Dr. Cappy Sinclair Shares About the Power of Vision in Dentistry

The following podcast has been lightly edited for flow. To enjoy the audio conversation, you can watch on YouTube or listen to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify.

Video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zsfYdt8jDBr6H-lmkSWfcjxdjG7znpfw/view?usp=share_link

Carrie Webber:

Welcome to the Jameson Files. I’m your host, Carrie Webber. Thanks for joining us for another episode. We are really excited to be joining you today from Grapevine, Texas at the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry’s annual meeting. We’re thrilled to be back at the AACD meeting. It’s been some time and we’re so happy to be here with the Jameson team. I’m especially thrilled that we’re spending some time today with our client, a great friend, Dr. Cappy Sinclair. 

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: 

Thank you. 

Carrie Webber:

Dr. Sinclair, thank you so much for being with us. 

Dr. Cappy Sinclair: 

Glad to be here.

Carrie Webber:

Before we started this episode, we were reminiscing that Dr. Sinclair was the Jameson Files’ very first podcast guest when we launched the podcast in 2019. 

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

And I got invited back.

Carrie Webber:

I know. It was a success. So we’ll see how you do this time. No pressure. I’m thrilled that you’re  here. There are two episodes with Dr. Sinclair from very early on in the podcast, and I invite and encourage you to go find those episodes because I still feel like they’re very powerful, and you shared some great information and insights in those episodes. 

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

I talk about that probably at least once a week to someone that reaches out and wants to know how I got to where I am and what was the most important thing that I did.  I still feel like one of the most important things was setting up where I wanted my practice to be. Without that vision, I would not be where I am today. 

Dr. Sinclair’s Beginnings with the AACD

Carrie Webber:

I love that. I love that. And speaking of establishing that vision of where you are, not only in how your practice runs, but in the clinical skills that you do, you have chosen to become deeply involved with the AACD and have been for several years now. Would you tell us a little bit about how you chose to be a part of this organization and a little bit of how you started within this, because now you are an accredited member? For those of you that aren’t familiar with that process, boy, that is a feat. That’s a lot of work and effort.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

Besides starting my practice, I would say that’s probably the one thing that I’ve learned more about anything else in dentistry– making myself a better dentist, seeing what education I should take, where I direct my attention– all of those things were because of trying to become accredited. Now being on the other side, we’re starting to mentor other people that are going  through this process. Having the insight of going through it myself, I can give them experiences that I learned along the way that hopefully will help them out. 

Carrie Webber:

I love that. I love the story of the beginning of your relationship with this organization. I think it’s pretty special for young doctors that are just getting started and really trying to find their way. Will you share that with the audience?

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

This meeting’s special in particular for me in Grapevine because this location was the first AACD meeting that I came to in 2010. I was actually working close by. I worked in Oklahoma City. I actually did not know you guys at that time, which is crazy.

Carrie Webber:

That’s a strange connection.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

I worked for a group practice there and I just wasn’t happy. And so long story short, I ended up quitting that job in May or April. And I knew this was going on in Dallas, so I tried to time my leaving that job with coming down to this meeting. So I think I left on Friday from Oklahoma City, packed up my stuff, and then drove down here to the Gaylord. The problem was I had just quit my job. I was in tons of credit card debt from traveling back and forth all over the country, and I didn’t know what to do, so I couldn’t stay at the Gaylord, which was probably $600 a night or something crazy, so I ended up camping. There’s a campground actually a mile and a half away from here, so I ended up staying there for about four or five nights.

It was beautiful. There’s a lake there. I got to watch the sunrise and the sunset every day. I would ride my bike every morning from the campground over here. I didn’t know a soul, but the dentistry that I saw here changed my life. I knew that one day I wanted to do what these people are doing here. I think that drive and ambition really fueled me continuously over the years. So it was an experience I’ll never forget. I drove the rest of the way across the country, back home, and then two years later ended up starting my practice with the vision of knowing that I wanted to be on the stage accredited someday. 

Carrie Webber:

Wow! And where are you staying this year?

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

I’m actually staying in the hotel, which is great. 

Choosing Resources that will Aid you in Your Dental Vision

Carrie Webber:

It’s a true success story. I think that’s so amazing and I love that this was one of those pivotal moments for you that really started to create the framework of your vision for how you practice. Something that I really appreciate about you is that as long as we’ve known you, you have truly and intentionally sought out resources and training–both clinically and for the business side of your practice. You’ve taken your vision and sought out the right resources for you. Because you’re also very involved in other things, not just AACD. So would you share a little bit for those that are trying to find their resources, their training, their people or organizations? What do you go through when you’ve decided that this is what you’re going to explore at this time? 

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

I think the hardest part for being a dentist, and especially if you’re a solo practice owner, is there’s only so much time for you to leave the office. And if you’re going to be doing that, how do you make it count? If I leave the office, it’s for a vacation– I love to travel– or I’m going to go to do some educational event. 

For me, when I was trying to establish again where I wanted to go in my dentistry, I considered who are the clinical leaders in the world that are going to be the best dentists for me to learn from, and how do I get there? What’s my path and how do I start at some of the more basic things and move forward? I think one of the biggest challenges is that with social media today, a younger dentist graduating is just barraged with clinical photos on Instagram of “before and afters”, but they don’t see the journey that the dentist went through to get there.

A lot of people, unfortunately, want a really quick fix. What’s the one course that I can go to to make the difference? And there’s not one course. It’s going to Kois; it’s going to a functional occlusion, learning how the teeth work, how function masters and creates the proper aesthetics, business training courses… Once you do the dentistry, how do you sell the dentistry to your patients? How do you motivate your team to sell the dentistry to your patients? All of those courses, I think, compound into your education, and if you’re just going to take a course on the weekend because you like the location, then is that really the best place to go?  So just because it’s a course on implants and you want to place implants, is that the best place for you to start or do you need to learn how to take teeth out first? So, if you’re a dentist learning or wanting to expand your horizons, I would actually say figure out where the baseline is first. It might not be the sexiest place to start, but it’s probably the best place from a foundational aspect, and then build from there.

Carrie Webber:

My father, John Jameson, had an identical mindset and mentality to yours. If he were here, he would say to doctors that are looking to expand the way they practice or even just the depth of their skills, that one of the greatest investments he made for himself was continuing his clinical training and education. He chose his people, his resources, his organizations to be a part of and never stopped as long as he was practicing until he retired. I don’t know if this is good news or bad news for a younger dentist, but it’s not over at graduation. It’s just starting, because at that point, there’s a lot of work to be done for your own self and your own skillset, your own efficiency, your own level of success, whatever that is. So the vision is so important. Where do you see yourself in the foreseeable future? What do you want that to look like for you? I love your point of starting at the very beginning. Where am I right now with my skills or with my business or whatever? Where do I just need to start?

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

Yes. Mastering the basics is really important. Most great athletes practice the fundamentals before they become great. So again, it’s the same process of just practice, practice, practice, but practice the basics and get good with that.

Carrie Webber:

Yes. A lot has happened since the last time we were sitting across from each other like this in 2019. You now have a business partner, Dr. Mark Reichley. You now have taken two locations between the two of you, and you have combined them into the most extraordinary facility.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

Yes. It’s awesome.

Carrie Webber:

It’s gorgeous. You both have continued to invest together in clinical training, but also you’ve done deep work together as business partners in aligning your vision and recasting a vision that makes sense for the two of you. Tell me about that journey from that point forward, and what were the lessons learned, and the successes that you’re the most proud of.

The Value of a Dental Partner that Aligns with Your Vision

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

So obviously I knew what my vision was, but trying to find someone that would agree with that vision has been very challenging. So you know the story, I had several associates that we went through trying to find a fit. Nothing worked out. I was running between two practices myself, trying to make the decision of whether to just consolidate things and make it smaller. As luck would have it, I reached out to Mark, who I’d met several times over the years in Virginia Beach locally, and told him what I was trying to do. And he said, “I’m in”. Besides just going through accreditation, that was probably another one of the defining events of my career in the last several years.

As many people know, dentistry’s a very isolated job and having the ability to have another dentist to work through problems has been great. He and I are different personalities. We see things from different perspectives. We do different dentistry in certain cases, which is great, too. So it’s always great to say, “Hey, will you look at this case together?” It really hasn’t happened until the last six months because six months ago we moved into one practice. We never practiced together for the last three years. So now we are in the same office, and we can sit right next to each other in the morning, and pull up things on our big screen and ask, “Hey, what do you think of this?” Or be pumped up about a case we just delivered. Through the day we’re just hyping each other up and feeding off each other’s energy. 

But there are challenges too because you have to make hard decisions like what are we going to do in cases now where finances are getting tighter for patients and we have to do budget restrictions in certain areas. But it’s good to have someone on the same page and agreeing that this is where the practice needs to go and these are the decisions we need to make. As far as where I am now, I don’t even know if I truly believed that we would ever get to where we are now, and it’s awesome. 

Top Three Pieces of Advice from Dr. Sinclair

Carrie Webber:

Talking about another one of the defining moments, you do indeed have some specific defining moments, which is just amazing. So it sounds like you get a lot of conversations going with doctors asking you for advice or your insights. What are the questions that you feel like you get asked the most frequently from dental peers and colleagues, and what is the top guidance that you tend to give them?

1. Finding a Partner that Aligns with Your Vision

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

A lot of people ask how I like a partner because they’re looking for an associate or someone else. For me, having a partner has reduced a lot of stress in my life. My wife will share that as well. It was amazing to have someone else going through Covid just to talk through things on a daily basis and to figure out all the government funding. That was a tough test, because right before the world shut down in February, we bought a third practice. And so it was crazy trying to manage all this stuff. And then on top of that, a pandemic. And then on top of that, we were building our new building. So we had all these hands in different pots, and it was great to have someone else to help manage things together. So I didn’t have to be at every meeting; he didn’t have to be at every meeting. We could balance things together and then reconvene as a team and check in on each other. Where are you? What is the next thing going on? 

Trying to find someone that aligns with your vision, I would say is the fundamental part if you’re looking for a partner. We don’t agree on everything. We don’t agree on how we do dentistry in certain cases, but we both know that we’re trying to make a better life for our patients, better life for our team, better life for each other.  Having that common goal and vision of knowing where the practice is going, that’s been probably the most important thing for the two of us. 

Carrie Webber:

I love that. So Dr. Reichlley, if you’re watching, you are appreciated. 

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

Very much. Very much.

2. Asking Your Patients the Right Questions

The second thing that I get asked is after you learn how to do the dentistry, how do you get the patients that want the dentistry?

Part of the process of going with you all and with several other CCE events and how our process is built within our practice is asking more questions. I think that’s the thing in dental school, you graduate and you think that you just need to educate the patients until they understand what you’re saying. But if the patients are never asking for it, they don’t care what you have to say. So they might agree with you just to be polite and get out the door, but giving patients more accountability for what they’re trying to do in their life, and their goals, and their dentistry, and their health has been getting a lot more patients to say “yes”. When that clicked, that was another one of the initial moments that I had. I realized that I just needed to shut up, ask some questions, and see what the patients wanted. One, see if they’re a right fit for our practice. But two, see if we can provide what they’re looking for. 

So that is really challenging. We have team members that are hygienists that have come right out of school, and that is the hardest thing for them to learn. They just want to sit and educate, because they have all this knowledge and they just want to tell everything, but if the patient’s not asking for it, are you investing your time appropriately? So I would say that those two things are probably more the questions I get asked.

3. Seeking Out the Right Education

The last is education. Where do you go for education? This is a phenomenal meeting if you’re interested in aesthetics or just want to be a better dentist. The Kois center has been phenomenal for me. Mark and I have done that together, which is great as well. So having a partner going through the same CE. So again, if we’re going to implement something new in the practice we learn how to do it and whether it is something we want to implement? So that’s been really helpful too.

The Power of Clarifying Your Dental Vision

Carrie Webber:

I love that. Two very powerful pieces, but it all goes back to the same thing. It actually all goes back to one of the original episodes that you did with me. The decisions that you’ve made and the person that you are now growing a thriving business with all boils down to clarity of vision.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

You’re intentionally making decisions. You are not going through and just thinking, “It’s Tuesday. What do I have on my docket?” You’re thinking, “What am I doing to move the needle forward?” It’s incremental growth. I know you love James Clear, so it’s atomic habits. It’s something that you have to put into motion over time that will develop into a habit. It’s not something that you flip the switch and then all of a sudden things get rolling. 

Carrie Webber:

Exactly. And it’s easy for you to share with people the courses, the organizations, the companies, and the training that is best for you, but if people don’t get their own personal vision clear, they’re going to chase resources and training that’s not the right fit for them. It works for you because you know the goal you want to achieve through the utilization of that tool, that training, that company, or that organization. That’s what matters. And then that you and Dr. Reichley fully understand that you are not clones of each other, but that’s probably why it’s working so well, because it’s an alignment of the vision. It’s an alignment– a shared philosophy.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

We keep each other honest. So again, I’ll get really excited about something and he’ll ask, “Hey, let’s check this idea. Does this fit?” So it keeps us both honest and asking if we are heading in the right direction. Sometimes I might say, “You know what? You’re right.” Other times I’ll explain how I’m looking at this in terms of moving us forward in our vision. Then he’ll see that it makes sense. So there’s a lot of stuff that if you’re just looking through everything through your glasses and your own perspective all the time, you’re going to agree with yourself a majority of the time. You are going to think that you’re a genius. This is the best idea ever. I can’t wait to tell my team.

Carrie Webber:

You’re just waiting for the awards and accolades to come. 

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

Versus telling Mark and saying, “Hey, we’re gonna do this.” And he says, “Are you sure?”

Carrie Webber:

For me, I feel like it’s having a person that’s a spark to you. It either stretches you or challenges you in the best of ways and allows you to grow in perspective and in your intention. I think that’s so great.  So it’s not only having a vision, but also executing the vision. I think your story is not just the clarity and intention behind things, but you genuinely know what you need to do. You know what you need to seek out, you know where you need to improve, and you actively seek out and make momentum for yourself by making decisions, by doing things, by investing in yourself and your practice. That’s important, too. It’s one thing to know where you want to go; it’s another to execute a plan.

“Failing Forward” is an Important Part of Your Growth as a Practice

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

Part of that’s believing in yourself. There are a lot of dentists out there that have challenges with believing in themselves. They’ll take the same course multiple times, hoping that the next time we’ll give them the push to do it in the practice. And I think as a dentist, you have to be more forgiving of yourself, knowing you’re going to make mistakes, and you’re not going to harm anyone severely by doing something that you’ve had training on. Unfortunately, I think dental schools kind of perpetuate that mentality for a lot of us. It’s very challenging to do something knowing that there’s a potential of failure. So you’re trying to eliminate that risk as much as possible, but the only way that you will learn and grow is through those failures. So you have to experience those. 

And again, one of the things was starting a second location. It was probably not the smartest or the most successful thing that I’ve ever done. Again, my initial vision was having multiple locations, and Mark and I have talked now and having a single office where we can control and evaluate the excellence that we want to produce is going to be much easier and give us way more satisfaction throughout our career than having multiple offices all over the area. 

Carrie Webber:

The clinical level that the two of you deliver, and execute on, and want to see delivered in your practice is a very special place.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

Ideally, it should be scalable, but it’s not. At least not how we want to do it, and we’re okay with that now. At first, we were not okay with that, because we both had the idea that this is where we’re headed. To admit that that’s not where we wanted to go was basically a gut check for us, and we realized that this is a failure from the aspect of how we’re organizing our business and how we’re doing at practice. So we scaled back down and both of us I don’t think have been happier in a while. So it’s been really good for us.

Carrie Webber:

Jess always likes to say–and I’m pretty sure he stole this from a book or something– failing forward. You want to fail forward. For all of us as leaders and business owners, I think it should be written somewhere in some kind of handbook you’re given when you start or buy a business, that you’re going to fail. You’re going to mess up. You’re going to make a bad decision. The key is to learn from that, right? Don’t go into the cycle of insanity where you’re just repeating the same thing over and over again. Learn from the mistakes; learn from the failures, because that’s going to make the next season, the next case, the next practice, or whatever it is better because you learned lessons through the failures. So you just continue to make decisions, and

invest in yourselves, and you continue to change and evolve, and your business is a beautiful, thriving team, practice, facility, everything.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

And it will keep evolving.

Carrie Webber:

And your vision might change again. And so that’s okay. When you come back as a guest the next time, we’ll talk about all the new things that have happened.

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

It does involve a building. I don’t know if Mark and I ever want to go through that process again.

Carrie Webber:

But it’s beautiful how you got there. You got to that finish line and it’s gorgeous. If you are curious about Coastal Cosmetic and Implant dentistry, go find him online and go see this beautiful facility for yourself, and the beautiful work that you and Dr. Riechley do for your patients, and the amazing team that you have behind you. 

Dr. Cappy Sinclair:

I wouldn’t be here without my teams. 

Carrie Webber:

Congratulations on how far you’ve come since the campground in 2010. Amazing, amazing story. Thank you for sharing so genuinely and openly. Dr. Reichley, we are thinking of you, too, my friend. Thanks for being with us, Dr. Sinclair. And thanks to all of you for joining us for another episode of the Jameson Files. Be well, and we’ll see you next time.

Carrie Webber:Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Jameson Files. Visit us online. You can subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify. See you next time.