Scott Leune: This podcast is sponsored by dentalmarketing.com, and they have agreed to give the listeners of this podcast a free competitive marketing analysis. This analysis is going to show you very clearly how your practice is doing compared to your competitors. It's going to give you the health of your SEO, it's going to give you a website grade, and you'll also see what your competitors are up to. This helps you know what ad strategy you should have today, how clean and effective is your marketing right now? Find out by getting this free and detailed analysis. Text the word marketing to 4 8, 6, 5, 9, and you'll receive this competitive analysis from our sponsor dentalmarketing.com. Do you ever feel burnout? Do you feel like you're having to go a hundred miles an hour while people are pulling on you? Your patients have needs, your team has needs, your family, your relationships, your health can feel like it's crumbling.

You ever feel kind of stuck in this pressure cooker, almost like you've got to survive the day, survive the week, and at the end you might be really busy, you might be accomplishing success as other people would say, but you just don't feel like you're there, like you're content, you're healthy, you're happy, it's just not quite where you want it to be. That's what this episode is about. On the dental CEOI have had the pleasure of connecting with Erin Stafford. She is an author, a social psychologist. She was the former head of marketing for the largest healthcare staffing company in the country. She was also earlier a celebrity stylist, worked for MTV, she had to manage staffing for 50,000 clinicians, and she's written the Type A Trap, which is a book that we all need to read. She is an expert in becoming a high growth leader and avoiding burnout at the same time. This is the dental CEO podcast. All right, Erin. So thank you again for joining us on the Dental CEO podcast, and I have been actually very excited to talk about what you are an expert in. I think that it's going to speak to the hearts of so many people listening to this, but before we do that, if anyone's never heard of you or followed you yet, could you take a little bit of time right now and explain who you are, what you do, where's your area of expertise?

Erin Stafford: Yeah, so right now, I mean, I'm one of those people that's had about 15 different careers. I am like wear all the hats, do all the things, try all the things in life, but I'm a speaker, professional speaker and author. I wrote a book called The Type A Trap. It's all about preventing and overcoming burnout and staying at peak performance. My background is really diverse, but it's all been in advertising, marketing, media and communications. I was a celebrity stylist in Hollywood. I was an MTV advertising executive and a number of other things, but for the last six years, I was the head of marketing for the largest healthcare staffing company in the country. Worked there all throughout the pandemic. We were a hypergrowth $11 billion company. We grew 27 x during the time that I was there, I led a very large team. I had about 75 people on my team that I grew from just four when I started, and I managed probably eight or nine different brands while I was there.

So big operation, as you can imagine, doing travel nurse staffing during the pandemic was its own special kind of hell, but obviously incredibly rewarding and amazing work, but stressful. So now, I mean, I had my own burnout story, but all through the pandemic, we were trying to keep our 50,000 clinicians happy and motivated, trying to keep our 7,000 corporate employees motivated and excited, and I was trying to keep myself and my team excited and motivated and not burnt out. And so I had my own burnout story and spent the last few years just really diving into peak performance and how do people stay at a level of peak performance without burning out. And so now I talk about that on stages all over the world,

Scott Leune: How to stay at peak performance without burning out. I can't help but think of dentists and especially the CEO, the entrepreneurial dentist. We have this pressure to have a full schedule and to have it more full and to go faster while doing perfectionist level work and also somehow having to manage a team, manage people, manage the finances, and be profitable enough to live up to our expectations in life. And then we go home and now we're going to get beat up by non-dental life. And so man, I really want to dive in deep. So you talk about the Type A Trap was your book. Where would we find this book, by the way?

Erin Stafford: You can find it on Amazon. You can find it at Barnes and Noble. You can find it pretty much wherever you buy your books, but Amazon's a sure shot.

Scott Leune: Okay, so what's a topic or what's a lesson from that book? What prompted you to start writing about this?

Erin Stafford: Well, I probably, like many of the people listening to this have always lived my life through this mantra of if I work hard, I win. And if I don't win, I didn't work hard enough, I will accomplish anything and everything under the sun because I will literally outwork everybody. I will just do more, get another certification, another credential, take the class, go to the seminar, make the introductions, meet the people. I will figure out a way to make things happen. But eventually that catches up with you. And I honestly thought that burnout was just a load of bs. I thought it was something that happened to people who couldn't get their lives together, who couldn't focus. I was like, oh, you're burnt out. Okay, take a nap and figure your life out. We don't have time for burnout. And then it happened to me and I realized that I really had to start making some changes because I had the great job.

I was making great money, I was working for an amazing company, and I had this moment where I was just like, I am so miserable. I don't feel good. I feel dead inside on paper and on LinkedIn and Instagram, everything looks great, but I'm not happy. I'm not feeling good about myself. I feel dead. I don't feel excited. I'm not engaging with my friends and people I used to. I just felt like something was wrong. And so I started really digging into this notion of it's this type a trap as type, a's motivated, driven achievers. It's great. On the one hand, it helps us accomplish incredible things in our lives, but at some point it's also kind of a trap because we always want more. We're never happy, we're never satisfied. The bar and the goalpost continues to get moved, and so it can be this relentless chase of constantly this achievement, addiction that we just are so addicted to. We just want more and more and more of it and eventually catches up with you.

Scott Leune: I love that I am miserably successful. What an oxymoron. I'm miserably successful. When you talk about moving the goalposts, I've got five kids and oh my goodness, most of them are little still. And I think about when I'm teaching one of 'em to swim and I kind of secretly back up. I move myself as the goalposts,

Erin Stafford: And

Scott Leune: Eventually they get tired and they get mad and they know what I've done and they don't accept it yet. Somehow we move our goalposts and we do accept that. We just keep doing it. What are some, well,

Erin Stafford: Yeah, once we hit a goal, we're instantly, how do we do it bigger, better, and faster and cheaper next time?

Scott Leune: Yeah. What are some symptoms of burnout?

Erin Stafford: Yeah, so I mean there's a lot, but in my research we've really come up with 13 universal signs of burnout. And so those start with exhaustion, dreading irritability, physical pain, poor choices, lack of motivation, isolation, hopelessness, lower self-esteem, lack of creativity, an inability to escape. I think that's a really crucial one for high performers because we are famous for going on vacation and staying on our phones and constantly checking emails and voicemails and being on date night, but not being present or at your kid's soccer game, but you're not really watching. So this inability to turn it off and to escape. So those are a few of the warning signs, but they can also show up in simpler ways. Just doing the mouse jiggle when you're at your desk and you're not really there, so you just sort of jiggle the mouse. So it looks like you're still active on teams.

For our friends who are working in offices who are maybe not have their hands in people's mouths all day long, things could snapping at people more than usual. Or I was even doing super shady stuff on a Friday. I would send an email being like, Hey, John, please see attached. And I wouldn't attach squat to that email because I hadn't done the work because I couldn't focus. So I was just sort of buying myself the weekend to get it done. And then on Monday I'd be like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I forgot to attach the thing, like shady stuff. But it shows up in so many different ways.

Scott Leune: And so this burnout, it's like the business is pulling us in, or at least we think it is, right? And we feel compelled to give more. And what's terrible is we've almost made that something that we respect in people like, oh, they've got so much grit. They're such a hard worker. Just work hard and just have the grit to get through the pain and you will be successful. What does life look like when we put water on that we're not burning when we're not acting like that? How does life look to be successful but to not work extra hard, to not put in the extra hours?

Erin Stafford: Well, here's the thing. No, CEO, no high achiever is going to go from a hundred to zero overnight. That's not feasible. It's not going to happen. I'm not saying you need to change and have some four hour morning routine and meditate for six hours a day. That's not feasible. It's not going to happen. We're high achievers. We're people that are moving and shaking and doing stuff, but how can we incorporate little moments of peace into our day? So I have a number of steps I talk through. One is like just do less. How do we just do less of the stuff that drains us, drains our time, drains our energy, drains our resources, and how do we do just a little bit more of the things that get us excited, make us happy, make us feel good? Because we all have busy jobs. We all have busy lives. We can't just take six week vacations whenever we feel like it. And even if you, if you don't change any of your mindsets or your behavior, that's six week vacation, which I realize is like, I'm exaggerating, but that's not going to change squat because you're just going to come back to your job and have all of the same issues that you've had before because we haven't shifted our mindsets, we haven't shifted our behavior, we haven't changed anything in our lives. Does that make sense?

Scott Leune: Yeah. It kind of reminds me of this notion that says if you work really hard at something you don't like, that's stressful. If you work really hard at something that you do like that's passion and can fuel you. And so what I hear you saying maybe is like, okay, the things that are not and not enjoyable, how about we don't do so many of those? Right? Not productive. Not enjoyable.

Erin Stafford: Exactly. I have this thing I call calendar strip poker where I'm just like, how do we just take one thing off of our calendar every week? Coco Chanel has this famous quote where she says, before you leave the house, take one thing off, and she's talking about dressing with accessories. Life less is more. I just say, before you start your week, take one thing off. Is there one small thing on your calendar that you can take off? Now clearly you're not going to cancel your patience, of course not. But what else is on your calendar? Do you have plans three nights this week and it's stressing you out? Can your kid carpool the soccer practice with somebody else? Is there a meeting that could really be an email? Is there a project that you could offload to somebody else and give them an opportunity to shine because it's not really in your wheelhouse or your skillset or your area of expertise is there maybe just a little guilt you can take off your plate this week, or a little shame you can get off your shoulders. So how can we just take one little thing off of our calendar and start to create these little pockets of peace, these little moments of joy, these little moments of proactive rest that help us get through our days and our weeks so we're not just slammed from morning until we fall into bed every single night?

Scott Leune: Yeah. I think too of my decision to never start my day before 9:00 AM because I wanted to be able to drop my kids off to school every morning. I felt like I had a better day and they had a better day if we started that way. But it's hard for these dentists many times to say, you know what? I am going to cut an hour off clinically so I have more free time. What I sometimes see them do is they'll cut an hour, but they don't do anything with the hour that brings them fulfillment and they end up just staying anyway, right? They end up just filling that extra time with extra busyness. It's not productive. So what are your thoughts around replacing these burnout hours with a different type of activity? Or is that something we schedule? Is this a calendar based strategy? How does that work?

Erin Stafford: There's a number of ways you can do it. I mean, I always say you have to commit to less so you can show up more, show up more for the things that matter, the things that move you, the things that excite you. Like you just mentioned, you've committed to less. You're not working before 9:00 AM so that you can show up more for your kids and take 'em to school. It's important for them. It's important for you. So how do we proactively do that? Yeah, calendar the stuff in is a great start, but I also like to remind people just what are some small moments of joy in your life? What are those little things that make you happy and get you excited? It could be cuddling on the floor with your dog every morning for 15 minutes. They're all cute and sleepy in the morning, or maybe they're a wild maniac because you have a puppy.

Maybe it's savoring that first cup of coffee. Maybe it's savoring that, jumping on the trampoline with your kids. What are those small little moments of joy that you can incorporate more into your life? Because all of these little things add up to filling us up and rejuvenating us and getting us excited again throughout our days and our weeks. I think so often as leaders, as motivated, driven, accomplished people, we think we have to do these huge big things. We have to have a self-care day or a whole week, or we have to go on a vacation. No, I mean, that's great. Sure, you can do that too, but it's the small little moments throughout your day that really help refuel you and add up to making you feel better, more excited, more engaged in your day and in your life. So what are some of those small moments of joy? How do you have more gratitude for what you do have in your life? There's so many different ways that I preach about just taking time to find those little moments of joy, those little things, and scheduling them into your day. Taking one thing off of your calendar.

Scott Leune: So if I'm this very busy dentist, I'm resentful. I'm hating my job, I'm almost hating the dentistry. It's just so tiring. My body is breaking down. I'm having to go a hundred miles an hour. I don't have the energy for anything outside of dentistry. So maybe if I show up a little bit late, I just insert my kids in the morning. Maybe my lunch is a little longer so I have time for nothing, time for regrouping. Maybe I decide to extend all of my appointments by an extra 10 minutes just so that I'm not running. Maybe I'm getting off an hour earlier every day and maybe I'm getting a massage once a week. And none of those things are dramatic by themselves, but the combination creates this dramatically different feeling of having a

Erin Stafford: Hundred percent, and then maybe you just turn the music off when you're driving to work, turn the podcast off. I think we always think we have to be productive every single second of the day, but do you ever just give yourself a moment of quiet, of silence? You don't have to meditate. You could literally just turn all the things off while you're driving to work for those whatever it is, 5, 10, 20 minutes, hour. I don't know where you work. I don't know how long your commute is, but just turn the music off. We don't ever give ourselves enough time to just be quiet. This is why meditation works, but you don't to do some fancy meditation, just turn the music off. It is incredible. What happens when we give ourselves time to just be quiet. All of a sudden our nervous system relaxes. We start coming up with solutions to problems and issues that maybe we've been struggling with because now we finally just have a moment to sort of think and daydream and fantasize and let your mind wander. It's so simple, but it has such a profound impact on your day.

Scott Leune: So you're an expert also in hyper productivity or hypergrowth highest level of productivity without the burnout. So it's almost like what we've been talking about on one hand is let's build space so then be intentional about space so that we're not running a hundred miles an hour all the time. But what if we look in the other side of that coin and say, well, when we do want to run, how do we run a hundred without breaking down? And you've said fuel your fire. What does that mean? Fuel your

Erin Stafford: Fire? Yeah. I mean, for me, it's really making sure that when we are having those sprints, that they are sprints. We are not running a hundred miles an hour or going full out all day every day for the rest of our lives until we die. It's not sustainable. It's not healthy. So yes, of course we're going to have periods of time whether you're opening a new practice and opening a new location, you're adding a new service or a new whatever, or you've got a new baby or family stuff that's exhausting and causing you to taking up a lot of your time. We're always going to have those moments in our life, and sometimes they're short sprints and sometimes they're a little longer. But how do we then counteract those sprints with some scheduled intentional downtime, whether that's a day off, whether that's an afternoon off, whether that's a weekend away, whether that's a long trip away, whether that's making that 60 minute meeting, a 50 minute meeting and giving yourself those 10 minutes back to get a coffee and go to the bathroom.

What a concept you actually get to eat and run to the restroom in more than one second. How do we schedule in some of that time so that when we are sprinting, when life is getting challenging, that we are proactive about adding in that rest? There's a great study out of Gartner that says, when we are proactive about resting, we're actually 26% more productive. So yes, when we are going a hundred miles an hour and we got a lot going on, we can actually be more productive if we can be intentional about building in little moments of rest throughout those days and those weeks, even during the sprints, even when we are pushing hard.

Scott Leune: Yeah, you'd think if we're so desperate for rest, for order for less pressure, that would be such a priority for us to make time for. But it's also the thing that makes no noise. No one's ringing alarm bells saying, Scott, slow down because all the noise is saying, Scott, speed up. Right?

Erin Stafford: Well, and society rewards you for burning out. Basically, they reward you. They're like, oh my God, he does it all. He's working so much. You mentioned it earlier, like, oh wow, he's really grinding it out. His business is thriving. He's got five kids. He's doing this, he's doing that. Everything looks great on paper and on Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever you choose. But then you have a heart attack, you get a divorce, you have some horrible thing happen. God forbid. I'm not saying for you, but I mean, we see this happen all the time. The otherwise super healthy, really successful person all of a sudden getting divorced, having a heart attack, getting a cancer diagnosis, some horrible thing that shocks them into being like, oh God, I've really been pushing myself too hard. My whole thing is like I don't want people to get to that point before they realize they've got to be proactive about resting, be proactive about incorporating some of these practices into their days and their weeks so that they can sustain the peak performance, and it doesn't take some horrible thing to knock them off their feet or completely change their world before they wake up and realize that this constant push for more, it isn't necessarily ambition, but it's addiction and it can lead to devastating consequences if we're not careful about how we manage it.

Scott Leune: Wow, so much wisdom right there, and I think a whole lot of us have felt a version of what you just said. I've got a question for you. You've mentioned something in your work called the spark effect. What is the spark effect?

Erin Stafford: The spark effect is really just how do we create that spark in our lives? I think so often as leaders, we are so focused on managing our teams, focused on growth, focused on the bottom line, revenue focused on every single thing else in our lives, except what fires us up, what gets us excited, how can we rekindle that spark? I know you've mentioned that as dentists, sometimes you're so bogged down in the day to day that you lose speed and excitement for why you even started doing this in the first place. What got you into dentistry in the first place? It probably wasn't because you were dying to balance the books and order supplies and hire people and all the other things that you have to do and all the other hats you have to wear. So how do we continue to tap into those resources and those feelings of what got us excited in the first place about the work that we're doing, and how do we rekindle that spark in us throughout the days and weeks so that we have ways to remind ourselves of why we're even doing this in the first place

Scott Leune: When we swim with our head in the water, sometimes we put our head out and we've ended up in the wrong spot. So how in our journey, what do we do to get our head out of the water and make sure that we're resetting our direction, that we aren't getting, we're not succumbing to addiction instead of ambition? Is this a quarterly come to Jesus meeting I have with myself or with my partner? Or how does this work? What do I do to try to have some sort of framework or structure that says, Hey, Scott, every now and then you need to reconsider everything. Reset everything. Make sure you're going the right

Erin Stafford: Direction. Yeah, so I mean, there's a number of ways that we can do that. Obviously people journal. People will create plans for their year, or maybe it's a vision board that's not really my jam. I think a lot of people go big on January 1st and then they kind of forget about everything that they wrote or planned for the rest of the year, and then January comes around again. They're like, oh, I'm going to have all these big plans and visions. So one of the things that I like to do is create a theme song for myself. So what is a song that you love that every time you hear it, it fires you up? It puts a smile on your face, it gets you excited. For me, one of them is Dixie Chicks Wide open spaces. I love me some country music, love those girls.

It's a song that just makes me smile, and it's all about having wide open spaces, the world's ahead of you, blah, blah, blah. And so one of the things that I love to do is pick a song that fires me up and then listen to that song regularly. Maybe it's once a week, you play it on your way to work. Maybe it's once a month you listen to it, but while the song is playing, have a little check-in with yourself and think through the different buckets of your life, whether it's your health, wealth, family, fitness, fun, philanthropy, spirituality, your kids bucket list items you can create whatever things are important for you. I mean, those are just a few that I can think of. And then when you hear the song, think to yourself like, okay, how am I doing on my fitness? Well, I haven't been really working out as much. Probably been drinking too much wine. Maybe let's have a little check in there. Maybe it'd be good to sign up for a couple personal personal trainer appointments, so get me re-fired up or whatever. Maybe you're neglecting your relationship and it's like, okay, gosh, I really need to make time for date nights. Even if it's once a month, that needs to be a priority. I've been neglecting it and our relationship suffering for it, whatever it is. But I love this notion because it's simple. You don't have to physically do anything. It's just something to think through in your head, and it's so rare that we actually take time to check in on where we are in our lives. We just get so caught up in this treadmill of waking up, getting the kids ready, dropping 'em off, going to work, coming home, blah, blah, and then we get up and we do it all again the next day.

We forget why we're doing all of this in the first place. We can just get on this machine and hopefully your business is doing well and it feels good. It's addicting. When business is good, it feels good, but it can't just be about the business. We all have so many other parts of our lives that are important, and if all we're doing is focusing on the business and neglecting every other part of our life, that's going to be a sad, miserable, unhealthy life. And you're going to get to the point where you're, like I said earlier, you're really successful, but you're miserable or you're super unhealthy and nobody wants that. So pick a theme song, listen to it once a week, once a month, and while you're doing it, just go through those different areas of your life and sort of have a little check-in with yourself. Just a simple, quick, free, easy and fun way to remind yourself why you're doing everything.

Scott Leune: Yeah, I love that. It also makes me think about my story. Anytime I wanted to kind of do something or accomplish something or change something I've always done best when I had a personal trainer help get me fit, or I had someone that was almost like a coach of mind,

Erin Stafford: A coach or a mentor.

Scott Leune: So it kind also keeps me accountable to myself to what I said I'm going to do, so that these loud distractions of this busyness, of this burnout don't suck me in and make me delay or put off all those other

Erin Stafford: Things. Well, they always say, when you pay attention, if you're paying for a personal trainer, you're going to show up because they'll charge you if you don't show up. And you're like, well, I don't want to waste the however much money it was. So when you pay attention,

Scott Leune: Also, that song idea is so cool. I have this necklace that I wear almost every day. It's a reminder to me every time I touch it, a reminder of me to be more giving. It's actually a might from back when Jesus was apparently alive, and it's about a story in the Bible. The widows might, anyway, every time I touch it, it reminds me, give more, be more patient, be more giving, right? It's like trying to trick myself into becoming who I want to become with this constant reminder. I kind of think about that with your idea, with this song. It's like I read somewhere, we spend an average of 27 hours preparing for a large family vacation. I don't think people will spend 27 hours preparing for their next year of life. Your song idea is putting the hours in, reminding ourselves to think about and reassess and tweak our small moments of decision making so that we can make room for our

Erin Stafford: Life. Well, yeah, and maybe you're kicking ass in one area of your life and you feel really good about it. Okay, cool. Congratulations, pat yourself on the back, but let's now check in on the other parts of our lives, and maybe those need a little bit of attention. Maybe you can back off this one area that's doing really well for a little bit and focus your attention elsewhere. And one of the buckets I think is important is fun. Are you having fun in your life? Is your business fun? Are your friends fun? Are you having fun with your partner or your family? Are you going on vacations? Are you playing sports that you enjoy? Are you cooking? If that's your thing, are you having a dance party in your kitchen because it brings you joy? Joy? Are you having fun in your life? Because that's got to be a part of this equation as well. It can't just be all of the obligations that we have to do. That's why I have fun as one of the buckets of my life that I check in on, and yeah, am I having fun? It's important.

Scott Leune: Awesome. Well, we are out of time, but I've got a couple more questions for you for people to contact you. So Erin, if they want to learn more about you, where would they go on social media? Where would they go online to find out more about you?

Erin Stafford: Yeah, the quickest place is Erin stafford.com. That's my website. You can find out all about me as a speaker. My background, my book, you can connect to all my socials there, but I am on LinkedIn at Erin Stafford and Instagram, Erin m Stafford. Geez, let me say that again. Erin m Stafford. How many times have I said my own name?

Scott Leune: Perfect. And Erin? It's ERIN and then Stafford, S-T-A-F-F-O-R-D.

Erin Stafford: Correct? Yes.

Scott Leune: Okay, awesome. Well, Erin Stafford, the Type A trap book and author, social psychologist expert in becoming a hypergrowth leader, and you are a burnout survivor and oh my God, so much wisdom. You have no, well, you probably do, but I'm going to say it anyway. You have no idea how on point you are in describing how we in dentistry feel and what we struggle with, and I love the real tools that you gave us on this short little time we had together. I cannot thank you enough. Is there any last thing you would like to say to our listeners before we wrap this up?

Erin Stafford: I just want to remind you that it is possible to have a life that not only looks good on LinkedIn and Instagram, but also feels good. It just requires a few small tweaks. All of these little things genuinely add up to make a huge difference in your life. So it doesn't have to be one or the other, be successful or not burnt out. You can genuinely have a life that looks good and feels good.

Scott Leune: Oh, I love it. Thank you so much. Honestly, I mean, what you've given to us is a gift for our industry and dentistry. We need to talk about this, and no one is, I really appreciate you doing that for us. I hope that you get more involved in dentistry and in medicine with this topic because we're ready. We're ready

Erin Stafford: Here. Trust. I've given you guys enough money in this mouth. Let me tell you, I was not blessed with healthy teeth and I've spent a lot of money on 'em, so I am a firm contributor to your industry.

Scott Leune: Yeah, well, I love it. Well, please keep giving us money and wisdom. That would be great. But anyway, I want to thank you so much. Everyone reach out to Erin Stafford to learn more, buy the book, the Type A Trap. Erin, I hope we cross paths. Again, I, again, really appreciate your time and this was the Dental CEO podcast. Thank you. Thank you, Erin.

Erin Stafford: Thank you.