Episode 192: An Abundant Mindset

Naren: welcome to the less insurance dependence podcast the official podcast of the reducing insurance dependence academy, www.rid.academy. Please consider this an invitation to become a member of RIDA as a gift from us in appreciation for your listenership. This is Naren, your co-host. Today’s topic is an abundant mindset. Before we get into today’s topic, I have a quick announcement to make. We have our master class coming up on the 28th of July which is Thursday, 28th of July from 7 to 10 pm eastern time. You will receive three hours of CE and the topic of the master class is the 2.5-million-dollar practice model, 2.5-million-dollar practice model. To learn more, you can visit thrivingdentist.com masterclass. What are you going to learn from this? I’m going to ask Gary, what are people going to learn from this Gary?

Gary: you know Naren when I look at our master class menu of, of, course as we give in the master class for. The master class concept is that we take a single subject and do a deep three-hour dive into, into, that subject, and when I look at our menu of course titles, I feel like you know a six-year-old in a candy store. Because I feel like no this one’s my favourite one no, no, no, it’s this one no, no, no, it’s this one. I want all of them but honestly, I feel like this is one of my favourite master classes. Now there’s many different kinds of practice models. There’s many different kind of practice models, and you know certainly our listeners can find a practice model that suits them, but I’m going to share a very specific practice model that kind of checks all the boxes, you know this is a model that would allow you to develop a thriving practice and thriving practice is one that provides personal professional and financial satisfaction, and, and, and, you know the financial satisfaction part, this is a model that will allow you to be compensated handsomely and fairly for your care skill and judgment. It’s also a model that you can achieve a very effective work-life balance. So I really feel like it’s a model that can provide it all. I want you to have it all. I don’t want to give up. I don’t want to give up work-life balance to have a successful practice. I want both, and so if this intrigues you come join us. Um it’s July 28th the 2.5-million-dollar practice model. I will literally un pack it in detail and you’ll have everything you know you need to begin to implement that in your practice. Again, you can register for that course very inexpensively. We make these courses very affordable. You get three hours of CE probably the least expensive CE you could purchase but come join us thrivingdentist.com forward slash masterclass 

Naren: thank you Gary and I love today’s topic I think you both you and I are fans of you know the abundance thinking versus scarcity thinking, and I think today’s topic talks about you know the few practice owners who are abundant thinkers and who always have the best year every year and then there are a lot of people who struggle. So, I I’m really can’t wait to get started Gary

Naren: yeah, you know let me give a little bit of back backstory to our, our, listeners. Uh, one of the things we do with our clients in thriving dentist coaching is we do book club where I’ll select a book and we, we, do it together you know as myself and our clients and we do it over zoom, zoom, meeting. We all read or listen to the book and then over a zoom meeting I do two things. I talk about what we learned in the book and then more importantly we talk about what we can apply in our practices from this. So, it’s a really useful way to just embrace the concept of lifelong learning. How can we learn, and Peter Diamandis is the author of the book abundance so if you haven’t heard of that name I’ll introduce you to the name Peter Diamandis he’s a remarkable individual he wrote two New York times bestsellers the first one is the book called abundance single title single word title abundance and in the book he talks about scientifically why by the way he’s a Harvard trained MD Harvard trained MD. Now Naren I’ve had the privilege of meeting peter and I can tell you from my interaction I had with him face to face, he’s a bright dude 

Naren: Yes

Gary: he’s just come out, he’s also very genuine, very humble, but bright, you can kind of just in a matter of short period time you get the idea that he’s got some horsepower and I think that would be confirmed by, by, having a Harvard MD. Uh I don’t think just anybody gets Harvard MD right, but he talks about in the book why scientifically there’s evidence why all of us should embrace an abundant mindset. The opposite of abundance is scarcity

Naren: right and, and, scarcity really is, is, one of those things that I’ve noticed will accidentally kick in for people sometimes. Not intentionally but kind of subconsciously kick in, you know and, and, so Peter talks about in the book how to catch yourself when you happen to be in that cycle of scarcity and break out of it, you know break out of it but he gives scientific evidence  for why, you know living in the 21st century all of us should have an abundant mindset, and he backs it up with science. It’s not just you know don’t worry be happy, but it’s backed up with science. So, I chose the book for a very specific reason, and I chose the book for our clients because I felt like right now, the truth, is there’s a lot of negativities in the world right now

Naren: right 

Gary: Would you agree with that Naren?

Naren: absolutely there’s a lot of negativities, a lot of you know infighting all kinds of you know

Gary: there’s all kinds of certainly all we have to do is turn on the news either flavour 

Naren: Yes

Gary: it doesn’t matter what flavour and, and, it’s just going to be a parade of negative news. Uh Peter introduced a saying to me in that book abundance and one of the things he suggests in the book is turn off the news turn it off 

Naren: Yes

Gary: do it do a news moratorium because he said you know he introduced me to the saying if it bleeds it leads. Now think about that for a minute Naren, do you get that concept, if it bleeds it leads  

Naren: Yes, if it bleeds, I lead, so you have to create chaos in in the form of news, so people pay attention 

Gary: because now you get more viewers you get more eyeballs

Naren: Yeah

Gary: you get more advertisers it works for the whole process 

Naren: yeah 

Gary:  So, I wanted to introduce this book to our listeners because I felt like we needed an infusion of, of, abundance instead of a scarcity mindset. I’m already getting you know this is coming up in our book club actually coming up but I’m already getting great comments from our clients saying. I’m so glad I read that book it, it, literally snapped me out of it you know and I’m now daily intentionally working on cultivating an abundance mindset, but I wanted to bring it specifically to our listeners of the less insurance dependence podcast, because it applies to all of you and it applies to your journey in reducing  insurance and dropping PPO plans it applies very specifically and again let’s, let’s, operate on the continuum  or let me call it a paradox it’s the abundance scarcity paradox. We can either be on one side the abundant side or we can be on the scarcity side and let’s get very specific about how that relates to our listeners and your, your, journey of dropping PPO plans. If you’re in the scarcity mindset one of the things you think is I’m going to lose all my patients. Instantly that thought is scarcity 

Naren: yes 

Gary: It is flat out scarcity and again I’m not being critical of you if you happen to feel that way, I’m not being critical of your feelings. I’m just saying step back and observe yourself, objectively, and if you’re if one of things you say is oh, I’d, I’d, I have 80, 90 percent of my patients are PPO patients and I’d lose all of them that’s scarcity thinking. The abundant mindset is not to stick your head in the sand and say well I’m not going to lose any patients because that’s simply not true you’re going to lose some but the abundance mindset says whatever I lose I can replace I can replace. I could replace delta as my marketing agent with google, as my marketing agent, and whatever I lose I could replace. That’s the difference between abundance and scarcity. Abundance and scarcity. Another example that doctors are experiencing right now related to abundance, abundance, and scarcity, is I’m understaffed, I can’t find the right team members, and, and, that’s, that’s, scarcity again. Well keep looking, keep looking. There’re people, how many do you need and how big is your practice. How many it’s not like you’re hiring 500 people or a thousand or however many you know a big company would have

Naren: yeah 

Gary: you’re looking for, you know, maybe you’re filling one or two spots. I can’t find them that scarcity thinking is a switch and say I haven’t found them yet, you know you can actually just switch your mindset with a single word. I haven’t been able to find a replacement hygienist yet, but what does that imply Naren, the word yet implies that you’re not giving up 

Naren: yeah, I mean it’s like you have a choice right I mean I’m just imagining a lot of people who are my friends like who graduated with me from university. Uh I think I’m the only entrepreneur like in the whole group  like  I think I had like 50 friends who were close to me like at least in my cohort, we took the same classes we took the same degree, and  and many of them even today if they don’t have a job they are in trouble you know like something like in other words, that’s important to their lifestyle the, the, where the kids go to school and of course you know they have earn money and they have savings and whatnot but still they never really let go of that fear of you know  you know fear and did something on their own. So now they are stuck in that you know rat race so to speak 

Gary: scarcity if, if, you find yourself in that scarcity you know downward funnel you know I think what, what, happened, we sort of accidentally adopt a victim mindset and no control

Naren: yeah 

Gary: so I don’t have any you know I don’t have any control over it and so many dentists when they give the excuses for why they’re not you know dropping PPO plans, it’s well you know 85 percent of my patient review 90 percent of my patients and all the big employers in town, you know have those I remember having a conversation with the doctor in Sunnyvale California so I could never do it here because we have all these big high-tech employers. That’s scarcity that scarcity mindset 

Naren: Right

Gary: because I said, Well wait a minute, I know Sunnyvale I actually know it pretty well my son actually works there, and I know it pretty well. Does everyone work for those companies he said well no of course not and all of a sudden he started to switch his thinking it was like wait a minute you’re telling me I can do it here, and that’s where the switch was occurring from scarcity I could never do it here to wait a minute I could do this here,  and as you start you know the, the, book  good to great by Jim Collins was so good because he contrasted in every  academic point he was making in the book he contrasted what  the CEOs of the companies that made the transition from good to great did and contrasted it with what the CEOs of the same of companies in the same industry didn’t do and as a result didn’t make the transition from good to great, but the, the, ones that did make the transition  have  a an attitude that I have control there’s things I could do I maybe don’t have control of everything you know that’s, that’s, a that’s a fact right you have control of everything you don’t have control over whether you know Microsoft is going to buy the delta PPO plan but you have control over what you can do. Let’s go find people that don’t have that let’s find them in our community. Another example of abundance of scarcity is, is, a very fact driven on this one. Sadly, the American Dental Association reports that only three percent this is 2018, most recent year we have data on this. Uh that only three percent of dentists use in the United States can retire without having to reduce their lifestyle at age 65. That statistic makes me very sad because you all deserve better than that, you deserve better than that and that you know so if you say well, I guess I’m just resigned to working my tail off and never really having you know complete financial comfort, and that’s scarcity. The abundance mindset says you know what those are the facts but there’s things that I can do so I’m not in that bucket. There are things that I can do and then hey if there was one thing that I would do is quit giving away hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to the insurance companies, because they aren’t funding your retirement. They’re funding their own, you know their own excess. They’re not funding you. So, the difference between abundance and scarcity is real and I want to encourage all of our listeners to be more mindful. Catch yourself in your thinking catch yourself and if you find yourself it’s entirely possible to subconsciously shift over to scarcity would you agree Naren, if that’s possible?

Naren: absolutely

Gary:  I mean just watch the news for 10 minutes the next thing you know you’ll be feeling down, you know so catch yourself when that happens and make a conscious shift to say what can I do to counter. For example, if you feel like well, I might lose too many patients, you can proactively start to market and this specifically I’d recommend you do exactly what we did which is to work with your company Naren, EKWA to replace delta with google. It’s worked fantastic for us it’s worked fantastic for all the clients I’ve referred and I’d recommend that our listeners do the same, and there you go and you’ve now taken action towards not being a victim and towards what can you take action towards having the abundance become the reality that we know it can be.

Naren: if anyone wants to learn more you know we’ll put a link to the marketing strategy meeting ekwa.com MSM, Lila who’s our director of marketing would  spend six hours do some research share where you stand and help you develop a 12-month plan so you know you know why spend 50 percent you know in PPO and, and, feel like you have no control over you know what labs you use what team members you have versus spend less than two percent and take that extra money and you know hire the people you want

Gary: Yeah

Naren: you know take work with the labs you want 

Gary: yeah, hey there, let’s also put in the show notes. Let’s put an amazon link to the book abundance by Peter Diamandis you know we have no affiliation that’s just something I want I want everyone to read that book. I want to hand that book out on the street corner. Everyone needs that book. So, we’ll put a link to that in the show notes so if you haven’t read it or listen to it it’s available in audible form it’s available in eBook form it’s available in physical book form, great book abundance Peter Diamandis all right hey as we come to the finish line today just a quick reminder come let’s talk about abundance come join us on January 28th for our next master class it’s called the 2.5-million-dollar practice model. I will absolutely unpack that in detail and would love to have you come join us for that. You can go to thrivingdentist.com forward slash masterclass. Hey on that note I want to take a minute and thank you Naren and your team at EKWA for all you do to support dentists master digital marketing. I also want to thank our listeners. We appreciate each and every one of you. I do have a favour to ask if you haven’t done this already. Go over to iTunes and search for the less insurance dependence podcast and write us an iTunes review. That’ll help more dentists find us but thank you we appreciate the, the, the, absolute treasure of your time and the privilege of your time and we look forward to connecting with you on the next less insurance dependence podcast.