Ep #18: 3 Tools to Improve Communication and Happiness with Joe Noonan

Welcome to Practicing with the Masters for dentists with your host, Dr. Allison Watts. Allison believes that there are four pillars for a successful, fulfilling dental practice: clear leadership, sound business principles, well-developed communication skills, and clinical excellence. Allison enjoys helping dentists and teams excel in all of these areas. Each episode she brings you an inspiring conversation with another leading expert. If you desire to learn and grow and in the process take your practice to the next level, then this is the show for you. Now, here’s your host, Dr. Allison Watts.

Allison:       Welcome to Practicing with the Masters podcast. I’m your host, Allison Watts, and I’m dedicated to bringing you masters in the field of dentistry, leadership, and practice management to help you have a more fulfilling and successful practice and life.

I know everybody wants to be happy and Joe just operates on this premise. He experimented with many ways to bring happiness to teams and companies around the world. Through his studies of quantum physics, experiential education, and right brain communication, he has developed a process that allows people to communicate simply, effectively, and yes, joyfully together in the workplace.

He’s taught this process to hundreds of companies on five continents, boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies, and on the beaches of the Caribbean. Using limbic communication tools in concert with shared vision and appreciation, he helps organizations increase employee satisfaction and retention a.k.a. happiness, hand in hand with improved productivity and performance. Life is supposed to be fun and so can our jobs. If you guys want to know more about that his website is www.JoeNoonan.com for more information.

He is going to talk about three specific tools today that dentists can use to improve communication and happiness in their dental practice. Then at the end of the talk he is going to make an offer. He is going to make an offer of some coaching. He is going to give us a deal too because I asked him to do that for me.

He is an author, a speaker, a life coach, and a spiritual guide. Joe leads leadership retreats for corporations, taking executives on adventures around the world. He also facilitates self-awareness programs and retreats for those on the path of awakening. A guest on National Geographic, Fox TV, and Oprah, he also leads week-long retreats for spiritual groups and families, swimming with wild dolphins in Hawaii and the Bahamas. A playful, passionate, lover of life he assists people in lightening up and enjoying life. I can attest to that.

I meet Joe on a dolphin trip. So that was pretty cool. I actually went on a Swimming with Wild Dolphins, I didn’t know Joe before that, but one of my friends invited me and they were doing sort of a CE combination with wild dolphins swimming. I took my whole family. The CE was not dental it was just sort of general, sort of self-awareness stuff. I enjoyed the swimming with the dolphins and after talking to Joe, I decided I needed to bring him into my office. And gosh, Joe, I don’t know how many times you came to my office but four or five times probably.

Then we did a bunch of coaching over the phone over a couple of years. You helped my team and I immensely. I’d say in our practice and personally. I am so excited we’re finally doing this. We talked about this for a while. So I’m thrilled to introduce you. Do want to start with just kind of telling us a little bit about how did you become an expert on bringing joy to the workplace? That’s what I would ask you.

Joe:            That’s a great question, I love it. Allison, first of all, thank you. It’s fun to be here and I’m honored. I think anybody that’s on this call, whether you’re on here live or you’re listening to the recording, I imagine most of you know Allison. You know Allison’s smile, her exuberance, her passion for excellence, and that’s what actually interested me in working with you and I think that is probably why people come on to your calls, Allison. Because you’re the kind of person, you know, you’re looking to play the top of your game. At some point in your dental practice, I know you recognized that being technical is only one side of it. Being relationship-based was another.

That opened a whole new chapter in your life and I feel really fortunate that I’ve been able to assist and contribute to that chapter. Allison, you’re like a shining star of a leader who says, “I want to bring my team to the top.” Yes, we worked over several years, I did several off-sites. Everybody here should know that Allison has worked on just about, let me see, at least eighteen of the teeth in my mouth.

Allison:       Oh yeah.

Joe:            Over several years. I think got seven onlays and I had a whole bunch of old amalgam removed. So I am speaking from a very happy mouth, let me just say.

Allison:       Thank you, Joe, for all of that.

Joe:            Yeah, you know, you have something to share. You walk your talk, you’re an embodiment of it. I’ve worked with you and your team. If I were to rate teams and quality of life and let’s say the joy of working together and enjoying coming to work and feeling supported, feeling like if there’s something not working that they can communicate with each other and with you. Feeling like the practice is a viable thing that can work and bring inspiration. You and your team are right up there, Allison.

Allison:       Thank you.

Joe:            Yeah, so that’s why I’m on this call. It’s because whoever you attract I’m interested in having a conversation with. For me, I think we all want to be happy. I think we all grew up, you know, we all came into the world happy, smiling, goo gah, blub, blub, blub, you know. We love kids because they still have that original essence, just that innate joy that’s part of our essence, our spirit. For me, it’s a very spiritual belief or experience.

Then of course, as we grow up, we learn to be cool. We learn to watch out. We learn the world is unsafe. We learn to protect. We learn to think before we speak so we don’t get made fun of. We basically, our left logical brain, the brain that is sequential, that thinks, that’s rational. The part that we think of as our personality or our ego, that part learns that the world is unsafe and we better think before we speak.

Now before that we’re operating out of our right brain, our limbic brain, our, I think of it as our “God brain” because it’s creative, it’s spontaneous. Whatever’s happening, this brain is just enjoying it. Like there was a physician, she had a stroke and she studied stroke victims. As she was having the stroke, she recognized that her logical brain was losing blood flow because she just experienced everything as bliss knowing that she could potentially die. She’s just totally fascinated and so fully present in the moment.

She looked at the phone, she knew if she punched the right sequence of numbers she could get help but she had no recall as to what those different symbols meant. You know, staying alive in a body on Earth, the left logical brain is this wonderful tool. I mean it serves us in many ways.

What I found is in my work to find how to be happy in my life was that of these two brains that there were ways to understand how they don’t work together and how they do. I used to be a therapist, I used to coach people, I used to work in a psychiatric half-way house, I used to run leadership retreats. I’ve done many different things. But basically what I recognized is life is really simple. When I approach life from my right intuitive brain and I can understand it in a way my logical brain can accept. That’s really—we’ll speak more about that because that’s the critical piece. I can have agreement between my two hemispheres.

Now when you read an email from Allison that says, “I love my job.” We have two responses. The five-year-old in us goes, “Yippee!” The logical brain goes, “Yeah, right.” Yeah?

Allison:       Uh-huh.

Joe:            I imagine everybody that’s received that email there’s the part that goes, “Oh, I hope so, I wish so.” And the other part that says, “Come on, don’t be a sucker.” That is exactly how our two brains work. Our right brain, our intuitive brain, is like a five-year-old and it is unable to sort. Everything it sees and experiences is. It doesn’t sort it as right or wrong, good or bad, it’s all the truth, it just is. The logical brain, our ego personality sorts and says, “Is this good for me? Is this bad for me? Is this threatening?” Does that make sense?

Allison:       It does to me, yeah. So our right brain just takes things in and kind of accepts it as it is. Then the left brain kind of kicks in and starts judging it.

Joe:            Yeah.

Allison:       Right, wrong, good, bad, does it fit for me? Does it not fit? Just shutting options out or in.

Joe:            It’s method of operation is to take care of us.

Allison:       Yeah.

Joe:            The ego really wants us to survive and it uses the past. It uses our life experience to sort every moment. To say, “Am I safe? Am I not? What’s the best strategy?” Whereas we also have an intuition. The big gap between the two brains is the right brain hears everything as the truth. At the same time, the right brain is unable to comprehend what the left brain can comprehend, which is the concept of not. So I can say, “Don’t think about Abraham Lincoln.” Now your logical brain knows exactly what I mean but what did you just do?

Allison:       Think about Abraham Lincoln.

Joe:            I can say, “Don’t think about a blue elephant with pink polka dots. And whatever you do, don’t think about that it’s simple to have more joy at work.” So you can see the right brain runs the body. That’s why they say, “The body always tells the truth.” The right brain is what’s digesting your last meal. It’s doing literally hundreds of thousands of bodily functions that you don’t have to think about. It’s doing thousands of functions in your blood alone, pH levels, sorting antibodies, etcetera.

But the right brain is unable to conceive of the concept of not. So when we say, “Don’t use drugs, don’t use drugs, don’t use drugs,” to our kids. What are they thinking about? Using drugs. If we say to our patient, “This won’t hurt.” You’ve just said “hurt.” If you say to a new patient, “It’s really important that you don’t let this slip by, that you don’t miss your next appointment,” what have you called attention to? Them missing their next appointment. So most of the western world has no clue that our language is rife with knots. We are constantly calling attention to what we don’t want.

So what I learned, very simply—see what I’m doing right now is I’m giving your logical brain an explanation. Because if your logical brain goes, “Hmm, okay maybe this guy’s got something to say. Maybe actually, maybe, this guy isn’t just Mr. Pie in the Sky. Maybe this guy actually has something I could gain benefit from.”

Now on my webpage you see for testimonials, you know, I have CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Why? Because the left brain goes, “Okay, there’s some credibility here.” When we make a case to the logical left brain and the logical left brain says, “I’m open to the possibility.” The door is open and the right brain which runs our body, which runs our unconscious, which runs infinite numbers of functions, that’s the magical brain. That’s the brain that has the ability to be infinitely creative. And then infinite resources and ideas show up to us.

So what I’m doing right now is, to all of you on this call, I say you probably want to be more happy. I think we all want to be more happy. I think a part of us is ongoingly happy. But in our humanness, our perception of life, we want it to go certain ways, our expectations. Happiness comes and goes. Sometimes it feels it can be gone for a long time.

With an orientation of understanding the right and left brain, you can gain a prospective and also a way to talk, literally, to the two halves of your brain so that you can at least create congruence within yourself. When you have that, you have peace. You can be in a pile of crap if you feel congruent, it’s okay. Because you know you’ll get out of it. You don’t even have to know how. See, our left logical brain is finite and it only knows what it knows. Yet the right brain is infinite.

Actually, a lot of scientists say, and I fully believe, on a right brain level we’re all connected. That’s why they attribute to discoveries and breakthroughs happening in multiple places at the same time, because of the collective unconscious. So I hope at this point you are open to the possibility that having more fun at work is simple and easy. That make sense?

Allison:       I remember when you said that to us at our retreat and my left brain was like, “What? Simple and easy, maybe simple, probably not that easy for some of us.” [Laughs]

Joe:            Great point, Allison. So one of the things that’s so important is for me, I honor all the voices. So if there is a voice of skepticism or doubt I really want to honor that. So let me speak to that. So I can understand where to the rational mind there’s plenty of evidence that it isn’t easy.

Allison:       Right.

Joe:            I really recognize that. Now is it possible that there are perspectives or tools that you could find that in fact might? Is it possible that there are tools that might make it easier and even simple? Is that possible?

Allison:       Yes.

Joe:            So can you feel though, and to everybody on the call, you can feel when there is an opening, when there is a willingness. You can feel it. We can all feel it. You can feel it when you are talking to a patient and they say, “Well God, yeah I know I need to have this work done. But you know, God, there is no way I can afford to do it, you know, I mean I’ve got kids, you know blah, blah, blah, blah.” One of your jobs is to help your patients, your clients, find a way to make it work.

When you can speak to them in a way, because you know I honestly believe that there’s always solutions. We just need to open to them. We just haven’t found them. I’ve mediated communications with unions and management. I’ve negotiated many kinds of difficult conversations. Using some of these tools, it’s amazing how solutions literally show up. So you could say to your patient, “You know I understand it seems impossible. I really get that. I’m wondering if we might be able to find a way, you know maybe a payment plan or something, just so you know we can start on this road.”

Allison:       Are you suggesting that we ask ourselves questions like that?

Joe:            Well…

Allison:       Like I know we can do it with each other. Right?

Joe:            Yes, yes.

Allison:       But how do you do it with your own brain?

Joe:            So how do you do it with your own brain? How I do it? Okay, I have a belief now, and I have plenty of evidence to support it, is there’s always a solution, a simple solution.

Allison:       Okay.

Joe:            So now, initially my mind would fight that because I’ve got too much evidence of difficult solutions. I have a family history of difficult solutions. So what happened is, as I became—of course when you are open to the possibility then you know it can happen. So really by asking yourself, “Is there another way of looking at this? Is it possible?” Maybe I don’t know what it is but is it possible there is a simple solution? Now that’s always possible. Then once we get into the realm of possibilities when the rational brain, the logical brain is open, it opens the door to our inspiration and our intuition.

So anyway, I’m going to put out a question. I’m not looking for an answer. I just want everybody on the call to ponder this question. Is it possible that you could get something of tremendous value for you on this call? Is that possible? Now that’s the power of a question. Now let me tell you something. Some of you would get something from this call, some of you will get really valuable stuff. Now just because I asked the question and the way I asked the question totally opened doors and increased that possibility. You can use that question.

Imagine saying to your team, “Okay, is it possible that we could have more joy? Have more flow, better communication, more joy at work? I’m not looking to create work here, more work. I’m looking for simple ways to maybe in how we relay. Do you think that’s possible?” If you can get your team to agree, you have already crossed, I would say, the biggest hurdle because everybody is in a state of openness.

So on the information on the webpage for this call, I mention three things: a strategic, a tactical, and an operational approach. The first one, strategic, is getting your team to buy into a vision. Because let’s face it, a vision is strategic. Vision is big picture. Allison you said, “I want to love my job. I want to go to work, I want to be inspired. I want my people to be happy. I want my patients to be smiling. I want my workplace to be a fun place to be.” Remember that?

Allison:       Uh-huh.

Joe:            That’s when I said, “I want to be your client and I want to be your coach.” Both came to pass. Gosh, I forget, you did all those onlays, all the dental work without any Novocain.

Allison:       I did. [Laughs]

Joe:            What was that like for you?

Allison:       Well, the first time…

[Both speaking at the same time]

Did you want to say something?

Joe:            Well both, yes, say your experience.

Allison:       Well, just for everybody on the line, and whoever’s listening to the recording, Joe has a way of—I don’t know how he did it but he a bunch of big fillings and cracks in his teeth. I mean these are fillings I would not, now we did onlays. So you know if you’re a dentist, I don’t know if Mindy—Mindy is a hygienist.

But anyway, I don’t know if you all realize, I mean you are definitely prepping into dentin when you’re doing this and we did not numb. I don’t think we numbed a single tooth and that was at Joe’s request.

But Joe, I have to say, I mean it cost me some anxiety because I was afraid I was going to hurt you. I really pride myself on not hurting people and I just did not want you to feel anything and I just knew you would. But you proved me wrong. Well if you felt it you were able to, I don’t know, but whatever. It was amazing. It did cause anxiety for me though when you first asked me.

Joe:            Yeah, yeah. Then you got comfortable after a while.

Allison:       Yeah, I think the second appointment I was more—I got more comfortable every time. But I still had that little, like in my stomach, like, “Oh, gosh, I hope he doesn’t feel this.” But you are so calming just to be around anyway, that does help. Your whole energy helped calm me. It’s funny as much as you were trusting me, I was trusting you.

Joe:            Yeah, well I learned that pain is just sensation and it becomes pain when we contract. So I breathe and I did a lot of breathing. And it hurt. I prefer sensation over pain. But it was basically using my right and left brain and just having a dialogue.

I just want to drive the point home that if you believe you can have a joyful fun place to work, it’s possible. If you want to believe but you won’t let yourself, you can want to believe, everybody wants to have fun at work. This doesn’t matter whether you’re a dentist who owns the practice or that you’re an employee at a practice. Whether you’re listening to this call and you work at a supermarket or a corporate office, happiness is an inside job.

Lincoln said a wonderful quote. He said, “People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” I think most people can recognize that when you choose, when you decide, decide means to kill off other options. Like suicide is to kill self, homicide is to kill a human, decide is to kill off options. When you decide that you desire to be happy at work, you enroll the resources of your infinitely resourceful limbic brain. You don’t have to know how to make it. I’m going to give you a few more tools to give your left logical brain some comfort, so it has something to do to bring more happiness.

The biggest truth is human beings and you in your natural state, when you were a kid, I mean happiness is, it’s our natural essence. I mean the reason I bring people to swim with the wild dolphins is because dolphins are the epitome of happiness. They’re having a ball. They mirror that so well for us. So you can decide, you can say, “I give myself permission to have more fun at work.” You don’t have to know how to do it. Just say that every day for a month. I give myself permission to have fun at work. It is your right brain’s job to come up with happiness. The truth is you don’t have to come up with happiness, joy is there. But what it will do is it will make space for you to become more aware of the joy of life.

Allison:       Can I interrupt you for a second?

Joe:            Please.

Allison:       Because I’m sitting here taking notes and I just starting writing all down the side of my page because I didn’t know where it went. But you started to talk about the strategic, the tactical, and the operational. Are we still, I’m sorry, I know, you’ve seen me take my notes, Joe. You know I just can’t help myself. Are you still on the strategic? Are you still talking about the vision and the…?

Joe:            Yes.

Allison:       Okay.

Joe:            Because here is the biggest thing, happiness is an inside job. We think we need the outside world to change. “Well my staff, they’re grumbly and I need to get to new staff.” Or that one person if they could just lighten up everything would be great. No, if you lighten up everything will be great. When you start with you, when we start with ourselves and when we really just make that choice. And these are powerful words. I choose. I choose to be more happier. I’m open to being more happy. I desire to be more happy.

There’s questions about the word want. Just use choose, desire, and I’m open to it. I welcome being more happy. That’s a real left brain solicitation to the right brain. Okay, so that’s the strategic one. Then you can work with your team and say, “Are you guys open to that?” Just you know, maybe an ongoing conversation with your team. In your weekly meeting you can say, “Hey, you know, I just want to revisit that or is anybody…?” There’s lots of things you can do.

Now a tactical approach that you can do with your team is to create a list of best practices. That’s number two, Allison. So strategic, tactical, and operational. A tactical approach is to enroll your team in helping come up with a list of best practices. Now every dental practice has their flow. How intake, you know, how they process at the end, when the patient is going out the door. “Okay, make sure we set up the next appointment, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

When you ask a team to look at any one of those processes and say, “How is it working? Can we fine tune it? Can we optimize it?” When you enroll your team, they have input. When you give your staff creative input, you really welcome their creativity and their essence. Then you can kick it around and come up with solutions and actually write them down. Now, don’t turn them into rules, they’re just guidelines. Creating a list of best practices is a way to enroll your team. It’s also a way to align your team. It’s like a mini vision. It’s very simple, specific things that you come across every day.

So like Mindy, you have practices with how you do. Then what do you do if somebody is seeing Allison first and then how they come into you for hygiene, and visa-versa. Or they’ve come to you for hygiene and then there’s a whole flow where you check in with Allison for Allison to come in and to check their teeth. So we look at these basic flows that happen in the office and we have a dialogue, a back and forth. You really enroll, you invite and you involve your staff in having input.

The gift of that is you’re co-creating. That is a very tactical approach. Any leader, any manager, dental, medical, it does not matter whether you’re service or industry, what you are doing. When we invite our people to help us create a list of best practices, we’re trimming the sails. We are making a tight ship. We’re giving everybody some ownership. When people have ownership, when they input they have ownership. When they have ownership it means things matter. So any questions or comments about that?

Allison:       I have a question. I want to just make sure I’m clear. It’s been a little while since we’ve done this. I know we did this as a team and it was wonderful. I’m trying to remember if you’re specifically talking about systems. I mean if a consultant came in to our practices, sometimes that’s the word that they use but I like best practices better, I’m just trying to clarify what all does that include, when you talk about best practices?

Joe:            So that could be systems, such as how to process patients. I mean it very definitely is that.

Allison:       Okay.

Joe:            It’s procedural and it is also relationship.

Allison:       Okay, that’s what I thought. That’s what I was trying to get from what you were saying. Okay.

Joe:            Both.

Allison:       Okay.

Joe:            Now I basically work with people who are relationship. They run their organizations or their teams and they’re relationship-oriented. Because for me, otherwise it’s hard work. And you’re not really capturing people’s spirit, their essence, their creativity. I’ve worked with plenty of companies where it’s really, they don’t have that.  I’m not necessarily interested anymore in teaching people how to do that. I’m interested in people who already know how to do that and want to go to the next level.

Allison:       Okay.

Joe:            I realize I’m speaking to a limited audience. Now the third thing is ongoing, it’s operational. To me this is the goal. This is the low hanging fruit. It is using the tool of specific appreciation. I’ve worked with lots of people in lots of different settings. I wish I had learned this when I was younger. The power of acknowledging what is working so outweighs focusing on what’s not. Now if somebody is doing something terrible, if somebody’s costing lots of money or providing sub-standard care, course we always address that.

When it comes to managing, leading, inspiring our people, even to include our own quality of life. When we look for and then verbally acknowledge what is working in our workplace and at home and in all our relationships. All right? This is not just about work; this is all your relationships. If you choose to play with specific appreciation of people, you’re going to find gold.

Now let me be specific here, let me give you a little more clarity around what I mean by appreciation. I’m speaking about appreciation separate from gratitude. Gratitude is another conversation. Gratitude speaks about, “I’m grateful for this, I’m grateful for that.” I’m going to ask you just to play with the word appreciation because when you used the word appreciation you’re actually speaking a right brain language. Your right brain can understand it. The right brain struggles with gratitude. Gratitude is a left brain language. Appreciation is right brain because appreciation is all about what is.

So I’m going to appreciate Allison. Allison, you’re a wonderful dentist, you’re a generous person, and you really care a lot about the industry and want to advance the industry for everybody. Now those are great and they’re very general. Most people when they appreciate we tend to be very general. Now our left logical brain, we’ve been bullshitted enough in our lives and we know we tend to be skeptical. So if somebody says something great about us the logical brain, the ego, often blocks it. Or goes, “Yeah but, yeah but, yeah but.”

Allison:       Yeah and I did that when you started talking. It felt…

Joe:            Go ahead.

Allison:       I did that [laughs]. When you just gave me that compliment, I automatically blocked it. Then I stopped and “Oh, okay he’s right, yeah, okay.”

Joe:            That’s beautiful, Allison. Allison, okay so now I’m going to nail you with appreciation. And listen everybody on the call, you know, boy, for me this is the gem. When we make our appreciation specific, when it is sensory specific, something that you can see or hear or feel, the logical brain cannot refute it. It goes in. So you can take somebody with zero self-esteem and no matter what you say they’ll like, “Yeah, you’re full of crap. Yeah, you’re full of crap.” They can’t let it in. When you appreciate them specifically for something observable, it goes in.

So now Allison, I said all these great platitudes so now I’m going to give examples. In a normal course of conversation when I appreciate somebody I might speak general and then I nail them with something specific. Allison, I think you know you really desire to not only provide the best level of dental service, you also desire to advance the industry.

For example, you continue to study and monitor many different leading-edge practices and you have begun your own in a desire to share tools and share knowledge and information that you see are of value. Allison, you are so willing to be authentic and be real. To really to be true to yourself and to make whatever you learn practical that you’re honest, you’ll say what most people are afraid to say. You’re willing to use yourself for examples, as you just did two minutes ago.

Allison:       You all see why I wanted Joe on this call? I just needed some appreciation. I’m way past due, Joe. [Laughs]

Joe:            Yep.

Allison:       I’m just kidding. Oh, I forgot yeah, that’s nice.

Joe:            Well you know, Allison, I appreciate that. I mean I look at your call and the work we’ve done. So one of the things Allison did was she provided coaching for her staff and she also said to her staff, “In these coaching calls, I want you to focus on issues at work. And if you have issues at home that are upsetting and interfering with your workplace, I give you full support to use your coaching sessions to help get clarity on those issues.”

Allison:       Yep.

Joe:            Now what do you think her staff’s response was? Total appreciation. The truth is we can’t separate. I mean, our logical left brain can separate. I’ve got to keep this over here because this is home and I’m at work. The logical brain can understand the separation. It’s like the logical brain can understand demarcations, lines, you know, you’re in one state, I’m in another state. But to the right brain we’re all in this together in the present moment. It doesn’t really get that.

So when you can catch your people or your loved ones, I mean, I with my girlfriend every night say several things that I appreciate. Now let me share, when you appreciate somebody, it doesn’t have to be huge, gargantuan. In fact, the simplest things are often the most powerful. So I said to my girlfriend, let me think, okay so I went over briefly she lives next door and she invited me over for dinner. She knew I had to be back for this call.

I went over and she was making dinner and she made it so I could, basically I ate and ran. And I did literally run back. I’ll say to her, “Thank you for, you knew I was on a tight time frame and you made dinner for me and I really appreciate it so I got to come back and go right into my call.” Now that’s something, some people that happens four nights, five nights a week. Somebody you love is making dinner for you.

Allison:       Joe, can you speak to, I don’t know if anybody else has this question. But if you’ll remember, it’s fun because I’m hearing this again and it’s reminding me of some things. But one of the things I probably had a question about then and I’m thinking now some people might have a question that if you’re not in the habit of noticing those things, I think it was somewhat easy for me to do general appreciation, I don’t even know if I could say that but it was much easier for me to see what wasn’t working.

Joe:            Sure.

Allison:       And do you have any tools for training yourself to start noticing more of the things that are working? Is it just, you know, it’s almost this tool that you gave us. Like just beginning to either make a demand or ask yourself the question, “What am I noticing that’s working?” Or do you have any other tools?

Joe:            Yes.

Allison:       Okay.

Joe:            Two. Great question. Being self-responsible, now I did it. I made a huge shift. When I saw the difference of that when my son was three and I saw the difference about speaking in nots. If I said, “Don’t spill the milk or don’t pick your nose.” I realized that I’ve got him thinking about doing all these things I didn’t want him to do. That inspired me to be very focused.

My love for my son inspired me to learn even more than for myself. So it’s finding a hook, finding a reason to do it. When you’re clear, when you make a commitment, and that’s also the gift of a team is there’s sometimes when my girlfriend will say, she’ll say, “I love to do appreciations before I go to sleep.” Sometimes I forget and she’ll say, “You know what I appreciate about you?” She’ll start it.

Allison:       Aw.

Joe:            So the beauty of in a relationship, in a family, in the workplace, in your team meeting, one of the things that I do on all my retreats is that we go around and appreciate each other. Basically, I coach people in how to give appreciation because there are a few simple tools, steps. I don’t have enough time for it tonight.

It is look at the person, say their name, and then say something. The one critical piece is you say something observable. You don’t say, “Thanks for the delicious meal.” You say, “I loved how you added the sesame to the chicken and cooked it in butter.” See because when somebody says, “Yeah everybody tells me it’s delicious.” Or you know, “You’re just blowing smoke at me.” But when you make it specific you’re saying that you noticed.

Allison:       Right.

Joe:            So that’s the magic. So you can say to your team, “Team, I want to create more appreciation in our practice. So you can ask me for appreciation. So what do you appreciate about me today? Anytime you feel you need appreciation come and ask me.” Now the fear is we’re not going to be able to think of something. Of course, it is like when you’re afraid of forgetting somebody’s name, you end up thinking about—that’s a total left brain thing. You’re afraid you’re not going to remember. So you’re focused on that instead of the person’s name. Your right brain has never forgotten a single name. You’re just blocked from hearing it. As you get practice with giving appreciation it flows. It flows, it flows, it flows.

Allison:       Yeah, I can see that. It’s like your heart just knows what to say.

Joe:            Well it’s there, yeah, it’s there. I mean, I love it. If I find myself I’m overwhelmed, I’m stressed, I’m rah, rah, rah, you know, dealing with something. My God, I’ll just pull back. And first of all, I remember one time I worked with a group of yacht brokers. These people deal in multimillion dollar yachts and this was a few years ago and the industry was tight in yachts. We created this bitch list, pardon my language, this rant of everything that was crappy about the environment. Then we turned around, of course, we looked at them, and I said, “How else can we look at these?” They’re like, “Ugh.”

So I helped them see the first two or three, I helped them turn around and see it in another way. Then they finished the list. They took every one of them and saw a positive in it. A positive in each of them. Now the energy before I did that was low. The energy when we were done was high. People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. Keep it simple. It’s fun. Your limbic will bring you infinite resources.

Allison:       So when you’re stressed and you pull back, is that what you do? You make a list of what you think is crappy and then you reframe it?

Joe:            No, what I do is, first of all, I remember there is always another way of looking at it. I say, “There is always another way of looking at this.” And actually what I do is, I take a deep breath. I put a smile on my face. I tell everybody, just smile right now, okay? The actual, physiological response to a smile is instant. Endorphins start to flow instantly. So I’ll take a breath, I’ll smile, and I’ll look at my problem another way. I might just say how blessed I am that I’ve got a problem. You know, I’m above ground. I could be dead. How blessed I am to have these issues.

There’s infinite ways that I use to shift. It’s all a matter of perspective. Let’s say I’ve dealt with a person who’s been really hostile and who knows, maybe you know somebody yelled at them so they yell at me. So if I have to even take a walk, I’ll physically change the space. I’ll just start noticing beauty. I’ll just find something and I’ll just bring it around. I just bring it around. Sooner or later, you know all of these things are issues, sooner or later they’re not. I just learned how to consciously do it in the moment.

Allison:       Cool, yeah I do think the ongoing conversation is helpful. We only have seven minutes left. Joe, if you want to it might be helpful, Joe, like you said he did some coaching with me and my team and we did some retreats with him. The coaching is what he is offering a special price on. If anybody is interested, he is going to offer for two people almost $500.00 off his coaching. Joe, do you want to tell them what you’re doing for us?

Joe:            Sure, yes. What I am basically looking for—I love, I do a number of different things. I really enjoy working with a team with a leader that’s committed to developing their team. With a leader who’s already relationship-oriented, that is savvy about developing their team. And to help them go further, go the next step. Often that includes off-sites and whatnot. One of the ways I begin that process is with coaching. So I’ve done lots of executive coaching for the past thirty years. I started, literally thirty years ago in Boston with a number of great institutions in city of Boston.

What I do now is I have an intro-coaching package and it’s five sessions. It’s normally $1495 which is about $300 per session. It’s five hours of coaching. It’s a five-hour series and in that time, we have this conversation, it’s usually one hour a week. At the end of the five weeks, you’ve already got changes happening in your practice. What I’m doing is I’m offering a discount to two people who send an email. The discount, it’s $997 for the five coaching sessions. So it’s a $500.00, I think…

Allison:       It’s really close to $500.00. Yeah, because that’s almost $200.00 a session.

Joe:            It’s basically a third off. It’s the cheapest I ever do it. If you want to get your feet wet, if you want to see, I mean actually, if you already know that this resonates with you, this process, and that you can gain value from it, then send me an email at Joe@PlanetaryPartners.com. We have a TinyURL, so look at the webpage.

Allison:       Oh yeah, I can forward that to them.

Joe:            Great, yeah, its TinyURL.com/yescoaching. So TinyURL, it’s a popular domain, TinyURL.com/yescoaching. It will take you to a page, it’s a very simple page. Yeah, I’m offering it to a couple people that listened either on the call tonight or listened to the recording. Yeah, I guarantee that you will love the coaching and what would you say about the coaching, Allison? For you and the feedback you got from your team?

Allison:       Oh, I would say, what I noticed was we were listening to each other better and our patients better. I think it really helped us with our trust levels. Honestly, I think it helped my staff. I definitely notice a difference at work but I hear them every day almost. Like the other day, Lisa said something about something she had talked to you about that had something to do with her marriage. Honest, I can’t remember if she was crediting, I don’t want to say that she said you saved her marriage but I remember thinking, “What? You never told me that before.” So I just I know it was transformational.

I believe Mindy, Mindy that’s on the call, saw some big changes. I don’t know that I can speak. I just know that our practice transformed when we were working with you. There was just a higher level of responsibility, a higher level of engagement, we were definitely having more fun and it just raised the level of communication and everything. We did it for so long though that I—it’s hard for me to say what happened because of what. Like I don’t know if it was all because of coaching or because of when you came to the…

Joe:            Right, we did the off-sites too, yeah.

Allison:       Yeah, but it was great. So if anybody is interested I can forward you guys his email address and I’ll probably just put it in the link for the replays.

Joe:            Great, great.

Allison:       Is there anything else, Joe, you want to say before we start to close down or anything? Did we leave anything out?

Joe:            Just that any one of the things that resonated with you, to anybody listening to the call, something resonated. If you’ve made it this far, something resonated. It’s just play with it. Use it, try it. Because I can say for my own life experience that these tools, you know it’s very easy for the mind to say, “Oh my god, that’s too simple.” The truth is life is that simple. It’s only the mind that’s complicated.

Allison:       Yep.

Joe:  When we allow it, when we really recognize that and really allow it to be simple, these tools are simple by design. They will serve you and they will increase. They will bring more joy into your life. They will help you become more aware of the joy that you already have and they will help you bring more joy into the lives of those that you work with and those that you love.

Thanks for listening to Practicing with the Masters for dentists, with your host, Dr. Allison Watts. For more about how Allison Watts and Transformational Practices can help you create a successful and fulfilling practice and life, visit transformationalpractices.com.