Sometimes, attitudes can build monuments.
My job is to help doctors and their staff members improve their dental practices. In the past 15 years I have visited well over a thousand dental offices, which has helped me to understand what works and what doesn’t.
There are many factors that lead to success in the dental industry, including training, technology and high-quality equipment. But one thing that you can’t put a price tag on can make all the difference in your practice: attitude. An attitude of perseverance and prosperity can make a huge impact on your results.
For example, two doctors working in the same town may have very different results based on their attitudes. One doctor might focus on the poor economy and patients who bypass procedures that aren’t covered by insurance. The other doctor focuses on the appreciation that patients show and recognizes that the down economy is slowly improving. Either way, the doctor’s outlook affects the patient experience, which ultimately affects business.
You can greet your patients with an attitude of doom and gloom or an attitude of positivity and prosperity. Which will you choose?
I thought about this recently when I visited the Crazy Horse Memorial on a trip to the Black Hills in South Dakota. Crazy Horse is a mountain monument that was started by sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski in 1948. When he began the project, no one believed it could be done. If completed, the monument will be 563 feet high by 641 feet long. Crazy Horse’s head would be large enough to contain all the 60-foot-high heads of the Presidents of Mount Rushmore. Despite little funding and assistance, Ziolkowski remained true to his vision and continued his work with an attitude of perseverance and prosperity until his death in 1982. His family is now working toward the completion of the project – which is still a long way off – and if completed, the monument may become the world’s largest sculpture.
We may not be erecting stone monuments in the dental industry, but we do have the ability to improve lives, affect those around us and build our dental practices, no matter what the circumstances.
