by Karah Karah | Apr 18, 2018 | Bold Biographies
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Sometimes the biggest challenges we deal with as dentists are moral dilemmas. It can be tempting not to admit to making a mistake—especially when you know a patient wouldn’t know the difference—or to advise someone to undergo an expensive procedure they don’t really need for the sake of making a higher profit. We’ve all been there, including Dr. Bryan Stimmler.
The owner of North Brooklyn Dental Care, Bryan is a big proponent of sharing the challenges we face as dentists, not just the successes. In fact, helping others to learn from his mistakes was his goal in starting The Better Dentistry Podcast. In this episode, Bryan opens up about the difficulties he’s faced along his dental journey, his own major mistakes, and the important lessons he learned as a result.
Key Quotes:
- “I don’t care that you can do veneers, you know, I can do veneers too … I want to see a screw-up. I want to learn from your mess-ups.”
- “There’s not a healthy communication on the challenges that [dentists] go through—whether it’s life or the business side of things or the clinical side of things—and we need to open up some discussion on that.”
- “To be a good dentist, to do better dentistry, you’ve got to get your ego out of the way and you gotta do what’s right. … Better dentistry is getting back in there [after a mistake] and getting it to where it’s supposed to be and then swallowing your pride and apologizing to all of the patients that are waiting for you because you screwed up.”
- “There’s a quote that kind of goes along the lines of, when you think your life is tough, someone’s always had it worse.”
- “When someone’s quiet a lot of times, and then they dish out just a one-liner—those are the ones you need to listen to.”
- “I hear from residents all the time that they don’t feel like they’re learning anything, and when you’re in the thick of things, you don’t even realize what you’re learning. We’re watching you work, and I can see your clinical proficiencies from when you started until when you ended, so you are learning, whether you think you are or not.”
- “In hindsight, [my associateship] was so valuable that I’ve actually told residents, go find a bad associateship. If you have the intentions of opening up your own office, go see what the worst of the worst is. … You’ll find out everything that you shouldn’t be doing, and that’s much more valuable than getting an associate position at a place that is a well-oiled machine and you don’t even know what they’re doing that’s so good.”
- “I always tell people to find a mentor. … Find some mentorship and read a lot.”
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by Karah Karah | Apr 11, 2018 | Bold Biographies
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Do you feel like you don’t have your future quite figured out yet? Don’t sweat it. Being successful doesn’t mean you have to know every detail of where you’re going. The key is being willing to put in the work and keep moving forward. Just ask today’s guest, Dr. Chris Green.
A third-generation dentist and the owner of Green Dental Care, Chris says he’s still figuring out his vision, and he has accepted that the road to get there isn’t always a direct path. In this episode, he shares what he’s learned along his own non-linear dental journey, as well as the importance of knowing that finding your path to success can be a fluid process that you continue to figure out as you go.
Key Quotes:
- “A smiling dental team—that’s the type of thing that can make up for a lot of flaws.”
- “When we think about leadership and owning a practice, we think so much about first impressions. But last impressions are super powerful, as well.”
- “Dentists a lot of times either put not enough focus on their practice or too much focus on their practice.”
- “That’s the beauty of the profession: You can run a practice however you want and create a lifestyle. … It’s an exciting time to be a dentist in my mind.”
- “One of the things that it took me a while to figure out is that if I was the most interesting or the smartest guy in the room, then I wasn’t learning or gaining anything.”
- “Some of these practices just need new energy—they need a young, hungry dentist to get in there and be a little bit better of a leader and be a little bit better of a businessperson, and if you’re a lot of that, then the sky’s the limit.”
- “For me, it just hasn’t been a linear road to get to the vision—I still don’t know if I have my vision totally figured out. It’s a fluid process. The more I know, the more I realize I don’t know, and as I learn more, I realize that there are many ways I would have done things differently, but you’ve just gotta keep plowing ahead.”
- “The simple epiphany I had was that I could always make more money, but I could never make more time.”
- “Sitting down once a year, or once a quarter, or however often to evaluate your vision, write it down and reverse-engineer how you’re going to get there—that will get you in the right mindset as to not expect shortcuts.”
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by Karah Karah | Apr 4, 2018 | Legendary Leadership
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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.”
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by Karah Karah | Mar 28, 2018 | Hints for Happiness
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In this day in age, it’s so easy to get caught in the trap of comparing your life to what you see online, especially when it comes to social media. The problem is that people tend to show only the best parts of their lives, so we don’t see any of the hard times. But just as important as sharing our victories is sharing when we struggle, and in this episode, Dr. Matt Standridge does just that.
Now the owner of Yates Center Dental and the man behind the popular Ketodontist Podcast, Matt opens up about a time when things weren’t so good. He talks about his battle with depression, sharing his lowest point and what he did to get his life back on track. Listen in to hear his inspiring story, as well as advice for taking care of your mental wellbeing.
Key Quotes:
- “There are so many people that are growing their business, growing their practice, while tearing themselves down, which clearly isn’t a sustainable model.”
- “I was stressed out to the gills; I did not want to get up in the morning … I even had thoughts of suicide. … That’s when I started really doing a deep dive on myself and reconnecting with, okay, what was the point of all this?”
- “With the magazines and the forums and the boom of social media and everything, you see all this great work and all these people that show their best selves online, and that FOMO—that fear of missing out—it can really creep in.”
- “The most difficult thing when you’re really struggling as a professional, as a community leader, as a leader within your practice, is that you might be in a state of crisis, but you still have that feeling of obligation to show the world that everything’s okay.”
- “The thing is with meditation, you can’t be too idealistic about it. You’re going to have thoughts. If you do it when you’re tired, you may nod off. It’s all okay.”
- “Depression from what I understand is a lot like addictions. It can come back in a heartbeat if you let it, so it’s that being vigilant to keep it from rearing its ugly head again.”
- “It took a long time to finally get it through my thick skull, but you can’t be everything to everybody.”
- “There’s really power in talking about our victories, but also our fumbles and interceptions.”
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by Karah Karah | Mar 21, 2018 | Bold Biographies
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It’s no secret that building a successful dental career is hard work. But when that hard work gives you the opportunity to create the career and lifestyle you want, there’s no question that it’s worth it. Just ask Dr. Josh Cochran.
The owner of Dr. C Family Dentistry, Josh saw his share of hardships as he worked to build his practice from scratch. In this episode, he shares the most important lessons he learned along the way, as well as what he’d do differently if he had it to do over again. Listen in to hear how he overcame the major struggles he faced on his journey to success, his advice for dentists still building their careers, and what makes it all worth it in the end.
Key Quotes:
- “As I’m building a business, I’ve learned how important core values are. … I don’t care how attractive an applicant looks, or a vendor to work with; if their values don’t meet mine, I’m just not interested.”
- “Dentistry is like a clay you can mold to fit what you want, your life how you want to live it.”
- “I went in with private practice doctors who were fantastic doctors—great with their patients, great with staff members, just the nicest people—but they didn’t have a model for growth and success, so I was kind of like that appendage attached to the practice, and not actually part of the practice.”
- “If you can find a corporate gig where your morals aren’t feeling compromised, I think that’s the quickest path to success right out of school, and you’re going to do better financially.”
- “As long as the practice you’re working for is patient-centered and not profit-centered, I think you can be very successful right out of school.”
- “If you want the results, you have to be comfortable with the labor it takes to get there. … People ask me, ‘how do you work a three-day work week.’ Well, I started with 28 days a month.”
- “Really figure out what you want—how you want your life to be, what your focus is—and then you can find the path to get there.”
- “Customers, they want it all: the low price and the good service. And if you can differentiate yourself from the dental market by providing both of those—and convenience, as well … you’re going to be successful.”
- “You’ve gotta trust your gut when you’re interviewing people and when you’re working with people, but you also need to be real clear about what your values are. That way, when someone starts to not follow your vision and your values, you can identify it and talk to them.”
- “You don’t know what you don’t know. And so if you connect with other dentists in like an open forum where you can just chat … you’re going to see what else is going on out there, and you can get a really good feel for what’s available to you and where you want to go.”
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