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The Obstacle is the Path in Your Dental Practice
If you’re a dental practice owner, have you read Extraction yet? Recently, I published my first book, Extraction: The Surprising New Formula to Systemize, Scale, and Sell Your Practice. The response from readers has been overwhelmingly positive, and we’ve made Bestseller status on Amazon in several categories! I’m proud of this achievement. It started as a simple enough idea. I had been working with my dear friend Sean Stephenson who was coaching me in my business. In fact, it was Sean who coined the title, Extraction.
His fundamental drive in life was to help others extract themselves from the prison of their own mindsets to achieve greater levels of personal freedom and fulfillment. Many times in my journey, I have found myself in my own self-imposed prison. For example, right after the pandemic, I injured my neck and hand and discovered that clinical dentistry was something I could no longer practice. I was at a loss; I was nervous about what my future may hold for me, and I was searching for new meaning.
Sean’s life and mentorship reminded me that meaning lies in what we do in service to a greater cause. Of course, we can always amass more: more wealth, more success, more money, more stuff. But we aren’t going to find much meaning in any of that. To find true meaning, we must train our abilities and skills to contribute to our families, communities, and society because purpose comes from serving others. And that was the spark of an idea that eventually became my book.
Why I Wrote Extraction
My injury became a blessing in disguise. It forced me to take stock of myself, my career, and how I can continue contributing differently as an author and entrepreneur as much as I did as a clinical dentist. I had to forge a new path for myself, and that path would be rooted in a principle I have stuck to my entire career, the true measure of one’s success is creating value in the lives of others.
I wrote Extraction mainly for Dental Entrepreneurs. I wanted to bring a set of strategies I used over two decades to build, scale, and finally exit a tremendously successful dental organization that continues to serve and thrive today. By laying out my strategies, mistakes, obstacles, and achievements, I can help other dental entrepreneurs avoid the same mistakes and challenges I faced.
Breaking Free from Your Dental Practice
There is another fundamental reason I wrote my book. While building my organization, I ran into a paradox. As I continued to build and scale my practice, I became increasingly enveloped with the day-to-day challenges of running a multi-practice organization. I needed to take a 10,000-foot view of my organization and where it was headed. I was, in fact, mired in the minutiae of daily operations. This needed to be more sustainable. I coined a term for this place I had landed in the trajectory of “success,” I call this place the dental entrepreneurial prison. I wrote about this concept in an earlier blog post.
It is deeply frustrating for an entrepreneur to work tirelessly day after day for years to find that the success you’re gaining is only giving you a ton more work and less meaning and fulfillment. So, how do you avoid getting locked in a prison of your own making?
A New Formula for Success
The formula I’ve created and defined in Extraction is designed to help you avoid this paradox and many others as you build your practice and organization. The first step in this formula is to define your Point A. Where are you in your life as an entrepreneur? Do you know how to define it? And where is your organization in its lifecycle? Determining where you and your practice(s) are will allow you to map out a path for where you want to go and, importantly, how you want to get there.
Defining the Roadmap, From Point A to Point B
After you honestly and fully understand where you are in your practice, your Point A, we define your vision. Dreaming big is imperative to your overall dental practice strategy and growth. But ‘big’ means different things to different people. In the book, I walk you through the steps of defining a personal vision for yourself and your dental organization that works for you, not your competitors, fellow entrepreneurs, or even what your family wants. We figure out what you want for your life and your business. Vision is not a destination. It sets the direction of your growth.
Next, we figure out how we will move toward your vision. And it is here where we ensure you stay focused on building your roadmap or strategic growth plan by assessing all the internal and external obstacles that stand in the way of realizing our vision. At this point, we’ve built your dream team to support you and implement your strategic plan. We also break down your company goals into yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and even daily steps so everyone is transparent and accountable. Finally, you create a template of actionable steps to keep you on track to meet your goals and, eventually, execute your vision.
From Dentist to Dental Entrepreneur and Investor
Finally, we hone your skills as a leader. You invested time and money in dental school. But unfortunately, dental schools fail to teach us how to be a leader of successful teams. Dental schools also fail to teach us how to be an entrepreneur in a successful, scalable organization. That’s our job.
In my book, I lay out all of the values and principles that allowed me to become the leader I needed to be, not just for my organization or my teams, but for myself. I needed to find a way to break free from the dental entrepreneurial prison, and that meant becoming a leader that people trusted enough to carry out a vision that I laid out for them that they couldn’t quite see yet. They needed to trust me to hold that vision for them while they worked toward it. We did it, and you can too.
Invest in Yourself, Not Just Your Dental Practice
Avoiding the paradoxes of entrepreneurship is daunting while you’re building your practice and organization. But there are concrete steps you can take to avoid those traps; traps like stagnation in your business growth and the paradox of success. I wrote my book specifically outlining how to avoid those pitfalls or get out of them once you’re in.
But your business, practice, and organization will always have challenges and obstacles. The aim isn’t to remove all the obstacles. That’s an impossibility. The aim is to see those obstacles as the path to your success. Each obstacle becomes a lesson of growth. I hope I can assist you on your path and lighten your load as a dental entrepreneur.
The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
~Marcus Aurelius
In fact, I didn’t just write a book to help the dental entrepreneur; I built a company too. Optimize Practice Services is dedicated to assisting the dental entrepreneur in building a solid organization and a lasting legacy. Our motto is our mission, keeping the future of dentistry in the hands of dentists. Our goal is empower dentists to become the masters of their own destiny, however that looks to each entrepreneur.
Improve your Leadership through Support, Connection and Community
Btw, while you’re here, let me tell you about our mastermind. What’s a mastermind?
A mastermind is a group of peers that come together on a regular basis to work out their biggest challenges, share resources and lean on each other to get through the rough patches and celebrate the wins. It is the single most effective tool that an entrepreneur has in his or her entrepreneurial toolkit.
One of the best ways I know for an entrepreneur to remain steadfast in your goals, bust through your obstacles, find resources and community to keep you strong is joining a Mastermind. Other benefits of this mastermind are the incredible opportunities you will get to improve your leadership skills, understand the importance of team culture within your dental practice and learn to create greater team cohesion. You will learn from those who’ve walked in your shoes and found success.
We have created a strong community and we would love for you to join us. Click the button to register for the next one and we’ll see you there!