Commencement Speech

Texas A&M College of Dentistry

Dean Wolinsky, faculty, guests and graduates, thank you for inviting me to share this day with you.

Forty years ago, I sat in the auditorium of Gaston Avenue Baptist Church anxiously awaiting my turn to walk across the stage to receive my diploma from your predecessor institution, Baylor College of Dentistry. My family sat in the audience. Some not quite believing that I could make it from the cotton fields of west Texas to this point. My life, and that of my wife Teresa, was about to change. Hopefully with great success.

This is a speech about change and success, and we’re celebrating both today. And it is a speech about how the two are related. I’ll say from the start that I don’t think you can achieve success without first learning to how to deal with change.

I have to say, it’s great to be here with you in Dallas. I grew up in Texas, on a farm not far from Lubbock. It was the driest, dustiest place on Earth. And this is where I went to dental school. It is bittersweet being back.

Sweet because when I left that farm at 17 years old, broke as an iPhone dropped in a parking lot, dental school was just a pipe dream. Except for my wife Teresa and my kids, dental school was the best thing that ever happened to me.

And also bitter, because, well, dental school was different back then.

We had one crown and bridge professor, and his office was on the third floor. And if he didn’t like your wax pattern he would crush it. If he didn’t like your cast crown, he would just throw it out the window. And you would be down in the bushes looking for that little piece of gold.

He threw mine out the window once, and even though gold was thirty-two dollars an ounce back then, hell, we had no money, let alone money to buy more gold. So down I went into the bushes.

I found that little piece of gold.

My grandfather told me when I was very young, “Life’s not fair, get over it.” The fair comes in September and lasts two weeks and it’s got a Ferris Wheel and this isn’t it. That’s one lesson we were taught over and over in dental school. But it also taught us resilience.

Resiliency was, and still is, something they teach you, albeit in a kinder, gentler manner. I bet you all feel like you’ve just run a marathon. The pace of dental school is exhausting, the stress overwhelming. And I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that as a result of that experience you’re better equipped to keep that pace than you probably realize. And the bad news is, if you’re doing it right, the feeling doesn’t go away.

Dentistry isn’t an easy career. You’ll face roadblocks that you’ll be powerless to change. Patients who come to you for treatment but don’t practice home care, or who are convinced that flossing is a hoax. Hiring and firing people—two of the hardest things you’ll do as business owners, not to mention learning about regulations and accounting.

What sets successful dentists apart from unsuccessful ones is their ability to confront change, and not be immobilized by it.

Last fall I met Christina Rosenthal, a dentist in Memphis, Tennessee. She told a story about how she grew up in a poverty-stricken area of Memphis, was raised by a single mother, and raised a toddler throughout dental school.  She told me, “Statistically, I was never supposed to become a dentist.”

Then she said something that struck a chord in me: “Dentistry has given me more than a practice. It has given me purpose.”

Purpose. What that means to me is that what you choose to do with your degree matters. Being a dentist matters.

It matters today like it mattered when I graduated because you have the opportunity to help people. You will make a decent living, but you’ll also get the satisfaction of knowing that you helped someone out of a problem and you actually did some good in this world.

I remember a lot of my patients. A lot of them came to me when they were kids, really young kids, and now they’re 50. I had patients that came to me when they were teenagers, and when they grew up they brought their children to me. That’s purpose.

Some of them have even become dentists, and that’s really gratifying… especially when you can’t get your own kids to do it because they tell you that you work too hard.

Hearing Christina talk about turning adversity into purpose reminds me that spinning your wheels trying to change things that can’t be changed—like growing up in a tough neighborhood or on a farm you want to leave—is a waste of time. Instead, focus energy on what you can change. If you do that, you’ll find something more valuable than a career. You’ll find purpose, and you’ll find success.

Turns out there are endless opportunities to make changes in your work and your life, and it’s up to you to decide what kind of dentist you will be.

What will you do with your degree?

The fact is, your degree comes with great responsibility. Society looks to you to be leaders, and it expects you to be involved in things that improve the area that you live in. To those whom much is given, much is expected.

But what I hope you won’t do is be pushed around by society’s expectations about what it means to live a purposeful life, because society is going to tell you to do things that may not matter to you. Some will tell you that success is the size of your practice or the car you drive or the house you live in.  Some might say that success is the amount of care you donate, or the number of people you help. Each of those might be part of your success, but it shouldn’t define it.

Don’t let the person sitting next to you tell you what your success will look like. Instead set high expectations for yourself. Always expect more from yourself than you do from anyone else, because you’re the only one who can control you.

Young doctors, I’m jealous. I’m jealous because the potential to do transformative work in dentistry has never been greater than it is right now, and that’s mostly driven by technology. You will do things in your career that I never even dreamed of. No one in my class would have ever thought that you could make an impression with a scanning wand.  

We would use that rubber base impression material and hope it wasn’t too hot that day so it wouldn’t set up before you could get it in the mouth.

When we started using CEREC crowns, they kind of fit like socks on a rooster. And now, you’re getting precision margins.

I found that one of the most meaningful ways I could change dentistry for the better was by getting involved in organized dentistry. Building and marketing a practice, staying up-to-date on science after you leave school, is a lot easier with tools and support. As President of the American Dental Association, I’ve been able to help 161,000 of my colleagues—and your colleagues, too—build successful practices. By lobbying  Congress to keep oral health protections for children and families in the health care law, by fighting for increases in funding for oral health research, and fighting to get rid of unnecessary and burdensome regulations.

That’s been extremely satisfying. And I hope that each of you will choose to get involved with the ADA and take advantage of the tools that are available to you, and by adding your voice to the chorus that’s advocating for dental education, patients, and dentists.

I’ll close with one final thought.

I’m proud of my career, but the thing I’m most proud of in my life is my family. Family is everything to me.

There’s a lot of accomplishments that I could name in this world, but they don’t mean anything to me without my family. My wife and I said early on, “If we can raise a child who can be a good citizen, and leave this world better off, we’ve had a successful life.”

We’ve raised two sons, and we have a magnificent daughter-in-law and a beautiful grandson.

Without a doubt, dentistry helped me to do that. It gave me a job where I could be with my children, coach t-ball and football and baseball. I could schedule my patients to allow me to do that.

Graduates, we are so proud of you. Be proud of what you do. How many professions can alleviate pain virtually immediately? How many professions can change a patient’s self image in one or two appointments? With your dental degrees, go out and do great work and leave the world a better place. Figure out what’s most important to you, and make it your priority or make it your purpose.

And stay resilient. Never stop looking for that little gold crown in the bushes.