Love Your Practice

If someone takes an action that goes against your thoughts or beliefs, how do you react? Do you lash out or take time to think about how you want to react? This episode explores a system for analyzing any problem or anything good that is happening, and it is a way for you to help yourself create what you want for your life. This system is called "The Model."

In this podcast I explore the very relevant topic of my child's gender orientation and demonstrate the method I have used in certain opportunities to be a bridge person and show up with love instead of defensiveness. I also discuss how "The Model" can be used in any situation, including dentistry. It can help you understand yourself, your practice, your team members, your patients and how to intentionally lead your practice.

Highlights from this episode:

• What "The Model" is and how it can be applied to various situations
• The method to being a bridge for future change of heart while drawing boundaries
• How it is possible to feel love even in difficult situations
• How "The Model" can be applied to dentistry

Resources and links mentioned:

Leading Better Starts with Feeling Better - free course

The Life Coach School Podcast

The Life Coach for Busy Dentists - YouTube channel

The Life Coach for Busy Dentists - website

Thank you so much for tuning in to this podcast! I would love it if you would share it with others and leave a review for others to see!

~ Laura

Perspective is everything! Life is certainly presenting some challenges these days, but how are you facing the changes to your daily life? Today I am pleased to welcome Dr. Noemi Cruz-Orcutt, DDS who practices dentistry in Mason City, Iowa. This is a fascinating bonus episode for you as she shares her incredible story of recovery after losing her practice to a fire.

Hear her emotional journey from going through the shock of the loss, her immediate thoughts of her team and how they would be affected, the process of recovering, and the positive effects that ultimately dawned from this disaster. This timely episode clearly focuses on the importance of putting things in perspective and how gratitude can get you through a crisis. As Dr. Cruz-Orcutt says, "Trust that it is going to be fine… There is always a silver lining."

Highlights from this episode:

• Facing the challenges of a property loss and recovering from it
• The emotional process of moving forward after a loss
• How focusing on gratitude changes perspective in times of crisis
• Dealing with things that are out of our control and how our minds become occupied and little problems fall away
• Redirecting your brain to create intentional actions
• Consider how you want to come back after a crisis
• The importance of staying connected to your team and patients to help alleviate concerns and make this a unifying time for all

Resources and links mentioned:

Special thanks to Dr. Noemi Cruz-Orcutt, DDS

"The Big Leap" by Gay Hendricks

Thank you so much for tuning in to this podcast! I would love it if you would share it with others and leave a review for others to see!

~ Laura

I am thrilled that we are able to welcome Dr. Shakila Angadi to this episode today. She is a general dentist and a Social and Emotional Intelligence coach. She focuses on emotional processing, awareness and learning how to use our emotions as information. This is so vital to our current world situation right now!

People are worried and fearful of the unknowns of the pandemic we are all experiencing. Fears can lead to reactive behaviors that do not make sense because people are in survival mode and filled with panic. We need to recognize these emotions, listen to them and process these big emotions. And we need to realize that there are no right or wrong ways to process these emotions. When it comes to these big feelings of anxiety and overwhelm, as Dr. Angadi says, "We don't get over it, we get through it." This may be uncomfortable, but it is so important to realize this.

In this episode we explore these emotions we are all experiencing and the fact that we deserve some grace during difficult times. We have to leave our expectations behind right now and just deal with each day as it comes. We can't keep up with tomorrow, so give yourself some grace! Big expectations are not helpful right now. We need to accept ourselves just the way we are, grant ourselves permission to alter the courses we choose and give ourselves some compassion for the decisions we need to make.

Listen to this episode for some ideas on how to process the emotions we are all experiencing and ways to recognize the special opportunities hidden within the chaos of our current reality.

Highlights from this episode:

• Promise yourself that your future self will not look back and criticize decisions made now
• If you get new information, give yourself the grace to make a new decision
• What realistic optimism is and how it can be applied in your life
• The idea of giving yourself an intention before changing your attention or direction
• It is okay to give yourself some acceptance of change
• Practicing mindfulness as prevention helps you handle difficult times when they arise
• Don't make permanent decisions on temporary emotions - only handle what you have to handle and leave the rest for later

Resources and links mentioned:

Connect with Dr. Shakila Angad on social media @shakilaangadi

Dr. Shakila Angadi, DDS, S+EIQ Certified Coach

Thank you so much for tuning in to this podcast! I would love it if you would share it with others and leave a review for others to see!

~ Laura

We're doing things a bit differently on this episode of Feeling Good. We're still talking all things wellness, but we switched it up and this time my guest will be interviewing me! Chuck Blakeman, a fellow dentist with a podcast of his own, asks me why our best leadership skill is our emotional intelligence.

You may not know it now, but all of us dentists need emotional intelligence if we want to run a successful dental practice.

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is our ability to not only be aware of our own thoughts but to understand the way our staff and our patients are also thinking. No, this doesn't mean we all have to become mind readers. Having emotional intelligence means you're able to recognize how others' thoughts will influence their feelings and actions.

Too often we're all in survival mode and only thinking about "me me me". But with emotional intelligence, you're able to understand the way others think about themselves and empathize with their thoughts, their feelings, and ultimately their actions.

This episode of Feeling Good is all about developing your emotional intelligence. The process is very simple, but that doesn't mean it will be easy. As a life coach, I've spent my career teaching other dentists how to use metacognition, and we talk a bit more about what that process looks like on this episode.

To use metacognition, you first have to be aware of your thoughts and the impact they have on the world around you. For us dentists, this means that your thoughts influence the way you run a dental practice. If you don't know what it looks like inside of your head, take a look at your business. That will give you a good gauge at how aware of your thoughts you actually are.

How does your dental practice look? Do you wish it would run a bit differently? No matter how you answer this question, you're already on the path toward making new thought habits and developing your emotional intelligence. Once you're aware of what you're thinking, the process for changing these thoughts and being able to tap into the thoughts of others becomes much easier.

Your best leadership skill will be your emotional intelligence, but you won't develop this powerful leadership skill if you don't first understand the power of your thinking. In order to move forward, you will have to dive into your thoughts and get uncomfortable. But nothing worth doing is ever easy, and Chuck and I are here to help dentists at every stage of their careers develop the emotional intelligence necessary to run a successful dental practice.

In This Episode You Will Learn

• The three tiers of thinking 2:28
• How thoughts create feelings and results 4:00
• The role neural pathways play in your train of thought 8:48
• The two mindsets that influence your thought process 13:21
• Steps you can take to move forward in your own thought process 18:13

Some Questions We Discuss

• Why does Chuck think I'm kind of a weirdo? 1:42
• What is a BFO? 7:34
• How can we use metacognition to make new thought habits? 10:39
• How willing are you to get uncomfortable in your business? 15:29
• Why do the best leaders have high emotional intelligence? 20:08
• How can dentists be more emotionally intelligent? 25:30

Resources

• Visit my website: TheLifeCoachForBusyDentists.com
• Listen to more episodes: Feeling Good Podcast
• Check out Chuck's podcast: Get off the Treadmill
• Connect with Chuck online: Rehumanizing Business
• Some of Chuck's favorite books: The Power of Purpose & The E-Myth Revisited

Today we have a special bonus episode! One of my clients volunteered to be coached on the viral pandemic we are experiencing while being recorded so that you can listen in. Hearing someone be coached is a very powerful experience and helps each listener also see into their OWN minds. Don't miss out on this episode: listen as the two of us talk about the worry of the virus and the responsibility of making the "right decision." I then guide the client through seeing what she is thinking and believing about herself, and help her work through what she would rather believe and feel.

We like learning about mistakes on this podcast. I mean, how else are we supposed to learn if we don't make a few mistakes along the way? Fellow life coach Kris Plachy is my guest on this episode of Feeling Good because she knows a thing or two about making a mistake. More importantly, she knows how to help dentists overcome our most common mistakes.

As dentists, we all face similar challenges in our practices. We may have gone to dental school, but not all of us went to business school. Being a dentist isn't always about dentistry. But you're just as much an entrepreneur as you are a dentist. Running your own dental practice comes with its own unique share of trials and tribulations. You're bound to make mistakes with your staff, but Kris is here to show us ways to learn from these missteps and keep moving forward.

One of the most common mistakes we make as dentists is not having the infrastructure in place to hire and manage our staff. Of course, most of us were never trained to be managers. But is that a good enough excuse? If we can learn to become dentists, then we can learn to become managers. The advice Kris is sharing on this episode will help us all become better dentists and better managers.

Kris is sharing the right processes dentists can use to hold their staff and their office managers accountable. Too often, dentists rely too much on their office manager and forget that they should be running their own business. Your dental practice can't reach its full potential if you rely on your office manager to manage everything. Kris shares techniques you can use to oversee this critical role and guarantee that your dental staff works like a well-oiled machine.

But we all know that even the best machine won't work perfectly every day. That's why we're talking about the ugly part of these mistakes too, especially when it comes to managing. Disciplining our staff isn't something we want to do, but if we don't hold our team accountable we won't be able to run our business. Creating consequences that clarify your expectations and get your point across isn't easy, but Kris has tips for even the friendliest dentist.

When you start your dental practice, you need to tell yourself the truth: you're becoming a business owner and a manager. You didn't become a dentist just to work as an employee. You became a dentist to help people and to build a business around your talents for taking care of people. But you can't be expected to do it all on your own. Life coaches like Kris and myself are here to give you the tools you need to overcome these dental mistakes and build a successful dental practice with a team you're proud of.

In This Episode You Will Learn

• The most common problem Kris' clients have 5:00
• How to set up your office manager for success 7:55
• How to hold your staff and yourself accountable 12:53
• The right process for disciplining your employees 24:01
• Why women have different beliefs about making money 37:21

Some Questions We Discuss

• What are some of the things we do wrong as dentists? 1:14
• Where can we find the time to invest in our dental team? 10:00
• Why is it so much easier just to let our staff get away with things? 16:52
• How will the right consequences change our behaviors? 29:03
• Why don't dentists pay attention to their money? 31:55

Resources

• Visit my website: TheLifeCoachForBusyDentists.com
• Listen to more episodes: Feeling Good Podcast
• Check out Kris' podcast: Lead Your Team
• Kris' favorite book for women entrepreneurs: Profit First by Mike Michalowicz

I'm very excited about my guest on this episode of Feeling Good. I met Dr. Ankur Gupta at a dental conference in January, and we had such an interesting conversation that I had to invite him on the show! Dr. Gupta used his own dental practice as a personal and professional experiment in self-improvement, and we're discussing all the ways we as dentists can be healthier and happier in our practices.

Success isn't just measured by numbers. No matter how much money your dental practice can make in a month, that kind of success isn't guaranteed to make you any happier. Too many dentists focus too much on making as much money as possible and ignore the other ways in our lives that we deserve to be happy. According to Dr. Gupta, when you take on too much in the dental office like that, you're just making yourself age faster.

Dentists need to make sure that the demands we're putting on ourselves and our practices don't exceed our capacity for handling that level of stress. Dr. Gupta shares ways you can minimize stress in your daily life, and some of his strategies might surprise you, especially when he starts talking about being a little weird. That's the biggest takeaway you'll get from my interview with Dr. Gupta - It's okay to get a little weird!

Even as a dentist, we can all afford to get a little weirder. It can help you maintain your mental, emotional, and physical health. With a little weirdness, you won't fall into the typical habits of being "normal". In a world where it's normal to look at your phone for an hour on your lunch break, you should get a little weird with it. Take a walk, feed some ducks, and be a little weirder. Your neural pathways will thank you!

Dr. Gupta and I each share our techniques for taking on the different burdens we all experience as dentists, and he even asks me a few questions about life coaching. This interview is filled to the brim with nuggets of information that will get you thinking about yourself and the way you run your dental office in a brand new light. Hopefully, we help you develop some new weird, yet constructive habits that allow you to build up your sense of self-worth instead of your sense of self-doubt.

In This Episode You Will Learn

• A bit of Dr. Gupta's background before we start the interview 1:30
• How the subjectivity of fighting and conflict can influence your whole day 8:17
• Why your posture is so important when being a dentist 15:27
• What's really happening in our minds when we're lusting over luxury items 25:59
• How you can replace negative habits with more constructive ones 31:35
• Ways you can check in with your thoughts and start feeling better about yourself 34:45

Some Questions We Discuss

• What trend did Dr. Gupta see in successful dentists that inspired his teachings? 4:24
• Are you demanding too much of yourself? 11:41
• What is the principle of pre-suasion? 13:23
• Why does Dr. Gupta want us to be a little bit weird? 20:45
• What does the concept of "buffering" mean to your thoughts and feelings? 29:20
• Why are the burdens more complicated for female dentists who run their own practices? 39:30

Resources

• Visit my website: TheLifeCoachForBusyDentists.com
• Listen to more episodes: Feeling Good Podcast
• Learn more about Dr. Gupta's first dental event: Happiness, Success, and Longevity Retreat 2021

Loneliness is really daunting for a dentist. That's why this episode of Feeling Good is dedicated to understanding where this loneliness comes from and the strategies you can start using today to start feeling less lonely.

Modern humans, with all of our self-driving cars and smartphones, are lonelier than we've ever been. Connectivity is essential to our survival, and individual human beings are wired to be interdependent. This doesn't mean co-dependent. Rather, this is our evolution telling us to connect and work together with other members of our species. Unfortunately, with all of our modern amenities, it's become much harder for us to connect and get those warm fuzzies from being together with the members of our tribe.

In this episode, I'm taking a closer look at this tribe mentality with a little help from Sebastian Junger's book Tribe. I pull some examples from his book as well as from my own experiences as both a dentist and a life coach to get a closer look at why it's so lonely being a dentist.

It's a thing I call "the isolation of the dentist" - where we're loved by some, feared by others, and the people we spend the most time with (our staff) is paid to be there. None of these experiences help us interconnect, but I'm sharing a few strategies that will bring that connectivity back into your daily life.

The biggest strategy I'm sharing on this episode of Feeling Good is how you can change the way you think about being lonely. Remember from my previous episodes where I discussed how thoughts become things? Keep that in mind as you listen to this episode. Your lonely pattern of thinking will only increase that lonely feeling if you don't manage your thoughts.

Here's a few tricks to help you change that mindset:

• Hack your biology by reaching out to help someone who looks lonely, whether that's a friend, a patient, or a stranger at the grocery store.
• Stop looking at social media to find a connection. Reach out to those friends online and make plans to meet up in real life.
• Think back to a time when you were connecting with your favorite humans and let that positive memory influence your pattern of thinking

That is just a sneak peek of the strategies I'm sharing today. I go into these tricks and so many more for managing your lonely thoughts. If you'd like to learn more about what it means to be a lonely dentist and how you can change your thinking, tune in now and visit my website The Life Coach for Busy Dentists.

In This Episode You Will Learn

• The biological reasons why humans want to be with other humans 2:45
• How our hormones drive us to be interdependent 6:24
• The ways this interdependence is missing in your modern lives 8:44
• What loneliness feels like for a dentist 11:22
• How your lonely thoughts can isolate you even more 14:00
• Some strategies you can use right now to feel less lonely 16:16
• Ways to manage those lonely thoughts 18:49

Resources:

• Visit my website: TheLifeCoachForBusyDentists.com
• Listen to more episodes: Feeling Good Podcast
• Read the book from this episode: Tribe by Sebastian Junger
• Check out Oprah's podcast: Super Soul Conversations

Welcome to the landmark 10th episode of Feeling Good! I've got another interview lined up, and this one is extra special for #10. Kelly Hanlin McCormick is a fellow life coach who specializes in anxiety. Life is stressful enough, but dentistry adds a unique layer of stress on our lives that can be a little harder to deal with. That's why Kelly is here - to share with us her strategies for battling anxiety.

Therapy is amazing and can really help us process our emotions and feelings, but what happens when we lack the tools to apply all that we're learning in therapy? That's the question Kelly sought to answer for herself. She knew her own panic attacks couldn't be the right way to handle her emotions, and she went looking for a new way to handle stress. What she learned is that anxiety is not just an emotion, it's a physical response that can send our thoughts and emotions on a rollercoaster ride.

Kelly shares the meta-cognition techniques she learned to help us all deal with the rollercoaster of stress and anxiety in our own lives. There are ways to look at your stress and your triggers and use introspection to keep track of all those runaway thoughts that can make our anxiety worse. Runaway thoughts and emotions like disappointment and embarrassment can send our stress spiraling, and Kelly has tricks to help us keep those thoughts in check.

The biggest takeaway from today's podcast is that anxiety is actually a cover for those uglier emotions, like disappointment. As dentists, if we're disappointed in our performance or we made a mistake with a patient, we might get anxious about how to deal with it. Rather than deal with it, we focus on the anxiety and let it get the better of us. But not today! After hearing Kelly share her own anxieties and how she battles them, you will be inspired to take a new, refreshing look at your own anxiety. Once you accept that you can't be perfect all of the time, you'll notice your stress levels drop and start recognizing the ways you can stop those anxious thoughts right in their tracks.

In This Episode You Will Learn:

• What inspired Kelly to pursue life coaching 2:42
• The process and training that goes into becoming a life coach 6:30
• How to look at anxiety as a messenger rather than an attack 13:40
• Where anxiety comes from, including different triggers 17:34
• The options your brain gives you when it comes to anxious situations 24:10
• The personal mission Kelly is taking on with her clients 30:20

Some Questions We Discuss:

• What are my clients saying about my podcast? 1:13
• How does Kelly apply her life coaching to her own anxiety attacks? 10:00
• What does a typical life coach appointment with Kelly look like? 15:20
• Why does anxiety show up as a cover emotion? 20:11
• How can we stop feeling so anxious as dentists? 27:30
• What is the Fierce Calm Project? 36:05

Resources:

• Visit my website: TheLifeCoachForBusyDentists.com
• Listen to more episodes: Feeling Good Podcast
• Visit Kelly's website: KellyHanlinMcCormick.com

Check out Kelly's favorite book: Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck

Get ready! We're doing something a little different on today's podcast. I'm having my very first interview ever on Feeling Good, and I couldn't be more excited. I just spent a weekend seminar with fellow dentist Dr. Christopher Phelps, and I want to share the insights we made over the weekend with all of you, my favorite listeners.

Dr. Phelps is sharing with us today his experience with the power of persuasion. Or, as he calls, "pre-suasion". Working with Robert Cialdini's 6 Principles of Influence, Dr. Phelps is changing the way we think about our patients and their treatment plans. We're talking today about Dr. Phelps' techniques and how you can use them in the dentist's chair. It's all about setting the stage for helping patients accept the treatment options you're explaining and how to offer them the best possible treatment.

Where did this unique perspective come from? Dr. Phelps answers that and many other questions about his dental career today, but the most important question we dive into on this episode is how you can change not only our mindset but also that of your patients' and your staff.

When it comes to the powers of persuasion and pre-suasion, it's all about looking closer and what we say and the questions we ask. Ultimately, you want to get your patients into a "proactive mindset". According to Dr. Phelps, this proactive mindset is what separates the perceptive patients from the more stubborn ones. If you want patients to respond positively to your treatment options, you have to prime them to be proactive. We discuss the persuasive techniques you can use in your own dental practice to achieve this mindset, including setting the mood and asking the right questions.

It's like I'm always saying - your thoughts have the power to create your reality. What we say matters, and you do have the power to create a proactive mindset in your patients and your team and even yourself. If you're ready to be an influencer and take on the proactive mind, tune in right now to hear the nuggets Dr. Christopher Phelps is sharing with us.

In This Episode You Will Learn:

• What my listeners are saying about this podcast 1:20
• All about Dr. Phelp's dental experience and entrepreneurship 2:40
• How to recognize the different ways people make their decisions 8:20
• How to prime a proactive mindset in your patients 10:55
• What a proactive mindset looks like in the dental chair 18:55
• Tricks for setting - and sticking to! - your goals 24:29
• Where you can learn more about the 6 Principles of Influence 26:20

Some Questions We Discuss:

• What entrepreneurial strengths can be applied to our dental careers? 4:10
• How did Dr. Phelps start training with these principles of influence? 6:06
• What's the difference between "persuasion" and "pre-suasion"? 10:13
• What is a mindset and how do we shape it? 11:50
• How does language shape our mindsets? 14:51
• What are the most common mistakes dentists make when it comes to persuasion? 20:22
• What is Dr. Phelp's favorite movie and how does it influence his mindset? 28:34

Resources:

• Visit my website: TheLifeCoachForBusyDentists.com
• Listen to more episodes: Feeling Good Podcast
• Visit Dr. Phelps' website: GuideThemToYes.com and Drphelpshelps.com.
• Check out these books by Robert Cialdini: Influence: Science and Practice and Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade