Episode : #935: Prompts to Reflect on 2024

Podcast Description

On this final day of 2024, Kiera gives listeners a series prompts to reflect on the past year — personal, professional, and many stops in between.

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Transcript:

Kiera Dent (00:00.964)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and happy New Year’s Eve. I cannot believe 2024 is wrapped up. We’re done. Like chalk it up. We’re done. Can you believe that it is 2025 in less than 24 hours? You’ll be ringing in that new year and I hope you do it with Dental A Team. Of course we’ll be there celebrating with you. But 2024, 2024, can you believe it’s wrapped up? It’s done. It’s packaged up. We can’t go back in time. We can’t change things.

All we can do is reflect and celebrate and look forward to next year. And so I’m so excited. I thought I’d just pop on quickly today of let’s do a quick reflection. Let’s think about how it was. I love New Year’s Eve. And this is probably 1 of my favorite holidays because gosh, like a few, man, this is before I got married. So we’re talking 15 years ago. I only been married for 13 years. So I’m guessing 13, 14 years ago is how long ago it was. But I remember.

sitting there and I said, I love new days because new days are brand new days with no mistakes. And I thought about that with new years and like how much excitement is there of like, it’s a brand new year with no mistakes. It’s a brand new year. It’s a clean slate. And how beautiful is it that we get to have this every 365 days most years to be able to clean slate, to be able to say, all right, that’s who I was in 2024. And this is who I’m going to emerge into in 2025. And I think people who really are very consistent on doing this and

Spending a little bit of time on today New Year’s Eve where we sit and we actually journal So I’m gonna give you a few journal prompts if you want To reflect back and I know I’ve had a few podcasts over the next couple over the last few months about reflection But today’s like the pinnacle day of it So if you’ve already done this amazing if not, I’m also gonna give you some personal things to think about too So of course technical and life life and dentistry like I said life is my passion dentistry is my platform and so

Let’s just think about today as we’re going through. Number 1, I want you to think about your personal life. I want you to look at your physical body. I want you to look at your health and I want you to rate yourself on a 1 to 10. How is your physical body? How is your health compared to where you would like it to be? Is it a 10? Like I’m 10 out of 10. I’m perfect. I’m a nine. I’m an eight. I’m a seven. If you’re on the path there, be generous with yourself. Don’t be too hard on yourself. But let’s look at our physical bodies. Okay. So 1 to 10, how are you doing on your physical body?

Kiera Dent (02:24.33)

1 to 10, next 1. How are you on your personal relationships? Like, let’s start with like your marriage or your intimate relationship. 1 to 10, is that like, if I were to go talk to your spouse or your boyfriend, girlfriend, whomever it is, your significant other, if I were to ask them how, like on a 1 to 10, how are they showing up for you? What kind of a relationship do you have? Is 10 like, it’s off the charts. We have incredible, incredibly passionate relationship. I feel like they support me, they love me.

Where are we at on a 1 to 10 with your, and that’s how are you showing up for them? And also like, how are they showing up for you? But we really, we can only control ourselves. So let’s rate ourselves on how are we showing up? How is our relationship compared to where we want to be? If you’re not in a relationship, great, it’s not a 10. How are you on that? 1 to 10. Next up is how is your personal relationship with yourself? What’s your self talk to yourself? Is it positive? Is it negative? How do you view yourself?

Are you proud of yourself? Are you someone that you would want to know? Are you not? How is that? 1 to 10. Next, how is your mind? What do you do for your mental health? From meditation to mindfulness to stillness to having control over the thoughts that come your way. 1 to 10, how’s your mind? All right, let’s move on to how is your fun in life? We’ll put travel.

I think travel is an easy 1. 1 to 10, how did you do on your vacations and the travel you wanted to take this year? 1 to 10, was it 10? Like it was off the charts for me and Jason, it was a 10. We had an incredible year this year. We traveled, we saw so many incredible things. We made so many memories. It was amazing. 1 to 10, how are your hobbies and things outside of work? How is that? 1 to 10. For me, it’s like a five. Do a lot of hiking, but not as many hobbies as maybe I would like to do. Okay, so we’ve got quite a few things on your personal life.

How is that, we can also put in there like your expansion, your growth, so like reading books and expanding your mind, listening to podcasts, maybe not necessarily dental, but things. How is that? 1 to 10. How are you doing on that? Now I want you to dig into like, let’s talk about your wealth and your financials. How are you financially? And we can talk in two different levels. So could have two different 1 to 10s on here. How are your financials as far as your take home pay? Where is that at 1 to 10 of where you’d like it to be?

Kiera Dent (04:48.548)

And then your next 1 would be, is it on your, you’re setting up for your financial freedom for longterm. 1 to 10, how are you doing on that? Are we saving for retirement? Do we have our 401ks in place? Do we feel like when we want to retire that we’ll be able to retire and do it with ease? Or are we not on track at that at all? And team members, this is for you too. Doctors, this is a great 1 that you can share with your team. Okay, so we’ve got our personal life. We’ve got our health. We have our…

Our expansion, have our finances. Now let’s look at our business. How was your year this year on a 1 to 10? 10 was like, it was freaking awesome. We hit our goals. We had a ton of fun. Like I’m just living my life. It’s like, you know, we’re getting there. 5 is like, whoo, like treading water some days, winning some days. 2 is like, I’m treading water every single day and I don’t know if I can do this anymore. Where’s your practice at? 1 to 10. How about your team? Let’s do your team. 1 to 10.

How are they? Is it the dream team, everyone you want? Do have a few bad apples in there? Just some people you know you need to get rid of and you haven’t? How’s your team? 1 to 10. And I know you like everybody. I know you love everybody, but how’s the team getting you to where you want to go in your practice? 1 to 10. How’s that going for you? Next up, let’s talk about your practice. How are your systems? 1 to 10. Are things like smooth flow and easy going, we got this dialed in? 1 to 10. How is that? How are you doing on that?

1 to 10, or are you like, shoot, we don’t even have systems. you have our operations manual done? Do your dental assistants know how to set up for every procedure? Does your front office track the calls that come through? Do we have a system for our scheduling? Do we have a system for our treatment tracker and do we review it? Do we have set KPIs for every single position? Do we review those? Do we have set mating cadences? Do we have morning huddles? Like what do we have going on within our systems? Do we have hygiene trackers? Does our hygiene team, are we tracking our perio and our fluoride and having meetings around that? How’s our training and onboarding?

How’s our firing process? How’s our HR compliance? How are all the systems within the practice? How’s our leadership? How’s our management? How are all those different pieces? And of course, you can go through each department and rank each department if you want to go further down of how’s our office manager 1 to 10, realistically leading, guiding, having the profitability, being basically the COO of the business with you. How’s your office manager? What about your front office team? Let’s talk your scheduler 1 to 10. How’s your schedule?

Kiera Dent (07:13.988)

What about your TC’s? 1 to 10. What about your billers? 1 to 10. What about your dental assistants? 1 to 10. You can break them out by name if that’s easier so you don’t lump them together. What about your hygienists? 1 to 10. What about your doctors, including yourself? 1 to 10. How’s their clinical suite? How’s their production? How are they doing on that? How’s your bookkeeper? 1 to 10. How’s your lawyer? 1 to 10. How’s your financial advisor? 1 to 10. How’s your marketing? 1 to 10.

How is your CPA on taxes? Do they prepare you for them or do they not prepare you for them? I understand me asking all these questions. You can not go back in time into 2024, but you can go forward into 2025 and make changes. So now we’ve gone through, we call it the yes model in Dental A Team. You as a person is the why I did that first with you. E is for earnings and profitability. S is for systems and team development. So as you look through that, look to see how many tens do you have.

nines, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, 1 zeros. There might be some zeros. Maybe you don’t even have that. You are welcome to add any other category. And then how’s your fulfillment? Like this is kind of 1 that I might just put overall. How happy are you? If you looked back in 2024, how many days of the year? Like we can’t know. So this is just an assessment, right? Like there’s no right or wrong. I’m not going to grade you. You can only do it. more of a feeling. On a 1 to 10, how is your fulfillment this year?

On a 1 to 10, how many days? So like, was it 100 % of my days I was happy, 90 % of my days I was happy, 80 % of my days I was happy, 70 % of my days. How many days were you super happy? Going to work, living your weekends, how many days were you super happy? 1 to 10. So how fulfilled for you? How happy were you? How content were you? How much fun did you have? 1 to 10? Did you have more laughs or more cries this year? How depressed were you?

How many friends did you hang out with? I just want you to really, really assess. And I know that it’s New Year’s Eve, but if you’ll take the time to journal, and then I want you to write about, let’s do your wins. What were the wins from this year? Write them out, celebrate them. Like, let’s think back. Let’s go back to January. What were some of the wins you had in January? What about February? What about March? What about April? What about May?

Kiera Dent (09:42.532)

I hope you had fun. That’s my birthday month. So I hope May was great. What about June? July? August? September? October? November? And December? How did all of those go? What were the things that you remember? Like I can think back and I’m like, my gosh, January was a blur. February, I was in Whistler, Canada. It was freezing gold, but a ton of fun. March, we went to Bora Bora and I had a blast. April was summit. It was a wild time.

May was busy. did pairs with Taylor Swift with some friends and then we went to Disneyland as a company retreat. It was a ton of fun. June was the hardest month of my entire life that I’ve ever experienced. July, I felt like I was numb and all of July was very numb, but I went boating and I had a lot of fun and I have almost landed my 360 wake surfing. August. August is interesting. My little sister got married, so that was really fun to have all my family together for August. September.

Gosh, September was my husband’s birthday and we went to Tokyo with his niece. So that was a lot of fun. October, October was our anniversary. Had a lot of fun in October. I think it’s a magical month and we had a lot of growth in our leadership team. November was Thanksgiving with my husband’s family and a lot of fun things. And then December, of course, just magic all the way around. But how were they for you? What things stand out for you? For me, there’s some dark times. There’s some really happy times.

But like, did we blur through it? Can we even remember what we did? How intentional do you feel like you’re being with your life? Are you creating your life or are you managing your life? How are you doing with your business, your practice? Are you creating it or are you just freaking managing it and hoping it gets there? Are you so proud of where you are? And I hope you just say yes, no matter where you are. Do feel like you should be further along than where you are right now? Have you looked in the mirror and been like, gosh, Kiera.

I really thought sitting at 38, I’d be further along. If you have, it’s okay. All of us feel that way, every single 1 of us. But my question is, what are you gonna do about it? What things as you’re rolling into 2025, where I feel like it is a brand new slate, it’s a canvas, people literally make like heroic changes in a short amount of time. What are you going to do for 2025 to be a smashing success? What does success even look like for you?

Kiera Dent (12:04.62)

I might encourage you to write a mission statement of what success is for you. How do you know if you’re winning 2025? I might also suggest you have quarterly reviews to reveal. I might suggest that you get your team kickoff in January. I might suggest that you have a community of people around you that keep you accountable personally and professionally. I might suggest that you take massive action in whatever areas are lower numbers and commit to getting those higher. Whatever you need to do, commit to that.

I would maybe encourage you to have some accountability personally and professionally. I might encourage you to get some help for the departments or the areas that you don’t know as well. And I might encourage you that if it feels hard to do it on your own, then maybe you join the Dental A Team. We’re doing this quarterly, literally setting it up here, setting all your goals. We kick it off with your team in January. We have quarterly check-ins. We have in-person retreats for you and your leadership. And then we have quarterly check-ins as well.

where we literally keep track. And this year I’m so committed to doing your life and your practice. Because I believe that if we’re successful in 1 and failing in the other, gosh, like we’ve literally had it like life without fulfillment, like success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. And so helping you realize what is fulfillment? What is success? I had a hard turn this year where I realized no amount of money will ever make you happy.

It’s like money can buy a lot of happiness, but the reality is you’ve got to be happy with you. Having those relationships, having people that you love, having a practice that’s thriving, but not just feeding your ego through significance, but truly thriving, having a leadership team that can do this with and without you, building up a practice that runs on systems, not on you, having a relationship that’s incredible, spending time doing the things that make you so fulfilled, fishing, dancing.

doing creative things, reading books, going to book clubs, traveling the world, going to CE, hiking, being in nature, going surfing or boating, going with time with your children, becoming the best mother or father of the year. All those things are possible. And so as we get to ring in the new year, I invite you to 1, look at your gaps, two, celebrate your wins, three, write your fulfillment and success statement, and four, take massive action, whatever it is.

Kiera Dent (14:24.708)

whatever you need, send the email right now. It’s not going to be hard. Email, send people an email. What are you going to do? Who do you need to contact? What do you need to do to make sure that 2025, you ring it in and that year is the most beautiful canvas of your entire life. That 2025 really is the best year of your life. No matter how hard, no matter what unexpected changes happen, that it really is. And I would encourage each of you, join Dental A Team. We are literally doing quarterly. We have this set up.

to make sure and ensure that you are successful with minimal effort on your part and not just in business, but in life. Because at the end of the day, when you are a hundred looking back on your life, I would hope that whatever year you’re going into, so for me, I’m turning 39 in 2025, I hope that when I’m a hundred, I can look back at 39 and say that was 1 of the best years of my entire life. And I hope that whatever age you’re turning next year, that is equally the best year of your life. And I know that it can happen.

reach out [email protected]. Go enjoy, celebrate, ring in this new year. And as always, thanks for listening. Thanks for being a part of our incredible Dental A Team family. Thank you for showing up for you. Thank you for challenging yourself. Thank you for doing the deep work so that way you can help more patients and more team members and serve your community and ultimately serve yourself and be the most fulfilled version you can be. Life does not have to be hard. Running a practice does not have to be hard. Having everything you’ve ever imagined and wanted does not have to be hard.

I’ve done it for hundreds of offices and I’d love to help you. You are worth it. Let’s do this. Let’s crush 2025. You guys, it’s so fun. It’s so fun to podcast with you and I’m so excited to bring in 2025. I’m so excited for our in-person meetups where I get to meet so many of you in person. I’m so giddy about it. I’m so giddy to just inspire you and to make life so much easier for you and to do it with brilliant other doctors and teams and share and learn together. And I just cannot wait.

2025 truly is going to be the best year of our entire lives. And I hope that you truly do believe that you are worth it. You deserve it and you can have all of it. And I promise you take the action today, set up your year for success and let’s make it happen. Thanks for listening. And as always, thanks for listening. I’ll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast in 2025.