Episode 720: Do You Bet on Yourself?

 Kiera is joined by scrappy entrepreneur and fellow Tony Robbins fan Pierce Krol. They talk about the evolution of your professional life — hard work, facing challenges, consistently executing, and overall, betting on yourself!

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Transcript:

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0:00:05.8 Kiera Dent: Hey everyone, welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host Kiera Dent. And I had 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.

0:00:51.1 Kiera Dent: Hello Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and you guys, today is an epic, epic, epic day for Dental A Team podcast. And for me personally, I have one of my best friends. We have been friends, you have heard me talk about him on the podcast. He is my best friend from Tony Robbins in 2019. This is the like myth, the legend, the one and only Pierce Krol. Welcome to the show today, Pierce, how are you?

0:01:13.8 Pierce Krol: I'm great. Thanks for having me. That's a heck of an intro. A lot to live up to.

[laughter]

0:01:19.2 Kiera Dent: So just giving you guys a little bit of background, Pierce and I went to Tony Robbins Business Mastery in 2019 in Vegas, and I was a little bit of a chicken and terrified. And Pierce is... Pierce, how tall are you? You're like six feet nine inches.

0:01:31.7 Pierce Krol: Six feet three inches.

0:01:32.4 Kiera Dent: In my opinion. [laughter] So, he's Six feet three inches. Pierce is not a short guy at all. And we were in a group, I remember the day I saw you for the first time in the group, we were sitting there and we are all raising our hands, for who was an artist, who was an entrepreneur, and I don't remember the other one. Oh, a manager.

0:01:53.2 Pierce Krol: Right.

0:01:53.4 Kiera Dent: So that was one of the choices, right? If you manage, if you like to manage, do the tasks, or are you an artist who's very creative and you're so passionate about your business, but not necessarily concerned about your financial wellbeing. And then there's the entrepreneurs that are like cut throat. They're gonna make money, they're gonna go after things, they're gonna make the hard decisions, and we all raise our hand. And for those of you listening, let's just have you guess.

0:02:14.4 Kiera Dent: Is Kiera Dent an artist, an entrepreneur, or a manager? If you guessed artist, you are correct. And guess who Pierce is? Entrepreneur, manager, or artist. He's cut through. He's the best entrepreneur I've ever met in my life. And I pointed to him in this circle and said, Pierce, we are gonna be best friends. And here we are four years later on a podcast, Pierce is one of the most brilliant business owners I've ever met. We talk every single month. And so that's my little intro of who Pierce is. But Pierce tell us kinda like who you are, how you've become such a successful entrepreneur. He's not a dentist. I'm purposely bringing on a friend, not in the industry. 'cause Pierce is someone who has just inspired me truly, personally, and professionally over the last four years. So Pierce, that's my side of the story. What's your side of the story and who is this Pierce Krol and how did you become who you are?

0:03:01.1 Pierce Krol: Yeah, no, and I've got a much different take than you, which is kinda cool, alright? 'Cause you see this guy, this big guy that's got, you know, the traits that you think you've seen. And so here I am this big guy in this group of thousands of people. And so I'm sitting next to you and I see again this artist, vibrant, social, everything that I'm not. And so I'm going well I have to, if I'm going to accomplish what I wanna accomplish, that I've gotta connect with someone who's extremely social, who can make friends with anyone because I'm not gonna go and make friends that easily. So love the other side of the coin, and I don't know if you noticed, but I set my background on purpose today. There's a little trophy in the back, so you can poke and pod at that whenever you're ready. But yeah, it was so fun. No, it was great. And we've been friends ever since. But yeah, thanks for having me on your podcast. It's such an inspiration to see you do all these wonderful things. I'm pumped to be here, thank you.

0:03:56.1 Kiera Dent: Thank you for that. I definitely saw the trophy in the background because it just to like finish the story, Pierce and I were at Business Mastery. We were creating a business and we... Our business won. So we created this live to give. It was an unbelievable way of helping out this other business. We raised thousands of dollars in three days, and that's the moment where I realized how much you need to put into a business, but how much growth can happen when you're surrounded by really brilliant people, connected, committed, rowing in the same direction, and how much growth we were able to move so quickly. And so we all went up on stage, we got a hug from Tony Robbins, we're all dancing around and Pierce because he's like gangly Goliath was able to be tall enough and Tony handed him the trophy. And I'm a little bit shorter dressed as a nun.

0:04:39.2 Kiera Dent: I was like wrapped up in all my nun wear. And definitely have always loved that you got a trophy from the event. It was super awesome. It was one of the coolest experiences we ever had. But Pierce, I want you to share, the reason I want you on the podcast today is you truly, like I know you're not one for public recognition at all. I know it's probably the thing that drives you nuts the most. Pierce likes to be behind the scenes. He does not wanna be in public. But you're brilliant Pierce, and you and I have had a lot of conversations over the years. You've grown businesses, you've sold businesses, you currently have an insurance company business, and you started it in your kitchen. I remember you telling me like whip open the phone book call people like you're a Scrappy entrepreneur who's very successful. I just kinda wanna know, like your story from Pierce's perspective of how did you become who you are today? There's no right answer. I'm just curious of, of how did you even become who you are today from your angle.

0:05:33.0 Pierce Krol: Sure, yeah. You know, and I think I wanna preface that with like, there, there's really is no right way. There's just the way that I've kind of found, and I think there's many different ways to get there, but yeah, you're very kind. It's very humbling to hear you say those things. But, my story really is this story of evolving, I think is the best way to describe it. I didn't grow up in I didn't grow up in an extremely difficult household and I didn't grow up in an extremely affluent household where everything was handed to me either, but what was given to me at a very early age is work ethic.

0:06:04.9 Pierce Krol: And so that's kind of the... That's kind of where it started was that work ethic piece. And so I've kind of, kind of got this saying, like it's almost business advice in a way that, you know, one of the habits that I have is outworking your competition. And so if, and what I mean by that is if you can outwork your competition, you don't necessarily have to out think them. And that was kinda the baseline of my start. And so...

0:06:25.9 Kiera Dent: Do you see why I brought him on guys, any dentists out there think you can outproduce your problems? Like, okay, Pierce, you're speaking to the right crowd. Go on. We can relate.

0:06:33.5 Pierce Krol: Okay, good, good. And so that was, I mean, that was really my limiting belief too. So I grew up on a family farm and it was phenomenal and we worked a lot and we had days off when it rained. And so that was kind of, you know, set me up to be who I am. So, you know, you can't really, at the time it was a lot of work and you had some negative thoughts around it, but looking back, you can't really, you can't really be the person you are today without recognizing the experiences that you went through and it wasn't traumatic, but it was really that work piece. So still to this day, I have my limiting belief of I'm this farm kid. Like, how am I gonna compete in boardrooms and business? And you've got, you're looking at the Elon Musks of the world as kind of like the benchmark, which probably isn't accurate, but that's what, that's kind of what my thought process was. So I took to the hard work piece right away. And so what I learned early on, and again, we're gonna, I want to get to a health piece because I don't think you can work hard forever. And we've had this conversation before, but there was a, in the early days, there was a big difference between what I say, 9:00 to 5:00 money and 7:00 to 7:00 money.

0:07:35.5 Pierce Krol: And what that really, really means is just getting there and working and believing yourself. And so that's not always like physical labor necessarily. That's learning new skills, attending conferences, having coaches and mentors like yourself where you can bounce ideas off, but it's really that work piece where you just carry on and kinda keep bettering yourself and doing those types of things. And so that's what I meant by hard work. So never giving up and just always shooting for that next tier, that next level, if you will. And really, if you look at the math of it I'm no mathematician necessarily, but if you put in two hours a day, extra than what your competitors are putting, two hours over a year is I mean, I think that that works back about 30 extra days a year. So imagine what you can do with 30 extra days in comparison to maybe the person you're chasing down or that competitor that's, maybe taking some time, taking the foot off the pedal. So that was always my thing in the early days. So, and then I started in business pretty young. I got into insurance in 2005. And at that point I was 19 years old. So I kinda joke, like I don't have any other skillsets, but it was entrepreneurial from day one.

0:08:45.6 Pierce Krol: So I've owned a few different businesses, you're right, over the years and been investors and selling partners and others, but I absolutely just love everything business. And still to this day, I joke around about buying, you know, a coffee shop or a laundromat or something, and just trying to make something really cool with it, because I just love business that much and all those skills we've learned. So, yeah, I mean, my story really, I think would resonate with a lot of people in the fact that it's not that much different. I'm no superhuman. I don't have special powers. I'm a lot like you, you get up, you learn something, you've got a problem, you can bury your head in the sand or you can solve that problem. And that's really been a lot of I guess, my entrepreneurial journey is just hitting these challenges, facing them, figuring out a way to get past them, some hurt, some stay, but a lot of the hurdles you get over it and then you look back, you know, five, 10 years later, and it's pretty cool what you can, what you can accomplish.

0:09:41.1 Kiera Dent: I love that, Pierce. And I just enjoy talking to you because you're right. Your story is not that much different, but something I have picked up on over the years is you consistently execute. So when you and I get on a call, we swap stories. We'll share resources. We'll tell things that are working in both of our businesses. We've helped each other. It's been really fun to watch both of our businesses grow and us grow as people over the four years we've known each other. But it's something I noticed is you will execute like that day. I remember I gave you an ad, and we were talking about hiring a marketing person and I was like, Oh, Pierce, I wrote this ad and this is what I'm doing. And I sent it over to you. And I said, this is how I did it within probably 30 minutes of that call. I know you already had that ad posted, you interviewed. And by the next time we were talking, you had already hired somebody. And I think your consistent execution of ideas. I don't feel you read books or consume podcasts or consume content that you don't intend to execute on.

0:10:35.6 Kiera Dent: And you're like, you're gutsy. You told me, Pierce gave me the best line. Pierce is a fantastic copywriter. I was like, Pierce, I should probably try and get people on the podcast. And you said, Carol, you should tell them. I've got 99 problems, but too many podcast downloads aren't one and send this off to all these authors, which I did. And that's how I got Mike McCallum on the podcast.

0:10:55.6 Pierce Krol: Nice.

0:10:57.4 Kiera Dent: And so you just go gutsy to the source. Tell people how, remember how you convinced someone to coach you? Like you just, like you get all these people to coach you and you don't go for the base level. You're like, nope. If I'm going to go, like, tell some stories of how do you even have that confidence to do it, Pierce? Because it's full blown guts. Like, this is why I chose you as one of my best friends, because you have no fear because you're going to win and you'll find the way to do it.

0:11:20.9 Pierce Krol: You know what? I don't think, not that I don't have fear. I think my goals and what I'm trying to achieve always outweigh the negative thought, and I think I'm pretty fortunate that way you're right. And I actually was thinking about this last week. So it's kind of cool that you bring it up about pivoting in the moment. And so I've never been one to really wait. You're right. But, kind of give you an example last week in our business, we had a struggle where we had a vendor of ours, basically say they can't do something basically pulled out. And so a lot of people, you sit down, you start licking your wounds going, Oh my God, what's going to happen? How many overcomes next thing? You know, a week, two week, a month will go by. But in that moment, I basically got an email with news that I didn't really want and within probably, yeah, five minutes I had emails out to 10 different people going, okay, cool. Let's pivot. Let's move on.

0:12:11.3 Pierce Krol: And I think that's important in the fact that if you're going to feel sorry for yourself, you can do that. There's space for that. Take some time, but get up, pick yourself back up and get back on, get back on the road, like get on and do something, make your luck happen. And there's so many one-liners I can, I can share, but it's like, it's a story that Rocky, right? Like you get knocked down, get back up again, get on with it. Because no one's gonna really feel sorry for you. You're your biggest advocate. So go out and make your own luck in some way, shape, or form. So, no.

0:12:46.7 Pierce Krol: I don't know if that's the greatest trait to have, but it's that risk tolerance, that where I'd be more afraid to not do something and regret it time after time than go and make a mistake. And we've talked about this lots, but in my business, and I think a lot of business owners feel the same way, and I think you should maybe practice this piece, is look at what failure's like. What is the risk of taking that, making that phone call, making that connection? And you're right, I reach out to people all the time. I mean, you name a celebrity and I've sent them a message on, hey, I wanna talk to you, I wanna talk about marketing and business, you name it. And honestly, I'm not gonna share the names on here, but it's just who I am. And I've got amazing contacts because these are just human beings that are trying to do the same thing as you. And so a lot of the contractors and yeah, you're right, consultants and coaches all came from just sending an email or making a phone call. And again, tying it back to like, what's the risk? Someone tells you no, like goodness, like that's the best case scenario some days is getting just a polite no.

0:13:56.8 Pierce Krol: So yeah, go out there and do it. You'd be surprised what you can uncover if you start flipping the stones over. Yeah, you're gonna get a lot of nos but that's failure. You're not gonna die. You're not gonna reach out to that person you idolize and say, hey, I'd love to sit down and have a coffee and hear your story. They're not gonna email you back and go, I hope you die. They're gonna go, hey, I'm really busy. Maybe another time. And I go, perfect, I love another time. What time works for you? And so it's just that kinda mentality. So it's kind of that reward feature where I've done that so much that I've seen it work. So it's second nature now. I get a no, I go find a yes. And that's been, that's really been, I wouldn't say the secret of the business, but for me as a person, and a lot of our correspondence over the years is like, let's just get up and let's just go do it and let's solve that problem. It's a hurdle. At the end of the day, it's just a hurdle. Let's go jump this thing. So yeah, that's it.

0:14:49.4 Kiera Dent: I hope you guys realize why I chose Pierce to be one of my best friends. The things you say and the way your mentality is, I hope people also realize, Pierce and I do have two very different personalities, but by science, which we have found on Culture Index, and we both, I made Pierce take the Culture Index quiz and I took it too. And our profiles are very different. I love people and he doesn't necessarily love people, but we're both very driven, very outgoing people, very much committed to success, but we're very different. And that was something I wanted to highlight on the podcast today is choose people, have your friend group be people that intimidate you and inspire you. There have been times that Pierce has given me a good, like loving conversation that's reminded me of like, Kiera, pick yourself up. Like you've got a solution and this is what you need to do. I don't need friends that sugar coat me. I need friends who are there supportive and who are going to push me. And so really making sure that your friend group is an elevated friend group, that they inspire you in different ways. And that's who Pierce is for me. And so I hope you guys have, like when I've got a problem, Pierce is who I usually call personally or professionally because I know he's got a solution and I know he's headed in the direction I want to go as well.

0:15:56.4 Kiera Dent: On that same note, I'm gonna pivot a little bit because Pierce is also a great example of work hard, find the solutions. Pierce is so driven. If you guys can just imagine someone with like a huge rubber band, like pulling them backwards and Pierce is just like clawing at the ground to get forward and he will find a way no matter what's pulling him back to find a way to hit that solution, no matter what. But I do feel like Pierce, you've also learned the health journey of what constant work, constant pushing has led. And so I'm curious, can we kind of pivot to the other side of the coin that most people don't talk about? And this is where I really want Pierce to dive into this health side of success and what that looks like and what your experience has been and what you've learned, because I think you're one of the key people that's willing to talk about this that most people aren't willing to share.

0:16:39.7 Pierce Krol: Sure, yeah, absolutely. And before we go to that, I want to share one last thing because what I've found is people's struggles are really in themselves. It's this limiting belief. So I wanna leave one thing with your audience and it's basically about believing in yourself. So I had a coach once tell me, and it was really powerful for me and it stuck with me, but they said, what's the chances that you're going to fail? And I said, well, what do you mean? They said, and we're talking about business here, but it could really go with anything in your life. She goes, "what's the chance you're going to fail?" And I go, I don't know. She goes, "well, what's the chance you're going to succeed in this business?" 'Cause we're talking about building something and making a large investment in another organization. And I go, you know what, I think, I don't know, like 70%, she goes, it's not 100? And I thought it was a trick, but it ended up being a trick. I said, no, like there's a 70% chance this is gonna really, really go well, maybe 80%, but let's be conservative and go 70% and she goes, perfect. Now let's flip that. Say you walked into a casino and you had a 70% chance of winning whatever your game, let's pick blackjack.

0:17:45.1 Pierce Krol: How often do you play blackjack? And I said, I'd be there all day. And she goes, "so show up for yourself, bet on yourself." And so I wanna leave it to the audience 'cause it was really powerful for me because yeah, I'm a bit of a self-starter, but I also have those beliefs of going, gee, this doesn't feel right. And then you look back and go, you know what? No, my chance of succeeding is higher than my chance of failing. And if this was a casino, I'd do this all day. So go for it, trust your instinct, bet on yourself. No one's gonna show up for you like yourself. Don't rely on other people. Not that don't rely on other people, but really bet on yourself. So I wanted to wrap it up because it's super important. And I think it might resonate with your audience.

0:18:19.1 Kiera Dent: Absolutely.

0:18:19.2 Pierce Krol: In, across any industry, right?

0:18:21.6 Kiera Dent: Absolutely.

0:18:22.0 Pierce Krol: Every industry is hard.

0:18:22.7 Kiera Dent: Yeah. So I'm actually gonna end this podcast on a cliffhanger and Pierce and I are going to pick up another one on the other side of success with health. So guys, with that, bet on yourself, create your own luck. Pierce, you're a freaking dream. I adore you on every level. And all of you listening, thanks for listening. And I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

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0:18:41.7 Kiera Dent: 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.