Every single day I have the privilege of talking to Doctors just like you who have had, by any ‘normal’ person’s standards, a wonderful career… decent if not above average income, generally a lifestyle comforted by a nice house, car, vacations, education for kids and hopefully a happy spouse.
All of that sounds just peachy, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s the point, right? To have all of those things. But if you listen deeper into the conversation, as I probe and ask questions, all of these things came at a cost, a sacrifice, a burden of effort that has left many doctors in a place of disdain, even resentment. No, not for their families and their lifestyles but for the way in which they had to make it happen.
Hard work. Which that’s not a bad thing, yet you do have to enjoy it. All success requires hard work but you ought to get to pick the type of work you are doing, don’t you think?
You have long hours, not necessarily chair side but maybe. More often it’s long hours doing administrative things, messing with charts, managing the business or maybe even doing things others were paid to do.
I’ve yet to find a spouse who says they’d take anything over having the doctor home for dinner more often.
I could keep giving you a list, but the point is not to depress you. The point is going through the journey you call a career, owning your practice and earning a living… you are always serving two masters.
Your Practice (inside of that your employees, patients, dreaded insurance) and then you have Your Life (family, mortgage, education, health, etc.).
Of course, I’m a family first kind of guy – dentistry is the vehicle for everything else to be made possible. However, you can’t just go head first into your business for decades on end, seldom coming up for a breath a few weeks a year and even then it’s at the expense to your peace of mind – are your vacations really vacations? How about when you get back to the office, still think of it as a vacation?
There must be only one Master – You. Other than the one upstairs, of course. You can’t really live with autonomy, independence and peace of mind if you are trying to follow two compasses. You are going to drive yourself crazy going multiple directions… no matter how much money you make and how many millions you’ve stashed away.
Aligning things to serve you is the only way to grow the practice in harmony with life, family and your other passions and interests outside of the practice; and vice versa.
And by the way – this changes, year to year, decade to decade, stage and chapter of life you are in to the next. If you are still going about things the same as you always have (or worse yet you have just been a feather in the wind to the trends of the industry), you are doing yourself a real injustice.
If the only thing new, fresh and invigorating in your life is a piece of equipment, some fancy technology – and not your thinking, your vision, your income, your passion and your excitement for the future… you’ve got problems brewing whether you can see them or not. Either that or you are just settling for way less than you deserve working way too hard and sacrificing way too much than the rewards you are reaping.
I give you this wake up call today because right now we are at a critical moment (not just the pending end to a new year, though that’s true), we are at a turning point in dentistry where you can pick your choice between a few different paths.
Going forward, there isn’t going to be a middle ground. There is nothing scary about that, it’s actually a good thing – as long as you commit to the one you want.
This requires one thing above all others – Clarity.
Clarity of purpose, philosophy, direction, future ambition, income and wealth desires. Clarity of where you want this thing to go, where you want to end up, 2, 3, 5 maybe even 7-10 years from now.
There is a secret to figuring this all out.
A secret to being the Master over your practice and not the other way around.
A secret to achieving vibrant growth that is sustainable and, get this – above all else – profitable, that doesn’t require more work, more hours or even more volume of patients just for the sake of it and it doesn’t require more employees or even a larger building. It can, if that’s what you want, but it doesn’t have to.
It’s about leverage and being smart about, not just the clinical part of dentistry, but the business side. Never forget this: you will only earn as much as your business is set-up to provide you; no matter your clinical skill, procedural repertoire, size of practice or anything else.
Finally, for the first time, I have put everything into one brand new book released specifically for you, to serve you, to anoint you as the Master, to restore integrity to your practice as a business, to ensure you choose the proper path as you move forward with your career…
…and, above all else, to either find or sharpen your clarity for what’s next in your life.
I call it The Dental Success Secret.
It’s yours, as my gift. Accept it as my token of gratitude for you opening your mind up to me and giving me the good fortune to being a catalyst to helping you through this significant profession we both love.
Get Your Free Copy of My New Book: The Dental Success Secret >>>
I’ll be back next week with a special Thanksgiving message. Today, I’ll do what I always do, serve first, lead by example, challenge you to want more for yourself and provide you with The Dental Success Secret for YOUR future.
Find your next and biggest most meaningful breakthrough;
Confidently choose your path for the next chapter in your career;
And Discover your Dental Success Secret…
Get Your Free Copy of My New Book: The Dental Success Secret >>>
