Episode 100 – Are You Committed?

“It doesn’t make you feel good if you’re on a diet and cheating on it. You’re only cheating yourself. It’s the same thing with CE.”

I’ll admit, when I’m not committed to a diet, I cheat. Yes, I’m still doing it, but let’s be honest I’m really only cheating myself. 

If you’re not 100% committed, it shows in your practice, too. So today, I want to get into the things that show up in your practice when you’re 100% committed and some things that show up when you’re not committed:

• Is a “slow month” really a lack of appointments?
• Where is your brain in your business?
• Do you set yourself up for success with CE?

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Hi, this is Dr. Bruce Baird with the Productive Dentist Podcast. We have got episode number 100. Hard to believe we’ve made it to 100 episodes, I didn’t know I had that much up in between the ears. But really, really glad we’ve had such a great following and really appreciate everybody sending sending out questions to bruce@productivedentist.com. for being involved in our foundations course. 

We have just, you know coming out of COVID Productive Dentist Academy actually kind of exploded. So. And that’s all thanks to you guys and the listeners and the questions that you keep bringing up. So one of the things I wanted to talk about today was commitment. And, you know, commitments, one of those things that there are times in my life that I have been very committed. There have been times when I haven’t been very committed. And I’m going to start out with an example of going on a diet. 

When I’m not committed to a diet, I am just not very good. I look at food and as a cheat. I’m cheating against myself, but I’m still doing it. And then there are times and back. Cynthia, my wife was saying yesterday, when Bruce is committed to being on a diet, he doesn’t eat anything. And when I am committed and I have been committed here this past year, and I’m down 45 pounds, and I’m still I’ve lost some that commitment. 

You know, I’m and I’m actually down in Cancun with 24 people, of which 12 are my grandkids six or my kids, five or their spouses. And we are we’re having a blast. And so I’m not that committed this week. But when I get home, I’m going to be committed to continuing to my health, my health trip my working out every day I’ve been doing that says I had some surgery about a month and a half ago. So I missed a little bit. But I’m now getting back into that. So I’m thankful for all of those things. But it’s the difference between commitment and non commitment. 

And what does that mean in the practice? I’m going to give you one more example for myself. A lot of people say, oh, December’s a slow month, or July is a slow month or September when the kids go back to school as a slow month. And I honestly believe that the reason they’re slow month is because I’m not, you know, we’re not committed. You know, when I hear that a lot. When I started Productive Dentist Academy 17 years ago, I realized, I realized that commitment has to be ongoing every month when I’m when I’m tired. 

Like I’m not necessarily tired. But in July, for instance, I went back and looked and I noticed a lot of July’s were slow. And then I started thinking, Well, why is that? Oh, everybody’s on vacation or doing that? No, I’m on vacation, I my mind is is on going places and doing things my mind is not on my business. And I can say that about other times to where we’re just not committed to our business. And so 17 years ago, we came up with specific things that we do every month and every week and every day. So that it keeps our commitment very consistent during the year. 

And I I love that because at the end of the year, not only do we reach our goals, but we usually exceed our goals, not just usually we have for 17 years in a row. So those are the things you have to look at. But it all comes from our commitment to our business, our commitment to what we do on a day to day basis.

Another really great example is going to see is there are two types of people, there are people that just go get their card punched, because the state requires them to have continuing education. They go to see, they listen, but they’re not really listening. They’re, you know, working on their phone, they’re doing stuff, they just have to get the code at the end, so that they can be considered that they went to this continuing education.

Then I have other friends. Good example, again, Jeff Buske. My, my partner, totally committed to continue education when he goes, he wants to learn, and I’m the same way. But I see people that come to courses, and for instance, to Productive Dentist Academy courses. And we’ll have 30 offices in the room with their teams. So we’ll have 170 180 200 people in the room. And we’re expecting in September, when we come back live for the first time in 15, 16, 17 months, actually longer than that being almost 18 months, that we’re expecting one of the largest crowds we’ve ever had. 

But I’ll watch people, and I guess there’s the 80/20 rule, I’m going to use people who pay to come to courses 80% are committed, you know, but there’s still that 20% that are just kind of going through the motions, they go home, their production goes up a little bit. And, and then it goes down. They get excited because they’re up $100 an hour, $150 an hour. And they’re they’re pumped, and then that that excitement goes away. And it seems like you have to be excited to be committed. And that’s really where kind of we separate you know the wheat from the chaff. 

It’s, it’s something that when you’re committed, you’re going to set that business up so that it is continually doing the things that you want it to do. When you go to continuing ed, are you taking notes? Are you serious? Does your team see you being serious when you come back? Are you taking the right people with you when you’re going to courses? When I what I mean by that. And when you go into a hygiene course you take one hygienist but you have four? And you say well, you’re going to go back and tell them all about it? Well, that’s not really how it how it works. 

But the team has to see you 100% committed and I’ve seen guys like, oh, Dwight Peccora you know, Dwight’s down and down in South Texas, of Southeast Texas. And, you know, he, he came to PDA, oh my gosh, he brought his team and he I mean, the guy’s 100% committed, I’ve watched him. And I’ve watched how he works with his team and how he, you know, they’re taken notes, they had meetings during the day, as we had breaks. You know, I’m not sure I was even ever that committed. But But I watched some of the docs that are so amazingly committed. 

And then I see some that, you know, they stayed out late. And believe me, I’ve stayed out late many times, and probably didn’t instill a lot of confidence in my team. But I know the difference. You know, I know what what happens when you change. And when you become someone who is seriously committed to whatever it is that you want to do. And that commitment. For again, coming to productiveness What does that do? Well, you get these different thoughts, you get these different new ideas. And, you know, new ideas, or something I love. 

Great example was when I first heard John Kois talking about risk factors, oh my gosh, it gave me new ideas and new reasons of why things fail and why things don’t fail and why I’ve been putting so much pressure on myself over the years. Because I was certain It was me. But when I heard what John was talking about, it was new to me, it was a new idea to me. And I said I’m never gonna think the same way again. 

And so that’s what I challenge I challenge you guys to do is to never think of this you know, never think about dentistry the same way after you’ve gone to a course make that your goal make that your commitment that as I hear these new ideas and new thoughts. Not only am I going to listen carefully and take notes and see how does this fit with me? Some some stuff doesn’t fit. I mean, there’s no doubt I mean, that that just doesn’t fit in our office. Or and I hear that a lot. But what if it fit in your office? Why does it fit in Dr. Baird’s office, why does it fit in 1000s of offices around the country, but it doesn’t fit in mine. I don’t have patients like that. I don’t have In other words, those are the Yeah, but I have this you have but I have that. And those are excuses. 

That they’re excuses to make your commitment go kind of go south. And it gives you a rationalization for that. You know, so so I’ve had to challenge myself to go Okay, when I heard Ryan Dunlop talking At full arch masters about totally digital workflow in the, in the world of all on four and all on six and going like No way. You know, how’s that work? When I went out to the course, I was like totally blown away, I go, this is something that it’s time has come? Are we on the? Are we on the leading edge of technology? Absolutely. Are we committed to it? Absolutely. You know, we’re going to productive days, we’re going to be having, you know, Ryan, hopefully come and do a program for some of our Doc’s that are there, just so that you can hear some of the newest things in dentistry. And it’s going to give you a different level of commitment.

I told Ryan, he said he wanted everybody to have their own lab in house and do a lot of this stuff, the digital workflow in house, my statement to him was, well, that’s okay. But there’s an 8020 rule, probably 20% of the docs will be committed to doing that. But 80% won’t 80% will take this course and they’ll go back home. And out of that 80% 20% of them are going to really do use a digital workflow, but find a way to use a laboratory to, to find their own way that it fits in their business. And 60% or 80% of the of the 20% are going to go back home and they’re going to go man, that was awesome. And they’ll do nothing. They will do absolutely nothing. Except they know it. And they know that they could be better they could do this. And what does that cause when that causes internal strife it causes. 

You know, it doesn’t feel good when you’re trying to be on a diet and you’re not committed to it. It makes you feel bad. I mean, you’re only you’re only cheating yourself, you’re not cheating anybody else. And it’s the same thing with C, it’s the same thing with going to a course it’s the same thing with learning new technology. You know, I’ve told you guys about Pat Allen, you know, Pat’s amazing, amazing. He does all kinds of connective tissue grafting and all. I mean, it’s just when I went to his course, I never thought of dentistry the same way. Then I went home, and I was so excited. And I did about three cases. And I went, I hate this, this is not something I like doing. I mean, I don’t like you know, 11 Oh, sutures and spending, you know, 45 minutes suturing something out, but there are dentists that love that. It’s just didn’t fit me, but I gave it a try. 

You know, I was committed to it, I made a decision for myself, that made me feel better about not doing the work, not doing the stuff. When we got the period laser laser, I went out. I mean, I set patients up and I started tracking the results. The results were so amazing. That helped my commitment, because when I saw the results, I said, Wow, this is something that I need to continue to do. And, and we’ve done, we’ve done 1000s of quadrants of lap surgery, using the perio laser laser. So, you know, I, I hope this has been something that will maybe make you think a little bit differently than maybe will make you think that okay, I actually I just wanted to do this.

I just want you to ask yourself the question to yourself, Am I committed? Am I committed to this course i’m going to Am I committed to this exercise routine? Am I committed to my marriage, I’m not committed to my kids. And you know, I can say no to those at different times in my life. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to realize I don’t have that much more time on the planet. If I’m not going to be committed now. I’m never going to be committed. So anyway, that was podcast number 100. I’m committed to continuing to do this podcast and I’m going to do my very best to do it every week. I’ve missed several weeks. And the reason was some health surgical deals that I had to go through. I am 100% A okay now, and I look forward to continuing the podcast for for the next 10 years.

So thanks for listening. I look forward to next week’s podcast. And if you guys have any questions, please send them to me at bruce@productivedentist.com.