The Pathway to Success is Neither Straight or Efficient

Build your relationships first….then your dentistry. ~ Bob Barkley

The Pathway to Success is Neither Straight or Efficient

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According to Markus Zusak, he had to rewrite his book 150-200 times until he was happy with it. And he began by imagining the end of the story, then the beginning, then the chapter headings – then the writing…over and over again.

In the end, Markus had a NYT Best-seller, with 8 million copies sold, and a movie deal for ‘The Book Thief’.

One might be tempted to view Markus Zusak as an overnight success, but knowing what I have just told you allows you to understand that’s not the truth. The visibility of his success perhaps appeared to be overnight, but the success took him years to create.

So too is the case with relationship-based / health-centered dentistry -no overnight successes there either. The creation of the practice takes years, starting much like Zusak’s book – beginning with the end in mind.

From there, each aspect is assembled from finding and forming the right Care Team, to developing them, and to finding better and better ways to connect with patients – to truly hearing them…to understanding their struggles…to sensing their desire to feel better about themselves.

And along the way- mistakes, misunderstandings, and outright failures prompting rewrites, re-thinking, and re-doing.

This is the true nature of success – a pathway through failure and upward toward better understanding.

It has been said that the main difference between a vision and a dream is the work involved. The later requires none, the former’s work never ends. A true vision is a principle-centered thought capsule aching to be validated by reality. It has an inherent truth built into it which must be realized. And as with Zusak, if it takes 200 revisions to make it happen – then it takes 200 revisions – so be it.

The simple secret to success is in the willingness to be flexible and to accommodate new understandings combined with a sheer force of will and perseverance that only a few are willing to make.

Paul A Henny DDS

Thought Experiments LLC, ©2017

Read more at www.codiscovery.com

Overnight Success Takes Years to Accomplish

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Joe DiMaggio is well known as one of the greatest hitters in the history of baseball, with his 1941 hitting streak of fifty-six consecutive games standing as a benchmark which no one else has ever attained.

The casual observer might assume that Joe’s success was primarily attributed to him being a “natural hitter”, but the truth is that DiMaggio would relentlessly practice his swings over and over again, often in the basement of Yankee Stadium, and then scribe on the walls the number of reps he had completed.

In fact, the “natural hitter” moniker became so prevalent (and DiMaggio so frustrated by the over-simplified perspective associated with the phrase), that he took a reporter to the basement one day and showed him his routine and the marks on the wall. And after doing so, DiMaggio reportedly said, “Don’t you ever tell me that I’m a natural hitter again.”

The same pattern of success being followed by outsider’s assumptions regarding how it all came to pass, is present in dentistry as well. The assumption is that “some people just have it”, “she is just lucky”, or “this all happened after he bought and started using X.” And that of course, is just an illusion in the same sense that reporters used to think that DiMaggio largely just popped out of bed each day and performed almost flawlessly.

In successful relationship-based / health-centered dentistry, there is a confluence of talent, practice, commitment, and clarity of purpose, much like that demonstrated by “Jolt’n Joe”. Success slowly emerges out of the repeated practicing and refinement of the most important things – identified and defined by the Mission.

Excellence is a process. Excellence is a commitment, and as Seneca said, “Excellence is a habit.” So most accurately it is not that “practice makes perfect”, but “focused practice moves us toward excellence, and through our commitment to excellence -we succeed.”

Clarified Values ➡️ Clarified Purpose ➡️ Faithful Relentless Practice, Growth & Development = Repeated Positive Patient Outcomes = Success

And you can scribe that equation on the wall as it will always be true.

Paul A Henny DDS

Thought Experiments LLC, ©2017

Read more at www.codiscovery.com

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