Stop Binge-Watching Veneers And Do One

What if more CE isn’t the answer—and better implementation is? We sit down with Dr. Galen Detrik of Thrive Dentist to unpack how modern dental education can move beyond binge-watching techniques to building real, repeatable outcomes. From short, practical lessons to live patient mentorship, we map a clear ladder for growth so you can pick the next right rung instead of getting lost in information overload.

We dig into the heart of ethical comprehensive dentistry: diagnosing holistically, choosing the minimum viable procedure, and knowing when full-arch or rehabilitative care is truly needed. You’ll hear how to reframe cost, time, and relationship stress through value calibration—both in how patients perceive treatment and how dentists evaluate CE. Dr. Detrik shares why mentorship and apprenticeship transform careers, how accountability turns knowledge into Monday-ready skills, and why an investment mindset helps clinicians under heavy debt create momentum rather than stall out.

One of the biggest wins comes from empowering your team. We break down a train-the-team approach to clinical photography that fuels diagnosis, case acceptance, and marketing without adding to the doctor’s workload. When the environment supports new habits, change sticks: better documentation, clearer communication, and more predictable outcomes. Along the way, we offer practical pathways for every comfort level—from five-minute micro-lessons and targeted webinars to live hands-on courses with direct coaching.

If you’re ready to replace CE overwhelm with steady progress, this conversation offers a blueprint: choose one capability to build, set a simple system, and let quiet growth compound. Subscribe, share this with a colleague who needs a nudge, and leave a review telling us the one change you’ll make this week.

For more information contact the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum at https://thepac.org.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introductions

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi everyone, I'm Dr. Michael Miyazaki, and we're really excited about today's program. Again, we have Garrett Caldwell, the CEO of Core Dental Laboratory, but the CEO also of the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum. And so both of the those and myself, we really value education. And in saying that, today we have a guest, uh Dr. Galen Dietrich of Thrive Dentist, who also practices in New Mexico and has an incredible story, one of those Rags to Riches story. But um really quick before I let Dr. Dietrich say anything, I just want to let everybody know that um about a month ago during the holidays, I ordered a bunch of uh Dr. Dietrich's online education. It's really good stuff. It's everything from photography to doing direct composite, your class fours that where you really learn a lot and and then actually how to manage your practice and grow it. So it was really great material. And I just wanted to give that plug before I actually let Dr. Dietrich Dietrich say anything. But um, Galen, welcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Mike, thank you so much. Garrett, you too. Uh, thanks for the kind words, man. And thanks for uh thanks for joining a few of the courses. Like I said earlier, you should have just let me know what to give them to you. Do I get a credit card refund? You get you get you get you get that and a dinner, man, and all the things.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

I will tell you, it's one of those things where like anything in life, if you get value out of it, you don't mind paying for it. So, you know, the value is there. I really enjoyed listening to everything. You know, it it took up my whole holiday because you have about 30 hours of content on there, even though it's in little five-minute snippets. But yeah, my family didn't seem to miss me during the holidays or at the table or anything like that. So we're good.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yeah, I liked it, but I got I got stuck because I was on landman. Sorry, buddy.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Give me both, man. It wasn't Beijing. That's so good.

Why Education Matters And How To Deliver It

SPEAKER_00 1:56

The reason why, and this is kind of built in upon that, that we have um Dr. Dietrich on this, is just that, you know, I I think we all, everyone on this uh meeting right now, we really believe in the value of education. And I think um I wanted because he creates so much content in education, and it's really cool, the education. I mean, the class four um videos are just amazing to watch. And um it it's taking me from this level and trying to and trying to climb up to your level now, which is great. And even the photography, the photography was all really good.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Thank you. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

But I just want to um ask you like because you've been in this and you're in um not only as a practicing clinician, as kind of a person developing content to help colleagues do better, what do you see uh as the importance of education in what we do, both professionally and personally?

SPEAKER_02 2:51

You know, it's a phenomenal question because I genuinely think we all have a hunger to not just learn, but to also teach. I actually think that every single one of us has that capacity. And when you get exposed to that, you really start to find how much you actually do know. And it's fun. It's fun to give that way. So a big part of teaching, to be honest with you, and creating our uh the Thrive Dentists and the CE uh C ecosystem, as we call it, uh, was really kind of selfish. I mean, I just enjoy teaching. I enjoy, I enjoy that practicality of speaking with uh colleagues and learning from them just as much. So I think the backdrop is that education is something that we can all be really behind. The difference, though, is how you deliver it. And I think the delivery system is critical now more than ever before because the market's changed. It's changed for a variety of reasons, but I think probably one of the biggest is that people are overwhelmed. Um, they're overwhelmed because of access. So at one point in time, you'd go to live courses, and it's really cool because it's very moderated and there's a lot of one-on-one touch, and that is really still the pinnacle of learning, I think. Um I don't think anyone can disagree with that. It's the best way to learn. It's just not the only way to learn. And so, you know, we kind of pioneered uh with a few others this virtual space and that was fantastic for a long period of time. But then what you started to find is that everyone started doing virtual. And so then any and everyone can access information. And it became an information overload. And now people buy courses and never go through them. And then they feel guilty that they didn't go through it. Uh and so they won't go get something else, or they'll go guilt by something else, right? And it it unfortunately puts people in this really strange stasis of not really implementing things, but learning more. So it just kind of flushes through. And it's not that different from social media, the way we consume information there. So I think the key is to be versatile in the way that you deliver content, but also to give people rungs of a ladder and to slow them down to help them. Like the best thing you can do as an educator, I think, is helping the person kind of find out like where are you on this ladder? And let's just start there. Like, don't feel like you have to go here yet. Let's just start here. And some clinicians are ready to go to an in-person event and they have that skill set and they just need to be around other clinicians that are playing at a very high level. Others need a webinar, you know, and just something to kind of get them going. So I think that's the most critical piece is just awareness and identifying where you are on that continuum of education.

From Live Courses To Virtual: Avoiding Overload

SPEAKER_00 5:39

No, I think you're absolutely right. And I think that's why the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum, we're so excited to be uh working with you in the Thrive uh tribe, I call it the tribe, just because you've got um, you know, the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum, we do lectures and but we also do more live patient education uh courses. So this weekend we're doing a live patient education course with doctors bringing their patients in and we work side by side, which is, I think, like you're mentioning, I mean, if if that wasn't the best, I think we could get rid of all dental schools, right? And just tell people to stay at home, run off the web. But but that's kind of the pinnacle of learning. But to get there, as you're saying, not everyone's ready to do that or can do that. And so I think the way that you take education and then format it into those bite-sized little chunks where you're eating and all of a sudden you've figured you've you've eaten the feast because the food's all gone, but you don't even feel like you're you know stuffed because you've just been eating um a little bit at a time. And I think that's great. So we eat the elephant one bite at a time instead of trying to figure out how to eat eat the whole elephant. And I think, you know, going back to education, you know, one of the things that that I think about is somebody once said, how do you have a miraculous life? You try to help other people have a miraculous life. And so, you know, through education, we make their lives better. So I want to circle back around. You know, when you look at your life and what education's done, imagine yourself, you know, a new grad, you get out, you think you know it all because you spent half a million dollars in four years in dental school. And then you go out and practice, and then like your journey is you learned a lot more to get to the level where you are. How did education change your life versus if you didn't seek that out and you were just kind of at the level at which you were when you graduated, how would that have made your life different today?

SPEAKER_02 7:28

I mean, it's uh those, it's the the paradox of choice, you know. You go back in time and you think like, what where else on this like parallels of of life journeys would I be? And it'd probably be astronomically different, quite honestly. Um I was I was very blessed to have a um phenomenal mentor who was a fellow in the AACD. Um he's actually just now looking to retire, he's 80-something now, and uh, you know, he's a phenomenal clinician. He's just just now getting out of the ring, retiring the gloves. And, you know, he was instrumental in pushing me. And the reason I think that was so powerful is that it kind of if I could wave a wand, I would have every dentist coming out of dental school be in some form of a mentorship or associateship type of uh practice so that they're apprenticing, and then have that dentist, he or she really helping them take that next step clinically. And that way, there's a pulse on that person the entire time. Here's how I get you to where you need to be. That's what I had. And so it was an incredible blessing. Um, I got shipped out to Chicago and I went to a Jason Smithson course right away. And, you know, it lit me up. It got me super excited. And then from there, it was just really like I I went to the PAC a year later, and that completely opened up my eyes to comprehensive dentistry. You hear about it in dental school, you don't know how to do it. You know, I mean, you get out of dental school doing one root canal probably and just a couple of crowns and some extractions nowadays, if even that. And so you don't, it's it's like a myth, kind of, you know. And then I think you get into practice and you're completely overwhelmed in an exam in hygiene because you realize like there's 28 of these things and there's problems on seven of them, and I don't know how or why it's happening and how to put all those pieces together. Um, I got slowed down to speed up by my mentor. So I think if I didn't have that, I think my educational journey, of course, would have been different, but the way I practice um would be entirely different. I wouldn't have an education uh I probably wouldn't have a business, honestly. I don't know. It'd be really different, Mike. Very different.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

So so I guess you know, we're talking about how you make education so uh available and usable, and yet there's doctors that don't take your course, or you know, like they it's not because they don't hear about it, because I know that's you know, marketing, that's always something, but you know, somebody who learns about what it is that you have to offer and yet they don't sign up. What do you think is the biggest obstacle? What what keeps doctors from actually taking the education that would change their personal and professional lives?

Mentorship, Apprenticeship, And Career Inflection Points

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Uh I think it's easy to be in a position where you can blame the dentist, you know, and you're like, oh, I can't, why don't you get it? Why don't you understand that this is so great, this is, you know, this could change your life. And maybe there's some truth to that. But I always like to take personal responsibility and ask myself, how could I have um messaged this better? How could I have packaged it differently? How could I have come to that person? And I think it's actually the easiest way to explain it is probably by looking at an example that's near and dear to all of us. If you're a practitioner, which we all are, um you have new patients coming in. And the goal, of course, is to bring in more of those and to um convert people who are already in your practice to doing the dentistry that they require, that they need. There's a certain degree of compassion and iteration that you have to have that makes you that much better. And it's actually the difference between a practice that's really successful and thriving and a practice that's maybe not doing that great. They're kind of plateaued. It's the practitioners that are willing to push themselves to take that responsibility. Say, how could I do this a little bit better? And so I actually think that's um my my kids, we love watching Beast games right now, Mr. Beast and all of this. And it's it's a ton of fun to watch. But one of the things that I watch as I'm as I'm seeing this, I'm seeing the psychology and behavior of human beings. And one of the things that Mr. Beast will do is right, you know, everyone's trying to vie for five million dollars. But he'll have people opt out for a thousand because it's cash right now. And then the person says, nah, a thousand's not enough, but ten thousand I do it for, and then they opt out. So it dwindles, right? And you have those few people that are like non-minute for five. And I think it's very similar in terms of the way patients go through. Not everyone's gonna do comprehensive dentistry, most are gonna do one at a time. That's the way they're trained. You have to have patience for that. Same thing with dentists. Most dentists are not gonna want to take every single course that we have or sign up for the PAC. They're not gonna do the life-transforming five million dollar treatment, right? But what they will do is they'll say yes to that thousand dollars. They'll say yes to the next. And our job is to help curate that experience and to have a lot of patience and a lot of compassion for that space. I think that's I think that's the name of the game.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Uh that that's a that's a good way to answer that because you're absolutely right. You know, I hope I hope people that are are watching or listening to this will get motivated because I think one of the things too is cost, like you were mentioning. You know, if you take a course, like I know implant courses are some of the most costly courses sometimes to take, uh live patient treatment courses and stuff like that. And you know, what I've noticed over all these years is if I spend$5,000 or$10,000 or$20,000 to take a course, I get so focused on that, I do a lot more of that, you know. And so all of a sudden, you may not be doing any implants. You take a course, you go back and you do 10 implants, you know, in the first week or first month or whatever. And I've learned that my mind, whatever it's focused on, will will see more opportunities to do that service. And that that ultimately ends up paying, paying for that course. So um, yeah, I hope everybody gets on to yours because they're very affordable. And you know, I think it will. You know, when you're talking about how to talk to your patients about treatment or how to do comprehensive dentistry, um, yeah, I think your ideas are great. So that sounds good.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Mike, on that point, I think this is some yeah, Garrett and I talked about this actually when when you guys were out and um and we had dinner. And it was it's an interesting concept. We always think about the things that are the biggest obstacles. And it's easy to say is time or money or you know, something else in life. I always call it the big three: time, money, and relationships. You know, you feel like if you're gonna be doing this, it's gonna take you away from your family, therefore a relationship's kind of stopping you. That's the obstacle. Um, and those are easy to point to and say that's the problem. But I actually think that the issue for most of us, maybe all of us actually, at some varying level, is what I call value calibration. And so the best way to think about this is if I tell a person, um, hey, you can get a regular cleaning, uh, or sorry, a deep cleaning for, you know, let's say$400,$500 a quadrant. Or I can do a full mouth of Lenap, and you'll get this outcome, and that's$10,000. Or you can go to a period surgeon, you can get this, and it's gonna cost$13,000, whatever it is. A person has a certain idea in their mind based upon their environment, their circumstances, the way they grew up, what they've heard, that has calibrated them to what that thing should cost. And our job, one of the greatest skill sets you could ever possess, is the ability to recalibrate a person's value. And so I can easily tell a person, hey, this webinar that we're gonna teach you how to do class four, and it's a hundred dollars. And some people are gonna be like, that's a steal. And others are gonna say, that's too cheap. It must not be that good. And others are gonna say, I can't afford that. Uh and that's the interesting thing is that it's actually a very irrelevant number. It's where that person's at. So that's our messaging. That's the time that it takes with a patient chair aside to help them recalibrate and see why did you position at that point and what do I get from this? That's communication. That's what it all comes down to.

Overcoming Barriers: Cost, Time, And Value Calibration

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Yeah, you're right. And you know, um, talking about this, so one of the questions I had is how do you view the difference between not necessarily your your, well, maybe your web-based courses, you know, because we all do the same thing. Every day we pick up our phone and there's some social media thing or Instagram thing, doing a composite or doing a veneer crown. So we were inundated that by that all the time. And I don't know, sometimes I'll watch that and I'll go, wow, you know, now I've now I've taken some CE today. And then when a course comes by, like the pack with the live patient course, I go, no, I, you know, I don't need to take that because I do so much other CE. Do you see a difference on, you know, when people are seeing the shorts on Instagram versus when they take a course that's more of a live course? It could be a live lecture or a live patient course.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Yeah, uh big time. I mean, YouTube university exists for a reason. Um, it's really easy, right? It's very easy. It's um it's a short amount of time typically that is uh your investment. That's free, essentially. And um, and so there's there's very little output that is required of a person um for what is a perceived pretty amount amazing outcome. But to your point, you said this a number of times, I think the difficulty is implementation. You know, you can go learn five, six, seven different skill sets in the next uh, you know, three hours on YouTube. And you're probably not gonna implement a single one of them. That's just the reality. That's what all the statistics would tell you. You're not gonna do that. Why? Because no one's holding your hand, number one, which is why in-person is so helpful. You're forced, you're forced to get an outcome. And that's why it's so powerful is to go in in-person. Um, when you look at the virtual side of things, I think that is more a you get people who take really big strides with virtual. I'm one of those people. I I am uh this was a weird thing to come to an understanding around because it sounds almost arrogant at first until you really think about it. But I I don't require a lot of motivation to do things. Um I just don't need that. If I want something, I just go get it. And so if I learned a skill set by watching YouTube or I go and I spend time with you, Mike, and I see where you do things, I'm gonna be doing that same thing on Monday because I've trained myself to go get it. And one of the things I'll say when I lecture, um, and even when I do webinars, they'll say, just because I can do it doesn't mean you can. And just because I couldn't do it doesn't mean you couldn't. Meaning everyone's different. And you have to understand yourself and your motivations and where you really are at. I think that's the most critical piece. So I there's a place for both small, bite-sized virtual education, whether it's free or paid, and the in-person, but I think a person's really got to know who they are and where they're beginning.

Social Media Vs Real CE: Implementation And Accountability

SPEAKER_00 18:32

I I think you said right. You know, I think accountability, because when you know when you when you're with the group and you're seeing each other live over and over, it creates some kind of accountability. Like in our course, if you're gonna do a veneer case that say during the course, we're gonna work with you to figure out, okay, is that the best case to bring into the course? Okay, here's the the lab communication, let's get it set up with the lab. So you know there's accountability. So it's not just watching a video and saying, okay, someday I'll do this, but it's going through the education where we're holding your hand as you go through and actually do it. So we have that accountability. And I think the other um key part is like they say, you you're you become the like those that are the closest to you, right? The five closest friends. And so one of the reasons why I was like I liked watching your videos at the end of the year is just mentally, I was, I was gearing my mind up for our practice growth this year. And you know, uh we don't know what the economy is gonna be like or what the politics or whatever, because everything is kind of up in the air right now. But I just kept listening to you saying, okay, you know, in our in your practice, you were doing six million a year, six million a year. And so it made me think, okay, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna, I don't even have to do that much work. Um, but I that's a target. And if if if Galen can do it, then maybe I can get close to that or you know, I can grow my practice. So it's it's inspirational when you're with doctors. Like this weekend, we're doing a live patient course and we had Dr. Jack Griffin coming in, and he's gonna be helping us teach this course. Well, Dr. Griffin has been voted one of the best dentists in the United States and the country, very active in aesthetics, A, C, D, and everybody, right? So for me to spend uh two days with Jack teaching this course, again, will raise the level of my expectations for myself. I'll learn new skills to help me get there. And I just think it really becomes this kind of like that uh stone rolling down the hill where you just pick up a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. And by the time you get down there, after taking this ride, you're a different rock than when you started, right? You have so many different skills, so much value to offer your patients. And it really becomes fun and like we were talking about, almost effortless because it's it's fun, enjoyable, and and um just the way you go through the process.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

You know, a lot of clinicians are gonna probably resonate with this idea. And it's a relatively new concept. It's the way we're positioning our content now. Again, we're always trying to iterate, find out what do dentists really need. So we're talking to them all the time. What what worked for you? What did you learn from this content? What did you learn from this course? And then where are you getting stuck? And you just said, you know, uh a person is very much the average almost of the five people that are closest to them. Well, your team is definitely some of those people that are closest to you. It's interesting that I think a lot of practitioners can get excited going to a course and then they come back and the staff's like, he or she's excited again, just give it a week. You know, and the weekend high goes, and then you're right back to it. And that's because your environment does pull you back down, not because they're bad. It's that your team doesn't really get much out of it. They're not seeing that ROI necessarily, and they also feel like I got to do more now for you. And we're not gonna have that same consistency. So what we've started to do with our content is actually aim it at team members. So, for example, take photography. Uh photography is somewhat difficult for a dentist to take on because they think to themselves, on top of everything that I already do, and now I have to go stop what I'm doing, take photos, edit these, figure it all out, get onto social media. By the time we've gone those iterations in their mind, they're like, I'm not going to do that. It's fine. Whatever we got doing we're doing right now is working. But what we're doing is we're saying let's change your environment versus trying to change you. So you buy a course as a dentist and what we do is we train your team. So they're going to create the studio for you. They're going to learn how to take these photos so that it actually doesn't require much of an output from you other than swipe a credit card. And then your team brings you this brand new approach to the way you do dentistry. That way we're kind of elevating with those people around you in an interesting way that I don't think dentistry's really done before. And I think there's a lot of there's there's something there. There's some grit to that. And I also think it inspires a dentist because they didn't have to do much and now their practice is better for it. Team is empowered, teams excited, they feel like they're a part of something bigger, you know? I think that's a part of the way that we can change dentists and get them more excited to then take those next level courses like the PAC and really get invested because that's fun. That's when just really becomes real.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Yeah. No, I think that I know you just used photography as an example, but you know one of the things I think in practices today, photography is the way you really build your practice because social media out there, the marketing, we have patients call all the time at front desk like, oh, the patients want to see before and afters. You know, so now we have to post more before and afters and that's just the way the world is because as as all of us, you know, if you you could be looking at a refrigerator on Amazon and you want to see what it looks like and how it fits and you know you can see what it'll look like in your space and everything now, you know, just on your Amazon app. So it's just the way the world's going. So if you're I this is just an example that Dr. Dietrich pulled out as an example, but I would just tell you that I think in order to grow your practices in the years moving forward, at least right now, you really have to have your photographic skills down. And it's even better if your team does it for you and you don't have to do all the thinking.

unknown 24:06

Right?

SPEAKER_00 24:07

No, I I did when I was watching those videos, I ordered my softboxes, I got everything all set back up.

Train The Team: Photography And Practice Systems

SPEAKER_02 24:13

So yeah that's that's an ode to you a little because you I mean Mike, you're very um you're extremely accomplished. Extremely accomplished. I mean top 0.001% of dentists in the US you are in terms of your skill as well as your notoriety. Also your humility Garrett and I are always talking about that. That's true. But you know you're very motivated to go make those changes. And I don't think it's a bad thing that a lot of dentists are not, because I I have compassion for that. You know, I have friends that um are my age and they're bringing on associates that are a couple years out of school and they're 600,000 plus in debt. I mean you're resurvicing that debt for the next 25 years of your life and it'll still be probably around 300, 400,000 when you're done. You know, it's just I mean it's a it's it's an impossible task in some ways. And so I get why they feel overwhelmed and a little disheartened. But that's where we get to come in. I think Thrive exists more as this bridge to say how do we get people to start getting excited about these in-person courses without feeling like, oh my gosh, uh am I going to ever be able to do comprehensive dentistry when I barely know how to do a crown prep in two hours? Yeah. We're there to bridge that gap.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

You know the way I look at it is a couple things. When I go to a course, I when I watch your videos, I'm one of those, you know, sometimes you'll go to a course and they could be selling lasers or something like that. And you know the doctors sit there and they go, well I I really liked what I heard. I got to think about that, right? And I'm one of the one of those doctors that well I like what I heard. Okay, I'm going to commit I'm going to invest in that laser. So before I leave the sales rep's always like me because I'm the guy that's so it's just like the same thing. You know, watching your videos motivated me to say okay I I do need to invest more in my photography. What what equipment do I need? Okay, let me go ahead and order this, this, and this because I I think a lot I I see a lot of doctors that come to the lectures that we do and they go, no, I really like what you're talking about. And I go, okay, are you going to you know buy the equipment or all the pieces it takes to do that protocol? And they're like, I need to think about it. And I go, but if you think about it, you're never going to do it. And I think those are the doctors that so the the the second part of this is you made a a good point. I've got lots of debt. I can't spend more money because I need to service that debt. Well, if you look at that as spending, that's a loss. But if you look at that as I need to invest more money so I can make more money to pay off that debt, then it takes on a whole it's a whole different perspective. And that's why I look at it I look at it like okay I've got my debts but I've got to invest either to do more marketing or I've got to invest in my education because that's going to allow me to make more revenue and that revenue is going to help me pay things off. And you know I think the difference is we're teaching comprehensive dentistry restored with aesthetic restorations. Why aesthetic restorations? Because a lot of times they're more conservative than traditional dentistry. Where traditional dentistry where maybe we prep for a PFM cram, well we can do a all ceramic veneer and save more tooth but give the patient that smile that they're looking for, that sort of thing. So I think it really comes down to the perspective that people are looking and I don't know. I think my words of advice would be don't look at it as a spin, look at it as an investment and then commit and get off the sidelines because I don't know you know if you never do it, then you'll never reap the rewards and you'll you'll spend your entire life thinking I can't spend to buy this or that or you'll feel guilty about what you spend because you still owe them that the student debt.

Investment Mindset And Debt: Spend Vs Invest

SPEAKER_02 27:44

So you know try to do everything you can to get rid of that as soon as you can Yeah it's a it's a mentality that we when you are shackled by debt to some degree there's always that feeling uh people usually kind of go through one or two, you know they either feel like it's insurmountable what's a few extra thousand dollars to it. And those people just go ahead and spend it and buy it and let's keep going. And then there's others who really are like I have to stop the bleeding like as soon as possible. And I think both have problems. What you want to do is I think too many of us are collectors. And we need to be more in the mindset of of current. So we call money currency for a reason. It does not stay in one place. The money that's in your bank account has already been lent you know five, six seven eight times because it's constantly in motion whether that's good or bad. That's how people make money off of you. And so I think we have to have that same mentality of that money is just flowing through us. If you want a patient to spend money with you, you're asking them to take a leap of faith and trust you to get an outcome that they don't have yet and they're going to spend first. I think we have to get a mentality that dental school was the great investment and the last one that we'll do. It was the it was the entry fee. From there on everything is what are you willing to embody that you're asking of your patients. And that's what I always think I can't I mean I have a$2000 sleeve on my arm, right? You know, and I didn't know what it's like to sit in a chair for eight hours and to spend that kind of money on art because I love that. I can talk to a person who did a full mouth rehab with me and say I've spent I've spent that and I've sat there in that chair and I know what it's like to feel pain and I know what it's like to really enjoy what I'm getting from that. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Yeah. You know I I saw a thought that I was going on is is we're doing comprehensive dentistry. I just I just want people to understand because I think some people think that if you're generating a lot of revenue in dentistry that maybe you're doing too over treating you know patients. And you know we're we're not trying to do that. I think one of the things is the more you learn, the more you see, right? So a patient comes in and they've got that worn dentition and the majority of dentists would say oh you've got a lot of worn teeth I need to do a crayon here because that tooth is so warm before it breaks. Whereas if somebody who has the skills and the ability might look at the patient and say, do you suffer from headaches and judgment problems? The patient says yes. They might say do you have sleep apnea? The patient says yes. And then you look at that and you explain to the patient, look at all the wear and care that you've got going on in your teeth. You know what's happened is you're wearing your teeth down and your jaws repositioning, causing the headaches that debilitate you during the day and then causing the sleep apnea that causes you to choke all night. What I can do is we can go ahead and we can do phase one therapy that'd be an orthotic to let your jaw go back to a better position, open up your airway, see how you do. And then from there, if you decide you'd like to do it, then we can use aesthetic restorations to help maintain that that occlusion or bite so you don't have to wear an orthotic the rest of your life. And you know that's the type of dentistry that we're talking about. So you know if a patient comes in and they've got pristine teeth, you know what, we're going to do the ethical thing and tell the patient, you know, you've got really good teeth, we're going to help you maintain that. And then the patients that come in with different uh wants, it could just be a nicer smile or it could be a functional issue. You know, because you've had the training, you can address all of that in a very ethical way and it has nothing to do with trying to overtreat your patients to generate a revenue goal. And I think people need to understand that because those of us that have been doing comprehensive dentistry for a long time, I I know a couple decades ago that that's what was going around oh you guys are are over treating. No, it's those that think we're over treating it you think that because you don't see what it is that needs to be treated, right? So you know it's kind of an eye-opening experience. And I think in today's um environment, I think being able to do ethical dentistry by providing comprehensive dentistry that is actually needed is actually a skill that I hope all of my colleagues learn and are able to practice.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

I I hope so too. I mean I I think it's a great point to brought up Mike because it is a big thing that we'll get people think it's um almost like a money grab, you know, or that you are taking an unethical approach to dent uh to a patient's and I mean the reality is there's a lot of other dentistry that you and I do. You know uh I can do 30, 40 arches in a in a year using core, phenomenal lab, and uh they make my life easy. And I there's still a lot of other time in the clinic that I'm doing single crowns or I'm doing fillings or I'm doing MFDs, I'm doing bite adjustments, orthotics, whatever it is. And it's always about the MVP, the minimal minimum viable procedure. What is that patient, what is that basic need for that patient? And it doesn't need to be any more than that, shouldn't be any more than that. But some people are going to come to you needing full arch dentistry. And if you don't know how to do that, then I don't think there's any other way of saying it nicely you're not able to treat that person the way that they need. In which case that's actually the unethical piece. If you don't know how to do it, you should be referring them to someone who does. But if you just let that person go because you're afraid to have that conversation about finances, that's actually unethical.

Ethical Comprehensive Dentistry And Minimum Viable Procedures

SPEAKER_01 32:56

It's just interesting to say here and listen Galen being newer in education um and Galen there's benefits to that's nice and tight and you're still smiling with a big free smile. Maybe not 30 years we're going to revisit this and you're going to see why Mike and I are all worn down here. But it's the same challenges Galen that you're recognizing now that you're approaching uh differently than but the same challenges that we face that we identified you know we want everybody to come in at a high level and I think one of the most important things that I heard you hit on today is we're not all the same and our capacity for entry is not all the same. And uh it's okay to be different. You know somebody wants to come in and sign up for John Coyce and for Pacific Aesthetic Continuum and for Mike's implant courses and all of the above and they will and they'll invest hundreds of thousands of dollars and they'll go for it. And we've experienced those doctors within just a few years they have multi-million dollar practices but it's where they wanted to go. Everyone wants to go there be there but not everybody has a taste or flavor for getting in at that same level and we can't push that um we can't push that on folks and so I think having Thrive and the process of combining these two programs where somebody can come in and put a toe in the water and get really great knowledge but maybe five to seven minutes at a time until and and and not be so invested but allow them to take that journey on their own but make available the deeper journey and the mentorship that goes with it. Internet changes online shopping it's really affected brick and mortar there's been a lot of changes and that's what's happening in dentistry with DSOs with fees with insurance companies so how do you address that unless you have mentorship and unless you have a way to come in at a way you're comfortable so we can call Galen or Mike and they can tell you exactly how to buy the$10 million building. And they'll even say you should take all the money you have and invest it there. And they would probably be right but not everybody has that comfort level so I really like about what I'm hearing today is that you've really identified that people are different. We all want to be successful but we all are a little bit afraid to get in at the top level maybe so offer different levels and I hope that's what the listeners today really get out of this is that you know get busy getting busy and and that's the most important thing fear makes cowards of us all you know and and and it's something you can accomplish and again I look at the pack I look at dr griffin I look at Dr. Miyasaki I look at Dr. Galen Dietrich I look at Dr. Tom Dudney I look at Dr. Franklin I look at the doctors that are associated with the PAC that are our partners and all of them are available to mentor. So I hope that I hope that folks that are listening really uh get it that you don't have to come out and just go and buy the Ferrari. You can come out and start on a bicycle if that's what makes you comfortable but get moving down the road.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

That's the key message I think that's it's that's a good point Garrett. We have a lot you know at this stage in life um I'll put it my my age group right you know kind of your 30s to mid forties you're having kids and one of the key things I consistently see is that you know you're exposed to social media and so these elaborate amazing places to go travel to and maybe you're talking to a dentist who's um you know in their 50s or 60s and they've done these things and now they are able to travel and their kids are out of the house. And if you don't compare yourself to the right person, uh you can get stuck. But you also always want to have a vision you know so I look at someone like Mike and I'm like I see vision there. And there's things that I want to pattern and I can do that now where I'm at but if you're younger you don't want to judge yourself that way. You might just say you know instead of a three month vacation to Italy, maybe I just take my wife out and we do a little date night you know and just get one of those a week. And it's like you got to take a break from the kids. You got to be able to pour back into the person that you love the most and that's one of the things that you see go, right? With the stress of money and the stress of holding a practice or associating is that your relationships start to kind of wither a little bit and you get stressed and your health goes. It's like you just need the micro tweaks like you said get busy getting busy. What's that first little thing? Calendar it and now move on to the next thing but there has to be a plan. So it's both get started but have a vision.

Different Entry Levels And Personalized Journeys

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Have a plan. I know that um Davina your partner and your wife um does some coaching and uh and I know that she doesn't set minimums on coaching from what I understand. And I know that one of her main focuses is let's pick let's look at everything you're trying to do and let's see what you're not doing well what you are doing well let's just do one thing and change one thing. And I know she was telling me she has challenges because the doctors want to fix everything and her focus is let's fix one thing let's fix this this one thing and then we'll when we get that done we'll go to the next ladder. And we do the same thing in business it's like we create a blueprint and the blueprint is from the foundation all the way to the finish of the house. But we might go through four steps and get to the plumbing we have a plumbing problem. We don't keep building the house until we finish fixing the plumbing problem and I think it's the same thing in your dental business is that there's a lot of things going well a lot of things not going well. Just start building step by step and maybe ask for some coaching that you don't have to necessarily commit$60,$70,000 to how can you get some mentorship to identify what the most important thing is that you're stuck on in your practice and then what you need to do to accent that in with education. And I think that's important. You sometimes you need I think not sometimes all the time you need a mentor and I think that's another challenging thing is mentorship is expensive and another thing to pay for so hopefully with Thrive introducing Thrive with our group in the future here we can introduce Davina a little more and what she offers so that doctors can access that professional opinion and that help.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Just people know that there is the possibility of having something that doesn't cost you an arm and a leg. We did we have created a program and it's called agency but it's basically uh uh the tagline for it is no grind, just quiet growth. It's for the people that just you know what hey I'm gonna show up and I want to start to make some strides in the right direction, but I'm not ready to commit 70 grand. I'm not trying to get crazy. I just want to get I want some insight from a person who really knows what's going on, who's built a multi-million dollar business what's that little touch you can give me and just keep me on the rails, right? Get can you be the bumpers for me so that I'm not focused on the wrong things and building in a circle. Let's just keep you going the right direction. And that is available that's not just us. There's plenty of people that have that ability to just pour into you and to mentor you and you got to ask you know just get out there and go ask for it.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

I think in the old days and I'm talking 30 years ago it's back in the early mid nineties you bought in for Mike when we were teaching at you know LVI and Aesthetic advantage and PACLive you came all in it was all or nothing you know there was there was we had a big we had a big group of doctors that wanted to come in and you pretty much had to sign up for 18 months of coaching at 50 grand and you had to sign up for four programs at 10 grand a pop and that worked then but things have changed and I think it's exciting to offer our our colleagues the opportunity to take small bites and go as quickly or as slowly as they want to but to get on the bus. It worked. Yeah 100% yeah that's it that's all I have I think what you guys brought today was just phenomenal both of you yeah and Mike yeah really nice to talk to um Dr.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Dietrich again and look forward to the next time so yeah real quick uh I hope um you can take some tips away from this we're looking forward to seeing you at during some of our educational events and activities at uh both the Pacific aesthetic continuum and thrive or the combination of the two we'll be putting on um in the upcoming months and we're really excited about that. So yeah Galen uh Garrett thank you very much for your time and I look forward to our our next get together. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Mike Mike great job thank you thank you uh Dr. D chart appreciate it. No you guys must m you're most welcome and I'll say one thing very quickly I I just think that uh any dentist listen to this, you got to know that Mike, Garrett, the team at PAC and uh the lab core, they're dentist centric. And I think that that is lost in a lot of education nowadays. There's people which looking to kind of create a business to sell it DSO mentality. That's not what you get with you guys. And I've always appreciated that uh from the lab all the way up you guys are very focused on just truly pouring into dentists making them better clinicians and uh more present at home and a little more financially uh stable and and thriving. So cheers to you guys. You guys do an amazing job.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Great. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Thank you guys great job. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Take care guys great job