Nothing is better than a million dollar smile. As someone who attempts to find joy and happiness in all situations, I am often smiling, and I have to say, I get a lot of comments on the beauty of my smile. However, my smile did not come naturally. I must give credit to my dentist and good friend, Dr. Brad Bynum of North Valdosta Dental Care. I have been his patient for nearly thirty years, and besides being a maestro at oral care and cosmetic upgrades (trust me, you don’t want to see my “before” picture), he always asks me about recent technological trends. We talk at length about how technology is changing businesses of all types, and I notice that he always has the most current equipment, techniques, and an incredible staff to make it all work smoothly.
Earlier this year, I gave him a copy of my new book Grounded. A few days later, he emailed me from St. Lucia to tell me how excited he was about the content of the book, particularly how it relates to a business planning in advance for an unknown disaster (the “black swan”). I was back in his office several months later, and he had purchased two books for his children and asked me to autograph them. He wanted his boys, who were about to graduate college, to read Grounded and hopefully apply the lessons contained therein. Suffice it to say, Dr. Bynum is my number one fan.
I guess it’s not all that surprising that recently he told me he was attending a meeting where practice owners like himself get together to share ideas. Each of the members of this group bring an idea to the meeting to share with the others. Brad’s idea? Grounded! Yup, he bought ten books from me, which I signed, and he is taking them to the collaboration group! He will tell them how he specifically used the idea from Grounded to create a list of multiple vendors, which can be contacted for any critical business service. When he evaluated North Valdosta Dental Care, he realized that there is single air compressor that runs multiple types of equipment. Magnify that by the number of treatment rooms, and you can see how if one compressor went down, they would be out of business until it was fixed. That would mean tens of thousands of dollars for a practice like Dr. Bynum’s.
Now, he has a plan for how he would get the compressor fixed, and a backup for that plan. He will be sharing that concept with his collaboration group and give each of them a book. I can’t wait to hear how it goes. But hearing an example of how the concepts of Grounded get put into practice? Priceless!