Episode 233 – The Space Between Our Load & Our Limits

“If you’re living a marginless life, it means you are pushing it up to the very top of the line and you are not giving yourself any break.” ~Regan Robertson

Everyday Practices podcast co-hosts Regan Robertson and Dr. Chad Johnson continue their asynchronous business book review series as they discuss Dr. Richard A. Swenson’s best-selling book Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives. With candor and humor, Regan and Dr. Chad share personal anecdotes and reflections, challenging listeners to examine their own lives and determine whether they’re living within margin or living marginally. They highlight Dr. Swenson’s prescriptions for cultivating margin in various aspects of life, from relationships to physical health, and even technological habits.  Find his book here!

Through riveting discussion, Regan and Dr. Chad dissect the concept of margin – the space between our load and our limits – and its profound impact on our lives. Drawing from the author’s observations, they explore the contrast between societies with margin and those without, particularly focusing on the fast-paced American lifestyle. They emphasize the importance of prioritizing what truly matters, fostering resilience, and embracing small disciplines that lead to significant change. 

Think of these questions as you move through this episode:

• Are you living with or without margin? Do you often feel rushed, overwhelmed, or stressed? Are there areas of your life where you lack space or time to breathe? How can you create more margin in these areas?
• What small disciplines can you adopt? Considering the prescriptions for cultivating margin discussed in this episode, which practices resonate with you the most?
• How can you prioritize what truly matters? Are you focusing on what truly matters, or are you caught up in the pursuit of progress for its own sake? How can you shift your mindset to prioritize relationships, well-being, and personal growth?
  

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Regan Robertson 0:00
Doctor, are you living the dream or just dreaming of living? It is my honor to announce the PDA 20th Anniversary Special conference this September 12 to the 14th. in Frisco, Texas, the nation’s leading course on dental practice growth. If you feel isolated as a leader who is frustrated that your schedule is unproductive, maybe your team is disjointed, or your systems are inefficient. This is the conference for you. The PDA 20th anniversary conference has all new features including keynote speaker Emmitt Smith, who was a Pro Football Hall of Fame running back and entrepreneur, you can choose your own educational track to customize your learning experience and when you register before July 1, you will receive a 90-minute free meeting session that can help you boost and increase your productivity before you even attend the conference. Go to www.productivedentist.com and click the pop-up or select Productive Dentist Academy conference under the dental CEE and Events tab. That’s www.productivedentist.com. Seating is limited registered today and we look forward to helping you make your dreams become reality.

Dr. Chad Johnson 1:04
Hey, you know how you’re running yourself ragged? Yeah, and it’s just like, “Yes, I know. That’s the problem.” It’s like well stop it.

Regan Robertson 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 Robertson 1:46
Welcome to another episode of Everyday Practices Dental podcast. I am your host Regan Robertson here with the doctor who’s not dentisting today. Dr. Chad Johnson. Welcome to the show.

Dr. Chad Johnson 1:58
Welcome. Welcome Regan. Glad to see it. Is it sunny in your area or is it the usual?

Regan Robertson 2:05
It was beautiful and sunny this afternoon. I believe it is going to rain. all weekend long. No hiking for me. I wanted to go hike Lake 22. I was very excited about it and it’s raining.

Dr. Chad Johnson 2:18
Yeah. Well, we we did a book together separately, but together margin by Dr. Richard Swenson, MD, who did missionary work in Africa and he then noticed the stark contrast between a society and a culture and a tribe, a group of people who have margin, or let’s just say time to spare, and people who don’t have margin, which would be the American way, you know, by and large.

Regan Robertson 2:52
Yes.

Dr. Chad Johnson 2:53
So we wanted to just talk about that book, why don’t you give me your opening thoughts because you had mentioned, let’s get controversial, you had said, “What I didn’t like was,” give me that.

Regan Robertson 3:04
So in that submission that you just gave Chad, I think it is pretty easy to tell. In a nutshell, do you live a life with margin or a life that is margin less and a life that margin list looks like rushing to get out the door so that you can go to work, you get stuck behind a car that’s going 10 miles under the speed limit, then you realize you’re out of gas, you have to go get gas before you make it to the office, you’re late for your meeting and on and on and on. So if you’re living a margin-less life, it means you are just pushing it up to the very, very top of the line and you are not giving yourself any break. So that is how you can know are you living a life with margin and space or not? So I felt that that Dr. Swenson spent a large amount of time talking or giving examples of what a margin-less life looks like and I felt like yes, “I get it, let’s move on to the solution.” So sometimes they get a little impatient and I want to get to solution but I’ve really enjoyed this book.

Dr. Chad Johnson 4:07
You have a good point in that, you know, it seems like there’s a while where he’s giving the diagnosis. He kind of talks about the diagnosis, the prognosis, and the prescription

Regan Robertson 4:20
Yes, yeah

Dr. Chad Johnson 4:20
And what’s interesting is that when he’s going ad nauseam, let’s just say about the, the lack of margin and what that looks like. I do think when like the goal of that perhaps is to cut to the core of the listener or the reader to be able to go, “That’s me,” and when you do here is just like hey, you know how you you wake up in the morning and then you throw down a quick donut real quick or a quick protein shake while you’re on the drive to work and you have to go 10 mph over or else you’re gonna you know, and you only woke, woke up 15 minutes before your supposed to be at work, you know, and that’s also just another way where we’re just trying to push and push but that that is the solution. So like, you know, like, inherently you go, “Don’t do that.” It reminds me that comedy act with Oh, that guy from the 80s. I’m trying to I can’t believe I’m blanking on his name and I’ve seen it on YouTube, where he’s dialoguing with a woman and she says, “So, you know, here’s my problems,” and he says, “Well, I know the solution to that,” and the solution, he then says, “Stop it,” and she says, “What do you mean?” And he says, “Stop it,” and it’s supposed to be,

Regan Robertson 5:36
Yeah, I know that. I remember that,

Dr. Chad Johnson 5:39
And it’s supposed to be funny.

5:40
Bob Newhart

5:41
Bob Newhart, thank you. Yes, and it’s supposed to be funny but it actually is the solution where it’s just like, “Hey, you know how you’re running yourself ragged?” Yeah. And it’s just like, Yes, I know. That’s the problem. It’s like, Well, stop it.

Regan Robertson 5:52
Oh, I have a story for that, that it popped up in my head multiple times with the book margin and I had to chuckle because it is I don’t get it until I get it scenario. So my husband and I have been together for over 20 years, we have had a long-standing argument, when we travel on vacation, if we’re taking a plane, I run my life with little margin. So whenever I travel, I mean, when I’m sliding into that airport, it’s their boarding, like I am walking up as they’re boarding and in my mind, I don’t want to hang out and wait at the airport. I know how much time I have, yes, a few things may happen, but I’m going to buffer for that and it’s going to be fine but I am always rushed. I’m always go go go and I don’t know what made me change my mind or why this particular time, I think I decided I didn’t want the argument. So I said, “I’m just gonna go as early as you want me to go to the airport, and I’m gonna go on your schedule, instead of my own push it to the limit schedule.” We got in, we had plenty of time, nothing was rushed. It was really easy and I felt my physical stress level be much lower and I sat there kind of waiting for the plane and I went, “Oh, this is what it feels like. I don’t have to be constantly going.” Since that time, I have now adopted the policy of being significantly early to the airport, and it makes me feel more in control. It makes me feel calmer and you know, Dr. Swenson talks about the reason why I think him setting up the theory and the examples of where you’re living in a marginalist life is in these buckets that he made. So there’s like your emotional reserve or like your emotional bank, your physical bank, your mental bank, and your spiritual bank, I think it was was the buckets that he had and he’s able to kind of explain that when you’re running low or you’re running tight in each of those buckets, that’s what compiles and makes your life so stressed out all the time.

Dr. Chad Johnson 7:42
Yeah, I like one of his quotes that I wrote out was, “no one has time to listen, let alone love” and that was really good it so in other words, like the minimal might be you know that you can listen to someone hey, I need help. Yeah, well, I heard Yeah, that’s neat and all but I’ve got to move on. Right? versus, you know, someone that actually can stop and say, “Tell me more? What does that mean, you know, like to pause and to,” and so there’s definitely a human element to this book. It the things that are, you know, for the podcast listener now to know, he definitely hits this from a Christian perspective, he doesn’t deny or hide that he is taking this from a Christian perspective and yet, I think there’s something inviting to this, that, that it would it would invite other religions or worldviews to also appreciate this book. So if you get what I’m saying, like he does, he doesn’t shy away from, “Hey, I’m a Christian and that’s how I’m writing this book. But it you can still be a human and in your humanity, you can appreciate the fact that having margin will help you be a more loving person, a better person, a better community, a better father, a better mother, you know, stuff like that.” So I don’t think someone would have to be Christian per se. Unless they were, you know, they’re the types that are, you know, that might be anti-God, that would be like, “I don’t want to hear this about, you know, trying to make sure that I’ve got enough time, you know, so I can, you know, connect with God.” If you can overlook that kind of stuff when he’s talking about that. I think this book is for anyone, so I just thought fair game. Let’s point that out there. Yeah,

Regan Robertson 9:29
it’s true. It is a Christian book. My favorite quote, I like that you said it was Jesus napped. Jesus took naps, I did chuckle it that I, I believe everybody can get something out of this book, spiritual or not, because that’s only that’s only a portion of it. Anyway. So the formula the formula to pay attention to the formula that I pay attention to is is power minus load equals margin. And that particular so so power could be Your time and load could be your commitments. So how much time do you have and how many commitments do you have, do you have enough and then and then the secret to me in my mind was was adjusting, adjusting and giving space to context. So contextual shifting is very real. I know in my meetings every single day, I run them back to back to back, and I allow myself very little space to contextually shift, so that I can be super present. I know there’s been days when I drive home, and I almost want to hide in the garage because I know I am exhausted, Chad, you’re and I have helped make decisions and I have helped help facilitate calls and I have done all these things and then I get home and I know as soon as I walk in that door, I’m on again, and I can’t give my best and so then then, you know, my children get a depleted version of me.

Dr. Chad Johnson 10:50
Yes.

Regan Robertson 10:51
And that’s rough. So looking at power minus load equals where you put your margin, it’s a little bit frustrating. I don’t know about you, for me, it is because I want to do all the things.  you would all

Dr. Chad Johnson 11:02
Of course, and he talks, he talks about that in this book. If we have room, then it’s just like, “Well, why not fill it with more experiences, why not fill it with more fun with more, you know, so that way we can complete more,” and so this book is just very healthy. I thought, actually, this would be a very good, good and challenging book for you Regan because your life is full. And that this book would be kind of one of those heavy books like, heavy in the sense that you can listen to it, but then it’s just like, “Okay, now how do I do this?”

Regan Robertson 11:39
Hmm. I think I’ve been slowly, slowly putting into place certain, certain he’s so he has 75 prescriptions. Yes, that he offers us his solutions. So some of the things. Yeah, I think it’s hard. I think it’s always going to be a challenge for me but when when I get when I can slow down and be intentional and think about it, I find that I’m able to, to win. So like in your emotional reserve, for example, like being intentional about building good friendships, and honoring that. So let’s unpack just that one piece of your besties meaning like someone you talk to often, how many friends would you say you have?

Dr. Chad Johnson 12:24
Of close ones?

Regan Robertson 12:25
Yes.

Dr. Chad Johnson 12:26
I don’t know, let’s say three.

Regan Robertson 12:28
Right. Three is about what people supposedly should have quote me on that but I’ve heard that like, three, three close friends be hard to

Dr. Chad Johnson 12:36
say I have 150. Right. It’s just like, I have 150 best friends. It’s just like, listen,

Regan Robertson 12:42
It wouldn’t be, it wouldn’t be I don’t think that would be realistic. You could say, you could say that.

Dr. Chad Johnson 12:48
You could say that, I just don’t know if I believe you know, yeah,

Regan Robertson 12:50
I’ve got, I’ve got five close friendships outside of my immediate family. So I’ve got I’ve got close to it and I, I have had to, with some people in my life, almost say no, like, well, not almost I have said no and that is the weirdest, most egotistical in my head like thing to say, but somebody will say they want to do friendship things with me, I don’t have capacity and so what I ended up saying is, “I think you’re an amazing human being and I genuinely do, and I would love to hang out and I’m not going to be able to give you what I think you deserve your friend,” because I caught you know, I rank in order, the things that I’m able to give time to, and, and my my close friends know, they know and they’ll text me, they’ll say what’s going on, if you’re not being you know, super responsive, or you’re taking all space from things, so I try to be intentional. That’s one thing, you know, with the friendships and, and then also, the physical reserve part was a really, really fascinating section to go through because he talks about being kind to your heart physically. So making sure that you get your exercise in. And even if you’re older, so he’s got prescriptions, if you’re older, you know that you can, if you have lower back pains, even walking can help but if you’re ridic, that might not help bodybuilding, but not for the vanity of it. So here’s what’s helpful for you, you can lower your heart rate, if you will, and then he gets a little engineering. So if you lower your heart rate from 80 beats to 60 beats, this is 10 million beats. This is what the saves over time, so he kind of stratified it a little bit, which was very intriguing, intriguing to me, as well and, and I skipped over a lot of the gratitudes I feel like I am full up on like I do gratitude every course day and I think that has rewired my brain slowly truly rewired my brain. So I forced myself to do three gratitudes every single day for years, and now it has just sort of been built in. So the suggestions that I think Dr. Swenson has there’s a bunch it’s like a it’s like 1000 Mini things that create margin.

Dr. Chad Johnson 14:50
Yes and if you missed one, let’s say you skipped a page and you only did you know 60 of the 70 If the other 15 that you skipped over on a page are probably going to fall into place, because you’re doing the other ones, you know. So if you’re allowing yourself margin, you’re gonna allow yourself margin in other areas and I think this might be a good time to talk about the why or the purpose is so that way you are your best for others. So he’s like, “If you want to love others, then you need to be your best and if you’re your best, you have to allow for margin.” When I owned three practices, that was probably about the busiest time in my life. And because I’d get done working the morning at one, and I drive over to the other one and then if necessary, go drive to the third one to check on that they’re all 20 minutes apart. So it’s not like it’s that ridiculous but I do remember just thinking, “Man, if I had a helicopter, and I could fly to this place, quicker, and, or if I could just slingshot myself over to this place, you know, because like the drive time, I’m getting behind someone, and I don’t want to be the jerk that’s like riding someone’s tail,” but I’m like, “But if you would move out of my way I could, you know, like, speed all the faster so I could get there, you know,” and it’s just like, “Man, I’m trying to, in essence, be at two places at once,” but we’re not designed for that. So and so this was a really cool quote that, that you’ve seen in my notes that I wrote out, but it says, “What if we were to begin measuring our progress not by our wealth, but by our virtue, not by our education, but by our humility, and not by our power, but by our meekness.” How many times do you hear a book talking about our meekness and meekness is an interesting word in English, a lot of times we we correlate weakness and meekness together because they rhyme but meekness is power under control. So a horse that is bridled is meeked that like, it actually is an English or an old English word, you know, like that a horse would be meeked, yes and so when, when a horse was meat, they didn’t lose power, they were now powerful under control.

Regan Robertson 17:14
I wrote, I wrote in my notes, some of my quick takeaways, and one of them was resisting the urge for convenience and in the funeral section, I think is chapter eight or chapter nine, he, Dr. Swenson talks about parking a block away from your destination in order to help you move your body because most of us live fairly sedentary lives and I loved how counter-intuitive that was to me. So you can imagine me twitching at the thought of that, “Okay, like Park a block or two blocks away, so that I have to spend more time getting to the destination,” and that points to your story of can I just, you know, helicopter and go faster and do more. So that is counterintuitive. disruption in my mind made me think about well, that is that to me, like you said is its power under control, you’re making a choice and that choice is building up the reserve in your physical bucket.

Dr. Chad Johnson 18:16
Yep. You know, I that reminded me of something that I’ve done, ever since I’ve started my practice. So this is, is literally everyday practices as far as every business day, I park the furthest away from, from the office door to as a gentleman to serve others and so what’s interesting is when I do that, my intention is to put them first, which is a great way to start the day, right? So you and listen, therefore, I don’t turn out to be saintly in all my day, in all my ways, okay, so I don’t want to, you know, make it sound like therefore, that sets the tone for me to be perfect and awesome every day but it’s a great way to start and, and I’ve done that now for well, in one month, that’ll be 19 years that I’ve done that is you know, parked to the furthest away and it’s an it’s to serve the others and it’s a dumb little way. I mean, so I’ve got an extra

Regan Robertson 19:22
It’s not dumb at all but you’re modeling the way for others. So in your leadership, you’re modeling the way.

Dr. Chad Johnson 19:27
Yes, well, it could be bigger, but like it’s a small way and again, this book is just a bunch of little small ways. So everyday practices for the listener, instead of choosing, you know, to put your sign in the closest one to the door, what if you, you know, actually just parked the furthest away from the office and so you have to walk an extra 15 seconds, 10 seconds, you know, it’s not the end of the world and you know, like on rainy days and snowy days, it’s a smidge worse right you know, then then the sunny days where what’s it matter, right. I even wonder sometimes if when people say that they like the long drive to work, because it allows them time to think and decompress and stuff like that, that’s actually establishing margin. They’re taking a mundane task of driving to and from work or to and from their home and making it intentional have no I’m using that time to decompress and to think and to strategize and stuff like that. So that’s a powerful way that you can time bend as well.

Regan Robertson 20:30
Dolly Parton does great time-bending. She has no cell phone and you have to fax her things still to this day and I just read a little quip about why she doesn’t have a cell phone for and she said, “I don’t text because I do not want the responsibility of having to reply.”

Dr. Chad Johnson 20:53
Yeah.

Regan Robertson 20:53
So she controls her narrative and her space around her by choosing not to let technology take control of her and I think that’s one of the he speaks about technology in the book and how you know, if all of this, like in the 1920s, apparently, it was a thing in the United States where they because of technology. You know, society thought, Well, gosh, everyone will have two-day workweeks and now the reality is over in Europe, they have 14 weeks less of work per year than the United States, we have all this technology but yet, so few time, however, when I think about in the 90s, I wasn’t doing scrolling. I wasn’t going through all my social media, I wasn’t playing phone app games. You know, we had a few TV shows to watch, we didn’t have endless amount with multiple streaming services going at all times. So there’s a lot that can steal our time, if we choose to let it steal our time.

Dr. Chad Johnson 21:44
So if progress were actually the solution in our lives, then we would find that our lives would be better but he noticed when he was doing mission work in his small tribal community. One of the one of the town elders said, “You know, you Americans have all the watches, but we have all the time,” and that was a cool saying, Yeah, that was kind of a cool and one of his quotes then was he said progress is a saboteur of margin. So we always want progress, and this and that and he he’s not anti that kind of stuff but he also talks about giving and I think it’s really cool. He’s just like, you know, “So what if someone takes your chainsaw and doesn’t return it? Like, is that really the end of the world? Like, just let them borrow your chainsaw. Let you know, then you’re a blessing to someone but if your goal is to be like, well, what if he doesn’t sharpen the blade as good as I do? It’s like, so he probably won’t get over it and just let them borrow it.” You know, like, he’s like, I haven’t seen I think that was his example. He was like, “I haven’t seen my chainsaw in three years and I don’t think I’ve missed it. Like, it’s not a big deal.” So it was just really cool when he talked about, you know, like, “Maybe we should reconsider how it’s going for us the way that we’re doing it as Americans by and large,” you know, it’s just like, “Maybe, maybe it’s not exactly progress.”

Regan Robertson 23:12
Well, I think that example gives grace to people’s humaneness to, in that in the emotional bucket. One of the things that, that resonated with me was to mend any broken or unresolved relationships. Yeah, so he so this is where I’m going to contradict myself, because it took me space to like the theory. So it took the explanation of where we’re setting up our margin. So this one I definitely learned here, if you have an unresolved relationship, or an unreconciled relationship, something’s broken or whatever, that takes up margin in your heart and your space and your mind. And so if you don’t reconcile that, that can give you less margin and I really like like, that was a mind bender for me. Yes, I think of rushing around and doing doing doing and that, that helped me think of margin in a completely different way was a great prescription.

Dr. Chad Johnson 24:07
You know, and even in the New Testament, in the Bible, it says if you’re about ready to take communion, if you’re going to take communion, but you have harbored a problem or you know, like a quarrel with a brother drop your communion right now and go and make it right with your brother first then have communion with God because you’re wanting to have this union with God the communion and yet if you’re not right with your brother, then it’s not communion so it’s it’s even there’s so much you know, that spiritually aligns with this kind of stuff. Tell you overall, I really liked this book. Hopefully we didn’t spoil alert, you know, like how much you know, other than a few quotes and stuff like that but qualitatively, I really loved the reader of this in audible like so the uh, the, the auto audio recorder guy, I don’t know what they call him the voice a narrator

Regan Robertson 25:06
The narrator

Dr. Chad Johnson 25:10
that’s the word I wanted. The narrator was fantastic and I just really loved the heart of this book. So I hope the listeners to this podcast or, you know, whether they’re Reading it or listening to it really enjoy this book. It was kind of a fun find for me. Your thoughts? Yeah.

Regan Robertson 25:30
I, you summarized it very well, I, I’m excited to take some of these prescriptions, and put them into play and see, you know, see the results of them. You know, in our book journey. So far, I don’t know how many books we’ve read so far but in all the books that we have conquered together, you know, I find myself using principles from each book that I have found in in PDA. So with my team, or even with Victoria, so you can lead up and down the chain no matter where with, with all the books that we’ve read so far and I think this book helps me over the past couple of weeks that I’ve been reading it, it gives me perspective on what really matters. So in a leadership capacity, being able to prioritize what, what truly is the is the best long, longest serving term solution here. And it gives me that humaneness and that grace for our team. So instead of thinking that we’re in a constant race for everyday, everyday, everyday, just keep going, let’s just back up a little bit and realize that those days turned into years. I’ve been with PDA for 13 years now. So let’s play it. Let’s play the long game and I think the long game is creating small disciplines, like the book margin recommends, it gives you I mean, there are 75 different ways that you can create space in your life and I’m excited to put some of those into place some I had already put in place I was excited about and then others I thought, I’ll give that a try. It’s very challenging, but also remember, changing neurological pathways in your brain takes a heck of a lot of time. So give yourself a little grace, pick a few. Try it and see how it goes. I recommend the book for sure.

Dr. Chad Johnson 27:10
Well, Regan, I’m gonna give a spoil to the listeners. Chris Hogan is an author that’s worked with Dave Ramsey. Historically, our next book is “Everyday Millionaires”. So if you want to get listening, Everyday Millionaires by Chris Hogan, is our next book. It’s a short one, and powerful. So we’ll see you then.

Regan Robertson 27:34
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.