In this talk, the speaker presents eight actionable ways for dental professionals to prevent burnout and reduce stress. The core advice centers on establishing firm personal and professional boundaries—such as protecting lunch breaks, refusing to squeeze patients, and saying no to excessive appointments. She warns against overbooking, emphasizing that more patients do not equal more revenue and that a sustainable schedule preserves clinical quality, including consistent use of rubber dams and proper materials. The speaker introduces influence principles from Cialdini, especially scarcity and liking, and stresses the importance of clear, empathetic communication and tone. Leadership and soft‑skill development are highlighted as critical, with data from the Carnegie Institute indicating that 85 % of success stems from these abilities. She advises dentists to seek mentorship, join programs like Practice Mastery, and prioritize the well‑being of their team, arguing that a healthy team directly improves patient care. Throughout, the tone is instructional and supportive, aiming to give dentists concrete, immediately implementable steps to protect their health, maintain high‑quality care, and build a thriving practice.
Chapters
Here are the 8 ways to avoid stress in dentistry. First of all, you need to get yourself outside if any. That's the number one thing. That setting firm boundaries is the number one thing for you with patients and staff. What that means is do not book people through lunchtimes. Do not book people in the afternoon. Do not squeeze patients in because who suffers? You suffer. That's who suffers. You push beyond your limits, you're exhausted, there's no downtime or not even a minute between patients and then you gotta switch back on. You know how many times I have laid on the floor between a full day of patients? I'm exhausted just thinking, wow, is this it? Is this what dentistry is meant to be like? Self-sacrifice, okay? No self-sacrificing. If your manager wants to come in, you organize a time in the morning, to meet with them at a particular time that works for your schedule. Okay? Because I know a lot of you here work on comms, right? You work on commission because you are basically your own business person within a business. Now with that in mind, time, patience. Some patients may come in and have you had these, right? Where they come in and they come in for one problem, but then you're, they're in their chair and they go, by the way, I have, I have A, B, and C. My other tooth hurts. Oh, this has been waking me up at night. And you're like, okay, which one are we gonna hang you on today? What are we gonna do today? And you can absolutely have a 5-hour appointment, which I would not recommend. Do not have long appointments because those people won't wanna come back and you won't wanna be a dentist much longer either. You will burn out so badly that you will hate the way that your practice is. And then you'll blame the practice, you'll blame a whole lot of other things. So you've got to learn to say the word no, okay? That's the number one thing, setting those firm boundaries with patients and with staff. So if you're a boss, on the other hand, appreciate and respect the time that your clinicians and your team are putting into serving your patients and your clients, and also into what they need, okay? And I know so many places that don't even have a lunchtime, and then you're frowned upon if you take your lunch. And that's ridiculous. You can't expect people to be robots. That's been one of my big Now, number 2, stop overbooking and protect the patient flow. More patients does not mean more money. You're going to do shitty dentistry if you are working through lunch from the morning to the evening or doing like 14-hour days for 4 or 5 days a week. That is not sustainable. You are not doing quality dentistry and you're doing a disservice for you and for the patients as well because you're cutting corners. Do not not place your rubber dam, you know, do not skip things and go, I'm just going to use the Fuji instead of the composite and building it up in increments. And make sure that the team at the front desk knows that as well. Overbooking is a big problem. You can be way more productive in the time that you have by setting the boundaries. And if you haven't heard of the thing, and if you haven't heard of Cialdini, Okay, and if you haven't heard of Dr. Chow Dieting, I'm one of his licensed trainers, and there are 7 principles of influence and persuasion. Now, scarcity is one of them because people want what is rare, and if you are hard to get, you're actually going to be way busier. And a lot of the time you don't even have to pretend that, because when you're a great clinician who knows how to communicate— that's what I teach my clients— communication is your number one thing you need to nail. And also your tone, the way you speak. Really important. Now, number 3, strengthen your leadership skills, not just clinical skills. Did you know that the Carnegie Institute of— did you know that the Carnegie Institute has said that 85% of your success is your soft skills? So you can be the best dentist in the world, but you will suck if 85% of the time you act actually don't know how to lead. Now, soft skills are personality— soft skills are personality, negotiation, influence, leadership, communication. Soft skills are leadership, communication, influence, negotiation skills, and personality. So if your personality is really dull, or if you're overly exhausted, you are not going to perform. And warm up Another of Dr. Cialdini's principles of influence and persuasion: they will not like you to be— so there's likeness, right? People will connect with you if they like you. And the first 9 seconds are the most important seconds for a patient to figure out if they like you or not, and they don't know anything about you yet. And you might do the same patients too. It's got to be a match. It's got to be a match for there to be success. It's like a recipe. Now you can learn leadership skills. Many dentists who are practice owners, or even if you're working with somebody, you absolutely— many dentists feel really stressed because they are managing people without any leadership skills. You don't learn that at university. You learn that on the job or from mentors. You want the quick way? You go get a mentor. You join Practice Mastery. You go and do the thing you need to do to learn how to manage people and manage yourself and lead. Because you could be fantastic at your work, however, your team's suffering. And the most important people for you to take care of is actually your team. You think it's your patients, it's actually your team. Because when you take care of your team, they and you together collectively will absolutely nail taking care of patients and your customer service.
