November 25, 2025 • 12 mins
Ever follow a GPS with total confidence only to realize it’s steering you the wrong way? That’s how ownership can feel when mindset traps masquerade as good guidance. We dig into three hidden patterns that quietly create burnout for dental practice owners and map out a better route built on leverage, systems, and leadership.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Paul Etchison (01:06):
Have you ever followed your GPS only to
realize that you're totallyfreaking lost?
You trusted it, but it wasguiding you in the wrong
direction because when you setup the destination, you press
the incorrect thing.
Practice ownership has its ownkind of faulty GPS.
They're the mindset traps thatthey look like they're guiding
you, but in reality, they'resteering you towards stress,
(01:30):
burnout, and frustration.
That is what we're going to betalking about today.
Is that sometimes the worsttraps in ownership, they aren't
in your systems, they'reactually in your head.
Now you are listening to theDental Practice Heroes podcast.
I'm your host, Dr.
Paul Edgeson, author of DentalPractice Hero and Dental
Practice Hero 2, twobest-selling books on dental
(01:51):
practice management.
And in this podcast, we teachyou how to grow your practice,
make more money, and take moretime off, all the while becoming
the leader that your team andyour patients deserve.
Okay, let's talk about three ofthe biggest mental traps that
might be facing you as apractice owner.
The first one is called theDunning Kruger trap.
(02:12):
Have you ever heard of theDunning Kruger effect?
It's this idea that when you'renew at something, it's very
easy to have overconfidence.
And then when you becomeproficient at something, it's
very easy to haveunderconfidence.
So let me give you an exampleof this.
Imagine someone has nevercooked before.
They watch a couple of TikTokrecipe videos, maybe they watch
(02:34):
a few YouTubes, they get by someingredients, they decide
they're gonna host a dinnerparty for like eight people, and
they jump in, buy someingredients, and they start
trying out some of these dishes.
Now, their roommate at the timeis like, dude, this is really
freaking good.
This is awesome.
Wow, this is you're so good atthis.
Like you're natural.
And they're starting to getreally confident.
They're like, dude, I got this.
(02:54):
So then all of a sudden, it'slike, hey, let's have a dinner
party.
Let's invite eight of ourfriends over, and I'm gonna cook
for everybody.
And then they jump in without aplan.
The pots are boiling over, thechicken's raw in the middle,
smoke alarms going off,everything that's going wrong
could.
And the thing was, is theythought it would be easy because
they just didn't know what theydidn't know.
(03:14):
Cooking one dish and cookingfor eight or nine people, that
is a completely different ballgame.
Their overconfidence sets themup for failure.
Now, let's flip it the otherway because the Dunning Kruger
effect also says when we getproficient, we're more likely to
underestimate our proficiencybecause now we know that there's
a lot of elements that wedidn't know about.
(03:35):
Whereas in the first one, wedidn't know what we didn't know.
So let's say you've beencooked, this person's now been
cooking for years and years andyears.
They've gotten really good,they've mastered tons of
recipes, they get the flavor,they get the timing, their food
always turns out great.
This is like my mother-in-law,dude.
She's Italian and she kicksass.
And I keep telling her, I'mlike, no, no, you gotta open,
(03:55):
you gotta do a YouTube channel.
Like this stuff is so freakinggood.
But she doesn't think she haswhat it takes.
So this person, you tell them,you're an amazing cook.
You know, you should sell yourfood, you should open a
restaurant, and they say, I'mnot that good.
You know, there's so much Ijust don't know about it.
I just, I don't know, I don'tknow.
And the thing is, is that theirdeep knowledge and their
experience makes them much moreaware that there's a lot that
(04:17):
they don't know.
So they actually sellthemselves short.
So that's the Dunning Kruegereffect in action.
At one end, you're dangerouslyoverconfident because you don't
see the complexity.
And at the other end, youundervalue yourself because you
see all the complexity way tooclearly.
And where does this show up forpractice owners?
It often shows up when we're atthe associate level.
(04:39):
We get what Michael Gerbercalls the entrepreneurial
seizure.
We say, This is easy.
I should open my own practice.
And you think you got it, andthen all of a sudden you realize
not as easy as you thought.
You crash into some problemsthat you're not ready for.
Yeah, we've all been there.
All of us have realized runninga practice is much harder than
(05:01):
we had anticipated.
Now, on the other side, I seethese dentists and they've
gotten really far in theircareers, but I'm working on them
with their leadership and theirinspiration skills.
And they just think they can'thandle these issues with the
team because they haven'thandled them before.
They're selling themselvesshort.
They got there, they areexperienced, they have the
leadership skills, they justhave to lean into them and have
(05:23):
a little bit more confidence andwillingness to try some new
things.
They've got the skills.
So that is the first mentaltrap, is first when you're early
in your career, not realizingthat you don't know what you
don't know.
And if you're later on in yourcareer or if you're later on in
certain elements of the career,knowing that you do have the
skills to handle a lot more thanyou think you can.
(05:43):
Just sometimes you just need totrust in yourself and try to
find that initial confidencethat you used to have when you
were early on.
So remember, just because youfeel confident, it doesn't mean
that you're competent.
And just because you doubtyourself, it doesn't mean that
you're failing.
It probably just means deepdown you're growing.
All right, trap number two, theI will just work harder trap.
(06:07):
What do we think?
I want you to think about this.
What makes somebody successful?
And we see this grind hustleculture on the internet.
And I see it all the time, andit kind of bothers me where you
know someone will say, well, uh,nobody can outwork me.
Uh, nobody can outgrind me.
Nobody cares more than I do.
Nobody's gonna try harder thanI'm.
(06:28):
If you think that's what'sgonna differentiate you and make
you more successful than yourpeers, you are mistaken.
You don't have to grind harder,you don't have to work longer
hours, you don't have to caremore, you don't have to all
these things, all the above.
You've got to do the rightthings, the things that move the
needle.
It's not about working harderbecause after adding more hours
(06:53):
and cutting your vacations andpacking your schedule, you don't
see the gains that you shouldbe seeing.
There is a law of diminishingreturns.
And if hard work alone builtgreat practices, every single
burnt out owner would be abillionaire, right?
It just doesn't work that way.
More hours in the chair doesnot fix broken systems.
(07:14):
What does is leverage.
You know, think about thoselevers there.
Think about like, you know, thefurther away from the fulcrum,
the more force you're able togenerate.
You need to gain leverage.
You need to move further awayfrom the fulcrum.
How do you do that?
You start growing the thingsthat scale your practice.
You start growing the leadersin your practice, you start
(07:35):
creating systems and trainingyour team, setting up systems
for communication so everybodycan communicate and grow on
their own.
You start inspiring your teamwith certain principles that get
dental employees motivated andteach them how to self-act and
do things on their own withoutyour guidance.
You stop being the bottleneck.
(07:56):
That is how you grow.
Not working harder, notgrinding more, none of that
stuff.
I don't care how many giantframed $100 bills you can strap
across your wall that say thesehustle porn phrases like, uh,
get shit done, or I don't knowwhat else.
You know what I'm talkingabout.
There's like one company thatjust sells a total, a whole
(08:17):
bunch of these things.
They make me laugh.
That's not how it is.
If it was about hard work,everybody would be rich.
It's not about hard work, it'sabout the right work.
It's about learning the rightthings that create leverage.
That's how you grow a business.
All right, trap number three,the control trap.
Believing, well, if I want itdone right, you gotta do it
yourself.
(08:37):
You handle everything, youhandle the upset patients, you
handle the refunds, you handlethe supply ordering, you handle
all of the bills, the payroll,the invoices, you handle all of
the HR stuff, you're doing thecompliance, the OSHA, the HIPAA,
the all this stuff.
Please stop doing it.
(08:59):
Please stop.
You do not have to controleverything.
Controlling everything, itfeels safe, but it is really a
prison cell.
When you have to do everything,you are trapping yourself to an
eternity of burnout and stress.
If everything depends on you,nothing can scale beyond you.
So create your systems, seteverything up, build your
(09:21):
leadership team.
And if you need help doing itand you don't know how to do
this and you want someone toguide you through it and hold
you accountable through theprocess, go to
dentalpracticeherous.com, checkout our coaching packages, have
a free strategy call with me.
I will give you some ideas,I'll give you some next steps,
I'll give you some things to do,and I'll also tell you how DPH
can help you if you want to gothat way.
So remember, the best GPS inthe world is useless if it keeps
(09:45):
sending you the wrong way.
Ownership is the same.
These mindset traps, they feellike guidance, they feel like
you're doing the right thing,they feel like you're going the
right way, but they actuallykeep you from the freedom that
you wanted when you first boughtthe practice.
So if you want that truepractice owner freedom, we will
show you how to do it.
There's very simple ways,systems to implement.
(10:05):
We've got this down to aprocess and a recipe.
So the real battle isn't inyour schedule or your profit and
loss.
It is in your mindset and inwhat you believe creates
success.
Success, it's just as muchabout avoiding these traps as it
is about taking action.
It's both.
So I hope right now youlistening to this, you got some
(10:25):
ideas of some things you shouldchange and maybe change your
mindset a little bit.
Maybe one of these traps hithome very close for you.
I want you to know that youhave the power to have whatever
type of practice you want.
Do you want a practice whereyou work one or two days a week?
Do you want to make sevenfigures every year for the rest
of your life?
(10:45):
Do you want to feel fulfilledas you change the lives of your
patients and you create a workenvironment that your entire
team loves being part of becausethey feel fulfilled being in
your practice?
All of that is possible.
You have the power, and we canshow you exactly how to do it at
Dental Practice Heroes.
Please reach out to us if thatinterests you.
Thank you so much for spendingsome time with me today.
(11:08):
I really appreciate yoursupport, and we will talk to you
next time.
Have you ever followed your GPS only to
realize that you're totallyfreaking lost?
You trusted it, but it wasguiding you in the wrong
direction because when you setup the destination, you press
the incorrect thing.
Practice ownership has its ownkind of faulty GPS.
They're the mindset traps thatthey look like they're guiding
you, but in reality, they'resteering you towards stress,
(01:30):
burnout, and frustration.
That is what we're going to betalking about today.
Is that sometimes the worsttraps in ownership, they aren't
in your systems, they'reactually in your head.
Now you are listening to theDental Practice Heroes podcast.
I'm your host, Dr.
Paul Edgeson, author of DentalPractice Hero and Dental
Practice Hero 2, twobest-selling books on dental
(01:51):
practice management.
And in this podcast, we teachyou how to grow your practice,
make more money, and take moretime off, all the while becoming
the leader that your team andyour patients deserve.
Okay, let's talk about three ofthe biggest mental traps that
might be facing you as apractice owner.
The first one is called theDunning Kruger trap.
(02:12):
Have you ever heard of theDunning Kruger effect?
It's this idea that when you'renew at something, it's very
easy to have overconfidence.
And then when you becomeproficient at something, it's
very easy to haveunderconfidence.
So let me give you an exampleof this.
Imagine someone has nevercooked before.
They watch a couple of TikTokrecipe videos, maybe they watch
(02:34):
a few YouTubes, they get by someingredients, they decide
they're gonna host a dinnerparty for like eight people, and
they jump in, buy someingredients, and they start
trying out some of these dishes.
Now, their roommate at the timeis like, dude, this is really
freaking good.
This is awesome.
Wow, this is you're so good atthis.
Like you're natural.
And they're starting to getreally confident.
They're like, dude, I got this.
(02:54):
So then all of a sudden, it'slike, hey, let's have a dinner
party.
Let's invite eight of ourfriends over, and I'm gonna cook
for everybody.
And then they jump in without aplan.
The pots are boiling over, thechicken's raw in the middle,
smoke alarms going off,everything that's going wrong
could.
And the thing was, is theythought it would be easy because
they just didn't know what theydidn't know.
(03:14):
Cooking one dish and cookingfor eight or nine people, that
is a completely different ballgame.
Their overconfidence sets themup for failure.
Now, let's flip it the otherway because the Dunning Kruger
effect also says when we getproficient, we're more likely to
underestimate our proficiencybecause now we know that there's
a lot of elements that wedidn't know about.
(03:35):
Whereas in the first one, wedidn't know what we didn't know.
So let's say you've beencooked, this person's now been
cooking for years and years andyears.
They've gotten really good,they've mastered tons of
recipes, they get the flavor,they get the timing, their food
always turns out great.
This is like my mother-in-law,dude.
She's Italian and she kicksass.
And I keep telling her, I'mlike, no, no, you gotta open,
(03:55):
you gotta do a YouTube channel.
Like this stuff is so freakinggood.
But she doesn't think she haswhat it takes.
So this person, you tell them,you're an amazing cook.
You know, you should sell yourfood, you should open a
restaurant, and they say, I'mnot that good.
You know, there's so much Ijust don't know about it.
I just, I don't know, I don'tknow.
And the thing is, is that theirdeep knowledge and their
experience makes them much moreaware that there's a lot that
(04:17):
they don't know.
So they actually sellthemselves short.
So that's the Dunning Kruegereffect in action.
At one end, you're dangerouslyoverconfident because you don't
see the complexity.
And at the other end, youundervalue yourself because you
see all the complexity way tooclearly.
And where does this show up forpractice owners?
It often shows up when we're atthe associate level.
(04:39):
We get what Michael Gerbercalls the entrepreneurial
seizure.
We say, This is easy.
I should open my own practice.
And you think you got it, andthen all of a sudden you realize
not as easy as you thought.
You crash into some problemsthat you're not ready for.
Yeah, we've all been there.
All of us have realized runninga practice is much harder than
(05:01):
we had anticipated.
Now, on the other side, I seethese dentists and they've
gotten really far in theircareers, but I'm working on them
with their leadership and theirinspiration skills.
And they just think they can'thandle these issues with the
team because they haven'thandled them before.
They're selling themselvesshort.
They got there, they areexperienced, they have the
leadership skills, they justhave to lean into them and have
(05:23):
a little bit more confidence andwillingness to try some new
things.
They've got the skills.
So that is the first mentaltrap, is first when you're early
in your career, not realizingthat you don't know what you
don't know.
And if you're later on in yourcareer or if you're later on in
certain elements of the career,knowing that you do have the
skills to handle a lot more thanyou think you can.
(05:43):
Just sometimes you just need totrust in yourself and try to
find that initial confidencethat you used to have when you
were early on.
So remember, just because youfeel confident, it doesn't mean
that you're competent.
And just because you doubtyourself, it doesn't mean that
you're failing.
It probably just means deepdown you're growing.
All right, trap number two, theI will just work harder trap.
(06:07):
What do we think?
I want you to think about this.
What makes somebody successful?
And we see this grind hustleculture on the internet.
And I see it all the time, andit kind of bothers me where you
know someone will say, well, uh,nobody can outwork me.
Uh, nobody can outgrind me.
Nobody cares more than I do.
Nobody's gonna try harder thanI'm.
(06:28):
If you think that's what'sgonna differentiate you and make
you more successful than yourpeers, you are mistaken.
You don't have to grind harder,you don't have to work longer
hours, you don't have to caremore, you don't have to all
these things, all the above.
You've got to do the rightthings, the things that move the
needle.
It's not about working harderbecause after adding more hours
(06:53):
and cutting your vacations andpacking your schedule, you don't
see the gains that you shouldbe seeing.
There is a law of diminishingreturns.
And if hard work alone builtgreat practices, every single
burnt out owner would be abillionaire, right?
It just doesn't work that way.
More hours in the chair doesnot fix broken systems.
(07:14):
What does is leverage.
You know, think about thoselevers there.
Think about like, you know, thefurther away from the fulcrum,
the more force you're able togenerate.
You need to gain leverage.
You need to move further awayfrom the fulcrum.
How do you do that?
You start growing the thingsthat scale your practice.
You start growing the leadersin your practice, you start
(07:35):
creating systems and trainingyour team, setting up systems
for communication so everybodycan communicate and grow on
their own.
You start inspiring your teamwith certain principles that get
dental employees motivated andteach them how to self-act and
do things on their own withoutyour guidance.
You stop being the bottleneck.
(07:56):
That is how you grow.
Not working harder, notgrinding more, none of that
stuff.
I don't care how many giantframed $100 bills you can strap
across your wall that say thesehustle porn phrases like, uh,
get shit done, or I don't knowwhat else.
You know what I'm talkingabout.
There's like one company thatjust sells a total, a whole
(08:17):
bunch of these things.
They make me laugh.
That's not how it is.
If it was about hard work,everybody would be rich.
It's not about hard work, it'sabout the right work.
It's about learning the rightthings that create leverage.
That's how you grow a business.
All right, trap number three,the control trap.
Believing, well, if I want itdone right, you gotta do it
yourself.
(08:37):
You handle everything, youhandle the upset patients, you
handle the refunds, you handlethe supply ordering, you handle
all of the bills, the payroll,the invoices, you handle all of
the HR stuff, you're doing thecompliance, the OSHA, the HIPAA,
the all this stuff.
Please stop doing it.
(08:59):
Please stop.
You do not have to controleverything.
Controlling everything, itfeels safe, but it is really a
prison cell.
When you have to do everything,you are trapping yourself to an
eternity of burnout and stress.
If everything depends on you,nothing can scale beyond you.
So create your systems, seteverything up, build your
(09:21):
leadership team.
And if you need help doing itand you don't know how to do
this and you want someone toguide you through it and hold
you accountable through theprocess, go to
dentalpracticeherous.com, checkout our coaching packages, have
a free strategy call with me.
I will give you some ideas,I'll give you some next steps,
I'll give you some things to do,and I'll also tell you how DPH
can help you if you want to gothat way.
So remember, the best GPS inthe world is useless if it keeps
(09:45):
sending you the wrong way.
Ownership is the same.
These mindset traps, they feellike guidance, they feel like
you're doing the right thing,they feel like you're going the
right way, but they actuallykeep you from the freedom that
you wanted when you first boughtthe practice.
So if you want that truepractice owner freedom, we will
show you how to do it.
There's very simple ways,systems to implement.
(10:05):
We've got this down to aprocess and a recipe.
So the real battle isn't inyour schedule or your profit and
loss.
It is in your mindset and inwhat you believe creates
success.
Success, it's just as muchabout avoiding these traps as it
is about taking action.
It's both.
So I hope right now youlistening to this, you got some
(10:25):
ideas of some things you shouldchange and maybe change your
mindset a little bit.
Maybe one of these traps hithome very close for you.
I want you to know that youhave the power to have whatever
type of practice you want.
Do you want a practice whereyou work one or two days a week?
Do you want to make sevenfigures every year for the rest
of your life?
(10:45):
Do you want to feel fulfilledas you change the lives of your
patients and you create a workenvironment that your entire
team loves being part of becausethey feel fulfilled being in
your practice?
All of that is possible.
You have the power, and we canshow you exactly how to do it at
Dental Practice Heroes.
Please reach out to us if thatinterests you.
Thank you so much for spendingsome time with me today.
(11:08):
I really appreciate yoursupport, and we will talk to you
next time.
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