Leverage Your Right Brain to Better Use your Left Brain

Bob Dylan became the first musician to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, but he never set it as a goal, and he has no idea how it ever happened. In truth, Bob was just following his heart, his intuition, and his creative sense.

Bob’s work was the result of an inductive method, and consequently, he violated every rule regarding song structure and lyrics. He followed his vision before he had a full understanding of what he was creating, and consequently he let his incredibly high right brain skills guide him while leveraging his left brain musical knowledge.

And that made his work both unique AND resonate with the public like no other singer-songwriter had ever done before.

Relationship-based / health-centered dentistry requires this same approach. It requires a deep foundational understanding of dentistry on a technical level, but it also requires us to let go of the confines of our knowledge, and allow our creative minds to sense, intuit, and synthesize something new – inductively.

Recently, I had the privilege of meeting two prospective new clients who were seeking my assistance. And they had no idea what kind of help they needed – all they knew was that it was significant.

In the past, I would have jumped in quickly and built an elaborate solution for these individuals by examining them and staging a “case presentation” to demonstrate my exceptional problem solving skills and expert status.

And all of this would have been achieved through a deductive process based on my training, experience, and the scientific method, with little consideration for how they felt or even what they perceived as being important.

Today however, I rarely do that. Instead, I try to use induction to understand them…hear their pain and frustration, as well as try to facilitate in them a vision for a better future, one which makes sense to them and causes them to feel better about them-self.

And that requires me to get off my high horse and try to see dentistry as they view it…a confusing mess of things and choices that they have no capacity to place appropriate value upon.

That is why they called, not because they thought they had a titanium deficiency, or because they wanted to look like the cover model of Glamor Magazine.

They called because of their feelings, and likewise it was Bob Dylan’s understanding of feelings which catapulted him to the top.

And the same is possible for you.

Paul A Henny, DDS

Thought Experiments LLC, ©2017