The Dental Marketer From Provider to Healer: Embracing Empathy in Your Career | Dr. Alan Stern | MME
Are you a provider or a healer? In this warm and insightful episode, Dr. Alan Stern shows us the transformative power of leading with love and empathy, seamlessly balancing professional duties with genuine human connection. Dr. Stern shares actionable advice on nurturing compassion in the most trying situations, offering vivid examples of handling conflicts empathetically, whether with team members or patients. He imparts deep wisdom on how these principles not only foster better professional relationships but also personal growth.
Throughout our conversation, Dr. Stern also shines a light on the importance of self-compassion and the value of learning from our mistakes. He passionately advocates for reframing how we view our roles—from merely providers and professionals to empowered, evolving healers. By the end of the episode, Dr. Stern extends a heartfelt invitation to listeners to continue this pivotal discussion, emphasizing that both empathy and professional growth can flourish in tandem.
What You'll Learn in This Episode:
- How to lead with love and empathy in challenging office environments.
- Ways to maintain your humanity in an increasingly digitized world.
- Effective techniques for resolving conflicts with team members or patients empathetically.
- The vital importance of self-compassion for personal and professional growth.
- The powerful shift from seeing yourself as a "provider" to a healer.
- Real-world examples of balancing compassion with professional challenges.
Boost your journey with empathy and stay attuned to our core humanity by listening to this episode today!
Sponsors:
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You can reach out to Dr. Alan Stern here:
Website: https://betterricherstronger.com/
Email: alan@betterricherstronger.com
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/betterricherstronger
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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)
Michael: Hey, Alan, so talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning?
Alan: Michael, thank you. The one thing I would like people to think about in a digitizing, commoditizing, depersonalizing and often dehumanizing environment we live in. we got to remember to approach our work with love in our hearts because when we have love of humanity.
And love of humanity is not the same as the love of our spouse, love of our children, love of our parents, siblings, et cetera. But if we love the people and extend love out to our teams, to our patients, to the UPS guy, to the mailman, to anybody, life gets a whole lot better. We forget sometimes when we're trying to do that perfect crown prep or when the endo just isn't right.
Or if, oh my heavens, a crown falls off, we go into offense, defense, right? If we approach people a little bit differently and just be in there to love them to listen to them and to treat them as human beings who are scared or anxious, all of a sudden, we become healers. We're no longer providers. I hate that word, Michael.
Providers, we are practitioners of a profession. And we know that and it emanates from the pores of our skin. Life gets better. But it's got to start, Michael, with yourself. You have to look in the mirror each morning and see something really good, a well trained, well intended human being who's not perfect and never will be, but gets out there and gives with everything they've got from their hearts, from their minds, and from our well trained hands.
Love in their heart is the magic ingredient, Michael.
Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So then if you can give me descriptors of what this four letter word love, looks like specifically. Yeah. a scenario of a. Practice owner with their team. And then in the scenario with their patient,
Alan: Beautiful. All right.
So a team member screws up. Why wasn't that scanner set up right on that table? Alice, the assistant, what the bleep is going on with you? That's how not to do it. That's a tug of war, that's a power struggle. That's the owner dominating and saying, Bam, I'm in charge here, you better listen. Because you and I both know that doesn't work.
That's one of the reasons for massive turnover in dentistry today. How about this? Hey Alice no big deal. the scanner wasn't set up quite right. And we had to spend a little more time. Alright, we got through it. Tell me what's going on. How can I help you? So that everything is exactly the way we need it to be or as close as possible Tell me what's going on and alice might say oh man doc, I got a lousy night's sleep My baby was up all night or heaven forbid, you know, I got into it with my spouse That's cool alice.
And by the way If you need five minutes to air it out, I'll listen to you. I'll sit down with you at the end of office hours. And if you need an outlet, I'll be there for you because I'm there for you, just as you are there for me. We need each other and we support each other. Align with the problem. Don't talk back and forth, Mike.
Align Alice, the assistant with the problem that she had, get to the why and help her figure it out
With a patient. Dr. Arias, That tooth didn't hurt until you started drilling on it until you did I had no problem at all doc and you can say I work to the standard of care and if you hadn't been so negligent and stupid if You had invested in a simple toothbrush.
This wouldn't have happened
Mm we could send that passive aggressive message in many different forms I'm being a little cute But how about this? Hey, Michael McNasty, I understand. Oh my goodness, your tooth hurts. Did it keep you up at night? Yeah, it did, Doc. Oh my goodness, nothing worse.
we gotta get you out of this. Let's get you back to the operatory. Let's sit you down. We'll take an x ray. We'll take a look at what's going on priority one right now. Let's get you out of trouble. You good with that, Mr. McNasty? Yeah, alright. So now you have empathized with him, instead of confronting him and just saying, dope, don't you know you get inflammation when you drill on a tooth?
you let it go so deep that your tooth blew up. Not my problem, but instead it still isn't your problem, but you are doctoring him. You are helping him heal Both emotionally and of course dentally and you may go on to explain to him the reality that 94 percent of the time When you drill on a tooth nothing happens, but just like in surgery when you cut somebody open There's inflammation around that surgical site and you could gently explain to him that this is how it goes with a tooth but first and foremost Align yourself with that patient, empathize with the problem because the patient is hurting.
The patient is angry from being up all night, who wouldn't be? And also the patient in the back of their minds is thinking, this is going to cost me more money. And they're thinking falsely. This wouldn't happen if Dr. Arias had not talked me into doing that cavity.
Michael: I like that a lot. So I guess. Whenever these scenarios come up, it's easy to have that motivation to say these things when we're having a wonderful day, right? It's, a beautiful day. I woke up great. Everything's going good. And you're like, you know what?
Not everything's bad. Flip side, we're having a horrible day, horrible week, right? Somebody just quit, we've been patient with someone, another team member, they didn't care, spouse, family, I don't know, all these things, and then this patient comes in like this, and now we're at our wit's end, how do we know then, Alan, whether we're replying in a fantastic, loving way, or we think we're replying in a loving way, but then we blanket it where it's I'm just giving you the facts.
Alan: Sit down for this one. Because you're gonna blow it every now and then. You all have bad days. And, leading with love means loving yourself first and you have to forgive yourself. Michael, that happened to me. Shortly before I sold my practice and retired, the denture bag lady came in and you know what I'm talking about.
and I really thought that I had the answer for her. And I was patient. She also was mentally ill. And I knew that going in, she was referred by a friend of mine, a dental colleague, and I was having a bad day and I snapped and I said, nothing more I can do. I'm giving you your money back.
Please find somebody else. literally at the end of the day, I was very upset with myself I wasn't my best self that day, but we do have a filter. We do have an executive brain that if we are careful and we can recognize, wait a minute, what good is going to happen when this verbiage comes out of my mouth.
If we just keep our filters on but we have to be forgiving enough with ourselves And compassionate as compassionate with ourselves as we need to be with our patients and with our families. Sometimes you're going to blow it. You're not perfect get over it, but forgive yourself learn from it and move on can't undo that.
Michael: Yeah, so you can't be dwelling in it. So it sounds like alan a good indicator You Whenever you start feeling like this like you're about to blow a gasket or something or anything like that. Two things, right? What good is going to happen when I say this, but before that, what you said, ask ourselves, what would love look like in this situation?
Yes. And then go with that.
Alan: Very good. Exactly. And sometimes your best friend is time. So when you're feeling that, with me, it's in my upper thorax and in my throat, I feel that stop, say nothing, pause. It's okay to take a moment to reflect on what was said and even use my three magic words. Tell me more. And that will allow the upset assistant or maybe the assistant who's demanding this, that, or the other, and you can't give it to them. Tell me more. And let 'em drain their limbic system. Let 'em get it all out. Get to the bottom of the issue as you process and ponder, what can I do here that will result in something good?
Michael: How do you not dwell on this? Let's just say you did do that. All that happened, they walked all over you. They felt like, okay, he listened. Thank you, Alan. But then in your mind, you're like, Oh, I could have said this. I could have said that. And then you start playing the scenarios in your head.
Alan: Although it's already
Michael: passed.
Alan: So instead of saying, I blew it, say, what did I learn from this? What can I do better next time something like this happens? you can't turn the clock back. Look, we could turn the clock back, you and I would be in different positions maybe than we're in now, but you can't.
So every mistake you make. I read this from Adam Grant, there's no such thing as win lose. There's such a thing as win learn. So if we can learn from things we can do better and get that phrase, I blew it out of your head and say, all right, it's done. It didn't turn out good.
And yeah, I'm going to feel lousy about it for a period of time. I accept that and I'll let it pass, but what did I learn from it? And then the other thing to heal yourself. is go to your Google reviews, please. Because an overwhelming majority of people have great things to say about you. And look at that and see yourself the way most others see you.
As something really good. if one person thinks you're lousy, and 999 other Google reviewers or people you know think you're wonderful, who do you think is right? And if you're questioning your own self worth or self efficacy, and you see 999 Google reviews that say, Dr.
Arias is the best thing to come to dentistry or come into my life, who are you going to believe? 999 or two.
Michael: Yeah. The 999. Any final pieces of advice that you can give to our listeners about this?
Alan: Yeah. I would like you to understand that doctor is not provider. Get that word out of your vocab.
You're a doctor. You didn't go to provider school. You went four years and how many thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars to become something special. You were a healer. You're a professional. You do the right thing. And you're a practitioner. That means you're practicing. That means you'll be better tomorrow.
And you are today and just keep growing, have a growth mindset and don't let anybody convince you that you're anything other than something very special who does sacred work in the world.
Michael: I love it. Alan, I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find them on dental marketer society, Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?
Alan: Reach out direct to me, Alan, A L A N, that better? Richer stronger. com My facebook group is better richer stronger find me any way you can I will speak to you I will give you a half hour of virtual coffee whenever you'd like
Michael: Nice, so that's going to be in the show notes below and definitely reach out to alan and alan Thank you so much for being with me on this monday morning episode.
Alan: My absolute pleasure michael