Be the GOAT!

There is no better way to kick things off in 2026 than to get some inspiration from nature – specifically from Bethany’s Nigerian Dwarf goats! In this episode, Bethany shares the lessons she has learned over the last couple of weeks as she has helped 7 of her goats get through birthing a total of 15 kids. Nature is a powerful teacher, so there are core lessons that we can ponder upon and ultimately incorporate into life and practice ownership. 

📣January content available!! If you want to start the year right, then you need to get on it TODAY! This month’s content includes: 

• January 5th Managing Dental Drama episode continuation – Be the GOAT
• Annual Practice Management Plan
• Monthly ADMIN Day Topic List
• Build Your Support Team Plan
• Plus 6 Creative Team Building Ideas

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Transcript

Are you looking for a podcast where you can hear from real people regarding their real dental drama? If so, then
0:09
you've come to the right place. Join hosts Bethany Penny and Dr. Reena Kuba
0:14
as we dive into the solutions we've created and the mistakes we've made
0:19
while managing dental drama. Let's get started. Hello, managing
0:25
dental drama community. Can you guys believe it? We have arrived. We have made it officially to 2026. I hope you
0:34
are as happy as I am to be here and to be celebrating this new year. I am super
0:41
excited about what this year will bring. Not only for the dental community, but
0:47
for each of you that are connected to this podcast or to me as a as a
0:53
consultant. I think it's going to be a great year. And I have done a lot of
0:58
reflection. You guys know that December is my month of reflection. And so I
1:05
typically do that, but this year's reflection has been a bit different for me because you have heard Dr. Kuba ribb
1:12
me about my ridiculous farm adventures. and we dove into the deep end over this
1:19
holiday break and helped seven goats deliver their babies
1:26
over a 10day period of time. And you might be asking, "Oh, hey, have you done
1:32
this before?" Nope, certainly have not. This was our first time. I have never
1:37
helped anything be delivered besides my own children, and I was not very much part of that. At least wasn't witnessing
1:44
it or helping myself. Um, so it was quite the adventure and something that
1:50
I've really been thinking on in the in between sleep deprivation when I've had moments of clarity. I've thought about
1:58
what I would do differently through this process, what I've learned in the process, and it really has been
2:04
extremely fun. Exhilarating is a word that I've used a lot and terribly
2:10
exhausting. And as I've thought through it and lived through it over these past couple weeks, I wanted to use this
2:19
kickoff 2026 episode to be a lesson on
2:25
what I've learned that I think is applicable to dental teams, practice
2:30
owners, etc. So that's why the name of this this episode is be the goat. Yes,
2:37
be the greatest of all time, but also literally be like a goat. And I'll tell
2:43
you some of the things that I mean in this. So, like I mentioned, we have
2:49
eight female goats. We have two bucks. And we successfully over the summer bred
2:57
seven of those female goats all within a matter of two weekends. So, we knew very
3:05
specifically when their due date was going to be. December 19th was the very first due date and then all the way up
3:13
to technically January 2nd, but they have all delivered and it's um I'm
3:20
recording on January 2nd. So, um, I
3:26
wanted to kind of walk through some things that are little stories that to kind of describe how the last couple of
3:32
weeks have been. Um, first of all, we have
3:38
just such a love for our goats. I am an animal lover anyway, but these goats
3:43
just have a special place in our heart. And so leading up to these weeks of delivery, knowing that I was completely
3:49
new, this was foreign territory for me. I, to be perfectly honest, was highly
3:56
stressed about this. I, you know, you can't really undo things once they're done. We had seven goats
4:03
pregnant. We knew that we were heading into a very, um, challenging couple weeks over Christmas break, but it's
4:11
like, hey, we're in it. We've made that decision. And so a couple of things that
4:17
I've thought about since these surviving these last couple of weeks has has been
4:22
first of all we had a very clear plan to begin with. Um if any of you know me
4:28
personally or for those of my clients who are listening, you you know me well
4:34
enough to know that I love a good plan. I'm a strategy person. To me, most
4:39
problems in life can be solved with a really good strategy. And so, before we
4:45
even bred these goats, I had gone through and looked at the calendar and figured out when I myself could carve
4:53
some time off of work, when my husband would be off work, and we knew that we
4:59
needed to time these deliveries to be when we could be home. Goats can deliver
5:04
on their own, but they often need support. And the last thing I wanted was to come home to a dead goat mama or a
5:11
dead goat baby. And so I don't usually take off a ton of time over the holiday
5:17
break, but I planned this year to make myself available during those due dates
5:23
and to be off or to be working from home during that time. The reason that we picked winter, why
5:30
winter? Yes, I've been asking myself the same thing because we spent a couple of
5:36
frigid cold nights in the barn with a birthing mom and I was asking myself
5:42
why. Like, why did you do this to yourself? Um, but we picked winter because goats are prone to parasites and
5:50
even though we do all the things to make sure that we've got parasites under control, we knew that winter was a very
5:56
low parasite load time of year. Summer is a very high parasite load time of
6:03
year. They like the warm weather and they can survive in warm weather. So, we wanted to do our best to protect these
6:09
goat babies from potential parasites or from the moms potentially picking up
6:15
parasites and compromising their own health or the baby's health. So knowing that it was going to need
6:22
need to be in the winter, knowing that my husband who is a teacher is off for a couple weeks, that is why we picked this
6:29
particular time. It was such a perfect time, honestly,
6:34
that that is why we chose to breed all of the goats together. Rather than just
6:41
dabbling with one or two, we decided, hey, this is really going to be the only time of year that's good to birth goats
6:49
because of the parasite load. And so, we're going to do them all at the same time rather than spreading them out.
6:56
There's no other time throughout the year besides summer. My husband, who's a teacher, is off in the summer. Um, so we
7:02
could have had some do in summertime, but that would not have been good because of the parasite load. So,
7:07
really, winter was our only option. And it is not good to wait too long to breed
7:13
a goat. You want to breed them early enough that they get used to being a mother earlier in their life. If you
7:19
wait too late, then they can reject the babes and be like, "Hey, I I don't want to be a mom." So, we knew we needed to
7:26
get them all bred by the time they were a year a year and a half, which was this summer. So, bestlaid plans, right?
7:35
Lesson number one is bestlaid plans may not always be the best plan. And so it
7:42
was interesting as we were breeding the goats this summer, which was a whole lesson in and of itself. I won't go into
7:48
the details of that. Um, but that was a lesson. Um, but when we were breeding
7:53
the goats, my husband, who loves these goats as if they were his own children,
7:59
was like, "I don't know how I feel about breeding all of them." and he started kind of like handpicking his favorites
8:06
and he's like, "Are you sure we want to bring breed this one? Like what if something happens to her?" And so
8:11
sentimentally he was having some reservations with breeding these things
8:17
and also the breeding process is kind of weird and he was like, I don't like it.
8:22
I just don't like it. And so he was already trying to kind of backpedal from our plan. And
8:30
I was like, I had my consultant mindset on and I was like, "No, this is the
8:35
right plan. This is what we're going to do. This is the best strategy and the best plan." And we did it and ended up
8:41
with seven pregnant goats. And so hindsight is always 2020. And even
8:48
though the plan made a whole lot of sense on paper, me personally, I wish I would have taken
8:55
the time to point number one is listen to the naysayers. So I wish I would have slowed down to
9:01
listen to my husband a little bit more. I felt like he was being emotional, sentimental. He didn't really have a lot
9:07
of facts that he was bringing to the table when he was um saying these things. It was more just like
9:13
emotionally, I don't like it. I don't want to breed all of them. I don't want to have the potential of losing any of
9:20
them. And so, so to me, I was like, feelings, feelings, feelings, blah. Who needs that? The facts are this plan
9:27
makes sense. And hindsight is 2020. Having seven goats due during a 10day
9:35
period of time was brutal. In so many ways, it was brutal. Um,
9:42
first of all, the births are incredibly challenging and we were there for every
9:51
single birth and um, as by design, we designed it to be that way. Um, they're
9:57
emotionally exhausting. You know, you might be sitting with a goat for 2 hours
10:02
while she's laboring very hard and you're you're watching this goat struggle, which is emotionally hard. Um,
10:09
you're catching those babes when they come out and cleaning them off and suctioning their little mouth out to make sure they can breathe. And you're
10:15
making sure that they can nurse. So, you're watching them for several hours afterwards to to make sure that they eat
10:21
and that they look okay. You're watching mom very closely to make sure that she
10:26
is recovering, that she's able to stand, able to nurse, that she's licking her
10:31
babies and taking care of them. And so it's not just the goat birthing process,
10:37
which can be, you know, as short as a couple hours. I would say some goats, we were with them for several hours, uh,
10:45
four, five, 6 hours sitting with them in a barn before they actually gave birth.
10:50
And then you tack tack on all the evaluation time afterwards and you just
10:55
realize, wow, that one goat was an all day event to get her babies birthed. And
11:01
we actually had three goats b deliver in one day which was um extra insane. And
11:08
so on paper it made sense from a big picture
11:14
standpoint. All the go go goats need to be due over Christmas break because that's when my husband's available.
11:19
That's when I can schedule some time away and that's when the parasite load is
11:24
small. Great. But take the time to really listen to
11:31
the naysayers who may not even really be saying anything that makes sense. It may
11:36
just be like, "Ah, I don't think that's going to work." But why? Why don't you think that's going to work? And I think
11:43
it if I would have taken the time to really slow myself down and listen to my what my husband was trying to say or
11:50
given him an opportunity to flush out his feelings a little bit more, I think I would have realized that he probably
11:56
had some valid things to say. But because he was leading out with feelings, I don't like this, you know,
12:02
my poor little goat babies. I I think I would have should have
12:07
pushed past those objections and really listened to some of the true objections
12:13
that he was likely having because hindsight is 2020 and I would never
12:18
again go back and breed all of our eight goats or seven goats at the same time.
12:25
That would made it exceedingly challenging. Um, so listen, uh, step number one,
12:32
listen to the naysayers. Even though the naysayers can be Debbie Downer for you,
12:38
sometimes you're just like, "Oh, they never think anything's going to work." Sometimes those naysayers have a valid
12:43
point and it's worth it for you to kind of slow down, consider their opinion. You may reject the opinion and still
12:49
move forward on your path, but at least you've taken the time to like pause and think through why they may be opposed to
12:57
this particular plan. So step number two or or point number
13:03
two that I've learned in this process is that you really can never be too
13:09
prepared for anything in life. Preparation is key. And I know Dr. Koopa
13:14
and I preach this a lot on the podcast, but to me
13:20
an ounce of precaution is worth a pound of the cure. That age-old adage. It is
13:26
true though. And I think we know that in business. We don't always abide by that
13:32
in business. But I think sometimes nature teaches us that preparation
13:38
really is essential to life, to health, to all of the things that are necessary
13:46
to keep your business afloat. So I'll give you a few examples. Like I said, um
13:52
we had zero experience in this. Um the we've had our goats um for um uh by this
14:02
point almost 2 years, but we were new to goats. Uh we we've been learning about
14:08
goats over these last two years. We had never experienced a goat birth or
14:13
anything like that. Um, my mom always jokes that uh when I was a kid, we had a cat that had kittens and they woke us up
14:20
in the middle of the night to go and watch these kittens being born. And all she remembers is the shades of green
14:25
that I turned. And um so she was laughing as we were preparing for this goat season. She was like, "Of all the
14:31
kids, I would not have expected you to be okay in this process." And so I knew
14:37
we were severely disadvantaged stepping into this um goat season. So before we
14:43
bred the goats, I did all kinds of research on best breeding methods, um
14:50
what to do, what not to do in the breeding process. But I also spanned forward and started preparing for worst/
14:59
best case scenario. What if all of these goats get pregnant? Then what? And I
15:05
started looking into what we needed from a shelter standpoint. Knowing that these ladies were going to be delivering
15:11
during the winter, I knew we needed a warm place that um babies freezing is
15:18
possible and I didn't want that to happen. I know that they did not they do
15:24
not like to birth in a group setting. um they are very protective and it's very
15:30
easy for other goats to step on the goat kids or to um even injure intentionally
15:37
injure the goat kids. And so I knew that they needed private they're called kidding stalls and there's so many
15:44
different so many different varieties of kitting stalls that we could do. I had to think about what made the most budget
15:50
sense um where to put these kitting stalls. I had to start building out the
15:55
floor plan for these kidding stalls and thinking about the materials that we would need. And all of this is happening
16:04
honestly even before we bred the goats, before we even knew how many goats we
16:09
had pregnant. And so then fast forward again, I'm starting to watch videos on
16:17
goat birth. I'm starting to read what kind of diet do the moms need to be on
16:22
to prepare for goat birth, to prepare for milking, all of the things that go into this. It
16:28
is so much more complex than I'll de divulge in this podcast, but ultimately
16:33
there was a lot of prep that started happening before we even bred the goats.
16:39
In all honesty, we were preparing for breeding the goats before we even bought them because we knew that we wanted to
16:45
sell a certain caliber of goats. And so we I wanted only registered goats. Um
16:53
and so we before we even bought goats, we were researching not only whether they were registered from the farms that
16:59
we were going to be looking into, but what was the farm quality? What were the re the reviews on those farms? um what
17:07
protection measures did they have in place? So, the prep has been honestly to
17:13
get to this point where we've had 15 kids born to this farm in a 10-day period of time. Um it took years uh 2
17:21
years of prep if not more than that. And so, I think preparation
17:27
spared us from so much potential that could have gone wrong because we were
17:33
prepared. We had all of the appropriate feed available to make sure they had good and and easy deliveries for the
17:40
most part. We had kitting stalls built. Now, we ended up running out of kitting
17:48
space, so we had to do some pivoting in the in the process, which I'll talk about here in a little bit, but we had
17:55
nice kidding stalls available. We handbuilt everything to make sure that it was up to our standards. We had I had
18:03
a goat birthing kit which was like a little tackle box that had it had anything and everything I might possibly
18:08
need in that goat birthing process. Um from an emergency standpoint or even just from a prep standpoint, gloves and
18:16
lubricant and um scissors to cut the cord if need be, dental floss to tie off
18:22
the cord if need be. um this a little
18:27
basically bottle is the best way to describe it in case the kid didn't nurse within the first couple of hours. And so
18:34
all this prep went to ensure that we had a smooth process. And I will tell you
18:40
guys that prep paid off big time. Even though I was still shaking in my boots
18:46
in that first birth all the way through the seventh birth, to be perfectly honest, I was nervous. Nelly, I still
18:52
felt like I had more confidence because of the preparation that I put in. It was
18:58
literally a year or more of just studying and preparing to make sure that
19:03
these last 10 days went well. Our businesses require the same level of
19:09
attention because if we are thinking about our
19:14
business, planning for our business, preparing for our business, projecting
19:20
for our business, then we are putting together the best toolbox to ensure that
19:26
our business has all the tools, all the resources that it needs to not only
19:32
protect from an emergency, but also to fulfill the projections that we have for
19:38
it. So, for example, one of the things that I don't think we spend enough time
19:43
on is projecting. Let's say that you're in an area that is just booming. You're
19:48
it could be a town of 2,000 people or 200,000 people, but the market that
19:54
you're in, it's just booming right now. Have you projected for that? Are there two new neighborhoods going in near your
20:00
practice? Okay. What are you doing to prepare for that potential practice growth? Are you making more availability
20:08
on your schedule? Are you creating your own kidding stalls? Right? You're
20:14
creating these spaces where you can grow into whether that's new chair space,
20:20
whether that's additional team members. Um what are you doing to make yourself
20:26
available for that growth? How are you marketing to these new pract uh these new neighborhoods that could be
20:32
potential for your practice? So, projections and planning for those
20:37
projections are incredibly important. But probably even more importantly than that, the more you plan, the more you
20:45
prepare, the more you study up, the more confidently you tackle the challenges
20:51
ahead of you. If you're flying by the seat of your pants, you are not going to
20:56
feel confident in any decision that you make. While I wasn't confident, confident is
21:03
not the word that I would use stepping into this kidding season that we just survived. Um, but I felt prepared. There
21:10
was a calm, steadiness that I knew I had done
21:16
everything in my power to be prepared for this. I you're never going to feel
21:21
fully prepared, but I felt ready. And I want you to experience that same level
21:28
of readiness. And you do that by preparing, studying, exposing yourself
21:34
to all of these different strategies and tools and tips to get
21:40
yourself ready for a season that your practice might experience.
21:46
So that is number two. be prepared and don't wait to be prepared. Prepare ahead
21:52
of time. You can never be too prepared too early. One of my tips and what what
21:59
I did through this goat birthing process was I prepare. I imagined the worst case scenario and then I planned for that
22:06
worst case scenario and studied for it and got the supplies that I needed. So,
22:11
what's the absolute worst that can happen and what can I do to be prepared for that? And I think that's a good strategy for you in your te on your team
22:19
or in your business. Number three,
22:25
you need resources. I am just so
22:31
thankful that we put together some good resources prior to this goat kidding
22:38
season. So we thank God that five of our seven delivered during the day and five
22:46
of those seven deliveries were relatively straightforward. We had to
22:52
make judgment calls in the birthing process. Um things that I was uncertain on that um I needed to be able to to
23:00
look up real quickly. So, I had on my phone
23:05
I had on my browser several goat pages that I've come to trust as good
23:11
resources. I had those preloaded on my um pages so that when I went to Safari,
23:18
pulled open my uh pages that I had up, I could easily click on those for a quick
23:23
reference. Um, I made sure that my phone was ready for me to ask Siri questions
23:29
in case my hands were tied up and I couldn't pick up my phone. Um, we have a
23:35
fantastic beloved babysitter of ours that is very experienced with lots of
23:42
different kinds of births. Um, but she has been through a lot of goat births and she gave us some tips prior to the
23:50
birthing season. And the first birth I kind of uh freaked out on and was like,
23:56
I'm not sure. I don't know if she has any more kids. I don't know how to assess for that. And she was Johnny on
24:01
the spot. Came right over, assessed the goat, look at the babies, and just kind of talked me down to make sure that um I
24:09
felt good. And she was our resource in the middle
24:15
of the night, honestly, on our last goat birth, you know.
24:22
Just when you think like, "Oh my gosh, we're on the last one. It's going to all be okay." We just got smacked in the
24:28
face with our seventh goat that um had a very, very long and difficult labor and
24:33
we had to intervene quite a bit to be able to get that baby out. And our beloved babysitter Abby was facetiming
24:40
with us the whole time and was it was the middle of the night and she was such a fabulous resource. Um, we had a vet
24:49
a on call vet that did warn us that she's out in the field all day every day
24:56
and isn't usually able to return phone calls or emails until that evening.
25:02
So, we knew we had limited access to her, but we knew that if we had a
25:08
question for her that she would get us a response. She just wasn't going to be our on call person during the
25:14
deliveries. and we knew that and there were a couple times we had to um email her some questions and she was able to
25:20
get back with us the next day. So, get resources in place. I w I can tell you
25:28
now that we would have lost a goat kid had it not been for Abby on the phone
25:34
with us facetiming with us in that seventh delivery. Um, I don't know what
25:40
I would have done um with a couple of the questions that I had that were critical but not time-sensitive if our
25:46
vet had not gotten back with us. Um, so you need to have resources in place to
25:54
help you in either a moment of crisis, a moment when you need to make a good a
26:00
really good decision. I would challenge you to build a list of
26:08
people that you know the term rolodex is probably a lost a lost name at this
26:14
point but have your people that you can flip through and contact for anything related to the business and these people
26:23
should have some level of knowledge to be able to advise you appropriately. So,
26:30
I can't tell you how many times I have a client that their main resource is their spouse or their partner. And while
26:37
that's helpful, it's helpful to have a sounding board, I don't think that should be your primary resource. Even if
26:43
they are intimately involved with the practice, you need more than just your spouse or your partner as a resource.
26:50
You need somebody beyond that. So, get your resources together for who's going
26:56
to answer your questions about management or HR. about compliance,
27:01
about uh your profit and loss, whatever. Go through all of the things that you
27:06
might need in your business and get your resources together. You need people in
27:12
your court. Look for people that want to help you, that want to be there, and that have the availability
27:19
to be there for you. So, that's point number three. Build your resources. I'm
27:25
going to give you one more point here based on the lessons that I've learned and then I am saving the rest of the
27:32
nitty-gritty details on these goat births and these um tips for our
27:38
subscribers. So, I'm going to finish up with point 4 and then subscribers, you guys will get the rest of the points in
27:44
the bonus episode. So, go there to get those details. Okay.
27:51
Number four. Sometimes you lose.
27:56
And I hate to end on a negative, especially with the the New Year's episode, but sometimes you experience a
28:04
loss. And no matter the amount of preparation, no matter the amount of
28:10
resources you have, no matter how prepared you've tried to be, sometimes
28:16
you lose. It is a fact of life. And again, nature teaches us this better
28:22
than anybody else. We had our sweet little pepper girl, Pepper Potts is her name, and she's a beautiful goat. This
28:30
beautiful black and white spotted goat with these gorgeous blue eyes. And
28:35
Pepper has a soft spot in my heart because she had uh been bit by something
28:41
early on when we first got her. Developed hives all over her body. we had to just torture the poor thing,
28:46
drenching her with meds. And um so she has been a little standoffish from us
28:52
ever since. And so I was nervous how Pepper Pot's delivery would go because
28:57
she we have to have food in our hands for Pepper to come to us. And even then
29:03
it's like feed me a little bit and then I'm on my merry way. And this goat birthing process is very intimate. you
29:11
are, you know, right there with them in this small kitting stall and they really
29:16
have to accept your help and receive your help. And so Pepper had been laboring for a while and um I had kind
29:24
of let her have her distance, but I was sitting in the barn with her. This was late late into the night and I knew that
29:32
it wasn't seeming like the normal deliveries that we've had. It something felt off to me, but I couldn't really
29:38
put my finger on what it was. Um my husband was there. We were both tag teaming this trying to figure out how to
29:44
help Pepper. Um but ultimately Pepper finally um developed there's this fluid
29:50
sack that comes out first. And so finally after stimulating her to keep
29:56
contracting um finally this fluid sack appeared and I was like oh thank god
30:03
this fluid sack has appeared. We're we're we're golden now. But I realized pretty quickly that the wrong parts of
30:09
that goat were coming out. And um so I knew that it was a breach birth, which
30:15
is not ideal at all. And so I uh once the fluid sack
30:21
came out and I saw the feet, the back hooves protruding, then I was able to
30:28
kind of watch those feet and see if they were coming out. And the feet looked a little funny to me. Um they were very
30:35
very short and I could tell that they were attached to a body. Um goats have
30:42
these long long legs and these legs were really really short and I was like that
30:48
is odd. And so she struggled and struggled and struggled and I realized
30:54
we've got to help pull this baby out. Something's not right. So I began to
31:00
pull on the little baby's legs. um as hard as I could and I realized this
31:06
baby's not giving like I can't get this baby out. Pepper's really struggling. Um
31:12
so my husband came over and we both together had to pull this baby out and
31:22
this baby was something. It it did not develop correctly. It had a gigantic
31:28
stomach. I still don't know how Pepper got this thing out. It was a huge swollen baby
31:36
that I knew as soon as I could see the face I was like this baby's dead. Um it
31:41
was not dead but it had died in the process of birthing and I believe it
31:47
died due to u deformities that it wasn't properly deformed. It wasn't properly formed. So once we got this baby out we
31:54
did everything we could to resuscitate the baby. Um, but ultimately we knew it
31:59
it was it was gone. There's when you think about a situation like
32:06
that, there's absolutely nothing that we could have done to make that baby form
32:11
correctly. There's nothing that we could have done to help that baby to be born
32:16
alive. Uh, it it was wrong. There was something wrong with it from the get-go.
32:22
and the preparation. Our support team couldn't have helped us with that. The
32:27
resources that we had, we could have Googled the heck out of that and it wouldn't have made that baby any less
32:33
deformed. Sometimes we're just going to lose. And we can
32:42
either choose to allow that loss to completely obliterate us and defeat us.
32:48
Or we can go such is life and sometimes life gives us
32:54
a loss. Such is practice ownership. Such is um teen drama from time to time.
33:00
Every once in a while we're just going to be knocked down. And nobody wants
33:05
that. We're certainly not going to aim for that. We're going to aim for successes, but at the end of the day, we
33:14
can get knocked down. We can experience a loss, and it's how we respond to that
33:19
loss that is so critical. So, in the case of Pepper Pepper Pots,
33:26
um we I had not I had prepared for almost everything
33:32
and I had not prepared for a dead baby being born. And so we quickly were able
33:37
to uh access our GOAT resources on um our our saved resources. Um there's some
33:44
emergency forums that we had already saved that we were able to put the question out. What do you do in this
33:50
case? And so um we left the baby with mom with Pepper even though it was it
33:56
was dead. Um the advice that we received from our resources was leave the baby
34:01
with mom until she walks away from the baby and and leaves the baby and then
34:07
you know it's okay to take the baby away which is what we did. Um and we
34:13
moved on from that. It was so sad. I you know still it just makes me so sad cuz
34:19
she just had the one baby and it happened to be the dead baby. Um, and so, but there can be good things that
34:27
come from losses. We can learn. We can be better prepared
34:32
next time. Um, now I know if if um next kidding season if we have a dead baby
34:38
that's born, I know exactly what to do. Um, we can also experience some new joys
34:45
from loss. So, Pepper and I are now very tightly bonded. Um we I think part of it
34:53
was we went through that experience together. Um my hands for days I think
35:00
she smelled her baby on my hands and she would just lick lick lick lick lick my
35:05
hands. I was having to milk her because um obviously she didn't have a baby
35:10
milking off of her. So we got to experience that new thing together. And so the pepper and I have a great bond
35:16
now. She's the first one to run up to me um to love on me when I go and check on the goats. And that wouldn't have
35:22
happened had we not gone through a loss together. And I think the same lesson can happen in our practice. When we
35:30
experience a loss or a setback or something that just really knocks our team down, the way that we respond to it
35:38
is going to help us experience something good out of that loss. So, how are we
35:44
rebounding? What are we learning? what are our key takeaways from this process? So, I think that's a great spot to end
35:53
today's episode for all of our um managing dental drama listeners. I hope
35:58
that you'll take these goat lessons and you'll be the goat. You'll just be the greatest of all time. That 2026 will be
36:05
your best year ever. That is my hope for you all. Um and I think if you take some of these tips, you have a better chance
36:11
of that happening. for part two on this subscribers. I've got lots more tips. If you are trying to
36:18
figure out how to become a subscriber, then look in our show notes and we'll show you exactly where to go. Um, you
36:25
want to become the practice pro subscriber to get not only the bonus episode, but also our January digest,
36:33
which as always is chocked full of amazing resources. You really do not
36:39
want to miss out on what we have for you to be able to kick this year off right. Once again, happy new year everybody.
36:45
Thanks for joining me today. Thanks for joining the conversation today. We hope
36:51
that you are comforted in knowing that you are not alone, but we also hope that you're walking away with some really
36:57
great tips and tricks to try in your practice. We value your feedback, so please take a
37:04
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37:09
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let us know what topics you want us to cover. As always, please know that we
37:22
are rooting for you today as you manage your dental drama.