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EPISODE 121: Work-Life Balance with Dr. Grace Yum of Mommy Dentists in Business

Casey and Jarrod are joined by Dr. Grace Yum, the Founder & CEO of Mommy Dentists in Business, in this special episode to discuss work-life balance and why it is so important. For more information about Mommy Dentists in Business please email: info@mommydibs.com

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EPISODE 121 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.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Hey.

Casey Hiers:
Jarrod.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes?

Casey Hiers:
We are thrilled to have a special guest join us today.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh, yes.

Casey Hiers:
Dr. Grace Yum is a pediatric dentist who grew up in Chicago and now resides in sunny, Southern California. Dr. Yum founded Mommy Dentists in Business in the summer of 2017.

Casey Hiers:
She noticed that attorneys were well connected and networked effectively, but felt that was lacking in dentistry. And that was the catalyst. So we wanted to invite her on to learn a whole bunch more.

Casey Hiers:
Dr. Yum. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Thank you so much for having me. I feel like a million bucks and I'm like, "Oh, I get to be on the million-dollar podcast show." I love it. Let's do it.

Casey Hiers:
Yes. So, let's start here. What all was going on in 2017 that compelled you to start Mommy Dentists in Business? I know that the attorney model maybe was a catalyst for it.

Casey Hiers:
But what else was going on with you where you decided, "You know what? I'm going to jump into this."

Dr. Grace Yum:
Sure. I was part of many dental Facebook groups with my colleagues and felt that there was not a space for mothers because we have different challenges. It's more of a niche within a niche. But when I was at the law from conference, I thought, "Wow, they're doing so many great things." And I had been to so many dental conferences and after a while, you feel like you've been to one, you've been to all. And what I loved about the law firm conference was that it was one law firm with 200 people versus a dental conference, you're made up of 200 separate independent dentists, right? You're not under one umbrella. And they had so many courses. They had so many activities. Everyone seemed to be well connected and very polished and organized and professional. And I just thought, "If we could do something like this for moms in dentistry, how neat would that be?" Because many of the women in many of the Facebook groups felt that they were, let's say not getting the most out of each Facebook group. And even though they're supposed to just be resources, I think women need to support one another in a different way. And when you're not walking in someone else's shoes literally, you really can't identify exactly what their life is like. And mothers in general, when you're a practice owner and a clinician and a teacher and all of the different hats that you wear, putting it all together and making it work is challenging. And there really wasn't a definitive space that people could really talk about that.

Casey Hiers:
Oh, I love that. And so you said, "Why not me?"

Dr. Grace Yum:
Right. And I said, "I'll be the catalyst." And honestly, it was really meant for me and 50 of my friends and colleagues. One thing snowballed into another, and then all of a sudden it just blew up. And I didn't really necessarily want anyone to feel left out or anything, but we really needed to just stick with the parameters of you have to be a dentist and you have to be a mom. Someone in the house has to call you mom, or you need to be raising a human being in the house.

Casey Hiers:
Right. How many are currently in the hive?

Dr. Grace Yum:
9,400 ish people.

Casey Hiers:
I love it. I like that verbiage on your guys' website is very informative.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Thank you.

Casey Hiers:
I like that a lot. So I have this conversation with my wife from time to time and I wonder if this plays into it and you mentioned it, so many hats being a practice owner and treating patients and just that is five or six hats in itself. And then as a mother to children and sometimes many children, mom guilt is a real thing.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Absolutely.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. I wanted to get your take on that. And my guess is that this forum allows folks to not spend so much time beating themselves up about it. Is that fair?

Dr. Grace Yum:
Absolutely. I think that mothers tend to feel guilty because even though we're in a very progressive stage in America, or in the world actually in most parts I should say, that we still feel that we're the primary caregiver. And when you feel that you're the primary, but you're not around as much or you're at work and not at home, you feel torn and then you feel guilty. So for me personally, I had my journey start off as a career person and as a dentist. Got married later in life. Already had a practice going. I didn't have kids until I was into ownership about four years. So I had already laid down my foundation of work and then started a family. And when I started the family, after talking to a lot of other mothers who warned me about mom guilt, I said, "That's what I'm signing up for." And I think that one of the successful ways this community bands together is that we validate each other and say it is okay to feel guilty, but it is okay to not be there 24/7. And we know that when you're at work, you're thinking about your kids. And when you're with your kids, you're thinking about your work. And sometimes it's really hard to separate the two and hard to compartmentalize. But when you're with your kids, you want to be a 100% present, right? Put down your phone. And it's about the quality of time and not the quantity of time. There have been many studies, Harvard did a study on this as well, where they see how children that are raised by working mothers often fare better. They get jobs earlier in life. They get paid more in their careers and they're more successful. They've done studies showing that boys of working mothers when they become married and have kids, they're more likely to help out in the house than those that didn't.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, I will 100% attest to that. Growing up, was in charge of dishes and vacuuming and trash and all that stuff. I'm on my second marriage now and my wife is like, "You do so much stuff around here." Her last husband didn't even bother with. So, for me, it seems very normal. I had very strong women in my family. My mom, my grandmother, could still whoop me, maybe. But I think you're right. And I didn't realize there was even studies on that, because it's not my field, but I can attest that that's a really cool point.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Yeah. There's data and research that show that working mothers actually have children that they raise to be great part of the community and they actually do better at work and they take leadership roles. So I think that moms have to think the long term, the long game here, and that you're raising very capable human beings. And that is what most parents want for their children, right? So a lot of moms joke that we don't want to raise enabled children or entitled children.

Casey Hiers:
Amen.

Dr. Grace Yum:
So that is the mission really. And the group of 9,000, obviously there's a mixed bag, right? You've got your new moms, you've got moms with toddlers, of all ages and you've got grandmothers too. So it's great because the community itself runs to mentorship inherently and it's not just mentorship about, "Oh, hey, my patient presented with this." It's also, "Oh, hey, my 11-year-old wants an iPhone and her friend's already talking about Snapchat. What do I do?" So it's things like that that maybe sometimes dads don't necessarily have to have this conversation or it's not their primary concern. But we do as moms have to balance obviously our careers and what's best for our family. I joke with my own husband, not only am I the primary and also a business owner, but I'm the social secretary of the house. I have to plan all the date nights and the friends' gatherings and the birthday parties and get the birthday gifts and the soccer games and the tennis lessons and the piano. So really it's the term of, "Oh, do you work in the house or do you work outside the house?" It's really like, "I work everywhere. In and out of the house."

Casey Hiers:
Well, and how nice that with your group women can get many, many opinions, right? Sometimes we just look for one or two or three opinions and make decisions. Now there's a place where your example of Snapchat, maybe a whole bunch of people are for it and against it, they can share an experience and then ladies can come up with their own decision but have a lot more information.

Dr. Grace Yum:
And that's great. And the thing is we're all birds in the feather, right? So our commonality is we're all dentists and of course, there's a lot of traits that dentists have that are very similar. So that's one thing. So we feel like there's already a trust factor, right? We're already dentists. We all think alike in many ways. Of course, there's variances in obviously politics and religion, but we try not to talk about politics because that can be divisive. So we focus on, hey, what brings us together? What commonalities do we have? We may have different religions. We may look different, in different ways and serve different communities, but what are really the ways that we can bond together and encourage each other to stay in business, to stay entrepreneurial? Or if you're not that way, you practice and be the best dentists for your patients and serve your community. So the Facebook community is very strong in that we do agree on our common background.

Casey Hiers:
Work-life balance, right? It's important and clearly, there's even more of an emphasis on working moms. And especially in dentistry as we just said. Dr. Yum, what would you consider a good work-life balance to be? I want to put you on the hot seat a little bit and hear what that might look like? And I think it's different for different folks, but to you, what's that look like?

Dr. Grace Yum:
Right. Personally, a work-life balance is really like a seesaw. You're on a seesaw and you're never fully, equally weighted on each side, right? So if you put life on one end, work on the other, or family on one end, work on the other, there's never really a point in which the seesaw is completely evenly distributed. So the balance really is how do you go up and down, up and down without exhausting yourself or getting sick? Sometimes when you have too much on your plate or stressors, you physically can get ill. And if you get ill, you can't practice. If you can't practice, you can't make money. If you can't make money, you can't put food on the table. And some of the mothers are widows. Some of them are single mothers. And so they are the primary breadwinner as well. So the whole gist of it is that, hey, how do you know how to push, pull without getting yourself sick? That is for me, my thing. The way I balance is I thrive on stress. My body thrives on stress. I thrive on being busy. To what somebody else looks at my life from outside, in, they might think I'm crazy person, but I thrive on that. And that's how I'm successful. And if I didn't have a lot of balls in the air, I don't think I would be very good at anything. So it forces you to really stay organized and do the best you can. Are you going to drop balls? Yes. You're going to drop balls. Are you going to miss a soccer game? Yeah, you'll miss it because you're at work. Or if you are at the soccer game, you're missing your patient. So the thing is, hey, how do I do this where I'm not going to feel burnt out and I'm not going to feel stressed about it? And knowing your limits. Everybody has limits. And everyone has boundaries and you have to know how to deal with that yourself personally.

Casey Hiers:
I'm feeling better already. I've heard this statement before and I never agreed with it, but they said of these four things, you can only be really, really good at three out of the four. Family, fitness, friends, and work. And I never like that self-limiting belief. And I like what you just said. I think that sort of blows it out of the water a little bit.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Yeah, I think you can and to the capacity in which you want it to be. There's some people whose personalities, they might have hermit-like tendencies, right? Maybe they get together with friends once a quarter and that's enough for them or if you're a social light and you maybe see friends all the time, once a week, always carve out date night. I see colleagues, they're like, "Oh, I do date night once every three months." And I'm like, "What?" For me, date night is really important. It's important for me and my husband to connect so that we have a strong marriage and that we're good parents to our kids. So I always make sure I have a babysitter lined up once a week, whether it's whatever day, but at least once a week so that we are catching up. And that's really, really important to me. So I'm going to prioritize that. So whatever it is on your list that's priority number one, two, or three, you just have to schedule it and make it happen.

Casey Hiers:
So much wisdom behind that, the date night. And I love that, right? If the parents are connected, it's a united front so much better for the children, so on and so forth. That's perfect. So you mentioned it started with one, to 50, now you're at 9,400. This is a broad question, but what do you attribute the growth and success that you have seen during just the past five years, really a relatively short amount of time?

Dr. Grace Yum:
I think one is that I make sure it's a safe space, so there are no others in the group. I see things a lot of times in black and white, and you have to draw the line in the sand somewhere. And I've always been good at that. And that means not everyone's going to like you. And I'm okay with that too. So, for me, I've created, okay, what is the value point behind this? The value is that these are a safe space that moms can actually be vulnerable and feel like they can actually ask really intimate questions and get answers without a salesperson, without a consultant, without another man, or colleague. For instance, I remember in a different Facebook group, a woman said, "Hey, I have a new practice, but my kids get out of school at three and I really want to pick them up. What does your schedule look like?" The men were like, "Oh, my wife does that." Or, "Oh, just send your assistant to go pick up the kids." And I'm like, "You guys are missing-

Casey Hiers:
Not helpful.

Dr. Grace Yum:
You're not helpful. And on top of that, it's just facetious. It's sarcasm and it's stupid. And I'm like, "If you don't have anything helpful to say, then don't say it. Why are you wasting your time?" And so that's one thing. And then another thing is why is it a safe space for my doctors, is because I have instilled no condescending, negative remark. And if you are rude, if you are condescending and obnoxious, I will remove you in a heartbeat, in a heartbeat. And you will be banned from the group. No ifs, and's, or, buts.

Casey Hiers:
I love that. I noticed that if members are not active, they may be kicked out or put inactive as well. We love that. How's that been received?

Dr. Grace Yum:
It's a mixed bag and some people leave on their own volition, right? So they're like, "You know what? I need a break from Facebook. I need a break from social media." Go ahead, take your break. When you're ready, we'll add you back in, right? But if you leave out of spite, like you're upset and you're reactive because somebody said something, right, and you're taking it personally. And you tell me you're going to leave. Then I say, "You're not cut out for social media. That's fine. Leave. No one's begging you to stay." And I'm not a sugar coater by nature. I'm one of the people that's like, I'm tough love. I'm tough love with my kids. I'll be soft when I need to be, but I'm also hard when I need to be. And we're grown adults here. We're dental professionals, we're grown women. And if you can't behave and you're going to show everybody you're crazy, then you're not a good fit for the group.

Casey Hiers:
That's good. Your success will be more sustained because you have that view. And that's just my humble opinion, but I like that you are running this with that mentality. If you're going to be reactive, negative, shaming, pass.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Right.

Casey Hiers:
Get out. Yeah.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Right, right, right. Well, there's no room for that. We're supposed to have a sisterhood. And if you can't be supportive, if that's not your style and that's not your nature, that's okay because guess what? At the end of the day, it's just Facebook.

Casey Hiers:
And if you're wanting to be rude and mean, there's a lot of other places online to go out and get that done.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Right. You can do that elsewhere. And it's easy for people to just type behind a keyboard and I'm like, "I dare you. I dare you to go say that to someones face physically. I dare you."

Casey Hiers:
That's right. Yeah, yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's why I keep quiet all the time.

Casey Hiers:
That's probably a poor example, but you probably saw in the news, somebody was bothering Mike Tyson on a plane. And I believe he used some physical force to stop being heckled. And his quote was something that the effect of people are so used to being rude or bullies online with no repercussions or something.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Right.

Casey Hiers:
So I liked that you're saying, "Listen, there are going to be repercussions if you're going to act the fool."

Dr. Grace Yum:
Right, right, right. I'm like, "You know what? I'm embarrassed that I even have to say it. You're a professional, you're a doctor. Someone calls you doctor. Act like one."

Casey Hiers:
Amen, amen. We value work-life balance here as well. We look for burnout and with our clients, we prefer that our clients work three or four days a week and that there is a good balance there. How would you say Mommy Dentist in Business address burnout, or maybe help each other? Is that something you're seeing out there?

Dr. Grace Yum:
Yes. A lot of dentists share their schedules and what they're like and help people see, hey, you can produce just as much money on a half-day than a full day, just sitting there doing nothing. Right? So how are you efficient with your time? They give out all kinds of examples of their schedules and a pedi office is going to be different from an ortho office is going to be different from a peri office. So the group is very good about saying, "Hey, you know what? To balance your schedule and also be profitable, think about this." Right? We also talk about fee for service. I've always been a fee-for-service practice, right? I am from the mentality that my senior doctors that took me on under their wing, they were all fee for service. And they taught me, "Grace why would you discount your services? We all have the same overhead. We have to pay for materials, taking insurance. That's an automatic 30% haircut. Why would you do that? Why would we do that?" So my mentors always instilled in me fee for service. I was always fee for service. And in the group, we talk about, "Hey, do you want a better work-life balance? Work smarter, not harder." And they give out tips on, "Hey, think about becoming fee for service."

Casey Hiers:
So much wisdom behind that. We present continuing education and we touch on insurance a lot. And so many practice owners, right? A lot of undergrad debt, dental school debt, by the practice debt. They just think I need to accept insurances, because that equals being busy, which equals money. And then they learn the hard way it doesn't. So that's nice that you can give, especially some of those younger members, some of that wisdom. So yeah, don't discount yourself. Don't take 57 cents on the dollar. That makes a ton of sense.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Right.

Casey Hiers:
And you touched on something on burnout. The seven habits of highly effective people and one of them is keeping your acts sharp, meaning taking the time to rest, sharpen your hypothetical acts. You'll be more effective cutting down the tree versus just hacking away with a dull ax.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Right.

Casey Hiers:
But people feel guilty for doing that. And especially, let's say solo practice, they're paying their staff, they don't want to not produce. And we hear people feel guilty for going on vacation, but hopefully, your group can encourage people, right? Some of the most successful people I know take a ton of vacation.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Yes, absolutely. And I think, again, it comes down to priority. And we always say, "If you don't prioritize your physical, mental, and spiritual state, you can't effectively be a good dentist or good mother."

Casey Hiers:
And your team's going to feel that as well. And then that's the culture there.

Dr. Grace Yum:
And staff gets burnt out too. So if you're pushing them into the ground, it's no wonder it's hard to find a good team right now. Your culture is really important and respecting your team because without your team, you can't do your job.

Casey Hiers:
That's right. They're kind of important. So you guys have a robust calendar of events. Share with us what members enjoy and then maybe some upcoming events that are exciting for you guys?

Dr. Grace Yum:
Sure. We do a few events a year. We love them. Love, love, love, love, love them. And again, when I stored this, I had no idea that I was going into the events business. In arbitrary, from 7 AM to 7 PM. Had two different dental practices running, associates et cetera. So running events to me was a new challenge. And I was at this kind of point where I was about to open up my third location, but then the Mommy Dentist in Business itself just took over. And I thought, "Wow, this is such a great opportunity to really empower moms in dentistry." We do three great events a year with some little ones sprinkled in and we've got the social summit, our annual, with 300 people. We do it in the fall. This October will be in Las Vegas. And then we have a clinical event, which is usually about 80 to 100, and we typically do that in Chicago. And then we have what's called CEO round table for practice owners that originally started with 25 because I thought that the meeting would be effective with 25, only we wanted it small and intimate, but the demand for it was so large, but I didn't want to run two separate meetings. So we are now at 50 attendees and I'm really excited. Last year, it was at the Waldorf Astoria in Chicago. And this year we're doing it in Laguna Beach. And of course, the one before that was pre-pandemic and that was also in Chicago. So we're excited to get the round table members and we always have the usual that come every year and then we've got some new attendees.

Dr. Grace Yum:
The one thing that I've noticed about California is how active the California doctors are. They are so active. They want to go to everything. So that's been really nice. Yeah. Laguna Beach is a dream. My now wife and I went to a winery there, had a great time. I still get their emails. I can't get myself to unsubscribe because when I see the words Laguna Beach, it's just such a nice feeling. You guys will have a blast.

Casey Hiers:
Anything else that you would like to share with our listeners about your journey? About Mommy Dentists in Business? Just such a great thing. I just want to open that up for you to share anything you'd like.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Thank you so much. Just tying back the work-life balance thing. I think that the words work-life balance to some people sound unachievable and to some, it might be a home run, they're just crushing it. But I just want to iterate that life isn't perfect. You're going to have seasons. It's like the weather, right? Sometimes it's sunny and perfect. Sometimes you're going to have storms like thunder or flooding. Sometimes you're going to have hail and you'll get pelted, dents in the cars. Sometimes it's just windy and you're just barely standing up. You feel like you're getting knocked over. So life happens in cycles and seasons and you're not always going to be perfect. And as dentists, we're taught in dental school to be perfectionists. And sometimes we carry that over into our personal lives. Nobody is perfect. No one's a perfect mother. Don't kill yourself trying to be a perfect mother, a perfect dentist, a perfect anything, because you're just going to go crazy. Do the best you can, do the best you can.

Casey Hiers:
And give yourself some grace, right? And pardon the pun, Dr. Grace Yum. Right?

Dr. Grace Yum:
Give yourself some grace, yeah. Right.

Casey Hiers:
But you've got to give yourself some grace and each other grace and oh, it's so important.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I wanted to ask you real quick before anything else, but for someone who's listening to this and they're like, "You know what? I've been struggling with the balance myself, or maybe I need to even like begin that balance." Do you have any advice for some small, simple steps someone can take to really start to grasp on what they should be doing?

Dr. Grace Yum:
If you're running on fumes, the first thing I want you to do. Okay. Because you can't serve anybody if you're empty, right? And you've probably heard that everywhere, right? So the first thing I want you to do is get a babysitter. It can be someone on your block, it can be a 15-year-old, it can be maybe one of your patients. I started getting babysitters from my patients that were in their 20s. Maybe you plug into the local college or community college and see if any of the local college kids want to babysit. Okay. Get a mother's helper so that you can create a little time for yourself because the last piece that gets added in, we take care of everybody and then we take care of ourselves last. And sometimes I joke with my husband about this. I call him my third child because I'm taking care of everybody and him. Not because I have to, because I want to. But then what happens is I take care of myself last and sometimes you have to put yourself first. So find a babysitter and find a way to get two hours of your life and don't feel guilty about it. And of that two hours, plug it in with something that's going to bring you joy. That might be two hours in your car by yourself alone, reading a book.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Maybe you want to get a manicure. It might be two hours you're going to grab lunch with your cousin. Whatever it is, grab a babysitter. You could pay them like 15, $16 an hour. Not going to break the bank. Just grab two hours of your time back. That's the first step.

Casey Hiers:
That is worth its weight and gold right there. And I would imagine there's many, many people that just heard that that took a deep breath and said, "Okay, that's important." And that's just a little example of what your 9,400 get from each other, right? Sense of community and encouragement and help and coming from the same place.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Right.

Casey Hiers:
That's fantastic. Well, we're big fans of what you are doing. And I know it's grown leaps and bounds to the point where there's almost a waiting list to sponsor and support. I know down the road, we're looking forward to supporting you guys in some way. And I know-

Dr. Grace Yum:
Thank you.

Casey Hiers:
We've got clients that have referenced this group and just said it's one of the best and it's very encouraging, so.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Thank you.

Casey Hiers:
Thank you, Dr. Yum for joining us and sharing some wisdom.

Dr. Grace Yum:
Absolutely. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Jarrod Brigeman:
Thank you.

Announcer:
That's all the time we have today. Thank you to our guests for their insight and for sharing some really great information. And thank you to you, the listener, for tuning in. The Millionaire Dentist Podcast is brought 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.