Episode 592: Accepting Change

Transcipt:

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0:00:05.6 Kiera Dent: 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 an 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 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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0:00:50.9 KD: Hey Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And you guys, I am beyond giddy about the fact that we are having a way for you guys to kick off your 2023 in the most epic way. That's right. I want you guys to go into 2023 with direction, with a plan and to actually get something done, done and done. If you've been looking at that operations manual, it is time, guys. For three months, every single week, I'm going to be doing a workshop with you and your team in January to get that operations manual done in three months. Guys, this is a value of over $10,000 that I know you're gonna freaking love because you're actually going to get it done. So if you wanna get your ops manual done in three months and kick off your January ultra strong, head on over to thedentalateam.com/opsmanual and I will see you January 5th for our kick-off.

0:01:45.2 KD: Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And you guys, it's my time to podcast with you solo. And today, I just wanted to pop on here. This is a topic that came to me. Guys, topics come to me all the time; when I'm in offices, when I'm driving down the road, when I finish a coaching call, and this one struck me when I was in the shower. So this is one where I was thinking about, guys, I feel like if we go back three years, who were you in 2019? I know for me, I was just cruising on the business, I was about three years in on the business. We still lived in Reno, I lived in an apartment, and I was doing events. I was speaking, I was traveling, I was traveling about five weeks on the road, solid. And then I'd come home.

0:02:31.9 KD: Guys, we're not talking Monday through Friday. If we're talking Monday through the next one, four weeks away, it was really long. I don't do that very often anymore. And I felt like I was just excited. I had just booked, in the end of 2019, my trip to Antarctica. I was super excited, it was a goal to hit all the continents in a one year time frame. And I just think back to who I was there, and then 2020 came. I had just come back from Antarctica, the world shut down, our lives completely changed. Then 2021 came and I felt like it felt like spring and everything was budding and blooming, and I was having a hard time hiring and I was like, "What the heck is this great resignation?" And then we come into 2022 where I feel like it's still been tricky for us to hire, there's been a whole shift of culture and dynamics and who wants to work.

0:03:28.0 KD: And I was thinking about all of these pieces. So I would ask you think back to who were you 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. That's a pretty good span of time. And right now, it's about what I would have been back in 2019 when I was telling you those things, but just thinking about how change... Change is actually always for the better. Now, as I was saying that, I started to get a little bit scared because oh my gosh, when we change relationships or when we have somebody pass on and they leave us, does that mean it's always gonna change us into something better? I believe that it does. Even though it's hard. So I'm not gonna sugar-coat it. I'm not going to say it's not, but I feel like when we have to change so much, it really is changing us into something better. So I think back to Kiera pre-COVID. I was crazy, I was traveling all the time. My health was deteriorating, my relationship wasn't as strong as it is, and that wasn't the best version of me, but I was just sticking in that because I was "so resistant to change" that I didn't want to change, and I was scared that if I did change, I would lose everything that I've trained myself to do.

0:04:43.3 KD: But yet that change in 2020 has radically changed me to where I am today. So I look at my life today. You guys, I travel maybe once a month, maybe, that's pushing it. That's the max that I like to do. I have a set schedule where Mondays, I have a very specific focus. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, I have a much better relationship with my husband. I actually work out three times a week unless I'm traveling on the road. That's a big deal for me, guys. If you knew me prior, I did not work out a lick. Now I have, for sure, three days a week and I try to put something else in, I will walk or a hike or something on those off days. I have a team of people who are driven and dedicated in moving things forward. I have a much different life than what I had in 2019. And so even though it was hard to go through 2020, I may have been being freaking scared out of my mind, my business coach told me, "Kiera, you're gonna have to have a hit list of in order, who are you going to fire if you have to get there?" And I was like, "Are you kidding me? This is real life, I have to really think about this."

0:05:45.6 KD: I had friends getting divorced. I remember being absolutely and utterly terrified to go through this change. And yet, what happened with that change was a lot of good. I became a better person, my relationship became a better person, and I feel like change is an opportunity for us to decide if we want it to be better or worse. You can make it terrible. I could say 2020 was the worst, and I am not any better. And I'm gonna create that, but I truly believe, if we can say that change actually forces us to be something and someone better, change allows us an opportunity to reinvent and recreate. You get to reinvent yourself every single second of every single day. Who you are today, and what you used to love, and what you used to like does not have to stay consistent unless you want it to be.

0:06:32.3 KD: And if you don't believe me, turn on your favorite dance music and see how fast your personality and everything can change. You can change in a second. Everything before and after does not have to stay, and when I think about change... So let's give the example of change of turnover, changing team members. Guys, I freaking wanna cry my eyes out every time somebody quits my team, and I've had quite a few. And I think that I'm a great boss and yet I still have turnover. And I feel like what the heck? I should have people that are with me for years and years and years. I have. I have some that have been with me forever, like Tiffany. I've got some that are brand new like Pat on our team.

0:07:10.5 KD: Are you guys sick of trying to figure it out on your own? I know I am. When I'm trying to run a business, sometimes I just think there's got to be a better way to do this. And so for me, my answer has been to find someone who's done it and does it really, really, really well. I'm talking the best of the best of the best. I want someone who's been in my shoes, somebody who understands what I'm going through. When I was looking for the consulting business, I found a coach who literally has run a consulting business. Well, that seems like the perfect fit.

0:07:40.2 KD: So you guys, right now, we have a few spaces open in our platinum consulting, that is in the consulting where we actually come to your practice, we help you get systems implemented, we don't just tell you what systems to implement, we actually implement them with you and for you. You guys, it is one of the best investments I've ever made is to hire a coach who understands the business I'm in, who's lived it, who's done it, and that's what we in the Dental A Team do. We literally physically fly to you. So if you're sick of trying to figure it out on your own, if you just want somebody who understands you, join our platinum. I'd love to have you, I'd love to have our consulting team come out and see you be in your office, be with your team, and truly help you get on to the easy path of dentistry. It doesn't have to be hard. So join us in the Platinum, we'd love to have you.

0:08:31.1 KD: But it's interesting 'cause every time someone's turned over, even though it hurts, guys, I take it as a personal attack, I take it as I'm a terrible person, and that's honestly not what it even means, but every single time, and I can say this with absolute certainty, I have hired better, and that change has grown me and our company in ways that are far, far superior. I get it, sometimes we've hired a one-off that was an absolute terrible atrocious hire, but generally speaking, that atrocious hire, they still made you better because that atrocious hire showed you the gaps in your world of what you needed to improve. Guys, I've had lawsuits, and I think how would that change in my life for the better? It taught me what I freaking was doing wrong and things I needed to change, how we weren't documenting in our charts, that saved me heartache and pain that probably would have followed me later.

0:09:25.0 KD: So I feel like change, and in teams, when we have to change, I'm not asking you to do something you hate, I'm just asking you to try it for 30 days, and then we reassess and you tell me why you don't like it, rather than telling me today that you don't like it because you're afraid. Oftentimes, I think we don't like change because we're afraid and not because it's where we wanna go. Change is something that truly can make you a better person if you allow it. And I think it's oftentimes the filter that we choose to view life. Back in, let's see, in 2016 through 2018-19 basically, I had a filter of life is junk, and I am a terrible person, and I am not that great.

0:10:08.2 KD: And you guys, I created that all day long. Then I met Tony Robins, that's why I love him so much. Whether you choose to like him or not, I'm fine with that, but Tony Robins taught me that I can change my reality, I can create a different filter, I can realize that life is happening for me and not to me, and that shift of perspective changed me as a person. Like I said, change, we oftentimes don't wanna do it because we're afraid. So therefore we say no. Right now, guys, I'm going through an entire company software change, everything, everything that I have known is no longer, everything that I was efficient on, no more. Am I freaking slow on messages right now? Yes. Do I feel like my tasks are in a 100 different spots? Yes. But do I see that this change in 30 days will make us a better company? Absolutely. Do I see that the change of relationships, the change in hairstyle, the change in clothes, the change in the world. Yeah, we might not agree with politics, but guess what, guys? So many things that have changed have caused us to become better, have forced us to innovate. It doesn't matter what's happening in the world around us.

0:11:23.0 KD: All of those changes, we can turn to the positive for us. And that's what I'm trying to say through all this is it doesn't mean that all change like you guys could definitely hit me and I'm sure I would get a lot of emails on this, of all the negative things of like Kiera, what about these changes, and these changes, and these changes that were all bad? But I'd like to remind you of a proverb, the Chinese one where they talk about maybe it's good, maybe it's bad. We don't know. And I am a firm believer that if you guys can take on the filter of change is positive and change makes us better, and change makes us better people, you will then start to see that and you will become that. I get it, change in insurance is guys, Delta. Let's just rant on that for a second, but guess what? Because of that, membership plans came into place, because of that, you figure out how to have fee-for-service out of network verbiage, because of that, you learn how to actually add value to your patients of services that weren't covered by insurance to grow your practice. It forced you to innovate, it forced you to change, it forced you to create and become someone different, and without that you would have stayed stagnant and you would have become bored, I promise you.

0:12:32.3 KD: So everything, whenever I have somebody turn over, I'm like, I have to literally look at this and see, this is making me better and I'm gonna become someone better because of this. Every time I have a change in our company, same thing, this is making me a better person. Guys, changing software is making me young hip and savvy again, guys. I was totally getting geeked out and not on top of my game, that's making me a better person. It's also making me have a lot of humility for offices when I go in and implement change of how uncomfortable it can make you feel and how dumb it can make you feel, that's making me a better consultant through these software changes. So for you guys, if you don't have patients, like you've dropped in patients, that's a change that can feel terrible. Guess what? It's gonna force you to innovate, force you to think outside the box. I just heard of an office and they told me one of the largest employers in the area just laid off a ton of employees, tons. And they're like that's the bulk of our patients. And I said, "Isn't that interesting? You have an opportunity to go target every one of those patients, send them your membership plan and do something generous for the community knowing they just got laid off and saying, 'We're gonna offer half price of whatever our membership plan was, or for every person coming from this, we're gonna do X, Y, and Z.'"

0:13:45.9 KD: You just have an opportunity to bring in more patients on a membership plan, which is better than an insurance plan, and more loyal to you in a time of crisis where they're looking for someone to be there for them. Every change can make you better. Every change can make you happier, every change can be for your growth, even when they're hard, even when there are days where we're just like, "Forget it, I'm done, I hate everything." Shift your filter and look to see how is this making me a better person? How is this happening for me? And remind yourself, it's all happening for you, it's all making you better, it's giving you a better life, a better opportunity. If you want to see it, and if you want to become that, it's all up to you. So guys, there's my little soap box on change, something I was thinking about of all these things change. And when we look at the world, there's change in seasons, there's change in nature, and not one season is better than the other. All of them have their beauty, all of them have their hard times, but it depends on which one do you wanna focus on, because what you're focusing on through these changes is who you will become. What we focus on, we become.

0:14:56.1 KD: So are you focused on it becoming better, are you focused on how it's changing you, on how you're growing, on how you're gonna dominate this, how this is gonna make you an elite athlete and elite practitioner, an elite office manager, is this giving you the tools in your tool belt for future opportunity so you don't have to figure it out then when it's an even harder problem? That's how change can make you. Again, don't fear change. Be afraid, it's okay, but change and then in 30 days, let me know what you don't like about it, rather than just not trying because you're afraid. Try it out, guys. Let me know. And as always, I just hope you guys know that you are loved, that we were in the best profession we could ever be in. And I hope you remember that and you appreciate that. And as always, guys, thanks for listening.

0:15:38.6 KD: And if I can ever help you in anyway, whether it's personally, professionally, profitability in the consulting company, I don't believe that we are just here to teach you systems. I believe we've got to grow you profitable, make sure that you are financially set and stable because you are going to be much more secure and confident if that's the case. Number two, making sure that you as a person are balanced, that the goals and visions and dreams that you have for yourself are actually being met. And if you don't have those, that we're setting those for you so you actually have a vision of where you personally are going. So financially, you as a person, and then system and team development top to bottom. Ensuring that you have systems to keep you set, so that's how you can avoid the stress of change and you can embrace the change, because everything's not in chaos and mayhem.

0:16:25.1 KD: So if I can help you out with that in any way, email me. I'd love to hear from you, [email protected]. And as always guys, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.

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0:16:36.0 KD: 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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