Episode 796: What Does A Rich Life Mean To You?

Why does success feel so unattainable? Because we don’t realize it’s relative. In this episode, Kiera talks about how a rich, successful life can mean something different to everyone, how success has evolving definitions, and gives listeners an exercise.

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Kiera Dent (00:00.806)

Hello, Denali Team listeners. This is Kira and welcome to 2024. I hope you guys are rocking it. I hope you're loving it and I hope you realize that this truly can be the best year of your life. I'm super excited for it. I'm excited. Denali Team's got a new look. I hope you guys are loving the new look. I hope you guys are enjoying it. We decided to make it more fun, more you guys, and I'm super thrilled about it. So you also get to see we're in a new background. The podcast is changing a little bit. Don't worry, content's staying the same.

but the podcast will surely be changing just a smidge. So guys, welcome to 2024. I hope that you guys had an incredible 2023. And I hope if you didn't, you took the time to reflect to find out why wasn't my 2023 what I wanted it to be. Did you take the time to figure out, did you have the dream personal life that you wanted? Did you take the time to figure out how your team's doing and what you guys wanna do to change for this next year? I hope you guys just took the time because I do believe that, you know, a goal, like if it doesn't have a plan, it's just a wish.

And so we can sit here all day long and say, I wish that I had better case acceptance. I wish I had better new patients. I wish that I had a better office manager. I wish I had better systems. But if we don't sit down, plan, prepare and figure it out, we're just gonna be sitting here wishing all the time. So I hope you really did take the time to figure it out, to come up with a game plan. Also, thanks to you guys for making Dental A Team podcast, one of the top dental podcasts in the entire world.

That's thanks to you guys for downloading, for leaving the reviews, for sharing it on your drives. I love seeing you guys tag us on your drives to work, sharing about the podcast. So thank you all and please continue to do so because you know our goal is to reach 2,900 offices by 2029 in practice, serving them, being a part of it, and also to be the number one podcast out there that serves and inspires, that makes you guys happy. Shout out to my, I think she'd technically be my sister-in-law. I'm really weird. My husband's like,

really, really an accident in his family. So all of our nieces and nephews seem like they should be like our age. So, uh, but my sister-in-law, shout out to her, she is, uh, not in dentistry and she listens to the podcast all the time. So I just want to say thanks to her. Thanks to all of you guys for being a part of this. Um, this year I wanted to kick it off of, you know, I've been thinking a lot about what is the definition of your rich life? What is, what does it mean to have a rich life? What does it mean for

Kiera Dent (02:22.114)

to be rich or to be wealthy? Does that mean monetary? Does that mean having enough free time? Does that mean it's competing with other people around you for better for worse? What does your rich life mean? And I was thinking about this because I feel so often we're constantly striving and trying to achieve different goals without realizing that these goals, we don't actually have definitions for them. So what does good case acceptance actually mean? What does enough new patients actually mean?

What does a successful practice actually mean? What does being rich or wealthy actually mean? Because so often we're chasing after these ladders and these goals, but not realizing where the actual finish line is. And so what I've noticed with offices is they're like, Kira, I need to be successful. And when we define what success is, it becomes so much more attainable, so much easier to achieve. And so I wanted you guys to really just sit down and write out the definitions for your success. And one thing I've learned is the less rules,

the better off life is. So if we can have this be something where it's less rules, it's easier to achieve these things, you're going to be a lot happier. Because I thought about it, why do we make it so hard to feel good and so easy to feel bad? I'm gonna say that again. Why do we make it so easy to feel good, like so easy to feel bad and so hard to feel good? Why does success always feel so unattainable? Why do we feel like we're not able to have a successful practice when maybe we actually are?

What are we striving for? What are we aiming for? What are all these different things that we're trying to do that maybe we're already actually there, we just don't realize that we're actually there. So I thought about it, what does your rich life mean? And for me, this has been super valuable because when I think about what does a successful practice look like? Like we can say here, I can tell you, we coach in the dental team, we coach hundreds of practices. I'm talking hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of practices across the nation. We've got lots of experience in practice. And so,

I think that success is very relative. Success is not a specific overhead. It's not a specific production. It's not a specific lifestyle. What I found is success really is truly dependent upon who's talking about it, who's actually the person living that, what do they want their success to be like, what do they want life to look like. And so I think when we can really dive into that, you then can find that you're actually probably closer to success than you thought. And I also want to point out the definitions can change over time, right?

Kiera Dent (04:46.206)

And we thought like, oh, if I could just be grown up. Well, when we're super, super tiny, grown up means that we get to go to school. Then when we're from there, grown up means that, we get to go to middle school. And then after that grown up means I could drive. Can you imagine those days when we were able to finally drive again? And the freedom that brought, and we felt like that was grown up. And then grown up meant going to college, and then grown up meant getting married, and then grown up meant getting a house. And so just pointing out that as life evolves, as we as humans evolve,

your definitions will also evolve. Like think back to when you were in dental school and you just thought, shoot, just graduating felt like success to you. But we constantly are moving that mile marker, which is fine. But I also wanna make sure that you're defining these things, you're making it easier for you to achieve them. Not because I wanna lower the standard, but because I want you to realize that you're probably already hitting success right now. And then we're just going to refine and make it easier. So with a rich life, what does it mean to have a rich life?

Think about it for you, what does that mean? Does that mean time with family? Does that mean a certain amount in your bank account? Does that mean that you have a certain size practice or that you have associates or you have a certain number of team members? And then I want to ask you why, because that why is oftentimes what keeps us and prevents us from actually getting where we wanna be. That why is something that if you figure out why do I wanna have this? For me, I had always wanted to have like a million dollar business. Why? Because I thought that was the sign of being wealthy and established and that you're successful.

as I remember the day I hit a million, I was sitting by myself in my apartment. I kid you not, my husband was at a wedding for, it's funny, the sister-in-law I talked to you about, it was her daughter's wedding. And my husband was at that wedding, I wasn't there. I'd put on a presentation and I literally was sitting in my house on my futon, mind you, when I hit a million dollars in the bank account. And I just thought like, this is it? Like, this is what this is like?

And then I started thinking like, why am I even doing this? I wanted it for the status. I wanted it. And again, none of these reasons are wrong. So I don't want you to make yourself wrong because so often we come up with these goals and then we make ourselves wrong. And then it's just this constant spiral. And anybody relate with me? You get into this spiral of I should be here. I should be there. I should be this. I should be that. So it's a few things here. I think hopefully you guys are following with me. I have one.

Kiera Dent (07:05.338)

What does that definition actually mean? So what does a rich life mean? What does a successful practice mean? What does a successful OM mean? What does great case acceptance mean? Like, please define those. Like literally have a list of these items and define them out. And then, cause one that's gonna be, that'll help your team actually know what these items are and what does a successful OM look like? What does a successful leadership team look like? What does success in our practice actually look like? So that way we're all going towards the same success because if I were to come in and ask

50 dentists, what success means, every single one of them would tell me something different. Someone say it's a production number, someone say it's an overhead number, someone say it's the number of patients, someone say it's the Google reviews, someone say that the team can run without them, others would tell me that it would be based on how many days they're working in the practice. So realize we've got different variations of success, what life should actually look like. So you define it for you, with no judgment, no trying or striving to be someone else, but for you.

What does that look like? How are we going to make success for you? And then I really want you to challenge yourself and ask yourself why. Why do I want this? Why does that? So let's do a little exercise, okay? So if I'm in dental practice and I'm sitting here and I'm thinking what does success look like for me? So success could be, we wanna hit, I mean, I'll tell you, I'm always looking for practices. I don't actually care about your top line revenue number.

What I care about is your take home pay and your lifestyle and then your overhead. Like for me, those are what is really gonna define success. And that's also gonna look different if you're in growth mode, if you're in just like let's go on mode, if you're in like, hey, I just wanna have a great life mode, all of those numbers will be different, okay? So let's say you wanna take home 300,000, all right? So then let's figure out what your practice needs to produce to achieve that. And then from there,

I want you to see what your overhead is to make sure you're profitable because you could actually be working way less hard than you already are and get the results of what you're looking for. But then I want to ask you why? Why do you want 300,000? Why? Why do you want that? Is it because that's what you feel like you should have? Is that because you know that that's what other dentists are making? Is that because you know that number is going to provide you the freedom that you want in life to go on the trips with your spouse and your kiddos? Is that because you want to buy this dream car?

Kiera Dent (09:20.218)

None of those whys are wrong. And I just want you to remember that. None of them are wrong. But I wanna make sure it's your why and not someone else's. I've thought about it for so long. Like, why do I want a Lamborghini? If you guys remember, I talked about this. I did a book club around my obsession with cars. And I've thought about it. And I had to check myself and find out, am I wanting a Lamborghini just because I want the status of it? Guys, I still don't have a Lambo. I have a Lambo Mula fun, just so you know.

But I decided this year I wanted to reinvest in dental aid team. So the Lambo still is yet to be desired. But I think about it, why do I want these things? Why do I want to make the amount I want? Why do I want the success? And what does that look like? And all I care about is that it's for you and not because you're comparing to someone else. That's really what this whole podcast is about, is making sure you're living your version of a rich life.

that you're living your version of a successful practice. It's okay to talk to other people and to find out because sometimes like I heard of a practice, let me throw out some sexy stats for you. I heard a practice in one month, they produced enough, they've got five locations, in one month, they produced enough to be able to cover all their expenses for a year. That's pretty sexy stats. And the fact that I now know that that's possible, you better believe that's a goal I've got, other dental practices have it. So there's nothing wrong in expanding your goals, but making sure you're doing it for fun.

I thought about why do I want to grow a dental team? I have two reasons. One is because I want to help and serve more people. Like truly the thought of changing people's lives and so many of them. Like if I can help your production increase, reduce your overhead, reduce your stress, and make a happier team, done, done. Let's do that all day long across the nation because I feel like dentists should be happy. I feel like teams should be happy. I feel like we as humans deserve to be happy. And I feel like life is so much easier for us than it's ever been. And yet I feel like we're more depressed and sad than we've ever been. And so,

let's help that in whatever way I possibly can do it and our company can do it. That's my main motivator as to why I want to grow Dental A Team. I want to serve more people and expand that and innovate and create to give you guys a better product, to give you a better platform, to give you a better community. That's number one. And number two, truthfully, I had to really check myself. Did I want it for the money? Did I want it for lifestyle? The bottom line is I want to challenge myself. I want to see

Kiera Dent (11:37.866)

what I can grow this into. And I have literally talked to mentors, I've talked to my brother, I've talked to so many different people to find out, make sure to check me. And these are not just any person. I am very, very cautious of who I ask their opinions of why I'm doing the things I'm doing. And I only choose people that I respect and admire. Because what I found is if I go ask me everybody if my why and if what I'm doing makes sense, I get a lot of people's opinions that I actually don't care about. And I need to make sure that the opinions I do care about and the opinions of what I'm asking

are people I truly care about and people who can get me there. So I talked to my mentor, you guys have heard about her, Liz. I talked to my brother, Rhett, that I really, really respect and admire. Talked to a few other people that are really successful in business. And I said, if you were given this opportunity where I am in my life right now, would you keep it small and niche or would you grow it big? Because right now I don't know what I wanna do. I know I wanna serve more people, but also sometimes I'm tired. Sometimes I don't know if I wanna grow it. And every person said, Kira, given that opportunity.

I would grow as large as I possibly could and help and serve as many people as I could. That doesn't mean that that's why I did it. That was advice of other people. And then I had to think, why does Kira want to do this? And I thought, shoot, I've got one life and I wanna slide in at the end of this life, like ringing it out that I went and I maximized every opportunity in my life. And I said yes to as many things as I wanted to say yes to. And I was able to serve the most amount of people in dentistry that we could ever imagine doing.

Yeah, I'm going to push myself. Yes, I'm going to force myself to innovate. Yes, I'm going to expand those limits that I thought were possible. That's why I want to do it. But for the last year, I haven't known why I wanted to grow. I haven't known if I wanted to. Like we were on the baby train and then we weren't on the baby train. And then I was on the, what am I doing with my life train? So when, to wrap this all up and to summarize it all, number one, please write your definitions for what your rich life is, what your successful practice looks like, what a successful OM looks like to you, what a successful boss looks like.

And let's see if we can cut some of those rules down and make it easier for you to win. And then I want you to ask yourself, why? Why am I doing this? Why do I want it to be that big? And again, please don't make yourself wrong in this. It's just an exercise to figure out, is that your why? Or is that someone else's expectation of you that you decided that you needed to have? Again, not wrong, but it's a lot more fulfilling and a lot more motivating and a lot more exciting when it's your driver. I could have said, oh, this is Liz's reason, this is Rhett's reason, but when the going gets tough,

Kiera Dent (14:06.122)

I've got to be able to back my decisions, be able to grind through it and grit through it and say, I figured this out, this is my why, and I'm going to move forward on it. And then I'm committed and I burned the boats and there's no other option. And so for you guys, please take this on, take it with your team, find out what does a successful team look like. Sometimes defining what this looks like for all of us helps us get all on the same page, rowing in the same direction, and it actually makes us easier to achieve it.

So please, please take this challenge on. Let's define what is your version of a rich life? What is your version of a successful practice? And what does that mean for you and your team? And then if we can help you, this is what I love to do. I love to help people sort through this. Just like I had to call my mentors, I can figure it out on my own. If I can help you with that, if I can be that mentor to you, if our team can help you figure that out and take it to your team, rock on, let's do this. Email us, hello at thedelayteam.com or go click on our website, schedule a free call. We'll happily talk to you and see if we're a right fit for you.

but I love helping you figure this out, then figuring out the goals you actually need to hit. That way it becomes a little bit easier for you, less stressful, more attainable, more realistic, and you're able to hit it with ease and grace. And with that, I would love to. That's what I love to do. That's what I'm passionate about doing. That's why I do this job. That's why I podcast for you guys. That's why I created this, because if I can help you guys do that, you're more fulfilled, you're happier, you are able to give back in ways you never imagined. So reach out, hello at thedenaliateam.com.

and commit this year that you are going to live your version of a rich life. And with that, thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next time on the Dental and Team Podcast.