Episode #459: Whose Mindset Needs to Change First?, with Dr. Gary DeWood

You spend time trying to change your patients’ minds. But it’s not their mindset that needs to change first — it’s yours! And to help you in that process, Kirk Behrendt brings back Dr. Gary DeWood, Executive Vice President of Spear Education, with some tools to change your thinking. When your mind is open, your possibilities are open! To learn how to think differently so you can help your patients think differently, listen to Episode 459 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

• Your thoughts can shape the world.
• Everyone reserves the right to change their minds.
• Change your mindset first to change your patients’ minds.
• To get people to think differently, talk about things differently.
• Use verbal skills to make a value statement about your practice.

Quotes:

• “I have never thought of myself as being that smart. And I realize that to a lot of people — people tell me, ‘You're smarter than you think.’ And I say, ‘Well, that's a good thing. I hope I spend the rest of my life feeling that way.’ Because as soon as I think the other way, I promise you I'm not going to be willing to listen to things. And everything I got, I got from somebody.” (4:31—4:53)
• “You want to be a better dentist? Go and be a patient. Sit down and be a patient. And tell the dentist you go to, ‘I'm here because I trust you, and I want to be a patient. And that's how I want the interaction to be.’ It will change everything you do if you do that.” (9:16—9:31)
• “If you want to change how people think about something, one of the easiest ways to begin that process is to talk about it differently.” (13:07—13:13)
• “Here’s the difference between a significant and insignificant problem. No human being will ever claim a problem is significant unless they're looking for a solution. They won't. I promise you that.” (16:13—16:22)
• “One of [Dr. Dawson’s] most profound statements ever, for those of you who have never heard it, ‘If you quote me, date me.’ What did he just say? I reserve the right to change my mind about anything I tell you that I believe today, because I am open to hearing what everybody else is experiencing.” (27:49—28:03)
• “Someone who has a significant dental issue that they claim is always open to the possibility that there might be things they don't know about yet because they have something going on already. There may be things they're not aware of. I don't have to climb the hill to go over to the other side like I do with people who believe they're healthy.” (29:21—29:39)
• “I also found there was no correlation to the amount of time since the patient has been to see a dentist and what they believe about themselves — zero. There was none. I couldn't correlate that at all. People who hadn't been to a dentist for 25 years often still thought they were healthy. In fact, the same percentage, I found it was probably like 95% of patients, called our office and believed they were healthy.” (30:12—30:34)
• “Your thoughts shape your world.” (33:06—33:09)
• “My favorite line out of [As a Man Thinketh] is that you will rise to the heights of your highest aspiration, and you will sink to the lows of your basest thought. You create what happens by what you believe.” (33:10—33:24)
• “If you want to change the minds of the people who come to your practice about dental benefit plans, which is one I hear all the time, whose minds have to change first? It ain't them. It’s us.” (34:10—34:21)
• “Here’s the important thing to remember. Was your decision to be in the PPO a clinical excellence decision or a business decision? It’s never a clinical excellence decision.” (34:35—34:47)
• “You want to change your patients’ mindsets around dental hygiene? Please stop saying the word, “cleaning”, will you? Please stop saying that. It’s a totally demeaning word. In fact, this was the schtick that we came up with over the years. Whenever anybody would say, ‘I need to get my teeth cleaned,’ everybody in the office had this knee-jerk response, ‘Well, cleaning is what you do every day at home.’” (48:50—49:10)
• “Whenever somebody says, ‘What should I do?’ you need to escape that noose, because they just put a noose around your neck. They just made you totally responsible for anything that you recommend. I don't want to be responsible for what I recommend, other than in making it happen. I don't want to be responsible for whether or not they do it, which is what they did if they say, ‘What should I do?’ They just gave me all the power. I hate that power. I don't want that power.” (54:42—55:02)
• “I'm never going to say what you should do. I refuse to be responsible for what you should do . . . I would love to talk about what you could do.” (58:07—58:15)

Snippets:

• 0:00 Introduction.
• 2:34 Dr. DeWood’s background.
• 11:48 Why mindset is an important topic.
• 16:26 The right time is when a person is ready.
• 17:59 Two people who changed Dr. DeWood’s life.
• 29:14 The difference between the two types of patients.
• 32:23 Books to condition your thinking.
• 34:23 How to think about and talk about benefit plans.
• 47:25 Use your verbal skills to change your patients’ mindsets.
• 50:04 Last thoughts and facially generated treatment plans.

Reach Out to Dr. DeWood:

Dr. DeWood’s email: [email protected] 

Dr. DeWood’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drdewood

Dr. DeWood’s social media: @garydewood

Resources:

Spear Education website: https://www.speareducation.com/

Dr. DeWood’s course, Facially Generated Treatment Planning, at Spear Education: https://campus.speareducation.com/workshops/facially-generated-treatment-planning/details/syllabus/

The Possibility Principle by Mel Schwartz: https://bookshop.org/books/the-possibility-principle-how-quantum-physics-can-improve-the-way-you-think-live-and-love-9781622038633/9781622038633

The Kybalion: https://bookshop.org/books/the-kybalion-centenary-edition/9780143131687

As a Man Thinketh by James Allen: https://bookshop.org/books/as-a-man-thinketh-9780929896007/9780929896007

Dr. Gary DeWood Bio:

Dr. Gary DeWood is the Executive Vice President of Spear Education. As one of the founding members of Spear, he directed Curriculum and Clinical Education for nearly a decade prior to joining in the launch of Spear Practice Solutions. Today, he splits time between teaching and consulting.

Dr. DeWood serves as an instructor in multiple Spear Workshops, including Facially Generated Treatment Planning, Occlusion in Clinical Practice, Advanced Occlusion, Sleep Medicine in the Dental Practice, and a special focus workshop on temporomandibular disorder. He also maintains a limited private practice on the Spear Campus in Scottsdale, Arizona, and lectures nationally and internationally on practice management, treatment planning, case management, case acceptance, TMD diagnosis, appliance therapy, occlusion, and esthetics.

Prior to his contributions at Spear, Dr. DeWood maintained a private restorative general practice with his wife and fellow Spear Resident Faculty member, Dr. Cheryl DeWood, in Pemberville, Ohio, before dedicating most of his time to teaching full-time. With 40 years in general dentistry, he provides a unique perspective to the application of the dental principles taught at Spear. He has spent years focused on diagnosing and treating functional occlusal problems and TMD, and as part of that focus completed the craniofacial pain mini residency at the University of Florida College of Dentistry in the early 1990s.

Dr. DeWood served as clinical director at The Pankey Institute from 2003 to 2008. He has held appointments as associate professor at the University of Tennessee College of Dentistry and assistant professor at the University of Toledo College of Medicine. He earned his D.D.S. from Case Western Reserve University in 1980, and an M.S. degree in biomedical sciences from the University of Toledo College of Medicine in 2004.