Unify Your Team and Magnify Your Freedom Featuring Dino Watt - I Love Marketing Episode #426

All culture starts with relationships. All of them. First of all, the relationship with yourself. Who do you think you are? Who do you feel you are? Do you ask for what you want or just assume people should know?

Self awareness, isn't it?

Total awareness. And do you know what your own vision is? Do you know what you want out of this? Because why would anybody follow somebody who doesn't have a vision?

The big live Genius Network event is coming soon and we can't wait to see you there. Join us February 11th through the 13th, 2022 in Scottsdale, Arizona for the Big return of the legend himself, Joe Polish. This event will be an unforgettable experience that you won't want to miss with incredible speakers including Derek Sivers, Chris Voss, Whitney Jones, Jim Kwik and more. To reserve your spot, apply to attend@gieniusnetwork.com Dino Watt is the founder and CEO of Ripple Effect, Inc. And one of the most exciting business relationship trainers in the world. As an award winning mentor, author of five books, dynamic speaker, and international trainer, Dino is constantly focusing on how he can contribute more positively and productively to every business and person he interacts with. He does this by making things simple to understand and easy to use. Ultimately, he's focused on building trusting relationships where others can count on him. For the past 10 years, Dino has built his business in the private practice world with a special focus on orthodontists. As a high performance practice advisor, Dino has frequently been referred to as the Tony Robbins of private practices. His goal is to help business leaders create more passion, be more productive and create more Prof. In all areas of their life. Dino's been married to his childhood friend Shannon for over 27 years and they have three adult kids. So would you please help me? Everyone, let's welcome Dean Jackson and Dino Watt.

Wow. You know, in every journey there's some key vector changing moments where you see something and that you say ah, that's it and you calibrate and that's the direction and it changes everything.

Yeah, totally. Well, I had a very specific pivot moment where so even though I love relationships of growing up I was a performer and I was the only male dancer in like my three little city area. I grew up in the high desert of California. I always thought that that's what I was gonna do. I was very excited about it. I went when I was 19, I went and I moved to Japan and I lived in Japan for a couple of years as a service mission with my church and then came back and moved immediately to LA for a While I was a Disney dancer and I had danced in, you know, behind the scenes and little videos and things like that. But I really wanted to be a performer. However, I got married pretty young. My wife and I got married when we were 20. I was just barely 22. And we didn't immediately start on a family, but by the time I started on a family, I was working in the movie industry. I was doing that basically to see how I can get kind of behind the scenes and get to know producers and directors and get into the industry. And I ended up getting a degree in makeup artistry. I know totally left field out of what I do now, but I loved the gore and the makeup and all that stuff. And so I got into that. But once we had our first child, Hannah, I was working on a TV show and I was working 14, 15 hour days. I'd only have Saturday, Sunday off. Saturday I spent the day mostly sleeping. Sunday I'd be at church and with my family and then go get ready to go back to work. And I really realized that this industry, the movie industry, wasn't conducive to having a family. And although I had the passion of being a performer, I had a bigger passion of wanting to be a dad and be present and be there and be someone who I knew I'd be there for all those moments. I've lived by a rule for years now. I heard this when I was a teenager, which was no success outside the home can compensate for failure in it. And that's where I wanted to live. Like, just like, there's no way I'm going to sacrifice my family. So at one point, I actually gave up on my dream and I gave up on the passion. And I said I was okay with it. I would be like, hey, I'm doing this for my family. I didn't have any other education. I was going to do this, but I was bitter. I was bitter, I was angry. I would take it out on my kids sometimes, you know, when I'd get angry, like, I left my career. I didn't say this to them, but I said I left my passion for them, right? And I'd get upset. Then one day, this is where the pivot moment was, was I was trying to dabble in real estate and I saw a gentleman on stage. I was at a seminar, I saw a gentleman on stage talking about taxes. He was funny and he was engaging and he told amazing stories. And we were sitting in the audience just like rolling with laughter and thinking, this guy's talking to us about Taxes, and he's entertaining. And I had a moment where I went, wait a minute. He's on a stage, he's performing. I'm in the audience. He's going to get paid. I can do that. And suddenly my life changed because I went, I want to know how to be a speaker on a stage. All I got to do is find the thing I'm passionate about, which just happened to be relationships, and went from there. So that was the pivot moment for me.

That's so great. Isn't that amazing? And then when you get it now, you're right on track there.

I already knew how to perform on stage. I'd done improv, I performed. I'd been on stages. I knew how to work a stage, work a microphone, and engage an audience. And so now the biggest challenge was, now this wasn't about me being a performance with, like, playing a character. It was me being me. And the more authentic I got, the more I could tell stories about who I was, the easier it was for me. It was really a lot of fun. The first time I asked for big money, I had just gotten into this industry in the ortho industry, met a gentleman. I'd done some speeches, and I was at his office, and my offer to him was $10,000 a month for my coaching. And that was a big. That was actually probably. I would contribute a little of that to Genius Network. I'd been to a annual meeting. I had a coach who was like, go big. Like, all they can do is say no and whatever. And he said yes. And I remember walking through the airport with a literal $10,000 check in my hand, in my pocket, at least, and not walking through the airport, but strutting through the airport going, none of these people realize I got 10 grand in my pocket right now.

So fast forward now, what does it look like, the maturity now kind of your business? What's.

Yeah, so it's been. It's been cool because it's a mixture of all of it. I speak a lot all over the country. I do even. I've even gone into doing some emceeing things. So I found a niche, right? I found an industry that needed that. They were looking for me without knowing they were looking for me. They have done the same thing over and over and over again for all these years. They've had the same type of consultant, they've had the same type of speakers, they've had the same type of systems. And so I kind of come in and say, well, I'm not from this industry and meaning I'm not an orthodontist nor have I ever worked in an orthodontic office. So let me just show you some things that you're doing that seem 10, 20 years old. You could do this a lot faster or this could be better. At events especially, they're super, they're emceeing. Emcee are usually really bad. Their speakers are usually just PowerPoint speakers and not actually interactive. So yeah, that's been really cool. So I do a lot of speaking and then coaching is a lot of one on one. I'm actually moving a lot more, trying to move everything a lot more towards elf. And there's still some half parts of my business. I mean, I'll be totally real with everybody here. There's still half parts for sure. Where it's me, I'm my business. Right. I couldn't take a year off like Joe has and have a team run that for me because I don't have sub coaches and stuff. And the hardest part is that it's people really want me. You know, I'm the author of the book, I'm the creator of the program. So they want that part of it. So that's been hard to switch and duplicate, but we're working on that right now.

Well, that's, you know, the greatest thing about that particular transition is that the path has been laid. I mean, there's the people who've gone before and kind of see that. And the biggest lesson that people don't really maybe understand about that is that it's, it's definitely that the skills that got you here won't get you there. Yeah. You know, Dan Sullivan always says that the skills that got you out of Egypt won't get you out of the promised land. But they're certainly the building blocks, you know, and it's like for you being able to lay out your everything that, you know, packaged up, there's so much freedom on the other side of that.

So it's something that because of strategic coach and because of genius, I've really been focusing a lot on of.

How.

To create either the group situation.

Yes.

How do I create like a mastermind like this in this industry? I'm learning a lot of lessons around. Probably the biggest challenge I come up against is right now. We're all sitting here, we're all entrepreneurs, we have entrepreneur mindset. We could be on a meeting at where I am, you know, 1:40, 1:50 in the, in the afternoon. But my clientele, they're still, even though they're entrepreneurs. They're very much business owners. Oh, yeah, they're really operators.

Practitioners. They're practitioners, yeah.

So they don't have freedom hours.

Right.

So I'm still working around that, trying to make it work with them. Work within the time zones because you got, you know, groups that will be get done at whatever time. And so there's a lot of play around that. But yeah, it's been an interesting thing to do. I can't complain, though. I mean, I'm super blessed and grateful for what I get to do.

So in all the things that you've seen working with highly skilled practitioners, it is a difference. There's not a lot of leverage. If you are an orthodontist, you are the one that is required in that skill, because you can't. You've got to replace you with someone who has equal skill skill in that. So I imagine you've gotten a front row seat to see a lot of things. Why Kind of. Some of the things that Eunice said you might share with us, imagine they come from that front row seat. And so I'm interested to hear about your observation of some of the factors that kind of lead to burnout that you've seen in these. Because it must be a grind knowing that there's no way out. A lot of my, my friends that I play golf with at my country club are dentists.

Yes.

You know, it's Wednesday afternoon and Friday afternoon that they get to take up at every other moment of their life is booked solid just doing what they do. There's no breathing room or create space in that. So.

And dentists have one of the highest suicide rates in the country. Right. And you look at that and a lot of people ask me why when it comes to dentists specifically. And that's where I started, actually, was the dental field. And it kind of evolved over into the ortho field. And it's a little different because in the dental field, they are, you know, they're causing pain to someone. Every single.

Nobody wants to go see you.

No one wants to go see you.

They go through their whole life never meeting you. They don't pay you.

They.

They're dealing with what, one of the three worst or an ugliest orifices in the body. Right. They are not. They're not appreciated for what they do. Like, nobody gets up from the chair and says, thank you so much, you're the best person ever. Right. Nobody does that. And then you compile that on top of that with. They go through a ton of schooling and years and years and years. And they're the type of people that they skipped going to the parties at college, and they had their nose to the grindstone, and they also knew that if they just. They worked hard enough, they'd be able to figure out the equation and get past it. Well, no one taught them anything about how to run a business. Not a single thing. Like, you do not get trained at all on how to be an entrepreneur, and then you're dropped into owning a practice and having to be a business owner. And no one taught them anything about emotional intelligence and relationship building and communication. And so they are dealing with requirements.

Of having a team.

That's right.

All going right?

That's right. I mean, I. So I have a thing that I work really hard with in this industry, which is around the idea of staff versus team. Right. I don't call anybody a staff because a staff is an infection that nobody wants. But a team wins and loses the day together. Right. Well, they don't even know how to interact with people. Matter of fact, the reason why one of the reasons I got into this industry was there was a gentleman who I was coaching in his relationship, in his marriage, which is where I started, and he's like, dino, this is great in my marriage, but I'm married to six other work wives. How do I communicate with them? How do I connect with them? They've got different personalities, and I got to deal with all of that. So that stress on top of no one wanting to come see you, now the ortho world's a little different because they're beautifying you, right? They're making you look better, but there's still some of that element there, like, oh, I got to go to this dentist or this orthodontist. So that's where that stress and frustration and trying to figure it out. This is where the biggest burnout comes in. Again, I'll go back to. They lived in a world, especially going through school, that they could just work harder and figure it out. Elf to them is a fantasy. That's crazy because they have all the logic behind of, like, no half is better. I'm gonna have to work hard. I'm going to have to go through some lame things. They just think that's the way it is because that's how they were successful then. And then the last part of it is the perfectionism piece that all of them, especially my orthodontists, live in a world of millimeters. Yeah, it's a millimeter off.

Is that I got to imagine that Invisalign has made the orthodontic world much easier on them in terms of.

No, no.

I would imagine them having to. I used to have braces, and I have to go to the orthodontist, and he'd have to get in there and twist the things and rewire and tighten and get the electric bands and the headgear, all of that stuff. You could see that it required the tinkering of an artist to bend or mouth into his will. But it seems like with the Invisalign, it's literally here, try these for two weeks and then these for two weeks and these. And you're kind of serving it, kind of.

So what happens is, number one, it's not as. So it's a lot more upfront work. Right. Because they've got to design the smile in the computer and the computer. The trays they want. That'll make the thing happen. Right?

Yes.

However, the stress is now, here is a business that they became specialties in. Right. So they went to dental school and then went to specialty to become an orthodontist. But now dentist can do Invisalign.

Sure. Yeah.

So as a business owner, now I've got now more competition because these guys who aren't specialists can do it, because a computer can kind of figure out some of it on the easier cases. So there's that stress. And then now you've got. Because of the liner situation, you've got things like Smile, DirectClub and Candid and these other companies that are now saying, you don't even need an orthodontist, you can just do it at home. So add that to the business pressure of stress and frustration and overwhelm. Yeah. So you're right that the mechanism is easier. They don't have to see you as many times in the office. You can stretch it between appointments. But now you've got to hope that your patients are compliant and actually going to help you and actually change out the trays. Well, you have to wear those trays 22 hours minimum of day. So you're talking. I was literally just in an exam this morning where they're talking to the kid about, do you want braces or Invisalign? And the parents are like, you mean we got to trust our kid to take these out, eat, and put them back in every day, and I'm going to pay five grand for this? No, they're getting braces.

Right, right. That's interesting. Yeah. I wonder if I could have been. Well, I wasn't trusted with my headgear. That was.

I was. I had headgear too.

Yeah, no, that was. We were probably the last generation to get headgear before they realized it's still available.

Some kids, yeah. Extreme cases, they have to. But I had braces for four years. So what's fascinating is you. Until I got into syndicate, I didn't really look at how braces itself changed my life. I mean, I had jacked up. I had such jacked up teeth that my front tooth was on top of the other tooth. The other teeth were coming in. You know, I tell this joke on stage and it's true, but I had jacked up teeth. I had parents had just divorced, I had a speech impediment, I have dyslexia. And I had the name dino in the 70s. Like not a lot of things were going well for a little Dino. Right. So, yeah, I'm grateful for my races.

That's so funny. It's a good thing I had such dashing good looks and charm. I can work my way through the head.

I'm totally jealous.

Limitation in any way. That's good. So when you come into work with these, with these orthodontists, with the teams, you're really kind of approaching it like counseling in a way, I guess. Right. Or with the team dynamics. How do you identify, like the team drama and the, you know, what comes up kind of thing. And imagine that that's just a microcosm, that if we took it into every other type of business, it's the same thing.

Yeah, that's what's been really interesting is that I have, when I built my ideas around business, combining relationships with businesses, it works for any company, it doesn't matter. But yeah, definitely going into these offices, seeing where the staph infection is, where the trauma is. I do a couple. What's that?

It's you, Nancy. You're the staff infection.

I try not to do that. Like one of the things that I tell all my teams when I go on, because where I've made a bit of a niche inside this niche is all of the consultants in this industry are like old school, been around forever. One person lovingly calls them, you know, all the grandmas. It's primarily female, so that's. I stand out a little bit that way. Two is there are people who were, were in an office before they figured out something cool or faster, better way to do something, and now they're consultants. I'm not that. And so sometimes team members get a little apprehensive about having a consultant come in because they think they're going to tell them they're doing something wrong. I've heard of people, you know, literally crying when they're talking to these people because they're so mean stuff. And other consultants will come in and say, this person needs to go. That person's not a fit. Da, da, da. And so the first thing I do is after I send everybody a quiz that's a blind quiz, just kind of a survey to find out how they're feeling about the office and all this stuff when I come in. First of all, I use a lot of humor. I bring a lot of humor in. I let them see that I'm non threatening because I'm gonna be humorous. And I'll tell them straightforward. I will never go into any business and tell the business owner that this person needs to go. I'm gonna ask the owner, why are you okay with that? And that way they're making that decision. And it's not about me coming in and messing it up. My job. When people ask me what I do, I don't make better employees. I think that sounds like a terrible job description. Nobody wants you around because what are you going to do? Like, I don't want that. What I do is I'm going to help you have better relationships and your marriages and your friendships as a citizen, as a sister, as a daughter. I'm going to help you improve that because I'm going to help you get more of what you want in your life. My why in life is to contribute to people. I want to contribute a better, faster, easier way. I do that by simplifying things and building relationships of trust with people. And so once they see that, it makes it a lot easier.

Do you ever watch that show Bar Rescue?

I've seen it a few times, yeah.

Yeah, I was thinking about that. Where they come in or the profit with.

I'm more profit than Bar Rescue.

Okay. But I mean, the same issues, though. It's the same thing. It's just a different approach. Like, John Taffer's got a. A very like, you know, bellowing kind of, you know, yelling to get to the point kind of thing. But Marcus Lemonis has the same. It's all the same issues of dealing with the internal team. Everybody's not. Nothing's going to happen until everybody is, you know, that that's settled. And I think that that's.

Yeah, I think all of us do this thing. Like my, my job is to help get rid of the ego that's Inside of the office, we help them understand that there's an actual equation to building a culture and it can't happen by default. That's where most people's cultures are. And all cultures, every culture, I don't care if it's a culture of your home, culture of Google or a culture of chic orthodontics that I'm here today. All starts with relationships, all of them. First of all, the relationship with yourself. Who do you think you are? Who do you feel you are? Do you ask for what you want or just assume people should know?

Self awareness, isn't it?

Total awareness. And what Cameron talks about so much, right, Is the vision. Like, do you know what your own vision is? Do you know what you want out of this? Because why would anybody follow somebody who doesn't have a vision, right? And so we start there and it's again, it's different because most people expect me to come in and go, well, here's the process to answer phone calls better or make collections better. Talk to insurance companies better, like, nope, we're talking here first. And everything then improves when we can focus on these few things. Everything.

I heard something very simplified but interesting and true, that if people follow you, number one, you have to look like you appear like you know where you're going and you have to be moving. How can someone become a better leader, a better influencer and a better lover? I know this is the one everybody came here for.

You have to start backwards, okay? First, to be a better lover in your home, be a better communicator with your loved one, whoever your partner is, your spouse, your kids. But let's just go with spouse or a partner. When I decided to get married to my wife and we both sat down and I've known her since I was five, so we've literally known each other whole lives. She saw what my parents went through and what I went through. But we sat down and said, how are we not going to do that, right? Like my parents taught me a lot of things not to do, which I'm so grateful for. Right. It was very traumatic as a kid, but I joke with my parents at this point all the time. I've made a ton of money off of your divorce, so thank you.

Ah, right.

It's like a good thing. But I. So we sat down and we said, what are the systems, literally systems and processes we're going to put into our relationship so that doesn't happen? What are our core values that go beyond. I'll be honest with you, you know, or, you know, we love each other, so we started creating those. Well, as a entrepreneur, you've got a lot of stuff going on in your head. You only have bandwidth for so much. We talk about frustration, overwhelmed. Well, that's where it comes from. From if I'm not happy in my relationship, it is the underlining factor. Everything else I do, if I had a fight with my wife in the morning, I go to the office and the underlying things going on in my brain, that's taking up bandwidth. Even if I say, well, my office is my escape place or this is where I keep my focus, it's there. It underlines everything I do. If I'm not happy with my wife and I go to work, something small is going to piss me off with my team members. Something small is going to annoy me with a client. And so if I'm not happy there, then it affects everything else. So the opposite has to be true as well. So if I'm happy in my relationship, if I'm focused on creating a better relationship between my wife and my kids, then I'm going to not have to. That frees up so much more bandwidth to be creative, to be focused, to be in flow, to be attentive, to be present. And so if I can master that, then I can go and master this over here. And so I would start with lover. So focus on lover. Again, I'll go back to that saying, there's nothing will. No success outside the home will compensate for failure in it. As a leader, one of the core values I have in my relationship is radical transparency. Okay, we don't have honesty. We have radical transparency in my business ownership. I say the same thing with my business owner. So the first thing you have to be is be a hundred percent authentic with who you are, authentic with your team members, and love them enough to say no or to say goodbye. So what I mean by that is there's a lot of people that hold on to people in their businesses, employers, as employees, because they feel bad because they, you know, deep down that person is a good person.

Oh, yeah, they've been here so long.

Yeah. However, they're not being honest and they're not being in integrity with that person. This is that. This is the test. I always say I do this from this stage. I say, doctors, if you walk in in the morning and you see Sally, and Sally walks by you and you say, good morning, Sally, and she says, good morning, Doctor. And you think in your head, man, I wish you had quit, that is your cue that you're out of integrity and you need to let her go. It's not that she's doing anything wrong. Maybe Sally does want to come to work 10 minutes late. Maybe Sally does like the drama. Maybe Sally is somebody who is insubordinate. That doesn't make Sally wrong. And that's what we do as leaders is we tend to make them wrong. But true leadership is saying, huh, you know what? They're not wrong for wanting those things. I want to help them not want those things, but they're not wrong. They're just not the right fit for our business or we're not the right fit for them so we love them into another job and love them enough to say goodbye. That starts, that's where all leadership starts, is that authenticity of that. And then you can build upon empathy, you can build upon having a good vision and culture for your business. But if you can't be authentic and real and create that safe environment, then it's never gonna be, never gonna work out the way you want. I have a process which is called Core C O R E. And the first is culture. And within culture, then we focus on vision, the expectations and support. Then we go into the operations, but starting not with how you do stuff, but with why. Just like you know, Simon Sinek talks about with your why, then your systems and your responsibilities. Then we go into relationship with yourself, then your team, then your patients and then excellence. How do you take it to the next level with mentors, continual learning and celebrating success. And so I take them through the whole process. That's a year long process that I take them through.

And so what would be some of the things that you would talk about then with how we can apply that idea of becoming a relationship based business?

The most important thing is treating yourself so knowing how to treat yourself and to love yourself. So Dean, when you, I don't know if you, if you got it. I don't know if anybody else did. But when you first we got on today. I don't know if you asked me or maybe Timothy asked me. I think you did. You asked me how I was doing. Do you remember how I responded?

I don't recall. Sorry.

Does anybody remember how I responded? Put in the chat if you remember. Let's do it. We'll give away a gift to Barstow, California. Anybody remember what I said?

Go to the transcript.

Dean asked me, how are you? And I said, because it's the way. Yep, Simon got it. Great. Yep. I said, I'm awesome.

Okay.

I'm awesome. This is the only way I ever reply to that is because I didn't believe I was awesome for a very long time. Right? I was that kid who had all those challenges. And so as about 15 years ago, I started just going, you know what, I'm just gonna reply to everybody that I'm awesome, I'm awesome. You know, I'm awesome. And the reason why I bring that up is because the number one way to build your relationship with yourself is to start asking directly for what you want. So I'll give an example. My wife and I have this question that we ask ourselves. We've done this for now 27 years, is we ask each other. We have a marriage mastermind. I've actually thought about doing a 10 minute talk about this. It's called a marriage mastermind where we get together every month and now it's a lot faster. When we first started, it took a little bit more time, but we ask specific questions in specific categories and the one question we ask at the end is, if I was talking to Shannon, I'd say, how am I doing as a husband? And Shannon now knows that's the cue. It's the cue for Shannon to be gentle with me. Right? She's not going to go, well, let me tell you how you like. She's going to be like, oh, okay, well in this area you've been doing great. I really like this and maybe we can work on this. You haven't told me you love me in quite a while. So I'd love for you to like just to say you love me a little bit.

Kill you to tell me you love me.

Right, exactly. Then going on to, but then after. And I am also in the place because I've asked it of the mindset of going, I'm here to receive and hear. I'm not here to fight back, like, nuh, remember that time? Or I want to know how I'm doing. So the point of that is to be more willing to ask the questions of the people around you. How am I doing as a boss? How am I doing as an employer? How am I doing as a partner in our business? How am I doing as a mom? How am I doing as a dad? How am I doing as a member of Genius Network? Right. So therefore now you're getting a reply back and data that you can actually use and it's in a moment where everyone is on board with why you're asking for it and that's where you start building that. So asking for what you want as opposed to manipulating it when you get all frustrated and upset. Burnout comes from giving and giving and giving and giving and not receiving and not asking for what you want. That's where burnout always comes from.

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