Why Lottery Winners Return to Baseline Happiness (And What Dentists Can Learn From It)
What if the problem isn’t that you need to achieve more—but that you’re chasing achievement in the first place? Dr. Martin Mendelson, founder of Metamorphosis Coaching and former Spear Education resident faculty member, has worked with thousands of dental professionals who are working harder every year but not moving forward. In his groundbreaking book “One Move Makes All the Difference,” he reveals a startling truth backed by research on 275,000 people worldwide: satisfaction and happiness don’t come from achievement, but from the people you’re with and the journey that got you there. In this powerful conversation, Martin unpacks the concept of hedonic adaptation (why lottery winners spike in happiness then return to baseline), introduces the TEAM framework (thoughts drive emotions that create actions that manifest results), and reveals why dentists are 17 times more likely to take their own lives than the general population. If you’ve ever felt stuck, burned out, or wondered whether you hate dentistry or just hate certain things about running a practice, this episode will fundamentally shift how you think about success, fulfillment, and what truly moves the needle.
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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- 03:33 – The first one move: Schedule time to ask “Where do I want to go in the future?”
- 05:18 – The vacation analogy: You can’t book the airline ticket if you don’t know where you’re going
- 06:29 – What if you don’t know where you want to go? The ideal day exercise in detail
- 08:35 – Hedonic adaptation explained: Why lottery winners return to baseline happiness
- 09:31 – Neuroplasticity: Your brain is malleable and your baseline happiness is movable
- 10:19 – The fundamental truth: We are human beings first
- 13:00 – Seattle Study Club keynote revelation: What Martin is actually happy about
- 15:33 – The Wednesday hygiene check example: Are you too busy or is this strategic?
- 17:01 – The disconnect: How does this action support that clinical goal?
- 18:15 – The TEAM acronym introduced: Thoughts, Emotions, Actions, Manifest results
- 18:49 – Victor Frankl’s quote: Between stimulus and response, there’s a space
- 22:18 – NBCA framework introduced: Notice, Breathe, Choose, Act (credit to Erin Harris)
- 22:54 – The big secret: Just because you think it doesn’t mean you do it—choosing and acting are different
- 24:08 – The stuck question: If you were advising a dentist who feels trapped, what’s the first move?
- 26:16 – The flip side: What did you do on days where you got home and said “damn, that was a great day”?
- 28:04 – The devastating statistics: 17x more likely to take our own lives than general population
- 29:21 – Life is not a game of dominoes: Individual things in life are not connected
- 31:17 – Book story teasers: The scary Mexico event, John Krasinski’s acting story, American flag origin
- 32:37 – Big announcement: Four hours of CE now available for dental professionals who read the book
Dr. Martin Mendelson returns as the Marketing 32 Show’s first-ever repeat guest to dive deep into his book “One Move Makes All the Difference”—a labor of love that readers say resonates on every single page. The foundation of Martin’s work addresses a crisis in dentistry: professionals working harder every year but not moving forward, feeling stuck despite achievement after achievement. The problem, as Martin explains, is that dentists work IN their practices rather than ON them. The first “one move” is deceptively simple but profoundly difficult: schedule uninterrupted time to ask yourself where you want to go in the future, where you are now, and what needs to change to bridge that gap. If you don’t have a vision of where you want to go, how do you expect to get there? It’s like trying to book an airline ticket without knowing your destination. For those who genuinely don’t know where they want to go, Martin offers an alternative: write out your ideal day in extraordinary detail—from waking up in your dream house to the types of cases you’re doing in practice. When he revisited his own 2016 ideal day exercise in 2024, he was shocked by how many details had come true.
The deeper issue plaguing dentistry is rooted in what researchers call hedonic adaptation—the phenomenon where lottery winners experience a spike in happiness then return to their baseline level. Sean Acor’s work in “The Happiness Advantage” introduced Martin to research involving 275,000 people worldwide that revealed a stunning truth: satisfaction and happiness don’t come from achievement, but from the people you’re with and the journey that got you there. This is devastating for an industry built entirely on achievement ladders: getting into dental school, graduating, passing boards, getting first job, buying first practice. The goalposts keep changing, and when you reach each milestone asking “now what?”—clinical depression can follow. The problem isn’t achieving goals; it’s focusing exclusively on achievement rather than enjoying the nights, weekends, blood, sweat, and tears that facilitate reaching those goals. Martin demonstrated this at the Seattle Study Club symposium when he told the audience he wasn’t happy about being invited to speak—he was happy about the financial risk he took for certifications, the business risk of going full-time, and the nights and weekends spent learning that resulted in the invitation. That mindset shift evens out the manic highs and lows of achievement-focused living.
Martin introduces two powerful frameworks that transform how dental professionals approach life and leadership. TEAM is an acronym for Thoughts drive Emotions that create Actions that Manifest results—based on Victor Frankl’s quote that between stimulus and response, there’s a space where our freedom to choose lies. Everything that happens is neutral; it’s your thought that gives it power. While TEAM is often linear, powerful stimuli can kick emotions or actions into motion immediately (like rolling your eyes at a late team member). The companion tool is NBCA: Notice you’re getting squirrely in thought/emotion/action, Breathe and take a minute, Choose an action between your ears, then Act upon it. The secret: just because you think something doesn’t mean you do it—choosing and acting are separate steps. For dentists who feel trapped or stuck, Martin’s first diagnostic question is crucial: Is it dentistry you don’t want to do anymore, or things IN dentistry you don’t want to do? Often the answer isn’t clinical—it’s team management, payroll, ordering supplies, or administrative pressures. The flip side question matters equally: What did you do on days where you got home saying “damn, that was a great day”? How can you do more of that and less of the other? The statistics are sobering: dentists are 17 times more likely to take their own lives than the general population and 2-2.5 times more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, and panic disorder. But as Martin powerfully reminds us: life is not a game of dominoes. Just because three crappy things happened this morning doesn’t make it a bad day—unless you turn 20 minutes into 24 hours in your mind.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- “One Move Makes All the Difference” by Dr. Martin Mendelson: Available in print, ebook, and Audible formats (narrated by Martin), now offering 4 hours of CE credit for dental professionals
- Metamorphosis Coaching: Dr. Mendelson’s coaching practice for individual dentists and dental teams (also accessible at morewithmendelson.com)
- “The Happiness Advantage” by Sean Acor: Book on hedonic adaptation and the research behind baseline happiness (Sean provided a testimonial for Martin’s book)
- “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Dr. Victor Frankl: Source of the foundational quote about the space between stimulus and response
- “Atomic Habits” by James Clear: Book Martin reads once a year covering lagging indicators and habit formation
- Deborah Engelhardt-Nash Episode: Previous Marketing 32 Show episode on case acceptance and patient experience
- Marketing 32: Performance-based dental marketing agency with growth guarantee
- LinkedIn – Dr. Martin Mendelson: Connect with Martin on LinkedIn for professional updates
- Marketing 32: This week’s episode of The Marketing 32 Show
Quotable Moments:
“I’m so humbled that I’m hearing from people from all walks of life how every page is resonating with them. It’s literally the most frequent comment I’m getting, which as an author is a really good thing to hear.” – Dr. Martin Mendelson
“A lot of dentists end up working in the practice, not on the practice. The one move would be to schedule time without disruptions to sit down and really think about where do I want to go in the future.” – Dr. Martin Mendelson
“If you don’t have a vision or at least even an idea of where you wanna go, how do you expect to get there? If you wanna go on vacation, how are you supposed to book the airline ticket if you don’t know where you’re going?” – Dr. Martin Mendelson
“What if we don’t take a step back and take a step up? Well, then we’re going to stay stuck because what they say—definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Dr. Martin Mendelson
“Write down what your ideal day would look like in detail. I get up in my house and I walk out to make coffee and it’s a big open room and I look out the windows onto the pool, the meadow, the mountain. Then I’m driving to work and I’m feeling really good about it.” – Dr. Martin Mendelson
“What about your day-to-day life if you could remove would make all the difference? Oftentimes it’s not clinical stuff. It’s team management or managerial pressures or maybe even doing payroll or ordering supplies.” – Dr. Martin Mendelson
“What do I do on days where I get home and I go ‘damn, that was a great day’? Why was it a great day? What did you do that day that made it great? And how can we do more of that and less of the other stuff?” – Dr. Martin Mendelson
“We are 17 times more likely to take our own lives than the general populous. We’re about 2 to 2.5 times more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, and panic disorder than the general populous.” – Dr. Martin Mendelson
“We don’t need to be ashamed to be talking about this stuff. The more we talk about it with other dentists and other dental professionals that do understand, the better off we’re gonna be.” – Dr. Martin Mendelson
“Success is the continual pursuit of a worthy goal. Have fun. Do it together. Enjoy the journey.” – Marketing 32 core tenet
Action Steps
- Schedule the “one move” exercise: Block uninterrupted time this week to write down where you want to be in the future, where you are now, and what needs to change
- Complete the ideal day exercise: Write in detail what your ideal day looks like from waking up to going to bed, including personal and professional elements
- Read “One Move Makes All the Difference”: Get the book in your preferred format (print, ebook, or Audible) and earn 4 hours of CE credit
- Practice NBCA this week: When you notice yourself getting squirrely, pause and deploy Notice, Breathe, Choose, Act
- Audit busy vs. strategic moves: List current initiatives and ask “How does this action support my ultimate goal?”
This episode is brought to you by Marketing 32—the only dental marketing team with a performance guarantee where if you’re not growing, you don’t pay. Marketing 32 is truly invested in your growth, helping practices across the spectrum from solo practitioners to 30-location groups acquire new patients and break through growth plateaus. They get patients to your front door through proven digital marketing, SEO, and patient acquisition strategies. But as Dawn reminds us, what happens when patients walk through that door is up to you. If you need help with the marketing side and want to see if you’re a great fit to work together, reach out to Marketing 32 at marketing32.com for a quick discovery conversation.
Episode Transcript:
Brett Allen (00:22)
Hi, Brett Allen here, hosted the Marketing32 show where I connect with leading dentists, dental influencers, and industry experts to uncover the latest and greatest strategies, insights, innovations to help your practice grow and thrive. This episode is always is brought to you by our team here at Marketing32. We are the only dental marketing team that I know of with a performance guarantee who is truly invested in your growth. You either grow or you don’t pay us. It’s that simple. But we don’t work with everybody. So head over to Marketing32.com.
Fill out a quick questionnaire. We can schedule a quick discovery call and set you straight to see if we can take your practice to that next level with marketing. Quick shout out to Doc. Excuse me. Quick shout out to Deborah Engelhart Nash. Recently had her on the show. We talked all about case acceptance, your team and how that whole patient experience leads to better serving your patients and getting more yeses to move forward with treatment. So check that episode out. It’s awesome.
Excited to have for the first time ever a repeat guest on the show today. Dr. Martin Mendelson is the founder of Metamorphosis Coaching and a former member of the resident faculty with Spear Education. Dr. Mendelson has worked with thousands of clinicians, owners, and dental teams across North America, and his work results in cultures where leaders and team members excel, thrive, and are happy. That last one’s most important,
A recognized thought leader, Dr. Mendelsohn’s first book, One Move Makes All the Difference is available today wherever books are sold in both print, ebook, and audible formats. Dr. Mendelsohn, Martin, welcome back. This is great. Yeah.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (01:53)
Well, thank you. Thank you, thank you.
We had talked earlier, but I forgot I was the first repeat guest. I’m very honored. I really am.
Brett Allen (01:58)
Yes. I,
there’s several others that I want to have back on the show. And this is prompting me to take action on that, to get them scheduled, but I’m excited to have you on. I read your book. I’ve got it here. If you’re watching on video, I’m holding it up. It was a fascinating rave. And, ⁓ like I told you before the show, I resonate with so much of the principles and concepts in this book. Excited to go deeper with you today about it.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (02:09)
Woohoo!
Yeah, no, thanks for having me on to talk about it. You know, as you might imagine, it was a bit of a labor of love. And I’m so humbled that I’m hearing this from people from all walks of life, how every page is resonating with them. It’s literally the most frequent comment I’m getting, which as an author, as you might imagine, is a really good thing to hear. So yeah, that’s great. Yeah, that’s great.
Brett Allen (02:45)
Makes you feel good. Yeah.
I was, I was talking with a friend of mine, Laura Brenner, Dr. Laura Brenner. She’s big in dentistry. ⁓ and yes, there’s, she works obviously as a dental coach. most of the people that coaches and engage with the reason they’re working with them is because they feel stuck or they feel, ⁓ like they’re not where they want to be. And something’s, something’s hard in their life that’s preventing them. And by and large, a lot of people are stuck. They’re like,
in this state, this mindset where they can’t get out of themselves. They can’t, they’re not fulfilled. Maybe they feel like they’re burned out in dentistry. Like there’s so much of that. And I think the concepts you hit on in this book are what we all need to have that shift. One move makes all the difference, for sure it does.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (03:36)
Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks so much.
Brett Allen (03:37)
Yeah.
So ⁓ let’s kick it off with the first question I have for you to dig into the book. Dentistry is full of dentists working harder every year, but not necessarily moving forward. In your view, what’s a one move that often makes the biggest difference for dental practice? And why do so many dentists miss it?
Dr. Martin Mendelson (03:58)
Great question. ⁓ Because I think a lot of dentists end up working in the practice, not on the practice. And so the one move is actually an exercise, if you will. So the one move would be to schedule time without disruptions, to sit down and really think about, where do I want to go in the future? And I’m not going to define what that time is for you. I would.
Brett Allen (04:05)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (04:21)
As a certified coach as well, would encourage you not to go too far out. However, whatever timeframe feels right to you, where do I want to be in the future? On a piece of paper, a screen, whatever works for you. Then I would take a step back and say, okay, where am I now? And then ask yourself as part of this one move exercise, what needs to change or happen for me to go from where I am today
to where I am in the future. Now granted, that’ll lead to a whole bunch of other questions around, okay, what’s stopping me? Are these limiting beliefs? Are these real? Or am I making these up in my head? But like anything else, if you don’t have a vision or at least even an idea of where you wanna go, how do you expect to get there? The example I gave you before we hit record was if you wanna go on vacation,
Brett Allen (05:08)
Hmm.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (05:12)
Well, how are you supposed to book the airline ticket if you don’t know where you’re going? So if you know you want to go to New York City and, you know, take in a couple of Broadway shows, well, then you know how to book the flight or what flight to book and what or shall I say where to book a hotel, right? So this is a very simple, but not necessarily easy and profound one move exercise that I go through very often with my clients, whether that’s individual or team.
Brett Allen (05:15)
Yeah.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (05:37)
Because we often don’t do that because we get so stuck in all the stuff that needs to happen on a daily basis and no disrespect to that stuff. That’s what keeps the lights on. However, if we don’t take a step back and take a step up, well, then we’re going to stay stuck because, you know, what they say, definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So that’s what I would say.
Brett Allen (05:59)
Yeah.
Yeah, that’s great. I love that. Yeah, you can’t get to where you’re going if you don’t even know where you want to go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (06:10)
Yeah, yeah. And truth
be told too, I think it’s important to say, because I’ve heard this before too, what if I don’t know where I want to go? So we hadn’t talked about this, but let’s talk about that a minute. What if I don’t know where I want to go? A very profound exercise that I did with my very first coach, Justin Patton, one of my favorite people, is to actually write down what your
Brett Allen (06:18)
Hmm.
Yeah, go,
Dr. Martin Mendelson (06:36)
ideal day would look like in detail. And when I say detail, I mean, I get up in my house and let’s say it’s not the house you really want right now. So you say, I get up in my house and I walk out to make coffee and it’s a big open room. And I look out on the windows onto whatever my pool, the meadow, the mountain, you get the idea. And then I’m driving to work and I’m feeling really good about it. I get there. I have a full docket of patience.
Brett Allen (06:40)
Mm.
Hmm.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (07:04)
I’m doing mostly comprehensive cases, blah, blah, blah. You see? And so what that does is it opens up your mind to what that might look like. Now, fun fact, I did this experiment, experiment, that’s a bad word. I did this exercise with Justin in 2016 and I revisited it in 2024. And I got to admit, I kind of forgot I did it, even though I deploy this a lot with my clients.
Brett Allen (07:19)
Exit exit.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (07:30)
And I forgot all the detail that I wrote in that that came true. It was mind blowing. So I guess the take home message is, what’s the one move? Well, it’s the exercise. But even if you don’t know where to go, then we could take a step back and say, OK, what would a really rock star day look like for me that includes personal as well as professional? And that will give you the insight to figure out what your next one moves might be.
Brett Allen (07:35)
Wow, it came true.
I love that. I love that so much. ⁓ we talked about this to do, ⁓ in your book, you mentioned a concept, I’m forgetting the name of it, but, ⁓ where, where you experience these, these moments of, of success and achievement, and then you come back to your baseline. Yeah. Yeah. That’s there you go. There. Yes.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (08:12)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You’re talking about hedonic adaptation, ⁓ which was
studied with lottery winners. And ⁓ Sean Accor, who wrote The Happiness Advantage, who I strongly recommend to also gave me a testimonial from my book. Yes, shameless name drop. ⁓ You know, really introduced me to this concept. And so the research around lottery winners was this.
All the individuals that won something in the lottery, significant amount of money, were really, really happy for a short period of time. And then they went back to their baseline level of happiness, whatever that was for them. But that baseline level is movable through a concept called neuroplasticity, meaning your brain is malleable. And what dental professionals often forget and
Brett Allen (08:50)
Yeah, I’ll it.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (09:06)
You know, Kyle Stanley and I who teach courses on mental wellness and have our own podcast called Wellness and Dentistry. We talk about this all the time. Skills are skills and skills of thought pattern take just as long to develop potentially as skills of the hands. But yet we in dentistry don’t give it as much respect because we don’t think it’s as tangible. And in dentistry, we have a huge problem with this because getting to where we got to
Brett Allen (09:16)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (09:33)
is all about achievement. got, you if we’re talking about the dentist in particular, I got into dental school, I graduated dental school, I passed my boards, I got my first job, I bought my first practice. You see how this becomes insidious?
Brett Allen (09:35)
Hmm.
Yeah, it’s a ladder. Yeah.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (09:50)
And what I want everybody to understand is we are human beings first. And so when you start to learn about, understand and embrace the stuff that actually moves humans, you can change your life as a dentist based on your humanistic experience. So in Sean Accord’s book, he references a study that I also referenced by Sonia Lubomirsky, and it was a meta-analysis.
of 200 studies comprising somewhere on the order of 275,000 people worldwide. And they came from different countries, know, net worths, education, had kids, didn’t have kids, you get the idea. And the overriding conclusion was their satisfaction and happiness in life wasn’t because of achievement, but because of the people they were with and the journey that got them there. And so we often get stuck
Brett Allen (10:23)
well.
Hmm
Dr. Martin Mendelson (10:42)
in this like, we gotta get here, we gotta do this, we gotta do that. And then when we get there, as Sean Accour says, the goalposts keep changing. And then we get, in some cases, clinically depressed because then we say to ourselves, now what? And so what if we could flip it to, well, I’m gonna enjoy the things that will eventually get me to a place, there’s nothing wrong with goals, but what are we focusing on? Are we focusing on
the nights, the weekends, the blood, sweat and tears that are facilitating the goal achievement, or are we simply focused on, well, when I get to X place, I’ll be happy? It’s a simple nuance, but it’s really important and it’s really powerful for people to think about.
Brett Allen (11:17)
Mm.
Yes.
I love that. One of our ⁓ core tenets here at Marketing32 is ⁓ enjoy the journey. Success is the continual pursuit of a worthy goal. Have fun. All of that. And do it together, right? So yeah, there’s a disconnect between achievement and fulfillment, right? And if we don’t have our priorities of
Dr. Martin Mendelson (11:32)
Absolutely.
yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Brett Allen (11:46)
where we’re getting our happiness. You can get off track, yeah.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (11:48)
Yeah.
And I told this to you before we hit record. I I really believe and I live this and I say this publicly all the time. The weekend before we recorded this, I was a main program speaker at the Seattle study club symposium. And when I talk about hedonic adaptation, I always say the same thing. I say to the audience, said, so blah, blah, hedonic adaptation, lot of rumors, et cetera. I said, do you think I’m happy?
Do you think that I’m happy for being here? yeah, you betcha. But what am I happy about? And I say to the audience, now work with me here a minute, because this is a nuance, but it’s important. You ready? What I’m happy about is the nights and weekends I spent learning, the financial risk I took to gain the certifications, the business risk I took to put a shingle out there doing this full time, which ended up in me getting invited here. That’s what I’m happy about. It’s very simple, but it’s not.
necessarily easy. It’s a skill that is developed over time. And when I first started really leaning into that, I’d get emotional on stage. And I really truly believe that. And when you start, you know, the other thing I’ve noticed, it evens out your experience in life. You don’t get these manic highs and lows as much. You’re on a much more even keel because you’re not looking to this one
Brett Allen (12:48)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (13:10)
In the example, I just gave you speaking invitation to like change your life or mean something or whatever. No, no, no. This is part of my journey. And so you’re happy about it. Of course you’re in a good place. You’re present, but you’re not spiking and dropping like frankly I used to do and like many others do too.
Brett Allen (13:14)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I love that. Yeah. So much there. Um, and you’re a wealth of knowledge when it comes to all of these concepts. And so I love, I love what we’re talking about. Um, let’s, let’s move on to the next question for you. Many dentists default to safe incremental decisions, new equipment, another marketing vendor. I could talk about that one all the time. Um, and how there’s marketers out there that are burning the industry and why some people hate marketing. Um, maybe.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (13:50)
You
Yeah.
Brett Allen (13:57)
opening another day, longer hours. ⁓ So all these different safe decisions, right? How can a dentist tell the difference between a busy move and a truly strategic move, a big move? Yeah.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (14:03)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Yeah. I
think part of it goes back to the first question you asked me, which is where do you really want to go? Like what kind of life do you want to lead? you know, doing the other exercise that I talked about about what’s your ideal day could be really key to that as well. Because, you know, the example we were talking about earlier was, let’s say you’re feeling too busy because on Wednesdays you’re checking three columns of hygiene. And so you decide that you want to scale that back.
Brett Allen (14:17)
Mm.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (14:38)
Well, does that necessarily make sense? ⁓ You know, because through hygiene and through appropriate and needed diagnoses, that’s what’s, you know, filling your chair as a restorative dentist. So, okay, so if we’re going to cut that back, how are we going to do that? Where are we going to do that, et cetera? So are we trading ⁓ or are we making changes because we feel too busy or are we doing it as a strategic move? A ⁓ memory just came to me.
Brett Allen (14:41)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (15:07)
⁓ of a phone call I got years ago. I think within the first two years I was at Spear, I was at Spear for 13 years. This is a long time ago. And it was a dentist that called me up and they were looking for some advice. And they said, you know, I had this opportunity to write some articles in this local paper that apparently in their community had, you know, a good bit of traction. And they said, and I said, well, what do want to write about?
And the doc said, well, you know, was going to write about oral hygiene and connection between ⁓ oral health and systemic health, et cetera. I said, OK. I said, what kind of restorative treatments would you like to do more of next year? And the answer was implants, implant restorative. And then I said, OK. So how does writing articles about hygiene support that clinical goal?
Brett Allen (15:50)
Okay.
Mm.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (15:59)
And the answer was, And so look, easy for me to say, I was a third party. I’m not emotionally involved in it, but I think that’s a good example between busy versus strategic. It’s where do I want to go and are the decisions I’m making today going to actually impact that? And you know, this is not a dental concept. If you’ve ever read, which I recommend you do, Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Brett Allen (16:11)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Yes.
Great book.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (16:27)
The
pair, I’ve read that book, no joke. I’m not making this up four times. I read it once a year. ⁓ He’s brilliant. And there’s a paragraph in there toward the beginning of the book about lagging indicators. Your health is a lagging indicator of, or your physical fitness rather, is a lagging indicator of health habits. Your net worth is a lagging indicator of your financial habits, et cetera. Your goals are a lagging indicator of your actions. And so are those actions bringing you toward
Brett Allen (16:33)
He’s brilliant. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Yes.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (16:56)
the ultimate end, but do we know what that ultimate end is? And so that goes back to the first question.
Brett Allen (17:02)
Yeah.
And one of the big, and I think we talked about this briefly in the first episode we recorded together is your acronym of team. And can you bring that back up for our audience and break that down real quick? What is, what is team and how does that relate to what we were just talking about?
Dr. Martin Mendelson (17:10)
Yes.
Sure. Sure, sure. Yeah.
Yeah. So first I’d like to share the quote that we were talking about earlier, because that’s the basis of So the basis of team ⁓ is not mine. It’s a quote that’s often attributed to Dr. Victor Frankel, who wrote Man’s Search for Meaning. For those who are not familiar with Dr. Frankel, he was a neurologist, a psychiatrist, and a Holocaust survivor. And he survived the horrors of Auschwitz.
Brett Allen (17:21)
Okay.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (17:42)
The quote that’s attributed to him is as follows, between stimulus and response, there’s a space. In this space lies our freedom to choose our response. And in our response lies our growth and our freedom. So in my book and in my keynotes and in my workshops, we always talk about this quote because it’s basis of everything I do. And the idea basically is everything that happens is neutral and it’s your thought that gives it power.
Brett Allen (17:59)
It’s huge, it’s huge.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (18:06)
So TEAM is an acronym that stands for thoughts, drive emotions, that create actions, that manifest your results. Now, here’s the kicker though, folks. We just describe this linearly. It’s not always linear though. Because depending on the impact, the force, the… ⁓
Brett Allen (18:14)
Mm.
Hmm.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (18:27)
the, I’m at a loss for words here, the ⁓ power, thank you, of the stimulus, it may generate a thought that drives an emotion, or if it’s really powerful, it might immediately kick off an emotion of anxiety or fear. Or if it’s even more powerful, it could kick off an action, like rolling your eyes or slapping somebody or what, or, or, or not doing anything because inaction is action.
Brett Allen (18:33)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (18:56)
So team is an incredibly powerful concept that works in every aspect of our lives. Decision making, dealing with team members. ⁓ The example I often use is, you have a team member that started to come in late and you’re driving to the office and you’re thinking about the fact that they’re coming in late, which is neutral, it just is.
you know, my gosh, are they going to be here today? Blah, blah, driving emotions of it. Let’s just call it anxiety. And if you’re like most of my dentist clients, you don’t like conflict, no harm there. So you make a decision to just hope that it’ll go away. So you don’t do anything that’s inaction, that’s an action. But then my question as a coach would be, okay, great. How’s that manifest having that team member start to come back in on time every day? Right.
Brett Allen (19:48)
Hmm.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (19:48)
So it’s a universal construct that can be used in any situation, frankly.
Brett Allen (19:54)
No, yeah, that’s great. I love that. It’s a certain, it’s a framework that helps you really, ⁓ be aware of what’s happening. Oftentimes we’re not critical, critically thinking. It’s hard to in the moment, right? Realize what’s happening. My default wiring is, is just playing out. Like, like we talk about this, ⁓ I’ve heard this example so many times you’re driving down the road and all of sudden you’re home and you’re like, I don’t remember how I drove here, but I got here.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (20:03)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm hmm. Oh, 100%. 100%. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. ⁓
Brett Allen (20:24)
We’re just going through our
default wiring of life. And so to have the awareness to just, okay, pause in the moment and recognize that I the power to make this one shift right now. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (20:28)
Yeah, totally.
Yeah. And so that’s where
a secondary tool came from that we talk about my book. And actually I got to give Erin Harris credit for this. She’s the writer that really helped me take my thoughts into something cogent and fun to read. But ⁓ there’s a tool called NBCA. So you can think of if those are old enough, remember the old jingle for the network NBC. So it’s NBCA. Notice, breathe, choose, act.
Brett Allen (20:56)
right?
Dr. Martin Mendelson (21:07)
So notice you’re getting squirrely in thought, in emotion, in action. One of the three. Breathe. Take a minute. Like, just chill. Choose an action between your ears and then act upon it. Because here’s the thing, and here’s a big secret, if you will. Just because you think it doesn’t mean you do it. So choosing and acting are actually two different things.
Brett Allen (21:25)
Mm, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (21:30)
So
when you’re feeling squirrely, the NBCA framework construct tool is what I talk about in detail in the book and something I strongly recommend that I use all the time, multiple times a week, totally.
Brett Allen (21:44)
I love
that. I once had ⁓ a friend helping me make the connection and distinction between responding versus reacting. And so it’s like, it’s a thoughtful, considered ⁓ action that you’re taking versus any time in life when I’ve said something, done something in a triggered state as a reaction, it never goes well.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (21:53)
Totally.
Yeah.
No,
no, no.
Brett Allen (22:13)
And then I regret
it. have to apologize and I have to make amends. it was like, I, you know, I totally was a dick in that moment.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (22:20)
Yeah,
exactly, exactly, exactly. yeah. Happens to the best of us.
Brett Allen (22:23)
Pardon my French. ⁓
Okay, last question and then we’ll kind of tie it up here. This conversation has been so fun and time is flying. ⁓ If you were advising a dentist who feels trapped by their practice, either financially, emotionally, whatever, what is the first non-obvious move you’d encourage them to consider?
Dr. Martin Mendelson (22:37)
Mm-hmm.
So I think what I often hear is, and correct me if this is the tenor of your question, because I want to make sure I answer your question. Often I hear things like, yes, they feel stuck, but what they say is, I don’t like this anymore, or I don’t want to do this anymore. So is that a fair interpretation of your question? OK, because not everybody gets to the S word, the stuck word, right? And so…
Brett Allen (22:59)
Mmm.
Right, yeah, yeah.
Hmm.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (23:11)
My biggest aha relative to this was I was talking to, I think I was still at spear actually, and it was like a hallway conversation. And because it was in person, I could really see the pain on this person’s face, this dentist’s face. And I said, well, you know, listen, I can see how much this is bothering you. I was like, is it dentistry you don’t want to do anymore or things in dentistry you don’t want to do anymore?
Brett Allen (23:37)
Hmm
Dr. Martin Mendelson (23:39)
So I think it’s around, I’m feeling stuck or I feel like I don’t want to do this anymore or there must be a different way, et cetera, et My first question is going to be, what about your day-to-day life if you could remove would make all the difference? And oftentimes, I know this is not going to be a surprise to anybody. It’s not clinical stuff. It’s team management or manage or…
Brett Allen (23:54)
Hmm.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (24:06)
oversight or managerial pressures or maybe even doing payroll or ordering supplies, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, get granular relative to, what is it that’s driving me crazy? And the flip side of that, by the way, is what do I do on days where I get home and when I get into my home, I go, damn, that was a great day.
Brett Allen (24:33)
Hmm.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (24:34)
Why was it a great day? What did you do that day that made it great? And how can we do more of that and less of the other stuff? Now, easy for me to say, right? And so sometimes lifting off of the stuff we don’t want to do will take some time. You might need to hire somebody. You might need to train somebody. You might need to restructure your, I’m going to call it business because practices are businesses in a given way. That’s okay too.
because we’re going along the trajectory to make the change versus sitting there in the emotional state, miserable and not doing anything about it. And so that’s what I would say. I would say the one move is to ask myself, what about my life as a dentist do I really not like? Or what things do I not like? And then the next question is, okay,
If those could be reduced or eliminated, how would I feel? And if the answer’s, you know, pretty effusively positive, well, now at least you have the beginnings of a roadmap of what you need to do to reduce that angst, that overwhelm, that feeling of stuff, that misery, et cetera. Cause it’s, look, the data is very unfortunate. We are 17 times more likely to take our own lives than the general populace. We’re about two to 2.5 times, depending on the study,
more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, and panic disorder than the general populous. And there’s lots of reasons for this. And so we don’t need to be ashamed to be talking about this stuff. And the more we talk about it with other dentists and other dental professionals that do understand, the better off we’re gonna be. So that’s what I would say.
Brett Allen (26:09)
Yeah.
I love that. think early on in your answer, you were talking about how, I mean, as clinicians and dentists, you get into this line of work because you, there’s a sense of fulfillment for serving patients and the art of dentistry in the clinical. But somewhere along the way, there’s all this other crap that you got to deal with because you own a practice. it was like, boom, here’s all this other stuff that’s going to create
Dr. Martin Mendelson (26:19)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Brett Allen (26:34)
roadblocks and barriers and challenges. And, and I think it’s beautiful how you made the connection that when these things happen, having the awareness to say, this isn’t dentistry that I hate. It’s just these other aspects that are, I just don’t enjoy that are causing problems. Yeah.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (26:36)
Absolutely.
Yeah.
The other thing I would say, and I do have this line in my book and I say this to almost every coaching client I’ve ever worked with, and I say this to myself every week, life is not a game of dominoes. And what do I mean by that? Just because you had two or three crappy things happen this morning doesn’t mean it’s a bad day, nor does it mean three more dominoes are going to fall. Individual things in life are not connected. Period. Now,
Brett Allen (27:16)
That’s a good point.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (27:19)
Sometimes
they are as it relates to consequences of actions. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about, ⁓ I spilled coffee on my scrubs as I was walking out the door. Then I got a fender bender. Then my assistant quit, blah, blah, blah. This is a crappy day. It’s like, well, is it? Or did you turn five, 10 or 20 minutes into 24 hours? Which is it, right? I literally did an Instagram reel this morning because I was in that squirrely place.
Brett Allen (27:24)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (27:46)
where I deployed one of my own tools, know, physician heal thyself, where I took a piece of paper, I put a line down the middle, and I put the crappy stuff that was bothering me, and then I wrote down all the good stuff that happened this week, and guess what? The good stuff was twice as long as the crappy stuff. Shocker, right? And I wasn’t grasping at straws either. The good stuff was like tangible good stuff, right? So we could be our own worst enemy at times, me included.
Brett Allen (28:05)
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (28:15)
But the difference is the effort, right?
Brett Allen (28:15)
Well, and I think, yeah, go ahead.
Yeah. And you talk about that one exercise, having a gratitude journal. If you haven’t heard of that concept before, I’ve deployed that exercise. Yeah. That, that exercise is great. It’s a total shift. Even how it impacts, um, your heart and it like, there’s so much connection to gratitude as a way to re-center.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (28:22)
Yeah, yeah, and that’s based on research. Yeah, it’s based on research.
Yeah, it’s bizarre. Yeah, it’s a tool.
Brett Allen (28:42)
Yeah, yeah. Well, this conversation has been phenomenal. I could go on and on. I love all of this stuff. I love mindset, awareness, fulfillment. All of these concepts are so great. I’m going to drop a a ⁓ little carrot here for all the people. You have some incredible stories in this book that you’ve linked these concepts to. ⁓ And we don’t have to talk about them now, but you had a…
Dr. Martin Mendelson (28:43)
It’s a tool.
Yeah.
Brett Allen (29:10)
A scary event that happened to you in Mexico that you talk about. So you guys got to read that story, get the book to read that one. ⁓ you talk about John Krasinski from the office and his, how he got into acting. That was, that was interesting to hear about. And then one other one that I wanted to plug is I didn’t know the story of how we got our current American flag and you did. Yeah.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (29:13)
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Yep.
I knew you were gonna say that. So do you wanna
hear something crazy? Do you know where that came from? A TikTok reel.
Brett Allen (29:39)
⁓
you watched the TikTok reel. taught you that. So.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (29:44)
And so I
looked into it. I validated that it was a real story. looked toward the story in detail and my writers validated it too. It’s a great story. ⁓ my gosh. Yeah.
Brett Allen (29:48)
Okay. Yeah.
It’s great story. It’s so cool. It’s like
everyday people doing phenomenal things because they make that one move. so.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (29:59)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just to tease everybody, it was a high school
kid that designed our current US flag. So get the book and read the story. Yeah.
Brett Allen (30:07)
Yes. Yes. Yes. It’s so cool.
So one more plug, you guys go get the book. One Move Makes All the Difference by Dr. Martin Mendelson. How to Discover Your Power and Transform Your Life. This has been a great time. Thank you again for coming on the show and sharing your wealth of knowledge with our listeners today.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (30:25)
Absolutely. Thanks for having me. also, you know, something that just happened this week too. Now we have the ability to offer four hours of CE for dental professionals that read my book as well. So that’s, that’s kind of a big deal. It’s all the information’s on my website. So yeah, I’m really excited about that because, you know, let’s call it what it is. Oftentimes we’ll do stuff because there is CE associated with it. So I know that. there you go. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Brett Allen (30:34)
yes.
That is a big deal.
Yep. Yeah. Way to go. I’m so glad you got that certification for it. And it’s
in audible format. So you can just listen while you’re driving and get that CE. ⁓ and your voice, even better. Well, thank you for coming on the show. Where do we send our listeners if they want to connect with you, maybe do work with you as a coach, all of that, speaker, your phenomenal speaker.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (30:56)
Yeah. Exactly. Yep. And it’s me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All that good stuff.
Yeah. I mean, you can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on Instagram. My website is just simply my name, but you could actually get there two different ways. It’s either martinmendelson.com or more with mendelson.com. They’ll both take you to the same place. And I have various tabs on, you know, my book, my online course, my coaching, my speaking, my, ⁓ you know, wonderful project with Dr. Kyle Stanley.
Lightsight Live, which is the only in-person mental wellness course for dentists that I’m aware of, as well as our podcast Wellness in Dentistry. ⁓ So any or all of that stuff you can find on my website.
Brett Allen (31:50)
Great, we’ll put that in the show notes if you’re driving. can go back to marketing32.com, find the links to all of this, as well as a link to your book at the different outlets where you can get it in the different formats, so whatever your consumption of choice is. ⁓ Thank you again, this has been great. Thank you, Martin. All right everybody, until next time on the Market32 show, have a great rest of your week, have a great weekend, and take care.
Dr. Martin Mendelson (32:08)
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
