Dental Entrepreneur Woman - Autumn 2019

Autumn 2019

Girl, Know Your Worth!

Lisa Moler

A Dental Perfectionist's Confession Kandice Swarthout

A Griever's Guide to Life After Loss Kimberly Harms

Once an RDH, Always an RDH Debora Carrier

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Dear DeWs, Autumn 2019 Editor and Publisher Anne M. Duffy, RDH Associate Publisher

Advisors to the Board Katherine Eitel-Belt Linda Miles Vicki McManus Peterson

Rebecca Paciorek Assistant Editor Michael Duffy JoAnn Schutte Creative Consultant Beth Linesch Design and Layout Brian Rummel Production [CURAtive] James B. Kennedy Reilly Williams Autumn Contributors Debora Carrier Kimberly Harms Cindy Ishimoto Lisa Moler Kandice Swarthout Cover Photography Klise Media GroupBrandon Thompson Web Management My Dental Agency Charter Sponsors A-dec Crest Mary Fisher-Day Inspired Hygiene Patterson D5 Patterson Fuse Shofu

Board Kristine A Berry Dr. Tanya Brown Jasmin Haley Bonnie Hixson Janice Hurley Suzanne Kump Tonya Lanthier Rachel Mele Anastasia Turchetta Rice Lori Streeter Rachel Wall Rita Zamora Junior Board Dr. Shakila Angadi Jennifer Chevalier Dr. Erinne Kennedy Minal Sampat Dr. Amisha Singh

Happy Autumn! This is my favorite time of year.

Leaves changing colors, pumpkins, new school beginnings, shorter days, longer nights, football and family traditions. It is also the time we race to accomplish our goals before the end of the year. One last sprint to 2020. I hope these pages encourage you to cross the 2019 finish line with a sense that you did your best and in anticipation for what’s next. Because anything is possible when you believe.

I can’t think of a better time to present our Cover DeW to all of you. She may have flown under the radar in some of our DeW circles as she is squarely in the dentists’ lane with her four major publications. She is a girl-boss with a heart of gold and truly a DeW extraordinaire. I met Lisa Moler through a DeW introduction – which is just the best way to connect – and we became fast friends and instant DeW sisters. As you can imagine when you read her story, she wasn’t sure she wanted to tell it. It’s not easy baring your soul and revealing where you came from. But she did and she overcame! Lisa will inspire you with her candor, her grit and her accomplishments. She is funny, brilliant and a force in our industry.

As I read through this edition, I was reminded how women carry burdens that no one suspects or talks about. For some reason, they talk about them here, and we are better for it. All of our authors are so special, so real and have a unified goal to inspire you with hope of the future and love of self.

Dr. Kimberly Harms’ story on grief will make you grateful that you have your own problems. Deb Carrier, who better to build it than her? Kandice Swarthout, I know you will see a piece of you in her writing, and Cindy Ishimoto gives us permission to live our lives on our terms. Enjoy our DeW Dishers – one of my favorite sections in DeW Life. You will find a continuation of their Dish answers on our website in the coming weeks. We love getting to know our sister DeWs! And please continue to send us your pics for WWW. We love publishing you.

I couldn’t resist sharing a tradition of my own. Please save this recipe for my grandmother’s Brown Bread that so many of you have requested. It’s my family tradition. What is yours? Keep baking it forward!

Editorial Office 12233 Pine Valley Club Dr Charlotte, NC 28277 704-953-0261 Fax 704-847-3315 anneduffy@dew.life Send materials to: DeW Life Magazine 8334 Pineville Matthews Rd Ste. 103-201 Charlotte, NC 28226 Guidelines go to dew.life

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Cheers to you! Cheers to DeWing! #dewlife

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AUTUMN 2019

contents

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Girl, know your worth!

Lisa moler

A Dental Perfectionist’s Confession

Kandice Swarthout, RDH, LPC

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A Griever's Guide to Life after Loss

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Once an RDH, always an RDH My journey from fulltime RDH to owning two businesses that help my fellow dental professionals

Kimberly Harms

Debora Carrier, RDH

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There is no Balance! only choices cindy ishimoto

26 DeW-ers

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Who, Wear, When

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DeW Dish

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Living Your Strengths

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Traditions 36

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DEW-ERS

GIRL, KNOW YOUR WORTH! By Lisa Moler

“S

elf-worth comes from ONE thing – thinking that you are worthy.” – Wayne Dyer

I always root for the underdog. From the womb, I think I had this empathic nature of just knowing and relating to those (including myself) who weren’t handed the proverbial “silver spoon” in this life. I have always been myself, really. Of course, not always understanding exactly WHO that self was, I knew early on that I was different; unique, opinionated, stubborn, sensitive, inquisitive, kind, classy and downright sassy...all attributes that have served me well, both in my business of 15 years, and my life in general.

Those of you who know me know that I am the “Queen of Quotes.” Reading and learning from the master teachers who have come before me is one of my greatest passions.

Wayne Dyer, Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, Marianne Williamson, Tony Robbins — my office walls are full of some of my favorite quotes and stand as constant reminders of where I’ve been and what I’ve achieved in my half century on this earth (Damn, that sounds super old.). You see, MY very worth lives in all their poignant teachings. Please indulge me as I will use a few of my favorites to tell this story. My story; a la CliffsNotes.

Without going into all the gory details of my past, which, trust me, would take far more than the generous word limit Ms. Duffy has allowed me, let me briefly set the stage.

I came out of the womb stressed. I wasn’t hanging out sucking my thumb in there; I was literally biting my nails! I was born to a raging, alcoholic, Marine father and a victim, doormat, look-the-other-way mother.

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I’m sorry, but this combo does not scream, “Welcome to this world; we are here to unconditionally love and support your precious life!” My two older brothers and I were raised very strict Catholics. Yes, 12 long years of Catholic school, uniforms, priests, nuns and freaking GUILT. Looking back now, that part of my life was both a blessing and a curse, really. It formed the relationship I now have with my highest power throughout my life, yet the hypocrisy of it all…staggering. We were front and center every Sunday morning for 10:30 a.m. Mass; my cousin was a priest, so this made confession super easy-breezy…lol. My parents were respected and popular in our community. Think the Beaver Cleavers — only the super dysfunctional version. We were the “go-to” parish party house. The priests and nuns whom I feared daily at school regularly held camp in our living room throwing back Jack Daniels and smoking cigarettes — excuse me, but WTF? Can you even imagine the confusion racing through a child’s mind with that circus going on around them? No surprise I have since adopted the phrase, “Not my circus; not my monkeys” as a mantra in my life.

Did I mention my dad was a Marine?? This made for some very interesting household rules and self-esteem dilemmas. We were NEVER allowed to complain, have an opinion outside of his, look sideways at him, question him or display anything he deemed defiant; or, let me tell you, there was hell to pay. Being any kind of sick in our house was also out of the question. I played varsity softball all four years of high school and, due to my height, actually played a pretty bad-ass first base. I broke two ribs in a game one night, sliding into 2nd base. My opponent, ball in mitt, “tagged” me (more like a full-on Mike Tyson body blow) square in the side, fracturing both my ribs.

My coach, of course, pulled me immediately out of the

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game while my dad hit the field in front of packed stands screaming, “She’s fine; she can still play. What are you smoking, coach? Keep her in the damn game!” I chuckle to myself as I write this because, to this day, his words have inadvertently become one of my most significant life lessons. Today, when I get into a place of uncertainty, I step back, take some deep breaths, and remind myself: I’ve got this; I’m a strong player. Keep my head up, and, most importantly, STAY IN THE DAMN GAME! Unfortunately, the above example is just one of many incidents that took place regularly. Weak, or anything my dad perceived as weak, was NOT an acceptable trait he would have: hard stop. It would quite honestly take me multiple thousands of words to expound on all my family-of-origin issues and how they’ve impacted my life. Suffice it to say there was a crap-ton of verbal and emotional abuse. I have witnessed events in my life that no one person should ever have to experience. My dad, being a textbook alcoholic, and my mom, a raging codependent, made for a very dangerous dynamic in our daily lives. The air was so thick with palpable hate, it was hard to breathe. Anger, rage, self-medicating and dinner tables' being overturned mid-bite of spaghetti were the norm. Not to mention my dad’s numerous infidelities.

Ahhhhh, his life on the road…more a blessing than a curse. But home or not, my mom did absolutely nothing to stop it or remove her three kids from the abuse. I have come to give her grace (through much therapy) that if she couldn’t even save herself, how could she have possibly navigated the lifeboat to save us? Totally unequipped. No oars against a sea of monstrous, crashing waves, equals certain death. And die it did. After 30 long, torturous years together, “Ward and June” were finally done. I will not go into all the heinous, Jerry Springer details of the

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end, but it involved my mom’s sister, and it was incredibly ugly. The year I turned 18, my mom had finally had enough, pulled the plug, and that’s when the REAL world started to get “ugly real” for me. Both my parents went their separate ways, my brothers were away at college, and I was left to fend for myself the summer after my high school graduation.

I firmly believe the phrase, “Hurt people hurt people” to be completely spot-on. Why would we grow up in chaos and dysfunction and NOT attract that which feels completely familiar to us in a mate? That said, like clockwork, I met my first husband, fell instantly in love, (whatever THAT was) married, and for 10 long, abusive years, tried desperately to convince myself that I was “home” with him. I was only “home” because in every possible way imaginable, he was figuratively MY FATHER! It didn’t end well. Divorced and pushing 40.

Awesome. No exaggeration here; this chapter of my life was a complete shit-show extraordinaire and way too much to go into for this story. That, my friends, is what they call “another show.” I have since come to peace with that time in my life and grown from my mistakes. After all, it was a lesson, NOT a life sentence.

Having had such a personal, spiritual connection with my higher power all my life, you can imagine my response to Him when everything was quiet, and I knew He was listening. I was sad, but, more than that, I was angry; angrier than I think I’ve ever been in my life. It was time to start over. I had to; I had no other choice. I gathered up my courage, moved my past life and all its memories into a rented storage unit, and settled into an 800-sq. ft condo. It felt like a cracker box compared to the elaborate home in which I’d been used to living. It was scary. I learned to breathe, pray, be still, and listen for answers.

Anything to keep me focused and on task for this “new

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Dew-ers life,” whatever it was going to be. But, what I had failed to realize at the time, was that HE knew something I hadn’t fully comprehended yet — just how much I was worth.

Isn’t it amusing that the answers we’re looking for don’t always come in the form that we think they should? I mean, at a time in my life when my world was crashing in around me, I knew that I had to continue publishing a magazine because that’s what I do. My work is my comfort zone. A friend of mine at the time was a recruiter.

She came to me one day with an offer to publish for a national company that was looking for someone to head up their dental title in Arizona. My first reaction was, of course, dental industry? What in the world do I know about dental? My last name is "Moler," but that’s about it. She gave me the details, and, hey, I was desperate to find something and start making some money. I took the job. The home office was based here in my hometown of Scottsdale, and it made sense to at least try. I’m a huge “follow-my-gut” girl, and it was screaming at me to give it a shot. I hired a sweet, 17-year-old intern from a posting that one of my fellow publishing friends put up at one of the local colleges. When I met her, I knew that there was something about this young girl; again, went with my gut. She helped me out part-time with contracts and paperwork. I did the selling. We literally shared a makeshift office out of my tiny second bedroom, including sharing a computer. It was tight, but we made it work; and within that first year my Arizona market held the top ranking out of about 12 markets at the time. Here’s the amazing thing though — 15 years later, I am blessed to still be working with this same woman (now age 32) on my team, and neither of us would have had it any other way. The road has been long, rocky and full of tears over this journey, but, God, has it been worth it. Suffice it to say, my gut paid off tremendously. My dental publishing/ marketing company has grown incredibly. My team and I now publish four national dental journals, have a huge digital presence and serve hundreds of amazing clients within our niche-specific, dental verticals. My little business, built from a teeny little bedroom in my home and financed by a skinny little $500-limit credit card, has now flourished into a multi-million-dollar business, one of which I couldn’t be prouder. Writing this and telling this part of my story still gives me goosebumps.

magazines. This, my girlfriends, is no accident. I read, studied, listened to tapes (yes, I said tapes), took Tony’s (and other teachers') words to heart many years ago, put them into practice and prayed a lot; and just look at the miracles that have transpired in my life! I have also been blessed to work with some other fabulous high profiles along the way as well: Simon Sinek, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Shaquille O’Neal and some outstanding dentists! So many heartfelt conversations from which I’ve learned so much. No hocus pocus, magic formula here...just a selftaught, unending belief in myself and never losing sight of MY true worth, mixed with damn hard, gut-wrenching work. (Hard work and a heap of healthy balance…my secret sauce.)

To think of what I’ve manifested through perseverance, hard work and NEVER quitting on myself is, quite honestly, pretty phenomenal. I am not one to usually stop and give myself props, but what I’ve come from, out of and through to the other side is no less than a miracle.

These continue to happen daily in my life. As mentioned Since my purpose of this story is not to portray the earlier, Tony Robbins has been an ongoing mentor for me “victim” or play the “blame-game,” but more to inspire starting from my early 20s when life was pretty dismal. to what’s actually possible, and get to the good stuff of Through my business, I’ve had the amazing opportunity what I’ve learned…my road has obviously been some to work with and interview Tony a few times now for my rough, rocky terrain and has been mostly navigated by

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Dew-ers life unannounced, like a visitor I wasn’t expecting, but boy, am I grateful it stayed. Don’t get me wrong; like everyone, I still have “my days,” but it’s in those moments that I quiet my mind, remind myself to stay in THIS moment, be ever grateful for what I have and how far I have come in life, and stay present and committed to the people I love. As Tony also says, “Trade your expectations for appreciation, and your whole world changes instantly.”

How can we NOT find something to appreciate in our lives daily? It’s virtually impossible. Just look up.

And as for my personal life — well, my Prince Charming, straight out of a happily-ever-after fairytale, also came true. I manifested and attracted an amazingly awesome husband who epitomizes the words good, loving, giving, trusting, loyal, best friend, my true north and the forever love of my life, all on my own. I prayed, and God listened.

I must pinch myself every day now to honestly believe this is the life that I am now so fortunate to be living. I continue to work on myself every single day. I will forever be a work in progress and a student of this life. There is never a moment I can take for granted, but I strive daily to live in the present. I stay committed to my selfcare through counseling, reading, learning, meditation, journaling, Pilates, scheduling FUN into my calendar, daily belly laughs with my hubby, loving on my fur babies and seeking to maintain balance and peace with my past.

After all, it has been my greatest teacher.

I leave you with this, my strong, amazing, wonder-women: Find your worth. Know your worth. Celebrate your worth.

But most importantly, NEVER, EVER let anyone succeed in taking your God-given worth from you. That is your gift, your light, your intuition. Trust it. Keep it tucked away safely. You may need it someday, like I did. the "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway" mentality (great Life quotes I love: book, btw). But really, what choice did I have? I could easily sit here today as a victim of what life has thrown “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our my way, but WHO exactly would that be hurting? My story deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. simply can’t be told without having the courage to “out It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. the ugly” because, as I have come to learn, without my We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, dad's having been the angry, self-absorbed, abusive talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You person he was, I would most definitely NOT be the strong, are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the successful woman I am today. I guarantee it would not world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so have gone down this way. So, for that reason alone, I am that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are grateful to him. My favorite “Tony-ism” sums it all up all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make perfectly: “If you’re going to blame your parents for the manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in bad, you had better blame them for the good, too.” BOOM. some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light Mic drops. shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our And this beautiful “dental world” we are all so fortunate to presence automatically liberates others.” – Marianne be a part of...I have to say, no word of a lie, this industry, Williamson and the amazing people I’ve met within it, have literally saved my life. I owe a debt of gratitude to this profession “I will attract into my life what I AM, not what I want.” that may never be re-paid. A blessing that came into my — Wayne Dyer

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Dew-ers Shop assistant: “Hello, can I help you?”

Vivian: “I was in here yesterday, you wouldn’t wait on me.”

Shop assistant: “Oh.” Vivian: “You people work on commission, right?”

Shop assistant: “Yeah.”

Vivian: “Big mistake. Big. HUGE. I have to go shopping now.” — Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman “Your ego is NOT your amigo.” – author unknown “She slept with wolves without fear, for the wolves knew a lion was among them” – R.M. Drake “Never look back. If Cinderella had gone back to pick up her shoe, she would never have become a princess.” – author unknown “Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect.” – Steve Jobs

About the author Over the last three decades, entrepreneur and innovator Lisa Moler’s reputation as one of the most dynamic forces in the American publishing industry has grown and diversified.

Since 2005, when she launched MedMark, Lisa has been the driving force behind Endodontic Practice US, Implant Practice US, Orthodontic Practice US, and Dental Sleep Practice magazine. As MedMark’s CEO/founder and publisher, she guides the company’s business strategy, while cultivating business development opportunities and establishing strategic industry partnerships.

Her high energy blended with her extensive sales, marketing and advertising experience has made Lisa a thought leader in the dental publishing field. Throughout her publications and emedia endeavors, she has built a culture of performance, respect, trust and collaboration.

“Give yourself the love you seek, and the universe will send people who match it.” – Abraham “There are people in your life who’ve come and gone; they let you down; you know they’ve hurt your pride. You better put it all behind you, baby, cause life goes on. You keep carryin’ that anger, it’ll eat you up inside, baby.”

– Don Henley

DISH

LIVE

Watch your email & social media for coming guests.

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who, wear, when.

Patti D'Gangi, Tonya Lanthier, Cherie LePenske

Rachel Wall, Judy Kay, Rita Zamora

Alicia Marie, Megen Elliott

Colleen Huff, Angela Davis Sullivan, Susan Leckowicz

The Future is Female

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Heather Collichio, Linda Miles dew.life

Hygienists Circle at Dentsply Sirona with Renee Graham

Andrea Greer, JoAn Majors Ann Marie DePalma, Amanda Cole

Upcoming Events Minal Sampat, Katrina Sanders

Lucy Hobbs Project October 3-5, 2019 Chicago, IL thelucyhobbsproject.com DeW Retreat November 14-16, 2019 Charlotte, NC

Liz Graham, Anne Duffy, Trish O'Hehir

Greater NY Dental Mtg. 2019 Nov 29 - Dec 4, 2019 NY, NY Jumpstart 2020 January 9 - 11, 2020 Phoenix, AZ SCN Unplugged January 11, 2020 Napa, CA Divas in Dentistry dew.life

Karen Seibert, Deborah Carrier, Dr. Joy Void-Holmes

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W e D

h s i D

Getting to know more about our DeW-ers, the women that make up the dental world.

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Joan Majors spousetales.com

How do you measure your success?

I have a bookmark that I give out with my books many times. One side says, "SUCCESS," and under that it says, "Success is often about making the money." The other side says, "SIGNIFICANCE," and under that it says, "Significance is ALWAYS about making the difference!"

When I have the opportunity to be significant in some way, it is always a choice. It takes time and intention. The tough truth is, it is rarely about me. Using our God-given gifts to be significant in some way is success. Speaking is a gift for me and so is my love for cooking. When I have an opportunity to serve others in some way, I feel successful.

What obstacles have you overcome in your career?

Photo courtesy of Emily Bennett

Who has been the most influential woman in your life?

Definitely my mother. I’ve written about her in every one of my books, and her perseverance, courage and ability to navigate a time when “brown, stay down” was so prevalent. She was arrested early in my life (after her stroke) because they thought she was illegal. I remember sitting on that bench in the police station with my sister just swinging our feet because they didn’t touch the floor.

The look on her beautiful face as we walked out (her head held high) was a moment I’ll never forget.

On days when I think I have something tough to handle, I think about how rough her life was. A young woman remarried with a large blended family, she was only 29 when she suffered a massive stroke. This left her partially paralyzed on her right side, and although her English was broken, she was not! She was constantly judged as someone illegal because of her inability to articulate well.

Honestly, I learned more about intentionally connecting with people from her than anyone. She learned to engage and connect with very few words. I’m reminded how great my life is when I think of her.

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The list is pretty long, and I’ve seen my share of racism and chauvinistic behavior for sure. People who say it doesn’t exist, quite frankly, don’t get out enough! I had the advantage to work for some pretty high-profile people in our industry early on. I saw first-hand what greed, conceit and ego can look like and how it can destroy businesses and lives. It would be impossible to share just how much income I lost due to foolish decisions that a couple of other people made.

Looking back, I’ve made some mistakes and trusted the wrong people. Rather than beat myself up, I am reminded of a quote my husband shares and that I love.

“The person who trusts everyone makes fewer mistakes than the person who trusts no one.” – author unknown Bottom-line, I’ve trusted the wrong people, but it isn’t really a mistake UNLESS you refuse to learn from it. I’ve learned a lot; and my circle is much smaller today, and it’s far more valuable!

What do you do to turn around a bad day?

When possible, I move. I change my location. I’ll go outside and focus on something beautiful or amazing that God created. Literally, look down the inside of a beautiful flower. If I can’t leave, I’ll meditate with BrainTap.

What is your guilty pleasure?

Binging on Netflix, and praying there are no Cheetos in the house, LOL!

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Grace Yum mommydibs.com

What “DeW” leaders do?

I think leaders are a combination of inspiring yet firm.

Leaders help other people to get them where they need to go and get them to perform at a high level. I think leaders attract people to them for different reasons.

Leadership can be lonely because sometimes you need to make executive decisions and not be "popular."

What is your dream vacation?

My dream vacation is to go to the Seychelles!

What is first on your dental bucket list?

What is the best part of your job?

The best part of my career is watching my patients grow and become real people. I feel so honored to be a part of their lives and to be a part of their support team. I love connecting with families and taking care of them.

Who has been the most influential woman in your life?

My mom is the most influential person in my life. She is in her 70s and still runs marathons all over the world.

She taught me the art of negotiation and gave me my entrepreneurial spirit. She has always lived with passion and happiness and taught me to beat to my own drum.

Most importantly, she taught me to be independent and strong.

What do you do to turn around a bad day?

I find a way to get the frustration out of my system whether that means venting to my husband or friends, working out, or finding a way to relax and get my mind off of things.

What is your guilty pleasure?

My guilty pleasure is chocolate. I am pre-diabetic, and diabetes runs in my family. I had gestational diabetes with both my kids so I have to watch what sugars I eat.

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I feel that I have achieved most of my dental bucket list.

I started working in dentistry at 18. I sat at the front desk and answered phones, filed folders and insurance, collected payment, cleaned the office, did the sterile, stocked the rooms, assisted the doctor...you name it, I did it. I now own 2 dental practices and am at a place in practice that I am learning new procedures. I just bought a laser, and so that is my next bucket list item.

What does balance look like?

Balance is not always achievable at every moment in life.

Sometimes you are up, and sometimes you are down.

And there are times when life is really perfect. I think you need to let go of perfect and just do the best you can.

Find your tribe, and accept help when offered; it doesn't mean you are weak.

How do you take your coffee?

I take my coffee BLACK. Ever since college and especially dental school, there was no time to add anything to my coffee. As soon as it was done percolating, off I went, and I had to get used to drinking it black!

What scares you the most?

What scares me the most is losing my kids. I was once on vacation, and the adult watching my children was on her phone (family member), and lost my 6-year-old at the mall. It was the longest 10 minutes of my life.

What is your motto?

Live by the Golden Rule

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Tija Hunter rockstardentalassistant.com

What obstacles have you overcome in your career?

I think the biggest obstacles for any dental assistants are recognition and appreciation. There was a time when we were looked upon as the third wheel in the practice, and I don’t believe that’s true anymore. Sure, there are some doctors and offices out there that need to be more appreciative of their assistants; but I think times are changing, and the dental assistants now can do so much more. They truly are valuable team members!

What obstacles have you overcome in your life?

Well, like many dental assistants, I was a single mom, raising a little boy and trying to do that on my own in the beginning, and it was difficult. Eventually things got better, and I was able to take care of us and build a good life. I think it’s always challenging in the beginning; everything is new, and you’re not sure where you’re going or what you even want to do.

What is the best part of your job?

The best part of my job is traveling all over getting to visit dental teams and their offices and training them. I like to take my experience and share it with others. I love to see dental assistants grow and realize that they have an amazing career.

Who has been the most influential woman in your life?

The most influential woman in my life, as far as in dentistry, would have to be Linda Miles. She was the ground breaker in the beginning and set so many standards for us to follow. Not only is she still a mentor to me today, she is a very dear friend. Besides her I have an incredible tribe of women who push me to be my best every single day. For them I am totally grateful.

How do you measure your success?

I think you measure success by how you feel. I have a great career, I get to travel the world and meet people, I get to visit wonderful beautiful places, and I get to share my love and my passion with others. When I get a text message or a Facebook message from someone telling me how I inspired them, or how I help them in some way or another, that’s the best.

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What do you do to turn around a bad day?

Every day could be a bad day if you let it! You have to realize that just because one situation a day might be bad, you can’t let it ruin your entire day. I really think it’s all about your attitude. Does poop happen? Absolutely poop happens! But take a deep breath, go outside, and get some fresh air if you have to so you can come back in and handle it. It’s not going to go away, but if you let it get you down, your entire day will be full of poop!

What is your guilty pleasure?

My guilty pleasure would probably be traveling. I absolutely love to travel. I’m fortunate enough that I get to do it for work! But I always feel guilty that I don’t have my family with me.

What advice do you have for the new person in your office?

I think my advice would be to just hang on, and don’t beat yourself up. Even if you’ve been in dentistry for a while, starting a new position in a new office is difficult, frustrating, and can really wear on you. Just realize that you’re learning, and it will come in time...you don’t have to beat yourself up for mistakes. Mistakes are lessons, and you can learn so much from them.

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A DENTAL PERFECTIONIST’S CONFESSION By Kandice Swarthout, RDH, LPC

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i, my name is Kandice, and I am a recovering perfectionist. Five years ago I lived in fear that you would hear my voice quiver during a lecture, ask me a question I could not answer, notice my messy car and, heaven forbid, detect that I was in dire need of a pedicure.

What if everyone thought I was not smart enough to be a professor, pretty enough to step out in THAT dress on a Saturday night, fit enough to teach the kettlebell class or a good enough speaker to carry a course on my own?

I would have rather died than be seen as an imposter, pretending my way through life. Fake it until you make it? Who came up with that line of nonsense anyway? Oh no, not this girl. I would read it, study it, know it and then become it. It was only acceptable to take a chance once all the t’s were crossed and the i’s were dotted. I began to slowly lose myself. I refer to these times as the “zipping up.”

I noticed these insecurities rising in my 20s after I left a relationship that was drenched in infidelity and lies. I packed my belongings and set out to pretend my life was perfect. Seemed great at first, this whole "being perfect" thing. It was shiny and clean. Just fake it for a while, and no one will notice. The problem with faking it and getting away with it is that it becomes a way of being if one does not believe they can become their imposter self. There is a big difference between believing in the person you want to become and refusing to deal with core issues that plague the darkness of your mind.

On one hand, I do believe in the old adage, “Fake it 'til you make it.” I preach this to all of my students in the clinical setting. Act like you know what you are doing in front of your patients, and soon you will. Act like you are confident. This reframing of thoughts will rewire

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firing neurons, and you will soon feel as confident as you once pretended to be. I am a big believer in positive psychology, and that redirecting our thoughts will, indeed, create new paths in the brain. In the psychology world, this is why we know Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is effective. New thoughts and behaviors equal new ways for the brain to respond which eventually results in new habits in thinking. The faking it I am talking about lives in self-doubt and unworthiness that stem from fear of being judged. Sometimes we are smiling on the outside and dying on the inside. If this is happening more often than not, I believe a mindshift is in order. This is not the kind of faking it that supports mental health and career longevity.

I began to come to terms with perfectionism and imposter syndrome in graduate school while training to be a mental health counselor. One of the most anxietyridden experiences was watching videos of myself with clients in a real session for the entire class to openly critique. Watching my quirky mannerisms (which earned me the nickname “Jazz Hands”), hearing my voice over the speaker and observing my awkwardness as a brand new counselor on the big screen was more than I could stand. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. When classmates and the professor made positive comments, I thought that they were lying in order to be nice. When they made criticisms, I thought I was the worst counselor that ever existed and that I should immediately quit the program. It was a lose/lose situation for all involved.

The preface to this was one night in pre-clinical lab, I volunteered to be the first person in the class to take a fellow student through a five-minute counseling session in front of the class. Two minutes into it, the professor kicked my chair and said, “Don’t use 50-cent grad school

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There is a big difference between believing in the person you want to become and refusing to deal with core issues that plague the darkness of your mind. words in my class.” Oh, the humiliation! No surprise that my anxiety skyrocketed in preparation for future showcase shamings. This experience is a perfectionist’s nightmare. The anxiety around being perfect became even worse a few years later when I took a full-time faculty position in a dental hygiene program. As faculty, there is an unwritten expectation that you are allknowing of all things dental hygiene. I wish that was true, but, like all of us, years of clinical practice recesses some of the massive amount of didactic information learned in school to the depths of the memory. In fact, much of it is deleted after years of not using it. This expectation put me into an anxiety-ridden tailspin of perfectionism.

Now, you might be thinking that perfectionism is a positive term because it instills accuracy, hard work, and a stellar final product. Do not confuse perfectionism with excellence. You may occasionally hear someone self-proclaim perfectionism with pride like it is a fresh tattoo to show off. During candidate interviews for the dental hygiene program, potential students often boast perfectionism as their strongest quality. They believe it will be the secret ingredient to rise above and shine in a demanding and stressful environment. I know all too well that this is not the case. Dental hygiene school

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is a great place for the perfectionist to come undone and suffer great anxiety to the point of being frozen in procrastination and/or panic. I’ve been there myself.

Trust me, counseling school was almost the death of me on several occasions. Let me take a moment to explain perfectionism from a clinical standpoint.

Perfectionism can be defined as having unachievable expectations of flawlessness on oneself, unforgiving self-criticism, constant uncertainty of one’s abilities and an overwhelming sense of critical demands from others. These excessively high personal standards are multifaceted and can present as a polished professional on the outside, but some researchers consider it “deadly.”

It is linked to depression, anxiety, stress, eating disorders and suicide.1 Simon Sherry and Martin Smith, a clinical psychologist and a research lecturer, conducted an extensive longitudinal study on perfectionism that raised serious red flags around the mental health of people who struggle with these self-induced expectations. As perfectionists age, they have a tendency to unravel with higher levels of neuroticism, shame and envy. This tends to lead to burn out and an unstable life. Sherry and Smith

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dew-ers were particularly concerned for younger generations that are more influenced by social media and critical parenting practices. Images on social media portray perfect faces, bodies and lives that are unattainable.

The researchers stated that, “Perfectionism is a myth, and social media is the storyteller.” People of all ages are more often comparing themselves to unrealistic standards. They also noted that the increase in parenting styles around control and criticism do not allow children to learn lessons in failure and learn how to emotionally self-regulate. Parents that offer acts of love that do not revolve around performance, rank or appearance reduce the chances of raising a child that struggles with perfectionism.1 I want to add a side note about perfectionist’s sister, imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is not a true disorder but a term coined to describe when someone does not take credit for their own accomplishments.

When someone is feeling the pulls of imposter syndrome, they can give an amazing performance and later derail with doubts. They believe that their success is by luck or chance. Imposter syndrome and perfectionism work hand in hand. Most people with imposter syndrome and perfectionist tendencies can relate to thoughts of “not good enough” even when they are the best in the room.

A combination of these two confidence enemies can lead to increased anxiety, stress, depression and shame.2 Not reframing and getting imposter thoughts under control can wreck the intentions of a professional who desires a career change or advancement. They live in a world of a “I do not belong here” mindset and may never take a risk to go after what they want. This leaves many people paralyzed in the humdrum of status quo with just dreams of doing greater things. It seems this wonderful profession of dental hygiene attracts the perfectionist.

Go to any dental hygiene conference and mingle with hundreds of well-dressed, well-spoken men and women who can all relate to the above definitions. As a dental hygiene educator, every year I observe an increase in students struggling with anxiety due to perfectionism.

They fall apart when they do not live up to their own expectations. The entire faculty expounds that it is okay to make mistakes. We let them know they are there to learn and mistakes are to be expected. And yet I have to wonder if, as a faculty member that wants to raise healthy professionals, am I walking the walk or just talking the talk? Is my own perfectionism rearing its ugly head in the classroom and the clinic and sending messages that it is, indeed, not okay to make a mistake?

I can assume that most people reading this are not educators but in clinical practice. I believe that perfectionism and imposter syndrome are two very important factors that lead to clinical burn out. If you know me, then you have heard my rant on how, as

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hygienists, we have to wear a cape everyday. What other profession does as many assessments and treatments in less than an hour, 8-10 times a day, with a full bladder, all while building incredible relationships and smiling through the process? There is not one that I can think of.

Being a dental hygienist is my superpower! Day after day we walk this path, and when perfectionism is the ghost that haunts us, burnout is just around the corner. How could it not be around the corner when everyone thinks you are fabulous except for you? How could it not be around the corner when your hard work in a demanding environment never adds up to your own expectations?

How can we overcome perfectionism and finally lead a life with true confidence and pride in our work?

Personally, I had to start by taking risks. I had to take the scary risks that really put myself out there. I started with small things like sharing personal struggles with a few people I would normally keep at arm’s length. Then I started taking bigger risks like public speaking. The fear of getting a bad evaluation after a CE course used to send me in a spiral, but the more I do it, the less I care.

I care way less about the one person out of 150 that did not like my presentation. That one person used to make me want to quit. I did not quit. I kept pushing through and accepting that one person’s opinion does not define me. I started believing the positive evaluations and using those to catapult me into the next goal. After all, I am not allknowing. I am just a girl who likes to share what I learned with other hygienists.

Brené Brown says, “Shame loves perfectionists. It is so easy to keep us quiet.” She talks about perfectionism's being an armor that we wear to cover up shame. If you follow Brené, you have heard her speak on dragging shame into the light because dark is the only place it can survive. I started putting this into practice little by little by openly admitting to students when I am wrong or do not know the answer. I make mistakes! Yes, it is true! It happens and sometimes more often than I want to admit. The demands of full-time faculty are arduous, and mistakes happen. At first I would go to my office and stew in embarrassment for being wrong. I would convince myself that someone else was more cut out for the job. After several practices in this newly found admitting to being wrong thing, I realized that it was okay and sometimes even gained respect for being real.

If you are reading this and see yourself over and over in my words, I highly encourage you to seek out a licensed therapist who can assist in your journey to recovery. It is a process that requires work and is often painful. A therapist can help you reframe your negative thoughts and regulate emotions that may surface. As I said before, I am a recovering perfectionist. I am not recovered. I deal daily with anxiety about being less-than. I just have

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dew-ers better skills to manage this anxiety than I used to. My guess it that this will be a lifelong recovery process as the layers are peeled back and the healing progresses.

The thing I have learned most from this journey is the truth in a quote from one of my favorite teachers, Dorothy Sateen, “Real is better than perfect.”

1. Simon, S., Smith, M., 2019. Young people drowning in a rising tide of perfectionism. The Epoch Times. B8, Feb. 14-20, 2019.

2. Dalla-Camina, M., 2018. The reality of imposter syndrome: Feeling like an imposter? Know what it is and what to do about it. Psychology Today. Sept 03, 2018.

About the author: Kandice is a 1997 graduate of Texas Woman’s University dental hygiene program. After 15 years of private practice, Kandice decided to further her education and graduated with her Master of Science in Counseling and Development from Texas Woman’s University. She is a full-time faculty member at Collin College where she teaches Community Dental Health and Research.

Kandice is a Licensed Professional Counselor and worked in private practice and multiple county jails as a mental health counselor. In her free time, she loves training with kettlebells. Kandice is a Strong First Kettlebell instructor.

She enjoys combining her counseling and dental hygiene skills to assist clinicians in growing professionally and personally through better understanding of self and others.

Last year more than

550,000 kids in need didn’t have to suffer from the pain of untreated dental disease thanks to the safety net dental clinics and programs we support.*

*Members of our Dental Resource Program provided oral health education and/or clinical services to 558,394 children between 7/1/17-6/30/18.

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Visit AmericasToothFairy.org to join our movement.

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LIVING YOUR STRENGTHS

A GRIEVER'S GUIDE TO LIFE AFTER LOSS By Kimberly Harms

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his is a guide to the second half of a life interrupted, life part two, life after loss. I don’t mean life after a reasonable loss, a loss that might be expected, one of life’s normal losses. I am talking about life after a catastrophic loss, a loss that explodes your universe, a loss that splits your life in two in such a way that everything is measured in terms of “before” and “after." For many, this loss could be a divorce, death of a spouse, cancer, death of a parent or natural disaster. For me it was the suicide death of my only son, Eric.

Eric was a wonderful son. He was a kind, caring , compassionate, funny teddy bear of a young man. His hugs and dancing jigs were famous among his friends.

As drum major, he made band the cool place to be in high school and drew standing ovations from the crowd who thought they were there to watch a football game.

He loved and included people and stood up for those being bullied. He also happened to be brilliant. He was a National Merit Scholar, a jazz pianist, an actor and a student leader among his peers at Columbia University.

His engineering professors noted his creativity and design capabilities, and he was so proud to make the dean's list his first semester. He was well on his way to his dream of becoming a patent attorney, and he couldn’t be happier when he came home for Christmas in 2008.

But on January 31, 2009, just two weeks into his second semester and just 45 minutes after a breakup with his girlfriend, he was gone. Suicidal depression triggered by sadness over the loss of an important relationship, a brain 6 years short of full development in the areas of rational thinking and management of intense pain, and Eric’s natural impulsivity combined together into a fatal cocktail. Our lives would never be the same.

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As a typical dentist, I lived part one of my life, the first 52 years, according to the rules. I studied hard, worked hard, built a nice practice with my husband, Jim, and raised three beautiful children. I was active in the community and with organized dentistry. The previous year or so before Eric died had been difficult. In October 2007, my brother Mike died unexpectedly from a heart attack, and a month later Jim was diagnosed with liver cancer. All calculations gave Jim a 5% chance of a 5-year survival, and we prepared our lives for the possibility of losing him. Our practice was too big for me to manage alone, and we sold half to another couple. Eric graduated from high school and prepared for Columbia, our youngest daughter, Ashley, graduated from college and prepared to enter law school. Jim received a liver transplant and was successfully recovering. 2008 was a rollercoaster of emotion. A month later, Eric’s loss turned our family of 5 into a family of 4. Life part one was over; and life after this unimaginable loss, life part two, began.

LIFE PART 2: One of the important things to remember as you begin your new life after a catastrophic loss is to recognize that it is indeed a new life. You have to begin again with an understanding and acceptance of your new circumstances. You have to work through the pain, and that is a hard task. It takes time, it takes hard work and it takes determination to get through. You have to adjust to the world as it exists now internally, externally and spiritually. The ultimate goal of the mourning process is to find a new life that allows you to live in the moment and find joy again without the interference of that suffocating shroud of grief that interrupted your expected life and marked the beginning of life part 2.

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Accept The Kindness of Friends and Don’t Judge It is interesting to report that many people I know describe their first year after a catastrophic loss as very clouded in their memory. Mine was the same. Memory is sometimes overrated, and a memory loss during a time of pain can be a blessing in disguise. I do, however, remember the kindnesses I received from family and friends. I was not alone. Of particular note was dental colleague Linden Dungy, brother of NFL coach Tony Dungy who lost his own son from suicide at age 19 just after a breakup. Linden’s family shares our faith, and he wrote beautiful letters to us delivered exactly when needed. Linden helped Jim and me to look at the big picture, focusing on our life as it is instead of as it was.

He taught us to realize that everyone grieves differently and to respect each other's differences as we navigated through the mourning process. One of Jim’s cousins lost his own brother at age 19 and felt that the resulting grief also took his parents away. He taught us that we should hold the needs of our two living daughters above the grief we had for our son and never let our girls think that they were not enough.

While Struggling with Emotional Health, Take Care of Your Physical Health One of the big mistakes both Jim and I made was to overlook and neglect the physical repercussions of emotional pain. Just about the time Jim was diagnosed with cancer, I developed a nagging pain in my neck. I was a little distracted and hoped it would go away. It didn’t; it just got worse. Finally, about a year after Eric died, when my neck could no longer turn my head, I sought treatment. Too late! I had developed a chronic radiculopathy in my neck affecting the nerves in my drilling fingers. One morning I woke up thinking I had at least 15 more years of clinical dental practice to prepare for retirement; but after my diagnosis at 2:00 pm, my clinical career in dentistry was over. I spent a couple of hours crying in a bathroom stall of the Mayo Clinic (hospitals need some designated crying rooms). I then realized that losing my career wasn’t the worst thing to happen to me. If I could survive Eric’s death, I could survive this. Catastrophic loss brings the rest of life into perspective.

While my physical problems were career-ending, Jim’s were potentially life-ending. Just 2 years after his heart checked out as healthy as before his transplant, Jim was undergoing a 9-hour open heart surgery. He needed a quadruple bypass, a new aortic valve, and hole repaired.

I believe his heart was broken by grief.

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Recognize and Manage Depression Depression runs in my family. I lost my mother to suicide as well as Eric, and I have suffered depression on and off throughout my life. There is a stigma in the dental profession when it comes to the subject of depression.

One advantage of being retired is that I feel free to talk about it openly. If you find yourself in that horrible pit of depression and despair, get treatment. When I was practicing, I took antihypertensives and antidepressants.

The only side effect I suffered was a nagging cough from my antihypertensive medication. The antidepressants just made me feel better and therefore provide better care to my patients. I am still being treated for depression and am very grateful this treatment exists.

Focus on Gratitude for What You Had in your Old Life and What You Have in Your New Life One of the best lessons I learned in my new life was to focus on being grateful for what I have. My husband Jim has survived at least 7 life-threatening events in the last 10 years. I am grateful he is alive! It is hard to get angry with him now, so he benefits from my gratitude as well! I am also grateful for my remaining health, my daughters,

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Living your strengths year of my new life I found myself drawn to the country of Rwanda, and I developed a library project there in Eric’s name. Eric loved books. Rwanda suffered a devastating genocide just 25 years ago when almost a million people were systematically murdered in 100 days but not by an invading army or professional soldiers.

They were brutally tortured and killed by their neighbors and sometimes former friends. The survivors of this genocide made a remarkable decision. They realized that if they did not forgive the perpetrators, the killers of their families, in this generation, the same hatred would continue to the next generation. Through forgiveness and a legal system that focuses on appropriate punishment and then restoration, they have created an amazing place. From the ashes of genocidal devastation has arisen a beautiful, safe country just declared the happiest country in Africa through a Gallup Poll. The friends I have made in Rwanda continue to teach me more than I could ever have imagined about resilience, forgiveness, hope and joy.

Peace, Joy and Hope are Possible in the Life You Live Now

sons-in-law and grandchildren. I have even learned to focus on gratitude for the 19 years Eric was in our lives.

Developing a grateful heart after loss takes some work as our go-to brain position is to grieve for the life we expected.

We Are Not In Control. There are No Answers as to Why Us. Forgiveness is Essential for Healing As a dentist, we are used to being in control. This characteristic does not prepare us for life. We are not in control. Bad things can happen. Trying to find answers to why bad things happen only lead us back to the pit.

Placing blame does not change the outcome and can destroy relationships and prevent healing. We also need to learn to forgive. Be careful of what you say to your self. Negative self talk can be devastating and delays healing. Replace that ticker tape of shame, guilt, what if and if only’s with positive thoughts. In my battle with shame and guilt, I successfully pumped my favorite hymns into my head. It worked! Forgiving yourself is a big step.

Look to the Experts It is also important to get a realistic view of the pain and suffering present around the world and how others have coped with catastrophic loss. During the second

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I am now ten years into my new life, and it is completely different from the horrible expectations I had when I began this journey. Both of my daughters married wonderful husbands, and each has given us 3 beautiful grandchildren. We went from a family of 4 (after Eric’s death) to a family of 12. I can no longer practice clinical dentistry but I have a new career as a mediator and speaker. My daughter Hillary is practicing dental contract and transition law and she is my boss. I am loving this! Ten years ago I felt as if the world had ended.

But it didn’t. We have no control and there is no answer as to why catastrophic loss happens, but we are in control of our recovery. It is possible to find peace and joy and hope again. The key is to focus every ounce of your energy, every day, on acceptance, forgiveness and gratitude for the life you live now.

About the author: Kimberly Harms, DDS is a retired dentist, former MN Dental Association President, ADA spokesperson and National Delegate. Dr. Harms is now a national speaker, and she performs conflict management and transition consulting around the country for her daughter’s firm.

Mother and daughter work together to provide legal, transition and consulting services that can help dentists from dental school graduation through retirement.

Pine Lake Law Firm, PLLC https://pinelakelaw.com 651-428-2253

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LIVING YOUR STRENGTHS

ONCE AN RDH, ALWAYS AN RDH MY JOURNEY FROM FULL-TIME RDH TO OWNING TWO BUSINESSES THAT HELP MY FELLOW DENTAL PROFESSIONALS By Debora Carrier, RDH

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have been a dental hygienist since the age of 19. I have always loved being a dental professional and especially enjoy being a part of the dental community.

After practicing full-time for many years, I developed fibromyalgia and contracted Lyme disease which made it painful to see patients every day. I felt the need to explore a professional life outside of my operatory but knew I wanted to remain in dentistry. I started looking at how I could contribute to the dental world in other ways.

First, I went back to modeling part time (I had started modeling in hygiene school, but that’s another story for another article). I also realized that I’d always enjoyed the CPR recertification classes at my office and was curious about becoming an instructor. As this was my first venture out of my operatory, I had no idea how to start but pushed myself to make phone calls and quickly connected with the AHA. I learned I could take instructor classes, and through these classes I met two amazing women who had recently lost their sons to sudden cardiac arrest.

My sister Darla and I created The CPR Sisters and dove into volunteering our classes everywhere, helping these mothers to place AEDs where children play, and building the CPR business through word of mouth. We were thrilled when we were offered a grant through the AHA to offer free classes for a year! Soon we were teaching 2-3 classes a day and having so much fun.

After that first year with the AHA grant, I started concentrating on recertification classes for dental offices as I still loved my connection to dentistry. While teaching these classes I was fortunate to meet so many different groups of dental professionals and learned how to operate a small business. I stayed this course for years: working as a part-time RDH, part-time fashion model and

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part-time CPR instructor. I would have been happy to do this forever, but fate jumped up and pulled me in another direction.

Four years ago I walked out of my office after a typical day of nine patients, short lunch, no bathroom break and battling the office manager over the thermostat! While driving home I thought about how much time was wasted with all six of us complaining about the office being too hot or too cold. Couldn’t our days be more productive if we didn’t have this constant battle? Space heaters in one operatory, fans going in another, people not wearing their PPEs because they are too hot or others so bundled up that going to the bathroom was an impossible feat.

I thought about the recent developments in fabric technology, and BOOM - Twice as Nice Uniforms was born.

I had an amazing idea, but where do I go from here? I knew nothing about fabric, manufacturing, patents, etc.

Balancing three jobs and raising a family left very little time for anything else, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how all our lives would improve with better uniforms.

I spent my lunch hours and late nights after everyone went to bed to start my research. I read everything I could get my hands on from "Business for Dummies" to "Negotiating with Giants," "Scaling Up," and "Anything" by Brené Brown. I went to my local fabric store to research fabric and in search of a seamstress referral.

Together with an amazing seamstress, we designed and redesigned and redesigned my ideal medical uniform.

I also began to tell people about my idea; and a few thought it was interesting, but most looked at me like I was crazy. Two months later, I wore my first prototype to

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work, and I decided crazy or not, here I come!

This is when things got serious, and I quickly learned two very important lessons: (1) if you want something you have to go after it with all you have, regardless of what the others say, and (2) you MUST network, network, network.

I have always been a relatively shy person. So shy, in fact, that I almost didn’t go to hygiene school when I found out I had to take a speech class. But I realized that I had to leave my shyness behind or forgo following my dream. I chose the dream.

Life had plans for me, and just by chance, I made a great contact who is on the board of the Atlanta Technology Angels. From the get-go, Lee was very interested in my idea and quickly became my professional mentor. We met once a week, and he educated me on the business of starting a company, developing a product, taking it to market, and more. Much of the time I literally had no idea what he was talking about, but I listened intently and ran home to do my research. This process took about a year. Along the way, I took advantage of the local universities including the patent library at GA Tech where I did preliminary patent research. I also visited the textiles schools at NCSU and GA Tech to get educated on fabrics. I went to fabric shows in GA and NYC and talked to everyone!

In one of our weekly meetings, my mentor told me I would need about $500,000 to get my uniform to market.

I almost cried! How would I ever turn my dream into a reality?

I joined LaunchPad2X, an Atlanta womens entrepreneur group, which was one of the best things I have done on this journey. This group immediately connected me to so many people, companies and resources. I learned how to develop a pitch deck to raise money, how to create a business plan, what to look for in an investor, how to apply for a patent, and how to connect to business attorneys, accountants and many other invaluable connections.

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I raised needed capital through an investment angel and officially established my company. I soon realized I needed help with everything from bookkeeping to manufacturing. I didn’t have funds to pay professionals, so I offered some small equity in the company. Also, I have a very supportive family and friends network, and they jumped in to help in whatever way they could.

I was finally ready to hire a production manager to help with uniform manufacturing. I had a steadfast dream of manufacturing in the USA which was discouraged by many people, but I persevered and knocked on any door I could find. Most textile manufacturers were happy to take my money to make a sample as well as give me a quote for production that wasn’t even close to matching my product needs. I did look outside the USA in China and other countries, but most manufacturers would not work with a small company and small production numbers. I finally connected with a factory in NJ who not only loved my idea but were willing to work with me! This factory was genuinely excited to be a partner in my journey.

Going into my first production run, I realized that if I was going to introduce temperature-regulating uniforms to the world I might as well change everything about uniforms that I didn’t like. This is where my history with fashion connected with my dream of problem-solving with uniforms. I set out to design uniforms for comfort,

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living your strengths safety and professionalism. I changed everything from the fit to the designs to fabrics. No more ugly, illfitting, cheap fabric uniforms. I became obsessed with addressing every unmet uniform need and designing the perfect uniform for the dental community.

To do so, I needed to learn more. I needed to understand everything from buttons to patterns to cut tickets. I hung out in the factory with the seamstresses, listening and learning. (I also noticed that they suffered the same posture issues as we do in dentistry!) At this point, I thought I could just walk away and wait for the product to be finished, which was not the case at all. Once a garment is created, it must get tagged, bagged and ready to ship.

Then, there is warehousing and shipping. And finally, how and where do we sell them? Bringing my idea to life involved many more steps than I ever could’ve imagined.

The day you see your first product come off the line is both exhilarating and terrifying. Your dream is now a reality, but now you have a product to sell. Product sales is a very tough job. I knocked on door after door and sold a few uniforms, but it was very hard and lonely.

I learned to network using Facebook and LinkedIn, which resulted in articles, podcasts and the support of speakers in dentistry such as Anne Guignon, Anne Duffy, Janice Hurley, John Stamper, Andrew Johnston, Michelle Strange, Jasmin Haley, Cindy Purdy and many more. I also connected with other "dental professionals turned entrepreneurs" such as Rachel Wall, Sarah Thiel, Linda Miller, Elijah Desmond, Angie Stone, Debbie Z. and many more. Fellow sales people I met and now share war stories with are Kyle Zak, Melissa DeLong, Andrea Johnson, Eden Ivie and Rhoda Kublickis. And I met with dental mentors Linda Miles, Tony Stefanou, Bryan Laskin, Tonya Lanthier and Amy Kinnamon.

I began attending every dental trade show I could. I learned how expensive it was to market your product at a show but also discovered how amazingly supportive dental professionals are. The dental entrepreneur community embraced me with open arms and offers of help with everything from an endorsement to sharing a hotel room. At one of my very first trade shows—TBSE in Las Vegas—I was given the last-minute opportunity to talk about my product on stage in front of 2,000 people. I was terrified, but I knew I had to do it. I literally ran around the trade show floor that morning recruiting models to come on stage and model my garments. While recruiting models—and thanks to the Madow Brothers—I was fortunate to meet Damon John from SharkTank (and we’ve chatted a few times since then).

One thing I’ve learned along my journey is to always trust my gut feelings. Once, I went against this feeling and listened to two of my advisors and hired a PR firm.

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The firm was not a good fit for us and cost us thousands of dollars. There was a silver lining, though, because they did introduce me to Tonya Lanthier, founder of DentalPost, who has become a huge supporter, advisor and friend.

Another lesson learned is that when you introduce a new product to the marketplace, it takes twice as long for the market to understand and accept it. I learned to keep my head down and plow forward no matter what.

I would go to offices and spend hours getting all the employees fitted only to receive a call the next day that one person in the office didn’t like the uniforms. I would lose the sale as well as the whole previous day of work!

I carried samples in my car and hauled them in and out of offices literally all over the country. People thought I was wasting my time, but I knew people would ‘get it’ if they heard first-hand why they needed these amazing uniforms and could see and touch them.

One year into the launch of Twice as Nice Uniforms, I was still working my part-time jobs. In year two, I knew I had to stop so I had more time to build the business. Some of my hygiene patients had been with me for 27 years, and I couldn’t bear to leave them. My compromise was to work hygiene one day a month.

At this point, I was living off my savings which was dwindling fast. I sold my house and moved to a smaller

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living your strengths home and cut back on everything I could. I felt like I was getting ahead – the business was gaining recognition, I’d established a strong network in the dental industry and sales started to improve. But then, the bottom fell out.

When I started this business, I was told, over and over, that start-up clothing companies rarely make it past year 3, but I chose to ignore this and forge ahead. The issue is that when you reach this point, your numbers don’t make sense anymore – you are basically too big to be small and too small to be big. I had worked harder than I had ever worked in my life, people loved my product, I had started gaining momentum and yet we were barely hanging on by a thread. So what now? I had to go back to the drawing board to figure out a solution. I had to literally stop selling and again invest my time toward researching manufacturing options. It’s at this point that most small clothing companies leave the USA, and I genuinely thought this was in our future. I spent nearly a year investigating options in China, Mexico and India, but nothing felt right. I was quickly running out of options, I was watching my friends’ start-up companies explode with growth and I was trying to figure out if we were going to survive another day. I picked up the phone and called the factory I had used for the past three years. They knew my journey and were aware of the problem. On a whim, I asked if they would consider a deeper partnership with me so that I could keep production in the USA, and they said, "YES." While we were both in agreement, it still took nine months of negotiating to reach a deal, all the while juggling just to keep things afloat. During this stretch of time, we had fabric quality issues, label mix-ups, maker delays, and construction setbacks which resulted in delayed delivery times for customers. Sales were increasing, and yet I didn’t have product to ship! To make matters worse, we also had two times where customer shipments went missing from USPS for days.

With all of these challenges, am I still glad I started this journey? Absolutely! Do I see light at the end of the tunnel? FOR SURE! I have lost friends along this journey as I work constantly, but I have gained an amazing dental family. I am even more thankful for my amazing family and friends who believe in me and have worked by my side all these years.

Since I made the transition with my factory, I have had many wonderful things happen. I have partnered with Crest Oral B to bring unique product marketing through fashion shows, at dental meetings and trade shows.

This idea was born over margheritas at a dental hygiene networking event with Dana Moon. Not only has this been a great marketing opportunity for both companies, it is fun! And my beloved dental family steps up to volunteer as models in the shows.

Along the way, I revised some of our original styles,

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added new custom designs for dentistry and responded to customer needs. I worked with Infection Control specialist Jackie Dorst and others on dental jacket designs. I have now established a niche market as there is not a uniform company that thinks about our needs in dentistry. My ‘Made in the USA’ quality products are now gaining traction through university programs as well as large practices and DSOs. We are getting interest from other countries, and sales are at an all-time high. I am very proud of my factory partners—Syrian immigrants— who have worked tirelessly for more than 40 years in this country to support the dwindling American manufacturing business.

In line with my passion to take care of my dental family as well as my desire to give back whenever I can, I recently established a program called “Twice the Life.”

We donate our used sample uniforms and returned merchandise to dental professionals going on mission trips. I also have partnered with numerous small dental companies and non-profits as I truly believe this helps everyone to succeed. I donate time to mentor other dental professionals interested in developing products or starting a business, and I even helped another uniform company to get their start. Lastly, I now have a platform to speak my passion: I speak, write and do presentations on dressing professionally, comfortably and safely, why it is important, and how it affects the bottom line in your dental practice. I can proudly say that I am upholding my company motto, “Bringing Comfort to Those Who Comfort Others” to my dental family.

About the author: Debora has 40 years experience as a clinical dental hygienist in various settings, specializing in the care and treatment of adults with mild to severe disabilities.

She also has experience as a high-fashion model, and in 2014 Debora developed and patented a temperature regulating, moisture wicking, antimicrobial uniform and founded Twice as Nice Uniforms, which offers stylish medical and dental apparel made in the USA. Debora has been featured in RDH magazine, Dentistry Today, Dental Explorer, and DeW. She is the winner of Apparel Magazine's Most Innovative Company of 2015 and Atlanta's Fabulous Over 40. She has participated in various podcasts, seminars and fashion shows and recently started "Twice the Life," a give-back program donating gently used uniforms to dental mission trips, students or anyone in need. Debora’s goal with Twice as Nice Uniforms is “Bringing Comfort to those who Comfort Others." She says, “I believe that when you feel better about how you are dressed you carry yourself better, perform better, and project a more professional image to your patients and colleagues."

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The DeW 2019 Retreat November 14 & 15 Providence Country Club Charlotte, NC We are so thrilled to be able to present these amazing and accomplished DeW Extraordinaires as our speakers for our first retreat:

Vicki McManus Peterson Productive Dentist Academy

Jasmin Haley Beyond the Prophy

JoAn Majors SpouseTales

Minal Sampat

Minal Sampat, LLC

Dr. Hazel Glasper Teach Me Dental

Dr. Shakila Angadi The Inspired Dentist

Anne Duffy

DeW Life Magazine & Dental Entrepreneur Magazine

Connie Dugan

Infinity Home Decor

Leanne Burnett & Valerie Menzel Strengths Savvy

Alaina Schwartz

Alaina Schwartz Businesses

Tickets are going fast! For registration details, go to www.dew.life.

A HUGE Thank you to our sponsors. We couldn't DeW it without you.

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Better Practice. Better Life.

LIVING YOUR STRENGTHS

THERE IS NO BALANCE! ONLY CHOICES By Cindy Ishimoto

H

ave you ever heard that maintaining a worklife balance is the key to happiness, success and “should” be your goal? According to the definition of this theory, work–life balance is the lack of opposition between work and other life roles. It is the state of equilibrium in which demands of personal life, professional life and family life are equal. This philosophy came into being in the late '70s and early '80s and was the mantra of women in the workplace and is to this day a working model that conceptually may be flawed.

As a dental practice management consultant and speaker, I was constantly challenged by trying to find work-life balance. In the early part of my career, that juggling act was something I felt I constantly failed at and dropped many of the juggled commitments. What I learned along the way is that there is no balance, only control of all choices that I make.

The theory of work-life balance is appealing, alluring, and even tempting to align with; yet it doesn’t leave room for life to happen. While life is happening, work is happening; and those you love are by your side asking for your time, and the choices are flying at you in such a rapid pace that sometimes your answer is, "I’m just too busy to..." Some weeks you feel like you’re present in all areas of your life, and other weeks you feel pulled strongly in one direction.

This roller coaster ride has some thrills for sure, but is this what you really want? I have been told, “That which does not kill you makes you stronger.” My conscious self knows there are only 7 days in a week and 24 hours in a day, and my subconscious self tells me, "You can multitask. You can give something else up this week, do it next week and do it all."

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What I now know to be true for me is that life is made up of the choices we make. The clearer I get about what I am passionate about, where I like to be, with whom I like to be, with whom I like to work, and what I like to teach and focus on — matching my core values, my mission, and my vision — the easier the choices become. Setting my intentions for my work life, my health life, my family life, my social life and on and on have clarified how I want my life to be.

I have been consulting and speaking now for over 40 years, and my loudest lessons along the way clarified what didn’t make me happy. The choices I made that filled my bucket helped me to become more intentional and focused on choosing what is right for me.

Choices, planning, boundaries and change First, know your strengths and what you are passionate about; develop your business plan based on that. There will always be distractions or offers that stroke your ego or seem appealing, and saying "no" may be the hardest thing you do. If it doesn’t fit in your passion-strength intentional plan, it will take from your life instead of adding to it.

Prepare yourself to listen to offers and invest evaluation time before committing. Clarifying now saves time in the long run. If you can say "yes" to your clarifying business match questions and "yes" to the time commitment and your commitment to your personal plans, then move forward. The following are some of the clarifying questions that I use:

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living your strengths

1. Is this offer maximizing my strengths, or is it a stretch towards my planned business growth this year?

2. Does this offer allow me to align with my

passion, my business vision and mission?

3. Will the work I do align with my core values?

What I learned along the way is that there is no balance, only control of all choices that I make.

4. Is this organization or dentist a person with whom I want to work?

5. Is this work within a location that fits my travel boundaries?

6. Is the request in a planned business time in my calendar, or can it be negotiated to be within my open time?

7. How much planning time, delivery time and

follow-up time is involved — will it work with my business calendar and not spill over into my personal, family and social intentions?

Develop some of your own tried and true questions that are more aligned with your plans. A great structure that works for me is to have a trusted colleague, friend or family member ask the questions. It is much harder for me to make it sound good to them; if I only ask myself, I can be a very convincing salesperson.

These work choices and the many job offers in this consulting speaking world can impact our schedules over multiple dates and times, making it more and more difficult to work in your personal life intentions. The

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clearer you are about the work that you choose to do will have you living your passion instead of working “just because.”

Clarify and then prioritize what’s important to you.

Convincing yourself that you can “have it all” increases the pressure to attempt to live the work-life balance concept. Weighing your choices against your intentional business and personal commitments can ensure that the decision is the right one. We know that we can’t have it all. We can have as much of what we choose is important, although maybe not all at the same time!

By prioritizing our personal and professional life goals and choosing what works, we can achieve our version of work-life contentment. This could be family time, selfcare time, continuing education, networking, personal time, traveling or whatever fills you with purpose.

Releasing things and being OK with intentionally not doing certain things, outsourcing others and accepting that now may not be the time to do certain tasks help each of us to be a better version of ourselves.

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living your strengths

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Non-negotiables and boundaries: Time is our most nonrenewable resource. Be smart with what you commit to, and guard your time. Wanting to be a people pleaser, to be liked, to have a sense of belongingness causes us to say “yes” rather than to take the time needed to choose appropriately. Intentional decision making may not be in our skillset; just like a weak muscle, we can develop it to be stronger and help us to make the right decision. Too often we try to please people by saying “yes” to requests.

Sometimes “no” is the right answer, and you won’t fill your life with things that are time-consuming instead of fulfilling your business and personal goals. Many times, saying “no” often leads to the opportunity for other things that work for you to fit into your valuable time.

While work-life balance may seem like an end game, we do live in both worlds simultaneously. Ultimately, we can’t pit one against the other, sacrificing business for personal life or foregoing family time to do one more deal.

To satisfy all sides of us, we need to develop clarity about what is important and fulfilling and then go out and do it.

We often forget that everything is a choice and we can decide!

Zig Ziglar said, "There are 3 C’s of Life: Choices, Chances, Changes. You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change.”

About the author: Cindy Ishimoto has over thirty-five years of experience in the dental industry, initially as an assistant and business auxiliary, then progressing to a management position, and now as a dental consultant and speaker acknowledged by Dentistry Today as one of the leaders in dental consulting from 2006 through 2019. Her knowledge of all facets of dentistry, people skills, motivation and communication are reflected in her ability to teach and train. Cindy’s love of people and dentistry enable her to share her enthusiasm to build successful, people-oriented businesses.

Cindy can be reached at 808-375-7344 or online at CindyIshimoto.com.

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SHADE MATCHING PERFECTION Rechargeable 3 light settings No warm up required 1.800.GO.BENCO

TRADITIONS

BUT FIRST, I BAKE!

By Anne Linesch Duffy

H

ave you ever had a deadline looming over you and, instead of getting down to business, you decide to clean the pantry? This happens to me quite often, and my distraction/inspiration of choice is to bake something yummy to gift away. In case you are looking for a distraction or dare say a dose of inspiration, I would love to share my grandmother’s recipe for Brown Bread with all of you. I usually bake 16 cans at a time and have made as many as 48 in a day.

There is something soothing about taking the saved cans out of the cabinet, lining them up on the counter and beginning the measuring process. I have been known in every neighborhood we have lived in to deliver our “Christmas Brown Bread,” continuing the tradition that dates back to my Grandma Linesch who was born in 1893. My mom passed it on to me, and I still remember giving our oldest son, Michael, a set of his own cans when he moved into his first apartment, living on his own. He made my heart sing when he described taking it to his co-workers his first year on the job. The tradition continues!

A slather of cream cheese or soft butter on the top of a slice is the perfect accompaniment to your cup of coffee or hot tea, morning, afternoon or evening.

Please enjoy this family heirloom from my kitchen to yours. Pass it on, and stay inspired!

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Grandma Linesch’s Brown Bread • 2 cups of bran or oat flakes (Trader Joe's cereal) • 1 cup raisins or dates or both (I use both) • 1 cup of nuts (I use pecans) • 2 cups of buttermilk • 2 tablespoons of molasses • 1 cup of sugar • 2 cups of flour • 2 teaspoons of baking soda • ½ teaspoon of salt 1. Mix bran, dates, raisins, nuts.

2. Mix buttermilk and molasses, then mix in.

3. Stir dry ingredients together, add to mixture.

4.

Grease four 15 oz. saved vegetable cans, fill 5/8 full.

5. Bake 1 hour at 350˚.

6. Let cool for 30 minutes. Dump out and rest on wire rack to cool.

7. Serve with cream cheese or butter. Give to friends and neighbors.

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traditions

INTAKE

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For You, About You,

By You!

DeW Life Magazine is both a digital and a print publication devoted

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Helping you care for your practice and patients every step of the way Wells Fargo Practice Finance provides specialized financing and professional support that can help you: • • • •

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All financing is subject to credit approval and if applicable, determination of SBA eligibility. © 2019 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Wells Fargo Practice Finance is a division of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. Wells Fargo Practice Finance 2001 Clayton Rd, Suite 900 Concord, CA 94520 1-888-937-2321

1-888-937-2321 Concord, CA 94520 2001 Clayton Rd, Suite 900 Wells Fargo Practice Finance a division of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. © 2019 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Wells Fargo Practice Finance is All financing is subject to credit approval and if applicable, determination of SBA eligibility.

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