Envisage this. You have a building. It has got four floors. The top floor is the lab where the magic happens or the ceramics happens. Then the third floor is the teaching centre, full of delegates learning morphology, probably. The second floor is the facial surgery and facial aesthetics. And the facial surgical aesthetics. And the ground floor would be the Dental Dental practice. How about that? So now found me that Find me that millionaire. Please.

No, no, no. Gym and hot tub.

Maybe it’s in the basement. If we do. Well.

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.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome Dr. Yogita Sebata to the podcast. One of the nicest things about my job is I sometimes get to meet my heroes and Yogita definitely is one of them. Someone I’ve been following for years now and she doesn’t believe it when I tell her that one of one of the nicest things about you Yogita is that you don’t realise how interesting you are. Massive. Pleasure to have you here.

Thank you very much for inviting me. It’s a great pleasure to be here. And I must say that I was a tad nervous to come to the podcast because I thought, Oh my God, this is going to be Payman and he’s going to ask me all these questions about my personal life, about my upbringing, about my parents, where I come from. And and I think you know that and everyone who knows me a little bit, they do know that I’m quite a private person. Yeah. Because to answer these questions, it does require quite a lot of openness and vulnerability. And I’m an Eastern European. I do not do well with vulnerability.

Have you brought your vulnerable side? Today?

I did. I did, Actually, I did. So you’re going to be one of the very first people who’s going to probably hear the full story. Oh, amazing. So you’re going to get a very raw and very authentic yogita today. So treat me gently.

Absolutely. So Yogita you train other dentists now, It’s a big part of your your day, your week education. But you studied in Vilnius. You grew up in Lithuania. Do you remember the first time you thought, I want to be a dentist?

That is a good question. I do not remember the first time that I thought that I want to be a dentist the way I chose dentistry. It was very pragmatic and very practical decision. I do remember when I was thinking that I definitely want to be a doctor from a very early age, but when I passed my exams I realised that, well, I can’t really afford to spend 10 or 15 years in training to be a doctor. So I decided to become a dentist and I applied and here I am. So I guess it was not something that I really kind of planned out or it was my my dream. But this is a strange thing about some decisions in life that you make a decision and it turns out to be the best thing you’ve done. And I think that decision that I actually chose dentistry instead of medicine, it was one of the best ones that I’ve done.

Why medicine? Why were you even thinking medicine? Do you have doctors?

I don’t know. I really cannot recall why exactly. I wanted to be a doctor. Maybe it was the influence on all the, you know, TV programs like E.R. and everything. I really do not don’t know. But I kind of felt that I want to work with people. I want to help people. And I wanted a well-paid job. And I thought medicine would be kind of it. But exactly why? I don’t know. None of my family members are. They have nothing to do with that. None of them are doctors. I just decided, I think, that myself by by myself.

But you know how you you know, clearly when when I look at you these days, there’s a massive artistic influence on everything you do and teach. Were you an artist? Were you that way inclined as well? As a child.

Yes and no. Again, I think I will keep repeating that throughout our podcast and throughout our talk that a lot of the things that happen to me in the life happened because of a complete randomness and the complete accident and somehow things that are completely random things they happen to you in life, they somehow echo in later in life. Yeah. So when I was growing up, I was growing up in a very small town and a very small town in the north of Lithuania. And I was going to like a local school. My parents never, you know, forced me or guided me to be become anybody. I was really I had the full choice of full freedom to choose whatever I wanted to do. And I was going to a local school, which wasn’t really strong in the sciences, but it had a really strong arts curriculum. So every week for one day a week, we would have a full day dedicated to arts only and we would have like artists, painters, graphic designers, sculptors coming to the school, and we would spend time with them, you know, playing with clay or going to the nature and, you know, drawing bees and painting trees. And it was a lot of fun.

And I didn’t really think much of it at the time. So I spent I was going to that school up until the age of 14. And again, I was quite a mature, mature. I actually had, you know, I grew up with ten and 11 years older sisters, so I was quite mature for my age. And at the age of 14, I decided that, well, okay, so really, you know, if I want to do well in life, arts is not going to, you know, it’s not going to do that for me. So I need to go and to a better school and pick sciences. And that’s what I did. I applied to the school and and this is how art really ended in my life. And I think. I never thought about that a lot until I graduated from dental school and I started really working on teeth and I realised that, oh, actually everything that I’ve been doing before, I have this manual dexterity now. I have the visual perception and it really, really helps and I really enjoy what I do. So it was just a coincidence. The hands. I believe I have this artistic touch and feel to, to whatever I do.

So I mean, your parents, what did they do?

Um, my parents. Well, I come from a very humble background. My upbringing, I must say that it wasn’t very conventional. It was probably far from that. I was born in a family. My both parents are Lithuanians, and I cannot tell that my upbringing was full of love or support or my my my parents were educated. They were good people, but they didn’t really, you know, give me any directions at all. But one thing that they did really, really well is that they allowed me to do whatever I want to do. They taught me the accountability. If I chose to go to another school by myself, they would say, okay, fine, this is not very convenient. But you know, if you want to do that, you have to make sure that you will be able to get yourself to the school and you will be able to, you know, come back to the school on your own because you know, it’s your own thing. So I think what I’ve learned from my parents the most is it gave me a really good notion of how I don’t want to live my life. I understood that if I want more meaningful relationships, if I want to do better in life and they must be better than that, whatever I was experiencing, I have to go and get it myself. Nobody is going to give that to me. Nobody is going to present it to me on a silver plate. So if I want something, I have to go and get it. And I think this is what I understood very early in my life, and that’s how I live up until this day. And the greatest gift that my parents gave is that they never stopped me.

So a lot a lot of times people say you’re formed by your hardships. And, you know, I think we talk about this quite a lot on the podcast. We have these dentists, they’re doing very well, and then the children end up being quite soft. I’ve got, you know, the similar problem with my kids wondering, am I making them too soft? I can’t even bribe my kids to do anything. It’s like they don’t want anything.

Don’t bribe. It’s not going to work out.

But they don’t want anything. So but but I understand what you’re saying about the sort of the independence side of that, but that doesn’t necessarily lead to ambition. And yet you’re quite an ambitious person. It’s obvious talking to you and seeing what you’ve achieved. Where do you think that came from? I mean, was it from similar from from that fact that you wanted to break out of this situation?

And I think a lot a lot of that contributed to me not wanting to live in the circumstances that I was born to. But you know how we always say that, you know, how we achieve things. We achieve things because we set a goal and we actively pursue the goal. And in my opinion and in my experience, the reason why am I am ambitious and why I achieve things is because is of not having something. So I realised that this is what I don’t have. So do I want it? I do want it. So this is where the ambition comes from, comes from. Because if I want it and I don’t have it, it’s the mathematics is very simple. You have to go and get it. And also it’s a great what is it?

Security or a thing or a house or a car or a what is it?

There is no one thing. Yeah, there is no house security. Yes, there are many, many attributes, I guess, to what? Why the life is meaningful. So I do want to have meaningful relationships. I do want to have the variety of the experiences in life. I do want to have a fulfilling career. I do want to have a relatively comfortable life. I want to stay curious. I want to experience and get to know people. I am you know, I come across as quite a shy person, but I really do love people. I love listening to the stories and I love learning from the people because this is one of the things that also brought me forward a lot is I was listening to people and learning from people and I was thinking, Oh, this is a great mindset or This is how I would want to to be like when I grow up. I still think that to this day, sometimes when I meet somebody, okay, I want to I want to be this person or like this person when I grow up. So that’s, I think what is the meaningful thing for me. This is this is it for me. The experiences are not material. Things.

Okay, So you, you you said that you come across as a shy person and you do. You do. I mean, we’ve met maybe twice before, and both times I thought, you know what? Why? Why isn’t she acknowledging me or something? Yeah, that’s.

Not being shy.

But you you do come across as a shy person. You. You in a way, you almost speak when you’re spoken to in a like a social, social setting. And I’ve noticed as well, you’re good at throwing out a joke to, to sort of, I don’t know, to give yourself time to think about the answer to the question. Something.

Something like that. Oh, Eastern.

Europeans are known for their jokes. That is.

Nothing new.

But but where I’m going with it is that, you know, we all want to be something, right? I want to be my best friend. I’ll never be him, you know, because he’s just different. Totally different to me. Now, now that you’ve gone past the point of security and and ambition wise, I mean, you’ve achieved so much in your career already. No, I haven’t. You have? You have. In my world you have. Um. What? The question I’m getting to is, have you found something that is truly you, that you feel like, Oh, this is actually who I am?

Absolutely. And this is, I think, why I am absolutely comfortable in my own way of being. It might come across as shy. It might come across sometimes as rude, maybe.

Oh, well, I wouldn’t go that far.

I’m an Eastern European, so I’m really, like straightforward and direct. So it does come across as rude sometimes. So I know how I am. And I my philosophy is that, you know, I’ve spent years in self-development and self-growth reading about it and building myself up, and I still do. And it’s not a completed work and it’s not a completed task. And I am absolutely comfortable to be my authentic self if it comes across as shy. Yes, I do not. I am not loud. I do not you know, I speak up for myself when I have to. You know, I am a tough person. You know, you you mess with me. I will. I will speak up for myself. But I don’t need to be loud to be heard. I don’t need to be out there all the time. I really I am an introvert. And I also this is a great discovery that I found that, you know, the introvert doesn’t mean that I do not like people, that I don’t want to be with people. It’s just people drain me and I need to recharge the energy by being on myself and working on myself and building myself. And I’m absolutely comfortable with that. So, yes, maybe, perhaps I’m not I’m not a very loud person, but I’m happy with that.

On this question of introvert and extrovert, I know that basic thing that says, okay, extroverts are fed by people and introverts are drained by people. For me, I find I’m fed by seeing old friends and drained by meeting new friends, you know? And I think it’s more complex than that. Simple binary. No, of course, binary thing.

There are so.

Many types and the subtypes of the personalities, it’s just, you know, just a very generic, you know, two pods. So then how.

So Then on the recharging point, what do you do? Do you go away on holiday by yourself? Do you meditate? Do you?

I would love to.

Sometimes attempt to go on holiday by myself, but it never works out. I, I spend a lot of time on like being by myself. I would go back home. My my best companion is my cat. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t ask things. I would read, I would paint, I would go for walks. I actually do like doing a lot of activities by myself. You know, if I decide that I want to learn, you know, scuba diving, scuba diving, I would do and go out and do that by myself. If I want to do the skydiving, I’m absolutely fine of, you know, not having people around me. And and I do enjoy my own company.

I really admire that, you know, because not enough of that. There are too many people want to be surrounded by loads of people all the time.

And and it’s good.

It’s, you know, listen, in my in my world is whatever works for people, I really do not judge. And if they need that and some people do really need that I’m not one of those. So my friends know me that, you know, I’m doing my own thing. And when I really need them, I will call out and I will. I will I will go out with them. But, you know, I go out with them. And there’s a point in the night at the time when I say that I disappear, I need to go. I said, I need to go. Don’t ask me. I just need to go. I will go and I will go actually, and I will not pick up the phone tomorrow because I need my time. I like that.

So tell me about your Dental school experience, because I’m about to go lecture in Vilnius and good luck. Yeah, I’ve noticed that. That Lithuanian dentists are all women. Yes.

What’s that about?

This is quite unique. Medicine. I think, again, my country, as you know, Lithuania, it got back its independence in the in the 90 seconds. So it was under the occupation of Russia. Right. So it was a completely different different culture, different mentality. And health care generally, including dentistry, was regarded as something that is a very feminine profession. So majority of dentists, majority of medics, they used to be women. Even in my dental school it was I guess it was 20 of us. It was a very small university university. And I guess from what I remember from I recall we only had like maybe four guys and the remaining were where where girls.

But why is that? Are you saying it’s a Russian thing?

Um.

That’s a good question. Not sure. Not sure. Really? Yeah, I don’t know. But it used to be like that. I know that the things are changing now. It’s becoming a bit more like 50 over 50, but, um, health care care of people, I suppose it was regarded as more of nursing. Yes, it was more regarded like. Like not.

Man’s work. Not man’s work. Yeah. Man’s work.

And how were you? How were you in dental school? Were you top of your class?

Not at all. Really?

Makes me so happy to hear that. Why is that? Because I wasn’t nowhere near.

No. It’s a very interesting experience. Now, having experienced Eastern European educational system and is Western Europe’s educational system now, I realise how different they are and the Lithuanian educational system in my undergrad years it completely demotivated me from dentistry. I really did not enjoy dentistry at all. And there were times that where I was thinking to drop out, in fact, seriously considering that because the educational system was based on authority and unquestionable authority, almost like dictatorship. So you are not allowed to ask questions. Well, you are allowed to ask questions, but the minute you ask the question, you, you, you regret that. So I kind of surfaced through the five years of dental school in the undergrad, and I thought, you know, the only thing that I want to do now, once I graduated, I want to graduate and forget about it. And I will never want to specialise. I don’t want to have this experience again. It was only in the UK when I moved to London when I had no choice also but to go and specialise where my experience changed completely. I went into I did my post-grad training at Eastman Dental Institute. I was studying restorative dentistry and I went in and that was something completely mind blowing because I met people and all the tutors and all the lecturers and the teachers who were genuinely interested for you to grow. And as long as you show a little bit of effort, they would support you 100%. And I remember those, you know, times I was completely clueless about, you know, what I was doing. But they would allow me to bring the cases and discuss the cases. So I would bring my case. And actually several tutors would stay after working hours. They would, you know, look at my case. They would write down the papers that I need to read to do this case. They would actually help me to wax up. And I was thinking like, Wow, this is such a different mindset. And I think this is where my passion for dentistry really was reignited. And I started enjoying going a little bit more in depth. And I thought, Well.

I mean, you.

Recognise it yourself now, right? Because you’re a teacher and you can see different students coming to the classes and you recognise that, don’t you? Sometimes you see 1 or 2 delegates who just really want to know more.

Yes, I always say that, you know, in any group of people that you take, there’s always this a standard bell curve distribution. You know, you got the group that majority of them, they are more or less okay. They they they’re not brilliant. They’re not too bad either. You always get like 1 or 2 that are well challenged, challenged, challenging for you as well. And you always get like 1 or 2 that get really, really bright people who are so interested and you want to support them. And this is actually the biggest pleasure that I get from the teaching is not so much, you know, standing in front of the audience and, you know, being there, shining, you know, light. But it’s seeing the difference that you make for people who maybe, you know, finished your course a year ago, but they still kind of ask you questions and you watch their cases and you see how how much they’ve grown. This is the biggest this is the biggest reward. Your reward for me.

And your teaching. You know, I always think about dentistry. It’s like concentric circles. You’ve got your eyes right, seeing what’s there. And I know that’s definitely the way you’ve chosen to be this specialised at pushing that piece. You’ve got the brain that the evidence base, the treatment, planning, all of that. Then you’ve got the hands piece, right, which I’ve seen in some of your writing. You’ve said that, look, the hands part’s easy. That’s the most people can do that. But it’s the seeing and the knowing what to do part. And then you’ve got the sort of the heart, you know, the talking to patients and making people feel comfortable and doing the right thing. And all of the all of those things you’ve chosen. I mean, I’m sure you’re very good at all of them. I’m sure you’re very good at all. But you’ve chosen to really zoom in on that, the eyes, seeing what’s there, drawing the teeth and so forth. Do you think that’s a deficiency in most dentists outlook? I know it’s the first step, isn’t it, Seeing Do you see it?

It’s interesting that you kind of excluded the eyesight as the thing that I’ve chosen. I don’t think.

You don’t believe that.

I don’t think this is my sole focus. There is no one particular skin that can excel. You propel you in your profession. I think everything needs to be connected and everything needs to be linked together. I perhaps is the very first step where everything begins. You know what you see, You can no longer unsee and if you cannot unsee it, you know you everything that kind of switches on your brain, your hand and you read and you try to repeat and you try to to work on that. So it’s perhaps the very first step, but it’s not the only one.

No, no, of course not.

Of course. But maybe I’m just being confused by seeing those pictures of people drawing teeth on your course. Maybe. Maybe that’s why I’m thinking that you need all four of them to be. Exactly. By the way, throw in another one business, which itself has another 5 or 6 concentric circles to to look at. But but you know, that question of seeing we see it on our composite course with Depeche that some people can see and some people can’t see what we’re looking at. And it’s difficult, isn’t it? We have quite a large class of 30 people in the class. And to make sure that everyone can see in the first instance and then but then where where I worry about your approach compared to Depeche, for instance, is that we get a lot of we ask at the beginning, what do they want to get out of the course? And often the thing that people want to get out of it or the thing they’re worried about isn’t the main problem with dentists. So for instance, they talk about secondary anatomy or colour or layering, whereas we find primary anatomy is often absolutely often the problem, you know? Absolutely. And then the number of people who come out of dental school not knowing what a line angle is, how.

Does that and I was one of those people was everyone is actually.

Why is that? I mean, you know, I was thinking about this. I was thinking, well when we discuss tooth morphology, we hadn’t even seen a tooth. It was in our course. It was in the first year before we’d even seen a patient. They started saying, Oh, these are tooth morphology. It was all gobbledegook. And, you know, maybe you need to have seen some teeth and done a few composites and then start talking about tooth morphology after that.

Isn’t that funny that, you know, we are dentists. Yeah. What it means that day in and day out, we are restoring the teeth. We are recreating teeth. Yeah. And isn’t that funny that we don’t even know how the tooth looks like? Yeah. And I do remember that we have been taught morphology in the dental school somewhere in the very first years where you have no clue, you know, and to from what I remember from my teaching, you know, for me the most important thing that if I knew how to, you know, distinguish between the upper premolar and the lower premolar, that was already good, right? That was massive. That’s it. Right. And I guess, you know, there are so many things that needs to be covered in a dental school that it kind of falls in the background. And and people graduate the dental school thinking about evidence based dentistry, about the bonding and the best bonding system. And they really don’t know the foundation. So they know a lot of details about it. But the big picture disappears. And this is what I found. This is how I was myself and this is what I found, that it’s quite a paradoxical thing. And at least in my world, you know, I was always very focussed on the aesthetic dentistry again, by accident, you know, since I graduated and the practices that I worked, I also did a lot of studying and you know, the feeling when you go to the courses, you do the studies, you read the papers, you buy expensive kits and you buy expensive, you know, all the materials and you go to the practice and your dentist really doesn’t elevate that much.

Yeah. And I think for me, the penny dropped when I realised that. Okay, so it doesn’t look good. How about I learn how to actually shape the teeth? And I started looking into the morphology again by accident. I went to Pascal Magnet schools and he started talking about drawing the teeth and how it really changes your perception and mindset. And it resonated with me just because I was going into that art school and I thought, Well, actually, let me try that. You know, I have all the equipment, I have the skills. So I started doing that. And slowly, slowly things started shifting and it made the world of the difference. So now you give me any material, any material, you give me any treatment to plan the treatment to execute the treatment. I’m comfortable because I know what I need to shape. I know the basic concepts. I know you know how it needs to look like. So for me, I really don’t like to be called like the aesthetic dentist. Aesthetic dentistry as opposed to what? An aesthetic dentistry. Like what is the other alternative? Right? To me, you know, aesthetics is a by-product of doing things properly. Yeah. And that’s why I think the morphology, why I’m so passionate about it, because to me it just changes absolutely every discipline, not only direct restorations like composites, not only interior composites, not only posterior, but everything the occlusion, the crowns, the planning, the communication with your patients, everything.

And, you know, form follows function, you know. Absolutely. Of course. So you say you went on Pascal’s course by mistake?

Well, not by mistake. By accident, by.

Accident, by accident, but.

Oh, you trained at the Eastman? No, no, that happens by accident. Does it? I mean, you know, you arrive in London as a foreign speaking. You know, you didn’t grow up here, so you don’t necessarily have to be that person who goes to the Eastman or goes on courses or.

I knew about Pascal Magnier before I went to Eastman because I was one of the those people, you know, Pascal, he published his book, Bonded Restorations in 2007. And I had those and I had that book and I read that book. And, you know, it happened way before I went to Eastman. And I think, okay, so it happened by accident, as I said. But nothing truly is an accident when you think about that. Like when I was doing my Eastman course and I had this, you know, passion about dentistry reignited. Yeah, I was called, you know, all my tutors and my classmates. They used to call me the course junkie because not only I was doing the Eastman course every week, but I also used to book, you know, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this. And I went to see Newton fall, and then I went to see Daddy Dadhichi, and then I went to see Pascal Magny and so on and so on. Actually, my accountant, he once said, Oh my God, you work, you study and you are the poorest dentist that I know because I used to spend a lot of money. Everything that I earned, it went for my for my education. And I think this is how I ended up, you know, going to Pascal’s because coming from where I come from in Lithuania, you know, people like that, they do not come and visit your country very, very often, right? So now I’m in London. I’m surrounded by all these opportunities and I can travel and I can go and listen to people that actually travel to where you live. So it was quite unique experience and I actually grabbed it and I enjoyed it for some time.

Perfect. Although, I mean, now you’re being paid to be alongside Basil Mizrahi, who I mean, I don’t know. The people would pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to get the education you were getting daily with the great man as his associate as his case. And I remember him when I when I had him on this podcast saying, you know, one of the future stars is going to be your G2 and so forth. What would you say the difference is between someone who goes on the Basil Mizrahi course and someone who spends day by day by day next to him? You’re the insights you must be giving you. Tell me about what it’s like to work in that practice. You know.

I have been working with him for quite some time. He was actually one of the first people who grabbed me from, as he likes to say, cherry picked you from from Eastman. He was my tutor. He was one.

Of the teachers.

Yeah, he was one of the teachers, Yes. So he was the first one to ask me to actually come and lecture at his course. And I didn’t start as an associate first. I went to teach on his course first, and only after he invited me to join his practice after his previous associate, Mehul Patel, left. And so we’ve been together for quite a long time and I have grown a lot and I’ve learnt from him a lot and it was an absolutely amazing opportunity to to do that. And I’m so grateful. Now we’re at the stage where and I’m so grateful for him and I admire him a lot. A lot of people warned me, you know, you’re going to go to work with him. It’s going to be very difficult and you’re going to be so nervous. And the patients are this and the patients are that. But one thing about me in life is that I do enjoy, not I do enjoy, but I really embrace the difficult situations easily. I do not crumble under the stress easily. So I you know, I thought, okay, fine, if it’s going to be difficult, I’m there for a reason. I’m going to learn from the man, right? And I go in there and I never you know, my hands do not shake.

It’s not that I’m super nervous. So I was, you know, given this opportunity to learn from him and where we are now is, um. Well, he allowed me to thrive, really, in this practice. He gave me, you know, he taught me what he could, and. And he allowed me again to choose my own path. So, yes, we do work together. We. But we have developed our niches, separate niches. So, you know, I call him your like, traditional prosthodontist. And he calls me your a traditional bonded dentist. Right. And so we are good at very different things. And and I’m very grateful for him because usually now your people that, you know, that take you under their wing, they kind of want you to follow their footsteps. Yeah, but he’s given me a complete freedom to choose. You know what I really want to do? And he supports me to that. And in fact, he sees he sees that as a strength. And I see that as a strength that he does one thing that I don’t like doing and whatever he doesn’t like to be doing, I am really loving this thing. So it’s a really good, I think, symbiosis between the two of us.

So I remember when I spoke to him, he said on the digital side, that’s really you leading all of that. And he himself is he’s wondering whether he’ll really ever get into the digital properly.

Yeah, I’ve pushed him to get a scanner a lot. Yeah.

But, you know, I.

Get it as well, because if you’re Basil Mizrahi and you know what you’re doing to to completely take something super predictable and then take something else, a new thing, which is, you know, a little bit unpredictable, it’s going to be difficult change, but that’s always the challenge, isn’t it? Because he was saying, telling me himself that he’s worried he’s becoming a dinosaur and he can’t believe it because when he was that young guy, you know, he used to think others were dinosaurs. But, you know, I know this doesn’t the comparison isn’t real, right? You had Larry Rosenthal sold his practice to Mike APA, and then Mike went on and, you know, expanded this thing and grew it. And Larry was already the top cosmetic dentist in America. And then Mike’s gone on that. So if on a, on a if we just put ourselves in that situation that let’s say Basil comes to you and says, listen, I’ve had enough, I’m out and you can have this practice for free, give me, you know, where would you take it? What would you dream? Dream big. Tell me and tell me how would you develop that?

I don’t think I.

Would take it really, because, you know, his practice is his baby. It’s he was always a man of of one of a man of one band.

One man, man.

Yeah. One band. Man. Yeah. And he built it, you know, around.

He built it.

Around his name and around how he does things and what he does as well. And as I said, it’s not necessarily what I do and where I do not envision envisage myself maybe growing. So the question about, you know, taking the practice and, you know, turning how I would turn it, I it would be completely different, completely different. It would not be like traditional, you know, prosthodontics I would not be doing, you know, the cases that he does just because I don’t really enjoy that. So it’s not really beneficial, neither for him or for me to take a practice as such.

Okay, then. So I wouldn’t.

Take I bounce back. Your question wouldn’t.

Wouldn’t, wouldn’t take Basil Missouri’s practice. I never thought I’d hear that.

But he knows that.

Yeah, okay. I mean, you’re right. It’s a very it’s a very specific kind of dentistry. Is it sort of full mouth dentistry, a lot of prepping and all that. How about yourself? If. Billionaire came along and said, listen, I want to back you. I want to I want to give you backing to open your dream business. What do you envisage it as? I mean, in a way, I’m talking about if you had a magic wand and you could set a place up and what would it what would it look like?

For a very long time, actually, I was absolutely certain that I don’t want to have a practice or a business. I thought, you know, I just want to be really good that it gives me freedom to go and work in any country that I want in any practice. I just want to be really highly paid. And I do not want to have the headache of, you know, running a practice which is a completely different, you know, side of, of, of the business. But now I’m thinking that, well, it cannot really be that I will end my career without having tried that. I probably would regret that very quickly, but I probably want to try that. So if you really, you know, ask me, you know, if I had a magic wand, what it would be like. And, you know, I like to dream big sometimes. So envisage this. You have a building, it has got four floors. The top floor is the lab where the magic happens. All the ceramics happens. Then the third floor is the teaching centre, so full of delegates learning morphology. Probably the second floor is the facial surgery and facial aesthetics and the facial surgical aesthetics. And the ground floor would be the Dental Dental practice. How about that? So now found me that Find me that millionaire.

Please.

No, no, no. Gym and hot tub.

Maybe it’s in the basement if we do. Well.

No. But then to be serious, are you thinking of opening your own practice someday then? Now? Probably, yes. Good. I think. I think a lot of times it’s about control rather than anything else. You know, if you’ve got a particular thing in your head, the only way to realise that is to create it. On the other hand, I come across a fair number of people where education is their focus, who don’t want to open practice, you know, people like Jaz Gulati. Yeah, he’s 100% sure he doesn’t want to open a practice. He wants to do the podcast and the shoot offs that come from that. The courses that he’s just done that whatever it is, the occlusion course and all that. I had Millie Morrison last week saying 100% doesn’t want to open a practice and I feel like it’s a shame, you know, someone who’s so good with patience doesn’t want to open a practice. So so, you know, it doesn’t necessarily have to be.

Exactly as you said, you know, we all have to live our own authentic life. And if be true to yourself, if you really want to do that, do whatever comes, you know, the easiest for you and whatever you want to do.

Kind of a boss. Do you think you’d be Eastern European?

Strict? You know, there is a really good saying about, you know, what is the difference between Eastern Europeans and Westerners. Yeah. So Westerners, they could be compared to the peaches. So you take a fruit, the peach is soft. It smells nice, right? It’s so juicy. You bite into that and it’s so easy to bite into that until you hit the, you know, the pit.

The hard bit.

Right? The hard bit. And you break your tooth. Come to the Dental your visa. So these are the Westerners. The Eastern Europeans are a bit like an egg, right? Really hard shell, really not attractive. But once you break through, they’re so gooey, so nice and so runny and so soft. So this, this is how I am. And I know that a lot of my colleagues as well, you know, the first time they meet me, my nurses or other associates, they always think that I’m quite tough and I’m quite strict and I am in certain situations that require that. But I’m quite a nice person. I do get all get along with people. So somebody who thought that I’m too strict and I’m definitely not going to, you know, hang around with her, they end up, you know, being my really good friends. And we have a good laughter and we have a good, good banter.

So what What’s the answer to the question? You be.

Strict when you need both a.

Bit, probably towards the stricter side. But there is a time and the place for everything. There are times where you need to be focussed and I absolutely would not accept anything less than that. And there are times where you are just a human being. Yeah, and you can talk to people and I really admire, you know, one of the reasons, you know, why I really, really like working with, with the, with my principle. One of the practices that I worked for a very long for many, many years, Ahmed Patel is because I think you really mastered this art and I really admire him for that because he’s he’s really forward thinking. He’s a really good boss. He runs a super, you know, good business and he’s quite successful and he is really good with people.

As well.

Yeah, he’s super good with people. Not in a way that, you know, people are so relaxed and chilled around him and that they don’t end up being, you know, doing the job that they need to do. But he somehow manages to get the maximum out of them and makes them feel proud to do that and makes them feel, you know, appreciated. And he values for those people. So I think I would like to be that kind of boss.

He’s strong. He’s strong. Amateur Sardinia.

Sardinia. Dental. Yes. Yeah, for.

Sure. And it’s a funny thing because, you know, there’s of course, there might be a sort of a basic middle point, but you can be double strict and not get the most out of people or you can be too soft. I’m more on the too soft side. Don’t fire people.

That’s why you need a business partner who’s a complete, complete opposite.

I’ve got a business partner who is the complete opposite. Yes, but. But you know, I almost treat my team like. Like best friends. And then when it comes to telling someone off, I’m not really into that. I don’t like doing that.

But you don’t like to be.

A bad policeman?

Yeah. Yeah, I’m a people pleaser. But on the other side of it, then I get a lot out of people as well because we feel like we’re all in it together and so forth. People stay for years and years and and so forth. So there’s no perfect answer to this question. I think one thing, too, in in work in general, one thing to look out for is that to have a partner, if you’re too much on one way or the other and, you know, business is very lonely sometimes. I know you like being by yourself. I like being by myself. By the way, I adore going to a restaurant by myself. I cannot believe that my favourite thing and I end up doing it all the time because I travel the country a little bit, seeing dentists and all that. I love going to a restaurant by myself and ordering. It’s amazing.

It’s the best. Yeah. And people feel.

Sorry for you and you’re like, What you’re on about is, I mean.

It’s a really good time. I do need.

Headphones. Yeah, I do. I do need headphones. I can listen to a podcast or play with the Internet or whatever, but I prefer going by myself than going with anyone else. Um, nonetheless, my point is that if you’re one way or the other, it’s sometimes makes sense to have a partner which is the other way. True at work? True. What would you say is your biggest weakness? Um, it’s an interview question.

It’s an interview question.

You’re a perfectionist, that one.

No, it’s not my weakness. You are a perfectionist, aren’t you?

I am a perfectionist. Yes. Again, in certain areas, you know, at work. I am a perfectionist. At my house, maybe not so much. Uh huh. Um. So there is a time and a place for everything, right? My biggest weakness. I do get complacent. If I’m comfortable in my life, in my career, my personal life, if things are easy. Why changing them? Right. And this is where complacency really does. It stops propelling you and and you stop progressing and you find yourself, Oh, I’m a bit behind. Oh, I need to I need to really start moving now and I need to really doing this and that. And I do end up doing this and that, but it becomes really stressful and a bit erratic at times. So I think that’s my biggest weakness so far.

So you don’t like to get out of the comfort zone?

No, I do. I.

Well, you just.

Have to look at what you’ve done, though. You must. Have you changed countries a couple of times? You.

That’s true. Yeah, I do. I do.

Get out eventually out of my comfort zone. But these are really, you know, the comfort zone is a rare moment. And when you are in it, it’s so nice sometimes to be to be there. But then again, you have a wake up call. Okay. It’s not good. I need to do something. I need to do something else.

So complacency.

Complacency. What else? Oh, only one. I’m perfect.

I don’t like those little jokes we were talking about. You were right. Actually.

Um. No, There are many, many things. You know, we all try to work around our weaknesses.

I feel like. I feel. I feel like around is the right word. You know, I’m disorganised. Yeah. Really disorganised. Um, now you can buy me the best diary in the world. I’ll still be disorganised. Yeah. So for me, I need people around me who are organised. That’s, that’s the correct thing. But if I try and change, I’ve realised if I try and try and become more organised, I’ll waste quite a lot of time. You know, I definitely with my kids as well. I believe in like working on their strengths, not their weaknesses, you know, And this working around the things that you’re bad at is a nice way of putting it for sure. Um, let’s, let’s move on to darker questions. Um, we like, we like to talk about mistakes.

Yes. On this.

Podcast, you know.

About this, you reiterated that a few times. I quite enjoyed this bit.

Yes. We like to talk about mistakes because in, in dentistry, in medicine, we don’t tend to share our mistakes enough. And so we all have to end up learning from our own mistakes instead of learning from other people’s mistakes. When, when, when I say that, what comes to mind? What kind of clinical errors, management errors come to mind that hurt when you think about.

Oh my God.

Payman So many, So many. Um, I was thinking about that. And I think when I think about my mistakes retrospectively, which I always do anyways, there are three categories of my mistakes. Oh, nice. So these are, you know, there’s the first category. These are the mistakes, clinical mistakes that happened quite early on in my career where I was absolutely clueless of what I was doing, where I really bit more that that than I could chew and I shouldn’t have been doing it. So, you know, and those mistakes they when I look back, they are relatively small mistakes but they gave me a lot of headache because I completely did not know what was happening and how to manage that, such as like, you know, you don’t breach the teeth with, you know, heavy posts and you don’t do the distal cantilever. And, you know, if you have a really big core, maybe check the vitality before you crown that you things like that.

Stuff that feels very obvious to you. Yeah.

Now you know, like, what was I thinking? Why? Why I was doing that? It’s just because I didn’t know better, you know? But I think now where I am now, I am a bit more clever because I’ve learned these things. I’ve trained myself, You know, I did the courses, I did the postgraduate training. And I’m I’m a bit better with that. The second category of mistakes happened. In the NHS practice at my very first job in United. Did you work in the NHS? I did work in the in the NHS.

How did that feel? Did you like did you did you think.

Did you think I’ve come from from Lithuania where people don’t think of it as a, you know, first world country. I’ve come to this supposed first world country and I feel like I’m in a third world surgery.

It was the second time.

In my life, the second time after my university where I didn’t have a lot of passion for dentistry. It was the second time where I was thinking like, if this is how my life is going to look like, if I’m going to have to do that for the rest of my life, I really don’t want to be a dentist. And I was thinking I will become a florist, you know, introvert, florist. They don’t talk, you know, flowers don’t talk. I’m just going to be, you know, surrounded by flowers. So these were quite dark and gloomy days. And I’m glad I did it because everything you do in life, it.

How long did you do it for?

Uh, 2 to 3 years.

Oh, really?

Two. Three years? Yes. After the first year of doing that, I decided that, well, I either quit or I need to change something. And this is where decision came to. To go and study, get better, get better and get better, to create, you know, the social connections networks. You know, again, I moved to the UK and and I was pretty much in Hireable. Nobody really wanted to hire me because I come from Lithuania, Lithuania. Most people can’t even show where Lithuania is on the map. And then before coming to UK, I had a sabbatical year, so I wasn’t even working at all. I was travelling around the world, right? So I was really on my CV, did not really look well at all. So I didn’t even, you know, I couldn’t even land a job in London. So my first position that I managed to secure was in Somerset in a town called Taunton. So I was working for a year and a half there in Taunton because that was the only, you know, beautiful place.

Beautiful place.

Yes, a really good cider. Um, so, yeah, these were the very gloomy days. And I it was a really, really stressful time. And that is where my second category of my mistakes happened is because I was doing the dentistry that I did not do before because I was coming from, you know, after graduation in Lithuania, I was working in a in quite a high end private practice. Then I moved to France and I was working in France in a private practice. So I was doing I never did, you know, very complicated, complex dentistry. It was single tooth dentistry. But whatever I did, I did it well, yeah, right. And then I moved to UK and then there was this NHS environment.

And as the third.

Party telling you what you can and can’t do.

Right, Exactly.

And I was all of a sudden supposed to be doing everything and very quickly. So that pressure and you know, I did so many mistakes and I had all the complaints that I had, all the complications that I did happened in those early days in the NHS practice because you’re constantly are rushed. You have.

Terrible.

Materials, not enough time.

Not even that, I would say terrible materials. You know, as I said, you give me any material, you know, you can do, you know, a good, a a very decent clinical job, maybe not necessarily aesthetic with any material, but I was not given a chance, you know, to establish a relationship with people. I was not being I was not given the chance to I couldn’t have a choice, you know, to spend time to talk to them, what they really want, what they really need to actually listen to people to explain what is going to happen now, what we’re going to do and why we’re going to do this and not the other way. So it was constantly rushed. And of course, mistakes happen. You know, all of a sudden, you know, I used to take like an hour to do like an occlusal composite, you know, previously. And now I have like 20 minutes to do that. It was absolutely crazy. And of course, you get complaints and of course, you know, you sometimes you hurt even people, you know, by rushing. And this is where where I, I wasn’t happy in my professional life at and the last I think category of my mistakes these are the current mistakes. They are much more serious now. But I’m so much more relaxed about it because I think the the main factor is because now I know my my patients and I know myself.

I really know what I’m good at and I know what I’m not good at. So things that I’m not good at, I’m not comfortable with, I would not do it if I. Now I know, you know, I spend time with people and if I know that that person is a red flag, I know how to politely and gently, in a subtle way to say no to this and not to take the case. If I take the challenging case or the challenging patient, I know that I will be able to manage that patient. So a lot of, you know, patients nowadays, they, you know, I guess you could call them very demanding patients, you know, very. Aesthetically oriented, really picky patients, and I don’t mind that at all. I actually do enjoy working. I enjoy that challenge. I do enjoy that challenge because I believe that, you know, I like growing myself. I grow with the patient and the patient grows with me and then we end up creating, you know, something perhaps you refer to as artistic because it, it takes it takes that and it, it takes two people. And there is one case that I always show in my teaching. It’s the aesthetic case and the complication case. And majority of the delegates when they listen, you know, to that lecture and I can I can see them sweating, you know.

Like like why do you do these cases? Why do you.

Have these patients to begin with? Why didn’t you say no to those patients? And and one of those complications was that, you know, I had a lady very, very picky, demanding lady who came in to change her old veneers. So ten upper veneers. And she was quite specific and prescriptive of what she wanted. And she came to see Basil first. Now get that Basil said, I can’t do better. Your veneers are good. And he turned her down. He turned her away, so she went away. A year later, she comes back and she says, I still want those veneers changed. And Basil says, I still can’t see, you know, what’s wrong with those veneers? So you need to go and see your guitar. So this is well, this is how we work now with Basil. He knows that, you know, the aesthetics and, you know, visual perception is my forte. And he said, Well, go and see her and speak to her. And, you know, the way now I work with people is that I know that they all want something and I need to really listen and to be able to see whether whatever they are saying, it makes sense. Can I see what they’re describing to me? If I can see, you know, what they’re describing to me and what they want. And it is realistic and it’s safe and I can deliver that, I will take the case.

So at the risk of a body dysmorphic situation, right.

No, but this is body dysmorphia is a different different thing.

So it’s a thin line, right?

It’s a very thin line.

That’s what you’re saying, if you can see it.

If I. Yes, exactly.

You can discuss it with a patient and understand what it is they’re after. If that makes if you can’t, then you class that as a body dysmorphia situation or a psychological.

I’m not the person, you.

Know, to put the labels, I suppose dysmorphia. I would say that I’m not the best person for you, you know, for you. And I will not, you know, offer.

Any other time.

So let’s get to the mistake. There’s been times where you’ve made an error in this judgement.

Oh, yes. Many, many. You know, you just.

Let’s talk through one of.

Them.

Which.

Which one? Which one? I’m thinking.

Um, you know, the, the good thing about those mistakes is, as I said, you know, it didn’t really happen on major scale. Like, you know, not like the full mouth, you know, the ten veneers. It was maybe one tooth, maybe one crown. And yes, I did the crown, you know, I took up the patient where, you know, she was extremely picky. I needed to replace the crown. And, you know, I was quite good. It didn’t happen that long ago. It probably like six, seven years ago. And, you know, I replaced the crown. And in my opinion, it was a good crown. And she said, no, I still can see the difference. And she’s right. You know, I’m using a completely different material to the tooth. And there will be this effect called metamerism that, you know, whatever lighting you’re going to, there will be times that it will be visible. Right? So she said, and I do not accept that and I missed this, that she’s going to be this person, you know. So we ended up very kind of amicably. I returned the money. I have no problem. You know, if if the person is not happy, whatever it is, I it’s my mistake that I didn’t really realise that she’s going to be one of those. And I didn’t manage her expectations that well. So I returned the money and that’s it, Right.

And is that the one you’re giving me? That? That’s the mistake.

That’s the mistake.

I was hoping for a more juicy one than that. I would like the patient didn’t didn’t accept the money and said, you know, I want it, I want it fixed. I want something more than the money or.

Lost lost lost.

Confidence or some something.

More than confidence.

Yeah, confidence. You know, obviously she never came back to not only to see me, but she never came back to the practice. But I.

Okay, okay, let’s.

Let’s talk about this sometime. You’ve got this wonderful eye. You’ve got this amazing hands and brain, right? So sometimes you get a patient who’s who says, you know, the last dentist couldn’t see it and you can and picks you up and you think, well, you know, I’m pretty good. And you take something on. And then when you’re when you’re in the middle of that thing, you realise, oh, this is why the last dentist couldn’t do it or see it, you know, I don’t know. The patient couldn’t open their mouth enough or, or they were ultra picky or something about the bite or something. Surely it’s happened because the kind of patient who gets referred to Basil, who often ends up with you a lot of times the reason why the dentist is referring is that there is this thing that’s in the way, and that’s why they just go and see the best guy. He will take care of you. So you must have come across that where some some things you’ve misjudged the situation and it’s gone wrong.

So this was, you know, that same lady that I started talking about, You know, we’re kind of, you know, misjudge how picky she was and how actually she you know, you say, I have a good eye. I think you need to take her.

To you had even a better she had a better eye.

She had a better eye. So, you know, I took I took her case and I thought, well, okay, whatever she’s describing, I can actually, you know, I can see and I can do better. So we go through all these ordeal, you know, of planning the case and mock ups and whatever. And she writes me emails and she sends me the pictures of celebrities of how her teeth are looking. And I, you know, I’m thinking, oh, my God. And go, go and get the different head then, you know? So nevertheless, we finally, finally agree on on, on, on what where we want to end up with. And we proceed with the case. And I take the veneers off and I do the temporaries, you know, the complete exact copy of what we agreed to do. She goes away. She thinks about that. She’s one of those that she needs the approval of all the families and, you know, and the husband and everything. And she sends me finally an email saying it’s absolutely perfect. If the technician can copy that, let’s copy that. So I send everything to the technician and I say, This is what you need to copy. And I receive, you know, the case back. I kind of look at it and look, Yeah, well, look looks really nice. It looks really good. You know, I do the tri in and I take the pictures. We both look at the pictures and I think, yeah, it looks looks really good. Are you happy? Yeah, I’m happy. So I cemented everything permanently.

Permanently.

You know, it was her wedding as well after a couple of weeks. And, uh, you know, she’s very happy. She goes, she goes away. And then I see her name in my books, you know, the consultation.

I’m like.

Okay, what’s. What’s going to happen now? And then she comes back and and again she comes back and she by, by then, you know, with all these appointments and back and forth, we are in really good terms. I do establish really close relationships with my friends, with my patients. So she comes back and she says, You probably are going to think that I am crazy. My family thinks that I’m crazy, but there is something wrong with those veneers. I cannot really tell you what exactly, but there is something wrong with those veneers. And I look at those veneers, they look perfect to me. There’s nothing wrong with those veneers. Go away. And she says, No, I think my smile has changed. So I take a picture again and I compare the temporaries and the veneers and I look and I compare. And I look and I compare. And then she says, Look, there’s something wrong on the sides, on on my premolars. There’s something not right on the premolars. And I do compare and I see that, you know what my technician did? He made them made them a little bit thinner than what the temporaries where. I didn’t pick that up. I didn’t notice that.

You know, it was right in a way. She was right.

Yeah, she was right. And then she, you know, and I’m like, okay, ten years reading, ten years, you know what’s going to happen now? So we have a conversation that I and I have to admit, you know, she’s right. You know, I said, well, yeah, the technician did make them a little bit thinner. And that’s why it looks like your your smile is a bit narrower to what we planned. And so the question comes, so what we can do about that And I am saying, well, there’s no easy way to, you know, to to go around that and we need to redo all of all of that.

Why couldn’t you just redo those two?

It’s not two. It’s four premolars. And also, you know, you need to.

Have a nice transition.

From the canine. So it’s kind of all or nothing.

Yeah. Yeah.

And she is really to redo all of that. Um, yes, that’s the only way. So basically how we left at that time was that she I really had a very honest conversation with her. I said, I agree that there is this discrepancy from from your provisional restorations, but to redo that, it’s quite, quite a difficult job. It’s aggressive. And we and, you know, your veneers were quite aggressive to begin with. Are you really that unhappy with them? And she says, I think I am because you know me, I once I’ve seen it, I cannot unsee it. And I know that are really beautiful veneers and I know that my smile looks so much, but much better. But I think I will redo that. And she goes, But I’m happy to pay for this again.

Wow.

And this is, I think, where, you know, the benefit of establishing a good communication comes from. Yeah, I don’t think I would be charging her, you know, if she decided, you know, to do those veneers. Yeah, I don’t think I would be. But she was, you know, we were on that on those terms. So where we left it and it was last year I took the impressions and I said, well, I’m going to, you know, if you. Really show that you want to redo them. I’m going to do the wax up again to copy your, you know, first set of temporaries and we’re going to go ahead. In the meantime, I said, I want you I just want to ask you, you know, can you actually have a think about it again?

Do you really live with them for a few months? Yeah, Yeah.

Not even for a few months, because she was living with them for like a couple of months before she came back. But just think about whether you really want to redo that. And she says, I’m pretty certain, but okay, I’ll think about that. So that was last year and she hasn’t come back. I still haven’t got that, got that wax up. And I’m pretty sure that at some point she will return. Oh, you think so? I think so. That she will return, but she hasn’t come back yet. So we’ll see where that will go. So it to me, you know, it was.

Again, it.

Seems like a success, not a failure to me.

Turn every failure into success.

That seems like I want to hear about failure. That seems that seems like a successful outcome.

Okay. Let me tell you know, one of those categories that I said you shouldn’t be doing things that you’re not really comfortable with. Yeah. Good. Yeah. So once. Oh, actually, no. So one thing I’m really good at restorative, but I really suck at surgical. You know, I really don’t like surgical anything. Don’t like blood. And I haven’t taken the tooth out for many, many years. And I was doing some restorations. I was doing a quadrant dentistry, I think on the top left or whatever. And I, you know was polishing the distal of seven. Yeah. With the.

Disc.

Oh right. And I was so focussed on polishing that like really, really well that, you know, I don’t know, where’s that blood coming from? Okay, so I did a bit of a cut, right? So I did cut and I. Oh, hang on. It’s not blood. What is this yellow thing that’s coming from? So basically I cut the buccal pad open that it really started like, pouring into the mouth.

And I’m like, oh, my goodness.

First of all, what is this? I have no idea. What is this? So I said to my nurse, will bring the sutures. I don’t know what to do. I’ll bring the sutures. So I tried to stay cool and I somehow sutured. I remembered how to suture it, and it took ages, but I did that. Well. I sutured. She healed after that. I said, What happened? And she wasn’t particularly happy, of course. Right. But it didn’t really escalate or, you know, when I gave a call for the next four days every day to see how she’s doing and she was okay, She, you know, so I think that was the most recent stressful thing that was that threw me off completely off, you know, my comfort zone.

That qualifies somewhat.

Finally, somewhat, finally, finally.

I’ll accept it. I’ll accept that. But let’s stay dark for a little bit longer. Would you regret in your career?

I regret not finding mentors. Earlier in my career, I think I wasted about eight years of really just thinking that dentistry is the source of income, and I’m just going to go into the practice and I’m just going to, you know, do simple dentistry. I’m going to take money at the end of the month and then I’m going to just go away. And I didn’t have that passion. So and I think mentors, having mentors, people who support you, people who help you and who enlighten you, it’s super important. So you can’t choose the family, but you can’t choose the mentors. And I wish I had this wisdom to find a mentor earlier or to look for one.

I think, you know, the vast majority of dentists are in that category of doing it for the day job. Probably not people listening to this because if you’re in that category, you probably won’t even bother listening to a dental podcast. Right? But, you know, life is a funny thing because, you know, at which point do we get to our potential, you know? Now you said mentors. I’m thinking I don’t have enough mentors in business. You know, I haven’t got a guy to call about, I don’t know, Amazon sales of toothpaste, you know, I should have someone for that. And, you know, it gets back to that comfort zone kind of question. But you did it right. You broke out of that. Not only you broke out of that, you went on and you went on and did everything that you’ve done and then become a teacher. What do you think was that inflection point? But what pushed you was it was it was it as random as you bumped into Pascal at that at that course and thought, this is it, I want to be good at something? Or what was it like? Was it a time in your life that, I don’t know, boyfriend left you or whatever? Like, what was it?

As I say, you know, we like to attribute ourselves, you know, all the success because of our hard work, Most of the things that happened in my life, 60% of those events, significant events happened by accident. I was just being in the right place at the right time. The remaining 20% happened because of the right choices. So if you’re given that opportunity, if you recognise that, okay, this is the chance you grab it, Yeah. So you make the right choice and the remaining 20% is because of hard work and determination. So yes, you know, the fact how I left my country and I moved to France, it was again, nothing that I’ve planned before or wanted. It just happened by accident. I ended up in London by complete accident. I didn’t want to move to London, but I just happened so that I moved to London. But I realised that once I’m in here and this is how my life is like now, I need to make it work. So this is where you make the right choice. And then you put the hard work and you get where where you get.

Okay. But I mean, I get that. I understand that. I understand that. But something inside me telling me that you don’t become yogita CBT by accident. You just don’t.

Do you think I’m that unique? Yeah. This is an absolute nonsense.

Okay, so there is very modest.

You’re very modest. You’re very.

Modest. There is a thing.

You know, that we all say about, you know, 10,000.

Lithuanians.

Are very modest from what I’ve noticed.

Because so many Lithuanians that are good.

Right. Agreed with that. So we have.

A very high competition. But okay, so we have this rule about 10,000 hours and everyone keeps keeps, you know, keeps saying that. And I agree to the vast majority. But there is such a thing as talent, you know, you can’t really disregard that. And I’m sure you know that if you give the 10,000 hours for the talented person versus the untalented person, it will make a world of a difference. So, yes, you know, I do. I guess I do have certain strengths and some talent that allowed me just to get where I got a little bit quicker. So, yes, you know, again, talent or maybe this very irrelevant training of the art school that I went to. And, you know, the fact that, you.

Know, it resonated at the right place.

Resonated at the right time. So the penny just just dropped at the right time. And I am what I am. So how do you call that? Is that the determination is that the success Was I born like that? I doubt so maybe there are certain traits that I have that, you know, I was born with and is given for me and then certain traits that I picked up somewhere randomly that helps me.

Now, I take your point.

You know, I work a lot with Depeche Palmer and he one of the few people he really reveres is you from the work perspective. And I look at your work and the thing, the thing that gets me about your work is it doesn’t look like work. It looks like it looks like teeth. And it’s so rare to see, especially under photography conditions where it really exposes the you know, like like you said, porcelain is not enamel. So when a camera flash and everything is involved, then it really exposes it. And yet your work is so subtly natural. What do you do when a patient comes up and says, I don’t want it to look natural? Do you then change to unnatural looking teeth? Or or do you do you pass them along to someone else or.

No.

I’m not in the position to, you know, to pass along the patient that pays me money. No, I think this is what I always say to my delegates that once you find that what you love doing and what you’re good at and you keep doing that, it the dentistry that you do, it starts attracting the patients for that day for for that dentistry. So I’m quite lucky, you know, that the more I’m like, you know, posting or teaching, I get the patients who come in for this. However, it does happen that, you know, I have patients who walk in through the door and they said, you know, I, I want extra, extra, extra bleach white, you know, forget the translucency. I want like really, really, you know, bland, really scream ing, unnatural restorations. And of course, I will try to have this conversation. And this is again, it comes down to communicating to the patient. And to me, you know, I try to understand, you know, do they want that? Why do they want that? Because they are uneducated. They don’t know that this isn’t really a sign of a good taste. Or perhaps, you know, sometimes you get the patients that, you know, they come in like bleached hair, for example, super tanned, right?

Orange, orange skin, orange.

Skin, super big lips, you know, And you try to put the very naturally looking teeth into into that personality. Of course, it’s not going to look right because they are not like that. So I kind of try to find, you know, whether why they want that and whether I’m comfortable to deliver that and whether they do understand the consequences of that. And if they do understand that, I have no reason whatsoever to reject them. And I will do that. But I will never post it.

On my social media.

That’s what I was going to ask next.

Yeah, no, because I don’t want to have many of those patients coming through the door because I don’t enjoy that dentistry and I want to keep doing what I enjoy doing.

You don’t find.

Patients don’t really appreciate secondary anatomy or do you do you educate them on.

That? I do.

Educate them.

On secondary anatomy, on.

Secondary anatomy. Yes. And there would be, you know, some people who are quite specific, they say, yeah, I get that. You know, I get what you’re saying. Maybe. Okay, let’s do a little bit, but maybe not too much. And I would agree with that. You know, you know, at the end of the day, you know, the beauty perception of beauty is very different. Yeah, How I see things is not necessarily the same how my patients see things. And if we are able to find some middle ground where we both happy, I think this is the best thing because this is how it happens with patients, right? When they come in for the treatment, they always try to push you to and pull you towards their side to what they imagine as as was is ideal. And the dentists are always trying to push the patients to their side, thinking, you know what, this is the ideal. And I think in real life it does. It rarely happens that, you know, one gets. Everything and the other gets nothing. Most of the times you have to meet somewhere in the middle. And, you know, I’m quite a flexible person. So if I can see the reason why they want that or they don’t want that, I will. I don’t have a very big ego, so I will not be pushing them, you know, to necessarily accept the my perception and my vision and my understanding of the beauty.

Let’s talk about beauty. What was your sort of aha moment regarding cosmetic dentistry? You know what? If I come to you, I’ve just chipped my knee. If I come to you and ask for a smile makeover, what is it about the way you’re going to look at it? Or what was it about a particular insight? And that’s really unfair question because it’s a bunch of things, right? We could sit here and talk about it for, you know, one year. Course. Yeah. But just just to give you an example, I asked Sam Jethwa, who does a lot of veneers, what was his aha moment, and he said something about the occlusion being from the outside in instead of the inside out for him was an aha moment for for the sake of the argument, can you what comes to mind when I say that to you.

That.

Aesthetics is a by-product of a good function? That was my aha moment. And actually I did realise that very early, you know. So when I was like after like dental school I was working in a practice and it was like practice of two chairs. And I didn’t have like any specialist or anyone to really consult. But I had a colleague who was doing a lot of composite bonding and we’re talking like 20 plus years ago now. And because composite bonding was very, very big in Lithuania. And so I was exposed to that quite early on. And, you know, there were two moments, not the aha moments, but where you start thinking about, you know, that something might be related to that, right? So you do a really beautiful restoration that you’ve been taught and it starts chipping and the same happens to porcelain crown that you’ve placed and the same happens to the bridge that you’ve done or even the denture right? And same thing happens and you can’t really, you know, understand why. And then I was thinking it must be something to do with the bite. I used to call it the bite. The occlusion came a little bit later. So that was, I think, my moment when I started, you know, thinking about that and when I’ve learned the occlusion and I started doing aesthetic cases, that was where it was the light bulb. So the patients that come to the and I have them so many, they come and do the practice and they say, I just want those veneers changed or I just want to have the veneers or I just want to have the crowns. And you look at their teeth and you think that, well, you actually can’t have that. You need a full mouth rehabilitation because you know, you can’t you don’t put the roof on the burning, burning house. So to me, this is, I think, what gave me a really in-depth understanding of what the aesthetics is and how to deliver and how to deliver that safely and how to sleep at night well.

So just to explain it to me, they’re kind of collapsed bites and you need the extra space, so you have to open them up first.

Yeah. So, you know, the war on dentition, which is like the disease of the century and the upcoming centuries and majority of people, you know, why do they want those veneers to begin with is because they are some they have something collapsing. But it’s very rare that it’s only No. Two teeth or six teeth are collapsing, collapsing. It’s usually all or nothing. And it’s a very difficult conversation to have with those patients because they come in again with a very clear mindset. I want six veneers to be done or the six composites to be done, and all of a sudden you’re saying, well, instead of six, not only you need 12, but actually you need a full mouth rehabilitation because this, this, this and that X, Y and Z. And that’s what I think gives me most of the comfort, you know, why I would be comfortable to say no if we can’t agree on that and and why I would be comfortable to send the patient away. If we cannot find like a middle ground, it will not go ahead.

So if I remember correctly, Basil told me that one of his treatment plans ran to £200,000. I guess your prices aren’t quite.

As I wish, but no, they’re not that expensive. No, but.

But you still have to for that patient. You have to break it to them that rather than 20,000, it’s going to be 40,000 or something. Yes, exactly. And so do you take several appointments to do that like he does?

Yeah. What’s your process?

His student. And I think the way he taught me and this is one of the biggest things that I think the most important things that he taught me, you know, the way to to talk to the patient and how to kind of gauge whether you whether the patient is willing to engage into that further conversation, whether this, you know, some that all of a sudden triples or quadruples sometimes, whether it’s within the scope of the. What he’s willing to spend. It’s a tough conversation. So, yes, I do approach it the same way as as Basil does. I do not like also Zoom calls like what is very.

Popular now, Zoom consultations.

I don’t really like them because I find that you can’t.

Connect to the person.

You can’t connect to the person. There’s a body language. There’s there are so many other things that you can read within the person. I think Zoom doesn’t really do that. Yes, I would do occasionally like a Zoom consultation. I’m going to have one next week just because the patient is away and we need to make a decision now. But it would be the exception and not the rule. So I think, yes, I do approach it quite a similar way.

Very interesting. Right. The the latest version of the Oculus, you know, the virtual reality glasses, they can. They’ve they’ve managed to make it so that you can look into someone’s eyes. Whereas with Zoom you can’t you know you’re in Zoom. If you want to look at someone’s eyes, you have to look into the camera. Yes. And I heard Mark Zuckerberg talking about what is it that that’s missing on Zoom that they’re trying to get on the virtual reality thing. It turns out that’s a massive one. And the other one is hands. But they they realise that it’s only from here to here, only the hand, not the arm. And getting the arm right is a disaster. It’s very difficult to do so they just have hands instead of instead of arms. And, and he was saying those two things make the virtual reality. Now we know that there’s a whole lot more to it than that, right? It’s like that said, though, it’s always been my ambition to go to Jerusalem. And then I went on virtual and I don’t really want to go there anymore.

Really.

Like like I.

Still I wonder.

Whether you would feel the same if you actually went now. Yeah, of.

Course, of course.

And I think you probably would change the mind.

I mean, I do want to.

Go there, but. But in a way, I feel like I can’t. I can’t. I can’t with my passport. I can’t go. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s it’s an interesting thing that you bring up. Now, tell me this. So patients come to see Basil sometimes. Is it that cost drives them to you from Basil?

Does that ever happen? Could be, yes. Yes, of course.

And sometimes it’s treatment modality that he ends up. And do you get referrals now in his practice? Is that how it.

Works at all? Yeah.

So I would say, you know, looking at, you know, just doing the assessment of, you know, how the year was, I would say this interestingly, I don’t know for what reason, but I get a lot of patients from my Instagram. Do you? I do. And I don’t know why because I don’t.

I don’t.

Really do anything so active. A lot of like Lithuanian community patients.

Yeah.

So it’s more probably like word of mouth and then the Instagram and then they come to see me. I do get because I teach also at Eastman.

Which course do you teach?

It’s a restorative Dental practice.

Which is a what? How long is that course?

Is it a year course. So this is.

A part time program. So you can do, you know, you can do the full masters in three years. Now, when I did it, it was used to be four years, but now they condensed it into three years. So it’s three years, but you are free to exit after every year. So if you exit after the first year, you do get the certificate. If you exit after the second year, do you do you do get the diploma? If you stay for the third year and you write your thesis, you will get the the Masters, the MSC.

And on the Mizrahi Dental courses, which bit do you do?

So we’re always.

There, both.

Of us.

Oh, the whole time. The whole time. So we both are there. Well, it allows us to have more, you know, delegates and and also we kind of you know, we do have our own topics what we teach. And I would be, you know, running my day and then he would be running the next day or we would be splitting the day where, you know, he does.

So which are your bits? My bits is morphology, of course.

So I do morphology. I do everything related to adhesive dentistry, like adhesive posts. I do the composites, I do the occlusion days, I do, you know, adhesive like kind of crowns. They do the veneers. They do veneer temporaries. Um, but it’s the process in the making.

That’s a lot of.

The course you teach.

Um, I will say.

That, you know, 70% of what he’s teaching is, you know, it’s his, it’s just, you know, I’m trying to bring what I really strongly about about and what I can stand for. And it’s, you know, the process in the making, you know, so, you know, none of our courses, you know, we ran like the previous six months. It’s not going to be the same of what we ran. We will run in the next month, in the next six months because we are changing. The trends are changing. I am growing a lot. I discover new things. I decided, okay, now I don’t want I want to do these things. I don’t want to do this way. So it’s yeah, it’s it’s it’s process in the making.

Tell me, tell me what you think about this idea that if you’re at the tip of the spear. In something In your case, let’s. Let’s just call it. Adhesive dentistry. Yeah.

Bonded.

Bonded.

Bonded system. So if you’re at the tip of the spear, then sometimes you do things that are not. Evidence based?

Yes, absolutely.

Because because if you wait for the evidence, you’re going to be five years.

Behind the thing.

Called common sense. Yeah. Yeah. Experience and practice. Yeah.

Yeah. And by the way, you know, the guys I think about this with with the products, right? The way we’ve we’ve done these products if we stuck to the evidence. Yeah. The evidence is you know in fact I.

Quite evidence is always too.

Late to the party. Yeah exactly.

Always exactly.

But there’s an element of risk there isn’t there? So you’re doing something that’s I mean, on one side from the from the patient side, you know, you’re doing it with the full knowledge of what you’re doing. But sometimes, especially in adhesive, you might think to yourself, Well, I wonder if it’ll stick or not. You know, sometimes you do this flat person. Tell me about that. Do you do you, do you get there? I mean, it’s for me, it’s it’s your responsibility to do things outside of the evidence. You know, if you’re at the tip of the spear, you know, you might say, okay, Pascal’s at the tip of that spear, right? Quite right. Quite right. But nonetheless, you know, on on the practice side, you’re there.

And I do try that. But, you know, what is the beauty of the adhesive dentistry and trying these things that the first rule that everyone I think should follow is that do no harm. Yeah, do not harm anyone. Sure. And this is where, you know, the freedom and the liberty to do mistakes in adhesive dentistry is really like wide and big because how you will harm if you’re doing additive approach. Yeah, you’re not really releasing the tooth. Right? So you’re the whole point why you’re doing adhesive dentistry because you’re trying to preserve. Well, to a certain extent, of course, you know, but you’re trying to preserve. So even if it’s going to fail, what’s going to fail is not the tooth, it’s your restoration. And I’m completely happy with that. So I will go, you know, and I would bond things maybe in the protocols that I would, you know, wouldn’t necessarily do that every day to everyone. But I would try things not very often, but I would try them.

And then, you know, it’s you’re imperfectly placed, aren’t you, for, you know, the difference between the fully minimally invasive dentist and the traditional dentist. But what Basel does a lot of and so and you know there’s that moment right where you know maybe you should prep.

And I do prep.

Yeah but but but that moment you know at what point is it right to do some sort of circumferential prep at what time isn’t it right to do that. And what is the is that is that changing for me?

I don’t think the rules when you should prep or shouldn’t prep, that’s strict to be fair. A lot depends to me is the patient the age of the patient and what I am able to achieve if I am prepping something a little bit more aggressively to the older person, for example, and I know that, you know, my restoration, the traditional crown maybe will hold for 20 years, I will be happy to prep that. But if I will be doing the same for like 22 year old, that in my opinion would be a mistake and I would never do that. So it really it really depends on the case. It really depends on on on on the patient itself and so many other factors.

True. But but nonetheless, there comes a there comes a moment where my my point is, is that is that changing or not that that moment when you think I should prep or not because of the technology, because of the bonding systems, because of whatever your understanding of occlusion.

But of course it’s.

Changing for you.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. The the target is always moving. Is moving. Yes. And and you know how sometimes you fall into your own beliefs, you know, the fact that you are completely unbiased, it just doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist. Right. And you, you read a certain paper and you think like, right, I this is what I should be doing. And all of a sudden, you know, you, you start doing more cases like, like those cases and then you learn maybe that something else or you’ve learned that actually it doesn’t work the way I expected. And you come back to the old one or you start looking for the for the other evidence or the other new technique or other new material. So the target is always moving. But again, in my in my views, you know, I’m I’m comfortable to try whatever as long as I know I’m not doing harm. And you will never know whether it will work 100%.

Yeah. Because you never know what would have happened if you went in a different direction.

Yeah, exactly.

Because, you know, you always believe that you do the best to the patient. You to to the best of your ability at the time.

Tell me about your week. How many days, How many days are your dentist? How many days are you a teacher? How many days are you a, you know, meditator?

I do not meditate. I am aspiring to meditate.

I do.

Not meditate.

I mean, do you work five days a week? What do you do?

I did for many, many years. And. I was really focussed on dentistry and the teeth and all I ever did was was teeth. So I used to do five days a week and then one of those five days might be, you know, let’s say on average one of those days would be for dedicated for teaching. And then you know that you have a teaching the next day. So what do you do on your weekend? You prepare for the next week and you do your lectures and you come up, you know, with all the presentations. So I did that for many, many years. And now I think that I’ve learned my lesson that I’m not really productive when I do this. I do not really enjoy that. And life is so much bigger than that than just teeth. So I am cutting it down. So my goal now is to work, you know, three maybe clinical days and one teaching, and that would be, I think, ideal.

Yeah, four days is about right, I think. Yeah. And three clinical days is about right. I always think three is kind of your job, whereas two is kind of your hobby, you know? And there’s nothing wrong with that. Right? You know, you can do that too. Um, what about mental health? Do you? So when when you tell me, you know, you were pushing too hard in those times, did you suffer with sort of the stress, the mental health questions that people suffer with? I mean.

I didn’t I didn’t really suffer from mental health, but I really suffered from the lack of social connections. Oh, you know, I didn’t really I didn’t really see friends, you know, as often as I should have. So that means that, you know, my relationships were not maybe as close and I didn’t have that many friends. People do forget about you if you’re not around, right? You really do need to invest in your in your friendships. So I know, you know, because I probably I do enjoy my own company. As I said, I never suffered from like lonely loneliness or anxiety or things like that. But my social life did did suffer at some point. And and then I decided that, okay, I need to change that. But then again, I’m a person of the extremes sometimes, right? So if I am on to something, I will give everything I have until I get what I want. And then you realise, okay, time to leave that. And now, now it’s time to focus on something else. And then it was last year where I, you know, probably turned the table a bit too swiftly and I focussed on my social life quite a lot. So, you know, my profession, I started realising it towards the end of the year that actually I didn’t really progress that much during the year just because, you know, I lived a very fulfilled life. I had so many experiences and I was enjoying myself a lot. But life is all about balance, right? Yeah, I really hate that saying.

But it’s so true.

I mean, balance can be, you know, the traditional thing that people think or it could be the balance of two extremes. You know, if you’re an extremist, then why not balance it with extremes? Go, go berserk sometimes.

Yeah. It’s just not.

The thing about me is that it’s only two extremes that I’m interested at the same time is everything. And I want to do this and I want to do that. And I want I want to have everything. And, you know, you can’t. Master of all Jack of all trades is a master of none. But the full sentence. I think that the jack of all trades sometimes is better than the master. Yeah, there is a full sentence, actually.

Do you want.

Kids?

Such a tough question. You’re not sure?

I’m not sure. I’m not sure.

I’m not sure.

Nothing wrong with that.

Probably I do at some point. And again, you know, it’s a bit irrelevant in my mind whether I want kids or not. It all depends on the relationship that you have. Yeah, right. So I only want kids in a right relationship.

Yeah, of.

Course. So up until recently, that didn’t happen. And I never was, you know, feeling bad about it and or left out or anything. I was living a very, you know, life that I really wanted to live. Now I’m thinking that, well, perhaps there is a maybe that door is not completely closed just yet, so I don’t know.

I mean, I don’t know if it’s an unfair question in so much as if there was a man sitting in front of me, would I have asked him the same question? But for someone who says they want everything, number one, kids tends to be for women part of everything. But number two, kids tend to be the thing that stops you having everything.

Oh, yes, absolutely.

And I think when you’re a woman.

But it’s true.

That I think, you know, it’s such a big myth that, you know, that if you’re a woman, you can have it all. You cannot write, you cannot have it all. So when I think a lot to a lot that I’ve achieved is also because of the fact that I don’t have kids. Yeah. Because I had all the time and I had all the freedom to choose whatever I felt like choosing, and I did that. So it’s it’s a reality.

What would you do if you had. I don’t know. Let’s let’s, let’s call it a day. Because if I say if I say two weeks, you’ll say, I’ll go off to Vietnam or something. But if you had a day where nothing is expected of you from anyone, what would be your ideal? What would be the ingredients of a happy day for Yogeeta? Mm I was thinking about this a lot because we spoke to someone here and he said once you’ve got that clear at the end of every day, you can say, Well, did I get those ingredients in my day? And, and I had about four days. My wife and kids went off and I was really trying to think of it.

What did you end up doing?

Well, you know, crazily, I cooked every day.

Oh, yeah. For yourself.

For myself and for other people. But. But a cooking. The actual act of cooking. I really wanted to do that every day. And I quite liked the, you know, the e-bikes that that little, that little push you get from the electricity as it kicks in.

So lazy.

It’s all about, well, I am lazy, but, but I like the I like it gives me that feeling that when I was six years old, the first time I got on a bicycle where it’s you’re a bit out of control with it. So I was riding the line bikes every day and then I wanted to see my friends. I wanted to see my family, my my parents. They’re getting old. And what would it be for you? What would be the constituency ingredients of that?

So one thing for sure that I would be doing a and I stick to that. I still am doing that every day. So I wake up very early and I have coffee in bed. What time I wake up at 6:00 in the morning, Um, I do the tasks that I need to do that morning and I have a peace and quiet. I cuddle with my cat and after an hour and a half or two hours, I’m ready to start the day. So I think this is definitely, you know, it’s so important to me, this ritual of mine. I would stick to that.

That’s your me.

Time.

That’s my me time. That’s my me time. Me and my cat time.

Yeah. Um.

Um. Then if I had no pressures, I would go out in the morning to absorb the sunlight, to walk in the nature. I really. It’s so paradoxical that I live in one of the biggest cities in the world, but I really like nature and I like tranquillity and the peace and.

The quiet.

Lithuanian, very Lithuanian thing. Very Lithuanian thing, yes. So I would go out, you know, that’s the reason why I live very close to the parks and any green area and the greenery, because I can do that. I could do.

That. So the Japanese.

They say bathe, bathe in the forest.

Yes.

Yes. That kind of resonates with me. Yes, that’s true. So this is what I would do. I would go out, absorb the sun.

By yourself?

By myself? Yeah, by myself. Then I would not cook. I definitely would not cook. I don’t like really cooking.

Cooking to me is dentistry to you, you know that that creative and, you know, going going above and beyond like for you for you you might you might make six veneers or some prep where I could imagine basil style. You just keep on going, keep on going until it’s perfect. Yeah. Whereas for me that might be a Bolognese sauce.

Well, good for you. As long as you know.

What you like doing.

Right.

Your perfect day. You wake up, cats.

Go for a walk.

Go for. Yeah, go for a walk. I definitely would need to go and exercise. I would definitely need to go to the gym. Oh, really? Something. Yeah, something for myself that I would be doing if nothing really pushed me. And then I would probably go. Invite my friends. Not many. A couple of friends for lunch and then come back to my house.

Not to.

Cook. Obviously in a.

Restaurant? No.

In a restaurant? Yeah. In a restaurant? Yeah. I would never cook for myself. I would cook for people, but not for myself. And I would go to bed early. I am one of those boring people that goes to bed early. Oh, God.

I know, I know.

It shows my age.

Have you always gone to bed early? You just.

Love. You love sleep. This is.

Something. Yes. I always say that, you know, I can go hungry for hours and days. That’s not a problem at all. But I need to have a good night’s sleep. But nevertheless, I was not going to bed very early up until probably like two years ago. And I decided that, you know, it makes a massive difference. Now, the fact that I had a good night’s sleep, I function differently. I think differently. My emotional status is completely different if I have a good night’s sleep. So this is something that I try to prioritise now.

So what gives? Let’s say you’re under massive pressure. What gives? Do you end up not sleeping? Not eating? What do you end up?

Probably not eating. I would sleep. I still sleep well. Yeah. But yeah, I then forget probably to eat. I don’t feel like hungry.

Um, so if I’m. If I’m massively.

Stressed, I.

Eat.

Oh, really? No, never. It’s the complete opposite for me. If I’m stressed, I’m so lucky.

I’m very stressed. I need to be more stressed before summer. Maybe I need to screw.

Up some more of. In your.

Cases. Yeah.

Few more of those challenging patients. So what’s your. You said you talked quite a lot about travel. What’s your favourite place to travel?

One single place.

Well.

Before there was only one. There is only one country that I went twice to and it is Iceland.

Oh, do you like it? Oh, actually, I’m lying.

There’s two countries now that I went twice with Iceland and Mexico. Mexico. More for like a company and the friends. But. But Iceland was because of the nature and it was so outstanding. And I would definitely go there again.

It does look.

Beautiful, actually, in from our office.

Just came back from Iceland. Oh, really? Yeah.

It’s such a beautiful place. This is so unique. And there’s nothing like it. Nothing that I’ve seen in the world.

Did you take one of those 4×4?

I did.

I did that. And I also did the, um. I like trekking trips as well. So I did the tracking trip in Iceland. So you just being dropped off like in the middle of the island, Really harsh conditions to go through, really harsh weather. But then you see things that are so spectacular.

Waterfalls and things.

Waterfall, ice, snow. The, uh, volcanoes, the black volcano, ash on the ice, the gore. It’s just so fantastic you can’t get to these places with a car.

Yeah, definitely.

And the lights. Quite interesting, though.

Yeah, the light is quite interesting.

So I went to Iceland. It was very, very funny. So I went in Iceland in July and we were landing in Reykjavik in the in the capital city. And the pilot, he had a really good sense of humour. He said, Well, you’re so lucky because you are landing to Reykjavik and the Reykjavik is experiencing the heatwave. It’s 13 degrees. It’s as hot as it could get, probably. So I went there in the summertime, so there was barely any darkness. So you sleep in the constant daylight? It’s quite, quite weird. Quite weird.

Yeah.

So do you like skiing as well?

No. This is something that I don’t like. I’m more into water sports and scuba dive, but I don’t ski.

Oh, that’s interesting. So you wouldn’t expect Iceland to be your. It must be a super beautiful place.

It is a very.

Very, very beautiful place. Yes.

Amazing. Um, I think we’re coming near the end of the podcast, so I’m going to ask you the traditional final questions that we asked.

Oh, the depressing one.

I don’t know why you find that depressing.

It makes me feel.

So old when you ask. Deathbed Yeah, the deathbed and you know, the advice that you would give.

Like, okay, I’m.

Not dying yet.

You know.

It’s funny you should say that because I’ve got a few messages from people saying, Hey, why do you ask that question? And so on. But I don’t know. Number one, I think we should talk more about death, not less. But But number two, hey, imagine it wasn’t deathbed. All right? Just advice.

No, I’m happy, actually. You know, I will bring something quite personal since you’re going to get me all raw and everything. Um, I probably wouldn’t be comfortable to give the advice to anyone because, you know, my living is a constantly learn. But I did experience. I did have that experience of a deathbed and it was my father that passed away. And, um, it was quite a profound experience that did change my perspective quite significantly. And I think this is where my advice, you know, what I would be telling to other people. It came from that moment at that very moment or that that time. Um, so the first one I would. Say that cherish your relationships. There is nothing more important than it was that moment where I realised, you know, how we chase our goals. We want to have successful careers, we want to have a certain house, a certain car. We want to, you know, to experience, to travel a lot, to own things or to achieve something to be acknowledged. None of that really matters in that moment of death.

And were you thinking were you thinking.

About about him or were you thinking that about your relationship with him?

Both.

Both ways. It was it was the experience that, you know, I was thinking that, you know, I’m glad that he has got me besides him. And it really, truly probably means a lot to him. But it also it meant a lot to me. It you know, it taught me many, many lessons. And I think that’s why, you know, probably in my in my experience, death exists for the living people. That experience teaches the lesson for the living people, not so much for the person who’s, you know, dying. And that’s I thought, you know, that the cherish the relationships spend time with your loved ones and build a relationships with your friends, have significant people in your life and really make time to to to your friends and for your loved ones.

How do you manage relationships with people back home? I mean, do you manage to get home a lot or not?

I do not. As I say, you know, I’m not very close with my with my mom. I’m very close with my sisters. And one of my sisters lives back in Lithuania and the other one lives in France. So I do see my sisters quite a lot.

And are you just three girls?

Yeah, we’re just three. Three girls? Yes. Um, so I do see them a lot, but other than that, I do not really travel to Lithuania that often. Maybe as I should.

Do you not have friends?

I do. But again, you know, my childhood friends and my uni friends were all so scattered all over the world that, you know, some people live abroad and some people live in the islands and people live in in Europe and people live in South America. So we tend to organise, you know, trips or meetups that not necessarily happens in Lithuania.

So the relationships you’re referring to when you say, you know, cherish them and nurture them, who are you thinking of when you when you say that? Friends.

My sisters, my.

My other half, um, my friends. Friends that I created here in London. Friends that I have since very young early days since childhood, um, people that I work with. This is very important as well. You know, we spend ten hours, sometimes more. It’s massive. Yeah, It’s so we, we spend so much time at work, and to me, it’s really silly not to have good relationship with your co-workers and your colleagues. Mhm. So I am that kind of person that, you know, after this experience I did change my, my point of view and I stopped being, you know, overly focussed on teeth like Depeche. I know he always says that, you know, the teeth come first, you know, no matter what, teeth come first. And I used to be like that. But then I changed and I realised, you know, at that moment when I’m dying is the fact that, you know, I did teeth and I was solely focussed on teeth. Is that important? It meant nothing at that point. So I thought, life is just more than that.

And were you.

Closer to your dad.

Then?

Yes, I was close to my dad. Yes.

Yes.

Okay. That’s the first piece of advice.

The first piece of what is the second piece of advice? Be true to yourself. Live the life on your own terms. Do not ever compare like, well, it’s a piece of the same. It feels like I’m giving the same advice, same advice again, or multiple advices in the same. But be true to yourself and live your authentic life. Do not compare you know to everybody else. Do not feel like you need to do that and you need to be successful or you need to be achieving these things because other people are doing that. If you want to live in a countryside, go live in a countryside. If you don’t want to do dentistry, don’t do dentistry. If you really want to have a successful career, go and do the successful career. If you don’t want to have kids, don’t have kids. If you want to have five of them, have five of them, and don’t compare yourself to anybody else. So just be your authentic self.

Live on your own terms.

Yeah, live on your.

Own terms, which I think.

You know, I don’t know if you ever saw that article. When they talk to people on their deathbeds, did you ever see that? No, I don’t think I did it did the rounds to she was working in a nursing home or an end of life place. And she asked. She was asking. And that was the thing that most people said that really they regretted that they were living on other people’s terms rather than their own.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Amazing. So what’s the third?

Um.

The third one. And I have to stop after that.

No, no, keep going.

I know you have to be at work day after tomorrow so we can keep going.

What’s the third? I’d say.

Practice. Gratitude. We very often forget, and I am very guilty of that. To appreciate what you have achieved in life and what you are surrounded with and by whom you are surrounded. So practice that every day because you will be surprised how rich your life is already. And you there’s so much, you know, discomfort and so much unhappiness and suffering coming from chasing something that you already have that is at your doorstep already.

Give me an example of that. I mean, it’s beautiful. I get it. But give me an example of how that resonated with you.

Wanting to have a better family, better partner, better job, better paid work, better car. You already have it. It’s. It’s given for you. Yeah. Just be grateful for this. That doesn’t mean stop, you know.

Achieving it. You know.

How much you have to earn to be in the top 1%.

Of.

In the UK? The top 1% of earners? No, I think it’s £250,000 to be in the top 1%.

Yeah. So what are you chasing?

And you know that that that’s the UK. Yeah. To be in the 1% of the world. It’s like £28,000 or something ridiculous like that. And it makes you realise that the chasing point that you’re making. Um, absolutely right. Absolutely right. I’m happy to take a fourth if you’re willing to.

Really? Okay. We can carry on like that. You know, the whole that.

You follow your passions.

Yeah.

Follow your passions. Do what you really like to do.

Do not look.

So maybe look from the outside. I think of you as very much in that sort of ikigai. You know what I mean by that? Oh, it’s this, like, Japanese thing. Like it’s the four circles. It’s like what you love doing, what you’re good at, doing, what the world needs and what the world will pay for or something. And right in the middle of that is the, is the sort of that perfect. And I’ve always thought about you like that because you seem to love your job a lot.

I do. Honestly, I.

Do. Yes.

Yeah. And now, having talked to you, it’s not only the teeth, it’s it’s the relationships you enjoy. It’s, as I said, dentistry seems to be there’s more than the teeth to dentistry is absolutely. If, if, if you put it in my way, the head, the hand, the heart, the whatever. Yeah.

People don’t think that about myself when they meet. But I am quite a spiritual person. Are you?

I am. Do you believe in God?

No, I am not religious, but I’m. I’m very spiritual.

What do you mean by that?

It means that there is. I am quite interested in human consciousness and human experiences. So it’s not about, you know, the God, but the principles of life, how we people are, how we interact. But it is a meaning of. Of everything, I suppose.

Okay. But spirituals are such a funny word, isn’t it? Because you see it by its very nature, it’s difficult to pin it down. But do you mean philosophical and sort of. Why are we here? Why are we here?

No, not so much in a philosophical sense, but it’s more about, you know, human human relationships. You know, what what is what is the point of living this life and how to live this life?

Well, do you believe in karma?

I don’t know. Maybe in some ways.

But I think.

It’s I think karma is practical. There’s a practicality to it, right? If I. If I’m nice to you, eventually you’ll be back. Nice to me.

Yeah. To me, it seems very transactional.

Yeah. No, but the people who really believe in karma, they believe that the universe is doing that. Which I don’t believe that. So then tell me, do you mean. Do you mean in a in a like a self-development way?

Yeah.

Self self-development. It’s all about, you know, the human relationships and how we should live the life and what is important and what makes it meaningful to to live the life and what is worthwhile. Um, so that’s to me is the spirituality, how we connect to people.

And so how should.

We live life and what is worthwhile.

And the good.

Question when I will no, invite me to the podcast on my deathbed.

Okay, let’s move on to the fantasy dinner party.

I hate this question. Thank you, Mike.

My question. Thanks a lot.

Oh, three guests.

Yeah.

Dead or alive?

I have to.

Okay, maybe I’ll think of a third one. Well, let’s see. Let’s go. Let’s start with the first one. So I’m a very big fan of Renee Brown. Renee Brown. She is a research professor in in states in Houston, I believe. And she spent probably like last 12, 20, 20 years researching vulnerability and. Courageousness and shame and, you know, vulnerability. As I said, you know, I’m not a very good, you know, person to open up and be vulnerable. And I’ve listened to, you know, if you’re ever interested. It’s a great, great talk. Ted Talk. And you can watch it on the YouTube. It’s called Daring Greatly. So I believe that, you know, and she’s a very, very funny person as well to the way she presents herself and the way she presents the very subtle, what’s it called? Subtle. Subtle topic. Daring. Daring. Greatly. Oh, nice. So I’m daring greatly here with your podcast.

Now, you’ve done well. You’ve been very open.

You’re in your element.

I told you. Yeah.

So I would like to have her as a guest. The second guest would be. I’m a big fan of a complete nerd called Sam Harris. I know Sam Harris. You know Sam Harris, right? So he’s a philosopher and a neuroscientist, and I really admire his way and his podcasts and the way he sees the world and the way he looks into consciousness and human experiences and the relationships and how versatile he is and political. Sometimes politics is not my thing, but, you know, I admire how versatile he is, so that would be quite a geeky dinner, right? That would.

Be quite.

That’d be interesting.

That’d be interesting.

I know, I know. Actually, who I invite the third one to break this, you know, geeky dinner party. I would invite Ricky Gervais.

Ricky Gervais. Ricky Gervais. Yeah. Ricky Gervais.

I would invite him. Funny. Why it popped into my head is because. Well, Ricky Gervais is known for being a comedian. Right? But he’s a really smart person.

He’s a serious guy. He’s a serious.

Animal. Issues.

That sort of thing.

Not only that, he’s a really conscious person. Yeah, he he, you know, he graduated, he went to uni and he graduated from philosophy. You know, he got the philosophy degree with honours. So he actually runs the podcast with Sam Harris called absolutely Mental. It’s so funny because I was really fascinated. You know, there’s a comedian and a real geek and they run a podcast and they, you know, Ricky Gervais is able to kind of keep up with Sam Harris and he kind of breaks this like, really dull conversation. So and he’s really funny as well. He makes really good jokes. So yeah, probably if I would invite him as a third person, I would be quiet. I would just be listening to, you know, how they geeking out, but probably laughing at the jokes.

I like that. I like that. But maybe I should introduce a new question that’s that you have that they’re all alive. What about three dead people?

Oh, gosh. You really are morbid, huh?

No, but.

But, you know, like you can say Einstein. And, you know, in history, there’s been more interesting people than Ricky Gervais for the sake of the.

Oh, thanks. Thanks. No, no demolishing. No, no, no, no.

It’s beautiful. Your choice was beautiful. But what if what if, like, historically, who would you who would you want to talk to?

Like, if the first person that came to my head is still not going to answer your questions, I probably would want to talk to my dad. Yeah. You know, very personal, obvious reasons. Um, who else would I bring alive?

I think I would bring.

Yeah, you mentioned the Einstein, but I would like to actually look into his eyes and to see what is wrong with you. I mean, how. How did you come up with all of that?

Yeah.

Um. Whom else? Huh? What is it? Another great invention that I don’t understand to this day.

Who invented.

The telephone?

No, actually, who.

Invented the iCloud? I still don’t understand how iCloud works.

I think of. I think of. I’m quite. It’s in politics. I think of JFK. Like. Like I’d like to know, you know, what is it like to be the president of the United States? You know, like, who killed you?

Yeah, that too. Who killed you?

Who gave that order? You know that. You know that those sorts of things. But unfair. Unfair of me to ask you on the spot a second set of guests. So it’s been a massive, massive pleasure to have you. And I do want to have you again. Maybe like maybe.

Don’t wait until the deathbed, as I said.

No, no, no, no, no.

Like like I feel like you’re going to be doing a lot in in dentistry and in your career. And so I feel like it’s one of those podcasts that if we come back to it in two years time, a whole lot of stuff would have changed in two years time for you. You’re that kind of person, so maybe we’ll.

Have three kids by then. Yeah, yeah.

In two years. Yeah, triplets. But thank you so much for agreeing to do it and actually coming here to do it. That’s a massive honour. It’s been a great pleasure. Looking forward to this for such a long time. Thanks.

Thank you. Thanks again.

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.

Thanks for listening, guys. Hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Make sure you tune in for future episodes. Hit subscribe in iTunes or Google Play or whatever platform it is. And you know, we really, really appreciate it. If you would give us a six star rating. Six star rating. That’s what I always leave my Uber driver.

Thanks a lot, guys.

Bye.