Paula Harriss discusses key insights on personal growth: embrace vulnerability, seek guidance, and commit to lifelong learning for a fulfilling journey. See more of Paula at the Practice Growth Summit 2024 with All-Star Dental Academy®!
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About Paula Harriss
Paula Harriss is a nationally recognized motivational speaker, life coach, and business coach. She is an expert in Sales Training, Marketing, Cross-training, Life Coaching and a keynote speaker for the University of TN Student-Athletes, Dental Boot Kamp, The Power for Life, as well as Pac Live, eWomenNetwork, and the Chamber of Commerce. Paula also speaks for Transformation3 and The Building Blocks of Trust. The John Maxwell company chose Paula as a Founder’s Circle certified coach, trainer and speaker. She also has three certifications in plant-based nutrition from Cornell University.
About Alex Nottingham JD MBA
Alex is the CEO and Founder of All-Star Dental Academy®. He is a former Tony Robbins top coach and consultant, having worked with companies upwards of $100 million. His passion is to help others create personal wealth and make a positive impact on the people around them. Alex received his Juris Doctor (JD) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Florida International University.
Episode Transcript
Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.
00:03
Welcome to Dental All-Stars. I’m Alex Nottingham, founder and CEO of All-Star Dental Academy. And with me is Paula Harris. And we’re going to talk about, we have a great interview, about personal growth and how it proceeds professional growth. That’s our topic. Now Paula is a coach, a speaker, an author, all these great things she does, a mentor, a mom, and we’ll learn more about that as well. And in this podcast, it’s an interview. It’s a part of…
00:32
a collection of interviews where we’re focusing on business and personal growth. And when it comes to practice growth and business and personal growth, we have an entire event dedicated to business and personal growth. And that’s the All Star Practice Growth Summit. And it’s going to be in South Florida on May 17th and 18th. And you can learn more at alls Please welcome Paula. Hi, Alex. It’s great to be here with you. Thank you so much for the invitation.
01:01
Wonderful to have. Not really looking forward to the event. Yes, and you’re speaking at the event and you do a lot of work on personal and business growth. That’s like your cup of tea. So, I like to start with this question in this series of interviews, which is how would you define growth? Okay. Why is it important? And then after we get to that, I like to go even deeper like what are some of the barriers in dental practice? But just stepping back for a moment, how do you define growth and why is it important?
01:32
That’s a great question. I would say one of the best definitions of growth, and I’m talking personal growth, since it precedes the professional growth, is breaking cycles. Maybe there are patterns in your life. Let’s say, for example, you have something you’re working on, I know for me, working on eating habits, working on fitness, working on anger issues, those type of things. Do you think…
01:59
Okay, I’ve got all my willpower here and I’ve dealt with that. And lo and behold, it comes up again and you make that choice again. So in order to break that cycle, I have to kind of step back and just go, okay, what I did last time, definition of insanity didn’t work. What choice can I make this time to make this go? And that takes a lot of personal growth to get to that point. It does. I was talking with the team today about this.
02:28
growth, even, even, quote, spiritual growth. I’m not talking about religious, but, but you know, when you hear spiritual, you get like, oh, warm and fuzzy, let’s just call it like that. But real spiritual practice or personal growth practice, it’s hard work. It’s not there. And then also, we look at business growth, we think about, oh, these great systems that are going to save me. But it’s actually facing the things that you don’t want to face as a leader. So
02:57
You know, you heard the quote, smooth seas never made a skilled sailor. You want to be great at a leadership. You have to face the difficulties. You want to be great at life. You have to be able to face the difficulties and you come in excited with the plan. And then that anger takes you over that frustration or that, or that fear. And that, like you said, I like what you’re saying is, is professional growth, right? Is preceded right beforehand by personal growth.
03:26
Right. And you can’t just cover it up with, I mean, yeah, we can provide you very tidy or like Eric, our president of coaching. And by the way, you are the mentor for Eric Vickery, our president of coaching. One, one of them. Well, and we also are VP of business development as well, Shelley. So one of many. And yeah, so so it’s like we said, he calls it coaching hacks. You can do them. Those are important. But you have to if you don’t address the underlying issue is what you’re saying.
03:56
the rest isn’t going to work very well. That’s right. I mean, you can implement new systems all day long. But if you don’t have the people who have the personal development to go in and implement those systems, you’re not going to get very far. And I think that’s a point of frustration in many practices. Yeah. And so tell me about the barrier. What would you say the biggest barrier to a growth of a dental practice is? I would say that’s one.
04:24
this personal growth issue, really. And it’s not just the team that we’re talking about, we’re talking also about the leaders, the doctors. If they’re not growing as well, John Maxwell, I’m a big John Maxwell fan, and Eric and Shelley have been through the training and so have I, and he talks about the law of the lid. So the doctors tend to feel like,
04:52
they want a level five team member. Let’s say we’re talking one to five, they want that level five team member up here. But the doctor’s commitment level and growth levels may be a three. Well, those team members are gonna hit that lid on the way up. And it’s gonna be hard for them to go past the doctor’s level of commitment and growth to get to that level five that the doctor really wants. I see this play out often. That makes a lot of sense. And I also see the converse, I’ll see.
05:22
a great team and I’ll go to the doctor and say, you did this. He or she will say, no, I did and it was my team. I know, well, that’s part of the reason why the dentist is doing well because of the humility, but I know that behind a great team is great doctor in the sense that they will attract that kind and they’re usually humble about it. There’s a reason that happens and you can’t, what does it do as I say, not as I do? That is not going to work. It will work for a short period of time.
05:52
manipulate or fool for a certain period of time, but eventually that will fail. I like how you mentioned Maxwell and I think also this idea of congruency. So at All-Star, so I’m the visionary CEO, whatever. I like actually the idea of visionary more in the sense that I come up with a lot of ideas. I’d say three out of, I said one out of 10 are good, but my team was nice about it. They said three out of 10 is actually good. So I’m batting pretty good there.
06:22
major league. But I was struggling with something. And so our integrator, Shelley, VP of Business Development, one of your mentees, I was like, you know, nervous about it because I’m looking at numbers. You know, because that’s my job. It’s all this. And she says, she said to me, you can be a firefighter. You can be a firefighter that puts out fires or a firefighter that makes fires worse. And I go.
06:51
Wow, that’s pretty cool. And she said, that’s the ex Maxwell. And so she told me to read it and I read it. She was very proud that I did it because I’m not bigger than and more important than anybody. I’m one piece of the puzzle. And I joke sometimes, I was talking with Eric today, sometimes people confuse Eric and I as the CEO for whatever reason. We have a beard, but he has hair and glasses. And even today he was joking, he goes,
07:17
So, so Eric, and he points to me and he, I mean, Alex, so even he’s confused of who’s what in the company, but the congruencies, what I’m showing here is that the leader of the entire business, me, okay, it’s not something that, and Maxwell talks about this in the book, it’s not, yes, at one level, it’s because I have that, you know, imbued authority or whatever he calls it, but it’s more when people respect you, you kind of.
07:45
They follow you because they respect you. They admire you, not because you have the title, because you are the doctor. It’s because of how you work. So one of my team members has wisdom. Why am I not gonna listen to that? And she was very proud and happy that, wow, the person that I support is willing to learn and grow. And so to your point, it’s very important that doctors listening, which are the leaders, and you are the visionary, you have the seat of the visionary, whether you like it or not.
08:14
And so it’s being part of that team. So you really, that’s, you know, and that’s also part of our human nature. We just wanna like, oh, can you just find me that secret solution? You know, people say, I wanna hire Shelley. I wanna hire Heather, you know, my wife, who does our phone skills and customer service to make all my problems go away, right? But it’s dreams. And sometimes you get lucky and you find a great person.
08:44
but are they gonna stay that long? So what you’re saying is, again, premise behind business, it’s you gotta have personal growth. And personal growth, now let me break it down a little longer with here. Personal growth, and you talked about the law of the lid, because you’re gonna go so far. So personal growth has to happen for both the doctor and the team. Explain me how, and how does that happen because you’re in like a dental business setting? How do you work on yourself?
09:13
with their because when you talk about personal growth, that’s getting vulnerable. That’s some heavy stuff. Oh, yeah. Vulnerability is vulnerability breeds trust. And if you’re not vulnerable as a leader, doctor, office manager, whatever your title is, then your team, if you if you present that you’ve got it all together all the time, you’re not approachable and they don’t want to be around you. They really don’t.
09:40
they’re not gonna be vulnerable with you if you’re not vulnerable with them. So I remember my doctor sharing some of his story and he started crying and we were all like, oh, cause he’s like a dominant analytical and this guy is sharing emotion. We were like, whoa, that was heavy. But it drew us closer to him because he was willing to share that.
10:06
You don’t have to be the tough guy and the tough woman all the time, you know, with your armor on. Just get real, just get real and share what you think and what you’re feeling, things like that. I wanna share an example of this personal growth stopping the growth of the practice. So let’s say a personal growth item would be procrastination.
10:31
How many analyticals do we have as dentists? How many analyticals like to procrastinate? And why do they like to procrastinate? Because they have a fear of making mistakes. So that fear of failure is holding them back, you know? And so they’ve got a dynamite team who’s ready to roll and they’re getting things done. They did what you asked them to do. They did the research on the project and it’s still sitting on the desk and it’s not happening. That personal growth of fear of failure.
11:01
Until we deal with that, that’s gonna be a barrier in the growth of the practice. Does that make sense? Oh, total sense. I mean, it’s, you know, I’m thinking of Brian Tracy. I had the pleasure of writing a book with him years ago, but he says your inner world reflects your outer world. Right, so, and then you can say your outer world is your, so I’m just speaking to the dentist here, is your inner, and it could be for anything, right? So even the team members, but.
11:29
It starts with the dentist because the dentist, whether we like it or not, the visionary, they believe they practice, they’re asking for leadership and what their processing and what they’re doing is gonna be a reflection. And I do recognize, because I was talking to the team today, we are a personal development company, if you will. And we have to also, we do that with each other as a team. And I realized for me as a leader, and it took a lot of work and I have many coaches and I still have coaches that work with me.
11:58
But I realized I have to get in touch with my feelings, my emotions. I have to be able to be vulnerable and grow for the betterment of the company too. And the team members, they rely. If I’m not willing to do that work, it all kind of… And so I’ve seen dentists, because we have a mastermind group, they’ll cry. And we cry together in situations. And it’s amazing how it… You get past all the crap, the titles, it doesn’t mean anything.
12:27
with human beings. And then also patients, it goes, and we get to the patients. Patients don’t care what your, they see DMD, DDS. You have the few that, who cares? My uncle is a doctor. I remember I was afraid in law, I went to law school and I was afraid, oh, am I gonna succeed or fail or what law school would I get into? He goes, Alex. He says, what’s gonna be after your name, JD? Yeah, you think anybody’s gonna care where you got it from?
12:55
They say, you know, he says, I’m an MD. They say doctor. They don’t care. Unless you’re a professor, nobody cares. So we have to throw all that away, the ego stuff, right? And it’s a human business. People are going, and so my dad’s a great cosmetic dentist, Panky trained, fellowship, you know, top producer for the Extreme Makeover Lab. And you know, when I was working, when Heather and I were working with his practice, like he was like, well, look at my work.
13:25
It’s the best. Nobody does this work and he’s right, but he’s like, why are the patients not accepting treatment? Well, part of it’s marketing, but part of it is team and part of it is what you do with the team. When he would control and he would get triggered, patients would feel that and move back. Yeah, oh yeah, they feel it. And so it’s the personal, it’s that work. And like, right, fear of the patient saying no, fear of them not gonna make money or whatever, fear of the economy.
13:53
All those things are going to just seep off you and people pick it up. We’re in a people business. 93% of our communication is nonverbal. So as much as we try to hide it, it comes out. It absolutely does. That’s why team harmony is so important. And that’s another personal growth opportunity when you have a lot of drama on the team. And I wanna do a flip side of that story I just told about the doctor, the prespinator. So the flip side of that is you’ve got a doctor who is growing.
14:23
and he can’t get the team to come with him. And again, that’s a leadership deal. And in this hiring market that we’ve had, people are afraid to let the turkey team members go because they don’t think they can find anyone to replace them. Well, when you don’t deal with your turkeys, your eagles will leave. Ooh, let me see that. Wow, Paula, you’re deep here. I gotta feel that.
14:53
Wow. Like a lot of stuff you’re saying is code here. I can see, I mean, there’s so much to unpack. Like, so if you get so stuck with the turkeys, you can’t find the eagles. It’s so true. Even, you know, I always say to people like, oh, you know, and I have a model for it. So, let me give you the model and then say even I struggle with it. So, my dad struggled, of course, with it. But it’s easy to be the big shot and say, oh, you have to do that. But I do say this is we have the five steps to an all-star practice.
15:23
The first step is your vision. And we don’t have to worry about what a vision is, but even just think, what is a vision? What do we see? What is the picture? Draw me a picture, tell me a picture, what we wanna be and do. And if that team member or Turkey in your scenario does not fit the vision, they gotta go. And it isn’t even, it’s not about you. Stop making it about you. When you make it about you, you’re gonna make mistakes.
15:50
If you make it about the ideal you’re standing, standing for, that you are the holder, temporary holder of this business and what you’re supporting in your team, then that’s a different story. Now I had a situation at All-Star where I had team members that they were good, but they weren’t what they could be. And then I met Shelly, one of your mentees, and I says, wow, this is somebody that I gotta make a change. Yeah. And,
16:20
It’s hard and my wife was freaked out as a result took her months to adjust because she does not like change. I’m always putting my fingers in and making problems stuff. That’s my job as a visionary. She don’t like that, but it worked out for the best. So, so that’s a great point you’re making. I also have to, I have to note, we do have a hiring service. Uh, yes, that dedicated to hiring team members and it’s phenomenal. So yes, it’s difficult out there.
16:47
Yes, it is. I will say that. So part of the equation is, part of the work of listening to Paula and learning is if you do it right, people will stay. Because if you understand that they’re human beings and they have purpose and you take care of them, you work on yourself, you, a doctor that works on themselves versus the other insane people out there, trust me, you’ll have the pick of the litter, they say, right? So…
17:15
And the hiring service helps because you can focus and it’s more, uh, we have a higher success rate than dentists do, uh, and it’s less stressful. So there’s ways to do it. So I like what you said is even with this situation, uh, you can still find good people and, and you will got to be able to keep good people too. You don’t want this revolving door. If you have a scarcity mentality, you won’t believe that you can find anyone.
17:45
So if you want to keep your eagles don’t sacrifice your vision develop personal growth and abundance mentality Abundance thinking this was huge for me as a single mom with five kids, you know to think abundance I’m like, are you kidding? I’m just surviving one day to time Well, I want to hear I want to hear about your story About your own personal story and I also want to hear about we were talking about this the self-worth issue
18:15
which I actually have a book coming out later this year. It’s actually in publishing. We’re searching for a publisher now, so it’s exciting. But it’s based on my uncle, my uncle the magician. So I have it’s mymagicuncle.com and people can get a copy of the first chapter. But it’s a story of I had a mentor that taught me, right? And he really, he talks about this idea of low self-worth a lot.
18:42
because ever since you were born, he says, you were put in a cage, if you will, your own room, your own bed. And everybody was saying, you can’t do it. There’s always somebody smarter, prettier, faster, more wealthy than you. It’s all this stuff put into you, all this programming being done. You can’t do this, you can’t do this, this is what’s going on. And so no wonder people are stuck with this low self-worth, right? But part of people like you, Paula, are here to de-hypnotize them from this
19:12
this thing, you don’t have to accept this. So the goal is to unravel the low self-worth, but tell me about low self-worth and how does it play out in a dental practice? Well, it’s huge actually, and it’s one of the biggest reasons we’re not closing more treatment. And so what I see playing out, the definition I use, which came from a great book called The Search for Significance, when I was in counseling, which, let’s see,
19:41
had five, six different counselors, I don’t know. And when I was going through a crash and burn in my life, and this book really, really helped me deal with that deep stuff that’s going on under there that you don’t realize is there. And the definition of self-worth that I was following was as long as people like me, I’m a 10 on my head, or as long as I’m performing well, I’ve got a 10 on my head. And those are both lies.
20:08
And so I see that play out in the dental office all the time. You know, if the patients are happy, we’re doing great. If the patient likes me as an admin person, then I’m okay. But if a patient gets upset with me about their bill, I’m dropping to a three for about two weeks. So there’s a lot of circumstances, the opinion of others and your performance that play into that number on your head. And the breakthrough is,
20:37
You know what? I’m a 10 no matter what’s going on. Yeah. That’s the breakthrough. So how does that play out in dentistry? I see a lot of approval addiction. I’m sure you’ve heard that term. It’s that fear of rejection playing out that we’re not gonna tell the… I hear this from doctors who are just joining a practice, maybe as an associate or right out of school. Well, you know, I’m not gonna…
21:05
Tell them much that’s going on in their mouth right now because I want to build trust. Okay, so I get that you want to build trust. Is that the way to do it? Because what if you tell them, I don’t see anything today, come back for your next checkup, and then they break two teeth before they come back. And they go, well, I was just there. They didn’t say anything. So is that building trust? I don’t think so. You’re doing that because you’re approval addicted. You don’t want to.
21:31
to give them a big treatment plan. Well, don’t give them a big treatment plan. Use the permission statement and say, is it okay if I share with you everything I see? It takes you off the hook. It’s true. So that’s one of the things I see playing out. I see, we think we’re doing them a favor when we finance them out in the practice. Well, what I found out is people don’t like you when they owe you money. That’s interesting. I’ve never, huh. That is very interesting. I’ve never.
22:00
I’ve never thought of it that way. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, some will need it, but again, we’re imposing, we have to be very careful because we project, this is a psychological term called projection, but we project what’s in our mind out there. So if we’re afraid, oh, I don’t, their money, and you know, Heather talks about in her program, don’t assume, because we once had at my father’s office.
22:29
the manager of a water cooler company, not a big position, who came in and wanted work. And my dad’s like, eh, he doesn’t have money. Heather’s like, don’t assume. He ended up doing a $40,000 case. So you don’t never assume, presume, or anticipate. My uncle taught me that, wise. And with your, and your, you know, your.
22:52
just touching the surface. We talk about this in our Mastery Total Case Acceptance program. We’ll be talking a bit about this at the summit as well. I mean, certainly your program will. Is in terms of getting the perspective right in your mind. And then you get those tools and tactics to be able to support that, if that makes sense. And that makes a really good, that makes a great point. Because.
23:20
When you know their disc we talk about that’s what we have some podcasts on that when you start to understand Take a moment breathe get your ego out of it and it’s interesting ego. We think ego It depends on how you define it. Sometimes you have a you know, a little self-confidence Okay, a little of that is okay, but ego sometimes can be very protective. I know already. Why do we say that? Yeah, because we don’t have cognitive dissonance We don’t want to then feel bad that we don’t know and then we’re no good enough
23:50
It’s all about this, I’m not good enough, all these things. And it’s interesting you say is you made a point that, and I kind of laughed inside because I do a lot of work on myself and you were saying that, oh, you don’t see it. Oh, I see it. I see these things coming. I’ve been working for decades on them. Doesn’t mean I win all the time, but I’ll often see or then after I’ll go, ooh, what was that all about? There’s that ego again. All right, we’ll work on that. But we don’t want to enter war.
24:20
We’re not bad. First of all, this is very important. We’re not bad for having a low self-worth. We’re not bad for having some of these things. Even being a little bit of an egomaniac, whatever your thing is, you’re not bad. It’s just starting to deprogram and understanding, does it serve you anymore, this behavior? Is there a better way? And this is what’s so cool about, I’m talking about, first of all, coaching is amazing, and also who you’re around. Like the events like the Practice Growth Summit, the idea was to have wonderful
24:49
bright people that are teaching. But I’ll tell you, I was talking to Dr. Paul Etchinson before, so Paul and Paula, and he made a great point. He was saying that, yes, the content’s amazing, fine. But just being around these people, there’s just that syniosis, there’s the ability, the wisdom. Just me spending time with you remotely, the wisdom I’m getting for the podcast listeners, what they’re hearing. Imagine being in front and people to talk and have a snack with the people that you resonate with.
25:18
Okay, so self-worth again, we can go on. And it was funny even before in the room when we were talking, you followed directions so well. We had another topic that we’re gonna do. I’m like, not today, we don’t have the time, but we will do another podcast with you. I can go unlimited, just with Paula. So tell me about your personal story. This is great, I don’t know about you. How did you become, I know what you are now. You’re very accomplished. And I know you’re humble about it, but I’ve seen what you do. I’m the beneficiary of your disciples.
25:47
but how did you become where you are today? I heard you worked in a dental office. I mean, I’m just getting bits and pieces, but tell me your personal story. Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s a long story. And as old as I am, the story is pretty long to tell it all, but I’ll give you a brief summary. And I’ve had five careers. This is my fifth one, and the one that’s lasted the longest, 30 years. So I have a degree in deaf education or professional musician. I used to have a plumbing supply business. And yeah.
26:17
and then working in dentistry. And I was in a crash and I had a bakery, the bakery for six years. And I was in a crash and burn from the bakery, actually walked out of the bakery one day and never went back, had about 12 employees. And it was a horrible time in my life, being supporting, trying to support seven people. So I didn’t know what I was gonna do after that. And my dentist,
26:45
kept asking me to come work for him and I kept saying, I don’t wanna do that. And he didn’t give up for like three, four months. So I finally gave in and started working in his practice and had absolutely no training, made tons of mistakes. I always tell team members this because I don’t want them to think I’m perfect. I learned a lot from all the mistakes I made. And then another office I went to, I had a wonderful leader who was a personal developer
27:15
I still stay in touch with him. He’s an amazing man. He really believed in personal growth and taught me so many things. But it was really hard coming out of that meltdown, breakdown to come into a dental practice, not really know anything about dentistry and have to learn from scratch. All I had going for me was a work ethic and an attitude, a great attitude. And.
27:41
I pushed those things into the good positive category, but you know, I had conflict with team members because of the low self-esteem. I was sensitive and emotional and the crybaby and ready to quit. And I’m so glad I didn’t walk out. I was ready to quit. And he talked me into staying. And I’m so glad that I did because I grew from that. So.
28:09
That’s my story. Now, just for clarity, you were a single mom with five kids and multiple businesses, walked out of the bakery, filed a dentistry. We’re dealing with some, you said you had some self-worth issues or you had some things there, but you said you had a good attitude. And I assume the same thing happened with Shelly and Eric in terms of your doctor exposed you, I assume, to some of this personal development stuff.
28:36
like Maxwell and boot camp and other things. That’s right. Which is kind of funny because as we’re listening, I’m just like, okay, so you know, I don’t know if you know, but my background is Tony Robbins, one of my backgrounds. So I mean, the short story is my dad’s a dentist. He wasn’t good at business. He always told me to not be a dentist. Got my law degree, my MBA, work for Tony Robbins, okay. Then we helped this business, did very well. The rest is history now, all-star. But with Tony, he would always say model the best, right? What are the best doing?
29:06
Um, and the, the thing that’s, that’s happening now is, is, you know, the dentists that are listening were like, okay, model what’s going on, model what you want. You, you named the issue here, which was hard to find the right team, self-worth issues for the leader and for the team, uh, cohesiveness, all these things that are happening in that personal development and all that precedes the business work. Well, what we see, what happened with Shelley.
29:36
I told that story when I interviewed her. I tell it multiple times. We saw, you’re another one that happens. And Erica, president of coaching, the doctor poured into the team. And because of that, the team members became amazing more than their capability. And it was a benefit for them personally. And of course for the business. I mean, imagine you have this opportunity, dentists, I mean, to take your team to a whole nother level.
30:03
And that was through coaching and through events and being around other people and seeing it was possible. Because once the light switch goes off and there’s a shift in people, it’s amazing. So one of my dental consulting, actually he’s a medical consulting friend, Uncle Jay, part of our family. But he always says like, why train people? Why have them go to these events? It’s not cheap. Listen, it’s not cheap. I mean, we offer financing stuff, but…
30:32
it’s not cheap to go to an event. And he’s like, why put all this in them? Why put coaching into them? And they’re gonna leave one day, right? Yeah. Well, he says, what if you- I hear that a lot. You hear that a lot. What if you don’t and they stay? Oh, yes. Okay. And we’re already having to pay people more and everything more. And are we getting the same back? Probably not. So I say, take a portion of that wages and put it into coaching, put it into taking them to an event.
31:01
to inspire them around these people and model what are others doing. And I know it’s hard, but it’s supposed to be hard. You don’t change if it’s hard. It’s interesting. My wife, she goes to dental practice. So my dad’s retired, but he kind of does some traveling work. So I go see one of our dentists.
31:26
with All-Star, but a friend, a very close friend, is in our mastermind. And I say, Heather, stop going to your practice that you’re going to because go to an All-Star member. Keep it in the family. What are you doing? And she goes, well, I love the hygienists, which of course, right, they love the hygienists. And so she goes in, she says, listen, doc, it’s been years, she says. You keep saying you’re going to do the program. You don’t do the program, right? And my husband keeps pushing me to go somewhere else. And the doctor said, you know what, Heather? She said,
31:55
it’s actually a good time because the reason we didn’t do your program is we were doing so well and we didn’t think we had to do anything. Now we’re not doing so well or we need help. Right? I mean, not doing bad, but now it’s starting to bother, you know? And so they go, let’s come to the event. Let’s go and do some training. So you and I are both about productivity. I still get coached myself. Everything that we’re talking about, we still do. We live it.
32:24
Because we know it works and some days you never want to be desperate But if you are now’s the time to change because you had a breakdown and you know, that’s one way to do it You also can be it’s one way and it’s the hard way, but we don’t want to break We don’t want to break down every time And that’s one way but wisdom is what are they doing? Let me do it. Let me model what they do. Okay
32:52
If I need a little bit of improvement, make the investment. If I’m doing great, make the investment, because then you may not. So these are the mindset. And then on top of that, yes, we have economic situations. But I always say that you have corporate dentistry. And I’m not against them. We do work. We do speaking for DSOs and so on. And many do it very well. But I’m saying to those who are listening, I come from my father’s a dentist, single practitioner.
33:21
right type thing. Well, he had a partner but smaller $2 million would have practiced 2.5. But the point is, is we like you and I, Paula, we like that the playing field is even. Everybody has a chance because corporate is going to come in there and just pluck off. Anybody who’s not making these investments and being proactive, you’re going to be plucked off because you’re not going to retain the team. They’re going to be pulled. You’re not going to be able to differentiate and you’re not growing and your patients are going to see that.
33:51
So the vision of All-Star has expanded over the last 10 plus years, but I think one of the newest visions that I have for All-Star is that we can provide through all the things that we do, the professional services to be able to provide that businesses can compete now with corporate. They can now have a say. It’s self-determination. Everybody can play and let the marketplace decide, which is I’m going to work with people that care and love what they do.
34:21
I’ll tell you this because we’re kind of getting to know each other too, Paula. I have a wish I have for dental offices and they love when I say this. I don’t know why, but I wish that all of you listening have a very boring practice. Yes, very boring. You come to work, you love what you do, your team loves what they’re doing, your patients come and refer, they’re happy, you’re making great money and you have free time. No drama. And of course you’re doing the work.
34:49
Of course you’re coaching, you’re doing the work, but the reason it’s easy and it’s boring is you do the work. No drama. That’s right. Aiming higher. It’s really, you know, a lot of teams are afraid when you bring in someone like us to the practice like, oh no, they’re going to make us wrong. They’re going to change everything. They’re going to fire somebody. And I’m like, you know what? We’re not here because something’s wrong. We’re here because we want to aim higher. You’re doing a lot of things right.
35:19
let’s go to the next level. And you know, I like the level concept because we have a lot of younger generation people in the dental office now, and they grew up on video games and they’re always looking for the next level. So one of the things that I really think helps with the growth is developing levels for the positions, like four levels for assistants, three levels for hygienists, four levels for admin, and let people move up, let them feel like they’re moving up.
35:47
and create parameters for what those levels are. And they see, they actually visually quantify their growth experience in your practice. And I think that’s a powerful way to help the team members see that they are growing. So Paula, I have two last questions for you, and you can probably put them all together. There, one is, what are listeners going to learn if they come to your…
36:14
And by the way, just as we’re speaking, and depends on when this launches, this podcast when it drops, but as of this drop, which is probably a few weeks before it drops, we’re already like a third sold out and we just started promoting, which is exciting. So by the time you’re listening to this, it’s probably 50% or more. So then Early Bird kind of rolls off. So definitely go to alls You can learn more about the speakers on there. You can read about Paula, her bio as well.
36:44
you know, look to sign up for the program as well as any of the intensives you want to add. So tell me, what are listeners going to learn? They’ve come to the event, I want to see Paula Harris. Wow, this is amazing. She’s just like me, you know, I have been, you know, team members and doctors, and you can speak to all of them. They want to come see you. What are they going to learn? And why should dentists and team members come? Oh, that’s a great question. I think I’m going to answer your second question first. Okay.
37:12
The reason that they should both come is because, let me use the word picture, if you’ve watched a movie and it’s a two-hour movie and this is going to be, you know, longer than two hours and you are trying to share with your friend about that movie, can you really relate what happened? Can you really get into the emotion and the pull that it had on you and the inspiration that you felt? It’s really difficult to share that.
37:43
So I see this happen all the time where a doctor will go to a meeting and come back to the team and start rolling out all the stuff they want to do and the team’s like rolling their eyes, oh, you want to do another seminar, you know. And so why not have them there with you so that you can mastermind and build on the ideas together? Because one of the biggest factors in leadership is using your team.
38:12
to help you mastermind and come up with ideas that the single leadership style as opposed to the team leadership style is old school. It doesn’t work anymore. The team wants to be a part. They want to contribute. So I think that’s the answer to your second question. What we’re gonna cover, what we’re gonna talk about is what we just described today as the biggest barrier of lack of personal growth. We’re actually gonna talk about five strategies
38:42
how to transform, how to break through. And these are some of the strategies that have worked for me in my personal life. So I can tell you they’ve worked, they do work. If you’re committed. And you’re humble because you’ve worked with hundreds of clients personally coaching over the years, many, many, many, and gave many, many, many lectures. So this is stuff you’ve been doing for quite a while. And you’ve seen the effectiveness of it with respect to that.
39:12
Um, and like I mentioned before, I mean, I know a lot of people are fans of Eric Vickery and Shelley and, and, you know, well, especially those two, but you’re the, the mentor behind all that. It’s kind of cool. Cause I hear you talking. I’m like, Hey, they said that I know where they came from. Uh, well, it takes a village. There’s a lot of people that poured into me. Of course. But that’s, that’s the product. That’s what’s amazing is, is we want more. We want to create more Paul is out there. And.
39:40
That’s amazing for practices that have a Paula, right? Your doctor had to beg you to come. And so doctors already have Paulas there. That’s the thing, you have Paulas and Shelleys and Erics in your practice that we haven’t unleashed their potential completely until we expose and they go, wow, they’re like me. And now you have them hooked. And now you have, and I’m telling y’all.
40:05
This is something that you can do year after year. That’s what we’re trying to, again, this whole idea of boring, I’m trying to make it easy because I like it easy is you follow this every year, the same model, different content, different things you need to know, but you know that, you know, because you see what our vision is looking to do in the line with it. So I hope that you can come. I also say this is we have, I’m gonna put two links in the podcast area. One is All Star Dental.
40:34
Alls where you can sign up for the program and read more about it. You can go to Alls learn more about hiring or any of those other things that we do. I’m also gonna put a link to, we have an ebook. So if you can’t make it because of the dates or you like to just have more information, we have an ebook that I’ll put the link, which has highlights of all the speakers and some of the really, some wisdom that they have. It’s a short ebook, but a nice…
41:03
a nice bonus to kind of go through. So I hope you guys can come if you can’t because whatever, or it’s sold out, that’s fine. I have the ebook. We do them every year. The topics will always change. But we just want to spread the love out there for dentistry. We know we can’t be everywhere. But certainly with digital stuff, we can. So that’s there for you. Check the notes, podcast notes, the YouTube notes. Speaking of which, follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube. Get episodes as they’re released.
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and share with your friends. Thank you, Paula, again, for being on the program. You’re welcome. Thank you. You’re welcome. And until next time, go out there and be an All-Star. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Dental All-Stars. Visit us online at allstardentalacademy.com
