Kiera shows listeners multiple places in life where there's likely opportunity for more balance, freedom, play, and ease by:

1. Maximizing the hours you already work.

2. Protecting your time like a CEO.

3. Empowering your team to own their roles.

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Transcript:

Kiera Dent (00:00 )

Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and I am so excited because I love this topic and I hate this topic and it's such a great one and all of you are gonna be so excited about it and it's work-life balance without sacrificing production. Yep, you better believe that it is true and I'm here to show you today how you can do this.

 

but I really hate this terminology of work-life balance. So if you're new to the Dental A Team, welcome, hello. I'm so excited to have you here. If you've been here with us for a long time, high five, hugs. I'm so grateful you've been a part of this journey and I'm so excited to share with you tips, tricks. ⁓ And again, remember, sometimes the greatest form of learning is remembering what you already know. So these might be tips that you've heard before, but hopefully today it hits you differently because no man who's walked through a river is ever the same man because he...

 

is not the same man and the river is not the same river. So you today, you're not the same person, you're not the same practice, you're not the same scenario. So wherever you are, I'm super excited for you to figure out how to get this like balance and bliss in your life. And I hope you're ready for it. So the reality is like, I used to feel, and I don't know where this came from, like, why do we feel that we always have to like grind like our nose to the brim? Like we have to work so hard and we have to just grind so hard to get to success.

 

that like you just hate your life. Like why is it, why is it this like busyness and this exhaustiveness and this tired to be successful? Like why, where? And so I do believe that you can have balance and performance that can coexist, that you can be productive and balanced. And so the reality is we're going to walk through some of these pieces for you to help you see where could I maybe strike a little more balance, a little more freedom, a little more play, a little more ease in my life.

 

And that's maybe the better term of like work-life balance is more ease. It's more flow. It's more, I think just intentional. And how can I do that? So you guys, I love this. think that you should be something that I'm really passionate about is work and life. I'm very passionate about you being the best version of yourself in your life. That way you can show up as the best version of yourself for work. do not believe, Tiff and I talk about this all the time. Like outside of Dental A Team public's eye.

 

all the time about how work and life are not separate. It's like we think about these two halves and it's like, no, it's one. You're one person. You're going through this and it's like, well, here's half of me that's work. Here's half of me that's life. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. How can I, Kiera, be the best version of myself that like feels balanced or ease or flow or calm or any of those things? Cause balance to me, don't love. Balance feels like I've got to like have my weight in front of me be equal.

 

⁓ But flow to me is like a river flows and sometimes it's faster and sometimes it's slower and all of that's correct. And so this is something where for you to be the best version of yourself, for you to still be productive at the office while being the best version of you, ⁓ I think is what today's podcast will be about. So this is something where it's like, if you feel you are stretched thin or overwhelmed or you don't know how to produce without overworking and if you stop or slow down and get off the hamster, well, you're afraid that it's all gonna crash and burn. Well, hi, I'm Kiera.

 

I'm your personal therapist today ⁓ and I'm here to help you realize that that's not the reality, that there's a better, easier way to do it. And I'm here to give you a couple of quick steps that hopefully will take you through that ⁓ because I was there, I've seen offices do it and we've helped offices, hundreds, like literally hundreds and thousands of offices get out of that hamster will.

 

and into the flow that they were looking for. Tiff said it once and she was like, imagine Phoenix traffic. If you've never been to Phoenix, we'll do Chicago traffic, we'll do Texas traffic. Like you name it, big city traffic. She's like, just imagine if you're sitting there and this is like your life and you're sitting there and you're in this bumper to bumper traffic. And then all of a sudden you see that like better than even like an HOV or carpool lane. Like there's just like the way it strikes me like a lucky charm. Like it's like, ah, like the angels are singing. It's this gold path over there or like the yellow brick road. And you're like,

 

say, well, like I could get out of this nonsense over onto that lane. And like everybody, there's no traffic. There's no slowing down. It is just this easy breezy, like truly like, hope you guys can visualize this like golden path road with gold light over it. And everybody on that road is just so happy. And yet you're sitting here hating your life because you're sitting in all this nonsense traffic. Well, that's kind of hopefully how this feels of like, let's teach you how to get over into that.

 

that lane that you didn't even know existed today and give you some tangible tips to that. So number one is going to be maximize the hours that you already work. So let's have it like, ⁓ we did this awesome thing ⁓ at a conference and ⁓ we're talking about this and this is so fascinating to me, okay? So in a given week, there's 24 hours in a day. Yes, everybody following? And there's seven hours or seven days in a week, okay?

 

So if we take that, I love some good numbers, I love some good math. So 24 hours in a day, and we have seven days in a week, that's 168 hours, all right, in a given week, okay? So now, let's say I'm gonna be really generous to you. We know, let's say, let's just, mean, Dennis, let's give you, like, we're gonna work 40 hours in a week. You might say I work more than that, that's okay. I'm just gonna subtract 40 right now, okay? So that leaves us with 128 hours in a week.

 

Now you're like, well, Kiera, we also have to sleep. I got you. I'm going to be real generous and I'm going to give you eight hours of sleep times seven days. That's 56 hours. None of you are out there probably sleeping eight hours. As you should be prioritizing this, I do not want to be scrimping on sleep because I think sleep is one of the most important things you can do for yourself. So we have 128 hours after the 40 hour work week. We've got 56 hours of sleep minus 128. That leaves us with 72 freaking hours a week. And my question is, what are you doing with those hours?

 

Now you might say, Carrie works 60 hours. Fantastic, you still have 52 hours if you're working a 60 hour work week, which I hope and pray you're not working 60 hours. So let's get it to where maybe I don't wanna be working even 40 hours and I would prefer to even work 30 hours. Well then if I gave you 30 hours, you're up to 82 hours a week of extra time. And people are like, Carrie, I don't have time, I don't have time. 72 hours, 72 in a week outside of sleeping and work.

 

Now you're like, well, I've got to make dinner and I've got the kids fine go for it, but there's still so many hours. And I, when I heard this, I was like, yeah, what am I doing with those 72 hours? Like, all right. So maybe I could do like an hour of workout every day. All right. So like, let me just put out like seven hours there. Like, okay, 72. Let's just take this down 72 minus seven hours. All right. I'm down to 65 hours. Well, you know, I've got to like, hang out with my kids. Like we're at soccer, we're at camp. Like that takes, okay. Count it up. How many hours? Like drive time and all