What Can A Dentist Teach You About Business, Life and Success?
As you may or may not know, one of my goals is to become a 5th generation dentist in my family. This is the reason why I was first attracted to Dr. Joe Capista’s book, What Can A Dentist Teach You About Business, Life & Success? You may remember Dr. Capista from last week’s Happiness Project, in which he answered the questions, with style!
What I’ve learned about Dr. Capista is that he’s basically doing what I want to be doing at a “more advanced” staged of my life (that means when I’m older!). The man has a thriving Dental practice, a great relationship with his family, does public speaking, is in tune with personal development, and believes in life balance. Sounds like a man after my own heart, don’t you think?
Many people have the dream to create a life of abundance, prosperity and contribution. Few people achieve it at the level of Dr. Joe Capista. Rising from the humble upbringing of a young man raised in an era where striving for an average life was the expectation, Joe Capista rose against seemingly insurmountable odds to become one of the most successful people in his industry.
Success - A Five Part Formula
Here is a summary of one of the chapters from this book.
- Business Success and Life Success are not exclusive of each other. To have TOTAL SUCCESS you need success in both areas.
- To have TOTAL SUCCESS you need to:
- Become an Expert (have a great Product and/or Service)
- Develop Sales and Marketing Skills
- Get help from Experts (have mentors)
- Control your Thoughts
- Create Balance in your life
- You may not be the “best” at what you do, BUT be the best you can be.
- To be the best in your field requires continued training.
- The success of your business and success of your personal life is directly proportional to your ability to sell and market.
- Our lives revolve around selling a Product, Service or idea.
- Sales is strategic influence, not manipulation.
- Develop a ‘U’ Attitude.
- Always have the customer’s interests foremost and have integrity and honesty in your sales process.
- Sales and Marketing are skills that need to be learned. Very few people are “natural born” sales or marketing people.
- You need people - mentors - to teach you what you do not know.
- Find successful people and study their behavior.
- Mentors can be living or dead.
- Pay people to teach you what you do not know.
Book Giveaway
Dr. Capista was kind enough to send me several signed copies of his book, What Can A Dentist Teach You About Business, Life & Success? While I’ll be keeping one copy in a special place on my book shelf, I will be giving away 7 copies.
In order to be eligible to win, leave a comment on this post, with what you define as TOTAL SUCCESS! I will choose 7 random winners, and send you a copy of the book. You must comment by Wednesday, March 12th.
Otherwise, go ahead and order your copy from Amazon.com.
Posted by Alex Shalman in Book Review | March 5, 2008 | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumble | Print | 24 comments
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Very interesting book, I’d love to read it.
Total success - I think this can only be achieved when you know fundamentally what it is you want out of life. Once you know what you want, then you have a more than reasonable chance of achieving it. Such deep self knowledge is rather hard to acquire however.
Disagree Tony B — it’s not about having a goal or knowing what you want out of life but having some goals. Goals create purpose and purpose brings happiness. Also, you can have it all but not all at once — that’s it for the cliche’s. Ian. http://www.waittimes.blogspot.com
The definition of total success - I strongly believe in what “Ralph Waldo Emerson” defined success as mentioned below:
To laugh much; to win respect of intelligent persons and the affections of children; to earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give one’s self; to leave the world a little better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition.; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm, and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived–this is to have succeeded.
Total Success to me is mix of couple of things.
It involves success in physical, financial, social, career/ business, family and personal levels.
The order of the things might be different depending on the situations and priorities.
To achieve the level of “TOTAL SUCCESS” one must be successful in all the above.
Thank you Dr. Joe.Well It’s great to be reminded about success something I am struggling with at the moment. I love the formula ideas such having mentors. Hanging around and with successful people helps to raise the energy. For me Success is an inside job. What am I telling myself about how successful I can be inside my heard. Thank you. PEACE CHIPO
It makes sense here. One other thing, you’d better have a clear goals, for life and business. These goals need also adjusted progressively. With these goals in mind and visible all the time, it would eventually guide you to your destination, hopefully a 100% success.
I don’t really think you can ever have “Total” success. For me, always striving to improve upon things in your life or in yourself is success, but it will never be complete
It’s the strive for improvement that makes me feel successful 
Ian Furst, I think you totally misunderstood my point. I would imagine you agree with me actually, otherwise what you say is illogical. Read what I wrote again, then consider your position - I would ask you how can you have any goals unless you know what you want to achieve? You also use the word happiness, which is not necessarily the same as success.
To me, total success is being free. The ability to chose when you work, when you play. Having a balance between home and work life. KNOWING your family, not just occupying space with them.Going on trips with your family and friends. Having a variety of hobbies and interests in life. Living life to the best of your ability. Having no regrets! That is success in my opinion.
Total Success to me is when my inner and outer worlds are in total harmony and balance. It is when I can be at peace when my life situation is good or bad… when I am total awareness/ presence/consciousness at times of total upheaval… when I can be in the NOW at every moment. When that is the case, then whatever comes into my life I will be able to handle at that moment in a state of peace and come out with Total Success.
As an aspiring physician, things like this just make me smile.
SUCCESS is NOT about having people think/talk that you are well placed in your life; it is more subjective feeling than being evaluated by others. I somewhat agree with Anatasia above
Hey Alex!
“Success: the achievement of something that you have been trying to do.”
- Collins Cobuild
Ironically, for me Total Success does not involve “success” as the dictionary would define it. My definition of total success would be the fulfillment in every area of one’s life be it physically, mentally, spiritually, financially or in relationships.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that total “success” without fulfillment is failure.Simple as that.
Personally, for me to have total success I would have to be able to manifest anything and everything that I can conjure up in my mind. Only then would I know that I have created my own reality and that “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”
To CANI,
SaiF
The World’s First Teen
Personal Development Video Blogger
TS … Total Success… Top Secret…No!…Not really… For me, the total success do not amount to the fortune you accumulated, the materialistic side of life that you can show… It has much more to do with how you feel inside as your richness comes from within and how this irridiates to your environment… Success is a matter of simply being who you are, evolving at your own rythm and being able to share the wealth that has been making you the individual that you became…From there… sky is really the limit … and even there… it’s all how you perceive it…!!! Taking a look back at my life and be proud of what I have accomplished with what’s been served to me…That’s my Total Success !
WOW Alex, I love this post, I am going to be a Dentist in 3 1/2 years and would love to have a copy of this book:-)
My Definition of success:
I feel successful when I achieve my goals, which apart from becoming a professional and earning lots of money, includes bringing happiness, love and security to those around me and those who need me. I know I am successful every time I take an step towards realizing one of my goals.
Cheers
M
Total success = simplicity.
well, i would partly agree with some people and not at all with most of them. I guess what was aked for was a DEFINITION for TOTAL SUCCESS, and a definition is not what may apply to U and me, but for the entire mankind.
Success i guess is not what can be calculated or measured. Yeah materialistic success can be! but it doesn’t last long.. success i think is a feeling that one gets from within, it doesn’t matter if you achieve it for a small or a big thing, you get applauded/recognized or not.. and as i say its a feeling, that you get when you achieve your goals however small or stupid they may be, the feeling that yes! i’ve done it,There are no measures or benchmarks to declare that yes you are successful!!
A person’s feeling and definition of success may be relative to his/her mindset, wishes/desires, fears (overcoming them), exposure levels, economic/social status.. and many other things …
and Alex the summary that u gave, was to me like a very stonehearted order list for a tamed animal rather than a human being whose sole purpose is to buy and sell!!
Total success is personal and is defined by each individual person.
Total Success = Being happy
Total Success is finding meaning in your life that enables you to live your life to the fullest. The ability to create inner happiness in any situation, in your own way. Success in all areas of life, work and personal, is due to your outlook and how you view the situation you are in, and look at it in a way that is a part in your whole life story.
This is great
I like this point. “Total success” implies that you’ve achieved perfection. And that’s not possible. Rather, it should mean that we reach the goals we set (which aren’t perfection). Every time we reach a goal, we set a higher one, and then a higher one. That process is what I would term “total success.”
Total success would be forgiving too then you won’t be holding any hate within you.