As the holiday cheer permeates our day-to-day, know that that same kind of energy and excitement can be found in your practice year-round! Kiera talks traditions, countdowns, and culture from a dentistry perspective.

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Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and it's Christmas Eve. You guys know that I'm obsessed with holidays. I'm obsessed with this time of year. I'm obsessed with just so many fun things. And I hope you guys are like, yes, listen to the podcast. Sure. But I hope that more than that, you're hanging out with your families. And if you don't celebrate the holidays, I hope you're taking this time to celebrate you and to just be there with you. guys, I just love the holidays. think that Christmas is more than just about

 

present and like those traditions and all of that. I think it's just like the anticipation of what's coming next. And I think one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is like the excitement that we feel leading up to it. My husband and I were on a really fun trip this year, but we had to plan the trip in like two weeks and I actually missed the anticipation leading up to it. So with the holidays, I feel like every single year we get this anticipation, we get this gift, we get this same excitement that

 

I really do hope that you guys are feeling that same excitement that hopefully you're feeling for Christmas Eve tonight, going into the excitement into your dental offices for 2026. Like just think about it, you guys, we are about to wrap a bow on 2025, roll into 2026. And I think that energy, that excitement, that fun, that zest, this is really what brings the magic of the season. This is why the holidays are so special. It's time for us to sit back. It's time for us to reflect. It's time to get out of our routines. And I really just hope that you guys are giving yourself the greatest gift of anticipation.

 

but I hope that it's anticipation with a thought out plan. I know there can be anticipation for Christmas when I have not thought about family and it is a frantic scramble. And if you are that office for 2026, I would encourage you to not be that office. There are better ways where I actually like to have our entire year gets wrapped up by December 15th so I can go into the holidays, have a good time. ⁓ I like to have my Christmas gifts all bought usually around.

 

Halloween. I like to just have it done and out of the way. And I would hope that the anticipation of how great the year is going to be how great the holidays will be how excited you are for people to get this rather than in the frantic scramble because both can be anticipation both can be great gifts. But I hope that you're giving yourself the gift of like true joy and anticipation of the excitement of the year to come rather than the frantic frazzles. So guys, if you don't know me, I'm Kiera Dent. ⁓

 

founder and CEO of Dental A Team. love all things dentistry. I love helping dentists and their teams find happiness. Life is my passion, dentistry is my platform, and truly to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. Like this is something where I just hope that teams and doctors have excitement for what's ahead and that your team and you feel energized and not exhausted. And if you feel exhausted, that's okay. We've got solutions for you and I'm here to help you with that ⁓ because

 

I really do believe that you and your team can crush it. And as we're on Christmas Eve, you guys, my family is so fun. Jason said when he joined our family that Christmas and the holidays were just a good time. Like it has always been so magical. ⁓ Christmas Eve, we're going to be hanging out with family. And it's been fun because we shifted it up. I was selfish. And for the first several years of our marriage, I was with my siblings because my little sister is 15 years younger than me. And so

 

I really want to be a part of my siblings' lives. I wanted to be there and be close to them. And Jason was so accommodating. He was the youngest of his family. And so all of his siblings were grown, that we went to my family for so many years. So Christmas Eve with his family is very different. And the anticipation and the excitement, I was a little disappointed last year when we were with his family versus my family, but it was so fun. And we were able to make new traditions and...

 

we were able to create fun things and his dad, I made his parents who are much older, they Jason has a complete accident, ⁓ do family Christmas pajamas and matching with us and to be able to create new memories and new holidays. And I really do think that the energy and excitement and the love that we feel at this time of year can be something that you can also do with your own practices. So ⁓ I think that like,

 

getting anticipation with clear goals is going to be super, super beneficial for you guys. just like when we were kids and counting down the Christmas, teams also can get excited with this countdown to goals and to what's coming up and what the vision for 2026 is. And so I just really would encourage you right now, if you haven't done it or it's in the process, create goals and topics and conversations that your team can get super jazzed and excited about. Having a vision, having a fun year.

 

Every year I theme my year and you guys it's not too late. Like we're only on December 24th. You still have like a week before this year is over. So take the time, give yourself a theme, something to look forward to, something that you and your team can anticipate with excitement and counting down ⁓ of clear annual goals, clear quarterly goals, and then like celebrate those milestones as they come up. Like when we hit them, what are we doing to celebrate?

 

and have countdowns and visual trackers just like we have advent calendars. In my family, my mom was awesome. There were seven kids in my family and each of us had an advent calendar where we'd count down the days to Christmas. And I think, why don't we bring that fun, that zest, that excitement into our teams? Why are we sitting here like, hey, we hit production. No, like let's add the spice, let's add the fun. I think teams get really excited. People are like, what is different about Dental A Team over other consulting companies? And I'm like, what's different is we bring fun and excitement and get results.

 

That's what's different. Like why not make your practice a little more fun? So I think that you guys could build like a gold tree in December where every like scheduled case you get is an ornament and it can be super, super fun. Like you guys don't want to bear Christmas tree. So maybe consider that. Maybe we have something that kicks off in January where we have snowflakes and or we donate and we give back. Like we talked about at Thanksgiving time. Could you create visual countdowns for Thanksgiving where it's like

 

for all the number of cases we do, we're gonna donate to a family in need. I don't know. There's so many ways you can do it. And I don't think doctors, is for you. This is why it's a Dental A Team and dentist and team podcast. Team members, like let's get your ideas. Let's get you on the podcast. Listen to this episode, share this with your team. But like, how can we build visual countdowns and have a fun time? Because again, the anticipation with clear goals is what's gonna help you guys this season. So number two, I think something that you guys can do is like,

 

just like on Christmas Eve, like build traditions that fuel culture. I was talking to an office and they were dressing up as wicked. And I said, my gosh, are you guys gonna go to the wicked opening? And they hadn't thought about that, like wicked part two. And like, that's the fun stuff that fuels culture. So like, what can we do just like at the holidays? Like we all get excited for the charcuterie boards or for the matching pajamas or for stockings or in my family, we did baby stockings on the tree in addition to regular stockings.

 

We had countdown chains, had advent calendars. The holidays are so special because of the traditions. And so what traditions can you guys put into place in your practice? So could we have our tradition at like end of quarters when we crush it, we do X, Y, Z that people can look forward to it. We can get excited for it, that our goals are leading us to these like fun ideas. Could we do annual CE t