The other day I saw a 2020 hindsight meme. It made me laugh, but of course, now I can’t find the exact meme. Ugh. That is so 2020. It got me thinking, though, which I guess is a good thing. 20/20 is a term used to describe visual acuity or sharpness. To me, that means clarity. I actually thought 20/20 was defined as “perfect” vision, but a quick Google search clarified that for me. I’m glad for that. We should really ditch the pursuit for perfection anyway. Some might consider it a cliche, but it’s so true. At some point...
My favorite part of dentistry was always creating the positive and fun relationships with patients. In fact, the good relationships may have been the only thing I liked about practice. I’ve always enjoyed connecting with people. Unfortunately the actual practice of dentistry got so hard for me that I lost sight of that for a while. Now that I get to help people while filling my own bucket, I remember how important connecting with people is to me. Since I’ve begun coaching, I have had the chance to connect and get to know the most incredible people– mostly dentists, of...
Last Thursday I had a really good cry. I can assure you it was a good, long, ugly cry. And it felt so good. That day was the one-year anniversary of my last targeted chemotherapy infusion. It’s been quite a year, a tough one for many. But given how 2019 was for me, 2020 has been a breeze. I’ve been happy. It seems almost suspiciously happy, the kind of happy that you don’t think is humanly possible. Most of the time it’s a carefree feeling. I’ve not been bothered by the small things, and when I am, I can quickly...
Ever wonder why some organizations run like well-oiled machines, and others face problem after problem? It all comes down to one thing: leadership. Leadership creates the culture. Everything trickles down from the top. I have worked in several different offices during my time in dentistry, and they were all different. One of the offices had okay systems in place but also got by without systems. The boss was more of a dictator-type leader. He was always right, and what he said went. We rarely challenged him, but I learned over time that if I could suggest an idea in a...
When I look back on my career in dentistry, the parts I loved the most were networking and creating relationships with other dentists. Working in private practice was not that fulfilling for me. I always felt burdened, like I couldn’t do enough to please my patients. That left me feeling empty and unappreciated. But when I went to the Pankey Institute to try to save my career, I absolutely loved the learning environment and the friends I made. When I got involved in the local dental society, I loved the sense of community that brought. Now that I am hosting...
How much did you know about dentistry before you chose it as your forever career? If you’re like me, not much. Many of us interviewed a few dentists, spent a handful of afternoons shadowing them, or just found teeth interesting as patients. We chose dentistry based on a somewhat superficial impression of the work involved. You can see how easy it would be get into the career and then realize it’s totally wrong for us. Imagine if you did that with your romantic relationships. Imagine marrying someone after you’ve only met for coffee 5 times. It would be kind of...
As humans, judgment is part of our inherent nature. We need judgment to protect ourselves from threats. As a species it is one of our strongest defense mechanisms. While it can help us in many ways, it can also create problems with relationships– especially our relationship with ourselves. While it’s necessary to discern between safety and danger, it doesn’t always serve us when we are not in danger. At a time when we are isolated and not even around other people, our judgment of others is out in full force. Take being outside, for example. While we have to be...
You know I write about career happiness a lot. Finding it and sharing it has become my mission in life. Because I know how awful it is to feel anxiety and depression from your work, I want to help you avoid that. We spend most of our waking hours there. If it creates such turmoil in your life, then you spend most of your waking hours feeling cruddy. That just doesn’t seem worth it. My message to you has always been that life is too precious to waste it feeling miserable. I’ve been writing about this and sharing my dental...
How are you passing the time? If you’re at home with no “work” to do, you might be feeling kind of lost. You don’t want to sit and watch Netflix all day. You’ll go nuts if you spend any more time on Facebook. There seems to be nothing productive you can do, and yet, maybe there is. We all wish for more time at home, but under these circumstances, enjoying a forced staycation is not so easy. It would be easy if we didn’t have to close our businesses, worry about ours and our employees’ lost incomes, or become our...
Is it too late to talk about the New Year? Probably… I know some would say we’re way beyond talk of resolutions, intentions, and productivity. My procrastination made me miss the hype that comes with Jan 1, the hype that reminds us how much fun it is get to “start over” and hope and plan for better things to come. Yes, this is what procrastination does: it makes you start a blog post the second week in January, and then you don’t sit down to finish it until 6 weeks later. I felt motivated. I promise. I knew my plans...
