Dr. David Pearce, a seasoned dentist and entrepreneurial coach, unpacks the essence of transcendent leadership and business acumen in the context of dentistry. His narrative is a masterclass in resilience, showcasing how he scaled his practice to the pinnacle of financial success, only to pivot towards nurturing the business skills of fellow dentists. Dr. Pearce demystifies the misconception that clinical expertise alone can drive a dental practice to prosperity. He stresses the importance of embracing the sales aspect of dentistry, advocating for a consultative approach that aligns patient needs with practice offerings.

His insights extend beyond dentistry, touching on universal themes of leadership, team empowerment, and the pursuit of personal growth. Pearce's journey illustrates that the real victory in entrepreneurship lies in leveraging one's failures as stepping stones to greatness. He champions a culture where team members are encouraged to innovate, take calculated risks, and own their developmental trajectory, thereby enhancing both the business and their personal lives.

Want to learn more about David's work? Check out their website at https://UltimateSuccess.Dentist.

Connect with David on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-r-pearce-dds/.

Key Points with Timestamps:

• [00:00:30-00:00:51] Craig Andrews introduces the podcast and guest Dr. David Pearce, highlighting his entrepreneurial journey in dentistry.
• [00:01:22-00:01:46] Dr. Pearce discusses his book and coaching focus, aiming to guide dentists in the business aspects of their practice.
• [00:02:40-00:03:26] Insight into the unique financial challenges and misconceptions faced by dentists starting their careers.
• [00:04:25-00:05:08] The importance of understanding the business side of dentistry to avoid financial pitfalls and ensure a successful practice.
• [00:06:03-00:06:41] Dr. Pearce emphasizes the critical role of business acumen for professional success, regardless of the industry.
• [00:07:33-00:08:20] Discussion on the value of being a well-rounded professional, not just a master clinician.
• [00:09:29-00:10:19] Dr. Pearce shares personal anecdotes demonstrating the importance of resilience and learning from failures in entrepreneurship.
• [00:16:31-00:17:20] Challenges dentists face in embracing the sales aspect of their profession and the importance of effective patient communication.
• [00:23:34-00:24:10] Leadership lessons learned from managing a dental practice and the significance of empowering staff.
• [00:28:08-00:29:04] The impact of creating a supportive work environment where team members feel encouraged to take initiative and grow.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment of my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on the show.

00;00;51;10 - 00;01;22;10
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome Doctor David Pierce. He is a entrepreneur, a dentist, and a keynote speaker. David grew his practice to the top 1% of revenue nationwide, and then he sold it. Now he's pursuing his second life dream, coaching other dentists on the business side of dentistry. And the name of that business is found as ultimate success in dentistry.

00;01;22;13 - 00;01;46;17
Craig Andrews
And he's also the author of Peak Success An Entrepreneurial Guide to Business Prosperity. Now, you may be listening and thinking, well, I'm not a dentist. This how is this going to apply to me? I've been talking to David, and I can tell you that he has some keen insights that anybody running a business needs to hear. So listen in.

00;01;46;17 - 00;01;49;00
Craig Andrews
This is going to be an interesting episode.

00;01;49;03 - 00;01;55;08
David Pearce
David, welcome. Hey, great. Thanks for the invitation. It's a it's an honor to be with you, sir.

00;01;55;11 - 00;02;23;08
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And so, you know, let's just kind of start off where we were, and before we hit record, you know, I, I have this perception that, you know, dentists, they go to dental school. They, you know, they run their practice for, you know, 30, maybe 40 years. Live a comfortable life. retire in a comfortable way.

00;02;23;08 - 00;02;34;11
Craig Andrews
It's a safe, financially rewarding career. But you're telling me that that's a little bit of a misperception?

00;02;34;13 - 00;02;36;21
David Pearce
That's a big misperception.

00;02;36;23 - 00;02;40;13
Craig Andrews
Really? How so?

00;02;40;16 - 00;02;59;28
David Pearce
Well, I would say the liability of dentistry as a business is that you don't have to do anything special, and you'll probably only be able to keep your doors open. So a restaurant can't do that. They just go away, you see a real time closed another one closed another one. They're not doing anything special to keep the door open.

00;03;00;02 - 00;03;26;01
David Pearce
But dentists have can make just enough money to keep it going. And and I and I appreciate you talking about the first book. So I wrote a second book which is not being published. It'll be available to the public in one way or another, but it really kind of looks at that two things. One is, as a dentist, when you get out any profession, you go to college and you have college buddies, and then they go off and they get jobs and you go on to more school.

00;03;26;01 - 00;03;46;01
David Pearce
So you're getting more and more debt while they're earning money. And when you come out 4 or 5, six, seven, eight years later, you're your income is actually very low. And all your buddies have all these toys and you kind of feel entitled, like, I deserve the new car, the nice car, the nice house. And there's this. And banks will loan you money because they said you have great earning potential.

00;03;46;03 - 00;04;03;06
David Pearce
Potential, which is nothing. You can't take potential to any bank other than that. So you come out and think, I own this. And also to I think, credit. I know this, that society would put a lot of pressure and say, well, you're a doctor, you should be living this. You should be driving that, you should be had this lifestyle.

00;04;03;09 - 00;04;25;02
David Pearce
And they get sucked into that at a very young age that a thing like that. I deserve this in this profession I chose, is going to just spew out enough money to totally take care of this. And that part is wrong. It's no different than an amazing athlete who just doesn't do the work. They got the gifts. They got the education, they got the skill set, the dentist.

00;04;25;04 - 00;04;42;10
David Pearce
But unless they do the business side right, it's just going to be an average income. And they're gonna spend it all. I know so many dentists in their this six seventh decade of life that cannot retire. Or if they do, their their lifestyle is going to just nosedive. Well, because you know.

00;04;42;15 - 00;05;08;05
Craig Andrews
You know, I see that a lot. you know, it's it's almost a joke. As you know, I look on Facebook and there's some coach or consultant or what have you, and they, they get their picture taken in front of a private jet. They never flew on or in front of a mansion that they don't own. So I it's you know, I think there's something with any entrepreneur is you wont be viewed as successful.

00;05;08;07 - 00;05;23;02
Craig Andrews
And so when you're making these choices, the housing choices, the car choices, the vacation choices, you, you, you choose, you choose a projection of who you want to be as opposed to who you are.

00;05;23;04 - 00;05;45;28
David Pearce
that's that's very fair, right? And, you know, I think that if you if you can look around, which you can in anything, you know, you can, you can I can find a plumber here in my town who, who is very wealthy. I mean, he owns the plumbing place. He has many, many employees. And he's gotten there because he knows how to run the business.

00;05;46;00 - 00;06;03;10
David Pearce
and I know and you know this to Craig. Your listeners do, too, that sometimes you can go like. Well, I work in a plumbing place. How hard can it be? I'll go off on my own and become a plumber. And become fabulously wealthy, like the guy that owns this business. And they just don't understand. There's so much more to it than just the skill set.

00;06;03;12 - 00;06;22;07
David Pearce
No matter what you're doing. Same thing. When I started my dental career, I thought if I become a master clinician, everything else will take care of itself. And that's a piece of the puzzle. But I would challenge you as a consumer of dentistry, you have no clue whether I do good dentistry or not. Is the guy nice? Does it hurt?

00;06;22;09 - 00;06;41;01
David Pearce
What does it cost? I'd say that it's like, you know, does it fall apart? I don't know, but it doesn't. You have no way of telling whether I'm good or not. And the true meaning of clinical mastery, you just don't any more that I can tell. You know, if an attorney is really good, if a CPA is really good, I would know.

00;06;41;04 - 00;07;01;08
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So, yeah, you brought up something really interesting there, you know. You know, I'm seeing a lot of stories of people in the trades, who are fantastic wealthy. I know one that I grew up with, you know, basically could retire any time he wanted. By the time he turned 50. it was a plumber.

00;07;01;11 - 00;07;02;23
David Pearce
Right?

00;07;02;26 - 00;07;12;17
Craig Andrews
I know three Hvac companies that sold about, three years ago. And the one that sold for the least sold for 100 million.

00;07;12;19 - 00;07;13;20
David Pearce
There you go.

00;07;13;22 - 00;07;33;09
Craig Andrews
And and you, you look at that. But you said something is really important and sounds like whether, whether you're a dentist or or a tradesperson or any type of practitioner, the being an expert practitioner's only part of the puzzle.

00;07;33;11 - 00;07;55;05
David Pearce
Right. And I and I would say because you can't truly I mean, the more skilled that maybe I'll say, the more education that goes into it. Like, could I evaluate it'd be easier for me to evaluate the the plumber, do a good job, then I could I did the the estate attorney do a good job, the CPA do a good job.

00;07;55;10 - 00;08;20;06
David Pearce
You know what I really know would be comparing it to other returns. How much did I get back? I don't know if that's a good metric. And if I get audited like what happens? other than that, I already know. Whereas the plumber at least like that, that's dripping, that has an odor around it. Like, you know, there are some basic ways that I could sort of assess, did this person do a good job for me?

00;08;20;08 - 00;08;37;07
David Pearce
but it's hard to tell, right? It really is hard to tell. You know, as a consumer, which isn't bad. It just this, you know, so having that skill set is on the flip side of that. Having that skill set doesn't mean that, you know, you've met plumbers and dentists and everybody who are just amazingly nice, amazingly good.

00;08;37;07 - 00;08;56;26
David Pearce
Like, I could be a friend with that person, like this person treating me well. And on the flip side, that you've met ones that are just arrogant and think that they like you know, that you know, they're jerks and which is okay, that's their choice. But that's all part of that business thing, you know, and has. And to me, that has more to do with it than the skill set.

00;08;56;28 - 00;09;01;00
David Pearce
The whole non-clinical non dixit part.

00;09;01;02 - 00;09;29;11
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So you've obviously done very well. You know you we, we were talking earlier. You have a house in Florida. You have a house in Montana. You've sold your practice. You're doing your second career. Yeah. You're very stable and you're clearly the outlier. This is a little bit of surprise to me, but you're the outlier amongst dentists. What do you think it was that made you more successful, that helped you map this path?

00;09;29;13 - 00;10;00;28
David Pearce
Well, we we look, look, there's a lot of things. And when we first started talking on fair, one of the things I mentioned is that every every entrepreneur, if you ask them, go back in their history, you'll find failure after failure after failure after failure not being interpreted as failure. But as I'm going to get back up, I'm going to learn from that and I'm going to get I'm going to be better tomorrow than I was today because of my failures, not because of my successes, because we learn very little from our successes, we learn from our failures.

00;10;01;00 - 00;10;19;13
David Pearce
And so I think that, you know, early on, I, I got challenged in some really huge ways in my career about. So, like, are you just going to like, give up? Like you could give up on a lot of things, not like your story, which might be like, I can give up on biologic life. but but but everything else aside from that.

00;10;19;14 - 00;10;34;17
David Pearce
Yeah. If you could give up on it. And it was like a choice is like, no, like this. I'm not going to give up. And even though people around me were saying like, like I would never do what you're going to do, I there's no way in the world I would do that. And I'd be like, well, I'm not listening to you.

00;10;34;17 - 00;10;48;13
David Pearce
I'm listening to a voice in my head that said, this is what you got to do. So I'm not sure if there's any one thing there's by a series of things, although early on there's some great big, big challenges that I in that sort of, sort of set my definition for who I was going to be.

00;10;48;16 - 00;11;18;14
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And let me jump in real quick. Something you said that, just a second ago, it's people who say I would never go do that. And I think that is one of the key elements. That's one of the big differentiators to success. You know, you you mentioned my decision to not give up on biological life. I, you know, I'm starting to run into people that, were as sick as I was and miraculously live because they didn't expect me to live.

00;11;18;14 - 00;11;41;04
Craig Andrews
But people who are nowhere near the level of recovery that I've reached and, and when I look at the differences, they weren't willing to they weren't willing to go that extra step. And it's not even necessarily a big extra step. It's just one step further than most people are willing to go.

00;11;41;06 - 00;11;55;21
David Pearce
But yeah, but constant one step, right? Yeah. Whether you're running it or if you can't run and walk and you can't walk and crawl but you can't crawl, it's like you don't stop. You just try a little slower until you can walk, until you can run again. Yeah.

00;11;55;23 - 00;12;15;11
Craig Andrews
Right now you were telling me about a, a setback early in your, your career where I guess you you'd move somewhere, you'd met someone, you got married and you and made all the investments of opening up a practice there, and then you had to give it all up, right?

00;12;15;11 - 00;12;16;05
David Pearce
Yeah.

00;12;16;08 - 00;12;18;10
Craig Andrews
That's right. What happened?

00;12;18;12 - 00;12;39;19
David Pearce
Well, yeah, I moved to a town on my own. Then opportunity, a business opportunity that I thought was great. And it was, built a practice, outgrew that space, went into new space, and then and then built that space out at a lot of debt. And knowing I was going to be there for many, many years. and then along the way, met a woman, who?

00;12;39;19 - 00;13;05;19
David Pearce
I met a woman where I did my residency. We stayed in touch, eventually got married, had two young kids in this town, and and as and so we had one child. Second child is she's my wife was, you know, six months or so, in her nine month term and and she came to me at about three months into that and, and maybe it's maybe it was just that she got pregnant and said, I can't live here anymore.

00;13;05;21 - 00;13;36;16
David Pearce
I have to go out. We have to go home. And so it's like, okay, so I'm going to either lose my family and keep this business totally great business decision, or I'm going to keep my family and I'm going to have huge debt to us and go someplace else. You not only when you sell a business in dentistry, especially because we're not selling widgets, you know, we're selling a service that is, you know, I live in, says Amazing Craig, like none of those patients in New Hampshire followed me to New York.

00;13;36;18 - 00;13;50;09
David Pearce
Like, come on, guys. It's like, you know, it's like, no, they're not going to follow you. It's all that goodwill that you build up and people trusting you and wanting to do more and stay with you and refer their friends, that goes away. You start all over again. You take with you what you've learned. Other than that, you take nothing with you.

00;13;50;09 - 00;14;18;02
David Pearce
And the debt, of course, is there as well. So the the child that was in my wife's womb, you know, nine months is when you expect him. So at six months that child is born. So with all this stress and like a week before that happened, I remember talking to my parents who said, if and you know, of course, like the decision to leave that town, go someplace else brand new to say it, my wife's and my marriage was really solid at that point in times like, no, it was nowhere near solid.

00;14;18;02 - 00;14;30;16
David Pearce
We are arguing about that, trying to figure that part out really young in our lives as far as you know, trying to find and figure each other out. Like, why would I think it even work out? Like, we just did this and like, you can't stand this. How do I know any of this is going to work out?

00;14;30;16 - 00;14;53;07
David Pearce
Except that I could be by my kids. So there's all that. And then our child is born three months premature. So if you don't know, you know, it's kind of like your condition. You learn a lot about it after you go through it and you meet other people that went through the same thing. So I know a lot about premature children, you know, but at that time it was like, well, you know, there's one third the child's going to die, and there's about nine times out of ten of them that they're going to be severely disabled.

00;14;53;07 - 00;15;12;23
David Pearce
Like, that's that's this person that's in your life now. and so, so, so just to have all that kind of stuff in me and the idea is like, so why would you get up in, in the morning to do it again? Like, why would you write your death down to a crawl? Why not just stop, turn around, go the other way, just like, screw it.

00;15;12;26 - 00;15;26;09
David Pearce
And you know, that's a great thing. It's like, you know, I'm not I don't care. Other people tell me, like, I would never leave this. Like, you got a great business. I would never leave this. Like people get divorced, David. That shit happens like it's part of our world. And it's like, no, I'm not going to do that.

00;15;26;09 - 00;15;43;10
David Pearce
So, you know, so 37 years later, still married the same kid. both of our children are healthy and productive members of society. You know, we had it's it's just amazing blessing that all that stuff worked out from the health standpoint that we couldn't control. And, you know, the rest of it. My wife and I just figured out, like, you know, we're a team.

00;15;43;10 - 00;16;01;06
David Pearce
We're going to stay a team. And until God says, time for one of us to go home and then, you know, it is what it is. So. Yeah. So so that wasn't a defining moment, but but for sure, you know, if anybody thinks like, yeah, entrepreneurship and rare diseases like I you actually I say this to my daughter has a new business.

00;16;01;06 - 00;16;16;19
David Pearce
Like you don't want it to be easy. You want it to be as hard as possible. You want to challenge challenged. How are you and your why? Because that'll keep other people out. Yeah. You want it to be a special club called entrepreneurship. It's not easy. That's, Yeah.

00;16;16;19 - 00;16;31;04
Craig Andrews
So, so in in terms of if we talk about the business of dentistry. Yeah. What are some of the what are some of the top mistakes that you see dentists making in the business of dentistry?

00;16;31;06 - 00;16;52;22
David Pearce
I think the hardest thing is maybe too. So dentistry is the only way anybody ever buys anything is it has to be sold to them. Just like just this is words, right? You can go to Walmart and buy something. So yeah somebody sold it to Walmart. So okay. Good. So let's just get the word selling right out and say yep we sell.

00;16;52;24 - 00;17;20;22
David Pearce
Everybody sells. Well dentists as a profession have a very hard time with that word like I'm not I don't want to be a salesperson. It's like you are a salesperson, whether you like it or not. You are. You're selling something, something. You have to be a salesperson. So then the question is, how do I what do I how do I how do I put my mindset around that word to look at and say like, good, a good salesperson is doing a favor to the person that buys because they're looking to buy something and you're helping them make that decision.

00;17;20;22 - 00;17;49;00
David Pearce
Is it even right for me? Is this the right time? What does it look like? What's that process look like? How do I know about I mean, all that you're a consultant, you know, facilitator of that process. You're not. It's not a win lose situation. But dentists struggle with that huge. And our profession does, except for very small type institutions that have looked at that and said, like we recognize as a problem, but in school or the mainstream, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, you don't you don't want to be a salesperson.

00;17;49;00 - 00;18;09;06
David Pearce
You, you essentially want to say, here's all the things you could do. You choose. So here's all the ways we could fix your art, peg, which one do you think you want? Seriously, what a cardiologist you do. That's it. I think I'll do the ablation. And then maybe I'd like, you know, sending dentistry. Well, you know. No, you're the expert.

00;18;09;06 - 00;18;29;13
David Pearce
You tell me what I should do, and you stand behind it like, no, I know Minecraft, I know you, I know everything about you. I know what you want. I know what you don't want. I know your budget and all that kind of stuff. Here's, I reckon, And that's easy, it seems like. But it's so missing. And I think it's still missing in health care, period.

00;18;29;15 - 00;18;54;10
David Pearce
you know, it's just not anywhere in health care, in dentistry is is not controlled by insurance, unlike medicine. So there are some choices and people are going to pay for their pocket, not an insurance plan. And therefore know becomes a purchase no different than it. You know, I'm not going to remodel my kitchen or am I going to improve my smile?

00;18;54;13 - 00;19;06;26
David Pearce
Am I going to go on a great trip? Or am I going to give my kids ortho raises? It's, you know, that's if there's any competition in dentistry is for discretionary money that people are going to spend on something else in their lifestyle.

00;19;06;28 - 00;19;35;19
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And and when you introduce that, what does that do? What's the impact that has on you as a dentist that you you don't see in other areas? I mean, so like my, my medical bill, of course, this is not what was paid, but my medical bill was like $2 million for three months in the hospital. and, and there were just there were all sorts of stupid things done in that process.

00;19;35;22 - 00;19;57;03
Craig Andrews
but like you're talking about with, you know, braces, you know, did we do braces or do we go on vacation as, from the business of dentistry? How do you navigate that? How do you navigate marketing that? And and, helping patients make those choices?

00;19;57;05 - 00;20;15;27
David Pearce
Well, you know, I think that, so on the sales side of that, it would be to look at and say, this is probably the way I would sum it up. Credit would be. So it numbers or numbers, it doesn't matter. So say if you said, you know, there's a $1 million dental practice and so are revenue wise.

00;20;15;27 - 00;20;40;18
David Pearce
So they, they collect 1 million or $2 million a year. So say $2 million a year, they collect $2 million a year, and somebody is going to come in and and that and that fees to take care of their treatment is $20,000. So you, Mrs. Jones, are going to write a check for $20,000 to the dentist. And I think a lot of people hearing that, that they never spent 20,000 or more to a dentist before might look at that and say, that's ridiculous.

00;20;40;18 - 00;20;59;10
David Pearce
That's outrageous. Like, why would you do that? I get that totally. And said, really? If they ever bought a new car for less than 20 and seven years later it's gone and you do it again, like so you do that in your life. You just never did it. dentistry. So there is that to consider. And then if you look and say so, Mrs. Jones spends 20,000 on dentistry.

00;20;59;10 - 00;21;17;09
David Pearce
When she came in, she covers her mouth. And to me she looks away in photos, very self-conscious about her smile. And when she gets done, she's like beaming. Okay, so let's see who, who, who really want. So Mrs. Jones is beaming like she's never done before in her life. She got the smile back. Maybe she had when she was a kid.

00;21;17;09 - 00;21;42;17
David Pearce
Her smile. She never had. And the dentist office got $20,000. So they have a $2 million annual expected revenue. They got 20. So that's 1%. What are they going to do tomorrow? We got to go find another one. So what if Mrs. Jones said no today? Who's the big loser? This is Jones. She's walking around covering her mouth, and we may find another person to come in that wants to do 25 or 30.

00;21;42;20 - 00;22;09;23
David Pearce
Great. Mrs. Jones said no. The business actually makes more revenue or the business loses 1%. Like what business? Especially. You know, dentistry isn't like, you know, the food industry where they're working out a 3% margin. Now we have a bigger margin. So if your revenue is down 1%, is that going to affect the business? No. So when somebody says yes to dentistry patients, the big winner, not the business, is just 1% of the revenue patients.

00;22;09;27 - 00;22;22;10
David Pearce
That says no, the big loser is patient. So the message is take home message. And anybody that services is help your patients say yes to whatever is the right treatment for them. That's going to change their life and make their life better.

00;22;22;13 - 00;22;46;12
Craig Andrews
You know, and I think that that applies across so many different areas of business is I can say for myself as, as marketing, I think, yes, we're not cheap, but absolutely you should spend money on us because we're going to change your business. We're going to change. We're going to help you accomplish things that you want to accomplish, that you can't accomplish on your own.

00;22;46;14 - 00;23;03;08
Craig Andrews
And you have to have that conviction to really believe that you're you're making people's lives better. And and if you don't, if you walk into work and you're not sure you're making people's lives better, I don't know, maybe it's time to do something different. Maybe you're in the wrong career.

00;23;03;10 - 00;23;06;10
David Pearce
Totally agree. Right? Yeah. Or get way better at what you're doing.

00;23;06;12 - 00;23;08;13
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah, it just.

00;23;08;15 - 00;23;08;24
David Pearce
Yeah.

00;23;09;16 - 00;23;10;20
David Pearce
Really great.

00;23;10;22 - 00;23;34;16
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, you also had, you know, the other thing that's interesting. You you had an office of, a staff of six and, people, you know, one is, you know, often one of the leading expenses, but also, you know, one of the biggest challenges. What did you learn about leading people through your career as a dentist?

00;23;34;18 - 00;23;52;02
David Pearce
Yeah. So like, I was, you know, I feel like I finally figured it out, but man is pathetically slow. I know, I know, oh my gosh. As like, you know, like how how so so if anybody if you know, if you, if you meet me and you hear my journey of the like, okay, that gives me hope.

00;23;52;04 - 00;24;10;11
David Pearce
Like, oh, this guy just keep getting back up again, keep looking for answers. But but he had no particular smarts or anything on his own. And that's totally true, you know? So for me, I think there's really kind of two models maybe, you know, Craig of business ownership. One would be it's autocratic. I owned or I decide what's to be done.

00;24;10;11 - 00;24;26;09
David Pearce
And basically you're in a come to me and you're going to ask me, what do I do? And I can't say that's wrong for me, that I hear that all the time from dentists and and they kind of say like, I want that, okay. And then they say, but these people are constant coming up to me and saying, like, what should I do with this?

00;24;26;09 - 00;24;49;06
David Pearce
What should I do with that? How do I take care of that? And then it's like, well, careful what you wish for, because that's exactly the way you're modeling it. So from my standpoint, it's like, how do I how do I how do I create culture and a safe zone where people can become leaders of their own? And the only way to get there is by making mistakes, you know, you know, in science they call it like theories and AI policies.

00;24;49;06 - 00;25;03;06
David Pearce
So I would just say to my team, like, let's come up with a million different hypotheses of how we can make things better. It can be totally off the wall. It doesn't matter. We're going to try it. We try this, try that. And, you know, we'd like to do is we're going to put a great big glass bowl over here.

00;25;03;08 - 00;25;18;24
David Pearce
Two of them. One of us is going to say all of the things we tried and failed, and one's going to say all the things we tried didn't work. And what I hope is that I what I insist is the one that says all the failures, that fills up the pieces of paper way quicker than the one. That's all the success, because that means we're really trying them.

00;25;18;24 - 00;25;39;08
David Pearce
You guys are trying. You're not taking the safely. that said, you know, we're trained really young to not take risks, follow the rules, like, hey, class, see how Susie's doing this stuff. If you all good like Susie, you do it. Susie. Doing what the Susie figure. Do what the teacher tells her. Teacher. What should I do? What should I do?

00;25;39;10 - 00;26;08;25
David Pearce
We're supposed to do like that. And we get stuck in that mode of I'm not going to risk that. It's risky to try do something wrong, because what if it fails? And it's like, I'm no way to blame. But if Greg tells me to do something, it doesn't work. He's like, yeah, that's Greg's idea, not mine. Yeah. So to me is like creating that, that that safe zone where people are forced to grow, forced to become leaders in their own sense so that the very least for me and somebody came to me, they would be because we didn't have an office manager.

00;26;08;25 - 00;26;28;22
David Pearce
I didn't want one. I don't need somebody to tell people what to do. I want a system set up or they know that because, you know, you, you know, you in your business, you know exactly what you're doing. The people that work for you should know what they're doing in their space. And in my office, if somebody said to me, so, David, the autoclave doesn't work, what should we do?

00;26;28;22 - 00;26;47;00
David Pearce
It'd be like, I don't even know how to plug it in. I like, why are you asking me? Right? I don't know, I felt like and for me to learn about it, that's stupid. Like, it makes no sense. You use it every single day. You know way more about it than I do. So once you identify the problem, it doesn't work too like, great.

00;26;47;02 - 00;27;04;24
David Pearce
What are the potential things we have of fixing it and of those potential ways? What one do you intend to do based on that? So you kind of knew that doctor Pierce did it. Autoclave doesn't work. Here's a potential things we could do to take care of remedies. We get steel instruments and what I intend to do is this perfect.

00;27;04;26 - 00;27;22;17
David Pearce
Now I'm in a position to say, well, actually, I know something about autoclaves. Sterilization, which you don't know. I know this, but what do you think about that idea? And we can have a conversation or I can just say, great, thank you. Take care of that. Yeah. And that would be at the very least level, you know, of leadership.

00;27;22;17 - 00;27;43;00
David Pearce
So team wise to me, small teams that are empowered that way that spreads over, you know, we're talking about sales. So so I as a team person can actually sell somebody the right dental treatment for them. And like I it's just words right. I mean you come up the same words I do and you believe in what we're talking about, what we're doing.

00;27;43;02 - 00;28;05;02
David Pearce
You could probably sell it better than I can because you you have the skill. I don't have one or, you know, in a hierarchy way. Well, Craig of course is recommended. You do it because he owns the business and he's going to make money off me and all this kind of stuff. But the employee like, well, if they're that passionate about it, they got nothing to gain except help me.

00;28;05;04 - 00;28;08;18
David Pearce
You might be better at it that way.

00;28;08;20 - 00;28;29;08
Craig Andrews
You know, years ago I had, there's somebody it works for me named Elena. And I remember she came up to me one day. This was years ago, and she said, she was telling me something, that I was listening and listening and listening. And I said, okay, let me see if I have this right. There was a problem.

00;28;29;10 - 00;28;38;02
Craig Andrews
You identified the problem, you fix the problem, and you're just here to tell me, yeah, that's all been sorted out. And she's like, yeah, that's it. I'm like, oh bless you.

00;28;38;08 - 00;28;42;23
David Pearce
Yeah. I mean, let me give you a big hug. Yeah, exactly.

00;28;42;25 - 00;29;04;21
Craig Andrews
But it's you know from the leadership standpoint, what I hear you saying is you have to create that environment where people feel the freedom to do that. Right. And and one of the necessary costs of that is they will make mistakes or they won't do it as perfectly as you may have done it right. And you have to decide what you want more.

00;29;04;24 - 00;29;23;24
Craig Andrews
That's do you want do you want perfection which is going to wear you ragged, or do you want people that run, that run, help you run your business to a point in such a way? That, of course, delights the customers, the patients, the clients?

00;29;23;27 - 00;29;25;03
David Pearce
Right?

00;29;25;05 - 00;29;29;01
Craig Andrews
But frees you up to do the things that you truly love?

00;29;29;03 - 00;29;52;03
David Pearce
Yeah. And really, you know, I it's everybody should have their own legacy what they want. And I knew, I, you know, again, my journey is pitiful. When I first started off, I thought, I'm going to hire people who have minimal, bandwidth, if you will, minimal intellectual ability or enough to do their job, but not too much more and not incredibly ambitious, because then they'll leave.

00;29;52;05 - 00;30;09;01
David Pearce
And when they leave. Now, I got to find somebody else. So let's keep them dumb and stupid. Right. And position. And that was almost that was I was dumb, stupid for thinking that way. I'm embarrassed to say it, but that's sure where I was. And then I started looking and say, but what do you get people that are in a place and they look and say, this I, I'm growing in this place.

00;30;09;01 - 00;30;32;12
David Pearce
I'm being forced to grow like I'm being challenged to grow personally, professionally. We read books about personal growth as a man, think it's all kinds of stuff, like I'm getting better as a, as in a dental environment could be whatever in a plumber's environment. I'm getting better as a man because I'm getting leadership things, decision making as a mom, as a spouse, as a as a Christian, as a citizen.

00;30;32;15 - 00;30;56;05
David Pearce
All those things are getting better because of what I'm learning in this dental thing. And from my standpoint, yes, you're going to become a better dental professional. You're going to have better conversations with each other. You're going to better conversation with patients that a business is going to do well. But ultimately, and what I got out of it, you know, as team members coming to me and saying exactly what I want it to be on my gravestone, which is, you know, that doctor Pierce challenge me to become the better version of myself.

00;30;56;05 - 00;31;17;14
David Pearce
And because I'm a better wife, like, how cool is that? I'm a better mom. I can I can say things to my daughter. I never met my son, I never knew, I never know how to what that would look like in my head. So I never did it. My husband, I had a better relationship because we can have conversations about things, and I can do it in a way where I'm not running away, I'm not attacking him.

00;31;17;14 - 00;31;38;29
David Pearce
I'm just stay where I should be because I because I become better, a better person. and all that is great, wonderful. It makes the world better. And selfishly, as a business owner, it makes my my team's relationship, my business relationship with the public. We're serving better. And so more people say, this is where I want to get my dentistry done.

00;31;39;02 - 00;31;39;21
David Pearce
Yeah.

00;31;39;23 - 00;31;40;21
Craig Andrews
That's pretty awesome.

00;31;40;28 - 00;31;58;08
David Pearce
And of all that stuff, eventually and all that stuff, there's more revenue like that's that. That's the stuff that comes at the bottom. And by very predictably, it comes out the bottom end, you know. But the little thing dialog, what you said, you know, like, okay, I'm going to I'm going to I can sell now and so forth and ideas like yeah.

00;31;58;08 - 00;32;12;21
David Pearce
But as they fail, everything's getting better and better and better and better and better. Just, you know, like you go through college is like, not this calculus thing. Oh, I can't do this. You know, it's like when the interior passes final that you never would have passed, you know, nine months ago. Yeah. Because you got better and better.

00;32;12;22 - 00;32;17;14
David Pearce
Better every day, every test. You just get better. And you're just planning for that future. Better, better, better.

00;32;17;16 - 00;32;43;03
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, David, this is been great. And, you know, one of the things I realized about you instantly is we could talk for hours. And I wish. I wish we could go on, but we need to wrap up. So now, now your business is you're coaching other dentists, helping them achieve some of the successes that you had and name of your businesses.

00;32;43;03 - 00;32;48;02
Craig Andrews
Ultimate success in dentistry. How did people reach you?

00;32;48;04 - 00;33;10;15
David Pearce
Well, I'm really easy to reach. you know, it's it's I don't hide, so. But easiest thing. Probably just our website. And, so I'll say it, I'll say it, and I'll stand up and I'll say it intentionally, which is it doesn't have a.com, so its ultimate success. That dentist, the ultimate success that dentists is no community and that there's no that says ultimate success about dentists.

00;33;10;17 - 00;33;29;22
David Pearce
And then if you look at and you're in your car and it drives like, how am I ever gonna remember that there's another the second book we have is as a, as a thought in it, and that thought is, is, is for m40.com. So if you can remember the easier for m40.com, you can type it in as a number, as a letter, as a word, whatever that, that just direct you back to the same place.

00;33;29;22 - 00;33;44;02
David Pearce
So once you get on there though, there's some freebies that we have, you know, and leadership and so forth that you're, you know, please help yourself to that. you know, that my cell phone number is made available on there. As far as reaching me, it's like, really easy to reach. So.

00;33;44;04 - 00;33;58;25
Craig Andrews
Well that's awesome. Well, you know, what's what we've enjoyed about this conversation is the insights that you've shared don't require that you'd be a dentist to benefit from them. And I appreciate you coming on and sharing these insights. Thank you, doctor Pierce.

00;33;58;25 - 00;34;03;22
David Pearce
Thank you. Could appreciate some well done.

00;34;03;22 - 00;34;32;18
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Alize for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this episode on social media.

00;34;32;20 - 00;34;56;00
Craig Andrews
Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend, or posted on the socials. If you know someone who would be a great guest, tag them on social media and let them know about the show, including the hashtag leaders and legacies. I love seeing your posts and suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content to make sure you don't miss anything.

00;34;56;02 - 00;37;06;18
Craig Andrews
Please go ahead and subscribe your thumbs up! Ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show. It means a lot to me. It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Alize for me.com. or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.