Success is all about getting.  Significance is about giving back.  Don’t get me wrong, success is good, profit is good.  At some point, at some profit, at some place where we have gotten enough success, our focus is free to change towards significance.

 

As a non profit educational center, The Pankey Institute supplies neither goods nor services as a business would.  It does not seek to exert control or provide an orderly societal framework over a population as governments are designed to do.  Instead, it’s desired “product” is an enlightened human being better able to serve the needs of their fellow human beings.  Not for profit institutions are human change agents.  The Pankey “products” are critical thinking dentists aspiring to make an impact on their society and cured patients.

 

Money, status and power may feed our primal and Maslow’s hierarchical needs, but the opportunity to change lives is a powerful form of significance. Ethical and Comprehensive, Relationship Based dental care models help us as true dental professionals to yield significance from our work.  It is this inculcation of human change agency, first for us, then for our staffs and ultimately for our patients that gives our practices and our lives a higher purpose.  Achievement and the making and spending of money are pleasant to be sure, but the relationships of life are what we will remember long after the transient pleasures of the material wealth are gone.  I am not saying money is bad, rather that it alone cannot buy happiness (although it can help you enjoy your misery in some mighty fine places).

 

Balancing our lives within and outside of dentistry is an important part of being free to develop these relationships.  When I first came to Key Biscayne in search of becoming a better dentist, I sought achievement in the form of a great reputation among my peers.  I sought to make more money by being able to treat more comprehensive cases successfully and with confidence.  I met both of those objectives.  But my significance development began to unfold as the faculty challenged not just my clinical skills, but the elusive traits of balance in my life, Work, Love, Worship and Play.  It was when I put a broader view to the measures of success that the significance of relationships began to bubble up to the surface; relationships with my staff and my patients, but more importantly with my wife, kids, friends and family.  Hobbies that I enjoyed drifted back into this balance and whatever greater force of nature or being that draws you to worship became more important. These relationships were the significance that brought fulfillment to the practice of my profession of dentistry.  These relationships made dentistry a part of my life and not simply a living and materially affected other aspects of my life.

 

Today at 24 and 21, my kids still articulate the Aristotelian concept of this balanced life and happiness through Work, Love, Worship and Play. They did not study at The Pankey Institute under Dr.’s Pankey, Becker, Ratcliff or Chris Sager (although they have had the distinct pleasure of meeting most of them).  They were inculcated with these same values through their relationships.  Their significance, like yours or mine, will be the product of our relationships much more than our successes.  We could say “ethical and comprehensive, relationship based” about most anything and it would be appropriate.  Relationships will ultimately matter most, not achievements and wealth.

 

When the planes hit the twin towers, what became crystal clear immediately was the importance of relationships.  We asked ourselves, where are our family?  Where are our friends?  Can I be with the people who matter most in my life?  It was a quantum “penny for your thoughts” moment.  I think that no one asked or thought about their wealth or achievements at that moment.  They likely thought first and foremost about that which really mattered, the people with whom they had meaningful relationships.  So if two roads should diverge in your dental journey that is so much a part of your life, take the one less traveled, the one which is significant.  It will make all the difference.  Stand up and project your voice as an advocate for ethical and comprehensive relationship based care. Share your journey and enlightenment. Achieve success in your business first so that you can relish the move to significance as a human change agent. And be thankful some non profit institutions are holding true to the principles which enabled our learning and growth.