OVERCOMING FEAR AND THE UNKNOWN IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

by Maggie Augustyn FAAIP, FICOI

I sometimes work at my desk, drafting out a plan for the next year, tweaking my vision, my self-appointed purpose, and I’m paralyzed in fear. I’m also afraid of being too still, of only waiting for the future to envelop me. I sit afraid of dreaming too big, of thinking too audaciously. I sit afraid of wanting too much. I have practiced clinical dentistry for almost 20 years. I could choose days without fear. I could choose smooth sailing while attending to my well-practiced craft. I could choose days with little heart rate elevation, though also ones that don’t bring a high that learning a new skill begets. Something within me was driving me to move outside of all that I’d known. It’s driving me into fear, into discomfort. Yes, I’d rather sit in fear than sit without change, without growth, without learning.

For years, I have wondered ‘why?’ Why do I choose to stack more on my plate than most people can or even should? Why do I choose to stack plate onto plate, making it seem like I can spin them all effortlessly in the air? The answer, one I’d been searching for my entire life, has come to me in preparation for Anne Duffy’s Dental Entrepreneur Woman retreat this fall. One of the requirements of Anne’s retreat is that all attendees complete a Clifton Strength self-assessment.

I have found, as a result of the test, that my top strengths are learning, achieving, and strategizing. And it all rings true, and it all makes sense. It isn’t a surprise that each year, I plan and write out what I want to see in my future. I almost can’t go without it. I thrive on generating ideas. And, that’s my strength - I’m a strategizer. More importantly, and above all, I am also a learner and an achiever. A human like me cannot stand still, cannot remain stagnant in knowledge or in my understating of the world. I collect information like people collect hallmark ornaments or baseball cards. And I feel good, no… driven, no… fulfilled, no… complete when I look back at what I’d collected.

I strongly recommend that you take the Clifton Strengths test. I have paid the $60 to have everyone in my family take it. It has brought tremendous clarity in understanding myself and others and in having others understand you. For example, when I audit my clinical schedule or patient charts, I pay more attention to detail than any human should. And I think for years, my team members just thought I was being a jerk, looking for their mistakes. It wasn’t until recently that we all understood that attention to detail is one of my strengths. I’m not looking for mistakes; my brain is simply wired to look for inconsistencies. It’s my superpower.

I gave that exact explanation to my team, and it seems so much has changed. The ‘mistakes’ that I used to pick up on the schedule often made our office manager feel like a failure, sometimes even leaving her in tears. She thought I was auditing her work, which signaled poor performance in her. Once we all understood that looking for patterns was not something I could turn off, we all became better for it. I no longer felt bad about bringing up the inconsistencies, and the team recognized that I was simply acting on behalf of my brain with no malice or attempt to disparage their work.

It is in 2024 that I have decided to begin a new venture. I decided to add more stacked and spinning plates to my already worn and tired hands. I have decided to take a slight step back in dentistry, reducing my clinical workload by 25% to focus on my writing and speaking. It’s that pursuit that has brought on moments, many moments, of paralyzing fear. I am afraid of failing in both writing and speaking, of being found to deliver an irrelevant message. I am afraid of the loss of income, which, if totaled long enough, can even be enough to pay for my daughter’s college education. I am afraid of being tired and worn. I am afraid of not being present for my teenage daughter and my husband because of the travel. I am just so afraid, especially if I allow my mind to wander for too long.

The best approach that I have to overcoming that fear is to simply keep moving, to keep learning, and to keep achieving. But there is balance; I can’t keep driving all the time; I have to stop and rest, rethink, reassess, and replan. I sometimes am even stopped by my own body as I return from another 12-hour day at the office or meetings. In the moments of this idle rest, when I feel the fear seeping back in, I think of all the incredible entrepreneurs that have come before me and are standing in his space with the new me. I think of Dr. Victoria Peterson and Bruce Baird of Productive Dentist Academy.

I think of Anne Duffy, of Dr. Paul and Mary Goodman. I think of Minal Sampat, and Allison Lacoursiere, of Dr. Anissa Holmes. I think of Brandi Hooker Evans, Laura Nelson, Dr. Sonia Chopra, Vanessa Emerson, of Yasin Abbak. And there are so many more that I haven’t yet met or don’t have the space to mention. I think of them and thank them for walking the path I am now facing, for walking it so fearlessly. The stillness induced by angst dissipates on account of understanding who I am: a learner, achiever, and strategizer. It dissipates upon understanding that harmony and adaptability are my lowest Clifton strengths. It dissipates knowing that moving to the flow of what life hands me would not bring satisfaction; it would make me aggravatingly bored. I can get past the fear of stepping into an unknown, of embracing my entrepreneurship, with the one known I have: respect for who I am. I can subsequently then honor my strengths maximizing and leveraging them to lead a better life.

About the author:

Dr. Maggie Augustyn, FAAIP, FICOI is a Dawson-trained practicing general dentist, owner of Happy Tooth, author, and inspirational speaker. She researches, writes, and speaks on the things that make us human, make us hurt, and make us come alive. She evokes emotion in her audiences, awakening all to the beauty of our chosen paths. Dr. Augustyn is one of dentistry’s most prolific writers with a “Mindful Moments” column in Dentistry Today and a frequent contributor to Dental Entrepreneur Woman, AGD’s Impact, and DentistryIQ.