Arthif: Muhammad Ali said famously, he said, “If I was going to be a binman, I would be been the world’s greatest binman ever.” That’s the attitude which I had in general in life. And that’s something that wherever I want to do, I want to do the best I can, and be the best I can at it.

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

Prav: It gives me great pleasure to introduce and welcome Arthif Daniel, or otherwise known in the boxing world as Dr. Hitman. And he’s one of the top 20 boxers in the UK, a dentist as well. And today, we’re going to dig into his story, and learn a little bit more about his world of boxing and dentistry, and how he combines all of that. Arthif, do you want to just kick off by telling us about how you grew up, where you grew up, and just your background… and how he got into boxing?

Arthif: Yeah, sure. Well firstly, thank you to Prav and Payman for inviting me on. It gives me great pleasure to join onto your podcast. You guys have been doing a great job. And yeah, boxing wise… I was born and raised in Harrow in London Northwest. That’s where I did all my sort of primary, secondary school education. And thankfully, I stayed in London. I made that decision to take my dental studies at King’s College London. And so yes, I schooled there, and then around about 2013 it was.. I moved up to Manchester. And yes, now I’ve always maintained my link with Harrow, and I’m a very proud Londoner. And so obviously I’ve still got my family, friends, and also I still do a lot of my boxing and dentistry here in London too.

Prav: And so how did you first get into boxing? Were you inspired by one of the greats or what was it growing up that sort of made you get into boxing?

Arthif: Well, I was very fortunate, I think I grew up in a boxing household. My grandfather first, he was a big Muhammad Ali fan. And, you know, my father’s was the born and under, so he used to tune in to watch the Muhammad Ali fights. And then the great fights after.. In the era of the 80s, with Mike Tyson. I was a huge fan of his, Tommy Hitman Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler, were all that great.

Arthif: So I grew up, you know. In that time, My father was my first boxing coach, he used to, box as a hobby. He did some amateur boxing as well, He was very good. So, I was always physically active, and I used to really love martial arts, Bruce Lee was one of my sort of first icons as well and then sort of Jackie Chan, Ying Bai, Sammo Hung. So it was me and my two elder brothers. So we should always be training together, sparring each other. They were older than me, they used to beat me up. But I’m not too sure about now, though.

Arthif: So yes, it was it was… But yeah, I think, I mean, Muhammad Ali was probably my first boxing idol. Then followed by Mike Tyson. I was a diehard hardcore Mike Tyson fan. And then I was really fortunate to have a proper one to one meeting with him back in 1999-2000, One of my uncles was friends with someone in his entourage. So when he came over to London first, for his fight against Julius Francis, back in January 2000. It was like a dream come true. You know, I was with him, I was with my two brothers and then he invited us back again to watch him train, so I had probably like one to one with him, which was fantastic.

Arthif: And actually, something funny happened, actually. So what happened was, in that time I was also doing GSC Art. So one of my art pieces, I drew on Mike Tyson boxing Lennox Lewis on the moon in space, So I was doing that and then while I was midway through this project, I’m like “Oh wow, I’m going to go see the man himself.” So I went to.. you know, what I need to do? I need to go into school and grab my painting, take it to him to get it signed. So I was like “how am I going to go to school, just by not being there?”

Arthif: So ironically, my grandmother had been in the hospital that time, she wasn’t well. So I would go in, obviously go a couple of times I had to miss school to go and see her, spend some time with her at the hospital. So I came in, and I wasn’t to sure what to say, and she was like, “Oh, are you going to see your grandma again?” I was so put on the spot, and I was so put on the spot so Yeah, she not want to ask that’s it. So what I’ll probably do is that, whilst I’m sort of waiting in the hospital, I’ll probably do a bit of my artwork.

Arthif: So here,”Take it, take it, don’t worry.” So I was like, “Great, great.” So what would happen when am all suit and booted as well. So I went there, and I took it, I showed it to Mike Tyson, and he really liked it. And he was like, “Oh, this is amazing.” And he’d done a massive autograph right across it and I still got that.

Prav: Amazing.

Arthif: And now, ironically, last few years, I’ve become good friends with Lennox Lewis. So I’m planning to take that Lennox one day and get that signed as well, it’ll be nice. I’ll keep that with me.

Prav: Brilliant, brilliant. And so boxing didn’t really enter into as a, should we say a profession, or as a professional, until after dentistry, right? Until you’d qualified. So what was that like growing up, although obviously, you were inspired, and all the rest of it, were you go into boxing gyms, and training at gyms, and things like that? Or was it just your dad training you? And how big a part did that play in your life, compared to let’s say your studies, as you were studying for your GSC, and then moving towards dentistry?

Arthif: Yeah. no I used to actually always sort of box. I used to be part of an amateur boxing gym in Harrow. And then later on in North, which is local as well. So I used to box, I used to train, I used to spar. I used to spa often, but my parents weren’t too keen on me competing.

Prav: Okay.

Arthif: Just for somethings and academia was big in my household. And to be fair, I mean, most parents, especially mothers, they’re not big fans of their children boxing. Even if you can get the champions of today, it’s the same story. Their moms are kind of two types, some of them will still kind of go and support, and watch them in the arenas, but most of them, they won’t want to watch. So it’s one of those things. So I just continued with my training, hand in hand with my studies. And in fact, at one point, when I was at Kings, I also taught… there was a student union club, ironically called Fight Club. So I taught… so I was teaching boxing as well to fellow medical, dental, biomedical undergraduates, which was a great experience. And I also got Danny Williams to come down as a guest one day, and he also took the class, which was phenomenal.

Arthif: And he was also at the peak of his career at that stage as well. So that’s something everyone appreciates. So I just carried on. And then, again I was obviously allowed to compete. And then once I graduated, I kind of became my own man. And I kind of thought, “Okay, it’s my decision now, I guess.” So it’s nice.

Arthif: Then I just carried on. Well, just to sort of do some bouts, but there was nothing set in stone to be a professional as such. I was just carrying on, and then I had some great people around here, always been like an elder brother to me. He famously beat Mike Tyson back in 2004. It was the British and Commonwealth Champion Challenge, with world title Vitali Klitschko in Las Vegas. So he’s had a great career, and I was very fortunate to have him as a mentor early on. And then he was like… so him and a few others are like, “Look you got something here.” And then I was… I used to spar with professionals and amateurs, and hold my own and do well. So then I realised that there was something here, and that there was an opportunity that I had, especially with some great people around me. So I just always said to myself, I don’t want to look back when I’m 60 years old, in my rocking chair, and think what if. So I wanted to give it a go, and give it all. I’m, so happy with what’s happened, I have no regrets. If I went back in time, I’d still do the same thing.

Prav: What if… if you’ve got a big fight coming up, how long before do you have to start the preparation for that? And what is the preparation? I mean, is it possible to be a full on dentist, and prepare for a big fight? Or do you stop and start? Or what do you do?

Arthif: Yeah, so I mean, it depends. Generally, I’ll always train, I’ll always be taking over. So I might have some days off as such, but I’ll always still be sort of active around the gym. So that’s why I’m always, my weight is generally low, and I’m around my fighting weight. So I’m always disciplined and maintain myself in that respect. Generally speaking, if I was to have obviously… so because of that, I’m just constantly in training. And also my diet is monitored. So it’s very… for myself anyway, it’s something I can do. I do manage to juggle and balance well, thankfully. [crosstalk]

Prav: What’s the process?

Arthif: There are professionals out there with day jobs as well. So it can be done. And it just depends, but sometimes generally, if you’re going to be in like a big fight, type of fight… generally, you looking at sort of an eight to 10 week training camp. So if I was to have one of those, I’d probably, in terms of myself, just want to stop, put my dentistry on hold for those 10 weeks, 10 week camp, and just be solid. And that’s the plan that when I’m looking to have my big US fight, hopefully, God willing later this year, and that’s what I’m going to do. Just stop everything else, and go have a 10 week training camp.

Prav: And what’s involved in a typical day of that camp? what time are you getting up, How many hours in the gym, How many fights? [crosstalk]

Arthif: Yeah, it all depends really, but generally… You see the thing is, there’s this little bit of a false notion, but it’s there, people do this, where people burn themselves out. See with boxing, generally in life really, with anything. Even if you take dentistry for example. Dentistry famously, we do the… and especially when we’re talking to the newer graduates.

Arthif: We always remind them that we say that “dentistry, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.” So generally, obviously, that’s how we look at things in life. And the same thing with boxing, you’ve got to be careful of not over-training. I was having a chat with someone recently, a boxing manager recently about this. Sometimes boxers themselves will just get swamped up, engulfed, and go into a zone, and just burn themselves out, and leave everything in the gym. When it comes to the fight week and fight day, they’re drained. They’ve peaked too early. That’s why you got to be smart. And that’s why the legends and likes of Floyd Mayweather achieved so much, because they were very smart in how they did things.

Arthif: One of the great advices I got, for example, from Danny Williams. He said “always listen to your body.” Because sometimes if you’re not feeling to train that day, your body’s not up to it, just listen to your body. Especially with sparring, sparring is really important, you’ve got to be 100% to go sparring. If you’re going to be 50%, don’t do it. Because boxing, there’s a lot of mental aspect involved with boxing. There’s a lot of psychology involved, you can have a bad day in the gym, or a sparring session. And if you’re mentally weak, it can eat away, and you start getting doubts. But sometimes, you’ve got to be strong and say, “Look, everyone has a bad day in all walks of life, and boxing is no stranger to that.” So you may have bad day in sparring, So okay, You just rest up, recover, Look over what you’ve done wrong, where you need to make improvements. And the next day, you’ll have a great day of sparring. But then again, you’ve got to check yourself because if you’ve had a good day, you don’t want to get over ahead of yourself, and get overconfident. You just got to take everything just right, you got to be balanced.

Arthif: So either if you have a bad day, don’t kill yourself. If you’ve had a good day, if you’ve had a great day, okay don’t don’t get overconfident, you’ve got to stay humble. But just generally, yeah. So coming back to the point. So obviously, it also varies of how far you are out from the fight. Because the further out you are, the more harder work you’re going to put in. And you want to taper, so we can give an example of an endo, the coronal plane. Start up high, and then you taper when you get to your peak.

Arthif: So it’s a similar thing, so you spend a lot, obviously the cardiovascular stamina work that… the hard work you can do. The hill sprints, mountain runs, all of that sort of work you do early on. And then gradually start to taper, so towards fight week, you start just doing the lights sharp stuff. You’re just maintaining your weight, you’re just staying sharp, explosive. And then when it comes to fight week, you stop all your hard work, you’re just doing light work, nothing… you’re just doing sort of shadow boxing, some pad work, nothing strenuous. You’re trying to conserve all your energy, physical, mental, for fight night.

Arthif: And then obviously, generally with boxing, obviously you’ll have your weigh-ins the day before your fight. So the day before the weigh in, you might just want to do a few things just to keep your weight, you’re on top of your weight. And that’s that. But really yeah… but generally, you’ll train twice a day. And then you vary it. So you may do some running, so that your cardiovascular will increase with the running stuff, or swimming alternatively. But then obviously not every boxer, for example, can swim, or it might not be a strength, or they may not sort of enjoy it, sort of thing. So it depends what they [inaudible]. So running and swimming, that that works by sort of cardiovascular. So I’ll do sort of mixed days, alternating between those two exercises. This is your strength and conditioning work. And then obviously there’s the boxing aspect itself. And that’s sort of shadow boxing, working with the trainer doing sort of back work, pad work, and sparring itself.

Prav: You spoke about the sort of the mental side of it, yeah. And being mentally on top of it. Go through some of that for me. Because, I mean, obviously, I don’t even think I’ve ever had a fight [crosstalk], let alone a competitive fight. But I imagine there’s an element of fear before a fight. And fear must be.. You must feed on fear a bit as well, right? I mean, it’s good to have life changing consequences if you get the wrong punch, right?

Arthif: Yeah, sure. I mean you don’t think of it like that. I mean fighters don’t. I mean, we’re just different. And I think one of my good friends Pauli Malignaggi, he’s a former world champion, two time world champion. He was talking about one thing. I said… he heard one of my interviews, and I think I said, “Dentists are normal people.” And I said sometimes people when they hear that I’m a fighter as well, they think okay look, we’re normal people. He actually laughed, because Daniel actually, as far as don’t fear, we’re not normal people.

Arthif: And I started laughing, and we had a chat, and in the end of it I said, “You’re right actually.” Because which same person wants to train vigorously, get into the ring, to aim of hitting someone, and he knows he’s going to get hit. And there’s like… it’s true. There’s things about fighters, that it’s true. It’s normal, and it’s very difficult to explain. And sometimes you see on social media. Social media, I mean, there’s things that’s great about social media. And we all know there’s some terrible things about social media. Social media is one of those platforms, everyone’s got an opinion.

Arthif: Once upon a time, you had to be someone to voice an opinion, to have something worthy to say. Nowadays, you just need a Twitter account, or a Facebook account, or whatnot, you can just voice your opinions, and whatever it may be, to everyone. And not that it matters. And that’s why professional people in professional boxing, they’ll see things on social media from casual fans, people who’ve never even stepped three minutes in the ring. And there’ll be saying all sorts of sensationalist things. And so it just doesn’t really add up. And it’s difficult for us boxers, because like to say things that will only make sense to people in boxing, because we’re fighters, and we’re in the ring. But really to explain that to a logical person, logically, it really doesn’t make sense, really.

Arthif: But coming back to your question about psychology, it’s huge. Psychology is such a huge part of boxing, mental strength. I mean, there’s so many examples I can give you, but one example is that you have to have a bloody good poker face to go into the ring. You can’t show anything. So in the dressing room, you’re warming up, you’re ready. And then they say, “Right, you’re ready? Daniel times up, we’re going to the ring, walk into the ring now.” So it’s the same thing. It’s difficult to explain. You’re not nervous, because nervous, this implies negative energy. But you’re anxious. There’s anxiety, because the adrenaline is flowing through your body, your heart is pounding, and you’re literally, as we were taught in physiology, fight or flight mode. And that’s exactly it in boxing, it’s fight or flight.

Prav: Okay.

Arthif: Because when you get into the ring, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. And Mike Tyson very famously said, “Everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the face.” And that’s true. Because even with professional boxing, with whatever level you’re at, that’s always the thing, we always look at. Even when you look at elite fighters, what’s going to happen when that person lands the punch? And that is always the big thing. How is that person going to respond? Or even, how does a person respond when they go down? Because there’s been great champions have been knocked down. It’s about how you respond when you get knocked down. Are you going to get up straightaway and strong? Or you’re going to be… you’re going to be [crosstalk] doubts, exactly.

Arthif: So it’s about all those things. I mean, a very recent example from few months back, I’m not sure how much you guys watch boxing, or how much you guys know any boxers, but. So there was Alexander Povetkin and Dillian Whyte, fought a few months back. Whyte was supposed to win the fight, and he was winning. He knocked the guy down twice. Povetkin is a very… he’s got solid amateur pedigrees, he’s a former world champion, and he’s been at the very top level. And actually, it’s funny enough, because literally a few days ago, someone was involved his camp, and they were telling me. And they said actually what happened was Dillian Whyte, he overly trained in that fight. So when he came, he just wasn’t sort of fresh and strong. And whereas Povetkin obviously is experienced. So what happened was, Povetkin got knocked down twice. But you can see in his reaction, the way went down, but he got strong. Eventually Povetkin knocked Dillian Whyte out.

Arthif: They’re scheduled not for a rematch in a few weeks time. But it just goes to show, just because someone goes down, it doesn’t mean anything. It shows… what’s the conditioned been like? and also what’s their mental strength like. But that’s really important. So if you’re hurt, you can’t show the fighter you’re hurt. Fighters are like, we’re like sharks. We smell fear. So just like sharks, when they smell blood in the ocean, they’re on you. It’s the same thing. You show a glitch. It’s in your eyes. It’s in the body language, it’s anything of that sort. And we will feed on it.

Arthif: It’s like, I mean, my last fight, because of COVID… when was that? But yeah, it was November 2019. It was in Mexico against a Mexican. And he thought he’s fighting a British guy, and the British guy is going to be bit nervous and so forth. And so he was trying to me out and stuff. But I ended up stopping him, knocking him out in the first round. But what happened was, I knocked him down. And I’m looking at him. I’m analysing him, I’m studying him. What’s his response like? So I’m looking at him. And he took the full eight second count on the floor, and he got up. And I’m looking at him, I’m looking in his eyes, I’m looking at body language, I could see who still hurt. So this is the first round… so you got to be smart, because if a boxer over commits, then you can get countered, you can get hit and get knocked down.

Arthif: If you guys look on YouTube, there’s a fight, Victor Ortiz and Marcos Maidana. Both of them with huge punches, both them had overnight tips, and knockout ratio. So everyone knew this is going to be fireworks, this is not going 12 rounds. In the first round, Ortiz put Maidana on the floor. Maidana got back up, and Ortiz thought, “I got him now. I’m going to go and stop him.” As he came in, Maidana suddenly exploded, bang! right hand on the chin, and he put Ortiz down, immediately, straightaway.

Arthif: So these are the sort of things that happen I boxing, you’ve got to be smart, you can’t get over confident and commit your self, there’s been many times where the boxer would be winning and he’s got the guy against the ropes and suddenly one shot, as a counter shot bang! And the guy is hurt and the fight goes… you know, it just turns right on his head. So I’m looking at this guy am seeing his hurt. Right okay, this is a chance for me to finish, but I’m not going to be stupid at the same time I’m going to be watchful as well.

Arthif: So I unloaded against him and also just watching myself, how many counters and as the referee stepped in, they threw the count in, But you have to look at that, you have to look at how the fighter responds and it sometimes, you know the thing is sometimes people ask “If you get punched, do you get hurt, does it hurt?”

Arthif: So generally you just get buzzed. You know, you will get ringing sounds, it depends how hard the shot is, am sort of exaggerating in the top end of the scale basically. if you get hit…banged hard is that, You know, you can hear a ringing sounds you get dazed or so. But generally, you get hit in the head just like you know, You just push on. The ones that really hurt, is if someone times a good body shot. You get hit in the body, in the right place, the timing with a breath in. you know, you will paralysis someone not literally. but you know, they are completely wounded and those shots can hurt, and you just struggling to breath and that’s why you see many great knock outs when you get hit in the body, hit someone in the right place.

Arthif: I will send you one actually, from one of my fights where I did that. But the thing is they can hurt. So sometimes if your fighting, if your sparring you re.. You get hit with a shot and you’re like, “Ooh” you’re holding your self with breathing and you can’t show your hurt, you have to have a good poker face and be like “what you just shake it of, man what come on.” so the mental side, I think that’s another aspect there: You know, if your hurt you don’t show it, if there’s any fear or anything like that you can’t show it. And that’s where you got a whole as well… another big side of things is mind games. you know, There’s some boxers in history that have just gone down as expects in that, they will wind people up, they’ll say the right things and they’ll just really get under that person skin, irritate them and that’s happened to many great champions.

Arthif: And unfortunately happened to me once, I got the worse of it and it ended up… I lost that fight, because I got so angry and I boxed on emotion, that’s one thing your taught from first day at the gym, you cannot box on emotion, you can’t box if your angry. You got to go in there with a clear mind, focused, you got to be analytical, you got to stick to your game plan and than.

Arthif: You know, if that game plan doesn’t work than you adapt. Floyd Mayweather famously said “A true champion can adapt to anything.” And that’s another great thing, a quote that you can apply for any aspect of life including dentistry. Sometimes in dentistry, we are doing treatment planning things don’t go to plan and you got to know how to adapt or I a clinical scenario. You know, something happens its okay don’t panic. You know, just work around, see what you can do to solve it the issue. You can’t be angry, so in a Tyson furry famously his recently done that to Deontay Wilder. You know, he got under his skin, he got him angry. and you know. his an expect, his a wind up merchant, he is…. so some of this guys are great at it, you know mind games, boxing.. you know, being psychologically strong and mentally strong is crucial in boxing. So It goes actually… its so important with your physical training, you can’t. You know, I can’t emphasis it enough. Boxing actually… most expects will say, its mostly mental.. its more mental than physical

Prav: How much do you size up your opponent, of course you’ve sized up your opponent yet, but how much does that affect, what your training at? Do you have like, this particula guy I’m going to be fighting with has a particular style of fighter, so my training is going to be different and my thinking is going to be different and your game plan for one opponent, compared to a different one. how accurate is that, how much of it, is chess?

Arthif: Massively [crosstalk] I famously said, “boxing is a physical chess match” that’s something I’ve always said. And that’s something that’s very true. With regards to your physical training, not so much because you want to be in the best physical shape for any fight regardless of their style. So you will always do your strength and conditioning, your cardiovascular and stuff. What will change, as we said is “the game plan” and how you going to box. And often you going to have sparring partners who will mirror that style. You know, so if your fighting a a guy who is five ten, you going to try and get sparring partners around five, ten. And if you going to have a guy your fighting is six three, you going to try and get a taller opponents with longer reach, to try to mimic that style. And than you want to go through, you know, with your team, with your coach game plans.

Arthif: So that’s really crucial, you know, Very-very important and you know, its.. and I will give you another example famous example of recent times, I tried to put out as lot analogies as I can to explain my points. So everyone knew in 2019 when Anthony Joshua lost to Andy Ruiz. you know it was all over the headlines. People who don’t even watch boxing knew about that so that would be a good example.

Arthif: What actually happened was Anthony Joshua was supposed to fight another boxer called Jarrell Miller, big baby miller his nickname is. Now that guy, he was twenty stones his fat. Okay that’s what he is, it’s not a nice thing to say but that what he is because he is very athletic in his build, but his huge. Okay, his just not really…he is just over weight, he is over weight. And his slow he plots forward obviously his got power, his strong, but he is not very fast his got slow feet and that who Anthony Joshua was going to fight for his US debut. Anthony Joshua is in training camp for several weeks for this guy, suddenly last minute, was it? I think two weeks before was, the guy failed his drug test and when I mean he failed his drug test I don’t mean something that was just a burned substance in his body, he had…its almost like a pharmaceutical factory that was injected in him, he had every drug you could think of under the heavens and he was even found to have that stuff.

Arthif: So he is not a very nice guy and not many people in boxing speak well of him for obvious reasons. So anyway, back to the story what actually happened was that the fight was obviously counselled. Now they are looking for a replacement for Antony Joshua’s opponent now, for Anthony Joshua had to fight.

Arthif: Now you got to remember his been training for eight weeks. You know, eight weeks for some training camp, for up to that point, and obviously before that as well, he would have know that he was going to fighting him. So he would be thinking about game plans, thinking about things. Suddenly last minute, I believe it was two weeks before the fight, they get Andy Ruiz. Now Andy Ruiz was a very bad opponent to choose for Anthony Joshua obviously we can say that now because he lost, but the point being is that he was a short guy, but he had.. he was very quick on his feet and he had very quick hands, so not really was he like a difficult heavy weight you can hit hard, he was very fast, very explosive and he is quick on his feet, he could move like a middle weight.

Arthif: So his been training to fight big Jeremy miller who is over twenty stones or something and now his suddenly got a completely different opponent, different speed and Anthony Joshua he also trained his whole camp to this fight and his also coming in heavy, because he is thinking, I want to become a bit heavier so I can lend my shots and hurt the guy. Sadly a complete change and that was… either those are the factors for, you know. Anthony Joshua is going to explain on record over some medical reasons of what happened, as to why he lost, which one would be true, which ever the excuse is. But another huge reason, is the fact that the fighter was completely different, he’d been training, his physical weight was different and his gain was completely different too, which is why on the re-march he came down, he came in very light. And his game plan was to box and move around. So you know, that’s the sort of contemporary example to illustrate that point

Prav: But Daniel, how do the nutrition play in this whole game? You mentioned your self earlier “your not like an off season on season boxer, but you on season year round” and than maybe you tailor in, a few weeks before to make your weight or even making that weight in the morning. It’s a science right? It’s not a case of making the weight and you going to fight in that weight, your making that weight for your way in. What is it, in the matter of hours or.

Arthif: Yeah. Let me give you an example, if I give you some of the elite welterweights in the world. The welterweight 147 pound, that’s 10 stones seven. They will work around 12 and half 13 stones. Yeah.

Prav: Wow

Arthif: And than they will fight at 10 stones seven, so am glad I can throw this numbers to illustrate, you know to all the listeners out there, this is the difference we are talking about.

Prav: Yes

Arthif: So yeah, its… what it turns happens, they have obvious a 10 week training camp and in that they will… the thing is with our diets, we still have carbohydrates yes that’s still important to us because we need tat energy, we need to. You know, We are going to be training hard, we are going to be sparing, so we need those molecules. Right, yeah is just about eating the right things, you know I just said “it’s a science” so its, you know, tape or anything done and really you generally, lets say for example, maybe a week, two weeks before the fight, they will probably be.. Depending of where. you know, where their right. But they will be comfortably at least 20 pounds over, you know even on the week of the fight or so. And than they will start taping down.

Arthif: And lets say the fight is Saturday the weigh in would be a Friday. So Thursday they will start slowly the dehydration process, Friday morning than dehydrate and than Friday afternoon obviously would be the weigh in and you got 30 odd hours to rehydrate and to refuel. So that’s how things turn to happen, and you’ve got a… one of the very important things in boxing, is got to be… you got to know your correct weight for fighting, so we all have our walking weight and we have a fighting weight, so that’s really crucial.

Prav: Talk us through the dehydration process, what does that involve? You know in terms of fluid intake, electro lights and things like that. And typically when you go from hydrating to dehydrating, what sort of weight difference are we looking at?

Arthif: So, some boxers are crazy they’ll even loose 20 pound in 24 hour. Okay, that’s typical. You know literally. But yeah, but there’s different ways that will sort of dehydrate that will sweat it out. The thing is that sometimes the obviously the is scientist.. there is a bit of secrecy as well sometimes, with athletes and stuff. so you know, I’ve been taught some good techniques for some… from elite fighters. But yeah, which i probably wouldn’t say publicly at this stage. But you know, I can’t give all my secretes away. But you know, yeah but obviously there’s a smart process, you going to be smart, but sometime people would do…. will go into sonar or they will do different things to dehydrate the day before the weight In or even the morning of the weight in.

Arthif: But once you have dehydrated your self in a certain way, once the weight in than they have to rehydrate the self’s with electro lights obviously. We obviously want to drink, you know hydrate your self properly and adequately, which is why, especially in the US, and the US it relives in that stuff in that regard. But you see the top athletes after the weight in they’ll start drinking Pidilite. So Pidilite is like our cooked up.. you know Diaralyte?

Prav: Yeah

Arthif: The electro lights full of minerals of. see that sort of thing? They get these bottles and its… yeah so, I don’t know why for some reason we don’t have them in the UK. The UK is so behind with so many things when It comes to food and beverages. But so yeah that’s one thing.. yeah. I have that when I’m training out in the US, I’ll have that when I’m training out in the US, I will have some Dioralyte just to restore the electro lights after dehydrating in training and stuff. But yeah that’s something important to replenish, and that’s one of the danger aspects in where people won’t make weight correctly that’s always a danger, So they will dehydrate incorrectly, they won’t hydrate properly and than that will affect obviously the brain, the brain will shrink with dehydration and there for your this greater space. You know the Aracnoides space I believe between the scull and the brain, and than the is more room for vibration and movement, and that’s where you get the real danger. So its all about being smart and how you dehydrate, and how you rehydrate.

Arthif: And this is one of the reasons why the WBC (the world boxing counsel) revolutionised boxing for health and safety for the fighters. You know, sometime in the late 80’s, I can’t remember exactly when, but It was sometime in the late 80’s believe where they introduced the weight in’s the day before the fight, rather than on the day.

Arthif: Traditional they used to have the weight in’s on the day of the fight. And there’s some people . you know, with all due respect, they don’t really understand boxing “Oh, we should introduce same day weight in’s again and because people are killing them selves making that weight the day before and than they have a day.” Hang on a second neutrally you don’t know fighters because, if your going to put weigh in’s on the same day as a fight. Fighters are going to do exactly the same thing they going to do. They going to do anything they can to make that weight and they will compromise them self’s even more and put them self in harms ways even more significantly because on the day they will dehydrate themselves dangerously on the day just to make weight in’, they won’t hydrate them selves properly within the few hours and they going to be…. cause more problems. So that was something WBC champion fantastically and they were successful in archiving to have the weigh in done on the day before

Prav: Is there a prime or age to reach? You know peak in boxing. You know in a lot of sports, you know, you hit your peak or your prime age at lasts say 30 mid thirty or whatever. Am assuming you came into it a little bit late in terms of the pro side of things. Correct me If I’m wrong, and how does that plan out fou you in terms of how much time you’ve got left, [crosstalk] with professional boxing?

Arthif: That’s a really good question. With boxing and sports in general really the modern day understanding of sports science and nutrition, has been a key for longevity. Which is why you’ve got, you know look at Christiano Ronaldo, he’s 36, he’s still an absolutely unbelievable player. You know a few years back, you know if you looked at some of those great stars, if you looked at Brazilian Ronaldo back in the day, Diego Maradona, Pele or other modern greats. They always retired earlier. It wasn’t the same. The understanding of sports science wasn’t not the same. Same as boxing as well sort of thing. But with modern understanding of sports science and nutrition, there’s greater longevity and not just in boxing, but in sports in general. And that’s why the likes of Floyd Mayweather have shown that he’s been boxing past 40 years of age. So he’s shown that looking after yourself, looking after your body, you pay dividends in that regard. Floyd Mayweather is a living definition of an athlete. Never smokes, never drinks. Okay. He’ll always be around his fighting weight.

Arthif: I’ll just give an example on the other end of the spectrum, a modern boxing British great, Ricky Hatton. Fantastically talented, very hardworking, but the problem he had and why his career didn’t last as long as it could have was because he wasn’t disciplined in between fights, in between camps. He would famously balloon up, that’s why he had the nick name Ricky Fatton. He’d say it himself as a joke because obviously, he’s a very humorous guy. Ricky’s a great guy and he’s helped me in my boxing too. But yeah, he wasn’t very disciplined in between camps and if he was, his career would’ve gone a lot longer.

Arthif: Floyd Mayweather, he’s a definition of a athlete. Famously if he used to go to a party where ‘he’s just have a good time, he wouldn’t smoke or drink. He’d just have a good time and just relax. He’d go to parties, his driver would drive him down, have a good time. When he finished, he’d go to the car, change his shoes, put his trainers on, put those shoes in a car, tell the driver, “I’ll meet you home.” And he used to run back home. That’s the things that Floyd Mayweather did. With that, so looking after yourself, that’s how you get longevity. But on Hopkins, in recent times, he became world champion at 50 years of age. The boundaries, the perimeters have sort of moved further.

Arthif: Another big thing about boxing is the amount of punishment that you have and that’s what we call the mileage on the clock. So you can have a 25 year old who has a rocky style of taking three punches and giving three back and you’re going to put miles on your clock with that style, with that way of boxing. The more you get hit, the more it’s going to affect your career, your longevity. So although the age might be 25, biologically they’ll be 45 really. That’s why the likes of Floyd Mayweather and others, they’ve sort of shown different in that regard. So that’s even myself I obviously it started of late but I’m really fortunate I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, you know, I generally sort of live and eat clean, I’m always in the gym, taking over and I don’t have that mileage on my clock with the punishment and stuff.

Arthif: So I’m happy and lucky in that regard, but obviously boxing has a shelf life, you can’t do it forever. So I’ll probably give this another two years or so, see what happens. Obviously with Covid, it’s obviously impaired things and has affected many people’s careers. And it’s affected my own boxing career. September to December. September, October, November … That’s 4 months. I’ve had six fights cancelled just in the last four months, let alone the rest of 2020. So obviously it’s been a difficult year for everyone.

Prav: Everyone. Yeah.

Arthif: But for sports athletes, it certainly has and I can definitely speak on my own. I was supposed to have my U.S. debut in September 2020. Have a big U.S. Holloways fight in the West Coast, which obviously didn’t happen. So now is almost back to quare one. You know, we will have to with my team, My team are looking to keep me active. I want to try and make up for lost time and have as many fights as I can have between now and August, September, when I have my U.S. debut then. Going to see how it goes. So yeah, maybe another one or two years, see how it goes.

Payman: It takes a degree of obsession to want to be the champ, to want to be the best at something like boxing. You’ve got to completely be laser-focused on it. Right. Does that rub off on dentistry? Has that helped you in dentistry, or for now you’re so focused on boxing? Because we had Robbie Hughes on this show and he was a world class kick boxer at one point, but he actually gave up kickboxing to really focus on dentistry. But he says, “If I could be the best in the world at kickboxing, I can definitely be the best dentist.” He’s just got his ambitions of opening 100 practises all other the world and all of this sort of thing. Are there parallels? I mean for instance, when you keep talking about Floyd Mayweather said this or Lennox this, in a way you think of mentors in dentistry. Right. You’ve really been pushed forward by these conversations and the experience of the greats. If you were exposed to great dentists left, right and centre, that would definitely help. Right.

Arthif: Yeah. No, for sure.

Payman: Tell me about the parallels.

Arthif: Yeah. You know what it is? I think generally in life, I’m one of those people where if I do something, I want to give it a 100%. I don’t believe in putting 50% in something. Just since I was a kid, I’ve just never believed in doing something and being average at it. I want to be the best, whatever I did. And it was crazy because … Actually when I went for my BT interview I actually got the job as well, actually. This one liner I did … Generally I’m just nice, they were impressed with me, but they really liked this line actually. It was actually a quote from Mohammed Ali. Mohammed Ali said famously, he said, “If I was going to be a binman, I would’ve been the world’s greatest binman ever.”

Arthif: And do you know what it is? That’s the attitude which I had in general, in life. And that’s something that, whatever I want to do, I want to do the best I can and be the best I can at it. So when I was in my studies, a B was never good enough. I wanted that A. I wanted to flourish in my academics. Not many people know this, as of now, I used to be a massive cricket player. I used to play cricket, I used to play for St Mary’s. I actually got called for Middlesex trials back when I just started university but then it was too much, so i said it’s not going to happen so I didn’t pursue with that. But almost every season I used to be the highest wicket taker in my bowling.

Arthif: When I used to play I always I wanted to envisage myself playing for Middlesex and playing for England. That’s what I wanted to do. For me it wasn’t just, “I’m just going to be a club cricketer and just play on Sundays.” I’d be thinking, “No. I want to do this. I want to be the best at it.”

Arthif: So the same actually with boxing. Obviously, I didn’t envisage myself being a professional at that stage at all but then when I did begin to excel and I had obviously great people around me, that’s an obviously one “Hang on a second, I can do this here.” Dentistry, same thing. It’s like, I’ve been doing sort of stool … I love general practise. I do love dentistry. I’ll be honest, I like every aspect of dentistry, every faculty of dentistry, except one. I’m going to get you guys to guess, which one bit of dentistry don’t I like? And I’m not even ashamed to tell people.

Payman: Aesthetics dentist.

Arthif: Dentures is your guess? All right. What about you Prav, what do you think?

Prav: What you dislike?

Arthif: Yeah.

Prav: The GDC.

Arthif: I don’t think anyone loves them. In clinical dentistry.

Speaker 2: Root canal.

Arthif: Oh my days, Prav got it. I don’t like endo and it’s just something I just don’t enjoy really, especially with [crosstalk].

Payman: It’s very difficult with boxing gloves, isn’t it?

Arthif: Maybe incisors and premolars, maybe. But molar endo? Yeah, no. But yeah, no I really enjoy all aspects of dentistry, cosmetic dentistry, restorative dentistry, all surgery, and also tooth widening.

Payman: Are you a principled?

Arthif: No, I don’t have time to be principled. How can I? There’s no way. So I’ve always been an associate and proud and happy with that. There’s no way I could juggle to be a principle. No, I could not do professional boxing if I was a principle, no way. But all surgery, implants. I love implants. So it’s something that I’m always trying to do courses to further excel myself. I really want to be the best that I can in that field.

Arthif: I’ve been also, at the same time, sort of been doing things like … and to do my masters at the same time. So now I’ve done sort of my post graduate certificate, sort of paying that. So know I just have to set back my cases and do my dissertations in order to get my masters and implants too. So its something that, you know, obviously has slow down my dentistry in terms of the academic side of things. But I definitely do plan in making up for that loss time once I call boxing a day. But obviously I love boxing, and I was very-very fortunate to have been given opportunities already from several people and bodies, when I retire from boxing. I’ve been given some great job opportunities in the boxing field, in the boxing world.

Arthif: Which is wonderful, which is something I always wanted to do And a long side my dentistry, you know, you’ve got plans you want to excel in that, as you said as well. I’ not someone who is just happy to be a boxer and a general dentist and just stay there, just doing the same old thing, no you know. I want to excel, I want to be the best that I can at everything that I do

Payman: You basically said “your quite competitive” right?[crosstalk 00:49:31] did you sometimes get the

Arthif: Of my self I would say. I compete against my self. So [crosstalk]am not

Payman: The down side of being competitive. You don’t get that down side.

Arthif: You know, the thing is obviously, I wouldn’t say its a down side or such because I always want to improve, I don’t want to be the best at something and something adequate or decent for me is not good enough. If I say for someone else, you know, I would be very encouraging and positive “has that’s really good, well done” you know, I believe in being positive with other in order and those around you, that’s really important. With my self something decent or average isn’t good enough, I will strive to improve and get that excellent result.

Payman: Have you ever got any patience coming to you because your Dr hitman?

Arthif: Yeah, all the time.

Payman: Do you get more patience, Do you?

Arthif: All the time. Yeah am blessed, its nice I appreciate that. Those people who know me I’ve never let my success get to my head I’m always grateful and appreciate, I thank god for everything his given me and just believe to be arrogant and hort. You know, god will take my success and just give it to someone else. Its just… I’m grateful thankful to god for everything he has given me and I’m just happy, am blessed and able to motivate people or make someone happy by doing something simple for me because I’ve been I that position and still am where, you know, I have mentors and role models and people who give me their time to do things, so seemly why can’t I do that for someone else.

Payman:

New Speaker: Anyway how much does faith feature in boxing for you, in believe, in thanking for having the opportunity before you go out there and after you win and the gratitude. Just talking about your mind set and believes around.

Arthif: Yeah, you know, definitely I always believed in being grateful thanks to oh my god and , you know, that’s where I get a lot of my strength, patience and you’ve got to be strong, but not just in boxing only, but in life in general, we all have our ups and downs. So, yo know, I get a lot of my strength through my faith and anytime, if we go through difficulties and boxing has been.. one things even for example my record is seventeen and three losses all three of my losses were under very controversial circumstances. Its boxing it’s one of those things, but you got to be strong and rise above it. You know, you’ve got two choices when you get hit with something, you know with that veracity, is all about how you respond.

Arthif: You know, if your going to be weak and let that overcome you. You know, that’s going to be your choice, than you not going to be able to propel any further, If you going to just take it on the chin and be like “you know what? Okay I’ve been knocked down, am going to dust my self up and push on.” And that what makes champions, that’s what makes people great.

Arthif: People will always remember Thomas Edison when inventing the light bulb, how many times did Thomas Edison fail? Countless times, you know, you won’t remember that. You know when you look up an iceberg, you know, the structure underneath the sea is huge, its almost like the tip of what you see on the top, you know there’s all that underneath, you know, there’s all that hard work, dedication, the difficult which people don’t see.

Arthif: For it maybe there’s earning all of those millions, all his millions, he grew up in a room…he grew up in a place where its like just a small room and there’s about ten people in there, you know, he didn’t grow up with a silver spoon, you know he worked his way hard in order to obtain this success and earn all that success and wealth that is earned. And

Arthif: I’ve been very fortunate where we used to do late night sessions with Floyd Mayweather so another thing I sort of picked up from him and Danny Williams where during my fight times… close to my fight, I would train at night so mirror the time of my fight, for circadian rhythms to develop your time in boxing and that’s something something also I’ve picked up with my sports science BSc as well. So in that time Floyd Mayweather he’d be training at night and there would be times were he would just sit and talk with us until sunrise. You know just giving us pearls of wisdom.

Arthif: So its about how you respond and faith has given me that ability to look and analyse things, not just, and just think, you know, look at things for beyond what they are. And its like when I had my last controversial loss I was six and three. Six wins, three losses, you know suddenly you know, and I remember people looking and thinking maybe are you going to stop or are you going to carry on, how are you going to carry on.

Arthif: And yeah of cause I’m going to carry on. You know, and all thanks to god today I’m seventeen to three, you know, I didn’t look back. So I get a lot of that through my faith and I get a lot of that through my strength through god and I always pray, I’m not a perfect person I have my mistakes, but always ill do my prayers I do my 5 prayers a day you know it just take 5 minutes I have my schedule to just thank my creator remember him and it just give me that moment of coming out of this quick.. you know, life is so fast, its so dynamic and you just get like 5-10 min out you just stand before your creator its just you and him and you just talk to him, you know, and it gives you that that tranquillity that’s serenity and its, you know, that’s why in one of the advantages I’ve had beautifully with my boxing, I’ve been able to travel.

Arthif: You know, I love travelling I love seeing the world, I love nature, you know, again you just look at these things and just remember god the creator the his removals creation, you just think of, wow what you there. Space sta… I love, you know, I love astronomy and I look at these and it just allows you to have a moment of time and it just gives you that strength and it gives you that mental strengths that we talk about in boxing which you rally need. So it plays a really big factor in my life and my career for sure.

Payman: Give me two moments like a real… its very obvious right, if I say give me your high moment you’ll say, yeah ” when I won that fight” but I don’t mean that. I mean you have travelled around, yeah you have seen thing that you wouldn’t have seen you have met people you would never dreamt about meeting. Give me one moment, which is high moment and than give me a low moment as well

Arthif: Oh damn, okay, well no one has ever asked me that before. Okay I will I’ve you the low moment first I suppose right, probably the easiest was that, I think the low…yeah there’s been definitely lods in my boxing career, to easily pick out will be all three of my contravention losses, but, yeah, I think its probably the boxer as a fighter there’s not worse feeling than losing its a horrible feeling, you know, but[crosstalk 00:57:28]

Payman: Physical and mental right? I mean you have been [crosstalk] beaten up

Arthif: No, not physical, no I’ve never…its not like I was beaten up or anything like that no. That wasn’t physical hurt at all, I wasn’t physically… for example, one of the fights was just a, you know, robbery for example, two of them was just politics and rubbish and gains hours before I went to the ring, you know, one guy he ended up being a stone heavier than was supposed to be, you know, all sort of rubbish and mind game and rubbish, so no, not physically just mentally, you just down and you just disappointed in your self and just disappointed of the situations, since I was young somebody did this, so I was saying I suppose yeah, you know if I was to say in a nut shell that’s probably been a disappointing[crosstalk 00:58:19] thing and stuff like that for sure.

Arthif: And yeah I’ve been very fortunate to have seen so many high’s. What can I say in the ring obviously the is no nicer feeling than sort of obviously wining, but outside of boxing definitely I’ve hade some great meeting and great contraventions. I’ve just really been fortunate I guess to have had sort of very high profile people who’ve excepted me their circles as friends and trusted me with things and information and I’ve always been very coactions of that and not wanting to revel thing In public. There’s literally…theirs many things I’ve hade very personal moments. Id probably say, I’ve had some really-really amazing personal moments with Floyd Mayweather, that’s why I love and respect him a lot because his done a lot for me and there’s thing that I wouldn’t say on camera or in public that is just between me and Floyd, you know.

Payman: What’s it like hanging out with your idol?

Arthif: Yeah. I just feel I’m blessed, am thankful, you know, it really is amazing. I just myself, you know, I won’t be “oh” be like am just being frozen. I think one of the reasons where I have been fortunate and blessed to have this…be friend with this legends or hall of famous, I just carried myself I’m just being myself, you know, with me what you see is what you get and I just…I’m not perfect, I have many mistakes, okay, but one thing is that what you see is what you get with me and I’ve just carried my self as aim.

Payman: Because a lot [crosstalk] of people stake advantage of those relationships

Arthif: Like for example [e] some people would be like “where ever my use may be, what ever I “if am talking with anyone I voice my views or if its like. For example I pray, am not going to hide and be ashamed of my faith and say “oh am not going to pray for them.” You know what is like with Floyd Mayweather he respects me as so much praying in fact, he gives me a place to pray. There’s time I will be praying and he goes like “hitman” he calls me hitman. Hitman don’t [inaudible] he goes in to another room and he goes and be like “yo get hitman another room give him a place to pray” you know, so I’m just myself, you know, if prayer times come in, so I will step out for five minutes and pray somewhere quietly and discretely.

Arthif: I remember once we were having a chat about something. It was myself, Floyd and a few others in the room. I disagree, I wouldn’t really do this.” I basically disagreed with him and he goes, “Okay, why? Why would you say that? What’s your reasoning for this?” And I just said my reasoning, I just said that and stuff. Basically, my point being was I wasn’t being a yes man and just agreeing with him. I’m very sort of open and just am myself so obvious then respectfully articulated my views and my opinion to him on that regard of the subject about life. And sort of that was the end. So it’s humbling and great to be in those circles and I’ve just sort of been myself really.

Payman: When you go back to your childhood, do feel like there’s a defining feature of your childhood that makes you that guy? On one aspect of it, the competitiveness, the ambition, on the other side of it, what you’re saying now.

Arthif: It’s difficult. No I couldn’t pinpoint to one point, but generally, coming back to it, faith was a integral part of obviously growing up. And secondly was my upbringing with my parents. My mother and father, they were instrumental in my upbringing, especially my mother. I’m a proud mommy’s boy, if you know. My mom is my best friend, so I’m really really close to my mom and I speak to her everyday. She’s my best friend and she was amazing, instilling so many things in me and having that positivity, having no fear. She’s a really intelligent woman, educated. And she would tell me stories, true stories or legends and just tell me aspects of life. She’s still my life coach and my mentor.

Arthif: A lot of that, sort of, no fear approach or just going out there, not being afraid to get something and stuff. Definitely, there’s a big thanks to her for that part, for sure.

Payman: Does she watch your fights? Or she doesn’t?

Arthif: That’s a really interesting question. Basically, she was really upset when I was boxing at first and she wouldn’t want to know. She’d be really scared, she’d be really nervous. And she didn’t approve as well. She didn’t approve, she’d be telling to me to stop and stuff like that. But then as time went she realised, “This guy’s going to do it anyways regardless, so he may as well have my blessings and support and prayers.” I always had her prayers, I guess. Which was great, it was a great feeling for me. So now she’s not scared as such anymore, I suppose. I suppose she knows I can look after myself and I’m pretty good. Obviously she’d still be nervous and she’d still be praying on my fights. And asking, “What’s happened to your fight? Have you finished? Have you won? What happened?” Stuff like that. But she’s very positive so that’s great.

Payman: You talked about your mom worrying about injury, right? And you’re kind of medically trained and all that. How does head injury feature in your thinking or as a fighter is doesn’t?

Arthif: It doesn’t. Because that’s one part of the thing, we’re fighters, we’re not logical. We’re a different breed. So no. All thanks to God, nothing’s happened. No sort of injuries. Obviously you go into a shower, you’ll get wet. So you’re going to get into the ring, of course you’re going to get hit. So you might get some bruising or scuffing or whatever, that’s normal. But it’s like, you’re a fighter, that’s what you expect. There’s been times, for example, I’ve had some busing or a little bit of cut or whatever. And then I’ll have some female members of my family, they’ll be like “Oh no, what’s happened? What happened?” You stretch your arm and like, “Look. Look. It’s fine.” You don’t want to talk about it, you’re a fighter.

Arthif: I don’t want any sympathies for a scuffle mark or anything like that. It’s like, “Come on, I’m not a …” I’m not going to use a certain word. I’m sure you can imagine what word I’m saying. I’m not peep. I’m not one of those. I’m a warrior. I’m a fighter. What’s that. No, so you don’t think about that. No. You go into this fight and you go in there to win. You don’t think about anything else. Are you guys movie guys?

Payman: Yeah.

Prav: Sure.

Arthif: Have you seen the movie Troy?

Payman: Troy? No.

Prav: No.

Arthif: No, you have to. You’ve not seen Troy? Really?

Prav: I like good movies dude. Troy is [fantastic] movie. I’m joking.

Arthif: No, no, no. I was going to drop a quote from Troy but it’s fine, it’s all right. You just go in there, you back yourself, you believe in yourself. You’re there to fight. And obviously, you want to be smart, but there’s a lot of courage. There’s been many boxers who’ve been very talented in the gyms but the moment they step out into the lights, in front of a large audience, they’ll freeze. They’ll have doubts or they won’t perform and it’s sad to see. You’ve got to be strong and you don’t have any doubts. You’re not worried about XYZ or nay injuries or whatever, you’re just there to fight and to win.

Payman: What’s been your favourite country you’ve visited on? All these countries you’ve been to.

Arthif: Oh wow. I haven’t been to any place where I was like, “Wow, what they hell have I come to. I don’t want to come back here again.” So that’s a good thing. That’s a good thing. So I can definitely say that. So I’ve always had positive experiences and it’s nice. I’ve [crosstalk] …

Payman: Maybe as far as with boxing culture.

Arthif: Again, and Payman already asked me, I’ve never been subject to any racism as well. Wherever I’ve travelled, it’s been great. But then some people say, “Don’t forget because you’re boxing, you’ll be in the cameras, media. So people they always come and they want to have some selfies with you or they want to get your signature or whatever. Autograph and stuff. So it’s …” I’ve always had a positive experience wherever I’ve gone. But I really enjoy the U.S. I love travelling to the U.S. And it’s weird because I love New York, New York is amazing.

Arthif: And it’s funny because if you go to the U.S., especially in the West Coast, generally people don’t like New York because it’s very hustly and bustly. There’s a lot of hustle and bustle and people relate it to London. Obviously there’s a difference between London and Manchester. Famously London is sort of on their own mission. No smiles, you go in the tube, no one want to talk to you. But if you go up to Manchester or Yorkshire, or anywhere like that, everyone will talk to everyone. Everyone will smile, “Good morning. How are you doing.” Whatever. And I’ll equate that New York, with London, but New York’s a lot more friendly than London.

Arthif: I love New York, I love all parts of the U.S. where I’ve travelled to. There wasn’t any place in the U.S. where I didn’t enjoy. Obviously, Vegas is cool as well but I really enjoy the West Coast in sort of the California. I think California is a great place. It’s a great place. The weather, the people, everything about it. It’s brilliant. I really enjoy it. I love going to California for sure.

Payman: Love that, man. Well, we’re way past our allocated time.

Arthif: Hey, but I noticed the bridge at the back. You got the …

Payman: San Francisco.

Arthif: San Francisco bridge. Yeah.

Payman: Golden gate.

Arthif: I can see Alcatraz. I’ve been on that bridge loads of times by the way.

Payman: Me too there. Went to Marion County. Right. That’s where all the big houses are, right? Prav always ends this podcast with the same question. Or actually, it’s a set of questions.

Prav: Yeah. It’s a few hypotheticals, right? But, imagine it was your last day on the planet and you had your loved ones around you and you had to leave them with three pieces of life advice, what would they be?

Arthif: Right. Yeah, so that’s a tough one. This one is a profound question. I love profound questions and thoughts. First and foremost, I’d say it’s to be thankful and grateful to God. He’s given me everything. You can easily sort of get in and dragged into that whole spiral of looking at others who’ve been throughout more than you, who’ve been given, whether physical abstract ways or any other way really. But there’s always people who are far less fortunate than you. So it’s really easy to be engulfed in that. So first and foremost is to always be thankful, always be grateful to God for what you’ve been blessed with.

Arthif: Secondly, to do good to others because that good will always come back to you. So treating others how you’d wish to be treated. What you sow in life is what you reap. And always do good wherever you can. And don’t belittle any goodness.

Arthif: So lastly, I’d say it’s to believe in yourself. Go out there, get it. Never let anyone tell you, you can’t do something. There’s always going to be naysayers, there’s always going to be negative people. Everyone has an opinion. People are often focused on other people’s lives and less on their own. So you always get people saying something about what you’re doing. And if it’s negative, take it with a pinch of salt and you just carry on believing in yourself and go out there and get what you want.

Prav: And then, I’ve got two more questions. So the next question is a little bit easier. How would you like to be remembered? So either artist, Daniel or Dr. Hitman was … finish the sentence.

Arthif: A genuine person who gave it their all in whatever they did.

Prav: Good. Beautiful. And finally, a bit of a hypothetical. I’m going to put a little bit of a twist on this. Imagine you’ve got a month left to live. You know you’ve got a month from now. Right. You’ve got 30 days, okay?

Arthif: Right.

Prav: So in this particular case, I’m going to give you all your health. Right. So you’ve to a 100% of your health until the 30th day. What are you going to do?

Arthif: I would maximise my efforts in helping many certain people and society. Just in my ever good I could, whether that be … not just in terms of charitable aspects and doing things financially or giving whatever and just talking to orphans, whatever. Just wanting to help people any way I possibly could. And that’s where also my faith will come in as well because obviously, I believe in a afterlife, I believe in a reckoning. I believe in accountability where our creator will ask about ourselves and or time spent on this Earth.

Arthif: I believe in that where as a Muslim there’s two aspects. One is that, there’s rights of God, between you and God. And then there’s rights of people around you. If you look at a Psalm, most of it is all about being mindful of those around you. Don’t do no harm. It’s always about everyone around you, whether it’s your family, whether it’s your immediate or parents, your spouse, your siblings, your children. Or even you neighbours, talks about the 40 houses around you, are your neighbours. You should be mindful of your neighbours, not causing harm and not causing distress to anyone around you.

Arthif: And it goes on to humanity, then it goes into animals and saying there’s reward in treating every good thing. There’s famous narrations of the… There was a prostitute who obviously, he had a immoral life. One day she went to drink some water, she saw a thirsty dog just licking the mud, it was so thirsty. So she went, filled up her boot from the well and gave it water. On account of just that action, she was forgive by God and given paradise. There was a woman, equally, who neglected a kitten. Tortured it, didn’t give it any food, Treated it inhumanely and she went to hell for it. I cannot preffare abuse to an animal. So that’s just that animals will always [inaudible] with us. So there’s all those aspects there.

Arthif: So just doing good really, it’s like … And there’s another narration which the book of Mohammed said that, “If I were to come upon you, the day of resurrection, the day of judgement , then do any good, even if it is if you have a seed in your hand and you plant that seed, do that.” Which is amazing because some of the scholars when they’ve discussed this and they look at the one example, the parable that Mohammed gave is that, if you were to plant a seed and that would grow to be tree and people would benefit from that tree, whether it be the shade or the fruit of that tree. You’re benefiting the planet with oxygen and carbon dioxide in that respect. So Islam is a lot about benefiting others and treating things around you in a good way, or regardless of what factors.

Arthif: So that’s something that’s a cornerstone of my faith, something I believe in. And at the end days, the problem is that you reap what you sow. When you do that, you’d get goodness in this life and in the hereafter for acting in such a way.

Payman: What an answer, man.

Prav: Beautiful.

Arthif: Thank you.

Prav: I think I’ve [crosstalk].

Payman: What an answer.

Prav: I think I should have a whole nother hour long conversation just to look at that. Take it a bit further. Yeah. Really, really interesting. Thank you so much for your time.

Arthif: Thank you.

Prav: It’s been inspiring.

Payman: It’s been a real pleasure to meet you buddy. Real, real pleasure.

Arthif: It’s been a pleasure being in your show. I’ve heard great things about your show, so it’s been great to have finally been on.

Outro Voice: This is dental leaders. The podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts, Payman Langoudi and Prav Solanki.

Prav: Thanks for listening guys. If you got this far, you must’ve listened to whole thing. And just a huge thank you from me and Pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest had to say because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

Payman: If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing and, if you would, share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so, so much for listening. Thanks.

Prav: And don’t forget our six star rating.