[00:00:00] And the one thing I do with my team is you’ve got to find out what motivates each person. For some people, it’s money, it’s overtime. They like a bit of overtime. Some people like a bit of a night owl, the like a night owl to meal a day. So foster the culture, foster a bit of everything in your team.

[00:00:15] You know, try and sort

[00:00:16] Of get everything that people like, try and touch upon a little bit of everything. That’s what I try and do. I try to keep happy, so stand back from it because working with the same people every day can get quite sickening and start to you start to despise the people you work with. It’s part of a burnout process. You go in every day to the same small surgery and you see the same people. But look at look at the overall good. Are they working hard? Are they coming on time? Are they working? Are they working for the practise? You know, trying to do what’s best for the practise? If you see these things in your staff, give them a little bit of leeway. Yeah, if they’re sick one day just off six, I’ve got a nurse who’s in every single day she’s in no matter what. She’s the one I rely on. She’s a pair of hands. She’s in every single day. If she’s off sick one day, I’m not going to because I don’t pay sick days. I paid her. I’m not. I’m not going to not pay her. I paid her. You know, it’s not a big deal.

[00:01:06] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki gives me great pleasure to welcome TJ Mel onto the podcast. I’ve come across a on the Dental scene a few times in real life, but where I come across in the most is somehow on the Dental boards, where he’s a regular contributor and I’ve always liked his his angle on the things that go on in general. Practise is super experienced. General Practise Guy said three practises NHS private and mixed right now, practising out of Wakefield. And the reason I wanted him on is because he’s put himself forward for election at the BDA, at the IPC level, which I’ll get him to explain what that means to everyone. And you know, for me, people who put themselves up to get involved, they deserve a platform. And I know there are many others who have put themselves up. But since I know tech, I’m going to encourage people to put themselves up and get a platform to talk about. But you know, this podcast, which I hope you lovely to have you.

[00:02:26] Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me on.

[00:02:27] Yeah, it’s a real pleasure. It’s a real pleasure. We’re just going to try and get to the sort of the person behind the persona, really. So just to tell us a little bit about where you grew up, how you grew up, why you became a dentist,

[00:02:40] Why we did this. Well, I grew up in basically all my life in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. I haven’t really moved out, had some great vision of going to London. Never really happened. Kind of settled here. Qualified from

[00:02:53] Leeds Dental interview

[00:02:55] 2001. I kind of like Derek. I like West Yorkshire. It’s nice. You know, it’s people are friendly, all that kind of thing. Why are they going to dentistry? I mean, I’ll be

[00:03:03] Honest with you, I was

[00:03:04] Thinking two planks of wood. I had no idea what I want to do. I was 16, 17, 18. My father was a doctor

[00:03:12] And he was like, Ted, you know, you

[00:03:14] Want to do something and do a profession come from an Indian background. It’s very much a case of, you know, it could be a be a doctor or whatever, and you go do something. I had no great passion for anything. I was not very good at a lot of things. So, you know, my father, just like getting something that’ll get you a job at the end of the day, which which is fair enough because I think it’s an honest answer. Nobody, nobody grows up wanting to, you know, liking teeth, you know, so it’s one of these things you just end up being. And as an eighteen year old, you just get into dentistry. No, you have to get through it. And that’s it. So you end up there and that’s it’s actually after you qualify it, when you start to like it, hopefully for a lot of people is when they develop plans and start to enjoy the job, enjoy the profession.

[00:03:57] Did you not enjoy Leeds studying in Leeds?

[00:04:00] I love Leeds is a place. I hated the course. I hated dentistry. Of course, I was not very good at it. I was always at the bottom. I was not. It was not very good. Like I said, I was very thick. I couldn’t really process things very well. Even now, I’m a slow learner. So as of now, I’m in my 40s. I often, you know, you know, yourself a lot better. You know what your limitations are. So I often tell people, I’m a slow learner. I need to work on things. I need to spend a lot more time like mentoring. So I’m just doing implants and a lot more mentoring and a bit more time than some of the people. So they’re always in our professions are always high flyers, always people who pick up things early and one way or another. I knew my limitations. I work with them to my advantage, I think to an extent. So, yeah, that’s where I’m now.

[00:04:40] Really, I love that. I love that. I love that because, you know, self-awareness, right? Is maybe the biggest skill you can have. The biggest talent you can have is absolutely, absolutely where you stand in the world. And you know, I’m disorganised. Yeah, yeah. And I had a thing in my head saying, you know, a disorganised person will never do anything really amazing. Yeah, yeah. And then and because I’m disorganised, I sort of surround myself with organised people. And I was I was at an event a couple of weeks ago and I met a guy. He said, Yeah, I make rockets.

[00:05:18] I was like, Yeah, I was like, I was like, What rackets?

[00:05:21] And he was like, he was the rockets. And he was he was telling me he’s disorganised and it was so empowering. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:05:30] I love this. I think we all have our own limitations, and I think it’s recognising them. So through schooling, through school, Dental school, I was I was slow. I was a slow learner. I was never a high flyer academically, so it was working with limitations. Even now, it takes me a long time to grasp concepts, but that’s fine. I work with it and you.

[00:05:48] What would you say? You’re your sort of superpower is, though was you good with your hands or you could be people or what’s your I think the people.

[00:05:55] I think it was the people thing. I think that’s what I picked up was good with people. You know, all the practises I initially worked in earlier is a very sort of typical NHS practises around Yorkshire. These mining towns I like the sleeves of have a good banter with the patient and I could really sort of gel with the patients really well, and that’s sort of worked in my favour. You know, and that’s what I enjoy doing, to be honest with you. I mean, I’m never going to be one of these guys. High end Dental Spa. It’s just not me. I almost Leaders I would like to

[00:06:22] Get on with it. I like to do all

[00:06:23] Different aspects of

[00:06:24] Industry. Yeah, I beg.

[00:06:25] I beg to differ, Matt, because the main skill you need to be in a high end Dental spa is the communication skill.

[00:06:31] Yeah, yeah, probably. Well, it may be. It might be. It may be a little different. Yeah. I said, if you know, I like the Yorkshire folk, I’m a Yorkshire bloke. I like to talk, you know, with Yorkshire guerilla sleeves that we get on with, they have good banter. Talk about the football sport, whatever you wanna talk about. We we just have a laugh and that’s me and the whole team as well. We all get on and that’s the way I do my practises and it seems to work for me to an extent. So yeah, that’s that’s a nutshell what I am really like being. I’m down to earth.

[00:07:01] Yeah, go on. Take me back to your first job, first job.

[00:07:05] If it velvety, I guess it’s current county, all vocational training that was in, that was in Grimsby. Yeah, because the

[00:07:13] First boss really, I’m looking for.

[00:07:15] Who was that person? My first boss was a great guy. A trader called Nick Samson in Grimsby. Greg, I can make Samson. He had his moments, but he was a he was sort of so ethical. It used to stress him out almost, I think, to be honest. But he really instilled me, instilled in me a few few of the ethics along the way of what to do, what not to do, blah blah blah. We’ve got to say and how to get out of situations and all that, which helped me a lot in my early years, a lot. Then second job, I’d say, sort of, you know what I mean? But then second job, I started working for John Milne in Normanton on a part time basis, who was a bit of a mentor really as well at the time. So, you know, got a lot of, you know, a lot of experience working with him in his team. I was only doing two days a week there, but whenever I bump into him, I always used to sort of pick his brains on there on what’s going on.

[00:08:08] First, couple of bosses are so influential, I find.

[00:08:11] Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. The first first few shape shape your career going forward and you, you know, you pick bits. You sort of see how they’re dealing with their team and how they deal with their patients and what to say. And oh, I can get away with this and you can’t do this and you can’t say this, and it’s just fantastic. Yeah, absolutely. I think you kind of sets you up.

[00:08:31] So then your first practise at NHS one, you said yes. Yeah, yeah, back

[00:08:37] When two thousand five, I believe

[00:08:41] 2005. Yeah, I was working there part time. I knew the gentleman wanted to sell it and I thought, Look, you know, I was getting fed up of sort of being told was surgery to work in which the nurse you get. And I will sort of wanting my own place really with my name on the door and and thinking. So it was a case

[00:08:58] Of, yep, we did a deal.

[00:09:00] It was up for sale. It was a deprived practise in one of the poorest areas of Bradford. Looking back, was it the right practise for me? Probably not. I’ll come onto that later.

[00:09:09] But at the

[00:09:10] Time it seems to work, you know, seemed to work. I knew the team. It just seemed to work. I could just get on with it. I was already there, working there a couple of years. So yeah, all fitted in. I took over and I had that place about seven years before I sold it.

[00:09:25] What was the main driver to sell it? That you just felt like it wasn’t you?

[00:09:28] It wasn’t me. There was, uh, there was a big a bit of a story behind it, which is interesting, which I’m happy to just sort of go over it. It was. He was all going well. It was all going well. 2005 2011 is all going really well hunky-dory. We used to go out with the staff, have a good laugh. Everything was fine. And then August the 19th 2011 Friday evening, I get a letter from the PCT asking for about 20 record cards. So I get this record asking me for 20 record cards. So I said, Right, OK, I know. In fact, sorry, it was earlier in August, it was August, around August, the 8th August the 6th asking for 20 record cards. So the Dental advisor came in, took 20 record cards the following week and went away with them. I said, fine, no big deal. I might just get a little bit of advisory. No, to what? You know what it should be writing. My notes, blah blah blah didn’t hear anything. Friday, the 19th of August. This is the evening I received a letter and it went to my old old address, my old home address, actually. So I had to go there and get it. I get a letter saying that we are calling you for a meet for a hearing on the following Wednesday. So I had

[00:10:41] Basically for Friday

[00:10:43] Evening already. So I had three working days, two working days, Monday Tuesday to prepare. We’re calling you for a hearing to decide whether we’re going to suspend you from front of the performers list. Wow. I don’t the blues

[00:10:54] Out of the blue.

[00:10:54] So I was like, Where did this come from? They felt my, you know, my notes. I was working very hard to get. My notes weren’t good enough. I was seeing a lot of urgent cases. It was, it was. It was pretty much overkill. So anyway, this this this is a turning point in my career because up until that point, I had been pretty much self-reliant, said nothing will really. Happened to me because I’m pretty good with my patients, my dentistry is not bad, I’m pretty good, my patients who cannot touch me and I have my indemnity or who are with that ring of help and how wrong was I rang them up Friday evening. Someone on Cold Person Evening takes the phone call and says, Send everything through to us. We can’t sending anyone to the hearing with you. You have to go on your own. It’s too late right now. So you’re on your own. But basically send us everything through. We’ll try and defend. It will look through whatever’s what. So there was me on a Friday evening worried sick, not knowing what to do, who during. I rang one of my old bosses who said he wasn’t really experienced enough to come to the hearing with me. And then I remembered I spoke to one gentleman, and I probably probably shouldn’t name him right now. I probably shouldn’t name him, to be honest. But he was very high up in the media in the past, and I remember having a conversation with him over a pint at a CPD lecture once.

[00:12:15] So I just tried him and it’s 19th of August 2011 and everyone was usually on hold the day at that time of the year. So try it on his number because that’s still at his mobile number. And I pick it up and he says, and I said, It’s Ted, and he says, Ted, yeah, yeah. I remember. Yeah, blah blah blah, you know? And I said, Look, you know, I’ve got this letter calling me to hear hearing on the Wednesday blah. You know, I’m worried sick. What do we do? And he said, Ted, you were going to get these guys. He said, that is absolutely out of order. We’ve got an action plan. He goes Saturday morning, we’re going to sit down. He goes, We’re going to go through it all by email. Let’s prepare an action plan. Let’s get this sorted. And by the Sunday, I was getting a little bit confident I could fight this. By the Monday, I was collecting record cards. I was collecting testimonials from patients I treated and everything. And on the Wednesday morning, me and this gentleman walked into the hearing. This was 24th of August 2011, so well over ten years ago. Now we walked into this hearing and as soon as this gentleman came to the hearing with me, the medical director, the Dental advisor

[00:13:21] Sort of just

[00:13:22] Smiled and said, Oh, hi, yeah, we know you. He was that revered in the profession. So the way he did it with me and sat down, we asked each of the questions and he asked me what my area was like, and it was a deprived area in. Most of the patients don’t come back for exams, they come for urgent treatment and disappear and et cetera, et cetera. So I didn’t get suspended, they gave me an oxygen plum for a year, which was pretty much hellish anyway because it involves sort of going back

[00:13:48] To like

[00:13:49] A Dental school way of working on haze in a deprived area, which was putting me more and more behind. So that led to be, I mean, to sell the practise, which is the best thing I ever did. Moving on from the practise. So I work there as part of the year as an associate, you know, under the new owner. But that was a turning point, really, which sort of got me into mentoring and helping the dentists. And the fact is that, you know, there’s the help out there, and I’m glad now we’re in 2021. There’s a few organisations out there that you can speak to. It’s not just you on your own and your indemnity. It’s there’s other organisations like Confidential. I became a mentor for the Yorkshire Deanery at the time, and they’ve just set up a pass through the LDC, the set of Practitioner Advice and Support Service Scheme, which I’m also one of the members of.

[00:14:36] It occurs to me that, you know, if you hadn’t have had made that call. Yeah, things might have turned out very differently.

[00:14:44] This this was the thing. This was the real key turning point. It was about nine thirty. I remember I was absolutely, you know, I mean, this is the dangers out there that probably this position with GDC hearings or whatever, but when they get a letter. But I was turning, I was just ripping my hair out, just absolutely thinking, This is it. Everything’s coming down to me now. It’s a 20 page letter saying, you’re going to call for a hearing because you’re a safety problem to a patient. You’re it’s a safety issue. So I made this one phone call to this one gentleman and the confidence he instilled in me and the action plan. He said that you have to do defy these guys looking at the demographics of the population and going through it all in detail, getting testimonials and all this. And we went in there and we did it or we did the job and I showed them that, look, I’m a safe dentist. My patients liked to see me. I’ve made some mistakes in the notes. Admittedly, I admitted where I went wrong. And you know it one of those things, and it’s fine, they said. I find it’s an action plan given and they said, Just do this action plan you fine.

[00:15:45] So why don’t you want to name the guy?

[00:15:48] Uh, I don’t know if I should put him in it, really. I mean, I can’t do it, actually. I mean, I mean, I don’t know if I should do. I don’t know if it’s my if I should do, whether he is in that role anymore or not. I’m not sure, but

[00:16:02] It sounds like a great guy

[00:16:04] Is very well revered. He’s very well revered, very well known in that industry. So that was really a turning point, to be honest with you. It ended me selling the practise, paying the PCT back in the realm of a barrel. They find me through thirty two thousand pounds anyway for inappropriate claims. And then I will seventy thousand pound behind on OODA. So I think I paid back about a hundred on ground in the end. By the time I sold the practise just to the PCT just a day ago, go take the money.

[00:16:30] You didn’t know you were doing anything wrong. Is that right?

[00:16:32] I was just working very, very fast on a lot of patients seeing a lot of virgin patients. I didn’t realise that you needed to do all these exams on everyone as well. And I was a bit of an outlier in certain areas. I didn’t realise all this, but I was doing what I thought was in the best interest of the patients. The patients were very happy. There was no issue, so I thought that was eight. I didn’t realise you had to work within parameters of being your averages. This was something because it comes on to something else. I was doing at the time managing the practise. I was doing everything myself. I was doing all the management myself, all the audits, everything myself to the point where I took my eye off this one area, which was keeping an eye on on the parameters of what we were doing. You know, we were doing too many of these, too many that too many agents, et cetera. So that was a steep learning curve.

[00:17:20] That’s what the biggest, the biggest thing you learnt about that dude was it like, you know, to not do everything yourself

[00:17:25] Going, not do everything yourself. Yeah, there are some things you can let go. I was I became OCD almost about like having every policy underwritten and signed by everybody, and everything had to be right, the policies and they all to be filed correctly. And everything that took my eye off the actual fact that I was building up all these so-called inappropriate claims that would trigger and go red flags to the PCT.

[00:17:47] So then so then going forward, did you learn that lesson or did you put it into action?

[00:17:51] I mean, I think actually we we thought the claims out. I delegated a lot more to practise, man. No, no.

[00:17:56] But I mean, I mean, the next next practise along. Yeah, you moved on. Yeah. Did you stop trusting people? You know, in a way, it’s a bit of a control freak way of doing it. It is.

[00:18:05] It is. It’s a lot of what it’s what a lot of dentists suffer from. And I basically now I’ve started focussing more on the claiming the clinical aspects of the practise. I’m saying to my manager, Look, you know, you’re dealing with this bit, I’m not doing it. This policy, this is not for me to do. You know, you’re doing the wages, you’re doing the policies. I’m going to look at them, that’s fine. But I’m working on the clinical aspects. That’s what I’m focussing on now. So, yeah, I think it’s down to delegation. I know it’s probably suffering at the time in Bradford as well, something that a lot of us suffer from it. We’d always know it at the time, so was probably suffering from burnout as well. And I didn’t even realise it. I was doing far too many udas. I didn’t even realise it.

[00:18:44] Yeah, you get on the treadmill, don’t you?

[00:18:46] You get the treadmill, you get the treadmill. It produces endorphins. You think, Oh, I need to do this Friday evening, do a Saturday and you do this and they do that and there’s a gap. Get the gap filled and you do this and you don’t really switch off.

[00:18:57] So and it’s burnout

[00:18:58] Without realising burnout creeps up on you very slowly and it and you start faltering in other areas. And I think that was my problem at the time, to be honest, trying to do too much.

[00:19:08] So then the second, the second practise, what was that? Where was that?

[00:19:12] The second one was actually I had it the same time as I had the Bradford one. Towards the end, I bought a small

[00:19:17] Private one

[00:19:18] Again, again, a mistake thinking that I need a second practise because this is what you meant to do. Yeah. Hmm. Oliver made such second practises. I was meant to have a second practise, so I went and bought one forty miles away in a partnership, which is a very small practise. I need a building up. So I was losing money of the Bradford practise, travelling 40 miles to this smaller private one, trying to make money off that one and sort of tearing my hair out again. Another lesson I learnt was don’t buy something because it’s cheap. It is very cheap. So I think it yeah, it’s really cheap. Let’s buy it. It was cheap for a reason. Took a lot of work and I lost money. I was losing Udas at the breakfast practise. Yeah. And so I was working between the two, so I didn’t get the management rights again. Second mistake. It was very far away from home. Cheap practise. Just, you know, for me personally, I’m not saying

[00:20:14] This would be perfect this way.

[00:20:16] It has a small contract. About 3000 Udas wasn’t much, but it wasn’t really worth buying and leaving the Bradford one. You know, it wasn’t really didn’t really make sense. But somehow I felt at the time I needed, I know the practise. I think it was a bit of an ego thing because I had this Bradford one, which is a very deprived, poor area. I felt I needed a bit of a higher end sort of private kind of practise. And again, it comes down to this reason of why you want to buy a practise. You need to have a compelling reason to buy a practise. And I tell a lot of young dentists this. Don’t just buy one because your mates are buying one or whatever, you know, I need to buy a practise, need to buy a practise. What are your specific reasons for buying a practise? And if they don’t really have a specific reason, I’ll say, just wait. Wait for the right one. I just just don’t buy one. You know, carry on an associate. This is the problem. It’s when I bought the first practise Bradford one. The thing was the difference then was I was very clear why I wanted to buy it. I wanted my name on the door. I wanted. I wanted the change, the wallpaper. You know, I wanted to do my way. I want to control. I wanted. I wanted that aspect with a private wall and it was an ego one. He was an ego trip. I want a second practise. Yeah, yeah, I want to. I’ve got two practises. Second one as well. It’s a private one. Yeah, no real reason for buying. It didn’t really look at the figures. Didn’t really think what I’ve been losing in UDS is this practise by going and working for lower private fees and the other practise.

[00:21:39] And you know, it’s quite difficult. It’s quite difficult, isn’t it? I mean, we’re not trained to read balance sheets and, you know, properly understand profit and loss and all that. I don’t know whether you did or you didn’t, but but there is that aspect of it. And yeah, running, running, running a very high needs NHS place and then a private place, two totally different skill sets, two

[00:22:01] Totally different skill sets. So I’m going across similar power to the private one. Yeah, do some nice private work. Do Masaryk, whatever they’re doing, all that kind of stuff, then you’re coming back the next day and it’s just practise with 10 toothaches. Book 10 and, you know, until a totally different mindset. I think I think I think the key factor with the private one was it was too far away if it was close, so we could have made it work. But the fact it was 40 miles away were just ridiculous. You know, we could have turned it around a bit more, but it’s one of those life lessons. It didn’t work for me, so we sold out after four years and I went back to being an associate.

[00:22:35] Wow, what a it is. What a big change. And did you lose money on on the private one?

[00:22:42] I did it well. If you look at the fact that I lost money on the Bradford one because of the private one, yes, I did. I think I made about 3000 pounds in the private one in the end when we sold it.

[00:22:54] You know, we bought it for

[00:22:56] 20k and I made about 20. I mean, it was it was ridiculous. I paid for my service when he came. I don’t mind talking figures. I paid about £20000 for it and my partner paid of 20k. And in the end, I think I made about 3000 by the time I’d take the money out. But in fact, I’d lost more because I was losing money money that Bradford practise. It was falling more and more behind.

[00:23:14] Yeah, yeah, opportunity cost, right? And all that headache, the headache of buying and selling a practise, right?

[00:23:20] Yeah, exactly. It was a buying and selling it all that. So.

[00:23:23] So then when you got an associate job, did you resent that fact or was did you do this sort of thing? Nice to have a breather. Nice not to have the responsibility for a while.

[00:23:35] Yeah, it was nice. It was a nice break, actually. I worked for I worked for a decent guy, to be honest. The guy who bought my Bradford one, actually. I said to him, Look, I can’t work in Bradford anymore. I want to work in one of the two practises. He gave me a job. One of his other practises. And you know, he was he was a fair guy, actually, to be honest with him, still in touch with him now and again. He gave me a job in his hotels, full of practise. I worked there for about a year or so, but there was there was that deep down saying, Oh, you know, I was getting moved surgeries and come in the morning and suddenly say, Look, you know, you’re giving a trainee nurse going to move to the surgery. And I was getting over the trauma of the whole events of 2011. Yeah, I was just getting over them slightly and I thought, Look, you, you know, that’s in the past. Now it’s time to move on. Don’t dwell on the past. And you know, I was only 36, 37. I said, it’s time to buy into the practise and learn from your mistakes.

[00:24:26] So I put

[00:24:27] Feelers out there and all that. And then this practise close to me 20 minutes away came up and it was just it was just bang on. I mean, he couldn’t have come at a better time, the perfect number of Udas 8000 Udas. I don’t want a single mall. I’ve got some therapists in there now and we’re doing a bit of private, which is good. So yeah, it kind of works. You know, it’s it’s a nice area. It’s all fee paying patients, lovely patients. And I actually like doing this like a second home. I love going there every day.

[00:24:54] That’s always a nice sign, man. It’s always a nice sign. I mean, it’s it’s never going to be like this in dentistry, exactly right. But you know when for me, when when you don’t really know whether it’s a weekday or a weekend for me, then I know I’m enjoying my life. I’m enjoying my job. Yeah, yeah, I’m looking at, Oh, it’s Thursday. Tomorrow will be Friday. Then I’ll be the weekend that I can relax.

[00:25:20] Yeah, yeah, yep. Yep, yeah.

[00:25:22] When the job’s not right, the weekend becomes this gold and it becomes the gold.

[00:25:27] Absolutely. When the

[00:25:29] Job is right, the weekends, just the weekends, just another

[00:25:31] Day. I think it’s great. I don’t mind doing the old Saturday morning. I was in there today doing some paperwork because it’s near my house. It’s like a second home to me. Yeah, yeah, you know, I’ve got it set up in the way I like my house. It’s like, I’m not saying it’s a well decorated, but it’s nice. It’s nice inside. I go in there. If you referral letters, as soon as I’ll have a Monday morning off, so I don’t get the Monday morning blues every Monday afternoon, short week, Wednesday half day, short week, it’s nice. You know you can put these for these little things in there to give you a nice working life. And like you said, you know you’re not looking for the Friday, you’re not looking for this thing. And I think a lot of people, they’re looking for peace and industry. They’re looking for peace. You know, you come in at eight, you do your Dental, you know, you do your five years, you come out in a job and they’re looking for peace. And the moment they get a complaint to get this ticket that it just rattles them. A registry is not a peaceful profession. It’s an adrenaline pumping profession. You know you’re on this, you’re on this treadmill from the word go, whether you like it or not, whether it’s NHS, whether it’s private, you’re on this, you’re on this sort of treadmill rollercoaster where anything can happen any time. Yeah, yeah. And there’s no peace. You know, you’re not going to any peace in the industry. It’s not it’s not getting all that kind of job. So I realise that I realised that I stood up for 2011. I realised it very well in a very harsh way. I realised it. And since then I’ve been I’ve been trying to sort of work within that, knowing that things can come up.

[00:26:51] So it looks, it sounds. It sounds like you’re kind of at peace now, don’t it?

[00:26:55] Yeah, I’m at Peace Now and a Peace Now. I like I said, going back to being a slow learner, slow thing. I am working at probably 70 to 80 percent of my capacity now. Yeah, yeah. I’m like, I’m like, I’m not. I’m like a boxer with his guard up with his back leg, ready to move back because I know things can happen any time. So I’m not pushing the envelope like you used to do before I used to try things. Oh, we’ll try this. We’ll try that. Do some crazy wisdom surgical. We’ll do that. Nope, I’m I’m defensive now a lot more and working, you know, probably 80 percent of what I should be working at. So I’ve just started doing implants. Now I’m making sure I’m getting the right mentors in something very slow. You know, single implants, blah blah blah. I’m not going crazy. I’m gonna take my time. You know, if I don’t know something, I can’t stand it. I’ll ask again. I’ll ask again, make sure I know

[00:27:40] It because I know

[00:27:41] My limitations. And that’s not to say it. So yeah, yeah, I’m a piece of myself now. It’s good.

[00:27:46] I’m a big step going into implants. Are you that it is vertically minded kind of dentist? Yeah, I mean,

[00:27:54] The thing is, I always enjoy certain surgical aspects. I was always taking teeth, doing surgical, raising pull ups, bone removal. But somehow there was a mental block of doing implants is high risk demanding patients blah blah blah. Again, it put me off. I was, Oh, I shouldn’t do it, but I’ve got to a stage now where, you know, forty four, I’m thinking looking at it. Just get on with it. Just do some simple implants. Even if you’re just doing singles and just doing a couple of areas, they need to get into it. So, you know, I did the PG Cert and again I did the Tipton Training PG Cert. Oh, the Tipton training, which is quite good. So I did that. And then actually, interestingly, exactly with Facebook again, you come across a lot of nonsense on Facebook, but also you come across some real gems, some real people that reach out. Yeah, and a guy called Amit Patel, Specialist Periodontist and Birmingham. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He reached out just on social media through my watch group and all these other things to do. And it’s a message and I say, Yeah, you know, I made him doing this and that, and we’ve been talking for two years and he said, Look, I’m going to help you with your implants.

[00:28:54] And I was like, OK, really? And he’s like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, don’t worry, I’m going to help you. I’m going to come up and all this. And I was like, OK, I was a bit dubious and we got chatting a lot more messaging, and it seemed like a really nice guy. So funnily enough, two weeks ago, I went down to meet him for the first time. It’s practise nice, you know, lovely guy. Lovely making these connexions and I made so many of the connexions through Facebook. I met people in real life and for me, he’s been a positive, to be honest. It’s been. It’s been great. Yeah, so he’s coming up to my practise December 3rd and 4th and we’re replacing about sort of ten 15 implants of the two days, which can be fantastic. So looking forward to that. What more can I say? Yeah, I’m sort of, you know, pushing myself. I should have got involved in the implant industry a lot earlier with the experience I’ve had in surgical dentistry. But however, it’s still happening. I’m doing it now, so it’s fine. Everyone’s journey is their journey, right?

[00:29:44] Of course. And so tell me from the moment you decide. I’ve never done it right. The moment you decide, I want to do some implants to the moment you place your first without someone looking over your shoulder. How long? What is that timeframe or how old is it for you? Well, a few.

[00:30:02] I haven’t placed any on my own without someone looking over my shoulder yet. I’m moving to that. I’m going to that. Yeah.

[00:30:08] How many? How many are you going to do with someone looking over your shoulder before you do your first one?

[00:30:12] I’m going to do with our mate. I’m going to do about 10 to 12 implants. Mm hmm. And then I’ve got a very.

[00:30:19] Did you do any on any patients on Tipton?

[00:30:21] Yeah, I did about eight implants on the Tipton course. I placed about eight implants and then COVID struck.

[00:30:27] Yeah.

[00:30:28] And then I went back to my kind of registered negative way of thinking, Yeah, when the clinics open back up, I thought, Oh, you know what? I’ve lost touch with this. I’ll just finish off those patients that I had in. I just restored them. I won’t place any more implants. I became quite negative for a while. Yeah. Ahmed said, look, get a move on, let’s get going with this, yeah. You’ve done the calls, you’ve placed implants. It’s easy. Let’s do it. So he’s got me really fired up again. So so I’ve got all these patients

[00:30:56] Booked and we’re going to do it.

[00:30:58] Yeah. I mean, from your experience, obviously, you know where you’re at at the moment. What’s one thing about implant ology that you’d like people who are not in it to know, like one thing that you now know that you didn’t know before something surprising, something, whatever.

[00:31:12] I would say it is. There’s quite a few elements to it, which I thought it was pretty much you drilling putting an implant

[00:31:20] Into a Jawbone. As long as

[00:31:21] You’re not hitting anything, you fine. It was the software learning a software to plan. The implants took some time for me to understand because again, I’m a slow learner. I don’t get it very well. So learning this software, learning the implants and then looking at the implants in a three dimensional view on different scans was something new to me, and I was like, Wow, this is not really dentistry. This is different to what I know. Yeah, you know, you’re looking at a sagittal plane. You’re looking at looking at sideways, looking at this, looking at that and and then you’re thinking, Do I need to graph this or not? You’re looking a lot of things at the same time and then you have to sort of put all that clinically onto a page into a patient. And I kind of had a little bit of a mind blog doing all that. And that was my mental mind block stopping me from going ahead with implants for a long time. So even after even after placing the calls in January and February 2020 and after lockdown, I sit in it all. I’ll just get somebody in to do with them because I had somebody prior in the practise placing them.

[00:32:17] And it’s so much easier just getting them to do it or you just take a cut. Yeah. The problem came when the people leave those implants and eventually leave or whatever they do, they go on to do their own thing and you’re stuck with these implant patients. And now we’ve got vicarious liability as well. I don’t know what I’m doing. And inevitably, issues do arise. I don’t know what I’m doing with implants, and they come in and say, Oh, this, something’s loose here. The screw is loose or whatever. I’m thinking we don’t know what to do. Go back to the dentist and they’re saying, Well, I paid your practise. Can you sort it out? So I thought to myself, at least I need to know how to restore implants. I need to know something about them. So hence, I enrolled in the course and sort of learnt about, there’s a lot to it. And I think it’s one of those cases again, where you know you walk before you don’t run, you do your single implants with lots

[00:33:00] Of bone, lots of space. You know, if there’s anything else

[00:33:03] Sure about after somebody get a good mentor on board, ask them so willing to help you. You know what I mean? Not someone who’s going to put you down as someone to help you and take you through it.

[00:33:11] I mean, I know nothing about it, but but I do know that the soft tissue side of it is really complicated.

[00:33:17] Another aspect? Absolutely, really complicated. Yeah. You can see you can see how many, right? I’ve seen some cases I thought, Yeah, let’s do go for this. And then suddenly it’s a thin bio type, higher lip line and you think,

[00:33:32] I need I

[00:33:32] Need someone for this. And I mean, so it’s like you start learning more and more, I think, and you have very good patients. The first few patients you work on, make sure they are your best patients. They are the ones that will really, you know, worst case, you can just give the money back and say, Hey, it’s sorry about that. Let’s get it done. You don’t. You don’t want to have difficult patients. I mean, it’s like that with anything. But, you know, it’s a funny thing because in restorative dentistry, et cetera, we don’t really have the mentoring as much. But with implant dentistry, it’s very much mentor based with restorative. You just expected to get on with it. But I think the implant industry, there’s so many components to it, the soft tissues that it’s it’s it’s quite different. And again, some people might hear this podcast later and just be laughing, saying, Ted, you just you just be thick.

[00:34:14] But there’s a lot of people out

[00:34:16] There like me. There’s a reason. There’s a reason why a lot of people do implant courses and don’t go on to place implants. There’s a there’s a reason why because the cost, the start-up costs are expensive. You get a mentor on board. They’re expensive. You need to get the patients and it could all be very off-putting. And end of the day, there’s no the general dentistry out there that can get you the same kind of money, to be fair. So, you know, this is the reason you could have a specific reason why you want to do implants.

[00:34:42] Yeah, I mean, it’s a massive like a barrier, isn’t it? A lot of people never crossed that barrier.

[00:34:49] That’s something. Yeah.

[00:34:50] But I’m impressed that you’ve done it and you’ve and you’ve pushed through, you know, for instance, I would I would never, ever look at implants. I mean, I was just never that. That didn’t inspire.

[00:35:02] Yeah, no.

[00:35:04] It’s one of those things. It was it was never me. But end of the day, you know, I’m taking teeth out left, right and centre, my my Folmer PhDs or vets who I taught them surgical dentistry to the surgical zone and now doing implants on their own and doing much better than me. And I’m thinking, I’m going. I was teaching you guys how to dress flaps, divide routes, you know, doing all this and I’m now scared of implants. What’s going on, Ted? You know, get a grip. You can do

[00:35:27] This, you know?

[00:35:29] So it was almost I meet Ahmed Patel. We fail. I give him a shout out. He’s giving me a real kick of the backside to get on with it. I’ll be honest.

[00:35:37] So yeah.

[00:35:39] Well, Ted, you’ve now had three practises. You’ve had a bunch of staff. I noticed your. The wife is involved in the current one. Is that right? Yeah. Running a practise has a whole lot of, you know, sort of issues around hiring and firing staff, keeping keeping people happy working.

[00:35:58] Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:00] You know, give us a couple of nuggets of things you’ve learnt. Maybe someone’s thinking of going into buying their first practise now. And and yeah, it’s something that you could someone could learn from a little hack. Yeah.

[00:36:14] Is a quite a few. I’ll tell you one thing is you take over an existing team and you try and as as a young, as a new or young practise owner, you try and impress them to keep them happy. Yeah, they’re looking at you. And even if you’re treating them better than the last guy, they’re looking at you with suspicion. Yeah. On the always ends up, it’s the same story over and over again. That team will end up leaving major. Not all of them, but the majority will end up leaving. And you will have to recruit your own team that are aligned, that are aligned with your values and your ethos and the way you do things.

[00:36:52] How interesting. So you say you’re saying if I if I, if I’m a young associate and I buy a practise with 12 people, it’s likely as the years go on, the incumbent ones will filter out. And new people that are more like your way of thinking will start to come in

[00:37:08] That there will be sabotage in that team that will make life very difficult for you. Yeah, cause problems were not exist to create, create problems and you’ll be trying to initially, as a young practitioner, you’ll be trying to think, Oh, there is a problem, I need to put a fire out here. I’ll put a fire out here. As you go by, you realise that actually there’s nothing going on. It’s actually these people are just trying to cause problems and not the right people. Now this applies equally to. If you take on new members, staff and this member of staff is causing problems, say the day you’re off on holiday or the afternoon you’re off, everything is wrong with the practise. A member of staff, for example, a new member of staff article and the one half day I was off. Yeah, the one half day the one, Wednesday I was off. Everything will be wrong with the practise. I would get reams of text messages in capital letters. This is not right. This is not right. This is not right. And walk in the next day and ask my existing staff what was going on and say everything was fine. That’s really the goal. Yeah, yeah. She just had a bit of a bit of a wobble. You know, she, he or she just had a bit of a wobble. I’d be like, OK. And then again, the next day, I’ll be off again. Something else again. Then I realise it’s not actually what she’s talking about.

[00:38:19] She’s just creating an issue because you have this two year thing now where you can get rid of people within two years, as long as you don’t discriminate against the protected characteristics which are sex, race, religion, blah blah, blah gender. You can just say sorry. See you later. You know you suitable. So that’s that’s the new members coming in yet. With with with, like you said, going back to what you’re saying about taking over a practise with staff. Yeah, inevitably they will leave and it always happens. I hear it time and time again on Facebook. They will cause problems. They will leave, they’ll kick up a full or whatever because they don’t like the new owner. They don’t like change. People don’t like change. Yeah. Yeah. So just as patients leave, stuff will leave and you will have to recruit your own team and get them on board. And the one thing I do on my team is you’ve got to find out what what motivates each person. Yeah, yeah. But some people, it’s money. It’s overtime. They like a bit of overtime. Yeah, a bit of overtime. Some people like a bit of a night owl, the like a night owl to meal a day. So foster that culture, foster bit of everything in your team, you know, try and try and sort of get everything that people like, try and touch upon a little bit of everything. That’s what I try and do. I try to keep happy, so stand back from it because working with the same people every day can get quite sickening and start to you start to despise the people you work with.

[00:39:34] It’s part of a burnout process. You go in every day to the same small surgery and you see the same people. But look at look at the overall good. Are they working hard? Are they coming on time? Are they working? Are they are they? Are they doing? Are they working for the practise? You know, trying to do what’s best for the practise? If you see these things you know in your staff, give them a little bit of leeway. Yeah. If if they if they’re all sick one day, just off sick, I’ve got a nurse who’s in every single day she’s in. She is in every single day, no matter what. She’s the one I rely on. She’s a pair of hands. She’s in every single day. If she’s off sick one day, I’m not going to because I don’t pay sick days. I paid her. I’m not. I’m not going to not pay her. I paid her, you know, it’s not a big deal. You know, she had one day she had to. She had a hospital of Payman. She works five days a week. She had to come in late, you know, just pay it. It doesn’t matter. You know, it’s two hours. Don’t penny pinch, you know, almost two hours. Look at the big picture.

[00:40:26] Yeah, I like I like that. But then, you know, someone else will say, if you do, if you do that for that person, you have to do that for the other person who’s not pulling their weight in the same way. Otherwise, it’s going to be seen as unfair. You know, like these things happen as teams grow, isn’t it?

[00:40:41] There are. I mean, this is purposeful. I’ve got a small team. This is this is this is the reasonable application. Yeah, yeah. This is why I’m a very small team person. It’s like a family to me now. This will not resonate with a lot of people because all of our bigger, better growing and all this, you know, for me, when I see these 20 staff, I just see problems, you know, when I see these dentistry awards and I’m not looking at dentistry was, I think they’re fantastic. I just don’t go to them. I think they’re fantastic. I think they’re great. But I see these 20, you know, big, massive teams. I just think I just see problems everywhere. Personally, for me, that’s what I see. Again, it’s a negative attitude, you know, maybe and maybe a practise on who’s got more stuff can maybe fill me in. Maybe, you know, give me some insights on how to deal with it. But for me, it’s a small team. We all work together. There’s there’s no there’s no fallouts we saw to issues out in house.

[00:41:27] It goes back to self-awareness, isn’t it? It goes back to that self-awareness.

[00:41:33] Yeah, yeah. I know you like anyone who’s a bad apples. I like it.

[00:41:36] Small. Keep it small.

[00:41:37] Anyone who’s a bad apple, I get rid of them. I hire an attitude, not competence.

[00:41:41] Yeah. Are you good at firing people? I don’t mean the act of firing because the act of firing no one’s good at. It’s it’s a nightmare, right? But I’m saying, are you good at saying this person’s wrong and we don’t need her anymore and getting that person out quickly? You get it done.

[00:41:56] Yes. Yes, I was rubbish at it, but I had to learn to be good at it very quickly because I was. I once kept a person on thinking she will change and every meeting should be, yep, yep, edge. I’m going to change. I’m going to do better. I’m going to do that for you. She’d have a written warning and then she would work well until the really warning lapsed and then go back to her old ways again. Yeah, sorry. Her verbal warning. She’s got a verbal warning. She knew exactly the time scales work really well and then go back to her old self again. And then the the verbal warning starts again, and she made sure she went over the two year period, and it’s very difficult to get rid of it. You know, I won’t say what a date, I won’t say what I did in the end, but that’s for another time, but I wouldn’t say how we managed to.

[00:42:43] Somebody tells me you took care of business.

[00:42:45] I took care of business in a way that is not a conventional conventional, but is a way that I will tell people quietly, there is a way and you have to have everybody else on board and there is a way. But I can’t say that on a podcast. There is a way. There is a way, and it’s risky. It’s risky, but

[00:43:06] There is a way. The funny thing is, but everyone listening to this is now thinking of all sorts of things which are much more crazy than what actually happened.

[00:43:14] It’s not. It’s using a legal process. Oh. But but it’s it’s it’s a bit convoluted and it’s very risky. If it goes wrong, but it’s not as risky as doing a bad firing. That’s the difference.

[00:43:28] Yeah, I’ve done it before, but I’ve made excuses for for the member of staff. I’ve had them linger for much longer than they should. I’m trying to get Sanjay my partner to to have a look at an idea of we. If we if we want to fire someone, we’ve got it now in our business. We’ve got a one month notice period. Yeah, yeah. And I’m telling Sanjay turned that into a we’ll pay you three months of salary. Yeah, just go. Yeah. Because if you do that first, it makes it easier to say it and fire people, right? Because you’re giving them three months, right? And they’re not going to not be able to feed their kids and all that. But secondly, most of the time, whenever we’ve wanted to fire someone, we’ve procrastinated for at least three months before doing it. So we’ve paid that money anyway. Yeah. For for an ineffective person. Yeah, yeah. And he he does not want to do that. I get it too, by the way. I get it too. Yeah.

[00:44:24] Yeah, no, no. It’s it’s very difficult.

[00:44:27] The problem is

[00:44:28] Is, you know, once you’ve got a good team, yeah, you’ve got a good team and you get this bad apple in there. And again, it’s usual you’ll get the red flags. As usual, there’ll be issues constantly cropping up when there weren’t before the issues. And sometimes these people will make out that they’ve got higher standards than everybody else, you know, Oh, this isn’t clean and this is not right. You need to be doing this, need to be doing that, creating little little things here and there, and disharmony mosques are whispering and you’ll see the red flags and you just cry. Rather than trying to put out each little fire here and there, you realise at the end this person just needs to go. Yeah, because there are sabotage. That’s just their personality. That’s the way they are. And you need to get rid of them. And I say this, a lot of people, I’d say, just get rid of the message me or people message me on Facebook Messenger and saying, I’ve got this member. She’s doing this, she’s doing that. And I say, how long you had to say three months to just get rid. So, oh, but then I go to the disciplinary. I see. No, you don’t need to go through the disciplinary. Just been there three months as long as you don’t, as long as you don’t discriminate against especially, you know, against the protected characteristics you’ll find. Just get

[00:45:32] Rid. It sounds like you’ve got that side fixed. What about the other side? If someone’s doing really well, do you? How do you manage in a Dental practise environment to provide them fulfilment? You know, like job satisfaction, people. What I found very difficult in dentistry, not that I spent much time in practise, but at the time the idea that someone can progress in their career is quite hard in dentistry and especially in this very practise, right?

[00:45:57] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it’s very it is very, very difficult. It’s a tough answer. This one in my in a way, in my practise. And I shouldn’t say this, I suppose, in the small practise that I’ve had, if I had somebody too ambitious, they would probably believe, yeah, if that makes sense because there wasn’t much of a great career progression. So I’ve just got my two nurses on the implant training course to be Dental, you know, implant nurses. Yeah, which has helped them. But I can’t give them the whole wow factor of the radiographs putting fluoride varnish on doing this, doing that, we’re too small, you know, we can’t afford it. So in a way, you kind of want people who are sort of happy to come in, enjoy repetitive work, know where they’re getting each month to live nearby. They’re comfortable. You need, you need to give that kind of security. Of course, you know, do all the bonuses and all that, that’s all fine. So part of it, but when it comes to career progression, it is very difficult and don’t have an answer for that necessarily.

[00:46:52] Tell me about the bonus structure.

[00:46:54] I don’t have a structure. I don’t have a structure. I give a great Christmas bonus. I will. I’ll give a great Christmas bonus. I will give bonuses as I go along if someone’s doing well. I give bonuses for recruiting implant patients. You know, they’ll get five pounds to implant patient. I’m trying to give them something. I’m trying to work on something I’ve been quite model as well. But for my receptionists who

[00:47:17] Who keep those

[00:47:18] Dental patients on the plan by ringing them up regularly and saying, How are you doing anything we can do for you? Blah blah blah. I’m always giving them their own list of implant patients. I said, These yours, you have to manage these, make sure they’re on the system paying every month. I’m trying to remunerate them something for each having each patient on, rather than just forgetting a new patient on. I’m trying to give them. I’m trying to work out a system of a monetary system of somehow, you know, giving them something for keeping that list of patients going active, saying it’s your responsibility as well as well as mine. Keeping them on so they don’t fall off. They don’t fall off a list and say, Oh, I’ve not heard from that practise for a while, I’ll just cancel my membership. You know, what can you do extra?

[00:47:59] My feeling talking to them is there isn’t enough performance related incentive in Dental practises. There is. There is a reason there is a but but from from from someone who does a lot of it in our business. One thing I’ve noticed is that even when, like you’re saying, you’re trying to come up with something for your receptionist, right, even when you come up with something that you think is perfect. Yeah, there’s always you’ve got to look out for. There’s always going to be an unwanted side effect of that of that scheme. Yeah. Like whatever it is, I can’t tell you how it can end up in your practise, but you know, they’ll sign up these patients who are not big spenders or whatever. Well, we found we found when we were doing monthly targets for sales, we were comparing to the same month the year before to January. So what ended up happening was they would just switch and, you know, they would take their foot off the pedal in February. Next February, put their foot on the pedal, you know, and it’s not their fault. You can’t you can’t blame them for it because you set up the system. There it is.

[00:49:02] Yes, there it is. That’s right.

[00:49:04] And and then you go and change the system and then you get another unwanted side of it. But having said all of that, I do think there’s not enough of it in dentistry, you know, because there’s not because there’s not career progression in the normal way that people would expect it in careers in a lot of dental practises. I think at least if the practise is doing well, the staff should do better. You know, if the banks are doing better, the staff should do better, more than happens at the.

[00:49:30] Yes, I agree. I think I think you’re absolutely right. I think the same has got this really well. I haven’t. I’m a little really poor of this because I’m I’m I don’t like to share the figures with my staff why I don’t think my staff. Again, it’s confidential. I don’t think that they’re ready for it. I think they can digest the figures and understand the profit or loss because I don’t want them thinking, Ooh, teachers make it take X amount or this is what we make.

[00:50:00] You don’t need to discuss profit and loss, but no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It should be, I think, dervish be like generators.

[00:50:08] Yeah, turnover is a skill centre skills ghost. I’ve talked about why profit is why we need to be getting money ahead. I’ve talked about why we need to have a profit so I can invest back in the practise, which is what I have to do. I said if we’re only looking backwards, then I’ll be saving on, Oh, we can’t buy fax paper this month or we can’t buy, you know, we can’t buy printer ink this month. I said, that’s the negative backward attitude. I need to be looking at why we can buy this, why we can hire more staff, why we can do this, invest in the practise. We can have a better, better Christmas. Do we can do a better events. We can, you know, the bigger,

[00:50:36] Well, go thing that you should pay attention to. This is that I’m not saying open up all the numbers because as a business owner, that doesn’t make massive sense, right? But but in general, I’d say in general, your nurse or receptionist who doesn’t know how much money you earn? Yeah, thinks generally you’re earning a lot more than you’re earning. Would you say to that? I don’t know, really, you know what, I don’t know.

[00:51:04] I I try, I see. I’m very much low key with it, with him, with my staff, you know? Yeah, I’m very low key and we’re not a high turnover practise. Anyway, I never have been. I’m not that kind of dentist, so we’re very much low key. You know, I drive a 10 year old car and this and that, and I like watches, but that’s fine. Okay, it’s one of those things, but I’m lucky I eat in the same places they eat, go to the same places they go to. So I’m hoping they don’t think I’m sort of, you know, making a ton of money. But I hope there is. It’s it’s it’s hard to explain. I don’t want them thinking I’m ripping off patients and have a negative thing because, you know, I want them to sort of think that I’m giving your patients a fair deal, that I’m worth my weight.

[00:51:45] I get it, but I get it. Listen, what you’re saying is the norm. Yeah, but I’m saying that.

[00:51:51] Yes. Yes. No. You’re absolutely right. I want to. I would like to have that business manager who says, Ted, you know, we’ve we’ve only made we’ve only we’re really turning over 300k this year when we only get to 400 by next year. I want to get you to five hundred and I want to make sure we’re doing this as this. Yes, I like that kind of

[00:52:07] Person, but

[00:52:09] I can’t pay that kind of person who has those qualifications to understand that. So actually, my wife understands that. So the other so it’s a small practise. So I’m just saying I’ve got a solution to everything and I appreciate your advice as well.

[00:52:20] And oh, dentists have

[00:52:22] Messaged me and giving me advice on how to sort this issue out and things, and I’m constantly learning. This whole thing about me is being a slow learner and having my experience. I’m constantly learning from other people, people younger than me who set up, you know, got five or six practises and said, Ted, you think you look like a shopkeeper?

[00:52:36] Yeah, yeah.

[00:52:37] I’m thinking like a corner shop guy. You know, just standing, standing there, counting my pennies. Think of the bigger picture. Start bonus. Start giving these people bonuses. Start incentivising them. Save yourselves. But then you’ve got the staff who are not financially motivated. That’s the problem. So I mentioned this thing about this five pound butt implant patient, and one of the receptionists said, I’m not interested one bit in that. She’s a great, she’s a great receptionist. She’s fantastic, but she’s not interested in any bonuses to whatsoever. She wants to do a work, get paid and go home. That’s it.

[00:53:04] So there are people like that. There are people, you know,

[00:53:07] And they’re and they are what I classed as a pair of hands. You need them. They’re very reliable, very reliable. They’re in every day on time. They like coming to work as close to work, and they’re a pair of hands and you need a pair of hands as well. Yeah, yeah. And you need more ambitious people. But then ambitious people can leave because they outgrow your practise. That’s the problem,

[00:53:28] Because let’s get to this PDA thing that you’ve put yourself up for.

[00:53:32] Yeah, the PDA. Yes.

[00:53:34] And I take my hat off to you. I do. Yeah, anyone who puts himself up for anything like this, you know, I’m not yet cynical enough to think that, you know, it’s a power trip or whatever. No, no. In the real world, I think that, but not in Dental politics, it’s such an unsexy thing to go into. But I always give the benefit of the doubt to the person doing it. Why don’t you just just tell us, explain what is the committee? What does it do? Why are you thinking about?

[00:54:01] Well, I’m actually I’m actually fairly inexperienced. So for me, I’ll give you a bit of my story in the background is I’ve been on Bradford LDC Local Dental committee. Yeah, I’m now in Wakefield Local Dental Committee. Now, obviously, you know me on social media. We’ll all have a rant. Every now and again. There’ll be this big thing. Everybody sort of pulls the big thing. We’re going to do this, we’re going to do this, and let’s set up this union. Let’s do this. And half of them don’t go anywhere.

[00:54:27] Yeah. And then I thought, Well,

[00:54:29] Where does where does the real work happen? Who’s really negotiating with the government NHS and who? It’s a it’s a GDP arm of the BDA. Yeah, the General Dental Practise Committee. This is where the action happens. And I thought, You know what? I need to put myself up because I’m kind of shy or reticent guy and I’m pretty much like, always want somebody else to do it. You, if somebody else does it and the outcome is not in my favour, then I’m, as you know, I should be the one that should be going out there. Yeah, if I want to change things, you’ve got to put yourself out there, you know, go outside your comfort zone. So, you know, there’s a lot at the moment and at the moment, a lot of older, experienced dentists on these committees and they come in to the end of their tenure and stepping down. So I think we need some fresh blood in there to take take things forward. So I would say just just to anyone who wants to make a difference at the very minimum, you know, you have a rant on Facebook, everybody has a rant on Facebook, but go to your local Dental committee meetings. Anybody is welcome to them. It’s not daunting. It’s not. It’s not a it’s not a members, only club or some boys club go along. They sit there, see what’s talked about. Yeah, it’s a bit dull. It’s in the evening, but this is where the action happens. You’ll find out what’s going on. So I’ve always been interested in finding what’s going on. Yeah, there are seven pm on an evening, go along to them, sit around, meet at the dentist in your area network. So I’ve been doing that for years, but I’ve always been at a very low level. I’ve always been ranting on social media and just blah blah blah and giving advice and now involved the past scheme, the Practitioner Advice Service Scheme.

[00:55:55] So, so you know, trying to make a difference. Where do you? Nhs dentistry going

[00:56:01] Wait was initially dentistry going interesting question, actually, it’s well, what’s happening right now right now and it’s just dentistry is in freefall. There is no NHS access anywhere

[00:56:14] For most

[00:56:14] Practises is struggling to even hit the 65 percent target we’ve been given and morale of staff is at the lowest point ever. The dentists, I think that was sitting on the fence previously about whether to go private and whether that’s a full private practise conversion or a principle only conversion, I think are now making them move to private practise. I think the trust or relief we all had last year during the start of the pandemic, when the NHS announced full support to providers, has now mostly evaporated. It is a difficult period right now, but I think things will stabilise. I think things will stabilise in NHS. And the one thing I found personally, it’s my personal opinion. This is that whenever, whenever the government have been embarrassed by NHS dentistry as they are now and going back to sort of early 2000s when you had the oldest photographs of the queues outside practises people waiting outside the whole of Lincolnshire, massive queues, outside practises and all that kind of thing. A bit of money was pumped in and access was improved. I’ll be in the short term. Access was improved, so where it’s heading right now don’t really know. I think they’re talking about a call service coming in. But does a call service mean core funding? That’s the issue because the government, the NHS right now thinks this funding is providing a fully comprehensive service. When we all know it isn’t, it’s only providing it can probably only service 50 percent of the population at best. So will the NHS have to accept mixed practise? And finally, will they have to let us know what is and is not available on the NHS rather than than this current situation of where we’re meant to provide whatever is clinically necessary, which leaves us dentists in a trap, really, you know, just waiting to be tripped up. So, yeah, I think things will stabilise.

[00:57:58] But OK, but in the role, let’s say you get elected in the role, you’re going to be actually one of the people having these discussions with government, right?

[00:58:06] Is that is that right? Well, I be feeding in. It will be the chair of the GPC. It’ll usually be the chair and vice chair of the GPC who might have these direct negotiations. We’ll certainly be feeding in much more, so I’ll be a much more higher level if I get on. I built a feeding and feeding the thoughts of associates and other dentists and sort of what’s happening on the ground really and will to effect change. So I’m hoping I can, you know, I can make some difference. Collectively, the GDP scheme can make some difference. I mean, the wheels that there’s a lot, this is the thing that a lot of people don’t understand is one change very quickly. There’s the wheels of motion, a very slow with the government. You know, there’s a lot happening in industry, but the way the government act and they come back is very, very slow. So you get you get a little bit of change now and again here and there, and that takes a lot of time so people don’t fully appreciate. But the work the GPC did in securing the funding during the lockdown, pernicious practises. People don’t really appreciate how much work went into that. So it’s things like this that are often ignored.

[00:59:05] Yeah. A PDA gets a kind of a mixed bag of sort of rep, doesn’t it, from people? I mean, they

[00:59:12] They’ve got a very, very hard job. You can think about it. Payman Yeah. Bda represent. They’ve got to represent. Yeah. And dentistry is so fragmented. We’ve got purely private practises. We’ve got mixed practises. Yeah, we’ve got pure NHS practises and then we’ve got associates in the middle of all this who are having their own hard time of it all. So they’ve got to represent three different types of practise owners.

[00:59:38] But I think a lot of people have thought that, you know, they’ve been really representing one of those three more than anyone else.

[00:59:46] Possibly, possibly, possibly because there’s just more of those to represent.

[00:59:50] Well, there’s more to it than anything else, right? If you want to

[00:59:53] The more associates as well as those the

[00:59:56] Problems?

[00:59:57] No, no. Yeah, I think the problem is. I mean, I’m not experienced enough to answer this. And guys, Eddie Crouch probably are. They’re the top level. The problem is, I think, is the way the contracts of the NHS are done with the provider. I think that legality is that the divide, a contract subcontracts to the associates. That’s right. So I think that is the key element, which is the GDS contract, which I think is hard to bypass. So any any sort of Payman disputes than that really will have to go legally. That’s the problem you’ve got.

[01:00:32] I think that’s been this.

[01:00:32] I think that’s been the tricky part for for the media to resolve the country’s resolve disputes themselves directly without involving legal teams

[01:00:40] And who can vote. Is it like Luke or you can only people local to you?

[01:00:45] I think I think it’s only my local. I think at this particular election, it’s so the local guys that can vote in West Yorkshire.

[01:00:51] Yeah, yeah,

[01:00:53] I try to canvass everyone. I think I’ve realised lately in the local people I can vote. But yeah, I tried. I think I tried to get on JTBC four years ago when I was a relatively unknown. I wasn’t even on the LDC, so I didn’t get on. And I’ve got tough competition to Wakefield. And to be fair, the competition is excellent. Whoever whoever gets on to West Yorkshire, you know, Joe Henderson or somebody else, someone like that is absolutely brilliant. So I’ve got no issues. I really hope I get voted on. But if I don’t, then I know it’s in safe hands anyway.

[01:01:19] That’s nice to hear that. It’s nice to hear that. Yeah, you. I mean, you would come back to this self-awareness question what makes you be the kind of cat who wants to put yourself up for election? I mean, it’s like life, I would never, ever try that.

[01:01:38] Yeah, I think I represent a fair few general Dental practitioners who are a little bit negative, a little bit reticent, a bit shy to get out there. Yeah, possibly slow learners as well. We’re not all high flyers, we’re not all Instagram stars. And they want change. They don’t have to go about it. They feel a bit, you know, when you go to the local Dental committee meetings and you’ve got three or four senior dentists on there who are already on GSPC C or Dental practise advisors for the NHS. You feel a bit, you feel a bit sort of, you know, it’s quite sort of intimidating. And this was me earlier on, and like I said, I think they just need some fresh blood and I think people like John Milne, certainly it was now the national secrecy at Dental advisories, as always, encouraged me to get involved, which, you know, I don’t think you need to be clever. You need to be a you need to be a high flyer. And I never was. I was like, I said, to slow learner self awareness and all that. And I think you just put yourself out there and have a go at it. I can’t even I mean, public speaking, this makes me anxious talking to you.

[01:02:36] Like this is like public speaking. It makes me nervous. I’m awful at public speaking. You know, I did that. I’ve got a stammer. I had a stutter. I had speech therapy as a young kid, you know, for about two years, I had speech therapy. I sang my old name. The word ts. Very difficult to say. Tej doesn’t always come out, so I can’t speak. I can’t stand up and speak. So, you know, but these are all things that other people have had. And another thing, another point which which was very, very interesting to me. It was going back to my events in 2011 when I was involved with the PCC hearing and all that. The Path Advisor at the time, the Practitioner Advice Support Service Advisor at the time, told me 20 years prior he had a performance issue and he said Everyone’s got a story. She said, Don’t worry about it. Everyone has a story. And I was like, Oh, wow, you’re the LDC chair and adviser, and you had a performance issue 20 years prior. And then the workforce Deanery adviser told me about GDC referral he had, which was thrown out. But somebody referred to the GDC and I said, Oh, wow, OK, so these things happen,

[01:03:41] You know, I mean, some really, really good people have had these

[01:03:44] Problems. So I thought I thought maybe going in was

[01:03:47] That if you are crap,

[01:03:49] You got these issues. If you’re crap, you into confident the high flyers are just fly through the career and they don’t get any issues. It’s not true. Everyone’s had a story. Every sort of complaint, everyone’s been rattled. Everyone’s been rattled in some way or another. So they just don’t say it doesn’t get spoken about enough. So I’m happy to say it. And other people now come out with their things and I’m happy and you know, it’s fine. You’ve had issues. You learn from them. You, you move on from them. And like we say, it’s not. It’s not how many times you fall down, it’s how you get up, right? You’ve got to get back up and get on with it. You know, so

[01:04:20] A couple of other things I want to talk to you about. Yeah, the watch thing. Oh yeah. So number one, I don’t get it right. I don’t get watches. No, no, no. You know, you don’t have to. You don’t have to know. My friends have tried. No.

[01:04:35] Yeah, absolutely.

[01:04:36] But tell me what it is about, which is for you. I mean, you’ve got this watch Dental group. Is it the collection side of it? Like, what is it?

[01:04:45] It’s it’s the number of things for me. Ok, I’ve been into watches since I was five years old. My dad used to collect Seiko watches. He had about five or six. He was a South Indian doctor. He was never going to spend big money on big watches, conservative guy, you know, but fo four or five Seiko watches and every day I’d see him and he’d have he’d get his watch on. He’d rattle his wrist and it would be part of his day getting ready. So I was I’ve been watching this five years old. I had the little Transformers Watch and the Casio game watches. So now I mean, you know, since I’ve sort of qualified since I been able to buy some nice

[01:05:19] Watches, it’s the mechanics.

[01:05:21] It’s it’s having this thing ticking on your wrist made from cogs and gears. Yeah, that just is ticking away all the time. A glance to the wrist and it’s the only jewellery a man can really wear, you know? I mean, it’s something you wear.

[01:05:33] The reason I hate it, right? Because, yeah, yeah, that’s really.

[01:05:37] Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. I love a watch. I mean, I like the watch. I get up every day, but look at the look of the watch and I just think, yeah, that is a nice watch.

[01:05:43] So I was really keen to ask you this question. Yeah, I can see you love your watches.

[01:05:49] Absolutely. Yeah.

[01:05:50] But do you know about NFD watches?

[01:05:53] Nft watches. Yeah.

[01:05:57] Tornado watches, no watches, no so no Rolex, Rolex. Have have just come out with something that they reckon they’ll be selling more virtual watches, more money in virtual watches than actual watches in five years time.

[01:06:14] Ok, so this is where I’m a really thick guy. Tell me what a virtual watch is,

[01:06:18] Solanki we’re doing this over Zoom or whatever. You know, this platform that we’re doing it on, right? Yeah, it’s called Riverside, but this is the platform we’re doing. Pretty soon, we’re all going to be wearing glasses. You know, virtual reality meetings will be like that. When we go to the meeting, it’s going to be in a really, let’s face it, really cool room because it’s going to be it’s a graphic, right? You’re going to just the metaverse.

[01:06:39] Is this the metaverse thing?

[01:06:40] Yeah, you’re going to be sitting there. Ted is going to be sitting there. I’m going to be sitting here. When I see you, I’m going to see a graphic of you.

[01:06:47] Yeah, right.

[01:06:49] That graphic can be wearing a Rolex. Yeah, right. Rolex are saying they’ll charge the same amount for the virtual watch as they do for the Watch Watch.

[01:07:00] Are you having me on here? Payman No,

[01:07:01] No. Because what is it do? It’s not a

[01:07:03] Watch. It’s a lot of watches.

[01:07:04] It doesn’t tell the time. It’s not about telling time.

[01:07:07] It is the other side chuckling to himself if he Tetris buying Tetris buying this. But this is true to just buy this nonsense. Literally. Is it really? Is it true?

[01:07:16] It’s true. What’s the Chanel bag? It’s not a bag, is it? It’s not a bag carry. A bag is a bag. Yeah, it’s it’s nothing to do with being a bag. It’s a status symbol. It’s design, it’s art. Whatever you want to call it, call it.

[01:07:28] Ok, so so OK. So the thing is, OK, the part of the watch thing is, is the feel winding and winding? The thing I’d say I’ve been I’ve been to watch, for example. Yeah, OK. You don’t you don’t know, but you don’t know much about watches yet. I mean, what the one thing for me, what I don’t like about the watch thing is when someone just shows it with a time only watch and I don’t mean to blast Rolex. I love Rolex. I think they’re a great brand, and I’ve always said this. I respect what they do. The brand just shows up with a brown watch that shows the time. And you’re a layperson. It’s Oh, you got a Rolex. Yeah. Two hands shows the time Oh, it’s a Rolex for me. I love. I like the complications. I’ll say, Well, you know what watches can do and the like? Yeah, the tell the time go. Yeah, but I’ve got to watch, for example, shows the day, day, month, full year moon phase and count leap year as well, so it never needs a date changing. It counts leap year automatically and we’ll flick through Leap Year, so it gets to January 31st because it’s February 1st, February

[01:08:24] 28th, goes to March the

[01:08:26] 1st blah blah blah. It’ll keep doing that. Yeah, yeah. Tells me the same year because it’s got the full year and at twenty twenty one it December 31st, 2022. The mechanics involved in that is what I like, and if I want to show somebody else, look, this is proper watchmaking.

[01:08:39] Yeah, that’s what it’s going.

[01:08:41] That gets that’s what gets me got the complication,

[01:08:44] Making it more complicated than it has to be.

[01:08:46] Yeah, yeah. I look the fact gears and cogs. So so it’s like it’s like the old Sinbad movies gold of Zimbabwe with the bird. Was it the bird or was it there? It was like the carpet. Plush, plush, the tightest clash of the Titans, the with the mechanical bird and the wind up things and all the cogs and gears. All that used to fascinate me as a kid and the watches I get, I get it. I can look at what’s your favourite watch brand?

[01:09:08] What’s your favourite watch brand?

[01:09:10] I would have to say this to probably IWC in Audemars Piguet.

[01:09:14] Yeah, so so that’s the thing. Do you do you like if you love that brand? Yeah. When we meet in the Metaverse, you might pay IWC money to have an IOC on your hand when we meet in the Metaverse.

[01:09:30] Why? Why can I have a reader? I see my hand instead for the same price. Did you? Why wouldn’t

[01:09:36] I? You can’t put how many people are going to see that.

[01:09:38] I see. I’m not bothered by who sees it.

[01:09:40] Yeah, yeah.

[01:09:41] Yeah, it’s sort of a status symbol. My my watch. I’ve never owned a Rolex. I’ve never owned a Rolex. Yeah, I’ve never owned a Rolex. My watch is a bizarre watches. I’ve got one that looks like a spaceship. I’ve seen that. Yeah, yeah, I see that on the hour. The hour jumps along mechanically like a typewriter. You know the old typewriters. It’s got to lever. The hour jumps along to the end and then flicks back to one. That’s the mechanics I like. Nobody else knows about it.

[01:10:08] Tell me, tell me. Tell me, tell me there’s something called something something in friends. Which brand is that something? Something in friends? It’s like a famous

[01:10:15] And B and F

[01:10:15] And B and some of the stuff they come out with. Exactly. So that stuff, even like even I who don’t like watches like them, it’s it’s

[01:10:25] It’s it’s it’s kind of steampunk.

[01:10:28] Yeah.

[01:10:28] Yeah, yeah. Twenty thousand leagues under the Sea, Jules Verne weird kind of stuff. Yeah, it’s yeah. Yeah, yeah, crazy money. Crazy money. But it’s a whole different world. It’s it’s interesting, but like for me, I’m not. I’m not into cars anymore. I used to be into cars and I’m not into cars at all anymore. I’ve just gone off them. I bought a Renault twisty, a little twisty.

[01:10:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:10:49] That is giving me the best bit of fun ever. I’m so happy with it and I’m so comfortable at my age and I twist it to ask for. Ten years ago, I just said no way. Obviously they’re dead in the car, because

[01:10:58] Does that manage all the ups and downs of Yorkshire or the hills?

[01:11:01] It gets me to work at eight mile commute and is perfect. I love it. The summer is great. 52 mile an hour seems like I’m going in about 90 mile an hour. It’s great. I love it. I just I just I looked ridiculous in it, but I actually love that car. I think it’s fantastic. So I’m done with the cars. I got twisty. I’m happy with it.

[01:11:18] And I did want to bring up the subject of your tea making, but I don’t want to embarrass you, but I don’t embarrass.

[01:11:23] You can’t. You can’t actually make this.

[01:11:26] I don’t embarrass you, mate, because you I believe I get, but

[01:11:30] I am completely wrong. I almost feel like apologising. But but I will still say that’s how I make my tea and I love my tea that way. And that’s what makes it so different.

[01:11:41] So you like your tea? You thought your tea week is that? Is that?

[01:11:44] No, no, no, no. This is the really got it wrong. It kind of went off

[01:11:46] Tangent I put.

[01:11:48] I put two tea bags in. Yeah, and I put and I put a little bit of milk in a little bit of milk, maybe about, you know, I can’t I can’t describe milk, but maybe about half a centimetre of tea in a milk offset to me, the milk

[01:12:01] To tea back

[01:12:02] With two tea and then the tea bags around

[01:12:04] The OK, that’s different. That’s different, right? And they.

[01:12:07] No, no. And then I put a load of water in top.

[01:12:10] You didn’t explain it.

[01:12:11] Yeah, I just put a little bit tea I always showed with Rosie was that with a bit of milk. But then that itself, I think it kind of wrote, really, I lost a lot of votes on that, so I probably won’t get I probably won’t get elected on GDP c now because this big thing, this guy’s weird, you know, but I think it’s just you, I guess.

[01:12:30] Yeah, so Prav is not here. But Prav final questions about whether that if you know them, but they kind of all sort of end of life sort of legacy type questions. You’re on your deathbed, you’ve got your nearest and dearest people around you. What three pieces of advice would you leave to them and to the world?

[01:12:53] That’s really interesting, actually. I would say three pieces of advice say, I don’t have these massive things because I’ve done everything I want to do. I’m really happy as I am. I would say three devices, if you really if you’ve got to go to someplace you want a holiday, you need to go to someplace, just do it because you never know what you’re going. Get the chance to do that. That’s a massive life advice. If you really like something and you want to buy it and it’s not going to break the bank, but you have to get it even on a credit card. Go get it because if you really love it, go get it. Life’s too short not to get it here. Yeah, just go get it. And the other thing is is is free time. That’s the one thing you forget to have. You think you’ll get all this free time later on in life. You never get the free time. You got to make the free time now. So forget this free time at 60. My dad passed away very, very suddenly on a phone call from a massive heart attack at the age of 53. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So no, yeah, no, no. This happened in 99 was a 30 Dental school, so I know what it’s like because he planned to go to Dallas to see his sister. He planned to do these things, trying to get himself in a mega what she wanted to get a Merck because he had all his Volvos. He had a few plans because at 53, you still have a few plants left here to get a bit of indigestion one day, and he’s on his phone to his friend, and he just collapsed and died.

[01:14:06] So I had to give him mouth to mouth did happen. Obviously, that was that. So that really is a turning point. I mean, I’m nine years younger than my father was now. That’s scary because he looked to me like an old man back then when I was 21. He seemed like an old man, but I’m nine years off and, you know, fifty three is not very old at all. No. So the one thing is a free time. I mean, my dad was used to work like crazy, working hard. So the one thing is, you know, keep your expenses down. Enjoy the free time, you know, because you never know when it might be taken away from you. I don’t mean that in a negative, nasty way. But no, no, that’s free. Free, free times. It’s free time is the main thing. So you get to a certain age when there’s only so much industry can do. But my my last bit of dentistry I’m doing now is employers. That’s it. And then I’m done. I’m not going to. I’m going to keep going on because it’s sad, but I’m not doing any more year long, two year long courses that I sort of refine what I’ve got now. The skills, keep it going. Work a four day week, and that’s it. I’m done.

[01:14:59] I’ve been asking a new new question dinner party. Three people that are alive. Who would you invite?

[01:15:07] Oh, you know, that’s a tough one. That’s a tough one. I’m never very, very good at these. Abraham Lincoln. I don’t know why, but I like Tammy Abraham Lincoln. I don’t know why. I don’t know why. I just think things, he said, sounded pretty cool. Wells, in the past, uh, Martin Luther King. Probably Mahatma Gandhi actually is well,

[01:15:29] Yeah, nice, nice.

[01:15:31] Yeah, I probably say them three. There there be cliched to an extent as well. But again, they are for a reason, cliched, you know, so there you go.

[01:15:40] You’ve come for serious, you know, political figures there, man.

[01:15:43] Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

[01:15:47] Well, it is. It’s been an absolute pleasure to have you, but and

[01:15:51] Thank you for having a simpleton like me on because. No, no. Normally I see the stars on and I’m thinking, Oh, you know what? In fact, he invited me on. I appreciate it. So thank you for having me on.

[01:16:01] It’s been. It’s been a lovely conversation and you.

[01:16:04] It’s very nice. Thank you.

[01:16:05] As well as you’re pulling yourself up for election. You know you’re a general practise guy, proper general practise guy, right? And you’ve been through it with that story.

[01:16:15] And I’ve been through it. I’ve been through it. I still get the same stuff everybody else gets. I keep messaging people. They message me. I’m in touch with a lot of general Dental practitioners. We talk, we converse. It’s so much better now than it was when I had that all that issue years ago. There’s no communication. You’re on your own in practise. What dentistry is in a good place right now? In that sense, the communication between people is fantastic.

[01:16:37] I’m really, really, really happy that you shared the way you did, but you didn’t have to give.

[01:16:42] No, no. I told all the people about it.

[01:16:44] I said a lot of people about it. And you know, so many people will learn from from those stories that you share. If people want to vote, when is it? How is it? Is it by

[01:16:53] Starting on November twenty third to December 3rd? If you’re not a BDM member, you’ve got to request. I’ve got to request the ballot papers from them, so it’s a little bit of work involved. So unfortunately it is off putting. A lot of people probably won’t vote because of this reason. You got to request the ballot papers from them. But I would just say anyone, if you want to make some change, even if you don’t vote for me, don’t worry, the other guys are on in Berlin as well. They really are. Just get your vote on because that’s the only way change will happen. There is not much happening on Facebook. Just granting all day long on Facebook is not going to change things. It’s it’s getting out there and making make sure the right people who can do the change are voted on to the GDP. See, that’s how change will happen.

[01:17:32] What if you are a BDA member, how does it work?

[01:17:35] Well, you’ll get the ballot papers immediately. Oh, really, you get the ballot papers in an email, so it’ll be fine and you can vote.

[01:17:41] Fantastic. Yeah. Thank you so much for doing this. But.

[01:17:44] No, no, thank you for having me on, I really appreciate it, and it’s been it’s been a pleasure. Absolutely a pleasure being on and I hope some people are chuckling away. Some people might take something away from it. Yeah, it’s good. He’s been good. Thank you. Thanks again, Payman. Appreciate it.

[01:18:00] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry.

[01:18:11] Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[01:18:16] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you’ve got some value out of it if you did get some value out of it. Think about subscribing and if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks. And don’t forget our six star rating.