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Professional Courtesy: Happy Practices Practice Happiness Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine

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Happy Practices Practice Happiness
– by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine
“How are you?” must be the most frequently asked question of all time. I ask this question of my patients every six months, my kids when they return home from school and my staff every morning before we start with patients. The goal with this question is always the same: to get a sense of that individual’s disposition. How is she feeling? Is he happy?

Most people treat happiness as a gift. Something they get periodically that makes them feel good for a while. While happiness is something we universally enjoy, it can have a very positive effect on our business beyond the feelings we have inside. So is happiness something that can be influenced?

It turns out that you can have an impact on the amount of happiness in your life. You do not have to wait for what life has in store for you on any given day, you can do something about your happiness. In fact, Shawn Achor writes in the January/February 2012 issue of the Harvard Business Review,1 “In a meta-analysis of 225 academic studies, researchers Sonja Lyubomirsky, Laura King, and Ed Diener found strong evidence of directional causality between life satisfaction and successful business outcomes.” Their numbers indicated happy employees have 31 percent higher productivity and their creativity is three-times higher.

The first recommendation from Mr. Achor is to train your brain to be more positive in the same way you might exercise your muscles at the gym – repetition. Simply choose one brief positive exercise from the list of exercises for positive change and perform it each day for a minimum of three weeks. The resulting happiness has been scientifically proven and the effects last for months afterward.

This would be a terrific team building activity in your dental practice. Set aside some time every morning for your team to perform one of these simple tasks.

The second recommendation from Mr. Achor is positive interactions with your social support network. “Strong social support correlates with an astonishing number of desirable outcomes,” he notes. This is something that works in both directions. At first, you might think in terms of the social support that you receive as having a positive impact on your happiness, but the social support you provide is more important for sustained happiness. In your dental practice, the team is part of your social support network. Look for opportunities to provide support to your teammates and watch your happiness grow.

The third recommendation from Mr. Achor’s article is to change your relationship with stress. The fact is that stress will be part of your life in dentistry. While it is important to look for ways to reduce the stress you can control, view the remaining stress as something that will enhance your performance. Successful people have all confronted stress on their way to the top. Their approach to this invisible obstacle makes all the difference.

For the sake of your own success and happiness, make the changes necessary to increase your level and frequency of happiness. Teach your staff these simple exercises and before you know it, you will have a happy and more successful dental practice than you ever thought possible.

Your feedback is always appreciated. I can be reached at tom@dentaltown.com.
Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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