LionSpeak

08/24/2026

Monday Morning Stretch: The Choice is Clear

It’s only occasionally that I’m truly impressed with the level of client service extended to me by an individual. Even more rare is that level of extraordinary service delivered by an entire group of people. But, I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve had consistently excellent service delivered by an entire company nationwide over a five-year period without at least one person eventually spoiling their record.

CLEAR is one of those companies. As a frequent traveler, it made total sense for me to pay the $200 fee to join CLEAR’s membership program which performs fingerprint and retinal scans as well as background checks on travelers. Once you’re “CLEAR”, they speed you through TSA and zip you right up to the front of the security line, saving hours of time and toe-tapping frustration through airports like Atlanta, New York, Dallas, and LAX.

I’ve mentally noted before how truly friendly, welcoming, connected, and efficient the CLEAR team is, but last week while catching a flight home out of San Jose, CA, I realized that this had always been my experience with CLEAR—every time, every city, every person… for five years. No exceptions.

How do they do it? They are pulling from the same pool of applicants and workers as you and I. Just like us, they are a growing company with hundreds, if not thousands, of clients. They rely heavily on technology which has got to be just as glitchy as ours. So, what’s their secret to this high level of client experience and more importantly to the consistency of its delivery across all fronts and over such a long period of time?

I had to know. So, I called them.

Read more: https://www.lionspeak.net/the-choice-is-clear/

08/17/2026

Monday Morning Stretch: Moving Forward

My friend, Mary Fox, is a licensed counselor and certified coach with a sense of humor that rivals any other person I know. Having her around is always an experience full of rich conversations and side-splitting belly laughs—a perfect combo in my book!

You cannot change the past. You can only accept it and learn from it.
Focus on moving forward and creating a future in which you can thrive.

It struck me that there are opportunities all around us every day to apply these two important principles.

Read more: https://www.lionspeak.net/moving-forward/

08/12/2026

I’m excited to share that I’ll be speaking at the 2026 Pediatric Dental Growth Summit this October, and I’d love to see you there!

If you’re a pediatric dentist, orthodontist, or part of a dental team, this Summit is designed with you in mind.

We’ve got two very different days planned:

Friday, October 16: Fast-paced sessions with 10+ expert speakers covering practice growth, leadership, financial strategy, team culture, patient experience, case acceptance, billing, scaling a practice, and more.

Saturday, October 17: Interactive, hands-on workshops where you can choose the topics that matter most to you: Clinical, Admin & Team, or Marketing.
And one of the things I love most about this Summit? You can attend Friday, Saturday, or both days. Choose what works best for you and your team.

🎟️ As a special thank-you to my community, use my exclusive code NAME100 to save $100 on registration.

A few things to know:
📅 October 16–17, 2026
📍 The Ritz-Carlton, Pentagon City | Arlington, VA
🏨 Room rates start at $299/night, but the Summit room block is almost SOLD OUT
⏰ Registration rates increase August 30

If you're looking for practical education, fresh ideas, and the opportunity to connect with other dental professionals who understand the business of running a practice, I hope you'll join me.

👉 Explore the speakers, sessions, schedule, and registration details at PediatricDentalGrowthSummit.com.

08/11/2026

I recently had the pleasure of joining Rachel Wall on the Inspired Hygiene - Helping Dentists Tap Into Hygiene's Profit Potential Podcast for a conversation that's about far more than dentistry.

We talked about:
✔️ Why communication is the foundation of great leadership
✔️ How to move people from resistance to ownership
✔️ The power of invitation instead of command
✔️ Why courageous conversations become easier when coaching comes first
✔️ Three mindset shifts that help leaders create lasting change

Whether you lead a dental practice, a business, or simply want to become a better communicator, I think you'll find ideas you can immediately apply.

Thank you, Rachel Teel Wall, for such an engaging discussion. I truly enjoyed every minute.

I'd love to hear which idea resonates most with you after you listen.

Why do some dental teams embrace growth while others resist change?...

08/11/2026

Monday Morning Stretch: All Roads Lead Back to Us

As LionSpeak continues to grow, my team must grow also. Apparently, this presents an opportunity disguised as a challenge for me.

Every time we add a new person, I’m eventually, if not immediately, confronted with my own personal leadership abilities (or lack thereof). I learn and relearn that everything they contribute which delights and pleases me is due to a multitude of factors: their own skill level, growth, work ethic, and passion for this work and, to at least a small degree, my own leadership communication about LionSpeak’s vision and standards. But I’ve also learned that when they do not perform to my standards or vision, it is a direct and proportionate reflection and result of a gap in my leadership abilities and communication skills. Everything. Every time. 100%.

When I really analyze it, usually I determine that I’ve not been as clear as I could have been or thought I was. Sometimes, there is behavior that I’m ignoring, tolerating, actually participating in, or a result of something to which I’m blind myself. This constant “in-my-face” reminder felt heavy at first, and many times since, at various intervals along my entrepreneurial journey. But I now perceive it as a freeing notion because if it’s me, then I have some control. There’s something I can work on, something I can do about it.

Read more: https://www.lionspeak.net/all-roads-lead-back-to-us/

08/03/2026

Monday Morning Stretch: The Space Between

I facilitate an exercise with groups where I ask everyone to write down a quote from a book, movie, play, or song that had a profound impact on them personally. We use the quotes throughout the day in a variety of ways. So far, I’ve not met anyone who didn’t have one.

Mine is easy to recall because when I read it for the first time, it stopped me in my tracks. I re-read it several times, and I’ve never forgotten it or been quite the same since. It’s a passage from Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl that reads, “Between stimulus and response, there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response. And, in our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Viktor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor. He wrote those words after surviving one of the world’s most horrific events so in my mind, they are tested and true. He went on to say, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Read more: https://www.lionspeak.net/music-monday-the-space-between/

07/20/2026

Monday Morning Stretch: Become the Leader Others Want to Follow

Leadership is the number one skill professionals need to master to create the career and life they want. Leadership trumps every other skill you need. Everyone can become a great leader. And, it’s not as hard as you’ve been led to believe.

Recently, a new dentist told me, “My father was a natural-born leader. My mother was not. I think I got my mother’s genes.” He was making my first point about why dentists often don’t step into their potential as leaders. It’s not in the genes. It’s in the mind.

Great leadership is an inside-out game. Before leaders ever lead anyone else, they learn to lead themselves. And, leaders go first. Before they expect their team to behave like leaders, they learn to behave that way themselves. People don’t follow great leaders because they have to. They follow them because they want to, because they trust and believe in them.

Here are my top suggestions for becoming a great leader...

Read more: https://www.lionspeak.net/become-the-leader-others-want-to-follow/

07/14/2026

"I would love to have that conversation, but I'm scared they'll just quit. And in this labor market, I can't afford to be down a team member for six months."

Katherine Eitel Belt has heard this exact fear from dental owners across the US, Canada, and the UK. And she doesn't dismiss it, she says it's a completely valid concern.

But she also points out something most leaders miss: staying quiet and tolerating misalignment also has a business cost. It's just a quieter one.

The good news? There's a third option. And it's one that most leaders were simply never taught.

🎙️ Full episode link in comments.

07/13/2026

Monday Morning Stretch: Roll with It

Back in May, I started a list of suggestions for how we could live and operate our businesses from a place of greater happiness. This is a list of what could make us happier people and better business leaders, but it could also be interpreted as a list of the things that make us miserable or make our lives and businesses harder necessary if we don’t pay attention. My suggestion in May was to assume the best. Today’s suggestion is:

Read more: https://www.lionspeak.net/roll-with-it/

07/06/2026

Honored to join the Less Insurance Dependence Podcast!

My core message: the path to a less insurance-dependent practice doesn't start with your fee schedule. It starts with the conversations you've been avoiding.

A few things Lester De Alwis and I unpacked:
🦷 Friction, confusion, and underperformance happen naturally in every practice. Leadership communication is the only thing that changes that equation, and it directly determines whether your team will follow you through an insurance transition

🦷 Most owners avoid the hard conversations because past experience tells them it won't go well. But avoidance costs you alignment, and without alignment, you can't build the practice you want

🦷 The Leadership Conversation Trifecta: start with the invitation conversation to share your vision, follow with ongoing coaching conversations, and you'll have far fewer courageous conversations to dread

🦷 A great leader is someone who can articulate the reality of the situation without judgment, without fear, and without blame. That skill alone changes everything inside a practice

The dental owners who build this kind of leadership culture are the ones who go out of network without losing a patient. Your team's alignment is the foundation on which everything else is built on.

🎧 Listen to the full episode here: https://apple.co/3QN1MIl

🆓 Download my free gifts: the ARCH Framework support sheet and the Leadership Conversation Trifecta flowchart 👉 https://www.lionspeak.net/lylyt-keynote-resources/