Blog - Page 52 of 310 - The McAnally Selling System

Is Dentistry a Healthy Dental Field to Work In?

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Does dentistry count as a healthy field to work in? Parts of it are, and parts of it are not, and you get to choose which side you stand on. A field is healthy when you provide something people genuinely want and need, you do it at a high level, and that good work also rewards you with career advancement and real economic security. When those two things line up, you are in a healthy field. Plenty of professions let you make an enormous amount of money while you struggle to find anything good in what you actually do. That is [...]

Is Dentistry a Healthy Dental Field to Work In?james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Operational Traits: Build Your Practice on Reality

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Do operational traits change between work and home for a dentist? No, and that is what makes them so useful to plan around. Operational traits are not personality and not intelligence. They are how you instinctively approach doing things, and they hold steady whether you are in the operatory or in your kitchen. Personality can shift with coaching, environment, and the people around you. These deeper traits do not. You can override them under extreme duress, sure, you can force yourself to work against your nature when the pressure is on, but the moment the pressure lifts, you snap right back [...]

Operational Traits: Build Your Practice on Realityjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Selling Skills and Happiness for Dentists

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Can selling and marketing skills make a dentist happier, not just richer? They can, and this surprises a lot of doctors. You run a professional services business, and the way you sell and market is how you adapt as the profession shifts under you. Patients' wants and needs change, technology changes, the market changes, and the practice that adapts successfully is the one that keeps finding fresh ground. That ongoing adaptation is exactly where the science says happiness lives, in the change itself, not in some fixed destination. So when you sharpen how you present cases and attract patients, you are [...]

Selling Skills and Happiness for Dentistsjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Office Noise and Stress in a Dental Practice

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How does noise in the office affect happiness and performance? Uncontrolled noise quietly works against you. The happiness research flags it as a clear negative effector, and the key word is uncontrolled. When you have no control over the noise around you, it raises your cortisol and wears on your systems over time. That is real physiological cost, not just annoyance. I call these things no-brainers. If a condition is dragging on your wellbeing and you can easily fix it, then fix it, because you know you will get more happiness out of it. Look hard at your operatories and your [...]

Office Noise and Stress in a Dental Practicejames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Flow in Dentistry: Do More Work You Enjoy

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How does doing procedures I enjoy make me a happier dentist? It puts you into flow, and flow is one of the strongest drivers of satisfaction we know of. The researcher who studied this for fifty years documented why it matters so much. Here is the simple version. There are procedures you genuinely enjoy doing and procedures you tolerate. When you sell better and market better, you get to do more of the ones you enjoy, and more of that work means more flow and more day-to-day happiness in the practice. That is not a soft perk. It is a real [...]

Flow in Dentistry: Do More Work You Enjoyjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Happiness Is the Journey: A Dentist’s Mindset

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why is happiness about the journey and not reaching a goal? Because it is wired into your biology. The chemistry of your brain is extremely sensitive to change, not to arrival. You see it everywhere, in drugs, in disease, in mood. Anything that shifts that chemistry and lets you sense that something is different is what registers as happiness. There is no tank you fill up once and then sit there content forever. It does not work like that. Happiness lives in the incremental steps, the small changes along the road, never at the place where the journey stops. For a [...]

Happiness Is the Journey: A Dentist’s Mindsetjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Voluntary Activities: A Dentist’s Path to Happiness

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why do voluntary activities matter most for a dentist's happiness? Because they are the part of happiness you have the most control over. Your set point is fixed and many of your conditions are stuck, but voluntary activities are wide open. The research is clear that these move the needle: physical exercise, anything from a walk around the block to an Ironman, learning new skill sets, picking up a procedure or rebuilding a car or learning an instrument, meditation, volunteering, and real face-to-face social time. Even vacations count, though the surprise is that planning and anticipating a trip can deliver as [...]

Voluntary Activities: A Dentist’s Path to Happinessjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

The Happiness Formula Every Dentist Should Know

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Is there a formula for happiness a dentist can actually use? There is, and I find it genuinely useful. Peer reviewed research landed on this: happiness equals your set point, plus your conditions, plus your voluntary activities. The set point you are born with and cannot move. Conditions are partly fixed, things like circumstances you were born into, and partly changeable, like where you live or your relationships. The third term is the one that should grab your attention. Voluntary activities are everything you choose to do or not do, and they are where you hold the most power. So if [...]

The Happiness Formula Every Dentist Should Knowjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Money and Happiness: The Truth for Dentists

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Does making more money actually make a dentist happier? Not the way most people assume. Everyone believes that more stuff equals more happiness, but the science does not back that up. We are each born with a happiness set point, and a landmark study showed that no matter what good or bad circumstances hit us, we tend to drift back toward that set point over time. Some people are born high on the scale, some average, some low. So the dentist who thinks the next jump in income will finally make him content is usually disappointed, because he migrates right back [...]

Money and Happiness: The Truth for Dentistsjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Hire for Traits You Lack as a Dentist

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Should I hire for the traits I personally lack as a dentist? Yes, and this is one of the smartest moves you can make. Once you honestly know your own tendencies, you can hire to cover the gaps. Take follow-through. If you are a doctor with weak follow-through, and plenty are, do not promise yourself you will magically get better at it. You will not. Hire someone whose natural wiring is to chase things to completion, then give that person real authority and real support so they can follow through on your behalf. That last part trips people up. They hire [...]

Hire for Traits You Lack as a Dentistjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

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