239: Navigating Burnout, Building Resilience, and Fostering Relationships for Success with Dr. Eric Recker

Navigating the Customer Experience

Dr. Eric Recker is a dentist, husband, father, keynote speaker, Elite Success Coach, author, pilot, mountain climber and recovering triathlete. In his second half of life, he is committed to helping people shorten the distance to becoming their best version and learning to #WINtheNOW.

Questions

· We'd love for you to share in your own words a little bit about how you got from where you were to where you are today.

· Could you share maybe two or three overarching themes that you believe have been the core values that have driven you to get to where you are today, and if other people were to embrace or embody those same core values, you believe they would achieve the same success.

· What would you say are some of the success tools that have made both businesses thrive in a positive way, if you were to look at them and see if there are any overlapping behaviors or competencies that help to strengthen the customer experience in both areas.

· Could you also share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or application that you absolutely can't live without in your business?

· Now, could you also share with our listeners, Eric, maybe one or two books that have had a great impact on you. It could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you've read recently, but it has impacted you, both professionally and even personally.

· Can you also share with us what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you are really excited about, either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.

· Where can listeners find you online?

· Now, before we wrap our episodes up, we always like to ask our guests, do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you'll tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you get derailed or you get off course, the quote kind of helps to get you back on track. Do you have one of those?

Highlights

Eric’s Journey

Me: Eric, we always like to give our guests an opportunity to share in their own words a little bit about their own journey. So, your bio basically gave us a very short summary of all the wonderful things that you have and are still doing, but we'd love for you to share in your own words a little bit about how you got from where you were to where you are today.

Eric shared that he really could give a short version of that, and it would take about 4 hours, but he'll try to really crunch it down together and say that he was bullied on the playground when he was growing up. He grew up in a small town in Iowa in the early 80s, and recess kickball was life, and he was told that he couldn't play because he wasn't good enough, and so unfortunately, that you are not good enough became a soundtrack for him, and he told himself on the sideline of that recess kickball field that he was going to be so good at everything he ever did that no one would ever not pick him.

Well, fast forward into his professional career as a dentist, he truly believed that he wasn't good enough, so he overshot on everything, overcompensated on everything, always kept adding more and more and more because he was trying to prove to other people that he was good enough. That led to three significant rounds of burnout, including chest pain, heart palpitations, panic attacks, all of that to the point that he got very close to selling his dental practice and walking away.

When that all fell through, he needed to step back and decide what he really wanted to do with this life, and he knew that he had a powerful story. He'd been through a lot, and he wanted to be able to help other people on their journey.

So, what he does now is he has sold half of his dental practice to a partner. He sees patients three days a week, and the other days he speak and coach and write books and do content and all of those kinds of things, trying to help other people on their journey, so that they don't have to go as far down the burnout trail as he went.

Me: That is awesome. What a wonderful story.

Core Values for Success - Themes that Drive Achievement and Fulfillment

Me: So, Eric, you speak a lot about burnout and mindset and just handling the different stresses of life, can you share with our listeners on your own personal journey, when you got to that point, when you realized that you needed to make a change? If you could share maybe two or three overarching themes that you believe have been the core values that have driven you to get to where you are today, and if other people were to embrace or embody those same core values, you believe they would achieve the same success.

Eric shared that first of all, where it all went wrong each time that he went through that terrible season of burnout, he noticed the same equation now that he looks back on it, kind of doing a forensic examination of it was over committed. He had too much on his plate, as a lot of us do, but even more importantly, he wasn't taking care of himself, he just kept going. He just kept adding more and more, and that's where the problem was.

So, one of the big core values that he has is taking care of himself. So, we have to be a little bit selfish so that we can be selfless. If we don't have anything to give, we won't be able to give anything to our people. We won't be able to have an impact on those that we are around, and we will definitely get burned out.

Another huge core value for him is relationships. He’s a highly relational person, and it's extremely important to him that he has some good quality relationships in his life, and it's important for all of us. So, he has a mentor that he meets with, he has a coach that he works with, and he has 4 people that he would consider, 2:00 am friends, people that he could call in the middle of the night if his world fell apart. So, relationships and self-care would be two of the big things that he thinks we really need to be careful and make sure we embrace those.

Me: Absolutely love those two themes that you've shared with us.

Success Tools for Thriving Businesses - Overlapping Behaviors and Competencies that Enhance Customer Experience

Me: Now, I love the fact that one of your themes was relationships, and a big part of customer experience, as this podcast is focused on navigating the customer experience is building strong relationships. All organizations aim to have customers for life, and a big part of that is building strong relationships with those customers, whether it be a B2B or a B2C. Since you pretty much managing two businesses, because you mentioned that you coach and you write books and you do speeches and stuff for organizations and people, and then you also have your practice where you're in office three days per week. What would you say are some of the success tools that have made both businesses thrive in a positive way, if you were to look at them and see if there are any overlapping behaviours or competencies that help to strengthen the customer experience in both areas.

Eric shared that one thing that he teaches his team is to be aware of the rest of the story, it's a huge thing for him. People are complicated, so, in his dental practice, people will come in and they'll maybe see them for an hour of their life, and they might be grumpy when they come in, they might be scared, they might be, however they present themselves to them is just a snapshot of how their life is going. They may not be taking very good care of themselves, they may be in a bad place, they may have gotten a diagnosis, they may have a family member that's really struggling, they may have any number of things that's going on. They may be crazy burned out, and they get to see a little snapshot of them.

So, when somebody comes in, they don't seem like themselves, or if they've just met them, and they're kind of off putting to them at the beginning, just understand that they're seeing a snapshot of a bigger picture of someone's life. And so, he thinks it's always important that they think about that, they don't always get the chance to know the whole person, but especially in someone that you've been in relationship with for a while, if they seem off, then there's something more going on, and it might be worth exploring that.

Me: So, you're lying in the dentist chair, right? And what would you call the person that's serving the client, a dental assistant? And the dental assistant picks up that the patient is agitated, walk us through that. What would you want he or she to do to kind of have the patient relax, maybe build some conversation. Do you just have casual talk? Do you pick a topic, maybe about the weather? Do you think about something that's maybe current affairs, like Donald Trump?

Eric shared that he definitely stays away from politics. Stay away from politics and hot button news things, that's for sure. People get pretty fired up about that. But exactly that scenario that you had. The great thing about his practice is a lot of the patients that he sees, he’s been seeing for 20 years. And so, when they come in, if something doesn't seem right, then they'll ask them,

“Hey, is everything going okay today?”

“Well, I'm just really nervous about this procedure.”

“Okay, well, tell me more about that.”

And a lot of times, really all someone needs to do is voice what they're feeling or talk about the procedure before they do it, and then it becomes a lot easier. And if it doesn't, if they're still amped up, they say things like, “Hey, the good news is this is all the longer this procedure is going to be. So, in half the time it takes to watch a movie, you're going to be on your way.”

So, they try to break it into more manageable chunks if people are apprehensive, and sometimes they have to take a little break and just let everybody sit up and breathe. And then they get back into it. But they really try to meet the patient right where they are and help them work through the situation, because it doesn't do any good if they're escalated, and Eric’s team is escalated, then they're going to have a hard time getting through the procedure.

App, Website or Tool that Eric Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business

When asked about on online resource that he can’t live without in his business, Eric shared that for him, he would just say that it's his own personal website, it's hugely important whenever he gets asked, “So, hey, where do we find you? How can we get in touch with you. How can we learn more about you?” He’s very proud of his website, he had a great web designer, but through there, everything flows to his social media, to his blog, to his books, to the different opportunities that he has, some free online resources. It’s something that he’s very thankful that he spent some money on, because it's the way that a lot of people end up finding him.

Me: Perfect. And we will ask you the question for where our listeners can find you online, which I'm sure your website will be one of those resources later on in the episode.

Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Eric

When asked about books that have had a great impact, Eric shared that two of them definitely come to mind. One is going to be, and a lot of people have probably heard of this one is Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear, just an incredible resource. We are the product of our habits and our routines. It is worth taking time to get good habits and routines in our lives, because everything else flows from those patterns that are in our life. So, that's a huge one.

Another one that many people probably have not heard of as much is called In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars and that's by one of his favorite authors, Mark Batterson, and it describes what we do when adversity hits in our lives, because it's not a question of if, it's a question of when things are going to happen to us, and how do we react to those things.

What Eric is Really Excited About Now!

When asked about something that he’s excited about, Eric stated that he mentioned the whole not good enough, and the paradigm that that presented him with. So, he used to do a lot of triathlons, mountain climbing, stuff like that, he went all the way through the Iron Man distance. He’s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, all of that was pretty much done on a faulty operating system that he had in his mind that he wasn't good enough and he needed to prove himself to people.

So, it's really been about 7 years since he’s done any kind of an endurance race or anything like that. He’s climbed some smaller mountains and done some stuff like that. But there's an event that he’s going to be doing the second week of August, and it's going to be at Snow Basin Resort in Utah, and it's called 29029, which is the vertical height of Mount Everest above sea level. So, the goal is, in 36 hours, he has to hike 29,000 vertical feet.

Me: Wow.

Eric shared that that's usually the first word that people say. So, what he will do is, he'll hike up this mountain, and each time he goes up, he will gain 2300 feet. So, he will hike the same mountain 13 times. So, hike up the mountain, and he will ride the gondola back down. And there's going to be 250 to 300 of them he believes that will be there doing this. And his goal for this is to one, he wanted to train for an event again, he really wanted to be focused and intentional about how he trained for it.

But the other thing that he wants to do is he wants to learn about mindset while he’s doing it. He wants to learn what happens in his mind when he does a repetitive task for 36 hours. He wants to learn where does his mind goes on hikes number 7, 8 and 9, when he can't see the beginning of the hike and he can't see the end, and he’s really in the grind, because he thinks a lot of this will translate into our lives and what we have going on personally. So, he hopes this will be something that he'll be able to give some talks and workshops about in the future. And so, just want to see at 47 years old, just want to see what his body's got in it, what his abilities are.

Me: That's amazing, Eric, wow. I'm going to have to follow you. Are you going to be posting this on your social media?

Eric confirmed, absolutely.

Me: This is fantastic. I would definitely follow you from a personal capacity, just to see, as you mentioned, how do you endure? What are your thoughts? Is it that you feel overcome? Does it impact you emotionally? Like there's so many questions running through my mind right now just listening to you.

Eric stated that he’s excited. There's one time he knows as he’s hiking up that for that whole, he expects it to take about an hour and 15 minutes, probably to hike each time, and at least one of those times he’s just going to be completely quiet and he’s just going to observe the world around me. His son has made him a couple playlists, so he'll listen to some music that he selected for him. One of the times, he’s just going to pray for his family the entire time that he hikes up. So, he has a few of those things. And then, other than that, just going to see what happens. So, he’s super excited about it.

Me: And I guess it's a time also for you to kind of be one with nature and God, because you don't have much distraction, and hopefully you have no injuries, I pray in the name of Jesus that you come out of this injury free. So, you could really meditate, talk to God, as you mentioned, pray for your family and that's something that we don't get to do every day, have moments of silence, because we're just always so busy doing busy work.

Eric agreed that Yanique is so correct. He thinks if people really want their life to change, start with 5 minutes of silence each day, “Well, Eric, why only 5 minutes?” because it's not easy and we're not used to it. Start with 5 minutes of silence and breathing each day and see what that does for you, it's so important, you know this.

Where can listeners find Eric online?

Website – www.ericrecker.com

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Eric Uses

When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Eric shared that his quote is a Bible verse, and it is Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will keep your path straight.” God has been the constant for his journey all the way through, He's been there in the good times and bad times, in the other times, and he’s trying his best to trust that He always knows what the next step is.

Me: I love that. Absolutely love that. Thank you so much for sharing. Eric.

Well, Eric, you have definitely practiced what you preach in this entire interaction that I've had with you. Thank you so very much for being a guest on our podcast, I believe that our listeners would have gained, when the episode is released, will gain a great amount of knowledge, expertise, advice, motivation. I got that from our conversation, and I can tell that you're not just speaking because it's something to do, but it's coming from your heart, and that touches people way more. I mean, people can tell if you're being authentic and genuine, if it's really coming from a place of authenticity, and I feel that in the conversation that I had with you today. So, I just want to express my deepest gratitude to you. Wish you all the best on your hike, I'm going to be there following and cheering you on and just want to say thank you again.

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Links

• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

• In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars by Mark Batterson

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