[laughs]

Now that we know your why.

But it's- What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to be when you grow up, right? And so the question that you're trying to figure out is, what do I want? And you have now, at that time, 17, 18 years of life experience to be able to figure that out, and that's not much.

You know, it's either 17 years, in your case, getting in trouble, and maybe, y- uh, your case, trying to stay out of trouble.

Yeah.

Right? Getting in trouble.

You're getting in trouble to figure out, "What do I want to do with the next 40 years of my life?" And you really don't have a way to do it, and that's the same thing that happened to me.

What does that mean, especially for someone that's trying to rebuild their life?

You know? Well, so there's a story that I want you to share with the audience, and you shared it with me when we were having the Tarzan salad with the, the tofu scrambler on top, and you're like, "Did I ever tell you the story about the two Advils?" And I'm like, "No, you haven't told me that story yet." And so I want you to share that story with the audience, and then how that has impacted your life.

Yeah.

So like I mentioned, uh, when we were talking about the sequence, right, the Who First sequence, um, at 49 is, uh, when I realized, uh, when I found m- my why and my, and I realized I wasn't on the right path.

I knew it, but I didn't know why.

And then at age, um, 55...

Let me see, was it 55? Yeah, it was at 55.

I was at an event.

Right.

Do you have it? Yeah.

I do have it.

I do have it.

A- and, and I'll, we...

I'll play it.

Let me, let me bring it up here real quick.

But that's when we really stood out from everyone else who does what I do.

Yeah, absolutely.

But what is this why concept, and why does it matter?

Yeah, great question.

So there's a lot...

If you're trying to figure out who you...

I- if I could boil everything that we're gonna be talking about today to four words, it would be this: who first, then what.

Who are you first? Then what's your passion, your purpose? What's your leadership style? What's...

Everyth- all the what's come after knowing who you are first.

[laughs]

Yeah.

And so that's when I went out and hired a coach.

I hired a guy by the name of John Assaraf and, and through him, I learned how to use the internet.

I learned how to do websites, drip campaigns, SEO.

I learned how to tell everybody how great I was, right? But the only problem was, what am I gonna say? What am I gonna say that separates me from everybody else who does what I do? What am I gonna say that doesn't make me sound desperate, or like I actually need new patients coming in? What am I gonna say that doesn't give me a bad image? And since I didn't know what to say, I just stayed quiet until one day I heard John Assaraf interview Simon Sinek.

This was back in 2008 or 2009.

So I heard this interview and, and he talked all about the Golden Circle concept and why, how, what, and how you, and, uh, how successful organizations and, and inspiring people start with why, then tell you how they do what they do, and lastly, what it is they do that connects to you in a different way that allows you to make a decision because it feels right.

Yeah

How the hell does an Advil almost

literally kill you? You know what, Charlie? This came at a time when I was both a dentist as well as trying to bring the Y Institute together.

I had developed a process for helping people figure out their why, but it wasn't a tool yet.

It was just a conversation that I was able to take people through to find their why.

And at that time, I was very obsessed with it.

But I went to this event in Santa Fe called Zazobra.

I don't know if you've ever heard of it.

young can you be to take it? Yeah, important.

Yeah.

And so that's when I picked dentistry, just 'cause my dad was a dentist, and I knew the, I knew the lifestyle, and I knew it had a great lifestyle, so seemed like a logical choice.

Off to dental school I go, actually really enjoyed it, got out of dental school, and then I became obsessed with being the best dentist I could.

So mo- the advice that I was given was, um, build a great product and people will come, right? Go out and do the best job you can.

People will naturally, mysteriously find you and come see you.

So I spent twenty years reaching the highest levels you could go to in d- dentistry, studying with the best mentors, going to the best institute, building the beautiful practice, buying all the technology, still blending in with everybody else who said, "Yeah, I'm a dentist too." Oh, that used to drive me crazy 'cause I had never worked so hard at something and my practice wasn't growing like I thought it was.

My patients got used to the way we did things, and they didn't tell anybody about it.

Okay

Yeah

... all about me.

The only problem was, what am I gonna say? What am I gonna say that separates me from everyone else who does what I do? What, what are you gonna say, or what are the coaches gonna say, or what are, what are any of you listeners gonna say to separate you from those that do what you do? And since I didn't know, I just stayed quiet 'cause I didn't wanna sound bad or desperate.

And so that's when I heard John Assaraf interview Simon Sinek, and I learned about this concept of why.

And man, I watched that, Simon's TED Talk probably 20, 30 times.

I read his book four or five times, and I said, "That is what I'm missing.

I have a great what, but I don't know my why." So I became obsessed with it.

[laughs]

So why don't we start there?

Yeah.

And Stefan, this is not what I set out to do.

I didn't wake up 15 years ago and say, hey, you know, I think I'm going to create some software to help people figure out what their why is.

I was a dentist.

I don't know if I should say was or is.

Maybe you always are.

So yeah, just elaborate a bit on that.

And I think it's, it's interesting that, you know, coming from dentistry to go to why I don't think most people understand that dentists are one of the highest suicide rates of any profession on the planet was, was it, you know, when you talk about that pain of, of jumping across, did you have a formula for success or did you have a, this is how success happens type thing? Or did you just make the cut?

Yeah.

So, you know, in life for me, I have always had this formula, which was find somebody else who's already doing what you want to do.

figure out what they're doing, copy them until you can do it as good as they can, and then figure out a better way to pass them.

And that's how I became the world champion in racquetball.

That's how I did so many different things in my life is I found someone else who's already doing it.

And I did that in dentistry as well.

Could you give us a perspective on that? Because I think it's vital that people understand that part.