A Day in the Life of Larry Laserguy, D.D.S.

Welcome to Million Dollar Dentistry with your host, Gary Katie, brought to you by Next Level Practice. Next Level Practice is the leader in dental practice management. In fact, they are the best in the world at creating happy teams that implement sustainable results. Your host, Gary Katie welcomes you to this podcast as he discusses the common concerns, challenges, and shares his decades of experience in empowering dentists and dental teams to go from good to world class. Gary Katie is the visionary voice of Next Level Practice and has for the past 20 years interrupted the status quo of the dental world. He continues to bring national attention to the oral systemic connection and believes in the complete health dentistry model. He is a powerful educator and advocate for dentistry, dentist and dental teams. He is inspired every day by the courage and personal successes of the doctors and team members he has the privilege of working with.

Gary, how are you today?

Oh, my gosh, Amber, thank you. I'm so good. Thanks for asking. Hope you're doing well.

I am, thank you.

Yeah. And wow, if you would have told me I'd be doing a podcast on Million Dollar Dentistry when I wrote the book, I would have told you you were crazy. You know, when you write a book, you know, it's like you wonder if anybody's ever gonna read it. And this, the work that we're going to talk about in this podcast has, you know, just taken me around the world and, you know, shared this work on the stages of, you know, in multiple countries and I think almost every state in the United States, except for like three or four so far. And there's, you know, we're in our seventh edition and over 100,000 copies in print.

Amazing, amazing. So this is a book that you feel passionate about then, I assume?

Yeah. You think? But it wasn't. When I first started, you know, I was in a crossroads in my career. I was working in dentistry for about, I would say probably six years. I was, you know, doing it the old school way, going it, going to practice, to practice, sitting in offices. And I had a lot of experience, hands on. You're really understanding what dentists grapple with, what team members deal with, what patients experience. And, you know, you start seeing patterns and you start seeing reoccurring issues and you start seeing things that, you know from another perspective because my background is in business and team development. So I brought that into view here. And, you know, I'm not just another doctor who did it and then said, here, here's how I did it. More better and faster. I was like, this thing is archaic and does not really produce and do what doctors need to want. You know, doctors. You know, there's some doctors that want to make a bigger difference. There's some doctors that want to really be more profitable and, you know, use their investment in their career to take care of their families. There's some doctors that really want the step by step process on running a business. Because you. You and I both know, Amber, if you missed that half hour in dental school where, you know, they went over leadership and management and systems implementation and, you know, marketing and sales and, you know, managing a team and, you know, all the things that are inside of that, the men and women just were not set up to win. And I saw. It was funny. I saw the movie Hangover, and I'm like, oh, man. You know, the disrespect and discourse for dentistry and dentists, you know, these men and women work their tails off and they don't get properly recognized and, you know, for, you know, all the reasons. But, you know, dentistry equals pain. You know, when I first got in this business a couple of decades ago, dentistry equaled pain. Pain for the dentist, pain for the dental team, pain for the patient. And I was set out my whole career to change that. And so I sat in every position in a dental practice from the perspective of, how do we run this as a business? What are the fundamentals? How do we take care of the people, the culture of the teams, and then how do we engage the patient in a way where they really understand what dentistry is, how it works, and how it impacts not just the oral cavity, but the overall body and total health and wellness. And we've done that over the years. And just, you know, working in 6,000 practices, I codified the model that we install, and I wanted to get this out to more people. So I wrote this book called Million Dollar Dentistry, and that's how we got here.

That's amazing. It's. I love. When I read this book the first time, I was like, I was fascinated by Dr. Laser Guy, DDS, Larry Laser Guy. It made me laugh. I was. He was. But he's pretty messed up. I mean, he just. He has a lot of issues going on there, and there's a lot of things that's piling up on him, and he's feeling really overwhelmed. Is this what you were seeing when you were walking into dental practices?

Yes. You know, my writing coach, when I hired a writing coach because, you know, I got a. I got a B in English writing. So I'm like, all right, I better. I better get some help here. And I realized like, the first thing he said was, the reader really needs to understand that you understand them. And so when you write chapter one, write it from the perspective of a fictional character that people can see themselves in. And it's funny because, you know, back in the day, you know, lasers were just coming out when I wrote this. And so I'm like, oh, it's Larry Laser Guy, dds And, you know, I. You know, in today's world, I probably, you know, would have written it a little differently, maybe added a few things, probably put, you know, his wife in there, maybe would have made it a female. Like, you know, it's. Dentistry has evolved a lot since then, but Larry Laser Guy was. I remember, you know, coming up with that just because that just sounded funny to me, and gave a picture of, you know, the. The elements of a doctor's life, because this is like this. He. He lives the symptomatic life of a dentist. You know, you go to dental school, you have a dream, you think that, you know, this is. You know, a lot of people, I hear, get into it because they want to help people. Others get into it because they. They want to have a certain lifestyle. They don't want to be on call. They get the freedom. They saw the lifestyle of a dentist, or, you know, they just. They're just attracted to crazy town. No, I'm kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding, Amber.

Aren't we all, though?

Oh, yeah. Some more than others. You know, like, if you were brought up in chaos, chaos is a natural event, so you can jump into that pool anytime. But, you know, I wrote this from the perspective of, you know, I just got creative and I just started drawing and I started painting the picture of a really typical dentist. And I see a lot of dentists live in secret shame, or they think it's like only them. And then, you know, they think they have this uniqueness that only they're living in the world that they have, but it's really common to all. And, you know, most dentists don't talk about, like, the backstory, the behind the scenes, and, you know, I've had the privilege. Doctors trust me. They understand. I allow them to be vulnerable and truthful and honest. And when they get vulnerable, truthful and honest and authentic, when you, you know, instead of talking about the weather or some composite material, and you're talking about what's really real in life. And I think we're in that spot now in the world where we got to just get to the truth of the matter and then, you know, do something about it and you know, that's really what I set out to do in chapter one. And you know, yeah, he's, he's overwhelmed. Yes, he's overwhelmed. Not just in the office, Amber, but he's overwhelmed at home. And he's overwhelmed with the things that, you know, I always say there's three things that really affect dentists. First is you're doing something that you don't like doing, like running a business. So what it takes to be a dentist, to be in the mouth, is the opposite that it takes to run a business. So I'm like, oh, if I just fix that for them and they don't have to think, well, oh, and then they can go be a better dentist and then they can scale their business and then they can, you know, have multiple units or they can step away from the chair or whatever they want to do. They have freedom. You know, that's my purpose, to provide freedom for dentist, whatever that freedom is for them. And so, you know, doing something you don't want to do, then they're doing things that they don't like doing, so don't do that. But they think they have to because they don't know a better way. And it's because the business model they're running is archaic. It doesn't have the fundamentals of business in it. And that's what I set out to do, is really give them the fundamentals of business in a way that can be adopted in the dental industry. Because, you know, one fundamental of businesses not, you know, is selling things. And most dentists and most team members abhor selling. So I reinvented how to do that in a way that fits inside of the tenants values of, you know, 75% of dentists and dental team members. So, and then the last one is, you know, dealing with toxic people, you know, that that also bogs Dr. Laser Guy down and living in a toxic world. And I also learned that 9 out of 10 dentists are non confrontational. So confronting all these issues doesn't allow them to move forward. So I really helped design a methodology and a system that allows, that allows non confrontational people deal with these things. Like how do they move forward through that space?

I love this because, you know, we're looking at those things that, you know, are universal. I mean, this doesn't just apply to dentists, it applies to all of our lives. You know, we can get out of integrity with our life. And you know, while this we're seeing, we're looking at it from a dental perspective. You know, I think it resonates with everyone. It resonates. It's going to resonate with the wife or the husband of the dentist and then each team member as well.

Well, this is a family disease, I call it, because, you know, the dental office becomes a center of the family and it's really, you know, the center should be your faith or your, or your, your family or your partnership with your spouse. And then you're tending to your, your family, your kids. But it really becomes a centerpiece and then it becomes a disease as a centerpiece of a family. And that's unacceptable. I just said that is absolutely unacceptable for me. I said, I really said I'm going to set out to do something completely different that is going to help the men and women who I think are heroes and courageous men and women who do this work and really remove these barriers and these downsides of dentistry to give them the freedom to be able to go out and be the men and women they want, not only in the office, but to their partners and to their families and to their communities and to their churches and to the people that they can go out and make a difference for.

Definitely now I noticed when I was reading this first chapter, we're talking about Dr. Laser Guy and he's really out of integrity with his work, with his office staff, with his family. His children are kind of out of control. I mean, his entire life is kind of spiraling and his finances, all of those things, and he's not in integrity. How does that, you know, how does that spill over into how he's practicing dentistry? And you know, he's showing up as being very wealthy and living in the nicest neighborhoods and trying to install dentists great systems, but yet here he is, can't even cash his own paychecks.

Yeah, and it's, it's the story of almost 70% of the dentists that I start with. I mean, the reality is dentists are living a life beyond what their practice performs and then they pile up debt or they don't get rid of debt or, you know, those are all the symptoms. Right. But when we travel down all the way back, I like to reverse engineer to the source points. Not only from a healthcare standpoint, we don't like treating, we like being preventive in care versus reactive, you know, when the problem's too late. Not only from the philosophy of clinical dentistry, but from the practical side of living life. And you know, there's a lot in there. And I want to start with the first words you said is like Living out of integrity with, you know, how he or she, you know, chose. And everyone has their own integrity. Integrity is the morals and values with which you live by. And so the reason that this cascade happens is most dentists have a picture of what the benchmarks are of expectations around, you know, how their life should look. That's their integrity about what their practice should look like, what their relationships at home should look like, what their relationships with their kids should look like, what their relationships with finance should look like. And it doesn't look like that picture. Therefore, they're out of integrity with the benchmarks with which they set for themselves. And the problem is that they don't see a way out because they either have tried things themselves and have failed, or they see the people around them living in a similar world. So they just throw their hands up and go, this is just the way it is. And, you know, if you get anything out of this, it's like, it doesn't have to be that way. It really, really, really, really, really doesn't. And there's, you know, people that are. Have gone from, you know, all the way. You know, I think it's Drake that has this song that says, started from the bottom, now we're here. It's like, you have to sometimes go through these things to go, okay, I absolutely, positively. I'm done with this. You know, making the unacceptable unacceptable. A lot of dentists, the reason why they're living. What they're living in is they've made the unacceptable acceptable, and they're just living inside of that. And they go, let me just coast through the rest of my career and just be done with this thing. And, you know, Amber, that's. That's. That's why, you know, I've chose to write this book and really dig in and stay in. The problem here of Larry Laser Guy, you know, like, I'm always a positive guy, and I always see the glasses half full. But, you know, it's important to feel the pain, feel the problem. When you feel the pain and problem, you know, you can make changes. You know, for me, I'll just give a situation. The reason why I can write this chapter is because I've been through all those elements. I was $800,000 in debt. My wife did come to me and say, gary, you're an alcoholic and you don't have to quit drinking, but you can stay here. And now, you know, right here, I'll do it in. I'll do it. In addition, Amber, here I am, seventh edition, you know, 12 years later, I'm sober, so I, you know, it's okay to, to live a life of circumstances and problems, but when you're bigger than these circumstances and problems, when you realize that there's a way out of every single thing, I don't care where you are, it's just important that you identify, become aware of and take ownership of these problems. Then you can step outside of that and move forward. And, you know, it's awareness, acceptance, and then getting into action. And then the rest of the book is, we're going to get into it. We're going to follow an action plan that takes somebody from here. You know, we're on the bottom now. We're here to, you know, a life they truly love and a practice they love and an asset that they could sell at top dollar.

Amazing. So if you say, you're saying like, half the battle is realizing that there's a problem. How do you encourage this discovery in doctors so that they begin to recognize the parts of Dr. Laser Guy in themselves?

Well, look, you know, the reason why Dr. Laser Guy has lives in a gated community and pilots a BMW and, you know, has a theater, you know, in his house. And it's because what's underneath that is there's pride. People want to look good. They want to feel like they're accomplishing something in the world. But there's this battle and struggle of, like, living a life of validation and taking care of your family and then the vehicle that provides for that. And that's where the friction and the contention comes in. And it just, it's like you're trying to bleed too much looking good out of a stone that's not providing it. And when you begin to get that, you know, it's like, do you, do you, do you reduce your expenses to meet your income, your current income, or do you increase your income because you have it available to do that and then live the life you want and, you know, the latter is the responsible one. But, you know, seven out of ten dentists, I find, are over living the resource that's providing it for them. And, and what I like to do is really get it performing because, you know, the average dentist is operating at half capacity with what they have right now. And then they think they need to be doing social media and get their website going, get new patients. And it's, it's, that's the myth here of, you know, that, you know, they can get what they want very quickly because it's already in front of them. And we'll get into that later.

Okay, so when making moral inventory lists, how do you make sure that you're keeping it real and not over exaggerating or understating, you know, those moral inventory lists.

Been there, done that. And I, you know, because I want to feel good about myself because I want to. I want to show the world that, you know, I matter. You know, like driving cars past my means or, you know, all those elements. And, and it's like moral inventory is your character. And it's not about good, bad, right or wrong. It's about really like responsibility inside of your values. And, you know, sometimes our ego mind gets the best of us. And you know, that's where addictions come in. You know, like shopping or having cars or, you know, buying houses and all those elements. And, you know, when you can really get and be truthful with oneself. And we really help doctors do that. And like, it's not, you know, because most of us live underneath, like if, you know, you know, one of my favorite works is by Brene Brown about shame and guilt and embarrassment and all those elements, you know, we're trying, you know, down deep inside. It's like a bodybuilder, you know, bodybuilders down deep inside have low self esteem usually. And they put muscle on to look to show to the world that they are strong and powerful and things like that. Not all of them, please, I'm just giving a metaphor here of, you know, every human being has a certain ego and sense of pride and then how that manifests, whether, you know, in the body or whatever they're trying to prove. And imagine if you had nothing to prove. Imagine if you are perfect as you are and then you wanted to create a life that you love on top of that. See, that's the powerful possibility of the work that we're about to unfold here. Because that's where freedom lies. Because here's what happens when you get all these things. You still feel bankrupt. Like, no matter. I call it the black hole. No matter how many cars you have or the bigger your house or like you still feel deflated underneath. So how do you feel fulfilled? And you have things that you love simultaneously. And that's, that's what we're talking about in this moral inventory. It's like this, you know, because I really studied the mind, I really studied neuroscience. I really study the thinking behind human behavior. And when you start to really unpack that, Amber, you can start seeing why patterns exist and then how to help people get past that so they're not living in pain. Or what I call pain is necessary, suffering is optional. We get them out of the suffering, and they identify the pain through their moral inventory, feel the pain, and then get into action and do something about it.

And that, I think, is where people get stuck. Sometimes they might get stuck in the list, making that list, and then that feels too overwhelming. And that's the beauty, I think of this, is that you have a system to help them go from where they're at now to a whole new world.

Started from the bottom. Now we're here for the rap, rap fans out there. But, you know, it's like. But here, doing it not on top of shame and guilt, doing it on top of power, performance, truth, responsibility. And then pure joy comes from that. And when you could do it from a place of purpose, like your purpose on this earth was to heal and help people. And then that throws off, you know, then people see the value of that. They pay you for it. And then you've created a machine called your practice, not a job. You've created a machine that actually throws off the money that for the lifestyle you want to live. And, you know, that is a powerful way and a responsible way to have it all and be fulfilled simultaneously.

So we get into really, at this point, helping people understand how. How what they feel like they deserve and taking them from a place of not just, you know, wanting something, but believing that they deserve that as well. Is that correct?

Yeah. Well, nine out of 10 dentists, usually, you know, most of the time, first time, you know, first person going to college and then being a professional on top of that and getting a doctorate and, like, really, like coming from humble beginnings. A lot of dentists, when I track dentists who choose dentistry, come from very humble beginnings. And then, like the generation before this one, you know, baby boomers came from the product of depression, depression, parents. And then the next generation of millennials really came from baby boomers. And it's awesome. And, you know, really understanding the history of the thinking that and the culture that brought up dentists inside of generations, it's really important to understand that because then you can understand, like, you know, why they think, how they think. You know, when I speak to a millennial dentist, it's different than when I speak to a baby boomer dentist. It's because of the generational gap there and what they were brought up inside of in the world, what was happening in the world at the time. And, you know, the baby boomers, you know, a lot of times. And that's why I wrote my second book that's where my sequel of Million Dollar Dentistry came, which was raise your healthy deserve level. Because what I realized was that if you don't think you deserve it, you can't create it. And I would help dentists explode their practice, and then they would sabotage it, and I would give them free time, and then they would kill that off, and they just couldn't receive or have money, success, love, acknowledgment, all those things that come when you're not suffering. And so I help them move past that internally, and that allows them to create and not sabotage. And the millennials, I just show them the path, and they just go take it. And baby boomers resent that because they think it's entitlement, and I just think it's smart.

Absolutely. Most definitely. So tell me about. You speak in the book about the annuity and residual effects of working with the correct type of consulting, like, next level practice.

Yeah, well, you know, I got into consulting, and I did it. You know, I was. I was inspired by all the greats. You know, I'm so grateful for the Roger Levins and Melinda's and, you know, all the greats, you know, just so Omer Reed way back in the day, day, and, you know, rest in peace, Omer. And, you know, just like, you know, just tapped into, you know, the dental boot camp, like Steve and, you know, Walter and, you know, just. Guys are just like, you know, oh, man, I'm so grateful for them because they just. They really just showed me way. And I. Like a dentist, you know, I was like, oh, I'm gonna do this. And I saw. I remember seeing Roger Levin, and I'm like, I want to be that guy who's, you know, speaking in front of 300 people, and everybody was cheering for him, and he was so, you know, just glorified. And, you know, back in the day, when I first started, it was about my ego identity, and now it's just really about helping people. You know, you go through phases, and, you know, I remember seeing Walter, Haley and Steve, and I was like, oh, my gosh, I want to do this. And, you know, what happened was, you know, then I just started, you know, started speaking. Then, you know, speaking came later. I just, you know, got my car and people hired me, and I helped them grow, you know, seven figures in one year. And, you know, I helped them implement change. And, you know, I charged for that, and I just kept doing that. And what I realized was when I came, people started attention and the practice, and they listened to what I Said, but the minute I left, so did the results. The minute I left, so was the mindset. The minute I left, there was no infrastructure. The minute I left, the results left. And I'm like, I'm going to change this. And an annuity, the definition of annuity is something that pays. Once you would, excuse me, invest in it, and once you build, just provides a payment to you on an ongoing basis. And that wasn't. I realized that I was trying to be the more better, faster version of the consultants that were available. And they were all great. The only missing element, and I think it's because I come from a business background and I come from a systems background and I come from infrastructure and I come from purpose. You know, the four elements of our work is purpose. Why do you do what you do and have everybody buy into that purpose? The second thing is people. You know, you don't make a better business, Amber, by firing people. How do we make. Take the people that are there as long as they're willing and get them, you know, focused on what we need them to focus on and consistently deliver and then process, like giving them a structure to step by step, follow during. And it needs to be simple. You know, a lot of process is complicated and it's not repeatable and it's not sustainable. And the last is now, you know, we've added this in. The evolution of the work is it has to have platforms. So the four Ps are purpose people, process platforms. I can now, you know, you can run, train your team, market your practice all from your smartphone. And, you know, it's just lovely. You know, I didn't have that when I wrote the first edition of this book, so. And then when you have all those pieces and parts in and you're the curator of the business model, not some outside force like a consulting company, it's then an annuity because it really turns what I call working class millionaires. You know, I met a lot of dentists and they were just working class millionaires. They were people who worked into inside of a practice. And, you know, when they sell everything and they could make, you know, have millionaires, but the practice ran in spite of them. And, you know, I mean, the practice ran because of them, not because they were running a business model that the team drove. You know, we like to create, we call it, you know, let's make old school practice management thing of the past. P stands for predictable, A stands for accountable, S stands for simple, and T stands for team driven. And everything that we do has those Elements. And we make old school practice management a thing of the past.

I like that because I think Dr. Laser Guy was trying to do it all himself. He was trying to balance all the finances, all this, you know, and he wasn't relying on his team. He wasn't trusting his team, and, and he wasn't trusting, you know, the process at all because he didn't have a process in place. So I think that was really one of those important moments that I realized in the first chapter was that he didn't trust anybody, didn't even trust himself.

Well, yeah, because all that is a cascade of the function of the four P's that I just said. And what happens is Dennis become control freaks and perfectionists. And that's where the shame and guilt come, because they're trying to muscle this thing by themselves and be in the center of it. And when they fail, they feel less than. And we just eliminate all that and get to the core of why this is happening. And then we just build a future annuity that pays each month after this is all installed and moving along. And then you just have to course correct. You're not having to rebuild every month and hold it all together like an octopus.

That's. That's wonderful. So. Well, Gary, I'm really. I've really enjoyed this first chapter here. And I think one of the last things that it says in the Exit, you have an exercise at the end of this chapter where you're asking them to, to do that moral inventory, to look at their life and make a list of all the things that they don't want other people to know about them, and also what things they want them to know. And what are you doing? Where are you settling all of those things? But one of the last, the last, last thing you say is that all change begins with acceptance of what is right. Now.

Feel the pain. Pain is necessary. Suffering is option. But the why change doesn't happen is because people don't make changes until the circumstances are great enough. And what I'm suggesting here is when you bring the floor up, instead of hitting the bottom, you bring the floor up, feel the pain. And then now we're going to take you on a journey of correcting that. I mean, now you're doing it on your choice rather than doing it back on your heels trying to fix the problem that is too far gone.

That's wonderful. Well, thank you, Gary. This has been really exciting to go over Chapter one. I'm looking forward to our next session or episode when we can talk about the life that you're entitled to Live Aid.

Absolutely. Let's do it, Amber. Thank you, listeners. Yep. Thank you, Amber.

All right.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye now.

Thank you for listening to Million Dollar Dentistry with Gary Katie. This podcast is brought to you by Next Level Practice. Next Level Practice is the leader in dental practice management. In fact, they're the best in the world at creating happy teams that implement sustainable results. If you would like a copy of Million Dollar Dentistry, please contact Amber Keithley at Next Level Practice. You may call us at 212-388-1712, extension 119, or go to nextlevelpractice.com podcast and request a copy in our Ask a Question box. We look forward to brightening your smile.

Sam.