A dentist who’s nervous about dental appointments; a prolific content creator and social star who professes to be a private person; and a high achiever who reckons she’s the failure of the family. It would be fair to describe Raabhia Maan as something of an enigma.

Raabhia is perhaps best known as the social content creator who posts about everything from MRONJ to meditation.

She chats about motherhood, buying a practice and her textbook Dentistry in a Nutshell, which she co-authored with previous podcast guest Nicola Gore.

Enjoy!   

 

“I was in my appointment with my dentist, and he was about to give me a filling and I said to him, ‘I’m going to be a dentist but I’m not going to be a scary one.’” And he just started laughing at me.” – Raabiha Maan

 

01.12 – Busy busy!

04.13 – Backstory

11.19 – Dental school syllabus

14.10 – Into practice

19.08 – Content creation

27.45 – The gnash bash

32.10 – Practice purchase

39.20 – Being a mum

43.46 – Dentistry in a Nutshell

46.50 – Philanthropy and philosophy

52.11 – Blackbox thinking

01.01.00 – Dentistry, teaching and experience

01.06.46 – Boundaries and responsibilities

01.08.24 – Future plans

01.09.43 – Last days and legacy

01.11.35 – Fantasy dinner party

 

About Raabhia Maan

Raabhia Maan graduated from Bart’s and the London School of Medicine with honours and quickly found her way into teaching as a dental foundation trainer for North East London. She also provides clinical mentoring for international dentists who relocate to the UK and gives regular lectures and webinars.

 

Raabhia is co-author of Dentistry in a Nutshell, a best-selling guide to dentistry, and regularly posts about dental topics on Instagram as @drraabihamaan where she has more than 10K followers.

 

Raabhia practices at Bridge Dental in Isleworth and has been shortlisted multiple several times for The Dentistry Awards’ Best Young Dentist title.

[00:00:00] You know, the funny thing is, I still get nervous when I go to the dentist, which is silly because obviously that’s to do with the childhood fear coming back up. But but yes, that’s kind of why I did it to overcome it and make sure that my my patients coming in, they come in terrified that they leave completely opposite, you know, having having had a blast head laugh even during their fillings, I talk non-stop. Sometimes they’re laughing and they’re like, Don’t do that while we’re having a feeling.

[00:00:24] So 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

[00:00:47] Gives me great pleasure to welcome Doctor Dr Rob Jarmon onto the podcast. I’ve come across on Instagram, mainly the real content creator. Also new mum, new practise owner and now co-author of a book Dentistry in a Nutshell, which we just had Nicola on the show. Nicola Gaur, the other co-author. Lovely to have you, Rabiya Payman.

[00:01:12] Thank you so much for inviting me. I’m excited to be on your show.

[00:01:16] It’s been difficult to find a time. You’ve got so much going on.

[00:01:22] I’m so sorry. I get this all the time. Honestly, babies are unpredictable. I talk about her all the time. She’s just made my whole life a rollercoaster.

[00:01:31] A one year old.

[00:01:33] Yes. To be one in a few days.

[00:01:36] So, so we talk about women in dentistry. And is it the right profession for a woman? Is it a good profession for a woman? As far as flexibility, kids, all of that. Now that you’re the busiest, you’re peaking. This is the most difficult it’ll ever be because young baby young practise. Can you corroborate? Was it a good idea to be a dentist from that perspective?

[00:01:57] Absolutely. Actually, it does give me the flexibility I’ve started easing myself back into work for when she was seven months and I could do half days with ease. It’s no, you know, I didn’t have to worry that I had to be in a position of nine to five or working five days, like some of my relatives who have to do that. Whereas with dentistry, I can work a day, two days, which I’m currently doing now. And you know, you can earn comfortably. You can work flexibly in the beginning when your baby needs you to. Like I was doing, I think it was definitely a great choice in terms of working life balance and, you know, being being a woman and wanting a family. I definitely find this is the profession that really allows you to do that. So, yeah, I’m very lucky that I picked a profession that I love and allows that balance that I always wanted.

[00:02:44] And is it? Do you have a partner in the practise or is it just, you

[00:02:48] Know, it’s myself, my husband and my brother. So my brother is a dentist, but my husband’s a chiropractor, although we do it together.

[00:02:56] So that’s good. So the fact that you were only there for two days a week, there is somewhat another owner there the rest of the time.

[00:03:01] Exactly. That’s kind of why we did it, because my brother actually has health issues as well. So he’s got Crohn’s disease. And sometimes because of that, just like as soon as I came off maternity leave, actually, it’s kind of like a tag team situation. He went for surgery. It’s one of those conditions. I don’t know if you know much about it, but you end up having lots of surgery throughout your life. So he’s been on sick leave for a few months, and he’s only coming back in a few days. So it was kind of comfortable for him and reassuring for him to know that actually he can take that leave because he’s the owner, but also his sister’s going to be there in the business, taking care of it. In the same way, when I was maternity leave, I knew my husband and my brother were taking care of it. So the question people ask me all the time, you know, do you feel like being a practise owner? You needed that. And I said, yes, I definitely would have bought a practise if I didn’t have my brother or my husband or someone to do it with. I really recommend you do it with somebody you trust.

[00:03:50] Yeah. And I think, you know, business in general can be very lonely unless you’ve got someone else. It’s it’s one of those I speak to, you know, a Prav, my co-host who’s not unfortunately, not with us today. He’s partnered in several businesses and then he’s got one on his own. And he says that the one on his own, when the chips are down, he really is on his own. There’s there’s no one else to talk to. But let’s take take me back. Let’s go to your origin story. You know, where did you grow up? Why did you become a dentist? When did that first come onto your agenda? What kind of kid were you? All of

[00:04:21] That? Mm-hmm. So I grew up in Harrow. I’m one of three middle child. Me, my brother became dentist. My sister’s an optician. I think I was the age of 12, kind of. When I decided to become a dentist, I had a great phobia. Up until then, I had to have some teeth removed when I was younger. So I just remember the horror of that feeling of having my teeth removed and the dentist being really scary, not knowing what was happening. And I just got to the age of 12, and I just remember thinking, I don’t want to be so scared of something, you know? And why can’t they be nice? Then it’s non scary dentists. And I was in my appointment with my dentist, and he was about to give me a lei for a filling. And I said to him, You know, I’m going to be a dentist, I’m not going to be a scary one. And he just started laughing at me. He just he just laughed because you think I’m scary, it’s absolutely terrifying. And I don’t know from then. I just kind of, you know, I have a couple of relatives as well that are dentists that it kind of help to see their lifestyle at the same time. And but I was 12 when I decided mainly routed by the fear of dentists and wanting to do the opposite. So, yeah, age of 12.

[00:05:21] But wasn’t that you kind of overcome your fear a little bit?

[00:05:26] Do you know the funny thing is, I still get nervous when I go to the dentist? Oh, you were just silly because obviously that’s to do with the childhood fear coming back up. But but yes, that’s kind of why I did it. Overcome it and make sure that my my patients come in and they come in terrified that they leave completely opposite, you know, having having had a blast head laugh even during their fillings, I talk non-stop. Sometimes they’re laughing and they’re like, don’t do that while we’re having a feeling.

[00:05:50] So I used to have a boss. He used to say, Oh, you young people like me. Obviously, I’m not young anymore, but you young. And the problem with you guys that you’ve never had much dentistry done yourself, so you’re not in touch with what it’s like to be a patient. And it resonated with me because a couple of times where I did need something, my wife’s a dentist. She’s into, you know, the nervous patient and all of that. Yes, and she gave me this ID block, which I did not feel at all. And and I’m a dentist, but I was I was. I kind of know what she was up to, right? Yeah, that started going numb. And at the moment, it started going numb. I started thinking, God, all those times I pushed that plunger in too hard. You know, I must have given thousands of I.D. blocks at that point and that the amount of, you know, damage I did to not not damage clinical damage, but damage to to the relationship by not just taking a little bit longer because she took a ridiculously long time to push that, but to take a long time myself. Yeah, yeah. But it it goes to show that some of those, you know, softer side, softer skills are even more important. All right. So so you decided then where did you go? Where did you study?

[00:07:06] I study at bots. So the one thousand nine bots on the London Yeah. Merits? What were you like what we liked as a student? Yeah, I’ve always been a studious student. I loved studying really sad. I know the opposite of many. A lot of people talk about the educational struggles, and they probably hate when I speak about the opposite and always feel a bit embarrassed, like, should I share it? But I just enjoyed school. I enjoyed studying. I enjoyed revising the way I used to work with. We had a building called the Gared Building. I had loads of educational rooms in there and I used to go in, go myself. I didn’t like the library because everyone used to come and chat to me and I’d get distracted. And when I’m there, I like to focus, so I’d get the whiteboard up and just draw and write and teach an imaginary class. And one or two people would come in to some of the guys from my year and they’d just sit there and they’re like, Can we listen? I’m like, Yes, listen. And then I would just teach it.

[00:07:56] I was teaching myself anyway, and they would learn. And then it was really nice to actually have someone listening. So I don’t have to have imaginary students, and that’s just my learning skill to teach and draw and write and make posters and then stick them around my house. And when I’d do brushing my teeth, I’d see something. Oh yes, remember that in my bedroom, on the wall something. Oh yeah. And somehow I’d remembered things just because I was walking past the posters every day. But yeah, that was my learning style. Even in school, even in school, actually in school, I actually used to have a photographic memory. I was lucky, so I could just be like Page 39, because to have these like what they called Fiji books or see, I don’t remember what the names of them there was like these colourful books like Biology, Chemistry and you just I used to remember, like, I’ll Page Forty Nine would have this guy on it. And this this is this. And when I got to uni, that photographic memory went, which is why I changed the teaching style.

[00:08:47] What helped when to help with the old vagus nerve or whatever?

[00:08:51] I guess they did. That’s where I draw the pictures you see and then have this funny new monarchs to try and remember it like really, really random ones.

[00:08:59] But have you had, you know, this theory? Are you the oldest or what are you a middle child? Well, the theory, you know, the idea of, OK, you’re saying you had a photographic memory kind of different, but the idea that the first kid comes along and says something funny and the parents say, Well, you’re the funny one, and then that that positive reinforcement music starts to be funny. Second kid comes along. Funny is taken and does says something clever, and the parents say, you’re the clever one. And then and then that sort of propagates itself. And, you know, like, why is it? It’s fascinates me. Like, how did you become that cat? Were you trying to please them? Like, what was it?

[00:09:38] My my sister is was that is the clever one, she’s got like a 98 percent for physics. She is the clever one. My brother’s the genius. He spent most of he spent most of his life being sick. So, you know, he was diagnosed at a young age with Crohn’s and he was really sick. And, you know, in college, they almost said to him, like, No, we have we can’t put him through because he hasn’t attended his whole maths class. And I was like, No, like just my dad was like, You admit him, he will sit the paper and he will get a name, don’t you worry. And he would be sitting sick in bed. And I just remember sitting there. All I did was read him the statistics book, and he came out with an A.. That’s what once I just read from one page, one cover to cover and

[00:10:16] He smashed it, the family failure

[00:10:18] And the family failure. This is the thing I have to say. I have to study and study like at least six weeks before and just study. And then I don’t know if you speak Punjabi or my family is to call me a monster, which means like, you know, in India, Pakistan, how they teach us articles, Apple vehicles policy, crosscut. So my dad would be like all this. She’s just doing her. I’m like, Yeah, I’m going to do that. I’m going to get that video because it’s not coming naturally. You know, even maths. I used to just scrape a pass in maths, biology, chemistry at like flying by. But maths was so hard. In the end, I got an A in A-levels, but it was really hard for me. Even now, everyone makes fun of me. My general knowledge is rubbish. I don’t I don’t listen to the news. I don’t read news articles because it depresses me. If anything is happening in the world like war and people fighting over things, it just makes me really upset and sad. So I just stay away from it, which is why I never know what’s happening unless it’s like something really big, like blows up on social media. I’m like, Oh, that’s what’s happening in the world. So ignorant. I know it’s so bad, but that’s me.

[00:11:19] And how about the when it went, Dennis, you became more practical. Did you take to that very easily as well or not?

[00:11:25] No, I found that quite hard. Such a crowd, perhaps root canals, but I think that was the lack of exposure and Dental school. I really think Dental school in the region. You know, the way they the way they do it. I passed having done eight canals, not eight teeth, eight canals. There was three separate teeth that had filled on a molar, two canals in one molar, three molar here. And they passed me. I came out of dental school, absolutely incompetent. I think the only thing I could probably do was be safe. Have an idea of the procedures, but was I couldn’t as hell. No, I became a good dentist in training.

[00:12:01] I think I agree with you. But the question of what do you want to take out? Yeah, if you want to put more in, like, for instance, I’ve got lots of problems with dental school. There’s no teeth whitening in dental school. Yeah, for no reason. Yeah. I mean, 20 years ago, there was a legal problem, but there’s lots of we did this composite course. Lots of dentists on the course don’t know what a line angle is. Yeah, yeah. And and yet a line angle. Yeah, lots of lots of dentists on the course don’t know the difference to the nanocomposite and a and a micro hybrid composite. These are things you use every single day. And yet we spend hours and hours and hours doing. I don’t know what was it, biochemistry or pipettes and

[00:12:40] Dental materials Dental.

[00:12:42] Now the question is which bit of it isn’t necessary? Because, you know, I’ve often thought some of that biochemistry bit take that out,

[00:12:50] But they should take that crap. Yeah, yeah, ridiculous. Like no actual microbiology of it. When do we ever take a biopsy and have a look underneath?

[00:12:57] But what if you want to be that Dental? What if you want to be that guy?

[00:13:00] You might want to do that one percent. They can go do that. But you know, 99 percent of us are drilling, billing, whitening, doing all those things we should be able to do. Be competent in doing your work now. Might the trainers have so much pressure? Because when I qualified from dental school three years later, I became a joint PhD trainer with my trainer, so I was one of the youngest. And when when I watch these PhDs like this, new dentists come out and join our practise and I was helping them. They would show me their impression, like, is this impression good enough? Like, No, this is this is basics. You should be able to take an impression and be confident in it. You know, it’s what you say.

[00:13:35] You couldn’t find two thousand nine.

[00:13:37] No, I started 2009 qualified 2014.

[00:13:40] So 2014 is still a bit early for scanners and things. Did you? You didn’t have scanners, scanners.

[00:13:46] What I thought we were taught composites in Dental school properly. I think I did like one or two composites. Kids aren’t even taught. Amalgam kings aren’t taught Malcolm, but I’ll bet that I had in 2020 one he couldn’t do an amalgam. I had to show him how to place an amalgam because he came from kings. I was like, How can you not place an amalgam? You have to say, no, you have to go into NHS dentistry for a year. Why wouldn’t they teach you that now?

[00:14:10] That’s a bit mad. Yes, a bit mad. Ok, so then you got out of dental school. What would your next move? Vti.

[00:14:17] Yeah, it was your first boss.

[00:14:19] I’m quite interested in the first boss being an absolutely important person as far as the team

[00:14:24] Was, and he was incredible. Just win the girl from High St Dental practise in Walthamstow.

[00:14:29] He’d been trained Jaswinder Gill from the other one.

[00:14:32] Everyone was mixed them up. I need to tell you just that, you know, so famous as a famous twin. You know, he’s in Walthamstow. He owns like. He’s like a practise tycoon, owns like multiple practises and, you know, he’s more in the business side of dentistry. He’s an oral surgeon, awesome guy. Completely he he completely goes to the opposite of what you’d expect trainers to do was so laid back. So chill, no hand-holding. I remember the first time I had to do a surgical extraction and I was like, Oh man, I did get two of these in uni just to pass the criteria. And he goes to me. I walked into a room. I said, I have to do operate four surgical extraction. I don’t know, can you come watch me? He said. This is, you know what you do. And there’s the patient in his chair who is a patient man. He goes, I’m just going to show him something. Yeah, you’re going to cut here. You’re going to cut here, right? So you can see you’re going to lift it, you’re going to cut the bone. You know what to do. You got to remove some bone enough to move the tooth and you’re going to lift out. No problem. I’ll come back and check on you in an hour. I left the room like walk. This is like two weeks a day after you training and now let you came back and he’s like, Oh, you got the tooth out? No problem. And he left. I was sweating. I was sweating. I was dying in that extraction. But he was right. He just got there. They’d take hours to gel and everything. He’s a cool. He’s a cool dude. He’s a cool dude. He doesn’t believe in something.

[00:15:51] What else do you learn from him apart from all, because he was an oral surgeon? But what else did you learn from him?

[00:15:56] You know, just to be like now I bought practise when I’m really stressed and this this practise stresses me out. I always remember one thing he said to me his dad died and he was still coming to work two days later, and he was busy and was running at practise and the staff were to his room complaining about something. And then he came to my room and I said, Don’t get it, don’t you need some time off? Don’t you get like stressed, overwhelmed that you need some time to yourself? And he goes, Yeah, I’ll be OK, but this is life. You know, it’s not one thing. It’s another thing. You know, you just could keep going, stay strong, and you just kind of said it in such a kind of calm way. And sometimes now in my head, when I’m overwhelmed, I just say to myself, You know, if it’s not this thing, it’s another thing, you know, not everything’s constant. If you’re having a really great time now this is going to pass if you’re having a really crap time right now. This will also pass, you know? So just try to find the joy in their everyday normal, pleasant moments, calm moments. The boring moments just enjoy those because, you know, nothing’s always the same as never, always going to be bad or was going to be good. So it just kind of that just stuck with me for some reason, and I just always kind of revert back to that in my head like just, you know, it’s going to be OK. It’s fine.

[00:17:09] It’s actually, you know, I had a crewmember multi changes. Do you remember that before your time?

[00:17:18] That’s before my time. I did read up on Moose.

[00:17:22] So boys and girls, the way it used to work before your phone had all the music on it was there was the CD players. And if you were really like up there, you had this thing called the CD Multichain, which is five CDs under the seat of your car. Yeah, I’m talking about in the car, in that black thing under the seat of your car, and it was actually revolutionary that you had five different CDs that you could listen to my

[00:17:45] Oh

[00:17:46] My CD multichain. You broke in my Alfa Romeo and I used to have and I could only play one CD and I could. I couldn’t even take it out. It was just I could only ever play one CD and the one CD I could play. Was that an Anthony Robbins one about overwhelm? How to handle overwhelm? And interestingly, there was 24 CDs in that in that collection. That’s the only one I remember. Yeah. And it goes to show how important repetition is here because I must have listened to that a thousand times. But if I’m ever in overwhelm, I know I can just go to that. What the five questions of overwhelmed that he said to ask yourself, and I’ll be out of overwhelm. And it’s very interesting that you’re saying if you’re ever in overwhelm, you think back to Dr. Gill and that moment. And wouldn’t it be great if we, you know, we had a thing to go to every time we were in? I don’t know, anxiety over, well, joy, and I’d really love what you said about, you know, not not realise, not not taking the happiness too far and not taking the sadness too far. Because when you’re doing content creation, which is what you’re doing, one of the biggest parts of that, I think, is when people say, Oh, Rob, you, you’re amazing. You’re amazing, you’re amazing. Don’t take that to heart. And if the rude person says something bad about you, don’t take that to heart, you know? So tell me about the how did you get into content creation? Your pages? Your pages call us Dr. Rob. Yeah, man. Yeah, sorry to have to rob you too difficult to remember, but that’s gone.

[00:19:22] Oh yeah, no, I I’m quite a private person, which people laugh at when they see me on social media now sharing everything like, Yeah, you’re private. But a few years back, my husband started his social media for marketing purposes to increase his patients because he’s a chiropractor. And he said to me, Why don’t you get on there as well? You know, be good. I said, I really need to market. My practise isn’t really need it. I was working just for somebody else at the point it was like, No, it’s good. Like, This is the way it’s going now. People get on social media and do something. And I said to him, But what will I do? Just whatever the dentist is doing is that know, be yourself. And I was like, Well, I don’t really have anything to offer them. These guys aren’t offering look at these guys have got so many more degrees and qualifications and they’re running courses and they’re doing, you know, they’ve got thousands of followers. They’re doing amazing things, you know, I’ve got nothing to offer. And plus, I feel too anxious, you know, people are going to judge me. People might do comments. You might say, Oh, that’s crap, dentistry, why are you even sharing that? And he’s like, Well, you’re not doing it for this. You’re doing it for yourself and your patients and your patients are going to love your work, you know? Yeah.

[00:20:23] And I said, not really. And we thought about it for a little while, and then he was like, You just need to do it. It’s part of growing, especially because this makes you so uncomfortable and you care so much what other people think. You just need to get on there and do it. So I did it. I started off my page. I looked at some other pages. Okay, so this is how everyone does it. A picture of themselves, a little quote and then some teeth. And let me start like that and I started like that. But in my stories, I thought, Let me be myself and I’ll share my day because nobody else seems to be talking about. And it’s just dentistry. And I’m predominantly an NHS dentist. So I started sharing an amalgam, filling the fact that I see 20 30 people a day doing a check-up here, some kids, and then I’ll share some of my composite bonding, some of my whitening talk about, Oh, this is how you do whitening. And I show so all my stories. And funnily enough, not patients. But dentists started messaging me young dentists, dentists from uni being like, Oh wow, it’s so nice to see someone sharing amalgam or a feeling or an extraction, and you’re sharing kind of tips about the different types of anaesthetic. And it’s so nice because when we look on social media, all we see is lime bleach and bond smile makeovers.

[00:21:28] That’s what we thought the industry was like, and you need not teaching us this and we feel really anxious that we can’t like know do dentistry this good and not just young university dentists, but also colleagues. Some people are older than me saying I was so nice. I felt like really incompetent and disheartened when I see all the work thinking I haven’t achieved enough, you know, because I’m not doing this and I’m just an NHS dentist, I’m just a general dentist. I haven’t done any specialisms. I haven’t done anything. All I’m doing is fillings. And so it just kind of started from then. I just started showing more. More followers came and then I thought, How can I help them in a different way? And I thought these people that they look up to? What happens if I just show them that they’re normal people? And a marketing company reached out to me Dental hype and they say, Look, we want to start doing X Y Z project, and we like the way you talk on camera to your stories. Can we work together? You know, and I said, OK, sure. So we started interviewing all the big dentists. You know, Ryan Eskander, Simon chant. You know, all the famous guys, doctors say the aesthetics, all of them, and just getting them to open up on a little show we made called influence about their insecurities, their fears, how they got to the success where they are now and made little videos.

[00:22:39] And, like you said, all the positive messages rolling. And it’s so nice to see that they just normal people and you know that they do get anxious and this is what they’ve done to get where they are and you know, how to grow and how to improve themselves and their successful tips. And then from there we went on to I just kind of when I left the video side of things, I thought, Let me go on to now the educational side of things, because people like the tips that I share about Scotch bond and they’re like, Oh, let’s talk about Scotch bond, or they don’t talk about this kind of material and different composites and, like you said, line angles. I remember once talking about that, my story and someone said, Oh, I didn’t know about this, and because they didn’t know these tips that I picked up from courses and stuff, they kind of were reaching out to me even more. And I just started reaching out to these dentists that produce amazing work and said, Do you mind doing this with me on Instagram? And they were like, Sure, and I was learning and I was teaching at the same time, and I love it. My two favourite things learning and teaching. So that’s kind

[00:23:33] Of where I’ve seen, I’ve seen. So I definitely saw the influence series and that was in person. You could go into their practises. I wasn’t taking quite a long time, right? The organisation and all that.

[00:23:45] So I took it when they’re free and when we’re free.

[00:23:47] Yeah, yeah. And then the other thing was, you call it toe topics or something.

[00:23:51] That was my new thing. I did myself.

[00:23:52] Yeah, yeah. So do you get nervous? Sometimes if you if you’re going to talk to someone who’s an owner, it’s funny because you pick like you said, you pick some of those subjects that aren’t necessarily the sexiest subjects canal. Yeah. If you’re going to go talk to an expert on dentures, do you sometimes get nervous that you’re not up with the latest or up with the latest questions to ask? Or are you or are you up with all of that? Or do you do homework before?

[00:24:18] That’s the thing. No, I didn’t even do homework because I thought, if I’m going to, you’re just going to my dad.

[00:24:23] Just be yourself and ask your curiosity.

[00:24:26] I don’t know exactly what my dad is an engineer, and he went into teaching and he said to me, Do you know what? Because when we were younger and when he would teach us something, he’d be like, OK, that’s it. Now you should know how to do it. Oh, I, dad, this makes sense to you. But remember, I’m done. This does not make sense to me or we explain it, and he’d get frustrated teaching us. And then when he became a teacher, he noticed that everyone has different abilities. It doesn’t just make sense to everyone the same way because my dad is like, he’s a physics maths genius, and because it made sense to him, he didn’t understand how to teach it. Then over time, you start breaking it down and realise that actually someone needs to learn a different way. So I thought if I pre learn, then I’m going to only touch a topic on the surface. But if I don’t know anything, I will ask questions how the viewer would like to know, like when I come in and say, OK, I’ve studied already about copy Dental. Is this how you do it? But if I say, how do you actually do this? How do you actually take that putty and make a copy of a denture? Oh, you cut a wedge in it and line it up. And then my videos were showing me learning, and then they were learning as I was learning, because otherwise you end up skipping up these tiny details that people don’t otherwise pick up or understand how to piece together. So I just felt, let’s just go in like me. I don’t need to know everything to teach.

[00:25:40] They’re really good. And you’ve got there’s a wacky side to the way that you come across. It’s almost like a crazy, crazy professor, kind of. I know that’s not the right word. That’s not the right, but I like it. But there is something your performance seems so natural like. And you know, I was thinking when I first time I saw you, I thought, This is it. This is amazing. This is this is you. And, you know, jazz gulati. You know the idea?

[00:26:06] Yeah, he’s cool, guy. Yeah.

[00:26:08] Well, you and Josh Gulati, for me, are just such a brilliant sort of not the normal way people have to learn that people don’t have to go to university and get a degree. Yeah. People can learn in lots of different ways. And when I saw your content, when I saw it, I thought, this is really, really valuable. It actually made me think of something. You know, we do this composite course with Depeche Palmer.

[00:26:28] Hmm, look, cool guy ahead of him.

[00:26:30] He’s very, very, very strong, but he doesn’t like social media. Yeah. And I was thinking, this girl, Rob, who I’d never met you before here is actually impacting more lives than Dipesh, who’s a composite genius. But the lives that he’s impacting are the ones in the room, you know, the the 30 delegates that turn up

[00:26:51] And can afford to. Yeah.

[00:26:54] And if you look at Jay-Z, I don’t know if you watch Jay-Z’s of Dental podcast yet.

[00:27:00] I need to. I’ve seen a couple of people mention it.

[00:27:02] I loved it so much. I sponsored it. And it would be like, you know, you’d think, Oh, there might be some sort of competition between this podcast and not at all. I loved it. I adored it. And what I particularly love about it is that, you know, learning in a different way. Learning because you want to learn. You know, that’s the beautiful thing about it. If I’m on your page looking at your content, it’s because I want to be there. And if you’re saying something in a way that connects to me. Amazing. Amazing that, you know, we talk about all the terrible things about social media, but this just amazing new stuff. You know, I take my hat off to you. I really do. Thank you so much. So, OK, let’s go back to your career. You did that job with Dr. Gill.

[00:27:45] What that? So I stayed there for quite a few years because, you know, although it was a Nash bash job in Walthamstow, everybody is exempt. Everybody needs dentures, everybody needs crowd. And they literally do. I kind of actually was actually after my VTA, I applied for an oral surgery position because as you do when you come out, they tell you you must do PhD, you must do it. It’s like a robotic system. Nobody tells you what you should be doing. They just tell you this is what you should do. So I thought, OK, I’ll just do that. I applied. I got into Norfolk Park, which is like around the corner from my house, and I thought, I’m going to do this. And apparently I still don’t know to this day how this happened. Divine intervention I did press accept on the offer. So then my my fat gene comes to me, son. I’m over haredi at the time and she goes to me, Rabbi, you, I haven’t got your references into four Norfolk, Parker said. Do you mean she’s I got everyone else’s? Yours hasn’t come through and I’ve logged to the portal. She’s like, You did. Except I said, Yeah, I was the first one was I remember I was at Manchester BBC and I pressed Accept and I told everyone else to accept. And the open Dental says, you declined and you declined your offer because you didn’t accept blah blah. Oh my god, I cried for twenty four hours, Payman because that interview was flipping hard and I did really well because I studied like, you know, my zombie self. I did, and I got the place I wanted. And then she called up.

[00:29:00] She’s like, Oh, there’s me crying on the side, I believe on my training days to crying in the corner and she called, and they’re like, nothing we can do really giving it to somebody else. And she was just like, Robbie’s can apply next year. I was like, No, I don’t want to fly next year. I’m going to go back into general dentistry. This is bullshit. And I went back to my doctor and I was like, Oh, can I work for you? And he’s like, I’ve only got I can only offer you two days because I thought you were going to go direct. And I was like, Oh man. So I did two days for him, and then I found another job up in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, which was less NHS. So I thought, OK, I need to be diverse. If I spread my days out, I’ll keep it exciting. So two days nash bashing and two days something a bit nice where I can upskill, you know? And I did, and I worked maybe three years like that, spread across two practises, and I stayed on in Walthamstow because I had the opportunity of becoming a trainer. And I thought this will be nice to get to teach. You know, I was already teaching them new ones that came out because they would come to me because they were scared of Dr. Gill. As cool article is, he’s got a very scary persona. It’s quite big, big guy. And very much like, yeah, this is this is his response. Like, it’s not a very like warm, a motherly, you know, you can do this, go off, you go, why are you asking me the stupid question?

[00:30:08] So seek danger,

[00:30:11] Jesse, because I heard the one time actually even told me off because, you know, this patient came like half an hour late and I was like, I can’t see them. Like, I’ve got this Payman in my room and he goes, Rob, yeah, I heard you said, you’re not going to see a patient. And I was like, they were half an hour late. Dr Gill, I’m running really late already. He’s like, How dare you say, no, you’re not going to see a patient? He’s like, How many times do we run late? I’m like, Sometimes we do because somebody else turns up late. That makes us more late, and I’m already running late and I’ll be one hour late. He goes, Doesn’t matter. He goes, I hate this dentist, but sit in their office and they sit there with their arms crossed and they refuse to see a patient that’s late, but they’ll run late themselves. He said, Look, I looked at the end of the day, you actually had time here because this patient cancelled, never refused to see a patient. You tell them, I understand you’re late. I will fit you in at some point. He actually actually, I have to say he told me that, and I’ve never actually refused to see a patient, even if they’re late. I tell them, Look, I know you’re late. Things happen. That’s fine. You take a seat and I’ll see you where I can and they appreciate that. And I said, If you can’t wait, I’m happy to reschedule you. And to be honest, most patients of mine aren’t. But if they are, I never have to see them. I’m still traumatised from the telling off I got.

[00:31:10] But yeah, it’s a good point. It’s a good learning point. I agree with that. Yeah, I agree with that.

[00:31:15] Yeah, yeah. So I feel kind of sorry to digress. But yeah, I became a great trainer with him. Yeah. And then after that, my mum in 2018 was diagnosed with cancer. So she’s all better now, but she was diagnosed then, and it was really hard to take her to appointments and be there for her, and I wanted to be there for her. Not that nobody else could, but I wanted to be the one because I felt like I was doing something. So I said, Doctor, go, I can’t travel. It takes me an hour and a half to get to an hour and half back this three hours of my day. I just need to find a local practise, and I did. I found a local practise that left Dr Gill. The local practise is where I work now in Elizabeth. So I joined the twenty seventeen and then I just stayed in 2018, which was diagnosed. I just kept there. Three days left Dr. Gill and Mom got better. But then I, you know, just held on to this practise and bought it in 2019. So there for three years or two years before I bought it.

[00:32:10] Tell me, tell me about tell me about what was going through your head regarding buying this practise?

[00:32:16] Well, I was in that. I always wanted to buy a practise, actually. I’ve no idea why. Now, when I think of, I now have a practise, I’m like it. Why was I always wanted? I always want to buy what I wanted to do because I knew I didn’t want to specialise. You know, I thought, you know, it’s not for me. I don’t want to do all surgery. And though I like doing a bit of everything, I don’t want to specialise. So it’s usually specialised or you become a practise owner, you know? You know, I did really think I was staying associate was an option for me at that time. I just kind of thought by all socialised and thought by is the one for me. And, you know, I’ll get to do things my way and build something and do something again outside of my comfort zone because I see myself as an academic. Business is so out of my comfort zone, you know, to to go to work nine to five, do what you’re done and be done with. It is one thing, but to then be there thinking about it. Twenty four, seven, how you’re going to grow, supporting other people, it’s a completely different thing. And it seemed a lot easier at the time that buying in a pandemic and then running it when nobody else could give you advice because nobody else knew what was going on. They had no clue, you know, ask somebody for advice and we have no idea what to do.

[00:33:18] This is a new thing for us. It was a really hard, really hard. But I did an interview with another dentist on Instagram, and he asked me if you could take a time machine and go back and buy the practise. Still, would you? And it took me ages to come to the answer, but I said yes because I’ve been so stressed these past two years, but I think I have learnt and grown so much from it more personally than business wise, you know, learning how to deal with my anxiety and stress. And I learnt a really important thing recently that because I’m a people pleaser and I want to make everyone happy and you know, everyone to like me, and there’s just something great. I mean, I think it’s ingrained in all humans. We all want, you know, that’s what we’re designed to, you know, get like us. I realise that being a leader and a boss is very different to being an associate. When I was associate working there with the staff, they loved me. I was great, you know, I didn’t. I didn’t pay their wages. I didn’t tell them what to do. I’d come in two days, have a laugh. Biden staff leave, but now I’m there telling them that I need them to be on time. I need to do this, you know? You know, I order organisation changing rules. I realised to be a great leader. Sometimes you can’t necessarily be likeable at all times. That’s something I really struggle with.

[00:34:30] Me too. It’s hard. I’ve got a big issue with that myself. But but there’s two ways around it. One. One of your partners becomes that.

[00:34:39] That Can I make my husband doing your husband to my brother? Be the meanie. But still, then they tend to you to look for other things, so you still have to sometimes.

[00:34:47] Yeah, that’s what I was going to say. The other side of it is with experience. You get to the point of realising that that is leadership. Having those uncomfortable conversations,

[00:34:59] I really struggle Payman, I

[00:35:00] Mean, look, there’s some there are some conversations that I’ve had to have, sometimes with people who who who would like, you know, were instrumental in the growth of the business. People who who give, you know, they were doing, you know, they say they would sleep on the floor with me if I asked them to. They would, yeah. And yet that person’s no longer in the right job. And it’s, you know, how do you how do you deal with that? It’s another totally difficult, you know, we say people pleaser. I’m definitely that guy. But but it comes down to in the end that, you know, leadership is about lots of things. But one of them is that I think I think though, you’ve got all the other things right down. Yeah, because the main thing is communicating with your people

[00:35:47] And communicating, I think I’m too open and too honest to the point where I tell them, tell them, like we just spent, you know, 40 grand, just fixing the bloody boiler. I don’t know how this exploded. And then we got the electrician and the chair, and I tell, I’m really open and really honest. Sometimes my partner is like my husband, brother, like, you don’t have to tell staff everything. And I’m like, Yeah, I know, but that’s for me. That’s I think I talk too much. I tell everyone

[00:36:10] Everything. We publish our numbers every day.

[00:36:14] Yeah, honestly, you could Google me, you know where I live, my back for my password, for everything because it’s the same. Like someone’s going to hack me and take my money.

[00:36:22] So tell me, OK, you’ve got that side of it, the leadership, the leadership side of it. But what about the pandemic? You bought it. And straightaway, that was pandemic

[00:36:31] 5th of April. We signed the contract. I mean, I because we just got back from Australia because my husband’s Australian and went to this family and there were while we were out there, they’re like, Don’t come back. It’s really weird here. Like people are queuing in the shops. Things are like, you know, missing from the shelves. There’s no toilet paper happening so easily. Like in Australia, everything was normal at that time that I just stay there. I was like, No, I’m going to come back. We’re going to sign these papers, you know, we’re buying the practise. Yeah, and we came back and we’re like, Should we do this? This is a good time. Like, is this we’re about to put millions into this tiny two and a half chair and it’s just practise in either worthless that house. It’s not even like a magnificent thing, you know, then I just practise those are listening, you know, goodwill costs an arm and a leg and kidney in our brain. It costs so much. So we spent a lot of money on this tiny little place to go and we should be between this should we be actually investing in this?

[00:37:19] And were you convinced that buying an NHS practise, I mean, you’re not thinking, you know, private.

[00:37:25] I’ve always worked in NHS and I I think it is a flawed system for dentistry, but I do believe in the NHS and I just feel like if they come up with a better system, it can benefit all. Like, you know, the banking system is truly ridiculous and you know, you can get a root canal for a Bantus and you can get a mouth guard for a three. It’s it’s really stupid system, but I still believe in it, you know, and a lot of people rely on and I do find that and it just brings patients in and it brings in goodwill. And like, I’ll get patients come in for NHS check up, but leave with an Emacs crown and wanting Invisalign just because they want to know that they have access to the NHS because they feel the working class like myself, and they want to know that they can access that. It doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to go for all amalgam fillings. And so I think there is a tactical business logic to it as well, not just I believe in the NHS. There’s a bit of everything going into it. And it’s also that security that during the pandemic, we still had the NHS money coming in. You know, whereas private practise, a lot of them struggled unless they had, like done plan and practise plan and that kind of money coming in and patients hadn’t cancelled it. The those practises were struggling. And I think then it just kept us afloat.

[00:38:31] But there’s a group. I mean, there’s definitely a group of people now saying they’re going to leave the NHS because of this.

[00:38:36] Oh, loads. I did a poll the other day like five percent, 80 percent. Well, that’s on the BDA. Yeah, but like 50 percent of people might think that voting, I think, was about one hundred and two said that they are leaving. Yeah. And I was like, Wow, that’s not.

[00:38:50] You’re not thinking that yourself.

[00:38:52] No, I own the business. So, you know, and I’ve just paid a lot of it, a lot of money for that kind of contact. I had paid for that. Goodbye paid for that. And it’s like, I can’t leave it. Sometimes I think, yeah, we should. But no, it would be a really bad business decision and it would lose a lot of money if we do that. So hopefully that just doesn’t go anywhere any time soon. But maybe if I was working for someone else, then maybe, yeah, maybe I would. Maybe it would tell me about keep it to a limited number.

[00:39:20] So tell me about motherhood. I mean, we discussed it at the beginning. I’m the chuckling. I mean, you are you still as sort of into teeth as you were before being a mother?

[00:39:33] Yes, surprisingly. But I find it harder to be so because before I had Ilana, I would just be like, message somebody on his tribe like, Oh hey, Ahmed, feel you know you do great composites. You teach really well. Can I just come to you? Like, yeah, I’m in Pimlico. If I jump on a train one hour. Go over there. Film with him. Come back. Now it’s like, I want to film with somebody, but I have Ilana and my husband needs to go to work. I don’t want to put her in nursery, so I can’t really. It has to be a day where I can be like him. Do you mind taking the day off? Did you watch it? Then I can go film like even now today to do a podcast review so that she’s not crawling around and screaming and jumping on me. Like, come to my mum’s house and said, Can you watch her for a bit while I’m on a podcast? So it’s it’s a lot harder to work around. It’s not as flexible when you have a baby in terms of my free time is no longer my free time. But in terms of loving dentistry, the two days I go back to work now, I do love it. I absolutely love it.

[00:40:25] I love it even more, right? Because yeah, me time. My wife, my wife used to say, it’s me time and I can understand it. Meeting someone else. It’s not weird.

[00:40:35] Yeah, I know they say that, right? You’ve got your work life, your family life, and then you’ve got your meet my me time. Work time is the same because I don’t really have any time. So I get to go to work, talk to my staff. I get to chat to my patients. Have a laugh, do some dentistry and then come home to my baby and just love and miss her even more.

[00:40:52] I mean, bit of advice and you know, there’s no right or wrong in all of this. Yeah, but nanny. And I honestly, honestly, you’re busy. Yeah, yeah. And you know, your mom, I don’t know where she lives and how far away she is and all that, all of that lucky, but not too far. But, but, you know, busy people and you should consider nannies in general. And we had a nanny. She stayed with us for 12 years now. Ok. It’s not always going to be like that. You might struggle. You can’t trust people. There was a time where every time my kid used to say something amazing, I was like, what? Actually, Matt? And then she said, Oh, the nanny taught me that. And I would sort of feel like, Wait a minute, this is cool. Yeah, you’re getting something other than flexibility out of out of the out of your nanny.

[00:41:39] My mom is like my current nanny at the moment. She’s terrific.

[00:41:42] Yeah.

[00:41:43] And she’s the one who teaches a lot of everything.

[00:41:45] I mean, maybe I’m saying both sets of grandparents of my parents and my wife’s parents were both abroad, so we had to have someone to help us out or whatever. But it’s a bit like your first employee. You know, you need someone to push you into hiring sometimes, you know. We’re like that enlightened my partner, Sanjay. Whenever there’s a problem, he’s thinking, Who? Who can we bring in to take care of this problem? And for me, my natural position isn’t normally to think of hiring. You know, I like I say no, right? Or What are you going to have more?

[00:42:19] I would like to. I would like to, but I kind of want to because I found out when we signed the papers for the practise in April and then we had to close the doors the next day. I was really sick. I thought I was just tired and stressed and thought, week close a practise, you know, I can’t furlough the staff, can’t get business grant because technically we counted as a new business because we were after March. Anybody before March got all the grants and we didn’t. I thought, Oh, this just must be the stress of this is why I’m getting sick and tired, and

[00:42:44] I feel like working capital to cover that all your staff’s wages for three months.

[00:42:49] So luckily, because the money was still coming in, of course.

[00:42:52] Of course, of course.

[00:42:52] Of course, costs were you able to not furlough them, but we just told them, Look, stay home, we’re going to pay you, we’re going to fixed ours. Six, We just paid all the staff. You’re going to get a fixed wage if you want to come in a couple hours a day, you can do. And we had our receptionist calling all the people over 60, checking that they could get the food and shopping done and stuff like that, you know, and that’s a lot of times the nurses would come in and just reorganise the shelves and the cupboards and just a couple of hours just to keep them on. They enjoyed it so that I could get out of the house could attract at home. So they kind of enjoyed coming to the practise and they’d be like, Look, there’s no fixed hours, nothing. You paid nine to six. But if you want to come and you can, and then we just started redecorating because we were inside the practise that we were, OK, let’s just paint the surgery. Let’s do a few things. And like when I was painting, I was like, Oh, I’m getting old. And then I took a pregnancy test is like, Oh, OK, so I got the practise. I got the baby exactly the same time. So yeah, that was a big, big surprise.

[00:43:46] And how about this book now? I mean, it’s not like you weren’t busy enough

[00:43:50] And you started the book before the practise and before. But oh, really? Yeah. So when I started social media actually about a year after Nicola had been following me for a while to go, I you said you just interviewed her recently. Yeah, I love you. And she, similar to the media company, just messaged and said, OK, I really like the way you talk on your stories. I like you and you know, you seem young and full of energy. I have a project for you. Come meet me at my practise. And then I told my husband this random lady brand of Iranian lady. She looks quite sweet on her stories. She wants to meet me for a project is like what project looks like. She hasn’t said she’s uses a secret project, because why are you going to go meet this random Iranian dentist lady? You don’t know to do a secret project you don’t know about? He, just like she could be weird. I was like, No, I can see her videos. She’s not weird. She’s just, he’s not. Why you? I said I didn’t know. She said she thinks I’m nice. She’s been following me. She’s like, OK. Then I went to her practise in her will. So she has. She has to. And I went there and she goes, I want to write a book. And she was like, people my age. They just they just don’t. They’re not interested anymore. They want to retire. They don’t have the zest to this. And she’s like young people. They don’t have the knowledge, but she’s like, You’re you’re in the middle. You seem to have the time, the knowledge, the zest for dentistry doing a work on this project with me. And I said, sure.

[00:45:01] I said, if we’re 50 50 partners, I’ll put in as much energy as you want me to. But I said, you know, I want my money that I come from this to go to charity because I’ve been looking for a project to do for charity. So do you mind if I do something like that? She’s like, I have no problem. I said, OK, let’s work on it. So we just started working. She had some ideas already. She’s like, I want it to be like a flow chart book. And I said, Whatever, you know, I’m ditzy and brown, so we’re taught like, you know, if I was older than you just kind of say, I was like, Yeah, whatever you want to call, I will do it this way. She’s like, Can you come to a practise? Yes, we’ll do it. Yes, boss, like everything. And so she loved it. This partnership worked. I had so much respect for her because she had so much knowledge and so much time and energy to share with me. And I just had the time at the time to sit there writing up stuff, looking at evidences, looking at papers. And when I started doing the project, it was quite exciting because I was like, Oh wow, you know, there’s 10 different ways you can do this. There’s 20 different ways you can do this. And you know, all the evidence is behind things, and we just started working on the book. And yeah, I just went from there, just kind of spiralled and just got bigger, and we started making more chapters and adding more things. And it just. Came this dead Australian after an exciting project for the two of them really

[00:46:02] Is really interesting, so fully for charity. It was just your bit for charity and Nick Nick Fury.

[00:46:11] I think Nicola’s doing a few things. Tragically, she was mentioning there’s a few things she wants to do, but I never question is that whatever you do with your heart is your blood. I always mention, I always say my profits are one hundred percent go there. But there is a few things she’s doing for charity as well. But I had a few places that I wanted to help and I want is I don’t know if you know who does wells and wills. Yeah. So just donated there for a village there, which was quite nice. And there’s a few schools in Pakistan and there’s some homeless shelter here in the UK. Hand on heart, I like there what they do for their charities, so I just kind of wanted to find a way to make a difference because I feel like my time isn’t my time now. So if I can’t donate my time for charity, at least I could donate some wealth. So something

[00:46:50] Crappy. Why are you that person now who wants to do something for charity and believes in the NHS for what it is? And you know what? Why don’t you do the other type of, you know, like make as much money as I can and

[00:47:04] Maybe religiously like and from things that happened in my life? You know, when I got married to ill two weeks, three weeks after his mum passed away from cancer, she was diagnosed four months before the wedding with melanoma, and she passed away two weeks after the wedding, which was Australia. It was really stressful time actually flying back and forward, and we got married early before the wedding date so I could fly with him, you know, practise her parents, Pakistani. They’re not gonna let me fly with her, with my fiance to Australia. You get married in the mosque, got off. You go and then you fly to Australia. And then we saw her in the hospital that she was like, No, you guys go back for your wedding. I want to see your wedding pictures. I can’t be there the wedding, but I want my son to have his wedding. So we flew back and then three days flew back into Australia. And then she she was in palliative care for two weeks, and then she passed away. And when my father was putting her stuff away, you know, her PhD is under What do I do with her PhD? What I do with her gold jewellery? Look, I walk in closet with all these clothes. What do we do if she’s not taking anything with her? And it’s true. We don’t. We don’t take anything with us. You know, we only think you really can leave behind is people who might say something nice about you. And I remember at the funeral when everybody met me, we didn’t have our reception to laughter and they were like that that up in the black, she must be a Carlile’s new wife.

[00:48:19] You know, that’s that’s her daughter, Leaders, Janet’s daughter in law, and I can hear people whispering, then they’ll come up to me like, Oh, you know, sorry about your mother in law. She was amazing, and everyone had these wonderful things to say about it. She’s so helpful. She helped us with this and she helped me do this, and she was so kind. And it’s just it was amazing to hear about her because I didn’t know her for very long and I thought, you know, when I die, would what would people say about me? Have I helped anyone? Have I touched anybody in a special way to make them feel that they would want to come to my funeral and say something? And, you know, so I just felt like maybe I hadn’t made enough an impact in somebody else’s life other than mine or my family’s. So I thought, how can I help somebody else? You know, how can I leave something behind that benefits others? And then I started becoming a bit religious and studying into it and thinking, Oh, what is religion about? What makes somebody a good person? What means somebody will enter heaven, whatever religion you believe in with, you know what? What, what is it? And every religion, text, religious textbook you read, every religion you look into is about what do you do for others? So I just started looking at, OK, what can I do for somebody other than myself? And yes, that’s where it kind of came from.

[00:49:28] That’s beautiful. You know, I’ve been recently thinking about religion, about God. I don’t believe in God myself, really. But but the question of do you believe or don’t you believe that now is less important to me then should there be a God or shouldn’t there be a God? And where I’m coming from is? Give it another five, 10 years. Yeah, and we could easily arrange for AI and computers to literally keep an eye on everyone. Yeah, yeah. If there was this fact checker in your in your ear that there was a situation where I can’t lie to you because as soon as I tell a lie, your your fact checker just, you know, tells tells you. And and if the computer knows and it does, it already knows where you are, what you’re buying. All of that stuff, if it knows your intention and all that. Yeah, yeah. Is it a good thing? Will society be better off if everyone knows there’s a third party, an outside force, checking up on them rather than with God? It’s like, OK, he’s all knowing all that. But not, but not everyone believes in God. Yeah, true. But so, so if we all knew there was an outside force checking up, checking up on us, would we be? Would we be a happier society or not?

[00:50:41] It would be a happier society. It wouldn’t be a society. Yes, very different society. So I did check. I would say, I think twice before doing something dodgy. If you think the police is watching you.

[00:50:50] That’s the thing. Yeah, that’s the thing.

[00:50:53] I think that’s where the religious, you’re right. There’s a lot of religion. You have the group that do it out of fear, like God is watching me. God will punish me. And you have the group that do out of love that I do it for the love of God and the love of people, you know? So you would end up with, I think, a fear based society, which I don’t know if always is the best way. But I guess if you’re scaring people into not murdering and not stealing, maybe that’s not a bad thing.

[00:51:14] Well, you know, you know, traditionally you’re a good person and you go to heaven or whatever. Yeah. This way you could be a good person. The computer could drop bitcoin into your account, you know, like it could be like something that’s like, you know, you

[00:51:27] Think I like your system?

[00:51:29] I’m not necessarily saying it’s a good idea because I don’t want outside force knowing what I’m doing all the time. But but what I’m saying is it’s it’s it’s we’re there. We’re literally there. We could, we could set it up. You know,

[00:51:41] It’s I honestly, I talked about vacuum cleaner the other day and now keeping adverts for a shark vacuum cleaner. And I really haven’t I? Yeah, they already watching. They know everything. If I stare at it bit too long for necklaces and now my Instagram, every advert is like a monarch of another day or Pandora necklace, so they know everything about us already.

[00:52:00] It’s kind of a good thing, though, isn’t it? Because it’s better, better that than than you get ads for, you know, shavers, you know,

[00:52:07] You have a point. Now I spend more and I don’t need to.

[00:52:11] Let’s let’s move on to darker days. Hmm. We ask everyone this question on this podcast. What’s been your worst day in dentistry? Maybe it’s maybe it was your most difficult patient, maybe your biggest mistake that you made on a patient, something a story that you know, give us your juiciest story that we can all learn from. It’s not just about juicy, right? Something, something we can all learn from. Something you would have done differently in retrospect. On reflection,

[00:52:42] Don’t think it was super dark when actually surprising. You don’t have a juicy, juicy, dark one. I think maybe we haven’t done enough exciting dentistry yet to do a super dark. I know amazing small smokers yet. What kind of the aligned region bond safe dentistry I’ve been practising, you know, none of those full mouth rehabs recently. I could think of a mistake I did recently. You know, I came off maternity leave and it’s been a while and I did have beautiful crowd prep. It was just so nice. And on the, you know, I looked at the x ray, but I didn’t really look at the x ray and I didn’t look at the distal margin, how low it was. And I came to it and I thought, Oh, the gum looks a little bit higher here. I just like a gentle ginger to me. Put the crown on patients. Happy hunky-dory. Two months later, she came to me last week and it’s popped off and she’s like, You know, I’ve got ten crowns in my mouth and none of them have come off. They’ve been in there for years. How did this one come off? And then I looked at the x ray and she needed crown lengthening. Obviously, the distal margin was so close to bone, and had I just spent the time looking at the PA that I took, so I did a very robotic. I took my PA and looked at it. No pre-collision. I didn’t assess anything else. Yeah, I tried to blame the fact I just come off maternity leave and I was acting in a robotic fashion. But actually, I think if I just spend a little bit longer looking at the x ray, I think I was just overwhelmed by the fact that I’d come in how to keep to time had to do this and so that everything was beautiful.

[00:54:06] How did you handle it? What did you say?

[00:54:08] I told her, actually, I just said to her, I only said her name. Then I said, the patient, lovely patient Miss X. I said to her, If I tell you honestly, the reason is everything is perfect. I use the best crowned best materials. Lithium, like a crown comes with a five year guarantee is called iMac’s crown. As you can see here, I should have pictures and one thing we have in our practise into your camera and I love it. I swear by it. I tell all dentists on my stories. Forget if you can’t afford an SLR, get yourself into your camera. So that is a lifesaver to save you so many times. And I take pictures and it opens up that communication with patients. And, you know, if I forget the dark days, if I give you one lesson to them is invest in a thousand fifteen hundred pound like intra oral camera. You can take pictures and your patients yourself will look at the picture and be like, Oh my God, I got a whole year. Oh, I’ve got Tata here. I need to see the hygienist. They tell you what they need rather than saying, Oh, you need four fillings instead and they leave thinking, Do I really need the filling? Do I not need the fillings because they don’t understand x rays? Even though I show them the x rays and I show them both levels, I show them this black shadow is decay. What does that really mean to them? But when I take photographs, then I put a photograph next to X Ray and I say, Look, can you see this grey doing? And you see this x ray? This is a cavity, but can you see here the black dot here? But that’s just staining because it’s not sticky, and I take a long time communicating everything to them, and I leave the worst picture of their mouth behind me.

[00:55:29] And when they talk to me, I can see them just looking at picture thinking, Oh, that’s my mouth, and they’re trusting me. And because they can see what’s in their mouth and they always say to me, I’ve never seen inside my mouth like that before, and I’ll take a picture of the calculus. But you see the hygienist, they’re like, Oh, yes, I need that. And for this lady, what? I’d done it. I’d taken a picture throughout. I’d taken a picture of a preparation because that distal margin was low and I’d warned her that you might need root canal. So my fear was that she was going to come back and she might need an end date. But it turned out the crown in popped off and I explained to her I said, Look, I was hoping to get away with doing a crowd without needing to resect any bone. But actually? And even if I’m truthful, I should have said to her it was my mistake. I should have cut the bone down and then done this, and I wouldn’t. It popped off what? I slightly added a little bit of. I’m not untruthfulness, but I didn’t fully say to her, This is this is this I said to her I was hoping to avoid to need crown lengthening. But I said, ideally, I said to her, I should have done this from the start, but I didn’t.

[00:56:29] And this is why the Crown has come off. If I was you, I’d also be upset because now you have to go through this procedure again. I would like to give you a refund, so I gave her the full refund. I’m going to stick this crown back on today and because it’s been two years since I’ve done a crown, the procedure myself, I’m qualified to do it after the course and training in it. I don’t want to do this for you because I know I’m not the best person to give you the outcome that this tooth deserves. So I have another dentist, Dr. Navid, and he’s fantastic at what he does, and I will share your case with him and he will be able to do this for you. And she was like, I was absolutely fine. I said, If you’ve lost trust in me, I completely understand. And she goes, No, she was. I came back to you because I trust you. You’re the only dentist I ever been to that showed me all the pictures of mouth told me all the problems in my mouth, and you even said to me that I could go for the cheaper option. But I still picked this option because of the way you described it to me. So. She was like, no, I haven’t lost trust in me. And she goes, I blame my stars. She’s like, I’ve had a lot of bad things happening lately. It’s in my stars. So blasé was that kind of vision. It could have been a patient that could have been the complete opposite. You don’t blame the stars and blamed me and my competence, but

[00:57:32] Probably that seems like a success story to me.

[00:57:34] Yeah, but to me, it feels bad because I should have planned that case properly in my head, of course, but you must

[00:57:40] Have a better story than that.

[00:57:43] Honestly. And apart from, you know, not getting to a deficit, no, honestly speaking, that for me is for me, that was bad because that was poor planning, though it is bad.

[00:57:53] I get what you’re coming from, but it’s not. Yeah, well, I’m a.

[00:57:58] Ok, good. That makes you feel really good. Actually, I been feel guilty since I’ve been feeling really guilty for her. I just like, you know, Oh, OK, good that you really feel something.

[00:58:06] Are you sure ever a patient who lost confidence in you?

[00:58:10] Actually, I have patients who lose confidence in other dentists that come to me, even though I feel like they’re better dentists than I am. And they are, and I always say to them that this work is incredible. I think what it is, you know, Payman is my communication. You look at fundamental stuff for ages that

[00:58:26] Bedside manner, stuff really, really counts.

[00:58:28] I’m not the best dentist in the world. Honestly, I look up my work. Sometimes I’m like, That is a really crap composite bonding case. And I do have one month

[00:58:37] Ago, I’ve chosen a surgeon based on bedside manner. Yeah, and it doesn’t make any sense at all. It has nothing to do with the way it’s going to do this operation, but you end up choosing the one you connect with the most, you know? Yeah. So, you know, I

[00:58:50] Am like, Yeah, I do. I think because I know my dentistry is good and not incredible. I know I have to have my bedside manner here. So, yes, my my composites are great on my fitness, but can I do full of going on my exams course on Monday for veneers and crowns? I’m doing his to tear up my skills because because I’ve been an NHS dentist for such a long time. Yeah, I have done a lot of energy dentistry and I’m bringing now creeping in those skills of, you know, doing good whitening and applying bleach and bond and doing more in baseline cases. And what I’m going, what aesthetic now a lot later than I feel like dentists these days come out. And after FDA, they’re doing a line detour bond, you know, whereas when I’m qualified, that wasn’t the thing everyone did. And it’s just industry for five years. And then you chose to go private or do extra things. So now it’s kind of like I’ve been, you know, if I didn’t have maternity leave in the middle of the pandemic, I think I would have done it maybe two years ago, which is when I did start the two year course. I’m only finishing it now. I would have done a lot more exciting industry where the challenges would have come, where I would have really put a veneer on the wrong way round or done more things that I could be like. Actually, this happened to a friend of mine. I know the nurse. I think she prepped the veneers and he was like, I put them back on. But I think she put the upper right one up, left one in different places and he’s like, Put it on. And he was like, Oh shit, that looks wrong, but you had to polish it off.

[01:00:07] Listen, when asked this question, the same question I just asked you if Basil Mizrahi. Yes. Top dentist in the country. He’s done that, has he?

[01:00:17] Yeah. Well, I haven’t done a video case yet, so now I know from learning from my friend, this is why it’s so important to talk to us. And I know that’s I’m telling you, I’ve done dentistry, I’ve done single veneer. And that’s it. I’ve done a composite bonding. I’ve done, you know, three to three case veneers. No, whenever it comes up, referred them off. I’ve been playing it really safe.

[01:00:37] Payman really. Well, that’s that’s that’s absolutely right. Isn’t that that is correct, isn’t it? Yeah. Dental. I feel like deferring things that you don’t think you’re up to. Yeah, that’s that’s the way it should be, right?

[01:00:48] Yeah. So I haven’t done veneers, but I’ve done lots of crowns. I haven’t done a full mouth rehab yet, but those are things that I want to do. But I want to have the skill before I experiment with someone, and I will tell them that you are my first case and let us

[01:01:00] Talk about, well, let’s talk about the future then.

[01:01:03] Yes.

[01:01:04] How much of your future do you see as, you know, dentist treating patients and how much of your future do you see as teacher teaching dentists?

[01:01:15] I’m hoping to do a mix.

[01:01:16] Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree with that. But but you know, your page is definitely I know you said you started out trying to find patients, but it’s definitely a dentist focussed page. Yeah. And you’ve got a massive talent in that area. You know, you really do. I don’t want to embarrass you, but you’ve got a massive talent in that area. And of course, your credibility as a teacher tends to come from being a wet fingered dentist anyway, so it makes sense for the whole thing to work together.

[01:01:44] Yeah. Learning from my own mistakes. Yeah, but in

[01:01:46] Your own head? Yeah. Like, I don’t know. I would say in the content side, you’re really particularly special. You’re one of the special people in the area. As a dentist, I know maybe you are. Maybe you know

[01:02:01] What to do. I want to become that, do you?

[01:02:04] That’s my point. That’s my

[01:02:05] Point. Do you? Yeah, I do. So like obviously because of having Alana my take out, you know, first, it was a pandemic for a year and then I had Alana and then she needed me because she was allergic to cow’s milk, so I had to feed her personally. So that was a long journey myself and I couldn’t just go to work, so I haven’t been able to go out and courses and do things. But my first step now, tomorrow is my first on Monday is my first day back into courses and I really want out my skills. I really want to be able to be the best dentist I can be and then learn from my mistakes and then teach it on, which is what 20 topics was about. It was about helping other dentists feel confident in themselves and not feel like they can’t achieve what the other dentists are achieving. You know, because I’m I still feel it sometimes when I see other people’s work, I’m not with this person and we went to the qualifier two thousand bloody twenty. You qualified and you put your work is better than mine. Wow, I need to up my skill

[01:02:52] And you wait, wait to get a bit older. That’ll have to start happening all the time. It’s Richard Field that bagged fourth year dental student. And then and then you suddenly see him take you over and think, like, I stole that. If I needed something done, I’d go to Richard Field, right? That’s the thing, right?

[01:03:11] Sometimes I think I’m like, if I do feel comfortable doing my own veneers, not that you’ve been inspired, but if I ever needed do that, I know that I’m not good enough yet, you know, so I need to be able to be like, Yes, I want to go to myself and there’s no other dentist better than me, and I want to be that dentist, you know?

[01:03:25] But with the practise as well as practise, do you have plans? Do you have plans for own growth of the practise or more practises? Or what are your plans now?

[01:03:36] You know, up until recently, every day I was like, I just want to. I want to. I wish it came with the receipt where I could return within 12 months. You know, I was like, Oh, you back, I want to go back to the guy, man, this is hard. This is so hard. I hate dealing with people. I hate dealing with staff hiring, firing, just relying on other people. You know, I wish I had robots. You know, my staff are great, the girls are lovely and I love how they work together. But when they’ve got issues or they’ve got problems, we’ve got. Issues, we’ve got problems. You know, it’s just trying to work my way out of because as an employee, I just used to come in and five do my job, no drama. I just. I expect everyone to be like that, but it’s not like that with everyone. And it’s hard and it’s hard managing them and accommodating them. And and which is why I feel like I still have to do this to the point where I don’t feel so overwhelmed by it, like initially social media and putting myself out there and filming, making videos used to make me sweat when I was doing influence.

[01:04:26] The one thing I have to give to that media company, they really helped me get out of my comfort zone and talk on camera and not be so anxious. And now I actually give up a video conference. And I thought I’d be nervous. I said to them, I’m nervous, but actually I wasn’t. It was the first time I didn’t get dry mouth. I didn’t get sweaty. I thought, OK, so I’ve grown in an aspect of myself, which I didn’t ever think I could do. So now I need to do that in this business. I need to be comfortable being a leader, not just a people pleaser, and I need to just expand this business and not be scared and run away because right now I have to have a meeting with my staff this week with my nurses. You know, somebody asked for a pay rise, somebody that offered this, somebody asked me something that maybe they don’t deserve. And I’m like, Oh, to have that conversation to say that to someone. Well, the first time I defy someone, I felt like I was going to throw up. It was so hard. I literally cried two weeks ago. Never gets

[01:05:13] Any easier. It doesn’t.

[01:05:14] I need to. I just, you know, I need to grow.

[01:05:17] What does this come from? I mean this every time I ask you a question, you say, Well, because it makes me uncomfortable. I’ve got to do it. How long ago did you become that person? Because that’s my husband. Is it? Is it?

[01:05:30] Yeah, yeah. I’m I’ve always been just comfortable with what I know, and that’s what I like. I just like doing things that I’m good at and just being comfortable in that. But when I got married, I realised he’s the complete opposite. He does everything like if he doesn’t get something, he’ll just keep doing it until he gets good at it. And then he’ll move on and he’ll just attack all these challenges. And I’m just like, Oh man. Someone said, my cake wasn’t good. I’m never going to bake again. That was me. My uncle once said to me, Robbie, I like your cake is it’s still undercooked. I’m like, How can you undercook a cake? This cake seemed fine. Oh, I’m never going to bake again, you know? But I can’t. You can’t be that person. You’ll never grow. You’ll never go anywhere. And it comes from him constantly hearing it from him and then him introducing me to reading books again. And I stopped reading books when I was younger. I used to love like Enid Blyton, real, like a bookworm, and then I just stopped, and then he introduced me to Audible. And then different books like, you know, obstacle is the way the subtle art of not giving a f and a few other things, you know? And I just thought I knew stylistic, and I started listening to this and I think, Oh, wow, like this is how people think and this is how people develop and grow books. Books is the way I did realise, and I hate reading. I fall asleep. So Audible was fantastic. Anybody who struggles with reading, I definitely recommend it. Now, when I drive to work, I’m listening to a book, you know, and it’s it’s fabulous and it really helps me change the way I think.

[01:06:46] Well, what are your responsibilities in the practise and what are the other two? Have you set those sort of clear boundaries of who does what?

[01:06:52] Yeah, yeah. So my brother does money. He’s money, Mr. Money, Man, Finance, paying the staff, et cetera. My husband’s a practise manager, so he does everything we’ve called. We say, if anything’s broken, go to Kalil. If you want any money, go to a man. If you got life problems, if there’s any complaints, you come to me. So I’m the people pleaser, which is why it’s hard. So I’m the one who deals with patient complaints, keeping the staff happy, motivated if they’ve got emotional problems and issues and stresses, and then come to me. So I’m taking how many

[01:07:19] People is it?

[01:07:21] It’s a small practise, but we have everyone working part time. So we have two full time nurses, one part time nurse, two full time receptionists. So it’s five main staff and then dentists there about, I think, seven part time dentists and three part time hygienists.

[01:07:38] And it’s funny listening to you, it really resonates with me about my teams as well. I’m responsible for two teams. Yeah, one of four and one of five. That’s me, a nine people I’m responsible for in my company. And sometimes I go through massive stress about one of these nine people like huge, massive stress about it. And then you think, you know, Richard Branson or Jeff Bezos or something like a million employees here, and they’re not thinking about those million, by the way, we’ve got 40 employees, but I only think about those nine. Yeah, but it’s it’s a funny thing that, you know, get yourself properly involved with people. Hmm. You end up, you know, feeling their pain or, you know, those sort of things. I want to finish it with you didn’t tell me what you want to do in the future and the practise.

[01:08:30] What are you going to do? Yeah, I want to expand it. We’re hoping to. But the council is being annoying. Once upon a time in our backyard, we used to have sheep, so we can’t expand it that way. The conservation area. So, you know, now it’s concrete and so an extra train station, but still so we’re trying to push through through the council and get some funds to expand a little bit, add one or two more surgeries because at the moment it’s quite small. So it’s kind of like a situation where we can complete and just contract and make a little bit of more money with the hygiene, but really to expand, to grow, to be able to pay off that loan faster, we need to add another chair. So we’re not so dependent on fashion nowadays to complete our contracts right now. That’s what it is. You know, it’s kind of a break even situation, which is a good place to be in. But I want to be making money, you know? Sure. So.

[01:09:14] So it would be interesting if you could put a dentist from 30 years ago and told him, Look, this is what she’s saying. You know, the economics have changed so much that, you know, break even you’re happy with break even. There’s no way people would be happy with break, even back back in the day. You know, when I finish it with the usual final questions that we always ask on this podcast. So there’s Prav ones. And if you’ve ever heard this before?

[01:09:40] I wish I listened to the podcast.

[01:09:43] Now I feel that it’s a bit dark. It’s your it’s your final day. You’re on your deathbed. Oh, it is dark. Yeah. Don’t focus on the death, but you’ve got you’ve got your friends and family, all the people who are dearest to you around you. What a three bits of advice you would give them for their lies.

[01:10:05] For their lives, yeah. Hmm. I think enjoy every day, you know, all the little things, the mundane things that sitting there watching Netflix with your husband and making yourself a cup of tea, do as much as you can for other people. And. The 33. Don’t worry so much. You know, I feel like I worry a lot about everything. Just don’t worry so much because this life is really short. Nice.

[01:10:43] Yeah, it’s interesting when you get when you get these from people that normally it’s like that where you get one or two of the thing they’re doing and then one or two of the thing they’re not doing, you know, like you’re you’re a worrier, you don’t want that for other people.

[01:10:55] Yeah, it’s not nice. Not nice. I need to stop now. You made me think about it. Yeah, maybe it’s just calmed down.

[01:11:05] Chill. And my final question, it’s a bit of a like a fantasy dinner party kind of story dinner party. Three guests that are alive.

[01:11:17] Oh, who would I have? I hate these kind of questions, because I have no idea who advice, because one I can’t cook very well, my husband’s a cook. Secondly, I’m thinking, I’m thinking, who would I have? What would I want to know? Hmm. Maybe one of the former presidents of America, so I could find out all their secrets and like, tell me all the secrets of what’s happening in the world, what’s actually happening, what’s actually going on? So one of them guys, any of them who goes any of them? And if

[01:11:43] You think the president knows what’s actually going on,

[01:11:46] Yeah, they do, right? They definitely do

[01:11:50] Have the deep state, the deep state, the deep state of the people who don’t change when the president changes, they’re like, you know, they’re in the proper the

[01:11:59] Constant. Okay, maybe any one of them, guys.

[01:12:02] Henry Kissinger, we’ll go with him.

[01:12:05] Yes. Yes, maybe. Who else need to help me out here? Somebody who else would I like? I’ve never thought about this.

[01:12:13] You know, Einstein Gandhi, your grandmother, you know?

[01:12:16] Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, some. And my grandmother still lives some. Somebody maybe Nelson Mandela. He’s a cool guy. Definitely him.

[01:12:27] You can always tell the perfectionists on this question. They take it very, very seriously. They won’t answer until they’ve got the exact right answer.

[01:12:40] Oh, you only get one chance, right? Yeah. Then I’m screwed. I pick the wrong people.

[01:12:44] So you’ve got Henry Kissinger, Nelson Mandela real opposite people, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this guy,

[01:12:52] Who else has been quite cool.

[01:12:55] Hmm. Childhood, Jackson, childhood hero, I was going to say,

[01:13:01] Was he actually killed Michael Jackson? He would be an interesting one. Michael Jackson Entertainment is always a good singer and dancer, so there’ll be some good entertainment.

[01:13:08] What an interesting party. Yeah. Henry Kissinger, Nelson Mandela, Michael Michael Jackson and Rob.

[01:13:18] Yeah. Why would you know who if he was actually killed or did he have a heart attack? And you know, just some entertainment would be nice. I think about the guests.

[01:13:28] It’s been an absolute pleasure to have you. And honestly, I don’t know if you got it, but from my side, yeah, I want to encourage you to do more of the content. Yeah, focus on the content.

[01:13:42] Would you like to work on the content with me?

[01:13:44] Payman. Absolutely. 100 percent. 100 percent. But the content? Don’t forget the content itself can pay. If you want it to pay, it can. There’s no there’s no problem with that. I know you might think it’s might pollute this wonderful thing that you’re doing if you start bringing money into it. But it someone someone like you comes across as so authentic who teaches with so much joy. For me, those two things you know that so rare. They get someone who’s so authentic teaching with so much joy that you know you have a following. And once you have a following, you know you can you can find something you’re good at and sell a course on that or whatever it is. But you’ve got a talent there. For all I know, you’ve got talent in practise ownership as well. But of course, from that, I’m I’m not there seeing how you’re performing on that. You’ve really got a talent on the content side. I’d encourage anyone to have a look at your page to get your book. Well, Nicole already plugged it, but tell us Amazon, right?

[01:14:47] It’s available on Amazon.

[01:14:49] Amazing. Dental G. In a nutshell.

[01:14:51] That’s it.

[01:14:52] Amazing. It’s been so, so nice to have you. Thank you so much.

[01:14:55] Thank you so much Payman for having me.

[01:14:59] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry.

[01:15:09] Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[01:15:14] 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.

 

Comments have been closed.
Website by The Fresh UK | © Dental Leader Podcast 2019