Month: February 2020

Transcript

Payman: Hi guys. Welcome to the Dental Leaders podcast. Today’s guest is one of my best friends in dentistry, a lovely guy who it feels like he’s there for everyone, Paul Abrahams. I go back a long way with him. He told us about his early life, his beautiful practise in St. John’s Wood, and then all of that culminating in a sale to a corporate.

Payman: For someone who wants to see, in one succinct sort of interview, what it means to start something from nothing all the way to exit, from someone who’s super open, and going forward, I think we’re going to see a lot more of him in the education field, Prav, and digital.

Prav Solanki: For sure. Definitely leading the way in digital and going and learning from the best in the world. But the one key thing that I took away was the art of graft, turning up as an associate in his first practise and painting the walls. Can you imagine an associate today turning up and saying, “I’ll paint the practise”? just real hard graft from a very early age and what that ended up culminating in. It was a great conversation. Enjoy guys.

Payman: Enjoy guys. How old were you when you thought, “I’m going to be a dentist.” Do you remember the moment? About 35?

Paul Abrahams: About 35.

Automated Voice: 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.

Payman: Paul, really happy that you agreed to do this for us, and I’ve known you a long time. Prav, you haven’t known him-

Prav Solanki: We’ve met. We’ve definitely met.

Paul Abrahams: Yeah, we’ve met.

Prav Solanki: Met at events.

Paul Abrahams: Of course, I don’t really know you.

Prav Solanki: No.

Paul Abrahams: But it’s great to meet you.

Prav Solanki: Likewise. Good to meet you.

Paul Abrahams: Properly.

Prav Solanki: Again, for like maybe the third time. I remember when Payman said we’ve got you on the podcast and he said, “Do you know the guy?” I said, “He’s just a lot taller than me. That’s all I remember, is having a conversation at the IDS looking up at him.”

Payman: IDS, is it?

Prav Solanki: Yeah. I think it was the last time I saw you. Was that four years ago?

Paul Abrahams: About four years ago. At that time, I think very few people were there, so I think very few English guys going out.

Payman: Give us a little backstory Paul, just the one-minute version.

Paul Abrahams: The one-minute version? I qualified in ’89-

Payman: No.

Paul Abrahams: No?

Payman: When did your parents meet?

Paul Abrahams: When did my parents meet? That’s a really good question. I think my mom’s from Liverpool, my dad’s from the East End, and my dad was introduced to my mom by his future sister-in-law, I think, if I’m right, when my mom came down to London. But my mom is from a massive family, so she’s one of nine.

Payman: Nine kids?

Paul Abrahams: Nine kids.

Payman: Wow.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Paul Abrahams: They were a bit like the Liverpool Mafia. Everyone knew them in the community, in the Jewish community, which was quite a strong community in those days.

Payman: Has it stayed that way?

Paul Abrahams: Not as strong as it used to be.

Payman: Not as strong as it used to be.

Paul Abrahams: A lot of people have come back down south and spread around, so yeah.

Payman: And where we you born?

Paul Abrahams: I was born in Essex. I am an Essex boy. I was born in Ilford, and lived my first five, six years in Ilford. And then we moved to North London, to Wembley and that’s where I was brought up.

Payman: How old were you when you thought, “I’m going to be a dentist”? Do you remember the moment? About 35?

Paul Abrahams: About 35. You know what? I was always … It was that classic generational thing. Both my parents were what was considered to be working class. Dad was a jeweller. Mom worked in the pharmacy behind the counter. It’s that typical thing in the Jewish community. You’ve got to be a doctor, dentist, lawyer, whatever it might be professionally. So you’re driven in that direction. I was always good at the sciences and it just went that way.

Payman: Were your parents born in the UK as well?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah.

Payman: And their parents?

Paul Abrahams: Two of my grandparents were born in the UK, which is rare, and two … So I’ve got Russian, Romanian and Polish roots.

Payman: Oh, really?

Prav Solanki: Oh, wow.

Paul Abrahams: Came out of Eastern Europe in the pilgrims.

Payman: Were there any dentists in the family at all?

Paul Abrahams: No. My dad’s dad was a market trader. He used to live right opposite in a flat, it’s opposite the London Hospital, and have his market stool and drag it down the street, fruit and veg, and used to have all these life savings in his little pouch at the front. That’s what my dad told me. He was a farmer during the Blitz. So that’s his-

Payman: Where did dentistry come from then? Was there someone? Was there-

Paul Abrahams: No one.

Payman: A dentist?

Paul Abrahams: None. I don’t know.

Paul Abrahams: I was always good with my hands, and I think at that point … I think it was a different era where you could only do three A levels. I was good at arts. I had to drop art. I think career choice was medicine, dentistry or architecture.

Payman: So you were academically quite good at school?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: And how would you describe your upbringing compared to, let’s say, the upbringing of your children? What was your life like? What did you go with, go without, those sort of things?

Paul Abrahams: I don’t really have memories of going without anything. I think we had a comfortable upbringing. I suppose we were brought up during the 70s when it was quite tricky. But mom and dad were always at work, so just a normal, everyday, semi-detached house in Wembley. I don’t think anything but happy. There was never any issues. I’ve got one brother.

Paul Abrahams: I think my children are a lot more privileged than we ever were. But does that make a difference? Probably not, in many respects, because it’s what’s around you. I have a big family, obviously. So a big, close family in terms of cousins on both sides.

Prav Solanki: The things I always think about is that I was brought up, and I went without quite a lot certainly compared to my own kids, and it always occurs to me that are you doing the right thing by giving them everything, or are you doing the wrong thing?

Prav Solanki: And me having gone without has shaped me, whatever that is. Have you got a perspective on that in terms of-

Payman: Much with older children you can see what’s happened now with-

Paul Abrahams: So I’m like Prav and I’ve got four children, so my oldest … We had our kids young. So two things, one, my wife isn’t Jewish and I am. So it was a massive issue there, that when we got together, that was something that my parents didn’t want for me.

Paul Abrahams: For three years, that was first with my wife, they didn’t speak to her or know her. That was a very difficult time, so that shaped a lot of things that we do. Got married young and-

Payman: How old were you?

Paul Abrahams: I’m 53, just turned-

Payman: No, how old were you when you got married?

Paul Abrahams: I was 26.

Payman: Kind of straight of dentist school.

Paul Abrahams: Yeah, straight out. Part of that was because we’d been together from my second year of dentist school through to the end. And like I said, at that point, my parents hadn’t met my wife. It was a question of saying, “We’re getting married,” because if we get married, then-

Payman: They’ve got no choice.

Paul Abrahams: They’ve got no choice. And I suppose in some families, it would’ve been, “We’re never speaking to you again,” or … That never happened, fortunately. I had my oldest a year later, so I was 27. I think she’s 26 this year.

Payman: And Sonri is French. What was she doing in London?

Paul Abrahams: That’s a good question. What was she doing in London? She came to London for an experience. She was studying English. We met in halls of residency in Russell Square. So it was a big group of Italians, French from all over Europe. In fact, she still, every year, goes on a reunion with the girls that she met when she first came to London.

Payman: Nice.

Paul Abrahams: They go for a long weekend, and they’re from all over Europe. In fact, one of her friends from the next town married one of my best friends who was in a year below me.

Payman: Awesome.

Paul Abrahams: And they’re still together as well. So that shaped perspective, for sure. My oldest probably had … When I had my first child, it was a struggle. I just started, then we bought the practise. In fact, we bought the practise in the same year in St. John’s Wood, weren’t really making a lot from it.

Paul Abrahams: So everything was harder, I think. We had a reasonably difficult start. But she’s got a different perspective. My youngest now who’s 14 has been brought up in great holidays, all that type of thing, so it’s interesting.

Payman: By the way, were her parents cool with you?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah, 100% which made it easier.

Payman: You studied where?

Paul Abrahams: I studied at Guy’s.

Payman: Oh, yeah, of course, Guy’s man. I can always tell-

Paul Abrahams: Is there anywhere else?

Payman: I can always tell a Guy’s man. I can always tell a Guy’s man because they show off so much about this.

Paul Abrahams: Best place in the world. What can I say?

Payman: My brother’s a Guy’s man too.

Prav Solanki: Is he?

Payman: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Just before we go there, something you said really resonated with me, which was the whole parents thing. I’m Hindu, my wife is Sikh. My wife had previously been married, and so introducing that into my family, as you can imagine, brought about some elements of conflict.

Prav Solanki: And it was a tough time, but I think what happened was we made the decision we’re going to get married, and created that family home, and we’ve got an amazing, happy life now. But we had to go through that challenge. I remember asking her father for her hand in marriage, and it was probably the most nerve-wracking thing I’ve ever done.

Prav Solanki: Can you remember the time where you had to approach your parents or have a difficult conversation, and what that was like?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah. I mean having that conversation to say, “We are getting married,” my dad didn’t want to speak to me. At that point, they were saying, “Well, if you decide to do that, we won’t speak to her. We don’t want anything to do with her.” That was what they were saying at the time, and we got some great wedding photos and my mom was wearing black at the wedding.

Prav Solanki: Whoa.

Payman: Whoa.

Prav Solanki: Did you believe them?

Paul Abrahams: You know what? You’ve just got to make a decision and hope that people see through, which is exactly what happened. It was a very difficult time, I suppose, much harder for my wife than it ever was for me.

Prav Solanki: Of course.

Paul Abrahams: Because it’s such a barrier. It would be much easier for someone to say, “I’m not getting involved with that.”

Prav Solanki: For sure.

Paul Abrahams: You’ve got this huge, huge thing.

Payman: How did that reflect on … I mean are your kids married, any of them?

Paul Abrahams: No, none of my kids are married, and they don’t look like close to being married. They’ve benefited from both cultures. The interesting thing is when I first went … very nerve-wracking to go and meet my wife’s family for the first time.

Paul Abrahams: But they were like a big family, Mediterranean family. It could have been a big, Jewish family, big Asian family, that same feel.

Prav Solanki: Culture, the closeness.

Paul Abrahams: Yeah. I mean very similar, not very different.

Payman: Where I’m going is if your daughter comes home with an Iranian, Muslim type-

Paul Abrahams: Whatever she wants to do-

Payman: Baring in mind your-

Paul Abrahams: Whatever it is, it is. I don’t think it should be an issue. There’s so many divisive things going on in our society at the moment, and most of that centres around religion. That’s whatever they choose to do.

Payman: I like that.

Prav Solanki: What was the turning point where it all came back together and-

Payman: Was it having kids? Was that the-

Paul Abrahams: I think having kids is a big thing. I don’t think my brother’s ever going to listen to this, so my brother had a big Jewish wedding, the typical whole nine yards and was divorced six months later. And I think that maybe had an effect as well. He went through all that, which was supposed to be the way to do it, and then we-

Prav Solanki: Pleasing everyone.

Paul Abrahams: Pleasing everyone, and it was the wrong thing to do. Well, whether it was the wrong, it didn’t work out. Of course, having children is a game changer.

Payman: Are you older or your brother is?

Paul Abrahams: My brother’s older.

Payman: So you got married before him or?

Paul Abrahams: Got married before him.

Payman: How were your undergrad years?

Paul Abrahams: I don’t know. I can’t remember.

Payman: Good answer.

Paul Abrahams: It was good. And listen, I think you often hear people say that time at uni is the best. I mean certainly, it was, for me, a fantastic five years.

Prav Solanki: Amazing.

Paul Abrahams: Deeply involved in every way really.

Payman: Were you a rugby guy?

Paul Abrahams: I was a football guy, so I was a sports guy. I-

Payman: Guy’s very rugby-oriented.

Paul Abrahams: Hugely rugby-oriented, but we had these guys … I mean things have changed massively. I remember joining the football club and in that first two months, they had a football club dinner. There was guys there who played for Guy’s 30 years before turning up for this. It just is steeped in history.

Paul Abrahams: You go to, I don’t even know if it’s still there, but they had Honour Oak Park, which was their sports grounds, and they had this fantastic pavilion with pictures on the wall of the rugby club, oldest rugby club in the world, steeped in history. It was an incredible place.

Payman: Oldest medical rugby?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah. Oldest rugby club, full stop, in the world, Guy’s.

Payman: Really?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah, or so they say. But because it’s been there so long, there’s so much history there and you feel part of that. I spent so many good times for hours after the games in the pavilion with the rugby boys, the hockey. It was a fantastic setup.

Payman: Comfortable as a dental student?

Paul Abrahams: I think I was comfortable as a dental student without really … I mean the social side was a big part of it. So that always affects your academic achievements, should we say. But it was always comfortable. It was never-

Payman: You did a five-year course or the four-year?

Paul Abrahams: It was the four-year, isn’t it? Four-year and a term, you graduate in December.

Payman: And there was no VT.

Paul Abrahams: No VT but I chose to do VT.

Payman: Oh, there was VT then.

Prav Solanki: It was optional.

Paul Abrahams: You didn’t have to do it. It was optional, and that was a great start. I mean, again, I was talking to Prav before about the guy that I started work with, and I was very, very fortunate there.

Prav Solanki: Tell us-

Payman: Who was he?

Paul Abrahams: His name is Maurice Weinstein or Maish Weinstein. You wouldn’t know who he is, South African guy in Wimbledon, but fantastic mentor. I was lucky, very, very lucky.

Payman: First boss is such a key-

Paul Abrahams: Key to everything you do and is still is key, the people you get involved with at the beginning.

Payman: I think Prav’s first boss made him leave medicine.

Prav Solanki: Yeah. I mean he really instilled happiness in these students, do you know? And that’s what life was really about. I remember I was actually coming towards the end of my PhD, I’d set up my own business in the last year of my PhD. I went back to him and said, “Tom …” And he offered me a junior research fellowship at Oxford University, a really prestigious position and I said, “Tom, do you know what? I’m really loving this business thing I’m doing.”

Prav Solanki: But I wasn’t successful at it at all. I think I was doing like 300 quid a month in turnover. And he said, “Do you know what, Prav? Just go and do what you love. I’ll keep this job open for you for the next 12 months, and I hope I don’t see you again.” And these people in your life that inspire you or shape your life, your career, the path you go down-

Paul Abrahams: If you’re lucky, that’s the point. Or you make your own luck, but I think that’s so key.

Prav Solanki: But I recently … It was recently, but shortly after that, I watched a film called The Butterfly Effect. Have you ever seen that?

Paul Abrahams: Probably have, can’t remember it. But I’ll-

Prav Solanki: I mean it’s how tiny, little decisions and influences in your life can make your path go so much in a different direction. And there are points in my life, like meeting Tom, being interviewed by Tom, being mentored by him, and other people in life, that it’s the reason why I’m sat here today. And I’m sure this chap who-

Paul Abrahams: I think that’s absolutely right, and I’m still very close to him. Whatever it is, he’d probably be the first person I pick up the phone for advice for.

Payman: Still now.

Paul Abrahams: Still now. We live quite close to each other. I mean I might go a few weeks without speaking to him, but if-

Prav Solanki: That’s amazing.

Paul Abrahams: It’s something, a big decision, he will probably be the first person I picked up the phone to-

Payman: And so what was it about him that … What would you say he’s instilled in you?

Paul Abrahams: I just think it’s that ethic. There’s an ethic, the way he does things, the way he works. It’s just that approach.

Payman: Is he still practising ?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah, absolutely.

Prav Solanki: How did you meet him? Can you remember the first time?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah. I’ll tell you how I met him. One of my best buddies at uni, he’s girlfriend is a hygienist and worked for him. “I’m looking for a job, as you are, and Weinstein in Wimbledon is looking for an Abrahams,” because it fits together.

Paul Abrahams: I went to meet him and we had a cucumber sandwich together. He made me a sandwich and said, “You know what? I think we’ll get along.”

Prav Solanki: Nice.

Paul Abrahams: And it was how the-

Prav Solanki: It was chemistry from-

Paul Abrahams: Yeah, and he had this empty room, I said, “You know what?” his name is Maurice but I call him Maish, I said, “Maish, you know what? This room’s not ready. We need to get it right.” I said, “You know what? I’ll come in and paint it. I’ve got nothing to do,” so the first thing I did was paint my own surgery before starting.

Payman: Nice.

Paul Abrahams: Can you imagine that happening today? I just don’t think that-

Prav Solanki: Just can’t see that happening.

Paul Abrahams: You can’t. You get an associate come in and say, “I’ll come paint your surgery.”

Prav Solanki: Not a chance.

Paul Abrahams: And you know that typical situation where you’re a VT, you’re on a salary … I didn’t have to do VT. I think it worked very well for me, no pressure, would come in and help whenever. That first year was really important.

Prav Solanki: But did you take away from that first year in terms of … Was it more to do with communicating with patients and learning how to … or was it clinical?

Paul Abrahams: He’s a great communicator, and I think that’s a massive thing. That shapes you. I think I was fortunate in stuff I did before I went to uni and the other things where I learned about communication anyway. I think for some people, it comes naturally. It came naturally to him.

Paul Abrahams: I think it came naturally to me, but just learning how to deal with people in the dental situation is key. I think a lot of people are struggling with that.

Prav Solanki: I think it’s probably one of the biggest factors in a patient putting trust in you. Sometimes there’s loads of dentists out there who may have the same clinical skills as you, if not better. But I think the most important thing is the trust that you develop during that initial conversation, and that comes down to those communication skills and rapport.

Paul Abrahams: It’s all about rapport. I think that’s whenever we do. Again, people are all concerned about litigation and all that type of stuff. I think that’s less of an issue if you have the rapport.

Prav Solanki: For sure.

Paul Abrahams: Talk yourself out. Well, if you get along with someone, you’re prepared to look someone in the eye and say, “Look, I’m really sorry, this has gone wrong,” or whatever it is, that’s much less of an issue.

Prav Solanki: What’s the biggest clinical mistake you’ve ever made?

Paul Abrahams: I knew that was coming. Biggest clinical mistake, that’s a really tricky one. I mean it’s hard to think of anything specific that has gone wrong in the past. I think anyone who’s been in dentistry for 30 years and says it hasn’t is lying through their teeth.

Paul Abrahams: I’m just trying to think of a specific situation but I can’t … Possibly, biggest clinical thing I can think of is trying to take off an old crown on someone and it was a bonded crown and I thought it was cemented, cutting the crown in half and putting my flat plastic to flip the two halves off, and hearing the crack as the tooth split in half right down the root.

Paul Abrahams: And then have to say to the patient, “Actually, I was replacing that crown. We’re actually replacing that tooth.” That was probably the biggest.

Payman: What are you supposed to do in that situation?

Paul Abrahams: Run.

Payman: No, before it happens. How are supposed to take off a bonded crown compared to-

Paul Abrahams: You’ve just got to cut it off.

Payman: Just cut it?

Paul Abrahams: Cut it off.

Payman: Drill it off.

Paul Abrahams: You just don’t know how well it’s bonded. And that was possibly the biggest one.

Payman: What about like a direction of career perspective? I’m not going to call it a mistake, but if you could do it again, would you move your career in a different direction?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah. And actually first it comes back to Maish, he’d kill himself if he hears this because I’m not sure he’s ever heard it. But I remember going to an implant course in 1993 or ’92, and him saying to me, “Don’t do that because I’m going to catch you when you’re not working.” That was a big mistake, all right? That was a big mistake. Because at that point, it was early days.

Payman: You’re right.

Paul Abrahams: I did a restorative course and he said, “You’re wasting your time. Don’t bother,” so there’s always things like that. And I’m a generalist and I’ve done … I’m a bit of a course junkie, always have been. I suppose I maybe should have focused on one thing.

Paul Abrahams: So I’ve done all the courses in the world and still do a bit of everything. I might be better just doing one thing. I don’t know. Maybe not.

Payman: Looking from the outside, it looks like you really have delved into the digital thing earlier than the most. Are you good with computers or?

Paul Abrahams: No. I’m crap with computers.

Payman: How did you end up staying with it long enough-

Paul Abrahams: I used to work with Ashley [Byrne 00:20:38], was my technician. His dad as well. That was our technician in the early days, and Ashley called me one day and said, “I’ve got this scanner, or we’re having a demo in the lab. Would you like to come along? Because I think it’s something you will enjoy.”

Paul Abrahams: That was 12 years ago, the first iTero. I think it was one of the first of 10 in the country. I mean it made no financial sense, but here was this fantastic toy that you could can people’s teeth with and send it to the lab without taking an impression. So I bought it, and not because I’m particularly technical.

Paul Abrahams: I mean if you gave a computer, I wouldn’t know what to do with it most of the time apart from push the buttons.

Prav Solanki: That was over a decade ago?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah. Someone’s always got to be … I mean you often get people asking, “Why should I buy it now? Shouldn’t I wait for something …” You’ve got to get involved at some point. Get involved.

Payman: How did it perform that year?

Paul Abrahams: That was a fantastic … don’t even remember it coming in. We did a couple of things with-

Payman: Was it the same one?

Paul Abrahams: It was.

Payman: Oh, really?

Paul Abrahams: It was a great bit of kit and still is. The iTero is a fantastic scanner. And look, I think when I bought iTero, it was Straumann. They were looking at iTero from a restorative perspective not an orthodontic perspective. Then Align bought the company, and Align must have looked at the market and looked for what they thought would be the best scanner corsage, and they decided iTero was the one. So it was a great bit of kit.

Payman: What’s your advice for someone … I mean there must be right now, that must be the key question in dentists’ mind, which scanner to get. I don’t mean which one to get, but what should they do? What should they look at-

Paul Abrahams: Well, it’s what you want to do. Are you-

Payman: From where I’m standing, I’m not an expert, but it feels like if you’re into Invisalign, iTero seems to be the way. If you’re into restorative, the big restorative guys seem to be more-

Prav Solanki: TRIOS.

Paul Abrahams: TRIOS.

Payman: And now, there’s this brand new one.

Paul Abrahams: So it’s what you want to do. You have to decide are you predominantly ortho? So are you doing Invisalign? That’s got to be iTero. Are you implants? Really depending on what you’re going to do with it. For me, I’ve still got my old iTero. I rarely use it.

Paul Abrahams: But for me, in my very small practise, it was about making crowns on-site for people, so I needed to mill. I went to IDS two years ago with a view of buying the new iTero and hooking up a milling machine with it. At the time, Heraeus were talking about a laser milling machine, and they were saying, “Buy this and you’ll be able to hook it up.”

Paul Abrahams: That thing never came to fruition, so you’ve got to be a little bit careful. You know what? Why reinvent the wheel. Sirona have done it really well. It’s been around for a long time, so I bought an Omnicam and it’s worked fantastically well for me.

Paul Abrahams: That’s a big part of that. There’s lots of new technology, new cameras, new scanners. But some of these guys have been doing it for 34 … well, however long they’ve been doing it. It’s a bloody long time. So why go somewhere else?

Payman: Talk me through the CEREC sort of learning curve. How long does it take before you feel proud of CEREC restoration?

Paul Abrahams: I don’t think it takes long, but I think one of the big things that’s been missing, I think, not necessarily from Sirona, but from the suppliers is the teaching. You get this bit of kit which you’ve paid whatever it is, 75 grand for and invariably, a rep will come in and show you how to use it, not a clinician.

Paul Abrahams: I think there’s a big hole there in education, and I think what happens is people get very frustrated with the kit. They try and make a crown and it looks like a lump of chewing gum, and very quickly find it difficult, or something happens when they’re using the software.

Paul Abrahams: They’re not sure how to use it, and then they spent 70 grand and this thing is sitting in the corner of their surgery. Then you see on social media, “CEREC is shit. I’m not …” excuse the expression, “I’m not using it. I spent a lot of money.” There’s a gap there, whereas the learning curve is short but it’s sharp.

Payman: Because as an associate, I used it maybe 25 times and my conclusion by … And then you know, I stopped being a dentist. But my conclusion from that 25 times was I’d taken something that I could do very, very predictably and turned into something slightly unpredictable. Obviously, I didn’t know how to use it.

Paul Abrahams: Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?

Payman: I get that. I get that because I know you’re not going to do it on your patients if you didn’t know it was good. But is 25 the right number, or how many times do you have to use it before you … I suppose a dentist, who you are-

Paul Abrahams: I don’t think it is who you are, but I don’t think it’s as many as 25, and I think it’s do a couple then go and learn how to do it, go and do a course-

Payman: Did you go on a course?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah. I did a course-

Payman: You’re teaching a course as well.

Paul Abrahams: I’m teaching a few courses. But I’ve just been out to Phoenix to do a course. The Spear Institute, they run some fantastic courses. We just flew out on a six o’clock local time, did the course for two days in Phoenix and came home, and that was an advanced direct course.

Paul Abrahams: They’ve got this incredible facility. The guys know what they’re doing, brilliant setup. There’s nothing like that here in London. I mean you’ve got a few guys who are starting to teach courses.

Payman: And you did anterior with it as well?

Paul Abrahams: Anterior. This course was specifically multiple anterior.

Payman: Oh, really?

Paul Abrahams: That’s the next step. Actually, sometimes I’m still scanning, sending it into the lab because their guys can do it better than I can do it.

Prav Solanki: You’re milling in-house, is that right?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: When you do that, are you actually finishing off the restorations by hand, staining them, glazing them and all that sort of stuff?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah. You stain, glaze, polish, stick it in the furnace, great fun. Patients love it. If you’ve got a patient coming and you can deliver something on the spot-

Payman: Do you market the fact that you’re that-

Paul Abrahams: We do. It was hard. It was hard at the beginning, when we first had the scanner because people didn’t really understand. I think it’s becoming more … People are beginning to understand. And you get the most sophisticated form of patients coming in and they see their crown being milled in the milling machine, and they whip their phone out and they’re recording it and sending it to everyone. There’s a little bit of organic growth from that as well.

Prav Solanki: Virality.

Paul Abrahams: Because it’s still-

Prav Solanki: It’s still cool.

Paul Abrahams: I think it’s still cool, and it’s still not enough people doing it. And people are wowed, very simple technology but are absolutely wowed by it.

Prav Solanki: Do you know how today, we’re getting companies that allow patients to do their own ortho.

Paul Abrahams: Great, isn’t it?

Prav Solanki: Yeah. Do you think artificial intelligence is ever going to get to a stage where you can cut a dentist out of the loop?

Paul Abrahams: No. I don’t see how that could be. I could see maybe robotic dentistry of some kind, but there’ll still be … Like eye surgery, there’ll still be someone behind that robot. I think AI will make a big difference and we’re seeing it now with the scanners. They’re using AI.

Paul Abrahams: So if you’re, for instance using your scanner and you’re defining your margins on your preps in a software after you’ve done 10, the artificial intelligence will start deciding.

Prav Solanki: Interesting.

Paul Abrahams: I think there’s a lot of changes coming.

Payman: I think it will happen.

Prav Solanki: You do?

Paul Abrahams: You think we’ll disappear?

Payman: When. No. I think there’ll be one dentist doing 10 dentist jobs.

Paul Abrahams: Possibly.

Payman: That sort of thing.

Paul Abrahams: I’ll be long gone when that happens. That’s fine. None of my kids are going to be dentists, so that’s also good.

Payman: Is that right? Would you put them off being dentists?

Paul Abrahams: No, listen, whatever they want to do. But none of them are interested, so it’s not going to happen.

Payman: Would you put them onto it? If they said, “Hey, what’s this dentistry?” would you say, “Yeah, go for it,” or not?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah. I think I still would.

Prav Solanki: If you weren’t a dentist, what would you be?

Paul Abrahams: I think I probably would’ve done architecture, something arty.

Prav Solanki: Your artistic background?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Have you seen that helps with the design of the teeth, the staining, the glazing, the passion that you have to-

Paul Abrahams: I think it has to if you … I mean that’s the worst thing when you stand behind someone and they haven’t got the manual dexterity to do what they want to do. Must be so frustrating as well. That’s just got to help.

Payman: So Paul, your practise is on the road that I grew up on, interestingly. And we were talking about it before, it’s an interesting place to work, St. John’s Wood, right?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah.

Payman: And to expect working in a place like that, you have to have a high service element.

Paul Abrahams: Huge. So, what, 26 years in St. John’s wood. It’s like a village in Central London.

Payman: It is.

Paul Abrahams: But a very unique village, very particular people, as you know Pay, just like you really, certainly very demanding, for a real mix. But it took us a good five years to really get that going, and to get the locals coming in.

Payman: 26 years ago, right? So that could be-

Paul Abrahams: Yeah.

Payman: I left there-

Paul Abrahams: ’93.

Payman: Oh, how interesting. Now, I left there in ’88, I left there.

Paul Abrahams: It’s changed. I mean it’s changed a lot as well.

Payman: My parents are still there. But tell me about the service side. Looking at your practise, very boutique, very small, what kind of things do you guys do that maybe is over and above, go beyond-

Paul Abrahams: Sure. Is it what everyone should be doing anyway? Simple stuff. You do a root canal, you give someone a call a couple hours later, “How are you?” It always come down to that basic stuff. I mean we can do all the clever stuff today online and whatever, but that basic touch I think is really important.

Paul Abrahams: If someone sent you someone, thank them for sending you someone. There’s nothing over and beyond, that I think it’s just normal, everyday customer service. I think for years of going on courses, you can hear so many people speak, but they say the same thing ultimately.

Payman: Of course they do.

Paul Abrahams: So I don’t think it changes.

Payman: The way you handle your team’s nice, and when I come to your place, it’s always lovely that everyone … your team seems so relaxed.

Paul Abrahams: Sometimes. We have our moments like everyone else.

Payman: But we’ve been talking about this on another podcast, the question of if you want your team to be lovely to your patients, you’ve got to be lovely to your team. And then not everyone … The reason that not everyone does that-

Paul Abrahams: But isn’t that normal how you look after everyone, how you get on-

Payman: No.

Prav Solanki: No.

Paul Abrahams: I mean it should be, shouldn’t it?

Prav Solanki: It should be.

Paul Abrahams: It should be how you-

Prav Solanki: Treat.

Paul Abrahams: It should be treat people how you’d expect to be treated, I suppose.

Payman: It’s not common because we go to a lot of practises. We go to a lot of practises, and it’s interesting. We see a lot of different … You can feel it from the moment you walk into a practise.

Paul Abrahams: Just the tension, and it’s really sad actually.

Prav Solanki: Or the glow, and you want into a practise and sometimes you can feel the tension, and you speak to the boss and you talk about business strategy, and management of team, and leadership and say, “I pay the money, they do the work.” Personally, I feel money should be the last reason that somebody is stepping through your day. I really do.

Payman: I like that.

Paul Abrahams: 100%.

Prav Solanki: Really do.

Paul Abrahams: I think that absolutely comes last. I think from the moment someone walks in … I mean you know my receptionist or my practise-

Payman: Manoosh.

Paul Abrahams: Sorry, Manoosh, practise manager, she’d kill me for saying receptionist.

Payman: She’s a star.

Paul Abrahams: And she knows she’s got a great persona, great with people. She sat outside the coffee shop, which is now gone, by the way, the red shop-

Payman: Is it?

Paul Abrahams: Outside the front door, and talks to people and they say, “Well, where do you work?” “Well, I work upstairs in the dentist,” and by the end of that conversation, they’re booking in. That’s a unique ability. But we just get on. I just think, honestly, you’ve got treat people in the right way, they treat you in the right way. It’s a mutual respect and-

Payman: It seems obvious to you but it isn’t the case now.

Paul Abrahams: I don’t get it. I-

Payman: I would even in most places. In most places, there’s a them and us between management and the team that’s palpable.

Paul Abrahams: I think sometimes it’s different dynamics. We’re a very small practise, a very small team, and I think that makes that easier. We’ve worked together. I mean Manoosh has been with me 13 years and my nurse, 10, Gina is also for a long time. So it’s a unique dynamic, and I suppose the bigger you get, the easier it is to lose that dynamic.

Prav Solanki: It becomes a lot harder, and so one of the things that just popped into my head, as you mentioned it, do a root canal, give them a call. It’s so simple but they’re not expecting that call.

Paul Abrahams: Correct. It’s a two-second call.

Prav Solanki: I’m working with a practise, eight to 10 surgeries, patients flying in and out, private practise. If I was to suggest that, I’ll be seen as the craziest person.

Paul Abrahams: Why? It only takes one person on the team – doesn’t need to be the dentist.

Prav Solanki: Really? Well, absolutely. No, of course-

Paul Abrahams: Actually, why shouldn’t it be the dentist? If you’re between two patients-

Prav Solanki: I think it should be-

Paul Abrahams: Why can’t you pick up the phone. It takes two seconds. It’s the most powerful phone call in the world really.

Prav Solanki: Just for the listeners out there, could you just describe the impact that that has on, say, referrals, them sticking around as patients long-term?

Paul Abrahams: Well, imagine you phone that patient and they’re sitting in a coffee bar with three of their friends, and they pick up the phone, and they put the phone down and they ask, “Who was that?” “It was my dentist.” “What do you mean? What’s your dentist doing phoning you at …?” “Well, I’ve just had some treatment and he’s phoning to see how I am.” I mean that’s … How powerful was that?

Prav Solanki: Powerful, right?

Paul Abrahams: It’s more powerful than anything. It just makes no sense not to do it.

Payman: We used to do that even 10 years ago when I was a dentist, and the patient would come in the next visit and thank you for the call. It wasn’t even me calling. It was the nurse calling. But-

Paul Abrahams: If it is you doing it, it was even more powerful, wasn’t it?

Payman: Yeah. But do you know the notion of calling new patients before they come in? Have you heard of that?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah. I mean I-

Payman: It’s a lovely one.

Paul Abrahams: Anything to make a connection, anything to make that more personal, anything … I think they’re talking about money, this discounting. We were talking about this yesterday in terms of things like Invisalign. In London, it’s so competitive.

Prav Solanki: Crazy.

Paul Abrahams: “Let’s do a 500-pound off.”

Prav Solanki: A thousand pounds.

Paul Abrahams: “Let’s drive this by …” or whatever it might be. That’s not the connection we want.

Prav Solanki: From a marketing perspective, would you say that quite a lot of yours is handled through internal, or do you do a mix of both? Because it seems to me a lot of practises don’t have what I would consider to be a word of mouth strategy. But it looks like yours is already-

Paul Abrahams: One, [crosstalk 00:34:22]-

Prav Solanki: Yours is already baked in.

Paul Abrahams: That’s how it was right from the start. I suppose that’s coming from the guy that I worked with originally because that’s how it was. Do we have a marketing strategy? No. It’s such a different world today, but our strategy was that. Do we do a huge amount of advertising? No, because in those days, you didn’t really.

Paul Abrahams: I mean I suppose it was people in the mid-90s who started to get into that in a big way and benefited hugely. It’s now a different marketplace, isn’t it? I’m struggling with all this social media stuff. That’s a whole different-

Prav Solanki: But your practise is still successful, right?

Paul Abrahams: Touch wood, yeah, somewhere, yeah.

Prav Solanki: And do you put that down to the way you communicate with patients, treat them?

Paul Abrahams: I think it’s all about communication. It’s all about-

Payman: Especially-

Paul Abrahams: Especially in our very small environment.

Payman: Especially where they are.

Paul Abrahams: Especially in St. John’s Wood. One of our big drivers is we’ve got the biggest American School in London over the road. So about 60% of my patients come through that school.

Payman: Oh, wow.

Paul Abrahams: And I’m just going back. In the early days of the internet, I had one American patient who basically put a testimonial online, I mean the days when there was no Google search engines or whatever. You just went on the internet and dialled up, and you put something about-

Payman: AltaVista.

Paul Abrahams: I was being the most American-like dentists that she’s seen in London, and it was great, and that was number one in the search engines for years. It was crazy really because today, that would never happen. And then we became listed on the American School website.

Payman: Amazing.

Paul Abrahams: So we knew people coming would come to us and it’s a-

Payman: What would you say is the difference between American patients and British patients? What’s more likely to go for the-

Paul Abrahams: Yes and no. You know what. I think we’re in a different world today, so I think our English patients are just as driven to do things and do the cosmetic work. And we see people from all over the world, so actually, everyone’s the same. Everyone wants to look nice and have their teeth done right. We’re in a very, very-

Payman: Cosmetic area.

Paul Abrahams: We are. We’re very lucky.

Payman: I think good news travels fast there but bad news does too. Have you ever been on the edge of that?

Paul Abrahams: Absolutely, so yeah. It’s-

Payman: Have you had a problem like that before?

Paul Abrahams: We haven’t really. I mean have we ever upset anyone? I’m sure we have. Has it caused us loss of patients. I hope not. But you’re absolutely right. It’s the old adage, isn’t it? If you do something badly, then someone’s going to tell a whole lot more people than if you do something well.

Payman: Of course. What about associates, Paul?

Paul Abrahams: What about associates?

Payman: I mean-

Paul Abrahams: It’s tricky in my-

Payman: It’s tricky in your situation, isn’t it?

Paul Abrahams: In my situation, again, with the two surgery practise, over the years, we’ve had people come in. It’s always difficult because you make the practise about yourself, and that’s the USP. So to have someone come in one day a week or two days a week is difficult, and I’ve had some great people.

Paul Abrahams: I’m very lucky to be exposed to good, young dentists through connections who have agreed to come and work, and we’ve struggled to get them busy enough.

Payman: But have you been able to instil your principles into young associates?

Paul Abrahams: I’m not sure I’ve had enough time with people. I hope so. It’s about time, isn’t it?

Payman: So now, you’ve just sold this practise.

Paul Abrahams: Just sold into Dentex.

Payman: How does that feel? I mean does it-

Paul Abrahams: Different.

Payman: I mean maybe one day, a giant company will come by and like … and fingers crossed. But the idea of selling it, it does seem like a child. And I don’t know if you feel that way, but is-

Paul Abrahams: Look, I-

Payman: Did you worry about?

Paul Abrahams: You always worry about it. I mean when’s the right time? It’s really difficult to say. A lot of people hang on into their mid-60s and devalue their practise, and not get quite what they deserve to get for it because they’ve run the practise down. I think-

Payman: Were you strategic about the timing? Is that-

Paul Abrahams: I thought I was. It’s all about opportunity. I think someone else approached me to buy, and it was Dentex were in the marketplace, and I knew a few people involved with Dentex.

Payman: You weren’t thinking of buying if someone came to you?

Paul Abrahams: I wasn’t thinking of selling.

Payman: That’s right, [crosstalk 00:38:32]-

Paul Abrahams: Someone else approached me, and then I started looking, and then you know what? It seemed opportune. It seemed a good time, and Dentex seemed a good group, and it’s almost a year and I can say that it’s been good, I’ve enjoyed it and they-

Payman: They’re such an interesting corporate.

Paul Abrahams: They are, very different.

Payman: Explain for everyone-

Prav Solanki: The model.

Payman: The model.

Paul Abrahams: The Dentex model is none of my patients would know that I’ve sold the business into a corporate. I keep everything exactly the same. I think one of the thought processes for me, being a small practise in Central London, we’ve been talking about marketing and how things have changed, and certainly, that has changed hugely.

Paul Abrahams: For me to get penetration in the market in terms of certain treatments, it’s really hard in Central London because there’s some big marketing powers there. People are spending a lot of money. With a group like Dentex, they’ve come in. I’ve still retained a share in the practise, and it varies in the share.

Paul Abrahams: Then we’ve had the benefit of the group, so we’ve got some crossover within the group, got them, helping with marketing and things like that. And they’ve taken all the CQC, all the compliance stuff away, all the HR stuff away from me. It’s great, which is actually the biggest pain in small practise. And it’s been a good experience thus far, so yeah.

Payman: And now, you have some shares in the big operation.

Paul Abrahams: Again, from my perspective, it was a unique opportunity to be in early with a group like Dentex because of the share value at the beginning. I have a percentage tied up in shares and hopefully, the group grows and the business grows, and I’ve got a part of that.

Payman: Is there somewhere you can go up and say, “Let’s see what the price is right now”?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah. We can … No, but-

Payman: It’s not traded shares.

Paul Abrahams: It’s not traded shares, but as the group grows, the share value would increase.

Payman: As in you can see that happening?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah. I’ve seen that happen already.

Payman: Oh, I see. I like that.

Paul Abrahams: It’s actually unique. I mean it’s a unique opportunity for me to upscale what I have in a very small environment.

Payman: They’re thinking of doubling the number. I was speaking to them-

Paul Abrahams: I think that’s probably where it’s going to go. It’d be interesting to see how it develops in the next two or three years. Everything you do has a risk. I mean that’s what I was saying, it’s probably that. I think I’m a risk taker. It was just opportune.

Paul Abrahams: I suppose in my career, I’ve done things early. In other words, I had kids early and that type of stuff, so I expect to work for another 10 years, however that happens.

Prav Solanki: You’ve got some cash out. You’ve retained shares. Do you still feel like, and do the team still feel like you’re the boss?

Paul Abrahams: I’d have to ask the team. I think that was the hardest part of it, because I’ve worked with these people for a long time, and I think they had an idea something was going on. Initially, we did a little bit of due diligence without telling them. Then we got to a certain point and I had to have that discussion, and they were really upset because they thought things would change dramatically. And actually, maybe they would say it hasn’t changed that dramatically.

Payman: What’s the main thing that has changed?

Paul Abrahams: What’s the main thing that’s changed, is that I don’t go online and spend hours doing iComply. I’m doing payroll at the end of the month, paying the bills. That type of thing, for me, is a physical thing. And there’s been influence from outside. So we’ve had some input from outside which has been interesting.

Payman: Have they ever said that, “Listen, we don’t want you buying that stuff anymore or-

Paul Abrahams: No. We haven’t had that.

Payman: Or that isn’t the thing.

Paul Abrahams: It isn’t the thing.

Payman: I like that.

Paul Abrahams: Which is unique, I think, with corporates.

Payman: Sure.

Paul Abrahams: Whether that change is pay, we’ll see, you know-

Prav Solanki: How about the labs, do you have particular a lab?

Paul Abrahams: No, I use the same lab.

Payman: So nothing has changed today other than you the fact that you don’t have to do payroll.

Paul Abrahams: Nothing, no. Yeah, and all … Yeah.

Payman: I love that.

Prav Solanki: Do you miss anything about not owning the whole business?

Paul Abrahams: No, not at this stage interestingly.

Prav Solanki: Really? Wow.

Paul Abrahams: Maybe that’s not right. I mean sometimes I think something’s gone missing, if that makes sense.

Payman: Do you have to get approval? You can’t now go and buy a [crosstalk 00:42:27]-

Paul Abrahams: No. I mean there has to be approval on things, and I think-

Prav Solanki: Does that happen-

Paul Abrahams: If a material’s over a certain amount, then you can at least get approval for it. If we wanted a particular polishing kit and it’s going to be an excess of X amount, then we would have to ask, it’s not a problem. If it’s reasonable-

Payman: Until they say no.

Paul Abrahams: Well, if they say no, they say no. If they can justify saying no, I’ve got no issue with that actually. It is a business after all, so I suppose in my own mind, if one of my staff came to be before we were Dentex and said, “I want to buy this,” we’d look at it and maybe say no if it wasn’t of value to the practise.

Payman: The benefits of it, I mean are there other benefits other than they take the headaches away from you? Are there conferences-

Paul Abrahams: Yeah. That’s just developing. There’s an educational programme this year. This is a few things we had, so we had a meeting with all the partners, all good people. It’s just that. Having been working on my own for so long, that’s a nice thing to have actually.

Payman: What are some of the other guys, Rahul?

Paul Abrahams: Rahul, so Rahul was a regional partner, regional director.

Payman: Now, Bush.

Paul Abrahams: A guy called Steve Taliz, Mitesh Badiani, he’s got a number of practises. There’s some good people involved, been really interesting.

Prav Solanki: You’re now a associate, is that right? Is that-

Paul Abrahams: I’m working as an associate.

Prav Solanki: You’re working as an associate. Just mentally and just-

Paul Abrahams: It doesn’t affect me mentally. It’s-

Prav Solanki: Does it affect you at all?

Paul Abrahams: Not mentally, no.

Payman: Are you taking more time off?

Paul Abrahams: No, because I was always someone who liked to take time off. Holidays are important to me.

Payman: Did you buy her something nice with the money?

Paul Abrahams: Not particularly.

Payman: Nothing changed.

Paul Abrahams: No.

Payman: I like that.

Paul Abrahams: You know what? Because coming at this … I suppose-

Payman: You don’t take a nice holiday?

Paul Abrahams: We take nice holidays. You know what? For myself and my wife, we like a nice holiday. So even when we were struggling, we were trying … We’ve always taken time off.

Prav Solanki: Nice.

Paul Abrahams: Even if we went … a nice holiday but went somewhere. We like the sunshine, so that’s important to us. And we’ve always tried to do that.

Payman: No brand new Cadillac?

Paul Abrahams: No, no Cadi. But what it does pay is give you a bit of financial security.

Payman: Of course.

Paul Abrahams: I’ve got four kids and it’s been a busy life, and it’s been an expensive life, so to have that at this point in life is good-

Payman: Feels good.

Paul Abrahams: To do. There’s nothing with that. Why should I waste it when I’m 65, 70? I might not be here when I’m 65 or 70. Who knows?

Payman: Tell us about your BACD. Looks like you’re going to be el presidente looking at the way that works.

Paul Abrahams: Who can believe that? Hard to believe really, never thought that would happen.

Payman: When was the first time you got involved with BACD?

Paul Abrahams: This is 10 years ago, I did a … The only time I ever did this, it was a beauty fair, and we had a stand in the booth, we thought we’d try this. Someone suggested to do it, and we ran a competition for Smart Makeover, of this thing. And behind me was Suzie and the BACD was there. If I remember, Sue-

Payman: They were at the beauty fair?

Paul Abrahams: I don’t remember what it was, something, an exhibition and Suzie was behind me and she said, “You know what? We should get involved more.” I’m blaming Suzie now. I’ve been listening to Suzie Rowlands.

Paul Abrahams: And so joined the committee and then at that time, the board was more or less self-elected. There was that core of people that started the BACD and ran the BACD, and then they opened the elections at conference, and I was one of the first to … I was absolutely … I hate standing up and speaking in front of people. At that time particularly, it was one of my words fears, and had to stand for election, and got elected. I don’t know how to this day, but it was one of those things-

Payman: But wait a minute. Who told you to do that? Was it something you wanted to do yourself?

Paul Abrahams: The other person that was great with this was David Bloom. Actually, David said, “I’ll-”

Payman: I’ll put you up.

Paul Abrahams: “Put you up, do it,” so thank you, David. He was-

Payman: But the reason I’m asking is because there’s plenty of people who go to the BACD but never think about going on the board of it, and-

Paul Abrahams: That’s the majority.

Payman: Was it the date that said it’s a good idea? Do you like meetings with committees?

Paul Abrahams: Well, I like that type of thing, actually.

Payman: You do, do you?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah, I suppose I did a bit of that as an undergraduate, so I was always involved with student committees and things like that. So just-

Payman: I find them hard. I’ve been on one or two. I find them hard.

Paul Abrahams: It’s not for everyone.

Payman: I find it hard not talking when I want to talk. Have you been on a committee before?

Paul Abrahams: It’s not for everyone.

Prav Solanki: No, but it’s not my thing. It’s definitely not my thing.

Payman: But it’s interesting because the one or two times I’ve been there, you actually do know what’s going to happen in the future before most people.

Paul Abrahams: But you’re also-

Payman: There’s a nice feeling about that.

Paul Abrahams: There’s a fantastic social element with BACD. I mean I made some great friends through … And that’s actually the best part of it, is there are some really good people involved, and it’s just fantastic socially.

Prav Solanki: That’s true.

Paul Abrahams: Really, you know that better than everyone else, that the Enlighten parties are legendary maybe, and that’s a big part of it. That type of stuff-

Payman: Which one was your first conference that you went to? Where was it?

Paul Abrahams: First conference … I went to the second conference somewhere in Central London. I can’t even remember.

Payman: BACD second conference?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah.

Payman: I remember around that time. That was all London.

Paul Abrahams: It was all London.

Payman: How long does it take? If let’s say, some kid wants to become the president of the BACD-

Paul Abrahams: Crikey, yeah.

Payman: How long would it take from day one?

Paul Abrahams: From day one, I went on board … I mean it could take three years actually, or four years if you were to do a committee-

Payman: Really?

Paul Abrahams: Go on board. You’ve got to be on board for two years, and that’s quick. I actually came off board for about 18 months because there was other things going on in my life. I think you’ve got to be really committed to do it. That’s the other thing. You-

Prav Solanki: Time consuming.

Paul Abrahams: It is.

Payman: Well, how much work is it? How much work is it?

Paul Abrahams: It’s really time-consuming.

Payman: Is it? This daily-

Paul Abrahams: It’s all emails every day.

Payman: Really?

Paul Abrahams: When you talk about organising conferences a year in advance and … So there’s certain roles on board, and so I was director of education last year. That’s organising conference, it’s dealing with speakers. It’s time-consuming.

Prav Solanki: This is all voluntary, right?

Paul Abrahams: All voluntary. You know-

Prav Solanki: There’s no financial-

Paul Abrahams: Somehow, people seem to think you get paid for it. It’s totally voluntary.

Payman: You even pay for your ticket for the conference.

Paul Abrahams: Correct.

Payman: That’s interesting.

Paul Abrahams: It is what it is. You do it because you want to do it not because there’s any reward.

Prav Solanki: And so as director of education, do you have to decide who speaks, approach people, right?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah.

Payman: Or is that-

Paul Abrahams: No. That’s pooled resources, but yeah, using the people we know. I mean there’s so many people that have gone through BACD then come out the other end, and I have contacts with speakers. I think of John Coyce this year, and I think of Andy Shandrapal, I think, led that because he’s done it with Coyce and they know it, so through contracts.

Payman: Do you have to get into the nitty-gritty, the fees and all that? Is that your-

Paul Abrahams: Absolutely. There’s a budget. It’s significant.

Payman: And so what’s the difference with one president compared to the next other than the conference?

Paul Abrahams: Personality. People are different.

Payman: But is it real? Does one president really steer it in one direction and another-

Paul Abrahams: I think there has been that, and I think different personalities drive it-

Payman: Where do you plan to steer it then?

Paul Abrahams: Just keep that ship going in the same direction.

Payman: Really?

Paul Abrahams: Just try and keep it as it is, keep out the controversy, keep it simple.

Payman: It’s hard.

Paul Abrahams: It’s hard. There is politics in dentistry, but I think it’s just trying to keep it real. Let’s have decent education, let’s have a decent social element to it, just keep it the same.

Payman: How do you-

Paul Abrahams: It’s been good the last few years.

Payman: Do you go to the other ones as well, the BARD and all that?

Paul Abrahams: I haven’t been to BARD, but that’s something I need to do.

Payman: Because I think it’s important that you don’t end up being us and them.

Paul Abrahams: It shouldn’t. I don’t see why that should … I don’t feel that at all. Is that what you feel?

Payman: No. I think historically, that’s where BACD came from in a way. We’ll have to-

Paul Abrahams: I think there’s a lot of crossover now. There’s people involved with both, and that has been, and I don’t think that’s really an issue.

Payman: It’s actually a really good thing for people to be involved with both because-

Paul Abrahams: But there’s more organisations than BARD and BACD. There’s other things out there and-

Payman: True.

Paul Abrahams: Actually, I think generally, the type of people that get involved with this type of stuff, the people that go to conferences, go to courses, go to all lots of other things.

Payman: What I’m driving at is as a profession, we do seem to be very split, very polarised in many ways. Do you agree with that?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah, I do. I don’t necessarily think that’s going to change because that’s society per se. Well-

Payman: Don’t you think it’s worse now than it was before?

Paul Abrahams: Because I think it’s worse in society than it was before. I think what goes on in dentistry reflects what goes on in society. What goes on in so many professions is the same. So we have that divisiveness that exists, and it reflects through everything. I’m not sure that’s a dental-

Payman: Good point.

Paul Abrahams: I don’t think that’s a dentistry problem. I think that’s an issue per se.

Payman: That’s good point actually. What would you like to be remembered for? I mean I know it’s a bit ahead of time, but as a legacy, what would you like your legacy to be?

Paul Abrahams: Well, a dental legacy or a personal legacy?

Payman: Both.

Paul Abrahams: If you say, “He was honest and had ethics and integrity,” I mean nothing special, simple stuff, nothing controversial, I would say. Because sometimes people remember for the controversial stuff, “He did this or stirred up that.” I’m not interested in that type of stuff. It’s not for me.”

Prav Solanki: I had one question earlier. Just right at the beginning of the conversation, you mentioned that you were a course junkie and you’ve done loads of courses. Now, I’m just thinking about the younger listeners out there, and I’ve got a really close friend of mine actually, Danny Watson, who’s recently qualified, and you get presented with this mass of courses and-

Paul Abrahams: Particularly today.

Prav Solanki: “Do this implant course, do this sort of stuff, this is the best,” and blah, blah, blah. Could you impart some advice on a newly qualified or a young dentist in terms of how to get your grounding in dentistry and where you should look for it?

Paul Abrahams: Well, I think you’ve got to be honest with yourself, number one, is what are your own weaknesses? What is it you need to improve every day to make you a better dentist? I suppose number one has to be communication. If you feel that you’ve got issues there, then you’ve got get that right and seek out the … There’s plenty of courses there for that type of stuff.

Paul Abrahams: There’s some really good people out there. Then number two, basic skills. What are you going to be doing every day? Probably most of the time when you first start, you’re going to be filling holes. Well, do it well. Do the best you can, so again, seek out the people-

Prav Solanki: What’s a good, all round, general either dental or cosmetic course?

Paul Abrahams: There’s so many. I mean there’s so many good guys out there teaching. I don’t really want to name anyone particularly. I think that’s a little bit harsh. But there’s some good people. I mean just look for people with experience and background.

Paul Abrahams: I mean I think it’s easy to sources these days. I don’t think it’s difficult, but decide what you want to do because it’s so easy to do 100 different courses. But get basics right.

Payman: Paul, would you say that cliché is true about the newer, younger generation not being as prepared for practise as-

Paul Abrahams: I don’t know, possibly.

Payman: As our generation?

Paul Abrahams: Possibly, but there’s some great, young dentists out there. I mean I’ve seen some incredible, young dentists.

Payman: Me too. But I think they’re actually stronger than most of our generation from the communication standpoint.

Paul Abrahams: Well, I’m sure they are.

Payman: Because with our generation, there was a real stuffiness. I mean not everyone’s like you, I assure you of that. But the clinical, the diagnosis and the clinical, you’ve seen a lot of different-

Paul Abrahams: Well, I think you hear that in medicine and dentistry, that they’re not as good clinically. I’m not sure that’s fair. I think maybe they’re not … I mean it must be much harder coming out today. When we came out, you could set up, you could get on with it. There wasn’t a fear. I mean fear is a big issue in dentistry today for, I suppose, young guys about what they can and can’t do.

Paul Abrahams: You know what? Learning to be a dentist is like to learning to drive. Someone teaches you how to do it, then you’ve got to go out and do it for yourself, and acquire the skill.

Payman: I think due to that course question that you’re asking, Prav, because they come out and want to learn so much, and it is bewildering-

Prav Solanki: It’s a confusing-

Payman: Knowing which courses to do.

Prav Solanki: Confusing mass.

Paul Abrahams: It’s so many, isn’t it? Again, I come back to think you’ve got to be honest with yourself. You’ve got to know in yourself what it is that’s holding you back, what your weaknesses are, and then choose a calling that … I think there’s lots of year courses where you can do more.

Paul Abrahams: I mean I know what happens in FD1 today. Is it like vocational training in the old days where you go one day a week and-

Prav Solanki: I think so.

Paul Abrahams: That’s got to be key to it. And it’s the fear. I think the fear thing is a big problem, people not doing things that they should be doing because they’re scared about doing something wrong.

Prav Solanki: And perhaps if somebody presents you with an opportunity like do an implant course, maybe take it by the horns.

Paul Abrahams: But I mean not today. There’s got to be something else out there, isn’t it?

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Paul Abrahams: Well listen, you’ve got to do what you’re … I mean as it happens, it was probably a good thing for me because surgically, I’m not great, and that’s probably the thing that I least like.

Prav Solanki: Least enjoy.

Paul Abrahams: Maybe I could’ve learned that skill but today, keep up out the way as far as I’m concerned. Keep it clean.

Prav Solanki: Do you have somebody coming into your practise doing that for you or refer out?

Paul Abrahams: I had Zaki Kanaan for a while coming in, which was great, great to work with Zaki. Now, within the group, we’ve got people doing that type of stuff and again, I’m looking at someone else to come in and do some implant work in the practise.

Payman: Did Zaki do the implant work with you to help you with your-

Paul Abrahams: No. He placed-

Payman: He’s a roving implantologist, isn’t he, in a lot of practises.

Paul Abrahams: Yeah, he’s green.

Prav Solanki: He’s a good one.

Paul Abrahams: We miss him, Zaki. We miss you Zaki.

Prav Solanki: He’s a good man.

Paul Abrahams: But we’re looking at that again. Again, being in Central London, this guy is so close that it’s easy to refer out and get that done. I restore all the implants.

Payman: I know it’s hard to project that far ahead, but once you are allowed to leave now, do you know what you’re going to do?

Paul Abrahams: I just want to keep going, and whether I work … At the moment, I’m trying to do four days a week. I don’t see myself finishing as long as I’m healthy for quite some time. Wherever that might be, whether it might be in the practise I’m still in, or whether it be somewhere else, and hopefully doing a bit of teaching and lecturing and that type of stuff.

Payman: But your ideal for now would be to stay in the same place even after you-

Paul Abrahams: Yeah, I think so because I’ve got some-

Payman: Is it just because of the work years-

Paul Abrahams: I’ve got some great patients, and we’ve got great staff, and it’s comfortable. I see people. Sometimes I go 10 years, someone walks in and I haven’t seen them for 10 years, and they walk in, and that’s great.

Payman: Really? Wow.

Paul Abrahams: I have some great patients, great people.

Prav Solanki: You hear so many stories of people selling and then just having a real bad time afterwards. It seems like you’re in a really happy place at the moment?

Paul Abrahams: Well, it’s been good.

Payman: I think for now, Dentex … Every Dentex seller I’ve spoken to seems happy, but it is early days.

Paul Abrahams: Look, it can change.

Payman: It does happen with corporates early on.

Paul Abrahams: There’s always a risk with it, again like I said with everything. But I think the key thing is I’m still in the same practise, doing the same things.

Payman: So nothing-

Paul Abrahams: Ultimately, on a daily basis, it’s not really changed. It’s not the dentistry, it’s the people, and we had this conversation. It’s the people. I see some really nice people. I’ve been seeing them for a long time. That hasn’t changed. None of them know that I’ve gone this route.

Payman: Tell us about your spare time. What do you like doing?

Paul Abrahams: Apart from teaching, apart from BACD which takes up most of my spare time?

Payman: Yeah. I see you running even after big Enlighten parties, I see you, bit to the 8 a.m. running.

Paul Abrahams: I like to. Probably that’s the story, got to stay strong. I still play football.

Payman: Oh, do you?

Paul Abrahams: I play Veterans Football now which is in a league, so that’s competitive football, which I’ll keep doing until my knees or hips or something else gives out. I use the gym and I love watching football. That’s a big thing, so got to stay strong.

Payman: What’s your favourite place in the world?

Paul Abrahams: Place in the world? Find me a beach anywhere, nice beach. It doesn’t have to be anywhere particularly.

Payman: Do you tend to go back to the same places on holiday?

Paul Abrahams: We’ve done quite a bit. Well, my son moved to Australia about four and a half years ago, so we’ve been to Australia a couple of times now.

Payman: How is it? Is it good, Australia?

Paul Abrahams: Oh, it’s amazing.

Payman: Is it? Have you been to South Africa?

Paul Abrahams: Not been to South Africa.

Payman: I went to South-

Paul Abrahams: We do go back. We do go back to the same places, if I think about it. But we’re-

Payman: I really feel I’ve got this Australia bug. Have you been to Australia?

Prav Solanki: Never been, but you know what? I know a few people have moved and life is so much-

Paul Abrahams: Do you know what, Prav? I think if I took myself back to when my kids were young, if we would’ve had a taste of that, I think we would’ve gone.

Prav Solanki: Oh, really? Why?

Paul Abrahams: I’m absolutely certain we would’ve gone. Because we love that type of … Given the choice between going to a beach or going skiing, like a lot of people are doing this week, I’d been on a beach.

Prav Solanki: Of course.

Paul Abrahams: Every single time.

Payman: Not everyone says that though. Not everyone says that. Adam Thorne was skiing every time.

Prav Solanki: I’ve never been seeing so I can’t really comment.

Paul Abrahams: I’ve been once.

Payman: When I went to South Africa, I got that feeling of, “I want to live here,” but then, you’ve got all the crime and all that people talk about.

Paul Abrahams: But South Africa is a different issue.

Payman: But I know it’s a unique one, but that’s actually one thing. I’ve got the bug for Australia because it feels like I haven’t been there-

Paul Abrahams: It’s like going back. It’s like going back-

Payman: It’s like South Africa without the crime worry.

Paul Abrahams: It’s an interesting place. It’s a bit quirky. I mean my son lives in Bondi. I mean who’d want-

Payman: Does he?

Paul Abrahams: But you walk down in Bondi and if you’re in your 50s, you feel like, “Whoa, I’m the oldest person on the street,” because everyone is in their 20s, 30s and young families, and it’s got a great vibe. It’s old-fashioned in many respects. It’s like going back, a throwback, but it’s a long way from everything. Geez. It’s a long way to go.

Payman: Did you stop off somewhere on the way?

Paul Abrahams: Yeah. We went via Singapore.

Payman: Stayed a couple of days there?

Paul Abrahams: No, just went through via Dubai.

Payman: That’s a shame, isn’t it? You should stay.

Paul Abrahams: You know what? Just get there.

Payman: The Singapore crowd, man.

Paul Abrahams: Now, you’ll get me going because my younger son, he keeps saying we’ve got to go to Singapore, so I have to do it.

Payman: Well, it’s been lovely talking to you, Paul.

Prav Solanki: Thank you. Thank you for your time. Thanks.

Paul Abrahams: Pleasure.

Payman: Thanks again for being so open and coming over. It’s been really lovely talking.

Prav Solanki: Thanks for sharing. Yeah.

Paul Abrahams: Thanks, guys.

Automated Voice: 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.

Transcript

Payman: What kind of a boss are you?

Sia M.: Hugo Boss.

Speaker 3: 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.

Payman: So, today we’ve got my good friend Sia Mirfendereski joining us, and I’ve known Sia a long, long, long time.

Sia M.: Many years.

Payman: Many years. And, Prav, you have too-

Prav Solanki: Yeah. Absolutely, we’ve met a few times.

Payman: And, it’s an interesting career you’ve had Sia. But, do you remember the first time you thought I want to be a dentist?

Sia M.: Yes, I do. It was approximately 1983, ’84 I think. My dad was adamant that I should follow in the footsteps of my uncle and become a doctor, as is quite common in our culture to follow a vocation, as opposed to go study some arty course at university. And, funny enough, it was at one of my parents’ evening dinners that we had a family friend whose son had just graduated from Guy’s, and he was doing his houseman year, and he was telling me… As a doctor, and he was telling me about his weeks and what he was doing and the number of hours he was working.

Sia M.: And, the more I kept listening to him about the volume of hours that he was doing, heading towards 90 to 100 hours a week, the more I was shying away from the idea of even thinking of going to do medicine. Not that I was lazy, but I just thought the idea of working 90 hours a week and at the rate that they were working and how difficult it was and how hard the course was, I was slowly thinking to myself, “I’m not quite sure this is really what I want to do long-term.” Although, I was quite science-based, and I was good at the science courses at school, and I thought to myself, “What are my other options?” And then, I started looking at dentistry, but it wasn’t one of things that for years I was keen on working with teeth or anything like that. It’s just one of those things that just happened.

Payman: So, how old were you, like 16?

Sia M.: Yeah, 16, 17. I was… I think even started doing A levels, but I was doing the math, chemistry, biology classic courses to be able to then consider doing medicine. Although at school-

Payman: You’re the youngest, right?

Sia M.: Yes, the youngest of three.

Payman: So, your brother was an engineer.

Sia M.: My brother had already gone to UCL doing civil engineering. My sister followed in the footsteps of my parents to study architecture. And, I was always interested in some aspect of medicine, but at the same time, I always had a very effervescent character and social character. And, the more I kept listening to this guy, and he was a good family friend’s son, the more I was thinking, “I’m not quite sure that’s what I want to do.” And, I think I feel into dentistry as option B, and that’s where it all started.

Payman: Were you boarding school?

Sia M.: I was at boarding school when we first came here for a year and a bit. And then, I became a day boy.

Payman: And so, you went to London Hospital.

Sia M.: I went to the London Hospital before it got its royal stamp. Started off in 1986, the dental school, and it all started from there.

Payman: You stayed on there to teach.

Sia M.: No, what I did is I qualified in 1991. I briefly went and worked in a practise in Essex. Then, I went back to get a letter of good standing or whatever from one of my old tutors, and it just so happened that him and his wife who have a practise in south London had a vacancy, and he asked me if I was keen to go and work at his practise, and that’s Dr. Eddy Lynch, who’s now Professor Edward Lynch. And, I started working there in one of his surgeries that I now own in south London in 1992.

Sia M.: I then through his guidance decided to do an MSC at the London between ’93 and ’95, and that’s when I got approached by the oral surgery department because they’re always very keen on me doing oral surgery and medicine to teach the undergrads from 1995, but I was not too keen on going and being double qualified and going and doing another 5 years of medicine as it was back then. Nowadays, I’m not quite sure what I think people can skip the preclinical years, but they still have to do the clinical years, and that wasn’t part of my biology as it were. But, I did teach undergraduates and postgraduates oral surgery between ’95 to about 2002, and at the same time, because I was doing an MSC, I started teaching restorative for the undergraduates and then post graduates in the same year bracket as it were.

Prav Solanki: How much of an influence was Eddy Lynch on your career trajectory and pathway. We’ve heard from a few people today who say that first mentor or that – you talked about him giving you guidance – almost shapes your career path. What influence did he have on you?

Sia M.: Eddy had a lot of influence in the sense that I had quite a tough last 6 months of my dental programme, and it was back then when one of the subjects was separate to finals, and I was struggling to get past that. Having, not cruised, through the first 4 years, but I was always passing the exams, but I struggled with prosthetics for some reason. I think also because I fell in love, and I wasn’t really studying as I should’ve been. So, after having failed, I then took a while to pass that exam, and I was at a time that I was thinking, “Is this really what I want to do?” And, it was when VT wasn’t compulsory, and I got put back 6 months, which was quite hard hit for me to take personally.

Sia M.: But, when I approached Eddy, who was my restorative teacher, he said to me, “What you want to do in these 6 months is use the time on the clinic.” Because I’d passed so many of the other exams. I just had to pass the final exam and prosthetics, which I did together. And, he said to me, “what you want to do is use these 6 months, as opposed to all your friends who qualified in December, now that you’re going to hopefully qualify in July, use these 6 months to gain extra clinical experience, so that you don’t have to go and then do VT.” And, that was a huge, huge thing which he got me to do, and I was doing more complicated restorative work, crown and bridge work, which at undergraduate level was unusual to do unless you were one of the high-flying students. But, easy to do because you passed the exam, so you had more clinical time.

Sia M.: And, that allowed me to enter practise without having to do VT, and from a experience point of view, when I would sit down with my friends who had qualified 6 months earlier, after I finished, we were all pretty much at the same level, so I was very indebted to him for giving me that advice and also strongly giving me the confidence to stick at it and not give up, and don’t worry about the fact that you failed and exam. And, I’m sure the second time around or whatever, you’ll pass it. Use the time carefully. So, that was very, very influential. And, hence, why I went back to him to get a letter, so that I could apply for another job, and it all rolled on from there because he had a vacancy with his wife in one of their offices, and I never looked back.

Prav Solanki: What is he like as a boss?

Sia M.: Pretty different to what it was like as a tutor. As a tutor, you had to rewrite essays about three times. But, as a boss, it was mostly his wife who was the boss. He had more of a background role, because he was tutor at the London, and his wife… She was a wonderful lady. Sadly, she’s no longer with us. Sad story, but a wonderful lady. Very kind and both of them very accommodating. Very nice bosses to have more like friends and right now, he is one of my very close friends, and I hold them in very high esteem.

Payman: How long was it before you decided I want to go out on my own, open a practise?

Sia M.: I stayed as an associate, unlike most of my friends because I really enjoyed the time off that I used to have, and my cousin that you know very well, used to always label the famous 17-day trips that I’d go and see him in the US two or three times a year. Which, I still have very, very fond memories of, and I didn’t like the idea of taking the responsibility of having my own practise, and I delayed it and delayed it until I got my postgraduate work done in ’95, and then I eventually got onto the specialist register for prosthodontics. Sadly, I didn’t get onto the oral surgery one, which was a bit of a controversy, but I’ll come back to that if you ask me later.

Sia M.: And, around 1999, 2000 as I got into my 30’s I thought, “Right, it’s about time that I start,” and I was a specialist, I came across a colleague who had a practise that he was thinking of moving from in central London in Wimpole Street, and I jumped in, started at Wimpole Street. I was still working part time with Ed’s practise and his wife’s, and slowly I cut that down and focused more and more on Wimpole Street-

Payman: Did you start it, or did you buy it?

Sia M.: I bought it. He had a pool of patients, but he was honest enough, and he was also a tutor at the London, to say that he wasn’t retiring. He also had another practise in Richmond. And, the commute was long, and if I’m not mistaken, had started a family and it was very difficult for him to be in Wimpole Street, teaching and in Richmond. So, I knew full well that a bunch of his patients were likely to be moving with him to Richmond. So, I inherited a pool of patients, and I also had a pool of patients myself, which were happy to come from south London. And then, slowly but surely just built it, and one of my ex colleagues, who used to have a practise in Cavendish Square always used to tell me in the west end, it will take you a year to build up a day, so it took a good two or three years to get this up and running.

Payman: That must have been nerve wracking.

Sia M.: It wasn’t easy.

Payman: The costs are quite high.

Sia M.: Yeah. Costs were high, but at least you didn’t have the compliance stuff that’s going on now, where the one man bands up and down Wimpole and Harley Street I know for a fact are really struggling or have gone because the costs have gone so high. I’m not saying incorrectly. That’s just the world that we live in these days, so you have to tick all the boxes, and a lot of people now have joined or they’ve got two or three chairs, so that they can spread these costs. But yeah, it was definitely a challenge the first two or three years, which led to the fact that I then started a practise up the road in Baker Street, because I had a shop front. Because, Wimpole and Harley Street, as you know full well, there’s no shop front. So, there’s no walk in trait. A lot of it was through referrals, my ex-students, and then when I purchased the practise near Baker Street, that one had a shop front, and then I would do promotional offers, et cetera, et cetera. So, I collected a few other patients through that.

Payman: So, the whole process of starting, you talk about opening up a dental practise like buying a Mars bar from a shop. It seems like it’s just… We all know it’s not, but it seems like quite a simple process. Talk us through what happened. You had this practise in Wimpole Street. You then go and purchase a practise in Baker Street, you’re juggling two babies-

Sia M.: It was a squat practise. It was one of my patients who had this building in Baker Street, and the ground floor was a mini cab office, and I think with the mini cab office, the tenants he was getting were clearly not happy because mini cab offices pre Uber days were 24/7/ trade, especially on the weekends, where you get people strolling out of pubs, et cetera, et cetera. Wasn’t good for him, so he was delighted about the fact that there was a chance that he could change it from a mini cab office to a dental practise, which has got much more set hours. So then yeah, I started that as a squat practise.

Sia M.: That was definitely a challenge, but the fact that I had a shopfront, and I designed it, I think, in a very nice manner. So, it did attract a lot of new patients, and the patients that were then appropriate to then take to Wimpole Street for more specialist, I did, and at that time, I found another professional partner who had different skills in being a specialist in endodontics and vast experience in implantology. So, it was a good area to be able to get the patient, the walk in trade, and then take them down towards Wimpole Street because I always find the problem with the Wimpole and Harley Street practises are the lack of walk in trade and you’re relying on referrals, and referrals even then had started to dwindle as more and more practitioners who had high street practises were bringing in specialists in their own offices to carry out specialist work, and the referrals were diminishing as it were.

Prav Solanki: Back then, your Baker Street practise was the majority of your new business coming because you had a shopfront presence-

Sia M.: Yes.

Prav Solanki: That was-

Sia M.: Definitely.

Prav Solanki: Was there any marketing?

Sia M.: Did I do any marketing? I did. I did a lot of brochures. I did a lot of leafleting. I did some adverts in the local newspaper. Back then, foolishly, I wasn’t doing nay website. I wasn’t doing any marketing through website, and I didn’t even understand the power of how that would work. But, just through local advertising, local marketing, and having offers, keeping the cost of the consultation, keeping the cost of the initial examination low, and with my relationship with Enlighten, having teeth whitening offers certainly helped bringing in the walk in trade.

Payman: When was it? You started lecturing for us, I remember. When was it in that time that you opened Baker Street? Remind me.

Sia M.: I opened the Baker Street one, if I’m not mistaken, around 2002. And, we started working together in the initial days… Was it 2004? 2005?

Payman: 5.

Sia M.: 5?

Payman: 5, 6. So, your Baker Street one, explain this to me. You spend some money. You set the place up. There’s no patients.

Sia M.: No patients.

Payman: How long did it take before it was busy two days a week.

Sia M.: Not long. A few months. But, I did have a lot of offers, and I’d done a bit of homework. There weren’t that many practises in that region. It was a bit further up from Baker Street, up on Gloucester Place. I don’t know if you know it. I think Frances Holland’s junior school has a branch there. The walk in trade, it was good. And, I think the whole thing about teeth whitening was really expanding. It was pre the home kit, so it was all the light activated ones, and because I would offer it at what I felt was a discounted rate, it brought in a lot of patients through the promotions that I would have through leafleting and advertising in the local newspapers.

Payman: You sold that practise when?

Sia M.: Sold it in 2007, but I sold it because the professional partner that I had who was the specialist in endodontics and implants, not a specialist in implant, but I’m sure you understand what I mean. We got busier and busier at Wimpole Street, and our referrals started to get more and more. And, it then became too much for me to handle, and I put it on the market through a Frank Taylors, and I was offered what I thought was enough to pay me back what I’d put in it and more. I actually got a generous offer, which I was delighted with. Happy days as it were.

Prav Solanki: That practise still there?

Sia M.: Yes, it is. I actually walked past it the other day. It’s not got the same name. I’m sure it’s the same owner. But yeah, it’s still there. Had a lot of interesting because people wanted to purchase it.

Payman: What’s the name of the practise now?

Sia M.: Ivor Dental, I believe. On Gloucester Place.

Payman: How’s that feel when you walk past a place that you started, and it’s still there all those years later? Do you get a sense of fulfilment that I did that?

Sia M.: Kind of, but I didn’t think that I took it as far as it could’ve. I felt that I had to go because my commitments back at Wimpole Street got more and more, but I got the right offer for it, and I wish the chapter took it on all the best. And, the fact that it’s still there, because it’s not on Baker Street high street itself. It is off Gloucester Place, but never the less, it has a shopfront, so the fact that it’s there, I’m sure they’re doing very well.

Payman: So, you’re the dentist for Chelsea Football Club, and you said-

Sia M.: Dental consultant. There’s no formal title, and I’ve always shied away from that.

Payman: Yeah.

Sia M.: It’s more the go-to person in terms of dental advice. It all started from-

Payman: Yeah, how did that start? So, I know you’re a football nut.

Sia M.: That’s a bit harsh, but I’ll come back to that. Guru.

Payman: Watch this. Watch this. What was the score in the FA cup final in 1978?

Sia M.: FA Cup Final 1978?

Payman: Yeah.

Sia M.: Ipswich down one, Arsenal nil. Roger Osborne. Is that right?

Payman: I’m Googling it right now.

Prav Solanki: I think if you are right, then nut is definitely the right-

Sia M.: Guru, guru.

Payman: No seriously though he-

Prav Solanki: Is it right?

Payman: You ask him another question while I check this out.

Prav Solanki: I don’t know enough about football.

Payman: Go on, explain how you got into the football thing.

Sia M.: Not by knowing the stats, no.

Payman: He’s right, he’s right.

Sia M.: Osborne goal scorer. One nil Ipswich.

Payman: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Payman: One nil Ipswich.

Sia M.: Anyway. I used to play a lot of rugby at school, and I had a bad accident during a game, and I nearly broke my neck, so when I went to uni, because back there in your other forms, rugby was always very much looked upon, and London had a very big rugby team. I’m not saying that was the reason that they let me in, but I started playing football at the London, and the football team was predominantly nurses and physios. Most of the people that came to the medical and dental school had a private school education and predominantly played rugby, so there wasn’t that many of the male students that were footballers.

Sia M.: But, the football team had a big old boys unit, and we would always get together in Cambridge or near Cambridge for a day of golf or tennis and plenty of beers for the FA Cup Final. And, a lot of the guys who then graduated as physios started getting jobs be it assistant at Tottenham, assistant at Ipswich, Crystal Palace, and eventually in the mid 90s, good friend of mine, Mike Banks, became the Chelsea physio. And, for years, he always used to say to me, “Sia, if ever you open up a practise in Fullham Broadway, let me know.” I didn’t open up a practise in Fullham Broadway, but by the time I got onto the specialist list, he was still at the club, and I sent him an email saying, “Mike, I’m not in Fullham Broadway, but I’ve got a private practise in Wimpole Street.” Footballers were all beginning to get the image of pop stars, and they wanted their own privacy in that little quiet waiting room in the back as opposed to a shop front with a waiting room with 4 or 5 other people.

Sia M.: And, I sent him an email saying this is where I am. If ever you need me, call me. And, they had some dental issue literally that weekend that I’d sent him the email, and one of the players had had a bad elbow in the face and had some dental issues. And, I fixed him, and then slowly one by one, the odd player started trickling in, and I came up with the idea of dental management, and sports but particularly with the football of having screens and making sure that the players were dentally fit. And, it took off from then. I then set it up so that the players would have a dental screen. It wasn’t compulsory if they choose to have it. Otherwise, if they chose not to have it, we would put into their medical records. And, it started from then.

Payman: But, did you formalise it? Did you talk to the club?

Sia M.: I talked to the club about it, yes. I talked with the medical staff, and there was an incident in 2004/5 prior to a semi final game between Chelsea and Liverpool, where I got a call from the medical secretary saying we have an emergency. And, I thought, “Gosh, I hope I didn’t miss anything.” And, she said, “No, it’s a member of the opposition.” And, funny enough, the manager of the opposition was convinced that I was a Chelsea fan, and I was going to maim this guy. And, naturally, I acted professionally and to this day, I still get nail for acting professionally because they beat Chelsea, but anyway.

Sia M.: What I found out was that the player involved had actually had a dental issue and had not seen it through. He was at a temporary phase, and because he hadn’t seen it through, hence this issue had developed prior to a game. And, Chelsea had just changed Chief Medical Officer, so I approached the new medical officer. And, I said to him, the background of this, and I said I’m sure the last thing you want having now walked into a new club as prestigious as Chelsea was, and they were going through their boom of the early [inaudible] years of wanting to have this hanging over your neck. If a player’s got a problem, where clearly it’s the player’s responsibility, how about if we offer players to have a dental screen? And then, if they decline to have it, it’ll go in their medical record, so heaven forbid, in the morning of a important match or an evening of an important match, if a player has a dental issue, we look back in the medical slash dental records and see if the player was given every opportunity to have the issue resolved and they hadn’t, it’s the player that gets fined and not have everything crack on the medical officer’s head, which is effectively what happened at Liverpool. Because I do know that the medical team there got nailed. But, when you looked at it, it was actually the player’s responsibility. So, it started from there. And then-

Payman: So, that’s become the pitch that you used for-

Sia M.: Pretty much. And, I think then it expanded through to the academy, so I now do mostly of the academy, and I’ve also got a colleague now who helps out with me with the ladies’ team and the first team predominantly. And, I’m happy seeing the junior players, because after a while, it’s quite a responsible job to have, and as much of a football guru that I am, it is quite limiting in the sense that on the weekends, it does limit your chance of going away for a brief holiday or anything like that. And, I was up until this year, predominantly unless it was international break, I would make sure that I was always around in London. I wouldn’t travel with the club, and I don’t sit in the dugout. It’s not like a dental injury occurs.

Payman: Does the club pay, or do the players pay?

Sia M.: If it’s any dental issue that’s football related, the club pays. If it’s anything aesthetic, cosmetic requirements, wives, girlfriends, et cetera, obviously then it’s the player’s responsibility.

Prav Solanki: What’s it like treating celebrity footballers? I know some people, some dentists, who treat footballers up north. And, the general consensus I get from them is that they don’t respect their appointments, turn up, and think they’re incredibly special. And, much, much harder to deal with and higher maintenance than, say, Mrs. Smith down the street. What’s your experience?

Sia M.: There’s definitely a point about that, but I think because of the number of years that I’ve been there, I’ve become a bit part of the furniture. So, there is a level of I always say to the Chief Medical Officer, or whoever’s in charge on that day and at the moment there’s a chap who’s more of the head physiotherapist, and I always say, “Guys, whenever there is a new player in town, as long as you do the introduction, I will then make sure that I gain that level of trust if the player wants to give it, and to make them understand what the whole point about the screening is.” And, therefore, because I have a setup for just a consultation at the training ground, not for treatment as it were, but just for consultation, it breaks the ice. Of course, you’re always going to get the prima donnas who will last minute change their mind, et cetera. But, I think what I try and do is as a dental officer, make sure that the chief medical officer and the people in the know are aware that such player needs X and Y done. And, I usually try to put them towards the end of the day in the sense that if they suddenly cancel at the last minute or they don’t turn up, I just go home. It’s not the end of the world.

Payman: Do you ever get starstruck by treating one of your heroes? Does that ever happen?

Sia M.: Well, funny enough, because I’m a Nottingham Forest fan, when I first started it, it wasn’t as it I was a fan of Chelsea Football team. Over the years, naturally because you have this link with them you are obviously then going to be following them. And, I do support them quite avidly now. In the early days, definitely. But, they are all human beings, and the one thing that I think helps is if you know a little bit about football and you’ve got a good personality, so you know the banter, you know the sort of things to say, I think that goes a long way.

Payman: They appreciate that.

Sia M.: The appreciate it. There was a player who came in, he’s actually a very good pal of mine now after all these years. And, as he walked in, of course I was a bit starstruck, and I had a chat with him about his history, and the fact that he found out that I knew who he played for in Portugal, a team called Boavista, so it’s not one of the standard Benfica or Sporting Lisbon or Porto. He looked back and straight away you build that level of trust, and the banter goes a long way in the sense that if you don’t have that, they also don’t know who you are, and it doesn’t break the ice. So, that certainly helped. And then, I think because I’ve been there for so many years, that barrier, I think, was broken.

Sia M.: The thing I find now, which is nice, because I have a colleague who helps with the first team, is as I’ve got older, when I first started, most of these players were maybe 4, 5 years younger than I am. And then, maybe 10, 12 years, so that generation gap hadn’t happened, so you still have that camaraderie, and they still know the same music or whatever. Whereas nowadays, some of them are so young, they could be my kids, so that barrier is a little harder to now fill. Hence, why the work that I now do with the academy I enjoy a lot because they’re so much younger, and they haven’t become super stars yet. They are definitely there waiting to learn and listen and they follow all the instructions that they need to from a dental point of view, and they get terribly excited when certain facts I know about them, and they haven’t even made it yet. They’re a 17, 18 year old, in the academy team, and yet I know what position they play, and-

Payman: I bet you reckon you’re quite good at spotting future stars then.

Sia M.: Yeah, I think so.

Payman: Who are they?

Sia M.: Callum Hudson-Odoi.

Payman: Callum Hudson?

Sia M.: Callum Hudson-Odoi

Payman: Oh, [inaudible]

Sia M.: He’s a football player. He’s definitely a special talent.

Payman: How old is he?

Sia M.: 18, I think. 17, 18. Very special talent. And, there’s a few others in the pipeline who if you ask me, if they keep their head down and remain focused, I think the problem with football, in my opinion, is too much too young. How ambitious would you be paid, or how ambitious would you be if at that age, you were earning 20, 25 grand a week? At that age? If you’re earning over a million pounds at the age of 17, 18, where is the ambition to want to become the future Cristiano Ronaldo or whoever is earning 4,500 grand a week when you’re earning that amount of money, and I think-

Payman: Well, that’s interesting, isn’t it?

Sia M.: Yeah, something-

Payman: Yeah.

Sia M.: Needs to give for the good of football, I think. There needs to be a pot, a bit like the American sports, where they have the college, and there’s a fund, and there’s a pot where all this money goes into. So, it keeps their ambition. And also, for the poor kids that don’t make it because there’s a lot of them that don’t make it. A lot of people of what footballers earn, but if you’re in that environment, and you see so many come and go like I have, so many of these youngsters coming and going, and imagine suddenly at the age of 20, 21, you’re not even being picked by a league two or a non-league outfit with little education, where are you going to go?

Payman: What happens to footballers when they retire? Do they get depressed like actors, famous-

Sia M.: Hard for me to-

Payman: What happens to them?

Sia M.: Hard for me to comment because I don’t know it that well, but yes. I have heard that. That they can get depressed and not having-

Payman: Limelight and-

Sia M.: Exactly, and X amount of people following you in a stadium, especially if you’re a superstar. I’m sure it has that moment for sure.

Payman: You’ve got the football. How much of your life, how much of your week, your month, is devoted to the football bit?

Sia M.: I used to do one day a month. Now, I do one day every 6 or 7 weeks, because I split it-

Payman: At the football-

Sia M.: At the training grounds.

Payman: Grounds.

Sia M.: And then-

Payman: They come to you otherwise?

Sia M.: Yeah, then they come to me for their treatment. I now deal mostly with the academy, as I said. And, there’s plenty of work that they need doing, and they don’t really have a say in terms of whether they’re going to come or not, because if they are having any form of a dental issue, it’s compulsory for them to pretty much come, and if they don’t come, it works against them. Whereas with the first team, there’s a little more leeway, and I try and shy away from that a bit now.

Payman: What are some of the nuances of working on Wimpole Street? What’s the best thing about it? What’s the worst thing about it?

Sia M.: I think the prestige and the address.

Payman: People you think a patient that comes in and is more likely to want comprehensive care because they’ve come to Wimpole Street?

Sia M.: I don’t think nowadays anymore. Certainly maybe when I first started, the fact that I was also a specialist registered. I certainly think that helped. I think with the whole digital marketing, I think the fact that dental practises being designed, at first by architects and whoever nowadays. There are really nice looking flash dental practises up and down the country that I think provide very high standard of dentistry. And, Wimpole had Harley Street, in my opinion, no longer hold that prestigious address. Maybe for the patients who are foreigners, it still has that mystique of being the crème de la crème, but I wouldn’t think so.

Payman: And, what’s the worst thing, the fact that you don’t get the walk-by traffic?

Sia M.: Definitely. That’s clear, so you need to rely on your pool of referring practitioners, and your pool will get less and less, in my case I find because I stopped teaching in 2002, and most of my referrals came from my graduates who then went into open practise. And, they would refer patients, but now most of them are pretty much very experienced practitioners, so probably doing most of the work themselves, and quite rightly so. That’s why they are dental practitioners.

Prav Solanki: Sia, you mentioned earlier about not getting on the oral surgery-

Sia M.: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Specialist list, and you had a little story about that.

Sia M.: Yeah, sad one really, and I’m not happy being on the prosthodontics specialist list, and I say that because every dentist is a crown and bridge specialistic. It’s a common understanding, and it’s something that I think is not given the credit that it should be. The reason I was disappointed was that I taught oral surgery for 7 years, and I was at a level of higher than registrar, the fact that I couldn’t be given a higher label than that was that I wasn’t double qualified. I unfortunately, when the grandfathering system came from the GDC to go on to the specialist register-

Prav Solanki: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Sia M.: There was a end date, and I was just a bit carefree, and not lazy, but I just didn’t send the application in enough time, and there were definitely people who were teaching far shorter than I had who got grandfathered on. Then, at the very end when I applied, they were being very difficult and not understanding as to how can I be a specialist in prosto and a specialist in surgical dentistry. So, I had to go and present my case at the GDC panel, and I took the head of department from London with me, Dr. Anne Aitkin, lovely lady for her, and a couple of other referees to explain why I should be on it. But, the panel was one from community dentistry, one from paediatric dentistry, and they just couldn’t see eye to eye, so I got the prosto one, but I should’ve challenged it, because my surgical dentistry, I still think is, if not as strong, stronger. And, in my NHS practise, I had a minor oral surgery contract because of my clinical skills for oral surgery, so I’m still a bit disappointed that I’m not on that list.

Prav Solanki: All because you filled an application form out too late?

Sia M.: In my opinion.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Sia M.: Because there were people that were teaching oral surgery for far shorter than I was-

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Sia M.: Who applied for the application, and they got on it, so I thought this is going to be a walk in the park, and I just applied a bit too late. But, funny enough, one of my colleagues who taught me oral surgery at the London, applied. He got rejected, and he had to go through the whole panel thing, but his focus was mainly on surgical dentistry, and he eventually fought it and got it. My one, I was a bit naïve, and I just thought, “Well, you know what? I’ve got the proto one. Maybe that’s good enough.” But, looking back on it in hindsight, as I said, tongue in cheek, every dentist is a crown and bridge specialist. We’re a surgical dentistry specialist carries, in my opinion, a lot more weight.

Prav Solanki: Do you think it would’ve shaped your career in any different way, or do you think you’d be in a different place right now?

Sia M.: Quite possibly. Maybe I’d be doing more implant placements, as opposed to doing implant restorations.

Prav Solanki: Just by having that title?

Sia M.: I’m a very cautious person.

Prav Solanki: Right.

Sia M.: I only practise things that I think that my credentials allow, and I don’t sale close to the wind. I’m very particular about that, and if somebody looks you in the eye and says, “Are you a specialist in this?” I’m not one of these practitioners that tries to-

Prav Solanki: Wing it.

Sia M.: Disguise… They’ll wing it. I’m not. And I think had I been, I would’ve been a bit more, not daring, but a bit more-

Prav Solanki: Confident.

Sia M.: Yeah, confident to say go and do the whole surgical side, because that’s what I’ve been labelled as a specialist. But, because I didn’t have that… Being a dipsy or a dentist with special interests, for me, is just not strong enough if ever you hit any complications. So, yeah. Quite possibly.

Payman: Yeah, me and Sia have had a long time disagreements on the doctor title for dentists. Long time, long time-

Sia M.: Because we’re not doctors.

Payman: He doesn’t think we’re worthy.

Sia M.: No, no. Not worthy is-

Payman: You just… wanna be doctor.

Sia M.: Your way of putting words in my mouth. Nothing you do had not been worthy. We are misters, because we’re dental surgeons.

Payman: Yeah, yeah.

Sia M.: And, as you know in the medical world, when they become surgeons, they revert from being a doctor back to a mister. And, if you call them doctors, they actually get upset. Us, in my opinion, being called a doctor is being a life-saver. I don’t consider us as life-savers.

Payman: I do. When you get those teeth really white, you’re saving lives.

Sia M.: Saving a life. You’re saving a life, interesting. We may have to come back to that off-air. Saving lives. I don’t think that’s life-saving. Making life more pleasant, sure. But, life-saving-

Payman: I find interesting-

Sia M.: Do you whiten someone’s teeth who’s having a cardiac arrest?

Payman: No.

Sia M.: No, so you’re not saving a life, are you?

Payman: I think what I find interesting about you, the fact that you’ve got the specialist hat, if you like, the football hat, and then chess interest. It’s very interesting that you’ve got all those different things. You’d expect someone who’s got the specialist thing going on… your other practises would be a private practise. But, I think knowing you well, I think you’re the kind of person who can relate to the king or Jordan, and to the guy cleaning the building or whatever. What is that? What’s that word for that kind of person? Talk to anyone?

Sia M.: The person who’s stacking shelves in Ireland? That poor lad? That you got nailed on. Anyway, that’s another story.

Payman: But, what is that.

Sia M.: Definitely.

Payman: Definitely that guy.

Sia M.: Definitely so. I find that I can relate to all types of people. I found the NHS window… It all dropped in my lap in 2005, and it was part of a surgery slash property. My ex-boss was wanting to sell this practise that I was working in up until 2001, two, because I was working part-time then at Wimpole Street. And, the offer came to buy that practise, but because the building was also involved, inadvertently, I thought, “That’s one that I show a lot of interesting in.” Cut out agent’s fees, we agreed on a fee, and it was just when the new contract was about to happen on the NHS, and I had a gut feeling in side, and I wish I had the balls to borrow more family money and buy a chain of these practises. I had inside information about the new contract, and if you were bright enough, you could figure out that the government was going to put a ceiling on the volume of new NHS practises. And, the reason why I got into it was I felt the value of NHS practises was going to rocket, because no more squat NHS practises were about to be allowed to start. That’s how I fell into it.

Sia M.: And then, I bought one. I sold one. The one that I currently have, because it’s in a very gentrified area, and I have to thank my ex-receptionist and nurse for many, many years ago, a surgery in east Dulwich which technically was Peckham, not that there’s anything wrong with Peckham. Peckham is actually very trendy now, but when I first graduated, and I worked there, I was glad I got to my car alive. It was not a very pleasant area at all. And, it’s become extremely gentrified. A lot of yummy mummies, as they’re called. A lot of young professionals spill over from Dulwich village, where mums and dads used to live, but they can’t afford to live there, and it’s not spilled into east Dulwich, so there is a lot of patients who want and feel they have the right for NHS access. But, if you were in a affluent enough area, they are definitely willing to listen to the, as you say… What is it, the shake and prize that goes with it, or what’s that phrase that you sometimes say?

Prav Solanki: Do you want fries with that?

Sia M.: Exactly. So, it definitely helps, and I find I take quite a high volume of my implant patients that come through the walk-in and/or existing patients of that practise because the practise has become so gentrified, so much so that I was running a stat on it recently. When I qualified there, the volume of benefits patients that I had I’d say was over 90, maybe even 95%. I think it’s less than 5% now in that area, and I think that’s the key if you want to have an NHS practise and why their values are so high and why the value of their private intake is multiplied higher than, say, if you just owned a private practise. If you’re getting a practise valued because you’ve got NHS access. You’re always going to have that contract value. You’re always going to have the guaranteed income.

Sia M.: Whatever happens with a new contract. I can’t imagine it changing much considering the stink that we’re involved with, Brexit, and all the uncertainty with governments. I can’t imagine a new government, be it labour or the conservatives wanting to change the dentistry world so much to upset the general public. You need to just spot out where your dental practise is. If it’s in an affluent enough area, and yet you’re offering NHS access, I think is my success. I’m not saying it works for everyone.

Payman: But, two totally different ways of working. With the private, you’re having to invest in marketing not knowing whether you’re going to be busy in a couple of weeks’ time. And, with the NHS, the opposite situation, where you know you’re going to be busy, but you can’t spend the money.

Sia M.: Don’t underestimate the power of SEO.

Payman: Yeah.

Sia M.: And, my practise in Dullich is not on the high street. It’s down one of the streets upstairs to a pharmacy. When I bought it, it was a one man practise. It was barely working three days a week. It had the volume to expand. Now, it’s three chairs, so that’s 15 slots Monday to Friday of which three are now taken by hygienists, including evenings. And, the others are by dental practitioners. I work there occasionally. I’ve been doing more hours recently because I had to cover for one of the associates that left, and I didn’t find the appropriate one to replace, but-

Payman: What do you look for when you’re hiring an associate?

Sia M.: You live and learn. You can’t go by their interview there and then. They’re hard to find a good one. References certainly helps. Their qualifications, their interests, and you ask them key questions about what their interests are, what weaknesses they have, which particular area are they weak in. And, what volume of work have they done, be it endodontics, be it crown and bridge work, and what’s their estimate number of UDAs that they would do. It’s easy to have 30 patients a day and do 30 UDAs, for example. If you’re just doing check-up, out, check-up, out, check-up, out. That’s not the kind of person that you’re looking for. You’re not looking for someone whose practising unethically either. It’s not easy, but I’ve learned the references go a long way, definitely.

Payman: Do you check those? You call-

Sia M.: I call up. Oh yeah.

Payman: You talk to those?

Sia M.: Oh yeah, I physically call, and I will persist on speaking to at least two if they can provide it, and if they don’t provide it, that’s usually a bad sign. Because, you get good ones, you get hungry ones, and then you get ones that are just drifters. It’s important to try and find the right one.

Payman: What kind of a boss are you?

Sia M.: Hugo Boss.

Payman: Nice diversion. What kind of boss are you?

Sia M.: I think I’m a fair boss. Funny enough, I always compare it to being a football manager. As you know, I’m a football guru, as you said. But, you have to manage all sorts of personalities. I’ve got in my team, three part-time associates, two part-time hygienists, and about 4 auxiliary staff, and it’s always the way that the auxiliary staff consider themselves on par, and perhaps they should, with the dental practitioners and the hygienists. And yet, the dental practitioners always think that they are one level higher than the auxiliary staff. They may be in terms of clinical education, but in terms of the standing within the hierarchy of the practise, they’re not, but it’s very difficult to manage them and keep them all happy. And, that comes through experience, and I’ve had some good ones. I’ve had some difficult ones. But, slowly but surely you want to try and get the right team, and that’s hard to manage, because one person’s having a bad day. One person says this to the other. So, you’ve got to put your arm around someone. Sometimes you’ve got to give someone a kick in the backside. Sometimes, you got to be a bit hard. And, I live and learn. I’m sure I’m not the easiest boss, but I think underneath it, they all know that my bark is a lot worse than my bite. And, I think I’m fair. I’m not unfair and ranting and raving all the time.

Prav Solanki: Sia just pointed to something that I’ve just picked up on, and I think we discussed it earlier, which was when you own your own business, sometimes you’ve just got to roll your sleeves up and do anything and everything, right? And, you mentioned that you lost and associate, and now you’re having to fill some hours in there. You’re a specialist. You work in Wimpole Street, but you’re also doing NHS work. Is that right?

Sia M.: Yes. At the moment. It just happened. It’s been about a year and change. And it happened as I was looking for an associate who I interviewed, and this is a prime example of when you get it horribly wrong. I interviewed. I vetted. She seemed very, very, suitable for the position, and we had her starting on a Monday. I think it was the latter part of July last year. And, I had a full book ready, and they were going to be doing part-time, I think Mondays and Thursdays or something like that. And, we’re all set, full book, and I got not even a call. I got an email saying that my life circumstances has changed, and I’m moving to Cambridgeshire. Hence, I can’t start on Monday.

Sia M.: Now, I had a minor coronary, and I scratched my head and I thought, “What a load of nonsense.” And, as I always do, I sit back, and I don’t react with an email or pick up the phone and start ranting and raving, and that I’ve learned through managing a high street practise. Digest the information, because the first thing that will come out of your mouth is usually the wrong thing, and it’s a reactive comment.

Prav Solanki: Good advice.

Sia M.: And, so I sat down, and I thought, “Right.” But then, the more I thought about it, I wrote her an email back saying I’ll let this go, but be very cautious because technically speaking she could’ve been up for GDC referral for professional misconduct because you’ve effectively signed onto a practise, and you’ve got a full book waiting for you on Monday. You send me this email on Friday in writing. You’re pretty much shooting yourself or hanging yourself. But, I thought take the stance of being more advisory to this colleague by saying don’t pull this off, because if it were somebody who were not as friendly or wanted to be difficult, they could make your life quite miserable because I think technically speaking, I think your in breach of… Would you agree? For professional misconduct, if you’ve got a full book? It’s not a good thing to do.

Prav Solanki: No.

Payman: No.

Sia M.: By all means, if your life is changed, or at the very least call. Or at the very least come to the practise and do a week as locum because such a thing… I’m not saying it didn’t occur, but such a life changing situation, you don’t just email somebody that you’ve interviewed a couple of times. That’s a bit off, but associates are strange characters these days. You get some really odd ones.

Prav Solanki: So, how did you deal with Monday.

Sia M.: I had to go in.

Payman: Roll your sleeves up.

Sia M.: Yeah, I had to go in, roll my sleeves up. Went in, and within… Because it was July and August, being the summer months being usually quieter, productivity went up about 20, 25%, which shows what were the staff exactly doing. I had already asked them what were you guys up to. Productivity went up, and then I noticed how affluent the area is, and the comment I was making to you about the NHS access. Don’t underestimate that. If you’ve got your own successful private practise, and you’re doing your private work for a number of years, excellent. But, there are practitioners who are in this middle grey area. There’s a lot of good quality dental work that can be done in practises that have an NHS access and private scope.

Payman: What would you do differently career-wise?

Sia M.: I’m glad I didn’t start too early, because I had a great time between 1995 to about 2000, when most of my friends were starting practises. What would I do differently. Definitely, I would’ve bought a lot more of the NHS practises when I realised where the business was going. I should’ve bought 10. And, I knew it. That was the whole point. I had inside information, not inside trading information. Don’t come knocking on my door. It wasn’t anything like that. I just worked it out that if you’re going to put a ceiling on the expenditure by the government, effectively they had no ceiling of what the annual expense was for dentistry. If you look at it in simple term, if the annual expense was limitless, or with no limit, now they’ve got a limit. And therefore, you can’t have a squat practise. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out, if you’re already in that pot, what you own is going to have a lot of value.

Sia M.: The government did try a lot to claim that the practises technically that the contracts were there, as in you couldn’t sell them on. I can remember his name, but there was one chap in Birmingham who fought this underside and made it possible that dentists could sell contracts. And, it wasn’t NHS owned, although where that goes now, I don’t know, but that’s definitely something that I would’ve done. Because I knew it was happening. I just didn’t have enough guts to borrow money off family, and I didn’t want to go to the bank man.

Payman: What’s your lowest point in your professional life?

Sia M.: I’m glad you said professional life, because many football low points, but… Champions league final being knee deep in urine in Moscow. Being held back when Man United had won on penalties really was harsh. But, that was harsh.

Payman: I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.

Sia M.: Champions League final in 2008. It was harsh being held back in Moscow. Raining. Billeting. Knee-deep in urine in the stadium because urinals had overflowed with Chelsea fans. Not in the best of moods.

Sia M.: But professionally, litigation.

Payman: Has that happened?

Sia M.: It happens to everybody. It gets you tense. It gets you nervous. You’ve just go to deal with it, be a bit tougher. I find I’m quite sensitive, and I take it very personally, if there’s ever a complaint, and you try and fight your corner. And, you just need to take it and just deal with it accordingly, because I find sometimes, when it’s personal, and it’s not to do with clinical work being long, some of the accusations, which have never gone anywhere, have been personal. And, I find those… I think a person who would have an issue about that, I think a person like that has issues themselves. And, I think it’s sad that in our world, legal teams sometimes don’t stand up and listen to you enough by saying, “This is a personal attack. It’s got nothing to do with the clinical issues,” yet all they want to do is wash their hands often or just settle, just move on.

Prav Solanki: Is there one particular case that stands out in your mind of a personal attack that had the biggest impact?

Sia M.: Two. One when I was very young.

Prav Solanki: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Sia M.: And, I’d spent hours trying to avoid doing a root canal on a patient where the tooth was vital, and I put in dressing, brought the patient back, and this is in the days of fee per item. And, I must have spend 5, 6 hours at least. And, the patient came back, and they thanked me, and they said thank you very much. The tooth doesn’t hurt, doesn’t need a root canal, and invariably, as you know, posterior teeth with a root canal if it’s got a large area, you’re then also looking at coronal recovery. And, it was fee per item, so there was no incentive for financial gain, and the patient had some sabiacal sensitivity, where they had a bit of a fraction, I thought.

Sia M.: So, I placed some glass inomers on two or three buckle areas. And, the patient wrote me a letter. And, back then, this was unheard of. This is 1992. Patient wrote me a letter saying can you please outline the advantages and disadvantages of amalgam and glass inomers, and why did you use amalgam on the back tooth and glass on the front tooth. And, I’m like perplexed, so actually went to Eddy Lynch, and I said, “Ed, what do I do with this?” And, Ed said, “I’ve never seen that.” And, Ed just said you write a polite letter back, and saying that I’m delighted that you’re no longer in pain. I’m delighted that you needed a root canal. But, I would guide you towards the British Dental Association and the British Dental Association’s library, where you can find out what the advantages of these particular materials are and why I’ve used them. I said, it’s because for the back teeth, back there you want to be using amalgam and for the sabiacal lesions because you want to do the non invasive, do the glass inomer’s bonding properties is what you want to use.

Sia M.: So, I gave them a hint of what they advantages were but not chapter and verse on why you use one and not the other. And, he went for it and got started sending letters-

Payman: He was unhappy with that answer.

Sia M.: Yeah, about why did you do this? I never wanted to have this done, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, his original letter had thanked me, and this went on and on, and it went to… I can’t remember the phraseology. It was before misconduct stuff. It went on to a local meeting of – in Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham, with a panel and two or three dentists. And, the guy had gone onto describe his story. Then, I went on to describe my story, and the judge said, “but, you keep referring to the fact that the patient thanked you.” And I said, “Yeah, he did. It’s in this letter that my legal team would’ve had.” And for some reason, the judge or the panel never got it, and the judge looked at the letter, ripped it up and said, what a complete and utter waste of time. What are we here for? So, that one, for me was like, what a complete, utter waste of time, and why was this particular complaint then not pursued by saying thanks for wasting court time? Someone should’ve been help liable for that. That was the first one.

Sia M.: The second one was just… They were accusing of the staff laughing at them, and laughing at them when they were rinsing their mouth. I’m like, why would the staff want to laugh at you when you’re rinsing your mouth. Accusations that were just downright wrong. And, when the accusations were this wrong, and the patient was found to be lying, and it turned out that the… Wasn’t the patient that was making the complaint. It was the patient’s daughter, who was a legal secretary. I then, went to my legal team, and I said, “Clearly, we’ve proven that they’ve lied. There’s got to be some sort of action towards libel and all this time that’s been wasted, including my annual rate going up for my payments for my insurance.” And, all they were just like, just let it go and move on. I don’t think that’s right. So, those two really stood out. And, they were unnecessary.

Payman: What would be your advice, I mean, with the GDC situation right now, there must be so many people who’ve got something going on. What’s your advice? Because, I know the thing that hurts the most is you tried your best for that patient, and now the letter or the accusation is that you’re substandard. And, that must hurt. That does hurt. I’ve had complaints letters myself when I was a dentist. What’s your advice?

Sia M.: The advice is don’t take it personally.

Payman: Really?

Sia M.: Yeah. Do not take it personally, and defence of the GDC, the first thing that it says is that they are acting on this particular request. No one’s been accused. No one’s been proven to have done something wrong. They are acting on a request of a complaint. So, the first thing to do it to not take it personally. Sit back again with the same advice. Don’t react. Don’t start throwing your toys out of the pram claiming your innocence. Sit back, swallow, relax, and then start gathering all the facts. You’re always going to get bad eggs in any profession. And, I don’t think there are many dental practitioners out there who go out of their way to cause harm for patients.

Sia M.: If you make a mistake, put your hand up. Try and be as courteous and as polite. It’s a lot more than, say, 15, 20 years ago when I was working. You need to be a lot more… I’m not saying courteous, but you need to be a lot more attentive towards patients. They like to feel special in whatever environment they’re in, and they should not be any difference drawn between NHS and private. Every human needs to be dealt the same, but don’t take complaints personally. Sit back. Take a deep breath. Look at the facts. I’m sure 95% of the time, you’re right. But, don’t try and justify the fact that you’re right. Provide the facts. You leave that in their hands. And, if there is something to answer for and you’re not guilty, just allow the time to ride.

Sia M.: It’s stressful. I’m not saying that it’s not stressful. I’ve had a couple of friends actually go to the next level. Thankfully, that’s not happened to me, but the next level ones are extremely stressful. But, you just got to deal with it.

Payman: I’m conscious you can’t be with us much longer, but I want to finish with one question.

Sia M.: Tell me. Is this going to upset me?

Payman: European Cup.

Sia M.: Okay.

Payman: 1981.

Sia M.: European Cup Final 1981. Liverpool one round Madrid nil. Allen Kennedy.

Payman: Where was it?

Sia M.: Parque de France, Paris.

Payman: How the hell do you- encyclopaedia. Once he said to me because you’re not into football you should be a lot further in your career than you are. Thanks a lot for taking the time Sia.

Payman: It was a real pleasure having you on the show. Thanks.

Sia M.: A pleasure to be here, as always.

Payman: All right. Thanks, buddy.

Prav Solanki: Cheers, buddy.

Speaker 3: 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.

Payman: Thank you for tuning in, guys, to the Dental Leaders podcast. Just got a little request to make. If you’ve got a suggestion of somebody else who we should be interviewing or somebody who’s got a really strong story, powerful story to share with us, please send us a message and help us connect with that individual, so we can bring their story to the surface.

Payman: Thank you so much for taking the time with us. I hope you got some value out of it. Think about sharing it with your friends and subscribing to the channel.

Transcript

Prav Solanki: Hey guys and welcome to the Dental Leaders Podcast. Today we have the pleasure of interviewing Keval Shah. What a guy? I’ve been a vegetarian myself, having been brought up as a vegetarian, then switching to becoming a meat-eater and then recently going vegetarian again. I had lots and lots and lots in common with this guy. But more importantly, he teaches so much and he had so many strong arguments for his vegan movement, his Save The Planet movement. And what was really, really clear to me from meeting him in person was the energy. I mean, he brought his chickens along to the interview, Rubi and Rata and we are all going to learn something about what we put in our mouths and just being mindful of where that’s come from, how it’s been treated and since … The interview bit, me think about what goes on my plate, where it comes from and these strong arguments behind it and Pay you’re the meat eater that I know, right?

Payman: Am I?

Prav Solanki: Yeah, you are the meat-eater, right? So just tell me from your perspective.

Payman: Yeah. It certainly made you look at yourself a little bit. I mean, it’s funny just as I said to him on the conversation that I didn’t know some of the stuff about the way meats made, produced and slaughterhouses and all that. And you’re right, when I look at my plate now, particularly lamb is beginning to bother me. Strangely, it’s my favourite meat as well, and eggs. I never thought there was any problems with eggs. And that question of, “Am I now going to go vegan?” The share price of several restaurants in London will go down if I do that. But it’s one of those things now where before I used to actually think there was something wrong with going vegan or vegetarian. Now, it’s the same thing I think about exercise. I would love to do more of it and I would love to be a vegan. Am I going to be? Not sure-

Prav Solanki: I don’t think so. But I think just more mindful about what goes on your plate. The other evening I was speaking to my brother-in-law, there’s a dead chicken sitting on your plate, cut in pieces, right? And he accepts that and understands that we all do, right? But what he felt most guilty about was when he throws the excess away. Whatever suffering has gone on has then happened to go in the bin. Anyway, listen, we’re getting, we’re digressing here. There’s lots to learn from here.

Payman: Yeah, super lovely guy as well.

Prav Solanki: Enjoy guys.

Payman: Enjoy guys.

Keval Shah: Honey is essentially bee vomit.

Prav Solanki: I don’t eat any sugar at the moment. But, the fact that you’ve just described honey as bee vomit …

Keval Shah: It wouldn’t sell. It wouldn’t sell if it was advertised as bee vomit, that’s the thing.

Voiceover: This is Dental Leaders the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry, your host Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Prav Solanki: Keval, welcome to the Dental Leaders Podcast. This is one of the podcasts I’ve probably been most excited about simply because the lot of the messages that you put out on social media really do resonate with me and a lot of my beliefs and the way revolving around veganism in your diet and also educating the public about how animals are treated as part of the processing, creating food. And I’m sure we’re going to go a lot deeper in that and understand and learn more about your philosophy behind that and your beliefs. But just like to kick things off and learn a little bit more about your background. Just tell us where you were born, where you were brought up and then schooling and education. If you just give us the little bit of background on your backstory, Keval.

Keval Shah: Thank you Prav, I was actually born in London and then within the first year we all moved to Nairobi in Kenya where my dad and mom actually grew up. My grandparents were there, so we all were living together there. But I spent the first 15 years living there, studying there. And it was amazing because we had these community schools that, and then we all went to together and nursery primary, secondary is all just and I’m very easy to get into. Education was amazing, totally in a world class. And we were doing the old GCSE system on the O-levels. By the time that we decided to come back here for A-levels, the level of mathematics and sciences and things that we had done helped me a lot too just basically excel at A-levels as well and then get into dentistry.

Keval Shah: But the life in Kenya was very interesting but very enjoyable as well. At that time things were stable. Obviously there was a lot of corruption, a lot of poverty and that never went away. But we’d see a lot of street kids just trying to find enough food to survive, a lot of orphans, HIV was on the rise. We always used to see the discrepancy between the rich and the poor is a massive we had the multimillionaires on one side and the extremely poor and the other on.

Prav Solanki: Where did you sit in that mix? What was going on at that particular time?

Keval Shah: Middle class. Dad was an accountant. Mom used to do voluntary work for the community. So, we were fortunate. I mean, we had a house, we had water and electricity, car, family unit. Anything that you could ask for we had it. But in terms of wildlife in Kenya, it’s a massive tourism industry. And even at that time with all the protection they had, there was a lot of poaching going on as well. A lot of elephants dying because of the ivory. And I remember one time when the President himself ordered the burning, all the tusks that confiscated from the poachers. These are some of these defining moments that I remember in Kenya. People suffering, animals suffering. My friends and I, we had this mission of trying to conserve wildlife in raising awareness for them and to try and make the world a better place by reducing suffering for everyone.

Payman: As a child?

Keval Shah: Yeah. And they carried on and I think being brought up in a Jain household as well where nonviolence was the main thing. Non-possessiveness, truth and sticking with that and just being raised with those principles helped a lot.

Prav Solanki: Keval just for the listeners here who don’t know what that means, being brought up in a Jain household, can you just expand on that and just give us a bit more insight into that please.

Keval Shah: Jainism is a philosophy, it’s a way of life, which I’d say started off by a person called Mahavira, Lord Mahavira. His story was very similar to the Budha, he renounced his wealth and everything he had because he couldn’t see a way out. He saw suffering everywhere and you wanted to find an answer to that. Where are we going? What’s our purpose? And through years of meditation and deep introspection, he found out that living by these principles of truth, [inaudible] and non possessiveness, [inaudible] nonviolence, you can slowly begin to know who you are and find your purpose and know that we’re not material physical bodies, but actually souls who are here on a journey, on a mission to find ourselves. That’s all it is. And that’s what Jainism is about pretty much. It’s about simplicity and just being there for everyone, looking after others.

Prav Solanki: And from a dietary perspective, were you brought as a vegetarian? What’s the diet that you’ve followed since from a young age?

Keval Shah: Vegetarian was it we, we had to be vegetarian. I didn’t know anything else then, but when it came to dairy and eggs, for some reason that was part of our diet as well my mom or my grandparents didn’t have any of that, but my dad and my uncles and myself and my sister, we all had eggs and milk and everything. That we thought, okay, that’s it we’re living the path of nonviolence when it came to animals and carried on and we didn’t know any different. But unfortunately when I came here, moved here, when I went to university, I kind of started eating meat, not because I was curious about the taste or anything, but I was told consistently that I needed it and I needed it for my health. And if I wanted to put on muscle that was the way forward and that you open up all these men sales magazines and the first thing they were doing than is just meat, chicken, turkey all of that stuff.

Keval Shah: And not many people know about that unfortunately. I’m just putting it out there.

Prav Solanki: Nice to hear. Because I was brought up as a vegetarian as well. And my first piece of meat, so to speak, was at university as well. And I started training in a bodybuilding gym. I met a guy called Jason Greenslate. Jason, if you listening, you remember this time and the first thing he did is we, we bought some meat from Tescos or whatever it was chicken, put some lemon on it, chucked it under the grill. And I threw up, I ate it and I threw up and I ate again and I threw up. But I knew I had to keep forcing myself to do this if I wanted to stack on some muscle it was a very defining moment. And then he told me to a place called Bodrums, which was like a Kebab place, and it went down like a treat.

Prav Solanki: It was softer, it was better cooked, it was tastier, whatever, right? And so that’s where my journey began. Tell me through the first time you put a piece of meat in your mouth and how it felt with the principles that you’ve been brought upon. Was it heart racing? Did it feel wrong? And can you remember that first bite where it was?

Keval Shah: It was probably at the worst place you could try meet and that was McDonald’s chicken nuggets and can remember the exact moment. But I knew I didn’t like the taste of it, but I had to just do it and just go through all of that. The whole box of it, just to get the protein that everyone’s talking about. But that’s, I can’t remember the exact moment, but I remember not ever enjoying the taste of it. It was more because, yeah, I thought it was necessary.

Prav Solanki: The quest for body beautiful.

Payman: Prav, did you get into it after that?

Prav Solanki: Chicken Marsala loved it, fish, sea bass, I’ve never tried red meat in my whole life.

Payman: Ever?

Prav Solanki: Ever. Never. Chicken was a means to an end. And we found ways to flavour it or spice it or eat it in a way that would make it more palatable. Fish, yeah, I admit, I openly, I enjoyed eating fish in the way it was cooked and stuff. And when I met my wife and she’s more creative in the kitchen, she made more chicken and fish dishes and stuff like that. Amazing, loved it, prawns, that stuff. But if I was to sit down and go out for a meal, I would still always choose the vegetarian options as my favourite choice.

Payman: Did you feel guilty Prav?

Prav Solanki: Yeah, in a way. Because I wouldn’t say that I was overly religious, but we were brought up in a household, first of all, that was always vegetarian. And the teachings from our religion there’s that belief that the soul travels from body to body and your body is a carcass and the belief in reincarnation. And so if you do have any beliefs that are along those lines, then what you’re doing you’re destroying someone else’s carcass just to feel… And we don’t need it to survive. And so there were always those constant battles in my head, but the quest for muscle was always stronger and my ego and being man and the definition of being a man and being brainwashed into that, actually you can’t get here without meat because that’s what all my buddies were doing. And so it became the norm.

Payman: Kevin, when you have that big bag, were you having the similar betraying your parents?

Keval Shah: Well, I haven’t told them.

Payman: Until now.

Keval Shah: I think the main, because it didn’t sit right with me. I wanted to find out more about it. And I remember talking to one of the consultants in one of the lecturers that we had, and I asked them straight up, I said, “Do we actually need me to survive and be healthy?” And both of them said, “No, you don’t need it.” So then I thought, okay, so that’s great. I don’t need it. I’m going to find plant based sources of protein and go down their route, but then I still didn’t stop and I carried on because it was normal. Everyone was eating it.

Prav Solanki: Did you diversify from McDonald’s?

Keval Shah: To sometimes fish?

Payman: Yeah.

Keval Shah: But that was pretty much it.

Prav Solanki: When you were eating meat over what period of time was it? Two years, three years? How many times a week?

Keval Shah: Probably about, I’d say on and off for about a year. Probably about maybe twice a month as I wasn’t much at all, but I was having a lot of dairy. I was gulping down a gallon of full fat and milk almost every day, having lots and lots of baby bell cheeses, a six egg omelettes. It was horrendous. And what I’d suffered from when I was 16, I’d suffered from acne a lot. And unfortunately what happened in university actually became far worse, really bad. And to the point where I used to walk around with my head down because it was debilitating I hated myself. I didn’t want to look into the mirror, didn’t want to go out. Every time there was invites for going clubbing or whatever, I just used to stay in the library and that was it.

Keval Shah: And if anyone works how we say, “I wish I was 18 again, wish I was at uni again.” I don’t want to go back just for that. I just hated myself at that time. Unfortunately, that carried on for years and years. I know people go through acne pretty common. It goes away but mine went on for eight to 10 years since I was 16 and eating all of this stuff actually made it far worse than but I didn’t know. I thought, okay I’m working out a lot and whatever, there’s a lot of stress in my body. Maybe that’s why, but I didn’t see a way out of it because everyone was eating, like I said I just carried on. I thought it was normal, but then I thought, okay, well we were all to campaigning to save the tiger and the elephant we had these little boards and tables and stuffing and giving out leaflets and someone came up to me and they said that, “I’ve just seen you walk into McDonald’s and eat chicken nuggets and now you’re campaigning to save the elephant. How does that work?”

Keval Shah: You’ve taken a life and you’re trying to save another one, the balance is zero or it’s almost going into negative.” And that made me think, and I thought, now hang on, you know what chickens. They’re not like elephants they don’t feel pain. They don’t have families they’re just objects they just lowest of the low say it’s fine, it doesn’t matter. But that rationalisation didn’t sit right with me. I thought in a while I need to find out more about what’s going on now. Went on the Internet and at this time, there was a lot of undercover videos out there of what happened, the slaughter houses and know all these meat farms and stuff and I remember watching one of them and it was about a chicken slaughter house and what you see it stays with you for the rest of your life because I was just sitting there in the library watching it and you see all these babies, they’re not even fully grown babies going down this assembly line and all of them are crying out, right? They’re not stupid. They’re crying out. You could see it in their eyes.

Keval Shah: They’re absolutely terrified and they’re screaming, they’re terrified. And then they just get pulled up by the legs and just hung upside down and just stabbed in the neck. And even then they don’t die. They’re just still struggling with all his blood flowing out of them. And their death it took a few minutes for them to die, because there’s just following them in the line and it was horrible watching it. I mean, at that time I didn’t know what the depth of emotions that they actually possess, but the physicality of the pain, the suffering that they went through was enough for me to think, “Okay you know what? I can’t do this anymore.” That made me stop having meat.

Prav Solanki: That video in the library, was at your defining moment?

Keval Shah: I think it started as journey for me.

Prav Solanki: Did you eat any chicken after that?

Keval Shah: No. That was it.

Prav Solanki: That was it?

Payman: Kevil, you allude to this hierarchy of pain in a way. Would you think? I don’t know, eating insects is less of a problem than eating chicken?

Keval Shah: I think the question should be is it necessary? And the fact that how many of us as humans would be willing to eat insects as a delicacy? I know it’s a cultural thing. There’s many countries where they eat insects, lots and lots of them. But I feel that if something is not necessary and if it involves killing of sentient beings that would otherwise have communities and kingdoms. And like especially if you just take the bee for example how they live and how they sacrifice their lives for each other and they really protect each other. And if bees can do that, have we actually learned enough about the insect kingdom to know that we don’t need to kill them, we don’t need to, let them be free and be happy and be doing whatever they’re doing. I think, that’s probably the question for me, is it necessary to do it?

Prav Solanki: Just while we’re on the topic of bees, and I know I’m digressing from our main topic of conversation I’ve heard various things through conversations and online that so is honey vegan?

Keval Shah: Honey is essentially bee vomit. What bees do, they take in nectar and then they make honey, which is actually made for their children in times when they cannot get enough food, enough for them to grow so they actually deposited for their kids, for their babies. It was never meant for us and the fact that to obtain it and you literally have to enslave the queen bee in a hive, keep her tied down there so she can breed and create all these colonies and produce honey and then in the end we don’t even let them have the honey. We take it away from them. A whole process of enslavement and exploitation and then eventually killing them when they’re no longer necessary. I think for those reasons, I would not consider that vegan at all.

Prav Solanki: I am so glad I’m on a ketogenic diet right now.

Keval Shah: I don’t even know what that means.

Prav Solanki: I don’t eat any sugar at the moment. The fact that you’ve just described honey as bee vomit.

Keval Shah: It wouldn’t sell it. You know what it wouldn’t sell if it was advertised as bee vomit. That’s the thing.

Prav Solanki: The way you’ve just articulated that I’m going to stay on my keto diet.

Keval Shah: We have agave now, which is if you want to go back to sugar tastes very much like honey. It’s made from our cactus, it’s so good.

Prav Solanki: What about avocado?

Keval Shah: Yeah. I don’t know if it’s sweet.

Prav Solanki: No, is that Vegan? I’ve heard various things that avocado isn’t, I might be wrong. Maybe I’ve-

Keval Shah: I think I’ve read something online. It’s the point of importing it from other countries and in a vast plantations are, which again, I don’t have an issue with. It’s thought that’s the economic system where it’s grown in other countries and imported here. There’s no direct harm or suffering to others and I think that would be like the main measurement for defining something as Vegan or not.

Payman: For me. I understand. I do understand that but in some of what you say, it seems like that anthropomorphism that put human emotions into animals. You know what I mean? The enslavement of the bee. I get what you’re saying, I do get what you’re say, but if we’re talking pain and suffering, the avocado could be causing more pain and suffering because of the way it’s grown. And because of the way the market is exploited. The coffee, there’s no animal is being eaten when I drink my coffee. But whole communities are being enslaved because of it. And so how far do you take it? Do you look at that, every move you’re making. Are you looking at the whole supply chain of that? This microphone we’re talking into the results of the mined, you know what I’m talking about?

Keval Shah: You’re absolutely right.

Payman: It’s a difficult one. I guess we all make our lines somewhere, right?

Keval Shah: I think it’s about living consciously because unfortunately the society we’ve created, we don’t even have to touch the animals to abuse them now. The fact that our we live in these artificial constructs where we have anything that you see around you is made from nature they were communities in kingdoms destroyed just to create what’s in front of you. And it’s the society we’ve created. We have gone all the way on the other side where we don’t even know that we are nature. We’ve isolated ourselves in four walls when we actually are in nature, we are part of that community outside. You’re absolutely right. Everything that we use, there’s going to be abuse, but it’s about minimising that as much as possible. The fact that we exist as humans right now in the cities and towns that we have, that’s a burden on the planet in itself, especially when our numbers are reaching 7.5 billion, right?

Keval Shah: Now, when we start living consciously, and I feel that veganism is just the first stage, it’s not the end. It’s just the first stage of thinking, “Okay, what’s on my plate? what can I do to reduce the direct suffering of others? How can I be healthy? Not for myself as just for myself but for the planet because now we know that our food is one of the biggest carbon energy footprints out there right now in terms of damage to the world that we live in. But also extending that to human communities where there’s fair trade or not our children being used for cocoa maybe in communities where there are people who are being exploited for mining the funds that we have. Where does this come from? My phone’s about three, four years old now. I haven’t changed it but I know people who keep changing every six to eight months to a year. So it’s about going on that journey and realising that there’s so much we can do to change. And just in taking those steps, you’re actually becoming part of a healing planet. Because we have burned it a lot and it’s time to start healing again. Just by finding our way back and living simply. And I feel like even living simply not only releases our footprint in terms of our himself footprint, but also it releases diamond energy and money that we could be using to other things. Helping others who are not as fortunate as us or giving land back to the ones that we’ve taken that taken it from the other species that we share this planet with so they can heal themselves as well. And it’s so powerful and it’s just knowing that there’s another way we don’t have to live like other people living in our society we don’t have to live in that materialistic way anymore.

Prav Solanki: Do you believe, and I know I already know the answer, but I’m asking this question from the perspective of a meat eater, okay? Free-Range animals, humane killing of animals. And do you believe there is a humane way to kill animals for our consumption? And what’s your take on say, free range hens, chickens, eggs? Just give me your thoughts on that. I’ve seen some stuff that you’ve shared online. So I just like to know what your thoughts are because I know there’ll be a lot of people listening to this who will be thinking guy’s off his rocker, yeah. Space Cadet. I honestly do. And back in the day me being meat-eating bodybuilder would have probably thought the same, right? And people, we all go through these different phases. You’re an ex meet eater yourself-

Keval Shah: I’ve been through it as well.

Prav Solanki: You’ve been through it as well, right? I just want to get your take on what humane killing means if exists and the whole free range argument and the fact that these animals were never brought or bread or barn to be free and wild. They have been nurtured and developed over years and years and thousands of years to be food for us, right? So isn’t that okay?

Keval Shah: Okay. So I think it’s important to understand where these animals came from to start with. Now, if we just take chickens, for example, about 10,000 years ago, they used to live as free beings in the jungles of Southeast Asia. They could fly they had their nest in the trees. They would do it like any other bird that we would just be in wonderment of right now. But we brought them down from the trees and we basically beat them into submission and genetically and hormonally and physically manipulated them to such an extent that they don’t look anything like what they’re used to. Just over a period of 10,000 years, right? To the point where now, because of the hormones that we give them and the way we breed them, their bodies are just being pushed to just push out the eggs and just become big really fast, right? So that’s the system we’ve created. But the reason why they even exist in the first place is because we forcibly impregnate the females to create a new generation of whatever you want to call them. So that’s the only reason why it exist because a lot of people think that if he stopped eating them, they’re going to overpopulate the planet. But that’s not the case because the only reason they’re there is because we forcibly do it. Every year or every few months, artificial, we call it artificial insemination. If we did the same thing to a human, it would be called something else. So I’ll just give you an example of what free range eggs means to the hens and what really happens to them. So free range just means that they have a little bit more space, right? That’s all it means.

Keval Shah: They have maybe a little bit of time on the grass, a little bit more space, but the actual process of producing eggs remains the same. Now the process is get a bunch of females when they’re really young, yeah. Confine them because if they weren’t confined, that’d be free and go away. So you have to confine them and then you start injecting them with hormones to make them mature faster. When that happens, what they do is just like a woman would produce unfertilized eggs and get rid of it from her body every month, they would do the same thing. So in artificial, an unfertilized egg is just a period. Now, naturally these chickens would produce 12 to 15 unfertilized eggs every year. Humans would call them periods. But on these farms are pushed so hard that they produce an egg a day. And that is not only painful, it’s extremely debilitating for them.

Keval Shah: So the pushing out an egg a day, an egg a day, an egg a day and after about 18 months, the owner thinks, okay what? I’m not getting an egg a day. I’m getting one egg every two days. It’s time for them to go. I’m not making enough money from this. So just before he sends them to the slaughter house, he says, “Okay, I want a new line of production now of female egg laying hens.” Right? So he forcefully impregnates them again, extremely painful. And they know that they’ve got babies inside of them now. But when the egg comes out of them with the baby’s inside, it’s taken away from them. So this time, I mean, whoever’s seen these kinds of footage that you’ll know how much they actually cry out. And the eggs roll away and then they get hatched in another place. And as we all know, half, there’s a chance that it could be a boy, it could be a girl, right? All of us, when we have kids. Now when the eggs actually, when the eggs hatch and then you get chickens coming out, what they do is they check each one of them and if it’s a baby boy is thrown straight into a mass rater, crimes him off straight away, right? Or stuffed into bags with lots of them cross-

Payman: Immediately?

Keval Shah: Or, sorry-

Payman: Just killed there and then?

Keval Shah: Yeah, newborn babies, yeah. Because males don’t have any use to them. A male body cannot be exploited as much as a female body can.

Prav Solanki: Could they not fatten up as a chicken and then and then eat it later? Or-

Keval Shah: Again, it’s no different for the chicken itself isn’t that but most because there are so many being produced. I’m talking about trillions here. They’re just fast, it’s baby. It’s actually made into baby soup. So the muscle rooted into that in a consistent in making baby soup. Now half of them, obviously girls, so they are confined just like their mothers pushed to produce eggs again at the age of 18 months, they all go to the slaughter house. So that’s a free range for us. Right now I can’t see anything free about that. But the industry is so clever. It uses all these terms like free range, grass fed, organic, family owned humane slaughter and you get fooled by it. I was fooled by it. I stopped buying these battery caged eggs and went onto free range when I was eating them thinking, “You know what, this is better for them.” And it says on it happy eggs. Literally says happy eggs. And I got fooled by it. But anyone who goes through any happy egg farm or a family owned farm or whatever farm, you go to an egg farm, we’ll see the reality.

Keval Shah: Because if you actually look after animals, it’s not called a farm. It’s called a sanctuary, right? There’s a clear distinction here.

Payman: Yeah. We don’t mention you brought your chicken with you because the story of these chickens-

Keval Shah: Next to me is Rata and Ruby they were actually rescued an egg farm about five to six years ago and they had another companion, but her name was Ronnie. And when we actually brought them home, now that the story was that we had a garden space and I told my dad, “Look, you know what? We’ve got this space. Let’s try and help someone.” And initially we thought, okay, cat, dog the normal thing. And then I thought what, I’ve thought of all the animals we have on this earth, who was the most abused, who’s the most forgotten was the most vulnerable? We realised chickens, right? So when we brought them home, they didn’t have much feathers on them at all. They were completely battered, depressed, afraid of us because their whole life, the 18 months that they were alive, they were kicked around, pushed around by people just like me, right? So they did not want to be near me at all. But slowly they came around we fed them, we showed them love we kept them warm and then they just brightened up, the feathers, came back and they found their personalities. And all three of them have amazing different personalities. One was the leader, Ronnie unfortunately passed away. But Ruby here, she’s just a hyper chicken who loves talking all the time. We have Rata whose opposite, she’s extremely calm. She doesn’t say much, but the thing that united them, the bond that they formed, these are sisters, if you imagine they’ve lost their families, they’ve lost their children, they’re survivors. They bonded and they used to look after each other to the point where if I put food out and if all three of them are not there, the chicken would go and call the other two and made sure that they were all feeding, eating together. They would sun based together they would do everything together. Unfortunately, Ronnie passed away about four years ago and the reason was an egg got stuck inside of her because even when we rescued them, they were still laying eggs every single day. Now because their reproductive systems are so exploited they can’t push the egg out. So the egg actually burst inside of her, she got [inaudible] she started throwing up and she passed away.

Keval Shah: So we run to the vet and we said, “Look, we can’t have this happening.” So she actually put hormonal implants inside of them and shut down their lane. Just like how we have implants for human females, right? Same way they don’t produce eggs anymore. They’d been with us for five to six years now and they’re absolutely happy.

Prav Solanki: Just talk us through what’s the lifespan of-

Keval Shah: Eight to 10 years.

Prav Solanki: Eight to 10 years-

Keval Shah: Yeah. But what really surprised me was not the physical side of things, but the emotional side of things. Because when Ronnie passed away, these two went into this depression for two weeks where they stopped eating as much as they did. They went around the garden every single day calling out for her, obviously couldn’t find her, they couldn’t sleep well. And thankfully they recovered. But even now I find them going back to the same spot they run, used to sit in and just see there through their eyes. And it amazes me how much they have a memory of, I don’t know what it is by find them doing all these things and their depth of emotion for something that I never actually valued or even thought about growing up. The other day, just last week there was a pigeon that actually went into their run and these two just thought, “Okay, we are going to have to kick him out.” So they started stamping on him. So I went out, rescue the pigeon and I told these guys off. Yeah, I really shouted at them. And then for five hours, it didn’t speak to me. They didn’t respond to me. They just thought, “Nah, I don’t want to speak to him.” But they’re all, they do all these kinds of funny things-

Prav Solanki: Do they understand you?

Keval Shah: They understand the [inaudible] as well now. So things like time to eat, to go to bed, come on in, just get out of your house or time to get into the garden or here’s some food. I mean just they recognise faces as well. So when they see me coming to the kitchen a hundred yards away, they start jumping straight away because they know I’m here, I’m going to let them out, we’re going to spend some time with them.

Prav Solanki: Where do they live?

Keval Shah: They live in a six metre by two metre run. Put them in the garden and they have a little coup in there as well. But when I come home from work, I let them out to the gardens. There’s so, yeah. And then just in terms of how they look after each other. And like I mentioned, it’s amazing. But the other thing that I noticed, my wife was in the inside and I was with them outside at night and I was just feeding them for a little bit. And then all of a sudden they just became like statues. They just stopped. And I’m thinking, “What’s going on here?” And I didn’t realise what was going on. I went back in about 10 minutes later and my wife said there was a fox in the other garden that I’d never heard about or heard off. But these lot have a better sense of hearing than I do. Probably even a better sense of smell. And that actually made me think, if they can perceive better than I can imagine their perception of been. If their neurons can detect things more than I can imagine if they’re paying their sensitivity to it would be even more than mine. And that just blew my mind away. Imagine if that was possible. And the fact that we killed one point 7 trillion of them every year-

Payman: Trillion?

Keval Shah: Trillion is absolutely devastating.

Prav Solanki: The fact that it happens and it’s going to continue happening if people support that, right?

Keval Shah: Yep.

Prav Solanki: Is there a more humane way of doing it than current? Would you advocate that over current methods?

Keval Shah: I don’t know if I can think of a humane way to exploit someone and their bodies and separate their families and kill the children. Even the concept of humane slaughter, and I think about this humane means to look after, right? Slaughter means to murder. To bring those two words together and make it a normal thing. That’s how much we’ve been fooled into thinking, “Yeah, humane slaughter exists.” But there are three ways that animals are killed on farms. There are the boiled alive or they’re starved to death, or they’re electrocuted or put in gas chambers and exerting-

Prav Solanki: And that’s not vegan propaganda, right? That’s how it goes down.

Keval Shah: Yep. That we’ve been individuals who’ve been to slaughterhouses, stood outside there, their screams, yeah. It stays with you.

Prav Solanki: I tried veganism for about six and it was after watching and you’ve probably seen the Netflix documentary, What The Health and the whole family did it. Yeah. We were all after this, boom, we’re going Vegan. There is no way we can drink milk or eat, what did they call cheese? They referred to cheeses as coagulated pus.

Keval Shah: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Yeah. That was a bit like your bee vomit. So we were like, “No way.” We struggled, we struggled and struggled and then went back to being vegetarian, right? For whatever reason but then you come to read reviews about it and learned that a good chunk of that programme had a very vegan biassed on it and there was a bit of propaganda behind it. And I’m sure there’s a huge element of it that was very true and direct and everything and certain elements of it were probably embellished because the whole programme and the doctors and stuff on there were vegans as well, right? What your thoughts on that and the sceptics out there, I’ll think that actually a lot of the stuff out there, it’s just being peddled by tree-huggers or whatever phrase you want to put behind it. What’s your thoughts on that in terms of like sometimes you think you see these videos and you think of people just start embellishing this to be more than what it is or is that the truth? Animals are being boiled alive, electrocuted.

Payman: Electrocuted for sure. That’s, I thought that was the humane way of doing it. But boiled alive really?

Keval Shah: Yeah. Pigs are boil their life just to get rid of their hair in the skin. But just going back to the question, I personally haven’t seen What The Health.

Prav Solanki: You haven’t?

Keval Shah: No.

Prav Solanki: Oh, right? Okay.

Keval Shah: But I’ve got a book called How Not To Die. It’s written by a guy called Dr. Michael Greger-

Prav Solanki: Got the same book.

Keval Shah: You have? Okay good and I think you don’t really have to watch the documentary to make your own conclusions and decisions. You just have to first ask yourself, what are you trying to get from these animal products? You’re trying to get calcium or protein or iron. Well, what are you trying to get. And then realising that all nutrients come from plants. Where do animals get their nutrients from? Right? Directly from the plants.

Keval Shah: But even if we didn’t care about the animals, right? Even if you didn’t care about our health, do we care about the future? Do we care about the planet we’re leaving behind for our kids? Do we care about hungry people? Because for the last three, if we want to make a change there and help the last three things, the planet, our children and hungry people on the plan right now going plan based is the way forward. Just in terms of resource use. So I’ll give you an example to create, to just produce one pound of beef, you need 2,500 gallons of water, right? That’s the equivalent of having showers for like two months, right? And then on the flip side, you have a billion people going hungry and thirsty and dying it from not having it. Cheese, 900 gallons for one pound of cheese, soy milk, or one of these plant milks, 30 to 60 gallons. So just by shifting from an omnivore vegetarian down to vegan, you’ve literally saved 1100 gallons of water in a day per person. Multiply that by a few billion water shortage would not be a problem for us, right? Think about fossil fuels. We have wars going on for oil right now, right? And one of the… to run an industry that exploits and kills over a trillion beings every year. You need energy, you need machines, you need slaughterhouses, you need trucks to grow their food. And all of that requires fossil fuels. And we’re running out of an energy source that our children could benefit from everything around us is made from fossil fuels. We can’t be wasting it away on things that are not even necessary for our survival, right?

Keval Shah: Going on to hungry people now, 80% of all the food that we grow on this planet is given to animals to feed and fatten and kill while a billion humans go hungry. 82% of starving children live in countries where animals get the food and these animals are shipped to western countries for us to eat, to the point where chronic hunger is not even on the news anymore. We’ve normalised an atrocity just in the same way we’re normalising the violence against animals and nature. Everything has become just the norm. It doesn’t even hit the news anymore, but just by reducing our demand on animal products, we can release resources for the poorest people to get food.

Keval Shah: Now imagine the demand for 80% of food going to animals, right? The price would increase straight away. So you literally, not only are we physically taking the food away from the poorest, the prices would go up and they can’t even afford to buy it, right? And having to see your own kids die in front of you, which still happens today. It’s just not on the news is one of the worst things we could go through. Literally tears communities and countries apart. So hunger is should be on one of the main things on our agenda chronic human hunger and reducing and abolishing the suffering of animals when both of those things are not even necessary. Gandhiji was under the first guy who actually described hunger as violence. It’s not even a bad luck or lack of resources. It’s actually distribution of resources. When a person takes more than a fair share of earth we have enough food to feed 10 billion people happily healthily. But when people take more than their fair share and start consuming things that are wasting resources, that’s when hunger starts. That’s when climate change starts. That’s when the environment gets destroyed.

Keval Shah: So I would say for those guys who think that that not documentaries obviously as a waste of time try and look at the other things watch Cowspiracy. That’s a powerful Netflix documentary that goes into the environmental side of things and how what we eat affects the planet. Watch that, watch Earthlings, watch Minions, see what it’s like to be in their place. And if it’s not necessary, why do it?

Payman: I see. I went onto your feed, right? I went on your Facebook feed and it was only animals. What I saw. There was one comedy thing. Well, the rest were animals. Do you bring it to dentistry? Do you talk to your patients about this or not?

Keval Shah: Well, I do ask them where do you get your calcium from?

Payman: Do you?

Keval Shah: Yeah, let’s try them. And then obviously the normal answer is milk. And then I see, look, calcium comes from the ground. It’s taken up by grass. Cows eat the grass. That’s how they get the calcium from. Do you want recycled calcium to another being or do you want the fresh, healthy, powerful stuff straight from the vegetables? So green vegetables, nuts, seeds, oranges, so many. And we have soy milk and almond milk now. And I never told him about what really happens to the cows. I just told them about calcium. I tell them about B12, which is something that none of us can ever get just by eating what we do. We need supplements for B12 we have to be realistic. The society and the way we live right now, we don’t live out there in nature.

Keval Shah: Gorillas get their B12 biting soil, we wash everything away. So instead of eating soil, best way to get is by supplement, right? So just health information I do give to them and the rest of them is up to them to do what they want with.

Prav Solanki: It’s that part of your checkup process?

Keval Shah: It’s part of a casual conversation, prevention. I think as an health professionals for us to be just focusing on teeth alone. I think we’re trying ourselves short here we know a lot more about the body and I feel that if we do know we have a duty to educate people. I mean, to the point where I know people in my family been diagnosed with cancer and the first thing that consultants said is stop having dairy products. This was eight years ago and I’m thinking, why don’t I know this? Why have you not been told that? And then I found out about the growth hormones that you can’t filter away even if you buy semi-skimmed milk, whatever. The natural growth hormones that are actually there, the Casein, the puss, all of that stuff it’s not good for the human body. right? Same thing with eggs, cholesterol, animal protein in a saturated fat and fishes. A lot of people believe fishes are so healthy and that’s why we got to eat them. But if you think about where fishes live right now, they live in the dirtiest place on the planet, the oceans. Every plastic that we produce ends up there, breaks up into micro plastic fishes breathe water, just like we’d be there. And unfortunately all of that stuff goes into them. Micro plastics gets stuck in and when we eat and we eat our own plastics, same thing that mercury, lead, heavy metals.

Keval Shah: And I was reading just two days ago about something men’s, I don’t know about increasing your sperm count or something. And one of the things I was yeah, eat low mercury fish and I’m thinking why eat any fish at all? It’s going to be low amounts of mercury in it. Why eat any at all? You don’t need it. We eat fishes. We used to eat fish because of Omega 3, right? Now Omega 3 are actually produced by algae that live in the ocean plants. If you get enough flaxseed, Omega 3 is done without any of the mercury or emptying of the oceans. Because we all love whales and dolphins we go on holidays to see them, but we don’t realise the same net that catches the fish that we love to taste catches them as well. And yeah, that’s why the oceans, by 2048 the oceans are going to be empty. That’s less than 30 years from now. So there’s a lot that we need to do, I feel.

Payman: Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the way the planet is going? Because for me, I’m a meat eater by the way.

Keval Shah: Yeah.

Payman: For me, the move to vegetarianism and veganism, there’s definitely something going on in the last year or two. And I don’t think you probably know the stats better than me, but it feels like a loader. People are becoming vegetarian and Vegan now. Does that make you feel like we’re at a point at a turning point of, personally I get all of the facts but I just love meat and that you must come across that you feel like we’re in a trajectory now that that’s a hopeful one or do you feel pessimistic?

Keval Shah: I’d say a bit of both. Looking at what’s happened over the last four to five years in terms of how much is available, vegan options, plan based options is amazing. It’s actually exploded, right? And over here in the States, Europe, Berlin, amazing. But I still feel looking at the stats in a long way to go we have people who know this need to be active. That’s the missing link right now. Because people know what the consequences are, what’s available. But a lot of the people that know about it are quiet. And there’s a saying that all it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to stay silent, right? When it comes to timelines, we have less than 10 to 12 years before the climate just becomes utterly uninhabitable and unsustainable and causing all sorts of issues for most of us. Right now people already suffering because of the climate change and it’s not just climate change, climate breakdown to the point where some countries there are, I mean even ours we imagine the weather we are having, it’s changed forever. We can’t go back. All we have to do and try and salvage what we have, right? We’re returning what was taken.

Keval Shah: But timeline wise, all rainforest will be gone in 29 years time, 30 years time, oceans we’ll be dead. Those two things are the lungs of our planet. They produce oxygen that we’re breathing in right now. One fifth of the oxygen we’re breathing in right now, it comes from the Amazon. Oceans, Phytoplankton produce 50% of the other oxygen and both of them are dying out. So we have to really step up if you are to have any hope for the future. Otherwise it’s going to be like how we have Madmax and on those films or post apocalyptic incidents and where people are just fighting for scraps and the remaining starving animals are going to be killed anyway, right? We don’t want to reach that stage-

Payman: Do you feel like, I hear you, do you feel like relying on people to make a change themselves is never going to work and the way they look at me? I understand all the arguments, but I love meat, overwrite all those arguments for me right now. If we’re being hopeful, if I’m being hopeful about the future. For me it would be something around the solution would have to be so profitable that resource goes into research and some things brought out that that fixes some of these issues and really went through a lot of issues, right? Whereas if we tell everyone to recycle, okay, everyone can recycle or everyone can go vegan on their own bag. Not everyone’s going to do it. What is it about you that sort of makes you want to be the crusader for? Is it what you just said, is it there were literally at a point where it’s, if what’s going on and you’re not speaking, then you’re being negligent, sort of thing. Is that where you’re at?

Keval Shah: Unfortunately we’ve come to that stage where we can’t be passive anymore. It’s literally make or break. And the reason why governments don’t talk about it is because it’s so scary. No one wants to create chaos and panic in our society, right? We always hear news last the truth always comes out last, right? And we’ve overcome a lot, don’t get me wrong as humans we’ve overcome a lot. But there comes a point when our spaceship earth starts running out of resources there’s no docking station where we’re going to refuel. It’s just us on this little planet, right? And there comes a point when things do diminish. And that’s why I feel that things like this should be part of our normal conversation. We do a lot of socialising and this and then staff, people know more about avengers and what’s going on out there in their own world.

Keval Shah: So has to be part of active conversation or a social media all the ways that we interact with other people because this is, you’re absolutely right. We can’t do this on our own. We can be individuals and trying to make change. We all have to work together. We have to use our individual skills to get the message out in a compassionate way. No one wants to argue or fight, in a compassionate where we support each other. That’s the only way we’re going to get through.

Prav Solanki: How do you feel about the recent demonstrations?

Keval Shah: Well I thought hi time finally and it took kids to realise this? That’s it had to happen one day or the other. And I’m so glad that people like Greta came forward and the way she’s speaking up without any fear or any hesitation, she’s just saying it like it is.

Keval Shah: I’m glad, but I don’t know how much that will change because governments usually wait for that energy to pass and then they just go back to what they’re doing. So it has to be a down-up approach from the people changing the way they live, but also from a top down as well, where we get more ministers coming on board in thinking, “You know what? Hang on, what’s going on here? We need to change something.”

Payman: With regards to dentistry, what can dentists do to reduce the practise footprint?

Keval Shah: Well, I think dentists are leaders in a way in their own field, in their own communities that were really respected thankfully where we are. Some being an example of living compassionately and being there if we did at each other. Not just in a way we interact outside but also on our plates seeing peace and justice on our plates when we go. Because we have families as well we are dentists, but we’re also husbands, sons whatever we do in our own communities, that’s a one stage firstly to be the example become what you want to see in the world. And that alone is pretty powerful. But also as dentists think about the health side of things, and when I say health, I don’t mean just individual health because if the planet is not healthy, there’s no point being the fittest bodybuilder in the room. That’s not going to save you.

Keval Shah: It doesn’t matter how rich you are, poor you are, we’re all going to be victims of it. And I think how we have conferences for dentists as well we have all this energy going into CPDs and all this money and everyone’s wanting to do the best composite they can. Maybe include something like this in it as well have a stand there have a little five, 10 minute talk of it. Just things like that. Just raise awareness in that way. I think that would help to start. But I think social media is a way forward-

Payman: Someone just started a group. Have seen that?

Keval Shah: About reducing waste or something?

Payman: Yeah, Luke Fully about how to practise more environmentally friendly. It’s something people have been telling us about. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen our kits lots of plastic. In the kits. And we get the question sometimes in a why is it so much plastic in the kits? And I get it. I do get it as a profession what you’re saying, I’m very interested in what you’re saying about talking to your patients about their diet in a Vegan, vegetarian way, because that’s good health advice. I don’t think really that connections being made out there as a public that being vegetarian or Vegan could for your health. Good for the planet itself that’s coming out these days. But good for your health? Not really. In popular culture did that, by the way, is that the case?

Keval Shah: You know what? Funny enough milk, dairy companies can’t even say anymore that they’re here for calcium now.

Payman: That’s true, milk has got a bad rep, you’re right.

Payman: But do you hear where I’m coming from?

Prav Solanki: I do. And certainly for me, right? And anecdotally and equals one in my own situation, since going from being a meat eater to vegetarian, I feel a lot better. My skin’s a lot better, right? I’m still eating eggs, cheese, milk, okay. I actually found when I went vegan, I ended up putting on more weight because I ate more. I’m very carb sensitive, right? So I eat more things that contain sugar and bread and things and I’m just incredibly sensitive to that. But I certainly do feel a lot more definitely a lot more healthier from not eating meat, not eating fish-

Payman: But you’re no meat, no sugar.

Prav Solanki: Yeah, of course. But before I went, no sugar, I was just no me, it felt better and I felt better for sure. Right? And equals one for me, but the trigger, right? So I started eating meat to become a bodybuilder, so to speak. And then for many, many years carried on. And you knew me as a meat eater from day one, right?

Prav Solanki: Sure. And my daughter came home from school one day and said, Daddy, I want to be a vegetarian. And so I said, which one of you mates is vegetarian? Yeah, because I thought, here we go again. Get on the bandwagon. So none of them, but these are my reasons why. And she gave me such a logical reason, an explanation. I said, we will support you. But then in a matter of six months, we all became vegetarian because in the back of my mind, like me and my wife had had discussions and for the last year, although we carried on eating, we were both having that conversation saying it’s easier to eat meat because we caught more choice, but it definitely doesn’t feel right. We made that transition-

Payman: Feel right psychological not physically, right?

Prav Solanki: psychologically, it just did not feel right. And when you actually consciously sit down and think about what you’re consuming, it was that it was that process right and it didn’t feel right. And having been brought up as a vegetarian with our belief systems, we made the switch.

Payman: I think what you said, what Keval said about the non connection to nature. That’s very true. That’s very true. I mean if everyone who ate meats had to kill the meat, it would change the game a bit. I definitely would change the game.

Keval Shah: I would encourage all new teachers to go to a sanctuary and just spend the day with the animals and just see how amazing and friendly there are. And they will make you think, definitely. And the other thing is spend time with them when they were alive and then see what happens to them when they have to be killed. I think those two things, bringing them together is a really powerful day of just making you think why are we doing this? Because when we think about cats and dogs, right? We’d never think about harming them. But China is just fine. It’s normal for them. It’s part of their culture. And the same thing in India you’d try killing in some parts cows and chickens, you’d be crucified for that. So eating it was not even a necessity. It’s actually a cultural thing. It’s a story that we’ve been told as growing up. You need this it’s fine. It’s normal. It’s necessary.

Keval Shah: If you take a child like as a three year old child who’s not been brainwashed by society yet, you put a goat or fish, chicken in our calf, a little baby turkey in front of the kid. Who she going to eat? No one. It just doesn’t come by instinct. We have to, it’s almost like we’re brainwashed and forced into it without even thinking about it. When children actually ask their parents why are we – because animals are our friends once upon a time we used to talk like them and make all sorts of sounds we wanted to be with them. And if someone saw someone kicking a dog as something far away, we’d scream our head off, right?

Keval Shah: And we’d say, “Nah, stop.” But they came a point when that meat or that dairy or the eggs were just put in front of us and we, I’m sure we thought about it and thought, “Why?” This is my friend on the plate. But then all of these messages start coming in saying the three ends of justification. It’s necessary for you, it’s normal and it’s absolutely natural. But when we see past those three justifications realise it’s neither one of them. And it’s just a story we’ve been told we don’t need it. It’s like seeing them going out of the matrix and seeing what really happens and why do we want to fund terrorism of sorts to beings. We just want to be free and with their families. We think about terrorism and countries, but our terrorism happens every single day in our own countries and we don’t even know about it because it’s all closed walls. We think about the holocaust, right? Went on for years, the whole population was supporting it, but the brainwashing and the propaganda that happened with it allowed it to happen for that long slavery. Hundreds of years went on. It was absolutely normal until someone thought, “No, this is necessarily, is this normal? People are suffering.” And then took 400 years to get rid of that. But right now it’s still going on. It’s just another being in the picture.

Payman: Yeah. I like that. The, I agree with that, that the evolution of humanity, the way you outlined the absolutely right.

Prav Solanki: I often have conversations with my wife and we just sort of joke around the dinner table and say, “Do you think one day everyone will just look back in time and say, “Can you believe we used to eat chickens and animals?””

Payman: Yeah. That’ll happen. For me if you had an artificial steak I’d be well up for that. If it tasted right-

Keval Shah: Well they’ve already started it.

Payman: They started and I reckon give it another 15 years, artificial steak will be tastier than real steak because taste is a brain thing, not tongue thing, so they’ll figure it out.

Keval Shah: Well, I think when it comes to taste, if you want to get over something, if you abstain from it for three to four weeks, your tongue will start to forget what it tastes like. That’s one thing. And secondly, we don’t have time to wait 15 years artificial meat to through because if we carry on eating the normal meat until then, there’s not going to be much of a world left.

Payman: Do you not think a thousand years ago someone was saying something similar about population and-

Keval Shah: Thousand years ago?

Payman: Yeah like when there was 1 billion people on the planet, people thought, “Oh the planet can’t make food for 2 billion.” And then-

Keval Shah: Well it was actually 1973 that one to one ratio started going downhill. So by that I mean our are our overshoot, it takes an earth one earth to sustain us. That was in 1973 sustain what we are taking in, what we are doing to the planet. Since then, we now we need two to three full earths to sustain what we’re taking and doing to our planet. So there’s problem of all population-

Payman: What do you mean by that?

Keval Shah: Well, when we’re living that where we’re consuming, right?

Payman: As an earth that we would be destroying.

Keval Shah: The amount of resources that are left on us before Earth can heal itself, right? We’ve, we’ve gone past that stage, right? So 1973 that’s very, very recent, right? The earth has been around for four and a half billion years. Life came on it three billion years. We separated from hominids about 4 million years ago. We became homo sapiens 200,000 years ago. It was only 10,000 years ago animal agriculture started, right? Since then, that’s when the downhill path started.

Keval Shah: I was actually talking to [inaudible] just two weeks ago and he’d read something similar and he was doing all the calculation stuff. He’s like, “Yeah, that’s,” We were actually nomad, we were nomadic humans living on the equator in the Savannah in wonderment of what’s around us plant foraging humans, right? And then when we discovered that we can actually do this confined beings and you can use them. 10,000 years ago it was 1% humans when it came to land biomass and 99% of wild animals. You just have to look out your window to see an elephant. That was it. That’s how amazing it was. Now it’s 1% of wild animals, 20% humans and so 78% domesticated animals, but 60% are birds being chickens right? Now since that current state was not something that happened a thousand years ago. It’s very, very recent and it’s exponential. It’s doesn’t, there’s not a linear relationship here. It just goes up straight. Do how many humans are born everyday?

Payman: Nope.

Keval Shah: Take a guess. After debts, it’s about 240,000-

Payman: Born a day.

Keval Shah: Every day. Each one of them will need schools, hospitals, houses, cars, roads where we’re going to get it from. So I feel that the other important thing after going plan B is to think about the size of the family that you want to have. Having one less child, one child per couple, it makes it actually better for your child there’s less competition for everything. Think about how hard it is to get a university in schools today than it was 20 years ago. How long you have to wait in A&E to get treatment cancer waiting list three months?

Keval Shah: So I think being aware and living consciously and knowing the answers there, specific answers, there’s nothing complicated about what’s happening, specific answers. If we know that it can make a change. Most of the time of my life I was confused. I wanted to make a change on thinking now I’m going to keep out some difference to this and it’s never enough. We’re just scratching the surface.

Prav Solanki: Just quick question about your personal life. Kind of your wife is Vegan also?

Keval Shah: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: I make the assumption.

Payman: I should hope so man.

Keval Shah: So thankfully she was vegan when I met her.

Prav Solanki: She was Vegan. That was the next question I was going to ask.

Keval Shah: Yeah, yeah.

Prav Solanki: And did you meet through that connection? Community-

Keval Shah: No she’s a dentist.

Prav Solanki: Okay.

Keval Shah: And we actually met through a doctor, one of the oral surgeons that we knew from North Hampton and he kind of brought us together and connected us. But-

Prav Solanki: What did he say? I know-

Keval Shah: My wife does a lot of charity work. And I tend to go to other countries once a year in to try and do dental service. We go to India every year to do that. And I used to go to Tanzania and I just learn. So he knew about that and my wife did similar things so he just put us together and we do it together now.

Prav Solanki: Nice. Awesome.

Keval Shah: She was Vegan for health reasons-

Prav Solanki: Oh really?

Keval Shah: But when she found out about what happens to animals, it was a no brainer. That was it. So, yeah, Rata than Ruby part of the family. And we would love each other and trying get along. And it’s really good. We were hopefully trying rescue more chickens this year to try and give them a home. And I know people say what’s rescuing two going to do? But for them it’s the whole universe that you’ll see for them.

Prav Solanki: Let’s imagine it’s your last day on this planet and you have three pieces of advice to leave the world. What will those be?

Keval Shah: Obviously number one, would be to go vegan.

Prav Solanki: Go vegan.

Keval Shah: Yeah. Secondly to not get distracted by Netflix and all the other shows that are on TV and social media just focus on what you have in front of you.

Keval Shah: Don’t get sucked into any of that. Just focus on what you have. Because that’s another black hole.

Prav Solanki: Don’t believe the hype.

Keval Shah: And thirdly, I think just live more consciously. Think about what we were doing every day when you wake up, think about what going to do, what’s your plan and how are you going to interact with people are you going to help someone actively? We just going to wait for things to pass by and things won’t change that way. Just be an active person, be an active member of society. So that change ripples out because the alternative is something that I don’t want to think of.

Prav Solanki: Brilliant. Thank you. Thanks very much. That’s been just been really insightful and I’m sure we’ll have a lot of listeners who’ve got a lot of questions.

Keval Shah: I’m sure and-

Prav Solanki: Am sure they’ll learn a lot as well. I mean, I’ve certainly learned a lot today, Pay?

Payman: Yeah.

Keval Shah: I’ll leave some links with you as well, some evidence based off-

Payman: Before we finish, what would be the best thing for someone like me who understands, who wants to stop but hasn’t yet, can’t, would be the best move. What would you say?

Keval Shah: I think-

Payman: You just get conscious. Okay.

Keval Shah: Yeah.

Payman: But that steak’s calling my name like, well what should I watch?

Payman: Like you watched, what was it called?

Prav Solanki: What The Health.

Prav Solanki: What The Health.

Payman: Yeah.

Keval Shah: So the one film that opened my mind up and just blew my mind completely was Earthlings.

Payman: Earthlings I’ve heard of Earthlings.

Keval Shah: Earthlings and the newest one is Dominion. If you could watch either one of them from start to finish and that’s a challenge. If you can do that, that’ll change the way you think-

Payman: Another friend of mine became Vegan after Earthlings as well.

Prav Solanki: Was that Netflix thing or?

Keval Shah: No, it was just free on the Internet. This was before Netflix even begun.

Prav Solanki: Okay. YouTube?

Keval Shah: Yeah. YouTube, or they have their own website as well, earthlings.com and you can find there. And then just faced it. Just be open to the truth. Don’t shy away from it and go to Vegan restaurants. There are so many now.

Payman: You know what it is? I know I should get up every morning and go for a run. I know that’s the right thing, but I don’t, so the challenge isn’t an information challenge. It’s acting on it, acting on the information challenge. Totally different. You can put out whatever you want. I know I should eat well, sleep well, all of that, but I don’t it.

Prav Solanki: And I think to me, you’ve got to want to do it, right? It’s got be the right moment in your life or the right time. There was a point, Keval, in your life where you thought what? Go into McDonald’s and eating chicken mcnuggets is not the right thing to do. There was a point in my time when I realised if I don’t prioritise my health every day, I’m actively killing myself.

Payman: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Yeah. I decided to take an action and before that happened, I was quite happily stuffing my face with pizzas every day whatever and just not looking after myself and not exercising. I think sometimes it takes a transition or a shock or an event that makes you want to say, “You know what? I’m going to turn my life around.” And it could be that one trigger that goes off and says ” You know what, today’s the first day I’m going to start living a different way.” Whether that’s health, whether that’s making the choices of no longer eating meat, fish and dairy anymore I truly do believe that. As Payman sat there saying, “I don’t go for a run. I know I should, I smoke every day. I know I shouldn’t.”

Payman: Do you mate? But you see on thing, it’s about information.

Prav Solanki: No, no. It’s not an information you shouldn’t smoke, right? Yeah.

Keval Shah: You’re absolutely right. Yeah. You have to want to do it. And for most of us, it usually takes the death of someone close to us to really shake us up when we lose someone we love and we just think, “Okay, how many days do I have now? What should I be doing?”-

Payman: You know what happens? When that happens, can I have more fun? Like honestly that I do-

Prav Solanki: Total opposite.

Payman: We’re all at the age where people have died in our lives, right? When someone really close to me dies, go dive deeper into all the things that are wrong.

Prav Solanki: Self-destruct mode?

Payman: You know what I mean I started saying, “Hey man, I’m going to go to Ibiza now, time’s running out.”

Payman: He’s looking at me with eyes of pity.

Keval Shah: Or you can look at your children and say what do I want to leave for them? And you want the best for your kids, right? So I think it’s about the reasons you just look at any of the reasons that connect with you and just follow it up with that. But I really urge people who know now it’s time to act.

Keval Shah: Time to tell others about it. And now that we know we can do something about it. And I just want people to get more active, including myself as a message to myself as well. I can be, a lot more than what I’m doing.

Payman: I’m going to the family is going to sit down and watch Earthlings together. We’ll start there-

Keval Shah: And then let me know how it goes.

Payman: Brilliant.

Prav Solanki: Yeah. And then I’ll meet you for a soya burger buddy.

Payman: Yeah

Keval Shah: I saw that today. Did you like it?

Prav Solanki: It’s really nice. Really Nice.

Payman: Dude is really difficult. He’s vegetarian and keto. And Camden’s full of like vegan places. Because like everything’s going to be just fine. Took them to all these vegan places. Couldn’t eat-

Keval Shah: It’s the sugar isn’ it.

Payman: A lot of it’s bread, that sort of thing, potatoes.

Prav Solanki: The worst nightmare I left for, to be catered for, right? So there’s no carbs, no bread, no rice, no potatoes, no sugar.

Keval Shah: But when did carbs get a bad name?

Prav Solanki: When did they get a good name?

Keval Shah: Complex carbohydrates were fine for us, aint they?

Prav Solanki: Depends what school of thought you believe as well. I don’t think carbs are particularly bad or dangerous or whatever. I know I’m very sensitive to carbs. I know I respond very well on a ketogenic diet. I know I’m more mentally focused when my body’s in ketosis than when it’s relying on fueling it, right? So I personally know how my body works, but I’m definitely not evangelical about like go keto, right? But we all know that I think there’s a lot of evidence that points to the fact that things like diabetes and the main cardiac diseases to actually come down to a insulin resistance rather than too much fat in your diet.

Payman: Yeah.

Keval Shah: So I think sugar got a lot to blame there, but I’m doing it partially for health reasons, but more so for, I know I can accelerate weight loss really, really quickly by fasting and keto. Doing keto as a meat eater, is a walk in the park. Doing Keto as a vegetarian.

Payman: Tough man. Bloody hard.

Prav Solanki: Really hard.

Payman: I mean, if you were Vegan and keto, you will have literally very little to eat.

Keval Shah: Yep. Brilliant.

Prav Solanki: But you still got soya used, they would be eating-

Payman: Plants

Prav Solanki: It will be tough.

Keval Shah: Yeah. Lentils, beans. But [crosstalk] the monk is good.

Prav Solanki: Yeah. But this carbs and so I on a ketogenic diet, you’ve got to keep your total carb intake. Net carb intake. That means you take your carbs and you minus the fibre in the food less than 20 grammes a day.

Prav Solanki: That’s what I’m doing at the moment. Bloody hard.

Payman: And if you fall off out of it, how long does it take to get back into-

Prav Solanki: For different people, right? But I personally know I can get straight back in 48 hours.

Payman: So you can go for a Big mac right now.

Prav Solanki: But I choose not to-

Payman: No but I’m saying 48 hours you can get back onto-

Prav Solanki: Back into ketosis. Because I know what I need to do exercise wise to deplete my glycogen.

Payman: Oh, it’s just what you eat?

Prav Solanki: Well, there is that and also like I can go home and do a glycogen depletion workout today.

Payman: What’s that?

Prav Solanki: And just blast my liver.

Payman: Is that lifting heavy weights?

Prav Solanki: So I’d go high rep range, full body workout, followed by a hit workout, 10 minute hit workout. And I know I deplete my muscle stroke, liver glycogen stores. And then I’d been in process where I’m not eating any more sugar at fast for a day. Boom. 48 hours I’m back to ketosis. No problem.

Payman: How’d you test it?

Prav Solanki: Blood.

Payman: Oh you do?

Prav Solanki: Yeah. Really quick.

Payman: It’s high level man.

Prav Solanki: Anyway, I diverse.

Payman: Thanks for coming in. Thanks for bringing the Chickens in. It’s the first-

Prav Solanki: Finish, a huge education. I’d love to get a selfie with them.

Keval Shah: I really appreciate you guys having me here as well because it means a lot.

Payman: We didn’t really talk teeth much, but that’s the point of the podcast.

Prav Solanki: Yeah. And it’s more understanding the depth of it, your motivation, your mission, your crusade, what you’re trying to do. I think it’s brilliant. I think it’s really very good and everything that we put out there we’re going to try and push whosever voice is for the people learn more about you and we grow your voice, right? As everyone so we really appreciate you giving up your afternoon, to come here and subsequently educate us all.

Keval Shah: Well, thank you. And just to add I feel that there’s a lot of people out there want to do a lot of good, but sometimes people just don’t know that they can do things that they would create massive change. And I think putting that out there will really help.

Prav Solanki: Sometimes people just need a little bit of direction.

Keval Shah: Exactly.

Prav Solanki: Yeah. Don’t know where to start and what to do, don’t know what tiny things they can do to make a little change.

Keval Shah: Thank you.

Voiceover: This is Dental Leaders the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry, your host Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Prav Solanki: Thank you for tuning in guys to the Dental Leaders Podcast. Just got little requests to make. If you’ve got a suggestion of somebody else who we should be interviewing or somebody who’s got a really strong story, powerful story to share with us, please send us a message and help us connect with that individual so we can bring their stories to the surface.

Payman: Thank you so much for taking the time, guys. And if you’ve got some value out of it, think about sharing it with your friends and subscribing to the channel.

Transcript

Prav Solanki: Hey guys, welcome to the Dental Leaders podcast. Our next guest, two words, Firmino and Klopp. Robbie Hughes, superstar in dentistry. Just being in the room with this guy. Love him or hate him or whatever it is about this guy, you can feel the drive, the passion, the energy, the ambition. And he’s already flying, so many positive conversations about his early life being a world-class kickboxing champion, right through to the dentistry that he’s doing for the footballers and being a real networker. It just felt like a privilege being in the room with the guy and how he addressed a lot of the flack has been getting off social media as well.

Payman L: Way more impressive than I was expecting it to be. And bringing, treating dentistry like he treats the sports, in a way. The way a pro athlete would treat it. Super, super, super impressed by the guy. I think you’re going to enjoy guys.

Prav Solanki: Enjoy.

Robbie Hughes: I try to break down that big picture into small stepping stones. And I become obsessed with that stepping stone until I meet it and then I want to go to the next one. And I’m constantly obsessed with something and the close people around around me, even now, mainly my wife, well tell me that. And it’s not her than I’m obsessed with, unfortunately.

Intro Voice: This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts, Payman Langrudi and Prav Solanki.

Prav Solanki: So today we’ve got Robbie Hughes from Liverpool. Really lovely to have your here. I’ve never met you before, but I feel like I’ve virtually met you because I see you all over Instagram. I think a lot of people refer to you as the Instagram guy and a lot of people look to imitate what you do. So I think what’s going to be really interesting today is getting a bit more of an insight into who you are, the real Robbie. How you got to where you are, how you grew up and the background behind it also. Robbie, if you could just kick off by just telling us how you grew up and just your general background. I know we’ve just had a little chat about your sporting background and stuff. So just tell us what your upbringing was like.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah. I grew up in Liverpool, in a district called Wavertree. Nothing classy about Wavertree, I’ll be honest with you. Working class background, hardworking family. Two older sisters and I’m the youngest of three. So with regards to me sports, from the age of about six, I was involved in kickboxing. It’s just something that my father decided to take me along to one day. And he had a friend who ran the kickboxing school. He was a local champion, very, very successful. And I suppose it was just, at first, getting into a hobby at that age, six years of age, it’s just finding something that you enjoy really. And that was a big part of my life then for 20 years. Yeah, that’s the sport background. Really. Cool.

Prav Solanki: So tell us what happened next. Your accolades in kickboxing. Talk us through your first competition right through to-

Robbie Hughes: So it was something that I got into immediately, really started to enjoy. Wanted to compete, wanted to get better. A little bit of an natural talent definitely I would say, quite a flexible kid. So kicking wasn’t difficult for me. First tournament at age seven in Manchester, obviously I got beat. Sport just made me want to train harder, get better. From there I became a multiple world champion, 10 times in total. That was five years running as a junior, from 1997 till 2001 I think. And then five years running as a senior, as an adult competitor. Got to travel the world, kickboxing. Massive parts of my life encouraged me to train hard work hard on anything that I do really and have a clear goal and a vision. And it’s really formed my mentality as a a bit of a competitor I suppose. Yeah, enjoyed every minute of it. Shame the days have gone but you can’t run a business and compete at that level unfortunately, at the same time.

Payman L: What about during school as a kickboxing champion? What was your day like? What was your week like? How many times did you train?

Robbie Hughes: When I was a junior, so when I was under 16, the training was different. So I used to train basically every night after school. If there was a big competition coming up, we would often go for runs around the park and train as a group in the morning before school, like 6:00, 6:30 AM runs. School was fine, everyone knew me as the kickboxer so I never got picked on. That was easy. And then moving through the school, obviously GCSEs, A levels. I did have to have little periods, little breaks, mainly from my parent’s choice, not my choice. So when exams were coming up in say three or four months, the after school training was sort of put aside, focusing on revision and homework and things like that.

Payman L: Was it your dad taking you around to these tournaments and things?

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, me and my dad travelled the world together because of kickboxing, which is something obviously I’m very, very grateful for.

Payman L: Is he a sporty guy himself?

Robbie Hughes: He was when he was younger, he was a high board diver.

Payman L: Oh.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, completely different sports. He wasn’t a fighter, but yeah, he was quite as quite as a sporty person himself.

Payman L: You forget sometimes you know the sacrifice that the whole family makes at that level.

Robbie Hughes: You only realise when it’s finished really and you look back. And now I’ve got two children myself.

Prav Solanki: You realise.

Robbie Hughes: My boy’s five years old and when I think about the dedication, time my dad gave to me from when I started in the sport and I wanted to always be there and travel and do everything. It’s a huge commitment. So yeah, for forever thankful for that really.

Payman L: Because I take my boy to football three times a week and complain about it. I’m like, does it have to be three times a week? And at that level, it must be the number one, the most important thing. And so, do you remember as a child missing out on anything because of-

Robbie Hughes: For me, I loved kickboxing so much, I never felt like I was missing out. Every weekend I was travelling somewhere to attend a seminar or fight in a competition. And most of the time it was just me and my dad. And then obviously teammates, but my teammates were my friends as well. And a lot of those people that I grew up with from the martial arts background are still good friends now. So, I never felt like I was missing out on anything though.

Prav Solanki: Would you say you were academically gifted? Because obviously having to put in the time, the energy, the dedication into becoming a world class athlete and still at the same time qualifying dentistry, it’s not an insignificant-

Robbie Hughes: I wouldn’t say I’m academically gifted. I would say that it’s the martial arts and that level of discipline that got me through university, I’d like to say relatively easily if I’m honest, without actually realising the amount of hours of dedication that I’m putting into both fields, both sides of my life. But it’s imprinted in me. And so, that number of hours, hard work, whether it’s in gym at the time or uni work, it was never abnormal to me.

Prav Solanki: So when you were doing, let’s say your GCSEs or your A levels, was that just pure graft, pure hours?

Robbie Hughes: Everything about me is pure graft.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, I wouldn’t say academically gifted at all. I just say, I know what I’ve got to do and I get it done. And it’s that simple really.

Payman L: Because there’s a degree of obsession, isn’t there? In some ways we all want to be the best in the world at something, but to execute it, execute on it.

Prav Solanki: I think with Robbie, and I’ve had elements of it in my life, nowhere near to that level. When I competed in bodybuilding, you become an incredibly selfish individual and you just chase that one goal. Whether it’s your nutrition that revolves around that, your training programme. And if anything gets in the way you kick out of the way and you just steam train towards that goal. And for you it must have been similar, maybe even to a more intense-

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, I think the word obsession is the right word. You have this vision or I always have this vision in my mind and these visions don’t go away. It’s the person that I am, I always have a new vision, a new goal. And I try to break down that big picture into small stepping stones and I become obsessed with that stepping stone until I meet it and then I want to go to the next one. And I’m constantly obsessed with something and the closest people around me, even now, mainly my wife will tell me that. And it’s not her that I’m obsessed with, unfortunately.

Robbie Hughes: You’ll have to cut that one out.

Prav Solanki: Yeah, I was going to say, maybe she was an obsession before you’d got with her, right. And then once you’d-

Robbie Hughes: Well actually, yeah, that’s a different story.

Payman L: So then, in dental school, what was your routine like as far as training, studying? So take us through a day of dental school.

Robbie Hughes: Dental school was very different for me. I think you’ll struggle to find your typical dental student that went through dental school the way I did.

Prav Solanki: Which school?

Robbie Hughes: Liverpool University. Stayed at home with parents. I wanted the same life that I had before, I didn’t want the uni life, that wasn’t for me.

Prav Solanki: You weren’t out partying, drinking?

Robbie Hughes: No, complete opposite really. I was competing on a very high level at that time. So I would train in the morning, I’d go to uni, I’d train in the evening. If I had time, a long lunch period in the afternoon, I’d train on my lunch time. And I was still doing that right through to being second year into being an associate. So the whole, going for drinks after uni, going to events in the evening, that just wasn’t me. And again, like you say, you become a little bit obsessed or potentially selfish. I didn’t look at it at the time as being selfish, but looking back, people probably think I was-

Payman L: In your own world.

Robbie Hughes: In my own world. And it wasn’t like it wasn’t friendly with people but my friends were in Liverpool anyway. I didn’t have to make huge efforts. Without sounding bad, I just knew what I needed to do. I was there to graduate and that was it really in my mind.

Prav Solanki: Did you or did you have any relationships at the time, girlfriends or anything like that? And how did that approach or lifestyle impact on that?

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, I did. I did through the majority. I think it was through three out of the five years of uni I had a girlfriend. But again, when when you meet somebody new and your lifestyle is what it is, then suppose people accept you for that before they you any commitments. And that’s the same as what my wife has done now she, she knows the type of person that I am and-

Payman L: What gave you the foresight to go to dentistry? A lot of young kids would be good at sport and they won’t have that foresight to take care of what happens after the sport finishes. You know what I mean? You’re not getting footballers doing dentistry.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, well dentist dentistry for me was always a career. Kickboxing was never career.

Payman L: Because it didn’t pay, is that-

Robbie Hughes: Because it didn’t pay. Yeah, like I said earlier, I’ve always had a bit of an entrepreneurial mindset and I have found ways to make money and income through kickboxing, through teaching seminars and making a nine volume DVD set that have sold relatively well. But it was never going to be a career for me. And what attracted me about dentistry was, I was always good at sciences at school, biology, had the general interest in the medical fields. But dentistry for me, again, it allowed me to have a mindset and a vision that I knew that as soon as I qualified and knew the type of dentist I wanted it to be and I wanted to get quickly into my own business with my own stamp on things as quickly as I possibly could.

Payman L: But just take me back to the first time you thought dentistry. Why dentistry? Was there someone, a dentist, someone?

Robbie Hughes: It all started with school, careers conventions as they do. You’re good at these topics, we advise you to go for these. You go for your weeks training and I choose a local dentist. I had a good relationship with my dentist because he used to make me gum shields for my sport. So I had a good relationship with them.

Payman L: Who as that?

Robbie Hughes: It was a guy called Dr. Khan in Liverpool. At the time, he was the cosmetic dentist.

Prav Solanki: Celebrity guy, right? Celebrity dentist.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah. So he was quite influential to me as a 15-year-old boy.

Payman L: You liked his Mercedes or whatever.

Robbie Hughes: Of course.

Payman L: Is that what it was?

Robbie Hughes: I’ll never forget, he said to me, “What car do you want to drive, Rob?” And at the time, I think BMW just released the X5 and that was the car for me. So I said, “I’d love to drive an X5.” And he said to me, “You want to be a cosmetic dentist?” And I said yeah. And he said, “Aim higher. You can have a Ferrari if you want.” But that’s never really been my drive. Listening to people in business, and I have got a massive interest in business, how businesses grow and evolve. And I believe that if you provide the right level of service, or nowadays experience I think is the buzzword, it’s the big word, what people want, find value in a brand, it’s about experience. Then the pennies will come your way. If you focus on the money then you’re focused in the wrong place and you’re going to start upsetting people along the way. That’s the way the way I think really.

Prav Solanki: Just talk me through how you first got into business. You mentioned earlier you were selling DVD courses and stuff of like that. So naturally, being an entrepreneur is in your blood, or part of your DNA, of who you are. Just talk us through your very first business idea and what your vision was and what your drive was behind that.

Robbie Hughes: With dentistry do you mean?

Prav Solanki: No, before that.

Robbie Hughes: In general?

Prav Solanki: My first foray into business was cleaning my dad’s taxi and then his mates taxis and finding money under the mats in the car and ripping the seats up and all the rest of it. And I can just almost relate to you when you said, when you were younger, you just started doing seminars and stuff. That’s not what a typical kickboxer would do is it?

Robbie Hughes: I wouldn’t say it was typical, but there was a a market for it. So again, quite cleverly just used my business mind. I know we used to travel a lot to compete and when you compete there’s thousands of people in that area for that tournament, usually on a Sunday. So I used to try and let people know that I’ll be there on a Saturday, go a day early and we’ll teach a seminar. So the numbers weren’t difficult to find because people were going there anyway. And then obviously you have a centralised place where there’s people from all over the country coming to one place. I was a relatively big name in the sport at the time. You know, you could get a hundred people in the room, 25 pound a pop, I just walked away with two and a half grand and I’m 14 years old. So that was probably my first business idea. And this was before the internet was big. I remember advertising on Myspace for this. So that’s how long ago it was.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Robbie Hughes: And then on the back end of that, the DVD series comes to mind. So we recorded for four days flat out and recorded nine volumes, which was basically the whole syllabus of techniques that we teach at my dojo. And tips and tricks for competition and all that. And that flew as well. So then we used to set up like a little mini store at the tournament’s and sell the DVDs.

Payman L: When you see, sorry, sorry. When you see UFC now. If UFC existed back then or if it was as big as it is now, do you think you might have made some money as a fighter?

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, the opportunity would have definitely been there. I had an opportunity just before I retired in 2012 for the London Olympics, for TaeKwonDo. So, even though that wasn’t my background, the GB squad wanted me to compete in the 2012 London Olympics. And that was a big decision in my life. Yeah, so this opportunity came around 2011, at the beginning. And I had to make the decision to either move to Manchester full-time, because they wanted me to train full-time, with a guaranteed place at the Olympics, London, 2012, TaeKwonDo. Or not basically and focus on my dental career. I tried to negotiate with them and split my time 50-50, but obviously they weren’t happy to do that and bend the rules for one individual. So I turned down the offer and focused on my longterm vision of pretty much where I am now or where I’m trying to be.

Prav Solanki: As a 14, 15 year old kid, you decided to start creating content?

Robbie Hughes: Basically, yeah.

Prav Solanki: And I think that’s probably where you started shaping what you do today. Because I think a big part of what you do is create content that engages with your audience. And you just said to me, I knew there were going to be a hundred people there, you knew who your audience were, you knew where they were going to be, and you knew exactly what they wanted. How has that learning translated into how you run your business today?

Robbie Hughes: It’s obviously embedded within me. And the way you’ve just put it, to be honest, I’ve never really thought of it that way. Going that far back or, yeah, it’s exactly the same mindsets, exact the same approach to your audience. And I think the biggest learning curve is know your audience. The more you can narrow down that audience to your niche and not be scared to commit to a niche audience rather than be too broad, then the better your content is going to be and the more hits and the more success and conversions you’re going to get.

Prav Solanki: Just talk to me. How specific are you about your audience really? You just literally, without thinking about it like that, you said, my audience is this age to this age, this demographic. How have you nailed that down and just tell me who is your audience?

Robbie Hughes: So my audience is 70% female. We would say age between 20 and 35. That doesn’t mean that it’s our only type of patient, but I would say it’s probably 80%, 75% of our patients. But we know that these patients refer a lot of other patients, which can be the parents, the grandparents, the aunties, the uncles. So I don’t worry about that demographic of people because they come anyway on the back end of these people. Nowadays, this young generation within that demographic are the most influenced and the most easily influenced people out there. Now we’re not trying to sell them something, I don’t like to use that word. All we’re trying to do is offer them an experience and prove our quality in what we can produce and follow the market trends and be at the forefront of that, which for me at the moment is digital dentistry and composite bonding. That’s it really, know your audience.

Payman L: So we should really backtrack a little bit to say, okay, you bought your practise after you retired as a fighter. And then, what was the moment when … I mean, I guess you knew from the beginning you wanted something special, but when you made that decision to go for what you’ve done now in Dental Excellence, which I don’t know if the audience, our audience hasn’t seen it, they need to look it up because it’s the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, dental practises. Yeah, what what made you do that? What was the thinking behind making Dental Excellence the way it is?

Robbie Hughes: The way it is today?

Payman L: Like a boutique.

Robbie Hughes: Again, to be honest with you, the audience, combined with the type of dentistry we were delivering, combined with the amount of education hours I was getting within the field and seeing the way dentistry was going with the trends. Everyone was becoming very digital. Everyone was about experience, capturing emotion, all these things, a lot of the original DSD concepts from 2014. So it was understanding that approach at dentistry, understanding the patients and the experience and where dentistry is going. The big turning factor for me or the big obvious thing for me, and I’ve always said this for a very, very long time, is we’re trying to deliver 21st century dentistry and we have the technology to do that now. We have the precision, we have the predictability, we have everything in our fingertips. It’s just a bit of a learning curve and a bit of an investment.

Robbie Hughes: What bogs me is the patients is starting to know about that, but their preconceptions or their perceptions of dentistry is not what it should be. They expect an old smelly room with smells they don’t want to smell. Anxious people, old grey-haired dentists. The two just don’t combine. So for me, I needed to create an environment which represented what we actually do. And then with that we can change the perception of the patients. None of my patients sit down feeling the least bit nervous, no matter what we’re doing. It just doesn’t happen because we remove all the perceptions of what dentistry used to be. And that’s why I had to create the facility the way it is.

Payman L: Neither me or Prav have been there but we’ve seen some pictures. Other than it’s very swanky, what else? Experience wise, walk me through it.

Robbie Hughes: The experience makes you feel like … The whole experiences is that you’ve got to be the most important person in that building. So, you asked me earlier where that I get it from, lifestyle? Yeah, I like to have a nice lifestyle, I like to travel to Dubai, I like five star hotels, I like nice restaurants. How do you feel when you go to these places? There’s somebody waiting to see you. They know your name before you walk through the door. They wait on hand and foot. Everything’s very personalised. Everything is customised to you. Private, so-

Payman L: So do you get information, let’s say it’s a brand new patient, do you try and look them up before they turn up so you know who they are? What do you do?

Robbie Hughes: We tried that, but we’re too busy. We had a little time where we’d Google the patient, find out what they look like so you know it’s them. But to be honest with you, they come in for an appointment. You know most of the time.

Payman L: So you know who they are? And are you recording their likes and dislikes throughout, what are you doing to make-

Prav Solanki: What’s the … I’m a patient, I walk through your front door. What happens next?

Robbie Hughes: Okay, so first and foremost we have no reception desk. So if you go to a nice boutique hotel, you go to a nice restaurant, you’re not standing in a queue behind a reception desk to be seen. We have a concierge. So, a lot of my staff and what I would say my infrastructure of my organisation now, it’s not like a dental practise. We don’t have a practise manager. We have departments that I feel the organisation needs. And I look at my business now, it’s only a small business, but I look at it as an organisation because I want my business to be scalable. My vision for my businesses is I want to be the Louis Vuitton of dentistry.

Robbie Hughes: So you may go to Louis Vuitton and you might buy a key ring for this big for 30 pound, 50 pound, I don’t know. You might go to Louis Vuitton, you might buy the most expensive suitcase. Experience is exactly the same. So one keyword for me, I’ve got all this luxury and quality and all these things we boast about, the thing we want is accessibility for everybody. And that doesn’t mean your experience should change. Yeah, we do see all these celebrities and multimillionaires and all these, but that is not necessarily my market. And the market is as broad as we want it to be. As in, we want it to be accessible and affordable and we want to offer the different treatments that you have. So, it’s bringing that level of luxury to somebody who expects it or doesn’t expect it I suppose, but it’s still accessible.

Payman L: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: So talk me through the process, I walk through your door, there’s no reception desk.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: I’m just trying to visualise it now, close my eyes. Somebody greets me? I walk up to a counter? What is it?

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, so the minute you walk through the door, we have a girl on what we call the pod, which is if you imagine a little small booth like you would find in a restaurant. The door’s on a buzzer so she knows that they’re there. The door’s buzzed, she’ll open the door, she’ll greet them at the door, ideally call them by the first name, sit them down. Again, the waiting room is not a normal waiting room, it’s split into three or four different small, private areas. It doesn’t mean you’re going to be the only person in that area, but the way it’s set out, again, it’s like a bit of a lounge area in a hotel where you can sit and you feel in private.

Robbie Hughes: So there’ll be seated in a position where we know they’re going to be comfortable. And then if it’s a new patients, obviously there’s a little bit of paperwork or whatever to fill out, a bit of admin to do, which we try to always do on an iPad. And then we take it from there really, depending on what they’re in for.

Prav Solanki: And so, welcome drinks? Anything like that?

Robbie Hughes: Always offer them welcome drink, yeah. So we have a little menu for the welcome drink. Tea, coffee, green tea, water, wifi pass code.

Payman L: Do you find, do you hire your staff from outside dentistry?

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, as much as I can, yeah.

Payman L: A lot from people who want to go really high end.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah.

Payman L: Do you look to hotels or something or-

Robbie Hughes: Again, I try to go off referrals as much as I can from experience. The people who have been referred to me, who know someone who can vouch for them, and I know a little bit about them before I actually meet them, that’s always better. Because, I’m not going to say I’m the easiest person to work for, to be honest with you.

Payman L: Go on then. Why? Why is that?

Robbie Hughes: Because-

Payman L: You’re a tough boss?

Robbie Hughes: I wouldn’t say I’m a tough boss, I believe that I’m a good boss in my own ways. For my vision or my level of acceptance of what is expected and what is exceptional, I always want exceptional.

Payman L: Yeah.

Robbie Hughes: So if my staff are doing what’s expected of them or the tiniest little thing goes off, I always say it’s the small things that account to a big thing in somebody’s experience.

Payman L: Very true, very true.

Robbie Hughes: So I nitpick. So you might think you’ve had an amazing day work and at the end of the day I’ll give you five things that I’ll nitpick at. And they’re like, “Oh, it’s my expectation.” Because essentially it’s my vision and they’re my team and I want them to be a part of what I’m trying to create.

Payman L: Is that scalable, Robbie, do you think?

Robbie Hughes: Is that scalable?

Prav Solanki: Is that element-

Payman L: Is that element scalable? It is, because if I walk into Louis Vuitton in Moscow, I get an amazing experience, if I walk into Louis Vuitton in London, it is.

Robbie Hughes: Exactly.

Payman L: But there is, and it’s quite a common thing, that people like you, super perfectionists, also struggle with trust.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah.

Payman L: Yeah?

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, I agree.

Payman L: And people who struggle with trust, struggle with scaling.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah.

Payman L: Yeah, because you’ve got a centre in Edinburgh, you’re not there, you can’t do it.

Robbie Hughes: I believe that I can find the right clinicians who I can mould into me. And the trust element will come with your financial investment in me.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Robbie Hughes: If you’re financially invested in a partner in Dental Excellence London or Dental Excellence Edinburgh, then I know I’ve got your trust because you don’t want that business to turn upside down. And that’s why I believe it’s scalable. If I tried to do it alone and I’m 100% invested in every site and I can’t be in every site, it’s not going to work. So that’s the way I think it will work for me.

Payman L: I mean, look, it does work, right? Like I said.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Absolutely. And the one thing I’ll say about my brother’s practise, Practise One, he’s there all the time and he knows the practise that he’s in is making the money. He goes to Altrincham, today Altrincham’s making the money.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: And people take their eye off the ball and you’re the visionary, you’re the leader. That’s where the money will be. And I think quite rightly, as you said, you need to find a mini Robbie, who has the same passion, the same vision or is moldable. And that I think is the hardest part of trying to scale a business really, is when you’re away from it and it still delivers what you do, I think that’s when you’ve cracked it. And so what are visions and plans now in terms of scaling Dental Excellence? You talked about London, Edinburgh. Have you got other cities on the horizon?

Robbie Hughes: Edinburgh was just a random city that I chose, to be honest. I’ve got to come to London at some point. The market’s too big and London needs a Dental Excellence, I’m not going to lie, but to be honest with you, again, this is a vision, but it’s not something I’m forcing. I’ve got a great business. It’s not even a year old yet. I’ve got a lot of plans for that business. We’ve got a lot of opportunity within that business. I’m not going to sort of turn the heat down there to try and find another location too quick, too soon. When the opportunity comes, I’ll know.

Payman L: Yeah, that’s a really good way of looking at, that, because it’s not a competition. It’s a funny way of saying it. It is a competition, of course. Let’s not beat about the bush. It is a competition.

Robbie Hughes: I don’t look at dentistry as a competition in a sense that I want to be number one. Well I don’t want to be number one. My ego is not that big. I want Dental Excellence to be number one, and I was explaining before, people talk about the Instagram guy. I’ve massively descaled the speed of my Instagram so I could focus on the Dental Excellence Instagram. So if you look at the growth over the last six months, which Dental Excellence has had its own Instagram only for seven, eight months, we’ve got 25,000 followers in seven, eight months. And that’s just from me taking my focus from Dr Robbie Hughes’ Instagram to Dental Excellence Instagram, because essentially I’m trying to build the brand.

Payman L: I following the wrong account, aren’t I?

Robbie Hughes: I’m trying to build a brand. I’m not trying to … I can only be in one place at once, and I’ve got a young family, and I want to be there more than I want to be anywhere else at the end of the day, but my vision’s clear, and I believe, like you said, in my mind it’s Louis Vuitton of dentistry and when I’m there I’ll know I’m there, but I’m a million miles away yet.

Prav Solanki: So just for the listeners now, because I think some of the listeners might be thinking that you’re a businessman who’s been involved in dentistry for many, many years, you’re only 34, is that right?

Robbie Hughes: 34, yeah.

Prav Solanki: 34. Just quickly, quickly, just go through the timeline. Qualified in dentistry at this point, bought the practise at this point, have been running my practise at this point, and, in the meantime, had children at this point. I just want people to realise what you’ve been through in terms of the timeline.

Robbie Hughes: Okay. So I qualified in 2008. I did a year’s VT. I started building essentially, like I mentioned before, my own patients’ trust by very quickly getting into the Botox and fillers industry. I done that immediately as a VT, and then, when I was working as a VT, every evening I was in a different salon around Liverpool, treating people with Botox and dermal fillers, and also doing tooth whitening. I had a mini-lab with a former and plaster, so I was still in my mom’s house at the time. I used to go home. I’d probably get home from the salons about 10:00, 10:30, and I’d cast up the models from the tooth whitening. The next day I’d make them, and then physically go and drop these tooth whitening kits out to the people that had purchased them the day before.

Prav Solanki: Whilst you were in your VT year.

Robbie Hughes: While I was in VT. That was my only access to funds in VT, because everyone knows a VT’s salary. And I’m not saying it was about money, but it was about drive, and building this network, and getting my name out in the city now as a dentist and no longer as a martial artist, because that’s all I was known as. And I built that over say three years. After VT, I moved to a dental practise in Crosby in North Liverpool, which was a great practise for me. It was a great setup because the principal was very laid back, very laid back.

Prav Solanki: Wasn’t a guy called Peter, was it?

Robbie Hughes: Peter, yeah.

Prav Solanki: Yeah, Doyle.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, that’s right.

Prav Solanki: Small world. Nice guy.

Robbie Hughes: So I worked for Peter Doyle for about three years. Great guy. Really nice guy. Let me do anything. So if there was a patient … He had quite a reasonable contract as well. So the patients would have a NHS contract, exempt NHS patients, if not, they were private, there’s no in between. So I had a really good mix of patients, and if I had an exempt patient who needed three to three crowns, four to four crowns, needed them, dentally needed them because they’re heavily restored or whatever, peter would share the lab bill with me. Now from a UDA value, we’re both losing money, but from regards to prep and teeth, crowns, bridges, veneers, I’ve got experienced very, very fast from that practise.

Robbie Hughes: And then on the back end of that, once Peter was seeing this work and the private patients were coming through, he gave you some more trust. And obviously I was building my network of clients for the Botox and fillers, so they had my trust, so they wanted to know where I was working, I was performing veneers on them one, two years qualified, and in my opinion I was doing decent work, I was doing the courses, and I was doing decent work, but go on as many courses as you want in the world, experience. And one thing I can do, I can prep. I’ll tell you that. I a prepped a lot of teeth in a short space of time. So that was where it all started.

Payman L: Were you still going to the salons, or not anymore?

Robbie Hughes: I was still going to the salons for about five years. So from 2008 to 2013, I was doing that.

Payman L: Were you just walking into a salon and saying, “I want to do this for you?”

Robbie Hughes: Like I said, network. I know a lot of people in the city. A lot of people will help me in Liverpool. Got access to a lot of people, got a lot of friends, so that was easy.

Payman L: Because of the martial arts.

Robbie Hughes: Just essentially I’ve just got a lot of friends in the city. I’m well-known. I’m a likeable person, I like to think, when you get to know me, and I’m a good networker. I’m not scared to ask somebody a question, or learn from somebody, and that’s where it all began. So it would have been 2010, about halfway through. So I was doing three days with Peter Doyle, or four days of Peter Doyle, and one day off, because of me martial arts, and took on another job at Dental Excellence with the-

Payman L: Previous owner.

Robbie Hughes: Previous owner. Dental Excellence was a small practise. It was previous owner, he worked three and a half days a week. He had two nurses and a receptionists, and I came in as an associate. And the reason why I came in as associate is because he was ready to retire.

Payman L: And was it a well-known practise? What kind of practise was Dental Excellence?

Robbie Hughes: Again, I was fortunate. It wasn’t a well-known practise, but his clientele was really good, and he was known for smile makeovers, and he was a good dentist.

Payman L: So it was a private practise.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, private practise.

Prav Solanki: Who was the dentist?

Robbie Hughes: A guy called Jeff Lamb. And he was a good dentist, and that’s where I really learned how to do veneers. Off Jeff. Minimal prep, all in enamel, learning how to bond, learned how to provisionalize. All these things I learned from Jeff over a period about two years, 18 months potentially. I knew Jeff wanted to sell. That was my opportunity. So over that 18 months I got to know the existing patients, and I was bringing all these people that wanted to see me, as I was getting more confident in dentistry, to Dental Excellence, because I knew this was the place where I was going to be.

Robbie Hughes: 2012, the opportunity come to purchase the practise. It was difficult. I was, what, four years qualified. Banks didn’t believe in me. I didn’t have a lot of money, and obviously I had to buy this practise. So I got there. Me dad let me put a charge on his property, on the family home, because he believed in me that much, to get the loan from the bank. Like they say, there’s no risk, no reward, is there? So I begged them, because I believed in it. So we did that. I got the loan, I bought the practise, never looked back from there. So I had myself, five days a week worth of work to do, doing everything I could. That’s when I quickly learnt that dentistry is not about being a jack of all trades. And I wanted to learn the things I weren’t good at, like endo, or refer the things I weren’t good at, and build my team as quickly as I possibly could, as I grew the business really, and do only what I wanted to do.

Prav Solanki: At what time did you have your children?

Robbie Hughes: So that was 2012. My son was born in 2013, in August 2013, while I was just growing a business. I got married in 2014, maybe 2015, in June. And then I had my second child in 2016. Yeah, in May 2016.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Robbie Hughes: So yeah. So four years married this June. My son is six in August. While that was going on the vision was still exactly the same.

Payman L: So as soon as you bought it, you were thinking expansion-

Robbie Hughes: Straight away. Yeah, so I worked on my own for about two years. Maybe 18 months.

Payman L: Look Robbie, I get it. I get that you’ve got that fighter mindset, right. So if you’ve set a goal, you’ll achieve it sort of thing. But most people buy a practise, they’ll work the practise.

Robbie Hughes: They’ll be happy.

Payman L: Work the practise.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah.

Payman L: So is it martial arts where that comes from? That need to improve and expand. Or where does that come from? Were you always like that?

Robbie Hughes: It’s just a burning desire within me. No-one can ever put a limitation on-

Payman L: But what do you want to be? Do you want to be famous? Do You want to be rich?

Robbie Hughes: I don’t.

Payman L: What’s driving you?

Robbie Hughes: No, I don’t want to be famous, as much as you think. Yeah, that’s not a priority for me. I’m driven by success, and if I believe something can be better for the end user … This is all about the patients. Everything I do is about the patients. It’s never anything else. I like a nice lifestyle. I like money, I’m not going to lie about that, but it’s not my drive. If your drive and hunger is, “I want more money, I need more money,” then you’re doing it the wrong way around.

Payman L: I mean look, for me, personally, I did VT, and I was horrified that that’s what a dental practise was.

Robbie Hughes: Exactly.

Payman L: When I had come out of dental school with nice … Our dental school had just been done up, kind of just been done up, and it was all nice. I get to VT and I just couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that’s what dentistry is.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah. It’s disheartening, isn’t it?

Payman L: My thing was, three years later I left dentistry. I do this. But I get it. I do get it. So was that the feeling?

Robbie Hughes: Of course. It’s an unbelievable job to have. You can change and transforms people’s lives on a daily basis. And I do that every single day. And the rewards that come with that, you can’t put a price on that. But I always tried to put myself in the patient’s shoes. So if you’re spending all this money, if you’re overcoming all your anxieties, you’ve been thinking about you’ve never smiled for 30 years and you really want to change this part of your life, and you’re going to make this investments with time and money, and overcoming anxieties, and put your trust in someone, that experience deserves to be the best possible experience, or one of the best experiences of your life. And that end result needs to be what you want and what you’re paying for, because, trust me, you don’t want to do it twice.

Prav Solanki: So when did you reinvent Dental Excellence? You bought it, and then you turned it into a-

Robbie Hughes: When I was ready. Yeah. So I bought it, and we grew as quickly as we could, but again, it wasn’t a big rush. It just happened. People know me in the city, people start to come to see me, they send friends, family, moms, sisters, and the business just grew. Then I decided to go and get a dental therapist. And again, from a business point of view, and if I can give advice to any dentist out there, dental therapist is the best money maker you’ll ever invest your time in. Invest your time in them, and trust them, and train them to the best available their ability. They can’t do everything, but they can do an awful lot, and you’ve just got to put your trust in them. And that’s what I’ve done in Cameron. Now for me, Cameron is an exceptional dental therapist, to the point where I’m narrowing him down to literally just doing bonding, and just doing smile makeovers. Now you find me a dental therapist that does smile makeovers day in, day out.

Payman L: I mean it speaks to both him and to you, doesn’t it?

Robbie Hughes: Of course.

Payman L: Because I know Cameron. I think I kind of was asking all about you really because I know him from the Comtech course, but it speaks to the way you handle people, that you’ll put that much trust in a dental therapist. Most dentists struggle with that.

Robbie Hughes: Well you can see what they’re capable of delivering every day. So you nurture them, and some people have got it, and some people haven’t got it, so you don’t push them outside the limits, or the boundaries, but Cameron’s a very, very driven person, and he knows what he wants, and he knows the type of therapist he wants to be. And so it was an easy choice for me. He had an exceptional skill level before I employed him, and we just worked on that really.

Prav Solanki: What are you doing as a leader to retain him? Because obviously he’s an incredibly valuable person to you.

Robbie Hughes: Cameron’s not going anywhere. I know that. Got a good friendship.

Payman L: He’s the world champion of kickboxing.

Robbie Hughes: No, we-

Prav Solanki: But you understand where I’m coming from though?

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, of course. That’s exactly what I’ve got to be. I’ve got to be a leader. I’ve got to understand his desires, his goals. I’ve got to support them as well as I can, which I believe I do, and we’ve got a brilliant bond, a good friendship. I’m always there to listen if he feels he wants more from work, I suppose. I’m not going to tell you sort of how much he gets paid, or all these things. But look, he turns up into work in an unbelievable practise. He does the type of work that he wants to do every day. He’s not scaling teeth every day, which I believe therapists are wasted if that’s all you’re doing with a dental therapist.

Payman L: There’s so many of them doing that. That’s the thing. So many therapists not doing therapy.

Robbie Hughes: Exactly.

Prav Solanki: You’ve created that environment around him.

Robbie Hughes: What I would like to do … Again, I like to share my ideas and my thoughts. I call Cameron the digital therapist. He is a level above dental therapist, just below a dentist, because he is fully digitised. When I start a smile design process, he does everything I need for that patient, scans, photos, everything, mockup, he does everything for me. So my time is in and out that room. I see what I need to see, or I’ll look at my photos, and he’s my right hand man. And then what we built on that is once he got my eye for smile design, and obviously his own eye as well, we started working on composites and stuff. We’ve got that trust where we can look at a smile design, or we can look at a smile on a photo, and we can see what the patient wants to create. And his vision is the same as mine now, where we can talk about it, and he can just go and do it the same way I believe I can.

Robbie Hughes: We can talk to patients. We always ask patients to bring photos of smiles that they like. So they’ll bring pictures in. “I like this smile, like this smile, like this smile.” We’ll look at, “Why did you like that smile? Is it the size, the shape, and see if the shade of the teeth,” which we’ll come to. And then our job is to recreate that wish for them, really, using our skill and our vision, really.

Prav Solanki: How’d you deal with everyone wanting to see you? So talk to me about how much clinical you’re doing at the moment. And when you walk into a practise where you’re the main guy, and everyone wants to see the main guy.

Robbie Hughes: Difficult journey, to be honest. But again, we’ve done it in baby steps. So started on my own, I was doing everything, introduced Cameron later, after that I introduced Craig, who’s a phenomenal dentist. His attention to detail is second to none.

Payman L: And I guess this is the pushing Dental Excellence instead of pushing Dr Robbie Hughes story.

Robbie Hughes: Got to push Dental Excellence. That’s the brand. It’s not me, it’s them, it’s the team. So I had to slowly start to filter. So the first thing I stopped doing was Botox and fillers, because I had this huge demand for Botox, and I had just say, “I’m not doing it anymore.” I sent Cam on a course to do it. And then later now, which he’s just finished, I sent him on like a diploma. So no-one can do it better than him. He’s doing everything right up to the highest standards now, and it was just handing them over to Cam. That was a challenge. Lose some patients. But you got to stick to your guns. And then Craig took on a lot of my work, so I can’t remember the last time I’ve done a filling, to be honest with you.

Payman L: Craig.

Robbie Hughes: My associate dentist.

Payman L: What’s his surname?

Robbie Hughes: Craig Dewdney.

Payman L: Big up, Craig.

Robbie Hughes: So Craig started taking on a lot of my work, and then it’s just slowly but surely. I was doing a lot of ortho, which I don’t do anymore. Well I still do the clear aligners, because it’s simple. But Six Month Smiles, fixed orth, I don’t do any more. Craig does all that. And some of the other associates do that as well now. And they’ve just got to slowly just filter it off. I do the consultation, and that’s the most important thing.

Payman L: You do all the consuls?

Robbie Hughes: Most. And I am the person who gives the patients the confidence that me and my team are delivering their plan. 90% of the time it’s my plan, and I will talk through the plan, and the stages of that plan at the beginning, and I’ll talk about who they’re going to see at what stages, and what I will be overseeing. And I do oversee a lot of the work still, but the beauty of the technology that we have, I can oversee that from anywhere in the world. That’s my goal one day. I want to sit in the Maldives and treatment plan.

Robbie Hughes: So that’s the way we’ve developed it now, and we’re still working on it. You still get patients who only want to see me, and now we’ve got the same problems with Cam and Craig. We’ve got patients that only want to see Cam and Craig, so now we’ve got to be,” No, Robbie only does this. Cam and Craig only do this. The other associates do this,” and you’ve just got to filter them through. And you gain the trust. It’s hard going to see a new dentist for just an exam, or a clean, or wherever, but they get over it.

Payman L: If I’m a young associate and I want to work at Dental Excellence, what’s the best advice you’d give me?

Robbie Hughes: I need people with the same vision as me. That’s the most important thing. You’ve got to see outside where dentistry is at the minute. Now there’s a revolution in density at the minute, and I think everybody’s aware of that. Digital dentistry, composite veneers, things have revolutionised, and it’s the young dentists that are now rising to the top because they’re the forward thinkers, and they’re the ones who are embracing the Instagram, and all these things, essentially which is dominated by the patients. You’ve got to listen to your patients. But as a young dentist, I think it’s sort of know what type of dentist you want to be and don’t let anybody sort of deviate your path. If your vision is clear, and you know what courses you’ve got to be on, you know who you’ve got to learn from, you know where you’ve got to start.

Payman L: Literally, I want to work for you. Let’s say I’m 26, 25, and I want to work for you.

Robbie Hughes: Come and see me.

Payman L: What’s your best advice?

Robbie Hughes: Come and see me. Come spend the day with me. Find out a bit about me, and I’ll find out a bit about you, and I run an open door policy. You say I’m famous on Instagram, but come and see the real me. Come and see the workflows, and the concepts, and what we actually do.

Payman L: All right, I love it. So what now?

Robbie Hughes: You love it?

Payman L: Yeah, do I go on a course?

Robbie Hughes: Okay, show me your portfolio. Show me where you’re up to with your work. Show me your CV. What course have you been on? What’s your special interests? I want a dentist with special interests. Yeah, we can do general dentistry, but inevitably I believe that every dentist should have one or two special interests that they really want to become amazing at.

Payman L: So pick one and get really good.

Prav Solanki: Niche down.

Robbie Hughes: Niche. Yeah. It doesn’t matter what it is. Something you’re going to enjoy, and you want to go to get out of bed and do every day, and something you want to be the best you possibly going to be, and you’re not going to cut any corners. And for me, that’s smile makeovers and rehabs. And for Craig it’s ortho and smile makeovers. For Hector, one of our new young dentists, which we’ve got from Spain, he was qualified in Madrid, Spanish lad. His attention to perio is unbelievable. Now he’s travelling the world, doing the best perio courses. He’s involved in The Dawson Academy for his occlusion. So he’s got a lovely little niche. It’s perio, and occlusion and TMJ.

Payman L: You’ve got to love it, don’t you? That’s the thing, because it’s so hard. You’ve got to love it to get good at it. And so you’ve got to find the bit you love. So as a young dentist, I guess, the best thing is to try a few things first and see what it is that you get into.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, for sure. You’re not necessarily going to know straight away. So we all start with general stuff, don’t we? And then we decide what we’re good at, what we enjoy, what we want to improve on, and take it from there.

Payman L: Tell us about the story with the Liverpool football club. I mean, first of all, for me, knowing Liverpool, I love Liverpool by the way. Before the internet, I used to go up and down the country meeting dentists, and I used to always stay in Liverpool if I could.

Robbie Hughes: Why is that?

Payman L: I just loved it, man. I loved it. It’s the people. The people are really special in Liverpool. I’m sorry, Prav, mate, but I could’ve stayed in Manchester, or I could have stayed at Liverpool.

Prav Solanki: But you chose Manchester.

Payman L: No, I wished it was Liverpool. Always chose Liverpool. The people are just great there, man. But yeah, one thing about Liverpool, and Manchester, but Liverpool even more is that football is almost like a religion, and treating footballers in Liverpool is like treating, I don’t know, the Queen. It’s that important.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, very important.

Payman L: First of all, were you a Liverpool fan and all that?

Robbie Hughes: I am, yeah. I’ve been a Liverpool fan-

Payman L: As a kid and all that?

Robbie Hughes: As a kid.

Payman L: So how does that feel? I mean, I guess as a world champion fighter, this must feel different.

Robbie Hughes: A lot of people ask me that question, and I’m not the type of person to get star struck. Everybody is the same.

Payman L: You were the world champion yourself.

Robbie Hughes: Right. It’s just, obviously, to meet these people, it’s a blessing. I count my blessings. They’ve got enough cash to go to any dental clinic in the world, never mind the country, or Liverpool, and they choose to put their trust in me. So you’ve got to be grateful for those opportunities. Once we get past that, it’s down to work and business really, and again, the same way I approach any patients, it’s with honesty, and integrity, and we just get the job done. We listen, we communicate, we educate, and then we deliver and that what we-

Payman L: Does a footballer say, “I want to come in tomorrow,” and you move heaven and hell for them … move everything for them.

Robbie Hughes: It happens. I’m not going to lie. I see a lot of the more known footballs, we tend to see them out of hours, out of clinic if we can.

Payman L: Just from a privacy perspective?

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, from a privacy perspective, and the schedules are tight. I get sent the schedules all the time from the players because what they tend to do, if they want to make an appointment, just send me the schedule for the next two weeks, and it’s difficult trying to fit them in. So evenings actually works best for most of them, yeah. It’s about trust, isn’t it? As well. These guys, all they want is to be able to trust somebody. They’re just normal, young, very-

Payman L: I guess there’s so many people trying to take advantage of them, as well, isn’t there? That’s the thing.

Robbie Hughes: There’s a lot of people that try to take advantage of them.

Payman L: So trust is a massive factor for them.

Robbie Hughes: It’s a big factor. And that’s where I was fortunate to get my foot in the door because I knew a lot of the … I’ve known football players all my life. I’ve got friends who are football players. I got my foot in the door at Liverpool because I’ve got a friend who’s a football agent, Martin. I got close to Martin Škrtel. Lucas Leiva was a patient, and then the Brazilians come. He introduced the Brazilians and the families. Luis Suárez, Philippe Coutinho, obviously Roberto Firmino, and that’s where it started, with the trust. We don’t have an exclusive relationship with the club. They can go anywhere they like, ,but 90% of the time they choose to come to me. And if there’s a new player asking for a dentist, or has a dental issue, the club usually contact me. And that’s just about trust.

Payman L: So we had Sia on the show, and he’s the Chelsea dentist. And he was saying the contract, these are multimillion pound contracts with the players. And if a player has to miss a game because of toothache, then that’s going to cost everyone lots of money.

Robbie Hughes: Of course.

Payman L: So he was talking about when he was getting in with the club he was actually playing on that idea, sometimes, with other clubs, that if he says they’re dentally fit, they’re dentally fit, otherwise they’re not dentally fit. And does this happen? Does a player miss a game because of you? Does that stress you?

Robbie Hughes: Touch wood, that hasn’t happened to me. Yeah, it hasn’t happened to me, but I suppose it’s one way of looking at it, yeah. They take the medical sort of side of the profession very, very seriously. We’ve had players who have had chronic injuries, they’ve been to specialists in places like Germany or America, and they’ve told them to come back to the dentist, remove all their amalgams because that’s potentially related.

Payman L: Has that happened?

Robbie Hughes: So you have these things, and the plays do associate potential injuries associated with inflammation with chronic abscesses, caries, amalgam fillings, things like that, metal in the crowns. And sometimes we are asked to look at these things, and potentially give our opinion. But, for me, it’s more about these are young men, and usually from overseas, and they just want somebody that they can trust, like you say, that isn’t going to take advantage of them a lot of the time. And, like you say, authenticity, it runs right all through my blood and I’m never going to-

Payman L: Do you hang out with them as well? Do you party with them?

Robbie Hughes: I have done. I’m not going to mention any names, but yeah, I have done. You become friends with most of them the more time you spend with them, but I never bothered them. And that’s something which I think they respect as well. That they’re on the other side of the phone, and I don’t bother them for tickets. A lot of them actually force things like that on me because I don’t need to ask them for anything. I’m just there to do my job really. And if they need me, and I’m there for them.

Prav Solanki: You’ve received a bit of stick online for certain cases that you’ve done that have gone viral on social media. Would you like to just address in terms of some people say, “Oh, this patient’s teeth are too white,” or, “Which dentist has done this?” And deep down everyone knows who’s done it, right. But no-one’s talking about it.

Robbie Hughes: Yeah, of course.

Prav Solanki: Are you happy to bring that to the surface? And just tell us-

Robbie Hughes: I’m more than happy to bring it to the surface. It’s not something I’ve ever needed to discuss or respond to because, quite frankly, I don’t listen. My interest is the patient. If the patient wants super white teeth, we give them super white teeth. By all means, I educate and communicate with my patients to the very, very best of my ability, which I believe is second to none. But no-one on this planet is going to turn away a high profile celebrity if they’re asking for teeth which are too white than what they believe in. And if they can put their hand on heart and say they would, then they’re lying still, because you’re just not going to turn these people away now.

Payman L: But do you try and say, “Hey, no, that’s too white,” and they say-

Robbie Hughes: I have done, yeah.

Payman L: And they overrule you, and say-

Robbie Hughes: I have done, but these people know what they want. You know what I mean? They know what they want, and they love what they’ve got. If I was having to redo work, it’ll be a completely different conversation, but let’s just go back from a dental perspective. If we’re commenting on teeth because of the shade, and for me that’s a very, very minor issue. Minor issue. I’m interested in the

Robbie Hughes: the workflow, the predictability of the workflow. How I address issues or challenges. How I treat that patient and be as minimally invasive as I possibly can. If I’m ticking all the boxes, in my opinion, I’m doing the best I possibly can for that patient, the shade they choose at the end, it’s totally their choice. They’re paying for it because if we put the celebrities aside, coming from Liverpool, white teeth is a big thing. Okay? If I didn’t … If I said no to white teeth, I wouldn’t be where I am today. That’s the first thing. What I’ve learned is when you say no to somebody, which I do a lot at the moment because I get very young, like 18, 19 year old girls, wanting a full mouth of crowns, for some reason zirconia crowns, which are the least aesthetic in my opinion. This is because there’s a big rage from Turkey, you know, top and bottom crowns for five grand or wherever.

Robbie Hughes: Obviously I educate them, we don’t need to crown your teeth, we can bond your teeth. We can even veneer your teeth sometimes with no preparation at all. I still wouldn’t advise it because it’s irreversible. We have all these conversations. These people will still get up, leave, get on a flight and let someone prep, heavily prep 24 teeth for the sake of saving six grand or for the sake of not getting what they want. That’s where I do draw the line, but I don’t draw the line on a shade colour because that’s just ridiculous. If you want white teeth and I can deliver that to the best of my ability, noninvasive and all these words that people like to use, then I’ll do it. It’s the workflow and the predictability of my outcomes is what I’m interested in. Can I deliver what that patient wants successfully?

Payman L: From a restorative standpoint, from a predictability, from a DSD standpoint.

Robbie Hughes: Exactly, yes, and can we fully customise that smile for the individual? It’s for them. It’s not for me. It’s not for anybody else looking at them.

Payman L: But I think a lot of your critics wouldn’t know maybe that Liverpool is the world’s capital of white teeth. It really is.

Robbie Hughes: Literally, yes.

Payman L: From the day we started Enlighten to now our top users always come from Liverpool and they’re different people. It’s just one of those towns. Manchester, yes, but Liverpool, baring in mind it’s a lower population than Manchester, it’s just one of those towns. So that’s the way it’s going to go.

Robbie Hughes: That’s the way it is. If someone asked me for a supernatural tooth …

Payman L: You’ll deliver that.

Robbie Hughes: You know, texture, translucency, all these things that people like, that dentists like, you’re going to tell me I’m incapable of delivering them? Come and see me work. Like my lab, that which I oversee in my practise now, delivers an outsourcers patient work to other dentists from other cities that like … Or patients like this type of stuff, we’re delivering that day in, day out. I’m delivering that day in, day out. The reason why it’s not always on my Instagram is because my demographic of patients is 18 to 35 who want super white teeth. So what am I going to advertise on my Instagram? Super white teeth. I don’t care about anything else. Instagram is a marketing platform. You know, I don’t show my kids on there or what I’m doing every day and all these things. It’s purely a marketing platform. So like I said to you before, we know who our demographic is. It’s as narrow as it can possibly be.

Robbie Hughes: So that’s what we put out there. If you want to see something different, come and visit us, it’s fine. You know, you want to ask me any questions about white teeth, come and ask me. It’s absolutely fine. You know, you don’t have to get like aggressive or whatever you want to say about it. Like call me what you’re like, but I’m just giving what people want, you know.

Prav Solanki: Just talk to us a little bit about marketing. Prior to this podcast you said a little thing that shocked me, which is you probably run one of the biggest, or the most successful practises in the North and you haven’t spent a penny on marketing.

Robbie Hughes: Exactly.

Prav Solanki: How did that happen?

Robbie Hughes: The power of Instagram. The power of knowing influential people. Like you say, like I am fortunate, I’m very fortunate that I know influential people. I don’t have to beg influential people to help me out or offer, you know, freebies and all these things. I know a lot of influential people, I know how to sort of …

Payman L: I think that combined with the power of providing an amazing experience, right? Because …

Robbie Hughes: Of course.

Payman L: … It’s impossible to grow a business at the rate you’ve grown your business without word of mouth.

Robbie Hughes: Because you can’t force people to shout from the rooftops about what they’ve had done. You can’t force people to do that regardless of …

Payman L: But I think it’s the combination, those two together …

Robbie Hughes: The experience is everything. Yeah, the experience is everything. So you want to provide an experience, you want to create this sort of lifestyle brand where people want to boast about being in the building. That’s exactly what they do. Even the celebrities do it now. So the celebrities come, pay for the teeth, do you mind if we video? So Ken was a prime example. Ken paid for his teeth. Ken was offered free teeth, but he wanted to come to us and he let me video the whole experience and use it as much as I wanted to, because he knew what he wanted, he knew about experience, he knew about what we can deliver and we get that all the time. We haven’t done a single sponsored post. Yeah, so I haven’t paid for anything. Now when I’m ready to scale my business, we have the content, we have the contents there. Well obviously all those options we have. My websites are still getting built. It’s not even optimised.

Robbie Hughes: So if I can build a business of this scale on Instagram only, that’s what really excites me because I’m not going to be sort of put all my eggs in one basket. I’m just going through the process and being so busy and doing that. We do need to have all the channels and all the avenues firing at all cylinders. Then we’ll see how far we can really take this business and that’s the desire inside me now is I want to know how far can I take it.

Payman L: That’s really key Robbie here, because you know, you could say right place, right time, Instagram. You know your reputation in the town, is it … Let’s say Instagram the day after tomorrow isn’t the platform that … You know we can see what happened to Facebook and Reach and all that. Then we’re talking in a new town, what will it take to replicate? I’m not asking you to answer me, but that’s the big ask, isn’t it? Because in Liverpool you’re a mini celebrity before any of this started. Instagram, I guess you got on it at the right time and you did the right thing, but what’s going to happen next?

Robbie Hughes: I believe we already have a brand established well enough now to grow in any city. The awareness is there. I know that because I know the amount of inquiries I get through every day from different areas of the country. So again, my next stage is going to be a very, very logical decision based on where the most of my inquiries are coming from, from the right demographic and type of people and where my highest conversion rate is. So I know if I’m already converting very highly in that area that’s where I need a clinic. That’s not rocket science. If Instagram falls off tomorrow, I’ve got my brand and I’ve got a good enough business brain. You know, I’ve advertised on Myspace before so I can advertise on anything and that was free as well. Plus we’ve got all the old marketing methods. There’s nothing that I’m not aware of. I’m just saying I’m not at the point to use it or need it yet, but scalability is coming. That’s why I love digital dentistry because I don’t believe dentistry has been scalable before.

Payman L: Yes, in the same way.

Robbie Hughes: In the same way, but now it’s scalable and we can centralise a lot of things and sort of have different satellites very easily, I believe.

Payman L: Have you tried that? What’s the name of that DSD thing where you put your drill into the jig and it just …

Robbie Hughes: Face fit?

Payman L: Yes, have you tried that?

Robbie Hughes: Yes, we’ll have some exciting news about that coming soon in collaboration with-

Payman L: Just say what it is, for-

Robbie Hughes: What is Face Fit?

Payman L: Yes.

Robbie Hughes: So Face Fit, it starts with the same sort of smile design plan and the SD photo video protocols, 3D smile design. Once you have your 3D smile design then in the centre in Madrid the label have come up with the technology now where you can prefabricate the veneers and little jigs and a different type of like drill.

Payman L: Before prep.

Robbie Hughes: So you use the jigs to prep and the veneers are already made. So it’s a very accurate …

Payman L: Just stick your drill into this thing. It goes dit, dit.

Robbie Hughes: Then the veneers are made.

Prav Solanki: But you haven’t prepped yet.

Payman L: The dentist doesn’t need to do anything.

Robbie Hughes: Veneers are made based on your design. So the CAD Cam software will almost create what the ideal prep is. Then the jigs are created for the …

Prav Solanki: The prep jigs?

Robbie Hughes: Yes, and then the veneer goes on in the same day.

Prav Solanki: So anyone could prep … Any-

Robbie Hughes: That’s the idea. That’s what I’m trying to do with composite. Like you said, anyone can prep, sometimes you can prep or you can’t prep. Now with technology, I believe the way it’s going to end up going is anyone can do it. It’s just a matter of following protocol. That’s what my workflow with Avant Garde and the injection mould technique is it’s following protocol of a certain number of steps in the right process and not deviating from that and you will get the guaranteed results at the end. Even if you want texture and all these things in your composites, we put it in the design and it’s there the minute … You know all you have to do is polish. It’s there. That’s quite exciting.

Payman L: It’s very interesting because you know … For now composites are about artistic sort of …

Robbie Hughes: Yes, and it takes a lot of time and experience to be good at it.

Payman L: But you know, it’s one of those things, like we did it. There was a time where we said, all right, let’s do a whitening system better than what’s on the market, but you go through so many mistakes, don’t you, as you’re developing something?

Robbie Hughes: Of course.

Payman L: You go through so many mistakes and miss starts. So many times I think in our history as a company, we’ve had things that we started and didn’t do because it was such an error. Then there were other things, V ring, we had V ring before Optident had V ring and Sam said, “It’s a loser.” He said, “Who’s going to pay that much for matrix?” We were like, “Oh, well, you know, forget that.” It’s so interesting how this sort of thing develops. What was the hardest day in your dentistry career? Was there a time when, I don’t know, everything went wrong?

Robbie Hughes: Building my facility was hard.

Payman L: Isn’t it always? Builders are always hard.

Robbie Hughes: Exactly. Builders are hard.

Payman L: But to your standard?

Robbie Hughes: Backwards, forwards, bringing in a new project manager three weeks before the deadline, a lot went on, you know, I learnt an awful lot, but if I’m going to do it again and again at least I’ve learnt all the hard parts at the beginning. So that was difficult. On my launch night, which was a lot of invitations and there was a lot of people coming on that night. We were opening the doors at 6:00 and at 5:00 PM there was still builders running around everywhere trying to clean. It was difficult. So yeah, that was a hard day for me, but it was a very, very successful night. I couldn’t have asked it to go any better, but boy was I stressed that day.

Payman L: I’m guessing you overspent.

Robbie Hughes: Yes, you always do.

Payman L: Did you like the next day were you’re like, Jesus …

Robbie Hughes: You mean on the launch … We overspent on the launch or we overspent on the building?

Payman L: No, on the building.

Robbie Hughes: Yes, well it was … I never … You always overspend, when we’re talking about builders and interior designers, I never tell them my real budget because you know what’s going to happen. So yeah, you’re always going to over spend and we’re still spending now because we’re there and like the lab has been the best decision that I ever made. You know for me the lab was about more quality control, overseeing the process, learning a little bit about what the technician does and let the technician learn about me and what I expect and throwing the patient’s smack in the middle of that three-way communication and letting the patients sit in a lab and look at the design and have the technician come in and take shade and deliver one day teeth and all these things, but it’s even become much, much more than that. More enjoyable, like the opportunity to collaborate with other dentists.

Robbie Hughes: Like something I’d never thought I’d really want to do because it was all about the business and the patients, but we’re now sort of like doing work for other dentists. Again, only because they asked me on Instagram who made the veneer or we’ve started building the Instagram page for the lab. That’s gone really well and it allows me to oversee things and just see what other dentists are doing and advise them if they need advice or learn things from them and create supernatural teeth that we can’t create in Liverpool. It’s been amazing so far.

Payman L: Robbie, if you were to look back over your very, very short career and advise yourself, what would you do differently?

Robbie Hughes: What would they do differently? Move sooner. The facility where I am now, the idea was in my mind for a very, very long time. A mentor of mine, Dr BJ, he runs Evil Dental. He’s a good friend of mine. He told me to make that move a long time ago and he’s a visionary like me. What I was trying to do maybe four years ago was I was trying to buy the building next door to my dental practise, which was a semi detached house, two semi detached houses joined together. I said, BJ, I want a lab upstairs, I’m going to knock it through and have more surgeries. He told me, “What do you want to do that for?” He was the first person that said to me, he said, “Robbie, you are now delivering 21st century dentistry and you want to do it in a 19th century building. They don’t go together mate and you will outgrow that build if you do that, don’t make that mistake. You need to find a facility, the same as mine, similar to what he has in Heathrow.”

Robbie Hughes: Which I don’t know how big it is, but mine is 6,000 square foot. “And you need to start again. Your brand will always be a brand. Your name will always be name. Well grow some balls and move.” Then that’s when the planning began. I started coming up with the visions and the ideas and looking for locations.

Payman L: How much of it are using right now?

Robbie Hughes: All of it.

Payman L: Are you using the whole thing?

Robbie Hughes: We could move next door tomorrow and double in size, that’s how quick it’s grown. It’s scary.

Payman L: Just talk to me about your work life balance. You’ve got two little kids, you’re incredibly entrepreneurial, you’ve got a business that probably consumes a lot of your time. Just talk to me how sort of you balance that and whether you’ve ever struggled with being a father to your children. I know certainly less so now, but more so in the past there’d be times where my daughter would say to me, “Is daddy coming home tonight?” Or you know, is it the weekend now? Because they know I’m at home on the weekend.

Robbie Hughes: When we talk about balance, the balance is nowhere near what I would like it be, but like I said, if … I’m like a dog with a bone at the minute, if I want to be somewhere and the visions is what it is, I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do. I’ve got a very, very supporting family. So through the week, Monday to Friday … So what I do at the moment is I run consult days on a Monday and a Friday. I run clinical days on the Tuesday and Thursday and I run a administration team day on a Wednesday where we have meetings with my team and I talk about the way the organisation is with the team and the other things that I’m involved in because I don’t just run Dental Excellence. I’m trying to be a bit of an entrepreneur within dentistry if I can. Again, only based on the fact that I believe I can change certain things. I see …

Robbie Hughes: I think things should be done better or can be done better. Whether it’s the patients or the dentists, I’d like to bring something. I try to get up with my kids in the morning if I can. As I just said before, obviously two mornings a week I’m now going into the gym because that’s another sort of part of my mind, body and soul type thing, I need to get healthier from that point of view, but so I spend an hour with my kids in the morning before school.

Payman L: Is that every morning?

Robbie Hughes: Every morning, yes. If I’m not too tired, but yes, so most mornings I’ll spend with the kids between like 7:00 and 8:00. Then the weekend, it’s my whole weekend is about the kids.

Payman L: Is it closed over the weekend?

Robbie Hughes: We have a Saturday dentist. Yes, but I don’t work Saturdays.

Payman L: Sundays closed?

Robbie Hughes: Sundays closed, for now. Yes, the hard part with opening Sundays … We do a lot of late nights, that’s why through the week most of us work till like 8:00, 9:00 sometimes, so we do a lot of … I’ve got to thank my team for that, not just the clinicians, but the nursing staff, because they’re all willing to stay.

Payman L: By the time you get home the kids are asleep-ish.

Robbie Hughes: Yes, most of the time my daughter’s asleep, she goes to sleep about half seven. So most of the time I miss her. My son goes to sleep about half eight. If I can get home to see him for at least half an hour then I try. Then the weekend, I dedicate the weekends to them, but then obviously my wife needs time as well.

Payman L: Of course.

Robbie Hughes: So weekends sometimes-

Payman L: Does your wife share the vision, in terms of ambition? Like is she cool with the fact that you spend all this time … By the way, time isn’t just physical, it’s mental. I suffer with that.

Robbie Hughes: I’m trying to find …

Payman L: Sometimes I’m in the room but I’m not.

Prav Solanki: But you’re not in the room, right.

Robbie Hughes: Yes, and that’s one thing my wife said to me a lot in the past, especially this last year. Last year was a hard year for all of us, because we had so much to get through, a lot to do. It’s only now where we’re starting to find that little bit of normality. One thing that my wife always said to me was, “You’re here but you very vacant.” Because there’s so much on my mind. I’ve got through that phase. The balance I’d like to get better, but that only comes with as we build, as we grow the team really and as the patients get more trust in seeing other team members. My wife is very, very supporting. She sees the vision. She’s a great mom. She’s trying to come back to work and I’m trying to stop her from coming back to work.

Payman L: Was she working at …

Robbie Hughes: She was actually working at Dental Excellence doing micro-pigmentation. You know with the eyebrows and doing stuff like that. She had a little room at the old clinic and now she’s taken on one surgery two days a week, which I’m telling her I don’t want her to do, but I’m not going to argue with her. So yes, and because of that side and she’s been very supporting, she’s brought a lot of patients to the business. She’s supported the business massively.

Payman L: So she feels like she’s …

Robbie Hughes: So she’s part of it.

Payman L: She’s been part of-

Robbie Hughes: She’s part of the growth. Definitely, yes.

Payman L: Have you read a book, or have you heard of a book called Black Box Thinking?

Robbie Hughes: No.

Payman L: It’s about plane crashes. They look at the black box from the plane and then they don’t go, whose fault was the plane crash? They say, what do we learn from this so that it doesn’t happen again? Then the books also talks about medicine, right? When something goes wrong in medicine, it’s not like that. They look at, you know, someone died, let’s say, and then they look at what happened and then who was to blame for it? They point the finger at some doctor and then the rest of the community doesn’t end up learning from that mistake because it’s not ever thought of that way. So we’ve been asking some of the guests, clinically, what was the biggest clinical error you made?

Robbie Hughes: The biggest clinical error I’ve made, put a palatal root in the sinus.

Payman L: Nice.

Robbie Hughes: Being honest. I’ve done that once before, I will never do that again.

Payman L: What did you do?

Robbie Hughes: I was retained roots on a upper left seven. I was about three years qualified. At the point I was very, very confident extracting teeth very confident on doing minor surgery. I was sort of in my implant journey already. Occal roots came out fine. Very, very fine luxating on the palatal root. I was thinking, I’ll loosen it, I’ll get some forceps and it’ll come and it just disappeared. No, I wasn’t even putting that much pressure on it. It just disappeared. Which obviously learning curve, what did I learn from that? Don’t touch a palatal root on a seven ever again. Think twice before you jump in. Speaking to a lot of experienced dentists, very experienced dentist, top quality dentists, they actually do less now than they did when they were younger dentists because of these experiences. So they’re much more confident saying no to doing certain types of work or you know, because of these things which is …

Payman L: There’s also, the thing is you get older, you want to do what you want to do.

Robbie Hughes: Yes.

Payman L: So I stopped for six years, then I went back. Then when I went back I was like, well, I’m not going to even bother with anything I don’t want to do. So pretty much I was doing bridging and bonding. Then I stopped again but I hear you. That’s nice. Nice that you’re so open with it. Some people feel defensive about it.

Prav Solanki: We’ve had a few … You just came out with it like that. We’ve had a few people just sat in there going, hm, let me think of something.

Robbie Hughes: They’re what we call the fake book dentist, keyboard warriors. They sit behind the best case they’ve done all year and then that’s their standard of quality. That’s not reality. We all know that’s not reality. Especially if you’re working in the NHS and you’re seeing so many patients a day, then where do you draw your standards then? That’s why I decided a long time ago, I was never going to be involved in that process, because they’re two different worlds. The patient deserves to know what the reality is, what we can really do. It comes at a cost of course, but if you’re sick and you need the best medicine, you’re going to get the best medicine, aren’t you? You’re not going to cut corners. Teeth are exactly the same.

Prav Solanki: Robbie, it’s your last day on the planet, and you’re lying there, your kids are looking over you. You got three pieces of advice you can give them, what are they?

Robbie Hughes: I would say, don’t let anyone ever tell you that you can’t do something. If it makes sense in your mind and you believe in it, even if you fail at the end, do it. I would say even if it’s or your mom, because there was times where my parents told me not to do certain things within my business career so far, you know, I’ve took leaps and risks. The look on my mom’s face sometimes when I’ve said I’m going to do something. She’s like, do you really need to do it now? But that’s one definite thing I would say. Travel the world. I think I’ve gained a lot of knowledge, experience, reality, humility, everything really about morals, everything is from travelling and looking at how other people live and what struggles different people going through every day.

Payman L: What were some of your favourite places that you went on your world championship? You did the Far East a lot, right?

Robbie Hughes: To be honest, I didn’t go to the Far East a lot. It was very European and Western because it was Western kickboxing, it wasn’t Thai, but I travelled to a lot of Eastern block countries. You know Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania. So I won’t say any of them are my favourite countries, but again, you learn a lot about …

Payman L: People.

Robbie Hughes: People, yes. I see a lot of … I used to see people who were very, very talented within the sports from these countries. You’d have like 10 people on a team and they’re competing and then they’ve taken the gum shield out and the head guard and they’ve given them to the friend, so they can go and compete. You know, it’s just little things like that. It’s like you’re so much in love with this sport and it’s probably everything to you or you’re so limited in your resources, but you can still compete at this level.

Prav Solanki: You travelled the world. Number three?

Robbie Hughes: I would say, well there’s a couple of little quotes that are imprinted in my mind and my dad’s said to me since I was younger, one of them is if it was easy, everybody would do it. That’s so, so true, because sometimes … I’ve got friends who, oh, I’ve got this business idea. I’m going to open this shop, I’m going to do this. Good mate, good luck. Anyway, six months later, oh mate, I can’t do these hours. I’m going to sell it or … Like, because if it was easy, everyone would do it. Your visioning and what you want is amazing, but it’s going to take a long time to execute that plan. That takes a lot of hard work.

Robbie Hughes: The other thing my dad used to say to me, “Take risks while you’re young because you can always recuperate. When you’re in your forties, fifties and you’re thinking about the time in some of these things you don’t want to be taking your risks then. Take them while you’re young because if you fail, you’re big enough.” Like your time’s on your side. You can always bounce back. I suppose they’re the messages I’d like to get across.

Prav Solanki: I’ve really enjoyed myself.

Payman L: It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Prav Solanki: You’ve probably … I would say you’ve been the most open, honest and easiest person to talk to that we’ve interviewed.

Payman L: Yes, probably and I’d like to see you again in a couple of … I don’t know how long to say, maybe in two years time when the empire is a bit bigger, but yes, I feel like there’s so much more we could keep talking about, but really thanks so much for being on the show.

Robbie Hughes: Thanks for having me, pleasure

Prav Solanki: Thanks Rob, appreciate it.

Payman L: Thanks Robbie.

Robbie Hughes: Thank you.

Payman L: Cheers.

Outro Voice: This is Dental Leaders. The podcast where you get to go one-on-one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langrudi and Prav Solanki.

Prav Solanki: Thank you for tuning in guys to the dental leaders podcast. I’ve just got a little request to make, if you’ve got a suggestion of somebody else who we should be interviewing or somebody who’s got a really strong story, powerful story to share with us, please send us a message and help us connect with that individual so we can bring their story to the surface.

Payman L: Thank you so much for taking the time guys. If you got some value out of it, think about sharing it with your friends and subscribing to the channel.