When Your Patients Try Your Patience: Million Dollar Dentistry Masterclass- August 2021

Hey, practice owners, welcome back to number eight, chapter eight in our Million Dollar Dentistry series. Gary, it feels like we just started this.

You know what it feels like forever, Steve. And it feels like every second we're doing this it means. It's just amazing. I love being here. It's my favorite night of the month that I get to hang out with you and talk to practice owners.

Well, and I do have to tell you, this has been. It's taken me longer to read your book, Million Dollar Dentistry. So far it's eight months. It's taken me eight months to read this thing so far, but totally worth it. Totally worth it. So as people start coming in here, I want to just a couple of things as. What do you say? Housekeeping? A couple of things. Number one, keep coming in and ask questions. We're going to try and answer every question that comes up during this episode, this chapter and the ones we can't. Gary's promised to answer tomorrow morning or as soon as he can get to them, ask. You can ask specific questions, broadcast questions, whatever you want. What I'm going to do is sort of aggregate those questions, lump them together, maybe into one topic, and again answer them tonight. But if we don't just keep putting your questions in, I promise you we will. We'll at least get to them tomorrow morning or so. So with that, I see people starting to trickle in. We'll kind of ease into this. We again, chapter eight, when Patience. Try your patience. And one of my favorites. And by the way, as I always point out, I still have the original. The original edition. Gary's got the new edition. What is this? 7th edition. And we'll tell people how to get. At the end they can get a. Download a copy of this, right?

Oh, yeah.

So we'll share that at the end how you can get your own copy. It's a very, I don't want to say a short read. It's a well, digestible read. So, you know, it's not like reading War and Peace, you know, it's not going to take eight months. Like me, I'm just slow. But it's chapters that are succinct, easy to digest. And there's always one of the things I think Gary, probably intentionally, if I know you well, is there's like this aha moment where when you're in the middle of it, you say ah. Now I get what that means. So we've gone through eight. We started with Larry dds. We went through what you should really be doing with your hygienist chapter four. So anybody watching tonight who hadn't read it, go read that one awesome chapter. Our most popular so far tonight is when patients try your patience. And as always, I read ahead. I've got to always have my little bookmarks. And in this chapter, you start out by talking about the four main stressors of a practice owner. And I have. I have to have them written down. Here it is, money, your team, your patience, which we're going to focus on tonight. And then personal and family. And I know in your coaching programs, you deal with all those things as opposed to just, you know, here's a binder with a blueprint. Hand it to your front desk manager and say, all right, do these things, and we're going to double our practice. You kind of help lay that out for a practice owner and patience. The third thing of the four stressors we're going to talk about tonight, I'm going to let you kind of explain that, and then you have an analogy. I love your analogies, your acronyms. It's painter. And we're going to walk through each one of those steps. 4, 5, 6, 7. So anybody watching, get your pen out your notepad. We're going to walk through each of those specific things that are stressors with your patients and how to eliminate those. So did I say that? Did I kind of COVID that? Was that good, Steve?

You're getting so good. You could be. You know what? I could be interviewing you, Steve. You're doing so. You're doing so well.

It really is. You read a page or two, and I tell you, you know, as a former, as a practice owner and been in dentistry a long time, it really is something. As soon as you start reading it, these lights go off and you think, oh, my gosh, I thought I was the only one.

So.

So it's helped me a lot in that respect. But. All right, patience as a stressor. How do you want to sort of start to unpack that?

Well, I mean, let's just step back for a second and look at the four. Because they, you know, one builds on the other. If we look at the four stressors, Steve, money is number one. And I have this quote. It's from my. My big Texan.

He.

This is his quote. He goes, gara. And you know, I'm a bad Southern guy. I can't do you. That was a bad Yankee Southern guy right there, Garrett, what you're saying, if my money ain't right, I can't join the fight. So, like, yes, if your money's not Right. And you're sitting there stressed about money, if that is, you know, in Maslow's hierarchy. You know, a lot of my work is founded in, you know, age old principles like Maslow's. If you're in survival as it relates to money, it's hard to develop a team. It's hard to deal with patience from a place of power versus scarcity or like prosperity versus scarcity. You're not going to be able to do the things that we're going to talk about today. So the first thing we do is we make sure we get your money right. Then you have to have the right team. You have to have the right people in the right places doing the right things. It's just like a baseball team, basketball team, if there's a hole in that game or if somebody doesn't show up, or if you don't have a team. And we've been talking about, you can look at the old sessions talking about how to recruit, hire and on board. I have tons of webinars that I've done on this. It's a challenge. But if you're smart, you can overcome that challenge in dentistry today. And we're doing it every day. We're getting people hired and at the right rates. And we. On our last episode, that was a big one, by the way, Steve, in our last episode, a lot of people have people coming in at high dollars and like the people that have been there for 15 years, you know, how do you deal with that? So we talked about in our last session, a lot of questions on that last time, a lot of, you know, on the meetings that I had with people, you know, that we offer after this, that was like number one. So again, everything builds on the other. If you don't have a strong foundation, you know, it's hard to have this, you know, hard to put your mind around what we're going to talk about today. So getting your money right is number one, getting your team in place. Number two. Now you get to patients, all right? And when we talk about patients, oh, and by the way, the fourth is family and personal. You know, I was talking just yesterday to a dentist up in Connecticut, he's got a, you know, he's got a $4 million practice and he's working 51 weeks out of the year and he has two young kids. And he goes, gary, he goes, my son asked me this question. He said, gary, you're going to watch what my son asked me. He said, he goes, what does the word addiction mean? Now this is a Six year old, he has one week on vacation. He's sitting there on vacation at the beach with his son. And he explains it's when somebody can't control when they need something and they do it too much. He goes like, mommy with her phone and you with work daddy. And it hit him like a ton. Oh, bricks. And so he's like, gary, show me how to get this balance in my life. So we're going to get to that in our future sessions, but today we're going to focus on the patient piece. Now, you know why this drives you crazy is because of a root cause issue called scarcity fear and scarcity fear. There's only two fears, Steve, that we have. Fear of not getting what we want, or fear of losing what we have. And most doctors subconsciously look at their patient base as their lifeline, their lifeblood. Right. And what happens is they succumb to patients just running the show because they feel like they have to just cave in. Like the customer's always right. Yes, we do believe that. Yes, you want to listen to what the customer wants, you'll get high reviews, you're being of service for them. But there's a fine line between being of service and being just a person that just takes a beating and letting the patients run rampant. Right. So that's what we're going to unpack today.

Okay? Yeah. And you. So, and you and I are, as business guys who are also in the dental business, one of the most interesting things is, and I own several businesses and I'll come in and say it's time to fire a customer. And that is so foreign to somebody who went to dental school, got a clinical education. And you, I think you, you hit the nail right on the head. Taking a beating from a customer when it doesn't mean you don't love them, doesn't mean you don't care for them, doesn't mean you're not taking care of them. But there's a point at which that customer just needs to find another provider that's not you. You don't fit somehow. And you do a good job of laying out what a good customer, good patient is with the acronym painter, P A I N T E R. And I'm gonna let you. So again, when you read the book, you get chapter eight and you read it, it sort of makes sense on why you picked painting and a painter and how you create this as sort of the picture you can keep in your mind of the right patient for your practice. So let's kind of dig into that. What's a painter?

Yeah, so a painter is the acronym for the established benchmark for what is minimally acceptable in your practice on how patients operate. We have this for team members. We have a healthy team member baseline and we have a healthy mouth baseline for patients. We have it in every domain that we manage. If you don't have it defined as what a healthy mouth is, you can't present care. If you don't have what a healthy team member baseline is, you don't know how. If a team member is producing an agreement for what you want or not. And in this case, if you don't have a what a healthy patient is meaning, what are the established elements that you must have in your patients? Okay, so once we establish this, then we'll get to the next action. So P stands for paying for all your treatment. So now, by the way, this is for the patient, but this is also for the team. Because now all of a sudden, if you make this declaration and the patient pays for all the treatment and you're not going to be a bank and you're not going to be like, you're going to really have the patients actually pay. Some people let them go out without accept. I can't tell you in the past week of all the people I met with, from our last session, how many times they say, I, I told my team member to collect the money and they're not doing it right. It's crazy. So, by the way, this benchmark is not only for patients, but it's for team members, pays for all the treatment is P, A is appreciates your practice and the care you provide. See, look at that. Not just accepts it. Not like if you have a complainer like Mrs. Smith who complains, you know, you know, she's on her seventh try in, hasn't paid a dime, and you know she's complaining about X, Y and Z. That is clearly defined as not appreciating your practice and care. Now, is that different than if there's been a breakdown or a complaint or breakdown? Customer service, we see that as an opportunity. But a lot of people just allow patients to just like, disrespect, complain. And you're going to attract those people if you allow it inside yourself. We're going to be talking, Steve, here about make the unacceptable unacceptable. But who needs to transform first is you, the practitioner, not being in scarcity, not being worried. If you lose this patient, are they going to go tell 10? No. Here's what happens when you cleanse your space and you set A standard. The ones that don't match up go away. But here's the good news. The ones that you want come in, but if you're not clear when you stand for nothing, you fall for everything and you get messes. Here's what I've. I've done studies on this, Steve. When you have bad apples, they are connected to other bad apples that complain and they go, he puts up with that or she puts up with that. Go see that doc. They have an underground grapevine that is being manifested and you don't even know it. If you allow and don't put boundaries in. Here's your boundaries. Paying for the treatment, appreciating your care. I. Insurance is not a panacea. It understands. They understand the role of insurance, that it's a scholarship, not a. Not how to fix everything in your world. Now, that needs to be clear to the patient. But guess what? If you don't have an education system that lets the patient know that you have a responsibility in the matter. Right. That's the key element here. But what we're doing is we're establishing a base, a benchmark that they're willing to refer others new patient referrals. Is our end. Like, because you want to build your practice with, you know, from good patients to other good patients. And they're willing to send people in. Don't have the same expectation for every. Every person. Not everybody has a network or they extrovert it and share, but they're willing to do that. Right. So we set that system up so you can expand organically. He is trust your advice and acts. I love this one. If they're sitting there and they're going, you know, yeah, I got to think about it. Yeah, I got to get a second opinion. Those are good indicators that. That you can do a better job at building trust with that patient. So when you make a recommendation, they actually respond. Right. And then e is educated in the value that you're providing. We call this Steve job known value, known value. Known value is you actually have to map out because the patient, you're making it look simple and easy. So your job as a dentist is to make it look as simple and easy. And you want to show them the process as you go through it so they understand the value of what is actually being done. I like also intraoral pictures pre and post in hygiene, pre and post treatment in the mouth, because it's sort of like, you know, the only way I know my cleaning lady was at my house is when she flips over the toilet paper or I see lines in my carpet. And the only way I know my car fixer fixed my car is if I see the white paper on with the footprints in it. Like they covered up the carpeting, you know, at the Porsche dealer. Steve. So like, but, but, you know, how often have you gone in and you see like spiderwebs and that doesn't look clean or you turn the, you turn the car on and it runs clunky. So it's like you have to have a systematic approach to create known value. So again, these benchmarks are not only for you, but how to create value in the mind of the patient simultaneously. And then really R is respecting your time and showing up. I can't tell you if somebody just doesn't acknowledge that they were late or didn't show and don't. And they don't take ownership of that. Now there's a dual responsibility here, like I've been saying in each of these acronym numbers or letters. But Steve, ultimately, if somebody just like completely disrespects it, you can get them back on track. But if you don't establish this, you're not going to do that. It's just going to be like, look, respects our time and shows up. We have to have a system of communication when somebody doesn't not to beat them up. And we're going to, you know, a lot of people worried about, like, offending people. There's a way to do and handle and course correct all this. I'm sure there's going to be questions on this particular.

There's a bunch popping in here. Yes.

So you get it. It's like, all right. They go, okay, all right, now I have the established. I get the established benchmarks now. What?

Yeah, and there's. And so I've got questions. And I wrote myself a note as you were talking. I remember this saying. Somebody told me many, many, many years ago, a business owner before I became a business owner, he said, you get the behavior you tolerate. So that applies to. That's a whole different discussion, a different episode. But it applies to kids, too. I have five of them. And I can tell you, even between parents, think of that when you go home tonight and you think you get the behavior you tolerate. I love my wife to death, but there are times when. And the funny thing is, Gary, it flips. There are times when she's very understanding and I'm just not. And then there are times when she's not. And I'm sort of like, well, that's not a big Deal. But if she says it is, then it is. And people respond to that. So they know where they're, how far they can push that boundary, how far they can bend without breaking. So I've got here a bunch, I'm going to wrap this in a bow. And fundamentally, this is one that jumped out at me. It says my patients don't respect me. Now how do I change that? Thoughts?

Yeah, there's a lot in that question. Well, yes, let me just think it through for a second. All right, so. All right, so how do you change that? Step number one. Step number one is number one. This is number one. Always make the unacceptable unacceptable. So let me say, let me say it another way. Look where you've made the unacceptable acceptable to yourself. So let's say showing up late, not paying is unacceptable to you. But you just go in the study club, everybody complains about the same thing. So I'm just going to accept it and this is just going to be the way it is and I got to suffer and I can't pay myself or I have to work through vacations because they don't show up. By the way, when a patient doesn't show up, all you're doing is taking away time from you. That's it. If you start looking at this, it's like when you don't stand for anything, you fall for everything. And then usually the victim in us goes, I need to do this so I'll be the victim to this circumstance. So this concept of unacceptable, making unacceptable things unacceptable is step number one. Make it unacceptable, but then get into that. You are responsible for allowing it to happen. So when you're responsible for allowing it to happen, you can go. Okay, got it. I'm going to go now. Take care of my side of the street. I want to give you for the. I just got off the phone before, before our session here tonight with someone from last, last session. And she goes, I'm a self proclaimed control freak. I am a control freak. I do the front desk, I do hygiene. I have a team leader. I don't let her do her job. And by the way, she was late for my schedule because she's overwhelmed. Our scheduled call, she was overwhelmed and it cost her 15 minutes with me. She only got 15 minutes instead of a half hour. And she goes, I see the cost of it, but what do I do? Okay, so I'm going to assume that 90% of the docs we work with have some form of control freak in them because you need to be to be a dentist. But there's two types. One is dictatorial and another is healthy. So dictatorial is like really controlling people. Like, you know, whatever, you know, Mussolini, Hitler, you know, you know, all the dictators, they force and they control and they wrap their arms around something. I want to introduce a new form of control, and that is called healthy control. And I'll give you an example of this, Steve. Traffic signals. So you're in Indiana, I'm here in New York. If you're in a car, you know that red lights mean stop and green lights mean go. Usually. Now, when it doesn't and somebody breaks that rule, that's where accidents happen and breakdowns happen, right? But at least you know what the rules are. And so rules are, you know, and this. This gets, you know, funky. Like, if it comes a rule, it's like policy and force. That's still force. There's a way to. What I'm talking about is setting expectations, Steve. What I'm talking about is like, you know, the expectation when red, you're going to slow down and stop. Green, that means you're going to go. Yellow, yield, you're going to look. And you're responsible for integrating yourself on a freeway. The same is true with a dental practice. You have to start with establishing the painter, right? The acronym painter or some form, whatever you're willing to put up with or not put up with. Then you have to sit down with your team and establish healthy controls on this, right? And then we put systems and processes in again. I can spend a few hours on this, but I just want to give you what there is to do. Don't be the. There's a difference between force and power. Put in power by putting controls in. But before you get to that, Steve, excuse me. You have to make the unacceptable unacceptable for yourself. And you're going to go. We're going to figure out a way to make it a triple win. How is it going to be a win for the patient, a win for the team, and a win for the practice?

I think so. I wrote a couple of things, and I've got a lot going on here because this is evidently a hot topic and a lot of questions, it sort of fall into that same thing. What I heard was, this is learned behavior or taught behavior, that if somebody. If your patients don't respect you and your time, they didn't just wake up today and say, oh, I'm going to show up when I want to show up. They've been allowed to be late enough times. And we all know these patients, you know, they come blowing in 15 minutes late, the schedule's now out of whack, and you accommodate them. And I know you guys, you. This is a very 30,000 foot view of the answer. But at some point, you know, if that person has done that more than once, you need to say, oh, gosh, I'm really glad. Back to your abundance. Gosh, I'm really glad you came in. I wish you would have called because now somebody's in your chair. We can reschedule you next Tuesday or whatever. So now who's inconvenienced? And it's not like you're going to beat them over the head and punish them with it and charge them a late fee and all that junk. And I know you go into that, but because that's sort of part of what the chapter is, is a subtle way of establishing those boundaries. Or if you've let them run that yellow light. I had to teach my kids it's not a pink light. It means slow the hell down. It doesn't mean speed up before it turns red. Because when they're 16, when you allow that behavior, you've taught that to your patient and you've taught it to your team. You've taught your team that, oh, Mrs. Jones is 15 minutes late again. Let's scramble around and inconvenience everybody. Or let's be respectful and again say, well, we'll see you next Tuesday. She's going to be mad, but she's going to come back. And now everybody knows where the firm boundaries are. So that, that is, you know, how do I, how do I get that respect? You kind of have to start from the beginning. And I do have an interesting question here. That is, that's so along these lines. It says, and I'm going to kind of paraphrase sort of like, now that I'm making these changes, how do I keep from coming across as bossy when I tell patients the new rules?

Yeah, yeah.

These all sort of have a lot packed in them that you and I have discussed in years past and episodes past and conversations past that I think practice owners think, as you said, they just come in, bark out some new rules, and shazam, the whole practice changes. And it doesn't. It's, it's an incremental thing. Not a come in tomorrow morning and change everything. New rules.

Yeah, exactly.

So how do you, how do you not come across bossy?

Well, know yourself and know your team. 75% of dentists and dental team members are methodical humanists, which means they want to Know the steps and they, they care deeply about people that personality type under pressure under these conditions do two things. You ready? They avoid or they acquiesce. So they want to be liked and they want to people please or they go into the cave and they don't want to confront this. So it's very natural if you're sitting there to have these responses. And I, you know, I designed this whole methodology around the, for the non confrontational, the people pleasing practitioner and team members. How do you get them to take new actions or be a different way? And what we do is we take the emotion out of it. So I like communicating from fact rather than emotion. And the way we invented a system, Steve, called management by agreement. Management by agreement is who's going to do it? What are you going to do by when will you get it done? So first you start with your team members and you go, who's going to do this is our appointment coordinator. What she's going to do or he's going to do is he's going to now have a new conversation and we're going to write out what the script is to have that conversation when someone's late. And we're going to give them, we're going to grandfather them and we're going to give them some space because here's what I've learned. I studied child psychology because if you understand child psychology, you understand how to implement inside of a dental practice. That's my training.

My mind just went crazy. I just thought, Gary, I got five kids I'm going to ship out to you and they're all in their 20s. I'm going to ship them to you and I expect them to come back, you know, respectful and pleasant and all that.

Are you ready?

Yes.

Like Cesar Milan says, it's not the dog, it's the dog owner, Steve. All right, so you know, whenever you want to, you know, shirt responsibility, if you just, if you just lead them, they will show you the way.

So here I own those five millennials, is what I say. So yes, it's on me. You're exactly right.

Very simple. Management by agreement is creating a culture of agreements. So who, what and by when and when. You have the sender and the receiver understanding what how to manage agreements. Now you create a culture of facts rather than emotion. You create a culture of you either did it or didn't do it. Now how do you course correct. It's called again, you know, me and my acronym. So you can remember everything. We have painter now we're going to have aids. Aids, A, I, D, E, S. I asked you to use the script. I insist that you use the script. I demand that you use the script. I enforce that you use the script. And now you're suspended because you haven't used the script. Here's the way you get people gradiently escalated onto the playing your playing field. You're not going to be bossy, you're not going to be mean. And by the way, if you're a dentist, you're the wrong person doing this. Your team leader is the person that manages agreements in your practice. So this is escalated with the team leader. That's why a lot of old office managers, not old in age, but old thinking when they move to this new model of agreements, all they're doing is managing the promises of people. And they either kept their promise or they didn't keep their promise. This is the root cause for implementation. Not happening or happening in your dental practice with your team. If you're speaking to your team using this system and it's for your patients, getting them to line up with you. Here's where I learned this. I was dying to find the great wife and live with somebody forever and be happy. And I met this woman and she sat me down. And her name is Judith. By the way, one of the questions was, are you married, Steve? I feel sexy. Be honest.

I had that question.

I had that question. I haven't had that question, like, are you married?

We're going to edit that out for Judith's sake.

Oh, man. I was like, wow, I feel, I feel great. That was so nice. So anyway, so Judith sat me down, she goes, like I told her about me. And she goes, well, if you do, don't come back. There will be no conversation. I told her that I, you know, I use, I drink, I go out with my boys. She goes, I'm all good with this, this and this. And I'm not okay with this, this and this. And if you want to be with me, this is the kind of woman that I am. And she goes, oh, by the way, if you're interested in having a mediocre relationship where you're complaining about me and I'm complaining about you and I go complain to my girlfriends. That's not me. So we are going to have an extraordinary level relationship. That's the benchmark. If you want to play that level with me, I'm your girl. If not, go away.

And so she's the smart one, which I already knew this going in. I don't think anybody watching realizes that but yeah, that part of it. So that really sets up for a couple episodes from now about how your personal life can impact your, your business life. But awesome. So here's what I hear your they're not rules. You're setting expectations.

Yes.

And, and Judith set these expectations. It's not a rule. I mean in a sense it is. If you don't meet this expectation, then our agreement and how we run our relationship or we run our business or how I'm your dentist and you're my patient and I'm going to give you exceptional service and you're going to give me the respect, you know, my practice deserves. So it's more expectations than rules.

Yes.

Less harsh.

Stay out of policies. Stay out of like throwing $50 at people. Have communication with them. Make it relationship based. Not giving them a traffic ticket because you're not going to have long term relationships. People get pissed when you charge them a leafy. It doesn't work.

The. So it's. That's more stick than carrot. Exactly. You're punishing them for a behavior. And you know, and I do know that with, with kids I get more a better response when we're in it together and there's a reward for it. I'm not them 20 bucks but you know, I'm a lot happier and you know, when dad's happy, things go much better. So that's more, you know, carrot than stick. I got a couple things. One, there was a question popped up here and said again, this is a hot topic so we're going to have a lot to answer. How do I what does he say? How do I announce these new expectations to my team and patients again? Which I think might be, you know, I'm not reading your mind but it becomes less authoritarian and more team driven. I think is, is where that kind of goes. But how again it's more like I'm going to come in and announce new expectations now, I'm going to my office and you guys do this. That's the no no. Right?

Yeah. Well, let's give them, let's give them a five step process. Everything I do is methodical, step by step. Step number one is you get your team together and you acknowledge them. So acknowledgement is step number one. Team love you, appreciate you, thank you for serving. You are extraordinary. So acknowledgement is number one. Number two team is number two is take responsibility team. I need to take responsibility for my doubt, my uncertainty, my survival. Thinking around our patients. Our patients are running the show and we're at effect of it we have to work through lunches, we have to stay late, we have to, we're not making the money we want to make so that we can share it together. There's so many things that are happening because we've, we've just let the kittens, we're trying to herd kittens here and I have to take responsibility for it. I've allowed this and I want you to know what got us here. This is the line in the sand moment. What got us here isn't going to get there, get us there. We are going to be putting in new initiatives and I call it my painter system, where a patient pays, where they appreciate our care, where insurance is not a panacea, where they refer new patients, where they trust our advice, where they educate, they know the value we provide and they respect our time. Who's in it with me? So then you ask them, who's on the bus with me to take this on, that's the next step. And then when they say, yes, I'm on the bus. Now you have a willing group of people that are going to go to work and take actions on this, right? So the way you get your team on board is this five step process, which is acknowledge them, take responsibility, line in the sand, invite them to play the new painter game. And then lastly is what are the things that you're going to need to do? Your position so that we create this. I need training, I need development, I need a script, I need your support. When a patient gives me pooh that you're going to have my back. These are the things that people come up with once you get the team on board. Steve. Oh, my boy. Oh, they go, we're fighting this war together. We're not working through lunches. And then you play the song. We're not going to take it.

No, but you have to. You have to enforce it to the minute that you flip. The minute you allow Mrs. Jones to show up 15 minutes late and then tell your team, let's scramble. Put this person here, move this person over there, stick her in my office. Once you again break your own, I don't want to say rule. You go past your own expectation, really just shot everything that you work for, right?

Yeah. Let me explain to you about this. Two seconds on this. Integrity in our context is not good, bad, right, wrong, not what you do when nobody's watching. Integrity in our context is keeping your word or honoring your word, keeping your word. As I said, we're not going to do this or we're going to do Excuse me, We're going to keep this agreement, then you kept your agreement. If you don't, you acknowledge it. Now here's the other thing that I want to help our listeners tonight avoid the conspiracy theory. If you're not keeping your word as a practice owner with your team and your patients, you don't want to hold them accountable because this is the subconscious at work. You don't want to hold them accountable because then you know you're going to be held accountable by the way, for the victims out there, for the persecutors out there, for the rescuers out there. Those are the three dynamics. You fall in one of those three, you either persecute, you rescue, or you're playing a victim. The only way out of that drama triangle is to take 100% responsibility. And when you own, it's not that you're bad or wrong, that you didn't keep your word, you're just acknowledging the fact, hey, I made this promise. It didn't happen. I want to acknowledge it. And that's it. You're not bad and wrong. So this whole bad and wrong, this whole like justifying self righteousness is underneath this, which is underneath the survival and scarcity. And when you understand the foundation, Steve, that are driving why these things don't get corrected, then you can just notice them when they show up and then get back on the trail. It's just like when you go on a diet and I eat a cupcake and it doesn't mean I'm off my diet, it just means I slipped and I'm going to get back on the, on the, on horseback and start galloping forward.

That is a good, that's an awesome way to put that too because you know now if you, if you let it mean you're off your diet and you have a cupcake every day at 2 o' clock and then you know, ice cream at night before bed and then so yes, you've, you've totally abandoned it and your, your mindset is exactly what you said. It's not oops, I slipped and people do. It's oops, I've slipped and it's over and done. And then you're right back to where you started and you wasted a bunch of time. You wasted your team's time. I want to make sure that we cover right now a couple of things before we kind of go into the wrap up and I want to again, I got a lot of things going here, questions and trying to pay attention and keep notes. First of all, I want to thank you for sharing what you do with your coaching clients and you've done for 6,000 practices. And here at the end, we're going to give listeners or viewers a link that they can go to and schedule a little time with you. No obligation, no time. Nobody's gonna try and sell you anything. You can ask Gary what you want. You can get into his schedule, and you schedule a lot of slots for. For our people. Right? I mean, it's lots. Yeah, it's very, you know, Gary's very gracious with his time, and we appreciate that. And, you know, sometimes it turns into something. You know, it turns into a relationship. Sometimes it's just Gary saying, hey, let me clarify this, and, you know, go do it yourself. Everything that we're discussing, I think the interesting thing is you can do it yourself. You can start out tomorrow and you can do every one of these things. It's the 11 herbs and spices. And you can, you know, here's how to make the chicken might not taste as good as Kentucky Fried Chicken, because there's other stuff, but here's at least the recipe. Go try it if you want. If it works, awesome. If it doesn't work, you know, Gary's available, and I want to thank you for setting those. Those times aside. And we'll. We'll give at the end where they can click and. And get. Try and get one of those spots in your schedule. And number two, how to get the book Million Dollar Dentistry. And, you know, again, it's a. It's a very concise read that's got a lot of meat packed into it. So my favorite kind of book, so to kind of start putting a bow around this. And I've got a couple of questions that I just want to make sure that we're covering about maybe how do I announce these new expectations? In the chapter, you talk about transformations, which I think is really fundamentally what the last question was about. And we've got quite a few that are about, how do I do this? How do I start this? And you talk about three types of transformation that you know from where you are now. And, you know, I think if you're watching this now, which we've got a very large crowd, if you're watching this now, there's a reason. And so understand that and say, I'm, you know, I'm not. It's. My life's not terrible, my practice isn't terrible, but it could always be better. And here's a few ways if I want to transform that. What are those three types of transformation that somebody watching could start to go through or understand where they are.

Yeah, this is great. So there's three I'm going to. I'll state them first, Steve, and then I'll unpack them. All right? So going from doubt to uncertainty, this is transformational. On it, not only professionally, but personally. Going from survival to being of service, caring, being of service. Third is going from blaming to taking responsibility. So those. When you transform and you. And you know, this is not a transaction, this is a transformation. These three elements, when you move from here to here, your world opens up. That's what a transformation is. A transformation is. I'll give you an example. I had it that all women were controlling. So I. That is a. That has a fixed idea that allows me to interpret that that woman is. Either she's passive or she's controlling me. Judith is powerful, very different than controlling. So I went and talked to a guy just like I'm talking to you, and he gave me a new frame to look through, which is consider that all women are not controlling. They may be powerful, that you may be collapsing into control. And that's why you can't see somebody who is on the level that you're at and you want to play at. And so when Judith would bring those things, like I'm this or I'm that, I would interpret that as control. And really, she is powerful beyond measure because she's just a Claire. She's not trying to control me. She's declaring what she stands for, and I either play on her playing field or not, you see? So that's what a transformation is. And then, by the way, once I learned this distinction, I met her within two weeks. Steve. So your world opens up because you filter and process through your belief systems. Do you like to be wrong about your beliefs? Hell, no. So you're looking for things in your world to validate your reality. That's how it works. Okay, So I can spend a whole coaching session on this, but I'm going to get really into doubt and certainty. If you live in doubt, okay? And by the way, 75% of dentists start out living in this concept of doubt, afraid to make a decision. Analysis, paralysis are all examples of this. Think about this. Three quarters of all dentists live in this world. So it's not your fault. It's your Persona that creates this, because most of them are methodical. In order to do dentistry, you have to be able to know the steps for things running a business. You are not trained like you're trained in Dentistry to know all the steps. Right. So it puts you in doubt when you go to approach this type of element. But it's all proven. It's all steps. It's all built as steps. But if you don't know the steps, you stay in doubt. And you can't implement anything because you're in doubt about it. You have to move to something called certainty. So I want to give you the three domains of this, and this will make it easy for you, Steve. Ready? There's, you know, things. There's things, you know, like dentistry, there's things that you don't know. I don't know how to lead, but you can go figure, find it out, and then you put it into knowing. You can put your. Don't know into know. Here's where people live, where they get stuck. They don't know that they don't know something.

Okay. Yeah. So you don't know what you don't know.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And that's. So that's what people. That's what puts people in doubt. And they don't even step on the playing field because they don't want to make a mistake. So my point to you is this. You're in all knowing at all times. So you know when you know, you know when you don't know. And you can put that into the domain of knowing. Therefore, you're always knowing. So if you begin to get this process, you got to kind of let it settle in a little bit. But what I'm saying here to you is you might not have to. You might not know everything. Another example of this is sleep dentistry. Doctors want to. They want to do sleep dentistry, or they want to do Invisalign, but they need to do the cases in order to be in certainty. And I'm saying no. You just know what you know, know what you don't know, find out the things that you don't know. And now all of a sudden, you're doing Invisalign cases or sleep cases. We. We walk doctors through this concept all the time, moving from doubt to certainty. You're in. You can choose to be certain right now because it's a way of being. It's something you can control. It's your relationship to whatever you're taking on. If I walk into our sessions in doubt, I'm not going to be powerful. I used to, and now I don't. I know what I know. I know what I don't know. So the being that comes to you, Steve, that does these. I'm always afraid that you're going to ask me a question I don't know an answer to seriously. But what I do is I bring to our interaction certainty and then I work it out and sometimes I can say I don't know that, but I'll find it out. So therefore I always know. So it's a little bit hard, like it's non linear in a conversation, but hopefully you get it that you're always in knowing and if you approach that from a place of being now all of a sudden you can create and cause anything you want from a place of certainty you can't from a place of doubt.

So the reason I read ahead, Gary, is I'm always afraid I'm going to ask a stupid question. See. So between the two of us, we, you know, we found, you know, we found the happy middle ground, the productive middle ground.

And that's for everybody in all things. Yeah, yeah.

And so as you were. So again, I speak a lot on mindsets, on your clinical mindse mindset and your practice owner mindset. And I see a lot of practice owning dentists who, their clinical skills, they, they spend a lot of money and time and they get them way up here and so sleep, for example, so they are confident in the clinical part of sleep and they come charging in and they tell their, you know, their staff, we're doing sleep now and I know everything there is to know about, ask me about and I'm going to make this junk up. So ask me about airway sizes and, you know, airflow and whatever the stuff is. And a year later they've spent, you know, 100 grand on sleep courses and haven't done a single case and can't figure out why. It's not, it's not the confidence in your clinical skills, it's confidence in your ability to, for your team to understand how it works, to treatment plan it, to get paid for it from medical insurance as opposed to dental insurance. It's your business confidence in getting the cake, getting a happy patient, getting the case done and back to your, you know, pee and painter and getting paid for it rather than making it a complication in your business that nobody wants to do. So I think that's right. You don't know what you don't know. And for practice, owning dentists, more clinical skills make you a better clinician. You can still go bankrupt and you know, you can still, the whole practice can collapse around you, but it won't make the practice magically do better. And I think that's what you're Saying, no, you know, clinical, skill wise. I always, you know, you've seen this. I always say, you know, ask for a raise of hands. Who of everybody in the room, all you dentists, how many of them. How many of you got a diploma from dental school? You know, everybody raised their hands. And I say, how many of you got a license from your state that you're good enough to be a dentist? And everybody raised their hand. So we're going to take all your clinical junk, put it to the side. Hell, you have two. You got a diploma and a license. What more do you need? You're good enough, but you're struggling for other reasons. So what you don't know. So the idea is, let's talk about that. And that's a hard thing. You do it very well. I think you approach it a practice owner who struggles with that, you make it okay to say, well, I don't really understand what's happening here. One of your chapter five is why your team hates you. You make it okay for somebody to say, my team hates me. I'm pretending that they don't. And my answer is, fire everybody and start over, which happens a lot. But go back and read chapter five or watch episode five and Gary does a good job of telling you why. Yeah, that's a thing. But it doesn't need to be.

Exactly. And there's three types of capital. Just going back to the clinical capital. There's mental capital, which is the CE junkie who is really good clinically. There's relationship capital, why your team hates you or why your patients hate you. That's your ability to have relationship capital. Because you need those two types of that type of capital to run your business and speak to your patients. And then the last one is financial capital. Those are three different types of capital. And you have to know how to get, how to work that as a dentist, those three things. And if you don't, and you're living in doubt, you can't cause that. And what I'm saying to you is this, Even if you don't know how to do it, you can still be certain. You can be certain that you know, you don't know it. And you need help to get it done. And you bring somebody in to get it done. Do that. But you still can take. And I'll go to the last one. Stop blaming your team. Stop blaming your patients, Stop blaming Covid. And you know, Covid's happened a long time ago. It's like, time to move on here. Blaming the taking responsibility. Most people don't want to take responsibility because they don't. They don't want to feel dominated by it. They feel dominated by it. You're at. Your life gets so much simpler, easier, more fulfilling. You'll have economic security, you'll have clinical satisfaction. You'll have free time to enjoy it all. If you take responsibility. It's the opposite. I know in our heads, like when we own something. And by the way, remember, avoidance and acquiescing is the. Is 75% of the dentists we work with default into avoiding it, hoping it goes away, or saying yes and meaning no, that this is a problem with our patients. So move from blame to taking responsibility. It's a flip of a switch. It's a choice you make and just own it. And then you can be at cause in the matter if you don't own it, Steve, you can't cause because you're giving your power away to what you say is the reason why. It's your justifier. It puts you off the hook and then sets you up beautifully as a victim. It's awesome if you want to stay in that treadmill. But if you want to break free from that treadmill and want to have a full life, money, time, joy, connection, this is it right here.

Which is a good segue into chapter nine, getting off the new patient treadmill. So one of the things that, as you were talking, that popped into my head is that a lot of time, in my experience with practice, owning dentists, again, awesome clinical education, the dentistry, the business part of it is what they struggle with. The dentistry is fine, but they, they feel like, I'm going to read a chapter, I'm going to listen to this Gary guy, Steve, asking some, you know, goofy questions, and shazam, I'm going to go in tomorrow and be a different person. And you don't. There are always, always, always in a business, difficult situations, difficult conversations you have to have. You just have to have them. And as, as my wife is so fond of saying, that's, you know, think of it this way. That is a day you never have to live over again. So whatever, you know, I've got a team member that is just off the rails, and we got to fix it. I've got patients that I'm scared to death to lose. I'm going to change. I'm going to quit taking this insurance company. And I'm laying awake thinking, oh, my gosh, the sky's going to fall when I do. All those things are real. And you said something very key, I think, is Avoiding it will not make it go away. It will not get better. The longer you avoid it, it will only get worse. So I appreciate sharing that as we sort of. We kind of get to the end and they're sending me a little message, and we got a lot of questions. Keep them coming in. All of them will get answered, you know, personally or on an email or some kind of response, but your question will get answered there. We're going to pop up a little box here that they can click on and talk to somebody about scheduling time with you. 30 minutes, you got 10 spots. And I appreciate that, you know, over the course of the month, and usually they fill up pretty fast, I think, don't they?

Like, like tonight, last. Last week. Last week or last month's, they had a bump into this month. So I added some extra time from people from last month. So I did help that out a little bit. But, yeah, it's been. It's been a really cool experience. Your community, Steve, is a powerful group.

Of people, you know, and we want them. So I'm a big fan of learning and asking those stupid questions, and I want people to tell me what's going on in their world. You know, you and I did some things back in Covid that was, I think, what I hear was very helpful to practice owners. But really all we did was said, what's going on with you? And found out there were a lot of things that, you know, you wouldn't suspect. And as a business owner, it's a tough time and tough times suck, but you go through them as dentists and practice owners, it's the end of the world, and it doesn't need to be. So I'm a big fan of just asking. Just call up and say, you know, even with Gary, hey, Gary, I'm going through this. What do you recommend? And you're always generous with your time. So the little box is popping up and just click on there. There's a limited number of slots, but again, Gary's very generous when you do that. Also, at the end, there's going to be a link to get a copy of the book, Million Dollar Dentistry. You won't get this one. You got to buy. You got to buy this on ebay. This is hot. This is a hot topic, Steve.

That's like two grand, that one, right?

You got to get the new. The new version. And I'm not selling this one. I'm keeping this forever. But Gary, I appreciate, again, the time. Chapter 8 why patients try your patients next episode number nine is getting off the new patient treadmill, which I'll admit, I have read ahead, and that is, that is probably one of the most important topics that we usually cover when we go through things is docs who think the solution to everything is just new patients. All I need is more new patients, and I'm going to spend a ton of money getting new patients, and I still can't meet payroll. I'm still struggling to pay the bills, and I'm borrowing again. But new patients is the answer, and you do a very good job of explaining why it's not the answer. You do need new patients, but a bunch of new patients is going to solve. If you, what you, what do you say if you've got, you know, if they're going out the back door faster and they're coming in the front door, fix the back door. Not, you know, don't, don't get a bigger flow in the front. So I'm looking forward to that one. So, as always, Gary, a parting thought. Words of wisdom, Gary Ism, which needs to be a book, by the way, the Gary Isms. Any parting thoughts for when your patients try your patience?

Yeah, I, you know, I knew that that was going to come, and I try to think of them before, but I can't. So they just come to me as they pop up. And it's this one. I've learned this one the hard way. People do the best they can with what they know. When they know better, they do better.

Okay. So, yeah, I think that's. I was, I was trying to paraphrase because I've heard that same sort of thing. What is it? People rise to their level of incompetence, and at some point, you either have to get more competent or just be stuck. And, you know, a lot of people watching tonight are probably stuck. They. They sense they're stuck, but they don't have to be stuck.

You know, it's. I always. I got another one now. Pain in dentistry is necessary and suffering is optional.

Seriously? Okay, I haven't heard that, so I'm going to write that one down.

Pain in dentistry is necessary. That tells you you need to make a change. If you stay in that, if you stay stuck, you're suffering, and that part is optional. Make the unacceptable unacceptable, and you'll get into action and change the experience that you're having. Nothing is good as you think it is, nothing as bad as you think it is, and nothing lasts forever. So therefore, you can make changes if you choose to.

That is no better way to end than that. So I see a lot of people clicking over. Keep. Keep doing that. Any issues or questions, call me. We'll make sure you get, you know, you get some time with Gary, even if we have to roll over a little bit. But Gary again, Chapter eight's awesome. Looking forward to next episode Practice owners. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, See you.