Today marks the day when you walk away armed for battle, with a battle plan unlike any other you’ve even imagined. While there are threats out there, every one of them becomes your greatest opportunity to capitalize on owning your private practice as an independent doctor.

There’s nothing more amazing than your ability to be agile, to change, adapt, maximize, and ultimately create whatever you want. You can engineer your success for the lifestyle, time input, income level, and actual dentistry you’d like to do. As you do, you’ll fill your schedule with your preferred methodology of work, life, and clinical preferences, so you feel fulfilled.

I really enjoy writing books like this. They provide me with yet another opportunity to have a conversation about the topics that matter so much to me. Granted, it’s somewhat of a one-sided conversation.

(Maybe my favorite kind, right? No, just teasing. Actually, I like the back and forth of a good conversation. Later in the book, I’ll share a special opportunity for you that will us to really have an exciting back and forth dialogue.)

I was reminded today of a powerful quote – it’s funny that when you’re looking at one of those daily calendars, they always seem to provide you with the exact message you need to hear if you’re listening.

“Don’t be told something is impossible. There’s always a way.”

Could there be a better quote for this moment in time?

We’re now going to discuss what I consider the most vital conversation for dentistry today. Even though the title of this section is “Threats,” it’s not as much about problems as it is possibilities.

If you’re someone who’s worked with me a while, and who’s studied what I talk about, including the lessons we teach, you understand everything we’re discussing here also relates directly to patient care. It impacts the verbiage and psychology of the patient side of your practice.

I’d also like to talk about the most time-sensitive threats specific to private practice dentistry. It’s a smart thing to do because there’s a key lesson you can learn from it:

“It’s better to be aware and take action
than it is to be a victim or at the mercy of things.”

Most business owners are reactive to competition, to prices, and to the marketplace, and therefore their businesses fall at the mercy of many things.

Since my very first days as an entrepreneur, almost three decades ago, I understood an important principle. You can either try to make everybody happy and lose out altogether, or you can be very specific about what you want to do and how you define success.

If you don’t write out your own definition of success, you can’t be successful—and it’s likely that other people are going to write it for you.

The interesting thing about threats is that they’re really all in the eye of the beholder. What some people see as threats, we see as opportunities.

The great Napoleon Hill always said, “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”

Today’s circumstances absolutely affirm that reality.

The reason you’re reading this right now is because you are a responsible owner of your practice. Allow me to begin with that – a responsible owner.

It’s not easy to move beyond merely “doing the dentistry.” It’s much more challenging to step outside of the doctor role, to really embrace the idea of wearing the ownership hat with excitement and passion.

The fact is ownership is always there. Most doctors, however, aren’t taking full advantage of what practice ownership can truly provide.

I’m reminded of a saying I heard while growing up: “You’re going to get as much out as you put in.”

Basically, you can’t take more out of the bank than what you put in. Investments are a different story, because when you invest wisely, you take more out. Many people look for ways to take more out without considering how they might make their efforts worth more on the front end.

This is my mantra regarding clinical hours, which represents your least valuable time: the industry average is around $300 to $500 an hour. A little bit above average is $500 to $1,000. In our realm, we like to think above that $1,000 mark. In a specialty place, or in a complete health practice, you might say we expect to make somewhere north of $2,000 an hour.

In addition, you can’t just look at hours alone. You can look at days, you can look at weeks, and you can look at months, but when you realize that your least valuable time is when you’re actually doing the dentistry, you begin to understand how the value of time represents a hierarchy.

1. There’s the time spent actually doing the dentistry.
2. Next, are your non-clinical, practice hours – which could be treatment planning or team training.
3. Above that is your business development. (Today, right here, right now, inside this book, you’re investing in business development, which is more valuable than anything else. If it’s done right, it’s a rising tide for all the rest of the hours. This time is more valuable than office or operatory hours.)
4. Above that are things like family time, personal time, health time, exercise, sleep. All these hours are worth more because they raise up everything else.