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EPISODE 98: WHAT'S HOLDING YOU BACK?

Casey and Jarrod discuss ways in which practice owners, and people in general, tend to hold themselves back from achieving more and offer some ideas on how to combat that.

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EPISODE 98 TRANSCRIPTION

Announcer:
Hello everyone. Welcome to The Millionaire Dentist podcast brought to you by Four Quadrants Advisory. On this podcast, we break down the world of dentistry finances, and business practices, to help you become the millionaire dentist you deserve to be. Please be advised, we do speak with an honest tongue and may not be safe for work.

Casey Hiers:
Hello and welcome. This is Casey Hiers back at The Millionaire Dentist podcast, in-studio with Jarrod Bridgeman. How are we today?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Good. How are you?

Casey Hiers:
I'm great.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
How was your Thanksgiving? I know this is going to be coming out like probably a week after this, but how was your break?

Casey Hiers:
Ate a lot. It was delicious. Everybody got along. We didn't talk about religion or politics and that's a win.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That is a win.

Casey Hiers:
I'm thankful. Yep. How about you?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Good. Got to hang out with a bunch of my family members and eat and have a couple cocktails and spend some time with my kids.

Casey Hiers:
Nice.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I didn't do any Black Friday shopping. I was like, no, I don't feel like doing any of that.

Casey Hiers:
My wife had to go to Target for a kid's birthday party gift that was that night and she-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh gosh.

Casey Hiers:
Realized it was Black Friday as she's walking into the parking lot. It was not good.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I drove by and I was like-

Casey Hiers:
Which I said, "Hey, I'm just glad people are out."

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Traffic though, man, that day was-

Casey Hiers:
Brutal?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Miserable. Oh yeah.

Casey Hiers:
This is a time of reflection. Thanksgiving, Christmas, end of the year. Ultimately people are thinking about goals, they're reflecting. What was good? What can I do better? Obviously, supply chain affects people personally and professionally. Hiring. There's a lot of challenges out there.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
And so let's talk about what holds us back.

Casey Hiers:
What barriers hold us back? There's psychology to a lot of this. I just thought you and I could have a conversation about mindset.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
We're talking more internally, what holds you back as opposed to the external methods.

Casey Hiers:
Everybody, I shouldn't say everybody. Many people like to blame the same little things because it lets them off the hook.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes.

Casey Hiers:
For practice owners, we hear the same things. My team, my staff, insurance. There's go-tos for everybody in their personal lives. I'm so busy. I'm so busy. And so yeah, I thought we could jump into a little psychology, tie it to personal, tie it to goals, tie it to reflection. It is germane to practice owners and what they deal with as well.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
The first one is fear, right?

Casey Hiers:
There's objective fear and there's subjective fear. Objective fear is real. Real, meaning there's a bear in this room that is a real fear that we should have, that there's a bear in the room.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep.

Casey Hiers:
Subjective, made-up fear is, if you go to a horror movie and you're scared, that's not real.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Scared of fear of the known or fear of what? Potential outcomes kind of thing?

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Similar to, if you don't like to speak in front of people, nothing's going to happen to you. It's your mind. You have to overcome that. And so it's talking about subjective fear, made-up fear. I feel a lot of us have that. A lot of practice owners can have that. There's a lot of fear as a practice owning dentists or specialists.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Insurances, for example, I would say, team members or employees, even, I would say patients, potentially could fall into that as well.

Casey Hiers:
Uncertainty.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Uncertainty, yeah.

Casey Hiers:
All of those things, and they can be challenging. And then there's what's called the devil's tongue.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
My mind went somewhere else on that one, devil's tongue cur.

Casey Hiers:
Curious about what that is?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes.

Casey Hiers:
It's that internal little voice that we hear that says that, hey, I'm not capable. I don't deserve this. I'm not likable or lovable. That sounds a little bit dramatic, but it's basically casting doubt. That doubt and uncertainty. No one's going to want to buy my practice. No one's going to want to work for me. It's that little whisper and that little tug that we have to get out in front of. I mean, per personally, it's-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
No, and I get that. I feel like this is something almost everybody has had issues with, has had dealings with. You can trace it to, I think the biggest, most dramatic example would be the teenage years. There was probably a year or two in my life where, 14, 15, all gangly and pimple-covered and worried that no girls liked me, which it turns out they didn't. But I worked that out and I figured it out.

Casey Hiers:
Well, and then the opposite of this is success. What do people think success is? I heard it compared like this. There was this guru and this person went to this guru and said, "I want success. I hear you are a success guru. How do I achieve success?" He said, "Meet me at the beach right at sunrise." So meets him at the beach. Here comes the success guru and says, "Walk out into the water." He begins walking out into the water. Goes out a little further. The success guru comes out and dunks his head under the water and holds him down for a while, to the point where it was starting to become problematic for the person underwater. When they came up he said, "What are you doing? You're trying to drown me?" He said, "No, but how bad did you want that breath of air?"

Casey Hiers:
Wanting success is like the breath of life. How bad do you want air when you're drowning? The drive for success has to almost be like that. And so that means being uncomfortable. And so when you think about dentistry and all the things that we're aware of on the business and financial side of dentistry, people all say they want success. They say they want lower overhead. They say they want more income, want certainty. They want a great retirement. They want a great practice. They say all those things.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep.

Casey Hiers:
It's that breath of air because you're drowning, versus I kind of, sort of want them. It would be nice to, fill in the blank, versus there's no way that I will not achieve, fill in the blank.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
What do you think is there that's separating from the doers and the doubters?

Casey Hiers:
Well, and it's-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Do you think it's the fear?

Casey Hiers:
It's fear. It's the devil's tongue. A lot of it is just apathy.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
We've talked about this before. There's a level-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
There's a lot of comfort.

Casey Hiers:
There's practice owners making quarter of a million dollars and they know they should be making double, but they're making quarter of a million dollars. They're making more than a lot of people that they know or interact with, and so they almost justify their fears or that bad doubting voice. They're justifying it because they're doing okay so they don't feel like they have to go further. Does that make sense?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, it does. It's not only the apathy thing, but in terms of becoming that successful person, or I should say more successful, many of our listeners are already are doing pretty well, is learning to overcome your own fears. That's it.

Casey Hiers:
It's a sliding scale like you said. Pretty well. Well, what's pretty well? What's a lot of money. It means different things to different people. But when you're that practice owner making 280 and you should be making four or 500, or you're saving 50 and you should be saving six figures, that's the mindset. And so it's that breaking that success barrier of not having the fear, keeping that devil's tongue, the doubt, to a minimum. A lot of that comes from experience in our first 20 years childhood.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh yeah.

Casey Hiers:
Things that we think or believe, or records from that time in our life that are really hard to address.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Either our experiences or how we're raised or whatever the case may be.

Casey Hiers:
Well, that's right. We talked for what? Couple minutes before we sat down to record this, and I mentioned having an outlook of limitations. A lot of time from childhood, people will have an outlook of limitations. Meaning there's only so much they think that they can do or achieve or what have you. It's limiting.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, and that's something I think everybody feels. For example, my wife and I have often had a conversation where we'll be like, where do we see ourselves in five years? Or what would be a good point of how much money do we have in our bank account where we feel like we're on the right path? She is much more positive. She uses her positivity in a different way. Where mine comes off more negative being like, "I don't think we can do this." She goes, "No, once we do this, this is what happens next."

Casey Hiers:
Ah, you tend to maybe have that outlook of limitations?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep. Once she pointed out. I never realized I was doing that until she pointed out. She goes, "You're putting whatever you believe, bad energy, bad karma, or just a self-fulfilling prophecy of some type. You being negative makes everything else negative."

Casey Hiers:
That's huge. Don't think it, don't dwell in it because you will self fulfill the thing that you don't want to occur.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Right.

Casey Hiers:
It's interesting psychology.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh, for sure.

Casey Hiers:
As we're going through this, there's different things I struggle with where I'm. I'll think about this thing I don't want to happen, so then I'll work for it not to happen but it's almost because I have it in my mind, it's almost playing tricks on the mind. Because fear drives behavior that is counterproductive.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
Right?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep.

Casey Hiers:
I mean, we're getting a little deep here, but that fear, most likely self-fulfilling prophecy, it's only going to lead to things that aren't worth your time. And so instead-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
[inaudible 00:09:25] so then in that case, are there any go-to tips, is there anything that someone can do baseline to maybe start the wheels turning on getting over fear? Because I mean, it's hard to just... If you're paralyzed by fear and anxiety, it's going to be tougher obviously.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. I think that having behavior, attitude and technique, and check, are really good. Behavior. As a practice owner, maybe practice three and a half, four days a week. Do good dentistry. Attitude. Have that attitude of I'm helping others today. When you're grateful and have that mentality, a lot of times you don't have time to think of the negative, right?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep.

Casey Hiers:
If you're helping others, if you're volunteering, whatever you're doing, you're so busy doing good things you don't have time to dwell in the bad.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Dwelling on the good things like that is, if you are feeling issues with your staff, you're trying to blame them on them, a lot of times the business mood starts from the top down. If you're the negative person, the rest of the office is picking up on them.

Casey Hiers:
Yep. If your behavior's good, if the attitude's good and then technique, that can be with anything, but especially in dentistry with your hands. I mean, being a good clinician is important.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
For sure.

Casey Hiers:
But you have to have that consistency. You have to have the commitment and you have to have the conviction. When you have those things, typically that will help improve the culture. I cringe when I hear people complain about their team or their staff, because it's okay, well, did you hire them that way or did you make them that way? Either way it's on you. And so it's that total accountability that is important. I know there's those Navy Seals that wrote that book, Total Accountability. As a society we like to be victims and blame others, but I'll use the word, I. I like when it's not my fault. I think a lot of people do.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh yeah.

Casey Hiers:
Instead of, everything's my fault. It's that Navy Seal view of accountability where, no, this is all on me. I think more practice owners, all of us could benefit from it. But for these purposes on this podcast, more practice owners, this is all on me. If I don't like this, what am I going to do? We've had clients who, they had some real insurance reimbursement issues. They were way too high. They were getting burnt out. Well, you can wallow in it and complain to your peers at your study club every month, or you can do something about it.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
[inaudible 00:11:42]. There's been a few times as you know, with our clients where they've had to, along with our help, but come to a very hard decision on some very hard things. For example, not going to get to any specifics here, but sometimes you might be best friends, might be related to somebody that's helping you with some way, "Helping you with your business," and they may not actually be the best fit. And so you feel bad because you know them really well, are they actually helping you? I feel that's a huge fear in terms of embarrassment, letting someone down, and the fear of maybe ruining a relationship of some type.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, no, I think human nature, that some of us need approval of others, some don't. All this is I think timely because again, what do we do at the end of the year? We reflect, set goals, what can we do better? What has worked, what hasn't worked? A lot of times it's easy to come up with all the reasons why something doesn't work, but we all have to just look inside ourselves and mindset.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Great. There's always going to be a bad day-

Casey Hiers:
For sure.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Under control, but-

Casey Hiers:
Oh, sure.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Don't make every day a bad day, find ways to uplift.

Casey Hiers:
Well, I mean, sometimes it is just outlook and mentality and psyching yourself up. I mean, think about the movie, Hoosiers, any underdog story ever. On paper it didn't work out, but it was mindset. I think for our listeners, that that is a huge deal. Being accountable. What's blocking your success? In the pit of your stomach you know you could do better in different areas, what are you doing to achieve those things? I think that's where it's at, and not having the fear, and realizing that you have to have the behavior, attitude, and technique, the consistency, commitment, and conviction to do these things. That's within your wheelhouse. If this is hitting you hard, you need to take some time to reflect on your own emotions. I hate the line, I got to take care of myself. But there is something to that. You've got to take some time to be unthought.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
This does not happen overnight.

Casey Hiers:
No.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Baby steps. Even baby steps help.

Casey Hiers:
No.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'm going to focus on one good thing a day. Or write a note to yourself of something you want to accomplish and stick in your wallet, carry it around with you.

Casey Hiers:
Well, and that fear of rejection's hard, that fear of failure. How do we combat fear of failure? I used to think this is a cheesy line, but it goes back to rewiring how you think. You either win or you learn. I used to think that was super cheesy, but you're taking out that, oh, the fear of rejection or the fear of losing. No, I'm going to go hit this hard. I'm either going to win or I'm going to figure out what I need to do to win next time and-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Experience.

Casey Hiers:
It's a rewiring of the mind that I know as practice owners, because y'all tell me, you're serving others and you're putting out fires internally and so it can be exhausting. Taking time to get sharp with these things that we just discussed very high level, can make a huge difference for yourself, for your family, for your office, for the culture within your office. Excuse me. The patients are going to feel that. It's going to come true. But I think the biggest lie is that a lot of practice owners are doing pretty good and so they lie to themselves and just stop there. Where again, there's a lot of general dentists out there that should be making four and $500,000 a year, being on track for eight digits in retirement and being sure not uncertain.

Casey Hiers:
Those are big time things and it's easy for us to talk about because we do and see that every day. But for folks that they're just doing it the best way to that they can, again, mentally-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Mentally jumpstarted. Jumpstart your mentality, that's it.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. A little defibrillator. Just a little shock to the system, but sometimes that can go a long way.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
[inaudible 00:15:24] can.

Casey Hiers:
These are all things that I know I need to work on. My guess is a lot of people look in that mirror and raise their hand and go, yeah, there's a lot of these things that are in play. I don't know. It's just like a little stew of psychology today, but I-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'm full.

Casey Hiers:
December's here, time of reflection. There's a lot of things that all of us can do better personally and professionally. The key is to stay positive and, again, if you find yourself down, volunteer, serve others, fill up your schedule with that, and you don't have the time to be upset with all the things.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Keep yourself busy, find yourself a hobby.

Casey Hiers:
There's plenty of things to be sad or upset about.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
Right?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
I probably consume too much news and I get sad, or frustrated, or that dumb line old people used to say, "How's the world going to be for our children?" I think everybody's been saying that since the beginning of time.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Just about, but it just feels different this time. Once you hit a certain age, it all flips on you somehow.

Casey Hiers:
All right. Well, let's put our psychology hats off here and hopefully implement some of this to our lives personally and professionally,

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I'm going to try.

Casey Hiers:
Good man.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
All right [inaudible 00:16:42].

Announcer:
That's all the time we have today. Thank you to our guests for their insight and for sharing some really great information. Thank you to you, the listener, for tuning in. The Millionaire Dentist podcast is to you by Four Quadrants Advisory to see if they might be a good fit for you and your practice. Go on over to fourquadrantsadvisory.com and see why year after year, they retain over 95% of their clients. Thank you again for joining us and we'll see you next time.