Prologue
My Story Jordan Brown, DDS
M
y name is Dr. Jordan Brown (Instagram @drjordanbrown), and I grew up as a gawky, shy and overweight kid with teeth two sizes too big for my face. My classmates maliciously teased me about my “SpongeBob teeth,” and consequently, I began to habitually blanket my smile with my hands when laughing. I didn’t know it then, but this lackluster period of my adolescence was the inspiration that fueled my motivation to become a dentist.
Fast-forward several years, and my smile had undergone an extensive orthodontic transformation. My newfound smile helped replace a previously despondent identity with a charismatic persona. For the first time in my life, I proudly displayed my teeth to the world. My metamorphosis awarded me the self-confidence I needed to speak to other people. I became a dentist to grant that same transformative image of self-confidence to others. I was a humble kid with a dream, but I didn’t know the steps required to become a dentist; I desperately needed a mentor. No one in my family was a dentist, so I was navigating untraveled roads. To aid in my transition to college, I enrolled in an intensive summer program designed to prepare high school graduates for the rigorous science courses of post-secondary education. Midway through the program, I was struggling to understand fundamental concepts, and I was embarrassingly far behind. My demeanor was saturated with self-doubt, and I questioned my ability to take future advanced courses like biochemistry and physiology. I didn’t believe I was smart enough to become a dentist. Toward the end of the summer program, a well-known cosmetic dentist gave an influential presentation that altered my reality. One segment of his presentation inculcated within my young mind and transcended my outlook on education. He said, “Look around the room … every person here is smart enough to become a doctor! Becoming a doctor is not about intelligence, it’s about
6 Fall 2020 Dental Entrepreneur
the degree to which you are willing to work.” As a struggling biology student with at least eight years of coursework ahead of me, this felt like a lifeline. He was the first dentist to tell me that I held the ability to achieve my ultimate aspiration. The lecture was an unexpected revelation and changed my outlook on the pathway to dental licensure. Before this moment, I believed students had fixed qualities and abilities that couldn’t be improved upon. However, I now understood that intelligence and talent can be developed through continuous effort. From this point forward, I knew I had the capability to become a dentist. I began to treat school like a full-time job by adopting an earlymorning routine, I began sitting in the front row of my classes, and I regularly made appointments with tutors. During my first semester at Morehouse College, I began earning grades at the top of my class. I adopted an attitude dedicated to high-level effort and consistency. As a child, my father worked nearly every Christmas and my mother established her small business from the ground-up. Their exemplary efforts fortified my understanding of “To whom much is given, much will be required.” I graduated with a 3.80 GPA and was accepted into the prominent University of Michigan School of Dentistry. I’m not listing these accomplishments to be ostentatious, but to inspire and motivate. A single message revised my ethos and liberated my academic uncertainty. Along the way, I found generous mentors like Dr. Todd Ester at the University of Michigan, and he mentored me through dental school. At this time, Instagram just started to gain popularity, but dentists on the platform were uncommon. When I began dental school, I remembered the difficulty of finding mentors, so I started publicly sharing my experience as a dental student to assist others with similar aspirations. I began by coaching others on the dental school selection process, the application cycle, and naviDentalEntrepreneur.com