"I remember being pregnant for the first time and finally feeling human to my patients. And that was the strangest, saddest, most clarifying feeling." - Dr. Sonia Chopra

"1.0 was all grit and brute force. 2.0 is surrender. The ability to have faith, to trust myself, trust my team, and let things unfold." - Dr. Mark Limosani

I have known Dr. Mark Limosani since he was the guy who got waitlisted at Nova Southeastern and kept showing up anyway. I remember watching him from across the program thinking, that guy is not going anywhere until he gets what he wants. He eventually got in. And then he did exactly what I always knew he would do. He built something.

But this conversation was not about celebrating what he built. I wanted something harder than that. I wanted to know what it actually felt like from the inside. Because I talk about practice ownership all the time on this podcast, and I realize I have only ever told one version of the story. Mine. The woman's version. The version where burnout crept in slowly and unhealed trauma showed up through a stressed out team and a leadership style I had to completely rebuild from the ground up.

I wanted to know if men go through the same thing. Or something different. Or something they just never get asked about.

What Mark gave me in this conversation was something I was not fully prepared for. He is an endodontist. Precision trained, technically dialed in, used to being in control of everything inside a canal down to the last millimeter.   And here he was telling me that the biggest thing he has had to learn is how to let go. That micromanagement sucks the life out of everyone subjected to it. That dropping into his heart, his words, has been his greatest gift as a leader.

Today on University of Why:

• Why Mark moved from Montreal to South Florida when everyone told him the market was too saturated and too competitive for someone who was not Hispanic, not local, and spoke French as a first language
• Three years as an associate, one week a month in Quebec City, and what the slow grind of building a referral base actually looked like
• The team member who arrived through a random phone call and completely transformed the culture of his practice before eventually graduating from dental school herself
• What it is like to be the only man leading a team of women, and why he thinks that has quietly shaped him into a better leader
• The difference between how his team comes to him versus how they come to me, and what I think that reveals about gender dynamics in practice ownership
• Mark 1.0 versus Mark 2.0: what he had to stop doing, what he had to start trusting, and why surrender is not the same thing as giving up
• The oral surgeon who doubled his rent overnight and accidentally gave Mark the push he needed to build something better
• Why vulnerability is not a weakness for men in leadership. It is an understated superpower
• What the cold plunge taught him about sitting inside discomfort without trying to change it
• The one thing he had to let go of between his first practice and his second, and why control is the hardest thing to release when precision is your entire professional identity

Follow Dr. Chopra:

• Instagram: @drsoniachopra
• Dr. Sonia Chopra’s Website – Learn more about my journey and work
• Explore eSchool: HERE

Follow Dr. Mark Limosani:

• Instagram: @dr_mark_a_limosani_endodontist

Love the episode? Please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs this message. Your support keeps this show going!