Endo Mastery

Stop delaying your vision and goals

CYNTHIA STAMATION

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Every endodontist carries a vision for a better practice and a better life — more balance, more fulfillment, more time, more impact, more financial success, and more joy in the day-to-day experience of practicing. Yet even with that clarity of desire, many doctors find themselves stuck at the starting line. Not because they lack ability, intelligence, talent, or resources, but because taking the first step feels risky or overwhelming. 

 

Often the hardest part of achieving anything meaningful is beginning the process. It’s easy to convince ourselves that we’ll start “soon.” We wait for the schedule to settle, the team to stabilize, the hiring to be complete, the economics to improve, the kids to be older, the holidays to pass… and on it goes. Life keeps moving, the practice keeps running, and years can slip by with no real change. Meanwhile, the gap between where you are today and the practice you envision quietly widens. 

Why beginning feels difficult for high-achieving doctors 

Endodontists are natural problem solvers. Clinically, they diagnose quickly, act decisively, and treat with precision. But business and personal growth don’t come with a microscope, CBCT, or standardized protocol. The starting point often feels ambiguous or uncertain, which leads to hesitation.

 

Most doctors fall into one (or more) of these traps: 

  • Perfectionism disguised as preparation — You wait to begin until every detail is mapped out and the conditions are ideal.
  • Fear of disrupting what’s already working “well enough” — Growth requires change, and change creates temporary discomfort.
  • Competing priorities — Every practice vision has layered and interconnected factors which can feel like opening up a can of worms.

Intentional growth starts by leading with vision. It’s about reengineering systems, leveraging key performance indicators, creating a culture of shared ownership, and confidently directing your financial future.

Stepping into this next version of your practice—and yourself—takes courage. But it’s also where the greatest breakthroughs happen. At Endo Mastery, we help doctors design and build this future with clarity and purpose. And in doing so, many discover not just a more successful practice—but a more fulfilling life.

Leadership means committing to a journey

To move forward even when the path isn’t fully formed requires courage, rather than waiting for certainty. The world does not reward intentions. It rewards action, movement, and ownership.

 

Whether your personal or practice goals include: 

  • Reducing daily chaos and reclaiming control of your schedule
  • Increasing profitability and financial security
  • Strengthening referrals and long-term practice growth
  • Elevating team alignment, accountability, and culture
  • Working fewer days with greater income and ease
  • Designing a legacy practice with purpose and freedom 

the momentum begins with a single step. 

Every practice that reaches a mastery level — where the doctor enjoys time freedom, financial abundance, and a thriving culture — began with a decision not to wait any longer. They didn’t start with a perfect plan. They started with a commitment to drive forward. 

Your future is counting on you

Your vision matters. Your goals matter. And your life is too valuable to delay the future you want to create. Beginning doesn’t require dramatic change. It simply requires movement — one intentional action that shifts you from thinking to doing.

  

Once you begin, everything changes. If you’d like help turning intention into momentum, Endo Mastery coaches can guide you in taking that first step with confidence and support. 

Creating the next evolution of your practice

What if you're not off track—just ready for what’s next?

CYNTHIA STAMATION

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

It’s not uncommon for successful professionals to feel a sense of restlessness or imbalance. Many describe it as wanting to “find themselves again”—as if the version of them that once felt fulfilled has somehow drifted away. But maybe what you’re sensing isn’t loss—it’s growth. You haven’t gone off course; you’ve simply outgrown the place you once fit.

 

Life isn’t static. Neither is your motivation. As we evolve, so do our priorities, values, and definitions of success. What once fueled your drive may not align with the person—and the doctor—you are today.

 

In your practice, that evolution matters. The vision that energized you early in your career probably isn’t the one that fits you now. Yes, your clinical skills have advanced. But have your business systems, leadership practices, and financial model grown alongside them? Are your team culture and operational strategies built to support your current goals—not just your past ambitions?

 

Too often, doctors feel out of alignment because their practice was built around who they used to be. The next level requires more than great clinical care—it requires taking ownership of your future. That means asking new questions:

  • How can my practice serve the life I want now?
  • How can I scale success without more stress?
  • How do I create a team that’s aligned, accountable, and energized?

Intentional growth starts by leading with vision. It’s about reengineering systems, leveraging key performance indicators, creating a culture of shared ownership, and confidently directing your financial future.

 

Stepping into this next version of your practice—and yourself—takes courage. But it’s also where the greatest breakthroughs happen. At Endo Mastery, we help doctors design and build this future with clarity and purpose. And in doing so, many discover not just a more successful practice—but a more fulfilling life.

Have you found your professional community?

CYNTHIA STAMATION

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Dentistry can be a solitary profession, but not in the conventional sense. Most doctors spend a substantial portion of their time working with their teams while providing exceptional patient care, which ensures a constant presence of people around them. But professionally, many doctors feel isolated from their endodontic colleagues most of the year. They lack meaningful connections with other clinicians, leaders, and business owners.

 

A TED Talk from several years ago highlighted the findings of a 75-plus-year Harvard study on adult development, which revealed that a primary defining factor influencing long-term well-being and happiness is the formation and maintenance of fulfilling personal relationships. This principle surely applies to professions as well for maintaining engagement, fulfillment, and enjoyment.

 

For individuals in demanding professions such as endodontics, it is crucial to cultivate intellectual and creative camaraderie with colleagues who are open, unguarded, and forthright in their support. In fact, one of the most common comments we receive from doctors attending our events is the energizing experience of being with like-minded colleagues who learn from and share knowledge with each other and the Endo Mastery team.

  

Our coaching clients also share similar sentiments about our coaches, expressing how they finally have someone who genuinely understands their practice, connects with their goals, and collaborates with them to achieve new levels of professional and practice success.

 

Endo Mastery is committed to building a community of endodontists who support and empower one another. We firmly believe that the spirit of professional collaboration profoundly strengthens the profession. This culture is deeply ingrained in our DNA because Dr. Ace Goerig established the company in this manner from the outset. His unwavering desire and drive to generously share his knowledge and impart his expertise inspire everything we do.

 

For any endodontist seeking to enjoy the profession immensely within a community of doctors equally committed to happiness, growth and success, engaging with the best of the profession is going to open up a whole new world for you. Come join us.

The myths and truth of success

CYNTHIA STAMATION

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

There are a lot of theories floating around about success. Literally thousands of books have been written on the subject, each with their own insights or approach on what creates and drives success.

  

You could spend a lifetime studying everything, digesting all the advice and terminology. Most people don’t have the time or interest in doing that. So, when faced with success limitations, they often attribute the cause of their limitations to certain popular myths about what it takes to be successful. 

The myths of success

Myths are driven by highly publicized stories or examples in our news or culture. Think about everything you have heard or read about the success of tech billionaires, blockbuster movies or shows, superstar musical artists, etc. 

 

The myths behind these stories often emphasize that their success has been driven by one of the following: 

  • Luck – They were in the right place at the right time when external circumstances coincided to vault them into success. It could have been anyone in a similar position, and it just happened that they were chosen. 
  • Talent – They have some uncommon innate quality that makes them uniquely eligible for success. Without that talent, they would be just as invisible and limited as everyone else. 
  • Skill – They have learned, practiced and honed their abilities to an exceptional level. Their success is a recognition of the excellence they consistently deliver in their selected profession. 
  • Perseverance – They have “put in their dues” day after day, month after month, and year after year until it finally paid off. “Believe in yourself and never give up!” is the mantra of this myth. 

Certainly luck, talent, skill and perseverance can all be great contributors to any success story. It’s a romantic story where the underdog succeeds against all odds. But it’s equally true that lucky breaks can be squandered, talent can be undiscovered, skill can be unrewarded, and perseverance can be a no-win scenario.

The truth of success

Taylor Swift is arguably the most popular and successful musical artist in the world right now. Her Eras Tour generated over $2 billion in ticket sales, the highest of any artist tour ever. If you look at her rise to stardom, you can find elements of luck, talent, skill and perseverance throughout. There’s no arguing that she is gifted.

 

But the truth of success, behind that fairytale story, is that there is a highly efficient and effective business “machine” driving her success. And that machine is driven by systems and people.

  

No business can succeed without systems that structure and focus energy and actions to achieve goals and results. It doesn’t matter if you have some of the success myths supporting you. There are lots of clinically excellent endodontists who are in practices that are vastly underperforming their potential for growth and success.  

Systems and practice success

Endodontics is a relatively simple business model. The doctor’s time utilization is key, and the financial success of the business is straightforward. Because most cases are of similar value, practice success fundamentally depends on the number of cases that a doctor completes in a day, month and year.

  

If you know what your overheads are, and you know what level of success and profitability you want to achieve, then it is relatively simple to calculate what your revenues need to be. Then it’s all about your systems:

  • What scheduling system allows the doctor to complete the number of cases needed to bring in the goal revenues? 
  • What team system (both administrative and clinical) supports the doctor at the right level so they can complete the scheduled cases? 
  • What marketing system builds referral dynamics so that the right number of cases are being referred and scheduled? 

Most doctors have the clinical ability to complete enough cases to achieve their highest goals. However, they haven’t built out the practice systems to make that level of productivity easy and stress-free. If you are feeling limits around growth and financial success, the solution is focusing on your systems.

There’s a hole in my practice, dear Liza, dear Liza!

CYNTHIA STAMATION

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Henry has a problem. His bucket has a hole in it and won’t hold water. He explains this to Liza: “There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza!” Liza is puzzled by Henry’s statement, and she sternly tells him: “Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, fix it!”

 

But it’s not so simple, which leads to a back-and-forth conversation in which Henry keeps raising challenges and Liza replies with obvious solutions.  

  • “But with what should I fix it?” (with straw)
  • “But the straw is too long.” (then cut it)
  • “But the knife is too dull.” (then sharpen it)
  • “But with what should I sharpen it?” (a stone)
  • “But the stone is too dry.” (then wet it)
  • “But with what should I wet it?” (with water)
  • “But with what should I fetch it?” (a bucket)
  • “But there’s a hole in my bucket!”

So, they are back where they started and caught in an endless loop of roadblocks. Cue the laughter around the campfire.

Practice holes

Every business leader sometimes faces the same kind of looping chain reaction. Once you start digging into the nitty-gritty of a practice issue or goal, a raft of entwined factors is unearthed. Some things can be anticipated, and some are only revealed as you go forward. Some can surprise you like a landmine you step on accidentally.

 

There’s no end to all the things that can become a “but” to deal with: teamwork, communications, training, finances, technology, time, systems, marketing, referrers, insurance and so on. It’s no wonder that when it feels like there are too many “buts” involved, a lot of doctors get frustrated and decide to put off trying to make progress. It all gets tossed on the “someday” pile.

Prioritized progression, not preplanned perfection

I don’t know any business concern or goal of relative importance that can be solved by doing just one thing to just one thing. Everything in your practice is so interconnected. Nothing exists in isolation or in a protected silo that is free from other influences and interferences.

 

What this means is that any attempt at improvement or problem solving for almost anything in your practice is going to create some disturbances. If you let those disturbances invade your inner dialogue, they are going to distract you and sidetrack you.

 

Once you are sidetracked like that, it’s tempting to fall into the trap that you must preplan everything to perfection, accounting for all variables and related factors before you do anything. That’s a recipe for a Henry/Liza standstill. You’ll talk yourself in circles trying to figure everything out in advance.

 

The better approach is to realize that none of those disturbances created in conscientious pursuit of any goal is unsolvable. That doesn’t mean you ignore those factors from the beginning, but you evaluate them with a sense of priority … rather than getting drawn down endless rabbit holes.

 

Prioritized progression, even if it is incremental and step-by-step, is the hallmark of successful leadership. That effort ensures there is continuous positive energy in the practice toward problem-solving, improvement, growth and goals. That’s what creates sustainable success where each year is better than the year before, rather than the same year of ups and downs repeated over and over again.

Expert guidance

Often the biggest challenge is working out the initial priorities. Where do you start and what do you focus on? That’s where coaching is a huge advantage. Coaches have detailed experience with many practices, they know what works and how everything works together.

  

Coaches take the anxiety and self-doubt out of leadership. They streamline the process, eliminate trial-and-error attempts, and can focus on your team while you focus on patient care.

Celebrating your dental team’s year

CYNTHIA STAMATION

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Dental jobs are good jobs. They are generally well-paying with long-term job security. They also have the advantages of being part of a caring profession, and being part of a small, highly connected team where everyone has a significant role to play. In total, it’s a much better and more affirming situation than being a cog in a corporate machine.

  

What dental jobs lack, however, are the opportunities for advancement that are found in corporate pyramids, where progress is recognized by promotions and transfers. Twenty years into their careers, a dental assistant is probably still a dental assistant, and an administrator is probably still an administrator (some might become an office manager).

  

As the leader of your team, it’s important that you recognize the dynamics of your business and the uniqueness of your team environment. Since the day-to-day tasks of every job (including the doctor) evolve slowly over time, you must find other ways to recognize team progress … both individually and collectively.

  

The way to do that is to focus on the impact that team members have had on your practice, over and above simply executing their job role’s assigned tasks. What has happened this year that is worthy of acknowledging and celebrating. For example,

Your vision is our mission

Vision is about creating freedom in your life through your business. It is deeply personal and self-defined. No one except you can determine the right answers to the following questions:

  • Were there any memorable patient experiences where the team went above and beyond to help patients?
  • Have you received compliments and positive feedback from referrers or their teams for your team’s professionalism and personalized attention to the GP’s practice and patients?
  • Have you received particularly notable thank you cards, online reviews or other patient communications expressing appreciation for your team’s efforts?
  • Has the team improved the reputation of the practice, and do they represent you well within your community?
  • Did the team face any internal challenges this year that were successfully conquered by working together?
  • What progress did the team make toward achieving practice-specific performance goals that you gave them?

Most people need a cheerleader who works to keep energy at a positive and elevated level. They need to be seen, appreciated, respected and complimented. And in turn they will care about the things that they are recognized for.

  

As the leader of your practice team, building team spirit, unity and commitment is crucial. It creates loyalty, trust and belief in the values that will shape your ongoing practice success. It also creates a better and more enjoyable daily environment that is free of conflict, drama, gossip and negativity.

  

This is a wonderful time of the year to highlight the stories that reinforce the kind of team and practice you want everyone to strive for. If you have some kind of team social event to celebrate the season, a bit of preparation for an “off the cuff” speech that says something meaningful about each person individually and the team will warm everyone’s hearts. The new year will begin with excitement and dedication. 

Why vision is vital

CYNTHIA STAMATION

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Is it too early to start thinking about New Year’s resolutions? For business owners, I think not. January is a perfect time to renew the team’s focus on the practice after the holiday season, and that means doctors need to be planning now.

  

Between now and the end of the year, I recommend doctors put some effort into renewing and redefining their vision. I’m not referring to the internal practice vision that is focused on patient care, teamwork and productivity. Instead, I’m referring to your personal vision for your practice.

 

Simply put, you are a person who owns an asset that is just part of your life. You have other priorities and goals for yourself and your family that are completely unrelated to what you do in the practice on a daily basis. Or are they completely unrelated?

  

Let’s be honest: the practice is a fairly big pillar in your life. It’s the economic engine for you that funds your life, so it is important. Great practice economics can give you the financial resources to dramatically enhance your life outside the practice. Alternatively, limited practice economics can shut down options for yourself and your family.

 

The practice is also a significant time commitment if you are practicing full-time. You probably spend more waking hours working in your practice than any other single thing you spend time on, including time with your spouse or with your kids. That affects your sense of balance in life, especially if you feel chained to your practice and it seems to take more time than you would like.

  

Moreover, the practice is a responsibility commitment. It can potentially empower you to devote the highest level of energy and resources to achieving the personal goals of yourself and your family. Or it can just be this thing you need to always monitor and manage that takes you away from those family goals. At its worst, it can be a driver of stress that not only consumes your time but sours your mindset and energy for everything else outside the practice.

Your vision is our mission

Vision is about creating freedom in your life through your business. It is deeply personal and self-defined. No one except you can determine the right answers to the following questions:

  • How much income do you want so you can fund the things in your life that are important to you, and live your ideal lifestyle? 
  • How much time do you want to spend in the practice daily, weekly, and annually?  
  • When you are in your practice, how much do you enjoy that time and what feeling do you want the practice to give you?  
  • What factors result in a business that you love without debt, stress or any sense of burden?  

Vision possibilities are immense and limited only by your imagination. No two doctors are the same and the wonderful thing about endodontics is there are ways to grow and structure your practice so that, as a business owner, you have complete freedom to do anything you want in your life.

  

At Endo Mastery, we love to help you achieve that level of fulfillment and success, and the first step is helping you discover your vision. Many doctors are so busy working IN their practices, that they haven’t taken time in years to work ON their vision.

  

In Lewis Carroll’s book Alice in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat says, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”. But when you do have a clear vision, the right road becomes clear too, and you can focus on exactly the right steps to take going forward.

 

If it’s been a while since you were excited by your vision for your practice and life, the new year is a perfect time to make a change. Our January seminar “Mastering the Effortless Endodontic Practice” is the perfect way to explore your options, recharge your vision and find the right road to incredible personal and practice success.

  

This is our most popular program of the year and usually has a waiting list by New Year’s Eve! You can save 25% on early bird tuition by registering now! We’d love you to join us and to learn about your vision.

Achieving career and family balance

CYNTHIA STAMATION

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Most people spend more time at work than they do on any other single activity except for sleeping. That means there is a lot of life that must happen in the time left over from practicing. If the practice takes so much time that it causes sacrifices in your family and life, the stress can take a huge toll.

 

Many endodontists, while recognizing that their practices are essential to earn a professional income, experience work/life pressure. Common symptoms that we often see in doctors who reach out to us for coaching include:

  • Not being able to leave at the end of the day with the team in order to complete reports and management tasks, or having to bring work home to do in the evenings.
  • Frequently missing family mealtime in the evenings, having little time to spend with children/family after work, and sometimes no time when getting home after children have gone to bed.
  • Feeling preoccupied about practice and team issues all the time, which interferes with being present and enjoying life outside the practice.
  • Stress over finances makes doctors feel trapped, pushes them to work more than they would like to, and limit vacation time to just a few weeks each year.
  • Persistent feelings of mental and/or physical exhaustion at the end of each day.

Female breadwinner syndrome

While all doctors can feel unbalanced in work/life factors, female doctors are more likely to experience imbalance more intensely, especially if they have children at home.

  

A 2023 Pew Research Study confirms what we always knew: in homes where both marital partners earn similar incomes and even when the female spouse is the primary breadwinner, women spend significantly more of their non-work time devoted to caregiving and housework than men.

  

Especially for mothers of young children, it sets up a potential work/family conflict between income roles vs. maternal roles. With even less time to unwind, de-stress and enjoy leisure than their male partners, female professionals can quickly feel overloaded and burnt out.

Winning the game of life

Regardless of personal vision and values, the fundamental mechanics of modern life come down to time and money. When we have both abundant time and abundant economics, we feel the liberty and flexibility to follow our passions and dreams.

 

Financial pressure is the #1 killer of our sense of self-directed choices. If doctors feel constrained or stressed financially, it is hard to escape the mindset that you need to be working even more and even harder. We must keep our economic engine running to fund the cashflow needs in our life.

  

What changes the work/life dilemma is when you learn how to be more successful in your practice while spending less time in your practice. With practice coaching, you can master a higher level of productivity and earn much more income in less time. That translates to fewer hours per day and fewer days per year while your income increases substantially.

  

Building a practice that supports your life without overwhelming your life is partly practice systems, partly team delegation, and partly marketing. Endo Mastery’s coaching strategies are specifically designed to achieve this goal: improved productivity with less stress and time for the doctor. We love when the doctor is the first to leave at the end of each day.

  

We call it effortless endodontics and creating a lifestyle practice that is free from work/life sacrifices. We can help any doctor on that journey to an incredible life. Contact us to discuss your goals. 

Team leadership: learning to say no

CYNTHIA STAMATION

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Teamwork is essential to practice success, but teams can be complicated. Sometimes doctors must make decisions that have the potential to disappoint teams (or specific team members), create resistance, or cause stress. It can be a dilemma to determine whether to prioritize team harmony over other factors that are part of your decision.

 

When faced with choices that may be unpopular or result in open disagreement among the team, here are some tips to help doctors navigate and evaluate the right course of action:

Seek input but reserve judgment

The #1 rule of leadership is to engage and empower the team to effectively achieve the practice’s goals. The input of the team should always be asked for when appropriate. Give team members the opportunity to express their point of view and to know that their opinion is important and valued. This can be done in a team meeting, but also give team members an opening to communicate privately with you.

  

However, teamwork does not mean democracy, especially on factors that are solely within the discretion of the business owner. For those factors, it’s important to assert that the final decision belongs to the leader, but the team’s input will be carefully considered.

Avoid the people pleaser trap

People pleasers care a lot about whether other people like them, and always want others to approve of their actions. As a result, people pleasers tend to over-prioritize the wants and needs of others at the expense of their own. They are prone to over-compensating to avoid conflict, becoming reactive to emotional responses, and taking on too much responsibility that should fall on others.

 

As a team leader, it’s important to establish boundaries and prioritize goals. Whenever you catch yourself feeling guilty for the practice’s needs or worrying about team disagreement dominating your decision-making, it’s time to step back and ask yourself what would a neutral third party do in the same situation.

Get expert advice and guidance

Often a difficult decision is made more difficult when we do not have 100% confidence in the best course of action. If we’re uncertain that Option A is right, then the status quo Option B that at least keeps the team happy seems like a comparable choice. That doesn’t necessarily solve the problem, but just kicks it farther down the street. 

 

It is a lot to assume that as team leader you need to know everything about everything. That’s an impossible task. The solution is to have resources you can call upon when you need guidance or insight. Sometimes that is a colleague who you can bounce ideas off outside the practice. Sometimes it’s a mentor who helps you stay on track. It can also be a practice coach who is very experienced in team dynamics and different strategies that can help you achieve your goals.

Be compassionate but detached on outside factors

One of the most difficult things for a team leader is how to respond to personal issues that a team member may have. This particularly involves outside factors in the team member’s life that are affecting them at work, or they ask for some kind of workplace accommodation to help with their personal situation. It’s important for team leaders to be compassionate and caring toward the team. But they must also be detached, which means they can’t be responsible for “fixing” someone’s personal problems.

  

When a team member is having a genuine personal issue then it’s okay to extend a temporary workplace accommodation—if you would do the same for every team member in the same circumstances. However, if you find yourself tempted to agree with a more permanent accommodation, or one that would not equally apply to other team members, it’s time to set boundaries. 

Recognize when saying yes means saying no to something else

As a final tip, remember that your time as the team leader, practice owner and doctor is mission critical. Few doctors feel their time is so open and available that they could take on more things. Usually, doctors have time pressures at the office, when they take work home from the office, and at home too.

  

In a busy life, when you say yes to something that adds to your time requirements and responsibilities, then you are saying no to something else … like time with your family, or time to rest and relax. You can’t be a great doctor and team leader when you are overloaded and overwhelmed. That means prioritizing your life and how the practice can support you to have the best life possible. 

The secrets of high performance

CYNTHIA STAMATION

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

With the Paris Olympic Games in its final week, we’ve all been watching triumphant feats by America’s best and the world’s best. Whether an athlete wins a medal or not, we can all agree that every single one of them shows a level of high performance in their sport that is amazing.

 

So, what do all these athletics and teams competing in the games have in common? None of them are there by accident. How did they get to that level of performance to even be selected to compete in the biggest athletic competition on earth? Here are a few takeaways that you can apply to your own life, practice and team:

Personal dedication to progressive improvement

Olympic athletes are competitive and want to win. To do that, they train so they can match and exceed the abilities of their rivals, who are also competitive and want to win. But if you rewind the timeline of all those competitors to before they were even future Olympic hopefuls, you will find young athletes who love their sport and want to improve and become better every day for the fun of it.

 

That level of personal dedication is fundamental to any kind of performance scenario, whether you are a track and field star, or a dental assistant, or a doctor. Creating culture within yourself and your team that encourages and celebrates progressive improvements sets up the fundamental framework needed for your practice to rise in performance and success. People need to care that they are doing the best they can do, and that tomorrow they will strive to do better than today.

Coaches, mentors and vision

It is one thing to have the personal dedication to improve, and another thing to have the knowledge and resources to improve. Every Olympic athlete has a team of coaches and mentors around them. Self-improvement to master the fundamentals is vital, but it eventually becomes self-limiting. Coaches bring in decades of expertise and a focused path to the next level vision that an individual athlete or team can’t do on their own.

 

This is an exact parallel to the dental team in your office. Everyone knows their individual fundamentals and the basics. But you probably have some team members who have never worked in another endodontic practice in their life. All they know is what you’ve always done in your practice. They don’t have the scope of experience to even know what the next level is, and what is possible. Even for doctors, seeing beyond your existing circumstances can be difficult. Coaches and mentors provide the insights and resources you need.

Commitment in the starting moment

Probably the biggest takeaway is understanding that all the years of preparation, training and coaching come down to a moment in time when the competition starts. Every athlete on the starting line is probably worried in the back of their head about something. Did they sleep well last night? Did they eat right? Have they recovered completely from a past injury?

 

You could probably write a list of 100 things for every athlete that could make them wish for more ideal circumstances. But in the moment when the starting pistol fires or the referee blows the starting whistle, all that really matters is that they commit to the highest performance they can. It’s begun and there are no more delays and no turning back. If you waited until every athlete felt 100% ready without hesitation or doubt, there would never be any Olympic Games at all.

 

In endodontics, there aren’t starting pistols or referees, so it’s entirely up to you when to start your commitment to high performance. I think many doctors have an internal list of things that holds them back:

If these questions or 100 others like them are controlling your decision on whether to commit to the next level of growth and practice performance, you will wait forever for them all to be resolved. It just doesn’t happen because we are risk-averse by nature and there will always be doubts.

 

Once you realize that and push through to begin, you are just like an Olympic athlete. Commitment in the starting moment is the most crucial factor that will drive your success. It’s the only way to win.

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