I get this question all the time and I find it fascinating for several reasons:

1) That such a high percentage of orthodontists ask me this question and are deadly serious.

2) From what I can tell, the motivation behind the question is disbelief that one person could produce so much content in such a timely and relevant manner.

3) When I have guest bloggers, they are clearly identified and given due credit for their intellectual property.

4) Who would I get to write these blogs for me? Who has the experience, insight and writing ability and would be willing to do all the work and then let me take all the credit?

5) Given the technical and industry specific nature of what I write about, it’s not like I can hire a professional writer to do this for me.

6) It’s likely that for every orthodontist who asks me this question there are 10 who want to but are too polite to do so.

My wife has a great saying. “We all see through our own eyes”, she is fond of saying and it took me several years to understand its meaning.  Basically we humans tend to look at others and make assessments based on what we know and what we do and based on our abilities and tendencies. This goes for everything we do and if you pay attention to what people say you’ll find they give away a great deal about themselves in the light of Bridget’s saying.

I don’t mind at all when people ask me if I write all this stuff but I do see discussing this line of inquiry as a chance to point out what people do daily in almost every aspect of our lives – and that goes double for orthodontists.

Think about what happens when you hear someone is seeing 50 percent more patients than you are seeing on a daily basis or that they start twice as many cases a year as you do each year? What’s your knee jerk reaction to such a discovery? Well if you’re human and an orthodontist it’s likely you immediately think, “You can’t do that! I’m doing as much as can be reasonably done and anyone who is doing more must be lying, cheating and stealing. They are obviously a mill and are not doing good work”. And in thinking or saying so, you feel satisfied in who you are and what you do. The person in question may very well be a hack, but there is, of course, another possibility. It is possible that through experience or observation or effort or skill or intention or all of these things the person doing more than you is just plain better at it.

The first and by far the most popular assumption is not useful to the point of being harmful. You cannot learn anything if you believe you are already doing all that can be done and that you know all that can be known. Assuming that you’re average, on the other hand, creates a world of possibilities where you can learn from people who know more than you do and benefit greatly in the process. If you take this position it is very easy to learn and grow and who doesn’t want to do that?

So, to answer your question, yes I write everything on OrthoPundit except for the guest blogs. I haven’t always been this prolific, it took years of practice and work to get to the point where I can bang out a post on my iPhone in just a few minutes when an idea or situation presents itself (and then I had to learn how to manage a website!). It’s no different than seeing three patients a day in residency then buying a practice that saw ten patients a day and growing from there. It’s no different than going from the couch to running a marathon. These things are all possible if one only puts their mind to it and works at it daily. Stop looking for reasons people (including yourself) cannot do things and start working on improving yourself and your skill set to do more than you ever imagined possible. Set your sights high! If someone else has already done it, then it’s probably possible but if you don’t believe something is possible then it is impossible FOR YOU. If you hear about something incredible or unbelievable, go check it out for yourself instead of drawing conclusions based on conventional wisdom. Seeing is believing and believing is the key to doing.