by Karah Karah | Apr 4, 2018 | Legendary Leadership
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Sometimes life can throw you curveballs, but it’s how you deal with them that makes all the difference. Dr. Steve Markowitz is a third-generation dentist whose unexpected leap into learning the business side of dentistry firsthand came during his first year of dental school. After a tragic accident left his father unable to practice, Steve stepped up to help keep the business running and learned key lessons that drove him to where he is today.
Now in charge of three multi-specialty group practices just outside of Boston, Steve has accomplished a lot in his relatively short career. In this episode, he shares the ups and downs of his journey through dentistry, as well as his tips on team building and leadership that will help guide you to a more successful practice.
Key Quotes:
- “Just be the best version of you. Let your patients know, and your team know, that it’s kind of an act that we’re doing, but it’s really important to be the best version of yourself when you’re in the building.”
- “I saw the business of dentistry before I even ever saw dental patients, and that was really eye-opening to me because I knew that there was a way to make the business of dentistry successful at the same time while I was learning how to take care of people.”
- “Anything I could get my hands on or listen to that made me a better person or a better leader, I would try and get it in my system.”
- “Too often in our profession, [leadership] just gets flat out ignored or people deny that leadership is even a job for them.”
- “The grind is exhausting. Always try to take a step back and remember why we’re here, why we’re doing this, so we can take really good care of each other and really good care of our patients, and then it becomes bigger than the grind.”
- “If I were to point to one fault in my career, it’s that I was way too independent and I thought work ethic was the supreme value, and I didn’t rely on resources and friends.”
- “Your dental license is really a golden ticket, and you can choose your own adventure and take it wherever you wish.”
- “Never let a patient see you sweat. Never let your team see you sweat. It’s only going to get them worked up. You are the captain of the ship … and if you’re stressed out and if they know something’s wrong, it’s going to make everything more crazy than it has to be and the results will not be as good as you want them to be.”
- “Nobody has gotten to where they are without help from someone else, and the sooner you can realize that and reach out to people and be willing to accept advice, the quicker you’ll be successful.”
Featured on the Show:
by Karah Karah | Mar 7, 2018 | Legendary Leadership
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
One of the most important aspects of running a successful practice is putting in the time and effort to be a good leader. Dr. Tim McNamara is a shining example of this, and his success in dentistry is a testament to the strong focus he puts not only on creating a great customer experience, but also on leading his team so they know exactly how to deliver that experience.
After more than seven years doing business consulting in the healthcare field, Tim went from helping hospitals mitigate risks to starting his own dental practice. His unique path into dentistry—along with his ability to see obstacles and turn them into opportunities—has given him a fresh perspective on the industry that we can all learn from. In this episode, he shares what it takes to be a great leader, the lessons he learned from his consulting career that still help him today, and his tips on how to shorten the learning curve on your own path to building your dream practice.
Key Quotes:
- “What you have in a business is risk, and how you control that risk is everything. And then how you lead your people to implement those controls will dictate what your revenue is.”
- “It’s funny to me because everyone talks about secrets in dentistry. … The secret is you. If you just spend some time on leadership and understanding your business, that’s the secret.”
- “When I opened, I did so kind of with this wild idea that demographics matter, but that the dentist and the systems probably matter a little bit more.”
- “The best way to grow is, yes, boost marketing, but turn the customer service experience on.”
- “What I’ve noticed in most dental clinics is lack of leadership.”
- “We need a place where people can ask real questions without getting beat up for it. And so what do we do? We create a community.”
- “I judge a lot of my practice and how it’s operating by how well I sleep at night and how little stress I have at home.”
- “All of my breakthroughs have come when I stopped being so frickin’ independent and realized that there is help out there.”
- “Your advice should be coming from people who are in your exact same situation, that actually stay awake late at night in the fetal position, and that have figured out how to get out of the fetal position.”
Featured on the Show:
by Karah Karah | Feb 28, 2018 | Bold Biographies
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
There are many roadblocks presented when developing a dental career. From financial struggles to battling introversion and depression, Dr. Russell Kirk shares his journey through all of it. He talks about his valuable experience in the military, how he learned humility, anger management, leadership, and how to prioritize the important things in life.
In this episode, Russell speaks in-depth about his military career and how valuable it was to his dentistry career and education. He also shares some struggles and issues along the way and how he overcame them and learned valuable lessons from each. Russell emphasizes the importance of a strong work ethic, self-responsibility, being open to criticism, and accepting help. Through developing these traits and practices he has become happier and more successful in his life and career.
Key Quotes:
- “There’s a lot of, a lot of learning to do as soon as you get into practice.”
- “The older I get, the smarter my parents and grandparents were.”
- “Anything worth doing isn’t going to be easy. If you can outwork the other person, you can sometimes outwork talent.”
- “The educational opportunities in the military are really robust.”
- “Early in the game I liked to blame everyone else that things weren’t going right, and it was pretty frustrating, and now I realize that at the end of the day it’s all on your shoulders.”
- “A lot of us have similar stories and there’s variations but the underlying theme is, it’s a tough profession and life is tough but there are other people out there and we’re trudging along and doing okay.”
- “You get out here on an island by yourself and it’s easy to get discouraged and it’s easy to get frustrated then you go to a meeting or have a conversation like this and you come away with a little bit quicker step.”
- “You have to stop being the victim and start being accountable for everything in your life.”
Featured on the Show:
by Karah Karah | Feb 21, 2018 | Bold Biographies
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
As academics, it can be easy and even quite enjoyable to continually be feeding ourselves new knowledge but if we never put that knowledge into practice, it means nothing. Dr. Justin Bhullar joins us on the show to share his journey of pushing through some tough obstacles to arrive where he is today. His optimism and work ethic are inspiring and he has lots of great insight on learning, improving and leading that you can learn from and implement into your own practice.
Justin explains how he turned his pain points and weaknesses into strengths and motivators. He also emphasizes the importance of the people you work with and how to take your leadership to the next level. Justin leaves us with the powerful idea that we should plan to fail and explains how that mindset will lead to resilience and strongly affect our ability to learn and grow.
Key Quotes:
Featured on the Show:
by Karah Karah | Feb 14, 2018 | Maverick Mind Shifts
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
On this episode you will get to sit in on Dr. Dave Maloley’s presentation from the recent Voices of Dentistry Conference. His powerful message is all about what it means to have a relentless mind that pushes past crippling challenges and allows you to live your best life. Dr. Dave shares some valuable insight on how to ask the right questions, how to set goals that mean something and how to take control of your life and your practice.
He shares his story and how his success, and more-so his huge failures, led him to where he is today. The idea that you can live your best year ever and continue to recreate that is a central theme to his encouraging and inspiring message. He emphasizes the importance of good leadership and relentlessness as you take specific actionable steps to make the necessary mind shifts and changes in your life.
Key Quotes:
- It was at that moment that I realized that the epic life I’m always talking about on the podcast, I was living that epic life.
- I sat down, I broke my life into 16 different categories and I wrote down exactly what I want.
- I really believe that we can engineer, after I executed that, we can engineer our best year over and over and over again.
- This is about accountability and accountability taken to the extreme is intensely powerful.
- I thought about all the time I spent complaining about my team and it was always just a reflection on me.
- My practice is not limited by its opportunity, my practice is limited by its leader.
- If you talk to people at the end of their days, they’ll tell you that life is all about relationships.
- It’s okay to be selfish so that you can give more.
Featured on the Show:
