Prepare yourself, I’m about to tell you something very special. This single mindset shift in your practice, really in your life, immediately puts you in a position to prosper like never before.
First, a little backstory. Like most people, my brother and I come from humble beginnings. Of course, in our minds we had everything we needed because we didn’t know the difference.
Whether it was going out to dinner or an action figure as a reward for good grades, there was never anything just because we wanted it. There was no money for that. Vacations were planned and budgeted for in years, not months.
And you know what? I wouldn’t change anything about my childhood. You’ve read more about my life in my books and it is important that each of us is grateful for our past, appreciative of everything that led us to where we are today, and all the experiences that made us who we are.
The most certain way to rob yourself of your potential, your peace of mind, and most of all your happiness is to have any regret or resentment for your unique journey. Being at peace with the past and actually building upon it is the entire point.
Because of this upbringing, I had certain thoughts in my mind. Very rigid thoughts about how things were supposed to be or the way people were supposed to live. I had incredible self-limiting beliefs about what I could achieve or what I should pursue. This is not because anyone ever limited me.
The Four Agreements, which I always reference as my number one life-changing book, talks about the dynamic of where you are born into this world provides your initial expectations, limitations, rules, and guidelines that you had absolutely no control over.
As you grow up, you gain the ability to live with independent thought and have some room to explore. However, even though boundaries and restrictions you had growing up are all gone, you still live and act, behavior and decide, think and believe as if they all still exist.
Once you follow your instinct and you begin to push the boundaries of your own beliefs, you realize how vast it is, how capable you are, and how much was left just out of reach.
With each passing experience, mistake overcame, challenge conquered, and knowledge gained – your desire for more grows, your vision of what’s possible expands, and your expectations for life flourish.
Along the way, you meet others who share this awakening and realize you are not alone. This feeds your confidence and validates your new version of reality.
The most important part of all of this is your belief in yourself of what you can do, your deserve level of what you are worthy of achieving, and your willingness to persevere through the challenges ahead.
Some of those challenges are in fact new boundaries, new expectations, new restrictions that are forced upon you all over again. It happens a few times in everyone’s life. It’s as if you are reborn into a new institution that sets the rules for you to follow.
This is precisely what happens in Dental School… What a dentist is. What a dentist isn’t. What a dentist should be. What a dentist can do. What a dentist can earn.
Then once you have your own practice, it all starts over again. You immediately conform to an industry full of have-to’s and can’t-do’s as they set all of the restrictions and limitations.
Your willingness to question the norms, the status quo, and the “right” way is up to you. Perhaps, just was when we were children, you accepted this reality because you didn’t know the difference.
I’d do the childhood thing if, I were you. Think back through what beliefs have changed from your childhood to now. Think about what you were born into believing and how you evolved as a person with your own thoughts, philosophy, principles, and ideals.
What if this all applies again to your dental practice? What if the same dramatic transformation is possible again in life?
What if you follow your instinct and you begin to push the boundaries of your own beliefs, you realize how vast it is, how capable you are, and how much was left just out of reach.
Know this, it’s wide open and you already believe that to be true. It’s why you are here. Because you didn’t fit inside the mold of an ordinary dentist and you never will.
Life, business, dentistry are all fertile ground for anything you want to plant and nurture. With the right tools, resources, guidance, and plan – you can achieve your ideal vision of the future.
And the simplest fix in thinking is where it begins.
So, are you ready for me to tell you something very special? I’ve kept you waiting because the backstory and setting the stage was so important. The greatest mindset shift you will ever make about your practice and your life is: you do not have to choose just one. You do not have to limit yourself to your preferences or your priorities, your practice or your lifestyle, your goals or your balance.
Every doctor I have ever met has always come to me first having boxed themselves into believing that they are limited to what is possible because of other choices, parameters, decisions, or circumstances that have been made. That’s just not true.
Dentistry is a buffet of ideas, options, choices, and models that you can pick and choose what you want and what you don’t, what you like and what you don’t like, who you are and who you aren’t.
There is no such thing as “either-or” in life. There is no “it’s either this or it’s that.”
Principles, work ethic, responsibility are all required for success in life and business but limitations, restrictions, boundaries shouldn’t be.
Next week, I’m going to blow up the business of dentistry and show you just how wrong it is, why so many doctors stay stuck in the either-or trap, and how you can absolutely have it all exactly your way.
