Finding Balance and Happiness in Your Ambitious Life With Dr. Mark Costes – 028

Does Mark sleep? I don’t think so.

Can he do 91 burpees in 17 seconds? Prob.

Mark has built a Dental Enterprise Beast. If you are in dentistry, just listen in – he’s got some serious chicken McNuggets for you.

Ready, set Go!

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Our podcasts are interviews between Justin Krane, Krane Financial Solution’s President, and various professionals, one or more of which are or have been Krane Financial Solutions clients. However, nothing stated within the podcasts should be considered a testimonial or endorsement of Krane Financial Solutions or Justin Krane, and the professionals have not been directly or indirectly compensated for being interviewed.

Our podcasts are interviews between Justin Krane, Krane Financial Solution’s President and various third-party professionals. Noting stated within the podcasts should be considered a testimonial or endorsement of Krane Financial Solutions or Justin Krane, and the professionals have not been directly or indirectly compensated for being interviewed.

Dr. Mark Costes is an international keynote speaker and the founder of the Dental Success Institute, a company committed to helping dentists to achieve their full potential, while recapturing their passion for dentistry. He is also the co-founder and CEO of the Dental Success Network, a vibrant community of dentists from around the globe focused on maximizing access of advanced clinical and practice management education to the profession. Dr. Costes is the International and #1 Amazon Best Selling Author of the book Pillars of Dental Success. His internet radio show, The Dentalpreneur Podcast now has listenership from over 150 countries worldwide. Mark and his wife Leslie have three sons; Bryce, Brendan, and Brady and 2 dogs; Bear and Hazel.

**SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM FOR THE VIDEO!**

Different People Learn…Differently

The path to dentistry was not easy for Mark as he had issues learning from reading text. But with teachers who believed in him and gave him appropriate instructional design for his needs, he succeeded.
There are many ways in which people learn; auditory, visual, kinesthetic, and tactically – just to name a few.
Mark’s coaching and consulting success is based on a foundation of meeting different types of learners. There are coaches who make phone calls, teach seminars, facilitate small group meetings, and work with dentists one-on-one in the trenches.
To offer the best learning experiences, conduct assessments or ask your clients’ their learning preferences ahead of time.

The Trial & Error of Growth

Mark went from one practice, to six. He had an arbitrary financial goal, but not a good plan in place to get there. Although he reached his goal, he also reached a breaking point.
The solution was selling four of the practices and starting over concentrating on running two practices well.
When opening or scaling a business, hire an executive team and create an organizational chart. Learn to delegate and do not be a micromanager.
Leverage what you have. Think of opportunities you haven’t seized.
Mark had facilities which sat empty during certain hours. He seized the opportunity of developing a curriculum to create a dental assistant school. Once it was accepted through the state board, the leading-edge course was licensed and sold across the country.
Build your business in the skillset you’ve perfected. Surround yourself with people smarter than you to excel in the areas in which you are less proficient.

Finding Yourself Outside of Your Business

Money does not equal happiness.
The average dentist makes four times more than average wage earners as a whole. Yet of dentists surveyed, more than 50% said if they could start over they would pick any other career.
Dentists finding happiness is not a lost cause. The way they conduct both their professional and personal life just needs a shift.
The values to focus on are contained within the quadrant Mark created: Mindfulness, meaning, movement, and lastly – money.
Self improvement is an evolution. If fulfillment has declined, look back to a time you were more content. What were your relationships like? What was your daily physical activity like?
Concentrate on the three quadrants outside of money. With renewed purpose the money quadrant will likely improve anyway.

The Keys to Communication

In any field, the most important skill set is the ability to build trust and rapport quickly.
Many dentists are left brainers, consumed with studies and concentration on books before being thrust out into the world of running a practice.
There are communication hacks that anyone can learn such as matching tone, mirroring physiology, and finding three points of commonality with the person you’re reaching out to.
People that don’t know how to have a good conversation, don’t know that they don’t know how to have a good conversation! It is important to have someone look at your communication style objectively and give feedback to improve.

Best Quotes:

“People have different abilities of learning. Some people are auditory learners. Some people are kinesthetic learners. Some people are visual learners.” (5:06)

“There’s something to be said about how we learn and that everyone doesn’t learn the same way. And if you do it [teaching] a bunch of different ways, more than one, I think your people obviously will make progress and they’re going to feel good about that.” (6:54)

“I knew I wanted to have this much money in the bank. I wanted to make this much money after taxes. And I hit the arbitrary goal. And I looked around and said, ‘Holy crap, I’ve never been more miserable in my life.’” (11:12)

“Of dentists surveyed it’s commonly known that greater than 50% of dentists, if they were able to go back and select their career again, would pick a different career, any career. And the paradox of that is that when you look at the average dentist, the average dentist makes about $197,000 per year. The average wage earner in the United States makes about $44,000 per year. So the average dentist is making four times of the average wage earner yet paradoxically is extremely unhappy that they selected dentistry as a profession.” (12:59)

“We handle our entire lives as a composite human being, not just as somebody that’s a wage earner. We look at four quadrants. We look at mindfulness, we look at meaning, we look at muscle or movement, and we look at money intentionally.” (14:00)

“When I was restructuring my life, I said, “Okay, here are the non negotiables. Here’s what has to happen.” I need to spend a good amount of quality time with my kids. If that means coaching their teams, or having family dinner, or uninterrupted time where I don’t even have my phone on.” (22:19)

“I truly believe that your most important skill set must be your ability to build trust and rapport quickly in dentistry, in any field. If you have the ability to build rapport and have a good conversation and build trust quickly, you will be very, very successful in whatever field you decide to go into.” (30:52)

“The bottom line is if you can find three points of commonality, they can start small and then get more and more personal, you will build trust with somebody very, very quickly.” (32:24)

“The funny thing is Justin, that people that don’t know how to have a good conversation, don’t know that they don’t know how to have a good conversation.” (33:17)

“I surround myself with people that are much smarter than me. It’s not that hard to do. But I surround myself with people that are much, much smarter than me that fill the void in areas that I can’t perform myself.” (37:03)