Open Wide! How Economic Policies Can Affect Your Smile (and Your Health) - with Dr. Ingo Mahn [Ep. 19]

Linda: Welcome and thank you for joining us for this episode of the Prosperity 101 - Breakroom Economics Podcast. My name is Linda J. Hansen, the creator of the Prosperity 101 - Breakroom Economics Program. We seek to connect boardroom to breakroom by empowering and encouraging employers to educate employees about the public policy issues that affect their jobs. We believe this will lead to greater employee loyalty, engagement, and retention and to an increased awareness of the blessings and responsibilities of living in a free society. Join us each week to hear from our exciting guests and visit us at prosperity101.org.

Welcome again and today my guest is Dr. Ingo Mahn. Dr. Ingo Mahn is actually my former dentist. He would still be my dentist, but he moved away, unfortunately. I would really like to bring his story to our listeners today because he has a unique background and I think he has a unique perspective on regulatory implications in dentistry, in employment, and also just as a freedom-loving American. He has a great perspective and some insights that I think our listeners will appreciate.

Dr. Ingo Mahn grew up in Germany and he has practiced dentistry in the US, in Milwaukee area, for 31 years, then went into some consulting practices and now owns a practice called Natural Dental Partners in the Phoenix, Arizona area. Natural Dental Partners is the top-rated holistic Phoenix dentist office. Dr. Mahn is nationally recognized in natural and biological dentistry and so I would like to welcome Dr. Ingo Mahn.

Ingo: Well, thank you so much. I am happy to be talking to you and hopefully be able to share something useful with your listeners.

Linda: Well, it's great. You have a unique perspective in that you grew up in Germany. Can you tell me a little bit about your background?

Ingo: Yeah, it's an interesting story because my father was a German engineer, and my mom was a draftswoman. Germans are big into doing apprenticeships and really learning it the right way. So, in order to learn English and learn about the United States more, they came over here into late 50s. I actually happened to be born in Milwaukee. When I was a year old, my parents decided to move back to Germany, so they took a train to New York and took a boat back to Germany. We lived there in Southern Germany down near Stuttgart, which, if you're into cars, that's the home of Porsche and Mercedes. I actually grew up probably about 10 miles from the Mercedes factory. When I was 12 years old, they decided to move back to the United States. Of course, it's kind of funny because people say, “Oh, did you come over on a boat that was back in the day?” and, I'd say “No, I left on a boat, I came back on the 747.” [laughter]

It's interesting because I was in seventh grade and I was in junior high school and I didn't speak English. We had a little bit of English in Germany because the educational system there is pretty stringent, but it doesn't quite prepare you for actual life in the US. So coming over in seventh grade as the smallest kid not speaking English was an interesting learning experience, to begin with.

Linda: I am sure. What brought you back to the US? What brought your family back to the US after being in Germany?

Ingo: It had a lot to do with my parents’ background and it makes what's going on all that more important to me because they really did come here because they liked the freedom of this country. They remembered what it was like here and just the people in Germany that had much more of that socialistic mindset and they really like the freedom that this country offered and the opportunities. So, they just decided that they were going to just sell the house and pack everything up. Now, knowing even just moving across the country, I’ve realized what a huge undertaking that is, so I can only imagine what it was like to pick up and move across the Atlantic Ocean with two young boys.

Linda: I'm sure. Did you personally notice the difference in the culture and the freedoms, or were you not aware of it at that time because you were so young?

Ingo: I think at the time, I thought it was really cool my parents had a place. In Milwaukee, everybody goes up north, so we had a little cabin up north. So, we just thought as kids it was really cool to be able to go someplace where you could be on the water, on the river. My parents bought us this little Jon boat that we could row around and go fishing. We loved the outdoor stuff and I think that's such a great way to-- that's something I still try to give my kids, get them off the iPads and computers and get outside and get some fresh air.

Linda: Get outside, right. And for our listeners, I would just say Dr. Mahn is actually doing this interview outside in his backyard in Arizona. If you could see it on video, you would see the beautiful sunshine and you may hear a few birds singing so if there are a few wobbles in the sound, forgive us, but enjoying the sunshine of sunny Arizona. That beautiful outdoors is something we all long for.

I talked with a friend in California yesterday and he said, other than going to the grocery store, they haven't been out for two months and it looks like they're going to be in lockdown there again for another couple of months. So, this Coronavirus pandemic and the COVID-19 whole lockdowns and economic shutdown has affected everyone, and I know it’s affected healthcare workers, it’s affected dentists. You have chosen to stay open during this time and have been allowed to stay open but I know in many municipalities, many states, dentists were not allowed to be open other than for essential services or emergency services, I should say. I've heard that that has really been detrimental to the health of people because sometimes, cavities become root canals, root canals become extractions and things. I would like you to just share with our listeners a little bit about how important dental health is to overall health so we can put it into perspective, not only now and seeing how essential dentistry is even during a pandemic, but in general when we're not under lockdown.

Ingo: Well, there's a lot there to talk about because initially when you started speaking, I was thinking about-- you're talking about the beautiful sunshine and how nice it is and everybody thinks about moving to Arizona because of the climate. I actually had gotten a license to practice in California first and just the more I looked at the general business climate and the freedoms allowed for people, it made us actually choose Arizona over California.

So, I'm really here a lot because of the business climate more even than the actual weather-type climate, which is one of the reasons that I've left Wisconsin of course. But it has been really valuable, these last couple of months, to be in a state that has maybe a little bit more freedom as far as people being able to work. Obviously, there was an executive order issued here as well that only allowed us to do what were considered essential services now. Most of these things were relatively vague and they left what was essential and not essential up to the healthcare practitioner and that gave us a lot of leeway.

I had a lot of patients, they are sick. They're trying to get the toxic metals like the mercury-releasing silver fillings, like infected root canals, they still wanted to get these things taken care of because we are trying to improve their health and they're quite sick. So, I stayed open on a very limited basis and was able to do a fair amount of dentistry and see all the emergency patients and get those taken care of. But you're absolutely correct. I think, in the general medical field, it has probably been even more dramatic work. They're saying 80,000 to 100,000 cancer diagnoses have been missed in the last couple of months because of all the shutdown of the medical facilities.

I'm much more conscious as a holistic dentist of all of the health things going on because really, that's what we do. I've worked specifically with a lot of medical professionals that have referred to me, that's where most of our patients come from, and these practitioners realize that a lot of the things that do go on in the mouth have an effect on the body. Fifteen, twenty years ago when I really got into this was, I was considered-- talked about being the black sheep in your profession. Even when I applied for my license in Arizona, they made me come in front of the board and grilled me about my holistic dental practices. And now, actually one of the top continuing education facilities in the country is located here in Scottsdale. And it's funny, I'm listening to these lectures and they're sounding more and more like holistic dentist every day. And they're starting to realize that airway and toxins and all these different things, just how critical they are to improving people's health.

Linda: Yeah. Well, that was one thing I wanted to touch on. You touch on several topics that we can go off on. One, the regulatory and tax and pro-business versus non-pro-business policies in the state and I will go back to that, thank you for bringing that up. But also, I do want our listeners to understand what is holistic dentistry, biological dentistry, and what makes it different from just going to the traditional dentist you see most everywhere.

Ingo: When you go to dental school, we're trained to be very mechanical types of practitioners. Essentially, we're looking for cavities and how to fix those. We're looking at missing teeth, how do you replace those. But we're really never looking at how the teeth affect the overall health of the patient. That's something that was really introduced to me by the way of when I got into cosmetic dentistry. I was the kind of practitioner that when I learned that there was a better way to do something-- initially, I started out being having a very high tech dental practice because when I learned about a new piece of equipment that made things go easier and better and faster, I couldn't do dentistry one way, if I knew there was a better way to do it.

The one thing I always told new team members was the only thing that stays the same in our practice is that things are always changing because I'm always looking to improve. I'm also looking to-- part of it is, I enjoy it. Part of it is, I'm always thinking about what would make someone come to see me as a dentist versus all the dentists around me, what can I do to set myself apart? I've just really enjoyed that. But as I grew and started doing things differently, I found that people really like going to a dentist that's very progressive and keeps up with the latest technologies. One of the things that I really got into was cosmetic dentistry and that was-- probably the mid to late 90s was the heyday, when all of a sudden you saw this explosion of everybody advertising that they were cosmetic dentists.

And one of the things that what happened was, I had a lot of patients bring me-- that were looking to get-- that knew much more about this than I did at the time. But they would bring me all this information about how getting the metals and different things out of your mouth would improve health. Being open-minded and always willing to change, I looked at these things and the more I read and the more researched, the more it just made sense that this was the right way to do things.

Then, as that became more mainstream, I thought again, how can I take this to the next level? And then in 2003 and 2004, I actually did a doctorate in integrative medicine at Capital University out of Georgetown, which was a two-year program. I flew out there every month for two years and learned-- just again, really opened my mind to so many things that were going on. I was never going to practice holistic medicine or integrative medicine but it really helped me communicate with the practitioners that were referring to me and it really helped me understand my patients. And it was just fun. I met some really neat people and it again changed the whole path of my practice.

I think without that niche, I would have never even dreamed about-- after 31 years in practice in one location, you don't just pick up and move across the country and start over. But I knew that there was such a niche and such a demand for this that was unfilled, that I really felt very confident that if I opened a practice here, that the same thing would happen here, as happened in Wisconsin, which was that the practice just took off like crazy, because that's what people wanted. And it makes sense.

Linda: It's a healthier alternative. I know some of your Wisconsin patients who are snowbirds in Arizona are actually your patients down there too. I would be too if I could be. I would just like to say for our listeners too, Dr. Mahn is the one who basically introduced me to integrative dentistry and I've talked about it a few times. One of my earlier podcast episodes was with an 85-year-old pharmacist named Gilbert Weiss from Jacksonville, Florida, and he is quite an integrative pharmacist in terms of his approaches. The thing about these integrative health approaches, it really goes to the cause, not just the symptom and a lot of times with medicine, we treat the symptom which, there's times for that where we need to do that immediately, treat the symptom. We need Z-Paks for raging infections or things, but there are other times where we can go to the cause.

In my own life, I feel like Dr. Mahn and my naturopath physician actually either saved my life or at least saved the quality of my life by their careful attention to what was going on within my own body. I found that I had some root canals that had not been fully completed properly, so I had a very low-grade infection that was hard to detect. It actually had gone down into my heart, liver, and gallbladder and the compounding effects of that were multiple, and it was affecting-- I couldn't run, I had no stamina anymore. I was really ill.

I'm so thankful for you and my naturopath that actually helped find the cause. It was a three-prong approach. I was working with my traditional doctor and the two of you and we were able to get to the root, no pun intended, but the root of the problem. And actually, when my mouth became healthier, the rest of my body regained its full health. For anybody who maybe hasn't been able to get their problems fixed or there's just some unknown cause, I really recommend may be seeking out an integrative dentist or a physician who can look beyond the traditional approaches. This is not a medical recommendation or anything like that, but I can just tell you from my own experience, integrative dentistry really impacted my life.

And then, knowing Dr. Mahn has opened my eyes to not only that area, but also the regulatory implications that, what were the hurdles you've faced as an integrative dentist, you said you were almost seen as the outsider. And people weren't quite so sure what you were saying. But these hurdles, I know sometimes nontraditional approaches have different rules, regulations, and things that make it so hard for you to do your job and truly help your patients. Could you expand on that a little bit? And maybe even how it's different from Wisconsin to Arizona? Or is that all federal? Tell me more.

Ingo: It definitely is a state by state type of situation. One of the things, as a holistic dentist, especially early on, you definitely had a bull's eye on your back. Because the American Dental Association actually said that taking out, what they called “serviceable amalgams” was actually unethical. At one point and just to show you how screwy things can be-- people think these things are based on science. It's like what we're hearing now, you hear three experts and they all have wildly varying opinions.

Linda: Different opinions, right.

Ingo: But there was a point, when in Wisconsin, if I told a patient that there was mercury in their silver fillings, the board could actually come and take my license away. At the same time, if I flew to California and I had a practice there, if I didn't tell a patient that there was mercury in their silver fillings, I would lose my license. This would be at exactly the same time, completely opposite viewpoints from the state dental boards. There's really no rhyme or reason and things have always been based on science. For the most part, the nice thing is that as a holistic dentist, the procedures that we do are virtually identical to what conventional dentists do. When I replace an amalgam, I take it out, the only difference is that we're using all of these protocols to avoid people being exposed to the mercury gases and the things that are coming off those fillings. And then, we're also paying very close attention to what we're putting back, that we're using biocompatible materials. 

For the most part, the procedures and everything are the same. It's just all of the additional steps that we take to protect our patients. And to make sure that whatever we're doing is not only not harming the patient, but actually beneficial. [crosstalk] 

Linda: Mm-hmm. Oh, I was just going to say, I would like you if you could just explain what biocompatible means. Some of our listeners may not really have ever heard that term. When we talk about materials that are biocompatible, could you explain that please?

Ingo: So, for example, there's materials like what you know to be a silver filling and people just assume that it's mainly silver. In fact, a material like a dental amalgam or silver filling is 50% to 55% mercury and about 40% silver. When that material is mixed, the problem is, some of it combines to form alloys that make the filling strong, but there's also almost like a fine component that's in aerosolized droplets of mercury that continue to outgas and release mercury throughout, even a 20, 25-year-old dental amalgam releases mercury. Of course, mercury is one of those substances that's been banned and we've tried to eliminate from just about every-- you can't even get mercury in a thermometer anymore, but yet, we're still putting mercury in people's teeth, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. 

The other thing is even things like dental crowns, even though it may look like a white crown in your mouth, a lot of times they have a metal substructure. And a lot of those alloys, depending on what the dentist chooses to use can be high in nickel. For example, a lot of women have nickel sensitivities because if you're wearing, for example, earrings that have stainless steel posts, your system gets sensitized. I see it all the time where people come in, and you can just see this bright red ring around their, their crown and they've come from another dentist and they were told, “Well, you're just not brushing and flossing well enough.” I'm looking at the teeth on either side, they look perfectly healthy, and the crown has all this inflammation. It doesn't make sense that it's a problem of hygiene, it's a problem with the dental material. 

So that's what we look at. Especially when we replace it, there are actually all kinds of-- we used to do energetic testing in the office, a naturopathic doctor working in the practice. There are also a couple different blood tests that can be done. But for the most part now, we get our materials from Germany that are specifically designed not to have components that people are reactive to, because you don't want to just take out-- you don't want to replace one problem with another because a lot of these acrylic and composite materials can have components that can be reactive. And so that's a big part of what we do is [crosstalk] looking for the materials. 

Linda: Right, that's a really good point. And what I've learned over the years too, and is that when we have a substance that we're consistently exposed to, but we might have a sensitivity to. That affects our immune system, it affects how we process our nutrients, everything. It's really important to have that balance, and I really am grateful for you and others who have taken the time to go beyond what is traditionally known and to look a little bit deeper.

I know I have a family member who has a nickel allergy too, and so that's a really good-- I never thought about that being in teeth. I'll mention that to them. So, thank you. 

Now I do want to ask you too. We talked a little bit about the difference in the business climate versus our state, Wisconsin-- or I mean, you moved from Wisconsin to get out of winter, I think mostly, [chuckles] which I don't blame you. But it's a beautiful state, but not in January so much, unless you love snowmobiling and snowshoeing, but from California to Arizona, you chose Arizona because of the business-friendly environment. As a dentist, what sort of tax policies, regulatory policies affect your business and therefore affect your ability to pay the paychecks for your employees?

Ingo: Well, obviously the tax rate was one of the things that I looked at when I was looking to open a business in the southwest here. That has a huge impact on your bottom line and especially in California, I'd known some dentists that had practice in Southern California and even the Bay Area, they were talking about all of the regulations and taxes, just even how difficult it was to get the permits to open a practice and it just seemed like the government was putting so many hurdles. When you look at all of the monies and things that they pay out for, sometimes no apparent reason, and here someone is trying to actually start a business that employs people and pays taxes, why would you not make it easy for them? But apparently, that concept is lost on them.

I like the idea of just having the-- moving to the kind of place where it was easier to start a practice and the tax rate was lower because I've always felt very strongly about-- I've always tried to be very efficient in my practice, so that I could pay my employees very well. I feel like the employees-- and I always tell them, I said, “You guys are my biggest liability from a standpoint of business cost.” It's in the 20% to 25% of your revenues goes to staff costs. I say, “You're also my biggest asset,” and those are things that happen all the time. People come in our office and they say, “Boy, everybody here is so nice, they're great.” And that's what people remember when they leave. Nobody really wants to go to the dentist. When they have a place that they go, “Wow, I love coming here,” that is something that really sets you apart and it's really the people.

I'm a technical guy. Yes, I like talking to people, but most of the interaction, when people have their mouth-- when they're [unintelligible [00:27:07] in the chair with their mouth open, is with my team members. So, I've always wanted to make sure that I have good employees that are compensated really well. And being in this kind of a business climate allows me to do that much more easily.

Linda: Yeah, that's great. I know that we have talked quite a bit about your freedom-- your love of freedom, I should say, and how your experience living in Germany versus here and why your parents came here for freedom. You have shared with me your concerns regarding the direction our country is taking. And if you could have your employees know one thing, just even one thing about how this direction towards socialistic ideas and things would impact your ability to pay their paychecks, what would you say?

Ingo: Well, I think that a lot of them really aren't into-- you talk to a lot of people that have never really paid attention to what's going on with your politics and regulations. They're in their own world of survival, just trying to make a living. I think especially this situation is, I'm hoping it's going to make a lot more people aware that just how much-- people who make these policies, how much of an effect that they have on them, and that they do need to pay attention when people are running for office that they vote for somebody who's going to protect their freedoms, which I don't think anybody really thought about that. Well, I think probably a lot of your listeners have, but we're all surrounded by people who really haven't paid much attention.

I think they're seeing what's going on, but they've also seen what-- in my practice, I pretty much-- I felt like a lot of the things that were done really, how legal is it for a governor to all of a sudden issue an order saying, “These are the things you can do.” I think we tend to-- sometimes, as Americans, we talk really tough. I was just actually listening to a talk show host from Milwaukee, who was saying, “If you would have told people six, eight weeks ago that you can't go to a restaurant, you can't go to a bar and have a beer, they would have said, no way. I would never do that.” And it's very interesting to see people how quickly they've given up their rights and maybe not knowing that even that they had those rights.

I think that's really the problem. I think they're being told what to do and they just say, “Okay,” not knowing that, even though it's against everything that they maybe believe in and goes against their survival, they feel like they don't have a choice. You tend to not really talk about these kinds of things with your team members, but that's something that I've done much more so now that this whole situation has arisen and letting them know, “Wait a minute,” and I had these conversations with my patients. I think that it's interesting because a lot of the holistic patients are already more of the outside the box. They tend to look at things differently and not take things at face value. That's why they didn't believe that mercury fillings are fine and fluoride is fine and all these other things that we're taught to believe. So, they tend to already be more of the rebel-type crowd that are saying, “Wait a minute. Nobody has really the right to tell me what's going on.”

A lot of my team members, they're younger, they're in their 20s. They haven't been exposed to a lot of these things. I feel like this is my opportunity to have a much more attentive audience than I would have had previously.

Linda: I have been hoping that one good that would come out of the COVID-19 crisis is that people wake up a little bit to the enormous effect that policy has on paychecks. For 11 years, I've been talking to employers about speaking with their employees regarding the public policy issues that affect their jobs, and helping people understand that when they go to the voting booth, they need to think about their constitutional freedoms, and are there people that they're voting for that are going to vote away their freedoms? And we see this all the time. But there's a constitutional illiteracy, and because it's not really taught in our schools anymore and things. I really, truly believe that employers can be a great line of defense for freedom in our country, because especially now, like you said, this brings a new opportunity to talk about these issues, in a way-- I mean, it's not partisan. This is just about your basic freedoms, your basic ability to earn a living, your ability to run a business and be able to have enough profit to pay your employees and to really grow your business.

People look to government to be their provider, and government doesn't have anything unless they have healthy businesses creating revenue, which then can-- create revenue for individuals and everybody pays taxes, and the government has nothing until we give it to them. Unless your dentist office is profitable, you cannot then pay taxes to the government because you'll be out of business.

Ingo: Right. The more profitable I am as a dental practice, the better I can provide for my patients, the better I can provide for my team members. I think you're absolutely right about, especially this situation right now being a non-partisan type of situation because-- it's really interesting, when you have a holistic dental practice, you don't get a lot of patients from the middle of the spectrum. When you look at it, I've gotten a lot of patients who consider themselves to be very, very liberal. The new-agey type of people that are into yoga and meditation and all those things, and I'm talking about more 20 years ago, or 15 years ago, when this wasn't quite as mainstream. That was part of my practice.

And then, the other spectrum would be these very conservative homeschooling people that were also looking to do what was best for themselves and their kids. So, I had these polar opposite ends of the spectrum. So, you talk very diplomatically but it also made me realize that, in the long run, everybody wants the same thing. We may have different approaches and different ways of looking at things. But people want what's best for themselves, they want what's best for their kids. That's what I'm seeing now is, I'm seeing people from the whole political spectrum that are just this bothered by what happened with some of these shutdowns and by some of these orders that were put forth. It doesn't have anything to do with party or your philosophy, just has to do with being an American and having our freedom.

Linda: Right, having that freedom to make choices for yourself. I think this gives us a great opportunity to talk about these things. Prosperity is nonpartisan. We want to help everyone grow and prosper. We want to help our nation prosper and help us rebound quickly. We can do that with freedom and free enterprise. I can just see the innovation that has even come about as a result of COVID-19, some of the amazing ways that people have adapted and new businesses that have started. I think that's true everywhere across the country, but it's not true across the world, because we have the opportunity for that here in the US and we can move quickly. Well, our time is wrapping up here. Do you have any closing thoughts that you would recommend for employers or thoughts to your employees regarding these issues?

Ingo: Nothing in particular. When you have a business and you're doing it for the right reason, and you have a passion for what you do, I think people can really feel that. It makes you approach your business with a whole different level of effort. And when you put that into your practice, people are attracted to that, and it can't be stopped. Something like this-- I look at what happened in our practice, it's like we literally couldn't shut down, people were still knocking down on our doors and even now, with just having been open a couple of weeks, I've been able to hire my entire-- initially I hired my partially--part of my team back, and within a week I said, I've got to hire everybody back because there was so much penned-up demand. That's exciting to see because I didn't know what was gonna happen. But like I said, if you love what you do, people can definitely feel that and people want to go to a place where they feel that have people passion for what they do.

Linda: And they care about them. 

Ingo: Yeah, absolutely.

Linda: That's great. I know from firsthand experience that you develop great relationships with your employees. It was something I noticed right off first thing when I came to your office the very first time. There's just a close-knit relationship that you develop. You're very authentic, transparent, and genuine, and it comes across with your employees. With Prosperity 101, I encourage employers, letting them know that by talking to employees about the issues that affect their jobs, it really can increase employee engagement, loyalty, and retention, which certainly helps the business. Because once the employees understand that you as an employer care deeply about their own future, you care about being able to provide more for their paycheck, you care about increasing their benefit package, you care about their job security, they will be more attentive to what you have to say regarding the policies that affect dentistry and your practice in particular.

Ingo: Yeah. I sometimes compare it to like-- if you're in business by yourself, you're the only guy pulling the applecart. When you have all of your employees that are engaged and have that same passion and that you have a good relationship, now all of a sudden, you've got a whole bunch of people back there pushing and we can't do it by ourselves, we've reached that-- you can only do so much as an individual. That's why I spend a lot of time. We have a lot of meetings. My employees love being there. 

One of the interesting things is, here I'm the brand new kid in town, and within a year, I've got all of my dental reps and all of these people that are sending their family members to our practice, and they tell me, they say, “I walk into practices all day long,” and they say, “When you walk into the office, it's a different atmosphere.” People feel that. If there's tension-- and a lot of that comes down to being-- coming from a family of German engineers, I like having systems in place an organization. But that's the thing, everybody knows what's expected of them, there's a lot of good communication, and then everybody's happy, because people want to be productive, they want to have that guidance. And that's really what happens in a lot of businesses, people running around and half the time, if they don't know what they're supposed to be doing, they'll stand around and gossip, and next thing you know, there's all kinds of tension. When a customer walks into the business, they feel that right away, we may not know it or the person may not know it, because they're in that situation, in that environment all the time. But when people walk into the place and when they walk out going, “Wow, this is a great place,” they want to come back, they want to tell their friends and I think that's how you can grow any business very, very quickly.

Linda: Well, and before our interview, you were talking a little bit about the flywheel effect, you mentioned that. And so for business owners, who may think, “Oh, I'll never get this off the ground. “I'll never be successful.” Or, “I'm still chugging away at this.” “I've had this roller coaster ride.” What would you say to them? Because you've had a very long career and it didn't start out as this acclaimed dentist, you started out fresh out of dental school and what would you recommend?

Ingo: With the flywheel, that's where they're talking about this big, gigantic heavy wheel that they use to stabilize and make machinery run more smoothly. When you first want to get that going, it takes a lot of effort just to get one rotation and you keep pushing and pushing and pushing. And once you have that momentum, it makes your business unstoppable. Obviously, if you have a passion for what you do, it's a lot harder to do because it's a million little steps that you're doing every day all day long. And then, when you finally create that momentum and people say, “Oh my gosh, you've got this incredibly successful practice. What was the one big push that got it going?” And you laugh because you know how much effort it took to get things rolling, but the nice thing is, once it's moving like that, even a situation like this can't stop it, because you've got the foundation in place. But that's what we were joking before about how people see the success and they think it's an overnight process, and it isn't.

When you have a passion and you enjoy what you do, it makes it a lot easier to keep doing that because you just have that persistence. They called it the Doomsday Loop or something where people just always try to find the next best thing and they're jumping. They push in one direction and then the next best thing comes along and they're trying something else. They never get that momentum going. It's exciting to see that when you put that into place that you do reap the rewards from it because it doesn't always seem like it at the time. Even having a very successful practice in Wisconsin, coming down here, it was hard to-- I was staring at a flywheel that wasn't moving again, and I knew how much effort it would take to get things going again, but fortunately, it happened much more quickly than the first time around. You know where to position but, yeah, it’s been-- [crosstalk]  

Linda: I would say to our listeners, that may be wondering, even how to talk about issues, just looping back to that a little bit. Persistence. I tell employers you don't have to beat people over the head with this. Simple little things that help awaken people to the concept that our constitutional rights and the policies that affect businesses, impact their daily lives, simple little things. Like you said, just in building the business, building that communication can be just-- little bit by little bit and they learn to start to trust what you're bringing to them. And it just opens up a new world to them. I'm really thankful that you do that with your employees and I know that you've talked a lot with your dental clients over the years as we've talked about that, but just that you bring that freedom-loving perspective to your work, and you work as a citizen to protect that as well. So, that's really commendable.

Ingo: Well, thank you.

Linda: Anything else that you want to share with our listeners before we close?

Ingo: No, just that I think this whole situation has-- I've had a number of patients use the term that this might be the year of the Great Awakening. It's really my sincere hope that this rather than being something that could potentially destroy this country, because when you look at the number of jobs lost and the number of businesses loss, that it's going to have the opposite effect that people are going to look at this and say, “You know what? We're not going to let this happen again, and we're going to pay more attention.” We're going to hopefully have people that-- when they're running for office will even use this as a platform that, “You know what? In the future, I'm here to protect your rights, your constitutional rights.” I think this is going to make people pay attention to what people say during these elections, and they're going to be looking for people that stand up for our rights. 

I think that's where our country is headed. I have a lot of-- I'm an optimist. That's why I love this country. We moved here because we love that. My parents waited 10 years to become-- I was the only naturalized US citizen in my family because I was born here. But my parents spoke about nothing else and become citizens of this country and how much and how great they thought this country was. That's why I think we have that potential to overcome this and learn from this whole crisis that we're in right now.

Linda: Yeah, it's great. If people want to get in touch with you, could you share your website, please?

Ingo: My website is mynaturaldentist.com. And I actually have a couple-- if you wanted to contact us by email, it's info@mynaturaldentist.com. I actually have a couple of books that I wrote. One is called Your Mouth, the Missing Link to Optimal Health. That was something that I wrote initially before people-- now people seek us out because they know what we do. But initially, it was much more of an educational process. I just wrote another book called Hidden in Plain Sight for healthcare practitioners, that shows them how they can very easily evaluate because there's so many practitioners out there that still aren't familiar with the whole oral-systemic connection and so, this is a way that they can very easily determine if there's something going on in their patients’ mouth that could be preventing them from achieving optimal health. 

One of the things that's always been the cornerstone of my practice is education. My book starts with that the word doctor comes from to teach, comes from teacher, and I think that's something that's been lost in medicine and dentistry today. But if you want to get a hold of us, mynaturaldentist.com. 

Linda: That's great. Again, mynaturaldentist.com, and you can reach out to Dr. Ingo Mahn, and possibly get his books where you can learn about integrative dentistry and the connection between oral health and overall health. Today, I just want to thank you for sharing your time with us and we'll sign off for now. Thank you to our listeners for joining us in this episode of Prosperity 101 - Breakroom Economics. 

Thank you again for joining us for this episode of the Prosperity 101 - Breakroom Economics Podcast. My name is Linda J. Hansen, your host and the founder and president of Prosperity 101 LLC. 

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