"Beating Burnout" - How to Thrive While Building a 7-Figure Dental Practice (feat. Dr. Ben Friberg)

Burnout is real — and it’s more common in dentistry than most are willing to admit. In this episode of The Dental Domination Podcast, host Dan Brian sits down with Dr. Ben Friberg, a successful dentist, consultant, and author of The Seven Figure Practice Blueprint, to explore how dentists can reclaim their energy, purpose, and profitability.

Dr. Friberg shares his own unconventional path to dentistry, how he scaled his startup practice to over $2 million in collections while working just 3.5 days a week, and why the key to long-term success lies in treating yourself like a professional athlete. You’ll learn how sleep, nutrition, and movement play a critical role in avoiding burnout — and why coaching, accountability, and leadership strategy are non-negotiable if you want to thrive.

He also introduces RESET, a powerful upcoming retreat designed to help dentists get out of the daily grind and work on their practice with intention.

Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed or just want to level up, this episode is packed with wisdom and real-world takeaways to help you lead a more fulfilling, profitable practice.

Check out the full episode show notes: https://www.dentalscapes.com/beating-burnout/

Learn more about Dr. Friberg’s retreat and book at:
www.drbenfriberg.com

Connect with DentalScapes:
www.dentalscapes.com

Transcript

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All right, welcome back to the Dental Domination podcast. My name is Dan Brian I'm the co-founder of Dentalscapes, but I'm not here to talk about Dentalscapes today or even dental marketing. In fact, today I want to dig into something a little bit broader and something that I think uh most of the dentists listening can probably relate to, and that is burnout. And, you know, we're going to dig into it today with a very special guest, Dr. Ben Friberg. He is a practicing dentist from Wilmington, North Carolina, not too far from where I'm at here in Chapel Hill. ah But interesting guy, awesome background for starting the conversation here today. Dual degrees, dentistry, and business management. So watch out, this guy knows what he's talking about. He's also a consultant, coach, and public speaker, and the author of the recent book, The Seven Figure Practice Blueprint. And he's been pretty successful himself. We're gonna talk a little bit more about his experience and how he got to where he is today. On a fun note, I will also say Dr. Friberg is a home brewer near and dear to my heart, which is awesome. And Dr. Friberg, you may be the only guest ever on this podcast who has his own bobblehead. Is that true? Yeah. he's even got it. He's even got it right there. That's awesome. That is fantastic. it's got my signature bow tie that I wear in all of my marketing for my practice. Yeah, yeah, so my. aspiration. Oh, that's that's awesome. So so tell folks, you know, how did you get to where you are today? Practicing like I said, private practice in Wilmington wildly successful, I might add. ah And now you're also helping other dentists accomplish the same kind of thing. So how did you get into this business and uh what can you tell folks about your back? Yeah. So like you mentioned before, I have a business degree. I actually have a minor in construction engineering as well. And when I graduated from college, I had been working with a company called College Works Painting, teaching college students how to run businesses. So, you know, at the age of 21, I had a hundred employees under my, direct supervision. And we, you know, we, every year we went from $0 in revenue to over half a million dollars teaching college kids how to run painting companies. m After I graduated, I started a division of a company that focused on commercial construction and repaints. And I grew that company to about two and a half million dollars in revenue in three years and really hated every minute of it. my wife was an occupational therapist and I really loved the stories that she would tell of the impact that she was having on people's lives. And I realized that was the big thing that I was missing was impact. Yeah. And my mother-in-law is a dentist and as I was going back to school to kind of figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, she talked me into becoming a dentist. And so I graduated dental school when I was 33. So I've been practicing now for 10 years and I started my practice in 2019, right before the pandemic. yeah, yeah. So doing a startup, I remember being closed on my one year anniversary. So because of the... the COVID. ah but yeah, so, you know, the, the practice has done really well. We did over a million dollars in our first year and, continually grown the practice by about 20 % over the last three years. Um, we're going to hit, we're going to 2 million collections this year, three and a half days a week. And yeah, I'll take seven weeks of vacation this year. So. Yeah, you can't argue with that. Well, you know, and you were, you were saying we were talking offline and you talked about how, know, uh, it's flat out, I think you said wild, it's flat out crazy that folks think that they can have that kind of success and, and practice dentistry and run a dental practice to the best of their ability without coaching and consulting. And so now you've hopped into that space as well, giving back to the profession when you also have, have benefited from that coaching and consulting in the past. Can you talk a little bit about that? And We know we're gonna dig into burnout here in just a minute, I promise folks, but uh I also wanna highlight that because you yourself do consult with other dentists ah on how to get the best out of their practice and that sort of thing. So how did you get into that then? It was, so I've been working with ideal practices, the startup consultants, since I started my practice. So I have been working with them as a consultant for the last five years, teaching doctors the startup process, some of the principles of marketing and business and helping them get off the ground. But I realized that there was a lot of need for dentists who had been in practice for a few years, they acquired a practice or did a startup on their own. And you get to this point where you start to realize, wow, like this is not as, as simple as I thought it was going to be. I need some help. need, I need some support. And some of the gaps in the industry were that there were consultants. People help you solve a specific problem with specific implement, you know, implementable, uh, processes or procedures to solve the problem. And then there were coaches. People help you achieve, uh, your goals through accountability. and through suggestions and self-discovery. But there wasn't a great crossover of consultants who then helped you actually implement over time the things that are get you to the next level. So we created a company that is designed around both consulting, helping the doctors individually apply best practices to the problems that are holding them back, and then create an accountability structure It helps them troubleshoot the implementation process over time. So a lot of times you'll hire somebody, they'll come in, they'll tell you what to do on the leaf. Or you'll have a coach that doesn't tell you what to do, but just kind of hangs out for a while. So we do both, which is really, really important. So when I say we, my oldest brother is my business partner in that company and he is a professional business coach that's been doing this outside of dentistry for over a decade. And so we've brought in that perspective of an actual leadership coach experienced. um in different elements of business so that they can be applied into our industry. And I've been doing business and dentistry now. So we apply all of those together to give a truly holistic application of business principles and best practices of dentistry with an accountability and support structure to help the doctors actually implement it and grow. Yeah, it's a unique perspective you have because you know, like I said offline as well and folks listening to the show know like my husband is a practicing dentist and you know, he's always talking about how dentists don't come out of dental school prepared to run a business and you know, that's something that I think is really lacking and I think that schools, you know now are taking steps to address that but you know, I'm sure you know, you're not it's not the first time anyone's told you that em that you know, and I'm sure you've had clients that come to you saying the same thing. But speaking of another thing that clients come to you with, what percentage of dentists would you say that you talk with in the consulting and coaching business that come to you feeling burned out? How common is that in the industry? I think that it's more common than we talk about. And I think probably 100 % of my clients are experiencing it at some level. And that's why they're asking for help, right? Like they're finally at a point where they realize, I can't continue doing what I'm doing, the way I'm doing it, and get the results that I want. So that's when people start to make that decision to look for outside support. And one of my clients runs a very successful uh multimillion dollar practice in upstate New York. fee for service, super bougie and you know, three dogs. Like it's a fan, it was a fantastic practice, but she did not feel confident as a leader. And she felt like some of the administrative tasks in her practice were overwhelming. And so with her, the coaching approach for that type of burnout is first, you know, I talk about this in the book as well as developing a concrete life. Right. So from my construction background, concrete is the most ubiquitous construction material in the world. If you added every construction material up into one pile, we use 10 times more concrete than all the rest. And so the four ingredients to a concrete life are physical health, mental health, financial health, and spiritual health. And when you've got those working in a positive direction for you, you become somebody who can lead in your practice in your personal life. and be someone who can handle those stresses of running a practice. And so for that doctor, that's the first thing that we started on, right? And so she's exercising more, she's sleeping better, she's eating well, she's practicing the spiritual practices that give her life, right? And now when she goes into her practice, she's coming in from a place of strength so she can handle the stresses and lead those people in the way they need to be led. ah for dentists who are experiencing burnout, like you said, to one degree or another, maybe not full on, you know, uh shut it all down, panic mode yet, uh where do you recommend that folks start? What's a good entry point in terms of addressing the burnout that so many dentists are facing? The two things that we talk about first with all of our clients that are, that are on boarded with us, sleep, nutrition and movement. Right? So I, I have been working with a board certified neurologist on performance. and he focuses primarily on those three things. If you want to be high performing, anything you have to sleep well. You have to be fed well and you have to move well. Those things together create a healthy person and that healthy person can then handle stress. But unfortunately we tend to look for things that are outside of those three things for for handling stress, right? And a really large one is uh doom scrolling and drinking alcohol, right? Like doing, trying to do mindless activities to disconnect, but are actually hurting your dopamine, hurting your mental hormones and alcohol, which disrupts your cortisol levels. It disrupts your sleep. And so those are actually net negatives when we try to deal with stress. So if we can limit those and add in sleep, nutrition, and movement, all of a sudden, some of those problems in our practice aren't really problems anymore and they're easily handled and they're not these big burdensome things that they feel like. when the person is healthy. Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, those are so foundational. And, you know, I would guess that most of the folks coming to talk with you initially don't have all three of those bases covered. you know, what, how pervasive would you say the issue is within the profession of dentistry? You know, folks that maybe don't have that balance right. Um, that's a great question. I don't, I don't have it. Well, I it's really, really common, um, because of the stress, right? It's, it's very easy. We were, guess, let's back up a little bit. Dental school and undergrad trained us to work on little sleep, little movement and bad nutrition. We were the hardest working. least slept, worst fed of any of our classmates, right? Because we had to, to get to the top tier to get into dental school. And to perform well in dental school with that workload, something had to give and it was sleep, nutrition, and exercise. And that's not great, but when you're younger and it's a sprint, it can work. But now that we're practicing dentists, You know, it switches from, know, Simon Sinek talks about the infinite game versus the finite game. And we are now in an infinite game, right? There is no end to dentistry unless it's when we retire, which is so far away from most of us. And we can't continue to not eat, not sleep, not move, right? Not take care of ourselves, but we've been conditioned to operate in that mindset. Yeah. And so it's important that we switch away from that and go, Hey, if I have to do this for another 25 years, I really need to be treating myself. And I talk about this with my, with my clients and talk about in the book, we are professionals and we should be treating ourselves like professional athletes because we have the earning potential of a professional athlete. Right? So they've got a nutrition coach. They've got a movement and fitness coach. They have a. performance coach, right? They're going to have a performance psychologist. Like the number, I have a professional baseball player in my practice. He has five coaches, including a genetic nutritionist, which I'd never even heard of before, right? But he's got his head coach. He's got the catching coach. He's got the batting coach. So all of the areas where he wants to perform at the optimum level to get the most out of his career, he surrounded himself with coaches to help him be held accountable and to pursue best practices. And dentists need to treat themselves the same way. And it's not something, it's not a shift that you necessarily have to, or really, that's usually feasible to achieve overnight, right? These are things that you can take steps to accomplish. 100%. Yeah. And there's, there's, there's, but sleeping and reducing alcohol are such big steps that unlock so much more energy for you to pursue the smaller gains, better movement, better nutrition, right? But like to kind of get into the weeds a little bit, if you don't sleep well, your body produces a hunger hormone called ghrelin. And that trains your brain and your body to seek out highly fatty, highly salty foods because it feels like it's in a deficit. So if you want to have good nutrition, it's almost impossible without good sleep. Yep. Yeah, I feel like sleep is where it all starts. ah You know, you have, um you know, some, some foundational pieces that people interested in this can explore. And one of those is an upcoming retreat you have called reset. And I want to talk about that. And what kind of goes into that? Why that is? m Why that can be helpful to dentist owners out there or dentists in general, rather, I should say. um But what does reset stand for? What does it mean? And what does the retreat offer some? So the retreat is going to be specifically designed that doctors are going to be able to take time away from their practices and work on the business instead of in the business. Right? Like today I was doing unemployment insurance and payroll and crown preps, and there was a computer problem, right? I was working in this business. didn't, I didn't do anything today to change the trajectory of my practice. Everything I did today was to keep it on the same line. And so I've got to get outside this building. I've got to get away from what it takes to keep this moving forward to work on the business, to change the trajectory of my practice and then create a strategy of how to get there. And so reset is this opportunity for us to get together in an intimate private setting with like-minded doctors to So reset stands up for reflect, engage, strategize, execute and thrive. And so the idea behind that is that we need to take time to see where we've been and where we're at and make sure that aligns with what we wanted when we started this thing, right? When we decided to become a dentist, when we said we were going to be a practice owner and entrepreneur. And then we need to engage with that kind of goal setting mentality of like, I'm here today. I wanted to be here. So how do I course correct? Right. And then we work on strategies that we're going to talk about three main strategies that every doctor is going to walk away from with this. And it's going to be a leadership strategy. How do I lead myself and my team to get the most ROI out of my greatest investment in my practice? Right. Our team is our greatest investment upwards of 30 to 35 % of our revenue goes to our investment, which is our team. I better be getting the best ROI out of them possible. And that's through leadership. There'll be a management strategy session. How do I create business systems that operate fluidly, efficiently and profitably that reduce the burden on me? How do I make my life easier by creating systems? And we actually have a training process of how we actually go through and create a business system. How do we implement the business system? And then how do we refresh it? to make sure that it's working for us. And then we talk about execution. It doesn't matter how great our goal is. It doesn't matter how great our strategy is. If we don't have executable tactics, I'm going to be doing this activity with these people at this time. We're not gonna get anywhere, right? And then thrive. That's the end goal, right? Is that we're living a fulfilled life in pursuit of our dreams and passions that give back as much or more than we get. Absolutely. That's awesome. So uh where can folks go to find out more information about the retreat, about reset, about your book? We haven't even talked about that seven figure practice blueprint. uh Where can folks go to connect with you, Dr. Freberg, and how can they take the next step? Yeah. So it's www.drbenfreberg.com slash events for the retreat. Um, or they go straight to that website. Um, they can also reach me through Instagram, Ben Freberg, uh, Facebook. I'm on dental, not I'm, I'm everywhere. LinkedIn. Um, and reach out to me through any of those. So we can get you connected a little bit more with, getting on that retreat. There's only 12 spots. Um, A significant portion of those are already spoken for. So if people are interested, we'd love to have you, but kind of reach out soon. But it's going to be the weekend of October 3rd, 4th and 5th at a private retreat center pretty close to Wilmington. Okay, awesome. And lastly, before we close out here, what can you tell folks about the book and where can they get it? So the book is available on Amazon. Uh, it reached best seller status in its first week, which was pretty exciting. seven figure practice blueprint. And that is kind of front to back those three topics of leadership, management and marketing. and a chapter on philanthropy. How do you profitably give back to your community? yeah, I wrote that book, took about two years to write that book. It's, um, designed for, for dentists who are looking to take their practice to the next step. And it, it, it, has frameworks in there. has implementable systems. It's not just fluff. It's actually designed to be implemented with frameworks that you can actually implement. Well, we'll have links to all of those resources in the show notes as well as a link to the reset retreat ah and your website. Dr. Freebird, thank you so much for joining today. But before we close out, what is the one thing you want dentists listening to take away if maybe they've reached that point in their career where they're thinking, you know, this burnout thing, it's something I got to get a handle on. Yeah, I think the number one thing would be you don't have to do it alone. And it's crazy to think that just because you have a DDS, you know how to run a business. There's, there's people who have spent decades of their career running mediocre practices because they never got outside professional help or accountability or coaching to run an elite practice. And if you want to run an elite practice, you need to treat yourself like an elite athlete and surround yourself with the people that can improve, help you improve yourself to be the best version of you. Awesome. Awesome. Well, so many good lessons here today. Thank you so much, Dr. Friberg for dropping by. We'll have all those links in the show notes. And if you enjoyed the show today, please take a moment to rate this podcast on Apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to your shows. It is the best possible way for us to reach other dentists out there, other practice managers that we may be able to help. And I'm so appreciative to you all for tuning in. Thank you so much, Dr. Friberg for dropping by and take care. Awesome. Well, I thought that was good.