The Dr. Chris Griffin Show – Season 1 Episode 8

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Now who said that?

Welcome to the Dr. Chris Griffin Show. Your resource for leveraging systems and technology to easier workload, increase productivity and provide you with the time off you deserve to live the life of your dreams. It’s time to practice productivity in the passionate pursuit of a better life with your host, Dr. Chris Griffin. The doctor is in.

Hey everybody! That is one of those quotes that you hear your whole entire life but you don’t always necessarily, you don’t know who said it right? it just, well over time it’s just part of the common culture. But in this case, I’m going to tell you who said that, it was a guy named William Edward Hickson, now also known as W. Hickson. Now he was a British education writer, he was the author of a book called “Time and Faith”. Now I have not read that book but I’ll tell you what, it’s got a great subject matter because as we talked about way back in I think Episode 4, of this season. Time is very important and I think faith is also very, very important. So there you go, he’s also created and writing a part of the British National Anthem. So there you go, the line out of the proverb that he actually wrote is called “Tis a lesson you should heed, try, try again. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.” Okay?

I like it, I like it. So anyway, British guy, very, very famous saying, very famous proverb but maybe you didn’t know who said it. Okay? Well anyway, the reason that this is an important quote in one that I wanted to share with you guys today, is for a reason as I’m getting ready…I’m actually getting ready this week to do a full day CE course in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Right? I like Oklahoma City, it’s one of those places I had not been too much into recently and I’ve in and through Oklahoma City 5 times, maybe 4 or 5 times in the last 2 years and you know it’s really not that far of a drive. I drive a lot of places I go and it happened to be on Highway 40 or US Interstate 40 and which I can hop on really close to my home. And go through Memphis and Little Rock and next thing you know, you’re in Oklahoma City. And you’re like, wow this is actually not that far. But I’m getting ready to do a CE course there for their dental society.

And one of the thing that I’m going to talk about, is I’m going to talk about all the mistakes that I have made over the years. Right? A lot of mistakes and because it…truthfully, who wants to go to a course and hear the guy that’s going to get up there and just talk about brag, brag, brag. I’m so good, I’m so good, I’m so good. That’s one of the things that’s just making me sick about the political race this year. It’s just the word “I”. I’m not going to, I don’t like to get into politics, religion or ball game affiliations in public. Okay? Because those things can get heated, however, with my kids at home I’m always like when a couple of politicians are up there I’m like, alright let’s count how many times they say of the word “I”. I just hate that! But anyway, nevertheless, I would say most of the people listening to this, the dentists in America, I think we’re 98% Republicans; so most of you have strong political opinions.

But nonetheless, when I was preparing this lecture, and I started to think about all the mistakes I’ve made, I thought, wow this is really cool! So I may not be an expert about anything but I’m pretty darn sure I’m close to being an expert on messing things up or making mistakes. And if there’s anything that has been a redeeming quality of me in my life, it is probably been the fact that I try and try again, after I fail. And so this is just one of those things I’ve always know, I don’t even know who said this. If I can find who said this quote, I might use it as a quote one time before I show it.

But sometime in my life, I heard that it’s a lot better to make 5 decisions and make 4 of them wrong and get 1 of them right than the wait, wait, wait, wait, wait and then either just make like 1 decision or just don’t even make a decision. Because if you just make the 1 decision, you got a reasonable chance in being 1 of the 4; because if you make 5 decisions and 4 are going to be wrong, if you only make the 1 decision in the same amount of time I’m making 5. Now I get a lot of percentage chance that I’m going to get at least 1 right. And a right decision is worth the heck of a lot more than a wrong because you can usually, you can usually recover from a wrong decision, right? A mistake normally, people will forgive you if you’re humble, contrite. People will forgive you. I have certainly found that to be the case because I have made a plethora of mistakes in my life; as the outlaw said, the El Jefe in the Three Amigos.

So anyway, I just thought I would…as I’ve been studying my mistakes, I thought I’d share them with you guys. This is the Dr Chris Griffin Show, you guys should hear my mistakes because they are plentiful. When I got out of dental school, I talked about this last week. When I was in dental school, you know. Dr. Steve DeLoach and I had said we were going to be implantologists when we got out and we you know, we did not do that because school got hard and we got interested in just getting out of school and get practices going and stuff like that. And I still say out of the class of, I don’t know how many people, 75. Or something like that. They graduated with me at UT. Dr. Steve DeLoach is the only one that had the guts to hang a shingle, day 1 out of practice that day I went to school. I mean he’s the only one, so I mean I may stand corrected maybe there’s a mistake too but I’m pretty sure he’s the only one that June 1, 1998 had a job as his own boss at his own practice. And it has worked out for him marvelously.

I hung my shingle, September 1ST 1999. I was pretty close, I don’t know if I was number 2 in the class but I was pretty close to also hang in my shingle right out of school. So anyway, we wanted to be implantologists. We gave it up, we just pursued other things. But I have in my first year of school I actually pursued and associateship and actually went in with my family dentist. And as things go in associateships, as I went I’m lecturing across the country, a lot of times I will ask how many people in here have been an associate and then a lot of hands go up, you know; 89% of the room goes up. And then I will say, okay, how many of you are with the dentists that you started out with in your first associateship? And like almost every single hand goes down. Inevitably, one or two will stay up if it’s a big crowd and most of the time, those are children of dentists that went in with their dad of their mom or something like that.

And that’s just the way it is, there’s nothing wrong with that. I wish my kids would want to be dentists and go out with me someday. But that’s it, if you go in as an associate in a practice, then you’re not related to the person you’re going in with, chances are, it’s not going to work out. So if you’re hearing this, the dental school, a little shoutout to the…I want to shout out and get your name right but it’s Ambitious Dental Students Group, I believe. I got a really nice note from one of their members this past week that said that they had actually studied my dental talent courses and he was actually asking for some extra materials that might go with those videos and so I sent that to my assistant to give to him. And I’m sure she did because she’s awesome. But you know it was awesome, it was really good; I like getting notes like that. If you have a note you’d like to send me, that’s a pleasant one, man I’m all for it. Just go to drchrisgriffin.com and fill out the contact form and send it to me. If you have something to say that’s a critique, that’s not so pleasant, I guess I probably should hear that too. I’m not as eager to hear those things. If you’re dentist, you know…you know what I’m talking about. We don’t like to hear negative stuff; we hear plenty of that all day long.

So anyway, getting back on track, shout out to the Ambitious Dental Students Group. I think they maybe originated, I’m not sure if it’s just a dental town group or I actually got an email from someone at Northwestern Dental School and in a similar type thing. So shout out to all you guys and thanks for paying attention. I hope some of my stuff could help you. But anyway, we hung our shingles and we kind of got away from the implantologist thing. However, we decided that…well I mean, well let me step back a month or two, July 1st 1999. My associateship failed. I am without a job, I am sand’s prospect of any said job. I have a little bit of school that I’m not going to say it turn ahead that’s like $60,000 worth of school debts but you know, Hey it’s debt, 1999; that’s still quite a bit. And my wife has just announced to me, guess what? Hon, I’m pregnant. So she’s pregnant with our son, my oldest son who is our first born and I had no job. And I don’t know what to do because you know, it’s not like I live in a Metropolis. I moved back home after dental school and it’s a pretty small place.

So but anyway, buckled down, decided to buy my own practice, hung my own shingle in my home town without a single patient and it’s worked out pretty nicely. September 1st 1999, I opened up and guess what? After a year of an associateship and a general practice, lots of extractions, lots of filling, lots of root canals, crowns and dentures, I decided. This is not exactly how I would like to practice. I would like to practice the way Steve and I said we’re going to practice back in dental school. I’d either want to be an implantologist or something way cool. And at that time, if you’re older than me, now if you’ve seen patients more than 20 years, you will remember the late 90’s were dominated by cosmetic dentistry. Cosmetic Dentistry had boomed during the 90’s. Veneers were the rage, I mean veneers were just huge, huge deal. I remember in dental school I got 2 veneers. I was so stoked about it. You know, they were pretty awful.

When you come to think about it, we had to stack our own porcelain for those, are you kidding me? I didn’t even remember how to do it. It was something, golly, we did some kind of foil on our dyes and then we stacked them; I don’t remember but it was just gut-wrenchingly terrible and then they were kind of ugly, honestly. But you know, I knew there was potential there. And so when I’m my own boss in ’99, even with no money, I decided I think I’m going to be a cosmetic dentist and I asked Dr. Steve, “Hey Dr. Steve, we both have our own practices, would you like to pursue this with me?” And so yeah, he said “Yeah! Let’s do it”. So he and I, along with a couple of other of our friends; shout out to Dr. Troy Kerber from Dyersburg, Tennessee. We, you know he didn’t go to school with us but we became friends in this pursuit.

So we headed out and we signed up for the Las Vegas Institute, Dr. Bill Dickerson and went after that amazing place and we believed after we went there that we were going to dominate our local markets with cosmetic dentistry and you know, we started…we started doing it. We started doing a lot of cosmetic stuff and I have started advertising these fancy advertisements in magazines, Mississippi magazine, which is sort of an upper class magazine here. And you know, I spent a lot of money on that and had a model come in for a photo shoot. I did all these crazy stuff, I did not make a dime on that advertising; zero dollars. I mean good grief! I was 25 years old. Who would go to a 25-year old dentist for a full mouth porcelain reconstruction and that does not…this doesn’t compute now that I’m much older. I did not understand what I did not know at age 25.

So you know, going along with that train of thinking, I started to have some occlusal problems and you know, certainly not blaming anyone’s school of thought. But I thought, well I’m you know, maybe I’m not smart enough to grasp for seclusion. So let’s go somewhere else. So Dr. Steve and I went down to Tampa, Florida to the Dawson Institute. Pete Dawson who is an amazing human, a great teacher, I learned stuff there that I still use today actually. And you know, but that was a pretty big investment at time. Las Vegas Institute was you know, the intro course, I think 2 weeks spaced out by about a month to care for a patient, I did something veneers on him. A funny story about that, the person I did veneers on, was my hygienist; who’s still with me today. She’s been with me since 1999. And you know, she’s got a lot of capital built up because she made that trip, she was my hygienist, I just hired her and she agreed to go out there to get veneers done which you know, it’s a big…it’s a big leap right there.

So no matter how much she ticks me off to this day, I always remember she did that for me. So you know, I’m joking I mean I. those of you who have a dental practice and you have hygienist you know that I’m just kind of joking. Sometimes they really make you a little bit anxious about overall their value far outweighs their aggravation but you know it’s just funny to talk about. But as we go out there to the Las Vegas Institute and she’s my patient, she was already getting numb I mean a little like number 8 and 9. This is before, by the way, this is the days before Septocaine and it kind of keep her numb. A, because I’m doing like I don’t know, 10 veneers across the upper front and we’re trying to follow this LVI guidelines. And it’s different than the way that I’ve prepped before. It’s just different and I was 25 years old, my prepping was not the best, so I’m kind of slow at it. And she kept waking up and at the end of the day, I mean I just, she was in pain, and you know it just took forever.

And so when I finally get her temporized, she’s somewhat, somewhat happy about things. But you know that’s a lot to do, I mean it’s a lot of preps and we went out to dinner that night and she was still kind of numb and in pain and you know, we still laughed a little bit because we went out to this jousting tournament thing at Excalibur Casino out there because the course is in Las Vegas. And they serve you like a chicken with a knife, that’s all you get and you know, it was kind of funny although a little bit painful too once you try to eat that chicken with a knife and that’s it. Anyway, when you we go back later on to seek the case, my chairside assistant was my assistant and she’s my patient and we’re getting ready to seek this thing. It’s just hard to see that kind of 10 unit case right? It’s just kind of difficult and we’re getting everything ready to glue them on in my eye, I got my loops on, my eyes are focused on the teeth and gluing them on and trying to get every margin perfect. And there’s a little bit of a delay and I don’t think much about it. But when we’re done, my assistant tells my hygienist, “Hey you know, the reason there was a delay was I dropped 2 of your veneers in the garbage can and I had to dig them out. Sorry.” That is the, anyway…that is the craziest thing ever. But they made amends about it, they joked about it later. But anyway I thought that was funny and I was glad it was an employee of mine and not a patient…an actual patient I brought from Mississippi to the course.

But anyway, that’s the account of the story of LVI. So we go down to Dawson and we try to learn better occlusion and we did learn a lot about occlusion when we’re down there. To this day though, we went to a lot of Institutes. We went to the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, meeting in Boston. We actually made an effort to try to hear every single accredited member of the Academy speak that we could at that. And we actually had designs on becoming accredited ourselves in the AACD. But as time went on, it doesn’t matter how good of a cosmetic dentist you are, if you do not live on the part of the country that’s can do so they have in multiple cases like that. It is tough to make a living.

So that was a huge mistake for me to spend I don’t know, 40 or 50 grand my first year in practice on those institutes, although it really improved my skill level and probably improve my case presentation skills and my case acceptance percentage, it still was 50 grand and I didn’t do 50 grand worth of those kind of cases. I just didn’t do it. I ended up having to do cases like the having a new discounts and just to get to keep my practice up and I had to do a lot of discounting to do that. And then you know, it just became painfully obvious. You know I am in a blue collar town. There was a guy here across the road. If you ever see a photo of my office, you will see a McDonalds in the background. Okay? Now the owner of that McDonalds, great guy, his son is actually a dentist in Waco Texas, good guy. And I always ask him and said, you know at McDonalds, you guys are crowded 24/7. Your parking lot’s full, your drive thru’s backed up but why is it that all the other restaurants in town, they come in business, they go out of business? They come in, they go out. He said Chris, you just have to face it, Ripley is a hamburger kind of town. Okay? And it was, it is so true. Every restaurant that tries to come in that’s not fast food immediately fails. It fails within months. And I’m in a blue collar town and I always try to do fancy cosmetic dentistry and it was failing.

So what the people needed in my town and still needs to this day is to get out of pain. Okay? They wanted to get out of pain however that is, whether it’s pulling the tooth, whether it’s doing a root canal on the tooth, and you know, you get to do a fair amount of crowns but you got to do a lot of fillings to get o those crowns. And you get to do some implants but you got to do a lot of partials to get to those implants. And that’s just the way it is and I’m so, you know as time has gone on, I developed basically my whole...