There is nothing more costly in your life than being wasteful with time and opportunity. Money…replaceable. Time, will you never get back. Opportunity, gifted, created, received with the option of being capitalized on or squandered.
Every single day in your life, in your practice you are faced with one word that summarizes what your role as a Dentist really is about.
Are you ready.
That one word is – Decision.
Decision, that’s it. Yes my friend, there is nothing in life that can happen: no patient that can be treated, no team member that will perform, no money that can be made without first making a decision.
Some big, some small, some of great importance, some of little consequence.
In life the person who has the most decisions to make carries the most responsibility, this person also is the one who stands to win in the biggest ways.
That is what makes the world go round and that is what defines You as a Practice Owner. Do you understand this point I’m making? The one with the most responsibility is the one who can win the most also.
You chose Practice Ownership.
You chose to be Leader of others.
You chose to put the future, lives, health, and happiness of people in your Hands, both your Patients and Your Team.
You chose to sacrifice for the dream of your practice.
These choices you exchanged for responsibility.
However, making decisions are not always a person’s strong suit. Are they yours?
Well, it’s not hard to find out, think about it.
Do you waste time pondering the obvious?
Do you question yourself constantly?
Do you let others push you around in your thoughts?
Do you leave important matters up to people with no experience or knowledge?
Do you let things weigh on your mind before OR after making decisions?
All signs of someone who is not very sure of themselves.
And someone not very sure of themselves is someone that is self-limiting their own success. Plain and simple.
Know this, decisive thought, assertive action, confident progress are all things that make success happen; all traits, signs, characteristics of smart, prosperous business people, and that doesn’t change just because we are talking about dentistry.
You show me a person who makes excuses by letting time pass them by and I will show you a person who doesn’t want to win very badly.
The clocks ticking.
The payroll turns over everyday.
The rent every month.
The patients don’t put life on pause to wait for your decision.
You are suppose to lead by example and be decisive.
If you are not, you are losing money.
Let’s practice:
Team members doing something stupid, you avoid confronting it, you take it home and sleep on it or worse yet you complain about it to your spouse…your other team members see you letting someone sabotage their success and efforts. You make excuses that you are letting time pass or thinking it will get better.
It won’t. Stop being in denial. Face fact, deal with it. Confront it. Be decisive and do something. It’s your business, people doing stupid things are ruining your life, stealing your money, robbing you of your peace of mind and distracting you from what really matters your patients and your family.
Another example:
Marketing: wasteful, stupid, know nothing people telling you to do something that seems obviously not smart. They are selling what they do… they are selling you not what you need but what they have to offer…c’mon it’s very common sense. If it does not have a tangible count-the-numbers results based guarantee, if it’s not even possible to track and monitor – then decisively don’t do it. Stop thinking about it, stop washing away money, stop trying to give up your responsibility to create new patients and find some easy fix to get it off your mind when it’s not going to work and you know it.
Decisively take ownership over the outcomes in your practice.
Here’s a good one:
Your Patients are sitting in front of you, lots of work to be done, they know it, they expect it, they want you to lead the way. They do not want to play doctor. They want a doctor who has confidence, who believes they are the best person on the earth to take care of their dentistry, they want someone who WANTS TO DO THE WORK and can stare them down in the face, look them in the eyes and say…Mr. or Mrs. Patient – here’s what we are going to do.
Be decisive. No one wants to be the patient of someone who can’t make a decision. I mean we aren’t trying on clothes here, it’s really not a matter of opinion. At least not the patient’s. Okay, sure if you are choosing shades of whitening, fine. But not when you are choosing clinical protocol.
You lose more money faster in bigger chunks than you even realize because you are not decisive with your patients. That comes across as weakness, uncertainty – it does not come across as compassion or caring – nope, stop kidding yourself.
Your bashful dentistry is making the dentist down the block rich.
Oh, this one is my favorite:
It’s your practice right?! Yes, obviously. That’s what you signed up for. Yours, no one else’s. So here’s an idea. No one is going to care about your success more than you are. So if you have some washed up know-nothing consultant that you have worked with in the past or currently who spouts off the same BS to every dentist they meet and they waste your time weighting options, fixing problems one at a time, dragging shit out or destroying the morale of your team, they are trying to hold you hostage to your own weaknesses.
These fools prey on your indecision. Please, see the writing on the wall. First of all, there is no person who has any degree of success that would travel around the country knocking on doors walking into practices like some traveling medicine man with a briefcase of snake oil pretending to know what they are doing or talking about.
Guess what, no one who could choose to do otherwise would ever pick a life like that. The best way to start being more decisive in your life is to start getting good advice to begin with.
You want someone who will pander to you…or who will really help you be a better Dentist, better Leader, better Practice Owner. You want to work with losers because it makes you feel smart or you want to work with winners who make you win and challenge your thinking of what’s possible, of what you know can be improved, of what you know you deserve to achieve.
Let me tell you the secret to being Decisive.
Three things.
1 – decisions are the currency of the rich…the more decisions you make the more money you make.
2 – decisions are always obvious…always…we choose to ignore things or lie to ourselves because we want to hedge our bets, we want to play it safe, we are trying hard to not lose, instead of playing to win…winners are decisive.
3 – decisions are time sensitive…because things are always changing and ultimately time is all we have, that’s it, so if you think you are going to sit on it, sleep on it, talk about it, or do anything else that makes you a chump, you can remember while you are doing all of these things delaying progress, disrespecting time, you are losing opportunity because a decision in this moment, hesitated over, is not the same decision when you wake up tomorrow, it just isn’t. Because time does not stop or stand still.
Here’s what I know…
Show me a dentist who is great at making decisions and who only allows very smart people into their lives to help them on decisions that they have no expertise with…
(hint, hint, go here to schedule a custom profit blueprint practice lifestyle strategy call with the smartest mind in the business side of dentistry alive today: Custom Profit Blueprint Strategy Call >>> )
…And I will show you one who is financially independent, clinically fulfilled, professionally stable, and has a practice that is thriving and they are excited about.
Show me a dentist the opposite of this and I’ll show you one who doesn’t know who they are, still trying to find their way with a bank account still trying to make decisions of what it wants to look like too.
Success and Decisive Action go hand in hand.
Remember this, it’s only in the children’s books, in the fables where the Turtle wins the race…because it real life, the Rabbits have no time to read fables or to play make-believe because they are too busy making decisions, making their practice grow, making patients healthy, making memories with their family.
Acting with speed, Boldly deciding, Taking advantage of Opportunity, and always always always making the most of the most precious thing we have, Time, are signs of Champion Dentists, real Professional Practice Owners, and Successful People.
