By: Dr. Eric Recker
Monday morning 8 AM. First patient of the week. Maybe our mind is on what happened this past weekend or the crazy schedule we have in front of us.
Maybe it is just spinning. Spinning with all the things we do and all the hats we wear as general dentists.
What will it be this week? Server crash? Sterilizer sending error codes? Assistant gives two-week notice? Some new bundle of love and regulation is sent from the government or the insurance company?
Recently I was just settling into the week with my first patient. There was nothing that stood out on the schedule. We were planning on 15-MO, 20-B, 21-B, and a possibility of 14-DO, depending on visibility once 15 was prepared. The procedure was normal. We had to do #14 and Dale was very gracious, mostly because we knew ahead of time that it was a possibility.
We sat Dale up after the procedure and here’s when it got interesting.
Can I tell you something?
Not always the words we want to hear, right? Who knows what our patient is going to unload on us. Previous experience has warned me that what is about to follow could be really anything. It might not hurt to brace for impact.
I have had so much dental work done in my life. That is by far the best experience I have ever had.
I asked him what made this experience so favorable for him?
You and Makayla (my dental assistant) made me feel so welcome and comfortable and you two had discussions while you were working on me and it was just all so easy and painless. Thank you so much.
I don’t know about you, but those words carried me through the rest of the week. Dale was a superhero to me by being an encourager.
It caused me to reflect on the power of encouragement and the power of words. We all have the chance to be amazing encouragers. We get to call our patients and our team by name. We get to meet people right where they are and be a part of the good part of their story. People walk into our office and many are isolated at home and live a life without others speaking positivity to them.
We get to make people feel seen, known, and heard, in a world that largely doesn’t care about others. That is a HUGE privilege.
Here’s the amazing thing about encouragement- when you encourage someone, if they get 100% of the benefit, you get 70%. Let me say that again, you get ⅔ of the benefit of being encouraged JUST BY encouraging someone else.
How can you be like Dale today?
How can you put your cape on and be a superhero for someone else? Can you encourage your whole team? Can you tell a patient how much it means to you that they have been loyal to the practice? How about at home- can you encourage your family? It doesn’t have to be much to make a huge difference in the life of another. How about a goal of one encouragement a day?
Sounds like a reasonable start! Ready, set, go encourage!
