We do this all, sometimes, within a fleeting hour. And every crown we fashion brings us face to face with our most formidable critic: ourselves. This unyielding quest for perfection, cultivated through our academic and professional journeys, often leads to an overlooked truth: imperfection is an inherent aspect of our human condition. The relentless drive for an unattainable ideal not only takes a toll on us physically, as we hunch over in painstaking diligence but also emotionally, marred by self-criticism and a lack of self-acceptance. As busy as we are chasing the perfection that will never come, we might have overlooked the fact that amidst this struggle lies a profound opportunity for redefinition and growth.

By acknowledging our own human nature, the sense that we are perfectly imperfect, we could be liberating ourselves from the shackles of faulty expectations. Accepting this could lead us to cultivating a healthier relationship with our craft—one that embraces improvement over the illusory goal of perfection. This realization could mark the beginning of a more fulfilling professional journey settled with peace and satisfaction; a new journey stemming from a clarity that striving for excellence and striving for perfection are two very distinct paths.

THE EARLY YEARS

The initial chapters of this unfolding narrative often begin in the youthful corridors of academia, where, driven to attain the most opportunities, we compete with our contemporaries. We find allure in high scores and esteem ourselves in the percentiles of students below us. These numbers and accolades ignite a competitive streak in us, attaching our intrinsic self-worth to grades and rankings. This early calibration of self-esteem to external validation becomes a deeply anchored blueprint for us. It dangerously develops toward an addiction of sorts, driving us to chase at full speed, at whatever cost, toward academic and professional triumphs.

Far too much is stacked on our plates; rest and sleep take a backseat. Aimless wandering and even a faint air of boredom, which has been proven to ignite creativity, endanger our future. And we feel as if our perseverance, one that leads to sleep deprivation and exhaustion, has been all worth it when we open the letter of acceptance into our chosen dental school. Here, though varying distinctly today, with the comparison of decades prior, the harsh tones of our attending dentists make self-doubt the soundtrack of our lives. As we further develop into clinical practice past graduation, we come across experts whose work leaves us in awe. We are in awe of what others create but crumble at our lack of replication within our operatories.

We imagine, uncorrected, that since one photo is displayed as the conclusion, the work of art must have been concluded in a single sitting, a single appointment. And many educators do not over-disclose to correct that. The glamour it carries sustains them as experts, and it is much of what they have worked for. The draw of the audience is the return on their hard work. We return to our clinical practice, expecting the very same results on the very next day. And that furthers the soundtrack of our self-doubt. I had lived much of my two-decade career in this falsehood. Until one kind, one brave educator, who had displayed his cherished case, shattered that notion.

The lecturer disclosed that the case he’d just put up on screen for us to admire did not take a single appointment to complete, nor a single appointment with the laboratory in matching the shade. To gain his ideal, uniform and balanced, barely distinguishable single tooth anterior restoration, it took seven tries. Seven. The audience gasped, myself among them. The lecturer may have shattered the intrigue with which he may have initially presented but gave us all a gift in the end. A gift of self-acceptance and a hope that our clinical work may not be so far behind his. It is with the help of the mentioned educator that we can finally venture into practice and toward life, full life, with a beautifully stark realization drawing upon us: perfection is unattainable, but excellence is. Excellence is not the sum of perfect outcomes but rather a state.

Excellence is a presence filled with perseverance, learning, and an unwavering commitment to our patients’ well-being. The experience with said educator is something we might call a sliding door experience, one where our life and knowledge are in stark display of the before and after. I wish both you and myself many of these experiences in our dental careers, understanding fully that the changes these experiences bring about are heavy and take quite an effort to unpack.

FROM PERFECTION TO EXCELLENCE

To navigate this profound transition, we must extend towards us the grace of forgiveness for our imperfections, recognizing that they do not diminish our capabilities but rather illuminate the path for continual growth and learning. It is also of utmost importance to realize that our lack of pursuing perfection does not equal sloppy, substandard, cheap, fast, and clinically unacceptable outcomes. Life will be a future full of sliding door experiences and endless possibilities, especially as we come to recognize that the incessant pursuit of perfection we so often chase is not just daunting and exhausting; it doesn’t exist. There is no place in this world, in the real world for perfection.

Accepting excellence on its very own behalf is the best way that we can find alignment with our authentic selves. And then, pursuing excellence is our opportunity to leave behind the soundtrack of self-doubt. Pursuing excellence is what will allow us to foster humanity, shared humanity. This humanity will transcend the confines of the dental chair and will connect us deeper to the people we serve. Our gift to them will not be a perfect restoration at the expense of our own self-worth. It will be an homage to honoring them as patients in need of healing and ourselves as a multidimensional human. Perfection, the notion that we must walk away from, has very little to do with the procedure, with the patient or with their healing.

Perfection is simply a way we have of judging ourselves. Perfection is about us, not about them. But when we chose to become healers of people, when we chose to become the physicians of the masticatory system, we chose to do it for them, and we chose to do it ‘to help people.’ Excellence is far more about how the outcome affects the patient and less about how it strips us of esteem or self-worth. This narrative of transformation, though rooted in the specificity of dentistry, echoes a universal chorus of self-discovery and resilience—reminding us that in the delicate dance of imperfection lies the beauty of all that humanity represents.

A CASE STUDY

It is not easy to blazingly attack a concept of attaining perfection, or the source of our self-worth, without a roadmap of how to detour it. Though I wish I were a master at this, I am still in my very early years of evolution. After all, even as I near my 50s, I’d spent far more time chasing unattainable perfectionism, than I have growing past it. With each day and each experience, however, I create new neuropathways to replace the magnetic hold perfectionism holds over me. My journey has involved a significant amount of reflection, yes, understanding, also…but what’s helped the most is recognizing how often I’d attached my self-worth to perfectionism. Having recognized and named those instances, I would be given an opportunity to reframe my point of reference. For example, as a general dentist, I have always loved endodontics. Currently, at least half of my day is spent diagnosing pulp disease, interpreting CBCTs, and performing root canal therapy. I have spent a significant amount of my continuing education hours dedicated to endodontics. There are days that, despite my best efforts, utilizing the proper disinfection and sealing techniques, my endodontic fill might not look ideal enough to grace the pages of a textbook. Not every fill has a puff of sealant past the apex.

Take a look at this case. After gathering diagnostic data, I was able to find that the lower bicuspid had two canals. Under magnification, I was able to locate the additional canal. The working length x-ray looked like the files were dancing, which made me ‘oh so happy’—yes, I attached self-worth here. I was able to clean and shape under a rubber dam and was able to fill the canals. But as the final x-ray appeared on the screen, so did a frown on my face. I didn’t see a puff of sealant at the apex, and I saw an air bubble where the GP could have been condensed more ideally. But I caught myself here. When my knee-jerk reflex was to reduce my self-worth on account of this, I recognized it; I slowed down and told myself: “You are attempting to gain self-worth from the way the fill presents radiographically. You have performed the procedure to the highest standard of care. You have taken care of your patient. You have healed an infection. You have attained excellence.” And yes, the self-talk is kind of silly; you don’t have to speak those words out loud. But doing this exercise day in and day out really does change the narrative; it changes perspective, and in time it leads to a lighter, more joyful existence.

I cannot tell you how difficult it is for me to disclose this case and show my results. This is NOT my best work. I fear being judged as an unworthy practitioner. Unworthy of the platform within which I am presenting. Maybe these were also the fears that our colleague and educator mentioned above felt when he first disclosed his seven tries to excellence. I am showing you my imperfect work, knowing there will be sharp comments sent my way, which will be inevitable considering our current societal currents. Vulnerable, anxious, and nervous, I am showing you my imperfect work so that you can gain acceptance for yours: imperfect but excellent.

ONWARD…

Wherever you are on your journey as a dental professional, I encourage you to take a deep breath and release the weight of your pre-programmed, decades-reinforced, carried perfection. Embrace your imperfections with self-compassion, humility, and understanding. Leave behind the endless journey that began in the youthful corridors of academia. Remember that your work, even with our craft’s technical nature, is a reflection of your humanity, not a measure of your worth. Embrace yourself and your work as perfectly imperfect, with steadfast dedication, and not as the unachievable absolutes we have been conditioned to chase. Unveil a reality where you gain ground, moving from self-criticism to grace and self-compassion. A reality with more fulfillment, more purpose, passion, and more gift to those in your care.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Maggie Augustyn is a practicing general dentist, the owner of Happy Tooth, a faculty member at Productive Dentist Academy, an author, and an inspirational speaker. She obtained her Doctorate of Dental Surgery from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Augustyn is passionate about reading, researching, writing, and speaking on topics that encompass the human experience, including our struggles, pain, and moments of vitality.

Maggie Augustyn, DDS, FAAIP, FICOI

Her personal mission is to inspire individuals to embark on a journey toward a more authentic self-actualization. She has a notable presence in the media and is a frequent contributor to Dental Entrepreneur Woman. Dr. Augustyn takes great pride in her role as a contributing author to Dentistry Today, where she publishes a column titled “Mindful Moments.”

She has also been featured on various podcasts and is a sought-after national speaker, emphasizing the significance of authenticity and self-discovery.

For almost my entire life, I believed that the manner in which people perceived her influenced their perception of me. When we both walked into the room together, she’d immediately be engaged in lively conversation; I, on the other hand, would self-instruct to usher myself into the corner. Somebody did ‘put Baby in the corner,’ and it was me. Thus, we hardly spend any time together in social situations, unless, of course, it involved family. Our social lives have evolved in entirely different directions. Add to that the fact that I am a terrible introvert and homebody; the distinction in our social media presentations is a stark contrast.

Self-prisoned in a belief that pretty girls had it easier in life, had a better life (per photos I compared myself against), and got more attention led me into a certain kind of distaste, a certain kind of separation in the future relationships I’d form. I was eternally intimidated by pretty girls and would never allow myself to stand next to one. I was conscious of every detail of my body despite my small frame. I still am increasingly aware of every contour and shadow on my physique, perhaps revealing traces of body dysmorphia. This heightened self-scrutiny often feels like a whispering echo of my sister’s perceived perfection, casting a long shadow over my own self-image. Tall, fit, beautiful blond women in my proximity have made me feel less than for as long as I can remember. In my unfair projection of the insecurities I’d carried from my childhood, I reeled myself as far away as possible from them.

When I had first learned of Emily (her name to be withheld to preserve anonymity¹), it was in a group text thread with the coolest docs I know. I was led to believe that her aura of a distinguished speaker held the power to transform the atmosphere of any room. As an emerging speaker myself, wanting to learn from the best, I googled her name. An image of a free-spirited, kindly smiling young woman came up. She looked to have lived lightly and joyfully. It seemed she also taught others how to do so. I caught myself meticulously examining the details of her speaking packet, quietly contemplating if time might eventually shape my own marketing materials to closely resemble hers.

As ‘luck’ would have it, shortly after my semi-stalking, Emily was hosting a webinar about increasing self-confidence through personal alignment. I watched the webinar on my way to a ketamine infusion with my husband as the designated driver. The lecture played on my phone loud enough for my husband to listen in. “This girl is kind of like you,” he said. “Like me?” I scoffed. I thought: tall, pretty, blond, young, accomplished; that’s far from how I presented to the world.

It was, however, exactly how my sister had. I became enveloped in those same insecurities I held as a young woman. I undermined my own talents and eroded the credibility I had worked to build, convinced that any organizer would inevitably favor Emily for the spotlight should they be presented with the choice between us. This belief led me into a labyrinth of shadows, a path paved with comparisons drawn solely from our differences in appearance. In this cycle of self-doubt, I diminished the hard-earned respect and recognition Emily had garnered. My mind kept circling with no end: she was pretty, and I was not, and to top it off, I was old.

At almost 50 years old, I found myself laying the foundation of my speaking enterprise, a venture young Emily had masterfully commercialized. A cloak of envy, interwoven with threads of unresolved sentiments, draped heavily upon my shoulders. This introspective revelation invited somber contemplation of the intricate barriers I had constructed within myself, barriers that not only obscured my own potential but also shadowed the richness of hers. A moment arrived, a few months later, that I was to truly meet Emily. I purposefully worked hard to broaden both my mind and heart to see her for who she was—a person beyond the allure. I was determined not to allow the burdens of my past to obscure a potential connection.

Our paths met at a workshop late in 2023. Emily approached me, her arms open in an unreserved gesture of kinship. She knew my name, knew who I was, and wanted more. I immediately felt a union with her. Something completely unexpected and truthfully, rather unexplainable, happened. I was taken by a sensation of genuine connection and collaborative spirit with her. It was deeper than the words I use to describe it. She wasn’t ever going to be my competition. We were fighting the same battle, to bring people, to bring women, self-compassion and show them how to live a life filled with joy. This might have been the first time I had sincerely looked at another woman in my space and prayed for her success to be as great, if not greater, than the success I prayed for myself. I felt sisterhood. True, deep, past-lifetime kind of sisterhood. And as I prayed for her success, I was equally overwhelmed by remorse for the labels I had inadvertently placed upon her prior.

Once I had gotten to know Emily, I bravely told her about the gymnastics of my mind: getting past my shameful ‘prettiest girl in the room’ mentality. I think a part of me wanted forgiveness for the dysfunctional and unfair portrayal of her I’d created. I hadn’t realized how much I wanted to know what it would feel like to be ‘the prettiest girl in the room.’ She was genuinely transparent and vulnerable in her answer. She gave me examples of how people mislabel her, not unlike I did; how people assume she’s the assistant or notetaker in a meeting and not the powerhouse driving change. She told me that often men insinuate or bluntly admit their lust for her, even proposition her, assuming she’d follow suit. She shared that some even assume her to have gotten to a place of success as a result of a sexual exchange that might have taken place between her and a man at a higher standing. The prettiest girl in the room didn’t make her gifts sound like endless advantages, many of them seemed like anchors weighing her down.

Emily continued and vulnerably shared her story of being married to an abusive man. She unraveled the details of the day she drove, face and body black and blue, to the house of her future mother-in-law, to be “put back together.” She avoided the hospital, speeding past the oncoming police cars, as to not create drama and another incident report. Her future mother-in-law, attending to her bruises, advised her to ‘suck it up,’ as this was the life of a woman.

Imagine the deep unease of standing on the brink of a commitment, one that promises to trap her in a role filled with undeserved, tangible hardship, rather than the love and joy. And all this without even a hint of opposition or protection from those who should have been her safe haven. For Emily, this was the turning point, this was the breaking point, her rock bottom. This was the moment she decided she was going to leave her husband and free herself from the abuse. That might have been a moment that propelled her to understand that what each of us faces is fraught with challenges; to understand what we need to move forward past them.

That might have been the very moment that made her into the incredibly effective life coach she is today. I had asked Emily about what kept her with a man who disrespected her so. It was in her formative years that she felt invisible, unworthy of anything good, of anyone’s love and that has put her in the line of fire, to be taken advantage of. In those early years, Emily and her family dealt with their own set of unacceptable behaviors as displayed by her father. She had to stay still and quiet, keeping from being noticed, because being noticed meant being hurt. Her father, who would eventually be divorced by her mother, a feat more difficult than words can describe for a battered woman to accomplish.

Toward the end of his life, her father grew with strength and courage to change. He later ended up by her side, as she herself healed from bruises. A man, who up to his passing, was her greatest cheerleader. A man who carried the weight of his demons, one whom she loves deeply and has forgiven.

I have watched Emily speak this year at another program. Yes, she is tall, blond, and pretty. But it’s a shame to simply define her as only that. She is incredibly kind and gentle. She holds the most loving and feminine energy as she speaks, urging us to act with our hearts. Her voice is soothing and understanding, the intonation ideal for the calm with which she communicates. She finishes her talks exuding excitement about the future; her smile communicates the happiness with which she rests in her newly settled life. She is an architect of change. Her successes are even more vast if you consider that she has made it all the way to the decision table in our dental industry, stating that she didn’t even have a bachelor’s degree. Though once people read that part in her biography, they tend not to be able to get over it, and somehow allow that to rob her of the authority she deserves.

I wish I could say that I have finally navigated the darkness of my own doubts to discover the light of understanding and self-acceptance. I wish I could tell you that I’m no longer taken over by fleeting insecurity when standing near my sister. It isn’t quite that simple. My story is still constrained by envy and comparison, like any human, but at least I can see it’s possible for it to evolve into a narrative celebrating personal growth and the essence of true connection. Meeting Emily was a gift, a lesson. It was a gentle reminder that the strongest connections stem not from superficial achievements or appearances but from a deep, mutual recognition of our humanity and shared vulnerabilities.

Our relationship, initially marred by misjudgments and misunderstandings, transformed into a symbol of sisterhood. This shift—from seeing her as a rival to valuing her as a cherished companion in our mutual quest for empowerment—marked the beginning of what I hope to be a profound change in me. It deepened my respect for Emily’s strength and spirit and also prompted a crucial reassessment of how inaccurately we view and judge both others and ourselves. This experience reaffirmed the vital truth that our most meaningful struggles are not against each other, but together, against the common challenges that obscure our collective brilliance.

This story stands not just as the conclusion of a personal journey but as a lasting symbol of hope for unity, mutual support, and our endless capacity for transformation.

EMAIL

Deep breath…

Here is what I have been waiting to tell you…

Your name has come up in multiple conversations and text threads, all great things, of course. When I saw that you had a webinar not too long ago, I signed up to listen to it. In fact, my husband and I listened to it on the way to my getting Ketamine. I couldn’t listen to the whole thing, though, because my appointment started…

I loved all that you were saying, and the dysfunctional human that I am, these thoughts came to my head: “Man, she’s brave. She’s young. She’s pretty. She’s come so far. How can I ever compare? I’m old. Who would pick me to speak at an event if they had the choice to hire Emily?” In those moments, I looked at you as my competition. And I’m ASHAMED of that, but I want to be forthcoming and honest.

And I want to tell you this because the MOMENT I MET YOU, it all changed. I felt even more ASHAMED. Because the moment I met you, we weren’t competitors. WE WERE COLLABORATORS. We were in it together. We were similar. We had a kinship, a connection, a tether that I can’t explain, and energy, a pull, sisterhood. As ASHAMED as I was, I also felt such relief. My guard was down. My energy was up. And I was SO VERY HAPPY for you. For your success. For how young you were, for how brave, for how pretty, for how successful. It really was quite mystical.

I simply adore you. And maybe this is something that we can also talk about… how we think we compete, but in actuality, we are all fighting for the same thing. I know there is an article in there.

Many, many tight hugs.

MA

REFERENCE

1. Details of her story have been slightly changed to preserve anonymity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Maggie Augustyn is a practicing general dentist, the owner of Happy Tooth, a faculty member at Productive Dentist Academy, an author, and an inspirational speaker. She obtained her Doctorate of Dental Surgery from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Augustyn is passionate about reading, researching, writing, and speaking on topics that encompass the human experience, including our struggles, pain, and moments of vitality.

Maggie Augustyn, DDS, FAAIP, FICOI

Her personal mission is to inspire individuals to embark on a journey toward a more authentic self-actualization. She has a notable presence in the media and is a frequent contributor to Dental Entrepreneur Woman. Dr. Augustyn takes great pride in her role as a contributing author to Dentistry Today, where she publishes a column titled “Mindful Moments.”

She has also been featured on various podcasts and is a sought-after national speaker, emphasizing the significance of authenticity and self-discovery.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Elena Yakusheva/Shutterstock.com.

I understood “boss-hole” because for most of my career I’d been a boss-hole. A higher-than-thou presence in the office, run like a dictatorship, forcing any and all to walk on eggshells, spending their days either celebrating or fearing me.

I know of several employees who quit because of a ‘toxic work environment’ that I’d created. Ten years ago, I didn’t suffer much blowback because employees in a dental practice were there for my taking. There was no shortage of applicants. Having said that, creating that kind of environment was never my intention. In fact, looking back and reliving, writing, and explaining who I used to be brings me great shame. I have a physical sensation understanding that others will read the words below.

I feel my skin crawl and I want to hide. The truth of the matter was that despite my behavior, I legitimately and sincerely did care about the people who worked for me. I wanted to be their friend, and… I wanted them to be my friend.

I frequently opened my wallet, gifting hundreds of dollars of my personal income, to help my employees pay rent or buy Christmas presents. But acts like that did not make up for the disparaging and shaming communication in front of patients, nor did they make up for the incessantly cold temperature running at my whim.

WHY WAS I A BOSS-HOLE?

I believe my boss-hole-ship was created by a combination of factors. There was a diminished empathy resulting from the many years pursuing academics and a sense of entitlement that came with the three letters following my name. Also, somewhere along the way, I got the idea that I needed to be celebrated – as a reward for the hard work I’d put into becoming a doctor. And, add to that poor and outdated mentorship.

But most of all… most of all… I was encased in an isolating profession lacking examples and inspiration into the kind of leader my team deserved.

EMPATHY AND AN OUTDATED MODEL OF LEADERSHIP

Studies show us that as education increases, specifically as it applies to dentistry, empathy declines. The highest empathy scores are shown among first-year dental students. This may be due to the fact that more emphasis is placed on courses that include communication in those early years.

Empathy starts to reduce in the 3rd year and is found to further decline in providers with specialty training¹.

With a lack of practiced empathy, it’s easy to focus solely on our own needs as opposed to considering those of the people around us, whether they be patients or team members. Furthermore, getting through the eight post-high school years, necessary to gain those three pretty letters offset by a comma settled after our last names, can be exhausting. The education is filled with a never-ending struggle of self-doubt, fighting perfectionism at every corner, and exasperating learning. We all want to have that hardship recompensed in some way; and to most of us, the reward at the end of that journey is being called ‘doctor.’

When we are referenced as such, our chest puffs out, our eyes open wider, and it feels as if our bodies should be levitating off the earth a little. We confuse the honor that has been bestowed upon us as healers into a form of self-indulgence. I believe this happens to many new doctors. And, with time, with difficult patient interactions, our perception of who it is we really are, as doctors, is humbled. That inflated sense of self is almost self-leveling with years, though it does take hostages along the way.

POOR MENTORSHIP

What I found to have affected my poor leadership most was the influence of a thirty-plus-year senior dentist who had injected himself as my mentor. I’d met him shortly after graduation as a referral source. I remember being led into an outdated conference room filled haphazardly with diplomas. Each one in a different frame, all without a sense of organization. This unwelcoming consultation room was the preliminary place of making a patient subservient to the all-knowing doctor. There were no photos of patients, or smiles, or laughter, or even family. No photos of the team, just the doctor and his many distinct certificates. I felt terribly intimidated. And at the same time, special to have been ‘chosen’ as his mentee. After that meeting, Dr. Northwestern took me under his proverbial wing, and we talked on and off for more than a decade.

Conversations involving shaming me were quite frequent. I was shamed for not wearing a white coat to greet patients. I was instructed to communicate with patients by first and foremost displaying my level of education. I was to use terms like gingiva, caries, periodontium and was never to dumb down the language, no matter how confused the patient may seem. If I did, I’d lose the air of authority. When patients didn’t follow through with my recommended care, rather than showing empathy and inquiring deeper, I became more arrogant and displeased with wasted consultations. It showed in the operatories, in our hallways, and in team meetings. But no matter how hard I tried, I was nowhere near as successful as Dr. Northwestern. I was shamed and belittled for accepting HMO and public aid patients; for serving underprovided populations.

Each time I spoke with my mentor, I’d been led into a pervasive cycle of self-loathing with each day feeling more defeating than the next. My thinking was that if I wasn’t happy, if feeling inadequate was the norm, there would be nothing wrong with making others feel inadequate. That was life, I thought. And so, my poor leadership ensued.

In the final conversation I had with Dr. Northwestern, about four years ago, he shamed me for posting a photo on our Happy Tooth website. It depicted myself and my business partner neither wearing a lab coat. He insisted that I looked like I could have been a receptionist or an assistant, as if there was nothing worse.

How would patients distinguish me and applaud me for my professionalism if I looked like everyone else?²

It was in that conversation that Dr. Northwestern told me I was incapable of change, and he would no longer offer his advice; I was a lost cause. I remember feeling heartbroken and scared. I remember feeling deserted, feeling alone. I was running a failing practice, which I hated, which hated me, and now nothing would ever change because I had no one to depend on, no one to ask advice of. Dr. Northwestern’s desertion of our mentorship was likely one of the best things that could have happened to me.

Because it was in the depths of that darkness and loneliness that I had to do some introspective consideration. I needed to look in and figure out who I was without this man, without his outdated theories, analogies, and recommendations. And as I courageously began to delve into my core values with the help of a life coach, I finally, after 15 years of practice, figured out who I was, who I needed to be, and how to fulfill my passion and purpose. I began to create a future on my own terms, without a pressed lab coat, without the classical music in the background, and in an office not just filled with photos of patients and friends laughing but practicing in that kind of atmosphere.

I was finally free to be me. With that inception, everything changed, and everyone noticed. Out of the boss-hole that’d been grown in the shadow of Dr. Northwestern came ‘me,’ a human committed to helping patients become healthy, but more importantly, a human committed to creating a healthy atmosphere for our team to thrive.

AN AWAKENING INTO ALL THINGS HUMAN

Finding myself sans my misleading myagi wasn’t the only part of the equation. The moments that matter… that really matter… you remember for a lifetime, and my significant change came in that kind of flash. There came a break, there came a time in my practice when patients, their families, my teammates, even me—we all became human.

People were no longer objects available for my taking in monetizing a strenuous education. This specific awakening came during a time when my grandmother, a woman who’d loved me the most in this world, fell ill; her end was near. She lived in Poland, and my ability to visit with her was limited; it could have even been self-imposed out of fear of watching her age. She was constantly on my mind. I remember entering the operatory and seeing a woman, just like my grandmother, a Polish-speaking, grey-haired elderly woman in the presence of her daughter, her caretaker. She was in pain. She needed my help.

I believe that was the first time, as ashamed as I am to admit it, that I connected a tooth, to a mouth, to a human and back into my heart. I was not treating a symptom; I was treating the beloved woman who’d made me feel my whole life like I mattered. Embarrassingly, and uncontrollably, my eyes began to water. I admitted to the patient and her daughter their resemblance and how much I’d missed my grandmother. It might have been the first time that I also became human in the eyes of my patient. It was truly a life-changing moment for me. A veil had lifted, and all I was capable of seeing from that point on was what I had to offer other humans and not what I was there to take. I believe with good reason that the patient interaction mentioned above was the first step I took from being the boss-hole into servile leadership. And from that point on, with coaching, and reading, with writing and practicing, it felt good to change. I left in the rearview a model provider that deserved to be cherished for no other reason than his letters.

I left in the rearview the toxic and unreasonable expectations, the barking orders, and the shaming comments made in front of patients. I left in the rearview mirror the dental textbook language when speaking with patients. I left in the rearview the boss-hole I once was.

Change wasn’t immediate but it ensued. What came next was flow (as defined by scientist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) and more smiles, and laughter. With changes came newly rediscovered relationships with the team and patients. With the changes burnout reduced. With the changes, profit increased multifold. With the changes came a sense of joy and a practice I’m truly honored to call home, a team I’m honored to call family, and patients I’m honored to call friends.

A LINGERING QUESITON

As I write this, a question lingers in my mind: why didn’t I know better? Your question may linger: didn’t you see how you made others feel? I don’t know how to answer that, other than to say that I was, in fact, clueless. I have nothing and no one to blame for making those decisions; it was all me. I can’t assign blame for trusting a mentor whose role in our relationship was to be fawned over. I chose that relationship, and I should have known better. I’m deeply shamed and disturbed by my past leadership. What’s more is that back then when I thought about change, it was far too daunting and scary, and quite honestly, I didn’t know if it’d be possible. I’d beaten myself into believing that my existence in the practice was simply the way it had to be.

I could have kept going as I was, though there was very little about my days that I enjoyed. I dreaded waking up in the morning and was constantly late for work. I was making an above-average income for an average American, but not for a dentist in our area. I will reiterate this once more: change was difficult, and the road was long, fraught with curves, dirt passages, hills, and valleys. But the change and the effort were well worth it. With the help of the Productive Dentist Academy, creating new systems, prioritizing relationships, profitability skyrocketed. My hourly production quadrupled and still continues to grow. We were, we are, able to reward our team members with highly competitive salaries and endless gifts and bonuses. Our team is the best we’ve ever had; many of whom have been with us for almost a decade and a half.

If you find yourself in a place similar to mine, where as you pull up to the office you have an incessant desire to pull back out, something is off; but that something can be manipulated and changed into an advantage. Putting people first, prioritizing relationships, viewing teeth as connected to the human and then into our hearts makes a tremendous difference in the lives of those around us, in our own lives.

REFERENCES

1. Sherman JJ, Cramer A. Measurement of changes in empathy during dental school. J Dent Educ. 2005 Mar;69(3):338-45. PMID: 15749944
2. Interestingly enough, I received that same unsolicited call earlier this year when our new website published in a similar way.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Maggie Augustyn is a practicing general dentist, the owner of Happy Tooth, a faculty member at Productive Dentist Academy, an author, and an inspirational speaker. She obtained her Doctorate of Dental Surgery from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Augustyn is passionate about reading, researching, writing, and speaking on topics that encompass the human experience, including our struggles, pain, and moments of vitality.

Maggie Augustyn, DDS, FAAIP, FICOI

Her personal mission is to inspire individuals to embark on a journey toward a more authentic self-actualization. She has a notable presence in the media and is a frequent contributor to Dental Entrepreneur Woman. Dr. Augustyn takes great pride in her role as a contributing author to Dentistry Today, where she publishes a column titled “Mindful Moments.”

She has also been featured on various podcasts and is a sought-after national speaker, emphasizing the significance of authenticity and self-discovery.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Pathdoc/Shutterstock.com.

I remember walking into the operatory one morning to meet my long-time patient, a woman who’d recently become a widow. She had lost her husband of 40+ years. He was also a patient of mine, a man I quite liked. A few recall visits prior, he had taken a fall down the stairs and never recovered. I was full of anxiety and awkwardness as I approached her, not knowing what to say, not knowing how to approach the grief with which she most likely sat. I expressed my condolences as simply and as genuinely as I could. She looked back at me with strong spirits and said, “I’m fine. He’s fine. We are just here to help each other go home. And that’s what I’ve done. I have helped him go home.” She smiled; it was a warm, kind, gentle, genuine smile. I will never forget that moment. Yes, she grappled with grief but in an entirely different way than anyone else I’d seen.

She was content and wholeheartedly assured that he was in a better place, and this was only a few days following his passing. Though this happened many years ago, with her understanding, I sit to this day. And it is her mantra that I attempt to live up to. I want to be, I fight to be, I pray to be a light that helps others ‘go home.’ And this also means, that along my own journey, I have been eternally lucky to have met people who help me ‘go home.’ Now, I believe that when she said, ‘go home,’ she meant it in a spiritual way. But the definition that I will use here would be more secular. To ‘go home’ means to help one another on the journey of life. It means carrying someone when they no longer have the strength to walk.

It means encouraging leaders on the brink of innovation. It means eating last as leaders and feeding our flock ahead (per Simon Sinek). To ‘go home’ means connecting with other humans, it means giving of ourselves, at the times we have strength, expecting nothing in return. It means having someone ask you: ’why me? Why are you helping me? What have I done right to deserve you?’ That can be done in the capacity of a dental provider, in a capacity of a leader, a friend, a mentor, a volunteer; it can be in our capacity as a human. Because no matter where we are standing, we all have so much to give.

IN THE UNLIKELIEST OF ALL PLACES

The most beautiful friendships can sometimes have the strangest, most random, and yet still most extraordinary beginnings, when you think back. In their remembrance, our encounters can seem trivial, or random, even ordinary. I remember meeting my best friend Dr. Dani Barstad 23+ years ago, on our first day of dental school. I remember her spiky blond hair, quintessential Dani, and remember sitting near her till the day we graduated. We had served as dentists together around the globe, and no matter how many days we are apart, when we are together, nearing our 50s, there is no lost time. I remember meeting my best friend Amber, a couple of years ago, in a room crowded with other dentists.

She was wobbling at 7 months pregnant, and I felt alone surrounded by people. I sat next to her hoping that, in her pregnant state, she would be less likely to move around, walk away, and would remain talking with me. This began a closeness that I cannot say I’ve been lucky to have often with another. We live on opposite sides of the country but make time to speak each week. I remember meeting Shawn Zajas, a curly-haired, pink T-shirt-wearing, toothbrush-selling, Kirk Cameron look-alike. We met during a self-imposed tea-break at the Productive Dentist Academy Workshop, a few years back. We laughed, retraced his roots (so as to eliminate the possibility of him actually being Kirk Cameron or his relative), and exchanged phone numbers possibly for a future collaboration. We met again many months later, virtually, when Shawn asked to interview me during his Innovation in Dentistry podcast.

Dr. Augustyn with Shawn Zajas

Something magical happened during that interview^[1]. Several days later, Shawn reached out to me in a way that today is considered terribly uncommon. He reached out to elevate me and to encourage me, expecting nothing in return. We’ve since spent many hours talking on Zoom and via Marco Polo. For a reason unbeknownst to me, Shawn has proverbially taken me under his wing, becoming my eternal cheerleader. To my amazement and surprise, Shawn has become that person for me, the one who is helping me ‘go home.’

BYND

Shawn is making me believe things that never would have come to light had it not been for his unmasking. With each conversation, he reminds me that ‘the world will make space for my gift.’

Shawn is not necessarily a coach or a consultant. I’d describe him more as an innovator, more importantly and accurately an influencer. He is tremendously gifted in anything related to marketing and understanding human behavior as it relates to the power of purchase. He also has a great eye for design. He gets color, texture, form, model, construction, and, most of all, understands how all of those influence how we look at products and how we make decisions in their direction. He has been in the dental space since he was 14 years old, selling toothbrushes along with his dad at the Chicago Midwinter Meeting. He has 15 years of experience in brush design and innovation. He has made some amazing developments, like his BYND CARE brush, a luxe and sleek brush delivered straight to patients in gratitude of their patronage.

The black matte and sheen box, as luxurious as an Apple box, makes you feel almost undeserving of the gift. The box bears the patient’s name, releasing a burst of dopamine each time he or she goes to use it. Shawn has also had some flops, like producing a manual toothbrush with scripture engraved on the handle.

His hope was that every Christian store would want to put it up in their display case. Shawn’s end game is not fame or fortune; he simply wants to elevate and create more value in dentistry. And for that reason, he started the podcast: a way for him to highlight, honor, and promote leaders and innovators in dentistry. He calls to attention the grit, the mud, and hardship that have turned leaders into the people they had become. He has said, “I wonder how many books, how many initiatives, and I wonder how many dreams are on pause right now. That I just want to encourage people to hit resume on, to hit play, to keep going.” He wants to help all of us ‘go home.’

Shawn’s presence feels like an eternal beacon of light. I had seen him speak recently at Vanessa Emerson’s Expansion meeting in Phoenix, and his brave and raw description of living our truth, of living from within our heart has left us, the audience, misty-eyed yearning for more. His words and ideas still echo in my heart, months later: “beauty, magnificence, and courage are with you if you allow yourself to see them,” he said. We so often give love, compassion, and empathy to others, lifting them up, carrying them. Why is it that we come up short dispensing that to ourselves as we look into the mirror? Is it really such a radical idea that we can be our own agents of transformation? Shawn believes that our hearts want to be delighted and overwhelmed with love. But not just with love that pours out of us, love that pours towards us. He preaches that we can begin to feel the light as we bravely step into who we are called to be.

ASSIGNMENT OF SUCCESS: OUTCOME VERSUS OUTPUT VERSUS BEING

In all of our talks together, Shawn’s helped me understand life on an entirely different level. He has come up with a model of attribution that divides our assignment of success into 3 buckets. The buckets are: outcome, output, and being. This is a way for us to understand what motivates us, how we seek or move into success, and how we assign that success or feel a sense of worth from it.

OUTCOME

Most of us nowadays gain a sense of success from outcome. In outcome, we only gain esteem on account of aftereffect. For example, in a dental practice, for a dentist such as myself, the sense of success would be derived from my production or delivery of care. This is dangerous because we often are not in control of the aftermath of our actions. Outcome, generally speaking, is a collaboration, not just of our decisions but also the decision of those around us. I can diagnose a fractured tooth recommending a full coverage restoration.

To gain the outcome of a crown, I need to have a team supporting my philosophy, I need to have a team trained to present said treatment plan, and I need to have a patient willing to accept it. My success, which inadvertently determines my self-worth, has as much to do with the behavior of others as it does with my own. My sense of worth, ergo, is derived from what the rest does. A very dangerous endeavor which can lead to significant insecurity. Our identity in outcome is almost the most common in our gain of self-respect and self-worth. It is based entirely off the destination and can anchor us down in the most shallow ways.

OUTPUT

The second bucket is output. Here we have more oversight regarding success. If I seek to feel fulfilled from my output, I can drive as hard as I need to gain that. The harder I drive, the more I turnout, the higher my sense of self. “If my goals are based off output, I can control my own outputs. I can show up every single day. I can study when I need to study. I can give and be present with those people that are in your life. And that gives me self-respect at the end of the day.” The danger here is that we are likely to judge others on their output, and we can be critical in a social context. An example here would be diagnosing several crowns on several patients throughout the week and feeling either inferior or superior to a partner or associate with their output, which can hinder the relationship. I believe this bucket to be the most dangerous in a way of our self-comparison. Once again, relying on what others do to determine our own standing.

BEING

The last bucket is being. When I think of this last bucket, I think of peace. At Shawn’s direction, I not just understand but ‘live as if we all started from a place of equality in human dignity.’ No person is better, no person is worse. No need to look around at what others are doing, and no need to depend on the follow-through of our recommendation. Being means a complete alignment with our purpose and the authenticity needed to live it out. Being is freedom. “And the reality of freedom is [unfortunately] what terrifies people because in [freedom] you can do anything you want to.” And it should not be. With freedom, you can be anything you want to. It is an awareness that audaciously drives purpose.

STEPPING INTO BEING

Having an understanding of the 3 buckets is a safety and a protective measure that keeps our wires from being crossed. If you tie yourself to the wrong bucket, it can stop you from succeeding, from feeling worthy, can stop you from attaining your fullest potential and can rob you of a sense of identity. No one in life has been spared from obstacles. Despite what you may choose to see, as you look to your right and to your left, we all carry pain, tragedy, and trauma. And those become a formula for generating our limiting beliefs. We all understand and grapple with risk, a fear of the unknown. We recognize that stepping into the cloudy future has been no guarantee of success or even certainty.

Most of us realize that to grow and to gain and to reach a higher level comes with a set of proportional risks. It is the only way to step into our glory. Stepping into being is having the ability to conceive that which we believe effortlessly. Stepping into being makes us unstoppable. It is a time where we can challenge our limiting beliefs and create at maximum heights that which is possible. With being, we reach peak performance sans the discriminating filter of our mind. We allow the seeds of our ideas to grow within our minds and within our world indiscriminately. The boundaries that we think keep us safe are reconstituted many miles away, giving us more freedom to create.

Putting your efforts into the bucket of being is what will make you feel whole. It is the ultimate way of stepping into our own full self-expression. It is an unselfish way of sharing our gifts with the world, unapologetically. And it is only in that alignment and only in that bucket that we can help others go home.

REFERENCE

1. Breaking the Silence: Dentistry, Mental Illness, and the Path to Authentic Living with Dr. Augustyn

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Maggie Augustyn is a practicing general dentist, the owner of Happy Tooth, a faculty member at Productive Dentist Academy, an author, and an inspirational speaker. She obtained her Doctorate of Dental Surgery from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

Augustyn is passionate about reading, researching, writing, and speaking on topics that encompass the human experience, including our struggles, pain, and moments of vitality.

Maggie Augustyn, DDS, FAAIP, FICOI

Her personal mission is to inspire individuals to embark on a journey toward a more authentic self-actualization. She has a notable presence in the media and is a frequent contributor to Dental Entrepreneur Woman. Dr. Augustyn takes great pride in her role as a contributing author to Dentistry Today, where she publishes a column titled “Mindful Moments.”

She has also been featured on various podcasts and is a sought-after national speaker, emphasizing the significance of authenticity and self-discovery.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: ESB Professional/Shutterstock.com.

IMAGE CREDIT: Vanessa Emerson

Yet still, leaving home, I was completely unaware of what I was about to witness. I was unprepared for the guards holding automatic weapons, for the poverty to be seen, for the practice of dentistry in lawn chairs, and for the utter gratitude those patients (the prisoners and guards alike) would show. I had returned to the States inspired to be a different person: I had returned more aware of the gifts I’d been holding, often taken for granted. With this being the first of the many times I’d professed to my husband for having been transformed, I had meant it. I’d meant it fully and deeply. Every. Single. Time. But this, in turn, had raised the bar for future transformations. I have been lucky as there haven’t been a shortage of those in my past few years. Yet despite the growth attained after courses and conferences, after resulting communications and collaborations, I still hadn’t felt fulfilled. I needed more. I still needed more definition on how I wanted my evolution to reduce hardships and troubles, and I wanted more clarity on what I wanted to see in my future. I yearned for more growth.

That search and seeking, that endless addiction to self-improvement, had put me into a self-imposed exhaustion and encased me in a very dark place this past Christmas morning. Right before my host of 25 family members, I sprawled across my yoga mat. I prayed, I cried, I bargained, and I begged for a break. A much-needed respite, in the form of excruciating headaches and vomiting, did come later that week. Drained, weak, and worn, 13 days following a positive COVID test, I traveled to Phoenix for my first retreat of the year. Once I’d arrived, I lay in bed wondering how I’d even gotten to the hotel, with the body aches still lingering despite a maximal dose of Advil and Dayquil. I even wondered if I had made the right decision traveling. The morning of the conference, I was fully prepared to have to excuse myself several times during the day, running upstairs to my room for rest. But… that isn’t what happened. I smile now thinking back to that moment in bed. My hardship-ridden week prior, my hardship-ridden travel may have been a part of the plan, but it was not the plan. The weekend I wasn’t sure I was going to withstand turned into the most beautiful awakening of all the senses, and not just for me, but for everyone present in the room.

Kelly Burns, an expert in somatic experiences, taught us this weekend about sliding door experiences. It is an experience after which one becomes transformed, as if a threshold had been crossed, and cannot be uncrossed. A kind of change is experienced that cannot be undone. A sliding door experience is what I’d had after I’d served in Mexico. A sliding door experience is what I am returning from this weekend. In my writing, I don’t often have an opportunity to refer to a higher power or God because my writing, though inspirational, is meant to be for everyone; and it’s found to be more acceptable for me to write in secular terms. But I will release myself from the obligation in which I have to include the skeptics, agnostics, and atheists. Because I must tell you that the prayer, which I deeply begged the God looking over my being, was answered just a few weeks after its inception.

I didn’t necessarily need a break, though Dr. Laura Brenner would have been proud of me for taking one to alleviate the symptoms of the burnout I undeniably felt. This weekend was the answer to my Christmas prayer. It was a new commitment to searching and seeking. It was a continuation in my road of self-improvement with eliminated exhaustion. Following this weekend, I didn’t just come back transformed; I am coming back expanded. Expanded to the possibility of what lays at my feet, expanded to what new experiences will bring, expanded to who it is that I am, who I want to be, who I am meant to be. I am returning expanded into my awareness, into my consciousness. I am expanded to love, more than ever, because of the vulnerable and awe-inspiring message Shawn Zajas delivered.

It is hard to put into human words the things we’d seen as a group and the places we’d discovered at Expansion 2024. The short exercises of meditation and guidance almost seemed like a cruel tease, as I found my mind magnetized into the most beautiful stillness, a love I’d been missing recently in my reflections. People who hadn’t meditated before felt moved to try it upon their return home. Those of us who had felt a renewed magnificence. We developed an understanding with the help of Jonathan Bender that there lies opportunity for transformation in every moment. We craved flow again as abundance, and benevolence, and of generosity at Katherine Eitel Belt’s profession. Dr. Tarryn McCarthy taught us that there is magic in the unknown. And in the pursuit of that magic, Chuck Blakeman vulnerably committed to our memories how to be relentless and open and fascinated at its attainment. Samantha Jones dropped in virtually (we missed you Sam) to teach us about the power of imagination and hope.

Dr. Witt Wilkerson reminded us about the mouth’s connection to our entire body, our overall health, and our responsibility as physicians of the masticatory system in spreading that word to our patients. Our awakening was supplemented with the understanding that fitness is not ‘a look’ by Dr. Jennifer Murphy; it was supplemented with great poise and humor reminding us that eating can be of delight by Brandi Hooker Evans. Dr. Liz Lyster offered advice that it is in remembering to stop that we can gain our stamina. Allison Lacoursiere asked permission of us and led us on one of the most eye-opening communal sliding door experiences of the meeting, maybe even of my lifetime. Asking us to be vulnerable, she made us feel safe enough to disclose our greatest challenges and then sharing our deepest and darkest insecurities. We put those down on a piece of paper and we walked around the room displaying the heavy burdens, the gremlins, that hold us down, that crush us. I wept at its conclusion, overwhelmed. I was in disbelief of how it was possible for the strong, and the powerful, for the successful and the seemingly self-assured individuals to have such self-defeating, and most importantly, such inaccurate views of themselves.

Vanessa Emerson/Expansion 2024

For the woman I saw holding the sign stating she needed to be thin, how could she not see how beautiful she was? For a best-selling author, who felt himself invisible, how could he believe that? I had read his book, highlighting passage by passage; I saw him before I’d even met him. Why his disdain when I was in awe of his brilliance and gift to this world? That ballroom which guarded my sliding door was filled with people who’d been fraught to travel difficult journeys. Kirstie Boltz, a cancer survivor, deemed that when challenges face us they don’t happen ‘to us’ they happen ‘for us’. And with that mind shift, Nithya Karia also taught us what when we feel good about ourselves, when we have access to our best parts, that’s when we have the energy to serve and to give. That’s when we give to our inner circle, the people we love, and Dr. Larry Stanleigh taught us how to designate those. At conclusion, Sarah Cottingham brought us back to mindfulness.

My husband asked me on the way to the airport, the prior Thursday, what conference it was that I would be attending (must have been primed due to my lack of forthcoming nature many years prior); he asked if I’d be speaking. I consider myself to be a master of crafting words, especially when I have a body willing to listen, but I still remember my disappointment in my answer. “I don’t really know,” is what I said, “all I know is that it will probably help me become a better speaker.” The beauty, and power, and magic did lie in the unknown, didn’t it, Dr. Tarryn? Kris Heap talked to us about prominent messengers, like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr filling the gap that exists between us, between what there is, what there exists and what is needed. Vanessa Emerson challenged us to remain in the gap. Though the gap she was describing, was also a gap between thoughts. A sorcery or alchemy exists in that gap, in that pause. It’s a place the past and the future are of no consequence. In that gap we are not broken. In that gap we are not our thoughts, we are the thinkers of our thoughts. In that gap there is time to receive. In that gap there is truth. Not any truth, not a truth; it is the truth. It is where the deepest connection to our soul exists. And to get to that gap, to get past the grit and the mud and the pain, all we have to do is let go of the desire to be in the gap. In our traditional world, it is completely counterintuitive to let go of the thing that you want the most. Yet, that is the only way it shall be delivered.

I wasn’t the only one who felt empowered and present. I wasn’t the only one stating “I am here, world, not for me to take of you, I am here for your very taking.” In the expansion we felt present, in that room, we felt purpose, at these times, we had no doubt and no fear and no self-loathing. It has made us wonder what other transformative powers we hold within our own world, within the lives of the people we love, as we wake up in excitement for tomorrow. Creating Expansion appears to have been Vanessa Emerson’s dream. It’s been her opportunity to be brave and open to her creative powers. Her vision was to bring individuals thirsty for growth united with connectedness, and just as important, inspiration. I’m writing this article not just in homage to this past weekend, but also as a display of what else is out there, waiting for us. If you are reading this, if you have found your way to this page in this very moment, it is my belief that you need to be reading this. And if that is such, why don’t you join us next year, January 2-4, 2025. My ticket is already bought.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Maggie Augustyn is a practicing general dentist, the owner of Happy Tooth, a faculty member at Productive Dentist Academy, an author, and an inspirational speaker. She obtained her Doctorate of Dental Surgery from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

Augustyn is passionate about reading, researching, writing, and speaking on topics that encompass the human experience, including our struggles, pain, and moments of vitality.

Maggie Augustyn, DDS, FAAIP, FICOI

Her personal mission is to inspire individuals to embark on a journey toward a more authentic self-actualization. She has a notable presence in the media and is a frequent contributor to Dental Entrepreneur Woman. Dr. Augustyn takes great pride in her role as a contributing author to Dentistry Today, where she publishes a column titled “Mindful Moments.”

She has also been featured on various podcasts and is a sought-after national speaker, emphasizing the significance of authenticity and self-discovery.

– Paul Feuerstein, DMD, Editor-in-Chief

A NEW YEAR

The usual social media scrolling at the end of the year, and at the beginning of the next, is filled with memes cursing the months prior and reliving hardships of moments past. Quotes with quirky photos challenge us to set new standards, to become hopeful and open to all the good a reset will bring. I have never understood the importance of breaks in years. After all, the 31st of December feels no different than January 1st. This coming year, I have experienced a mind shift; I finally understand the hope that a change in that one digit (2023 to 2024) can bring.

With last year being fraught with challenges, I’d made decisions to change, to implement said change, to lessen my burden, and not to repeat the frustration. I am truly and sincerely looking forward to 2024, probably the first time in 3 decades. I have plans, new commitments, and goals, and I am going to stick to them. Having said that, as we look back at those moments last year, the ones that brought us to our knees, that made us wail, and pray, and beg for peace, let us realize that misfortune has made us stronger.

The bargaining with the all-knowing and omnipotent being, the hidden frustrations, the silent pain have prepared us for the upcoming year. And thus, I start my first column in 2024 as an unconventional celebration of our quiet suffering. Whatever gratitude we find towards each other and towards life, let us also not forget that the words of the 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, “Aus der Kriegsschule des Lebens—Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker,” which is translated as “Out of life’s school of war—what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.”

ROI (RETURN ON INVESTMENT) ON WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU

Is it really possible to be grateful for life’s more difficult moments? Is it possible to turn the days during which we shake our proverbial fist at our higher power, asking, “why me,” into the most important and impactful days of our lives? Without a doubt, those days build resilience. But what is the return on investment for the days during which we beg life for mercy? What is fair or decent, or even fathomable about the pain one might feel in those times? What good could life possibly bring if we were to watch a fit, muscular 25-year-old young man, dying of the final stages of cancer, black out and drop right in front of us from a heart attack and stroke?

Despite knowing Yasin Abbak for several months, it was only in our most recent conversation, regarding the details of his tech startup ‘GroupUps,’ that he opened up about the above moment in his life. Yasin was 26 years old when he watched his younger brother sink to the floor. It happened a few short years after Yasin’s college graduation from Drew University, where he’d earned a dual degree in economics and political science with a minor in Middle Eastern Studies. At the time, he held a well-paying job in New York City and was on a path towards leading a very comfortable life. Everything he’d imagined having wanted from life lay at his feet there for the taking.

He had capitalized on and respected his father’s hardship in moving to a new country from Turkey, leaving an engineering career behind. Yasin orchestrated his life just the way he was supposed to, or so he thought. Yet, right before his brother’s last chemo treatment, following that earth-shattering moment, he quit the swanky job in finance, leaving him no safety net. Having lived through one of his most difficult moments, the ones which leave no promise in terms of a return on investment, Yasin decided that money wasn’t worth making a life for anymore.

The dependable job no longer gave him drive; it truly no longer mattered. He’d undergone a complete shift in his core values, in his belief systems, in his direction, in what he wanted to have for his legacy. The most traumatic moment of his life was a rebirth for him.

A SERIES OF INNOVATIONS

As Yasin walked away from his finance job, he left pride at the door, packed up what he could, and moved in with the co-founder of his first company. Though ignited by almost losing his brother, he now wanted to be part of a net positive. Net positive is a global shift injected into company culture that focuses on making the world a better place with its products and services. He and Stacy Sailer, a colleague from his university days, started a company called Paired Media. Paired Media, which he later sold, offered an opportunity for independently owned restaurants to cut costs by leveraging their collective distribution power through lunch deliveries to customers as marketing channels for advertisers, making supplies free to restaurants.

It was an homage to his dad Mithat Abbak, who owned Cappy’s, a restaurant in Wayne, New Jersey, and a lunch truck in Secaucus. Yasin wanted to make it easier for people like his father, an immigrant and entrepreneur, to run a small business. He knew that lowering costs for independent businesses was a way of keeping money in the local economy, which resulted in hiring more people, paying them more, and offering better benefits than national chains. This is when service and stewardship began to run deep in his veins.

It was also at this point that he’d gained a taste for innovation and disruption. Next came a company called Fantasy Life which he formed and sold. It was known for having the fastest breaking news alert engine in sports, enabling users to identify arbitrage opportunities. It was backed by some big names in sports and entertainment. And now, Yasin has moved into dentistry as he owns and operates GroupUps, a company dedicated, once more, to helping out small businesses.

Beginning with dentists specifically, it uses data and technology to negotiate costs on behalf of the dentist for equipment like CBCT’s, X-ray machines and sensors, all the way down to sterilizers, chairs, and delivery units. The trauma of his brother’s illness has pushed Yasin to create and innovate, making net positive change in 3 very distinct industries.

PTSG — POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS GROWTH

Yasin’s story gives me goosebumps. To see what he’d accomplished in the last 15 years of his short life makes me believe anything is possible. But what ignited Yasin in his journey isn’t unique to the human condition. Whether it affects the patient or the family, a diagnosis of cancer is often a wakeup call, and in retrospect serves as a reality check, a turning point. I know this, as I’d gone through that journey in 2018 with my own cancer diagnosis and am happy to report that as of December of 2023, I am in complete remission, being told by an oncologist as having been ‘cured of cancer.’ Despite how hard it is to move past it, severe stress and significant hardship have its benefits. We have known this for thousands of years.

Paul said in his Letter to the Romans (5:3-4) “Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character and character produces hope.” And more recently, the Dalai Lama has stated “the person who has had more experience in hardship can stand more firmly in the face of problems than the person who has never experienced suffering. From this angle, then, some suffering can be a good lesson for life.” And so there ought not be a surprise that traumatic events fragment and even pulverize current life doctrines. Those moments can and do rob people of what they believed life to be like. So much, in fact, that it forces them to put the pieces back together and create a new, a higher, a better-defined, a more united sense of purpose; a new determination for a life is often born. There is a term coined to define that, it’s called post-traumatic stress growth.

SCIENCE BEHIND THE TRAUMA

Sociologist Glen Elder has spent his career studying the reasons for which some individuals collapse on account of hardships and others prosper, grow, and even boom following. He studied adversity and had even determined the age at which misfortune and sorrow might have to hit in order for the person to thrive. He gathered data on the Great Depression and World War II, examining people at various ages; he then produced well-defined analyses of longitudinal data to find out exactly that: why some people collapse, and others thrive.

His determination was, as he studied the young men who suffered through the trauma of WWII, that the late twenties was the magic age at which resilience begins to crystallize in a very significant way. People who served in the War in their mid to late twenties turned their lives around in a much different way than those who’d lived through it in later decades of their lifespan. For trauma to have made individuals stronger, better, and happier it must hit people in their late teens to late twenties.

Elder’s work explains how the most difficult moments of Yasin’s life drove him to unequivocal success. But not just that, they led him to a life he’s proud of, a life for which he has no problem getting up in the morning, a life where he considers serving a gift.

A CHANCE FOR THE YOUNGER GENERATION

Now Elder studied generations even a hundred years ago. There is, of course, no wonder that since then much has changed, in terms of how we live our lives. Consider parenting, for example. Our ability to parent back then is of no comparison to what we’re able to do for our children today. I believe it is our hardships and the love which we want to raise the new generation in that might drive us to, in some way, protect the young from any kind of danger and difficulty. We want to watch our children grow up, protecting them at all costs from discomfort. But given Elder’s scientific data, isn’t it possible that if we continue to do that, there will be some kind of fallout? Is there any wonder that if we placate our children with trophies for lost little league games, we could actually do more damage than good? Are we dangerously overprotecting our children, creating a handicap for their own growth and evolution?

How often are we seeing parents fighting their kids’ battles at school and on the playground? How often do feel the need to do the same? It is absolutely heartbreaking to watch your kid live through suffering on account of life. We must remember, though, that us running to the rescue will only impede their growth, create a hindrance at finding their own purpose, their own value, maybe even a sense of self-worth. I will be frank; I remember reprimanding young children on the playground who pushed my daughter when she was 5 years old. I have also watched her go through her first heartbreak and have made an attempt to reach out to the mom of the kid in an effort to smooth things over.

Having read the studies that Glen Elder devoted his life to, I am going to be driven to step back, now, and watch her grow on account of said hardships. I will listen and encourage her, I will support and offer unwavering love, but I will not step in to fight her battles. She’s watched her mother battle the trauma of cancer and mental illness, not something that every third-grader has endured. As hard as that was for our entire family, I now have faith that there is significant benefit from that pain. But there will be more to come.

CHEERS TO THE NEW YEAR

Life can create unyielding agony and pain; no one is spared, not ever. Trauma shatters beliefs and robs people of their fundamental and familiar sense of meaning. The disturbance of our hopes and dreams, even of our routines, can often make us beg for mercy. In times of sorrow, it’s hard to think and to consider the positive. It’s almost impossible to find the good behind watching a loved one suffer or battle what could be a terminal illness. It’s hard to think that anything worthwhile can come from the bottomless pit of darkness.

I challenge you here, at the cusp of this new year, to find a purpose in misery and despair. I challenge you to accept that resilience and adaptability, which are birthed from hopelessness, may be the key to living a good life. I challenge you to remember Yasin’s story. Passing through life crises makes us more human, more compassionate, more understanding, and more accepting of those around us. We have scientific proof that on the other side of stress lies growth, grace, and goodwill. Consider the hardship of our children and stand beside them, facing them together and not in front, shielding them from it. Consider that the worst moments in our lives could be just the beginning of a new and better life. As we face this new year, let us not just be open to the hopes and dreams we hold, but also to moments of internal growth when things don’t go our way.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Maggie Augustyn is a practicing general dentist, the owner of Happy Tooth, a faculty member at Productive Dentist Academy, an author, and an inspirational speaker. She obtained her Doctorate of Dental Surgery from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

Augustyn is passionate about reading, researching, writing, and speaking on topics that encompass the human experience, including our struggles, pain, and moments of vitality.

Maggie Augustyn, DDS, FAAIP, FICOI

Her personal mission is to inspire individuals to embark on a journey toward a more authentic self-actualization. She has a notable presence in the media and is a frequent contributor to Dental Entrepreneur Woman. Dr. Augustyn takes great pride in her role as a contributing author to Dentistry Today, where she publishes a column titled “Mindful Moments.”

She has also been featured on various podcasts and is a sought-after national speaker, emphasizing the significance of authenticity and self-discovery.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Tiko Aramyan/Shutterstock.com.

We are now acknowledging, in our era and within the realm of dentistry, that comparison is among the most destructive forces we succumb to. This force, ingrained in our human evolution and genetic programming, clings to us and holds us hostage. In evolutionary terms, comparison may have played a role in our worldly advancement, not entirely about superiority but more focused on gathering information for making educated choices on living locations, cultivating food, and determining what is safe to eat.

In prehistoric times, it was about motivation and self-progress, observing and learning from others’ practices. However, today, as Theodore Roosevelt aptly noted, comparison has become the ‘thief of joy.’ It has transformed into an inescapable trap, exacerbated by the pervasive influence of social media. The misrepresented and unrealistic displays of happiness and success on platforms like Instagram create a false narrative, making us believe that others’ lives are a continuous stream of perfect moments. In reality, life is not always positive; it isn’t a constant stream of rainbows and butterflies. Unfortunately, the accessibility of handheld electronic devices leads us to scroll through Facebook, filling our final minutes of the day with the illusion of others’ seemingly flawless lives.

ANXIETY UNANNOUNCED

Last night, I had a conversation with Amber ², an incredible young woman. She is a new-ish dentist who is coming to terms with the fallout of her anxiety. A young woman who has spent the last many months of her career comparing herself to the associate doctors in the practice, some of whom are many years her senior.

Amber is a young woman who developed anxiety due to the difficulty this profession brings on, with little warning. Anxiety about Invisalign cases not progressing perfectly. Anxiety about temporary veneers falling off. Anxiety about encroaching the pulp chamber or patients developing irreversible pulpits following a class 1 restoration. Anxiety that often shows up unannounced. Anxiety that, it feels like, affects only us, while all the rest are succeeding, moving ahead, and creating a professional and personal legacy.

This young dentist had her confidence stripped away, as though the knowledge she had accumulated throughout her academic career and the expertise gained from countless chair-side hours were not substantial. What saddens me the most is that Amber’s challenges are far from unique. Despite mustering the courage to acknowledge these issues among ourselves, we have not made sufficient progress to bring about tangible change.

CHASING FOMO¹ OVER HEALING

During all my periods of healing and taking time off, those instances when I had to step back from growing my practice or learning a new skill, I recall feeling like I was falling behind. It seemed as though everyone around me was moving forward while I wasn’t just standing still but regressing. When I discussed this with Amber, she instantly connected.

She, too, during her five weeks of healing, moving slowly day by day, patient to patient, felt the fear of her colleagues speeding ahead while she lagged behind. Like many of us, she feared missing out on crucial webinars if she didn’t follow every dental Facebook group and Instagram account. She worried about neglecting to build critical skills for patient care and disappointing her growth mindset enough not to recover from it. Reflecting on Amber’s experience and revisiting my own challenges, I began to wonder: Can we genuinely create time to heal, to disconnect, to ‘peace out’ if our minds are preoccupied with what others are doing? Have we allowed self-comparison to infiltrate the restorative time of our rest? Is it possible that we cut short the much-needed break prematurely because our FOMO (fear of missing out) is gaining ground? And are we pushing ourselves back toward anxiety by acting on our FOMO?

NO ONE SPARED

As I prepared for my future calls with Amber, I delved deeper into the implications of the very issue we were discussing. While we both understood and connected to the desire to step out of the sanctuary of peace, we were aware of the dangers in doing so. Succumbing to FOMO could have tangible consequences. Similar to any unhealed condition, reverting to old and unhealthy habits might lead us back into depression or anxiety.

Let me be clear: there is a genuine danger in returning to the rat race prematurely. Now, the question arises: how do we combat FOMO? How do we prevent it from taking hold? I believe the answer starts with the explanations we provide our minds to believe one thing over another. The information we feed our minds must genuinely make sense. It goes like this: Life is unforgiving at times. It’s difficult and can be unfair, even cruel. Life does not discriminate in its rollercoaster capacity.

Women’s lives are no more difficult than men’s, and vice versa. An assistant’s life is no less challenging than a doctor’s, and vice versa. All humans, at selected points in their lives, have to step back and deal with the gritty, the tangled, and the difficult. Some choose to face it head-on, while others may choose to ignore it. We all react differently because our unique stories and circumstances have allotted us a different set of tools for their exercise. But we all have to take time to heal following hardship, pain, depression, and anxiety.

None of us are spared. Some of us hide it better than others, but none of us are exempt. And so, in the end, the finish line might be spaced evenly after all. Just because you don’t see someone struggle doesn’t mean they don’t do it privately. Until this point, dentistry as a culture has been isolating in that only the positive aspects were shared. Behind an infinitely tall and thick wall were failing marriages, credit card debt, addiction, and abuse. The pain and hardship existed, regardless of it not being mentioned.

It still does.

It always will.

THE BUY-IN

I am pleased to share that Amber, with the assistance of talk therapy and medication, along with some distractions and support from her family, is doing better. Her anxiety is manageable, and she continues to stay away from social media to minimize the risk of negative self-comparison. I still have to remind her and myself that in the game of life, we really are all on equal footing.

We simply experience our hardships at different times, with varying gravity, different support systems, and an individualized set of tools to combat them. The acceptance of this idea, a true understanding and belief in that statement, is the difference between being able to embrace healing or vacillating in and out of that sanctuary in a confused attempt to move ahead or catch up.

REFERENCES

1. Gupta M, Sharma A. Fear of missing out: A brief overview of origin, theoretical underpinnings and relationship with mental health. World J Clin Cases. 2021 Jul 6;9(19):4881-4889.
2. Not her real name.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Maggie Augustyn is a practicing general dentist, the owner of Happy Tooth, a faculty member at Productive Dentist Academy, an author, and an inspirational speaker. She obtained her Doctorate of Dental Surgery from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

Augustyn is passionate about reading, researching, writing, and speaking on topics that encompass the human experience, including our struggles, pain, and moments of vitality.

Maggie Augustyn, DDS, FAAIP, FICOI

Her personal mission is to inspire individuals to embark on a journey toward a more authentic self-actualization. She has a notable presence in the media and is a frequent contributor to Dental Entrepreneur Woman. Dr. Augustyn takes great pride in her role as a contributing author to Dentistry Today, where she publishes a column titled “Mindful Moments.”

She has also been featured on various podcasts and is a sought-after national speaker, emphasizing the significance of authenticity and self-discovery.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Bits and Splits/Shutterstock.com.

We live our lives colored by our past, our stories, and our experiences. I don’t seek pity for my own challenging experiences any more than I would lament yours. Fair or unfair, a challenge is nothing more than an opportunity to grow. It’s a chance to wake up tomorrow as a better person than the one we were today. The purpose of this discourse is solely to provide any doctor whose words were muted an opportunity to find confidence in moving past a patient’s ignorant gaze. Additionally, it aims to uncover the humanity behind why patients may act a certain way, particularly toward the ‘gentler’ sex.

Rising Above “The Gaze”

Challenges Faced by the Female Provider & How to Overcome Them

As healthcare providers, there are moments when entering our operatory fills us with dread. One of the most challenging situations is having to prepare a patient for a visit with an oral surgeon because you’ve discovered a suspicious lesion and then ensuring the patient understands the urgency of the referral. We also face difficulties when patients express dissatisfaction after receiving a smile makeover that falls short of their expectations or when a seemingly minor restoration leads to painful and irreversible pulpitis. Additionally, everyone dreads having to attend to financial arrangements gone awry.

A 60-year-old retired male patient, whom I will refer to as “Tim” (not his real name), arrived at our office. Tim had faithfully visited both his general dentist and periodontist for the last 15 years. Unfortunately, both had recently retired. The most recent radiographs provided to us were almost exactly six months old and consisted of non-diagnostic analog bitewings. Our hygienist gathered Tim’s history and revealed that he did not have any outstanding treatment plans. Tim had been informed that his periodontal disease was under control, and as long as he continued his alternating visits between the two dentists every three months, he shouldn’t face any issues.

Tim was an excellent communicator, engaged, likable, and even seemed enthusiastic about forming a new dentist-patient relationship to replace the one he lost. We conducted a thorough periodontal examination and took a full series of radiographs. To our dismay, the radiographic exam revealed two abscesses: one from a failing root canal treatment, the other due to a fractured root. Additionally, two more teeth were deemed “hopeless”: one due to external resorption, the other with only 30 percent of the bone remaining. There was also a failing implant that had been placed “not that long ago,” according to Tim. Periodontal probing depths, though stable in most areas of his mouth, in the aforementioned regions had depths exceeding 9mm.

As I examined Tim’s X-rays, a sense of bewilderment washed over me. I knew my diagnosis and proposed treatment plan would not align with the information Tim had received six months ago when he was given a clean bill of health. This particular circumstance, the impending interaction I was about to enter, was something I had dreaded throughout my career. Past experience taught me that in the next 30 minutes, I would need to exercise and “flex” every part of my almost 20 years of experience and education, including the extensive 150 hours of continuing education I completed that year alone. These previous encounters had also taught me that I needed to mentally toughen up and prepare for the possibility that Tim would not believe me after I told him what I found. I had to ready myself for the likely outcome of my professional opinion being dismissed and discarded. I had to prepare myself to deliver what would ultimately be empty words to my new patient.

When I meet a new patient, my approach always begins with a conversation unrelated to dentistry. It’s a chance for me to connect and establish a rapport, not solely for the sake of treatment plan acceptance, but because this aspect of the relationship is what I genuinely cherish. I get to engage in an authentic conversation with another human being, allowing them to reveal who they are and what they value. After our informal exchange, I reconfirm their medical and dental history, as well as their primary concern, before gently reclining the patient for a comprehensive clinical exam. Finally, armed with the data gathered from the radiographic and hygiene exam, I ask the patient for permission to discuss my findings.

During an appointment like Tim’s, it was usually during the presentation of my findings that dread would set in. This is where the appointment would become heavy, and, in the case of Tim’s appointment, it did. Seated before Tim, I lowered my chair to position myself below his eye level, and I asked him to confirm whether he had been informed of any outstanding issues in the past. Then I positioned myself between the computer screen and Tim, ensuring that we could still make eye contact. From here, I started to teach Tim how to interpret X-rays, how to distinguish between bone and tooth structures, what the root apexes needed to look like, and how the whole picture came together with the periodontal probings. I also showed Tim intra-oral photographs of his mouth to fortify my findings. I took my time to meticulously cover each tooth individually, constantly reconnecting through eye contact.

Tim’s reaction to my findings can not only be characterized as surprised but more noticeably, angry. He would puff out his chest after every sentence I said. He clenched his jaw and folded his hands firmly against his belly, revealing to me his inclination to be more upset with me, “the messenger,” than to confront the fear of what all of this meant. Tim seemed more comfortable avoiding the fear of potential health consequences, losing his teeth, and the fear of the financial burden this would most certainly cause.

However, for female providers, there is an added layer of apprehension: the fear of being unheard, dismissed, and having our expertise and professional opinion disregarded the moment we walk into the room.

At that moment, I stood up and positioned all 5’2” and 115 lbs of myself against the operatory wall. I was met with an all-too-familiar gaze that sneered and growled, “What do you know, little girl?” Tim adjusted his 6’2”, 200-lb frame, his gaze attempting to establish superiority over me. I’m no stranger to this gaze. I had encountered it for years, not just from patients but also from colleagues, mentors, and even vendors at professional meetings. This gaze would erode my self-confidence and silence my voice. It suppressed my hard-earned right to be heard, burdening me and making me question often who I was and why I had even bothered to work so tirelessly. Tim wanted to let me know he wasn’t just bigger than me; he was better than me, and in no way, shape, or form was he going to accept the opinion of some girl dentist. That’s what his gaze meant.

Thanks to years of experience and valuable guidance from personal and professional development coaches like Lani Grass and Productive Dentist Academy, I have learned to neutralize that gaze. I have dedicated months to discovering, understanding, and fostering my gifts so I could effortlessly demonstrate them in moments like these. I use my empathy as an asset and an anchor, and I have learned to establish firm boundaries. Most importantly, I have come to learn that a single interaction has no power to diminish my capabilities or my worth.

When I met Tim’s gaze, I understood that he was not superior, and I was not, by any means, in the wrong. Despite his stunned, and perhaps even terrified expression, I knew that I had a responsibility to support him. Instead of abruptly leaving the operatory to avoid further contact and leave Tim in silence, I chose to stay and help him process this overwhelming experience. I owed Tim every ounce of the expertise I had diligently cultivated as a provider, even if my advice would ultimately be disregarded. Equally important, I owed it to myself to be confident and brave, to embody the provider I had worked tirelessly to become.

I empathetically told Tim that I understood how difficult it must have been to hear my findings, particularly given Tim’s unwavering compliance over the past 15 years. I told him that if I were in his position, I would feel disappointed, and probably even angry. I then reassured Tim that confusion and a loss of faith in all of his providers would be natural.

I continued by suggesting, “Considering how surprising and frustrating this information must be, what if we arranged for you to meet with a periodontist? This way you’ll have an opportunity to process and reflect on these findings between appointments. You can also jot down any additional questions (which you can also reach out to me through call or text) and bring them to the specialist appointment. Having someone else reiterate the information might help you build trust in it.”

However, I advised against delaying the next appointment for too long or avoiding necessary care. I explained that even though he might not be experiencing any pain or swelling at the moment, relying on infections in his mouth to resolve on their own is not a healthy strategy.

I assured Tim that I am here for him in any capacity he needs and that I am willing to meet with him as many times as necessary to review the information. I also offered to involve his wife or another family member in the conversation if it would provide him with support or assist in his decision-making process.

Despite my efforts to encourage dialogue, Tim remained silent. He avoided eye contact as he tightly clasped his folded arms. I then handed him my business card, which included my personal cell phone number, and expressed gratitude for his time. I had reached out to our periodontist introducing my findings. I had also asked him to send me a message if Tim schedules or has, in fact, been seen. I have received no indication that the patient has followed up with the specialist.

I made two conscious decisions at that moment, influenced by my gender and the current circumstances.

1. I deliberately lowered my stool to avoid any perception of condescension when I spoke with Tim.
2. I suggested he seek a second opinion.

I have learned that with certain male patients, I need to allocate more time and provide evidence to support my findings by teaching them how to interpret radiographs and showing them intra-oral photos. Those appointments tend to progress more smoothly when I employ advanced dental terminology, showcasing the depth of my education. I have also noticed that I am better received when I am physically more presentable, wearing makeup, and making sure my hair is freshly highlighted. Unfortunately, these are just a few of the additional expectations that women in the healthcare profession often face.

I often wonder what the chairside conversation would be like if a male provider presented the same clinical findings. I can assure you that Tim’s gaze was not a unique perspective nor my perception. Every practicing female provider has encountered challenges that call into question her education, experience, and expertise. At some point in our careers, we have all been viewed as having an inferior opinion. Due to countless interactions like these that I and every other female provider have endured, I have discovered a formula to help prevent us from giving in, being waved off, and/or dismissed.

After nearly 20 years of conversations like the one I had with Tim, I have come up with the following strategies:

1. Trust your gut: Both the patient’s history (if obtained adequately) and your intuition will prepare you for conversations like these. Anticipating and preparing for the interaction is crucial, not because you have something to prove, but because it will help you guide and support the patient effectively.
2. Allocate time: Spend a significant amount of time with the patient. Offer to answer their questions as many times and in as many different ways as they might ask them. Slow down your presentation of the treatment plan. Remove any blame from the conversation and approach it with gentleness and kindness.
3. Do it anyway: When every fiber of your being wants to walk out of the operatory to avoid disrespect, stay anyway. Stay there for the patient, not because of how they are treating you, but because it is your role as their provider.
4. Discover who you are: Write down and commit to who you aspire to be and develop into that person. Grow with confidence in the direction of being seen and heard. Understand the reasons why and when you might be ignored. Evolve alongside the community of female providers to challenge and eradicate the misconceptions about our capabilities. Self-discovery becomes easier when you have the guidance of a coach or consultant. Seek professional help to uncover the talents you might be hesitant to showcase.
5. Be a cheerleader: Find a community of like-minded providers, both men and women, and offer your support to them. When you support someone, they will likely become your cheerleaders. Celebrate with them each time you decide not to mirror the negative energy of your patient. Celebrate when you navigate the appointment with flow and grace despite the challenges.

Fortunately, experiences like the one described above are less frequent than they were decades ago. Women are learning to neutralize “the gaze,” thus changing the narrative of how we are perceived. Our actions, empathy, and ability to support our patients are reshaping how we are treated. Our ability to collaborate and exchange experience as well as ideas with one another has created communal learning and teaching moments.

The dread of entering the operatory is part of the healing profession, just as is exciting, encouraged, and elated for having helped. It’s just a matter of understanding and perspective. Women are learning to neutralize “the gaze,” thus changing the narrative of how we are perceived. Our actions, empathy, and ability to support our patients are reshaping how we are treated.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Maggie Augustyn is a practicing general dentist, the owner of Happy Tooth, a faculty member at Productive Dentist Academy, an author, and an inspirational speaker. She obtained her Doctorate of Dental Surgery from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Augustyn is passionate about reading, researching, writing, and speaking on topics that encompass the human experience, including our struggles, pain, and moments of vitality.

Maggie Augustyn, DDS, FAAIP, FICOI

Her personal mission is to inspire individuals to embark on a journey toward a more authentic self-actualization. She has a notable presence in the media and is a frequent contributor to Dental Entrepreneur Woman. Dr. Augustyn takes great pride in her role as a contributing author to Dentistry Today, where she publishes a column titled “Mindful Moments.”

She has also been featured on various podcasts and is a sought-after national speaker, emphasizing the significance of authenticity and self-discovery.

“Sure,” I answered without hesitation. I then spent weeks delving deeply into how humility has become such a significant part of our upbringing, shaping who we have become today, and the price we pay for rigidly adhering to its principles. Sometimes we forget that our thoughts and how humbly we perceive ourselves materialize. By remaining humble, we often miss out on recognizing the rewards of our tireless efforts. We were never taught that celebrating is a choice—a choice simple enough to make. It almost seemed as if we were instructed to wait for victories and great achievements to find us, or worse yet, to resist them when they surfaced.

We were never taught that the absence of celebration, whether for major accomplishments or everyday occurrences in our lives, is ultimately what prevents us from leading a joyful life. We were never encouraged to etch our successes in stone and our challenges in sand; in fact, we’ve consistently done the opposite. Without an opportunity to celebrate, living in the shadow of humility, we wander aimlessly from one challenge to another. Celebration is what has been missing, and its absence is the reason we often feel inadequate.

BE HUMBLE

“Be humble”—that’s what we were told. If you grew up professing any kind of faith, you likely learned that humility was, and still is, an irreplaceable core value. The Christian tradition has always upheld humility as a virtue, though Christians did not invent it; it has always been present in Hebrew scriptures.

That includes this:

“He who humbles himself, will God elevate; he who elevates himself, him will God humiliate. He who runs after greatness, from him greatness will flee; he who flees from greatness, him will greatness follow” – ER. 13A

As well as this:

“All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” – Peter 5:5

Islam maintains that humility leads to one of the pleasures of Allah, a golden ticket in the paradise.

“And the servants of the Beneficent God are they who walk on the earth in humbleness” – Quran 25: 63

Humility is an essential part of the spiritual practice of Buddhism.

“Through humility, you realize absolute truth. The sun is radiant at all times, but the blind never see that radiance. In the same way, without humility, you will never be able to recognize absolute truth.” – Maitreya

Hindus believe that humility exalts us, that it does not make us small. It spreads: “consider yourself as less important than a blade of grass.”

Sikhs, as well as all of the above other faiths, bow humbly to their creator.

“The fruit of humility is intuitive peace and pleasure. With Humility they continue to meditate on the Lord, the Treasure of excellence. The God-conscious being is steeped in humility. One whose heart is mercifully blessed with abiding humility. Sikhism deal Humility as begging bowl before the god.” – Guru Nanak, First Guru Of Sikhism

And so, in whatever home you grew up in, it is likely that humility was talked about and placed as the highest virtue to uphold.

“Be humble,” we were told, as it was seen as the very antithesis of pride and egoism.

“Be humble,” we are told, as if there is no other middle ground. There was, is, and will be so much wrong with egomaniacs and self-aggrandizing boasters that the only viable option in avoiding being prideful and selfish was to have remained meek. Upholding the value of humility, leaning towards being more obliging than feral, may have led us to live with a lack of celebration in our daily endeavors.

HUMILITY ENDURED IN EDUCATION

It was with humility and cautious optimism that we progressed throughout our academic careers. At times, feeling a sense of trepidation, we studied, took the exams, and anxiously awaited their results. School seemed to stretch on endlessly, and the absence of immediate feedback on our exam scores brought a moment of pause. This pause kept us humble. Each of those moments presented the possibility of either perpetual failure or moving on to the next step. The uncertainty within that pause contributed, in part, to shaping us into the individuals we are today.

The humility earned during those hours, and sometimes days, of waiting became the motivation to strive for more, to excel in grades, and to acquire additional credentials behind our names. For those who reached their set goals, we recall that the less success we experienced, the more grounded we remained, and the more determined we became. Humility drove us towards higher levels of achievement, yet we often neglected to take a moment to acknowledge the victories we had actually achieved. As humble as we were raised, so humble we continued to be.

DICHOTOMY OF HUMILITY AND FEAR

As mentioned, messages endured from our upbringing and academic background kept us humble. And humble we have remained. We stayed humble to meet the expectations of others, humble for the fear of judgment, humble to ensure we don’t make someone else feel small. We’ve even remained humble for the fear of enticing jealousy and envy from another.

We have even become so humble that most of us don’t know how to accept a compliment. Yet, I am here to argue that the reason our humility continues is entirely based on a fear that all the good that we have amassed could be taken away. And also, humility lies in the fear that if we celebrate, or if we let others know we are worthy of celebration, we will be proven undeserving of the good, we will be proven to be an impostor.

Allow me to illustrate: If you love or have loved, if you’ve been loved, and especially if you’re a parent, you may have found yourself almost asleep some night counting your blessings. You are calm and grateful, and you surrender to the happiness you’re feeling in the moment. Whoever or whatever had brought you the love in life, the children you’d go to the end of the world to protect, you are cradled between the pillow and blanket in awe of its presence. And the moment you are about to let go and fall asleep, in that moment of peace and tenderness, you are all of a sudden taken over with thoughts of the worst that can happen.

You imagine an invasion, a death, kidnapping. You imagine deception and cruelty. You imagine an end to the harmony and to the serenity. You are so afraid of losing the love you feel and the love you give, that you can no longer bring yourself to celebrate (as you have just before), not even for a moment, not even in private. The fear of inconceivable loss pushes you away from a rejoice and pushes you back toward humility.

You conclude: “If I don’t think the good thoughts, if I remain meek, I will not suffer with the bad thoughts.”

So, in the coming moments, when you try to fall asleep tomorrow or the next day, when you’re about to count all the goodness you’d amassed, you’ll stop yourself for the fear of feeling what it’s like to lose it all. I have done this dance and the fear is, in fact, paralyzing. Thus, as we have boxed ourselves into humility so much that we lack celebration, we are unable to feel the success that we have become.

We are unable to get the reward for our hard work. Humility is what makes us participate and return to the rat race. Humility keeps us incessant. Humility is part of a loop we have created in our minds to keep writing our challenges in stone and successes in sand. Humility is the thing that will not let us rest.

ENOUGH WITH THE HUMBLE

Humility may have started as an important virtue within the backbone of our creation and development. But has humility remained within the scope of what we find comfortable because of fear and a sense of worthlessness? Has it forced us to inadvertently pause celebrations, moments of self-satisfaction? Dare I say, now: enough with the humble! We know our minds are powerful. They are capable of trickery, sorcery, and alchemy, for we have not yet completely understood how and why they work as they do. Studies have shown us that we can increase muscular strength simply by thinking about it.

In a 2006 study ^[1], volunteers performed mental (not physical) exercises of their fingers and elbows. They gained 38% of strength in their fingers simply by imagining the movement, compared to those who physically exercised it and gained 53%. In another study ^[2], 11 out of 13 children, sensitive to poison ivy, developed an allergic reaction by being told their right arm was exposed to an allergen. The arm was being touched by a plant that held no poison to the child. When they were, in fact, rubbed by poison ivy (and told it was an innoculant), they did not develop a rash. The main point in both of these studies is that our minds are far more powerful than we give them credit for, and whatever we feed them, whatever we believe, we manifest and create. So, again, enough with the humble!

Enough with reducing our own self-worth by living in fear of what will most likely never happen.

UNPROTECTED LIVING

The opposite of humility may be egotism, but there is so much space between humility and egoism to live a good life. That middle ground is the sustenance our minds need to feel successful; it’s the reward for the tireless hard work we’ve put into getting to this point. Humility may be the protective barrier between the very vivid, gut-wrenching, and heart rate-increasing fear—one that we may not have been aware of before. But living in its shadow prevents us from the reward, from basking in the joy of the love surrounding us. Keeping ourselves from resting on our laurels eliminates the spoils that have come from the tireless efforts of our days.

If we continue to stop ourselves from celebrating on account of how we’ve been brought up, on account of what’s expected, on account of how we’re judged, or what we fear, our days will blend and be bland. No reward and no award. So, I tell you once more: enough with the humble. Open your mind to believing in your own ability to actualize, open your mind to actually feeling the successes you’ve created without the fear of any impending doom.

REFERENCES

1. Ranganathan VK, Siemionow V, Liu JZ, Sahgal V, Yue GH. From mental power to muscle power–gaining strength by using the mind. Neuropsychologia. 2004;42(7):944-56. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2003.11.018. PMID: 14998709.
2. Ikemi Y, Nakagawa S. A psychosomatic study of contagious dermatitis. Kyushu J Med Sci. 1962;13:335–350.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Maggie Augustyn is a practicing general dentist, the owner of Happy Tooth, a faculty member at Productive Dentist Academy, an author, and an inspirational speaker. She obtained her Doctorate of Dental Surgery from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Augustyn is passionate about reading, researching, writing, and speaking on topics that encompass the human experience, including our struggles, pain, and moments of vitality.

Maggie Augustyn, DDS, FAAIP, FICOI

Her personal mission is to inspire individuals to embark on a journey toward a more authentic self-actualization. She has a notable presence in the media and is a frequent contributor to Dental Entrepreneur Woman. Dr. Augustyn takes great pride in her role as a contributing author to Dentistry Today, where she publishes a column titled “Mindful Moments.”

She has also been featured on various podcasts and is a sought-after national speaker, emphasizing the significance of authenticity and self-discovery.

Startled, maybe even a little creeped out, I wondered how dare he and then was curious as to who he was and what he wanted.

“You’re surrounded by so much beauty,” he said. “Please… smile!”

So, I did smile; I even giggled and laughed. As I turned back in my original direction, I felt my face sink back into deep thought, perhaps even into a frown. He couldn’t have been more right. I walk the beach in profound contemplation, and now I realize, possibly with a frown.

Why don’t I appear to be relishing the rewards of my hard work over the past several months, rewards that have now granted me this respite? Why am I not reveling in the glory of my own success?

I often mention fellow practitioners and dental professionals in my articles, not to promote them, but to highlight camaraderie, collaboration, shared insights, and occasionally mentorship, both given and received. I wouldn’t be who I am today without the help I’ve received along the way, the inspiration, and sometimes even the clarity on who I don’t want to become. In the past three years, as I’ve broken out of my introverted shell, the relationships I’ve forged have led to numerous enlightening moments and spurred commitments to change. My meeting with Dr. Chad Johnson was no exception.

Dr. Maggie Augustyn and Dr. Chad Johnson.

Chad, standing at 6’4”, has an unforgettably grand personality I’m lucky enough to have experienced. He is light and he is fun. His sense of humor makes you wish you had a brother like that growing up. Chad has the very unique nature of giving, teaching, and guiding without expecting anything in return. A self-proclaimed BBQ enthusiast, he is quite the opposite of my contemplative frown. He is a podcast co-host of ‘Everyday Practices’ with Regan Robertson, faculty at Productive Dentist Academy, a speaker for Dr. Arun Garg, and of course, a general dentist and multi-practice owner in Iowa. Life brought Chad and me to Miami with an overlap of 12 hours, and despite his exhaustion from a day of speaking, he came to visit me for a talk to remember.

Dental Entrepreneur, a publication run by Anne Duffy, has published one of my articles titled “I’ve arrived: from $100 in the bank to generational wealth in less than 3 years.^[1]”

This is the very discussion that Chad and I had in Miami. We have both felt that, at almost 20 years in the profession, after two decades of blood, sweat, and tears, facing many challenges and engaging in heavy lifting, we have, in fact, arrived. Zooming out and taking in the full view of our lives, we have attained it all. We are both successful, productive, and profitable practice owners. We both have wonderful marriages filled with the laughter of our children, or eye rolls, as I have a 13-year-old daughter. Materialistically, we have accumulated all we could or would want. And, to emphasize, when examining our hearts and purpose, we truly want for nothing more.

At this thorough and introspective view of our lives, we have decided that, in fact, we do have it all. We have arrived. And yet our days are still filled with endless meetings, webinars, and far too little time spent with our loved ones. Both early risers, we have a morning routine to be followed by a day at the office, a quick bite to eat with the family, and a return to the computer for more emails, continuing education, and business planning.

Chad, ecstatic he’s arrived.

We continue to work tirelessly towards growth and are exhausted. We push, we run on fast-forward, and yet, neither one of us can figure out why. More importantly, neither one of us can figure out why we haven’t been able to stop.

I have been at crossroads before; crossroads that have been instrumental in creating change. I’ve been able to change my routine, change my practice, change my attitude, change my ways, my life, my drive. But when I consider where I’m at and how hard, how fast, and strenuously I still push to drive… I lose faith that my fast-forward motivation can ever change. My brain simply refuses to stop. Have I created a life where I am addicted to growth, to change? And has this addiction, in turn, taken away calm and peace? How do I slow down and simply rest on the laurels of my conquered fate?

Michael Singer, a New York Times Best Selling author of “Untethered Soul” (among many others), suggests that the only time we can truly appreciate our success, the only time we can bring calm to our minds, is when others take notice. We gather and gather, hoping that someone, anyone, will notice. According to him, it is in the approval of another that our self-worth and feeling of stillness reside. An interesting concept, and one which I think we have all tested to find accurate. Allow me to illustrate: a few days ago, while arriving at our hotel room, my daughter runs through the beautiful 33rd-floor, 700 sq. foot mini-suite I booked, looks back at me and asks… “Can we afford this?”

My sarcastic mind wanted to say: of course, we can, mama knows how to find a great deal. But according to Singer’s theory, the compliment would have stilled my mind and I would have felt relevant and successful. And though I am not seeking approval from my own kid, Singer was right. In that moment, one which I will not likely forget anytime soon, I did feel like I’d arrived.

The view, the space, the Egyptian cotton said it all, yet I couldn’t or maybe wouldn’t see it, until she mentioned it.

There seems to be an unspoken rule that I should always have a resolution at the conclusion of my articles. And this time around… I don’t know that I can offer advice on something that I myself struggle with. I would rather present to you the idea, that if you, too, feel the same as Dr. Chad and I, you’re not alone. If you’ve gathered all you’d set out to be, and still want more, those feelings are not unique to just you. We’d been programmed to drive and push since the very beginning of our academic careers, and thus it isn’t simple to let go of that heavy expectation of gathering and gaining. There is one piece of advice I am willing to put on display here.

One which I am starting to partake in and one that I pray I can commit to day in and day out; and that is: surrender, another one of Michael Singer’s trademark teachings. Surrender to the feeling of accomplishment. Surrender to the celebration you leave no time for. Surrender to the moment which took millennia to present itself. Surrender to what is and to what isn’t. Surrender and let your mind be still. Still and calm your thoughts. With the stillness of the mind, with a surrender to celebration comes a decreased sense of want. We want more of that which is never going to make us whole or make us full.

We already have what we’ve wanted. We already have more than what we thought possible. So, how dare we want more?

REFERENCES

1. https://amp.issuu.com/dentalentrepreneur/docs/de_winter2023/s/21599743

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Maggie Augustyn is a practicing general dentist, the owner of Happy Tooth, a faculty member at Productive Dentist Academy, an author, and an inspirational speaker. She obtained her Doctorate of Dental Surgery from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Augustyn is passionate about reading, researching, writing, and speaking on topics that encompass the human experience, including our struggles, pain, and moments of vitality. Her personal mission is to inspire individuals to embark on a journey toward a more authentic self-actualization. She has a notable presence in the media and is a frequent contributor to Dental Entrepreneur Woman.

Dr. Augustyn takes great pride in her role as a contributing author to Dentistry Today, where she publishes a column titled “Mindful Moments.” She has also been featured on various podcasts and is a sought-after national speaker, emphasizing the significance of authenticity and self-discovery.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Dmitry Tkachuk/Shutterstock.com.