Hats off to The Athletic. This sports site from the New Your Times has begun to put together a series of articles they are referring to as "Peak". The series focuses on lessons learned from people who have reached the pinnacle of their sports careers and how it affects them. I have a paid subscription to The Athletic and yesterday I happened to come across this article about professional golfer Scottie Scheffler.
What really fascinated me about the article was what Scheffler had to say about reaching the spot of being the number one ranked golfer in the world. Here's what he had to say about it...
“There’s a lot of people that make it to what they thought was going to fulfill them in life, and you get there, you get to No. 1 in the world, and they’re like, what’s the point?” Scheffler said. “I really do believe that. Because what is the point? Why do I want to win this tournament so bad? That’s something that I wrestle with on a daily basis.”
He added: “(Golf) is one of the greatest joys of my life, but does it fill the deepest wants and desires of my heart? Absolutely not.”
Of course, this begs the question of "what is he talking about? Why wouldn't being the best in the world at something not fill your deepest wants and desires?" I bring this up because it's something I've seen a lot of in my life. I'd like to bring this into the focus of what we do in dentistry because that's my best perspective.
I've had an incredible career and I'm lucky to have 'a voice' in the industry. That's a gift that I don't take lightly. You all have given me that voice and I'm grateful for that. I've been a dentist for over thirty years and as I look at the future and the changes that will bring as I wind down my career, I want to occasionally pass along some of my perspectives to all of you who are kind enough to read the things I write.
One of the great things about my work both in clinical dentistry as well as speaking and consulting, is that I've gotten to know a lot of dentists throughout my career. That includes people in every aspect of the profession and from all over the world.
As professionals we are forced into a pretty tight space. We have to be smart, we have to have incredibly great hand skills, we have to perform at an incredibly high level constantly, and we have to be successful. We also have to be perfect. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Dentists are expected to provide perfect outcomes in imperfect situations and we are expected to do it every time. Now don't get me wrong. Dentistry is incredibly rewarding and I love what I do. However every dentist reading this can relate to the stresses and pressures that come with what we do.
When I was in college I joined a fraternity. By the time I graduated college, I had lots of close friends who were a couple of years behind me. I graduated and went to dental school while these guys finished up with their bachelor's degrees and got jobs. I went to a local college so we all kept in touch and got together on a regular basis.
I graduated from dental school and began work as an independent contractor in a small office. After a year of that, I decided to jump into the deep end and started a new practice from basically scratch. I struggled. I went WAY into debt. There were many months where expenses exceeded income by a large amount. Meanwhile my friends were getting married, buying new cars, and buying houses.
I kept thinking "What is *wrong* with me? I'm smart, I worked hard, I got four more years of education than all of my friends and yet I am a *failure*. What happened to me?"
All I wanted was to be successful. I had the thought "if I can just pay all of the bills and have a little left over, I'll be happy." Over time, that finally happened. I began to have some money left over at the end of the month, but I wasn't happy.
Then I thought "now that I have some money, I'll buy stuff. THAT will make me happy." There were lots of gadgets and toys that I'd been wanting for a long time, so I started to buy them. But what I found was the wanting of those gadgets was a much bigger buzz than actually owning them. I'd get some toy on my radar and think "that's the one" and then when I got it that same buzz went away. Again, don't get me wrong. Buying things was fun and I enjoyed them, but owning things didn't really fulfill me the way I wanted or the way I expected. I'm willing to bet that those of you reading this have had similar experiences.
This also loops back into being a doctor. Many patients expect doctors to be successful and have money to burn. Those expectations pour fuel on the fire of the desire to be successful. We buy expensive cars, wear expensive clothes, and take nice vacations. The bad part is most still don't feel the feeling of filling the void like we expect them to. That also takes a toll on savings. According to the ADA approximately 40-50% of dentists cannot maintain their pre-retirement standard of living after retiring.
Think about that for a moment. If you are hoping to purchase your way to happiness... and it's not working now... how will you feel when that purchasing power is gone? Stepping away from your career is hard enough, but adding in depression and cutting spending will only make it worse. Many doctors end up practicing much longer than they want to simply because they cannot afford to retire. It makes me sad to even type that. We all work so hard doing what we do and dealing with the stresses, that at some point we should be able to step back, look at our accomplishments, and fondly enjoy the incredible ride we had.
So getting back to Scottie Scheffler... when I read that article it just reinforced what I've known for a long time now. We ALL have a certain void inside us. It's like a bathtub without a stopper in the drain. We try and fill it with 'stuff'. It may be possessions, it may be prestige, it may be alcohol, it may be extreme sports, but we try and fill it with something. We pour buckets of stuff into it and sometimes we think it's starting to get full... and then the stuff slowly leaks out and goes down the drain and we are right back to an empty tub.
My realization is this. You cannot fill the tub with stuff. That just doesn't work. Whether it's possessions or the rank of number one in the world, eventually it will drain out of the tub. What you need to do is to look inside yourself and find that thing that matters to you most. Chances are it's probably faith in a higher power or maybe family or maybe both. One thing is for sure. You cannot fill a metaphysical void with physical things. However you also can't fill it with a number one ranking.
So to wrap this up my advice to you is to not get bogged down in the 'stuff'. Whether you're trying to impress friends, your patients, or society with your stuff, it all drains out of that bathtub. The stopper is created by something you earn, but not by something you spend. That's my philosophical take on it... for what it's worth.
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