If you own your own practice, you know how busy life can be! And, as a practice owner, having a good sense of leadership is essential to creating a positive work environment. But how do you manage to create that good space for you and your employees when there are so many daily commitments to manage? It can be overwhelming! If you want to learn how to LOVE your practice, Dr. Laura has some ideas for you! First of all, buying a new piece of equipment, taking a CE class or hiring a consultant won’...
Jan 26, 2021•22 min
Do you ever have doubts about something you’re doing? Maybe you’re branching out into a new area… but then something happens that creates an emotional roller coaster for you. If you feel like you are weighed down and just want to hide, don’t give up! Know that you are not alone. Dr. Laura has had those same feelings, and in this episode, she shares the reasons why we have emotions, where they start, and how we can control our feelings. Identifying and evaluating the thoughts we have that create ...
Jan 13, 2021•23 min
We women need each other and need to support each other through positivity! We are all going through similar challenges… While we may be apart, we are also very much together in our experiences of life’s ups and downs. In this episode, Dr. Laura welcomes Dr. Laura Schwindt who believes in “hacking your happiness chemicals.” Right now, we all need as many of those happiness chemicals as we can tap into, and we can accomplish this by choosing positive thoughts and actions. Your feelings matter! Th...
Dec 30, 2020•35 min
Many times as business owners we risk being criticized. We put ourselves out there in the public eye and can get a bad review, a complaining employee, or a patient who is angry and leaves the practice. As I find my own voice as a life coach, it's like I am singing a song on a busy corner. Most people keep walking but some people find that the song is exactly what they need. A few say it's horrible. This week as I was singing my song someone who is well known criticized me in a very public space....
Dec 21, 2020•25 min
It’s natural to open your bank account and check the balance; that’s our human nature! And this year has had so many swings that we have just tried to hang on and make it through. Now it’s time to make some plans and some changes for 2021. Dental practice owners, it is time to get organized with regards to your practice’s finances. Dr. Laura’s guest this week is Barb Stackhouse, author of “Profit First for Dentists,” who sheds some valuable light on how to pay yourself as a business owner! You w...
Dec 17, 2020•35 min
Our brains are creatures of habit! We are always multitasking, and so our brains like to take shortcuts and jump to conclusions. And in this crazy year of 2020, everyone has had so much to process and handle. As practice owners, our brains have gone in many directions… and often those directions are merely reactions to situations as opposed to conscious steps toward goals. Friends, it is time to change that! Have you thought about some awesome goals for next year? In this episode, Dr. Laura disc...
Dec 02, 2020•23 min
Experience is so valuable! There are multiple ways people can learn lessons in life. We can make our own mistakes and discover better ways to handle situations. Or… we can also listen to the advice of others who have gone down certain roads before us and absorb their words of wisdom to help us avoid some pitfalls. In this episode, Dr. Laura discusses some concepts she wishes she would have known when she bought her practice, and she is happy to share her valuable insight with YOU! From actively ...
Nov 19, 2020•21 min
Have you ever had a decision to make but you just put it off and off for quite some time? And you just can’t make a decision? This “Decision Fatigue” can be exhausting. This episode will help show you the way to fight through this, make a decision and move forward without regrets! We’ve all been there. We have a major decision to make, but all of the options run through our brains and grip us so tightly that we don’t move on. Sometimes you need to take a step back and look at the facts surroundi...
Nov 04, 2020•19 min
For most of us, as dental practice owners, being an employer is the hardest part of our jobs! My guest this episode is Adrienne Twigg, the co-owner of Bent Ericksen, a dental human resources company that helps clients in all 50 states with their leadership needs. As Adrienne says, we want to be good at everything we do, and being the leader that your team needs comes with many challenges and requires energy and commitment from you… But once your employees and staff members are confident in how y...
Oct 22, 2020•36 min
I’m always working to make the lives of my listeners better! And I’m excited about this episode’s guest, Dr. Josie Dovidio, who has been in dentistry since her part-time job in high school! She has been a dentist for over 23 years and has always been into health and fitness. But over the years, she has become committed to yoga as “It addresses the musculoskeletal issues that dentists and dental professionals face,” she says. We all need to pay attention to self-care on a regular basis so that we...
Oct 07, 2020•32 min
We all work to learn, better ourselves and become better members of our communities. And I know YOU love to better yourself because you listen to this podcast… to improve yourself! I LOVE that about you and am thankful for it! I think you are really going to enjoy this episode. I share my three favorite things I love about myself and my three favorite things about you, my listeners! And if you’re wondering… yes, I do know a lot about you, my amazing listeners, as you’ll hear in this episode. For...
Sep 23, 2020•25 min
Would you like to make more money in your practice? I bet you answered, “Yes!” If so, this is the episode for YOU! Join me as I walk through my process, “The Model” for how we get results in our lives and see how you can apply that model to your dental practice to get the money flowing into it. So, stick with me if you want to make more money! Friends, there is a simple action you can take to make your practice more profitable! In this episode you’ll hear me say, “Our businesses are a manifestat...
Sep 09, 2020•24 min
Our days can be so busy that it is easy to go home feeling exhausted! Ever since the COVID shutdown, there have been changes in our practices that are just wearing us out… possibly due to our new PPE or a lack of order to our days. With so much coming at us, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and tired. However, there are several actions you can do to help you not only get through your day better but also avoid feeling exhausted at the end of your day! In this episode, I share my list of actions tha...
Aug 26, 2020•21 min
Have you had an event in your day that upsets you… and then you stay focused on that one negative instance for the rest of the day? This can be frustrating as you try to proceed through your day! However, there are some great steps you can take to stop this process from happening to you and, instead, allow yourself to end the day in a much better way. In this episode, I present actions to deal with a negative event or feeling. There is a process to this so that you can not only acknowledge the n...
Aug 12, 2020•19 min
We all want less stress in our lives! And this episode can help you get to that point! I have the pleasure of welcoming Grace Rizza, owner of Identity Dental Marketing, to the show. She began her company at a young age; and now, in her business, she is excited for challenges such as COVID-19, as she sees those challenges as what happens before a growth spurt. I love that Grace says, “Mindset is the difference between feeling trapped by your career and feeling empowered by your career.” That is s...
Jul 29, 2020•29 min
The actions made by your employees matter! But did you ever stop to consider just how much you can influence those actions? This episode explores that question and also provides some valuable insight on various ways to handle situations in your office. A dental business is an accumulation of thousands of actions during a given year. Many of those actions are made by the dentist… but there are also countless actions being taken by employees. And those actions are extensions of you, the dentist. T...
Jul 15, 2020•18 min
Your feelings matter, and it's not why you think! It's not because I think, or anybody else thinks, you deserve to be happy (which I do!). It's also not because you SHOULD be happy. Your feelings matter because your feelings drive what you DO, and that includes how you run your dental practice. In this episode, I discuss the feelings that we all have, their importance in our lives, and the fact that our feelings drive our business decisions. Actions are driven by feelings, so they play an incred...
Jun 30, 2020•25 min
Dr. Ronni Brown is a practicing dentist, speaker, author and a public dental health specialist who enjoys working with patients in the community. Her career took an unexpected path when she accepted a position as the dentist in a jail. She has been there for 23 years and recognizes what a pivotal moment it was when she accepted that role. Early in that position, she was introduced to patients suffering from extreme dental decay and discovered that it was due to their use of methamphetamines. The...
Jun 18, 2020•39 min
My journey to becoming a life coach is one with some obstacles, and I’m proud of having overcome them to reach my goals. From growing up in poverty, to challenging my family’s religious teachings that said women should not work, to marrying young, my path to dental school was riddled with challenges. However, I succeeded in becoming a dentist and having a very profitable practice. But by 2018 my leadership and morale suffered because I was not enjoying my work. And then my numbers suffered becau...
May 29, 2020•18 min
Have you been questioning various aspects of your life lately? If so, you are NOT alone! During this pandemic, many people have taken time to do some soul-searching and consider what changes they may like to incorporate into their lives. And, my friends, let me tell you that I am one of those people! In this episode, I demonstrate how my mind has gone multiple directions during the recent months while my practice has been closed… even so far as to think about the outcomes if I sold my practice. ...
May 13, 2020•25 min
If someone takes an action that goes against your thoughts or beliefs, how do you react? Do you lash out or take time to think about how you want to react? This episode explores a system for analyzing any problem or anything good that is happening, and it is a way for you to help yourself create what you want for your life. This system is called “The Model.” In this podcast I explore the very relevant topic of my child’s gender orientation and demonstrate the method I have used in certain opport...
Apr 29, 2020•22 min
Perspective is everything! Life is certainly presenting some challenges these days, but how are you facing the changes to your daily life? Today I am pleased to welcome Dr. Noemi Cruz-Orcutt, DDS who practices dentistry in Mason City, Iowa. This is a fascinating bonus episode for you as she shares her incredible story of recovery after losing her practice to a fire. Hear her emotional journey from going through the shock of the loss, her immediate thoughts of her team and how they would be affec...
Apr 15, 2020•31 min
I am thrilled that we are able to welcome Dr. Shakila Angadi to this episode today. She is a general dentist and a Social and Emotional Intelligence coach. She focuses on emotional processing, awareness and learning how to use our emotions as information. This is so vital to our current world situation right now! People are worried and fearful of the unknowns of the pandemic we are all experiencing. Fears can lead to reactive behaviors that do not make sense because people are in survival mode a...
Apr 08, 2020•42 min
We’re doing things a bit differently on this episode of Feeling Good. We’re still talking all things wellness, but we switched it up and this time my guest will be interviewing me! Chuck Blakeman, a fellow dentist with a podcast of his own, asks me why our best leadership skill is our emotional intelligence. You may not know it now, but all of us dentists need emotional intelligence if we want to run a successful dental practice. What is emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence is our abil...
Mar 31, 2020•28 min
Today we have a special bonus episode! One of my clients volunteered to be coached on the viral pandemic we are experiencing while being recorded so that you can listen in. Hearing someone be coached is a very powerful experience and helps each listener also see into their OWN minds. Don't miss out on this episode: listen as the two of us talk about the worry of the virus and the responsibility of making the "right decision." I then guide the client through seeing what she is thinking and believ...
Mar 18, 2020•20 min
We like learning about mistakes on this podcast. I mean, how else are we supposed to learn if we don’t make a few mistakes along the way? Fellow life coach Kris Plachy is my guest on this episode of Feeling Good because she knows a thing or two about making a mistake. More importantly, she knows how to help dentists overcome our most common mistakes. As dentists, we all face similar challenges in our practices. We may have gone to dental school, but not all of us went to business school. Being a...
Mar 10, 2020•42 min
I’m very excited about my guest on this episode of Feeling Good. I met Dr. Ankur Gupta at a dental conference in January, and we had such an interesting conversation that I had to invite him on the show! Dr. Gupta used his own dental practice as a personal and professional experiment in self-improvement, and we’re discussing all the ways we as dentists can be healthier and happier in our practices. Success isn’t just measured by numbers. No matter how much money your dental practice can make in ...
Feb 25, 2020•48 min
Loneliness is really daunting for a dentist. That’s why this episode of Feeling Good is dedicated to understanding where this loneliness comes from and the strategies you can start using today to start feeling less lonely. Modern humans, with all of our self-driving cars and smartphones, are lonelier than we’ve ever been. Connectivity is essential to our survival, and individual human beings are wired to be interdependent. This doesn’t mean co-dependent. Rather, this is our evolution telling us ...
Feb 04, 2020•22 min
Welcome to the landmark 10th episode of Feeling Good! I’ve got another interview lined up, and this one is extra special for #10. Kelly Hanlin McCormick is a fellow life coach who specializes in anxiety. Life is stressful enough, but dentistry adds a unique layer of stress on our lives that can be a little harder to deal with. That’s why Kelly is here - to share with us her strategies for battling anxiety. Therapy is amazing and can really help us process our emotions and feelings, but what happ...
Jan 21, 2020•39 min
Get ready! We’re doing something a little different on today’s podcast. I’m having my very first interview ever on Feeling Good, and I couldn’t be more excited. I just spent a weekend seminar with fellow dentist Dr. Christopher Phelps, and I want to share the insights we made over the weekend with all of you, my favorite listeners. Dr. Phelps is sharing with us today his experience with the power of persuasion. Or, as he calls, “pre-suasion”. Working with Robert Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Influe...
Jan 07, 2020•31 min
