Ten years ago I walked away from my career in dentistry. I had spent so much of my life investing in becoming a dentist that it was a very difficult move. One week after I quit for good, I found a blog post titled, 10 Reasons I Hate the Dentist. I decided to have a little fun and write a response to this fellow blogger. Overnight 10 Reasons Your Dentist Probably Hates You Too went viral, reaching all corners of the world and getting translated into many different languages. It was quite a ride, and the most incredible part of...
There, I said it. I hate dentistry… sort of. When I was younger, I chose dentistry as my forever career because I loved smiles, and I wanted to work with people. I really liked people. I always considered myself social and friendly, and I was a good student who enjoyed math and science. Dentistry seemed like the perfect fit for me. As a patient, I always loved learning about my teeth, and the day I got my braces off, I loved the result. It seemed impossible that I would get to a point in my career where I would one...
How long do you need to stay stuck in indecision before you decide it’s worth changing? I had a conversation with a friend the other day about the idea of “thinking about it.” She was wanting to make some changes in her life, and when faced with an option, she said she wanted to think about it. The thing is, she’d been thinking about it for years now. She was in a constant state of indecision. Our discussion got me thinking about a time when I was stuck thinking about things in my life. The timeline is impressive– and maybe...
I’ve been having a lot of conversations lately about boundaries. Drawing boundaries is a good thing. It helps us stay true to ourselves. We get the chance to choose what is best for us, and the amazing byproduct is that we can be better for others. It’s definitely a win-win. On the flip side, though, saying NO too often can get in the way of living. Take the movie, “Yes Man.” Yeah, yeah, I know it doesn’t have the highest rating according to the Tomatometer, but the movie’s message is one of my favorites. In it, Jim Carrey plays Carl....
“Wow! Being a perfectionist is a curse!” I dramatically said to my patient with a sly smirk on my face. After what felt like an eternity of revisiting the stupid ledge that remained on that damn distal box floor of the MOD prep on #3, I had nearly given up. Fighting the patient’s tongue with my right hand while holding the mirror to barely see around my left hand doing the actual work, my right arm became fatigued. I was caught up in an obsessive pattern of alternating between blindly reaching for that ledge with a quick zip of the...
Find your passion, and you’ll never work a day in your life! Don’t you hate when people give that advice? For most of us, our passion is hardly profitable. I mean, how can I possibly make money cooking, eating, traveling, and hanging out with friends? Image by Luisella Planeta Leoni from Pixabay Yeah, yeah… I know that’s what they always say. I also know that it’s true. If you love what you do, it makes the work more fun, and it’s easier to get through the bad stuff. Finding your passion is great if you get lucky and happen to...
The Golden Rule is great, but there is one area in which it is lacking. Howard Farran recently wrote a column in Dentaltown titled, “Follow the Golden Rule.” In it, he offered excellent examples of how we can share our greatest and highest good with patients. When it comes to clinical care, we should only do treatment on patients that we would choose for ourselves. I like that. It allows us to lead with our integrity. Equally as important, he dives into how we treat patients on a personal level. We can get so caught up in the nitty gritty...
I stepped in dog poo the other day. Yes, that’s right. I’m blogging about dog poo. Let’s see if I can find meaning in that one! So here we go. It was the perfect storm of events that led to me stepping in poo. I was walking my dog, Nola(bees,) around the park while listening to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic. I was trying to rewind to a specific part of the narrative, and there was a park services truck on the walking path driving towards me. Being the thoughtful, considerate person I am, I stepped aside into the grass. The...
Which came first– gratitude or success? Chances are that growing up you learned that the more success you would have in life, the happier you would be. Somewhere along the way I believed that too, so I set my life up to create the ultimate happiness. I accumulated it all– the degrees, the friends, a husband, a home, and the perfect dental career. Eventually I learned the joke was on me. I found myself living this successful life, but I was unhappy, and I couldn’t feel grateful for all of the wonderful “things” I had. It turns out, success does...
You’ve heard me say it before… many dentists often believe our skills are so limited, that we can’t even imagine starting a side hustle. Something happened to us in dental school that made us believe that. We started getting tunnel vision. The only path we could see moving forward was the traditional full-time gig, practicing clinical dentistry. We thought that would give us the picture perfect life: freedom, respect, and being of service. That’s great when it works out, but for many of us, we get here and realize something is missing. By that point, we’ve invested so much in...
