Our profession is full of brilliant minds that know just about everything there is to know about the teeth and craniofacial complex. We spend decades preparing ourselves and competing to achieve the next level until the blissful day we become orthodontists. And the learning continues. Countless CE courses quench our thirst to raise the clinical bar. Most orthodontists I know are on a continuous quest for more and more knowledge and that is a good thing. Treatment efficacy, comfort, aesthetics, quality of results and ever shrinking treatment duration have all been positively changed by our insatiable need to become better craftsmen. We KNOW orthodontics and how to practice our art expertly.
What you know will enable you to accomplish your goals and reap the benefits that most orthodontists enjoy. We are in one of the most personally and professionally satisfying, lucrative, profitable and least taxing professions on the planet! We put in the time and at some point reap the well-deserved rewards that allow us to do things we didn’t dream possible in our younger years while hitting the books. What we know and believe has given us everything we have, but consider the following:
What we know often inhibits our ability to progress beyond where we are or what is considered customary and normal! Think of a person’s knowledge and beliefs as one of many floors in a high-rise building. We look down at the floor — the very least that we can accept as normal. We look up and see the ceiling — the upper limit of our capabilities, freedom, happiness, etc. All we know is contained above our floor and below our ceiling, but we must remember that our ceiling – the zenith of our knowledge – is the floor for others! (Someone who has gone beyond what we know and achieved the next level – Someone who has been there and done that and has the scars and experience and wisdom to prove it.)
Whether this experience was gained in orthodontics or some other business, the fact remains that our upper limit in the realm of what we KNOW to be possible is directly or even well beneath that of many more experienced, more capable or more open minded people! That should be encouraging because it means we have room to learn and grow beyond where we find ourselves today!
This issue here is a matter of degree. We KNOW the Earth is round and that it rotates and revolves around the sun and that the moon orbits the Earth. As humans and orthodontists we tend to elevate significantly less iconic “ideals” and “facts” to this same level of unalterable bedrock and we vehemently resist any challenge to our set of facts! In this way we build our walls and floors of these static beliefs and solidify our ceiling. We think that our self-imposed boundaries keep others and their contrary beliefs out when the reality is that we imprison ourselves while the world and all that dreaded change pass us by!
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