What Does it Take for You to be Truly Happy as a Dentist?

Intro: 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 co-host. Um, we have a fun episode for you today, uh, and maybe an important episode. The title of this podcast episode is What Does It Take for You to Be Truly Happy as a Dentist? Well, I think you’re gonna enjoy this podcast episode, and, uh, I think you’ll have some very useful takeaways, uh, for sure.

Uh, but before we get to that episode, I have two quick announcements to make. If you’re a regular listener to The Thriving Dentist Show, you know that we, uh, routinely, uh, put on, uh, events—virtual events in the forms of webinars, panel discussions, uh, interviews—and we do those regularly for our, our listeners, for our followers. Um, and if you’d like to see when the next one is, just go to thrivingdentist.com/events. 

Um, those virtual events—they’re virtual, so you can attend from the comfort of your home or office. You don’t have to travel—no inconvenience. Uh, many times the events have CE, uh, and they are offered at no tuition. We, uh, we do those for, um, our community, uh, as a courtesy of your listenership. So, uh, if you’d like to, uh, take a look at those, just go to thrivingdentist.com/events,  and you’ll see the next one on the calendar. So our team constantly updates that with the latest upcoming event. Um, hope to see you on those events. They’re very, very, very useful. Um, hope to see you there.

The next announcement that I have is, uh, we have Naren, my podcast co-host, returning with a Thriving Dentist marketing tip. And this marketing tip is titled Turning Google Rankings into New Patient Calls. Uh, turning Google rankings into new patient calls. So, it’s great to get Google rankings, but it’s even better when those rankings result in potential new patients picking up the phone and calling your office. Uh, Naren is gonna unpack this and share some useful tips—useful marketing tips—regarding those Google rankings.

No further ado. Here’s Naren: Turning Google Rankings into New Patient Calls.

Naren Arulrajah: Hello, this is Naren, the co-host of the Thriving Dentist Podcast. And today, for my dental marketing tip, I’m gonna be answering a very specific question that you sent in:

“I’m ranking on Google for veneers for, you know, dozens of keywords, but I’m not getting new patient calls. Why?”

Great, great question. Um, and it’s a really important question because if you’re ranking on Google for dozens of keywords, and you’re getting a lot of people to see your implant page, but you’re not getting phone calls, you still have something to work on—something to fix.

What is that something?

It could be one of two reasons. One is, uh, your landing page is not optimized. What I mean is, um, like, I type in "veneers near me," you show up, you know, at the top of Google search without having to—you know, you don’t have to pay an ad.

Naren Arulrajah: Now, that’s a huge accomplishment—if that’s you, keep doing that. So make sure you’re ranking for at least, you know, 20, 30 different keywords with the word "veneers" in it at the top of Google.

Now, um, once you go to that page, what I want to see is—I want to make sure there are cases. Like, for example, um, the cases have to be in a full-face after picture, and it could be a close-up, you know, before picture. And the reason I like full-face after pictures is it can show the outcome they’re paying for.

Remember, they could have bought that nice car for $20,000, or they could have gone on that expensive vacation. They said no. Instead, they’re getting that beautiful smile with your veneers. Now, you want to show them what does that look like? And the full-face after picture communicates that better than anything else.

Naren Arulrajah: This is a mindset shift, because as dentists, you are looking at the nuances—the close-ups. But remember, these patients of yours are not dentists. They didn’t go to dental school. They don’t understand or appreciate the nuances. They just want to know, “Okay, if I were to spend that $20,000, what would my smile look like?”

So give it to them. And I would like to recommend at least four to five—even more. And also, pick different patients, right? You know—young, old, African American, you know, different ethnic groups, different skin colors.

Why? Because if they see someone that’s similar to them—maybe in age, maybe in skin color—they’re much more likely to trust you, because they’re thinking, “Oh, someone just like me got an awesome smile thanks to Dr. Smith. So he can definitely help me.”

We somehow think we are all unique, and by looking at someone who looks like us, we feel like we are in safer hands.

Naren Arulrajah: So that’s one thing. So continue to work on them. If you don’t have five cases tomorrow, that’s okay. Start with one, get the second one, get the third, and so forth. Keep, keep working on it, keep improving it. So that’s one thing that I would do on the landing page.

The second thing I would do is I would definitely at least add one to two videos—short videos. And today, it’s very easy. With smartphones, you can create high-quality videos. You don’t need to hire an expert. And the more authentic it is, the better off you are.

And the video could be as simple as welcoming them: “Hey, I’m Dr. Smith. I’m so glad you are on my Invisalign page. Um, you know, please look around. We have been helping patients for the last so many years, and we are a premium provider.” You know, whatever status you have—“Look at some of the cases we have. We would love to help you. Call our office.”

Naren Arulrajah: It’s all about saying hello, welcome, introducing yourself using simple language, keeping it short—talking about the social proofs, talking about those cases, having them look around and see for themselves those cases—and then just saying, you know, inviting them to call your office, inviting them, letting them know that they’re in good hands. Simple things, short videos—and just try to have those kind of videos on every, you know, page that is ranking. So that way, when they go there, they’re much more likely to call.

Now you’ve fixed your landing page, you have cases, you have awesome, um, you know, welcome videos.

The two other tips I would leave you with are:

1. Continue to get 10 or more Google reviews. That’s a must-do tip for every dental practice.
2. And last but not least, your conversion rate. The average office converts one out of three new patients.

Naren Arulrajah: Now, when it comes to, you know, high-value services like veneers, that number might even go down. Is your team trained? Do you know what your conversion rate is?

One of the things we do for all of our clients is to track these calls and tell them what their conversion rate is. If you’re like the average, you’re only converting one out of three. Just by fixing that problem, you will now double or triple your new patient volume. So that could be the second area to look at—your conversion rate.

So when you look at your conversion rate, and when you look at your landing pages, those are the two additional issues that you may want to work on in addition to SEO.

Now, 95% of you are not ranking for dozens of keywords for veneers or anything else, because 95% of you have to rely on ads or PPO plans to get new patients. So if you are in that 95%, and you want us to take a comprehensive look at your marketing, book a marketing strategy meeting. The link is ekwa.com/td , and it’s a 60-minute meeting. We’ll do a comprehensive review—it’s our gift to you—and we’ll look at you, your competition, give you a report card and a plan. Take advantage of it. This is totally personalized, and then take that information and decide what you want to do next..

Naren Arulrajah: Hello everyone, this is Naren. Hope you enjoyed that marketing tip that I shared about how to turn Google rankings into new patients. Any questions, you can always book a marketing strategy meeting with my team: ekwa.com/td. 

And we would love to, uh, you know, analyze how you’re doing, how your competition is doing, and help you navigate marketing and SEO—and make 2026 your best year yet.

Gary, um, in the beginning of the year—this is my 19th year, you know, helping dental practice owners—and it’s your 46th year helping dental practice owners. And I think this topic, What Does It Take for You to Be Truly Happy as a Dentist?, is a timely topic.

And the reason I use the word “timely” is, um, you and I have known each other for more than a decade, and we have worked together for like seven, eight years now.

Naren Arulrajah: I know I have changed in those years, and I know you have changed. My definition of happiness has changed, and so has yours. So, as people who are a little bit, you know, grayer today than we were when we started—I’m 50 plus—um, you know, I think this is a really interesting topic.

And I think that’s really the human struggle, right? What is happiness and how do we hopefully seek it or go after it, you know, as human beings?

So, What Does It Take for You to Be Truly Happy as a Dentist? And, uh, you have obviously, in those 46 years, uh, you know, worked with, you know, a thousand plus dentists personally, and many of them are your friends. And, uh, some of them have retired, and, um, some are early in their career. So very, very interesting topic, Gary. Um, and, um, just wanted to dive in.

Gary Takacs: Yeah, you know, I think this is a very timely, uh, question. I think this would be a question that is appropriate at any time, but I feel it’s particularly timely now, Naren, because, uh, sadly, um, many dentists, uh, report, um, that they’re not happy, right?

Um, and one of the things that saddens me a great deal—uh, this information is a bit anecdotal because, you know, this, it’s not necessarily, uh, you know, scientifically tracked—but, um, you know, there’s, um, uh, a number of very large, uh, private dentist Facebook groups, right? You’re familiar with those?

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: There’s a number of very, uh—and very large—um, you know, one of them has almost 70,000 dentists. It’s a private Facebook group. And others, there’s a couple others that are close to it in size. It’s just a nice online community, you know, for dentists to connect with one another.

And there was a survey recently in one of these large dentist private Facebook groups that said, “Knowing what you know now, how many of you would make the decision again to be a dentist?” Okay, does that question make sense?

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: And sadly, the answer to that question was a minority. It was less than 50%, right? Less than 50%. So they wouldn’t make the same—knowing what they know now, they wouldn’t make the same decision to be a dentist.

I saw the question asked a different—now again, this is not scientific. It’s not done through, you know, absolute scientific, you know, data gathering. But in another Facebook group, the question was, “How many of you would encourage your son or daughter to become a dentist?” And that number was less than 40%, which makes me sad.

I think the big indicator on both of those questions is the people saying no to those questions—that they wouldn’t choose to do it all over again or they wouldn’t advise their son or daughter—mostly stems from the fact that they’re probably not happy with their career choice, right? Is that a logical deduction, Naren? Is it logical to—

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. Absolutely, Gary. I mean, the way we feel today, we tend to project that on the decisions we take or what we tell others to do, right? So absolutely. I think when I, as, you know, let’s say an entrepreneur, am not happy, then I’m not gonna tell my kids to do that. And same thing with dentists, right? If I, as a dentist slash practice owner, am not happy, I’m not gonna tell my kids to do that.

Gary Takacs: You know, from a global perspective, what does it mean to be happy? Let’s leave the last part of the title off—what does it mean to be happy, right?

I have a simple definition. It’s doing what you love with people you love, you know? Yeah, there’s a definition of happy.

And, you know, let’s translate that to dentistry. I’m saddened by the fact that I hear from many dentists in different forms. When I’m out doing live events, I hear it. At virtual events, we hear it. I get many, many emails from dentists.

Many dentists tell me that they feel, you know, tired. They feel stressed. Maybe they feel stuck. And those are not good feelings. You know, they’re real. It’s very possible to feel tired, feel stressed, feel stuck.

Gary Takacs: Um, and, you know, I go back to think, you know, what’s transpired. One of the courses I give, in the beginning I ask the audience to—um, I especially love doing this live, you know, in a physical event—and I say, “You know, doctors, just close your eyes and reflect back. Many years—for some of you, it’ll be relatively recent, for some of you it’ll be longer—but remember when you found out that you were accepted to dental school? Remember that? Remember the euphoria that you felt?”

Yeah. So if you’re listening to this, remember that euphoria. And if you’re a certain age, it would have been a letter in the mail—yeah—a letter arrived in the mail. Or for my friend in… in the post—what do you call it, Naren, in Canada?

Naren Arulrajah: Post. Post.

Gary Takacs: Yeah, that’s that English influence on you. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, when a letter arrived in the mail and you saw that the return address was from the dental school that you applied to, and you nervously held that letter—and maybe you even hesitated to open it, because you weren’t sure if you were going to be accepted—and you opened the letter and it said:

"Congratulations. We’re pleased to inform you that you have been accepted."

Now, more recently, that’s probably arrived in the form of an electronic communication, right, Naren? An email or, you know, some kind of message.

But imagine that euphoria that you felt, because, yeah, you were one step closer to following your dream. It had been a dream of yours to become a dentist, and you were now one step—well, you weren’t there yet. You still had to survive dental school. You still had to pass the boards. So you weren’t there yet, but it was probably a very euphoric time for many dentists. Up till that point in their life, that was probably the happiest day of their life—getting accepted to dental school.

Now granted, maybe that day’s changed. Maybe there’s been a wedding in there, or maybe there’s been the birth of children that have now surpassed that as the happiest day of your life. But let’s just agree that that was probably a very happy time.

And then what happened? You got confronted by reality. So, yeah, you survived dental school, you passed the boards, and then maybe initially the typical path would be you worked as an associate doctor. And maybe that’s where the disillusionment began, right, Naren?

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: And all of a sudden you realize—wait a minute—you had to learn more than just teeth. You had to have some behavioral skills. You had to learn to talk to your patients. You had to learn how to work effectively with your team. You had to deal with all kinds of things that dental school really didn’t prepare you for.

And then maybe at some point you said, “You know what? I want to own my own practice.” And then you took the leap to become a practice owner, which is another big step.

I happen to believe that every career path in dentistry can be a rewarding career path. Working in a community health center can be a rewarding career path. Teaching can be a rewarding career path.

Gary Takacs: Um, working as an associate doctor in the right environment can be a rewarding career path. Uh, but I happen to believe, with every ounce of my DNA, that if you’re oriented towards becoming an owner, owning your own practice can be the best career path—if that’s your orientation, if that’s what you’re driven for.

It can be the best, because you have much more of an opportunity to control your own destiny, right? When you’re the owner, if something isn’t going right, um, you can talk to your boss. Wait a minute—who’s that? Uh, that’s you. Yeah, you can talk to yourself. Yeah, exactly. And if it isn’t going right, you can make whatever mid-course corrections you need to make.

But all of a sudden, you became a practice owner, and now maybe the most disillusionment was to look at how little the insurance companies pay you for the dentistry you’re doing.

Yeah. And maybe that was, you know, just another level of disillusionment that happened. And maybe you knew a little bit of that as an associate dentist, but you probably didn’t understand the full depth of what it meant to work for the insurance company.

I always ask, you know, when I’m doing live courses, I always just say, “Hey, how many of you guys work for the dental insurance companies?” And no hands go up, you know, at my courses. But then I say, “Actually, doctor, I might politely suggest that many of you actually work for the dental insurance companies.” If the majority of your patients are PPO patients, you’re actually working for the insurance company—not in a literal sense, Naren, but in a figurative sense. Right? Is that accurate?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely, Gary.

Gary Takacs: Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I think that in the context of the title—What Does It Take for You to Be Truly Happy as a Dentist?—that we need to make decisions that allow you to do what you love with people you love. Yeah. That is that pathway.

And we’ll get a lot more granular as we go, but from a broad overview, that’s really what it means. And the thing is, if you own your own practice, you’re captaining your ship. If you don’t like the direction of that ship, change course.

Naren Arulrajah: Mm-hmm.

Gary Takacs: Mm-hmm.

Naren Arulrajah: Let me, um, before I get to my question, Gary, I wanna set it up and I wanna kind of give you some context. And I know I made my comment earlier that depending on the stage of your life and your age, the definition of happiness keeps changing.

So my mom passed away, you know, two and a half years ago. And since then, I just realized the life that I was living was not necessarily the life that I wanted, but rather the life that I thought I needed to live, right? Which is taking care of your parents, taking care of your kids, you know? And the way I did that is by working hard and providing for them and so forth.

So after that experience, I started thinking, you know, “What if I died tomorrow? Would I be happy with the way I spent my last few years?”

Naren Arulrajah: Um, you know, or next few days, depending on when I die. Um, and I started asking, what is important to me? And I started thinking about all parts of my life—health, relationships, experiences like travel, things I enjoy, right?

Uh, but at the same time, I also love leadership. I love mentoring people. I love building things—building businesses. So I put together, like, if I were to die tomorrow, what would I like my eulogy to be able to say? Then I said, Okay, am I doing those things today so that if I die tomorrow, or 10 years from now, or 30 years from now, I have no regrets?

It has been a hard change. So that’s kind of how I, you know, as a 50-year-old man, started defining happiness. And I think the key point you mentioned earlier is—you have to define it. It’s your life. It’s not anybody else’s life.

So my question to you, Gary, is: How does a dentist know if they’re chasing the wrong definition of success?

Gary Takacs: Great question, Naren. And before I answer that, I want to state that I believe that the root of unhappiness for many dentists is—they are chasing the wrong definition of success. Right?

Naren Arulrajah: Can you elaborate on that? Why?

Gary Takacs: Like, maybe the idea—well, you know, I’ll share a story. I won’t use his name, but I’ll share a story about a client of mine who owned multiple locations. And I wanted to have him on the podcast, uh, because he owned, you know, multiple locations.

And I reached out to him and said, “Man, I’d love to have you on the podcast to talk about the joys of multiple location ownership.” And he said, “How about the misery of multiple location ownership?” And he wasn’t kidding. He wasn’t—he wasn’t kidding.

And I said, “Well, wait a minute, let’s talk about that.” And he said, “Yeah, I—” and the story was—“I started, I bought my first practice and developed it into a very successful practice.”

Gary Takacs: And I thought, “If one practice is good, two is better,” right?

Naren Arulrajah: Right.

Gary Takacs: Yeah, right? [laughs] And then, “Hey, if two are good, three is even better.” And anyway, it evolved into a 10-location operation. Yeah. And he wasn’t kidding when he said, “My perspective now is very different. The reality of what this is, is very different than what I thought it would be.”

But I was chasing—I was measuring success by how many locations I owned. So that, you know, there’s one example of the wrong definition of success.

Many doctors talk about success in terms of how many active patients they have—“How many patients do you have?” And it’s almost like it’s a bragging game.

“Well, I have 3,000.” “No, I have 4,000.” But—

Naren Arulrajah: You’re saying it’s driven by comparison. And it’s driven by—

Gary Takacs: Very often by comparison.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. Not by what’s important to you. It’s because somebody else is doing it, therefore I must do it. That must be success.

Gary Takacs: And I think the way you can break that pattern is truly do some strategic planning and define what your ideal practice is. What is it? What does it look like?

I mean, if you don’t have that defined—if you don’t have that goal—then any direction is fine, right? You know?

But if you—Stephen Covey’s concept: begin with the end in mind. What is your definition of your ideal practice?

Gary Takacs: I had a conversation yesterday with a client, a friend of mine—a wonderful dentist and a relatively new practice owner. And I had that discussion because she was talking about, we were talking about next year—what do you want to accomplish in 2026?

And she was all over the map with some things. And I said, “You know what I think would be really helpful? If you defined your vision of your ideal practice.” Because once you have that vision clearly defined, any decision—you simply run it up against that vision. Does that help you get there or not?

And it was—we were on a Zoom call—and her eyes got really big. And she said, “Wow, why didn’t I think of that? Because I’m kind of chasing everything. And as a result, I feel scattered. I feel lacking direction. And I’m kind of chasing the moment instead of chasing an ideal that I’ve defined.”

Naren Arulrajah: I’m not exaggerating, but I see somebody’s Facebook post about how happy they are, a wonderful vacation—I need to do that.

Gary Takacs: And FOMO—

Naren Arulrajah: They have this massive practice—FOMO, right? Fear of missing out. Fear of like, “I don’t have what the other person has,” versus, what do you want?

So I’m just saying, you and I have worked with practices for a long time. Let’s say a young dentist with a family—what they want is different from somebody, perhaps, who’s in their sixties and wants to retire. And they want to build up the practice, make it profitable—or as profitable as possible—and then…

So really, like, what do you want, right? What is your goal? And then you reverse engineer from that.

Gary Takacs: Well, certainly there’s some pragmatic parts of this too, right? Because, for example, you need to make a living to support yourself and your family. You know, that’s very pragmatic, right?

But have you ever answered the question: How much is enough? Yeah. How much is enough?

If you’ve never answered that question, then there’s never enough. Because there’s always someone to compare to.

Naren Arulrajah: And what is a good life? Is it working six days and never seeing the kids? Or is it going on week-long vacations four times a year and being home by five? Right? What is a good life?

Gary Takacs: And I might suggest that you have to self-define, right? What’s important to you?

But I might suggest achieving an effective work-life balance would be a useful context to start to build your vision and success around.

Naren Arulrajah: It’s kind of like work-life…

Gary Takacs: Balance.

Naren Arulrajah: It’s like, you know, eat to live versus live to eat, right? So, you know, like—work can’t overtake your life. If work is a means to your life, then are you getting the life also filled in along the way?

Gary Takacs: Right.

Naren Arulrajah: Interesting, Gary. A really interesting conversation and really interesting suggestion. So, what habits lead to long-term happiness and fulfillment in dentistry? Again, looking at your 46 years of experience.

Gary Takacs: Well, I think number one, I would say—a habit that is built towards purpose. What’s your purpose?

And, you know, I get an opportunity to meet many dental students, and—

Naren Arulrajah: Right.

Gary Takacs: What’s the number one reason why individuals choose dentistry as a career, Naren? What’s the number one reason?

Naren Arulrajah: They want to make a difference in people’s lives.

Gary Takacs: They want to help people.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: The broader definition would be—they want to help people and they want to make a difference in their lives.

And the cool thing is, dentistry can absolutely do that. And when you’re doing that, Naren—when you’re making a difference in people’s lives—and you’ve got a sense of purpose, it’s driving you. Purpose can carry you through the speed bumps. You know, you have purpose. And it can be a grounding element of planning, for example.

And one of the habits that I’ve found helps dentists and team members is to create a life where you have an opportunity, in a structured way, to give back. And of course, you can do that within your own practice, right? But the truth is, we can’t take care of everyone for free in your practice.

Naren Arulrajah: Maybe on Valentine’s Day you do something for the veterans, or you do something for—

Gary Takacs: Veterans Day. Maybe we do Veterans Day.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: So, the “MOM”—M-O-M—is an acronym that’s common here in the U.S.: Mission of Mercy. It’s often done by state dental associations, and you can volunteer. They open up clinics for people who don’t have the resources for dental care.

And you could get very global about that—you can choose to go on missionary trips around the world and deliver dentistry in environments where people have never had access to care. And you can do that locally. That opportunity exists in your town—wherever you are.

I have a client—I love to use this example—and he wanted to involve his team members in this, because his team members are givers as well. And they decided they wanted to do something that wasn’t dental-related, because they’re doing dentistry, you know, 46, 47, 48 weeks a year.

So they wanted to do something one week—with the doctor and the team—that wasn’t dentistry related, but they wanted to give back. So they decided to all get involved with Habitat for Humanity.

And every year, this doctor and the team—the entire team—they fly somewhere (they decide together where to go), and they build a house. They work on building a house. You’re familiar with Habitat for Humanity?

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, of course. It’s the late president—he created it, right?

Gary Takacs: Yeah, late President Jimmy Carter. It was his, uh, you know, his charity that he believed so much in.

And they stayed on payroll. They got paid that week. They would usually spend about five days as part of the Habitat for Humanity project, and then a couple days just for fun—days when they’re out. Doctor would keep them on payroll, so it wasn’t costing the team members money to do this.

And what a wonderful experience for all of them. There was purpose in what they were doing.

So I think if you build habits around purpose—also build habits around autonomy. It’s oppressive when someone else is controlling your—right—your life.

Naren Arulrajah: PPO is a classic example where somebody—

Gary Takacs: That’s where I was gonna go. You know what I’m talking about, Naren? Yeah. When, you know, the PPO plans are controlling your life, that can quickly lead to disillusionment, right?

Naren Arulrajah: I mean, you don’t choose the patients. They don’t appreciate what you do. The only reason they’re there is because it’s free. And the only question is, “Is it covered?” Which means you can’t do ideal dentistry. So you’re like, “What’s the point?”

Gary Takacs: So, build your life around autonomy. That means you’re choosing.

Another habit is lifelong learning. I think a habit where you’re committed to learning something new every day—you’re committed to learning.

And let’s, let’s keep this focused on dentistry. There are so many cool aspects of dentistry that, you know, you could spend 50 years in advanced postgraduate education and still have areas of dentistry you’d like to explore. So commit yourself to continuous learning, and make that built into your model—built into the plan.

And this kind of goes back to the concept of doing things with purpose—but find ways, you know, to give back. Find ways. And that can be at the very regional, very immediate level of your practice. What can you do within your own practice to serve?

What I really mean to say on that is—embrace the service perspective: How can I be of service?

Naren Arulrajah: Right. One thing that I started practicing, Gary—it’s a habit, and it’s helping me be happier—is just spending two minutes at the end of the day writing what I’m happy about that day.

For example, in my note today, it’ll be like, “This podcast Gary and I recorded.” You know, just three words, right? Three or four things I did that day. Just two minutes—write it. I, of course, type it.

And what I’m noticing is—it lets me be kinder to myself. Otherwise, I’m always only thinking about what didn’t go right. And I’m just, you know, upset about it.

And then when I’m upset about myself, I’m upset with others. So it’s like I’m not a good influence for others also. Just that habit of noticing—what are you grateful for, what are you happy about, and just looking for it.

’Cause I think most of us are perfectionists. Most dentists are perfectionists. I’m a perfectionist. You’re a perfectionist. We see what’s not right—we don’t see what is right.

Gary Takacs: We’re so critical. We’re our own worst enemy in some arenas.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah.

Gary Takacs: Yeah, on that. You bet.

Naren Arulrajah: Let me go to the next question, Gary. Burnout—we all know—is a huge problem in dentistry. And I think part of the reason is the PPO model that 80% of dentists are in. They don’t choose the patients, they can’t do ideal dentistry, they’re just fighting or spending a lot of their time and money trying to get paid.

So burnout is a huge problem in dentistry. How can dentists prevent burnout in themselves and their teams?

Gary Takacs: Well, I mean, I think it’s accurate to say that burnout happens when the load’s too heavy for too long, right? We can all, you know, sprint through a challenge, knowing that the finish line is there, right?

But when that finish line is so far off you can’t even see it—then it starts to feel like burnout.

And I think one of the ways that—if you’re a practice owner—you can avoid burnout is truly systematizing your practice. Great systems.

And, you know, that’s what we built our coaching around—it’s around systems that allow you to be consistent in the performance of your practice and in how we provide an exceptional experience for our patients.

So: systems, systems, systems.

Another thing that can help you prevent burnout is—to get help.

Gary Takacs: Um, you know, and I—I have a vested interest in this, Naren—but it’s been estimated that significantly less than 10% of all practicing dentists have ever used a practice coach. Less than 10%. And that number could even be less than five. The data’s elusive, so we don’t really know.

I think there’s a lot of reasons for that. But imagine that you felt like you had to do all your own bookkeeping in your practice. And then you just go, “Wait a minute, there’s an accounting firm that can help me with that.” Right?

Or you had to do all the marketing by yourself—“Wait a minute, there’s a marketing firm that can help me with that.”

You know, if you look at people who would be viewed as exceptional in terms of what they’ve accomplished in their lives—they’ve had coaches. Think about athletes. Do you know an athlete that doesn’t have a coach?

Naren Arulrajah: Not a single one. You know, I remember Michael Jordan—when he came back, he had like four coaches: somebody for stamina, somebody for three-pointers, somebody for strength. Like, he had different coaches because that’s how he gets to that level of world-class performance.

Gary Takacs: He literally had a coach to help him with his jump shot—with one shot. And at one time—you’ll know this, Naren, because you were in Chicago during that time—Jordan was, you know, everything in Chicago.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: But there was a time where he didn’t have a jump shot. He had a lot of other aspects of his game in the early ‘80s, but he didn’t have a jump shot. And then in the off-season, he worked on it, worked on it, worked on it—with his coach. And guess what he’s known for today?

Naren Arulrajah: Jump shots.

Gary Takacs: Not only just a jump shot, but a jump shot to win the game.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly. Exactly.

Gary Takacs: A jump shot when it counted most. Who did the Bulls want to have the ball if there was, you know, three seconds left?

Naren Arulrajah: Michael Jordan.

Gary Takacs: Every time.

Naren Arulrajah: Every time.

Gary Takacs: And they’d give it to him because the likelihood that he would score was favorable. Yes.

But, you know, I think it’s the idea of putting some systems in place, putting some structure in place, and getting the support that you need—so you don’t have to do it all yourself.

And you’ll feel differently when you’re supported—when you’re feeling supported.

Naren Arulrajah: If someone wants to talk to you about systems and, you know, how to move toward happiness and take control of their life and practice, can you talk a little bit about what you do?

And I know you do a coaching strategy meeting—what that is?

Yeah, so, uh, listeners…

Gary Takacs: So our Thriving Dentist Coaching—our goal is to help our clients develop their ideal practice. So it’s really helping you develop your ideal plan. We ask you to define it. And sometimes, you know, that’s a definition that evolves. And it’s often dynamic—it’s not necessarily static—because what’s true today may not be true in three or four or five years. In other words, it may require modification and adjustment.

But we help you develop your ideal practice. We work on short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals.

• Short-term are the next 12 months,
• Mid-term are one to three years, and
• Long-term are three years plus.

We put systems in place in your practice and then train your team members on these systems. We track the key performance indicators—KPIs—and we’re constantly tracking those indicators to make the corrections to get to the finish line.

And you know, Naren, this has been an exciting few weeks for me, because at the time we’re recording this, it’s the end of 2025—the calendar year. And it’s been such a joy to be doing meetings with our clients—Zoom meetings—where they’re saying, “Gary, 2025 is my best year yet.”

Naren Arulrajah: 2025, you mean?

Gary Takacs: 2025 is my best year yet—right. And now they’re saying, “Hey, let’s make 2026 even better.”

So it’s the idea of—in a positive way—striving to be better. Not just more numbers, but better in terms of what that means to them, by their definition.

So, a lot of celebrations in the last few weeks—celebrating the fact that the practice in 2025 really met their expectations. And yeah, I’d be remiss to say that every client said they have effective work-life balance—right—but every client did say that they made progress toward achieving an effective work-life balance. And many of them did say, “I’ve got it.”

But, you know, at least progress is what we want there, for sure.

Naren Arulrajah: So if anyone is interested, go to thrivingdentist.com/csm  for Coaching Strategy Meeting and book that meeting. You can talk to Gary to see if you can work with him to turn 2026 into your best year yet.

Gary Takacs: That may be a one-on-one meeting with me. I’ll ask, I’d like to learn about your practice, talk about what your vision is, and share with you about our coaching—and see if there might be a good fit. Love to meet you on a Coaching Strategy Meeting for sure.

Naren Arulrajah: Right. We’ll put the link: thrivingdentist.com/csm. What is the link between leadership and personal happiness, Gary?

Gary Takacs: Well, leadership is, in my opinion, a very necessary component of success. And leadership—it doesn’t, you know, we think of leadership, we think of someone standing up on a stage and thumping their chest. That’s not what I mean.

Leadership can be how you lead your patients to make good health decisions. That can be leadership.

Naren Arulrajah: And does leadership also start with the end in mind? So having clarity and making sure your team has clarity around—

Gary Takacs: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.

When you lead well, there’s a tremendous sense of satisfaction. When you’re leading team members to become more skilled, to make a bigger difference—that can be a tremendous sense of fulfillment.

And it’s positive. It’s all built around positive aspects of influencing people’s lives—whether it be a patient, or a team member, or a colleague. Lots of different ways that leadership can manifest itself.

That’s one of the things we take a lot of pride in with Thriving Dentist—we work with our clients to develop their style of leadership. There’s not one style.

But we help develop their style and carve out time and opportunity for them to exercise their leadership skills. Like a muscle—if you don’t use it, you lose it. Right? So you’ve got to exercise it, for sure.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you. I think one of the things people appreciate about your coaching is that many dentists love dentistry—but they don’t necessarily like the blocking and tackling and tracking metrics and all that stuff.

And what your team does, with your guidance, is kind of know what those metrics are, track it, make sure the necessary people who are working on it know what to do, and so forth.

So I do think you provide a great service where people who love doing dentistry but need help on the business side get that help. I just wanted to say that because I’ve seen it countless times.

My last question as we bring this to a close: What steps do you think a dentist can take right now to build a practice that supports long-term happiness?

Gary Takacs: Well, I would start by defining: What is the vision for your practice? Start by defining that vision, right? We can help with that—but you can do that yourself.

Start by defining your vision. If it was ideal, what would you like your practice to look like? The more granular you get with that, the more effective you’re going to be at honing in on it.

So, you know, start by just defining the clinical areas of it. If you’re doing things clinically that you don’t enjoy—guess what?

Naren Arulrajah: Don’t do it.

Gary Takacs: You don’t have to do it. If there are patients you don’t enjoy seeing—

Naren Arulrajah: You don’t have to see them.

Gary Takacs: Don’t see them.

If there are things you’d like to do—but you don’t feel like you’re in a position with the skill set to do those—take the step that’s going to lead you to that.

Maybe the idea of dental implants—placing and restoring dental implants—is something you’d like to do. Take those steps. Some of those steps can be baby steps, but take those steps to be able to do that.

And you know, one of the things I like to do is celebrate small wins along the way. Because as we have small wins— It’s like that college football coach. Every college football coach in the U.S.—usually a college football season is 12 games during the regular season, maybe a couple more if they make the playoffs.

So the goal of every college football team would be to go 12–0… or 14–0. But we get there by winning the first game, right? And then the next game, and then the next game, and then the next game.

And if there’s a loss in there, we learn from it—and make the adjustments so we’re less likely to have that repeat.

Think of your practice—think of the year 2026—as 12 games. And those games are the names of the months: January, February, March…

I would also suggest taking the steps to create an effective work-life balance. And make those steps non-negotiable in your plan. Start making progress toward those.

Naren Arulrajah: Gary, this is so helpful. Many dentists want a happier life—not just a bigger practice. They want work-life balance.

And the suggestions you made—from systems to being grateful, to celebrating wins, to bringing your team along, and making choices—right?

What do you want? What don’t you want? Do more of the things you want, don’t do the things you don’t want.

They’re all practical, real-world tips. And I know it’s not just theory—it’s something that you’ve tested and tried and seen succeed over the last 4 to 6 years. So, appreciate that.

Gary Takacs: Well, you know, Naren, there are three words—with our kids… most of our listeners know I have four adult kids—with our kids, we created a vision board. We did this from the time they were teens—young teens.

And sometimes, there was just a word on the board that gave them some direction. But there are three words—if you were to create a vision board, doctor—three words that would come to mind:

Clarity. Purpose. Balance.

Notice there weren’t dollar signs attached to any of that, were there? But clarity, purpose, and balance—if you have those things, the money will follow. Does that make sense?

There’s one more thing—and I’m going to be bold on this one…

Gary Takacs: Uh, and I think this could apply to any of our listeners who are participating providers of PPO plans. Make a decision to resign from a plan. And maybe it’s a particular PPO plan that has a horrible fee schedule—that, if you actually look at it, you’ll discover you’re losing money—right? And has a relatively small number of patients.

Don’t start with Delta—they’re the big dog, right? I’d love to start with Delta, because that would make a big difference in your practice. But don’t start there.

Start with a small one—one that has a manageable number of active patients and a horrible fee schedule (which won’t be hard to find, because there’s a lot of those).

And make a decision to take the steps to resign from that. You don’t have to look any farther than that. That’s going to be your first winning game. You’ll be 1–0 at the end of that.

If any of you need help with that, I’d love to help. I could help you on a Coaching Strategy Meeting—on what to do and how to do that.

And then decide where you want to go. You don’t have to go all the way to fee-for-service. But imagine the satisfaction you’ll feel when you kick one of those PPO plans to the curb. And that’s something all of you could do in a relatively short period of time—for those of you that are involved with PPO plans.

Now, as we bring this to a close today, I’ll bring it back full circle, Naren, to your marketing tip. If you’d like help with marketing, I would encourage you to set up a Marketing Strategy Meeting with Ekwa.

Naren Arulrajah: It’s ekwa.com/td. 

Gary Takacs: I’ve recommended many, many, many of our clients to Ekwa. I get to see those results.

If you’re not getting enough new patients… Not getting the quality of new patients you want… You want to attract people that don’t have insurance…

Ekwa can help you with all those things. Highly, highly recommend.

If you’d like some help with the direction of your practice—helping you develop your ideal practice—we are accepting new clients.

We don’t always accept new clients at Thriving Dentist—there are times where we have a waiting list. But we are accepting new clients.

We had a number of our clients hit the finish line at the end of 2025 with a successful transition. And as a result, it’s opened up some coaching spots.

If you’d like some help with that, please reach out to me: thrivingdentist.com/csm. 

On that note, let me take a minute and thank all of our listeners for the privilege of your time. Let’s make 2026 your best year yet.

And here’s from Naren and I—we look forward to connecting with you on the next Thriving Dentist Show.