Episode 139 – Why Dentists Need a Thinking Partner with Deni Hall

“A thinking partner is someone who challenges your thinking and causes you to modify and change your paradigm or assumptions so you can grow your business.” ~Deni Hall

Today’s topic is not comfortable. It will challenge you and make you think past your comfort zone. We’re talking today about thought partnership, or as some call it, coaching. The world’s top business leaders have thought partners and coaches. Why? Do they like being challenged and pushed and stretched? Probably not. But they like the results they see from working with a thinking partner. 

As dental business leaders, it is so important to have a high level strategic advisor as you grow your practice. You need an equal who understands the business owners’ difficulties. A thinking partner can share your burden. You can bounce ideas off them, brainstorm solutions, or just vent to someone who is a safe space who understands the stresses and responsibilities you face. Having someone who says I hear you and I can think through it with you, may be just the support you need to reach the next step in your business journey. 

We are so pleased to have Deni Hall, PDA’s Director of Client Success, joining us today as we dive into this topic. Deni has vast experience as a thinking partner to some of the industry’s most successful entrepreneurs and is one of the kindest, most insightful business experts you will ever meet. So join us as we challenge your thinking pattern, and push you to think outside your comfort zone by:

• Growing your mindset by breaking confirmation bias
• Overcoming the fear of discomfort to make way for growth
• Examining what to look for in a thinking partner and what results you can expect

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Regan 0:00
Regan Robertson here, president of Productive Dentist Academy and host of everyday practices. Before we get started, I want to let you know this week only we are offering our once a year chance at getting 12 months of PDA for free. That’s right. Register for a 2022 productivity workshop and you will receive 12 months of PDA on demand and a two hour one on one business advisory session with us. Not only does this save you over $3,000, but doctors that attend and use PDA on demand report doubling productivity in mere months. You can get yours this week. If you sign up before December 3, go to www.ProductiveDentist.com/CyberMonday to access or call us directly at 1-800-757-6077. Now let’s get productive. Welcome to the everyday practices Podcast. I’m Regan Robertson and my co host Dr. Chad Johnson and I are on a mission to share the stories of everyday dentists who generate extraordinary results using practical proven methods you can take right into your own dental practice. If you’re ready to elevate patient care and produce results that are anything but ordinary. Buckle up and listen in.

Welcome to everyday practices. I am your host Regan Robertson here today, not in practice not extracting anything not implanting anything. My wonderful co host Dr. Chad Johnson, Chad, how are you today?

Dr. Chad Johnson 1:38
Yay, good. Glad to be back. And great interview with Dr. Bruce, on the last episode. Thank you for covering for me while I was you know, just for the doctors that are listening to this because that’s the majority of our listeners, right? Just making the November December kind of production that needs to get done in order to take a Christmas vacation. You know, so yeah, just making that happen. And no, this is not my process radio voice. This. I kind of have a cough and Reagan’s kind of got the same stuff going on even though we have a couple 1000 Miles separating us so glad to be on using our voices, though they may not be perfect.

Regan 2:20
Yeah, it is cold and flu season. If you have children, you guys all know what we’re talking about. So rockin rockin the cough drop crew today. That’s right. Yeah. So a couple weeks ago, Chad, you and I, we were talking about fine tuning the piano with regards to leadership and regards to gross and all of that. And the guests we have on today is is really a special, a special guest invitation for that. Because of that, that topic. And one of the things you know, as business leaders, both of us ourselves, I really wanted to ask you first before we introduce our guests. From your perspective, why is it so important Chad for a dentist, specifically a dentist and business owner to have a high level thinking partner, a strategic advisor as you grow your practice?

Dr. Chad Johnson 3:06
You know, I just came into the office this morning and was talking with a patient who’s who I’ve known for 30 plus years. And so, you know, a good confidant of a kind of person, not just your average patient that is just like, hey, you know, see you later kind of stuff. I’ve known her she’s a good friend. Well, she’s my friends is mom, you know, so like, you know, her three boys I’m good friends with so I’m talking with her. And, you know, I just said, you know, even at church, it’s tough to find confidence and people that are equals with understanding the business owner difficulties without sounding like absurd, like you’re whining. For example, if I said, Man, you know, I’ve got, I’ve got $100,000 worth of bills that I need to get paid by next month, people would be like, oh, big problems, you know, must be rough. And so then what you learn, maybe after a while, is don’t bring that stuff up with normal people because you know, they don’t get it. And and it’s a protective measure, but you you don’t go fully disclosing all your problems to everyone. And so then you end up more in a position of a I don’t know if consultant would be the right word, but you’re listening to other people’s problems, and you’re almost like their counselor when they get to share their problems, but you don’t really get to share yours. And you get to listen to their big ideas, but you can’t share your big ideas.

So the trouble then becomes well in a multi Doctor practice, I suppose if there were a couple owners, they get to as as partners and as equals as colleagues They get to share their ideas, but not all dentists are colleagues in the sense that someone that’s a an associate isn’t the same kind of colleague, as a business owner, absolutely mentality, you know, they might be both drilling the same kind of tooth. And they might share values with that kind of stuff, but they’re not the same values as far as the way that you’re daily trained to be. And to not to be. So I guess that was just, you know, my first thought, when we were looking at bringing Danny into this conversation, and talking about how, you know, a thinking partner or, or someone that you can be a confidant with, to bounce ideas off of and to, you know, think about solutions. And I don’t know, just even just to be able to vent about stuff, to have a safe space, to be able to give those kinds of dialogue, thoughts. And a lot of times, for example, that’s my workout buddy Ryan, who’s not a dentist, but he has a successful business. And we can share ideas. And we can say, like, you can say, man, I’ve got to hire three people by the end of the year. Now, if you’re just a regular employee at, you know, the postal office, and you’re not into hiring, hiring three employees doesn’t mean much to you. I mean, you get what that means, but it doesn’t have gravity to it.

Yes. But understanding, you know, from someone that’s like, Oh, I’ve been there before, I know what being down three employees is like, and, you know, the HR responsibilities of that. And in the meanwhile, you’re trying to pay the bills. You know, so few people get it. So having someone that is part of that pinnacle crowd that says, I hear you, and I can, you know, think with you through it, as opposed to oh, it sucks to be you, Mr. Richie pants. It’s just like, that’s not what this is about. You know, everyone has problems. Elon Musk has problems. And he needs people that are overwhelmed, that are willing to overlook that they’re not a billionaire, but they can still understand his problems.

Regan 6:57
Yeah. Okay. You always blow my mind. You really do. I love how we can connect that is exactly how I have been feeling lately. You, you just reached in and kind of definitely described my own feelings as well. Like, my friends don’t want to hear about whatever business challenges I’m having or where I want to grow personally as a leader or where I want to executive

Dr. Chad Johnson 7:19
Reagan, they don’t care about they want my mama Reagan. Right, exactly. Why would they

Regan 7:23
care about that? And I actually so my good friend, I even I think I gave him a shout out at one of our all company wide meetings. He’s one of my best friends. And he’s the gentleman that is a general manager for vape shops of all like totally, obviously, completely different industry than what I’m in. And he gets it he is a fantastic strategic thinking partner. Because he he, even though they’re completely different challenges, he understands the business objectives and the business growth goals. And so it’s really nice if I have if I have someone to go and say I’m just kind of trying to work through this. Can you think through this with me?

That is exactly how I feel. And I’ll tell you, this is a perfect segue into introducing Danny Hall. So Danny Hall is at PDAs PDA Director of Client Success. And when I met Danny Hall, gosh, a few months ago, three or four months ago. She blew me away immediately with this powerful and also graceful at the same time listening capacity. And she brings in all of this other world experience on business in addition to health care, so there’s the health care element of it. But there’s also this outside industry experience that told me that not only would Pete would PDA benefit PDA doctors would benefit from having Denny’s expertise. But even at an executive level PDA would benefit from her leadership and her guidance and her strategic thinking. So that is why we’ve invited you Danny to the show today. Welcome to everyday practices. How are you Danny Hall?

Deni Hall 9:01
I am doing fantastic. Thank you so much for that great introduction. That was amazing. Thank you for having me on today.

Regan 9:08
Yeah, absolutely. So I know. Danny, you have you have been in the corporate space. You’ve you’ve done Home Depot, you have been with high end eyewear. So optometry, you’ve also been in dentistry, I bet there’s a lot more that I don’t even know. But looking across your great landscape and your years of experience, you know, with leadership, what are some of the what are the some of the benefits that you see to having a thinking partner and how has how has that served you in your lifetime?

Deni Hall 9:40
Well, I think when you are thinking about a thinking partner, I’ve always said one of the ways that I learned best is through arguing, and about half the population runs in the other direction. But I learned it when I was a very young leader that if I could argue with someone about point, I would see it very differently than if I just used only the knowledge I had in my head. And it really goes to something that’s called confirmation bias bias. And confirmation bias is really just the tendency to believe the evidence that confirms our own beliefs, our pre existing beliefs, and then we discount any information that comes across our threshold that doesn’t agree with us. So take for instance, like a pros and cons list. Like if I want to buy a shiny, red, beautiful sports car, and I sit down to write a pros and cons list 40 Because I want that car

Dr. Chad Johnson 10:39
for a Ford Mustang?

Deni Hall 10:43
Or you know, could be a minivan, but no. Oh, okay. All right. So you have a pros and cons list. If I really want that shiny red sports car, then my pros list is going to be very long, and my cons list is going to be very short. But if I get with my significant other who doesn’t really care, if there’s a shiny red sports car in the garage, we would balance that pros and cons list out and maybe there’s some things on on the pros and cons list, then that would sway me in a different direction. So but that’s called confirmation bias. And I think that thinking partner really is someone who challenges your thinking, and really causes you to modify or change your paradigms, your assumptions, any actions that you are going to take. I know that I was reading an article in Psychology Today, a few weeks ago was odd that I was asked to talk about this today. And really what I was, the article was about Warren Buffett, and how he actually changed the way that he invested and became the second most powerful and most financially wealthy man on the planet. And it came from a thought partner, a thought partner that pushed him outside of what he was normally thinking, and got him thinking in a different direction. So I love that you brought up Elon Musk, because, you know, he probably has a whole bunch of crazy ideas, and someone has talked him down off the ledge every once in a while. Because he’s, we know he’s gonna do crazy stuff if he doesn’t. So I think when we think about this, in terms of dentistry, you know, dentists are great at being dentists and business people are great at being business people. And the combination of the two really creates a partnership that tests people’s thinking patterns, people get into a way of thinking and coaches or consultants can actually push you outside of what you’re most comfortable with. And that would be, you know, the information that you have in front of you.

Regan 12:48
I’m think I’m understanding Denny now, the term when they say, you know, coaching isn’t for everyone. Getting consulting isn’t for everyone. But I really don’t think I ever looked at it from the angle of perhaps some insecurity. So when I hear challenge, and I think that for me, that’s the only way that I know how to operate, I assume probably from doing debate starting out as a eighth grader, I think I just expected that people are going to constantly be questioning methodologies and whatnot. But you know, in that resisting How do you help people, are you able to help people? Are we able on this show today to kind of help people if you’re feeling that insecurity of I don’t know that I want people to be questioning? You know, my thought process? Is there any way to get over that kind of that fear that hump?

Deni Hall 13:35
Well, I think repeated discomfort creates comfort. So I have to push my stuff into that place where I’m uncomfortable enough times that it becomes comfortable. And it’s a mind, it’s a mindset, you know, it’s a mindset, if I truly want to be the most successful in whatever I’m doing, I have to be willing to step out there and be uncomfortable. And you know, there’s usually a set of people that are less likely to be, you know, to be able to face that confirmation bias their own, they’re insecure, or they have anxiety issues, or, you know, they’re really sensitive to rejection. And they don’t want to be put into that social situation where my ideas are being tested. And so, you know, the way that I would do it if I were having this conversation, and I can give you an example of that I had a boss and his name was Paul isand. And he said to me, Danny, do you have to argue about everything? And I said, I’ve gotten really comfortable with arguing and Paul it would be really nice if you would get comfortable with arguing because I think together once we we we get our ideas together, they become so much stronger, if we argue about it a little bit and there are just people on earth that are never gonna be comfortable with arguing, but I finally got him into the way of thinking of you know what, let’s discuss this. Let’s let’s have opposing views because that those opposing views or what’s gonna make the full idea really strong.

And I know that you’ve heard it before. But it’s not the one idea that actually creates the bigger idea. But it’s the bringing up of that idea that gets someone to go down a different path of thinking. So parallel thinking is is important to think about when we’re talking about this as well is that it isn’t what you said, it’s what I thought about when you said it, that gets me to move in a new direction. So even if I didn’t understand what you were saying, or I didn’t agree with what you were saying, it really makes me like a branch of a tree, take a step down a different branch, and maybe come up with a solution that’s stronger, because we had the disagreement or the argument about how it might be executed. So that’s why I say it’s just so important that that thinking partner not be someone like you, they shouldn’t be someone exactly like you. Because if they’re exactly like you, you’ll never think any differently. So you’ve got to pull in thinking partners that have a different experience than you have that have a different background than you have that are different politically than you are. Because they’re going to bring that that what I call creative tension to the relationship. And it’s in that creative tension where all of the creativity happens.

Dr. Chad Johnson 16:17
It reminds me of Toby, on the office.

Regan 16:22
Tell me the the HR manager.

Dr. Chad Johnson 16:25
Yeah, I think that’s what he was. Because Steve Carell, yeah. He’d always he’d be like, I’ve got a great idea. And you know, he’s on a DISC profile, probably in the eye crowd asked me how I know. Yeah. And so he’d say, you know, hey, I’ve got a great idea. We’re gonna have, you know, free cupcakes for everyone every day. And then Toby says, Yeah, I don’t think that’ll get approved. Because, you know, some people might have allergies to the stuff that you put in the muffins and Steve corrals character, Michael Scott, he’d be like, Toby, you ruin everything, you know. And it was the idea that it’s just like, I hate not having someone to confirm what I want to hear. And yet, you know, having that quintessential HR person to be like, Yeah, I don’t think we can do that. Because you know, this, and that, as much as the AI person doesn’t want that. It’s just like, well, it’s probably necessary, to some degree in some relationship, if you’re willing to, because you can still have the cupcakes but find a way to be like, well, maybe we should have a consent form. Maybe we could, you know, offer non gluten, you know, like gluten free cupcakes for those people, you know, and and then at the end, in the end, you’ve got a fusion of the thesis, antithesis, and then the, what do they call the resolution of that, you know, like the fusion of those two ideas. Like,

Regan 17:58
I think what’s really interesting here at you use the term arguing Denny and I, in the time that I have known you, and especially working through some complex situations with you, you don’t, you’ve never raised your voice, I’ve never heard you raise your voice. And in fact, I have experienced firsthand, you helped me get to a new way of thinking with what feels like very little tension to me. And I think so, this is really interesting to me, when you say argue, what, what does that process look like for you? You don’t mean shouting, arguing, obviously, not at all. And you so there’s a lot of trust and respect that you bring to the table. So choosing a proper thinking partners very important, as well, because I have had leadership, you know, situations where there is yelling there is arguing, arguing for arguing sake, isn’t isn’t so fantastic. So what what is your discovery process? Like? I’m really curious how you how you break down new relationships, and get into that space where they are trusting you and you are trusting them to be each other’s thinking partners?

Deni Hall 19:09
Well, I think first of all, the demeanor piece of it, again, when we say the word argue everybody gets this really bad image in their head. So it’s really challenging people’s beliefs about what is arguing or having a differing opinion than someone else. I think it’s if I’m in a new relationship, I’m going to state my intent upfront. So do you mind if I just discuss this with you? And it might sound like arguing but it really isn’t. I just it’s the way that I learn. And everybody gets, they take a breath, because they realize that I’m not arguing because I disagree with them. I’m challenging the thoughts that they’re having are challenging my own thoughts, probably challenging my own even more than theirs. So I think that its first practice, and I always say, you know, if I’m dealing with someone who’s new at this, who’s new challenging ideas and doing it in a way that’s, you know, helpful. I always say give them grace for the delivery, because they’re probably not going to do it. Well, the first couple of times you ask them to do it, and you have to work at it to get that trust with someone and make it okay. Like, if I, if someone disagrees with me, and I have some sort of a body language reaction to that, like, I crossed my arms, or I stopped talking to them or something like that, they’re never gonna argue with me again. So I, you know, I have to really watch what I do when I’m having that kind of a discussion with someone. And I’ve worked really hard, so it doesn’t feel like arguing.

But it does feel like just a little discussion about this. Let’s just push back on each other a little bit, you make the safe environment by verbalizing. It’s safe to push back. You know, it’s okay to push back on me now. And now, as a leader, I’m responsible for my reaction to that pushback. And that’s my ownership in the discussion is I own how I read how I react to them pushing back on me. And so it’s a little bit of a mindset game, you know, a mind shift, you go into that discussion, knowing that we’re going to have a differing opinion here, and it’s going to be okay. But it takes practice. So you know, when you’re first learning how to do it, just say, Hey, I’m just learning how to do this thinking partnership is new to me. And I realized that you and I have a differing opinion on this particular topic. But I really want to test my skill here. So let’s have this discussion. And at the end, let’s debrief, you know, what were some of the things I did that made you not feel safe? How did I make you feel safe? Those kinds of things. So it takes practice, it’s like any other skill we get, you got to exercise the muscle,

Regan 21:44
huh, you are a master at that you you have like there was a phrase that you used right in that beginning. And I remember when we first started working together, you were saying, you know that, you know, you were like just gathering information, and just kind of it was very low key. And I remember thinking not even that I had walls up, I didn’t think I had any walls up. And I remember just being like, this is if you just had safe I don’t I never attributed it at that point. But I can tell you now thinking back, I felt totally safe. And thinking we’re going to make exceptional progress together. We’re going to hit goals together, like I had full faith and hope from from that initial conversation. And you used very calming demeanor, and had a calming demeanor and had a calm way of approaching it. But in a way that’s you could say you were arguing because you were trying to figure out why I got to the conclusion I did. And if I had tried it a different way. Are you hearing this chat? Right? How does that I mean, does that reflect Chad, like you’ve had many different coaching relationships with PD and outside of PDA? And you’ve kind of run the gamut of it is that does that reflect to some of the thinking partner experiences that you’ve had?

Dr. Chad Johnson 22:58
As I’ve switched recently, to having Joanne coach, as Kerry’s kind of taken a different position within PDA and it’s neat to see, Joanne figure out how to challenge me in a fresh way. And I’ve been excited about that actually, like I’ve been anticipating, I think she’s still new enough to me, or I should say, I’m new enough to her that she’s trying to figure out like, is this guy gonna be willing to accept some criticism, you know, or like, you know, to have fresh eyes say, Hey, this is garbage, you need to change, you know, and

Regan 23:40
but you want to chat, right? You

Dr. Chad Johnson 23:44
just have it, right. But in my heart, I am I’m willing to, you know, to have a fresh set of eyes to have someone say, you know, I’ve I’ve thought about, you know, your your problem. And you’re just, you know, like, you think there’s only these two solutions. What about this third solution, and waiting it out? While I might say I don’t like that, but in the end, I’m just like, No, I’m glad to hear a third solution to the issue. And so having a fresh perspective on it. Yes. So ever since we were looking to that change, I think a lot of people would have been like, oh, no, I like who I’m working with. And you know, I’m not quite sure. And of course, that’s true. But I thought it would be advantageous to myself and to everyone in the office to have someone say, Wait a second. Carrie might have you know, not had a forte for putting up with that baloney but I’m I’m not I’m gonna call it out. You know, like, why aren’t we working on that and having someone you know, with a fresh set of eyes to be like, oh, yeah, I guess we are kind of tolerating that. And why why don’t we maybe have a take a new crack at trying to start have that problem? Yeah. Yeah, so I’m digging it.

Regan 25:07
So Danny, having worked with lots of different business owners in different industries, including dentistry, what are there? Are there some things that surprised people that you’ve seen when they finally reach out and say, I’m, I’m ready for coaching, consulting, a thinking partner, anything like that? Is there anything that you think surprises them along the way?

Deni Hall 25:27
Are you asking during the process or

Regan 25:30
during an after I would say during and and the results that they get?

Deni Hall 25:36
Well, I think, you know, I think people who are truly in a mutually beneficial thinking Partnership, which I believe our coaches are, I mean, I think they get as much out of our partnerships with our, our doctors, as you know, as the doctor gets, I don’t I think, difference between maybe, you know, advice, or mentorship or something like that, is that the key difference with this is that it’s a partnership, and it’s mutually beneficial. And so, I think people are shocked at how fast they can get results when they get out of their own way. And what I mean by that is if they can just take their ego and set it on the shelf for a minute, sometimes what comes after that, if I can just set it aside and just go, maybe, maybe if I listen carefully here, I’m going to pick up the one piece I was missing, you know, I’m going to find out that, you know that something is something like something I’m doing could be different than that. And, you know, I mean, we just spent two days working with our coaches on basically presenting their results.

So we went through every single client, and we talked about, you know, what were some of the challenges that they were having, what were some of the successes, and, you know, despite the fact that we have a 10 to one return, so you hand me $1 I hand you 10, when you go through our coaching, there’s still challenges, and there’s still these thought partnership needs, you know, we talked a lot about the stress that doctors are having. And, you know, if they would, you know, get into some thought partnership around that. I mean, I don’t know, if we didn’t talk about a single client that we have that doesn’t have stress, and that you know, has lack of commitment sometimes. But you don’t often see that in yourself, you don’t always see that you have a lack of commitment, or that you’re not moving as quickly as you could. And that’s what that thought partner does that that partner like calls you on your stuff, you know, they call it out and they go, you know, what, I’m, I’ve missed three calls with you in the last couple of months. And, you know, we can’t move forward at the pace, we need to move forward unless you and I are in this partnership together in this partnership, because that’s where all the creativity happens. So I mean, you know, it is, I think people would be shocked, if you’re listening to this podcast, how fast you could move forward, if you set your ego on the shelf beside you for a minute. And everybody got into that thinking partnership, because it’ll make you move fast, it just makes it move faster.

Dr. Chad Johnson 28:10
So let’s say that there are two ways that people can get a thinking coach, I thinking partner, one on this podcast would obviously be to, you know, call up PDA, go on the website, and, you know, try and go through the process of finding out if productive dentist Academy is the right fit for coaching, and and then I imagine if they would specify, you know, I’m kind of interested in that podcast about that, that thinking partners partnership, you know, what would that look like, and you know, stuff like that. Another way would be to think of someone who naturally might fit that role in your own life.

I mean, it could be a spouse, it could be a parent, it could be a child, actually, you know, like a grown child that you might have a good relationship with, that you can bounce ideas off might be someone that you’ve known for a long time, or someone that you actually might reach out and say, Hey, I know I haven’t known you for a long time. But you seem like you would be a good mentor for this for me, can we get coffee once a month? But within those two parameters? What What would that look like for someone that is wanting to say, oh, that’s neat, theoretically, too. How would I get this by Thanksgiving by Christmas? Like, what would this look like?

Deni Hall 29:31
They would be able to move forward fast by Christmas. Is that what you’re saying? No. I’m

Dr. Chad Johnson 29:35
just curious if someone said okay, I just heard this podcast. I want that now, and I don’t know anyone in my own life who would naturally fit that bill really quickly. So I mean, how do I make that happen within productive dentist Academy?

Deni Hall 29:50
Well, you definitely I mean, if you are you’re definitely can call me at any time I you know, my my job is to figure out how we get to onboard a PDA and get you with a coach and get it going quickly. So your

Dr. Chad Johnson 30:05
last name in an email, like is it? Or is it just it’s the first name and I correct? Productive Dennis calm?

Deni Hall 30:14
Yep, D and I at productive dentist calm you can email me anytime and I’ll get right back to you. So that’s a way that you could do it at productive dentist right now.

Dr. Chad Johnson 30:25
Nice. So if someone came to you with this, like what kind of what kind of goals? Would they be coming to you with? Like what, what what what kind of problems? Have you seen historically? Like, since COVID, let’s just say, of mindset kind of things that people are trying to change?

Deni Hall 30:44
Well, I think that, like we discussed at our performance meeting over the last couple of days, you know, how do I, you know, stem the bleeding from the turnover? You know, how do I fix turnover? How do I create a culture where I don’t have turnover? I think that’s one of the biggest things like people think that the problem is turnover. But upon discovery and a little bit of conversation, it’s more about the culture that’s being created. And what am I doing to create a culture that’s in alignment with my core values? And how do I live those core values? And then how do I weave that core values into my marketing, so that I attract the kinds of patients that I want inside my practice. So I think that, you know, they may come to us with a problem that they’re having, maybe they need to get their production up, maybe there’s they’re suffering from, you know, lack of production, or lack of new patients, or just leadership in general. But in the end, it starts at the beginning, if I don’t have myself straight on my core values, then I’m always gonna have what I call cognitive dissonance, you know, I’ve got two opposing things going on. I’ve got core values, but I’m not showing up with my core values, or I’ve got core values, and my practice doesn’t show my core values.

So how do I fix that. And that’s what the thinking partners and coaches that are a PDA can help you do is sort through getting that set up so that you do have an environment where people want to work in, they’re excited to come to work. When your people are excited to come to work, they excite your patients. And when your patients are exciting, they go out and refer others to your practice, and it grows organically. But it all starts at the beginning of me being willing to accept the fact that maybe the culture inside my practice just needs a little tweaking just needs to be nice, me to think through it a little bit more. What do I want it to be? How do I want it to feel when people enter the door of my practice? Both my employees and team? And my, my patients?

Dr. Chad Johnson 32:47
Right? Um, well, cool. Reagan, I think that’s a good stopping point for people to I mean, because listen, at some point or another, people just need to do it. Or not. I mean, you know, continue with your bias, or, oh, yeah, someone to run the ideas by Victoria and

Regan 33:05
I were just talking yesterday, our CEO, and, and her and I were breaking it down in simplest of terms. And we were just chit chatting. And she said, you know, it gets down to this. It’s either a data problem, it’s something with the systems, it’s something with scheduling, it’s something, you know, binary data, or its relationship. And that’s the customer service side. So it could be your culture, it could be the team turnover. And, you know, when you break it down into those two basic buckets, you got a data problem, or you have a relationship problem. And the truth is, you probably have a little bit of both in there. It’s complicated. It’s like the Facebook status, relationship status. It’s complicated. And if I think that, I think that’s the perfect way to cap it off, you know, you if you want someone to bounce those ideas off and get you where you’re going faster, you know, reach out, there’s no harm. Yeah. Well, thank you, Danny. Thank you, Chad. Thank you for another great episode of everyday practices. Denny out one, one thing to leave you with, if if you have this one thing. If you wish people thinking about reaching out today, is there one thing you wish that they would know before they they pick up the call and pick up the phone and call?

Deni Hall 34:22
I guess what I hope that they that what they know is that we’re here to help. And that are our mission is really to take you from point A to point B and then on to point Z in the lifetime of your practice and have an idea of what’s your why why would you want to call us you know, be prepared to be asked questions like that, like, why are you in dentistry? Think about that before you call because we’re going to test you on that we’re going to push you a little bit that’s what thinking partners do.

Regan 34:55
Excellent. Thank you and thank you for another episode of Everyday Practices Podcast Chad.

Dr. Chad Johnson 35:02
Thanks for joining us have a great rest of your day. See you on the next podcast.

Regan 35:07
Thank you for listening to another episode of everyday practices podcast. Chad and I are here every week. Thanks to our community of listeners just like you, and we’d love your help. It would mean the world if you can help spread the word by sharing this episode with a fellow dentist and leave us a review on iTunes or Spotify. Do you have an extraordinary story you’d like to share? Or feedback on how we can make this podcast even more awesome? Drop us an email at Podcast@ProductiveDentist.com and don’t forget to check out our other podcasts from Productive Dentist Academy at ProductiveDentist.com/Podcasts. See you next week.