If you’re anything like me, you probably like to think you have more control over your life than you do. Then reality smacks you in the face when you get a pesky reminder that you’re not really in control of any of it. This getting cancer thing has been one of those reminders for me. Cancer rocks your world. I always imagined how difficult it would be, but you never quite “get it” until you actually get it. Experiencing life’s most serious challenges always provides that smack in the face. In August when I was first diagnosed, all I felt...
I often wonder if I will ever come to appreciate my cancer journey. Right now it’s hard to imagine finding any gratitude for it. In this moment, all I want to do is get through this. I want it to be behind me. While I want to be super-duper positive with you, you know I’m not one to lie about my experiences and my feelings. All I want is to put my head down, put on the blinders, and grind through my treatments. When you’re in that state of mind, it can be hard to want to celebrate and have...
I’m at a crossroads, facing a dilemma that feels huge. Logically, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, but in my heart, there is something keeping me stuck. I don’t know if I should shave my head. These days we have access to amazing technology that can actually help save our hair during chemo. It’s called a cold cap. The cold cap has been around for a while, but now they’ve developed a system that makes the process simpler, more manageable, and more accessible than ever before. The cold cap freezes your scalp, restricting blood flow to the...
Yes, you’ve read that correctly. I have cancer. It’s still weird to say it, and it’s just as weird to read it back. You may (or you may not) have noticed I’ve been quiet lately. It’s because I’ve been busy having cancer. (See? Even with cancer, I still can’t help being silly at times.) Before you get too worried about me, I’d like you to know that there is good news: it is curable. Even though we are planning for a happy ending, it’s still hard. I still have to go through the physical, emotional, and mental crap of wondering...
Most of us really value the importance of work life balance. Especially now, it seems to be more important than ever. My guest today is Andrew, a dentist in the UK. Andrew came to a crossroads in his career when he was forced to make a tough decision. He had to choose between continuing on in a very happy, successful dental practice or walking away from that to maintain the most important relationship in his life. See how it turned out for him… Three years ago, I came to a junction in my life where I really struggled. It turned...
We can get so caught up thinking we have to fit into this perfect image of how to practice dentistry. That usually means having a busy, successful private practice. By now you know that I love to challenge that idea. So here is my challenging viewpoint: it is possible to be passionate about dentistry outside the Dental Op. My guest today proves it. While Carrie Ibbetson is clearly passionate about life at the dental chair, her true calling within dentistry has pulled her interests in a different direction. Carrie is a dental hygienist with a slightly different mission. Listen to...
It’s quite challenging to objectively see ourselves and our behavior, isn’t it? The different filters we use to see the world influence everything in our lives. It makes sense– if we don’t really see the world objectively, how can we see ourselves objectively? What do you see? We’ve all seen this drawing above. At first, most of us either see a young woman or an old lady. It’s not until someone points out what you can’t see, that you finally see it. It is amazing how your perspective changes when you change your perspective. The Energy Leadership Index (ELI) Assessment did...
Did you ever consider that what we perceive to be true might not be reality? Think about it. Take the comment “I hate the dentist.” Some of us shrug it off as if it’s nothing while others get peeved by it. What’s really going on here? Is the patient really being rude? Are they making a joke? Maybe they’re grasping for some compassion? What is the reality? The way we perceive a comment like this does create our reality. It’s normal. It happens because we all see the world through different filters. Our filters determine how we see everything in...
We all know how much stress can compromise our success in any given task. Think about it. You’re so busy worrying about something, that you’re distracted and don’t even notice what’s going on around you. We’ve all felt it at some point. In the moment, stress management may not be an option, as we may not even notice we’re stressed until we’ve had a chance to step back and pause. How can we learn to work with our stress, as it is often our partner in the journey to success? This past weekend, I experienced firsthand how stress can detract...
I bet you’d agree that many of us learned to believe that success is about money. In fact, money is often the one determining factor we use to define success. The problem with believing success is about money is that we walk through life chasing one thing, when other things matter as much, if not more. Happiness and meaning matter too. It’s not until we look around and realize that our money is not enough, that we feel compelled to do something. We even notice that in order to make a lot of money, we are trading away our happiness....
