Month: January 2022

[00:00:00] Yeah. I mean, for me, social media is a platform to engage people, and I I see myself as a role model. I don’t want to portray myself as I’m the best dentist in the world or I’m the best, but I want to teach people what worked for me will work for you. You know, do it this way. This pattern worked for me. Take a little snippet out of it. Maybe it will work for you as well. And that’s all I care about. It’s not about showing, Oh, my composite is the best or my practise is the best or I’m the best person, but I want to leave like a legacy behind. So when I leave this world, which eventually all of us will, I want people to say, Oh my God, I learnt that from Nicola. Go there. It’s good to have empathy. It’s good to listen to people, you know, to leave that line.

[00:00:49] Why?

[00:00:50] Because I’ve seen a lot of my loved ones passed away, and I just feel like if you don’t leave anything behind, you get forgotten. And also what I think is every one of us have good things in our head. Why not share it so the next generation can benefit from it? You know, if you don’t share stuff, then then it’s invaluable. It’s not going to go anywhere, it’s going to go underneath that ground. So why not get it out in the open earlier on? And then if people want to then ask you stuff, they can come to you because you’re still alive?

[00:01:27] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki

[00:01:45] Gives me great pleasure to welcome Nicola Gore onto the podcast. Nicola, I’ve known for a while and see her regularly on Postgrad the lectures and she’s always, always trying to learn more. I’ve always known that about her, but where she really came to my attention was with her brilliant online presence, several different accounts that I’ve seen her, but also some of our sort of very successful guests that we’ve had on this podcast cited her as a mentor, someone who really inspired them. And I’ve always said this and I’ve said it before on podcasts about your first boss being an absolutely important person and setting the direction of your your career. And so for that reason, I really wanted to get her on to to sort of just talk about her passion for dentistry. We’ve discussed before what what keeps someone passionate intensity and I don’t know anyone who’s better suited for that question than Nicola. Lovely to have you, Nicola.

[00:02:43] How are you? Thank you, Payman. I’m very well. Thank you for asking me on your podcast. I’ve really been looking forward to your podcast and it gives me a pleasure to be here with you today.

[00:02:55] Amazing. Amazing. We usually start with the back story. Mm-hmm. What’s yours? So.

[00:03:02] Oh, my back story is very heavy Payman. And you know, my my background is Iranian, so I am half Iranian, half Indian. My father is Indian and my parents met here. And then I was born in England, in Bristol. And then my parents subsequently travelled back to Iran, where they were very successful. They opened up a few hospitals in a city called Mashhad, and my father was an orthopaedic surgeon, and he did a lot of great work for the Iranian community in Iran. He even went to war, and my mom was a director of hospital, so a very strong background in health care. And when it came to the time when I needed to get to uni, my parents both decided it’s better that I come back to the UK to continue my education. So I finished my GCSEs, which were called diploma in Iran, and then I came back to the UK. So you can imagine me, 17 year old coming back to the UK with really little English and not knowing much about the English culture, apart from what my parents told me and taught me. And I was so keen not to let them down because they were so successful in Iran, but they closed shop everything to come here for me. So I was so keen that I had to get to uni and I said two years, A-levels too long, and I’m just going to try and do it in one year. The college I went to didn’t really believe I could do it, but they accepted me.

[00:04:33] I put in my Alcoff form in which was at the time was called occa form, not UCAS, and I applied for medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and chemistry. Because if you remember those times, you could apply for everything. So my strong subject was chemistry is still is. I love chemistry, so I applied for all these subjects. I got interviews for everything. I don’t know how I got offers because my English was so bad, they probably felt pity for me. But anyway, I went to every single interview and I managed to secure a place with them. So then it was nitty gritty of passing the exam. I managed to pass the exams, I got the grades required, and when it came to the crunch of choosing what to study, my father was quite insistent for me not to do medicine. He said It’s a hard career for a woman, difficult to get to the top. He could see that I have got it in me to be able to get to the top. But he was worried that maybe it might affect my family time and being a woman and, you know, being a mother, I, you know, at the end of the day, you know? And so he said, choose dentistry. So that’s how I ended up taking the box, choosing dentistry, and I entered Guy’s hospital in 1989. As for my first year, fresher, fresher week

[00:05:54] So that the transition from Iran to here without language. Why, why do it in one year, why did you decide to say I’m going to do the in one year when everyone else is taking to use?

[00:06:09] What was the reason for that? Good question. One of the main reasons was my age, so I was already 17 and a half, turning 18. So at that time, I thought, Oh my God, I’m so old, you know everybody’s or it’s only 16, 17, you know, by the time I get to uni, I’m going to be older than everybody. Like at that time, I thought, you know, 18 is so old. So that was one main thing. Second thing was that, you know, I saw how hard my father had had all these businesses in Iran. He closed everything overnight and he came here to local and he, at his age, was 50 then. So my age, which I’m now, and he was, he started fresh. So we were staying with my auntie. We didn’t have an accommodation. We were living with my auntie for a good six months before my dad managed to get a mortgage and buy a property. And, you know, watching him work so hard at his age when he had everything he had chauffeur, he had this that, you know, and he closed his entire empire to come here for me. That was my main main trigger that I said, You know, Nicolo, you can’t fail. You’ve got to get in. You cannot let your parents down. And I had that back of my view.

[00:07:25] Were you very determined child before that? Yeah.

[00:07:28] Very determined. Very bossy. An only child. And no, no. I have two other siblings two sisters, younger sisters, younger than me, one year younger and six years younger. And they’re both married to a dentist now. So yeah, both both were very Dental family at the moment. And so but I think I’ve always been very determined. Always been like had the drive to do stuff, wanted to do more. And I never thought anything can stop me.

[00:07:57] So why?

[00:07:58] I think it’s from childhood. I was given this confidence by my parents that I would be a doctor. I can do well, I can do anything, and my parents gave me a lot of confidence. I think the way my parents raised, the three of us was like, You know, first, don’t worry about anything. Secondly, go in with a clear conscience and thirdly, have have the confidence you know you’ve got. You’ve got it in your head. You can do it, you can do it, just do it. And for us, failure was never an option. Not that parents didn’t want us to fail or whatever, and they never said, if you fail is bad either. So I remember, like, I’m getting some low grades and my mom would never tell me off, but she would say, You are my doctor and you’re going to be a doctor. And I think it’s important to feed positive information to children from a young age. Rather than saying you’re stupid or you can’t do this or you got a bad grade. I think as a parent is important, and I saw that firsthand how it helped me to progress and my sisters and we all were super confident not to the point of arrogance, but super confident and to the point where because my parents kept saying, You know, you guys are going to do well, we didn’t want to let them down. And I think all that sort of subconscious psychology helped us to get to where we are now.

[00:09:20] What did your sisters end up doing?

[00:09:22] So my my middle sister, she’s an engineer, electronic engineer, as she worked for Sky for many, many years, Sky TV, and she was sort of one of the top engineers for Sky. But then she’s had a baby, so she’s taken some time out. And my other sister, she’s a lawyer, so she did biomedical in kings. And then that’s where she met her husband, current husband at the moment. And then they both decided to do some integrated studying. So she did integrated law and then Payman with my brother in law did dentistry. So they’re both doing really well. All of them are doing quite well now and really, you know, very determined they’re running businesses. So I think it all boils down to childhood, how you are raised and what’s fed into your psychology from when you’re a kid, and that really helps when you’re an adult. And of course, other things along the way help as well.

[00:10:21] I’m quite interested in this relationship between your mum and dad because I’m definitely at that time, a Persian lady marrying an Indian man in Iran. Yeah, I mean, quite a racist society, wrong?

[00:10:35] Yeah.

[00:10:35] But how did how did he cope? How do I mean, I guess he was. He was a top surgeon that must have helped.

[00:10:40] Yeah, yeah, it did. But I mean, my my parents met in England, so my mom was studying as a midwife here in the 50s. My father, he graduated from India as a doctor, but he was raised in Australia. So he travelled to UK to do all his house officer posts, and they met in a hospital called New and Hospital in Hampstead, which is now a block of flats. And and the stories that they tell me, it’s amazing, I mean, I have actually written a big, huge article for my dad in a book called NHS Workers, which is going to be published soon. And so I’ve written all his story about him because I’m just so proud of him and my mom. And they both met and then they got married in Finchley. And after that, they did a lot of various jobs. I Canterbury Bristol, where each sister was born, and then because the weather wasn’t that great, they decided to go back to Iran. But going back to your question is that to be honest with you, my my grandma wasn’t very happy for my mum to marry an Indian boy because he said that, you know, because of actually a little bit of racism, as you say, and skin colour, you know, and things like that. But when they met my dad, they fell in love with my dad and my dad.

[00:11:59] Just the most amazing person of empathy. Very quiet, man. And he my my grandma just loved my dad and agreed to the wedding. And when my dad went back to Iran, I can’t tell you Payman that you know, his practise was in the centre of Mashhad. They would have three kilometres of people queuing to see him in his practise, and he had people where they didn’t have money to pay for the visit and they’d bring him prawns or chicken and things like that. And the and the secretary would say, But you know, you’re seeing a surgeon, you can’t pay with food. And my dad would say, You know what? It doesn’t matter because my prime job is not about money, it’s about helping and giving a service. And you know, we always are hospitals full, always filled with happiness, with joy, with food. Even at the time of revolution, where there was a food shortage and in the time of Iran-Iraq war, we were always blessed. We always had food on our table. We always had people would help us. So all the stuff he did was actually a blessing to the family, and people still talk about him in Mashhad a lot.

[00:13:14] Did you learn the language as well?

[00:13:15] Oh my God, perfectly really spoke better than me. I knew, and all of us so well, honestly, because his background is Indian. So he knew a bit of Urdu and Urdu and Farsi a bit similar like vocab wise. So he did learn it fast, but not obviously as fluent. You couldn’t write in Farsi, but he could speak very well. Yeah.

[00:13:39] So sounds like an amazing guy.

[00:13:41] Oh, amazing. Amazing. I wish you could have met him

[00:13:45] As he passed away.

[00:13:46] He passed away in March, unfortunately, so he’s left a big hole in our lives. Yeah, my god, it’s been very hard.

[00:13:55] Let’s move on to guys. Mm hmm. My brother was at guys at the same time as you. We’ve just found out just now. And then she’s a small world. My brother is a dentist. My my brother’s a medick. But I remember my brother when he got there, being a bit shocked by the sort of the rugby sort of culture of guys. We led pretty sheltered, sheltered childhoods. I mean, nothing. We didn’t go to any of the stuff that you went through. We came when we were five and six and all that. Yeah, it was, you know, private school and all of that. And I remember him being shocked by the culture. Just does that resonate with you? Or, you know,

[00:14:33] It’s so funny. I mean, when I went to guys, I was just so scared because I couldn’t speak English really well. I had no idea about the the culture or what what to expect. So when I went in and sort of I was quite timid and I’m like, OK, how do I deal with this? The best thing is I keep to myself. So again, head down in books and I just thought, You know what? Even if I don’t make any friends, at least I’ll pass my exams because that’s what my intention. So I am. After the first term, I did realise that sort of public school boys stick together, the ski kids stick together, the rugby kids stick together, and it was just like a quite sort of segregation. And then there were a bunch of Asians in my year. There was quite a huge influx of Asians, Indian Asians, and I thought, OK, I can relate to them a bit more. There were no Iranians in my ear, so I actually literally stuck to them again. Their culture was very different to me because I wasn’t raised as an Asian, even though I’m half India and I was raised more Iranian. So I have to say the first year, even though it was very different, but somehow or other in my head, I was expecting it because, you know, I had only been in England one year, so I didn’t have high expectations of it should be a bit more of a pleasant place or how it should be. I was just grateful to be there.

[00:15:55] You were grateful to be in. Yeah. And did you kill it?

[00:15:58] Oh yeah. Did you? Yeah. So so basically what happened after the first year? I thought, You know what, Nicola, you’ve got through the first year now. So come on, let’s start making friends. Let’s start, you know, being, let’s change. Change yourself. You know, I’m a firm believer that we have to move, you know, when in Rome, act like the Romans do. And and I think this is the key to success for me because I don’t stay with my own ideas, I’ll challenge myself all the time. So I started improving my English the way I talk. I started sort of booking on skiing trips. If people are going skiing, Arcam skiing because I could ski because Iran, we had good ski slopes. I knew how to ski. So I tried really embracing the culture and embracing the environment rather than fighting against it to say that, no, I’m never going to be part of this because I knew this is my life now. And in that way, I made a really, really good friends, English, Indian. And then when I was in my third year, oh my God, we had a huge influx of Iranians, which then actually just changed the whole scenario for me. So and that’s, you know, I met ball back and I met, you know, a lot of other people along the way. Farid on, you know, Mona, call me and these are all my really good friends now.

[00:17:18] Amazing. So such a small world?

[00:17:22] Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:17:24] So then you qualified.

[00:17:27] So yes, then eventually in 1993, I qualified. I remember those days. There was no, no. But then she was four and a half years. It wasn’t five years after I qualified. The next graduates came out in 1996, and that’s, I think, when Farid qualified and all the other Iranians I know. So basically, even though vocational training wasn’t compulsory, I decided to do it. But actually, no, I lie. It was I was the first year that vocational training became compulsory, so we had to apply through the deanery and I applied through the Deanery to get a place. But those days the trainers actually chose their trainees and it was unlike what it is now. So I basically had to apply to so many practises who were training practises. I didn’t get a single place because most of the training practises were Indian and they were looking for more Indian dentists.

[00:18:26] I think that was the reason.

[00:18:27] Yeah, definitely, especially in London. It was definitely 100 percent or there were or they had already chosen the dentists they wanted because, you know, they had friends and family who kids had graduated, so they already knew who they want. Yeah. So me not having a dental background, not knowing anyone, I’d been only in UK for about by then for about four and a half years, five years I didn’t have any network, so I called up the deanery. I spoke to Patricia, who was. A lady there, and I said, I have no place because, oh my God, there is a practise in Guildford and also not in Guildford, in Portsmouth, on the Guildford scheme, who doesn’t have a trainee? Would you like to apply there? And I’m like, Where is Portsmouth? I have no idea. So looked it up on the map, showed it to my mum and dad and they said, Oh, it’s near the sea. You know, Iranians love sea, so it’s the seaside. You’re going to love it. Apply. So I went up for an interview, obviously got the place, and I was with a gentleman called Mr Taylor. Amazing man.

[00:19:25] Yes, this is interesting, isn’t it? Because I’ve been saying the first boss, if your first boss is Nicola, you tend to go a long way. So tell us about Mr Taylor, your first boss.

[00:19:34] So Mr Taylor was a very interesting man. He was a very sweet and very easygoing. He thought I was the God’s gift to his practise because I graduated from guys and he had graduated from guys. But he thought I could teach him more than he knew

[00:19:51] Because he before we go any further. That was a pattern, wasn’t it? Guys, people hiring guys be nice people.

[00:19:57] Exactly because it was a bizarre pattern.

[00:19:59] I got a job once and the boss told me, he said, You are the first he’d been there since nineteen sixty four. He said, You are the first dentist I’ve hired is not a guy’s graduate. No way. I can believe glasses guys has a thing like that. Go ahead. Sorry.

[00:20:14] Sorry, guys. So yeah, actually going back to guys, I have to say the first time I could actually understand what everyone was saying was when I heard one of the professors saying that you guys are creme de la creme. You guys are the chosen ones. This is how they used to do it with the guys graduates. Exactly. And anyway, so Mr Taylor, he never wore gloves. He never he didn’t believe in wearing gloves. And I’m like, I was totally shocked. And then I forced him to wear gloves and he would wash the gloves in between patients. So he was very interesting, but technically he was amazing. He taught me a lot of stuff how to, you know, communicate with patients. He told me how to, you know, do major cases without worrying denture work was his, you know, his good subject. So I learnt a lot from him. But after finishing the first year, I realised he wanted to sell his dental practise to me. Believe it or not, at the age of 22, I thought, I don’t want to buy a dental practise. So I said, No, no, no, I don’t want to buy a dental practise. I really have, you know, I need to get out. I wanted to do a house officer post. I knew that I wanted to get back to guys and I said, No, no, I’m not going to do that and I don’t want the same.

[00:21:32] Portsmouth. I’m a Londoner. I wanted to stay in London. I’d only been in London like six years, like in total in the UK, and I wanted to spend more time, you know, in London, creating more bonds and friendships. So I said, No, I’m really sorry. I declined. He was quite upset about it. He he got another trainee for the following year. Then after that he didn’t get any more trainees, and I then ended up backing guys doing a house officer post which one? So I did the Restorative House officer post for six months, which was really good. I did a lot of high needs as well, like HIV clinics and sort of STD clinics where people would come to do their teeth. And we had to have like high infection control and I was under pitfalls as well then dentists as well. So I was very blessed. And I think in guys, we were very blessed because we had really top consultants, you know, Professor Smith Pittsford, we had, you know, the prosthetic section, Mr Campbell, you know, we had such strong people to culinary school. Prof. Scally was there, but he left. When I and I went, he went to Eastman. And so we had really strong consultants. So again, another six months of learning and adding more leadership values to to myself because I had to sort of look after students on the clinic as well.

[00:22:52] You party that.

[00:22:53] Yeah, that. Yet you know what? I still didn’t allow myself to party that much

[00:22:58] Because I did that job, that very restorative house job. No, no, not not English language. Ok, OK. Cardiff. And it was the best year of my life. I I enjoyed that year from the partying perspective, because you’re kind of you’re not kind of a proper dentist yet. Yeah, and you’re not a student anymore

[00:23:16] And you’re having money because you’re getting paid.

[00:23:18] You got you got some money. I just found it the perfect position in between the teachers and the students. You didn’t do. No, I didn’t.

[00:23:27] I thought what I was doing, to be honest with you, shall I tell you something? We did party a lot during uni days and especially with the Iranians who were out in clubbing Iranian clubs and all that all the time. So and then I went to Portsmouth. I had nobody there, but people would come and visit me or come back. But then when when it got to the sort of guys again, it was quite serious again, you know, back to like, Oh my god, I’ve got to speak to this. Listen to this consultant and sort of how to deliver the work, and even though it was easy, it was like a nine to five, sometimes nine to four, you escape early, but I didn’t party that much. I think guys, people don’t party as much as Cardiff did. Maybe, maybe I was in

[00:24:10] The wrong group. It depends on your life. I mean, I see you partying all the time now. Now I do with all your buddies. Oh my god, now I do. Yeah, and and you know, it’s just it’s a time of life kind of issue, isn’t it? You find yourself in a particular situation where everything’s right. For me, it was that six month. How sure would you stop it?

[00:24:30] God, I’m so glad you enjoyed it.

[00:24:32] I did it. So then, OK, you went back. Did that house job felt a bit more confident, I guess.

[00:24:40] Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Much more confident. My language was a lot better. And then at the time, when I did the house job, I realised I really want to do a master’s degree and I said to myself, I have to do the master’s degree. I really liked restorative dentistry, so I then thought I was looking at the pathways and realised I need to do PhDs and to do PhDs, because at the time you had to do PhDs, you had to do 18 months of house jobs to be able to do part two PhDs.

[00:25:08] So I left. Yes, right? Yes. Yeah.

[00:25:11] No, not PhDs. Yeah. And it was quite hard. So I thought, OK, then this is it is what it is, so I have to go for it. So then I applied for oral surgery house aceto post and oh my

[00:25:27] God, I killed my. I hated it.

[00:25:30] I hated it. I hate. How long did you do yours for?

[00:25:33] Six months, six months? It wasn’t. It was house to house job.

[00:25:36] Where were you

[00:25:37] Calling

[00:25:38] Elaine Cardiff? Okay, so I was in Mount Vernon Hospital,

[00:25:42] Which I had excellent.

[00:25:44] Oh my god, it was hard work. Mount Vernon, Hillingdon and joint with Watford and North Vic Park. So we get we got a lot of trauma cases. We got a lot of people suicide doing everything. Bashing faces came to us in in our department and also a lot of oral cancer mouth cancer operations like that. So I had eight months of that month.

[00:26:12] I say show of that, this that must have made a man if you made it one of them.

[00:26:16] That’s made me what I am now. I am not joking with you. That created Nicola Gower. That was it.

[00:26:23] You know, I had I had Alan Berg in the Cornish dentist on AHA, and he he did one of those jobs and he said he adored it, loved it so much, decided to become an implant ologist in that job and all this and I said the exact jobs I hated every moment of it. Yeah, I hated the on court. I hated the

[00:26:42] The uncle was the one in four or one.

[00:26:45] Do you remember one in four one? But it was. It was, you know, in Cardiff when they had a rugby game, people would, especially if it was England, Wales. Yeah, they have massive fights. People would put glasses in the other people’s faces and all of this and I used to I used to hate it. But what we were saying was I would definitely recommend it to anyone to make a man of you because once you’ve done that, nothing else sort of faces you.

[00:27:10] Yeah, obviously, you’re so right. Payman Honestly, it just like I remember the first day, so I joined on a Friday and then they said, You’re on call this weekend and I’m like, Yeah, where do I stay? Where do so? They gave me, they showed me. The accommodation was while walking miles away from the hospital. Mount Vernon Hospital is a spooky place. People say they’ve got a lot of ghosts and all the honesty, and all the wards are separate and they’re all outdoor.

[00:27:38] Which Town is in?

[00:27:39] It is in Northwood. It’s in London, Middlesex, Middle Middlesex. Yeah, so I moved in on Friday to the accommodation and then Saturday I was on quote from Friday night. Yeah, and before that they did a ward round. So I had Gary, who was my registrar, was from New Zealand. He did a ward round with me to show me what to expect for the weekend. So first thing we go, we’re going to burns unit where they treat a lot of burns and there were patients there which were lying on gentamicin on all sorts of funny antibiotics I’d never heard before. And this particular lady shall never forget she was lying on this bed gentamicin being infused into her a lot of leeches on her face because I had done a skin graft for her and the only way where they could get the blood flowing into the skin graft by putting 48 hours of leeches on her skin. Literally the creature needed. And I looked at her and I said, OK, what am I supposed to do? He goes, Well, every four hours you have to check her bloods because gentamicin affects the liver and the kidneys, and we have to do all the blood tests to make sure her kidneys and livers are functioning well. And you have to. Move the leeches around, and I’m like, Are you kidding me? So the nurse looked at me and she goes, Have you done this before? I said, no.

[00:29:04] And she rolled her eyes up and I thought, This is it. I’m in for a long weekend, but that just got better and better. I mean, I was like, it’s just like, you know? And at one point I sat down with my consultant and I said, Why did you hire me? I said, You knew that I have no idea about this. He says, we like people who have no idea because we can’t teach them from scratch. And after six months, I thought, You know what? I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t do this job. This job is killing me. I lost so much weight over this and so much sleepless nights because, you know, learning to put when flaunts in trying to find beds for patients and trauma patients, stitching patients up, you know, with no nurse opening the clinic on your own at three a.m., you know, to bring people into stitch their lips and this and oh my god, how is it going to turn out or they’re going to look OK or disfigured, you know, with my stitching? It was a big learning curve, but when I left the place, I was like, You know what? After 18 months, I said, Nicola, you are now Nicola go. You can actually proudly raise your head, head up and say, You are Nicola. Go now because I went through it all.

[00:30:15] It’s like climbing Everest or something like the actual process is an absolute nightmare. But when you finish it, you look back and say, you just

[00:30:23] Think amazing and you won’t believe at the time minimum, would my husband were dating and we were just sort of just started dating then? And I would tell him to come and stay with me in the accommodation because I was so scared to walk to A&E on my own at two a.m. and he would walk me there. And then to the point where then the consultants realised that that he’s doing this because the security guard said it. And then they said, Why is this happening? I said, because I’m literally scared to walk on my own. And then they they said he can’t do this because he’s not hospital staff. So we’ll get you a security guard because I was literally scared. I was scared to walk. It was a long walk for my comedy. Whoever worked in Mount Vernon, they will sympathise with me. It was a long

[00:31:12] Did you guys meet guys?

[00:31:14] So we met in a party in Guy’s So in Queen Mary. He was studying at Queen Mary at the time and he we had they had an Iranian society there and we had the Iranian society in Guy’s hospital. So then we met through that Iranian society. So of course, he fell in love with me. Then that’s my story. Anyway.

[00:31:39] He pursued you.

[00:31:40] Oh, absolutely. And the rest is history.

[00:31:45] So, OK, you’ve now. Now you’re pretty confident worker. Yeah, you’ve done the restorative job. You’ve done this nightmare that you’ve just discussed. Mm hmm. Now, were you thinking at all? You wanted to? You wanted to get a post-grad, I guess. Yeah. You know, a lot of people don’t do that, but I guess you had your dad to sort of look at in that respect, someone who’s gotten really good at something academic. Yeah, academically, yeah.

[00:32:13] Academic, yeah.

[00:32:14] So was that always? Was that always your plan? Were you always thinking, I’m going to become a specialist of one, some sort like, I’m going to learn more, I’m going to get more education?

[00:32:22] Yeah. I mean, when I first finished Dental School, I didn’t think that I thought, you know, I didn’t even know what I wanted. But as the years went by, I realised that I really I am academic and I realise that I want to. I want to do more. I don’t want to just stop at a BDS. So that’s when I started applying for MSC courses, and that’s when I realised my my journey was to do PhDs and to to be able to get into a master’s degree. So I kept applying from 1996, I kept applying and I kept getting rejected. So I applied to East. When I applied to Queen Mary, I applied to guys. I applied outside London, Birmingham, everywhere I could think of. But I was getting rejected because I didn’t have my PhDs yet. Then I started working in a practise. I don’t know if you remember called Whitecross Dental practises, they were called.

[00:33:11] Yeah, yeah. Do you remember that? Well, yeah. Well, Paul Mendelssohn just passed away.

[00:33:18] Oh no, I didn’t know. Oh, God bless him. He he was a lovely man. I met him a couple of times. Oh, God bless him.

[00:33:26] He was pioneer

[00:33:27] Real. Very honestly. He had the vision. He had the thoughts. He was very driven. And I think the only problem was that he wasn’t there all the time in his practises. And that’s why the practise didn’t do well. But honestly, God bless him. But I learnt so much from from his vision and ethos of running Dental practises and how he wanted to be so up to date and modern. All his practise were really modern, modern. Beautiful. I worked in the Angel Islington branch, which was opposite the station, is still a Dental practise now. And I was there for a year. We had seven dentists there and actually I made really good friends with loads of them are still in touch with them. And then they had loads of balls and, you know, parties and get togethers with all the different branches. And through that, I made a lot of other friends who were then subsequently travelling to Australia. So that’s when in 1997 I travelled to Australia and I stayed in Australia for a year and I worked there as a dentist in doing oral surgery, interestingly in a hospital and I was earning money as well as enjoying myself. That’s when I started partying Payman.

[00:34:40] If you asked me when I

[00:34:41] Started partying, that’s when I started putting the two of you go. Yeah, no, no, no. Just me on my my own. I mean, I we weren’t married then, so I went on my own and we went with I went with a group of my friends, boys and girls, and we all stayed in that accommodation in the hospital. So we had a ball, so it was there. So we stayed in two in three places Brisbane, in in Rockhampton and then in Cairns, up north and then in Cairns. And we did a lot of flying dentists. It’s a big

[00:35:11] Step, a big step to do that

[00:35:12] Step on. What was it?

[00:35:14] What was it? What was it? What were you thinking? I mean, your family were here? Yeah, you’d have been here that long. No. I mean, were you actually thinking you want? You want to have a good time and then travel and see the world?

[00:35:25] You know, my dad, my dad was raised in Australia, of course. Yeah, because he when he was young, his father was an ambassador of India to Australia in Canberra. And my grandfather was a professor in chemistry, but he was an ambassador to the South High Commissioner in Canberra as well for a good couple of years. And they went on a boat from India on a big ship from India to to Canberra, and he did all his studying. That’s why my dad doesn’t have an Indian accent because he was raised in in in in Australia. And then he came. He went to India to do his medicine. So he always taught me so many stories about Australia and I really wanted to see Australia. I really wanted and it was just like back of my mind. And when this opportunity arose and these people were talking about Australia, they’ve got jobs, they’ve got this. Gdc will accept our qualifications. So they all told me, why don’t you come for a month, come for a month, see how it is. You can even get a job for a month, you know, and those things were so easy to get jobs there. Yeah. So I said, OK, they were going earlier. I said, You guys, you register me as a GDC, you know, with my GDC, get my Australian board ship for me. I paid all the money and everything to them, and they gave them all my certified copies of my degrees and everything, and they took it all there. They registered me and then they got me a job. And a month later I went. I flew to flew to Australia. I went to different impression.

[00:36:57] What was your impression of Australia when you got there?

[00:37:00] Very friendly, very nice environment, even though it was winter, but it was amazing. The work ethos was work hard but easy, work smart. So people were extremely friendly, very welcoming.

[00:37:15] I started of dentistry higher there,

[00:37:17] Very high standard high than I think. So I think very high in general. I think it’s very high. They come out of their comfort zone a lot in, you know, in all pretty. It’s all privatised in Australia. They have the hospital based dentists like I was just to do extractions and to do dentures. And maybe Paul picks the patient getting the patient out of pain, but no major cosmetic work and the and the rest is all private dentistry. Everyone’s got dental insurance a bit like America. But I think what the difference was that as a newbie going to Australia, I found them a lot more friendlier than when I first came to the UK in UK. I or maybe because I wasn’t that confident myself when I first came to the UK, I didn’t find the friendly, but when I went to Australia it was very different. I settled in really, really well and finding jobs was so easy to get jobs.

[00:38:16] London, we we think that is such a great city and all that, but it’s one of the most lonely cities in the world.

[00:38:23] It can be, and

[00:38:24] It’s clicked out very much. It’s not centralised. Like it’s not like, I don’t know if you know other towns like Birmingham. Yeah, or Sheffield, these towns, everything’s in one place. Like, if you want to go out, there’s one major area you go right in. In London, it’s very fragmented and this question of how welcoming they were, I think it’s an interesting question here because firstly, you were in a small town in London, some major city. But the how people talk to each other and how people communicate with each other. I mean, I remember in the US, once I sat on a plane, I was going from Los Angeles to Miami like a long flight. Yeah, and the guy who sat next to me as soon as he sat down, he started talking to me. And then and then we talked for six hours or something, and then we ate and slept or whatever. And I thought that I’ve met a soul mate. Yeah, because we’ve spoken for such a long time and straight away and connected and all of this. Yeah. But when the when the plane landed and they said it was like, OK, see you later. Bye. Anyway, you know, I thought we were going to exchange numbers. We were going to become lifelong friends here. And I realised that I talked to my cousin who lives out there, and she said, Look, we’re very quick to get to a certain point, but then very slow to become very close.

[00:39:48] Oh, interesting,

[00:39:49] Which is the opposite of here. Yeah, yeah. At the beginning, everyone’s very standoffish. Yeah. But if they like you, then eventually it’ll be. You’ll come in close to quicker, which is interesting. So that might have been part of the thing. So did you think about staying in in Australia, moving to Australia?

[00:40:06] Was that a good idea? Honestly, every day I was talking about it, I really want to live here. It’s amazing. You know, I was on the beach at two o’clock every day, you know, I was on the beach, were surfing, were doing scuba diving, I became a paddy advanced. You know me, I love, I love to do coasters and things like that. So, yeah, I love to do courses. I love to do stuff like that. So I thought, You know what? Let me do scuba diving now. So I learnt to be a scuba diver. Quite advanced. We did the Great Barrier Reef. I was living a dream, you know, because till then I was studying very hard. I was trying to settle into a new life. But when in 1997, I felt confident, I felt I’ve achieved stuff, I felt I can proudly put my head up and say that I’ve achieved, you know, because I went through all these difficult jobs and everything. And that’s why I was just having. I just let my hair down. Basically, then the real me came out and I met lots of gorgeous, lovely people there who were amazing. I got a lot of job satisfaction because my oral surgery background helped me so much.

[00:41:16] We used to take teeth out from Aborigines up in in the Northern Territory. We flew there to take to take teeth out. So, you know, I got a lot of job satisfaction at the same time. So then my mom called me, I called my mom and I said, Mom, you know, I really love Australia. I think I’m going to stay another couple of months and whatever. And she goes, Oh, OK, whatever. You know, if you’re happy, you know, do you have money? You know the same things parents always say, Are you OK? Are you comfortable with the accommodation? Because those days there’s no face time or anything? I couldn’t show them anything. I said, No mom, everything is fine. I’ve got good accommodation, good friends. So she said, the only thing is we’ve got a letter here saying, you’ve been accepted to Royal London for some courts. Have you applied for something? I said, What? What is it? Can you read it to me? So she read it that I’ve been accepted to do a master’s in clinical dentistry in Royal London Hospital.

[00:42:08] And I said, what I

[00:42:11] Said, when did that letter come? Oh, I only came a few days ago. I said, Mum, that’s like my dream. I said, Why did you keep it from me? She said, Oh, you know, your dad said, Don’t disturb her. She’s having fun. You know, it’s not important. I said, Well, this is like what I’ve been aiming for since 1995, doing all these, you know, PhDs and this and that and house jobs and stuff. I said, Mom, just call them, tell them, I’m coming, I’m coming back to the UK. I’m accepting this job. So my mom says, Are you sure this? I said, Look, mum, I have to do it. I’ve got this is my life. I want to do this master’s degree. But I said, What is the clean? I don’t apply for Emmeline Dental. I applied for MSC, so my mom said, I have no idea. Just do you want to ring them? So I rang them. I spoke to Professor Wright, who was the dean of Queen Mary of Royal London at the time. Lovely, lovely man. And he was doing. They were doing this joint master’s programme with Gary Pollock. I don’t know if you know Gary Pollock, who sadly passed away. Amazing man, one of my role models. I have to say amazing man. And I spoke to them. I said, I have no idea what this programme is. They said it’s a it’s clean. It equals to two masters degrees. It’s not one master’s degree, it’s two years full time. It leads to specialisation and it’s orthodontics, fixed and removable implants, everything in restorative. I said, Oh my God, this is my dream. But they said it’s two years full time, so you’ll you won’t have any income and you’ll probably have to get a loan or whatever. I said, I don’t care. I’m coming

[00:43:42] To just pay for the course

[00:43:44] I had to pay. Yeah, so you pay three. I think at the time was £3000, a term I paid for two years. So nine pounds or two times 18000 and then the cost. Of living, I was living at home anyway, so it was fine, but then I did carry on working in Whitecross on Saturdays to help with the income and also keeping my hand in the dentistry. So I came back, this was I think they told me in August that they accepted me and I came back September, so I wasn’t. I was in Australia for a year. I was there for a year. I came back September 1998 back to UK and I started Dental programme. I was the second batch to do the clean dance programme. It was all on site, nothing sort of online or anything. Everything was hands on full on everything, lab work, everything. And I had two amazing people with me, Jaubert, which I don’t know if you know him and Fortis Malus and they’re my best friends, best friends for life because they they we were together. We studied together day and night, and we did a lot of work together, a lot of lab work together. We were and we passed together. So it was a it was an amazing two years of my life and I finished that in two year, 2000 difficult calls. Yeah, very, very, very, very difficult. Of course. Very difficult course. Very integrated, very pressurised. We had to do loads of stuff like, you know, you know, things coming out of your comfort zone again every time and, you know, treatment planning for mouth, the full mouth cases,

[00:45:25] Lab work as well.

[00:45:26] Yeah. And we did all the lab work ourselves, which is to be honest with you, Payman. That is the key to a good dentist, I think, to do the lab work like nowadays. Unfortunately, undergraduates don’t get to do a lot of lab work, and they don’t get to do a lot of hands-on dentistry when they’re undergraduates and it reflects on their work. It does reflect for me the lab work I did in guys. The lab work I did during my Emmeline Dent actually established my dentistry because now when I look at restorative work, I know before I’ve even fitted them in the patient’s mouth, I know what’s going to be wrong. I know it, I can see it. And also, if something is wrong, I can rectify it. So I don’t know if you did a lot of lab work in Cardano, you did.

[00:46:11] We had we did some. I remember one, there was one one crown where I had to. The patient was coming in or something and I just went to a lab and I paint the lab to make.

[00:46:24] I love it. I love it.

[00:46:26] But it was one kind of like that.

[00:46:29] Which year did you graduate?

[00:46:31] 96 Oh, you graduated ninety one. You said the first year that was the five.

[00:46:37] Yeah, OK, so you aged 96? Yeah. So, you know, so I’m clean. Dental was again a turning a turning corner for me because it pushed me more into knowing that I want to actually be academic. I love I love academia and also I love teaching. It made me feel that I really the love of teaching grew in me because we were teaching undergraduates when we were in Queen Mary in Royal London. And that said, sort of my other bit came out that, OK, I love teaching as well.

[00:47:09] So I’d imagine unimagined someone who’s done all of that. Hmm. Would then go straight into private practise. Hmm. So, yeah, I did.

[00:47:19] So I the way so I started working at four boots, boots, Dental care.

[00:47:24] When that’s done.

[00:47:25] Yeah, yeah. So I started working for Boots. Boots at the time opened up millions of dental practises. One of them was a specialist practise in Watford and some were called Harlequin Centre, which now has changed his name to into and I. It was a huge practise multidisciplinary had orthodontics, had oral surgery or so everything, and I met some lovely people. Mark Hamburger, Brett Lefkowitz, who were essential in starting off my implant career and as I met them, started working with them and in that same practise I met a guy called Anvar Omar and where it was amazing, he was a foundation trainer, but he had recently sold his practise and he started working for boots. So there were some top people working with me at the time, and I was learning and learning a lot from them, observing them, and I didn’t have a patient. I would go into their room and I would observe. And South African dentists are amazing Payman. Honestly, their work is just superb. So I was going in, observing them, looking at their work, getting lots of tips, you know, and always learning. So one day hour came to me on at the time. By that time, I was married and I was pregnant with Jasmine, my first baby. So and Mike came to me and said, Nicola, I’ve got a story to tell you. I said yes on my tell me because look, I sold my practise in burnt oak. But I am originally South African and I. Want to go back to South Africa because my parents are there and my children want to move out of UK, so I’m going, I’m going back to South Africa and maybe Australia.

[00:49:03] But when I sold my practise, he said with the money because he didn’t want to pay the lot of tax he opened up, he got a place in Harrow Field, where was a computer shop. Yeah, he painted it and he put a dental chair in there and he said, This is Harold. We’ll Dental practise OK, no patients, nothing but just to be able to use his money a bit before he’s deciding what he’s going to do. And he said that a lot of patients have expressed their interest to come of my old patients to come to this practise. But he said, really, I’m on a time limit and I want to go back to go to South Africa. So he goes, Why don’t you come on, set up your own practise here, you’ve got all the knowledge, you’ve got all the skills I can see you’re driven. And I’m like, Anwar, can you see me? I’m eight months pregnant. And I do. I really want to do this. I spoke to Mahmoud and he said, Well, let’s at least go and see the place. I said, I don’t even know where Harold Weald is because it’s near summer. I said, I don’t know where Stanmore is. He said, Just come anyway. We we went, we went there and we had to look literally. It was an empty room, one Dental chair in the centre, and that was it. I said, Anwar, this is not a dental practise, he said. But you can make it. It’s a squat practise. You can make it. So I spoke to Mahmoud, and Mahmoud said, This is your opportunity.

[00:50:27] Come on, do it. You always wanted a dental practise. I said, I’m working. I’m going to have a baby. He goes, So what? We’ll help each other. At the time, Mahmoud was in computers. He was working for a Japanese investment bank and he was a contractor. And I said, But you’re so busy how I’m going to do this because just let’s go for it. So anyway. I think it was like exchange a little small amount of money, like 20 grand or something like that with Anwar. And we got the practise. We got the practise in two thousand and three, 2002, 2003, something like that. We we set up and we started working and I set up the practise. We made it into one surgery. We started off with Anwar’s original patients who and I spoke so nicely about me that they all wanted to come and see me. They didn’t even know me, started off with them. Then word of mouth got bigger and bigger. We did absolutely zero marketing the practise build up. Then I needed to get another surgery and we built another surgery in there. And all this time then I had my second baby and all this time was getting busier and busier. So I brought in. We made another surgery, so we converted into a three surgery practise, got more nurses, more staffing. And then it got to a point where I said to my, You know what? You need to be more Dental, more Dental, because this way it’s not going to work. You’re doing your contracting. I’m having to run two kids. The business is so difficult, especially when it’s squat practise.

[00:51:55] It’s interesting because up to this point, you were being your dad. Yeah, but now it sounds like you’re being your mum, right?

[00:52:01] Yeah, exactly. So, you know, you change hats all the time. And then I said, I need another dentist as well. I can’t operate like this. So we brought in some associates they didn’t work out. Unfortunately, at the end, I said, You know what? My sister then qualified as a lawyer and my and her boyfriend at the time, Payman qualified as a dentist from Queen Mary. And then it said, all patients looking for a job, you know, and at the time, you could still choose your vet. So why don’t you apply to be a vet trainer to me? My sister said that and I said, Ninette, you know, I’ve just given birth who want, you know how I hadn’t even given birth? I said, OK, for the second child, I said, OK, let me apply. Let’s go. So I applied for it. I got an interview. I was interviewed by several people who are quite high up in the ordinary. At the time they looked at me, they said, Are you sure you can handle this? I said, I can handle anything just, you know, I’d love to be a trainer. I got the post and Payman was my first trainee and he came in.

[00:53:06] He started working in surgery too, and he was there all the time. Amazing, amazing clinician and Ninette helped me on reception because then at the time, Mahmud got a position as a dental therapist to study back in Royal London again to study as a dental chair, to become a dental therapist. Because I pushed him so much, I said, Please go and do something related to dentistry. So Payman comes in to be my trainee, Ninette says. I’ll help you on and off because she had just finished a law degree was applying for low places law firms, she said, I can help you on and off on reception and you can hire staff and Mahmood can go back to university. So Mahmood was, I think, 40 41 at the time, something like that. He went. Man, he went back to uni. I had two young kids under the age of two, under the age of three, and one was my first trainee. Honestly, again coming out of my comfort zone. Yeah, it was not easy, but it was an interesting journey.

[00:54:13] And you said this was a mainly NHS situation,

[00:54:16] So this was mainly NHS. We had at that time was fee per item. It wasn’t like what the contracts we have now. So whoever came in would pay. But then we had some things which we would do privately like composites. I remember that, but mainly an NHS practise. So I came out of boots and left boots just in time, to be honest with you, because Boots got sold with one penny exchange. Unfortunately, the corporates didn’t do well at the time. Whitecross didn’t do well boots and do well, but but I learnt so much from boots. Everything I do now in my practise or the compliance or the stuff like Stitch, you see stuff I learnt very early on in year 2000, 2001, 2002 from Boots. Boots was running their practise. Really, you know, compliance was on top of their list. Yeah, and the materials, the equipment, intra oral camera, everything was digitised. So when I came into opening this practise, I was the first practise which had digital technology.

[00:55:21] So x rays,

[00:55:22] Digital x rays we had Kodak for we want. We were one of the first practises to have Kodak or four installed into the practise and digital x rays, the scanner, a Vista scan. We were the first one of the first practises and I kept pushing me, Niccolo, you can do this and I was amazing. I have to say one of my role models and my Omar, and we’re still very much in touch. And he always he always praises me on everything I do. He he’s really role model me a lot, and he was the one who would was enticing me. Come on, Nicola, you can do it. He’s actually who pushed me to open up my practise from squads and leave boots, he said. Leave it, you’ve got too much skills to work for someone. You’ve got to work for yourself.

[00:56:06] Do you remember? Do you remember the time it went from surviving mum to actually it’s paying the bills and it’s, you know, it’s actually fun to go to work. And how long did it take to go from one to the other? Um, because in the beginning, yeah, so hard in any business, isn’t it? Is.

[00:56:24] It is hard, I think. I mean, like you, you know you, you opened up your new business. Everything is risky. You know, everything is such a you’ve got to take a risk. But if you have a bit of a backup, then it’s not so much of a risk. It’s a challenge. So because Mahmoud at the time was working and we had income, we had backup. So it wasn’t like, Oh, we

[00:56:48] Going to put food on the table

[00:56:50] Exactly so we could pay our mortgage. You could pay our bills. And this was like more like a vacation for me is my dream. Let’s do it, you know, a bit like everything else I’m doing now in my life, you know, it’s a dream. But then if it pays, why not, you know? And then the only time it became reality that, oh my god, I’m now putting the food on the table is when Mahmoud actually became a student and he he left his work, so income was then all up to the practise. We had to earn money from the practise to survive, and that is when it got a bit shitty. But at the time I had a trainee, so I had a bit of income from the from NHS because of that. And also I was working more full time because the kids were a little bit older and so it was easier. So it all happened at the right time. But you can never say that you’re always out of out of the cold water, if you know what I mean, you’re always in it because being self-employed, it’s always up and down. Yeah, isn’t it until you really get established? So even now that I’m really established, I’ll still have my moments where I do worry, you know, income coming in, you know, my patients look, have my diary marketing. You know, you do worry all the time, I think being self-employed. And that’s why sometimes I just think nurses are so lucky and my, you know, staff are so lucky. They get their money at the end of the month and they don’t have to worry about anything. But whereas practise owners and self-employed people are always concerned that, you know, where are we going to be OK for the next, I don’t know, three years, four years, you know, so that projection always is in your mind

[00:58:31] And we talk about these different hats. The clinician. The teacher and mentor and now, you know, the business side that you’ve just discussed the management bit. Mm hmm. Which one of them do you like the most? Or do you like the mix? Well, by the way, you’ve got several others, would you?

[00:58:52] Author Yes, exactly. Author And also, I have my association now. British-iranian Dental Association.

[00:59:00] Ok, there you go. Yeah, yeah. Of course. I forgot to mention that

[00:59:03] I think

[00:59:03] We’re to beaches, which is your worst. Where’s really your passion? Is it in the Meccano? Like the fitting the full mouth rehab together and happy patients smiling, you know? By the way, myself, I used to love patients.

[00:59:17] Yeah, patients.

[00:59:18] Yeah, you know, I stopped dentistry 10 years ago and I missed patients. Do you really? I don’t miss teeth. Yeah, I do miss patients. No. So what is it for you now?

[00:59:28] So for me, I mean, it’s interesting how you say you miss patients because with patients you do build up friendship, you know, and you you learn a lot from them. And I do miss patients, but I have to also add to this that patients have become very difficult now, very demanding. And I think COVID has had a big long term effect on this, you know, and people want things now, especially with social media, the pressure of things like Deliveroo delivers instantly. You know you, you click on a button and you have your clothes in a package from Amazon. You know, people are like this now. Payman. I don’t know if you realise that, but everybody is instant. Why didn’t you reply to my email? I emailed you last night. Why didn’t I get a reply?

[01:00:12] It’s interesting. I know, I know that people are like that, but I hadn’t thought about the effect of it on dentists. It’s very interesting. So you’re seeing COVID itself is made people more. Absolutely. It’s because they like that

[01:00:24] More edgy people are much more edgy. I don’t know if anybody else would agree with me, but people are far more edgy. They’re much more demanding and they they want they pay. They want it, you know, and they feel as a paying person, they should have it now deserve it. They deserve it. Exactly. And delivering that is hard. You know, you’ve got to be on top of everything. Your Google reviews have to be good. Your Instagram has to be good, your presence has to be good. You know, you’ve got to show what that you are good at this and and on and off media, you’ve got to be the same. So a lot of my social media pages of my patients come from social media and, you know, they come in and it’s so hard to be on and off social media to be the same. Sometimes they’re not having a good day, you know, maybe you’re not that fun logo. Maybe you’ve had a rough day. Maybe someone sick in your family. Maybe something’s happened. Is affected your mood, you know? So, you know, it’s a low pressure, most people.

[01:01:23] It’s interesting that you noticed social media and capitalised on it at at, at our age. You know, when I would say that when you talk to people of of your generation and my generation, many of them don’t even do social media. No. But you, you saw it. You saw it for what it was.

[01:01:43] Yeah. I mean, for me, social media is a platform to engage people and I I see myself as a role model. I don’t want to portray myself as I’m the best dentist in the world or I’m the best, but I want to say I want to teach people what worked for me will work for you. You know, do it this way. This pattern worked for me. Take a little snippet out of it. Maybe it will work for you as well. And that’s all I care about. It’s not about showing, Oh, my composite is the best or my practise is the best or I’m the best person. But I want I want to leave like a legacy behind. So when I leave this world, which eventually all of us will, I want people to say, Oh my God, I learnt that from Nicola. Go there. It’s good to have empathy. It’s good to listen to people, you know, to leave that alone.

[01:02:34] Why?

[01:02:35] Because I’ve seen a lot of my loved ones past pass away, and I just I feel like if you don’t leave anything behind, you get forgotten, you get forgotten. And also what I think is every one of us have good things in our head. Why not share it so the next generation can benefit from it? You know, if you don’t share stuff, then then it’s invaluable. It’s not going to go anywhere, it’s going to go underneath that ground. So why not get it out in the open earlier on? And then if people want to then ask you stuff, they can come to you because you’re still alive?

[01:03:12] I had a conversation with family that. Yeah, I was I was asking him about, you know, when I see you guys on on social, you’re having such a great time partying all the time. Yeah. And I said, I said to him, Well, all these people, you’re partying with dentists. Yeah. And he said, Yeah, yeah. Mainly they are. And he said, Oh, mainly they’re, you know, regular dentists, you know, regular people. But you said, Nicola, she wants to be the prime minister. I don’t think he really meant you wanted to be prime minister, but there is something in you that wants to like, leave, leave a mark. Yeah. Or, you know, they make a difference.

[01:03:50] I love reaching out to people. People tell me you sold her a wheeled dental practise, which was your baby in 2009. For various reasons. We had to sell it. And they say, But you still there. It’s 2021 and you’re still there and you have another practise. You could have easily moved into that practise. And one of the main reasons Payman, which you might laugh at me, was that I just love training. I love to train the young generation. And I knew by staying in Hyrule Field is my only opportunity because I didn’t have an NHS contract in my Tortorici Dental studio, which I am, which is all practise. I don’t have it, and to get an NHS contract wasn’t easy. So I knew I should stay in Herrold. And also I knew that I have a good pool of patients who are here, who who are going to keep my income going. And also sunny was my foundation trainee. So what better than that? He’s already looking up to me is my trainee. I was his trainer, so you know, and everybody in the practise knows me. So why leave, you know, just cut down the hours? And I knew that by carrying on being a foundation trainer, this will give me the platform to do other valuable things to do.

[01:05:12] And I did. And now I’m receiving all the fruits, you know, 12 years down the line. All the fruits are coming to me now and that this is something that I’m trying to get across to everyone. I said, You have to give yourself time to grow. You cannot grow in one day. You can’t plant a seed and and seed next year, that’s grown. It takes time. It takes time for things to grow. And now I have grown and I still have room for growing. There’s lots I need to do still, but persevering and persevering with training, even though I don’t get no money from it because I’m not the practise principal. I’m just the tutor there. But it wasn’t the money side for me. It was just persevering and giving myself time to grow as a teacher, to grow as a person. It helped me towards running, writing the book that I wrote, and without that, I wouldn’t have been able to do that. But going back to your original question is that which one is the better thing for you, like teeth running a business marriage? You know, being a mother, to be honest with you, the whole package is it’s exciting for me, and it’s been a very challenging road, really challenging, challenging a lot of ups and downs.

[01:06:30] And you know, the way it is dropping kids to school, picking them up at the right time, homework. This at the same time running a business staff call in sick. You don’t have a nurse to work with. You know, there’s so many challenges along the way, but I’ve always met the right people. I’ve always been blessed to work with the right people. Maybe part of it is because I don’t see them as my staff, I see them as family and we work really well together. I have a lot of respect for the people I work with, and maybe that makes them feel that the business is this. And a lot of my staff feel that the business actually belongs to them rather than to me. And they sometimes tell me off for overspending for this that and I love that. And when my nurse yesterday told me I was actually looking forward to coming back to work with you, you know how I felt. I felt like a Million Dollar Woman, you know? So for me, the whole package is good. I can’t say which one is better.

[01:07:27] I think the word you used respect is actually an excellent word with regards to the way you should deal with your staff, your people and your juniors, because often that’s one of the things that goes out of the window. And you know, one thing I’ve noticed about staff, and now we’ve got quite a large, huge number compared to before. Yes. And it’s something that COVID taught me very well is that you’re not you’re not hiring the body, you know, it’s not like the person doesn’t have to be there at that time. And and, you know, I don’t own that person. I’ve got to win that person’s mind and heart. And, you know, if the person sitting. In my office on the computer from 9:00 to 5:00, I’ve got no, no idea what he’s up to really. I don’t want I don’t want to know, even if I try to go and look or whatever. Yeah, you know, I’ve got to win his mind and heart. But and and Kobe’s been interesting in that respect because now most of our teams, they come in one day a week and even now, now they’re not coming in at all. So everyone’s working from home. True. And it’s interesting. The word respect is absolutely right.

[01:08:41] And I see you on social media Payman. And you know, you’re a lovely guy. You are very humble. You are very sort of matter of fact about your business. You’ve done so well. You know, you’ve done amazing. I mean, I look at you and I just think, you know, you are such a great role model for a lot of people. And you’ve done honestly and you have done so well. You came out of dentistry, you started this business and you were there everywhere, and you’ve got time for everyone when I saw you back. You know you were so down to earth, humble talking to everybody. This is a great gift. This is like, this is a gift. And this is like, you know, you’re a true gentleman and you should never change, never change. Because this is a gift that not many people have, you know? And and also you are humble about it. And I think you you role model a lot of younger generation in the fact that you don’t want to be aggressive, you know, you don’t have to be arrogant about stuff.

[01:09:42] You know, you enjoy that, too. I think I think it’s a privilege. You know, Nicola, watching these guys, I mean, you must feel so proud when you see Kish. Yeah. Hmm. What was he like? What was Kish and Jin? I mean, did you know Jin back then as well?

[01:09:56] Yeah, of course. Yeah.

[01:09:57] What was it like back then? Were they the same as they are now?

[01:10:00] Oh my God, they are hilarious. Party animals want to party all the time. I mean, they were not serious. At one point, Kish hated dentistry.

[01:10:11] So for the audience, for the audience kitchen jin from the Smile Dental, Smile Academy and all that. So now what is it? Nine practises or something?

[01:10:20] Yeah, so they are no more in their portfolio. Yeah, I think it’s about 12 or 15 or yeah, they’re doing, Wang says.

[01:10:29] The academy, they’re doing so much, they’re doing something. But yeah, they cited you as a major mentor, major influence.

[01:10:36] They’re always so kind. Honestly, Jin and Keshav are always so kind. I always tell them, I said that you guys never forget me and you always, like, have me there on a pedestal. And I said, I don’t know what good I’ve done to deserve this because they’re always talking such lovely things about me, and I’m very blessed to have them in my life. But with Jin and Kish, they were, you know, they qualified, you know, they failed and they had to retake. Then they fell into my batch of training of a so blessed. And when Kish first came to see me, a poor boy, he wanted to serve, he came to see me just to say Hello, how are you before he? He started with me and I said, Stay, I’ve got a really interesting case, so watch the case. We finished at nine p.m. Yeah. And his mom kept calling him, Where are you? Kish Dinner’s cold. Whatever, mom, I can’t talk to you now. And he was really trying to impress me. Anyway, he did his training with me and everything. After a year or so, he stayed on in the practise and then he goes, Doctor God, I really don’t like dentistry. I’m thinking of going into properties, and I just find it very boring. I said, No, you can’t do that, whatever.

[01:11:42] Anyway, I said, No, no, no, no, you’ve got to learn more. Please don’t do that. Hang on for another year. And then him and Jin for some odd reason decided to do a master’s degree. So they enrolled for PG third course. And then because they were there together, I think they enticed each other to do more and more. So he did his PG cert and he did his diploma, and then he goes, That’s it. I don’t want to do any more. I’m fed up with this is enough. I said, Look, you’ve come this far, just do the Masters. It’s only another year, a dissertation. Just do it. I’ll help you. And he goes, Oh no, I don’t feel like I want to do it. I said, Just do it. So he then went on to do that as well. And then after that, the rest is your story. The story you see, you know, they got stronger. That Masters built Kish. What it he is now. He became much more confident they became to like dentistry because he was doing more courses, so he was learning more. You know, so what I’m trying to say is that for me, my mentality is never give up on people. When people come to me and they say they hate dentistry, they can’t do this, they can’t do that.

[01:12:48] I said, Look, just do it, I’ll be here for you. I’ll help you. And if they believe that I can help them and support them, they actually do it. And they they do really well. Not because I’m there. I hardly did anything for Kishwer Jain, but I think that support means a lot and and I’m just so proud of them. So, so Prav. They’ve done so well. And, you know, I teach on the smile now I. Used to therapists for teeth whitening icon and some cosmetic work, and I see how these Kishan Gin works so hard to run these courses that they’re all the time, that they’re all the time, that every weekend, sometimes three days in a row and then they’re off to Manchester, then they’re off to hear they’re they’ve done really well and actually was my angelic wife, was my associate for a while. So she’s a lovely, lovely girl as well. So they’re they’re family now. Payman, you know, I don’t look at them as my most of my trainees are like my family. They know everything about me. You know, they know everything about me. They I ask them for help. I help them, they help me. And you know, I’ve built up a really good network of really like minded people around me. I feel really blessed.

[01:13:56] Leaders. I mean, I find it difficult to ask this question now because, you know, you’re such a positive person, but I kind of want to talk about darker days. Yeah, and I know your time is limited. So there’s a couple of questions that I want to finish up. Go ahead. Let’s talk about your most difficult patient, your most difficult situation. The situation where you feel like you could have played it better so that we can all learn from it.

[01:14:20] So it was just only recently, actually. You know, I’ve had a lot of difficult patients, a lot of difficult patients. And so everybody has, I’m sure in your career when you were doing dentistry, you came across people, but somehow or other with good communication, with empathising, I managed to solve scenarios and it didn’t sort of extend or get worse. But lately I find patients are a bit more tricky. As I said with COVID and things, I find them a bit more trickier. But I had a case just before Christmas last year. A patient came to see me and he wanted me to fix the fixed retainer for him on his tooth. And when I had to look in his mouth, the fixed retainer wasn’t actually working well. It was actually pushing his teeth. And I said to him that I’m not happy to push to fix this fixed retainer for you because I believe that your your ortho has relapsed and I believe that the orthodontist has to have a look at this. And if I stick your retainer back on, it’s actually making things worse. And I said, Let me take a picture of of it to show you so you know, those big mirrors. I said, I’m going to take a picture with this. I’ll put it in his mouth. Take a picture. That’s when he flew off the handle. He started being a bit abusive and not not coherent. He wasn’t listening to what I was saying, and he was, you know, want to arrogant a bit of arrogance. He wanted me to stick the the thing on, and I said, Look, I think breakdown of communication is better if you leave the practise.

[01:15:51] It was about 7:30 at night was just before Christmas last year, and I said it’s better if you leave the practise. He goes, Well, I’ve got a lot of Dental friends who won’t agree with you, and they would have not taken a photo. I’ve never heard anyone take photos of people’s teeth. And I said, OK, fair enough. I said, Whatever you wish, it goes, I’m going to complain about you. I said, Look, if you feel that way, then that’s fine. I can’t stop you, but I’m not going to stick this on because it’s not in your best interest and I prefer if you see your orthodontist. He laughed. Of course, I think the same night he complained to GDC. And unfortunately, a couple of months later, I got the GDC letter, the dreaded GDC letter. The first time ever in my whole 30 years of career and I felt bad. I felt horrible. I felt like I’m a really awful dentist. I felt like, Oh my god, I’m training all these graduates, all these youngsters, they’re looking up to me every day. I’m getting five or six messages on my Instagram about the book. The book had just recently been published. I felt like a failure. It really affected me. Payman to the point like, I must stop dentistry. I’m probably really bad. The complaint was that Nicola Gall put the mirror in my mouth. She took a picture. Nobody takes pictures of people’s teeth. And the other complaint was that I didn’t stick the retainer on. So anyway, I had everything I gave it all to.

[01:17:18] Dental protection Dental protection passed over to GDC. I was distraught for six weeks, got the letter back saying that it’s just been destroyed because such a case just just has been thrown out. It’s not. It’s not a case, but I learnt a lot of lessons from it. You know, one lesson was that maybe I should listen to people better to patients more, you know, maybe my receptionist should actually take in better, like understanding of the situation so we can explain more on the phone that come on. You know, maybe the dentist may not be able to do the work, so don’t make promises where we can’t achieve. And the third one was that, you know, show the patients what you’re going to do because sometimes for us, it’s easy. Like, I’m just going to take a picture, bring the camera out and take a picture. But people are not aware of these things, you know, so maybe show them, are you? Happy for me to take a picture, even though I did say it, but maybe, maybe he didn’t understood standards, so I took it as a positive thing, even though it affected my life for good six to eight weeks to the point that I just like, really wanted to cut down clinical dentistry. But I think it really it really helped me and I tell the story to everyone, you know, let’s learn lessons. Let’s learn from any complaint we get. We must learn a lesson. Otherwise it’s pointless. All that worrying so that that was the main thing that in my whole career, I have to say,

[01:18:46] Would you really say that’s your low point of your career?

[01:18:49] That was one of the low points. The other low points of my career was when I had to. I was forced to sell Harry wheeled. That was that was and I was forced by my bank to sell it because it was during the recession. And a Bank of Ireland who I had my loan with was going downhill as they were approaching all their clients to give their money back because they were trying to keep their head above water and they wanted the clients to pay the money back. And I had a loan of about maybe 200000 with them still. And I just could not overnight give that money to them and they want. They gave me a week and they had threatening letters from solicitors and it was a mess. It was a mess and I tried to raise money here and there was raising fifty grand here, 50 grand, but nobody had £200000 to give me for, you know, within a week. Maybe if they had waited for six months, I could have done that. So you got to the point where I had to approach people to buy the practise from me and whoever could manage to buy the practise in a short space of time to raise the money. And because my practise was so everything was so up to date in terms of due diligence, I actually saw the practise within two months.

[01:20:05] Must have been heartbreaking.

[01:20:06] It was. I cried every day. I cried every every day because you heard all the challenges I had. Yeah, atop the business. And it was even now when I talk about it, it has been a really it was a very low point for me in my life and for Mahmoud as well, because by then he was a therapist. He was working, you know, and to give up everything we had worked so hard for and all the sacrifices we had made. And you know, it was very difficult. I mean, unfortunately, along the way, we broke a few bonds with people because of this, you know, maybe the staff, maybe they said nobody could understand. Now I can talk about it more openly. But at the time, people couldn’t understand the pressure I was under. It was a lot of pressure, and I think that was another low point in my career.

[01:20:57] What was the gap? What was the gap between selling the Harrow practise and opening the Potteries? The price?

[01:21:02] There was no gap because already TouchWiz was running. I just thought it was two months old. Oh, three months old then? Yeah, but we had zero patients. We had no patients in there. It was running. It was we had set up the city

[01:21:15] With a different bank. Top three.

[01:21:17] Yes, with Lloyds,

[01:21:19] Luckily,

[01:21:19] Yeah. But the thing is because that one was just on a rent basis. So you were just paying rent. I didn’t need a loan either. I had money to set it up, so it wasn’t like or I had to borrow my I didn’t borrow from a bank for two or three. Oh, did you? No, I haven’t borrowed from a bank. I set that up because I was so much. Later in my career, I had some money to set up to trade and pay money. We were able to manage the monthly rents and the bills, but and also to buy the initial equipment and material. We have money for that, but I didn’t have £200000 to pay a Bank of Ireland. Otherwise, I would have kept both practises. But maybe things happen for a reason. Payman, you know, it gave me more family time when I sold Taraweeh, it gave me. We took a two month sabbatical break. We went to Ibiza. We did loads of wedding. You know, international weddings of friends was happening. Spend money on myself, you know, it happened for a reason. And now when I look back, you know, everything in our life, Payman happens for a reason.

[01:22:25] How many kids have you go to?

[01:22:27] Two young girls, Jasmine, who’s 20, and a young ladies now. And Lily, she just turned 18 and we went to New York for her birthday. Just came back from New York.

[01:22:39] Did you not encourage either of them to do dentistry? No.

[01:22:44] You know, I did. I did encourage them. Initially was my dream. Do dentistry. I love you to do dentistry. But dentistry has become a very hard career now. I feel it’s not a nine to five job anymore. It’s not as flexible as people think it is. You take it home, you worry about it, you know, and the business side is hard as well. I would have loved them to be dentists because they have up and running dental practise. They have me. I could have helped them with their career, have network, you know, in dental schools, they would have known them because of dentistry. In a nutshell, it would have been so much easier for them dentistry. But they don’t like it. They don’t like dentistry. Why should I push them? Maybe as a second degree, they might do it. But when Jasmine said she’d rather do pharmacy and then eventually go into facial aesthetics because you can, as a pharmacist, I said, why not? And she can be a prescriber and she can do very well and choose her hours and not work so hard like I do. And Lily, she doesn’t like dentistry or medicine or anything like that, and she just doesn’t know yet what she was. Maybe a bit of psychology, maybe low. So I’m just going to let them do what they want as their initial degrees. If the second degree they say, Oh, actually, you know what? Mom really liked dentistry, then let them do it because then they won’t blame me. If things go

[01:24:07] Wrong, that’s the right approach,

[01:24:09] Isn’t it? Yeah.

[01:24:11] How about the book dentist, in a nutshell? How did it come about? And Dr Raby, a man who we’re having on this show soon as well, your co-host. How did you meet her and how did this all happen?

[01:24:22] So it all boils back down to me being a trainer when I was a trainer, I was every year teaching this. So I’ve been a trainer since 2003. Yeah, until now. Never had a gap in between. Thank God, and hopefully I won’t. I want to carry on being a trainer till I can. So I was teaching everything with tips. And, you know, every time I went on a course, the tips would be adding up. And you know, everything I teach them is like a cocktail of everything I’ve learnt throughout my career from oral surgery, cosmetic, my M.S., my my experience in dentistry. So when it got to one of my trainees called Kavita, I said to Kavita, Look, Kavita, this is like going back to 2019. I said, I think it’s better. If I rewrite things down and make it into flowcharts, it’s easier to learn. And she goes, Sure, how would you like me to do that? I said, So let’s start with bridge prep. Can you put that into a flowchart and write it down? Like from from the moment that we’ve treatment plant to putting study models, topical L.A. consent forms, you know everything. Let’s do it in a flowchart, she goes, OK, I’ll try. So she did it on words, and she showed it to me and I said, Brilliant, let’s do the next one on Crown. Let’s do the next one on either an immediate dentine ceiling. So we started doing flowcharts and I got a pool of paperwork together. Then I was looking at it. One day I said, Oh my God, I should make it into a logbook. So for my next trainee, it’s easier to teach. So I started putting it into a logbook and then and then I looked at it. I thought this would make a good

[01:26:00] Book,

[01:26:02] And then I looked on and I was like looking and searching. Like, what else to write? So I said, OK, we’re going to have different chapters restorative this that and the workload was getting too much. I thought, You know what? Let me let me find someone who’s so passionate about dentistry like I am. Then I started thinking of all my trainees. I know everybody was busy and busy with small academy. Kavita was helping me anyway with this stuff. The other trainees that were doing, they had implants or so. Most of my trainees have done a master’s degrees now, and they’re very busy in their own practises. So I looked on Instagram. I came across Rabiya, which I was following at the time, and she was like talking all about her cases in surgery. Similar to what I was doing. I thought, she’s really a mini me. I really like her. So I messaged her on Instagram. I said, Rabia, I have a small project I’m working on. I really want your help. And she goes, Well, what is it you want me to do? I said, Just come over because I don’t even know what I want you to do. Just come over, say she. She said, Where are you at her? She goes, Oh, I live in Harrow. I’ll come. So she came to her, revealed she had to look at this because, oh my god, yeah, let’s do it so fun. You know, whatever I said, I don’t know if it’s going to be a book or what. It’s a project. Let’s just work on it. So we started working on it together and eventually it hit.

[01:27:23] Eventually, she fell pregnant. She was very sick. She couldn’t do any more work, and then she then turned around, she bought a dental practise, then it became COVID and then everything just fell apart. So we wrote some of it, some chapters randomised. We made it into chapters, but it wasn’t nothing major. Then during COVID, we did a bit more together, which we had time. We organised all the chapters and stuff. And then it hit Christmas time, Christmas time. By then, Pouillon, my current trainee, had started to work with me. I said to puja, You’re so good at, you know, tech stuff, which I’m so bad at. Can you help me like, tidy these flowcharts up and put photos for stuff? And he goes, Yeah, of course. Tell me what to do. So he started helping me. And then by then I had also established Peter British-Iranian Dental Association and I had a committee. One of the people on my committee, who was my secretary, the secretary, his name is Millard Miller. And he is a year Dental graduate from Glasgow. You met him in VCD. Yeah. And he you did meet him. And he said, I said to him that, you know, he said, I can’t help you as well on this. It’s such a good project because I wanted him to proofread it because it’s in Dental school and I thought it’s going to help, you know, because he’s quite up to date. So I said, can you help proofreading it? So it started proofreading it, and he goes, The doctor goes, There’s lots more we can add to the book.

[01:28:50] I’m happy to help you. So then I said, OK, why not? Then again, it hit COVID time with lockdown, and in my family, everyone got COVID. Last Christmas really badly, especially Mahmoud porting his oxygen levels dropped to seventy eight. He was awful. I mean, we didn’t take him to hospital. I nursed him myself to recovery with oxygen and everything else. And anyway, so we were on Zoom, day in, day out, day in, day out, over Christmas, over January and we it up a lot worked on it. Pouyanne Miller were really, really good at, you know, helping me organising it, giving a bit more oomph. And polio was amazing at finding publishers and editing and publishing the book. And both boys helped me with with helped us with the marketing side and Instagram videos and putting the stuff together and like, we had plans of how we’re going to move this forward and eventually release it. So really, this book is a product of teamwork, is a product of unity, is a product of trust. It’s not just it was my project for four. I would say six months. I shared it with Robbie. Robbie helped me a lot on it. And then eventually we brought Pouillon Miller in, who actually finished it and helped helped us finish it and get it to where where it is now. So I would never say it’s just my book. This is our book. It’s a team team effort, and we had a group of specialists who actually peer reviewed it as well, and everyone’s been acknowledged. So again, another blend of luck.

[01:30:28] And now I love your your your stories tend to always go around. You inspired someone to do something. It’s a beautiful thing.

[01:30:36] Yeah, it’s a beautiful dude. Thank you, Payman. Thank you.

[01:30:40] We’re going to end it. We end it in the in the same way every time. And it’s weird because we’ve spoken for over an hour and a half and we still haven’t even talked about your current practise. But you told me everything you needed to tell me that the nurse is looking forward to coming to work, and that’s the best sign you can ever have. Exactly. So we’ve got two final questions. Prav final question in mind. First, obviously, perhaps final question. You’re on your deathbed. You’ve got your nearest and dearest all around you. What a three bits of advice you’d leave them, o

[01:31:18] Prav, what a difficult question. No one always have time for people, especially people you care for. Not family, first family, always first parents, first siblings, first, then your nearest and dearest friends, but then sometimes nearest and dearest friends become family, don’t they? Payman they become like family. So always have time. Always have empathy. Try and be. If I was on death bed and my children were there, I’d say Be organised, be organised. I want to leave that legacy behind because organisation is what helped me, you know, being organised. I have books. I have diaries. I have, you know, if I show you, I have every year I have a book. Yeah, and I write everything in here for my trips. I plan ahead, you know, and I’ve learnt this. It’s not. I haven’t been born with it. I’ve watched people who do it and it’s helped me. The other thing is always the people who help you give them the credit for it. Ok. Don’t take the pie and eat it yourself, OK? Because Payman Langroudi didn’t become Payman Langroudi on his own. Nick Lugo didn’t become Nicole to go on her own. You know, we all have a story. We all have a journey. And when you actually say that that you appreciate and you give credit to people who help you, you actually get respected more and you get to higher places and you will achieve your dreams. Why? Because people then want to come and help you because they know Nicola go Payman Langroudi will credit them for their hard work. Not going to choose them and throw them away. And I think, and I hope that people who have been in my life, they feel that I am like that and I don’t, you know, use them or abuse them. And I am giving them credit for all the hard work they do for me. And I appreciate it.

[01:33:24] That’s lovely. And my final question? Fantasy dinner party, oh, three guests. That’s our life. And would you pick?

[01:33:40] Oh, God. Dinner party, fantasy, dinner party. Oh my God, your questions are so deep, guys. Um? I will pick. Ok. Does it have to be family or it can be friends, it can be anyone, know anyone.

[01:33:57] It can be. Jesus, Einstein and your dad.

[01:34:00] Ok, I would like to pick King Pahlavi on our king, which we lost. So if you’re on Shah of Iran, I want to see what was going through his head. And I want to. I want to. I want to spend time with him. Yeah, yeah. I spent I love my dad, I miss him, I spent a lot of time with him and I know everything about him, everything, everything, so I will pick the people who I want to know more from. I like Obama. Obama and his wife make a lot of sense, and I’ve read their books and they make a lot of sense. So Obama, his wife and the Shah of Iran.

[01:34:43] Nice. Nice. Have you have you listened to the Obama and Bruce Springsteen podcasts?

[01:34:49] No, not yet, but I want to.

[01:34:51] It’s lovely, really. One of my favourite podcasts I’ve ever seen.

[01:34:54] It’s on Spotify.

[01:34:55] It’s only on Spotify. Only on Spotify. It’s called Born in the USA. Boy, oh wow.

[01:35:00] I listen to it.

[01:35:01] Definitely something like that. It’s called something else. It’s called something else. It’s called mavericks. Born in the USA. Some of the Mavericks born.

[01:35:08] Okay, that makes sense.

[01:35:10] So it’s been absolutely lovely to have you. It really has.

[01:35:13] It’s been my pleasure to be here with you

[01:35:15] For people who want to connect. Your book is available. Where? How can I? How can I buy the book?

[01:35:20] The book is available on Amazon on if you just Google, Amazon Dentistry in a nutshell on Amazon or search it on in the search box, you’ll find it. Also, it’s the link is on my Instagram at Dental Cosmetics, which is called double at the end, it’s on my private Instagram as well. The link and also you can also message me.

[01:35:45] So someone’s message? Your Instagram is the best place.

[01:35:47] Instagram is really good at Dental Cosmetics.

[01:35:50] Amazing.

[01:35:51] Yeah, definitely.

[01:35:53] So, so nice to have you, Nicola. What lovely, lovely stories are really, really, really inspired me.

[01:35:58] The have you’re the inspiration Payman. You’re the inspiration. Me and mom would always talk about you and actually dinner party. I want you to come as well.

[01:36:11] I’ll come instead of Mrs. Obama. Michelle.

[01:36:13] Yeah, you call yourself Michelle. Lovely to have you. Lovely to have you as well. Thank you for asking me. Payman This is Dental Leaders

[01:36:25] The podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki. Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you’ve got some value out of it. If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing and if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks. And don’t forget our six star rating.

 

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

[00:00:24] So this is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:12:40] Dental materials Dental.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:17:45] Oh

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:30:08] So seek danger,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:41:42] Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:01:03] Yes.

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

[01:01:15] I’m hoping to do a mix.

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

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

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

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

[01:02:04] That’s my point. That’s my

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:05:13] Any easier. It doesn’t.

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

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

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

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

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

[01:07:19] People is it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[01:14:47] It’s available on Amazon.

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

[01:14:51] That’s it.

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

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

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

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

[01:15:14] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you’ve got some value out of it if you did get some value out of it. Think about subscribing and if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks. And don’t forget our six star rating.

 

[00:00:00] But contentment so undervalued, I mean, at the end of the day, it’s all about being happy, right?

[00:00:04] Yeah, if you find contentment, drive success, like if you can find what makes you happy, then you’ll end up doing that and end up being successful. Like, look at Mini-SAR makeover. I just love coming back to that course because I just love being with you guys and it’s a fun weekend away and and I’m not doing it for like any personal gain or that kind of, like you say, the city of London. You know, let’s go here and let’s further our career and what’s in it for me. I just do it because I love it. But it has then naturally led onto me meeting some amazing dentists. Me learning loads more because I’m seeing the lectures again. Me. And you know, when you teach something, you learn it even better. So the benefits come without ever doing it because there’s benefits.

[00:00:49] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:01:06] It’s my great pleasure to welcome Dr. Matt Parsons onto the podcast. Matty’s one of my good friends who I first met on Milly Smile make over the composite course that we do. Since then, he’s gone on to become one of the top composite guys in the countries. Fair to say with a brilliant social media profile and actually teaches on the course Know started out, you know, demonstrating and now teaches on the course on marketing. Lovely to have you met. I met you. Ok? Yeah, it’s been a long time coming this one. I’m really happy we managed to do it. I wanted you on with Depeche Mode as well. Anyway, I’m really happy you’re here for anyone listening. This is 1st of January twenty twenty two, which sounds weird, but with the way the virus did. Did you go out last night and have a good time?

[00:01:54] No, no, we were. We were off with a crying baby last night.

[00:01:58] Oh yeah, we went out. But it was it was very quiet. We actually ended up coming home at 11:30.

[00:02:09] I hope you’re straight to bed.

[00:02:11] No, no, no, we did. We stood up, stood around for the, you know, the Sydney. Whatever fireworks? Yeah, a bit different than, oh yeah, Matty. We usually start with the back story charted. What made you become a dentist?

[00:02:27] What if you find out this crazy bombshell for me now? Like, Well, I was born in Uganda,

[00:02:35] Just like

[00:02:36] A boxer that you never knew

[00:02:39] Your mother was a spy? Yeah, yeah. Have you been in the in the

[00:02:44] Forces my whole life? So yeah, I grew up on the world, just outside Liverpool. Normal upbringing, kind of 2.4 kids. Two younger brothers decided I wanted to be a dentist when I was in primary school, about eleven. Really? Yeah, I thought it was. I well, I wanted to be a vet when I was really young. I wrote a letter to Greenpeace wants to save the whales. So I was like some little weird hippie animal lover. And then my friend Benji said to me one day, Oh, I’m going to be a dentist when I’m older. We’re like 11 years old. And I said, Oh, right, OK, cool. So do I. And it genuinely stuck. And that was like the day that I decided, Well, there’s Benji do. He’s an engineer?

[00:03:29] He didn’t. He didn’t make it. But yeah,

[00:03:31] Did you know? So you kind of you do that thing. Don’t you think about all the different options and thought about medicine? Thought of that, thought about all the things, but always kept going back to dentistry work experience. Liked it.

[00:03:43] Enjoyed it. Did you think about leaving Liverpool or were you always going to stay in Liverpool? No.

[00:03:49] My first choice of you and you would have been Manchester if I’d have got an offer. Oh, so my group of friends kind of went to two different unis Manchester and Liverpool John Moores. So going to Liverpool Uni meant that I wasn’t at the same uni as my friends. Or if I’ve gone to Manchester, I would have been, so I would have gone to Manchester, but I didn’t get an offer. So Liverpool was kind of second choice but worked out great. You know, it’s a bit of a sliding doors moment where I look back and think it’s definitely a good thing that happened because I ended up with making really good mates and, you know, absolutely loved my time there and I wouldn’t change it for the world. But the plan was to go to Manchester. My other offer was Newcastle, which I felt was a bit too far away, which is weird because it’s literally a couple of hours and now that feels like nothing at all. But when you’re 18, you know, the drive to Newcastle feels like a different world away compared to the drive to Manchester.

[00:04:38] Did you not consider London or anything

[00:04:40] Wasn’t even on the radar? I don’t know why it wasn’t. It wasn’t a conscious thing. I didn’t even consciously discount it. It just never came into the into the frame. My other, I think Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle, Liverpool, my four choices. I got offers from Newcastle and Liverpool.

[00:04:58] What kind of a kid were you, dude? I’ve got you down as the class clown. Is that not?

[00:05:02] Yeah, no. Nail on the head. Didn’t really know when to take things seriously. Was never, ever nasty. You know it was never horrible. Or I was kind of like forever getting in stupid little bits of trouble like it was never be. It never a big deal or anything. But it was like, you know, mum, my dad used to. Roll their eyes on parents evening when they hear the story and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, I think I kind of probably pulled my finger out when I went into sixth form. I don’t know what happened, you know, the the switch just seemed to flick. I started working hard and got the grades I needed in the end.

[00:05:46] And then in Dental school, you were president of the thing, right? The student body. Is that in the final year, that happens for you?

[00:05:55] That was good. That was that was a great year because a few of my good friends were on the committee as well. So we were like organising the event and the nights out and the parties. And that was really fun, really, really fun. Dental school was amazing. Then Dental School was like five of the best years of my life,

[00:06:11] So uni tends to be fun for a lot of people. But did you take the dentistry as in? Were you one of the top guys in the class

[00:06:18] And were nowhere near? Not even close. I would say that I did, and I did enough to pass the exams. You know, it was I didn’t really get passionate about anything and I didn’t really do any extracurriculars within dentistry. I didn’t fail anything. Well, no, I did. I failed cross infection control once because I halfway through maybe taking a tooth out. I leant over to the bin, pulled my mask down spot, spot my chin into the bin and pull my spackle. I choose to like talking to one side and was like, You really

[00:06:52] Can’t do that.

[00:06:54] So I got I’m like, I can’t remove what they call it now, like a probation from my cross infection control warning. Yeah, but no.

[00:07:03] And did you live at home with the whole at all or did you live out the whole time?

[00:07:08] Yeah. I went to halls, went to the first year and lived in like student houses the whole way through, didn’t live with dentists the first three years, which was, I think, good for me.

[00:07:15] Yeah, that’s always a good idea, isn’t it? Did you then work in the NHS at all?

[00:07:22] Yeah, yeah. So did Viti in North Wales. So there was. We did. We were the second year to do national recruitment for VTi. So there was like this big kind of procedure in terms of the application process and our group of friends. It was kind of six of us. Three of us took us, took it really seriously. And for all the work in, did all the research or the read and everything else. And three of us, which I was in kind of said, No, do you know what? We’ll smile and we’ll charm them, and we’re good and we can chat and we’ll be fine. And the three that really put the work in got like these great positions in the great schemes and me. The other one was Jack, who, you know, Rishi, you’ve met as well. Yeah, me and Jack both got North Wales, which is like way down on the list of places that are popular in the Rankin scheme. And Rishi didn’t even get a place. He did eventually, but the three of us just absolutely bombed it. What turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me, really in some ways, because I ended up working with Adrian Thorpe and Ravi Buju on agent specialist oral surgeon Ravi Dental special interest in Ortho loved a bit of endo as well. And with North Wales, you can’t bloody refer, you know, you don’t have a teaching hospital. And the patients generally won’t go private for four and oh, four surgical for this, for that. So it’s just in at the deep end and your options are either give it a go or it doesn’t get done. And when you’ve got mentors a lot and you kind of having to try things, you end up just jumping in at the deep end. And I’ve got such good experience from that. That was obviously VTi year in the NHS and then stayed on there for six months afterwards as a kind of 90 percent NHS associate after that.

[00:09:06] And then he left

[00:09:08] And I left, then I went to Australia. And so we flew we flew New Year’s Eve near enough where I think like twenty eight December or something, we flew to Sydney. We spent three or four months travelling up the East Coast. We flew over to Perth, where I stayed there for half the year, got a job in Perth. It’s really easy to get a job in Perth. Kind of an idea. So my dentist equivalent over there didn’t get on well with Perth. It was just a bit isolated, a bit quiet, not quite right for us. So then we went to Melbourne, we decided to go to Melbourne and we made the decision. We were applying for jobs. But Meg, sorry mate, got offered a job ex-officio and I applied for loads of jobs, didn’t get any and we were sat talking and I was like, Well, we can’t really go if I haven’t got a job and they will say, But let’s just go and just see what happens. And I was like, OK, cool, we’ll go. So we booked our flights. Kind of signed for an apartment over there. And then I think it was like a day before we went. I got a phone call back from someone like, Oh, you would be interested in interviewing you. So this phone interview and got the job and it was like it all worked out in the end kind of thing. So I flew off to Melbourne, worked there for probably eight months in private practise, just general check-ups, fill ins, all that kind of stuff. And that was that was not because that was like thrown in to this very expensive private dentistry where Mr. Jones walks in and you say, Oh, you need root canal on the ground, it’s going to cost you three thousand and they go, OK, they don’t even flinch. It’s completely normal. And that was bizarre when I kind of had two patients declining to have the crown on a route filled tooth because of the three charge in the UK to walk into that was really strange.

[00:10:49] They prioritise. They prioritise healthcare. I mean, dentistry as health care there and everyone sort of saves up for it, right? Yeah.

[00:10:55] Like a lot people, people take out good insurance policies and like jobs that come with good dental insurance are really desirable and it’s a completely different culture. And it’s also a little bit more like they take ownership for it. It’s like, hands up my fault, I need a root canal. Oh, well, it’s going to cost me a lot. I knew that.

[00:11:17] Yeah. And you didn’t have like trepidation first day of treating patients over there, the whole different mindset. Yeah, something jumped in to shit myself.

[00:11:26] Oh, you do. Oh, it was awful. I walked in day one and I was like, I don’t know what it was, but I asked the nurse for counsel and she was like, What’s that?

[00:11:34] I was like, like the patients in the

[00:11:36] Chair had black mouth open, numb cavity open, and I’m like,

[00:11:42] I don’t know something similar.

[00:11:45] And they did. They had an Australian equivalent in the end that we used.

[00:11:48] But yeah, that cliché that people say about being life being laid back over there and all is that. Is that real?

[00:11:56] I don’t think it’s laid back. I think they’re actually quite intense. But what they do, what they’re good at is work life balance. So they I think in this country, I think probably London, especially there’s a work life balance, has a tendency to slip too much towards work and not not enough towards life in Australia. You finish work at a decent time and then you have a life outside work. You don’t just go home, have you dinner? Go to bed to get up early the next day. To go to work, you’ll go to the beach, you’ll go to a bar, you know, over weekends you’ll get off and you’ll exercise and then you go for a. For breakfast, they just they don’t seem to work too hard is what I’m trying to say when they’re in work, but they’re intense people, kind of. They’re competitive and they are the fairly they’re not liberal politically on the whole and stuff. I wouldn’t say the laid back, but Work-Life Balance is really good. They almost like they aggressively chase their work-life balance. So that makes sense. Oh yeah.

[00:12:55] Oh, interesting. And was there any thought of staying on there?

[00:12:58] We had the conversation, but it’s just too far away, which is a ridiculous thing to say. You know, did you not realise that? But it feels a long way away when you’re there. The time difference is big. There are a couple little things that happened while I was away, like sick, like lost an A. and lost the family patents, stuff like that. And you felt completely out of it and just nowhere near what was going on. And also, you know, were quite family and friends orientated. So we’ve got look great families here, lovely group of friends, both of us. And it was kind of you’re making the decision, OK? The sunshine and the work life balance is brilliant. But if someone said to you, OK, would you like great weather or to spend time with your friends and family? That’s kind of what it ultimately boils down to for us. And, you know, no, no judgement for people who do move over there to stay because they might think, Well, we’re going to set up a great life for our kids and all this kind of stuff. And there’s obviously a hundred arguments either way. But for us, it came down to Do we want sunshine or do we want friends or family?

[00:14:02] So you got then I guess, the taste for private dentistry. Did you then come back and decide that say, I’m only going to do private

[00:14:10] Now, straight back, straight back to Wales, straight back to NHS? Did you? Yeah, I I had no desire to become a private dentist, to be a cosmetic dentist ever, right? No, I didn’t. Similar to what I said before, how I didn’t actively think against London. I never actively decided to not do it. But it just, you know, I hadn’t really given it much thought. We am the best thing about Australia was that it gave me the time to get a little bit better. So like straight into the NHS at home more and you’ve got 50 minutes. Forty five minutes booked, whatever it is, busy practise, you never have the time to, you never have enough time to get quick. If that makes sense is a bit of an oxymoron because you’re always you’re never comfortable doing it. And as soon as I went into that private system where I had loads of time and I was like slowly, slowly finding canals working my way down, then I then found that I could call my own and do a far better root canal in less time because I’d developed the skills first, and then the speed came afterwards. So that makes sense. I feel like the NHS makes you get quick before it makes you get good, whereas we should be trying to do the other.

[00:15:22] Really. Thank you. It’s very. Well, anyway, the know. So yeah, it came back to NHS. I four days a week in Wales, one day a week at practise, practise, practise at the time in Liverpool, which is a predominantly private practise. It’s got a big NHS list there and I was I was more doing more NHS than I was private there. So the story about I suppose that the first step was that my nurse said to me one morning, if you seen these composite veneers and I said, No, what are they? And she said, Show me, I don’t know who someone’s Instagram for before and after, like 10 combativeness or whatever it was. And I said, Oh, so what? Just buckle composite. This is like, Yeah. And I was like, Yeah, you want me to do it for you? She’s like, Come here? And I said, Yeah, I’ll do my lunchtime show. Ok, cool. So literally, we finished with a patient at half 12. She jumped in the chair an hour an hour. I thought it would take me through 10 teeth and the teeth were like crowded and twisted.

[00:16:21] Like it was. It was not. It was like a really hard case by half on and we’d been through shades and all that kinda stuff. She wanted the White House. She could buy half on. I had done her centrals and that was it, and I was like, Oh God, I’ve got a full afternoon of patients waiting for me now and we have to carry on. So she got up the chair. We did a full full afternoon of patients like every time I looked at issues just like these two bright white Bugs Bunny Centrals and like nothing else on the patients, must’ve been looking at us thinking, what the hell is wrong with her teeth? And then we say, I think I can’t believe we did it in gaps between patients or stayed late or something, but we managed to physically get the comms on the teeth and they looked rubbish. And I was like, Right, I need to learn how to do this. So I messaged my mate from uni saying, I’m thinking of doing a composite course, and I was like, OK, so me and Jack booked on came along. And yeah, the rest is history just went from there. It’s a

[00:17:23] Funny idea because that day, I remember that day, I remember you that day I do,

[00:17:29] Because you say that to everyone.

[00:17:31] No, no, no, no, no, no. Seriously, you clicked on that first day, but I remember that day for it being the most difficult hands on that we’d ever done. And even to today, the most difficult hands on we were the I think chicks was helping us, you know, chicks?

[00:17:47] No, it wasn’t. You’ve said this to me before it was that Dan Chong was there. I promise you, because I know chicks from uni chicks of chicks as a friend, and I promise you

[00:17:55] Would know if he was there. It was. It was done, definitely done. And we, our dad, was in the theatre. I was at the theatre.

[00:18:02] There was too. There was two in the theatre. One of them was the worst one ever. I’ve kind of I kind of put it out of my memory and nothing to do with the cause. But the facilities there was, there was there was a play going on when we got there and no staff at all like no one.

[00:18:19] So I don’t think that was my I think I think I must have been

[00:18:22] The second one. Yes, it went without a hitch, I’m sure. All right. So, so so

[00:18:29] You did the costume. And now I’m quite interested in this year because, you know, I actually mentioned this on the course. Sometimes as they look, some some people come on this course and go ahead and become, you know, super prolific composite guys. And then lots don’t lots, lots go on and don’t even start. I’m quite interested in, you know, what did you do? What was your first case? Did you come? Are you one of those cats that you know, comes comes to a course with the full intention of I’m going to start this properly and with a plan of how you’re going to go ahead. Is that you? Or, you know, what is it? What was it that you did that made you propel you into doing a lot of this work? I know it’s a long, you know, it’s a journey and so on, but give me those early things that you did from the course.

[00:19:11] Well, the first thing was to redo my nurses see what was a good start. Second thing, while I was on and I hadn’t even really thought about it, I had a patient, Nina, who she was. Basically, we were trying to whiten the teeth, but they were so sensitive and couldn’t do it and couldn’t get to shade that she wanted. And this that and the other. And she was in for like a review or something not long after it on the course. And I kind of said it wasn’t a first sorry tell a lie. One of my nurses friends, after I didn’t read it, my nurse’s teeth, one of her friends said, Oh, can I have that done? We’re like, Yeah, cool, we’ll do it. And then another one where kind of an existing patient of mine, we tried writing, couldn’t do it, couldn’t do it and there, but didn’t want traditional veneers because very scary and all that kind of stuff. So we did composites on her, and that was like the first one where I actually took a before and after really and posted it and I just posted it on my I wanted to do no. Dossey Dental posted it on their Instagram and I just shared it onto mine. And I think I did that like two or three times. And my brother said to me, You should set up a proper page for this. By the way, don’t just keep putting them on your your own page where you meet your mates are on you. And Meg at the same time was kind of saying the same thing. So I thought, OK, cool. So I set up a page and it just it grew and it started kind of very much because. People, I’m sure, will get on so-called social media, Instagram, but you tend to attract what you put out there. So because I’ve done a couple of sets of composite veneers, then people came in wanting combativeness and it became a little bit the composite veneer guy, which I didn’t want to

[00:20:44] Be literally telling me that your first two cases brought in more cases. That will happen.

[00:20:48] Yeah. Whoa. Well, to put into all you like, I don’t want that to sound like a dick thing to say. Because of those first three cases that I spoke about, two of them now have ceramic veneers. So I wasn’t exactly set in the world like.

[00:21:03] But you know, one thing is, look, we have we have to remember composite in the U.S., you know, our parent is in the U.S. The. Yeah. And they they teach composite. They’ve been teaching composite veneers for 30 years. But in the U.S., it’s kind of thought of as a transitional treatment, not not as definitive. Over here, we’ve kind of gone into, well, this is it. And it’s a bit worrying because, you know, we know it’s not going to last forever, but I wouldn’t I wouldn’t, you know, I wouldn’t think because those two are impossible. Maybe they weren’t great. Maybe wasn’t great. But OK, so you mentioned the social media, but you went and found your first case like that. Just like that straight off the course I’m going to do, I’m going to do something.

[00:21:45] Yeah. Well, it fell into my lap. I did the course because I copped up my nurses, so I had to redo hers. And then her friend said, they look amazing. Can I get mine done? You know? I mean, yeah. So that’s my top tip for anyone is to do a really crappy set of composites before you come

[00:22:01] On the course,

[00:22:02] And that will be your springboard when you’ve got to redo them.

[00:22:05] But you got you got to understand what I’m saying here, right? Because you’ve sent enough people to the course yourself, friends of yours. Yeah, they have all become big time composite guys. So what? What is it about one guy who does and one the guy does? I mean, we shouldn’t. We shouldn’t forget. You live in Liverpool,

[00:22:20] The world’s capital.

[00:22:21] Yeah, the world’s capital of cosmetic dentistry,

[00:22:24] Cosmetic dentistry, teeth whitening. Our biggest users always come from there. But you know, you know, I’m still interested in the mindset because you’re quite young. How old are

[00:22:33] You? Thirty one.

[00:22:36] Oh yeah. Not that you would have been better if you hadn’t said quite quite. You’re quite young.

[00:22:40] Yeah. And and you’d suddenly change from an NHS guy. Basically, you’re saying to a composite of an air guy out of the blue.

[00:22:49] Yeah, interesting. It happened slowly. It picked up, you know, it was a couple of years, I think. I think I set up my Instagram account maybe two and a half years ago, and I stopped the NHS probably 12 months ago

[00:23:03] As an estimate. Well, let’s listen to that.

[00:23:05] Maybe that’s what you’re saying. Maybe saying the sheer weight of patients coming to you from Instagram ended up meaning you had to do the work and you learnt on the job. On Tell Me about the Instagram thing because I watched your account go from 15000 to seventy thousand within the weekend or

[00:23:22] Something crazy,

[00:23:25] Crazy growth on that account. And anyone who hasn’t been there needs to have a quick look. Dr Matt Parsons. The amazing thing about the wonderful thing about is your face isn’t on it at all. Not a single picture of you on it. And so, you know, people like me who are camera shy people like me would always think, Well, it’s not for me, but you let the work, do do the talking. Tell me about your Instagram Story.

[00:23:48] And so I’m no, I am not a guru. Like, it has been just really good fortune and I don’t know why it did blow off one. I don’t know why it did. And I’ve asked myself and I’ve got some ideas and we spoke about this before, but I’ve got some ideas as to maybe what happened. But then other people have done similar things and it hasn’t happened, and I don’t know why. I don’t know what what the turning point is. I don’t know. But so yes, that’s what a few cases on started growing it. It started growing slowly. Sorry, should I say it’s not something that you go and grow yourself? It’s started to grow mainly with patients kind of shouting me out if you like, you know, and that that’s because I get asked this quite a lot by dentists about where the where do you start? Because I’m here with five followers and it just feels like this impossible mountain to climb to get it anywhere near the point where we want it to be. And the first thing is is ask your patient.

[00:24:44] We were all taught at uni that confidentiality is key and no one is ever going to want to know that they’ve had their teeth done. That’s not the case. Everyone wants everyone to know that they’ve had their teeth done. Maybe this is a Liverpool thing I don’t know, but I see exactly the same in Manchester and, you know, not a million miles away, but it’s a different city nonetheless. People want to tell everyone that they’ve had their teeth. It’s almost I don’t know if it’s a I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it is. But they if you say to someone or by the way, tuck me in a selfie on Instagram, then that’s not you saying that’s not you being cheeky or anything like that. If you say, you know what, your smile looks really good. I’m proud to be associated with your smile. Please show it off. Please tell people it was me. It’s a compliment to the patient, you know what I mean? So that was how it I think the ball started.

[00:25:28] Roland, you say that’s all your patients.

[00:25:32] I probably do.

[00:25:33] Yeah, I think that if you’re happy with the work, yeah. And if I should say this and I haven’t said it too, that doesn’t mean that I don’t like your teeth. Probably bleep that one out as well. Maybe you don’t mind.

[00:25:47] No, I will probably say. I probably say it to everyone. And if not, if I don’t say it’s over on, then it’s not. I haven’t consciously not said it. It probably just sometimes doesn’t naturally flow into the conversation. But yeah, that was the big thing I found, and that was where all my patients came from. And on that alone, I was doing loads of this kind of work, and it was getting to a point where I was having to like this wasn’t an OK. I can’t wait to get rid of my NHS. This was a this is a ball like I can’t do the Udas that I’ve I need to do for this this year. Do you know what I mean? They like to leave a job, I basically have to leave my job in Wales because they had an NHS contract and I had to fulfil a certain number of days and these new patients coming through. I couldn’t do these treatments and keep up with the goods that I needed to do for that contract like it got in the way, which is a ridiculous thing to say. It was a lovely thing to get in the way, but it wasn’t like a let’s see how we can grow this and then the competition. So I spoke to K about this. K Kailash did a competition one time on Instagram.

[00:26:51] Kelly Solanki.

[00:26:52] Yeah, and I messaged him because I knew him through you guys. And I messaged him and I was like, Oh, Kate, it’s such a good idea. I’m going to completely rip you off. And he just sent back, you know, laughing faces go for it, brother kind of thing. And I did it and it just blew up. But it just I think we went from within a week. We went from about 5000 followers to about forty thousand followers, and I had not. I said to make literally like not even that long before we were talking about it. And I said to it, You know, the problem with reducing my NHS commitment and doing more of this kind of cosmetic stuff is that what if it doesn’t last forever? Whereas the job security in this, you know, patients are coming in and they’re getting a consulate within a couple of weeks and we’re doing the treatment a few weeks later. And this might not be sustainable. Who knows? I can’t completely bin off my bread and butter dentistry for this. And then that competition overnight just created a waiting list that then gave me the the security and allowed me to kind of jump in with both feet really into that kind of stuff.

[00:27:58] What was the competition, would you say?

[00:28:00] It was. I put it like a post on just saying. Smart composite smile makeover competition, you’ve got to like this post comment on this post tagging three friends and all of those friends that got to be following for your entry to count and pick your favourite smile from my page. Share it to your story and tuck me in. And I think that last bit was the one that no one else had done. Everyone else was doing. Share this post or as mine was, share your favourite smile. And by this stage, we had a few cases on there and it became a little bit self-selecting. So the the girl with the big, you know, massive hair in rollers and six inch long false eyelashes and big fake boobs and whatever else she’d like the one that had, you know, S-band very square composite. So she share that her story. But a lot of her followers would be into the same stuff she was and would resonate with that. Whereas the guy who maybe is a bit more like me or you, I don’t know, would maybe see a slightly more natural case and say, Oh, that’s I like that. I’m going to share that one. And his followers would be into the same kind of stuff. So it was a weird, like targeted marketing in terms of the style of the case in a weird kind of way. I don’t know. That’s one theory on why it went well.

[00:29:20] Ok, so then so then, you know, 20000, whatever new people are following you now. Did you also then follow up with with all the people who entered the competition and say, Look, you didn’t win, but lucky for you, 10 percent off or something?

[00:29:35] I had the idea. Yeah, no, I didn’t. I didn’t need to. That was my plan. It was when it blew up. I was kind of saying, Look, we’ve got all these new enquiries and this, that and the other and what you always you always think it’s a bit too good to be true. So I said, OK, you know what we’re going to do next is that exactly that offer, like maybe a little discount for everyone went to say, thanks for answering. And we just we were too busy

[00:29:59] And people started saying, Book me in

[00:30:01] Full stop. Yeah, we were booked up after that competition six months in advance for consults to consultations a day every day for six months. And the receptionists. Had a bloody heart attack because that Monday morning, the phone just was

[00:30:19] They just they couldn’t do the job, they couldn’t do the job. You all of a sudden you just had 40000 people.

[00:30:26] It’s OK, so not all of them wanted to come in for consultation, obviously some we’re trying to win the competition when I was looking through the messages and we ended up trying to respond to as many as we could. We’ve got like a little crack team together and started going through them all, and I reckon we had five thousand enquiries of people asking questions about booking in. And maybe that ended up being a thousand people who actually went all the way through and got in touch to book in like a thousand people calling a practise in a few days. And these receptionists have been like an NHS slash mixed practise receptionist for 30 years. They can book in a toothache appointment and book a check-up, and all of a sudden it. It was just carnage. It was absolute carnage. So we set off a like an online waiting list with a colleague of mine, Mark, and it all became a little bit more automated and we could just send out like 50 invites at a time. And it would it would slow it down. And then we move towards directly booking into the diary and all that kind of stuff. But we managed it in the end. But it was. It was. It was just crazy.

[00:31:25] And what’s the story now? If today I want to see Matt for composite veneers? When when will I actually get my composite veneers?

[00:31:32] And if you put your name on the waiting list right now, where are we? Well, first of all, not an easy thing to remember. Yeah, I reckon your consultation will probably be maybe May, June, so all of that will probably not be any treatment in like August. Bloody hell. Yeah, I cocked up the way in recently. I ah, I had a bad night, so I was looking through the diary and I realised that like this was only a couple of weeks ago. In January, there were no sorry. In February, there were like next to no consultations booked. And then I went into March and went on and then April and I was like, shit like the bubble’s burst and the patients aren’t here anymore.

[00:32:11] My job, I don’t have a job, and I

[00:32:17] Spoke to Mark because he’d set up this thing for me because that the system we used, we used Dental and Dental can only search for appointments in three month windows. So every time it book beyond three months, mark it after kind of manually go in and shift that three month window along a little bit. And I said to him, Look, is there a way you may be setting up so that I can do this because I feel bad bothering you all the time? And he says, Yeah, OK, I’ll do it. So he set off this a little slider for me to change, and when I logged in, it was set to 90 days, roughly three months. So I thought, OK, that’s when people can book up until that stage from now. So I put the slider up, it’s like a hundred and eighty or whatever it was. And thought, OK, that’s just going to allow people to buckle to six months in advance. But what I was actually telling Dental was don’t book anyone in for six months, like that’s when to start looking. So we had all these. Yeah, so but we were it now. We sent out a big mass email and we had to do it all manually. And we’ve just filled the diary for a little while now.

[00:33:11] But tell me about how things have changed in the process. I don’t mean in the actually the building, the composites, I mean in the process. What was it like coming to you then? And was it like now? Is it the same? Is it straight into a consult with you? Is it a TKO? Yeah, it’s actually in Liverpool.

[00:33:28] It’s the same. They come in, it’s a half hour consultation, a brief exam. You know, we’re not taking photos. We’re not taking scans. It’s not a big, comprehensive thing. It’s it’s it’s a brief exam and a chat and move on from there, really. We I will put a training plan on with my nurse. We’ll email that out to the patient and they’ll contact us to book their appointments. So I work in Manchester, Ru, but we’ve had Xaba on here before. You know, Xavier, you know, Ru Dental. That is slick. Like that is a real, well-oiled machine. And that’s a that’s a different system. That is the patient comes in and they have, you know, time with the CTO. Then we’ll come in and they’ll see me. And by then, all the photos will already be taken and then they’ll go back to the TKO. Once we’ve maybe come up with a treatment plan and they’ll talk through the plan, they’ll go through consent to the book appointments. They’ll, you know, a heck of a lot more gets done on that, that first the first day that the patient walks through the door and it gives me time, you know, for example, let’s say they’re having some whitening done. I can. It gives me the time to take a quick scan and send it off to you guys at the consultation, which then saves an appointment afterwards and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, no, nothing. Nothing to live for, but I work in a different system in Manchester, but I think I don’t know. I’m inherently quite lazy, so I end up just going with what’s there and you make it work and it’s fine, and there are pros and cons of each way. And but we’ve not made everything like super streamlined and super slick or anything like it’s we don’t we don’t need to. It’s nice to enjoy it and just feel comfortable and work and. Talk your way through and meet nice people and look after them the best you can.

[00:35:07] Yeah, although it’s fraught, isn’t it, because you’ve got patients you don’t really know? It’s not like a normal Dental practise situation where you might have met the patient for three or four years going before you start a treatment plan and then you’ve got you’ve got wants rather than needs, which I’d much prefer once myself when I was a dentist, I said, love the idea of once I used to say to a patient, this feeling doesn’t need doing, but do you want to do

[00:35:32] It like a

[00:35:37] Picture of a stained composite? I just get off on it. I just love it.

[00:35:42] But you know, it’s seriously so

[00:35:46] I just love it. That idea, I, you know. We all understand this. This issues with cosmetic dentistry and all the issues that we all know about. But there was one part of it I really loved about it was that it almost much more honest in a way in so much as I take my car for a service. Guy says brakes need changing. I’ve got no idea whether they need changing or not, man. I mean, like, I’ve no idea. And so, you know, you need that feeling on that back to, OK, you know, there’s, you know, you’re a new dentist, and I was in a private practise for me in Kent. Yeah. So this very British place and I turn up, you need those two amalgams out. You know, there’s this look on the face. It says, Do I really? And I get it. I totally get it now. It actually made me go, go out and buy straight away and intro camera when I was an associate so I could show them. But the the idea of this doesn’t need doing, but do you want to really make just to make me very happy? I think a little buzz, a little dopamine rush when I make sure to say yes to that.

[00:36:51] And you’ve said that to me before, and I say, you don’t need to drink this drink. What do you want to see?

[00:36:59] You know so much?

[00:37:03] Do you remember that dinner we had on mini spa maker of that night?

[00:37:07] I was with Barry Terry Rogers? Yeah.

[00:37:12] I hope he’s I hope he’s listening. Derek from Australia. So, OK. The problems, the problems of treating new people. I mean, you do a nice bit on the spa makeover, but the difficulties of the patient who doesn’t know what they want.

[00:37:28] Yeah. So I think to two things what you said then first of all, I completely agree that the cosmetic stuff is it’s nice that my favourite thing about my job is that my patients want to be there as a dentist. You get told every day, multiple times, I don’t want to be here, I don’t want you to do this. And as a dentist, you don’t want to do it, your root treat. And so on top of seven and you don’t want to do it and they don’t want you to do it, but you’ve just got to sit there and get it done and it’s crap. Whereas in this, it’s doing treatment that, well, I don’t the dentist love doing it, but I didn’t. This is like patients. I’ve, you know, I’ve been so excited for this. I’ve been looking forward to this. I can’t wait. It’s like Christmas and I’m doing work that I like on them, and I know that they’re going to smile and be happy at the end rather than, oh, that was an ordeal, you know, it’s just a positive, positive day. It’s a nice, nice atmosphere. And then the second thing about about kind of that trust is I’ve I’ve gone full circle on that, you know, like I feel like, yes, I totally agree that as a GDP, especially before you built up that rapport, you get just a little hint of, you know, do I really, really need that? Because the last guy said it was fine. Are you sure you sure you’re not, you know, just need new wheels on your car? Is the old kind of thing that they say, isn’t it? When I first started doing this kind of work and get patients from Instagram, I had a I had a habit of of giving what they wanted.

[00:38:51] So I definitely tackled cases that would have been better with Ortho with composite or cases that would have been better with porcelain, with composite. And I didn’t do that out of any kind of malicious, you know, money grabbing or anything like that. It was I was too kind of too eager to keep that patient happy. I suppose. I didn’t have the confidence I would maybe say to to correct them. But like I say, with time that develops and gets better, doesn’t it? And now patients coming in who will be better treatment, treat it with something else. I’m quite comfortable saying, no, you know what comes? It’s not the right option here. Let’s look at X, Y or Z instead. And and you know what? It never, ever ruffles a patient’s feathers the wrong way. The overwhelming reaction is, you know what? Thanks so much for your honesty, because they’re they’re fully aware of the fact that they were walking in asking you for a something that was they were going to spend a few thousand pounds with you and and for you to turn on and say, No, do you know what? I don’t want to do that, so I don’t think it’s the right thing for you. There are some other options that it, you know, we worry that it’s going to be taken a certain way, but it’s not. It’s actually taking the opposite way in my experience.

[00:40:02] Well, it is. If you if you say, OK, don’t do the bonding, but just have some, just have some bleaching in a couple of edges. Yeah, but but sometimes it goes the other way, right? Sometimes you have to say to the patients. You can spend more than you’d have to spend with composite veneers. I think you’re right. I think I think there’s a level of confidence that comes with knowing your six months booked ahead, who comes it comes out in your voice that the patient can see, Look, this guy doesn’t need this work. You just you’re just saying it as it is.

[00:40:32] Yeah. And a lot of that is the patients. You know, there are there are so many better cosmetic dentists out there than me, but these patients are going to see me for one reason or another have decided that I’m the guy they want to see. So they’ve already decided that I like this guy. I trust this guy. I want him to look after my teeth. So you’ve got it’s not like new patients when when people talk about, beware of the new patient with no rapport, you do have a rapport because they’ve decided that they like you or the main thing about rapport is is trying to essentially for you to try and get to know your patient on what is right for them and for your patient to trust and get on with you. Now, that second part is already done because they’ve come in because they trust you and because, you know, so that lack of rapport in the traditional sense. I’ve not found it to be an issue genuinely. If anything, it’s the other way its patients come in and go, Oh, you know, you’ve got all these Instagram followers in a big way, unless so you must know your shit. So whatever you say, I completely get it. It’s like you’ve got the credentials to to say what? What is right for that patient? And that that can go on.

[00:41:43] That is then you’ve got to be really kind of. Hold yourself to a high professional standard there, because if you’ve got patients who are saying, tell me whatever money, no issue, you know, yeah, and you’ve got to turn around to them and say, Honestly, let’s whiten your teeth, and that’s what a little bit accomplished on two teeth, and I bet you’ll love them. You know, I mean, you’ve you’ve got to hold yourself to that in terms of the patients coming in. Yeah, the three types you’ve got, the the patient comes in. The Scouser, the stereotypical Scouser, you know, I am. I thought, you know, 10 composite veneers, please. I want the whiter shade you’ve got. I know my bottom teeth are bright yellow, but that doesn’t matter. I don’t mind if it’s a different, if it’s a different colour. Or we may took a composite veneers and I want them. I don’t want any any porcelain veneers so thrilled and I can’t afford them anyway, to be honest with you. So just 10 10 composite veneers the waist as she can and I want them to look like I’ve been to Turkey, but I just don’t want to go to Turkey and that patient. You go, OK, cool,

[00:42:44] We’ll book you in. You just give me a take off.

[00:42:47] On the other end of the spectrum is the guy who comes in with very specific, you know, I don’t like that this tooth, my overwrite three is slightly rotated. My upper left, too, is a little short. And I don’t like this amalgam filling that I can see in my in my four. And you go, OK, again, there’s a treatment plan. Let’s let’s not start going well. Have you thought about 20 veneers? Because if they’re telling you what they don’t like, just address what they don’t like and go down the route of the different ways of addressing those. It’s that middle ground that are really hard where they say they say things like, I want my teeth to look done, but not to done and white, but not to white and maybe a bit fake, but quite natural. And you’re like, I don’t know, you’re like just talking in riddles. I don’t I don’t really know where you are. And and that’s the only time I’ve been stung, not stung, but I’ve not got it. Necessarily quite right for the patient is where they’ve asked for natural. And we’ve gone, you know, quite often incisal and braziers and maybe a little bit of texture. And this, that and the other and the kind of they come back and they go, I feel like I’ve got like little gaps between the edges of my teeth and like, there’s like lines on the front of them and I’m like, Yeah, that’s natural teeth look like. And I, oh, no, I don’t like that. So it’s such a visual thing, and it’s so different from person to person that

[00:44:10] So what do you do? Do you get your portfolio out photos? Do you like?

[00:44:14] So what I do, I I start with, I’ve got a go to case. I won’t say what cases, but there’s one case I always go to and it’s like the whitest square respondents on my page and I show it to the patient. I say, Is this too much for you or do you think they look nice? And if they go, No, they look nice, I go, OK, you don’t want natural, you know? Yeah. And then I’ll kind of go down a couple from there and just try and get a bit of a bit of a picture, really and figure it out. But you know, if we’re talking about composite, then it’s OK because if you don’t get it right, you can change it. You can add, you can remove, you can soften, you can redo whatever porcelain you spend time with. The temporaries don’t, you know, get the temporaries perfect and ask in the lab to copy those so you don’t have to get it perfect in your head. As long as you’re ninety five percent of the way there, you can work on it together if you need to afterwards

[00:45:04] After your work. So beautiful. I mean, it’s interesting because it is, though it is. We use it’s funny. Enlighten if we’re trying to talk to someone who’s not a dentist and we’re trying to highlight something about smiles, it’s a standard thing across all the departments that we pull up Matty’s

[00:45:22] Page and then

[00:45:25] On the Zoom we share, that’s what a line angle is that

[00:45:29] I didn’t know that talked

[00:45:33] Everyone. We pull up Matty’s page or we want to like, point something out. If you translate Dental,

[00:45:38] Speak to something that’s copyrighted that enlightens. Had a good year. I’m going to come after you. You’ve got a few quid in the bank. I can get my hands on there.

[00:45:48] But when did you go from, you know, just, you know, putting those buckle composites on and to where we are today with this beautiful, beautiful work? Was there a moment where you felt like I’ve got it now? And what are the what are the key things? I mean, look like your case? As I said, the line angles are beautiful. You’ve got a whole podcast with jazzy Gulati on this right right angles you. The line angles are beautiful, the symmetry and yet very natural overall, especially considering you live in Liverpool.

[00:46:18] The work now because people don’t realise

[00:46:21] People, people do not get the how white Liverpool people want their teeth and you know, people don’t get it. If you don’t, if you don’t know, you don’t, you don’t know for sure. But when did you get that moment of I can do this and what are the key things you look for when you’re doing a smile? Where do you start? How do you make sure what are the key sort of milestones of a smile

[00:46:41] That make it so nice? Well, it’s kind of easy to say, first of all, because I certainly don’t feel like that about my own work. I’m quite, I think, self-critical and always look into. I’ll always look at the case and spot something. I’m like, Damn, I wish I’d seen that and thought about, of course. But in terms of that self, is it self-actualisation? They call it where you think I’ve got this? I feel like I. I drop in and out of it. I kind of I’ll do a case and I’ll be like. That went really well, that’s good, that’s good, like, I’m happy with that. And then I can look back at that case three weeks later and go, That’s shite. That is awful. Why have it on that? Why haven’t it or not? And it’s just ebbs and flows, and some cases go well in some cases don’t don’t go so well. Well, one thing obviously never forget that Instagrams a highlights reel. You know, you’re only seeing the ones that’s gone. Well, there are there are cases that don’t go great and we need to tweak and make changes to. I think, you know, now it all becomes quite second nature. The first time you access a molar, you are consciously thinking about where these canals are, whereas eventually you just drill your access cavity and there’s the canal so you don’t think about it. So consciously going back to when I used to, like, go through the steps in my mind, it’s coming round to the front of the patient often, is what I’d say.

[00:48:01] We sit behind upside down until a little bit of an angle and we are always counting mid lines and incisal planes and all that kind of stuff. So sit in the patient corner on the front, make a little tweak here or there and set in that kind of the incisal upside down T. I call it so across your psychology to be centrals and that centreline, once that is kind of set to the face, the rest of it flows quite nicely from there. All the things that I’m kind of looking for while I’m while I’m doing it, line angles on laterals. They for me got easy light angles on centrals and on laterals make or break a case and having the flow of the lateral. The lateral wants to look like it joins the central to the canine. You know, it shouldn’t look like for central incisors and then a canine. The lateral should should kind of. It should just transition from the one to the three, and it should kind of curve up this the Leon and kind of exaggerate. Yeah, exactly. And it and it should kind of curve up just as the kind of the angle, the kind of the tip of the three comes down and out and and that flow from one to two to three. For me, that’s what like I look at and think, is that quite right? Is it not?

[00:49:18] Do you do the thing that Dipesh teaches about having the three at the slightly darker shade?

[00:49:24] I try and avoid doing anything that Dipesh teaches, to be honest with you, because it’s

[00:49:28] Really it’s

[00:49:29] Never really stopped me in good stead. No, no,

[00:49:32] I did that once

[00:49:33] Or twice, and it made no difference.

[00:49:36] So but you know that headlight effect people talk about?

[00:49:38] Yeah, no. So what? I’ve learnt the hard way in terms of longevity of composites. There’s there’s three things. Number one is make sure you sandblast before you edge because there is plaque and there is tartar and calculus on these teeth, especially like the medial area of a two and stuff like that. So get all that off and you’ll be amazed how much cleaner your etch look. Your pattern looks if you’ve cleaned it properly. Second thing is cure through glycerine, because with the best will in the world, we are not going to polish every millimetre of composite that’s in that contact point. We don’t we can’t do that without creating diasporans everywhere. So if you’re leavin on cured resin in your contact points that the patients then going to go away and stay in and discover, that’s when you get that into proximal staining quite quickly. What the third thing is, keep it thin. And Andy, Andy told me that he’s big on it. The thinner you keep them, the better they look for for longer than much easier to clean. You don’t get those dark into proximal areas and stuff like that.

[00:50:41] And you also get everything looks a lot more natural because you get that slight colour gradient of the tooth shining through. You know, you get that richness. Yeah, exactly. You get a little bit less warm at the tip, a little bit warmer up at the neck. And the kind of the carry on from that is that you then naturally get the canines looking a little bit yellow than the ones and the twos, and you’ve not had to do anything to achieve that. It’s just the natural curvature of the teeth comes through your composite when you keep it really nice and thin. So I did, I did do it. I did it. At first, I couldn’t tell it. There were different shades by the time I’d done them, because, you know, by the time you’ve got a lip in the way and you get the shine through and the different thicknesses and this on the other, they just look the same to me and patient never said anything. I thought, Oh, what’s the point? It’s just slightly more complexity that feeling.

[00:51:25] How long does it take you to do six eight teeth,

[00:51:28] Eight teeth now, or probably book two and a half hours

[00:51:32] At the end of that two and a half hours? You’re just tired? Or are you not?

[00:51:35] I mean, not anymore. I used to be. I used to be wrecked. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:51:39] So what I was going to say was at the end of that long appointment, it’s almost like you’re so spent that you then bring them back in for four for sort of refinements or no, is it done?

[00:51:51] No, it’s it’s done. I’ve had refinements once or twice where some cases are hard and you’re struggling and you get into the engineering at the time so far. But I’d say it’s maybe. I can count on one hand at the time that people have come back for planned refinements and that patients come back who have wanted to make changes, and that’s absolutely fine. But in terms of me sitting there, I can go in right. We’re nearly there. I’ll get you back in a few times.

[00:52:14] So, so do you now now it’s become so sort of second nature. A. McLain talks about it as almost like meditative when he said it. I couldn’t believe you were saying

[00:52:26] Because,

[00:52:27] You know, when I was a dentist, I know if I was never so comfortable that it was meditation. Do you find that at that point now?

[00:52:35] Yeah, I love it. It’s it’s my it’s like my chill time in my day. If I’ve got composite bond, then it whether it’s edge bonding, not funny. I do a lot more edge pollen than I do composite veneers. And that especially is just so nice to do. It’s just yeah. Whereas on the on the Nash it used to be, if I had a big block of check-ups, I think sound I can switch off now and just get through these check ups. Now the consultations are where there now. I’m tired if I’ve done a few consultations in a row

[00:53:07] With some other clinical tips. What are you? What are your tips on diets to make closure?

[00:53:12] Dysnomia closure? So I do it. Everyone does it differently. I’m a free hand kind of person. I don’t love matrices. I don’t love beauty indices. I prefer to just build it as best I can. So with a diastole pick where you want your contact point to be, if you’ve got to Centrals and they’re the same with each and you’ve got a two mil gap, then you want to add one meal to the meat of each central. However, let’s say you’re bond in two to two or three to three, and let’s say that there’s a space between upper left one or two, but there isn’t one between upper right one and operate two. Then you want to close that Midland Estimer off the upper right one and increase the width of the upper left one decilitre, then close the gap. So then you’ve got the. Does that make sense? Kind of always plan your spacing. You don’t have to close every gap evenly off of each tooth. I will build freehand a palatal wall with strong composite hybrid composite. I will then put Peaty and always do it from the plate. Ok, that’s a top tip. Close distance from the palatal because otherwise you come from the first thing.

[00:54:20] You’re looking at the teeth and you’re right, I’m going to close this. I’m going to shove some CompStat on you shove it on and then you come. You’re kind of your path of insertion, if you like is from the labial and then you do it. It looks lovely and you look in the mirror and you’ve got this like weird contact point where they kind of come and meet labile and then drop back in. You’ve got a big gap because you can sort of plate them. Yeah, yeah. So kind of your first thing, get your mirror out and close them from the palatal and then build forward off that. And then you get a much nicer contact point and everything else, and I’ll build it from the palatal off one to get my centreline right. Get it level. I’ll put you over that and do exactly the same off the other tooth and I’ll take my feet off and then I don’t have a diamond to close anymore. And then it becomes a little bit of microfilm or whatever it is enamel composite, which which which

[00:55:07] Which matrix

[00:55:10] Not. So I’ll build it and then put, you know, build it, then put Peterffy over it and then build the other one, but only almost like a free hand plate or shell, I suppose. And then I’ll use like a mile or pull to then do the labial three quarters.

[00:55:24] You literally use your thumb for the for that plate or show what you use one of those tall VM or instrumental.

[00:55:31] Sometimes I use a finger, but yeah, I think finger or thumb one of the two.

[00:55:37] Which makes it all go then

[00:55:41] To be ashamed of you, because the work is great, you know, we teach place composite with your thumb. The final layer.

[00:55:51] But this is why I always feel like a bit a bit of a fraud talk on things like this because I don’t I don’t feel like I. I kind of just wing it and make it all. But I know that what I do isn’t the gold standard, but it works for me. And that’s a big take home point is that just know because someone whose work is great does it one way. There’s a really good chance that that won’t work for you because your brains don’t work in the same way. Me and Jack, my colleague and friend who you know as well, our brains are completely different and I am kind of fiddly OCD a little bit at a time. Paint brushes little IPCA. He is like, Right, let me bug as much composite on as I can, and then I’ll spend three hours on it. Or do you know, Andy and Andy obviously was lucky enough to well enough to work with Manchester, and he has this composite on the tooth in like a like a minute and it’s cured. And then it’s just the rest of the equipment is shaping and polishing back and is his results are obviously unbelievable. So I think like, see what people do and see what feels natural to you and then just play with the different ways and see what works for your for your brain. Because we’re not all programmed like Depeche. If we were,

[00:57:03] We’d all be different. I get it. I get it. I get it. It’s interesting. Yeah, because we try to do this little series called the Mind Mini Tip, and that’s exactly what I was after. It was after those little tips that, you know, things that you do differently to everyone else. And and I know, you know, as a dentist, I know we all do things differently. But it was interesting when I said that to people kind of people find it difficult talking about it. I think

[00:57:29] It’s because I think we’re,

[00:57:31] You know, the biggest you said about, you know, like, how did you what made you develop clinically? And it was it was Instagram, you know, not ashamed to say at University of Instagram, seeing the work out there, visualising what you can achieve and being like Jesus, like I, you know, that is so much better than what I’m doing. I need to book my ideas up. Or, you know, I like that about that case. I’m going to try and do that in my next case. And that was where I learnt just seeing visual pictures. And that’s where I think maybe that trepidation in terms of giving a top tip comes from because your worry is this isn’t the status quo. You know, we all as dentists, we want to be in the herd, we want to be, you know, doing what everyone else is doing. And as soon as you put your neck out there a little bit, that’s when we feel like it’s a bit of a risk. And if everyone else is closed in disasters with bio clear, you don’t want to put your head above and go, I just shook my finger behind and pack it against PCF because you’re always like, Am I missing something here? It’s not like it’s the unknown or knowns. I remember when I when I first came out at uni, my first ever composite was on a on a central and I etched it and then I just put some composite on.

[00:58:33] I my trainer was sitting with me and he was like, Oh, like, you know, Bond, James Bond. And I was like, All right, OK, so I used it. And afterwards I was like, Well, I thought it was called Dental Bond, an agent that was just enamel. And that is like, you know, I’ve qualified as a dentist and I don’t know that I’ve got to use bond if I’m in and I’m like, It’s crazy, but I’m not ashamed to say it because we’ve all got these little black spots where we just missed one two minute sentence in a lecture one time. And like, I don’t know, no shame. So. And that’s the fear. I think, you know, I’m saying, yeah, just stick a finger behind and pocket that. But then someone who knows a lot more Dipesh might listen to that and go, Oh no, that’s terrible, because x y z will happen and I go, All right, OK, well, I won’t do that again. And that’s the thing is, you just you just don’t want to look like an idiot. Well, I know I’m an idiot. So it’s fine. I mean,

[00:59:23] The amazing thing

[00:59:24] Is the

[00:59:25] Amazing thing about the Dental courses. So many dentists come out of five years of dentistry without knowing what a line angle is. Yeah, I do. You know another? It was in the course somewhere,

[00:59:38] So I remember I I showed it

[00:59:41] To somewhere in morphology

[00:59:42] Or something. Yeah, I show my mate John, you know, John as well, John Carter, a picture of some

[00:59:47] Teeth that I’d done. And he said this way, this is years ago when we work together anyway. Yeah, the nice them lad. But you know, you just work on that line angle there. And I went, Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I walked away and I thought, What is a line until I

[01:00:00] Haven’t got a clue. I don’t know what he’s talking about.

[01:00:04] And it was like when he described on the course it was a light bulb like, Oh, that’s what it is. So, yeah, exactly that. You know, we don’t all know everything.

[01:00:16] Never will we accepted it. So tell me this, did you? I remember when I was dentist, that was one thing that I used to do sort of on purpose to get, like you said, nurses want to feel like they’re doing a job for that patient. They’re doing something as far as patient care so as to get the nurse involved in much of it, you know, for. First of all, forehand Dental itself is is like that we were taught beforehand, it luckily the place I was, I was the part of the clinic that I used to work on was awful handed, but also things like for me, I’d get the nurse to choose shade. Sometimes I’d get the nurse to call core patients and say, Is everything okay? I’d make the tea for the nurse. I see this coming up in in on the group sometimes, and it’s.

[01:01:06] Do you know what, it’s really difficult because I’ve worked at a few places, I’ve seen really good management and I’ve seen lots of good management. And I think it will. I’ve got to be careful to not say the bad things because it’s a dig at someone which isn’t fair. The two practises that I work at now are both really, really well managed and well run. And you know what D’anticorps did as well? My practise was amazing. And you know, that was a big thing because Adrian was lovely. But Ravi was like, it is like disgustingly nice, like one of those people who you think is putting on, like pretending to be nice. And then the more you know, you’re like, Oh, geez, no, this guy is actually just this nice. And the nurses would just have done anything for him, like they just loved him. And Ravi now works at room with us as well, and everyone absolutely loves him. And don’t underestimate how important it is to like to just be nice. Just be lovely to people like if you’re barking orders and telling people and pulling people for chats that they don’t want to have and stuff like that, it’s got to be done.

[01:02:08] Sometimes, of course it has. But if the vast majority of the time when you’re able to be, if you’re just a nice human to people, then you get that two way respect and you also open up. You don’t want your nurses to be or your admins have to be like, Yes, sir, no, sir. Let me do whatever you say. That’s a terrible that is like the opposite of, you know, black box thinking and all that kind of stuff. You want that you want to turn around, you go, Do you know what might be in a deck there? Or actually, you did that case and you use that composite, but you should use that one. Do you know what I mean? You want them to be empowered to give that feedback? I think the traditional model of dentist or nurse down there is load of crap. And if you have dentists, a nurse doing different roles within the same ultimate aim, then you put yourselves on on that level and everything, just you get a lot more out of both of you and it works better for everyone.

[01:03:03] Yeah, you’re totally right, I mean, at the same time, there is an issue about if you were the owner, would you be able to be as friendly? I mean, I I am with with with my team, but then I’ve got.

[01:03:16] Yes. And this is the thing. I’m only I’m

[01:03:19] Only saying this. I’m like Georgie management, having never managed. So yeah, basically what that last 20 minutes of technical issues and everything just delete that because that is not a valid opinion on anything.

[01:03:36] Tell me about I’m going to move on to darker areas. It’s your speciality. Tell me about, yeah, tell me about your your worst day at work. Your most difficult patient.

[01:03:49] My worst mistake. My worst I to come to mind straightaway. The first one was and you know, it’s fresh from memory because it’s New Year’s Day to day New Year’s Day. A few years ago, I’d I hadn’t paid my registration. So 31st of December, I thought we were having a house party. That night, I was like, I’ll pay it later. I’ll pay later, pay later. At one point, logged in, put my card details in. Thought cool done right. Let’s carry on with the party and woke up the next morning just thought to log in and check. And it hadn’t gone through whether I’d come out of it too early or declined or whatever. I have no idea what happened, but I hadn’t paid it. And God, the worry that that feeling on New Year’s Day, because no one you can’t talk to anyone on New Year’s Day. So you’ve got this like twenty four hour silent treatment from everyone who knows any answer about how that are going to be able to work for the next three months. You go online, first thing you do Facebook forums searching for it and the stories people like Karl worked for six months. You have to reset these exams and these competencies and you’re like, Oh my God, I’ve got, I’ve got a family, I’ve got a mortgage to pay like we’ve got. We were getting married that year and oh, that was that was a really horrible day.

[01:05:01] But if anyone’s listening to this, well, it will be. It’ll be gone by then. But it was fine in the end. I was off the register for like five days, but now forever on my registration. It always says current registration period started in like five years after I graduated, which is really annoying. Oh, how funny. My worst on clinically was when I was not long out of itI, really, and this guy came in a classic NHS scenario. It lost pretty much the whole of the crown of his tooth and just wanted me to do something. And I was like, Oh, you know, couldn’t afford kind of elective no post and crown and all that kind of stuff. He’s like, Can you actually put a fill in on it? And I was like, I’ll try. So, you know, good old go and get the pin kit out, put a couple of pins in one of the pins lingual or whatever it was drilled a little pinhole. No problem. Got the pin drill. Put it in and I put my foot down to the pedal and they kind of they spin in and then they shear off the shank. So I put my foot down and it just the pin bit. The shark say it was the pin bay just disappeared and I was like,

[01:06:03] Uh, what was

[01:06:05] That? And you know, that like, plunge in your stomach and that sinking feeling in that heat and you go, Oh God, where’s this gone? I’m thinking in my head that’s gone into the pulp. This is a nightmare. What have I done? What I’ve ever done? Take a quick x ray. It’s come up the side. It’s gone through the tooth and the tooth into the PDL. Yeah, explain it. Tell the patient what happened, dad, understand any kind of, you know, he knew it was a bit of a last hope anyway. And blah blah blah. But I really like that affected my mental health for, I would say, a week. Like, I couldn’t stop thinking about that. And lastly, because it was so everything even tore, everything we do on a daily basis is to try and save the tooth and see the such precious little things that you bend over backwards and risk your neck and your sanity to save them. And then by just. Doing something wrong. I had just written this one off of the bin. It was a horrible feeling, really, really awful.

[01:07:00] I’ve been there. I perforated in in Dental school and I know what you mean. I still sometimes think about that moment, the blood coming through. But I still, I’m not going to let you off with that. That’s just too easy. What you just said. My.

[01:07:15] No, I’ve done absolutely loads. I heard you podcast. You did with a lady and a messenger afterwards. I’ve done exactly the same, you know, taking out the the lower, whizzy and the shank of the bird earnings on the patient. Yeah. So I was I was made. I’m done.

[01:07:28] Yeah, yeah, I’ve done them all, honestly.

[01:07:30] We could do another podcast. I was mid-end on a friend of mine and a colleague came in and said, Can you give me a hand with this tooth? And I was like, Yeah, OK, I’ll wait there. A second run through. I happily away bone, you know, whipped out whatever. And as soon as I kind of came out the corner of the mouth just like drooped open and I was like, I was.

[01:07:52] Thankfully, the nicest patient.

[01:07:53] I was like, Right, I’m so sorry. I’ve I’ve cut your lip a little bit whilst trying to get this out. A couple of stitches in it and we’ll see how it goes and hopefully it’ll be OK. And he’s like, cool. And he came back a few weeks later and it healed and fine and not really scarred or anything. So it wasn’t really a problem. Broken files, loads of them perforations, loads of them.

[01:08:12] Now, have you ever had a patient? You’ve done a small maker before and they sat, I like it and you can’t, you know, like, you have to start all over again. One of those?

[01:08:21] And. Ok. A few examples of this without naming names, I had a patient who said, I whatever you do not know it wasn’t that it wasn’t. I said, would you like your top two or three white and bottom teeth? And she said, No, I’d like to be the same shade and I’m like, OK, cool. So we shade marched and we did it, and it was really nice result, really nice result. And I was made off and she was happy, went home, spoke to boyfriend. I think if I remember correctly a little while ago now who said, Oh, they’re not very white, are they came back and said, Oh, I want the whiter. And. That was the first one that I can remember where it was like basically saying, I don’t like my teeth. So and which is fine. You know what, Polish and back a little bit didn’t didn’t take all the comps off sandblasted, put a lighter shade on fine don. Not not seen since ones where the patient up and gone, but I don’t know if I don’t know if I like them. And then there’s there’s this a.

[01:09:18] What’s your standard response, go live with them for a week, and then

[01:09:21] I say it’s the patient’s normal normally at the start of the appointment. It depends on the patient. You can pick your patients, some patients, you know that they’re going to just love them, you know, you know that this is some patients. You just get a bit of a sixth sense for it and often for those patients. I’ll say at the beginning, you know what? You’ve got high standards or very specific or you’re a bit funny about your teeth or whatever it might be. I’m not going to make any changes to these today. I’m going to put them to where I think is right. If you’re not sure of them, that’s OK. Don’t worry, we can always make changes. But what I don’t want to do is to essentially polish the back to your natural teeth, and it was a complete waste of time. So the rule is at the end of the day, we’re not making changes. But next week, this is the point with your name on it and we’ll make all the changes that you want. And the reason I do that is because I had a patient who essentially I did slip on the edge bond in three to three. She essentially made me polish them all back to enamel by saying, I don’t like that, but I don’t like that bit really, really particular with what she said. Lovely, lovely patient by the. We don’t have this line. Everything first. Really one of the nicest patients, but really particular and then kind of essentially got to a point where they looked exactly the same and then came back and was like, they look exactly the same. And I was like, Yeah, they do. So then we redid them. In the second time, I said, OK, I’m not making any changes today, but next time.

[01:10:35] And she came back and she did want to make a little tweaks to them, but it was a lot more controlled. And, you know, she knew a lot more what she wanted. And I’ve had patients a couple of times where I’ve had this chat and they’ve got they’ve gone OK and they’ve gone to the car. This was this and wants I can remember it was quite recent. And then she came back in and said, Honestly, I just feel like they are too square. I think it was. I said, OK, come in. Let’s at least soften them a little bit for you. So obviously there’s exceptions to every rule, aren’t there? Yeah, but you can’t. You just have to be really open with your patients and honest. And if it’s in composite fine, you know we can change to our heart’s content. It is. I do not mind spending the time doing this. You spent a lot of money and you see them. We’re not going to stop until the perfect for you, so you let me know what you want to do and I’ll do it. Porcelain is tricky, but then porcelain, you’ve got the whole you do a try and first you’ve had the temporaries on, you’ve made the patient aware. You know what, if this isn’t quite right, this is a hell of a job to do it, so be a hundred percent certain with me that these are right for you. You’ve gone through a lot more words. Composite, it’s a bit more, you know, let me do what I think is right for you, and then you let me know what you want, what you want to tweak.

[01:11:46] But you’re a super confident guy. But I mean, do you do that, you agree. I mean, you are definitely super confident.

[01:11:56] I don’t. I don’t. I don’t feel it.

[01:11:59] Really, because some of the things you say, you know, it sounds like so simple the way you say it, oh, it’s got to be just got to be yourself. You know, a lot of people find difficulty, you know, with that that simple notion of just being themselves with the patient, you know, with you. There’s a few things that with you come completely. Second, nature, for instance, that first time you lecture and I said to you, What other lectures have you given it? You said, it’s my first one. I was like, You were strutting around with a bottle of beer

[01:12:34] Like

[01:12:34] Like as if you own the stage where you know, you had the crowd laughing. You know, it was it was just brilliant. Brilliant performance. First time on the stage, first time. Where does the confidence come from? You’ve always been confident.

[01:12:51] I think in some ways I am confident in other ways I’m not. I don’t really know where it comes from, I suppose just. It’s the same thing. Maybe, you know, or chicken or the egg, we were confident kid who made the most of that or were you messing around with that? I don’t know. But then I’m no more confident than my brothers or my friends. I suppose it’s probably just it’s just the way, and it’s an impossible question for me to answer, really, because and this is why this is a problem. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t feel like I am particularly confident. If you’re telling me that I am, I trust your opinion and it’s a nice thing to hear and I’m grateful that you say it, but I don’t even know that I am, let alone give you a reason for why I am, if that makes sense.

[01:13:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But but you remember being like, I don’t know, unsure of yourself. You seem so sure of yourself, you know, like for for a young guy, sometimes even when you’re not talking about teeth, you know, you seem so sure of yourself. Yeah.

[01:13:53] I don’t know. I mean,

[01:13:54] The president, you went for president of that society thing here. I wouldn’t have never have done that. Never, ever, ever have done it. So called.

[01:14:03] Well, why wouldn’t you have done?

[01:14:05] Because I’m like, if I go to a room, I’ll I’ll always stand on the side of the room. I won’t get into it. Contrary to what you might think, you know, at the end of day, you’ve got to remember we see each other at many somehow make it my event. Even even at my event, I’m quite shy. You believe it or not of meeting people, whereas you don’t seem that way. You don’t seem that way at all, man. You seem like you just fully confident. Have you ever done like drama? Have you done that?

[01:14:33] No. But. So like, do you think, could you pinpoint where that lack of confidence in certain issues come from? Or do you feel like that’s normal and other people are confident? Do you know what I mean? It’s difficult to when you know we’re all our own normal, so you can only really explain a reason behind something that’s a deviation from the following sense. Proper politician.

[01:14:57] It’s interesting. No, no. You’re right. You’re right. It’s interesting because because I don’t know if you listen to my episode with Alan, the Cornish dentist, I did. I said the same thing to him, and he basically said the same thing that you’re saying. It’s like you’re saying, doesn’t realise he’s confident. And then when I pushed him on it, he kind of went well, I guess, team sports or whatever. Then and then he got got back in touch with me the next day and he said, Oh, now now I’ve been thinking about times in my life and and now maybe, maybe it is very amicable for the guy. I don’t know.

[01:15:29] Guess? Is this what therapy is like? I have a love island. I’ll seek some 50000 is the guy. He’s such a nice guy, I suppose, because I suppose my

[01:15:40] Parents are fairly confident. My friends are confident and it’s just what

[01:15:45] Are your parents to do? And I ask you this.

[01:15:47] My dad is well. He was trained as an electrician and he’s kind of a project manager now. And my mom is a teaching assistant as a teaching assistant.

[01:16:01] So teaching assistant, did you? Did she ever teach in a school that you were at?

[01:16:05] No, she only started doing that. She she used to work as though she was a cashier in a bank, and then she had me stop working, kind of, you know, stay at home, mom until she worked part time. She did like Saturdays in the bank. I think I remember when I was a kid, but, you know, mainly at home. And then when my little brother, because there’s a big age gap between me and Josh, my my second brother when he started primary school and she had no more kids at home during the day. That’s when she took a job at his primary school. So her first job was like in a classroom with him. And she’s kind of she’s in a different school now, but. And that’s when it started,

[01:16:41] And the needs of your brothers, consider dentistry,

[01:16:44] Though, purely like. Probably out of stubbornness more than anything, so Mike Mike’s a doctor might is his GP training now and when he was writing his personal statement and all that kind of stuff, I was like, Well, you know, have you not thought about that six hours in what would have been like, second year Dental school? And he was like, No, I’m not doing the same as you kind of thing. I want to do medicine. I’m just going to go the opposite way. And now that me and my kids do medicine and dentistry kind of the health, if you like. Josh is Josh is like, Well, I’m not doing anything like that. I’m going to do law. So now Joshua Leaders doing law and of course, the barista. So it’s probably, probably a bit stubbornness, but also quite quite different people. I was always like little hands on things in health and like as a young kid, it was always painting and drawing and then up to like GCSE, I did after GCSE. I did like woodwork GCSE, and they were the subjects where I really enjoyed them and I was like, not truly good at them. And I just got on well in those classes and it didn’t really feel like school to me, whereas Mike was interesting. Mike Mike hated all that kind of stuff like his handwriting. That’s why he’s such a good doctor. His handwriting looks like a spider’s just run across the page with ink on its legs.

[01:17:50] How interesting do you say that man? Because so often, you know, getting into a deep conversation with Dipesh? And he keeps going back to woodwork at school as as as one of the key things. You know, it’s so

[01:18:04] Transferable in terms of that kind of that three dimensional spatial awareness creating something with your hands, isn’t it? And it’s different to, you know, like woodwork, especially like that is the one that I feel most similar to from school, not painting or anything like that. That’s two dimensions. You’re not thinking about things from different angles, not like making models where you just follow an instructions and remember the classic like you have to take air fix models to you, interview

[01:18:31] This stupid thing and

[01:18:34] Detail. It was like, Right, I’ve got a piece of wood and I’ve got a saw and a chisel and a file and and I want to make this piece of wood look like that. And it’s kind of the same. You’ve got a blob of composite and you want to make it look like that.

[01:18:46] Let’s look at what you reckon you’re going to be in five years time, you’re going to have a practise, we’re going to do. What’s the future look like for you? Did you like the taste of teaching that you’ve had so far?

[01:18:58] Um, honestly, I don’t really know, because if you’d have asked me five years ago where I’ll be now, it’s nowhere near. What I’m doing now. It was never a conscious decision, and I’m I’m kind of I’m I’m so sorry, I’m just dodging your questions. This is sort of horrible. But no, not actually. I will answer it. But if I decide, OK, in five years, I want to be XYZ at the risk in my mind then, is that I pass up other opportunities and other avenues that are open and all the things that I enjoy that I didn’t expect to enjoy because this is my goal. You know what I mean? Whereas if you just kind of almost say, I’m going to take one step at a time and each of those steps, I’m going to make the right step based on the information that I have, you’ll end up in the right place for you. And it will happen naturally and then you won’t end all kind of the tortured the guy who should have been and ended on test, but went down the route of Prav since then and always wishes he’d been done so that the dentist who wishes he’d been a doctor kind of thing because you, you don’t me with you.

[01:20:02] Let me

[01:20:02] Make sure. Let me make sure I’m understanding you clearly here. You’re not saying that there is a five year plan that you’re not sharing with us because you don’t want to disappoint us, the audience. You’re not saying that there is no five year plan.

[01:20:15] There is no five year plan. There are things that I know. There are things I love doing. So for example, teaching, yeah, I love that. You know, I’m very much helping Dipesh on your course, which is absolutely which is the way it should be and what I really enjoy it, and I really love that little light bulb moment or when, you know, because I think, yeah, we’re all going to which I love that. I love that side of things. I love helping people I love, I love. My favourite is messages on Instagram. Like, You know what? I listen to your podcast with jazz, and I’ve done this case and they’ll send me a photo and they’ll be like, my line angles are way better. And I’m like, Yes, I love that. That is a cool thing. So I really like teaching and feeling really good feeling. I think business ownership practise ownership is definitely a way to go, but I don’t necessarily know if I want to go and set up a squat on my own kind of thing because I feel like dentistry as a hobby. I’m really, really lucky in that I don’t feel like I’m going to work. I feel like I’m going to do something that I really like doing.

[01:21:17] And my worry, if I set up a practise with all the stress and everything that comes with it is that I would maybe detract from that if I was having to focus more on other things that I didn’t feel as passionately about. Also, you’ve got, you know, what’s your why? Why are you doing that? I love my job. I earn enough money to live a lovely life, and I come home when I forget about work. And like, we’re talking before about being on a level with the nurses rather than having to kind of manage things differently. I like that. I go into work and the nurse and my friends and and reception of my friends and the other dentist are my friends, and I know it’s a lovely, lovely place to be in. So practise ownership. It feels like the right thing to do because I do enjoy the idea of like maybe setting protocols in place and watching something grow and everything else. But maybe it’s a bit of a middle ground like in a partnership with the right people or that kind of thing. I don’t I don’t.

[01:22:10] Do you do any back teeth at all?

[01:22:13] Try and avoid them. Not out of like snobbery, I just really don’t like them. Like, I hate asking patients to open a bit wider. My and I’ve got really fat fingers like proper sausage fingers and like doing back teeth isn’t suited to me. Yeah. So what? I will do them, I’ll do them. You need a bit of variety.

[01:22:32] Don’t you know what I was going to say was like, you know, for someone of your age to be in the position you’re in, it would be really not sort of self-aware to not sort of appreciate, you know, be thankful. Have gratitude for for where you’ve landed, you know, you. Yeah, and I don’t want to make it sound like it’s luck only. But but I, you know, it is like you complete look, but it’s not. It is what everything is like. Everything is like if you to look at it that way. But I’m. My point is that you’ve managed to get yourself quite quickly, quite early on in your career, in a situation that most people would be really happy to be in. I mean, I know I would if when I was a dentist, if you told me you would only treat front teeth, there probably would be no enlightened right now.

[01:23:22] I just I’d just be doing that.

[01:23:23] I’d be treating front teeth as it ended. That said, that said, even this will become boring. You know, most jobs become boring. You know, it’s a weird thing to say because dentistry such a personal thing, it’s like saying you’re going to get bored of it means that you’re going to get bored of humans, which is unlikely. But the future, the kind of guy that you are, the confidence that you have and and the outside the box thinking, I know that you do. And when we discussing the next version of Enlightened and you come out with something and I’ve been I’ve been racking my brains for eight years about something.

[01:24:00] And then you’ll say something and saying, Oh yeah, that’s a good idea.

[01:24:05] Yeah, it would be a shame if you didn’t do something where you were the designer of the thing. You know what I mean?

[01:24:11] Yeah, I mean, and I would actually I would love that, but I would love exactly. Like you say, it’s a long career. And you know what’s funny? I was always like a staunch GSDP. Like, You know, are you going to specialise? Is the question everyone gets asked. My answer was, no, I don’t want to. I didn’t go and do an Saaho year because I knew that I didn’t want to do speciality training, so there was no benefit to me and know that kind of stuff. And then I’ve ended up essentially specialising in something that it’s not a specialism like a specialism specialism, but I’ve I’ve niche down really early, which is something that I never wanted to do. But I’m absolutely loving it. And I think the reason that I love it is because it’s happened naturally based on what I love doing. And if the next thing that comes along naturally falls into place, then I’ll probably love that as well. But I love my job at the minute, everything about it. So why would I consciously go, OK, this job? That’s great. Let’s stop this and let’s do this instead, because the grass is always greener. Yeah.

[01:25:04] So have you always been a content guy or you’re not even saying that you just think you’ve land on your feet and you want to enjoy it?

[01:25:11] And I think I’m a content guy generally. Yet you know what I am. And whereas before I was talking about the whole confidence thing almost saying this feels, you know, I don’t really even know that I am. This is something I do know that I’m a naturally very content person, which could also read as I’m a very lazy person and I’m happy to just do whatever’s going on at the time. But, you know, I’m kind of I’m happy with my lot and I’m really lucky for the people that I’ve got in my life and the lovely things have happened to me and the lovely job that I’m allowed to do and the great little baby that I’ve got downstairs and the brilliant wife and great family and great friends. And and they’re all a thousand times more important than whether or not my line angles are a bit shit on that last case. So I think keeping things in perspective has always got. I remember at my Dental School interview, I got asked, How would you cope with the pressure of the job? And I said something on the lines of, I don’t really know if it is pressure because, you know, pressure is like a fireman running into a building. And it’s not really pressure. It’s just teeth. With hindsight, what terrible answer. But that is like, that’s how I feel. It’s, you know, there’s no real. The stress and pressure is easier when you put into perspective and know what your actual important things are.

[01:26:27] Yeah, and you know, contentment, it’s it’s an undervalued thing. Somehow, it would sort of programmed to think that you’ve got to never be contented. You’ll never get anywhere, if you can. It’s a weird I don’t know if it’s like a city of London kind of, you know, that kind of business man who works all night, all day, all night. But contentment is so undervalued. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s all about being happy, right?

[01:26:51] Yeah. If you find contentment, drive success, like if you can find what makes you happy, then you’ll end up doing that and end up being successful. So like, look at Mini-SAR makeover. I just love coming back to that course because I just love being with you guys and it’s a fun weekend away and and I’m not doing it for like any personal gain or that kind of. You say the city of London, you know, let’s go here and let’s further our career and what’s in it for me. I just do it because I love it. But it has then naturally led onto me meeting some amazing dentists. Me learning loads more because I’m seeing the lectures again. Me. And you know, when you teach something, you learn it even better. So the benefits come without ever doing it because there’s benefits.

[01:27:34] Yeah, for sure. For sure. Let’s wrap it up. But it’s been. It’s been lovely to speak to you. You made a mockery of my final question.

[01:27:47] It’s just so you. The is now, buddy. You made a mockery of pace.

[01:27:55] Final question. It’s such a shit question, right? But let’s start with Travis. Final question. More darkness. Yeah, a little bit. You’re you’re on your deathbed. You’ve got your nearest and dearest around you. What a three pieces of advice you’d give them.

[01:28:16] Right, you know what? Honestly, I listen to the podcast. And whenever I listen to these answers and I’ve never actually thought about what I’d say, which is ridiculous because I knew it was coming on. Three pieces of advice, I would say never lose sight of what the actual important things in life are like the the brand of your T-shirt or the make of your watch, that doesn’t really matter, like if the people around you. Well, if that note, you know, that’s actually not a fair thing to say, because for some people, they do take joy from that and that is absolutely fine as well, but don’t kind of conform to what someone else thinks is great. So if you’re surrounded by people who are dripping in Louis Vuitton and you’re not interested in it, don’t try and get your happiness from buying loads of Louis Vuitton to try and keep up with them. Find what? What makes you happy and stick with that? Number one number two is travel. Go in like, see the world. It’s a it’s a it’s a big old world and we’re in one little country, one little city, whatever it might be. You know, go and properly travel. Like, take a year out, two years out, kind of travel.

[01:29:30] Yeah. You know what I’d add to that travel young. Yes. Because travelling, travelling five star or whatever travelling old is not the same thing. Yeah, it’s it’s all well and good. I go, go and get a nice Thai food in Paquette or something. It’s not the same thing as when you get to pocket with a backpack aged 19. It’s a different situation altogether.

[01:29:52] And just like just rocking off in Peruvian towns who don’t speak any English, there’s one lady we were trying to order Pringles and she was stood there and she had a tube of Pringles behind her. And we were like Pringles, like points in Pringles, OK? And she was like, Yeah,

[01:30:10] Read Lost Inglis, really? Could you not have guessed that? Like, that sounds so similar. But yeah, like kind of go go to somewhere.

[01:30:20] It’s really uncomfortable with no money with either on your own or someone that you love and just enjoy it

[01:30:27] For those travels you did in South America. Was that totally different time to your Australia trip or did you? Was that all part of one thing?

[01:30:34] Yeah, no. We took like two years out, so we left. Yeah, we went to Australia and then. We came up to the UK like twenty two months later, something like.

[01:30:46] Well, yeah, it’s good.

[01:30:49] And I’ll address that one, but that’s bad third thing. Go and do the mini smile make over course, it’ll change your life.

[01:30:57] The news that such a loser? No, no, no. Stay away from Payman Langroudi on a night out. He is only going to be bad news.

[01:31:11] Are you ready? You ready to answer my fantasy dinner party question now that you’ve made a mockery of it? Three. Three guests that are alive. Fancy dinner party.

[01:31:22] My first one would be the guy who owns Red Bull.

[01:31:26] Shut up. My second will be your grandma in China. I think I was think I was lonely because I was I was listening today and I was thinking about it

[01:31:42] Today and I was struggling to narrow it down. I’d love to sit down for dinner with Dave Grohl, lead singer of the Foo Fighters. He’s just got such a like a what seems like a passion for life, and I’ve recently read his book and all that kind of stuff. John Lennon. I would love to hear his views on things and stuff like that. And Freddie Mercury. Oh, imagine that part

[01:32:08] Three, three musicians there, yeah. Oh, do you know what, right? You know, what could I get a hell of a party, right? Could I

[01:32:13] Cheat? Could I have a fourth? Because the fourth one would then be my wife? Because imagine going to that dinner party and then not having had anyone there? Yeah.

[01:32:23] Wink, there’s the brownie points. But imagine coming home from that dinner party

[01:32:31] And not having someone that was there with you that you could talk about it with.

[01:32:34] It’s interesting you say that. I mean, it’s a beautiful thing to say, but you know, when you travel alone, have you ever travelled alone? I went with Mike.

[01:32:42] No, I haven’t. Really haven’t. Really. I’ve been

[01:32:44] Little places. But OK, forget. Have you ever been to a restaurant alone?

[01:32:50] Yeah, yeah. I’ve eaten alone. I picked a loads. Yeah. Most nights, you know? Yeah, I actually

[01:32:59] I actually love going to a restaurant by myself. I think it’s one of my favourite things to do.

[01:33:04] Yeah, I did it.

[01:33:06] I mean, I’ve got to have headphones. I’ve got to have headphones to tell you, I’m not quite by myself, am I? I’m listening to something. I’m listening to a podcast or something. But I love being by myself sometimes, and that story of having someone to share it with. I have there’s been times where I’ve been on a just a simple thing made up, you know, I’ve been on a road where it just looks unbelievable. You know, going through even in the UK in between, you know, trying to go from your side of the country to the other side, there’s some there’s some hills, there are really beautiful. But. And that question of I’m looking at this thing and there’s no one here to share it with me has crossed. My mind has crossed my mind. Yeah, but there is a catharsis in it. As long you know, there’s a there’s something about, you know, not sharing with someone doing it on your own. There’s something about that. We’ve got we’ve got quite deep there, always. It’s been lovely to have you back. I look forward to seeing you look forward to seeing you in Newcastle.

[01:34:09] Lovely talking to you, mate, and I’ll I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. It’s really close.

[01:34:13] Yeah, yeah. Thank you. This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki. Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole

[01:34:36] Thing and just a

[01:34:38] Huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you’ve got some value

[01:34:46] Out of it if you did get some value out of it. Think about subscribing and if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks. And don’t forget our six star rating.

 

[00:00:00] Patients don’t always know what they want, they they think they do, and they come in asking for something. And you know, it’s your job to actually educate them and actually show them that really what they’re asking for is not going to look right because you don’t want to start a treatment where inside something’s telling you all, you know. You know, you always want to have total confidence in what you’re doing from the very start, because again, from experience, the cases that I can think of where I’ve done what the patient wanted and actually it didn’t look right. And I knew from the start it wasn’t going to look right, but I almost wanted to do it for them, for them to say, Oh no, you were right.

[00:00:47] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki

[00:01:05] Gives me great pleasure to welcome Dr Tom Crawford Clarke onto the Dental Leaders podcast, kind of a series now where we’re doing, we did some sort of very established practise owner types. We’ve done some very young just out of university ties, but now a kind of a series. We just had Alan Bergin on as well kind of 10 years qualified in my world. That’s still a new boy. But 10 years out, you know, the kind of people who might be senior associates may be starting to think of opening their own places that that sort of bit in your career. Hi, Tom. Lovely to have

[00:01:40] You. Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

[00:01:43] Tom, we normally start with back stories. I know you’re from a family of dentists. Your mum and your sister.

[00:01:50] Is that right? That’s right. Well, it goes back a bit further than that. So my my grandfather on my on, my dad’s side, he was the first dentist in the family. And I think what was amazing was that my mum, when she was three or four years old, actually used to see him as her dentist. And listen, did they know that, you know, 20 years later that they’d they’d be marrying the son of the dentist that she was seeing? So then my my mother is a dentist, her brother to my uncles, a dentist, his sons and my cousin is a dentist. And then I’ve got my older sister was a dentist and my younger sister actually was a dental nurse for for some time, she moved away from dentistry and and actually has come back, and she’s now my full time TCO, which is amazing.

[00:02:37] So was there ever any doubt that you were going to do dentistry or wouldn’t? When did you actually decide?

[00:02:42] Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I was 15 16 at school. I enjoyed sciences. I enjoyed sport. So I was doing biology, chemistry, maths and and P.E. for my A-levels. And it was a decision whether, you know, medicine, dentistry, physiotherapy. I was quite heavily involved in rowing at the time. So again, that was always also a consideration. Whether I been going professional probably wasn’t ever on the agenda, but whether I was actually going to take that more seriously. After I left school, my dad was in property and he sort of said at that time, Really, it’s not the area you want to go into. It’s very uncertain. And obviously we had a nice lifestyle growing up and my mum definitely had given me the information, shall we say, to choose dentistry as a career. And I certainly haven’t. I haven’t looked back whether I’d want my daughters to go into dentistry or not. I don’t know yet, but for me, it’s been a great profession so far, so I suppose it was always maybe it was in the blood, maybe it’s something in the water, you know? But yeah, dentistry was it was kind of it was kind of what I was set out to do. I think from the very start,

[00:03:51] You grew up in

[00:03:52] Winchester, in Worcester, where this is where the sauce comes from. No, no. It’s fine. No offence taken.

[00:04:01] So what were you like as a kid? Very sporty.

[00:04:05] I was very much into sports. I have, you know, pretty good, pretty good hand-eye coordination. My my foot to eye coordination wasn’t quite as good, so football was definitely not on the cards you to play a lot of rugby. And then I think at 14, my my rowing coach at the school sort of said to me, You know, you’re quite tall. Have you tried your tried your hand at rowing? And I hadn’t even really ever considered it, to be honest. And I still don’t know what made me go down to the first training session. And then, yeah, it just it just took off from there. So training twice a day, most days of the week. It definitely shaped me as a person because, you know, trying to balance that with school was quite tricky.

[00:04:51] And do you still run now?

[00:04:52] Do you know what? When I left school at 18, I was national champion. I think five or six years in a row I’d ride for Great Britain and went to Bristol University and never have sat sat in a boat again. So it’s still, you know, on certain mornings when the river is beautifully calm and the sun shining. I think to myself, Oh, I wouldn’t mind getting out on a boat, but it’s weird. I’ve almost convinced myself now I’d be terrible and I just couldn’t. I just couldn’t face it. So, yeah, not set, not set foot in a boat since

[00:05:28] I know what you mean, though, I used to play quite a lot of tennis when I was a kid, and the idea that I’m not going to be as good as I was back then breaks my heart. I still want to play anymore.

[00:05:39] The funny thing is, you know, you probably would be better than most people. But yeah, it’s funny what you tell yourself.

[00:05:47] So then you why Bristol was it, had you been there, you know? Did you have any connexion to the town?

[00:05:53] I didn’t have any connexion. I mean, I was from Worcester, so yeah, but yeah, it’s nearby and it’s an hour’s drive. And I’d applied. I think I applied to Manchester, Leeds, King’s, Cardiff and Birmingham. I think and obviously Bristol. And I just I just really liked it when when I went round, it was quite a small university. At that time, there was about 60 sixty or 70 to the year and it just had a great feel about it. And you know, the thought of being able to drive home at weekends and my washing was obviously at that time of my life, quite quite important. So, yeah, beautiful city.

[00:06:32] And and I can imagine as a student, it must be a wonderful place to study. I was in Cardiff and we used to go over sometimes and I go, I go regularly now, obviously. How were you as the Dental student? You took the class or not?

[00:06:47] I certainly wasn’t top. I hopefully wasn’t the very, very bottom I was very much in in the middle there. I mean, there was some ropey years maybe where I probably could have worked a little bit harder. But yeah, I definitely didn’t excel. I mean, there were certain areas where I remember being quite good at orthodontics, but it’s just weird, isn’t it? The the way that you’re measured is obviously how you perform in the exams. And I think if you have that kind of ability to learn for an exam and answer the questions correctly, you can be perceived as a better student than maybe the work the work you’d put in would imply. I’m sure I’m sure a few of the tutors or the teachers at Bristol probably were keen to see the back of me. But I said, I

[00:07:33] Mean, I’ve got an uncle to uncle, so dentist. But I wasn’t near them around the time they were in different countries. When you when you went into dental school with your mum and your sister and all that, you know your granddad, you said your grandfather. Yeah, so did you did you have an outlook on the kind of dentist you were going to be even as you were being in dental school? Is there pressure to improve on the generations?

[00:07:59] I don’t ask. It’s a good question. I don’t know. I don’t really ever felt that. I never felt there was pressure there. I think dentistry has changed so much. And certainly when my grandfather was a dentist to now, it’s it’s a different profession. You know, he it was just fully NHS, and he was telling me that, you know, they opened the practise and, you know, queues of people down like down the road to see them. And obviously, you know, he had a very good living. And I think for doing not doing very much, you didn’t have to do any advertising, for example, I think he was the only dentist in Worcester at the time. And obviously, my mother actually took over his practise, which is very nice. So obviously there was maybe a bit of me that thought I might go back there one day to to buy the practise of her. Or maybe, you know, join join with my sister. And I think there was a moment in my career a few years ago where I had that opportunity and it came became fairly obvious that my sister and I, as much as I love her dearly, we were never going to be able to to work together. So at least I now know that that was that was tried and tested and wasn’t going to work and

[00:09:09] Expand on that for me.

[00:09:10] So I don’t know how to put it in a nice way. I mean, I think we have a lot of respect for each other. Like I said after the new year, I think I think there’s always that element she was. She’s two years older, but she did a degree before dentistry, so she was. She’s technically a few years younger than me in a Dental kind of experience kind of way. But you know, she she, you know, brought the practise of my mother’s Dental partner at the time a few years back. So she had her foot in the door. And I think she very much felt it was her practise. And if I wanted to go in there and change things, it would, it would have to go through quite a lot of hurdles to to maybe make it past. And I think, you know, for me, I went into it thinking, Right, I’m going to change all of this, and I think it was partly my my problem. You know, I I probably kicked the business, if you like, because, you know, I had all these great ideas and my wife who works, works for the business now, you know, she had great ideas, and I think my sister just didn’t want it to change at that moment in time, which is absolutely fine. And I respect for that. But yeah, I think I think it was just it was just never, never going to work.

[00:10:16] So sometimes those things are best left. I mean, Prav, my co-host. He could easily have gone into business with his brother, but both of them, we had them on. Both of them said, now that whatever. And they both run super successful businesses of their own.

[00:10:33] Yeah, exactly.

[00:10:35] So it doesn’t, you know, I don’t think you have to beat yourself up about it, but I just wanted to know what the origin of that was. So go on qualified as a dentist. What do you do next?

[00:10:46] So I didn’t take a gap year. I mean, I’ve a July birth is I’m quite young for my academic year as well. So I think I was twenty two when I’d actually qualified as a as a dentist officially and obviously just got a VTE job. I was very fortunate. I got a very good vet. Trainer is a guy called Dinesh Fakey up in Redditch, so I moved home, which was convenient and I worked there for a year and I had a great time. He was a he’s actually a Royal College of Surgeons implant tutor, so I felt like I had a very good starting point to my career was very, very helpful. And I think it instilled in me, you know, or maybe gave me the I don’t know the idea of who I could become, I suppose looking at him. I was in admiration of him. Then finish it. And that’s when I took a job with our good friend Simon Childs, parents down in Staines. So I was there for a few years and it was nice, actually. Simon started working at the practise with his wife, Meghan, when I was still there. It was nice to have a stint working together and it was a busy NHS practise at that time. I think I was doing eight thousand ideas. It was. It was full on, but I think, you know, again, the NHS is amazing. It has to be there for people, but it allows dentists to actually get experience at that time.

[00:12:07] In your career where you don’t really know very much, you know, you just need to get your hands dirty and actually just do a lot of a lot of stuff because Bristol was very good. You started seeing patients in the second year, but you still didn’t really get a lot of hands on experience just because of various reasons. I’m sure you get less experience now, especially with all the issues with COVID, so it was just good to actually be in a busy practise and understand and learn what I did and didn’t like or what I wasn’t very good at. And I and I took the decision to do the Restorative Diploma at the Royal College of Surgeons quite early on. I think I was I don’t know whether I’m still am, but at the time I was the youngest person to to start that course and it was a full on course. It was financially a lot of money. I think it was twenty twenty five grand to do it. You had to write a two or three thousand word essay every month, you know, 50, 60 papers. But my goodness like that just gave me so much understanding at the basic knowledge of everything, you know, inclusion, especially that I still think it’s actually had a lot of influence on the jobs that I then got afterwards and I suppose the confidence in my own clinical decision making and treatment planning.

[00:13:18] So yeah. You studied with Simon as well, right?

[00:13:22] So he was at Bristol when I was at Bristol doing dentistry. He was doing pharmacology. So we had three years, three years together and it was funny. I met him on Freshers Day. We were literally a few doors down from each other in the same halls, and we’ve literally been best mates ever since. But yeah, then he went on to obviously do dentistry at King. So yeah, we had we had a few years together.

[00:13:46] So then after that, how I mean, it seems to me like, you know, I’m in the sort of the privileged position of being able to see you guys come through and watch your careers. And it seems to me like you sort of accelerated towards Harley Street. I mean, I remember when you qualified, I remember that time quite well. How did that happen so quick?

[00:14:08] Honestly, pay. I still look back, and I think, how on earth am I? Am I where you know, how am I? How am I here? It certainly was never a dream of mine, I suppose. Maybe I didn’t have. Maybe I didn’t think it was ever going to be possible. So why? Why dream? An impossible dream? But it all sort of happened by default. I think I was working at a time as an associate and it was a mixed list, and I and I just wanted to take the decision that I wanted to start to do implants. And at the time I started on the course with Dr Aselicon Osborne. Dr Corey Fran and and Zack Cannon. And obviously through that I met Matt Fazilka. So at the time my associate job, I wanted to sort of cut down my hours, stop the NHS side of it and put a bit more time into education. And and it just came about that I had a bit more time and physicians sort of said to me, Look, you know, by that point, I’d done four or five years of courses with her, and she just said, I’m sort of looking for a sort of semi associate, but I also, you know, I have space for you to rent a room from from me. And I sort of took the opportunity with both hands. I bought a very small list off of her of patients and started renting a room from her one day a week.

[00:15:32] And then it was almost like with sort of COVID. You were sort of forced into this position where you had a lot of time, especially through through the initial lockdown where we weren’t doing anything and my wife and. I who my wife has an advertising background, so she does a lot of my social media and we just put out that we’d be doing sort of free FaceTime consultations. And during that first lockdown, I think I spoke to about 400 people on consultations. Wow. And I basically just had a list of people to see and I then have now worked it up to, you know, being being there for four days a week with a pretty healthy waiting list. So it kind of just came about by default and I was very fortunate. I have a lot to thank and oh, positive for my career because, you know, without that initial opportunity, I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today. But yeah, it just it just it was a sort of fight or flight response, really. I had to make it work. I sort of, yeah, my associate job kind of. It wasn’t going the way I wanted it to, and that ended quite quickly. So through death, I just I just literally had time to kill and I had to make it work. So. So yeah, that’s where I am.

[00:16:45] So the arrangements are they is it literally you rent the room? What’s what’s the actual arrangement, isn’t it?

[00:16:51] That’s it. I just I just rent the room. And then she she obviously is very heavily focussed on implants and, you know, big, big cases. So any of the various

[00:17:01] Cross referral between you?

[00:17:03] Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I’m obviously not at that level yet where there will ever be one day. I mean, again, the being at the practise, I get to spend as much time as I want with her on, you know, ridiculous cases where obviously a lot of dentists who she’s towards over the years referring to cases they can’t do. And you know, we’re talking serious, serious stuff, and I just don’t know whether I’ve ever got the balls to do that on my own isn’t what I get doing it when someone is there holding your hand and telling you what to do. But my goodness. Yeah.

[00:17:36] But but you are doing implants yourself as well.

[00:17:39] Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously through social media, yeah. If people do know of me, they know me for composite bonding and Invisalign. But you know that that does take up a vast majority of my work at the moment just because of the the referrals I’m getting and, you know, just the demographics of people that I see. Obviously, it’s very easy to market it on on social media because it always looks very nice. And you know, that’s that’s what gets the patients interested. I’ve not really understood how I can market the implant side of things because again, you know, not not seeing a tooth there, it doesn’t always look that sexy on Instagram, and obviously people do it very successfully, so I need to probably take some advice off them. But yeah, I don’t mark it for implant patients. I I do it by just by chance of patients who’ve come to see me do need implants or they know of someone that needs implants. So there’s a sort of internal referral there. But yeah, a lot of the cases I’m doing are with Physiol, So.

[00:18:35] So then you know, you said your wife has an advertising background. Does she spend most of her time working with you or does she do a different job as well?

[00:18:44] Well, she’s she’s got the very, very hard job of being a mother to two beautiful little girls. But no, she she she had 11 years in advertising. And you know, when I when I met her, she was working for a really very good firm and, you know, working on awesome accounts. She was sort of a global account director, but we had our first daughter and it just came to the realisation that she was working crazy hours. And if she went back to it, she was just not going to see the kids or the kid at that time. So I’m not the biggest fan of social media, but she is. So it was just, you know, a perfect harmony, shall we say. And and yeah, before that, I didn’t had it. I didn’t have any social media account and we started it together. And I mean, most, if not all, of my work comes through through Instagram.

[00:19:35] So did you any paid or is it organic?

[00:19:37] Do you know what we did? We did, we did there a few paid adverts. So, you know, it’s amazing the spend that you can have and the return on that spend, it’s it can be very successful. You know, you can spend £30 on an advert promoting it and you know, you could get 50 or 60 Leaders off that. But a lot of it is just, you know, now it’s just organic because again, I don’t post that much purely because we’ve literally got a two or three month waiting list to see people. So it’s almost like, you know what, almost what’s the point of posting?

[00:20:09] I know obviously a fantastic position to be in, huh?

[00:20:14] Yeah.

[00:20:15] You know, the I’d say, the majority of people that I come and see in the West End, maybe they’re booked if they’re lucky, two weeks ahead? Yeah, many of them less than that. Yeah. So that’s a really fantastic position to be in. What would you say, as I’m quite keen to hear it from from someone who’s not sort of a social media fan. What would you say is the secret to building up a page that actually converts patients? Because we have, you know, there’s plenty of people who do pages for dentists and then there’s people who do it very successfully for patients. What would you say is the key is as someone who’s not keen on it?

[00:20:56] Well, I mean, our pages, certainly for for patients, you know, with pretty much the prime purpose of getting patients to come in. So so I think for us, I’m always having to paraphrase my, my, my wife here, you know, it’s to make people see you as a person rather than a dentist and to paint the full picture because you know, when people are coming in to see you for what can potentially be life changing treatment, they they have to almost, you know, we have to know each other and to start treatment on a patient that you don’t know, it can sometimes end up in a sticky situation. So. So I think having that initial well, information for the patient to see you and to suss out whether they like you as a person is probably the most important thing that I think the social media can help with.

[00:21:50] Yeah, but what? But what are tips? What are tips? I mean, what? What have you done differently to get your? How many thousand followers have you got £15000?

[00:21:58] No, no, no. Do you think the thing is baked again? My wife wanted to get to 10K like last year, but we’re only on eight. And it’s funny because the number of the number of followers you have, it doesn’t seem to, you know, it might be. Yeah, it really isn’t. And I think it used to be, and it was almost like a kudos thing. Or, you know, how many followers have you got? But yeah, I mean, my my personal tips would be just again having having a wife who was a non dentist is very right because you’ve made the right person because I’m really not going to take much credit for it. You know, she she, but she sees teeth in a very different way that I see teeth, right? So, you know, I can be so proud of a case that I’ve literally bent bent over backwards. I’ve done everything in it, and for me, like the skill that’s gone into it. And she, you know, she will sometimes look at it and think, Well, so what have you done like? You know, what’s what’s the difference? Whereas other things where you just think, Well, that’s that’s a simple, you know, everybody can do that. And actually, you know, she’ll say that’s actually more impressive. So to have that kind of benchmark, I think, also also can help. So maybe maybe you need to get my wife on on the next podcast and she would help them.

[00:23:16] I mean, you make a brilliant point, though, because you know, the retracted view we love and it scares the hell out of patients, you know?

[00:23:25] Well, that’s a good point. I’m just, yeah, oh yes, my shots are key.

[00:23:30] Yeah. And and then, you know, the thing you were saying about making humanising you, I mean, if we talk about who, who’s the most someone like Rhona, who’s so popular on social with patients, she’s she’s kind of constantly talking to the camera, and I don’t follow that avidly, but she’s she’s she’s doing things which are non dentistry a lot of the time.

[00:23:55] Oh, oh, goodness, yeah. Yeah, she’s yeah, she’s a

[00:23:57] Celebrity commenting on, you know, new stories and this sort of thing. But look, I think it’s an important question because you’ve definitely done it successfully. And it’s it’s kind of a it’s a wonderful sort of case study for someone who you know you were doing one day a week lockdown hits, which is, you know, when at that point none of us knew what was going to happen next? And then you come out of it busy four days a week, waiting list in a matter of a year. And it’s it’s been a great year for a lot of people in dentistry. You know, I guess because of lockdown in a way, but it’s an important question. Because there’s a lot of people who who could benefit from that, especially now with the whole NHS story that we can see falling apart and a bunch of there must be a group of people who are already on the cusp of leaving the NHS, who are now going to say, Look, that’s it enough. And when you speak to people who are only in the NHS, they tend to have this view of private that it’s the same thing, but more expensive or the same. And I’m not even talking about the quality of the work, just the same thing, but more expensive. And it’s definitely not. And the thing that isn’t the same at all is the number of patients waiting to see you. So cracking that really is the key. How about tick tock? If you look to that

[00:25:20] And to be honest with you? So obviously, we’ve got a four month old baby at the moment. So are we? Yes, they got a three and a half year old and a four month old. And obviously our priority is has being slightly shifted towards towards the kids so slightly, just slightly. But, you know, next year, I think we’re going to we’re going to really push it and see, see what, see what we can make happen, basically. But the thing is, I I don’t know. Talking on camera, I’m happy to do it, but it takes a lot of time. Me planning and preparing what to say. It doesn’t always come naturally. I remember having some head shots taken and I genuinely hated it. You know, it’s just it’s not. It’s just not for me. I’d much rather be. Yeah, I mean, then generally, dentists feel comfortable in somebody’s mouth, right? So, you know, that’s our safe space. And, you know, put me in my Dental surgery in front of a patient. I’m, you know, that’s my that’s my arena, right? But take me out of that. It’s, you know, it’s a totally different experience. I mean, I’ve done a than a lecture recently, the ADYE, and I did it with Zieler. And it was, you know, to a room of three hundred dentists. And it was, you know, I don’t mind public speaking. I quite enjoy it, actually, but only one I’ve really prepared. So, you know, things like social media, I think because it’s so quick and you’ve got to just be I can’t imagine you will spend a week or two weeks preparing, you know, 30 second video, right? So it’s just going to come naturally. And just for me, it just doesn’t. And I don’t have any desire to try and make it become more natural. You know,

[00:26:59] I know what you mean. I mean, I think though you’ve got one has to think, what is what is the medium your best on? Because I’m just like you. I hate it when when there’s a camera and lights on, I’m just this other person. I literally hate it. And then at the same time, I break the balls of all my marketing people and say, Why do we make more more content and all of this? And they say, Well, why don’t you? But the strange thing is, for instance, on voice, I haven’t got a problem at all. I mean, I mean me and you can see each other right now because the platform, but the video isn’t going out. And as long as the video isn’t going out, I can scratch my back and, you know, move, you know, I’m awkward on camera, but it’s it’s it’s important to know what you’re, you know, be self aware of it. What is it? You’re good at? What is it? You’re not good at and you know you’ve got your wife there? I actually really love the page, dude. I was looking at it today. It’s a nice combination of before and afters and you know, pictures of you welcoming sort of celebrities. It’s all about the celebrity side, the sort of the influencer side is that was that something you went after, you know, in a in an organised way? Or how did that come about?

[00:28:10] Yeah, very much. I mean, again, my my wife can see the potential of it. It’s a running thing here, isn’t it? So obviously there is there is real potential there. We’ve worked with quite a few sort of influencers and, you know, some have literally brought in 50 plus patients of, you know, one case where you’ve done it free of charge. So it might be a sort of three grand investment, but you know, you’ve literally got hundreds back. And but it’s all about trying to work with the right right people. It’s not always been plain sailing like we’ve we’ve certainly had a few who we haven’t actually gone on to treat because they’ve, you know, just mess this around with appointments and it’s, you know, it’s never going to work if that’s how you start off. And that can be the same for just patients in general, right? You know, if the patient is failing to turn up, it’s kind of alarm bells. But but I think just trying to find people that fit with you and fit with your ethos and fit with your kind of personality type and just making sure that you’re getting the right demographic of patients and we get them to to send in their stats of who they follow, where the people live, what ages they are, because that has a big sort of impact on what you can get back. I mean, we’ve treated people with 300 and 400000 followers and not got a single patient. And you just think it’s actually the ones with a smaller group of. Followers like 30 to 60 K, it seems like they’re exactly more engaged and that the, you know, the people just I think, yeah, I think I think that is exactly it. It’s more engaged and they just will listen to what they’re saying. I think if they’re too big, it’s more. Yeah, I mean, I don’t know the ins and outs. You probably know more than me about it, to be honest.

[00:29:54] But I mean, we’re working on it on on our side. We bought a platform that you can check the influencers, check you know, where, you know, for instance, like the person with 400000 followers, maybe three hundred and forty thousand of them are in South America or whatever. That’s why, you know? But yeah, it’s another it’s another whole new area I find nowadays with marketing. You’re having to subsection marketing into lots of different sections and find, you know, different specialists in each one of those areas. And pretty soon, we’re going to have to start making everything in 360 for the Metaverse. Oh, let’s let’s get onto some of the clinical stuff. So you’ve you’ve done have you done all of that sort of digital smile design piece? Is that when a when a patient comes to you and says, Look, make my smile better? Yeah. Take me through. Take me through the process you run through with the patient. And you know, of course, we all do a certain number of things. But but what are you looking out for most?

[00:30:57] Well, I mean, the work the workflow for us is that they they get a virtual consult now with my with my treatment coordinator, Lydia, my my youngest sister. So. So that’s done beforehand so that she’s got a set of questions that she asked them. So we get a good idea of what they’re they’re looking for. And, you know, she gives them a range of costs as well, so they at least know what they’re looking at because again, there’s no point somebody coming in and seeing you when it’s out of their out of their budget or, you know, it just wasn’t the right fit. And I think because of Instagram and because the patients are coming through Instagram, they know that my my aim is for them to look supernatural. I want them to be walking around and people complimenting their teeth. Not or who’s your dentist like? You know what you had done? So, so the patients I see are generally asking for them. So when they do come in to see me, they’ve got all the information ahead of the appointment. And it’s really just for me to get to know them a bit better and truly understand why they’re having the treatment. Because yes, you know, so many people come in and say, I want, I want my smile to look perfect. But you know, it’s such a subjective term and just trying to get down to the nitty gritty of what it is they want. I think sometimes all the questions that I ask and the fact that I’m there just simply listening to them can sometimes get you into a bit of trouble because you’re almost giving them too much information and then they become almost too informed. And they, you know, they start telling you what they think they need. And sometimes certainly with the demographic of patients that I see on a Harley Street, you’ve almost got to just be careful, I think, with the amount of information you give them. And that’s just in my my experience.

[00:32:33] I’m an example of that. So you tell someone they’ve got a centre line shift and then they start obsessing on that.

[00:32:39] Exactly. That’s actually a brilliant example because, you know, a lot of my cases, I’m doing Invisalign on beforehand. And, you know, with the power of digital dentistry having a scanner, you know, the photograph. It is so amazing for us as dentists to actually be able to show these patients the problems and just inform and educate them. So it’s been, you know, I think we are very lucky to be in the era of dentistry that we’re in. But, you know, I want to give them the information because afterwards, if you hadn’t told them about the sensor line shift before and they noticed it afterwards, it’s your fault. Right. But then but then so you want to tell them beforehand, but then you don’t want them to get a, you know, a complex about it, right? Exactly. So it’s such a fine line. And I think the benefit of spending time and talking and listening and the consults are an hour when they come in to see me is that I think you build such a rapport and, you know, by using, you know, body language. And I’ve done so many courses on interactions and communication that you can suss out when, when, when is the best time to sort of give them the information, right, so that they they don’t react in a bad way? Because if you if you don’t know them very well and you jump in and oh God, your sense lines off, that’s obviously not going to go down too well. But if you’ve listened to them and you know, they’re not interested in that and you can kind of gently explain that, well, this is slightly off of your mind, slightly off. And there are studies to show that it can be up to four millimetres off as long as it’s, you know, parallel to your face, it doesn’t really matter. And I think that that obviously is the way to go to go about it. But I feel like I’ve lost track of the the question that you asked in the first.

[00:34:22] Well, so the process, the patient journey, you said they start off with the TKO. Yeah, on the virtual console, the TCO pretty much works out your your sister in law. Sister, sister, yeah, works out pretty much what they need and whether they’ve got budget.

[00:34:39] Yeah, I mean, I mean, it’s not it’s not so much, yes. I mean, they are they usually come in asking for something, right? So they usually are saying, I want in Beslan and constant violence. I know, I know that’s what time does, right? And the benefit of having Lydia there is that she’s had in Beslan. She’s had composite bonding with me. She’s had, you know, wisdom teeth. She’s had an implant with me. So she’s pretty much a walking, talking advertisement for me. So it’s, you know, that has been amazing having her on board. But yeah, she’s she’s just making sure that they they they know what I’m about and what I’m trying to achieve. And, you know, I’m not doing turkey teeth. And if they want that, it’s best not to come and see me, you know?

[00:35:17] So look, you’ve done the one art you’ve done the one hour consult at this point. Have you already gone into at the end of that consult if you got into what the plan is going to be or the stabilisation phase of what have you done? What what’s the patient leaving with?

[00:35:32] Say what the patient is leaving after that appointment is we’ve discussed their scan. So a digital scan, we’ve discussed their x rays and when I say discuss them, I’m showing them the x rays I’m showing them. This is the right and this is the left. This is the top of the bottom. These are sort of areas of black bits that I’ll go into later. So I’m just trying to give them a little bit of information, but I’m certainly not treatment planning anything because again, that can get you into a tricky situation when you’ve you’ve thought you’ve seen the problem, you’ve you’ve diagnosed what you think of the problem. And then later, on reflection, you know, it was only part of a bigger problem that you’ve missed and trying to crawl back from that is never a good position to be in. So I’m really just trying to get them to know me, me, to know them, give them a little bit of information, talk about the scan like I said, and I just follow it up with a with a sort of written treatment plan. And then then they get a phone call from from Lydia to discuss any questions if they want to come back in to see me for a complimentary chat, they can do. But usually people are, are, you know, going going ahead and then the next time we’re seeing them is just sort of maybe start starting baseline or see them for a mock up, for example. So, yeah,

[00:36:44] So you don’t you don’t do that thing where you sort of stabilise with some simple treatment and then then go for a full mouth approach? Or is it mainly a line bleach bond

[00:36:55] On honesty pay? At the moment, the demographic of patients I’m seeing are ninety nine percent of them are Dental fit. They have dentists, they’ve been seeing them for Dental. Yet the younger, you know, the 20 to thirties, mostly female. And if obviously clearly if they have dental issues, I’m obviously telling them that they need to get this done before we start anything. And honestly, I’m pushing them to go back to the dentist to get it done purely because I just don’t have the time to see them. And, you know, I’ve moved away from general dentistry, to be honest, although I have a small list of kind of Harley Street patients that I do too see for their general care. I just I just love the energy of somebody coming in and actually wanting to see you and actually wanting to have treatment done. I’ve never had that same same response. When you’ve told someone that they need a root canal, you know, so I’m I like to enjoy my time at work. I like to be in a happy place. And yeah, that was kind of the reasons why I’ve moved away from doing general dentistry. But yeah, I mean, obviously, if they need any stabilisation and they want me to do it, then we would do that and then start start their treatment. But like I said, just at the moment, the the patients that I’m seeing identity fit and they and they are just really in need of of cosmetic treatment.

[00:38:15] I mean, it’s nice to see on your page to the smiles are very natural and and I suppose it’s really nice to have a patient come to you and say, I’ve come to you because of how natural the smiles look on on your page. It’s the you started off on the right foot, haven’t you? Definitely. And when I think back to the days when I was a dentist and the number of times I used to after we used to have a 40 minute examination and I’d attempt to have the treatment plan written up at the end of that 40 minutes with very, you know, nowhere near your level of knowledge, I’m sure. And you know, it’s strange, isn’t it? Because most practise that’s what’s happening like ninety five percent ninety nine percent of dentists are having to treatment plan on the run on the go. Write all the notes, all of that stuff to happen at the same time, and you’re never going to be able to present to the patient properly in that most people don’t get 40 minutes either, right? Twenty. How how do you fit the sort of how do you square the circle of these Instagram align bleach blonde patients with physical work? And do you do? You know, you’re not. You’re not. You haven’t got access to those implant patients yet. Is that right?

[00:39:33] So, so what do you mean, am I am I doing implants on her patients?

[00:39:37] No, I mean, you know, you’ve got some implant skills. Yeah, are you? Are you able to use them?

[00:39:43] Use it? Definitely. So I mean,

[00:39:44] Is he doing a line bleach blonde?

[00:39:46] So I spend I spend three, three days doing that and I spend one day with Priscilla. So, you know, we’re literally doing block graft sinus lifts. You know, we’re doing x plants, full arches, you know, soft tissue grafting like it is. It’s very it’s a very different, very different day. And that’s why I love it so much. And I do think to myself, Gosh, I have a set of skills here that I’m not really using to their full advantage right now, but I just think, well, I’m actually pretty happy. Like right now, I’m pretty happy doing what I’m doing, and I think we can be so obsessed with always being better and doing doing new things and actually to be content. Right now, I’m just I’m actually just really, really happy in my, in my, you know, current situation. I almost just want to enjoy it for a little bit longer until I sort of start rocking the boat again and going on and going on a different direction. But no, I mean, I think the implant side of my of my work is maybe more the future, but who knows, you know, composite bonding is very much a I don’t know. I feel like it’s not so much a fad because I think it’s here to stay like it really is for me, the best course of treatment for a lot of patients who are thinking about cosmetics. And clearly, you know, having veneers done is is always an option that’s presented to them. But because they are young people, I don’t I don’t want to be cutting down teeth. So, you know, for me, the composite is the route to go down. But I think, you know, implants is just becoming more and more popular. Less and less people want to have removable denture and you know, more and more people are keeping a lot of their teeth. So it’s just the, you know, the a few units missing and implants are obviously the right, the right option for that for a lot of people.

[00:41:41] Of your top tips for Invisalign?

[00:41:43] Well, I I think you’ve got to set yourself a target, right? So if you if you love doing Invisalign and you’re not maybe doing very much at the moment, my wife and I set myself a target and I wanted to do one hundred cases in a year, and I think I ended up doing about one hundred and fifty and it was just, you know, having that target in my head, right? What do we need to do? We need to do a bit more marketing. We’ll get the patients in to change our workflow, you know, adjust the prices, you know, or I always include sort of whitening, for example, with them, with the cases. And so I think just having a target for how many cases you want to do. The other thing is obviously your clinic. So I know a lot of people, a lot of colleagues outsource their clean checks. I still do all of mine. I actually enjoy doing it number one. And I also feel like it helps you massively because when you see things don’t go quite to plan like you’re almost in a better position to work out why and don’t trust the clinic that you get back. I think 70 percent of clinics are just approved on the first run. And, you know, really they I’ve never come across a clinic that’s adequate to be approved when it’s just come back.

[00:42:53] Well, where did you get the skills to to sort of figure out the clinic side?

[00:42:57] So I learn very much by by just trying and doing it. Yeah, and I’m 11 years qualified. I think I’ve been doing Invisalign for probably seven years now, so I definitely have made mistakes. And I think you can be so lulled into trying to get the patient to go ahead that you get this clinic back and you tell the patient, Look at this, this is this is amazing. You know where we’ve got to we’ve we had a bilateral cross. Buy it and now it’s fixed and you just think and I’ve started cases where I have genuinely thought that that was going to be sorted. So I think doing it and making the mistakes, but I did a year long orthodontic course actually called KEF Tactics an awesome and awesome orthodontist called Raj runs it. And that tactic? Theft tactics? Yeah, tactics is really good. And again, if anybody is listening to this and they’re interested in an ortho course, that is, in my opinion and one of the better ones, because it’s not just about aligners, it’s about fixed braces. You know, you’re learning to do fixed braces, but it just actually gave me a such a good understanding of of biology and anchorage and the reality of what movements are difficult. And, you know, sometimes it’s impossible to get a tooth where you want it to get to. If you’re just going to be using a line as a loan and the ability to use sectional fixed braces or use pads and things, those are now what I’m incorporate into my Invisalign treatment. So. Oh, nice. Yeah, it is good. And I signed up to an online thing. It’s called Master Aligner Academy. And again, that’s run by these two Portuguese Invisalign dentists, and it’s just it’s just wicked. You get so much information, it’s really reasonably priced. I think it’s about 80 euros a month and you get like a lecture every month and run through clinics. And yeah, it’s just it’s just a nice, nice group to be a part of. I think there’s like almost a thousand dentists worldwide now on that on that group.

[00:44:57] But I’m interested in what you’re saying because in my day when I was a dentist, I was doing some Invisalign. I was, I was. I took over my wife’s list of patients when when she was pregnant with our kids. And by far the most stressful bit was the clinic part. Mm-hmm. And back then, it didn’t exist to outsource your clinic. But if it did, I definitely would look at that because I was pretty much either accepting the clinic or having to go to someone who understood what they were talking about to see whether it was the right thing or not. And I guess that is outsourcing, isn’t it? Yeah. But but obviously I hadn’t done the education, and I think back then we used to think you can go on a two day course and start, you know, and there kind of was like that, you know, you’d go on. I think with one day course, they’d essentially show you how to use the platform. Not much ortho in that one day and then you just start and you’d make your mistakes. And that’s that’s where it was. But I did come across people who really enjoy that side of it, so it’s interesting. What about bonding? What what education have you had for there?

[00:46:10] So I I did a GC course out in Belgium. Belgium. Yeah, I was. I was in Spain, so it must have been. It could have been nine years ago, and it was like an anterior posterior two day thing. I went with my mum and my sister, actually. Quite honestly, I drank far too much beer. And the second day of learning maybe wasn’t quite as effective as it could have been, but I did that. And then, you know, I haven’t made I I know I’ve done hundreds. If not, I mean, maybe, yeah, maybe up to 1000 cases of bonding. And you just think, you know, by doing so many cases, you’re going to you’re going to learn. And obviously, you take tips from very eminent dentist, obviously like Monique. I’ve got good friends who I always always ask questions about, you know, tips and tricks, but I just learnt by doing it. I don’t use anything fancy. I literally just use clear matrix strips, and most of my cases are just free hand. I’m always doing a free hand mock up beforehand, so that again gives me a good insight into what the patient’s expecting. It gives me an idea of the phonetic appearance are lots of photographs, et cetera. So yeah, and just use and press direct as my is my go to composite. It’s yeah, it’s just it’s just a lot, a lot, a lot of bonding units. And what do you use for polishing? I use various things. I use soft like sticks this for shaping. I use the ASUP polishes there. They’re pretty decent. Most silicone spiral as a decent and

[00:47:53] They’re all made in one place, but

[00:47:55] I’m sure they are made.

[00:47:57] There’s a patent, there’s a patent on it. There’s a patent on it, right? Yeah. So and a paste as well. Look, no with any that there is no patent.

[00:48:05] Yeah, there isn’t really a piece. I mean, the the there’s a there’s a brushed by kick, which I use before the polishers. Rubber wheels for me is what I tend to use and different sort of gradients of that. And then usually just finish it off with one of the ACEP polishes to

[00:48:26] Use that thing, that that overclocked instrument with the why the what they call

[00:48:31] That? Do you use that? Yeah, I mean, that is my my bread and butter. I’ve just run out of the smaller size and I’m trying to use this like five millimetre or six millimetre pad. And it’s just like my thumb basically trying to put this composite on a teeth. So it’s funny how you become so used to what you’re using. I use I use this awesome instrument called an Acro Flex. I’m giving away all my tips now. It’s like this really, really flexible ended instrument. The the nurses have a great habit of breaking, so I usually have two or three in my drawer, a very thin plastic. It’s it’s like unbelievably thin and it’s super flexible.

[00:49:09] Yeah, we have one called IPCA PKL that gets broken at lot.

[00:49:12] So I’ve used that. But this things are even more flexible than that. And it’s yeah, once you start using it, like, I just can’t not now use it. But yeah, once once it comes back from the Dickon with one end instead of two and you’re looking at nursing nurse,

[00:49:28] Is this who’s the manufacturer of that?

[00:49:30] And it’s. Really, actually, you really. Oh, is it? Yeah.

[00:49:36] Crow flicks I’ve never come across,

[00:49:37] They’re always on back or on on on Dental directory, so I don’t want people to be buying it now because I think I’m the only one that buys them.

[00:49:47] I want to move on to darker days. Yeah. Well, what’s been the darkest days dentist?

[00:49:53] And well, I’m generally a pretty happy guy, right? So I try and see the the good and most things, and I try and try and be positive about stuff. I mean, there have been situations clinically where it’s been. It’s been sort of, you know, touch and go bump clenching moments where I did an implant and a patient on a Saturday morning and everything was fine. It was a lower lower five seven. Yeah, I sort of submerge them close the flap. Bleeding stopped. She had been, you know, she was taking warfarin. So we left her in the clinic for a while. No bleeding corner of the afternoon. Absolutely fine Sunday. She she messaged, saying that it’s bleeding a little bit so of gave her advice throughout the day. She said, No, it’s fine. It’s fine. I went to bed, woke up in the morning on Monday to a barrage of texts being like, It’s bleeding a lot. What do I do? You know, when you wake up to these texts and you think, Oh, right, so Corder didn’t pick up, called a house phone, didn’t pick her up, and I was thinking, I mean, you know, obviously you’re thinking very much the worst. Eventually, she’d call me back. She’s like, No, I’m, you know, it has been doing a lot all night. Can I come and see you? So I got her straight in and she had this huge haematoma in her mouth.

[00:51:08] And I just, you know, obviously she’s looking, you know, you can see something at the corner of your eye looking at you and you’re trying to keep this super calm, cool face thinking everything is absolutely fine inside. You are literally breaking it. So I just removed like the blood clot, stuck a of gauze and there put a load of anaesthetic in and just and I obviously had a full day. Patients bear in mind and I just got to sit in the waiting room. Luckily, at the time, there was a separate waiting room she could sit in and I actually called for and I just said, Look, I’ve got this patient. She she’s bleeding a bit. She sort of said, Look, you’re doing all the right things. But ultimately, if you need me to see her, just get her in a cab and send her to my practise and I’ll take care of it for you. And I don’t know how many dentists would just be like that. You know, it’s it’s unbelievable the way that she can be. And I think that from that moment I thought, Well, actually, so I’ve got I’ve got a everything’s going to be in a way like, I’m not having to go to any of this patient. I’ve got like, I’ve got a solution. And and luckily, the bleeding had just slowly stopped, but the patient left at like three p.m. in the afternoon. And in hindsight, I should have got some tranexamic acid mouthwash.

[00:52:17] And, you know, those sort of things that, yes, we talked about it and I thought about it. And in hindsight, you know, I made the wrong call by not not getting it in, but whether it would have helped or not. Who knows? But that was that was pretty, pretty tough. And you know what was really weird? I’m not a I’m not a sort of particularly religious guy. My I grew up, my parents were very religious. I went to church every Sunday. I used to carry the cross in the church service and all that. But it was that day where my dad for some reason had gone on a survey of somebody’s house who was a sort of a sort of psychic kind of lady, right? A clairvoyant. And she I don’t know why, but they got into a conversation, and I think my dad was talking about his dad, who was a dentist, and she said, No, I can feel his presence in the room and I can feel that he’s he’s there with your son and he’s just looking out for him and pay. I’m not joking, mate. Like, I hadn’t talked to my dad at this point, and I called him that day and he said, Tom, you know, that is that’s weird. Like, so that was that was that was a weird ending to that day as well.

[00:53:28] But you were religious. Yeah, but tell me, look at that something in a way out of your control. What happened there?

[00:53:34] Yes, I think it was because there was, you know, looking back, there was nothing else, you know, I got nothing,

[00:53:40] Nothing you could have really done

[00:53:41] Differently. No, I mean, exactly. It wasn’t like I sort of loaded it or put any abutments on it. You know, the flap just went back like there was no there was no tension under the flap. I think I think it just,

[00:53:51] You know, give me an example of something where it went wrong for you. You know, insomuch as the way you handled it made it go wrong.

[00:53:58] That was my fault. And I think, I think just over promising to patients wanting them to accept the treatment plan and

[00:54:07] The early days, right in the early days when you haven’t got much work. Absolutely. There’s pressure to do that completely.

[00:54:12] And you know, you see this big ticket treatment plan. You get all excited and you just look back and you think, you know what? What on earth was doing? Like, I wasn’t chasing the money, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t treatment planning it correctly. And, you know, at that time, based on the knowledge that I had, it was in my head the right thing to do. I’ve never, ever, ever, ever. Sold a treatment to a patient that they didn’t need, right? So, you know, but you look back and you think, you know, I think it was a, I guess, a seven unit bridge with, you know, like a double abutments and you just think, Oh, God, like at some point that’s going to fail quite badly. But you know, what can you do? Like it was in my head the right thing, the right thing to do at that time.

[00:54:55] I think the conversation needs to be heard, you know, that I’ve been there. Young, young, private dentist with my book not full. And at the time, we were doing a lot of veneers posting videos and and it was pretty. It was pretty girl sort of where you know how it’s going to look and you’ve got the guy to show you how much enamel to remove, to stay in and out and all pre all of that. Yeah, and over enthusiastically selling it to a patient and then living to regret that, right? Living to regret how. And the strange thing is, as you get more experience, you realise sort of the less you push, the more acceptance you get.

[00:55:35] Absolutely. Well, I think the patients, yeah, yeah, completely. I think the patient is going to feel it. And they and obviously, you know, it comes it comes across that you’re, you know, you need to work. Yeah, like literally like, you know, without sanding. It’s not we’re not sounding arrogant. Like sometimes I don’t I don’t need the work. So I’m always saying to them, you know, like people have come in and asking me for four Invisalign and bonding. And actually, I’ve just said, look, just just have some teeth whitening and just just see how you feel. Your teeth are actually very nice. So, you know, in my younger days, I probably wouldn’t have done that. Know I would have I would have gone with what they wanted, right? And if they wanted veneers, I would’ve said, Yeah, let’s let’s do it like, I’m doing what the patient wants and I’m doing the right thing. But you know, now now it’s it’s it’s obviously through experience. You you’ve still got to do what you feel is right. It’s not. It’s not what the patient wants. Well, I’ll rephrase that. Patients don’t always know what they want. They they think they do, and they come in asking for something. And you know, it’s your job to actually educate them and actually show them that really, what they’re asking for is not going to look right because you don’t want to start a treatment where inside something’s telling you all,

[00:56:51] You

[00:56:51] Know. You know, you always want to have total confidence in what you’re doing from the very start, because again, from experience, the cases that I can think of where I’ve done what the patient wanted and actually it didn’t look right. And I knew from the start it wasn’t going to look right, but I always wanted to do it for them, for them to say, Oh no, you were right. You know, then the then the realisation hits that I’ve got a now, sort it out. And you know, it took me three times as long and I’m sure I didn’t charge the patient and I thought, why did I do that again to prove a point? So, so now it’s very much, you know, I hear what you’re saying, I’m listening to what you want. I’m trying to actually really understand what it is you want, not what you think you want. And then trying to present a treatment plan to the patient that’s, you know, hopefully meeting their their real needs. That’s that’s that’s the plan anyway.

[00:57:49] Well, I think what you said earlier about being content with where you are and enjoying it, it’s it’s actually a beautiful thing. I mean, what our goal is there than being happy, right? But what do you see for the future? Do you you see you staying in this sort of one room situation? Or do you see yourself scaling bottling TCC up and and and kind of scaling into bigger ideas?

[00:58:17] Yeah, I mean, I think there’s I always have these conversations with myself and, you know, have lots of ideas. And I suppose there’s a few different paths that lie ahead of me. And right now, I’m very much at that crossroads and I don’t know which which which path I’m going to be taking. Of course I’d love to. I’d love to do what Fossella has done for me, for other dentists, you know, to have that opportunity to rent a room and almost, you know, build your own sort of mini practise, but without all the extra stresses. You know, that’s been remarkable. And you know, I’ll thank her every day for it. So for me to do that to somebody else or other people, that would that would be nice. I would obviously love to have a passive income and own a practise and have associates. And you know, it’s it’s hard when you’ve you’re the breadwinner and you’ve got a house and two kids and you want to take a holiday. But actually the the cost of the holiday, plus the cost of still renting the room when I’m not there, you know, you just think, gosh, like it turns out to be quite expensive. So to have a little bit of, yeah, some associates working for you, of course, that would be lovely. But I have a lot of friends who in practises and the grass is always greener. So, you know, it’s it’s yeah, it’s a strange I’m in a strange place. I’m thirty thirty four, thirty five and I feel like I’ve I’ve got this far and I’m almost now ending this first chapter. And it’s very much about where where DCC is going on, going on from here. And honestly, I don’t I don’t really know the answer, but hopefully, hopefully next year I’ll have a better idea.

[00:59:55] Yeah. So look for four month old baby is going to do that to you, thirsty, you know, because no sleepless nights and worries. And you know, my brother just had a kid and it’s just reminded me of all the things you worry about with a kid. Yeah. And I know you’re not the type to beat yourself up about it. So don’t, but don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s nothing. On the other hand, you’ll be amazed how quickly thirty four turns to 50, like really quickly, much quicker than 20 turns to thirty four somehow. I know it’s a cliche, but it’s real. And you know you’re the kind of guy who, you know, you’re very personable and that for me, the number one skill of a business owner is communicating with your people, you know, with your weather, whether it’s your people or your customers, you’re in your case, your patience, but communication. And definitely you’ve got communication down. You’re likeable kind of person. Do you remember a time where you weren’t as confident?

[01:00:58] Oh, god, yeah. I mean, do you know what? I remember my very first CD conference. It was in Edinburgh. I think it must have been six years ago and obviously through, you know, Simon at the time had been quite heavily involved and he was like, you know, come along. It’s a great conference. And you know, now the backdrop is now

[01:01:17] You’re on the board of it, right? You’re one of the committees

[01:01:19] On the committees, and I’m probably going to be applying for the board next year. Yeah, and and and the very first course I went to and I had all this expectation and I turned up. I didn’t really know anybody. And I think because of my I look back now and I think because of my attitude, you know, I I’m quite shy in certain situations and I wasn’t approaching people. I wasn’t talking to people, but I saw it as, Oh, these people aren’t talking to me. They’re all very cliquey. They’re not, you know, they don’t, you know, yeah, it was very much me, but I at the time was not seeing it that way. So I suppose, yeah, there was definitely a time in my life where I didn’t have that confidence to just to go and speak to people, really. And, you know, just just just through getting to know them, you actually realise that everybody there is very much of the same mind. I mean, obviously you’ve been for many years. So you know, you know, right there, excellent dentist want the same thing for the patients and all like a good beer at the end of the day. So it’s a win win.

[01:02:22] It’s a funny one BCD, because as you’d expect, for someone like me to be not into it because no one’s really there to shop, no one’s really there to buy things. Yeah, so you know, it ends up, you know, some often costing, you know, a lot, a lot of exhibitions, you know, you get a return on. Usually I do, and yet keep keep going back to it. It’s it’s almost like friends, you know, seeing friends again, it’s a little family. It’s a nice little family, and obviously, you know, you don’t look at everything as Roy, right? It’s not like every every activity you do has to bring in a certain number of dollars, otherwise it’s not a worthwhile activity. Know, I love Becky and it’s nice. This time was lovely, wasn’t it, this time going back?

[01:03:08] It was. So it was after lockdown.

[01:03:11] It was always like people wanted some sort of event.

[01:03:14] There were some pent up energy there, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, this is interesting about your your return on investment, actually, because just going back to the earlier question about, you know, working with influencers, you know, actually there are certain ones that you would work with knowing that you’re not going to get real any return on investment. But actually, it’s just good to have that exposure and just a good to have that person on on your page. So I suppose a little bit like, you know, at the back, you know, you’re not really going to be, you know, you might be losing money, but you’re still getting that exposure and you’re still associating yourself with what I still think is like an amazing it’s about.

[01:03:54] It’s about a conversation sometimes, you know? Absolutely. I mean, in a way, look, we had dinner at Bakhtaoui together. Yeah. And now now here we are. You know, you probably wouldn’t have been on this as as early if we hadn’t had that dinner, you know, you know, simple thing like that.

[01:04:11] Yeah, but that’s just dentistry. Do you not think Dental dentistry is such a small world? And again, any advice to a young dentist out there is that, you know, you think that you’re going to be in a mutually exclusive event, but you never know how long it would take. But some, you know, a lot of the time things will always come back and somebody will know somebody or, you know, there’s always this repercussions of of of anything in dentistry. So it’s just just being aware of that good a good things and bad things, obviously. But it’s just it’s just a small world, you know, like you’ll bump into people some somewhere random and you think what? You know, it’s like my, my, my, my mum. You know, Simon’s mum and my mum were at the same uni together a year apart. And you just think, Well, yeah, I mean, that’s weird. But they didn’t know each other if they didn’t know each other. So anyway,

[01:05:07] No, but you’re right, I was having coffee with Rupert Monkhouse. We both live in Fulham. Yeah, and he he said, Oh, I mentioned you were going to come on. And he was like, Oh, I used to work in that practise the practise. Yeah. It’s just such a small business.

[01:05:24] And what’s funny is that, you know, there’s like, what, forty thousand dentists in the UK. But yeah, it’s the people that you actually want to associate with. There’s probably only 1000 thousand right or less than and actually all those people are all part of the same societies. They all go to the same things. They all do similar things. So actually, you think that you’re part of this forty plus thousand community, but in reality, you probably are in a much smaller circle than you realise. And that’s probably why you end up bumping into people that know you or know of you a lot more than you think.

[01:06:00] Yeah, it’s you know, there’s I don’t know if I’d go as far as to say the people I want to to mix with. But but I would say that there’s I’d say out of the 40000, there’s twenty thousand who don’t want to talk about dentistry outside of their day job, for sure. You know, that’s that’s definitely true. You know, I think about sometimes with my year people in my ear. The same ones turn up to all the events, you know, showcase or be a CD or, you know, it’s just a measure of my year who was like thirty six people, the same six people are the ones I see all the time at Dental things. And so you know that conundrum and I think for you at your stage in your career, you’re just at that inflexion point. Yeah, of is it something that you love and you’re going to just get better at it all the time and enjoy more and more and more? Or is it something you start stop loving so much and start wanting to get out of starts around the beginning of the end? You know, you’re both at the end of the beginning and at the beginning of the end, in a weird way.

[01:07:13] You know,

[01:07:14] It’s back breaking work in the end, right? There’s some of that. For me, the thing about the worst thing about dentistry is showing up. Yeah, you know, you’ve got to be there to actually do the work. But then there’s so many plus sides to it. And when I went back to it, I really appreciated the plus side. You know, the talking to people that however much we complain, the relatively easy cash. Yeah, you know, don’t hurt people and and you’re pretty much be OK. Be nice. I didn’t have when I was a dentist, I didn’t have the whole GDC hassle. How much does that bear on you?

[01:07:52] Massively. I mean, I pretty much walk past the GDC office every day on the way to as a reminder that, you know, don’t mess up to date on. And I mean, it’s I think it’s there in every, every dentist head, especially younger dentists. You know, what are the stats you’re you know, you’re you’re likely to get sued twice right now. That’s sort of the the statistics, which is awful when a lot of people are just they’re trying to do the best thing for the patient. And I think a lot of complaints probably come down to a lack of communication, which, you know, is why that is a big part of my of my kind of workflow and my ethos. But yeah, it’s always it’s always in the back of your head that a patient, the patient has so much power that they can just change their opinion, change their mind. And somehow it’s now it’s your fault that they’ve changed their mind. But now you’ve got to deal with it. And if you don’t deal with it in the right way? Well, I can just quite simply go to any kind of, you know what,

[01:08:57] Google bad Dental.

[01:08:59] Exactly. And then and then you know, your career is in jeopardy and you’re faced with a seriously stressful time when it wasn’t sometimes even justified. It’s obviously there. And I think,

[01:09:11] You know, one of us did. The cosmetic dentistry tends to come with this, right? I mean, it’s it’s a funny combination because cosmetic dentistry has a big, subjective element to it. I like it or I don’t like it. Yeah. And yet when you’re in this in this sort of framework of a patient can ruin your career. Mm hmm. It’s weird because someone could come and have 20 veneers done. Agree to everything, sign off on everything, and then at the end of it, say, I don’t like it. Yeah, and and then they’re very likely to get their money back. Very likely.

[01:09:47] Oh, pay. I mean, I’ve you know, of course you’ve I’ve been in situations like that where again, you look back and you think, what could I have done differently? But you know, the sad thing is you’re just going to refund the patient because it’s the easiest way out and it’s just not worth the hassle sometimes. So I wish I had bigger balls and just thought, Well, actually, you know, if I if I truly am not in the wrong gear, I’m not thinking. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But I just I’m just not not there at that stage. I think, yeah, that’s not me. I just I try and please people. And if for some reason they are unhappy, I mean, look, it doesn’t happen very often. I’m very fortunate. But the very rare occasion, I’ll just say, look, it’s fine. Just, you know, have your money back. It’s not. It’s not an issue.

[01:10:35] If you if you go on to open a practise or a chain of practise or whatever, what kind of boss do you think you’ll be? Do you think you’ll be the sort of the hard type or the too soft type? I think you’re going to be a softy, right?

[01:10:47] Do you think I’m a hard type of guy? I’m really not. I mean, I will. I would very much be the soft type, and I suppose that’s the worry. I almost need like a dragon practise manager.

[01:11:02] Carrot stick to you, Kyra. It doesn’t mean, you know, it doesn’t mean you can’t do it, dude. I’ve got I’ve got a partner who takes care of that side of things in enlighten. Okay. If you’d left it up to me, I’d just say yes to everything. Sure. That’s that’s my problem. I literally say yes to whatever the question is. My answer is yes.

[01:11:23] The staff sometimes do the same. It’s it’s a funny way of life, though, but you know, just just just actually just saying yes to things generally opens doors. And, you know, if you say no, if you say no, then you’re probably a bit more reserved and you’re a bit, you know, probably quite careful. You’re sort of worried about the consequences. So it’s it’s easy to say no, but to say yes, this is a fun, fun journey. It’s just like, Yeah, sure. And I obviously has got me in sticky situations, both in a in a work and a personal personal life. But, you know, I think if deep down the intentions were good, then then nothing too bad is going to happen, right? So if you didn’t mean any harm, then it probably would be OK.

[01:12:10] I’m going to ask you a hypothetical question because I know there’s no such thing as a day off for Tom right now. Yeah, but if there was if you had a day to yourself to do whatever the hell you wanted, yeah.

[01:12:22] What would you do? What would I do? And I definitely play some golf. Yeah, I mean, it’s, you know, trying to fit in golf with with two young children. My wife is brilliant. Yeah, well, you know, was really funny. Last year she brought me. I’ve been playing golf for 20 years and I can’t get my handicap under like 20, right? So she bought me these these six golf lessons with a golf pro in a club nearby. And let’s see on my birthday, like a month before our second daughter was supposed to be born. And I said to her, that’s seriously generous, number one. But also you do realise that for six Fridays, for two hours, I’m out like, you know, playing golf. And I think the reality hadn’t kind of set in. So every time I went on my lesson, I felt so guilty. But yeah, I think I think if I had a day off and there were no there was no children to look after and my wife was off having a nice day herself. I definitely have a round of golf in with a few friends and probably my dad. And then I’d probably be hitting hitting a sort of party in the evening and and waking up at, well, get to bed at 6:00 a.m. That’s probably my perfect day.

[01:13:34] Your closest buddies, still your school friends.

[01:13:37] Or you know what? It’s really sad. Like, I don’t I don’t speak to any of my of my schoolmates. Probably a combination of reasons. I went to different university. They all went north. I went south. And yeah, it just it just somehow lost touch of trying to got back in touch with some of them live with a few recently, but it’s all kind of petered out. So all my friends are uni mates, actually, all from Bristol. There’s seven guys me included in a sort of fairly tight group of friends, and we try and meet up four times a year. We’ve all got families and it’s hard to get seven people’s diaries to align for four times in a year, which is crazy, really. But we try and get a weekend and we vote in a president and so sort of social social secretary each year to organise the events. But it’s good fun. Yeah.

[01:14:30] I’m going to close it with some of Prav questions, sure. Running a deathbed. Yeah. Because the nearest and dearest around you. One of three bits of advice that you’d leave them and the world

[01:14:45] Fairly morbid, especially at Christmas time, this bait. I mean, yeah. And I suppose. So to be content and to have followed your dreams, I think that is so undervalued. I’ve come across so many successful dentists. Well, I mean, a lot of dentists in the world that I live in, but a lot of people, you just think God. You are from the outside, you’re so successful, but they’re still chasing something that you just think, God, I wish, I wish I could be in your shoes and actually just think, Gee, what? I’m really, really happy with where I’ve got, so I think that is that’s quite important.

[01:15:25] Think that the tension between contentment and striving, we’ve got that sort of in society. We’ve got those two things in tension. And we like almost like being content. It’s almost like failing completely.

[01:15:37] Yeah, that’s so true.

[01:15:39] And it’s it’s a shame, isn’t it? Because like I said before, that must be the most important thing to be happy, right?

[01:15:45] Absolutely. I mean, you know, we we all suffer with a bit of mental health issues, and I think now, you know, people are talking about it and it’s a real common problem. And I think people, especially with social media and I think this is one of the reasons why I try and stay clear of it, because even when I go on social media and I’ve gained down my, you know, my news feed, I’m comparing myself to these people and I’m thinking, Oh what? I don’t have that car or I’m not on holiday. And I think just for me, it’s just better just to stay clear of it. But yeah, I think it’s something that we all need to try and work on to be content and happy.

[01:16:25] It’s definitely the number one be content.

[01:16:27] Yeah, I’d have to say that I think trying things once is a good thing, you know, experience life to its fullness. I think we are on this planet for maybe no reason at all. Maybe we’re just evolved from a simple bacteria or an organism and and there is no greater being. But you know, it’s it’s it’s pretty cool to be to be here and there are so many things to enjoy, and I think you just got to try and enjoy everything you can possibly enjoy. And I suppose don’t don’t stress over the little things and just, you know, be be the person you want to be. I think that that would be my my my leaving comment. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:17:08] What’s? But I’d say that’s one. So that’s two you’ve given me,

[01:17:15] I gave you quite a few.

[01:17:18] No, no, that’s the, you know, try stuff. I guess it’s different to be the person you want to be.

[01:17:23] Yeah, I’ll go for one more. Okay. Well, just just actually be honest and have integrity. And yeah, just just go out and start the days as you as you want. And I love the film. It’s called About Time, and it’s about this family that have the ability to travel back in time. But when there are major points in their life, like a child is born, they can’t travel back before that because when they come back to the present day, the child could be different, right? And I always watched it. I always leave that thinking, Yeah, actually, just just be just be true to yourself. And yeah, be honest. So that’s that has to be three.

[01:18:04] Yeah. Yeah, that’s three. And what about I mean, I think we asked you at BCD and we’ve got Henry the eighth as one of the guests that came out on the final video. But the fancy dinner party, three guests that are alive, Henry VIII

[01:18:18] Got

[01:18:19] Your reason. Just cracked me up. What was the reason? Because I’ve never, never really chatted to him before.

[01:18:27] I’m not sure about it. I’m not sure if I’d slept that much that night. And you took. Yeah, I mean, I still I still I still would have Henry the eighth. And yeah,

[01:18:37] Yeah, no. That was one of the best answers.

[01:18:39] You know what the thing is, right? The only picture these give Henry the eighth is a is a book, and I’d love to, you know what he looked like in real life and and

[01:18:51] How was you never see him sipping a gin and tonic?

[01:18:58] So obviously living, you know, very close to Hampton Court Palace, you just think, yeah, I mean, how amazing it would be to meet Henry the eighth and actually really understand what it would or what it’s like to live back then. So I’m still saying that he’s coming if he can make it amazing. So Wolf of Wall Street film The Guy after Jordan Belfort, he would actually be quite quite an interesting character.

[01:19:21] I bet he’s got a few stories to tell you to actually

[01:19:24] Find out how much of that, how much of that film is true. I did. Did they actually? Yeah, he does.

[01:19:32] He does. He does a podcast, I think.

[01:19:34] I think he does. Yeah, I think he does listen to Jordan Belfort. Who else? I mean, I buy a lot of clothes from suit supply. And so the founder of Suits apply. I think his name is it’s like some sort of Scandinavian name for Bulk de Jong or something. And so I think he would be quite fun because to actually just work, you know, ask him some, some some sort

[01:20:04] Businessman you admire. Is that what it is like?

[01:20:06] How he did it? Absolutely. How he did it, where it came from, because it just it just seemed to kind of expand massively. And they’ve got shops popping up everywhere and all the clothes that it just really, really great. Like, they fit well and they look great. And yeah, so it’s out to have a chat with him. It would be interesting.

[01:20:25] Yeah. When you’re six foot two or whatever, everything fits well and looks like, how tall are you?

[01:20:33] Yeah. Six, six two. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:20:36] Yeah, yeah. If you got any problems with stuff looking good in fitting, well, anyway, that movie to have you, man. Thanks, man. And it was it was a good laugh, actually.

[01:20:49] Yeah, it’s good fun

[01:20:50] And see you soon and

[01:20:53] We will. Thanks, Pete. Take it easy, mate. All right, buddy. Bye bye.

[01:20:58] 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.

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