Month: June 2022

[00:00:00] But I must admit, without sounding too pious, I do try and sort of keep true to myself. I only talk about things that I use in practice, and I only talk about things that I know work. Because if I don’t, if I talk about a product that I haven’t got faith in and then somebody buys that product, uses that product, and then they don’t get the outcomes with it. Again, nobody’s going to listen to me again. And, you know, I’ve been lucky. You know, I’ve never been good enough to work properly with with Enlightened.

[00:00:34] But 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.

[00:00:59] It gives me great pleasure to welcome Lewis Mackenzie onto the podcast. Louis is a long time friend and mentor of mine, educator, general dentist, now ahead of head dental officer Dan Plant, Clinical Lecturer at Birmingham and at King’s and General General good guy on the lecture circuit, someone who probably is the most entertaining lecturer out there. Every time I’ve seen you lecture Louis, the crowd’s been in stitches. And in my story, most notably, the person who introduced Palmer to me. You didn’t. You weren’t quite the person who introduced the poem. But as soon as I met the Palmer, you called me and we knew each other, I think from the Manchester MSC, we were supporting that and you know, the best lectures on our many smile maker, of course, I think, you know, Lewis certainly. And I would agree, a once in a generation talent found his start in Birmingham Dental School, where Lewis was putting on hands on days for the students. And he always mentions you, Lewis, as his key inspiration. Well, lovely to have you, buddy.

[00:02:13] Well, thank you very much. It’s a very nice sir. That’s an excellent introduction. And pretty hard to.

[00:02:17] Pretty hard to live up to. All right. Well.

[00:02:20] All I can say is we’ve all got a similar haircut. So we’ve got something in common, haven’t we?

[00:02:29] Lewis, we’ll get back. We’ll get to the back story in all of that. Yeah, but just just on that Depeche front and I was thinking about this, the number of others you must have inspired. I mean, I know a few of them. You know, Millie Morrison, live scorer who introduced to me people like a few I know a few of a few of your graduates, but you must be responsible for so much good dentistry coming out there. Do you feel the weight of that when you have a new class?

[00:03:01] Not not really. But those are those names that those names that you mentioned are sort of extraordinary talents. I would say of all the things I’ve done over the years, one sort of skill that have got is being able to recognise this sort of unique you I think you said it sort of once in a generation talent. Depeche was definitely the first. And I remember I met him during the final year in 2009, and I run a special study module, run it for nine years. And Depeche was the first ever year and. He came on the he came on the course, and the first exercise I ever got him to do was just some occlusal composites and just to sort of set the set the bar. And when I looked at these composites, I thought. Shit. I’ve got to improve my teaching here. This. This bloke. This bloke is an absolute genius. And. And as you say, Millie. And we’d live again. They’ve just got this unique talent, and I’m not sure you can teach it. My. My role really was them was just to put the materials in their hands and just just just let them go with it. But but, yeah, they don’t come along to too often. Another one that comes to mind is Richard Lee. He just just emigrated to New Zealand, actually. But again, when you when you when you’ve I think now I’ve done over 1000 hands on courses. And so so you really get you really get a feel for somebody who’s just just way, way out of the ordinary. But Depeche was the first for definite and he definitely made me realise I need to up my game on a teaching point.

[00:04:49] And at the time you were a general dentist, you used to visit the dental school for hands on sexual for what was that was what it was.

[00:04:58] Yeah. I was a part time lecturer. I started, I’d been in practice for about ten years and then I’d always had that sort of little itch about doing a bit of teaching. I’ve done a couple of courses myself and sort of really enjoyed them. And yeah, just started doing a Thursday afternoon on clinic, did clinic for many years, probably about eight or ten years. But then I found a real passion for Phantom Head teaching. So I like it because it’s a level, level playing field, everybody starting with the same cavity and you get a really good opportunity to sort of rank the students and identify those who have got weaknesses. And so this special study module that I put on and ran for nine years, Depeche, as I mentioned, was that was the first year. And yeah, just, just really, really enjoyed that sort of aspect of it. But yeah, sort of clinical lecture is the title nowadays. I don’t do any undergrad teaching. It’s just purely postgrad working on the working on the master’s at Birmingham and the Maths and a couple of master’s courses at King’s. But I do quite a lot of, as you know, hands on courses around the country all the time. Anyway.

[00:06:04] What is it that makes somebody stick out, Lewis? Is it is it generally how inquisitive they are? Is it does it just come down to you, look at the work and think, crap, that looks amazing. How did that happen? What is it that is there a like if you could bottle that up and put it into a formula, what would it be for these super successful delegate guts that you’ve had?

[00:06:27] I think it’s when they do something that hasn’t been taught, they’ve just got that eye for it. They can just see something, explain something, but then take it to the next level. So one, one of my mentors, Adrian Shorter, we might chat about him later on. He, he said to me, don’t, don’t be upset when your students are better than you are. Take, take, take pleasure and pride in it. The thing is, with people like Depp’s Millie, Liv, Richard, they were always already better than me before they started. So. But I think it is that just that unique sort of X factor, whatever it is. And if you could bottle it then, then it’d be worth a fortune. But I don’t think you can. I think we can all. I mean, you’ve only got to look on Instagram and Facebook now to see the you know, the beautiful, beautiful quality of dentistry that is literally within anybody’s grasp. But then you’ll see the others who just take it up to the sort of the next level. I think one of the first contemporary couple of contemporaries that I saw of my sort of era were Jason Smythson and Tiff Qureshi, where I just thought, Wow, that’s a bit special. And then I mean, the nice thing about the people we’ve talked about as well is that they’ve gone on to become really great teachers as well, because that for me is an extra skill. You know, there’s plenty of people doing extraordinary dentistry nowadays, which is brilliant, but to be able to communicate that to us mere mortals, I mean, I go to to the enlightened course. I go to Dipesh lectures now and I’ve got my notebook out because he’s constantly pushing, pushing the boundaries when it comes to teaching and practice, because he’s just got that eye for aesthetics, that eye for colour, which, which, which I haven’t got.

[00:08:10] It’s interesting what makes a good dentist and then what makes a good teacher? Let’s agree firstly, two different things. You know, there’s many good dentists who aren’t great teachers and but I think with I think you gave Dipesh the advice that he shouldn’t go on any composite hands on courses so so that all the ideas would be original his own. He wouldn’t feel like he was taking an idea from someone else or something like that.

[00:08:41] That definitely wasn’t.

[00:08:41] Me. Sure that you don’t like my advice is going as many course.

[00:08:49] So yeah. Absolutely. There might be. There might be. There might be crap courses, but.

[00:08:55] You will always.

[00:08:56] You’ll always pick something up off them. And and of course he did. Chris Of course, there’s another legend. He did. Chris all year long course. I mean, he was only in fact, that was that was actually a really nice sort of bit of feedback that I got that Christopher has always had. I don’t know what the rules are nowadays, but it used to be you had to be graduated, I think, for at least three years before you could apply to go on Chris’s course. But then he made an exception unless they’d done the special study module at Birmingham Dental School in their final year. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So. So Dipesh and Emily got on their lips, done it as well. And of course, Millie now is one of Chris Christopher’s associates. So he knew what he’s talking about.

[00:09:41] And the teacher herself, not in composite, but more Invisalign. But but it’s interesting, you know, because we were doing a little series called My Mini Tip and we had dentists and I took it for granted. Every dentist has got one or two tips and they probably do and maybe camera shy at that moment or whatever. But I guess the difference between a teacher and a technician is a teacher has more tips that came from them. You know, that that things they do slightly differently to the rest of us need teaching.

[00:10:16] Doesn’t that’s true and but I think we all fall down the same holes anyway, don’t we?

[00:10:23] Yeah, that’s true.

[00:10:25] And that’s how we learn by by sort of reflecting. And I think in the let me use the term old days, we’ve probably the first of several times this evening, usually it was sort of ten years or so before you did any sort of postgraduate qualifications. Now, obviously, dentists are doing it a lot earlier and, you know, certificates, diplomas, even mscs on our MSC course, we’ve had some literally sort of first year, first year graduates. I just wonder whether actually doing these courses earlier on actually reduces the risk of you sort of falling falling into the regular sort of pitfalls. Or again, the old fashioned mantra is you need to make a few mistakes and then do the course and then learn basically based on your experience. So I don’t know what it is, but certainly there’s as you know, there’s a trend for courses a lot earlier nowadays.

[00:11:23] Yeah, I think in the US it’s slightly different, you know. When you talk to the academics out there, they haven’t got that mantra of become a generalist first. You know, they. Well, some do. By the way, I don’t think it’s the right or wrong. You can’t say one is right and one is wrong. But but you’re right that the sort of the general thing that people have been saying here is you learn a lot of things first and then go and specialise into one one area that you like to see, try a lot of things. But I remember when when I did my elective in the US, the advice wasn’t that it was, it was, you know, as quick as possible, try and get into something. And and I’ve given that advice to a lot of people as well. Louis, you know, because people asked me, Hey, what should I do? My answer is, pick one thing and just run with it. You know, get really, really good at something. You know, if you want to if you want to do something, pick pick one, pick one and go. But, you know, you’ve seen so many students come and go. Would you say that specialising these days is a good idea? Or would you say that general practice where you’ve thrived if creches thrived, crystals or ideas? Which way? Which way would you advise someone to go?

[00:12:41] Often down to the individual person. But don’t forget, whatever you choose, you’re going to be doing it for the next 30 to 40 years. So you’ve got to make the right decision. I wouldn’t close certainly early in your career. I wouldn’t close any doors because once it doesn’t take long in dentistry to sort of do skill, not necessarily skill, but lose confidence. And then you’re kind of you’re going down that one little route. And of course, obviously no perio. You can just do that all day long. But certainly when it comes to sort of aesthetic restorative, is it something that’s going to sustain a sustain for for 30 or 40 years? One interesting thing I’ve noticed, talking to a few young dentists and even a few lecturers recently is is just focusing on front teeth. And which is a bit of a worrying, worrying situation when we’ve got, what is it, a year’s missed missed appointments due.

[00:13:38] To.

[00:13:41] Due to the pandemic. And obviously 70% of all problems occur on molars, which they’re not as they’re not as instagrammable. But that’s where most of the most of the trouble is. So yeah, it’s I mean, you must see it a lot on your courses and of course it’s lovely dentistry to do, but is it sort of sustainable for that length of time? I don’t know. Certainly just don’t know whether obviously every restoration is going to fail and are these almost sort of aesthetic cosmetic specialists. Their whole career is going to be about replacement of existing restorations or management of of marginal stain and stuff like that. So it’s down to the individual. But certainly I would say early in your career, don’t, don’t narrow it down too early. That that would be my advice.

[00:14:36] Not.

[00:14:37] You know what? What you’ve just been saying there, Lewis, in terms of how long these restorations, every restorations go into eventually fail, etc., etc.. Right. There’s two bits of, I guess, information I’ve received from from. So TIFF has always pushed the you know, you don’t really know how good a dentist you are until you’ve seen how long you work lasts and you’ve got that long term follow up. And he always talks about his ten, his 15 year follow ups and he knows how long he’s dentistry lasts. And funnily enough, I had the opportunity to interview a guy called Daniel Boozer. I think his name is he’s an implant guy over at the ADA. According to everyone who I spoke to, he’s he’s one of the gods of implant dentistry. Anyway, cut a long story short, when I was interviewing him, I asked him about what advice he’d give to new students who are getting into wanting to get into implant dentistry and how would they know how good they are? And he said exactly the same thing as TIFF, that it’s about this long term follow up that he’s got cases. 35 years ago we placed an implant and they’re still stuck there in somebody’s head. And he felt that that was the true measure of somebody who was really good. What do you think are the concerns with all of this? A lot of front teeth, dentistry, composite veneers and things like that. Now, obviously, a lot of the courses are teaching that. And then the longevity of that in terms of, I guess how long these are going to last. How is it? We’ll see. Easiest way to describe it. Is it a huge problem waiting to unfold and happen when all of these, you know, composite veneers sort of mature in 5 to 6 years time and they need redoing with either more composite or porcelain. And then something you just mentioned, which I hadn’t given any thought to, is that are these dentists reskilling by just focusing on that?

[00:16:37] Really good questions just to sort of start at the beginning of that. You made a really good point about the longevity. I’ve worked in only one practice, the same practice for 30, 31 years. Wow. So so you know what works, but equally, you know what doesn’t work.

[00:16:54] Yeah.

[00:16:55] We’re in the kind of the infancy with composite veneers at the moment. Obviously, the materials have come along massively. Again, advertising payments wonders there. When I started using enamel, really, that was the first time composite veneers actually became a thing for me because of the Polish and. Composite versus versus porcelain. We could do a whole whole hour just on that. Composites got its disadvantages with regard to sort of technique, sensitivity with regard to surface lustre. That’s that’s where enamel works because obviously it’s a microfilm that keeps it keeps it shine. But the way that aesthetic restorations usually fail, where they’re direct or indirect is usually marginal stain. They don’t usually they don’t usually drop off certain materials. They will composite materials. They will lose their surface lustre. So it will be interesting to see exactly, say Prav a few years down the line. Payman to remember exactly the same thing happened in the nineties with the with with porcelain veneers. Well, that was very much that was very much the the thing the thing to do. All the courses were based were based around that. And then if you choose the wrong patient, if, if you’re not bonding to enamel and people, people came unstuck and I think probably moved away from that. But you know, either restoration, if it’s done well, it is going to last for years. But again, you also make a very good point that doing dentistry for the second time is is is a challenge because you’ve got to you’ve got to take it off.

[00:18:32] And, you know, when you’re cutting, whether it’s ceramic, whether it’s composite, are you in material? Are you in dentine? Are you in enamel bonding resin? So yeah, it’s a real it’s a real challenge. So but I would say just to add to that, the foundation of skill with not necessarily young dentists is some amazing, stunning older dentists as well with composite is because the foundation of skill I don’t think really we know yet they might just literally just need polishing. I know I’ve got I’ve got re enamel cases where where the composite veneers still again as you say in my latest anterior composite lecture, I’ve got a re enamel veneer at ten years. Tiny bit of marginal stain, still shiny, absolutely never been republished at all. So I think now because they’ve got the skills, you’ve got the the bonding techniques, you’ve got the material technology, they’re going to last longer. And of course, as every generation goes, they’re just going to get better and better and better at them. So maybe it will be the treatment of choice. I know Dipesh is sort of now he’s sort of half and half isn’t. He loves he loves composite, obviously, but I’ve seen him lecturing more and more on ceramics.

[00:19:49] Now.

[00:19:50] Do you know when you talk about restorations lasting? So the purpose of which let’s say somebody has a composite veneer is less functional and protective and more cosmetic when you refer to them lasting. Do you mean just staying in touch or do you mean lasting in a in a cosmetic way?

[00:20:09] Yeah. I mean, they’re not going to fall off. You know, you might get a little bit of chipping, but of course, that’s that’s easy to repair. But yeah, it’s really a patient factor. Is the patient you’re happy with them? And and I think that I think that’s the main thing and that would that would probably drive the replacement. Yeah. They’re not, they’re not going to drop off if they’re bonded to enamel I think Trevor Burks who did this massive study millions of restorations that have been done on the NCE and and labial only veneers came out tops. They last longer than at any other restoration in dentistry, so they’re not going to fall off if they’re bonded to enamel. That’s the best bond in dentistry. So they’re going to last. But yeah, so it’s going to be cosmetic. It’s going to be cosmetic failure before before anything else.

[00:20:53] Which which year did you qualify this?

[00:20:56] 1990 graduated with a with a marvellous four four, four years in one term.

[00:21:01] Course Payman not not missed five years.

[00:21:05] Yeah. The good old course. And so I was, I was going to say you’re not old enough. Right. But when did like your composite come.

[00:21:15] Well like your has been around it thinks is the since they on the first composite that was out. I’m trying to think I’ve actually got a picture of Trevor Burt with with one of the original curing lights. It was probably I would say probably the seventies don’t know for certain.

[00:21:33] We have Wilson on the on the podcast and he was talking about when they were developing it with Eisai and it was.

[00:21:39] Yeah.

[00:21:40] It was one one shade only. Right.

[00:21:43] Yeah.

[00:21:43] Yeah. So yeah. And then there was a clues in of course the first composites you have to mix yourself and there was no polymerisation shrinkage issues because you had so much air in them that the material just didn’t cause any problems. But yes, so light curing really sort of probably sort of seventies, it sort of kicked off.

[00:22:03] But you know, people like to say that the current day dentist, I mean, even outside of COVID, that, you know, the newer, younger generation don’t have the skills that that let’s say our generation had because they didn’t they don’t drill enough teeth. Do you have another side to that story that says they’re they’re a lot better than us because of whatever other you know, whatever other thing they do have that we didn’t have. You know, they get taught patient management or, you know, what are they being taught while we were drilling teeth?

[00:22:33] Well, I think it goes further back than that. They’re just really, really clever.

[00:22:39] You know, I thought, yeah, I.

[00:22:42] Want to know when I it was a B, it was a B and to CS to get into dentistry in 1986, I smashed that with the two B’s and two.

[00:22:53] Sees. It was.

[00:22:56] In those days you buy three, you get one free with.

[00:22:59] General study.

[00:23:02] So yeah, I mean they’re superintelligent. You’re absolutely right about the undergraduate experience. You know, they’re going to do a lot less than they did with regard to everything, you know, particularly amalgam skills, you know, some dental schools, they’ll almost do non extractions again depending on where depending.

[00:23:20] On the why is that because enough patients to have their teeth extracted.

[00:23:25] Just I mean we work Birmingham’s fluoridated so even back then my oral surgery experience was was very limited and so I had to sort of learn those skills kind of on the job.

[00:23:39] So are you are you Birmingham born and bred? Were you born in Birmingham?

[00:23:43] Staffordshire. I’ve my my quest through life has taken me about 25 miles.

[00:23:48] From.

[00:23:50] From from Staffordshire. I went to Birmingham Dental School because it was the only place that gave me an offer.

[00:23:57] Birmingham at the time my dentistry did.

[00:24:00] Oh, well, now you have asked a good question, and I had to actually do some research for this because I always was certain that I was 11. I was 11 when I decided I wanted to be a dentist. And I was absolutely certain I could remember where I sit in, in a science class who was sitting next to my mike Dean. But my auntie has always, always said, No, you are much younger than that. And so I thought, No, no, she’s making this up. And but then I went up to see one of my uncles in the Lake district and I asked him about this and he’s in his nineties and he said, No, no, you’re about six. So then I went back to my auntie and said, Come on, tell me this story. Then she said, Do you remember you’re in the car? And I said to you, What are you going to be when you’re older? How about being a doctor when you can look up, look after your Auntie Lillian when when she’s old? I said, and apparently I said to her, Now I’m not going to be a doctor.

[00:24:51] I’m going to be a dentist. And I was standing up in the back of a Fiat 127. So so no seatbelts in those days. And obviously so I couldn’t have been very tall. So I think I was about six. So I decided I wanted to be a dentist. I have absolutely no idea why. I never, never changed my mind. I remember when I went to Careers Day and I told the careers advisor that I wanted to be a dentist and her advice to me was, You don’t want to be a dentist. That’s a terrible job. Then when it came to A-levels in those days, you had to fill in, fill in a different form for a polytechnic. Picasso’s Picasso art form. So as you. Cassin Picasso, it’s all on one form now. And I refused to fill in the the whatever it was going to be, whether suggesting pharmacy, pharmacy or something like that. And so I refused to fill it in. I only wanted to be a dentist, but I don’t know why. And I’m just glad that chose chose a career that’s worked out for me.

[00:25:55] What did your parents do?

[00:25:58] My dad was was a draughtsman and my mom was she was well, her final job, she did lots of sort of secretarial jobs. Her final job there both passed away, unfortunately. But a final job was once she really loved and she was she was a medical secretary. That was that was the last job that she did. But my parents, if I was the first person to go to to uni in my family. So there was.

[00:26:25] Is there a, you know, like the how the that that part of the country was very industrial and you know, our stories in your in your family about the black country and everything everything that goes with that. And did you sort of see that change in the area?

[00:26:39] You’re such a Londoner, you’re such a London.

[00:26:45] Gossip bullshit.

[00:26:46] Stuff, which is no way stuff is just north of Birmingham.

[00:26:50] Oh, is it?

[00:26:51] So I was so romantic about this story. Like your granddad works in the mines and then, you.

[00:27:00] Know, my grandma.

[00:27:01] My granddad, we are going back now. I had a granddad, this is on my dad’s side and my granddad from the Isle of Skye, Isle of Lewis and my grandma from the Isle of Skye. They both left to find work to go to Glasgow. And then once they’d sort of become a couple they walked to Liverpool too to find a job. So my, my grandfather on my dad’s side, who I never met was an engineer by training.

[00:27:29] So Dad’s Scottish.

[00:27:31] My dad’s. My dad was born in. My dad was born in Liverpool. So but my grandparents are Scottish and my on my mom’s side they’re more sort of midlands based, more sort of Brummie Brummies but. Right. Proper Birmingham.

[00:27:45] Yeah. So if you, if you were an Indian they’d say you’re Scottish because you know you’re Scottish, you’re a Scottish guy.

[00:27:52] Like I was Scottish.

[00:27:59] I’ve got Scottish ancestors, so but I’ve got loads of Scottish relatives, loads of loads of aunties and uncles and cousins.

[00:28:09] What would you like? What would you like as a dental student? Were you really into it or.

[00:28:13] Oh, really?

[00:28:14] Yeah, yeah.

[00:28:15] Yeah. I really was. Yeah, I kind of liked it away. I mean, I must admit, it was pretty tough at dental school. We were lucky, actually, that we’d just been sort of a change in sort of management, if you like. Birmingham had always been sort of known as kind of the cotton school. I think the Cons department at one stage had about 30 members of staff. So when I started, we used to hear the sort of horror stories from the previous, the previous tutors, one that’s always stuck in my mind. And I sometimes remind the students when, when they’re being a little bit, a little bit soft, that one of the tutors apparently used to say to when he was checking a cavity or something like that, he’d stand over the with the with the patient and the student and he’d say to the patient, he’d look at the look in look at the in the cavity. And he’d say to the student, I wouldn’t trust you to cut my lawn.

[00:29:14] So.

[00:29:15] So fortunately, we missed we missed that sort of era. And we had really fantastic young lecturers at that time, Phil Lumley, basically God have ended antics. And Ian Chappell was a junior lecturer as as well. And obviously they were both my bosses, Phil and Phil and Ian and Trevor Burke came to to Birmingham as well via, via Manchester and Glasgow and he Trevor’s been really instrumental in my career and Damian Walmsley was, was head of sort of head of prosthetics or fixed removable prods. And so we were really lucky that we had all these young legends basically want to do things differently. And so the teaching we have interesting actually the there are a significant number of people in my year who have actually gone back into dental education and my four and a half years sorry, four years and one term were yeah, I must admit I really enjoyed it. I think I was one of those lucky students who kind of on the practical aspects, sort of picked it up straight away. You know, I’m quite a sort of, you know, used to like playing with Lego, fixing my bike stuff, stuff like that. So, so it’s quite lucky I sort of picked it up straightaway. And of course in those days is you’ll remember the course was very practical. And now going back to your other point, I think now there’s so much new stuff that you’ve got to learn with regard to, you know, I mean, there were no posterior composites. Molar endo was kind of in its infancy. And so the course now is so packed that the students are doing less practical work than they would have before. But with regard to talent and skills, I would say, you know, the future is most definitely so. These these young dentists are going to be awesome and and they’re going to take dentistry to the next to the next level. You know, I hope I can hang around for long enough to to just to see where it goes. Obviously, the digital revolution is finally has finally arrived. So yeah, I mean, that is really, really exciting stuff.

[00:31:33] I feel like the, the newer ones, they’ve got more AQ than, than we have sort of more emotional intelligence. At the same time though, maybe it’s just they admit to it more, they seem to suffer with more sort of mental health crises and issues. Is that your feeling?

[00:31:55] It. Maybe it’s it’s an excellent point. And obviously there’s loads of evidence to back that up. But I just wonder whether we all always had those issues. But it was just a case of.

[00:32:06] Talk about it.

[00:32:07] Get on with it, and suffer and suffer in silence. And that’s the way of the world. Maybe it is the fact that they’re they’re more sort of more sort of people of the world. They’ve got access to everything when it comes to sort of social media. The Internet, obviously, the Internet didn’t exist. So just maybe they’ve just got a better sort of perception about what their part in the world. And obviously they can be a little bit emotional at times and sort of older sort of dentists. That takes a little bit of getting used to, but I think they’re probably going to get a much better life work balance than maybe the dentists of yesteryear did when it was very much sort of, you know, five days a week, full days of NHS dentistry and then look sometimes look forward to retirement, which is, you know, you’ve got to enjoy the ride. I would always say, I would always advise and whatever you doing just enjoy your dentistry. And if you’re in a if you’re in a situation where you’re not enjoying it, do something to to change that.

[00:33:18] I mean, there’s a lot of people who aren’t enjoying it. There is.

[00:33:23] Yeah.

[00:33:24] Absolutely.

[00:33:24] And I mean, at the same time, there’s loads of people who adore it and love it and can’t stop talking about it. And, you know. So what do you reckon is the difference? Do you think the difference is staying engaged and trying to improve the whole time? And why is it some people are in such a bad state about and I think the GDC whatever has has a role to play but it’s always been like that. Even before the Dental Law Partnership came along, there were some dentists were really into it and others who hated their lives. What’s the difference in those two characters, do you think?

[00:34:01] Well, it is such a good question. And if you actually love the physical act of delivering. Doing a filling or something like that, if you if you really, really enjoy that, then nobody can take that away from you. You literally just you know, that’s a that’s a big chunk of your life on Earth that you’re actually enjoying. But when you’re working in a situation where maybe you’d really enjoy that feeling, you know, it’s going to take you a 45 minutes to do it. But you’re working in a clinical situation where you’ve got 15 minutes to do it, then you’ve immediately got that. I think the textbooks call it that moral, moral tension, haven’t you, where you know you know what’s best, but you know, you’re working in a system that’s not allowing you to to do that. And I think that’s probably at the heart of of mental health issues in dentistry, which, as you say, have been around literally forever. I mean, the good thing is now mental health is most definitely on the agenda in dentistry. You know, the regular report coming out, looking at the profession, looking at the causes. Remember the BDA did did a massive one, thousands of dentists in 2019, just just before the pandemic. And, you know, they listed the top ten stressors in dentistry, and most of them were systematic problems and regulation was one of them. There was I read I read a nice article by Martin Keller, I think it was in the BDA, actually. And he said, nowadays it’s like practising clinical dentistry is like being in a lift with a wasp. And I think it’s a good analogy. The only way that that analogy falls down is if you’re in a lift, you can get out of the next floor.

[00:35:52] If you’re if you’re a dentist, you’re in the lift for 30 to 40 years. So I think there is obviously the dental legal stuff is never is never going to go away. But nowadays that’s that’s a separate self sustaining industry. But I’ve had I’ve had second year dental students literally just started on Phantom Head say to me that they’re worried about graduating because they don’t want to get sued. So, so, so second year, Joe so this stuff, this stuff does starts does start early and it can do but need to be prepared. That’s the way of the world. It’s not going to go away and just do your best for every patient as long as as long as that’s the sort of philosophy. And if you are in a situation that’s compromising your ethics, your standards, then do something to change it. And I know obviously Prav does loads of work with dentists and with whole teams to create the right environment. In fact, I think I listen in preparation for this. I did some revision, I listened to one of you, did an excellent talking heads when it was just the two of you. And Prav made the point that he felt that at that time one of his favourite clients was a bloke who was just unhappy in his job and he just needed to change. No, change was not an option for this bloke and obviously he did perhaps training and sounded like it all. It all worked out well for him. Prav is that correct?

[00:37:21] It’s Lewis. But you’ve just got me thinking about another thing, which is, you know, what is the reason some of these guys, especially what I’m seeing and it’s not you know, I’m not speaking for all the younger dentists, but I have a lot of younger dentists who come to me and say, I just want to make X per month. That is that’s the overriding thing that they come to me for. But they’ve not been they’ve not done enough dentistry, if that makes sense. So when you look at them from an I’m not the one to judge them clinically, but you know, they’ve been out of dental school for 18 months, two years and they’re both their prime motivating factor is I want to make X per month. Right. And it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about dentistry, whether we’re talking about a career in marketing or whatever it is, I think you need to earn your stripes first and get some experience under your belt before that. Becomes your sort of number one motivator. And I do say to them, look, my first bit of advice is get on these courses, right? And these courses happen to be courses that people that I respect that pay more respect probably yourself as well. Or is that that you just think that let let them get this solid, grounded, and then the money will come.

[00:38:41] But I do think that if finances that number one motivating factor from a very young age, I do think a lot of these dentists will start becoming unstuck later on because they siloed themselves into I am just going to be an Invisalign doctor. I am just going to press the button on this program and get this treatment plan done for me and I’ll finish it off with a little bit of edge bonding or whatever. Right. But it’s a bit like becoming a marketeer and running Facebook ads. But you don’t know the first thing about the problems of the people that they face that you’re marketing to. Right. So so how can you how can you market to somebody who needs a full arch of implants if you don’t know the problems that a loose denture wearer goes through and the fact that they can’t eat steak or the fact that they they cover their hands or they walking around with a tube of fixed it in their pocket all the time and so on and so forth. And I feel really strongly about this and I feel as somebody who helps practices grow, there’s a bit of a pressure on sort of them coming to me and saying, Well, I want to make loads more money. And my advice at the moment is get strikes first and the money will come.

[00:39:54] I couldn’t agree more. I mean, you’re giving absolutely spot on advice and I’d give exactly the same advice. I think in dentistry, if you put finances first, it’s doomed to failure because you’ll always be chasing something over the horizon, which is which never actually arrives. And you’ve got to obviously be constantly chasing repeat business over and over again. If you’re looking from a financial point of view, from a financial point of view, the best way to achieve that goal is is family dentistry. And look, I think TIFF talks about this, the lifetime patient. It might sound a little bit sort of old fashioned, but yes, the see the grandparents, the parents and the kids and sometimes even their kids. That’s from a business point of view that is the foundation of any successful practice. Also, when finance is at the fore, I’ll be careful. Our phrase this there is a danger that it affects your treatment, planning and and if you’re not looking at the whole patient and the whole patient’s needs and maybe just focusing maybe just on the anterior teeth, it is that old classic that if all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So everybody gets the same treatments. They all look pretty much the the same. And yeah, you get on a OCH, it’s not an NHS treadmill, but it’s a different treadmill. And so I think I think a balance between I think a balance between that where it’s lovely to do the aesthetic stuff, but of course it.

[00:41:30] Is.

[00:41:31] Patients demands. Now patients are so well educated that, you know, they know what, they know what they want and you’ve got to be able to deliver on that promise. So going back to learning your getting getting your stripes, getting your hours in, I think it is like any sort of it’s that 10000 hours, isn’t it? What if whatever whatever you do and if you’re going to become an expert in it, 10000 hours a mate of mine or shared an office with Charles Perry, he actually worked it out and he reckoned it was about ten years, ten years of of of sort of four, four and a half, five days of dentistry. That’s about 10000 hours of practical dentistry. In that time, you’ve probably you’re probably made most of your mistakes, not all of them. Unfortunately, you’ve learnt what you’re good at, you learnt what you’re not good at, you’ve learnt your patient communication skills. And it’s why in the again using that old phrase in the old days it usually was ten years was kind of a turning point where the where you maybe think, right, I’m going to buy a practice now or maybe I’m going to go on a, you know, I’m going to learn how to do implants.

[00:42:39] I’m going to be an end to dentist, that sort of ten year apprenticeship, for want of a better word. But I think that’s certainly come forwards now. Certainly young dentists seem to be a lot more business minded in a good way. You know, they seem to sort of grasp that it’s not something that’s ever taught at a dental school, but they certainly do seem to have a grasp of of what they want and the vision that they want. But again, I’ll mention this possibly when you ask me those questions, which I’ve prepared for at the end, is from a financial point of view, just just enjoy your dentistry. Just do do what feels right for the patient, what feels right for you. And the money will will will sort itself out. No, no problem at all. And use the team as well. You know, use your specialists, use your technicians and just become a whole little sort of industry. Yeah. Look, for me, looking after looking after families is the key and then the aesthetic restorative stuff. That’s, that’s the icing on the cake.

[00:43:42] Yeah. Not, not to mention Prav. Yeah. The best way of not making that money is to focus on making that money. But I wonder if people say that to you because they see a marketing guy before them and they feel like that’s I’m allowed to say this to, to, to the marketing guy. And so they come across as that guy, you know.

[00:44:03] Possibly there’s an element of that, right. And they probably see that I’ve worked with a lot of successful dentists who’ve who’ve done really well, both clinically and financially, but a lot of these dentists who have done really well as a stripes. Yeah, they’ve got the decade well and truly under their belt. Yeah. You know, and then they’ve done well however you define doing well financially right. We all have different I guess set points, call it whatever you want. Right. Well our definitions of success are and some of them are spending more time with your kids or whatever, and some of them are driving fast cars and going on luxury holidays, whatever that thing is. But, you know, people do come to me and they associate me with with those individuals who’ve done well, let’s say, for example. And then they come to me and say, hey, well, you’re the. That drives the patients through the door and then can give me advice on conversion and all the rest of it. So Prav bring me some money, right? And, and for me, whether I’m giving advice to somebody who comes to me for career advice as a as a, as a young marketeer or someone or somebody comes to me for career advice as a dentist. Yet I say, you’ve got to be able to do the shit that you can say you can do. Then we can market that, because if you end up marketing something that you know you can’t do, you’re only going to end up in trouble. And this comes down to my involvement with the IAS Academy has taught me a lot about how I guess you should operate as a dentist.

[00:45:39] Right. And case selectivity. Knowing your limits. Right. Knowing when to say no. Really, really important. Right. And so marketing can put you in trouble because it can deliver a patient that you have absolutely no chance of being able to treat because you don’t have the skill set of doing it right. But you decide, okay, I’ll be Mr. or Mrs. Brave and have a crack at that. So, you know, I’m a I’m a big believer in making sure that we market appropriately at a skill set and at a level that we can deliver because it will be short lived otherwise. And even with my clients, I want to build long term relationships. I don’t want to I don’t want to put someone in a position where they become unstuck. They’re up in front of the GDC, you know, and there’s I guess there’s a sense I feel like there’s a sense of responsibility on my behalf. It’s not just about an exchange of service for money, but I think I’m fortunate enough to be in a position where I can actually say, Look, if that’s what you want to do, there may be another agency out there that could help you do that. But this is my advice, and I think what weighs on me is having business partners like Tiff Qureshi, who’ve got a very, very high moral, moral, ethical, high ground for me to sort of say, well, okay, well, this is this is the route I think you should go down.

[00:47:05] Yeah. And Tiff’s always had that as me and just I mean, that’s such an excellent point that if you are going down that you’re almost always treating strangers. And I’m sure obviously you’re a medic by training as well. Never treat a stranger. Get to know the patients before before you jump in because you don’t know what they’re like. And and you made a really good point there that really sort of rang a bell rang a bell with me is asking saying to patients not to treat them. I would say some of the best clinical decisions you will ever make in your practising career are the patients you choose not to treat. And you know, you don’t have to be rude. You know, send them on the road. You need a you need a better dentist than me for for for this. And certainly if I think back, those had been some of the best decisions I’ve made. As you get older and more experienced, you see the warning signs, but obviously you can’t be expected to do that when you’re just starting out. So yeah, just earning your stripes exactly as you said it, doing that apprenticeship for a few years, just getting a feel for the and then decide what you want to do.

[00:48:21] Louis If that’s the best decision you’ve ever made, what’s the worst decision you’ve ever made in a clinical dentistry class?

[00:48:31] In clinical dentistry.

[00:48:33] With patients, whatever you said, some of the best decisions you’ve ever made is is actually having the courage to say no. I guess what what are some of the worst?

[00:48:43] What’s gone wrong? What’s gone wrong?

[00:48:45] Yeah.

[00:48:46] Well, perhaps question first of all would be those ones I’ve learnt from those learning patients where I’ve got into something, whether I don’t know whether it’s an endo or an aesthetic case or what or an extraction that I think I really wish I hadn’t started this. But but then you’re on, but then you’re on that, then you’re on that conveyor belt. To answer page question, you know, it’s a long list of nothing, nothing catastrophic pain. I’m sorry to see frozen.

[00:49:24] Or I’m just.

[00:49:25] Is just really good at sitting still. Nothing, nothing catastrophic, but a few a few learning experiences, which I think made me a better dentist. I’m more cautious.

[00:49:41] Yes. Which ones will happen?

[00:49:45] I knew you were going to make me be specific.

[00:49:48] Because.

[00:49:49] You’re not going to leave it like that.

[00:49:53] Far too vague.

[00:49:55] I’ll give you I’ll give you two. I’ll give you two of of many. Listening to a few of these podcasts previously I noticed quite a common theme is people’s worst day at work has been sort of Dental legal problems. And and as you know, sometimes this can be sort of a year of their lives with with a with a cloud over their careers. And for me, I would say it was probably it was probably the same. But I’m embarrassed to say that mine only lasted for 48 hours. And it was it was an end and end case which didn’t work and tried to it was one of those ones. It just on the x ray, it just looked absolutely perfect and it didn’t didn’t settle. So chats with patients said, I’d like to retreat this one. And she said, I’d rather just have it out. So we had the discussion and I took it out and then months down the line just got a letter, the clinical negligence letter, taken a taken a tooth out that didn’t need to be extracted. But I was just, you know, whether it’s luck or whether it’s judge judgement, did what you’re supposed to do, phoned up the one with the d-do they were brilliant. Just send us all the the x rays, send us, send us the radiographs and we’ll get back to you. So did that posted them off in those days and then it was I think it was Rupert Hoppen and Brewers at two days later he phoned me up.

[00:51:28] He said, is that Mr. Mackenzie said, We don’t usually do this but don’t worry about this, this will go away. He said about one in 5050 cases they get to actually make that call to say, don’t worry, this will disappear. Don’t give it another minute’s concern. Your notes are fine. You’ve done everything that you should have done. And sure enough, I got a letter again months down the line. We’ve decided not to pursue you on this, on this, on this occasion, but there’s no question about it. That experience. The wasp came into the room and the wasp never left. You know, it was. It was. It was in the corner. It never formed a hive or anything like that. But it did make me because that surprised me. It really surprised me because I had tried my best. Still, to this day, I’ve absolutely no idea why it failed. I’d actually saved the tooth to try and section it and work out why, where, where I’d gone wrong. And then you asked for two. So I suppose I’ll give you another one. Was again, just a mistake. I was I was finishing finishing a composite and sort of Class five composite adventurer and they hadn’t put the burr in into the handpiece. Burr fell out. The handpiece patient literally swallowed just at the, just at the wrong time and so yeah what can you do.

[00:52:51] So I again, this had a happy outcome as well. I said to the patient, we really need I don’t know where that’s got, where that’s gone. We really need to have a chest x ray. That was the was the that was the guidance. And so drove him up to the local, local hospital. He had a chest x ray. He had swallowed it. He hadn’t he hadn’t inhaled it. And the weird thing was that it was he was an elderly patient who’d retired. And based on that experience, he actually became a volunteer in the X-ray department, which he did for years and years and years. And I saw him for years afterwards. You know, every time I saw him, I just felt, you know, felt really, really bad about about making that making that error. But I certainly certainly learnt from it, but nothing too catastrophic. And I know I really feel for some colleagues who have got cases that have been hanging over them for years in some cases, and I had a very, very short experience of what that felt like. And it was, Oh, that’s great, my career is over. And it happened to me fairly, fairly early on as well. But everything, my note making just hopefully really, really improved by that. So so those are two that spring to mind. I’m sure I’ll think of some more.

[00:54:21] When you said there was a happy ending, I thought he was going to say fish the bear out and brought it back for you.

[00:54:38] I was just waiting for.

[00:54:39] I was waiting for the punch line.

[00:54:40] Louis I don’t know. I mean, I don’t mean to sound disappointed, Louis, but in a 30 year career, those don’t sound like really hard stories to me.

[00:54:52] Yeah, but they impacted. They impacted on that. They certainly had an impact on me.

[00:55:01] But have you never had a situation where the patient’s lost trust in you, you know, like that sort of situation or you took on a case that that went wrong in the wrong direction for a long period or even in my short. I mean, maybe you’re just a much better dentist to communicate to that. Yeah, but even my short five years at the the BR front, I did have a few couple of cases like that where, you know, like cosmetics is awful, right? Patients says it looks great, goes home, comes back because I don’t like them anymore. You know, you’re in a terrible situation just there on a matter of opinion, you know, does that never happen?

[00:55:44] Were fortunately not with regard with regard to that, because forcing I’ve done the course is when I started doing aesthetic dentistry. Fortunately, I’ve done some good courses and they the thing that I always bang into is, is make sure the patient knows what it’s going to look like at the end. So there are no surprises at the end because, I mean, there is nothing and I say this in lectures all the time, there is absolutely nothing worse than, I don’t know, some veneers on or something like that. And the patient, either immediately or after they’ve seen their family saying, saying, I don’t I don’t like them because there’s no plum. These are, you know, okay, if they’re too long, you can shorten them. But that’s all you can do. And then obviously redoing stuff like that is, is, is an absolute it’s an absolute nightmare doing redoing dentistry that you just did.

[00:56:44] Yeah.

[00:56:45] Really is is, is literally is your worst day at work isn’t it.

[00:56:50] Yeah.

[00:56:50] So I think it pay, I don’t think it is judgement. It is, it is just luck but I certainly and maybe, maybe it was, maybe it was that early on end of case that really made me choose, choose my battles and be able to deliver on, on whatever I, on whatever I promised. But I’m sorry to disappoint you.

[00:57:15] I can’t think of.

[00:57:17] Anything anything cut to catastrophic for you in my professional life.

[00:57:23] You mentioned Lewis. The conversation I had about the NHS and leaving the NHS and what people are saying about that and what worries people have about that. But now in your role in dental plan, that must be a daily occurrence. I know your role isn’t specifically to talk about that dentist. I mean, you’re more on the education side and so forth, but what stories do you hear or what concerns do people have and are they the same concerns every time? And then the solution’s a similar solution all the time, or is it different in each case? Tell me some stories of NHS to private.

[00:58:01] It is it is it.

[00:58:03] Is the similar it is similar all the time and it’s always and they’ve always been the same stories. I mean I’ve I say I’ve done a 1000, so I’ve been teaching for about 20 years. I’ve been doing hands on courses for getting on for 20 years as, as well. So I’ve spoken to thousands, thousands and thousands of dentists and that’s, you know, me, we’ve been on courses together, you know, and I know you’re as well. You like chatting to chatting to the dentist, you know, good. Good to chat to, good company, entertaining people. And so, yeah, I’ve got a whole list. In fact, I did a webinar last week on this exact subject. It is the same things that come up every single time people have transitioned from NHS to private all report. Same thing. Number one is always time, more time, more time with the patients, more time for your for your for your private life, for your for your life work balance. But it’s it’s never money. Money is always the absolute bottom of the list is it is clinical outcomes, it’s job satisfaction. It’s developing good relationships with your patients. It’s using good materials and equipment.

[00:59:17] It’s having the time to go on courses and upskill. It’s working with technicians who share the same philosophy that you do. It’s you know, I’ve spoken to dentists on courses, a hands on courses. And this is this was not an uncommon occurrence. I do I used to run a series of ten hands on courses on various different restorative subjects and be quite a common one. When I was just started to push the envelope with, with big composites and almost without exception sort of every month somebody, an NHS dentist, would come on the course and I’d, you know, and we’d do a, I don’t know, mode b build up on a pre molar, take about an hour or something like that. And a dentist would say, you know, you know, this is all well and good, but I can’t do this on the NHS and I used to quite commonly get into this discussion and I said If you don’t mind me asking, how many patients do you see per day? And I would say almost without fail, sort of definitely a few times a year the dentist would say eight zero 80 patients per day.

[01:00:32] Oh, my goodness.

[01:00:33] Wow. To which to which I’d say, well, no, no, you can’t. You know, what’s what’s your what’s your appointment time if you’ve got to do this if you’ve got to do this in 10 minutes. You might get the first one right, but you’re not going to get the fifth one right. You’re not going to get the 10th one right. And what I did want to see, I didn’t believe it, actually, but I actually went to went to the went to the practice. I once knew of a dentist who had 100 patients booked in every day. I didn’t believe it, but I actually saw the daybook. It was a pencil, a pencil day book. And there were there were 100, 100 patients booked in in that day.

[01:01:13] The interesting thing is, if you if you said clean up time between 100 patients.

[01:01:18] Is.

[01:01:19] Just just be really kind of say 5 minutes to 3 minutes clean up. That’s 300 minutes of clean up time, which is 5 hours of clean up time.

[01:01:33] It’s not terrible.

[01:01:34] And you would occasionally see dentists who would get themselves into this sort of. This treadmill of multiple surgeries.

[01:01:45] On the.

[01:01:47] On the go. Well, but then.

[01:01:49] What are the barriers? What are the barriers? I mean, why don’t people want to leave? I mean, there’s the obvious financial sort of, you know, with the the system is that you’re sort of assured a certain income per year. There’s that. And then and then there’s another one talking to people who are thinking about it, the people who are eminently more qualified than I was when I decided to leave the NHS, worried about their skill set and worried about whether they can pull it off or not. And I say, you know, it seems to me so obvious. I will just keep it simple. Refer. Simple as that.

[01:02:24] You’re absolutely right. Confidence is the number one. You know, they don’t feel they don’t feel like a private dentist. To which I always say.

[01:02:31] What is that private?

[01:02:32] Exactly.

[01:02:34] I’d say, went to dental school. You weren’t trying to be an NHS dentist. You were. You were trained to be you. You were trying to be a dentist and to do whatever that particular patient needs are still to this day, do a lot of hands on courses with foundation dentists. And so I really, really notice that they really, really feel going from the, I don’t know, safe environment of, of the dental school scene to maybe four patients a day or something like that. And then working to an environment where obviously you’ve got to speed up. But that sort of tension with regard to sort of clinical decision making they they a classic one would be they they know that a direct composite online is the best treatment for that particular tooth. But working in a system, I don’t know. Take the UDA system, for example, where you’d be pushed to do an indirect restoration and that tension, a chrome denture or something like that. So you know that a cobalt chrome denture is the best thing for the patient. But when you factor in the lab bill, you would know that you do too many of those. Your business is your business is going bankrupt and and where cases in the in the UK system as well. So I mean the system does need to the system does need to change and it needs to change rapidly. I mean only in the last couple of weeks we’ve seen the, the Parliament Sean Smallwood talking to the health, health and Social, Social Care Select Committee. Things have to change and they have to change. They have to change rapidly.

[01:04:15] But you know at then plan what was the USP of that organisation is is it that they, they’re good at helping people go from one to the other. Is it, is it that they good at managing the teams because there are there are those concerns aren’t they. You know, what will my team think? What will my patients think? Am I up to it in all of this? Does Denton hold the hand better than the next company? I mean, they were certainly one. They were the first, weren’t they?

[01:04:43] Yeah, 1986 den plan was set up was set up with with three goals. It was set up by two dentists in the mid eighties. Eighties was a was a nightmare time anyway record unemployment record inflation. Falklands War miner strike it was it was it was a nightmare time and it was a nightmare time in in dentistry as well. And so these two two dentists came up with this idea for a basically a new system, a capitation system that was something to do instead of NHS dentistry, which was, which was the only game in town, you know, in, even in the nineties. I remember at the time somebody said there there are around about 500 private dentists in the UK. Now there’s 26,000. So plan was set up with three goals and those goals have remained the same throughout right up until today and they’re just as relevant as they were before. The first thing was professional control, getting control of your own career, which is what we’re talking about. The second was to create an environment outside the NHS where you could do quality dentistry. And the final one, which is even more relevant now, was to align the patient’s wishes with the dentists philosophy, which is prevention. Prevention patients don’t want dentistry. And so if if a capitation system works really for me, it’s perfect. It’s the perfect practical situation in clinical dentistry because you’re getting paid to keep people healthy rather than getting paid to find things to do and do things.

[01:06:32] And so having that balance of private fee per item and loads of patients on a plan just gives you that sort of clinical freedom to to make the right decisions every time, because your clinical decisions are based on, on what the patient needs. And obviously, I’ve talked to thousands and thousands of dentists and it’s the reason that we’re really quite evangelical about them plan is it because it was the first and it. It changed my professional career because when we went private, we weren’t completely private with them. In those days, you couldn’t you couldn’t have a children’s only contract. So basically it was, it was, it was private and and we didn’t retain any NHS within the practice. So in those days it was a leap of faith because there was no blueprint, big practices hadn’t done this before. But of course now there’s, you know, there’s a, there’s a blueprint. And, you know, thousands of dentists have already made they made that move. But so if you do chat to them plan dentists and I’ve heard this time and time again is that it changed it changed their professional careers even further. It changed their lives. And that is why that we’re so passionate about them.

[01:07:53] What is what is your actual role there? I mean, I know you were in charge of the education side for a while, but now now your new role.

[01:08:01] Yeah, well, the head dental officer, it’s actually the job that the original head dental officer is Roger MATTHEWS, who was one of my mentors, who is an absolute legend so far of ahead of his time. It’s really is a it really is a multi factorial role. Difficult to describe it in in just a sentence. The education side is still a big part of it. And one of the things that I’ve been really lucky to do is be involved with a big project to create our state of the art online education, to go along with our life courses. Our live courses have been incredibly popular for.

[01:08:42] Just summarise summarise the size of that that unit. I mean, I remember someone telling me, well, maybe it was you. It was like they do something like 500 days of live courses a year or something.

[01:08:53] Yeah. Yeah, we have way over 500 or 500 courses. I mean from, from hands on courses. I mean dipesh you, you kindly helped us out. I think that still remains our biggest ever hands on course. I think we had something like 40 dentists in the room, but you got good value out of Depeche that day. But we do in practice training that’s super popular. We do all the compliance subjects. We have ski conferences, cycling conferences, hiking conferences, and we just actually we’ve just finished actually, we’ve done our first four national forums. These are our sort of flagship events. And so so far we’re up in Scotland, in Blaine, Cambridge, Chepstow, and then we’re in Belfast the week before last. And so basically this is a full day study day with a nice meal and a stopover as, as well. And we’ve had Simon Chard lecturing for us on digital, doing a doing an hour and a half session. And he has been absolutely superb the den plan audience because you know is quite a tough audience. I say it’s it’s you know for for lecturers it’s a good rite of passage to to lecture to them to the dental plan dentist because, you know, you’ve got a lot of mscs in the room. You’ve got a lot of experience.

[01:10:14] Simon is a talented speaker, talented, very, very talented speaker.

[01:10:18] He is very, very polished. And but it does go beyond way beyond the clinical excellence, which he most certainly has. But it’s the whole sort of the the marketing, the use of social media. It’s his feedback has been off the scale. It’s been absolutely superb. So so those those are flood control.

[01:10:41] Have you got if let’s say you want to come up with a new course in Panama. Whatever.

[01:10:51] Well, like.

[01:10:52] You know, if you come up with a new idea, who does it? Is it you? Is it. Are you the last person who has to say yes to things? Or is there this other person who has to.

[01:11:02] Through.

[01:11:02] The process? What’s the process of if a new idea comes up, how does it work?

[01:11:06] It would be really lovely if that was if that was the case. My boss, Catherine Rutland, who’s another? Another and dentist as as well. So she would be the first person I would. In fact, literally, this actually happens only last week. I’m putting together ideas for the programme for 2023. So I’ve literally sketched out this is for me, this is the ultimate programme of live events and online online training events. And then we literally just go through the process with regards to funding budgets, manpower and workouts, work out what what we’re going to do for the next year. So we try and work kind of a year ahead. We’ve got an events team. The events team are amazing and we do lots of charity events as well, but not sort of CPD involved as well. You know, marathons, conferences. Our parent company, Simply Health Sponsored, The Great North is sponsored all of the great runs for a few years. So yeah, it’s just sort of because for me and I’m sure you’ll say exactly the same thing with your courses pay and even with your courses as well. Prav is for me some of the best little nuggets of education don’t come when you’re sitting in front of the lecturer. They come, they come in the breaks they come when when you when you’re having lunch, when you’re on a ski lift or.

[01:12:35] Wherever, the gin and tonic, man, you know, people underestimate that. It’s not it’s not the gin and tonic. It’s the different sort of sort of the barriers of the classroom situation. And then the barriers and the real conversations do tend to happen outside of the classroom situation. And for me, you know, the other thing is the delegates learning from each other totally. It’s a key point. It’s not just from the teacher, it’s a key point. They’re all going through the same things.

[01:13:09] Certainly from a practice management point of view, and I was really lucky I got into them quite early. I think it was about 93, although we were mixed for probably 15 years. Yeah, probably about 15 years. I was lucky, I think. I went on the first ever Dem planned golf conference and just sat down. My golf’s never never been any good and it it never it never will be. But I remember sitting down with some of the original Bampton dentists and they were really sort of saying, you know, from a great tips, you know, categorise your patients and correctly to begin with, equipment, materials, loads of techniques, loads of courses. Again, you know, I’ll go on one course, I’ll get a tip to go on to go on another one. It’s much easier now because obviously they’re all advertised on on social media, but it was very much a sort of a word of mouth who are the good speakers, who are the good mentors? And I was just really, really lucky that in the early, early years of my career, I just bumped into some just really, really influential people who transformed my career.

[01:14:18] Were you always that funny guy on stage? Because you are.

[01:14:27] Obviously, this is a fantastic opportunity to go into a Goodfellas moment here and, you know.

[01:14:34] When you have. But you could be a funny guy.

[01:14:41] Entertaining that entertaining style you’ve got. I was not from the first time you lectured. Was it like that.

[01:14:49] Style over content. I think that is.

[01:14:53] It is.

[01:14:53] It is. I’ve got a message that I want to get across. When I first started lecturing, I watched it before it started. I’d watch some really good lecturers and and you’d notice the ones who kept people sort of captivated. Trevor would be a really good. Trevor would be an absolute classic example of that because no matter how good your how good your, your content is, if people are asleep. And I’ve had plenty of people fall asleep in my lectures, they are going to learn nothing. They, in fact, just digressing from my worst ever. It wasn’t even a heckle in a live lecture. There was it was I don’t know. There was an audience of about I don’t know, about 40 or 40 or something like that. So it was a small it was a small seminar and there was a bloke in the front row and and he came in and he fell asleep almost immediately.

[01:15:49] And.

[01:15:50] And so that was a bit I was still introducing myself. I was still.

[01:15:54] I don’t have a long I don’t have a long I don’t have a.

[01:15:58] Long this is me intro but but he fell asleep during that. So then without a word of a lie, I kept going. I kept going. And then after a while his phone went off. It got off, it stood up. The group was in two, it was in two halves. So there was there was a sort of an alleyway down the middle. He walked up the alleyway, he answered his phone. And I.

[01:16:22] Don’t know what.

[01:16:23] I don’t know what the conversation. Nobody said, no, I’m in a lecture.

[01:16:27] No crap. And he walked.

[01:16:33] Out and he never came back.

[01:16:36] Wow.

[01:16:39] So that’s so that was my worst. So that was my worst sort of experience. But I think public speaking, I went to I went to a lecture the other day from somebody, a similar sort of vein to Prav. And it was people’s worst fears. And I think I think the worst fear this bloke was talking about was I think it was death of a relative public speaking and then being buried alive. So so when it comes to public speaking, I don’t I don’t I don’t mind. I never I never have.

[01:17:14] I think if you pull it off, you put it off so well with with the with the I don’t want to call it comedy, but the sort of the humorous side of it. And I always think if you if you say something funny, I never I never try it by person, because what if what if no one gets it or no one laughs? So and I find people do laugh in my lectures, but at points where I wasn’t expecting it. So it’s like they’re laughing at.

[01:17:38] Me so.

[01:17:39] Wisely. But but you put it off like a master, like a king.

[01:17:43] Give us an example, Payman. Give us an example.

[01:17:46] But he just. He can’t help himself from the first moment. Yeah, he’s talking it’s he’ll say a self-deprecating joke or something, but the audience will just get behind him straight away, you know, like, like what you said. You say, let’s say you can say something about your hair being a bald guy or whatever I’d say. And the room would be a room would be silent and worried. Yeah, he’ll say, and the room will be bursting out laughing. Yeah. And it goes on and it’s not like it’s only a comedy show.

[01:18:18] I’m not.

[01:18:18] Saying that.

[01:18:19] I’m going to say that at all. No, not at all.

[01:18:22] I was just about to ask Louis to tell us his favourite joke.

[01:18:26] It’s just. It’s just. It’s just.

[01:18:28] The content. The content is, is, is punctuated with some entertainment bits here and used to talk about different people, you know, good old and new places. So the way he would do it, I don’t know, Louis just carries it off in a really sort of for me, effortless is the way I would. I would describe it.

[01:18:50] That’s extremely nice of you to say. And it’s it’s not something I mean there’s certainly that. Edutainment as my my predecessor before Catherine Henry Clover he was my boss at Dental and he was the he was the head dental officer after Roger he said edutainment you know, you get you get you get your get your content across but it’s got to be entertaining. Otherwise, why why is anybody going to when when is anybody going to sort of actually come to your next lecture? But it’s not something that I sort of sort of script in really sort of I don’t know, they sort of I’m kind of lucky. It kind of sort of comes to me. I mean, I went to a school, a pretty rough school in those days. You didn’t have you didn’t have social media, so you had to go to school to be bullied.

[01:19:40] So I think.

[01:19:48] You have to be either really tall, which I wasn’t, or you have to be you had to be a clown. And so I suppose I learnt those skills from school. I remember my dad was always an entertaining bloke, but perhaps just made me think my my favourite joke. It was anything that I come out with a things that that please me are things that are thought of on the spur of the moment and and dental wise again probably 2 to 2 boring too late but I’ve been lucky enough probably because I’m I don’t mind public speaking I think I’ve been best man 11 I think it’s 11 times.

[01:20:31] Ten or 11.

[01:20:32] Times. And for me, my, my best adlib happened in a best man speech. And it was it was quite an awkward environment because the vicar had been drunk during the during the ceremony and it hadn’t gone disastrously wrong. But everybody, you know, it was it was one of those things, if you put it on telly, you wouldn’t think it was you wouldn’t think it was believable. So I was just getting nervous because I always do get a little bit nervous before certainly before speaking. And I thought, what am I going to say? I’ve got to kind of refer to it, but how can I refer to it? The vicar wasn’t in the room, but fortunately, but how do I refer to it without sort of embarrassing him and embarrassing everybody else? So I just I thought.

[01:21:19] Had.

[01:21:20] And so literally just it just came to me. I said, I don’t know about you, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve had a wonderful wedding today, a fantastic service. And I don’t know about you, but in church today, I really felt the presence of the Holy Spirit.

[01:21:36] And and for me, that is just.

[01:21:41] I enjoyed the fact that I managed to think of something under those sort of those circumstances and, and, and pull it off.

[01:21:51] I’ll tell you my favourite joke. What did you call a man with no shin?

[01:21:56] No shin.

[01:21:57] Notion.

[01:21:59] No idea.

[01:22:00] Tony.

[01:22:07] Wow. That’s my number.

[01:22:09] One. That’s my number one.

[01:22:11] Dad joke.

[01:22:13] Highbrow Oxford.

[01:22:15] Educated medic.

[01:22:20] Another one. When you go to Footlights on.

[01:22:22] A similar sort of play, we go. Yeah.

[01:22:27] This one always, always makes me laugh. Is mango’s into a fish and chip shop and says Fish and chips twice, please. And the bloke says, So I heard you the first time.

[01:22:45] Louis. Out of your different things you do general or done general practise teaching. Have you done some research as well?

[01:22:54] A sort of ad hoc research, I would call it. I started I started teaching a Birmingham dental school in 2003. And so we had a fantastic faculty. But as soon as I went on clinic, I realised that the students were asking me questions. I just didn’t know the answers to, you know, how does how does bonding resume work? You know, and you get different colour composites just using those, using those as examples. So I really had to sort of go back to school and and then I was I was equally lucky. At that time, Janus Davis approached me and asked me to write write a paper on post era composites. And so I spent three months right in a write in a long draft of, of, of this paper on Post Composites, which is my sermon on Post Composites. This is how you do it. And then a sense the I think probably had to print it out and and take it to. To Adrian Shortall, who is the head of head of comms. He’s my sort of main sort of mentor. And I gave it to Trevor as well. And they were very, very polite with me and said, Yeah, come. Come back, we’ll have a read through this. Come back. Come back in a week. And and we’ll give you some advice. And and I went back into to Adrian’s office and he said, yeah, you know, it’s it’s it’s fine, but but this is this is going in a peer reviewed publication. Everything that you’ve written is your opinion, and you haven’t backed up any of it with evidence. So he said, to help you out, I’ve printed you out a few things to read and I can still see it to this day.

[01:24:48] There was a stack of papers and abstracts. There were over 100 papers on post. I mean, Adrian always knew the key references and still does. And so for me, I think basically that was I don’t know whether they were throwing down the gauntlet. I think most normal people would have walked away and said, Right, I’ll, I’ll give up on my academic career. But I read all the papers. I realised what I’d written was just purely an opinion piece. I rewrote it. It took me three, three months to write the first draft, six months to write it properly, and then that was the first paper I ever published. In fact, in preparation for this, I actually looked it up of of now I’ve got 30 peer reviewed papers and four textbook chapters and those are all those are all written on subjects. Quite selfishly, that interests me. You know, posterior composites, anterior composites, clinical photography caries, bonding amalgam, indirect restorations. So for me, the learning has been my research, my postgraduate education. I’ve got well, I say, in fact, I’ve tripped myself up there. I used to have no postgraduate qualifications when I put my pen down and I made a promise to myself in finals. When I put my pen down and that final exam, I promised myself that I would never do another exam, and I haven’t. But in 2022, a colleague of mine, Steve Bonzo, who’s a who’s a brilliant bloke, material scientist, he proposed me and Ian Chappell seconded me for a, for a PhD from Royal College in, in Glasgow. So, so, so I have got.

[01:26:42] An honorary one.

[01:26:44] I’ve got. Yeah. But by accident not by exam. That’s why so, so yeah. I just didn’t want to do any more exams. What about.

[01:26:58] Lewis? Your relationship with manufacturers is is awesome too. I mean, you seem to know everyone in that side, you know, the trade side as well. You know, for instance, how do you how do you keep a clear head if unless Davis are paying you or or sponsoring you to to write about composites, not to sort of get their one as the main one or, you know, how do you keep a good reputation amongst lots of different manufacturers? Because you really do have a great reputation out there. And how is it that others sort of sometimes fall over on that front? I mean, what’s what’s there one called clear fill?

[01:27:39] Phil Yeah, clear from my aesthetic, which is.

[01:27:43] It’s an interesting.

[01:27:44] Which is an amazing comedy. It’s, I mean, so it’s a really good point. But I must admit, without sounding too pious, I do try and sort of keep true to myself. I only talk about things that are used in practice, and I only talk about things that I know work because if I don’t, if I talk about a product that I haven’t got faith in and then somebody buys that project, product, uses that product, and then they don’t get the outcomes with it. Again, nobody’s going to listen to me again. And, you know, I’ve been lucky. I’ve never been good enough to work properly with with Enlightened.

[01:28:24] But I think you did lecture at the minimalist event. But I can’t call that work.

[01:28:34] Talking paid work. Did you get paid? I’m still.

[01:28:39] Waiting. I played.

[01:28:40] A gin and tonics that.

[01:28:42] I needed. He certainly did.

[01:28:44] But he’s got to believe in it first, right?

[01:28:52] I mean, the nice thing is that the companies that I work with, I’m doing quite a bit with opted in at the moment. I love most almost all of the opted products, but in a lot of work with with Coeur. I was really, really lucky that my my kind of if you like sort of lecturing career took off when sort of bulk composites came in. So I did. I’ve done a lot of work with Dentsply Sirona over the years. And if if somebody gives me a product that I don’t like because I’m lucky that I’m on a number of key opinion leader groups. And so there’s a group of us do get sent off before it goes to market to test it out. And I love doing that. And it doesn’t take long, does it, for an experienced dentist to know, is it better than what I’ve got before? Is it worse or is it insane? And then I’m just I’m just totally I’m just totally honest. I would never, ever say anything bad in public or any anywhere else about about a dental product. Because, as you know, there’s millions gone in to the investment.

[01:29:54] And I have pulled out of lectures. It’s I remember when I started lecturing one of my colleagues who’d been doing it for a while, and our lecturer said, I said, How long does it take to write a lecture? Because this is taking me hours and hours. And he said basically the industry standard for an hour lecture, you’re looking at about 50 hours of preparation and and development. And to be honest, I’ve never got it down much below that that 50 that 50 hours. So I can only ever remember happening once where I’ve delivered one lecture once. And this was on a product that I started using. And really I’m a real early adopter. I like trying out stuff straight away. But then the patients were coming back and it wasn’t really working out as I hoped. So I actually had to sort of hat in hand, go back to the manufacturer and say, I’m afraid I’m going to have to pull out of this lecture lecture series because I don’t feel that so. And again, if you’ve ever seen me do a lecture, I get like way, way, way too excited about dental materials.

[01:31:02] And I quit and.

[01:31:03] I can get excited about matrix bands wedges. That’s probably one of the worst bonding lessons because if I really, really like them, because these these materials are designed to solve problems. Literally, the first time I used enamel was on. I remember the world of aesthetic Congress.

[01:31:26] Yeah, yeah.

[01:31:29] That’s what I was one of the mob down.

[01:31:32] Buddy, buddy, buddy, Andy. Son. What was his son’s name?

[01:31:35] Robert. Robert.

[01:31:36] Robert. That’s it, Bob. So that was a real turning point for me. I can’t remember what year it was, but Buddy Moffatt was doing 2 hours of lectures and.

[01:31:48] Yeah, that was the year we started with Cosmo then because we, we brought him over because of that now. Right. That would have been the 2008 I want to say.

[01:31:58] This, this, this all this all fits fits in nicely then. So so I don’t know you obviously you were in the room. There were about eight or 900 dentists in that room. And Buddy Mock was doing this presentation on composites, anterior composites, posterior composites. And I’ve never seen anybody do it before or since he had cases up on the screen and he basically said, What should we do? Do you want to do a posterior? Do you want to do an anterior? And basically his lecture could go off in any direction.

[01:32:30] Yeah.

[01:32:31] So now this was in the nineties, so this was in the era where porcelain was king. You couldn’t go on any other courses. Porcelain furniture causes the world aesthetic. Congress was basically a porcelain veneer course. And so I sat there watching Buddy Buddy Mapper, and it was showing case after case after case of these amazing composites used in using cosmetic products and how to build up composite veneers, taking crowns off, replacing them with composites. And it was absolutely groundbreaking. But then the thing that got stuck in my head, then he said, Oh, and here’s the ten year record. Going back to what you were talking about, there is your 15 year recall and thought, Wow, this stuff works. But the thing that the thing that really, really stuck in my mind is the lecture was in two parts and there was a break in between. And during the break, everyone went outside and everyone’s chatted. And the you could just hear these people just say, absolute crap. Worst lecture I’ve ever seen. Just, you know. And so when we went back in, there was still hundreds and hundreds of people there, but there were probably about 300 less people. They’d all gone off to a porcelain lecture from somebody else. And one of the first things Buddy said when he got back up on the stage wheel, he said, I won’t try and do his accent. People will say that you can’t do these things with composite as he does it.

[01:34:04] Combined composite.

[01:34:07] People will say that you can’t do these things with composite. And he said They’re right, they can’t. That just literally just stuck in my head that, you know, of course you can do it, but you’ve just got to dedicate yourself to the materials, the bonding, the know, the tooth anatomy. And so that was a real pivotal moment for me because they were doing stuff like you just, you know, in the States that you just wouldn’t believe and so much so that basically then I started using re now I did the hands on course with these with Robert is Bob is his son and the minute the minute you should have polished it. I thought, this is different. This is something that’s better than I’ve ever used before. And so I’ve used enamel on my hands on courses ever since. Because from a polishing point of view, as you know, and as dips, delegates, it’s one of those things that the delegates go away from the course with a nice feeling that they’ve done something that they.

[01:35:11] Yeah, they’ve seen something new.

[01:35:13] They never did before. Which is, which is what I tried to do as much as possible.

[01:35:18] Crazily, we’ve been speaking for an hour and 40 minutes now.

[01:35:21] Oh, my God. It feels like we haven’t scratched the surface.

[01:35:24] Maybe we have. Haven’t even said, who is your first boss? Where did you go from there? So we’ve. We’ve reached our limit already. Can I have to do it?

[01:35:32] Round two? I’ve got more questions, guys. We follow slogans.

[01:35:39] Don’t ask it, ask. Well, we caught another guy waiting, but there we go. We’ll have to do part two.

[01:35:46] We’ll have to do part two, man. There’s a whole bunch about public speaking that I wanted to ask you were saying you were comfortable and then you mentioned you get nervous sometimes. And then does that ever go away? And there’s so much buzzing around in my head. Right. So we’ll have to come back for round two.

[01:36:03] But sorry. So I hugged him. So let’s finish. Let’s go with the final questions, too. Let’s go with the phone. Let’s start with the fancy dinner party. One fancy dinner party, three guests, dead or alive. Who would you pick true to?

[01:36:19] Alive. Quentin Tarantino. Massive, massive movie fan. Come back. I’d be happy to talk about movies for for 2 hours.

[01:36:29] I’m not a massive fan. Massive, massive. Quentin Tarantino fan.

[01:36:36] Alex Higgins, the the ultimate the ultimate snooker player who still probably has got one of the best ever sporting quotes in history. And then the final one, I couldn’t decide either be Ricky Gervais or Frankie Boyle, because it would be an evening of absolutely zero political correctness.

[01:36:58] And.

[01:37:00] Talking about films, talking about snooker, talking about the, talking about the world. And then and then a game of snooker and getting drunk.

[01:37:07] After that.

[01:37:09] Whilst that sporting quote Lewis.

[01:37:12] Well, it’s been I read his autobiography years ago, and this quote has been has been given to lots of other sports people. George Best included. But I think the actual truth is it was Alex Higgins who said it the first he was asked in an interview quite late on in his career, you know, it made millions. He’d lost millions. And he was he was basically penniless. He was having to be crowdfunded. And he went on an interview. I don’t know. It might have been Parkinson not as good as U2, obviously, but he said in this interview. Over the years. All my millions. When I look back, I spent half my money on booze, drugs and women. The rest are just wasted.

[01:37:59] Squandered it.

[01:38:03] So I thought it’s a great a great sport. But he was a legend. He was an absolute legend.

[01:38:09] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:38:11] And the final question, Lewis, imagine it was your last day on the planet and you had your loved ones around you. And you had to leave them with three pieces of wisdom. What would they be?

[01:38:26] Well, I thought about this in advance as well. None of them. We’ve talked only about dental and teeth tonight. But, you know, that’s only half the equation. You know, we spend a lot of time at work, but it’s all about the rest of your life. Dentistry gives you the opportunity to have the experiences that you want. So I would say my first advice would be whatever experience is, whether it is travel, whether it is learning something, whether it’s a new opportunity in business or in practice or in any field of life. Don’t wait, do it. Just get as many experiences as as you can and just enjoy, enjoy every day. The second one is a practical one. This was advice that my dad gave me. He didn’t actually put a number to it, but he said, But, but I’ll sort of extend them the best bit of advice my dad ever gave me, which was be debt free by 4000 percent. Debt free by 40. No mortgage, no loans, no car loans. And then I’ll extend that live within your means. You know, I’ve got quite a few friends who’ve got ten watches and, you know, they haven’t even got long arms and, you know, multiple, multiple Ferraris. So, yeah, just because the minute you mean coming back exactly to what I’ve said at the start, the minute you’re not chasing finances, it’s all gravy. You you just your job is basically funding.

[01:40:01] Enjoy your job. But it’s funding the what you do in the rest of your life. All the other things you want to do, your family stuff and your relationship stuff. So if you can take that financial pressure off as soon as possible then and obviously in dentistry it is possible to do that fairly rapidly. And then the final thing would be just just enjoy yourself. I’ve got no sort of particular sort of sort of religious faith. You know, I’m just going to make sure that I enjoy sort of every day, every opportunity, enjoy every day. And if if you’re not doing something to change direction, that that would be the that would be my advice to, you know, I’ve given to my kids. Obviously, they’re just coming to that stage where they’ll actually listen to me again. Now, though, there was a protracted period of time when they fought and they knew everything already. And and I just didn’t understand. But I think they finally realised now that I probably have got something to, to offer them. But yeah. So that would be my advice sort of experience as much as you can out of life, get rid of the, whether it’s debt, whether it’s any other things that are bringing you down and just enjoy every day and, and do do what you want to do. Whatever, whatever is your passion, whatever drives you do that.

[01:41:28] I’ve messaged, I’ve messaged the next speaker so we can go to your final, final prayer, which is.

[01:41:35] Good.

[01:41:37] The final, final.

[01:41:38] How would you like to be remembered?

[01:41:40] Oh, of course.

[01:41:41] Of course. Louis If so.

[01:41:49] How would you like to be remembered if. If the following phrase was. Was said about you? Yeah. Lewis was. Finish the sentence. How would you. How would you spell loss?

[01:42:13] I. Go on.

[01:42:15] It’s it’s something that’s never really I’ve never really thought about. I’ll have to think about it if you do ever drag me back. But it’s not something that worries me at all. When I’m gone. Once I’m gone, I’m gone. I just, you know, just try and make the most of.

[01:42:33] Of my.

[01:42:35] My time on earth and good friends, good family and working in an absolutely fantastic profession.

[01:42:44] I’ve got one more question for you, Louis. Imagine you had 30 days left. No. Imagine you had a week left. Do whatever the hell you want. You know you’ve got a week and you’ve got all your health and no financial constraints. What would you do in that week?

[01:43:00] It’s not long enough, I’m afraid. I mean, it would be something crazy, you know? Keith Moon Sort of level heroic dose.

[01:43:15] That’s not long enough.

[01:43:18] I mean, for me, the I’m not frightened of Crikey, this is getting a bit deep. I’m not frightened of of death at all. But a couple of, I suppose, melodramatic to call them near-death experiences. But it doesn’t it’s not something that frightens me at all. It would be I think it would be what I sort of miss out on and seeing the kids grow up. And, you know, Tarantino said he’s going to direct ten films and he’s on nine at the moment. You know, you know, he’d have to get a I’d probably go I’d go and visit him and just ask for a screenplay on his. He’s currently undirected film. I’d probably give him a few tips, actually, and then I’d be happy to happy to pop off. But yeah, not planning on going anywhere too soon, but you never know. I mean, look at I mean, I’m 54 a few incidents that have happened recently in the public eye. You know more Shane Warne, he was one of my heroes. I’m a massive cricket fan this week. Ray Liotta, you know, he’s going to he’s going to live forever because the Goodfellas back to Goodfellas pie. But but yeah it doesn’t do them any good does it. So, so yeah. Just, just got to make the most of it because you never know when that, when that number is coming up.

[01:44:43] It’s been a pleasure, buddy. We’ll have to see.

[01:44:46] 100%. Part two.

[01:44:47] Yeah, that flew by.

[01:44:49] I certainly looked at the time. It was like, wait a minute. We’ve been talking for 2 hours.

[01:44:56] I know. I know. We’ve been talking for a while because my message is probably a couple of times it’s getting cold.

[01:45:05] Thank you so much, buddy.

[01:45:08] 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.

[01:45:24] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, 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 got some value out of it.

[01:45:38] 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.

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[00:00:00] What tends to confuse people or tend to confuse patients where you end up just listing a whole load of options and hope that they’ve got the knowledge of a BDS, which took us five years, by the way, minimum, so that you’re trying to explain it to them in 15 minutes and then they just get confused. And the typical answer they give is, I’ll have to think about it. Can I let you know? And the moment you hear that you’ve lost that patient, they do not understand what you’ve talked about. So I think I think the biggest take home, I said, is just give them an honest opinion. And obviously the second thing is, which is probably more important, is listening to them, is asking them a question and the art of shutting the hell up and letting them talk. I think it’s it’s a lost art and it’s the easiest thing to do. Be quiet and let them talk and they will tell you what they’re looking for.

[00:00:57] This is Dental Leaders. The podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry.

[00:01:06] Is a principle at clean dental.

[00:01:09] Your house Payman, Langroudi and Prav Salon Kick.

[00:01:25] Been up giving your opinions on a lot of different forums. Reggie, welcome to the show, Rudy.

[00:01:32] Thank you. I don’t know whether those opinions are welcome or not, but I gather people like what I say sometimes. Sometimes they don’t.

[00:01:44] But if you worked at lots of different practises, or have you been at this one for most of your career?

[00:01:50] Actually, I’ve only ever really worked at two practises where I did my feet training, which was an amazing practise, actually. Still is an amazing practise with an amazing trainer.

[00:02:01] Who is.

[00:02:03] His name is Shani Kalsi. Lancaster House in Croydon and Centre Practise. And he is the most kind, patient, helpful man in dentistry. The loveliest guy you could ever imagine. Great guy. And the practise I work at, which is mine, believe it or not, I actually owned the practise before I did VTE, so I don’t know if you guys knew that. Know how that came about? Long story. Well, I mean, I was at university and I just hated the politics in the hospital. You could even as a student, you could feel it. And I knew I never really wanted to have a hospital job or do anything. And I’ve always wanted to work for myself. And I own the practise with my sister Mika. And I think Amica felt the same way. She’s a couple years older and she had just finished her vet and my father passed away when I was in my second year sorry, first year of university. So luckily we had a bit of inheritance money and when we were in the final year, my sister was in a second year, my mom said, There’s this guy in some random place selling a dental practise. Why don’t you just go and have a look just for experience, to see what this is like. We both turned up. We looked at each other effectively and were like, Well, there’s no way we can make this worse. It was kind of in the right place, the right time sort of situation. It was a really old, shambolic NHS dental practise and we thought, Well, why not? We’ll give it a go.

[00:03:39] Was it in your house where you lived?

[00:03:40] It’s built. Yes. I grew up in Dulwich in south east London. So the practise is in an area called Crayford, which is about half an hour drive. So it was local ish. I mean, that’s a definite commutable and it was in an area where it was improving, gentrifying. The practise, as I said, was tiny. It was an effectively it was a one chair practise open three days a week. And it was very old school, very old school. I mean, you wouldn’t find bite wing holders in there when we first went. So it was it was, you know, we turned up knowing that we can improve this.

[00:04:24] So you knew during your VTE you knew that straight afterwards you were going to go into practise ownership. Yeah. Did that have an element of sort of trepidation to it?

[00:04:33] Well, you say that straight after, but you know what it was? It was quite nice. I said, my my vet trainer was absolutely amazing when I first told him. He was obviously taken aback a bit, but then he helped me so much. He gave me lots of advice, you know, and I think actually I helped him out as well because because I wanted to learn how to do these things. Whilst also the vet, I actually took on a lot of those roles as a vet. So as a vet I was doing stock ordering, I was helping train nurses because I needed to. And sometimes, you know, you jump in the deep end. The learning curve is great, but it’s it’s it’s helpful.

[00:05:16] Would you do it again like that? Or do you think in retrospect, on upon reflection, do you think you would do it the ordinary way, sort of do it, have a team.

[00:05:24] People if somebody asked me if they should do it, I’ll tell them not to do it. I would do it again. Yeah. I mean, it’s but I’m like that. I will quite happily take big risk if I feel that’s the right thing to do, I will do it.

[00:05:43] So a three chair nurse practise with no right wing holders.

[00:05:49] Yeah, well it was actually one chair with three rooms. One of the rooms didn’t have a chair and one of the rooms was completely dead. Like it was prehistoric, I think.

[00:05:58] Take us through take us through the sort of evolution of that and how long it takes and what moves you made and what were the key sort.

[00:06:06] Of.

[00:06:06] Cornerstones of going from that situation to this? I guess it’s quite a high end, fully private, is it?

[00:06:14] Now it’s actually has a little bit of NHS. Oh very, very little. We haven’t changed our contracts since we bought it and only we only had seven and half thousand days to start off with. But now it’s a seven surgery practise running from eight, 730 in the morning to eight at night every week to every day, pretty much seven days a week, not Sunday, but and Saturday we run half a day. But it’s a it’s a pretty big outfit. And then we’ve got another one practise that’s six surgery, doing the same thing in Mitcham and then a new practise, which is also seven surgery. Yeah, a seven surgery squad, which which is a little bit of a gamble for us, but we’ll see how it goes.

[00:07:00] So a lot of it has been sort of building works extensions, that sort of thing, surely, right?

[00:07:06] Well, yeah, we took over in 2008. This would be our fourth. The current project would be our fifth project building project. So it’s either building or extension or. Yeah. So we’ve, we’ve had five building projects effectively. I’ve always had a builder on, on, on the go doing something. Wow. Yeah. It’s been, I think about it. I should probably get myself a builder and hold on to the projects.

[00:07:39] The both courier practises doing 12 hour shifts. Six days. Yes. Yes. Just out of curiosity, how would you make that work in terms of staffing and management and all the rest of it? What’s your organisational structure and team structure across that?

[00:07:58] Yeah, sure. Well, it’s you know, I don’t think anyone can work for 12 hours.

[00:08:02] No, no, no, of course. Yeah.

[00:08:04] So we actually run a purely shift based system. So effectively there’s two shifts. We have a whole new set of staff working in the morning and then completely different set of staff working in the afternoon. So there’s a the staff turn up at seven in the morning and they leave at 130 or 145, 2:00, and then the second set of staff come in at 130 and leave at eight 830. So effectively everyone has a half day every day and they do the staff do a seven hour shift. The dental, the clinical dental is 6 hours. But I find that if you work 6 hours, the efficiency is is far greater than a standard day or even a 12 hour day, which I’ve heard some people do, which is absolutely insane. You know, if I look at myself after about 7 hours, the quality of my work, it doesn’t drop. It just takes a lot longer to get there. Yeah, a hell of a lot longer.

[00:09:03] Out of curiosity, Rajiv, do you have like a huddle or some kind of team meeting?

[00:09:08] I mean, these are always things that we have to work on. Cultures are really difficult. Yeah, we were 9 to 5. It was a lot easier because we’d all have lunch together. Sure. So culture is always. Is always a little harder when you’re running. The bigger, the bigger the operation, the harder the the harder it is. We don’t do anything like a huddle or anything like that. What we’re trying to do is having more of a team meetings and not in the traditional sense. So Fridays we tried to get together and we tried to keep the Friday afternoon shift a bit lighter, and then we try and spend that afternoon doing more administrative, you know, talking to each other tasks. You know, in my head I call it a Friday reset, but the culture is always the most difficult thing. The bigger you get, the harder it is. And that’s just impossible. It’s just a numbers game that.

[00:10:03] And I’m just curious about this because obviously I’ve not run practises like this and don’t know of any that do. So I’m really, really curious in terms of like just the day to day now. Like for example, our PM is our firefighter, right? And she’ll be putting fires out left, right and centre or whatever or dealing with like, you know, whatever, whatever the issues are of the day. Right. So do you have like two shifts to PMS as well or what’s the like the structure of the of that, the higher level management?

[00:10:34] So we have, we don’t actually have a PM. I know that’s crazy, but we don’t we have, we have a team, an administrative team. So what I try to do is I’d rather outsource administrative work to existing members or staff. So, you know, I think one of the crying shames of our profession is that especially in the nursing sector and the reception team is that there’s actually very little progression. Once once you are a nurse, you know, I think I think a lot of nurses get bored after two or three years and there’s very little for them to carry on doing. So I try to give them more things to do. So one of our nurses ended up doing h.r. One of our nurses has ended up becoming a patient coordinator. One of our administrative team now basically does payroll and banking and all the finance teams. So one of our old receptionists and I like to promote that. So I try and give people tasks and then get them to build that into a career and move forward. So we don’t actually have a specific practise manager. And personally, I’ve always found it a bit dangerous to have one practise manager. You know, if, if they leave, all the knowledge goes with them quite, quite honestly, and they may leave for any sort of reason.

[00:12:02] So you sort of say like the so called, you’ve almost like separated out the management tasks into separate chunks and then give that to several different team members to handle. So it’s not there’s not one particular person who’s overall responsible.

[00:12:17] Well, I mean, as we get bigger and bigger and our projections are for the end of next year to be almost on 200 members of staff. Wow. Which is a hell of a lot of people. Wow. You can’t run on on on a simple practise manager system. You have to have an administrative team. Sure. So, I mean, we’ve got in my head, I’ve planned for an HR team, a payroll team, a sick team, a team to just be in charge of learning and teaching and practise progression that way. I’ve I’ve even got a person who’s just purely there to fix things chairs, breakdowns, maintenance, painting, get the door lock fixed or whatever it may be. But when I think as you get bigger, you have to start evolving that part. And I think that’s actually a very interesting business concept in that people don’t realise that you can’t stick to the same system as you get bigger and bigger. It’s something I’ve had to learn very, very quickly.

[00:13:19] And then so Rajeev, what part do you play in that in terms of your day to day? Like as that organisation grows to like 200 members of staff? Like where, where do you sit in that in terms of like your typical day or your typical week, who you’d be interacting with, what you’d be doing?

[00:13:38] It’s interesting because I still love clinical dentistry. The more I do it, I still absolutely love it, but the more I feel that I have to give it up at some point. But I’m holding on. I’m still doing three and one half days a week, so I absolutely love it. I think we’ve already touched upon it. Culture is probably the most important thing when you’re in the position I am, so I jointly run it with my sister and luckily we’re very, very different people. So I tend to hold the more role of forward thinking for planning. So I try and do anything, practise development, deciding where the practise goes in the future. Obviously with her blessing and she helps me with that and we discuss things together, whereas my sister is very much a hands on nitty gritty, she tends to make sure that the administration is done. She’s she’s a bit of more of a taskmaster and she’ll keep an eye on everything effectively. Yeah, it’s, it’s luckily we’re so different that it works that way. So I think as you I think as things progress, you, you end up being the person steering the ship, but you can’t be the person pulling the oars.

[00:14:57] But what happens regarding something like recruitment? Do you yourself get involved at all now?

[00:15:03] I mean, at the level of recruitment we’re doing at the moment, I only do the clinical side.

[00:15:09] Dentists and hygienists.

[00:15:10] Scientists and hygienists, whereas the receptionists and the nursing team is done by one. As I said, one of our existing staff members, in fact, two of them, the two people interview, they both have a veto. If they don’t like someone, then that’s that’s fine. And we actually don’t we don’t look to hire someone. We look to see whether they’ll fit into the team. We’re not really looking for specific qualities, if that makes sense. We make we’re trying to make them fit into a team rather than whether they’re qualified X, Y and Z. They’ve got this skill or that skill. Our thoughts are that we can teach skills. We can’t teach attitude and we can’t teach you can’t teach personality whether they fit in your team. I mean, I’ve seen so many lovely dentists who have got amazingly good skills, but I don’t think they’ll fit in our organisation just because of their personality. And that’s not to mean that they’re a bad personality, it’s just not our fit.

[00:16:09] And so, Rajiv, what is your culture like if you if you had to just sort of whip up in a few sentences or whatever to describe when you become a member of your team, what what is it that they become and what does that mean for me? I was Strohm and asked me to do a piece for them the other day about what their culture is.

[00:16:31] Right.

[00:16:32] And I didn’t know until I’d interviewed all of like a big chunk of their team. And it was very, very clear then that their culture revolved around family values, helping team members outside of work, progressing from within and promoting from within. And so I got a real sense of values, but I only learnt that after interviewing all their team members, right? So how would you describe your culture and your values in your organisation?

[00:17:02] So our culture I would I would say is it has to be quite relaxed, it’s quite natural, it’s quite free flowing. But more importantly than that, the key thing for us is that everyone needs to progress. You can’t stand still, you have to get better and better and improve. And we were having a little chat about this earlier. We were saying that if a staff member joins us, whether they’re a nurse or a trainee nurse, I don’t mind if they leave after a year. I really don’t. As long as they left better than when they joined us and as long as they leave for an opportunity. I actually hate it when people leave and I think they’re taking a step down. I want them to take a step up and I’ll happily do that. I mean, I’ve got two hygienists who were previous nurses for us. One of them is training to become a dentist. So she doesn’t work for us anymore. But she she wants to come back. I’ve had patients who are going on to study the industry and I’d love them to come back and join us at some point. As I said, we want our reception team to progress and do an administrative role or whichever role they’d like to do. But the key thing is they’ve got to leave better than they started. They cannot go back. And actually, I find it really frustrating when people stay still. That’s that’s the biggest bugbear for us.

[00:18:33] How would I demonstrate that I’m that dentist that. Forward thinking that progressive not standing still, is it through a track record of my post-graduate education, what my personal development plan looks like moving forward? What’s the thing that you’d look for me as maybe an associate working for you?

[00:18:52] So education is obviously very important in clinical skills, but I think clinical skills is actually, I hate to say, overvalued. That’s probably the wrong word, but I think more correctly, I think the other part is undervalued. And when I say undervalued and the other part, what I mean is that being able to progress in your own personal life is really important. Being able to progress in terms of being able to communicate with patients, dare I say it, financially progress. I’ve seen so many good dentists, not progress financially, but improve their clinical skills and and get deeply frustrated and not understanding why they’re going on all the best courses yet they don’t end up converting that into a career payment. I’m sure you’ve seen it with many people doing the Mini Smile makeover. Yeah, they come on the course. You see them four years down the line and say, how is that cost for you? And they’ll say, Actually, I’ve never done a case that.

[00:20:00] We’re trying to figure it out and say, why? Why is it one guy ends up being Matty Parsons booked up eight months ahead with composite veneers and then another guy just doesn’t even do one?

[00:20:13] Well, this is the thing I find really frustrating, because if you have a dentist who has got no skill at all, but they’re able to talk to patients and get them to do the work, they’ll very quickly progress. Even if they were born handed, they’ll eventually become a decent dentist and they’ll build a career because they can talk to people, whereas you can have somebody with the skills of mode, Monica and Jason Smithson all combined and multiply by five. But if they can’t speak to anyone and they can’t explain anything to patients, they’ll end up nowhere. And that now I feel it is really upsetting. You know, if someone like that joined our practise. Well, firstly, if they did, I would show them how to do how to do the other thing and actually speak to patients. But because I think that’s really undervalued. Massively undervalued.

[00:21:05] Do you think that’s teachable?

[00:21:07] Oh, yeah, 100% teachable. Well, you know, no one was born with that way. Some people are more naturally gifted, but I would say I’m probably the least likeable person in the world, naturally. And I’ve had to work on getting my patients to understand where I’m coming from. So if if I can do it, I think other people can. And I have to say that, you know, this is I didn’t learn it. I didn’t make up a system. I learnt it from an amazing guy called Asif Syed, who not many people have heard of, or if they have heard of him, they’ve never really met him because he kind of is one of these people who has quite a lot of influence in the dental world but hides in the background. And he taught me, you know, his version of how to talk to patients. And actually I think he’s actually trained over 400 dentists. But as I said, he kind of is a personality that likes to hide in the background, is more of a have you have you guys see non knockers or anyone see narcosis is more like the Kelly cartel. You know, they like to be in the background while working efficiency efficiently.

[00:22:29] Taff was that guy for seven, eight years and then suddenly one day he came out of his shell. What would you say that a couple of takeaways that you’ve learnt from acid.

[00:22:41] In terms of talking to patients, I would say very simply, tell the patient what you think is best and I mean that in a in a very blunt way. I think a lot of dentists get bogged down in options. They don’t like to give an opinion of what they think is right. You know, if a patient tells you, you know, they’re really upset that they’ve broken a tooth and, you know, it’s hurting and they can’t eat on it and they’re getting food stuck and it looks crap. You know, it’s quite easy to say, well, you know, you need root canal and a crown and it would be nice to have a white one because I actually I think it will fit what you want, and that’s the one I’d go for. There are other things we can give you gold crowns, amalgams, etc. but that’s the one I would recommend based on what you told me. And I think if you just say that to patients, most of them, as long as you come across likeable and trustworthy, they’ll say, Actually, yeah, I’ll do that. Hmm. I think what tends to confuse people or tend to confuse patients where you end up just listing a whole load of options and hope that they’ve got the knowledge of a yes, which took us five years, by the way, minimum. So and that you’re trying to explain it to them in 15 minutes and then they just get confused. And the typical answer they give is, I’ll have to think about it. Can I let you know? And the moment you hear that you’ve lost that patient, they do not understand what you’ve talked about. So I think I think the the biggest take home, I said, is just give them an honest opinion. And obviously the second thing is, which is probably more important, is listening to them, is asking them a question and the art of shutting the hell up and letting them talk. I think it’s it’s a lost art and it’s the easiest thing to do. Be quiet and let them talk and they will tell you what they’re looking for. It’s so true.

[00:24:38] So true. Although what do you think is the reason that people don’t naturally do that?

[00:24:47] I mean, I think we’re a product of the system. Partly the system doesn’t help. It really doesn’t. I mean, I think every dentist at some point has gone through an industry, whether it be for 5 minutes or 50 years. And obviously that’s a time pressure where, you know, the NHS doesn’t really value you talking values are you doing or it doesn’t even value you listening even less than you talking, which is which is even worse. So the system doesn’t help. Secondly, I don’t think that there’s enough emphasis on that part of it in university teaching. For the life of me, I have no idea why I spent a year learning histology. Just no idea. I’d rather they spent a year telling to teaching us how how to communicate with patients. It’s just. I don’t know. I think the focus is is very academic and less practical. And I think that’s also down to universities picking on academia as well, rather than being able to pick on soft skills. But I mean, there’s a vast, vast reason. But one thing I have noticed is that coming out of university is the most successful dentists are not the dentists who are very successful at university. They were the people who had to scrap effectively to get through. Those people have done incredibly well, whereas the academics haven’t done badly, but they haven’t excelled.

[00:26:27] You know, I find there’s the odd person who. Who’s good at both things.

[00:26:33] The unicorn. Yeah. Yeah. There are a few unicorns. Yeah, but that’s. You know, there’s always an outlier somewhere. Yeah.

[00:26:44] So what if you said you love clinical? I do. What is it about clinical that you love? Is it that getting to the bottom of what the patient is after and.

[00:26:55] Not finding that I’m quite unlikeable? I don’t actually care that much. I actually like the technical work. I mean, I do love it when you change a patient and you can visibly see them change. I love the technical work. I actually enjoy it. I love the problem solving and you know, I love my patients. I genuinely do. There’s some patients who I’ve had from day one who are NHS, who I treat for free now, you know, on a private basis because I just love them and some of them I’ve seen, I’ve got deeper relationships with them than they have with their own family sometimes. And one of my patients said to me, I see you more as my family than some of my family, especially around the cove. Around Cove, the time when I had some patients who had a only son, she’s by herself is in Australia and I see her twice a year, once, once a year even. But that’s, you know, she hasn’t seen a son for three years and I love seeing those patients. It’s really hard to give up. But I think the further along you go in the journey, I’m going to have to give up at some point. I just don’t know when.

[00:28:18] What about clinically? What kind of work do you like the most?

[00:28:24] I like the variety. I genuinely like the variety. I consider myself a true gdb. I’m quite happy with a hand scaler doing Perrier. Equally, I’d rather do surgical Perrier. I love doing a bit of Indo. I like doing some orthodontics. I like doing some straightening. I like. I love putting implants in. I like, I like doing whitening. I genuinely like it. Or I think I’d get bored doing one thing. I like seeing a patient and being able to deliver everything. Obviously there are some cases where I can’t and I have to refer out, but I would consider myself a true GP in that I genuinely like everything. The only thing I don’t really like to do myself is is paediatric dentistry. It’s just I’ve never liked it. It’s never been my forte. I’ve always felt like I can’t deliver high quality care with children, but that’s just me. But everything else I love doing.

[00:29:21] I’m in the in the practise.

[00:29:23] You’re sort of.

[00:29:25] Clinical lead, is that.

[00:29:27] Right? Yeah, I would say so. I mean, we’ve got some really strong dentists and I mean, some really.

[00:29:34] Strong you have specialists as well.

[00:29:36] We don’t at the moment, but with our new venture, I think we’re going to look that way to.

[00:29:42] 15 chairs that all.

[00:29:43] Generalists. All generalists. Yeah.

[00:29:47] And maybe private.

[00:29:49] Yeah. Well, between the 14 chairs, we’ll have 7000 users. So effectively, we’re all private. Yeah, we’re all generalists. And we. We we have waiting lists that are, you know, an arm, you know, six months down the line at the moment. So it’s a very, very busy place.

[00:30:07] So what’s the secret, bud? What’s the secret? You’ve you’ve grown this thing so quickly. Is it the very basics of treating people well? Word of mouth?

[00:30:16] Yeah.

[00:30:18] Do you have a marketing machine behind it?

[00:30:20] No, I. I don’t understand marketing. It’s. Perhaps you can have to help me at some point. I genuinely don’t understand it. My wife actually, believe it or not, as a degree in marketing, and she she doesn’t.

[00:30:33] Understand it either.

[00:30:36] Dentistry. But she works for a massive company. She works for Diageo, which is huge as a one under a company. But I personally, you know, I’ve I don’t I don’t understand. Definitely not external marketing anyway. I’m quite happy to ask patients to write a Google review and things like that. My sister’s way better than I am. She’s far more personable than I am. But yeah, no, this is it’s always been word of mouth for us. I know it’s still old fashioned, I suppose, but we’ve always managed to, you know, we see one patient, we get two back, and it’s always been that way. I don’t know why I actually.

[00:31:14] In some ways do you system either systemise the wow moments or do you just you’re just nice people.

[00:31:23] I would personally. I’d love to be able to systemise it. I just I don’t know what it is, in all honesty. It would be nice to know, because then I can box it and repeat it. Yeah.

[00:31:34] Do you know what? You’re doing? Something right? Right. You see one patient, you get two back, right? And this takes me back to yesterday evening. I was out for dinner and I spoke to Payman about this great customer service is so frickin rare that when it happens.

[00:31:55] You want tell everyone you.

[00:31:56] Fucking rave about it. Right. So true. So I went out for dinner yesterday to a place I’ve never been before. Right. And. My usual thing is, first of all, I never, ever order anything off the menu. I’m just twisted like that, right? So I always want a bit of extra chilli garlic. The first thing I do want to walk into an Indian restaurant. Do you do masala chai knowing very well it’s not on the frickin menu? Of course they don’t do it right. And the guy goes, We don’t do it. I’m going to ask the chef to put a couple of pots on for you that’ll keep you going. So it’s like, Boom, he’s got me once. Second thing is, I don’t know if you’ve got young kids ready, but when you take them to a restaurant, right, you want to feed them and get them out of the way first so you can enjoy your meal. Right. And for us, when we feed the girls, we get them plain rice and we ask them to put loads of veg in and not too much spice. Right. So that fills them up. But the guy goes to me, Yeah, I’ll do that. I’ll throw some egg fried rice together, I’ll put loads of virgin. And we didn’t ask for this because and I’ll bring that first so your girls can get sorted. Yeah, he’s just like, shit. Wow. Then I was like, Can I have my tandoori roti rodley? Just just just thin. Really, really butterly and thin. Yeah, it goes thin and crispy. I’m like, bang on, mate, boom. That’s the next thing that comes a little bit later as he’s bringing the starters out. Bring some extra starters out, right, some alley tricky and some Raj Kutcher. And he goes, Try this, try this. This one’s on me, buddy. This one’s on me. Just try it. I want your feedback on this dish at this point. May I’m getting quite emotional. Right? I’m overwhelmed with the surge.

[00:33:33] Yeah.

[00:33:35] Seriously, seriously, buddy, I’ve got a.

[00:33:37] Tear in my to Buddy.

[00:33:38] Yeah. And then and then, you.

[00:33:41] Know, I always speak to my eldest daughter about what great services. She’s smiling at me, beaming and giving me that look like this guy’s got his shit together. Yeah. And then comes along and goes. Just before you leave. Just before you leave. I’ve got Indian afternoon tea. I’m launching that soon. Yeah. And then says to me I’m right in my mobile number on a card for you. You take that away. Yeah. What the actual fuck. Yeah. Like amazing customer service as I’m walking out. There’s a couple stood there studying the menu here. Bloke says to me, food any good, mate? I said to him, Fucking amazing, mate. And the service even better. Get in there. Yeah. Give him a fist pump, smile it and look at it and he walks in. So word of mouth translated instantly at that point. Then I proceeded to write a Facebook and Instagram post about it. Right. Because that was because I was so blown away. Reggie. You’re probably doing that every day. You don’t fill 14 surgeries by accident, mate.

[00:34:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe you say that. I’m not sure I am, but I honestly. I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m not sure I am. I think I like to use the Tibbs analogy since we’re talking about Indian restaurants. Yeah. You know, Tibbs doesn’t have amazing customer service, though. That’s the thing. But yet on a Friday night, well, pretty much every night they’ve got a queue of, you know, 200 metres down the road.

[00:35:14] Because lamb chops.

[00:35:16] For the lamb chops because that product is just absolutely amazing. So as I said, I don’t really understand marketing, but I understand what a good product is, and I really do. And I think for what we offer, our value of the care for the price and for what we do is that I think is unbelievable. So I think of it more that way. Yes. Obviously, you get amazing customer service on top of that and it accelerates even more. So, you know, as I said, I don’t really understand marketing, but my wife has kind of taught me a few things and she taught me about the the five P’s of of of marketing, of which the most important thing is product. And if you can get your product right, I think that that’s the most important thing. Yeah, customer service makes a massive difference and you’re absolutely right. And it’s definitely something we need to improve on. And I believe that. But I think our strength lies in the fact that we can deliver great industry efficiently, well, in a really beautiful environment, at a cost that I think and this what makes me feel comfortable when I do a crown, I get I deliver that. I look at my patient and I genuinely believe they’ve got a bargain. I genuinely believe they’ve got a bargain. I think, God, I’ve I’ve you’ve got a bargain here. And I think if I can do that and obviously it has to be profitable and it is. Yeah, but if we can do that efficiently and beautifully, then I think that’s for us that’s really important and that’s what our practise is about. We want to give people great dentistry at a bargain and make money at the same time.

[00:37:00] So is that is that the positioning of it? One of the other piece. So are you not the most expensive practise? No.

[00:37:07] Not not by not by a long way. We we’re not we’re not the cheapest. We’re not the most expensive. We’re you know, if we were a supermarket, we’d be we’d probably be somewhere between Sainsbury’s and Waitrose. You know, we’re not like a Whole Foods, we’re not an Iceland. We’re kind of that’s our position and that’s a position we’re very comfortable with.

[00:37:33] And all three clinics of the same positioning. Is that is that.

[00:37:36] Yes. On new clinic, we’re trolley probably. We’re trying to position it slightly higher. But as I said, the way we try to deliver it is we might be priced like a Waitrose. But, you know, we’re we’re we we try and give a product that’s even better.

[00:38:00] Do you know? Do you know that, Rajiv, that value piece that you’re talking about there? Like some people say, hey, you know, what’s the magic formula to sales in dentistry or whatever? Right. I really believe truly it’s about value in what you do, because if you think you’re providing exceptional value, you ain’t got to try to sell because it’s coming from the horror. You’ve the passion that you’re showing now is that it’s a bloody bargain what you’re giving, right?

[00:38:27] I genuinely believe it. I genuinely believe it’s an absolute bargain.

[00:38:31] So you don’t get a struggle.

[00:38:32] But you say you know nothing about marketing. Marketing is is communicating your value.

[00:38:37] Yeah.

[00:38:38] Yeah, that’s it. That is marketing. Communicating your value.

[00:38:42] Yeah you say that, but I’ve never done anything on marketing. I don’t understand.

[00:38:47] I’m doing it right.

[00:38:48] You’re doing it.

[00:38:49] Coming out of your mouth.

[00:38:53] So I might be saying things that I don’t know, but it works. It works for.

[00:38:58] Us. Do not fill 14 chairs by accident.

[00:39:02] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:04] Have you done anything like influencer work? Have you treated a particular patient who went and told 100 other people like nothing? It still seems amazing in that time frame.

[00:39:15] I’ve had patients that I’ve told 100 people, I haven’t paid them for it and I’ve never.

[00:39:19] Been paying for them. But but you know, what I’m saying is inflexion points.

[00:39:23] Yeah. There are a few patients who who who generate more leads than others. To be fair, I found that’s more with businesses. Yeah, there’s a couple of local businesses where I think I treat everyone.

[00:39:36] Because people talk in the business that the talking shop the good news and the bad news, by the way. Yeah, of course. Quickly.

[00:39:42] Yeah, well, our new practise is next to one of these businesses, so as soon as we got the lease, I popped in next door and said, Oh, by the way, we’re opening next door. And that’s actually helped us a lot.

[00:39:54] But have you have you have you gone to other businesses and introduced yourself?

[00:39:58] No, not not, not not.

[00:40:00] Not.

[00:40:01] Consciously. Not consciously. I have spoken to other people and owners, but very, very you know, I’ll see them in the street and I’ll say hello and have a little chat, but I won’t specifically go anywhere to speak to anyone. But yeah, I found it’s happened with businesses. It feels like I’ve treat every teacher in South London at the moment for some reason, which is quite nice. When you’ve got two young children, you get to hear the ins and outs of every school is quite nice. Yeah. So it seems to me, you know, there have been spheres of influences rather than specific individuals.

[00:40:44] What you would you explained to me of of Mike what your plans were for the new place. And as you said it to me, I thought I thought to myself, what a confident guy, man. You know, like it takes a degree of I want you to outline.

[00:41:02] It for delusional.

[00:41:06] I want you to outline it for whoever listens to this so that they can get a feel for what you explain to me. But now that I’ve got the context of of what you did before, it seems to me mean if it really is like this, that, you know, you just this successful thing happened and you don’t know how it happened. You know, it’s it’s it’s an interesting sort of situation. Situation, but I’m feeling like either either like you lucked out big time or you’re just being really humble because, you know, like, go on. Let’s start. Let’s start with what are your plans? What are your plans?

[00:41:44] So, I mean, at the moment we’ve got I’ve already mentioned it seven surgery practise in Crayford Green Dental and we’re opening another squat just down the road and it’s a two or three minute walk down the road. And the idea of that was to effectively double our size. So that’s another seven surgeries. And within that, we’ve I’ve we’ve built the seven surgeries. We’ve built a lecture theatre, we’ve been the dedicated admin area. We’ve got a photography studio built in there that we kind of lucked out because we managed to get a lease during the middle of COVID where everything was nosediving in prices. So we managed to get that ridiculously cheap rate for 20 years. Was it before it was, believe it or not, a hairdresser? I have no idea how a hairdresser occupied a three and a half thousand square foot place, but.

[00:42:40] Three and a half thousand square.

[00:42:41] Feet. Yeah, it’s a pretty big.

[00:42:43] The size of enlightened the three floors of enlightened.

[00:42:46] Yeah, it’s a big place. It’s a big place all on one floor. So when we were looking at it the all on one floor. Yeah. All on one floor or ground floor. Bloody hell. Yeah. The frontage of this place is huge and it’s next to a Nando’s and opposite a pure gyms. That’s right on the high street.

[00:43:07] How far are you with it now?

[00:43:10] We’re probably going to be opening in the next two months. Two and a half months.

[00:43:13] Oh, wow. You you’re in the middle of it. You’re like you’re you’re doing stuff right now. Today, builders.

[00:43:19] I told you, the builders are always on on speed dial. Always on speed dial.

[00:43:26] Do you enjoy project managing. Oh, I love it.

[00:43:29] Property stuff. Yeah. I don’t like I mean, I don’t want to be in the rental game ever. I became an accidental landlord when I got married and I had a flat that and I hate that I hate being an accidental landlords are just I’ve given that to somebody else to manage now but I like it on the business level. I don’t know why I like making I just, you know, the way I see it is I spend 50% of my time at work and 50% of my time at home. So I should feel comfortable in both places. And I see one as the extension of the other, you know, and I would, you know, you invest into a business and you get money back from it. You don’t do that at home, but you do that for comfort. And I feel that they should feel the same. I like to feel comfortable in both.

[00:44:21] Yeah, I agree with that.

[00:44:22] And I want my patients to I don’t know if it’s a very Indian thing where you feel like you welcome someone into your house. I feel the same way at work. I feel like I want to welcome them in freaky.

[00:44:34] Tells us he knows nothing about marketing, right?

[00:44:37] Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don’t know. Is that marketing or is that.

[00:44:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:44:45] Yeah, yeah.

[00:44:45] Yeah. I mean, I think I think like Lexus. Lexus tell all their employees that whenever you speak to anyone, imagine they’re in your house for the first time and you treat them like that. So if you’re spreading that message that this is what we are with your team and all that and and, you know, running. How many people are you now? Like 100?

[00:45:07] Yeah. About that.

[00:45:08] You’re running a hundred people.

[00:45:10] On.

[00:45:10] Message and on on culture, having the keeping the culture. It’s not easy, man.

[00:45:16] It’s not. No, it really isn’t. I think that’s the biggest learning curve I’ve had is trying to keep. And we’ve been hiring a lot recently. So trying to hire people and make them understand or get them to understand what we value and what we expect. That is definitely been the hardest part for us.

[00:45:38] So take us take us through the steps on this new one, the squat. Is it also going to be called to green?

[00:45:45] It’s called to green dental as well, but boutique to dental boutique. So it’s it’s just a slightly elevated version.

[00:45:53] Of Giorgio Armani of the Emporio. Armani. No, not.

[00:45:56] The whitening brand.

[00:45:58] No.

[00:45:59] I got a little jitter in.

[00:46:01] Your face then. Yes, definitely not.

[00:46:06] So go on. You now near the end of it? Yeah. Yes. But for someone. For someone who’s never done a squat before, go through it. Go through some of the processes. You know, like I want to really about decision making is a big one, right? To decide to do a squat. It’s a big thing to decide, isn’t it? The risks are high.

[00:46:25] You say the risks are high? I don’t know if they are. I really don’t. I think if people are going to open a squat, now is the time and the place, because the price of buying at the moment is is too high. Yeah, I think that’s I personally I think that’s a higher risk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I was talking to a colleague yesterday. I won’t mention who they are, but I think they’ve regretted borrowing the amount that they’ve borrowed because they can’t not make ends meet, but they can’t forge themselves the lifestyle initially just because of what they’ve bought. It’s really it’s really difficult, the pricing. So and I don’t see ours as a risk because of the proximity and the brand that we have. You know, that’s like saying McDonald’s opening a new chain down the road is a risk. It’s not that if you understand the product, you go in, you’re going to buy a Big Mac, you know you’re going to get a Big Mac. I don’t see that as a risk. And I think because we’ve we’re opening a squat within the geographical location or the influence of our existing practise. I don’t see that as a risk. I just think of it as a adding another seven surgeries to the to the existing practise just happens to be a bit further down the road. So I don’t know, I personally, I don’t think.

[00:47:47] You made the decision to go ahead thinking it’s not such a big risk. I like that. Then find the property.

[00:47:53] So we found the property which actually kind of fell in our laps. It was literally the first thing I looked at. As I said, we kind of decided to do this in the middle of the COVID period. There was an abundance of property at that point where lots of businesses had gone under. It was in the right geographical location. The price, the rent for it was very, very low.

[00:48:14] Had we already had the COVID bump in dentistry, like where we’d come back and we were busy as hell that one was. It was at the time.

[00:48:21] No, it’s just it was actually we started looking whilst I was sitting at home doing nothing.

[00:48:26] But when you scared like what if patients weren’t going to come back to practises or or you you were cool with it.

[00:48:31] No, no, I didn’t think that at all.

[00:48:33] You were right. I was wrong. I was thinking no one’s going to come. They’re going to think they’re going to get infected by viruses in the air. If you remember.

[00:48:40] I remember you were shitting yourself, mate.

[00:48:43] I think we both were, to be honest. I don’t know. I just never thought of it that way. You know, even with the house prices, my wife was like, the prices are going to drop. And I said to her, I don’t think they are. I think they’re going to rock it up because people are going to move away from London and go into suburbs. And I think I mean, I was proven right, which was a bit crazy because in the middle of COVID, we sold our house and we’ve just put another one. So we I went against my own advice and bought an A in a when the price of going up but that’s another story. But yeah, I didn’t see it as a risk. So we got the practise. You know, we’ve spent effectively a third of what we would have bought if we had to buy it outright straight away with, with a patient base luckily is that we’ve got the patient base already, so we didn’t have to buy that. So for me this is a no brainer. I think we can we’ve got waiting lists of people who are trying to access treatment. So this for me is an extension. The biggest thing is, is staffing. And in getting more people, getting people to buy into what we’re doing, getting the right people to be able to deliver that sort of work where, you know, we see as good quality, highly valued with patients who already value us and more importantly, that they can progress into something.

[00:50:08] Is it easier to hire when you’re offering shift work like because you probably meet certain people’s, I guess, patterns because obviously there might be somebody who wants to do the schoolrooms in the morning or whatever and they want to stop. Does that make it easier to hire or.

[00:50:26] I’m not sure. I think it’s a bit of both. You know, when we first moved our existing staff to shift system, we were met with some heavy opposition. Now we’ve started most of them. In fact, I think virtually all of them have said, I don’t think I could go back to the other system. I think people value having that extra time every day, whether it be in the morning, whether it be in the afternoon. It doesn’t matter so much whether they’ve had kids or not. I think makes it does it make a difference either? Because what we found is that the ones who do have kids either drop them to school or pick them up rather than both. There’s a there’s a variation. Some people have obviously some preferences. Some people are naturally one, either morning people or night night people. I’m a night person. I think Payman yours are the same. You tend to message each other at two in the morning. Yeah. Whereas I think probably you’re probably just about to get up at two the morning. Yeah.

[00:51:33] So yeah, yeah I’m on the opposite. So I went through a phase of being a night person and me and Payman had a lot of evening calls and then and then Payman started eating this one meal a day. I don’t know if he’s still on it now, whether he’s telling me lies, but he messages me at 11 p.m. at night, which tells me he’s probably eating at that time now. But yeah, I’m definitely morning and trying to be unusually in bed for ten.

[00:52:01] Usually what I get from you like talking to you now, this sort of.

[00:52:06] Calm.

[00:52:08] Person who if I if I didn’t if I didn’t know the story, I’d say, this cat, this cat. He’s just he he doesn’t like things to change very much. But looking at the story like you are continuously pushing.

[00:52:24] Yeah, I’m not changing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:52:28] It’s strange. It’s almost like that sort of.

[00:52:29] Calm top.

[00:52:31] Of the water and. And underneath it, like. Like a swan or something like the bottom, the paddling away. But, you know, the just the fact that you’ve done this thing up to now is super impressive, number one. But but, you know someone who just wants to keep on doing things. Yeah. And now 14 years later, you’re like, oh, well, let’s do a new squat and the double up again. Yeah. Would you have plans to keep going? Like, are you thinking possibly 100 practises? What are you thinking? What’s yours? Are you staying regional or do you think you’ll go national with it or are you thinking about all this?

[00:53:12] I would like to expand. I mean, if if it if it keeps going and we keep being successful, why not? I don’t see why not. I’ve never had plans to be a mini corporate or anything like that. I just like to do what the business wants to do. So if it feels natural to expand and it’s the right time and the right place, we’ll expand. If there’s appetite for it, we’ll expand. We’d like to deliver. If patients keep asking, When can I get in? How can I make this appointment? Are you going to be closer to me? You know, then yeah, we’ll expand and you know, as long as we can keep the quality and the people happy, there’s no there’s no reason why we can’t. It’s never really been about that. It’s never been a significant part of the thinking. Yeah, expansion is important and I do want to expand and you know, but more for as I said, I’d like to do what the business is trying to do. I think a lot of people try and make the business work for them, whereas I like to I like to work for the business. If the business is saying to me that more people want to access this service, then yeah, we’ll expand.

[00:54:22] Yeah. But where I’m going, where I’m going is I mean, we’re going into kind of a different era now. But, you know, just a few months back, right, there was loads of cash available for businesses. And you could have done it like a Series A and say, hey, look, look at my track record. I want to put one of these in every city. Yes, you could you could get together with some sharp talking Eton boy or some lawyer or somebody who put the thing together for you. And it would be a credible story. Yeah, but the headaches would go through the roof, of course. But you seem like you’re kind of up for headaches.

[00:55:07] You know, I think I think I take very calculated risks. I don’t like to take crazy risks, even though they may feel crazy or to the outside like they’re crazy.

[00:55:17] Not just about the risk, the headaches, you know, like that one guy would say, look, if I’ve got seven shares, I’m doing well, I’m going on three holidays.

[00:55:25] I’m good.

[00:55:27] Another guy says, Well, why not make it 14 or 21? Another guy?

[00:55:32] I have an answer that for that. So you say that’s a headache? I would say that is a headache as well. But you can plan for that headache. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can you can line up the paracetamol before it happens. What I would say is that yes, if we’re going to expand, I would like to get the system in place before we expand. And then yeah. Rather than expand and then try and deal with the problems as and when they come. So that’s what I mean by calculated risk. If, if I, if we’re planning to expand, which we will. That’s why I want to build up that the administrative part now with three surgeries effectively most people who run three surgeries do not have they have a PM in each surgery, three people, whereas I want to build it into a 20 person, behemoth, administrative, effectively a business in its own right, and then I’ll use that power to expand. So yeah.

[00:56:34] By the way, let’s not forget 21 chairs, as you know, in its own way, it’s like seven practises or something.

[00:56:40] It is. It is. But you know, there’s a big difference between having seven in one building and to to sell for it actually is a huge difference. It’s a lot easier to control.

[00:56:53] You’re right.

[00:56:54] His seven chairs is 14 chairs, remember.

[00:56:57] Because that’s double shift. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. It’s no bloody joke.

[00:57:07] It’s interesting. And it could be someone else’s faulty.

[00:57:10] Practises.

[00:57:11] If they weren’t fully optimised, you know.

[00:57:14] Yeah.

[00:57:14] So interesting, interesting way of looking at it.

[00:57:17] So that’s, that’s my expansion. That’s, that’s the risk we’re taking. You’re absolutely right. If that’s the way we’ve seen it, if we run a shift system, we can literally double up. Yeah. And which patient doesn’t want to have access between seven in the morning and at night.

[00:57:36] I’ll tell you what’s really interesting, Rajiv, is, you know, we operate our practise like 9 to 5 or whatever. We do the odd one late evening. Right. And, you know, I have my team members who I call lead ninjas. Right. Who deal with our, shall we say, inbound marketing, which which you know nothing about Rajiv, because you’ve just got you’ve just got 28 chairs filled at the moment. Right. So you can’t do anything about marketing. Let’s put that to one side. And we find that the best time to get hold of patients if you want to book appointments. Right. Or get through to them or follow them up. Right. Is after hours or on a Saturday and you’re open all that time, do you find that your reception team are more optimal around that time in terms of success? Have you not analysed that? We’ve not looked at that. I’m just curious about it.

[00:58:26] Analysed it.

[00:58:27] He’s not looked at it, man. He’s just just a winner. Some people are just winners, dude.

[00:58:31] But you’re right. I mean, naturally what you’re saying is absolutely correct. People, we do get more phone calls outside of ours. And at lunchtime, that is definitely a massive benefit. And when I tell people that we’re open from 730 to 8, they’re like, Oh, okay, you know, that that really suits me. And in the area we’re in, we’re actually in quite a big commuter area. A lot of people travel into the city. And I think since going doing these hours, we’ve hoovered up a lot of that clientele. I bet just just because we’re the only practise in the area that that kind of does that.

[00:59:11] But does the name come from Buddy?

[00:59:14] It’s not original. We’re on to Green Walk. But we didn’t like the name because, you know, we try and do things sustainably. We try and do things naturally, and we like the nature representation. If you look at our logo, it’s it’s a bit different. It’s a it’s like it looks like a shell. And that for us represents. You guys know what the Fibonacci sequence is? Yeah. Naturally occurring number. And so we like that. We like the name and we kept it because of the the, you know, we like the we like to blend in with our background. We like we like to be natural. We’re we’re, we’re never going to paint our practise bright orange or do anything crazy like that to stand out. We’re not peacocking. But what we are trying to do is we’re trying to ingrain ourselves with whatever feels right in the right area and do what patients want and do things correctly. Mm hmm.

[01:00:19] What’s your what’s your bugbear with associates?

[01:00:23] With associates?

[01:00:24] What bothers you about an associate?

[01:00:27] I mean, luckily we’ve had pretty good associates. And, you know, what tends to happen if if we get associates that don’t get along? And actually, now I think about it, I think it’s what I came back to earlier is people trying to do the same thing. So associates who.

[01:00:43] The same treatment.

[01:00:45] Yeah, not necessarily the same treatment but.

[01:00:47] Oh is it not progressing.

[01:00:48] Well progressing. You know, it does it really does bother me when I see a dentist who’s stuck. He’s really stuck. More importantly, they’re not willing to try and change that. I don’t mind if they’re stuck, but they’re trying things that that’s quite nice. The ones that are stuck and don’t listen in terms of of improvement, that’s that’s the thing that bothers me. You know, I’ve I’ve asked many dentists, what where do you see yourself in five years time? I’m sure you guys are asked that as well. To many of the people on this podcast, and no one says doing exactly the same thing I’m doing right now. No one says that. Do they know so? So what bothers me is if that’s what you are feeling and that’s the way we want you to go. You’ve got to you’ve got to challenge yourself. And I think the biggest bugbear I have is is dentists who don’t challenge themselves. And as I said, it doesn’t necessarily have to be going on courses. It could be any sort of thing. But I want them to improve.

[01:01:52] The thing is, dentistry don’t challenge themselves. But by the way, I’ve I’ve been through parts of my career, I think from from around 2012 to 2015. I feel like it didn’t go anywhere. It didn’t progress.

[01:02:05] Yeah. But was that was that a period of a consolidation as opposed to progression? Because you still need periods of consolidation.

[01:02:13] I don’t think it was I don’t think it was. I just I just don’t feel like I progressed whatever. I didn’t analyse myself enough to figure out why I didn’t progress. But what I’m saying is a lot of times people who don’t move forward are uncomfortable being uncomfortable. Right. That that and you’re clearly the opposite. You’re you like being outside your comfort zone and learning and you know, the kind of person that led the first three day a week NHS practise must have evolved into a whole different person who was on a four day a week for four surgery, private practise and then a different person now and a different person going forward. Yes. And you know, you’re comfortable being uncomfortable.

[01:03:01] Why? I don’t know. You’re right. I just. I don’t like staying still. I mean, I just feel like. I don’t know, I just. I just feel like I need to do something. I need to. I feel that’s. Maybe that’s what I feel. Success is is growth is the growth is actually the success.

[01:03:26] A lot of like. Another person could be sitting here saying, look, I too, think the success is about that.

[01:03:31] But I’m I’m scared of.

[01:03:33] Trying that thing that’s going to going to going to make you like, I don’t know, taking on some new bit of digital workflow. There’s loads of dentists, you know, really good dentists who haven’t made that leap into digital. But I’m sure you have. Have you?

[01:03:48] Of course.

[01:03:48] Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah.

[01:03:49] Yeah.

[01:03:51] And you can understand how you’re scared of. What I’m saying is that other person could be sitting here saying, yeah, exactly what you said. You know, progress is like that. And yet being so uncomfortable doing it that they don’t make the jump. But you happily make the jump. Where’s it come from?

[01:04:12] Um.

[01:04:14] It’s useful. It’s useful to, to, to know that, dude. Yeah. Because if people could get over that then and by the way, it sounds like you’ve instilled it in your teams. 100 people are thinking like this. Yeah, I’m sure you’ve got something to do.

[01:04:28] I’ve never even thought about it. I mean, I think I’ve always been like this. I think maybe it’s just my nature, you know? I’ve never been scared of doing things. I’ve always felt, in fact, I always feel like I think differently from everyone else. And in a way I have in my my thoughts. I know I think differently from other people. My thoughts are often like an outsider’s point of view from whenever whenever I talked to anyone, you know, we said at the beginning, you know, I put my opinion on Facebook sometimes.

[01:05:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:05:02] And I find often my opinion is vastly different from anyone else’s. Not to say mine is right. It’s just I sometimes feel my viewpoint is completely different. I’ve got where I was going with this, but I’ve always felt that way. I’ve never really been scared of the unknown because I feel that maybe I am the unknown.

[01:05:25] Maybe what about as a kid or something?

[01:05:29] Perhaps. I mean, sometimes you look back at your life and, you know, you look back and say, I wish that other people had done things. You know, I look at my mum’s career and my mum was a very and is a very successful pharmacist. And she retired a few years ago. And sometimes I feel that she got stuck running one practise and she loved it. Don’t get me wrong, she was very successful at it, but I felt that she didn’t progress because my father was very much different that way. He wanted to do new things. He’d take a little bit of a gamble. And, you know, he passed away when I was about 18. But I still that’s one thing I really remember about him and that he always wanted to do new things. And I remember him always. I actually remember him doing stuff that excited him. And I think I think I’ve taken that mantle off him and that doing something new is exciting. And I look back and I think perhaps everyone else, you know, if if you’re not being challenged, it’s not exciting, you know, for me, it’s just boring, actually.

[01:06:40] You know that Payman mentioned the fact that, you know you’re comfortable being uncomfortable. Are you uncomfortable? Like Payman said, making that jump to digital? Did you think about making the jump to digital and think that that makes me uncomfortable? Or do you just think I need to go digital? Let’s just get the shit and buy it.

[01:06:59] Pretty much. I mean, going digital is like a drop in the ocean for me. That’s not even a thing. You know, when I talk to other people about what I’m doing, even even right now, they’re like your mental. So at the moment, we’re expanding this practise. Yeah. So we renovated the existing degree in dental. We’re buying this new practise. As I said, I sold my home, I bought a new home. I’m renovating that as well. So I’ve got building work going on there. I’ve got a I’ve got a 12 day old son.

[01:07:31] Congratulations, man. Thank you very much.

[01:07:34] Yeah, he’s he’s he’s keeping me awake at night and my wife, but he’s absolutely amazing. Even at 12 days, they have such a personality is amazing. I’ve taken a roll with Smile Faster, which is great teaching, learning. I’m doing a diploma with implants at the moment. I’ve also taken a role with Invisalign speaking for them. So all of that in the one year I think I’ve looked back at this year and I thought actually maybe I’ve taken on a little bit too much, but I’m still happy doing it and I really enjoy it and I don’t like to stay still. I like to do new things. So it’s all been like, what’s life without a bit of risk and a bit of adventure? That’s what I think. You’ve got to make it interesting. You’ve got to make it fun. When we’re not on the on this for too long. You’ve you can’t stay still. You just can’t. Patrick.

[01:08:31] How would you how would you define success? What does it mean to you?

[01:08:36] Success. You know, I feel it’s it’s for me, I would say it’s doing. You know, that’s a really tough question. Success for me is, you know, multifactorial. For me, it’s you know, it is getting up in the morning and wanting to do what you’re going to do that day. For me, that’s what it is. It’s about progressing as a person, whether that’s clinically, whether that’s emotionally, whether that’s, you know, with family life, it’s about helping others along the way. You know, I’m always the other thing I really like is collaboration. You know, if somebody phones me up and ask for help, even if I’ve never met this person before, I will help them. And I like that. I like helping other people. I like I like working with other people. My sister sometimes thinks it’s at my detriment that I give too much time to other people just to help them out without without expecting anything in return. But, you know, I believe that you reap what you sow eventually. But success success is moving forward. That’s what it is. It’s just moving forward. And if you back it up, it doesn’t matter as long you know, you can you can move forward even if you have to take a step back.

[01:10:05] Let’s talk about some of the mess ups along the way.

[01:10:08] The many, many mess ups, yes.

[01:10:10] Take me take me through some of the errors you think you’ve made.

[01:10:15] You know, actually, at the beginning of the practise, I actually didn’t move that that far forward for maybe maybe for four years. And I think a lot of it was was down to us not understanding the business properly. So I think I think the first thing that that helped is actually understanding what the business is trying to do. You know, I talked about trying to make a practise fit, a lifestyle, and I feel that doesn’t work. We tried to do that. So we you know, when you when you buy a practise young, you go, well, if only I make 100,000 a year, and once I’m £100,000 a year, I’ll be happy. And so what ends up you try and make that business fit £100,000 a year goal, even though it’s trying to do something completely different. And what ends up you never achieve that 100,000? You always get 70% of what you’re trying to do. So I think the first thing we actually made a big difference is we understand, we understood that we’re a lot of patients were trying to access care, so we expanded. We understand that a hygienist is invaluable in that they help us deliver the care that we’re trying to deliver. So doing that made a big difference.

[01:11:32] And I talked about Assef before when we’re talking about talking to patients, but he also helped us form a really amazing business plan. And we continue to talk every three months about our business and how it can develop. And he’s really helped me out. And my sister, incredibly, he’s got a real keen understanding of what what’s the next good step, even if we disagree, is a great sounding board. And, you know, everyone needs a mentor, however it is, whether it’s through clinical business, business personal. So that’s made a big difference business wise. You know, we’ve we’ve made errors in God. You know, how we’ve talked to staff before. I’ve, you know, sometimes you get snappy and don’t mean to be like that. And I think every owner has done that. They’ve said something to a member of staff that they deeply regret, and that’s happened to me many times. And sometimes it’s not even what you say, it’s how you say it. Sometimes you try and get a message, of course, quickly, and you send something on WhatsApp and you go, Actually, I should have said that WhatsApp told you in person, you know, the human side of things. There are so many mistakes we had.

[01:12:51] We had Zeba Shaikh from Rue Dental and she was talking about what she learnt from her dad and her uncle. They owned this gigantic business like care home is the biggest care home business in Europe or something. And she was saying about body language. And ever since I had that podcast, I’ve been paying attention to that myself, you know, and, you know, it’s a growing number of of staff, this new people just.

[01:13:23] A.

[01:13:23] Nod and a wave from the boss makes you realise I wasn’t paying attention to this fact until I spoke to Zeba on the podcast. And everyone’s looking at the boss’s every move.

[01:13:37] Yes.

[01:13:37] Yeah, I was just walking in like one or the others, you know, like not not thinking that anyone’s paying attention to me. And ever since she said that.

[01:13:46] The just just a.

[01:13:48] Small body language thing of of of acknowledging people from a distance.

[01:13:53] Yes. Makes a.

[01:13:54] Massive difference. A massive.

[01:13:56] Difference. And it’s definitely something I’m not naturally good at either.

[01:14:00] Me either. I’m shy.

[01:14:01] So, yeah, you know, sometimes I feel like you, you know, you’re part of the team and you just want to act like the rest of the team. But in reality, you can’t be that person. You have to you have to step up. And it is small things. It often is small things. I wouldn’t claim to be the best boss in the world by any stretch of imagination. In fact, sometimes I think I’m an arse.

[01:14:22] What’s your biggest weakness, do you think?

[01:14:25] Oh, God. Many. I think my. My personal weakness is probably people management. Actually, I have to work on that really hard. I have to be very careful what I say, because what what I you know, I think I was born with that. You know what? You think it just comes out your mouth.

[01:14:52] No filter.

[01:14:52] No filter. That’s the one. And and I’ve been told I can be really abrupt sometimes. And I think with time and actually if you if anyone has been looking. What I see on Facebook over ten years, I think I’ve filtered it down to be less and less and less confrontational. Not because I don’t feel the same way, but more, you know, it doesn’t it doesn’t actually help anyone to be confrontational, you know. And what I’ve found is that is less important to be right. Yeah. So sometimes I know I’m right and I can argue a point and actually upset a lot of people knowing I’m right. I think what I’ve worked out is it’s not important to be right. Actually, when you’re running a business, it’s more important to be fair. If you can be seen to be doing the right thing for the right and being fair, I think that’s more important. For example, you know, if a patient doesn’t turn up twice on the NHS, know you have every right to not see them. Whereas if you speak to them and they realise that one of them was a funeral and the second one they, you know, their diabetic mother went into a coma or whatever it is, I don’t know. You know, it would only be fair to give them another chance. So you’d be right in saying, no, you can’t be seen again, but it would be fair to let them back. And I think it’s more important now, more than ever, to be fair than right. And I think that’s one thing that I’ve learnt and I’ve had to work on because my natural instinct is to argue about being right, whereas actually it’s not important anymore. Yeah.

[01:16:35] And what about clinically errors, patient management, things that stick in your mind?

[01:16:42] You know what? Luckily I’ve been quite good. I’ve always been naturally quite gifted with dentistry, you know, I was the person at university that it was quite happily doing molar endo and now as a student and not really having to need any help. Luckily I’ve been quite gifted. I think the errors I’ve made is being overconfident that something would work when it won’t.

[01:17:05] So when someone comes to you and says with the classic one with I don’t know that six sets of dentures and you’re thinking in your head, I can get this right.

[01:17:14] Yeah, yeah, I’ve had one.

[01:17:17] Or two with that sort of thing.

[01:17:20] You know, there’s always a little bit of overconfidence. Sometimes it’s it’s not overconfidence. I just, you know, sometimes you look at something as textbook correct, but somebody doesn’t get along with it and you fail to see the patient side of things. You know, clinically, it might be textbook perfect, but, you know, if you haven’t communicated with the patient, the patient, the patient’s adaptability is something that is untestable. And if it’s you know, it gets harder and harder to do things like that.

[01:17:52] Have you got an example?

[01:17:54] Yeah, 100%. You know, sometimes, you know, let’s use the classic doing a crown and it’s five microns off and you get one patient who’s absolutely an agonising, uncomfortable pain from it, and then you leave someone who’s three millimetres high and they don’t care. I’ve had a patient where I’ve seen a crown put in three millimetres high from another practise. I’m like, you know, you can only bite on this one back tooth. Yeah, I know. But I’m happy with that. They’re comfortable. They adapted to it. And, you know, the more and more I think about it, the more talking to the patient and then getting them on your side is more important than the actual dentistry in itself anyway. And luckily I haven’t actually had that many clinical errors, but some errors I have had of when I’ve slightly overpromised something and haven’t delivered to that exacting standard that I do have. But again, most of the time I can get the patient on my side and apologise and say, Look, yeah, I did that, overstate that. And then, you know, in the interest of fairness and value, I would say, look, I’ll just do it for you for free. Don’t worry about it. Just replace it. Luckily, it’s only been one or two patients here or there with the bits that it’s, you know, clinically I’ve been okay and I’ve been lucky. I think it will come and bite me in the arse one day. That’s probably the day I decide that clinically I actually have to do something else. I’ll probably end up giving it up at that point. But luckily I’ve what I’ve tended to do has worked really nicely.

[01:19:33] Nice to hear all this bloody. And you know I’m in touch with you and oh yeah who works at yours and.

[01:19:40] Phenomenon she is she will become incredibly successful.

[01:19:45] Very strong on the content side if that’s what you’ve read out of it.

[01:19:48] But she she’s really she’s really humble so.

[01:19:54] Your lovely girl.

[01:19:55] Lovely, lovely. She she knows her weaknesses. And you know, one thing I love about Q&A, she thinks she’s annoying me. She messages me almost on a daily basis on every other day. And she says, what about this case? How is this going to work? I don’t know how to do this. Can you come in and help me? And I love doing it. I actually love helping her. She as she keeps thinking she’s annoying me. She thinks she’s a nuisance. But what I love about her is she’s trying new things, she’s progressing. She’s going to go somewhere, whether, as I said, whether as a as an associate with us in the long run, I’d love it to be. I really would. But as long as she comes out of it, the other end better, which I.

[01:20:39] Believe.

[01:20:39] She already is, I’m cool with that. You know, you wonder is one of these people that is destined for great things. In fact, a lot of associates are, whether they do it so publicly as you end, day is very different. But many of them are destined for great, great things.

[01:20:56] What I was going to say was she really values you as the boss. You know, she she she vouches for you as a boss talking to. And that goes a long way, man. When you’ve got that many dentists and stuff to look out for, it goes a long, long way that you’re giving your time like that sometimes.

[01:21:13] As I said, I think she feels she’s pestering me and actually sometimes I feel like I want my associates to pass through room more that way. So I’d love to help them, but I think a lot of people are scared to ask for help.

[01:21:26] But that said dude, I’ve worked in practises where the me and the principal would, even though we work in the same building, wouldn’t say a word to each other for days on end. So the guy was trying to get out of my pulpit the whole time. I wasn’t pestering him at all, but. But he just didn’t want to because he was a hands off guy, you know?

[01:21:48] Yeah, I find that insane. I mean, if if that hands off, how can you explain what we’re trying to do? That’s I suppose that’s why culture comes in. You know, it comes from the top down. It never comes from the bottom up. So you have to get involved. You can’t be a practise owner, not get involved.

[01:22:09] Have you had this situation that I’ve had at some points where it’s grown in terms of numbers of people and then you spot you see something that doesn’t feel like it’s too green.

[01:22:20] Oh, yeah.

[01:22:22] I wanted to go and snuff it out. Or would you do that? Because I find it very upsetting if someone does something that I would consider not an enlightened thing to do. And it happens more as a team grows.

[01:22:34] Of course.

[01:22:35] Yeah. What would you do about it?

[01:22:39] I mean, it depends on what it is. If it needs to be snuffed out there and then it needs to be snuffed out there, and then yeah, sometimes it’s an individual issue. So somebody has done something that is already outside of the existing set culture. Sometimes it’s it’s an inherent problem within, within the organisation itself. So for example, let’s take another bugbear of everyone, which is stock, you know, one day you’ll end up. Getting a patient in the sitting in the chair before you realise you haven’t got the materials to do the work. Now thankfully that doesn’t happen that often. It happens in every practise, sometimes at some point. But then you have to go, Well, that’s not kind of what we’re about. We, we, you know, I ethos is that we have to be prepared before the patient comes in. So before the patient’s in, the dentist and the nurse has to go look at what’s out and make sure that’s correct for that treatment. You know, that doesn’t always happen. And sometimes if there’s a stock issue and it keeps happening over and over again, one thing you need, what we have to do or what we do is we look back at the system and say, where’s the system gone wrong? So sometimes you have to talk to the person. Sometimes you have to look at the system, and more often not. I think as we get bigger and bigger, the systems fail more and more.

[01:23:59] Yeah. You know, before you can rely on a, you know, saying to your nurse, can you just order that for me? I mean, you got 200 people. You can’t have 200 people say to their nurse, Can you just order that for me? It has to be a proper system in place. And I think sometimes actually, if things go wrong, it’s an opportunity to to improve. And this opportunity to find out what is, what is, what is wrong. But sometimes you have to snuff out at source if it is somebody going against the grain at the beginning in the first place. You know, and I said, my my gut instinct is to WhatsApp them. If I’m not there, it’s like, what have you done to shake them by the head? But you have to be able to take a breath, sit back, and actually it’s really important you actually speak to that person in person. It has to be done in the correct way in building culture. It’s not always easy, and I think a lot of people think practise ownership is easy when you haven’t done it, when you when you’ve done it, you know how mad it is. You know, in fact, I’ll tell you what, that’s one of my biggest bugbears of being associates. They don’t know what it’s like on the other side. Yeah.

[01:25:17] Us and them sort of culture. Prav have you seen that? You must have seen that in the number of practises you’ve been in.

[01:25:23] I have. And you know what’s really interesting is something that Cal once said to me, which was when Barbara. Right, who’s my business partner in the dental suite clinics. And one of the things that he said to me was that when he became a practise owner, he went back to his principal and apologised. Because he he realised how much of a pain in the arse he was as an associate only when he became a practise owner and figured it all out.

[01:25:59] It’s that famous thing is, you know, you’ve got to walk a mile in somebody’s shoes before you understand what they’re doing. Yeah, in that way, you’re a mile away and you’ve got their shoes. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, it’s. I think associates don’t realise how difficult it is on the other side. No, it’s a completely different kettle of fish. It’s not a simple case of we’re taking 50% of your money and pocketing it. Usually it’s a lot less than that. In fact, most associates make a loss for the business and a lot of people don’t realise that. When I when I tell people, when I tell the associates, I look, I said when you when they joined us, I said to her, you’re going to make me a loss. I don’t care that you make me a loss, because I’m hoping that we can develop you into something that won’t make loss and you can be an asset for the practise in the future. But at the beginning you’re going to make a loss and a loss for about two years.

[01:27:01] Have you got that number of like what what an associate needs to turn over before they’re making a profit in your place?

[01:27:08] Our practise is about £1,200 gross a day.

[01:27:13] If they gross 1100. You’ve made a loss on that associate.

[01:27:16] Yes. Yes. It’s about 1200 at the moment.

[01:27:22] Jesus, is that Prav? Would you say that that’s standard?

[01:27:27] Is that is that a half day shift or a.

[01:27:30] Seven hour day? An average seven hour day? Yeah.

[01:27:33] Okay. Okay. Okay.

[01:27:34] Not. Not on the not on the whole day. On the on the seven hour day. But there’s even more. All our KPIs are done on seven hour days. Seven hour days? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s high. But as I said.

[01:27:47] Is the team aware of that number? Everyone knows that number.

[01:27:51] I’m not sure they do, actually. I think the dentists are more aware of it than the dentists. Yeah.

[01:27:58] Do you publish your daily or your weekly sales or your monthly or any of that?

[01:28:03] No, no. I mean, we the one thing we definitely do do is we do we have a dentist meeting every like every quarter without fail quarter. Yeah. Every quarter. Every three months. And it’s, but, but when we meet, we, we, we meet for 3 hours.

[01:28:22] It’s not like does that end up being what kind of meeting does that end up being where everyone’s just shouting. Would you go with like an agenda and.

[01:28:29] Oh god, no, no, no, no. It’s not a shouty meeting at all. Look, the part of the culture is I mean, we really believe that the practise can only move forward if everyone’s pulling in the same direction. Yeah. So, so the whole idea of that meeting is we, we ask what’s going on, where the issues are like on individual level. And then the bigger picture, which is, which comes from me and my sister, we have to explain what we’re doing, practise and the bigger picture. Well, actually, we’re trying to move in this direction and the next thing we see, the big thing is to do this. Whether we have to develop the reception team, we have to develop nursing team, whether you have to develop yourselves, whether we need to start focussing on one treatment over the other. That’s, you know, the the key thing is, is that we all agree to pull in that direction. And I say to them, if you don’t agree, you either have to we either do nothing. Which I don’t want because our practises are about progression or you leave. Basically, if you’re never going to agree, then our practise isn’t right for you. You know, I’ve never been in this situation where somebody disagreed to that extent. Thankfully, I think most people understand you have to do something to move forward. So we do dentist meetings regularly and once every three months. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but every 12 weeks. 13 weeks. It comes around quick and I think if you’ve got three months, that’s a good amount of time for us to see whether that what we did last time actually made any difference. You know, it’s really easy to fall off the wagon after three days. But, you know, we want to meet up every three months. You want to see what we did last time actually made a difference. And we want to see what the next thing is to make the next difference. So, you know, it’s all about progress.

[01:30:27] Effortless, man. You make it look effortless. Make it.

[01:30:31] Easy. You know, if you’ve got a good system, it makes it look effortless. The way Liverpool or Man City play football. It looks effortless sometimes, but that’s because they got the system. They work together. They they all know their roles. They’re all pulling in the same direction.

[01:30:47] I’m going to meet Bob. Bob is going to call this episode The Swan, because I just see you as the swan man. Beautiful and calm at the top and working hard underneath.

[01:31:02] Working holidays? Yeah.

[01:31:06] It’s going quick. It’s gone quick, man. We’ve talked for an hour and 40 minutes.

[01:31:11] I can’t believe that.

[01:31:12] Let’s, let’s let’s wrap it up, dude, because I think perhaps.

[01:31:14] Could pass Proust bedtime.

[01:31:18] And eat a man.

[01:31:21] What was the name of that Indian restaurant? We’ll go there. Yeah. What was it, by the way?

[01:31:26] Doom down in Didsbury.

[01:31:28] Okay, it’s. Yeah, the.

[01:31:31] Pictures look nice, too, but the pictures of the food looked nice, too.

[01:31:34] But it was that, you know, the food was great. Yeah, the food was great. Not the best food I’ve ever had. The food was just great. But the service was just.

[01:31:43] Emotional emotion making you emotional?

[01:31:47] It was emotional, man.

[01:31:49] Let’s move on to let’s move on to the final questions, man. It’s been it’s been brilliant, but it’s been a real education to to listen to you talk about this behemoth man.

[01:32:02] Unfortunately, we didn’t really get to delve too much into family life or childhood or anything like that. Right. But, Rajeev, I’m assuming assuming you’ve got all your shit going on at home as well and you know, you, you make time for for that as well. You were talking about 50% of your time at home and at work and stuff. But yeah.

[01:32:26] I do try to stay at home quite a lot. You know, my daughter is absolutely a joy. She’s unbelievable. And obviously my.

[01:32:36] Other kids as.

[01:32:36] Well, not just the two, the 12 day old and my four year old daughter who’s the happiest girl I’ve ever met and just such, such fun. And she constant keeps me laughing. Yeah. You know, it’s amazing to spend some time with that. And I like to dedicate at least one day with her completely when I can. So. Well.

[01:33:02] Sir Rajiv, imagine it’s your it’s your last day on the planet. And, you know, you’ve got, you’ve got your kiddies next to you and you had to pass them three pieces of wisdom. What would they be?

[01:33:17] That’s a good question. Number one is, if you if you think it’s right, do that. Don’t do what other people expect you to do if you feel that’s the way to do it and you feel. That’s right, definitely do that. Don’t care so much what other people think about what you’re doing. And that’s definitely number two. And probably the third thing I think is, as I said, as we talked about it.

[01:33:43] Early progress is get out of your comfort zone.

[01:33:47] Get out your comfort zone, progress your comfort zone. But don’t expect you can do some things perfectly the first time round because you can’t. Progress is more important than perfection. And in fact, like my four year old daughter’s very much like that. She, you know, she tries something once and when she can’t do it perfectly the first time and she throws a strop. And then you have to I have to say that you can’t do it yet. You just got to keep trying to do it. And yet it’s really important for her. And I keep saying it to her, don’t, you can’t do it yet. You’ve got to keep trying. You can’t do it yet. But the progress thing is more important than being perfect. So definitely those three bits of advice just to I think that that makes you that makes me happy. I think that’s what I would say makes other people happy.

[01:34:35] Rajiv, what about legacy? So if you if you were to. Read this on on the equivalent of a tombstone or whatever. Right. Rajiv was. Dot, dot, dot. What would you like that to say?

[01:34:49] Um. Yeah, I would probably say it should it should say Rajiv was somebody who wanted change and instigator change. I think I think in the long run. Nice. You know, I’d like to change the profession at some point, you know, the. The whole thing. I don’t know whether it’ll happen or not. You know, the politics, the GDC, the the way the profession is seen, the you know, I’d love to be able to change all that at some point, but I would say that’s what it should be. I’m the instigator of change.

[01:35:29] It’s interesting, but because, you know, you need an opinion on what’s the best lever you can pull to make that change. You know, for instance, you would classically you’d say, oh, go stand for some media post, but that in your opinion, that might not be the right vertical. It’s an interesting question.

[01:35:48] Even if it is, you know, there are lots of people who are in the BDA who are great. But, you know, the BDA has been around for a long time. And there’s a lot of criticism that the media in that it doesn’t actually make anything different. Yeah, the way I see it is, you know how I talked about lining up the paracetamol before the headache? Yeah. The way I see it is if you’re going to make change, you’re going to need to. You’re going to have to have people behind you. You know, I’ve got 200 staff members in the dental profession behind me already or going to be 200 staff. So that will help instigate change. You know, I don’t they know what I’m about. They can spread the story of what we’re trying to do. So if I do end up the BDA, I don’t think I wanted it tomorrow. I want to do it when I’ve got real influence or, you know, lot of people who know what I’m about and people know what I’m trying to do, whether they’re with us now or not, you know, so there’s 200 maybe current members, but maybe 100 other people that I’ve improved or the organisation has improved going forward. And if they can vouch for me going forward then actually I might be able to make some change. I’ve got it. You’ve got to line it up. You can’t just join the BDA and agreed.

[01:37:02] Agreed. But, but you know, it’s like here we are. I don’t know, a good 6000 people may listen to this episode on today’s figures, but who knows? Maybe. Maybe this this episode is going to be here for for forever.

[01:37:18] Yeah.

[01:37:19] So hit us with with your your key idea on how the profession needs to change.

[01:37:27] Mostly it’s about respect. You know that the GDC need to respect the profession more. The profession needs to respect patients more. The key thing for me is, you know, obviously there’s over litigation and stuff like that, transparency with the NHS.

[01:37:45] So it is.

[01:37:47] Yeah, transparency. You know, the funny thing is the GDC say you’ve got to be upfront and honest with your patients. That’s one of the key things they say. Yet they say, you know, a lot of people have taken that to be you can’t say what you’re trying to tell them. You know, if you want to tell them that they they really should pay this for that sort of crown to get the best value of money, whether it’s on the private NHS, because that’s how you feel. You know, there are rules and regulations sometimes, so you can’t say that. It’s like, hold on a minute, I can’t be on. You’ve got to be honest or not. It’s got to be one or the other. There’s got to be some sort of transparency there. And I think the lack of transparency actually makes such a difference. You know, with all this litigation that’s going on, the work force morale, which is probably at an all time low, might have picked up a little bit after COVID, but there’s some major things going on. So, you know, I think respect and transparency is major for me.

[01:38:48] For sure. But, you know.

[01:38:51] Your final question.

[01:38:52] Final question. Fancy dinner party. Three guests. Dead or alive. Who would you have?

[01:39:03] My dad. Definitely back. I’d love to be able to speak to him again and see what he thinks.

[01:39:08] Would it be proud of you, dude?

[01:39:10] Yeah, I hope so. You know, it’s really strange because, as I said, he passed around when I was 18, and I think I was changing quite a lot. You know, it’s when you become from a dependent to an independent effectively. And he never really saw me as an independent. I’d love to see what he thought of me as an independent adult as opposed to a dependent teenager.

[01:39:35] I don’t know what kind of a guy he was, but, you know, Asian parents famously don’t tell their kids they’re proud of them until until, you know, it’s well, well, years and years later when. And so but Buddy, I’m sure he was proud of you when you were 18, but I’m sure he would have been, well, proud of you now, too.

[01:39:57] So definitely my father. Who else? Dead or alive? You know what? I still say my wife. My wife? Yeah. You know, we have such a great time. You know, she’s. She’s so interesting. We keep each other on our toes and definitely, you know, any dinner parties, she’s got to be there. And I like.

[01:40:26] That. It’s a family affair. So you got to throw in Mahatma Gandhi in there, so.

[01:40:32] Yeah, she would just say. And my.

[01:40:34] Cousin.

[01:40:38] One last person. No, that’s a bit of pressure. You know what? Actually, I call it on a business point of view. Someone who I find really fascinating is is Richard Branson. I probably get him in there because I think he’s quite famous in that. I think he said once about improving his own staff and somebody asked him, well, why? What if they leave after you spent £30,000 training them and go, well, he said, Well, what’s better that we let them rot? I’m paraphrasing massively. Or do I train them and improve them? And that resonated with me. That really does in that. Richard Branson I’d love to pick his brains about many things. So yeah, that would be my, my three.

[01:41:30] You should listen to the episode with Andy much more.

[01:41:34] Okay. Yes.

[01:41:35] She hangs with him all the time.

[01:41:37] Okay.

[01:41:38] He’s like. It’s like episode seven or something. It’s in the single. It’s in less than 20. Only one of the early episodes.

[01:41:47] He’s he’s Richard Branson’s buddy. But he happens to be a practise owner as well. And I remember Andy saying to me, the one piece of advice Richard gave him was that spend the majority of your time recruiting.

[01:42:00] Hmm. Yeah. I mean, I would agree with that. Recruitment is important. People make a business. Yeah.

[01:42:07] But he’s been an absolute pleasure. Absolute pleasure. And really good luck with the new venture. I’m sure it’s going to be super duper.

[01:42:15] Thanks, Rajeev. No, no problem. It’s been fun. It’s, you know.

[01:42:18] It’s flown by.

[01:42:20] Really? It really has. And I got a good Indian restaurant tip out of it as well. Yeah, but, man, just. Yeah, well, you know what I meant all the time, so. And I’m up there.

[01:42:32] 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.

[01:42:48] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, 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 got some value out of it.

[01:43:02] 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.

[01:43:12] Thanks. And don’t forget our.

[01:43:14] Six star rating.

[00:00:00] Yeah. I mean, I’d say more competition, but to be honest, I’ve never been worried about competition. I think there’s enough patience for everyone. It’s just what kind of patient you want to treat and also personality wise, who get along with as many patients I wouldn’t get along with. And that’s fine. They don’t see me, but there’s a certain demographic I really get along with and I know what my niche niches. But yes, I would say I would say fair market value around average for the whole country at the highest percentile, let’s call 1800 for a crown.

[00:00:32] 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.

[00:00:49] It gives me great pleasure to welcome Dr. Patel onto the podcast opens. Dentists who qualified in the US but grew up in the UK a bit different to what some people want to do than where they qualify in the UK and then want to move over to the US. And actually did his A-levels in the UK and then and then moved and then started his undergrad training in in the US in Europe, in San Francisco.

[00:01:16] That’s correct. A specific San Francisco.

[00:01:19] Yeah. Lovely to have you with.

[00:01:22] Pleasure’s mine.

[00:01:24] So open. You know, the reason I wanted to do this podcast was to get for people kind of a contrast on the American system compared to the UK system. I know you’ve never worked in the UK system, but just, you know, your your answers to questions will enlighten people. But just tell me about the move itself. What what happened that made you move?

[00:01:46] Absolutely. So back in 1997, I just finished my GCSEs and every year my mom’s side of the family live in California. Every year we would go for summer holidays to the US. And, you know, I thought nothing of it. I was just I’m just visiting my cousins and but you know, they were probably always talking about my uncles or my mom. You know, you should move out here and move out here when when you’re ready. And then eventually they got a green card and they decided to wait till I finished. I was secondary school in England, so I finished A-levels. I did the usual stuff, you know, it was a pure maths, mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology, all the usual stuff. Back then I didn’t know anything. I was so young. Knowing now the difference between the UK and the US, I had no idea what I wanted to do and when I was 18 I just thought, Oh, I’m supposed to be a doctor or a pharmacist or something. So I just took those subjects and then I applied to pharmacy schools in England at King’s College. Queen Mary Westfield, I think was called in and some random place. I think it was Bristol. I don’t remember anymore. I just knew I wanted to live in London and that was that. And then my mum was like, You know, we’re going to move to America. I’m like, Oh, okay, so how do I do that? Suppose you have to take SATs, you go do these exams. I’m like, I just finished all this stuff. I don’t want to do any more. And then then I basically went through the American application process to become a pharmacist in America. I did all that and I got in.

[00:03:10] From.

[00:03:10] Here. Yeah, yeah. You just it just like UCAS form kind of stuff. But they have America similar things. So I did all that and then to basically I got into the universities in England, but I had to decide. So then basically I went, I came to America and when I, when I landed in America, I thought I was going to be a pharmacist. Day one is different here. You do for you as undergrad, pre pharmacy, pre dental or and then you go to professional school. So that was the best thing that ever happened because when I came here, apart from the cost of education is completely different. And that was a big shock to I did not understand that, which is fine. I mean, there’s a difference in the way things are done in the education system versus us versus England. But yeah, I came to school, I mean college, and they’re like, Yeah, you’re taking chemistry in biology. I’m like, I did all this, but what? What do you mean? So I first two years, I was so easy in college, I had a good time. I literally took A-levels again. And then you take organic chemistry, physiology, all this stuff. So you can take all the prerequisites to to go to pre-med pre pre farm. So what happened was I was taking all these classes. I was like top of the class. It was like everyone was like, Oh, the British student, you know, can you, can you talk like the way you talk and all this kind of stuff, you know? And it was easy to make friends and it was easy. It’s like but it was just I wasn’t used to the culture either. I missed all the sports in England. I missed just the places I used to hang out. And it was a big culture shock coming here because I wasn’t in New York City. I was in a small town in California for the university. So it was very hot too, like 110 degrees and all the time.

[00:04:51] Where did you go? Where did you go for the pre-med bit?

[00:04:54] So I went to Europe, also University Pacific, but they undergrad in Stockton. So it’s it’s inland from San Francisco about 2 hours, like not 120 miles. And so I thought I was going to be in like a New York kind of thing and all that kind of stuff. No, but it was a good thing because I studied I didn’t wasn’t distracted. I made lifelong friends. They still my friends. But what happened was all my friends were present and I was like, wait a minute, I’m getting better grades at the same grades as you guys, you know, nothing against pharmacy. But I just by the time I did some, what they call it, work experience and pharmacy dental stuff, I had time to do it. And also I think I had become a dentist. You know, all my friends are doing it. And plus, the dental school was in San Francisco. It wasn’t in Stockton. So I was like, I want to live in a big city. I want to become a dentist. And that’s how it happened. It was just stumbled upon it because my friends. They are doing it and none of my friends are preform. And I was like, I don’t want to be stuck here and get bored, you know? So that’s how it happened. And then if I stayed in London, I would have probably been a pharmacist, but maybe I would have changed mid-career. I mean, undergrad or university? I don’t know.

[00:05:58] You must have had buddies who did A-levels with you and then went to university here. What’s your impression of the difference between uni here and college there?

[00:06:09] So, you know, I don’t know if you went to a private school in England or public sight. My whole I was always in the private school, you know. So coming here was a big difference to always all boys, you know, in England, here, suddenly I’m in college. Oh, this is great. You know, everyone is like there’s a lot more girls.

[00:06:27] Did you go berserk?

[00:06:28] Well, it was it was fun. You know, I didn’t have to I didn’t have to worry about work so much. I mean I mean, studying so much because I kind of was repetition the first year or two, but then it got hard. But so British, I think three years, right? I think it’s three years and then you’re done and then you pretty much off in the workforce. I found that some of them, they went to Oxford, Cambridge, some of them went to UCL Kings. I found I found that they had a good time but it was over in a flash and of them had a hard time with that adapting straight away and then just being a professional and that’s it. You’re like here. I mean, technically you can be in college like eight years, nine years. And if you really do like undergrad masters, professional, you know, I mean, it’s just the cost of this stuff. You know, I did it a little bit different. You can go as fast as you want. So I finished undergrad in three years, you know, because I had all those UK classes, so I got credit for it and then I finished dental school in three years.

[00:07:20] Normally dental school’s for, but I went to Europe which has there’s no summer vacation. So I just kept going and that gave me an extra year. I did a residency like an advanced education, dental dentistry. So I was done in six years. I was done as a dentist, maybe similar to a UK dentist around 23, 24. So I had had a lot of time to process everything, but I had no guidance. None of my family members are doctors or dentists, so that was the first one. So in hindsight, if I could go back 20 years, it’s so much more I would have paid attention to and done, but I’ve done my own path and I’m happy with it. But I think I think UK again, I don’t know too much about what training is involved and an undergrad in dental school, but I find that we had all multiple choice in all our examinations. Any examination for anything is always multiple choice. I think UK is more essay based. From what I understood from when I was in A-levels, it was handwritten answers and maybe that’s the same way in professional school. I don’t know.

[00:08:19] We had some multiple choice, but the multiple choice was negative marking. Did you have that where if you get it wrong, you get a minus one?

[00:08:27] No, no, it’s just.

[00:08:29] It’s just multiple choice. It was like I’m not sure if they still do it, but there was a question of do I even answer the question? Because if you don’t answer the question, you got zero.

[00:08:38] You kind of guess it.

[00:08:39] If you get it wrong, you get minus one. I’m not sure if they still do that now. I know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So give me an idea of the costs. What are the kind of costs you’re looking at for undergrad and then professional school?

[00:08:52] So this is 20 years ago, so I’ll give you 20 years ago costs and I’ll give you 20, 22 costs because I do know those numbers. Yeah. So if you go and these are no I mean, no, no scholarship, nothing straight like full fee undergrad if you go to somewhere like maybe a state school but like a like a like UCLA or UC, that would be it’s not a private institution. It’s still not cheap, you know, versus a private school. Could be USC, Europe, NYU undergrad for you. I mean, you could be looking at almost 103 and 1000 just undergrad, you know, nowadays.

[00:09:27] Now pre-med bit.

[00:09:28] Yeah, yeah. Nowadays yeah. I mean, back then maybe, I don’t know, 100,000 just for undergrad. I mean, that’s maybe 150, but I’m gonna say 100 and then dental school, medical, dental school is more expensive than medical. More expensive than pharmacy. I think veterinary school is more than dental because I think that’s the only other one that could be similar. But dental school back then was 250,000. Now I know it’s pushing FI 400 to 500 just for dental school. And then if you have residency, some of them, some residencies, you’re paid a stipend, some you’re not. So if you go to Endo, Ortho and or Ortho Perio, some of those could be 250 or so now. So you could be $1,000,000 for 8 to 10 years of school age, $30 million of debt, you know, and oh, man, that’s that’s a it’s a big deal. Then you’re trying to buy a practise for 500,000 or a million with building. I mean, it adds up quick. If you don’t understand finance, I mean, you could easily take 500,000 and invest in a couple of real estate and you don’t have to go to school technically, you know, I mean, it depends. It depends, you know, what location you’re at. So you really have to like this profession in this country if you’re going to spend this kind of money. And most people still don’t know that. That’s what I mean. I’ve noticed some people, they think, oh, it’s easy money, you know, just got a. In a bunch of offices and just get going. And there’s plenty of people that are very good at business. That’s fine. They’re good at that. But you know, I don’t know what it’s like in London if there’s a tuition. I mean, England’s sorry, or Great Britain. If there’s tuition, there is tuition.

[00:10:54] But it’s it’s it’s capped. I think it’s capped at nine, £10,000 a year. Okay. And that’s kind of that’s kind of new. When I went through dental school, it was free and there was even there was even money they used to pay people. If I mean, it was means tested. Yeah, it was. It wasn’t even a loan. It was actually it was it was a grant. It was called. And it was means means tested. So I don’t know. I didn’t get it. I don’t know how much you had to earn to get it, how little you had to learn to get it. But but the government would not only give you pay you your your university, but would also give you money to live as well. And, you know and you know that that that wonderful notion that that where you come from shouldn’t affect your your opportunity for for education. That used to be a thing over here. And I bet you think it still is a thing with the cost compared to yours. Yeah. So what do you do about getting that cash? Did you did your parents pay? Did you get a loan?

[00:11:52] What happened? No, you just get a loan. They have federal grants, private loans. So. And then that includes money for living costs and things of that. But if you live in a city like San Francisco, in New York or L.A., I think your rent is going to be you might and you start going out a lot and stuff like that. You probably gonna go a little over, but you know, it was 100% loan. But if I ran out of money, you know, my parents, it didn’t come from medical or any like professional background. They similar to, I think a lot of my age group in England. They, they grew up in Zambia and Kenya. They moved to London in the seventies and they had a shop, you know, newsagent. So they worked like 24 hours. I mean, sorry, seven days a week, almost like 12, 13, 14 hours a day. I think it’s similar to Proud Dad from what I understand from the Cos. But yeah, so they gave me extra money if I ran out because I needed it for food or just rent but I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t like extravagantly spend it. No. Because I know I had to pay it back. So I mean the loan money. So back then though it wasn’t nowadays it’s very bad interest rates for loans. It could be like five, six, seven, 8%. Right back then I think it was like you could get 1 to 3% for a for a government loan and private loans might have been 5 to 6% if you don’t if they don’t cover enough.

[00:13:06] So two questions. Number one, what was your parent’s plan regarding work? Were they planning to open a shop in America as well?

[00:13:16] No, I think when they came here, my uncles, they had some history with some business here and some real estate and hotel or motel. So I think a lot of Indians say either go into that category or the agent versus us versus England. But yeah, they got a motel area. It wasn’t the best location, to be honest. They did their best. They got quite badly hurt in the recession in 28, 2008. But you know, they don’t live an extravagant lifestyle, so they’re fine. I’m around. So if they need anything, I got them. You know, I’m fine as a dentist now. So they came here and they they gave me the opportunity.

[00:13:59] Yeah.

[00:14:00] The opportunity to to do whatever I wanted.

[00:14:03] We were at a conference in San Diego, the OECD, last year.

[00:14:08] Oh, yeah.

[00:14:09] In, in the same conference hall was a it was I think, I can’t remember the exact name but it was like a it was kind of the Asian Hotel Owners Association.

[00:14:18] Okay. Yeah, yeah.

[00:14:20] And there was a bunch of happy guys walking around and we bumped into some of them in a bar afterwards. And one of them was, there was a couple who they were dentists, but they’d bought a bunch of motels as well. And they were telling us about the business model and how there’s a couple of guys who own hundreds of motels and. Oh, yeah, like any other business. Right. There’s no, there’s always a couple of guys.

[00:14:44] Yeah, it’s real estate basically. And they got in early and you know, and they have a big connexion. So my parents, a small time they had one and just to pay the bills and get by and you know, they’re content. But yeah, you can it’s just like opening multiple dental offices and selling it for multiple of them and stuff like that. That’s what it is. Or just hang on to more and more and more. Then a big marriott will come over and take everything from you if you really want to. But this, this is never ending. So why would you sell it? You would just keep growing, you know, and then sell it, maybe a portion of it. If you don’t want to deal with a headache.

[00:15:15] I don’t mean to pry, but just give me this. Like, what was when you qualified? What was your monthly payment for your loans that you had? Like, how did that what kind of amounts are we talking?

[00:15:25] So they’re like 25 year loans. So yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I forget now. I mean, I.

[00:15:32] I’m like $1,000 or was it like 5000?

[00:15:35] There’s a minimum payment. But I didn’t I didn’t want to keep I wanted to get rid of these loans. So I try to pay them off in like. I don’t know, like four or five years, I try to pay them all off. I just work like crazy. Yeah, I was done. I think I was done by, like, 31, 32. I paid it all off, but I didn’t. But there’s a difference, right? So now I look back, I would tell my 24 year old self, just make minimum payment, all that money, buy a bunch of properties. And then all those properties would be millions right now. Right. But I didn’t know because I’m very debt averse because just think on my upbringing. My parents always like don’t take risks. Look, you know, like we did this and we lost this. Like, just be be conservative and this and that. So until like I started like establishing myself, I wouldn’t really I would have given me more stress. So I just knew one thing I can earn. I’ll pay off these debts. At least that’s gone. But what I realise is once the debt’s gone, I felt good for a little bit. And then what’s the next thing you know? So the real thing about money and finance is how to leverage things. And some debts are good debts, some are not good, you know.

[00:16:43] Well, you know, hindsight is 2020, right? I mean, if you if you qualified in 2007 and given yourself that advice, that would have been really bad advice. Right? Right. So there is risk in in everything. You’re right. If your number.

[00:16:56] One thing was 1000 a month, I don’t know, three or four if I was I had to dig in. Right. I mean, otherwise, no, in most payments might be 2500 a month and you’re paying many interest. Here’s the other problem in America. If you make, I think, over 100,000 or whatever or something like that, you can’t write off the interest. You cannot so it’s it’s that’s why right now certain with Biden and what he’s said I think a lot of because of all the political things I think right now people have student loans he’s put a hold on interest payments. So they they’re not paying anything right now. They just it’s good. And he may forgive it. He may forgive some of those debts. But I’m guessing people who make a lot that he’s not going to do that. You know, so it’s all just they move the money around.

[00:17:38] You know, that debate, that debate is going on. Isn’t it about non-professional degrees and whether the amount of money they cost has been worth it to all these people? You know, people have been sold this idea of get an education and then at the end of it, not getting jobs that pay. But I think dentistry where we’re, you know, bit better on that front. So then tell me you qualified. What was the next thing you did?

[00:18:04] So I finished in 2005 and to be honest, I didn’t know what to do. I was like, Oh, I don’t know where I’m supposed to go back. Then I remember I was following Rosenthal like just a little bit on on back then there was no Instagram, no Facebook just started. So I was.

[00:18:21] I was just doing.

[00:18:22] Magazines and stuff. I was I was looking at magazines. I would I would like read about stuff. I would fly out to some small courses, but I was I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. So then I was, you know what? I know how to do some things, but I’m unconsciously incompetent. I was at that level, I didn’t know I was doing things wrong. So then I was like, I need to get to consciously incompetent, then I need to get to consciously competent, and my ultimate level is unconsciously competent. I knew that. So then I was like, Dude, right, I’m going to take a residency, I’m going to do a one year here. We have, we don’t have VTE here. So I learnt about that a little bit because I’m going to actually what happened was I did the one year it was, it’s called Advanced Education, Dental Dentistry. Another programme is called General Practise Residency. They’re very similar, but one is more hospital based. I’m one of the more private practise space, so in that one year I got about five years of private practise experience. I did. I did a lot of fixed price, a lot of removable, a lot of endo implants, just everything I wanted to do as a private doctor, dentist. And so that was great. When I finished that, that’s when I entered the workforce. And then I was like, Oh, okay, let me try to live in LA.

[00:19:29] I want to I want to work on Rodeo Drive. What’s that like? So I drove down. I drove like 600 miles down from Norco. So Cal and the jobs were I mean, I don’t know, they were kind of shit, to be honest, you know, they were like, here’s, here’s a base pay of X amount and you do all this kind of stuff. I can’t even cover rent, let alone my payment for loans, right? So I said, You know what? I don’t think I can do this right now. I think I’m going to have to live in Northern California. The jobs are better, and maybe I’ll just find something more corporate, which I didn’t want to do. But there was a new company back then that initially they were good. So I got a job, I got a job and it gave me a good start and I learnt a lot of things, but then a lot of things changed and it became very production based and and just no time and patience. And I had to do hygiene. I started going down this spiral. I was like, This is not what I want to do. Then my mind started thinking about different things. I was like, Don’t want to go to school, don’t want to go to school, then want to go to a surgery school because a lot of my friends were in residency and from a US was still although I was like, maybe they’re doing something right, I should look into this.

[00:20:31] And then I started thinking, I think I want to come to England to do a residency. So I googled all that stuff. So what’s it like to go to England? You know, because I’ve kind of missed I felt like I missed out on on my time in England at that time. I was like 25, I was 24, was like, what if I did a year or two in England? I know it must be cheaper out there and maybe I can learn something different and come back. So I started researching some programmes and then I got more in-depth emails. It’s not cheap actually, and then I’ll say, Wait, I got payments, I got to do this stuff. And so then I scrapped that idea and I realised you have to have a licence to work there. I can’t just even though I’m a citizen of us and Great Britain, I don’t have a British licence and so I seemed like a bit more complicated, take exams and all this kind of stuff. So no, I just, I just started focussing on SEO side of really taking whatever I could at wherever it was in America and just started building on that.

[00:21:23] To just explain to us as an associate what’s the what’s the sort of standard percentage that associates get paid?

[00:21:32] So it depends where you are. So there’s a there’s a great dentist and you probably heard of him. Howard and I took all his 30 day MBA classes and all this kind of stuff on online. And he was saying, you know, most associates, when they get out, they want to live and practise in New York City, L.A., Chicago, right where there’s so many dentists and the kind of job you’re going to get there, you might get a base pay of me for 5500 back then, maybe like a hygienist kind of pay. And well, the best thing to do is go more in a rural area or maybe a city that’s not so large. You’re going to get more opportunities. You have potential to have unlimited income. You could make base pay, but then a percentage of collection of production, maybe 25 to 30 or 35%. So if you’re a specialist, you could make 40 to 50%. As a general dentist, I would be very happy with 30% adjusted production or 35% collections. At the beginning I was getting around 25 to 30. I was happy with that, you know. I mean, I was more interested in just learning my skills. I, I never really I could have made a lot, a lot more money as an associate, but I didn’t want to put myself in risk situations and then deal with problems when I left the practise, because litigation, I thought litigation was bad in the US, but I found out that UK is.

[00:22:43] Quite.

[00:22:44] Yeah, I did not know that and I started hearing about it and I was like, Oh, that’s not not good. What’s going on over there? So something changed so that.

[00:22:54] Yeah, yeah. Basically we’ve got one law firm who changed the whole picture. They, they basically lobbied government. They buy dental cases, they advertised ambulance chasers. Has the dentist hurt you? And then they they they really push hard. And they literally it’s it’s sad to say, our profession has been I mean, society as a whole has become more litigious here with our profession basically in the UK has been turned over by one law firm which which by the way, a couple of dentists set up, you know, like really qualified dentists and lawyers here. It’s awful. It’s awful that we haven’t managed.

[00:23:38] Yes. Together. Yeah.

[00:23:39] Well, you know, they became dentists first, I guess, and then I then did LLP or something. So but this 25% that you just mentioned for the associates is is that is that around the number you’re paying your associate right now? Is that is that the kind of thing is that normal?

[00:23:55] Yeah, I would say, like I said, I pay based on what they do. So there’s no adjustment unless there was like, you know, maybe the patient paid $100 and there was a 5% discount. So they’re going to get 95 rate of 95. I’m not going to. Yeah, that’s what it just means. But yeah, 30%. That’s very fair. I’m covering all that bill. I’m covering you pay the bill anything you want. Yeah, I’ll take care of everything.

[00:24:20] Okay. So I was a slightly different. The associate shares the lab bill 5050, but then a standard kind of percentage here is 40 or 45% now. But that’s recently changed. I mean, it used to be 50% for years and years and years and the last sort of five years it started moving. And then since COVID, which we should we should talk about COVID. Tell me about COVID. Did they force you to close? How long did you close for?

[00:24:47] In this country. I was closed for three months because I felt it was the right thing to do, but there were offices that were open. They can’t force you to close. There was a guideline and then there were some practises that I know of and dear friends, they were open and obviously nothing happened. But to be honest, personally for me, I bought my first practise in 2014 and it’s a large dental complex, so there’s other practises in it. So slowly over the years I’ve been buying out all the practises in this building and I keep merging them into mind. So then right before COVID, I was talking to one of my mentors in the building and he’s, he’s. To be honest, I feel like he’s his level of education and training is in there time and age. But he was close spirit kind of level. And I don’t know in England who are the guys or women that are that kind of level? To have someone like that help me and train me is priceless. He’s like, You know, I want you to buy my practise. I approached him. I was like, You know, I’ll be interested in buying your practise when you retire. He’s like, You know, I really like that. I really like you. And I’ll be honoured if, if we could merge together. So we started doing that and then COVID happened and I’ll say, Oh, is this going to happen now? You know, and then best thing ever happened. I mean, I don’t like that could happen, but it was a good thing because it gave me three months off to merge my practises with him, to merge all our systems. I’ve never in my career had time to strip the whole practise down, go fully childless, go fully everything I ever wanted. I systemise from from A to Z and it’s increased. Like my happiness here is increased obviously the efficiency and profitability. But main thing is, is that I, I’ve just kind of set it up the way I like it now. And he finally retired a few months ago. And it’s been a very good transition, a very smooth transition.

[00:26:33] So did you not have that oh shit moment where you know you’re not going to get any income?

[00:26:38] Oh, I did not. I did. But then we got in this country, we got what’s called a p p p e loan or something. So the government gave up some money, you know, to all businesses. If without that, I was in trouble. Yeah, I had, I had one day I came to the office and I was like, you know, what the hell am I going to do? You know, because I got payroll, you know, the whole country was like that, though, like all the staff, you know, how are they going to pay their bills? But then the government came up and we got these business loans and they were forgiven. So that was good. So we basically injected cash. Yeah, they injected cash in our practise. They go off they go off your monthly payroll and they’ll times that by X amount and say That’s how much you get. So you have to give all your tax returns, all your pals, all that stuff, and then they gave some grants out. This is all this money they were just pushing out there. You know, we got to pay it back in different ways now, probably very different tax rates and all that kind of stuff, but it helped help stabilise the economy and it was necessary. Without that there’d be a lot of practises.

[00:27:38] Yeah, we had this similar, we had a similar scheme.

[00:27:41] Yeah. But with that.

[00:27:43] Also what they did is they paid 80. Oh. On top. Yeah.

[00:27:48] No. Yeah. Because I bought the practise. I got a loan for that.

[00:27:50] Um, ha ha ha ha. I get it with as they paid 80% of the salaries of all the staff. For that three month period, actually a bit longer than that if you wanted to. But when you brought people back to work, then, then they stopped paying them. But you’re right, there would have been carnage. And you’re right that we will all be paying for it some other way.

[00:28:11] Yeah, I mean, it’s fine without that, even our patients wouldn’t able to come see us say everyone needed it. Right. Because they all have businesses they all employed somewhere. It would just be a complete disaster. I mean, I can’t imagine what would have happened. I mean, there would have been criminal activity, looting. I mean, it was a little bit of that was happening, right? People were just smashing downtowns. And it was there was many, many things that were going out of control. I’ve never seen it as, like, a movie, you know, like, just. There was just so many people were getting really messed up and.

[00:28:42] Tell me this. Yeah, my, my. I’ve come. I’ve been to America a lot because all our suppliers are American. I’ve got family there and so on. My, my feeling about America. And one of the dangers of America is that if you fall, you can you can fall a long way down. You know, the safety net, you know, just from the from the health care perspective, we’ve got the NHS, you know. You know if you, if you get ill you’ll be kind of alright. People can argue about the standard of care in the NHS or how long it takes to get the care. But, but tell me that I mean maybe, maybe, maybe that’s the reason why suddenly violence or criminality and so on. But they were desperate people.

[00:29:23] Yes, I would say that the one the one thing about Great Britain is the access to health care is very important. Yeah. If you if you’re if you don’t have a stable income or just someone to or it depends where you live, too, but that is taken away. You live in paycheque to paycheque, you know, and with health care costs, I mean, you can get treatment done, but that there’s going to be a bill that’s coming and then you’re going to be credit lines gone, this and that. So it’s just a cycle. So in America, there’s no limit to how far you can go if you want to pursue whatever you want to pursue. But if you fall a slip up or you get ill and you don’t have the money to cover your health expenses, you could get in a lot of trouble. I mean, you’ll still be taken care of, but your financial distress is going to be quite severe, you know, but that’s the one thing about Great Britain that I do think is very good and even I don’t know much about dentistry with my own experience was I went a few times as a kid and I absolutely didn’t want to go, but I think I never like going to a dentist as a kid. I didn’t know anything about it. And I remember I had a shop, we had a shop in Wandsworth and Vauxhall area, and the dentist was right next door to the shop and it always smell of mercury. Now I know is mercury or amalgam, but I didn’t understand back then. I just didn’t like going there. But yeah, I think I don’t know much. I feel like if you live in London, it’s not easy either. I mean, it must be very expensive to even afford to live there more than it was before. So I don’t know how people and.

[00:30:51] It’s tough also, you’re right because, you know, we’ve got 40 people work for us and, you know, some of them travel used to anyway. Now, now there’s a lot of working from home going on. Yeah, some of them used to travel an hour and a half to get to the office. And I know in America that’s not a big deal. But here you remember, that is a big deal here. And we all drive here.

[00:31:11] There’s no public.

[00:31:12] Bus. Yeah, yeah. But but as I say, working from home has been a big difference for us in our business. Obviously, our business isn’t a dentistry business. We we supply dentists with stuff. So it’s actually rather than expanding our buildings, we’ve just now got people working from home more and more and more and more, and we’re sharing the same buildings, basically. Tell me this, but when you buy someone else’s practise, are you literally only talking about buying their patients?

[00:31:41] No. There’s two ways to buy a practise.

[00:31:45] In that building. In that building.

[00:31:47] Right, right, right. No. So no. I bought it’s practise. So I bought. Yeah. Because a patients alone, the only reason you would buy a patient base is if that lease is up and the equipment is up for sale and it’s like it’s like a fire sale, like they’re just trying to get rid of charts. This is a practise you’re buying the staff. But in this situation is unique because I own the building. So I if I didn’t own the building, oh no. Then I got a I got to pay. That’s different. Then I would I would probably be like, you know, I don’t need your what I do with the space. I need to do a different deal here where I just want the patient base. But he may not have sold it to me that way. So what I did is I bought the practise. I move all his stuff to my practise because my practise is twice the size, so I have plenty of chairs. And then his suite, I had another guy come in and we have an oral, one of my good friends, he’s an oral surgeon, so we do all implants there, so he pays me rent. So it’s worked out really nice to have a dental building, which is a dental implant centre, restorative centre or whatever, but they’re separate entities and I like it’s worked out nice for me but yes, normally, yes, you’re going to have to negotiate the. Or you have to buy the condo suite if that’s available. But typically, most people, they’re going to set up a four, 5 to 7 year lease with options to renew. And you’re buying the practise and that’s that’s what it is.

[00:33:10] But so for our listeners up and Patel dot com that’s your main place where you work are there are others. Are there other practises that are different websites.

[00:33:19] Yeah, they’re all separate entities. So it’s just yeah, it’s just, it’s just like if you had an office building and there’s six other dentists in that building, we all have our own practises.

[00:33:27] They’re paying you rent, basically.

[00:33:28] Mostly, yeah. I’m the landlord. Yeah, I’m the landlord. But eventually, you know, you never know. Maybe the guy next to me, he’s a periodontist, he’s married. He’s going to retire one of these days, if, you know, I don’t know what’s going to happen five, ten years from now, but it’d be great if another guy boys practise or woman and the periodontist is there. But maybe in the future, as many things I want to do if it gets going with all the digital, all on X and all this kind of stuff, maybe I can, I can have a lab, you know, that is in that in my building. Maybe they can pay me rent, but I have it in house lab. That might be cool. Or maybe a paediatric practise because we have a orthodontics in the building also. So there’s many options I think. But it’s always nice to have the cash flow to have option, I guess.

[00:34:12] So tell me this. But as far as the choice between specialising or not, which specialism is the one that is thought of as the most sort of high level or the most prestigious? Is that all surgery in America?

[00:34:28] I would say it depends on the person. So I would say just historically or my office, because you can get a six year programme. We have MD and then there’s four year programmes. Yeah. You’re saying oral surgery for a four year programme is the same exact thing, except you haven’t done those two years of medical school. So it’s nice to have MD because then you can get some hospital privileges and billing codes that help out. So I have a number of friends that are and even from my from me personally, yeah, I always feel like they like the oral surgery, you know, like got to respect a little bit more or whatever it is. It’s just there’s an aura about it. But looking back, to be honest, like.

[00:35:04] Do those guys earn a lot more as well?

[00:35:07] Yes. I mean, if you just took everyone baseline like an average general, dentists, average, endo average, I would say all surgery owns the most. But as you know, exceptional general dentist can earn more than anyone, right? Sure. An exceptional paediatric dentist can earn more than anyone. So I think it’s more about.

[00:35:28] Well, well, not here, not here, not here, not exceptional paediatric dental. Unless you’re talking about ortho. Yeah.

[00:35:34] No, no, just Peter.

[00:35:35] Not. Not, not here. Not here.

[00:35:37] No.

[00:35:38] It’s just I mean, there are there’s the odd, you know, kids only practise. Oh, okay. But they’re not they’re not making loads of money and people expect their kids to be treated for free. And there isn’t the culture of saving money for your kids teeth. I mean, there is the cultural thing.

[00:35:54] Too. You know, I figured a lot of paediatrics would be seen by. Yes, you’re right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[00:36:00] It’s a different culture, you know, it’s like we’re just getting around to the point of people spending money on their own teeth. You know, that’s a big deal here. Things like cosmetic dentistry have changed that a little bit. So you might have heard we were talking on the podcast, you know, when we talk about, you know, the bartenders having Invisalign. Yeah. And it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t have been the case 20 years ago.

[00:36:21] No, I never saw that when I was there. You’re right. I just even here when I go from England, doesn’t everyone have bad teeth? I’m like, I mean, not really anymore. I think people are really want want my teeth.

[00:36:33] Yeah. Things are changing. Things are changing. So tell me about your team and you know, how many people are you responsible for?

[00:36:42] So I have a seven operator practise. So I have a three dental hygienist. I have two dental registered dental assistants, I have one associate doctor and I have one office manager, one patient coordinator and one benefit coordinator. So three front desk. So it’s nice because ideally as I have my associate pick up more days with me right now she’s part time. So the ultimate I work four days a week and she works. She used to work too, but then she took time off to start a family. So I’m trying to bring her back two days and then by next year I’m hoping to bring a three. And my long term goal is for me to work three days in her to work three or four. I mean, it’d be nicer to have like one more assistant as a floater, but I don’t need it right now and and the way I practise. And if you want, I can go into more detail about the different. It’s like three different American models.

[00:37:36] Yeah. Are you jumping between chairs?

[00:37:38] No. No. So when I first started as an associate, I worked pretty much what most practises are in the US. There’s in every insurance driven. So one method is called an HMO. That’s health management organisation where you’re the practise signs up with basically insurance company and. I send you a capitation check per month? Whether you see the patient or not, it doesn’t matter. You’re going to get checked, but you’re going to get a lot of patients. But they may not show up. They may not listen. That when they show up, a lot of stuff’s covered. It’s free. But when you need to do a crown, you’re going to upgrade them. Maybe instead of a metal crown, you might want to do a zirconia crown. They’re going to pay full price cash for that. So it’s more about numbers with that. And I never liked that and that’s what I had to do when I first started because I needed a job.

[00:38:22] And in hygienists it’s more like our NHS.

[00:38:26] But the thing with these models is if you’re in business, you can own multiple of these practises and have multiple chairs and you can make a lot of money, but that’s not clinical based. The second model is PPO, so preferred provider organisation where you can be in-network. So you sign up with insurance company and they say, okay, your crowns, are you going to cost $600 and your family is going to be X amount of dollars and you’re cleaning $50. But when the patient looks up your name on our website, you’ll be a provider, so they’ll pick you. Now they’re this one. You don’t get a monthly check. But what’s happening is, is that your marketing budget? Maybe it’s ten, 15,000 a month. Just making a big number right here. Instead of paying marketing, you’re getting those patients. Right. But what happens is, is that you still got to see multiple chairs, because how can you spend 2 hours with someone doing, you know, a number 2/2 molar crown and and you’re doing it for like half your fee, right? And then you’ve got to go do a hygiene check, which is half your fee, and then you got to do a cement. So you have to run multiple shows.

[00:39:29] That’s why they’re running multiple chairs.

[00:39:31] Yeah. And then you have a but then also that’s very profitable. If you have assistants that are trained in this our country, you can have them trained to take impression to symptom. Yeah. So that’s the second model. Again, very profitable if you want large scale.

[00:39:47] Is that is that the model that how the foreign runs in his Arizona.

[00:39:51] He may he may be out of network too. I’m not I’m not sure I think that is at his peak it might have been in a network but but and it works just fine. You don’t have to see multiple chairs. But I’m saying you’re going to get a lot of patients and and you can have multiple doctors work for you and it’s great. And the final model is more like what you what you kind of have, which is cash, but you’re out of network. So that’s purely relationship based and it takes a long time for someone to say, I’m going to come see you. Let’s just say I’ll make an example. Let’s say your your filling is $400. If you were in network, the filling would have been $95. That’s all you would have got for the occlusal in on number 30, I can set my fee to whatever I want. So if I say it’s 400, I know the insurance is going to pay 100. The patient owes me 300, so I’m going to use your insurance as a limitation benefit. You get something out of it. It’s like a gift card, maybe 2000 a year you get for that. But you come in to see me because I’m going to spend as much time as I can with you and do the best that I can.

[00:40:46] And you come in and see me because you want to see me, not because I’m on the list. So there’s a lot of practises in this country, especially after COVID, that are going at a network of fee for service. That’s what it’s called. And what that does is it opens up your whole like rest of practise career. You don’t have to kill yourself, break your back, you know, see multiple patients with a I might see and I see one patient at a time. So my typical day is I’ll see two procedures in the morning, two in the afternoon, maybe one or two cements. I’m done. And then I have hygiene checks, but I’m only doing hygiene checks once a year and that’s just an emergency, etc.. So it’s given me a lot more longevity to my career. And you can attract better associates because they where else they’re going to get a job like this. No one’s going to give them a job that it’s almost like they have all the perks of being an owner where they get good income and also getting good quality patients, you know, in terms of they pay the bill on time. Also, they want the best level of care and they’re loyal. So they will hopefully refer other friends and family that are similar in that mindset.

[00:41:46] But but you’ve got inverted com. I’m holding my fingers up marketing costs now right.

[00:41:53] Yeah someone get to that. So right now I mean all my growth since I’ve started my career has always been organic. What does that mean like that? I mean, that means word of mouth. Yeah, word of mouth. And it’s just been internal referral and I’m happy with I can go like that probably the rest of my career. It’s fine, but I have to work, right. I want to now start looking into how can I do some type of digital marketing and maybe some personal marketing I have to do in the community, perhaps outreach somehow so that I can start selecting the cases that I want to do, which is primarily hopefully more orthodontics and implant restorative revision dentistry. And that’s the next level I’m trying to look at, which I haven’t spent any time or money on yet, but that would make sense so that.

[00:42:39] You’ve got an Instagram page and there’s a lot of I mean, there’s hundreds and hundreds of cases on that Instagram.

[00:42:46] I mean, these are 20 years I’ve done 20 years worth of cases. You know, that’s my and then also I bring it that’s my catalogue that I show patients in the office. Right like this I’m gonna do this I don’t use Instagram for. I use it mainly to so I can look up tennis and squash and fun stuff and like restaurants I want to go to. I look at some dentists and I’m like, Yeah, that’s cool. I like that. And I pick and I also learn about people like, Oh, that’s a good course to go to. Or He or she is really cool. Okay, I never thought of that, but I noticed Instagram is good if you already have a very good baseline and good knowledge of what dentistry is and you can pick up some tips and tricks, but if you’re if your training is very novice level, you can get quite overwhelmed and thinking you have to be that straight away. And I can see if I was a dental student at 24, 25 and an Instagram was around, I might have I might have gone nuts, like just thinking, I’ve got to be this like within a few years, like, how can I do this? It takes a long time to become like that. It takes at least ten years to get to an excellent level of dentistry where you you feel like you made enough mistakes and you know how to fix a problem. And it’s great that it’s out there because back then I didn’t have people unless it was local, to see what kind of dentistry they do. I had to fly to a course or something like that, you know?

[00:44:03] Look at it, looking at your work. It’s definitely sort of restorative implant based.

[00:44:07] Yes.

[00:44:08] Where did you get the education? Was it Khoisan Spear? Have you done both of those?

[00:44:13] Yeah. I mean, I think when I finished my first level of training was that one year residency I did. And oh yeah, that was that was all hands on and it was all clinical and it gave me about 4 to 5 year head start. But to be honest, the best thing you can do is document your cases from day one. In this country, I notice in England that you have a lot of different qualifications and I don’t know much about it. It’s something to do with Royal College of Surgeons and MD, JD and all this stuff and stuff is but it sounds cool, but here we have, you know, there’s many organisations, a AICD is a AGD or Academy of General Dentistry, so that organisation does have a very significant pathway for comprehensive training in all 16 levels of disciplines of dentistry. So I first did like a fellowship that was like 5 to 600 hours of C and you know, taking classes and an exam. And then I did a monster ship course that was like four or five years took me. So I did like three, 4000 hours worth of C over like ten years, you know. And so that’s what my DDS says, Magdy F du f ICU or whatever it is. And then, you know, all college of ontologies, they have fellowship programmes.

[00:45:20] So initially I just kept doing all this stuff. I found it just more and more like minded people that I would learn from. But then at some point I was like, You know, I’m just I need like a real course. And the course was that course. Ever since I’ve taken course, it just changed the whole way of practise dentistry. And in my opinion, he’s one of the best educators on the planet, period. And then I also did Spear, I did a lot of spear study club in this country. We have it’s called Spear Study Club where local dentists, we all get together and once a month as a club and we go over cases. But Spears provides the case presentations, things like that. So you have a periodontist, orthodontist or oral surgeon in general. Then as we all get together and just kind of dissect the case and then one of the best courses I took last year and it really was more of a tips and tricks kind of course, strop and drum in. He came out to San Diego, but they have it online now too. I really put a lot of stuff together, but I wouldn’t have understood that course to the full extent if I didn’t take course first.

[00:46:17] So what’s that course called again? Say that course again.

[00:46:20] Strop and drum.

[00:46:22] Strop and drum.

[00:46:23] Yeah, they have an excellent Facebook group. So just add join that Facebook group. Excellent cases in there. And they’re there in Clearwater, Florida.

[00:46:30] I believe. Yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:46:35] He is excellent. And his and his new. Yeah, but.

[00:46:39] For someone who’s not fully familiar with voice or spear or voice and spear, I mean, for someone it’s rare to come across people here who go to both of those because it’s you know, it’s such a expensive travel nightmare and all that. And the courses themselves are very expensive. What would you say is the difference between those two schools of thought and, you know, should you do both or should you do one or the other, or should you go right to the top of one or do what are what are your thoughts?

[00:47:07] So there are I’m going to talk about maybe four or five of them. There’s Dawson, Pankey, Spear, Kois and La, and they’re all great. I would say Spear is in I think it’s in Arizona and I don’t think Frank Spear talks personally anymore. I think he’s retired, but and it’s a larger group. It’s an excellent course. I think either one pick one. Personally, I like the personal hands on approach of John Cox, and he’s always up to date with all evidence based scientific data. And the thing about course is you kind of meet people who are only interested in a similar thing that you’re trying to do there, and you learn from them actually, because they’re also starting their journey or they’re they’re interested on us, they’re periodontist, they’re lab technicians. They’re it’s almost like the top 1% of dentists that want to be the best. They go to these courses. So you not only learn from John Kois or Frank Spiro, you know, the Pankey course of Dawson, but you’re learning from your peers and you’re a mentor to people maybe younger than you and then someone older than you. You’re learning. You’re learning from them. And then you make friends. And then when you leave, you keep in contact with people. So it’s more about network. But but the context.

[00:48:17] What does it mean? Yeah. What does it mean to you as a dentist? Are you now looking at full mouth?

[00:48:22] Yes. So before I think the best thing would be like I didn’t know some of the stuff I was missing. Like I didn’t understand why there was tremendous in a case how to how to predict, predictably, why there was constriction in the case, why there’s dysfunction, why there’s attrition, why these things happen in with biology, how to break down a case into gum and bone, how to break down a case and care and caries or biomechanical or functional or aesthetics. You want to break a case down in four parts, but a systemised way and spear does the exact same things to a different verbiage. And once you break down a case like that in your treatment plan, start to finish and how your whole office is aligned. That way, it’s very easy to communicate. For patient, whether it’s in hygiene, whether it’s with associate, whether it’s front office. And also when you refer to specialists, they also appreciate that you’ve taken the time to figure out why we’re doing this. And it just it just makes everything more it’s almost like a manual. It gives you a guidebook to kind of help you dissect something, because the key to any part of dentistry is not how good your hands are. It’s diagnosis. If you’re excellent, if you’re the best diagnostician, that’s when the best, probably the best dentist or doctor, because you can be excellent in radiology.

[00:49:34] But if you don’t know how to like if you don’t understand the dynamics of your CBC or your pano or your or your bite wings or pars, and you’re missing some education level there. You’re going to miss things all the time if you don’t understand how to use the correct burr or the finishing systems or why certain segments are better than others. Not just what some rep tells you. Because what typically happens is that you buy a product, you buy equipment, and the least qualified person, which is the dental rep, is going to train you on it and then you’re training the same stuff through your systems. But if you have someone who has gone through all this data and done the evidence based analysis, you know what you’re going to put in someone’s mouth, I think, and also that there’s studies to show that. So I think it’s for me personally, I’m more technical based. I want to know why I’m doing something and how to do it versus just randomly get into the endpoint. So it’s a good it’s almost like a not a cookbook but a like it’s it’s a manual that you can refer back to.

[00:50:29] And I’m going to have to defend dental reps now because dental reps have a real tough, tough time even getting in front of you. And I get I get your point. I get your I get your point, I get your point, I get your point. I get your point, I get your point. You want to be trained by John Kois, not by, you know, the three MB rep. I get it, I get it. I get that. But but the one thing that dentists should, should pay more attention to is that dental reps have a wealth of knowledge about what’s going on out there.

[00:50:58] Right.

[00:50:58] And you’re right. It’s the wrong place to get your knowledge. Yeah, but you know, what a lot of dentists do is, is train their team to keep reps out completely. And, you know, and it’s an error. It’s an error because you can learn a lot from a rep. I wouldn’t trust the rep on, you know what he’s talking about his own product over another one necessarily. Necessarily. But there’s a lot of great reps out there. Now, let’s talk.

[00:51:23] I agree. I agree with you.

[00:51:24] I know you do. I need you to let’s talk about how far you went in voice and how long it took, how much it cost. What did it return?

[00:51:33] Yeah, let me when did I start? So I think the last couple of years. What I’ve noticed to be all these continuum, they’ve rapidly expanded. A lot of younger professionals are really taking them straight away. And in the old days they wouldn’t. It was a lot of older doctors because it was Instagram. It’s just given in Facebook, especially. Instagram is just throwing the light what’s possible out there. And people are thirsty for this knowledge and and they’re okay take spending their money on dentistry instead of buying a fancy car or going on a holiday because they’re getting the return out of it, too, you know. So I think I forget I took me two years, though, because you can probably do it in one year, but only one person I know has done that. It’s one of my close friends who actually is a mentor that he just went back to back to back to back. And but most of the courses sold out. So you want to book your your courses. I think there’s like seven, eight, 7 to 8 continuous. You’re there for like a week or something like that. Total cost, I think 50,000. That’s just for the course fees. And you can pay for flight time, hotel time and then also that amount of money away from the practise.

[00:52:36] If you’re gone for a week, I mean, let’s just say on the low end, 10 to 20 to 30 to 40000 is gone. Depend on what you do. Right. But that doesn’t matter because when you come back, it’s not like I’m treatment planning for mountain people. It means now I know even if it’s single tooth, I feel very confident in telling the patient why I’m doing something, what’s going to happen, predictability, why it fails, why it doesn’t fail. And also, if I have a full mouth case, I’m more they can see. I’m more confident in explaining why it would help them. So if they have questions, I can answer them very easily now versus before I kind of make up some stuff in my head, which was correct, but I didn’t have like it was just kind of like my experience. But now I know it’s evidence based, it’s in literature and and it’s always evolving. So if I want to access stuff from then I can just log on and see what’s up to date and they have a yearly symposium to. So I’m not just plugging, I’m going to say SPEAR Thank you. Dawson They’re all great. Whatever, whatever system, whatever.

[00:53:31] Programme finished the whole thing.

[00:53:33] Yeah, of course.

[00:53:34] Yeah. Amazing, amazing. And I mean, I guess the reason why younger and younger dentists are going into it and by the way, we run courses over here and younger and younger dentists are going to courses here as well is they’re trying to get out of that HMO, PPO system. And if you want to give someone an associate job and they tell you, I’ll finish Coinbase, you’re more likely to to consider them for your kind of practise, right?

[00:53:58] That’s true. You know, a lot of times associates don’t know. Maybe what the best path is. And it’s nice. I’ve had a lot of mentors and they gave a lot of free advice and if I need anything that always there, I can call them. And, and also I mentored a lot of other people too, but for my own associate to help get started and part of its own initiative too, I paid for some of the initial course costs. Just the first one. Yeah, because I want I don’t want if someone’s going to work for me, it makes sense for me to get them aligned if, if they’re loyal and they’re going to be with me a long time. I don’t want to just throw money and then you’re gone in a month or two, right? So I know that my associate, my team members, unless something drastic happens, they’re going to stay with me. And so I’ll invest in them because these are not liabilities. Any employee, any person in your practise, they’re all assets. They’re not liabilities. So in the old days, I think I’m thinking, oh, what’s your overhead? Well, payroll is 25%. It’s a liability. It’s it’s not I mean, you’ve got to be careful how much you’re paying within reason. But but if you invest in your team, you’re going to get exponential return over all, not just financial, but a good camaraderie. And also patients notice this. They’re like, oh, the same person is here all the time. It must be something good. You guys get, get, get along well. You work well and patients do say that. They’re like, you guys are like seamless. You guys know what you’re thinking each other thinking without even talking, that kind of stuff. It’s nice to hear that, you know?

[00:55:21] Yeah. I mean, you know, to ask your patients to make your ask your staff, your team, to make your patients delighted. Yeah, you’re going to have to delight your staff a little bit. Yeah. You can’t you can’t whip people into delighting people, right? No. Absolutely right. Let’s go through some fees, because it’d be interesting for people over here to, first of all, caveat that with the £1 million it costs to qualify $1.

[00:55:50] Million, that’s an extreme example. If you did if you went full. I mean, I’m I’m going to say nowadays undergrad and dental school, eight years, let’s just call it 300 and to 400,000. That’s to say.

[00:56:01] That’s correct. 400,000. What are you charging what do you what do you charge for a standard, let’s say just crown.

[00:56:09] About 1600, but would build 1800 1800 is a fee and that that that is again you might go to New York and some might charge 3000 or 5000. So so yeah. But I think fair market value where I’m at 1802 thousand makes sense that.

[00:56:29] The positioning of the practise I mean are you positioned at the higher I know you’re at the higher end because you’re not doing those models, those PPO, HMO models. But but when it comes to this sort of non non insured. Yeah.

[00:56:41] Yeah. 99% on. Oh really. Yeah. In this where I practise. Yeah. Now if I was in San Francisco.

[00:56:49] I know. Few competition.

[00:56:50] More. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’d say more competition, but to be honest, I’ve never been worried about competition. I think there’s enough patience for everyone. It’s just it’s kind of patient you want to treat and also, personality wise, who get along with as many patients I wouldn’t get along with. And that’s fine. They don’t see me, but there’s a certain demographic I really get along with and I know what my niche niches. But yes, I would say I would say fair market value around average for the whole country. At the highest percentile. Let’s call 1800 for a crown.

[00:57:19] Yeah. What about like an mod competition?

[00:57:23] Like for 95?

[00:57:24] For 95, that’s higher than we get in general. In general, what about, let’s just say skin polish, cleaning, hygiene.

[00:57:35] Like a trophy? Yeah. 150.

[00:57:40] 150 an examination. Just like a six month examination.

[00:57:45] $75.

[00:57:47] What about implant?

[00:57:50] Start to finish or just the fixture.

[00:57:52] Start to finish.

[00:57:53] 5000. No bone graft though. So it would be like, you know, 2000 for the crown, maybe 2500 for the implant plus some tissue stuff. So 5000.

[00:58:03] Now.

[00:58:03] Yeah, sinus lift. If you hadn’t a sinus to add another 2000. If you add in GBR and Ridge augmentation, add another 1200.

[00:58:11] So how about you know, because you’ve been trained. So I bet you’re doing some big, big cases. What’s what’s been your biggest case?

[00:58:19] I mean, to be honest, I’m very different in terms of. I don’t do a lot of stuff anymore. Like when I first qualified, I did everything I did endo. I did all surgery. I did p do. I did. I never did really a lot. Although, to be honest, I never trained in all of those. But like, I mean, biggest case, I mean, it’s full mouth, full mouth all on X or full mouth crown and bridge like 28 teeth. So you can add that up, you know, 28 tooth times, 1500, whatever that is. But because I needed it, so my kind of practise, the kind of patients that I see, I don’t have full mouth every day. I might I’ll be very happy if I got one once a month. That’d be great. But my favourite case is seven through ten. No occlusion changes seven through ten composite seven through ten veneers seven through ten crown with some cor bleaching. I think you have enlightened, is that correct. Yeah. With the white whitening product. And then I finish a case with a pair of attacked or something like that and just good hygiene protocol.

[00:59:17] What’s Perrier protect.

[00:59:19] It’s, it’s basically a tray that’s kind of like a mouth guard kind of material tray, and it’s scalloped to your gum measurements and you load it with 1.2% peroxide with xylitol and and they wear it for about 10 minutes once a day. I’ve noticed significant decrease in bleeding points and plaque build up plaque build-up is much less so. But yeah.

[00:59:41] I looked at that. I looked at that. But the, the resistance from periodontitis on that product. Yeah, it’s gigantic. I mean, like over here I just, I didn’t have the stomach to, to, to, to argue with Periodontist about it. But, but you’re right. Just just by looking at bleaching patients, you can see their gums getting so much better.

[01:00:00] I mean, you don’t want to like I have a team, right? So I have three or four periodontist that I refer to, three or four ended on as I referred to. I have a network so they know what I like to do. I’m referring patients to them so they don’t want to piss me off. So we have a I’m the lifeline for their practise and then I’m they’re helping me with cases that I can’t do. But in order to answer to your question, I predominantly do revision dentistry. My main patient base is 55 plus. I have no kids in my practise. Maybe I have like a handful, like five or six young professionals a little bit, but my predominant patient base is retirees and 55 plus baby boomers. And I love treating them because the best. Yeah, you know, they want the best work done there. Most dentistry is root decay, zero stoma implant work and they’re not in aesthetics. It’s much easier on them. It’s either I do the whole mouth or I just fix the quadrant of the front tooth and they’re happy. They don’t complain too much. You know, some of the middle high maintenance is true, but they just afraid and things like.

[01:00:56] That in general, they’re respectful as well. Right. They’ve got the old school feeling about the doctor.

[01:01:02] Yeah. And then they stick with you unless they’re going to move, you know. And yeah, I’m happy with that. And they actually happy coming to the dentist because it’s, it’s almost like it’s their routine. They go in the dentist, they go in the grocery store now they’re going to the MD and they’re going and then they love a hygienist because they’ve been seen the hygienist for like last ten, 15, 20 years or whatever it is. So I like that. Then that’s what I’m going to try to market more now, and that’s kind of the cases I’m looking for anyway, where patients want locate a denture or they want a little bit Invisalign. But what I’m hoping is the younger professionals would come and see my associate and then she can focus on Invisalign and some cosmetics and I can.

[01:01:37] I think that that demo you’re going to find on Facebook, right?

[01:01:41] Yeah. So that so my cousin actually works at Facebook in the marketing division. So I’ve been talking about this. I’m like, Hey, I need to get involved with some type of Facebook ads at some point and maybe I should look into how to do that because I haven’t done it before.

[01:01:52] But very different, right? The kind of you know that now we’re talking about a lead, the kind of lead that comes from Facebook ad is very, very different to patient who comes from word of mouth. And to start off with, that’s going to annoy the hell out of you.

[01:02:06] Yeah, yeah. Word of mouth. They don’t. They don’t. They tend to show up. They don’t.

[01:02:09] Like. Well, they show up. They show up. Sold.

[01:02:12] Yeah. They’re like so-and-so referred me, you know, I’m like, oh, great. Say hi to.

[01:02:17] There is such a thing as digital word of mouth that exists, right? And so it’s kind of a hybrid between between normal word of mouth and the digital marketing thing. I forgot to ask you, Invisalign, what do you charge for that?

[01:02:31] Oh, I think full cases like $6,000.

[01:02:35] That’s similar. That’s similar.

[01:02:36] But then I have my okay, so I have friends in Orange County that are fee for service. I mean, I’ll give you a difference in price right now so you can see the difference. His whole office, he’s he’s fully digital. So he has his own lab. He’s got every single implant lab system you can think of. He he hasn’t used a lab in the last ten years. He’s amazing and he’s a voice instructor and those kind of stuff. So his fee for an anterior crown would be 2500, his fee for all in upper and lower. All next, you might be looking at 80,000, right? But he does all the surgery himself. I don’t do any implant surgery anymore. I kind of just focus on restorative. That’s my I like doing that. And I have a surgeon like 20 seconds for me that we get along great together and I supply him with all the patients. But the thing is our case acceptance is exceptional because I say something, it’s a complimentary consult with the surgeon. He doesn’t charge a console or CBT, and then he agrees. And then they come back to me and there’s no pressure to do anything. I’m just here, no agenda, just to advise them on what I see. And they like that they get a second opinion or that we’re in a team together and it’s just no stress and no pressure. That’s how I kind of like to come off. And I’ve noticed, like, they do accept the treatment unless it’s financial or they just have a stigma about, well, my cousin or so-and-so had a bad experience with implants. I’m like, Whenever you’re ready, we’ll wait. We’ll wait for you and you let me know when you want to start and I’ll help you. That’s all you can do.

[01:04:00] It makes a lot of sense to stick to the bit of it that you enjoy and your most predictable on. Yeah, because what you said before about the confidence in your voice. Yeah, just comes through. It just comes through. And then you don’t, you don’t feel like you’re selling anything. You’re just you’re just telling them you’re, you know, what you know in your head. And people are saying, yes, you know, and you forget sometimes the how tiring it is to have to worry about people saying, yes, it’s tiring. And mainly it’s tiring when it’s an area you’re not 100% comfortable in. That is when you’re comfortable when it’s your area, you know. And for you, it’s this this sort of implant restorative mix or you said revision work, then it doesn’t feel like selling, it feels like educating.

[01:04:48] And I mean, it’s not easy. I mean, of course the case is not easy, but I’m not like I don’t act like, hey, you got to start today. When I worked when I worked in these corporate offices, the whole model was get the patients start right now. Otherwise you’re going lose the case. So patients can tell like you’re like hungry, you know, like it’s not right, you know? And I remember I mean, you can ask me later if I had some bad experiences and I’ll go into them and they were all pretty much is associate. But if you don’t have proper roadmap in the case you can get lost real quick, you know, and you can’t fix me can fix it kind of, you know, what you’re doing. But if you don’t like I think people sue you when they don’t like you, they don’t trust you and you feel like they’ll be taking advantage of their your friend or, you know, you’re looking out for the best for them. Even if something goes wrong, they’ll be like, okay, doctor, I come here because I know that you take care of me. You’re going to you’re going to handle it or whatever it is, you know. Yeah, that’s really it.

[01:05:43] So tell me tell me what was let’s, let’s get on to the darker side then what? But let’s start with what was the best move you’ve made professionally. And then and then let’s move on to mistakes, errors. The worst move you.

[01:05:54] Make like my clinical or just dental?

[01:05:58] Anything hit me.

[01:05:58] Just hit me. Okay? It comes to me. So like I said, I’m not graduating in 2005. I thought I wanted to be a Rodeo Drive or New York City dentist because I wanted that London feeling. I used to draw. I used to go to work in a three piece suit like Dolce and Gabbana, all that kind of stuff, right? I thought, This is me because I’m a London boy. You know, I’m from Wimbledon. I’m like, I’m going to I’m going to.

[01:06:18] That was that was going to be your brand.

[01:06:20] Whatever. I’m going to be like that aesthetic, whatever. And I didn’t know the whole world was kind of thinking like that initially anyway. You know, everyone wants to be that kind of thing. And then I realised these patients are not cool. They’re like really demanding. They don’t, they don’t care about who I am and stuff like that and what I can do for them. They just actually not as nice. The nicest patients are the ones that actually aren’t as wealthy and they’re they just have a problem. You’ve got to help them get out of pain, you know. But yeah, basically initially I tried all that and I came back to Sacramento. Sacramento maybe like kind of like maybe it’s a city, it’s a capital of California, but I don’t want to disrespect any London, U.K. cities. But maybe Leicester’s a big city. But it is kind of like that. It’s not.

[01:07:00] Like that. Been there. I’ve been there. Yeah, yeah. It’s nice.

[01:07:03] Yeah. So it’s very hot. But so I did a jobs there and then. Then I try to go to San Francisco in the bay. Same thing. I couldn’t. I couldn’t find anything I liked. It was just underpay. Patient quality was poor. And I was like, you know, I’m in Sacramento. It’s right here in front of me. It’s right here. Let me just start looking for something here. I found something straight away in 2014, I found an old guy. He was an ex lab tech and. And the dentist too, and, you know, Caucasian. Practise in a friendly neighbour. And yeah, I bought his practise and that was the best thing I ever did because it was a gold mine. So much amalgam. No digital X-rays like Handbook of Charts. Nothing. So I could just went in there, took my time. I remodelled the whole place. I made it my own over time. Of course, there’s a lot of turnover with old staff and this and that because they don’t like change, you know? But I had so much experience by then. I was an associate for like eight years by then.

[01:07:58] And to be honest, in retrospect, I wish I had become an owner much sooner. But if I had, I wouldn’t have got this practise. So I bought the first one and then I was still a tenant then. And then I the office next door to me, she would have it. She was having a hard time. She just bought the practise and there was a war between us and at the beginning like one year. And she said, Can you buy my practise? I’m like, I don’t, I can’t buy this. I just started looking back. I should have, but then I bought it later from her. But by that time, most of the patients had gone. But I got some patients, so then I had a bigger space. And then I approached the landlord, who is my friend and mentors like, Hey, whenever you want to retire I’ll, I’ll buy your building. And it came up. So I bought the building and then eventually he’s like, I want to sell you the practise. I bought his practise, so I.

[01:08:41] Used it to get the finance. And when you tell a bank you’re a dentist, does it help a lot?

[01:08:46] Yeah, yes. I don’t know how it is in England, but here you can put a00 down.

[01:08:51] Oh, really?

[01:08:52] Yeah. Zero down. So you can get 100% finance. And it could be a five, ten, 15, 15 year loan. You’re looking at 3 to 4%. And then that includes working capital equipment loan plus the practise. So average practise, let’s say practises is producing 700,000, right? Maybe you’re going to pay 475 for that and maybe 60%, 65%. And maybe you need a working capital of 50,000 equipment loan at 100,000. So now, you know your loan is like five 5600.

[01:09:20] When you say when you say produce, do you mean producers in income or do you mean.

[01:09:24] Oh, no, no, I’m sorry. Just collection. Collection per year. Collection not not vacant. Yeah.

[01:09:30] Oh so that’s, that’s actually quite low that our practises are valued much higher than that.

[01:09:35] So it depends where you are though, right. If you’re like I’m going to, I’m going to say average practise. Like if you’re in like San Francisco, Sacramento, L.A., New York, it really depends what kind of practise you have to. If I saw my practise today, I probably want up to 90 200% of my practise, like what I produce because it’s a big value to what I’m bringing. My the practise is very unique. If you have average PPO in-network practise in an average community, it could be 65 to 70% of collection if it’s doing average.

[01:10:07] Still low, though, still low compared to what’s happened here is the I guess it’s the corporates here. I know you have corporates too, but but the prices have there used to be like this, what you’re explaining. But now it’s like I don’t know eight times take home.

[01:10:23] Oh wow. That’s yeah. I mean that’s that’s if you’re buying I mean I have a number of friends now in our age group now like, you know, in their forties where they’ve, they’ve started like selling all the practises to the, to the corporate rate. And so they’re getting a payout initially maybe 70% payout and then 30% reinvest in with them and then maybe five, six, ten years from now they’ll do it. So they’re going to get a big, big payout. It’s great, but they’re going to have become employee four or five, six years. I don’t know what it is.

[01:10:49] Yeah, we have that too. We have that too. Yeah. So let’s quickly jump into before we go on to your biggest errors, let’s quickly jump into corporates there. Are there corporates in all of these different levels of you said the HMO, the PPO, do you have corporates doing high quality fee per item as well or no.

[01:11:07] I wouldn’t say corporate in fee for service. I would say you got guys like just make an example like you got Appa. You know, he’s got multiple offices around the world. You have many clients. Yeah, they’re not. Not this a brand, right? Yeah. And you got like people are very low key, but they have many, many offices and you don’t even know about them. But they’re all fee for service. I mean, they just don’t hear about it, that’s all. But they just one owner or there’s a bunch of partners, but they haven’t sold out anyone. They may as their final cash out, I don’t know. But in general, no. There’s a lot of people who are non dentists, MBAs or whatever it is and they’ve got together with dentists. And yeah, the new model is to buy a lot of offices and, and just grow them and then sell to venture capital and cash out and people do. That’s fine, you know, that’s a way to retire at 50 or 45 or whatever it is. And it’s excellent. And if you can still keep the quality of dentistry, you just have to find the right model and stuff like that. Yeah.

[01:12:09] Let’s, let’s get to the things. What was your biggest mistake that you’ve made now? Now I do want both business and clinical. Does that make the biggest some some mistakes? I mean.

[01:12:21] It’s not a mistake, obviously. I wish I became an owner sooner. That would have been the best thing I ever did. But there was an opportunity but to do that mistake wise when I was an associate, like I said. Back then they would just say like some treatment coordinator does, they start the case straightaway. So a couple of times this happened and I would get random like message from office manager, especially one case in particular. I did a full upper arch decay everywhere and I finished it. But the patient at the end, there was a lot of recession in the case after a while and so she started seeing it was a Coptic case, I believe back then I was using Coptic.

[01:12:55] And.

[01:12:56] She started seeing this gold and black hue around the gum line or whatever. It wasn’t my fault. Patient didn’t care. Take care of the teeth. But you know, I started getting letter from the board for case review and this and that was like, you know, I need to handle this. I haven’t done anything wrong, but I don’t care about the money, you know, like, let me let me have her sign a non-disclosure or whatever, and just give her back the money, whatever it was. I don’t care. But make sure she signed this paperwork and she did, luckily. And I just refunded everything. And she, you know, she probably did it on purpose. In my case was fine. It wasn’t a big deal, but I didn’t want to deal with that as an associate. What I realised as I work more and more, the patient is unhappy. I can’t make them happy unless it’s something for something psychological. You know, I might have missed it that beginning and sometimes a certain case you shouldn’t take on, even if especially when they say to other dentists through other dentists they can’t help me. And, and those are the cases I’m talking about. And when I was young, oh I can do it, I’ll do it. Yeah. You know, and then and then you’re stuck with them, especially like denture cases or like no one wants to pay the teeth out. And I did it and oh, I’m in so much pain now. I need all these drugs. I’m like, I just took out your teeth and your denture is going to be sore. It looks fine, but now you’re the one that they’re blaming, you know? So I would say mainly I haven’t gotten a lot of trouble, but there are some instances cosmetically as an associate where, yes, it could have it could have become something more like, okay, we want to actually go further by just refunded them, you know.

[01:14:21] Other than this sort of spidey sense that you’re sort of talking about of I guess I guess we call that experience one.

[01:14:26] There’s one thing.

[01:14:27] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:14:28] But I mean, obviously, back as an associate, I had to rely on assistants to do some of the auxiliary work, which nowadays I do everything myself. She took off a temporary on number 31, the second molar, and she tried in the gold crown to take a bite. And I was in the other room. And the next thing I know is there was a crown. I always followed it. I’m like, Oh, okay. The guy said, Yeah, I swallowed it. I’m like, No, man, you have to go to the hospital right now. You know, it’s not it’s not coming out. There’s a possibility it could be stuck somewhere in your lung or whatever it was. So but they didn’t go all the way in. And so I didn’t have to do surgery. But luckily I told office manager, hey, whatever it is, I’ll pay for it. I don’t care. They were kind of blowing it off. I was like, No, they need to go now and I’ll take care of whatever it is. And they were able to get it out without anything invasive, but that could have become something. So what I notice is when you’re an associate, sometimes the manager, the doctor’s not on site, you have to just kind of make the call. But ultimately it’s your licence on the line. End of the day, your assistant, your front office, whatever.

[01:15:31] Nothing’s going to happen to them. You know nothing. You are still the one that’s liable. So you have to make sure that you really. That’s why I don’t see multiple chairs anyway. But I make all my own temporaries. I spend the time and do all this kind of stuff. I want to make sure that patient knows that I they’re paying me for a premium like I’m going to take care of, start to finish everything that you need. And if there’s a mistake, it’s my fault. No one else’s. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, the docs. The darkest day, though, was nothing to do dentistry in terms of clinical. When I was an associate, I used to work six, seven days a week initially to pay off these loans, and I was working in random places. I didn’t want to work, but I had to. And one day I was doing a little hygiene. I woke up and I couldn’t move my neck. I couldn’t move my arm. Oh yeah. I had severe impingement of C five, six or whatever it was. I had brachial plexus pain. I went to neurologist, chiropractor. It was a bad idea. It was a chiropractor and I was out for that year. I was out six, seven months. I really thought I couldn’t work. No. I was like, I’ve got to figure out something.

[01:16:31] I had loans. I just bought a brand new car. Was like the first car I ever bought back in zero eight. And I was like, Crap, what do I do? Do I go to auto school because I don’t know if I can pick up a handpiece? I was literally I couldn’t move anything and I was under a lot of stress back then too from other things. What happened was I took time to take that year off in a way that that year I saved by finishing dental school, one year, early undergrad one year. I kind of lost it there, but it doesn’t matter. And then I found a practise that I liked. It was slow practise, it was a private practise. And that’s where I met my office manager that she works for me now. Eventually, you know, he sold that practise and it gave me time to work in a real practise on my own. I was the only doctor there, so it felt like I owned it, but I was just the associate. But I didn’t make that much money. But I was able to take the class that I wanted and rehabilitate myself. And that was a turning point where I was like, Crap, I could be disabled. Like, what does that feel like? I can’t do anything.

[01:17:27] And, you know, interestingly, often the worst moment in your life actually brings out something, you know, you wouldn’t have met that office manager. There’s many things you might not have done. Yeah, no, no.

[01:17:37] But now, looking back, yeah, it happened the way it happened because that’s what I needed.

[01:17:41] You know? But. But, but I can understand. I mean, I’ve woken up with a bad nick.

[01:17:47] Sometimes it’s bad, but.

[01:17:49] Six months, a year of it.

[01:17:50] I mean, I couldn’t because I try to work and it just bend in my neck. I could I couldn’t see anything.

[01:17:55] How did you fix it? Did you have to have an operation or something?

[01:17:57] No, I went I went to the the I went to all these different doctors and there’s a family friend, neurologist I finally went to. And by that time it was like four or five months I was going to a chiropractor. And there’s different levels of chiropractor. This one was maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was like going to a very bad dentist, like they actually made it worse. And now I don’t go to chiropractors now, but if I really needed to, there’s one person I found is physical therapy, is what is needed in conjunction with a chiropractor and a good one. But just like a bad dentist can perforate a canal, you can not have bandanas. But. But if they’re really doing it all the time, right, like that, they can have certain chiropractors that just doing stuff and collecting money. They’re not really helping you. And I notice I was feeling worse. But anyway, no, I went to everyone and then I just found a good physical therapist. I it’s because of dentistry. I was hunched over a lot, even with loops. I’m very tall. I’m like six two, six three. I was working in clinics that weren’t fit to me. So my office now every single chair and item is built to me like special, like certain chairs that I like, certain ergonomics that I like. And when you work for someone else, you can’t do that. So I was it wasn’t my it’s almost like when you’re a dentist, it’s your operating room, you know, it’s your it’s your canvas. And you should be able to paint and, and work how you see fit. But you really can’t do that unless it’s your own. So that, that realised like I need to get my own thing, you know, this is, this is not good. So.

[01:19:19] So you’ve got, you’ve got. I see behind you the London Underground and the map, and you’ve got the Wimbledon Championships logo and thing. What do you miss about the UK?

[01:19:33] I get that question a lot. I think it’s my childhood, really, because when I when I go, I go back every 4 to 5 years and I notice when I go back now I feel like a tourist, you know? But I just miss I think I miss my memories of growing up. And I think I was mentioning earlier, I just watched Doctor Strange recently the multiverse. And sometimes I think like what if I actually didn’t come to America when I was 18 and I actually went to university in London, what would I become? Would I become a pharmacist or a dentist? And if I did, where would I have lived? I know where I would have been and where I always envisioned I always envisioned myself having a nice house in Wimbledon Village next to the championships, up off the road, you know, having if I had, you know, having friends and family around that area, my friends I grew up with, that’s what I envisioned when I was younger. But, you know, it might still happen in the future if I decide as possible one day.

[01:20:25] But no, but but as a comparison of of life, life there and life here, what is it about here that’s better than there?

[01:20:32] I think socially it’s nicer in England because people aren’t so far away here. I have a lot of friends from undergrad and dental school, no high school friends obviously, because they’re all in England, but people live far away. And when you go to university here, people could be from New York, but they come to new university in LA, people, you know. So I might talk to them on the phone, but like I’m going to New York end of this month for a week. I haven’t seen my old college roommates for about 15 years together as one, so we’re all going to be there for a week, but it doesn’t really happen. You know, everyone’s in their own lives. So I would say socially I miss like just and also the city of London. I love London. I love New York. I’m a city person.

[01:21:09] City guy.

[01:21:10] I am. But you have to make sacrifice career wise. I’m very happy with my career in Sacramento. Like I love my patient base here. I wouldn’t I probably wouldn’t function as well in a in a city practise the way I like to work in the clientele I want to see. But it doesn’t mean I can’t get on a plane and go somewhere, which I used to do that quite a bit. But because of COVID, I can’t stop doing all that. But yeah.

[01:21:33] And and I noticed you said you mentioned squash. Yeah. You played a really high level, right?

[01:21:38] Yeah. So, you know, back when I was younger, I don’t know what it’s what was it like in your cultural, cultural family? But it was always like, come studies come first and all this kind of stuff. And my parents had a shop. They always say, you know, this is just for fun. Like if you don’t study, you’re going to end up in a shop. You don’t want to do that or whatever it is. We’re doing all this work so you can go to the best school and you can become something because we ain’t doing this for nothing, you know? So I felt this pressure. I’m the oldest in the family. I always felt this pressure I’ve got. I’ve got to do something. I mean, obviously, in hindsight, I wish I had opportunity to to at least take a year or two out and try to play on the professional circuit and then go to dental school or university. But that’s not what happened, which is fine. But yeah, I love squash. I played it for Surrey, you know. And then when I came to America, I thought it was done. I didn’t think they had squash shoe in the first in two years, three years. I didn’t play anything because I was in Stockton once I moved to dental school in San Francisco. They actually have a very big squash community in the Bay Area. So I got back involved and yeah, I do play regularly. I actually got injured last year, so I’ve been dealing with that.

[01:22:41] But you talk about sliding doors, right? And if let’s imagine if your parents had moved or got their green card three years earlier and you’d moved when you were 15. Yeah. And you could have maybe got a scholarship into dental school, you know, and actually and actually done squash, you know, like squash to a higher level. I mean, life is so strange like that. It’s all the water. Yeah, we have amazing.

[01:23:08] I mean, it’s fine. You know, I got to play like now as I became a dentist, I got to on my own terms, you know, I played like a little bit satellite professional tournament. So local amateur tournament is fine. It’s just it’s nice when you’re younger to have the energy, right? That’s all, of course.

[01:23:24] How old are you now? 42. 43, 41, 41.

[01:23:26] Sorry. Yeah.

[01:23:31] That was close.

[01:23:32] In my head. And I was, I was like 39 and then suddenly I turned 40. So it’s cool right now. I don’t like the sporty sound, but it’s okay now.

[01:23:41] We’ve come, we’ve come to the end of our time. So I’m going to finish it with our usual questions. Let’s let’s start with the fantasy dinner party.

[01:23:50] Three guests, dead or.

[01:23:52] Alive, who do you have?

[01:23:54] So I’m a I’m a big fan of Roger Federer. I would love to have Roger Federer one on one. I really feel like I get along quite well with him. Dennis Bergkamp I’m a big Arsenal fan, but from the old days, like Bergkamp these both these guys are professional, but also they seem like a lot of fun. And I’m going to I’m going to say Michael Schumacher, but if not him, this is more of a spiritual thing. Now, I’m Hindu, so I would I would like to meet Lord SAMINI and or Lord Krishna in person, but that’s more of a spiritual thing. But yeah, that would be good.

[01:24:27] You can have that dinner party if you want that dinner party ready. Yeah. And what about. Perhaps. Final question. I know he’s not here, but that’s bad. I’m sorry to. To bring you down. Your nearest and dearest around you. Three pieces of advice for them. For the world.

[01:24:47] I say. If you wait until later. You’re going to be waiting forever. Take risks and follow all your dreams, especially when you’re younger. You have so much time to to make mistakes. And also mistakes on mistakes that you learn from those experiences are actually, you know, good, good things within reason. I think happiness comes from what. You do so living and making memories of people that you love leave a legacy based on relationships, not just wealth, and be present. I think especially during COVID, I realise like I can’t see people, this is I mean, all this stuff you can do on your own, there’s nothing you can really do that much you and you need people to, to share things with, you know. And then the main one for me personally, this is more like what I’m really like the power of discipline, work ethic and consistency. I think the ingredients of success and luck is when preparation meets opportunity. That’s why I really like Federer and Bergkamp and Schumacher. I really feel like, you know, they really embody these things. And and that’s why I would say.

[01:25:53] Like there are like all three of those very much alike. All three of those very much. But yeah, to younger colleagues, it’s amazing the number of younger people who listen to this show. I keep getting, getting, getting told. Dental students and other younger colleagues take risks early, for sure. For sure. You know, you’re absolutely right about about that. And the other two things, very, very nice.

[01:26:16] Let me ask you a question. Yeah. If you could go back in time to any period, where would you like to go?

[01:26:22] I got asked this question, like if it’s a fly on the wall story. Yeah, I would. I wouldn’t mind being there when whoever decided to. To assassinate.

[01:26:31] Kennedy. Oh, really?

[01:26:34] But. But. But if it’s not a war, then dinosaur, you know that that moment when. When the dinosaurs became extinct.

[01:26:45] On.

[01:26:45] The earth and and and, you know, you know what? Not all animals became extinct. The dinosaurs did. I’d love to see that moment. What about you?

[01:26:56] I’d like to go to the Egyptian era. I want to know how the pyramids were built, you know.

[01:27:01] Have you seen the pyramids?

[01:27:02] Yes.

[01:27:03] I’m going to sound like a Philistine now, dude. When. When I. When I went to see the pyramids in Cairo. But, like, you know, they’re not that great.

[01:27:10] In all their glory. It seems like it’s just the architectural or even Roman time, one or the other. I just. Gladiator. It’s gladiatorial. Just that. The whole civilisation either or. I just like architecture, you know, and.

[01:27:23] Just.

[01:27:24] The different time periods. I mean, it’s just something where you, you study a lot of it. I mean, especially in England, you know, I had to learn Latin and all that kind of stuff. So I don’t remember any of it anymore, but be nice to actually live it at school. I went to Hampton School in New Hampshire. Hampton Court Palace.

[01:27:40] Oh, nice.

[01:27:41] Took the I took the Southwest train pass Kingston and they took the 111 bus. I mean.

[01:27:49] It’s a massive pleasure to have you, buddy. I really, really enjoyed that. Thank you so much for being so open and giving us an insight into your life over there. And please stay in touch.

[01:27:59] But I will. Thank you.

[01:28:00] Thank you. Amazing.

[01:28:04] 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.

[01:28:19] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, 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 got some value out of it.

[01:28:34] 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.

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[00:00:00] My my purpose is to serve people, be able to coach people. But I think my bigger purpose is to sort of show the dental world that coaching has massive benefits. If you get the right coaching and you get the right coach, there’s huge potential for you in terms of growth. And I feel like as a profession, we should really open our eyes to opportunities and possibilities and sort of get away from the doom and gloom. Because I think dentistry is a fantastic career, it’s a fantastic profession and it’s got a limited potential. You can do absolutely anything you want. You’ve got a guaranteed job. There’s probably I don’t think there’s any dentists out there that that would be struggling with a job as long as they’ve got the right kind of paperwork. There’s huge demand from patients for work. I just think that how many jobs can you say that you get all that.

[00:01:03] 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.

[00:01:20] It gives me great pleasure to welcome Odessa Husain, a dentist working out of Oldham. Born and bred Manchester Oldham guy, I guess that’s a Mudassar is an associate who contacted us about a while back during the COVID thing. I was having some questions about How’s the profession going? In the meantime, he’s also become a sort of a business coach or a personal life coach for other dentists, and he’s set up a group on Facebook, a football group, which is I think the regular listeners will know I know nothing about football but football for dentists, which you then changed.

[00:02:02] Melissa Ray Yeah, I wanted it to be more inclusive, so originally it was just for dentists and then I wanted to widen it to increase inclusivity and make it about professionals as well.

[00:02:15] So dentists and professional football for dentists and professional.

[00:02:17] That’s right. I wanted it to be a sort of more intelligent kind of conversations and sort of, I suppose, make it more inspiring and motivating and sort of being able to engage with different kind of people from different lines of sectors.

[00:02:32] Let’s let’s let’s quickly start with that. How many members has that group got?

[00:02:37] Last time I checked, over 700 members.

[00:02:41] Oh, well. And was that completely organic or how did you how did how did.

[00:02:44] You grow that? Yeah, it was completely organic. I’ve kind of myself I’ve actually not been on any social media until about seven or eight months ago, actually, and I decided I wanted to engage with the profession in a way. So I went on social media and this was part of my vision as a coach.

[00:03:03] You know, it’s interesting because you say that did you on purpose avoid social media?

[00:03:08] I think there was a lot of, I suppose, negative connotations to social media, and I still think there is. But I think if it’s used correctly, then it’s a great way to connect with people. So I kind of have now realised the huge benefits of of it as well. But you also have to be mindful of, of it being an addiction. And that’s something I talk about a lot about social media being addictive because we’re constantly on our phones and it’s constantly asking us to use our phone.

[00:03:39] Yeah. What’s your screen time in the moment? Do you know?

[00:03:42] I do have an app to limit that, but I would say that it’s around 3 hours a day.

[00:03:48] You’re good. You’re super good. It’s interesting, though, you know, this question. You’ve got you’ve got kids. You just said you’ve got three kids. And this question of screen time and keeping the kids off the phones and all of that. But, you know, for me, there is an aspect of if they’re not on the screen enough, they’re not going to know what’s going on in the world. Not not not that I’m not saying the phone is going to show them news. I’m saying that, you know, life will be on the phone so much more or what about the time they’re older? It’ll be some sort of, you know, lens in the eye. But you know what I mean? Like, in a way, it’s very popular to say I’m keeping my kids off screens. But I remember that kid when when I was when I was a child, that that kid who was on his computer all the time. And that kid’s probably like a billionaire in Silicon Valley right now. But let’s get let’s get to your story, buddy. Tell me about your childhood. Why did you become a dentist?

[00:04:49] So, yeah, I grew up in Oldham, born and bred. I actually, which is a town just outside Manchester. For those people who listeners who may not be aware, my family obviously settled here. I’ve got a huge family and I’m still based in Oldham and obviously went to uni in Manchester. Oldham is quite an interesting sort of place in a way, because I suppose people may remember there were the Oldham riots and kind of Asian communities living alongside white British communities and things like that. And I think a lot’s changed for the better in terms of integration and things like that. So Oldham sort of really transformed, I would say, as a town.

[00:05:30] Would you say there is still some friction?

[00:05:33] I think there’s always friction in different parts of of every neighbourhood. It depends on where you are or where you live. But one thing I do really love about this country is how tolerant we are of each other and how respectful we are. And we allow each other, for example, to practise our religion. And I think we should be proud of that as a country that, you know, there’s a lot of tolerance, tolerance in this country. And I’m proud to be British.

[00:06:01] You’re right. You’re right. And it’s easy to look at problems, isn’t it? But when I look at cousins and things who live in other countries, particularly European countries, and the US has got all of its own. Sure problems. I’d say we have it pretty good here. As far as, you know, relations between different groups, I’ve been told him it’s quite a kind of a ex mining town. Right. Is that is that the thing?

[00:06:29] Yeah, historically, it used to be also used to be a cotton mill town. And, you know, originally there was a lot of migration from Pakistan. My family came from, I might add, in particular. And he’s one of my actual inspirations because obviously he came and and they used to live in quite squalid kind of conditions and worked very long hours in these factories. And yeah, it’s kind of amazing the journey he’s been on and yeah, I’m very, very inspired by him really.

[00:07:03] Tell me about that. He came when? How old was he when he came?

[00:07:07] He came when he was 13 or 14. And so he was very, very young. But back in them days, it was kind of the done thing to work when you were under age as well kind of thing. So you know that. You know what?

[00:07:19] Yeah. Do you know what year that was?

[00:07:21] I don’t know the exact year, but I would imagine he said it was he was when he was 13, so it must have been around 1964, something like that I would say. But when he first came over, yeah.

[00:07:32] Yeah. Very different place to what it is now.

[00:07:35] Oh yeah. It’s very, very, very different and very, very kind of you know, I look at him and I’m amazed when when you look at the history of coming, you know, with with literally no education and living in those kind of conditions to where he’s moved up the ladder and sort of a bit of an entrepreneur in a way, and kind of really successful. So I look at him in all really and and wish that I could aspire and do the things he has achieved in his life.

[00:08:03] So tell me about your childhood. What kind of a kid were you?

[00:08:06] Yeah, I mean, I come from a very large family. I’m second youngest in my family. Childhood was good. It was it was nice. You know, I think things that life is very different now. But as kids, you could go out and play on the streets and then you’d have to be called, called in and you know, you could play football on the streets. And it was just you did knock on each of those doors and it was a very community kind of spirit and it was a very free kind of spirit which which I enjoy. Whereas I think nowadays we talked at the start of the about the distractions of being on phones and being on, on social media and all these pressures that come. But yeah, childhood was really, really good. I really sort of enjoyed that time and I look back fondly and I think it’s probably one of my best times in my life. I would say that those those times where you were just free and you could just go out and kick a ball and play with random people and play football. And I didn’t say you can all these childhood games and there was no no care of concern of whatever was going on in the world. Whereas now I think we’re bombarded with too much information.

[00:09:09] How old are you? Do do you sound like you were you were growing up in the forties.

[00:09:14] This I’m actually I’m actually 34 but I feel like I’m more connected with the older generation than the younger ones because I my sort of I think Facebook came in my second year of college. So so I I’m not kind of converted to that. I’m one of those that I enjoy the simple things in life.

[00:09:35] Unlike older people, I’m actually in many ways more comfortable with older people than younger people. But but also I’m energised by younger people, too. I think you need a good mix of both. And in your thirties you are not yet at that stage where there’s loads of younger people who want to talk to you. But you’ll see you soon. Soon there’ll be there’ll be lots of those, I suppose. Now in your coaching game, you’ve, you’ve got a lot more of this. Why did you choose dentistry?

[00:10:04] I think at the time I was I was actually only an hour in between dentistry and medicine. And at the time as well, I think now there’s a lot more resources available in terms of do a lot more research into things. But when I chose dentistry, you know, it was it was one of those that I perhaps naively thought that you look at the career pathway of a, for example, a doctor, you do your five years and then you’ve got a lot of training before you actually become what you want to become. Whereas I think the thing that attracted me to dentistry was the fact that after the five years of one and the one year training, you’re kind of at the same level as everyone else. So it is more like it’s not a long training pathway and perhaps I’m not looking back thinking that was quite a naive way of looking at it. But you’re young and you don’t really you don’t really know the world or see the world, and you see the world in a very different way now than you do then.

[00:10:53] Did you? You said you came from a big family. Did anyone else in your family become a dentist or doctor?

[00:10:59] No, no. I do have a doctors, optometrists, pharmacists. But I am the only dentist at the moment in my family. But yeah, I think for me it was more like also making my parents proud. It was something that was really kind of important to me. I wanted to to make sure that they felt because because obviously there’s a lot of, I suppose, time and energy parents put into making sure their children aspire to become successful individuals. And for me, that was also part of my motivation to become a dentist. Yeah.

[00:11:35] Then when you decided to go to university, did you not have that feeling of, Hey, I want to get out of this town and see another town?

[00:11:42] Yeah, I think to some extent it was again, my family who kept me here. My dad kind of said to me, Look, I’ll buy you a car and we’ll we’ll get, you know, you can do what you want and try to stay in a way. And I thought, you know what? That doesn’t sound too bad in a way. And I think, you know, for for everyone university is what you make of it. But I enjoyed my time at uni. I made some really, really good friends. I’m not going to lie. It was stressful, but I think it was stressful for everyone. It was dentistry, but it was yeah. It was a it was a difficult journey to become a dentist, but I’m proud of my achievements.

[00:12:21] So you you’re 34 now. That means you qualified something like ten years ago. 11 years ago. Yeah, that sort of thing. And so in that 11 years, you, you’ve been an associate. Have you not thought about practise ownership in that time?

[00:12:37] I have. And there were several occasions where I came close to buying a practise. On one occasion it was the vendor who bailed out on me on the last minute kind of thing. So there’s been a few times, but I think with me personally getting married and having children or the priorities and responsibilities financially started to take over and the practise became a bit lower on priority. It’s something that I still aspire to become a practise owner. It’s something that I am actively looking to do. But it’s like with anything, when more responsibilities take over, you start having other priorities.

[00:13:15] Yeah. By the way, it’s not. It’s not a competition, right? It’s not. It’s not like getting there before this time or losing this many years or whatever. And, you know, our conversation about associates, which I really want to talk about, because I don’t think it’s it’s it’s have enough of a voice out there. It’s interesting because the way it’s set up right now, particularly in the system, I feel your principal is getting most of the gain and the associates getting less of the gain. And then, of course, these days there’s a shortage of associates and, you know, there’s that whole thing. But then the kind of the unwritten contract, the unwritten deal is eventually one day you’ll become a principal and then you can get there. But it kind of completely ignores the fact that there’s loads of dentists who don’t want to be principals. Never, you know, there’s there’s loads of people who want to be a mother and not not own a practise. There’s loads of people who just don’t want to own a business, you know, and so they’re left as being associates for the whole of their career. And if associates get this lesser deal because the contract is one day you’ll be a principal and they’re never going to be a principal. We’ve got let’s not forget the pickiest part of the profession as far as numbers is associates. Tell me tell me what you think about that.

[00:14:35] Yeah. I mean, I think things have actually changed rapidly, I would say, over the last ten or 15 years in terms of that. I think back in the days there was this system of you become an associate, you worked for so many years and you might be offered a partnership or or kind of, you know, you took over the practise of whoever, whoever owned the practise and things. But I think associates themselves are now upskilling, diversifying, and I think the opportunities are huge. There’s a huge potential in terms of income for associates, depending on what type of dentistry they do. And in terms of I think the opportunities are vast and things have changed rapidly in terms of the range of treatments dentists offer. And we’re kind of as you know, we’re in that Instagram kind of generation where even the younger guys who have come across very, very ambitious, very, very different to how perhaps I was taught at dentist, how I was taught dentistry. And I think I think it’s a great time to actually be a dentist because I think the opportunities are huge.

[00:15:40] Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I mean, we’ve had people on this show, you know, I kind of call them super associates who’ve got their own. It’s not their own actual list of patients, but they could walk into any practise and, you know, they’ll be full, full, completely full because of their own social media or whatever. So that that is true. Tell me tell me about your practise when you first qualified. Where did you first work? Who was your first boss?

[00:16:05] I first actually worked for a small corporate, and it was probably one of my most enjoyable practise that I worked at because there was a good range of dentists with a very, very big surgery. I think it was seven or eight surgery practise and there were sort of four or five NHS dentists. And then upstairs there were private dentists and it kind of it was, it was sort of geared towards being able to transition towards doing private dentistry as well as you could pick and choose. So I really enjoyed that first, my first ever job because it was it was a place where there was some mentoring going on, there was some coaching going on, there was some kind of it was just a nice atmosphere. It’s quite a laid back kind of atmosphere as well. The staff were really friendly and yeah, I would say my first job I really, really enjoyed.

[00:16:59] So is that when you say corporate? Was it one guy owned for practises or was it bigger than that?

[00:17:04] Yeah, I mean, I think they’ve got more that probably got about ten or 12 practises now and they still do exist. But yeah.

[00:17:12] Was that all them as well?

[00:17:14] No, no, that was actually in Blackburn so it was quite.

[00:17:17] Ip quite far.

[00:17:18] Yeah. Yeah. So that was that was actually my first job. But I think distance wise and commute wise and I suppose various other things got in the way and then yeah, obviously I decide to, to, to leave.

[00:17:31] How would you say that?

[00:17:34] My first job actually was only. It was a year. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. That was after. I thought we were talking about the first job after that.

[00:17:42] Yeah, but talk about your boss, because I think it’s quite a yeah, your first boss is actually a massive influence.

[00:17:49] Yeah. Yeah. I mean my first actual position was, was actually in Liverpool, it was in a place called Highton. Liverpool. And it’s kind of probably one of the rougher parts of, of Liverpool. So it was kind of a bit of a shock in a way. And I think yeah, it was, it was okay. I felt I learnt more outside of it than I did actually in VTI. But it also really very much depends on I suppose, your trainer as well as the environment as well as different things. But yeah, it was, it was, it was okay but I felt like I learnt more in that other year afterwards.

[00:18:26] Yeah. So and where are you working now? How long have you been there?

[00:18:31] My current practise have been there just under a year.

[00:18:35] Oh, really? Oh, really? Yeah. So where else have you worked apart from these too?

[00:18:40] So, yeah. I mean, I spent a few years for a company called Rabbit and Ray. They’re quite. I know, I know them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, right. Okay. I mean, obviously, I think they’re sold now to dental partners who have now also sold on, from what I understand. But what impressed me about Robert and Ray was they did things properly in terms of policies, procedures. They wanted everything to the the gold standard. And yeah, you know, I it’s definitely a company that I think of fondly. And there was a lot of opportunities in terms of support mechanisms in place and they had the clinical director you could get support from if you need any help with patients and things like that. So yeah, I worked for them for three years and then I’ve worked for an independent practise for for for nearly, nearly five years. Just under five years.

[00:19:28] Was rough and Rea Oldham was up the Bolton I went to the.

[00:19:31] Bolton that was in Burnley. Yeah. The Baltimore is their flagship one and that’s where they have like training days and things like that. Yeah, yeah. Really, really nice the way they did that. But yeah, it was again, it was great because you could network with other dentists, you know, there was a lot of support there in terms of, in terms of developing your dentistry, in terms of developing you. And I think they also had some urgent care kind of contracts as well. So you could earn some additional money by by doing that as well.

[00:20:00] All right. You said, you know, a pretty standard sort of situation as far as the work that you’ve done and the jobs you’ve done. So now you’re a coach. So how did this happen? What was what was the transition?

[00:20:14] So my transition into being a coach actually happened in the last 12 to 18 months, really. And, you know, I think the pandemic’s had a lot of impact on a lot of people. It made me really re-evaluate my own life. I also got COVID and, you know, obviously had some after effects of that as well. And there was issues with regards to pay as well during the pandemic at the practise that I was at and like a lot of associates, you know, I, you know, we were left in limbo and there was no clarity or help or support from people with regards to pay. And I was in a situation where I just recently purchased a house. There’s a lot of financial pressure. I had two children at the time as well. So money was was tight and there was a lot of uncertainty as well. So it was quite kind of there was a lot of if you are a spouse of various things going on at the same time and obviously we all suffer from, I suppose, mental health issues. And I myself, you know, I’m I’m open to it admitting that obviously I’ve suffered from anxiety in the past, stress in the past, burnout and, you know, sought help from various different types of people like therapists. I’ve even been to see a hypnotherapist to help me with with things like that. But when I got coaching, it kind of completely transformed my whole life in a way. And my whole way of thinking and coaching for the first time I felt was fixing things, whereas things like therapy and counselling, I feel like they just papered over the cracks and it was one of those that it was like, if you needed help, you know, or you went through a bit of a tough patch, you might reach out for some help. So I’ve always been kind of into being in tune with with my body and my physical health as well as mental health and making sure that, you know, it’s not kind of, you know, affecting my performance.

[00:22:08] So so you’re saying that the coaching was the first thing that helped you, really helped you move the needle as far as stress and anxiety? Is that what you’re saying?

[00:22:19] Yeah, yeah, definitely. It absolutely changed the way I viewed the world. It transformed.

[00:22:26] And so so was that kind of like the mindset change?

[00:22:31] I think coaching is far more complex because I think the thing is a lot of the other types of therapy focus from the past and delving into the past and what a person really wants when they’re in difficulty or struggling is actually wants to move out of that situation or. Pull themselves out of that situation. And I feel like coaching is a very forward thinking kind of process.

[00:22:56] Forward looking.

[00:22:57] Right forward looking, forward thinking. Forward and sort of drive driving, kind of moving you from a particular place where you are mentally. And I think that’s what you really want rather than just just sort of putting it in a box in a way and hoping it will go away because it’s still there in a way. Whereas, whereas coaching completely transformed my relationships, transformed the way I think, transformed me as a person as well as kind of made me become an entrepreneur in a way, and sort of take risks and sort of really sort of, you know, have a view life in a completely different way. And the way, you know, and even the move towards being on social media was something very new to me in a way. It wasn’t something that the old Mudassar would would do in a way. And that’s what I’m saying, that coaching really, really changed the way I perceive things. And I feel like so much more stronger, so much more resilient, so much more positive, so much more kind of energetic. And I think after going on my coaching journey and being coach and then getting a formal qualification in coaching and meeting people outside dentistry, that was really what really sort of completely changed the way I think, because it sort of showed me that the life of a dentist, I feel like it’s very, very sheltered in a way. We go usually to the same place of work, we do the same thing every single day. And for me, there’s not a lot of learning that goes on. You’re kind of just doing your work and you’re probably staying at the same level. And, you know, I felt like when I met people outside dentistry, the way they think, how they want to help people grow and become better and improve, that’s what coaching does. And I think that’s that’s when it opened my eyes and I thought, you know what? It’s a concept that I suppose I didn’t know existed really in dentistry, and it probably isn’t that widely used yet, but it’s something that I feel like would completely change dentistry if it was used correctly.

[00:25:03] Well. Do you remember a moment where something clicked in your mind? Because it’s not. It’s a very short period of time to go through such a massive change. And was it was it was was it gradual or was it something your coach said or was it. What was.

[00:25:20] It? I think I think it was it was just meeting these different personalities. And these were people who owned multiple businesses who were who were millionaires, who were weighing sort of almost close to retirement, but still worried about their legacies, still worried about wanting to give more. And I thought I’ve never even thought about these things as a dentist. And you probably never do. You just spend your life doing what you what everyone expects you to do, continuing your job, trying to earn money, trying to support your family and trying to enjoy your life. You don’t really think about what is your purpose here? What is actually your dream? Who are you? And these are kind of questions that I find myself asking. Like, you know, you really need to understand your own psychology or your own sort of narrative that you’re telling, know the way you’re talking to yourself and and these things completely sort of, you know, I was completely unaware of it. And I think the conversation I had with these kind of people and then being coached as well. You know, and that’s the bit that I love about coaching, being on this coaching journey with people and then sort of coming to the realisation themselves and having that lightbulb moment. I didn’t think that maybe I could do that and then they go on and do that and do whatever they, you know, that came, that came to the head during that coaching session. For me, the fact that they’ll, they’ll remember that for the rest of their life and that’s something that that really sort of drives me, the fact that you can sort of turn on a switch that was probably flicked they turned off by accident or close. It might be that they’ve lost motivation. It may be that life just completely killed any any growth in them. And I think being able to turn on that switch or being able to get them to a place where they never thought is for me the the amazing reward that you get from coaching.

[00:27:11] Sounds great. So tell me then in a, shall we say in a sentence, you know, what is what is your purpose? Is it that is it spreading this good news?

[00:27:22] My my purpose is to serve people, be able to coach people. But I think my bigger purpose is to sort of show the dental world that coaching has massive benefits. If you get the right coaching and you get the right coach, there’s huge potential for you in terms of growth. And I feel like as a profession, we should really open our eyes to opportunities and possibilities and sort of get away from the doom and gloom. Because I think dentistry is a fantastic career, it’s a fantastic profession and it’s got a limited potential. You can do absolutely anything you want. You’ve got a guaranteed job. There’s probably I don’t think there’s any dentists out there that would be struggling with a job as long as they’ve got the right kind of paperwork. There’s huge demand from patients for work. I just think that how many jobs can you say that you get? All that. And most dentists, I would say earn upwards of 50 K at least. You know, I don’t see many, many kind of jobs out there that can guarantee that kind of lifestyle or that kind of income.

[00:28:36] And yet. We’re getting loads of people wanting to leave the profession.

[00:28:42] Yeah. And that’s the question we ourselves have to question. Why? And what is the reason for this? And how can we stop this? And what things can we put in place to to support these people who are in this predicament, who want to leave the profession? And I think we need to start caring for each other. And that’s that’s for me, that’s that’s part of my purpose. I genuinely care for my profession. I genuinely care for my fellow colleagues. I genuinely want the best for them. And that’s where my, my, my drive comes in terms of helping and wanting to serve as many as many people. But there’s still something even my coach said. Why do you always talk about dentistry? Because I think for me, I’ve gone through struggles within dentistry. I’ve gone through painful periods, I’ve gone through suffering, I’ve gone through mistreatment, I’ve gone through, you know, lots of lots of hardships and come out through the other end still with an upbeat, positive attitude and still think that I’m definitely not the only one. And especially coaching different people, even people who are hugely successful, it’s amazing some of the things that they they sort of highlight. Some are some dentists, you know, really high grossing dentists. They’ve been taking antidepressants since they were 18. They’ve never got that problem fixed, even though they might appear to be hugely successful. And that’s the thing that we need to really think about self care, think about caring for each other, think about what steps we can do to support each of the dentistry itself is physically and psychologically has a lot of health implications, and those are things that really need to be managed before it’s too late.

[00:30:36] So look, I’ve never been properly coached. I mean, I’ve spoken to a few coaches in my time. But is it that when you’re talking to people and you say, what’s your purpose? That mainly most people say a similar thing about connexion and impact and all of that, or is it that people say lots of different things?

[00:30:58] I think, you know, as coaches, especially with the way I’ve been trained, there’s various tools that we use to unlock you. So if I said to you, what’s your purpose? You’d probably, like, spend. I’d be, I’m not sure really an Ari for a long time kind of thing. So, so, so. And that’s the thing. How do you unlock what’s inside a person? To me, one of the things that’s very commonly used amongst coaches or one thing that I use is something called The Wheel of Life, and that’s just like looking at every aspect of your life and you basically rating it. I mean, these are things that you can sort of then have conversations about. So whether it might be your career and your rating as a for whether it might be personal or romance, you might be rating as as as something high or low your financial whereas these are these are basic human needs. We all want and have the same you know, everyone’s probably heard of the Maslow’s hierarchy. We all have the same basic human means, even even even though we’re dentists, we’re still humans, we still, you know, still perform the same way. And that’s the thing. That’s the thing we’ve got to sort of so I use tools to unlock and there’s always something in the closet that someone’s kept hidden from someone or kept away. And that’s the thing about coaching. I think it’s important to have that kind of trust is really, really important, having that non-judgmental, kind of confidential relationship with your coaches and for them to understand that you’re there to get them performing at peak level, you just want the best for them. And anyone who’s been coached by me will vouch that I will leave no stone unturned. I will do absolutely everything to make sure that they succeed in life and make sure that I can I can remove that obstacle, remove those fears, and get them sort of lying, really.

[00:32:56] So but in the training, is there something that says, hey, as you’re asking people about their lives and you said, oh, you find these skeletons in people’s cupboards? When I say skeleton, it’s like something that’s blocking them. Something they’re scared of something. Yeah. Is there something that says, hey, did you suddenly uncover something terrible and now it’s out of your remit and they need to go see a counsellor? Or how does it work?

[00:33:19] Yeah, I mean, sometimes it can, can can be like that. If you think there’s something that you think, for example, somebody’s feeling suicidal, for example, that’s something that a coach would struggle to. You may have to signpost to someone else, but it all depends on on how comfortable you feel. I mean, with myself it’s been varying kind of issues. Some vary from grief, from dealing with grief and the loss of a loved one to, you know, and also my client base is quite varied as well. It can be simple things about whether whether somebody should deserve a pay rise or not or whether we should fund, you know, expenses for this for a director or something. And, you know, you think that and then there’s other people on the decision committee who who perhaps oppose it. And, you know, you’re kind of sort of delving on whether it’s the right thing for the business or not and whether this person might leave. So I think I think I find those kind of situations interesting because it sort of taps into your emotional intelligence and sort of you sort of weighing up the pros and cons and doing a full 360 before you’re making decisions. But yeah, my, my client base is quite varied in terms of so it’s not the dentist, I would say it’s 8020 actually. I think dentists themselves are very hesitant about coaching and there is a lot of stigma attached to mental health or or accepting there’s a problem. And I don’t think there’s a lot out there for dentists to reach out and get help.

[00:34:56] We’re doing a mental health kind of month thing and licencing and talking to dentists. There’s a lot more mental health issues out there than I realised. It’s I don’t know, is it, is it that more people are talking about it now? There always was, but people weren’t talking about it or people were turning to drink or drugs or whatever it was, and now people are talking about it or is there more stress now? I can’t believe there’s more stress now than there was, you know, in the sixties or something.

[00:35:28] I think there is I think we’ve all lived in lived through this pandemic. And pandemic itself has caused psychological trauma, whether that’s directly or indirectly listening to the news, listening to the catastrophizing that goes on in the media. I mean, you know, there’s probably nobody who’s who can say, I’ve not been affected by the pandemic. We all have in some way. And I do think that the mental health sort of is probably a bigger problem than the COVID 19 itself. And I think nowadays, yeah, we’re more open about it and we’re more sort of thing. But I think it’s, it’s, there’s just even even the NHS or generally there’s just not enough help out there for people. And, you know, it’s, it’s a lonely place for, especially for dentists.

[00:36:20] Well, I want you to give me an example. The idea of you said you’ve been through a lot in your career. I want you give me an example of what things you went through, how you were taking them before, and how you would have taken them. You know, now with your sort of new tool kit that you seem to have, what are the things you went through that you know, that really hurt?

[00:36:43] I think I think one things that we find difficult, especially, you know, NHS dentists will definitely know about this, but patients are sort of kicking off or demanding things or being confrontational. I generally, you know, I find that kind of behaviour is very difficult to deal with, especially people who are very demanding and say, you know, I know my rights, I deserve that, you know, I should have all that treatment on a band or a band. Three And those kind of situation would kind of stress you out because you’re worried that they might end up be the point in a complaint going to the NHS. And we all know that when, when a complaint arises or anything like that, you know, the mental, even though even though you know you’ve not done anything wrong, it can have massive health implications on your mental health. Just use worrying and stressing about that patient. And I think previously, you know, a lot of the time you’d worry about things that would never happen even you know, it might it might be that, you know, you struggle with an extraction. You end up having to refer and you’re worried about them getting seen. And even though you know that you did everything you could to prevent that from happening, but these these are common sort of situations that can arise.

[00:37:53] But you spend a lot of time. Worrying and stressing. And the thing is, there’s nobody who will understand that because because it’s all in your head and you’re kind of almost building up that tension and that anxiety until it’s over kind of thing. And I’ve changed myself in, I would say, now where? I don’t fear patients anymore. And in fact, because I think, you know, what coaching teaches you is, you know, where there’s difficulty or suffering leading to that because that’s when you grow. If you can deal with a challenging or difficult patient, you can deal with anyone. And for me, I actually now actively want to see those problematic patients that nobody wants to see, because I think that the main problem is, is that it’s communication. And as long as you’re doing the best for that patient and they’re not making outrageous demands, you can quite easily manage that situation. So I’m far more confident in dealing with with those patients, so much so that I want to deal with those patients because I feel like if I can deal with them, I can deal with anyone.

[00:39:01] How interesting. How interesting. It’s funny because I quite like complaints myself when if someone complains about enlighten, it’s by the way, very rare. But when I get when I get a complaint, I quite like dealing with it, not because, oh, I’m the boss and I want them to know I’m the boss, but for that same reason that, you know, I feel like I can fix it. You know, I’m I want to enjoy fixing it. It’s kind of the the way the way I think about it. But there is a big difference between those two situations, isn’t it? The pre coaching you and the post coaching you where the pre coaching you would catastrophize this thing and run it through your head, worry about possible consequences and the post coaching use is looking at solutions and and sort of almost like treating treating it as fun and I find fun is such a great word. You know the way I play that game with my kids when they don’t want to do something and say, well, whatever you do, we’ll do this thing in any way that you think would be fun. And suddenly they come up with all sorts of solutions, then they to yeah. The way to do that thing. I’m your what you call them coaches. Customers? Yeah. Yeah. Coaches. Your coaches that come to you now? Give me some of the standard things that they’re hitting sort of roadblocks that the the you know in dentistry it would be patient complains of pericarditis play pain upper right quadrant or lower left quadrant for pericarditis what where do they how do they present? Is the question I’m asking.

[00:40:42] Again, are we talking dental dental kind of client, some kind of people who are facing complaints or even GDC investigations and need some support with that aspect of of it, because it’s kind of become overwhelming for them. So much suffering from burnout and mental health and anxiety and so from panic attacks. That’s quite a common kind of situation. Some are relying on antidepressants. And I think that the problem in dentistry, I feel, and even myself used to, is fear. And where there’s fear, there’s no growth that happens because you’re scared. You don’t want to touch your. I mean, I’ve heard clients say I want to reduce my clinical duties because there’s less chance of a complaint or there’s a less chance of this. And you’re thinking, really? Is that is that really? I’m not so sure. Is it about volume or or or is it about performance or is it about you know, there’s some people who will see happily see loads of patients every single day and get no complaints. And there’ll be some that see a lot less and work part time and get loads. You know what I mean? Is it really is it really about how much clinical time? But I think more and more I’ve sort of I used to actually back in the days, I suppose what they call it, Boston Ash. So I used to do loads and loads of Udas every single year and it used to be sometimes six days a week and you know, it was kind of you’re young and you just need to keep going kind of thing. And I think as I’ve got older I’ve kind of realised that too much clinical dentistry can be damaging to your health both mentally and psychologically. So I’ve kind of got to a point where I do part time dentistry, whether that’s four days or three days a week, because I think you kind of, you know, you’re definitely sort of from burnout if you were doing five days.

[00:42:37] For sure. I mean, I’m a big fan of four days a week as a general for everybody in dentistry, but three days a week is better and two days a week is very good, very good. Two days a week. It’s interesting. I’ve done it. I did it myself for a long time where you kind of feel like, I think you need another job, you need, you know, you need a side gig then. Alright, so I had Enlightened, you’ve got this coaching thing, but two days a week of dentistry is interesting because you kind of it’s more like a hobby than a job, but you’re still in it, you know you’re still in it. One day a week’s a disaster. I did. I did that for a long time. And it’s not just not enough. The rhythm isn’t there enough for you to care enough to give.

[00:43:21] In two days, just to some extent can can do that as well. Because I think, like you said, with dentistry, it’s it’s it’s like, you know, you’ve got to practise and you’ve got to do it every single day to get better at it. But if you.

[00:43:32] Do this.

[00:43:33] Week to week.

[00:43:34] And two days, you know, maybe it’s different. People do different things. But like what I would say is, you know, six days a week, it’s it’s all well and good if you never want to progress in your career. Because if you work six days a week, like a lot of people do, by the way, you haven’t got time to think outside of that. What you’re doing. Of course, you know, let’s not generalise. There’s some people who do six days a week and they’ll manage everything else as well. But then this stuff that you’re talking about comes up panic attacks, mental health problems. I mean, one thing I’ll tell you for sure, there would be no enlighten if I was working five days a week as a as an associate. It was that four days a week. And then that other day where I had the chance to think, what do I want to do with my life? Ben, tell me this. Your qualifications. What are they? I mean, you said. You said. Let’s start with these coaches have a bad name. And I agree with you. It’s not it’s not necessarily a bad thing. But you get you get this feeling of, you know, is it real, isn’t it? Are people ripping people off? And then and then you’ve got I see people transformations like yours here, where someone’s just found their purpose in life completely. And that’s worth $1,000,000. Right? So give me give me some understanding of the qualifications and your position on, you know, the way coaches are perceived.

[00:45:05] So yeah, the coaching that I’ve done is in executive coaching and it’s really seven accreditation, which is the highest level approved by the International Coaching Federation. I also, by the way, I’ve not mentioned this, I’m also doing a part time in medical law and ethics, and I’m also undergoing some expert witness training with with someone. So that was an area that I kind of found interesting as well and things. So yeah, so the qualification I’ve got is that I’m doing is the alum seven in executive coaching.

[00:45:38] But yeah, expand on it. What is it.

[00:45:41] So, so basically it’s executive coaching, so it’s actually coaching people in senior positions within an organisation because coaching isn’t just I think people see coaching perhaps what life coaches do, people see coaching in a different sort of have their own perceptions of what coaching is, but coaching is actually the most effective leadership style and it’s what top companies use and it’s what corporates use to make decisions. So my coaching qualification is coaching people in at a senior level. So these are board of directors, these are people who are senior managers, these are people who are making important decisions for the company. And coaching is is actually a philosophy. So it’s about empowering people, motivating people, inspiring people. And it’s all about performance and maximising the potential of a person or an organisation. And that can kind of massively impact various things like productivity, like turnover, like revenue. So I think coaching has a huge place and it’s very, very widely used in the business world.

[00:46:58] And so what is the sort of the rhythm? How many times do I get to see you if I if you’re my coach and how how.

[00:47:06] Does it work? I think, yeah. So so the way I generally do is I always have a complimentary call to kind of obviously open up and sort of find out or reach out to the people that want to have a little chat about what they do. But I also think and I think it’s very important to have a sort of what we call a chemistry meeting. It’s very, very common amongst people who do true coaching because there has to be that chemistry between the coach and the coach. And, you know, there’s certain people that might just put you off straight away. And it might be that either you as a coach feel like, you know what, it’s like a private patient coming in to see you. Can, you know, the ones that have over the top expectations, you’re going to be like, I’m sorry, but I can’t. I don’t I don’t think I can help you or I don’t think I can. So I think it’s always important to have that chemistry meeting and see what the expectations of the coach is, as well as your own limitations and see whether actually can you can you help this person or not? And for me, it’s about being being ethical as well. So I don’t try to sell people something that’s a fantasy in a way, you know, telling them, you know what, I’m going to make you a millionaire because because I just don’t think that that especially people, for example, dentists and people, you know, they’re hugely intelligent people then, you know, they know that there’s no quick way to become a millionaire. It takes time and it takes steps to be put in place. But you’ve got to sort of almost open your door, open that door of opportunities and like yourself, yourself, you realise that, yeah, I needed to sacrifice my dentistry to create your business, but you know that in the longer term that’s what you wanted and you made it happen. But in the short term there was probably time you think, Gosh, I’ve given up my dentistry, I’m not really making the money. I thought with this and I’m sure right at the.

[00:48:58] Start, your.

[00:48:58] Entrepreneur journey, it’s a very, very lonely kind of journey. And those those are the kind of people that I like to help with, you know, the ones that are at the start where they start doubting their own decisions, they start doubting what they’re doing, they start kind of and most people then they end up giving up on their sort of and they’re probably very close to succeeding.

[00:49:19] Yeah. Yeah. Because the line between success and failure is very, very, very thin, you know?

[00:49:24] Yeah, yeah. But you have to fail to learn and be successful. And the most successful people, if you look at them, they’ve failed at so many different businesses before they became successful and failure. And that’s the thing about I would like to also add as part of obviously dentist listening is failure is the best thing because that’s when you’re going to learn. That’s when the best thing that happens to you. And that’s why I look back at some of my difficulties that I alluded to. It was the best thing that happened to me because I wouldn’t be here on this podcast talking to you and sort of hopefully influencing dentistry if I didn’t have all the issues that happen to me. And that’s the amazing thing about life that you can, you know, when you go in. Through difficulties. You know, you’re kind of looking for a quick fix solution. You’re trying to get out of that problem. But what you don’t realise is that problem was the best thing that ever happened to you. And you know, sometimes you get put in a situation that you never expected or wanted, but there’s always a reason for that and there’s always a positive kind of outcome to it. And I think that’s the difficulty of changing your mindset towards that growth mindset and thinking even if even if you feel like that at the moment. Think about the bigger picture. Think about the long game.

[00:50:36] Well, that leads us nicely onto my favourite part of this show, the the darker part of this where you tell us your actually let’s start with your your best day as a dentist, your best moment, and then tell me your darkest day, your biggest errors.

[00:50:58] I enjoy dentistry, I think every single day, to be honest with you. I’ve started to appreciate the people around me, appreciate the patients. I’m grateful to be able to serve those patients. And practising gratefulness is something that again is something new that I’ve learnt and it’s absolutely amazing that I feel honoured and grateful that I can help my patients. And, and I love the I would say 99% of them is please and thank you. Thank you for that. And one thing I want all dentists to think about is that the patients you see, you might have a ten or 15 minute window of that of their life. You don’t know where they’ve been before, what’s going on in their personal life. If you can make that patient feel special during those 15 minutes of even a check-up and even you know that that for them is amazing. And they will talk about that to their family, their friends and everyone. And I think just being able to understand and stand in the shoes of the patient and practise empathy is something a skill in itself. Being able to understand that a lot of the patients, even when they show aggression, the aggression is coming from fear, that the aggression is coming from the fact that they’re perhaps scared to see you most of the time.

[00:52:20] And people behave strangely when, when, when. And you might misinterpret that that aggression as something else. And being able to understand their body language and understand where they’re coming from, I think is a skill in itself. But for me, it’s just being able to to be part of that patient’s journey and then leaving with a smile on their face. And, you know, you might not feel like you’ve done anything. But to me, I spend now a lot more time talking to them, making them feel special. And it might just it might just be something simple by asking them how their family is doing, how are they doing, how are they coping? And maybe especially the elderly, it may be the only person they’ve seen for a whole week sometimes. And those conversations are like gold dust for people. So yeah, I kind of enjoy that aspect of, of dentistry.

[00:53:12] It’s funny, when I stopped being a dentist, that was the piece I missed the most by a long, long way. I certainly didn’t miss the injections and drilling and all of that, but I wasn’t the guy who hated that stuff. I was quite into my, you know, at the time, cutting a lot of veneers and all that. But the bit I missed was that interaction and I was I was in private lens, cheap throughout the whole thing. But in private dentistry you got to have those conversations anyway. And so you go into it with, Oh, what? I’m to, I’m going to be a nice guy and I’m going to be. But then within that, you go from a child who’s trying to be a nice guy because he knows he’s heard. That’s what’s the right thing to do to building real relationships with real people, finding out and what you said there about the you know, it’s that famous thing. I get to do this instead of I’ve got to do this kind of way of looking at your life and gratitude. You still haven’t told me. What’s your hardest day, though? What’s your darkest day? Your biggest mistake? It doesn’t have be the worst, although just just give me some give me some of that people can learn from.

[00:54:16] Something happened very early on in my career. I think it was my first obviously job after it was a it was a patient who wanted to look like Cheryl Cole because back then Cheryl Cole was the big thing and wanted veneers. And I was there a young dentist thinking, you know what, I’ll be a hero and I can I can sort this out. And she brought loads of printouts of what Cheryl Cole looked like. And over the.

[00:54:37] Years, was she anything like Cheryl Cole or.

[00:54:39] Not? No, I don’t think so. But I think she’d need a lot more than in years to look like Cheryl Cole. But.

[00:54:46] But, yeah, yeah.

[00:54:50] So, so, so. Anyway, I was trying to be a hero, and it was just before Christmas. And I thought, you know, Well, get in there, I’m going to do this private case. And the problem was that we put the train videos in. And they looked amazing. And to try and cement. The only problem was they were slightly darker than her other teeth that she’d had whitening done on them. And, you know, in my head, I was like, look, we need to send these back because they’re not right. And you know what? These aren’t right. And the patient spent half an hour or whatever loving them and whatever. And for some silly reason, she then decided, Just put them on. I really love them. And I naively decided, okay, fine, you know what? I’ll show you, show. You really want that? And this was like very early on in career, you know, you don’t know. And I ended up cementing them for her. And then obviously over Christmas, the email comes that I don’t like the way my body is look, because they’re not the right colour and blah, blah, blah and stuff. And in the end we had to sort them out in January, but it was one of those that in hindsight I shouldn’t have been railroaded by the patient in terms of doing that. And it was all right and we sorted it out in the end. But I think now I’m far more sort of cautious about people like that who have perhaps unrealistic expectations, as well as sort of as well as being able to say no, because I think that’s a difficult thing to do, especially when especially when patients can sort of convince you otherwise because you think, you know, this is what they want kind of thing.

[00:56:27] But did it go I mean, did it go wrong beyond that? So you said, okay, I’m going to I’m going to change these veneers for you.

[00:56:33] I think for me, it was the fact that the labs were closed. So it was it was first time, obviously, I’d received an email from a patient saying, you know, I’m not happy and you didn’t know where it was going to go. So there was a good two or three weeks.

[00:56:44] You stressed yourself about that.

[00:56:46] In and back and stressed yourself out. And then obviously we sorted it out in January. But there was you know, there was that kind of yeah, yeah. It was that dramatic email. You know, my teeth are horrible for Christmas, blah, blah, blah and stuff like that. So it was kind of stressful for you because you thought it was time off for you, but it was two weeks of stress and worry to get the patient back in and get that get them sort it kind of thing in Indian. But obviously we saw it out, but it was kind of through that. I kind of learnt that, you know, you don’t need to be a hero and you really need to assess every case on its merit kind of thing.

[00:57:20] I mean, cosmetic dentistry has got that aspect in it, doesn’t it, where it’s opinion based? A lot of it. And I used to tell I used to tell patients that you’re going to go off and even though you love them yourself, someone else is not going to love them. I used to warn them about that and it actually helped a lot because, you know, you’ve got you’ve got in the patient’s head sometimes they’ve saved up for a long time to pay for these things and they’ve put a lot of emphasis on what their life’s going to be like later. And then if a loved one says they’re not great, it’s such a terrible situation for the patient because, you know, I’ve saved up for it. I’ve gone to the dentist, I’ve done all this and someone’s telling me they’re not great. It can cause problems for sure and cause problems for sure. What about your best day? When did you feel like, Wow, I love my job every day.

[00:58:13] I would say every day after after I suppose after being coached and having my coaching and I’m enjoying my dentistry now and I’m kind of, I think being that sort of relaxed mindset and being able to sort of, you know, you’ve done it for a while, you’re kind of confident with doing most things. And now I look forward to the day I enjoy going into work. I enjoy seeing staff, enjoy seeing the patients. I suppose you know, the problem that a lot of dentists as well that they make is they focus on the clinical aspect of it all the time. And you’ve got to kind of almost, you know, you’re thinking about the injection and then you’re thinking about what I’m going to do next and what I’m going to do, what shape I’m going to, you know, prep that tooth or whatever. But the patient isn’t really interested in all that. And I think now I’m far more considerate of that and far more kind of. For me, it’s all about the patient experience. It’s all about making the dentistry as enjoyable for them because having relaxed, happy patients makes you happy and relaxed and you can perform at an optimum level that way as well. But yeah, I’m enjoying my dentistry now.

[00:59:25] And but you do you actually have teams in the NHS to, to have those conversations. And you know, because I remember I used to, I used to think to myself I’m going to have a ten minute conversation before any procedure and the ten minute conversation after any procedure I kind of I was pushing it a bit too far, I think it was, but it worked like hell. It really worked in terms of people would refer patients to me all the time about I’ve heard you’re brilliant. But it was, you know, someone walks in and says, I’ve heard your brilliant. Yeah. I mean, you’ve you’re sold that you’ve already sold whatever you’re going to say to them. And I wasn’t the best. I was a young dentist, you know, not not the best dentist in the world at all. But my previous guest, Na Hutchinson, mentioned and we’ve all come across them. Right. The dentist who not the best dentist in the world, but patients think they’re amazing. I might have been I might have been that. And then the opposite. The dentists are just technically amazing, but they don’t have that patient experience side fixed and dentist patients don’t get it. So patients don’t get it. What do you think?

[01:00:37] Yeah, I think, I think we’re all got a blend of both haven’t we, in terms of, you know, some dentists are really, really good clinically. But then like you said and I think there’s there’s nothing I suppose there’s no hard and fast rule. It depends on on yourself, you know what I mean. You know, again, it depends on your personality. Like, again, this is something that obviously coaching as well teaches you that there’s people who are, for example, of dominant personality or dominant characters and we’ve come across them. And if you if you have those kind of people, for example, on reception, for example, and this is what I’m saying about the importance of having the right people in the right places. If you’ve got a dominant character on reception, the person going to say, You know what, we’ve got no appointment, see you later by kind of thing. You don’t want that kind of person on reception. This is why I’m saying that you’ve got to understand that, whereas having somebody like that as a manager completely perhaps changes the dynamics of things. And that’s why I think even even dentistry, we’re all we’ve all these 16 different types of personalities out there, we’re all very, very different in the way we think and the way we analyse things, the way we see things. So our people, people orientated people, so my task orientated people, so there’s different types of people. It depends on what you see as what you enjoy being and what your philosophy of of dentistry. And I don’t think there’s any hard and fast rule about that. I think everyone should do dentistry the way they the way they enjoy it. But obviously, if it’s a the impact of affecting patient care, then that’s when that that’s when I would argue that obviously that should be your core value or that should be the thing that you put at the centre of of importance.

[01:02:15] Definitely, definitely. But by the way, for anyone who hasn’t seen it, there is a website called 16 personalities dot com and it asks very simple questions and then gives this detailed thing about the kind of person you are. And we our whole team went through that process and it’s so amazing how accurate it is by asking you these very simple things. Now, I actually have anyone who’s applying for a job do that first so that I can just figure out who it is I’m in front of what other little hacks are there in this sort of way.

[01:02:50] I mean, these form part of psychometric testing and these are very, very commonly used. And if you look at the top companies in the world, there’s so many different kind of tests and ways your Thomas pay is is another one what is it people may have heard of Thomas pay just like your personality profiling and obviously we have a work. Kind of sort of trait. And we have a mask, work mask and a home kind of mask, and there’s lots of in-depth kind of testing that you can do. And the surprisingly accurate that’s what I find really, really kind of how did they know that and how do you work out that? And people can be very kind of, you know, sort of they don’t mean anything kind of thing. But I think for me, when I when I’ve had mine done and done other people, it’s surprising how accurate they are and how you can almost predict people’s behaviours, how they’re going to think. And and that’s what I sort of find interesting, how we’re all wired up differently and how we, we think differently and, and different people require different skill sets to sort of connect or engage with them. And I think that’s the important thing to be able to understand that we are all wired differently and we all have different personality traits.

[01:04:07] You should make your life’s work. 16 Dentists dot com ask ask 30 questions and say this is the dentist you are.

[01:04:19] Yeah definitely. That’s something to someone.

[01:04:21] Needs to do that I consider.

[01:04:23] Yeah yeah yeah definitely. That’s something to consider.

[01:04:27] We’re coming to the end. But I want you to discuss about the group. I’m not a fan. I’m not a fan. Self-admitted, we were just talking about as far as the most I know about football is Sir Alex Ferguson and Renaldo. So but but I know people I mean, I’ve got a real problem. My best friends from school every time we meet is because there’s a big football game on and I’m like, Why the hell are we meeting if we’re watching the football? But for them, it’s like so important in that in that sort of minute I sort of try and ask some questions and find out. But tell me, what does football mean to you? Who do you support? What does the group mean to you? I mean, running a group is quite difficult. I run a couple of groups. Is it has it gone off by itself now or do you still need to do work on it?

[01:05:18] I think I instilled the the main contributor to the group.

[01:05:22] Which is. Which is correct. That’s the way it should be, dude.

[01:05:25] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I suppose I’m the leader. I’m the coach and the person who but again, this was part of my coaching journey with my coach because we were trying to unlock what what do you actually love? What do you enjoy, what’s your hobby? And football is one of those things that I have always loved from a very, very young age, playing as well as watching. And Manchester United is, is, is, is my club. And I absolutely love it. And it’s for me, it’s, it gives me that release from everyday life. It gives me that release from, you know, just generally I just love the emotions that that brings you and the excitement and yeah, so, so I wanted to sort of for me it was more a sense of, I’ll be honest, I was a bit of a loner for a long time and I didn’t know many dentists and I didn’t know many people. So I thought myself, How do I talk to people without talking to people? In a way, it’s almost like you’re trying to find a topic that you really enjoy, but you might have something in common. And I think if you randomly message someone, they’re going to be like, Who’s this dude asking me about whatever kind of thing? Yeah. So it was more a sense of like, I want to engage with like minded people who have the same passion or similar passion to me, but I also for me.

[01:06:43] So for me it was a way of engaging with people and engaging with dentists in particular, and sort of being able to, I suppose, build connexions with people. Because when you can relate to people, whether it’s through football or whether it’s some other kind of thing, it’s, it’s, it’s not as as awkward or as kind of thingy. You know, people are happy to talk about football in the group and you might not be talking directly to you. So for me, it was a way to network, a way to engage with dentists and sort of be able to use my passion in a positive way. And, you know, a lot of people comment about my group being inspiring, motivating. I try not to make it like other fan groups where it’s just one fan group calling the other and that the other. And there is some of that that goes on. But I try to show that football can actually unite people, can actually bring people together. You might support a different team, but you’re still humans at the end of the day. And there’s so many football stories that I, I try to share with people just to try and inspire them or motivate them and show that football can be a force of good.

[01:07:50] Yeah. How come you’re not an Oldham fan? Because they weren’t winning when you were when you were a kid.

[01:07:56] Right. In fact, they’re completely out of the league now. Completely rare. Yeah. Yeah. They got completely relegated out of the league this year, but I’ve never really been an older sort of fan or anything. I’ve always I’ve just grown up with Manchester United. I’ve always been a United fan.

[01:08:14] Cause you have. So, listen, what’s your view? It’s interesting what you said about uniting people. Yeah, we’ve got a very divided profession. What’s what’s your view on how we can unite the profession? Because it’s amazing how much we we sort of back bite and and you know you’ve got the different organisations that represent us and even them they’re divided right. You’ve got the media on one side or the back and bap types on the other side. Now this associates kind of British action group thing that’s come along and what would you say? How can we unite? Because I remember as a youngster, I remember just thinking, hey, man, we should all be together. We should all love each other. You know, we’re one profession and all that. But now, now that I’ve been in it a while, it’s just, you know, it doesn’t seem like it’s getting anywhere nearer to United.

[01:09:09] Yeah, I agree with that. And I think it’s becoming more and more divided. In fact, one thing again from my coaching experience and I think generally in life and if you look at every aspect of life or even business or anywhere, the person that matters the most are the leaders. They’re the people at the top that are influencing change at the bottom. And I think in times like this, we need to have strong leadership. We need to have strong leaders that represent the profession as a whole. Once you get strong, influential leaders, you then start seeing changes within a profession, within a business organisation, within any setting. And I think that’s where dentistry I feel really falls down on in terms of strong leadership in these challenging times.

[01:10:04] When you say strong, you mean quality.

[01:10:07] Well, what I mean is, I mean, who is dictating what’s happening within the profession? Which organisation can say that? I represent every single dentist that’s out there, which I don’t see any I don’t see any organisation out there that that represents the best interest of every single dentist out there. And that’s where I think we’re lacking because, because there is no organisation like that, there is no unity, there is no leader, because we’ve all created our own little division, our own little organisations who are all have different agendas. Then how do you get unity? Because you’ve all got different agendas and you’re all creating your own little sub communities. And this is why I feel like either certain organisations like the BDA need to reform and look at, you know, look at their performance during the pandemic and look at things that they did and sort of, you know, that’s what good businesses do. That’s what good leaders do. They reflect back and see, well, did we actually make the right decisions? Did we support, for example, private dentistry during the pandemic? Did we support associates during the pandemic? Are we acting in the best interests in terms of the NHS contract? Who are who are we acting in the best interest of our be conflicted in terms of where we’re being funded from? You know, these are important questions and that’s what coaching does is is ask these kind of questions to sort of really bring about change. And I feel well.

[01:11:37] Before.

[01:11:37] Before we.

[01:11:38] Before we got on this answer, some of those questions go on.

[01:11:41] Which question in particular?

[01:11:44] Are the ones you just asked.

[01:11:46] I mean, these are questions that I feel like me, myself, I’m not in that influential position.

[01:11:52] What’s your opinion? What’s your opinion?

[01:11:54] My opinion is that I think there needs to be an organisation.

[01:11:59] I don’t know whether it’s what’s your position on it? Does the BDA represent private dentists or did they represent private dentists in the pandemic?

[01:12:09] I think that the answer is definitely, most definitely not, because the media is very much nature centred. It’s very much practise owner centred. And even the contracts that they draw for associates are very much in favour of practise owners. Now these, these, these are inequalities. Even though you mentioned at the start there’s more associates than there are practise owners. So so so these inequalities kind of then pan out with, with, with the issues that associates then then face. And these these are these are things that.

[01:12:41] We need to. But also, at the same time, let’s give them their dues. What did they do right?

[01:12:48] And again, I feel like obviously they’re an organisation that, you know.

[01:12:54] Specific pandemic wise, but I mean that 80%, I mean they negotiated that didn’t they. And that’s that saved a bunch of associates, skins as well as principal skins. In the end.

[01:13:06] I don’t know about associates, I don’t think that they didn’t go far enough in terms of their guidance. For example, the NHS we recommend and then the associates that were in trouble, a lot of them, they turned away because they wanted more money from them and they turned them away and those are the people that will never join them again because they know that it was during that tough time that they pretty much threw them under the bus and they’ll argue that they didn’t. But at the end of the day, these were shocking stories where people lost their jobs overnight, where people were really, really mistreated. And those are times when you need organisations like the PGA to step up and say, Hold on, mate, we’re not accepting that kind of behaviour, even though you might be a practitioner or you might have a contract. But these these people have families to support. These people have you know, we’ve we’ve guaranteed your contract. And out of that, you need to show goodwill and be able to pay your associates properly.

[01:14:04] But what did you expect those do you expect the BDA to do?

[01:14:08] To to almost. Well, I would say they can’t legally enforce it, unfortunately, but I feel like they’ve still not been vocal enough. And to be honest with you, if I would say I would go as far as if a practise owner has been demonstrated to not follow NHS advice and pay an associate correctly, then they should no longer be allowed to be part of the BDA. Why should they be part of the BDA? Because you’re going against the principles and the guidance of this organisation that are so called there to represent us in negotiating fair deals. And that’s why that’s why I say that, yeah, you can’t do that. But you can either you can single them out and say, by the way, you know, this many practises didn’t do this or and B, you could, you could say, look, you didn’t follow our guidance. You don’t follow our rules. I’m sorry, but we don’t want you part of our organisation and that’s I know that’s more than enough to show that we’re on your side. Yeah. And that’s, that’s what we wanted as a society. We wanted the BDA to say, look, we can’t, we can’t get you your money, we can’t make them do anything. But what we can do is we’re not going to allow them to be part of our part of our organisation because they’ve not followed our guidance or our advice.

[01:15:22] And you’re right, even though even though practically, you know, someone would have just left the BDA and a story for because of that, that would send a signal out, a stronger signal out that, you know, pay your associates. Right.

[01:15:34] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think that.

[01:15:36] The vast majority did get paid and I know. I know several. You’re not the first to tell me about people who didn’t get paid, because I know several who didn’t get paid as well. And I know some principals who used actually that excuse of it’s advice. It’s not it’s not law.

[01:15:52] I think they did get paid, but I think there was no consensus in terms of how much they should get paid, what they should get paid and things like that. And there’s a will, there’s a way. And I think some practise on is abused abused the system.

[01:16:07] But again, how do we fix this? Because, you know, there is no overarching organisation. Are you suggesting we make one?

[01:16:14] I’m either suggesting that the that somebody like the BDA reform and act more like the BMA. You know if you look at the way the BMA they support their doctors with the with any issues they face including you know it’s almost so even in cases where they’ve had to go to the GMC and they’ve challenged them about cases for doctors and things like that, I don’t see the BDA helping, you know, people who are under investigations. I don’t see the BDA really reaching out for the vulnerable people in our profession. And the vulnerable people, for me is, you know, includes associates include, you know, include people who who need help.

[01:16:54] Yeah. I think part of the reason for it, though, is that, you know, dentists are fiercely independent, you know, practise owners. They that sort of being a small business owner thing means that you are independent. You can make whatever move you want as opposed to doctors, many of them aligned with massive organisations, hospitals, GP practises and so forth. And what that ends up creating is a situation of lots of independent minded people who aren’t united in the same way as doctors are. By the way, I don’t know if we get really get into it is is the BMA as good as we say or.

[01:17:34] I think a lot of, I don’t know, just very, very, very kind of highly of the BMA and they would say that they yeah they would really but I’m not sure you would say the same about dentists talking about the BDA. If you if you did a survey about how many dentists are actually registered with the BDA compared to as a percentage of the whole country, it’d be interesting to see how many dentists are engaging with the BDA or how many dentists also support the BDA in terms of or feel like they’re an organisation that supports them. It would be interesting to to to find out those kind of figures.

[01:18:08] I think whatever the figure is, it’s a declining figure, that’s for sure. Yeah, but it is a shame. I mean I, I’m, I left the BDA years and years and years after I stopped being a dentist. But when I did leave, it was on purpose. It wasn’t, it wasn’t like I didn’t want to pay the subs or something. It was that it was what you said about communication. I just found their communication so, so incorrect. And, you know, when you when you when when you feel like, by the way, I wasn’t even a dentist at the time, but but I can understand why this BPD and things came about because when you feel like the association that’s supposed to be representing you is actually working against you, that’s that’s when you start, that’s when you start creating new organisations, you know, same thing with Chaz’s group, the British Dental Action Group.

[01:19:06] Yeah, yeah.

[01:19:07] It’s interesting, but well we always end it on the same questions. You’re. On your deathbed. Let’s hope you’re very, very old. But at this point, you’ve got your friends and family, your loved ones around you. What are three bits of advice you would leave them?

[01:19:30] Oh, that’s a difficult one. I think, number one, I live your life with no regrets. Make every every moment count and live it as though it’s your last day. And that would be my number one piece of advice. I think the second thing would be to build deep, meaningful relationships, whether that’s with your family, whether that’s with your friends, whether that’s with your colleagues, and build a legacy. You want people to talk about how amazing you are wherever you go. Leave those footprints behind for people to remember you in a in a good way. And I think the third thing would be to serve humanity, something that I feel really, really passionate about. And I think it’s important to always encompass and serve other people, whether that’s through charity work, whether that’s through volunteering, whatever that may be, always encompass that in your life because I feel like there is a sense of the more you help people, the more good it will draw in your life. And I genuinely believe that.

[01:20:38] It’s very achievement. It’s very, very true. How much of your belief system is not dictated by, but informed by your religious side?

[01:20:51] I would describe myself as a somewhat religious. Obviously I’m a muslim and yeah, I would say that I feel like religion itself gives people a moral compass. And all all religions teach people to be good human beings. And that’s why I think religion should play a part in everyone’s life. It doesn’t matter what what religion you you follow, but it teaches you to be a good human being and it teaches you life skills. And those you know, even some of my sort of coaching philosophies and ideas do loosely stem from a religious point of view as well. But I feel that religion has a really, really good purpose because it gives people a purpose for their life, and there is a purpose for why they’re here.

[01:21:45] He’s. And give me. Our final final question. Some fancy dinner party. Three guests. Dead or alive. Who would you want?

[01:22:01] So I think you mentioned two because we discussed two of them anyway, coming from Alex.

[01:22:06] Ferguson.

[01:22:06] Football, sir. Alex Ferguson. Yeah.

[01:22:10] Of course. There’s a manchester United guy. Yeah.

[01:22:13] And as a coach. As a coach as well. Have you read his book?

[01:22:17] Have you read his book?

[01:22:18] Absolutely. Yeah, I’ve read his book. But you also made a documentary on Amazon. That’s really interesting as well about his life, that that is a really good it’s amazing.

[01:22:27] The number of people who mention Alex Ferguson outside of football that, you know, like the business people, people who’ve who’ve made it and got giant organisations and they say, oh Alex Ferguson, it’s made me who, who does not care about football one little bit. I want to read his book and figure out what is it about, is it the way he talks to his team and motivates them and all of that? So give me put it for me in 10 seconds. What is it about him? That’s amazing.

[01:22:54] I think it’s the fact that you could influence some people who basically made Manchester United as a club and being able to influence people who are very average and make them into world class kind of players and just being able to influence and impact a team in the way you did.

[01:23:12] Your second one.

[01:23:13] Ronaldo Yeah, Cristiano Ronaldo. For me, he’s the greatest player ever. But I think for me it’s more his discipline, his desire, his determination to be the best in the world and the sacrifices he makes even now to perform at top level. He’s a he’s a winner. He’s a winner. He’s a determined winner. And he’s somebody who will will absolutely everything into every single game and even is off the pitch kind of habits. And the way he looks after himself, you know, means he can perform even now at the age of 37 is phenomenal player. Definitely. Yeah, you’re kidding. Absolutely. Yeah.

[01:23:57] Wow. Normally they’ve burnt out by 37 on a.

[01:24:01] Exactly. Exactly. But this guy has really looked after himself and doesn’t look out of place at all playing in.

[01:24:07] Is he still does he still top level must be right. Yes or no.

[01:24:11] Please regularly for my money and I it as well.

[01:24:15] So the third guest.

[01:24:18] The third guest maybe somebody had made some people may not have heard of him, but it’s called Abdul Sattar Edhi. He’s a philanthropist who’s passed away actually now, but he created the largest volunteer organisation of ambulances in Pakistan and well in the world, actually. And he’s basically a humanitarian and he basically served the poor and needy and spent his life dedicating himself towards that. And that’s something that I feel really strongly about, people who who sort of do that kind of thing.

[01:24:54] I’ve just I’ve just pulled him up on my other screen. Who found the world’s largest volunteer ambulance network.

[01:25:03] Yeah.

[01:25:03] Yeah. Along with homeless shelters, animal shelters, rehabilitations. And what a great guy. What an interesting guy. I’m going to I’m going to go on a on a Wikipedia. On a Wikipedia on him. You know, I got a Wikipedia sort of mouse hole. Just keep on going. Who was his dad? And that gets me really good. Excellent. But him. Him and Ronaldo and Ferguson and you at a dinner party. It’s going to be a good one. Certainly be interesting with him. He’s got a good beard, but he’s got a good, good. Yeah, well, but it’s been a real pleasure to have you on.

[01:25:40] Yeah. Thank you very much for having me on the show. I think it’s a prestigious thing to actually be on this show. There’s been some there’s been so many great people who’ve been on this show. And for me, I feel really honoured to to be invited on and be able to hopefully change and transform and hopefully have a positive impact. And this may resonate with some people and they may end up thinking, you know what, we do need to change as a profession. We do need things to improve and we do need better leaders who can sort of drive dentistry forward.

[01:26:13] Definitely. But definitely, if someone if someone’s going through a hard time in dentistry and they want to reach out to you, what’s the best way to get to you? Is it on.

[01:26:22] Facebook? Yeah, I’m quite active on Facebook. Obviously, I’ve got a website. It’s very easy to remember. It’s Mudassar Hussain dot com. So my company’s Clarity Coaching International and obviously there’s a form there that they can fill in active on Instagram as well. I’m active on LinkedIn as well. So yeah, if anyone needs any help advice, just want to chat. I’m happy to do that because you know, I’m here to help people and that’s my purpose.

[01:26:51] It’s the one thing that’s come through with with you that I’ve we’ve had a couple of other conversations and and and it’s, you know, people hear coach and they hear, Oh, he’s going to make all my money and all that. And and one thing I’ve noticed with you is you’re a lot less interested in the finance side of dentistry. You’re kind of purpose led is if you were a company, I would say you’re a purpose led company, you know, and purpose led is always the best way. It always is.

[01:27:21] When you enjoy what you do and you love what you do, life becomes easier. And that’s the thing. You’ve got to sort of I think your passion, you know, what you’re passionate about is something that you should really do as well. Follow your passion.

[01:27:32] Absolutely, man. Thank you so much for doing this, buddy.

[01:27:35] Thank you so much for having me on the show.

[01:27:38] 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.

[01:27:54] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, 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 got some value out of it.

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