Stop Letting Passive Mindsets Drain Your Dental Practice: A Free Training on Reclaiming Your Intentional Growth

Sarah Beth Herman, Founder & CEO, Dentistry Support®

Every dental professional knows that clinical excellence alone doesn’t build a thriving practice. Leadership, clarity, and mindset are just as essential as understanding perio charting and bitewing intervals. Yet far too many practice owners and managers fall into a trap that’s harder to detect than poor margins on a crown—it’s the slow drip of passive thinking.

If you’ve ever told yourself, “I’ll do that next month,” or “It’s just the industry,” or “It’ll work out eventually,” you may be operating from a passive mindset without even realizing it. And let’s be honest—passivity in dentistry doesn’t just cost you money. It costs you culture, momentum, and a shot at the kind of business you actually want to run.

In this free training, we’ll walk through the research, psychology, and real-world application of how passive mindsets show up in the dental world—and what to do instead.

What Is a Passive Mindset in Dentistry?

Passive mindsets are subtle. They’re not always lazy or careless. Sometimes they look responsible on the outside. They sound like:

• “We’re waiting on insurance to respond.”

• “We’ve always done it this way.”

• “I don’t want to ruffle feathers by changing our workflow.”

  
  

But waiting doesn’t build businesses. Leadership does.

According to a 2022 survey from McKinsey & Company, 72% of small business owners report that fear of failure is the biggest reason they delay making decisions—even when they have the resources and team to move forward (McKinsey & Company, 2022). That fear shows up in dentistry through hesitation to invest in team training, avoidance of performance conversations, and even pushing off hiring the help you need.

Passive mindsets don’t always show up as doing nothing. Sometimes they disguise themselves as overanalyzing. Sometimes they show up in the form of perfectionism. And sometimes they’re just plain old comfort zones.

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The Danger of “Fake It Till You Make It” in the Dental Office

If your daily leadership relies on smiling through the chaos and pretending it’s fine, you’re actually creating what researchers call “surface acting”—and it’s silently burning you out.

The American Psychological Association has published multiple studies showing that surface acting (displaying fake emotions for work purposes) leads to emotional exhaustion, reduced job satisfaction, and increased turnover (APA, 2020). In dentistry, where patient interactions require warmth, empathy, and composure under pressure, the emotional labor is already high. Pretending to be okay when you’re drowning doesn’t make you strong. It makes you unstable long-term.

So, what’s the antidote?

The Power of Intentional Positivity (Not the Instagram Kind)

Let’s be clear—being positive on purpose isn’t about being blindly optimistic. It’s about choosing to frame your business, your growth, and your leadership with direction. It’s refusing to let discouragement drive the narrative.

Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, a leading voice in positive psychology, introduced the Broaden-and-Build Theory, which shows that positivity expands your capacity to solve problems and build resilience over time (Fredrickson, 2001). This is essential in dentistry, where complications, cancellations, and curveballs happen daily.

Practices that foster true positivity—not toxic positivity, but grit-based hope—see stronger team morale, better patient communication, and more sustainable energy from leadership.

How Passive Culture is Costing Your Team

Team members model what leaders demonstrate. If you’re stuck in a passive pattern—showing up late to meetings, tolerating gossip, avoiding performance feedback—your team will absorb that and reflect it. Culture isn’t what you write on the breakroom poster. It’s what you tolerate in your everyday systems.

And in the dental industry, where front office drama or back office burnout can derail a whole week’s worth of revenue, passivity is not a strategy. It’s a silent leak in your boat.

So, What Can You Do?

Sarah Beth Herman, a 5x CEO and host of the No Silver Spoons podcast, breaks all of this down in her powerful free training: Positive on Purpose: Why Passive Mindsets Keep You Broke and Bitter. She doesn’t sugarcoat what’s going wrong in so many businesses. Instead, she offers practical, research-backed mindset shifts that can transform how you lead, how you speak to yourself, and how you grow a practice that reflects your values—not your fears.

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Free Training Highlights

Before you head to the episode, here are five mindset shifts from Sarah Beth’s episode to reflect on:

1. Passive isn’t peace—it’s procrastination

   If you’re calling your inaction “peace,” make sure it’s not just fear in disguise.

2. Stop fake positivity

   You don’t need to be peppy. You need to be purposeful.

3. Audit your feed and your focus

   What you consume influences how you lead. Follow people who fuel you.

4. Celebrate small wins

   From paying off debt to getting your hygiene schedule full, celebrate loud and often.

5. Speak your belief out loud

   Even if no one else hears it, your brain needs the repetition. Confidence is a muscle.

   
   

The Real Truth? You Were Never Meant to Play Small.

Dentistry is demanding. But your mindset—how you show up to lead your team, how you tackle your numbers, and how you engage with your patients—is your most powerful business asset.

And you don’t need a silver spoon to get there. You need strategy, action, and belief that your next level isn’t waiting on a perfect moment. It’s waiting on a better mindset.

Start now. Listen to the full free training:

🎧 Episode 72 – Positive on Purpose: Why Passive Mindsets Keep You Broke and Bitter

References

American Psychological Association. (2020). Surface acting and employee burnout: How pretending to be okay leads to breakdowns. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2020

Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218–226. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.218

McKinsey & Company. (2022). Small business trends 2022: Fear of failure and barriers to action. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights

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Disclaimer:

To learn more about Sarah Beth Herman, the author of all free training content you can read her bio here. These materials are intended to provide helpful information to dentists and dental team members. They are in no way a substitute for actual professional advice based on your unique facts and circumstances. This content is not intended or offered, nor should it be taken, as legal or other professional advice. You should always consult with your own professional advisors (e.g. attorney, accountant, or insurance carrier). To the extent, Dentistry Support ®has included links to any third-party website (s), Dentistry Support ® intends no endorsement of their content and implies no affiliation with the organizations that provide their content. Further, Dentistry Support ® makes no representations or warranties about the information provided on those sites. You can view our privacy policy and terms and conditions by clicking those pages in the footer of our website.