Choosing Not to Participate in the Recession Kirk Behrendt ACT Speaker & Coach

You can’t open a newspaper or turn on a television without hearing something about the dangerous state of the economic climate in this country.  We hear words like: Bail Out, Crash, Housing Crisis and Recession all of the time.  These words have the toxic ability to penetrate our psyche and permeate our casual conversation.  In essence, we can (and often do) choose to eat this feed straight from the media.

Faced with this critical stimulus for the brain, we are now called to pick one of two directions. The direction you choose can either make you happy or make you miserable and scared.  This month we look at the 3 things you can do to beat the recession by “choosing not to participate” in it.

Every week I talk to dentists all over the country.  In those conversations, I find myself observing two sides of a fence.  On one side of the fence, there are practices that are starving for momentum.  Their schedules are spotty.  Cancellations are high.  Confidence is low.  They actually believe that patients can’t afford dentistry right now.  On the other side of the fence, I observe dentists that are thriving.  They are possibility focused.  Their production and collection numbers are stronger than ever.  Their confidence is stable. Their outlook is strong.  They are fired up to go to work.  They see dentistry as an awesome profession. 

Obsessive curiosity always takes over when speaking to the latter group.  My first instinct is to absorb some piece of wisdom from the successful and pass it on to the struggling as a beacon of light.  So as a result, my question to the latter group is always, “Tell me. What’s the key?”

This month’s words of wisdom come from a fabulous restorative and cosmetic dentist we coach in Omaha, Nebraska.  His production and collection numbers always continue to grow.  When I asked him what the key was, he brilliantly stated:

“I Choose Not to Participate in the Recession”

What great advice!

Each one of us tells ourselves a story.  That story plays in the theatre of our minds. No matter how valid that story is it truly becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.  So, we have to be careful of the story that plays in this theatre.

The truth is that you are not going to be able to control the economy.  It will fluctuate beyond your ability to fully understand it (or influence it) throughout your career. The one thing that you CAN control is what you choose to believe and how it translates into the experience of coming to your dental office.  Believing that you don’t have influence on your thinking is lethal. 

Here are 3 different ways you can choose not to participate:

1.  Choose not to participate in the recession with YOUR THINKING

I’m not asking you to stick your head in the sand and completely ignore what is going on in the world.  The challenges of the economy are changing the financial DNA of the world everyday.  What I am asking you to do is to take the proper precaution to protect your fertile mind.  If you believe the economy is dramatically affecting your practice, I can promise you….it is. 

Prepare your head and your heart every day before you open the doors of your practice.  Remind yourself that your mission hasn’t changed a bit.  You are there to serve patients in the very best way you can.  The biggest producers we coach will tell you that the economy hasn’t affected their practice.  This is their belief, which ultimately manifests itself into reality.

2.  Choose not to participate in the recession WITH PATIENTS

Patients are going to bring the economy up to you when they are in the chair.  They just will.  It’s too easy of a subject to talk about.  When they do, understand that you have two choices at this point.  First, you can engage in the conversation (or sympathize with them) in a downward spiral until you both agree that the world is a tough place to live and that everyone will soon be broke.  Now you both feel lousy.  What’s even worse is that going here with a patient brings the chances of helping them with any significant dentistry to almost zero.

Second, you can listen (or empathize with them) and opt out of the spiral by changing directions and focusing back on their health or their dental desires. I’ve watched several dentists say, “Well, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before” and quickly choose out of the spiral by saying, “So, how are YOU doing?”

3.  Choosing not to participate in the recession with MY TEAM

Your team has a dramatic effect on patients’ confidence.  Your team’s belief systems are greatly influenced by your leadership.  In practices that are lacking the momentum, we hear team members point to “the economy” as the reason for the lack of new patients or the holes in the schedule. This is their belief, which ultimately manifests itself in reality.

As the dentist, this is probably going to be your most important leadership task in the months to follow.  My best guess is that things aren’t going to bounce back anytime soon.  That is just reality.  The truth is that a prolonged state of this kind of fear resonating within you or your team will ultimately become toxic to your vision (and your production).

Reinvest in your leadership skills to help your team see that the economy cannot inhibit your thinking or your conversations.  Thriving practices understand that the economy exists outside of the walls of their practice, and that within the walls of the practice there is a job to do…..to serve patients in the very best way possible.

So make this bumpy ride a little easier on you by choosing not to participate in the recession.

My best to you and your family,

Kirk Behrendt
Speaker & Coach
ACT Dental Practice Coaching
800.851.8186
www.actdental.com
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