LEAP YEAR FACTS

As I write this on February 29, 2012, leap year comes to mind.  When and where did it originate?  Julius Caesar, Emperor of Rome, b. 100 B.C. – d. 44 B.C., is credited with introducing a calendar in 46 B.C. based on a year of 365 ¼ days.  By 1582, Pope Gregory XIII put the world on a more organized basis with the Gregorian calendar which designated every fourth year as “leap year” in which the four accumulated ¼ days were used to create one extra day, February 29.  Just think, if one were born on February 29 of a leap year, one would have an official birthday every four years---hmmm---at a certain age, that might be an advantage!!   : )     : )     : )

WHAT HAPPENS TO TIME

Including commuting time, your job takes up about 9 or 10 hours of your day.  Another 8 or 9 hours are occupied with sleeping, eating, dressing and personal grooming.  This leaves only 5 to 7 hours daily for your family, hobbies, cooking, cleaning, shopping, e-mail and other computer tasks, religious services or study, quiet time---activities necessary to assure a home that functions well with strong familial relationships and mental health, peace of mind and self growth for you and other family members.  Read Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8 for a beautiful perspective on time.  And then ask yourself: “How do I structure my time? prioritize my days? my weeks? my life?  Remember we are all allotted the same amount of time.  The difference between high achievers and those who seem to dawdle is often the way in which the individual decides to spend his or her time.

WELCOME TO PRACTICON’S WORLD

            Thanks to you, our customers who buy SmileGoods toothbrushes, Practicon has been able to pay complete costs for two water wells in Guatemala through causelife,  (www.causelife.org), an organization with the goal of providing 1000 clean water wells for one million people worldwide.  A portion of all SmileGoods toothbrush sales goes to causelife.

            In the past year Practicon supplied customers with 72,616,000 additional pages of innovative, money-saving and money-generating products by mailing 185,000 additional catalogs across the U.S. and in other countries.

            The need for additional pages/catalogs was generated by the launch of 514 new products within the last year for use in your dental office to help you and your staff better serve your patients.  A number of these products were designed by you, our customers, who trust us to bring your ideas and prototypes to market.  What a compliment you pay us with your trust.  Rest assured that we will always honor the confidence you place in us.

FEATURE FIND

Remember my two rules for increased profit:  EARN MORE; SPEND LESS.  Under the SPEND LESS category comes Impression Material Saver Foam Inserts, one of Practicon’s newest finds.  Made of soft memory foam with peel-and-stick backing, simply adhere one of the Inserts to the palatal portion of an upper impression tray before loading VPS material in order to reduce the volume of impression material needed.  The amount of VPS material is reduced by 25% per impression, saving up to $3 per impression.  Quickly multiple the approximate number of impressions you do annually times $3.  That can total some serious savings by year’s end!

UNCERTAINTY---A MOLE HILL, NOT A MOUNTAIN

Believe it or not, even extremely successful people deal with uncertainty.  Observers of such achievers may think that every confident successful person moves full steam ahead, sure of himself or herself, navigating to avoid the currents of uncertainty without a ripple.  Not true!  The successful person just realizes that with each step forward uncertainty may seem overwhelming, but experience tells them that answers will be clear, opportunities will come.  They are not afraid to move out and then have to say, “I don’t know what comes next, but I’ll find out and adapt to it.”  They seek help when needed, and when counsel is received, they acknowledge it with humility.

These successful individuals measure success by the scoreboard, not by the playbook.  A winning coach enters each game with a plan, but is willing to change plans during the game in order to win.  A wise person once said, “Write your Vision in ink, but pencil in your Plans.”  Course correction mid-stream, meeting uncertainty head-on, is often necessary to reach one’s envisioned destination.