Episode 235 – Empowered Voices

“There is a privilege of standing at the podium. It’s not about us. It’s not even about our message. It’s about the audience.” ~Dr. Maggie Augustyn

Everyday Practices podcast co-hosts Regan Robertson and Dr. Chad Johnson are joined by influential speaker and author Dr. Maggie Augustyn of Happy Tooth (Elmhurst, Illinois) and in this episode, Dr. Maggie shares her transformative experience at the WEvolution Annual Conference – a unique gathering dedicated to enhancing the art of public speaking and storytelling within the dental community. 

Dr. Maggie explains the essence of WEvolution and this year’s theme, “Empowered Voices, Inspired Change,” and she recounts the conference’s emphasis on the privilege and responsibility of standing at the podium, not for personal accolades, but to genuinely connect and empower the audience. You will be inspired by Dr. Maggie’s reflections on the shifting dynamics of audience demographics and the evolving expectations of younger generations. Then you’ll discover how she plans to incorporate these insights into her own speaking engagements (including her appearance at the Productive Dentist Academy Conference, September 12-14, in Frisco, Texas). 

Discover how storytelling and audience engagement are altering the way speakers interact with their audiences to best convey their messages, and while you listen to this episode, we want you to think about the following questions:

• How do I define success in my own professional journey, and what steps can I take to achieve a more fulfilling and impactful career?
• What can I do to align my professional goals with a deeper sense of purpose?
• How can I build or strengthen my professional community in order to support my journey and the journey of others?

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Regan Robertson 1:26
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 1:59
Welcome to Everyday Practices Dental Podcast. I am your host Regan Robertson here with the ever-effervescent Dr. Chad Johnson. Chad, how are you?

Dr. Chad Johnson 2:07
I’m doing great and I won’t even ask because I imagine by judging by your smile that you’re doing amazing.

Regan Robertson 2:14
I have two of the best folks with me today. You being one of them and are now multiple return guest, Dr. Maggie Augustine, a practicing dentist and dental influencer and speaker and author out of Elmhurst, Illinois. Maggie, welcome to our show again.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 2:33
Hey guys, good to see you.

Dr. Chad Johnson 2:35
Maggie. I wonder if you know in the words of John Lennon, that you say you want a revolution. All right. All right. So that’s my segue. You recently went to WEvolution. Tell us about what that is, and how that relates to John Lennon’s legacy. I’m just kidding. Tell us more about it.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 3:02
Thank you. I was so touched when both of you well, when you guys reached out to do a podcast about this, because one I am a huge fan of Victoria Peterson who of course supports WEvolution and then Vanessa Emerson, who runs the meeting, and who is the spectacular dental speaker herself and meeting planner and when I signed up for WEvolution, it was because I wanted to be more present and grow in the arena of speaking myself but I had no idea what to expect and you know. My husband was like, “What are you going to do there? Are you speaking?” “No, I’m going to learn how to be a better presenter,” and, and just wow, everything that Vanessa embodies in terms of being present, being conscious, being aware of your own purpose and mission and collaboration and connection. That was the theme so the the title of the conference so beautiful, empowered voices, inspired change. I mean that just gives you goosebumps if you are really think of think about and marinate on it and meditate on it and talk about being present for the change that you want to see in the world and the biggest message that I walked away with, and I think this this this was to Vanessa’s point was that is that and both of us speakers will connect to this. There is a privilege of standing at the podium.

Dr. Chad Johnson 4:47
Absolutely

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 4:48
And it’s not about us. It’s not even about our message. It is solely about the audience and it is a about being present for them being in communion with them and so we talked a lot about strategies that are fairly important for us to incorporate it’s a speaker’s for example. For example, Margie Sheller, who’s also one of my coaches who is an incredible human being part of sober life rocks with Laura Nelson, but she talked about the difference in our audience in terms of demographic, because the three of us are kind of about the same age, okay and it was okay for us to attend really boring lectures with just terrible slides. Like that was cool. You audiences, right, the Gen Z and the millennials, that is not okay with them. In fact, she kind of said something really funny in that nowadays, there’s all of these speaking contests and social media contests and that’s because the millennials and the Gen z’s, they always want a trophy for everything, right. Like we didn’t have best social media influencer several years ago.

Dr. Chad Johnson 6:15
Well, and its in the best storytelling as well. It’s the best story as opposed to who has the most information from data from the last 15 years on the statistics of composite shrinkage. You know, it’s like,

Regan Robertson 6:28
The story has exploded everywhere, every level of business, I’ve seen how to connect story story story, I see lots of advertisements for different classes, different competitions, all of that you’re absolutely right, Maggie.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 6:43
So it’s so these, these young people, they want to connect to their speaker, they want it to be about them, but they also want to be engaged. So they want to see an app, they want to do, you know, some sort of a survey, while you’re up there speaking, they want to touch something that’s on the table, they want a really different way of connecting and of course, as a new speaker, I was completely unaware of how this is going to shift over the next six years. Right now, Gen Xers, us, we’re predominantly in the audience but in six years, I believe she said, we’re going to go from 50% of the audience to 30% of the audience and so we have to change our speaking style. So that was extremely impactful. And that was the keynote of the conference. And that was followed by Katrina Sanders, who utilize storytelling, about her trip to Mount Kilimanjaro and the lessons that she learned along the way on this trip, she allowed us to bring those into our businesses, and it was a really, I’d never seen that kind of presentation before, where it really was all about, you know, her life and, and, and her pursuit of this of this mountain, and ended up being a tremendous life lesson for all of us with some exercises put in there in terms of allowing us to to find a better purpose and I don’t know how to have more of a laser focus on what it is that that we were looking looking to do and of course, you know, because this is Vanessa. She had some of the greatest speakers in the country with us, and that included Eleni Calicos, who is a Broadway ex-Broadway performer and actress from New York City and she talked about the charismatic presence on stage. She talked a lot about being in union with with her with with her audience, Jim Cathcart, who is a huge presence on for anybody that is in the in the speaking world and Tim Guard and I don’t know if you guys know who Tim guard is. He is, he is probably one of the funniest humans I’ve ever met in my life and he is that kind of speaker where he’ll tell the story. You’ll try to retell it but you’ll say, “Oh, no, you need to hear Tim say this.” I mean, it was such a gift to be to be present in the audience, and to communicate to network to discover yourself along the way. You know, these are long days because you wake up early, and then you end up going to dinner and it’s exhausting. Any of these,

Regan Robertson 9:36
Very long days

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 9:37
Yeah, very long days but it really I think all of us left inspired and we we left inspired because the people that were speaking, they did speak down to us. They did I mean yes, they were there to teach us something but more importantly, they were there to hold us to stay true to our own dreams, and to make us understand and realize and believe that no matter how great our dreams are, they are 100% attainable, simply because, you know, we are willing to be to be open and raw with one another about that how to get there and so, the conference was was an was an was an absolute success. I mean, I left so inspired and so grateful to Vanessa, and in typical Vanessa fashion that the conference ended with us sharing our most vulnerable moments, and, and lifting each other up in, in whatever struggles we had, that we were facing moving forward. So it truly was just a beautiful display of humanity of consciousness of togetherness.

Dr. Chad Johnson 11:00
Regan, did you go with me to the Dental Speakers Summit? Is this renamed from that or is this different?

Regan Robertson 11:11
Vanessa Dental Speakers Institute’s

Dr. Chad Johnson 11:14
Right, but then I know Victoria and I went to the summit four years ago, maybe something like that.

Regan Robertson 11:22
I think it was the same one I, yeah, yeah, I think we would we had several team members also.

Dr. Chad Johnson 11:29
I was just wondering if this is rebranded or if this is a different?

Regan Robertson 11:35
I don’t know.

Dr. Chad Johnson 11:36
I don’t know. It’s just, you know, we’ll have to ask Vanessa, but it kind of just, it reminds me of that, which was amazing. I loved it.

Regan Robertson 11:43
The, the one that I, I recall, I’ve been to neither of these, nor have I really spent a lot of time looking into them but what I’ve, but what I remember from the last one, it has had a lot of breakout sessions that had if I recall correctly, like competitions. So it was a speaking workshop I think it was evolution setup like that, Maggie or was that a little different?

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 12:03
No, it was a little different. I, there was, there was no breakouts, there was no, okay. There was I mean, the audience was maybe 100 people or so. So it was small enough. We all kind of switch tables every in the morning in the afternoon. So that we would we would get to know each other and there was well, there were breakouts within the big room where we were asked questions and and we talked about them. We talked about solutions and things like that but again, in typical Vanessa, Vanessa fashion, she continues to evolve and I think what she she got a lot of clarity at this meeting also about what is next for her, which is really continuing to talk about the privilege and the honor of standing at the podium. This isn’t about us gaining fame, this isn’t about necessarily even sharing our story. This is all about the audience in our own. Well, yes, our own pursuit of who we are in our own purpose and sharing that but really empowering the people that listen to us to feel safe to not feel alone. To be bigger to dream bigger. One of the things that they said is, “What is coming for you and are you ready for it?” and, “If you’re going to dream, dream bigger than your biggest dream,” and again, those are just and you feel so safe. I mean, leaving. I thought I knew what I wanted and now I want something else but I feel safe. I feel safe in knowing that that’s possible where I don’t I can’t tell you that I was there. Two weeks prior. That’s cool.

Regan Robertson 13:46
I love that you brought up the, the Empowered element, again, one of the and especially how how it’s an honor and a privilege to have the podium time. One of the prayers that I do every it is the only prayer, the only prayer that I have right before I ever go on stage is “for guidance to bring value”. So it is even if I can reach one person if I’m bringing them value but I would really love to bring everyone value because I’m taking up their time I’m taking up their space. So please use me as a vessel so that I can do that. It’s been a great grounding exercise for me too and it’s firmly taking the focus off of me. So it’s not about me at all and that seems to really calm my nerves significantly. I got to see Vanessa, she was our emcee for our investment grade practice summit that we had back in March this year 2024. She was phenomenal to the surprise of no one and I loved how she, she would even integrate these little facilitated sessions. So as an emcee, she even got the crowd engaged and talking and, and I’m sharing on the podcast. She is now our main emcee. She will be a co-emceeing with Sarah Hanson who is Productive Dentist Academy‘s Fractional CMO to clients and Vanessa Emerson, they’re going to be the best tag team. So she will be on the main stage and I’m just so excited to see what our 20th anniversary in September brings up with Vanessa at the helm and and can I share the other surprise, Maggie?

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 15:21
Go ahead.

Regan Robertson 15:23
So we just found out that Maggie is going to be joining us also at the PDA conference. It’s a conference now because there’s different learning tracks. There’s, yeah, there’s special speakers and I’m so excited. I thought that Maggie wasn’t going to be joining us because I, this fits into evolution trust me, guys, because you are speaking in front of a much larger audience also that, that same week, do you want to share a little bit about that? It’s exciting and it’s celebratory for sure.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 15:51
It’s, it is a true honor of I think my existence to think that an audience of 1000 people would come and watch silly old me tell my story and so I’m in the midst of writing it and because I’m still working on the on the contract, and it’s only because of the dates have been kind of crazy. I haven’t signed it. I don’t want to share just yet which stage I will be on that will be forthcoming but talk about self-worth. So on Thursday morning, I’m keynoting in Asheville, and then because PTA has been such an incredibly important part of my life, and I cannot miss the 20-year anniversary, I gained self-worth and the fact that that weekend, I am bicoastal and so I get on a plane and then I join you guys later that afternoon and Dallas and stay with you until Saturday at get to see just my family. I every time I go to PDA it’s it is. Yeah, it’s one of the best meetings that I have the privilege to attend to and seeing you guys it’s like it’s like seeing the family that you actually want to see. If you were to handpick your own family. That’s who I would, that’s why I would want to see it’s, it’s incredible.

Dr. Chad Johnson 17:19
Yeah. Well, there are two things and again, I’m just promoting Vanessa because of the awesomeness of the revolution that you were at and if anyone is interested in next year checking into this, right now there’s early registration for $1,100. It’s May 2 and third of 2025, which is a Friday and Saturday is in the Phoenix area. I think it’s Chandler and the website to check into this is dentalspeakerinstitute.com and of course, for productivedentist.com If you want to check into our conference, that’s coming up in September for our 20th anniversary. So check into both those websites, dentalspeakerinstitute.com and productivedentist.com. Regan, closing thoughts. Oh, yeah, go ahead.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 18:12
If you are not a speaker, but you want to experience that kind of community, that kind of consciousness, that kind of empowerment and purpose, Vanessa does have another conference which is called Expansion in January and Chandler in the same place that I had been to again for the first time and, and, and that is that is another one of those moments that is absolutely necessary in defining who we are, in that second part of our lives are I suppose, gosh, I can’t tell you what I would have given up to know what I know today. 20 years ago when I was when I was beginning my practice as a dentist or just even as a human. So becoming part of her network and PDAs network is just going to skyrocket your growth in every which direction I guess as a practice owner, or a practicing dentist, but also as a human being.

Dr. Chad Johnson 19:02
Yep. Very cool.

Regan Robertson 19:04
Well, thank you, Maggie. so much as always, for your openness. You’re taking us on your own journey. We’d love to be alongside for it. And it does provide a heck of a lot of value for all of our listeners. So thank you for your time, and we will likely see you again very soon.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn 19:20
Great seeing you. Thank you.

Regan Robertson 19:25
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.