The Leadership Mindset Needed for the Next Era of Dentistry

Gary Takacs: This is The Thriving Dentist Show with Gary Takacs, where we help you develop your ideal dental practice, one that provides personal, professional, and financial satisfaction.

Gary Takacs: Welcome to another episode of The Thriving Dentist Show. I’m Gary Takacs, your podcast founder and co-host. excited to bring a new episode to you. This episode is titled The Leadership Mindset Needed for the Next Era of Dentistry. We’re gonna share lots of useful information, relative to leadership, and, this is something that I think you’re gonna get lots of takeaways from that you can apply in your practice that’ll help strengthen and enhance your practice. Hey, before we get to that episode, though, a couple of quick announcements. First announcement is we have a Thriving Dentist Virtual Summit coming up. It’s coming up on May 28th, so not too long after this episode is published, May 28th. And this summit is titled How Dental Practices Can Use AI to Increase Case Acceptance and Production in 2026 and Beyond. so you’re curious about how AI can be used and, this virtual event is gonna provide lots of different insights for you.

Gary Takacs: Come join us. it’s a three hour virtual event. It starts at 6:00 PM Eastern Time, goes from six to nine Eastern Time. It’s a three hour event. You’ll get three hours of CE if you’re there for the entire time, you’ll get three hours of CE. And here’s some great news. There’s no tuition for this event. you’ll be attending as our guest, and we’re doing that in appreciation for your listenership. Come join us. you go to thriving dentist.com, slash events to grab your seat. Now, you do have to register, so make sure you go to thriving dentist.com/events. and you’ll see that event there. grab your seat and come join us again, May 28th, six to 9:00 PM Eastern Time. Go ahead and do the time translation, so you know what time that is in your time zone. The second announcement I have is I have a marketing tip, a returning guest, my co-host, Naren Arulrajah, and Naren’s gonna provide a marketing tip today. And that this tip is titled, when Should I Use Social Media Ads? When Should I Use Social Media Ads? That was a question that was submitted by one of our listeners. And, Narin thought it’d make a good, thriving dentist marketing tip. No further ado. Here’s Naren on when you should consider using social media ads.

Naren Arulrajah: In today’s marketing tip, I’m gonna be talking about when should I use social media ads? This is Naraine, your co-host of The Thriving Dentist Show. Let me start by talking about numbers. SCO is six times better than Google Ads, and I’ll explain where the six times number comes from. And 18 times better than social media ads. So, the average person who comes through SCO will spend 90 seconds. The average person who comes through Google Ads will spend 15 seconds. So if I divide 90 by 15, that’s six. That’s what I said. It’s six times better than Google Ads. And the average person who comes through social media ads spends five seconds. And when you divide five 90 by five, you get 18. That’s why I said it’s 18 times better than social media ads. Why is that? You know, people don’t trust ads. So there’s a huge drop when you go from SEO versus Google Ads, which are showing up next to those SEO searches.

Naren Arulrajah: Because of the trust issue, you need six times as many people to equal One good person who comes through SEO social media ads are even worse, because not only do they not trust you because it’s an ad, but also there’s no link, at least with Google Ads, I’m looking for implant dentists near me, and I see a Google ad here. I’m watching a video about entrepreneurship or about, you know, some singing dentist or singing, you know, a pimple popper. And all of a sudden an ad shows up, and it’s not linked to what I was looking for. I didn’t look for implants, and all of a sudden, an implant ad showed up because I was not thinking about the thing that I was, the thing that I was, I wanted is not what I’m seeing on the screen in terms of the video.

Naren Arulrajah: It doesn’t connect. So it’s an ad plus, there’s no intention. The intention is different from what the content is. So for those reasons, social media ads is the worst. It’s one 18th as effective as a CEO. But there is an exception to the role, and that is, if you are an influencer who’s an influencer, somebody who has perhaps 50,000, a hundred thousand followers on whatever platform, Instagram, TikTok. Now ads are very powerful because you can boost the post the kind of posts you want that 50,000 people to see, and you’ll get a lot of benefit from that. So one out of a hundred of my clients are influencers. So if you end that one out of a hundred k, definitely use social media ads in addition to you being an influencer. But if you’re not, then of course, I would say a CO is number one, and that’s maxed out Google ads.

Naren Arulrajah: And then that’s maxed out social media ads. Now, if you wanna really get a total, you know, strategy around specifically what works for you or what will work for you, book a marketing strategy meeting. So we’ll analyze you, your competition, we’ll understand your goals, we’ll understand, you know, what you’re trying to accomplish, and then also your current strengths and weaknesses. If you’re really, you know, 80% there when it comes to a CO and we’ll talk about what’s the 20%, or if your ads are really working because you have wonderful landing pages, we’ll talk about how do we benefit from that even more to fine tune it. So, book that marketing strategy meeting. It’s our gift to you ekwa.com/td. And once you book that marketing strategy meeting, you know, you’ll get a blueprint, and a report card and a, and a game plan. So take that, and then you decide what to do with it. Thank you.

Naren Arulrajah: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Thriving Dentist segment today. And the topic that we’ll be covering is the leadership mindset needed for next era of dentistry. I’m Naren, your cohost. Hope you enjoyed my tip around when to use social media ads. If you have any further questions, or you want somebody to take a second look at your digital marketing book, a marketing strategy meeting, the link is ekwa.com/td for thriving dentist ekwa.com/td. We would love to help you. We’ll look at what you’re doing, what your competition is doing, and give you a report card as well as this plan to dominate Google dominate digital marketing. Gary leadership is a topic that you and I have fond of. We have talked about it before, but I think today we are gonna take a slightly different approach and get into some nitty gritty details that I think would give our doctors some practical tips.

Naren Arulrajah: We are living in a world that’s changing ever faster, right? It’s changing, you know, geopolitically, it’s changing in terms of how people live and work. Mindsets have changed. I mean, we all know the impact of COVID and how it created lots of people from quitting, you know, their jobs and changing careers. So we also know the impact of technology, right? software now AI and AI is, you know, changing how people do things. AI is changing how people live and work. You know, if you go to Google, for example, today, you can get answers for things right in your fingertips without you having to spend the time figuring things out. So the world is changing at speeds we have never seen before, and it’s only accelerating. So I guess my biggest observation or question to you is all around leadership and you know how to think about leadership in this changing world. So what changes in your mind, Gary, are shaping the future of dentistry?

Gary Takacs: Well, you’re right, Naren. The pace of change is accelerating faster than we’ve ever known. and that will simply continue, technology, you know, clinical technology, but also behavioral technology, is changing radically. and really one thing I would point to with, in the midst of all these changes is that leadership becomes ever more important. I think leadership has always been important. You know, what’s the difference between an average practice, and a thriving practice? You know, what’s, what’s the difference? And there could be many different variables that contribute to that. But certainly one of the massive differences is the evidence or lack of leadership in the practice. You know, in the PR leading, you know, the cause, the purpose. What are, what are we about the, you know, the mission of the, of the practice?

Gary Takacs: And it’s more important than ever to be able to articulate what the purpose of the practice is, to our team members, but also to our community, to our community. You know, one thing, I think in the midst of all the changes that we’re experiencing right now, there are some ground points for people for the community. And I think it’s more important than ever for an office to be able to articulate what they’re about, you know, to not only our team members, so we can attract and keep the best team members, but also to our patient base and our potential patient base to our community. What are we about? And really, that’s, that’s all about leadership. And in reality, most dentists will self report that they haven’t had much leadership training or much leadership education. If you ask, you know, if you do a survey of dentists and ask, Hey, you know, in your experience postgraduate education, have you done much work in the area of leadership?

Gary Takacs: And in most cases, the answer is no. and it often shows up, quite a bit in terms of results. You know, you can, you cannot have a world class practice without leadership being evident. and that’s something that I hope to unpack here, you know, with our listeners, and hope to get some passion around leadership. There’s lots of resources, more resources than ever, but you still have to put ’em into play. You have to put ’em into play. It’s not just, it’s just not just knowing what to do, but it’s honing your skills at doing it. Does that make sense?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. Gary. I think, you know, I run a company with 300 people, and leadership is something I think about all the time. And I think you said something that’s very poignant. Leadership is not just about your team, it’s also about your customers. In other words, who are you? Do they know who you are? Are they clear on, you know, what makes you unique? Are they clear on what your purpose is? What are you trying to do? because when they are, then they can be part of the journey, as opposed to, you know, you are on two different planets. Somebody’s from Venus and the other person is from Mars. Like, you know, we all need to be on the same wavelength. We need to, you know, like one of the things that I’m really proud of doing is telling clients when they’re not a good fit.

Naren Arulrajah: You know, like I have lots of people coming in saying, Hey, I have a second business that’s not in healthcare. Can you help me with this? So help me with that for marketing. And I’m like, I would love to, but I’m not the best in the world at it, so I would rather not, because I’m gonna disappoint. You might as well disappoint you right now, and, you know, tell you no right now versus, you know, take you on as a client and then disappoint you over the next one year. So I think knowing who you are, like being very clear on who you are, clear on what you’re good at, what you’re not good at, what you wanna focus on, what you don’t wanna focus on. I think these are all good things. Anyways, so I agree, Gary. I think I remember the famous quote from Steve Jobs.

Naren Arulrajah: He said, what made me successful is not the things I said yes to. It’s all the 400 things I said no to. Like, it’s that having that clarity, like, who are you? What makes you tick? You know, yes, you can be a hundred fla flavors of ice cream and or a hundred flavors of service or whatever it is, but doesn’t seem to work. So Gary, following up on that, you know, I know we talk a lot about mindsets, and I remember that, video you famously shared in your masterclass, you know, a while ago, about those, the gentleman who won that award, the famous musicians, I can’t remember the names, but I am sure you know who I’m referring to. Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin. Yes. And, that concert and how they felt and everything else.

Naren Arulrajah: So mindset is kind of like, the way I look at it is it’s kind of like a view of the world. It’s a view of, you know, how to look at the world, right? And some mindsets are very useful to us, while other mindsets are not as much. So, in your experience, you have been doing this now for, what, 40, six years. So in your experience, helping practice owners, specifically dental practice owners, small and large, you know, over the years, what leadership mindsets do you think are kind of important for dentists to Mastiff if they wanna be successful in 2026?

Gary Takacs: You know, I’ll, I’ll talk about three specific leadership mindsets, and I, and then we’ll go a little bit deeper into each one of them. The first leadership mindset that I would absolutely put, number one, in terms of being an effective leader today, is to embrace a spirit of curiosity. So be curious rather than judgmental. Be curious, rather than judgmental. It’s, it’s pretty easy to be judgmental, you know, just, if you react to something, it’s, it’s pretty easy to be judgmental. but, embrace a spirit of curiosity. So that would be the number one mindset that I would ask, you know, Dennis to absolutely embrace is, a spirit of curiosity. because when you’re curious, and we can break this down into very granular levels, like for example, when you’re presenting dentistry to a patient, instead of just presenting a solution, we can learn how to ask questions so you can understand more about where the patient is. And by asking questions and understanding more about where they are, you can then adapt your response based on where they are, you know, where the, where the patient is. So curiosity is something I would consider to be, you know, extremely important. It’s just a, it’s a quality, that whether this has to do with leading our patients or leading our team members, or, you know, leading the community, leading your community.

Naren Arulrajah: Can you gimme an example, Gary? I know the word curiosity. I know we all understand it, but in the context of dentistry, can you maybe share some examples of stories of owners you worked with who are very curious and how did they apply it?

Gary Takacs: Yeah. You know, if, for example, and I’ll, I’ll get, you know, just use this example because it’s fresh on my mind, because it’s something I’ve been dealing with a particular client recently. and the issue is that a team member that had been, had a very good record of timeliness. She was always timely. She was, early, you know, for the morning huddle. She rarely missed work, and all of a sudden, things started to change and she was now routinely coming into the morning huddle late. and it was affecting the rest of the team because the team members were being critical of that. And it would’ve been fairly easy for my client to, you know, look at the personnel manual and, you know, have a one-on-one discussion with her about her tardiness, right? Yes. And what would that, is that curiosity, or is that judgmental?

Naren Arulrajah: I would say it’s judgmental,

Gary Takacs: Right? Instead, we had done some work with this, and I talked to him about the virtue of curiosity. And he sat down with her one-on-one, and he said to her, I’ve noticed recently there’s been a change in, you know, when you arrive for work in the morning, is, I wanna know more about that. Tell me what’s going on in your life. and it turns out that she was dealing with some very difficult things at home, and the home situation was impacting her ability to be at work on time. and by asking that question, instead of just pulling the rule book out, it really created an opportunity to move forward with this team member. Hmm. And, you know, he said, to her, you know, I’m, I’m sorry you’re experiencing this. Is there anything I can do to support you at home? Is there something I can do, you know, that would help relieve the challenges you’re experiencing at home? and, it ended up being a very good outcome, but it was an outcome that was based on curiosity, not judgment. Not judgment.

Naren Arulrajah: So what I’m hearing you say is, the default for most people who are not trained in this manner is judgment. You know, they assume things and then they, and then that one assumption leads to more assumptions, and then, oh, she’s a bad employee, going from all the best to the bad based on these quote unquote judgements that we make. But if you are curious, if you really, interested, you know, if you want to understand, like Stephen Covey says, you might find openings and new ways to strengthen that relationship, and perhaps you are there for that person and that person never forgets it for the rest of their lives.

Gary Takacs: I would love all of our listeners to think of your team. Mm-hmm . As your work family, your work family. I know that sounds kind of corny, but Yeah. But it’s your work family. Heck, some of them you might actually like better than your actual family. Yeah. But it’s your work family. and yeah, there has to be some rules. There have to be some guardrails there certainly does. so it’s, it’s not, you know, either or, you know, there’s, there’s some gray area in between, but there’s an example of curiosity, and if I can amplify that a little bit, I have another situation in my client base, where, this is a practice that truly has a team that everybody is in the, this is a two doctor practice, big strong hygiene department, larger office, and they truly have a team, where doctors and team members are all in the same boat, rowing in the same direction.

Gary Takacs: And one of the things that’s contributed to that is the family atmosphere, the work family support that they provided. and you have to have some skills at, knowing when discipline is needed and when flexibility is needed, and you know how to apply that. And unfortunately, it isn’t just a black and white playbook. There’s a lot of gray in there, but this is an office that doesn’t have turnover. And, you know, what are we experiencing now there? And, as a, profound reality affecting dental offices today, turnover. Mm-hmm . leaving, to go somewhere else. And when that happens, it has a debilitating effect on the practice. In fact, there’s some many offices that are having trouble filling openings. Are you familiar with that, Erin, these days? Yeah,

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely, Gary. I think the more I reflect on what you’re saying about curiosity, before you expect people to care about you have to be care about them. And curiosity is like, without any judgment, just asking open-ended questions, trying to understand somebody who understands what they’re going through. It could be a patient, it could be a, you know, like for example, let’s say somebody’s ignoring some treatment that you believe is really important to them, but for some reason they’re ignoring it. So instead of judging them or like giving them a lecture or all of that stuff, if you are curious, trying to understand why that’s happening, maybe there’s something else that’s in their mind that’s even more important than this one thing that you as a dentist realize is important for the patient. So I think that openness and, the other thing that I’m thinking of as you speak is, I know we are all in this Go. What’s my next thing? And what do I need to get done in know world? And we feel like we have less time, and you know, more and more. So we don’t really stop and listen and stop and, you know, like wander around. A curiosity to me is like wandering around getting to know people and getting to know who’s around you, and just taking that time to kind of wander around, so to speak.

Gary Takacs: Well, this is, before your time Naren, but, there’s a great business author by the name of Tom Peters. Yes. Tom Peters wrote the book in Search of Excellence. Yes. I believe it was published in 1982. brilliant. Read today. But, what Tom said his job was, it was MBWA MB management by walking around. Right? And he would walk around in his corporate environment and observe and interact with his team members, MBWA, which led me to, I said, there was three qualities. One was curiosity. Second is become a brilliant listener, become a brilliant listener. Listening is an art form. and it is becoming more elusive than ever. And it’s especially elusive, among people that have advanced degrees, graduate degrees. ’cause one of the qualities whether you’re, A-D-D-S-A-D-M-D, an MD, an MBA, these people are very bright and they know everything .

Gary Takacs: And I’m using know everything in quotes. Yes. ’cause actually, they don’t. but they think they do. so listening becomes an incredible virtue in leadership. And there’s a really simple three word response. Instead of, you know, immediately jump into conclusions. You can say, tell me more. Tell me more. And listen. And I would, I would argue brain that when it comes to, the different qualities that, you know, put together, you know, become an effective leader, listening is incredibly effective. Right? ’cause when you’re actually engaged in active listening, whoever you’re interacting with feels deeply respected. They may not agree with you, but they feel deeply respected. And when someone feels deeply res, respected, they want to do the right thing. Patients want to do the right thing when they feel listened to. You know? So the second quality would be to truly develop your listening skills.

Gary Takacs: and then the third one would be to embrace, literally, a spirit of lifelong learning where you’re simply gonna be better. You’re committing to be better tomorrow than you are today. And that should be part of your practice culture. So that isn’t just the doctor. And, you know, most doctors, of course, you know, embrace that. How do we know that, Naren? We look at how much, how much CE they take. Yes. What’s the CE about? Well, at least for our listeners, it’s not about keeping their dental license, because they probably take 10 or 15 or 20 times the amount of CE required to keep their license. Now I know there are dentists that somehow every year just barely take enough CE to keep their license. I don’t think they’ll listening to this podcast . But, you know, for our listeners, they absolutely have always embraced the spirit of lifelong learning.

Gary Takacs: but we have to create that as part of the culture in the practice as well with our team members. And oftentimes that’s where it’s not quite as common to embrace that. That’s why I like doing things like book clubs. Remember, introducing book club to a client years ago, and the office manager commented to me later, she said, Gary, I’m so grateful that you’ve introduced book club for us. She said, I’m, I’m kind of embarrassed to tell you this, but I feel it’s safe. So I’ll tell you. And she said, I used to be a voracious reader. I used to read, literally, I’d read a book a week at the end of the year, I’d, I’d read 50 plus books. And then, you know, got married, had three kids. Unfortunately the marriage dissolved over time.

Gary Takacs: And then I was a single mom, and she said, I’m kind of embarrassed to tell you, Gary, until you started this book club. I haven’t read a book in 20 years. And as she was, we were face to face as she was telling me this, and her eyes were welling up with emotion. And she said, thank you for reminding me something I used to really enjoy, and I’m getting back to. Right. So, you know, that concept, those three, you know, in terms of, you know, what are the mindsets, you know, it’s really, you know, curiosity becoming, getting a PhD in listening. I don’t think there is actually one , but get a practical PhD in listening, and then model a spirit of lifelong learning and help your team members and patients become lifelong learners. Yeah, those are excellent with the patients.

Gary Takacs: Excellent. Yeah. One of the things they could do, you know, there’s more and more interest in the oral systemic connection. Here’s an easy thing for any of our listeners to do. Buy the book, beat the Heart Attack Gene by Brad Bale, Brad Bale, md. Buy that book, and put, have one of your team members as good with technology. Go online and have a quote printed on peel and stick decal that you can put on one of your walls. And the peel stick decal should say, comes out of his book, Brad Bale Behar Tag Gene. It says, all good health begins with a mouth. So have that as the quote in italics. All good health begins with the mouth, Bradley Bale md. And put that somewhere in your office somewhere where patients will see it, and maybe they’ll comment, oh, what’s that mean?

Gary Takacs: And now it opens up a conversation. Yeah. But you can also, in your reception room, buy a couple dozen of his books, beat the heart attack gene, and invite patients to take a copy home with him, a very inexpensive way, you know, to invoke lifelong learning for your, maybe it was a patient. I didn’t know anything about that. Well, here, let me give you this book, by the way. I’d encourage you all to read that book. It’s brilliant. It’s not a technical book. It’s a, it’s written for the lay public New York Times bestseller, eat the Heart Attack Gene. It’s about health. Hand it to ’em. Mm-hmm . Well, you might enjoy this. here’s, here’s a gift for me. And now you’re modeling lifelong learning for your patient. Maybe they’ll learn something about that.

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. Gary. Those are excellent points, and I do agree with the curiosity. lifelong learning and ob obviously listening, those three are like valuable skill sets. And I think, like you said, you can never be more curious. You can never be, you know, a better listener. Like you can always keep improving on this. and I think, in the fast changing world, we sometimes forget these fundamentals. Let me get to the next question I have from our audience. Gary. What role does team leadership play as we move into 2026? Have things changed? What are, how are things now? What is important? What’s not?

Gary Takacs: Well, you know, a dentist can be a solopreneur, you know, in other words, you know, just literally being the, doing everything in their practice. And that can get the practice to a certain level, a certain, and it could be a very good level. But it also,

Naren Arulrajah: When you say solopreneur, you mean meaning like no team members, or you mean like a small team

Gary Takacs: Is a doctor just feels like he or she has to do everything in the practice.

Naren Arulrajah: Oh, okay. Okay.

Gary Takacs: Doctor, you know, well, you know, I’ve gotta do everything. You know, I’m the one that does this. I’m the one that does that. I’m the one that does this. I’m the one that has to do this. Mm-hmm . That can, you can get to a certain level because exceptional dentists are high achievers. Right. But ultimately, the dentist, if you want to grow your practice, beyond that state, so you can have some work-life balance, the dentist cannot do everything alone, cannot. and it is just not possible. So I think the next era of dentistry leadership becomes ever more important. And it could be set up departmentally where we could have team leads. We could have department leads, you know, rather than the traditional office manager, you’ve got the doctor, the office manager, and then everyone else. And in many cases, that’s been a dysfunctional model because basically, the doctor uses the office manager as a buffer between the doctor and the team, and has the office manager do all the stuff that he or she doesn’t wanna do.

Gary Takacs: I would suggest that’s a dysfunctional model. It won’t, it’ll get you somewhere. Mm-hmm . It won’t get you to full potential. You know, think about a flatter hierarchy in your practice. Flatter, where we have team leads, we had an administrative lead, we have an assistant lead, we have a hygiene lead. If we have multiple doctors, perhaps, we have an associate doctor lead, and it’s a flatter organization that allows us to move things forward in a management structure. You know, there is, and I have to stop here to not inject too much of my drive in any of this. I’m very driven. I’m OCD on goals, OCD, I’m driven. And for me, bigger was always better. but that may or may not be your approach. But if you do wanna grow, and I would see that’s a great context for growth, if we wanna help more patients in our practice have great oral health, and we wanna help more people in our community enjoy the benefits of great oral health. In that context, is it bigger, better than in that context?

Naren Arulrajah: I don’t, I think, yeah. I think it is, it is better, right? Because with the right team structure is a good thing.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. And also, economically, if I just put my green visor on for a minute. Yeah. and we look at economics. When you grow, your fixed expenses all stay the same,

Naren Arulrajah: Right?

Gary Takacs: We can grow in the same space. Your rent or mortgage stays the same. So all of a sudden we can overcome inflationary economics by growing. And if you’re gonna grow, then we need a leadership structure that’s gonna support that growth in a functional way. so, you know, I think a simple mindset is that Dennis can’t do everything alone. Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: I was listening to a podcast, just, you know, yesterday, and it’s, by this gentleman called Joel Leman. I worked for him, like literally in two thou, you know, early two thousands for a company called Trilogy. He’s a billionaire. He’s worth $6 billion. He lives in Texas, Austin, Texas. And he is funding a company called Alpha Schools. And it’s kind of like, you know, what do schools look like in 2026? So he is reinventing everything from the ground up. And, one of the things he asked kids, what do you want? They’re like, I don’t want school. I want school to be as little as possible. So he’s like, gimme two hours and you can cover all your material you would cover in six hours, but if you’re not focused, it’s going to be three hours, four hours. In other words, if you’re distracted and whatnot.

Naren Arulrajah: And the beauty is with ai, you can pinpoint where they’re weak. I think where education falls, this whole, you know, teacher, you know, in front of a classroom methodology, it’s like, you know, you are just preaching to everyone. And some people are getting it, some people are not. And they fall behind today, and then they fall behind tomorrow based on that three months later. They’re so behind, they just can’t even understand what the heck is going on. And you literally have kids today, especially after COVID that are five years behind. They’re in middle school, they can’t read basic English. You know, it’s pretty sad because the tea parents assume the school is doing its thing, and you know, they’re not involved and you can’t blame them. They’re busy with life and, you know, just staying afloat, you know, for a lot of people.

Naren Arulrajah: So one of the things he’s reinventing is like, I don’t want teachers doing things that AI can do grading, figuring out where they’re weakened, let AI do what AI can do. But on the other hand, I want teachers to be champions. In other words, challenging kids. So like, his third graders can do a, you know, 5K run. Of course, they couldn’t do a 5K run on day one, but okay, first day they walk, okay, next day they, you know, run for half a kilometer. And before you know it, by the time the semester ends, everyone is doing a 5K run. And the parents are like, how is it possible? So he’s visioning his teachers as champions and, you know, leads, and I like the word lead you mentioned, which is where my thought went there. Like you mentioned, like, you know, like leaders are like mentors. Leaders are people who believe in you. Leaders are people who see something that you don’t see yourself

Gary Takacs: Understand the vision. Yeah. You know, when team members feel valued and empowered. Yeah. The entire practice can rise to a different level. Right? And it’s something that is missing in a more traditional dental office structure. but, hope I’ve given some insight on that question.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. So I think what I took away from that answer is you want to mentor people. You want to lift people up, challenge people see something they don’t see in themselves. It’s not necessarily just the mechanics or the step one, step two, you know, it’s more like, you know, seeing something in people and helping them blossom. Right? and I think that’s kind of what leadership is on the team side. If I, if I’m not mistaken what you’re saying. Yeah. Let me go to the next question. Gary. How should dentists approach technology and all these changes?

Gary Takacs: Well, I think this is more important than ever. I’ll, I’ll make a comment here that I think some of you will chuckle, and maybe see yourself in it. But, dentists are often drawn to the next shiny object. , you know, the next shiny object. Yes. Yes. Like, I remember back when, you know, when CAC was first coming out, and all of a sudden CAC was gonna be the answer for everything. You know, when Sarah, you know, came out, I remember when lasers started to be, you know, the technology with lasers made lasers more affordable. And all of a sudden it was gonna be, I’m gonna be successful ’cause I have a laser. you know, and we could say 3D printers today, or scanners or whatever, you know, plug in whatever technology you want, right?

Gary Takacs: But what I would suggest is that technology is simply a tool, not a strategy. It’s a tool, a good tool. And I am a nerd. I do love technology. but it’s, it’s, it’s not a strategy. it’s a tool that can certainly fit in your practice model. It can improve diagnostics, improve efficiency. but it only works when it fits your systems really well and your workflows really well. If you don’t have, if you don’t have good systems, if you don’t have good workflows, and the technology is going to be disruptive, not productive. I can’t tell you how many times m when I was an in-office consultant, which I was from 1989 in office, until 2020 till COVID. So all those years I was in office, and I can’t tell you how many times I would go into an office and see the CEREC machine being used as a coat rack , you know what I mean by that, Naren? Yes. Literally where the coats were hung. Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. Because it’s just people didn’t, you know, buy into it. I mean, yeah, the doctor probably bought into it when he paid, wrote the check, but then they never really got implemented.

Gary Takacs: So, you should evaluate technology very carefully before investing. And again, remember, I’m a nerd. I do love all the technology. I’m excited about 3D printing. I’m excited about us being able to print final restorations soon, having the material that we can actually bring. I’m excited about all that, but make sure your systems are buttoned down first, so that you can integrate that technology smoothly and the technology doesn’t become disruptive. Does that make sense?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely, Gary. So what you’re saying is, it’s like the tail wagging the dog versus the dog wagging the tail. So you start with this, why are you doing this? For example, you have a problem with, patient, you know, treatment, completion. So you need a solution for things like, following up with patients. So you start with the why, and then of course, how do we do that? Whether it’s texting or using this tool or that tool that’s like the how. So you’re saying that only comes after you figure out the why and why you wanna do what you wanna do

Gary Takacs: And involve your team members in the decision process. Mm-hmm . When they feel they’re part of the decision, they’re likely to embrace it. So, for example, you might say, maybe we wanna add a new diode laser. there’s so many different ways we can use an IO laser. They’re very inexpensive today. We want to integrate one. And what we might do is, involve our assistants and hygienists to look at different lasers, and be part of the process of adding those lasers to your practice. Because when they feel part of it, guess what’s gonna happen when it comes to implementing? They’re,

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. They’re much more likely to give their all, they’re likely to embrace it. Yep.

Gary Takacs: Yeah, for sure. But I don’t wanna put a wet blanket on technology. We’ve got some amazing technology, but I think we have to look at it as a tool, not a strategy. 

Naren Arulrajah: One of my first questions to you when we got started on this conversation was about mindsets. And I think that’s a good place to start. And I also want to end the mindset. So if you were to like, take all your wisdom from 46 years, helping hundreds of practices just on reducing insurance dependence, or, you know, just becoming next level practices that are, you know, growing their practice by double digits every single year. Like, whatever you have done helped these practice owners accomplish. Gary, what do you think are the key mindsets that support long-term success? So if you’re like, gimme the, gimme the key points. Like, okay, if I don’t forget these things, I’m gonna do it. Okay.

Gary Takacs: Well, I really think it comes down to a short sentence. Think long term. Mm. Think along. Not just the flavor of the day. , you know, right. Flavor of the day has you bounce it all over the place. You know, think long term. The other thing I would say is, I would ask any of our listeners to stretch their possibility thinking, lemme explain that. I think one of the mistakes that Dennis makes is they set the goal too low and then they achieve it. Now, did that make sense, Mary?

Naren Arulrajah: Yes. Yes.

Gary Takacs: They set it too low and then they achieve it. Right? ’cause it’s like, then, and that’s why I think we see a lot of burned out mid-career, Dennis, because they all, they’ve achieved everything they could ever imagine. So I’d ask you to answer this question. So it’s an exercise for any of our listeners, and I’m gonna ask you to kind of step outside your normal comfort zone and think big. And what I, what I’m gonna ask you to answer is, if your practice was as good as it could possibly be, what would that look like? Mm. It was as good as it could possible with no limitations. So don’t start to say, but yeah, but that isn’t practical. You know, just, if it was as good as it could be, what would that look like? What would, what would your office look like?

Gary Takacs: What would your mix of services look like? What would your schedule look like? What would your team look like? And really stretch for it. Now, I know some dentists are more when it comes to setting goals. I am one to absolutely set bold, ambitious goal moonshots, Peter Dam. Manis used the term, I’m, I’m one to set moonshots. That’s just my personality. I know other people are more likely to set an achievable goal with the satisfaction they’ll get when they achieve it. But the danger of that ladder approach is you set the bar too low, you never really envision what could be done. So be ambitious, set it, set it very boldly. If your practice was gonna be, what would it look like? And then break it down, you know, begin with the end. But now we know what the end of mind is.

Gary Takacs: Now we simply assess where you are today and what we have to do to get from where we are today to there. And by the way, Naren, I just unpacked our coaching strategy. That’s what we do. That’s what we do at Thriving Depths. And it’s your vision, it’s your goal. But we now have a goal line. We have a finish line, we know where we are because you can assess that. And then we simply connect the dots with strategy, and process along the way, systems training, team member involvement, and we get from step A to step B. But really, you know, think long term. and I would, you know, I would argue that it’s a really rewarding process because it always has you looking forward to something. That’s why we’ve got, we’ve got clients that, I always have to preface this because I know their age.

Gary Takacs: And I’ll say, look, I’m not trying to push you out the door or anything, but, how much longer do you wanna practice? And they’ll say, oh, Gary, no offense, but, I am loving dentistry like I never have. And I’d like to keep practicing as long as I’m having this great time. And by the way, we’ve also achieved an effective work-life balance. So they’re working their plan, you know, they’re, they’re working the amount of time they wanna work, in our seven goals, you know, for a thriving practice. Goal number seven is to achieve an effective work-life balance. I’m coming to believe that’s the most important goal there. mm-hmm . Without it’s a bit of a hollow victory, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This has been a fun episode nerd. I would like to suggest a resource.

Gary Takacs: there are colleagues of mine, when it comes to leadership. They give a workshop every summer. It’s in late July. It’s called Leadership and Legacy. Leadership and Legacy. It’s three instructors, three of my favorite people in the entire world. . It’s Liam Brady. you may know her as the CEO, of, the, a Panas suit. She’s the CEO and she’s the co clinical director with Dr. Gary De Wood. So Dr. Lee Ann Brady, it’s Mary Osborne. Mary Osborne is an amazing person that you need on your radar screen. And Joan under, shoot, the three of ’em give this workshop, every year at the end of, end of July. I think it’s leadership and legacy.com. But just Google Leadership. Sure. Find them. It’s absolutely the best resource I know, when it comes to, leadership as relates to dentistry.

Gary Takacs: And I love the way they frame it as leadership and legacy. Great resource. for sure. Naren, as we kind of come into the finish line here, this has been a fun episode. I think we’ve shared lots of useful information. I’ll bring it back full circle. Come join us for our Thriving Dentist event. coming up, the end of May. go to thriving dentist.com/events. if you haven’t already signed up, for, marketing strategy meeting with Ekwa, I’d encourage you to get that scheduled, Naren, where they would go to get a marketing strategy meeting from Ekwa.

Naren Arulrajah: It’s ekwa.com/td

Gary Takacs: And on the coaching side, if you would like help developing your leadership, I would love the opportunity to work with you in Thriving Dentist Coaching. go to thrivingdentist.com/csm. It stands for Coaching Strategy Meeting. There’ll be a zoom meeting with me. Love to talk to you about you and your practice, and how we might help you develop your ideal practice. Come join us. jump in. The water’s warm. We are accepting new clients. We don’t always accept new clients. Sometimes we have a wait list. We are currently accepting new clients. We’ve had some doctors hit the finish line recently by Choice and Design, and it’s opened up some opportunities for us to add new clients. If that’s of interest to you, thrivingdentist.com/csm. On that note, thank you for the privilege of your time, Naren. And I look forward to connecting with you on the next Thriving Dentist Show.