The Productive Dentist Academy Podcast Network. I don't do well as a CEO when I'm a perfectionist. I'm a people pleaser. And the company gets people are unhappy. The dental office is the same way. Someone is always unhappy and nothing is ever perfect. The more people you have, the more that's true. And and I didn't cope well with, you know, stress and all of kind of the mounting burden. But it's the same story.
You don't have to have 35 offices to feel crushed by the anxiety of running a practice like your team. And you are like, it's this uphill battle constantly to feel alone, like you're trapped. Like, I bought this practice. I can't get away from it. I have a bunch of debt and to start to crumble. And that's really what happened to me, is I started to kind of crumble. Welcome to the Everyday Practices Dental podcast. I'm Reagan Robertson and my co-host Doctor Chad Johnson.
Doctor Maggie Gustin and I are on a mission to share the stories of everyday dentists who generate extraordinary results using practical, proven methods you can take into your own dental practice if you are ready to reclaim your time, so you can focus on great patient care without sacrificing yourself along the way. Buckle up and listen in. Welcome to Everyday Practices Dental podcast. I am your host, Regan Robertson, here with my lovely co-host, Doctor Maggie Augustine.
Hi, Maggie. How are you? Well, hello. For the umpteenth time, is it Augustine? Augustine? It is Augustine, it's Augustine. So it's on record now. I think I even have to rerecord our intro. I have some challenges with words sometimes. Hint and paint is another one that I have. I can never remember if it's paint or paint. So stay with me, guys. Here. That's not what we're here to discuss today.
I was scrolling on social media the other day, specifically Facebook, and I came across this post from a really amazing fellow podcast host, a shared practices doctor, Richard Lowe, helps me be a Facebook friend, buddy of mine. We've been on each other's episodes before, and, the post says this I had a friend who went through the worst day of his professional career two days ago. The patient is okay. He is okay. But it got scary for a minute.
The biggest reframe that he had was realizing that this patient almost went to another doctor in that practice, and they would have had the same experience, but it would have been much harder for them to bear. It could have broken them. When he looked at it this way, he was glad that it happened to him rather than being bitter. So much on Facebook is just junk to me. I just scroll past it and this one stopped me in my tracks.
And Richard attached four different kind of principles, if you will, with it. And so I reached out and said, hey, let's let's get on and talk about this deeper. So Doctor Richard Lowe, welcome to Everyday Practices podcast. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. And, drop the doctor. It's just Richard. It's Richard. Okay. Just. Richard. Well, just. Richard. Welcome. Thank you.
Yeah. So, I would love to to know about about this particular post and what brought it about, like, why why did you post about this story? And what does it mean to you? Yeah. And I was really I was tickled that you noticed it and that you, latched on to that. It was a real interesting story. Right now, I, my poor wife has to explain to people. Yes, my husband is a dentist. No, he doesn't have a practice. He's got a podcast, and he's, like, running a men's group for dentists.
So he's kind of like a personal trainer for dentists. She's like, it's a long story. You don't. You don't want to hear it. So, that's her intro. And my two year old actually doesn't believe that I'm a dentist anymore. We were watching Baby Shark this morning. Because that's how you keep a two year old saying while you're getting the rest of the kids ready for the day. And it was like the baby shark dentist thing. She's like, oh, baby shark dentist. I was like, well, daddy's a dentist.
And she's like, you're not a dentist. Baby shark's a dentist. 000 doesn't have enough evidence that I actually can practice dentistry, because it's been about a year and a half since I've been seeing patients. But but this story behind this post is that, there's this doctor in my men's group, and he had a really rough extraction. It was an upper second molar. Took a big chunk of a tuberosity out with the tooth. So a lot more came out with the tooth than you wanted to. And. Yeah, those are hard.
You know, you have these complications. You do everything right. You've done a bunch of these before, and the patient wouldn't stop bleeding. It was pretty scary. It was. It was scary. And EMS had to be called patient made it to the hospital. Even in the hospital, a patient passed out twice. So just just a really, really scary day, you know? And so the crazy part is, is that we have these check in calls. And the next morning, we were on a checking call with about ten of us doctors.
And he was like, guys, I'm I'm kind of in a dark place. And he shared this story and he was just very shaken, and very like he said, this is the hardest professional day I've ever had. And he had this narrative in his head around the fact that he and he kind of had a clear schedule. He is an associate at this office with another doctor. She was also an associate. And he'd gone in and volunteered and said, like, hey, I'll take this patient.
Because the patient had like one more thing to do on their treatment plan. This was the patient. And so in his mind, he's like, crap. Was this because I was like wanting to produce more? And he was like, feeling guilty at first I'm like, no. In dentistry, we have this really cool alignment where the more dentistry we do, the more people we help. Yeah, sure, you produce more and you make more money, but it's because you worked more. So don't feel weird about that.
And but but just in his head, like, how could this have gone different? How could I have known? Just all the self-doubt and beating yourself up, fear, worrying about the patient and immediately the other the other dentist in the group, the other man in the group jumped in. And, you know, one is a dental anesthesiologist and he's seeing patients die on the table.
And, another dentist, has had had a patient that had some major complications, similar type things, and was later sued by that patient's husband. And it was for years this kind of like deep, painful wound that he's had to process through therapy and all these things, and they were able to immediately support him, in this moment and to give him context and give him support. And and at the end of that conversation, we realized, you know what?
If this patient had gone to that associate, that, that your friend, his good, good friend who was not as extraction, comfortable and was newer at the practice, had less kind of confidence overall with these types of procedures. This would have, really, really kind of thrown her for a loop for a long time, you know, and shaken her. He was able to go back the next day. It's not like he had PTSD, but it was so interesting to see live within 24 hours of kind of the worst day of her life.
He all of a sudden was grateful it happened to him. And that immediate reframe was like just amazing. And that's why I had to share. I was like, I have to I have to share this. This was really cool to see. So yeah, so that's the context behind that post and the power and the depth of community. Yes.
So many of us just suffer alone in dentistry, like we're in our little islands and we're all going through like parallel breakdowns and self-doubts and, but like, don't tell anyone because that's, like, not acceptable to tell people you're struggling or to admit that you don't know what you're doing sometimes, or that you, you know, and luckily, you know, the patient saw the specialist and oral surgeon was like, you handled this right.
You called DMs. You did. You know you didn't try and handle it on your own. You didn't try and drive the patient to the hospital to avoid a ambulance bill. This could have happened to a specialist. In fact, these hard ones get sent to specialists all the time. Like this is, you don't know what you don't know. And he did everything right and had nothing to feel guilty about. He was in the, you know, taking care of the patient the way that he should. So, yeah. So that's the context.
It's crazy, though, where our brains as humans naturally go. And I think his, you know, his initial response, even though to me on the outside sounds insane, you know, like where you justify it like, oh, you know, why did I take it? And did I just want more money or whatever? Wherever that brain was going, it's like it almost seeks out those reasons to to put blame in completely inappropriate areas.
And I know from, you know, even my own personal experiences that aren't dental related, but, but, you know, business related that that is going to be a process for him. So having support is is and it's priceless. And it can because it's going to come up again. It will. It's it's locked in your brain. It's locked in your cells. And you're going to have to process it. I know, you also, have kind of I don't know how we say it. Fire walked, walked on coals. You've had a transformation yourself.
When I, when I first, you know, met you. You were. You were a dentist. Did you have two practices also, or did was it just one? When we met, I think I had bought three while I was still in the Army with some partners. Yes. Yes, I remember this. So. So I just found out this morning that you that you've transitioned. And so now you're providing support in different ways and not practicing dentistry. Do you mind sharing what your journey was through that?
Because even that, I mean, even if nothing major happened and you didn't bleed somebody out on accident or you know, that of no fault of their own, something must have occurred. Change is difficult no matter what. Yeah. So, here's here's the shortest version of everything. Was it? I started a podcast eight years ago in my closet outside Fort Hood, Texas, about practice ownership, and eight years later, I found myself the CEO of a 35 dental office denture and implant group.
And I had absolutely zero business doing that, and was miserable and dying inside. So there's a lot of dots in between those two points. And that that specific point that we met was about halfway between starting the podcast. I bought three practices as I was getting out of the Army. I still had 2 or 3 years left in the Army, and I ran those practices through Covid with some partners. I realized I don't like multiple practice, and I walked away.
And then, in the meantime, we'd started a coaching and consulting business, shared practices. And we actually have attorneys now, so we're like a dentist owned law firm, which is which is pretty weird. And then, George Curry re my my partner, the author of our book Dental Moneyball, he came to me, he's like, Roger, I think we're going to start a DSO. I was like, George, I just walked away from DSO stuff, like I thought, I thought we were we were good with no DSO stuff.
But it was a really good opportunity. He was like, listen, this dental implant model is pretty amazing. It's transformative, is basically like taking clear choice plus affordable and just making that an office. You kind of have the full array of someone walks in. They their terminal dentition. They know they need all their teeth pulled. We've got a lab tech, no hygienists. And here's your options. Immediate denture over denture all on four.
And we had we figured a few things out that we felt like we could we could get traction with that model. And so, you know, we merged up six dentists, between our I think at the time, 13 offices, we merged together. Somehow I became the CEO, I think, because I started the podcast. And so people were like, okay, yeah, yeah, he's in charge, right? Oh, wait, can you pause there for one second? Because that, that is, that's a rough that's a rough road, a hoe right there.
Like if that, if elected by committee. Obviously it's not just the podcast, but they had the faith in you. They saw you as a natural leader. When I met you, you had this huge sparkle in your eye. And that's very charismatic and indicative of CEOs, you know. So when I, when I met you, I had this just this feeling of like, you can do anything, you're going to do anything. So I'm wondering, I don't I, I wonder if that's why you were elected to be CEO.
Well, there's always more behind the scenes than like, you can truly share. Like it was like, how how is this going to go? But it came down to, with six very entrepreneurial dentists. So the coolest thing about starting a podcast, as you two know, is you get to have these, like, amazing conversations with different people and you attract your tribe, you attract your people, and over time, you build these relationships.
Well, shared practices, motto was we're going to be the entrepreneurial dental podcast for like my generation of people, you know, I graduated 2015 and we felt like the we said, we're going to ignore every dentist who this was at the time. We no longer do this. We're going to ignore every dentist who's already established because they're not going to listen to us. Like, who's going to listen to some new grad talk about practice ownership when he's still in the Army?
But if I can talk to a dental student who, like, wants to figure out how to get into practice ownership and help them, then maybe they'll listen. And so over the next six years or five years, we attracted a lot of extremely entrepreneurial young dentists, dental students, which then those dentists went out and graduated, bought practices straight out of school. Some of them now, you know, owned three or 5 or 10 practices.
But that was the tribe that we attracted was this dentist who can't help but like build businesses. And so that's who the six partners that merged up were people that, were part of our circle, all six of us very entrepreneurial. And so essentially, we had our C-suite to, shared practices group was we filled out the roles of, like, the executive team. And we had a very flat structure. So while I was CEO, on paper, I am not operationally great. I'm good on air and I'm good.
You know, in certain circumstances it's like, okay, he's the face of the company, but like the actual running of the company, like, let's split this up here. And so we had a very flat structure and all that. But I self-identified right up front of like, I don't know how well I'm going to do with this as it scales.
I don't know, I don't and I don't want to be in the way because they, they had a vision that was like, I just started a podcast and now that dream has had a baby, and that baby had a baby, and that baby's really big. And I, you know, I'm not, I don't know. And so it turns out that I was right. I, I don't do well as a CEO when I'm a perfectionist. I'm a people pleaser. And the company gets people are unhappy. The dental office is the same way.
Someone is always unhappy and nothing is ever perfect. The more people you have, the more that's true. And and I didn't cope well with, you know, stress and all of kind of the mounting burden. But it's the same story. You don't have to have 35 offices to feel crushed by the anxiety of running a practice like your team. And you are like, it's this uphill battle constantly to feel alone, like you're trapped. Like, I bought this practice. I can't get away from it.
I have a bunch of debt and to start to crumble. And that's really what happened to me, is I started to kind of crumble. So when you decided to transition and leave and walk away from this magnificent structure that you helped build, was there any part of your ego that was fighting you back and saying, if I leave this, will I be less successful? 100%? That's why I did it in the first place. You know, it's like, how could I not?
I think it's the it's the FOMO, like, to be at the ground level of something. And same thing at. Well, and I guess at that point, I got miserable enough that I, I no longer cared about my ego. I think that's what it came down to, is I was suffering enough that I was like, screw you. You go like, we're out of here. And it took a lot of, of of killing of that ego to step away for, like, I didn't know what was going on. I was like, I need to take two months of unpaid medical leave.
Guys. Like, I felt extremely guilty for abandoning my partners, for abandoning my doctors, for the obligations, the direction we were going. There was a lot on every shoulders, and I never one shoulder. And I was like, sorry guys, I can't, I can't keep doing this. So I think even that it was more a kind of guilt and shame was harder than, like, oh, am I going to be able to do something like this? Because I, I'm a cheap date. I'm a midwest boy. We live in Indianapolis.
Houses here like 400 K. We're like in middle class suburbs. Like, I don't drive fancy cars. So, you know, my long term ambitions for, like, what we need to build to satisfy our lifestyle and our goals, I don't know, is not that fancy. And you can do that with regular dentistry. You don't need a DSO. You don't need some big, grand thing. But I think it was the shame of, like, abandoning partners.
There was like, there's a there's a term that I, I learned at Vanessa Emersons expansion last weekend that really defines me when I'm at your point. And that's hemorrhaging. I mean, it feels like you're losing blood from everywhere at the expense of building everybody else up. Is that what it felt like when you made the decision to walk away? It it did. And, and at the same time, when you're hemorrhaging bad enough, you have to make really hard decisions.
Because it's like we got to live, you know, it's like this. This is not going to sustain well. So I think that was unfortunately, the point I had to be at was hemorrhaging, to then make a hard decision. And I still like, I still feel bad, like when I interact with doctors from, from our group or even some of my partners, I feel like, man, I wish, I wish I had been able to grow into the role.
You know, like you look back and I, I crumpled the stress and all of those things, like I felt like a functioning adult. I felt like I do better in a clinical setting. I'm ADHD, I would get anxiety checking my email, and I was supposed to be managing projects and driving teams, and I was like, if you've got me on a meeting, I can hop on and talk. But like managing me with the stress, it was embarrassing. It was like, this is not working well, so I do. I did well as a dentist.
I was like, maybe I need to be clinical again because you can't procrastinate patient care. You just go room to room to room to room. There's no like, self-managing, you know, are you staying on top of these projects? It's just like, just do the dentistry. So there's been this kind of whole in-depth midlife crisis.
And I feel like I'm just going on and on and on, but this is the kind of stuff that I'm opening up and talking more about, because I think a lot of dentists don't talk about how much they're suffering in their practice because it's not cool. It's like, oh, if I was cooler, I would handle this better. And I don't want anyone to know that I'm I'm dying on the inside and especially men. And I want to thank you for that, because you're supposed to not be vulnerable and and open.
You're supposed to be angry, right? You're that's the only emotion that you are allowed to display is you're supposed to be an asshole and be angry and start firing people. Yeah. And that's how you show strength. You're not supposed to walk away and take two months off of unpaid leave to recover emotionally. Yeah. And and it's funny you said that is, the the men's group that I joined. So I joined a group along this, like, self-destructive path.
And, you know, my marriage was on the rocks because of this. Like, I kind of almost lost all the things that were most important to me. And therefore, walking away from a partnership was like, okay, this is what I need to do to focus on what matters most. But I joined a men's group called Superhuman Fathers, which was an utterly ridiculous name. And I love Kyle. I'm actually meeting with him right after this. And he has a weekly call called Assholes Anonymous. Speaking of assholes.
Yeah. And I mean, essentially, it's this is this is a program that, I don't know if you guys know Emmett Scott from Deo. No, but my son's middle name is Emmett Scott. Oh, that's really funny. No, I don't know. I've got no, he's got a podcast and he's one of the the main players at Deo, for, you know, multi practice people these days. And he at a conference showed his before and after his transformation. His like he went from like 280 pounds to like 180 pounds and had a six pack.
And that's major. It was a big deal and, and I was there very much in my pain, but no one knew. Everyone's like, oh, tell me about shared practices group. And I got to tell our story and everyone's like, that's so cool. You guys opened ten offices one year and then you opened 20 offices the next year. That's insane. And like, well, it is, and you're so successful. You're so great, I love that. Yeah, but but I was I was really struggling and dying inside.
And Emmett got up there and Kyle, the founder of this group, got up there and they said, we will get you in the best shape you've ever been in your life. You will have abs, and you'll be a better husband and father and reconnect with purpose and with God. And I swiped my card so fast, I literally had no clue what the program was, what I was committing to. I was like, I just need something.
But the the emphasis was, yeah, you can have a physical transformation, but if you're more of an asshole at the end of that physical transformation, because now you have an ego and you think, oh, I look good, or I'm in the best shape of my life, we've failed you. And in fact, we use the physical as the way to break a man and cause him to actually own emotion and self-reflect and deal with shame and failure and all of those things.
Because the same way, if you fail at a diet, you fail at your workout routine, and you have to hide it from your buddies that you're trying to do this with together, it's the same thing as failing in your office, failing in your marriage and parenthood. What are the strategies that you use to protect your ego? Like you said, how do you self preserve when you're the one self-sabotaging and make it about everyone else? You get angry, you like, point the finger.
You're the grumpy dad who, like, is mad about stuff at work and then you take it out on your kids unintentionally. Well, so society tells us that that, you know, if you're not growing, you're dying. So your natural career trajectory, if it's presented to you, would be a fool to turn it down. Like, why would you turn it down?
And you, for my humble, you know, reflection or perspective, you were at an inflection point of authenticity and the body tends to speak to us in ways that are painful when we are not acting authentically. And I think you had that niggling right out of the gate. I just don't know that this is the right path for me. And there is such a big internal struggle that had to have gone on.
I don't know if it was one straw that broke the camel's back for you and made you say, I'm going to take these, these two months off. I am curious, what was that one moment? Because some doctors, Richard, they just. Well, not just the doctors, but people. They don't make it that far. They suffer an event. They have a cardiac event. Something happens to break them worse than that.
So something was there that made you make that right step and shut down the ego and all of the guilt and the shame and the feelings that went along with that. That is a huge act of bravery on your part and took courage. Well, it's funny, I remember going to one of my Costa CES events and talking with one of his associates at one of his offices and hearing some of the behind the scenes of like, well, here's the stuff that he talks about and teaches, but here's what goes on in our office.
And I remember thinking, okay, if I ever build something, I'm going to share more of what goes on behind the scenes. And I tried to do some of that, like with those first three practices, and it immediately bit me in the butt, like I went to an office, met the team. It was kind of my first meeting with them, and then I went back and like podcast about the next day. Well, in the meantime, they've looked me up, they've found my podcast. They go and like, listen to that episode.
And my partners at the time are like, Richard, you can't like, go blab our operations on air. The moment that it happens. Because like, but one of my favorite, one of my favorite episodes was you being very transparent. It was around, I think, revenue. I think it was maybe collections and revenue. And you were like, just saying, here's my level of knowledge. And I remember I listen to podcasts when I get ready in the morning and I like stopped. I was like brushing my hair and I was like, what?
So keep going. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but you were great at that, at sharing very openly. You know, what you're going through. And what I realized is it's it's really hard. As soon as you have doctors who are employees, you've got multiple offices, you've got a lot going on. I also had a whole lot more. And I had to take some episodes down from things that I had, like shared, you know, trying to be vulnerable. Yeah.
But all of a sudden you, you when it's one office and everyone in your office knows you, you know, it's like your dental assistants, your hygienist, your office manager, your associate. And they know they're like, okay, this guy podcasts. If we say stuff, he might share it online and then we'll come give him a hard time and said, okay, you talked about me on the podcast.
I heard you, but as soon as you're not there and you don't have a close personal relationship with them, you can no longer like out some of the details of of the you know, what's going on. So you ask this question is like, what was the actual moment that broke you? And like, okay, there's this one doctor who's no longer there that I could maybe share some of that story of that very toxic situation, but, I don't know about that.
And then there's some things with some formal former people that there's still consequences going on. And, you know, like, I can't, I want to I want to like, spill all the details. But in respect of the people who are still working in these offices and the people that, you know, you just you just can't. And so I all of a sudden I understand much more, but I will say there was undiagnosed mental health stuff going on, like for me. Sure. I remember googling like, what's it called when?
Like nothing sounds good. Like when you just don't want to do I call it your I say I'm in my ear brain. Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, apparently the term is anhedonia. So, like, hedonic is like the pursuit of pleasure. And this is like a lack of pursuit of pleasure. Like it turns out it's a symptom of depression. And, and at the time, I wasn't like, oh, I am depressed. I was like, oh, that's funny. I'm not depressed, but I find pleasure in the things that you normally would have found pleasure.
And there's just nothing makes me happier. Like walking like a zombie. Oh, I can yeah, I can share openly because I think mental health is really important and sharing our stories. I remember when my therapist a few years ago had identified for me that I had depression, and I was shocked. I was like, really? And she walked me through it. And then it took me a while, Richard, to go from I guess I get it to, oh, I get it, I get it. That's, that's this is a problem.
Yeah. I'm like, you just couldn't be yourself anymore. Yeah. What's the breakdown? So, like, you were this person, and this person was readily sharing knowledge of the things that you have built, and you wanted others to learn from the stories and from the shared experiences. And there was a barrier, in being able to share that. And that was, you know, truly out of their respective. Right.
Well, who who didn't want those stories shared, but that, that blockage of like, whatever you were growing in your soul and in your heart couldn't come out. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And so you couldn't live as the person that you wanted to be. You're absolutely right. Even in even in my marriage. Christine told me she she said, my experience of you as CEO was you stressed in the corner on your phone. It's, like, hunched over, like, miserable on my phone.
It was not this, like, boardroom suit situation. It was like Richard is crumpling in the corner, and she would ask me how my day went. And there's just, you know, it's like, okay, this former office manager is calling patients because she's bitter of how she got let go and, like, telling them to leave the office. And then this assistant, her boyfriend, is making death threats against the doctor. And it's just like that stuff that would happen in the course of a of a day.
And it was like the third thing. And then there's like 12 things after that. And so Christine, she would ask me was like, I can't I can't even relive it. I can't go back through what happened in this day. And I think a lot of times when you're seeing 30 patients in a day like these, little micro interaction occurs. You know, like I have this patient and this team member and then this person getting offended in this and getting upset over a bill.
And it can be this onslaught of decisions and negativity and frustrations and people letting you down. And it's all it always comes and goes in like waves. So it's like everything's good for a little while and then everything hits at once. And since I've started opening up about this stuff, I've had Denis reach out who are having panic attacks on their drive to work, who are, deeply depressed.
Their middle divorce is they're recovering from a whole variety of addictions and and trying to, like, get honest and straight and, and own up to those things. They're they feel utterly isolated and alone. My wife looked at me about four years ago, and she's like, you don't have any friends in Indiana, do you? And then at first I was like, that's not true. But then I'm like, sure I do. It's true. Dang it.
My dental friends all lived out of state, you know, so it's like I had to go fly to to see my dental friends. But within our hometown, it was like, who do I talk to about my weird first world dental problems? Like, no one relates to those. And I know our listeners are, like, would like. Yeah. Me too. Yeah. There's just so many of us that, you know, thankfully do what you're now, you know, opening up from your soul, your heart, your your, your brain.
They don't feel because, I mean, did you feel alone in in how you felt? Did you think you were the only one? Were there moments like that? You know, it's funny. We all we all think like, my my circumstances are unique, you know, like, I'm my my pain is like a special flavor of pain. No one's tasted this one before. It's it's the. You don't want it. I think I think the biggest thing was feeling trapped. I felt like I had put all my eggs in this basket, and I was very unhappy.
And I wanted to make it work. I wanted to be a good CEO. I wanted to, show up for my partners, show up for my doctors, and I wanted to kind of rise to the to the stressors. And instead I was imploding. And it was like I felt very trapped because now it's like I've committed. I've, you know, this is who I wanted to help, who I wanted to serve, and it's not working. And I don't know what to do now. And so, yeah, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Well was it was it the coaching?
Was it the coaching that helped you people please yourself. So instead of people pleasing others and honoring others, you put that effort into yourself and honored yourself. What was that step? Yeah, I think it was to stop lying to myself is really what it was. Well, so was that was a lie. Put that on a t shirt. What was a lie? I want to know the lie. That I could become a different version of myself.
That all of a sudden would love this thing that I didn't love like that if I just transformed all and. The lie was. The truth was this isn't working. And so the lie was. You just need to try harder to make this work. And it must, because you're not working in this. You're not trying hard enough. But there was also, like, I gave up. I gave up on myself. I gave up on my health. I gave up on a lot of aspects of my marriage and my faith. I still did pretty good at putting the kids to bed at night.
I did a good job with that one still, but, everything else, I kind of tapped out and, just kind of slid the wrong direction and that was also really hard. Was to, like, not look at myself and realize you're not who you used to be, and it's not a good thing. So that's the other lie is like, no, no, no, I'm really this guy. I'm really I'm really this good guy who does all these good things.
And then you look at it on the face of it, you're like, well, you don't have as much evidence as you used to have for that, that stance, because you're acting selfishly and you're covering your tracks and you're not showing up the way that you should. So that that was a big part of, I think the, the lying wow, this this whole episode has been very paradigm shifting because you've, you've had to go through a tremendous journey yourself.
And, and you still podcast, host shared practices and you have a new podcast as well. Is it a secret podcast or is it we're allowed to share it what it is. So it is a secret podcast, which all that means is it's a private feed. So it's not like searchable on iTunes. Or if you see my googling fail, now we get it. Okay. Right. So the only, the only way to get it is, I'm trying to go pro on Instagram this year, and I'm going to be creating a lot of video. And I've got an editor.
I just sent him ten videos in South Africa, and I'm shooting some B-roll, and, like, we're I got a drone. I'm gonna try and get some drone B-roll and all that stuff, but a lot more like hot takes and just authentic stuff on on Instagram. So it's at next level. Father's Dmed is my my new Instagram handle for my men's group or at doctor Dot Richard dot lo. Either one of those. But the men's group one has the new secret podcast.
So if you DM me there or comment on any of the videos, the the word 50 or the numbers 50, you'll get the link for it. It's called Broken to Unrecognizable. How to drop 50 pounds as, how to drop 50 pounds and become a next level husband, father and dentist because the name of our group is Next Level fathers. And it doesn't, you know, the physical transformation.
It's a lot of fun if you go from like to 20 to 1, you know, 165 and put some muscle on your like, you look like a different person and you feel like a different person. And I was like, If I'm going to have a midlife crisis, you got to at least have like the Rocky montage where you're just like training all day. You know, I had some time finally, and and make something good out of it, but it really was transformative.
It's what allowed me to self confront and pull myself out of the darkness and now turn around. This is, I think, the my favorite part of it all is so much of our like, feelings. We just beat ourselves up with them and like it feels like it's there's it's never redeeming. It's just like Isaac, Isaac, Isaac. Why do I continue to struggle?
But now, since I've been able to be more open and help other men who struggle with some of the same addictions, some of the same problems, by being open and vulnerable, it helps them. And it's like by sharing that journey, it helps them. And now I can start to forgive myself for being the asshole that I was.
I can start to turn like the pain that I had along the way into something good, and in a way that I wouldn't be able to connect with this other person if I hadn't gone through the same crappy moments and crappy decisions, I wouldn't be able to help them make better decisions and see a light and improve themselves. And so that's been really fun to like, turn what's been a lot of pain, a lot of shame, a lot of frustration into helping other dentists who just who just want to be better.
They just want to be the best version of themselves. And that's why they're raising the pain and redefining it. Exactly. That's that's the Segway, Maggie. Right there. Because I was thinking, so there are, there are personal coaches in dentistry. And so there's the practice management ones and then there's the personal ones also. So that's not different. But what was different to me was getting back to wrapping all the way around the the social media post again.
There were four particular, proverbs and different lessons that were posted with it. And this differentiated you and made me really want to reach out. And and Maggie, you just touched on it. One was embracing pain by redefining it. That was number one. I'm going to go through all of them. And then I want you to talk about them. Number two, my chronic pain is so unfair. Three I'm suffering so they don't have to or for who knows what is good.
And those were four very paradigm shifting thoughts I love it I love it when when something is is challenged. And I learned that the brain stores and focuses more on negative experiences than positive because it's trying to protect us. It's trying to help make sure that we don't do that again. And I can see how it turns into rumination, and then it just really can create this perfect storm like you went through and many dentists go through.
But if we're able to shift the way that we think or you have tools available to us to, to everyone so that that we can see things from a different perspective. That to me is where growth can lie. And, Maggie, you had a lot of thoughts about this first one. So it says embrace pain by redefining it. No matter the reason we are suffering, whether it's our own mistakes, someone else's fault, illness or accident, if we can find meaning in the suffering, it changes everything. So back to Maggie or me.
Sorry, I will just quickly share, what my experience with it is, is, we tried to push off pain we're so afraid of. We'll do anything. And I think that's the human condition, the fear of it. Because when you actually feel pain, it's not as bad as you'd imagine it. And it's the same thing for anxiety with patients. Right. Like however we imagine the pain from you know dear of going to the dentist is actually worse than being at the dentist.
So the Buddhist, make a distinction between pain and suffering. And I'm just in my own cycle of, of of this. I'll call B.S. because I find it uncomfortable. And the difference between pain and suffering is that if you accept pain readily or change readily, or that the, the, the change readily, you'll just have pain, okay? And pain isn't so bad.
But if you do not accept it and if you fight it, and if you try to change the story in your head and if you really don't submit to it, that pain turns into suffering. So your idea, in that first statement of embracing it, the Buddhists would say that by embracing it, you reduce suffering. Which is really exactly what you're what you're saying. Yeah. And I remember, there was a, I was I was pushing carts. I was like a, cart boy at Sam's Club when I was like 17, 18.
And for some reason, this, like, therapy book called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Book fell in my lap. And I was subbing in at the gas station and it was freezing cold. It was here in Indiana, and you're in that little hut and people try and swipe their cards at Sam's Club, and you have to go, like, help them swipe it and, so I had a lot of time.
I'm just sitting there and, I'm reading this book and it's talking about exactly what you said, this, this principle of our relationship to pain and our relationship to suffering. Like how we think about that pain, how much resistance there is to it versus embracing it changes that. And it was cold. And I didn't wear a good enough coat, and I had to change the trashes at the end of the night. And so I was like shivering as I'm like out there taking out the trash bags.
And I had this thought, from the book. And I was like, what if you just embrace the cold, like, rather than, like, being, like, annoyed and bracing yourself against the cold? And I stopped shivering, like I instantly stopped shivering and I was like, oh, this was me being unwilling to accept the cold and it made it more miserable. And then I was just like, okay, there's the cold, that's fine. It's there.
And then to take it one layer deeper, if there's a way to find meaning in that now all of a sudden we create suffering by running away from it. Now we can eliminate that suffering by by embracing it. Can we then find meaning and redefine it and have purpose? And, you know, they talk about the, janitor who, you know, three different janitors, the first one at an elementary school. The first janitor is like, it's just a job. I gotta pay the bills. It's a beautiful setting. Yeah, yeah.
And the second janitor is like, I'm providing for my family. This is how I take care of my home and my family. It's really important to me. And the third janitor says I'm shaping young minds. I'm part of their education, a part of their learning. They all have the exact same job, but the meaning that they ascribe to the hard parts of being a janitor at a elementary school is completely changed by the meaning they bring to that job. And it's the same thing with pain.
We tell ourselves the story of why me? This isn't fair. And and like, I shouldn't be suffering this. Someone else should be. Or maybe, you know, shouldn't be. It's not fair that anyone suffering these kinds of things. But that story we tell and the meaning we ascribe fundamentally changes our relationship to it and our our capacity to handle it and be the person that we want to be, live our own values in the face of pain, despite pain.
And that goes into number two really well, which was my chronic pain is so unfair rather than bitterness at the unfairness which life is unfair, we can inspire by showing up for others despite the pain, illness, injury, cancer all give us expanded empathy and compassion. Yeah. This one was, this last year. My wife's had a lot of chronic nerve pain, and it's, like, still ongoing. And it prevents her from sleeping.
And at one point, like, she had, her leg would seize up in the night, and I'd kind of have to, at 3 a.m., work her calf and her her thigh, as, like an on demand single leg muscles in the middle of the night. New business card, right? Yes. Spouses only. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, so it just I, you know, at different moments, it felt very unfair and it felt very like, why me? It made it harder to do all these other things. It made it harder to sleep.
And at the same time, like, we ended up, you know, bonding over it and that, like, we, I got to serve her a lot in that. And it was like I had to like, you know, I wanted to wake up early in working out, and I could have to work out and I could have said, like, well, I can't work out because Christine wakes up in the night.
And then I got to take the baby, and instead I was like, okay, I'm going to wake up, massage her leg, and then, I'll fall back asleep and then I'll wake up at 415, I'll get my workout in before the baby wakes up. I'll take the baby so that she can sleep, because she didn't sleep for 2 or 3 hours in the middle of the night. And I can show up for her right now when she needs that. And it brought us closer together. It was awful. And it still sucks.
And she's still got some stuff going on with it, but it's improving, you know, it's not getting worse. It's not going the other direction. It's healing slowly but gradually because nerve pain is just like that. But, yeah, that was, it was hard to see her suffer. But then it over time, we kind of saw the fruits of that together as a couple, and we became grateful for aspects of it. It still hurt. It's still a pain. But you know, wow.
And the counterpoint of that is that I think it breaks a lot of marriages apart. That absolutely isn't for sure of pain. And chronic pain puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the other partner to do the housework or whatever it is. It brings up anger and resentment and and what you're doing and being able to reframe what's happening probably has a lot of healing. Ability for your wife, I would think. And even the touch itself probably has healing ability.
And the fact that you have compassion and and your presence, probably helped with her healing. Whereas if you came at it with the resentment and anger, oh, no question. Probably do compensate for the right. Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. You feel that the energy of others, you feel the support of others, you feel the love of others.
And I have absolutely no doubt in my mind, if you're in a negative environment with a lack of empathy or a lack of compassion, that does not add to your healing, I think it actually does. I have no scientific proof, but I believe that it does negatively impact you. Absolutely. I think there's a lot of power and love well and the other two parts of this, as I mentioned earlier, that like I kind of made a mess of our marriage and things were not in a good place.
And my wife is not a massage person. She doesn't like back massages or shoulder massages, but I'm a good masseuse. And for once in our marriage, she needed me and I was. I was like, I'll take any brownie points that I can get because I'm in the doghouse and I'm trying to, you know, reprioritize our life. I'm not traveling for work anymore. I'm not doing things that are causing me to break down from stress.
And and I can get some brownie points waking up at 2 a.m. and massaging your leg, I'll like. So there was some selfishness in there for me too. I felt really, validated in that. Like, yes, see, I am good at this. I think it's a beautiful story, actually. All right, I know we're running short on our time here, but number three, I'm suffering so they don't have to. This is the essence of being a father or mother. Yep. So we bear hard things because we love them.
But you don't have to be a parent to draw from this meaning as well. And that was the the story that we started off with was that Doctor Who. Yeah. You reframed his really awful, the worst professional day he had in his career and why me? And did I do something wrong and beating himself up and all of a sudden it was, you know what? I was glad it was me. I was grateful that it was me. And he had this incident. He's like, she would not have had this this support network.
He's like, I had on demand therapy. The next morning at our check in call with a bunch of other dentists who've been through the same thing, have been through worse things that could give me support and context. And, but she didn't have that, you know, it's like she would have broken her in a different ways. And she didn't have support in the same way. So that that was what inspired that thought in this whole carousel was that exact story.
The, the one, the the fourth one, which I think, I personally relate to and I use it a lot myself. So I think it's a good note for us to, to end on, even though I think Maggie and I could talk to you for hours, is, who knows what is good. I say this so many times, especially when I'm in my darkest, times.
The Chinese proverb, who knows what is good and what is bad means that in a year or five years, we might look back on the worst moment of our life and realize that we are grateful for the good that came out of it. And I have had that reflected to me so many times. And I can get so reactive and so nervous and so anxiety ridden because we that's there's unknowns and uncontrollable that I can't control. And I felt that this was so powerful. Why did you include it in this from your own perspective?
Yeah. It's that that Chinese proverb, and there's a whole story about a farmer who loses his horse, who brings back these other horses, and his neighbors keep asking them, like, why aren't you upset? Why aren't you happy? And then his son breaks his leg and they're like, oh, you're so unlucky. And then they come and they draft all the young men to go to war. But his son doesn't have to go because he broke his leg because of the horse. This for me.
Is what allows me to, Feel really good about, like, some really hard times. And it's like, we just don't. We don't know what's coming around the corner. And those really hard times feel super dark when they're dark. And they just feel like, how could this ever be good? Like, how could this ever turn into something good? And then you look back and you're like, wow, that that's one of the best things that could ever have happened to me.
And, and we have to be looking for it to have those realizations if, if we're just in our bitterness and in our regret and in our shame, then it's hard for us to look up and see that, and always pointing the finger. But it's like if we just put our heads down and embrace, okay, this is a hard time. I'm going to lean into the pain. I'm going to find meaning in the pain. I'm not going to run from it. And who knows what's on the other side of this.
I'm just going to show up the best way I can today. And six months, nine months, 12 months later, we might look back and realize like, that was that was what we needed. That's what, unlocked for us. More opportunity than than we realized possible. Richard, dentistry deserves this level of of openness and honesty and authenticity. And I'm so grateful that you have turned your own struggles and challenges into something that helps and serves others, and most importantly, that it serves you.
Thank you. Yeah, I'm so grateful for the hope that you can bring home, for that open mindedness and the honesty that you bring. And I know that as of recent, we talk about how, isolating dentistry has been for women, but also the growth that men are now experiencing by opening their hearts to one another. And the community that you now have helped create, for those open hearted men, we need that to. So thank you. Absolutely.
And if anyone wants to watch the the shit show unravel and Richard is going to talk about everything, go, Instagram at next level. Father's DM'd and I already joined during this podcast. Thank you for having me on. Absolutely. Thank you Richard. So so much. It's been it's been a joy. Thank you for listening to another episode of Everyday Practices podcast.
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