Meet SAMEET KOPPIKAR

We were lucky to catch up with SAMEET KOPPIKAR recently and have shared our conversation below.

SAMEET, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

We all have memories of going through difficult times. Even as a five-year-old, an unpleasant experience influences how you respond in future situations. I remember as a kid if I went through adversity, I would think “well I got through that, so if it happens again, I know what to do” and “If I got through that, I could get through anything”. As you get older the stakes become higher, and you keep adapting – and you become more resilient with each difficult situation. I don’t remember where I read this – I was lucky enough to read it at a young age. “Life is hard. Once you accept that, you accept Everything”. Once you stop asking “Why is this happening to me” and realize nothing is happening to you. Everyone deals with their own challenges.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am a dentist. I’ve been practicing in Phoenix for 20 years. On my LinkedIn profile I write I am the Chief Smile Maker at Phoenix Smile – My office In Midtown Phoenix. I truly see myself as someone who helps people smile. Many people visit our office with toothaches or concerns about how their teeth look, and they leave smiling. It is rewarding to know we helped make someone’s life better. Whether we treat one cavity with a filling or multiple missing teeth with dental implants, our team has the same goal. We want to see our patients smile. We want people to know, getting care at our office is one less thing they need to worry about. We will help you smile again. “We don’t care about your origin, we care about your destination”.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

One of my favorite lines is from the movie Rocky Balboa, “It’s not about how hard you can hit it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward”. So first is Resilience. Life will throw you some punches. You need to be able to take those punches and keep moving forward. The second is Never Stop Learning. Every few months I attend seminars on the latest advances in dentistry. I also read about areas that can improve my life – stock market, real estate, business, self-help and health.
And third, I have a goal to stay healthy. Many people overlook the focus on staying healthy. Your physical health affects your mental health which affects your ability to take those punches that life throws at you. Staying healthy includes getting enough sleep, getting physical activity, eating the right amount of food, eating the right types of food. If we don’t have our health, nothing else matters.

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?

It is always better to invest time and effort into learning about topics you are not familiar with. Education is never wasted. So many of our technological advances come from accidental discoveries from research in other fields. Many times, we don’t realize what we learned in one field we use in another field. I read an article about a car company selling a factory of a defunct brand. Another company that had no plans on making cars bought the factory. When the CEO was asked why he bought the factory he said, “we may not have a use for it now but I know it will be useful in the future”. That article inspired me to buy office space next door to me. It sat vacant for a few years. As we grew it was easy to expand our office into the space next door. That article helped me realize the importance of planning for the future and planning with a growth mindset.
When I graduated from dental school I feel I did not have enough training on root canals and dental implants. Many dentists We’re not taught these skills and chose not to learn these skills. I decided to invest time into improving my skills in these two areas. These skills help me grow my practice and help a lot more patients then I would have been able to.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Sameet Koppikar, DDS – Phoenix Smile

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems,
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Leadership Development
Where does your self-discipline come from?

One of the most essential skills for unlocking our potential is self-discipline. We asked some

Productivity
Tactics & Strategies for Keeping Your Creativity Strong

With the rapid improvements in AI, it’s more important than ever to keep your creativity

Productivity
Working hard in 2025: Keeping Work Ethic Alive

While the media might often make it seem like hard work is dead and that