Myo Life
Myo Life is a podcast for bored, burned out dental hygienists (and myofunctional therapists) who are ready to work less, earn more, have total control of their calendar, enjoy geographic freedom and most of all - make a bigger impact for their patients - while ditching the long hours, constant aches and dreaded Monday's. You will learn simple and effective strategies and tools to start and grow your profitable myofunctional therapy practice. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a thing!
Myo Life
#26 From Chaos to Clarity: Use Mind Mapping to Make Your Myo Learning Stick
Let's Connect! Text me here or email me myotrainingacademy@gmail.com
In this episode of the Myo Life Podcast, Carmen dives into the power of mind mapping as a tool to boost learning, clarity, and confidence for myofunctional therapists. If you're feeling overwhelmed with all the myo information coming at you from every direction, this episode is your permission slip to slow down, organize your thoughts, and make your learning stick in a way that actually works. Say goodbye to scattered notes and hello to structured clarity.
"Is It Time To Ditch Hygiene?" is a self assessment workbook to help you get honest about where you are, see what's actually possible in a career you’ll love and to help you decide what comes next!
Hey, I'm Carmen and welcome to Mayo Life. That's short for my Outrageous Life, which is exactly the kind of life I get to live since I found the courage to ditch dental hygiene and build a life I'm bonkers about as a myofunctional therapist and entrepreneur. Here you will find all the things myo business and how to build a life that you, too, are bonkers about. I'm very happy you're here. Shall we dive in Well. Hello, friend, and welcome back to the MyoLife podcast. I'm Carmen, the Director of Bravery at the Myofunctional Therapy Training Academy, and I am so very glad that you're here.
Speaker 1:We have a great topic today, but let's see if you are in the right place. If you feel like your brain is like a browser with 37 tabs open, or you've been watching trainings or scribbling notes, maybe reading books or jumping between modules in the Ditch Hygiene Academy, but it all still feels like a jumbled mess, then you're in the right place. If you have ever said I just want to understand this better than buckle up, my friend, because today we're diving into one of my favorite clarity tools and learning tools of all time. So, um, it's called mind mapping. Some people have different ideas about it. Some people just call it a brain dumping, uh, whatever you want, creating a big brain flow chart, whatever it is. It's like giving your brain a spa day, but with crayons or pen and paper or markers. So let's talk about making your learning stick.
Speaker 1:So first, why are you not retaining anything? I will tell you that this is not your fault. The biggest thing is you're not lazy, my friend. You're overloaded. Now you might be like many of my students not just one of them juggling kids, seeing patients during the day, dreaming of or already starting to build your own myofunctional therapy business.
Speaker 1:Um, oftentimes these students, you know well it might be nine o'clock at night. They're logging into the DHA, they're trying to watch a module and really, quite honestly, they just end up doom scrolling because the information just isn't sticking. Okay, this is classic, but why does this happen? It happens because passive learning is a trap. So watching without doing, reading, without connecting, it just doesn't work.
Speaker 1:When you're tired, stressed or, you know, really pressed for time. Think about a book that you've read. This happens to me all the time. At the end of the day, I haven't shut my brain off, I'm trying to get ready for bed and I'm reading and I'm not comprehending it at all, I'm not connecting with it and I just have to keep going back and rereading the same paragraph, okay? Or what about traditional note taking? For a lot of people, this is just linear chaos. Okay, I like to take notes, but it's not taking the note that helps me. Going back and doing something with that information is going to help me.
Speaker 1:Okay, so your brain wants, um, like patterns, that want something visual, not just paragraphs. So what the heck is mind mapping? I call it a secret sauce. Okay, so it's a visual technique where you will take an idea and you're going to branch out or brain dump or or word vomit related concepts or questions, kind of in a spider web format or a screen or a flow chart. Okay, so some people have said, you know, even like like a Pinterest board for your brain, whatever. Why does it work? It works because your brain loves to see. Okay, it. It mimics how we naturally make the connections with things. So it is going to help you turn overwhelm into order, and studies show that mind mapping improves memory, comprehension and recall. So basically, everything that you're going to need to have a profitable, successful business. For those students of mine that are inside the Ditch Hygiene Academy, this is so helpful. If we're doing a live coaching on Friday and somebody is just really struggling with a concept say tongue ties, we will just get out a piece of paper and do a mind map and just start practicing everything, because it really helps them understand that. It helps them feel confident that they do have the knowledge and it helps them understand that. It helps them feel confident that they do have the knowledge and it helps them understand how things are connected and it also identifies areas where they need to. You know, to get better. So how do you do it? Here's some steps.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, first of all, you're going to pick a topic that you're trying to master, so we'll say tongue ties, and you are going to put it in the center of a blank page. Now, yes, there's apps that you can use to do this, but I'm just kind of like a old pen and paper type of person. Okay, so you're going to put like I drew this out as I was writing this, this episode, and I put tongue ties in the middle in a circle, and then you're going to draw branches for related areas or anything that you can come up with that just makes you nervous about tongue ties, okay, or things you feel like you need to know when talking about tongue ties. So when I did mine, I wrote a symptom or a branch that has symptom, okay, so. So if you visualize that center circle that says tongue ties and then you have these branches going out to related things, so those are another little circle at the end of that branch, okay. So, for example, I have tongue ties in the middle, I have a branch that goes out to another circle that says symptoms. Then I have lots of little branches going off of symptoms.
Speaker 1:Okay, what symptoms can you identify are related to tongue ties? So you might write tension, you might write posture, you might write speech difficulty, um, trouble pronouncing certain sounds, crooked teeth, digestion. So there's a lot of things and and I'm just like brain dumping Okay, I'm not trying to get into tension, I'm not trying to break all of those down, I'm just getting into uh, just dumping it on the piece of paper, getting it out of your brain onto paper. So another one I put like why is it bad? Uh, how do I know? How do I fix it? Where to start? Is there a good age? So these are all things or questions that you may find in your business, that that people ask you and you need to know. So then, from there I just continue mapping out, basically until I can't go any further. So you know under why is it bad?
Speaker 1:I might have little branches going out from there saying, well, it affects facial development and it affects airway development. Okay, well, why does it affect facial development? You know. So you go into that. I have jotted down crowded teeth. Airway development, you know, can lead to sleep apnea On. How do we know? I have jotted down, you know it's not about appearance but it's about function. How do we know? Also, you know, you do an exam and you get a functional assessment on how to fix Okay, so, so a phrenectomy and then off a phrenectomy.
Speaker 1:I have another little branch that says you know pre and post myofunctional therapy. Well, you need to be able to answer why is this important? How to fix it? Well, not, you don't want just anybody to fix it. Okay, we want the right doctor. You know where's where to start, what age, so all of those things.
Speaker 1:And then when I am out talking to the universe, as I like to say, like when I'm out hiking or walking or, you know, just doing anything, I answer these. If you're driving to work, you can be answering this. You could lay your mind map on your piece of paper, or your mind map that you've got written down, you can lay it on your car seat while you drive to work. And if you glance over and you see, okay, symptoms, tension, like where, where are we going to see this tension? So then you might, you know, talk to the universe, which basically, you guys, means just talking to yourself. Talk. I talk out loud, okay, let your ears hear the information, let yourself practice it.
Speaker 1:So when I'm talking about tension, I might be saying well, you know, a tongue tie is a connective tissue issue. It rolls the shoulders forward, it compresses the diaphragm. It's much like wearing a size small when you need a size large, and I'm just going to riff off on that. Okay, that helps me get comfortable with the material. Okay, now you have to get comfortable speaking the words.
Speaker 1:Yes, you can start by writing out your answers on a piece of paper, but I don't want you memorizing things In the world of Mayo. You have to understand it, to apply it. Okay, not just regurgitate it. So again, yes, there's apps, but a good old piece of paper and a pen does the trick. The goal here is to create a map that allows you to visualize the connectedness and keep on practicing your knowledge so that it sticks and that you truly understand it. Okay, so repetition, repetition, understanding it all sorts of different ways, is going to be helpful.
Speaker 1:Now, writing down your answers to some of these questions might be where you start, but eventually you won't need that. So, for example, if somebody were to ask me well, can I get a tongue tie release at any age, I already know that my answer is going to be, you know, something along the lines of like well, unless it is being done on an infant, the a child should be old enough to cooperate, comply and comprehend therapy, you know, or explaining that muscles that the child has to have volitional control of the muscle. So doing a release on an 18 month old may not be a great idea, okay, so you know, one of my biggest mentors taught me that. It me that if it is not a breastfeeding issue, they really should wait until they are old enough to comprehend, comply and cooperate with therapy. So that's really important. But I might've had to write that on paper to get my answer succinct and dialed in. Okay, and being succinct is very important, because nobody wants your 10 minute explanation on age. Okay, have a very strong, clear, powerful answer that gives them what they need and then move on. Don't continue to sit in and spin and explain it, because actually it makes people suspicious or like, why is this lady just continuing to beat a dead horse? Okay, have your answer. Um, all right.
Speaker 1:So let's, I want to give you a uh, a real life example. So when I was first starting out, I was afraid to start a conversation because I was afraid of where it would take me. So I might feel comfortable dipping my toe in to my first statement, but, oh my God, what if she asked me a follow-up question? So that kept me, um, from wanting to even open my mouth, and I know this is true for a lot of my students. So having this, uh, this skill or this, this tool, is really, really helpful.
Speaker 1:So when I think about being afraid to start a conversation because I was afraid of where it would go, it reminds me of a hygiene patient that I once had who did eventually become a client of mine, but you guys, she was a ball of fire for everything that I said to her. But you guys, she was a ball of fire. For everything that I said to her she would respond with like so why does that matter to me, or why is that bad? Or she just really was like making me think, making me think on my feet, and I can guarantee you that the same is going to happen to you. So with her, um, it it was, you know, about a tongue tie.
Speaker 1:So I was doing her oral cancer screening and so I noticed, you know, that the tongue tie, and she was like, but why does that matter? You know, I'm 40 years old, but why does that matter? But why, but why, but why? And so if I was doing it in real life, I would do this same thing, this tongue tie in the middle, and have all the branches going off saying, um, you know, but why does it matter? So, obviously, if I'm talking to a 40 year old woman and she has a tongue tie and she says, well, why does it matter? You don't think I'm going to say, well, it can affect breastfeeding, because my friend, she has long past breastfeeding, you know. So I'm going to know the information that pertains to her. Okay, so that's where it is super duper helpful.
Speaker 1:Get in the habit of this. So you, um, you can do like mind map Mondays and take 15 minutes to map out a topic that you're struggling with and then keep them, keep them in a binder or somewhere so that you can come back to them because it's good practice. Okay, you can use them before consults. You can use the information to create social media posts or explain concepts to clients. So this is a learning and marketing tool all in one. Yes, please, I will take some of that. So it is going to help you go from overload to confident action and it is one of the biggest reasons why I am so comfortable talking about Mayo and I can answer questions.
Speaker 1:Um, oftentimes in the Ditch Hygiene Academy, we talk about seven layer dip. So you've got you know your dip. It has all these different layers. Well, the top is tongue ties. But what if you were trying to get make the connection all the way down to sleep apnea and children? Can you build your seven layer dip? And it's kind of the same thing as like make the connection, make the connection, make the connection. That's going to help you get confident in your conversations and everything else.
Speaker 1:So, all right, my friend, mind mapping helps you turn your scattered, scribbled notes into structured visual tools that will help your learning stick. So it really taps into how your brain actually works, making it easier to retain, and also helps you be able to apply what you're uh, the knowledge that you have. Okay, again, I have said this and I will say it again you have to know how to apply the knowledge that you have in the world of my oh, you can't just regurgitate it. So if this has you fired up or motivated, here's what I want you to do next. I want you to pick one topic, one area, um, this week and make a mind map. Okay, you can tag me, you can DM it to me. I want to be able to cheer you on.
Speaker 1:If you are a student inside the Ditch Hygiene Academy, use whichever lesson you are currently learning. Okay, some of the big lessons like tongue tie, airway, orthodontics, uh, oral appliances, breathing and sleep, the goals for myofunctional therapy those are popular for mind mapping. Okay, and one last favor you guys, if this episode helped you out, please hit, subscribe, follow, rate it, share it, um with a fellow therapist who needs this. It is one of the best ways I can reach and support others who are just trying to get started and figure this all out. And hey, guess what If it's not your vibe? Unsubscribing is just as easy. Okay, remember, you can also send me a fan mail message by using the link at the top of the episode description. Wherever you were listening to this podcast, the link says let's connect, text me If you have a question or you just want to, you know, have a comment or send us some virtual hugs. We would love to hear from you. Until next time, go build a life you're bonkers about, and I will be back soon with more myofunctional business goodness.