Today was "Continuing Education" (CE) Day for me. I am normally off on Friday's. Now that the powers that be have made it mandatory for me to have the credential RDA (Registered Dental Assistant) I have to keep up with a certain number of CE hours to keep my certifications current. Okay, so today's course was "Teamwork and communication in the Dental Office". The speaker was Bruce Manchion.
In my almost 25 years in dentistry, I have heard just about every practice management consultant that's worth hearing. They all really say the same things, give the same recommendations, they just add their own little twist to make it their own. Bruce was really good. I'm really impressed. Most speakers try to stay pretty neutral as not to piss off staff or doctors...Bruce didn't take sides and he didn't pull any punches. He won me over right away by starting off the lecture citing a scene from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. He tried to quote Yoda...bless his heart. I give him props for trying at least. He tried to use the quote: "Do or Do Not, There is No Try".
He, instead said: "There is No Try, There is Only Do". Of course in my head, I quoted Yoda correctly, even using my very bad Yoda voice. He was talking about different causes for conversation "tune-out"...he used a term that I thought was classic and I will be re-using it...
some people have the communication skills that act as a...(here it is) "Verbal Sedative". Isn't that great? Another thing that he talked about that totally hit home with me was the different "Comfort Zones of Learning". I totally related with this. Here's the gist of it: Three comfort zones: I: Home Zone, you feel 100% comfortable (Lately, that's where I stay) II: Learning Zone, you are in a situation where you don't feel in control of the situation and you feel nervous. III: Panic Zone, that's where you feel you've lost all sense and control and just want to run away from the situation. He said that most learning occurs between the last two zones...I believe that. I know that I've been in situations where I felt I was in over my head, and when I persevered and got through it...I was always, without fail, better for it. I won't bore you with the specifics of his lecture, (don't want to be accused of "Verbal Sedation") although he was able to keep my attention for the whole 6.5 hours. One side note...Of the 150 attendees to this lecture, yours truly was of course chosen for the one and only "I need a volunteer". So, up on stage I pranced, (with hair that needed new highlights in a bad way) as we proceeded to demonstrate "Interdependence". He had me stand next to him, about 4 feet apart with my arm outstretched and elbow locked, palm up towards him, as he did the same thing. Then he told me to let myself fall toward his hand. So I did and we ended up tilting toward the other with our palms together...supporting one another. and.....scene. My big debut.

Okay, so, I've been baking cakes since about 4:30 this afternoon, it's midnight now. Clay's Aunt Tommie and Uncle Ronny are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary tomorrow and I'm making the cake. I've got my "Lolivision" up full-blast, I hope the cake turns out as good as it looks in my mind...They wanted an Italian Cream Cake. I did a practice cake last weekend and it was AWESOME, if I do say so myself. I don't usually have much luck with cakes from scratch, but this one is prolly the best cake I've ever tasted. The cake needs to feed about 30 people. I'm making a two tiered cake, the bottom tier will be a 14" square cake and the top tier is a 12" hexagon cake. I'll post a picture of it.

Okay, gonna end with something you've got to watch. Kudo's to Spen for getting me hooked...