Episode 89 – Intentional Success

People who are winning during this time are the ones committed to setting and achieving their goals. It has been a rough year, and some dental offices will never recover. But the doctors who have had their best months ever this year have one thing in common: they have made the conscious decision to do what it takes to achieve their goals. Today, I want to talk a little about how you can set yourself up to achieve your goals in the year ahead:

• How to create intentional success
• What my biggest ally is when looking at what I need to do
• What to do to ensure you have support

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Today, I’m going to talk about this year, the year 2020. It has been a challenge, obviously, for everybody. And, you know, there are things that you can do at specific times in your life. And I’ve seen pretty much the best and the worst of humanity over this last year. But I’m going to kind of focus more on the best of humanity. And it is the people who have kind of a face this adversity and face this time of challenge and done it with a sense of with a sense of power, you know, not powerlessness. And I don’t even know if that’s a word.

But, you know, I’ve seen people that, you know, now that we’ve had to look at our dental practices, we’ve had to look at our businesses. It’s been an important part of the change in behavior and the change in the way people think. And I’ve really gotten a chance to witness that. And I’ve witnessed it myself. You know, early in the year, we were on a trip, we had done a Productive Dentist Academy meeting in Australia, you know, I knew that there was some virus around, but it wasn’t that big a deal. I wasn’t I wasn’t that concerned about it, until I got to New Zealand around the ship. And I noticed they weren’t serving us the buffet anymore. And you had to tell them what you want. And so, and then they had some reported cases, not on our ship, thank goodness, but on the island of New Zealand. And so I started wondering what what’s this gonna do to affect us.

And when I came back February 5, I haven’t traveled except one day since then. And I’ve been executive Platinum with American Airlines for the last, I don’t know, years. And I haven’t traveled except one trip down to help a buddy who had had some surgery down in Florida spent spent a week down there. But when I got back, I realized things are going to be different. And by the time the end of February started coming around in the beginning of March and we started seeing these lockdown, become a become an issue.

I had to look inside and say, Okay, what are what are we going to do? And certainly there was a ton of concern for dentistry. And we, you know, our company, I’ve got a couple of companies productive dentist Academy, but the first thing that you would drop during, during a pandemic would be you would think, would be coaching, like I talked about on the last podcast. But the truth is, many consulting companies lost 70 80% of their coaching clients when we lost 10% 10 to 15% of our coaching clients. Why? Because we chose to stay in contact, I mean constant contact, doing courses and doing webinars and podcasts and zoom meetings.

And I did 58 zoom meetings, specifically during that time for PDA and for just dentists in general. And we would have 500 600 or 700 dentists on the podcast or on the zoom meetings pretty much daily. And we did I did this all the way through mid June and I think ended up with a total of probably close to 80 or 85 webinars and podcasts. And, you know, what I found was, yeah, we were all in the same boat.

But the people who were on the podcast chose to do something different. They chose to try to gain knowledge and find out what they needed to do. Now probably 20% of the dental practices in the country are never going to recover from this from this pandemic. There. And there’s lots of opportunities out there obviously, but the the 80% and the other side The 20%, who actually were proactive and started taking care of their business and started really focusing on their business and their teams, and reaching out to their teams, that was one of the first things I said, stay in contact with your team.

And, you know, yes, a few still lost quite a few team members, but many were able to keep and maintain most, if not all, of their, of their team. And that is, in my mind was a huge plus. Because when we came out of it in June, and I know there’s people that are going back in it, and we’re in December, but these offices were the offices that have beaten last year’s records, and had their best months ever in June, July, August, September, even up to now. Now, I know that there are certain government, government regulations and stuff that have caused real difficulties in certain part parts of the country.

So I’m really not talking, I am talking to you guys. Because you’re going to have to stay even more resilient, you’re going to have to stay more resilient as a leader. But also, you have to look at yourself and say, Okay, what things can I do to survive this? And the things that I did, you know, and I began looking at, I’ve had a big change you, you know, I made a decision that I was going to lose weight.

During the pandemic, I’ve heard a lot of people say, Oh, you know, I put on my 20 pound COVID, you know, COVID weight. While I’m, during this time, I’ve lost 40 pounds, and probably in the best shape of my life, and I made a conscious decision. And when someone’s ready to do something, so when you’re ready to do something, it’s very different than when you’re thinking about doing something. It’s just like, I knew I was turning 65 this year, and I said, Okay, which was another big thing that happened in 2020.

And I said, by golly, I’m gonna get in the best shape of my life, and I’m committed to it, started doing the keto diet. And now I’m on a modified keto, we’re still eating keto, but I’m having more carbs, I’m up the carbs to probably 8080 gram grams a day, which I wasn’t 30 which is like one doughnut hole. So But anyway, I’ve lost weight. And I’ve exercised because I made a conscious decision. And it was time for me to make that decision. And to do that, I can say the same thing about a lot of people who made that decision to really evaluate their practice and really peel back the onion, look at look at what things do I need to do for the future.

Podcast, podcasts webinars, you know, I listened to, and not only did probably 80 or 90, I listened to probably 80 or 90. Why? Because I felt like it was important for me to know everything that was going on, in dentistry, whereas many just sat back said, well, when it’s over, I’ll go back to work and get started again. Well, to me, that’s, you know, that that wasn’t what I had in mind, you know, but self care taking care of yourself. Pashtun improvement, we’ve heard that constant and never ending improvement. You know, those are the things that that winners, I feel like Charlie Sheen winning, you know, but the people who are winning, during this time, are the ones who are committed to learning, they’re committed to education.

You know, they’re committed to setting and achieving their goals, whatever those are. And there’s a big difference, again, between commitment and a thought that I really ought to do this. And so this is a time of the year, when every year we look at our next year, we look at what are we going to do? How are we going to? How are we going to win next year? How are we going to be better than we were this year? And I began looking at all of them. Production by procedure reports I started looking at, you know, everything. In my software, I look at the practice I look at how does the how’s the team?

You know, how is everything working? Are there any systems that we need to evaluate? Is it something for me? Is it about my fitness? Is it something for my finances? Is there something I could do better, you know, in my finances, it’s time to set my goals for 2021. And it’s critical to do this every year. And to be committed if you want to have that success that I really believe if you’re listening to the podcast you want to have and I love dentistry. I love people.

And I really want to see you guys succeed and many of you have success. seeded amazingly, through this pandemic This year, we’re right around the corner from hopefully getting, you know, some shots that we can take that will give us some immunity to this. And I think, and the market has gone up all year, which is really weird to me. So financially, I think many people who had money and have committed to saving are starting to see that, hey, you know, I did make some money here.

The PPP was valuable for for many people to keep their businesses open. So the question remains, okay, now what are we going to do? How are we going to be committed to this next year? What are the things that we can do with fitness finance family, you know, Jeff Buske, and I’ve talked about this a lot.

And he’s doing some courses now. On on those exact things, including faith, you know, you’ve had to go to places and with your faith this year that many people haven’t, I’ve got some of my two of my daughters have COVID. And, man, it’s been a very, it’s been a very difficult time for people all across the country. But nevertheless, now’s the time for us to really focus on where I want to be, at the end of next year. How do I want to be physically? How do I want to be financially? How do I want to be with my faith? And certainly, in my practice of dentistry, where do I want to be?

And so it’s a challenging time, there’s no, there’s no question about it. But my dad, my dad, I’ve told you guys a story. He’s a Marine, you know, he is a Marine, he’s passed away five years ago, but you’re always a Marine, you know, when you’re a Marine, always a Marine, I grew up to the halls of Montezuma around my house. But he said, You know, he instilled in me, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. And I’m reaching out to you guys on the podcast today to say, the same thing when the going gets tough, the tough get going, it’s time, it’s time to do that.

And that’s, it’s been my philosophy growing up, it’s been my philosophy, you know, to always strive to do better. This year has affirmed my thinking about that, because I’ve seen the people who’ve done that, and the differences made in their lives and their families, even through the most difficult of times.

You know, what are your goals? You know? How are you going to decide what to do? You know, that those are the questions, you know, self self reflection, to me, has probably become one of my biggest allies, and one of my biggest friends, has been the ability to be able to look at myself, and see where am I, and no bullshit excuses, no rate, you know, I’ve been wanting to do this forever. I’ve been wanting to do that. I’ve been thinking about doing this I’ve been, I wish I could do that.

That’s all just that, to me, is just not going to get the job done. It’s just not going to get the job done. And I really want people who are surround yourself, surround yourself with people who have the same thought process and mentality as you and you being the leader, you’re going to drive that behavior, you’re gonna when they see you, you know, I’m not going to say the word not worried. That’s not a fair statement, when they see you, as in Texas, take the bull by the horns. And the going gets tough and you get going and they follow the leader. And so this is your time to be a leader, this is your time to plan for next year, and not for any, not for anyone, but your business. You’re the one who puts yourself on the line.

This is for your business, and everyone else will reap the benefits from that. So I just felt like I wanted to share this, thanks to Kashmere and our office that always runs my podcast and staff, she she put this on my plate and put it on my heart and I was just, you know, I really hope you guys have the best 2021 that you could ever have. And and it’s going to take goal setting and it’s going to take a commitment, but I know you can do it. Thanks for listening in today. I will be back on next week.