we want and take care ofpeople in what I think is such
a privilege to make as much aswe want, work as hard as we want
and take care of people in whatI think is such a unique way.
I share this with every singleperson that I talk to about.
(02:33):
Why do I think that our groupis growing?
It's because we surroundourselves with people who say
we're going to do great, we'regoing to take care of a patient
a certain way.
We want to surround ourselveswith people who make us feel
good about it and I don't evenlook.
I've never looked at whatinsurance someone has who walks
in my office.
I know.
When I'm sitting there andlooking at the insurances that
(02:54):
we take, I want to have anunderstanding of what makes the
most sense for our business, butthat doesn't even cross my mind
when there's patients that walkinto my operatory or walk into
the practice.
And if we're going to get sobogged down with the details
that why patients suck, why teammembers suck, why insurances
(03:15):
suck, we're missing out on allof the opportunities that
Dentistry can provide us.
And if we can put ourselves inthat place every single day, we
have the opportunity to print asmuch money as we want.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I mean, I agree with you, Steve, it's totally.
Mindset is a big part of it.
I think there's a lot of crappymindsets out there.
What do you think, henry?
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I'm going to jump right on your back, steve
Mindset.
I wrote that down right overhere as I was trying to make
some notes to myself.
It's all about the mindset andI think dentists have a specific
mind that coming out of dentalschool, most people have zero
business training and I was kindof like that.
I didn't really know anythingabout business or running a
business and I had to educatemyself and I think there's a lot
(03:57):
of fear.
Also, you come out of school.
I don't know what the goingrate is of what people have in
debt now.
Is it 400, 500,000, somethinglike that?
That sounds about right.
So there's a lot of fear andthere's also the mindset of
dentists of they're suchperfectionists because we want
to perfect this margin.
It has to be perfect and thisis the way we're trained in
(04:17):
millimeters in dental school andessentially you're letting you
know perfection be the enemy ofgood as an owner sometimes,
because you're lettingperfection be the enemy of good
as an owner sometimes becauseyou never learn to pass things
off to others and train them andgrow and stuff like that.
So I think it's a combinationof lots of these things of fear,
mindset being very scared andcautious for making business
(04:39):
decisions.
I mean, I trusted when I wasgrowing the practice and every
time we had a decision to make,okay, we're at capacity, what do
we do now?
I knew the numbers.
I trusted when I was growingthe practice and every time we
had a decision to make, okay,we're at capacity, what do we do
now?
I knew the numbers, I knew themetrics, I knew that we had to
expand and I knew it was goingto work.
And I was really confidentevery time.
And I think sometimes you see,like on the dental forums, on
the Facebooks and stuff, it'slike doing that is like the
(05:00):
enemy.
It's like some people just havethis mindset like, hey, I'm
going to stay in the fouroperatory practice and I'm going
to take care of a family-basedlifestyle practice.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But that's going to be theperson who's going to be limited
.
They're going to have a ceiling, right, I never want to have a
ceiling.
I want to always keep growing.
But the thing I've learned overtime is grow efficiently.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
So what comes to mind for me is just general
fundamentals, like what is themanagement fundamentals?
This is what I see in mycoaching clients that do really
well and the people that workwith me and work with us in our
coaching is that we're holdingthem accountable to do the
things that you need to do torun your business effectively.
It's like if you make sure I'mthinking about me two, three
(05:40):
years ago, maybe four years ago,about four years ago, with our
lead meetings.
We did them once every otherweek and then we stopped.
Sometimes I showed up,sometimes I didn't, and then
when I did show up, it was kindof like we were just talking
about problems and reacting tothem and after a while they
started getting real stale and Iwas just like man, do you
remember when we used to come tothis lead meeting and we would
talk about what are our primarygoals right now in this quarter
(06:02):
and what are we trying toeffectively create and move
forward?
And we stopped doing that.
We just started showing up.
We stopped like being sogoal-oriented and just started
going through the motions.
Same thing with team owners,where they stopped meeting with
their team, they stoppedcommunicating with their team,
they stopped creating policies,they stopped saying what is the
best way to do these things.
So when I say what is making anowner make millions versus
(06:24):
someone who's struggling, it'sthat person that's taking the
time to do.
All those little things, by allmeans, are not difficult to do
I mean, anyone can do them butthey're hard to do when you get
so sucked into the dentistry andthe day-to-day that you don't
set aside the time and you don'tmake it a priority.
So prioritization,prioritization of the
fundamentals that keep theneedle moving forward.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Why do you think you stopped doing those lead?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
meetings.
What about it?
You know I think a lot of ithas to do with is your attitude
changes slightly when you sellyour practice.
It's hard to have that sameamount of like engagement, and
I've just like I don't know ifthat's just the time kind of
burnout thing or if that has todo with the less percentage of
ownership, but I felt like Ijust didn't want to go to those
meetings anymore.
(07:08):
I wanted to go in and out andyou know what, maybe it was
because we just stopped gettingstructured with it.
We were just in there shootingthe shit and it seemed like kind
of a waste of time.
Like morning huddles, like whenwe used to do morning huddles
and then they got boring as hell, we stopped doing them.
So I bet it was a combinationof all those things.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, the consistency is so hard.
What I find is, when it's newand exciting, it's easy, and
then when you shift from thisentrepreneurial, really
fast-growing business to a moreestablished, mature practice,
it's no longer new.
So it takes a different mindsetas a leader and we need to be
(07:41):
able to evolve and adapt and thethings that got us to that
point of being like manic aboutall the details and knowing all
of everything about every singleperson that works for us and
who's doing what, when, as wemature and our practice becomes
larger in size, we no longer cando that, and that's where I
(08:04):
find a lot of doctors hit walls,and that can be when you go
from a startup where you'redoing your hygiene to now you
have a hygienist, and that's achange.
So finding a way to understandand mature as a leader that will
allow you you to give thebusiness what it needs not the
(08:25):
business, you what you need isreally hard, and I think that is
that mindset of always evolvingdoes leave people behind,
meaning that what we say somepeople struggle.
I don't think they'restruggling, they're just not.
They're not fulfilling thecapacity or the greatness that
(08:46):
this practice can become,because they're happy enough
with what they have now andthey're unwilling to change, to
grow yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
I think complacency is very easy for it to set in.
I mean, I was just doing somemath in my head the three people
on this group right here wehave about $38 million in
collections between the three ofus.
We did it already, you know.
We know that we can do it andit's easy for complacency Like
hey, we're not doing the teammeetings every week Like we used
to, or every other week that weused to, and it's so easy for
(09:16):
that to happen.
And another point that I wantedto make is like the premise of
the whole podcast today is likehow do people like sit in that
wall of like gosh, I make thismuch money.
But how do people like sit inthat wall of like gosh, I make
this much money?
But these people over here likeway up here and I'm not saying
that one's better than anotheryou have to do what makes you
happy.
You could have that lifestylepractice that makes you
completely happy and you have agreat family life and that's
(09:37):
perfect.
But if you want to ascend right, don't listen to the naysayers.
This goes for anything insociety nowadays.
Don't listen to the naysayers.
This goes for anything insociety nowadays.
Don't listen to the naysayers.
You put something up onFacebook, there's 50 naysayers
that say don't do this.
If these three guys are doing$38 million, they probably crown
every single thing.
They probably never put afilling in there.
They probably overcharge.
You know they do all these.
Don't listen to that.
Charged anesthetic Never turndown an opportunity to have a
(10:00):
conversation with people.
That's probably where I've madethe most progress in my career
is just being at certain eventsor this or that and just having
lunch with somebody and justshooting the breeze of how they
do things and pickingeverybody's brains and then
eventually seeing what works forme.
I didn't want the fouroperatory lifestyle practice.
I wanted the practice that wastruly a business that didn't
depend on my hands to sink orswim all the time.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Henry, that's awesome because it makes me think of
just.
We all have people that we canaspire to grow from, and I think
when the people that are, atleast in my experience, that
struggle the most to get totheir goals think that they have
all the answers and they arethe least humble, anytime that I
wanted to grow, the first thingI did I was like, all right,
(10:45):
let me look around and see who'sdoing that, because I want to
talk to them, I want to learnfrom them.
So I think part of that mindsetis knowing that, yeah, you may
be considered successful, but Iguarantee there are people way
more successful.
Go get into another room, starttalking to those types of
people and you'll learn so much,and then that itself can be
motivating.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah, I've noticed, like getting going to events,
and depending on who you hangwith at an event, or if you go
into a masterminding event or ifyou're just going to like a CE,
you will find people moresuccessful than you and they
will light a fire under yourbutt.
Like I've come back from so manyevents where I'm just like man,
I thought I was good, I thoughtI was like happy, and now I
want to do all this shit.
I want to do what that guy isdoing.
You know, what comes to mindwhen I'm thinking about some
(11:27):
clients that I've worked with isthat I see some because
occasionally I'll see clientsthat will just struggle with the
people stuff.
It's not a comfortable area forthem and it's something they
don't really like to get tooinvolved in and it really hurts
their growth because they can'tkeep a solid, cohesive team in
order to grow.
So they might get to the pointwhere maybe 1.5, 1.8 million,
(11:51):
but they can't bring on anassociate because they can't
keep team members or they don'thave a good culture and it stems
from them not being able tohave those conversations.
And I think if somebody, ifthat's not your strong suit,
it's something you have to workon.
You either have to get good atit or you have to find somebody
that really loves to do it andyou need to delegate that to
them.
Have you guys seen that withsome of your clients Just the
(12:14):
people avoiding the difficultconversations?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I think there are two aspects of it that I see.
One is avoidance of difficultconversations, which I think we
could do every podcast foreternity on.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I'm guilty of it too.
Yeah, I'm not going to say yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, no, because it's.
It's really hard, but I thinkeven more so than that, it's
forming true relationships atwork.
When people love who they workfor, like truly love who they
work for, they will go through awall, They'll do some crazy
stuff and they will be soconnected, not to dentistry, not
(12:51):
to the purpose of or the vision, but they're connected to you
as their owner.
So if I were to tell anyonewhere to start, it's like you
got to surround yourself.
If you're going to be the ownerand the leader of your practice
, people have to love, love,love you, and that in itself can
get you really far.
Where I would start is makesure you're setting up time for
(13:12):
that.
So if your patient day ends atfive and at 5.05, you're running
out the door for four or fivedays a week and you have lunch
by yourself, you're not doingthe right thing and you're
complaining about you're notgrowing to where you want to be,
I would first say I'm going tohave lunch, I'm going to sit at
that table and we're going tohave lunch together and I'm just
(13:34):
going to start talking to myteam and have them understand
what I'm doing or get to knowthem better.
And then I would go and I wouldpurposely find two or three
people a day doing somethingthat is pretty awesome, that's
making my job easier, and Iwould go up to them and I'd say
thank you for doing easier.
And I would go up to them andI'd say thank you for doing this
, or I would send them a text atthe end of the day.
(13:55):
It used to be my checklist, mypersonal checklist.
I would have to write a textmessage to two people every day,
just thanking them forsomething specific that I
thought was awesome or thathelped me, and just continue to
form that bond.
And next thing, you know, youhave eight, 10 people that just
love what you do and speak sohighly of you.
It's contagious.
(14:16):
And then you can bring in thatassociate because they're coming
into a place that's alreadyfull of that type of energy.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
So I'm going to disagree with you.
One point is we haven't foughtHenry yet Sitting down and
eating lunch with the team.
And the only reason I bringthis is fresh in my mind,
because I was coaching a dentistpractice and there was an older
dentist who just came into thepractice and he was trying to
like be everybody's buddy andstuff like that, and he sat down
with them and had lunch likefor two or three days and the
staff hated it because thelunchtime was like their sweet
(14:44):
time to just like shoot thebreeze about their boyfriends or
this or that and talk shitabout or do whatever they do,
right.
And then you come in there andnow you're messing up their
whole like it's like the teachersitting with them.
So I love everything you said,but I'm just gonna punch holes
here and I would say I don'tlove the lunch thing because I
think that you're coming intotheir space and I'd say stay
away.
While I had it in my mind.
(15:04):
As far as the growth aspect andgetting the mindset, it's not
natural for most dentists tohave these personal skills.
It just doesn't.
Most of those things don't cometogether and if you're not
comfortable I love science Ifyou're not comfortable in that
space, find a mentor, findsomebody who can give you those
(15:25):
skills, or even a coach that cando this for you.
And I will tell you thisbecause it always stuck with me,
is, whenever you're in a roomof, let's say, dentists and
maybe there's some successfulones and non successful ones
what I found over the years theones that are the nervous ones
or don't have all the answers ornot so successful those are
going to be the loudest voicesin the room.
The people who are the mostsuccessful and quote unquote
(15:46):
have all the most of the answersand are very knowledgeable.
They're usually the quietestones in the room.
So always take note of that.
And I always wanna see if I'vegot somebody talking to me and
coaching me.
I wanna know the worst stuffthat's ever happened to them,
because I want them to be honest, I want them to be open,
because we could all again, wecould do a podcast for a year
(16:08):
and talk about all the bad shitthat has happened to each one of
us, and we'll be open to dothat, because that's who we are
and you learn from the mistakesthat you make.
So I just want to get thosepoints in, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I'm with you, henry.
I don't like eating lunch withthe staff.
I feel like they would just belike get out of here.
Old man, maybe when I was likein my early 30s.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I'm not saying every day, bring your roast beef
sandwich, paul, and sit downwith them and watch them eat.
But what I'm saying is I'musing that as an opportunity,
because if someone's not willingto at least sit with you for 10
, 20 minutes, you don't have areal connection with that person
.
And what?
I would say to that old guy ishe's making my point?
(16:46):
Those people, they're not evengoing to sit with you for 10
minutes because they don'trespect you enough to want to
spend 10 minutes of their breakwith you.
They sure as hell aren't goingto help you.
Bring on an associate, yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Steve, I was just picking on you.
You can bring your old schoolroast beef sandwich in your
little brown bag and sit withthe staff.
We're Boston pastramis.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
It's a turkey and cheese header.
You know I get the same thingfor lunch every day.
How dare you.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
You're just that guy, I just pegged it.
You're so that guy that has thesame turkey sandwich every day.
Dude, I used to eat so like.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I never take a lunch and I never did and we're like
when we open our practice,everyone used to give me shit
because like I'm like what can Ieat really fast?
And I could throw down fouruncooked hot dogs in like
literally a minute and everyonebe like you are disgusting.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Is there not some disease you get with that when
uncooked hot dog?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Dude, I don't know, they're already cooked.
You don't have to cook them,they're just ready to go.
And then people give me becauseI would eat spaghetti.
I was right out of the can,cold and I would eat pork and
beans out of the can cold.
They're like you're sick, butI'm like I was looking up like
(17:52):
what is the absolute worst thingyou can eat for your body.
It is a hot dog.
Congratulations, that's for aday.
It was like a staple of my diet.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
As we were going through this, one thing that I
kept thinking about wasovercoming fears.
I really think that is thebiggest obstacle in what makes
dentists unable to be assuccessful as they want.
And what I found is, even atthis point in my career, I still
have these giant fears of likeis this a deck of cards and it's
(18:24):
all going to crumble?
Or is this doctor so importantto the organization that, if
something, if I don't give themeverything they want, then this
thing's got to collapse.
And what I think has beenhelpful for me is just
experience and that's reallyhard to tell someone as they're
starting out is that I've seenenough bad times.
I've seen us get through itenough times to know like I
(18:44):
can't care that much about thissmall thing.
I've really been able to takemyself and look at like, all
right, what are the eight to 10things that I really can
influence that are going toimpact the business?
And how do I make sure we'reupholding ourselves to that and
not get stuck in the minutia ofall the stuff?
And I think, as business owners, there's so much that can
(19:07):
happen in a dental office in aday and if we, if we try and fix
and control every single thing,we lose sight of what we're
really trying to do, which isgrow a healthy business and take
care of people in a dentaloffice.
And that always starts with myfear fear of losing control,
fear of it not working, fearthat I suck all that stuff.
I'd love to hear you guys'thoughts on how do you overcome
(19:29):
these fears.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I think, education.
Looking back on how I alwaysmade these like snap decisions
when the business needed to growand grow.
I made those decisions becauseI had the fundamentals of
understanding the dentalbusiness and it didn't come from
dental school.
I remember I had somebodyasking me oh, do you think they
should teach the business partin dental school?
And I said hell, no.
(19:50):
And the reason why is becausethe people who are going to
teach that are people who don'teven do it.
They're going to set you backfurther.
Yeah, so I think the main thingthat comes from this is
education and understanding theeducation of your dental,
because you're trained on allthe dentistry stuff.
That's great, but now we needto get educated in business,
dental business and what thislooks like and what you
(20:12):
mentioned there.
I love to stress test thepractice even to this day, like
you know.
Stress test.
Hey, what would it look like ifin the next year, our business
expenses went up 10% and ourrevenues went down 10?
How long would the businesslike be okay?
What happens if their shitreally hit the fan in this world
?
And 20% expenses and 20% lessrevenue?
What would that look like andwhat decisions would we have to
(20:35):
make.
Those are the kinds of thingsthat when you get knowledge
you're not just flying by theseat of your pants, you feel
comfortable because you know,like you've kind of done this in
your head, and we never haveall the answers, but being
educated gives us like the pathbetter.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, I think the period that I want to put on the
end of this episode is that ifyou're paying attention and
you're engaging with your team,you can't go wrong because you
will always know what the nextthing to do is.
And to your point, Steve, Iremember when we were coming out
of COVID we were just kind ofkissing everyone's ass and
didn't want to ruffle too manyfeathers or upset people, and I
(21:14):
got to the point where I saidyou know what?
Things are not going the way Iwant them to and I'm kind of
tired of it.
And I said things are going tochange here and the people that
didn't change.
We got rid of them.
We lost a lot of people in ashort period of time.
But damn, going through thatprocess, let me realize that
nothing can kill the culture ofthis practice.
Our practice is too strong.
We have reached a level where,no matter what happens and I'm
(21:35):
going to go to that bad spot andsay, holy cow, this whole house
of cards is about to tip over,it's about to fall, it's not
going to happen that's where Ithink this resilience and mental
toughness came in my career.
Was me just realizing everysingle thing that happened over
my career.
It didn't kill the practice andnothing is going to kill this
practice.
We might have a bad month, wemight have a time where we're
covering for each other andwe're a short staff, but shit,
(21:57):
it is not all falling down.
And I think we're all guilty ofhaving that thought at some
point in our career, becauseit's just fear.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So when you realize that the threshold that made you
feel comfortable with it it wasjust you, yeah, absolutely
Nothing changed.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Nothing changed.
I thought my practice was twomonths away from tanking for 12
years.
You know like when you'retaking a tooth out, you're like
two seconds away for like twohours.
That one tooth, that likeyou're in there for two hours
You're like I've got two seconds, I get this thing out in two
seconds, but you think that fortwo hours straight.
That's what I've thought for mywhole practice career.
It's all about, yeah, maybe 10years in.
Yeah, okay, where to go now?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Just let the silence sink in.
It's all about mindset.
You said so.
Just let that sink in Nice andwe're overcoming our fears.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
And we're going to take you out of this episode.
Steve's going to take us in aguided meditation.
Go ahead, Steve.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
With his turkey sandwich.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Oh dude, it's so good .
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Thank you so much for listening everybody.
If you're looking to take yourpractice to the next level
because you want to take moretime off, have more consistency,
make more profit and just havea better practice life, please
check us out atdentalpracticeheroescom.
Try working with a coach.
You know we didn't even talkabout that.
You know, one of the thingsthat I see in a lot of
successful dentists is they workwith coaches.
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