Announcer:
Welcome to the Double Your Production podcast with the Team Training Institute, the one place designed for dentists and their staff who want to grow their practices by following in the footsteps of those that have done it, who are in the trenches, who know exactly what you are going through. Now, your leaders, the stars of the podcast, Dr. John Meis and Wendy Briggs.
Dr. John Meis:
Hey, everybody, welcome to this episode of The Double Your Production podcast. I'm Dr. John Meis here with my partner Wendy Briggs. Hey, Wendy, how you doing?
Wendy Briggs:
I'm great, thanks Dr. John.
Dr. John Meis:
Fantastic. We are so lucky to have a good friend with us today, Carrie Marshall. Carrie and Wendy and I have known each other for, gosh, more than a decade for sure, maybe two decades. She comes from a dental family and she is a master coach. So, welcome, Carrie.
Carrie Marshall:
Thank you, guys. I'm so excited to be here with you.
Dr. John Meis:
Well, we're excited to have you and so excited that you are going to be one of the speakers at our annual Champions of Dentistry Summit. And so, what Wendy and I do is help people with professional goals and help them with professional strategies. What Carrie does, she's a coach as well, but what she does is more on the personal level, and so really helping people understand their goals of their personal life and how that intersects with their professional life. So we're so excited to have you.
Carrie Marshall:
Well, I'm so excited to be here, and I really know from my own childhood that when we can create personal success, it really does carry over into your professional success as well. And so growing up in a dental industry, I know that when we were creating goals and achieving those goals in our family, our dental business actually did do better. And so I'm really excited to be here with both of you.
Dr. John Meis:
Well, you were a big part-
Wendy Briggs:
We're so excited-
Dr. John Meis:
... of making that happen. Go ahead, Wendy.
Wendy Briggs:
... I was just going to say we're excited to have you lecturing at our summit too for us. I know you've really grown, yourself, and like Dr. John said we've known each other for a long time and now I actually get to count you as one of my neighbors, which is super fun.
Carrie Marshall:
Yes.
Wendy Briggs:
And so, some people might be thinking okay, well dental family, now she's a master coach. Maybe give our listeners just a little bit of... maybe just in a few sentences, it doesn't have to be a huge monologue, but kind of how you ended up to where you are today and what you really love about what you're doing now.
Carrie Marshall:
Well, I actually ended up first in the dental office. I was my dad's lead office assistant, and so I helped them go from a two-chair practice to a 10-chair practice. That was a really, really fun growth time in our family. But what I realized was how much stress and anxiety both of my parents were in during that entire time. My brothers were coming into the practice, they were really, really wanting to create something amazing. But I watched my dad stay up at night just really concerned about how am I going to create a business that's going to help sustain our family with the boys coming in? How am I going to take care of all of our office managers and our employees? And I watched the stress and anxiety build up in him to the point that it started to have an impact in his personal life.
And for me, I really am always been a caretaker. I've always wanted to take care of everybody else. And so I saw that mental health was just as important as physical health and other things, and it was such a passion for me to really work on self-improvement always. And so I thought... and I started to see when we would go to all these conferences, other dental professionals suffering with their mental health. And so, I really decided to go and get some training, some certification, and become a master certified coach so that I really could help other dental professionals really understand how they need to take care of their mental health in order to achieve the biggest dreams they could.
Dr. John Meis:
Yeah, so, we dental people are a curious breed.
Wendy Briggs:
Absolutely.
Dr. John Meis:
And it's funny, because dentistry's such an isolating profession, everybody who's having maybe some struggles in their life, they think they're the only one. But when you're like Wendy and I and you were exposed to hundreds if not thousands of dentists, we see that there's kind of some patterns. There's some things that come up over and over again, aren't there?
Carrie Marshall:
Absolutely. And like you said, it's such an isolating career that very few times do we actually get to open up and be honest and vulnerable about those things.
Dr. John Meis:
Yeah. So, dentists often will be struggling but want to act like they're not, for instance. That's a very, very common thing in dentistry that they put on a brave face. No one really understands. They can't talk to other dentists necessarily... or, certainly not the dentists in their own area, and they can't talk to their team because the team doesn't understand, their husband or wife-
Carrie Marshall:
Well, and-
Dr. John Meis:
... doesn't understand.
Carrie Marshall:
... yeah, and they're really looked at as providers for a lot of different communities and people. And so, I think that that's another thing that happens is that they see that being a provider they can't be seen as weak or struggling or failing.
Dr. John Meis:
Right, yeah.
Wendy Briggs:
I would also say too, Carrie, one of the things that we see is high rates of burnout. We often hear about high rates of suicide amongst dentists, but also in their teams. And so, there's a lot of drama and chaos and bickering that happens behind the scenes in the dental team. And team harmony can also be a driver of effectiveness and success professionally and personally with people.
And sometimes I feel like maybe we don't do a very good job in our profession, in our education. We often say that dentists are... they graduate and they're excellent clinicians, but there's a lot of things that have to do with being a business owner and a practice owner that they're really woefully unprepared for in school. And I would say teams as well. A lot of hygienists do experience burnout and they're not happy in their role, and sadly they switch to another practice only to find that they're not happy there either. And-
Carrie Marshall:
Absolutely.
Wendy Briggs:
... that burnout... with their circumstances more to do with coping mechanisms and other things that I'm sure you can speak to better than I can.
Carrie Marshall:
Well, and it really does come down to mindset and how are we actually taking care of our mental health as we become professionals? I think that we all kind of get to that point of when I grow up, I want to be... And then we actually fill that role. I want to be a dental hygienist, I want to be a successful dentist, but then we don't talk about the actual obstacles and things and trials that come up and then how to be resilient through those while taking care of our mental health.
And so, that is absolutely what we see though across the board with all dental professionals. The hygienists, the office manager, the team leaders, that's what we're seeing. And that has been a huge thing the past two years. We all as a collective dental industry really came together to serve the community through COVID, but on this other end of it, what we're seeing is a lot of burnout and a lot of people trying to decide if this is what they want to be doing.
And what I want to offer for everybody is the dental industry is better than ever. And what we're seeing is we're actually seeing dental industry, dental professionals invest in this other side of dentistry, not just the clinician side, but what we all are experts at of getting the coaches in their offices to help strategize and create tools for success in all areas of their life so that they are essentially creating happy, successful teams, not just thriving dental practices. And that's what I love to see.
Dr. John Meis:
Yeah, so Wendy and I have a set of analytics that we use to evaluate practices, and it's all very cut and dried and very... We've got the numbers, we've got the benchmarks. We can identify from a distance much of the things that are happening in a practice, but we don't really have an emotional health scorecard. And my wife's a mental health professional, she's a counselor. And so, when people are thinking about how they're doing, what their happiness is, do you have a measure or a scale? Or, how do you evaluate that or help people self-evaluate really is probably most helpful? How do you go about doing that?
Carrie Marshall:
Well, the first thing that I like to do is I like to say, what are the top three emotions that you're feeling? And for people that are dental professionals, what I like to say is, what are the top three feelings that you're feeling at work versus your home life?
And so, the first thing to notice is if you're feeling a lot of overwhelm or apathy and things like that at work, then that means that we really want to do that check of, is this really how I want to spend most of my day at work in this overwhelm and apathy emotions? So the first thing is to say, what are the top three emotions that I feel at work?
Now for a lot of people, they're going to say, "I don't know." I hear a lot of dentists say that of, "What, emotion? I go to work and I drill on teeth." So if that's the case, then we even have to come back a little further and say, "How do I start to see and feel what my emotions are?" But if we can just start with that very... It is my analytical baseline. What are the top three emotions that you feel during the day? Because then it can open up to a new conversation and we can start to build those analytical emotions on our mental health on that type of top three that we're feeling.
Dr. John Meis:
Yeah, I love that. And somebody who's seasoned in dentistry, been doing it for a long time, I can totally see them saying, "Oh, I don't know how I feel. I just go to work and-
Carrie Marshall:
Absolutely.
Dr. John Meis:
... I'm just plugging away."
Carrie Marshall:
And that's where we go and we talk about the next thing, which is, what is your vision and mission of why you do what you do? And once again, oftentimes we say, "I want to be a dentist when I grow up," end of story. And we don't actually work towards a mission and vision and values for our life. And so, that's the next thing that we want to build on is really thinking for ourselves what's the vision of this practice? Am I working to play? Am I working to serve the community? So that then we can really start to once again align and say, "Am I out of alignment or do I not even have a vision?" And maybe once again, that's where I need to start.
Dr. John Meis:
Yeah, yeah. So frequently we'll visit with the practice and we'll say, "Okay, what's your goal? What's your vision? Where are you headed?" And it's as if you're... The looks on their faces, it's like they're looking into the surface of the sun. They just have no idea how to answer the question because they've never really thought about it.
And I think one of the places where we see people burn out often is the place where they are out of vision.
Carrie Marshall:
Yes.
Dr. John Meis:
Whatever their vision is, they don't have anything more, and they often will see if there's growth in my practice, it creates more pain and more stress for me. So they get caught in that place where they don't even want to think about a vision because they think if they have a bigger vision, that'll somehow be worse for them, if you know what I mean.
Carrie Marshall:
Well, and they think you just mentioned it, that vision then equals more work and more energy and more effort. And what I want to kind of offer is that that's actually the exact opposite. When we can get more detailed about the vision that we're trying to create, then we can start to create systems that then allow us to then... If that's what your vision is, is maybe a little bit more time freedom, then we can actually put systems into place, which is where Dr. John and Wendy come in, amazing help of let's create systems now around the practice so that then we can really create them in alignment with your vision.
Dr. John Meis:
Yeah, so-
Wendy Briggs:
Yeah, I love that, Carrie, and...
Dr. John Meis:
Go ahead.
Wendy Briggs:
Yeah, I was just going to say a lot of our members that we work with on a regular basis have put a lot of effort and time into creating the vision, what are their core values? But I think we always stumble as human beings of living those values every day and knowing how to actually translate what's happening in the trenches with what we want to be happening in the trenches. And that can be a sticking point too. Which is one reason I'm super excited about your topic for our summit. Now, many of our listeners know that our theme is unlocking the magic in your practice. And we probably should have said, unlocking the magic in your practice and your life, because then that's the part you take care of.
Carrie Marshall:
Yeah, absolutely.
Wendy Briggs:
But I also think your subject really is about solving problems. So, I was kind of joking with Dr. John giving the whole magical theme. What if we could give them a magic wand and simplify any problem in their practice? You're going to give them the magic wand and five steps on how to solve that, ultimately leading to their living their dream life on purpose. So, give our listeners just a little hint of what's coming.
Carrie Marshall:
Well, I'm so excited to be here because like you said, the theme just fits in so well of what we're doing. But really we try and over over-complicate systems all the time. And so, when we're talking about overcoming and really stepping into our dream and our passion, one of the main things that I say is you have to want what you want.
So often what we do is we have this want and desire for our life, but we keep it hidden from ourselves even, because we think that maybe wanting it is just silly. But what I want to kind of show everybody as we do this together is that really understanding wanting what you want is critical in then going after it and overcoming obstacles.
So for instance, my husband and I both really imagined that we wanted this H1 Hummer. Now for anybody that's not car people, you won't really get it, but it is this tank. It is a '93 army-sized Hummer. But it was so interesting because I had been telling myself that it was impractical. I was telling myself that it was a mom car, that maybe that was a dream car for when I was 12 and 13, but when I really decided to want it, because it was a desire that I'd had since I was a kid, it was fascinating to watch hurdles and obstacles and things just become not even an obstacle at all. And Curtis and I, my husband, went from wanting it to having it in three months.
And that is one of the critical keys that we're going to talk about is wanting what you want and then not trying to say, "Well, it's silly," or, "How are we going to do that?" It's just so much fun to watch people unlock the magic of wanting their own desires and then really sometimes discovering those. Because as adults, sometimes we stop wanting and desiring things for so many different reasons. So, that's one of the things that we're going to talk about, the key areas that we're going to kind of really dive into.
Dr. John Meis:
Yeah, that's awesome. We so naturally judge our wants. So I have a want, but I shouldn't have that want. It's selfish to have that want. Or we throw obstacles out in front of our wants that maybe there may not be there. They may not even be real, but we just do that. So, I love that topic. That's going to be fantastic.
Carrie Marshall:
Yeah, I'm really excited. It's going to be so much fun because like I said, I had this huge passion for the dental industry. Like you said, Dr. John, we are a breed of our own. But the one thing that I will mention is that I love dentists in particular because they are a creative profession. Dental hygienist, dentist, there is this creativity that is so untapped that we just don't talk about because they're so used to being called drillers and fillers and not creatives. And so, that's one of the things that we're really going to tap into as we're together, is we're going to really talk about unlocking that creativity and taking ownership that this is a creative profession and we're made up of really creative people that have dreams and desires that sometimes we just don't talk about.
Dr. John Meis:
That is so cool. I am so excited to hear you speak. So, do you have one really quick hit, little piece of wisdom that you can share with us?
Carrie Marshall:
Yeah. The one thing that I want to share with everybody is allow yourself to be an entirely emotional human being. So often, we're cutting ourselves off from emotion because we think that being angry or being upset or being overwhelmed is going to mean something about us. But what I want to offer is that we're all emotional human beings, and it's learning how to process, really validate our own experiences and understand that anger or frustration is not us, it's a short, emotional experience that we're having. And that if we as dental professionals can really learn how to untap those emotions and understand that those are okay, we can be entirely feeling and have an amazing human experience. And so, I just want to kind of offer, make sure that you understand that you are not your emotions, that your emotions are just that short, little expansive thing that's happening in your body, and that doesn't create you.
Wendy Briggs:
Yeah, I love that too, Carrie. I was just going to say-
Dr. John Meis:
Go ahead, Wendy.
Wendy Briggs:
... Sorry. Dr. John and I are both so excited about the topic, but what I can say is I think it's really timely information. And every year when we're trying to choose speakers, we often think, okay, what can really resonate with the entire audience? Some speakers are naturally more for the dentist and some speakers are naturally more for the team. And one thing that I think I'm excited about what you bring to the table is it's going to be something that's going to help everyone, regardless of where they sit in the bus. And I think our teams are going to be super excited to hear about you too, because I have no doubt that they also experience those emotions. Sometimes negative, right? Irritation, frustration-
Carrie Marshall:
Absolutely, absolutely.
Wendy Briggs:
... overwhelm. All of those things are translated to the team too. So, these tools will be really, I think, impactful for all who hear the message, which is exciting for me. Go ahead, Dr. John, didn't mean to cut you off.
Dr. John Meis:
Yeah, no, that was great, Wendy. I was just going to say, dentists and their teams are on front stage almost the entire working day. So, they are playing a character and whatever their natural feelings are, they kind of got to stuff those in order to play the character of a caring, kind professional, even though they may not... They are that, but they don't feel that 100% of the time. And so, that leads to a lot of disconnect between how you're acting and how you're feeling. And that doesn't leave when you lock the office at the end of the day, that same disconnect can continue.
So, I'm so excited that you're going to be sharing with us some tools on how to reconnect with our wants and reconnect with our emotions and just become more effective as what we do, as leaders in our communities, leaders of our families and leaders in the office. So, very much looking forward to your presentation, Carrie. Thanks so much for being on with us today.
Carrie Marshall:
Oh, well, thank you for having me, and I can't wait to meet all of you in April.
Dr. John Meis:
Yeah, sounds great.
Wendy Briggs:
Sounds awesome.
Dr. John Meis:
Well, that's it for another episode of The Double Your Production Podcast. We'll see you on the next episode. Thanks for being with us.
Wendy Briggs:
Thanks everybody. Bye-Bye.
Carrie Marshall:
Bye.
Wendy Briggs:
Yay.
Carrie Marshall:
Awesome.
Dr. John Meis:
Yay.
