Who Am I Without My Practice: Overcoming the Fear of the Unknown

We all face life changing decisions during our careers, particularly in transition periods. Those of us who have dedicated a lifetime to pursuing a profession and honing our craft often become enmeshed in our own avocation. Our self-worth and indeed our identity as a person becomes fused with our profession. We can’t even begin to picture ourselves doing anything else. In fact, when we contemplate life after being a dentist…..it causes us a great deal of emotional turmoil and even fear. After all who am I without my practice?

I can easily remember waking up in a cold sweat thinking about selling my practice after 25 years of practicing dentistry. How could I change from a constant stream of secure income to rely on an income stream that was not as predictable? Our business consultant at US Dental Transitions (formerly Southeast Transitions) expressed this fear well in describing his first parachute jump when he was only 18 years old. “I recalled the first time that I ever jumped out of an airplane. There I was standing on a platform hanging outside of an airplane 1200 feet above the ground. I remember the sound of the engines, the blast of the air in my face, I could feel the sweat running down my back. It was as if every nerve ending in my body was firing at the same time. I was hyper aware. As I watched the ground rush by below me I knew I was going to have to take a leap of faith and throw my body into the air, trusting the parachute to save my life. Then suddenly the light went green, the jump master yelled GO, and with my heart pounding in my chest I had a fraction of a second to make a decision that would impact the rest of my life. I took the leap and I have never looked back!”

Our consultant had a very successful career in the military. He went through this same ordeal after dedicating a lifetime in service as a military officer. The career that began when he was just 19 years old defined him as a person. As he contemplated moving on to the next phase of his life he simply could not see himself doing anything else. In hindsight there were great personal and professional rewards waiting around the corner.

I made a leap of faith when I sold my practice and went into consulting and brokering dental practice sales. I knew how to practice dentistry and could always return to wet fingered dentistry if life as a consultant did not work out. I also discovered that I was not able to do both and had to let go of practicing my profession in order to be a successful dental broker. I went from a highly respected dentist into a job that was seen by our profession as just a necessary evil we had to endure in order to sell the practice.

I knew I could contribute to the dental practice sale model by valuing the contribution each practitioner specifically brought to his patients and staff. Not all dental practices are the same but each individual dentist brings a unique contribution to his/her practice and that needs to be valued by the purchaser of their practice. This has resulted in many successful dental practice sales.

The fear of change had blinded me to a very fundamental reality…..I was not my job.

In reality what makes us successful is not the job, but the values, skills and passions in each of us that we bring to everything we do in life. It is who we are and how we put ourselves into the work that makes us successful, not the other way around. Once I truly realized this, my eyes were opened to a vast array of opportunities that opened up for me.

Sometimes we are unaware of how fear plays a role in our lives. We call it being in a rut, or we think that no one else can do what I do, or we tell ourselves that everyone I work with won’t be able to continue on without me. These are all different manifestations of our own fear. The reality is that everyone will be fine after you have moved on to the next phase of your life. There are definitely things that you can do to make the transition from private practice into retirement easier.

The question at this point becomes not is it time to make a change but how can I muster the courage to make the change beneficial to everyone involved. As we all age and near retirement usually the thing that we lack the most is time. Our real challenge is to structure the time we have remaining so that it is both meaningful and rewarding.

Bill Adams, DDS