You’ve been misled. Big time! About these two major things.
Both of which most Dentists base their entire existence around for the duration of their careers. And if you don’t wake up to it sooner or later you will really put yourself at a major disadvantage in your ability to enjoy the lifestyle that dentistry is capable of providing you.
Some figure out the lifestyle thing simply by working less. I can’t think of any other profession that allows for working 3 days, 4 days, whatever days you want and A) make a full time living, B) get rich if you have the discipline and C) operate a real business – all while designing your own schedule.
Don’t get me wrong, this is one of the greatest benefits about Dentistry and you should absolutely take advantage of it.
The problem is, most do this at the sacrifice of their practices’ potential. They don’t think they can have it all. So they lower their expectations, settle for less but have the lifestyle schedule they want.
Others do the opposite: give up everything, work like crazy, make the money and do very well. However, they give up a lot more than just time. They lose peace of mind, health, real happiness, and the balance necessary to be present with family.
Both of these problems stem from one form of thinking. They both equate dollars and hours. Meaning that you have become nothing more than a high paid self-employed slave to your practice; instead of a business owner with leverage from your skills, knowledge, investments (in people, patients and your practice).
This begets the two biggest lies in dentistry…
1st – That ‘hard work’ wins. More hours, more patients, more of pretty much everything leads to more results, more success and especially more profits.
Of course, there is no guarantee to any of this and there absolutely is no (as in zero), correlation to ‘hard work’ equaling more money.
Oh, you better believe you have to work hard to get what you want in life. If you didn’t have to work hard, then there would be a whole lot of lazy, inept people finding their way into your lot in life.
The hard work is required but the key thing is what you are working hard on.
How you define ‘work’ matters a lot…
What ‘work’ is: where you put your focus.
What ‘work’ is worth: where you derive your value from.
What ‘work’ is yielding: where it is taking you.
This is why I always use the example of a ‘busy day’ with lots of patients will nearly guarantee that you aren’t making any money. What you do requires time to do it. The more people you see, the less dentistry you are doing. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to fit so many people in if you had more work per person. Save maybe ortho and some of our specialty practices. Even still, if you fill up a day of volume and spend less time with each patient, it will result in fewer opportunities and less dentistry.
You want to work hard on the things that matter. Work hard to get more efficient. Work hard to increase speed. Work hard to increase quality and reliable outcomes. Work extra hard to improve case acceptance. Work hard to cultivate and educate quality patients. Work hard to develop your team.
Do not work hard just ‘doing’ dentistry.
You see, if you do work hard on all the other things, then you will soon see that the ‘doing’ of the dentistry doesn’t have to be that hard (I didn’t say it wouldn’t be taxing, but hey that’s why you get the big bucks).
Trust me, the one thing you will always find without exception the higher up the income ladder you go: the ‘hard work’ is all mental and never physical. Even the athletes making the most money would be defined as the smartest players not the most physical ones.
In business, healthcare and every realm in life, ‘hard work’ has a different definition with an outcome that equates to not what is expended but what is gained.
I like to say in life it’s about what you give, in business it’s about what you get.
Smart people have more to show from ‘hard work’ than not so smart people. Think carefully about how you define your work and where you place your effort.
You can have a whole lot of hard work resulting in everything but money if you don’t get this figured out. When you do and you hit your stride, dentistry becomes fun and rewarding. Perhaps it’s not effortless but the effort necessary is invigorating. It is almost therapeutic regardless of how physical the work is because your mind is carrying the burden. This results in your effort, knowledge, time, people and investments all become leveraged through smarter execution, not just pure volume-based grunt work.
Think about this and ask yourself where you could be working smarter and how you might need to change your definition of ‘work’ and perspective on this whole idea of ‘hard’ anything.
Next week, I’ll bring you the other myth you have been told. And let me tell you now – it’s going to rock you at your core and go against just about everything you have ever heard. It is the most significant difference between the average income dentists and the elite high earners. It’ll be liberating once you hear it, that is if you can handle the truth without getting defensive or buying into the myth.
Now, you’ve got work to do, hope it’s worth something to you and more now after today’s report.
