Skip to main content

Letter to My 24 Year Old Self

Dear Me,

I am writing to let you know a couple of things that may make life easier and (hopefully) reduce any regrets in the future.

First of all, keep striving and challenging yourself physically. The feeling of knowing you had, at one time, been unstoppable and could actually accomplish the things you put your mind to physically will one day comfort you when you are then needing to adjust the reality of what you want to do to the reality of what you could actually do.

Second, dig the well before you're thirsty. The relationships you'll wish you had should have been begun being built a long time ago. Find something like www.advancedhumandynamics.com and do the things they teach and don't put them off!

Thirdly, you'll need to have the ability to navigate the world of interpersonal relationships masterfully and handle them with a clear sense of who you are. Do the work of developing a sense of the roles you play, know very clearly what you value, and never doubt what you stand for. This will determine what you put up with or not and will save you much grief if you just stick with it.

Easy enough right?

Keep it real!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Dentist on Fire Manifesto

There comes a point in a dentist’s career (and anyone’s career, for that matter) when we begin thinking, “What’s next?” This is a devastating question if you find yourself following the prescribed course of life that you have seen others follow before you, and you’re actually successful at following the course. You realize, at some point, there’s a certain emptiness in pursuing the next thing. At what point have you arrived? Where’s Valhalla? My vision for the Dentist on Fire is for that person to become the best version of themself. Not because you’ll make more money, indeed you will make more money since the goal is true financial independence - the FI of FIRE. And not because you’ll retire early (the RE of FIRE), but because you realize that if you have the option to retire early, you won’t be sad if your body gives out one day and you can’t do your best work on your patients. Most of us see dentistry as a calling rather than a job, and doctoring our fellow human beings is a sac...
9 comments
Read more

4 Lessons Learned From Interviewing Dental School Applicants

In the past few weeks, the admissions process for dental schools has been heating up with applicants starting to get invitations for interviews, or for many applicants, NOT getting invitations for interviews. I had the opportunity to conduct mock interviews with applicants from my alma mater a couple of weeks ago in order to help get them ready for the interview process. Knowing what I know now as a practicing dentist, I'd bet as an applicant I was someone who knew an infinitesimal amount about dentistry pretending to know what he was talking about. Here are some tips if you are going through the application process (or if someone you know is going through it): Always emphasize the positive Be humble, hungry, and smart Resilience is the single-most important quality to display Ask for help before you apply, or interview, or begin dental school Lesson 1 - Always Emphasize the Positive One thing an experienced interviewer can do without too much difficulty if they want ...
4 comments
Read more

Preparing Your Practice (or Business) for a Recession

Some of the most disconcerting things a dentist will encounter in their careers are the surprise effects of recessions for which we were unprepared for. This is often a surprise for us as healthcare professionals since we have been historically regarded as having “recession-proof” jobs. However, due to the unprecedented growth in the number of healthcare providers, there are areas of practice (physical location and services offered) that have incredible overlap and density of providers that make competition and susceptibility to market forces undeniable. Healthcare is one of those industries that have characteristics of necessities and commodities at the same time and rather than dwelling on it being susceptible to market forces, we can leverage this duality to protect the business to a certain degree from contraction during a down market. Two goals of recession preparation should be 1) reduce fluctuations in income for the business and for employees, and 2) reduce or eliminate loss o...
Post a Comment
Read more