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“A key to having a happy, productive career and life is to address the things that bother us head on.” — Misti Burmeister

I have the best dental hygienist. Stacey will not leave a speck on your teeth. She’s a little OCD, which is not a bad trait in a dental professional.

During a previous visit, while waiting to get my teeth cleaned, I overheard Stacey telling her colleague, “I wasn’t going to waste my time.”

When she entered my room, my curiosity got the best of me, and I had to ask, “Whose teeth are so bad that you don’t want to waste your time?”

“Oh, I had this patient today who only wanted her upper teeth cleaned,” Stacey explained. “She has gum disease and says that getting the bottoms cleaned hurts too much.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I helped her understand the importance of cleaning all her teeth. And I told her she’d have to go to another hygienist for a partial cleaning. I wouldn’t do it.”

“Did she let you clean them all?”

“Yes, and at the end, as she was getting ready to leave, I told her, ‘The good news is that your breath will smell a lot better.’”

How many of us ignore the parts of our lives that don’t work and distract ourselves by putting all of our energy into the parts that do (leading to workaholism, over-exercise, etc.)? Rather than dealing with the things/people who are causing us issues, we tend to hope the problems will just go away on their own. But they rarely do.

A key to having a happy, productive career and life is to address the things that bother us head on. When they fester, they rob us of precious energy. Confronting things that irritate you or cause you stress may not make your breath smell better, but it sure will help you breathe a little easier.

Keeping it simple,

Misti Burmeister, best-selling author of From Boomers to Bloggers: Success Strategies Across Generations, Hidden Heroes and Power Suck.

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