Why Understanding Failure Can Be Your Key to Success

[00:00:00] Welcome. You're listening to the GrowOrtho podcast presented by HIP.

[00:00:04] This podcast is dedicated to orthodontists who want to stand strong in their market

[00:00:10] and be leaders in their community. Now, on to today's show.

[00:00:16] These are the top three things that I see in especially orthodontist business owners that

[00:00:20] are holding them back from growing their practices and having the balance, perfectionism,

[00:00:26] people pleasing and low failure tolerance. The fastest way to success is actually through failure.

[00:00:32] The more action you take, even if it's wrong action, but you'll learn from it,

[00:00:36] the faster you will get from point A to point B. As a clinician, I cringe to hear that. So the

[00:00:42] faster you learn to make a mistake, it's a failure. Failure is just you didn't get the

[00:00:46] outcome that you had planned for. That's it. We make failure this big hairy thing that

[00:00:51] somehow it's a reflection on us as a person. Dr. Jhanna, thanks so much for coming on

[00:01:01] The GrowOrtho Podcast. Super excited to chat with you today. Me too. Thank you so much for having

[00:01:06] me, Luke. Absolutely. Give just a brief overview of who you are and what you do.

[00:01:11] So my name is Dr. Jhanna Konamalenko. I am a board certified orthodontist and I'm a certified

[00:01:17] life coach. I consider myself a peak performance coach for women dentists and I help them optimize

[00:01:24] their time, create the work-life balance so that they can have the incredible career as a dentist

[00:01:31] without sacrificing their life. We've both been on the same show, Dental Marketer. That's what it

[00:01:38] was. So I was watching a little bit of that and looking at the show notes and saw that you

[00:01:45] had listed Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, Tony Robbins. So maybe we could start there. How did you

[00:01:54] start to look into those names? I mean, some of those people are dead and have been dead for a

[00:01:59] long time. Yeah. And I have all their books. I've studied them extensively. So I'm just curious

[00:02:09] where you started to hear those names and how that information and training

[00:02:15] kind of affected your life. Gosh, I don't even know how I heard all those names. It just goes

[00:02:23] so far in my life. I have been always interested in other people. Like what makes other people tick?

[00:02:32] I've always been interested in, I didn't know what it's called when I was a kid,

[00:02:38] but like the psychology of success. I grew up in a family of high achievers and

[00:02:43] it was always instilled in me, success, success, get straight A, be good. And that

[00:02:50] requires a lot of work. So I have no idea how, but I started stumbling on Tony Robbins,

[00:03:02] other motivational speakers than when internet was invented because I go back in the day when

[00:03:07] internet was just invented when I was a teenager. I discover such thing as YouTube and motivational

[00:03:14] videos and things like that. So I started just binge watching all that to stay motivated,

[00:03:19] to help me develop self-discipline and things like that. So I think that's how I

[00:03:24] just got in the world of personal development. Like from the very, very beginning and then

[00:03:32] from there I just found my first coach, got certified and the rest is history. That's a

[00:03:40] one minute version of it. You mentioned success. What does success mean to you?

[00:03:44] To me personally, success means balance in and achieving your goals. That's what it is.

[00:03:54] Meaning I love having goals. I love having things that I'm moving towards, but never at the expense

[00:04:03] of my health or my happiness or my personal life. So having that balance of the two when I feel

[00:04:08] like I am achieving what I set out to do and knowing that I'm not killing myself over it

[00:04:17] makes me feel pretty successful. Have you ever been out of balance?

[00:04:23] Have I ever? Yeah, definitely. That's how I found my first life coach. When I first

[00:04:30] finished residency as an orthodontist back in 2016, I was working at a very fast pace

[00:04:37] practice like 100 patients plus a day practice and it's not unusual for orthodontists.

[00:04:47] And also I had to manage the practice some and stuff like that. And yeah, I was out of balance.

[00:04:52] I was working crazy hours. I was still not very experienced in orthodontics. I just graduated.

[00:05:00] I didn't really have a mentor for the craft itself, for ortho. I did not have any coaches or mentors

[00:05:08] that would help me be more organized and manage my time well and set my priorities

[00:05:13] better and things like that. So yeah, I was working crazy hours. I was dreaming about cases.

[00:05:19] So I couldn't even relax at night. I remember waking up and thinking,

[00:05:25] class two on the left, all one four on the bottom, power chain. I was like, what? I can't even relax.

[00:05:31] So yeah, I have definitely been out of balance. What do you think are some of the

[00:05:35] practical steps maybe somebody even watching or listening is facing extreme burnout and maybe

[00:05:44] they're not quite ready to hire a coach and just getting some new patterns, some new habits

[00:05:51] moving? What are some of those things that you landed on? The word burnout has been

[00:05:57] throwing out, I think, pretty casually out there. And the true burnout is not something that

[00:06:09] you can get out of on your own or even with a coach. If you truly are burnout,

[00:06:15] it means you're non-functional. You have extremely hard time getting out of bed.

[00:06:20] Like you have no desire to do anything. You have very, very low energy. This is not something that

[00:06:28] you can do on your own and you definitely need help friends and family and then probably therapy or

[00:06:35] even psychiatry sometimes. I think what people mean when they talk about burnout is the technical

[00:06:42] term is pre-burnout. You're basically getting a little roasty. You're getting a little overwhelmed

[00:06:48] or a lot overwhelmed and you're like, oh my God, this is a lot. What's happening? I'm just so reactive.

[00:06:54] I'm putting up fires. I think that's what people mean when they're talking about overwhelm.

[00:06:58] And it's funny that you said what are some practical steps that you can do

[00:07:03] if you're not ready to reach out to someone for help. And that is a big issue for many doctors

[00:07:09] because we are conditioned to believe, conditioned to believe, meaning we're just absorbed by

[00:07:15] osmosis, this pattern of thinking that we should know how to handle everything ourselves and

[00:07:24] we should just let things go and get over it and just get it done. Which makes sense in

[00:07:30] practice, right? Like you're the doctor. Everybody goes to you for any problem, right?

[00:07:39] But if you continue thinking this way, that's where you get stuck. That's where it's very

[00:07:44] hard to quote unquote get out of your own way. And that's where talking to someone might be very helpful.

[00:07:52] But a lot of doctors don't because there's a lot of shame and stigma and guilt associated with

[00:07:58] that, which I don't even understand why. You go to practice management consultants when

[00:08:05] you want to increase your revenue. Why not go to a performance coach to increase your

[00:08:10] performance? But so step number one would be understand that what you're going through is

[00:08:14] completely normal and sharing even with your friends or colleagues that you're struggling is normal.

[00:08:22] Talking to a coach or hiring somebody's completely normal. And what they will help you do is they

[00:08:30] will help you organize your time better, set goals and help you uncover your own biases

[00:08:38] that has led you to be where you're at. That's why when you say practical steps on your own,

[00:08:44] I mean get a calendar, make it to do list, prioritize things easier said than done.

[00:08:49] Lack of knowledge is not the problem. It's the implementation that's the problem. And the

[00:08:54] reason why people don't implement is because of some biases that they have, which we're

[00:09:00] blind to. We can't see them. So we're not meant to do a lot of things on our own.

[00:09:05] There's a lot we can unpack there. I was once in pre burnout and I'm so glad you said that because

[00:09:14] I do see this term thrown around all the time. You hear unfortunately a lot more terms thrown

[00:09:21] around. I'm depressed and I'm at burnout and I even hear it from people in early 20s who have

[00:09:29] a good job and have a lot of things going for them. And it's like really are you burnout?

[00:09:34] Are you actually depressed? And maybe some of them are, but I do think

[00:09:39] culture tells us and kind of programs us a little bit with social media and messaging.

[00:09:46] And maybe we're not those things. Maybe we just need some optimizations and looking at

[00:09:55] others communicating with others like you're saying we hold all this stuff in and we're

[00:09:59] trained to and told maybe don't talk about it or don't talk about it openly or get feedback.

[00:10:07] Because feedback is huge, but some of the things that I found because I got married,

[00:10:13] I started a business all at the same time and I realized what debt was and how it really

[00:10:23] shackled you. I was probably about $150,000 in debt, which isn't a ton if you're talking to

[00:10:29] a North Adonist, but for me and what I was earning at the time it was a lot.

[00:10:36] And some of the things that I prioritized finally around 2018 was my health

[00:10:44] and enjoying time with my family. And just simple things like getting outside and getting

[00:10:51] some sun and putting your toes in the sand. And these small little things that really do

[00:10:58] start to create some momentum. I mean, even when you look at foods, if you're sugar intake and

[00:11:05] processed foods and all of these things, I didn't even have a baseline on my blood work.

[00:11:11] So for me, those were some simple things to kind of get some momentum.

[00:11:17] And then I hired a series of coaches that really helped me. And what I find so interesting with

[00:11:23] doctors, they're very smart people and they're trained that maybe they should know everything.

[00:11:30] And I find that with more males, the ego is really high. So they can't admit when they

[00:11:38] don't know everything. It's interesting within business, and this is really any small business,

[00:11:43] but specifically if we're talking about private practice, there's the doctor and then typically

[00:11:48] there's a flat work chart of everybody else. And the practices that actually grow start to build

[00:11:56] leadership and a team that they can work with and communicate with and get feedback with to grow.

[00:12:03] And then it's not so overwhelming because when you have the opposite of the doctor and everybody

[00:12:09] else, the doctor is not just responsible for everything clinically. I mean, they're approving

[00:12:15] time off. They're running one-on-ones. They're running payroll. If there's HR issues, they're

[00:12:19] having to look into that and one person cannot do it all. I don't care how much of a high

[00:12:26] performer you are and how smart you are. It takes a team. Totally. That's something

[00:12:32] that I would encourage people to is like actually studying teams. And I like studying sports

[00:12:37] teams. Imagine if you took the quarterback out and put them on the defense. It probably

[00:12:42] wouldn't work too well. I don't know if that helps others. It certainly helped myself.

[00:12:46] I love the whole list of activities that you had listed, but what's always interesting

[00:12:54] to anybody in that similar situation or to a coach is what was that tipping point that made

[00:13:01] you take that first step? Because that's where people are. But you chose to think something

[00:13:08] about that pain that puts you on a track that served you as we call it coaching.

[00:13:15] Because a lot of people are in pain go different way. They start self-medicating.

[00:13:20] You either try to escape it with other things. And that is what when I say sometimes you

[00:13:27] really need a second set of eyes on that is because what is that tipping point? That's a

[00:13:32] million dollar question. How do I get myself to get out of on the sun and enjoy time with my family?

[00:13:39] Like, I know what I need to do, but I'm just on the hamster wheel constantly running here.

[00:13:43] Like have to pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal. Because everything is just on fire, right?

[00:13:48] Like how do you stop that? And for some people, I don't know what was your tipping point

[00:13:54] in that. But what did you think about the amount of pain you got to that made you choose those

[00:14:03] activities that were helpful? That's where sometimes people need help with.

[00:14:07] There is so much strategy out there. Like the lack of knowledge is not a problem.

[00:14:13] It's actually doing it, the implementation. Something that I found interesting too with

[00:14:20] what you're saying is I think most people want to have impact. And to have the most impact,

[00:14:26] you do have to get out of your own way and you do have to start trusting others and depending on

[00:14:31] others, empowering others because yeah, again, we're the smart ones, but everybody has their

[00:14:38] own genius. And so how can we rely on others from coaches to team members to spouses?

[00:14:45] Because we just can't do it all. And the moment that I realized that and also I had this vision of

[00:14:53] impact that I wanted to make and I knew to make it, I couldn't be in pain and I couldn't feel

[00:15:00] that way because I was in a state where I couldn't actually have real impact. It was very limited.

[00:15:08] So for me, that was kind of seeing the pleasure of impact and what my life could be

[00:15:14] and moving away from the pain. That was your tipping point. I often, this is

[00:15:19] why I teach my clients is any problem or any situation you're in, anything, I don't care if it's

[00:15:24] personal, I don't care if it's business, I don't care if it's revenue, I don't care if it's your

[00:15:27] assistants are now listening to you. Any situation has two sides of it, two components.

[00:15:33] I call it math and I call it drama. They're lovingly. So if we are in a great state of

[00:15:42] mind, we're thinking super logically, there's just math of any problem, the steps to get out of it.

[00:15:51] But because of all these biases, all that drama that's going on in our head

[00:15:56] is why we're not tapping into the most logical solution. That's what coach helps you do.

[00:16:02] What do I mean by biases? Thoughts like, no, I don't have time. I can't afford that.

[00:16:08] I don't know how to do it. I've never done that. I'm the one responsible.

[00:16:11] Money don't grow in trees. All these sentences seem like true. This is actual thing that's

[00:16:18] happening. But think about it, if you just logically unemotionally thought, I don't have

[00:16:27] enough time in my week to do XYZ. If you didn't have the emotional negative tint that comes

[00:16:34] with it, you would have solved for that problem. You're like, okay, I don't have enough time.

[00:16:38] Let's look at my calendar. What can I move? What can I say no to? What can I delegate?

[00:16:43] But that's not how most of us solve that problem, is it? Most of us go into the spin.

[00:16:48] That's where the drama comes in. And that's when such great advice out there from all

[00:16:54] the consultants and all the coaches do this by this calendar or hire this person,

[00:17:00] delegate, create systems. And it's like, oh, great. And then we're left with upkeep of that.

[00:17:07] And we don't really want to do that. Why is that? That's where I come in. The reason why we don't

[00:17:14] follow through on these things are our perfectionism or because we're people pleasing our team a

[00:17:20] little bit. Or number three is low failure tolerance. So these are the top three things

[00:17:26] that I see in a special orthodontist business owners that are holding them back from growing

[00:17:32] their practices and having the balance of three things, perfectionism, people pleasing, and low

[00:17:38] failure tolerance. Can we break each one of those down just a little bit? Yeah, totally. So here's

[00:17:45] I see a very typical scenario. We go to dental school and it's so funny that in dental school

[00:17:52] somehow, I don't know how, but we just know that the goal is to own a practice. Like, I don't know

[00:17:58] who tells us that, but you kind of know that like, you arrive once you graduate and you own.

[00:18:04] Like that's the goal. And so we get out of the practice and we're in associate and we're like,

[00:18:07] ah, I don't like this, I don't have control over that. And they are working me so hard and I'm

[00:18:12] not making as much. I need to own, I need to own. And some of us question them, they're

[00:18:15] like especially women were like, I kind of want to have kids. I don't know if I can have a

[00:18:18] practice and I have a kid. And you know, but most men are like, yeah, yeah, let's buy.

[00:18:23] And so you buy a practice either from scratch, right? A startup or you buy a goodwill from someone

[00:18:30] and you're like, great, let's go. You're so eager, but you don't know how to run it.

[00:18:34] Right. You're like, I don't really know how to run it and let alone how to grow it.

[00:18:38] And the staff doesn't really listen to me and I don't know where to get patients from. So

[00:18:43] what do you do? The most logical thing is to take some practice management courses,

[00:18:47] right? So how many times have we bought a course and not finished it or not having done

[00:18:55] everything that they told us. So we're like, I don't have enough time. I need what's the next most

[00:19:00] logical thing to do. We're going to hire a practice consultant, right? They're going to

[00:19:04] come in, they're going to tell us how to run processes that sounds so amazing and organized

[00:19:10] and they will even train staff for us because we're like, I don't want to really deal with

[00:19:13] that. You do it, you're better than that. And so the consultants might even train your team,

[00:19:20] your TC, your practice manager and then they leave and you're like, oh no, I have to manage that.

[00:19:28] I don't really want to do that. I don't really want to hold them accountable. So I'm just either

[00:19:33] going to do myself and get burned out or I'm going to hire a manager. I'm going to outsource.

[00:19:38] Great. The manager comes in and either she's not great or she's great, but now she's running the

[00:19:45] practice. She's like, I'm the doctor. Or she's so great that she drives the staff away because

[00:19:51] she's so strict. Typical scenario happens to my clients all the time. And so again,

[00:19:58] you as a doctor have to step in and do something, but you don't want to do it.

[00:20:02] Why is that? That's where coaching comes into place. You don't want to deal with

[00:20:07] these things because of perfectionism. You want everything smooth and perfect. And

[00:20:15] God forbid somebody doesn't perform the way you want. You take it so personally, right? Like

[00:20:21] it means something on you. And it always goes to, I'm going to lose my practice. I'm going to lose

[00:20:26] my license all this time and money are wasted. I didn't make my dad and mom proud and I'm not

[00:20:31] good enough as a person. So that's where perfectionism comes into place. People pleasing.

[00:20:37] In order for your team to run efficiently and smoothly, A, they need to know exactly what to do,

[00:20:42] clear job descriptions, but then you have to have meetings with them, help them redirect

[00:20:47] and hold them accountable if they still are not doing that. We as doctors don't want to

[00:20:51] hold anybody accountable because we want our team to like us. And we're very

[00:20:57] conflict of verse. I hear that often from my clients. Unless you learn how to have difficult

[00:21:03] conversations with people and not make it mean anything about yourself as a person,

[00:21:09] because what happens often for doctors, doctor is our personality. It's like who we are.

[00:21:14] It's actually just our career. It's like not everything. But separating the two is

[00:21:20] really tough for doctors. I've noticed. And so once you separate the two,

[00:21:24] it's going to be easier to have these conversations with people, understand that it's business.

[00:21:30] It's not personal. You're not running a sorority here. We have to have some sort of rules.

[00:21:36] Anybody who has kids, like they like routines and follow through and you need to talk to them.

[00:21:42] And then the last piece, low failure tolerance that has to do with the business part, right?

[00:21:48] So as an orthodontist business owner, you'll wear two hats, right? One is

[00:21:53] the orthodontist, the doctor. You have to do the work straight in the teeth.

[00:21:57] And another one, you're a business owner. You're running a business, not a charity, right?

[00:22:01] You have to be a CEO of your business, which completely nobody teaches us in school at all.

[00:22:07] That's where we take classes and have these consultants come in.

[00:22:10] But the way the orthodontist thinks and the way the CEO thinks are two different mindsets,

[00:22:17] right? And so you have to separate these two a little bit and put different hats

[00:22:23] and learn different skills. Here's what I mean by that. As a doctor, you are,

[00:22:28] you obviously want to do the best for your patients, right? You want to have the perfect

[00:22:31] outcome. You don't want to make mistakes. You don't want to have happy patients.

[00:22:35] But we're not perfect. So we are constantly learning from every case.

[00:22:42] But a lot of us take it very close to hard, anything that didn't go well. Like we make

[00:22:48] it personal again about ourselves. And so we don't learn from our cases.

[00:22:52] Like what I mean by that is I see often orthodontists like not even looking

[00:22:57] back at their cases or at progress records or not scheduling time on their calendar to

[00:23:04] make sure everything is done, is going on track. Or if it's not, that's okay. Let's

[00:23:09] reach out to communities, Facebook groups, mentors and like let's learn from this.

[00:23:13] We're kind of hiding a little bit from that because again, we want to be perfect.

[00:23:17] We're afraid of negative feedback. And if the case doesn't go well, we see it as failure.

[00:23:23] And a failure is terrible. And we're just going to lose our license probably and

[00:23:28] have horrible reputation. And it's going to be the end. So we don't even learn from that.

[00:23:32] That's one part. As a business owner, the fastest way to success is actually through a failure.

[00:23:39] The more action you take, even if it's wrong action, but you'll learn from it,

[00:23:44] the faster you will get from point A to point B. As a clinician, I cringe to hear that.

[00:23:49] Because again, perfectionism, right? Like we don't want to make mistakes.

[00:23:53] Like no, no, no. Right? We want everything to go smoothly and perfect. Obviously unrealistic.

[00:23:58] As a business owner, you learn on a pile of mistakes and failures. Yeah, but

[00:24:04] isn't that why I hire a business consultant? Sure, they have great advice,

[00:24:09] but nobody has walked in your shoes, in your exact practice, your exact path.

[00:24:17] Nobody. Nobody knows 100% what you need to do to get to your goals until they've done it.

[00:24:26] In your shoes, in your practice. So it's normal that something's not going to work out.

[00:24:31] And it's okay. We just need to make sure that you're tracking what you're doing

[00:24:35] and again, you're learning from it. So the faster you learn to make a mistake,

[00:24:40] it's a failure. Failure is just, you didn't get the outcome that you had planned for.

[00:24:43] That's it. We make failure this big hairy thing that somehow it's

[00:24:49] a reflection on us as a person. Totally not true. As a business owner,

[00:24:53] you need to get used to moving past your failures, trying something else,

[00:24:59] and picking yourself back up and going. So that's why I see these three things,

[00:25:04] perfectionism, people pleasing and low failure tolerance are standing in the

[00:25:09] way of business owners becoming successful. Some of the things I thought about,

[00:25:13] there's a old quote, it's not the strongest or the smartest. It's the most adaptable

[00:25:20] that survive and thrive. And 100%

[00:25:25] the best business owners, like you said, they fail forward. They're not afraid to take action.

[00:25:30] They're decisive, but they learn from their mistakes. A lot of people don't learn from

[00:25:34] their mistakes. And I think that's what separates the great businesses from

[00:25:39] the businesses that do fail and tons of small businesses fail. I think over 20 years,

[00:25:44] it's about 80%. So being adaptable, learning from your mistakes. And to do that,

[00:25:50] you can't take yourself too seriously when you talk about the doctor and the stereotypes that we know

[00:25:59] about doctors, very smart, ego driven, have to do everything. And I can relate. A lot of times

[00:26:08] you take yourself way too seriously. When you fail, most people don't remember it the next day,

[00:26:15] the next week. We beat ourselves up over and over again because we held ourselves to this

[00:26:22] insane bar of excellence. And it's just not possible to hit that mark all the time.

[00:26:29] So not taking myself too seriously has really helped me in terms of just, if I fail, hey,

[00:26:38] just keep going. And I guess I would describe those things you mentioned. I don't know if you

[00:26:47] would, I'm curious your thoughts on this self-sabotage. In the context of low failure

[00:26:52] tolerance is that what we're talking about? Well, with all those things you talked about

[00:26:55] perfectionism, people pleasing, low failure tolerance. I look at them as self-sabotage because a

[00:27:03] lot of times we want something. We want a goal. We want a certain business, a certain practice,

[00:27:08] a certain lifestyle. And we say we want those things. I talk to a lot of doctors who say

[00:27:14] they're in the right mindset, who say they're open to taking all the right steps. But when

[00:27:19] you look at what they actually do, they operate within the things that you just mentioned and

[00:27:25] more things as well. And they sabotage the whole process and they don't even realize it.

[00:27:31] It's almost like delusion to some degree. They say they want a totally different outcome,

[00:27:37] but to get a certain outcome you have to do the things, you have to follow the path to get

[00:27:41] there, right? And if you're doing the complete opposite things, you're not in congruence.

[00:27:49] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. I see what you're saying now. Yeah, I guess,

[00:27:52] I guess you can call it self-sabotage for sure. I just don't love the word.

[00:27:55] Yeah, I don't either. It sounds pretty bad.

[00:28:00] It feels kind of icky for me, but I totally see what you're saying. I call it

[00:28:07] having biases that you don't see. Here's the thing.

[00:28:11] Actions create results, right? Like when you to do the thing, like you said,

[00:28:15] you know all the things to do to get to where you want to go.

[00:28:18] First problem is a lot of people don't have the clarity of what do they even want.

[00:28:24] We live these sometimes reactive, especially when we get busy, we'll leave these reactive

[00:28:30] lives where we really don't stop to think, what do I really want out of my life?

[00:28:37] We constantly feel behind so we are just rushing to finish up the day and like look

[00:28:44] to the right, to the left what our friends or colleagues are doing and make sure we're keeping

[00:28:48] out. But we don't consciously stop and decide what do I want? When do I want to retire? That's

[00:28:55] one of the things that I do with my clients is I say, do you know when you want to retire?

[00:28:58] Stuff's people in their tracks. They're like, what? I don't know. I'm just trying to keep

[00:29:03] up here with deliveries for the dentist. I don't know. I haven't thought about this.

[00:29:09] I have to figure out how I'm going to payroll this week. My assistant's just

[00:29:13] announced she's pregnant. They're just constantly in it so they don't look at the big picture.

[00:29:20] Consciously deciding what do you want your life to look like?

[00:29:24] Career and life-wise, relationships, health, all of that helps you reverse engineer the result

[00:29:32] because then you know what actions do you need to take to get there.

[00:29:37] I think clarity is one of the biggest things why people don't hit their mark.

[00:29:42] They don't even know what target is, what they're shooting for. Sometimes they don't know it because

[00:29:52] they're busy to stop and consciously decide. Sometimes it's because sadly we think that what

[00:29:59] we have this in cleaning inside of us, what we truly want, we think it's out of reach.

[00:30:05] We can't have it. I can't tell you how many times I coach women who are now practice owners,

[00:30:14] they own a practice and they tell me, I wish I had done that 10 years ago.

[00:30:20] I just thought that if I wanted to be a mom and have a practice these two things cannot go ahead

[00:30:26] in hand. They spend years and years and years not pulling the trigger on either and then at

[00:30:33] the end not having the outcome that they wish they had. They either don't have children or

[00:30:37] they don't buy practice until later in life and they had wished they did all because they

[00:30:43] didn't even think what they truly want is achievable or possible. A lot of the times we'll

[00:30:49] look to the right to the left, well others don't have that so then that's not possible for me.

[00:30:54] It says who. That's another point of why people don't hit their goals or don't get to where they

[00:31:05] want to go. Another one is let's say you're super clear on what you want and you had set these

[00:31:12] goals like your wildest dreams, you're like nothing is impossible. I really want to have

[00:31:16] 12 kids and 17 offices and only work once a week. You're like, live your reverse engineer

[00:31:23] all that. Then what happens? You are going to come against your own limited thinking. You're

[00:31:31] going to come against your own brain. What do I mean by that? Our brains are actually

[00:31:36] evolved to be very negative. Again, it's kind of like not like a icky thing to say,

[00:31:44] well you're so negative. It's almost like find the problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's almost

[00:31:47] like an insult. Be more positive. In the reality, actually the most evolved humans, the ones that

[00:31:54] survived from the cavemen are negative ones. Negativity bias is our brain's way of keeping

[00:32:02] us alive. Like constantly looking for danger and escaping it or avoiding or fighting it,

[00:32:09] right? Fight or flight. So it's actually like from the evolutionary standpoint,

[00:32:12] it's very useful to be negative because you will survive. Right now in our life of pretty much

[00:32:18] abundance, like we have fridges and cars and credit cards, right? We're not like running around anymore.

[00:32:25] From the lion, this negative thinking is not serving us. It's just keeping us stuck in these

[00:32:32] survival loops, right? And that's what I call biases because they show up in

[00:32:39] like the smallest things just like how I mentioned to you before. Let's say you have a goal to grow

[00:32:45] your practice and then the thought pops. But there's shortage of associates. Small little sentence,

[00:32:52] but you believe it's true. Your brain, that's a negative thing to say, right? It's like a

[00:32:57] scarcity mentality if you want to go coach speak, right? I can't find an associate. It's hard

[00:33:02] to find associates or associates are hard to train. Like that thought, just negative

[00:33:07] thought pops in your hand because your brain is doing its normal job, healthy brain supposed to

[00:33:11] be negative all the time. I can't compete with the DSOs who are hiring them so fast. Exactly. And

[00:33:17] then you're going to go and look for the evidence in life how you thought it's true. You're like,

[00:33:21] oh, DSOs are taking all their associates or my friend down the street here had a horrible

[00:33:29] experience with associates. So you're going to start accumulate this evidence

[00:33:33] for the limitations to create life that you want. You are not on purpose self sabotage in

[00:33:40] yourself. You just don't know how to become friends with your own brain and help it work

[00:33:46] towards your goals, not against them 100%. Google will tell you that 80% of all thoughts are

[00:33:54] negative. It may be even higher. I think what is so good to know and just gives us like,

[00:34:02] a relief for everyone is that nothing has gone wrong. If you wake up and you have the slur

[00:34:09] of negative thoughts, you don't have to fight them. You don't have to beat yourself up for that.

[00:34:17] Just drop the resistance. The resistance is what creates more of negative thoughts.

[00:34:23] Just realize that you are actually one of the evolved, the most evolved human

[00:34:28] and your brain is completely normal. It's just doing the thing. When you approach it this way,

[00:34:34] like, oh, I hear your brain. Okay. All right. I guess it's going to be another hard day. No

[00:34:38] problem. Just come on here for the right. The rest of your day is going to be so much

[00:34:43] easier. You're going to be so much more productive. You're just not going to make

[00:34:46] it a big deal out of these negative thoughts. And then you can better follow through on the

[00:34:53] actions that you know you need to take because you reverse engineered them to get to your

[00:34:57] goals. And I think that's where a coach comes in and to place to help you normalize your experience

[00:35:03] and help you support in growing into, you know, growth mindset concept, help you grow into a more

[00:35:12] evolved, more positive, more conscious version of you. Yeah. I think that's the key distinction.

[00:35:20] Everybody thinks, oh, I just need to be more positive. I disagree. I think you need to be

[00:35:25] more conscious, more intentional about what you think and do. And sometimes it's not going to feel

[00:35:32] great and that's okay. That's where self-discipline comes into place. Get clarity and be intentional.

[00:35:38] Do you know who coach Primus? Deon Sanders? Okay. You should look him up. You would love him.

[00:35:45] He's ex NFL player extraordinaire, played both sides of the football, played baseball as well.

[00:35:50] And now he's a coach, but he says, I never have a bad day. I may have a bad minute.

[00:35:56] I may have a bad couple of hours, but I set my own thermostat. So in his mind, he just

[00:36:03] tweaks the thermostat and sets it back. And some of this I really believe is self-hypnosis

[00:36:11] because you have the ability to do that like you're saying, just by what you're thinking

[00:36:17] and the story that you're playing in your head. And it's interesting, you, I'm not familiar with

[00:36:24] self-hypnosis at all. I am, you know, I'm very logical and numbers and all these things. And

[00:36:31] when I hear self-hypnosis and sounds a little woo-woo to me, which totally no offense to anyone,

[00:36:36] but I'm very like evidence based scientific and maybe there's evidence based about hypnosis.

[00:36:41] I don't know. I don't know much about that. Again, I talked to a lot of people who come

[00:36:44] and they're like, but how do I become more intentional? But how do I think better thoughts?

[00:36:49] Like that seems impossible. Like my brain is just bombarding me with all these negative thoughts.

[00:36:54] And what I want to offer people is you don't always have to like talk yourself into thinking

[00:37:05] something different. Like like, for example, you wake up and you're like, oh, my alarm didn't

[00:37:10] go well. Didn't go off on time and I don't have lunch and I forgot about this meeting and I'm so

[00:37:16] puffy today and I don't have water and all these things, right? You don't have to be like, everything's

[00:37:21] great. Everything's great. I'm having a good day, you know, low of attraction for sure.

[00:37:25] Because that could be fake. That could be fake. Yeah. Right? Right? Or like, oh my god, what's

[00:37:29] going on? There's a good reason why the brain wants to be negative. Like what is somebody

[00:37:34] is going to jump out of an alley with a knife? You're like, what's up? Better be aware.

[00:37:39] You want to have. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You kind of want to be a little bit on your toes.

[00:37:45] What happens is typically it's not the super negative thoughts that are creating problem.

[00:37:53] It's these seemingly true thoughts. Like I don't have enough time. I mean,

[00:37:59] it has like a negative flavor to it, but it's not terrible thought to think.

[00:38:05] But where we get host is that we don't realize it's an optional thought. It just feels so true to us

[00:38:14] that my day is crazy. I have 100 patients. It's going to be a crazy day. I am so tired of

[00:38:22] explaining COE extractions over and over again. It's my sixth consult. Right? We have these

[00:38:28] sentences that fly in our brain and we think that we're just observing the news. We're just telling

[00:38:34] the truth, the facts of it. And it's practically impossible to see them as completely optional

[00:38:42] sentences to think. That's why again, going back to having a coach, having a very unbiased friend,

[00:38:51] journaling. I highly recommend having some practice where you taking these thoughts out of your brain

[00:38:59] and somewhere else, and either very critically looking at them or having somebody else say,

[00:39:06] hey, you know that this there's a different way to look at it. This is actually not true.

[00:39:12] So I think this is what would really help to change the whole trajectory of your day and

[00:39:20] of your month is if you see these sentences, this is really what they are optional. One of my clients

[00:39:27] said this and I thought it was brilliant. She said, you know what? You really have to pay attention

[00:39:32] to what you're thinking because if you don't, you might believe it. Totally. I thought that was

[00:39:39] very powerful. I believe it was Henry Ford who maybe stole this from Socrates. Whether you

[00:39:45] think you can or you think you can't, you're probably right. Exactly. You both are equally true.

[00:39:51] So for those watching or listening and they want to talk to you, what's the best way for them to

[00:39:59] reach out? And how does it work? What are the first steps? So I live on social media, Facebook,

[00:40:05] Instagram and LinkedIn. Mostly, I would say Instagram and LinkedIn. I have a very simple,

[00:40:11] I don't even know what you call it. See how good I am at social media. The name, the handle.

[00:40:18] Handle. There we go. No stress DDS. It's very simple. No N-O, stress, S-T-R-E-S-S,

[00:40:25] DDS our title. No stress DDS. And if you go on my Instagram, same thing for Facebook,

[00:40:32] there's some information how to get in touch with me. I highly, highly recommend everybody

[00:40:38] listening just to hop on my weekly newsletter. I share so much helpful content, advice, tips,

[00:40:46] free coaching. It's in my Instagram and LinkedIn, in my account, into the bio. I don't know if you

[00:40:53] know guys what bio is. It's under the picture. There's a little link. Just click there. It's

[00:40:57] a free newsletter. So I'll get that. Or if somebody who has been around personal help,

[00:41:04] personal development and sees the value of coaching or wants to learn more,

[00:41:11] I recommend a free 60-minute consultation with me. I usually help people create that vision,

[00:41:17] set these goals. Like me and Luke, we talked about a little bit how people don't even know where

[00:41:22] they're heading. That's where I helped them do during that one hour consultation call.

[00:41:27] I really helped them go deeper and decide, hey, when do you want to retire? Do you need an

[00:41:31] associate? Are we going to eventually let them buy or are we just going to close the shop?

[00:41:39] Or what's our exit strategy? How many days will want to work? Do we want to have kids?

[00:41:43] What's our retirement strategy and things like that? So that's usually what I do on that.

[00:41:47] Completely complimentary one hour consultation call. And all could be found in my bio on Instagram.

[00:41:54] And on LinkedIn, it's just my name, Dr. Jana Konowalinko. Those are the best ways to find me.

[00:41:59] Amazing. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks so much for coming on the Grow Ortho podcast.

[00:42:05] Likewise. Thank you so much for having me, Luke.

[00:42:07] Thanks for listening. If you'd like to learn more about HIP or any of the topics in this

[00:42:13] episode, send an email to hello at hipcreativeink.com. That's hello at hipcreativeinc.com or

[00:42:24] jump over to our website at hip.agency.