Just Two Minutes: Flip the Script

Bite-sized dental wisdom in under 2 minutes.

There’s a mental model I keep coming back to when I feel stuck:

Inversion thinking.

Instead of asking, “How do I succeed?”
You ask, “How do I make sure I fail?”

It sounds backwards.
But that’s the point.

Because sometimes when you’re staring at too many paths forward, it’s actually easier to define the path you don’t want to take.

Leila Hormozi talked about this recently - how top performers use mental frameworks that most people don’t.
And one of them is this exact idea:
Think in reverse.

So instead of asking yourself:
→ How do I build a thriving dental practice?
Try:
→ What would absolutely tank this thing?

You’ll get surprisingly clear answers:

• Hire the wrong people.

• Never train them properly.

• Micromanage everything.

• Ignore your numbers.

• Stop marketing.

• Avoid hard conversations.

• Pretend you don’t need systems.

Boom. There’s your anti-playbook.

Now just… do the opposite.

You can apply it to anything:

• Want to leave your associate job and open a practice?
  → What would guarantee I fail if I leave?
  → No business plan. No cash cushion. No team. No idea how to lead.
  → Great. Let’s start there.

• Trying to scale?
  → What would make scaling impossible?
  → Doing everything yourself. Not hiring. Avoiding delegation.
  → Ok, cool. Now flip it.

It works because your brain loves to solve problems.
But when you’re overwhelmed or unsure of what to do next - it can’t always see the right next step.
So give it a worse-case scenario to chew on instead.

Name the failure.
Then reverse-engineer your success.

Sometimes all you need is a better question.

-Dr. Alex

P.S. Stuck? Ask yourself how to fail. Then do the opposite. (Thanks Leila.)