Episode 676: How To Automate Life

 It’s time for another book club review! In this episode, Kiera reviews Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear. She touches on the creation of systems to reach our goals; how true behavior change happens; the power of out of sight, out of mind; and more.

Check out the full list of DAT’s 2023 book club here.

Episode resources:

Listen to episode 652, Introducing the DAT Book Club

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Transcript:

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0:00:05.8 Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I have this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, filler, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultants, where we have traveled to over 165 different offices coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental, and I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress, and create A teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team podcast.

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0:00:51.3 S1: Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And you guys, I'm so excited for today. I hope you're just having an awesome day today. I hope you just remember that we are really truly blessed to be in the greatest industry, in my opinion, possible. We're able to help people, we're able to change people's lives and I hope you just enjoy what you are able to do. Remember, if you didn't listen to the podcast where it was Dental A Team, I think fourth birthday, I really was able to share with you guys how it felt for me being a patient on the other side. So just remember it is a great profession that we're able to be a part of personally and professionally. So today I want to just remind you guys, go on to wherever you're listening to and be sure to leave us those five-star reviews. Those help us serve and help more offices. So if this podcast has helped you, given you a tip, done anything like that for you, please head on over to where you're listening. If it's on iTunes, just scroll to the bottom, you'll see where it says leave a review. Spotify is very similar, so whatever your podcast of choice is, please leave those reviews so that way we can increase in our ranking, help more offices.

0:01:55.2 S1: And then also take a picture, you're listening today, let's give you some shout-outs. Just snap a quick picture, like literally hold your phone up, so here I'll demo since this one is on video, literally go like this, like that and just click and tag us. So it's not hard. I just really love, one, meeting who you guys are and, two, for you to be able to share this with other people, so encourage people to come over and listen, I am grateful for that. And at the end of the day, my goal is for this to be something that is the top dental podcast for inspiring people, for empowering people, and helping them remember that dentistry is great. And so if that's something that you believe in and you're a part of my mission to positively impact the world of dentistry, then do us a solid and go do it. So as promised, I'm doing another book club for you guys. So just so you know, Dental A Team is doing a book a month for this entire year. I have it all listed out, January was "Extreme Ownership", February was "Atomic Habits", March was "The Psychology of Money". We also as a team did "Unreasonable Hospitality". And then April is "Comparisonitis". So what I'm doing is I'm a little behind and so I'm gonna try and get these out for you in that month so that way you guys have this.

0:03:08.6 S1: But if you haven't listened, hey, well, welcome. Here you go. So today I'm actually gonna dive into "Atomic Habits" by James Clear, and I will be completely honest, I'm pulling up my notes right now, I actually did not love "Atomic Habits". Now, let me give a mad caveat, I love James Clear so much personally. James Clear actually sent me a signed copy of "Atomic Habits". One of my dear friends knows an author, who knows James, and I was going through a really hard time in my life, and they sent this book to me. And so personally I am obsessed with "Atomic Habits" and James Clear. Now, I have read "Atomic Habits" in the past and I really loved it. And this round reading it, I think I felt a little "overwhelmed". I hate that word. So let's just say busy or had a lot of things going on in my life that "Atomic Habits" felt more like, "Oh, my gosh, I don't want to do this." Jason, my husband, super sweet, called me the other day. He said, "Kiera, I think the reason you didn't like "Atomic Habits" is because you have learned to implement from the first time you read it and you actually are doing it." So maybe that's why I didn't find it as much of like juice and meat the second time around. And it was interesting, because our team did this as a book club and half of our team loved "Atomic Habits" and the other half did not.

0:04:23.5 S1: And so I actually asked the question during our book club discussion and I said, "Okay, those of you who did not enjoy "Atomic Habits", did you feel right now in your life there was something that you wanted to change or evolve?" Everyone of us said no, that did not like it. Now, the people who loved "Atomic Habits", I asked the same question and all of them said yes there was something that they wanted. So I'm curious, if based on like, "If you're wanting to get more healthy or you're wanting to do more dentistry or you're wanting to be a better leader or you're wanting to be a better intentional spouse or partner," maybe this book is gonna be the right time for you. If you're like, "Hey, my life is pretty great right now." You might not love "Atomic Habits" as much. So just so you know, like I said, I read this book before and I was freaking obsessed. This is my second run through it and I'm like, "Oh man, I just don't want to do it." So I listened to "Atomic Habits" on Audible, 3.3 times the speed. I think I may have gone up to 3.5. I'm trying to get to that highest level. But at the same time, things that I really loved about it is no matter what space you're in, there're always gonna be things.

0:05:22.8 S1: So for me, a lot of pieces on it were small habits create movement, small habits create control, better habits create better lifestyle. Start small, small habits create our potential. And then he talked about the habit pattern of the cue, craving, response, reward. So there's a cue, then a craving, then a response and reward. So I'll just go through a couple of my personal highlights this round of if you want better results, stop setting goals and focus on your system instead. Well, of course, I geeked on that one because "Hello, what does Dental A Team do? We implement systems into your practice." So if you want better results, don't look at the goal, look at the systems that are preventing that. So I think about, I always think, "Okay, I want to work out." I think all of us can relate to that, we want to be healthier. So whether it's working out and I'm always like, "Okay, Kiera, we're gonna work out three times a week." Well, the reason I don't do it is, because I don't actually have a system in play. So maybe it should be my cue is that... And I'm not perfect at this guys. So you might be better at this. And I'm just gonna say I am not an "Atomic Habits" expert. This is me giving you guys a discussion for a book club within your practice. And also if you chose not to read it, that way you can kind of participate along on Dental A Team's book club and just kinda get pieces of it.

0:06:30.2 S1: So if I wanted to work out, the system to develop is, What is the cue? What is my cue? So is it when the alarm clock goes off, then what I'm going to do is I'm gonna put my tennis shoes on, and then I'm going to go work out? So my cue is alarm clock goes off, tennis shoes are going to be put on and I'm going to go work out for 15 minutes on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Perfect. Well, now I have a system to help me get that habit in place. It's very simple. And notice I didn't go from zero working out to a 100 hours. I went from Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 15 minutes. Soon as the alarm clock goes off, I put my tennis shoes on and I go work out. Now, this is not from "Atomic Habits", this is from one of our clients and he said, "Kiera, "I really love the three, two, one go. So he's like... I asked him, I said... Because he's been working out. And I said, "How do you do this all the time? And he said, "Kiera, it came three, two, one go." And so I thought about that. How often are we like okay, let's count to 10, or let's count down from 10 versus three, two, one go? That alarm clock goes off, that's my cue. I put my tennis shoes on and I literally walk to either my car or to my in-house gym. Guys, we don't have to go anywhere.

0:07:32.6 S1: You literally could go do 10 push-ups, you could do 10 jumping jacks, you could do five things. But again, I said I go work out, but this is truthfully where Kiera's system is broken. I have a system; cue goes off, alarm clock goes, I put my tennis shoes on and I go work out. What the heck does working out look like? I don't know. So this is where I actually hate working out 'cause I'm like, "Well, what am I supposed to do? Go bicep curl? The weights? Do a couple jumping jacks?" I don't have any system right there. So for me, looking at this habit, the reason I'm not working out is because I don't have a plan of what I do when I workout. It's easy for me when I go to class. I go to a full-pedal cycling class on Wednesdays, that's easy. I show up at 5:30, I wear my leggings, I get a water from them, I make sure that I'm ready to go. It's from 5:30-6:15. Holy cow, those 45 minutes kill me, but I don't have to think about it. So that's working out. So that's an easier one for me. When I go to my barre class on Saturday, I don't have to think about the workout, I just go show up at 8:30 in the morning and they do it and I just work my booty off and have a great time.

0:08:34.6 S1: But when I'm doing my own working out, maybe my system is "I just need to go to a class." So this is when I set up my classes, I go to these classes and I have an accountability partner behind me. So I think for all of us, I love that about "What is our system?" And when you break it down... Notice guys, I thought like, "Okay, 5:30, get the tennis shoes and then I'm ready to go." But the bigger piece, the piece where I'm actually missing on this habit is I don't have a system of, "What to do to workout?" And so I think what was one of the coolest things about "Atomic Habits", to apply it to a dental practice is when we're looking at things not going the way we want, "Alright, what's our cue?" So maybe it's that we are not getting as great of case acceptance. Okay, perfect. So the cue is when production is down, we look at our case acceptance, we could have a different cue and then what we're gonna do from there is when production goes down, we look at it. Or maybe a better way is every day we're gonna look at our case acceptance, because we know that we have got lower case acceptance so daily, we are going to then track all the pieces. So every day at the end of the day, we go back through and we look at what cases did not close and we figure out why, and we create a plan for the next day.

0:09:43.7 S1: Well, instantly we just created a system around case acceptance. But the next piece is what do we do if, okay, I start to see that Dr. Johns is not closing any of their implant cases, none of those are closing. So that's the pattern now that I see, what system could I create to improve that? So that's when I look at all of us with our systems in the practices of what... Break it down so that way it can actually be an implementable system. So trying to take it to dental also not being the greatest on "Atomic Habits" but really loving... If you want better results, stop setting the goal and focus on your system instead. Now this next one I think was probably my favorite, favorite part from all of "Atomic Habits" and he said, "True behavior change is identity change." And I thought about this, because I think all the time like, "Okay, Kiera, you got to work out," but in my mind, I don't think I'm a girl who works out. If I could change that identity to where I believe that I'm a freaking fitness girl over here, that's gonna change my habits faster than anything else.

0:10:43.6 S1: So I thought about, "What are the stories that we're telling?" And I go back to some awesome Tony Robbins things to other training, Brendan Bouchard, Mel Robbins. And I think back, one of my favorite things that I ever took away from it is "When did we decide, this is who we are?" Because when we came out of that birth canal, the world was unlimited. At some point, we decided to become this. And what's cool is because we decided it, we can actually change it. It's just like an elephant, we come out, an elephant can't change what it is. But think about elephants when their babies are are tied up to a pole and then when they're older they could rip that frigging stick out of the ground. But they were trained and they believe that they are not capable of withstanding that small, tiny, little rope that holds them in place. These things are massive, but they created a belief that they weren't able to change. And so I want you guys to think for you, "What belief do you have and could you change it?" Now I know that sounds really hard, because I'm like, "Well I believe this, I believe that I am a CEO, and I'm a great dental consultant, and you're a great dentist, and that you're a treatment coordinator."

0:11:49.4 S1: We believe this but when? When did we believe it? And do we want to be that way? Because I love this, "True behavior change is identity change." So if I really could change the thought of me being someone who works out or doesn't work out, if I believed that I am someone who works out all the time. Now again, this sounds easy and I'm not the person to tell you exactly how to do it, 'cause guys I'm in this with you. But if you could change that behavior... If you could change that identity, your behavior would change. Because instantly... And they talked about this in the book where it's like instead of trying to make this a hard thing, why don't we just say, "What would a person who is a fitness guru do?" And they talked about in the book an example of this woman who wanted to lose weight. And she said, "What would a healthy person do?" A healthy person wouldn't take the elevator, they would take the stairs. A healthy person wouldn't eat a Big Mac, they would eat a salad with minimal dressing. A healthy person would go for a walk every day. And so just her thinking of what would a healthy person do actually helped her lose tons of weight and become much healthier. So for you, "What would a super successful business owner do?" Start doing that.

0:12:56.2 S1: What would a successful case acceptance... Someone who... A successful treatment coordinator, what would they do? What would an incredible lead dental assistant do? What would a hygienist who has three times their pay every single day, what would they do? And so that's an easy kind of trick of how to change that behavior just through those tips. So for me, I would say, "Okay Kiera, what does someone who loves to work out do?" Well, they would probably put their tennis shoes next to the side of the bed. They would work out every single day. They would make sure that at 3 o'clock every day, they worked out or in the morning, whichever one's best. Okay, great Kiera. So for you, if you stopped work at 3:00 and you just worked out every day whether that was a class or whether that was at home and you like, "They would be in Facebook groups, they'd be listening to podcasts about working out, they would be counting their macros." Do that. So it can be a way for you to start to change that identity in a simple way. And instead of thinking hard, let's just remember "Three, two, one go." Okay, great. So I'm just gonna work out. I'm gonna have my tennis shoes by the side of my bed, because that's what they would do.

0:13:55.3 S1: So they said improvement will stick when you change what you believe you are, act like the person you believe yourself to be. Stop with the story we tell ourselves. We stop trying things to keep ourselves consistent with who we believe we are. And they said the hardest thing in habit forming is identity change. So they said in action, from here is decide the type of person you want to be, and then what would this person do? And then prove to yourself with small wins with a feedback loop. Because they said habit shapes identity and identity shapes your habits. And I wrote a question of, "Am I becoming who I want to be rather than getting to a result?" So for me it was, "Am I becoming the type of person I want to be rather than closing 50% case acceptance? Am I becoming this amazing treatment coordinator who can close every single case or am I saying I would need to get to 65% case acceptance?" It kind of has a different weight depending upon who you are. So a couple other things on here that I just loved, I'll kind of scroll through, is they said share... Oh, gosh, there were a couple of other ones. I loved in there when they talked about making it easy.

0:14:58.5 S1: So especially when we're trying to make a new habit, having it be something that you visually see. So for example, guys, I want to get into being a Peloton rider. So I think about what do a Peloton rider do? Well, if I want to get into this habit, make it easy for me to do. So I could literally take my Peloton and stick it in the middle of the room and I would probably ride it a lot more than it sitting off in some tucked-away bedroom. Just like if I want to start eating healthier, "Well, why don't we put carrots on our counter as opposed to having them tucked in the fridge?" So it's that cost of effort and also being able to see it. I wanted to start taking collagen, 'cause my joints are starting to really hurt and I don't know what to do, so I put collagen on the counter, I took it every single day versus when it's tucked in the cabinet. So they talked about how we want to make more habits easier, make them easy to see. And the habits you don't, make those harder to achieve. So for me, I actually... Guys I love candy so much, this is just Kiera being real. I really do. Is there anybody else out there? I just love a good Reese's. And what I do is I peel off all the chocolate and I just eat the middle part and it's so fantastic. I also love a chocolate chip cookie, you hold the chocolate chips. You can think I'm weird. It's not the same as a sugar cookie, it tastes way different and way better, if you get rid of those chocolate chips.

0:16:11.7 S1: I don't mind cold chocolate chips in cookie dough, but when you melt it and it's all out like gooey chocolate, I just don't... Man, a chocolate chip cookie, hold the chocolate chips. Dang. So what I've had to do to break this habit is how do I hide this and make it not as convenient for me? I literally chuck those Reese's clear up above my stove top where I cannot reach this for any stretch of the imagination. I don't look there, it's not in the cupboard, it's nowhere I can find. And in order for me to get there, I literally have to get a stool, crawl up onto the counter and then reach really high up there to get it. So that's what they were talking about, of habits we don't want, let's make it harder to access. As much as I love eating candy, I know it's really not great for me. All of you can judge, this is Kiera's real moment with you. But the bottom line is making those habits less available was a really great thing. So I think about for you personally, what are some habits that you want to do more? Could you make it easier for you to do it? How would you... Do I really want to think about a Peloton in my front room? The answer is a hard-pass no.

0:17:07.7 S1: But if I really want to become an awesome Peloton rider, I should freaking move that bike out. And then someone talked about how in order to watch TV, they got so crazy that they hooked it up to where they have to be pedaling their bike in order for the TV to work. I promise you if that Peloton was sitting in my front room, I would ride it way more than tucked away. So how can you guys do this? What are ways that you could do? And they said less energy to start without effort. So how can you make this less energy? Or if it's a habit you want to break, how can you have there be more friction in it? So there's just a lot of different things in there. I wrote down here, "It's better with a buddy," sometimes having an accountability partner can help with these things. And then remember personality does impact your goals and then build habits that work for your personality. What feels natural to you, the odds are in your favor. And then really habits that are on autopilot can actually make you lazy, so you don't work on optimizing it. Reflect annually on what your core values and your habits are, so more your habits. Reflect what those are and then report back of, "Where am I actually doing on these habits? Am I doing well on them? Am I not doing well on them?"

0:18:12.8 S1: So you actually take that quick assessment on yourself. So I just... There were so many things that I had for work where I thought about for clients and for our podcast listeners of, "How can I help you identify who you want to become?" So that was really the piece that I wanted to wrap this book club up, where you could take this with your team, you can listen to this podcast, you guys can chat about some of these ideas of... 'Cause I really do believe if we could help you change the identity and think of who you want to become, you're probably gonna gain more traction faster than if we're sitting here giving you all these pieces. And for me again, Kiera, who didn't really want to change as much, I felt this was the easiest, fastest way to do it, was to think about, "Who do I want to become and then start acting like that person." So if you want to be a practice that really is just all around top-notch, awesome, what are some of the traits and attributes that those people do? They hire a coach, they are disciplined, they have time where they work on the business as opposed to just being in the business. They have time for their families, they work out. So let's start doing some of those things.

0:19:13.4 S1: So let's figure out the easiest step for you to take. For me, working out, guys, it was not me trying to do it on my own. The easiest way for me to do it was to sign up for a class with somebody who's an expert to help me do it and become successful at it. That was the least resistant to get me to the results I want to do. Buying a home gym is also super expensive. There's a lot of work involved. And then how do I know which brand to buy? Two harder decisions but signing up for the class, easier. Sometimes signing up for a coach makes this habit-building easier. So, guys, if we can help you and be that support and help you get to that dream life that you want, email us, [email protected]. And as always, guys, I just want you right now to decide who you want to become and then start acting like that person. If you guys love the book clubs, awesome. I would love to hear how you like "Atomic Habits" or what things you've been able to incorporate. But there's kind of my quick synopsis of "Atomic Habits" for you guys and just reminding you, I think we have so much time in life and then we also have so little time.

0:20:09.7 S1: It's like this very interesting, like we think about how far we've got, we also think about where we're at, and I just want you guys to really think about, "If I could implement one habit today that would truly make my life exponentially better, or I could change one habit that would make my life exponential better, what would it be?" And maybe we start there. So whatever works for you guys, I'm here for it and I'm excited and I'm rooting you on. And as always, I'm just so grateful for this community and for you all being a part of my life. Whether I meet... I know you personally or whether you're just someone who listens to the podcast, just know I'm rooting for you and I'm here for you to help in whatever way I can. And as always guys, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.

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0:20:49.8 S1: And that wraps it up for another episode of the Dental A Team podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.

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