Myo Life

Transcript

Hey, I'm Carmen and welcome to Myo Life. That's short for my outrageous life, which is exactly the kind of life I get to live since I found the courage to ditch dental hygiene and build a life I'm bonkers about as a myofunctional therapist and entrepreneur. Here you will find all the things myo business and how to build a life that you too are bonkers about. I'm very happy you're here. Shall we dive in?

Well, hey there, and welcome back to the podcast. If you are here listening, I think that you're probably in one of two categories. One, you might be a dental hygienist who is considering adventuring into myo and you're just not real sure about what it can mean in your life. Or maybe you've taken a course already, whether that was like at CE or just out of curiosity, or a seminar that you just happened to be at and you're thinking about the possibilities, but you're not sure what that looks like for you. Then you are in the right place.

So normally, when we prepare for our podcast batching—which I do six at a time—we start with an idea and then just kind of narrow it down, we outline it and then we script it. So when we came out with a list of questions for me to answer, I just thought, well, why not just let me answer these without having a script, because then I can answer them as raw and as honest as possible. So I'm going to do that. Hopefully, you're good with that.

So we are talking about the possibilities with a myofunctional therapy business and how it can really change everything for you. I just want to dive into these questions and then I think it'll create a beautiful conversation. So my team, we kind of broke these down into what we call your before picture and your after picture. So I'm just gonna start with them and then I think that will be plenty, okay?

So the first question said: What did your life look like before you started your myofunctional therapy business?

Wow, it looked so different. At the time when I learned about myo, I was working full time. I was working three 12-hour shifts and I was traveling about three hours round trip every day. So I was having long days. My income was probably, I don't know, $70,000 to $80,000 a year.

I did not love the office that I was in and I think we get to that in a different question, but it was just starting to really be stressful and, even worse, I started to have heart palpitations on the way to work, so I knew I had to get out of there.

The next question is: What was your breaking point or your moment of clarity where you said, “This is it”?

So I have shared this before, but I worked in an office that really—the first year that I worked there—was lovely. I could do no wrong. I was the superstar of the team. It was awesome. It was a big office. There were two dentists there, two female dentists, four hygienists, and something like six dental assistants. So it was a big practice.

What I loved is that we were getting a bonus. Every month we were getting a production bonus, and sometimes that was $800 to $1,000. So my boss decided she was going to hire a dental consulting firm to come in and kind of shake things up. And about that same time she also hired a new practice manager, and that practice manager's opinion about dental hygienists was that we earned too much money—that we were such a cost to the office. Like, did she forget we were producers? We were producing money for the office.

Long story short, that lady came in and she changed our bonus structure. What went from being a team bonus that we all got and split, became a segmented bonus. So dental hygienists were pulled out and put into our own category. Not only did they pull us out on our own, but then the boss got a cost of living allowance—a COLA raise—so she was getting more money. Essentially, that office manager laid out in a spreadsheet what the boss needed to earn and then what we needed to pay for.

That gave me a little bad taste in my mouth when the boss was getting a raise and now we were having to cover that. The production number that I was going to have to come up to was very unlikely. So I had a little bit of an attitude about that, and everybody else got to just be one big team bonus. I thought, well Carm, you can't have a crappy attitude about this until you try it.

So that first month, I killed myself. I tried to meet that production number so that I could get a bonus. I fell $17 short. So I got zero. That was $17 short of this new inflated number because the boss got a raise. I got nothing. I gave it my all. I crushed it. I really tried to meet it and it wasn’t going to happen. The rest of the team—now that they didn’t have to share it with four dental hygienists—guess what? They got hundreds of dollars in their bonus. It was very, very frustrating.

That was really the breaking point of me deciding that I would get my own bonus. I’m going to go do something that'll earn me so much money, I don’t have to worry about your stupid bonus structure.

I was killing myself to help her build her business, her golden parachute—because think about it, a dental practice is somebody's saleable asset. She's going to sell that someday and when she's got a dental practice with hygienists that earn so much money per year, that is going to be appealing to somebody else who's buying it. It’s a profitable business.

There was also the moment of clarity when I was experiencing this frustration and hearing the boss telling people about her $100,000 Lexus and how she liked to go to Disneyland twice a year and Disney World twice a year with her kids. I started to just feel like, wait a second, this is not okay.

The cherry on the top was me having a conversation one day with one of the dentists about myofunctional therapy, why it's so important. We talked about tongue ties and she told me about how knowledgeable she was with tongue ties and yada, yada. So the very first patient that I saw after that was a nine-year-old kid who had been coming to the office every six months since he was a year and a half old. He had one of the worst tongue ties that I had ever seen—like to the point that his family called it a “butt tongue.” And the doctor came in, did the exam, and walked out of the room and did not say one word—not one word—about this kid's tongue tie.

If you're in this world and you're listening to this or if you've taken a training, you know that that tongue tie is causing a lot of issues—not only structurally in his body but with his speech, with his facial development, with his airway development. All of that stuff. So I was really disgusted. That was the point where I was like, I am done.

Initially I had set a five-year goal to leave dental hygiene and ultimately I did it in 13 months, and I think some of that was because I was so desperate to get out of there. I just couldn't wait.

I worked in that office for two months after opening my business and then my business was growing so well that I was able to cut back to part-time just two months later. And then I worked part-time for that next year. So that's kind of a little bit of the timeframe.

The next question says: Did you hesitate after training? What were you scared of or unsure about?

I have talked about this before. I took a 12-week training by somebody who is pretty well known in the industry, and I don't think it was great. I got to the end of the training and I was like, okay, now what? I mean, it was good enough that it taught me what I needed to know, obviously, to get started, but there was no step-by-step. You do this—nothing was created. I had to create everything. I had to type everything. I had to come up with my own therapy templates, that kind of stuff. So I hesitated, yes, but I also was so desperate to want to get out of dental hygiene, so I was willing to figure it out. And yes, I was scared. Yes, I was unsure. But I also knew that if I stayed where I was, I wasn't going to be able to leave hygiene.

So that was kind of the before question.

Now it says: What does your life look like now?

I have been practicing since 2017 and teaching since 2018. My life looks wildly different.

Freedom—let’s talk about that. First thing that I will say is not everybody desires the same thing. Maybe we all go into it just thinking about money, which is what I did. I went into it just purely for the financial gain of it. And boy, now I just have such a wildly different opinion, because now it's about the freedom.

The freedom of my calendar—to be able to block out my day exactly as I want it. To be able to set up my ideal day and then build my business around that life. So that is really amazing.

Geographic freedom—so I'm currently in Colorado. We're moving across the country. I have a daughter in North Carolina, I have family in Montana, like all over the place. That geographic freedom allows me to work from anywhere. I have a place in Mexico. I can go there and work at any time. The first year that I was in business I traveled like 72 or 76 days that year. That was really big for me—I wanted to be able to travel.

The income—again, I thought that was the biggest thing and now it’s just more so about the freedom. Income-wise, I earned six figures my first full year in business. I started my business in May, so I had just the part year, and then my first full year, I think I was at $125,000. So six figures. And then it just grew from there. It's been multiple six figures every year. I even had a year where I was already in six figures by like April. It was crazy.

That's what life looks like now. I don't talk about my income to brag. I talk about my income to show what's possible. Some months I might have $30,000, $40,000—I haven’t hit $50,000—close—for a month. And then I'll have some other months where I have $4,000. But guess what? When I have a $4,000 month, I'm probably closed. I'm probably not working or seeing clients because I'm traveling.

The next question says: What's something surprising or delightful about your life now that you couldn't have imagined before?

This is the life of my dogs. When I was still in dental hygiene, I only had little—so I had two little six-pound dogs. They had to be in a kennel all day while I worked.

The life now that my dogs get to live? We have adopted a 70- and 80-pound dog. I get out with them every morning to hike. We get out every afternoon for a walk. Their life is something. I could not go back to a job, because their life—and I absolutely love being here, working from home, having my dogs sitting around me, and having freedom.

What part of your transformation do you think others would resonate with the most or find the most unbelievable?

I don't know. I think probably for a lot of students who come into my program, they resonate with being burned out. They resonate with not wanting to start over. They resonate with not wanting to take a program that doesn't offer any support.

Most of them don't know the possibilities with myo. It’s hard for them to believe in themselves because they don't have evidence that this works.

Probably what they find most unbelievable is that I started a business and retired from hygiene 13 months later. That I have made—turned it into a multimillion-dollar business. And I went from being broke when I went through my divorce in 2010 to building this multimillion-dollar company.

To go from not having enough money to have Fidelity agree to work with me, to having my own finance team of three that manages my money day to day. I think for some people that can seem unbelievable. But I wasn't special by any means. I just had to figure it out. And that's the cool thing—I teach you exactly what I did. There's no gatekeeping.

Why do you believe myofunctional therapy is one of the most powerful career pivots out there?

I think the reason that I feel so strongly about it is because if you're a dental hygienist, you already have these skills. You already have this knowledge. You don't have to go back to school.

I went to graduate school and got a $50,000 graduate degree—a master's in business—because I thought that was going to be the ticket that I could support myself after going through my divorce. And it wasn’t. It wasn’t the golden ticket.

The pivot is such a natural pivot because, especially the way that I teach you in an easy, step-by-step framework, you get to be in control of the gas and the brake.

How fast do you want to leave dental hygiene? You could do it as fast as I did. I have students who are earning money 12, 16 weeks into the program. That’s why I think it’s so powerful—because you don’t have to break the bank.

Yes, it might seem just for a minute like it’s a lot of money to invest in yourself, but remember the investment that you make into the Ditch Hygiene Academy is the gift that keeps on giving. That money—you’re talking three clients, you’re talking two clients. It depends on where you set your prices. But I’m teaching you a skill and a system and a revenue framework that is going to keep giving, giving, giving to you for years—for the rest of your life.

You’re making the investment of a few students. That’s why it’s so powerful. It can be as big as you want it to be.

What have you seen it make possible—not just for you but for your students?

All of my students are different when they come into the program. Most of them, I would say, don't want to do hygiene anymore. And for whatever reason. Some of them have injuries. Some of them have had surgeries. Some of them are just flat burned out. Some of them are like me and just didn’t like dental hygiene.

I’ve had a few students who love dental hygiene and they’re just wanting to add to it.

Myo has made so many different things possible for the students—whether that is fully retiring from hygiene, which I’ve had several do. A lot of them are still in the phase of doing kind of the hybrid, where they’ve cut back in hygiene and maybe they’re doing temp work and they’re doing myo.

The other thing is it’s not always just about money for people. For some it is, but I have lots of students who want to be a more present parent. They want the flexibility to participate in the classroom. They want the flexibility to pick their kid up from school or homeschool their kids.

What’s possible is different for everybody.

The last question says: If you could shout one belief from the rooftops to every dental hygienist who's stuck right now, what would it be?

I think probably the biggest belief I would say is two things. They have to believe in themselves. They have to believe in their people, their pricing, their product, and believe in what’s possible.

A lot of them don’t have that, so they have to believe in that. That includes pricing and all that kind of stuff.

But I think also—boundaries. So many of my students have a hard time setting boundaries because they are yes-mams, they’re people pleasers, they are perfectionists, they are having a hard time creating time for their business.

I always tell them—I can’t help you steer a parked car. If you want this, you’ve got to get doing the work. And that’s the biggest thing.

So if I was shouting one thing, I would be saying: get your car in drive. Take ugly, imperfect action and get started.

Well, I kind of liked that. That was easy. Definitely raw and personal and off the cuff. I hope this shows you what’s possible.

Whether you’re just getting started and haven’t taken any training—which, if that’s the case, might I suggest the Ditch Hygiene Academy—or if you’ve taken another course but you haven’t really done anything with it, this might be your sign to get back and pick it up.

If you don’t feel like your course delivered, then don’t stress about it. Just make the investment. Get another program. Whether that’s joining me inside the Ditch Hygiene Academy or the Myo Business Accelerator. Just get the car moving again.

Don’t let a bad investment burn you twice. If you took a course and it sucked, the longer that you keep having an attitude about that is the longer it’s keeping you where you’re at. So you’ve got to get over it and you have to make another investment. And that’s okay, because you’ll earn it back.

Wherever you are listening to or watching this, we will have links to all the things. I would be very honored to lead you and show you what’s possible.

Because my biggest regret when it comes to myo is that I just didn’t do it sooner. I learned about myo in 2004 and it took me until 2017 to actually be brave enough to want to do it. And now there’s no place I would rather be.

So I hope you enjoyed this episode, my friend. I will see you next time when I’ll be back with more myo business, motivation, marketing—all the good stuff. Until then, keep living a life that you are bonkers about, or keep trying to build a life you’re bonkers about.

I’ll see you next time.