Episode 60 – Keeping the Dental Burnout Wolves at Bay

“It was helpful knowing so many people have already experienced the same things and that there are already solutions to the problems I faced and I don’t have to figure it out on my own.”

~Dr. Joe Blalock

Seven days after Dr. Joe Blalock opened his practice, COVID shut him down. “The roof was leaking, everything was on fire, it was a lot,” he says. 

But he didn’t let circumstances get him down. As CCO of Productive Dentist Academy Regan Robertson says, “I love to brag on Dr. Joe because I’ve seen his production numbers and he went from ‘I hope I collect a paycheck’ to where he’s at now with 5 ops…it’s astounding.”

How did he do it? How did he fight off the burnout and overwhelm when the walls were falling in?

Join me today as Regan and Dr. Joe join me for a vulnerable, encouraging conversation about how to prevent burnout and ensure the long-term success of your Investment Grade PracticeTM, including:

• What mindset has to do with success
• An attitude of abundance
• The impact of eternal learning

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Regan 0:00
Hi, Dr. Regan Robertson, CCO of Productive Dentist Academy here and 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.

Dr. Joe Blalock 0:46
I think it’s just knowing that so many people have experienced the same things in there are already solutions to the problems that I don’t have to figure out on my own and like part of its being stubborn. You know, I’m a, I was raised on a farm so I’m a country boy, I have a very big blue-collar mindset, like even when I’m working on teeth, like you know, cut that work, figure it out, you know, let’s get in there and have fun. So like I do that with my family, life and business, but I knew that’s how I am, so I try to counter that by trying to find the solutions that have been done.

Narrator 1:29
Welcome to Investment Grade Practices Podcast where we believe private practice dentists deserve to get the lifestyle today while building an asset for tomorrow. Join your host Victoria Peterson to design the practice of your dreams and secure your financial independence. Let’s get started.

Victoria Peterson 1:49
Welcome to the everyday life and dentistry IGP podcast, I’m Victoria Peterson with Regan Robertson.

Dr. Joe Blalock 1:57
And Joe Blalock.What’s up, everybody?

Victoria Peterson 1:59
I like having two radio voices.

Dr. Joe Blalock 2:04
I never sound like, all my friends know when it’s professional Joe. Like well he goes from country Joe, he gets so professional Joe. Yeah, I gotta, well, I’m from the south, you know, and I gotta I gotta talk like, I’m somebody you know, fake it till you make it.

Regan 2:19
Is this your professional Joe voice right now?

Dr. Joe Blalock 2:22
Well, I’m trying really hard.

Regan 2:23
I feel a little twang in there. Yes, just a little.

Dr. Joe Blalock 2:25
You gotta throw it in there. I don’t want people thinking. I mean, I can’t say y’all are from the North. I mean, people know that I’m from the south. Georgia. I’m proud. Yeah, I’m proud of it. I’m bringing up yeah, in honestly, like a little backstory on me. So, um, I started a practice about seven, I opened seven days before the pandemic shutdown and I had to go through some things that I never prepared for most people, you know, you weren’t prepared for it, but through the journey, PDA and the PDA philosophy has truly helped us not only come out of it, but recover anything that I ever thought we would be able to produce or collect during that time. Like, during the shutdown, I enrolled in an online course with you guys, like so I’m at home, you know, I can’t do anything but I’m still learning and preparing, like, you know, when this thing opens, like, I didn’t like just hide under a shell, you know, I’m trying to like, you know, I’m fighting. I’m trying to learn everything that we can. So when we did open back up, I was able to implement concepts. You know, I didn’t implement everything but you know, you start by like, the ideas because we have a young team and I can train them you know, they’re impressionable at this point and so I was a year and a half ago. Now I bring them to a live course, they hear you guys on stage in their eyes are like it makes sense, you know, you’ve been talking about this but now they show me on paper like I see this. So it’s, it’s been really cool. I can’t, I can’t thank you guys enough and you guys are excited for me to be here. Like I’m, I’m honored, truly honored to be here. Wow.

Regan 4:13
Wow.Thank you. Well, and I love to brag on you a little bit because Dr. Bruce and Victoria, you have always taught me about mindset, the mindset of abundance versus scarcity, and how to get through life because unexpected things happen all the time and what stood out to me, Joe about us specifically is you mentioned starting up, seven days and you get shut down, your roof was leaking, right? Wasn’t it? I think it was like you were.

Dr. Joe Blalock 4:42
The roof was leaking like things are on fire like yeah, it was a lot.

Regan 4:46
Yeah and your behavior, your attitude, your mental state was shocking to me because you were like, you know, it’s going to be what it’s going to be, we’re going to get through this. It’s going to turn out all right on the other end of it and I won’t reveal your numbers but If I did happen to see your production since then going from, I hope to get a paycheck to where you’re at now with five offs is absolutely astounding and I truly believe that your ability to lead with a mindset of abundance, be an eternal learner. I mean, Victoria, you promote nothing but internal learning. You both go into that so it’s a, I think it’s a really special combination, you know, it takes the numbers, but it takes that heart as well, to bring it to life. So to see you here in person is incredible and you’re a great storyteller. So you started a podcast before we did and said, I’m going to share everything I’m going through, right?

Dr. Joe Blalock 5:41
Yeah, well, thank you for that. That means a lot. You know, we just started a podcast in middle school after our influencers, you know, you guys didn’t have one at the time but like, you were an influencer, you know, like, I can. I don’t know if you remember this Victoria, like, this was four years ago at the first voices of dentistry. Victoria was there on stage lecturing and you know, we’re still in dental school, and she’s packing up her stuff, like you had like this big box of things you had to carry and you had like, you were by yourself. It was like the thing that held your banner and you were pointing at me and Matthew ran over to you like, ” Hey, hey, yeah we got it”, and we took it up from for you. Like, she’s like, “Oh, y’all must be from the south”, and I go, “Yeah, welcome to the scene,” you know.

Victoria Peterson 6:21
Were you gentlemen?

Dr. Joe Blalock 6:24
We, you know, we look up to our role models, you guys are role models, and we’re just trying to duplicate the stuff that you teach.

Victoria Peterson 6:30
You know what I love about you, Joe? I mean, you and Mark Costas, and all of you inspired me to do a podcast. So I started Everyday Practices with Chad and then I quickly recognized that Regan is the one that really needs to be co-hosting that with Chad, you guys are hitting it out of the park.

Regan 6:45
Thank you.

Dr. Joe Blalock 6:46
That’s a great show by the way,

Victoria Peterson 6:48
it’s fun, because you take everyday doctors and say, what do you do? What is your what do you do every day? What’s your day-in and day-out practice that makes your practice run. I love that and Bruce has a Productive Dentist Academy, and it took a while to find my voice and all of this and it’s starting to come out and I wanted to ask you a couple of questions because my podcasts on Investment Grade Practice is to help doctors love the practice they have today and the lifestyle while they’re building an asset for tomorrow and in our breakout today, remember, I, you were sitting up front. So you may not have seen what I said, “How many of you know what it will take for you to retire?”, and I would say out of 40 Doctors maybe seven raise their hand. How many of you look at your profit and loss statement every month by the 15th which is generous, and about a third of the room went up and then

Regan 7:38
I was gonna say PDA would never say that by the 15th of the month, that’s too late

Victoria Peterson 7:41
By the 10, by the fifth and you know it got down to like three people are really doing a profit and loss with a budget they know their overhead and I see you I’ll put you on the spot because we’re live here on recorded radio you can yell at us right It seems to me that you’re already grounding in on what creates value not just cashflow. You know I’m building a system I’m building so the principles of investing in yourself as a business owner and clinician grow the value by growing your team and helping them understand how they can grow and then protect and package your assets. You know, so that they’re that’s later down the line for you when you get ready to sell, But how do you see that, What has helped you stay focused on building value not just running the rat race?

Dr. Joe Blalock 8:36
I think for me is I looked at where people that were where I wanted to be. So I looked at dentists and business owners and said, “Okay, who are the people that are doing what I want, that are where I want to be in 5, 10, 15 years,” and I literally duplicated their journey is still am. I’m still early in the journey, I wish I had with the me, it’s in my backpack, I drew this curve and showed it to my team. I said, “This is 2020, this is where we started for Lakeside Dental, okay,” and I did a journey up till some future endpoint, could be retirement, could be when they’re tired of dentistry, could be when I’m gonna do something else, but some arbitrary future endpoint and I showed them this growth curve and the curve is a 45-degree angle straight up, there’s no bumps, we’re going, we’re moving up okay and, and I showed them the way we’re gonna get there and that’s education, okay, you go and learn. I have to go to the best courses like that’s you have to go to the courses like why would you reinvent the wheel like they’ve already done this, like Bruce Baird, Victoria, Mark Costas like these, you guys have already done this. Go learn it, okay, you can perfect it. Right but go learn it. Go learn from Justin Moody and implant Pat Get this, okay, and then take it back. So we learn, then we implement, okay. Um, same thing with, you know, like, I wanted to learn from like, I use dentist advisors. Yeah, I use them already because I see the value and I need someone to help coach me on where my money is going, where I’m spending, how my budget is. So I’m utilizing the resources that are out there, this is 2021, like you have resources on your phone. So the people that are where I’m going to be, have either created these resources yourself, or they’re using them. Okay, now, that’s the biggest thing for me and then on that growth curve, you have, you learn, you go get educated, then you implement. The next thing for us, I think actually might be coaching. The people that are doing the things that you talked about, the ones that had their hand up that are looking at their profit loss statement, I bet they’re getting coached and it first right out of school I had this mindset of save a penny, I can do this myself. Okay. Well, here’s what happens, you ain’t got time for crap. In this is where I’m at. I’m at the dinner table and my wife’s like, “Hello,” I’m really sorry. She’s like, “What do you do?”, and I’m like, “My mind’s elsewhere.” Yeah, you can’t live like that. So I’m learning you know, I’m getting better. I’m not perfect.

Regan 11:31
so you’re already learning mindfulness right now and being present, right? Yes. You can take a time out from that, because that is you’ve already learned from so many doctors that I hear that are probably what, 20 years into the career after, after you that said, “Okay, I burned through this marriage, I crashed this practice over here, I went this because I just was so obsessed with more and more and more, I can do it myself, I can figure it out,” and they just burn the candles at both ends. So it sounds like you were doing all the right steps of all of these things you’ve learned over the last year. Is there something in particular one thing that was a surprise to you? Was there anything in the learning that kind of turned your head the other way and was like, “Whoa, I’ve never thought about it that way before?”

Dr. Joe Blalock 12:12
I think it’s just knowing that so many people have experienced the same things and there are already solutions to the problems that I don’t have to figure it out on my own and like part of its being stubborn, you know, I’m a, I was raised on a farm. So I’m a country boy, I have a very big blue-collar mindset, like even when I’m working on teeth, like, you know, workers figured out you know, let’s get in there and vocabulary. So like I do that with, with my family life and business, but I know that’s how I am so I try to counter that by trying to find the solutions that have been done. So like, you know, right now I’m gonna go home and really consider if it’s time for me to have a true coach, someone who’s outside of my practice helping me because even though I know the things to do, all right, I put myself in the education. I know what needs to be done, having the intentionality, the time and the will honestly, like you’re drained at the end. Like I knew I should be reviewing this with my team. I know I should pull up my p&l, my bank statement. Truth is like, I’ll go two weeks without looking at it because like, I’m scared.

Victoria Peterson 13:30
Or like, you just don’t have the Craftivist Come on.

Dr. Joe Blalock 13:35
Like I know when not two weeks. I want to freak out

Victoria Peterson 13:38
Better, especially during COVID and a scratch start. Yeah, well, that took a lot of honestly, honestly,

Dr. Joe Blalock 13:45
We were like, we were a month away from going bankrupt. We don’t even I mean, that’s neither here nor there. I knew it was going to be fun. Even if we did like I had a plan. Okay, it’s gonna be okay but like we were a month away from it says two leaders, I was just talking to my CPA on the phone, like we’re talking about, I want to get a prime have an omni cam. I want to get a prime scan now and I was talking to him about making the investment. I’m like, I know I can make the investment right now, but duty should a year and a half to go, like I didn’t even know if we were going to like, make it. You know what, this wasn’t that long ago and now I’m to the point where I can get a prime scan and it’s okay, but like, I’m so close to where I was then my mind hasn’t caught up to where we’re at if it

Regan 14:34
Absolutely makes sense. Where does that come from? That is not normal to say is absolutely not normal, be like maybe we’ll go bankrupt, we’re going to be okay. Anyway, that’s coming from some deep faith. You said that you grew up on a farm, was it a cattle ranch?

Dr. Joe Blalock 14:47
Yeah, we had a cattle farm. We raised anywhere from about 50 to 100 head of cows on about 100 acres. We leased more land sometimes so we had some. Yeah, I’m faith-based for sure. You’re like, 100 years from now. Like, ain’t nobody gonna be here, this listening to this, whatever you believe, like, I believe where I’m going. But like, you know, that sounds coming. So to me, it doesn’t matter. Like at the end of the day, it’s okay. You know, on our worst, there’s people right now like, look at the refugees from Afghanistan, like on our worst days, like everyone was on your worst day, it is way better than 95% of people who have walked on planet Earth. That’s right, like our worst problem that we all have agreed, like, I’ve experienced a lot of grief, you know, this year, I don’t even know if I told y’all my grandmother passed away, like, a couple of weeks ago. Like right when mom was getting done with her chemotherapy and my grandma was like my other Mom, like, like that was that was a blow, like she was the matriarch of our family on the farm and that was we’re still dealing with that. Yeah, but you were faith-based our whole family is, and it’s going to be okay. The sun will come up again tomorrow, all we can do is what’s best for our family now, what’s best for our friends, and with regard to our business, what’s best for your patients. That’s the next best thing you could do.

Regan 16:12
Isn’t it fun to see a leader right here,

Victoria Peterson 16:15
Right here right now.

Dr. Joe Blalock 16:18
In the making, I’m trying.

Regan 16:23
You, you have just summed up something that I have not heard people in their 50s, 60s or even 70s say, so it’s very magnetic. It’s very healthy, mentally healthy, spiritually healthy, it’s a lot.

Victoria Peterson 16:35
It’s, as you say, you and I have worked together for a decade. Yes, right and Regan has watched me go through this, I take every emotional intelligence, every leadership class, get a doctorate in spirituality and I thought you just summed up everything that they all say is, “Just live in the moment and know that I’m doing the best I can right now,” and you just summed it right. What’s the best for my family? What’s the best for me? What’s the best for my patients? How do I just do my best right here, right now? I, to me, that’s a life with no regrets because you’re being conscious and you’re saying, just as my best, and Chad said it earlier today is like, “Sometimes I’m not a five-star general, you know, I can be as a lieutenant that day, and that’s my best on that day,” and I think that’s good enough. I think that’s, you know, and you could push yourself and you do as a leader, but there’s also the self-care, how do you, how do you regenerate and take care of yourself?

Regan 17:29
That’s a good question.

Dr. Joe Blalock 17:29
I don’t,

Victoria Peterson
You don’t?

Dr. Jo Blalok
I need to do a better job of taking care of, of me. I’m, I’m really hard on myself, honestly and I don’t know if that’s good or bad, like, they’re like, there’s probably a middle ground. But like, my wife

Victoria Peterson 17:46
Well you kinda wired that from high school, right? You gotta get straight A’s. You gotta get the schools it’s competitive, and you gotta work out and you gotta be in all the clubs and you’re doing it. So dentistry itself just attracts hyper achievers who are so singularly focused, that doesn’t matter about food, doesn’t matter about sleep, does it, it just matters about the grades, right? It just matters about the case. So I was wondering, how does a young dentist start to rebalance their life and social life and relationships and community?

Dr. Joe Blalock 18:18
I’m trying to figure it out, honestly and I know that’s why I need to focus. Like, you know, my wife will tell you, there’s very few days where I come home, I’m like, “I had a great day.” Like, I come home most days, and it’s like, “Man, it’s really stressful.” Yeah, like, I feel I’m a terrible dentist, I’m a terrible leader, but that’s how that’s how I’m,

Victoria Peterson 18:39
Cause you are exhausted.

Dr. Joe Blalock 18:40
Yeah, I’m exhausted and you know, you don’t see it in the day-to-day like, on paper, you know, you look back and we’re a successful office and my, you know, our patients would say, you know, we’re great office, but as the leader of the organization, you don’t feel that necessarily, so I’ve got to get better at like, whatever that is. I’ve got to find it because that’s my weakest point, honestly.

Victoria Peterson 19:05
I can offer you advice from my kindergarten teacher. All right. This is the best advice. Take a nap every day. I love that when they’re just the best thing about kindergarten. I love that

Dr. Joe Blalock 19:18
they cut that out of kindergarten. And

Regan 19:21
yeah, we don’t have it here up in Washington either. Yeah.

Victoria Peterson 19:24
Well, I mean, when you think about, I do a lot of neuro coaching, right, and when you really think about brain science, it takes 40% more glucose to to run your brain than the rest of your body, right, and so you get that sugar drop, your blood pressure’s off. your everything’s off and so when you’re that intense and focused in the operatory, it really is beyond just, “Hey, I’m being lazy and taking a nap,” it’s really shutting down the computer of your mind and defragging and letting it go. So I learned early on to take 20-minute power naps. I think it saved me my career.

Dr. Joe Blalock 19:59
You know something that I really need to do that I bet I would speak to a lot of people on right now, is, is our minds never shut off because we have our cell phones and our social media and our apps and whatever that, whatever kind of group you’re in, text messages threads. It never shuts down, right, and I know that I’ve got to get better at that, like throughout the day,

Regan 20:29
if you don’t have time for 20 minutes for a nap. I’ll give you my next best because I love an app. I love it. Now’s a good app. They’re called Peace pecks, peace packs is what I call them off. I’ll find the name for you do these two little musical discs and they sit they sit right and you just turn them on for three minutes. They said, it’s kind of like if you heard singing bowls, like the Tibetans, so it does that and it does it in random sessions. So you set one on the left and one on the right and it helps you become immediately present and shut down the dopamine receptors of the dings from the text messages. I get so many text messages a day, it’s insane. Oh yeah. Don’t turn on social media because then it’s just like an absolute, I’d or emails and if for you patience plus emails plus, I mean, it’s a lot.

Dr. Joe Blalock 21:19
Yes. Like, I have three Facebook pages that I have mine. I have the practice and our podcast lately. I’m a being and I have the same with emails. Yeah, yeah, right and then the text messages. It’s so like,

Regan 21:34
Do you have an office in your practice that you can go kind of hide in?

Dr. Joe Blalock 21:37
I have my office is 1400 square feet, my practice

Regan 21:41
But do you have a little space that’s private for you

Dr. Joe Blalock 21:43
I have four by four square between the hygiene up and the front desk. So no, all day long, I am with the entire, I do not, unless I go to my truck. I’ve got no space and that is one thing. I had no choice and I had to have five ops,

Victoria Peterson 22:01
You’re better than four by four.

Dr. Joe Blalock 22:04
I know, you, they make fun of me like I get in there and like I literally have a closet. It’s It is

Regan 22:12
My first professional job was in a closet where I actually met my husband. We had our backs together and I was like, ” Well, I will take it.”

Regan 22:24
Put those in there or put those in your truck and three minutes. So when things start to ratchet up, you go in, it’s been a lifesaver for me because I’ve asked for years. How do I lower my anxiety? A mentor once came to me because I was bawling, embarrassingly, so and I went into the negative space of I’m not good enough. I’m not good enough wife. I’m not a good enough mom. I’m definitely not good at work. I’m just basically a big failure and he made me stop and he made me take a breath got me that calm and he said, “Regan, all the top performers suffer with this. You’re not going to get away from it, you’re not seeing yourself accurately,” and I actually, I read an article the other day that said people on the IQ spectrum, kind of the more you creep up now, I’m definitely no genius, but I know you start to be able to process more and more information and more and more scenarios. So when you said to me, you’ve got this arbitrary number at the end, that tells me that you’re thinking constantly.

Dr, Joe Blalock 23:21
Always.

Regan 23:23
Yeah, so you need those moments for you. So you can reset that brain and it’s not selfish. I used to think it was selfish too, Victoria worked hard on me.

Victoria Peterson 23:33
Well, and I, the social statistics in our industry don’t lie. So what can, we’ll keep encouraging you, you’re going to good for a

Dr. Joe Blalock 23:44
good This led to a little well, I told my wife at dinner, this is the last thing I’ll say and we can wrap up but I told my wife I said, I said, “I hope when I get here I leave rejuvenated,” and I did like the first day I knew that I would like I’m just being with other like-minded people. You know, people who are positive this is some positive core. I can’t see. Like, I’m not I’m not a client of PDA yet, anyway, I just come to the courses. They’re my friends, honestly, but this is the most optimistic, positive educational group of people that I have been in contact. I’ve been to lots of courses, okay, I have like 100s 100s of hours in the last two years. The odd leave, rejuvenate. This is great for the soul. So that’s not that’s my genuine opinion, and thankfulness of where we’re at today.

Regan 24:43
Your vulnerability is uncommon and I if I remember right, you are doing your own event coming up. Is that right?

Dr. Joe Blalock 24:54
Yeah, we’re gonna have an event. We’re gonna have one September but we had to move it. So we’re going to do one, hopefully in the spring, so you guys gotta be there. We have the life ministry conference. It’s been a couple of years, unfortunately due to COVID, but we’re gonna be there.

Regan 25:09
So it’s going to be, it’s going to be in the Spring 2022, in Lexington, Kentucky,

Dr. Joe Blalock 25:13
so it’ll be cool. We’ll be there. We’ll be there. We’d love it. We’ll have a great time and then bourbon and barbecue tour, bourbon and barbecue baby. Bourbon. Barbecued horses don’t get any better than

Regan 25:25
Me a horse’s lips go. Our producers come in with

Dr. Joe Blalock 25:30
Please, It’d be great. We’ll do some live podcasts.

Narrator 25:36
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Investment Grade Practices podcast. If you find value in this episode, help us spread the word by passing it along to a dental friend. Subscribe and give us a Like on iTunes or Spotify. Learn more about building your Investment Grade Practice at productivedentist.com Today