Episode 247 – Three Words Leaders Shouldn’t Use

“When you reduce your authority, no one is going to follow through with your treatment recommendation.” ~Dr. Maggie Augustyn

In this eye-opening episode of the Everyday Practices Dental Podcast, hosts Dr. Chad Johnson and Regan Robertson are joined by Dr. Maggie Augustyn who shares her experience and wisdom on why getting rid of three words from your vocabulary – “just,” “maybe,” and “think” – can revolutionize how you communicate and lead. Through engaging conversation and real-life examples, our hosts explore the profound effects these words have on patient perception and professional confidence. 

Dr. Augustyn opens up about her own journey in refining her communication, highlighting the importance of clarity and assertiveness. She also touches on common pitfalls in dental practices, such as the tendency to downplay diagnoses with phrases like “a little cavity” or “a bit of gingivitis,” and how using such language undermines patient care. 

As you listen to this episode, we want you to think about the following questions:

• How does my use of language affect my professional authority?
• Am I being intentional and self-aware in my communication?
• How effectively am I educating and communicating with my patients or team members?

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Regan Robertson: Welcome to Everyday Practices Dental Podcast. I think maybe we should do a podcast today. What do you think, Chad?

Dr. Chad Johnson: Well, it’s a Monday, I think and I think that would be a great day to do a podcast here. We are with one of our special friends and co host for the day. Maggie Augustin doctor. How are you doing today?

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: I’m good. How are you guys? It’s a Monday and it is brightening up my Monday to see the two of you hanging out with me. That’s, uh, that is the cherry on the top.

Dr. Chad Johnson: Wahoo. Do you have your oxygen ready, Maggie? So that way I can talk.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: I went boxing this morning, so I feel like I can definitely, um, I can definitely handle you today.

Dr. Chad Johnson: Sorry, everybody. Part, part time, part inside joke. So,

Regan Robertson: I didn’t even get that joke fully, other than I thought our fridge died over the weekend and then the cooler, Also leaked all over the floor this morning. So I’ve been up early. I didn’t box Maggie, but I, um,

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: You’ve been boxing with life.

Regan Robertson: Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was really interesting. So some listeners, Dr. Maggie sent Chad and I, uh, an Instagram reel and it was just a really short, you know, 20, 30-second reel. And it was three words that, uh, executives should not be using and it’s detrimental to, uh, how they perform as leaders and Maggie, why don’t you give us a little insight of those three words and why you wanted to podcast about this today?

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Well, part of it is because I feel like I’m very much affected by having used those words in the past and, and, uh, and it’s very freeing to see, although when you start doing this, it’s quite uncomfortable to stop using them and the three words are, if you haven’t guessed, just, maybe, think, and the way that you would use them in a sentence would be, well, I just want you to do this. I’m just following up, or I may be want to present an idea to you or I think that instead of coming out straight and, and, and dropping those words and really being more settled and more comfortable and confident with the information that you’re presenting and then in turn, that information gets absorbed and received. I think with a sense of more authority coming from the person that’s speaking. Would you agree?

Regan Robertson: Oh, absolutely. I know early in my leadership career, I felt that it was my job to know everything, to know it all and so, uh, that puts you in an uncomfortable position if you don’t know where to put your focus as a leader and so I think those words have a tendency. To, to come out because you can’t really, it’s hard to shield that, uh, that lack of confidence. And I actually say from the front of when we do our PDA conferences, uh, for many years, I would kick off the actual workshop [00:09:00] saying you are not just a dentist or just, uh, an assistant. And I would talk about the diminishing power of using the word just and why it should be stricken from your mind when you think about how you show up.

Dr. Chad Johnson: Unless you flip it in the negative, like you did, if you say you are not. Just then it, you know, it allows for, or, you know, there, there might be it’s, I mean, it is an English word that has its purpose and it’s, uh, you know, so what I’m saying is,

Regan Robertson: I know I like that chat advocating for the English language. That’s good. .

Dr. Chad Johnson: Yes, I like the English language. No, but what I’m saying is there, if you’re intentional and purposeful about when you use the word, just then then go ahead and do so. But, you know, I, I think, uh, Maggie, that video that you, uh, shared with us is, um, uh, demonstrative of how quickly we use those diminutive words, you know, to, uh, to downplay, uh, the scope of what we’re talking about and like you had said, Uh, right before we started hitting record, you know, that it can be something that, um, that women, um, might struggle with more because they’re like, is, you know, is this the right place for me in the workforce to be able to say so and, and, and whatnot and everyone would struggle with those words, but, um, uh, diminutive words altogether. I’m, I think that we should just do that. Maybe, um, those, those are three good words for people to reflect on and realize how often they use that.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Yeah. I mean, um, so I went to see a physician today and they saw me in the scrubs and they said, “So are you a physician?” And it took everything from me not to answer. “No, I’m just a dentist,” right, um, it, it, it comes up all the time. Now imagine telling your kid, go clean your room or I think that maybe just, you should maybe consider cleaning your room, right? How, how are those two received? Um, one is with an air of authority and respect, and the other is, you know, something that is, eh, I don’t know, maybe more of a suggestion than anything else. And just like we talked about before we hit record, one of the things I think that you associates struggle with very much because we’re not taught otherwise in dental school is. I think you might have a cavity or I think, or rather, um, you have a little cavity here. You have a little bit of gingivitis here. I mean, how often have you heard those kinds of things coming out of the operatory and what does that signal to the patient when you say you, you kind of have a little bit of gingivitis here, you know, maybe we should do a deep cleaning, it’s, that does not drive the message adequately, correctly, um, respectfully, or in any kind of authoritative way when you talk to the patient that way.

Regan Robertson: So Maggie, how did you, uh, temper yourself? So you obviously had a little bit of a, of a neurological pattern stop for you. So it took effort. So you had to acknowledge that and become self aware that you were about to drop the just, I’m just a dentist, but you stopped yourself. What sort of things have you done throughout your career to start to temper that, because we know when we’re making new neurological pathways and new ways of thinking that takes time, practice, effort. So what are some of the things that you did to eliminate those words from your decision-making conversations?

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: One of the ways that you can reduce the amount of time that it takes you to learn something is to determine that it has an extremely important impact on you. So when something happens and it’s important to you, you’re going to be able to implement and incorporate that into your life a lot easier than if perhaps maybe you can benefit from it, right. So when I was a younger, um, I wasn’t a, so I was already a practice owner, but. I had a mentor take me aside and say, you never say little cavity. You would never say a little bit of gingivitis because that reduces your authority and no one is going to. follow through with your recommendation if you see that him hawing and I see that in the associate that that we have at our office that there’s a certain difficulty and I think you have this or maybe or little and so for me understanding the impact of what I was saying and how I was saying how it was going to land to the patient and in turn If I him hot or was unsure, I was, maybe I was doing it because I want it to be liked. Nobody wants to hear you’ve got a big beepcavity in your tooth, right, but so when you say, “Well, you know, you kind of have a small cavity here,” you’re going to be, it feels like people are going to like you more when you reduce that the size of that cavity but what it did is it was a tremendous disservice to the patient because I was not adequately described, describing. what was happening and I wanted them to like me and I wanted them to have a pleasant experience, but in the end I was not doing the right thing. So understanding the gravity of that for me is what foreshortened that time or that that element of incorporating that into how I was speaking to patients and how quickly that happened to me. Um, although this just dentist thing, I have a thing with physicians. Well, I think many of us do where we think we’re not as good as physicians and I’m still fighting against that. So that’s why it’s, it is incorporated into my mind, but I still have to fight against it more than I’d like to admit.

Regan Robertson: You know, what’s interesting about what you just said, Maggie, in particular was, I know Bruce Baird has talked often about not prejudging patients and that there’s a lot of assumptions that come into play when you’re presenting treatment to patients and I can see where, how very easily and even unintentionally you could slip into that pattern of diminishing the amount of the cavity or wanting that, uh, to be liked and building relationships with them and even outside of dentistry, not wanting to hurt people’s feelings, but you’re actually disempowering that patient in or person that you’re having. I’ve done that. I’ve done that where I have assumed something of someone altered my response in a diminished way and it ended up biting me in the butt. It really, it did the opposite of what I had wanted and so by not honoring that process and using those, those smaller, uh, less confident words, it can actually end up really going vastly the opposite direction, even though we might want to be protecting that relationship or, uh, or outcome.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: And so what happens when you get to the other side of this, and this just happened in the operatory for me, I had a patient who came in and she did not want to hear that she needed to have her bridge replaced and so I said, “You, you have an abscess over the tooth and now you have. Significant amount of the I use significant amount of bacteria under this bridge that’s just brewing and that infection is never going to go away.” I am no longer afraid of telling her the truth. So what then patients might do is they’ll come back to you. So what you’re saying is that there might be an infection there and my response every time is no, that is, “Absolutely not what I’m saying. I’m saying that you do have an infection that we can’t get out in any other way other than, than this,” and it’s, and it’s funny trying to have the pain. And that happens to me multiple times in a week where a patient will look back at me to, to try to get me to minimize my initial finding, not so that I’m likable, but so that. I don’t know. Maybe they don’t lose as much self-worth in the process. I, I don’t know.

Dr. Chad Johnson: Do you know what else I think it is specific to that example within dentistry and infection is when people think of infection, they think of their face half swollen with pus oozing out. When people say, “Oh, so I have an infection,” that is their definition of infection. When we think of infection, we think bacteria, fungus, or some microorganism is present causing dis ease, right? It’s causing a disease and that threshold is a lot lower. So when people say, well, so it’s, it’s got bacteria in there, but it’s not infected, right and it’s like where’s the disconnect, but that’s just the lay understanding of it and we then come in and say, no, it’s, it’s an overt effect infection. Of course, it’s infected. And they’re like, well, if it’s infected, then why isn’t it hurt to push on it because it’s in the bone? Well, if it’s infected, then why isn’t it maybe even showing up on the X-ray? Let’s just say in some, some examples, well, it just hasn’t eaten away at the bone enough. Are you wanting the infection, the infection that is currently present to continue to grow bad enough that it, it, it shows up on the x-ray and it’s eating away at the bone and then you get a call it an infection or do we get a call it like it is now and say, yes, this is, these are early signs of infection, which indeed it is and therefore we should treat it as opposed to. You know, like, well, according to the lay definition of infection, you know, I can’t pop a bunch of puss out of it. So it must not be an infection. Well, I mean, Regan, I mean, this is how people talk about it.

Regan Robertson: No, I think it’s a really good point and I often refer to dentists as a one third artist, one third engineer slash scientists, and one third detective and for me, how I got myself. Uh, in my executive decision-making abilities and communication, how I removed those three particular phrases from my repertoire when I showed up to meetings, uh, is heavily leaning onto the detective side of it. So it was actually in the questions that I asked, uh, my team that surrounded me and, uh, taking their particular answers and formulating a solution together. So, as you both know, I’m a huge Star Trek nerd. I love it. I grew up on it p and g for all of those that know, you know,

Dr. Chad Johnson: and oh, CNG, of course,

Regan Robertson: Of course, and I. I watched the interactions on the bridge, the bridge of these spaceships, and the captain never solely made a decision on their own. They gathered the experts around them and they asked really great investigative questions and when you gather all of that information together, your confidence starts to rise and it no longer becomes a maybe, it becomes something that you move forward together, uh, as, as a plan, you are the final decision maker in that and when I think of the patient, a lot of it comes down to education and you did nail it, Chad, from my perspective, humbly. I didn’t know until I heard from Dr. Tom Larkin. Dr. Bradley Bale and Michelle Hudson that if your gums are bleeding, that’s just like having an open wound on the outside of your body. So picture cutting yourself and now you’re bleeding. What are you going to do with that? Are you going to put cake on it? Are you going to like rub some food into it. It’s it’s getting it directly into your bloodstream. It took that level of education for me to understand because my pockets were okay, you know, I had just kind of lackadaisical complacent cleaning sessions to elevate the status of risk for me to tell me that this is a serious situation, Chad, because I wasn’t hussy and I wasn’t watching those. Instagram reels of  the hoof cleaners, you know, the huge abscesses on the cows and all that, you know, so yeah, so my face wasn’t swollen, but that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be elevated in threat status. So education is a big part of that and you must appear confident or you’re not going to get that level of buy in and the best way for me in my particular role, is asking investigative questions. What, what is our goal? What is the long-term vision first and foremost stated at every single meeting? So with the patient, what is let’s remind us, even if we’re in for a cleaning, let’s remind us Maggie’s like one of your, uh, big goals with your practice that I’m so passionate about is you’re like, I want all of my patients to get to end of life with their teeth and it sounds so simple, right? It just sounds like, what a silly, what a silly thing to say until you realize how serious that is. So you could put every patient in that chair and remind them, you know what? We are here to get you to end the life with all of your teeth. So let’s talk about the plan for that. So I do that with my team with PDA, let’s talk about the long-term vision and then talk about what obstacles are sitting in between that and this is where it comes into, I’m watching these particular things. This is a level green right here. And, and, but I am watching it there. We can let it go and you can choose to do that, or you can fix it now. I think that’s where, uh, you can be a little bit more empowering to the patient and let them know from those maybes cause I, I don’t know how, how both of you treat in the chair my own dentist. He’ll have things where they watch it or he’ll say, we’ll watch it until, or you could take care of it now. So that’s how, that’s how he helps me.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Chad, in your education, if you can think that far back, um, do you remember, uh learning or being affected by saying little bit to a patient or did you kind of, Was that never an issue for you?

Dr. Chad Johnson: No, it was an issue and I don’t think I addressed it until year nine of practice. Um after having gone to Productive Dentist Academy.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Yeah, Bruce talks about this.

Dr. Chad Johnson: Yeah

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Incessantly, right? Um and Reagan for you this just made me think that we started talking about How far into your career did, were you, how long did it take before you realized that was a, a thing?

Regan Robertson: Uh, I made, I didn’t make the connection. So I have, since I’ve have the background in, in journalism and interviewing and all of that, I think I never made the connection up until 20, 2019. I, I became C suite in the, uh, like mid 2016 and I did get buy in. So I did do that. However, that didn’t increase my confidence and it was reflected to me and I, I, I used to hear, why can’t you act more presidential? That was one comment that was made and I thought, well, what does that mean? And I realized I was being so open. That I was showing where I was ignorant. I was showing where I was uncertain and instead of that, I think it was just a series of initiatives within the company and a series of people that I managed that I started to figure out a cadence and a rhythm to get the appropriate responses. So small proof points started happening for me that showed me, um, and I would do autopsies for lack of a better, I guess, assessments might be better, but if we had a very successful initiative, I would go backwards and say, “What did I do to contribute to this? What did my team do?” And I would almost look at it like Pete Carroll. I really liked Pete Carroll. He coached the Seahawks for many years. And he used to say, you know, at the end of a game, they would go back and work on what worked and what didn’t work and, and they, instead of leaning into failure, they just saw failure as that opportunity to learn. So I put that into place and, and started looking at that. And then I started. Uh, eventually probably 2022, yeah, we’re only in 2024 now I started making it so much less about me, Maggie. I started to let the ego go and instead place the focus on the long term vision and goal. So in your case, that would be, you know, the patient’s health. So instead of me wanting them to like me walking, wanting my team to like me, uh, wanting them to feel okay. Me assuming me projecting that this might make them feel a certain way that doesn’t exist anymore and I’ll tell you the biggest clencher of all, which I think. Will be my area of study for many years is I have figured out in the last 18 months how to separate data points from emotional points and I give them equal weight and I think that is a very big secret to removing the words maybe just and I think because I lean heavily on my team to tell me the data facts of a particular situation that we’re in. I attribute for the emotional elements and I know where I show up in that. I am a great feeler. So I won’t say I think, but one of my weaknesses, uh, Chad will know this, I say, I feel because I do, I feel my heart activates before my head activates. I’m the captain Kirk. So I act into my intuition and the answer is it’s balanced. So I’m very self aware around my strengths and my team strengths and when I ask all these questions, I ask myself at the end of those questions, is our emotional needs met? Is the data points met to both, to both areas feel well served? And if the answer is yes, then I know where we’re going and it no longer is. And I think, or maybe you’re just at all. No, it’s, this is my recommendation. This is the direction we are going.

Dr. Chad Johnson: All right. So here’s, um, uh, tangent off the same road though. It’s on, it’s on the same map. Yes, it’s just it’s going to be labeled an avenue instead of a street. Um, there are times when a patient will say, do I need to do this?

Regan Robertson: Oh, yeah.

Dr. Chad Johnson: So along that line, I’ll say, well, here’s the deal. Need is a manipulative word and if I answer the way that you want me to answer, then you will be happy with how I respond. If I don’t respond the way that you want me to, whether it’s yes or no, then you’re going to think that guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about because you have a bias already as to what you want the word need to mean and I apologize to the patient. I say, I, I, you know, I have to kind of explain this in a roundabout way, but then you’ll better understand what I’m getting at when we rephrase the question, which is a manipulative question. Does my daughter need braces? If you think yes, and I say, yes, you go, “Oh, good. He said the answer that I wanted.” Now there’s the other side of the coin need and want. Right. So now all of a sudden he said the answer that I wanted, then it’s like, “Oh, this is good” but when, when we rephrase the question to will my daughter’s. oral health be benefited by doing this procedure. Now we’re on the same page of saying, okay, what’s the ups and the downs. You’re going to be out 6, 000 bucks. There’s the down you’re going to have to clean your teeth more. That’s a down you’re going to have braces in your picture. That’s no good. You know, there’s a downside to it, right? You know, and then there’s an upside. Then you’ll have straighter teeth, which for patients, most of the time, it’s about aesthetics and then for dentists, it’s about form following function and it being functionally appropriate with the added benefit of it being aesthetic at the same time. So a long roundabout way of saying, when you ask, do, does my daughter need braces? No, she doesn’t need braces because she’s not going to die if she doesn’t get braces. So need is a hard word to work around when you’re talking about, you know, do, do you need to have this, um, you know, like diabetic treatment done? No, just suffer and, you know, have a horrible life. It’s just like, that makes no sense. We don’t word it that way. You know, when we’re asking health questions, um, you know, we, it would better, better be phrased as Would my health benefit by having this treatment? How so? And what are the, you know, what are the risk rewards? Then you as the patient, now that you’ve been fully, um, uh, consented, then you can say, yes, I agree to this treatment because I understand the trade off of the downfall, but I want the upside to a healthier mouth by doing this. So that was my avenue to the street of words, and it’s a tough one, but needs and wants. If you want something like if you want veneers, I don’t have to do much at all. Right. It’s just like, you want to sign right there and let’s get going and get some whiteys on the front. Heck yeah. Okay. Let’s roll.

Regan Robertson: Well,

Dr. Chad Johnson: That’s, you know, people come in and they go, I want white teeth. It’s like, well, let’s roll cause they want it, right. I mean, what, what convincing am I going to have to do? Do they sit down and go, do I need veneers? Yeah. No one says that that’s dumb. They want it and they want it done. Like, can you do it tomorrow? Right. So want is so easy to, let’s just say it looks so easy to sell. You want a bleach trays?Well, let’s take the, like Dr. Bruce mix the alginate, right? Like let’s get started right now but for, uh, you know, needs, it’s like this way of like, who wants to do needs? I need to eat vegetables, blah.

Regan Robertson: There are two. I love that you said this because I have a lot of opinions around need versus want, uh, the first, the first instance that I had was, uh, I was, I was working in a company with one of my very best friends, Sandy, and I emailed her and I said, I need, I think it was a logo, a piece of art, something to do a project, but I said, I need you to do this by this time. She wrote back to me and she said, you will not tell me that I need to do anything. Which completely caught me off guard. I was like, but, but I, I, I just, I was like, I just need this. I just, I mean, what am I supposed to say? So that alerted me that was my first time alerting that the word need was maybe not a word that humans liked in a business setting or a health professional setting. The second time it came back around and, and I was able to solve for really effectively was, uh, with guidance from Paul Vigario, who’s the CEO of surf CT and he just went off on a tangent one, one day when we were speaking and he said, uh, none of our, none of our clients ever need anything. It’s about a desire and about a want. that one small interaction with him. I strike the word need from every document that I can get my hands on, I focus it on one and when people, I love that you said that does my daughter need braces? When people come at me with a need, what I always say is “What is your desired outcome and we will work around the desired outcome,” or Morgan Milagrosa, who is at chin GYN that I often shout out, uh, when I, I was trying to get a health plan together, she caught me with a really good one. She said, how, what does, what does like optimal health, I think she said optimal, but what does health look like to you? Can you define it for me? Yeah. That made all the difference. Maggie got excited. What? Yeah.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Well, one of the things that went very astute of you, Chad, I’ve never thought of the term need as being manipulative and I love that. Uh, I think there’s a lot of truth in it. Mostly truth. When, when you said that and I, and I tried to conceptualize it in my own office, I would have said, “Well, it’s not about what I’m presenting you. It’s really about your own philosophy of how you look at things, right?” So if you don’t care about not having teeth when you die then what it, you know, then, then, then, thenthat’s our answer.

Dr. Chad Johnson: Then brush with sugar. I mean, go for it. Yeah.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Um, but the thing that I have recently, um, began to understand in the relationship of need with want is that it truly is all, if you start to think at Of things as wanting them. There’s a tremendous amount of freedom and I’ll give you an example. I think I was telling my husband, I’m going out, “I’m going to, I’m going to go to, I need to go to Nordstrom Rack,” and he’s like, “do you really need to go to Nordstrom Rack?” Like I said, “You know what? No, I want to go to Nordstrom Rack,” and when I said, “I want to go to Nordstrom Rack,” I no longer had to explain to him why I needed to go. Like that became. Unimportant. It wasn’t about him testing me. Why, why, why do you need to go there? I know I don’t need to, I want to,

Regan Robertson: Right

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: So now all of a sudden there’s a lot of ownership over saying, I want, and, uh, and you no longer  have to come up with explanations or excuses for some of the decisions that you’re making, because it’s not about need, it’s about want, and it’s okay to want.

Regan Robertson: It is okay to want and for some people it can be a long journey to get to that point to say that I feel comfortable expressing what it is that I want and I’m not selfish in expressing that.

Dr. Chad Johnson: But we can talk abstractly because when we say the human will will overcome just about anything. I mean, you know, so if it’s just like if the person wants to breathe. They’ll breathe, you know, if the person wants to swim to the top, if they’re stuck under the water and they’re able to, you know, they will make it happen. If we, you know, for all due purposes, we’ll, we will try and get it done. Human triumph is very impressive because it’s all about the human will. Now we switch the narrative from need to will problem solved. It’s going to get done.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: I get chills, I get chills about this kind of stuff. Yeah.

Regan Robertson: Well, you, yeah, Chad, you just introduced empathy into that and, and, and remember as Bruce is going through the, you know, the treatment planning process, no, you really did because Because, uh, treatment can go as slower, as fast as you desire. We can phase this out for you. And that’s where empathy meets what we’re talking about today, because some people can make change very quickly. Some people feel comfortable expressing what they want and activating on that. Other people need time to process. It’s your extrovert introvert and coming up alongside them and saying, now you’ve been, you’ve been in a comfortable environment where you can express what you’re wanting or desire is now. We get to go at a speed that is comfortable and a pace that’s comfortable for you. That’s a very important piece because that brings in the heart to it. So there’s the data elements, what in your mouth needs to be looked at.

Dr. Chad Johnson: You know, sometimes people say, “Oh, do I have to have that topical?” No, but you should  want it is what I tell them. You know, I’m like, I don’t, I don’t even have to numb you. Like, and if you, if you take that as a win, as long as you don’t move, then like, you know, like if you can pretend to me and play to me that you’re numb, so I can work confidently. Then I’ll do it without numbing, but most people can’t and I don’t see why you would. The fact is I want to use this numbing jelly on you because it’s going to make it hurt less and then I want to numb you because you’re going to feel less, but it’s a pick your poison. If you really don’t like that, it’s kind of whatever you, you get to be in charge and that takes off, you know, when people feel like they’re at the mercy of this, uh, torture or that we call the dentist, then it’s like, this is horrible, right? You know, I don’t want to have the dentist drill on me. It’s like, well, then you probably won’t, but it’s like, but if you don’t want a toothache, then, then pick your poison. If you don’t want to feel it while I’m in mid-procedure, then let’s use some anesthetics to get you numb. You know, so this whole, like, do you have, do I have to have that topical stuff? It’s like, “No, like it doesn’t, you’re asking me to save material money, you know, like, you know, I’m going to charge you the same amount. I’m doing this to be nice to you. Have you ever thought that maybe it’s, you know, like you should want it, you know?” And if they go, well, it makes my throat numb, you know, for the, you know, the next 30 minutes or whatever and it’s just like, and I mean, you know, like you don’t want it, then, then we don’t use it. You’re in charge and when they’re in charge. There’s less fear. Less fear is a good thing. So I don’t know. Is, is, am I, am I mean for saying stuff like that out loud to the patient? Like talking that through or do other people do you think do that?

Regan Robertson: What makes you mean? What do you feel is mean about that?

Dr. Chad Johnson: Because it’s broaching, it’s broaching the dialogue that otherwise they want to win from the onset. When they ask the snarky question, they, they wanted to win, right? And then I go, actually, You should want to lose this, this argument and let me explain.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: I think if you want to be more likeable, you should inject just maybe or think. That’s right.

Dr. Chad Johnson: Yeah. It’s just topical. I think you would like it. Maybe

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: there you go.

Dr. Chad Johnson: You know, that’s going to be one of my goals tomorrow is, is with topical, just to, to throw that in there

Regan Robertson: To me, it gets back to ignorance again and, and knowing or not knowing I, my cleanings are like writing in a Cadillac. Now, I did not know that in cleanings, if you have sensitivity, there’s a topical that the, that the hygienist can put on you. I did not know that if you use an Air Profi Max, it’s the just easiest cleaning ever and so I, in fact, last time I basically fell asleep.

Dr. Chad Johnson: Wow.

Regan Robertson: And yeah, but he didn’t mention to I know. I don’t, I don’t recall him asking if he could put on topical, perhaps he did. He probably did and I didn’t realize that I, yeah, I don’t think so. And it, yeah. So I, afterwards I, I expressed why was this so amazing, you know, and, and the answer was, Oh, well, you said you have sensitivity. I put this on you. We got this new perfume acts. It’s really great. Here’s what the benefits of that are and I, I love him. And so I think me being ignorant though, I hadn’t known, whereas the patient you record your, you talked about did know and said that it made their throat, you know, and all of that, but I don’t, I do not, I would not personally think you’re being mean by the way you say it, you’re all you’re indicating is you can make it more comfortable on yourself. Should you choose, should you desire? And

Dr. Chad Johnson: Yes, if you, if you want the hard way, then the hard way it is, you know, Maggie, we really appreciate you bringing that video to topic because it was, um, uh, a catalyst for us to have a great philosophical discussion on actually multiple levels.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: I’ve, I always enjoy those. Those are my favorite ones. And not that you’re not my favorite people, but you certainly bring that air of, of, uh, rethinking. in reconceptualizing everything that goes on in life and trying to put the pieces back together to make them, to have them make sense. Yes. I always appreciate that.

Regan Robertson: Well, thank you for another amazing episode listeners. If you find yourself saying just, I think, or maybe you might want to consider. We highly recommend you go to productivedentist. com and check out PDA’s 20th anniversary conference this September 12th to the 14th in Frisco, Texas, where Dr. Maggie Augustine will be presenting and present Dr. Chad Johnson will be there emceeing as the official emcee.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn: That’s going to be a riot.

Regan Robertson: It’s going to be amazing. Are you kidding me? And co-facilitator for our full dental media panel. It’ll be a round table with five of the biggest magazines in dentistry and their editors and we will be having a lively discussion about the future of dentistry as well. So we highly recommend if you struggle a little bit with communication, you’d like to see your case acceptance a little higher, a little higher, go to protectivedentist.com and register.