Welcome to Bite Size Dental Marketing. Today
I have Dr. Craig Spodak. It's rare that you get
to meet someone who you immediately vibe with
and just feels like in your tribe. And as Craig
was talking today about what he's done at Bulletproof
and what he and his partner have built, it resonated
very much with what we stand for. And we kicked
off the conversation today with their approach
to dental practice leadership. At Bulletproof,
we don't really love the idea that there's this
one -size -fits -all approach to dental consulting.
You know, dentistry is a beautiful profession
that it can express exactly what the practitioner
wants. And there's a very one -size -fits -none
approach, you know, dropping the insurance and
stuff like that. There's so many different models.
You know, we find dentists that want to expand
their practices and go to multi -location or
maybe exit the chair because their body's hurting
them. And they sign up with Acme Consulting and
Acme Consulting tells them like, hey, drop all
your insurances, which is fine if you want to
maximize the value of each patient that you particularly
serve. But if your model is expansion minded,
you may want to not shut the front door. So,
you know, and also the sales pressure in dentistry
is a little disheartening. You know, there's
a lot of dentists that are out there trying to
rack up multiple locations so that they can sell.
When you talk about that one size fit all, we
see it in marketing all the time. Where are you?
As a dentist, where are you seeing it the most?
Is it there just the trying to grow a sellable
entity or is it something different? So unfortunately,
most dentists don't know what they want and they've
actually just hijacked someone else's idea of
what they were told. There's a lot of industry
pressure, whether that comes from supply houses
or just the narrative in dentistry that you must
do this and this and this. So at Bulletproof,
we wind up catching these people later on in
their career. We've taken 200 people through
our mastermind. We've done eight summits with
a couple thousand people. And there's this recurring
theme of this dentist that pursued a plan, a
business plan, a vision for what they wanted.
They got that, and they're really unfulfilled
and unhappy. And the disheartening thing is that
in dentistry, we're leading. in all the wrong
categories, depression, divorce, drug abuse,
burnout. When you look at the polls on Facebook
that are fairly large sample sizes, the overwhelming
percentage of dentists are not happy with where
they are economically, fulfillment -wise, their
body's hurting them. They were coached or told
to open up their own practices. We didn't get
a single minute of business training, a single
minute of leadership training. And just because
we're a dentist, the team is kind of circling
around us that we're the expert of all domains.
And if we're being honest, we just have to kind
of fake it till we make it. And it leads dentists
to, unfortunately, a well -worn path of unfulfillment.
It's funny you talk about that. There was a year
that Andre and I, my partner, I want to say about
40 % of our revenue was private equity -backed
DSOs. Man, it's miserable. And I'm sure they're
fine. I'm not anti -DSO, just like I'm not anti
-anything. But it was so hard to market because
they would turn over the front desk, they would
turn over their admin staff so quickly that you
just couldn't get your feet under you as a marketer.
And I came in one day and... I was really unhappy.
I mean, I was like, look, I'm tired. Like, I
don't want to do this anymore. We ended up, you
know, terminating our engagements with all of
our problem accounts, top to bottom. I mean,
in one day. And it was scary because we gave
up around 36 % of our revenue overnight. And,
you know, agencies, if you don't know a lot about
agencies, you know, I'm not rocking a 50 % net
profit. It can be pretty lean in a digital agency.
It was so scary, but it was one of the greatest
things I ever did because the company had become
an albatross around my neck. I was no longer
free. My time wasn't my own, and it was really
tough. I find the same thing, but I have a lot
of hope for the DSO. I get the opportunity to
see so many dental practices and visit them and
coach with them. And the one thing that I can
tell you is that a moderately run, the average
private practice that I've happened to see, the
average, so not the avatar of people that would
call your marketing firm or call Bulletproof.
Because right there, that's a different person.
A person that listens to this podcast or a person
that listens to the Bulletproof Dental Practice
podcast is a top tier. person, a top tier entrepreneur
aspiring. They want to double down on their career.
Let's face it, the average person who's not interested
in growing their dental practice, you never get
to meet them because they're like, what do you
need marketing? I don't need marketing. It was
ridiculous. But when I look at the average dental
practice versus the average DSO run practice,
unfortunately, I would say that the average DSO
run practice is run better and has better standards,
unfortunately. than the average private practice
i've been in private practice offices that are
just like kind of run in the mill when i'm like
and they don't even know that they have to change
the fluids in their autoclave so they haven't
they you know the the bare minimum standard unfortunately
is not oftentimes there for us private practitioners
so i'm hopeful of the dso i'm hopeful that um
there's going to be new generations of dsos that
will actually be Kind of like hotel management
companies, you know, like the Rich Carlton. I
think there's room for that DSO 3 .0 in our space.
We've seen it already, right? I mean, the first
breed of marketers in DSOs were elevated office
managers and, you know, people who, hygienists
that were interested in social media. They did
a fine job, but they were not multi -channel
attribution marketers. They were not looking
at cost of goods and acquisitions and all these
things. When you look at who's running DSOs today,
they are putting in place legitimate marketing
professionals from consumer packaged goods companies
and from SaaS software and places. And they,
while I don't have intimate knowledge of what
happens in the practice, I can tell you that
the quality of marketing from DSOs has continued
to increase dramatically in effectiveness. Right.
And I think that translates to Eric, by the way,
not only in marketing, but in the quality of
the CE that's available, the standards, the retention
of top tier talent. I mean, let's face it. If
we have a top tier admin person in your local
private practice and they're kicking butt and
they're doing great, chances are there's not
a lot of opportunity for upward mobility in your
seven person dental office. Whereas if you're
a rockstar admin person at a DSO, You could rise
to managing one or two offices, to territories,
to regions. So, yeah, I'm threatened and hopeful
about DSOs. Yeah, yeah. When we started, you
know, what, 2017, 2018, you know, buying, DSOs
are buying all the rage and it's certainly slowed
down. What do you see as the big shifts in not
just the industry, but in the dentists themselves?
17 when 14 15 16 17 era to today you know dentistry
was on a fairly level playing field historically
so you know when i became a dentist uh geez it
was back in 98 when i got out of school i'm aging
myself but i was the first one of the first dentists
in my community in the early 2000s that decided
to use marketing you know i bought television
ads and We were messing around with a website.
And I just remember the animosity that that generated
for my community. They were so mad at me for
doing that. And really, there wasn't... My dad's
a dentist, so I got a chance to grow up in a
dental household. And earlier, I'll say from
the low 2000s all the way up through the mid
-teens, like 2014 -15, there wasn't too much
differentiation. Your dentist was nice. The dentist
had... a dental chair. There wasn't too much
separation in what type of dental chair, but
there wasn't much degrees of separation to different
service offerings. So we didn't have scanners
per se. We didn't have same day dentistry wasn't
as readily utilized. CEREC was in its early iterations
of it. So I think it was more challenging to
market the difference. You could market that
Dr. Jones really cares or whatever, but there
wasn't this massive category separation And I
think over the last 10 years, what we've seen
in all industries is this race towards innovation,
technology, patient experience. And those who
don't have not embraced that change are disgruntled
and left on the sidelines and upset. So I see
a lot of dentists that are, you know, not happy,
you know, really kind of commoditizing the patient
saying these patients don't really care. And
it's so frustrating. And team doesn't want to
work hard. And people don't have the same work
ethic. And then I see the opposite of the people
that are flourishing with like, there's so much
opportunity. These are underserved areas. But
the commonalities are the people that are willing
to invest in their businesses. So business requires
investment, investment of time and leadership
of developing your people, investment of technology
and infrastructure, making the experience better.
And then you have to... put that message out.
So it's innovation and marketing. You can't just
innovate and just hopefully the word catches
fire, unless you go viral for a TikTok dance
or something. But for us mere mortals, you're
going to have to get some horsepower to spread
the message. But I think that the separation
of services and when I think about the first
Starbucks I went to, that was a life -changing
experience. I walked in there trying to order
a coffee and they... Had me using different words
I never heard of, grande and cafe, flat white.
I didn't even know. I'm like, I just want a damn
coffee. But we see what happened with that. So
the category expanded because of Starbucks. Or
just thinking back to 10 years ago when I had
to take a check into my teller to deposit it.
Now I just do it from my phone. So for those
dentists that are... really resenting the change.
It's like, don't resent the change. Just understand
the consumer's been trained by all these things
and they want to translate that to your dental
practice. I know dentists will say, well, my
patients don't mind a goopy impression. They
don't mind the fact that we're only open six
hours a day, or they don't mind that they have
to call in to confirm their appointment. But
if you had to return your video at Blockbuster
and then get hit with a $25 rewind fee, you're
going to learn about Netflix pretty quick. Or
are you going to find a bank that will allow
you to deposit your check with a mobile? They
don't miss the teller experience anymore. Is
that the biggest barrier to people joining Bulletproof
Practice? Is it the abundance mentality in getting
them to the education? So the ethos of what we
try to do is that we believe that... Yes. Dental
practices are all a snowflake. And if you want
to be like, my father's 84 years old. He's here
today doing exams. He's still doing a little
bit of work around the office. But if you ask
my father, what's your biggest, what do you miss
the most? He'll tell you that I miss actually
doing crowns and working on patients. I really
miss the actual dentistry. And God bless him.
He's 84 years old. So that was, you know, if
I would have met my dad at 27, if he would have
been in the Bulletproof ecosystem, I would have
said, what do you really want? And he would have
probably told me, I love seeing patients. And
I would have just doubled down on that. You know,
I would have designed a practice that would support
that. But there's other dentists that are like,
look, I love the dentistry and don't get me wrong.
I love it. But, you know, I'm 45 and my back's
starting to hurt. And every time my wife and
I take a vacation, you know, for two or three
weeks, I'm never really away because the practice
kind of owns me. I feel trapped by it. I just
need freedom. You know, I thought I wanted a
lot of money. And now that I'm making a hundred
or two or three, whatever money, I really want
time. So that type of avatar of dentist, that's
really uniquely suited for the Bulletproof ecosystem
because we can help them build a profitable business.
that doesn't rely just upon their hands. And,
you know, when you have a dental practice and
you own that business, but it depends on you
to make it run, there's liabilities there. You
know, when you go skiing and you hurt your wrist
or something, you know, it all hinges on you.
So it's an existential threat for the business.
And there's a lot of people in our practices
that have hitched their wagons onto us, you know,
hitched their futures. Our hygienists and our
support team have all... said, I'm going to work
with you. And I think it's kind of incumbent
upon a practice owner to build a little bit of
resiliency into the business model such that
it doesn't depend on you. Now, I've heard you
speak in your podcast on culture. How does that
overlay with this hardening of the system and
the practice? So culture really is a buzzword
for what your leadership is so if you you know
we've all gone into restaurants before and we've
met a waitress and said hey you know i'm really
confused about the menu i don't really know what
to order here do you like the fish or do you
like the steak and the waitress says you actually
i've never eaten here before um but i'll be right
back right versus a person the same waitress
like oh my god you know you this this the fish
is amazing you know we we Actually, the chef
actually likes to spearfish and he went off the
coast here in Florida and he spearfishes a whole
bunch of snapper. And I saw them come in today.
It's amazing. I would get the snapper. Steak
is great. Don't get me wrong, but I saw him bring
in the fish today. So what does that really mean?
When I meet a person like that in a restaurant,
I'm sure you've met people like that. I am so
anxious to meet the owner. And every time I meet
the owner, I'm like, uh -huh, that makes sense
now. So leadership. is expressed through culture
and culture is really just the vibe you get.
You as a marketer, Eric, you can do a phenomenal
job for a dental practice. Phenomenal job. You're
making the phone ring. It's amazing. And guess
what? They fire you. They say, you know, Eric,
it's just not working for us, man. It's not working.
We're spending all this money with you. And you
know, you're telling me these results are happening.
You're like, yeah, let's look at the call data.
So you have a tough job because you can be successful
in your endeavor. and not translate to business
for the practice because the practice is dropping
the ball. So all the best marketing in the world,
if you can't execute when the phone rings and
do the job to get the patient in and deliver
the experience and help the patient discover
the value, they're going to fire you. The worst
thing in the world is to spend a bunch of money
on marketing and not improve the P &L. Right.
But you don't control that, though, is what I'm
saying. You don't control that. You can put the
brakes on the car, but if the proper driver doesn't
use the brakes, they're going to crash. But it's
hard because dentistry, the dentist actually
thinks it's all about the dentistry. And yes,
I'm not here to tell you that your margins don't
matter and a careful treatment plan and conservative
treatment is not important, but patients don't
understand that. So patients are going to our
practices and trying to figure out the perception
of value. And how do they do it? They do it by
the culture. So when you have good culture, when
the person that answers the phone is kind and
the hygienist is caring, and then the communication
is hand -delivered from the doctor to the hygienist
and then to the treatment coordinator, and the
patient's questions are all answered, the finances
are disclosed and handled professionally, the
crown tends to be better. for the patient because
they perceive the value there. So if I could
give one piece of advice to dentists is just
understand it's not about you. It's crazy, but
it's actually not as much about the perception
of the outcome. Patients presume you're going
to be good at what you do. That's why they call
you. They figure there's laws to make sure that
you're good. And when we look at data from the
hospital and general medical system, the number
one indicator of why a patient would refer another
patient to a healthcare setting is not in the
perception of outcome, which is fascinating to
me. It's actually on the perception of like how
the team gets along and what does the environment
look like? Because they just presume you're going
to get a good outcome. If you look at consumer
behavior in marketing, say to dentistry, we ask
a rank and file consumer, you have no ability
to judge the quality of dentistry. i can tell
you how it looks i can tell you if i like it
or not um if a crown lasts two years or a crowd
lasts 28 years as a consumer i would never know
because my experience is uniquely myopic to my
experience like i just don't have data available
to suggest the quality of clinical care that's
happening to me um and you know simon sinek and
others have talked about you know it's not What
you do, it's, you know, people don't buy what
you do. They buy why you do it. And we're seeing
that in marketing, especially in 20, 25, the
distrust on the Internet, the inability to relate.
We're lonelier than we've ever been. I mean,
you know, all these things happen. And even if
it's just about just a dentist, which I have
to put in quotation marks because I think it's,
you know, incredibly intimate to have that that
that relationship with with, you know, someone
so close and working on something, you know,
going to have one set of teeth. We tend to associate
trust with people we connect with, and 90 % of
what we do is trying to accelerate the curve
of connection. And it's not about the dentistry.
I don't care. I certainly care that you have
ateros and all these other stuff, but I care
in so much as you can relate that to the patient.
Most dentists love to talk about what a hero
they are. And it doesn't matter how much CE you've
been to or what technology you have. It's do
you connect with these patients? And in fact,
making the doctor the hero, just to kind of double
click on that, is the worst possible thing you
can do. So that's what typically we all do. Like
when you look at a dentist's website and it's
the doctor with his arms folded and the crew
of people behind him. And Dr. Jones went to prestigious
blah, blah, blah and got this award. you know,
as Academy of this and that it's great, but like,
it doesn't move the needle for the patients.
Like, how does this benefit me versus some simple
thing of like, Hey, I'm Dr. Jones. I got into
dentistry because I wanted to help people. I
know going to the dentist is sometimes an unfortunate
experience and I get it. I was that guy, you
know, I don't want to judge you. I want to welcome
you and blah, blah, blah. And why did you do
it? Like, how does this relate to me? So we need
a lot of help us dentists. So I'm happy that
we're talking about this. Hopefully this opens
the eyes of some people listening to this. Now,
we were talking earlier about, you know, kind
of the lies we tell ourselves of, oh, my patients
just would rather me pull it. They don't really
care. I mean, my area has gone downhill, whatever
it is. How are you helping dentists break that
paradigm of thinking? That's a hard one. How
are you helping people break their paradigm of
thinking, Eric? You know, I'm letting them fire
me and I'm giving them a hug and they're going
somewhere else and then they're coming back.
I don't have a good answer. That's kind of what
happens to us too. So like, look, the hardest
thing to do is to change someone's belief system.
But we know intellectually that's what needs
to happen. I can give you so many examples, but...
I remember lecturing for Invisalign, you know,
as faculty for Invisalign. And I went out to
this place in Southwestern Florida. I don't remember
what city it was at. And it was about 10 years
ago, 15 years ago. And I was doing a lot of lecturing
at that point. I was coming into the cities very
quickly and just barely paying attention and
winding up at the Ramada or wherever I was. And
I remember this one person saying to me like,
hey, you know, this is great about Invisalign,
but I practice in an area that is... blue collar
and they don't have the money or the desire to
want to straighten their teeth so in that sentence
is a lot by the way so and i think they might
have mentioned like they don't care about how
they look okay so that's a perfect example so
look at all the presumptions the first presumption
is people don't have the money right so i actually
asked this person i probably um this is why i
realized i had to do my own thing because i can't
like I have to be honest more than gentle, I
suppose, sometimes. But I said, hey, doc, just
curious, how far away do you practice from this
hotel? They said about three miles. I'm like,
three miles, three or four miles. I'm like, okay,
cool. And I'm like, you know why I'm asking you
that? She goes, no, I mean, this is Ramada. I'm
like, yeah, but on the drive in, I noticed there
was a Mercedes -Benz dealership and it looked
fairly new. And you think Mercedes -Benz. just
pops in dealerships like randomly? Or do you
think they do an exhaustive demographic and financial
set of research before they plop one of their
dealerships? Because I'm sure they do that. I'm
like, so if Mercedes thought this is a good area,
why do you believe it's not a good area? And
moreover, the language you're using to your team
is saying we practice in a bad area, financially
limiting area. So your team cannot exceed the
vision and beliefs that the leader has. In other
words, getting back to the culture thing, your
culture cannot exceed you. You're the rate limiting
step. If you're a big thinker and you are a broad
and abundant thinker, your team will tend to
be more. If you're limiting, they won't go past
your limits. You're the rate limiting step. The
second thing I said is, are you presenting Invisalign
as a cosmetic thing? She said, yes. And this
is the time when we're just getting into scanners.
But when you show a younger patient that the
teeth crowding and the amount of wear on their
teeth. you know 24 year old girl who says hey
congratulations becky you have no cavities no
prayer disease get out of here we're not doing
the right service for patients because if you
can show becky that girl that has no cavities
and no prayer disease you can show that the incisors
have worn off a millimeter or two already and
she's 24 so she's only had those incisors for
like a decade or 13 years or 14 years you can
prognosticate the wear or you can show them the
wear of what's happening and putting the teeth
in a better position can prevent future dentistry.
So the belief system and the language that we
use is the largest predictor of future success.
And I've done this so long that I can talk with
the dentist for 10 minutes and be like, I got
it. I think I got a good idea where to start.
And that's why people in the Bulletproof world
tease me. They call me the dental whisperer.
I don't know if that's... But I could just hear
by your language what's going to happen. And
I've been blessed because I had these amazing
people in my life. You know, I didn't come up
with this stuff on my own. I'm not that smart,
but God put like amazing people in my life, not
just dentists, but business people. And I start
to observe how they think and how they speak.
And it was like, just like, whoa, I got a lot
of work to do. Now, who's been the most influential
in that? geez i don't know most it's every i
got so many my buddy john my buddy mike uh my
buddy randy i got tony robbins in my life you
know he's a patient here the practice i can say
that because he says it himself um and he's frequently
here um but uh you know just having just amazing
people and recognizing the patterns uh that they
all have and there's a lot of commonalities the
way they think the way they treat people It really
made me think like, wow, I got a lot of work
to do. So I was this burnt out dentist at like
40, like trying to do everything myself and thinking
I'm the smartest one. I'm the only one that cares.
I have to be the nucleus of everything. And I
noticed these patterns in these people and the
way they all treated their teams and the way
they were just larger thinkers and more complimentary
and better leaders. And it just made me like
acutely aware of how poor I was at this stuff.
So I started changing my style and doubling down
to the people and creating more bandwidth to
work on the business. And by the way, when I
say work on the business, a lot of dentists will
tell us that, like, we want to work on the business.
I'm like, what does that mean? And they'll tell
me something like, on Friday, I want to do payroll.
I don't do payroll. That's not working on the
business. That's a clerical position. What I
mean by working on the business is creating clear.
a clear mission, a clear strategy of how we want
to get there. And then working with people to
help them understand the opportunities that they
have, where they could fit into this new business
plan that we want. When you work on the business,
you're really working on the people and the people
will grow the business. But those are the people
that I had and that God placed into my life.
And there was so many at the same times and so
many recurring lessons all happening at the same
time. I'm like, okay, this is like divine guidance.
I got to either... call it quits and sell to
acme dso or figure my crap out now is is that
when the bulletproof practice came along that
time frame yeah it's a cool story so peter was
um in a bat my partner peter bolden who has seven
practices in atlanta um unbeknownst to me at
the time because he just reached out to me on
instagram and said hey i really like what you're
doing it was actually my birthday was august
26 2000 2016 he reached out to me and said hey
just big fan of what you're doing You know, if
our paths ever connect, let me know if you're
going to be in Atlanta or something like that.
And unbeknownst to him, I was in a I was I was
like observing him and using the marketing company
I was using at the time. I was mimicking what
he was doing. And then we wound up connecting.
And, you know, later on, I found out that was
a cry for help from Peter because he was in a
really bad place. He didn't tell me, you know,
at that moment, but he was looking for a dental
buddy. And we had so much in common and so much
suffering in our past of doing things improperly
and hiring consultants that took us down the
wrong path and charged us a lot of money and
had poor motives that were like, hey, we should
really do this ourselves. And we wrote a book.
The book became an Amazon bestseller, The Bulletproof
Dental Practice. Um, I joined his fledgling podcast,
which totally sucked until I arrived on it. He
had three episodes. They were all crap until
I showed up. I'm joking. If he ever listens to,
he's not going to listen to me here, but maybe
he will. But, uh, I joined the podcast and then
he came out and saw me do a speaking event and
he's like, let's do our own thing. And that was
eight years ago. We did our first event. We had
like 70 people there at the St. Regis hotel in
Atlanta. And then we just completed our eighth
summit at the Ritz -Carlton in Orlando, August
8th and 9th. And it was completely sold out.
We had 40 doctors on our waiting list, which
is crazy. And the fire marshal said, you can't
have any more people in this room. So some of
the sponsors had to be out of the room. It was
standing room only. So eight years of toiling,
it finally is clicking. And we're transforming
the lives of dentists and teams. And I feel super
fulfilled. You know, like you said, Eric, earlier
when we were talking, like, I feel kind of called
to do it. So if I'm going to go through this
miserable time and Peter's going to go through
this miserable time, we might as well pave the
way for others that wish to learn so they don't
have to endure the struggles that we did. It's
an interesting time in the Internet because when
you watch someone's rise, it's often just their
highlight reel. And, you know, they never get
to the events, you know, personally that led
to it. What I don't tell very often is that,
man, I was not in a good place. And that's easy
to say, but I had taken a job out in California.
My wife and I are from Texas. And it was going
to be this dream job. And it was incredibly painful
because I moved my small family out there. We
had two young girls under three. My wife and
I have never lived, you know, she had never lived
out of Texas. And at the time, we needed all
the support. And, you know, goodness, we were
on the precipice of divorce. And, you know, we
had no family support around us. And we gave
up everything to move out here. And it turned
out to, you know, I was working for literally,
you know, a crazy person. And, you know, we just
decided one day that we were going to move home.
And, you know, like I literally abandoned my
job. In the craziest words, like I just walked
away from my job. uh uh everything to just move
home one day you know obviously my life's turned
around but that's not the highlight reel that
we like to tell uh when we talk about real change
in our lives and that's the one you know you
said earlier if you had one advice to to dentist
you know when you gave it i think mine would
be as much as unfun as it is to be truly authentic
not just pretend we're being authentic that is
what your patients want and that is what your
team wants because it is incredibly lonely uh
to run an organization and not have someone to
do it with oh yeah yeah we are unabashedly authentic
the breakdowns are in the book in every podcast
in every in every summit No, I'm a completely
open book. You're doing a disservice to fellow
colleagues and, frankly, to humanity to whitewash
your struggles because the suffering that it
compounds is, number one, it's completely untrue.
The commonality I have in all these great people
that have mentored me was massive failure. And
I know what people are saying when they say dark
place. I know what that means. And my goal is
if you're in that dark place, don't do it alone.
Get a group. It doesn't have to be Bulletproof.
It could be YPO or it could be an entrepreneurial.
Grab one of your entrepreneurial friends or patients
and take them out to lunch. But don't suffer
in silence. And I think one of the biggest, most
beneficial aspects of being in the Bulletproof
ethos is this. unbelievable, authentic nature.
Like even at our summit last week or two weeks
ago, I should say in the beginning of August,
it was, you know, who here also feels like they're
like not good enough or not capable enough or
has these dark thoughts of that. They're not
whatever. And like, I'm like, look around the
room, you know, Hey guys, we're in human school.
This is what being a human being is. It's this
feelings of being a fraud. And frankly, I got
up on the eighth summit. Peter and I, before
we get on stage, we kind of just have a prayer
or whatever just to give us the capability to
help the people. That's the net. If everyone
there takes one thing and implements one thing
that improves their life, that's a massive success
for me. But I also have a little voice in my
head, and Peter had it too. This was our biggest
summit. There's like 450 people. There's hundreds
of, you know, there was massive amounts of money
spent and time taken away from families and we
don't take it lightly. And we're like for a millisecond,
like, are we going to be okay here? Are we a
fraud? And it's like, no, you know, we're here
to help people. And it's not about me. It's not
about whether you like me or not like me. I've
got, you know, thousands of people that have
been transformed by the teachings that we've
had. And I got my ass kicked learning it. So
frankly, if I could help somebody or even if
we plant a seed, even if this podcast is just
planting a seed for somebody that's like, you
know, I'm going to tune into this thing, but
I'm in a dark place. This is not for me. I don't
like Eric and I sure as hell don't like Spodak,
but I'm going to listen to this thing. And you
and I have just planted a seed and that seed
may take years to grow. It's still a noble endeavor.
And I think that it's... It doesn't matter what
it manifests immediately. If you don't hang this
up or you put this podcast down and make immediate
changes, it doesn't matter. But if this podcast
grows and you listen to it again or something
else or you pull it up again or you find some
words that either Eric or I said and it plants
something in you, that's just goodness. And you
can do really well in life by doing good. I know
it's cliche, but it's just really cool. And Eric,
in the limited time we spent together, I can
hear that and feel that in your voice. That you
have this alignment to help people and to serve
people. And that's really kind of the secret,
honestly. Get out of your own way. Give more.
Serve your patients. Serve your team. Admit.
Go to your team and be like, hey guys, I'm sorry
if I'm blah, blah, blah. I got no leadership
training. I'm just doing the best I can. I'm
scared. I need help. I'm a dentist. I'm a damn
good dentist, but I don't know how to run a business.
Help me. What do you guys see that we could do
better? That would be magic for your practice.
Your office manager might tell you something
like they tell me, like, actually, it's better
when you're not around. Well, thank you for telling
me. Go to your ranch, go hang out, do something
else. I'm like, okay, cool. I'll do it. Yeah.
I mean, I always wanted to build an autonomous
practice, but it does feel like a little bit
of a kick in the teeth when they say we don't
need you that much anymore, but it's what I wanted.
So it's cool. Study after study after study show
the pursuit of happiness of an ever self is not
a noble cause. It's, you know, happiness is an
outcome of serving something. Yeah. It's an unattended
byproduct. It doesn't show up. When you chase
happiness, it eludes you. When you're at peace
or at flow or serving others, it just kind of
shows up. It like just snuck in when you weren't
looking for it. Yeah, I agree with that. That's
cool. and it it sucks because had you told 35
year old me that or even 40 year old me that
45 year old me i would have told you 45 yeah
yeah i would have not understood uh what you
were talking about and it did it took it took
me growing this watching you know john barroso
through his evolution and you know he sold his
practice to heather majors and um it took it
took me witnessing other people going through
this journey to really define my own. And that's
part of it too, by the way, it's totally part
of it. Like you couldn't, like if I could go
surgically remove the trauma and the struggle
and those years of you eating glass and just
hand you this place that you are in right now,
you wouldn't want it. So it's like, you know,
the struggle's good for you, but just know that
we all went through it. The suffering comes in
and it'd be like, well, geez, if I had what Craig
had or Eric had, yeah, of course. No one would
really want my last 20 years. I don't even want
my last 20 years. It was good for me, but it's
the same thing with the kids. You know, I have
two children, 16 and 13. And, you know, and my
daughter yesterday, 16 years old, was going through
something. I said, listen, you know, this is
a breakdown. And I said to her, her name's Sage.
I'm like, Sage, this is breakdown. But breakdown
always precedes breakthrough. So I don't like
to see you going through what you're going. It's
emotional. I know you're crying and I know you're
feeling a lot of pain, but I'm not sad for you.
I know this is good for you. This is meant for
your benefit. And I really believe in that. You
got to go through it. So for those that are suffering,
if we have the random sampling of dentists that
are listening to us, there's 40 to 60 % that
are really not happy, Eric, right now. So to
those people, you know, we've gone through it
and it gets better and it's for your development.
And, you know, I have a feeling that you'll,
you know, you'll, you'll find your way and there's
places that you can grow and there's great entrepreneurial
groups to get in, but watch where you watch,
where you're watch your group too. Cause I also
love going on these Facebook groups and I see
these dentists venting. I just like to look at
it. Cause it's like touching the hot plate that
everybody tells you shouldn't touch. And the
dent, there's a lot of dialogue out there that's
really caustic and toxic. Get out of that group.
I believe it that you are an average of the five
people you spend the most time around and you've
got to improve that. And that's so hard to say
because they're my friends and they get me and
yeah, they may get you, but that's not, that
doesn't mean it's healthy. I think the other
thing that I've really had to learn is because
The first iteration of me and starting a company
was very clumsy. I was constantly trying to catch
the cool thing or like pivot to what I think
it was. And, you know, you just can't, at some
point you have to be, you have to know what you
want and you have to be able to articulate your
own happiness. And once you articulate your own
happiness, you cannot. forget in the darkness
what you knew to be true in the light and you
know that is such a complicated thing because
we feel in our dark times we need to pivot in
reality we just you know have to remember who
we are and it's tough yeah it's very hard that's
the probably the hardest thing to figure out
what you really want um i was fortunate to have
written that down in 2008 like this really i
had a person in my life named michelle and she
was working in my office and You know, she's
like, what's your plan? What do you want to do?
And, you know, she really guided me to write
it all down. And it's such a creative exercise
because when you're writing down, it's a bunch
of BS. You have an ability to BS yourself. So
I'd write down, I want all this stuff. I'm like,
that's not me at all. And I write down the next
version. It was like really cool. And it was
a guiding light as a North Star for me. And it
really helped me shape what I got. So there was
a lot of intentionality. I was very intentional
of what I wanted to create. And I wrote it all
down and, you know, no wonder why I created it.
And I love it. I mean, it doesn't mean that there's
certain days where I don't like it, but, you
know, nine times out of 10, I'm just, you know,
I don't have to be in the office today and I
want to be here. And that's really cool. And
if some, you know, big, bad PE company came over
and gave me triple what it was worth, I would
not want to sell it right now because I actually
like my life. And I think, you know, getting
what you want and then liking what you got. That's
awesome. That's awesome. It's a good place to
wrap it up right there.