80: Gain a "Making the Request" Mindset and Transform Your Business with Holly Anne Mitchell, Chief Empathy Officer, Leadwell Network

Welcome to DSO Secrets. I know what it's like to be an entrepreneur in the dental industry. I've had my ups and downs just like you. There's so much opportunity to be excited about, but so few resources to get answers. From here on DSO Secrets, we get you those answers so you can change the lives you're meant to bless and achieve your personal success.

When I was working as an associate right out of school, I never imagined I could own these many practices with this amount of support. So thank you.

You have helped build my marketing mind

to a whole new level. You have this natural talent, this unique ability. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of DSO Secrets. I'm your fearless host, Emmett Scott, and today I am here with Holly Ann Mitchell. She's the CEO of Chief Empathy Officer of the Leadwell Network. And Holly, thank you so much for being here with me today. Just really excited about anytime we get to chat.

Thank you. Thank you, Emmett. I remember the last time we spoke was right before I started the Leadwell Network. So reflecting back on everything that's happened between the last episode of Secrets that we did and today, it really has been a journey in a short amount of time.

Will, I appreciate you giving me all of the credit that the podcast launched an entire company for you. So who knows where this will take it from here. You are just a deep thinker and you're willing to do that hard work. And I've often said that the hardest work we ever do within business and frankly in life, right, is the thinking part. We often think about the manual part and the conversations part, but it's finding those quiet moments with ourselves, with that by itself. We could talk about how scary that is. Right. And then doing that deeper thinking. But that's something that you've just kind of always run into, you know, you just kind of run into that fire. So I do have to ask you, I've never asked you this question, but what. What was the point in your life where you're like, this is what I'm passionate about is like, this, deeper thinking, concepts.

You know, I think it's. It's born out of adversity. I feel very blessed to have had a lot of adversity on my journey in at a young age. And I think that that's really what forced me to start over many times and to create space and really go inside and understand who I am and what I need to be here for. Right. And those are questions that I think a lot of people don't ask until they've gotten to a certain point in their life. Carl Jung actually said, you live the first 30 years of your life living somebody else's life.

Oh, interesting.

Because you're programmed in responding to what you were raised with. Right. You either match your parents or go completely the opposite based on that mirror that you were given. And I was fortunate, unfortunate enough to have had a lot of moments where I had to burn it all down and start from scratch. So I think, you know, I mean,

those are awesome capabilities, and I thank you, you know, born out of adversity. So thank you for the. For going through those, because all of us can benefit from those who've had to burn it all down and start over. I think for many people, that's what they feel like they're doing right now. And we're all at different stages. And for some of us, it's a positive Phoenix rebirth type moment. And for others, we're still mourning the loss and grieving of what could have been, what should have been. I would argue that some people, even in their 50s and 60s, are still living the life of someone else. So that's a constant journey, too. Right. For us to really know what we want to be and kind of own that. So, yeah. See, this is where the conversations always end up going with you, which I love.

We always just dive, like, all the way down. Yeah.

You're just pulling in, you, and boom, here we go.

Well, I'll give you a good sound bite anyway. So I have this saying because of my journey and the things that I've been through that have given me the resources that have been the resources that have gotten me here today. It's allow your shit to become your fertilizer.

Oh, awesome.

To help you and others to grow.

That's awesome. I've heard let your mess be your message, but you're taking it to a whole other level. Yeah. I mean, we've got to grow. This isn't just about a message. We're going to grow and improve. All right, so one of the things that you've been pondering is the impact of making this request, this concept of making the request. And I'd love for you to kind of go into it. Where did this come from? And from a business perspective and then from a personal perspective. Why do you think this is a principle that people are missing that they need to start thinking about?

Well, making the request really was the. The transformational point of my entrepreneurial journey. And I started to learn to make requests early on in my career. And the more I made what seemed to me to be outrageous requests, the more I was able to get to the next level. And so when we look at what resources we have available, we often are only seeing what's right in front of us, and we're not seeing what resources are available outside. And when I say accessing your networks and your networks. Networks. So that's how you and I ended up on this episode today is I reached out to you and I said, emmett, I've lost my speaking engagements for the next six months, and that's usually how I find new clients. So is there anything we can do together that would help me get my message out there and, you know, meet more dentists?

And then I totally ignored all of that. And we just started this whole other conversation about business. And I'm like, okay, I just want to have that conversation. Right. Is how do we help these business owners get to this next level? And you're like, well, it's doing what I just did. It's making that request. Right. And we started talking through then. If I'm supposed to bring value to the customer. If as entrepreneurs, what got me successful was not thinking about myself, was really making sure that I was in there. I was working long hours, et cetera. As much as this concept of make the request of figure out what your needs are seems obvious, in the context of most of our lives, we're not doing that. Right. We're out giving, giving, giving. And making the request is about being open to receive.

Yes.

Right. And being clear on what that opportunity is.

Yeah. Well, I'll give you. I'll tell you a story of when it all changed for my business as an entrepreneur. So I was grinding, right? Like, that's what you do. Right. There's this idea of rugged individualism with your hands on your hips, facing the wind. And I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm going to do this on my own. And it is incredibly exhausting and demoralizing. And after a period of time, if you feel like you are giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, there's shelf life on that. And it turns into resentment and burdens. And that's what happened to me. And I remember laying on the floor of my apartment and staring up at the ceiling and going, this isn't working. I need to do something different. And so I got out my phone and I looked and looked and saw, oh, here are all the dentists that are in my cell phone. And I texted every single one of them. And I said, I have something that might benefit you. Can I have 15 minutes of your Time. And I got on the phone over the next several weeks and I made almost six figures in one month by just saying. Can I share with you what I'm doing and how I'm helping practices grow? Is this something that you'd like to be a part of? I'd like to invite you to join my mastermind group. I made the request and it was a game changer.

Where do you think dentists have this opportunity, that they're missing it?

Right?

Where are they theoretically sitting on their bedroom floor, you know, looking up at the ceiling, saying, holy crap. You know, I've had those moments where I'm like, who designed this life for me? Who weaved these webs? You know, And I'm like, oh, I did, you know? And now where do I want to go next? Who do I want to be? Where do you see with your clients and with other dentists that you interact with? Where's their opportunity to make that next request or to step into that next

opportunity in big and small ways every single day? I think it's a practice, and it really starts with knowing what you want and examining the possibilities. So there's two types of thinking. There's divergent thinking and convergent thinking. And our brains shouldn't do both at the same time. So divergent thinking is examining all the possibilities that exist. This is that creative space of what do I want, what might be possible, what do I see for myself? And then the convergent thinking is what is the action that I can take? That will be the next closest step for me to get to there. And in our education system, we're actually taught to do both types of thinking, which kind of like short circuits our brain and limits our capacity for thinking. So they did a study on three year olds and they found that 97% of three year olds are creative geniuses. By the time we're 30, it's 3%, because we're taught to imagine and edit at the same time. So when we start to examine, what do we want? What are all the things that are possible? If I could ask for anything, what would it be? And then what would be the next step? What are the things I could ask for? Who's in my network and who might be in my network's network that knows how to do that?

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting as you're talking that through, because I'll give you an interesting example that's playing out on a big industry scale. So when I look at the dental industry opportunity and I see the collapse of the primary Health healthcare providers. And when I say the collapse, you know, where are we going on a regular basis for our healthcare needs? And you see this popping up of all these emergency care centers, you start to say, okay, we don't have the relationship anymore with primary healthcare providers that might have been in the past, right? And so I see an opportunity for dentists to step into that space to have that connection with their patients, with their customers, and help to really serve them to the next level, to truly be that medical provider connection. Maybe that's a vision. And then you have an industry that frankly says they see themselves as medical providers, but doesn't necessarily see themselves as medical providers. There was an interesting interaction, in fact, in a podcast today with some of the largest CEOs of DSOs and Chris Badgley of the Adso, where the lobbyists are going to the federal government and they're saying, hey, you've limited what dentists could do because you only said medical healthcare providers. And the federal government said, we actually think of dentists as medical health care providers. How did we limit them? Right? And so that editing down put us in a box that really no one intended us to be in. And I've wondered, like, on a personal level, how often are we stepping backwards or maybe even just standing in place waiting to be invited forward, when really the space exists for us to just step forward and take the opportunity, right? There's not the limitations there that maybe we're perceiving in our own mind exists. It's simply a courage issue, would you say? I mean, how would you frame that, Holly?

I think it's courage and vulnerability and creativity. But I'll tell you what gets in the way of our brain to even be able to imagine a solution like that, right? That's a very creative way to approach a big problem. And what gets in our way of creativity is stress, which dentists and entrepreneurs are constantly under. What happens in the body and then the creative mind when we're under stress, we have two branches of our nervous system. We have the ventral branch, which is the front side of the body. And that's all the good parts of us. That's all the good stuff. That's our executive function and decision making. That's our creativity. It's our compassion, our empathy. And on the backside of our body, on the dorsal branch, that's where our fight or flight lives. So as soon as we're stressed out, everything, all the resources go to the backside of the body into the amygdala, the lizard brain, and we're Completely cut off from our resources of being able to imagine and being able to connect with other people.

And that fight or flight is kicked in, right? And we start swinging or we start running, but our ability to know who we're swinging at or running, right, all that creativity just kind of goes away. Is that what you're saying?

All the creativity, we lose it. We lose it. So we have to be able to manage our stress because being an entrepreneur is inherently stressful. When you are an entrepreneur, you're constantly stretching. You're constantly being challenged. Just like going to the gym, right? If you just went every day and you lifted a five pounder, nothing's gonna happen. You're not gonna get any progress, right? We. So if you are constantly stretching, you are putting stress on the system. That is a normal part of growth. That is a healthy part of growth. But it is our ability to cultivate resilience under those circumstances of adversity, under and inside of the shit, to find the resources that are happening that help us continue to maintain access to our creativity under the extreme demands of the external world.

Yeah, it's interesting because for a lot of people, they say, man, this has moved us into a crisis. And the reality is, every day, you and I have seen there, there were clinicians and there were entrepreneurs in a crisis way before this happened, right? They mentally and emotionally felt like, man, I'm just so overwhelmed. And they didn't have the tools to organize and prioritize. They didn't have the tools for self care. And this just really puts us over the edge. I'm curious for you personally, if you don't mind me going there, what's been kind of your takeaways? Because, you know, no matter how strong and brilliant and thoughtful we've been, you know, Global Pandemic tends to put us a little past what we planned for in our lives and what we have tools around. What's been some takeaways for you through this that you say, okay, I've seen an opportunity of where I need to go next and some capabilities that I, that I need to learn and take on?

Well, I can tell you when I get under stress, what my default is. And you know Jon Kabat Zinn, he's a mindfulness meditation guy. He's got some great books out there. He says, wherever you go, there you are. And so when all of this was happening, I went home, I went to my comfort zone, and my comfort zone was, put your head down and work 15, 16 hours a day. Because I'm going to try to Control what's happening. And I was able to do that for about seven weeks in my Brooklyn basement apartment in isolation. And then my body started to say, no, this isn't living, and you're not thriving under these circumstances. So I had to get out, and I came to my family's home in Kentucky to get with nature and family and animals and to gather my resources again. And it was only until I'd been here for about a week that my brain started to quiet down and I started to think creatively again and go, okay, plan B. What you thought was going to happen is no longer happening in your business and in the world. But what possibilities exist? And so I started to do a journaling practice and started thinking about this request thing, right? And going back and reflecting on the people in my life that have helped me get to where I am today. And I started a practice of asking, and it's, what do I need to ask of myself today? What do I need to ask of God or the universe? What do I need to ask of my family, my friends, my network? What do I need to ask of my clients? Right? I created a referral program, right? What do I want to ask my clients for? What do you want to ask your patients for? Have you asked them for a referral? Have you asked them for review? What do you need to ask of your staff? This can be a daily practice, and when we take a moment to ask, we create opportunities for giving around us because people want to give, they want to contribute. It's a normal human experience to contribute. So this is what I'm doing with my contribution right now. It's helping business owners realize the opportunities and the possibilities that exist around them may be one request away.

That's really awesome. And it's a great dichotomy there of what it means to truly be like this rugged individualist, which that stress enhanced in you and I would say in myself as well, versus going back to kind of being in that Zen and connecting again with the. With the network that you have. And it's been interesting to watch this big social experience, you know, and experiment happen. And I think the most fascinating part is it didn't really divide in the normal political, social, economic lines that many things divide things in. It kind of just cut wonky across all of us, right? But the part that I've noticed being in various groups and social media is those with the best network have navigated this the most positively. Not that it's been easy, but to your point, those who already were making asks of individuals were dependent and reliant on teams that were organized, whether that was an organization like deo, I'm sure within Leadwell or they're part of a DSO or their own group and community, and they kept that together. They seem to be navigating this. These rough waters in a really positive way. And those who were kind of head down, I'm on my own, were really struggling. And I love something that you said because it's a good indicator to know we're in a bad place. Is. Is you can feel the resentment coming up, right? You can feel that we're angry at others for not solving a problem or not supporting us, etc. Versus being in that place where we feel very supported, very grateful for the momentum. So you've given us some really good stuff to chew on, like, always. Any other thoughts or kind of, you know, final, final statements? Like if you were sitting in front of a. A dentist today who'd been through heck the last seven weeks, like, what would be the thing? And they're getting ready to ramp up their state, or maybe they're starting to. And they're dealing with staffing stuff, they're trying to navigate new patient stuff. They're nervous about their financials, like, what would be kind of their meditation for today, you think?

I've been calling this a time of internal renovation, because sometimes we close our offices and we do a renovation, but this is really an internal renovation, both on your business and as the business owner. Because the business is always a reflection of the business owner, right? Whatever chaos exists for the owner is going to exist within the business. So it's a time to step back and really consider it a startup. Right? What would make it. What would make you excited if you got to start over again? I remember I ended a relationship after eight and a half years, and it was so challenging, but then I was able to step back and say, all right, well, now my life exists separate of this other person. Right? What are some of the things that I might like to do that I might not have done in the context of that relationship? What new possibilities exist? And if you can quiet your mind and if you can access your network, there are so many resources that exist within you and without you. And that's what I love about being a coach. Because being a coach, it's not about helping, really. It's not about. It's not helping. It's not giving people advice or telling them what to do. It's just illuminating all of the resources that already exist inside of them. If Your client's walking through the woods and they're holding a lighter and they're trying to see their way, right? The coach is like, oh, I got a lantern. Here you go. You want to borrow this? And they are still walking the path. Right. But we were able to illuminate the resources and the possibilities that were already there that they weren't able to see. And that is what I love about what I get to do.

It is awesome. Holly, thank you so much. And I think that is a great principle, too. To end on is as you are working with your teams, remember that each of us are a coach to somebody. Right. If somebody wants to get ahold of you, Holly, what's the best way to contact you?

They can find me on my site, leadwellnetwork.com or on Instagramadwellnetwork.

Awesome, Holly. Thank you so much for being on. And if you want to come join the conversation over at our Facebook page at DSO Secrets. And until next time, keep smiling.

Be well.

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