My Thoughts–to reproduce

The dangers of perfectionism.

Training for clinical perfection– great clinical outcomes. More than just being meticulous.

Straight A’s through school. Conditioned to be great and get the right answer.

Learning clinically the answer.

Graduate with anything less than perfect isn’t acceptable.

What happens if you don’t identify this threat of perfectionism?

Constant disappointment, depressed… hard to tolerate.

Fear of something going wrong.

Was this something school prepared you for? Feeling trapped because you can’t hit the standards perfectly.

School gave us the wrong expectations.

Delivery of our child–the summit… not realizing it’s the start, not the summit.

Weaving in her story…

Chair of new dentist committee.

Sharing her “Failures”.

If you do root canals–you break files.

bad outcomes = bad dentist

It’s about communication and verbal skills.

If you hadn’t got liberated from perfectionism…

Tension You don’t want bad review or malpractice suit…

Toxins of perfection.

Strategies:

Wrong mindset–that one thing was going to destroy me.

Focus on your wins.

Culture of excellence with vulnerability

Perfectionism can hinder the way you show up.

ME– shipping work (like a piece of art… there’s vulnerability in it).

Shooting down ideas in the board room, instead of the marketplace. Getting robbed of real growth.

You don’t figure it out in the land of theory.

Perfectionism didn’t allow me to step up, risk, express yourself, etc.

Lie of perfectionism… you aren’t enough, good enough… so you don’t implement it.

Fail fast, fail forward… The real failure is if you don’t try and learn.

The greatest businesses fail in the direction they want to go.

Show Intro

Ever struggled with the tension between attaining excellence in your clinical dentistry versus being bound by perfectionism? The divide between excellence and perfectionism is often a struggle for most of us, and can be especially toxic in dentistry.

Join Allison and Shawn in this episode as they bring clarity to this topic and help listeners avoid the dangers of perfectionism in their practice.

Transcript

Shawn Zajas 0:40

Today, we're going to talk about the danger of perfectionism in dentistry. And I am so excited about sharing right now and talking about this topic, Allison, because everything we've just been talking about that we're excited to share it, this is something that is going to be so valuable for dentists young and old to hear. Because really, perfectionism is just something you guys have to live with. And you've been conditioned to need to be perfect and great, and everyone wants you to be perfect and great in your clinical dentistry. But there's definitely a danger of what that can do to you clinically, though, and and personally in your practice. And that's why I'm really excited about today's topic. So what is it you feel is common that maybe dentists experience around this topic of just perfectionist? Allison House 1:33

Shawn, I think our training has been about everything we do to be clinically perfect. We spent four years of undergrad and then four years of dental school, really learning how to have good outcomes, and we expect good outcomes. The public expects good outcomes. Everyone expects this level of perfectionism out of us, that maybe isn't actually possible. And it puts a lot of pressure on us. Shawn Zajas 2:02

Like, where did this start in your own journey? You know, where did this kind of notions of excellence and because I mean, we talked about earlier, there's this kind of generalization. That's okay, that dentists are detailed, and they're very meticulous. But it's more than that. Why is it that this kind of applies to all dentists, probably, especially young dentists that are graduating school, something about the way that you went through school? It kind of set you up to be this way, right? Allison House 2:30

Well, probably when all of us started in elementary school, we made straight A's. I mean, straight A's through high school, probably straight A's through college, my college was all math. And I loved math, because there was an answer wasn't like an English paper where he was kind of mushy, what an A or B was, I knew the answer. There was only one answer, because it was math. And all of us have some science background, where that's somewhat true. Finding the answer. So then you go to dental school, and dental school is all about learning clinically the answer and putting everything perfect. And our instructors were really hard on us if something didn't go well. So I think you graduate with that mindset that anything less than perfect is just not acceptable. I remember, I was probably a year out of dental school and practicing and I was so stressed. And my husband asked me what is wrong? And I blurted out that I should be, I should have the physique of Cory Everson. This is before your time, but she was a bodybuilder. Okay. My house should look like Martha Stewart's I should practice like Pete Dawson, who is a very famous dentist who just passed away recently. And yeah, I should be a mother like Carol Brady from The Brady Bunch. And I needed to be all those things wrapped into one. Well, none of those people follow strength. They only have one. So I'm just being completely unreasonable. Shawn Zajas 3:57

What happens if you if you don't identify this kind of strain of perfection? Day in, day out week in week out in your practice? As you're starting? Like, what was it that you ended up feeling? Were you feeling energized, practicing the way you wanted to? Everything was great. And you just knew there was this expectation of you? Like, what was that actual? What did that theme look like? Early in your practice, because of this perfectionism that maybe you hadn't even identified? Allison House 4:25

When I first started practicing, nothing was good enough. Because clearly, when you first graduate, you cannot be Pete Dawson. You just can't. And I was constantly disappointed in myself. And what I was doing, I constantly felt like I was failing. And I I was really getting very depressed, and I didn't want to go to work anymore. It wasn't fun, really Shawn Zajas 4:47

like meaning. It was that severe. That dentistry wasn't forgetten enjoyable. It was hard to even tolerate. It was hard to even tolerate, Allison House 4:57

and I actually love dentistry and I love my patients. But that fear that something would go wrong just became Shawn Zajas 5:06

ominous. Was this even something that you feel like school prepares you for, like to be aware that you might get to this point, a few months and 24 months in, and all of a sudden, you feel trapped because you can't actually hit the target or you can't hit those standards, or even if you're hitting them, you can't hit them perfectly right? Allison House 5:26

I think school set us up for failure there. They had said that everything was going to be just, I don't know, still good roses, we had finally achieved, we were doctors, I mean, the world was our oyster. And that's not true, you never actually arrive at any point in your life, you just get to a new place where you start a new journey. That's been an interesting lesson for me to learn. Shawn Zajas 5:50

You know, I think that's great. And just a really quick anecdote for something that kind of brought that to life in my life was when we first had our first child. I remember like the delivery of our child was the summit. In my opinion, I was just thinking, hey, once we have a child like this nine month build up, and we are successful, if the child is just healthy, mommy's healthy, Child's healthy, and then all of a sudden, the baby gets delivered. And you're like, This is the start of the journey isn't the summit, like now. And I remember, even for my wife, it was like, she now had to figure out how to actually care for the baby, outside of the womb, where her body was doing a really good job on its own caring for the baby in the womb. And all of a sudden, it was like this kind of like, we thought we just finished a race, so to speak, not realizing the real journey and race, it just started. And I'm sure in some ways, that was a shock for us. So as a dentist that's graduating and feels like I've arrived. I'm now I'm a doctor. I'm you know, hopefully, I mean, you can probably start your own practice straight out of dentistry, Allison House 7:00

or very few people do you have too much debt, it's it's just really hard to do that most people have to go work for someone else. Shawn Zajas 7:08

So in this new I'm starting to practice, one of these shocks is what we're talking about with perfectionism. Now, when in your journey did you have Did you ever have that moment where it was like an aha moment or a real shift that kind of illuminated and brought this to light. Allison House 7:28

So like I said, my first two years after I graduated from dental school, I worked in a lot of different practices day here, two days there. to two years, I started my own practice. And at that point, I was getting pretty, pretty beaten down. Every day was such a struggle that I had done something wrong, someone was mad at me, I just couldn't be this perfect person that I wanted to be. So I had joined the Dental Association, and I was the chair of the new dentists committee. And I was supposed to give a talk. So I decided, I'm just gonna throw this out there. So I printed off. Now this is back in the day, I printed off a bunch of X rays of things that had I thought were failures of other dentists and my failures. And I brought them out. And I hired, I have three older dentists that came into a panel. And I was hoping that they were gonna give me the answer. I presented in front of a whole group of young dentists, this what went wrong? And I presented it to the other dentists hoping that they would say, Oh, well, you should have done this. And we would have an answer. And that's not what they said at all. Shawn Zajas 8:35

So you were expecting they were going to be able to give an answer, because you weren't satisfied that you were having outcomes that weren't acceptable. And you were thinking they're going to teach you or maybe give you advice on how to not have bad outcomes? Allison House 8:49

Yes, I wanted them to teach me how to never have bad outcomes. That was my plan. That is not what happened. What did they share with you? Well, the most entertaining one is I showed a x ray with a root canal that I had done, and the file was broken inside the root canal. So I consider this to be a huge failure. I stopped doing the root canal, I sent it over to an endodontist. To finish, I was embarrassed, and I decided to never do endo again. And one of the panelists said, Well, if you do root canals, files break, as if that was just a fact, a statement. And he said, in fact, that tooth broke your file. That was a totally different way of looking at things. But it was true. I mean, some some teeth are very hard to navigate. And that doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive to do the very best we can. But bad outcomes are just part of practice. And they just continue to say that over and over and over again as I was presenting every single one of these. Shawn Zajas 9:52

Now to give context to the timing of this. See, were you able to just go and search for bad outcome. happens on the internet? And was this something that in certain Facebook groups or online groups, you were able to be in a safe place and just share about bad outcomes? Allison House 10:09

No, this was 2004. So there was no, no way to search for something like that. And certainly, if you did, you would just find a malpractice suit and how it had been settled. So you assumed that in a malpractice suit, the other dentist was a bad person, a bad dentist, the way we spoke about bad outcomes was always that it was a bad dentist, you did a bad job? Shawn Zajas 10:31

Well, so it was a big deal for you to actually get up there and show some of the bad outcomes that you would have. Allison House 10:38

It was incredibly difficult. And that's, I come from this Olympic weightlifting background. My father was a coach. And the only way that you grew in weightlifting was you showed somebody what you did, they would correct it so you could get better. And every time your form got better, you lifted more weights. So I assumed that that's what I had to do. I had to be embarrassed and share this in order to grow. And I did, but it wasn't quite the same way. Shawn Zajas 11:05

I thought you were thinking that they were going to give you some sort of an answer again. So you could be perfect robotic and not have an outcome. That was bad. But really what you learned was it wasn't about that it was more about Allison House 11:19

a lot of it's about verbal skills. How do you say there's a bad outcome to a patient so that they understand, understand that you're human, that you're human, and that some things are just more difficult than others. And the other thing that we that I learned was that other people have bad outcomes. And I guess for some reason, I assumed that everybody out there was doing perfect work all the time. Otherwise, they were bad. Shawn Zajas 11:43

This is a pretty influential moment in your journey. in dentistry. What do you think would have happened if you didn't like the light bulb didn't turn on in that moment. And you didn't receive this mindset of, oh my gosh, like, I didn't realize I was operating under this crazy perfectionism of I just needed to be perfect, which wasn't realistic and was causing all this stress. If this moment hadn't happened, I mean, it's probably hard to think about what would have happened, Allison House 12:12

I'm afraid to think about what would happen, I was pretty unhappy. And I'm afraid that I would continue to be more and more unhappy. Because you just you don't get better with perfectionism. You think that that's keeping you in line and you're making you better, but it's not, it's actually making it so you're afraid you're afraid to do anything, just step out of the box and try something because you really won't be perfect at something you never tried before. It was actually hindering me. And it Shawn Zajas 12:39

seems like one of the older thought patterns, you know, to this kind of reality was like, hey, it's not okay to have bad outcomes, where now it sounds like bad outcomes. It's just part of life. It's, it's what you do to either learn from those bad outcomes. That that's important. Like, do you feel like that's, that's fair, like how have things shifted maybe in the last 15 or 20 years to around this area of normal? Not not, I don't say normal, because your your aim is still it's that tension, you know, Allison House 13:14

it's a constant tension. Because you never want to have a bad Yelp review. That's the worst to be publicly humiliated like that. And you never want to have a malpractice suit. Because that can just destroy your livelihood and your practice. So there's constant, you feel like everything has to be excellent and perfect. And yet, if you're human, that doesn't really, it doesn't work. Shawn Zajas 13:37

So if there's people struggling right now, and maybe they haven't had that light bulb moment, and they're still operating under the weight of I have to be something that I can't be. And because of that I'm not liking my dentistry. I'm terrified that I'm going to do something that's either going to cause a Yelp review or malpractice, but at the same time, yeah, I want to grow in excellence, but I don't want to be bound by the toxins of perfection. What are some of the tools? Or what are some of the tips or what are some of the strategies that you might be able to encourage them? Allison House 14:11

So it used to be that every time I looked at the six month checkup, X rays, we call them for by length, I was terrified that I would see something on that X ray that I had done, that wasn't nice. And then I would focus all day on that one thing that was wrong. Instead of looking at the patient, I did 12 other fillings in there and they were all perfect. I saw 10 Other patients, every one of their radiographs were perfect, but it didn't matter. It was one thing and that one thing was going to destroy me. And I really felt that way that one thing was going to destroy me. It was it was keeping me in a prison Shawn Zajas 14:51

keeping you in a box. You know, I know you mentioned we're talking about you know, just kind of a growth mindset and just How you manage change even incrementally in your practice, instead of, you know, 10 new instruments all at once? Can you kind of elaborate on that? Allison House 15:09

One of the first things I did after that continuing education is I decided to focus on my wins. So every patient, I would count how many things looked nice that I had done. And it was amazing, the ratio were very few things that I did that were wrong, it was just that that was because I was focused on which made me feel like a failure. So once I started doing that, I started seeing, okay, I am a good dentist, I'm doing a lot of good in the world. And I need to sort of own that and accept that I am a good dentist, but I'm not a perfect dentist. And then the next thing I wanted to do was create a culture of excellence in my office. And I think that's going to go back to the weightlifting where you can't create a culture of excellence without some vulnerability, without being able to admit that there's some imperfections, and let's look at them and make them better, rather than let's hide them and be embarrassed. Shawn Zajas 16:00

That's really good, especially about clarifying expectations. I know when we're talking, you mentioned even like this new Coaching Habit that that you've employed, so that you're not throwing perfectionism on your, your team, because you have this really clear expectation of yourself, which you even have to manage giving yourself grace, when you fall short, you know, but how that transition does to you meeting your team, Allison House 16:29

it's so easy to expect perfection out of your team. Because they're a reflection of you. And so therefore, they have to be on all the time. But that creates them living under a microscope. And that creates fear. And the more fear that you give your team, the more they mess up. So it's giving them some clear expectations and some grace when they make a mistake, and just coaching them, not making them feel bad. But coaching, this is why we do this. Once you create that encouraging environment, yeah, people can blossom. And I learned that my family like to, I have two kids that are just like me with this level of perfectionism. And it was not helpful for me to put that on them. In fact, I think it really hurt them. And I had to back off and recognize that, well, they're human too, they're gonna make some mistakes, it was okay, if you got to be really, we would all live through it. And they were experiencing the same issues that I was. Shawn Zajas 17:29

And I think that's, that's really wonderful. And that's why we're wanting to talk about perfectionism today in because it really can hinder people developing into who they really want to become, you know, so I know when we were originally talking about just the topic of perfectionism, I was kind of going through Well, I'm not a dentist, you know, I'm a business owner. And as a business owner over the last 15 years, what ways has perfectionism kind of plagued me in the areas that I identified was when it came to shipping something you know, and in business, that's a term we referred to, that just kind of describes, it's easiest to view when you think of it like an author having a manuscript, it's something they care about, they poured their life into it, maybe they even view it as part of their life work at that time. And yet, in real time, there comes to that moment of needing to send it to the publicist. And find out Allison House 18:26

everything yourself. Shawn Zajas 18:28

Right, find out if that publisher says what you value is great. If they think it's great, there's that there's that vulnerability to it. So we're struggling with knees in business, there would be times where I would create something, whether it was a new business model serving, you know, underserved market, whether it was tweaking our value proposition, which kind of brought forth this new offering, that we're really excited about sharing in dentistry, and then somehow, in the boardroom, or just because of, you know, some kind of working the idea out, I would tell myself, like the like perfection, I hear it. It's, it's not ready yet. You know, it's not perfect, it's not perfect. And at some point, I would end up talking myself out of actually just shipping it, which means like, sending it out publicly to be viewed into the marketplace. And what I really got ramped up was, was learning. I got robbed of real growth that happens when the market interacts with your idea, and says, Yeah, we really like this, but not this. And you don't find that out in the land of theory, in the boardroom, that only comes true, true experience. And true knowledge comes once you've actually shipped something. So I think back in the last 10 years, I'm like, man, there's a lot of times that perfectionism didn't allow me to step up and just lead or even contribute or risk because I did know how it was going to be. So my thought is, maybe there's dentists out there, that there's different areas of their practice or there's some something, some passion of theirs. And they're really wanting to see if they can step up and lead their team in a new way. Or if they can lead their whole practice in the community in a new way, because they've been inspired by something, just some thoughts that they're having. By that light, perfectionism says, You're, you're not ready, it's not ready, it's not good enough. And because of that, really, we're not getting that contribution. And we're not getting that beautiful expression that could totally bust industry. Allison House 20:37

It's funny that you should say that because we all go to these continuing education, where we learn about business strategies and things you can implement in your practice, and even new clinical things. So you buy all the equipment, or you're all set up, and you put a new system in, and your team decides they don't really want to do that. And you think, so it's bumpy, this isn't going well, we can't seem to set up our equipment, right? Or, you know, the first time we talked to a patient about this, they turned us down or whatever, something didn't feel comfortable, and you retreat, and suddenly you're not doing whatever it is that you really wanted to implement. Because it is it's about perfectionism, because you couldn't just walk in and do it perfectly. It's, I think, struggle in everyone's life. It's not just business. It's not just dentistry. I think that everyone deals with that you and I we're dealing that with pocket this podcast. Yeah, totally. What Shawn Zajas 21:28

we're not doing this because we can do it perfect. Allison House 21:32

We agreed that we would just jump in, because how will you learn what works unless you do it? So Shawn, do you have any ideas of how somebody could implement something new in their practice with it going smoothly? Shawn Zajas 21:46

It sounds like what you're saying is like, dentists often come from the conferences, like you're saying, is it something that they struggle with from time to time, like getting adoption or getting implementation of a new idea? Oh, yes. Well, so one of the things I've learned over the last 10 years is this concept of failing fast, but failing forward. And the reason why it's that term fail is because we often think of it as a failure of you try something, and it doesn't work out the way you think it should work out. But in reality, in that process of trying to implement something, you can either learn, or you really do fail. The real failure is if you don't learn anything, so I would say, let that expectation on your own leadership style be like, it's okay. Like the greatest businesses, they fail, and they fail as fast as they can, because then they can learn as much as they need to learn. And they fail forward. So they fail in the direction of where they're wanting to head. And that might even sound like, I don't know, how does that sound as a dentist, why even mentioned the word fail fast? Or should I say fail often, Allison House 22:57

Oh, my stomach is burning. That sounds awful. Because you see, when you're talking about a failure, you're talking about somebody's tooth, we're talking about a person, I can't fail, I can't fail fast, because I'm hurting somebody. And yet, the reality is, everything is new, you have to try it, it doesn't mean you shouldn't be completely educated when you walk in and do your very best. But you do not want to be the guy that's still placing silver points and root canals, you just cannot be that guy. Shawn Zajas 23:26

And the thing is, you are trained to be great at clinical dentistry. So it is fine for you to not want to x even kind of have certain expectations of failing often. But you weren't trained in leadership, you weren't trained in team development, you weren't trained, and even change management within an organization. Allison House 23:48

Yeah, there's no time for that in school. So if that Shawn Zajas 23:53

greatness that you have in a different area of your life, that doesn't allow you to try and get in the game and learn in these other areas of your practice where you need to maybe that paradigm of failing fast and failing forward. Don't put that over your clinical dentistry, because you already are great at that. And it's like give yourself grace to be human. But when it comes to leading your team, when it comes to leading a new initiative, something moving forward to your practice, you want to try a new style of marketing. There's new office, you know, loyalty program, that you're wanting to get adoption for that side of your leadership, that side of that expression of again, leading a team, give yourself permission to fail, fast and forward. You don't have to do it right the first time. But by not willing to try you'll never learn. Allison House 24:46

I think I've taken this to a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. So I'm not going to change everything at once. If you change everything in your practice at once. It just it's chaos. makes you crazy. So you pick one area where you're going to grow. And then you implement something and then you pick another area. So you're not changing everything at once. And I think that allows you to really try something fail fast and try something else. But you can't, you can't keep your office in the same way it was 20 years ago. Dentistry is moving fast, I don't practice anything like I did 20 years ago. And I suspect in 20 years, it will be even more different, we've got to even more different is that. But it will be it will be very different in 20 years, and you can't fall behind, you still gotta move forward. And that means that there will be some failures. Shawn Zajas 25:41

And it's how we're viewing those failures. Failure is, I think it was Henry Ford is just or Thomas Edison, both of them are notoriously famous for failing often, and failing fast. And they viewed it as it's just an opportunity to begin again, more intelligently. But you can't grow and begin with new intelligence, if you aren't actually trying. And we really care about dentists growing, we care about dentists moving forward on this journey of being more authentic and practicing the dentistry of their dreams practicing that dentistry, that's really true to their passion, their what they care about. And part of that is they're going to need to learn to deal with this tension of perfection. Because let's face it, they are very, like you said, detailed and meticulous. And excellence is something that they've been accustomed to. And it's a good thing that they can be very consistent with excellence. That is unbelievable. But we don't want them to get derailed by a wrong mindset. And that's why we're so valuable what you shared, Allison, again, about, wow, these experts on this panel are saying, wait a second, she thinks you're going to help her not feel better, right. And that's not what they said. Allison House 27:01

That's not what they said at all. And you know, I looking back, I can see that I was very vulnerable to do that. At the time, it didn't feel that way. It felt embarrassing, I guess, but it didn't feel as vulnerable. But I think vulnerability is the only place where you can grow, where you can ask for help. You can admit something's wrong. Because if you just stuff it, that's, that's when I think we run into all this depression and anxiety, and where we just are not enjoying our practice. So that vulnerability of, hey, this didn't go well, can someone help me. And I think that's part of why I'm in the Dental Association, that that's why you join groups while you're not practicing all on your own. So you can talk about it and realize you're not alone. All of us have bad outcomes. All of us have failures. We don't like the word failure, right? Yeah, we all do. And it's just part of being human. Shawn Zajas 27:57

And this is what makes podcasting with you. Great, because we're not wanting to mislead people by just sharing. Again, this, this this fake, hey, this is who we are, and everything's perfect, you are eight, you have the courage to be transparent. And you have the courage to be vulnerable. And I believe that's why your team respects you the way you do, and so many, that's why you've been able to hold such leadership positions because you lead authentically. So just to honor you and validate you, you're the perfect partner even to do a podcast with and like you mentioned before, this is us inaction, showing that we're not going to let perfectionism stop us from expressing what we care about. So to wrap this up, what would you want to leave people with some sort of like, I don't know whether it'd be a challenge or an encouragement to someone that right now, like, what can they do? What are some next steps that they could do? Allison House 28:57

Well, I have to acknowledge you. You've taught me a lot of things here. And I think one of the big things is that culture of excellence, that you allow yourself to be vulnerable, you allow yourself to be vulnerable in front of your team. And then you create systems within your team, where you can do your very best work. But you're not mean to other dentists. If you see something that somebody did, that wasn't a beautiful outcome. You don't put the other dentists down in front of the patient or in front of your team, you accept you give them some grace, and you give yourself some grace. And then you do the very best you can next time. And I think that gives respect from your team, from your patients. And it makes you sleep better at night. Shawn Zajas 29:38

Absolutely. To the listeners would just say take some time this week. And just reflect on areas that you have grown, reflect on the things that you're doing great demonstrate. And if you're tempted at all to think about ways that you could improve by looking at something you're not doing well, don't do that. Maybe that's what's natural for you or what's comfortable, but we want to challenge you actually integrate the successes that you've had integrate the ways that you've grown over the last 12 months. Give yourself a pat on the back, take a deep breath and go, Wow, I am doing it. I'm in process and being in processes, okay. So we just want to encourage you keep going. Allison House 30:19

Somebody told me a long time ago that when you become perfect and you never have a bad outcome, you should retire because you're scary. That's awesome. Well, thank you, Shawn. Thank you. Mark House 30:31

Thank you for listening to the authentic dentist podcast. Join Allison and Sean on this journey. Hit the subscribe button to never miss an episode. Here's to your success. Express yourself fully. Live authentic.