At the Shuster Center, our dental coaches and consultants can tell if there is urgency to CREATE or if the people we are talking to are PROCRASTINATORS. Procrastinators have no urgency; they really aren’t going anywhere and sadly, that’s the majority of dentists; they simply aren’t going anywhere different than they are right now.

Remember this: Creating has nothing to do with personality, location, race or religion. Creating is a process that works and has nothing to do with background, education or experience. Creating is a process that begins when you have something IMPORTANT TO YOU TO BRING INTO EXISTENCE.

If you are chasing more money, then you will be chasing more money when you are 50, 55, 60 and even 70, and guess what, you still won’t be happy because you’ll never have enough, but worse than that, you will have spent your life REACTING TO LIFE and never have had the life and practice you truly wanted and deserved.

It is right there, right now, right in front of you, like it is for me, to CREATE THE DENTAL PRACTICE and LIFE we truly want. The first step is to call and talk to a coach that can give you insight to dental staff training, dentist financial planning and even dental sales training. Call today to start changing your life now.

Dr. Michael Schuster, Founder of the Schuster Center

MONEY is a byproduct of the CREATIVE PROCESS. In fact, I can prove that dentists using the CREATIVE PROCESS net 2-3 times as much as dentists trapped in the REACTIVE PROCESS. I can prove this with over 100,000 months of data that we can collected as we have worked with dentists one-on-one these past 34 years!

When you use the CREATIVE PROCESS in business the result is GROWTH, real growth in NET PROFIT. When you join together the organizational process of practice development with the Creative Process you always experience true growth, more freedom, control and peace of mind.

What I have found and why it is so important to dialogue and interview potential clients of the Schuster Center is the fact that we can predict who will be truly successful and who won’t. It is this simple and powerful. I can predict that in a 30 minute conversation. Do you want to CREATE SOMETHING DIFFERENT, SOMETHING IMPORTANT to you IN YOUR PRACTICE and LIFE or don’t you?

THOSE DENTISTS who have something very important to THEM to bring into existence ALWAYS PRODUCE AMAZING RESULTS in our process, and those who don’t are moderately successful but never break through because they have never truly gotten into the CREATIVE PROCESS. Sure it takes some longer to get there than others, but the joy is in the CREATION as well as the END RESULT.

I’ve watched men and women build airplanes that took then 10-15 years to build and they enjoyed every minute of the process because they were building something THAT WAS IMPORTANT TO THEM. In fact for many of these people, the very act of building their plane was more important than the end result of flying it. So it is with all creators; they end up loving the process as well as the destination or end result. This is why THE CREATIVE PROCESS IS LIFE TRANSFORMING. It changes the entire experience of LIFE and PRACTICE from reacting to life to CREATING what REALLY, REALLY MATTERS TO YOU!!

Dr. Michael Schuster, Founder of the Schuster Center

Stay tuned for: Part 5 of 5: The Conclusion: Make the Choice to Continue your Education in Dentistry

But there is a way out. You, like me, have a choice. You always have a choice. You can be dead honest about where you are, and begin the CREATIVE PROCESS in your life and practice which never fails to lead you towards more CONTROL, FREEDOM and POWER in your life and practice.  Once you choose to become the dominate, creative force in your own life you become the INFLUENCER rather than being INFLUENCED.  You become the one in CONTROL, not the one CONTROLLED. Gradually day by day you experience a greater sense of order, control, predictability and yes FREEDOM. The same tasks done in a REACTIVE ORIENTATION which drags you down emotionally are done with GREATER PURPOSE and MEANING when you are involved in CREATING SOMETHING THAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU.

And this is the final thing I want to say about CREATING TODAY.  To be in a CREATIVE ORIENTATION, you have to be bringing something into existence that is important to you.  In other words, you have to LOVE your CREATION enough to bring it into existence. And that’s the rub.

If what you are doing is to try to make more money, or increase your production that is NOT A CREATION. And since the vast majority of dentists have been mistakenly taught to FOCUS ON MONEY AND PRODUCTION, they are trapped in REACTING and can’t be in a CREATIVE ORIENTATION.

PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THESE WORDS as they are based on working with over 3500 individual dentists and their dental practices in the past 34 years!

Dr. Michael Schuster, Founder of the Schuster Center

Stay tuned for: Part 4 of 5: How the Creative Process Will Affect Your Dental Practice

The CREATIVE PROCESS has had more impact, power and influence, and success than any other process in history. All the arts, the sciences, architecture, pop culture, and the entire technological age we live in exist because of the CREATIVE PROCESS. Why has the most successful process in the history of civilization been made to seem like a mystery? Why have most people had such little exposure to it?

First, it is missing in all of education. Educators think that learning how to create isn’t important. The power the Creative Process is mind blowing. It is a game and life changer.

You, like me, have a choice. Everyone does. You can simply REACT to the events that occur in your life and practice or you can CHOOSE to become the dominate CREATIVE FORCE in your life and CREATE the DENTAL PRACTICE and LIFE you want.

The CREATIVE PROCESS is at the heart of the work we do at the Schuster Center and that alone separates us from every other dental consultant, dental management company or dental coach. Not that others aren’t good people or don’t get results; they do. But they more often get the kind of results that cripple your life with being so busy that you are under constant stress of production; or doing the kind of work that you really don’t enjoy; or of never being really in CONTROL and suffering from the distress of BEING CONTROLLED rather than the FREEDOM you went into practice for in the first place.

After a period of time and using one dental consultant after another; one dental management company after another, you end up with a life and practice that looks like anything but the real you. But now you’re stuck or are you? You’ve now have a lifestyle to support; you may have several cars, sometimes several houses; taxes, kids’ education; you know the drill. And here you are: TRAPPED, certainly not in CONTROL and far from the feeling of PERSONAL AND PRACTICE FREEDOM.

I like to say that those who REACT end up building their own TRAP. Like the spider weaving a web to catch food to eat, by reacting you end up being the caught by the web you have built.

Dr. Michael Schuster, Founder of the Schuster Center

Stay tuned for: Part 3 of 5: Reacting VS. Creating

WARNING: THIS DOCUMENT COULD CHANGE YOUR LIFE!

As a dental coach, I’d like to share a few thoughts with you. These thoughts and the use of them can transform your life. If you know me then you know part of my life story. I got off to the wrong start when I opened my first dental practice in Dyersville, Iowa. I listened to the hucksters of the lecture circuit and got lost.

I got too busy ‘reacting’ to problems that patients were having and I didn’t have the knowledge or the skills to know how to cope with it. So I simply ‘responded and reacted’ and the distress of it all put me in the hospital with an ulcer when I was 28.

That turned out to be the turning point of my life. My dad, a college professor and teacher, gave me two books to read; Maslow on Motivation and a book by Alfred Adler who was the first to write ‘act as if, and you will become it’.

I vowed when I came out of the hospital that my practice and life would be different or I would quit what I was doing and find something else to do with my life. I made a determination that I would only work with people that wanted to be ‘healthy’ or get better and that I wouldn’t spend my life simply reacting to the disease and problems my patients were having.

I intuitively made a decision to become a CREATOR not a REACTOR and that changed my life and my dental practice forever. Today is no different as the majority of dentists are trapped into ‘reacting to their patients problems’ rather than partnering with patients to create health. It turns out that the majority of dentists end up REACTING TO LIFE rather than CREATING THE LIFE AND PRACTICE THEY WANT.

Enter the Creative Process. I have been fortunate to have studied with some of the brightest and most innovative people on the planet and I have harnessed that information into a dental business school and dental seminars. In the next few blogs, I will expand on the idea of continuing your education in dentistry and how it can transform your life.

Dr. Michael Schuster, Founder of the Schuster Center

Stay tuned for: Part 2 of 5: Our Choices and How They Affect Us

For 4 decades the Schuster Center has been the preferred dental management service for dentists who want more CONTROL, FREEDOM and a BETTER LIFE and PRACTICE!

The SCHUSTER CENTER was the 1^ST Business School for Dentists and now is the 1^st ON-LINE DENTAL BUSINESS SCHOOL. Continuing your dental education is possible 24/7 on line with LIVE PERSONAL CONSULTING and coaching.

Our dental management process is UNIQUE and PROVEN to get the results you want.

We use a PROVEN, PREDICTABLE, RELIABLE PROCESS to help dentists create the Practice and Life “they want.”

If YOU:

• Sense that you are losing CONTROL over your MONEY and TIME.
• Are WORKING HARDER AND HARDER FOR LESS AND LESS!
• Feel that dentistry isn’t as much FUN as it used to be!

Then you are ready for RENEWAL, REFOCUS, REPRIORTIZING and RECREATING the PRACTICE and LIFE you wanted when you went into dentistry in the first place.

Dental office management doesn’t have to be a nightmare. Are you interested in taking your practice to the NEXT LEVEL?

Click HERE to fill out the PROFIT POTENTIAL PROFILE or the SELF DIAGNOSING TESTS and we’ll set a time to have a discussion about the FUTURE you want to create! Or call Mary at 1-800-288-9393 for a private, one-on-one conversation about your Future!

Dr. Michael Schuster
Founder, Dental Speaker

The Schuster Center is very excited about these particular seminars as Dr. Michael Schuster does not conduct very many live seminars anymore. This is a chance to meet the man that has helped changed so many lives in the dental community.

We invite you to join us for the following LIVE dental seminars to listen to Dr. Schuster talk about Profitability Management and how it can affect your life.

• Scottsdale Seminar
  November 18, 2011 · 7:30 AM – 1:00 PM
• Kansas City Seminar
  December 2, 2011 · 8:00 AM – 12:00 PM
• Hartford, CT Seminar
  December 16, 2011 · Time TBD

In these fast-paced, information packed dental seminars; Dr. Michael Schuster will share powerful strategies and methods that have transformed the practices and lives of thousands of dentists over the last 30+ years. Call 800-288-9393 to register today.

I want to say that literally EVERY CONSULTANT, MANAGEMENT COMPANY, MARKETING EXPERT, SALES TRAINING EXPERT is teaching strategies, systems and structures that promote mostly a LEVEL I and LEVEL II practice.

The HERD follows the ‘bigger is better’, ‘production based’, ‘money centered’ practice model.  There ar so few TRUE LEVEL III practices in existence; less that 2%, that there are really few mentors, methods, models to emulate or learn from.

• Banks and lenders don’t understand a Level III Model.
• Accountants don’t get it.
• Consultants don’t get it.
• Dental Economics and every other magazine doesn’t get it.
• Financial Planners such as Blair & McGill and Mercer and Cain Waters don’t get it.
• Quest, Est, Pride, Fortune Management, and every big management house don’t have a clue as to what a LEVEL III practice is or is like.

They all promote systems and structures that ensure that you will continue to be a Level I or II practice.

I remember and often quote Dr. LD Pankey, my beloved mentor and

guide. He used to say:

“When you travel with the MASSES, you are keeping company with the ASSES.”

Now, don’t get upset with me. But it’s harder than heck to differentiate a

‘masses’ or ‘herd’ practice.  By definition they all look and act alike.

Dr. Pankey said so many times that I think I eventually got it.

“Strive to be at the top. Become the best you can become and you’ll rise to the top because so FEW MAKE THE COMMITMENT to get there.”

Neither Dentists nor GURU’S   get that it is STRUCTURE that determines BEHAVIOR which determines RESULTS.

I say every day to myself and anyone that will listen that:

STRUCTURE IS EVERYTHING.

Bob Lee, the famous biologist and dentist inventor used to say over and over

“FORM IS EVERYTHING”

          The STRUCTURE of ANYTHING produces the RESULTS of EVERYTHING.

I know I’m repeating myself, but it must be repeated until you get it.  If you don’t get this then you will never gain appreciation for the most important discipline of STRUCTURAL THINKING which is  a close cousin to SYSTEMS THINKING.

One of the problems is that the LEVEL I and LEVEL II dentists don’t know enough. Another problem is that many THINK they KNOW ENOUGH and that is their downfall.  Until dentists understand the vital link between HUMAN MOTIVATION—HUMAN BEHAVIOR—THE IMPORTANCE OF DEVELOPMENT OF INTERDEPENDENT RELATIONSHIPS the LEVEL II dentist is stuck and the majority take the PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE and backslide into a LEVEL I practice. They don’t evolve to:

The NEXT LEVEL or LEVEL III practice.

The majority, in spite of heroic efforts remain bound in a LEVEL I-II practice, probably should have saved their money and put into their retirement plan rather than waste it on ADVANCED TECHNICAL TRAINING that they can’t get off the shelf.

You become COMPETENT by doing.

You become a MASTER by doing a great deal of what you are doing, studying with and staying with your MASTER’S or MODELS.

I think entering into LEVEL II is living Hell. You aren’t where you want to be, but you’re doing the RIGHT THING. You are spending the money and time to learn more but all that happens is that you now have a shelf or closet full of models for patients that never moved forward with treatment.

You do a more thorough examination. You take time with people. You even listen to them.  You take more records. In many cases you bring them back and talk to your patients and present treatment plans and they say thank you. Or they say, wow, you are really thorough and they don’t come back or if they do come back, they do the minimum; (Level I dentistry) and in some cases you get so frustrated and upset and angry that you get sick; or blame your team or wife or dog.

Your training, your education, your knowledge, your understanding is INCOMPLETE. It is more YOU than your PATIENTS.  No one, especially your TECHNICAL GURU ever told you that there was so much more you had to learn about:

• Human motivation and behavior
• Developing true rapport, engagement and interest
• How to ‘connect’ and ‘engage’ patients.
• How to listen to people with interest, compassion and caring
• How to set goals with people
• How to partner with people to help them to achieve health and well-being.

You see, your TECHNICAL MENTORS and GURUS are LEVEL IV expert dentists.  They are world renown. People, mainly their dental students, travel hundreds of miles to have treatment completed by the MAN.

They don’t get that you don’t get it. They don’t understand why YOU can’t JUST DO IT!  What took them a lifetime to learn, build and know, they think that you can learn it in a weekend or maybe 10 weekend sessions.