Ep #177: Building a Thriving Dental Practice with Julia Riese

In this episode Julie is joined by Julia Riese, founder of Bright and Bold Consulting and author of Beyond Dentistry, Mastering the Four Pillars to Succeed with Your Dental Practice. 

Julia spent ten years in the dental industry, including growing with a company that scaled from a handful of practices to twenty locations, and she shares what she learned along the way about building a genuinely successful practice, from getting your team on board early, to having a real plan behind your marketing rather than just being active on social media for the sake of it. 

They also chat about Julia's new course, Levara AI, which helps practice managers and owners build their own customised AI systems, and wrap up with some great advice on mindset and how to move through overwhelm by focusing on the one thing that matters most.

Find out more: https://brightandboldconsulting.com.au/
Levara AI course: https://brightandboldconsulting.com.au/levara-ai-course
Beyond Dentistry on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com.au/Beyond-Dentistry-Mastering-Pillars-Practice/dp/1764285506

Interested in taking your personal, team, and dental practice to the next level? Contact Julie and Ameena today to explore the possibilities for growth and success!

Visit our website, Dental Business Mastery, at https://dentalbusinessmastery.com.au/, and book a complimentary, obligation-free Discovery Call to discuss your specific needs and goals. Schedule your call here: https://tidycal.com/3l298p1/30-minute-meeting

If you have any questions or would like more information, feel free to contact us via email at info@dentalbusinessmastery.com.au.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You are listening to the Dental Business Mastery Podcast, where we discuss insights and strategies for your successful dental practice. There are also interviews with key people in the industry who have advice and services to help you and your team achieve great success. Welcome to this episode of the Dental Business Mastery Podcast. And today I'm your host, Julie Parker, and I'm joined by somebody who I've become aware of over the last few weeks and wildly impressed by her. And I'm so delighted she agreed to come on the podcast and share her story and how she's helping the dental profession. Welcome, Julia Reese. Hi Julie, thank you for having me. It's a real thrill for me to have you here. As I just mentioned to you before, I started finding out about you. There was, I think you're doing some AI presenting at various ADA or other such organizations events, but I also caught you on the latest episode of the podcast by Chris Sparrow and Ashley Latter as well. And because of that episode, I raced out and I bought your Beyond Dentistry book as well and read it cover to cover in just a few days. It's such a tremendous book. So congratulations, first of all, on such a great feat. It's not one of those weekend thin little books, it's a big quality book.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Yes, um, I was planning on just writing 50,000 words, but it turned into, I think, almost 80,000 words because there's just a lot to say about dental practices.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Yeah, there and there's a lot that you need to know in order to run a successful dental practice, which is why quite often it's pretty overwhelming for a lot of people when they start that journey. But just so everyone knows who you are and your journey within the dental profession, talk to us about where you're from, what your work experience has been, and what's led you to this space.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Yes, so I do have a business and marketing background and um started working in the dental industry at coastal dental care um about 10 years ago, and then have been in dental ever since. Started um growing the network that um Frank Page has filled around himself from yeah, only a handful of practices to a network of 20 dental business entities. Amazing. And that um, yeah, there was a lot of learnings along the way. Um we've got a lot of things right, but we also trialed a lot of things that we didn't get right from the start. And um, when I talk to dental practice owners, I guess a lot of the feedback that I got is like, oh, look, I'm a great clinician, like I had a patient following, so I went out on my own because I did hit my billings like every week consistently, and I wanted to build something on my own. And then they often realize, oh, there's a lot more to running a practice than just being a great clinician. And at uni and even in CPG courses, you don't really get the tools to run the business side of things. So I was like, well, let's write a book about the best practices and um give people something to work with that they can step-by-step implement into their own practice to make it a rewarding business that you actually want to keep long term.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

And I tell you what, that's what this book is. It is a step-by-step process, and within it, you've got exercises that you leave people with at the end of each chapter, or a lot of the chapters as well. So people can use this as a bit of a Bible when they're opening up their own practice. But you know, as a consultant, I go into dental practices all the time, and I'm reading through, I'm like, oh my god, that's gold, that's gold. And so even if you've owned a practice for a period of time, I suggest people go out and buy this book because it's got such a useful range of information around all the different aspects that really are important to building a strong dental business.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

And your four pillars totally agree with them. Yes, so um, team, marketing, planning, and analysis, which is your financial side of things, and then your systems and processes. Because one point I guess that is incredibly important is ideally you want your practice to run no matter whether you're there or not, and no matter whether your practice manager is there or not. So even like for people that have been running the practice for a long time, sometimes it's good to go back and actually look at your systems and processes and if you have them set up, or if like you had your practice manager walking out tomorrow, if the knowledge was all in their head and leaves the business.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

So and it's interesting you say that. I mean, over the last few months, I reckon I have come across maybe six different dental practices where either the practice manager or the owner has for whatever reason had to stop work in an instant. And it's sometimes due to illness, sometimes due to f family circumstance, but it does happen. And I do remember reading in your book that you did say you gotta it, you know, it's only a really good business. If it runs actually without you, it can't be solely dependent on you.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Yes, and if you think long-term as well, like if someone was ever going to buy your business and you have that key person risk and it's just you and the practice manager knowing how to do everything, then the business is worthless. So setting yourself up with those processes and systems early on, or even later on while you're still in the business, even if you're not planning to sell, is a great pathway to when you eventually want to pass the business on to someone else that you you can and you actually get more money for it.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Yeah, absolutely. And the value in just the general day-to-day operation as well, all of a sudden, when you're onboarding people, they've got systems to run by. Everyone knows what their role is, everyone knows what they're doing, everyone knows how to onboard somebody so they can then have the environment for success set up for them and be really super performance effective as well. And with all of your discussions as well in marketing, that is such a messy, not messy, complicated, overwhelming, so many facets to the marketing of a dental practice now. And I loved how you were saying you explained all the different avenues for marketing that you've got, but then you said, you know, create your own way, create your own recipe, like you know, recognize how much you're going to spend in what areas and actually have a plan around that rather than just trying to, you know, plug pieces into this one budget.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yes, a lot of I guess dental practices are like, oh, we need to be on social media, and they open all these different social media pages and then they post like not at all, very sporadically, and you know, sometimes then like better off. Like, do you really need that? Do you need the extra? Do you need the YouTube account? Like, just think about like where's your time best best invested and where's your money best invested?

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Yeah, and I guess it's I'm just thinking with you talking about that then, it's like having additional team members to your team. You're not going to just randomly bring people onto your team if you they if you haven't thought about what function are they going to fill within your business. And so think of that too, uh, because YouTube and the different types of social media and email um marketing, all these different things, they have a different audience, a different language to them, and they're trying to achieve a different thing, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yes, and if you don't know what you want to achieve, like who are you doing it for, um, who are you targeting, then it gets really hard to actually see like, do I am I getting an outcome here? And you're just investing, like you're spread spreading yourself very thinly, investing a little bit of here and there, and without an overall outcome.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

And we've got such a changing world now as well. I want to touch on AI and how it's impacting the kind of work that you can be doing with that you're doing with your clients as well. But you've you've had 10 years experience within Dental after years of experience in marketing and other aspects as well, and you have got your consulting company, Bright and Bold Consulting. Tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Yeah, so really born from the need of dental practice owners needing some advice with like how to structure it, and even after reading the book, some reached out and said, Hey, I probably need someone that holds me accountable and that guides me through establishing everything that I need to establish. And sometimes it's as easy as like I want to open my own practice and I haven't done this before. Can we go through like what's the most important, what's urgent, like what is the big thing that I need to do this week, and working with them to get to a point where they have that thought pattern and they know, okay, this is this is the one thing, this is what I'm focusing on this week, and then yeah, dialing in.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Nice. And just like with kind of at the other end of your career, when you talk about this in your book as well, at the other end of your career, when you're looking at selling the business, you really should be planning for the sale of your business up to you know three to five years prior to you selling to prepare it so it's ready. Same too is true for the start of owning your dental practice. You'd really need to start months prior to make sure that not just that you find the right location and that you can open your doors, but when you do open your doors, are there going to be patients there? So, kind of recruitment and marketing, website software kind of all needs to happen prior to that open day. So, when you start, when when how early do you suggest you start working with clients on that journey?

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Yeah, so three months prior is probably the like the latest you want to start because you want to start thinking about these little bits and pieces. And I guess it depends. Like if you've owned a practice before and you have quite a like a map already of what you want to do, then three months is probably fine. If you have no idea where to start and you want to go through the whole process, then yeah, you'd start even earlier.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

That's it, and I think we it's something that we come to realize, I think, further on down the journey, of how important our vision is and how important our values are. I think at the start, I remember when I had my practice, I was reading books about vision and values and all the things, and I'm like, oh my god, like I don't even know what to put my hook in there. I just I just need to open my doors up and and and you know, get to start seeing these patients. And as you go further on down the path and you start to see what makes team members truly understand and get on board with the practice and its pathway to success, and what kind of disengages team members and what affects the patient journey when team members are involved? That's where you start to become really aware of, gosh, if I'd known at the start how important it was that I got team members on board that were excited by my vision, that already lived and appreciated the values that I want to have involved in the practice, how much better would their journey have been? But that's I suppose this is what a journey is about, isn't it? It's about growing and learning and stumbling along the way. And as you said with your dental practice that you've had history with the past 10 years with, some of it's born out of making mistakes.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yes, I guess what you might not think about is because it's intuitively when you're a dentist, like, oh, how am I gonna book my patients? Like, how what's gonna be like all these little processes that are very clear in your head, but then when you start actually like opening the books and starting seeing patients, you're like, oh yeah no, I haven't actually told my team like this is what we're doing, and using the time even before you open the doors to be really clear about like this is my patient journey, this is what happens in at every single touch point, and this is how we're gonna communicate, this is how the books are gonna work, this is how our follow-up process is gonna work, and being really clear about then having that ready because then you can use the week prior to opening to train your team so that everyone is hitting the ground running, and it's not like, oh, we haven't thought about this, and what about this, and what about this? So, yeah, there's a lot involved.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Just at the time when you're trying to impress your patients and you're stumbling.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah, and everyone gets a different experience then too, right? Because you haven't really defined with the team of how you want to deal with all of these things.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Yeah. It's such a wonderful opportunity if people did bring their team members on prior to opening day to get that kind of team training happening. And you know, if you're um I'm I'm sure you are too, the value of, especially with a startup from scratch, but the value of getting team members who've already had experience in dental in their roles at other practices, because they have got all of their level of experience and ideas that they've gained from other places, they bring it into your place as well. But you're absolutely right. Having everybody hit the ground running, that first patient comes through the door, we know exactly what's expected of each of us, we know what that patient journey looks like, and to be able to deliver that in a seamless way, that's when it's so important to be impressing your new patients coming through. But also, even if you have taken over an existing entity and the existing patients that are already used to knowing, loving, and trusting the previous owner, and now they're being asked to transfer that trust over to you guys, how would it feel when that is a stumbling process and not and not everyone knows exactly what they're supposed to be doing, as opposed to ah, that was seamless. These guys are just onto it, just like the the previous owner was. And so that transfer of trust is so much more easy.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Yeah, when I talked to um owners in the past that have taken over like an existing practice, most of them said, Look, what I regret most is that I didn't actually spend any time in the practice before taking over. And to see how the like old that does the old owner operate it, and just to get uh a feeling of like their processes, their systems, so that the continuity of care is a given and that the process doesn't like change from one day to the other completely. And I guess that is a good piece of advice for anyone who buys into a practice to even spend like a week prior to take over, just in the practice observing, even if it's not working, but like observing and seeing what the processes are, to then incorporate that into like a slow transition.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

And it's helpful for the existing team members too, because a lot of people, if they've been working at the same place for a long time, they may find the prospect of a new owner coming on board as a bit, you know, strange and anxiety-ridden, and what does this mean for my future and all the things? And I hope they're nice to work with, but it gives that chance for them to get to know you as well. And so there, with all authenticity, they are saying to their patients, Oh, you're gonna love Julia, she's fantastic. You know, I've been working with her for a few weeks now, she's really delightful, and so it makes it from an existing dental practice perspective as well, so important to just get in there early.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yes, and get their ideas, like they might even see flaws in the existing system right now that they share with you, and you're like, Well, awesome, this is something that we can pick up on, you can be part of it, and we change it. And that might be things that the previous owner didn't want to introduce, didn't want to change, and um, that way you actually take the team on board and make them part of that new ownership journey, and they can really help promote you too.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Yeah, and I think yo, um I'm reflecting over with your previous work how it's been grew from a small number of practices up to 20, do you say? Like that's just such a headache. It's such an enormous amount of work, it's unbelievable. But I imagine that one of the ways that um that that can work and and a bit more seamlessly is all these lessons that you've got listed in your book, but you try to have all of the approaches to marketing, patient journey, recruitment similar. Like once you find a working recipe, keep using it.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Yeah, so that was one one key that we really worked on with our practice managers that we have the same like process like processes everywhere. And like still every practice is slightly different. The dentists have different preferences, different appointment lengths, and and so on, and that is fine. But in terms of what we deliver with a patient to like touch points with the patients before the appointment, after the appointment, how we book, how we talk to patients, that that was a like yeah, high standard of care that we delivered there, and really working with our practice managers to improve that, and they had great input, and it was amazing to see and hear from them so that we could take little bits and pieces from different practices that worked really well, and then find our like best approach and then standardize that across the board.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Beautiful, beautiful. It makes a lot of sense, and when you are dealing with so many different because was it an acquiring of existing dental practices or establishing new dental practices that got up to that 20?

SPEAKER_00 17:46

It was a mix, so uh a bit of both, and um yeah, so therefore, with the ones that we started from scratch, obviously a lot easier because there were sometimes existing team members that went across then to the new practice, so they were already well trained, but um, for the ones that we acquired, obviously it was like teaching them our systems, getting them onboarded onto all our different IT technology, all our different software that we use, and teaching them how to use that. So that was a learning curve for everyone. Um, but yeah, usually it took us like six like three to six months, and then um yeah, that all went really well and was really key to have yeah, a good practice manager on the ground that supported it.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

It's huge, isn't it? I mean, traditionally that's what's made dental, one of the very key aspects that make a dental practice successful is either the owner or one of the owners is on site most of the time. And if the owner can't be, then a really switched-on practice manager. And you can get varying degrees of experience and training of practice managers, but someone who's really well versed in building great relationships and green, getting great team performance out of people rather than being, you know, a hard taskmaster, but be supportive and create that environment for sex for success, but also maintaining that patient journey that everyone's agreed upon that this is the way we like to treat our patients and maintaining that uh and having it as one of the top values of the practice under normal circumstances, that would be very difficult to do if it's one kind of owner or series of owners over so many different uh locations. So the practice manager would be key.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yes, and we were really fortunate with our model that we do have co-owners on the ground. So that that the practice manager usually had had the clinical support from a co-owner. So um, in terms like when it came to clinical questions, that there was someone that you can run things past and double check, and um the co-owners obviously are also very helpful and great at mentoring like new new grads and dentists that come on board.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

It makes sense to me with the co-ownership. Um, you know, there are so many now, there just seems to be so many multiple practice ownership models out there and and entities out there. More it seems like every time I search, there's another name that I'm not even aware of that have come into the field, and all of a sudden they're buying up practices as well. But having the the somebody who works in that practice as a co-owner, it makes perfect sense. And you from your perspective, it is working well.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Yes, definitely. If there is someone on the ground that is interested in the performance of the business and actually knows like what's going on behind the scenes, that is a different type of investment that you have than if they are all contractors, and most like most um dentists these days are are contractors, so then you have someone that really wants to see like the improvements and supports other dentists and takes care of the clinical side of the business.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Yeah, yeah, and they really hold true to those values, and yeah, so it makes it makes sense to me that that would work well. You must be uh you know, loving the AI space. I know if if you know you're diving into it, I'm diving into it enormously, and it's just yeah, I know there's a negative side of it, I'm kind of ignoring that at the moment because I'm loving the things that it's helping me be you know capable of achieving now. And you have brought in AI as an effective tool for the way you work with dental practices.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yes, so we have just launched um Australia's first AI course for practice managers and practice owners called Levara AI, and we are basically looking there um to build their own AI system for practices individually in terms of a six month course where the practice manager actively every fortnight we have a one and a half Our session where we build um the next AI tool for them, and they over the six months basically built their whole whole own AI system.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Magnificent. And what kind of benefits does that deliver to the dental practice?

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Yes, I guess one thing that was super important was when I talked to practice managers and owners, was like we've been to a lot of practice management courses or ownership courses, and like a lot of the things didn't really apply to our practice because we do things differently, or it was very generic, and there was nothing really that we could use on like the next day. And with Levara, we really wanted to create a course that is completely customized for that practice. So with them, a lot of practices dabbling in AI and using it to, for example, write emails or write social media posts. Um, a lot of it sounds like it's written by AI, and I guess setting it up in the first place and working with us to get it right so that it sounds like your practice, and then having the multiple layers and getting it, for example, to write your job ads and position descriptions for you, including the onboarding checklist and completely customized for your practice, and then starting to track on you off all your one-on-ones, because a lot of the times it's really hard as a practice manager to stay on top of what did they say like they last month that they would gonna improve on, and getting a couple of coaching questions too, because a lot of the time the practice manager has been in the dental space for a long time, gone from dental assistant to maybe receptionist to then practice manager, but hasn't received any management training and how to manage a large team, and all of a sudden you have to do that. So that is what a module that we build that can help with that, and then um your standard operating procedures, so actually documenting the knowledge out of people's heads, getting that into a system and having a little AI chatbot that the team can ask when the practice manager is not there, how do we do that refund again? It's like, oh and super easy so that that process can happen on the day without them having to ring the practice manager on the day off. So, yeah, a lot of little bits and pieces that um AI can help with without um going into sharing any patient information or sharing anything that is um confidential. Um, so yeah, that's a great tool to get the practices like automated, but also freeing up the practice managers and owners' time so that they can actually focus on their team and the patients.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

I agree with you. I think if anyone's shy about using AI, get over the shyness because this is what I've certainly found in my work as a consultant, but also with uh clients as well, who you know, we're encouraging them all to use AI as much as they can, is that all the time that they usually, as a practice manager, you'd spend a lot of time. You think about just the recruitment onboarding process, you think of all the time spent in uh really thinking hard about that ad, how do I make it engaging, all the things you could spend easily an hour in just drafting that ad to make it appear good and read well, and then processing all the resumes, having all the telephone interviews, then the in-person interviews, keeping track of everything. And nowadays, I mean I just went through a recruitment process with one of our clients, and it is astounding how you do forget faces to names to who did what and who's available when and all the things. So you document like crazy all the way through, and all the way through to onboarding, all those documents-you know, the welcome letter or the letter of offer and the welcome letter, the award, the policies that they need to be aware of, their their agreement and all the specifics around that, there are so many things that need to be involved in that process. And the practice manager during a recruitment process can spend hours and hours on this stuff because that's been the way it has to be. But with AI, with your kind of AI process, when you've actually got this customized AI for your practice, all that's going to be sitting there already. So you just say, Oh, we're on we know we've employed Julia, she's gonna be the you know, a new receptionist and generate all of that information for me under Julia's details, and all of a sudden the whole process takes an hour. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Yeah, and even like you don't even have to give it the name, like you just have the placeholder, and all you have to do is add the name, but you say, like, we hire a new receptionist, she's gonna be full-timer. Um, yep, it's my like I want these keep KPIs that I've put in last time, review them. Oh yeah, still the same, and then there you have your template, and all you have to do is really add add the name and um the start date, and you're you're good to go. And then with your onboarding checklist, you have the same thing. Oh, she's a receptionist, so generate me the onboarding checklist that we usually do for the receptionists. Put the dates on there. This is her start date, it puts the dates on there when things are due, and without you having to go and manually update everything. So wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

It saves a lot of time, it's extraordinary, and it saves a lot of time, and so this is where I don't believe it's dumbing us down. I think it's actually increasing uh input and therefore output because the time that you would normally spend doing all the things, writing all the standard operating procedures, drafting all the emails, doing all the things that we need to do, we never used to have time for anything else, and so nothing else kind of came into our sphere as a responsibility. But now we've got this opportunity that AI gets this stuff done for us. So now we do have headspace, we do have time to devote to higher level thinking. And so, how you know, let me re have that time to reflect back how's the patient journey going? Is everyone doing it? Could we be improving? Let me do a bit of research, what other practices are doing to make sure that we're keeping up with the times and keeping up with patient demand. Let's actually let's go ahead and do a patient survey. And all of these thoughts happen when you we're not crammed full of trying to remember all the minutiae. So stepping out of that, all of a sudden we're doing things and thinking in ways that we never had time to before.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

Yes, and sometimes AI prompts you to think about things differently too. Like I set up example processes for an example practice and about patient bookings, and then in um in the whole process, it interviewed me and it got to a stage where it's like, so um, what about taking deposits? Do you want to take deposits? And I was like, Oh, do I want to take deposits? I was like, so like that's things that you might not even think about that you should incorporate or could incorporate into your process that AI will prompt you um to do, and it's like a brainstorming tool as well. If you're not 100% sure what good practice would look like, you can get it to interview you and say, This is the outcome, you can say this is the outcome we want to achieve, but now let's figure out the steps how of how we can get there. And AI is great at that.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Terrific at that. And I can really see how the chat can work beautifully well because you don't actually have to have any formal structure to your thinking at all. You can just say, This team member came to me with a problem, I don't know how to manage it. Can you ask me a few questions about it so you can help me? And it will ask you some pretty intelligent questions. Uh, and with and with those answers and a bit of back and forth, back and forth, all of a sudden, it's you know, as it as you're talking with it, it's sparking your own brain into those spaces. And so you're like, Oh, I've got an idea, what about this? And because AI is so polite, it says things like, Yeah, that's a great idea.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Yes, well, we also give it instructions not to be so polite and to drop back. But you can um you can customize that.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

So that's terrific. So if people are interested in in the Lavara AI, I imagine that's all available. I do know that because I've got I've been on your website, um, at Brightand Bold Consulting. Is it dot com? Dot AU.au brightandboldconsulting.com.au um and the um link to the book, I'll put both of those links into your into the show notes for this episode as well. Such an enormously helpful space that you're moving into with making sure that AI is part of what you do. It is certainly something that with all of my existing apps that I use, I'm like, hopefully that they're all jumping on with AI because you just know it's going to be a bigger and better product. So I think you're doing a magnificent thing to make sure you're incorporating that into with what the work that you're doing with dental practices. With your experience and history of dental practice owners and um the high-level practice managers, from a mindset perspective, I'm intrigued as to what your thoughts are simply because from listening to your interview with Ashley Latter and Chris Barrow, you have got mental fabulous mindset. So, can you tell us a bit about your training that you do, your daily routine? Because it is above and beyond what most people would ever experience.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Yes, look, um, when you get to a stage where you're really busy, it's super important to make time for the things that give you clarity and give you that bit of a break. So um I do get up very early every morning um at like 3:30 a.m. and um am at the gym by 4 a.m. and then train for like about two, two and a half hours and then um yeah, work and um like um meditation has become a big part of um my my days too. So just even if it's just 10-15 minutes, for you to just focus on your breathing and completely switching off is really really helpful when you deal with with people and problems all day to just feel grounded again and then be ready for the next day.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Magnificent.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

I'm not quite sure if everyone's capable of that kind of dedication, and you don't have to, but exercise, eating well, and like making some time to just disconnect has a massive impact on the clarity in your performance when you are at work. So to make time for that is giving you time back.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

For sure, for sure. And my husband's a you know, he's been doing trithlons for like 35 years and all the rest of it, and he does say and his highest value is um health, and so he, you know, he might have the most important project that he's working on work-wise, but he will still make sure that he goes out and exercises every single day for a couple of hours. But your your dedication of getting up early, so early in the morning, and then spending so much time when you've obviously had so much other things, so many other things to do as well, is so admirable, and it really does. It's I think it's good for people like me to think about well, what would it take for me to take to have that level of dedication? And it is about you know placing health, clarity of mindset, clarity of purpose. It it takes having that as a very high priority because and having a very high care factor on that, because that's what you know, that's what parents do with children all the time. All of a sudden they have all the time in the world for these children, whereas in the past they think, you know, who who's got time for all of that? But once once the child's here, they've got such high care for that that they just do whatever's required. And I think that's the headspace that people are challenged with sometimes when they are going down that path of practice ownership when they haven't been a business owner before. Especially if they're starting from scratch, even if they're not, there's so much to do. And if you're starting from scratch, for example, you've got to, you know, find the location and get the fit out people and get the accountants and the lawyers and the brokers and the this and the that and go through all of the journey before you even think about, you know, when do I need a consultant and start marketing and all the things? And so it's a very big project. They're probably already working full-time at the moment, they're facing a prospect of having to reduce down or quit hours at their current location and taking that huge risk and having faith in themselves that I'm gonna try to make this work. And so they are facing a time in their life that they will quite possibly become overwhelmed, doubt themselves. When you, for example, started writing this book, you were already busy, you were already getting up at 3:30 in the morning and doing two and a half hours worth of exercise. What thoughts or what sense of purpose did you have that made that journey one that you didn't resist? That you said, Yeah, I'm gonna, yes, I'm busy. I'm taking this on as well, though.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Setting a fixed time frame for it really helped and breaking it down into a daily goal. So I had the goal of writing 1,666 words a day, and um just stuck to that. And I had a daily word counter where I like it was a website in a yeah in the US where it's like write a book in a month and you put in your daily word count, and that really held me accountable because I was like, Oh, I don't want to fall behind, I'd rather write a little bit extra today in case that I don't have as much time tomorrow, and then on the weekends that was easy to when once you get into a flow to just write a bit more, and um yeah, it ended up being a lot more than 50,000 words that way.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

That's it, and I think with your history of being so committed to your fitness, you had already trained yourself as well of deadlines work for me, and it the the the goal at the end is worth me having these microcommitte commitments every day. And so if you were had a consulting client that was really struggling with the overwhelm side of it and or the self-doubt side of it, what would your advice be to them?

SPEAKER_00 36:24

I think take a step back and have a look at what would be the one big thing and just do that one thing for the week. What is gonna make the biggest impact? What is gonna make everything else irrelevant or different? And that's what you start with.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

That's great because quite often people say, Well, I'll just do this little thing because that'll be shorter and easier.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Yes. But it may not get you any closer to your No, and then very quickly you end up ticking off a lot of little easy tasks in your in in a time where your brain probably has a high level of energy and level two thinking, and you just keep busy with like easy, easy things to tick off the list. And lists are great, don't get me wrong, but if you have a list with 20 points, look at it and see, okay, what's gonna have the biggest impact on my business? Circle that, and that's the one that you start with. And once you've done that, you can look at the list again and then choose the next big one. But that keeps you focused and that actually then gets you somewhere fast.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

That's terrific, a terrific piece of advice, and it reminds me of Tim Ferris once said in one of his podcasts or books or something, uh, that you know, this is when you get to the point of you know you've owned the business and you're managing the business and it's not reliant on you, you want it to get to a point where it's not reliant on you. That pretend you, you know, first start, look at all the things that you do every day or every week. Now pretend that the only time you've got to devote to that position is two hours and a whole week. Now, what are you doing? And it really helps you think what are those needle-turning, pointy bits within the business that I'm actually responsible for. And so to be very aware of that is always an important thing, isn't it? Because we always need to overwhelm comes from thinking that we need to get all the things done. We never need to get all the things done, we just need to get the urgent and important things done.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Yes, and see what else you can like if there is the easy tick box tasks, can you delegate them so that it's not all on your list?

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Yeah, that's it. That's it. So if there are people out there that they would love to employ you, get your assistance on their journey, what's their best next step and describe that journey a bit for me?

SPEAKER_00 38:53

Yes, so we do offer a free intro session with our team, and um you can request that by jumping on the onto the website, bright and boardconsulting.com.au. We'll ask you a couple of questions around your practice, and um, yeah, then you can book a time. It's 30 minutes, it's a conversation that we have to see if um your practice is a good fit for us, if um we think we can help you, and then we take it from there.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

Beautiful, beautiful. And as I say, this book is such a winner, and um, for people who are looking on YouTube, I'm holding it up. So Beyond Dentistry, Mastering the Four Pillars to Succeed with Your Dental Practice. I think you know, congratulations again. It's just extraordinary to for such a quality book to be churned out so quickly is masterful but easy for you, someone like you. And I'd love to stay connected with you over the coming months, and if you know, when things change or evolve or whatever with your work and the way that you're working with clients, because I as I sure I'm sure that they will, because AI is just racing off at a million miles a minute, and the way we can help people is going to evolve and change. So please feel free to come back on the podcast and let everyone know about anything that you can offer them to make their dental practice more successful, that'd be super. That sounds great. Thank you, Julie. Thanks so much for joining me, Julia. Thank you. If you enjoyed this podcast, then I encourage you to head over to dentalbusinessmastery.com.au. You will find all the information that you need if you would like to gain our assistance in helping you and your team achieve great success. If you would like to find out more, you can also email us directly at infoddentalbusinessmastery.com.au. Thanks so much for listening.