Radical new choices equal a radically better life: It’s time for change in your dental practice

You’ve probably heard reports of late indicating that dentistry is changing. Thankfully, the old norms are going out the window. They’re being replaced with a better way to perfect your practice, lead your teams, and build a profitable, sustainable business. It’s exciting!

We need this now more than ever. As we shake free from the chains of the past, each one of us needs to know exactly how to move into the future. We need to understand what that future will look like and how we can navigate safely through the coming changes.

Most importantly, we need to maintain the freedoms that allow us to build the practices, the profit, and the lifestyles we want. These freedoms form the cornerstones of a powerful new future for dentists across North America. They build upon each other, stacking up in a way that leads to a radically better way to practice dentistry. But before I can discuss the four freedoms in more detail, and for them to make any impact on you whatsoever, you have to be ready for change.

How do you know if you’re ready for radical change?

You’ve worked hard to get where you are today, and it can be very difficult to make positive changes happen. But in order to move forward, you can’t stay where you are. With this in mind, ask yourself a few questions:

Do you need permission?

If you need a sense of permission to try something new, I’m giving it to you now. Of course, the most important form of permission is the acceptance and approval you give to yourself, so take a minute to acknowledge that you’re on the right path. Give yourself permission to open your mind, to believe in what’s possible, and to question the status quo. 

Do you deserve more?

Of course you do! You deserve the ambition to have fun, make more money, and do it all on your own terms. You deserve the ambition to dream and the motivation to follow through, so you can make those dreams a reality.

Do you have the strength to make change happen?

Change is never easy, and it takes strength. You need to be able to follow through with actions that will lead to success. This entails applying your personal strengths to increase your profitability, maneuver, and be flexible to quickly adapt to change without having to compromise.

Do you know how to start making positive changes happen?

The thought of making changes can be overwhelming, but you don’t need to do it alone. With the right information and step-by-step directions, you’ll know how to make tough decisions and have the power to take a brilliant leap of faith, overcome everything that’s thus far held you back and to move forward in all areas of life.

Do you have the necessary confidence?

I don’t know of anything more valuable than confidence. Over the past 20 years, none of the doctors I’ve worked with have ever outearned the value they place on themselves. Even as they’ve grown, delivered magnificently on dentistry, and led their team from success to success, their confidence level was their only limiting factor. As their confidence level skyrocketed, so did their earning power—and yours can do the same.

Are you ready?

If you’ve answered these questions and are ready for change, the good news is that there is a formula for success. Ultimately, the formula is designed to help you engineer your practice for the future, so you gain the control to achieve the freedom you want. True freedom, the freedom to live the lifestyle you want, is based on the four freedoms that lead to a radically better way to practice dentistry.

The four freedoms

When was the last time you reached back into the heart and soul of why you hung out your shingle in the first place—not just why you went to school, but why you chose to have an independent, private practice?

It’s an amazing thing when a doctor or dentist opens a private practice, but too often, it’s more of a challenge than it first seemed. It wasn't supposed to be a burden on your shoulders. It was supposed to suit your life. Instead, many dentists find themselves shackled to insurance payments, restricted finances, a lack of time, and a horrendous employee turnover rate. Many of them feel that they have been put in a prison of their own making. Does this sound familiar? Well, this is where the four freedoms come in.

As I learned over the years, the four freedoms are the exact opposite of the things that dentists feel shackled by. These freedoms provide relief and a path forward for doctors who thought they had to play with the hand life dealt them, rather than starting a brand-new game on their own terms:

• Insurance freedom
• Financial freedom
• Time freedom
• Team-turnover freedom

Freedom over insurance is important because it directly affects your financial freedom. Freedom of time means you have the autonomy to run your practice the way you see fit, while taking time to build relationships in your life and enjoying your ability to choose how you spend your day. The final freedom is team-turnover freedom. This freedom allows you to break away from the revolving doors of both team members and patients.

It sounds like a fantastic way to live, right? And, although it’s drastically different from what many doctors face, it’s real. This is a dream come true that you can create for yourself as you focus intensely on your future and allow me to guide you to it.

Take a moment to look around your environment. You may have beautiful artwork up, terrific books around you, and maybe some pictures of people you care about. Those are all symbols of freedom, of being yourself, and doing what you love.

Now imagine what it would be like if everything in your life became a symbol of your freedom and reminded you that you are the one in control. That’s what those four freedoms can do for you. When you align what you want and your ideas of how to get there with what you do and what you love, you get rewarded well for it. Life gets easier and more fun.

One interesting thing about the winning formula is that it can work for everyone, because it can be tailored to your needs. It doesn’t matter whether you’re just a few years into your practice, or whether you’ve been in business for decades. Even if you’re at the end of your practice and you think you’re just finishing up, it doesn’t make any difference. You can start where you’re at, with the perfect formula for you, to help you get the most out of the four freedoms and build your own radically better way of practicing dentistry. You deserve to have your practice working for you, and you deserve to feel like every sacrifice to get to this point has been worth it.

Radically different results

Now that you know you can make positive changes happen, my future articles will focus in more detail on the four freedoms. It’s time to structure your practice in a way to ensure you achieve radically different results than in the past, by doing things radically better than anyone else.

Look for more information soon.

Author’s note: Adapted from my recent book, The Four Freedoms of Dentistry. Visit dentalsuccesstoday.com for a free copy.

Editor's note: This article originally appeared in DE Weekend, the newsletter that will elevate your Sunday mornings with practical and innovative practice management and clinical content from experts across the field. Subscribe here.