Month: October 2023

My husband understood addiction. He went away and he learnt about it because he knew what he was seeing was not Sheetal, the mum who didn’t care if she was drunk, the mum who didn’t care because I just passed it on to him. He knew that wasn’t me and so he took some. He took the kids and he said, I’m going to my family’s house and you know, you need to think about rehab or that’s it. So he gave me an ultimatum, rehab or nothing, and I was done.

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

It gives me great pleasure to welcome Sheetal Jain onto the podcast. This this podcast is we’re going to call it a Dental Leaders. But it could have been a mind movers because she tells the story is inspiring and painful at the same time. Drug and substance abuse is definitely more prevalent in doctors and dentists. Mental health issues are more prevalent, suicide is more prevalent, and Sheetal’s been through the worst of it and come out the other side. And she reached out to me to tell her story, which I think is incredibly brave and the right thing to do because, you know, substance abuse can be anything alcohol, even the substance that you secrete when you make a bet. Right? It could be a gambling addict. It could be so many different things. Thank you so much for coming in. Actually. Coming all this way. Welcome.

Thank you, thank you. And I just want to say thank you for being open and willing to talk about an area where it’s not really talked about enough, and I don’t know why. It’s kind of looked down upon. I don’t know why people are scared of it, but that’s something I’m willing to explore and for you to open those doors. It says a lot about you and your character and being curious about it.

I think, you know, Sheetal, we all, all of us have someone in a family or friend situation who might have been through this. And I found that separating the sort of the guilt of it, the looking, looking at it as mental health disease rather than this person has chosen to go down this route, seems to be the best way to sort of get over that stigma that you’re talking about. At the same time, coming out of it is a choice. And so the strange thing is, and I want to get into this with you, that, you know, so many people have friends and family in this situation, and none of what you try and help them with actually tends to go in and people talk about this rock bottom that the person has to get to themselves. What was your what was your first experience with misuse of substances?

Um, I firstly, I don’t know anyone of my circle that has come out and said they’ve had a problem with food, gambling, sex and love, drugs, alcohol, workaholic ism. That’s a big one. No one I know before I went into recovery. No one. So I was alone. I didn’t know one addict was let alone know that I was an addict. Well, so this is all new to me. Wow. And so the work that I have done, um, I found out alcohol wasn’t my first substance. That came on really late, actually, but it was louder, and it it was killing me faster. But for me, the substance that led to unhealthy coping mechanisms was eating. Oh yeah. So it was a disordered eating. So being quite fussy. So now we call it orthorexia and and all these words. You know, I’m going back nearly 35 years. I’m 41. And for me those habits were clearly there around the age of 11. And there was a trauma linked to that. I can accept that. But it was food for me. Really? Yeah.

And was it when your father passed away? Yeah.

Yeah. That’s when the substance used to suppress my feelings or help with my feelings started. But again, with work that I’ve done, um, it really came down to a lot deeper than that. And this is what addiction is about. Addiction is not about the substance. It really is about what it is within you. So the substance is just a symptom. So once that’s cleared out your system, hence why they say rehab a minimum of 4 to 6 weeks because it fogs your brain. You then get to the real stuff like the real stuff which you don’t want to go to. And I didn’t want to go to. I was afraid, and I had no choice but to go there and and what I believe. And this is why I want to start the story with everyone, is everyone I know does have children, or are becoming parents, or have nieces and nephews or work within a field. Their children are involved, and it’s those conditioned children’s beliefs that are hardwired in us. That changed things. That put us on a path that can either go up, stable or just down like it did in my story.

But then, you know, I’ve got kids, you’ve got kids. And I’ve noticed with kids, even with the best of intentions, you sometimes, in fact, particularly with the best of intentions, you set up an unintended consequence that comes out of it. I see it with with staff as well, with the team, you know, you think, well, you know, it’s a great idea. Let’s incentivise them on whatever it is. And then you realise, oh God, because I did that. Now there’s a new behaviour going on that’s only focussed on that or whatever. So have you found that there are lessons that you can gain from it as a parent, in terms of the way you can treat your children? Not to set up these issues 1,000%.

And I mean, I went to my third establishment of last year, facility wise, was a place in South Africa called Oasis, and it wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I was in Thailand and then my eating disorder got found out and they said, alcohol wasn’t your primary, your food is your primary. So I ended up in Oasis and that was a story.

So like a rehab.

It’s a rehab. Yeah. For all for all types of things. And one type of therapy we did there they do. There is something called schema. And I don’t know why something like schema is not so established in the UK, and hence why my psychiatrist sent me to Oasis in South Africa because for some reason America, South Africa, places like that are so much more advanced in this knowledge. So I did schema and it’s single handedly changed my life and it’s changed everyone’s life that I saw that came in and came out of Oasis. And what schema is it’s everyone’s got a schema. You’ve got a schema, I’ve got a schema. The girl next door has got a schema. And it’s basically a your childhood conditioned belief, the way you’ve been brought up. What what scheme are you under and how are you today with that schema? So if I am now aware of what my schema is, unrelenting standards never being good enough, low self esteem, all those kind of things that’s going to feed off no matter what anyone’s going to give me. And so what we start with is just recognising what are the basic, basic children’s needs that we all, as do I forget in a world that we live in that is so stimulating, you know, lots of gadgets and this and that, lots of distractions.

Yeah. You know parents parenting field is like in, in in consumer markets the biggest one because you feed into it. So what I learnt was autonomy, safety ness, nurturing protection and having a voice is all a child needs or that’s bottom line. So now I’m a completely different mother to how I was before I went into Oasis. And I thank God every day because that place was not only a rehab for addiction, it was a school of life. It was how I want to be as a person, as a mother, as a wife, as a sister, as a daughter. And and what I really was grateful for is this I have this one chance with my children, and anyone that knows me knows that my motherhood is the thing I cherish the most. It’s a gift. So everything I’ve learnt I am channelling not only to myself, to my children. So if I get it wrong. Humility. I have to embrace humility because I know what I’m doing now is I’m doing it. Whatever I’m doing with the right intentions.

With any intention.

With any intention, right intention, and to the best of my ability. Now, if it goes AWOL after that, it just requires sustainability, perseverance, patience. And I’m really seeing that with my children because they act out. That’s what children do.

So give me an example of something that your kid would have done, or something that you would have done before you understood schema and how you’ve changed that since.

Wow, that’s a good question. Um, so all my three children are very different. Yeah. So I’ve had to address that. They all have different needs and different ways of expressing and suppressing, and all I, all I’m doing now is I’m listening to them. I’m being the biggest thing I’m doing. I’m being present. I’m giving present energy. I’m not just sitting there next to them. They’re watching TV and on my phone. I’m giving them my energy, whether it’s sitting in silence, but I’m holding their hand. Whether it is, I put my daughter to sleep now, and both of them and I do affirmations to them, and I say to them, you’re safe, you’re lovable, you’re protected. You are enough. I wake up in the morning and I say the same things again. If they have a problem, I stop what I’m doing. And I give them my focus, and I try and tune out the high sensitive volumes that they have. And it’s hard. I’m not I’m not lying to you, but I take my away from the situation. I take myself physically away and I just recenter myself. And then I go back in and I just say, mummy just shouted then and mummy is sorry. Mummy did something that was not right and it wasn’t your fault. And that is what a child needs to hear. Sometimes it’s not their fault and you hear of things when you’re fighting in a room with your wife. Your children are fast asleep, but they can hear something that is true, because what they’re thinking in that bed tucked up is it’s my fault. It’s my fault. Mummy’s crying. It’s my fault. Mummy’s upset. It’s my fault. I got sent to my room, you know, actually, they got sent to their room because mummy reacted irrationally. Really? Because everything is figureoutable in a sentence to a child, you know? So our actions and our reactions and our impulsivity, I’ve had to really look at and it’s hard.

And I think during a period of substance sort of abuse or substance or dependence, the whole what that is, is that thing is number one. Yeah, I mean, it that’s that’s why we call it that. Right? That thing is number one. Yeah. And so is that part of the reason why you’re now present. Because before you were present with the substance or with the, with the behaviour as well.

I mean, I say to I said to my therapist the other day, I said I’m knackered now, I’m tired. Physically tired, like being a mum is tiring. I’m not working at the moment. Yeah. And I said I don’t know how I did it before. I was always perfect. I looked the part, I said the part. I did all the school runs, I did all the activities, I turned up to events. I worked my ass off and I said, I don’t know how I did that. And she goes, well, you were using. That’s how you got through it. You acted out. You acted out an unhealthy ways to keep yourself going. Yeah. And so that’s how I that’s how I thought it was. I didn’t know any different going back to childhood. I didn’t know these feelings are meant to be felt. I didn’t know struggling was a thing. And it was okay to struggle. I didn’t know not being a certain way was okay. I wasn’t uncomfortable with my own skin. I didn’t know who I was, I didn’t love who I was, and so what did I do? I abandoned myself because it was easier to do that. But to the world, I had it all together. And that’s what alcohol, that’s what food disorders, whatnot can give off that impression that you are okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I’m in survival.

In a way. Being able to change your state at will is a massive advantage. Right. So if that’s what alcohol does for someone or if that’s what a cigarette does for someone or whatever it is. Yeah. Being able to say I can at 1113, I can be calm because I’m doing that thing. So have you got now? I guess you’ve been through the 12 step program. Have you got other ways of sort of getting calming yourself down that before you used to use. Yeah. So what did you meditate with?

I mean my, my drug of choice was wine. Oh really? The wine o’clock. The mummy. Oh red.

Wine.

Both. Yeah. It was both and but it did, it did calm me down. Yeah. It did take the edge off me. And you know, I know all my friends and family that I, that I love still do drink. What, how it was different for me is that it worked until it didn’t work. Yeah. And then the dependence started. And I think that’s just what I want to really get the awareness out is that fine line is very fine. Yeah. And if you’re not assured and you’re not healthy, you’re not having those frank conversations with yourself going, is this taking the edge? Is this appeasing what it needs to appease, or do I need more of it? That’s the slippery slope. And so for me it worked. But then it just went further and further and further because the problems just got bigger and bigger and bigger.

So then the I guess like any other situation, by the time you sometimes realise that’s the situation, sometimes you’re a bit too deep in it. So what are the early warning symptoms? Is it as obvious as when it starts affecting other people in your life? And you know, the kind of what we were saying about being present in the room and.

Yeah. Is that it? I guess for me, unfortunately, I’ve only known the one way, which was I went too far and it was rock bottom. The warning signs were all there, God like, they were all. There and I guess it was denial. So if you can get over the denial. So today if I, if I’m connecting with someone that is going, oh, that sounds a little bit true, it sounds a little bit. And that’s what happened to me. You know, as a dentist, you know, you’re asking someone, what’s your what’s your weekly allowance? And I’m going, oh God, I’ve gone over that this week. It’s only day one. I wasn’t willing to look at myself. I wasn’t willing to go, is this habit of mine which it became a habit or this coping mechanism? Is it healthy or have I got have I got a hold of it? Can I just stop it tomorrow? Can I say.

Am I controlling it or is it controlling me? Absolutely. Yeah.

So you know someone very close to me. I don’t want to mention names because there’s boundaries and whatnot. But he looked at his habits. He was able to look at his habits and go, that’s got a bit unhealthy because it’s every day I’m going to try 3 or 4 days, got down 3 or 4 days, then go. You know what? I’m just going to just not have it because I don’t need it. So he was able to look at himself and he wasn’t frightened because he’s okay. He’s not an addict. Now, if you struggle with looking at yourself, if you struggle with well, I don’t need to prove it to anybody, not even to myself. I don’t need to prove it. That’s a warning sign. And if anyone’s looking or hearing this and being sorry to say judgemental or criticising me, I’ll hand that over because it’s not. This is my story. I’m not criticising.

You for falling into this.

Trap or for saying what you just said. This is what I. This is what I also did when someone I saw on TV, like people do, are talking about it. Well, that happened to you. It’s not going to happen to me. They don’t know what they’re talking about. I can have my glass of wine and I’m okay. I still function, I’m a functioning person. I didn’t say functioning alcoholic. I am functioning. So who are you to say I’m drinking too much? I did it, so I’m able to say that was a warning sign for me. Yeah, and I think it’s a warning sign for a lot of people.

And I guess, you know what you were saying about being a perfectionist, a perfectionist? I don’t think those are the words you use that self image thing. Yeah. And I don’t know whether you set that up in your own head to cope with your dad’s passing. And I don’t know, your brother or your sister might have gone into sport or into whatever it was. It’s it’s that kind of person that doesn’t go and question themselves on this sort of thing. Right. And so, so me and Rhona have been trying to figure out why is it that dentists are so stressed and suicidal is that you must have looked at this in detail, right, with doctors and dentists.

And that’s why I’ve like I said to you before, there’s a belonging I feel in this profession and I’m maybe not doing it clinically. There is a duty of care within my fellows and also the well-being of other people. And it just so happens that all of my circle are kind of medics and dentists and pharmacists and whatnot. So I’ve asked myself that question, and I can only talk for my myself is that it came down to that unrelenting standards. I can be something and I’m going to get it. And this pushes me. My ego gets the better of me and we are capable of doing it. And it’s the same thing. We’re capable of doing it until we are not capable of doing it, you know, and we lose ourselves. I think we lose ourselves, our humility. We are just human beings that are trying to do the best that we can, and we’ve chosen a vocation to do the best by others. It’s hard to do that and remain human, and it’s hard to do that without being criticised. And it’s hard to do that by leaving work at work and home at home.

It’s really hard to get those boundaries. Yeah. And it’s the especially in medicine, the frontliners, you know, they’re at it. The capacity is at it. You know working all these hours. It’s proven you need eight ten hours sleep to function. So how do you function if you’re not getting that sleep you get on a hamster wheel and then it stops and it’s not sustainable. So you’re then looking well, do I just ditch my career and have a lifetime change, or do I change something that can keep me at that pace? And unfortunately, as far as I know, it’s only substances that can keep that momentum going other than a lifestyle change or a well-being change or a mindfulness change. But this is easier. Getting a substance is easier. It’s at your disposable on demand and it’s very, very socially acceptable. Yeah. And that’s another field of alcohol being socially acceptable. It’s in freshers week. It’s in toasting. It’s in it’s 5:00. Let’s you know it’s the way we. Live.

I mean, alcohol and dentistry is gigantic, isn’t it? It’s every single event that you go to and. And what are the numbers? Do you know what are the numbers of. I mean, I guess we’ve got this issue of there must be thousands of dentists who rely on alcohol but don’t consider themselves as reliant on alcohol. But but what are the what are the numbers of people who sort of you would call problematic users of substances amongst the medical and dental field? What percentage are we talking?

So it’s hard and this is what almost the government want. They want numbers. They want quantitative data. And you can’t you know there are numbers out there.

And I’m really surprised you said, you know, no one who’s been I know loads of people.

I don’t know anyone.

Older than you.

No, no. But if you do know people, that’s great, because what that shows is that people are talking and they’re sharing you. There’s one thing recognising a behaviour. So yes, obviously now I’m in recovery. There are a lot of people I can see that have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. That’s not for me to say or do anything about, but I can observe it. And that’s what makes me sad, is that there is so much help out there. There is a committee. I don’t know if you know of it. British Dental Doctors Group, which is BDG, and they are. It’s a whole fellowship of people that are suffering with addiction and they need that safe space. So there is a separate entity aside from Na, AA and all of that sort of stuff for dentists and doctors, which is a first. And it’s very it’s.

Kind of like a 12 step programme tailored to medics.

No, no, it’s not a 12 step programme. It’s a safe space, okay? It’s a safe meetings. Meetings. You talk about work, you talk about your struggles and you feel there’s a connection because of the same job. Yeah, there’s an understanding that maybe others don’t understand. Yeah. So there’s a lot of the same agenda on all these things. It is the momentum. It is the pressure. There are the things, you know, people now willingly just say as though it’s normal defensive dentistry I practice defensive dentistry. What is defensive dentistry? Why why are we okay with going to work under attack? Yeah. Why is that okay? Why is it that we have to go to work and go? We doubt everything we do, and we don’t now take love in what we do. We fear what we do. And that fear, that capacity, that fear holds in us. It sets us back from so many things, for sure. And it’s not a way of living. And fear for me was a big thing that led me down to addiction.

So why is it that we haven’t heard of this organisation? What did you call it?

Mta, BDG I should have bought the QR code today. So anyone that is wanting to scan it have a look. But you can google it b.

G.

B double d d g. So British doctors dentist group.

Why is it that we haven’t heard about it? Is it because there’s a stigma associated to it?

Do you know what. If I could give you an answer for that? That is what I would like to know. And I’m sitting here today raising that awareness, but I didn’t know about it until I was in addiction. And there’s PHP professional health professionals. They are there as a first port of call. If someone is struggling with substance abuse. I know that I went to that establishment because I was afraid of my dental career. So a lot of people go in fear of their registration, not because they want to go. So it’s almost like pushed upon them. And then some of these meetings are kind of pushed onto them to get the tick box and the CPD and whatnot. Oh.

So like if they’re at the GDC because of this, the GDC recommends that they go that direction.

Yeah. So there are facilities and PHP and BDG are amazing. The last thing they want you to do is be jobless or report to the GMC. They do everything within their power to be on your side because it is an illness. It’s not a choice. I didn’t wake up one day and say, hey, I’m going to ditch my kids and my husband, my marriage, my family and everything because I’m an addict. Yeah, that sounds good. Let’s let’s be an addict today. You don’t choose to have this illness, and it’s taken me a long time to really believe it’s an illness. And I don’t know if that is what’s stopping medics, medical professionals, dentists to actually think, oh, I’m ill. Yeah, this is a thing, but it’s not looked nicely on, so maybe I can’t say it is.

Well, I mean, it’s strange because as medics, we should be the ones who understand that more than more than everyone else. But you’re right. The stigma is so huge. And, you know, we discuss it on this podcast all the time about errors, mistakes and how we all hide from mistakes. This sort of image almost, that we think our patients think we have to be perfect. Yeah.

It’s the assumptions.

Yeah, but.

It’s not the assumption. It’s it’s what we put on ourselves. Yeah. It comes right back to the schemas. Yeah. Always goes back to childhood. What we believe is the truth. We are hardwired a certain way to get to a certain point that hard wiring.

Whereas whereas I mean, it’s an interesting question, right. If, if I was having an operation and the surgeon was a functioning heroin addict, and the way that he was functioning was by being an amazing surgeon, but a terrible dad or something. Yeah. My operation is going to be better than if my surgeon had never touched drugs in his life, but wasn’t the best surgeon in the world. Yeah, yeah, but there’s no way in hell that surgeon is going to tell me he’s a heroin addict. Yeah, it’s interesting, isn’t it?

That’s the.

Illness.

Yeah, that is the illness.

Itself is.

The denial. Yeah. And that admittance of powerlessness. I am powerlessness, I am powerless to alcohol. Done. I’ve had to surrender. And it’s taken me so many years to get to that point. It took me three rehabs, so many rock bottoms, an attempt of my life, well, losing everything that I had. Everything for me to go. Okay, I surrender. This is it. It’s not obvious. It’s hard to accept. And it’s hard to surrender.

Do you want to go into.

Yeah.

The rock bottoms?

Yeah. If you want me to.

We don’t have to.

So there were so many rock bottoms because I kept going.

Uh huh.

I would never admit defeat, but all I knew is I don’t know what is happening to me. It’s not fair. And you go into victim mode. You go into projection. You’re going to blame. This is never good enough. This is never good enough. This is the way I am. But the the substance was now a problem because it was changing who I was. I was Jekyll and Hyde. I did some very shameful stuff when I was drunk, but I wasn’t when I was at that stage, I was drinking just to stay alive. I was, I needed it, and that’s where my most shameful things happened. And that’s how addiction works. It thrives on shame. Right. Let’s just forget about it. The drink will make it better. That will soothe me. So all those bad habits just keep circulating. But the biggest rock bottom, which is where I got to with my family and my husband just said I can’t do any more, was when I got drunk after five days of being sober at home, where we went on holiday and he said, I can’t do this anymore. And you know, I believe in a higher power because he knew what he was seeing was not evil. So I was a lucky one. The mum who didn’t care if she was drunk. The mum who didn’t care because I just passed it on to him. He knew that wasn’t me and so he took some. He took the kids and he said, I’m going to my family’s house and you know, you need to think about rehab or that’s it. So he gave me an ultimatum, rehab or nothing, and I was done.

So you actually needed that?

I needed that, and I took some medicine. I drank a lot, and I was somehow I don’t quite remember the ins and outs. And it’s something that I guess it’s hard for my family to talk about, and I have to respect that boundary. But I was found on the floor unconscious and I was blue lighted to hospital. And I guess they see this every day overdose drinking. That’s a sad thing. It’s so common now, right? And the next thing I know, I’m in the Priory. But I was not ready. I was in denial. I was I was looking around going, I don’t hide vodka under my pillow. I don’t drink that much in the morning. But I did become that after that, because I left, I got chucked out because I smuggled alcohol in, which, by the way, I thought was normal. But that was okay. It’s their problem. They don’t know what they’re talking about. I thought, I genuinely thought that was okay. Big deal. God, I’m not an alcoholic. And then it just spiralled. And then my husband did what he had to do. He put the kids first and he said, I am here with you, for you 1,000%, but you need to get help. And he just for three months, it was awful. Three months of me being separated from the children and I just went, I spiralled, I spiralled, I spiralled and he just kept strong and just said. The psychiatrist says three months rehab. That’s the start, she thought. And after a summer of just going crazy, being at my wits end, all I wanted was him and all my children. That’s all I wanted. But he was asking me to do something I didn’t know how to do. And so I flew to Thailand and that’s the rehab that I chosen three months away. My my son was only six months old. Wow. I played on that. I played on that massively.

What do you mean?

How can someone ask a mother to leave their son? Oh, because who do you think you are? Yeah. Like what? Mother does that? So the guilt played in.

That was your first rehab.

So now Thailand was my second. Priory was my first.

Okay. Yeah.

Got to Thailand.

Is there something around? By going to rehab, it means you’re admitting that you have a problem.

Funny you say that. The famous.

Song.

Yeah. No it doesn’t. Oh, it comes when you’re ready to surrender. But you’re in a place that you can surrender. That’s what rehab is.

Yeah, but the reason you don’t want to go is because you don’t want to. Oh, the reason why.

Of God? Absolutely. Yeah. It’s like, okay, now I have a problem. But even though I went to the Priory and everyone knew, it still wasn’t enough for me, I was in I was in full denial. Denial. You know, I was manipulative, I was coercive, everyone got it wrong but me. Everyone on that table professionally was wrong. Um, and I guess that’s what people that are intellectual, they overintellectualize it, and they find it hard just to breaking it down and go, yeah, call a spade a spade. Um, but it’s when I got to Oasis, I left Thailand because they said your primary was Ed. I heard I’m not an alcoholic. Food is my problem. Ha, ha. Oh, I drank the whole way to South Africa, South Africa, but I was. I was six weeks sober. I did a couple of weeks before and four weeks sober in in Thailand. And Thailand was easy, by the way. It was easy because alcohol it was it was it was okay to give up. Like I knew that wasn’t that was just the substance, right? It was just symptom. So I was like, yeah, I’ll do this work. I’ll do my life story. I’ll do the the steps. No problem.

So quickly explain to someone what is rehab, what happens. You get there and.

You get there. And the first part is detoxing. Yeah. Getting the substance out of your system. So thank the Lord. I never dabbled in drugs, so alcohol was just my thing. So they detox you slowly from the alcohol by monitoring you, they give you like methadone or something of that to kind of, um, appease the alcohol. And so for me it was librium. So for drug addicts it’s methadone. And so they keep it safe. So it’s a clinically safe area. And then you’re, you’re in a safe space where you can. See what you’re doing and going. It’s placed where you should surrender and it’s a place to go to heal. It’s a place to work out what the hell is going on? That is rehab. That’s a good rehab.

That’s what it’s supposed to be.

That’s what it’s supposed to be. Yeah.

And what, as you imagine it.

Meetings, meetings.

Group therapy, group therapy meetings.

One on one.

Do they put you in a group with people like you in terms of like, is it alcohol and is it young people and is it ladies?

And you’re all the same in that room.

So what, you’ve got a 64 year old heroin addict and yeah, yeah.

I had a roommate that was in her 70s.

And it becomes clear that the issue isn’t the actual chemical.

The line is look for the similarities, not the differences. And so the opposite to addiction is connection. And that’s what rehabs try and work on is the connection. You build connections. You then see someone who’s got exactly the same story as you, because you know what the story is not about the drugs or the alcohol or the eating. The story is or the similarities are. Some traumas happen in your life. It’s not the trauma. It’s not the incident.

How you handle it.

It’s what it did to you. Yeah. It’s struggles, it’s egos, its character defects. It’s all the stuff that we have been conditioned to be because we’ve never really looked at how to live healthily, how to deal with stress, how to deal with an early loss, how to deal with never feeling good enough. You know, having that self affirmation for yourself, having loved for yourself. We all have that in common and that’s the bottom line.

You explained it really well because, you know, look for the similarities, not the differences. But I’ve spoken to people who’ve been to rehab and got out of it that, hey, I’m not so bad because they met all these people who whose stories are more crazy than theirs. But the way you explained it kind of makes it. That’s what.

Happened to me in The.

Priory.

So the Priory wasn’t the right place for me? Yeah. An oasis, it was. It was a it was the account of effects. And my biggest rock bottom was I was comatose on the plane. I didn’t even drink that much. But they say when you pick up, you go back to the same amounts, but your body can’t handle it. Altitude, everything. So it’s not. Although I drank bottles and bottles. Yeah, even a few glasses would have got me to that state. And I was held in a holding cell. And not many people know this story. And so I’m just I’m being vulnerable here and being open and honest and. My husband got in contact with Oasis and again, I believe in this higher power connection. I was saved, I was saved from that holding cell if I was in Jo’burg. No, in fact, I was in Cape Town. I had a little bit of a chance. And then before I got onto the flight to Oasis. So in Plett, my husband on the phone and I was I was in paranoia. I was convinced someone had spiked me like that. That denial was still there. I was, I was shaken, I was full.

Of your tolerance had gone right down.

Everything. I woke up from that going, what? Where? I’m what? What is this like? Look at me. And that was the first time when I arrived at the gates at Oasis, I literally, I literally surrendered. I put my hand up and I said, I’m fully exposed. My eating sword is out there, my alcohol is out there. I’ve lost everything. My dignity, my family, money, everything I’ve lost. This is my last chance. So people who gain recovery treatment is different to recovery. People that are on that path of recovery is though people that have surrendered and said, help me now. I’m willing to do what it takes and trust the process. And the lady called Catherine who who owns Oasis, she just held me and she just said, I’ve got you. You’re safe. We’ve got you. Trust us. And for the first time ever, ever, have I given that control to someone else. And I had. I had to hand it over.

I guess she’d seen it before, right? It was. She recognised what it was.

Yeah, it was done. And that’s what is so good. They they know. They know addiction. They live and breathe it. They are top of their game and what they do. And I had the privilege, the gift that my family were able to afford for me to go there. So this is not just a normal thing. I understand that it was a privilege.

I mean, number one, your husband, the way he handled it, could have gone in any so many different directions that that itself is a massive, massive thing. I owe.

Him everything.

Yeah. Number two, having the resource. What does it cost to go to Oasis? What what are we.

Talking ballpark figure? Um, anything between 13 to 20 grand a month.

And how many months?

One month. I was there for about five.

Oh, really?

But again, my husband.

Where were your kids at this point? Your husband’s family were looking after them.

My husband and his family. Yeah.

And then when you came back, how old were your children at that point?

Ayla was about to turn ten, Amalia was about to turn eight, and my son had just turned one.

You know.

The fact that you’re speaking up is so it’s so brilliant, right? Because you’ve recovered or you are in recovery or whatever. Which which are you? People say it. Recovery. You’re in recovery. You’re you could easily not mention this to anyone ever again and limit the damage that’s been done already and just cover it over, you know, and there’s loads of reasons why you might want to do that. Your your kids may listen to this podcast. It’s, you know, it’s taken for me. Likely. Yeah. Because my kids, my my my kids, you know, all it takes is a Google. Yeah, yeah. Why is it that you’ve chosen to come out with it? Is it because you felt so lonely and you don’t want others to feel that way or.

So recovery for me isn’t just abstinence from alcohol or abstinence from my eating disorder. That’s a big part. But it’s not the only thing. Recovery is emotional sobriety. And what I learned in Oasis, you know, once the alcohol and all that. Step one, step two was out the way I admitted I was powerless to this drug. That’s what I mean. The layers were peeled off. And when I say layers, I was down to the core. And I went places that I didn’t think I would ever get to. They went they they went there and and I guess what I learned in Oasis is vulnerability, the power of vulnerability and the power of authenticity. Now, in order for me to.

Be.

Sober, I have to be authentic. This is me. I’m sheethal. I’m an addict. That is me. Today, just for today. I am Sheetal and I’m an addict. And. I am accountable for certain things that I did, but I am now living a life in a fellowship that I am correcting my wrongs. I’m correcting my character defects. I am learning how to be who I want to be. I’ve got core and moral values that were always there. They were always there, not always been this person. Of course, I just didn’t have the coping mechanisms to deal with some of the stuff that was thrown at me as a child and going forward, because it was just going to multiply these problems. So I’m here today because this is how I’ve got to leave my life. I’ve got to have I have to leave my life with radical honesty, radical acceptance of myself. Be vulnerable when I need to be vulnerable. Feel my feelings. And share. Share the message. Do service. And that’s what makes me wake up in the morning. Go. I’m enough because I’m telling my truth. I’m tired. I’m so tired of hiding. I’m so tired of having this other alter ego. I have a purpose in life now. My main purpose is to be healthy, to be sober, but then also be there for my children. So like you said, of course I’ve thought about it. My children know I went to rehab. They know mommy had a had a problem with wobbly juice. They know. But what they also know is that mommy is calmer now. Mommy’s more fun. Mommy is more present. Mommy is.

There and all.

That. Mommy is just there. Yeah, mommy has capacity to hold them when they are not doing good. I am now capable without reaching for things that alter my mood, my sense of purpose, my actions. I can control that. And so I hope they’re going to be proud of me.

I’m sure they will. Take me back to when? Unfortunately, your father passed away. How did your mom cope? How old were you? How many kids were you?

Um.

There was four of us altogether. And my mum. So she had four children. Um, and it was a sudden heart attack in India. So they both were away and. It’s the hardest thing I think any of us in that family have ever been through. It doesn’t go away. That pain.

How old were you?

I was going to be 11. Um. But you can’t control things. Hey. Yeah. And so what I’ve learned is.

How did your mum cope?

She’s a strong woman. She was broken. Absolutely broken. Which did it for us. She stayed alive for her children and nothing more, nothing less. And that’s the strength in her that I try and pull on every day.

And this sort of perfectionism and what you expected of yourself. And do you do you think it was a direct consequence of of what happened with your dad? Is that was that your coping mechanism that you were going to excel at something, or was your mum pushing you hard on studies or or was that did it predate would that have happened anyway if your dad hadn’t?

What happened? And I’ve got to be careful here because I’ve got to respect each other’s boundaries and privacy. Yeah. And but what I can say is when my father died. And it can be anything, by the way, for anyone else. But it left me with a sense of unsafety ness like I can’t put my finger on even now today. So any time I’m feeling something, I go back to that same day as a little girl where I felt unsafe on shaky ground. And that’s why I say when the basic needs for children safe, protected, nurtures autonomy, being heard and listened to. And I guess you can say some of my child’s basic needs were taken out, out of no control of my mum or my family. They were just taken. And when I tried to alchemise my trauma and I’ve done a bit of eMDR work. Emdr is when they do an instinctive wisdom with the hand to get you back to that traumatic event, so you don’t have the same PTSD reactions. And I remember when doing that, there was a sense of fear and anger and blame and resentment and fear and this loneliness, this real depth of loneliness that no one could understand what I was going through. And as a child, you’re very selfish. It’s just your needs. You don’t think about anyone else’s needs. You think about your needs. And all of a sudden, I have to say that at 11 years old, I was not thinking about my needs. I was thinking about everyone else’s needs. And that is where I I’ve discovered that is where I abandoned myself by not looking at what I sheetal’s needs. Because back then this was not talked about. Mental health was not talked about. You just got on with it like even my friend from high school messaged, did your teachers ever help you? Did we even help? You know, because I didn’t talk about it. The first time I ever really spoke about it was in university. Was at university.

And the the first thing was the eating disorder.

That was my way of controlling. It was my way of controlling these feelings of feeling unsafe, worried anxiety about exams. Where was I going to be in life, who’s going to pay for my everything? And so I had to drive. I had this drive in me to get things done, and without that drive, I wouldn’t be here today. So it in a way it can get you some things, but it can also have a damaging side. So I use that drive. But with that drive I couldn’t cope with those dark days. So I acted out on eating and that gave me that momentarily, that release of anger and fear and. Just the unknown. The things I couldn’t control. Then I went back into the mode of being in control again. And it’s that deep. It’s not about how I looked. It wasn’t about my weight. It wasn’t. It was about control.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, how do I control my feelings? I can’t feel them. I don’t want to do. When I feel my feelings, I go a bit crazy. So let’s just keep it. Let’s just keep that. That tunnel vision.

I mean, I’m.

No expert, but but I mean, they say things like anorexia are all about control, aren’t they? They’re not actually about the way the person looks.

Eating disorders is is a mental illness that is very, very intricate and it’s very prominent. It’s very prevalent, especially eating nowadays. You don’t have to have an eating disorder to have a problem with food. Yeah, it’s it’s a form of acting out. Um, so it’s something that I’m very aware of. And like you said about my children watching this, you know, I’m not in denial that this could happen to my children. It could happen to me. It can happen to anyone. Right? But what keeps me sober, one thing also keeps me sober is if that day ever arose, any challenges of that nature. If I’m sober and only if I’m sober, I will have the tools and the capacity to know what to do in that situation. Otherwise, I’m no use. If I pick up a drink or if I go back to my old ways.

The stigma in I mean, obviously you must have a bunch of family type questions and all that, but I’m interested in dentistry. Did patients ever find out? Did staff find out? Did you worry about that? Did you now come out and tell everyone in dentistry how did it play out.

So this is my first.

Is it big thing.

Yeah. Wow. And I had to think about that. It was a choice I had to make. Is this the platform? That I’m going to choose. But like I said, I’ve made that vow to myself to now live a life of authenticity and humility. And. I was lucky, extremely lucky, that with my practice and my work, that I was already out of that game before the addiction took over because I had my son.

You’d stop practising dentistry.

Already, and I.

Think that that didn’t happen by chance. That was someone looking over me. Like I said, my my high connection saving me from going down that route. But it does happen. And I am fortunate to have say that I have work and my drinking never overlapped. And when the addiction got fully, it was very quick and very succinct and talking about months where it just went from 0 to 100, and those months I was off work. But but yeah.

But every every addict has that situation of almost under the radar. And then I guess you think you’re under the radar, but everyone actually knows. And then where it gets to a point where people find out. And so did you. Was that a it must have been a source of anxiety.

If I’m telling the truth, if I say to people, you know, I’m an addict, I’m in recovery, I’m more shocked about the resistance to talk about it, as opposed to the curiosity to talk about it. And all I can say is the resistance to go, oh, tell me more about that. Is a bit of. If I know too much now, maybe I have to look at myself. And there’s a there’s that line. Do you think.

That’s the reason.

You do your.

Thing? Yeah.

I’m okay. How I.

Am. Yeah.

You know, and I’ve had to accept that. I have to accept that I was willing to look at myself and change myself and do right by wrong, you know, and do the wrong. Sorry. And. So I don’t have the stigma label on my head because I’ve come I’ve done work on that. It’s one of the one things I had to really work on in Oasis is I’m an Asian woman. I’ve got three children, I’m married, I’m in a Punjabi family. Like, what the hell? But this is where I’ve been blessed with people around me that have learned to accept that it is an illness, and she didn’t choose to be like this. There are reasons and red flags that have shown. That’s why I ended up the way I am. And Puneet said something to me the other day. He goes, people are starting to lose respect for you when you are acting out towards the end. And it was like one month of people seeing me in this rage and like saying not very nice things about him. And he goes, that switched as soon as you started, you, you surrendered and you’ve done something about it. Otherwise there’s no substance to you, to your story. If you don’t do as you say, you’re doing. So for me, that appeases that stigma of what other people think about me because. I’m proud of myself. So if people want to judge me, put me in a box. That’s on them. It’s not on me.

You know, as I said in the in the intro, I think you’ve shown a lot of sort of courage to step forward. But now talking to you, it seems like this this is this is you now, this is the new you. It’s feeds you now to talk about it and help others, I guess.

And this is what this is what recovery is about. Like I said, opposite to addiction is connection. And. I daily have to connect with people that understand my struggles. That is my medicine. And if anyone is out there and they resonate even just with one thing I’ve said, you know, being a mom is hard. Doing the right thing always by your children is hard. Being a good wife is hard. Being the best dentist is hard. If anyone can just resonate with anything that I’m saying, just look at it. Be vulnerable about it. Share about it. Talk to someone. Connect with someone and say, hey mom, I’m in a bit of a low day today. I’m feeling this feeling, but I don’t know what it is and I’m acting this way. So where is this all linked? You know? And once you start joining the dots, it’s quite a beautiful thing.

I think as a woman there’s this sort of expectation of perfection from others. And I think particularly from, from the person I sometimes I sit in a cafe and I see a group of women talking to each other, four of them. And it’s like even in that, in that environment, everyone’s super smiling and being super present and being super correct. And, and I often reflect on that and think, you know, why is it and I see it more with women than men in that sense. You know, why? Why is it that we have to put out perfection and what is it costing us to put out perfection? Right.

That’s the thing.

That’s the thing.

That’s the thing.

What is it costing us? And so that’s.

In your case.

It was it was substance abuse, you know. But it could be as bad as that.

It started from that.

What does it cost us like.

But if it’s not substance abuse it’s something else. Right. It’s shame or pain or what are the 100 other things it can be. Yeah. You going forward now? You told me you want to do a some sort of work within dentistry, but you’re not sure exactly what. And you’re looking at different opportunities and so on. But you don’t want to be a dentist anymore, right? I get it. I stopped 14 years ago. Right. Um, if you were the queen of the world, what would be like your dream job now? I mean, how could you? I’d say it would have to be something around increasing connection. Then. She’s a very isolated job. Increasing connection to dentists. You should start a pod. That’s it. You should be. You should have a podcast. But that’s the correct move. Are you.

Hiring me?

You should have your own. We’ll have another.

Like.

What do you think? I mean, I, I, I’ve got a zest for life now that I never had before, and I didn’t know I was living a life of self harm. I mean, I was on a slow suicide and I got to a t junction and I had to choose. Do I just want to do I choose life on life’s terms or do I choose this death? And when I got to that t junction, I’ve done this step work. I’m on this perfection, this idealistic view. Socialness it’s all there. I’m never going to have a big enough voice to stop all of that. And I think it’s just that question to ask. Tell yourself I am enough, dude. Doesn’t matter if I have curly, frizzy hair or if I’ve got straight hair, doesn’t mean I’ve got my nails done or not done. And all those thoughts were coming through my head this morning. Why do they have to rain on me? Why don’t I get my nails done? Like all this stuff? It’s still there, but I can shift it now and go, what? What is the point? I’ve got someone that loves me, I love myself, my children love me. That should be enough. It was never enough before because there was something that was fundamentally missing from me and that was connection.

It was a sense of belonging. It was a sense of authenticity. And day by day I’m finding that. So just for today, I’m okay with my hair being frizzy because I am connecting with you. This is so much more meaningful and value to my life than the way I look, because I’m going to go home and no one cares about what I look like. You know? Only I cared. So I think a lot of it, again, is just asking these questions, you know? And I don’t know if you listen to Gabor, mate, but he did a podcast recently and he was saying that he had this nurse that he knew who looked after the elderly in their care home. And I think 95% or 93%, they they were all high achievers and not one of them said. That the purpose of my life was getting this MD, this PhD, this OB, whatever their value was, the value of their love and the connection they made in their life, and that’s all they wanted at their deathbed. So why are we striving in life to get to the next goalpost when it’s all there, right in front of us? That just needs nurturing. And I genuinely believe that.

You know, a lot of us, you know, go chase after the last, the next car, the next house, the next whatever. And in your rock bottom, all you wanted was to have your kids and your health.

And had it all.

And, you know, that’s all it was all. Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you so, so much. I knew we had to do this in person. This wouldn’t have worked in zoom, had to be in person. And I think we should follow up. We should do more and you should do your own pod 100%. I’m sure of it.

I’m sure it out.

I mean, at the moment it’s my priorities are my recovery and my children. And I think I underestimated how much my children need me and how much I need them. They make me grow as much as watching them grow. They teach me something every day. And but yes, my calling is is connection, you.

Know, because it’s so just talk.

You know, it’s it’ll all be okay. It’ll all be.

Okay.

Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you. And for being so open as well. Thank you so, so much.

Thank you so much for your time. Thank you.

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

Thanks for listening guys. Hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Make sure you tune in for future episodes. Hit subscribe in iTunes or Google Play or whatever platform it is. And you know, we really, really appreciate it. If you would give us a.

Six star rating.

Six star rating, that’s what always leave my Uber driver.

Thanks a lot, guys. Bye.

Hey, can I ask you some questions? Because, you know, I’m. I’m just starting out. I’m young and I don’t know what I’m doing. I really want to do well. I’m like, man, I’m taking you out for lunch. I’ll give you whatever time you need because this is so brave of him to be like, Listen.

I want to do what you’re doing.

I want to be No, I want to. Maybe. But I also I want to listen to people and find out how can I be better, right?

This is Mind Movers. Moving the conversation forward on mental health and optimisation for dental professionals. Your hosts, Rhona Eskander and Payman Langroudi.

Welcome to another episode of Mind Movers. Today we have another one of my friends. I feel like I take over with friends where I’m just very lucky to have surrounded myself with people who have impacted my life in a positive way. We know that the conversations are mainly about mental health, and today I’ve got a really special guest, Arthur Sulkowicz. Did I say it right? Very good. Woohoo! I said it right. So he’s actually a name that’s synonymous with fitness, wellness, high performance coaching in London. Arthur is somebody that really has demonstrated to me the importance of exercise, physical exercise and also mental exercise in a way that he’s harnessed his life to become the person that he is. He’s had a really interesting childhood. He works with some incredible people, has done some amazing business ventures, so really happy and excited to talk to him. Welcome, Arthur. Well, thank you.

For having me.

Great. Amazing. So I’m going to start off, right, because I remember that when we first started talking, we discussed martial arts. Right. So tell us a little bit about your childhood. Where did you grow up? How did martial arts come into your childhood and how did how is it for you today as well?

So I was born in Poland in 1985, so quite a while ago already.

I mean, I’m 1987. Let’s just say that’s not old.

I’m not going to mention.

Um, and I always have been a very active child, so I played a lot of chess because my parents were more into that. They would always push me towards more intellectual pursuits, so it would be more playing chess, reading books, writing. Um, but I was also always very active, so I played a lot of football, a lot of volleyball, so always a lot of activity. And I grew up amongst a lot of boys that would like to get into fights. So and I was never really a fighter. So my parents, I think, decided my dad specifically initially decided to send me to karate classes when I was actually we wanted to when we were when I was six. But back then, because the training was so tough, you couldn’t you had to be eight, so you had to be eight to to to be able to start training. So as soon as I turned almost eight, we cheated a little bit. So when I was still seven, I actually started karate training. And that’s sort of that has set me up for the future in as in it taught me so much, the training, the people, the coaches that I had, the role models that I had there, um, the competitive side of it and you know, the, the discipline, those, those a lot of that.

So, uh, to the point, you know, the first, the first year I didn’t want to go because, you know, you had those one coach, he was a very, he was a very intellectual guy, but also physically very fit, right? So, but he was also very strict. So back then it was just normal. It was 1993, so it was very normal for for a class like this to be very strict. So to give you an example, he would have 120 kids in one in a dojo. That’s what you call it, the place where you train. And it was only him and there was no word spoken. It was silence, right? If you came late to the class, you had to sit down on your knees and just wait for him to allow you in. And before you went in, you’d have to do push ups just to punish you for being late. Now, I’m not saying this is these are the right methods to treat children and, you know, eight year olds. But what it did I’m never late now I I’m I’m always on time. I’m always sort of you know, the discipline of of coming to place on time or being regular with what I do.

And I attribute this exactly to back then because, you know, I taught karate myself. I taught martial arts myself. And it’s very different nowadays. And again, I’m not saying that was the right way, but there is a middle ground between what’s happening now with what was back then, right? And then further down the line, I again, as I said, I would, you know, the first four years, I did not miss a single session. And my mom was very happy because three, four times a week I would be out every evening and out. I mean, by being out. I mean, when I came back home, I was that tired and I would just go to sleep. So she, she had it easy with me. Um, and, you know, so I, I then I competed every other weekend. I would go for karate seminars, workshops, competitions mean a lot of friends. I had my first kiss with a girl. I met the karate in a karate competition. So, you know, it was it was it was a very important part of my life. And up until today, I do a lot of kickboxing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. So I do it frequently, 3 to 5 times a week.

The question is right, discipline. I think that’s the one thing that massively stuck out for me. And I think that you would agree that dentists harness a group of very disciplined individuals. And on the one hand, would you agree? Payman. No, really. But I think discipline, I totally I think discipline. We argue a lot on this, by the way. You’re going to get used to that. I think you have to be disciplined because you have to get the grades that you need to get to get into dental school. When once you’re in dental school, you need to be disciplined to get through your exams, turn up to clinical things. Right? That’s discipline, right? That’s all discipline. You have to also be disciplined, like a lot of red tape is around our career. You have to be disciplined to do your CPD, to do all the like the paperwork around our stuff. I think that requires more discipline than the average person.

Maybe. All right. Yeah.

See one. So I think that that’s a really important thing. Now, I don’t know actually about the younger generation of dentists. Maybe you know better, but I don’t know if that’s sort of that discipline is perhaps less now, you know, because there’s like, I can’t be bothered with this. This is causing me stress. And I think that a lot of times we perceive stress to be a bad thing. But like, as you said, as a child, it’s probably had a positive impact on you. So I don’t think that like putting yourself through situations where you’re expected to turn up and perform as necessarily a bad thing.

Well, I’m interested in what you’re saying, Arthur, that, you know, going on from what Rona is saying, when you say classes today, martial arts classes today don’t have enough discipline, what is it about, you know, how are they how is a class today? Because I recognise the one you’re talking about, the the dojo, the sensei, the respect, the the sort of the the hierarchy. What is it like today in martial arts and, and are you saying the same thing in dentistry. Discipline, Maybe. But go on. Go ahead. Go ahead.

I’ll. Okay. Two things. Two separate things. Number one, the stress, you know, the exposure to stress. There’s an actual term called hormesis. So that’s a dose of stress that’s good for you and that’s going to make you progress. You can overdose. So then stress becomes a bad thing, right? But stress in and of itself, it’s not a bad thing. Right. Because we’re so afraid of it nowadays that we we tend to stress about stress. So as soon as we lose stress, we stress more. And that’s sort of like a like a vicious cycle. To your point, your question again, I’m generalising now, but the the it seems to me that in a lot of them it’s the martial arts classes for children. That’s what I’m referring to. They’re more playful, they’re less, you know, they’re less disciplined. There’s, you know, and there comes a point in every child’s life. And that was back then the same thing, say, 15, 16. When other factors come into play, kids stop doing what they actually what makes them grow. So they go, you know, the gender or the same gender, whatever you’re into, and then alcohol, drugs. So all these things sort of interfere with your progress, whether it’s martial arts or whatever else, right? So your passion when you’re a teenager, I think is so important.

But nowadays it’s just more so. For example, if you give a coming to my classes now, Brazilian jujitsu, you don’t necessarily have to be on time, right? Because there’s always you don’t there’s no punishment. But I still show up on time. And I noticed that with my with my peers at that club that when whoever most of the people that did any type of traditional martial art so were discipline is an actual component that’s being taught they always on time. There are some other people that’s more you know, and it’s also very cultural in a way. So, you know, people treat time more loosely, but I think that component is missing. It’s one kids can do more. You know, they can they they they allow to do more, which is a good thing. But also they’re left to themselves otherwise. Right. So there’s no they just there’s an iPad. There is a phone on the mat. There is. That wasn’t the case. And now, you know, my dream recently in the one I trained in jujitsu, they said, okay, no more phones on the mat for anyone, children, adults. And initially I was, you know, my first reaction. Oh, But then actually, I did a couple of classes. I was like, this is the best thing they could have done.

Because you don’t have you have people interacting with one another, right? So you have people and and you know, we probably will speak about later, but it’s a community of people. Yeah, mostly, mostly men. There are women as well, more and more, which is amazing. But it’s also speaking specifically of men. It’s it’s a safe space where if you speak in the changing room with other with, with our guys, they’re like, this is my meditation. I come here, I don’t see my phone. I can’t think about, you know, whatever spreadsheet or a decision or whatever I have to do. This is where I have to fully focus what I’m doing, because otherwise you’re going to get choked out, right? But you can also you you have that component of aggression which important for men. You can have that component of of camaraderie, friendship, which is also very important. And you have a time away from a screen, the time away from anything else. So that’s so. That’s why I always tell anyone when it comes to children, send your kid to some sort of a martial art class and just research. First. Go and try it out and see if that, you know, because I think that’s the best thing that can happen to your child.

I think I hear as well. I mean, there’s a few key words there. Punishment was one that just came up because you said there’s no sense of consequence. And I think that I mean, I think there’s like good and bad to having consequences and punishment, because I think, again, when I relate it back to dentistry, the fear of getting in trouble, whether it’s with like a governing body or your indemnity or do you know what I mean? That also keeps us accountable to certain actions and decisions, decisions that we make. You’re giving me that look again. You know.

The thing is. The thing is the thing is in dentistry, it’s one of the areas where actually you can you can get away with a hell of a lot. I disagree without anyone finding out the difference between a great dentist and a not so great dentist is what he does when no one’s watching, which is most of the time.

Yeah, but you just made a great point that that’s the difference with anyone who performs in a high level and anyone who sort of is a very average what they do. Right.

But but I.

Think what I’m saying is what my point is. Yeah. That you you could have someone who keeps up with their CPD. Yeah. Who doesn’t get sued because of, you know, he’s good. Good. Charming. Yeah. And yet when he does the work doesn’t doesn’t do it to the highest standard because no one’s paying attention to the work. I mean, in our career, we know this. You. The longer the better job you do, the less money you make. Yeah. Because as you say, this restoration is going to cost you £600. Now, I can spend real, real time, you know, magnification checking everything, or I can not check those things and still get the same £600 and me and you know that that compounds and the thing will fail in five years instead of in 12 years. And the patient will have forgotten all about it. So what I’m saying is one of the aspects of our job of professionalism that you’re alluding to is what you do when no one’s watching.

I hear you. But I think that you’re mistaking that actually for like a sense of consciousness, like on the one hand, with.

Ethics where.

Ethics, right. Because I think in anything that you do like, I think you’re confusing the two because I think, okay, number one, like if you’re a lawyer or you work in finance or you’re in this professional jobs, yes, there is a degree of of us being like, we can’t get in trouble because we will get punished if we do something wrong and get found out, which is what you’re saying, we will get in trouble. So that keeps a lot of people like somewhat in check, right? But also the person that’s like, I want to do this because I’m genuinely, you know, and this is the way I practice dentistry, care about the person in the chair, and I want to make sure that I’m doing my best for them. And that’s the same in kind of anyone that like runs a business. That’s just really ethics to me, you know? But I think that a lot of people now, especially with accountability, because they don’t have anyone to be accountable for apart from themselves sometimes that isn’t a big enough motivator to keep you going, and that’s why people give up much more easily because as you said, as a child growing up, turning up on time because someone will tell you off because you’re not on time. Got you into that habit, you know, and you know, there is that quote that says habit will get you further than than motivation can because that’s the thing. You know the famous book Atomic habits right. I’m sure both of you know it.

I’ve got an important question for you, Arthur based on Rona in dentistry is she’s a very good dentist, very, very, very top dentist. But for me, her her absolute superpower is how she relates to the person. Yeah. Not not the teeth, the person. Yeah. What I’m interested in is when you’re doing personal training and you’re doing personal training for these high, high end, high top level people, what how much of your value add is that mental understanding the person thing? How much of it is technique, nutrition?

I’m going to say and I was going to be controversial, but I think for a personal trainer operating, having clients such as I have, personality is much more important than than your knowledge. And obviously you have to have a note. You have to have the knowledge, right, because you have to bring results, etcetera. But. At the end of the day, people spend. You think about this, right? I have clients who spend five, six hours a week with me and then I see them outside of the hours as well. So they spend a whole lot of time with you. Some of these people don’t like spending time with this much time with even anyone. Anyone. Right. So you have to bring something, something special to the table. I’m not saying I’m special, but value. Value. But also you need to, I think, okay, personality and by personality, personality also mean your level of emotional intelligence. Yeah. And I think I have I have a quite high level of. Yeah, quite high IQ.

And so do you.

Yeah. And that’s why, that’s why I mean to get on so well. Yeah.

But give us an example of that. So you’ve got some guy who’s a CEO of some company. Yeah. And he hasn’t got the motivation to come to the gym or he you double his motivation somehow. I want to interject.

That Arthur actually works with Lulu’s Hertford Street five Hertford Street. Yeah. He’s saying as well. So the type of clients, as you know, there are not necessarily like aesthetically driven just to kind of put in there. So their motivations, which I think is really interesting when we talk about wellness and fitness. So yeah, just for the, you know, for people that don’t know.

Okay, So motivation is, you know, again, it’s more habit than motivation, right? So once people one thing, especially for this type of a client, I would say it’s your meeting. Your meetings are important to you. This is your meeting with yourself. And you don’t even have to say it because, you know, you operate with people who are much smarter than I am. So the level of IQ there is just much higher than mine. Right. But it’s the it’s the ability of of of not taking the cookie cutter approach in which you understand the human being. So to give an example. Right, to understand the and that’s why I’m not that’s what I what I do I call more performance coaching rather than personal training because, you know, you take care of the full body and in that body I see the mind as well, right? So it’s part of your body in the end. I’m not saying I’m a psychologist, I’m doing anything special, but my interest is in more areas rather than just just the aesthetic part of it. Right? Because that’s easy. You can go to a gym in a few places in London. Their sole business model is is to get you fit in three months. If you don’t follow the rules, they fire you. And pretty much I know so many people that went there.

And they relapse.

But there’s no longevity in it. There’s no longevity. There’s no they don’t they they not happy afterwards. Right. And there’s a whole bunch of sort of technicalities we could speak about. But, you know, to me, understanding the person and what they like, what they dislike, and also personal training is a service thing. So your service matters as much as you know it does. People don’t get it. Your your if you work with clients as I, you know the type of clients I work with you general knowledge matters. So you have to read the news, listen to the news. You have to be able to speak about things. Right? So and then you see the there must be some sort of connection to connection. Communication. Right? So there’s not one way to do this. These people don’t like when I tell them what to do. They don’t really like anybody to tell them what to do. Right. And we still have. And but if you make it fun and games, you know, for example, I have a client now, very, very close friend as well, who has become a very close friend. And as I told you before, a business partner, we play chess in between. So in between his rounds, we play chess. And, you know, it’s just something that keeps his mind busy. And, you know, I have someone else who, instead of listening to music, he likes listening to the news or LBC, Right? So it’s it’s.

Such a hater station, by the way, the LBC, you know, just saying. Just saying.

Go on. It’s, you know, but you know, it’s how you keep the person interested. Engaged. Some people hate exercise, though. They hate it actually, but they still do it, which I admire. Right. But so how do you how do you keep people engaged? How do you keep people coming back to you and not anyone else? Right. So it’s it’s building relationships, I think, with the people I have now. I managed you know, I’ve been seeing them for five, six years. So we we and they still getting what they want to get out of it and also keeping it interesting right. So keeping it so that they they don’t get bored because also a lot of playful minds and a lot of people that, you know, have a lot going on in their lives and understanding stress levels as well. So understanding, okay, the accumulation of stress in you, your work, your family, your business, your whatever it might be, and physical exercise and the mental pressure you’re under. Well, you have to understand that level of it as well in order to prescribe the right exercise, Right? So as you can see, exercise is only one thing. It’s not really you know, there’s some of my clients I would do, um, there’s we spoke about it briefly, actually, but there’s, you know, neurogenesis neuroplasticity. You can actually there are ways and. That’s also on me to go to the right place. I go to the US frequently to two conferences just to find out about that stuff also because of the other project.

But I guess also whether he’s having a good day or a bad day. Exactly The same person could be different, different days.

And also you never take things personally. You know, these people and sometimes, you know, initially when you start a nightmare.

In my case, just saying my personal training session. Huh? Are you are you looking at me like I knew that, you know, am I am just because I’m on my phone as well, like checking emails in between. I’m not very present anyway. It’s a tough life. I would.

Probably tell you off for.

This. Yeah, but you’re not.

You’re not her personal coach. No, no, no, no.

I told him to give me a training session. Still waiting for that, but go on, go on.

No, but, you know, I think there is. And that’s why, you know, I’m the person training you perceive is sort of the what’s what’s seen on social media. So solely the physical part of it. Right. So we train, we get ups and that’s it. But think about dentistry. Okay, let’s put let’s let’s take dentistry. What if you were only doing the whatever, you know, so that people look good but the health is not there? Yeah.

Yeah.

There’s a lot of but, but there is a lot of that and interestingly.

That’s what I’m saying. But that’s, that’s what it.

Would be like.

But interestingly, because Payman knows, there was when Facebook was a thing like ten years ago, there was this like fitness dentist, gym group, right? And you’ll be surprised. There are dentists that are really obsessed with the aesthetic aesthetic. And I’m talking about like you’re like, are you on steroids that sort of look like super bulk, super lean and you’re thinking to yourself, and again, it’s quite common. I do think it’s because of the personality types of dentists, the way they put pressure, the perfectionism, etcetera. But like you said, like are you healthy? And I think that that leads me onto my like next question. Like there’s constantly like these fads that you see online and all these things. And I think that the perception that if you’re not ripped, you’re not healthy is really toxic and dangerous because as you said, having a very low body fat percentage for for a woman, for example, is actually really, really bad. Like you’re compromising your fertility, you know, and movement in itself is good for you and you don’t have to be ripped to do that. So how do you like maximise your performance and also help change the narrative that like being this physique is not necessarily the healthiest way to be? And by the way, there’s still a lot of young dentists that aspire to be that kind of like ripped look, which I’m like, No, this is just.

You know, there’s okay, there is this and there is also that other that. If you’re lean, you’re not healthy. So I disagree with both. So if you lean your healthy, that’s one group of people think, oh, you know, it must be super healthy. But if you lean you’re unhealthy. It’s just the other type of narrative you’re seeing now. Right? One thing. Okay, a few things. I’m not even know how many things, but we’ll get there.

We won’t count.

Um, so number one, fitness and health and wellness is a marathon, not a sprint. So you don’t get there in three months, right? So you don’t. You know, people. I get accused sometimes. I’m in a good shape. I got to do some people. Oh, So what are you taking? Like, what’s that? You know, like, are you in testosterone? No, but I have been doing this constantly. Constantly since I started lifting weights when I was 20. I started training when I was seven. Right. So. So it’s the it’s the marathon that you that habits it. Habits. Exactly. And, you know, it’s you just simply cannot get there in three months or a year. Right. You have to and and that’s purely aesthetics. Obviously I got into lifting weights because of aesthetics, because I went to a modelling agency. They were like, you don’t have you know, I was my performance was amazing because I compete in martial arts winning competitions. But I got to the modelling agency, they were like, Oh, you know, you don’t have apps, so we don’t want we don’t want you because for your type you have to. So then I was like, okay, I have to start lifting weights. And that’s what got me into it, right? And I’m not going to. But then once you understand the impact of physical activity on all other areas of your life, right, your confidence levels, your mental health as well, because you can speak to, you know, there’s a a meta review of studies which meaning over 128,000 participants overall.

They they the the the results were that the conclusion was that physical exercise. So I think high intensity to sort of moderate intensity was as effective or more effective than counselling and and medication for anxiety and depression. So if you think about the impact of just physical exercise going to the gym regularly, whatever you do there. Right. And then this impact on your relationships with people, your, your mental health, your relationship with yourself, there’s just such a huge impact. So my point being that once, you know, it’s all good that people want to look good, that there’s nothing wrong about this, Right? That doesn’t mean that they will be healthy. If they get there because Because of the way they get there. Right. But there’s just once you realise how many benefits it has for you and your family, your friends, your the people that you surround yourself with. Then you probably understand the importance of it. Number two is there’s this concept of back casting. The doctor, Peter Attia or Attia, one of the top people in the it’s like.

A longevity.

Person.

Yeah, he’s sort of the most prominent doctor, at least on the social media front on online longevity. He’s, you know, a super smart guy, has a podcast as well. And, you know, anyway, he’s got this concept of back casting. So essentially what he says in terms of your physical health, where do you want to be in the last ten years of your life? Right? So assume you know what 30 something, right? Not disclose here. We’re like 30. Okay. 38 right. I assume I will live, I don’t know, 100 years. That’s punchy being optimistic here. But between 90 and 100, what physical ability do I want to have? Right. So I probably want to be able to get up. I probably want to be able to go to the shop, which probably is not going to happen in six years, but you know, whatever. So I want to be able to the, the, the things that are a daily living activities and you want you don’t want other people to be to have to help you maybe have grandkids and maybe you want to play with them right So in order to achieve that, what do you start what do you have to start putting in place now in order to be there in six years time? And that puts fitness in a much, much different environment and context because then it’s a health context.

It’s not getting ready for my wedding, getting ready for the next Yeah, yeah. Spain trip or whatever. Right. So not, not not many people respond well to it because people don’t want to think about it, right? So it’s sort of like, oh, whatever, we’ll figure it out with some pill is going to come about. But this this is also the way of of putting fitness and performance into a context that’s more important than just the chiselled physique that you’re referring to. And, you know, health to your question. Sorry, I digress. But being in a good shape doesn’t mean you’re healthy. Being in a good shape doesn’t mean you’re unhealthy. It just depends how you got there. And it depends on many other factors, such as, you know, your recovery, your diet, your mental state and etcetera.

So there’s there’s a few well, there’s a few things there because first of all, I think and obviously I’d like to get your view on it, but I think, number one, there’s immense pressure to for people to exercise, especially when they are depressed, because there’s also a group of people and I’m sure we’ve all been there that, you know, you have days where you’re like, I’m actually paralysed with how I feel mentally. The last thing I want to do is pick myself up and go to a gym, often because of habits, even if when I don’t feel like it, I might even go to the gym for like 15 minutes and be like, I’m not feeling it today. But even like the act of going. But I know that I’m in a privileged position because some people are not. And you know, we talk about our bubble, right? The bubble that we live in, because there are some people that have like seven children to feed and like are on benefits and live like a really stressful life, you know, And they’re not like, I’m going to go to the gym because everyone says it’s good for me and they are suffering from all of this sort of awful things that obesity imposes. So I think that there is that challenge and difficulty and it’s all very well saying exercise, don’t take antidepressants. But I think that there’s much bigger mental challenge to even just get up and go to the gym for some people.

Again, just to clarify, I’m not saying, you know, I’m not saying that people shouldn’t, but what I’m saying is that as good or if not as.

Effective.

As effective. Right. So but I understand this. And I you know, I was fortunate enough that my I’ve been doing it for such a long time for myself. I’m speaking subjectively now that, you know, my parents got me to do it and I was an active child and that was my you know, and there’s a difference between siblings. There’s different there differences depending on what they do when they and you know, it is really it That’s why childhood has, you know, in terms of your physicality, it has such a huge impact on who you become later in life. I think totally as a person.

And I think as well, I mean, I don’t know. You’ve got kids, right? Do you know, sometimes think like I need to keep my health in check because I want to be around for them, like the priorities?

Chell Yeah.

Do you see what I mean? And so if you have a bit of a health.

Scare, I’m.

Quite interested in this question though, you know, I know people who, if they don’t do exercise for a couple of days, they become a mess and I can’t complain. It’s a bit like sleep, isn’t it? Like, yeah, if you get eight hours sleep every night, then one hour, one day, one day you get six hours sleep. That day you’re going to feel terrible. Yeah, it’s six hours of sleep every night. It’s this.

Anxiety. It’s. Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s a process, I would say. Yeah, I used to be. Stressy about. Oh, I didn’t work out today. So what’s going to happen now? It’s just I’m about to die and I’m depressed. Obviously I wasn’t, but it’s a process of learning that it’s okay. And it’s also, you know, one bad day is not going to is not a year, it’s not a month, it’s not a week. It’s just one bad day. And it doesn’t have to be a bad day. And sometimes it’s okay to say, listen, I don’t feel like it. I don’t want to. I don’t want to. It’s okay to do. And I think there’s a lot of especially with like tracking devices, for example, that you can track so much stuff, they can always almost get overwhelmed with data. So I have some clients that where the tracking devices, I don’t have them checking the data, I check the data. They don’t see them because I know their personality once they see I used to hate it.

But even like, you know, those machines that like do like the body fat and all that stuff, I used to just have a such big cry because I was like, I’m a failure. This is terrible. I’m technically obese. What am I going to do? Do you know what I mean? And like, I had a a coach that was like obsessed with the tracker and I just found it really mentally like.

But see, that’s why. That’s why you have to that’s why it’s, it’s a personal training should be a highly personalised service in a way that you understand the client and you work with what they like or dislike. Obviously there is always some sort of negotiation room for negotiation where you’re okay. You probably need that, but maybe we do it in a way that you don’t see that we’re doing it. So, you know, the the brain training that I mentioned to you before, I have some people doing it and they don’t they have absolutely zero clue they’re doing it. But because I think they need it because they’re a certain age or whatever, it’s I’m doing it with them so they don’t have to know about this. But it’s the way how you communicate with people. So as a trainer, as a coach, how do you get people to do you think it’s good for them and you program for them, But, you know, they they won’t want to do it. So there is there’s always it’s always all about communication on the standard of the person. Right. And the data, the the or you know, if you don’t go to the gym, you feel you feel guilty or you’re a mess. Two sides of it, though. One is I know that when I exercise or train, you know, I feel much better.

So if I have an issue, you have a problem. I this is my time to switch off. And I obviously, you know, I still need to take care of the right sleep and recovery and other recovery components because that physically it’s not a recovery protocol, but mentally it makes me feel so much better. Whatever. Whatever’s happening in my life is a Break-Up. There’s plenty of jokes, you know? But if there is anything with business, family, health always that, you know, the two hours of physical activity between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. in the evenings, it’s a sacred time. And, you know, for me and I said it, it doesn’t matter how big my business grows, this is going to be my thing. And, you know, I have been very busy with because I’m I’m trying to build stuff. But everyone involved knows that this is something Arthur does every day, right? So it doesn’t have to be, by the way, it doesn’t have to be intense exercise, but some sort of movement movement and some sort of, you know, thing that allows me to process as well. So I have and so many times when it comes to building my Start-Up or working on projects, you know, consulting people and projects, I had my best ideas, training or under the shower. But that’s a different but.

But the, the, you know, the thing you said about some people have six kids and can’t get to the gym or whatever, it’s kind of an easy way out.

Like it’s not an easy way out because we have.

I spent years I spent years, you know, I had a Start-Up as well. I spent years convincing myself I haven’t got time.

To go to the gym. Yeah, but.

This is different. Go on.

Here we are. It turned out to be bullshit excuse. Yeah, Because one day I realised at the time Clinton was the president. Clinton was going, like, running. Running? Yeah. He’s running the whole free world. He’s got time and. Yeah, I’m starting a teeth whitening company and I haven’t got time and you know. You know what I mean?

It’s priorities.

I get it.

It’s just.

I get it. I get.

It. But you’re talking about. You’re talking from a place of privilege. I’m like, the problem that I’m talking.

Clinton No, you isn’t.

Clinton And you. Clinton and you a place of privilege. Because me and Bill, it is.

True. Those my real problem what I’m trying what I’m trying.

To those younger than me is running Canada.

So so the thing is.

Is that he keeps going on about Trudeau by the way. I don’t know what the whole thing is. A Trudeau Basically, the thing that I’m trying to say is, is that we’re talking about a socioeconomic problem is what I’m trying to say. And those people in society, that sector of society that don’t have the privileges. And by the way, I mean.

Basic privilege.

But he’s he’s treating, treating, sorry, helping some of the richest people.

In the world. Totally. Totally.

You’re treating some of the richest people in the world. The Dental pain of a rich person is just as much as a Dental pain of a 100%. But okay, there’s some sort of cumulative effects of not being able to afford and so on. But but you know, there’s my point. I think it’s a universal.

Yeah, I.

Think I think it’s it’s it’s it’s a different problem but it’s, you know, essentially the same problem. It’s a lack of time. Yeah. But also but.

It’s also that mental capacity the.

Educational part of it. Right. Yeah. And also what you’re used to doing, what you’re not used to doing because I would argue for someone who, you know, has got billions in the bank and they are not used to someone’s calling me. They they’re not used to exercising. It’s going to be as difficult to get into the gym or whatever exercise is going to be as that person you’re referring to with six kids. Right. Because on the the brain doesn’t recognise money. It’s like it’s just it’s a lack of time. So I get I get I get your point. But your point is it’s just.

Yeah, go on.

Go on, go on.

I get it now. I’m being told. Go on. No, no, no.

I get. I get where you’re coming from and and I agree with it. Right. Because it’s much harder, much harder for someone who struggles with financial problems and potentially time problems and lots of other problems because they don’t have money to throw money at the problem. Right. So for someone to.

Buy their way out.

Of it, Yeah. So for someone who is, you know, for someone who’s wealthy, they’re like, oh, I’m just going to hire Arthur Fine. You know, totally taken care of. But I agree with you. But I also agree.

With you totally.

Very diplomatic.

And it’s very it’s very it’s very interesting as well, because when we you know, I do a lot of work in the refugee camps. I go every year to Greece to do work with the refugees. This year, I brought one of my best friends, Chrissy Keller, who is a really well known fitness influencer entrepreneur. And because obviously part of it was like we have a skill, like we’re really lucky as medical professionals. We go, we literally treat pain, you know, when we go out there. And that’s amazing. That’s what I love about my job. And so with Chrissy, what she did was, is that we found her like the Women’s Wellness Centre within the refugee camp, and she did a fitness class, you know, and it was so great and we like recorded it and it was so fantastic to see like these women and getting involved and like some of them were like dying at like three squats because they just never done it. But there was a real sense of community and that’s where I’m going on to kind of like the next subject, which I think is really important and something that is really close to my heart. Payman and I have often discussed that the biggest cause of male death under 25 is male suicide. And I think, you know, the problem is growing and growing, and we often talk about the unfairness within society when it comes to women.

And of course, that exists. You know, I’m very much at the forefront of that. But, um, men, boys in particular, you know, you know, you guys saw the shooter, the accident in Croydon, right, with that young boy. Right. And what it screams to me is that young men more and more, do not have role models. They are their support system is going down. They’ve got the likes of Andrew Tate as well, who is the person that they look up to who is spreading toxic masculinity and all that thing. But I want to know your views because one thing that you said was that there was a real sense of community. And I noticed that you were talking about, you know, previously as well when you played sports, like there was male only groups and things like that. And I think, again, that’s another challenging conversation because people are like, why should it only be male and why should it only be female? And everything is the same and we’re all equal and all that kind of thing. But I’d really love to know your views. And as well, when it comes to like male sport, like is it important to have like sexes working together against each other? What kind of community? How could we do better for younger males?

Okay, so broad topic. Um, I actually looked look the numbers up last night and in the UK 150 people a week take their lives, 75% of which are men, which is which actually blew my mind. I was just sitting there like, yes. So and annually I think it’s worldwide. That’s that’s 6000 people a year right. 75% from which are men. And then worldwide, I think it’s around 700,000 people, 700,000 people who decide, I don’t want to live anymore. That’s just you know, it’s actually it’s very scary. Um, when it comes to men, I think what you mentioned earlier, the lack of the right role models or the availability of way too many wrong role models and everyone getting a voice nowadays and everyone, you know, without the, the sense of. Consequence that without a sense of potential punishment, they can voice their opinions, however controversial they are. And then we have people like Andrew Tate spreading, you know, whatever he has been spreading. And it’s funny because he’s getting so much publicity even from us and we dislike him. You know, it’s that’s that’s just the phenomenon on on on the these kind.

Of people on the.

Media nowadays. Right. But and you have a lot of young men and even women I speak with they’re like oh I agree with some of what he says. I’m like, how can you agree with some of what he says? But he also, on the other hand, is just the most sexist and chauvinistic. And, you know, it’s it’s just it blows my mind. Listen.

On that subject, one of my kid’s friends sent me an Andrew Tate thing.

How old is he?

Uh, 18.

That’s and that’s the group.

But it was three hours I listened to in that three hours. He didn’t say anything. Yeah.

Yeah, but you don’t understand. He’s changing the narrative now because his recent accusations. His recent.

It was. It wasn’t. It wasn’t a new thing. But my point is, there’s definitely stuff he says that I wasn’t. I wasn’t massively into it, but. But but I could have been someone else. Could have been. And he didn’t say a single thing in that three hours. That was.

Yeah, maybe. I mean, listen, I don’t listen, we’ve, we’ve.

All listened to the three 32nd things here and, and we all know those are the ones that that trended. And and I’m not saying anything. I mean the name Andrew Tate is now linked to those. Yeah, but there’s plenty of people who’ve listened.

To the long you know one you should we should be taking care of boys. We should be taking care of not only boys, but children in general. Right? So we we should be giving them enough education and understanding of what it is to how, you know. And it’s difficult because the traditional split of roles is no longer does no longer exist, which means that men used to know how to behave. Now we don’t know how to behave anymore because there’s so many suggestions you should be this, You should be that, you should be this, you shouldn’t do this, you shouldn’t. So you sort of feel like, you know, unless you have a strong personality and you you stay strong with your values and aligned with them and you know, then you know who you are. But otherwise, a lot of men, especially young men, I can see that happening. They just don’t know who they should be and they don’t know how they should treat a woman. They don’t know. They have absolutely no idea. You know, they should open the door for her. Should not. Should I? I don’t know. And the.

Rules are changing.

And the rules are changing all the time.

But what do you but what do you think? Like, how can we do better? Like, is it like what kind of role models do they need? And also, I’m going to go, go, go back to the whole community thing that I asked you, you know, and especially when it comes to like male sport and things like that, you know, are those things that help harness. I know that before we’ve had conversations where you were like, jiu jitsu helps me get like in touch with my masculinity, you know, in a different way, you know. You know.

Jujitsu is so martial arts in general. An interesting one because you have you are everyone is tough there. Like you are able to go on the mat and choke all the people. They choke you Obviously it’s not. But it’s a it’s a dangerous sport. But then so that toughness is no longer needed because everyone knows you’re tough. But, you know, it’s a community of people. Maybe, you know, we don’t talk about everything, but you make friends, which then which then makes you talk to them about the topics that maybe you wouldn’t mention with other people. So you have male friends and male friendships are and I’m talking specifically of male, but there are also we also have, you know, we also have ladies only class and then we have mixed classes. It’s a community where where there’s sort of there’s a boundary that’s taken away. So there is no there’s a certain societal limit, I would say that just doesn’t exist there because you sweat together, you fight together, and then you laugh together and you have events together. Right. And that’s one specific community I’m talking about here In my karate days when I was a child, for me, that was everything. You know, I would I would spend weekends with these people. And as I told you, like the first girlfriend I had was from karate. It’s a friendships that stayed for life, friendships that I have up until today. And you know, people that because they were and I’m not saying I’m talking specifically about sport just because that’s my thing but I think there is more there’s more you can do that creates and teaches people how to be how to have certain values, right? And the values are freaking boring. It’s the problem we have nowadays. Everything needs to be exciting, right? It’s the paradox of choice. There’s this really good book called The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz and what he says. The more choice we have, the less happy we are. And that’s true. The more choice.

So true. But this is why we’re all unhappy.

But listen. And then you have these two types of people. I told you about it before, but you have satisfiers, right? So people that make a choice, they’re happy with it. They’re like, Fine, I bought this coffee. Perfect. Then you have people who are maximisers. They’re like, I bought this coffee. You see a coffee shop? That would have been better, right? That’s me. That’s me as well in a lot of. But I think.

Me too. Jesus, We’re all doomed. My.

My theory is. But, you know, if you think of romantic partners nowadays and social media, I mean, we’re opening a whole another Pandora account, but it’s the Pandora box. But, you know, you’re you’re you are always presented with choice. That’s potentially a better choice. Right? So same same with, say, if you relate it to fitness, fitness is boring. You have to do the same thing over and over again, change it up slightly, but you have to be consistent. You have to show up and you have to keep doing this. People don’t want to do it. People don’t want to see it. Right. So and that social media part comes in and like, you know, you have people doing one people bashing all their people for saying stuff. Number one, that’s a trend where you sort of you sort of criticise everyone and everything and they just build that algorithm because of that. I’m not saying that’s a wrong thing, bad thing, do whatever you want, but you know, it creates that sort of where there’s the communication doesn’t, it’s not a conversation, it’s shouting in the and hoping that people listen. And there’s a lot of people listening and self-censorship.

We we talked about this many times, right? Yeah. You’re thinking something. You can’t say it because you’re worried about cancel culture.

We’ve talked you know, we’ve talked about this. But I’ve got a question for both of you. Do you think it is important to for men or young boys to still have a safe space, to have a community which is only men? Do you see what I mean? Because now it’s so frowned upon.

What is frowned.

Upon, I think. Well, I mean, Arthur might agree with me. Maybe it’s because we’re at the forefront of, like, social media. But like anything that doesn’t include women, everything they do, it’s like you’re misogynistic, you’re non-inclusive. This is it. Do you see what I mean? And I see sometimes that stuff going on in dentistry as well. Like I’ve called out, by the way, because there’s been like certain, um, I’ll never forget it. And actually, do you know the story about me? Chris Coachman? Did I ever tell you this story? No. So, Chris Coachman is an amazing dentist within our field, a really good friend of mine, and he was part of this thing, I don’t know, like six years ago called, um, dental stars on Instagram or something. And it was him and like four other men and they were really like promoting it. And I sent the course organiser or whatever like message and I said, This is really great. Topics are really interesting. I’m really sad to see that you don’t have any females on the panel because it was just one of those things. Apparently the message I sent was then screenshot in the group and then just being like ha ha sort of thing.

And Chris Coachman stepped in and he was like, I know Rhona and she has absolutely a point. He was like, Maybe we can consider like a female later on. He was like, No, no, no. You’re going to bring her on right now to the board because we need those female voices. And then I was the only female on there. And I think a lot of people were shocked. But I was like, well, you know, you don’t ask, you don’t get number one. Number two, I thought that that in that instance it was important. But now I think about it as well. And I think about like the way, as I told you, like young men are like, do they not have a safe space to be in? And also, like, what does that look like? Because I think that like, there’s also like toxic masculinity, as you said, like men commit suicide because, you know, they’ve got emotions going on. They feel there’s no way out. But then if you talk about your emotions too much as a man, you’re too soft. So where is it? Do you see what I mean? Where is that sort of like safe space?

First and foremost, you know, good friends. Yeah. And, yeah, good friends. You should have female friends. Male friends. But good friends are so important to men. Yeah, so, so, so important. And whether or not a club has enough women in it, we can talk about. Yeah, there’s been plenty of research that says diversity makes the strongest club, Right? But men. Men like to be around men, just as we would like to be. It’s quite funny, though, you know, Lebanese dinner parties. Yeah. Are very civilised affairs. Men and women come in together and they kind of stay together. Iranian dinner parties immediately at the at the.

At the.

Handing over of your coat, the men go to one side, the women go to the other side. And that’s that’s the way we like it.

Yeah.

You know, it’s certainly men together will have conversations that.

Yeah I think listen I think also it depends what we’re talking about. I think I agree with diversity always, always go first. But I think for men it’s important to have someone as that. It doesn’t have to be a large number, but someone else who can relate to their problems. And obviously, you know, and I don’t I hope that doesn’t sound controversial, you know, but men and women are different. Totally. And we have different we have various views. Right.

So amazing that that’s controversial.

I you know, I don’t like sport, like watching sport very much. Right. Yeah. I’ve been to the odd football game. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I end up watching the crowd more than the game because the crowd is just so amazing. It’s so.

Interesting to.

See like the human kind of like.

Tribalism.

Of it.

You know, there’s research that actually, um, men who watch football, their testosterone levels.

Yeah. Yeah. If they win, right?

Yeah. Yeah. No, but Jenny because, you know, essentially to for testosterone to be secreted, you need components like aggression and physical activity. So if you think of a martial arts, amazing. That’s just the best thing you can do. Right? But to your point, I think it depends what we’re talking about in terms of friendships. Friend, friend groups agree 100%. It’s important to have friends of both sexes. Um, important to have time with your male friends and male only. And because it’s I think it’s it’s and also it’s important to have different friends right so people that you can talk to about anything, right? And then people who have same passions and same hobbies and same, you know, do the same thing because they, they can connect over something. And this is important. I think the lack of the lack of passion is what what what leads to people having problems because they don’t know how to channel it and whether that’s a good way of coping with it or not. I don’t know. I’m not a mental health specialist, But, you know, for me, for example, I know that as I as I mentioned. Earlier that my way of dealing with whatever is going on here is through movement, right? And also talking to people. I’m very fortunate to have have a very close relationship with my parents, have some very close friends who, you know, I’m not my sister as well. We can talk about anything. So I’m very fortunate in that regard. Right. Maybe also because of my upbringing, maybe because my parents were slightly different, Maybe, you know, I don’t know. But I think coming back to your point earlier, you could ask the same question about, okay, girls only and boys only schools, good or bad, because that’s where it starts.

I went to a girls.

Only.

I went to a boys only, but then I insisted on my kids going to a mixed.

And do you think it’s.

Made a difference?

Yeah I.

Have. I don’t have a problem with it. I think it kept me focussed on like exams and stuff. Also, I think that like this is controversial, but also I think that it was really good because I wanted to as a young girl, you don’t really know what’s going on. And I think especially when you make decisions about like getting physical with guys and stuff, I felt like it kept me on the like, good path, if that makes sense, because there were no temptations and like I developed like a real sense of like, understanding boundaries and things like that. Controversial, I know.

But what about.

Like, sisterhood? Did you get that? Because in boys only schools you get this friend camaraderie thing. Whereas when I look at my daughter, the girls are just so horrible.

They are.

Horrible.

I still get it Horrible. I still.

Get it. But this is the thing. Like.

Was there sisterhood also? Or were you like.

No, no.

No, listen. No, not not at all. I’ve always been in sort of like the IT crowd, like as in like the popular crowd. Surprise, surprise. But I’ve also felt I’ve also felt that within that crowd.

There’s a hierarchy.

Know that I’m also really different, as in like there’s parts of me because I’m a very complex person. You know, despite what people say, um, that there’s parts of me that don’t necessarily like resonate and girls around me since I was at school have always been competitive. There’s always been a fight for boys. But again, this goes back and I think like I see this still all the time in society and I’m really interested now I’m going to digress a little bit on like the Primal Instinct. I was listening to the amazing podcast with Dr. Tara Swart. Did you see it in Steven Bartlett? So she’s a neuroscientist. I think I sent ATA, which I’m going to ask him some stuff and she talks about loads of different elements of society. So as you probably know, women, when they spend a lot of time together, their menstrual cycles sink. And the question was asked, who determines who sinks with who? And it’s actually the one that’s the strongest in the tribe. Now I come into work and I’m like, So am I the strongest?

You know what what device, the strength. Then what’s the.

Difference? It’s I.

Don’t know. I guess it’s like the strongest genes, like this is what she was saying. Does it matter? No, is what she was really saying. But anyways, that’s the thing that determines it. And it’s saying that those kind of like there’s certain elements that sink also back in the day, like primal days as well. Um, men. This is really interesting. The strongest man had to spread the seed so he’d impregnate five women at a time and then he’d have to go out and find food or whatever. And the reason why he’d do five at a time is because there might be a chance only 1 or 2 would survive. Does that make sense? So like, there is this really innate.

Sense of sex at dawn?

No, I’d love to read it. Is it good? Does it cover this stuff?

Yeah, well, it’s sex at the dawn of humanity. So. Yeah. So what did the cavemen do for sex?

I think it’s. I think. Do you know? I think. I think it’s really interesting. I’ll let you know how I go on that. But I think it’s interesting because we’ve moved on from like primal stages right now because as we know, like, we could be attracted to someone on the primal level. Again, studies have shown that, like women from the Primal will go for a man with like a t shaped physique, right? Because it’s that strength of sense and protection. Men on a subconscious level will like women with like a waist hip ratio because it’s like childbearing instincts. They can carry a child. You know, one of my friends dumped a girl because he thought her bones weren’t big enough so she couldn’t carry his children. Did you know that? Like, so anyways, so anyways, I digress again there. But the point is, right. I think that there’s been a confusion.

Not only because of that.

But that was one of the reasons he was like, Oh, apparently her bones were too little. So that was like he just thought she couldn’t carry his children anyway. Whatever.

Did he.

Make it up for.

Himself, huh?

Did he make that up for himself?

I think so. But he’s quite like he’s quite like old school like that. He’s definitely about, like, the DNA sort of vibe.

Okay.

I think. Let’s not.

Discuss it. Let’s not discuss. This is another conversation. Anyway, the point is. The point is when. Now, I think also there’s a challenge with mental health, which I want to come on to with you because we’re not in a primal state anymore like you. Might fancy someone because of the way that they look, as in on those like physiques. If they don’t stimulate you or if they can’t provide for you emotionally, or if there are so many other elements now which contribute to our survival, does that make sense? Which I think maybe you disagree, which I think is also impacting men and women as a whole, right? Because we’re so becoming so much more complex. And do men feel that because there was such an onus on those like primal features that now they’re a bit lost? Do you see what I mean? And then how can exercise support them? Because you said at the beginning, quite rightly, it shouldn’t just be about physique, right? But perhaps that was such a big motivating factor because they knew that’s what attracted women being more muscular and broad. Does that make sense? You know, but we’re saying now it’s actually to kind of like stabilise you, make you feel good, etcetera. But how would you say, you know, to young men like this is why you should be exercising and this is the goals that you should achieve?

Um, good question. I think it’s tricky because if you think about young men, I don’t know what we define here as young men, right? Say 18 to 25 or.

Yeah, I mean, I’d say even younger, maybe like 13 to 25.

Okay.

It’s initially nowadays because of what’s going on, every single boy is going to go into exercise either because they do a sport and they want to perform really well, but there’s going to be some type of a an aesthetic goal that’s there, right? So they will want to have abs, they will want to have that physique because they still they are still hormonally growing. Right. I recently someone sent it to me, I’m 38 and they say, oh, men are mature when they’re 43. I was like, okay, I still have five years. Right?

But really.

That’s so don’t know.

I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t know if that’s true.

What about.

Women? Those are friends. Um, I don’t know. I don’t know.

I’m still a child.

And I don’t look.

At a nightmare. Go on, go on.

Yeah, but, you know, it’s so you have to take and. And it’s okay because. But you just have to show them the right way to get there and you have to teach again. I think people should be taught consistency. Consistency in any any level of performance, you can be good at it just by doing usually for a long time or just learning how to do it very well. Right. And it’s no different with fitness physique wise now. Right? But also, if you think about the human body, it’s the brain is part of your body, right? So your heart is part of your body. And these are quite vital parts that will keep you alive for a very long time. I’ll keep you attractive to people if we if we refer to that. But also it’s a super important part to get you to, to to get you where you want to be, right. Whether that’s physical or mental level. So it’s it’s hard to speak with people because and you can you can tell, you know, sometimes whenever I see someone new and people ask me and interestingly, actually today I will digress a little bit, but speaking of kickboxing and jujitsu, which I do now, there’s one of the like really young boys, like he’s 18 and he sees that I’m building a business, I’m doing this and that, you know, on social media, he he reached out to me. He was like, Hey, can I ask you some questions? Because, you know, I’m I’m just starting out. I’m young and I don’t know what I’m doing. I really want to do well. I’m like, Man, I’m taking you out for lunch. I’ll give you whatever time you need because this is so brave of him to be like, Listen.

I want to do what you’re doing.

I want to be know. I want to maybe. But I also I want to listen to people and find out how can I be better, right? Whatever, whatever he wants to do. But I’m so up for this because I have been supported by by various people. And I think whatever support you can give, you should be you should be given the support, especially if you think that someone needs that support or they have the potential, you know, whatever that might be. But I think it’s it’s it’s always a very subjective and personalised conversation that should happen because people react differently to they have different motivators, right? So different. So it’s really hard to answer this question actually. So generally speaking.

Yeah, Yeah.

I think what you said is, is interesting because you know, t shaped t shaped body is what you’re saying sort of your program to, to be into.

But primarily.

Apparently. Yeah but but then now now we’re getting confused with other things you’re saying sort of thing.

Well no it’s not that but I think like survival then was completely different to survival now is what I see because as you know, like there are women that are like they value more like security and safety, financial like wallet. Lol. So. So, um.

So yeah, I get it. You know, good business.

Idea. Yeah.

And also like. And also for men. For men, you know, you’ll find plenty of men that don’t necessarily like women that have hips. Do you know what I mean? Or whatever it is. So like there’s a lot of different elements.

I think. You know what.

I think it’s still. That’s the attraction part, the physical attraction part. It’s still going to be quite primal, I think.

But this is the thing, like on according to this podcast, the Primal was very much, as I said, like so women with like small hip waist hip ratio, like, like men are going to be like, Oh, she can carry children. Do you know what I mean? That kind of thing, on that very primal level. But it’s super interesting. But I would argue and say that now it’s changed, right? Because you might find men that like super skinny, straight girls. Do you know what I mean? You know, like he’s like me.

No, but listen, the Iranians.

They love their Eastern Europeans. I think.

I think I think it’s very, very general. It’s a general statement. I think that the the sort of primal instincts will still have an impact as to who we are attracted to. Right. Whether or not you have a type or whatever. And you you probably could go very Freudian here and like discuss a lot.

Mom, Mom will come into it.

And I’m.

Interested. You’ve got you know, you’re clearly mentally quite nuanced, right? You think you’re thinking deeply. You’re you’re when we spoke before we started, you’re definitely an entrepreneur, you know, like, you know, you could call me an entrepreneur, but I don’t think I’m wired that way. But listening to you, your story from Poland to Austria to the businesses you started and the businesses you’re starting now, I feel like you’re you’re definitely an entrepreneur and how these things have now, it’s possible now to be in the fitness space and and someone who’s intelligent. Whereas back in the day.

Yeah, you definitely.

Have a Johnny Bravo effect. Sorry. Like my parents.

My parents were definitely was like a joke. Yeah, it’s a joke.

And there was a scientist.

You have that.

Stereotype, you do have that stereotype. And I think that, like, as I said, it’s really important because people think like you couldn’t be one or another. And I think I think people still have that stereotype. And like if they if they see someone also that’s physically in really good shape, like, well, he has he’s a personal trainer, there’s time to just be in the gym all day.

I play a very I always experiment with it and I enjoy it. Actually, I used to get very insecure about this, right, by the way, because also I moved here like I didn’t I, you know, I, I one, I just, you know, I lived all over the world modelling. I was a journalist for a while and writing. So, you know, I have absolutely no issue talking to people. I can go and talk to anyone. I can travel by myself. I always find new people that I that eventually become friends, right? But what I do now, sometimes, you know, there is a lot more strings to my bow. But what I always people when people ask me what I do, I’m a personal trainer. But the reaction of that person, you kind of can see, okay, we’re not going to get along because they disregard you straight away, especially in certain, you know, certain cultures, cultures.

I have to say, like because my parents are amazing, they would love you and get on with you really well. But obviously there’s like a my mom definitely being Lebanese, you know what I mean? And like even like my dad, when my sister loved art, he was like, to be an artist. For what? You know what I mean? You want to be poor, you know? But I think that’s a cultural thing. They didn’t get it.

They’d want a PhD in it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I get, I get. No, no, no. But I’m probably going to get smashed for this. Right. But I got so much I don’t know people. So, so there’s so many assumptions based upon the way I look. You know, I have been a model and I’m, you know, probably quite a good looking guy judging by made money from it. So, you know, there must be something to it. But the amount of times that people judge me as a as a guy, just based upon my just my looks, same.

With me all.

The time, appearance all the time. And you know, if you think if you think about it like and that makes me understand women a little bit more because that sounds funny, you know, but it’s and I’m probably going to get a lot of hate for this as well but.

Cancelled.

But it’s it’s it’s it sucks it sucks to be based to be to be judged upon based based based upon you look yeah. And because you know you have that and you know this is why I like talking to people and getting to know people better because there’s I believe there’s so much more to me. And and I, you know, I, I, I’m interested in so much stuff and you know, I university degree etcetera, you know, started a second one whatever but that’s just not you don’t you shouldn’t be you shouldn’t have to and that’s never going to be the case. But you shouldn’t have to prove people, oh, I’m not that stupid. Right? So I’m not stupid. I’m not as stupid as I look. I was I.

Was guilty of that. Siloing people into physical and mental. Yeah. And the point you made about the mental being. The physical, you know. Absolutely right.

All the way it to me.

No, all the all.

Did you did you did all the.

Way. No all the all the way until Joe Rogan was the one that made me realise, wow, he’s a super clever guy. That’s super physical guy.

Like, you’re making a great point because this is the role model boys should have. Right in terms of men that they should understand that physicality, you know, and and the mental strength and the intelligence. They don’t they have to go. They should go together, really? Because they it’s there’s no you know, there’s there’s is it I think from I’m going to I’m going to quote now from Conan the Barbarian. I think he says this is a the this is a task for men with skinny arms, for old men with skinny arms. So that’s sort of the separation between I’m so strong, I’m going to kill everyone and, you know, sleep with a woman. But you make the the important decisions. But that’s just not the case. It’s just there is a way of connecting, being in good health, being in a good shape as well, and and and being interested in a lot of. Things that would normally be assigned to someone who’s more intelligent, more smart, more academic and more. But it doesn’t it’s not it’s not mutually exclusive. It can go together. It can go hand in hand.

I think. I think also, like for me, as I said, like we’re failing a whole generation of young men and it’s not being talked about enough because we focus so much on other things and people don’t recognise how how pertinent it is when it comes to like male mental health. But as you said, there is a balance because there are good role models. We’ve spoken about it before. I absolutely love Huberman. Do you listen to Huberman? I absolutely love Lex Friedman. Lex Friedman a little bit is a little bit more of the archetypal like geek in a way, isn’t he? Because he’s like an academic. He doesn’t. He doesn’t. But.

But he’s.

But he’s really sexy. No, no, no, no.

No, no. He’s a black belt. He’s actually a vicious black.

He doesn’t, he.

Doesn’t he doesn’t like the thing for me, as I said, going, I don’t want to give Andrew Tate any more airtime, but he represents the archetypal Johnny Bravo, which I personally don’t find attractive. Do you see what I mean? Whereas, like someone like Lex Friedman, where I’m like, I find it so attractive when someone’s intelligent, like I genuinely do and that’s, and that and that and that for me, that for me as well is really important because for me, I’m like, you’re a great role model. And Huberman, you know where I’m like you guys. But also you can see they they embody the degree of masculinity, but they also respect women. Do you see what I mean? Because you can tell the conversations they have, the conduct. They have the nuanced way of thinking, you know, And I think, you know, there are there are men out there and like you said, Joe Rogan, you know, like he can have very balanced conversations. He can you.

Know, he’s in a very fulfilled relationship, but.

He’s And human and Lex Rubin not. But you know, but, you know, they talk about that. So I think it’s important. And actually, I didn’t tell you about this, but I got trolled. I’ve actually been trolled recently, as you know, I get trolled by some male dentists recently.

What would they say?

It’s really weird, but the way that they’re behaving is that they’re annoyed and angry about my success. And I’ll tell you the context of later. But I don’t get it because I’m like, why? Why am I threatening you? Or why are you trying to compete with me? Or why are you trying to put me down? And the ages, they are about like 22 to 25. And I’m like, I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. Like, why the needs to attack me? Do you see what I mean? And again, I’m like, Is it because of the younger generation? Is it because they don’t understand there’s some kind of like undertone of hate or wanting to see me fall?

You’re quite a public person. So it’s it’s you’re you’re out there, you’re not afraid to say things and you’re not afraid to present your work. And you also, you know, you’re prominent, prominent in the in the field that people didn’t think you could be prominent in. So that will always attract because you’re different. That will always attract people who are that’s probably pure envy and they will probably always and men probably. Easy to call.

It envy, though. Yeah, it’s a bit easy to call it envy. I mean, I think Rona, the thing about her is she knows social media better than us.

Yeah.

No, I’m asked is pretty good.

Not as good as better than most. Right? She knows me, so she knows part of social media is trolling. Yeah, but what I’ve noticed with her more recently, before she used to complain about her a lot. Now she wants to understand it.

She’s writing. She wants.

To know. No, she wants to know. She wants to understand it. And I don’t think it any longer comes from the same place of hurt that it used to come from before. Now now you just want. But I.

Understand. But I have.

I have empathy and nuance thinking. Right? Because with the stabbing, it was such a heinous act, right. With the guy like stabbing the 15 year old girl in Croydon. But also my nuance part of the brain is like, what have we done to fail these people? Like, why are people committing these acts? Because again, like another off topic thing, but like when people go to prison, right, people are like they’re criminals. They deserve to die. People become criminals because they’ve had some trauma or something awful happened to them. And unless we address that, people will keep going to prison and then they get released. And by the way, 90% or some crazy statistic end up being going back to prison for the same crime because you don’t get back to the root cause of the problem. Right. So that’s why I said to you, punishment is an interesting one, right? Because there’s on one hand, a little bit of fear keeps you on the straight and narrow and just like, you know, focus on what you’re doing. On the other hand, it can you know, it can just create a sense, you know.

I guess there is there is a correlation between mental health, one to the space to to be able to say stuff without again, without, you know, without being punished for it. Because, you know, I don’t know what these people said to you, but it was probably not very nice. Right. So it’s online bullying essentially. In the US, you have guns, you have them available and you have mental health issues and you have more shootings than ever before. Right? You have more stabbings than ever before here. And so I think. I think there is something happening. I don’t know what it is, you know, not that smart, but there is something happening that we’re not only failing men, we’re failing society as a society In a lot of ways. It’s sad, you know, because there’s just so much more available and so much more. And then there’s.

The there’s the crisis with the number of people being prescribed antidepressants and how that takes empathy out of you. Yeah.

And you know, you have, for example, if you correlate that with obesity numbers the obesity even though. Yeah. The the knowledge about it, you could argue that the available knowledge about health, fitness, wellness so much more than than ever before yet you know for children so many more opportunities you know still even the the underprivileged children they have more opportunities than the underprivileged children back in like, I don’t know how many years ago. Right. So but you still I saw I don’t remember exactly. So I don’t want to misquote but the obesity rates amongst children in the US were absolutely shocking. Same in the UK. So and you know, we have so, so much more, so much more available to us. So much so so many more resources to help these people.

Yeah. But also.

To damage.

But also to.

Damage but also damage them. But you know, it’s easier to the.

Phone itself is a is at the end of the day an addictive mechanism.

100%.

And obesity, a lot of it is to do with addiction.

Yeah. But then obesity has links with depression. That was my point. Right. Course. So you can see there is a correlation between that too. And then it’s it’s it’s just, you know, I don’t know what’s happening, but I think something really has to change on a systemic level for sure.

You know.

You quoted numbers or you said 700,000. Yeah.

A year.

Humans or guys, humans, humans killed themselves. And I always think about this sort of number as like, you know, what’s the number of people who got close to it? Probably a thousand times that, you know?

Yeah, but let me ask you a question. Do you know do you know anyone who got close to it? Sure. Do you know anyone who got close to. Yeah, I do. I know anyone. I ask this question. Everyone knows someone.

I know several who actually did it.

But especially in dentistry.

In dentistry, it’s.

Huge.

It’s the highest suicide rate. So we know. We know Payman. I know people we could name probably like five people that we know killed themselves. Yeah, yeah.

What’s the what’s the actual reason.

We don’t know.

This is the thing. Like, this is why we started this whole podcast. We delved into it with my therapist. I brought her on and you know, as Payman was saying, like you got, you know, like brain surgeons and heart surgeons. And, you know, my dad had traumatic time delivering babies, babies that don’t survive sometimes, you know, like there’s a lot of stress why dentists and, you know, like we try to hone in on it. But obviously some of the reasons are the patient’s awake. So some surgeons, for example, the patient’s on a table, but you’ve got patients giving you feedback, pain, stress, tiny fields to work in. Do you know what I mean? Like there’s all these accumulative effects. And quite interestingly, some dentists I don’t know if you knew this Payman, but I know too they commit suicide in their surgery, which I think is quite must mean something, you know.

Well, there’s access to, you know, things in the surgery that there is. But but I mean, it’s a very isolating job. Yeah. So it’s not like a brain surgeon community. Massive hospital. Right. Whereas dentists work sometimes in one room all day, all day. Um, but it’s not a new thing.

You haven’t ended the family. My uncle is actually was a dentist in a long retired.

It’s been it’s been true for 100 years, which is the crazy thing. Yeah. So. So maybe it’s the mercury.

Well, listen, we could. We’re probably going to have to bring you on for like, episode two. But I want to just ask you as well, um, what would you say to people that are struggling if they could do like three easy things to help them with regards to fitness and mental health kind of takeaway?

I think if they’re struggle, if they struggle mental health first and foremost, seek professional advice, right? So never underestimate someone else who can who’s trained to help you. Yeah, that’s number one. When it comes to other tools such as fitness and health and, you know, just just sign up for something and just commit to it. Yeah. Make a deal with yourself. Whatever motivates you. It’s really always hard to hard to answer a question that’s very general, especially when it comes to that, because I really like the sort of personal approach to, to, you know, to say, a client or um, but if there is, you know, mental health issues or people don’t feel well, it’s probably somewhere where there is a community where you can meet new people or you can meet like minded people. Yeah, probably as well, right? And then if you on a on, you know, on a very basic level, take one step at a time. Don’t try and change everything at the same time because if you do you’ll fail and most people do. So just do one thing, establish a habit and then so step. By step. So really it’s consistency and understanding what the issue is, or at least having having a brief understanding of, hey, this is this is wrong, I have to do something about it. So number one, establish there is an issue. Number two, be consistent in your approach that you do. But then again, we could probably discuss how can I be consistent, etcetera. So I think the professional help is always going to be number one.

I think the other thing was, is that we discussed like an on an ending note is about the importance of like neuroplasticity as well.

What does it mean?

So again, according to this, neuroscientists like our brains are always malleable To change the neuroplasticity is is that we absorb and our minds change according to our environment. The people that were in etcetera. Now it really drastically slows down at think 25. And what happens is, is then it’s almost like play Play-Doh. So before then you can mould it after, then it’s a bit hard and crusty. The Play-Doh you can it’s just a lot harder to deal with. But again.

There is actual I’ll interrupt you here, but go ahead. It’s funny because I in July, I went to Los Angeles for a conference, which is sort of idea world fitness. And, you know, there’s a lot of brilliant minds presenting. And one of the workshops was exactly on that. Yeah. And there’s an actual method of, of training that. Right. So you have to connect a few different things. So you have to give a person a cognitive task. Yeah. And auditory slash verbal cue and then also a physical task and it all has to be performed at the same time.

So can you give an example?

So for example, you have a clock, right as they call in the US the military clock. So 24 and you would say and then you have the quadrant, so you go lunges in different directions. So you tell them the time. So they have to think about the time and they have to step towards the time and say a their favourite colour or whatever. So it’s a few different things that you have to your brain has to multitask essentially at the same time, right? So your body has to do something, your brain has to do something, your voice has to do something. And that is proven to you to generate new brain cells, which is which is so and to establish new connections in your neural neurogenesis.

But then what do you get from that? It’s it’s.

Okay. Number one. Okay. Number one, it’s you take care of your brain health. Right. Which as we as you guys probably know amongst women. So dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, these are the the the I think the largest cause of death in the UK at least if I’m I might be wrong here but I looked at it but essentially taking care of your brain and and and helping the brain to stay stay vital for longer. So if you think about it, you know, you can even reverse or stop dementia or Alzheimer’s disease if you do it correctly and for a long time. Right. And trust me, if you do it for five minutes a day, I did it in that thing. At some point you’re like, whoa, what’s going on? It’s a great tip. It’s it’s actually it’s actually because your brain is takes burns. So much of your energy that after a few minutes you’re like, oh, God, like I’m fried. Right? But you just like when just like when a muscle you adapt, you.

Go muscle memory. Yeah, Yeah.

Now, that’s a great tip.

Are we allowed to.

Ask you how much it costs for you to be the, you know, your private trainer.

Payman wants to do once? You know.

I’m not I’m not taking any more clients at the moment because I’m busy.

Well, how much are your existing clients pay?

Uh, around. Not that much. That’s probably going to give me nothing. No, I don’t want to discuss this here, but. But we can talk about it afterwards. We can talk about it.

Yeah. Perfect.

Thank you so much, Arthur. It’s been amazing. So insightful. Really appreciate you coming.

Yeah, Thanks. Thank you. Thanks for coming. It’s been brilliant.

Thank you so much.

My view on that is it’s very, very fine balance because imposter syndrome can actually hold you back if you’re not kind of progressing. But also you want to do it from a safe viewpoint. Again, give patients the best service. So my kind of simple tips to anyone wanting to start doing more endo is firstly take on referrals from 2 or 3 very close people, close friends or colleagues who you know, you trust. Explain to them exactly what level you’re at. They show you the x rays before you even see the patients. There’s no kind of awkwardness, etcetera, and slowly build your confidence. And if you are, you then do have to push yourself. And that’s where mentors come in. So sharing certain cases with mentors. So I remember when I did my first retreatment in practice and it was on a patient who I’d known as a GDP for 4 or 5 years and we kind of safer space. Safer space. Exactly. So so those are the two, 2 or 3 kind of key things. If anyone’s looking to push more into any special interest or specialism, let’s say in practice.

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

It gives me great pleasure to welcome Dr. Assad Rahman onto the podcast. Assad had a meteoric career insomuch as he’s done lots and lots of post-grad. He’s onto his fifth qualification, which is now an MBA dentist with special interest in Endodontics and now a clinical lead at Portman who’ve just merged with Dentex and sort of 400 practices in that little stable as as head of two of those divisions. So lovely to have you, buddy.

Hi, Payman. Hi, everyone. Lovely to be here.

It’s really nice to have you, man. I think I’m going to start with you. Where did you grow up?

So I was born in Doncaster, but my dad was training as an orthopaedic surgeon at the time, so we travelled around, moved around quite a bit and eventually when I was about 5 or 6, settled in Birmingham and that’s where I grew up. And often a lot of people say I don’t have the Birmingham accent until I say Birmingham and then it comes out. So yeah, grew up there and then but I always had this kind of affiliation with Yorkshire and then as soon as I could go to university I ended up in Yorkshire and kind of ended up staying up here.

Do you remember the first time you thought, I’m going to be a dentist?

Yeah, I mean, I was lucky. So I was one of those children. And to this day, I’ve never had any restorative work. I’ve recently just had my Invisalign done, but before that I had no dental treatment. So for me, going to a dentist was, I’d say, you know, a really relaxing experience. So from quite an early age I realised I wanted to do something in science and science background. My dad, my mum, both being doctors, but dentistry kind of dragged me in really from I’d say 13 or 14 when I realised I couldn’t do the long hours that medics do. So dentistry was kind of the the career for me.

What kind of a doctor is your mum?

So Mum was an anaesthetist. She retired when I was born, so my parents had me quite late. I’m the oldest of two. Yeah. Um, my mum was late 30s at the time, so she kind of retired after I was born. My dad obviously carried on working.

And as a surgeon he was he obviously didn’t see much of him as you were growing up, right?

No, very busy. He’d always make time for us on the weekends though. So whenever me and my brother, we play a lot of sports, so we play a lot of sports. And he’d always make time to come and see that. And that was the real kind of bonding we had with him on the weekends when he’d come to see our football matches, cricket matches, rugby. But during the week, yeah, very busy. And that kind of work ethos I suppose, rubbed off on me as I grew older.

What was your parents advice regarding whether to become a doctor or to become a dentist? Were they dead against you becoming a doctor or was it the opposite?

No, my parents obviously instilled certain kind of ethos, so it was hard work and it was education was very important. But I suppose if I’d gone and said, I want to do a degree in maths, let’s say, or finance or whatever, they’d have been happy with that. But like I said.

But specifically medicine, what do they say about medicine? Did they say do it or did they say don’t do it?

Well, my brother’s a doctor. Oh, really? Yeah. So he’s a he’s a doctor. He’s going to orthopaedic surgery now, So he’s becoming a surgeon.

How is your brother?

He’s 30 now, so a couple of years younger than me.

And now when you. When you compare you and your brother career choice wise, what are your reflections?

Well, obviously, I mean, I talk about this a lot when I when I see young dentists and dentistry is is a kind of a strange career in terms of we let’s say we we reach our peak or we can reach our peak very early on in our careers and let’s say we qualify 23 within 7 to 10 years, you can actually reach, especially financially, a position where you’re kind of at your peak earning. And with that brings obviously positives, negatives with other careers, especially medicine. You know, even today, junior doctors are striking. It’s kind of that slow, gradual progression, which in the past was seen as good. But in this kind of current day and age, when people want everything really quickly, I feel sometimes people struggle with with that aspect of things. So yeah, big difference in terms of kind of where I am in my career and where he is, even though he’s doing really well. He ranked number one in surgical training last year and he’s going to do his surgical training. In London, really prestigious post, but it will be still another 8 or 9 years of his training left. So yeah, big difference.

And but lifestyle wise, he’s not seeing much of his nearest and dearest now, is that right?

Definitely, yeah. Very busy. And I suppose that’s where you choose to take your career. You can. Yeah. That’s the kind of flexibility that dentistry gives you. You can choose to take career at your pace if you wanted to.

So where did you study Leeds? You said.

Leeds. Yeah, I did my undergraduate in Leeds. And what kind of.

A dental student were you?

Um, middle of the road, I’d say. I’ve always been in all my education. I’ve been kind of middle of the road and never got close to failing. Never got close to distinction, let’s say. So just a good solid student. And that was that was despite me really trying, revising hard, working hard. But I just I never can end up getting a distinction when it’s an exam or something in front of me.

So then I’m quite interested in this question of, you know, you’re right now obviously to me, when I’m looking at you, you’ve got that look in your eyes, which is like there’s a kind of remember that looking in so many of my my friend’s eyes here, there’s this sort of determination to make a difference in the world, kind of look in your eyes. And at what point did that happen? Have you always been that cat, or was there a moment when you said, God damn it, I’m going to like, do the best I could, be the best I can be, fulfil my potential.

I think. And I speak to a lot of friends about this and that’s where kind of people talk about school education, etcetera. I’ve always wanted to be the best and I’d love to get a distinction in exams etcetera, but I feel that especially GCSE or A-level exams, let’s say again, I didn’t do badly because I ended up in Dental school, but they often are geared towards a certain type of thinking in a funny sort of way. When I’m doing my graduate learning now, I’m a post graduate degrees, especially my MBA. I’m getting my best scores yet and my best marks yet. That determination, I think, comes from seeing my parents, especially my dad, from kind of his upbringing in rural Pakistan, to end up obviously in the UK and then just seeing what we saw of him throughout his career, the ups and downs that all careers have. But the continuous aspect of keeping on going is a big thing for me. Day to day we can all have struggles, but it’s the fact that we continuously must keep going on. So that’s my big ethos, I’d say.

So when when did your dad study medicine in Pakistan or here?

Yes. Yeah. Both My mum and dad studied medicine in Pakistan, then came here to do their postgraduate training with the view to eventually going back, but then kind of the NHS took them on and, and they stayed for the rest of their careers.

What about the question of like race? Did you did you did your dad complain of not getting promotions? Because that was that was I mean, now it seems like a like a crazy thing to say and we’ve come a long way. But back then, remember, that was a complaint massively so.

My dad was actually the first non-European consultant in the UK and that was in 96. So when he came over first to Ireland again, I feel so as you’re saying, we’re very lucky nowadays. Situation is completely different. And personally, for example, I’ve never had any racism either personal or kind of systematic, systematic etcetera. But my dad does mention, obviously he, he, he, he was in a time when the opportunity wasn’t there. There was a simple kind of bar on non European consultants and even sit the exam was a big kind of barrier to to pass. But as you say with time I feel like we’ve done well in the UK to get to a point where now there’s masses of equal opportunity. I was speaking at the International Women’s Day last year and the topic of diversity came up. And now, for example, if we talk about just dentistry, if you’re a prospective student from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background, you’ve got a higher chance of getting into dental school than a white student, for example. So, you know, so.

Some sort of positive discrimination?

No, I don’t there’s not been any study. Again, the percentages are very small difference wise.

But just the fact that it’s on the same graph, it’s quite interesting. Yeah, exactly.

It’s just yeah, it’s I mean, it’s kind of a full circle moment, let’s say.

Yeah, Yeah. So then tell me about your first job.

So I qualified in 2015 and I was very lucky to end up in Coventry. So as my parents from Birmingham, after doing your PhD exam that you do ranked high enough to be end up in Coventry, which is close enough to allow me to be back home, let’s say, and my trainer, their manager who I’m still in touch with.

I know many. Yeah, I know brilliant people. Brilliant people.

Yeah, great, great people still in touch with them to this day. And so Mandy was my trainer. Anoop was obviously in the other dental practice that they own and manage. I thought it was a fantastic trainer because she knew exactly when to let you kind of get on with things because when you’re a. Trainee. You have to have that kind of impetus to learn by yourself, but also do it in a safe manner and manner, as you’re saying. Fantastic experience. Trainers, you know, 15 plus years being trainers. So they knew exactly what kind of level I was at and how to push me. And then I was lucky enough that they offered me to stay on as an associate and then ended up staying with them for about three years. Oh, really? I really enjoyed that. And again, every time I speak to and I was speaking to a lot of you know, we met at the BCD conference a few weeks back and a lot of young students coming up to me and I was saying, try and stay in your practice if you can. If it’s know it’s a good practice, try and stay there. Try and see your mistakes. Try and and build your career in one practice, at least for the first 2 or 3 years before you look to move on.

It’s interesting you say that. Yeah, because remember as a PT, we used to call it I adored my practice that my boss was still one of my best friends, mentor, wonderful person. But I on purpose left that practice because I thought that it’s the opposite, right? I thought I thought I want to see something else. And it’s quite an interesting question. I mean, I think you’re right in so much as now with with the benefit of hindsight, seeing some failures would have been good. Yeah, because I moved to a whole new practice. That said, I did see another way of doing things. So you stayed there for three years. The amazing thing about Anoop and Manny is the life lessons you must have learnt from those guys because just successful humans not, you know, the wonderful relationship, wonderful practices, that’s just the way they think is just amazing. So that’s lovely, man. So then what happened after that? Why did you leave after three years?

So I think I was getting to a point where, as you’re saying.

You won’t see something else.

Yes, essentially. And there was lots of factors to it. One was I’d done a pgcert in sedation by then. I’d just started my restorative master’s at Birmingham, which I ended up doing a pgdip. And at that point I kind of wanted to transition into private dentistry. And the reason for that was I’ve always kind of my values belief system is always, you know, we’re talking earlier about wanting to do the best quality work. So nowadays when I do my clinical days, for example, I’m seeing 3 or 4 endo patients a day. And it’s about the fact that I can really focus on quality, create exceptional experiences for those 3 or 4 patients, and that’s it. So that’s what you have to focus on. And it was really just wanted to progress in my career to to a fully private practice. And I got the opportunity. It was hard to to say goodbye, but like I said, I left on good terms and still in touch with Mani Anoop, and that’s when I ended up with Portman and I joined as an associate five years ago in Malton, and as soon as I joined the practice, everyone kind of looked at me and said, We don’t like doing Endo. And I said, Well, I like doing Endo. I’d had some endo training on my restorative degree, so I started taking kind of internal referrals, doing my own endo, and then decided to formalise my endo training that way.

Oh, how interesting. So and that’s it. The rest is history. You’ve been you’ve been with Portman ever since, right? Yeah. And have you worked in any other practice? Just those two?

Yes. So I do a day of endo in a non Portman practice at the moment as well. So Mondays a do a day of render in a non Portman practice. It’s a practice five minutes away from me in York fantastic practice love the team there. I just go and do my endo and come home But as soon as I join the practice in Malton at Portman, I could just see kind of dentistry where the whole team is kind of geared towards providing the patients a fantastic service and I feel a lot of people, a lot of dentists, you know, going with the mindset where you’re going from Udas to private dentistry and you even initially have the thought. So you know what? If I don’t earn money, what if patients don’t come in, but they do come in and if you give them a good service, they do come in and they do value you. And that’s what kind of led me on to trying to move more non-clinical to try and pass that kind of feeling and knowledge onto others to help them develop and grow their careers.

Well, there’s quite a lot I want to talk about in what you just said there, because, you know, what’s your advice when when a when a young dentist asking about private is your advice to follow your path, which is three years of mixed, get your hands dirty? And then is that your advice or or is your advice different in. Much as it doesn’t have to be like if I’m a young dentist coming and asking you if you just regurgitate what you did and think that’s the best thing to do. Not necessarily true, is it? So. So what’s your reflections? If I say if I if let’s say I was this young gun and I said, listen, I want to go from university, from PhD to a private job or even skip PhD and go straight to a private job. Am I not going to be like in a in a in that frame of mind that that excellence frame of mind quicker by doing that rather than doing any time on the NHS?

So my my personal view and the reason I highlight my personal view is because lots of people nowadays are trying to go. There are certain pathways, let’s say, to private dentistry even before having done PhD. Yeah, but I feel if we’re all honest with ourselves, what do we get in dental school? It’s kind of a basic it’s that driving analogy when you pass your driving, when you do your driving lessons, you’ve had 20 lessons with an instructor. Where are you then safe to go and completely drive? Yes, to a certain level, but you still need, let’s say, a year or two of practice and that’s what the PhD training gives you. It gives you that safe, basic standard, even in terms of if I talk about my personal. How often does your car fail when you’re an FD to All the time. If you’re in private practice, you can’t have your car fail even once. So or you shouldn’t have your fail once. So it’s those kind of basics. The other things, the mentality. Even on the NHS, there’s nothing stopping you from doing a spending an hour and a half doing an endo if you’re an FD, And then as an early associate, let’s say all you’re going to do is make less money and you’re not going to be doing that all the time.

You’re also going to be able to do 12 Udas Very quickly. So it does balance itself out, but you have to kind of sacrifice something somewhere. But my advice, yes, I think staying in mixed practice, but you have to do I always say postgraduate education is the key. And again, with postgraduate education, I say, yes, courses are great, but try and do degrees with degrees. You get the kind of holistic teaching. You can then supplement them with certain courses out there. But if you’ve got, let’s say, a restorative pgdip or master’s, you can then add courses onto that to give you further skills rather than doing lots of different courses. It also ends up being the same amount of money as well. If you think about it, restorative pgdip 19 to 20 £21,000. By the time you’ve done 4 or 5 six different courses in lots of little things ends up being the same. So I’d say build a good foundation for yourself early on.

The thing is though, I mean, I did then went straight to a private job after that. Yeah, I found the private job a lot easier than the job. Yeah. And so when I say easier, you know, fewer patients, right? Fewer patients to deal with. And for me not being able to say, hi, how are you? What do you do was the hard bit. Yeah, because there’s no time to do that in the NHS. And you know, of course I understand your point, Right? Let’s not, let’s not be about I understand what you’re saying about the driving analogy. At the same time, there’s a, there’s a sort of this, this thing we have in dentistry of hey, go practice on the patients, make all your mess ups there and then and then go to private after that. Well, what about those patients, man?

Like I was saying, that’s a that’s a very good point. And what you said and I say this to a lot of people now, you know, so one of the things I’m working on in parliament is helping a few of my practices transition from NHS practices to private practices. So NHS contracts are going back and the kind of 1 to 1 work that we have to do with clinicians and colleagues in practice is to change that mindset. To say it will actually be easier because let’s say somebody who’s coming into a private practice, patients again, not to stereotype, but will be more kind of looking after the dentition, let’s say. Well, so your actual dentistry might be easier itself. But going back to your point when I was saying I mean, like I said, my personal view, but as I also said, times are different nowadays, aren’t they? Because, I mean, I had lots of people coming up to me a couple of weeks ago saying I want to go straight into private practice. And the key there is finding a mentor. Yeah. So I found my mentor early on in the NHS practice so you can find your mentor anywhere. But if you are thinking of whatever you’re thinking of doing in your career, you have to have a mentor, let’s say, who can guide you in your career.

What do you say to someone who says, Look, I want a mentor, but you know, my boss isn’t interested?

Well. Renters don’t have to be within the practice. They can be external. Yeah, they can be external. So it’s often just reaching out to someone you know, or you might see someone at a conference. They can also be I mean, I’ve found a lot of my mentors in the postgraduate education I’ve done, and I call it a likeminded network. So one of the biggest things, let’s say in life people struggle with nowadays is even if you have 1 or 2 negative people in your life, that kind of drains a lot of your energy. And I am very fortunate after doing lots of postgraduate education, having people who are like minded. So two reasons why that’s important. One is they’ll be able to guide you, give you the correct advice, but the days that you’re not feeling your best, you’re not wanting to grow and develop, they’re actually holding you accountable. So those mentors don’t have to be, let’s say, a different age to you or or might be slightly older than you, but even those 1 or 2 years difference in dentistry can mean they have the the opportunity to be a mentor for you.

Yeah, very true, man. I used to play badminton with a super super dentist. Super Pete Strand. For anyone who might know him, he’s a specialist, periodontist, big implant guy, and I used to play badminton with him once a week and we used to just go for a beer and talk about teeth. Right? And I thought I was just talking to a guy about teeth and, you know, I mean, I wasn’t I wasn’t realising how much mentorship I was getting from this guy and, and, and, you know, his principles. And we challenge each other and so forth. And massive Pete’s a massive mentor of mine but didn’t know it at the time. So your point is brilliant. Yeah. That a mentor can be a professor like someone who’s, you know, officially your mentor. Or it could be anyone you’re talking to or a peer, which is which is very interesting because you think a mentor needs to be the senior person. But you know, you sometimes get a group of PhDs living together and one of them’s going to end, though the other one’s good at selling, let’s say, or good with patients. And, you know, you teach each other. So let’s go to Endo. Yeah. How is it that you like Endo? And so many of us don’t? And by the way, when I say us, I did a restorative house job and the my direct boss was an endodontist. And so I got the bug. Yeah, I did. But I did. I had this perforation in my undergrad and it put me off. What what was the moment that you decided like, you know. Endo And how, how did you get into it?

So it’s a very, very early on and so I’m probably not might not be the best person to ask this question to because I was in third year actually of dental school. Yeah. When I when we first started getting introduced to Endodontics and that was it for me, I realised.

It clicked, then.

It clicked then so to the point where I was the first person in my year to get loops as a third year because I just thought I’ve got an endo coming up in the beginning of fourth year and I want to be able to see what I’m doing. And it was just it was that early on, but it as kind of my career started, I still did give myself the opportunity to see if I liked anything else. Yeah, but I just kept coming back to Endo, even to the point where I even did formal training in sedation, restorative. But I just still kept coming back to the endo and that’s why I even applied and got accepted for an indent. And the plan was to go and do a full time.

Specialisation.

Pathway specialisation. And then that was just before Covid and Covid hit and lots of things happened. So I kind of spun around and and went towards doing an MSC in Endo, which has given me so much knowledge, etcetera, along with my restorative degree, to be able to accept internal external referrals for treatments, re treatments. But what.

What Endo training did you do?

So my MSC.

The restorative one.

Know my MSC and an endo.

Okay.

So in my final year now.

Oh I see. I see. I see.

Yeah. So yeah again. So this is why I was saying earlier about degrees rather than courses. So if you look at lots of societies, so the British society, British society, for example, they’ll recommend or they won’t use the word accredit, but they recommend certain degrees in the country to say if you do one of these kind of degrees, you’ll be off a certain standard. And I went and did one of those. So I did the simply Endo one, which is affiliated with the University of Chester up in Liverpool. Great people up there. Mike Horrocks running a great course. And from that I’ve built up quite a big network of kind of fellow dentists who do some fantastic work. And one of my good friends is actually training to be an endodontist in hospital, and we now share cases. For example. And there’s not much difference in our treatments and re treatments. Obviously he can do apicoectomy, etcetera. But my kind of viewpoint was how often does a patient want that in practice? So I’m happy doing my treatments and re treatments and passing on apicoectomy to people like him.

So you feel like in a way, you feel like that is the one difference between you and a specialist is the discectomy.

Again, every field is different. But in endo, yes, I feel it kind of it depends on the kind of teaching and how you then go off. And I mean, another key point is I didn’t just go and do this. My restorative pgdip and my endo and then go and start taking on the most hardest of referrals. Yeah. So there’s, there’s lots of factors that come into that. And one of my friends was actually talking to me the other day and he’s in his first year of Endo training and he’s saying he’s and I was kind of pushing him to start taking on some referrals. And he was saying, Well, he’s feeling some imposter syndrome, let’s say. Yeah. And my view on that is it’s a very, very fine balance because imposter syndrome can actually hold you back if you’re not kind of progressing. But also you want to do it from a safe viewpoint. Again, give patients the best service. So my kind of simple tips to anyone wanting to start doing more endo is firstly take on referrals from 2 or 3 very close people, close friends or colleagues who you know, you trust. Explain to them exactly what level you’re at. They show you the x rays before you even see the patients. There’s no kind of awkwardness, etcetera, and slowly build your confidence. And if you are, you then do have to push yourself. And that’s where mentors come in. So sharing certain cases with mentors. So I remember when I did my first retreatment in practice and it was on a patient who I’d known as a GDP for 4 or 5 years and we kind of safer space. Safer space, Exactly. So those are the 2 or 3 kind of key things. If anyone’s looking to push more into any special interest or specialism, let’s say, in practice.

But sort of don’t talk about endo a bit more. Yeah, insomuch as I mean, this is such an unfair question, man, but I’m going to ask it anyway. Yeah. What would you say is the crux? Like what was the what was the thing that flipped in your head that suddenly made endo seem like something you want to do for the rest of your life? Well, that’s one question. The second question is clinically. Clinically, what is the crux? I mean, I know what an endo is. I know what access and isolation is. I know about Rotary. But what’s the crux of it? What’s the most important thing.

Shall I say, Why I enjoy it. So, yeah, let’s start with that.

Let’s start with that.

I go in, I know I have a day of three maximum for patients because I’m seeing patients for an hour and a half. Yeah. So, I mean, I don’t know how to put this, but if I put it in a simplest way, I’m seeing that patient for 90 minutes and then hopefully never again. Now, it’s not to say that I don’t want to continuously see my patients, but and I don’t kind of build a rapport with them in early on in when I’m meeting them, etcetera, or doing consultations, let’s say. But it’s the viewpoint where lots of implant Dental let’s say you have this phrase where you’re married to the patient, or so there’s none of that, let’s say. The other thing is that endo, I feel lots of people worry about the complications, but once you have a certain level of training, those complications.

You know how to handle.

Yes. And also you reduce those complications. So one of my tutors in in Liverpool used to say if somebody has and again, I’m not quoting them or putting this out there, but the common phrase is kind of say if somebody has a high incidence, it’s 100% their fault. And the point is that once you have a certain level of endo training, you know how not to have a hypochlorite incident. And it’s those kind of things where once you take the complications away, the day to day becomes comfortable and then predictable and you’re in control and then enjoyable. Obviously, I think that control aspect lots of dentists want and when you’re a GDP you struggle with because one second you’ll have an oral surgery patient, next second you’ll have an endo and you have to kind of be a master of all. And it’s very difficult to do that.

Not to mention profitable, right?

Yeah. I mean, so that’s the other thing. So no lab bills.

You know, the other thing, dude, forget forget the money itself. The best thing about being an endodontist is you don’t have to sell anything to anyone. Yeah, and selling is tiring, man. Yeah. You know, I remember as a dentist thinking that, like, another day of of getting people to go ahead. Yeah. Whereas in endo that’s not a problem is it?

And again it referrals. Once the patient’s been referred to you, they’re on board. They’ve even had the discussion of how much it’s going to cost.

It’s all being done. Yeah, it’s.

All been done. So. Yeah.

And then what about my second question? The crux of it clinically, like what is it like? I see some endodontists I’m a sad fool. I follow a few Endodontists Right. And and they’re like, they’re doing this super like, minimal access cavities. Is that some sort of macho thing in endo? Like the smaller your access cavity, the better you are.

That’s the latest kind of buzz. But I think in all kind of fields you get things coming up, obviously. So I come at come at anything from a restorative viewpoint. So maintaining as much tooth tissue as possible is important. But the crux and I say this, the kind of this can be actually extrapolated into other fields as well. But the simplest thing is breaking the bigger task into the small. So when I’m doing the LA, that’s all I’m focusing on giving the best LA the most painless LA. And so the patient thinks that’s the best seller they’ve had. Then I’m putting the rubber dam on and then I’m just focusing 100% on the access until I’ve found the canals. I’m not thinking of anything else. And it’s that kind of step by step process, methodical approach, which like I said, you can take into lots of fields, but especially endo feel the more methodical approach you have. Technically all your endos and your approach should be the same for all of them.

That painless injection is such a massive thing. Man. Such a massive thing. What’s your tips for that? Just put the topical and go slow.

So I did. When I did my Pgcert in sedation at Bristol, we had about six months learning about Endo LA Sorry and making it comfortable. Yeah. And lots of little factors but topical. Lots of dentists don’t wait for it to work. So if you’re using lidocaine needs to be 3 or 4 minutes for it to.

Work and use those 3 or 4 minutes to make like talk to the patient, like give that amazing service that we were talking about. Right, exactly.

And there’s lots of there’s a vibration technique, for example, when you’re doing the infiltration and.

Dry the area. Right. Dry the area before putting the topical on there. Like it’s so interesting that you forget that like for ten years of dentistry didn’t do that. Yeah. Yeah. But you know what dude, you one thing I’ve come to realise, okay, I’m going to put myself out there, so I’m an expert at bleaching. Yeah. One thing that I’ve noticed is being an expert really is about getting the basics right. It really is. And it’s not. We put it up as this sort of voodoo thing that so-and-so is a specialist at so-and-so at whatever it is, but actually that guy is just in whatever subject He’s an expert at taking care of the basics. Man in bleaching is take a damn good impression. A simple thing like that.

I can’t stress that enough. And when I did all my postgraduate teaching I’ve done, I thought I’d go back and I’d learn lots of massive differences of what I’d been taught in undergrad. But essentially it’s just reinforcing your undergrad teaching and the the kind of basics that you’ve forgotten because you’re trying to cut corners when you’re in practice and just learning not to cut those corners. And before you know it, you’re a special interest or specialist. Yeah.

So, so now with that in mind, yeah, we can say, look, excellence is a state of mind. Yeah. Not a technique. Not, not. Not a product. Yeah. That said, what’s the latest in Endo? I mean, is there. Is there some wicked arrogant That’s wicked. Is there some rotary thing that that solves a problem like I’ve been out of it for, I don’t know, 12 years. Haven’t seen a patient? Yeah. What’s the latest thing that you’re excited about in Endo?

So, I mean, I wouldn’t even say it’s the latest but active irrigation which is still feel. What does that mean?

Just irrigating.

So active irrigation. So most dentists are doing passive irrigation with the normal syringe. Yeah. So you’re kind of bringing in hypochlorite and then sucking it out with the aspiration. With active irrigation, you’re agitating it in some way so ultrasonic or whatever, ultrasonic. But nowadays you can get something called an endo activator. So it’s sonic activation. It’s the easiest thing in the world to use. Obviously hard to explain on the podcast, but if everyone just google it, you can find it easiest thing in the world to use. Essentially it moves the irrigant around and that improves your success rates. And why I say it’s not even it’s not not a new concept. So one of my essays I did in my endo training was on active irrigation, but it’s still surprising as to how many people don’t use it. And it’s a piece of kit which I feel all GDP should be using in their endo, and it would just improve success rates across the board.

So. Well that’s well, well, well documented. Is it Well, well supported?

Yes. Well evidenced. Documented. Now again, there’s lots of. So the reason why I mention active irrigation with Sonic is because you have to take factors into account like cost. So there’s active irrigation machines in America, for example, which are about 50, $60,000. No one’s going to do that. There’s active irrigation machines which are have a high risk of breaking in the canal. Nobody’s going to use those, but they may, when they work, provide a slightly better result. But when you balance everything out, like I said, this is when I did my literature search on it. The endo activators, the most simplest piece of kit that everyone can be using and improve success rates.

And what about the Irrigant itself? Is that just hypochlorite or is there something hypochlorite? Yeah, there’s nothing else.

No, no, no. No magic. No irrigant.

But you heat the thing or not.

No. So again, there’s lots of studies done and that’s where I mentioned active irrigation. So people have done studies on kind of does heating improve success rates? Not significantly, but active irrigation does. So another common method of doing active irrigation, which lots of people try and do is the GP pumping, but you’re not going to be able to move the arrogant around fast enough in the canal. And that’s where the endo activator comes in.

What about when you’ve got a tooth that’s really broken down and it’s like subjectively broken down? Are you now a ninja, like rescuing, like doing heroic antics?

No. So my viewpoint again, so and if you speak to it.

With implants or.

Yes, exactly. 100%. So I work very closely in both the practices of work clinically with the implant dentists, and often if it’s a consultation, we’ll both be in the room. And again, like I say, my restorative training and why I recommend that to anyone before they go on, even if they want to specialise in anything else, do some restorative training because treatment planning is so key. So with endo, you want to be saving the teeth that realistically can be saved. And with everything else, you know, we’ve got implants nowadays to a certain standard, A big factor which people miss out is age of the patient. So when you’re treatment planning, let’s say if when we mark up the success rates of an endodontic treatment, the younger the patient is, it’s worth taking that risk to prolong that tooth for longer because the implants. Not going to see them out. Yeah. When when a patient gets older, you want to try. And the highest chances are that the end is going to fail. There’s no point taking that chance. So you want to go towards implants. So even a simple factor like that needs to be taken into account. But Hiroden antics, you know, patients are paying you for a service. They as much as they can consent and you say it’s not going to work. Let’s be honest, they want it to work. So you have to be pragmatic and explaining all the options that they have.

And so you actually manage for posterior indos in a day’s work.

Yes. So I do an hour and a half sessions, 15 minutes in between for my nurses to clean up, set up.

Is that beginning to end? You do the whole thing in an hour and a half.

It depends.

So the situation.

Most likely I do single treatment, but for example, if you can’t get the canal dry or if there’s just a huge lesion or there’s a swelling, for example. Now, again, by the time a patient’s been referred to me, the dentist has either accessed or etcetera. So the swelling has come down. But so often I can do things in one session, but if I have to go to a second session, I do. Personally, I don’t charge for the second session. It’s all part of the same price. My viewpoint, obviously you win some, you lose some, etcetera. Yeah, it is what it is. The the treatment needs to be done right and the the best standard.

And what are the numbers? How much do you charge for a molar endo and for a retreatment.

So different in the two practices I work at. So we have set prices in both practices. So beginning from £800 for a molar and then slightly higher in my Portland practice.

And a retreatment.

Retreatment I add on £150 extra for per tooth. So whatever the tooth charge is, plus under 50. But that’s another key factor I always like to point out. And for example, we have this at Portman where we have set prices. And it’s really important that I feel for patient service, patient care and Endo can do this. And no implants, for example, can’t do this, but where you can to try and have set prices because it allows the patients to know where they stand. And you also don’t get kind of patients talking and say, oh, I had this tooth done for this much, this much, this much. So I have set prices wherever work GDP is, know what to say, etcetera, is all very clear.

That’s nice, man. The vast majority of days that you work, you grow 3500 pounds.

Yes, hopefully. I mean, that’s that’s the aim. If you have four, three, four molars and like I said, but then, for example, you have some second stages which no charge. Yes, it works out well.

I think people should think about endo more, man, because honestly, I’ve always thought that because I had a endodontic Endodontist used to work with me who unfortunately Covid took him. But, but yeah, but he was a lovely guy. No, he, he, he, he, he used to be very relaxed day to day. He really was. And I asked him, I mean he was a specialist. I asked him, listen how many times a week do you, do you hit like a situation that you’re not sure what to do? And he’s like, it’s not it’s not even once a week. It’s he said it’s maybe once a month that it gets really like hairy for him, you know, like he doesn’t know what to do. And that’s. That’s lovely. I mean, what a great life to have to sell Anything to anyone. You can do it with your eyes closed. I’m joking. I’m joking. I mean.

That’s where I kind of got to a point with my clinical work where to obviously progress my career or whatever. That’s why I started going into the or started looking for the non clinical work because that’s what kind of and now I knew what it was. Yeah. Nowadays I’m more if if I split my week it’s three days 2 to 3 days non clinical and a couple of days clinical.

But then like the non clinical days have to pay pretty damn well too. If we’re talking money have to pay pretty damn well to make up for you not working right.

Well I mean obviously non clinical when you talk about that there’s lots of different roles. Yeah. Non-clinically But I think with the non clinical roles, they never they never will make up. Yeah. What someone can earn clinically if they’re a special interest or specialist dentist if they’re a GDP for example, it’s comparable. But like I said, they do the non clinical work. It’s something.

For growth.

Yeah. For growth. Yes. And and to be able to help others grow, that’s the main thing for me.

Yeah. That’s so funny. You talk to you talk to dentists, even the ones who want to be specialists, not enough of them want to be endodontist. I find you know, people it’s not the most sexy subject. Enough of us have had a trauma in the background that we’re worried about. And then, you know, it’s the thing that’s covered late in dental school and not very well. You know, what’s what’s dental school going to do for you? Foreigners. It’s a postgrad subject in the end, isn’t it? Let’s face it. Yeah, but but when I talk to young dentists and even the ones who say I want to specialise because, you know, hey, what about Endo? The majority aren’t interested. And it’s a shame because it’s actually a fantastic career. It really is. Oh, definitely. Yeah. All right. Well, let’s move on. Let’s let’s let’s talk about firstly, how did you start going up the sort of ladder of the corporate world and how does the corporate world sort of are you are you built for it? I mean, do you like it?

So, I mean, like I said, I joined as an associate and a few years back, we’re talking.

What, five years ago?

Yeah, five years ago, joined as an associate. How many practices.

Did they have then?

I joined Molten and we’d just been taken over by Portman and I think we were practice number 71. So. Wow. You know, rapid growth recently, especially after a merger with Dentex, we now have 400 practices. So the largest providers of private dentistry in Europe, so massive organisation. But during Covid we acquired some we call it NHS practices practices with NHS contracts of 15,000 or more. And an advertisement was placed on a kind of our internal emails looking for a regional clinical lead for the NHS division and the job description was someone who can support these NHS practices to grow, develop etcetera. And and that’s what I’d kind of done with my career personally. I’d never done that at a practice level, so I applied, went for a couple of interviews. They must have liked me and obviously got the position. And as soon as I got the position I realised, you know, it’s a it’s a very heavily business role. It’s a big role. On leadership now personally, for example, leadership comes naturally to me, but I still have to do a lot of development on that side of things. And that’s why I decided to formalise my business training by doing the MBA. So I applied to Warwick, which was voted the number one business school in Europe last year. So I was lucky to be accepted to that and really enjoying that some six months into the MBA at the moment. But the learning I’ve got from that is directly usable for my clinical lead role really developed me. As a leader and my kind of non business side of things.

But I’m interested in how do you go from being associate to clinical lead and, you know, what were the steps?

So for me, so we have lots of different pathways. So for example, we have practice clinical leads as well. So there’s clinical leads within practice. Now in the near future, the hope is if someone wants to be a regional clinical lead, so we have kind of a ladder. So there’s associate dentists, people working in practices, for example, there’s then practice clinical leads who look after certain practices. There’s regional clinical leads who look after regions where I am, and then there’s director of dentistry and the kind of hope going towards the future as we get more practices is to for people to end up as practice clinical leads, regional clinical leads. I like I said, for example. So yeah, the pathway I for example like I said, saw the regional clinical lead advert and applied to that literally just like that. Yeah. Oh I see. And so again, the reason I applied is because part of the advert really interested me in it was talking about doing something at a practice level that I had done personally. I had gone from being an NHS clinician to working in a private practice and kind of developing practices for the future. But like I said, I mean, I was talking about imposter syndrome earlier. Yeah, when I first got given the position, I did suffer from that slightly and that’s why I decided to do the MBA, because my kind of there’s only in my mind there’s only one way to kind of counter the imposter syndrome. Well, there’s two ways. One is time, but sometimes you’re not afforded time if you’re in a position, and the other is to educate yourself to a point where you have you genuinely have the skills. So the MBA is definitely added that for me.

But what is it added? Give me an example of that.

So an MBA, obviously it’s a business administration degree, so leadership, like I said, for example, I’m a natural leader. But one of the biggest things that when we talk about leadership nowadays is knowing yourself as a leader and how you come across to others and how certain situations require either you to be different or if you naturally can’t be different in that certain situation, delegating a certain task or working with others around you and leadership. In the past, it was seen as a leader at the top of an organisation kind of dictating what others should do. And nowadays it’s more about the journey and bringing people along with you and even that kind of simple learning and that kind of simple mindset. Mindset shift has been massive and I’ve been fortunate to do kind of psychometric analysis through it. So I really you really learn about yourself as a person, and that’s actually something I recommend for anyone to do, even if you’re not looking to work on clinically or clinically learning about yourself. We don’t often think take enough time to learn about ourselves, our own values and how we respond in certain situations before it’s too late. So those kind of things have really developed me as a as a person even, let’s say.

So when you’re working, I mean, how tactical are they as a group? Are you are you are you running someone’s agenda like the clinical leads? The director of Dentistry’s agenda, is it how often do you meet with that guy? How often do you meet with your juniors? How does it work? Like give me give me a feeling of the structure, the org structure.

Well, I’ll talk about my kind of week, let’s say. So. Directors Dentistry. I talked to director dentistry once a week. That’s my kind of 1 to 1 check in with them and I give them. That’s often towards the end of the week where I give them a report for the whole week. I also have to write a written report for my practices and explain exactly what’s happened, certain situations, exactly what kind of decisions have been made, how things have been improved, certain things in a weekly report, and that goes to the Directors of Dentistry and the board.

So how many practices is it?

So I look after the two divisions of about 25 to 30 practices. So you write.

About you write something about each of those 30 practices?

Yeah, it takes a lot, takes a lot of time. So take to write. My weekly report takes me about an hour and a half to two hours because you’re kind of so throughout the week I’m jotting things down to write in my report and obviously discuss with the Director of dentistry. But alongside that regular 1 to 1 time, you can obviously communicate with director of dentistry any time. If there’s a there’s a situation at any point during the day or the week that you need kind of assistance advice on. But my day to roll day to day role and my remit, it’s a really wide ranging role. So it ranges from interviewing clinicians for practices, deciding who we take on to join our practices, to kind of ensuring compliance to working with practice managers. And then the wider aspect is working with the business to help develop those regions. So. The regions I look after. There are certain different criteria we’re trying to work on in those regions. So one region you might be looking to, for example, transition away from a certain type of dentistry, etcetera, or grow and, and those remits and working with the wider business colleagues to help those kind of decisions and be made from a clinical viewpoint. So that’s another thing we’re proud of at Portman, that we have a strong clinical leadership structure. Every decision that’s made is run past a clinician, let’s say. So for us, it really puts us apart at the forefront of dentistry there.

Compared to other corporates.

Compared to the corporates. Yes. So obviously, independent practices you have that kind of figurehead there from a clinical viewpoint. But compared to the corporates, we’ve got very strong clinical leadership structure there at Portman.

Do you mean explain it to me? What happens? What’s what’s the agenda? What happens? How does it work?

Do you mean the agenda for the practices in general?

For example, because we’re talking clinical now, aren’t we? We’re not talking acquisition of or are we? We’re talking clinical.

Yeah, so clinical. So I mean, examples can be day to day. So I’m a point of contact for clinicians for support. So let’s say they want any support from either if it’s directly involved. I’ve just had I’ve just seen this patient. I don’t know what to do. If it’s an endo thing, fantastic. I’ll answer. If it’s restorative thing, fantastic. I’ll answer. If it’s not an endo thing, we’ve got implant clinical leads. We’ve got other clinical leads and other aspects. I pass it over to them and vice versa. Complaints. One of my clinicians gets a complaint. I’m their point of contact. Just too often clinicians can go through personal issues. You know, I’ve been through lots of personal issues in my time as well. I’m their kind of point of contact. I’m available to talk to clinicians, you know, nine, 10:00 at night sometimes speaking to them if they’re having some issues and then from. So that’s kind of direct clinical support, let’s say. Yeah, there’s then the wider point ensuring compliance. So you’ve got audits running throughout the week, throughout the month, ensuring that everything’s running correctly, how we would like NHS standards, etcetera. And then the third kind of aspect is the growth piece. So we want all our practices to be growing, developing, adding in new services and as you know, running independent practices. That’s different and varied for each practice. So just because it’s important practice doesn’t mean there’s a one size fits all approach. And again, that’s what the MBAs brought kind of learning for me. You can’t have kind of a one size fits all approach. It needs to be implemented in different means and different practices.

But mean how much of it is is based on sort of top line, bottom line, you know that and how much of it is based on professional development or.

So I’d say 50/50 really, because so one of the key things we say at Portman is we want our clinicians businesses to grow so that our business grows. So and that is a very key but subtle but key point because clinicians self employed, yeah, they have to see the kind of growth in their own business, in their own development for the business to grow. So any decision I make for a practice to grow, it can’t be. This is for the practice to grow because if it doesn’t help at least one of the clinicians to grow, then the practice isn’t going to grow. You’re only going to grow through one of the clinicians, essentially adding in a new service, working extra hours. I don’t know who would want to do that, but working extra hours or a new clinician coming in, etcetera, etcetera. So it’s those ultimately it boils down to that, isn’t it? It’s working with the clinicians and colleagues on the ground to, to improve, move forward, adding new services develop.

And then how many dentists are we talking about?

So some practices I look after, we’ve got about 3 or 4 clinicians, some practice I look after. I’ve got 15 clinicians in total. So in total I’d say I’m looking after about 200 clinicians to 50 clinicians. So, so.

Any one time you’ve got several of them being sued, you know, loads of complaints. Yeah. So you’re doing all of that in two days. Bloody hell man. You’re working your ass off aren’t you?

So it’s employed for two days. It’s not a two day role a it’s a seven day role. And that the work ethos from earlier. But it was interesting, you know, I was saying earlier, my my dad’s passed away now unfortunately. But even him with his work ethos he when I took on this role two years ago, he used to think it’s it’s a lot of work. And that was coming from his work ethos.

So how are you fitting it in man? You’re doing the and what’s what’s the commitment there.

So every month we have kind of it’s a it’s module after module so there’s 12 modules. So I’ve done six modules so far. I’ve got six modules to go and then an elect a dissertation to do and it’s, it’s six weeks for a module and then a new module starts so there’s no break in between. So my days and weeks are very, very regimented. So I’m a big organiser strategically plan my days from kind of the moment I wake up. So work out early on in the morning. Then if I’m working clinically, I work clinically. When I come home, I’m taking any meetings at lunchtime or after work, phone calls, etcetera. If it’s a non clinical day, then it’s just a full day of 12 to 15 meetings, phone calls and then in the evening I’ve put time aside for kind of my MBA work, but most of my MBA work is done on a Saturday, so I’ll often. Like a big, long six, eight hour block on a Saturday and Sundays and two other days in the week have my son. So kind of saves time there. And then it’s just repeat. So that’s good. Go, go, go for yeah. Week after week.

My goodness That’s that’s made me tired just listening to that, man.

It’s. I find it exciting. Yeah.

I know. Now I’m starting to think maybe that look in your eyes wasn’t wide. Wide maybe that look at your eyes or something other than determination. No, but I’m going to take my hat off to you. That. That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. I mean, don’t burn yourself out. You know that. That’s important, isn’t it? I feel like. I feel like you’re fed by it.

Yes. I mean, so that’s another thing. I was listening to someone online and they were saying so again, knowing yourself is so important. So after I’ve done this psychometric analysis and it’s really strange when you fill out this questionnaire and you have this 30 minute conversation with someone and they come back and they kind of tell you things and you almost think that someone’s been following you for six months. Yeah. So my first line on my analysis said Assad is all work and no play. Yeah. And, and I had I had not even told them about my roles that I do my work but they just managed to pick this up. And I think the point is that I personally don’t see work as work. It’s a career for me. It’s certain things I’m trying to achieve. And but I also know when I’m getting to that point of burning myself out. So I’ve got certain tactics where I’ll go away and take myself away for a couple of days or have the evening and even an evening off, for example, really refreshes me. So go for dinner, go to cinema. And that really refreshes me for the next day. But it’s important to do that before you get to the point of burnout.

Have you got a psychometric test that you like? Is there one that someone could look up?

And I’ve actually done two. So we at Portman, a lot of the employed colleagues, we were fortunate to do the Spotlights one and so the business insights one at Warwick, we did the business insight, the spotlight, sorry, and both similar, slightly different in terms of how they’re the scores are calculated and, and the kind of the results they give you. But both times I did them about 18 months apart and both times my results were almost identical. And the whole point is that psychometric point is that that is who you are. You can only adapt a certain way left or right, but to the core, who you are is is who you were kind of raised to be. Let’s say they.

Are. They test that anyone can go online and take.

Yes, you can do them online. Yeah. So again, as with anything, they vary in terms of price ranges. Often the more you pay, the more accurate they come out, etcetera. But yes, you can look at them online.

We put everyone through something called 16 personalities. It’s it’s a good website. It’s a free easy to go 12 minute thing. And you’re right about people are just amazed at what you can tell them about themselves.

And it’s important for, you know, other colleagues around you to know that what brings the best out in you and what brings the best out in them. So that’s a big thing I focus on. I I’m almost after doing so much of the kind of psychometric analysis myself, I can kind of take within five minutes of talking to someone I know where they’re kind of positioned roughly on this map of psychometric analysis and what will get the best out of them. The first five minutes I’m talking to someone are kind of analysing that and you end up doing it subconsciously. And it’s amazing to do with patience as well, because when you’re kind of giving your taking consent from them, you have to tailor it to what they understand. You know, the GDC says that to us now and how how are you meant to do that? Well, there’s lots of different things you can use to help you with that guy.

Then tell me about me.

So, Well, I met you at the show, didn’t I? So I knew straight away that you’re kind of there’s. I’d say you’re obviously built these businesses up, so you’ve been very successful in your career. But let’s say they’re not from an organisation or kind of an organised or traditional organisational approach. And there’s one thing that you even said you kind of gave it away because I was I was talking to James Martin at the time and I was talking about my dentist who investor anyone doesn’t know. I was talking about my kind of MBA and you were saying to him, You don’t want to do an MBA, you and James Martin. And it’s interesting what you can pick up when you listen to people. But I mean, and that’s that’s not wrong advice because you’ve been successful in your career. He’s done fantastic with his kind of business. But some people need it, others don’t. So yeah, by listening to. People picking up on different things. It’s amazing what you can pick up on.

Yeah, you obviously don’t know James Martin very well.

Yeah, that was the first time I met him. That was the first time I met him.

Shaky. Shaky. So, look, you said you have your son every other weekend, is that right?

No, I’m three, three times a week. So every Sunday. Every Sunday. Mondays and Wednesdays. So obviously Mondays and Wednesdays in school. But having Mondays, evenings, Wednesday evenings and Saturday from 12:00.

So. And how old is he?

He’s coming up to five now. So just starting school. And he won an award last week for being enthusiastic, which he was delighted with. Amazing. And it was funny to see because he’s obviously I’m obviously kind of subconsciously rubbing off on him, let’s say.

Tell me about divorce, because, you know, you’ve got your son these days because you’re you’re divorced. Give me some reflections on on on on your divorce.

So saf and so SAF. My ex’s dentist, she knows I’m coming on the podcast. She listens to your podcast a lot. So I said I’d give her a shout out.

So sorry for asking that question.

So we everyone kind of laughs when I say, but we still work together. When I work my clinical days, we still work together. She’s still my biggest referrer as a friend and, you know, it’s all amicable. Ultimately. I think we met when we were kind of 23, 25, and it was, let’s say we were different people at the time. As time moves on, you grow and develop in different directions. Sometimes lots of kind of life events happened which kind of affected that as well. You know, with my father being ill, a son being born really early into our relationship, for example, and then moving to York where we had no kind of family support. So it does add pressures into into a relationship. But ultimately, we’re still good friends, we’re still amicable. And, you know, we do the best for our son. So that’s the I think that’s the main thing going to the future. You know, I’m I’m I’m still a I always use this analogy of wars and battles. So life, let’s say, or certain aspects in life is are kind of like let’s say it’s overall it’s a war and you’ve got little battles and you can’t let little battles affect your overall war. So when I went through the divorce, lots of people feel can sometimes end up being, you know, angry or upset or kind of against the idea of marriage. But I’m personally not. So I feel like you can’t let little things that happen to you in life affect the overall aim of the goal that you’re trying to achieve.

As you were going through that process of like, you know, finally, I’ve never been divorced. I’ve been married. I’ve been married. Um, the moment when you’re thinking. It’s over, you know, like that moment. It’s interlaced with so many different sort of feelings, especially from an Asian background. Right. I mean, there’s it’s even more complicated, I think. Did you feel sort of the stigma of that or did you not did you get over that wasn’t part of your issue?

Slightly, and I think so For me personally, it was that it was a bit out of the blue, the divorce. But I think the stigma point of view, I feel you can feel that in anything. So yeah, again, surrounding yourselves with the right people that don’t let you feel the stigma or kind of aren’t with that viewpoint. Essentially life’s a game of opinion. So some people will have a stigma about something that’s perfectly normal and other people won’t. So ultimately, our families understood it was two people that gave our all. It didn’t work out. But the best thing is that, you know, our son is doing well and we’re still amicable. So if that’s the outcome from a divorce, let’s say, which is, as you’re describing, a kind of tough moment in someone’s life, then I feel like we’ve not done too badly there.

How is it that you stayed amicable with so many people? Don’t.

Well.

I think actually work at that. Did you like sort of want that to be the outcome?

So a bit of a strange one because, I mean, even through our marriage, let’s say we’re two people who aren’t, let’s say arguers. Yeah, we’ll always kind of communicate in the correct manner. And I think that’s always important to try and communicate in the correct manner, whoever you’re talking to in life. So that helps. And then obviously still working together, there still has to be that colleague relationship. So, you know, it’s a relationship of colleagues now and just how I am with my other colleagues and how she’s with her other colleagues, it’s exactly the same there now.

Because I think, you know, often you see it in divorce rate where especially where there’s kids involved. Where it’s not as friendly as yours. And then people people sort of forget that, you know, like while you’re hurting, that your your ex-partner, you’re also hurting your kid badly. Exactly. And I think we all we all know this instinctively, right? But somehow we think the the acrimony takes over and revenge or something. I mean, like some sort of tit for tat. You know, I’ve got family divorced and they can’t even call each other. It’s only email only, you know. And what can you get over in an email that it’s like it.

Yeah. I mean, lots of people ask me about this and there’s no kind of one set thing that I feel we’ve done. It’s just the feeling was mutual to be amicable. And, you know, it’s good that it’s worked out that way and hopefully continues because like I said, and going back to if I talk about me personally, why I’ve really focussed on being amicable is because it’s not worth winning a battle or let’s say kind of causing a battle when the ultimate aim is for a son to do well. So that has to be the centre point and the focus.

With this in mind, let’s get to the darker part of the thought. What would you think is some of some of your darkest days in, of course, divorce your dad, but where it’s interlaced with dentistry, What comes to mind when I say darkest days?

Well, I mean, so I was about 18 months qualified when I was actually sued. And, you know, that’s probably that kind of time period was one of my darkest days. But so it was one of those patients. And again, you were asking earlier what kind of triggered me to really start developing my career. It was kind of that unfortunate event, let’s say. So as a patient I’d seen for an extraction, long story short, but kind of no complications. Patient was a smoker, got to infectious a dry socket, ended up in hospital and we didn’t hear from them again for, you know, they were meant to come back to have some prosthetic treatment. Didn’t hear from them again. We just thought, you know, they’ve gone somewhere else. I even tried ringing them a couple of days after, you know, to check in on them. I was one of the tips I learned quite early on in my career to ring patients after big treatment to try and see, but they didn’t answer the phone. So I just thought, right, they’ve gone somewhere else. And then it was it was almost a year after that point when I came into work one day and I had this solicitor’s letter on my desk and they were the solicitors were asking for about £80,000 because they had said it was a strategic tooth.

I shouldn’t have extracted it in the first place. I should have. It was a grade two mobile, a compromise tooth. I should have crown lengthened, root treated post and chord crowned it because it was a strategic tooth. And now at the time when you when you were young dentist you don’t and the importance of mentors many years later lots of people and even myself. If someone else was coming to me with this, they would say, Look, ask your indemnity to kind of fight this and and fight your corner here because there’s no issues. The my indemnity and the kind of wisdom settled with the patient. It was a no blame on the dentist. So that got me to sign a piece of paper. A patient signed a piece of paper, patient still got, you know, a handsome payout.

And how much did you get?

£7,000.

And you’ve done nothing wrong. Just dry.

Socket. Yeah. And it’s one of those where obviously in hindsight, you ask your indemnity to fight it for you because you know, it’s the the correct thing to do. Ultimately that kind of those dark days kind of kicked me into action because I kind of started thinking, look, I’ve always loved Endo. And the ultimate aim was to do an indent. I’ve not done any postgraduate training, so let’s try and go and do some postgraduate training. So the first thing I could I was accepted on because when obviously when you apply for postgraduate training in universities, there’s an application process, etcetera. Was this Pgcert at Bristol? And obviously I carried on from there. But the kind of stimulus was from those dark days. And one of the things I always say to younger colleagues now is dark days won’t last. If you’re able to get yourself out of them, you have to try and get yourself out of it by thinking of a course of action to move forwards. And there always is a way in dark times, there is always a way to move forwards.

But, you know, I’ve never been properly sued. I mean, there were some there were some, you know, things that could. Only practice for like 4 or 5 years. But, you know, properly full time. But remember that when a complaint became dark for me was where the patient was kind of implying that I wasn’t paying attention, where I was really going out my way to pay attention for that patient. And that that disconnect makes you question everything about yourself. And so in this situation, did you feel like you’d done anything wrong other than that, you know, the communication piece that you didn’t manage to get through on the phone?

No, I mean, that’s where you when you I describe it as almost all the stages of grief, really, because you go you go you start off with anger, but ultimately disbelief. Disbelief, Yeah. Because it’s like that. It’s got that far, let’s say, for example. Yeah. And then obviously continuous disbelief that people are trying to settle it for you, etcetera. Yeah. And you think maybe this is the system. But again, going back to the point, there’s only yourself that can get you, that can get you out of that. And it’s important that you, you kind of see the tunnel. Now having mentors helps you with that because many years later, when I discussed this with mentors, I mean, early on in my career, I was almost embarrassed to talk about it. Yeah, because you were kind of embarrassed that you’ve been sued. But many years later, when I finally started talking about it, people are like, We would have fought this for you. We would have you know, I’ve had restorative consultants in university saying these are the kind of cases when people reach out to me, I come and defend them in court and and fight for you. So, yeah, try and reach out for support.

So I can imagine being sued 18 months out of university is, you know, a painful dark moment. Right. But what about if I said, what’s your biggest clinical error? What would you say to that from the black box thinking way of looking at life so that we can all learn? You know, in medical we don’t tend to share our errors.

Yeah. I mean I mean clinical. So you mentioned earlier, I’ve been fortunate that I’ve never had a major, major disaster in Endo. And again, which is probably why, you know, I always ended up enjoying it. But one of the things I realised quite early on is that I mean, I almost have two left hands when it comes to doing oral surgery, and part of it is undergraduate teaching. Part of it is just never had the passion for extracting teeth and wanting to save teeth. But this piece kind of goes to, I feel, whereas very what that kind of got me to realise. And so my biggest kind of clinical errors are leaving retained roots, etcetera, that then even with the help of a colleague etcetera, couldn’t be removed and you know, had to consent the patient about the process and you know, there’s a root left, etcetera, etcetera. But from that there’s two kind of things I learned is and I explained this to a lot of people, firstly, if you’re struggling with a certain aspect or you’ve made a certain mistake, you have to really analyse it in depth. So when I would analyse those things, it would come back to being a training deficiency for me. And then the next part is what are you going to do? So don’t just kind of analyse and say, Right, I’ve got a training deficiency, what am I actually going to do? And I’ll explain what I did which is which some people may find funny, but my kind of solution was I put myself in a position where I’m not doing oral surgery anymore.

So that’s one solution. I’m not doing oral surgery, so I’m not going to have disasters in oral surgery. But if somebody said write oral surgery matters to me and I want to make a career, then you have to try and kind of push yourself to go and do that training. And again, the reason I didn’t go and do that training was I chose Endo and I thought, I’m going to make a career there. If I say it as a GDP, I know 100%, I would have had to go and do further training in oral surgery to bring myself up to a certain standard. But then you come back to strengths and passions. My strength and passion was always endodontics and one of the key successes, key ways for success I feel people can utilise is focus on what your strengths are naturally. Really enhance those, get your weaknesses or delegate your weaknesses to somebody else. I refer all your oral surgery out and you won’t be too far wrong in your career.

So your biggest clinical error was you broke a tooth in an extraction and left some roots.

Yeah.

Ever. That’s your biggest clinical error?

Yeah. I mean, I’ve been so let’s say I’ve been fortunate in that. So one of those so I’ve had that, let’s say 2 or 3 times in oral surgery, but even one was too many for me. With my kind of ethos of doing the best. And in my mind, if I can’t do something to a really high standard, I don’t want to do it. And that’s the way I’ve always thought about things personally. Now, it’s not always an option for for people doing general dentistry because we we get patients and we’re kind of forced to do oral surgery. We’re forced to do things that we were not good at. And we can’t always refer patients out because they’re not always willing to pay for a special interest or a specialist dentist. But me personally, I put myself in a position where I wouldn’t have to do oral surgery, where I’m able to refer it to colleagues or work with, for example.

But going give me another clean clear.

So obviously no fractured files, but don’t see those as well.

Let’s talk about fracturing first. Let’s talk about fracturing first. So so first of all, the language is beautiful, right? The file has separated.

Yeah, exactly.

It’s beautiful language.

Well, there’s a funny story about that, because somebody was telling me once that a dentist basically fractured a file. So he sat the patient up and he showed them the file and he said, look, this is titanium.

Yeah.

Titanium. And the patient said, How much do I owe you? So so it’s it’s the way you explain things too often. But.

But when does it happen? When does it happen? Is it out of the control of the endodontist or is it. No.

So it’s essentially there’s two types of fractures. You can either get torsion or rotational. So you’ve either gone around too far around a corner and the file stuck there and it’s still spinning at the top or you’ve got a fracture at the whole shaft. Now, the point is there’s again, going back to the basics, one of the first basics we learned in dentistry is creating a glide path in dental school. And when we get into dental practice, we kind of discard that because it takes time. But that taking of time will save you from fracturing a file. So I’ve fractured a file and remind me.

What that means. Does that mean that your access reflects the curvature of the canal? I’ve forgotten what glide path is.

So there’s. So there’s that as well. You kind of your access, but your glide path is your kind of path in layman’s terms, path from the coronal section to the apical section. And it should be essentially smooth, able to smooth to pass file that requires either hand filing first. Yeah, yeah. Or now you can get kind of rotary glide path files to use. I use hand filing for that. But the key point is that if you following those basics, you spend time creating glide path. Your axis is correct. You shouldn’t be fracturing your file. But going back to the time when I fractured the file, it was on my first ever day in the new job and in the new job where I was just doing endo. So I’d done a PG cert. It was one of my first ever patients. And you can imagine you’re already thinking you’ve already got this kind of feeling in your mind, thinking, Am I at the correct time to be accepting referrals? Am I at the correct time to be starting a brand new job where I’m just doing Endo Yeah, and then you go and fracture your file. And that required a lot of mental resilience to get past that because essentially, again, went home, analysed. What mistake could I do? And that was my first and ever fracture. But again, it’s the analysis that let’s me kind of feel lets me get out of those time. You have to analyse it and it has to be brutally honest. So sometimes we analyse and I could have analysed and said, Oh, it was a brand new machine to me because I’m using a slightly different rotary machine to my the practice. Well, if I’m being honest, that’s not actually the reason I fractured is because I didn’t create a glide path. The machine had nothing to do with it and I’ve gone on to use that machine many times and it’s been fine. So you have to, when you analyse a mistake, you have to be honest with yourself.

And then once the instrument is separated, is there any any justification for leaving it in or do you always take it out?

So should always look to take it out again via referral. Or if you’ve got the you know, is that.

A common referral that you receive?

So I personally don’t do many fractured file removals. So again, this is on my master’s training in Liverpool. I met a dentist, Rob Eades. He lives five ten minutes away from me, works five, ten minutes away from me. And between us we get a lot of the endodontic referrals in York and he’s gone and done a lot of training after his master’s on file removal. And again, you send them to him? Yeah, I send them to him. Or. Well, I advise people to refer to him if there’s a fractured file because he’s fantastic at removing fractured files. And the key point is he’s gone and done so much training in that it’s kind of bread and butter for him. And there’s fractured files now in this day and age with the tools that we have aren’t anything that is, let’s say, a game over because you can either look to bypass the file or remove it with the tools that we have.

And what are the tools, some sort of kit.

So yeah, one of the one of the best tools out there is it’s, it’s kind of a simplest way to describe it. It’s kind of a small loop. It’s almost like a cowboy loop, which you throw around the file. You kind of pull back and it grabs it, grabs it and pulls it out. To do that, obviously have to widen your access. You have to widen the canal. What’s that called is a Yoshi loop. Yoshi. So it’s a Japanese instrument, really fantastic dentist who invented that. He does courses now and again. So he charges almost four figures to just remove a file and he can he can remove his kind of claim to fame as he can remove any file in the world. Wow. With this with this system that he’s developed.

So now now in the position you’re in now, your your advice to colleagues who get sued is, okay, stay calm, number one. Yeah. But you know, you’re thinking as as a as a dentist. Often I get this call sometimes from some of our customers, friends of mine who got sued suddenly. It’s not just you’re not a great dentist, it’s you’re not a great dentist. And you may lose your job and you may not be able to feed your family and you may have to take your kids out of private school. And, you know, the catastrophize is what do you do about it? Because you’re kind of a young guy, man, and it’s you’ve got quite an old head on your shoulders. You do. It’s clear. But how do you calm down that dentist? What do you say?

So again, I’ve had to support a lot of dentists with kind of complaints. And the first thing is this again, with anything like putting in perspective. Yeah. So we’ll often catastrophize and make the situation worse. But once you put things in perspective, you realise it’s it’s not the end of the world because it’s a, it’s either an honest mistake or a mistake that that you’ve attempted to rectify. Often dentists will look to rectify this by referring the patient out doing exactly what’s right. And those things are taken in favour of dentists when complaints are made as well. But my advice is always try and obviously take things as your indemnities advising, but also if you want to reach out and take advice from university professors, often quite helpful or again in Portland, my kind of role, reach out and take advice from me and what to do next. Steps and see if there’s any thing that we can do to support you along with what your indemnity is saying. The complaints are going to happen. A long time ago, somebody said the only sure way of not getting complaints is just not going to work and not practice.

If you’re in work, you’re going to get complaints. And as long as you’re trying to be honest, you’ve done everything right. It’s all documented. You’re not going to lose your house. You’re not going to lose your job. The wider point I see and again, my me being sued really hit me on that. And this is part of the discussion I was having with James Martin is I’ve been a kind of a heavy investor financially in things outside of dentistry for and having kind of a rainy day fund. And I feel the earlier people can do that in their career, it gives them the kind of security. So having kind of either with this non-clinical role, for example, another string to my bow, another way to make a living, other aspects to either your kind of financial output, just kind of money in a savings account. Even again, people in dentistry talk more on this than the detail I want I’m going to go into, but seek those people out and have something in place and then complaints, etcetera, shouldn’t be something that, you know, is a scary thing.

Tell me about the great man at the top of Portman. Sam Waley-cohen. Have you met him?

I met him once briefly. So he’s like, lovely guy. So obviously, the kind of inception story into Portman is, you know, he was from a business background and he really wanted to create and I’ve used this phrase a few times tonight, but create exceptional experiences for patients where we really focus on putting patients at the heart of what we do. And it goes beyond just kind of a phrase, but lots of things that we do in practice is revolve around creating that kind of impression. And it’s the key thing from every colleague or every team member is a valuable part as a valuable part to play. So the patient journey for us starts from the moment the patient rings up to book an appointment or interacts with us online to book an appointment via email, etcetera. That’s where our patient journey starts. And, and from that kind of simple ethos. The other kind of big vision that we have at Portman is to be the best dental group in the world. So one of the phrases we use is ultimately, at some point in the future, when somebody thinks of dentistry, they think of Portman. They kind of the two are synonymous with each other. And and that’s the kind of ethos that we have and the vision that we have to go forwards. And that comes from Sam, from everything that he’s done in his career, even as a sportsman, let’s say, continuously working at it, until he won the Grand National.

And now that you’ve got this Dentex merger. It’s not clear mean from from from my side. From the supplier side. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not really clear. Is it going to be one big Portman model? Is it going to be one big dentex model? Is it going to be a hybrid essentially?

So there’s lots of work going on behind the scenes for that. So if you imagine when two companies merge, yeah, there’s initially, you know, the competition, mergers, acquisitions, the CMA authority who want to to to talk about kind of is this a monopoly, etcetera. So we’ve gone through that process. There’s lots of little processes that you go through before you merge a company. And we’re now finally reaching the point where we’re able to merge kind of essentially all the departments within the business into one kind of unified departments. Of the two marketing departments, for example, are coming together to one, two clinical departments coming together to one. So that’s the process that we’re going through. From your kind of point of view during that time period? Yes, that month or so, things kind of are transition. Yeah. Up in the air. But very soon things will be kind of fully merged and everything will be kind of announced and ready to go for the future.

Yeah, but what’s the answer to that question is, are the 400 practices going to be more like Dentexes or are they going to be more like Portmans, or are they going to leave them as they are? By the way, you should go into it. Go into it. What’s the difference between a Portman practice and a Dentex practice? From what I can see, the Portman practice is fully owned and the Dentex practice is kind of kind of isn’t. It’s almost like the Dentex practice. They’re leaving them to do whatever they want. The Portman practice is a bit more managed. Is that right?

On the surface, yes. Yeah. In answer to your question, which model are we going to go towards that? That is the. That were in figuring out and figuring out now. Yeah. So once that is kind of finally settled and figured out, that will obviously be announced to the industry. Well, firstly to our practices for example, and then to the wider industry. But it’s an exciting time because you mentioned the subtleties in that the dentist’s practices, let’s say, are.

Left to their own.

Devices. Well, let’s say less.

Decision making wise.

Hands on. Yeah. The ultimate ethos of both businesses is exactly the same. So if you and it’s been interesting, I’ve met a lot of colleagues from Dentex now and the things that they’ve been working on completely independently over the past two years have been exactly the same as what we’ve been thinking and we’ve been wanting to work on. So now the two kind of combined departments coming together will be. I say might be biased, but it will be industry leading.

And what was the first time you knew about it? Was it the same time that I knew about it?

So it was announced as clinical leads was announced just a bit before obviously it came out.

So what was the reason for the merger?

As simple as that. It’s there’s two companies here who have exactly the same ethos and what they’re trying to provide. So discussions were had between the execs and the decision was made to obviously look to merge the businesses. And let’s say by a by-product that has brought growth because all of a sudden we’re now almost 400 practices going over 400 practices. So all of a sudden it’s a bigger entity. And having a bigger entity allows us to kind of input our vision to the wider Dental industry a lot quicker of becoming the best Dental kind of group out there.

But, you know, when when, when businesses by each other, you can understand what’s going on there, right? You’re almost you’re accelerating market share or whatever the when businesses merge. Mean you’re in the middle of your but you tell me for me from from my from my amateur perspective it’s a cost saving exercise. You’re trying to sort of get rid of people.

Not necessarily because I mean, a famous merger I always talk about and again, with the NBA, you got you get lots of case studies and. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously, you’ve had GlaxoSmithKline in the past. So Glaxo and SmithKline merged and that was done for a reason of that both develop the similar type of drug. I can’t remember exactly what drug it was, but it was the case study that we read. It was a similar type of drug. They were both trying to go for the same market and when they broke the drug down, the kind of products and the constituent products of the drug weren’t too dissimilar. So they both said to each other, look, this is going to be our leading drug in the market for each of us independently. Why not merge and just take over the whole market in that kind of field? So there’s lots of different reasons why companies merge. But for us it’s a clear and it’s I think it’s been shown to the industry, it’s a clear growth strategy because it’s we could have continuously run as two independent organisations. I mean, even a simple thing of we as a combined organisation now have a head office kind of head based in London, whereas Portman, we didn’t have much of a head space in headquarters in London for many years. We were always attempting to try and get one, you know, costs in London etcetera hard. We now, after the merger, have one in London and one in Cheltenham. So, so a certain practices. For example, in the past both our mergers and acquisitions team and this is when the exec kind of started realising wait a minute, we’re both going for the same practices and it’s not a coincidence how many times it’s happened. And then it would be a coin toss between the, the vendors. And sometimes they go to Portman, sometimes they go to Dentex. So it was essentially those kind of.

Pushing the price of the practice up as well.

Guess Yeah, if you’ve got two competitors going for it, Yeah, yeah.

And going forward then what’s the plan is are they planning to buy more and more practices? You know.

I’m urging the acquisition department was one of the first that fully merged. So yes, essentially we want to continue to to to grow.

Grow the numbers of practices. Yeah. And so now you you’ve got an insight into I guess the numbers right. When you see how many practices do you say you’re looking after now.

25 to 30. Yeah.

So you’re looking at those 30 practices and you can see the numbers in the 30 practices and you can see the performance of the different clinicians. And obviously in my world, it’s it’s like the number of teeth whitening treatments that they do. Yeah, yeah. And, and it’s massively different even within the same practice you get one dentist does, you know, 20 a month and you get another dentist does one every six months. Yeah. And obviously in my world it’s very simple. It’s all about teeth whitening. Hey, talk about teeth whitening more. You know that. That’s that. But when you look at it, how do you have you have you successfully addressed that when when you see one dentist not performing from that perspective from the production perspective?

So this is where at Portman and part of the reason the clinical lead role came about is we have a big ethos of clinical freedom. So yeah, as long as a dentist is providing the best standard of care, productivity essentially doesn’t come into it because they’re self-employed clinicians, they can choose how long to work, etcetera, what they want to work, where they want to work, as long as they’ve got the best equipment, materials provided to them, they’re able to do the best dentistry. But my kind of answer to your question, there’s lots of different factors why one dentist can be providing 20 and whitening treatments, let’s say another is providing one. And let’s kind of take away the fact that, okay, the person who’s providing one is a special. No. Let’s say GDPs. Yeah. So why is there such a disparity? Well, it can come down to even subtle things. For example, a newer clinician in the practice can be focusing on if they’re early in their time in the practice, they can be having to kind of build a patient base and they’ll trust of new patients. They’re building trust and they’re actually having to do lots of restorative treatment. And again, that’s where a lot of my role comes into it because I kind of add colour to the numbers When I’m talking with operations colleagues, I’m adding colour to the numbers and kind of putting a story behind the fact that it’s not as simple as one clinician is just doing 20. Very good point.

Very good point. Because because in the corporate situation, often the numbers are the only thing that are doing the talking. Yeah, and you’re absolutely right. You know, being able to, as you say, put colour to it. Yeah, it makes a big difference. But go on.

Well I mean I think the other the other factor is it’s going the other way. It could be that let’s say one dentist has just gone and done. I’m just using an example of like an ethical sales course and actually that of course they’ve just gone and done that and the others haven’t. And then I’ll kind of sit down if, if the if after putting the colour to the numbers, it genuinely does show that, you know, one clinician is, is outperforming, outperforming for a genuine reason, then obviously we’ll look at that. But you get that again clinicians and people can are self-motivated and self-motivation. Nothing can beat self-motivation. There’s no amount of external motivation. You can dangle all the carrots in the world in front of someone, but self motivation always outweighs external motivation. So some people will always just sell more of your whitening than others.

Yeah, and I notice Portman did it doing a thing where they’re sort of buying associates. That’s an interesting move. What do you guys call that internally? What’s the name of that buying associate? Sounds strange.

I’m not sure what you’re.

Where they ask an associate, someone who’s an associate to move over to Portman but pay them like a big golden handshake to move.

So we are actually one of the corporates that’s not actually doing kind of golden handshakes. Oh, you know, no. So some of the other corporates do. But I don’t know if you want to. Yeah. Got that wrong. Yeah. Because there’s a big self-employed piece around that. So some of the other corporates might be in a bit of hot water soon around that but you’re not it’s it’s hard to give a self-employed person a golden handshake.

Is that.

Right. Yeah. From HMRC point of view I.

Got that wrong. Maybe I got that wrong. You talked about your your dad and it’s obvious to respect that you’ve got for him and you know, the relationship you had with him. Tell me tell me about, you know, as you’re going through this. Stressful job, let’s face it. When you said your dad got ill, what was the what was the time between finding out that he had a problem and then when he passed away, how long was that?

So we ended up having cancer about two and a half years. And his first cancer went into kind of almost remission. And then he got a secondary cancer. That secondary cancer was in January this year, and that was kind of an aggressive and as soon as that was diagnosed, it was kind of terminal. So he passed away in April, middle of April. And again, that kind of time period was very stressful and obviously very busy because I was working full time. I didn’t miss, you know, I was trying to when you have a responsibility to practices and clinicians, you know, I take that very seriously. On top of that, the kind of final week before he passed away, I had my MBA study week, so I had to be at Warwick for five days. So I was going to go into Warwick, go into hospital, sleeping at the hospital till kind of five, 6 a.m., then going back to Warwick, then hospital. And I think the point is through that you, you often sometimes don’t realise how strong you are or how much resilience you have until you get tested. And I always felt and it’s always come out in my psychometric analysis, let’s say that I have a certain amount of resilience naturally, but that was a time that I could really kind of lean in on that. And in some ways I kept it business as usual as much as possible. But obviously, yes, it was a hard time supporting my family emotionally, etcetera.

You said to me, I don’t know if it was in in the pod or out of the pod, but you said to me that your dad had just retired.

Yeah.

When this happened.

Well, so he hadn’t actually the illness kind of retired him, so he, he was one of those same kind of with the work ethos. He never wanted to retire. And he was only 67. Oh, my goodness. So he he didn’t want to retire. And even till kind of his the last year of his life. And I feel like this is where I get a lot of my kind of natural inclination to help others and not just sit in a room and do endo all day, let’s say. Yeah. So in the last year and a half of his career, he set up a big kind of pathway for foreign doctors to come into the UK, and he set up kind of four training centres in UK hospitals off his back. So just a few weeks back it was the first kind of graduation ceremony of those doctors having done two years in the NHS and my mum and my brother and me were invited as kind of guests of honour to that, which is a big kind of moment for us to see, kind of the hard work and see in front of us all these doctors that had come over.

What a lovely legacy for your dad. Yeah, a lovely thing.

Yeah, He left a big legacy. And I think that’s why, you know, I’m very you know, when I talk about him, it’s there’s obviously the sadness, but also kind of the happiness and the pride because of what he achieved in his career.

That’s beautiful, buddy. I know that we’ve kind of we’ve been talking for two hours, man. Let’s let’s get to the final questions. Yeah. It’s gone. It’s gone. It’s gone so quickly for me. I just looked at the title. Yeah. So let’s start with mine. Let’s start with mine. Fancy dinner party? Yeah. Three guests. Dead or alive? Who do you have or why?

So obviously, what I’ve been saying earlier about my dad and so obviously my first guess would be my dad. And, you know, as I’m saying, he wasn’t just what he achieved in his career, but my dad was one of those people that ended up, no matter how busy he was, he ended up knowing a lot about, let’s say, politics, sports. He wasn’t a big sports fan, but he ended up knowing all the sports news, so to the point where anyone could come up and have a conversation with him. So I feel if he was at the dinner party, no matter who I go on to invite, you know, there’d be good conversation there. My second one, and I think obviously title of the podcast Dental Leaders podcast and obviously in the talking a lot about leadership. My second one would have to be Queen Elizabeth. The second, because of what she achieved as a kind of being thrust upon leadership, being thrust upon her at the age of 25 when she probably thought she had a few more years before she became queen in the aftermath of World War Two, you know, was just last year. Everyone was talking about her achievements and then also kind of staying relevant throughout all these years. So relevance is something that, let’s say celebrities or certainly people in dentistry even clinically, let’s say we struggle with because we’ll we’ll work for five, ten years, we’ll get set in our ways. But here was someone who was able to stay relevant for 60, 70 years.

Yeah, she’s come up once before. Flawless. No. Flawless. Yeah. Incredible. Go ahead.

And the final one? I’m a big football fan, not a fan of Manchester United, so I will kind of add that in. But Sir Alex Ferguson and the thing that fascinates me about him as a leader is often leadership is very easy or I wouldn’t say easy, but it’s easier if things are not going well and a new leader comes into an organisation and says, Look, these are the kind of changes we want to make. People are more receptive to those changes and you often have some success. But what happens after success is either people get complacent or you kind of get to a plateau point. And the thing that fascinates me about him, again, not a Man United fan, but how he was able to continuously renovate kind of teams, reinvigorate players after success and to continuously move the club forwards. So those are my three people that I’d have.

Nice. Who do you support?

I’m a Birmingham City fan, so of course my my sins of living and growing up in Birmingham.

Prav final question, a deathbed one. It’s weird with someone so young on your deathbed. Friends and family around you. Three pieces of advice you’d leave them.

So I say some of these to my son every morning when I’m dropping him off to school. And I thought I’d share some of those because. And on the surface of them, they seem kind of simple ones. But then obviously I’ll go in to explain them a bit more. And the first one is, and we’ve talked earlier about enjoy what you do day to day life can be can, can become mundane. And, you know, I talk about this in my career. One of the key factors I feel like I don’t get to burn out easily because I’m genuinely enjoying what I’m doing. And you see that in a lot of people. If you genuinely enjoy what you do, it doesn’t feel like work. It feels like something enjoyable. So if and the counter of that, if you end up at any point in your life doing something that you’re not enjoying, then change it, change that. And I’d say very quickly, because it’s very easy to get set in your ways, either kind of something might be financially right or whatever. Exactly. If you’re not enjoying it, change it quickly. My first big one. Second one touched on this earlier, but surround yourself with the right people. And I said even one negative person in kind of around you can really drain that negative energy from you. So I kind of really focus on having people around me who are really positive. Now, it’s not to say if one of my friends is going through a tough time, they’re gone and I’m there to support them. I was going to.

Say, Have you fired anyone before?

Um.

We’ve a friend. I mean, not. Not. Not an employee.

No. So. No, no, but I think not yet. Yeah, let’s say, um, but I think it shows because if your values are such and if what you genuinely sit down and talk about is a certain kind of thing, then you’re not going to attract people to that friendship group, let’s say, who aren’t along that line. But it’s really important to have the right people around you. And the final one, again, like I said, on the surface of it will seem so simple, but we always forget. And you know, again, touching on my dad, my dad was 67. He had still until his last days, he said he had all these kind of ambitions, things he wanted to achieve. And it’s the final piece of advice. Give it your all. So we all only get one chance at this life. So really, whatever it is, big or small, just give it your all. And you don’t know whether by giving your all in that one small thing, it becomes a big part of your life. But remember that you only get one shot at it.

How do you want to be remembered, sir? Assad was.

Assad was somebody who. Who went out of his way to help people. And I put that in there, went out of his way because it’s what I’ve seen my dad do and it’s what I firmly believe in, even to this day. And I don’t say this lightly, but every single kind of message I get on any kind of LinkedIn or social media, I’ll always respond to whether I feel it’s not relevant to me or not. Even if it’s just to say, Look, it’s not relevant to me. I just feel if someone’s giving me their time, I want to be there to help them in some way. So if I can be remembered as that, that would be it for me.

That’s lovely, Melody. Well, think. Think. You know, your future’s going to be bright, but your future’s going to be bright. So someone so young, What are you, just eight years out of university? Yeah. That’s really nice. Eight years out of university. Um, talking the way you are. It’s nice. You got, as I say, you’ve got an old head on your shoulders, and, you know, I don’t know where it’s going to go for you, man. Whether you’re going to stay in this corporate thing or, you know, as I said to you on that day when we met, people who finish MBAs come out and say, I want to run GlaxoSmithKline now, you know. So let’s see. Let’s see where it goes. But maybe maybe we do a second one five years down the line. And you know what? I was thinking of you. I was thinking of saying, hey, where do you want to be in five years or in two years? And then doing another 1 in 2 years and seeing what happened, you know, something like that. Maybe we’ll include that in the in the in the following ones. Lovely. Lovely to have you, buddy. Thank you so much for doing this. Great. Really, really enjoyed that. Thank you, man.

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

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Learn very methodically. So the way I’ve created a program where I have my my book, as you know, full mouth reconstruction for GDPs is one of the best seller. So the book is there for people who just don’t know what full mouth reconstruction is and just want to understand how I work. But the course, the way it works is I’ve recorded everything online. So all the lectures, all the practical demonstration is there online. They do a online course. First, they watch all the videos and everything. Then they come for six days, training, three weekends broken down, different three weekends. And I teach them exactly how the full mouth reconstruction, all the steps, the three steps. And I teach them those three steps. The beauty is I don’t give any demonstration because everything is recorded online. So when they come in, they literally start doing practical work. And when they make mistake, I then show them how to improve on them because I’ve been on so many courses myself where the, you know, the lecturer or the the the teacher gives demonstration and you’re like, Wow, this is amazing. And then when you start doing it, you can’t implement it. It’s like, you know, you, you see the demonstration of the toy or something and why the toy and you come bring home and you can’t really replicate what the guy was doing. And that’s where I feel that it’s a waste of time. Me giving demonstration. I would rather people use that time in practising, practising, practising and figure out what makes it work.

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

It gives me great pleasure to welcome Dr. Devang Patel to the Dental Leaders Podcast. Devang. I’ve known for quite a while now. He came on to my feed as a geeky looking Indian guy who sort of pitched himself as the full mouth reconstruction guy or the fMRI guy. And I thought, Who is this guy? Right. And then, um, I could see he was lecturing in front of, you know, a big audience on a big stage and running these courses. And I think Devang you reached out to me at some point and asked for asked for some help on, on, on. I can’t remember what it was at the time and we connected and Devang one one thing that was very clear to me is that aside from everything else, like just it sounds very sounds very cheesy, right? But your passion, your intense passion not only for full mouth reconstruction, but your passion for your delegates to implement and execute what you teach them. Right. That was very clear to me. I speak to hundreds, of course, providers and I meet lots of lecturers and they, you know, they do their thing and they walk away and whatnot. And I think one big difference that I learned from you, Dev, is that for you, it’s more about it’s more about implementation and execution.

And you want your delegates to go from single tooth dentistry to full mouth reconstruction or being able to do full mouth reconstruction and start delivering it. I remember why you reached out to me now. Devang and it was it was to put on a specific course for your delegates and, and actually what was what was really interesting when you reached out to me was this you said, Hey, Prav, I want you to put on a communication course for my delegates and I want you to teach them how to sell full mouth reconstruction dentistry. But I’m going to pay for it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, because the fee that I charged you and the fee that you took from your delegates, there was a shortfall. And you said to me, I’m going to take the hit on this prof because it’s really important that they can sell the clinical skills that I’ve taught them. Right? And that’s when it became really clear to me that you’re so passionate about the delegates who come on your course that they can implement and execute to the point where you’re happy to take a hit and lose money in order for that to happen anyway. Devang Welcome to the Dental Leaders podcast. That was a bit of a long introduction.

Thank you.

But, but it was just a foray into, well, how we met, right?

Thank you for inviting me. I’m really grateful.

It’s a pleasure. Devang And on this podcast, I’m sure we’ll come back to talk about full mouth reconstruction and and your teaching and all the rest of it. But I want us to take a step back to your childhood. I want to learn about where you grew up, what kind of a kid you were. Were you always that geeky kid, amazing at exams and all the rest of it? Just just tell me about what was your childhood like?

Uh, my childhood was really amazing. I mean, I am very normal guy. Like, I. I can’t really, you know, I had an amazing childhood. Um, I had always looked at the positives. Well, everyone loved me, and that could be because when I was three, unfortunately, my father died in a car accident and we lived in a joint family. So my grandfather became kind of my father.

Where was this divine? Was this was this in India or.

Yes, in India. So I grew up in India, a small town called Mehsana in Gujarat. And my grandfather was the first GP in the town when the town was there. And kind of everyone knew, everyone knew him. So we had to kind of behave whenever we go because everyone knew who we were. So you can’t do any mischief. So otherwise my grandfather would know, know about it. So we like even if you go out to eat because my grandfather keep telling everyone not to go out and eat and we go out. So we had to be very careful. Um, so yeah, I had a very lovely childhood. I lived in a joint family with my uncle, aunt, my grandfather, grand mum, my mum, my brother. I have a older brother who is also a GP in India. And yeah, it was, as I said, it was, it was really lovely. Everyone, even though some people who didn’t get along with each other, they, they loved me. So I had no hate whatsoever at all when I was young.

Growing up as a kid. Yeah. Do you remember your dad?

No, I don’t. I mean, I just remember just one memory when he was holding me. But no, I don’t remember much. And I guess maybe because I was so young to compensate. For my loss. Everyone, you know, made sure that they look after me. But yeah, I mean, I when I was a kid, I didn’t ask for anything. To be honest, I just whatever I got, I was very happy with that. Um, and whatever I didn’t have, I just make do with that.

And so it was your mum and your grandfather that essentially brought you up, right?

And my uncle, my aunt, like everyone literally, but my grandfather was an still until he was alive. Even now he’s not. But still he’s helping me and guiding me in a way.

Okay. And then and then. So in terms of your childhood, what was it like in India? Just sort of talk to me about the day to day, the mischief you used to get up to or not get up to because you were scared of scared of people telling you I.

Was a straight I was a very straight kid. I used to go to school, you know, come back and study. I did have many friends. My mum tells me a story where I called my friend to my house and he’s like, Look, give me this toy. Otherwise I’m not going to be your friend. And I basically took his hand and I threw him out out of the house. So I was pretty independent from from the beginning. I did all my school work and everything, and I was actually telling my son that no one actually asked me to do homework. I don’t remember. And my mum doesn’t remember, even as young as I was like 4 or 5, six years old, no one had to help me with the homework. I would do it myself. If I don’t know, I would ask. And you know, so I was quite independent from the beginning. I did become dependent when I was seven years old. I’ve suffered from something called Goldenberg syndrome. So it’s a viral infection where you get paralysed. So I was completely paralysed, neck down.

At what age?

Seven, seven, eight. Yeah. So my grandfather used to carry me and they kind of lost hope that I would walk again. Um, but then my grandfather really believed in me and, you know, really worked hard into getting different opinions. So we used to travel two hours every week to see a specialist and then see six months of rehab. And yeah, I was, I was I was back on my feet and slowly sort of recovering. But yeah, even then I just see everyone helping me, loving me. So, you know, it was again, even though it was a adversity, I see it as a opportunity for me to connect with my family.

So do you have any memories of the Guillain-Barre syndrome? Were you getting do you remember like getting the tingling sensations in your fingers and stuff like that?

Yeah. So I it started when I went on a summer holiday to my mother’s side, my mama’s side. So we went there and I remember the swing was swinging and all of a sudden it hit me on my knee because I could not move. And then literally within a few days I was paralysed. So it was quite, quite rapid. Yeah, quite quick. But then with schools and everything, because my grandfather knew the school people, they supplied with the materials. So we did like a study at home and then, yeah, six, six it was 6 to 7 months and I was back on the school.

So you were so you were paralysed from the neck down, you couldn’t move your hands, your legs, anything like, you know, day to day stuff going to the bathroom.

So my mom used to carry me, you know, so it was difficult. But I was young, so I guess I was lucky because there not that many people completely recover from it. So.

So how long were you paralysed for? How long did you. Seven, six months.

7 to 8 months?

Yeah, 7 to 8 months. Okay. And then from there onwards, tell me, did you grow up in a family that was quite well off and fortunate? Were you were you were you struggling again?

No. I mean, again, my childhood is a really good we we were we were well off in the sense that but we lived very well below our means. My grandfather helped his brothers with all the all the things, you know, money wise and everything. We didn’t live lavishly at all to the point that I didn’t use to get birthday gifts. My birthday gifts used to be my grandfather used to get me ice cream, so we used to just have ice cream. There is no cake cutting until I was 13, 14. And then the thing started, you know, you cut the cake and stuff. So, you know, even now, I don’t expect any birthday gifts or anything. I don’t really celebrate birthday that big. I mean, I was 40 last year. We didn’t do much because I believe in sort of day to day enjoyment rather than just pick one day and then go all out.

Live every day to to the. Yeah. So. So. So. Curiosity. You don’t you don’t get birthday gifts and you don’t believe in them. How old’s your son?

He is nine. He gets three birthday gifts, sometimes four. Okay.

So you haven’t carried you haven’t carried on that tradition, then?

No, unfortunately, I’m weak parent.

That’s not weak, mate. That’s not weak. That’s not weak.

Yeah. So, no, he gets he gets four four gifts for the Christmas and but they are little again, he is a very amazing kid. He doesn’t expect much. So small gifts, nothing too too big or too expensive. But it’s just the number, what counts. But yeah, so with regards to the school’s pretty strict. I was in a state school. Nothing expensive. My. My yearly yearly expense for the school was in pounds. It was probably £6 for a year. So and that was just the examination fees. That’s it. And probably the school, the school clothes and stuff like that. So nothing, nothing very expensive.

So fast forward throughout your academic career and stuff. At what point did you think to yourself, I want to be a dentist? Or was it a foregone conclusion that because coming from a medical background you had no choice? So.

Mean because my again, I was we were very well known family in the town. My teacher used to call me doctor even when I was nine years, ninth standard and 10th Standard. They used to call me doctor. So it was kind of ingrained in our brain that, you know, you’re going to become a doctor. And when I finished my year A-level equivalent in India, I had 87% in maths and science sciences, but I couldn’t get seats in in medical or dentistry.

Did you apply for both?

Yeah, I applied for both.

So what? Why did you apply for both and what’s the system there? Did you. Could you. Could you. Yeah, you could. What did you want?

You could. I wanted to go into medicine because I didn’t know any better, to be honest. That’s the only thing. I mean, I’m unlike my son. I had no aspiration. Like, I’m going to grow old and I’m going to become this person or whatever. I was just going with the flow. And I remember it was 87%, but I didn’t get into medicine and then dentistry. So then the option were either become going to engineering or in India there are legitimate seats where you pay. It’s called donation. So you pay like a charity or something to the college and they give you that seat. So it was that option. So my grandfather, I remember very clearly, my grandfather and I was sitting in the sitting room and he he asked me like, look, he’s like, we’ll pay for whatever you want to become. If you want to become doctor, we’ll pay for that. And if you want to become dentist, we’ll pay for that. Or you can go and to become engineer and.

And that’s free.

That’s free because I had a percentage for that. So I didn’t want to become engineer, so I wanted to become either doctor or dentist. And I selected dentistry because the donation for the dentistry was one third of the medicine. And I said, Look, I don’t want you to pay so much money for me. So, you know, he’s like, Look, money’s not an issue. We’ll pay whatever you want. But I just had that that, you know, that my father is not making, you know, whatever I’m getting is a bonus in my life. So I didn’t want to burden anyone. So I said, okay, you know what? Just pay for the dentistry and I’ll be fine. So that’s how I went into dentistry by kind of a legal bribe.

A legal bribe. And the reason you chose dentistry over medicine was the price point. It was nothing to do with your aspirations of transforming patients smiles or doing teeth or dentists earn more than doctors. No, nothing like that.

It just purely other medicine, dentistry. Dentists are cheaper than medicine. So I said, okay, let’s do dentistry. And then obviously you ask people and you try and find benefits, right? So I remember my grandfather used to do on call, so people used to come to our house. He had a small clinic in our house. So like 12:00 at midnight, 2:00, 3:00. And my grandfather used to wake up and, you know, do that. My uncle’s a gynaecologist. So again, he used to be on call. He used to wake up middle of the night and someone said, Oh, you don’t have to do that. It’s 9 to 5 dentistry. You know, you you go 9:00 and come back 5:00 and there is nothing else afterwards, which is completely untrue, by the way.

But it is it is in your world, that’s for sure.

In my world, yeah. Yesterday was 12:00. I was working. But, you know, it’s not.

Not lunch time, right?

Not lunch time. It’s a midnight. 12:00. Yes, but. But that was. And they said, okay, that’s the thing. So we went and the seat I got was 20, 24 hour travel time from my house. So it was in a different state, but there was no trains or plane, so it was by bus and it would take me 24 hours to go to that university.

To get there. Before we talk a bit more about university, I just want to learn a bit more about this legal bribe. It is.

Definitely illegal.

Yeah, no, I’m sure it’s I’m sure it’s legal. But you said they have these seats, right? And so typically, how many seats are we talking?

Probably if there is, let’s say dentistry has 80 seats in total. Yeah, probably four seats are like that.

Okay. So we got four seats and they go out. Do they go out to the highest bidder or is it there a fixed price? How does it.

Work? No, they just say whatever they want. And it’s a lot of factors apart from just money. Like you have to know people. But generally money is the main thing.

So is the fact that your grandfather was a well known person. He was a doctor. Does he have any influence in that?

No, because the seat I got was in Maharashtra. And the the reason they got me that seat is it was a remote town where there was nothing else to do. So they’re like, You’ll study here. If we put you in city, you’re not going to study. So they put me in like a remote town where there was like, nothing. Literally no cinema. There was only two restaurants to eat outside. That’s it. No cinema, you know, Very remote. Very remote.

Wow. And so I asked you, you know, does it go up to the highest bidder? And you say, no. They say whatever they want. What do you mean? Like is there So.

There is a there is a price. So everyone knows that this universe. But when you go there, they will tell you that this is a mount, but it’s not fixed. Like you have to take it in maybe, let’s say a week or ten, ten days, otherwise they can give it to someone else. Yeah. Or they can raise the price depending on what they feel like.

But generally just the way the wind blows. I mean, what do you mean, what they feel like?

It can just. It just can go up. It doesn’t they don’t do that very often. Generally, we know what’s the fees?

How much how much are we talking How much we’re talking though?

Uh, at the time it was seven lakh rupees, so I don’t know, £7,000.

Is that per year or for the whole program?

No, that was just to get the seat. And then the program was £5,500 a month and then a year. And then that went up to year after year like £100 more. So at the last year was £1,000.

Okay. So £500 for a year. £600 for a year to £700 for year three. So and so on and so forth. Right. And, and so if there’s only four places and I come along and say, hey, I want to pay, um, you know, £1,000 more than this next guy. Would I get your place?

Probably. But generally, once they give you a place, they don’t take it away, if that makes sense. So in that case, that sense, they are good. So once they commit to it, they won’t like they won’t say, Oh no, you gone.

Okay. So my next question is, you’re one of four kids in a team of 80. Yeah. Yeah. Who paid your way in? You didn’t earn your place, right? Yeah. You know, I’m being a bit thingy here, but. But you didn’t earn your place in dental school through academia or whatever. You paid your way in? Yes. How did that manifest itself in the. In the group? Right. With 76 kids looking at you, Four guys as the. Hey, the rich guys who paid their self in or anything like that?

No, it’s pretty accepting. People are very accepting. There was there was nothing like that because there was remember, there’s other things like in India, there is a caste system as well. So we had someone who had only scored 35%, came as a free seat because he was from a quota. So there are quota depending on what caste you are. Yeah. So, you know, it depends. So it’s pretty accepted.

Okay, so, so, so we’ve got now we’ve got a pay system and irrespective of caste you get in if you’ve got the money right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then you’ve got a caste system which determines whether you get a place and this person who got 35%, I’m assuming you got higher than 35 because you said 80 something, right? 87, 87% right. So someone else got 35% and got a free place in dental school without paying the money. Is that because he came from a high.

Caste, lower caste.

A lower caste? Okay.

So the lower caste people get priority because the belief is that they’re from a disadvantaged background. So we help them giving them the seat because they didn’t have all the facilities which the upper caste. It’s not to do with the money, it’s just the pure caste system. So you could have a lower caste people with no money. Yeah. Who are loaded and then the low upper caste people who are not loaded, but still the lower caste person would get the seat. At least that was the case in my case, which was 1999.

Wow. Any other dynamics in getting into dental school? Because you’ve got money, you’ve got caste.

And I think there is a political. So the the university I went to was owned by a MP in that area so he could give the seat to if someone wants if he wants to someone. So just like that.

Just sort of got. Yeah right. Okay. How interesting. How interesting. Yeah. Well that’s really interesting. So what was university like there? So you went to this town. No cinema, two restaurants, Nothing there to do other than study, right? Yeah. So tell me about university.

So I lost. I was very homesick because I was pampered a lot at home, spoilt, but didn’t obviously behave like that. But one particular food, which didn’t get so lost, like, um, I lost 25 kilos in two months and my mum was worried. She when she came to visit me, she was crying. She’s like, you know, we don’t want to get him. She wanted me to take you out from this college and everything. I got a, I didn’t understand English because I was from Gujarati medium. So my all my under-graduation was in my mother tongue, Gujarati. And then when I went to university, everything was English. So I did not understand a word of what they were saying in the lecture. So. So you were.

Just walking around saying chem sarrocchi all day long? Exactly.

And, and actually people were talking in Hindi, which I could understand and talk. Yeah, yeah. The lectures, you know, the lecturers, they were talking in English, they were giving lectures in English. And I had no, I had no clue the books were in English, although I did English language as a language. But it’s like you do French as a language, and then you study dentistry in French. Not a chance.

It’s completely chance.

So, so same thing to me. So I struggled a lot. So I used to have a dictionary which translates English, Gujarati to English, English to Gujarati, and then a book Dental book next to each other and trying to figure out like small, like a cell, like, you know, um, what do you.

Call nucleus or whatever, right? Mitochondria or no.

Idea. So, so, so it was, it was really hard work.

I mean, it’s hard enough without that, right? Yeah. Yeah.

One is definitely hard, hard for anyone. But this was definitely very hard work.

And Gujarati is not, not written in Abcd. Efg either, right? So. So, so. So you were learning a new alphabet? Yeah.

No. Not new alphabet because obviously learned English.

English language. Oh, of course. Yeah.

I scored I scored 52%. Just 2% of 2% more than a passing mark. Right. So you weren’t a pro? No, I wasn’t a pro. Definitely not. Well, so. So. But. But, yeah, so first year was really tough, but then. Yeah, go got got out. Then this the second year was tough again.

At what point during that journey were you conversant in English?

None. Wasn’t even until I came to UK. Because the thing is, the viva the orals happen in Hindi most of the time. Okay, some words in English you can write in English, which could anyway. Um, so it’s just understanding and then writing which is which I could do. So that wasn’t a major problem. It’s just the first year understanding English terminologies to Gujarati and then that that was the main challenge.

Okay. And then in terms of just going through like knocking about with your friends and colleagues and stuff like that, were you just talking in Hindi or.

Yeah, Hindi, but then that so not only had to learn English, I had to learn Marathi because the patient wouldn’t talk in Hindi. So so and they wouldn’t even talk in, in English. They didn’t know because it’s a village. So I had to learn Marathi to, to, to communicate. Otherwise they wouldn’t even talk because they would understand Hindi. It’s like, again, I’ve heard that in France sometime when you go, if you speak English, they ignore you kind of thing. So it’s the same thing here. So you know, you speak Hindi, they understand, but they won’t answer. You need to speak to them in Marathi. So I learned Marathi.

So you learnt English and Marathi?

Marathi, Yeah.

Wow. So you get to the end of Dental school? Yeah. Assuming you qualified, right. Did you have to sit exams? What sort of student were you? Were you passing with flying colours or were you just scraping to a C?

I struggled first two years quite massively. Third year was okay ish. Finally I was I was I was in the topper, but I was eighth in the class. Okay. So, you know, and the final year I started understanding dentistry because in finally we all had all the subjects were dentistry related. So I could understand the dentistry a bit better.

And what was the structure of the course there in terms of clinical versus theory? And from what like year two or whatever, how much clinical experience did you get?

Very minimal actually, because it was a deemed university in the sense it was almost prioritised university and patients were not that many in there. So we all the good cases like extraction, for example, the we only used to get loose teeth to take it out. The extractions used the the firm teeth used to go to the people who are doing masters. But we did have a good experience in Endodontics because you know, and having said that, I would say I had much more experience than what UK undergraduates goes through nowadays.

Okay, so you get to the end of dental school. Yeah, you’ve got your degree. What happens next?

Then my aunt comes around from London and she’s like, you know, dentists in London, they are caning it. They are like loaded. They are like so rich. You should come to UK and, you know, do dentistry. And I said, I don’t want to go to UK. I love my family. So I said, You know what? I’m not going to go abroad. I will try and sit exam for my MSC in India. Yeah. Which I did. And I didn’t didn’t get score. I mean, the India is so competitive. I did get good score. But again, not enough to get me into get into my what you call the seat masters. The master’s.

Program. Right. Yeah. So you sat an exam to get into the master’s program, and you failed that?

No, I passed. But not not enough. Enough percentage. So again, I had high ATS, but people get 98%, 97%, which I’m not capable, capable of. So then I went back to my grandfather, obviously. So he’s like, look, so there are seats, there are donation seats for you.

And we go.

There we go. So he’s like, okay, we’ll pay for it. And wanted to become I wanted to really do ortho. Yeah. So he’s like, okay, we’ll pay for ortho. And at the same time IQ International qualifying examination, which is the examination you had to pass if you want to come to UK, they did first time in India, so my aunt obviously was talking to my granddad. So my granddad is like, You know what? You sit this exam. Yeah. If you fail. Yeah, we will pay for we will pay for your sister’s master’s. Yeah. So, so I set the exam. Unfortunately, I passed.

So did you go into that exam wanting to fail? No.

No, I never want to fail. So I did my. I did my best to give exam. Yeah. So I passed. And then I came to UK. I passed the second exam. Third exam?

How far after dental school was this? You’re straight after. Straight after you passed an English exam. Yeah, and I do.

I do Pass. Yeah. That’s a big story. I had to pass in English, but I had to take classes for that because there is a speaking and listening and all that space called IELTS pilot.

Did you do that in the UK or did you do that in in India? Yeah.

So I had to take like two months. I took lessons and can, you.

Know, can you not pay your way through that and get a seat.

Probably we could have, but no I didn’t ask for money. Um, I, I stayed, I stayed in amdavad. I remember the really dodgy flat because, again, I was a dentist now, right? So I didn’t want my parents or anyone to pay for my. So I tried to cut the cost as much as possible. So I, I rented the cheapest room, which I could, and it was really bad, like bugs everywhere. And it was filthy. But so I stayed there for two months and passed the exam just enough.

So you studied for two months for this? For this exam? Just exam? Yeah. And were you practising dentistry at the time?

No, I wasn’t. I was just studying for English.

Wow. And so you passed the English exam, and then how how long before you hopped on a flight to the UK?

So the so all these IQ exams happened in 2005. So I did it was pretty good at my right now people are struggling to get seats, but at the time there was a shortage of dentists in UK, so they, they expedite the exam. So I set number one in February 2nd in May 3rd, one in I think July or something like that, June, July, August or something. And then and then I was registered, registered by December 2005. Then I came here 2006 March.

Where did you land?

March 16th of March.

Where did you go? To London or.

London? Yeah, my aunt’s place here. So I went there. Um, I had an interview, telephone interview two, and I got a job. And the guy. The guy is like, you’re going to get this much amount of money. So that’s a lot of money. So yeah, that’s fine. I said yes to the first offer. I came here and realised I got paid less than half of the value which normal dentist gets paid.

Right, Right.

So that’s fine. Yeah. That was my first year. Your first.

Year? First job. So tell me about the practice and then what was your English level like then How what was the was there a I think it was the first time you went to the UK or not. Yeah.

No, I mean I came to UK for my exams, so every time I came I came for exam, stayed for a week and went back to India.

But, but, but this was the first time you were living in the UK for an extended period of time, right? Yes. What was that like? Culture shock? Um, language barriers. We you struggling to. Talk to patients.

Yeah, so I did. I was struggling and I’m quite at least believe I’m very good at adapting. So I was. I was in here. I didn’t. I adapted what it is, what it is, and that’s how I believe. So, you know, you just have to adapt where you are. Yeah. So I didn’t, I wasn’t I learnt to cook, I learnt to clean, I learnt everything in regards to the practice. It was in Southall. So not too much of a cultural shock. No, of course not.

India from India, right?

Yeah. But still, I remember very clearly my second patient. She walked out of the room saying, I don’t want to see a fresh dentist. My second patient patient ever. Yeah. And she was Indian, but yeah, she just went out. She’s like, You can’t talk. And I mean, I was struggling, you know, I could talk in English, but not like the way the English people speak. But that’s fine. That happened for first year. I saw lots of patients there. Like, this guy looks too young. We don’t want to see him. But slowly it completely changed then people requesting me to see see me because I was there working hard. I was the one actually responsible for asking them to open Saturdays because I’ve got nothing to do. So said, Open Saturdays. I’m going to work on Saturdays. In the history of the practice, they didn’t work on Saturday. They started opening. They started eating like me.

Just for you.

Just for me. Because I had nothing to like. I was like two free days, a whole like, what am I going to do? Two free days?

Like, so what am I going to do with this Saturday and Sunday? Right. You you’ve definitely got cinemas in South Hall, right? Yes, we.

Do. But, you know, I’m not so because I’ve never seen my family. Yeah, my grandfather used to work seven days. My uncle works seven days. My brother still works seven days. We didn’t have a weekend off. So, I mean, I’m not used to having weekends off, so I was struggling to do something and I said, look, you know, might as well might as well work. So yeah, I was the one who started the even now, actually, the corporate I work for all the practices where I go. I started eight till eight sort of days. Yeah. Before no one did that.

Wow.

12 hour days.

Wow. But you had in your own words, you had nothing better to do, so you might as well work, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Which I enjoy. I mean, and for me, dentistry is like a like a typical. So I was I was actually talking to someone and I said, kids nowadays, it’s like a they want a love marriage. They don’t understand the arranged marriage. So dentistry for me is like an arranged marriage. I got dentist first and then I fell in love with it. Whereas now people are like, they want to love dentistry before learned. And it’s just it’s quite difficult to understand what things involve until you start getting into it, if that makes sense.

Understood. Yeah. So I guess. I guess you were. You know, the reason the reason you went for dentistry because it was a cheap option. Yeah. And then you fell in love with it, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I fell in love. Actually. I fell in love way after I was just sticking along.

Was it a was it a means to an end? You were doing all these hours? 8 to 8. Working six, seven days a week. What was it? What was your motivation? Was it money at the time? Was it I want to upskill and and and really earn my stripes and get some experience under my belt. What was your motivation for doing those 12 hour days, six, seven days a week?

Yeah. Money has never been a motivation for me because I’ve I’ve come from a good background and, you know, as far as I have enough money, I’m okay. I don’t have a very flashy lifestyle or big dreams that I want to have like a, you know, big holidays or anything. I hate holidays as well.

You hate holidays.

The thing is, I love I genuinely love what I do. So people go on holiday to really get away from what they’re doing most of the time. Not all of them, but most of the time I don’t. If I want to rest, then I’ll just I’ll just. That’s different. Resting is different then going on a holiday to get away from something I do, like rest, you know? I mean, I don’t want to work seven days, so, you know, I prefer resting holiday concept is completely, you know. But having said that, I do go on holiday because my wife and my son, they will eat me alive if I don’t. So. Oh, gosh.

Flipping heck yeah. So the only reason you go on holiday is to is to placate your wife and son, right?

100%.

Wow. And your concept of this is really interesting is your concept of holiday is to get away from work.

Not my concept. No, no, no, no.

But what you think people’s concept of holiday.

Is my because, you know, if I want to do holiday, I would just go somewhere for a week. Nothing. Just rest and relax. That would be my holiday. But that’s that’s not most of the people. They want to go in different countries. I could I could go on a holiday in a Premier Inn for seven days and I can be fine. Does that make sense? Because I’m relaxing. Yeah. Okay.

So could could you go on holiday in a Premier Inn two miles from your house?

I could, and I completely switch off.

Bloody hell. So, look, I. When I go on holiday, I don’t go on holiday to run away from work or escape work. Right. My thing of holiday, I guess it’s. It’s reconnecting and having that time, that unfiltered time with family, loved ones, friends, exploring new places. Yeah, the intrigue of that. Get some sun on my skin and just being in a different environment, Right? Whether it’s experiencing different cuisines. Et cetera. Et cetera. It’s definitely not the work thing. I mean, I’m going to go on holiday in two weeks time. Yeah, it’s going to be a working holiday. I’m off to Thailand and I’ve scheduled four hours of work. I’m going to be on a different time zone and I’ve got some overlapping time zones so I can still have calls with clients. So I don’t see it as escaping from work, but I see it as a switch of environment, a change of mindset.

That’s good because I think for me it’s mainly to, as you said, for reconnecting with family because we farm at home. My wife would just continuously doing something. If you go on a holiday, she has got no choice but to spend time with us. So you know, it’s for me. And that’s why even we’ve just been to Dubai because my brother, you know, he’s like, look, we need to go away from because if I’m at home, I’ll be working. Yeah. So we just went away. But that’s different. That’s connecting with your family and that’s, that’s completely different. I’m talking about the holidays where people just want they look, look. I mean, I’ve never seen a craze on a holiday again. Maybe it’s a cultural thing where I’ve been brought up. When I was young, my holiday was to go to my mama’s house. That’s it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it’s interesting. Even my wife growing up, she would go to her uncles or her aunties house, you know, three towns along or whatever. Right. Or, you know, to another town or whatever. And that would be her holiday. And it’s a break from home, right? Whatever it is, it’s it’s it’s away from your familiar environment. Yeah. And you know yeah, it’s really interesting that actually your concept of holiday so okay so so so it was money was never the motivation.

Yeah. Money is no motivation for me. I again had nothing else to do. And one thing motivated me was I knew that I wasn’t a good dentist.

You wasn’t a good dentist?

I wasn’t, no. So I wanted to improve. I’m constantly. Trying to improve constantly even now, you know, for me, improvement, learning new things, improving myself is is right at the top. So I did lots of courses. I did certificate courses. I did I did two certificate courses, I did mjtf, um, lots of cpds I used to do three 400 hours of Cpds like crazy amount of CPD to learn and improve my skill.

We just one of these course junkies. Any course you saw? I’m just going to go on that. I’m going to book on it. Were you earning money to pay for courses? Was that, was that your thing?

No, I wasn’t earning so I was still 99.9%. Yeah. You know, and I used to, you know, if I used to give an option to an amalgam or composite, I used to pray that they choose for amalgam because composites were associated with sensitivity. So I just don’t want patients to come back for sensitivity. I’ll do amalgam. So 99.9%. But I loved improving even. But even when I was like cram prep and stuff like that, there is no private Crown Prep versus NHS. Does that make sense? There’s no ando. You can still do a good endo under, you know, whatever conditions you are in. So it’s a it takes time. So I do take took time so I wasn’t profitable dentist I still do 9000 Udas though so that’s a lot that’s more than my current practice whole practice target.

And but that was you as an individual. You were doing me as.

An individual used to do 9000 units because I used to work long hours and more days simply so not that I was quicker. So that’s the that’s kept me going. Not money is continuously learning, but I wouldn’t say I was very passionate about dentistry. Again, I was in the dentistry and I didn’t want to do a bad job. So I would make I would learn to to make sure that and for some reason, like from the very childhood we see how my grandfather treat patients and, you know, patient care was always discussed upon like, you know, we need to care about patients and all that stuff. And that’s, that’s sort of ingrained in my brain. So I wanted to give my best to my patients from the beginning. So that was the reason everything changed, though, when I did my MSC in Cons. So after six years of my.

Msc in what.

Conservative dentistry. So from Eastman Okay, so I did I had worked six years like this and the reason I was in UK is because I said I will do my MSC because I wanted to do Masters in India. So I wanted to do Masters somehow so but didn’t join straight away. Because if you are an overseas, you have to pay double the fees. Whereas if you are citizen or whatever resident of UK, you pay half. So I waited until I got my residency, which is six years, and then applied for the MSC in conservative Dentistry in Cons, which is a one full, full time one year program because I used to I did a certificate in restorative dental practice from Eastman and that was an MSC. It can you can work towards MSC, so you do certificate. Then the second year, two years were diploma and then MSC and I was doing certificate, but I could not implement anything in my practice because I was like purely NHS. So I went to my tutor at that time and he’s like, Um, for you the best is to do this MSC in Cons where you treat patients in hospital. And he was his name is Rob Moore. Rob Moore. Rob Stone He, he recommended that. And he, Andrew Kreuztal is the guy who actually wrote me a recommendation letter for my seat. And that was pure Indian style. So he he basically picked up the phone with the head of the Department of the MSC in cons is like, you need to take this guy like literally. And he’s like, I’m sending you send you a reference, but you need to take him because he’s seen my work. And he was quite impressed. And he’s like, You know, you deserve this place because he was also an ex. He was the one who started in Cons along with Derek Setchell and all the rest of it in 1989, long time back.

And I’m assuming you couldn’t just pay extra for that seat, right?

No, no. Welcome to the real world.

I had to.

Work really hard. I did work hard. Yeah. Um, so. So that’s that’s how I got into my the cons and. Yeah, that was a hard one year. I mean, I. I worked. I’ve worked again seven days a week. I used to go to the hospital and seven days a week. So we used to treat patients three sessions. But then we did our own lab work, so I used to go there every morning, 730 till 11:00 at night time because.

So you quit your job to do your MSC, right? You have to.

You have to. It’s a full time, Full time. Right? I quit everything. And I was working. I gathered money enough to pay mortgages and stuff. So I had I had savings so that I know that it will last me for a year.

So you weren’t still living with your aunty at this time, right?

No, I had my own house. Okay. Um, and I was married at the time as well. So. So between.

Between, between coming to the UK, starting your NHS job and then doing your MSC, you got married at some point in that in that.

Gap. Got married? Yeah. Got married. And my wife was quite supportive. So I got married. And then the next year I said, I’m going to go year sabbatical learning, although I had a savings. So. But but it wasn’t that. It was like we a newly married couple and I’m now working seven days a week in the morning, seven till 11 night time. But she was very supportive.

And we were talking about arranged marriages earlier. Was it an arranged marriage or did you did you meet her in the cinema?

No, it was it was introduced so mutual sort of family friends introduced us and then we dated. And then. And then we got married. Yeah.

So sort of some kind of.

Semi arranged.

Semi arranged matchmaking. But you had some you had some choice and she had some choice, right?

I mean, I wasn’t I’m not a party guy or don’t go to pubs. I don’t.

You’re not a drinker either. Don’t drink. Don’t drink. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you were introduced by what? Family, friends, aunties, uncles.

Yeah. So it’s a funny story. So when I used to work in Southall, so basically my some of the relative of mine introduced to my wife. Yeah, but this is completely different story. So when I used to work in Southall one one aunty used to come and she was my patient. She’s like, Are you married? And every time she come check up every six months. And I said, No, I’m not. And she’s like, I have a really amazing girl for you, you know, Can you introduce to your mum? And I’m like, No, no, that’s fine. I’m, I’m thinking, I’m not I’m not getting married any time soon. This carried on even until like we were engaged. And then when. When we were getting married. Yeah. The aunty is my wife’s aunt. No way. No way into the wedding. She’s like. She’s like I was telling her about this girl. You’re kidding. Yeah, it was funny.

That’s hilarious. So every time she was saying, I’ve got this girl for you, it was your future wife.

Yes, it was.

Okay now. Wow.

That was funny. She still reminds me every time we meet. Um, but yeah, so that was. That’s the story.

That’s really interesting. Really, really interesting. So. So. So. Okay, so. So you got married and then. And then you went off to do the MSC and you were basically away from home for.

No, I was at Eastman, so I used to travel. Yeah. But yeah, I was technically away from home. Yeah. I’d only come to sleep to to avoid rent, you know, in the London. So.

And make sure your wife at least had a presence of a husband in the house every now and then, Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just to annoy I think. I think that actually saved my marriage. The the MSC in course is called, you know, Marriage breaker course. People get divorced after that and it has happened. But I think that has saved my marriage because like I’m good in small doses. So so I think that that course really changed my way of looking at dentistry. Hi, how I thought about how precision dentistry works, how precisely you can do stuff, how what good dentistry looks like. Yeah. And got to implement as well.

So from what point did you go from being a rubbish dentist to a good dentist? Was it after that or was it incremental?

It was incremental. So even before MSC and Cons I did this, you know, Eastman Restorative Dental Practice. So perhaps for improving my endo improved a lot. I invested a lot of things in materials and stuff myself, so I was improving. But that one year definitely made a huge impact because as I said, the amount of work I did was almost equivalent to what clean dental students do because I didn’t have to do it. But I said, You know, I’m taking a year off. Yeah, I’m going to do as much as I can. So I was there. I was working really hard and, you know, and because I was working hard and my work was good, I, I scored the highest. In the phantom head test in three months. So what you do is what they do is when you scored really good, they give you challenging patients, they give you good like big cases, complex cases. And that helped me because then I started finishing those cases quickly. Then not a hospital centre. I used to finish them as a private clinic standard, like quick because hospital, everything takes ages, right? But I used to finish them quicker, so I got more cases, more experience. So it was really good. And then I got a prize for the best student of the year as well, so.

Oh, wow.

With a distinction.

Congratulations. And so how did you go from there? Two becoming practice owner. A teacher? Yeah. In a full mouth reconstruction. Having your own training academy. And then all these other crazy ideas that you have now. Right. And lecturing and teaching and speaking. So you go, you know, if we take the journey back, you legally bribed your way into dental school, and the only reason you did that is because it was cheap. Yeah. And now you’re teaching, you know, hundreds of dentists how to do full mouth reconstruction. Dentistry primarily. What happened?

So, I mean, when I finished my MSC, I was like on my ego was really high and I thought anyone would hire me because I’ve got this credentials. And I applied like 200 places and I did not get any interviews. So I was literally bombed out. And so then I said, But I got offered for teaching at Eastman because of my scores and everything. So I started teaching three days a week at Eastman Dental Institute. The MSC course, which I did, I was teaching there, the Distance Learning one, and was a program coordinator. So a lot of my teaching, that’s when my passion started. You know, when I teach people like I thought it was normal what I’m teaching. But people really started enjoying. They’re like, Oh, this is amazing. You never appreciate when I never I still don’t like what I do. For me, it’s normal. But when they receive it and they the transformation I see was amazing. So that’s when the passion started teaching. But obviously the pay wasn’t great. So I started applying for jobs because I couldn’t get into private dentistry. And then my friend, he saw my CV and he owned like six practices at the time. Now he owns 16.

Wow. And he gave me opportunity to work in his practice and he actually helped me. He told me at the time that, look, you have to drop your teaching commitments if you want to work. And at the time I was broke completely, like zero money in the bank. So I said, Yeah, I will do whatever. So he gave me a opportunity to go around his 11 practices and do full mouth reconstruction in implants and endo. So I used to travel again, working seven days a week, travelling 11 practices to do all this work. But what it gave me is a huge amount of exposure to dentistry, a high end dentistry. So I did lots of implant very quickly. I did lots of complex dentistry in a quick session. And then what happened is a good referring dentist, like if someone refers to case for implant, I used to do full mouth assessment and then I would say, okay, I’ll place this implant and refer case back to the dentist saying that you need to do full mouth reconstruction basically because the patient needs full mouth reconstruction. And most of the time what used to happen was that the dentist would either not do it or they botched up the whole case and had to redo them.

So I said, you know what? As out of frustration, I started teaching them full mouth reconstruction. Only people who refer cases to me. I said, You know what, I’ll teach you so they can do a better patient care. Again, it’s all about like how we can give patient a better care. So I started teaching from Reconstruction in 2014, 2015. That’s when my first cohort was, but it was literally my referring dentist. And that’s why I still to date only take nine dentists in my hands on course because I never found more than nine dentists going to be easy to to give the kind of attention I want. So we started with nine dentists a year after year. I used to take 1 or 2 groups of nine dentists in our own corporate, so I didn’t promote anything. I used to just teach them because I’m referring cases back to them. Yeah, And then the pandemic happened. And then during pandemic, I was like three months. I was sitting and I didn’t want to get divorced. So, you know, I said I need to occupy myself. Otherwise my neck, my.

Want to spend too much time with your wife, right?

Yeah. If I spend too much time, she will. She will definitely give me divorce. Yeah. So to keep me occupied, I started sort of building up courses. What I used to teach already, but I said I’ll record everything. So I started recording everything. And that’s when really the the idea of spreading everything came because, you know, a year after 2021, in June was my first proper post, like my first post on Facebook, that’s when I started posting on social media in 2021. Wow. Before I wasn’t on any Facebook or Instagram, I was, but I wasn’t posting actively. Yeah, nothing. I mean, I was there just as lurking, you know, looking at what other people doing. Yeah. Rather than posting my own stuff. Right. So that’s when I started and then. Obviously I created my group Full Mouth Reconstruction for GDPs.

Did how did this all take off your first post? And then at what point did somebody what were you posting? First of all, we’re posting before and after.

Yeah, I was posting before and after cases. My intention was to help other dentists because I have 100% success rate in and the way I measure success rate as you really in the beginning mentioned, is not how many people come to my course, how many people who come to my course are actually doing what I’ve taught them to do, and that’s how I measure my success rate. And my success rate was 100% in my the corporate I used to work for. So all the dentists I taught from 2015 to 20 20 or 2021 even. Yeah, they all are doing full mouth reconstruction because I used to nag them. I used to like. And you’ve seen that in communication course, right? I’ve seen it when you, when you came to teach them. Yeah. I mean there is no barrier. I mean they, I treat them like, you know, kids, if they don’t do anything, I shout at them, make sure they do it and I help them 100%, you know, to, to implement stuff. Yeah. And I saw the I saw the progression and it is contagious. Like when you see, when you help someone and they, they achieve something, it’s like it’s amazing. Like the satisfaction you get is much more than you achieve the same thing by yourself. And I’m sure you know that as well. I mean, you probably help people, lots of people, you know.

All the time.

It’s it’s contagious. And if someone who doesn’t teach won’t understand this, but someone who teaches, they would understand what I’m talking about. Like the. So obviously, I wanted to get that joy and help lots of dentists and that’s where I started posting on social media. And then I created a group that full mouth reconstruction for GDP’s Facebook group. And that’s when everything started taking off because I get a good feedback and I could promote my courses to people who really want to improve rather than just going out there and saying that, Oh, do you want to join my course? Because again, for me, money is not the motivation for me. How can I improve the end goal, which is giving patients better care? And if if GDPs can do full mouth reconstruction, they can diagnose, first of all, more full mouth reconstruction cases which patients are not even aware of, and then they can help them out properly. And that’s where that’s where everything started.

So what’s the most common problem you see with GP’s who can’t do full mouth reconstruction and that patient walks into their practice or their clinic with a consultation and they’ve got wear or whatever, right? And they need comprehensive work. What typically happens in that scenario if you if you’re not capable of delivering this type of dentistry, you don’t have the confidence and a complex case walks into your into your surgery, what do you typically see?

So I’ll tell you from experience, I’m not again, I don’t want to generalise things because obviously everyone’s different and you know everyone what they think. But what happens typically is one case scenario is where you’re an NHS dentist and you’re seeing lots of patients like 15 minutes Check-up Okay, Now many time we and I’m guilty of that as well. We judge patients when patients come in, go there. You tell patient that. I think dentists are very good at understanding when they see the teeth wear cases. So they tell patients they got a tooth wear and they might give them a mouth guard, but because they can’t do full mouth reconstruction, they can’t visualise how the treatment will work, how it will help patient. And then it’s the cost as well. They may think that patient won’t be able to afford it. They got 15 minutes for a check-up Whether it’s worth discussing all that, where patients just going to say no or if they discuss, they send patient to somewhere else. Now they have built that rapport with patient and most of the time patient will say no because they don’t want to go anywhere else most of the time because they are not in pain.

They don’t want to go anywhere else. If the GDP they do full mouth reconstruction, then they more likelihood that the patient will say yes to that person because they trust them rather than going somewhere else. But I think in my opinion, the main issue is not knowing which cases, because teeth is not the only cases where you need full mouth reconstruction knowledge. There are lots of other cases, like if you’re doing full arch veneers, if you’re doing 5 to 5 cosmetic aesthetic cases, even general dentistry, if you’re doing like 2 or 3 teeth restoration, knowing occlusion and knowing the full mouth, how the whole mouth works can help as well. I mean, I get the side effect of knowing full mouth. Is your general dentistry gets like improves so much and becomes so predictable and you don’t feel afraid of like doing those five veneer case or, you know, even if you’re not raising or you’re not afraid of doing sort of a little bit more aesthetic, complex case.

Okay. And so you’ve created this online full Mouth Reconstruction Academy. You’ve got your, I guess, your I don’t know what it’s called, but your you’re basically your complete course where they can come and do hands on with you. They can take the online concept, etcetera, etcetera. How is your training or the training that you deliver different to someone else teaching, let’s say FMR or full mouth reconstruction? What’s your. I’m going to put you on the spot here. What’s your what’s your what’s your USP? Yeah, I know.

Exactly what my USP is, but what I want to say is that, you know, I feel that people right now, dentists are very lucky. There are so many good tutors out there. And I say this openly that, you know, there are so many good people, which I would learn from if I were, you know, when I was young. So it’s not that I’m saying that I’m the best and, you know, rest of the people are not great. The way I put together my course is how I learn. And I know that my dentistry really, really was bad, really bad. And I wish I would have taken photos because people don’t people don’t they don’t they don’t believe me when I say my. They’re like, No, your digital can’t be bad. It’s like, no, genuinely was really pathetic, but they can’t. I wish I could go back and just take photos of my, you know, older cases, but I learn very methodically. So the way I created a program where I have my my book, as, you know, full mouth reconstruction for GDPs. Yeah. Is one of the best seller. So the book is there for people who just don’t know what full mouth reconstruction is and just want to understand how I work. But the course, the way it works is I’ve recorded everything online.

So all the lectures, all the practical demonstration is there online. They do a online course. First, they watch all the videos and everything. Then they come for six days training. It’s three weekends, it’s broken down, different three weekends, and I teach them exactly how the full mouth reconstruction, all the steps, the three steps, and I teach them those three steps. The beauty is I don’t give any demonstration because everything is recorded online. So when they come in, they literally start doing practical work. And when they make mistake, I then show them how to improve on them. Because I’ve been on so many courses myself where the, you know, the lecturer or the the the teacher gives demonstration and you’re like, Wow, this is amazing. And then when you start doing it, you can’t implement it. It’s like, you know, you, you see the demonstration of the toy or something and why the toy and you come bring home and you can’t really replicate what the guy was doing. No. And and that’s where I feel that it’s waste of time me giving demonstration. I would rather people use that time in practising, practising, practising and figure out what makes them what makes it work. And this is yes, actually this weekend I was doing a weekend one of the complete and this is do every time that I ask them what did they learn? And everyone learned completely different things like not all nine of them learn different things and you would imagine that they all watch the same video.

Yeah, they all watch the same content online. They all made different mistakes. Yeah. Right. So I that’s, that’s, that’s where I feel the, my USB is where people watch everything online. They make they, they make mistakes and improve it. It simplifies and then when they start practising I then do 12 months of mentoring with them so that they are not left on their own once they finish the hands on course. In fact, when they start the online course, they start getting the they start getting the recordings and participation. But the ones they finish hands on course after that, they get 12 months of mentoring where they go into the clinic and they start implementing because that’s where, again, I feel it makes everything completely round circle where it’s fully supported. They’re not left alone. Yeah, when they finish because that’s when real work happens when you go to practice, because you can do on Phantom Head, it’s a big jump from phantom head to patient’s mouth and you need really a lot of hand-holding.

And so when they come on your whatever it is, your eight hour hands on course, are they literally doing hands on exercises for the vast majority of the whole of that time?

All the time. Not vast full time. There is no demonstration. I would give demonstration to that one particular person for the for the mistake they are making. So if someone’s not holding the handpiece properly, I’ll show them how to hold handpiece properly or someone’s not doing the margin properly, I’ll show them the margin or someone’s not shape’s not right. I’ll show them how to build the shape, but the demonstration will be different for everyone and it’s individualised.

Okay. Okay. Interesting. And so when you go on a normal I’ve never been on a hands on dental course, by the way. But, but, but if I was to go on then you probably have. Right. Typically, how much time do you spend with a drill in your hand or whatever, doing the hands on versus theory and not doing the hands on and mixing it up? Well, typically it depends.

It depends what courses you go to. Yeah. But there is always maybe let’s say if it’s 9 to 5 926925 course, at least there are I would say two hours of theory or hands on demonstration on average, some less, some more. But on average two hours of that, plus whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it for the first time. They haven’t seen it. They’ve just seen on the hands on demonstration and now they’re immediately replicating it. Whereas in my case, they watched it 100 times at home. So it’s not that they just watch the demonstration now implementing it. Got you. They’ve watched it 100 times again and again at home, semantic wise in their head, and now they’re practising. It’s completely different. And I guess.

The other thing is, if you’re in a group and you watch the demonstrator do a demo and you miss something.

Yeah, it’s very you can’t even see it. Also like even six people had around and it’s just difficult. So that’s why I don’t take more than nine people. Yeah. Even then, demonstrating something to all nine of them is difficult.

Yeah. Whereas I guess the close up video and everything works better, right? Um, and you mentioned that you’ve got 100% success rate in implementation.

Yeah, not now. So now obviously 100% success rate when I was teaching our own dentists. Yeah. Now it’s not 100%, it’s around 80%. And I’m trying to improve because these dentists, when they go. It’s I lose control. And that’s why I’m constantly trying to improve. So what I’ve just implemented now is that I want them to have a case ready. So what what people would do is when they enrol, they need to have a case and they start doing it together. And I think that would work much better. But yeah, so 80%, 85% I feel is still a good percentage. It is, but I don’t think enough is happy.

You’re not happy with the 80% that you used to get because because back in the day you got 80%. You had to pay for a seat, right? Yeah. Yes.

No, I used to get 100% right. But it was different because those were my referring dentists and I used to sell the cases for them, if that makes sense. Understood. So patients. And that’s why I called you in and I said, you know, can you help? Because I want to do anything I can to these dentists where, you know, I feel if they communicate and if they get the case, they have ability to do it, They’re not. And so I’ve asked I’ve asked every dentist actually, I’m asking that. Are you confident doing full mouth reconstruction? They all are saying yes. So there is 100% success rate into them. Being confident is getting patient.

Getting them, getting them to deliver or finding the patients to do.

Finding the patient.

Or selling it. Right. Because they may they may have it. But but then, you know, I think the biggest your curriculum that I delivered for you, you sent me probably one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever had when it comes to teaching. Right. So you tell me, hey, I want you to put on a day for my delegates to teach them how to sell full mouth reconstruction. And I say, no problem, we can do that. And we put it on this day where they brought a case in and they tried to sell to me. And then I gave them specific feedback, right. Which I thought was a great way of doing it. But there was one caveat to that, which was they have to sell full mouth reconstruction to their patients in a 15 minute appointment. And that was the challenge. And it was really interesting because I think I learned as much from that course as I taught, and it really gave me an insight into the into the psychology of that. And it’s wholly possible, right? You can you can be running an NHS clinic and still comfortably sell 15 to £20,000 cases to these patients very, very easily.

And it worked because they are confident in doing full mouth reconstruction, if that makes sense. So if their communication is good, but they’re not confident in doing full mouth reconstruction, it doesn’t work because patient will see that they’re not confident. But if they’re confident and then they’re good at communication, then it works really, really well.

Interesting. Interesting. And so I want to take you through to my final question. Yeah. Which I ask everyone, which is imagine it’s your last day on the planet. Yeah, you’ve achieved what you wanted to achieve and you’ve got, you know, you’ve educated 10,000 dentists in full mouth reconstruction more and more and more, more, more and more. And. And no, no, no, no. And you have 100% implementation execution rate. That’s nice. Yeah. And but it’s your last day on the planet and you’re still married because you didn’t spend too much time with your wife.

And went on a holidays.

And went on holidays. Yeah. Despite not wanting to run away from work. But you’ve got your loved ones around you on your last day and you want to I guess you want to leave them with three pieces of wisdom. What would they be?

That’s deep. Um. So I think one would be. To always work on your strength. And when I when I when I really imagine this scenario, I mean, imagining my son, um, as what would I give him an advice as, as, as my son because I feel more responsible for him, if that makes sense. Because he’s the one. I’m the one responsible for him. So work on your strength and find someone else to help with the weaknesses. Because what happened initially for some time in my Dental career, even, I was working really hard to improve on my weaknesses. So like, if I wasn’t good at scale, I literally hammered down in learning that skill rather than carry on doing what I enjoyed and work more efficiently, go more deeper into that work. And didn’t figure that out until I started doing implants and full mouth reconstruction that, you know how enjoyable dentistry, stressful dentistry can be if you like to if you if you like what you do. Okay, so work on your strength. Yeah.

And get help with your weaknesses. Weaknesses.

Okay. Like get someone else to do it.

So that’s number one.

Learn how to communicate with people. Okay? Because communication in day to day life or, you know, conflict management communication is so important. And I’m learning that because I’ve got a practice now, I’m a practice owner. Yeah. And, you know, you have to be, you know, you need to communicate well. I mean, I’m very I believe that I’m, I’m okay communicating with patients, but that’s not enough. You need to be a good communicator with people.

It’s funny, Devon, remember, you know, when we had that day together and we were going through, you know, your your business structure and your goals moving forward. One of the things you said to me is you’re naturally an introvert.

Oh, very bad. Yeah.

So, so, so, so that took me by surprise because when we spent the day together, we were laughing and joking. Right? Yeah. All the rest of it. And you stand up on a stage and you can comfortably lecture and speak to what, hundreds of delegates and you have nine delegates on your course and you engage with them and you teach them and you get execution and stuff. So then I asked you the question, Well, how on earth can you be an introvert? Right? And then and then tell me, give me an example of where you display your introverted behaviour.

In the parties and the weddings. I’m the guy with the phone right in the corner. I don’t want to talk to anyone. If someone comes and talk to me, that’s fine, but I won’t approach someone and talk to someone. Yeah, I am an introvert, but whatever I am right now is all learned skill and I genuinely believe we can learn whatever you want. I just love being introvert, that’s all.

And I guess for your you know, you’re saying you’re giving out advice to your son, right? Work on your strengths, get someone to help with your weaknesses and then be a good communicator. Right? Yeah. So important. Would you want your son to be an introvert?

Uh, I don’t mind if he is, to be honest. Yeah. You can be introvert and be a good communicator. I believe I’m not a bad communicator. Yeah, I can. I can improve and I will improve. Yeah, but you can be an introvert because I think it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s not a bad skill. I can be by myself. Yeah. I don’t need people around me.

You’re comfortable. You’re comfortable being an introvert, right?

I’m comfortable. Yeah. But I’m also comfortable coming out of my skin and presenting over 100 people and teaching. So, you know, it’s. I don’t mind. I don’t want him to be choose one or the other. I think you can be both.

Just nail your communication skills. Right?

Exactly. Yeah. So important. I can’t really stress enough. Before I used to be saying communication with patients, but no communication in general. Full stop.

Massive believer in that, right? I mean what what what I, I mean, it’s something I’m incredibly passionate about when it comes to teaching. Right. And and for me, brevity and conciseness in communication. So you’re able to communicate complex subjects really simply that that is something to me that’s so important.

So I’ve written a second book on implants. So so it’s called Introduction to Implant Implant Restorations. And on the second page I have a quote from, um, what’s his name, the guy who said that, you know, if you can’t explain.

To a five year old Einstein.

If you can’t. Yeah. If you can’t explain to five year old you haven’t understood yourself enough. Yeah. And really genuinely explain it in that way. And I’ve been I’ve been given, you know, people have told me about the same thing. Like, it’s so easy to understand my book, the book and I’m and this is all despite of English is not my strength.

It’s amazing. It’s amazing. Right. So you, you, you come into the, you know, to your dental college just knowing Gujarati and running around throwing chemicals and savages all over the place. Right. And now you’re writing a book in English. Yeah. Not just one. Two. You’ve recorded an online course. You educate dentists. Yeah, in English. Um, I think it’s bloody amazing. Right. So. So you’ve. You’ve nailed communication as far as I’m concerned, especially if people are coming up to you and saying, Hey, not only are you teaching, but you’re doing it in a way that’s concise and easy to understand. Yeah. So yeah, and that’s.

A really, really good, that’s, that’s the that’s what I love to hear, you know, and that keeps me going to be honest. Okay, well, um, what’s the third.

Three?

Third is like a combination. I want him to learn how to run a business because this is something I wasn’t taught. And it’s so important to understand because even if you’re an associate dentist, you are running your own business. If that makes sense. Whatever you do, you are your own entity and at the end, enjoy whatever you do. Yeah. Not find what you enjoy. Like it’s okay to find what you enjoy, but you need to find an enjoyment into what you are doing as well. Like one day I was, I was washing dishes and I’m smiling and my wife’s like, Why are you smiling? You don’t even like washing dishes. I said, Well, I’m enjoying like, what’s the point? Like, I don’t like washing dishes, but, you know, I’m trying to enjoy it. You know, I’m thinking of something I’m enjoying. So it doesn’t have to be that, you know, you need to. Otherwise you’ll be waiting for your lifetime sometime to find something. What you love. You have to sometime just start doing things.

Enjoy, enjoy. Whatever it is you’re doing.

Exactly. Yeah. I’m sure there will be something you enjoy about.

And I think that what you’re saying like, you know, just just being at peace with the fact that, hey, I’m washing dishes, but I’m cool with that and it’s fun, right? I’m enjoying it. I think I think part and parcel of that they call that mindfulness or whatever, right. Is just maybe focusing on what you’re doing and thinking about it and just being content and happy. Right? Um, yeah. Amazing. And then, um. Fantasy dinner party.

Which never go to.

Which you never go to because you’re the introvert. Yeah, but let me just, just, just just think deeply about this. Yeah. Three people you could invite dead or alive. Who would they be?

Uh. Well have three disciplines. Probably so. And this is how I think would break things down. So I would break it down into dentistry. Dentistry, I’m really love the way Pascal Marnier teaches. So, you know, I would love to invite him and get to know him better, although I’ve been on his courses and you know, all the stuff. But yeah, it would be good to have him. Yeah. Then communication wise, I, I really like Tony Robbins the way he really understands people’s psychology and how people think and you know, all that. And I really would love to learn how he does it. Yeah. And thirdly, for life, my grandfather, he died when I still get I wasn’t as mature probably as I am now. I would be asking him different questions, you know, like he was a GP. And I’m sure like things gone wrong in the practice, I never felt like every time he came home it was the same guy. Like it was not like stressed or like, you know, frustrated. And I’m like that as well, like, But, you know, he he pulled it off. I mean, I learned from him. Yeah. You know, I never bring issues of work to home stays at work.

As a really good skill. It’s something that I something I definitely practice right and I work hard at which is leaving home at home and leaving work at work. And it’s something I really struggled with coming out of Covid because our whole agency went remote. And then I set up a home office and then I started working from home, right? And it was really, really hard for to not allow work to spill over into home life and home life to spill over into work. It was so tough, dude. I mean, I mean to the point where, you know, Prav comes in like 3 or 4 different incarnations, Right? And it’s true, right? So, so work Prav is a completely different beast to to Daddy Prav and husband. Prav Yeah, they are three completely different human beings and people. Yeah, but you know what I found during Covid? I was working from home. I had to I had to shift between those people in a second. In a second. Yeah. There was no time to decompress. There was. There was no. And so the reason why I’ve got an office now, which is a 20 minute drive from home and I go to work every day and I go to home every day, is that 20 minute decompression, whether it’s music, whether it’s a podcast, whether it’s thinking about, you know, walking through the girls and walking through the door and the girls just, you know, with their beaming smiles on their face and come and give me a hug and all the rest of it. It’s that separation and it’s something I really have to work on, you know, that that work life balance. What about.

You? Yeah, I’m not. Yeah. I mean, when I say stress, I leave the stress and the worries at home, but I’m. I still work from home because my teaching, my recording, everything still is from home. But my my son and my wife, they are they are used to that. And I guess I don’t want to take that completely away because I want my son to know that, you know, you’ve got to work hard. You can’t just, you know, have it everything without work.

I’m going to ask you a question that came up recently in our family, which is, look, I’m a hard worker, right? My my girls know me for working hard. And more recently, I’ve spent a few weekends away. Right. Which is not normal for me. Right? Very speaking engagements and stuff like that and teaching courses. So I’ve been away for a few weekends and my girls really don’t like that. Yeah. And they know that daddy works hard. And then and then there’s a lot of conversations with my six and eight year old. Why do you work hard? What’s the reason for you working? Why do you go to work? Etcetera, etcetera. Why don’t you work from home, blah blah, blah, and you give them the standard answers, right? It’s, you know, we have nice things, you know, I want you to have the best and blah, blah, blah and, and to give us all a better life and all the rest of it, Right? So. So you give them the standard answers and then they go away and they start thinking. And my wife said something to me the other day and she said. Would you really want your girls to be working as hard as you? Yeah.

Or do you want them to actually enjoy more of life? Yeah. Like what example are you setting them? And you know why that why I’m saying this right now is actually based on what you said about your grandfather being and everyone in your family being this that your brother works seven days a week. He works seven days a week. You know, no different, right? Like working seven days a week is normal in your household, right? Yeah. And I look at my wife and her family and she says to me, I’m the hardest working human being she’s ever met because all her family would be like, Hey, it’s dinnertime. It’s relaxed time. It’s home time. There’s no work now, right? Yeah. I have to work at that pace. Yeah. And I. And I do it. I manage it really well, but. But but I really have to work at it, right? And for me. And there’s no right or wrong with this. Right? I definitely don’t want my girls to pick up that habit and that trait from me. Yeah, okay. But, but but everyone’s different, right? And so what’s your take on that?

For me, the thing is, as far as for me, it’s not work. I can I have I’m privileged to. I can stop teaching completely. Yeah. And I can still live the way I am right now because I earn from clinical income. So money is not the motivation. I really genuinely enjoy the day I stop enjoying. The first thing I will stop doing is teaching. Yeah. Because it’s, you know, you have to enjoy. So that’s something I truly believe if you’re not enjoying it, there are so many things you can do to to make a living. Yeah, you don’t have to pull through. I always say that you need to give a chance a few years to make sure that, you know, you’re not just discarding it without giving your all, but if you give your all and you start not enjoying, then it’s not worth it. But this is something I always have discussion with my So in my house, you know, as an Indian parents, there is a common saying that money doesn’t grow on tree. Right.

It’s true.

It’s not it’s not allowed. So no one can say in the house that money doesn’t grow on tree. So I was watching a documentary. My son is big into docu. He doesn’t watch any movies at all. He watches documentary. So we were watching Very normal The Life in a lobby BBC documentary. So they go to a different hotel, a remote hotel, like a expensive hotel, and tell you what goes underneath it. And one of the hotel was like, one night was £7,800 for a night. And my son’s like, Oh, dad, it’s so expensive. I said, What? He’s like, We definitely can’t afford it. So I said, Well, I said, Do you like to go there? And he’s like, Yeah, I’d love to go there. So then you need to the way you need to think is you need to raise your standard. Does it make sense for for what is expensive for us, for Elon Musk? It’s not expensive. Does that make sense? So relative excess is relative. So if you want to go to that kind of a place, you just need to raise your standard. You need to be become that person who can afford it. That’s all. But you know, you need to stay away from material things. And that’s what I teach him as well. And he’s very good that good at that. So I think at least until now, I’ve done a good parenting. I don’t know, you know, these things can go like literally, you know, when they become 12, 13, 14, they have their own mind.

Yeah, look, it’s really interesting. And then and then with my older kids, you know, they go through that and then they go to uni, then they come back and they grow up and all this different person really interesting. And me and my wife have a lot of conversations around, you know, what’s the best advice to give children? What’s the best example, What’s the right way of doing it? And, you know, all these conversations about mental health and stuff like that, right? But there was one really powerful statement that my six year old made to me about three weeks ago. So, you know, whenever I talk to her about work and she’s why are you going away and stuff like that and she gets upset, um, you know, I can see the cogs ticking around in her head. Yeah. And she said this to me, and it hit me like a train. She said, Daddy, can you stop working until we’re poor again?

Oh, wow.

Yeah. And was like, fuck. Like, just. Just the. The innocence in that comment. And what that actually means is so powerful.

And this is same thing with my son. Like he knows my calendar better than my wife, so he knows what time I’m going to come home, which days I’m off. And I’ve slowed down a lot since after pandemic. Um, and that’s because of him. Because I want to spend time with him. I can work seven days, but I don’t because I want to spend time with him. And, you know, he’s. He’s our only child. So, you know, it’s that’s also a different. Yeah. But I think they deserve it. And I enjoy I enjoy everything I do right now. You know touch wood I’m I’m in such a amazing place where I enjoy a family time. I enjoy teaching. I enjoy working. Um, you know, in my practice, I’m gone back to doing a little bit general dentistry. I enjoy it. I enjoy seeing, you know, doing like class one cavity, which has been ages since I’ve done like a simple filling. But yeah, it’s good.

Brilliant. Well, Devin, thanks so much for your time. Thank you. What I’m going to do in the in the show notes as well is just put some links to your courses so that people can learn about you and your books and things like that. So please email everything across to me and I’ll, you know, I’ll link through to the books. And then if you when you publish the implant book as well, I’ll hopefully that will be a bestseller as well. And we can we can get that on there as well. But but thank you so much for your time today.

Thank you very much for inviting me. Thank you.

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

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Having to almost like suppress certain emotions and thoughts because we’re being professional, we’re looking after someone else, and we’re constantly in that caregiver role, and that takes its toll. And beyond that, like, we want to be happy and we want to be thriving. We want to get, like you were saying, we want to get beyond baseline to optimal states. And how do we do that?

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.

A special episode of the podcast from the Brooklyn book launch of Mark’s Mark Wojo’s book, which is called Resilience and Wellbeing and Well-Being for Dental Professionals. I was surprised at the name of the book, Mark, because all the other names of your brands are so cool and and zippy. Mind flossing. Mind Ninja, was it? Brain flossing. Yeah. Mindfulness. Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. I appreciate that question. So I actually desperately wanted this to be a really fun, cool, catchy kind of name. But I’m working with publisher Wiley-blackwell and they were not having any of it. So for them, it was really important that it was a searchable title. And so and people were able to find it. And so it made sense for them to put those. That’s the. So there was no way around it. They weren’t they didn’t even want me to have a subtitle. And so I would have loved to have a little, little something in there.

So tell me, from the moment that you decided I am going to write a book to the moment that a week ago it came out, how long was that process?

It’s been a really long process, actually. I think I started talking about this 2019 and then I actually got around to pitching the concept to Wiley in 2020.

And how did you even know that’s what you had to do? Like pitching to Wiley, Did you research? Did you Google? How do you publish a book?

No, actually, I have, um, so I have a dental coach. I’ve got quite a few coaches, actually. And Dr. Janine Brooks has written quite a few books for Wiley. Okay. And I was in a coaching session with her and I was just talking about publishing a book and creating something. And actually I thought you had to write the book and then you pitch it to the publisher. Actually, that’s not the other way around at all. Yes. So you pitch a proposal. So Dr. Brooks was being kind in kind of introducing me to Wiley in the first place, because actually, what you would otherwise do is have an agent. You can’t just approach a publisher and you have an agent, and then they help you with creating a proposal and putting that together. So yeah, I wrote a proposal and also attached this really fun, um, little kind of teaser of the book. So I had actually been creating kind of worksheets whilst I’d been teaching like the year before. So I’d done lots of kind of workshops and created loads of worksheets around that. So that was always going to be integral to the book. It needed to be practical.

So it’s full of worksheets and exercises and colours and just a lot going on in that book. 300 pages, yes. What was your process for researching and then writing that?

I mean, honestly, it was a complete joy to write. So the way I did my writing was I sort of a skeleton and what I wanted it to look like. And for me, it was important that it was a journey. So exploring and spotlighting the evidence based tools and coming up with some sort of resilience framework and then actually thinking about how to make those habits that stick. So that kind of that really spotlighted the whole journey. So firstly, like learning about the tools and how do you make them sustainable and, and so then, yeah, it wasn’t actually too, too bad at all. So it was a matter of sitting down, working on it chapter by chapter and getting on with the first draft. So putting pen to paper as you will, and just writing, um, looking at the evidence base, incorporating that thinking of creative ways to, to do that. But firstly, you’ve just got to get the words on paper and then you can start having fun in the editing process. So yeah, it was really honestly joyful and not as hard as what people make it out to be.

It seems like you, it feeds you, it feeds you. You seem so, so energised by by this process. And it’s so lovely to see that because I remember the beginning of this process. Four years, 4 or 5 years, three, four, five years ago when you initially started talking to me about just just getting into this space, when you when you pitched this sort of stuff to not only publishers, but when you when you talk to dentists and and it’s such a big area mental health. And just when we were sitting there, you were making the comparison to, you know, going to the gym and and really nice thing that you’re saying, you know, it’s not only for when you’re in trouble, it’s for optimisation and other other tools you use for someone who’s in trouble. Similar to the tools used for someone who wants to optimise mentally. It’s a lovely thing. It’s almost like, do I have a therapist because I need a therapist or do I have a therapist because I want a therapist kind of thing. What are your thoughts around that?

Yeah, I think it’s it’s a really, really important kind of question. I think it’s really important to think of training your mind as you would train your physical body. And so these tools, you can use them in so many different ways. So whether you’re unwell. So it would certainly be applying those same kind of tools, but in a slightly different way because you don’t want to overwhelm the self when you’re experiencing illness. So it would be a slightly different approach, but certainly you can apply a lot of the things no matter what, where you are on that spectrum. Yeah, absolutely. It’s just delivering it in a way that’s engaging and also truly experimenting with the tools and seeing what fits the person best. That’s like really, really crucial.

And then the work that you’ve done where you go into organisations and try and change the culture for sort of positive, positive culture. Explain that to me. If I know you’re going to bigger, bigger and better organisations than Dental practices only, right? But, but from the dental practice perspective, if you were going to come into a dental practice and try and improve the culture of that practice, let’s say, let’s say it’s a bit of a we’ve all worked in a practice where there’s a bit of a toxic culture. Yeah. And not only, you know, I know you had some examples where you had a boss boss associate nightmare and that happens a lot. But, but we see it a lot in dental practice just within teams, there’s toxicity. How do you start to, first of all, even assess what is the culture of this place that I’ve walked into? And then secondly, change that culture in what how I mean, it must take more than one visit to change culture in a place.

Yeah, absolutely. I’ve got a whole chapter on this very topic where I delve into creating positive work cultures. I think it’s absolutely massive and crucial when it comes to our sense of well-being and also the team’s productivity and stability is all linked. And so there are many kind of roots to this. But I mean, firstly it is talking to your team and finding out more about their needs as well and creating a culture of psychological safety. So when we use this term, we’re talking about a environment where your colleagues feel safe to share concerns without reprimand. You can actually, um, yeah. Just be your general concerns. Yeah.

General mental health concerns, general counsel.

General, like things you’re unhappy about in.

Terms of be able to talk openly.

Be able to talk openly and to create that culture. That’s open door policy. Not every practice is okay with that, certainly not that embedding psychological safety is really underpins wellbeing. And as I was saying, it all leads to positive outcomes anyway. So creating that culture which is open, you’re, you’re saying that you’re comfortable for feedback. I want to know it and I want to know your thoughts and, and to not be defensive at that point. It does take a lot of work, I think, from management side of things. Yeah, really, really important. And then another aspect that’s absolutely crucial is thinking about mental health first aid and having this available for the whole team. So go on a course on mental health first aid. It’s very accessible. Two days, brilliant time. What do you.

Mean, What does it.

Mean? So you learn the tools and you learn the early signs and symptoms of mental illness.

In yourself and in others.

Exactly. So now you can as a team, start recognising when your team member needs support and then you can have the conversations with them around mental health, ill health, I’m talking about. So, so we’re talking about things like depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and you can signpost them appropriately because there are things at crisis point for us. So if you have, say.

Throw out a couple of those, what are they? Irritability, sleeplessness? What is it?

Yeah. So it’s it’s when someone is appearing to act differently to how they were before. Yeah. So it’s about maybe eating more or eating less, not sleeping well and you might notice them physically look different and they might be more aggressive. They might be withdrawn. Yeah. But just start starting to recognise those signs is really, really important. And then you’ll actually be taught how to talk about mental illness in a way that’s kind, loving, non-judgmental, compassionate and you’re going to start creating that culture that’s more accepting and open. So that’s one aspect. Another massive aspect I believe obviously is um, resilience and wellbeing education and have psychological tools accessible for everyone. So it’s not just about reducing burnout. Team, but it’s equally as important to get your team members to feel more engaged at work and living a life of meaning and purpose. And there are routes to this. So with the way when I’m teaching my programs and workshops, I’m talking about finding your strengths and bringing them to work. And there’s different ways we can do this as well. So in positive psychology, there’s a lot of research to support. If you’re using your strengths in challenges as well as outside of challenges, you’re going to feel better, you’re going to be happier, and you’re going to be more profitable.

There’s an acronym, isn’t there, for the five, six things you bring to that?

I don’t know. The acronym. Yeah, you said it.

You said it yourself. Maybe it’s a different thing. I don’t know. I heard you speak. I heard you speak. Speaking on some other podcast on Qadis.

Okay. I don’t remember an acronym, but but strengths is really, really massive. Then you’ve got values. So bringing those into work and understanding your values, gratitude. So creating a culture of gratitude and there’s so many cool ways you can do this. So in your team meetings, playing ping pong, so sharing compliments back and throw like wins in your day, like small moments, big moments, actually sharing it with your team amplifies positive emotions. And that is amazing. You’ve you’ve we’ve all understand that experientially we’ve we’ve talked to others cheered our wins and we’ve noticed an increase in our feelings of you know feeling more inspired, more grateful, more um, feelings of compassion, fulfilment and meaning all of these beautiful emotions. So what positive emotions do when a team is they help broaden their perspective and to increase psychological resources. So that’s really, really important. And so that’s a great way. So creating a culture of gratitude, it could be as simple as spotlighting someone who’s a really well in your team. You could have a gratitude board at work, you could have a gratitude WhatsApp. But actually honing into what’s going well in your team is really, really worth celebrating because you’re going to create a culture where people feel recognised and supported and and and it’s joyful. So yeah, finding ways that you can integrate that could be a great way of changing culture. But yes, it does take time. This isn’t something that happens overnight. It takes conversations really getting to know your team and their their unique needs. But there is there is wellbeing education out there that’s evidence based. There are frameworks that are useful.

You know, get resistance when you when you go into a place from individuals.

Yeah.

So the stigma is still there, right? And some people some people feel like, I don’t need this conversation.

Yeah, absolutely. And you can’t bring everyone on to the table. You can only just share. Look, we’ve got a course on if you’d like to be part of it. This is you might be that it’s compulsory, but I’d like you to engage in it like it’s fine if you can’t engage in the way that I want you. That’s absolutely fine. You just. You’ve got to just make those choices available and not force things on people. But I think normally when people start to understand what this can do for them, then normally they’re quite receptive actually, because, you know, people want to speak openly and be free and talk about things that truly matter to them. And this is where wellbeing truly shines because you can share what’s really going on, right? And often as Dental professionals, we’re having to almost like suppress certain emotions and thoughts because we’re being professional, we’re looking after someone else and we’re constantly in that caregiver role and that takes its toll. And beyond that, like we want to be happy and we want to be thriving. We want to get like you were saying, we want to get beyond baseline to optimal states.

How do we do that? So even if, like the illness side of things doesn’t resonate, like because you’re like, okay, well, I’ve never experienced depression like that just doesn’t I wouldn’t that doesn’t impact me, right? That’s okay if you feel like that and you can certainly benefit from just understanding mental health better and you can help, you know, maybe your family or your kids or you can also just learn to be more resilient or happier or more optimistic. So there’s always something you can learn because actually the brain is wired for negativity bias. It’s full of automatic negative thoughts that are unhelpful. And so actually, just even learning about thought patterns better and mindset is going to be really beneficial to you in terms of thriving. So I think anyone can get a benefit from this. It’s fine if if that person’s resistant. We don’t want to push anything on anyone, but it’s just. About hopefully them being curious and having an open mind. And who knows, they might discover something really useful and beneficial.

So one final question. Yes. And it’s a serious one. Suicide and dentistry. Now, you’ve looked at so much research. Is there research that says, number one, it’s real, that dentists do commit suicide more than other professionals? Or is that sort of urban myth sort of thing? And number two, what’s your opinion on why dentists, you know, why not brain surgeons? Why not some other type of professional?

Yeah. So the rates of suicide are higher in dental professionals in other sectors, of course, like healthcare professionals are all in a similar pool. So if you even look pre-pandemic. So there’s going to be a bunch of research, obviously post pandemic, but pre pandemic Toon and colleagues in 2019 did a study on UK general dental practitioners and found that 10% experienced suicidal thoughts. So yes, they didn’t commit suicide, but the general public is 5%. So this is higher in our population. And so what the research spotlights into why, like why is this happening? Why particularly us and lots of different reasons. It’s multifactorial. Some of the factors are because of organisational issues. So things like contract targets, admin issues, staffing, all of those aspects, work culture, obviously all feeds into it. Then you’ve got the risk of litigation.

But I read 50 years ago in Kansas, yeah, dentists had a higher chance of suicide than other professionals, you know what I mean? There was no there was no contract. There wasn’t. So. So what is it about the job itself? Yeah.

So it doesn’t so it may not be Udas, but it’s the organisation kind of framework that so like I said, staffing issues, that’s not practices. Yeah, Yeah. So that’s like almost like many, many practices can relate to that. But kind of beyond that, let’s just take the patient factors. Simply us working with patients who are in distress, awake, awake, but anxious, they might be going through trauma. You know, we see them regularly, like three monthly sometimes and we’re actually with them in their journey. They’re going through a divorce and they might be raped. There’s so much stuff that we deal with and and a patient comes in and we’re looking after them. We’re the caregiver. So simply being around that much trauma can feed into ourselves and we can simply take on a patient’s pain. That’s called compassion fatigue when you take it to its extreme. Yeah, but then why not, you know.

Psychologists or GP’s? I mean there’s something about dentistry. Yeah. I mean the, the loneliness of the room.

Yeah. So is it. Yeah. So, so then you’ve got other factors such as individual factors. So in our niche we’ve got high levels of perfectionism and that can lead to things like burnout and psychological distress. We’ve got imposter syndrome. It’s quite high in our profession as well, and we might not have the self-care tools. There’s loneliness as well, and loneliness actually increases our levels of stress. As we know, chronic stress states are really harmful for mentally and physically. So there’s all of those aspects.

And it’s such an unfair question to ask you, isn’t it, at this moment to say why? But I have to know what you thought about that.

It’s so multifactorial. There isn’t one aspect. And the other aspect I haven’t spotlighted was just the risk of litigation and the stress of regulation. So our bodies are regulating us. It’s not that they’re regulating us. It’s more like when there is a fitness to practice case. It takes so long for that case to go through and there’s so much anguish in that period. So there’s that aspect. And that’s not just UK based, that’s, you know, that’s everywhere globally. So there’s that as a factor as well. And so there’s a range there really. And then obviously you’ve got things that aren’t in the research yet. There’s social media and we’re making constant upwards social comparisons and dentistry, so visual. So you know, you’ve got that aspect as well. Yeah. And then on top of that, we’re not taught the tools, the psychological tools early on. Like I think it’s madness.

It should be in the undergrad, what you said, what you said, it needs to be in there, but much, a whole lot of stuff needs to be in the underground, right. And a whole lot of stuff that shouldn’t be in the underground. Yeah. We spend hours and hours and hours doing things that most dentists never do. Yes. And then things like this. Things like how do you get a loan for a business? You know, simple stuff like that.

Simple stuff like that.

Covered at all?

Yeah. No, absolutely. We could definitely shift that. But then even beyond that postgraduate, we need more of an emphasis on this. Sure. And not just anecdotal advice, but more evidence based. I think it would be great to move towards that. So I think that’s the way of the future.

Where it’s such a pleasure to see you doing this, to bring out the book one more time, say the title and where they can get it.

Oh, thank you so much. Hey, it’s been a pleasure. It’s resilience and well-being for dental professionals and you can get it in Amazon. It’s also available in Waterstones and spirits and all sorts of places. But yeah, yeah, it’s absolutely everywhere and it’s global, so which is wicked. But Amazon probably the cheapest space you can get it amazing. It’s a really good deal right now.

And such a lot of resource in that book. So check that book out. I certainly will be getting a few copies right now. Thank you so much.

Yeah, Thank you. So proud of.

You. Hey.

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

Thanks for listening, guys. Hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Make sure you tune in for future episodes. Hit subscribe in iTunes or Google Play or whatever platform it is. And you know, we really, really appreciate it. If you would give us a.

Six star rating.

Six star rating. That’s what always leave my Uber driver.

Thanks a lot, guys. Bye.