Dr. Todd Snyder is interviewed by Alex Nottingham, JD, MBA on Dental All-Stars to discuss the importance of having your business serve your life. They explore the concept that your business should be a means to enjoy life and create the world you want to live in. They emphasize the power of taking ownership, changing your perception, and embracing challenges as opportunities for growth. The hosts encourage dentists to be visionary entrepreneurs and surround themselves with coaches and like-minded individuals who can help them elevate their game. By aligning their mindset and goals, dentists can build successful businesses that bring fulfillment and allow them to live life on their own terms.
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About DR. Todd Snyder
Dr. Todd Snyder DDS, FAACD, FIADFE, ASDA, ABAD. As a cosmetic dentist, author, international lecturer, researcher and instructor at various teaching facilities, Dr. Snyder offers a lot on many levels to not only his patients but also his colleagues around the world.
About Alex Nottingham JD MBA
Alex is the CEO and Founder of All-Star Dental Academy®. He is a former Tony Robbins top coach and consultant, having worked with companies upwards of $100 million. His passion is to help others create personal wealth and make a positive impact on the people around them. Alex received his Juris Doctor (JD) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Florida International University.
Episode Transcript
Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.
00:00
This is Dental All-Stars, where we bring you the best in dentistry on marketing, management and training. Here’s your host, Alex Nottingham.
00:13
Welcome to Dental All-Stars, and I have Dr. Todd Snyder with me, and we’re going Out of Your Mind. We have an Out of Your Mind series we do together, and our topic today is Have Your Business Serve Your Life. I’m a big fan of Michael Gerber, who wrote the E-Myth Revisited. I had the pleasure to speak with him on stage, and in his books, he says, “‘Your business should serve your life, “‘not you serve your business.'” And I love how Todd
00:41
I see you speaking, racing cars, lecturing, enjoying your life, doing great dentistry. It seems like you followed Gerber’s advice. Care to share? Yeah, without even knowing it. Yeah. You know, I see the business as yeah, it’s something that allows me to enjoy life. It is the, you know, the goose that laid the golden egg. And I see so many dentists that feel imprisoned. And I did a podcast on a couple weeks ago
01:12
They feel they can’t change things or they can’t do things and they’re stuck. And I’m like, no, no, no, dentistry is one of the best businesses in the world because pretty much everyone needs a dentist at some point or another, if not regularly. And so, you know, if you have a good business and good systems and whatnot, then you get to decide how often you’re at work, what hours you work, how many people you’re going to see, what fee do you want to charge? And based on that, you get to determine, you know, how you want to live your life, where you want to live your life. And
01:41
when you want to retire, all of these things you can put on your terms, you get to decide. But yet so many dentists give that power away to someone else, whether it’s an insurance company or a different owner if you’re an employee, or letting patients determine what happens in your business. Ideally, you’re the business owner, you decide who you work with and what you do and what your fee is. And it’s not like I can walk into a car dealership or…
02:07
clothing shop and tell them what I want and what I’m willing to pay. They’ll laugh and tell me to get out. And yet I find that so many dentists don’t see their business as this wonderful thing that they have that allows them to create the world they want to live in. Instead, they feel imprisoned and they’ve built their own walls and they feel they can’t break them down and change things.
02:28
I love that quote about the world you live in. I’m coming up with a book later this year, early next year. And one of the quotes is, the world is an illusion. It works by magic. And the magic is your perception. As you change your perception, you change your world. And so I love that you’re speaking to that. You’re imprisoned by your own mind, your own perception of what you’re capable of. And here in our Out of Your Mind series, you’re trying to get you out of your mind, out of your comfort zone.
02:57
Exactly. And I too really believe, I’ve been doing this since the beginning. I don’t think I’ve really had a full job. I was doing real estate investments. I was doing some law, but I always consulting before I launched All-Star. So I was always enjoying creating and building the world that interests me. So I’ll just do what I love and make money on it. I like that.
03:25
You know, I says, okay, I like speaking. I enjoy this as jazz as me. I’ll do more of that and make money in the process. And even here with All-Star I built and you did as well with your businesses, we both built our businesses where we don’t need. Okay. To quote the business. So we focus it on doing what we love to do. And, and that really comes out the patients in your end, the doctors on, on, on my end, they appreciate that.
03:55
congruency. And I tell our company, do what you love, and we’ll build a business around it. So for example, our hiring service, it was a need. But my VP of coaching at the time, now my hiring director, Robyn Reis, she loves it. I said, let’s build a business around it, because you love it. So we take that enthusiasm. And this way, that kind of quirky quote, if you’re.
04:23
If you love what you do, you’re never working a day in your life. So we’re doing things that a we love to do that we would do anyway, even if we weren’t getting paid for it. Right. So that’s nice. And then that fuels the other activities that you enjoy as well. Yeah, exactly. You know, so, you know, you got to put in some hard work to make the business what you want it to be. But once you’ve done the hard work, which takes time and persistence, but once you’ve done that, then, you know,
04:53
you get the freedom of doing whatever you want at that point. And so yeah, for like for me, you know, I love teaching. I’ve always been an educator in teaching from being at the university and creating a graduate program to going out and speaking publicly around the world. And now having my own online training program where I get to call the shots and really push people and get people to make things happen as opposed to taking a three-hour CE class at a dental convention. No one’s really pushing you. And most of the time you leave with a stack of notes or whatever and they never get implemented. So
05:22
So I’m having more fun than ever helping people move so much quicker, because of being more one-on-one and not having, you know, like a dental convention, determining what I can say and what I can’t say, I guess you’d, but you know, that’s given me the freedom to travel and, and race cars and invent things and spend more time with family. And, you know, so again, building the world you want to live in is important to understand, but most people,
05:50
Again, feel that like their hands are tied. And I’m here to tell you that they’re not, that you can do anything you want as soon as you start to make really good goals and plans of how you’re gonna change things and build new walls. So again, you get to build your world. What world is it you’re trying to build? You get to break the ones you’re currently in, change bad habits, and then start to fabricate the new one. But you have to understand where you’re going and what you’re going to build. If you don’t, you’re just gonna wander around aimlessly and wondering why things aren’t working.
06:20
What dentists have to realize, dentists that are owners of their business, is that they are the de facto visionary of the business. And they can embrace it or not. And what we’re saying is embrace that. Embrace that you are the visionary. Embrace the fact that you can create the world. You can create the office of your dreams. What makes you excited to be there. And your team will be a reflection of that. When I see great teams, there’s always a great dentist.
06:50
There’s a reason for that. Your inner world creates your outer world. So you’ve got to be very clear, and you have to own that. And it can be scary, because we’re saying, you’ve got to be an entrepreneur. You have to have an entrepreneur mindset as a dentist. Now, you can play your cards straight. And that’s why corporate dentistry has found dentistry so appealing, because they know how inefficient all of you are, and they know they can be more efficient, and they have economies of scale.
07:19
You can make money. You don’t have to be that great. I mean, you have to be a decent clinician, but you can make all these mistakes in business and you still make money. But if you can do it right, you have more flexibility and you have to realize you do. And we had another podcast we did before about insurance. You can play the protocol. You can take insurance. You can train very infrequently and you’ll still make money. But-
07:46
What we’re saying is you have more control than you think you do. And what we’re challenging you to do is start with what you want out of life. That’s why we’re doing this. If you’re going to go to a job every day and resent that you’re not getting paid the way you should get paid, your team isn’t the way it needs to be. Your life is in the way it needs to be. And you blame everybody else. That’s a problem. It’s always you, always you.
08:14
I totally agree. I tell people to look in the mirror all the time in my programs, because everything that happens in your world is from you. And yet the first thing you want to do is blame everyone else. And once you start to take ownership of it becomes interesting. But also, you know, every problem is a gift. I say it all the time, in that you can actually change your mindset, because the first thing that your mind thinks of whenever there’s a problem is negativity. So you go into work and you know, just the connotation of walking in the front door, hearing a complaint, you instantly think negativity.
08:43
And so your brain is wired because of your thought process. And so instead to think differently and say, okay, next time a problem happens, I’m going to smile, I’m going to laugh and maybe jump up and down. And I’m going to do that every time a problem happens. And people are going to think I’m crazy, especially watching what I’m doing. And then what you’ll find over time, if you look back a couple of weeks later, you actually can change your brain’s chemistry. They call it neuroplasticity. You can literally train your mind to think differently.
09:11
And so it becomes a habit that when a problem happens, you laugh and jump up and down and smile, which releases endorphins and you feel better. And you can now attack the problem or the gift, as I would say, with a different type of enthusiasm that, hey, this is a gift, I get to change something. I get to learn and I get to build something better. As opposed to saying, it’s another negativity, here’s another problem I got to deal with. And you keep having more and more problems instead of saying, these are gifts, I get to change things.
09:38
And so it’s all in your, your mindset and looking at things, but it’s up to you. It starts with you on everything in this world. And hence you need to look in the mirror and be honest, which is very difficult for anyone in life to do. But when you can, it becomes incredibly powerful. I would say those emotions, those difficult emotions are early warning signs of something else. You see your body communicates, your body is very wise.
10:06
And I do agree with Todd, we do have to work on getting ourselves in the right state. I just saw a video of Tony Robbins, my mentor, and he talked about his philosophy of NLP and neuroplasticity that when a negative motion happens, you can change your state and then you change where you’re at, which is so important. You have to be able to do that. You’ve got to get back to work. Nobody wants you drilling their mouth and you’re in a bad state. And you have to make sure your energy is strong and you’re taking care of yourself.
10:34
These emotions are communicating something to you. Something’s off, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically, and we have to look into that. And what I will typically do when I see something go wrong and the tools that I work with are not addressing them in due time, I go to my coaches. I have coaches for everything that I do. I have tennis coach, or tennis. I have mindset coach, spiritual coaches, business coaches, masterminds to help me to
11:04
raise my level to see where can I improve. It always is me. And so use those as early warning signs. And then you have to start making decisions guys. You gotta start making decisions like a business person. You gotta start taking this seriously. We have a limited lifespan. And I think that’s kind of good in the sense that we can’t wait forever to change. And you gotta be around groups of people, like-minded people to help you to raise your level. But it all starts with you and taking ownership of that.
11:34
is the first step.
11:37
Yeah, I see playing it safe doesn’t work. If you’re only here one time, as far as you know, you know, why play it safe and miss out and have regret and frustrations? I’d say figure out what it is you want to do and go all in on yourself. And as Alex had said, you know, you need a coach. It’s been proven that you rise to the level of the people that you play with. Right. So if you hire people that are coaches that are at a different level have already done what you want to do. It’s far easier for you to rise to their level as opposed to playing with someone who
12:06
you know, is it the same level or potentially lower than you? You know, I see people hanging out in some of these chat rooms or these groups on social media. And to me, it’s like, we’ll have to take Alex’s tennis coach. If I’m horrible at tennis and I go play with another horrible person, nothing’s going to happen. We’re going to get frustrated and walk away. Now, I’m sure Alex is really good at tennis and I’m not. So if I can just get that ball over the net, he’s probably great. He’ll hit it back. And if he’s kind enough, he’ll hit it to me. So at least get a chance to hit it back over again. And now we can get a little rally.
12:32
And I can start improving because I’m actually getting a chance to hit a ball more regularly as opposed to playing with somewhere. I never get a chance to hit the ball. So I can’t improve upon my skill. So having someone that is better than you is certainly very valuable. That becomes basically a coach. You need a coach. Yeah, totally. And I was thinking from the great book, Think and Grow Rich, and the title today we’re talking about how your business serves your life. And the first step to riches.
13:01
and riches can be happiness, peace of mind as well, is you have to have this burning desire that this is not okay, that there is something better. And that’s again, what we’re trying to do with this podcast is get you out of your mind, is that enough. My business needs to serve my life. It needs to be designed that I love what I do, I make a difference, and I can be with my family. I can do…
13:28
the hobbies that I enjoy. I don’t have to wait till retirement. I can be who I choose to be. And that’s a burning desire. And part of a burning desire is there’s no retreat. You are moving forward. You’re doing whatever it takes to get it done. And coaching is one of the fastest ways to accelerate that. Now, we say coaching, but it’s not just you get a coach and it’s fixed, but you have to be willing to put into work. You have to be willing to look at the places you don’t want to look at.
13:57
You have to surround yourself by great people. Those are not chats, you know, side chats. Those are mastermind groups. Those are mastermind leaders. I’m a mastermind leader, Todd’s a mastermind leader, and finding the place that you feel comfortable to support you in those areas. That’s what you have to do to get to the goal of having the business serve your life. And even if you recognize that, and even if you are doing well and you’re happy,
14:26
You still need to challenge yourself because if you’re not growing, you’re going backwards. You got to be around. We go with tennis. I got to be playing tennis players that are as good or better than me to keep my level up. You got to be around people like that to support you and to grow. And we all look, I think at the end of the day, it’s having peace of mind, being in that state of flow. That’s so pleasurable, Todd, right?
14:53
And that can be, you can be in flow in business and sport and life and have the energy that we desire and we choose. Definitely. You know, the momentum is what keeps moving you forward every day. I find that when you don’t have a goal or purpose, that’s when you start to have doubt and frustrations. And, and when you have a drive towards something that you really want, you know, you’re emotionally attached to it. You now have this.
15:19
every day kind of drive to go find something, make something happen, as opposed to when you have time and no goals, you really just get upset with things and where they are. And oftentimes people feel overwhelmed when they have less to do versus when you have something to do, you don’t feel overwhelmed because you have an agenda that has to get done. And that’s one of the things we point out inside of Legion, you know, you can get more things done in 90 days than you ever thought possible. If you put them all out on paper and say, here’s what I got to do today, tomorrow, the next day.
15:47
And you just, you go like, well, 90 days went fast. I was never upset or disappointed. Everything was moving forward and look at all the growth that I had. Right. So I would say the other thing is some people just get comfortable and stuck in their world, but they get frustrated because they’re not really doing anything. It’s the same thing every day. There’s no goal in front of them. And so hence burnout and frustration and pain and anguish all start to occur. So true. There’s one other concept I like to touch on briefly, and this could be a subject of a entirely different podcast.
16:17
But the supporting line that Michael Gerber talks about in his book is working on the business versus just in the business. And what this means is we have to carve out time. We’re working on ourselves, on our business strategy growth, not just clinical. So we can do clinical. I can’t do clinical. Todd can do clinical. But that’s dull dental stuff. That’s the in the business stuff. When you’re going to.
16:46
Seminars and clinical, that’s in the business. When day-to-day work, in the business. On the business is business training, entrepreneurship training, mastermind coaching, seminars related to practice management and growth. That’s on the business. That’s becoming better as an complete human being. And we’re more than just dentistry. We’re more than being a tool and using tools. So don’t be a tool, work on your business.
17:16
care to comment on? You know, it’s funny. Yeah, I agree. Don’t be a tool. I think the other thing that oftentimes people miss is they’re so focused on working and they feel they have to be behind the chair 24 seven. I would say one of the biggest things you’re missing out on is making sure to schedule time for yourself. I don’t care if it’s half an hour or an hour a day or every other day, but you need a quiet personal time for yourself to reflect on your business.
17:44
what you’re doing, where you’re going, and what you wanna change. But you’ll also find revelations in all that where you can actually find kind of this creative, you know, internal voice that speaks to you. I find it quite often. When I have downtime, I get these weird creative voices saying, oh, go do this, what if you tried that? But if you never put the time in your schedule to be alone, that means turn off the cell phone, turn off the music, just be in a place, wherever that is, where you can think about what you wanna do in this world.
18:14
what you’re doing in your business and what you’d like to change and improve upon. And what if you did something, whatever that is, what’s going to happen after that? So again, take time out for yourself to think about what it is you’re doing, where you want to go, and what could be possible that you haven’t even thought of yet.
18:33
And we’ll end on that Todd. And thank you for being on the Out of Your Minds series. This is a co-series with dental all-stars and winning the war on dentistry. And I want to encourage all of you, follow both of us. Follow us on Apple podcasts and Spotify. I’ll put the links for the subscriptions and the show notes, but that’s dental all-stars and yours is…
19:03
What is your out of your mind? Delusional. Out of your mind. But yeah, these are the Out of Your Mind series, which is once a month we post it on our podcast, which is specifically labeled. Delusional, Winning the War in Dentistry, and Dental All-Stars. Those are the two that you’ve got to be following, you’ve got to be listening to on a regular basis. And tell all your friends too, we’re going to help dentistry together. Let’s get.
19:32
all of dentistry out of their minds. Todd Snyder, Dr. Todd Snyder, thank you so much. Sounds good, thanks Alex. And until next time, go out there and be an All-Star.
19:49
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Dental All-Stars. Visit us online at AllStarDentalAcademy.com.
