Alternatives to DSOs: A Conversation about Coaching, Communication, and Collaboration with Dr. Michelle Jorgensen – Episode #598

On this episode of the Dentist Money Show, Dr. Michelle Jorgensen, dentist and owner of Living Well with Dr. Michelle, joins Matt to share her journey from dentist to business owner. Michelle gives valuable insights on balancing physical and mental health, financial stability, and personal fulfillment. She also explores the dynamics of leadership in dental practice ownership, the importance of visionary and integrator roles, and strategies for effective delegation. Michelle encourages dentists to embrace mentorship and prioritize patient care while growing their practice. Tune in to hear Dr. Jorgensen’s valuable advice for personal growth and inspiration to start your own journey toward success and fulfillment.

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Podcast Transcript

Intro: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the dentist money show brought to you by dentist advisors. We have a jam packed, amazing show for you today with Dr. Michelle Jorgensen, you are not going to want to miss this show and you’re going to want to stay to the end. She. gives so much wisdom, shares so much experience that she has, in her long career, not only as a dentist, but specifically as a business owner in dentistry. She shares her knowledge and lessons learned over her career dealing with, two failed DSO exits, and her mindset shift around, using a coach and the importance of that. And the importance of shifting your approach to dentistry as not a technician, but as an actual business owner, there is so much here, so much incredible knowledge that Dr. Michelle Jorgensen shares. and she also shares all the different areas that she has now expanded to as a business owner that is going to help you directly as a business owner and as a dentist, There’s going to be so much value here for you. Hope you enjoyed the show.

Matt Mulcock: Michelle, when someone asks, what do you do, what do you say now?

Michelle Jorgensen: That’s a great question. My husband says he’s retired. Um, I don’t know. I’m thinking maybe I should start taking that line on, too. I say that I help people live well.

Matt Mulcock: Love that. And if someone were to push that further and say, okay, you help them live well, what is living well mean to you?

Michelle Jorgensen: Mm hmm. Yep. Living well is helping each person live their unique potential So you can’t do that if you’re struggling with physical health, you can’t do that if you’re struggling financially You can’t do that if you’re unhappy in life. None of those things mean living well and really I differentiate between Longevity which is what a lot of people are aiming for and focusing on and living well because I don’t want to just live long. I want to live well. So that might be different for you than it is for me, but it always includes physical health, mental health, doing something you love. So that’s what I help people really identify and reclaim for themselves.

Matt Mulcock: Such an amazing point. And so obviously nerd financial planner alert. I’m just obviously constantly making connections to money. And, but you mentioned it, like if you’re not financially stable, then you can’t live your most fulfilling life when it comes to money, same thing with health. this mindset of living well, I’d imagine over time, it’s kind of evolved over time and these beliefs you have around that, how has that evolution come, like, how did you get to this evolution or this kind of this thinking of living well, versus just thinking about like lifespan,

Michelle Jorgensen: You know, I really have been pushed by an actual coach of mine and she pushes me to think about what is my mission. And honestly, That’s, I think, an important question for us all to have, is what are we here for? Are we here just to, you know, go through the motions and then die at the end of it all, and I doubt anyone that’s listening to this really is, has that as their only goal. You know, just, let’s just get through this life. I really believe that we all have a mission to fulfill. And what is that? And honestly, it’s sometimes hard because everybody tells you what that’s supposed to be. you watch all these things on social media and listen to podcasts and you think you need to be like the people you’re listening to and watching. And I believe that each mission is very unique to yourself. And I had to stop, this is going to sound weird because we’re on a podcast, but I had, I had to stop listening to a lot of different voices. And I had to start just listening to what was inside of me. And it’s interesting because just yesterday I was on an all day meeting and it was this system that I was supposed to be using.

I’m releasing a book in May and just about six months from now and it was this system, literally this clockwork system that you do months to months to months to months to get this book off the ground. And I was so ornery. The entire day. I mean, I was literally having my internal conversation saying, why am I so ornery? Like, what is wrong with me? Do I need to go take something? Like what is, what is happening? And finally today I realized it. When I feel ornery, it’s often because I’m stuck. I don’t have any forward momentum or any place to go. And for me, that’s a real ornery producing place. And I call it like stupor of thoughts, stupor of movement. Like I just can’t move forward. And all of a sudden I went, I forgot when I feel like that. That is when I’m off my path. So this whole structured, everything the same way, following somebody’s system is so not me. I’m like, that’s why I was so ornery yesterday because I wasn’t listening to me at all. I was listening to somebody else for eight hours and it was not resonating. So that’s really where I started saying, you know what, it’s okay. It’s okay not to do everything the same as everybody else. It’s okay. What feels best to me.

Matt Mulcock: It’s amazing. I want to come back to the book. I want to circle back to that for sure. But what you’re referencing so well right now is just like a level of introspection, a level of being able to look inside and push all the outer voices out, I’m going to just guess, I’m just going to guess that the only, you know, one of the few voices you might still listen to is the Dentist Money Show, but neither here nor there.

Michelle Jorgensen: Going to, I’m going to confess. I actually don’t, but my husband does. And then he fills me in.

Matt Mulcock: I know Steve does. Steve definitely does. We, he and I talk.

Michelle Jorgensen: A devotee, but you know, I just really literally had to stop listening to all voices because when we are so in today’s world, we’re so information saturated, we don’t do anything without something on, right. We don’t go on a run unless somebody is in our head. We don’t drive in a car unless we’ve got something playing. We don’t like, we don’t cook dinner unless we’re listening to something. Right. But when does that give us time to listen to what is going on in our own minds?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

Michelle Jorgensen: Silence, ever!

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I think you’re so spot on there. And I think if cutting out more than adding, I think is something we need to very much work on. But I’m curious on this introspection and listening to yourself. cause I think this is something a lot of us, I know I do. I think a lot of people out there, I know dentists we talk to struggle with. How have you cultivated this ability? Like even you talking about and saying it took you time to like, maybe a couple of days or whatever time it was to say, man, I’m not listening to myself. That’s a, I’d imagine. I mean, it’s a skill. It’s a skill that you even have to like, take the time outside of cutting people out, like podcasts and all the noise. What other things have you done to cultivate that ability to like be introspective and be able to listen to yourself?

Michelle Jorgensen: You know, I do a very It’s interesting. I love a lot of freedom, but I like a real strict system at certain times in my day, because then it allows freedom at other times in my day. So that’s one thing I’ve very much figured out. So my morning actually is pretty structured. And I start every day with a prayer and with, I’m reading scripture every single morning, whether it could be just reading inspirational thoughts, whatever it is, it’s just something to get your mind working on positivity, on something that’s good in the world, on maybe something that’s aspirational. And this is not long, you know, this is maybe 10 minutes. And then I just think for a minute and that sounds weird, but I just give myself. A little bit of space to do that. And again, it’s not long, maybe five minutes. I pull out my notebook, you know, I’ve got my notebook that’s always sitting here. I pull out my notebook and I just write a few things, jot a few things. You would be shocked at what comes to mind when you just give your mind time to talk to yourself. So I do that every morning and that’s just the way I start. It doesn’t take more than 20 minutes. That’s it. And then I’m off to the races, you know, and then we’re going, but it just gives myself a chance to go, okay, what’s my guiding principle here. It’s positivity. It’s abundance. You know, these are all things I really resonate with. Okay. Yep. We’re all on that path. We’re all on that journey this morning together. What do I need to do to really take myself there? Write a few things down, you know,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I love that. Cause it feels like you’ve simplified it down. I think we live in a world now of optimization and, what I, to probably repetitively used at the summit this last summer, productivity porn. But I do think we live in this era of like, am I optimizing and doing everything the exact way? And you mentioned earlier, what are the steps of here, here and here? But I love what you’re saying. Cause you’re just saying, keep it simple, keep it really simple. And it works for you. It doesn’t have to work for someone else. It works for you. I love that. I want to come back to one thing. You said you’ve cut out, I think pretty much all voices but you also mentioned a coach who are voices or what are the voices you are actually listening to?

Michelle Jorgensen: I’ve always had a coach. It’s interesting. My husband has pointed this out. Even during all my entire dental career, I’ve really never not had a coach, which is kind of an interesting thing because it’s not, it’s not cheap. You know, it’s definitely an expense, but I myself love to, I’m expressive, you know, verbally. So I like to talk things out. And I learned that this is extremely bad for my marriage, but good for my coach.

Matt Mulcock: Steve’s like, thank you. I can retire now that you have a coach.

Michelle Jorgensen: Right. But it’s true because the challenge when we just vent, because we all need that, right? We need somebody to talk it out with when we just vent at home What happens is we tell our spouse or significant other who whoever it is all the bad stuff, right? All the things that aren’t going well, and then we go back to our life and we fix things But we never come back and catch them up on that Catch them up on the things that we did that make it better. So now they’re just still stewing in this negativity and, Oh, things are going so bad and everything’s so lousy there because they didn’t hear that. Oh, no, no, we fixed it today because we don’t, we don’t come home and share that as well. So. I always need somebody to just dump on, you know, and I’ll joke. Sometimes I’m like, okay, today’s a dump session. They’re like, dump away. That’s my job. I need some place to vent someplace to dump, but I also need somebody who will hold me accountable. They will say they’ll put my feet to the fire and say, that is so not you. That is not mission driven. That is not where you’re supposed to be.

What are you even doing? Talking to that person? No, no, no, no, no. You can’t do that. And so I have a very strong coach right now and she aggravates the heck out of me sometimes and she knows it, you know, she’ll say, I’m going to, I’m going to drive you crazy with this. I’m like, you are driving me crazy, but we’ve given each other permission to be that way with each other and it works. And I’ve had coaches, like I said, I’ve had a string of coaches through my entire career, and that’s one thing that I really. Ask of them is you’ve got to keep me accountable and I we need to be able to have real conversations here.

Matt Mulcock: There’s so much here. I love that we went this route. but I’m curious you mentioned how it’s improved or remove some of that pressure off of Steve and loved ones when you’re like venting and then ever come back and share the positives. so it’s removed the dumping on them, but have you also seen it where do you now come back and share the positives? Are you more likely to do that even like, or is it still just, I’m not sharing the positives as much, but I’m also not dumping on them. Like how has it impacted that from that angle?

Michelle Jorgensen: Yeah, good question. I think in thinking about it I’m just more positive You know, and so they don’t necessarily need to know all the details of our business our children I mean every they don’t need to know all of that they just need to see that you’re happy, you know, and that you’re in a good place. But it’s interesting, just even recently, I was talking about something and it was one of the businesses that I’m a partner in. And I was discussing how the partner got a great deal because their buy in was significantly less than what we were just valued at. And so I was just commenting on this with my My daughter overheard it. And a couple days down the road, she said, mom, are we like, are we doing okay? And I thought, whoa, because she didn’t have context for the

Matt Mulcock: Yeah

Michelle Jorgensen: She didn’t have any way to interpret what I was saying. And for her, it was a very scary place. And I thought, Oh, wow. Okay. Those conversations just need to not be something that are had over the kitchen table. You know, that’s just not the place for it. It’s not the place for it. That’s not who I am for her, for her. I’m her mom. And you know, she obviously loves me and cares for me. So I do share positives and I think I live positives now. Even more than just coming in, you know, blah, blah, blah. This is all what’s going on. They just see, Oh, that’s going great. You know, I’ll say things like, Oh man, I just hired a new assistant. She is top notch. She’s making my life so good right now. You know, so just little things like that. I’ll just drop those now and they just go, Oh, mom’s happy. All right. So we’re all good. You know, that’s that old adage. Nobody’s, you know, you’re never as happy. You’re only as happy as the least happy person in your home. That is so true. It’s true.

Matt Mulcock: That’s amazing. I’m curious on the coaching side. So you’ve obviously expressed the level of impact. I think it’s probably safe to say that you wouldn’t be here without at least having that in your life. How do you determine what are the things you’re looking for? Someone out there thinking about a coach, what are the things you look for?

Michelle Jorgensen: Yeah. So for years I had coaches inside of dentistry. They were practice management coaches. They were running our office through the, the ropes of setting up our systems and optimizing inside of the practice. And I gained a lot through that. I did. that was a phase that I needed to go through. I needed to get the business to that place. But now I don’t have that kind of coach. Now I have a coach that’s my coach. It’s not my practice’s coach. It’s my coach. And I actually don’t want anybody inside of dentistry because I think somebody inside of dentistry actually just has a single focus. This is the way we do things. We’re going to plug you into our system and you’re going to follow this order and this is the way it’s going to work. So about five years ago, I was reading a book. about the Toyota Way. So if you don’t know about the Toyota Way, they’re incredibly efficient in all of their systems and optimization. They optimize everything. and I was reading it and I thought, man, this would be so good inside of dentistry. Like I need somebody to teach me how to get this put together in the way that we’re working in the dental office. So I just thought there’s got to be somebody that can coach me on that. So I looked up Toyota Way. for like service businesses, that kind of thing. And found this person didn’t even know she actually was the author of the book.

I was reading at the time that was Toyota Way for Service Excellence. So it was like for service industries reached out to her and she said, well, I’ve never worked with a dentist before. This could be kind of interesting. I don’t know. And she’s been my coach for the last almost six years now. So that was what I was looking for was somebody that had expertise in an area that I was not exposed to already inside of dentistry. But yet I felt could apply so directly to what I was doing. And now, the beauty of that is she has completely helped me transform the dental practice to the point that now, I’m there a day and a half a week, But I am so removed from all the managerial issues. She just ran my entire management team through manager training, not dentist practice management training. That’s what we all know of is dentist practice management. No, no, no, no, no, no. She took them through management training, meaning how do you be a manager? How do you actually manage a team? And I don’t have to do any of that anymore. It’s absolutely phenomenal, but because that also got settled and somebody was able to really help there. She’s now able to help me with it and other ventures and other businesses because she’s not so single focused on dentistry. And she’ll tell me things like you’ve learned everything you need to know. In any other business now, because you learned all of these other things, how to be a business owner through owning the dental practice.

You don’t need to relearn them. Now we’re going to just take them and apply them to a new business. And that has been so revolutionary for my mind to go, Oh, I do know how to hire somebody. I do know how to hire a manager. I do know how to work with an assistant. I do know how to do all these things. I’ve done it in dentistry already. So for me, don’t look inside of dentistry, actually. Don’t look like for, there’s a bunch of life coaches that are life coaches for dentists. I said, don’t go for those guys. Go for somebody that’s not in dentistry because they’re going to push you to go. That makes no sense at all. Like, why are you doing that? Well, every dentist does. Same question. Why are you doing that? It doesn’t make any sense from a business standpoint. Don’t do that. So it’s changed the way I practice completely. I had another coach that, really pushed me for how to set up a partnership in my current practice. Again, he was not inside of dentistry at all. He was from the investor world, the veterinary world. So find somebody that’s not in dentistry. They’re going to open your eyes to a new world.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. It’s almost like she’s helped you break out of that, like you said, that mold or that box. And when you describe that, I’m hearing like first principles, first principles, like she’s getting you back to these first principles of business. And I love that you. Went down this road, because I think this is a huge challenge for dentists right now of getting out of the mindset of like, if you want to practice to be successful, you’re not a dentist, you’re a business owner, outside of a coach, like, what are things that dentists should be thinking about to get into that mindset And what are the differences there in your mind? Like this transition you made in your life. At some point you were quote unquote, just a dentist. And then at some point you’ve made this kind of transformation of like, no, I’m just a business owner and I want to get into all those businesses that you have, what are those things? Or what are the, maybe the kind of the key takeaways for a dentist out there? What’s the mindset shift look like

Michelle Jorgensen: I think it truly is, you know, there’s a, there’s a real classic book called the E Myth and probably everybody’s read it or heard of it. If they’ve not read it, just go read it. Because it has a classic story of an entrepreneur who starts off loving the business. She was a baker, you know, and she loved the business and she was an amazing baker. So the business grew. And obviously this is what we want to happen in dentistry, right? You’re an amazing dentist. So your business grows. So then, because the business has grown, she starts off, you know, handing off some of the duties. Unfortunately, she loves baking. So she still wants to bake, you know, but she hands off all these other duties, but she doesn’t oversee any of those duties. Because she kind of doesn’t like that sort of stuff. So all that The part that really runs the business started to fail and started not to do very well. And so then she took it all back on again. And now she’s got a bigger business that she’s carrying all on her shoulders and dentists. I see this happen over and over and over and over again.

You get successful because you’re good at what you do and you love what you do. And then you start handing things off, but you don’t know how to do that. You don’t know how to delegate. You don’t know how to manage a team. You don’t know your role, and you certainly can’t train your manager. I mean, how is a dentist supposed to train a manager like we know what a manager is supposed to do? So we hand them off to a dental practice manager who teaches them how to file insurance claims. Well, great, but what about everything else? What about all the things that a manager should really do? What does that look like? So for me, it’s saying, okay. What do I want to be? And there’s no right or wrong answer here. Do I want to be the clinician? Do I just love sitting in the chair and doing dentistry? If so, then I need to hire someone that either already knows how to run a business or can teach my team how to run a business. Not a practice management consultant, a business consultant can teach a person how to actually manage a team.

Because if you want to be the one drilling on the teeth, Somebody else has to be doing the rest of that. So you’re going to pay somebody to do that. That’s what you need to figure out. Which way do you want to go? Or, do you want to be the one that’s running the show, running the systems, managing the team, and do you want to pay somebody to drill on the teeth? Which way do you want to go? And I was in both I had feet in both shoes for a very long time and most dentists do as well. But what I found is that it’s difficult to be very, it’s, it’s difficult to be incredibly good at both at the same time. One was always suffering. So which way do you want to go? And maybe you say, well, I’d really like to do a little bit of both. Okay, but what do you not want to do? That’s what I encourage people to do is just make a list. Like if you could do nothing but one thing or five things all day long every day, what is on the other side of the list? Now hire somebody to do those things that’s competent. Don’t just pay him 16 bucks an hour. You know, get somebody that knows what they’re doing or hire a coach that can teach them how to do what they’re doing. This is a business, it’s a dental practice, but it’s a business.

Matt Mulcock: A business.

Michelle Jorgensen: It’s a business. What does the business need to survive?

Matt Mulcock: I love the way you just framed that, of flipping on its head. I think so many people focus on the, what do I want to do? How about you start with, what do you not want to do? Cause I think that’s actually probably easier to answer. Did you, have you found that that’s easier to answer for

Michelle Jorgensen: Totally. Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: I literally hate it. Okay, so if I hate to coach, then somebody else needs to be coaching any of my new team members. Great. So you’re a who?

Matt Mulcock: Love it. Michelle and knowing you for as long as I have you have an ability. I, from what I’ve observed to make decisions, make them definitively. and I’m not, whether or not they’re quick or not, I’ll let you deter or let you kind of speak to that. But I think the ability to make decisions, you’ve had a lot of transitions in your career over the last, you know, decade, couple of decades. How have you cultivated that ability to make difficult decisions? and to make them quickly,

Michelle Jorgensen: Yeah, I think that’s just me. I think I was born that way. So that’s, that’s part of it. I, I like to move fast. I like things, but actually, there’s a problem that can come from that. Because sometimes fast implementers make poor decisions. That’s it. Because they don’t have somebody to stop them and say, no, no, no, that’s a poor decision. And I’ve made some of those poor decisions. So again, that’s really where a coach comes in for me. I can’t really reinforce this even, you know, strongly enough. That’s where a coach comes in for me because. I will be, well, and it’s been my husband, interestingly enough, there’s another book called Traction that identifies that often in a new business there’s a visionary type and there’s an integrator type. So the visionary type is like a me, I’m always thinking of new things, I got 10 other projects on my plate at all times. Well, it’s interesting because I can spot a business that has a visionary but no integrator from a mile away. Because they’re always turning on a dime. They’re making decisions and doing this and doing this, and they’re yanking their team all over the place. And I actually have had team members say, can we just like finish the last thing you told us to do before you give us another thing to do? And I realized I was really like, it was my own need to have change. And I was blowing up the business on a nonstop basis. So I realized my husband is naturally an integrator type. He’s a doer. He doesn’t have ideas. In fact, It’s funny because you go to all these conferences, you know, the, the big pump you up conferences, and they talk about how you’re supposed to write down your goals and then you’re supposed to carry them in your pocket. And, you know, that’s how you become successful. And he always felt like a real failure because he’s like, honestly, I don’t really have goals. I don’t really have anything to put in my pocket. Am I just like a loser? And we finally figured out, no, there’s people who have way too many goals and then there’s people who really are just wanting to make those goals work and that’s the integrator piece.

So, which are you? Which are you? Are you a visionary? Do you have lots of ideas and move faster? Or are you the slower, methodical, think it through kind of person? I believe you need to have both. And so, thankfully, my partner, in finding a partner in the dental practice, she is very much an integrator. So, I’ll come in and I’ll say, hey, let’s do this, let’s do this. And she’ll say, hmm, that’s an interesting idea. I’m like, oh, fine. It’s

Matt Mulcock: Like, here we go.

Michelle Jorgensen: Yeah, it’s okay. Because I’ll have five new ideas tomorrow. So I really don’t care if you don’t like this one today, you know, but it’s been so helpful because I think you need to have both, but then if you are an integrator type, if you’re a slow mover, methodical mover, that kind of, you really need to have somebody that’s with you that will move fast, that will make decisions quickly. And so to me, partnership is so important. And I hope we get to, how do you actually make a partnership work and demonstrate, because so many people tell you it is not possible. That it’s not possible. You’re just going to get divorced, but that’s not, it doesn’t, that’s not the way it has to be.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, no, let’s go there. I would love to go there. and I was going to go there anyway, because you’re talking. So first of all, we’re very familiar. We implement Gino Wickman’s traction at Dentist Advisors. I really encourage dentists out there. It’s like a top five business book, in my opinion, of really practical approach to, any business and applying an operating system. And you’re highlighting a big piece of this, which is this visionary versus integrator type approach.

So. a couple of parts of this, so you’ve mentioned Steve, you’ve mentioned him as being an integrator and a partner, not only in life, but also with work you’ve mentioned your partner now actually at, the business, do you think does it matter who it is? Or does it just matter that you find one? Like, does it mean it, does that person have to be in the business? I’d imagine like actually like another associate that you partner with, or you’re saying it could be Steve, like, or your husband, how do you think about that as far as the visionary versus integrator relationship?

Michelle Jorgensen: Great question. Let’s go here because this I think is so misunderstood inside of dentistry. So when we get into dentistry, we think we are the dentists. We are the owner. We are the everything right. And the only other potential partners that we can have would be dentists. But let me talk about the fallacy in that thing. It might be dentists. My partner is a dentist. But let’s talk about the fallacy in that thinking. So the dentistry part of a dental practice is just one component of the dental practice. When you’re doing dentistry in the dental practice, you’re paid, whether you’re the owner or whether you’re an associate, you’re paid for that work. So if I bring an associate in and I paid them 30 percent of their production, they’re paid for the dentistry they do, correct? All right. So as an owner, you’re also paid on the dentistry you do. but you’re paid on the owner duties you do also. There’s inventory management, there’s marketing, there’s HR, there’s facilities, there’s IT, right? So what I did is I created 12 different, I figured out there were 12 different, I call them seasons, but 12 different categories of owner duties inside of a dental practice. So I looked at those and I said, okay, currently is a single owner. I’m doing all 12. I’m doing all 12 of those. Now, none of those have anything to do with the doing of the dentistry. All right, we’re going to separate these two entirely. They are in two different pots. I can hire. So my first hire was an associate. I can hire an associate to do dentistry and I’m paying them 30 percent of what they are producing and they are paid for the dentistry. They do. I’m not asking them to manage the facility.

I’m not asking them to manage the IT to do the work. You know, I’m not asking him to do any of that. I’m getting paid my owner dollars, the profit percentage, over here because I’m doing these 12 other things. So now again, you need to ask yourself, what do I want to do? Do I want to keep doing dentistry? If so, and my practice is growing, and I can’t do all 12 of these things and dentistry, which of these things over here, Can I get someone to do, or should I get someone to do the dentistry? Like, which side do I need to hire into? Now, you might say, oh, but you need to hire a dentist that’s going to be a partner. Okay, if they’re going to be a partner, they’re going to do dentistry, they’re already getting paid 30%, or you know, whatever your percentage is for that. Which of those owner duties are they going to do? Because if they’re going to be a partner, they have to do owner duties to get owner profits, owner money. Does that make sense?

Matt Mulcock: Yes

Michelle Jorgensen: All dentistry is paid from compensation from dentistry. Owner compensation or profits on the business are paid because you do business duties. So I met my current partner. Her name’s Lindy. Actually I met her straight out of school. She and I have an interesting similarity. There was a program in the state of Utah that helped dentists pay for their When there wasn’t a dental school in Utah, helped dentists. it was subsidized through the state. We all went to Creighton and Omaha and, anyway, it was, it was a great way to save money and the state subsidize it. Well, I was the first woman in that program and she was the last woman in that program. So it’s kind of

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Full circle moment.

Michelle Jorgensen: It’s kind of cool. So she reached out to me straight out of school and said, Hey, I’d like to partner with you. And I told her no, well, she actually just said, I want to work for you. And I said, no. So you’ve got a lot to learn. You can’t, there’s no way you’re going to hit this, hit the ground running in my practice. You’re going to die here. So you go learn a few things first. So she came back about four years later and said, I think I’m ready yet. I think I’m ready now. And I said, I’ll have a place for you now. So she went away and did some introspection. She went and did a couple of other things and she came back and she said, I want to be your partner. I don’t want to just work for you because I love business. She has a business degree. She says, I actually don’t want to do the dentistry long term. I want to own the business. And I said, now you’re talking to me because I can hire dentists to do the dentistry, but I need help doing the older duties. So we sat down, we looked at the 12th and I said, well, which of these three D or which of these 12, do you feel qualified to do to this level? And I defined what it meant to be, you know, qualified. And we decided three, Three of the twelve. No, no. Four. Four. Because she bought a third. So she was qualified to do four. Kind of. You know, she still had some work to do. But we said, alright. Four of the twelve are going to be yours. So, she bought a third of the practice. And assumed those four owner duties. Along with some dentistry. Right? So she would get paid for the dentistry she’d do. And then she’d get paid a third of the owner profits. Because compensation equals contribution. This is what I want people to know. Compensation equals contribution. If you’re contributing as a dentist, doing dental work, your compensation comes from that. If you are doing owner duties, your compensation comes from that. So you can’t just tell me, well, you have an associate who’s been there five years, he should be a partner. In fact, I had an associate that came and said this exact thing. Well, I’m ready to partner. And I said, great. Looking at the 12 seasons right now, I need facilities management and accounting help. Which are you qualified to do? He said, I don’t want to do any of that. I said, then you are right where you belong.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: So what it does is it just makes the conversation so much easier. So now I’m looking at these 12 owner duties. Let’s say I don’t want to do facilities management. I don’t want to do accounting. I don’t want to do marketing. Do you need to hire a dentist to do those things?

Matt Mulcock: No.

Michelle Jorgensen: A dentist is probably the least qualified person to do any of those

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: So the answer is no, you don’t need to hire a dentist to do any of those things. Do you need to partner with somebody to do those things? Perhaps, but maybe you don’t. You know, this is the whole concept, do you pay with seeds or do you pay with harvest? So paying with seeds means somebody’s gonna partner with you and now they’re gonna be able to harvest off of those seeds in perpetuity,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: Versus paying what the harvest means you’re paying with a profit. So maybe I’m just paying a great accounting group Maybe I’m just paying a great facilities manager. Maybe I’m just great paying a great marketing company So I didn’t need to give any seeds away to my business to get those three owner duties taken care of. Thankfully, my partner likes business. She has since now, she got up to those four things, four things we had put in the contract exactly what it meant when she had achieved them. It looks like this when you are there. And we put in the contract that once she got there, she could then purchase up to 50 percent of the practice. And she has done that. So now she’s taking on 50 percent of the practice. She of the practice owner duties, but here’s where it gets super cool. So I have a sabbatical planned at the end of next year. And I looked at this and I said, okay, I’m going to stay an owner, even though I’m going to leave for a year. How does this work?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: Well, we each take an owner salary. I’m just not going to take a salary.

Matt Mulcock: Cause you’re no longer doing those duties.

Michelle Jorgensen: I won’t be doing those duties. Why should I get compensated for them?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: I won’t give away the seeds. The seeds are still there. I can come back. I can keep harvesting off of them. But while I’m gone, we’re going to use my harvest, basically my owner, owner compensation to pay somebody to do the things that I currently do, which is marketing, which is, you know, a visionary piece of the practice. So you just dentist, just get this clear in your head. Contribution is where compensation comes from. You do not have to partner with a dentist.

Matt Mulcock: It’s amazing. And you can, what you’re saying here is you’re going on the sabbatical for a year. You’re maintaining that you’re keeping the seeds, you’re keeping the asset itself and all the capital appreciation that comes from it, because I think this, this alone that you’re highlighting, Michelle is what is the value of any business, whether it be public market or private, it’s the capital appreciation of those seeds. It’s those seeds continuing to grow, but then it’s also the payment. It’s what you’re saying. It’s the income from doing the duties, but you’re just saying. And it was aha moment for you, right? We talked about this where you were like, I’ll just not take a salary. We’ll reallocate those in that income to someone else. And I can be freely gone and be stress free and go do it. Knowing it’s being taken care of. I come back. I still own the seats.

Michelle Jorgensen: Yep.

Matt Mulcock: That’s like such a simple concept in, in reality, but it’s so powerful that not a lot of dentists think about.

Michelle Jorgensen: Yep. Yep. They think they have to sell like there has to be either have to stay there work it be in the trenches You know, they always say in the chair, you know You either have to be in the chair or you have to give it all up. No

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: No,

Matt Mulcock: Amazing insight here. And I want to back up a little bit because this, where you’ve come to with this mindset and approach has been a long road, right? and maybe let’s back up a little bit and, and share, we kind of shared the end at the beginning, but I want to go back up and say, or ask you, what’s What has been the lessons learned from things like you’ve had, I think two major experiences with the DSOs. Like maybe just walk us through the journey of what got you to this mindset, this insight that you have,

Michelle Jorgensen: Yep, so yeah, it was probably at least 10 years ago. Maybe even longer than that now Maybe even 15 years ago, and I was you know Ill like I physically was very very sick. I found out and I always like to show this on podcasts I found out I had severe mercury poisoning from drilling out amalgam fillings so I always want dentists to know this is a real thing and i’m not crazy. Well, I might be crazy but uh

Matt Mulcock: But not a bit, not because of this.

Michelle Jorgensen: Not because of that well mercury may have made me crazy, but I was probably crazy before that but yeah, it’s a real thing and you can go get tested for it And you can find out if mercury is killing you too. So anyway, I was very very sick and four young kids My husband and I were just in over our heads, you know, we were sinking fast. And so I did, reach out to a bunch of different possibilities, put the practice for sale at that point. And at the time there was a DSO that was just entering the Utah market. This was all kind of, you know, new, new DSO territory. Nobody really knew what it was, but thought it was definitely the future. Everybody would be going this way, you know? So we looked at it and, It was interesting. I move quick, but I’m pretty detail oriented. And so I started looking through all the documents and saying, why would I sign this? Like, this is terrible. And even though I was desperate or felt like I was desperate, I said, there is no way that any of this makes sense. How am I ever going to make a penny doing this? And the guy’s like, Oh, you’re catching things. Even our editors didn’t catch, you know, as you’re going through the documents. And I’m like, well, first of all, I shouldn’t have to do that. But do you just assume that people don’t read this

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: And don’t understand really what they’re reading? Because I probably don’t understand that this makes.

Matt Mulcock: Do you remember, Michelle, like, in particular, what were like, just, just big picture, like, what were some of

Michelle Jorgensen: Trying to remember it

Matt Mulcock: Work back, was it?

Michelle Jorgensen: They had a management company agreement with the practice. So what would happen is they purchased a portion of the practice, which is a common thing. You know, you retain ownership of a certain percentage. They would assume ownership of a certain percentage. And then in addition, they had a management company. So there would be a management fee. And That would take care of, supposedly they would take care of your marketing and, you know, your HR and all those kinds of things.

Matt Mulcock: Supposedly is the key word there,

Michelle Jorgensen: Yeah, supposedly exactly because that’s been shown to not actually work very well. But, I started doing the math and I said, wait a minute. So you’re already going to take this much of the profit. And then I’m going to pay 20 percent of profit to management company. I’m like negative 5 percent at that point.

Matt Mulcock: So the math just wasn’t mathing.

Michelle Jorgensen: No, not even close to mathing. And thankfully my husband’s an engineer and he read it and he’s like, what in the world is it? I don’t know. But this is, so if you’re at that place, please have somebody that knows something other than you look at it. Because I went through this twice and both times, I really think they assumed that we don’t know much and that it would be pretty easy to pull the wool over our eyes and that we’re just going to be in desperation signing things. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. Don’t be afraid to say no. No, I’m going to say no here. You know, and sometimes we are so far into it that we think, man, they’ve already gone through all the due diligence. I’ve already given them all my stuff. They already know all my numbers. I mean, we were to the point on one sale that their team had already come in and it onboarded all of my team. I mean, All of that point. And I think that you’d get sometimes to the place of, I have put so much into this, I simply can’t say no. It’s kind of like, you know, you’re, you’re walking down the altar and you’re thinking I should not marry this guy, but you’re looking at all the guests and you’re like, I can’t say no right now.

Yes, you can. Yes, you

Matt Mulcock: You did. You said no at the altar.

Michelle Jorgensen: I said no at the altar twice, actually. You can say no at the altar. It’s okay because you, it’s your business. It’s your life. It’s your future. That you’re signing on for and it is not okay to be taken advantage of. So that was 15 years ago and then, 2020. Great year for all of us it was a really, it was a doozy of a year for me too. So everything, you know, closed down, closed up shop, April, May, business was closed, but that was fine. I mean, you know, it wasn’t, wasn’t gangbusters, but it was okay. And I decided I really would like to transition the practice. And I said, all right. I had four associates at the time and I offered all of them a partnership. This was before I knew anything. This is why I’m sharing this with you. Please don’t do this. So I offered all of these dentists a partnership without any expectation of what they would actually help with.

Matt Mulcock: No idea of the seasons or the duties or anything.

Michelle Jorgensen: No, they were just going to get a partnership because that’s what dentists do, right? We just give a partnership to one of our associates. That’s just what we do.

Matt Mulcock: They’ve been with me long enough. They deserve a partnership. Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: Is kind of a partnership. It’s 10 year, you know, it’s just like in a, you know, in a university. So if they’ve been here long enough, they earned it. So I offered a partnership to all four associates. And I’ll always remember this day, actually, I was there doing some marketing filming in another room and they were All four together in a room talking and I can’t have the air conditioner on when I’m videoing because it makes noise. So we’d shut off the air conditioning. I didn’t even know they were in the office. So I’m in the middle of videoing and we hear the air conditioner kick on it. So I walk back out the hallway. I’m like, who just turned the air conditioner on? I hear them back in the room and they’re saying, there is no way she is making that kind of money. She is doctoring these numbers.

There is no way that anything that she is showing us is actually true. And I listened to that and I thought, so obviously it was a conversation I wasn’t meant to hear. And they all came back to me and for their own reasons said, no huge blessing in disguise. So, because I would have gotten into this and now I would have just been carrying all 12 of the owner duties. But they would have been taken apart of the owner compensation. Well, that would have been a train wreck. So thankfully they said no. So at that point I thought there’s only one other way to go, you know, cause it’s a large practice. They’ve all said no to a partnership. I only knew that there was one other way to go. That was a DSO. So I started shopping DSOs and I got educated because I thought, I am not gonna be the kind that they think they can, you know, just schmooze into this thing and have me sign up for things that I don’t agree with. I’m not gonna do that. So I really did my research, due diligence, and I, I vetted a lot of DSOs and I found one that I felt good about. And, we were all the way to the end of everything, a week from close. And one of my associates, one of the guys that had said no to a partnership was waiting for his employment agreement through the DSO, they gave it to him. And he said, this is not as good as what you’ve been giving me. So I’ve already signed, an agreement.

I am building my own practice. He was my largest producing associate at the time. And so the DSO came back and not only were there COVID holdbacks at the time, because this was the end of 2020. But they said, we’re not going to actually give you any cash at the sale because we don’t know about the future of the practice. Now that this associates left, we don’t know what this is going to look like. So I would have had to take a loan to sell my practice to them because I had outstanding loans on the practice. So I would have had to take a loan to pay my loan to sell them my practice. And thankfully this one was a little easier to say no

Matt Mulcock: I was going to say that’s not, it’s not exactly, uh, requires much thinking there.

Michelle Jorgensen: I don’t know. That was, that was a little easier to say no to, but I just dropped into this deep depression because I thought, okay, the only two paths I’ve ever been told, and both of those doors have now been shut, the partner said, no, the DSO turned up to be something not that I was going to go with. Where do I go now?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: Huge practice. All on my back carrying the entire thing. And I know that there’s dentists listening that are feeling the exact same way that I felt that at that moment where there’s nowhere else to go. And so many people were saying, there’s no way you’re going to sell this to a single buyer. It’s too big now. You know, you hear this all the time. You’re too big now. One person can’t buy you, you know? And so I thought, okay, nobody can buy the practice. A DSO just totally screwed me, you know? And all my partners said, no, so I guess I’m here stuck in a place I don’t want to be in.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, what are you feeling in that moment, Michelle? Like what are the thoughts going through your head at that point?

Michelle Jorgensen: Yeah, I’m thinking, what am I gonna do? Literally, what am

Matt Mulcock: No options. Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: No options. I’ve exhausted all of them. And, I can’t do this. I can’t keep doing what I’m doing. So I felt absolutely, completely, 100 percent stuck. And that is when, interestingly enough, I heard a podcast

Matt Mulcock: You were still, you were still listening to

Michelle Jorgensen: Podcasts back then! I still do now, too.

Matt Mulcock: I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding.

Michelle Jorgensen: But yeah, I heard a podcast and someone was talking about this whole problem with compensation equals contribution. I messaged the gentleman that was on the podcast. He’s not a dentist. And I said, I just need an hour of your time. Can I just pay you for an hour of your time? I got on a call with him, ended up having him coach me for the next two years. And he was really my financial coach. And he said, you dentists are so screwed up in the way you think about business. This is not the way any other businesses, the only other business that partners on tenure is law firms.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah

Michelle Jorgensen: The only business that does this. No other businesses partner based on tenure. It doesn’t make any sense other than universities and you just go ask any university how well that’s working for them.

Matt Mulcock: Exactly.

Michelle Jorgensen: This is not the way the business world works. You partner because of contribution and qualification. Who is actually qualified to be a partner and what are they going to contribute to your business? So he helped me Weed my way out of the mess. I was in He helped me craft the partnership agreement with my current partner. He helped us figure out these seasons and What everybody was going to be doing and it literally has changed my life, my personal life, but also my professional life. And that is what I want dentists to know is that there is another option. If you feel like you’ve exhausted them all, you’re wrong. There is another option. And now where we’re at is so the practice at the time of the DSO sale, the money I was going to make at that point, I have made just owner’s compensation in the four years since that time. So I have made the exact amount of dollars that I was going to make out of that DSO sale in just what I’ve taken out of the practice in four years. I had a four year agreement. I was going to have a four year work back agreement, which honestly I would have been the worst employee in the entire universe. So they dodged a bullet there too.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. in disguise for both sides. Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: A good thing for both sides. So in the four years that I would have been working, I made the same amount of money. But guess what I now have? The asset that has now nearly tripled in value.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah. amazing. this is the message you’re trying to send, I think, and I love this is, coming back to this idea. You said a word I think is critical to come back to is desperation.

Michelle Jorgensen: Yep.

Matt Mulcock: How do you get a desperation in the sense of what you were feeling? You were feeling desperation. Because, you felt like there was only two options. how would you define this third option? This middle road? How would you, what would you, how would you define it?

Michelle Jorgensen: I would define it as the true business model. It’s not the way dentistry sees their business. So it is clearly differentiating dentistry, which is, it’s just the thing that you do in your business. versus the business itself. So really when you look at it in this model, in this way, it’s no different than any other business. You know, I’m looking at my fruit trees right now. There’s a guy that prunes my fruit trees. That’s the thing he does. But he also has to bill, he has to take care of his truck, he has to purchase equipment. That’s the business. So we are no different than any other business. There’s the thing that we provide and then there’s the business itself. So it’s how do you take charge of the business itself piece? Who, and there’s a book out there called Who Not How that I love by actually another mentor of mine, Ben Hardy is his name. he wrote this book with another man named Dan Sullivan. They both are phenomenal coaches in their own right. In fact, that would be a great coach if anybody wanted to go down that way as well. He wrote the book called who not how and that’s often the question you need to ask yourself is okay I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna actually be a dental business not a dental office, but a dental business So do I want to do the dentistry? It’s back to the same question I was saying do you want to do the dentistry or do you want to do the business if you want to do some of? Both okay. What’s the sum? Okay. I’ve decided so now in my business. I see new patients That’s the dentistry portion I do. And interestingly enough, I’m the lowest producing doctor in the practice and I love it.

Matt Mulcock: As I say, you pride yourself on that.

Michelle Jorgensen: So happy.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: So happy. I look at how like, how low my goal is and I just crack up. It’s so great, but that’s me. Now I have a surgeon in my practice that would not be that way, right? He wants to be the top producer. Cause that’s just the way he’s wired. So he does none of the business pieces. Right? None of them. So he would hire out all of those business pieces because he wants to produce the dentistry. There’s not a right or a wrong here. That’s what I want people to understand. There’s no right or wrong. What do you want to do? What do you like to do? Where do you want to be in the business? And then you find somebody. And this who, not how idea I think is really important to dig in a little into too. I’ve learned this. I’ve learned this the hard way, but thankfully I’ve learned it now. It’s just about reaching out. So like I said, I read this book. I thought, I might, you know, I need a coach that fits this philosophy, reached out with the author of the book. She’s now my coach. And you might think, well, no, no, they’re unreachable. No, they’re not.

This guy in the podcast, I reached out to him and said, I just need an hour of your time. I’ll pay you for an hour of your time. He became my coach for two years. Who, who knows something that you need? Who can provide something that you need? Who? That’s the question I want to ask you. Who? And you’ll probably start to think through your network and go, Oh, actually the guy that used to be my neighbor, he does, you know, and just start to think who in my network. And you’re going to find that people love to help. So you reach out and say, I just need your help. I just need your help. I’m happy to, you know, pay for your time, whatever it might, I just need your help right now. People love to share their expertise. They love to share with people what they are good at. They love to help you. It just makes you feel good when you help somebody. So I think you’re going to be shocked to find that when you identify what it is that you’re missing, you’re going to find a who that fits it really, really beautifully. Just ask him for some help.

Matt Mulcock: I think Michelle, you might be fluttering in people’s minds after the show when they thinking who who can help you might be getting might be getting flooded with with questions. I would imagine that people are out there listening, knowing how successful you are and have become and you’re now. I think maybe even unknowingly mentors to so many people out there. And, you know, you’re speaking at things like our summit and you’re on podcasts and you’ve written, you’re writing books. I want to get to that, but I’d imagine there’s people out there listening probably, and they’re thinking, Oh, this is a Michelle thing. This is a Dr. Michelle Jorgensen. she’s special. She’s got this premeditated vision she’s carried out. I can’t do that. first of all, how do you kind of respond to maybe that thinking and how much of, how much of your success could you attribute to like my premeditated vision as Michelle Jorgensen, I just, I knew I was going to be here versus I was just adapting and learning along the way. And I just seized opportunities. Like, how do you frame this now? Kind of looking to where you, like where you’re at versus where you started.

Michelle Jorgensen: Yeah, I would never have called where I was at today. I would never have predicted it. And honestly, I don’t do very well. I know this about myself now. I don’t do very well with the unknowns. That’s just something my personality struggles with. And I think everybody struggles a little bit with that, but I’ve had to accept that as long as I’m doing. The right thing every step along the way that the unknown is going to become known. And I just have to be a little patient to see it. So that’s really crucial for me. I would never have predicted that I’m at where I am today. I didn’t know five years ago that I wanted the things that I want today. So where do you start? You know, because it is not just a me thing. It is not that at all. It is simply that I have stayed. Taking one step forward on a path. Now, I have people pushing me back on that path, and that’s really important. I’m really good at wandering. I’m so good at wandering. I would have started like 15 other businesses by now if it weren’t for people telling me, come on, stop already.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah 

Michelle Jorgensen: So, super good at wandering. People are pushing me back on the path, but here’s where I would start, and actually this is something that A coach years ago taught me and I love this and I don’t even remember their acronym. I wish I did but we’re gonna muddle our way through it. So you’re gonna take a piece of paper and you’re gonna make a line down the middle. Well, not even gonna do that yet. No, you’re gonna take a piece of paper and you’re gonna write everything that you do in a day. Every single thing from the moment you open your eyes till the moment you close your eyes at the end of the day kind of, you know, a few days in there, you know, and think about your week and you know, literally everything. I open my eyes. I turn off my alarm clock. I get out of bed. I brush my teeth. I want you to write down everything. This is going to sound really stupid, but it is what it is. You’re going to write everything down that you do. Then you’re going to get the next piece of paper and make a line down the middle. On one side, I want you to write the things you want to keep doing that only you can do. And on the other side, I want you to write things that you want to not do anymore. So you’re going to write on the left side of the column things that you’re going to keep. Obviously, turn off your alarms, probably going to still be you.

Matt Mulcock: Brush your teeth brush your teeth. Hope that’s still on the list.

Michelle Jorgensen: Probably still going to be you. But what on that list do you not want to do? this is one of those if there were a magic lamp and you could do anything you wanted, you know, just allow yourself to say, you know, do I like that? Like I said, I hate coaching. I despise it. Okay. So I keep trying to push coaching back on my to do list and my coach keeps saying, you hate that. Why are you doing that? True. Back over there. Nevermind. I’m not going to do that anymore. what do you not want to do? Like if there, if the world was perfect, what would you never do again? Would you never fold your laundry again?

Matt Mulcock: Yes Yes. No, I would not

Michelle Jorgensen: Okay. So that is on your do not do side, right? So you’re going to make your list of do not do things. What do you not want to do? And you could, I mean, you could make this just about business things. You know, you don’t have to put brush your teeth on there, but you know, you can just write everything you do from a business standpoint, or you can write everything you do from a family standpoint or whatever it might be. You can focus this in. So now you’re going to focus in, you’re going to fold that piece of paper in half. And all you’re looking at is the, I don’t want to do something. At this point, you are going to say, I’m going to eliminate some things I’m going to eliminate. What are you just going to take off that list? What things simply just aren’t necessary at all? ones are you going to delegate? So which ones are you going to tell somebody else to do? And which ones are you going to hire? And that is going to start you now on your path to success. making this new route, making this new you for only doing the stuff that you’re best at and you want to do. Now, how long is it going to take you to get that list eliminated, delegated, you know, hired? It could be a while, but then you’re going to go through and you’re going to circle the first one you’re going to do. All right, I’m going to start here right here. All right. I no longer am going to route my emails, answer my emails, you know, whatever it might be. I am no longer going to do that. Guess what I have now? I have an assistant that just routes my emails. My email inbox, I said, my happiest day is if my email inbox is zero. So you’re going to make my happy day all day long. So what thing just needs to not be on your list anymore?

Pick the first thing. And what you’re going to find, this is always what I’ve done, is I make these lists, what you’re going to find is the first one is so stinkin hard. Oh my gosh, it’s so hard. It’s hard to make yourself do it, it’s hard to stick to it, it’s hard to whatever. But when you do it, you go, Oh! That feels kind of good. It’s the old, if you’ve heard of Dave Ramsey and his snowball thing, you know, in fact, you probably do know about this. You’re kind of a finance guy. I forgot that. Um, you know, but it works in other things too, where you do the one thing and then you start to kind of feel good about it. And then you do the second thing and all of a sudden you’re gaining a little momentum. You’re like, I can do two things this week. And you’re gaining momentum because you’re seeing the value of the change. And the changes that you’ve already made open up space in your life to deal with the other stuff. So you’re seeing the momentum of that change happening. And before you know it, your life doesn’t even look like it looked before. And it didn’t mean because you knew where you were going, like you didn’t have this grand vision. Oh, I’m going here. No, no, no. You just decided, I hate to route emails. Well, guess what? There are people who love it.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, or people that you will at least do it to if you pay them for it

Michelle Jorgensen: But they love it. Usually, I mean, like, my, my assistant, she loves to write emails. She’s like, this is so fun for me. You get so many emails. I love it. Great.

Matt Mulcock: Like perfect. I hate it. So

Michelle Jorgensen: I love it. Yeah. And we, we think that we think because we hate to process emails, that everybody hates to process emails. That’s incorrect thinking. There are people that love it. There are people that love the things that we hate. That’s what makes the world go around. There’s somebody out there who loves to do the thing you hate to do. They love folding laundry, like they would fold laundry all day long.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. the two examples you gave are like perfect for me.

Michelle Jorgensen: Are yours? Okay. I want you to circle them on your list

Matt Mulcock: I’m just going to make the list. I really am. And those are going to be

Michelle Jorgensen: And Folding

Matt Mulcock: Yes. Near the top for me,

Michelle Jorgensen: There are people who love to do the both of those

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I love that. there’s so much here, Michelle I’m curious though, again, thinking for trying to think of like, whenever we see someone successful, we see the outcome. we see who you are now, right? And this process you’ve gotten to, we see that we see that final outcome. What are the trade offs you’ve had to make? What’s the cost to you along this way in the lessons learned? What’s been the cost of the lessons learned? Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: The cost I think that’s been most painful is I actually have to stop doing things that I’m pretty good at. And that’s really hard to do sometimes. I remember the very first time, I mean, I loved cosmetic dentistry and I like to think I was pretty good at it. And so I remember the very first time I treatment planned a beautiful smile design on and my care coordinator, because I told her to do this. Looked at me and she said we’ll get them scheduled for Dr. Larson for records for that and she told me later She pulled me out after later. She said I saw your face when I said that I said, yeah I had to swallow hard. I had to like wipe a little tear away, you know But I had trained him he was up to the task and I would be right there holding his hand And he was going to be as good and he became better than me, but I was good at it, you know, and it was hard to say, I’m going to give up something. I really am good at here. I actually am facing this right now. I really love seeing new patients. I love, we, we have a different kind of, practice philosophy where we really focus on health in our practice. And so I see people that come in, they’re crying and they have been to 10 different doctors and no one’s given them an answer. And, you know, when I can give them an answer and I can give them hope. And my team tells me that I sell hope more than anything, you know, I don’t sell doubtless. Dentistry, I sell hope, you know, and I’m like, I’m pretty good at this. So I can, I can tell hope all day long, man. Well, May 20th is my last day I’m ever going to see a new patient.

Matt Mulcock: Wow. And what, what determined that? Just, just because of everything else going

Michelle Jorgensen: Of my book.

Matt Mulcock: Got it. Got it.

Michelle Jorgensen: So I need to be open for whatever’s going to come next. And I have not, I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it is. It drives me a little crazy. I don’t know what it is, but I just need to make myself open for it. And I was just looking through the calendar and making sure all my days were off, you know, for 2025. And I saw that, that I had no more clinical days after May 20th. And I like, it hurts. I was like, Oh my gosh, am I really doing this? I’m really doing this. So I would say that that is the hard part is that sometimes you have to actually stop doing things that you’re good at because of a greater good because of something that is bigger for you. It’s more important for you. You know, a lot of parents will go through this where they go from working five days a week to four days a week to three days a week, you know, because they have kids at home and this is a season and that is more important to them. They may be the most amazing dentist on the planet, but the kid is more important in this season of life. So that’s, I think, probably the most painful lesson I’ve learned along the way is that I just have to not do it anymore.

Matt Mulcock: That is. So insightful, because I think it’s so easy to confuse this idea that because I’m good at it, or it feels good to do it means it’s wrong to drop it. But you’re saying it’s not, it’s not the case that that’s the requirement for this, the level of success or the, or the intentional life you’re living. That’s the requirement. I think that’s such an important lesson for people out there to listen to hear that just because you’re good at it doesn’t mean you still should be doing it. There’s reasons to not be doing it. I think that’s amazing. There’s so many threads to go down and I want to make sure we’re keeping this within time. We’re going to have to do another round of this if you would be open to it. I want to kind of close it up here, kind of start to close it out, because I want to talk about your book and the other adventures you have going on there’s so many amazing things you’re doing. But just the final kind of thread around dentistry, what do you say, what’s your response to dentists out there that say dentistry is no longer a viable career?

Michelle Jorgensen: I say they’re wrong. You might be doing it wrong. There’s ways to make it happen. The reason I believe that people are saying it’s not a viable career is because they’re not running it like a real business and they’re allowing people that actually know how to run a real business. in and take all the profit out of the business. That’s what a real business does. And so another company that knows what it looks like to take profit from a business to, you know, unfortunately a lot of these businesses have layers of people that require profit. There’s many people that need some of those dollars. So already, You have an advantage because there’s just you. You don’t have investors and a venture capitalist company that’s breathing down your neck that is requiring their dollars to you are the only shareholder in your company. So you have a huge advantage. What you need to do is if you’re saying this is not a viable option, you need to say really clearly, why am I not making enough? Am I not doing enough dentistry? Transcribed am I spending too much? where is this problem showing up? And that’s really something that a lot of people don’t understand is there’s two ways to make a business profitable, right? You can either do more dentistry, do more of business, or you can spend less while doing it. And most everybody focuses on the spend less while doing it part. Right? How can

Matt Mulcock: Opposed to growing

Michelle Jorgensen: 1 percent on supplies this month? Well, I’m sorry, but 1 percent is pennies.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: And if you spend a ton of effort on that 1%, that’s wasted effort because it could have been spent on the other side. So where I believe the future of dentistry is, is where you have to ask, what do people want? So this is actually very topical right now, because there has been a lot of talk right now about fluoride inside of dentistry. This has been very political. There have been political people talking about it. There has been new research coming out showing that there are dangers. There’s scientific studies showing that there’s issues with this. All across forums, I’m seeing this question being asked. People are saying, how are you defending fluoride? And I’m saying, why are you defending fluoride? Because now what you’ve done is you’ve set yourself up as on the opposite side of the line as your patients. Your patients are over here on this side of the line saying, I just want the best for my family. And this sounds scary. Literally, it says that my children’s IQ could drop because I feed them fluoride. And now you’re positioning yourself on the other side of the line saying that’s all wrong. That’s all wrong. Everything we’ve already said for the last a hundred years is absolutely correct. And you’re wrong because you’re telling me this. Well, I’m sorry, but that is not going to win any friends or business, setting yourself up on the opposite side of the line as just culture and population in general and what people want. So what I’ve said is what do people want from dentistry? They actually want us to partner with them. They want us to be on the same side of the line.

So you may come to the conclusion that the research isn’t accurate with fluoride. I don’t really honestly care what conclusion you come to as long as you do your due diligence and don’t just start parroting everything that you’ve heard forever. Spend a little time so when that patient comes in, you can say, you know what? I appreciate, I appreciate you being so concerned about your family. That means a lot. Can I share with you what I’ve learned as well? And let’s say we come to a happy place here so that we can really make sure that your kids stay safe. If you do that, guess who’s going to tell their five friends. about their dentist tomorrow.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: You don’t need a marketing company anymore. You are the marketing company because you have now positioned yourself as a partner with your patients. If all you talk about is money with them, you’re not a partner with them. If you talk about the things they care about, now you’re a partner with them. So to me, if all you’re going to look at is the bottom line and the dollars and cents and how much you can save on your impression material, then maybe it’s not viable.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: But if you can say, you know what dentistry actually has. a responsibility and an opportunity today to actually be a partner with our patients and to be a leader in the healthcare arena, your business will grow leaps and bounds and you will never have to look at the price of impression material again.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: So that’s why, that’s where I think the viability of dentistry is, is simply in learning where our responsibility is. It’s in helping our patients to be well. So that’s my whole platform right there.

Matt Mulcock: I love this. I mean, it’s so good, Michelle. And it backs up so many things that we’ve shared in the past. And I talked to clients about when it comes to this thing, cause it’s a scary world, right? DSOs and. What’s and dentistry is changing a lot. It’s really scary. And I want to emphasize that we understand that it’s scary. You know, this better than anyone with your experience of how scary it is out there and the desperation that can create, but the theme that I’m pulling out of this is you’re sharing all of this incredible wisdom is that if you shift your mindset around, you’re running a business, you just happen to be in dentistry. If you’re running a good business, there’s always a place for good business.

Michelle Jorgensen: You got it.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, everything you’ve shared has been so, like around that theme, which has been, been so incredible. I want to let the people know kind of what you’re doing now. Cause you’re, I guess I wanted to start this whole thing off with like, when someone asks what you do, what do you say? Because you’re not, I mean, you’re not. You’re not a dentist. You’re a business owner. You happen to be a dentist, but you, you’re a business owner and you, you’re dominating a business to just, what are you doing now? Of the things you can share. I know you’ve always got ventures going on. You mentioned your book. I want to, I want you to highlight that, but what are the things you’re doing now that have expanded in. Outside of just dentistry or maybe they’re a dentist adjacent in the healthcare space, but what are you doing now?

Michelle Jorgensen: It’s doing exactly what I just said. I got on the same side of the line as my patients. And I started listening to what they wanted. And they really wanted a partner in health care in general. And so we started providing multiple disciplinary care inside of our practice. We said, okay, you want this. You want somebody that can help with airway and breathing. All right, let’s learn how to do that. Let’s bring that here. Let’s figure out how to do that. So we started partnering with people and practitioners. It wasn’t me learning everything. I really truly believe that there’s no such thing as a super dentist, because a super dentist is not so super at something else. And most likely something suffering because of it. So I love bringing in specialists that are so much better than I am at things. So we started doing that inside of the dental practice and then people started saying things like, oh, you don’t, you don’t believe in fluoride. Okay. Well, what did, what do you believe in? Well, I believe in this, but I couldn’t find a product that was great at that. So I started a prize company. So that was just simply me and my kitchen. People say, oh, where, what lab do you formulate things in? It’s called my kitchen.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Michelle Jorgensen: I use my measuring cups and my measuring spoons, and I make the formula there, and then I find a manufacturer. Literally, this is what I’m going to be today, formulating an electrolyte group in my kitchen. Um, so, We have a products company called Living Well with Dr. Michelle and underneath that umbrella, this is crazy. And this is what I want people to listen to. We have a directory on that site. So livingwellwithdrmichelle.com site, there is a dentist finder, a dentist directory. We get over 30, 000 requests a month. For people looking for a dentist, just like you, quote unquote, that’s what they say. I want to find a dentist just like you. I said, well, great. Let’s find, let’s, let’s give you a database. So reach out to me and get on my database. If you will provide health based dentistry, if you will look at somebody’s health and say, I can help you with this, get on my database, literally 30, 000 patients. Some of the dentists on this will get five patients a week off of my directory.

Matt Mulcock: Wow.

Michelle Jorgensen: Get on the directory if you have interest in this. And along with that, I have a training academy. I have a mini residency for how to do health based dentistry, how to get on the right side of the line, how to get on the line, you know, the side that the patients are on, let’s get there. So then, because. Everybody is talking about health and they come in and now they think that I’m their physician. I thought, well, let’s go there, too. So that’s what my latest book is, and it’s titled Living Well with Dr. Michelle. I did not title it. the publisher did. And the caption, I always forget, is A Comprehensive Handbook for Optimal Health and Unlimited Energy. So that’s what the subtitle is, because now we’re saying, okay, Dentistry has a part to play in this. But there’s some other components as well that we need to show and bring in. And so the book will be released in May and we are opening what’s going to be called the cell well center. That’s all about how to keep yourselves well. And this will be bringing dentistry and medicine together because it’s needed to be together for a very long time. So we’ll also be doing training inside of that. Lots of things. If you want to find out about any of this, reach out. I’m happy to share. I hate coaching, so don’t ask me to coach you, but I have. But I have programs and people that will. So we can help because this is where the future of dentistry and medicine is going. So we might as well ride the wave.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah. Amazing, Michelle. So what’s the best way you said livingwellmichelle. com,

Michelle Jorgensen: Yep. Just living well with Dr. Michelle.

Matt Mulcock: Living well with Dr. Michelle. the book itself, it can be pre ordered now, correct?

Michelle Jorgensen: So please, please. Can I ask you a favor? Can I ask

Matt Mulcock: Yes, of course.

Michelle Jorgensen: Everybody that’s on here, I’m going to ask for your help and I will help you in return actually. So, uh, livingwellofdrmichelle. com forward slash pre order go pre order the book. I promise you, you’re going to love it. And then I’m going to teach you how you can utilize. I talk about sleep apnea, sleep, I talk about fluoride. I talk about remineralizing teeth. I talk about all sorts of things that are so topical to dentistry along with the rest of the body. Imagine that they’re connected. So I talk about all of it in there. You’re going to want to share this with your patients. You’re going to want to know what it’s talking about. So go pre order the book. That’s a huge help for me. And then I will go and give you a whole bunch of fun resources and free things that you can have and your patients can have as a thank you as well.

Matt Mulcock: Please go check it out. So the, by the time this comes out, it’ll be beginning of 2025. So plenty of time to go pre order, get this out there. Michelle, I can’t thank you enough. I mean, there’s, there’s, and I think people listening, I speak for them. The amount of knowledge you’ve shared in 60 plus minutes here has been. Truly incredible. And I think exactly what dentists need right now with the changing landscape that it feels like it’s changed pretty rapidly, like even in the last five years with how much private equity and DSOs have really just completely changed it. and what I’m feeling, and I think hopefully people, it’s hopefully it’s coming through is hope is this idea of like, Oh my gosh, there is this other way to do this. You are a living, breathing testament of this other way, even if at a different degree, people might out there listening, you may not be to the level of Dr. Michelle and this empire that she’s building. Cause you truly are, but there’s different levels to this that just get going on the path, that direction. So any, any.

Michelle Jorgensen: Step forward.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I love that. Any final words, Michelle, I’ll leave you last word on anything you want to, to share. final things here.

Michelle Jorgensen: Dentistry is a phenomenal career. We have an opportunity to change lives, not just drill on teeth and make them look prettier. We literally can change lives. And there’s honestly not a lot of businesses and not a lot of careers that we do have that great of an opportunity. So the good news is, is there are so many teeth and so many people. There is enough out there for everyone. And it’s all just about helping each other, who not how, helping each other get to where we want to go. There’s plenty for everybody.

Matt Mulcock: Love it. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Michelle. Everyone go check it out. Living well with Dr. Michelle. Michelle, thank you so much for being here. Everyone thank you so much for listening till next time. Take care. Bye bye.

Keywords: mindset evolution, introspection, coaching, positive communication, partnerships in dentistry, dentistry, business ownership, DSO, partnership, dental practice, financial coaching, productivity, personal growth, entrepreneurship

Getting Organized, Practice Management, Work Life Balance