About two years ago I was on vacation in Puerto Rico. It was going great and we enjoyed it a lot – great weather, awesome people and a lot of sunshine of course.
We stayed in different spots as we drove our car to the beautiful San Juan. One of those locations was a HUGE resort, don’t remember the name of it but it was really massive and beautiful.
To be honest, I prefer small authentic spots but we always try to mix things up a bit.
Anyway, we got into our beautiful room and it welcomed us with the giant King Size bed, definitely a promising sight after a long road.
As I finally closed my eyes, I felt a tiny bit of pain in one of my teeth. Thankfully it didn’t prevent me from getting a great night of sleep.
The next day started on a terrible note… The pain intensified so much that I could barely pay attention to the beauty of the resort. I didn’t care about infinite pools, spas, unlimited food and drinks. All I really wanted was for my pain to go away, if only for a minute…
My wife bought me some painkillers and they provided some short-term relive, but overall I wasn’t able to remember much from this beautiful resort. I’m sure it was great though.
Interestingly enough as we arrived at San Juan, our final destination, my pain was gone. Magic. We visited the old town and a fortress with breathtaking views, ate some awesome local food and it was great. Loved every minute of it.
Apart from missing the plane and almost being arrested (a story for another day) the trip was amazing.
It’s heartbreaking to see the devastation brought by hurricane Maria… Stay strong guys!
What all of that has to do with building A level teams?? Patience my friends.
About a year after the trip I spotted a small white dot on the side of the tooth that gave me a lot of problems in Puerto Rico. I didn’t pay too much attention to it, thinking it will go away on its own.
It didn’t. Weeks would go by and the white spot would stay in the same place. It wasn’t painful and didn’t give me much discomfort, but it wasn’t normal either so one day I decided to show it to the dentist.
The x-ray showed that I had an abscess. Pretty serious stuff, the nerve inside of the tooth died (probably because of the leaked filling) but there was no escape for the pus, so it showed up as the white hole on the side of my gum. Pretty cool right? Not really…
What did my dentist suggest? He said: “Sergey, do you want my honest opinion? Here is what I would recommend to my family member – just pull this tooth and install the implant.”
I wasn’t ready to pull anything. How could this small painless dot cause my big molar removed? I just couldn’t believe it.
Naturally, I asked if there was any other option.
“In theory, you could try to do a root canal, but looking at your x-ray it will probably won’t work…”
The root canal specialist at the office confirmed the same thing, the tooth had twisted roots or something and the chance of success was very bleak… He wouldn’t do it basically.
I was about to go ahead with the whole tooth removal mamba jamba, when I remembered my old root canal specialist Hank Shiffman.
My previous dentist sent me to Hank to see if I needed a root canal done before doing a crown on one of my molars. That was about five years ago.
Hank did a bunch of tests and simply said: “No root canal needed, the tooth is good and alive. Save money and go buy a bike instead”.
Honestly, I was pretty surprised and impressed when the doctor recommended me not to do the procedure that he would be paid for to do. That’s how you build trust and longtime customers!
I canceled the extraction appointment and went on to visit Dr. Shiffman office. Long story short – he was able to save my tooth and I still have it with me in my mouth! Yay!
Hope you got my message though – if you are not going to build an A-level team around yourself, “you will lose your teeth” eventually 🙂
Get clear on your own superpower and then surround yourself with professionals in other areas of life and business who will help you fulfill your true potential.
Don’t settle for mediocrity, you deserve better.