​Lani Grass is the Founder of Wave of Women, an organization dedicated to empowering the next generation of female leaders in their professional and personal lives. As a certified life coach and speaker, she focuses on helping clients identify their unique traits, embrace authenticity, and build paths to self-actualization. Lani’s diverse background includes experience in retail, nonprofits, start-ups, healthcare, and corporate, providing her with a well-rounded perspective on personal and professional development.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [02:05] Lani Grass shares her journey from HR and marketing to coaching women dentists
• [05:21] The key differences between coaching, consulting, and therapy
• [06:47] How women dentists lose confidence after dental school and how coaching helps
• [13:07] Measuring personal growth and success with the Wheel of Life
• [16:17] The importance of authenticity in personal branding for dentists
• [22:51] Why keeping promises to yourself is the foundation of confidence and self-love

In this episode…

Many women dentists find themselves excelling through dental school but feeling lost when faced with the realities of practice ownership and leadership. How can they regain clarity, build confidence, and step into their roles as strong, authentic leaders?

According to Lani Grass, a life and leadership coach specializing in woman-led dentistry, the key is self-awareness and alignment. She highlights that many women in dentistry follow a structured path through school but struggle with confidence once they’re in practice. Confidence, Lani explains, isn’t something you chase — it’s a byproduct of knowing who you are and making decisions that align with your true self. When dentists step into their personal power, they not only feel more in control but also create a thriving practice culture.

In this episode of The Marketing 32 Show, Brett Allen sits down with Lani Grass, Founder of Wave of Women, to discuss how women dentists can build confidence and leadership skills. Lani shares how mindset shifts can transform the way dentists lead their teams, why personal branding is key to patient trust, and how to overcome the overwhelm that often comes with practice ownership. She also gives advice on setting boundaries and staying true to your values for long-term success.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Brett Allen on LinkedIn
• Marketing 32
• Lani Grass: LinkedIn | Instagram
• Wave of Women
• “How Dental Practices Can Improve Systems and Increase Profitability With Sandy Pardue” on The Marketing 32 Show
• Dr. Paul Goodman on LinkedIn

Quotable Moments

• “My clients come to me because they are stuck on something and it’s affecting their confidence.”
• “A coach is somebody who is forward-thinking — they meet their client where they are and create a plan.”
• “Feeling authentic on a leadership level is really, really important because it releases a lot of stress.”
• “The more promises you keep to yourself, the more self-love you’ll have for yourself.”
• “Confidence is a byproduct of knowing yourself, honoring yourself, and keeping promises to yourself.”

Action Steps

1. Rediscover your core values and personal identity: Understanding who you are now versus years ago helps align your leadership with authenticity.
2. Develop a confident communication style: Learning how to express yourself with clarity and authority enhances trust with your team and patients.
3. Create boundaries to protect your energy: Establishing limits in both business and personal life prevents burnout and fosters a healthier work environment.
4. Align your branding with your true self: Ensuring your practice’s messaging reflects your real values and personality builds trust with patients and staff.
5. Keep promises to yourself consistently: Honoring commitments to yourself strengthens self-trust, leading to greater confidence and long-term personal fulfillment.

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Marketing 32, the only dental marketing agency with the Practice Impact Formula™ for predictable growth without financial risk.

With a focus on new patient generation, addressing missed opportunities, and expert scheduling, Marketing 32 has helped over 170 practices in the US, Canada, and Australia. Grow in 30 days, or you don’t pay — it’s that simple.

To learn more, visit marketing32.com and schedule a 15-minute discovery call. If you’re a visionary practice ready for impact, Marketing 32 is ready to help you grow!

Episode Transcript:

Intro: 00:13

You’re listening to The Marketing 32 Show with your host, Brett Allen.

Brett Allen: 00:18

Hi, Brett Allen here, host of The Marketing 32 Show, where I connect with leading dentists, dental influencers and industry experts to uncover the latest strategies and insights and innovations to help you grow and thrive in your dental practice. This episode is brought to you by our team here at Marketing 32. We’re the only ones that I know of who provide a performance guarantee. So if you’re not growing when you’re working with your marketing company, give us a shout. We promise to help you grow or you don’t pay us.

Learn more about us at marketing32.com. Schedule a 15 minute discovery call and we’ll see if we can be a great fit together. Quick shout out to Sandy Pardue recent interview that we did where she talks all about processes and internal things that you can do to really help your practice grow. Check her out.

She’s phenomenal. Go listen to that episode. Today I’m super excited to introduce my new friend onThe Marketing 32 Show. Lani Grass is a life and leadership coach for women dentists. For the past 15 years, she has been working with women on their personal brand professional leadership skills and helping them create a life that they really love.

Her clients come to her to solve a problem, but what they really gain is the confidence to solve any problem in an authentic and impactful way. Lani, thank you so much for joining us on the show today.

Lani Grass: 01:43

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I’m super excited to be here.

Brett Allen: 01:47

Yeah, this will be a great discussion. Yeah. Looking forward to it. So yeah. So tell us a little bit more about you, Lani.

What’s your background? How did you get into dentistry? And then more specifically what you’re doing now with Wave of Women and how you work with women.

Lani Grass: 02:05

Okay, awesome. I have actually been I had a career before coaching. I always worked with people in human resources and then marketing. I have a marketing background also, but 15 years ago I started my consulting coaching business and when I was living in Hawaii, actually, my name is Lani. You know, it is derived from a Hawaiian name.

I started my business when in Hawaii when I was an image and personal branding coach, and so I started coaching women on image and branding. But then I noticed as I started becoming close to them, they wanted actually coaching on confidence. And so my coaching shifted. And then I just really had such a huge passion to help women become confident, because that’s my history of having lack of confidence and having to being an overcomer and figuring things out. I think I just love doing this because I basically help women who are behind me on the same road that I was on.

So how I got to niche into dentistry is years later. My husband was a nurse for 13 years and he decided to be a dentist. So in 2015, a second career, he got into dental school and I just supported him and went in there and he was as the president. And so he was doing these events. It’s actually how I met.

We met Dr. Paul Goodman that he came there. So anyway, I was helping him in the background. I noticed all these women and I looked up the stats and this was 2015, and I noticed at the time there was just under 50% of people enrolling in the school were women. And so I changed the name of my business at the time. It was Backstage with Lani to Wave of Women in Dentistry.

So because I just I recognize that there’s a huge wave of women going in and creating totally is.

Brett Allen: 04:10

Yeah, the demographic shift is phenomenal.

Lani Grass: 04:12

So exciting. And then I niched to women dentists because I started doing free networking events, teaching them how to talk to others, make friends, how to build a network. And I did that at the school and then I started branching out. I’ve already been a coach, but then I had this niche group that were dental students that were going to becoming dentists, and my business just kept just snowballing there. And then I started doing speaking. And so since 2015, I’ve been niched to women dentistry.

Brett Allen: 04:45

Yeah. That’s great. I’m glad you’re tapping into that. It’s phenomenal to see that — I’m a father of four daughters. And so I love all the things that are empowering women.

And the shift that’s happening. I think it’s great. Yeah. So you mentioned some things there about coaching and mindset and how you help have these breakthroughs for your clients. Let’s talk a little bit more about that.

What are some of the key things that you do to help have this impact for your clients, and how do you measure that right?

Lani Grass: 05:21

Oh thank you. That’s a great question. I’d like to talk a little bit about coaching and then about that and then and how to measure it. But let me explain something that maybe some people don’t know about coaching and consulting and therapy. Okay.

So a coach is somebody who is forward thinking like they create like they meet their client where they are, and then they get to know them, and then they create a plan for the future. And then from where they are to where they want to be, they set goals. And that’s a coach does that. And then a coach. Also a true coach, believes that the answers are with the client.

The client knows all the answers. You keep asking the right questions and they come up with the answers on their own. Okay. A therapist is somebody who works with clients on who they are or what’s troubling them. Maybe something in their past helps them heal and helps them untangle that.

Okay. And then a consultant is somebody who gives the blueprint. A role model scripts and says, here’s what you need to do. What I do is I’m a coach slash consultant.

Brett Allen: 06:40

Okay. Yeah. Okay. That’s awesome. I like that distinguishing. I think that’s perfect. It’s good to understand that.

Lani Grass: 06:47

Yeah, I think I do get that question a lot. And so I wanted to explain that’s how I do, because a lot of my clients come to me because they are stuck on something and it’s affecting their confidence and they don’t know what it is. They just don’t feel confident anymore, like they used to. Because I think that the road to becoming a dentist is paved for you. It’s, you know, it’s like here, you do this, you reach this milestone, you get to move on.

This is this game, right? And then after you graduate, what do you do? You go buy a practice. Here’s what you do. And then here’s the roadmap to this.

Right. But my clients can a lot of them lose themselves along the way because it’s just it’s so stepped. And then pretty soon they get to this point where their practice owner and they’re like, I don’t know what’s wrong with I just don’t feel like something is balanced. Something is — I’m overwhelmed. Something’s not right.

I don’t know what it is. So that’s when they come to me. They want more clarity. They want to be happier. They want to feel more, well, less overwhelmed.

And then I help them rediscover who they are. And that’s super, super important because most people haven’t even done that work.

Brett Allen: 08:07

Yes.

Lani Grass: 08:07

You know, to really know who you are. And so and who you are now is probably very different than who you were 15 years ago. So a reintroduction to who you are now so you can own that. So then from here you can actually see, okay, let’s make goals of what do you want to do. Who do you — how do you want to feel 5, 10 years down the road?

How do you want the practice to feel? How do you want to feel about your life? And then create that vision and then create the blueprint? This is where the consulting comes in too, because my clients are coming to me for help and guidance. Right.

And so I help that. And sometimes they’re actually wanting me to give them scripts on how to speak more confidently, how to lead their team, how to hold boundaries, how to talk about themselves. Right? So these are all really important things. And what’s interesting is so the mindset shift the confidence comes along the way.

I’m not saying, you know, you want to be confident here. Here’s how to be confident right. I just know themselves and know what they want. Right. Honor themselves. And the confidence is a byproduct.

Brett Allen: 09:23

Yes, I love that.

Lani Grass: 09:25

That’s how we do the mindset shift. Organic.

Brett Allen: 09:28

Yeah. And that’s so that’s so critical right. Because if you do it in the reverse it’s almost inauthentic and like contrived and not not true. Right. Like I can totally appreciate everything you’re saying and the tremendous value that you bring to your clients.

I, recently we were talking about this. I recently started working with a coach on my own about three months ago. And I mean, I had coaches growing up. I was a college athlete. I swam in college.

All-American, did all the things, loved my coach in college and the breakthroughs we had with my technique and all the things that come with having a good coach. And then got into business and started working with business coaches, marketing consultants, sales trainings, all the things from operations to how to run your business and have invested hundreds of thousands into that. But I never did any self work or pay a coach to do, you know, things that are helping me exactly with what you’re talking about confidence, identity shifts. I feel like I didn’t have the tools, I didn’t know what I didn’t know, right. And so that’s what a coach brings, is they bring you a different perspective, different tools to help you have breakthroughs and help you unlock things and have, you know, achieve your potential.

And the last three months have been so transformational, not just for me as a person, but also in my business how I’m showing up, how my family, my wife like it. Life is really good right now and I’m just thrilled. And so I think applaud you. Yeah, I think the work you do and other consultants, coaches that it’s so important and and guys you need, you need to get a coach if you don’t have one from a self-development perspective. Get it, get one. It’s totally worth it.

Lani Grass: 11:33

Absolutely. Thanks for sharing that. I wanted to add one thing to what you were saying about your story is that as you grow as a human being, you can’t stay in the same self-identity at different levels. You need to recalibrate.

Brett Allen: 11:46

Yes.

Lani Grass: 11:47

You were the same person at this level, and now your life has changed this much, professionally or otherwise. It’s not going to feel in alignment and then you’re going to feel stress. And so it’s really helpful to get a coach or a mentor at this level to help you see where you are right now.

Brett Allen: 12:08

Totally.

Lani Grass: 12:09

Where are you? Right. So this is what’s happening.

Brett Allen: 12:12

Yeah, 100%. If there’s. And it overflows into everything, right? It’s not just I mean, there’s business coaches out there and they do a great job. But when you get true on who what your vision is for your life and what you want and where things are causing friction, maybe in your business or in relationships and having breakthroughs to help make changes.

It’s so, so important and so valuable. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, I I’m, I’m so happy that we’re getting to talk about all of this. So let’s go a little bit more into your process with Wave of Women.

And how do you coach women dentists and what are kind of the breakthroughs you’re having for them. And how do you measure that? I know it’s a little bit hard to quantify sometimes, but yeah, let’s talk about that.

Lani Grass: 13:07

Let’s start with how to measure it. And I’ll explain two aspects of the two programs that I do in my coaching. I know that. So you had mentioned business coaches. So a business coach and a mentor, they have ways to measure success and milestones.

And a lot of times it’s in an ROI where we’ll see okay, so what’s the goal. Is it a production goal. Is it like a how many eyes are on you know, how many clicks like what it is like? There are things that are measurable that way. So when you’re talking about life coaching it’s different. Right. Because how do you measure that. So the way that I work with my clients to measure is we do a questionnaire where we do a Wheel of Life, and I and I have them measure where they are on a scale of 1 to 10 of where they are and where they want to be in the different categories. And then we just go about our process and then we remeasure it again.

And so that’s one way, one tangible way for them to look at. But the other thing is that they feel differently. And so the way that it’s measured in life coaching is my clients will one of the things that they feel a lot less overwhelmed and more confident and just kind of feel and more authentic. So feeling authentic on a leadership level is really, really important because it releases a lot of stress, because that means that you feel like you’re not pretending to be something you’re not. And that’s so stressful long term.

Brett Allen: 14:42

Right.

Lani Grass: 14:43

And so I help my clients recalibrate and get that in alignment. So then they’re like authentically showing up. But also it feels like even though their responsibilities are not less, in a lot of ways, they’re just. They’re good with it now. They’re calm.

They have clarity on what they’re doing with their life. They know what they want, what they don’t want. So they’re able to create boundaries. And so it’s intangible, but it feels really good. And my clients, they don’t work with me indefinitely.

It’s not like therapy. So there is — we measure it. And then when they feel like they’ve had the transformation that they want I say, you know, we they go, I don’t make them sign contracts. I’m like, I, I’m really there for them to work with them to get to where they want. And then it’s like, if we’re done, we’re done.

But the door is always open for the next level when they need to come back. And I have clients that I’ve worked with for many, many years that keep coming back because at different levels they may need some help.

Brett Allen: 15:49

Well that’s awesome. I think that’s so great. Yeah, so tell us more about how you, you know, how you came up with these things that you do. I don’t know about your program and what levels you take. Take your clients through.

But what was the impetus for that? How did you come up with this program? Your philosophies and techniques and things like that.

Lani Grass: 16:17

Thank you. Well, I have had a lot of professional coaching and paid tens and thousands of dollars for coaching myself. As you know, any good coach would. The personal branding is one of the programs that I’ve been teaching for a long time. But even back in 2010, when I started my business, when I was an image and personal branding coach, that was where it started.

But then it became more personal. So it was like an image, more outwardly brand. There’s the outward brand where it’s like logo colors and aesthetics and all that. Personal branding is a complement to that, right? But now I’m working on the inside.

My clients, the personal branding and personal branding is different in the way that this is how other people feel when they interact with you, with your brand. So and so. Like I said, it’s very to me, it’s very foundation for me to help, help my clients be reintroduced to themselves right now and then, like, know who they are because we’re building a brand out of authenticity and who they are. And so what I do is I teach them to own their successes, own who they are, look at their story, perhaps differently, because sometimes, you know, the stories we tell ourselves are not they don’t serve us.

Brett Allen: 17:40

Yeah.

Lani Grass: 17:40

And so I say, this is what I’m hearing. What do you think? And help them own a different story, you know, an overcoming story or something. And then they become more confident. And so the brand I help them get fine tuned on how to talk about themselves.

What words to talk about themselves. What? What are your values? What are your core values? What are your shadow values?

What are the things that you value? But it’s important to you, but you don’t necessarily want to say out loud, I teach them that too, because some of that I mean, it’s good to know yourself. You may not want to bring some of that outwardly, but to know what drives you.

Brett Allen: 18:20

Right, right, right.

Lani Grass: 18:21

So that you’re being true. It’s all about being true to yourself. And then from a personal branding perspective, you can build anything from there. Because once you’re in, you’re more confident and you can talk about yourself. You can build a culture of your practice.

From there, you can. You need that for marketing, like really strong marketing.

Brett Allen: 18:40

I was going to ask you about that. Yeah, yeah.

Lani Grass: 18:42

Because you’re a marketing. So, you know, you work with a lot of dentists. Well, people need their teeth worked on, but how do they pick the dentists?

Brett Allen: 18:50

Absolutely.

Lani Grass: 18:51

Well, right. It’s the same way they pick a coach. There’s a lot of coaches. Why would they pick? Why would they pick me?

Not everyone will pick me. I am for the people that resonate with me, right? So I am very authentic in who I am. Here is who I am always and so my client, they see what they get right. And I try to teach that too is because be really confident in that but be bigger in who you are so you can attract the people that resonate with you, your values, what you’re doing, and be able to say it clearly.

What are you doing for the community? Who are you? You know, what are your works? What’s your personality? Show all that and it creates a pulling strategy instead of a yeah, let me sell you something.

Brett Allen: 19:41

Absolutely.

Lani Grass: 19:41

You know, I love this person, right? I love that you pick that person. And it’s so wonderful. It’s so organic and alignment. Right.

Brett Allen: 19:51

Yeah. It’ll be a better experience too when you’re attracting those who you’re meant to serve versus just, you know, I’m so glad we’re talking about this because so much of the I talk with dentists all the time who are wanting to work with our team and a big shift we have to help them have is, you know, the website that you have and the content that’s out there is not really reflective of who you are. And, you know, we’ve seen dental websites. I’m sure you’ve seen them where it’s just stock photography. It’s the patients that are smiling.

It’s almost like a brochure. And it’s like, well, who’s the who’s behind that? Who’s the team behind that? What’s the vibe in the practice? Like these are all subconsciously what patients are wanting to answer when they’re searching on Google or trying to find a dentist to work with.

They’re in the back of their mind. They’re just trying to find somebody. They connect with who they can trust, who they would feel confident. Can I envision myself going to this practice? And if your website doesn’t convey that and you don’t have the videos and the and the pictures of your team and the ambience of the practice it you’re missing that pulling effect you talked about and it becomes friction in your marketing, all the other marketing you’re doing.

If you’re going to run ads or if you’re going to do anything on social media, it really hinders you if you don’t portray who you are. Right?

Lani Grass: 21:17

I’m so glad you said it’s kind of like I wanted to add one thing to that. It’s like, you know, if you’re in your networking and then you back in the day, I guess we do. We do less cards now, but say somebody gives you a business card and there’s their picture on there, and you see this business card and their card is ten years old and you’re like, this doesn’t look like you.

Brett Allen: 21:37

Yeah.

Lani Grass: 21:39

You know, so. If you’re looking at a website and you see all this aesthetics and it looks all formal and these perfect smiles and everything, and then you walk in the office, and the office is a lot or feeling or whatever. Feeling it doesn’t. It’s not the same. And so people don’t trust things that are not the same.

Brett Allen: 21:58

Yeah.

Lani Grass: 21:59

Yeah, that’s what we’re doing. What we’re doing here is building trust in relationships with our clients and patients. And when things are off, it doesn’t build trust.

Brett Allen: 22:10

Yeah.

Lani Grass: 22:11

Right.

Brett Allen: 22:12

Yeah. They smell it, right. They’re like wait. Or. And it could even impact your treatment acceptance rate because patients are wondering, well, this is totally different than what I thought I was going to be getting.

I don’t know if I want to say yes to this treatment plan.

Lani Grass: 22:26

Absolutely. Yeah, I think it’s true.

Brett Allen: 22:29

Yeah. Well, we’ve we’ve there’s tons of value here. You’ve already shared I hope there’s been some epiphanies. Let’s talk. I always close with the one big domino.

If you could help our listeners with that. What’s that one thing that would, you know, ripple over into everything else that you think would be a huge value for them or epiphany?

Lani Grass: 22:51

Yeah. Thank you. I think what’s really, really important is to going back to knowing yourself. The big takeaway of knowing yourself is being able to honor yourself and honor your values. And my big takeaway I would say is know yourself, respect yourself, honor yourself, and keep promises to yourself like everything flows from there.

Your life. If you honor yourself and you keep promises to yourself, things just fall in place, right? And think about this. If you would just keep promises you make to yourself how your life could transform.

Brett Allen: 23:36

That’s so valuable. Yeah, I think everybody knows who they want to be. I think we all feel it internally. Like if you were, there’s probably questions you ask your clients to help pull that out, right. And identify what that is.

Yeah. I think you’re tapping into something there that’s really powerful if you just are True to yourself and identify what those values are. And where do I want to be? Where do I want to go? And the consistency is hard though, right?

It’s like the commitment and staying true to that. Once you make that, once you get clear on that and not shifting back into all the other things that that, you know, cause friction, right? Yeah.

Lani Grass: 24:21

But here’s the big thing that you get if you keep promises to yourself is you build self love for yourself. The more promises you keep to yourself, the more self love you’ll have for yourself. And how many times I could. That could be a whole other episode talking about what self-love and self-acceptance is. It’s like the unicorn that people don’t actually know what it is, but is the foundation of happiness.

Yeah. And every day is a new day to start over.

Brett Allen: 24:51

So that’s so great. Well, this has been so awesome, Lani. Thank you so much, you guys. You got to work with Lani. If you can’t tell already.

She’s a wealth of knowledge and breakthroughs for you to take your practice to the next level. We talked beforehand, so Lani said reach out to her on Instagram. That’s where you can best connect with her. It’s @waveofwomen_dentistry on Instagram. So @waveofwomen_dentistry on Instagram DM her there she offers a complimentary one-hour discovery session.

You guys can talk with her, get to know her, find out more. Definitely reach out to Lani.

Lani Grass: 25:34

Thank you so much. Brett.

Brett Allen: 25:35

Yeah. This is so great. Thank you for coming on the show.

Lani Grass: 25:39

I really appreciate you.

Brett Allen: 25:41

All right, everybody, until next time on The Marketing 32 Show. Everybody have a great day and we’ll see you next time.