Stability Precedes Growth (E. 160) – Part Two

“Stability is what creates leverage.” – Victoria Peterson

Brief Overview of the Episode

If your practice feels noisy, reactive, or exhausting, Victoria argues the answer is not another big move. It’s a pause. She breaks down why stillness creates clarity, and why clarity is the foundation for clean decisions, strong standards, calmer leadership, and sustainable profit. You will hear how “escape routines” show up as constant optimization projects, and how growth layered on instability turns expensive fast.

What This Episode Reveals

• Why “busy” can be a distraction, not a strategy
• How instability creates reactive leadership, unclear standards, and team chaos
• Why financial ambiguity keeps owners stuck, even when production looks strong
• The hidden cost of scaling before the foundation is stable
• Why clarity creates relief, because clear problems are solvable

What You’ll Learn

• How to spot your escape routine (and stop letting it run the business)
• Where instability hides: write-offs, bottlenecks, team performance, owner dependency
• Why “standing still” is sometimes the highest-level leadership move
• How to move from urgency-based decisions to design-based decisions
• A simple way to create white space so strategy can finally show up

If This Sounds Familiar

• “We need more patients” but you cannot explain where profit is actually coming from
• You get to the end of the day and think, “What just happened?”
• You are always one hire, one remodel, one marketing push away from finally feeling okay
• Your team feels inconsistent, but you keep avoiding the real conversations
• You are producing more, but the anxiety never leaves
• You have reports, but they arrive too late to lead with confidence

Next Steps

• Block one “thinking session” this week. No meetings. No firefighting. Just clarity.
• Pull your last 3 months of numbers and look for truth: collections, write-offs, profitability, capacity.
• List your top 10 bottlenecks and circle the ones you keep procrastinating.
• Identify the top 1 place the practice depends on you, and write the first step to reduce that dependency.
• If you want help seeing your practice accurately, book a 30-minute clarity call: Investmentgradepractice.com. (Victoria holds five spots per week).
  

Do the free assessment meeting.

Book here: https://calendly.com/productivedentistacademy/coaching-session?utm_source=IGP-Website&month=2026-02

TRANSCRIPT

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[00:00:00] Victoria Peterson: Stability precedes growth. Hi, I am Victoria Peterson on this journey with you to build an investment grade practice, and this week I’m gonna continue this theme of You’re not broken, it’s not your fault, and I want you to stand right where you are. You see, most independent dental practice owners believe that growth begins with change.

[00:00:27] Victoria Peterson: We talked about this a couple of episodes ago. I need new systems, new services, new hires, a new gadget, whatever technology it is, new marketing. My last marketing didn’t work. I haven’t changed a theme, but I’m sure my new marketing will work. You know what my experience is that real growth begins from something far less exciting.

[00:00:48] Victoria Peterson: Kind of boring. It begins with stability. It begins with you stopping. The escape routine. So you have to stop trying to escape where you [00:01:00] are and instead fully stand in it. And trust me, I’m talking to myself as much as I’m talking to you. I’ve been an entrepreneur for decades, and every time I’m complaining about growth or team not stepping up or why isn’t this working, it really comes back to me as a leader slowing down to make sure that I’ve.

[00:01:23] Victoria Peterson: Developed an ecosystem that I’ve developed the right conditions and the resources for growth to happen. So that’s your invitation in this podcast, is to stand where you are. It sounds so simple, but it is not easy. Uh, dentistry has trained us to move fast, to improve fast, to fix fast. You are masters at Quick Decisions.

[00:01:47] Victoria Peterson: You’re in the middle of procedure. Half the tooth goes flying off. You didn’t expect that you had to make a quick fix, a pic, a quick pivot. So your brain is trained in those micro moments. [00:02:00] Those flash decisions of how I hold the handpiece and what comes next, but in the real world with real people and with real business structures, um, that’s not how it works.

[00:02:12] Victoria Peterson: Standing still. Is your best leadership move if you’re feeling confused, if you feel like you’re stuck and your practice isn’t growing and standing still can feel irresponsible, it can feel and terminally long, even if it’s just a day or a week or two, but you becoming stable. Growth comes as a reaction to that, right?

[00:02:44] Victoria Peterson: So you becoming stable is what calms down the energy around you without it when you’re unstable, everything is reactionary, is ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. So if you feel like you get to the end of the day and you’re like, what just happened? I didn’t plan any of that, you’re [00:03:00] probably being signaled to slow down and make a habit of being present.

[00:03:06] Victoria Peterson: Because we have this habit of escaping the present. So here’s how I see this pattern showing up. If you’re an owner, that feels pressure. You look outwards, right? We need more production, more new patients, a better associate, another better associate. My third associate will be the best associate. Maybe I need a better location.

[00:03:26] Victoria Peterson: Maybe I need to remodel. Maybe I need to add on. There’s. Some type of external distraction when we have the signal that we need to stand still and think a little deeper, and sometimes those moves work. I’m not saying that they don’t work. I’ve, I’ve often coached productivity. I’ve often helped increase patients.

[00:03:47] Victoria Peterson: I’ve often helped train associate doctors. But the thing of it is, is that you need to layer those complexities. After you have a strong foundation, if you [00:04:00] start layering new systems on an unstable foundation, then you get a very unstable outcome. So when you don’t fully understand where your revenues come from.

[00:04:13] Victoria Peterson: You know, or how much your write offs are keeping up with your in-network. PPO write offs can be a nightmare. I looked at a a, a table this week of a practice that we’re evaluating. On the surface, it looks like the practice is writing, and this is egregious 35 to 52% on every procedure. The thing of it is though, that table was written in reverse, this doctor’s actually writing off 50 to 60% of every dollar on a million dollars of production.

[00:04:47] Victoria Peterson: There’s 350,000 that is collectible, but it’s a very thriving practice. It’s north of 1.8 million, so on the surface it can look. Really [00:05:00] successful. But when we look under the hood, you know, adding more patients, trying to incentivize teams to produce more or add more, it’s not really going to change. The practice, maybe we’ll get incremental growth, but it, they’re kind of maxed in their capacity.

[00:05:18] Victoria Peterson: And if you don’t fully understand this as a leader, this is where you lose energy, kind of banging your head against the door. I’m exhausted. I need to come up with a different plan. This is also where leadership gaps start to exist because we don’t know what we should be leading, and it’s where our standards become really unclear.

[00:05:40] Victoria Peterson: So normally we do this, but because I have this urgency to grow or change, then I’m gonna throw out the rules and the standards become unclear. So when you’re building on that type of shifting ground, it can be really hard to stand still because in the min, in the beginning of it, there might be [00:06:00] quite a bit of anxiety.

[00:06:02] Victoria Peterson: Even if revenues increase, you still are feeling anxious. I have coached doctors that doubled and tripled their practice, but their anxiety was there because they couldn’t feel the success. Even though the revenues, even though the profits increased, they still had the sense of anxiety, and I think it’s rampant in our.

[00:06:24] Victoria Peterson: Industry right now. And that’s why I’m dedicating so many podcasts to this concept that you’re not broken. It’s not a self-improvement or a personality disorder. There’s a failed architecture in your practice. And we all get there. It’s just simply unnamed. So, excuse me, I think this is why standing still feels so uncomfortable.

[00:06:49] Victoria Peterson: Um, it’s because when we get clear. We get really, really clear. That clarity removes our distractions, and [00:07:00] when you stop chasing the next thing, that’s like our adrenaline hit, that’s our dopamine hit, is chasing the next thing. When you stop long enough, then you’re forced to look at a. Dull stuff, like really dull, boring stuff.

[00:07:13] Victoria Peterson: Operational bottlenecks. I’m sure there’s not a dentist listening to this podcast today who said, geez, I wanna schedule three hours to look at operational bro, uh, bottlenecks on my Friday morning. You also don’t wanna look at uneven teen performance. I know she’s not so great and she hasn’t been so great for like, I don’t know, five or 10 years, but I don’t wanna face it.

[00:07:34] Victoria Peterson: Other dull things. That surface when we stop chasing distractions is the owner dependency. How much is this practice dependent on me? How fragile is this? What happens if I am, uh, you know, in a rowing accident or a car accident? What happens if I get sick? How dependent is the practice on you [00:08:00] and what does that do to your family?

[00:08:02] Victoria Peterson: There’s a, there’s. Fragility here. That can be really hard to look at. And there’s also financial ambiguity. I chat with doctors all the time and say, send me your profit and loss statement. And they go, oh, I get those about every three months from my CPA. See, that’s. Leading in the rear view mirror, and as long as you’re out there chasing the next fix, it’s gonna be really uncomfortable and really hard to just stand where you are and face where you’re at.

[00:08:33] Victoria Peterson: That’s the first piece. And I’m not saying to do this without support. Everybody needs, you know, someone to hold their hands when they’re going into the dark and facing the boogeyman. So as owners, you have to ask yourself, would I rather stay busy? With these distractions and hope it gets better, or am I willing to sit in the discomfort for just a few minutes, a few days to get a strategy?

[00:08:58] Victoria Peterson: Because busyness can feel [00:09:00] like productivity and stillness can make us feel very vulnerable and exposed and nervous. Like, am I gonna measure up? But when clarity comes, it comes in the stillness. It never comes in the distraction. So. Create some white space, create some thinking days, and this doesn’t have to be dull, like where do you do your best thinking?

[00:09:25] Victoria Peterson: Is it on a bike ride? Is it hiking, is it swimming? Is it working out at the gym? It’s those kinds of moments where you can decompress and just get in touch with, what do I really want to build here? How do I build a practice that loves me back, that serves me instead of me pouring everything I have into it?

[00:09:47] Victoria Peterson: So it’s that stability, that level of stability that creates leverage. So when you can stand where you are, and again, I’m gonna say this on every episode without self-judgment, [00:10:00] when you can stand where you are without self-judgment, something really powerful happens. You begin to see. What’s actually working?

[00:10:08] Victoria Peterson: Wow. You know what? I do have one team issue, but man, I’ve got nine great team members. They show up every day. They do the best they can for our patients. You can see what is consistently producing value is your scheduling template. Producing value or is it holding you back and creating bottlenecks? You can start to see those things are decisions stalling, like, oh yeah, we said we were gonna do that, you know, we were gonna, um, outsource insurance or hire that person or do training on whatever.

[00:10:40] Victoria Peterson: You’ve got a whole list of bottlenecks, so where are you procrastinating? What decisions are being bottlenecked that would move the business forward? And where does the practice depend entirely on you? I have helped so many doctors move from full dependence to independence in [00:11:00] less than five years, and it is a fun, engaging journey.

[00:11:03] Victoria Peterson: So from here, from this place of stability and clarity, um. You’re gonna get to where you’re not as reactive. You’re moving by design stability is what creates that leverage because you’re no longer making those decisions from a sense of urgency. You’re making them from a sense of understanding. And once you understand something, that understanding starts compounding, right?

[00:11:29] Victoria Peterson: Because you’re clear now you can pass it on, uh, to your team and they’re clear, and then they can pass it on to other teammates. So it starts compounding this sense of stability and clarity. So growth layered on instability, though. Become super expensive. You know this, it costs you more time, more energy, more profit margin.

[00:11:51] Victoria Peterson: It erodes team trust. So in stable, urgent decisions always add up to team turnover and chaos over time. [00:12:00] So when you try to scale on chaos, you amplify the stress. I think that’s why some of our DSOs are in trouble right now, and they’ll get it right. They’ll, they’ll come back around to this. But trying to scale and massively grow.

[00:12:14] Victoria Peterson: When you’re not in lockstep with your team, it only amplifies the stress. So I think sometimes we, we interpret stress as ambition. Of course. I, of course, it’s stressful. I’m, I’m doing something big. But I think ambition can come without the chaos. And the difference is the architecture. And the design. So are you designed on productive systems or are you designed on busy systems?

[00:12:45] Victoria Peterson: Are you designed on working everybody to the max or are you designed on giving your team some breaks and ways to refresh? So there is a particular calm [00:13:00] that I’ve noticed that comes from knowing exactly where you stand. Like full. This is a full body. Yes, this is what I stand for. You may not even love every part of what you see.

[00:13:15] Victoria Peterson: About what you take a stand on or what’s outta place. But this accuracy does bring relief because once something is clear, it becomes solvable, and that’s the first step. Whether you’re working with us as a coaching group or somebody else is. Spending the time to get clear so we know which problems to solve for, because solvable problems don’t drain your energy.

[00:13:39] Victoria Peterson: It’s that vague anxiety that does, and I know you know this, but. I’m rarely tired from effort, but I’m always tired when there’s ambiguity. You know what’s the priority? Who’s supposed to do it? Did they get it done? Should I check that they got it done? Oh, I checked and they didn’t get it done, but now they promised to get it [00:14:00] done.

[00:14:00] Victoria Peterson: Will they get it done? I don’t know. We have to wait another two weeks. That drives me flipping nuts. I dunno about you, but it drives me nuts. So here’s what’s gonna happen when you start standing fully. In your current reality, you stop chasing growth. Nothing in nature chases growth. It simply grows. This is the law of nature.

[00:14:25] Victoria Peterson: Corn grows when you plant the seed and you nurture it and give it the right environment. IE structure. Your team will grow. Your practice will grow. Your patient base will grow. Your patients will grow healthier. Your bank accounts will grow healthier. You can relax and grow healthier When, um. The growth starts responding to your clarity, right?

[00:14:50] Victoria Peterson: So when you have clear standards, when you define authority, when you simplify the reporting and make it easy to look at things, um, [00:15:00] this is when strengthening leadership into new depths with throughout your practice really starts to happen. And it’s not because you’re desperate, it’s because you can finally see what matters and you get rid of all that other junk.

[00:15:13] Victoria Peterson: So you gotta clear the weeds. Away from your corn. You gotta water it. You gotta give it sunshine. We gotta come in here and trim out the busy work. Those are the weeds. We gotta come and trim out the distractions. No, you’re not gonna drop five PPOs without marketing and a plan. No, you’re not gonna add 10 operatories if you don’t have enough patients or another doctor to come in and do it.

[00:15:38] Victoria Peterson: I see doctors do these things all the time. I’m going to expand. Great. Do you have an associate to come in and work? Are you partnering with someone else? Are you buying another practice and that doctor’s moving into that space? Nope. I was just gonna build it and they will come as my good friend Eric Roman says, build it and they will come.

[00:15:55] Victoria Peterson: Only happens with ghosts in cornfields in a baseball movie. So let’s [00:16:00] not let that happen to our dental practices because you know when your foundation stabilizes, that’s when the growth is gonna become inevitable. So if your practice feels really noisy right now, if you’re constantly moving from not feeling grounded, um, it may, it may not need expansion.

[00:16:22] Victoria Peterson: I don’t know how to say it any differently from a, from a person who’s taught growth and productivity for more than 25 years. Now may not be the time to expand. Now may be the time to double down and ground and get connected and get clarity and take a moment before you go on your next big growth journey.

[00:16:42] Victoria Peterson: I promise you, you can stand still, improve your profit margins, improve your your life without doubling or tripling your practice. Hey, if this episode resonates with you, I know it was a little counterintuitive me, the one that’s building an investment grade practice, [00:17:00] all about growth, all about ebitda.

[00:17:02] Victoria Peterson: I’m giving you permission just to be, just to stand where you are and take a moment and find the support you need to get to your next level of support and growth. So you don’t need to grow by escaping where you are. You can grow by understanding it clearly enough to design what comes next. As I’ve offered before, I’m continuing to give clarity through 30 minute no obligation clarity calls.

[00:17:29] Victoria Peterson: I do hold five spots per week for this, for independent doctors who own one to three location. So remember, clarity restores your energy and remaining inside that confused, unstable business structure will continue. To drain your energy every time. Hey, if you’re ready to see your practice accurately and design from stability instead of urgency, please check out the Calendly link below.

[00:17:54] Victoria Peterson: I look forward to chatting with you soon.