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905: How to Enjoy Dentistry & Find Your Unique Ability – Dr. Jaren Argyle

How do you find your sweet spot of what you're good at and what you like? In this episode of Clinical Edge Fridays, Kirk Behrendt brings in Dr. Jaren Argyle, founder of The Elevated Dentist, to share his difficult journey from doing procedures he hated and being “done” to becoming the most fulfilled in his life and career. If you're unhappy where you're at, don't stay stuck! To learn how you can get the most out of your personal and professional life, listen to Episode 905 of The Best Practices Show!

*If you or someone you know — in or out of the dental community — is struggling with depression or is in distress, resources are linked for you below.

Learn More About Dr. Argyle:

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More Helpful Links for a Better Practice & a Better Life:

Episode Resources:

Main Takeaways:

  • Stop comparing and start collaborating. Don't stay isolated in your profession.
  • Take time to find your unique abilities. It will require some trial and error.
  • Figure out as early as possible how you want to practice dentistry.
  • Remember that money isn't the only way to measure success.
  • Discover hobbies that allow you to detach from dentistry.
  • Don't go through your career without a mentor.

Quotes:

“I, by no means, am the wealthiest dentist that you will ever meet. But I'll put myself up against any dentist out there that I'm the happiest and most fulfilled.” (8:38—8:48) -Dr. Argyle

“We talk about suicide in the dental profession. There was a point in my life that because of not having balance — and really, not having anything to do with dentistry. I was happy in my practice, but more with personal things. I had such a lack of balance in my personal life that I'd gotten to a point where I was ready to be done. It's not a good place to be. I know that there are a lot of dentists out there that entertain the idea of it. The amazing thing is there's amazing help. But what happens is dentists tend to isolate ourselves, especially solo practitioners, which I was. But even within group practices, we tend to take on everything ourselves and we feel that we can handle all of it, that we don't need help from other people. That's the way most of us are wired. Unfortunately, whether that leads down to a road of potential suicide or suicidal ideations, or if it leads down to depression and anxiety and the different difficulties, or if it leads to us being burned out and not really knowing where to go, it can be a tough thing for dentists.” (8:56—10:19) -Dr. Argyle

“There are a lot of different ways to measure success besides money.” (14:33—14:36) -Dr. Argyle

“Whether you're in dentistry or whatever field you're in, if you're in the United States of America, it's all about growth. I am not an anti-growth person, by any means. I love growth, especially personal growth, and I love growth in my practice. But we don't always measure it by the numbers, by money. We measure it by the happiness of team members. We measure it by the happiness of patients. We measure it by how well we feel that we served our patients. Now, don't get me wrong. We're still going to be profitable when we do that. We're not doing free dentistry for our patients. I do free dentistry, but I don't do that in my clinic. I go and I donate my time to clinics around me so that I don't have to worry about having an overhead that's associated with that. But there's so much that we can do to measure growth and measure success in a different way than what our minds go to from a default standpoint.” (17:47—18:47) -Dr. Argyle

“Stop comparing. Stop worrying about what the other dentists around you are doing and start collaborating. Talk with them. Ask them, ‘Hey, you've got this practice. Don't be shy. Do you love it? Do you not love it?’ Because you'll find some of those dentists that are cranking in money, a lot of them are the ones that are not real happy, unfortunately. But they've got plenty of money.” (22:09—22:32) -Dr. Argyle

“I spent the first half of my career not working with mentors. I can tell you right now, it is not a good way to go. I had that isolated mentality. It's amazing the amount of growth — personal and profitable — that I’ve had since working with other mentors within and outside of the field of dentistry.” (23:06—23:30) -Dr. Argyle

“What happens when we are operating or functioning in our unique ability is it allows us to be fueled. It allows us to have energy, or you have passion towards it. So, if you can find the things inside of dentistry — and again, it's trial and error. It's trying things. Really, it's paying attention to the happiness those procedures bring you because you will find, a lot of times, we just numb ourselves to it. We just get in our mind. It's like, ‘I'm a dentist. I've got to do this. Here we go.’ Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. But if we actually take a little bit of time to think about how our day went, what procedures we did, what procedures went well, what procedures didn't go well, which procedures we enjoyed, and then we focus more on that, we'll be able to start moving in that direction and start pointing that needle in the way that it needs to go.” (29:10— 30:09) -Dr. Argyle

“If you can home in and figure out what your unique abilities are — and Dan [Sullivan] puts it into four different categories. He talks about a zone of incompetence, a zone of competence, a zone of excellence, and a zone of unique ability. Zone of incompetence and competence are easy to get rid of. Incompetence, you have no business doing. You don't even know how to do it. Zone of competence, you know how to do it, you're pretty good at it, but it causes a lot of problems. That's cosmetic dentistry. That's endo for me. Excellent activities are the golden handcuffs. They're the things that you do really well, but they don't provide much passion. They don't provide energy for you. So, that's where we see a lot of burnout, a lot of overwhelm and exhaustion in dentistry itself, is we tend to function more in those excellent categories rather than in the unique abilities or zone of genius.” (32:29—33:26) -Dr. Argyle

“It's time to do something different. As a dental profession, our statistics are horrible when it comes to anxiety, depression, and stress. It was interesting. I just got an email from the American Dental Association's president, Brett Kessler. If you know his story, he has come from a really rough situation where he had a lot of alcohol use, and really got down to the dumps, and has come back and is a huge advocate for health and wellness. I think we really need to pay more attention to that and be able to understand it's a difficult profession. There's no question about it. We're working in intensive millimeters, such minor increments. We're in a mouth where the patient is moving. Our face is literally 12, 16 inches away from their face, and we experience everything they're experiencing, and we take that in. We don't have a very good release. There was a survey that the American Dental Association sent out in 2021, and they found that 75% of dentists experience moderate to high levels of stress. Fifty-four percent have medium to high levels of depression.” (38:15—39:45) -Dr. Argyle

“We are the second-highest level of healthcare professionals that experience distress or struggling. Nurses are higher than we are. But there's so much that we need to do to be able to take care of ourselves. One of the biggest things, besides what we've already talked about in finding what you truly enjoy and figuring out a way to be able to have more of that in your practice, find out the way that you want to practice dentistry. Do you want to be in a group setting? Do you want to be in a DSO? Do you want to have your own practice? Figure it out. Talk with your colleagues. We don't talk with one another. We look at each other as competition instead of collaborating with one another.” (40:15—40:59) -Dr. Argyle

“So often, especially as practice owners, we never get away from our practice — not meaning physically, but mentally. It's always in the back of our head. We're constantly thinking of issues, things that we need to change, improvements, issues or troubles that are going on. So, find a way that you can psychologically detach.” (41:31—41:53) -Dr. Argyle

“Another one of the four ways they say you can recover is relaxation. We don't do it in the world of dentistry. We're a go, go, go society. So often, we don't sit down and relax because we're high achievers. We want to always be accomplishing something. It's okay to sit down and read a book that has nothing to do with dentistry. It doesn't have to be a journal article. It's okay to read. In fact, not only is it okay, it's very healing and it's going to make you a better dentist — even better than reading that journal article on whatever bacteria or whatever procedure that you're learning on.” (41:53—42:31) -Dr. Argyle

“So many of us, when we get into dental school, lose all of our hobbies. If we didn't lose them in dental school, we pretty much have lost them once we've become a dentist. If we haven’t as soon as we become a dentist, ten years in, we’ve almost always lost those hobbies. Find something that allows you to get away from dentistry. I'll promise you that if you do that, you will have so much more success in dentistry because you'll be that much more capable. We, as dentists, will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment or on different courses to take. But how much money do we spend investing in ourselves? If you think about our practice, what is the most important cog in that machine? It is us, because if we're not functioning properly, if we're not on our A game, nothing else is going to be. I can guarantee, any time that you put towards recovering and put towards your practice, but more so in the way that we've talked about on this, it will come back sevenfold easily. Your return on your investment will be massive, even though when you first think about it, it's like, ‘Oh, I'm going to be wasting my time and it's not going to work out.’ I can guarantee you that it will.” (43:14—44:35) -Dr. Argyle

Snippets:

0:00 Introduction.

0:45 Dr. Argyle’s background.

4:44 It wasn't an easy path.

10:37 Money isn't the only way to measure success.

18:47 Great quotes to live by.

23:44 Your goalpost will change.

27:37 Find your unique ability.

35:45 Take time to figure things out.

37:50 Final thoughts.

44:40 More about Dr. Argyle and how to get in touch.

Dr. Jaren Argyle Bio:

Dr. Jaren Argyle graduated from Utah State University where he received his BA in Biology. Following Utah State, he traveled to the East Coast where he received his DMD at the University of Connecticut.

Dr. Argyle constantly exceeds the number of yearly required hours in continuing education. He feels it is extremely important to always be learning and staying at the leading edge of the dental sciences, technology, and materials. He has received specialized training in dental implant placement, dental sleep medicine for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea, and TMJ therapy for individuals suffering from headaches, pain, and limitations in the movement of their jaw. He is one of only a couple of dentists in the state of Utah certified as a Qualified Dentist with the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine.

Dr. Argyle recently received training in esthetics including Botox, fillers, and the anti-aging effects of platelet rich fibrin (PRF) in the world of esthetics. He also uses PRF in the mouth to help facilitate quicker and more predictable healing with different surgical procedures. He is involved with local study clubs as well as multiple international study clubs that consist of the top dentists in the world in the prevention and treatment of sleep apnea, TMJ therapy, and PRF treatment in dentistry.
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