Cameron HeroldFounder of the COO Alliance & Invest In Your Leaders Training

Why "Smart" Professionals Fail at Business | Dan Cuneo

11 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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1:02

Lawyers, doctors, and dentists fail at running businesses because they get almost no business training in school, yet their success in their field makes them overconfident. A doctor running a practice without business knowledge is like a business grad attempting dentistry, the speaker says. Their expertise becomes a trap.

Chapters

I'll tell you my perspective as to why lawyers are bad at business and why it's not surprising to me. First off, in law school, they get about one hour's training on how to run a business. They don't get any business training. So they spend all of their years in law school and even in a lot of undergrad. The same with dentists and same with doctors. I mean, it scares me that a doctor goes to medical school for seven years and then they go, okay, go run your own medical practice. They don't know anything about business like that. That would be as dangerous as telling a business graduate who's been in business school, okay, go open a dental firm and be a dentist. Like, no, that's malpractice. Number two is I think lawyers are so smart that they are typically the top 1% in their class that they feel they do know everything, and it's hard for them to admit that they don't know and go and learn from others. I think they try to do stuff on their own instead of going, I don't do this, and being okay to be the dumb person in the room, because they're not used to being the dumb person in the room. That's why I think most lawyers aren't that great at business, is because once they get there, then I think it's their superpower.