Episode 201 – Ordinary People, Extraordinary Care

“You don’t have to fit someone else’s notion of a ‘super dentist’ to be successful.” ~Dr. Victoria Peterson

In this episode of Everyday Practices Podcast, co-hosts Regan Robertson and Dr. Chad Johnson pick up where they left off in their ongoing conversation with Productive Dentist Academy co-founders Dr. Bruce B. Baird, and Dr. Victoria Peterson. Both separately and together, they have forged illustrious careers in the dental profession, and in this episode Regan and Dr. Chad uncover some of their more remarkable achievements. 

Dr. Baird reflects on a transformative moment in his life that made a profound shift in his personal and professional perspectives that not only strengthened his relationship with his family, but reshaped his entire outlook on success. Meanwhile, Dr. Peterson shares her humble approach to success, emphasizing the value of trust and the incredible satisfaction she has in changing the lives of others for the better.

The discussion in this episode also uncovers the power of embracing authenticity during a time when aesthetics seemed to be valued a lot more than substance. They delve into the idea that true influence is earned through authentic personal growth and self-discovery, and then Drs. Baird and Peterson offer insights and inspiration, transcending the dental profession, as they look toward the future and all of the possibilities.

As you listen to this podcast, think about:

• What achievements are you most proud of?
• In what ways do you make an impact in your community and in your profession?
• What do you think the future of dentistry looks like?

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Regan 0:01
Hi, Doctor. Regan Robertson, CCO of Productive Dentist Academy here and I have a question for you. Are you finding it hard to get your team aligned to your vision, but you know, you deserve growth just like everybody else? That’s why we’ve created the PDA productivity workshop. For nearly 20 years, PDA workshops have helped dentists just like you align their teams, get control of scheduling, and create productive practices that they love walking into every day. Just imagine how you will feel when you know your schedule is productive, your systems are humming, and your team is aligned to your vision. It’s simple, but it’s not necessarily easy. We can help, visit productivedentist.com/workshop that’s productivedentist.com/workshop to secure your seats now.

Victoria Peterson 0:47
I’m grateful for the trust that people instill in me and the opportunities that I have to mentor people and bring out their best. I guess one of the greatest compliments I ever received was from a young dentist who gave me a book called “Dream Releaser” and she said that’s what you do you help people release their dreams.

Regan 1:14
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.

Regan 1:46
I can, I can relate and understand how it must feel it’s so easy to hit autopilot. When you are a business owner, you are a clinician you are a manager, you are a marketer, you have to wear all of these different hats, how easy it is to just do the status quo and to you know, just go through the paces and still feel good about what you do at the end of the day. It takes an uncommon personality to step outside of that and I call it rebellion, for lack of a better term. I think it’s I think it’s medically rebellious and beautiful in our nation to do this and both of you have really, I think committed to that committed to that through the communication, the leadership, all of the training that you’ve provided and so when you look at your careers up to date, what is the key achievement that you’re particularly proud of?

Dr. Bruce Baird 2:33
You know, I don’t know, the proudest achievement for me, has been shot, really dental-related, but as communication-related. It’s that what we were talking about earlier, all of a sudden come into this epiphany that, and my relationship now with my daughters and everything is just so great. When before I just thought I was the breadwinner, and I just had to go work my butt off and, you know, so an accomplishment for my part was I went from being a total workaholic to just a partial workaholic.

Dr. Chad Johnson 3:10
I feel that. I feel that

Regan 3;11
Oh, yeah.

Dr. Bruce Baird 3:11
What was important change to me, and I think that probably is my, my biggest accomplishment and professionally, I would have to say that Productive Dentist Academy has been a phenomenal accomplishment for Victoria and myself to be able to help so many dentists over the last 20 years and it’s been fun. It’s been a fun ride and we’ve got to meet so many amazing clinicians and so many amazing team members and, gosh, I just can’t imagine my life without feeling like I’m helping people and that’s been a really cool, I don’t know, a cool thing. You know, you always want to help folks, but we actually put it into an organizational structure and it’s it’s I guess it’s working pretty good because our our workshop in three weeks is the largest we’ve ever had in 20 years by a good bit. So yeah, I’m proud of all that.

Regan 4:17
Victoria

Victoria Peterson 4:20
Well, you know, I really I don’t know that I have paused even for a second to think about accomplishment. I don’t, I don’t know that I would I got no bragging rights there but I really am. I’m, I’m grateful for the trust that people instill in me and the opportunities that I have to mentor people and bring out their best. I guess one of the greatest compliments I ever received was from a young dentist who gave me a book called “Dream Releaser”, and she said, “That’s what you do, you help people release their dreams.” So if I get, if I can do that, because it really is not about me at all and Coulter Cooper about PDAs Bruce and I were both retired and or self-funded or had other things in our life when we built this. So we never built it, having to make it successful for our livelihood. And I think that is really important, because we never had the pressure to fake out anything. So we’ve just, we’ve just really been able to be who we are, and let the chips fall. And I guess I guess the man if I had to be if there’s one thing I’m proud of professionally, is that we just don’t give a rip about what people think about us. When we started PDA, everything was cosmetic, and everybody was black shirt and pants and this and that and, you know, bringing in archaeological ruins from Egypt and waterfalls into their practices and if you didn’t do that, then you weren’t a good dentist. I mean, there was a very big air of exclusivity and snottiness, I think and Bruce was like the number one cosmetic dentist. I knew, I knew 1000s of dentists, he would run circles around them. He he was there doing implants, but he said, “You know what? I treat every, all my patients the same, ordinary people, extraordinary care,” and that sounds so simple today but it really bucked the trend. We got disinvited to a lot of conferences back in the day because we weren’t aesthetically pleasing, I guess.

Dr. Bruce Baird 6:44
Because I wouldn’t wear a jacket and a tie.

Victoria Peterson 6:47
Well, we can’t put you in a jacket and a tie, you sweat too much, but I don’t know, I think Bruce, you and I enjoy. No not being in a club that would invite us there. So it’s caused us to pave a different path. It’s caused us to pave a path that says, you know, you don’t have to be a super dentist by somebody else’s terms in order to be successful because we saw Kois and Pinky and Spear and all these beautifully, incredibly clinically talented people that still couldn’t get patients to say yes, and they’re producing like the average dentist who didn’t take 238 credits that year. So I think I’m really grateful that Bruce and I have a message that says ordinary people get to win and it’s just not that hard. There’s no reason that the top 5% is limited to that 5%, more people could get there. So yeah, I guess you’ve sparked a passion. They’re big and

Dr. Chad Johnson 7:54
Victorian could get it out. Yeah. Victorian Bruce, I think both you be proud of me today, my assistant came in and said that, you know, in up to the patient seems concerned about finances and my first thought was, “Well, let’s see about that, you know.” Like, like, I almost take that as a challenge of, it’s just like, “Well, I don’t want to presume now she could be reading into the conversation that the assistant has already had.” Fair enough but I just thought, “Well, I’m not gonna go into it with the mindset of, well, you just need a denture,” you know, and sure enough, that’s what we ended up doing but I didn’t go in, you know, because sometimes it’s not like, it’s like, well, I’m gonna force an all on X, you know, it’s like, that’s not the purpose. It’s, it’s an option and what do you want? It that was almost a sidenote Victoria. If I were to say to what one of your biggest accomplishments, it goes back to your thesis about the sacredness of commerce, and how you’ve applied that. So it’s funny how your thesis ended up, recapping, in one sense, what your life’s theme has been, is bringing the sacredness to commerce because, and to people, you know, that we’re relating to so well, anymore. So, I’m just kind of curious, if you had, if you’re talking to aspiring dentists, that, you know, what call of action can you give them who want to make an impact in their field? So, you know, for dentists that are thinking, you know, how can I make an impact? Surely they can make an impact in their community right? And maybe that’s the answer but if they’re wanting to make a big impact in, in dentistry, what’s that look like? Bruce?

Dr. Bruce Baird 9:41
Well, you just have to have a plan. I mean, you actually have to have a vision of what it is that you want to impact people? How do you want to help them? This is my thought. We could have sat with the thought process of Productive Dentist and never done anything and, and there was a lot of arrows as Victoria was saying earlier and, and so I think is having a plan, but not getting slowed down or stopped by failure and it doesn’t matter in what arena that can be. If you’re a serial entrepreneur, you’re gonna have failures. I mean, it’s just guaranteed. I mean, you’ve got, you got,

Victoria Peterson 10:24
You reminded me in my company Coldstore Be gone.

Dr. Bruce Baird 10:29
Oh my gosh. Yeah, I can name multiple companies. But those are the kinds of things that you just take, and you learn, and you just say, “Alright, next time, I’m not going to do that, or next time, I’m not going to do this,” but it’s having a game plan, and how do you want to affect people and, and to do that, you have to be well educated, you have to be well trained, you have to have have been on the see circuit and you know, when I say that, you learn the best of all the different arenas. You know, I went, Paul homily for communication back 35 years ago, you know, Pete Dawson, Carl Mish, you know, I wanted to learn from the best and then what, what’s interesting, and what happens is you take information from the best people, the room guards that, you know, you take information from all those people, and you distill it, to what works for you. And that may be totally different than what you would ever imagine and then you start thinking, “Well, boy, I really would like to share this with other people what my thought process is, and how I’m thinking,” and, you know, and then you just keep going, and you just don’t give up and eventually you’ll, you’ll get to where you want to go is just not being discouraged by other people. Because as you become more and more successful, you have more and more people that are kind of giving you the, you know, whatever, like, oh, yeah, yeah, he does this, or he does that. Well, you know, that’s just because they didn’t do it. You know, and people say, people say, “Well, how the heck do you do all the things you do?” Well, I just do it, right. There’s no other option for me than to if I have something No, now, I’ve got inventions that I have that I still have on the drawing board. I’ve got, you know, Cynthia gets mad at me, because I’ve got a golf blow dryer design already complete, I’ll have to do is get it to manufacturing and it’s a golf book dryer. You know, in Texas, we could use that I saw a guy in a tournament this past weekend had 25 Golf gloves on his in his car drying, you know, and so, but those are the kind of things I you know, you decide what’s important and, you know, if you can help people along the way, then you’re gonna, you’re gonna, at the end, at some point, you’re not going to say, “Gosh, I wish I would have thought that or I wish I would help these people.” You’re just gonna say, “Well, I did the best I could and within balance,” knowing that your family and, and your friends are massively important as well, which I kind of put them on the side burner for a good while I was, you know, fine. I would say that another good thing right now, with the new age of dentists, the new young age dentists, they really do want time, they want time they want it all. And I didn’t know I could have it all. Not that I do but I didn’t know that. I just thought I’d have to work my butt off, make money and just that’s the only thing I could do. Whereas now they go no, I want time, I want money, I want, I want balance, I want this. I’m just knowing like, “Wow, that’s so cool.”

Dr. Chad Johnson
And that’s on ramp, although you had big shoes to fill.

Well, I just love working with young dentists. I just love it. Yeah. They’re so they’re so open to anything. And that’s exciting for us. And we’re working with a lot of old vendors to that’s that’s cool, too, because, well, I guess I resemble that remark. So it’s so I can maybe I can help them in their journey over the next few years. So yeah, it’s fine.

Victoria Peterson 14:12
Yeah, I would say for me, you know, when you ask about impact, I have a distinction between impact and influence and so impact is like a meteor comes crashing down. Does

Dr. Chad Johnson 14:23
That word comes up? Yes.

Victoria Peterson 14:26
So impact you know, there’s there’s usually like momentum coming that into another object. So I think about impact, I think about influence like water running over rock and the Grand Canyon being established and things like that. So I think number one, work on influencing your own mindset, like really do the inner work of who am I? What do I believe in? How did my parents mess me up as a kid? You know, all that kind of stuff. All right. So first and foremost, influence yourself and Regan, you and I were talking about this the other day, like what is a leader’s responsibility and for us it is to empty the bowl, into the bowl of my own preconceptions my own lens that just allows me to see the world through a narrow way. If I can open up like that as a leader, then I’ve got compassion for others, and I can sit and hold space for them, and they can discover who they are and then one by one, we influence the world that we’re in, right, so good people just light the candle for other good people. If you don’t do that work, and you go out to impact the world, you know, and we see those people come through dentistry, “Oh my god, what a charlatan, what a snake,” you know, like, you can see the fakeness of it, because they haven’t really done the work and so people I see a lot of, of influencers that have big followings and this and that, but if they haven’t truly, if they read it in a book, and you’re, you know, Simon Sinek says this, and Malcolm Gladwell says that, and their whole program is that, you know, they just haven’t arrived at the place where they’ve earned influence. So they may, they may have a voice but for me, it’s all about do your own inner work to be the best you can be and then you discover like Bruce, Bruce, you said, it’s so beautiful, “I don’t know how I just do what I do.” Your inner gifts are just coming out to the world, you have a very innovative creative mind. You’re really clear and clean about who you are, who you’re not you just go well, golly, it sounds like a great idea. So it becomes common sense to put your gifts into the world and have impact and have influence once you just get out of your own way. But that’s not so you got to influence first is yourself and get really clear about that. Now, I don’t know serial killers do that, they have their own purpose, but they impact the world in a different way.

Dr. Bruce Baird 17:11
Yep, yeah.

Victoria Peterson 17:12
Yeah. Does that make any sense at all?

Dr. Bruce Baird 17:15
Yes. Perfect sense.

Regan 17:16
It’s beautiful. Yeah, it’s, thank you very much. Okay, last last question before we wrap this up and thank you both for your time. The future of dentistry is here you have both shaped dentistry for the better over your careers. Paint the vision of the future of dentistry. In one sentence, what’s your vision for the future of dentistry?

Dr. Chad Johnson 17:42
And while they’re thinking I’d like to throw in my wish list into that. No, listen, I want to find my wish list into this vision of where dentistry goes Bruce will say amen to this. You know, we’ve got this Yomi robot that you know, is helping place implants and stuff like that and we have CEREC that mills out crowns and for over a decade I’ve been wondering when are we going to be able to hook Sirak onto the intraoral and have the tooth prepped by robotics. So my answer is as dumb as it is, it’s just one facet. I want to see robotic tooth preparation there.

Dr. Bruce Baird 18:24
Well, I think when that happens, then you’ll just drive through the Wendy’s and

Dr. Chad Johnson 18:30
sounds fantastic. Give me a chocolate frosty

Dr. Bruce Baird 18:33
Chocolate frosty now they have strawberry and then you just open your mouth, and they will just prep your tooth for you but yeah, I mean, dentistry in one, one sentence. What I think the future of dentistry is we’re going to see better and better care of our patients in the future. That’s one sentence. Thank you. It’s gonna be we’re gonna continuously better and better care if that’s what we choose. And if we tell them that we can do that, that we have a carrier that can help them.

Regan 19:07
Thank you. Victoria?

Victoria Peterson 19:08
I think the future of dentistry is so bright I encourage everybody I know you become an assistant become a hygienist be a dental professional, being administrator. It is such a caring profession. It’s a wonderful profession if you’ve got to be brick and mortar all day is kind of a fun place to be. I hope one day we can put down the handpiece completely because there’s no cavities to fill and you know we’ve balanced out the biome so that we aren’t losing teeth. I started out like literally holding the tooth in place and like barely because the teeth would fall out in my hands.

Dr. Bruce Baird 19:52
Man I want to get all the calculus because

Victoria Peterson 19:55
actually I didn’t want to get any of the calculus off because it’s what was holding the tooth.

Dr. Chad Johnson 20:00
So as soon as you got done cleaning, it was supposed to be an impression for impartial, right, and you’re just thinking, I’ve told people, you know, if the two comes out in my impression, the extraction is free.

Dr. Bruce Baird 20:14
I always I always bombed those cases first, then take the impressions. Yes.

Victoria Peterson 20:19
Or the tongue after you get the Tartar out because there’s so many sharp,

Dr. Chad Johnson 20:25
Regular to feels sharp on that corner. Yeah,

Victoria Peterson 20:28
that’s evolved that could be just such ancient history that we read about tablets of stone, that would be great.

Dr. Chad Johnson 20:36
Guys, what an honor to have you on today. I appreciate what you’ve done for, you know, getting us into this podcasting and, and, you know, getting people to check more into what the PDA brand is about, the workshops, you know, and everything like that. Bruce, I love how you lay it out plain. Uh, you know, I tell people, “Listen, if you can’t make it to the workshops,” I mean, really, Bruce doesn’t say and the the third secret on we all save for the workshop, you tell all of it on your podcasts. I mean, you just, it’s it’s the it’s the stories that you tell it’s it’s the same line of logic and I love that and Victoria, you taking it right now a dynamic time for us to think about businesses and our businesses, not just the teeth that we’re working on and not just the patient aspect, but then looking at it as a business and as a business owner and a shareholder. You know, what’s it look like for, for us as the owner, what’s it look like for our, our team as stakeholders, and also to extend that into the community? You know, like, how do we give our community the best outcome for our succession plan our our legacy, and so I appreciate that about IGP and in the podcast that you’re doing, Regan and I are definitely privileged from you guys, even if it weren’t podcasting, even if it weren’t podcasting, both you guys have taken us a very long way and you know, that’s not just blowing smoke. Some people that might not know, would be like, “Oh, you’re just being unkind,” but it’s not you guys both know, personally that you’ve taken me and probably regen ways that I don’t know, ways that other people wouldn’t know in business, in life in personal in dentistry and everything like that and that turns into patient care millions of people are affected. So thank you,

Victoria Peterson 22:33
Chad, you’re a beacon of hope and and clarity.

Regan 22:41
It’s well it is well said I think both of you embody the ideal that anything is possible. Anything is possible. And I think it does all boil down to when you care about others. You care about yourself. Anything is possible. Thank you both for everything.

Dr. Bruce Baird 22:58
Thanks, guys.

Regan 23:02
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.