Episode 145 – The Why Behind Dental Business Goals with Deni Hall

“When it looks out over the horizon, your brain is looking for ways to prove you right…so what are you telling your brain?” -Deni Hall

There’s lots of different ways to plan and goal set to achieve your dreams. Chances are, if you’re listening to this podcast, you’ve read at least several books on the subject. And probably tried out one two or a dozen methods yourself. 

We get you! In fact, both Regan and Dr. Chad have used several different methods for goal setting over the years from SMART goals to the 4 Disciplines of Execution. But how often do you stop and think about the psychology behind goal setting and planning? 

If you’re anything like most dentists, you spend a lot of time thinking about the HOW of goal setting, the step-by-step methods, that you skip over how your brains operates as you think about your goals and the steps to get there. So our question for you is, are you setting yourself up for success, or are you inadvertently holding yourself back?

We love to make your lives easier! Which is why we are so excited to have Deni Hall, Director of Client Success at Productive Dentist Academy, join us today for a deep dive into how your brain works when you’re goal setting, including: 

• How our brains operate when we go through goal planning
• Practical tips for setting your brain up for achieving goals
• How what we tell ourselves limits our abilities, or boosts them

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Chad Johnson

Hey everybody, Dr. Chad Johnson,

Regan Robertson

And Regan Robertson here. We are just blown away by the results of last week’s best dental Podcast Awards by dentalpodcast.org

Dr. Chad Johnson

Because of your vote, and thank you, everyday practices came in first place for the Best Dental podcast. PDAs other two podcasts, Dr. Bruce Behrens, productive dentists, and Victoria Peterson’s Investment Grade Practices also came in on the top five.

Regan Robertson

Wow. Now we know that dentistry can be a lonely business.

Dr. Chad Johnson

And it’s our goal to bring you interviews and content that will help you as you grow not only in dentistry,

Regan Robertson

But in life. It is our mission to bring you stories from dentists and dental professionals who have faced the very challenges that you face.

Dr. Chad Johnson

That’s right. Thank you again for voting Everyday Practices as your number one dental podcast.

Regan

Welcome to another episode of everyday practices. I am your host, Regan Robertson, joined by my co-host, Dr. Chad Johnson. How are you doing today, Chad?

Dr. Chad Johnson

Hey, what’s up, Regan? I’m doing well. How are you?

Regan

I’m doing fantastic. You know, the month is January, and so many people are focused on new year’s resolutions, and that means goal-setting. Right? So that’s why we have invited a very special guest today. She has been a contributor to our podcast before. She is the Director of Client Success with Productive Dentist Academy, Danny Hall, Deni, welcome to our podcast.

Dr. Chad Johnson

Hi, Deni.

Deni Hall

Oh, my gosh, hello, thank you so much for having me back on the show.

Regan

Yay. Absolutely. Our listeners are in for a treat. Today we love to give you all tips on ways to make your life easier. And if you’re listening to this podcast, chances are you’ve read a book on goal setting, or at least a blog post, or seen a YouTube video. There are lots of different methodologies to plan and goal set to succeed. But Deni, I like what we were talking about before the show. And you really sort of dived into the brain psychology of what it means to align yourself in a way to achieve your goals quicker than before. So I am really interested to jump in. I know Chad, and I talk about goals a lot. And we have different methodologies as well that we’ve used over the years. So we’re open to learning something new also.

Deni Hall

Well, I am so glad to be here. I know. A lot of people understand how to write goals, they’ve learned how to do smart goals, or if you are a fan of the four disciplines of execution, you know, X to Y by when there’s a lot of formulas for how to write goals. But I thought maybe today spending a little bit of time talking about why is it important, not how to do it. But why is it important? And if that’s alright with you guys, I’d like to kind of explore that a little bit.

Regan

Absolutely. I think yeah, I think Chad, don’t you? I mean, we focus a lot on the house a lot on the execution element.

Dr. Chad Johnson

Yeah. How is important, but it’s also good to hit at it from a different angle. Yeah,

Regan

I don’t think I’ve ever asked myself way too much. I mean, other than like big career goals, maybe I don’t really ask much about the why. So tell us, Danny, what, why is the why important?

Deni Hall

Well, I, you know, our brains work in a very funny way. Most of the time. They are very complicated, very very complicated, and simple. At the same time, once you understand how they work, there’s the function of parts of your brain its really very simple. They’re there to keep you alive. And so when you look out across the horizon, your brain is looking for ways to prove you right? Because if you’re wrong, what happens if I make the wrong decision, what might happen?

Regan

Well, you might hurt yourself or you might get doubt you might have self-doubt lower your confidence. Well,

Dr. Chad Johnson

interestingly, what you’re saying is confirmation bias just naturally occurs and that’s it can be okay.

Deni Hall

It can be really the main function of our brain is really I mean, really, if we think about some of the parts of our brain, our hypothalamus, our pineal gland, Their function is to keep us alive on a daily basis. So they look across all of the horizons of all of the experience that you’ve had, and they start trying to, you know, if you could think of it like a scale of one to 100, how dangerous is this going to be? If I do this? Have I done it before? Was it successful? You know, did I get hurt it, you know, it’s all those things did you reach up on the stove and touch at once and it was hot. So you never did that, again, those are the parts of your brain that are working either against you or for you when you’re writing goals. So when I think about, you know, the stages of goal writing, if I think about it, that’s better than doing nothing.

If I write it down, that’s better than just thinking about it. If I write it down, and I think about it on a daily basis, and I do something specific to make it come alive for me, either it’s a picture, or a sound, a lot of my goals are to music, I’m very much into music. So while I’m reading my goals, I’m oftentimes am listening to music, because it adds an element of my senses to that anytime I can add emotion, to my goals, it’s going to increase the amount of the less time that it’s going to take me to achieve those. And why that happens is a very interesting thing in our brain. And it goes back to what I just talked about because our brain wants to be right. So because it knows if it isn’t right, I might die. So it is constantly serving my surroundings and the things that are going on around me to find out whether or not I’m going to be right about something.

So if I write down my goals, and I write them in the present tense, so let’s say I have an income goal of $200,000 a year, and I write that goal down as if I’ve already done it, my brain doesn’t really know the difference between what is real. And what I’ve told it is real. So I write the goal down as you know, I want to I am currently earning $200,000 a year, that might be a higher low for anybody who’s listening to this podcast. But that’s not the point. The point is, I’ve said I am currently earning $200,000 a year. Now I’ve told my brain that I’m going to do that. And what my brain says is, okay, I’m going to survey this the horizon for opportunities for her to make $200,000 a year because I want her to be right. And some people go well, do you think you’re a mystic? Do you think you’re creating those opportunities, and the reality is, I do not think that I’m creating the opportunities, I think they always existed, I just may not have been in tune to them enough to say, oh, there’s an opportunity to reach my income goal.

Dr. Chad Johnson

You know, when Jordan Jordan Belfort wrote Wolf of Wall Street, and I’ve talked about the book before, it’s a few years old. But interestingly, when you talk about enriching your senses, Jordan, uses a smell because he thinks that’s, you know, the most primal, of senses enrichment. And so when you talk about, you know, playing music, you know, like a lot of branding jingles and stuff like that is has been based on that. But at the same time, he’s just like, No, you know, he, when he makes a sale, he smells a certain flavor that he likes, and He even talks about where you can get it from. And so what he does is then when he goes into a sale, he smells it beforehand, after training it enough. So that way, he can almost I don’t know if the word is literally but as close as you get, he can literally smell victory in the sale before he’s gone in. Because it compounds building on that success, because he’s told his brain, this is going to be a successful sale.

Deni Hall

I love that you said that because I agree with smell. If I’m really working on my goals, I have a candle, a favorite candle that is going in the background. I have music in the background because some people probably think, you know, those things are silly, but the reality is, the more senses I can bring into it. And the more emotion I can place on it if I can visualize in my head, what it would feel like to earn $200,000 This year, and I can close my eyes and go what will that feel like? What will that be like? What will I do with that money and really convince my mind that it’s it is real, the more likely My mind is going to be looking for an opportunity for me to increase that. And I think when you think about that, it may not be your regular job. I mean, it may or may not be I’m not a dentist so I know my salary is not $200,000 a year, but I do see opportunities, people will call me for opportunities of things like, could you? For instance, I have a girlfriend that does training and development, and oftentimes, she’ll call me and she’ll go, Hey, can you facilitate this class for X clients? And it’s Sunday from nine to two? I’m like, Sure, I’m not working during that time. Let’s do that. Well, there’s $1,200. So I think we often, you know, limit ourselves to what we tell ourselves. And instead, if we would tell ourselves a different story, we would reach our goals much quicker.

Dr. Chad Johnson

Yeah, I was just telling my team last week that if, if we fail, how did I word it? You know, like, if we have no goal, that is worse, if we happenstance stumble across success occasionally, as opposed to setting a goal, and maybe even only hitting it 95% the way there, but at least we defined it from the beginning, you know what our success rate was. So if I say we need to make this much per month, I’m starting to define to everyone kind of what we’re looking for just even I don’t know if the word is subconscious. But you know, that subconsciously, we’re, we’re establishing what our values are for what we’re going to waste our time doing versus what we find valuable, you know, so if someone says, Hey, will you, you know, speak at this thing from 92 on Sunday, but I’m like, you know, what, I already have something else going on, and I’m making triple the amount. It’s just like, Well, then why would I say yes to that? Or, you know, if there’s a lot of small value things that aren’t necessarily even vital for patient health, as a more pertinent example, to demonstrate, you know, like, if we’re just doing sealants all day, and then you say, Well, you’ve got this big goal. Why? Why are we necessarily trying to, you know, push people over to get sealants done, when they might not even need them. And that’s not even hitting your financial goals. So it starts setting up the parameters, what are we looking for, to make that goal? And, and even if we don’t hit that goal, because we are talking about the end of the month, January, end of the month, how did we do? And I was just like, Guys, we actually hit our goal by more than 600 bucks over our goal. I was shocked because I thought we are going to be about 50,000 under but, you know, at least if we were 15,000 under, it’s still along the way, as opposed to if we didn’t set the goal at all, Jenny, what are your thoughts?

Deni Hall

Well, I think 100% You’re correct. I believe in if you set that goal, and you talk about it frequently, like if you’re talking about it every day in your huddle, and people and you’re talking about how the progress you’re making towards that. Now you have 10 or 12 or 20 people that are actually thinking the same thing. And now everyone is seeing opportunities to make that happen. And you increase the chances by I would say at least 75% To make that goal, versus if you’re not talking about it at your huddle, and it’s not posted somewhere and people aren’t motivated, you know, either financially or some sort of a reward to get there. You’re just you’re like, Yeah, I think you just said you’re, you’re taking chances, you know, you might get it, it’s possible, you might get it. And that would be wonderful. But when you do these things, you actually increase the chances that you’re going to hit that goal significantly.

Regan

So what Danny, what you’re describing, like Chad, you were saying with the smell, like locking it in with the smell, or Danny locking it in with music, I think of that is anchoring. And I’m probably using that term because I’m doing clicker training with my dog right now. He’s four months old. And it amazes me how anytime he does a behavior that you want to reward, you click and treat immediately, right so that it locks it in overtime. And I am blown away by how fast like 110-minute session 10 minutes and that dog knows how to sit another 10 minutes and he knows how to do down another 10 minutes and he knows how to shake. So in less than an hour that dog is pretty much anchored into understanding what gestures to make to get him to do the actions that you want him to take. So I am a huge believer in anchoring but I have never really thought about that in equation two goals. Or like you were saying Chad and equation two like closing a sale like setting yourself up so that your neural pathways already are down the highway of this is a victory. This is a win because that’s exactly what you’re saying is neurologically the little pathways in there. It’s going to be a win.

Dr. Chad Johnson

Deni, thanks again for joining us today.

Deni Hall

Absolutely. Thank you for inviting me.

Dr. Chad Johnson

You bet.

Regan

Thank you for listening to another episode of the 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 at productivedentist.com And don’t forget to check out our other podcasts from Productive Dentist Academy at productivedentist.com/podcasts/  See you next week.