If you have ever had to give a speech or write an article, you know how difficult it is to express yourself or come up with a topic that you hope would help your audience. I face this every week. A blank page, a speaking event, or even writing a book. You open your computer, and face an empty screen, looking like a whiteout blizzard. There ...
Read MoreOnce again, we have arrived at dental school graduation. Another 6,900 dental graduates are being turned out in an uncertain dental economy. It is a time to look towards the future. Get ready, because what got you here will not be what you need in the next stage of your career. You are now the proud owner of a dental license. I might ...
Read MoreI know what to say, but I can’t say it. One of our Summit Coaches I know what I need to say, but you can’t handle it. Michael Abernathy I know what you need to hear, but you won’t listen. Max Gotcher You can’t handle the truth. Jack Nicholson (A Few Good Men – 1992) Often times, doctors find themselves ...
Read MoreI tend to be pretty organized, but yesterday I was out in my barn going through some boxes of dental stuff I had saved. In the process I ran across an article I wrote some thirty years ago. Three decades is a long time to look back on, but I reread the article and was a little surprised at the applicability of these things even today. I ...
Read MoreThe majority of DSOs have never increased the production, profit, or lowered the overhead in any office they have purchased if we consider inflation and market values. Never a net gain, and usually a 5-15% drop if we include inflation and the additional debt of their purchase and subsequent management fees from the DSO. Their hope is to just ...
Read MoreThirty years ago, one of my mentors, Dr. Travis McFee DDS, used this title for a seminar I attended. I am always looking for topics to discuss that would appeal to a wider range of doctors. I was digging through some materials I was hoarding and came upon some notes from a seminar I attended over 30 years ago and a handout article that Travis ...
Read MoreThe word “eluding” means: To escape from a danger, enemy, or pursuer; typically, in a skillful or cunning way. In business, “Competitive edge” means: The ability of an organization to produce goods and services more effectively than competitors do, thereby outperforming them. These circumstances that put a company in a favorable or ...
Read MoreI admit that I’m a statistics junkie. I also bow to the fact that you can prove anything with statistics, and that can sometimes be bad. The reason I tend to pull up studies that eventually use statistics to define a problem is that most of us need not only social proof, but a down and dirty study that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that ...
Read MoreHave you ever known a person who had problems follow him/her wherever they went? And have you perhaps observed that the problems often, if not always, seemed to center around the fact that he or she had a hard time getting along with people? There is a relational truth that I learned from a mentor many years ago. Let’s call our person ...
Read MoreSuppose we stopped pretending the corpse is breathing. Suppose we recognized that putting makeup on a dead body doesn’t bring it back to life. Hey, we are well into another year and once again it is starting to look like ground hog day. Another opportunity missed. You didn’t lower your overhead, produce more, or finally free up the ...
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