Stop Reacting And Start Leading In Your Practice With Dr. Eric Roman

Jonathan Moffat and Dr. Eric Roman dive into one of the most important, yet rarely talked about topics in dentistry: how the abundance and scarcity mindset affect every decision you make, especially when it comes to money, hiring, leadership, and growth. From emotional financial choices to the myth of perfect timing, they unpack how to recognize when you are stuck, shift into action, and surround yourself with the energy that pulls you forward.

Find Jonathan at jonathanmoffat.com
Learn more about Aligned Advisors at alignedadvisors.com
Connect with Dr. Eric Roman at drericjroman.com

Find Jonathan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanmoffat1/
Find Dr. Eric on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drericjroman/

Follow along for weekly episodes that help you build real wealth, make confident decisions, and stay grounded in what really matters. Visit dentalwealthmultiplier.com for more!

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Watch the Episode here

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Stop Reacting And Start Leading In Your Practice With Dr. Eric Roman

This is Jonathan Moffat, and I have my good friend and co-host, Dr. Eric Roman, with me. How are you doing, Eric?

It’s good to be back, buddy.

Every time we get together, there’s so much to talk about, which is awesome. It is why I’m stoked to be doing this show with you and getting so much energy out of being around you. It is always great to be on this show together.

What people don’t know is that we sit here and talk for an hour before we do the show. What’s funny is that what we’re going to talk about actually came up from our own perspectives in just jabbering about crap.

We’ve been talking for 55 minutes prior to hitting record. One of the things that you’re always going to get as a reader from Eric and me is transparency. This is how we are. We were like, “What should we talk about?” This topic came up. What are we going to talk about? Give it to them.

Perspective Of Abundance Vs Perspective Of Scarcity

When we started our conversation, we noticed that we were going back and forth between the perspective of abundance and the perspective of scarcity. If abundance and scarcity are new to you, go buy some books and catch up. We’re not going to act like you don’t have a sense of abundance and scarcity. We’re going to talk about some new perspectives and realizations of abundance and scarcity. We’re going to talk about how they apply to dental wealth and dental operations. We’re going to talk about maybe some great ideas about tangible actions you can take in your life to operate more in a position of abundance rather than scarcity. Isn’t dentistry the most scarce group of people ever created sometimes?

I’ll share a quick little story with you and the readers. Every industry, not just dentistry, goes through scarcity. The reality is that for some people, it’s a marketing tactic. From the marketing machine, we get fed this idea of scarcity and fear. Even some of the best marketers will tell you, “You have to get them scared and then sell them the solution.” It’s not isolated dentistry, although we are going to be talking about it as it pertains to dentistry.

As many of you know, I started out my career working with my dad in the wealth management financial services industry. I’ll never forget. I was at a conference with him in Florida. I live in San Diego. I don’t know if you could get further across the country than where we were. We’re at dinner, and we’re sitting at this table. I was young. I was out of college. I remember my dad talking to this guy. My dad asked this advisor. He practiced in Atlanta somewhere. “What are you doing to get clients?” The guy looks at him and goes, “I’m not telling you that.” I was like, “This is great.”

My dad and I had a conversation later that night. He was like, “You know what’s so funny? There are advisors at this event who are in San Diego that I met for the first time, and their offices are fifteen minutes away from us.” This idea of scarcity is all around us. When you boil it down, scarcity is another word for fear. It’s an emotional response.

The problem with these things, like scarcity that prompts emotional responses, is that anyone will tell you we make our worst decisions, especially around money, when we’re acting or reacting emotionally. As we lean into this topic and talk about scarcity, it’s important to understand and recognize that all of us deal with scarcity. I deal with scarcity. You’ve dealt with scarcity. I thought you made a great comment when we were talking before. You can be the most abundant person ever and still deal with scarcity.

This is something that hit me when you were mentioning all that. Case presentation is taught to dentists to use scarcity. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but I’ve been through programs and training in the past that you’re creating scarcity. You’re like, “You’re going to die if you don’t fix this tooth. If you don’t put a crown on this tooth, it’s possible your whole jaw falls off. Your dog dies. Thunderstorm hits. The tornado hits your home. It’s all going to happen if you don’t crown this tooth.” There’s a sense of that that’s trained into us, and maybe it’s part of the healthcare persona, but no wonder. You’re right. You said, “Eric, scarcity is everywhere.”

We’ll talk about it inside our world. I think that’s nice. Jonathan, let’s define scarcity. There’s only so much to go around. We have to fight for what’s ours and keep it for ourselves because there’s a possibility that there won’t be any more. That’s the mindset of scarcity. There are times in life when you’re marooned on an island and there’s only one can of beans. Beans are scarce, but fish isn’t. There is nature. There’s a reality to scarcity, but the opposite of that is abundance. Abundance says there’s always going to be more. Jonathan, what’s the truth? These are our choices or options. Is abundance a reality?

Abundance is a reality if you make it a reality. Scarcity is something that we let happen to us. We’re receiving it, versus abundance is us reacting or acting to it. We’re taking control and moving it forward. Both are real. I’ve talked to dentists, as I’m sure you have, too, who are practicing in a very high-density area. You live in a very high-density dentist area. You live in Utah. There are lots of dentists there. Lots of people go to the dentist.

I’ll keep that as an example. I’ve heard so many doctors like, “It’s so hard to have a successful practice here. There are so many dentists. There’s so much competition.” I’m lucky to have a successful practice here, yet I could maybe not throw a rocket on that big of an arm, but with a very quick drive from your house in three different directions, I could drive to three offices that I personally know of. Two of those are clients of ours that are doing almost $3 million in revenue.

How many times have you had that conversation with doctors? “You could never have a profitable practice at X location.” I’m like, “They’re doing $2 million, $3 million, or $4 million.” How is it that some doctors or some businesses can’t survive or succeed in the same environment where you have a practice that’s doing phenomenal? What’s different?

What you’re saying is that scarcity and abundance can be realities. The truth is, most of the time, it’s a choice inside our own heads. What you said with the Utah dentist example is that people are sitting there, and the dentist-to-population ratio is that there are more dentists per population here than in most places in America. The other point that you don’t bring up inside there is the utilization of dental services. Our ability to appeal to our customers is still under our control. Most people in the United States of America don’t go to a dental office every year. There’s still more than enough opportunity out there.

The difference is, are you sitting there and saying, “Woe to me. My life sucks. I’m never going to make enough money,” or are you the one saying, “How can I figure this out? I’m going to be resourceful. I’m going to find a solution.” There’s a reality of abundance and scarcity, but what matters more is what’s happening between your own two ears. It’s the mindset of scarcity or the mindset of abundance that exists within you that has a greater prediction of your success or failure than does the truth of abundance or scarcity.

In other words, we do live in a great time on a great planet, call it whatever you want historically. If you want to create a business that makes a lot of money, there is nothing holding you back. There is an abundance of mechanisms, opportunities, and industries that you could choose to be able to do it, and yet, I go back and forth all the time. I have times where I see posts on LinkedIn, and I’m like, “I’m so scarce right now. I’m pathetic. I suck. What am I doing, sitting here at 10:00 at night, looking at this? You’re a waste of humanity, Eric Roman. You’re never going to make it.” I have moments where I wallow in my own self-pity.

Getting Rid Of The Scarcity Mindset

How do you get out of that? How do you recover? I do, too. Just real talk here. I’ve had a task on my action item that’s been repeating for the last two weeks. I need to come in and record a number of podcasts. I’ve sat here in this studio, staring at this camera, thinking, “No one wants to hear from me. No one wants to hear what I have to say. No one cares what I have to say.” Those are thoughts you call scarcity, self-sabotage, or whatever. Every person, to some extent, goes through that. It’s a part of growing. It’s a part of growth.

How do you pull yourself out of that? When you find yourself in that scarcity mindset, what are you doing to pull yourself out of that? If you go, “there are things that we can control and there are things that we can’t control,” in my opinion, there’s very little that we can’t control. In other words, there’s more that we can control than maybe you think that you can, more that’s within your control, or more that you can effect change than maybe you think you can.

An interesting exercise if you find yourself in this place is to list down all those things. What are the obstacles? What are the things that are in your face? What are the things that you feel like you can’t control? What are the obstacles that you feel like getting in your way of achieving or getting to where you want to go? List them all out. Ask yourself, “Is there a solution? Do I have control of this, or do I not have control of this?”

I’ve done this exercise. I’ve had clients do this exercise, but I would be willing to bet you that most of the things you list out, you do have control over. You can effect change on them and come up with a plan. One of the best ways I’ve experienced this feeling of scarcity is through action. It is getting into action, creating a plan, implementing a plan, and feeling that forward momentum. Momentum brings us out of that space. All of a sudden, abundance starts popping up everywhere. Opportunities start showing up everywhere.

There is one thing you can always control, and it’s your attitude. I had this problem on the ski slopes with my nine-year-old. Occasionally, one out of every three times we go skiing, she shows up with this stank attitude. She wants to go. She shows up at the mountain. I said, “I can’t control the weather. I can’t control the other stuff. You can’t either, but you can control your freaking attitude. I need for you to own your attitude because it sucks. You can go sit down there in the chair and chill out so that your attitude doesn’t try to impact the rest of us, or you can pull your crap together and we can have a good day. I promise you can control that.” She’s like, “I can control my attitude.” I’m like, “Yes.”

Does scarcity ever serve us? I don’t know that it does. There are times when we like a little scarcity activity to think about some defense we might need to put up. I feel like most people do better from a position of abundance. Let’s save the rest of that conversation for another day. Does scarcity serve people well? I always joked about when I was building a dental company, and we had short of around 300 employees. I liked to have one that was scarce because every once in a while, we’d engage at one and say, “Tell us why this isn’t going to work.” A scarce person can always tell you all the reasons why it’s not going to work.

It is usually your CFO or something like that. They’re like, “It’s not going to work because of this. It’s not going to work because of that.” I’m like, “Great. Build a strategy for those things, but don’t talk to the rest of us because we’re going to go be abundant and deliver.” Back to your question, how do you get out of it? Control what you can control. That’s right. The second thing you said was action. I agree with that.

In your example about podcasting, you were saying that what the scarcity is moving you towards is inaction. I have the same thing inside my life. I have written over here on my sidewall, “Scarcity does not serve me. Action does.” I have that written over there because I run into that crap all the time though. “Why do I have it here? Scarcity doesn’t serve me. It is action.” I’ve got to remember to keep moving.

One other thing I’d add is that we have to be considerate of who we’re surrounding ourselves with, or if we’re even surrounding ourselves with other people. Look at this, Jonathan. If it wasn’t for me, I’m going to make the assumption you’d sit in here and wallow in self-pity like, “Why am I not doing a show?” You and I are together, and I’m like, “Let’s go pull the trigger. We could talk for another hour, but let’s pull the trigger and record some content.” Having other people around us, we have to be considerate of, “Is there energy lending towards who we want to be, or is there energy holding us back?”

Sometimes, I have to prune some people. If I had too many scarce people inside my company, it took me down a notch, and I was not at my best. I was going to do a little pruning. Prune those little scarcities out, and keep moving. It is like when we’re sitting all alone in front of the mirror. The dude that I see in the mirror is a total dorkwad. He pisses me off. When he’s sitting there, and it’s just me and him, good things don’t happen. Sometimes, I need other people’s energy to light a firecracker under my butt.

How The Scarcity Mindset Affects Dentists

It is surrounding yourself with people who are cheerleaders for that as well. Where else do you think that shows up inside dentistry?

The biggest one ever, dentists. I went through this my entire career. It is the dentist across the corner. “A new dental office went over across the corner. There goes my business. There goes everything. We’re hosed.” Dentists see another practice or Aspen Dental opening up down the block or whatever else as the end of time. “I only got 1,400 patients. Another dental office opened up. I only have 700.” That was the pervasive mantra. You have to see a ton of this, too. “How about right now? If I don’t sell to the DSO right now while they’re offering the 8.0 multiple.” As a DSO guy, how many times have you been like, “I heard multiples are going down next year. They definitely are. You’d better sell right now or else you’re never going to get it.”

It shows up all over. If we allow ourselves to give in to that scarcity, we end up making decisions out of that fear and that emotion that we may end up regretting down the road. As you were talking about that, I thought of the Burger King model. How did Burger King know where they were going to put their stores? This is a perfect example. McDonald’s is crushing it. McDonald’s goes and does all this demographic research and spends millions of dollars researching. “These are the communities. This is where we’re going to put it. We’re going to pop a McDonald’s right here.” Do you know what Burger King’s strategy was? It was to figure out where McDonald’s was going to be and put a store right next to it.

Do you know why I did that with a DSO? I went to Walmart and Target. Walmart and Target were mine. I said, “If they’re putting in a Walmart, they know the demographics and they create the demographic psychographic analysis. If there are people shopping there, I’m going to be good. It makes sense.”

We have a client who’s a dentist in the Midwest. His model is, “I’m going to find out where this one DSO puts a location. I’m going to put a location across the street.”

I thought you were going to say that Burger King looked for areas that had low rates of obesity and diabetes, and they decided, “It’s time for us to put in a Burger King because we can fix that. When we get those croissan’wiches humping in there and those whoppers, everything changes.”

It shows if you were a burger company, and you’re like, “There’s no way we can compete with McDonald’s. They’re the behemoth. They’re the giant. There’s no way we’re going to compete with them. I guess we’re going to be out of business,” or lean into it and go, “How would you think maybe we do a little bit different, a little bit better?” That’s the conversation you want to start having as scarcity starts to creep in. “There’s another dentist coming in,” or “I can’t find any employees. I can’t find a dentist. I can’t find a hygienist. There’s nobody to hire.”

Instead of having that mentality or that thought, think, “What can I do that looks maybe a little bit different?” Go look and see who is advertising for associates. How are they advertising? I’ve done this, so I can tell you every single ad looks the same. If you’re going to do the same thing, you’re going to get the same results. You can go, “How do I make it look a little bit different and be a little bit different?”

Put that out there with the mindset that this is going to provide results and get me the people I want to get on my team, instead of taking that approach of, “There’s nothing I can do. No one said that anyone’s hiring. You can’t hire anyone. All these employees are garbage. No one’s great.” shift your attitude, and you’re like, “How is this office three blocks away able to seemingly hire the best of the best every time to make a hire?” They’re hiring from the same pool that you are.

This abundance scarcity mindset setup is almost always based on only a few variables. There are other variables that we’re not thinking about. To the point of McDonald’s and Burger King, the assumption that it wouldn’t work, that McDonald’s has all the business, is that everybody only likes McDonald’s burgers. Whenever we’re sitting in scarcity, we’re missing key variables. I’ll give you an example. We also still did demographic psychographic reports until we figured out that Walmart was always right. We would do them. There was one market we were getting ready to go into. It said like, “You would be stupid to go in here.”

The dentist population ratio is ridiculously high. It’s the highest we’ve ever seen. It was Pinehurst, North Carolina. It’s because every dentist in America retires to Pinehurst, to its golf courses. Of course, your dentist population ratio is high. We said, “We don’t think there’s anybody like us open six days a week, extended hours, and accepting all the insurances.” We went in there. The office did short of $3 million in its first year. We laughed about it a year later. We’re like, “Demographics said we’d be dumb to start a practice here.”

What were the variables we weren’t considering? It considered two variables, the number of dentists and the population. Were those numbers even accurate? Who knows? The variables it wasn’t considering are the types of dentistry, the hours of operation, and all the other things that mattered. Whenever we’re being scarce, are we even considering the right variables? There’s the other variable, too, if you’re into the Black Swan effect and stuff like that, and it’s just chance. It’s things you can’t anticipate that might happen.

Speaking of which, the state of Utah, where I now live, banned fluoridation of water supplies. Fluoride might do stuff systemically to people that’s not good, but I know it stops cavities. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens. That’s a variable that defeats scarcity for better or for worse. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but it’s interesting.

They should create an energy drink or a water drink called Fluoride Aid and start selling it.

How Scarcity And Abundance Impact Wealth

We can call it Fluoraid. We’re going to be talking about this for years. It’s all data. It’s all noise. There’s a little bit of truth to everything, and I’m not committed to any direction. Let’s talk about scarcity and abundance relative to wealth. What do you see?

As it pertains to wealth and dentistry, you already said one of the biggest things we see all the time. It is doctors being faced with the largest financial decision of their lives, “What should I do with my practice?”, and basing that on limited variables. I was at a study club. I was talking to a buddy. He said he sold to the XYZ group for X number of multiples. My first question is, “I’ve been doing this long enough. There’s a good chance they either left out some information, didn’t have all of the information, or very rarely is it as good as someone’s leading on to bleed,” but then go, ”I’m going to get in front of a group. I’m going to make this big decision without looking at multiple solutions, multiple offers, and multiple outcomes, really just face that.

Where it presents itself is, “Get while the getting is good. Private equity is not always going to be interested. DSOs aren’t always going to be interested in your practice. There’s going to be a point where they’re going to stop buying practices. You’d better sell quickly before it dries up.” You said it yourself, they’ve been saying that for years. A smart guy in a group we were talking to once said, “There’s always going to be a market for a well-run business.” If you have a well-run business, someone is always going to want to buy a well-run business.

What can’t you control? We can’t control whether private equity or DSOs are going to continue to have an interest in buying your practice. What can you control? I can control making sure that I do everything I can to run a well-run, profitable practice. I’m not going to spoil the fun, but there are other options out there aside from selling that, if you have a well-run business, could generate way more money for you in the long run than selling your practice. That’s one of them.

What you made me think of there, too, was how scarce we get about timing. We’re always trying to, “I can get it right. I’ve got to sell in the next six months.” The truth is you don’t know what the crap you’re talking about. To your point, there’s always a great market for well-run businesses instead of trying to get lucky. It’s like Vegas versus wisdom and running a good, healthy business. It never gets old. The odds aren’t good on trying to time crap out. It doesn’t work well.

Another place, relative to wealth, interestingly enough, is a spot where I feel like dentists might need to be more scarce, if there ever is a thing. What I see a lot is that we think as dentists that you’ve operated a practice that had a good profit margin, and so now, you’re smart in business. Everything else you do in the business world outside of this is going to turn out great. I bet you could show me data on how non-dental business ventures turn out, because based on my data, it is not good.

My grandpa, my dad’s dad, is a perfect example. I’ve told this story many times. He crushed it as an orthodontist. He had an amazing, efficient, profitable orthodontic group practice. Every outside venture he had, I’m pretty sure, everyone failed. Essentially, another way you could look at scarcity from a timing standpoint is quickly. “You’d better get into Bitcoin quickly before it goes up. What’s your cryptocurrency before it goes?”

Nobody is ever saying that when it goes down by $20,000.

“XYZ person just mentioned blah, blah, blah.” That’s an emotional response. “I don’t want to miss out. I can’t miss out on this.” There’s an emotional response. The majority of the time, a financial decision based on that is not going to end up very well, versus abundance, where you go back and you go, “What has worked long-term for building wealth?” Generally speaking, it’s a long-term strategy of buy and hold, whether it’s a position in the market, real estate, or a business.

I look at my other grandfather, whom I’m going to visit. His strategy was to buy and hold land. He has land he’s owned for over 30 years, which is now doing very well for him. If you look at it from an investing standpoint, scarcity is this emotional response of, “Get in, get out, and get the big, fast, quick win,” which you and I both know rarely happens. Abundance is like, “We’re going to have a strategy. We’re going to stick to it and hold it out. We’re going to let this thing play out over the next 5, 10, 15, or 20 years, whatever it is.

Scarcity And Abundance In Hiring And Cost-Cutting

We’ve talked big picture. We’ve talked about finance and wealth. Let’s talk a little bit about maybe the two spaces that you and I have talked about that we see the most perspective scarcity in operating dentistry, which are hiring and our attitude toward cost-cutting. How about you start with hiring?

We were talking a little about this before. Every week, I’m on a call, and the doctor is like, “We can’t find any good doctors. I can’t find a hygienist. I can’t find a good front office person.” We’re not a staffing agency, but I have some experience with the practices we own. We’ve got some ads. I was talking to a client. His practice is in the middle of nowhere in Texas. He goes, “Where is it? I can’t find a doctor. I need to find a doctor. I can’t find anyone. Everyone is hiring these doctors.”

We placed an ad. A week or two later, a doctor went in, working there, working out great right now. I’m not saying it always happens that way, but if you have this attitude of, “I can’t find anyone. I’m never going to find anyone,” that’s going to trickle through. It’s going to show in your ad. It’s going to show in how you respond to the people who respond to you. It’s going to show in your text messages, your phone calls, and your emails.

It’s going to show through to your staff or whoever is doing the interview. It’s going to trickle through, and there’s going to become a ripple effect that is going to end up probably making it very difficult to find someone versus having this attitude of abundance. “There is someone out there who’s going to be a great fit for my practice. I need to find them.” Looking differently, a book that keeps coming up is Blue Ocean Strategy. It’s a great book all about finding the blue ocean. You can find blue oceans even in red oceans. I talked about that where there’s this opportunity of looking, “What is my competition not doing?”

You find abundance. You find opportunity and look for opportunity. What are they doing? What are they not doing? How can I do this a little bit differently, a little bit better, and start seeing results? We’ve helped clients get doctors in Hawaii and the middle of nowhere in Texas. These areas are very difficult to get. We’re not a staffing agency. We’re more of coaching them through, like, “This is how you would do it,” and seeing those results. A lot of it is having that perspective of abundance, and that positive outlook naturally leads to looking and thinking differently and seeing all those opportunities.

Remember the whole thing I said about the other variables? We put out an ad, and we’re pissed because our perfect employee didn’t show up. It’s because your perfect employee isn’t looking yet. I do this analogy all the time, where I talk about fishing. You go fishing when you’re hungry, but that doesn’t mean that’s when the fish are biting. If you want to snag great employees, you always have to have a line in the water, but it has to have bait on it that people want to bite.

We’re looking at the variables. “I can’t find good teams.” Your bait sucks. They don’t want to come work for you because it’s not a good work environment, your ad sucks, your hiring process sucks, or you don’t have a line in the water. I agree on the hiring thing. Talk about the thing that you see all the time with your customers, and that is this dental propensity towards cost-cutting as opposed to additional revenue.

I was having this conversation at lunch with a company that we’ll be having on the show here. We’re talking about ’07 to ’08. My partner in the practice, Dr. Tibbets, is such a great businessman. He is the epitome of abundance and looking for abundance. In ’07 to ’08, when the economy wasn’t doing great, practices in his area were struggling. A lot of practices in a lot of areas were struggling because the economy was struggling. When the economy struggles, people generally don’t want to spend money on dentistry. The practices in his area were pulling back. They were shutting off their marketing. They were like, “We’re not paying marketing.”

What did Dr. Tibbets do? He tripled down. In eighteen months, he went from $1.2 million in revenue to over $3 million in revenue because he tripled down on marketing. He also bought a chart sale and did a couple of things. The point is that he saw opportunity and abundance in a time when everyone else around him was seeing scarcity. We saw this in COVID. We saw this anytime there’s a downturn in the market.

Another good friend of mine probably 10X, 20X, or 30X his net worth during that same timetable in ’07 to ’08 because he was picking up properties for cash on courthouse steps, paying cash for houses that now, who knows what they’re worth. He saw abundance when everyone else saw scarcity. You do have to practice it. You need to have a system of pulling yourself out of it when you do feel that scarcity or that fear. How do I get myself out of it? A lot of times, it’s through action. Momentum will pull you out of that.

As far as cost-cutting and things like that, you want to run a profitable business. You’re putting the focus on cutting costs instead of your biggest expense in the practice, people. I can go try and shave off half a percent on supplies or cancel marketing, which maybe I’m paying a couple thousand dollars, but by the way, that’s also bringing revenue in because it’s bringing people in through the door. I could also spend a little bit of time or a lot of time, whatever amount it takes, in investing in my team to take the largest expense of my practice and make it the largest contributor of revenue or benefit, and value to my business.

The thing that’s easy about cutting costs is that it appears to be tangible. How big a difference is cost-cutting going to make? What’s the secondary effect of only playing defense and not playing offense? Why don’t we play offense more often and say, “Let’s make better utilization of our team. Let’s increase our case acceptance. Let’s get more patients coming back.” It’s because that’s different. That means that we have to have a behavior change.

Behavior change is hard. Sitting there, taking, and saying, “I canceled Netflix.” What’s funny is how often people are like, “I canceled that.” That was $180 out of your annual budget. That’s not even a plane ticket. I understand if you’re pinching pennies, that something has to give, but inside of a dental practice, the variables, we have this abundance of opportunity. We have so many opportunities to increase our case acceptance. Call your patients after the first visit. Do things to meet them where they are. Improve your financing options. Do better confirmations, so they show up for their appointment. They are simple things that we’re not doing. If we did it, we would be better off. That’s my story. Behavior change is hard, but it’s so much more valuable.

Jonathan And Dr. Eric’s Key Takeaways

Here are the key takeaways. Our conversation is abundance versus scarcity, how it applies inside of our practices, and how it’s applying inside of our wealth, inside the dental industry. Every once in a while, you need to call a timeout and recognize where you are on the abundance-scarcity spectrum. This is one thing I’ve taught people for a long time. I have a one-on-one for 30 minutes every week. I call a timeout, and I look at my week. I’m like, “Where’s my head right now?”

You’ve got to have a trigger to ask yourself the question, “Am I living abundantly or scarcely? How do I apply my perspective of abundance to how I’m living right now?” Number one, recognize where you are. The second thing I’d say is when you’re not where you want to be, you’ve got to have a way to ground yourself. When Eric is being super scarce, which I’m good at, people are like, “No way, you’re Mr. Abundance. You’re always positive.” I’m always positive because a lot of times, I’m negative. It’s part of the thing.

You can’t have one without the other, but I have ways of grounding myself in that little one-on-one with me of calling a timeout and saying, “Is this who I want to be? Does this serve me best? No, Eric, remember who you are when you’re at your best.” The last thing is that I work hard to surround myself with people who multiply the best portion of me, and that’s me in abundance. I recognize there are certain people who I need to help pull me out of the darkness. Jonathan, what would you add as some strategy for people to end up in the good spot?

If you’re like, “I am stuck in this abyss of scarcity, and I recognize it,” have a plan. I love what you said about people. I was on my scarcity podcast. I sat here and stared at the screen for an hour. I had this script. I had everything done for me. I had to hit record. I couldn’t do it. I sent a text to a buddy of mine, Roberto. I don’t know anyone more positive than Roberto. The guy is from Brazil. Every time you talk to him, it’s like a carnival. I sent him a text like, “I need a little Roberto love.” He shot a voicemail right back, and he was like, “You got this.” I went, “Awesome, record, let’s go.”

You have to recognize that we all go through it. It’s a part of the process. It’s a part of growing, scaling, and understanding. It is recognizing you’re in it. Have a plan, whether it’s contacting someone or going through a one-on-one. Figure out a plan. If it’s money-related, sit down and be like, “Where am I spending it? Where are my opportunities? What opportunities am I missing?” I love what you said in there about, “Am I calling patients? Am I doing these things that I know for a fact will work and will generate a different result that I’m getting because of the work I’m not doing?” When you start to list out, have a plan. Whatever that is, come up with a plan.

If you need help coming up with the plan, shoot Eric and me an email. We’re happy to help you and give you a couple of thoughts and ideas. Sometimes, it’s getting out of your own head. Sometimes, it’s being able to take a viewpoint that you maybe don’t have or can’t see from someone else. All those things are helpful in getting out of that scarcity mindset into the abundant mindset. Once you’re in the abundance mindset, you’re acting and making decisions out of not an emotional standpoint, but in a better, more logical place, and in a place where you can be like, “This is where we’re going. I can see a start to have momentum towards that in that direction.”

Jonathan, it is a fun conversation. It all started because you and I are both confessing that we have our days. If we have our days, it’s probably because we’re human. If you’re a human and you’re reading this, you have your days, too. Hopefully, there’s a little bit of love and encouragement that is waiting for you inside there. Jonathan, take us home.

There’s no Instagram life. A lot of people put this facade on that everything is fantastic. We’re all going through it together. That’s what I love about interacting with you, Eric. Whether it’s masterminds that you put on, you’re in a place where you’re with other people who are like, “We’re all going through it.” If anyone says we’re not going through it, they’re probably not being very transparent with you. Everyone is going through it. With that, I love the entrepreneurial dental community because we’re all in it together. Thanks for reading, everybody. Hopefully, you got some good nuggets and good takeaways. Dr. Eric, thank you so much for your time being on here as always, as our co-host. I appreciate your insight and expertise.

Always fun. Talk to you guys later.

Important Links

• Dr. Eric Roman
• Dr. Eric Roman on LinkedIn
• Blue Ocean Strategy
• Jonathan Moffat
• Jonathan Moffat on LinkedIn

About Dr. Eric Roman

Dr. Eric J. Roman started his professional journey as a dentist, but soon became the CEO of fast growing, multi-location dental groups that generated over $200m in care during his leadership. Eric strategically led his DSO through an exit in 2019, and chose to step out of DSO leadership to pursue a more balanced life.

His next growth phase came in the form of executive coaching and thought leadership, both inside and outside the dental industry. As one of the dental industry’s most esteemed experts on team dynamics, emerging DSO operations and associate dentist development, Eric spent several years coaching a community of more than $3B in annual revenue via the Dentist Entrepreneur Organization.

After his tenure at the DEO, Eric shifted his energy toward addressing an alarming trend: data is showing that, despite the success of our businesses, entrepreneurs and their teams are continually less fulfilled in their personal lives. To solve this, Eric developed the 1LifeSystem, a simple, recurring digital retreat that delivers personal fulfillment without sacrificing professional success. Whether it’s as a founder, operator, advisor, or investor, Eric loves to put his energy toward moving our industry forward.