Episode #241: Dr. Alan Stern – Helping Dentists Take Charge Of Their Career And Life

Dr. Eric Block: Welcome to the Stress-Free Dentist Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Eric Block. As always, I want to inspire, entertain, and educate you on the best tools and technologies out there. My goal is to help make your practice and career more profitable, efficient, and most importantly, more enjoyable. Check out all of my nonfiction and children’s books on Amazon, and check out thestressfreedentist.com  for any upcoming events. If you’re a dental professional that’s burnt out, or you just feel stuck or want to get to that next level, visit the International Academy of Dental Life Coaches or www.iadlc.com , and we’ll get you matched up with a life coach that understands dentistry.

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode. I am joined by a recurring guest, a good friend, and someone I just love chatting with—Dr. Alan Stern. How you doing today, buddy?

Dr. Alan Stern: Eric, I’m doing great, and it’s really nice to be with you. Any excuse to sit down and chat with you anytime is fine with me.

Dr. Eric Block: Yeah. We’ve gotten to know each other, and you’ve got a great story. You’ve even created a whole second career for yourself. I know our first episode we did together, we really got into your years of deciding to become a dentist, the years of being a dentist, but then you recently sold your practice and created a whole second career as a speaker and coach. I want to get into all that, but just tell me, what was the whole process like when you were selling your dental office?

Dr. Alan Stern: As I told you offline, it was a two-way journey to hell and back. It was a difficult process. You and I both know, and I’m not sure we want to mention it, but a dear friend was brokering the practice, and that was just fine. In fact, our friendship was solidified and deepened during the process. It started when my financial advisor told me that you can retire at a certain level, at a lifestyle that you’re comfortable with, if you get this much for the practice and if you maintain a budget of this.

Dr. Alan Stern: And I said, you’re telling me I can retire after all the financial hardship I put myself through? And he said, yeah. Damn, let’s do it. So we calculated the amount of money that I needed. We calculated the amount of money that we analyzed the practice to be worth, and it goes out on the market. Buyer number one—we’ll call him Louis the Liar. That is a totally made-up name. I have facetious names for everybody. But this young man came in, loved the practice, loved everything about it, was going to give me my asking price, and that was more than what I needed.

And he strings me along and strings me along. He knocked me down a little bit on the price. I was fine with that because at that point—and may I make a tangential point here, Eric? Even if you don’t want me to, I’m going to anyway.

Dr. Alan Stern: If you know your practice is worth $10 million—just a crazy number—you know it in your heart that your practice is worth $10 million, and they’re only offering you seven. If getting out is worth more to you than the $3 million differential, are you nuts? So that’s what I was dealing with. For me, at that point, after 42 years and developing my speaking career and my coaching career as it had been developing, I had a higher calling. So getting out or selling the practice to a decent human being was more worth it to me than the differential between what I asked and what this young man was offering.

Then he couldn’t get a loan. Why couldn’t he get a loan? Because he was living over his head. And my happy meter went from here to there real quick, and I was really upset.

Dr. Alan Stern: I was so thrilled that we found the buyer after about six or eight months of marketing the practice. I thought, man, I’m sunk. Then number two comes in—we’ll call him Carl the Conman. Made-up name, once again, completely made-up name. This guy came in at the same time as Louis the Liar, but he said, "Why didn’t you include me? Why didn’t you let me know? I was gonna bid on it." I said, "All right, all right, Carl, come on in. Let’s bid on it now if you want it."

He spends a few hours in the office with me, going through every square millimeter of the office, going through every square millimeter of my charts. And months go by—emails, text messages—sorry, don’t want it. He wanted an exclusive. He wanted a first right. Several more buyers came and went with the illusion that they were going to buy, and all of a sudden pulling out or throwing conditions on there that were impossible.

Eric, I don’t have to tell you what burnout is. I was running on vapors at that point. I love my patients. I liked the work I was doing, but when the first buyer came, I had already retired in my mind.

Dr. Alan Stern: And I really was running on empty. It took two years, and I had to coach myself and let myself know that I’m doing special work here. This is all right—in the office, out of the office, here at my desk. I’m doing okay. I had to really focus on the work and not on the life that sustained me. And in that process, by the way, they kept telling me, "Gotta jack up the value of the practice. Get your numbers, get your numbers up." I did everything I could, but my numbers were my numbers.

So I hired an associate. I hired an associate for the right reason, so that I could get out of the office and be at home and do this work.

Dr. Alan Stern: And my associate was a lovely lady, and she did a great job. Finally, I had two buyers come along, Eric—two buyers at the same time. At that point, we had reduced our price to what was less than what I wanted, but more than what I needed.

Dr. Alan Stern: No, not $10 million—it was only at $7 million. I’m being totally facetious. Two buyers came in, and here’s a really cool story: I took the lower bid. What? Are you nuts, Alan? No. I took the bid from a guy who I thought would be better for my patients, and very frankly, who would aggravate me less in the process. I trusted my gut, and for a little bit less, I got a little bit less. And that was worth it to me.

I have the lifestyle I wanted. I know I would have more with the work I’m doing now, because this is not stopping. I wanted the smoothest, least stomach-lining–irritating path out. It wasn’t worth a little bit of extra money to be irritated.

Dr. Eric Block: Well, you said, you know, getting strung along and illusions—I’ve heard this many times with sellers to buyers, where some people just aren’t ready to retire. They think they are, but then the new potential buyer comes in and they’re just not ready. You had the reverse issue, where you wanted to get out of there. You were ready, because you had this second career lined up, and you were just mentally ready to move on.

What do you think it was with the potential buyers that they weren’t ready?

Dr. Alan Stern: Well, one of them—the first one—was in debt over his head, and a bank would not lend him any more money because they knew he couldn’t sustain it. In fact, he wanted to buy it and have me hold the paper with no money down. Big mistake. No, I wouldn’t do that.

The other buyer went through everything and took months and months to decide that he didn’t want the practice. The physical layout of my office didn’t suit his needs—and he couldn’t tell me that sooner. One of them wanted to live an unreasonable distance away and decided not to move to the area. Another one wanted to sign a firm letter of intent but didn’t have a license to practice yet and needed to go through more to get that license than just some paperwork.

Dr. Eric Block: It was a multitude of reasons.

Dr. Alan Stern: Oh, so many reasons. And to the other side of that, Eric, I’m working with young dentists now who want to buy a practice and are facing the situation you talked about. If older docs—you are not ready to retire—don’t. Or if you want to stop dentistry and you sell the practice, you will wind up without an identity or without a purpose in life.

Find another purpose. Our dear friend Laura Brenner, a co-founder of the International Academy of Dental Life Coaches, specializes in counseling dentists to go out, branch out, and do other things. But please—again, tangential to our conversation—I’ve seen dentists go from a very active, intense practice to nothing and die. Or go the dementia route, God forbid. So always look and project your life based on what you want and who you are.

Dr. Eric Block: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Alan Stern: Live who you are. If you think you’re gonna sit around on a porch on a rocking chair, it may not work. I’m blessed—I found a great purpose. And your purpose doesn’t have to be mine. It could be babysitting your grandchildren. Whatever it is, make sure you have something meaningful to do.

Dr. Eric Block: And this purpose and the work that you’re doing now—tell me, tell me all about it. I know you’re doing some amazing things. You’ve written an awesome book, you’re coaching out there. Tell me all about it. There it is. Yeah, tell me—tell me about the work you’re doing.

Dr. Alan Stern: The work I’m doing is morphing. It’s really interesting how—even as a dentist—we start out of dental school and we can do some fillings, we can do a crown, we can do a little bit of this and that. And all of a sudden, Eric, you’re a classic example of that. You are Mr. Implant, and you’re doing some very sophisticated things.

My business started out as an individual coaching thing, and I have a certification as a health coach, and I just apply those principles to the work I do—and it works. It’s grown now to where all my clients are members of a group that we meet every Wednesday.

Dr. Alan Stern: We talk about things that are on our minds. We have raw, open, vulnerable discussions, and the group comes up with some powerful thoughts. And when the group doesn’t have anything, I always have issues to pull out of my pocket, and we talk about them. Every Wednesday night, every one of us comes out energized and really more dedicated and more fired up about being a dental practitioner.

My speaking now—my talks—The One Missing Ingredient that’s going to turn into The Two Missing Ingredients is catching fire. I have a talk, Eric, called WTF—typical Jersey guy—Words to Flourish, Words to Flounder. And the new one I’m developing is called GTFO—typical Jersey—Get the Facts Out before you react to anything.

Dr. Alan Stern: All of it—everything I do in my speaking—is with absolute deliberate intent to make people laugh, to make people cry, to make them think, and to walk out inspired with a handful of takeaways. It is my absolute intent to bring courage, humility, humanity, and humor into the lives of dentists, because we need that.

Your career, man—your career, I envy. You have great joy. You have the Stress-Free Dentist. I know you’re not stress-free, but you’ve taken steps to really minimize the aggravation that we must go through. We need to laugh. We need to embrace the fact that we do sacred work. A class one composite changes a life. Whether a patient knows it or not, we gotta know it.

Dr. Eric Block: Yeah. So that’s—

Dr. Alan Stern: That’s the long-winded answer to your brief question, sir.

Dr. Eric Block: Your group—do you also meet with—are these all dentists that you meet with? Men, women? They’re all dental practitioners?

Dr. Alan Stern: All dental practitioners. All genders, all ages. They’re not just young—I mean, they’re young and they’re younger. They’re all younger than me. And we have guests. I know at some point there’s gonna be a stress-free dental podcaster coming into my group because I’m gonna volunteer him to do it.

We exchange ideas amongst each other. I bring in financial people, mental health people, clinical people. Our friend Mitch Rubenstein helped me out and offered some clinical pointers to our guys. It’s unlimited what we can do there. And I also would love to have hygienists in my group.

Dr. Eric Block: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Alan Stern: We need to work together. Definitely together.

Dr. Eric Block: Do you also meet with them individually on a one-on-one basis and also have the group meetings?

Dr. Alan Stern: I’m trying. I am trying to break into that segment of our profession, because we’ve been polarized. You see a tension between dentists and hygienists that’s been there for decades, and that just blew up when COVID locked us down.

I think it’s time that we realize we need to work together in order to maintain the integrity of this profession, to take care of patients in a comprehensive way, and to take care of each other in a comprehensive way. We’ve lost that sense. I would love to bring a like-minded group of hygienists together with me, and then bring that group together with our group of dentists, and start working out, ironing out the future of a great profession for those who choose to do so.

Dr. Eric Block: Yeah. And with your clients—did you say you also work with them one-on-one? Is it all through Zoom?

Dr. Alan Stern: It’s mostly through Zoom. I actually went down to Houston. I did a talk for a new client. I met with one of my people who lives down there. It was a lot of fun. And I have a couple of people here in Florida, in Ocala, who I’m working with, and we usually meet at a coffee shop. But most of my work is through the screen.

Dr. Eric Block: And what are you finding out there is the biggest, biggest challenge for dentists?

Dr. Alan Stern: Oh, you know, the word burnout—I think it’s used a little too often. I can say with accuracy and with honesty that after 42 years and having thought I sold my practice, that was burnout. But I think we’re talking about fatigue here in many cases. And I think we’re talking about loss of purpose, loss of the why, and getting caught up in the day-to-day nonsense rather than stepping back on occasion and seeing it from a 30,000-foot view—that we do sacred work in the world, and what we do is special.

So I think that’s a problem. I think our younger folks—and many of us—are being called the dirtiest, filthiest, most vulgar, disgusting word in the English language. And I’m from New Jersey, so I know a lot of bad words—and I usually use ’em about the Red Sox and the Astros—but the word, the word that we must never allow to permeate our souls is provider.

Dr. Alan Stern: We have internet service providers, Eric. We have cell phone providers. We have cable company providers. I went to a Phillies game with Brandon Hill and Paul Goodman and those guys, and up on the board it was, “The official billboard announcement provider for the Philadelphia Phillies.”

Eric, you and I went to school for four years past college. We have invested how much in our continuing ed? We take how much responsibility for the well-being of others? Do we really want to be lumped into that same category?

I’m not saying that a cell phone provider and the internet and a billboard announcement provider don’t do something that is worth an exchange of money—that is true. But what we do is dramatically more than that.

And what I tell my clients to do—if they’re working for a DSO and a manager says, “Dr. Block, you are one of our better providers”—get angry. Filter it. But I would like you, listeners out there—if somebody calls you a provider—you have the answer to them:

“Thank you for that, and I see myself as a very good practitioner, or I see myself as a very good clinician, or a very good doctor, or a very good healer.”

Please—one of the antidotes to burnout is to get that damn word out of your vocabulary.

The other thing I see—and we see it all the time, Eric, you and I on the Facebook sites that we troll—is the comparison trap.

Dr. Alan Stern: And the perfection trap is horrible. When I was a young associate, when I first got out of residency and went to work for a guy, I’d go to a dental society meeting, and here’s what I would hear—not necessarily what was said, but what I would hear:

“Gee, I did five roundhouse bridges this week in three days in 15 minutes,” and, “I don’t know which vacation home I’m gonna go to this week,” or, “My car ran out, I guess I’ve gotta throw it away,” or, “My wife’s 12-carat diamond is just not good enough, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

But we hear this exaggeration of people’s material or clinical wealth, and we further exaggerate it in our own minds. We think of ourselves as garbage compared to the person who says they have this, this, this, and this.

We need to stop that. Because no matter how much you think I may have, or no matter how much you listeners think Eric Block may have: A) you don’t know what’s true, and B) you don’t know what price Eric and I have paid to get to where we are—and whether you are willing or able to pay that price and reap the rewards of it.

Dr. Alan Stern: You are where you should be. And if you want more, let’s assess what it’s gonna take—and do we want to do that?

Dr. Eric Block: I can’t tell you how many CE courses I went to where I would compare myself to the presenter, and I would walk out of there feeling horrible because I’m comparing myself to someone else. And in reality, they’re probably showing their best work, and we really don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes.

And then you also—you know, I have one practice. I know a lot of dentists out there compare themselves to people who have multiple practices. They think, “I need to have two practices or three practices.” And that may not be for you. Just focus on you. I totally agree.

Dr. Alan Stern: Yeah. I actually tried that. That’s something I never—I actually tried opening up a satellite within a friend of mine’s office. I don’t think that lasted six months. It just isn’t me.

Scale yourself. Scale yourself to yourself. Don’t scale yourself to somebody else. Level up the game to what you want, what you are good at, what you enjoy doing.

Dr. Eric Block: Yeah. I also found certain groups that I would meet up with, and everyone was, you know, pretending that everything was amazing and their lives were perfect. And I would ask the three questions. I’d say, “Hey, how’s it going?” And they’d say, “Oh man, everything’s great. Everything’s—can’t be happier. Everything’s great.”

Then I’d ask the second question, “How’s everything really going?” They’d be like, “Oh, you know, good, good, man, everything’s good.”

Then I’d ask the third question, “Yeah, but how’s everything going?” And they’d be like, “Oh man, you don’t even know… I’m having so many…”

People have this exterior, you know, force field where they don’t want to let you in. They put on this persona like everything is perfect. And if you’re not careful, you can get swept up into that as well and start comparing yourself to someone who is claiming to have everything perfect—and they’re really not.

Dr. Alan Stern: Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? I think we live in paradox, Eric. I am not going to sit on this—or any other—podcast and tell you the stresses that I’m facing. My life is great. But is it without stress? No. Is it perfect? No. Will it ever be perfect? No. Will it be stressless? Yes—the day I die.

That’s reality. Alan-ism number one—I have a hundred of these: Show me a person without stress, and I’ll show you a cadaver.

Down the list is: Show me a person whose life is a storybook, and I’ll show you a liar.

Dr. Eric Block: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Alan Stern: You and I both have challenges. That’s what life’s about. My life—my imperfect life—is wonderful. My imperfect marriage is wonderful. My imperfect kids—I wouldn’t trade them for anything else. And my very perfect grandson is the joy of my life.

My imperfect, goofy, crazy fraternity brother friends—they’re nuts. But I love them. I’m just as nuts as they are. And if we don’t project positivity forward, we can drag people down.

So that third question—“Ah, my life is miserable,” “Ah, you should see—Marty McNasty was in my office today and he cursed out my front desk person and that SOB, I wanted to punch him”—that’s a disease that I discovered called PMD, Eric. I think I told you about that once. Perpetually Miserable Dentist.

Dr. Alan Stern: It is treatable. It’s like periodontal disease. We all have that inclination to misery. Just like if we have perio—you can control it, you’ll never cure it. But you’ve got to filter that miserable inclination that comes from your amygdala, filter it through your prefrontal cortex, and understand that your life is good.

How many people would just do anything to live the life of a dentist? “Oh, you don’t know what it’s like.” The guy who’s sweeping streets, or the guy who’s been unemployed—God forbid, the guy who’s homeless—he’d trade his problems for yours seven days a week.

Dr. Eric Block: You mentioned the word perfection, too, that dentists are challenged with. And I wanted to mention two things about perfectionism.

One—that I think probably summarizes 99.999% of dentists—is that they suffer from perfectionism. And my theory is that, you know, we go through life and school and our path is: do well, get great grades, try to be perfect. If you don’t do perfect on the test, you just study harder for the next one. Pass your boards, pass all your clinical competencies in school.

But then we get into the real world—and you’re working on real human beings—and everything isn’t perfect. You can’t just, you know, hit that rewind button and go back and retake that test. You don’t have that instructor over your shoulder.

Dr. Alan Stern: Uh, Eric, you froze up there. I don’t know if I did, or you did.

Dr. Eric Block: I think we both did. I was just staring at you, but…

Dr. Alan Stern: All right, you’re back.

Dr. Eric Block: You’re back now. Yeah.

Dr. Alan Stern: We’re back. My internet connection is unstable—kind of like me. But yeah, you—you pass, you do everything right, and life’s gonna be perfect. I think that’s where you were going.

Dr. Eric Block: Yeah, I was actually saying that, you know, you try to be perfect all through school, but then you get into the real world and you start to have failure—your first taste of mistakes and failures. And a lot of us dentists just can’t handle it. We’ve always been the top of our class and done great, and we just studied harder.

And all of a sudden, we get a bad review, or something doesn’t go according to plan, and we just—we just can’t handle it. And the other thing, a major mistake that I made earlier on in my career, was I tried to pretend like I was perfect to my patients.

Now, I’m a little more of an open book. The relationship that I have with my patients—I don’t talk politics or money or anything like that—but I’m open, and I tell them about my life. I don’t pretend to be someone I’m not. And those two things—not beating myself up when something doesn’t go right, and just being a normal dude to my patients—has just made my career so much better.

Dr. Alan Stern: Yeah. You know, “normal dude”—first of all, “normal” and “me,” you’ll never see those words in the same sentence. But, you know, I always preferred it when a patient would come in and call me Alan. Especially when my hair turned gray, it was a lot easier for me to carry that out.

There’s a lot of younger dentists—and I’ve seen a trend in women—that it can’t be done, because sometimes, for real, they’re looked down on. Sometimes, they see it in their own heads—they’re looked down on.

But when you build a close rapport with a patient, with a human being… At the end of my career, I didn’t have any patients in my office, Eric. In fact, I don’t think I had any—I had friends.

And when you build that reputation, life becomes much better. And yeah, I mean, look—sometimes a crown doesn’t seat. Sometimes a margin is open. And when you have that rapport, it’s so easy to say, “Hey John, listen, I’m seeing a little opening here, and this is not what I want for you. So do me a favor—let me just send this back, let me take a new impression, a new scan, a new whatever. And just come back in two weeks,” or if you’re a CEREC person, “come back in a couple of hours, and let’s just make sure this is something that I’m proud of and that you can rely on for a long time.”

Dr. Alan Stern: And perfection doesn’t exist. I have friends who are the highest of the high clinical achievers, and they’re always critiquing their own work. They’re always seeing how they can do better.

And look, Eric—alright, take a deep breath—now I’m gonna use a real good analogy here. Aaron Judge strikes out every now and then. In fact, Aaron Judge won the batting title. Eric, did you know that? Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees won the batting title. And what was his batting average? It was .341 or .349, right?

So 34% of the time, Aaron Judge was successful. 66% of the time, Aaron Judge was not. Come on—Aaron Judge is a slam-dunk Hall of Famer. So is Derek Jeter. Mariano Rivera—Mariano Rivera blew a save every now and then. First-ballot Hall of Fame.

So—we are human. And even in the era of robotics, it’s a human being that’s planning out the robot. You are going to make mistakes. You are…

Dr. Eric Block: Especially when you’re young, right? I’ve talked to so many dentists who are one, two, three years out, and they just are not happy because this is not the career they expected. And I tell them—to keep on with your baseball analogies—that the first few years are like the minor leagues. You’re gonna suck, and that’s okay. You gotta hone your skills. You gotta hone the way you talk to people and how you become a leader. We weren’t taught any of that. It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s gonna take a while.

Dr. Alan Stern: Yeah. And, you know, we have to realize also—very important—the consequences of our mistakes. Almost everything we do, with rare glaring exceptions, is fixable. You can replace the crown that, six months later, you x-ray and see an open margin. You can redo an endo—or, God forbid, refer it to an endo.

Most everything we do is correctable. So you’re not—with rare exception—it does happen, but it happens everywhere. Imagine our medical colleagues now. They have to learn to live with imperfection. It’s gonna happen.

And what I learned is really cool—a mistake? Split that word into two: a mis–take. Like in a movie: “Eric and Alan Stern Podcast, take one… Oh no, I didn’t like that. Let’s do this scene again. Take two.” That is exactly what a mistake is in dentistry. It’s a mis–take.

Dr. Eric Block: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Alan Stern: So if you thought you got the perfect scan, and you thought you got those mesial and distal margins well-sealed, and six months later you x-ray and find something—if you didn’t x-ray it on the spot—it’s a mis–take. Or, make good on it.

“Hm, what am I going to learn from this?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

Well, take it to somebody. Take it to your local study club. Take it to a mentor. Take it to somebody who’s more experienced and say, “Hey, would you look at my crappy prep here and show me what to do?”

And don’t be afraid of being critiqued by the right person, because the right mentor is going to say, “Well, I use this bur,” or, “I use this technique here,” or, “I make sure that I have this before I do that.”

There are guys like you and me out there who do that for people. There’s lots—and there are Seattle Study Clubs that are great sources of peer-to-peer clinical support. Don’t be afraid to show your humanity.

Dr. Eric Block: You mentioned our medical colleagues—what they must go through when they have to tell loved ones that their patient passed away. Or our veterinarian colleagues—they have to tell little Susie that Fluffy is going to have to be put down.

For us, it’s like, “Sorry, Judy, you’re going to have to lose that tooth.” You know, it’s not fun giving someone bad news. But it could be a lot worse—and a lot harder.

Dr. Alan Stern: Most of it we can correct.

Dr. Eric Block: Correctable. Exactly.

Dr. Alan Stern: Yeah.

Dr. Eric Block: Now tell me—I could talk to you for hours—and I want to wrap up with two final questions.

Number one is: how do we find out more about what you’re up to? You can leave a website, phone number, email—whatever you want to leave.

And then the final question: what advice would you give to the young dental professionals out there?

Dr. Alan Stern: All right, if you would like to get together with me, if you want to learn more: alan@betterricherstronger.com. No, this is not Best, Rich, and Strongest. I’m better, richer, and stronger than I ever was.

I have a Facebook group of that name—please hop on. We have a lot of really super content on there. I create content every day because I have no wife and I’m old.

And to the young guys out there—young men and women who are dental practitioners, not providers—Alan-ism number 20: No one gets there alone.

Dr. Eric Block: Absolutely.

Dr. Alan Stern: We have both gotten to where we are with therapists, with coaches, with colleagues, with friends. No one gets there alone.

The best actors, the best athletes, the slimiest politi— I mean, the best leaders that we have, all have coaches, handlers, and advisors. You and I are no different.

And frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I have a business coach, I have two speaking coaches, I have a marketing coach, and I have an AV coach—who, if he doesn’t teach me how to fix this camera, I’m gonna get mad.

But we all need support systems. So if you are feeling down, please know that dentistry still has an extremely high propensity for depression and suicide. Nothing is worth that. Get help. There is no shame in it. I did. Eric did. And so many of your high achievers have done that.

Get help. It’s available. No one gets there alone. Keep going.

Dr. Eric Block: Yeah, and I said—to hop on that—the sooner, the better. You know, if you feel like something’s not right, you feel like there’s anxiety, depression—these problems typically do not go away on their own, and they usually get worse. So I totally agree, Alan. Get the help you need and reach out to a professional like Alan.

Check us out at the International Academy of Dental Life Coaches—some great resources there. Alan’s a founding coach there as well.

Alan, as always, you knock it outta the park. I love chatting with you. Such a great episode. Thank you so much for joining us.

Dr. Alan Stern: Eric, your friendship and your belief in me are both treasures. Thanks, man.

Dr. Eric Block: Thank you. Thanks again for listening to the Stress-Free Dentist Podcast. And don’t hesitate to get in touch with me at  thestressfreedentist.com. 

And if you haven’t already, please subscribe on your favorite platform and leave us a review. Until the next episode, I’m Dr. Eric Block, the Stress-Free Dentist.