Ktherine Eitel

Next to doing a true TEDtalk on a real TED stage, being asked to give a commencement speech at some grand University is high on my professional speaker's dream list.  Heck at this juncture, I'd be stoked to even remotely be considered for my local community college!  Anyway, most of the graduation speeches I've personally endured or watched on YouTube haven't impressed me all that much.  A few stand out like Steve Jobs, Ellen DeGeneres, and J.K. Rowling (of Harry Potter fame.)  Until last week, when I was sent a video by a friend.  It definitely made the list. 

In 2005, author David Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the graduating class of Kenyon College.  However, the resulting speech didn't become widely known until three years later, after his tragic death.  It contains some of the most simple and elegant life advice I've heard in a while.  This video was built around an abridged version of the original speech, with the hopes that the core message of it would reach a wider audience who might not have otherwise been interested.  Though I've not yet read the entire speech, it is available and I hear it's a true case of the "book being better than the movie."  I plan to seek it out. 

I took lots from David's speech but one point really stood out and profoundly resonated with me.  That's the idea of "Considering."

In the movie Mona Lisa Smile, Julia Roberts plays the true-life character, Katherine Watson, a novice art history professor at the all-girls Wellesley College in the early 50's where young women are expected to become college-educated wives.  The film centers on how Watson inspires her students to look beyond the image of what is, and consider the possibilities of what could be.  I use a clip from this movie in my Transformational Training  course in which Watson takes her students out to look at a brand-new painting by Sidney Pollack.  As the painting is unveiled, Watson overhears one student snidely complain about the likelihood of having to write a paper about it... to which Watson replies, "You don't have to write a paper about it.  You don't even have to like it.  You do have to consider it.  That is your only assignment.  When you are done, you may leave."  I love that line...  You do have to consider it. 

In David Wallace's speech, he suggests that our human default setting is to move unconsciously through our world, continually perceiving ourselves to be at its center as well as unconsciously accepting that the world is happening to us and around us in only one way... like fish who don't know they are swimming in water because they've never known (or considered) anything else.  He's suggests we practice a heightened awareness that we have a choice as to how we frame our world.  "It all depends on what you want to consider." 

What might you see this week in the personal fishbowl you're swimming in, if you consistently focused on the variety of alternative realities you could consider in relation to the people and circumstances that are swimming around you?  What if you practice a heightened awareness that the story may not be as it originally seemed when you were moving through the water on your normal default setting? 

What Wallace is presenting to us is all about that awareness and remembering we have a choice as to how we define any situation.  There is always another vantage point if we remember we're just swimming in one fishbowl and there are many.  We are swimming in the water of our own default settings and most of the time aren't even aware of it.  

So consider that there might be another equally valid story and experience than your own.  Consider there may be another reason for this event, or this opinion, or this choice.  Consider that even just the act of stopping long enough to consider other alternative stories and definitions might just open up a whole new possibility for growth and expansion for you. 

Before you summarily dismiss another viewpoint, idea, or belief, consider it.  That's all.  That is your only assignment this week.

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Curve Dental is a definitely a leader when it comes to the cloud. So we do get our share of darts and arrows from mean people who don't want to see us succeed. In response, I'm presenting the top ten silly things mean people say about the cloud.

The tenth one: Their Mothers Dress Them Funny

What's meant here is that we don't act or dress like our fossil-fuel competitors. We do look different from the rest of the crowd--and thank goodness for that! Let's be honest: Some of our competitors look less than up to date (download our chart comparison below). Well, change is different. Change is good. If dental software did not change we'd still be pressing Shift F7 to print reports in DOS.

Some say client-server software is a proven platform and there's no reason to change. Well, sure it works. So does the slide rule and the 8-track tape. Efficiency and advantages are gained by accomplishing tasks differently, and you can only do that by moving to a new platform. The cloud looks more intuitive and feels more familiar--and it beats the pants off on client-server software.

We like to have fun. We like to hang with our customers. We like to listen to them. We like to do things differently. We like to shine the flashlight in the corners and see what all the options are. Our space is one big hug full of freedom, convenience, and accessibility. The air is clear and the sky is orange.

Being chained to the proverbial 800-pound gorilla doesn't sound like freedom to me. It sounds heavy, expensive, and controlling. Who wants that? What you want is:

• More money
• More time
• Fewer hassles
• More choices
• Less worry. 

And that, my friends, is why you must evolve your technology to a higher life form.

You can learn more about our modern, cloud-based dental software by calling and chatting with one of our dental software consultants at 888-910-4376. Call today to learn more or visit our website.

What game did the dentist play when she was a child? Caps and robbers!

Over the last decade, the proportion of people aged 60 who had lost all of their teeth had decreased from 33% to 25%.