The other day I wrote about anger and its presence in the online community, particularly on Facebook. I spoke about how it often consumes people at a time when all they have to do is either say something nice or keep their mouths shut. However, there’s another emotion that often plays an even bigger role in…
A friend of mine recently got invited to be a part of a prestigious dental organization and posted it online, not knowing whether or not he should accept the invitation. The response from the members of his orthodontic social community ranged from apathy to near contempt for a genuinely prestigious non-ortho organization they clearly knew…
Ok, first off, I am most definitely NOT recommending that you eat an actual elephant, but rather, use that famous figure of speech to help you take control of your practice and life. Every single day I have conversations with younger (and some older) clinicians who feel overwhelmed with their ability to run their practices, let alone…
20 years ago, shortly after I purchased my practice, I had a patient who was THAT patient. You know, the one who always shows up late, never pays his bills, has a gag reflex, can’t be reclined in the chair, always complains about your fee and treats your team like garbage. I finished a bunch…
I’m here in San Diego, about to head home after seeing some great speakers and learning a lot from those I respect so much. I got some great practice pearls and learned a ton of ways to help my patients get better outcomes. Most of all, I love watching great dentists talk about their practices. I…
Prior to going back to residency, a friend of mine who is a prominent and successful orthodontist mused out loud: “Glenn, do you know why it’s so competitive to get into ortho residency? It’s because they know they’re the gatekeepers to the golden ticket.“ For years, orthodontics was as simple as putting up a sign, opening your door, being…
“Winter brings cold dry harsh weather and trees are without leaves.”-Lailah Gitty Akita In 7 months, I’ll turn 50. I’ve worked as a business owner in dentistry since 1992 and had to hold my practice together after the tech crash of 2001 and the housing meltdown and subsequent “great recession” of 2008. For many of you reading this, you’ve never…
In Ancient Rome, commanders would order bridges to be set afire behind their troops when invading a new territory. It meant that to get home, the troops needed to fight through whatever obstacles were in front of them. The term “burning bridges” has now become synonymous with destroying relationships to which one can never return. Clinicians do…
Let’s be honest…very few orthodontists signed up to go to school until about age 30 so to become entrepreneurs. We went to school to become orthodontists and naturally assumed that if we do good work and are nice to people, we’ll succeed financially. Oh, how wrong we were. In his book The E-myth Revisited, Michael Gerber tells…
Peter Drucker, one of the greatest business minds of the last 100 years once said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” No greater truism has been stated for growing our practices. Yesterday there was a discussion in our private OrthopreneursRD group related to marketing. I can’t get into the details but…
