Dipesh Parmar introduces a special podcast originally broadcast in June 2022 with guest Louis Mackenzie who tragically passed away in December.

With Louis’ passing, the dental community has lost one of its most engaging, inspirational, and well-loved figures. 

Our thoughts are with Louis’ family, friends, and all who knew him.    

 

In This Episode

05.18 – Being an inspiration

09.53 – Talent spotting and training

15.14 – Specialising Vs generalism

17.26 – Treatment longevity

25.52 – The new generation

27.46 – Why dentistry and background

32.58 – Dental school

38.07 – Moral tension and motivation

53.10 – Bad decisions and black box thinking

01.00.12 – Leaving the NHS

01.07.04 – Denplan

01.17.07 – On stage

01.25.34 – Research and opinion leadership

01.38.52 – Fantasy dinner party

01.41.00 – Legacy

 

About Louis Mackenzie

Louis Mackenzie was a GDP, clinical tutor, lecturer and educator who passed away in December 2023.

Speaker1: On Christmas Eve, we learned that Lewis Mackenzie had been taken from us. We saw it only fit to replay his episode with a foreword from one of his many, many students, Dipesh Parmar. Louis, may your caring. Clever, kind soul. [00:00:30] Rest in peace.

Speaker2: Ladies and gentlemen, friends and listeners. It is with profound sadness that we inform you of the passing of a dear soul, a cherished colleague and a friend who left an indelible mark on the world of dentistry. Lewis Mackenzie, a name that resonates with warmth, creativity and [00:01:00] passion has left us leaving a void that can never be filled. I first met Lewis back in 2009, in my fourth year at university, where the magic of shared dreams and aspirations in aesthetic dentistry unfolded. Little did we know that this encounter would spark a connection that transcended professional boundaries, evolving into a bond forged by a mutual love for dentistry that [00:01:30] defined our lives. I will share my beautiful journey with Louis in further detail for you all to enjoy another time. As we replay this podcast, we invite you to join us in celebrating the life of Lewis McKenzie, a visionary whose spirit will forever linger in the corridors of inspiration. His infectious enthusiasm, innovative spirit, and unwavering dedication to the world of aesthetics have left an enduring legacy that will continue [00:02:00] to shape the landscape he so passionately navigated. Through heartfelt stories, shared memories and the echoes of laughter that defined our moments. Together, we aim to honour Louis in the most genuine way possible. Today we remember not only a brilliant professional, but a kind spirit who touched the lives of everyone fortunate enough to know him. So join us as we embark on this emotional journey celebrating the life and legacy of [00:02:30] Louis Mackenzie. May his memory inspire us to pursue our passions with the same commitment and love that defined his remarkable journey. Love you, Louis. Depeche.

Speaker3: But I must admit, without sounding too pious, I do try and sort of keep true to myself. I only talk about things that I use in practice, and I only [00:03:00] talk about things that I know work. Because if I don’t, if I talk about a product that I haven’t got faith in, and then somebody buys that product, uses that product, and then they don’t get the outcomes with it. Again, nobody’s going to listen to me again. And, you know, I’ve been lucky. You know, I’ve never been good enough to work properly with, uh, with enlightened. But, uh.

Speaker4: This [00:03:30] 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.

Speaker1: It gives me great pleasure to welcome Lewis Mackenzie onto the podcast. Lewis is a long time friend and mentor of mine, educator, a general dentist, [00:04:00] now Head of Head, Dental Officer at Denplan. Clinical lecturer at Birmingham and at King’s and General. Uh general. Good guy on the lecture circuit. Someone who probably is the most entertaining lecturer out there. Every time I’ve seen you lecture Lewis, the crowd’s been in stitches. And in my story, most notably the person who introduced Dipesh Parmar to me. You weren’t quite the person who introduced him, but as soon as I met Dipesh [00:04:30] Palmer, you called me, and, um, we knew each other, I think, from the Manchester MSC where we were supporting that. And, um, you know, Dipesh lectures on our mini smile makeover course. I think, you know, Lewis. Certainly. And I would agree, a once in a generation talent found his start in Birmingham Dental School, where Lewis was putting on hands on days for the students. And, uh, he always mentions you, Lewis, as his [00:05:00] key inspiration. Well, lovely to have you, buddy.

Speaker3: Thank you very much. It’s a very nice, uh, that’s excellent introduction and pretty hard to, uh, pretty hard to live up to, I’m afraid.

Speaker5: Well.

Speaker6: All I can say is we’ve all got a similar haircut, so we’ve got something in common, haven’t we?

Speaker1: Lewis, we’ll get back. We’ll get to the backstory in all of that. Yeah, but just just on that Depeche front. And I was thinking about this. The number of others you must have inspired. I mean, I know a few of them, you know, Millie Morrison, uh, [00:05:30] Liv, um, scorer who you introduced to me. Um, people like, um, a few. I know a few of a few of your graduates. Yeah, but you must be responsible for so much good dentistry coming out there. Do you feel the weight of that when you have a new class? Um.

Speaker3: Not not really. Um, but those those names that those names that you mentioned, um, are sort of extraordinary talents. [00:06:00] I would say, of all the things I’ve done over the years, one sort of, uh, skill that have got is being able to recognise this sort of unique you. I think you said it sort of once in a generation talent. Depeche was definitely the first. And I remember I met him during the final year, uh, in 2009, and I ran a special study module, run it for nine years, and Depeche was the first ever year. And, um. He came on the it came on the course, and [00:06:30] the first exercise I ever got him to do was just some occlusal composites and, um, just to sort of set the set the bar. And when I looked at his composites, I thought. Shit. I’ve got to improve my teaching here. This. This bloke. This bloke is an absolute genius. Um, and and as you say, with Millie and with Liv again, they’ve just got this unique talent, and I’m not sure you can teach it. Um, my, my role really was them. Was just to, you [00:07:00] know, put the materials in their hands and just, uh, just just let them go with it. But, uh, but, yeah, they don’t come along to, to too often. Another one that comes to mind is Richard Lee, uh, who’s just just emigrated to New Zealand, actually. But again, when you when you, when you I think now I’ve done over a thousand hands on courses and so, so you really get you really get a feel for somebody who’s just just way, way out of the ordinary. [00:07:30] But Dipesh was the first for For Definite, and he definitely made me realise I needed to up my game on a teaching point.

Speaker1: And at the time you were, uh, general dentist used to visit the dental school for hands on sexual for. For what was that? Was that what it was?

Speaker3: Uh, yeah, I was a part time lecturer. I started, uh, I’d been in practice for about ten years, and then I’d always had that sort of little itch about doing a bit of teaching. I’d done a couple of courses myself and sort of really enjoyed [00:08:00] them. And yeah, just started doing a Thursday afternoon on clinic, did clinic for many years, probably about 8 or 10 years. But then I found a real passion for phantom head teaching. So I like it because it’s a level level playing field. Everybody’s starting with the same cavity, and you get a really good opportunity to sort of rank the students and identify those who have got weaknesses. And so this special study module that I put on and ran for nine years, Dipesh, as I mentioned, was that was the first year. And um, yeah, [00:08:30] just just really, really enjoyed that sort of aspect of it. But yeah, sort of clinical lecturer is the title. And nowadays I don’t do any, uh, undergrad teaching. It’s just purely post-grad working on the working on the Masters at Birmingham and the Masters and a couple of master’s courses at, uh, at, uh, at King’s. Uh, but I do quite a lot of, um, as you know, hands on courses around the country, uh, all the time.

Speaker6: Anyway, what is it that makes somebody stick out, Louis? Is it is it generally how inquisitive they are? [00:09:00] Is it does it just come down to you, look at the work and think, crap, that looks amazing. How did that happen? What is it that is there a like, if you could bottle that up and put it into a formula, what would it be for these super successful delegates that you’ve had?

Speaker3: I think it’s when they do something that hasn’t been taught. They’ve just got that eye for it, you know? They can just see something, explain something, but then take it to the next level. So one of one of my mentors, Adrian Shorter, we might chat [00:09:30] about him later on. He, uh, he said to me, don’t don’t be upset when your students are better than you are. Take, take, uh, take pleasure and pride in it. The thing is, with people like dips, uh, Millie. Liv. Richard. They were always already better than me before they started, so. But I think it is that just that unique sort of X factor, whatever it is. And if you could bottle it Prav then, then it’d be worth a fortune. But I don’t think you can. I think we can all. I mean, you’ve [00:10:00] only got to look on Instagram and Facebook now to see the, you know, the beautiful, beautiful quality of dentistry that is literally within, within anybody’s grasp. But then you’ll see the others who just take it up to the sort of the next level. I think one of the first contemporary, a couple of contemporaries that I saw of my sort of era were Jason Smithson and Tiff Qureshi, where I just thought, wow, you know, that’s a bit special. And then, I mean, the nice thing about, you know, the people we’ve talked about as well is that they’ve gone on to become really great [00:10:30] teachers as well, because that, for me is an extra skill. You know, there’s plenty of people doing extraordinary dentistry nowadays, which is brilliant, but to be able to communicate that to us mere mortals, I mean, I go to to the enlightened course, I go to Dipesh lectures now, and I’ve got my notebook out because he’s constantly pushing, pushing the boundaries when it comes to teaching and practice, because he’s just got that eye for aesthetics, that eye for colour, uh, which, uh, which which I haven’t got.

Speaker1: It’s interesting [00:11:00] what makes a good dentist and then what makes a good teacher to let’s agree firstly, two different things. You know, there’s, there’s many good dentists who aren’t great teachers. And but I think with I think you gave Dipesh the advice that he shouldn’t go on any composite hands on courses. Um, so that so that all the ideas would be original, you know, his own. He wouldn’t feel like he was taking an idea from someone else or something like that. [00:11:30]

Speaker3: That was that definitely wasn’t me. Sure. That was.

Speaker5: That wasn’t, you know, my my advice is go.

Speaker3: On as many.

Speaker5: Courses.

Speaker3: So yeah, absolutely. There might be.

Speaker5: There might be.

Speaker3: There might be crap courses. Uh, but you will always.

Speaker5: You’ll.

Speaker3: Always pick something up off them. And, and of course he did Chris horse. Course there’s another legend. He did Chris Hughes, uh, year long course. I mean, he was only, in fact, that that was that was actually a really nice sort of bit of feedback that I got [00:12:00] that Chris saw has always had I don’t know what the rules are nowadays, but it used to be you had to be graduated, I think, for at least three years before you could apply to go on Chris’s course. But then he made an exception, unless they’d done the special study module at Birmingham Dental School in their final year. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, so dipesh and, uh, Emily got on their lives, done it as well. And of course, Millie now is one of Chris Christie’s associates, so, uh, he knew what he’s [00:12:30] talking about.

Speaker1: And and the teacher herself. Not in, uh, composite, but more in Invisalign. But but it’s interesting, you know, because we were doing a little series called, um, my mini tip, and we had dentists. I took it for granted. Every dentist has got 1 or 2 tips, you know that. And they probably do. And maybe camera shy at that moment or whatever. But I guess the difference between a teacher and a technician is a teacher has more tips that came from them. [00:13:00] You know, that that things they do slightly differently to the rest of us need teaching.

Speaker3: That’s true. And um, but, um, I think we all fall down the same holes anyway, don’t we? Yeah. As we and that’s how we learn by, uh, by sort of reflecting and I think in the, uh, let me use the, the old days of probably the first of several times this evening, usually it was [00:13:30] sort of ten years or so before you did any sort of postgraduate qualifications. Now, obviously dentists are doing it a lot earlier and, you know, certificates, diplomas, even MSCs, you know, on our MSC course, we’ve had some literally sort of first year, first year graduates. I’m just wonder whether actually doing these courses earlier on, uh, actually reduces the risk of you sort of falling, falling into the regular sort of, uh, pitfalls. Or again, the the old fashioned mantra was you needed to make [00:14:00] a few mistakes and then do the course and then learn basically based on your experience. So I don’t know what it is, but certainly there’s a as you know, there’s a trend for courses a lot earlier nowadays.

Speaker1: Yeah, I think in the US it’s slightly different, you know. When you talk to the academics out there, they haven’t got that mantra of become a generalist first. You know, they some do. By the way. I don’t think it’s a right or wrong. You can’t say one is right and one is wrong. But [00:14:30] but you’re right that the sort of the general thing that people have been saying here is, you know, learn a lot of things first and then go and specialise into one, one area that you like, you know, see what try a lot of things. But I remember when, when I did my elective in the US, that the advice wasn’t that it was it was, you know, as quick as possible try and get into something. And I and I’ve given that advice to a lot of people as well, Louis, you know, because people ask me, hey, what should I do? And my answer is [00:15:00] pick one thing and just run with it. You know, get really, really good at something, you know, um, if you want to if you want to do something, pick, pick one, pick one and go. But you know, you’ve seen so many students come and go. Would you say that specialising these days is a good idea? Or would you say that general practice where you know you’ve thrived Kureishi’s thrived? Crystal was thrived, I guess. Which way, which way would you advise someone to go?

Speaker3: Obviously [00:15:30] down to the individual person. But don’t forget, whatever you choose, you’re going to be doing it for the next 30 to 40 years. So you’ve got to make the right decision. I wouldn’t close, certainly early in your career I wouldn’t close any doors because once it doesn’t take long in dentistry to sort of de-skill, uh, not necessarily de-skill, but lose confidence. And then you’re kind of you’re going down that one little route. And of course, you know, obviously Endo Perio, you can just do that [00:16:00] all day long. But certainly when it comes to sort of aesthetic restorative, is it something that’s going to sustain sustain for for 30 or 40 years? One interesting thing I’ve noticed, talking to a few young dentists and even a few lecturers recently, is is just focusing on front teeth. And which is a bit of a bit of a worrying, worrying, uh, situation when we’ve got, what is it, a year’s missed, uh, missed appointments due to, uh, due [00:16:30] to the pandemic. And obviously 70% of all problems occur on molars, which, uh, they’re not as, uh, they’re not as Instagrammable. But that’s where most of the most of the trouble is. So yeah, it’s a I mean, you must see it a lot on your courses. Um, and of course, it’s lovely dentistry to do, but, uh, is it sort of sustainable for that length of time? Um, I don’t know. Um, certainly just don’t know whether, uh, obviously every restoration is going [00:17:00] to fail. And are these almost sort of, uh, aesthetic cosmetic specialists. Their whole career is going to be about replacement of existing restorations or management of, of, you know, marginal stain and stuff like that. So, uh, it down, down to the individual. But certainly I would say early in your career don’t uh, don’t narrow it down too early, that that would be my advice. Right.

Speaker6: You know what? Um, you what you’ve [00:17:30] just been saying there, Louis. And in terms of how long these restorations, every restorations go into eventually fail, etc., etc., right. There’s there’s two bits of, I guess, information that I’ve received from, from like so Tiff has always pushed the, you know, you don’t really know how good a dentist you are until you’ve seen how long you work lasts. Right. And you’ve got that long terme follow up. And he always talks about his ten, his 15 year, you know, follow ups and he knows how long his dentistry lasts. And funnily enough, I had the opportunity [00:18:00] to interview a guy called Daniel Boozer. I think that’s his name is he’s an implant guy over at the A.D. According to everyone who I spoke to, he’s he’s one of the gods of implant dentistry. Anyway, cut a long story short. When I was interviewing him, I asked him about, you know, what advice he’d give to, you know, new students who were getting into wanting to get into implant dentistry and how would they know how good they are? And he said exactly the same thing as Tiff, that it’s about [00:18:30] this long terme follow up that, you know, he’s got cases. 35 years ago he placed an implant and it’s still stuck there in somebody’s head. And he felt that that was the true measure of somebody who was really good. What do you think are the concerns with all of this? A lot of front teeth, dentistry, composite veneers and things like that. Now, obviously, you know, a lot of the courses are teaching that. And then the longevity of that in terms of, I guess, how long these are going to last, how is [00:19:00] it, um, what’s the easiest way to describe it? Is it a huge problem waiting to unfold and happen when all of these, you know, composite veneers sort of mature in 5 to 6 years time and they need redoing with either more composite or porcelain. And then something you just mentioned, which I hadn’t given any thought to, is that are these dentists de-skilling by just focusing on that?

Speaker3: Really good questions. Just to sort of start at the beginning [00:19:30] of that, um, you made a really good point about the longevity. I’ve, I’ve worked in only one practice, the same practice for 30, 31 years. Wow. So so you know what works? But equally, you know what doesn’t work. Yeah. We’re in the kind of the infancy with composite veneers at the moment. Obviously the materials have come along massively again. Uh, advertising payments wonders here. When I started using enamel, really, that was the first time composite [00:20:00] veneers actually became a thing for me because of the polish and. Composite versus, uh, versus porcelain. You know, we could do a whole whole hour just on that. Composites got its disadvantages with regard to sort of technique sensitivity with regard to, you know, surface lustre. That’s that’s where enamel works, because obviously it’s a micro fill. It keeps it it keeps it shine. But the way that aesthetics restorations usually fail where they’re direct or indirect [00:20:30] is usually marginal stain. They don’t usually they don’t usually drop off certain materials. They will composite materials. They will lose their surface lustre. So it will be interesting to see, exactly as you say, Prav a few years down the line. Payman remember exactly the same thing happened in the 90s with the, uh, with, with porcelain veneers, where that was very much, you know, that was very much the, uh, the thing, uh, the thing to do. All the courses were based, were based around that. And then, you know, if you choose the wrong [00:21:00] patient, if you if you’re not bonding to enamel, uh, again, people, people came unstuck and I think probably moved away from that.

Speaker3: But, um, you know, either restoration, if it’s done well, it is going to last for years. But again, you also make a very good point that doing dentistry for the second time is, is is a challenge because you’ve got to you’ve got to take it off and you know, when you’re cutting, whether it’s ceramic, whether it’s composite. Are you in material? Uh, are you in dentine. Are you in enamel [00:21:30] bonding resin. So, yeah, it’s a real it’s a real challenge. So but I would say just to add to that, the foundation of skill with not necessarily young dentists is some amazing, stunning older dentists as well. With composite, it’s because the foundation of skill I don’t think really we know yet. You know, they might just literally just need repolishing. I know I’ve got I’ve got enamel cases where where the composite veneers still again, as you say in my latest [00:22:00] anterior composite lecture, I’ve got a enamel veneer at at ten years. Tiny bit of marginal stain, still shiny. Absolutely. Never been repolished at all. Uh, so, uh, I think now, because they’ve got the skills, you’ve got the, you know, the bonding techniques, you’ve got the material technology, they’re going to last longer. And of course, as every generation goes, they’re just going to get better and better and better at them. So maybe it will be the the treatment of choice. I know Depeche is sort of now he’s sort [00:22:30] of half and half isn’t he. He loves he loves composite obviously, but I’ve seen him lecturing more and more on ceramics.

Speaker5: Now, do.

Speaker6: You know when you talk about restorations lasting? So the purpose of which let’s say somebody has a composite veneer is less functional and protective and more cosmetic when you refer to them lasting. Do you mean just staying intact or do you mean lasting in a, in a cosmetic way?

Speaker3: Yeah. And they’re not going to fall [00:23:00] off. You know, you might get a little bit of chipping, but of course that’s that’s easy to repair. But yeah, it’s really a patient factor. Is the patient still happy with them. And and I think that I think that’s the main thing. And that would that would probably drive the replacement. Yeah. They’re not they’re not going to drop off if they’re bonded to enamel. I think Trevor Burks uh, he did this massive study, millions of restorations that had been done on the NHS and, and labial only veneers came out tops. They last longer than any other restoration [00:23:30] in dentistry. So they’re not going to fall off if they’re bonded to enamel. That’s the best bond in dentistry. So they’re going to last. But yeah so it’s going to be cosmetic. It’s going to be cosmetic failure before before anything else.

Speaker1: Which which year did you qualify Louis.

Speaker3: Uh 1990 uh graduated with a with a marvellous four for four years and one time course. Payman. Uh, not not this five year.

Speaker5: Yeah.

Speaker1: The good old course. Yeah. And, um, so, so. Okay, I was, I was going [00:24:00] to say you’re not old enough. Right. But but when did like your composite come.

Speaker3: Well, like, Kieran’s been around I think since the, since the, uh, on the first composites that was out. I’m trying to think I’ve actually got a picture of Trevor Burke with with one of the original curing lights. It was probably, I would say probably the 70s. Don’t know for certain.

Speaker1: We had Wilson on the, on the podcast and he was talking about when they were developing it with AISI and it was. Yeah, it was one, [00:24:30] one shade only. That’s right.

Speaker3: Yeah, yeah. So yeah. And then there was occlusion, of course, the first composites, you had to mix yourself and there was no polymerisation shrinkage issues because you had so much air in them that the material just didn’t cause any problems. Uh, but yeah, so, so light curing really sort of, you know, probably sort of 70s, it sort of kicked off.

Speaker5: But you, you know.

Speaker1: People like to say that the current day dentists, I mean, even outside of Covid, that, you know, the newer, [00:25:00] younger generation don’t have the skills that, let’s say, our generation had because they didn’t they don’t drill enough teeth. Do you have another side to that story that says they’re a lot better than us because of whatever other, you know, whatever other thing they do have that we didn’t have, you know, like they get taught patient management or, you know, what are they being taught while we were drilling teeth?

Speaker3: Well, I think it goes further back than that. They’re just really, really clever. I mean, I mean, you know, how many, how [00:25:30] many, right? Yeah. I’m going to know when I, uh, it was, it was a B uh, it was a B and two C’s to get into dentistry in 1986, I smashed that with the two B’s and two C’s. Uh.

Speaker5: Uh, it was, uh.

Speaker3: In those days, you buy three, you get one free with general studies.

Speaker5: So.

Speaker3: So yeah, I mean, they’re super intelligent. You’re absolutely right about the undergraduate experience that, you know, they’re going to do a lot less than they did with [00:26:00] regard to everything, you know, particularly amalgam skills. You know, some dental schools they’ll almost do non um extractions again depending on where uh depending on that though.

Speaker5: Why is that.

Speaker1: Because there aren’t enough patients to have their teeth extracted.

Speaker3: Just I mean we, we work uh Birmingham’s fluoridated. So, uh, even back then, you know, my oral surgery experience was, was very limited. And so, you know, I had to, you know, sort of learn those skills kind of on the job, uh, because, uh, are you are you. [00:26:30]

Speaker1: Birmingham born and bred? Were you born in Birmingham, Staffordshire?

Speaker3: I’ve my my quest through life has taken me about 25 miles. Uh, from, from from Staffordshire. Uh, I went to Birmingham Dental School because it was the only place that gave me an offer. Um, Birmingham at the time.

Speaker5: Why?

Speaker1: Dentistry did.

Speaker3: Oh. Well, uh, now, you have asked a good question now, and I had to actually do some research for this because I always was certain that I was 11. I was 11 when I decided I wanted to be a dentist. [00:27:00] Uh, and I was absolutely certain I could remember where I was sitting in a science class, who I was sitting next to my mate Dean. But my aunty has always, always said, no, you are much younger than that. And so I thought, no, no, she’s making this up. And, uh, but then I went up to see one of my uncles in the Lake District, and I asked him about this, and he’s in his 90s, and he said, no, no, you’re about six. So then I went back to my aunty and said, come on, tell me this story. And she said, do you? Yep. I remember you’re in the car. And I said to you, [00:27:30] uh, what you’re going to be when you’re older, how about being a doctor when you can look up, look after your Aunty Lillian? When, uh, when she’s old? I said, uh, and apparently I said to her, no, I’m not going to be a doctor. I’m going to be a dentist. And I was standing up in the back of a Fiat one, two seven. So, uh, so, uh, no seatbelts in those days, and obviously so I couldn’t have been very tall. So, yeah, I think I was about six, so I decided I wanted to be a dentist. I have absolutely no idea why I never I [00:28:00] never changed my mind. Uh, I remember when I went to careers day and I told the careers adviser that I wanted to be a dentist. And her advice to me was, you don’t want to be a dentist. That’s a terrible job. Then when it came to A-levels in those days, you had to fill in, fill in a different form for a polytechnic.

Speaker5: And.

Speaker3: Yeah, precast precast form. So is Ucas and PCAs. It’s all on one form now and I refuse to fill in the, you know, the, the whatever it [00:28:30] was going to be whether suggesting pharm pharmacy or something like that. Uh, and um so I refused to fill it in. I only wanted to be a dentist, but I don’t know why, and I’m just glad I chose, uh, you know, chose a career that’s worked out for me.

Speaker1: What did your parents do?

Speaker3: Um, my dad, uh, was was a draughtsman, and my mom was, uh, she was, well, her final job, she did lots of sort of secretarial jobs. Her final job, uh, they’re both passed away, unfortunately. Uh, but a final [00:29:00] job was the one she really loved. And she was, uh, she was a medical secretary. That was that was the the last job that she did. But my parents, uh, in fact, I was the first person to go to to uni in my, in my family. Uh, so there was.

Speaker5: So, so is.

Speaker1: There, is there a, you know, like how the that that part of the country was very industrial and, you know, our stories in your, in your family about the Black Country and, you know, everything, everything that goes with that. And did you sort of see that change in the area?

Speaker3: You’re such [00:29:30] a Londoner. You’re such a Londoner. Uh.

Speaker5: It’s abortion and abortion.

Speaker3: Staffordshire’s nowhere stuff. It’s just north of Birmingham, not how is it? So, um.

Speaker5: I was so.

Speaker1: Romantic about this story. Like your granddad worked in the mines, and then you.

Speaker5: Know, my granddad, my granddad.

Speaker3: We all going back now? My. I had a granddad. This is on my dad’s side. And my granddad from the Isle of Skye. No. Isle of Lewis [00:30:00] and my grandma from the Isle of Skye. They both left to find work to go to Glasgow. And then once they’d sort of become a couple, they walked to Liverpool to, uh, to find a job. So my, my grandfather on my dad’s side, who I never met, was an engineer by by training. So that.

Speaker1: Scottish.

Speaker3: Uh. My dad’s. No, my dad was born in. My dad was born in Liverpool. So my my grandparents are Scottish and my on my mom’s side, they’re more sort of Midlands based, [00:30:30] more sort of Brummie Brummies, but writing proper Birmingham.

Speaker1: Yeah. So if you, if you were an Indian, they’d say you’re Scottish because you know, you’re Scottish, you’re a Scottish guy like.

Speaker5: I’ve got, I’ve got Scottish, uh.

Speaker3: I’ve got Scottish ancestors. Uh, so uh, but, and I’ve got loads of Scottish relatives, loads of uh, loads of aunties and uncles and, and cousins.

Speaker5: What were you like.

Speaker1: What were you like as [00:31:00] a dental student? Were you really into it or.

Speaker5: I really was. Yeah.

Speaker3: Yeah, yeah, I really was. Uh, yeah, I kind of liked it straight away. I mean, I must admit it was pretty tough at dental school. We were lucky, actually, that we’d, uh, that had just been a sort of a change in sort of management, if you like. Uh, Birmingham had always been sort of known as kind of the comms school. I think the comms department at one stage had about 30 members of staff. So when I started, we used to hear the sort [00:31:30] of horror stories from the previous, uh, the previous tutors, uh, one that’s always stuck in my mind. And I sometimes remind the students when, when they’re being a little bit, uh, little bit soft, uh, that, uh, one of the tutors apparently used to say to when he was checking a cavity or something like that, he’d stand over the, uh, with the with the patient and the and the student, and he’d say to the patient, he’d look at the look, he’d look at the in the cavity, and he’d say to the student, I wouldn’t trust you to cut [00:32:00] my lawn.

Speaker5: So, uh.

Speaker3: So fortunately we missed, uh, we missed that sort of, uh, era and, uh, but really fantastic young lecturers at that time, uh, Phil Lumley, basically, you know, God of endodontics. Um, Ian Chappell was a junior lecturer, uh, as, uh, as well. And obviously, you know, they were both my bosses, uh, Phil and, um, uh, Phil and Ian, [00:32:30] uh, and, uh, uh, Trevor Burke came to, to Birmingham as well via, uh, via Manchester and Glasgow and he, he Trevor’s been really instrumental in my career and Damian Warmsley was, uh, was head of, uh, sort of head of prosthetics or fixed removable props. And so we, we were really lucky that we had all these young legends basically wanted to do things differently. And so the teaching we have, uh, interestingly, actually, the there [00:33:00] were a significant number of people in my year who have actually gone back into dental education and, uh, my four and a half years, sorry, four years and one terme, uh, were yeah, I must admit, I really enjoyed it. I think I was one of those lucky students who kind of, on the practical aspects, sort of picked it up straight away.

Speaker3: You know, I’m quite a sort of, uh, you know, it’s like playing with Lego, fixing my bike stuff, stuff like that. So, so I was quite lucky that sort of picked it [00:33:30] up straight away. And of course, in those days, as you’ll remember, play, uh, the course was very practical. Um, now, going back to your other point, I think now there’s so much new stuff that you’ve got to learn with regard to, you know, I mean, there were no posterior composites. Molar endo was kind of in its infancy. And so the course now is so packed that, yeah, the students are doing less practical work than they would have before. But with regard to talent and skills, [00:34:00] I would say, you know, the future is most definitely safe. These these young dentists are going to be awesome. And, uh, and they’re going to take dentistry to the next, to the next level, you know, I hope I can hang around for long enough to, uh, to just to see where it goes. Obviously, the digital revolution is finally has finally arrived. So, yeah, I mean, that is really, really exciting stuff.

Speaker5: I feel like.

Speaker1: The the newer ones, they’ve got more EQ than, than we have sort of more [00:34:30] emotional intelligence at the at the same time though, maybe it’s just they admit to it more. They seem to suffer with more sort of mental health crises and issues. So is that your feeling?

Speaker3: Maybe it’s. It’s an excellent point and obviously there’s loads of evidence to back that up. But I just wonder whether, you know, we all always had those issues, but it was just a case of didn’t.

Speaker5: Talk about it.

Speaker3: Get on with it and suffer and suffer in silence. [00:35:00] And you know, that’s the way of the world. You know, maybe it is the fact that they’re, you know, they’re more sort of, you know, more sort of people of the world. They’ve got access to, you know, everything. You know, when it comes to sort of social media, the internet, obviously the internet didn’t exist. So just maybe they’ve just got a, you know, a better sort of perception about, you know, what’s their part in the world. And obviously there can be a little bit emotional at times and sort of [00:35:30] older sort of dentists that takes a little bit of getting used to. But uh, I think they’re probably going to get a much better life work balance than maybe the dentists of yesteryear did when it was very much sort of, you know, five days a week, full days of NHS dentistry and then, you know, look, sometimes look forward to retirement, which is, you know, you’ve got to enjoy the ride. I would always, uh, I would always advise, um, and whatever you’re doing, uh, just [00:36:00] enjoy your dentistry. And if you’re in a, if you’re in a situation where you’re not enjoying it, do something to to change that.

Speaker1: I mean, there’s there’s a lot of people who aren’t enjoying it. Louis.

Speaker5: Yeah.

Speaker3: Absolutely.

Speaker5: And then at the.

Speaker1: Same time, there’s loads of people who adore it and love it and can’t stop talking about it. And, you know. So what do you reckon is the difference? Do you think the difference is staying engaged and trying to improve the whole time? And why is it some [00:36:30] people are in such a bad state about? And I think the GDC, whatever has, has a role to play. But it’s always been like that even before the, you know, dental law partnership came along, there was some dentists who were really into it and then others who hated their lives. What’s the difference between those two characters, do you think?

Speaker5: Well, actually, it is such.

Speaker3: A good question, isn’t it? And if you actually love the physical act of delivering, you know, doing a filling or something like that, if you if you [00:37:00] really, really enjoy that, then nobody can take that away from you. You literally just, you know, that that’s a, you know, that’s a big chunk of your life on earth that you’re actually enjoying. But when you’re working in a situation where maybe, you know, you’d really enjoy that filling, you know, it’s going to take, you know, 45 minutes to do it, but you’re working in a clinical situation where you’ve got 15 minutes to do it. Mhm. Then you’ve immediately got that uh I think the textbooks call it that [00:37:30] moral moral tension haven’t you. Where, where you know, you know what’s best. But you know, you’re working in a system that’s not allowing you to, to do that. And I think that’s probably at the heart of, of mental health issues in dentistry, which, as you say, have been around literally forever. I mean, the good thing is now mental health is most definitely on the agenda in dentistry. You know, you know, the regular reports coming out, looking at the profession, looking at the causes. Remember the BJ [00:38:00] did a did a massive one. Thousands of dentists in 2019 just just before the pandemic. And you know, they listed the top ten stressors in dentistry. And most of them were systematic, uh, problem and regulation was one of them. Um, there was a read, uh, I read a nice article by, uh, Martin Keller. I think it was in the BJ, actually. And he said, nowadays it’s like practising clinical dentistry is like being in a [00:38:30] lift with a wasp.

Speaker5: Um.

Speaker3: And, uh, I think it’s a good analogy. The only way that that analogy falls down is if you’re in a lift, you can get out of the next floor. If you’re, uh, if you’re a dentist, you’re in the lift for 30 to 40 years. So I think there is obviously the dental legal stuff is never is never going to go away. But nowadays that’s that’s a separate self-sustaining industry. But I’ve had I’ve had second year dental students, you know, literally just started [00:39:00] on Phantom head, say to me that they’re worried about graduating because they don’t want to get sued. So, so, so second year. So, so this stuff, uh, this stuff does start. It does start early and, uh, what it can do, uh, but, uh, need to be prepared. That’s the way of the world. It’s not going to go away and just do your best for every patient. As long as that’s as long as that’s the sort of philosophy. And if you are in a situation that’s compromising [00:39:30] your ethics, your standards, then yeah, do something to change it. And I know obviously Prav does loads of work with dentists and with whole teams to create the right environment. In fact, I think I listened in preparation for this. I did some revision. I listened to one of you did an excellent Talking Heads when it was just the two of you, and Prav made the point that he felt that at that time, one of his favourite clients was a bloke who was just unhappy in his job and he just needed [00:40:00] to change. No, change was not an option for this bloke. Um, and obviously he did Prav training, uh, and sounded like it all. It all worked out well for him. Prav. Is that.

Speaker5: Correct? It is.

Speaker6: Louis. But you’ve just got me thinking about another thing, which is, you know, what is the reason some of these guys get, especially what I’m seeing and it’s not, you know, I’m not speaking for all the younger dentists, but I have a lot of younger dentists who come to me and say, I just want to make X per month. That is that [00:40:30] that’s the overriding thing that they come to me for. But, but, but they’ve not been they’ve not done enough dentistry yet, if that makes sense. So when you look at them from a and I’m not the one to judge them clinically, but you know, they’ve, they’ve been out of dental school for 18 months, two years. And their, their prime motivating factor is I want to make X per month. Right. And it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about dentistry, whether we’re talking about a career in marketing or [00:41:00] whatever it is, I think you need to earn your stripes first and get some experience under your belt before that. Becomes your sort of number one motivator. And I do say to them, look, my first bit of advice is get on these courses right? And these courses happen to be courses that people that I respect, that Payman respects, probably yourself as well. Who is that that you just think that let the, you know, let them get this solid grounded and then the money will come. [00:41:30] And but I do think that if finance is that number one motivating factor from a very young age, I do think a lot of these dentists will start becoming unstuck later on because they silo themselves into, I am just going to be an Invisalign doctor.

Speaker6: I am just going to press the button on this program and get this treatment plan done for me, and I’ll finish it off with a little bit of edge bonding or whatever. Right. But you’ve it’s a bit like becoming a marketeer and running Facebook [00:42:00] ads, but you don’t know the first thing about the problems of the people that they face that you’re marketing to. Right? So so how can you how can you market to somebody who needs a full arch of implants if you don’t know the problems that a loose denture wearer goes through, and that the fact that they can’t eat steak, or the fact that they, they cover their hands, or they’re walking around with a tube of fixodent in their pocket all the time, and so on and so forth. And I feel really strongly about this. And, and I feel as, as [00:42:30] somebody who helps practices grow, there’s a bit of a pressure on sort of, you know, them coming to me and saying, well, I want to make loads more money. And my advice at the moment is we’ll get you stripes first and the money will come.

Speaker5: I couldn’t.

Speaker3: Agree more. I mean, you’re giving absolutely spot on advice and I’d give exactly the same advice. Um, I think in dentistry, if you put finances first, it’s doomed to failure because you’ll always be chasing something over the horizon, which is which never actually [00:43:00] arrives. And you’ve got to obviously be constantly chasing repeat business over and over again. If you’re looking from a financial point of view, from a financial point of view, the best way to achieve that goal is, is family dentistry. And look, you know, I think Tiff talks about this, the lifetime patient. Yeah. Uh, you know, it might sound a little a little bit sort of, uh, old fashioned, but yes. See, the, uh, see the grandparents, the parents and the kids and sometimes even their kids. That’s from a business point of view. [00:43:30] That is the foundation of any successful practice. Also, when finance is at the fore, I’ll be careful how I phrase this. There is a danger that it affects your treatment planning. And and if you’re not looking at the whole patient and the whole patient’s needs and maybe just focusing, maybe just on the anterior teeth, it is that old classic that, you know, if all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So [00:44:00] everybody gets the same treatments. They all look pretty much the, the same. And yeah, it’s you get on a okay, it’s not an NHS treadmill but it’s a different treadmill.

Speaker3: And so I think, I think a balance between I think a balance between that where, you know, it’s lovely to do the aesthetic stuff. But of course it is patients demands. Now patients are so well educated that, you know, they know what they they know what they want, and you’ve got to be able to deliver on that [00:44:30] promise. So going back to learning your, uh, getting, getting your stripes, getting, getting your hours in, I think it is like any sort of it’s that 10,000 hours, isn’t it? Of course it is. Whatever. Whatever you’re doing, if you’re going to become an expert in it, you know, 10,000 hours a mastermind or shared an office with, uh, Charles Perrier, he actually worked it out. And he reckoned it was about ten years, ten years of of of sort of, you know, four, four and a half, five days of dentistry. That’s about 10,000 [00:45:00] hours of practical dentistry in that time. You’ve probably you’ve probably made most of your mistakes, not all of them, unfortunately. You’ve learnt what you’re good at. You’ve learnt what you’re not good at. You’ve learnt your patient communication skills. And it’s why in the again, using that old phrase, in the old days it usually was ten years was a kind of a turning point where the where you maybe think, well, I’m going to buy a practice now, or maybe I’m going to go on a, you know, I’m going to learn how to do implants or I’m going to be an endodontist [00:45:30] that sort of ten year apprenticeship, for want of a better word.

Speaker3: Uh, but I think that that has certainly come forwards now. Certainly young dentists seem to be a lot more business minded in a good way. You know, they seem to sort of grasp that it’s not something that’s ever taught at, at dental school, but they certainly do seem to have a grasp of of what they want and the vision that they want. But again, you know, I’ll mention this, uh, possibly when you ask me those questions, which I’ve prepared for at the end, [00:46:00] is from a financial point of view, just just enjoy your dentistry. Just do do what feels right for the patient, what feels right for you. And the money will, will will sort itself out. No, no problem at all. And, you know, use the team as well. You know, use your specialists, use your technicians and just become a whole, you know, little sort of industry. Yeah. Look, for me, looking after looking after families is is the key. And then the aesthetic restorative stuff. That’s [00:46:30] the icing on the cake.

Speaker1: Yeah. Not not to mention Prav. Yeah. The best way of not making that money is to focus on making that money. But I wonder, Prav, if people say that to you because they see a marketing guy before them and they feel like that’s I’m allowed to say this to, to the, to the marketing guy. And so they come across as that guy, you know.

Speaker6: Possibly there’s an element of that. Right. And they probably see that, you know, I’ve worked with a lot of successful dentists who’ve who’ve done [00:47:00] really well, um, both clinically and financially, but a lot of these dentists who have done really well have earned the stripes. Yeah, they’ve got that decade well and truly under their belt. Yeah. You know, and then they’ve done well. However you define doing well financially. Right. We all have different I guess set points. Call it whatever you want. Right. What our definitions of success are. And some of them are, you know, spending more time with your kids or whatever. And some of them are, you know, driving fast cars [00:47:30] and going on luxury holidays, whatever that thing is. But, you know, people do come to me and they associate me with with those individuals who’ve done well, let’s say, for example, and then they come to me and say, hey, well, you’re the. I that drives the patients through the door and then can give me advice on conversion and all the rest of it. It’s a Prav bring me some money. Right. And and for me, whether I’m giving advice to somebody who comes to me for career advice as a, as a, as a young [00:48:00] marketeer or someone or somebody comes to me for career advice as a dentist. Yeah. I say, you’ve got to be able to do the shit that you can say you can do. Then we can market that, because if you end up marketing something that you know you can’t do, you’re only going to end up in trouble. And this comes down to, you know, my involvement with the IAS Academy has taught me a lot about how, I guess, you should operate as a dentist, right? And [00:48:30] case selectivity, knowing your limits, right.

Speaker6: Knowing when to say no, really, really important. Right. And and so marketing can put you in trouble because it can deliver a patient that you have absolutely no chance of being able to treat because you don’t have the skill set of doing it right. But you but you decide, okay, I’ll be Mr. or Mrs. Brave and have a crack at that. So, you know, I’m a I’m [00:49:00] a big believer in making sure that we market appropriately at a skill set and at a level that we can deliver because it’ll be short lived otherwise. And even with my clients, I want to build long terme relationships. I don’t want to I don’t want to put someone in a position where they become unstuck. They’re up in front of the GDC, you know, and there’s I guess there’s a sense I feel like there’s a sense of responsibility on my behalf. It’s not just about an exchange of service for money, but I think [00:49:30] I’m fortunate enough to be in a position where I can actually say, look, if that’s what you want to do, there may be another agency out there that could help you do that. But but this is my advice. And I think what weighs on me is having business partners like Tiff Qureshi, who’ve got a very, very high moral, moral, ethical, high ground for me to sort of say, well, okay, well, this is this, this is the route I think you should go down.

Speaker5: Yeah, and.

Speaker3: Tiff’s always had that as a, uh, and just. I [00:50:00] mean, that’s such an excellent point that if you are going down that you’re almost always treating strangers and, you know, and I’m sure obviously you’re a medic by training as well is, you know, never treat a stranger, get to know the patients before before you jump in because you don’t know what they’re like. And and you made a really good point there that really sort of rang a rang a bell with me is asking saying to patients not to treat them. I would say some of the best clinical decisions [00:50:30] you will ever make in your practising career are the patients you choose not to treat. Uh, and you know, you don’t have to be rude, you know, send them down the road. You know, you need a you know, you need a better dentist than me for, uh, for for this and, uh, yeah, certainly. You know, if I think back, those have been some of the best decisions I’ve made. As you get older and more experienced, you see the warning signs, but but obviously you can’t be expected to do that when you’re just starting [00:51:00] out. So. Yeah, just earning your stripes exactly as you said it, doing that apprenticeship for a few years, just getting a feel for the, uh, and then decide what you want to do.

Speaker5: Louis, if.

Speaker6: If that’s the best decision you’ve ever made, what’s the worst decision you’ve ever made in clinical dentistry?

Speaker5: In claim.

Speaker3: In clinical dentistry?

Speaker6: Um, with patients, whatever. You said some of the best decisions you’ve ever made is, is actually having the courage to say no, I guess, um, [00:51:30] what what are the some of the worst decisions?

Speaker1: What’s gone wrong? What’s gone wrong.

Speaker5: Yeah.

Speaker3: Well certainly perhaps question first of all would be those ones I’ve learned from those learning patients where I’ve got into something, whether I don’t know whether it’s whether it’s an endo or an aesthetic case or, or or an extraction, uh, that’s uh, I think are really wish I hadn’t started this, but but then you’re on. Uh, but but then you’re on that, uh, but then, then you’re on that conveyor [00:52:00] belt, uh, to answer Pei’s question, uh, you know, it’s a long list of, uh, nothing, nothing catastrophic. Pei I’m sorry to, uh, I was he frozen? Uh, no. I’m just he’s just really good at, uh, sitting still. Um. Um. Nothing. Nothing catastrophic, but a few a few learning experiences which I think made me a better dentist. I’m more cautious. [00:52:30]

Speaker5: Yeah.

Speaker1: Which one’s what happened?

Speaker5: I knew you were.

Speaker3: Gonna make me be specific.

Speaker5: Because you’re not going to leave.

Speaker1: It like that.

Speaker6: Are far too vague, Louis.

Speaker3: I’ll give you. I’ll give you two. I’ll give you two of of many. Listening to a few of these podcasts previously, I noticed quite a common theme is people’s worst day at work has been sort of Dental legal problems. And and as you [00:53:00] know, sometimes this can be sort of a year of their lives with a, with a, with a cloud over their careers. And for me, I would say it’s probably it was probably the same, but embarrassed to say that mine only lasted for 48 hours. Um, and it was, it was an Indo an Indo case which didn’t work and tried to. It was one of those ones that just on the x ray, it just looked absolutely perfect. And uh, but it didn’t, didn’t settle. So chats with [00:53:30] patients said I’d like to retreat this one. And she said I’d rather just have it out. So we had the discussion and I took it out. And then months down the line, just got a letter. You know, the old clinical negligence letter, taken a taken a tooth out that didn’t need to be extracted. But I was just, you know, whether it was luck or whether it’s judge judgement, uh, did did what you’re supposed to do phoned up the, um with the due. [00:54:00] They were brilliant. Just send us all the, uh, the x rays. Send us, send us the radiographs, and we’ll get back to you. So did that posted them off in those days. And then it was I think it was Rupert Hoppenbrouwers at two days later he phoned me up and he said, uh is that uh, Mr.

Speaker3: McKenzie said, we don’t usually do this, but don’t worry about this. This will go away. He said about 1 in 5050 cases, they get to actually [00:54:30] make that call to say, don’t worry, this will disappear. Don’t give it another minute’s concern. Your notes are fine. You’ve done everything that you should have done. And sure enough, you know I got a letter again, months down the line. We’ve decided not to pursue you on this. Uh, on this, uh, on on this occasion, but there’s no question about it. That’s experienced. The wasp came into the room and the wasp never left. You know, it was. It was. It was in the corner. It never formed a hive or anything [00:55:00] like that. But it did make me, because that surprised me. It really surprised me because I had tried my best. Still, to this day, I’ve absolutely no idea why it failed. I’d actually saved the tooth to try and section it and work out why where, where I’d gone wrong. And then you asked for two. So I suppose I’ll give you another one. Was again, just a mistake. I was I was finishing it, finishing a composite and uh, sort of class five composite denture wearer. And obviously I hadn’t put the burr in [00:55:30] into the handpiece. Uh, Burr fell out of the handpiece. Patient literally swallowed just at the, uh, just at the wrong time. Um, and so, yeah, what can you do? So, um, I again, uh, this had a happy outcome as well.

Speaker3: Um, I, um, uh, said to the patient, we really need I don’t know where that’s gone. Where that’s gone. We really need to have a chest x ray. That was the, uh, that was the, uh, that was the guidance then. So drove him up to [00:56:00] the local local hospital. He had a he had a chest x ray. He’d he had swallowed it. He hadn’t he hadn’t inhaled it. And the weird thing was, uh, that, uh, he was a, he was an elderly patient who’d retired. And based on the experience, he actually became a volunteer in the x ray department, which he did for years and years and years. And I saw him for years afterwards. You know, every time I saw him, I just felt, you know, it felt really, really bad about, uh, uh, [00:56:30] about making that, uh, making that error. But, you know, I certainly certainly learned from it, but, yeah, nothing too catastrophic. And I know, you know, I really feel for some colleagues who have got cases that have been hanging over them for, you know, years in some cases. And I had a very, very short experience of, of what that felt like. And it was, you know, oh, that’s it. My career is over. And it happened to me fairly, fairly early on as well. But, you know, [00:57:00] everything my note making, uh, just hopefully really, really improved by that. So so those are two that spring to mind. I’m sure I’ll think of some more.

Speaker6: When you said there was a happy ending, I thought he was going to say he fished the bear out and brought it back for you. I was just waiting for the I was waiting for the punchline. [00:57:30] Louis.

Speaker5: I don’t know, I mean.

Speaker1: I don’t mean to sound disappointed, Louis, but, um, in a 30 year career, those don’t sound like really hard stories to me.

Speaker5: Yeah, but.

Speaker3: They impacted, uh, they impacted on, uh, they certainly had an impact on me, um, I.

Speaker5: Bet. Well, but.

Speaker1: Have you never had a situation where the patient’s lost trust in you, you know, like that sort of situation, or you took on a case that [00:58:00] that went wrong in the wrong direction for a long period, or, you know, even in my short, I mean, maybe you’re just a much better dentist and communicator than I am. But even my short five years at the at the, uh, at the front, I did have a few couple of cases like that, you know, where, you know, like, cosmetics is awful, right? Patient says it looks great, goes home, comes back, says I don’t like them anymore. You know, you’re in a terrible situation. Just there on a matter of opinion, [00:58:30] you know. Has that never happened?

Speaker5: Well, unfortunately.

Speaker3: Not. Um, with regard.

Speaker5: To, uh, with.

Speaker3: With regard to that because, you know, fortunately, I’ve done the courses, you know, when I started doing aesthetic dentistry, fortunately, I’d done some good courses. And, you know, they the thing that they always bang into you is, is make sure the patient knows what it’s going to look like at the end. So there are no surprises at the end because, I mean, there is nothing. And I say this in lectures all [00:59:00] the time. There is absolutely nothing worse than, I don’t know, sticking some veneers on or something like that. And the patient either immediately or after they’ve seen their family saying, saying I don’t, I don’t like them because what you know, there’s no plan B, is there? You know, okay, you know, if they’re too long you can shorten them. But that that’s all you can do. And then obviously redoing stuff like that is, is, is an absolute, uh, is an absolute nightmare. [00:59:30] You know, doing redoing dentistry that you just did.

Speaker5: Yeah.

Speaker3: For free is, is, is literally, you know, it’s your worst day at work isn’t it. Yeah. So I think it’s I don’t think it is judgement. It is, it is just luck. But I certainly uh and maybe, maybe it was, maybe it was that early on Endo case that really made me choose choose my battles and, and you know, be able to deliver [01:00:00] on on whatever I, on whatever I promised. But I’m sorry to disappoint you. I can’t.

Speaker5: Think of.

Speaker3: Anything, uh, anything cut too catastrophic for you in my professional life.

Speaker1: You mentioned, uh, Louis, the conversation Prav and I had about the NHS and leaving the NHS and what people are saying about that and what worries people have about that. But now, in your role in Denplan, that must be a daily occurrence. I know your role isn’t specifically to talk about [01:00:30] that dentist. I mean, you’re more on the education side and so forth, but you know, what stories do you hear? Or you know, what concerns do people have? And are they the same concerns every time? And then the solutions a similar solution all the time, or is it different in each case? What? Tell me some stories of NHS to private.

Speaker5: It is, it is it is the similar.

Speaker3: It is similar all the time and it’s always and they’ve always been the same stories. I mean I’ve, [01:01:00] I say I’ve done a thousand. So I’ve been teaching for about 20 years. I’ve been doing hands on courses for getting on for 20 years as, as well. So I’ve spoken to thousands, thousands and thousands of dentists. And that’s, you know, you know, me, uh, we’ve been on courses together, you know, and I know you’re as well. You like chatting to, like, chatting to the dentist. You know, they good, good to chat to good company, entertaining people. And so, yeah, I’ve got a whole list. In fact, if I did a webinar, [01:01:30] uh, last week on this exact subject, it is the same things that come up every single time. People who have transitioned from NHS to private all report the same thing. Number one is always time. More time, more time with the patients. More time for your for your for your private life, for your for your life work balance. But it’s it’s never money. Money is always the absolute bottom of the list. It is it is clinical outcomes. It’s job satisfaction. [01:02:00] It’s developing good relationships with your patients. It’s using good materials and equipment.

Speaker3: It’s having the time to go on courses and upskill. It’s working with technicians who share the same philosophy that you do. It’s you know, I’ve spoken to dentists on courses, a hands on courses. And this is, uh, this was not an uncommon occurrence. I do I used to run a series of ten hands on courses on various different restorative subjects, [01:02:30] and it’d be quite a common one when I’d, when we’re just starting to push the envelope with, with big composites and almost without exception, sort of every month somebody, an NHS dentist would come on the course and I’d, you know, and we’d do a, I don’t know, mod B build up on a premolar. Um, and it’d take about an hour or something like that. And a dentist would say, you know, you know, this is all well and good, but I can’t do this on the [01:03:00] NHS. And I used, I used to, uh, quite commonly get into this discussion. And I said, if you don’t mind me asking, how many patients do you see per day? And I would say almost without fail, sort of, you know, definitely a few times a year, the dentist would say eight zero, 80 patients per day.

Speaker1: Oh my goodness.

Speaker5: Wow.

Speaker3: Uh, to which to which I’d say, well, no, no, you can’t, you know, what’s what’s your what’s your appointment time. If you’ve got [01:03:30] to do this, if you’ve got to do this in ten minutes. You might get the first one right, but you’re not going to get the fifth one right. You’re not going to get the 10th one right. And I want I did once see, I didn’t believe it actually, but I actually went to went to the went to the practice I once had uh, knew of a dentist who had a hundred patients booked in every day. I didn’t believe it, but I actually saw the day book. It was a pencil, a pencil day book. And there were there were hundred, um, 100 patients [01:04:00] booked in in that day. Uh, the.

Speaker5: Interesting thing.

Speaker1: Is, uh, if you if you said clean up time between 100 patients is just just be really kind and say 5 minutes to 3 minutes, clean up time, that’s 300 minutes of clean up time. Yeah. Which is five hours of clean up time.

Speaker5: Yeah. It’s it’s not doable.

Speaker3: And and you would occasionally see dentists who would get themselves into, into this sort of. This [01:04:30] treadmill of multiple surgeries, uh, on the, uh, on the go, uh, you know, uh, well, but then, Louis.

Speaker1: What are the barriers? What are the barriers? I mean, why don’t people want to leave? I mean, there’s the obvious financial sort of, you know, with the NHS, the system is that you’re sort of assured a certain income per year. There’s that. And then. And then there’s another one talking to people who are thinking about it, the people who are eminently more qualified than I was when [01:05:00] I decided to leave the NHS, worried about their skill set and worried about whether they can pull it off or not. And I said, you know, it seems to me so obvious, like we’ll just keep it simple. Refer, you know, simple as that.

Speaker3: You’re absolutely right. Confidence is the number one. You know, they don’t feel they don’t feel like a private dentist. To which I always say, what is.

Speaker5: A private dentist.

Speaker3: Exactly? I say, you went to dental school. You weren’t trained to be an NHS dentist. You were. You were trained to be a you [01:05:30] were trained to be a dentist and to do whatever that particular patient needs. And I still to this day do a lot of hands on courses with foundation dentists. And so I really, really notice that they really, really feel going from the, I don’t know, safe environment of, of the dental school seeing, you know, two, maybe four patients a day or something like that, and then working into an environment where obviously, you know, you’ve got to speed up. [01:06:00] But that sort of tension with regards to sort of clinical decision making, they, they, uh, a classic one would be they, they know that a direct composite only is the best treatment for that particular tooth. But working in a system, I don’t know, take the UDA system, for example, where you’d be pushed to do an indirect restoration and that tension, a cobalt chrome denture or something like that. So you know that a cobalt chrome denture [01:06:30] is the best thing for the patient. But when you factor in the lab bill, you would know that, you know, you do too many of those. Your business is your business is going bankrupt. And and where cases in the in the UDA system as well. So I mean the system does need to the system does need to change and it needs to change rapidly. I mean, you know, only in the last couple of weeks we’ve seen the, you know, the in Parliament, Shawn Charlwood talking to the health, uh, health and social care social care select committee, [01:07:00] things have to change. And they have to change. They have to change rapidly.

Speaker1: But, you know, at Denplan, what was the USP of that organisation is is it that they they’re good at helping people go from one to the other? Is it is it that they good at managing the teams because there are there are those concerns aren’t they. You know, what will my team think? What will my patients think? Am I up to it in all of those? Does denplan hold the hand better than the next company? I mean, [01:07:30] there were certainly there were there first, weren’t they?

Speaker3: Yeah. 1986 Denplan was set up. Um, was set up with, with three goals. It was set up by two dentists in the mid 80s. 80s was a was a nightmare time anyway. Record unemployment, record inflation, Falklands war, miners strike. It was it was it was a nightmare time and and it was a nightmare time in in dentistry as well. And so these two dentists came up with this idea for [01:08:00] a basically a new system, a capitation system that was something to do instead of NHS dentistry, which was which was the only game in town. Um, you know, in even in the 90s, I remember at the time somebody said there, there around about 500 private dentists in the UK, uh, now there’s, there’s 26,000. So Denplan was set up with three goals. And those goals have remained the same throughout right up into to, to today. [01:08:30] And they’re just as relevant as they were before. The first thing was professional control, getting control of your own career, which is what we’re talking about. The second was to create an environment outside the NHS where you could do quality dentistry. And the final one, which is even more relevant now, was to align the patient’s wishes with the dentists philosophy, which was prevention, prevention. Patients [01:09:00] don’t want dentistry. And so if if a capitation system works really for me, it’s perfect. It’s the perfect practical situation in clinical dentistry because you’re getting paid to keep people healthy rather than getting paid to find things to do and do things.

Speaker3: And so, you know, having that balance of private fee per item and loads of patients on a plan just gives you that sort of clinical freedom [01:09:30] to, to make the right decisions every time, because they’re your clinical decisions are based on, on what the patient needs. And and obviously I’ve talked to thousands and thousands of denplan dentists, and it’s the reason that we’re really quite evangelical about Denplan. Is it because it was the first and it changed? It changed my professional career because when we went private, we weren’t completely private with Danplan. In those days, you couldn’t you couldn’t have [01:10:00] a children’s only contract. So basically it was it was it was private and and we didn’t retain any NHS within the practice. So in those days it was a leap of faith because there was no blueprint. Big practices hadn’t done this before. But of course now there’s, uh, you know, there’s a there’s a blueprint. And, you know, thousands of dentists have already made, made that move. But so, yeah, if you just do chat to to Denplan dentists and I’ve heard this time and time [01:10:30] again is that it changed. It changed their professional careers. I’ll go even further. It changed their lives. And that is why that we’re so passionate about Denplan.

Speaker1: What is what is your actual role there? I mean, I know you were in charge of the education side for a while, but now now your new role.

Speaker3: Yeah, it’s well, the head dental officer is actually the job that the original head dental officer is Roger Matthews, who was one of my mentors, who was an [01:11:00] absolute legend so far ahead of his time. It’s really as a it really is a multifactorial role, you know, difficult to describe it in, in just a sentence. The education side is still a big part of it. And one of the things that I’ve been really lucky to do is be involved with a big project to create a state of the art online education, to go along with our live courses. Our live courses have been, [01:11:30] you know, incredibly popular for.

Speaker1: Summarise, summarise the size of that that unit. I mean, I remember someone telling me maybe it was you. It was like they do something like 500 days of live courses a year or something.

Speaker5: Yeah, yeah we have.

Speaker3: Yeah, way over 500, is that right? 500 courses per year. I mean from from hands on courses. I mean, Dipesh you kindly helped us out. I think that still remains our biggest ever hands on course. I think we had something like 40 dentists [01:12:00] in the room. You got good value out of Dipesh that day.

Speaker5: Um.

Speaker3: But we do in practice training. That’s super popular. We do all the compliance subjects. We have ski conferences, cycling conferences, hiking conferences. Um, we just actually, we’ve just finished actually, we’ve done our first four national forums. These are our sort of flagship events. And so so far we’re up in Scotland with the Blaine, Cambridge, [01:12:30] Chepstow, and then we’re in Belfast the week before last. And so basically this is a full day study day with a nice meal and a stopover as, as well. And we’ve had Simon Chard lecturing for us on digital, doing a doing an hour and a half session, and he has been absolutely superb. The dental plan audience, because, you know, it’s quite a tough audience. I say it’s, it’s a, you know, for for lecturers, it’s a good rite of passage to, to lecture to them to the dental plan dentists because you, [01:13:00] you know, you’ve got a lot of MSCs in the room, you’ve got a lot of, um, experienced.

Speaker1: Simon’s a talented speaker, talented, very, very talented speaker.

Speaker3: He is very, very polished. Uh, and but it does go beyond way beyond the clinical excellence which he most certainly has. But it’s the whole sort of the, the marketing, the use of social media. It’s the his feedback has been off the scale. It’s been absolutely superb. So so those those. [01:13:30]

Speaker5: Control have.

Speaker1: You got if let’s say you want to come up with a new course in Panama.

Speaker5: Whatever.

Speaker1: Well, like, you know, if you come up with a new idea, who does it? Is it you? Is it are you the last person who has to say yes to things? Or is there this other person who has to like it was the process. What’s the process of if a new idea comes up, how does it work?

Speaker3: It would be really lovely if that was if that.

Speaker5: Was the case. Uh. [01:14:00]

Speaker3: Um, uh, my boss, Catherine Rutland, who’s another, another denplan dentist as as well. So she would be the first person I would, uh, in fact, literally, this actually happened only last week. I’m putting together ideas for the programme for 2023. So I’ve literally sketched out this is for me, this is the ultimate programme of live events and online online training events. And then we literally [01:14:30] just go through the process with regards to funding, budgets, manpower and work outs. Work out what’s, uh, what we’re going to do for the next year. So we try and work kind of a year ahead. We’ve got an events team. The events team are amazing and we do lots of charity events as well, but not sort of CPD involved as well. You know, marathons, high conferences. Our parent company, Simplyhealth sponsored the Great North, uh, sponsored all of the great runs for uh, for a few years. [01:15:00] So, yeah, it’s a sort of because for me, it’s and I’m sure you’ll say exactly the same thing with your courses pay and even with your courses as well. Prav is, for me, some of the best little nuggets of education don’t come when you’re sitting in front of the lecturer. Yeah. They come, they come in the breaks. They come when they’re when you’re when you’re having lunch, when you’re on a ski lift or whatever.

Speaker1: The gin and tonic, man, you know, people underestimate that. It’s [01:15:30] not it’s not the gin and tonic. It’s the different sort of sort of the the barriers of the classroom situation and then the barriers and the real conversations do tend to happen outside of the classroom situation. And for me, you know, the other thing, uh, Luis, uh, the delegates learning from each other.

Speaker5: Totally.

Speaker1: It’s a key point. It’s not just from the teacher, is it? It’s a key point. They’re all going through the same things.

Speaker3: Certainly from a practice management [01:16:00] point of view. And, you know, I was really lucky I got into Denplan quite early. I think it was about 93, although we were mixed for probably 15 years. Yeah, probably about 15 years. It was lucky, I think I went on the first ever Denplan golf conference and, you know, just sat down, you know, my golf never, never been any good. And it never it never it never will be. But I remember sitting down with some of the original Denplan dentists and they were really sort of saying, you know, from a, you know, great tips, you [01:16:30] know, categorise your patients and correctly to begin with, equipment, materials, loads of techniques, loads of courses. Again, you know, I’ll go on one course and, you know, I’ll get a tip to go on a to go on another one. You know, it’s much easier now because obviously they’re all advertised on, on social media, but it was very much a sort of a word of mouth. You know, who are the good speakers? Who are the good mentors? And I was just really, really lucky that in the early, early years of my career, [01:17:00] I just bumped into some just really, really influential people who who transformed my career.

Speaker1: Were you always that funny guy on stage?

Speaker5: Because you.

Speaker1: Are you.

Speaker3: Honestly, this is a fantastic opportunity to go into a Goodfellas moment here and, you know, funny anyhow.

Speaker5: But you call me a funny guy. You’re funny.

Speaker1: You’re [01:17:30] entertaining that entertaining style you’ve got.

Speaker5: I start.

Speaker1: From the first time you lectured, was it like that.

Speaker3: Style over content? I think that is, uh. Um, it is, it is, um. I’ve got a message that I want to get across when I first started lecturing. You know, I watched before I’d started. I’d watch some really good lecturers and and you’d notice the ones who kept people sort of captivated. Trevor would be a really good, uh, [01:18:00] Trevor would be an absolute classic example of that. Because no matter how good you’re how good you, uh, you know, your content is, if people are asleep and I’ve had plenty of people fall asleep in my lectures, they are going to learn nothing. They might, in fact, just digressing from my worst ever. It wasn’t even a heckle in a live lecture. There was, uh, it was, I don’t know, there was an audience of about, I don’t know, about 40 or 40 or something like that. So it was a small it was a small seminar, [01:18:30] and there was a bloke in the front row and, uh, and he came in and he fell asleep almost immediately. And, uh, and so that was a bit I still like introducing myself. I was still I don’t have a long I don’t have a long. I don’t have a long. This is me intro. Uh, but but he fell asleep during that. So then without a word of a lie, I kept going, I kept going, and then he’s. After a while, his phone went off. He [01:19:00] got up. He stood up. The group was in two. It was in two halves. So there was a there was a sort of an alleyway down the middle. He walked up the alleyway. He answered his phone and I don’t know what I don’t know what the conversation. He said, no, I’m in a lecture. No crap. And he walked out and he never came back.

Speaker5: Wow.

Speaker3: So that’s [01:19:30] so that was my worst. Uh, so that was my worst sort of experience. But I think public speaking, I went to I went to a lecture the other day from somebody a similar sort of vein to you, Prav. And it was people’s worst fears. And I think, I think the worst fear this bloke was talking about was I think it was death of a relative, public speaking and then being buried alive. Uh.

Speaker5: Uh, so.

Speaker3: When it, when it comes to public speaking, I don’t, [01:20:00] I don’t, I don’t mind I never, I never have.

Speaker1: Thing is, you pull it off.

Speaker5: You pull it off.

Speaker1: So. Well. Yeah. With with the, with the. I don’t want to call it comedy, but the sort of the humorous side of it. Yeah. Um, and I always think if you’re, if you say something funny, I never, I never try it personally. Because what if, what if no one gets it or no one laughs or. And I find people do laugh in my lectures, but at points where I wasn’t expecting it, it’s so it’s like they’re laughing at me. No, not with me. But but [01:20:30] you pull it off like a master, like a king.

Speaker6: Give us an example, Payman give us an example.

Speaker1: But he just. He can’t help himself from the first moment. Yeah. He’s talking. It’s. He’ll say a self-deprecating joke or something, but the audience will just get behind him straight away, you know? Like. Like what you said. You say, oh, let’s say you can say something about your hair being a bald guy or whatever. Yeah, I’d say it. And the room would be empty. Room would be silent and worried. Yeah, he’ll say it and the room will [01:21:00] be bursting out laughing. Yeah. And it goes on. And it’s not like it’s only a comedy show.

Speaker5: I’m not saying. I’m not saying.

Speaker1: That.

Speaker5: I’m not saying that at all. Not at all. I was just about.

Speaker6: To ask Louis to tell us his favourite joke.

Speaker5: It’s just it’s just it’s just the the content.

Speaker1: The content is, is is punctuated with some entertainment bits here. And, you know, you used to talk about different people, you know, good old Anoop, [01:21:30] bless his soul the way he would do it. I don’t know, Louis just carries it off in a really sort of. For me, effortless is the way I would, I would describe it.

Speaker5: I mean, it’s.

Speaker3: Extremely nice of you to say, and it’s it’s not something. I mean, there’s certainly that edutainment, uh, as my, uh, my, uh, predecessor before Catherine Henry Clover, he was my boss at Denplan. He was the he was the head dental officer. After Roger, he said edutainment, you know, you know, get your get your, [01:22:00] get your, uh, get your content across. But it’s got to be entertaining. Otherwise, you know why? Why is anybody going to, uh, when, when is anybody going to sort of, uh, actually come to your next lecture? But it’s not something that I sort of, sort of script in really. It’s sort of, I don’t know, they sort of, uh, I’m kind of lucky. It’s kind of kind of sort of comes to me. I mean, I went to a school, a pretty rough school in those days. You didn’t have you didn’t have social media, so you had to go to school to be bullied. [01:22:30] So, um, I.

Speaker5: And then it comes.

Speaker3: You you had to be either, you know, really tall, which I wasn’t, or you had to be. You had to be a clown. And so I suppose I learned those skills from school. Uh, my dad was always an entertaining bloke, but perhaps just made me think my my favourite joke. It was, uh, anything that I come out with are [01:23:00] things that that please me are things that I’ve thought of on the spur of the moment. Uh, and, and Dental wise again. Probably to to to boring to relate. But I’ve, I’ve been lucky and I’ve probably because I’m, uh, I don’t mind public speaking. I think I’ve been best man 11 I think it’s 11 times, uh, 10 or 11 times. Um, and for me, my, my best ad lib happened in a best man’s speech. And it was a, it [01:23:30] was quite an awkward environment because the vicar had been drunk during the, during the ceremony. Um, and, you know, it hadn’t gone disastrously wrong. But like everybody, you know, it was it was one of those things. If you put it on telly, you wouldn’t think it was. You wouldn’t think it was believable. So I was just getting nervous because I always do get a little bit nervous before, before, certainly before speaking. And I thought, what am I going to say? I’ve got to kind of refer to it, but how can I refer to it? The vicar wasn’t in the room, but, [01:24:00] uh, fortunately. But, uh, how do I refer to it without sort of embarrassing him and embarrassing everybody else? So I just, I thought how? And so literally just it just came to me. I said, I don’t know about you, ladies and gentlemen, but we’ve had a wonderful wedding today, a fantastic service, and I don’t know about you, but in church today I really felt the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Speaker5: And and for.

Speaker3: Me, that is just, [01:24:30] uh, I enjoyed the fact that I managed to think of something under those sort of, you know, uh, those circumstances and, uh, and, and pull it off.

Speaker6: I’ll tell you my favourite joke. What do you call a man with no shin?

Speaker3: No, Shin.

Speaker5: No. Shin!

Speaker3: No. No idea.

Speaker6: Tony.

Speaker1: Hi.

Speaker5: Nate. That’s my.

Speaker6: Number one. That’s my [01:25:00] number one dad joke.

Speaker5: Hi.

Speaker1: Oxford educated.

Speaker5: Medic joke.

Speaker3: It’s another one for when you go to footlights on a similar sort.

Speaker5: Of, uh, sort of. Here we go. Uh, yeah.

Speaker3: This one always, always makes. Makes me laugh. Is, uh, mangoes into, uh, fish and chip shop and says, uh, fish and chips twice, please. And the bloke says, uh, sorry, I heard you the first time.

Speaker5: Uh. Uh. [01:25:30]

Speaker1: Lewis, out of your different things you do general or done general practice teaching. Have you done some research as well?

Speaker3: Uh, sort of, uh, uh, ad hoc research. I would, I would call it. Um, I started, I started teaching, uh, at Birmingham Dental School in 2003. And I say so we, you know, we had a fantastic faculty, [01:26:00] but as soon as I went on clinic, I realised that the students were asking me questions. I just didn’t know the answers to, you know, how does you know? How does bonding resin work? You know, how to get different colour composites that, you know, just using those, using those as examples. So I really had to sort of go back to school and, and then I was I was equally lucky. Um, at that time, James Davis approached me and asked me to write, uh, write a paper on [01:26:30] posterior composites. And so I spent three months writing a write in a long draft of, uh, of, of this paper on posterior composites, which was my, um, sermon on posterior composites. This is how you do it. And then a sense the I think I probably had to print it out and and take it to, to Adrian Shorthall, who was the head of head of comms. He’s my sort of main sort of mentor. And I gave it to Trevor as well. And [01:27:00] they were very, very polite with me and said, yeah, come, come back, come. We’ll have a read through this, come back, come back in a week and you know, and we’ll give you some advice.

Speaker3: And, and I went back into to Adrian’s office and he said, yeah, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s fine, but you know, but this is, this is going in a peer reviewed publication. Everything that you’ve written is your opinion and you haven’t backed up any of it [01:27:30] with evidence. So he said, to help you out, I’ve printed you out a few things to read, and I can still see it to this day. There was a stack of papers and abstracts. There were over 100 papers on posterior composites. I mean, Adrian always knew the key references and still does. And so for me, I think basically that was a I don’t know whether they were throwing down the gauntlet. I think most normal people would have walked away and said, [01:28:00] right, I’ll, I’ll give up on my academic career. But I read all the papers. I realised what I’d written was just purely an opinion piece. I rewrote it, it took me three three months to write the first draft, six months to write it properly. And then that was the first paper I ever published. In fact, in preparation for this, I actually looked it up. I’ve, I’ve now I’ve got 30 peer reviewed papers and four textbook chapters.

Speaker5: Wow.

Speaker3: And and [01:28:30] those are all those are all written on subjects, quite selfishly, that interest me. You know, posterior composites, anterior composites, clinical photography, caries bonding, amalgam, indirect restorations. So for me the the learning has been my research my postgraduate education. I’ve got well I say in fact I’ve trip myself up there. I used to have no postgraduate qualifications when I put my pen down, and I made a [01:29:00] promise to myself in finals. When I put my pen down that final exam, I promised myself that I would never do another exam and I haven’t. But, uh, in 2022, a colleague of mine, Steve Bonser, who’s a who’s a GDP brilliant bloke, material scientist, he proposed me and Ian Chappell seconded me for a, for a PhDs from Royal College in, in Glasgow. So so so [01:29:30] I have got uh an honorary one. I’ve got a, yeah. Uh, but by accident, not by exam.

Speaker5: That’s nice.

Speaker3: So, uh, so, yeah, I just didn’t want to do any more exams. Um, what.

Speaker5: About, you know, Louis, your.

Speaker1: Your relationship with, uh, manufacturers is is awesome, too. I mean, you seem to know everyone in that side. You know, the trade side as well. How? [01:30:00] You know, for instance, how do you how do you keep a clear head if J and S Davis are paying you or or sponsoring you to, to write about composites, not to sort of get their one as the main one or, you know, how do you keep a good reputation amongst lots of different manufacturers because you really do have a great reputation out there, and how is it that others sort of sometimes fall over on that front? I mean, what’s what’s there? One called Clear Phil?

Speaker5: Careful.

Speaker3: Yeah. Magic [01:30:30] Clearfield magical aesthetic, which is a.

Speaker5: It’s an interesting thing.

Speaker3: Which is an amazing composite. Um, yeah. It’s I mean, so it’s a really good point, but I must admit, without sounding too pious, I do try and sort of keep true to myself. I only talk about things that I use in practice, and I only talk about things that I know work. Because if I don’t, if I talk about a product that I haven’t got faith in, and then somebody buys that product, product [01:31:00] uses that product, and then they don’t get the outcomes with it. Again, nobody’s going to listen to me again. And you know, I’ve been lucky. You know I’ve never been good enough to work properly with uh, with enlightened.

Speaker5: But, uh.

Speaker1: I think you did lecture at the minimalist event, but I can’t call that work.

Speaker5: Are we talking?

Speaker3: We’re talking paid work.

Speaker5: Did you ever get paid? I’m. I’m still.

Speaker3: I’m still waiting. I’m still paid. [01:31:30]

Speaker1: In gin and tonics.

Speaker5: That certainly did. You certainly did. But but but.

Speaker6: He’s got a believe in it first, right.

Speaker5: Yeah. But I mean.

Speaker3: The, the nice thing is that, you know, the companies that I work with, I’m doing quite a bit with opt ident at the moment. I love most almost all of the opt in products. I’ve done a lot of work work with with Kerr. I was really, really lucky that my my kind of, if you like, sort of lecturing career took off when [01:32:00] sort of bulk fill composites came in. So I did a I’ve done a lot of work with Dentsply Sirona over the years, and if if somebody gives me a product that I don’t like, uh, because I’m lucky that I’m on a number of key opinion leader groups. And so, you know, there’s a group of us do get sent stuff, um, before it goes to market to, to test it out. And I love doing that. And it doesn’t take long, does it, for an experienced dentist to know, is it better than what I’ve got before? Is [01:32:30] it worse or is it the same? And then I’m just I’m just totally I’m just totally honest. I would never, ever say anything bad in public or any anywhere else about about a dental product because as you know, you know, there’s millions gone into the investment and I have pulled out of lectures. It’s I remember when I started lecturing one of my colleagues who’d been doing it for a while, and the lecturer said, I said, how long does it take to write a lecture? Because this is taking me hours and hours.

Speaker3: And he said, basically the industry standard for an hour lecture. [01:33:00] You’re looking at about 50 hours of preparation and and development. And to be honest, I’ve never got it down much below that, that 50, that 50 hours. So I can only ever remember it happening once, where I’ve delivered one lecture once and this was on a product. Uh, that’s I started using and, you know, I was really I’m a real early adopter. I like trying out stuff straight away. But then the patients were coming back and it wasn’t really working out as I hoped. So [01:33:30] I had actually had to sort of hat in hand, go back to the manufacturer and say, I’m afraid I’m going to have to pull out of this lecture lecture series because I don’t feel, uh, that, uh, so and again, you know, if you’ve ever seen me do a lecture, I get like way, way, way too excited about dental materials and equipment. I can get excited about matrix bands. Uh, you know, wedges. That’s probably one one [01:34:00] of the worst bonding lessons. Uh, because if I really, really like them, because these these materials are designed to solve problems. Literally the first time I used, uh, enamel was on. Remember the World Aesthetic Congress? Yeah.

Speaker5: Yeah. Um, that’s one of the numbers.

Speaker1: One of the moppers down.

Speaker3: Buddy, buddy buddy and his son. What was his son’s name? Um. Robert.

Speaker5: Robert.

Speaker3: Robert. That’s it. Bob. Mopper. Um, so that that was a real turning point for me. [01:34:30] I can’t remember what year it was, but Buddy Mopper was doing two hours of lectures. Um, and.

Speaker1: Yeah, that was the year we started with Cosmo. Then because we, we brought him over because of that.

Speaker5: Wow. Right.

Speaker1: That would have been 2008. I want to say.

Speaker5: This.

Speaker3: This, this, this, all this, this all fits, uh, fits in nicely then. So. So I don’t know you. Obviously, you were in the room. Um, there were about 8 or 900 dentists in that room. And [01:35:00] Buddy Mop was doing this presentation on composites, anterior composites, posterior composites. And I’ve never seen anybody do it before or since. He had cases up on the screen. And he basically said, what should we do? Do you want to do a posterior? Do you want to do an anterior? And basically his lecture could go off in any direction. Yeah. So now this was in the 90s. So this was in the era where porcelain was king. You couldn’t go on any other courses other than. Porcelain veneer causes. The World Aesthetic Congress [01:35:30] was basically a porcelain veneer course. And so I sat there watching buddy buddy Mopper, and he was showing case after case after case of these amazing composites using using Cosmodome products and, you know, whole tooth build ups, composite veneers, taking crowns off, replacing them with composites. And it was absolutely groundbreaking. But then the thing that got stuck in my head then he said, oh, and here’s [01:36:00] the ten year recall going going back to what you were talking about there. Prav here’s your 15 year recall and thought, wow, this stuff works. But the thing that the thing that really, really, um, stuck in my mind is the lecture was in two parts and there was a break in between. And during the break, everyone went outside and, you know, everyone’s chatting and the you could just hear these people just saying that absolute crap. Worst lecture I’ve ever seen, just, you know, [01:36:30] um, and so when we went back in, there were still hundreds and hundreds of people there, but there were probably about 300 less people. They’d all gone off to a porcelain lecture from somebody else. And one of the first things buddy said when he got back up on the stage was, he said, I won’t try and do his accent. People will say that you can’t do these things with composite. As he said.

Speaker5: Composite.

Speaker3: Composite people will say that you can’t do these things with composite. And [01:37:00] he said they’re right. They can’t. And that, that just literally just stuck in my head that, you know, of course you can do it, but you’ve just got to dedicate yourself to the materials, the bonding, the, you know, the tooth anatomy. And so that that was a real pivotal moment for me because, you know, they were doing stuff like you just, you know, in the States that you just wouldn’t believe, and so much so that basically then I [01:37:30] started using Rhino. I did the hands on course with his, uh, with, uh, Robert, his, uh, Bob, his, his son. And the minute, the minute you sort of polished it, you thought, this is different. This is something that’s better than I’ve ever used before. And so I’ve used enamel on my hands on courses ever since. Um, because, you know, from a polishing point of view, as, you know, as, as dips delegates, it’s one of those things that the, uh, the delegates go away from the course with a nice feeling that they’ve [01:38:00] done something that they.

Speaker5: Yeah, they’ve seen something new.

Speaker3: They never did before, which is, uh, which which is what I tried to do as much as possible.

Speaker5: Crazily.

Speaker1: We’ve been speaking for an hour and 40 minutes now.

Speaker5: Oh, my God, it.

Speaker6: Feels like we haven’t scratched the.

Speaker5: Surface, mate.

Speaker1: We haven’t. Haven’t even said. Who was your first boss. Where did you go from there? Um, we’ve we’ve reached our limit already. Can I have to do a round two?

Speaker5: I’ve got more questions, guys. Gone, gone.

Speaker1: Ask it, ask [01:38:30] it. Well, we got another guy waiting, but there we go. We’ll have to do a part two. We’ll have to do a part two.

Speaker5: Man, there’s a.

Speaker6: Whole bunch about public speaking that I wanted to ask. You were saying you were comfortable, and then you mentioned you get nervous sometimes. And then does that ever go away? And. But there’s so much buzzing around in my head. Right. So we’ll have to come back for round two. But.

Speaker1: Sorry, sorry. Prav I hugged him. Um, so let’s finish. Let’s go with the final questions though. Let’s go with the final. Let’s [01:39:00] start with the fantasy dinner party, one fantasy dinner party, three guests, dead or alive. Who would you pick?

Speaker3: Two. Uh, two alive. Uh, Quentin Tarantino, um, a massive, massive movie fan. Come back. I’ll be happy to talk about movies for for two hours.

Speaker5: Oh, no, I’m not massive movie fan.

Speaker1: Massive, massive Quentin Tarantino fan.

Speaker5: Oh.

Speaker3: Uh, Alex Higgins, the, uh, the ultimate, uh, the ultimate [01:39:30] snooker player who still probably has got one of the best ever sporting quotes in history. And then, uh, the final one, I couldn’t decide either be, uh, Ricky Gervais or Frankie Boyle, uh, because it would be an evening of absolutely zero political correctness, uh, and, uh, talking about films, talking about snooker, talking about the talking about the world, and then a and then a game of snooker and getting drunk. Uh, after after that.

Speaker6: What’s that sporting [01:40:00] quote? Lewis.

Speaker3: But it’s been. I read his autobiography years ago, and this quote has been, um, has been given to lots of other sports people. George Best included. But I think the actual truth is it was Alex Higgins who said it said it the first he was asked in an interview quite late on in his career. You know, he’d made millions, he’d lost millions, and he was he was basically penniless. He was having to be crowdfunded. And he went on an interview, I don’t know, it [01:40:30] might have been Parkinson. Not as good as you two, obviously, but he said in this interview. Over the years. All my millions. You know, when I look back, I spent half my money on booze, drugs and women. The rest are just wasted.

Speaker5: Squandered it. So, yeah, I thought.

Speaker3: It was a great, uh, a great sporting. But. But he was a legend. He was an absolute legend. Yeah.

Speaker5: Yeah. [01:41:00]

Speaker6: And the final question, Lewis. Imagine, um, it was your last day on the planet and you had your loved ones around you. And you had to leave him with three pieces of wisdom. What would they be?

Speaker3: Uh, well, I thought about this in advance as well. Uh, none of them, uh, we’ve talked only about dental and teeth tonight, but you know that that’s only half the equation. You know, we spend a lot of time at work, but it’s all about the rest of [01:41:30] your life. Dentistry gives you the opportunity to have the experiences that you want. So I would say my first advice would be whatever experience it is, whether it is travel, whether it is learning something, whether it’s a new opportunity in business or in practice or in any field of life, don’t wait. Do it. Just get as many experiences as uh as you can and just enjoy, uh, enjoy every day. Uh, the second one is a practical one. This was advice that my dad gave [01:42:00] me. He didn’t actually put a number to it, but he said be, uh, but but I’ll sort of extend on the best bit of advice. Uh, sort of, um, my dad ever gave me, which was be debt free by 40, 100%, debt free by 40, no mortgage, no loans, no car loans. And then I’ll extend that. Live within your means. Uh, you know, I’ve got quite a few friends who’ve got ten watches and, uh, you know, they haven’t even got long arms and.

Speaker5: And, [01:42:30] you know.

Speaker3: Multiple, multiple Ferraris. Uh, so, yeah, just because the minute you mean it coming back exactly to what Prav said at the start, the minute you’re not chasing finances, it’s all gravy. You’re you’re just your job is basically funding. Enjoy your job, but it’s funding the what you do in the rest of your life or the other things you want to do, your family stuff and your relationship stuff. So [01:43:00] yeah, if you can take that financial pressure off as soon as possible, then and obviously in dentistry, it is possible to do that fairly rapidly. And then the final thing would be just just enjoy yourself. You know, I’ve, I’ve got no sort of, um, particular sort of, uh, sort of religious faith. You know, I’m just going to make sure that I enjoy sort of every day, every opportunity, enjoy every day. And if, if you’re not doing something, change direction, that that would be the, uh, that would [01:43:30] be my advice to, you know, I’ve given to my kids, obviously, they’ve just come into that stage where they’ll actually listen to me again. Now, they.

Speaker5: They.

Speaker3: They it wasn’t a protracted period of time when they thought they knew everything already. And and I just didn’t understand. Uh, so, uh, but I think they’ve finally realised now that I probably have got something to, to offer them, but. Yeah. So that would be my advice. Uh, sort of, [01:44:00] uh, experience as much as you can out of life, uh, get rid of the whether it’s debt, whether it’s any other things that are bringing you down and just enjoy every day uh, and, and do, uh, do what you want to do. Whatever whatever is your passion. Whatever drives you do that.

Speaker1: I’ve messaged. I’ve messaged the next, uh, speaker so we can go to your final, final prep, which is good.

Speaker6: The final. Final.

Speaker1: How would you like to be remembered? Oh, of.

Speaker5: Course, [01:44:30] of course.

Speaker6: Louis. Um, if it, uh. Yeah. So how would you like to be remembered if if the following phrase was was said about you? Yeah. Louis was.

Speaker5: Finish the sentence. Here.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker6: How would you how would you spell was.

Speaker5: Would [01:45:00] I? Go on. It’s.

Speaker3: It’s something that’s never really, um, I’ve never really thought about. I’ll have to think about it if you do ever drag me back. But it’s not something that worries me at all. Uh, once I’m gone. Once I’m gone, I’m gone. Uh, I.

Speaker5: Just.

Speaker3: You know, just try and make the most of my my time on earth and, you know, good friends, good family and, you know, working [01:45:30] in an absolutely fantastic profession.

Speaker6: I’ve got one more question for you, Louis. Imagine you had 30 days left. No. Imagine you had a week left. Do whatever the hell you want. You know, you’ve got a week. Um. And you’ve got all your health and no financial constraints. What would you do in that week?

Speaker3: It’s not long enough, I’m afraid. Uh, I mean, it would be something crazy, you know, Keith Moon sort of level, uh.

Speaker1: A [01:46:00] heroic dose.

Speaker5: That’s not long enough. Uh, it’s, uh.

Speaker3: I mean, for me, the, uh, you know, I’m not frightened of. Crikey. This is getting a bit deep. I’m not frightened of, uh, of death at all. But a couple of, I suppose, melodramatic to call them near-death experiences. Uh, but it doesn’t. It’s not something that frightens me at all. It would be. I think it would be what I’d sort of miss out on, um. And seeing the kids grow up. And, [01:46:30] you know, Tarantino said he’s going to direct ten films and he’s on nine at the moment. You know, uh, you know, he’d have to get a I’d probably go. I’d go and visit him and just ask for his screenplay on his, uh, his, uh, currently undirected film. I’d probably give him a few tips, actually, and then I’d be happy to. Happy to pop off. But, uh. Yeah. Not planning on going anywhere, uh, too soon, but. But you never know, do you? I mean, look [01:47:00] at, uh, I mean, I’m 54, you know, a few incidents that have happened recently in the public eye, you know, war. Shane Warne, he was one of my heroes. I’m a massive cricket fan. Uh, this week, Ray Liotta, you know, he’s gonna he’s gonna live forever because of Goodfellas. Uh, back to Goodfellas. But, um, uh, but, yeah, it doesn’t do them any good, does it? Uh, so, uh, so, yeah, just just got to make the most of it. Because you never know when that, uh, when [01:47:30] that number’s coming up.

Speaker1: It’s been a pleasure, buddy. We’ll have to do part two.

Speaker6: 100%, part two.

Speaker1: Yeah, that flew by. I suddenly looked at the time and it was like, wait a minute, we’ve been talking for two hours.

Speaker6: I know, I know, we’ve been talking for a while because my Mrs. has rung me a couple of times telling me my tea’s getting cold.

Speaker1: Thank you so much, buddy.

Speaker4: This is Dental Leaders, [01:48:00] the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts. Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Speaker6: Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing. And just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we’ve had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

Speaker1: If you did get some value out of it, think about [01:48:30] subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so so, so much for listening. Thanks.

Speaker6: And don’t forget our six star rating.

A glittering career as a bingo caller and entertainer looked like fate written in stone for Miranda Steeples—until someone dared to suggest she might be better suited to dental hygiene and therapy.

Miranda chats about the road from entertainment to therapy and the presidency of the British Society of Dental Hygienists and Therapists (BSDHT) via a near-miss as a Disney Princess. 

She also sets out her wishlist for changes and reform to her profession and tackles the often complex relationship between dentists, hygienists and therapists. 

 

In This Episode  

02.38 – Backstory

18.25 – Study and graduation

24.33 – Practice culture

28.22 – BSDHT

41.13 – Reform and challenges

53.41 – Career and training

58.53 – Smoking cessation and perio

01.01.47 – Hygiene and nursing

01.05.13 – Blackbox thinking

01.17.10 – Fantasy dinner party

01.20.05 – Last days and legacy

 

About Miranda Steeples

Miranda Steeples is the president of the British Society of Dental Hygienists and Therapists (BSDHT).

She is a hygienist and therapist at West Dental Dental Practice in Eastbourne and Bupa, Hastings and Hailsham.

Speaker1: Don’t let being scared of something be a reason enough not to do it. That kept me going through my undergrad at Leeds. It kept me going through my masters at Kent. So basically it’s when that little voice, that self-doubt, just being scared isn’t good enough reason. If you’ve got a better reason, then fine, but that’s not a good enough reason to stop. And then connected to that, we’ve got basically believe in yourself, because if you don’t, nobody else will. As we said, I’m someone as we know, as struggled with that self validation [00:00:30] and relied on it a lot externally. But then when you realise that it’s not coming externally and you can’t rely on it, always be in there. You have to have that belief in yourself and trust, because there’s too many people ready to tear you down and challenge you, that you have to just have that and then tied in with those two. I would say it’s just say yes and figure out the detail later, which has been most of my life choices.

Speaker2: Say yes to stuff.

Speaker1: Just say I mean, that’s why I’m chatting to you now. Payman. [00:01:00] I didn’t know what what was going to happen, but I thought, you know what? I’ve never done it before. Just say yes and figure it out later.

Speaker3: 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.

Speaker2: It gives [00:01:30] me great pleasure to welcome Miranda Steeples onto the podcast. Miranda is the current president of the BST, the British Society of Dental Hygiene and Therapy. A wet fingered hygiene therapist herself runs an incredibly busy person, as you could imagine. She’s the host of the Miranda on the move series on social media. Um, which is really, really interesting. I’ve been following it around, you [00:02:00] know, it shows, it shows how busy you are really going up and down the country. And as well as being, you know, one of the busiest, busiest hygiene therapists out there, she’s an avid fan of football and a fan of Brighton and Hove Hove Albion. Unfortunately, I know nothing about football at all, so we’ll have to stick to hygiene and therapy. But massive pleasure to have you on the show.

Speaker1: Oh, thank you very much, Payman. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Sitting here in my Brighton and Hove Albion Christmas jumper.

Speaker2: Um, is that what [00:02:30] that is?

Speaker1: That is what I’m wearing today. Yes, because I figured you wouldn’t know. Um, yeah.

Speaker2: So, Miranda, we tend to start these things with sort of the backstory, and we had a little chat, and it was quite an interesting back story that you had even by, by accident, getting into dental nursing in the first place. Yeah. Where were you born? How did you grow up? What kind of kid were you and how did you get into the whole dental field?

Speaker1: Uh, so I was born in Hastings, which is in East Sussex. Um, [00:03:00] grew up there, went to school there. Primary school, secondary school. I was quite a smart kid when I was young, probably hot, housed a little bit by my mum. I think if I look back properly over school, summer holidays. Um, so when I was ten, she entered me for a scholarship examination for a local private school, which I didn’t really want to go to, but I was always keen to please and excel and do my best, so I did. So I got in. So I got a full academic [00:03:30] scholarship to a local private school, and that was quite a turning point in many ways, because it did lead me on the path to believing that I was as clever as everyone thought I was, but I was still quite unconfident. I was that little. I was quite small as well, till I was about 14. That small little geek sat at the front because I needed glasses, but I didn’t have them then, so I couldn’t read the board. So I did get picked on a little bit back then, but I was always the straight-A student, always very, very well behaved and [00:04:00] did really well. But my reports used to say things along the lines of a bit too reticent, needs to speak up more in class, and as you can see, that that’s really changed now. Um, so a big life change happened when I was, uh, coming into year 11.

Speaker1: Yeah, it is something that I don’t talk about a lot, but I think this is actually possibly a really good time to talk about it, because I do have a fear that sometimes people might look at me and think, oh, she’s white, middle class lady, public [00:04:30] school educated. But yeah, that was my background. But the other side to that background was that, I suppose, to be fair to my parents, it wasn’t. The economy wasn’t great. You know, there was had been many financial crashes and we were a victim to that coming into year 11. We ended up losing our house. We got evicted. We lived in temporary accommodation for a while, technically homeless. I think you could put it like that. Moved around a little bit, settled in the house that my dad’s still in now and that was [00:05:00] what I came into, going into sixth form. And so being at a public school with people with 2 or 3 cars, holidays every year, nannies and housekeepers, it was quite difficult. Um, and my mum was always one to keep up appearances, so I wasn’t allowed to tell anybody about that, but still try to maintain the outward appearance that everything was fine and still work really hard at school, which I did, but I guess with everything going on at home was distracted, was not the ideal [00:05:30] learning environment. And I did A-levels and I passed them, but not as well as everybody had expected.

Speaker1: You know, they certainly weren’t the A’s that I’d had previously. And then around the time boys came on the scene or in my case, a younger man, a young man, and he was an entertainer, uh, he was a comedian and a singer and an illusionist. He was multi-talented. And we met when I was doing a pantomime, which sort of came from a summer show, because I’d always been a [00:06:00] dancer. I’d always danced for fun. And he suggested, why don’t you come and work on Holiday Park with me? So I’d finished A-levels, had no idea how I’d done. I didn’t imagine I’d done very well, which yeah, was was correct. So I went down to the Isle of Wight to where he was working, and started a summer season as a dancer and a singer, and doing the magic act with him as well. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it. You know, I had people cheering my name every night, children wanting photos taken with me, asking [00:06:30] me for my autograph. Suddenly I was a star. You know, I’d never been the best dancer in the world. Not by any means. But suddenly there I was. And I had this. This new status, I suppose this, I suppose I was growing into the person that I am now on the way. Anyway, so then I got the results and yeah, they weren’t what they should have been. So I took a year out, much to many people’s disgust.

Speaker1: My parents, especially friends, were not happy, but I figured at that point [00:07:00] that I could be a dancer and entertainer and then go to university when I was ready. But, you know, biologically, physically, I thought, I can’t really go to university now for three, maybe four years and then try and be an entertainer. I became very much of the view of carpe diem, seize the day, right place, right time. And plus, I didn’t really want to do the course I was meant to do at uni. I picked it because I felt I should, and [00:07:30] I suppose that was one step along the way of breaking away from doing what was expected of me and doing what I actually really wanted to do, which at that time was perform. And so I did that for six years full time summer seasons, pantomimes, theatre shows, hotel hosting. And then I ended up back in Eastbourne after a stint in Cyprus, working as well. And I was working for Shearings Coaching Company in the evenings and [00:08:00] a bit bored in the daytime because I was used to keeping busy. So I took on a job in a bingo hall in the daytime, which kept me quite busy. Then they sold my hotel so I was full time at bingo. So by now I’m in my mid late 20s and then I did bingo call of the year competition twice. I was a twice finalist, so that was really good fun.

Speaker1: If you Google it, it’s still out there. Thankfully no footage, but the press releases are still available. And so [00:08:30] it was around that time that a friend of mine from school who’s a dentist, she still is a dentist. She said basically, stop messing around. That’s not her words, but you can choose your own words. Stop messing around. Stop wasting your life. Do something sensible. You’re really smart. What on earth are you doing? And she suggested I try dental nursing now, even though I could stand in front of a thousand people calling bingo, playing for thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of pounds, and I could run [00:09:00] that room. I could single handedly run a hotel. Entertainment. I still didn’t think I was clever. I still didn’t think that I was good enough. And it was only then when customers started to saying, what’s a nice girl like you doing working in a place like this? Surely you could do better. You’re thinking, wow, but you’re here. Um, but it was almost that, you know, the stars aligned. And I’ve always been quite a fatalist, I think, although I’m a scientist, but quite a fatalist and think, well, you know, things come into [00:09:30] place. People come into your life for a reason. And so when the customers started to say it as well, I thought, well, I’ve got nothing to lose. So I found a trainee dental nurse job was on a Wednesday, which was my day off from the bingo.

Speaker2: Can I stop you? Can I stop you? Yeah. Can I stop you? You can. Because it’s a brilliant story. I just can’t let it go into dentistry without asking you some questions about it. Okay, sure. So number one. Why? Why is entertaining people not a great career? You know [00:10:00] why? When that dentist said to you, stop fucking around and go get a real career. Did you have that feeling yourself that you’re not going anywhere with your with your career in the entertainment category or what? I mean.

Speaker1: I think that’s a really hard question, because my natural default would be to say, well, yeah, I wasn’t going anywhere because I wasn’t good enough. But then was I? Yeah. Um, I think I was good at what I did. I was basically a redcoat, although I never [00:10:30] worked as a red, so I was many other coloured coats. I was a good team player. I was a great number two, a great assistant entertainments manager. But I never had in that sort of world where depending on which which avenue you’re going down. But in that world, in the holiday park world, in working in hotels, you need to have a cabaret. And so I was a dancer who could sing and dancers have a shelf life. Um, I’m sure there’s niche markets that would have the auditors, but I [00:11:00] think the turning point for me came when I realised that I think I was about 25 or 26 and, um, instead.

Speaker2: Felt that way yourself. You felt that way yourself that it was time for a change.

Speaker1: Well, I realised that I wasn’t going to the older girls for help and advice. I was now the older girl and the young ones were coming to me and asking for my advice and guidance, so my shelf life as a dancer was up. I was an okay singer when I worked in a hotel. [00:11:30] I did a short spot, but I was never great. I was never good enough for West End. I had one opportunity to cruise ship it, but I bottled that, so I think I’d exhausted it.

Speaker2: That’s fine, that’s fine. And then. And then this sort of I’m not good enough external validation thing that you, you seem to be saying you needed at this point. At what point did you conquer that? Because you must have conquered that by, you know, to become president of the Bsdc. [00:12:00] There was there must have been an inflection point where, you know, you said you were the geeky kid, and then this thing happened with your family circumstances and, you know, not feeling good enough. And just then I said to you in the entertainment industry and you said, well, I wouldn’t have even known if I was or if I wasn’t. At what point did that change? And you become this ambitious person who is good enough and is speaking on stage and all of those things. What happened?

Speaker1: I think it was actually going to university. [00:12:30] It was getting my place at Leeds, which I only did to shut people up to get people off my back. Yeah.

Speaker2: How many years had you been a dental nurse before you decided to do that?

Speaker1: Um, it wasn’t two years. It was, I don’t know, it was probably about a year before I made the decision. Oh, really? Um, I was working part time, one day a week with the dentist, and then a short while after, I was doing half a day a week with the dental hygienist. And [00:13:00] then I’d started the course that the national course, and the tutor started saying, oh, you’ve got A-levels, why don’t you go and be a dental hygienist? I was like, oh, don’t be silly. I’m not clever enough, can’t do it. And then I obviously must have mentioned this at some point at lunchtime at work, because then I had the dental hygienist coming at me saying, of course you can do it, you can talk to people, you’ve got biology A-level. So yeah, but it wasn’t very good. Yeah, but you’ve got it. No one cares what grade you got. You’ve got it. And then my dentist. Well of course you can do it. You can talk to people. Your job is about talking. Um, [00:13:30] and in the end I said, okay, look, fine, fine. I’ll apply. Just leave me alone. I’ll apply. And yeah, I got accepted at Leeds and then right at the last minute got accepted at King’s. But by then I’d already said yes to Leeds and I was happy with that decision and I think, well, I was 30, I was 30 within freshers week. And I think because it was finally that you asked what the turning point was, I think it was doing it on my terms. I think in the first couple [00:14:00] of weeks, we had to do an exercise where we had to do a PowerPoint, which I’d never touched a PowerPoint in my life, and you had to do a thing about all about me.

Speaker1: So you had to talk about your background and where you’d come to to that point, and how you thought your previous skills would help you in dental hygiene and dental therapy. And so I told my story, and I can now see it was to help you create a PowerPoint and to stand in front of people, which of course was pretty easy for me. And I remember there was one tutor who just sat there, [00:14:30] arms folded, lips pursed, and she just said, well, I think you’re fine, that dental hygiene is very different to your entertainment. Miranda and I just said, well, I think you’ll find it’s rather similar, actually, because in entertainment you walk on that stage, you’ve got about three seconds to get that audience on your side. I don’t think it’s going to be any different with a patient. You’ve got about three seconds before they decide if they’re going to listen to you like you let you do stuff. And equally in entertainment, if something goes wrong, the audience don’t need [00:15:00] to know that. You just have to keep a smile on your face and carry on. And dentistry is the same. If you’ve had a bad day, you’ve had an argument with somebody. Your patient doesn’t need to know that. And obviously they do need to know if something’s gone wrong, but not by you sort of going, oh, and falling apart. You know, you have to calmly tell them what’s gone wrong. So I think those skills, yeah, they’ve really, really helped.

Speaker2: But that doesn’t sound like Miranda. I’m not good enough. That sounds like, you know, confident. Miranda. So was it in that [00:15:30] moment?

Speaker1: That’s. It’s really hard to say whether it was in that. I think she just really annoyed me. Yeah, I think she really annoyed me. I think because I’d. I spent years defending being a bingo caller to people who were a bit like, oh, you’re a bingo caller, when actually it’s a really highly skilled role. It’s really difficult. Um, and I think I just felt really diminished and belittled, whereas I was really proud and still am really proud of of what I did. And so it was partly [00:16:00] that and then, yeah, that 27 months of. Yeah, scoring really well coming away with a merit, having people that I really liked and respected saying, yeah, you’re really good at this, you can do this. But I think it was because I’d made that decision. It was, yeah, the suggestion of other people. But, you know, I’d funded it myself. I’d travelled six hours up the country. Yeah, I fully owned it. Nobody gave it to me, you know. You know. Yeah, I did that.

Speaker2: Before we move on again, I’m just going to finish [00:16:30] finish the psychotherapy piece. Right. Because you haven’t got kids, have you? You tell me. No. Yeah, but I’ve got kids. Right. And and so what do you put it down to that that person that you were sort of lack of confidence or needing validation. Do you put it down to what your relationship with your parents or what you were you were you just that way, or are some people just that way.

Speaker1: Possibly just that way? But I think I think it [00:17:00] was probably and you know, she’s passed on now, so I can say what I like with no attribution. But, um, I think it probably was the maternal influence. And we had talked about it where I will never forget, I think I was in year 8 or 9 at school, where I got 97% on a history test at the end of the year. And my mum said, well, what happened to the other 3%? And I was absolutely devastated. Um, and I think latterly [00:17:30] when I, I sort of questioned her on that and she said, well, I always wanted you to strive to be better. It’s like, well that’s, that’s great, but you can still pat someone on the back along the way. So I think it comes from that.

Speaker2: It’s so interesting what you’re saying here because I’ve, I’ve said things to my daughter out of love that later on I realised I really shouldn’t have said that thing. Yeah. And it’s a really interesting point that you can say something out of love and, and certain small 1 or [00:18:00] 2 words can hit someone as a kid so hard that can shape who they are for years going forward. And it’s a strange thing because, you know, it’s difficult to know, you know, what got you to that 97% was probably when you got 84%, she said. What happened to the other 17? You know what I mean? So she was doing what she was used to doing. Yeah. Anyway, let’s move on. Let’s move on. How did you find leads?

Speaker1: Oh, I loved leads. I really, really loved it. I mean, yeah, cracking [00:18:30] city really, really, really good. I mean, I think I liked it because it had everything. Well, everything that I liked had football, theatre, good shopping. As it turned out, one of my school friends that I’d, you know, we hadn’t fallen out, but we’d lost touch just because of different lives. She was living there by then, and I had really good. Classmates, I would say we were really, really close.

Speaker2: It’s a very intense course.

Speaker1: Really intense course. So I did the graduate diploma. So it was 27 [00:19:00] months, so we didn’t have the long summer breaks. We only had two weeks at Christmas and Easter. We didn’t get reading week. It was drummed into 27 months. So yeah, it was pretty full on and I was working.

Speaker2: I remember when I was in dental school, I remember the hygiene students being very serious. You know, we weren’t because we were just 18 year old kids. Yeah. You know, just came out of school and still a child and trying to party. And I remember seeing the [00:19:30] hygiene students, they were they were on another level and they were very busy. But therapy didn’t really exist back then. So explain the therapy piece to me. Like, at what point do you start drilling? Just just give us a little, you know, for someone who wants to know or maybe someone wants to get into therapy, well, what does it take to at what point do you do what in a therapy course?

Speaker1: Gosh, that’s a really good question because it probably is different now, uh, because it’s the BSc. But I mean, I remember being quite shocked [00:20:00] that it was the January. So we started in the September, and it was the January that we started, um, doing sort of no, no, no, just sort of phantom phantom head and then doing some hand scaling on each other and ultrasonics on each other. And I think it was about the May or June that we did local anaesthetics, because I remember being partnered with a Bchd that’s the Dental course they do their student. We were one of the first groups, and I wouldn’t say I’m needle [00:20:30] phobic, but I certainly don’t enjoy local anaesthetic. I’m not sure many people do, but he was he was going in for an ID block and he was just sort of waving this syringe around my face and I was like, right, stop, stop now get a shooter. You are not coming near me with that because I don’t think you know where you’re putting it. And then I remember telling the rest of the people in my group, because you did all the theory stuff in the morning and then the practical in the afternoon. And I said, right, watch the students who are paying attention, watch the ones who are putting their hand up and answering the questions. [00:21:00] That’s the person that you want. Idea. Good idea. So that’s my top tip for that. Um, although I don’t think you’re allowed to inject each other anymore. Um, and so yeah, I can’t remember what the first time I actually put a handpiece like a drill into a patient’s mouth, if you like. Remember, were you were you.

Speaker2: Like, at this point now, were you, like, seizing this opportunity and giving it 110%?

Speaker1: Oh, completely. And I was it’s funny you say about being serious because my initial reaction was, well, yes, I think that’s because often we [00:21:30] feel like we have quite a lot to prove. Uh, some, some not all of the dentist students were a little bit sneery back then and would say, oh, did you not get on to dentistry then? And we’re like, no, we wanted to be a dental hygienist and dental therapist. We’re quite happy with our life choices.

Speaker2: Well, I meant seriousness. And they were they were they were older than us. Some of them.

Speaker1: Okay. Oh, yeah.

Speaker2: But but also the course was serious. I mean, it was a full on course. There were they were constantly studying, you know, that [00:22:00] more than we were in the first year, you know, because first year was just like just come out of school knew nothing about anything.

Speaker1: Well, yeah, I mean, I was 30, say, in freshers week and I was the fifth eldest out of there was 24 of us. But I think by then and maybe again because I was in my happy place, I was a a regular B grade student, which I was quite happy with. That got the odd a, but I didn’t want to stress myself. Plus I had to work. So working at the bingo hall, funnily enough. Or in Leeds as well. Yeah, yeah. So nice because I needed money and they, [00:22:30] it paid much better than bar work and it was better hours. So I was quite often the one who, if we had an exam on a Monday or Tuesday, I’d be out on the Friday night and the others would be stressing and I’d be like, look, come on, if you don’t know it now, you’re not going to know this by Monday. Just by cramming tonight, come out and have a drink because I was yeah, I was living that 18 year old dream of not having been to uni at 18, um, and was leading the charge to go out. That was quite a bad influence I think.

Speaker2: So. So then you finished the course? Yeah. [00:23:00] What was your next move? What was your first job? Is there a is there a equivalent in therapy.

Speaker1: Well there is foundation therapy courses. There are them now I think there might have been back then, but certainly not in my area. So I’m down in East Sussex on the coast. I think my nearest one is Thames Valley, which is still running now. Uh, but yeah, there was nothing like that for me. So again, I was really fortunate. Most of my good life choices I’ve sort of fallen into. So, um, my very first job [00:23:30] was courtesy of my dental hygienist, who I had nursed for. So that was back when everybody’s address was published by the GDC. And there was a practice in Bexhill, and they’d put they’d written to all the dental hygienists in the area because they, they needed somebody and they needed them for two and a half days a week. And so my friend was. You know, she was fully, fully booked, but she sent it to me and she said, look, this is local to you. If you know, if you’re coming back to Eastbourne, why don’t you go for it? They’re happy to take newly qualified. So [00:24:00] yeah, I came back down south for a two and a half day job in Bexhill, as it was the half a day they did let me do some dental therapy. Not a lot, but I did start doing a half day a week, sort of doing some fillings and then the other. No. And both and adults, adults and children. It was a fully private practice. Um, so I think they struggled a bit sometimes with the idea of explaining who I was, what I was. Yeah, what I could do. And that did sort [00:24:30] of tail off a little bit, which is a shame.

Speaker2: I’ve seen I’ve seen therapists in different situations and I’ve got a sort of a, I don’t know, love. Hate’s the wrong word for it. It’s a there are some therapists doing fantastically well, fantastically well, earning loads of money, really happy with their lives, doing the work they want to do. And then there are some therapists who never, ever drill a tooth because they’re just hygienists. They don’t get the chance to to to even drill it. And [00:25:00] then at the very other end of it, I read on some, I’m on that hygienist, um, Facebook group hygienist and therapist, Facebook group. Some of the stories you read on there about the way some, some bosses treat their, their hygienists and and hygiene is is kind of a it’s kind of a weird position in the practice because often you’re working in several practices so you don’t feel a part of any of them. Um, I remember when I was an associate talking to the hygienist in our practice about this, you know, she was saying at the [00:25:30] Christmas party, she goes to a lot of people don’t even know her name or whatever it is, you know, like, so give me some reflections on this.

Speaker1: Yeah. You’ve hit the nail on the head. There’s quite a lot there in that last little piece. But certainly yeah, it’s Christmas party season. And you’re absolutely right. Because as a, you know, dental hygienist or dental therapist, you’re not a dentist. You’re also not one of the girls, which I hate that as a phrase, but as the dental nurses and the reception team, you are in this sort of no [00:26:00] man’s land. And yeah, if you’re only there one day a week, you don’t know what’s going on, you don’t know what’s going on. There’s people that you don’t even meet. You don’t see them, you only see them, you know, once a year at Christmas. Um, and and that’s if you’re invited, which, you know, I’m. Well, I was about to say I’m lucky, but it shouldn’t be lucky. It should be the norm. I’ve always been invited to my Christmas parties, always been included in the Secret Santa. If the boss is one of those principals who buys everyone a gift, I’ve always been included in that. But yeah, as you say on [00:26:30] the forum, and we get inquiries coming in to be searched, it’s obviously not so much an inquiry. It’s more of a they need a virtual hug. Um, where? Yeah, we’re left out of those things.

Speaker1: There’s some practices that don’t include their dental hygienist in those those events, and they’ll come back and they’ll say, oh, it’s because they’re self-employed and you’ve got to be careful with HMRC. But that doesn’t seem to apply when it’s an associate because they’re included in those things. So yeah, there very much is that. And [00:27:00] as you say, there is a very, very broad reach of what we’re our primary qualifications are. And then yeah, what we end up actually doing. And some of it is through choice and some of it is through circumstance. Some of it is through work choice as in financial limitation as well. You know, I’ve been in a lot of conversations recently about the push to get dental therapists doing some NHS work. And, and I’ve said, aside from all the other sort of political stuff, [00:27:30] if you’ve got someone who’s used to an income of five days of doing private hygiene, even if they want to do some dental therapy on the NHS, they might not be able to afford to. Um, so it’s it’s tricky, it is tricky. And there’s always going to be a compromise somewhere that either you can or you can’t afford to do or you do or you don’t want to do.

Speaker2: And as as president, you I guess you’re representing every hygienist and therapist, which is like a massive [00:28:00] spectrum of lives, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve got, I don’t know, military ones. You’ve got people who have to go into prisons, you’ve got private practice, NHS, you’ve got very happy therapists. I mean, we have therapists on our composite course. They’re doing anterior cosmetics all day long. Um, you know that, that very happy therapist. And then you’ve got people. How do you manage all that? I mean, tell me a little bit about the organisational structure of, of bchd and, [00:28:30] and there’s just going to be stretched for a second.

Speaker1: Yeah. So okay, we’ll think about Bchd then the simple answer is, is to talk about the structure, which is that, yes, there’s me, there’s a president. There’s a president elect, um, which is currently Rhiannon Jones. So you hold the position as president elect for two years, I prefer. President in waiting. I think that makes more sense. So was that.

Speaker2: You two years.

Speaker1: Ago? Yeah, yeah. So I did that role under Dianne Rochford. She was the president at that time. You [00:29:00] know Dianne. Yeah, yeah. Um. Hi, Dianne. Um, so you’re basically president in waiting. President in training for two years. So you learn that, and then you come in. So alongside those two positions, there’s director of operations. So currently that’s Sharon Broome. She’s she calls me her boss. I think of her as, as my boss. She’s the brains of the operation. She’s the person who keeps the wheels turning in the background. Very much so. We couldn’t do it without her. And then we also have honorary [00:29:30] treasurer, who currently is Simone and honorary secretary, who is currently Juliette. So all of these.

Speaker2: People are hygienists, right? And they’re wet fingered. They’re not working full time on the.

Speaker1: Sharon is not she’s she she is not. Um, but we poached her from the Oral Health Foundation. So she had years of dental experience and yeah, she she’s been with us for a very long time now. So she very much father. Well, so we’re the five directors. Yeah. Of the of the organisation. [00:30:00] There’s another 4 or 5 that sit alongside us within the executive committee. So that includes the editor of the journal Sales and Marketing. We have a student representative coordinator who takes care of the students in all the schools. And then we have two people who come from the council. So they’re elected. They’re council members elected to exec, and they are basically the voice of the membership, if you like, at exec level. Then we also [00:30:30] have the council. So that’s all of those ten people in exec plus a representative from each of the regional groups. We have a tutor representative who takes care of the tutors and all the dental schools for us. And we also have two student representatives to give us the student voice. So the whole council will meet twice a year. The council will meet six times, sorry. The Executive Council will meet six times a year. And then alongside that, people in the office who again make the magic happen. [00:31:00] We’ve got Tracy, Selina and Louisa. So Selina is responsible for all the beautiful stuff that goes out on social media. She does all our job adverts plus 101 other things that I can’t even list. Tracy takes care of the membership a lot of the time and Louisa takes care of the finances.

Speaker2: And so, okay, you’ve you’ve obviously kind of navigated your way through some of that, some of that. Right? Yeah. Um, what difference does it make, like does the president make the biggest difference? Like [00:31:30] do you, do you, do you come in and say when you’re when you’re, when you’re about to start being the president, do you say, look, my agenda for the next two years is X and we’re going to the, the ship is going to sail in this direction now or is that not the case? Is that not how it works?

Speaker1: Um, well, it possibly should do or could do. Um, again, like I say, I sort of fell into it, really. I’d always been a member of Bchd. I’d been what I would call a passive member. Um, and that’s that’s one thing I would like [00:32:00] to get out to people who are perhaps not members, because I had a conversation with somebody like 20 years younger than me, who’s been qualified for two years, who’s not a member. And part of the reason was, she said, that she felt she’d have to do something. And I was being a member. Yeah. And I was like, oh no, no, you can if you want to, but you don’t have to. You can just pay your subscription, take the journal and that’s it. You don’t even have to read the journal. Well, I would because it’s really good. But yeah, just pay your subs, be one of one of our members, be one of our collective and help support [00:32:30] us just in that way. So I’d been a passive member for a really long time, and then the Southeast regional group needed a treasurer. They couldn’t get somebody in and they were saying, you know, if we can’t get someone, we might have to fold. And I thought, well, that’d be dreadful. Somebody really needs to do that. And I sat on that for a couple of days, and then I decided that I might as well give it a go. You must.

Speaker2: Be attending. Not even there.

Speaker1: No, no, she just heard.

Speaker2: On the grapevine they need a treasurer.

Speaker1: I’d seen it on Facebook. Wow. Because their [00:33:00] autumn meeting was always the weekend of my birthday, and, well, I’m not going to go and do CPD on my birthday.

Speaker2: And was this really the first time you’d gotten yourself involved in an organisation with meetings and boards and council members and. Yeah. How interesting.

Speaker1: Yeah, again. So I sort of fell into that. And then I was invited to stand for honorary treasurer when my predecessor wanted to stand down. She’d done it for five years, so that she said she spoke to a couple of us. And so I went for it and got it. And then it was one day travelling home on the train with Diane [00:33:30] after a meeting. We were just chatting about when she became president, and I just said, you know, who’s going to be your president elect then? And she said, well, I kind of thought you might be, so don’t be stupid. Once again, I can’t do that. I can’t be president. That’s not me. I’m a great number two. And then other people started to say, are you going to stand for. And so again, I thought, well, you know what? These other people think I can do it. So if they’ve got trust in me, then maybe I should. And so then, yeah, [00:34:00] when I’d said yes, people started to say to me, what’s your plan? What’s your direction? What’s your strategy for the two years you’re president and really the best I can come up with, which I hope I’m on the way to doing, is just to make stuff better. And that’s that’s that’s it’s really woolly. But, you know, for my members, for the members of the profession because, yeah, there’s I think currently there’s about 9000 9500 dental hygienists on the register. And yes, to make stuff better, like you say, for that [00:34:30] whole mixture of demography of what I call the high street of hygienists, those working in community, those in the military, those in academia, those in research, you know, we’re we’re everywhere. You know, we’re great dental hygienists and dental therapists are getting it everywhere now, you know, we’re unstoppable. And so to try and consider each of those groups is difficult. They’re not mutually exclusive. But the bulk of my membership [00:35:00] is the high street hygienist, which again, I don’t like that.

Speaker2: Terme, have you got a breakdown of the demos? Like like what percentage are actually in practice? What percentage.

Speaker1: Are not? I would do but not to hand.

Speaker2: But the vast majority are in practice.

Speaker1: Absolutely a good second, if not more.

Speaker2: What’s the second biggest group? Would it be? Academics?

Speaker1: I guess yeah. Academics, teachers, tutors. Yeah, probably. But I know that there’s yeah, there’s a good few in the military [00:35:30] in community. But again, at the same time we’re not solely in one area. Yeah. Even those who are in academia will still be doing some clinical work in practice as well. Yeah. Yeah yeah.

Speaker2: Yeah. So that’s that’s what makes it more complicated and diverse. What about the sort of male female? How many men are in it? Is it tiny?

Speaker1: It’s small but growing. Um, I think in terms of I think the last check, I think on the register, it was something [00:36:00] like between 8 and 10%, 10%. It’s getting more. That’s possibly in Dental. Or maybe that’s what we had as a proportion of members who were men who were on the register. I can’t remember now because it’s a little while back. But the numbers. Across the board of dental hygienist and dental therapists. They’re now being grown by our colleagues from overseas who are registering as such. So a lot of them are dentists qualified in their country that have now joined the register. So [00:36:30] that will skew it slightly potentially. And then I think as well, now that there are more men rightly coming into dental nursing and coming into dental therapy, which then also dental hygiene, I think it’s growing. I think it’s a much less feminised profession than it was. But we’re a long way off being 5050, I think.

Speaker2: Has there ever been a man president?

Speaker1: Yes. Mike Wheeler yeah. Michael Wheeler, we have our male. Yeah.

Speaker2: It’s funny having [00:37:00] it the other way around, isn’t it? Like these questions get asked in every other society for for women.

Speaker4: Yes.

Speaker1: And back way, way, way back in the day Gerald Leatherman was also a president, you know, way, way, way, way, way back. Uh, he was a really important man. But yeah, Mike Wheeler was president when we changed. He had he had quite a tricky time of it, but he was president at the time when we changed from the British Dental Hygienist Association into the British Society of Dental Hygiene and Therapy.

Speaker2: And of the 9000 [00:37:30] potential members, how many are.

Speaker1: Off the top of my head. I think we’re currently about a third.

Speaker2: Still two thirds of conscientious objectors.

Speaker1: I don’t know if I knew that answer might be out there getting them in.

Speaker2: Is it is there another association that they’re members of or not?

Speaker1: Well, yeah, there’s we do have another organisation. There’s the British Association of Dental Therapists.

Speaker2: Yeah. Yeah. No I know about them.

Speaker1: So yeah, they also take [00:38:00] care of both our groups. And yeah, we can be members of like BSP, Bspd and all the other bees that are out there. You can be a member of any of them.

Speaker2: If you want hygienists or therapists. Right.

Speaker1: So we’re the only two.

Speaker2: The only two. Yeah. And and the budget was like what kind of budget are you guys managing? Is it like, does it run into many millions.

Speaker1: No.

Speaker4: Does it not not.

Speaker1: Not to that degree, no. I wouldn’t have said so. I mean I’m not treasurer anymore. So [00:38:30] I haven’t had sight of many numbers and I don’t keep numbers in my head very well anyway.

Speaker2: It’s a massive responsibility isn’t it? It is. It’s because it’s such a fast growing area. And I’ve always thought, you know, with hygienists, I’m just going to say hygienist because hygienist, the therapist, the the angle on the trade is massive, isn’t it? Because the people who supply you guys are the biggest, some of the biggest companies in the world, not just the biggest companies in dentistry, [00:39:00] the biggest companies in the world. And so, you know, trade relations is probably a huge, huge part of it. And, you know, potentially you guys can be a very powerful force, right. So how many people turn up to the conference?

Speaker1: Uh, well, at the last conference, uh, just a few weeks back, we had about 350, which was good. I think back before Covid, it used to be higher. Um, and it’s, it’s grown each year since the pandemic. I think I’d like to see more. [00:39:30] And I really would like to encourage more people to come because, you know, the bigger the better. And yeah, we do get a good trade support. In fact, a lot of what we do, we struggle to do without the trade support. Um, and that’s everything from people who just advertise with us to sponsor courses for us. Um, you know, they support all manner of different things. So, yeah. And we are, I suppose, part of the block that some people would consider is that we don’t have purchasing power. But I would say, [00:40:00] well, a lot of us well, not a lot a good number own practices. And I think we have influence and being that most of us and that is that’s a fact. Our self-employed quite often we’re buying our own kit and our own things anyway, so we do have a fair bit of buying power and influence. And so yeah, certainly the big companies are always really supportive of us.

Speaker4: So Miranda, if I.

Speaker2: Know that organisations are quite slow to move and you know that a lot of times you find out, [00:40:30] I mean, I’ve only ever been on 1 or 2 sort of boards of things and I’m just a bit ADHD bad in meetings, you know? Um, but whenever you get into a situation like that, you realise how slow it is and what a sort of massive tanker. The thing is that you have to turn and the number of people you’ve got to consider and all of that. And for me it’s kind of demotivating, but but I guess, you know, you could be the kind of person who says, I’m going to try and speed up that process. Right. But but the question is this the [00:41:00] question I’m getting to is, if you could wave a magic wand and change 2 or 3 things about hygiene therapy in an instant without having to bother yourself with any of that, what comes to mind when I say that? What would you change?

Speaker1: Oh gosh, I think currently that the biggest thing that really has been dragging on for far too long is the exemptions legislation. What does that mean? So basically that’s to permit dental hygienist and dental therapists to administer local anaesthetic and high strength [00:41:30] fluoride products without the need of a prescription from a dentist, you know, which we always did. And then there was a name change and legislation changed. And anyway, it’s all a bit complicated, but we’ve been fighting to get permission for this since about 2014, 2015 now, and I believe it is around the corner. And that’s what I’ve learned. Exactly. What you’ve said is that things do take such a long time. And before I was in these rooms, round these tables, having these meetings, I never understood that. [00:42:00] And so, yeah, we see it a lot on social media. We get emails coming in saying, when is this happening? We haven’t heard anything about this. And now I can understand the frustration from the outside because now I’m on the inside of those rooms. Yeah, it’s a lot of these things are out of our hands. So I would get that done. Definitely. Another thing that would help, again, only a small proportion probably of my membership and of the profession, but nonetheless it would mean a lot to those people [00:42:30] and that would be to sort out an NHS pension. So those who are working in the NHS sector. But I would extend that across to all team members, I think. Anyone who’s working in an NHS practice, offering dental care in that way should be fairly rewarded for that. I think that would help with retention of team members across the board. So if I have my magic wand, I’d do that. Um, they’re probably the biggest the two biggest things in my mind at the moment. And [00:43:00] yeah, I’d magic all of the registrants to become members because that will help ensure the longevity of the society. It will help with succession planning. It will help us to do bigger and better things to better the membership, you know, conditions for the membership.

Speaker2: But what about like a qualitative change, as in, what I mean is, if you could, if you could, for instance, click your fingers and, uh, I don’t know, dentists, dentists would, would respect hygienists [00:43:30] more.

Speaker4: Some.

Speaker2: Something like that. But by the way, by the way, yeah, every time I’ve had a hygienist on here, I’ve had this, this thing come up of we deserve more recognition sort of thing. And I never knew it was a problem until I spoke to a few itchiness here. I didn’t, I really didn’t think. And I was talking to some of the, you know, highest profile hygienists in the country. And, and, and I was shocked even that hygienist was saying something about it, you know, so I thought, you know, wave a magic [00:44:00] wand, something like that, or wave a magic wand. And patients would know that, you know, the diet’s as important as, uh, their brushing, you know, like, you know, whatever, those sort of. Okay.

Speaker1: I suppose I was going for something that I thought might actually happen. Um.

Speaker4: Oh, brilliant.

Speaker1: No, I think, well, yeah, I mean, I could tell you some stories, but I know we’d probably run out of time, but. No. Tell me story.

Speaker4: Tell me a story.

Speaker2: No, really, I mean it. I mean, tell me a story.

Speaker4: Um.

Speaker1: I [00:44:30] don’t know. Well, I suppose just stories of practices that I’ve left. And I look back and I think, gosh, if I’m struggling and yeah, I’m president. How is your average high street hygiene is coping. And I should say it’s a bit like the not all men argument. It’s not all dentists. Some dentists are great. In fact, many of them are great. Um, and I’m lucky enough at the moment now, you know, to work with a lot of those people. But I think it’s I think it stems from a not understanding and are not trusting [00:45:00] what we can do, sort of a protectionist attitude from some who feel threatened by us. And that message doesn’t really change for the last 100 years, when in fact, you know, there’s loads of diseases, loads of patients around for all of us. But in terms of specific examples, a job that I ultimately left was when my light wasn’t working in my room, my chair light, and we tried. We changed the bulb and it still wouldn’t work. And no, I didn’t have loops back then and there wasn’t a room [00:45:30] I could go into. So I took the decision to cancel my day. I rung my patients myself and explained, you know, my light doesn’t work. I don’t feel safe to poke about in your mouth or sharp pointy sticks. They are all absolutely fine. They all rebooked for another day. And then I got a letter from the principal telling me that it wasn’t my place to be cancelling my day of patients, and I should have seen them regardless. I’d lost my day of money. Yeah. What? Yeah, yeah. So I mean, that was just one of many things that [00:46:00] happened at that place that I ended up leaving. You know, going in there wasn’t appropriately sized gloves.

Speaker1: Never mind enough gloves. There was no masks. Yeah, I left there and then, I suppose more recently, being challenged on how I treat my perio patients or patients that don’t have perio, but just my dental hygiene patients battling with one dentist who didn’t want to refer, uh, plan patients to me because they were he would have to pay me [00:46:30] to see those patients, and therefore it would come off his monthly take home. And he said, why should I pay you to see my patients when I can do it myself? And I said, because I do it better. That wasn’t the answer that was required. Um, but yeah, so there was that. And then, I don’t know, just a current thing is sort of telling me that dentistry should hurt. And don’t worry if the ultrasonics, two powerful [00:47:00] patients will just deal with it. And I’m like, no, no, patients shouldn’t just deal with it. We should be able to turn the power down and make it comfortable for them, you know? And probing should hurt. No probing shouldn’t hurt. It shouldn’t hurt. And so this I feel quite often almost gaslit by some people that I I’m pretty sure that I know that I’m right. You know, I’m a member of BSP. I go to there, I went to their conference, I do my CPD. And yet [00:47:30] sometimes some of these dentists that I work alongside are so adamant and set that they know what’s right and that what I’m saying and doing is wrong. I then start to question myself. So then I have to go and talk to my mentors. And they’re a good sounding board and they say, no, no, you’re fine. Just keep your head down. Just carry on. Just keep trying to push back. And ultimately I’m doing the right thing.

Speaker4: Comes, comes, comes down.

Speaker2: To hierarchy in a way, doesn’t it? Because. Oh yeah. Because I’m [00:48:00] not sure that that what you said about the guy feeling threatened by you is necessarily. I mean, I guess it’s all part of the same thing, right? It’s part of the same thing. But the, the hierarchy that says even if the dentist doesn’t know the answer to the question, he’ll have to pretend he does. Or even if he’s way like, you know, if I’m a newly qualified therapist, my knowledge is going to be much, much, much more up to date than a dentist who hasn’t looked at period for the last 25 [00:48:30] years, you know? Um, but but you can’t admit that as a dentist, it’s such a difficult thing to admit that the hygienist or therapist knows more than you about something. And, you know, it’s interesting because your job to make the lives of hygienists and therapists better. At the end of the day is going to be about, I think, about making them more financially viable. Because I think I told [00:49:00] you a story. We had a Canadian hygienist who used to work at enlighten, not as a hygienist. She was working in sales at enlighten, and she would tell me that in Canada, the hygienist earned way more than the associates in her particular state because of whitening and fluoride treatments. And, you know, they go a bit crazy on fluoride in North America. They almost every single patient gets a fluoride treatment. And and she was telling me that, you know, whatever she wanted, whether it was [00:49:30] a nurse, whether it was a, you know, a piece of equipment, that the dentist would immediately get that for her because hygienists and therapists are so, so hard to get, let alone good ones who make clothes. And, you know, the way she said it to me was, was that they’re absolutely necessary for the business. You know, they bring in loads of money and that needs to be the thing. Like you need to, I guess, lobby for that change. For instance, the giving the injections without a prescription will make things, you [00:50:00] know, more viable. You know. Yeah.

Speaker1: I think I.

Speaker4: Would say.

Speaker1: Yeah. Having a dental hygienist within your practice is it’s good for reputation. It’s a good practice builder, especially if they’re happy to work under direct access. So it’s a nice way of attracting patients into the building, especially sort of reluctant patients that don’t like don’t like dentists, but they want their teeth cleaned. It’s quite a nice reintroduction back into dentistry again and again. I think there’s plenty of practice owners principles [00:50:30] out there who do get that and who do value their teams. And and I think we are very much respected and valued and needed. But I think you you mentioned recognition and you mentioned ways of, you know, becoming higher earners. And I think it’s that is something that does come up when I talk to members and colleagues, for example, those of us that have done a master’s, you know, we can never currently call ourselves specialists. You know, you might have done I haven’t, [00:51:00] but you might have done a master’s in Perio Essex, for example. But you can’t ever be a periodontist because you’re not a dentist. You can’t unless you set your fees yourself. You know you’re not going to get more pay. But and if you’re in the NHS, you know there’s no career progression in that way. So I think if those things could change and if there was more recognition of that, say, the extra courses, like you mentioned, the dental therapists that have, you know, done your courses and who are doing all this [00:51:30] fantastic composite work, you know, there’s some really highly skilled clinicians out there.

Speaker4: Yeah, by the.

Speaker2: Way, they they always win the prize when we do a we do a thing for the best the best work. And they, they, they very commonly win the prize. And then normally we’ll have 1 or 2 therapists and 28 dentists in the, in the room. I wonder whether it’s like a self-selecting group, you know, the kind of person who bothers to come on a composite course and pay 1500 pounds for a two day course, might be the kind of person who’s [00:52:00] really, like, gonna gonna do the work well and practice or whatever. But, you know, it’s an interesting question, isn’t it? Um, the other thing is, I’ve always been I’m sorry to keep beating my own drum here, but I’ve always been surprised at how few hygienists and therapists are onto whitening as talking income source. Right? As as an income source, you know, everyone’s onto the idea of, oh, tell the patient to buy an electric toothbrush, but no one’s making any money by that. By selling electric toothbrushes, I mean, there’s [00:52:30] just not enough money in one, you know what I mean? How much do they cost? But whereas if you if I was a principal, which I’ve never been, but if I was a principal, I would always tell the high achievers to spend extra time, any extra talking time on whitening for sure. Because such a high value treatment. Yeah.

Speaker1: I mean, I’ve done Diane’s course the last year. I went to her practice and did that because I was interested and I wanted to know a little bit more about it because, yeah, I do talk about it. But in my position in the practices [00:53:00] I work in, there’s not a massive take up of it. The dentists all do it. And the fact that still there’s a situation where the patient would have to see the dentist first to have it written up to be done, the dentist just ends up doing it.

Speaker4: Yeah, but you can work that out.

Speaker2: Surely you can work that out, right?

Speaker1: Well, possibly, if I was more driven to do it, I possibly could. Obviously I can’t speak for other people. It depends what the situation is. So at the moment, I’m not keen to rock the boat anywhere I work because [00:53:30] they’re being really flexible with me. Um, but yeah, I guess if one was driven enough you could. But while that barrier is still in place, it is harder.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker2: Let’s get back to your career. So you did that first job?

Speaker4: Yes.

Speaker2: What happened next?

Speaker1: Oh, crikey. Um, well, it took me about a year before I got up to five days a week. Um, that was one thing that my dental hygienist friend said to me. She said, don’t panic, don’t rush. She [00:54:00] basically said, you’ll be absolutely knackered. And she was right. My hands used to really hurt by the end of the day. So for about the first three months, I only did two and a half days a week. And yeah, I was richer than I’d ever been and I’d been a student for two and a half years, so financially I was, I was fine. And so then I slowly built up to doing a five day week by the end of the year. And then yeah, just sort of worked in practice. Been bored along for four years or so. So then got involved with start.

Speaker2: Was [00:54:30] this all in um near in East Sussex?

Speaker1: East Sussex yeah, sort of around.

Speaker4: She went back to Hastings East after Leeds.

Speaker1: Yeah. I would have stayed in Leeds. And I’ve got a friend up there who’s desperate to get me back up there, but I just couldn’t get a job. All of the jobs at that time all wanted two years experience. So I ended up going where the work was. So I’ve sort of stayed down south. It’s where my dad still is, and my sister’s down this way as well. So yeah, did that. And then it was [00:55:00] it was 2016. I was at the dentistry show in, in Birmingham wandering around and, and I bumped into Debbie Reed from University of Kent and she was quite persuasive, tried to talk me into doing her master’s program at Kent. But barrier number one, of course I wasn’t clever enough. So there’s no there’s no point me even trying to do that. And barrier number two was I couldn’t afford it because you had to pay up front. So then if you fast forward a year, sort of early January [00:55:30] 2017, that’s when my mum passed away. Back at the dentistry show in the May, Debbie Reed is there again. She says, I remember you. I spoke to you at length last year, why didn’t you come and sign up? So I did my bit about how I’m not clever enough and she said, well, I’ll be the judge of that, come in for an interview, we’ll have a chat. And then I said, oh, well, I can’t afford it anyway. And then she said, oh, well, now there’s postgraduate loans available. So that’s not an excuse. So I said, okay, fine, fine. Um, [00:56:00] so I went in, had an interview slash chat, and by then I kind of thought, well, mum was an educationalist, she was a teacher and it fitted in quite nicely with my thing of proving to myself that I was clever enough and I was good enough. So yeah, I started that in the September of 2017.

Speaker2: And was a master’s in hygiene.

Speaker1: No, it’s advanced, sorry, advanced specialist healthcare and then brackets applied dental professional practice. [00:56:30] So yeah. So basically not a clinical one, not a hands on one. What I loved about it was it sits very well with my personality in that I’m the why child. I am the original why why I need to know why and what I’m doing and why am I doing this. And so this master’s was essentially the theoretical underpinning, the why of the what that we do. And what was clever is you could, you know, it was open to all members [00:57:00] of the dental team. Within my group, there was three of us who were dental hygienists, and we had one dental nurse. But, you know, across the board it was open to everybody.

Speaker2: A part time course.

Speaker1: Yeah. So it was that was the other thing that was key was that it was part time over three years. So the first year was roughly six weekends, second year was five, third year was four. And then it finished off with your bit of research research project and a dissertation at the end. So we were really lucky that we finished that in [00:57:30] the May that the pandemic had started. So when we all shut down, that was about two weeks before my final dissertation was due. So I was pretty much ready. But I was like, wicked, I’ve got two weeks of writing time now, so I made good use of those first two weeks.

Speaker4: Was it on?

Speaker1: Um, I spoke to smoking cessation advisors about what? They talk to their clients about the relationship and smoking and tooth loss. And I can distil 12,000 words down to two, [00:58:00] and it’s basically they don’t.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker2: Excellent.

Speaker1: Uh, but yeah, smoking cessation is something that I’ve always been quite passionate about, quite interested in. And it just struck me as strange that within dentistry, it’s one of the first things. We’re taught, you know, second to clean your teeth. The second thing is stop smoking. And having had a number of patients over the years that have stopped smoking because I’ve said to them, you could lose your teeth. I thought it would be interesting to find out what the smoking [00:58:30] cessation advisers are telling their clients, because I thought, you know, this might be the button that that individual needs pushing. That might be the key to get somebody to stop smoking. But I eventually found that it’s it’s within their training, but it’s sort of seen as secondary training. It’s not in their their primary training, if you like. So you may never ever find out that it could happen. I mean.

Speaker2: On that subject, yeah, the question of behaviour change must be huge for hygienists in general, right. [00:59:00] Well is there is there much of the course devoted to that sort of the psychology of that, getting someone to change what they do?

Speaker4: Oh, crikey.

Speaker1: This was 14 years ago. Payman. I really I don’t remember.

Speaker4: I mean.

Speaker2: Look what you just.

Speaker4: Said. What you just said there, what you just said there.

Speaker2: Yeah. Using the teeth to get someone to stop smoking. Like, for instance, just for the sake of the argument, if you had a intraoral camera and you could see if a patient could see the plaque and see what we see, they would they they [00:59:30] they would definitely not. Definitely. But they would they would more likely change their behaviour. And so that’s you know, that’s a very obvious way to show them what you said is another is another is another way. But behaviour change is such a big thing in dentistry in general. Right. Because you know like we were talking about diet. Um, it must be the hygienist must, must have to get taught or look into that, you know that. What is it? What are the things that make people change their behaviour?

Speaker4: Yeah, I remember.

Speaker1: Doing [01:00:00] a small amount around smoking cessation when I was in Leeds, and I remember having to talk to people about alcohol limits. But it was very much just around the. What are you doing? This is what you should be doing. And that was it. I think because there’s so much to learn in such a short space of time, you’re basically sent out as a safe beginner. And I would say the bulk of this is what I’ve picked up subsequently doing CPD and just [01:00:30] life. Just simply life. Just talking to patients, what works, what doesn’t, and obviously being aware that what works for one person might not work for another one. But I think that’s just yeah, I don’t think I’ve really been taught that. I think that’s just intuition. I think that’s years of working on holiday parks, working with people, knowing people when you can be a bit cheeky, when you have to be quite proper, you know, you can do all these tests, can’t you? You can give your patients colours and stuff. I don’t do [01:01:00] that sort of stuff. I just sort of listen to how they talk and sort of go from that. The words that they use a.

Speaker2: Feel for it.

Speaker4: Yeah. So, you know, I always used.

Speaker2: To surprise me, I haven’t been a dentist for, for, you know, 12 years now, but but what used to surprise me when I was a dentist was that the relationship between dentists and hygienists was purely period based, although it sounds like that’s what it should be. I used to think, what a what an opportunity. You’ve got someone who goes at every single patient you see goes and sees this [01:01:30] other person and and why isn’t there more? By the way, I used to try. I used to try and make it more like this, but why isn’t there more sort of talking outside of how the gums. Yeah. Like you know, what’s what does this patient’s goals, what are they likely to do. What aren’t they likely to do. And you know, you’ve got you’ve got two different touch points there. Dentist hygienist and of course reception. Right.

Speaker1: And the dental nurse.

Speaker2: Well of course, well of course. But the.

Speaker4: Patient’s in the.

Speaker2: Room. Dental nurse was in the room. And [01:02:00] I felt like with the dental nurse you could set up whatever you wanted. So. So I was very happy to let the dental nurse do everything. Everything she wanted, like, you know, pick shades, call up patients. She used to really enjoy calling up patients, you know, to make her feel like she’s doing worthwhile job. But I always stand by this dental nurse is a running the whole show. Like they don’t even get to stop when you stop, right? They keep on going. Right? So they’re very, very, very busy. Um, what’s the [01:02:30] story? What’s the latest with hygienists and nurses? Is it now, is it now like a common thing or is it still. Are there still hygienists working without nurses?

Speaker1: I would say yes and yes. Um it is. Yeah. It is a lot more common. But there are still people out there who are working unsupported, some of them happily, some of them willingly. You know, they’re they’re quite content with that. And they feel that they can do a good enough job as they are. And then there’s others that are doing it sort of under sufferance and with difficulty. I [01:03:00] think one of the issues, you know, we’re quite often asked our stance on this, and I think we would hesitate to push for it to become mandatory. Some would like us to push for it to be mandatory, but I think I sit on the side of it should be best practice. It should be the gold standard, but I would stop short of must because there is a large Dental group who went through a period where they did give all of their dental hygiene as a dental [01:03:30] nurse, but then on the day that the nurse was sick, or somebody else’s dental nurse was sick and they were borrowed, they then had their day cancelled and then they were on a, you know, a Facebook forum saying, my day has been cancelled. Can they do this so well? Yeah, they can if you mandate it that you will not work unless you have a dental nurse, then yeah, your day will be cancelled. And that would be my hesitation, is that people would end up losing money. They’d end up losing a day’s work.

Speaker2: But why wouldn’t they get [01:04:00] a supply one?

Speaker4: Well, sometimes.

Speaker1: You can get locums, sometimes they’re simply not available, and sometimes the other practice won’t pay for them.

Speaker2: So it’s surely a practice that has a hygienist, has a nurse, makes more money than a hygienist that doesn’t have a nurse, surely, because in the time it takes her to to clean this room, she could be talking about whitening.

Speaker4: True.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, they could certainly be having more conversations if they weren’t stressing about.

Speaker2: I’m saying whitening, but they could be talking about, [01:04:30] you know, oral hygiene. They could be about anything. They could be talking about anything.

Speaker4: What is that.

Speaker2: Genius thing EMS have come out with, uh, guided?

Speaker1: Oh, the guided biofilm therapy.

Speaker2: I’ve got a I’ve got to take my hat off to the marketing man that came up with that man.

Speaker4: It’s very smart, beautiful. But yeah.

Speaker1: They have. Yeah, they’ve reinvented biofilm and Toothbrushing and. Yeah.

Speaker2: They’ve made hygiene cool haven’t they.

Speaker4: Yeah, it’s.

Speaker1: They really have. It’s it’s a pretty cool piece of kit. I mean I don’t [01:05:00] have one in practice. I don’t think I ever will. No, no.

Speaker4: Oh no I know yeah.

Speaker1: But I know people who use it love it. They think it’s great. Their patients love it. So. Yeah.

Speaker2: Those two I.

Speaker4: Keep coming across. Yeah.

Speaker2: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s get to darker times.

Speaker4: Yes.

Speaker2: On on this pod, we like to talk about mistakes.

Speaker4: Okay.

Speaker2: You could take this any way you like clinical mistakes, management mistakes, career mistakes, regrets, that sort of thing. What comes to mind when I [01:05:30] say mistakes so that some something that someone can learn from?

Speaker1: Well, I had a couple of clinical ones in mind. And then when you use the word regret, that pinged me back to my entertainment time, actually. Um, probably literally the only regret of my life. Um, but I can give you a couple of clinical based ones or learning points, I think, because. Yeah, that. Yeah, mistakes. Probably a bit dramatic, but I think the first time [01:06:00] that I realised a bit more about I was quite early on in my career. But yeah, talking to patients like really, really talking to them, really getting to know them. I had a mr. and a mrs., um, older couple, quite a bit older, and I had the Mr. in first and he wasn’t, he was brushing his teeth reasonably well, but he wasn’t really cleaning in between them. And I tried to go over using an interdental brush with him, but he wasn’t really getting it, wasn’t really looking in the mirror, didn’t want to try it himself, and [01:06:30] I just probably huffed and I rolled and said, okay, fine. All right. You know, do what you like kind of thing. And I probably wouldn’t. Hopefully, I don’t think I would have said that. But basically do what you like. You know, they all cease. Do it. Don’t do it. There’s not a lot else I can do and possibly got a bit frustrated. And off he went. And then we got the Mrs. in and how are you and blah blah blah. And then oh you’ve just seen my husband.

Speaker1: Yes. Yes, I’ve just seen your husband. And then she told me that he’d recently had a diagnosis of Parkinson’s and was finding it really [01:07:00] difficult to hold things, grip things, finding it really hard to clean his teeth. And of course, in my head I’m like, oh, wow, that wasn’t on the medical form. He never mention that. He never said when I was trying to show him stuff. Well, actually, I can’t hold that. So. But to her, obviously, I was just like, oh, thank you so much for telling me. I’ll keep that in mind for the future. And then yeah, afterwards kicking myself because, I mean, I’d asked him any changes [01:07:30] in your medical history he’d elected to say no. You know, he could have told me. But then, equally, when I was demonstrating it now, I would say, do your fingers work how you want them to. Do you think you could hold this? Can you move your wrist? Can you move your hand? I’m not quite so quick just to take it as a hard no. As in, I’m not interested. Now I think more about. Okay, why I’m about to being. Why. I mean, unless obviously [01:08:00] they’re quite adamant and I’ve tried a couple of times and I might just leave it eventually, but um, so yeah, that was one to really look at the why. And then my other most recent learning point, which I am quite passionate about now and yeah, kicked to myself because I’m big on smoking cessation, was my guy Tony, who I’m allowed to name because he gave his consent and he let me write about him in my journal.

Speaker1: A couple of years ago. I’d been taking care of Tony for about [01:08:30] 5 or 6 years, and he had a patch of lichen planus on the side of his tongue. Non-smoker, vegetarian. Cleaned his teeth pretty well, but he liked to come every three months because he probably liked to chat. He lived on his own with his cat. Then he broke a tooth down the lower left. The tongue flared up. He had it. Had the tooth. The filling replaced. Tongue still didn’t settle. Changed the amalgam for composite. Still didn’t settle. He’d been backwards and forward. Previously. He’d had the [01:09:00] area biopsied. It was just lichen planus. Then I saw him in January 2020, and he’d had a biopsy taken of it because it had been really bothering me, getting a bit sore. It was getting bigger, you know. He was he was worried and third placed him. He’d gone to his GP who’d referred him in because they knew his history, and he was due to get his results in the April. And I was sort of thinking, oh, I could ring him. No, sorry. I was due to see him in the April. He was due to get his results in the February, and I thought I could ring him and I thought, [01:09:30] no, no, I’ll leave it because I’ll be seeing him soon enough.

Speaker1: And um, so I never rung him. And then of course, the pandemic hit. We shut for three months. I didn’t come back to work at that practice till the 1st of July. As luck would have it, he’d got himself booked in. Like I say, he was always really keen. He was my first patient after lunch and he sat down and said, how you doing, Tony? How’s things? And he opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out. And I was like, well, okay, that’s how things are. And yeah, it was a squamous [01:10:00] cell carcinoma. And he’d known about it since that day in February. Not obviously not been able to see anybody because everything had been shut. He’d elected to have no treatment. Again, I didn’t know the why at that point and I possibly could have asked, but I was just like blown away because having lost my mum to cancer, who’d also basically said she wouldn’t have any treatment, it was too late for her anyway, but she wouldn’t have had it. You know, you’re very aware of wanting to encourage people to do [01:10:30] the right thing, but then what is the right thing? And having to be respectful of his choice not to engage. And plus he’s there for me to clean his teeth. So, you know, that’s what I had to get on and do. So, um, off he went. But he was really in my head.

Speaker1: So I spoke to his dentist and I just said this, this just doesn’t sit right. And his dentist said, well, you’re, you know, you need to talk to him. Then you need to talk some sense into him. I said, oh, is it my place? And he went, well, he likes you. And if you don’t do it, who [01:11:00] will? So I say, okay. Fair enough. So I’d already got his consent to take his email, to send some resources, and to look up some stuff to help with his dry mouth and his sore mouth. So I dropped him a line and said, I’d really like to meet you and have a chat if that’s okay. So he agreed, and we met the following week in the park, and pretty much straight away after we’d exchange pleasantries, he said, I have changed my mind. I’d like to engage, you know, can you make that happen for me? So I was like, right. Yeah. [01:11:30] Got hold of a really good friend of mine, Adeel Khan, my hero in Hastings. This was the Wednesday he got him seen on the Friday morning at Max Fox with the team. And then Tony, I said, you know, ring me when when you’re done. Let me know how you get on. And unfortunately, by then it was so invasive into the tongue. That it would have been like full tongue removal, and he was already quite a slender man anyway.

Speaker1: So type one diabetic, vegetarian, not a huge eater. And [01:12:00] he just said that’s not for me. It was like mid 60s. So I’m too old for all that. I’m not I’m not going to do that. I don’t want to do that. But at least they he was sorted out with his palliative care and he was on some good pain relief. So they took care of him. And so then yeah, he agreed. I said, can I write about you? Um, you know, we’ve been watching you for years. I want to sort of demonstrate how things can turn. And he was like, yeah, absolutely. If I can help anybody, I’d be really happy for you to tell my story. And I said, can you write me a paragraph like [01:12:30] From Your Side, like your experience of this, which he did. And it was only when I read his paragraph and he had sight of it. He never saw it published, but he did have sight of the final article signed off, said he was happy for it to go, but he passed away before we published it in the November. But in his paragraph, it turned out that about ten years prior to me meeting him, he’d quit smoking. But up till then he was on about 40 a day. So I’d never, ever asked [01:13:00] if he was a former smoker. I just took it as, yeah, he’s a non-smoker, I assume I never asked, have you ever and and it may or may not have made a difference.

Speaker1: I mean, we don’t know. And we don’t know if he’d sought treatment in the February if he’d still be around. We simply don’t know. But my learning point from that is, yeah, don’t take stuff at face value. Again, go a little bit deeper. Have you ever smoked to not hesitate with is it my place [01:13:30] because he lived on his own. He had got family, but they were far, far away and as it was, I ended up. It was ever so sweet. I was in the email round robin that he sent to about 30 of his friends altogether, telling them what was going on. I went to the funeral, met all his friends. Apparently he used to talk about me all the time. Um, to a number of them, met the widow of his best mate, who it turned out had also had a tongue cancer, who had had surgery. [01:14:00] And then it had come back and she told me that that was why Tony had decided not to proceed with treatment, because he was worried that the same would happen to him, that he’d go through it all, and it had come back anyway. So she said, you know, there was nothing you could have said. You’d never would have changed his mind. Um, so that was an interesting learning point. And so now, yeah, I tell his story as much as I can because that’s what he wanted me to do.

Speaker2: You know, a lot of times bereavement and guilt tend [01:14:30] to go together, don’t they? It’s just it’s just one of those things. We all blame ourselves when someone near to us dies. Um, but I read your post about him and it was incredibly tender, incredibly tender post. What a lovely thing. And you know, you’re saying he used to talk about you all the time. So, yeah, you know, you had a massive influence there. That’s a lovely story, a lovely story. Not what I was expecting. I was expecting something totally different. But it really enjoyed that really, really good story.

Speaker1: Well, I can give you an entertainment one if you like.

Speaker4: Sure.

Speaker1: It’s [01:15:00] been a bit shorter. So it’s it’s it’s not one of my three life lessons, but it is. It is one that I give to my my younger colleagues, predominantly dental nurses, of whom I’m now old enough. I could be their mother. Most of them are. So that’s old. Um, yeah. So I was 25. I was working up in Scotland in a hotel with my then boyfriend who looked like Robbie Williams. At least he thought he did. And he, he was, he was a singer and he was a comedian. And [01:15:30] we both applied for Disney Cruise Lines. We both applied to audition to go and work for Disney on one of their new cruise ships. And I got invited to audition and he didn’t. And he told me that if I went for that audition, we were over. Oh, so I never went oh. So again. Jealousy, jealousy, insecurity was.

Speaker2: It was what kind of relationship was it? Was it was your controlling sort of person. Yes he.

Speaker4: Was.

Speaker1: Although I was young and a bit daft, but I was [01:16:00] like, how old was I? I was about 24 at that point. 24, 25. He was quite a few years older than me, I think. I think I knew, but I didn’t know and I didn’t know how to get out of it. More importantly.

Speaker4: Um.

Speaker1: So yeah, we came back. Plus I was up in Scotland on a tiny island off the coast of Glasgow, dependent on him for the job. So when the job finished and we came back south, we came back to Eastbourne, came back home. That was it. It was done. It was finished. And so now my advice to people is if someone really loves you, they would never stop you.

Speaker4: Definitely. [01:16:30]

Speaker1: Because I could have been a Disney princess.

Speaker2: Yeah. I mean, look, look, it sounds.

Speaker4: Like I’ll never. No, no, it.

Speaker2: Sounds like a bit of bit of fun, but that was your career. That was, you know, it’s like, you know, being asked to go and stand on the board of Bchd or something. It’s like it’s that’s that’s what the equivalent was in that career. Yeah.

Speaker1: So that’s why I don’t let anyone tell me anything. I just do it.

Speaker2: Seems like you’re making up for that, uh, child.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker2: I’ve [01:17:00] noticed that.

Speaker4: Yeah. Oh, well, let’s.

Speaker2: Let’s get to our final questions.

Speaker4: Okay.

Speaker2: Fancy dinner party.

Speaker1: Okay, that’s really easy because this conversation comes up quite a lot. So my three guests would be Simon Reeve because I love his travel programmes and I think he tells a really good story.

Speaker2: And I’ve noticed you travel a lot too.

Speaker4: I do, and this is [01:17:30] the.

Speaker2: What’s the best place you’ve been?

Speaker4: Oh my gosh, so many.

Speaker1: But I suppose the most recent is obviously the most memorable, which was when I went down to, um, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe over the summer.

Speaker2: It’s beautiful.

Speaker4: Just to see.

Speaker1: All the animals. It was just incredible. And then my our final day, me and my sister, we were in Victoria Falls. We were in the angels pool. So you’re literally in a little natural pool with the falls just crashing down around you. And I was just looking [01:18:00] up. It’s freezing cold, but there was a rainbow. But it wasn’t just like a rainbow. It was like a three quarter circle of a rainbow. And I just sat there and I thought, this is literally the most beautiful thing I think I’m ever going to see in my life.

Speaker4: Amazing.

Speaker1: So probably there.

Speaker4: What does your sister do?

Speaker2: Is she an entertainer or hygienist?

Speaker1: Um, she’s a school teacher. She’s a secondary. She’s a secondary English teacher, but she’s a fantastic singer. She really is. She’s a cracking singer. So, yeah, she could have been an entertainer if she wanted to be.

Speaker2: So [01:18:30] was there in your in your house when you were kids? Was there like music lessons and singing and dancing and. Sounds like it, right.

Speaker4: Yeah. Well, Mum.

Speaker1: And Dad used to be award winning ballroom dancers and Latin dancers, so I grew up with them doing competitions. Exams. I used to go ballroom dancing with them when I was little. And yeah, me and my sister grew up doing all manner of dancing.

Speaker4: Yeah. Amazing. Yeah, amazing.

Speaker2: Who’s your second guess?

Speaker1: My second guessed would be Professor Brian Cox.

Speaker4: I like.

Speaker2: Him, [01:19:00] I.

Speaker4: Like him too.

Speaker1: Yeah, he just makes really clever stuff. Really easy to understand, doesn’t he?

Speaker4: Yeah, which I like. Yeah.

Speaker2: You know, you could, you could say, you know, he’s just fascinating there. Yeah. You could, you could. There’s lots of people who are good at that sort of thing. But I just love his story so much. Man. He’s a good.

Speaker4: Storyteller.

Speaker2: No, no, but his own story, like a bit like yours, right. All right. Pop pop star and professor.

Speaker4: Yeah. Split difference. Yeah, yeah. Brilliant, brilliant.

Speaker2: And who’s your third?

Speaker1: Um, [01:19:30] my final person would be Lady Gaga, because, I mean, I love her. I’ve seen her in concert about 3 or 4 times now. I think she’s terrifically talented. And I think she’d be hilarious. She’d be on the shots and she’d be on the dance floor, and she’d be on the karaoke with me straight away. She wouldn’t say, oh, no, she’d be up there as well.

Speaker2: Do you know her real name?

Speaker1: Oh, I did, Stephanie, isn’t it?

Speaker2: I’m looking it up right now. Yeah.

Speaker4: Stephanie. Yeah. [01:20:00] Amazing. Yeah, that’s.

Speaker2: An interesting party.

Speaker4: Oh it’s great.

Speaker2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that, I like that. What about the final question, which is perhaps more profound question which is let me you’re on your deathbed, um, surrounded by your loved ones. What’s three pieces of advice that you’d leave to them and for the world?

Speaker1: So yeah, they’re interconnected, interrelated. [01:20:30] And I think, you know, I’ve sort of touched on them, hinted on them already. But my definitive Miranda’s mottos for life, if you like, are basically don’t let being scared of something be a reason enough not to do it. Like being scared is not a reason not to do something that kept me going through my undergrad at Leeds. It kept me going through my masters at Kent. So basically it’s when that little voice, that self-doubt, just being scared isn’t good enough reason. If you’ve got a better reason, [01:21:00] then fine, but that’s not a good enough reason to stop. And then connected to that, we’ve got basically believe in yourself, because if you don’t, nobody else will. As we said, I’m someone as we know, as struggled with that self validation and relied on it a lot externally. But then when you realise that it’s not coming externally and you can’t rely on it, always be in there. You have to have that belief in yourself and trust, because there’s too many people ready to tear [01:21:30] you down and challenge you, that you have to just have that and then tied in with those two. I would say it’s just say yes and figure out the detail later, which has been most of.

Speaker4: My life choices. Say yes to stuff.

Speaker1: Just say I mean, that’s why I’m chatting to you now. Payman.

Speaker4: I didn’t know what.

Speaker1: What was going to happen, but I thought, you know what? I’ve never done it before. Just say yes and figure it out later.

Speaker2: You’re a seasoned pro at this. On [01:22:00] on this subject, then you know, you’re saying, uh, about, you know, the external thing by its very nature that your meteoric rise to the top of this organisation, it must come with imposter syndrome and imposter syndrome must hark you back to the previous. You know, it must to the previous thing that Miranda did. The the younger you, it must suffer with it. Do you suffer with it? [01:22:30]

Speaker1: Oh, absolutely. 100%. A lot of the time I think, you know, I’m sat in a room with all these people who know far more than me, far better than me, who are far more experienced than me. But then I think, well, the thing is, is I was invited. So they clearly think that I’ve got something I can bring, so I’ll just go with it. I’ll just trust that room.

Speaker2: That room me and you were in. That was a bunch of brains in that room. My goodness me.

Speaker4: It was [01:23:00] Dental update thing.

Speaker1: Exactly that. And I could tell. I could tell you another little story if you wanted. I’ve got lots of I mean, I know this is a podcast, but I show you, I show you on the camera and you can describe it if I can’t contort myself. But on my wrist, I’ve got tattoos.

Speaker4: Of, like, a.

Speaker2: Balloon.

Speaker4: Dog.

Speaker1: It’s a little balloon dog.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: So basically that comes from it’s a Bunta hunt, which is a it’s a German word. So a year ago I was in Cambodia, [01:23:30] which if I didn’t live in the UK, I’d be living in Cambodia. Basically.

Speaker4: I’ve never.

Speaker2: Been. What’s amazing about it?

Speaker1: Just just everything.

Speaker2: Is it like Thailand?

Speaker1: I’ve never been to Thailand.

Speaker2: Oh, no, I didn’t go to Thailand before. You make.

Speaker4: Such a.

Speaker2: Sweeping statement.

Speaker4: I think.

Speaker1: I think it’s less developed than Thailand, which is possibly why I like it. Yeah, but, um, I was out I was out there last year and working with a German dental nurse, and we spent quite a lot of time together. [01:24:00] And she’s like five foot ten, slender, brunette. Her name’s Annie. Hi, Annie. And we used to get stared at quite a lot as you would. And one day she said, oh, we are like bounty hunt and bounty hunt is is a big colourful dog basically. And in Germany they use that tum because it means somebody who stands out either because of how they dress, how they look, how they act can be negative but can be positive. And that became like our running joke. So then I was back out in Cambodia [01:24:30] again this year in it was around January, February time again. So I’ve been in post about two months, and I’d been invited by the GDC to be their keynote speaker at their Dental Leadership Network, the second one that they were doing in March. I’ve been asked to open up like a 20 minute slot. Yeah, in front of all the the big names across dentistry.

Speaker1: Yeah, the good and the great of dentistry for the, for the GDC. And I was excited but nervous. But like I say, say yes and figure [01:25:00] it out later. So of course I was in Cambodia and I’m figuring it out. And I was chatting to Annie’s boss, who is the husband of my friend whose charity that I go out and support. And Ulf was asking if we were still in touch and do we, you know, have much contact. And I said, oh, yeah, I’ve been sending any pictures. And I told her that I’m being ubuntu hunt by myself. And he laughed. And you know, what do you mean by Buntu Hunt? So I. Hold him. And he said, ah, yes, yes, this is correct. And so on. Then he was [01:25:30] saying, and how is my life? What was I doing? So I told him about the GDC thing and how I was a little bit scared. And then he said, well, harness the bunta hunt. And I said, what do you mean? And he said, well, become the bunta hunt. He said, if people are going to look at you, give them something to look at.

Speaker4: Nice. He said.

Speaker1: Take that energy and become the Bunta hunt. And also someone he’s he’s so dry. And so, you know, his sense of humour is so sarcastic. But I think on that time he actually [01:26:00] was being quite genuine. And so I made that decision that day that at some point I would get a little tattoo of a little Bunta hunt somewhere. So usually it’s under my watch. So you probably didn’t notice it that night that we met at that event. So it’s quite discreet. And when I’m at work, it’s underneath my gloves. But I know that it’s there. Yeah.

Speaker2: You felt strongly enough about it to actually put a tattoo on to remind yourself, huh?

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: So I mean, I bought some earrings, but they’re really uncomfortable to sleep in, so you have to take them out every night. Um, [01:26:30] but they’re quite good for going to an event, so I have little balloon dog earrings that sometimes I wear, and I’ve got a keyring on my regular handbag. So if I need to fiddle with something to reassure myself that it’s it’s there. So yeah, I put it on my wrist. So if I’m ever wobbling and questioning if I should be in a room, I just look at my wrist and think, yeah, you’re the one to hunt.

Speaker4: And be the punter.

Speaker2: It’s a great story. [01:27:00] It’s a great.

Speaker4: Story.

Speaker2: It’s been lovely to have you. I’ve really enjoyed it very much, I really have. It’s been a lovely insight into you and into the wonderful world of BSD and the hygiene and therapy in general, and the corridors of power. Thank you. Um, that you.

Speaker4: Seem to be okay.

Speaker2: Um, I’ve really enjoyed it very much. Thank you. Thank you so much for for agreeing to do this, because when you told me you’d never done it and you don’t know what it’s about. No.

Speaker4: No. [01:27:30] Yeah. Thank you.

Speaker2: I thought you were going to not do it. So it’s really. It’s really nice that you did this. Thank you so much. Oh, well.

Speaker1: Thank you for inviting me. But, you know, now, you know, my motto is say yes and figure it out later.

Speaker4: And we did. Yeah.

Speaker2: You did. When you become really, truly successful, it’ll be your motto be say no. That’s that’s what I keep hearing from people. So, so nice to have you. Thank you so much for doing this, friend. Thank you. Take care.

Speaker3: This [01:28:00] 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.

Speaker5: Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing. And just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we’ve had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it. [01:28:30]

Speaker2: If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so so, so much for listening. Thanks.

Speaker5: And don’t forget our six star rating.

If you hang around the dental community on Instagram, you’ll probably have come across this week’s guest. Known online as @GeorgeTheDentist, George Cheetham’s down-to-earth educational content has earned him an army of loyal followers.

George chats with Payman about balancing his prolific social output with running three practices. He also reveals his superpowers, talks about plans for the future, and discusses why the NHS is an ideal training ground for ambitious dentists.

Enjoy! 

 

In This Episode

01.48 – Instagram

06.31 – Chasing excellence

11.41 – Backstory, work ethic and people skills

24.08 – Blackbox thinking

36.38 – Superpowers and work-life balance

41.30 – Partnerships and practice ownership

50.55 – Positioning and growth

01.02.38 – VT year, NHS practice and training

01.12.50 – In retrospect

01.15.31 – Hiring and firing

01.22.08 – Teaching Vs Instagram

01.27.40 – Patient journey and culture

01.32.11 – Patient journey

01.44.55 – A day in the life

01.51.40 – Fantasy dinner party

01.54.44 – Last days and legacy

01.57.21 – Darkest days

 

About George Cheetham

George Cheetham is a multi-award-winning restorative dentist and founder and director of three dental clinics. He is best known by his Instagram moniker @GeorgeTheDentist.

Speaker1: We get some dentists have it and some dentists don’t have it. Right. And we all know that you could be the most fabulous clinical dentist in the world. If you can’t communicate with the patient, they’re not going to think that yet. We also all know dentists that do like crappy work. And I’m like, wow, how’d you get away with that? The patients are like, oh my God, that is the best dentist in the world. And I don’t know, man. I guess this is, I think maybe how you’re raised. I was very lucky that again, my parents, they work hard and I think that they are very like [00:00:30] down to earth people. So around that, you meet people from all different walks of life, so you learn how to communicate with them. And I think that, you know, if younger dentists were ever to say or they do say to me, they’re like, you know, give me some advice for how to grow my career, you know, to become a good dentist. Yeah. You’ve got to put your you’ve got to invest in yourself to learn the academia by that camera, to spend the time to put rubber dam on, not earn as much money for a few years because you’re learning [00:01:00] to perfect your skill. But once you’ve learned to perfect that skill, you need to be able to do that on patients by communicating to them their problems. And this is how we do it, right?

Speaker2: This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your [00:01:30] hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Speaker3: It gives me great pleasure to welcome George Cheatham, aka George the Dentist onto the podcast. There’s been a long time coming. Thank you very much. Um, it’s. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for coming all this way. Thank you.

Speaker1: It’s a pleasure. Nice to see you, Camden.

Speaker3: I’ve been I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a long time now. But, George, for anyone who doesn’t know, is one of the coolest dentists around. And, uh, definitely one of the most accomplished. Probably the top of your game right now, George. It’s [00:02:00] a it’s a it’s a wonderful thing because I’ve been asking loads of dentists what’s your favourite Instagram page? And yours is always in there, always in that list. And you know, you inspire so many people with the work itself. And, you know, if I was you, if I was as cool as you, I’d have myself all over it. But but you don’t feature that much. Um, and the work features and the work speaks for itself. And it’s a nice thing to see that, uh, young dentists. I’m talking to newly qualified dentists. And she was saying that one [00:02:30] of the main reasons she wants to do what she wants to do is your page, and you get like a second, third order effect that comes from something you’re doing that touch someone you’ve never even met before.

Speaker1: Yeah. I mean, thank you. Thank you very much. It it means a lot. And when, um, people do message me stuff like that, it it really, really does mean a lot. Yeah. No it does. And like, I don’t think we should be judging success off of popularity on an Instagram page. And there are so many other, [00:03:00] much, much more amazing dentists than I am that kind of just sail under the radar and just get on with what they do. Right? But yeah, and on the point, I don’t feature on it a lot. I don’t really love, I don’t you know, it’s not I’m not doing an Instagram page or social media to get popular or for people to know me or want to come and see me. Right.

Speaker3: So so we’ve got the you’ve got the classical reason why someone might do something like that is to attract [00:03:30] people to a course or something like that.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: But you have it feels like with you there’s no agenda whatsoever other than share your day. Yeah, but the learning points, even for me, who gave up dentistry 12 years ago, I kind of keep my sort of keep in touch with what’s going on clinically. Partly through your page. Thank you. Thank you very much. It’s a I feel.

Speaker1: Like a responsibility now.

Speaker3: It’s a weird thing. It’s a weird thing, man. Like jazz Galati’s podcast. Yeah. That for me, that’s a real sort of amazing bellwether of what’s going on.

Speaker1: Incredible in [00:04:00] the world.

Speaker3: And even if it’s a subject that even when I was a dentist, I didn’t give a damn about, like sleep apnoea or something. Yeah, he just has a way of teaching.

Speaker1: And yeah, I agree, he’s an enthusiastic individual, very charismatic.

Speaker3: And you too, dude. Yeah. Like in your own way. Yeah. You’ve really hit some hit on something and it’d be interesting to see where you take it.

Speaker1: Thanks, man. It’s just, I like since I started it because there were a few people that were starting the whole Instagram thing. I think we got in pretty early. [00:04:30] Right. And my, um, it was my practice partner. My first practice partner. Aaron was like, look, dude, you should start on Instagram because I think it’s going to be good for growing the practice initially. So then I remember driving in my car and it was like, oh, what should we call it? It’s actually him, Aaron, who was like, just call it like George the Dentist. I was like, all right, sweet, let’s do it. And then, like, if you look at it initially, the kind of posts are more about like me or whatever, but I very quickly got bored of that, realised that that’s not what I wanted to do. [00:05:00] So just literally shared my day to day work because it’s stuff I’m doing every day, taking photos so I can share the content. And people started to just like, like it a bit. And one of the main things that I like about it is that it makes my dentistry get better a lot quicker, like when you look at the quality of the photos or the work that I did from when I started the Instagram to what I do now, you know, it’s gone up leaps and bounds like more in that time frame than it did many that [00:05:30] time frames beforehand. Just keeps.

Speaker3: You accountable.

Speaker1: Keeps you but your your your quality appraising all your work. So you’re taking these photos of a case from start to finish. And you look at them on the screen after and you’re thinking, that’s shit, basically. Or you’re seeing something that there’s a flaw and you do a few cases and realise it’s the same thing. So then you’ll be like, well, actually, how do I fix that? And then you fix it for the next photos and you’re like, oh, that’s one less crappy thing in that series of photos. And then like, gradually [00:06:00] you work to get it like a bit better. And then so your dentistry gets it gets better and it keeps things interesting. It means that, you know, when I, when I have my camera at work and I take photos of the work that I do, I enjoy work, but at times where I just can’t be bothered to use my camera, I’m a bit rushed or the flash is broken or something like that. I’m like, oh, I didn’t really have a good couple of weeks there. It was a bit boring because it’s like it made me realise that it’s directly related to kind of. Quality of praising my [00:06:30] own work.

Speaker3: George, you know, with this podcast, we we tend to kind of start with the backstory. Where were you born? All of that. But what I found is sometimes there’s a burning question that I’ve got and I’m almost like papering over all the other bit. Waiting to get to the song straight to my burning question will answer that burning question, and then we’ll get back to the where were you born question? Yeah. So do you remember a time when you went from whatever you were, which we’ll get to in a minute? What were you whatever [00:07:00] you were to this guy who’s just, like, looking for excellence. Chasing excellence. Or do you still do not see yourself as someone chasing excellence? Yeah.

Speaker1: No, I do like. I think I’ve always triggered it. I think I’ve always wanted to provide the best that I can. So it’s always been something that I’ve wanted to do. But it’s just that as time goes on, you kind of create. You need time to create more of an environment to be able to provide that excellence. Right. And [00:07:30] that’s not just going through further education to become better. It’s putting yourself in the situation where you can put that academia into use and try things a thousand times, so you do actually get better at it. It’s finding the clinic that works for you to be able to, you know, provide you with the rubber dam, provide you with the good nurse that don’t limit you in terms of, you know, finding that practice owner that works with you. But, you know, the way that I’ve gone [00:08:00] on as well is that because I’ve been able to build my own practices, I can kind of forge that exact environment that I want. So nothing’s slowing me down. So I’m like, my nurse is trained, I’ve got the equipment, so I’m my only excuse, but then I’m not going to be. No dentist is going to be good at everything. Like you get some very, very talented dentists, right, that are good at, you know, they put the implants in, they do the perio soft tissue, soft tissue grafts, whatever. But I don’t do that. I kind of limit [00:08:30] my dentistry to what I do. And if there’s something else, like for example, like an endo or superior or the implant work, I have hired or formulated this team that are just so good at what they do as well, that we can provide that very conscientious care to our patients for that whole whole experience, which takes a lot of time. You know, it doesn’t you don’t just fall into that. It takes a lot of time and a lot of hours of persistence [00:09:00] into getting there.

Speaker3: But were you always that cat?

Speaker1: So no, no. Uni like I think that people go into dentistry. They don’t really. I mean, who knows? They want to be a dentist when they’re 1617. You don’t like your mum tells you basically, right. And maybe you’ve got that scientific background.

Speaker3: Is that what happened to you?

Speaker1: Yeah. So you do work experience in veterinary medicine, dentistry. You’re like, ah, dentistry is all right. And you know what? It was. So I did work experience and all of those because I was like quite sciency, right? My parents aren’t my dad. [00:09:30] Well, my dad’s a builder. My mom’s a nurse, right. General practice nurse. And I did lots of work in medicine. I said, I don’t really love this. I did loads of work experience in veterinary because my mum was like, you’re going to be a vet from like ten years old. So work experience, honestly, since I was like 11, 12 every week. And then my dad took me to a veterinary open day. Actually, there’s one in Camden. Yeah. That’s it. It was, it was there. We’ll call it the road right up the road. [00:10:00] And then there was this woman giving this lecture at the front. As she goes at the end, she’s like, look guys, you’ve you have to be the best to get into veterinary need like all A’s. And you’re going to come out and every year this is what you’re going to going to earn. And then my dad just like grabbed me by the scruff of my leg. He’s like, we’re out here, mate. You’re going into dentistry. So anyway, did dentistry work experience thought it was all right and kind of. Yeah, just just got into it.

Speaker1: And at uni I wasn’t hugely conscientious. Like I’d say I probably scraped [00:10:30] through uni from year one to year four. And when things started to become clinical in year five, that’s where I did like quite well. And. Came out with a really nice grade. Right. And then when you go into vet year. Again, vet year, I nearly actually got thrown out of it year before. Not for like fairly for grades, but being like misbehaved on these kind of nights out that you do. But anyway and then really like things started to [00:11:00] have to become a lot more professional at that. And I was focusing on work because I just hated coming home being like, I just don’t know what what the f I’m doing right? I don’t know if we should take that route out of her postgrad in it. I don’t know this or that. And you kind of at nights, you’re not sleeping in that world because you’re worrying about things. You’re worried that you’re just like, bad at this job. And, you know, it is it’s almost kind of tear provoking hours at work. I think most dentists have had that. And then so I [00:11:30] just started doing courses, getting better and started enjoying it more, just want to come better. So I think it comes it comes like mainly after uni. It was a thing that came.

Speaker3: Let’s get back to where was it you were growing up?

Speaker1: So I grew up in Surrey, in Ewell, Banstead, around there, Epsom and I went to senior school at King’s in Wimbledon. So very lucky that good school. My parents, um, gave up a lot of their own luxuries [00:12:00] and worked extremely hard to be able to send me to a school where they thought the opportunities would be apparent compared to elsewhere.

Speaker3: You said you did. You did the shadowing bit work experience? Yeah, yeah. You have jobs as well. Did you work? Yeah, yeah, yeah, work for money.

Speaker1: From what? All I get when I guess when you’ve got parents that are working a lot of hours, childcare becomes an issue during the holidays. So I would tend to work, just go to work with my dad [00:12:30] and well, like, you know, Labour. But I guess I was probably more slowing him down, like messing around. Right? So during holidays I’d do a little bit of labouring like that. And then when it got to kind of 15, 16 year old 16, I got a job as a waiter. I used to work at a restaurant called Tootsies in Wimbledon Village and just serve burgers. And I worked at a like a carvery, like a Toby Carvery. That was it.

Speaker3: The reason I asked that.

Speaker1: I worked there. [00:13:00]

Speaker3: Because so many of the people I’ve spoken to say that a lot of their sort of people skills. Yeah, um, work ethic has come from working as a child.

Speaker1: I don’t think it’s important. I think that if I ever have children, I would definitely get them working at a kind of minimal pay job because you do realise, you know, you kind of work your balls off for however long that shift is and you come out and you at the time you’re like, oh, that’s £60, but £60 for you. You’re [00:13:30] like, oh wow, I can get like a pair of trainers, I can get a pair of jeans. And that’s like absolutely amazing, right? Whereas if you don’t have that value of how hard it is to work or for some people to have that much money, you know, you don’t appreciate how the finer things come. So I think that that is really that is really important.

Speaker3: I was a spoilt 17 year old, okay. And my parents said, look, you’re working. Yeah. And they said, just go get a job in, in Oxford Street, okay.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: And I got a job [00:14:00] in this suit shop.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker3: And I hated my life so much. Yeah, yeah, that I was a kid. Yeah, I used to. I used to take a taxi to work. Yeah, and a taxi back. Yeah.

Speaker1: And. But then that will give you the appreciation of, like. Actually that was like an hour and a half work. Yeah.

Speaker3: I spend the whole day. Yeah, yeah. In the taxi there back and my lunch. Yeah, yeah. And it really made me realise that some that some people’s lives. Yeah. And of course I didn’t have to take a taxi. It was a really. I was still a spoilt bitch. Yeah, [00:14:30] but you know what I’m saying. The reality check of it. Yeah. Is kind of, I guess, what you’re alluding to. Yeah, 100%. But I’ve got a 16 year old now. Yeah. And he’s done. He has volunteered a lot. Yeah, but he’s never done a real job. Yeah. And the way it’s, it’s weird to hear because he’s saying five A levels and working his arse off getting to the gym. And, uh, and, you know, the question of a job hasn’t yet come up then I’ve had so many of these conversations [00:15:00] that I’ve realised, I mean, Prav my co-host. Right. You know, Prav. Yeah. Puts all his success down to the corner shop. Yeah, yeah. He used to work at. Yeah.

Speaker1: I mean, when you see it, don’t we? I mean, we’ve all had these patients that are from different ends of the spectrum, whatever practice you’re in. Like if you’ve been doing I did a lot of NHS work. You see a lot of people that come in are very, very hard working, like kids that have jobs and stuff. And then you have your like now it’s more of patients that I get that a lot of them again, are like super, super wealthy, but [00:15:30] they do appreciate it. But then a lot of super, super wealthy and are just like, think that you’re almost like a labourer for them. And they. I have no appreciation that that crown that their mom’s paying for, or that root canal because they’re not brushing their teeth. Costs like your whole summers work if you’re actually working for that. And not everyone gets that like opportunity, these.

Speaker3: People skills that you’ve got that we just walked around enlightened. And every single person you made direct contact with and said hi to [00:16:00] face to face, were you always that, that or did that grow up? I mean, because it’s a brilliant thing. If you you can see your clinical skills on, on, on Instagram or however much we can see of them, we can see it there. If you’ve got the people skills that you, you know, you do. I know from knowing you, you know, the ingredients that go into being a brilliant dentist comes down to, you know, thinking, seeing, you’ve planning and then people.

Speaker1: It’s actually it’s a it’s a huge point. I think people skills [00:16:30] are against some dentists have it and some dentists don’t have it. Right. And we all know that you could be the most fabulous clinical dentist in the world. If you can’t communicate with the patient, they’re not going to think that yet. We also all know dentists that do like crappy work. And I’m like, wow, how’d you get away with that? Yeah, the patients are like, oh my God, that is the best dentist in the world. And I, I don’t know, man. I guess this is I think maybe how you’re raised. I was very lucky that again, my parents, they work hard [00:17:00] and I think that they are very like down to earth people. So around that you meet people from all different walks of life, so you learn how to communicate with them. And I think that, you know, if younger dentists were ever to say or they do say to me, they’re like, you know, give me some advice. For what? How to grow my career, you know, to become a good dentist. Yeah. You’ve got to put your you’ve got to invest in yourself to learn the academia, to buy that camera, to spend the time to put [00:17:30] rubber dam on, you know, not learn, not earn as much money for a few years because you’re learning to perfect your skill. But once you’ve learned to perfect that skill, you need to be able to do that on patients by communicating to them their problems. And this is how we do it. Right? And yeah, that’s going to go a few ways where some of your patients are going to listen to you and they’re going to say, okay, we have that treatment.

Speaker1: That treatment might not always be exactly the same because [00:18:00] of the patient’s economic situation, right? They might not have the time or they might not have the money to pay for what you want. So it might be that, you know, you need these onlays, but for now we’re going to do some composites because you can’t afford it, right? One day we’ll do those onlays. And so you’re going to listen to you or they’re not going to listen to you. And if they don’t listen to you, you’re like, well, that’s absolutely fine. It’s your choice. You go somewhere else. And that’s the I think in that situation the best thing to do. And I think it’s, you know, another bit of advice is that I always think that it’s very [00:18:30] important that dentists aren’t pressured into doing something that patients want them to do if they don’t think it’s actually the right thing, because that’s when things do go a bit tits up. Right. So for like a small example of that, we had a patient very recently at my pastor’s green practice that has come in for her implant consult because she’s been referred in Implantologists has said, yeah, great, but we can do all this. You need the perio consult first. You’ve got perio goes to the perio consult. You spend ages with the perio, consult [00:19:00] with the periodontist. Said, look, you’ve got perio. And then we get this like long ass, not a complaint, but like a kind of semi complaint that’s like, oh, you’re just trying to be a gatekeeper, trying to force me down the road.

Speaker1: So I spend loads of money before I get the implant right. And then you have to waste a load of time with the emails back. And it’s like, at this stage now I’m much more happy to say, look, have your money back for the console. This is wasting my time as it is. You know, you don’t say that to them, but you know, like, look, have the money back [00:19:30] for the consult. I’m sorry that, you know, there’s been this breakdown in communication and you’re not happy to follow the practice protocols, but we’re not going to compromise on a treatment because you don’t think you’ve got perio and you want you don’t want the perio treatment. It’s not I don’t want extra money here. I’m actually sending you away. So I don’t want to treat you. It’s not the money at all, but much better to get that bad Google review early on because you’ve told them to f off basically in a nice way, rather than [00:20:00] put that implant in. And then when that fails, they are not like associates come to me all the time. They’re like, oh no, they told me they followed me. They really wanted it. They really wanted it to do it. They really wanted to do the treatment. So I did it. And I’m like, that’s wrong though. You should be saying no to them, because what happens is that patient will very quickly forget that you’ve told them about the risks, and it’s not the perfect thing to do when it goes wrong. And they’ve forgotten those risks that you’ve said. So don’t get like forced into that, you [00:20:30] know.

Speaker3: On the situation you just mentioned, right. The of course, there are some patients who’ve had some some. Experiences or have got some sort of preconception or, by the way, walking into your parson’s green practice. Beautiful practice. Someone might think this place is just about making money. It’s on guard. Yeah, for that. But let’s put that to one side. Say, what was the error in that situation? There was a communication error somewhere, right? Whether the periodontist, the person who [00:21:00] sent them to the periodontist. Yeah. That the touch points in between. No.

Speaker1: 100%.

Speaker3: We have to take responsibility for even that situation 100%.

Speaker1: And now you look back and think, well, actually, maybe it was a point of the between the implantology. Yeah, exactly. Between the implantology and the periodontist. Maybe it was more of a, you know, this is definitely like thing you need to have this sorted. And the reasons for this is because this implant was fail and we don’t want to waste your money. Right. Maybe in that [00:21:30] situation that’s where you come to. And then maybe we could have given out like another like leaflet or something like that. Right. But then again and we do try to have every single. The patients are going to complain about anything if you tell them they need a filling and they haven’t got symptoms because you believe they need a filling, if you do the filling and it gets sensitivity, they’re going to complain. But if you don’t do the filling and you haven’t informed them that they need the filling, that’s [00:22:00] the worst thing. Because I think that in my history, the the mild like complaints that I’ve had are more they’re kind of more the undertreatment rather than the overtreatment thing. It’s not like you have put those crowns on. It’s more like, oh, actually, you know, that infection there has got worse now that didn’t get treated initially. And I’ve lost the tooth and you’re like, well, you know, sometimes you try to be too nice to patients and it’s you’ve got to really inform them about everything. [00:22:30] But at the end of the day, your patients are going to moan. That’s just what they’re going to do. And that’s that’s what they do. You can’t be right in every situation. And I think as time goes on as well, you start to learn it, to learn to take it like less personally. And you’re like, well, look, that’s just what they’re going to. You’re out to moan, right? And I just think that at least I’m not married to you. Yeah.

Speaker3: Yeah. No, you’re absolutely right. We need to, I think, especially in the environment [00:23:00] now, um, we need to think of even being sued as part of the job.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: Because because, you know, plenty of people are getting sued for no reason. Yeah. At the same time, a lot of the younger dentists are kind of real disabled by their fear.

Speaker1: Yeah, I.

Speaker3: Agree, and we need to get it out there as well. Yeah. That that, you know, the fear of messing up is the thing that makes you mess up. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker1: And it also means that the fear of messing up actually means that you’re not going to develop [00:23:30] in your career. Because if you’re worried that your root canal is going to fail every time, yeah. You’re not going to start to practice root canals at the beginning. If you’re going to worried that you’re going to refer everything, you’re just going to become like basically a treatment coordinator, right? Yeah.

Speaker3: So there’s a balance, right?

Speaker1: There’s a balance. I think that people are going to complain. And that’s just what it is. And whoever you are, if you’re the best dentist in the world, people are going to complain. And it’s just learning that actually trying to trying to learn [00:24:00] to not to take it personally, which is a very hard job to do, that you’re always going to take it personally, but we all get it.

Speaker3: So look, we normally get to this darker part of the show a lot later. But while we’re on the subject, yes, let’s just get straight to it based based on black box thinking, right? Where, you know, if a plane crashes, they share with the whole community what happened, what went wrong, so that the whole community can learn from that mistake? Yeah. In medical, we tend [00:24:30] to hide our mistakes a little bit because blame becomes the main subject. Yeah. And no one wants to be blamed. Yeah, yeah. And not talk about the subject because we feel, I don’t know embarrassed. Yeah. By mistakes. And hence I never get to learn from your mistakes you know. But to go against that on this pod, we like to say what comes to mind when I say. Big clinical mistakes in your time.

Speaker1: It’s it’s [00:25:00] back to that exact point of saying no. And I think that in the past I’ve been pressured into things thinking, oh, this is just quick. We get this done. And like, okay, so example of this. So I had a patient this was a couple of years ago now at my Wimbledon clinic. She came in. She had like beautiful teeth. She’d have orthodontics elsewhere. I was like, wow, you got lovely teeth. She’s like, I want cosmetic bonding. I think the problem is now is that people come in to with the whole social media thing. They come into your practice and [00:25:30] want they want composite bonding, even though they don’t know what it is like because they think that, oh, it’s just that thing that’s going to make me a bit better. It’s like that, like facial treatment or whatever. It’s like, well, you’ve got nice teeth. They’re really nice. And line. There might be the odd like kind of little edge that’s not so neat. But she’s like, yeah. So anyway you’re like, okay, we’ll do it. And then you’re like, well do a mock up, tiny little mock up. And she’s like, yeah, I love it, love it. I’m like kind of questioning, should I be doing this or not? And then you get round to that appointment of doing the bonding. [00:26:00]

Speaker1: And I remember doing this bonding and I only do I do minimal bonding. I’m not one of these people that does lots of composite veneers, because I don’t like the kind of I don’t necessarily think they’re reversible. Right. So did a little bit of bonding at the end. She like looks in the mirror and I kind of face drops and she goes downstairs to pay the bill and she comes out the bathroom and my receptionist is like, she’s just in tears here. She, she like really like hates the work you’ve done. So I’m like, I say this to every patient I do bonding on. I’m like, now I’ve learnt my lesson from that. [00:26:30] I’m like every time I do bonding on a patient, I say, well, first of all, now if a patient I really doesn’t don’t think it’s going to make that much of a difference. I’m like, you just don’t need this. The amount of maintenance that you’re going to have, this far outweighs the benefits that you’re going to get. And it’s better to have that disappointment or that appointment rather than that disappointment at the bonding appointment. Um. So I think like saying what happened.

Speaker3: Okay.

Speaker1: So. Oh and oh because then what happens is I’m [00:27:00] like look. And what I learned and what I say to patients now I’m like, when you look in the mirror, you are not going to like this bonding. And I don’t think. You know, you see again, these things on social media, these reveal appointments where everyone’s like, oh my God, I love it. I’m in tears. It doesn’t really happen like that. Well, maybe mine’s not that good, man. So that doesn’t happen to me anyway, right? Uh, you need some hype for that now. Um, and then basically I was like. So I said, look, live with this, right? We can make some minor adjustments now, [00:27:30] but what we do in, like, we’re going to come back in two weeks and then we’re going to adjust. And so now the way that I approach it, I say to patients that you’re not going to like this. You’re going to think they’re too big. You’re always going to think they’re too big, because most of these patients you’re doing bonding on because they’ve got wear, so they’re used to their shorter teeth anyway, right. So you’re not going to like it.

Speaker1: But then tomorrow you might like it a bit more. Two days time you might like it a bit more three days time. You’ll probably like it. In two weeks time, you’ll come back and tell me that I was right about the appointment. I mean, it didn’t go down quite so like that, this [00:28:00] girl. And in the end, you end up doing an adjustment. You end up doing another adjustment. And by the end that you make her happy. She’s pretty much exactly like she was when she came in in the first place. So she’s happy in the end. And look, it’s fine, because I’d also say to patients that this is additive, this is bonding. We can cut it back after. This is all, you know, I can sleep knowing that we can get you back to where you came in. Whereas if I cut those teeth down for irreversible work, I think veneers are a great option for a lot of patients. But, [00:28:30] you know, if you’re one of these people that are very quickly to chop into teeth, then you might have a problem, right?

Speaker3: And I feel like I feel like that’s I hear you about that case, but I feel like that didn’t really go very badly.

Speaker1: Yeah. I mean, I guess it’s not one.

Speaker3: That went badly.

Speaker1: I don’t know. I’ve kind of like I’ve had endings that have failed, you know, I’ve tried to build up teeth that at the end I’m like, hero. Hero? Yeah. You try to do the hero antics and then at the end, you’re like, kind of. You regret it because a couple of years later, again, [00:29:00] although, you know, you’ve tried to fix the tooth that has got a terrible prognosis, you’ve told the patient and then it fails a few years later and the patient’s forgotten about that. They’re like, why didn’t it last as long as the old crown? You’re like, because that first crown was placed when there was like a bunch of tooth tissue there, right? Um, so, like, it’s not like I know that’s not they’re not disasters and they’re like kind of mini things, but, you know, I, I’ve avoided implants, so I haven’t gone wrong with surgery. I haven’t put implants in a sinus. So it’s, um, you know, a lot of the time is, [00:29:30] is, um, it’s like patient expectation, like the odd when I had, I had, like, a complaint once that I was seeing this kid. And this kid was like a fucking nightmare, like always came in eating like sweets at the appointments, you know, they come in, I’m like, look, you’ve got a bit of demonisation there.

Speaker1: It’s like, do we start trying to treat now with this kid’s like running up the walls. And then you say to them, mum, look, you know, let’s try and fluoride, let’s try the brass, let’s try to change the diet. Six months. But then that kind of went on a bit long. [00:30:00] So a couple of years later you’re like, look, you definitely need fillings now, but I’ve got refer you because I can’t treat you went to see a pedes dentist in a place before I had the pedes dentist came out with their, like, foreground treatment plan because, you know, if you’ve got you’ve got a kid in the chair and you’re sedating them first, the sedation costs. Second of all, if you’re going to be treating those teeth, get them all treated at the same time. So then you have then I had the dad kicking off, being like, I’m going to sue you because they need loads of work and you’ve never told me. And I’m like, well, look, you know, your kid’s like seven [00:30:30] years old and they’re their first molars need fillings. So have you forgotten the fact that that tooth’s only been in the mouth for, like, six months to a year or something? But, you know, parents forget when they’re little kids in the chair. You had a.

Speaker3: Letter.

Speaker1: Had I actually didn’t. Yeah. No, I think I had the letter for the, um, like from the solicitor or whatever. But then fortunately I had the notes. I had the x rays, I have an Intraoral camera that I take photos pretty much of every single patient [00:31:00] that comes in and in my notes, like looking back, I’m like, thanks, fuck, I wrote those things. It was patient, came in the chair and was holding like a chocolate bar or and then another appointment. I was like, patient came in and her sister, his sister said, oh, he’s always eating things. So you in the end you’re like, well, you know, what can I do? Like, it’s not like kind of this is more of a. Behavioural parents thing rather than what I do. How did.

Speaker3: You get. How did you get out of.

Speaker1: Just sent my letter back with all [00:31:30] of that. But by the time I’d written my letter or had helped writing my letter from my defence at the end of my writing that letter, I was like, yeah, it’s kind of not my fault. I was like, actually, you should be the one in front of like, social services or something for not listening to me and coming in. And then I didn’t get a reply after that, so I didn’t. It’s not like it hasn’t gone down the lines where, you know, it’s like a serious thing.

Speaker3: We’re so in it. Yeah, that we forget that like sometimes if that’s happened to your kid. Yeah. You obviously are going to blame yourself. [00:32:00] Yeah. There’s many don’t. Yeah. And so you look you think, well I’ve been sending my kid to the dentist. I can, you know, in a way I can see it happening. I get it from their side as well.

Speaker1: I get it, especially when it’s like the father who hasn’t been to any of the appointments. So they haven’t seen the seen what? I’ve said. He’s just paid the bills and then. And then. Yeah, exactly. And not seen the kid running around like opening up drawers and chucking shit everywhere. And it’s like, oh, maybe you’d understand if you were like, see these things. But again, I get it. Like everyone has this [00:32:30] like, uh, reply attitude. Everyone has a response to something, right? And they maybe have got very heated in the moment and replied before they’ve actually thought about it. And unfortunately, working in a public sector, we just have to deal with that.

Speaker3: On reflection, would you have done anything differently with this case?

Speaker1: Referred it earlier to a specialist, and as soon as I kind of start to see a small issue, we I think as dentists, we want to be too nice to patients sometimes and we get worried about the fact [00:33:00] that we’re like, oh, you need a crown. It’s going to cost X amount or you need a filling. Oh, and it’s another one because you need one another a year ago. Oh, it’s another one. You need one a year ago because you kind of feel a bit like almost embarrassed that you think that you’re just trying to get the money out, money out of them. Right. But actually it’s like, look, you’ve got a problem here and you’re probably doing a this justice. Yeah. Or like an injustice. That’s the word, um, saying that, you know, kind of being like, oh, we give it another six months if it gets worse. So if you start [00:33:30] to see that little issue, you know, it’s about communicating the real problems that that patient has and saying, look, you probably will be better down. You’re going to see a paediatric specialist. And then it’s I think it’s.

Speaker3: That you’re right. Because that sort of comprehensive, not even treatment planning, but I think I had Costas on and he was saying, you know, Frank spear always said, do you want your cardiologist not to tell you the full story? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so but you’re right, there’s this feeling [00:34:00] because our profession is so trust based. Yeah. And I think, I think intraoral cameras are the most important piece of equipment in a dental surgery for that reason.

Speaker1: Yeah. I agree.

Speaker3: Um, when when I was a dentist, I used to adore the idea of this filling doesn’t need changing, but do you want to change it? Um, to make it look better? Yeah. You know, like a stained composite. Yeah. On the front. Simply because the question of trust wasn’t in there anymore. Yeah. You know, and I used to just get off on that, like to.

Speaker1: I think [00:34:30] it’s like. So the intraoral camera is amazing once you get a scanner. Yeah. That. And if you have your own one in your room, that’s amazing because like some of these scanners now take photos of everything. Right. So every single new patient of mine gets scanned. I have a one hour new patient exam. And at the end I sit them up in the screen in front of them. I’ve got their x rays on the right, I’ve got the scanner, and I just walk them around the mouth and I’m like, look at that black bit, look at that, look at that, look at that. And I think it’s really the important thing is [00:35:00] trying to work out and having that discussion of. What kind of patient is this? Is this? And I literally asked them. Sometimes I’m like, are you a proactive patient that really wants to deal with everything and don’t take any risks? You know, and then we might end up doing like the quadrant dentistry, right? Because actually, if you’re doing a filling on the five and the six got a bit of a crappy amalgam, maybe it’s better to do the six at the same time, because when is there never caries under amalgam, right. There’s always carries underneath it. You say to the patient, look, you’re numb. The rubber [00:35:30] dams on it actually only takes you ten minutes more to to deal with this. And you know, that’s not going to be a problem for a while.

Speaker1: We don’t have to do that though. We need to hit the five because it’s got like this open carries or whatever. If you’re happy to accept the risk of leaving this six for a bit, you know we’ll kick that can down the road and do it a few years later. Yeah, exactly. And then when you kind of walk around the whole mouth like this, this is when I find when a lot of patients that come in to see. Like [00:36:00] to see. I’m lucky now that patients come in to see me, right? So they kind of trust me before they even come in. A lot of these patients end up having more comprehensive care because time is the precious commodity for them. So they don’t want to be in that chair every six months having like another filling. They’re like, just get the quadrant out of the way, get the quadrant out of the way, and everything comes with risk. You’re like, look, you might pulpitis you might need a root canal, you might do crown, but you can see on this screen, you can see on that x ray where these problems are. And at the end, usually I just write them a little kind [00:36:30] of letter to be like, you know, it’s if you’re more proactive, if you’re not, we do this. And so they can always reference back to that to know that I’ve talked to them about it in the first place.

Speaker3: So your particular superpower then. Would you say it’s in the in the treatment room? Or would you say it’s, uh, yeah.

Speaker1: I think with.

Speaker3: The team and.

Speaker1: I definitely don’t think there’s any form of super power thing coming on. I think it’s like just trying to. Like, I enjoy work now because I [00:37:00] have tried to set up, try to eliminate all the things that might lead to like a bad sort of treatment. Right? So I’ve spent a lot of time getting the team right, getting the equipment right, putting the hours in and just focusing on what Dental kind of like to do and what I think. I’m all right. Uh.

Speaker3: Yeah. But what gives you the most sort of fulfilment or pleasure? Is it is it you sort of zone out during a treatment, okay. And, and all that and meditate in that zone. Or do you love meeting people for the first time and [00:37:30] you’re really good with them, or do you like making plans and plotting and opening a practice?

Speaker1: So what gives you. So when I’m when I’m doing my clinical work, I like it when it’s an afternoon where I’m doing like a quadrant, right, where patients got rubber dam on, they’ve got their earphones, they’re watching the TV, they’re numb, and I can just spend 2 or 3 hours doing a few composites and on prep or something, right? Because I’m like at the end I’m like, I did everything as best as I could. Photos look good. I’m happy with that. And they paid their money. And actually that’s been a decent [00:38:00] afternoon of cash. But what? As the years go by, what I start to get more enjoyment of probably is seeing like the growth of the business and the practices and looking at, you know, getting another treatment room, getting a nice chair and seeing like we had our Fulham Road Dental Christmas party on Saturday at the clinic. And it was nice seeing just so many people there, just having such a laugh together. And, you know, they’re all drunks. They’re like, [00:38:30] I love working here or whatever. So I actually think they probably do love working there because they come there and everything is set up in the right way for them. And also as you grow, you start to build this business that one day is going to be, you know, sellable for more money, basically. And that money doesn’t drive me. I’m very happy with simpler things. I don’t have a car, I cycle everywhere, but one day I do want to have the luxury of being able to go [00:39:00] away for a month and not be hassled and not have to work, but money still coming in from the business.

Speaker3: It’s more than that, isn’t it? You want to realise your potential?

Speaker1: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. I don’t like wasting time.

Speaker3: Yeah, yeah. Um. Because money. You know, the thing about money is you can buy things and things are ridiculous. No, there’s no.

Speaker1: It’s a cosmetic around the.

Speaker3: Single thing that’s, that’s going to be useful for you unless it’s like a helping someone thing. Yeah. And then you can buy experiences which are, which [00:39:30] are fun. Yeah. Experiences are good. I’m all for that. But money’s limited, isn’t it? No, but essential question. Yeah, that’s really important. I, I think that’s a really important thing. Like I you can you can feel at the end of that time when you go for your month in Maldives. Yeah. You can think to yourself, did I live up to my potential. Did I, did I really do everything that I could have done. Yeah. Or didn’t I, you know. And then what are the reasons I didn’t, you know, because some people want an easy life. Some people want, you know.

Speaker1: They’re I [00:40:00] get it as well. And I think it’s like, you know, you work so hard and put the hours in to build the business so you can have that month off and go and explore or have a nice experience, or go for lunch with someone and not worry about getting up at 8 a.m. the next day for work. But then again, you know, completely on the flip side of that, if you experience life with like a hippie life where you’re travelling and you kind of are living on a shoestring, you don’t need that. Yeah, exactly. Right. Maybe I think I think.

Speaker3: About that all the time. Yeah, yeah. Because [00:40:30] I know a lot of people, you know, busy, busy. Not even in dentistry. They’re busy in the city or whatever, buying back their happiness. Yeah. In in three weeks of the year. Yeah. And the other 47 days or whatever. We’re just not happy. Yeah. And but at the same time, you do seem to carry it off insomuch as it seems like you’re really enjoying yourself. Um, yeah. I mean, I seem to do it effortlessly.

Speaker1: Yeah. I mean. I think I work a lot of hours [00:41:00] and I do like kind of when I’m up, I’m generally I’m always doing something like I still clinic wise, I’m in the clinic most days, 8 to 5 still. And bear in mind, you know, three practices and a dental lab to run. So when you’ve got that many people comes the admin. So when’s the admin happen? The admin happens at weekends. Admin happens in evenings. It’s recruitment. It’s HR it’s this and that right. Well like you’re quickly checking an email when the queuing lights going or something like that right.

Speaker3: What’s [00:41:30] the role you play. You’ve got partners in each of these businesses.

Speaker1: Yeah yeah yeah I have great role.

Speaker3: You play.

Speaker1: I have great partners and it’s just kind of fit in with where we did. Let’s just say my place in Wimbledon that my partner is Aaron Yusuf, that I’m extremely lucky to have as a partner. It’s like we just kind of muddle in with everything. I don’t really deal with the accounts or anything like that or the money side of things, and you just try to chip in where you are. And historically, I spent a lot more time at the clinic, so a lot [00:42:00] of it would be kind of ironing out the patient issues, right? Patients, you know, the retainer hasn’t arrived or blah, blah, blah. And then when I’ve gone into business with Mark, which I went into business with like probably three years ago now, he was actually a patient of mine and he was in private equity. And he read something that said, if you don’t have a business by the age of 43, you’re very unlikely to ever have your business. Right? So he was approaching 43. So he was like, actually, I want to start my [00:42:30] own business now and get out of private equity. And one thing led to another, and I just ended up going into business with him. So now we’ve got two clinics and a, um, a lab. And I mean, I’m like the medical side of things. So I’m the recruitment, you know, the equipment, knowing what people want and trying to iron out those things. Whereas he’s more like the financial and that the accounts and growth of the business and the marketing and that kind of thing. Right. But, you know, you gel [00:43:00] and it’s just you work out what you need to deal with and you just try to deal with it without taking any glory for solving that problem. And hopefully it works.

Speaker3: And so with his with his private equity background, is there like a plan to open 100 of these?

Speaker1: You know what it is. It’s like initially like you were talking about before, right? We had the idea that maybe you just open 4 or 5 at the same time at the beginning, right? Yeah. That’s where during that time I was like, man, I’m quite nervous about this because already I’ve got one. [00:43:30] And suddenly if we just open these or take over, you’re taking over a huge amount of problems. And and that is just going to be manic for a long time until you iron out that management structure. Right. And then in the end we sort of like actually maybe we open a squat and then it ended up being like, let’s just open the squat thing so we can build the value of the practices rather than having to pay someone, you know, a couple of million quid for and was after whatever it was, it was actually kind of like during Covid. Covid. Yeah, during Covid, [00:44:00] because we were when we were building this place, we were like, actually the kind of ventilation systems what you’re putting in now, there are no answers for anything during that time. But, you know, I am extremely, extremely lucky to have fantastic partners that are understanding. They they’re just like so enthusiastic about the growth. And also, you know, when you’re looking at a problem to deal with, it’s a lot less of a problem when you’ve got someone there to discuss it with. Because even if you’ve got [00:44:30] a great idea or a good idea, you’re always going to doubt yourself. Whereas you’re like, oh, I think we should do this. And they’re like, yeah, you’re like, yeah, it’s you get enthusiastic about it. But you know, the team wise, it’s not just in terms of the partner, it’s building that structure underneath it. So your managers, your reception, your marketing, the support staff, the the clinical team, that is like a huge part of it. And everything just works. You know, it takes a long time to get that to work together to make [00:45:00] this successful practice, hopefully without any problems, that starts to make money.

Speaker3: On the subject of co-founders partners, right? I’ve got partners and enlightened, but I know some people. Can’t deal with partners. They want to they want to be alone in the endeavour and just tell people what to do in hiring. Yeah, that the skills. But for me, I’d have serious trouble starting a business by myself. I agree, I feel like number one, what you just said, very important because the business is all about problem [00:45:30] solving and. Yeah, problems. Right? Yeah. And problems shared with your partners is so much better. But number two, I just think that I’ve got several proper blind spots. Yeah, that someone else needs to fill in.

Speaker1: I’m not good with financials at all. And so I’m like, let’s deal with the figures like but which also takes a lot of trust, right? When I trust my partners. Absolutely like 100%. But I could easily get mugged off with something like that because I just trust so, so much that these things work like by [00:46:00] vice versa. I remember when we were setting up our first squat for the road Dental we had, we looked at the sea, we were like, okay, we got to get this axi sorted. And you look at this list and you just open this folder of like, you try to build this list of stuff you got to sort. And I remember looking at it being like, oh my God, what the hell are we doing here? But then, you know, you, you take things one by one and you start ticking it off and building a dental practice. I don’t think it’s necessarily the hardest thing in the world. It’s just quite, a quite a lot of stuff [00:46:30] to just start ticking off. It’s not that hard. It’s just quite a lot. Well, well.

Speaker3: Well what you did well I mean I live there, right? I live very I go to that Gail’s like okay. Yeah. That’s where me and my family go for coffee. Yeah yeah yeah. So but you know so I was watching I was watching practice. I didn’t know if it was yours to start with. Yeah. Yeah, but it’s a busy practice very quickly.

Speaker1: Yeah. I mean it’s in fact touch wood that carries on where we go. I mean, it’s been two and a half years now and it’s [00:47:00] starting to get very busy, which is you can tell.

Speaker3: It’s a, it’s a busy there’s a lot, a lot of people working there, a lot of people coming in and out of there. Yeah. And that is hard. I think you’re right. It’s not. In the end, it’s not hard to find a building seacc if you’ve done it, especially with you, you’ve had enough experience to get the right team in to build. And by the way, your dad, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Very general experience. Yeah. Experience with your dad. Yeah. Um, but making it successful now I want to dig into that. Right.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: What did you do on day one? No patience. [00:47:30] So what?

Speaker1: So what’s different with. So all three practices have been a slightly different setup, right? In fact, that number one, Ridgway Dental I had worked there. I started working there a year out of, straight out of, in a private practice, just doing like a day a week. Right. His associate wasn’t that busy, it wasn’t that well set up and that kind of thing. But as time got on, 4 or 5 years in, I was like, we kind of started talking about me taking it over because they wanted to get out of dentistry, [00:48:00] and I ended up basically taking it over with Aaron, who was my boss at another NHS clinic that I was working at as well. And then we’ve basically grown that thing like organically over. I know how long we’ve had it, like eight years now or something like that. Right? So that’s more being like a kind of slower, steady growth seeing patients there you go and tell their mate they’re happy. So they come in and see you. And additional slow traditional slow burner. Right. Fulham was like a bit different because it [00:48:30] was a complete squat. So day one there aren’t any patients but because Wimbledon isn’t too far away and I have this list at Wimbledon where I’m just fucking like just slammed. I’m like, I’m at Fulham on that day, just come and see me there. Right? And they come and see me there. They might need an endo, they might need an implant. They go and see them there.

Speaker1: And again, I have to be very understanding, like Aaron has been so understanding of that. And he’s not like she’s not getting it. He’s not. Yeah. He does not get anything. But he’s like I just see the patient there. You know, if we [00:49:00] can’t get them out for if we can’t do the extraction here for four weeks, get it done at Fulham, it keeps the patient happy. But then Aaron has other practices that are quite local as well. So we all we it’s we just understand this right. And because patients the Instagram are like blowing up a bit a lot of patients wanted to see me. I could kind of see them at Fulham because I didn’t have a waiting list there, whereas it’s like a few months at. Wounded. So that kind of helped the growth of that. And then once patients come to me, I could refer them in-house for other stuff. Right. But [00:49:30] then your associates that you hire there, especially when you’re hiring specialists as well, have got to also be very understanding. You’re like, look, don’t worry, we’ll get there. I’m sorry, there’s only one patient today or no patients sometimes. Right. But we start we also started to put our foot on the gas in terms of marketing at the very beginning. And we spent a huge amount, but enough for a consistent period that we got our website rocking that, you know, people type in for the dentist. Yeah, the whole Google thing [00:50:00] as well.

Speaker3: Um, like paid ads.

Speaker1: Uh, no.

Speaker3: We, I think we did that.

Speaker1: For a small amount, but we didn’t do that much like social media stuff, because I found that when we started to go down that line, you know, everyone gets sucked problems with dentists, it’s sometimes they really undersell themselves. And I think that it’s a race to the bottom. Everyone’s like, well, I do Invisalign for three grand. I do it for two and a half grand, and you get like three retainers and a back massage and it’s like, come on, guys. Like, if you do that, someone else is going to do that. And then so you start to do these like Invisalign free consult days. [00:50:30] And a lot of the patients that you get in are just so they’re not just so they don’t they’re not going to spend that much money or appreciate that the work that they’re doing, because they’ve got three grand they want to spend on everything, and they don’t want to fix that broken tooth at the back. They don’t want to get that root canal treatment done. So you don’t attract the patients that really care properly around their mouths. So we didn’t like focus on that at all.

Speaker3: I mean, what you’re discussing there is positioning.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: How is the [00:51:00] surgery positioned the business position. Yeah. In your you know something I talk to Adarsh about quite a lot. Right. That you know in the, in the area when any area there’s, there’s a bunch of people going on price. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. It’s not anywhere near as many people going on quality. Yeah. Generally. Yeah. And so the price end of the market tends to be quite, quite busy. Yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: Um yeah. At the same time you know, it’s a different way of working. Right. It’s a [00:51:30] but I think it’s just as difficult being cheap and there’s expensive.

Speaker1: Yeah. And there’s, there’s, there’s your, you have your NHS dentists, you have your specialist dentist and there’s everything in between. And it’s what fits that person right. Yeah. So then Fulham we kind of started like that in house referrals. And then you start to get your reputation. And this is actually probably what social media has had the biggest effect for me. And I didn’t even realise this when I was starting to build it at the time. It wasn’t that I get a lot of patients through it, but you’ve seen [00:52:00] it right? It’s very Dental. I know patients want to see like bleeding gums and all that kind of stuff, right? But what it helped me was recruit and it helped me get the right dentists and specialists that want to work with me because they see the environment, they see the standards that you uphold, and they also start to see the team that you’re building and they’re like, oh, actually, that guy is fucking wicked at implants. He does auto transplantation. I’d love to do endo at that clinic to work on cases with him. [00:52:30] Yeah. So that really helped the recruitment. And then with my social media, because I have such a big Dental following, it starts to build the referral list as well. So you’ve got this like three pronged attack. One, you’ve got your own patients coming in, two, you’ve got your referrals. Three you start to build a pretty good website that people start finding you through that.

Speaker1: And then after that, that fourth prong is that you start to get that organic growth and then, you know, you can almost start to cut back on the whole, like marketing [00:53:00] thing once patients are coming in just because their mates had a good time there. Yeah. But then the third practice, which is Direct Dental in Wandsworth, that’s going to be a bit of a different approach. Again, because I’m not working there. I don’t have the amount of days in the week. So we’ve got a few dentists that are amazing associates, starting at more of like a kind of general list that are also going to be very understanding at the beginning. It’s going to be a bit quieter, but then we’re really trying hard with the website, with the marketing to [00:53:30] get you kind of high in Google rankings and stuff like that. So it’s just that we’re going to have to rely on that to get that initial growth to patients. And then once those patients start coming in again, you get the good reputation, the good Google reviews people come from that. That will be a slower burn to Fulham because, you know, the kind of principle of the practice isn’t working there. Um, but I think if you want to scale and you want to grow and have ten practices, 20 practices, you’ve got to get that last model probably right, because [00:54:00] it can’t be everywhere.

Speaker3: Is that the plan?

Speaker1: I don’t know, I mean, I mean, I would I would like to yes. And it’s an option. Well hopefully it’ll be an option if we don’t go bankrupt first. Right. And I think that that is what I would like. I would definitely like I would feel disappointed if I looked back. It didn’t try that and I hadn’t made the most of it and I hadn’t had more clinics. But it’s getting that balance of growing at a responsible rate where you can uphold standards as well, because I don’t want to suddenly open ten practices and. You’re [00:54:30] not controlling the quality of work that’s coming out there. And also it’s like growing businesses take just so much money. It’s like building a clinic is not cheap. So, you know, the money that the first practice starts to make gets all invested in that second practice and you’re taking loans and stuff out, and then it takes a while for that to start to earn a bit of money. And then the third one comes. It’s all like it’s, you know, you never really get a breath and you never really, [00:55:00] you know, it’s always a few.

Speaker3: Qualified 13 years ago. Yeah. So you feel like you’ve been running all that time. You haven’t had a chance to. Yeah. I guess the real benefits of it. Yeah.

Speaker1: Oh, yeah. No, it’s definitely not building that business. I think reaping those benefits probably comes in like. Well, I’m hoping it comes. I’m hoping it’s in a couple of years, but I think it’s more like that kind of 20 years mark, rather than going into a practice and expecting it to be all like [00:55:30] great at the beginning. And anyone who’s opened, bought a practice or opened a squat practice like will realise this quite quickly. And they’re like, actually, damn, this is costing so much money. It takes a lot of money to make this work. And it’s a different model to buying practices, because if you’re buying practices that are already running, you know, you might be able to just take on a load of debt and just buy a ton of practices. But are those practices going to be exactly with the values and the environment that you [00:56:00] want that practice to be? Probably not, because you’re working with what’s already there, rather than actually sculpting what you want to grow as what you think is a beautiful, beautiful place. Yeah.

Speaker3: Industry is interesting, isn’t it? Because you’ve got dentex, for instance, that owns many, many 80 or 90 private practices that all have different names. Yeah, different principles, different ways of doing things. And then you’ve got, you know, my dentist that’s got 600 doing exactly the same [00:56:30] thing. Yeah. Um, but if you were thinking of scaling, wouldn’t it made sense to sort of brand them? Correctly. You weren’t thinking about that? No, I.

Speaker1: Mean, this is the branding wise it I quite again we’ve got I’ve got options. That’s the thing. That’s the thing. I’ve got options. So if we went down the way of the whole point about the direct Dental was that it’s almost like a sports direct thing, right? That at first that we hire [00:57:00] we have a marketing guy that just works with us now. Right? And I was like, look, don’t you think it sounds a bit like Sports Direct? And he’s like, boom, perfect, we’re going for it then, because I was like, I see that as like a shitty thing, right? But he was like, you know, people remember that. That’s what we want to go for. So, you know, the next practice might be another direct Dental, not Wandsworth Direct Dental wherever. Right. But then, you know, you’re also like, well, the Ridgeway Dental and the Fulham Road Dental if you had a problem where you’re being referred for a specialist [00:57:30] root canal, do you think that you would prefer to go to a place that’s called like Fulham Road, Dental or do you think if you went to direct Dental you’d be like, actually, does that sound a bit cheap? It’s I don’t know.

Speaker3: About expensive name there if you wanted it to.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker3: Well it’s branding. Branding is such a funny thing. Yeah. There’s no hard and fast rules about it. But, you know, it’s interesting because because you’re within with the guy, you’d expect that, um, the dreams are bigger in a way. No, but.

Speaker1: We talk we talk [00:58:00] about this. And again, it’s just this it’s responsible growth at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. And the initial conversation that we did have when we first started this, we were like, let’s just go five, we go ten, we go 20, we go 30. And it’s not a discussion that we don’t have in the fact that actually if we get this third one right, do you go and take investment and do you take a few million quid that you could probably get? No, I don’t think it’d be that hard to get that now and then be like, look, we can show that we can do it here and here. [00:58:30] So boom, we’re going to open three at the same time. But then when you open that it’s going to, you know, your percentage in the company is going to go down because you’ve taken that investment and maybe you can buy that back at some point or whatever. But that’s not a point we are quite at yet. And bear in mind, we only started that two and a half years ago. Yeah. So it’s very.

Speaker3: Very early days.

Speaker1: So it might it might go that way and it might go away where you end up having 30, 40, 50. And you know, I know people that have also having that number of practices [00:59:00] as well, when you don’t really know about it. If someone went to me when I was less experienced, they’d, oh, I’ve 30, 40 practices. I’d be like, oh my God, you are balling. You must earn like millions of billions, but you’re like a load of debt. You could be investing anyway.

Speaker3: Yeah, yeah. But you know, I had gin and kirsch. Yeah. I think they made 25 practices now. Yeah. Paying themselves as associates.

Speaker1: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re making that much money. And you know, again [00:59:30] people say to me now when I talk about the wedding or something like that or just being on like a bicycle, they’re like, well, you can afford your Tesla. And it’s like, I actually can’t. And just because I have three practices, it doesn’t mean that I have money in. But, you know, I’m building these assets. I’m building these places that I love going to work. And look there, you know, the first two are worth hopefully quite a lot now, but you don’t get that until you sell the place or.

Speaker3: Listen, listen.

Speaker1: Or stop growing.

Speaker3: We are spoilt in dentistry [01:00:00] insomuch as you can have a conversation like this and say, you’re two and a half years in and you’re not losing loads of money. Yeah, yeah. Most businesses, they lose money for years 100%. And we lost money. Yeah, longer than that. And I think.

Speaker1: A lot of practices are the same. I don’t think a lot of practices will be earning a lot of money until like many years after they’ve opened. Right.

Speaker3: Especially a squat because that’s the whole point of this. Yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah, exactly. But you know, now if we had an open, direct Dental and if I said, look, I’m happy with the two, [01:00:30] you can start to kick back a bit. You don’t have to do those clinical days. You’re like, actually we’ll go on holiday and it’s all good. But I do see the growth and I do want to have more of a kind of legacy behind it.

Speaker3: It’s an interesting thing. And I was talking to Andrew Darwood, um, on here in this room. Okay. Yeah. You know.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah. Well, not personally, but yeah.

Speaker3: Yeah. And, you know, he could have opened a massive chain if he wanted to. And he was talking about standards. Yeah.

Speaker1: And maintaining the values.

Speaker3: How do you [01:01:00] maintain standards across multiple sites. And then I was talking to Robbie Hughes and I mean he hasn’t yet done the multiple sites thing. Yeah. Yeah. But but but he was making a point I think it was like you know like Louis Vuitton and Sydney. Yeah. Is a similar experience to Louis Vuitton. Yeah. La or. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it’s possible to maintain. No I know and.

Speaker1: I think what he’s what he’s like kind of protocol based nature is something that will probably be very relevant to that.

Speaker3: Yeah. [01:01:30] Exactly.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker3: And I guess, you know in the end you end up doing whatever it is that makes you makes sense to you, right? And for someone like you, it could well be like for you. Beautiful. Yeah. Perfect businesses. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Why not? Yeah. I mean, if it’s a perfect. We know we never get to perfect, right? Yeah, yeah. Is that a constant pursuit of perfection? Yeah.

Speaker1: It could.

Speaker3: Keep you happy forever.

Speaker1: I completely agree. And people you know will forge this business around with what they want. And, you know, you get these [01:02:00] when you look at the values of these practices that come in that, you know, they come to your email, this is a sale. This is for sale. You know, a couple of years ago, I was a judge on this, um, you know, these dentistry awards, right? And you look at the practices and some of these practices are quite open in what they’re earning or what they’re taking. And some of these like, like mini hospitals that are like putting in implants in and stuff like that, the money that they’re taking is like the same as like ten other practices. [01:02:30] So it’s and they’re doing beautiful dentistry. So but to your point that you say it’s yes. Where does it go.

Speaker3: So we’ve done it all the wrong way around now. But now I want to go through okay. Yeah. What job did you do. So you had the job with Aaron.

Speaker1: So my my VCE year I was in Banstead which was I found like close to.

Speaker3: Your associate job.

Speaker1: And then my associate job I went into [01:03:00] I used to really like endo and I thought I was pretty good at endo. Right. Because you win Endo prize at uni I won enterprise when I first came out. But you look back and you’re like, that was endo. But you know, I was enthusiastic about the endo. And then I started looking for jobs. And the way that I found jobs was that I got a little USB put on a load of x rays on it, the endo that I’d done put on, some crappy photos that I’d taken thinking they’re all right, and basically just went into practices that weren’t even that were in like a relative [01:03:30] local area that weren’t even advertising for an associate. And I was like, look, this is what I can do.

Speaker3: Well, you’d walk in.

Speaker1: You need to pretty much send him an email, like a range or like it’s just Wimbledon. I literally just went in it and then just and then it was just like when you go in, when I went into my Leatherhead practice that Aaron owned with colleague Jonathan Lee, they were like both endodontists. Right? So like just had a great conversation. They’re like, yeah, we need an NHS associate. So let’s start day or two, [01:04:00] start a day or two for them. Then Aaron was like, actually, I need a job. I got someone got chair in Stretham that someone needs to do some NHS work. So. So I ended up working in two NHS jobs and doing like a day in private practice. Right. So you see the scale of things. I think NHS is an amazing place that shouldn’t be knocked for that ethical training ground where you start to learn what caries is, you learn how to just get quicker, taking out amalgams for a certain amount of time. So you get that experience, learning [01:04:30] how to deal with things. And then over time, the way that I’ve done it is kind of got like done less of that and done more private to the point where you just go fully private.

Speaker3: Yeah, well, I always laugh when people say, sort of, um, learn your learn your skills on the NHS in a way that’s sort of it’s almost okay to mess up on the NHS.

Speaker1: I think it’s an ethical training ground. That’s that’s how I think. Why is it ethical? I think it’s in a way that like, [01:05:00] you know, this patient comes in and their tooth, their molar is fucked and it maybe needs to come out. But you know what? I’m going to try and do an endo on a crown on there. And the patient’s exempt. So they’re not paying anyway. They understand that it’s a poor prognosis and you’re trying really hard. And that patient is fine with you trying really hard. So they might have the times they’re not worried about that. You’re not really doing bad for them because it’s just got to come out anyway. And they’re kind of not paying for it. Or if they are paying for it, it’s like [01:05:30] a couple of hundred quid that they are well worth the risk, or you’re doing like a composite on a, on a back tooth because you think onlays are better than crowns. In worst case scenario, it pings off. You just put it back on for free, prep it for a crown. Right. So it’s you’re not cutting stuff. You shouldn’t be cutting. And the patient kind of isn’t paying for it.

Speaker3: I get it, I get it. So all right, now, you know, if you had a youngster asking you what should I do? Yeah, I’m taking it. You’re that’s the kind of advice you’re going to give. You’re going to say [01:06:00] do a couple of years on the NHS, just get experience.

Speaker1: Yeah, definitely. I definitely think the NHS is a good place to to get the numbers under your belt.

Speaker3: What I was going to tell you is, you know, that seems to be standard advice here. Yeah, a lot of people say that. Yeah. But you get to us and you ask people in the US what.

Speaker1: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker3: That is not the advice in the US. Yeah. The advice in the US is specialised ASAP. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I know someone I think we could talk about it but he’s hasn’t qualified yet. Yeah. And he’s got himself [01:06:30] into a fixed price program in Harvard. Yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah yeah.

Speaker3: And so you know you know what I’m saying. There’s different two, two routes.

Speaker1: No I. I completely agree. And I look I look back and I’m happy with everything that I’ve where I’m going with things. But I do also think that the younger dancers as well, I agree with that. They should be thinking about, or it’s beneficial to start to think about specialising, even if it is at the same time, because you can do, you know, specialist course doesn’t just mean that you’ve got to do full time. A lot of these courses, [01:07:00] you know, you can do like a distance learning thing at the same time as your as your in practice.

Speaker3: Yeah. At what point in your in your were you in that associate job when you thought.

Speaker1: That was only a I think that was like 2 or 3 years out or something that I was like, actually, you know, I kind of want to get better at this stuff. So you just kind of I didn’t really even do that much research into it. It was just because a friend has done it, doing it and done the research that I decided to do it with him. And another mate came and did it as well. Um, so that was more of a [01:07:30] kind of luck than judgement thing.

Speaker3: The program was a King’s. Yeah, it.

Speaker1: Was a king’s led by mainly like severe Banerjee’s like amazing dentist. Like, what have I, uh, I very much look up to him. Yeah. So you basically go and do your, like ten days or two weeks, like intense clinical hands on, and then you’re in your practices most of the time. And when you’re in your practices you’re taking photos of your work, sending them in as case reports. You’re also doing a lot of online learning and a lot of like, case presentations and [01:08:00] stuff and coursework like that. So at the time, it was like, I know, like 9 or 10 grand a year or something for three years. So, you know, at the time I could just about afford that, but not have to take the time off of work. That has to pay as well. Um, and, you know, I know orthodontists now that have gone over to Poland for three months to do a course or they’ve done it that way. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be that you go and do an McAlinden for three years, full time or five years, whatever it is, but [01:08:30] I do I do think that if you specialise or become a lot better in like a more of a limited field in dentistry, you’re going to enjoy your job a lot more because at the end of the day, dentistry, if you’re going to be a dentist for a long time, you know you want to be coming out at the end of the day thinking that you’re happy with the work that you’ve done, and you’re very confident that that work isn’t going to quickly fail. Or if it does fail, it’s not, you know, there’s patient factors due to that rather than yourself. [01:09:00] So, you know, you can feel good about the work that you’re doing and charge accordingly for it.

Speaker3: So okay, so you did that. You did that course that that course. Yeah. Yeah. And then and then you told me you did lots of other private courses. Yeah. Of the ones you did, you said you did. You said an Invisalign one because you were doing more Invisalign you wanted more information on. Yeah.

Speaker1: So I did the Invisalign course because our practice we did ortho right. We had a specialist, but we only had like a specialist like 1 or 2 days a week. And I [01:09:30] think that if you start to become this Invisalign practice, you kind of need someone there every day. So you’re like, I’ll get you in for the consult tomorrow. Yeah. So it made sense if I did a lot of the Invisalign. So that’s why I did the Invisalign course. You know, that’s only a weekend at the time you start doing it and then you’re like, oh, actually, I kind of need to know what class one is now a class two, because I can’t really be doing Invisalign not knowing what that what an overbite is. Right? So then just did like a year diploma that I knew enough that, you know, I think that when you learn as well, [01:10:00] I think everyone should almost every dentist should do like an ortho diploma, just so they know what they can treat and what they can’t treat, because otherwise, you know, you get these associates and I’ve been guilty of it as well, where you have associates that come in and I’m like, fuck, are you treating like this should be going to the orthodontist, or this patient should not be getting veneers or, you know, it’s knowing what you shouldn’t be doing as well as what you you should be doing. Yeah.

Speaker3: But of, of of all the other courses that you’ve probably done, what are the, what [01:10:30] are the ones that the formative ones, which ones stand out to you.

Speaker1: So the formative ones are probably the ortho diploma biomimetic mentorship, which was a year long thing, which was. And the master was that.

Speaker3: Uh, online.

Speaker1: Right. Yeah, it was an online thing, but he’s basically read like 150 articles, really tear them apart, learn about bonding and gluing stuff. And I think that which course was it? It was it was with the Alamans. It was like a mentorship. Yeah, exactly. And I think that courses are a thing [01:11:00] as well, that you shouldn’t take everything that you learn on a course as being absolute gospel, because the people that teach in those courses, that’s what they do. Yeah. So, you know, you’re gonna that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t put a full crown on things just because you could be bonding and onlay on it doesn’t mean that actually, you know, you should be sitting there for five minutes scrubbing a self etch or a total etch. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Sometimes I think that you can almost take it too far in the fact that you’re not, [01:11:30] you know, you’re not appreciating the patient factors involved in there. Like it’s if you put an amalgam. Then you’re not going to get struck down by the biomimetic God. And I think it’s just going doing all these courses throughout your time and learning what works for you and what works for your patients and what you want to do. Like I, for example, don’t love composite veneers because I think that there’s so much more maintenance that people ever say, and cutting these things off isn’t as easy as people say it is. But [01:12:00] then if you live in an area where everyone has composite veneers and wants composite veneers and they’re happy with that maintenance or happy that it might be a bit destructive, then who am I to say that they shouldn’t have that? So when a patient comes to me of something, I’ll be like, look, I’m not the man to do that. Go somewhere else. They can do that really well. Like they will do it better than than I do it for you. So yeah.

Speaker3: 100%, 100%. I fully understand what you’re saying there. And, you know, composite veneers a funny thing. Yeah, because they’ve totally exploded.

Speaker1: Yeah I know, yeah. [01:12:30]

Speaker3: Um, you know, we’ve been teaching composite for 15 years, but only in the last three years. Yeah. Everyone’s become a thing, I need them.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker3: Um, and as you say, it’s it’s the most unforgiving material we use. Um, you know, you’ve got to be very, very, very good.

Speaker1: Very good. It’s so technique sensitive, these things.

Speaker3: That’s the thing. Um, when you when you look back on your progress, what would you have done differently? I think, like if [01:13:00] you could go back knowing what you know now.

Speaker1: When we opened Wimbledon. I think about the growth of that place and think we could have almost pushed a little bit harder at the beginning of the growth and thought that actually, let’s not be so risk averse. Let’s put those two more surgeries in. Let’s get a loan to do that. Let’s get the orthodontist in. Let’s get the periodontist in. I would also learn that as soon as you start kind of doubting someone. That works for you. Everyone [01:13:30] is replaceable. And we I mean, personally, I’ve always given everyone the real benefit of the doubt because I’d be like, look, actually, I need this role now. Actually, this person can do that role and she could do those days or he can do those days. So I’m just going to hire them. I’m sure they’re amazing. But then sometimes it’s like, actually, maybe there is someone better out there. And when they’re in that role and start to do things not as well as they should be doing, maybe it’s having that discussion earlier [01:14:00] that there’s, you know, they should be looking for a different job and maybe you’re not the company for them because there might be a better role for that person. But as they as they start not doing things how you want to, then, you know, it’s just being it’s being open upfront discussions with people. And I much prefer are.

Speaker3: You the type of person to tell that person I.

Speaker1: Haven’t been, but would you.

Speaker3: Run away from that?

Speaker1: I’m I’m starting to learn a bit. That’s that’s the thing that I would do different. I’m starting to learn how to do that. And I think that, you [01:14:30] know, you learn that people’s positions in life change. They move house, they break up with people, they get with people. They need to move away. Their lifestyles change. And I would much prefer that people would just upfront with me about those things or problems that they have, so we can deal with it in a very like, you don’t have to be so emotional about fixing that problem rather than being like, oh, I’m worried about upsetting them, or because it’s just a slow, slow problem solving down.

Speaker3: Yeah, definitely. I [01:15:00] mean, I’ve had situations where I, I’ve let someone carry on for years. Yeah. Because I didn’t want to face the conversation.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: And I didn’t do that person any favours by doing that. Yeah. Um, I’ve tried so many things. I talked my partner Sanchez, the financial guy. Yeah. And, uh, I said to him, if I could give someone four months, five months pay, um, I would have got rid of people years ago. Yeah. Because I don’t want to be the guy to ruin their their their mortgage or something. [01:15:30]

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: You know, there’s so many like. And you know that question of do you run the business like a family? Um, which I used to, I used to think was the goal. Whereas the real, you know, the Silicon Valley people, they talk about a pro sports team, you know, the best person and the best job. Yeah. Whereas the family situation we let people get away with. Yeah.

Speaker1: And different things. And it’s balance. Right. Because the end of the day I think that most people want to you want to be a good human and you want [01:16:00] you take people’s emotions and you want to understand. But then if someone’s there, I think, you know, you will have people that work for you that do also manipulate the situation where it’s like, actually, you know, you’ve got to have this conversation at some point.

Speaker3: So on that side, are you the one who fires people?

Speaker1: Um, that I’ve been quite fortunate. The fact that my partners are saying all this now, I need to get better than that. My partners are the ones that have generally had the conversations in the past with, [01:16:30] like, firing people. You know, I’ve done it like a couple of times and you have that conversation that they might be like best off elsewhere. But yeah, I have to say, I’ve been lucky that sometimes I didn’t deal with that.

Speaker3: You’re the one hiring people a lot of the time, though.

Speaker1: A lot of the time, yeah, yeah, hiring a lot of the time, yeah. Clinicians are generally come through me. Right. Because yeah. Yeah, a lot of.

Speaker3: Do you think you’re quite good at sort of being able to tell whether someone’s going to be a great associate.

Speaker1: You never know. No, you never know. [01:17:00] And you can put down a certain amount of parameters like you look at their clinical work or thieves, I think are pretty much pointless. I think you make what what I say to everyone is that build a good portfolio and make sure it’s your own work. So I’ve had portfolios that have come in are not their own work as well. I’ve reversed Google image them and people lie. Man. It’s very bad. Um, but yeah. And you think I know you meet them. How many times do you meet this person [01:17:30] before you end up hiring them? So I think that it’s not much, is it? Yeah. And people can put on a pretence, but you don’t know how time efficient they are. You don’t know that. That photo. That’s good on Instagram. Yeah, that’s a great photo. But that doesn’t mean that the work around it is any good. It’s like.

Speaker3: Let’s get to it. You let’s say you’re chatting to this guy. Yeah. Are you mainly looking for like a sixth sense around. Is he a good bloke. Like, is he going to be talking to my patients? Well, yeah. You have no idea on the clinical skill [01:18:00] or you or you probing with questions.

Speaker1: No, it’s not really clinical because I think by the time I’m meeting them, generally I’ve sussed out the clinical because through portfolios and that kind of thing. Right. So it’s more like are you going to get on with patients? Are you going to be able to, you know, work your treatment plans around that patients economics and time and money, you know, are you going to be able to. But but then again, what I also think is that what I started. The thing is that when patients when I have people that come [01:18:30] and work for me or I have clinicians, they’re not that finished product and potential, their potential is there. And they might be that rough diamond that. You know, you realise a couple of things. You’re like, oh, actually, maybe you could do this with the patient, or maybe don’t give them a treatment plan that they need 25 fillings at the beginning. Be like, look, these are the worst ones. Maybe then down we do that, you know, try and do these things and you get these associates that really grow into people [01:19:00] that do a lot more treatment and make a lot more money than they would have done at the very beginning, because we all grow together.

Speaker3: I hate asking this question this way because like the word hacks, yeah, I think hacks are one of our biggest problems. Yeah, because you want to do something well that follow the damn steps and don’t hack a step.

Speaker1: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker3: That said, what are your hacks regarding regarding, uh, running practices [01:19:30] like what’s what. We’ve got the clinicians. You’ve got the non clinicians. You’ve got the patients. You’ve got the partners. You’ve got your investors. Yeah. Give me some. Give me some. You know someone who’s open three practices and is working at the level that you’re working at. What comes to mind when I say the key things.

Speaker1: Yeah, I mean, the team is definitely. But I guess you’re saying don’t mention that. That the team is a big thing and you’re like practice manager as well. And having people in your team that can, it’s make making you a lot more time efficient. [01:20:00] Like for example.

Speaker3: Would you say that’s the most important person in the practice is the practice manager?

Speaker1: It’s definitely one. It’s one of for sure because it’s like, say if the time in the day, right? If I have an HR issue or I’ve got a nurse that’s like crying because their boyfriend’s dumped them or whatever, and they want to like cry and talk to someone. So I don’t really have that half an hour that someone can that I can, that I don’t have the time to listen to that. Right. So if you’ve [01:20:30] got like the practice manager, generally they will be the one that keeps everyone kind of in line and, and happy. And it’s you’ve got that structure. Like you might have your head nurse that keeps all the nurses doing what they should be doing. You’ve got your manager, you’ve got your kind of marketing leads, you’ve got. So it’s all it’s basically breaking those up into divisions and trying to have someone that like deals with that. But it changes and you lose people and then you’ve got to get recruit again. And recruitment is a tough thing and [01:21:00] I definitely have so much more to learn. And, you know, people shouldn’t listen to this and think, oh, he knows exactly what he’s doing. Because you change, you change, you grow. Yeah. You learn a lot more. And but I think that what I’ve also learned to do is that to take less offence as well, because you’re going to have someone that just starts and they’re ill and you’re like, well, are you ill? Or maybe you saw you out on Instagram boozing last night or this or that, and it’s like, actually, I used to get really offended because [01:21:30] I’m like, I’m the one investing in this practice. I should be doing this. But now it’s like, this is this, this is people, right? This is humans. It’s what what they do.

Speaker3: Yeah. You’re mellowing a little bit.

Speaker1: Take less offence. Yeah. Yeah. Try and do and also. Yeah exactly. And and like you know maybe doing those two extra hours at the end of the day isn’t so important. You know, is it going to make a big difference in the grand scheme of things. So timing wise hopefully I’m at the point soon where I can start to be a bit more flexible [01:22:00] and have a bit more time off, because otherwise life goes by and you’re like, shit, it’s uh, time goes quickly and we’re done. So.

Speaker3: So, George, you were saying off Mike that you’re not really teaching, and you told me that, you know, the number of hours you’ve got to work. It just doesn’t fit in. Yeah, but I reckon, I mean, I reckon you’ve got a lot to teach and thank you. And teaching is fun. So do you think it’ll come?

Speaker1: So we’ve done like, the odd, like little course. [01:22:30] And I did some stuff for Invisalign. I’ve done the odd like uni thing but it’s like and lectures as well. I always get asked to do lectures or talks at places. Right. But at the end of last year, one of my New Year’s resolutions was to basically start saying no to things just because I didn’t have the time. And I’d always find that, say, if I had a lecture coming up, I would always put a lot of pressure on it to say, if you were like, George, come and do a lecture in front of this many people [01:23:00] in two months, every night or every lunchtime, I’d be thinking, how can I change the content for this? What can I say during that? What what picture can I put up? Yeah, too much though. Too much that actually that picture at the front probably doesn’t mean that much compared to what you’re trying to get over to it. And I just I didn’t love the pressure of that. Like, yeah, that that stuff was very topic depending. Right. Once the prep work’s done and you’re doing the repeat stuff, [01:23:30] it’s a bit of a different matter because it’s just it’s so much easier. And actually, you know, teaching wise, I think if I was going to do it again, it would be like setting up my own course of just something that I love doing and this is how I do it. But I also think that in teaching, you tend to get criticism by more of the older generation of dentists because they’re like, well, you’re teaching, so you should know absolutely everything about this, this and this, which I get it, because if you’re teaching, you should be [01:24:00] you should know everything.

Speaker3: Although although by the by the standards of today, you’re, you’re an OPI teacher I mean yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: Thank you. Thank you for that teaching.

Speaker1: No, no, you’re right, actually, you are right. Um, but then, you know, there’s the other way that you see a lot of people’s work. And if they’re doing that work a lot and they’re showing it off via Instagram or whatever, you’re like, well, actually, you know, I can see that those things that is really nice and that is something you’re doing all the time so that you know how to put a rubber dam on if you want to go and [01:24:30] run a rubber dam course. Great. That’s really great because people are going to get a lot better from that. But then again, timing wise, it’s if you want to run a course, I mean, a lot of dentists, they probably want to do that over like a Friday and Saturday or something. How often do you do that? Is that one weekend a month? Is it two weekends? A. Aren’t you still doing a phase five clinical days during that time? We’ve done like a few like little courses at the practices, but at the moment it’s just there are different fish to fry. [01:25:00] So I’m not saying it’s like completely off the table. Look, if someone came to me and everything was prepped and they were like, you can use all your photos here it is, this, this and this, then, you know, it’s an easier thing. But I also think prepping this stuff and writing lectures and that is so boring, I find it so boring. And it’s like course work. And I’m like, I just can’t be bothered to do it.

Speaker3: I know what you mean. I mean, I was the same as you. Anytime anyone asks me to speak, I’d really try and make it better. Yeah, but [01:25:30] then you know what got me? What gets me is you look at your presentation, your existing presentation. You look at a slide, and the first thing your head says, that’s that picture is too small or too big. Yeah, yeah, whatever you mess about with it. Yeah. After all the messing about, you realise. Oh, why did that way the first time it’s like, oh yeah, I go round this sort of weird circles of like design circles. It’s weird.

Speaker1: I think there’s also the like there is always [01:26:00] a slight worry of critique as well. Like if you have 100 people watching your lecture or in the crowd, you know, you’ve got to remember that actually 99 of them are probably learning something and they’re looking at it being like, oh, that’s like, this is day to day general stuff that is very applicable to what I do. You’re going to get that one person that’s like, oh, I can see like a gap between the rubber dam or I can see that actually there’s like a tiny, tiny, tiny little bit of flash or an overhang there.

Speaker3: But why don’t you suffer with that perfection paralysis on [01:26:30] Instagram?

Speaker1: Oh, I just post what I do every day. It’s not.

Speaker3: Why doesn’t it bother you that someone’s going to think?

Speaker1: Because. Because now I’ve got to the point where it’s like you’re not.

Speaker3: Being a teacher.

Speaker1: I don’t have to. Exactly. I’m not out there branding myself as a teacher. Yeah. And like, if you actually look at all of the posts that I’ve done and all the comments and you read them, first of all, you realise I actually don’t do that much of it anymore. It’s mainly stories that I do because I again, can’t be bothered, but actually I’m like, this is how I do [01:27:00] it. I’m not being like, this is how to do it.

Speaker3: It’s such a funny thing though, dude, because I’d say you’re one of the pre-eminent teachers in dentistry. Yeah, if you take it from what people are learning from people. Yeah, it’s a weird thing.

Speaker1: Well thank you. That’s that’s very kind. You’re not calling.

Speaker3: Yourself a teacher, right? Yeah.

Speaker1: No.

Speaker3: No one’s paying you to teach.

Speaker1: I’m sharing my work with how I do it day to day. And it’s like, look, if you like it and want to look at it, great. Don’t, don’t. And [01:27:30] it’s like, if you want to critique me, telling me I’m doing it wrong, I’m like, you’re fine. But I’m not saying this is how I do it. Like so thank you for the tip. I will try to do it different next time.

Speaker3: I want to get to two other main areas. Right. Number one sort of day in a life. Like what time you go to bed, what time you wake up and so forth. Yeah. Number two, patient journey through, let’s say Fulham Road. Dental because I’m so because I’m so familiar with gilding and all that. Yeah, yeah. Let’s, let’s let’s get to. Yeah. Let’s start with the second one the patient [01:28:00] journey. Yeah. So all right typically so a patient comes to you from word of mouth. Yeah.

Speaker1: So exactly that so that they are they’ve got a problem generally or they’ve had some dentistry elsewhere that might have gone wrong or they’re not quite happy with it. So they’ve like they’ve been advised to come to me by their dentist or friend and they’ve like rang up and the patient’s booked a new patient exam. I basically zone my diary. So certain times of the day I can have exams. [01:28:30] The rest is like treatment because otherwise you just get overblown with like crappy exams all the time.

Speaker3: If anyone she asked that patient to send them to you, or if they’ve asked for you, that’s something.

Speaker1: So any patient that rings up the practices that don’t ask for me, don’t get booked in with me because I’m also trying to get the other associates busy. Right? So I’m like, put them in with anyone else if you can. If they’re having to see me book them in to see me. Right.

Speaker3: Or sometimes straight in with a specialist.

Speaker1: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah [01:29:00] I know. Absolutely. But and then we get a lot of referrals for specialist work that goes straight through. But basically we set up a portal, right. We spent quite a lot of money on this. So you go online, you’re logged into our portal. You refer the patient and you send the x rays in an email comes up on my phone that says like referral received, right? It’s all like GDPR. Whatever, right? I will look at that, open it up and kind of work. If it’s something obvious. The team are well equipped to be like, oh, it’s going to go straight to Endo, right? But I pretty much check like [01:29:30] every one when it comes in just to check the x ray, because a lot of the time, you know, a dentist is sending in for an endo. It’s got like subgingival caries. That’s like near the roots. And I’m like, then you’ve got to send a reply being like, well, do you want us to do the restorative as well, or are you going to see it first? Or it would be for like.

Speaker3: It’s incomplete in some way.

Speaker1: It’s incomplete. So I’ve got to kind of price it. And a lot of time goes into that triaging. Right. You almost need someone to triage. That’s their job. But also I have to [01:30:00] be very aware that I don’t want someone coming to my implant surgeon who is very time poor as well. That’s coming in, that’s got a load of perio, or they’ve got a load of thing, and they haven’t been warned about that because it’s like, well, I just done this consult and they’ve got taken caries everywhere. So a lot of that triaging happens to go to the right dentist a lot. If patients are coming in and they they want to come and see me because of social media, they see what I do, whatever. Then it comes to see me. And generally it would either be, when is.

Speaker3: Your next available [01:30:30] appointment? Is it months ahead or is it? No, it’s not that.

Speaker1: It’s not me because I do like because I work a lot of hours and it’s um, so it’s and we always get cancellations and it will there will be like waves. Right. For a certain time it might be like three months, but then it might only be like 3 or 4 weeks. But you’ve got to kind of zone those diaries well enough that that can happen. I also think if you’re too cheap, you’re going to be booked up for a very long time, which is a kind of like [01:31:00] not justice to yourself. Whereas when you’re hitting the right price point. I mean, personally, I think I’m actually quite cheap for what I do anyway. But like if you’re and I’m proud of my prices, I should say, right? I think the patient’s getting a good deal and I am too. That’s what I would say. But then, um, so it’s getting that that balance, right?

Speaker3: Yeah, absolutely. Look, if I was a patient and I saw that building and I want to see you and I can’t see you within a month, but somehow, [01:31:30] like a problematic in itself. Yeah. Exactly.

Speaker1: Yeah. Exactly. Absolutely. So they’re like and then what I will often do, I kind of build in buffers. Right. So Wednesday I don’t actually open up a clinical day, but I keep that day that I can go up.

Speaker3: You could if you.

Speaker1: Wanted to, I could go up to the lab or if that patient’s getting married in three weeks, I’m like, well, you should have left this earlier, but we can deal with it. Or actually, I’ve got pain. I can get you and deal with it. If it’s someone that doesn’t need to see the endodontist or whatever. So it’s I will work around [01:32:00] things. I will stay at the end of the day. We’ll work through lunch to make sure that patients get seen for obviously it’s not an emergency. You’ve got to kind of triage it as well. It’s tiny little chipped tooth. It’s not a problem with see you.

Speaker3: So back to back to patient journey that that patient makes the phone call. Yeah. The the team the way they answer that call. Yeah. Have you got them on that thing where you know they know they know the usp’s of each of the dentists. And they’ll say you should see Doctor Cheatham. He treats lots of no.

Speaker1: Yeah, exactly. And they that pattern when they come in and they, they [01:32:30] learn with they and again it’s very hard for a receptionist as well because when they come in they might not even know the most about dentistry. And they’re suddenly they’re supposed to know you should be seeing the denture guy. You should be seeing the implant, you should be seeing the gums. But if they have if they don’t know, they’ve got a specific problem, a lot of the time they might need to see a general dentist first just to then or, you know, receptionists say, look, you’ve got to have the general exam first and then we can book you in with the periodontist. And as long as that [01:33:00] dentist knows that from the beginning, the patient knows that, then they’re not offended that they come in and it’s not the periodontist, because they know that actually they’ve booked in the general and they’ve booked in the perio. And if patients don’t like that protocol, maybe they are better elsewhere.

Speaker3: Um, and does do all the dentists do a one hour initial appointment or is that just.

Speaker1: You know, no, no. The general dentists at um Fulham were all an hour the general associates, if it’s a general check-up [01:33:30] at Wimbledon.

Speaker3: It seems like a long time. An hour man. What happens do you do you spend the first 15.

Speaker1: But you have to remember that a lot of these patients that are coming in specifically to see me have a lot of issues, or they’ve got things that are fucked up elsewhere. Yeah. And then, you know, it doesn’t always take me an hour. A lot of the time I don’t mind having a coffee at the end, and I’m not trying to cram my days to get as much like money and clinical is impossible. So I prefer to have that 20 minutes at the end spare [01:34:00] where you can just.

Speaker3: At the end of.

Speaker1: A problem.

Speaker3: Right that hour, you’ve got a good understanding of what that patient.

Speaker1: Wants, exactly that.

Speaker3: What he’s willing to do. So if he’s not.

Speaker1: Willing, that’s exactly it. And I’ve had that discussion as well to judge whether they want to treat every single little bit of caries and maybe possible carries, or do they only want to do the big cavities and see them again in six months? Then it takes me that time to work out what that patient wants. If they want to have the full mouth, tell them that they’ve got [01:34:30] to go and see one of the specialists for something. And then what I will generally do is that a lot of the time I don’t book them in straight away. I’ll say that I’m going to send you a plan later on, and I’ve got plans from like yesterday that I’ve got to still do right where I’ll send them a treatment plan with the pricing, with just a few paragraphs of blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just kind of just a bit more explanation. And then generally they just that then the reception team will ring them about booking appointments [01:35:00] in. If they don’t book it straight away, they might say, I’ll call back or they call them back in a week.

Speaker3: So that plan, do you try and get that done?

Speaker1: Usually within like a day or two. I like to get it done on the same day. Some days I just email it and like again, a lot of the patients. It’s different from a clinic from my perspective, because, again, a lot of these patients have kind of waited a bit to see me, and they’re sold on having treatment with me before they’ve even seen me. Right. I’m just confirming their thoughts when I’m there [01:35:30] so I can send that plan a week later and they’re still going to get booked. Whereas really in our clinics we try to. You’re much better off if a patient comes needing that endo. They’ve had that CT scan, they’ve had that consult book it on the way out because otherwise they go outside, their dental pain goes away and they’re like, oh, I just look at when that pain comes back. So if you can get that ortho patient booked for records, if you can get those things booked straight away, it’s much better. But sometimes you [01:36:00] can’t do that if it’s a more complicated thing, and especially when you start to see like these, these rehabs that come in and these patients are spending like, like tens and tens of thousands and you’re like, well, you know, we’ve it’s a very delicate thing sometimes.

Speaker3: And so you said you give the plan some go ahead, some don’t. And there’s some follow up on the ones who don’t. Yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah. That’s not necessarily that’s not so much with mine, but it might [01:36:30] be for like different like associates that whatever. So then it would be these are all tracked. So we have trackers right. So we look at the amount of incomplete plans that we have. There might be like 50. And then through the week we look at those 50. And there’d be someone on the team that actually rings them. And then again it might be in a couple more weeks and there’d be a reason saying, oh, doesn’t have the finances wants to do in Jan. Will there be a reason like, [01:37:00] oh, they’re in Barbados the next month, or are you using software or that like CRM software? Um, we use yeah. Yeah. Again, that’s not really my kind of side. Basically the practice manager and Mark deal with a lot of that stuff, and our marketing team do. When someone calls up at the moment we actually use for Fulham and Wandsworth, that goes straight through to Moneypenny, right? Because that gives us a much because they actually write down everything has that patient. Is it a new patient. Has it [01:37:30] come from there. So the legit you can look at those logistics a lot more. Whereas to expect your reception team to write down all that information it doesn’t really happen.

Speaker1: And then from Moneypenny it goes through to reception. So everything you can work out how many calls are missed throughout the day, because it might be that actually most calls are coming in from one till 130 when we didn’t have a receptionist where it might be that actually the receptionist was, we realised that she was going downstairs to speak to a dentist and then had missed a call. And it’s like if [01:38:00] you are at the beginning of opening a practice, doing paid campaigns and that kind of thing, if someone’s clicked on something and spent five, you’ve spent £5 to get them through and you’ve missed that call. You want to know that why that’s happening? Like we actually realised when we started using Moneypenny that a lot of the money that we were wasting on paid campaigns was because it was just current patients, like clicking on the sponsored post just to get. Yeah, just to get the phone number because they hadn’t saved us. And you’re like, well, if 50% [01:38:30] are like that, that’s just not do the paid campaign. But you can’t work those things out unless you’ve, you’ve got you’ve just looked. Yeah. You’ve got some way of working that out.

Speaker3: So what about on the sort of the softer side of the patient journey. Are they offered a drink when they walk in?

Speaker1: Yeah. They come in. You like got some water and a coffee and that kind of thing. And it’s trying to you know, sometimes if I’ve got like sweet old dot that broke a leg, I just send a flowers or these little touches, [01:39:00] these follow up phone calls to make sure that they’re okay the next day if they’ve had treatment for over an hour, I want them called the next day, or if they’ve had an extraction or these little things. That’s a message the team do that not nurse but yeah like reception team. Right. So and those little things make such a huge difference to people. And it’s like if patients want to speak on the phone about a plan, you know, I used to hate doing it. I still don’t love it because it’s still talking about your day. But if you ring a patient, you’re like, oh, Jeremy, you want to question that? Thank you so [01:39:30] much for calling. And those little things are real practice builders.

Speaker3: I think the patient call I used to have my nurse. Yeah. First of all, because it was, you know, it wasn’t it was years ago. Right. It was like 15 years ago. The nurse would circle 3 or 4 names in the day sheet, which we had at the time. Yeah. And, and then she’d show me like, these are the 3 or 4 and very soon it would be like obvious who the 3 or 4. So you wouldn’t have to show me.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: And then. But what I used to love about it was the pleasure [01:40:00] she used to get from making that call. Yeah. And she always used to say, oh, he was so happy that I’d called. Yeah.

Speaker1: And they are. And all the time it’s like 1% that actually do have a little bit of problem that just you just give them some advice on the phone. But every single one are generally like very. Very, very like thankful and look that it would be amazing to be able to have one of these dental practices that are like your kind of Michelin star restaurants that are looking up what their favourite colour is, or what they like on [01:40:30] the TV, or what their favourite scent is when they come in. And it’s nice to try to look, you know, at that stuff. But it’s I mean, realistically, when you’ve got so many hundreds of people coming through your thing every day, there’s a balance. You’re not going to be able to go too far because you end up spending so much money that do that, that you’re not going to be able to run a business. But if you can get those softer side of things like the practices now, if you have a bit of space or you know these things, I remember you.

Speaker3: Posting about putting a speaker in the bathroom. [01:41:00]

Speaker1: Yeah, I probably wouldn’t do the same now.

Speaker3: I think it’s cool.

Speaker1: It’s cool man. But you know, it’s cool. It’s cool if you if you’re if you’re that practice principal that is going to be working at the practice, that’s really nice because you get to see these things. Is that really going to change things from like a business sense? You know, maybe not. Also if you start to set up multiple practices and it’s an extra like, I know, 30 grand to put Sonos in the toilet ceilings, I don’t know if [01:41:30] that has as much value as being able to have like a better comfortable chair for the patient or, you know, it’s balance.

Speaker3: And what do you like as far as equipment? So you said Intraoral camera.

Speaker1: Scanning is absolutely essential for my workflow, and I cannot really see a new patient without having that scanner because in terms of patient communication, it’s essential for me to be able to show them everything so they know they need, they know why [01:42:00] they need that treatment. And also as records and every patient you still scan now like, oh my God, that’s amazing. It is amazing.

Speaker3: It’s still impressive. Yeah, yeah. Which one do you like. Three shape.

Speaker1: So historically I have been itero because I was doing a lot of Invisalign. Right. But we actually had so we’ve got like a, I don’t know, 4 or 5 of these things now, but we had a three shape arrived today because my implant ologist who does like some really like an outstanding work, just [01:42:30] loves three shapes. So and he was like, I just need he’s like a Spanish guy. I need three shapes. I’m like, okay, I’ll get you three shape. Um, because he’s like, not so much now that it’s just it’s going to keep him happy. Like when you have all of these specialists that work for you, they all have a slight diva side to them. But I appreciate why they do because they’ve spent like 30 years in full time education to become so good at what they do. They don’t want that crappy scanner or they don’t want some lab work not arriving. So if [01:43:00] I can provide that environment where they’re very happy, they are going to give me the days where they can work for me, rather than go to a practice up the road where they get a better deal. Yeah.

Speaker3: That’s losing. Losing stuff is the most expensive thing you can happen to anybody.

Speaker1: It’s just long, isn’t it? And then recruitment and then finding someone and then it’s just. Yeah, exactly. It’s it’s just long. Um, so do.

Speaker3: You do something special regarding, you know, when she said, oh, it’s so much fun to work here. Anything [01:43:30] special for your team or not.

Speaker1: Like it’s. No, it’s not like I’m one of these. Perhaps as soon as that starts to buy everyone like Louis Vuitton bracelets and turning up with cars for them, man. But it’s, um, it’s just trying to provide that environment that everyone at my clinics work very hard and they work very hard because they see everyone else working hard. And I think that everyone should be provided the environment where they, they see their boss or the [01:44:00] principal as almost giving back and putting everything into their to make that environment good, be it, be it the equipment, or be it flexibility with time or schedule, or taking their thoughts on board and changing something because you know they want something changed. And I think when everyone starts to feel that everyone like grows together. So it’s it’s it’s it’s providing the right environment where everyone has the same values. I think.

Speaker3: Was the other thing I was going to [01:44:30] ask you about the two things, patient journey and.

Speaker1: Patient journey and yeah, good point. That was the second thing, wasn’t it, because you said there was the first one and then we were gonna come back to that.

Speaker3: Impact. We hope the audience hasn’t noticed.

Speaker1: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Maybe we covered it and, uh, other, uh uh, other thing. Oh, life’s like eight til.

Speaker3: You get a day in the life. Day in the life. So yeah. Tell me, tell me about that. What time do you [01:45:00] go to bed.

Speaker1: So I go to bed quite early. I’m between like ten and half. Ten, 11 between 10 and 11. I generally write, generally write obviously Psalms later, Psalms earlier. Yeah. Um, and I do try to have like A78 hours sleep. I get up generally my clinical day work starts at 8 a.m., I get up at like seven and I’m like, shout! I’m very efficient in the morning. I’m like out the house within 15 minutes. And that’s like, shower changed. [01:45:30] Everything’s ready from the night before Wimbledon. I live in Tooting. Oh, Tooting. And I get on my, um, I cycled to work because again, I get to work, be it Fulham or Wimbledon, within 20 minutes. And it’s good for like, you know, if I’m cycling there and back every day, that’s another like 40 minutes of exercise. That kind of keeps me healthy. Right? So I’m first patient is at eight. I do eight till one hour lunch break generally try to crack on with some admin and I do two [01:46:00] till five. So clinic finish clinic at five, generally cycle back and then go to try to go to the gym like most days. Most days after work started. Um jiu jitsu six weeks ago. So I’m still real amateur, but I’m trying to like basically try every day. I’ll try to do like either like gym or jiu jitsu, like five as much as I can. Right? But you know, if you have life, you know, you’re going out for [01:46:30] a meal, a restaurant, whatever. Like you’re still quite sociable. That can kind of you got to do that instead. But on a general day.

Speaker3: So you leave the practice at five, get home, or do you go straight to a gym?

Speaker1: Usually I’m home by like half five, I get home, I will come get changed at home, go straight to the gym, right, go to the gym for like I don’t go for like ages, maybe like 45 minutes. And then I’m back, which is just around the corner because I’ve cycled throughout the day. And so it’s just enough to do what I think is right. [01:47:00] I’m I’m very lucky. My beautiful wife, like cook most days. She’s actually a great cook. She’s a dentist as well. So I have some nice food. We’ve got a puppy now. Puppies like had that for a couple of months, so I know now.

Speaker3: Screenslaver was your puppy.

Speaker1: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. Why not? She wouldn’t be offended at that.

Speaker3: She’s cool.

Speaker1: Yeah. Um.

Speaker3: But. Okay, so. So we’ve pretty much got it up to, like, seven, eight, have dinner and.

Speaker1: Yeah, like, have dinner sometimes watch like a little bit of TV. We do like to chill out for like an hour or two sometimes. [01:47:30] But then what’s happening is that I’m like answering emails or through again, but that’s like kind of throughout the whole day, even if at the gym, I’m like looking at, you know, like I was saying, I’m checking all the referrals that come in or sending messages and.

Speaker3: On on the equipment, like on the running machine or whatever. You. Yeah.

Speaker1: Or like you do some weights. Right. And then between check a quick email shoot off and you take like a lot of emails, I only take like 30s to look through and quickly reply. But throughout the day as well, I will. Every day there’ll be calls [01:48:00] with Aaron and Mark from the practices just to be like, oh, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Because these quick calls that take a few minutes, you’re like always solving problems. And throughout the day I’m always chipping away at something. And what we try to do is have cool scheduled on Wednesdays. If I’m not doing clinical with scheduled calls, like this morning we had a like a Fulham Road Dental call with me, my head, my chief marketing guy, my [01:48:30] practice manager, and Mark and we’ll we’ll crack on for a few things that we want to grow or change throughout the week. After that, we had an hour call with the lab for exactly the same thing. So, you know, I’m realising that you need if you want things to change, you need to schedule this kind of white space every week to just come up with your ideas. And you need to reassess that a couple of weeks later and be like, oh, has that been done yet? Why not? How do we do it?

Speaker3: And you generally good in sort [01:49:00] of meetings, setting people expectations, following up on whether they did it or didn’t do it or are you bad at that? Um, again.

Speaker1: I get kind of pushed by my principal, my partners around. I think my partners are better than I am at doing that at some things, and maybe I have fortes in others, but you just work together to make sure it like it happens. Basically, weekends wise, I don’t do any clinical, but I will do [01:49:30] admin usually Friday in the morning I actually go for like a PT session like once a week generally before work. So then I’ll work. That’s Friday night. I am quite sociable as well at the weekend, so Friday night might be out for like a meal or some drinks Saturday, like maybe out with friends, like lads or maybe the wife or something. And then Sunday again, chip away at a tiny bit of admin, but go for a roast or walk the dogs. See the family, something like [01:50:00] that.

Speaker3: If you had if you had half a day to yourself. No, no expectation of you from anyone, what would you do? What’s it like?

Speaker1: It’s very easy to become lazy, right? It’s very easy to just be at home and just, like, sit, sit on the sofa and watch a film or something. Yeah, I probably watch like quite a lot, loads of TV, but I quite enjoy that. Like watching a a short film or something. Yeah yeah yeah yeah, exactly. Or like I’m not amazing by myself working the pace.

Speaker3: You’re working. Yeah. I [01:50:30] expect you need something like that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah I don’t mind like say I would like after this, right. Yeah. I wouldn’t mind actually just on the way home because I’m like, oh, Camden, have a little wander around Camden, just go and sit in a pub and have like a pint or two or something. Yeah. Maybe actually like. If I didn’t have anything to go home by, like, maybe even, like, have some food or something. Um, if I didn’t have stuff at home to do.

Speaker3: What’s your guilty pleasure?

Speaker1: Probably shouldn’t say that on screen. [01:51:00] People admit it. No, like like like like like my partying days have gone down a lot because, like, you know, as you get older, you modify life, you get married and that kind of thing. Um, but then, I don’t know, should it be a guilty pleasure, like going out, having fun? Probably binge drink too much. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: Yeah. Let’s get it to our final questions. We always. We always finish the same [01:51:30] way.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker3: Fancy dinner party. Three guests, dead or alive. Who do you have?

Speaker1: So not like I’ve as I. Get older, I become more interested in like the sciences and physics. Right. And I do think it would be. And these are, these are answers that are so boring. Right. But like so like, oh my God, if everyone says that. But it probably would be someone like Einstein to. [01:52:00] See the way that their mind works and how like out the box thinking like. You get these scientists, they’re just so incredibly they think in a different way, and they’re so clever to come up with the ideas that they have done. Yeah. Whereas now you might look at an idea and be like, oh, I still don’t understand that, but it kind of makes sense. Whereas when the idea wasn’t even a thing, you’re like, well, how the hell was that? Yeah, an idea, right? In terms of like kind of people that I do think would be fascinated [01:52:30] to sit with as well. Again, I know that this is such a like, cliché answer, but I do think it’d be awesome to sit down with Elon Musk, because the way that he is pushing humanity, I think in terms of space travel and combining it with business growth as well, it would also be fascinating to speak to him because you listen to podcasts and you listen to ideas where it’s like money now for him is just not even a thing, where you’re almost sacrificing stuff [01:53:00] to try to build in efficiencies to your life where, you know, it sounds like it almost prefer to just live on a mattress in the office rather than a mansion down the road. So I think that those ideas would be, um, I mean, that’s always going to be a fascinating meal, right?

Speaker3: Who’s the.

Speaker1: Third? Um, obviously my wife or Salma Hayek for that.

Speaker3: This is interesting what you say about Einstein or Elon Musk. Yeah. Because, you know, like, [01:53:30] what’s that? What’s that kind of, um, where where the people are on a spectrum and they’re really good at one thing and. Yeah. What’s that called? Um. Uh.

Speaker1: Yeah. Like what? Some. Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: Like Rain Man thing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it’s, it’s interesting because, like, if there’s some kid who can look at a photograph of something and then paint it or paint it. Yeah. Yeah. Like, exactly. And his mind works in a different way to the rest.

Speaker1: Fly over a city and be able to paint the chimneys.

Speaker3: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. [01:54:00] What was the date on the 12th of January, 1937. That was a Tuesday, right?

Speaker1: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker3: So I reckon people like Einstein or Elon Musk for that matter. Yeah. Have got a bit of their brain which is over developed. And yeah, in that sense.

Speaker1: I think that there’s a lot of people out there on the spectrum. Right. And I think that some people might have had that classical diagnosis that their OCD or whatever. Yeah, autistic whatever. But that’s because of that diagnosis as well. And that must be very hard to [01:54:30] actually quantify. Yeah. Whereas there are probably a huge amount of people that are slightly in that grey area, but it’s just not not diagnosed.

Speaker3: Yeah. Not being given a name. Yeah.

Speaker1: Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker3: Um, let’s let’s get on to the final question. It’s kind of a deathbed question. Yeah. On your deathbed, you’re surrounded by your friends and family, your loved ones. Maybe by that time, your children or whatever it is. Or three pieces of advice [01:55:00] you’d leave them with.

Speaker1: I mean, um. Okay. So I think that. The whole topic that I was talking about earlier, about learning to say no to things that don’t help be a people pleaser might not be like for your growth. Like, it’s very easy to try to say, oh, I’ll do that to keep that person happy, or I’ll do that lecture because they’ve asked me. But actually like only speaking to like, your no. Minesh Patel. Right recently. [01:55:30] And he was he came with his theory. He was like, look, very quickly now if someone comes to you about something, I’m a very, very quick yes or no. And I would only say yes if it’s like a definite yes and I want to do it, otherwise it’s just getting a no. I was like, oh that’s, that’s uh, quite a nice. Approach. So I think learning to say no is a very important thing. I think that again, I’m criticising myself with this because I probably don’t make enough time for outside [01:56:00] of work. And as time goes on, I do want to do that. But I do think advice that people probably commonly say as well is like, stop focusing on the work and make time for outside. And I am trying to do that now, like next year.

Speaker1: I’m trying to find more days where, you know, I try to go on a ski holiday with the lads or try to go away for a weekend with the wife or go to Italy with parents or something. So I’m trying to actually schedule those things in so they actually happen. [01:56:30] But saying that, you know, it’s usually you do need a bit of money to be able to to do that and pay the mortgage at the same time. So you need to make the money for that. And third, I don’t know, maybe trying to stay healthy, I guess, because I think that in times where I have spent more time trying to go to the gym or trying to exercise, I feel a lot happier as well. And there was a time that when you get in like a new relationship [01:57:00] or something, when I was when I’m with my wife, after a couple of years, I just turned into like lazy, whereas it wasn’t working out, eating too much. And at the time I felt, you know, I look back and think, oh, you know what? I was actually a lot happier when I start to exercise again. So I guess trying to keep healthy mind and body.

Speaker3: Which says your darkest day. From a work perspective. I mean, obviously, yeah.

Speaker1: Good question. I [01:57:30] think. You know what I think it was? I think when I was starting with the idea about going into business with Mark to build a new squat practice. When he wanted to do like a few practices at the same time we were having this discussion. I remember I’d been out on like a night out or like or know what it was. We’d had like a load of cocktails at home because it was like during Covid or something like that. I remember the next day I was so hungover [01:58:00] and just everything just seemed like so like I was just I just felt like anxious. I was like, shit, is this what, like anxiety is? This is what people have to deal with, like every day because it’s like unbearable. Right? And it gave me an understanding of that. And I was just so anxious thinking like to do this because I was going to have to put my Wimbledon practice into the pot to be able to pay for the new practices. And I was like, if I go and buy three practices all at once, I’ve put [01:58:30] Wimbledon into the pot. If that go tits up. I haven’t just lost all the money and like the future that I’m working so hard to build. But I’ve also lost a reputation because I’ve put so many people out of a job and dentists have lost their receptionist lost it. So I was like, this is like for me at the time, it was either like a kind of all or nothing thing.

Speaker1: It worked out a little bit differently over time, but I remember that was a day or like a couple of days where I was like, just feeling like so, like paralysed by this. Yeah, yeah, just like [01:59:00] worrying about worrying. And that was, um, that was a thing. And we have these clinical things where, you know, someone’s had braces and a tooth gone non-vital, or you’ve done a deep filling, and the patient thinks that you’ve gone too deep and caused them a root canal, and you have these patients that come and moan and they complain that what happens is for a week or two, you really, really, really worry about that. And then it like goes away and the patient’s fine and that is [01:59:30] very consuming at the time. But I think that the worrying is like a funny thing, because I think that humans are almost driven to worry about something until something bigger comes along and you’re like, well, what the fuck was I worrying about there? Because that’s like so minor compared to what is going on in the world. I almost think that it would be good for people to wake up and watch, like a five minute program at the end of the day about what really is going on in the world. So they gain perspective about that. Maybe it’s not that bad of what your life is.

Speaker3: It’s that sort of [02:00:00] sort of threat level that you your brain is designed for a Neanderthals. Yeah. Threat situation. But we’re living it now just like everything else. Right. That’s that’s why I want to eat apple pie instead of eating lettuce. Because apple pie gives me more energy than lettuce. And the Neanderthal goes back to something.

Speaker1: Yeah, he never had his apple pie, though.

Speaker3: Um, it’s very interesting, though. It’s very interesting that that’s what you’re saying, that your darkest day was a day of [02:00:30] just worrying about worrying.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: Interesting.

Speaker1: And it’s, you know, I think that we are very, very lucky. Well, I’m very, very lucky to have the opportunities that I do have. And it’s trying to personally I try to change that mindset more now to like we’re coming here. For example, today my wife was at home with her sister getting her hair done right. So there’s time event and I on the way out there like, oh, good luck. And the hairdressers like this hair guy was like, [02:01:00] oh, good luck. And I was like, what do you mean good luck? I’m just coming to like, talk. Right. And I think of it more as, I’m very lucky to be given this opportunity to come and chat to you and see this place. And people might listen to this. And that’s such a I’m lucky to have that rather than worrying about that.

Speaker3: I think that gratitude is a big thing as well. Yeah. Like if you force yourself to be thankful for things, you realise what a what a great situation you’re in. Yeah. About you in this in this 13 year story of [02:01:30] growth and risk, did you have a situation where you had like a cash crisis and.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the it’s been all, all all the time. And it’s like because.

Speaker3: It’s so easy to look at you from the outside from, you know, for someone who doesn’t realise what it takes to start. Yeah, yeah. Start and grow a business.

Speaker1: No man I never, I never have like in my bank account, there is never there’s always a balance between like when it hits zero and there’s always like I need some money in there to pay for that next thing. [02:02:00] Yeah. And this is the growth of a business, right? We bought our business with a loan at the beginning, and the practice was only 285 grand that we got as our first one. 13 well, no, eight, nine years ago. And at the time that’s a lot of money, right. For you’re like, oh, I need to find 15 grand as a 10% deposit. And then you like grow and then all the money that you’re taking go in to add the two rooms or make a better, or change the toilet or get a microscope right. And then you start set the [02:02:30] squat and you’re like, fuck, we need to find like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds here because you can’t get a big loan on that because it’s a new squat, right. And the bank aren’t going to do that. So you find it was the Covid loan that I could get. I found some other money. I found some just beg. Borrowing and stealing, basically. But then when you open that clinic every single month, you’re losing money and having to find more money to pour into that. And then it gets the point where you’re like, oh, actually. And [02:03:00] then the tax bill comes and then tax bills Jan the tax bills July. And you’re like, that’s even more money. Where am I going to get this from. And then wait for the.

Speaker3: School fees to come in man.

Speaker1: Yeah. Yeah exactly. And what the hell. And then you get to the point where you just start to be like, okay, another practice, all right? Or or the lab or lab needs another five grand every month from every person and or whatever it is. Right. So there’s always and at the point where you start [02:03:30] to think that you’re like, oh, actually I can just like, chill for a bit and they’re like, oh, sting, you need another thing. But that is the growth of a business. If you want to have this business that has that extra scanner, that has the CT scanner, that thing, until you get to that point where it just gets easier because then if you’ve got if you’ve got five practices that are doing well and you open one practice, you know, as a percentage, yeah, it’s a percentage, it’s nothing. Whereas if you’ve only got one practice, you open another one. It’s such a huge [02:04:00] practice. So I do like I can see that end in sight from the kind of worrying perspective if things hopefully carry on touchwood on the same trajectory of of where they are. But if you want to grow, that’s what happens for years. For, for years.

Speaker3: Yeah, yeah, that’s a real, real talk. You know, because it’s easy to look at the the bling.

Speaker1: Yes, yes.

Speaker3: Yeah. And assume it’s just a walk in the park. Yeah. And it’s not man.

Speaker1: No [02:04:30] it’s not.

Speaker3: And I think worthwhile is a no.

Speaker1: It’s and it’s hard. Especially if you haven’t got that you haven’t been gifted that practice because your parents have a practice or do you know what I mean? Or you’ve got that family money or.

Speaker3: You know, those guys have their own nightmares, right? Because they get no benefit of that. No one thinks that anything they do is worth anything.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: I met a guy. His his dad owns 100 practices, and nothing this guy does will be attributed to him. Yeah. Nothing.

Speaker1: Yeah, [02:05:00] yeah. Oh, your dad had that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, whatever. I also do think that, like, when you’re growing a business at the beginning, even doing something like changing that toilet that didn’t flush properly or getting a new light fitting, you’re like, wow, that’s like amazing. And you get such like enjoyment out of those, those things like such enjoyment. Um, whereas as time goes on and you grow, it’s less, more about the light fitting rather than like, you know, the five [02:05:30] or Dental chairs or something like something like that. Right?

Speaker3: I’ve really enjoyed this, George.

Speaker1: Me too man, thank you. Thank you so much.

Speaker3: Thank you. Um, all the best luck to you. Thank you buddy, for the for your.

Speaker1: You’ll see it hopefully.

Speaker3: And George the dentist. Right. That’s if anyone wants to find you. It’s George the dentist at.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker3: Darren’s idea. You do TikTok. No.

Speaker1: No, I did it for, like, a short amount of time during Covid and made, like ten videos, but it took me like three days to make each one. [02:06:00] So like, no, no, no, I’ll just, uh, stick to there. Checking the referrals at the moment.

Speaker3: Amazing, man. Thank you so much for doing.

Speaker2: 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.

Speaker4: Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing. And just a huge thank [02:06:30] you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we’ve had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

Speaker3: If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so so, so much for listening. Thanks.

Speaker4: And don’t forget our six star rating.

Payman chats with Hasham Ali about his journey from the Middle East to Manchester, UK, where he now practices as a specialist orthodontist. 

Hesham discusses the value and challenges of professional networking, what it takes to turn GDPs into competent orthodontists, and why the term specialist orthodontist will always be a secondary identity. 

   

In This Episode

02:00 – Specialising

08.04 – The UK, NHS and private work

12.15 – Networking, communication and social media

24.57 – Teaching and events

28.28 – Roots and relationships

37.15 – Ortho training, planning and treatment

57.35 – Blackbox thinking

01.02.54 – Knowing Vs not knowing

01.06.05 – Orthodontics and health

01.11.06 – Dark days

01.21.21 – In retrospect

01.22.55 – Free time

01.25.24 – Being a twin

01.27.58 – Fantasy dinner party

01.35.49 – Last days and legacy

 

About Hesham Ali

Hesham Ali is a specialist orthodontist and consultant at the Royal Bolton Hospital in Greater Manchester. He also teaches orthodontics through his Orthodontia brand.

Speaker1: The lesson is that, you know, if something sounds number one, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And the second thing more importantly is, you know, it’s okay to not know the answers. It’s okay to not have the information. You know, that’s fine. Not knowing is never a problem. The problem is not seeking the knowledge. So seek the knowledge, seek help, and then and then go for it because you’ve done the right thing.

Speaker2: This [00:00:30] 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.

Speaker3: It gives me great pleasure to welcome Doctor Hesham Ali onto the podcast. Hesham is a specialist orthodontist who works in Manchester, a [00:01:00] consultant at the Royal Bolton Hospital in author obviously, and has a course teaching GP’s Orthodontia. Is that right? Did I say that right?

Speaker1: Yeah. Orthodontia which essentially just means orthodontics. Yeah. Um, but I couldn’t call. Of course. Orthodontics.

Speaker3: Yeah. Reminds me of dentistry magazine. Such a brilliant name, isn’t it? Well it.

Speaker1: Is. It does exactly what it says on the tin, doesn’t it? So maybe. I mean, there are other courses with really, [00:01:30] um, sort of obvious names and, you know, maybe, maybe I should have gone with that. But, um, I tend to be someone who overcomplicates things a lot of the times anyway. So anyway, Orthodontia was the next best thing to orthodontics or, you know, orthodontics course. Um, I suppose these days maybe it’s better to pick something which is dead obvious that someone might Google and is really a Google terms or an SEO friendly terms, I suppose. But no, Orthodontia is what we went for. And it’s it’s kind of reflects where I am, which is everything orthodontics.

Speaker3: So, [00:02:00] Hisham, listen, I’m interested in one particular question. Right. And we used to happen is I used to start with where were you born? And then I’d be chasing that question and not, you know, like so I’m just going to ask it straight away so that we can get it out of the way. And then we can then we can do whatever we want after that. Of course. Do you mind?

Speaker1: I don’t mind ask for that question. I was born in Pakistan.

Speaker3: That wasn’t the question that was. I’m gonna ask the question that I was going to ask. So the key question is, at what point did you say you [00:02:30] decided to be a specialist? Was it from from when, you know, before you got into university or at what point, at what point was it that made what was the thing that made you switch into, I’m going to be a specialist, not a not a generalist.

Speaker1: Um, I’m going to give you the honest answer, which is that there was never one single time point where I decided to be a specialist, and truthfully, I flip flopped more times than I can count. And when I was an undergraduate, I said, I want to be an orthodontist because I thought they were cool. And [00:03:00] I don’t know, I think I’d seen one as a child, and they had a nice practice and they had a good way of life, good quality of life as well. And when I was, when I was in practice in, in Manchester, which is where I spent my entire career, I, you know, I enjoyed the lifestyles and associate, which is, you know, you’re young. I was 20, 22 when I finished university. You enjoyed that lifestyle. And I thought, you know what? Who needs to be a specialist? This is great. I’m working hard and I’m playing hard as well. So what’s the point? But [00:03:30] I was this is back in 2010, 2011. I qualified in 2009. And I got to a point where I was doing these udas and I was getting really fed up and the lifestyle wasn’t enough for me to say, actually, this is the lifestyle which is going to justify me on this treadmill. And, um, I have to be honest, you know, I trained as, as a, as a dentist in Ireland in, uh, in University [00:04:00] College Cork in south of Ireland. Beautiful. And the standard training, I have to say I’m lucky to have received that standard of training. It’s very, very high. And so when I came here, I began to practice within the NHS, and I felt that really my skills weren’t really being utilised and I really felt myself being actively de-skilled at all those techniques, all those special things that I’d learnt as an undergraduate were just being lost, and I never did face those four crowns.

Speaker1: I really wasn’t using retraction cord that much. I wasn’t really doing anything, uh, like [00:04:30] what I was trained. And that was really depressing for me as a from a professional standpoint. So I had to think to myself, well, what is my way out of this? How can I deliver high quality care? How can I do what I want to do, which is just perform and and do whatever I can to the best of my ability? Because I wasn’t at that time. In 2010, 2011, the main route that I could see was specialist practice. And from the [00:05:00] various specialities, orthodontics was the one which sort of appealed to me for a variety of reasons, which maybe will speak about. So really ultimately it was it was that I didn’t really see how to move away from that UDA treadmill, other than to go down that specialist training pathway. And it was a very clear pathway. You know, you leave, uh, primary care, you do a hospital job or two, then you’re into specialist training as long as you are competitive. Enough in the interviews, and then [00:05:30] you are a specialist and you have a different way of working. So that’s kind of the story of how I ended up being a specialist, I suppose.

Speaker3: Yeah. But why? I mean, I had, you know, a lot of people come across that, that problem, I had that problem as well. But I didn’t think I’m going to become an orthodontist. I thought, I’m going to become a private dentist, you know, because I don’t know, I straight off the tee, I thought, I’m never going to do NHS ever again and went, did whatever it took to get a private [00:06:00] job. Why did you think, specialist? Why didn’t you think you could become a private dentist?

Speaker1: I didn’t see the roots that are now existent, you know. Remember, social media was wasn’t really a massive thing. We had Facebook, but you know, that was kind of it. It wasn’t as big as it is now. I didn’t see a clear pathway as to how I could get into one of these amazing, you know, in, in, in commerce, um, uh, practices. How can I actually get into that sort of a role where I can deliver that [00:06:30] high quality dentistry? I just didn’t know how I how I could do it. I didn’t have the connections. I wasn’t born and raised in Manchester in the UK. Um, I didn’t have friends. Really, uh, here that went back generations or contacts in that way. I just felt a little bit trapped within. You wanted guarantees.

Speaker3: You wanted guarantees, right? That’s what you want. No.

Speaker1: I don’t even think, uh Payman. That it was. It was a case of guarantees. It was a case of when you. When I looked online at what what jobs were available at that time, [00:07:00] there was no sort of advertising for private jobs. There was none of this sort of going on that I can remember in my area or in most of Greater Manchester, to say we’re a practice that focus on high quality private care. If you’re an ambitious associate or you’re an ambitious young dentist who wants to learn or who has a good skill set, come and work for us. Come and speak to us. And now if you go online, you will see practices who are advertising in exactly that way to say, if you’ve done such and such [00:07:30] course, come and speak to us. If you are a high level aligner provider, come and work for us. You know, people are looking for skilled practitioners to come and work in their premises. At that time, it just really wasn’t the case. Um, it, it might have been that actually maybe, perhaps in London or down south, things were evolving faster back then. But I guess maybe in my little bubble in Manchester I just didn’t see it. Um, and I’m sure there were some nice practices in Manchester at that time as they are now. Maybe [00:08:00] I was a little bit naive. I didn’t know how to make those right connections and how to, you.

Speaker3: Know, how many years before dental school did you get to UK?

Speaker1: So I, I didn’t I was.

Speaker3: Straight from Pakistan to Cork.

Speaker1: No, no. So I grew up in Pakistan when I was until the age of about four. Yeah. After that we lived in Ireland okay, for a few years. And when I was about eight, this is, I think 1995, we went to live in, in Saudi Arabia. So I was in Riyadh for three and a half years.

Speaker3: Okay. [00:08:30]

Speaker1: Then back to Ireland. And I stayed there from the age of 11 until I qualified as a dentist, which was 22. So that’s from 98 till 2009.

Speaker3: Okay, I get it.

Speaker1: Um, and 2009, I qualified and I came straight to Manchester for this year. I was in for that one year. It was interesting actually, because when you qualify from Ireland, you don’t have to do when you come here you exempt from I did it anyway because I thought it might be a good thing and I sort of stepping stone and in retrospect, probably the worst [00:09:00] thing I ever did was to do that year. Why? Because clinically, uh, as I said, you know, the standard practice which they give you in Ireland is very high. I didn’t really need that support or training, uh, in that sort of hand-holding way that we associated with vocational training in this country, there was a lot more independent as a practitioner at that point. Of course, you need someone to look over your cases and have someone to bounce off. I’m not saying I’m some sort of Dental superhero, far from it. But what happened in that year was that [00:09:30] that’s when my standards changed and I was just seeing the NHS stuff. Yeah, actually, if you take someone with a good skill set and put them into a high performing environment, that’s where they’re going to do well. That’s where they’ll excel. That’s where they where they will grow. Yeah, but if you take some of those high performing and put them into an underperforming environment, they will lose their skills because those skills are not being asked of them. They’re not being delivered or utilised. Yeah. And so actually in retrospect it was demotivating [00:10:00] for a year.

Speaker3: Sorry. It was demotivating for you.

Speaker1: Completely demotivating and de-skilling as I said. So actually going into uh, a supportive private practice, either staying in Ireland for a year or two or moving here to a supportive private practice, that would have been the best move, because it would maintain your skills and it would open your eyes as to what else is possible, what is out there, what is the next step in your development? What is the cutting edge in dentistry?

Speaker3: Yeah, I get them. I mean, look, going [00:10:30] back to what you said about jobs and you couldn’t see the the private jobs being advertised, what I understand nowadays is people ask for jobs that aren’t there. You know, they put out CVS and the practices they want to work at and go shadow those guys and until the job comes from those particular places. So interesting difference. So I used to do it the way that you’re saying, you know like look at the job section of the magazine. Yeah, but but now the best way to get a very good [00:11:00] job is to definitely come to things like packed bar, those, those things, I guess in your world it would be boss or whatever it is boss, isn’t it? Yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker3: That’s right. That’s where you meet the, you know, the movers and shakers, isn’t it?

Speaker1: You’re right. Payman, um, I mean, the industry, the job market is entirely changed, as you know, in dentistry, but I still think that at the top end of of performers, things haven’t changed massively and neither [00:11:30] have the change at the bottom. But you have a lot greater number of people trying to be more towards, uh, the upper end or at least trying to emulate what’s going on at the upper end, which is good. It’s good to see in dentistry. And you’re right, actually, now the way to get a good job is it’s kind of becoming a lot more commercial or I hesitantly say Americanised, where, you know, you need to sort of, uh, spend the time, um, and have a drink or [00:12:00] socialise or be in those events, you know, like, like you say in the various forums that exist, various societies which exist and that might, that might help you along the way. And again, that’s something I am horrible at, you know. Yeah, it.

Speaker3: Doesn’t come naturally.

Speaker1: And networking and socialising, in fact when I, when I met you Payman it was at one of the dental tubules events. Yeah. And it was now you were clearly someone, for example, who’s great, amazing. A master networking.

Speaker3: Networking. No, I’m not very good at networking. I don’t, I [00:12:30] don’t like it.

Speaker1: You could have fooled me because, you know, when I met you, you had a cup of coffee in your hand and you just said, hey, you know, how are you? I’m Payman. What’s your name? And we just got talking. That’s what you know. That is what networking is, right? It’s just being able to make that connection with someone that that link. And, uh, I think you’re very good at it. And equally, that’s probably something which I’m, I’m, I’m equally as bad at as you are. Good.

Speaker3: So listen, man, you know, you’re saying networking okay. Yes. Networking. Because what I said was networking, I guess. Yeah, but but the [00:13:00] other thing, you know, we have people on our course, on our composite course, and a lot of them are there to put it on their CV so that they can get that private job or whatever it is. Yeah. But I’ll tell you what. My advice to them is. Yeah, that, you know, people want bosses want three things from high performing associates. Yeah. Number one photos, photography. And by inference it’s like Instagram. Yeah. And and following and community for sure that for sure that [00:13:30] number two communications courses you know like they’re they’re more interested in the communication of the the associate than his skill because they feel like that they can they can learn the skill later on. Um did I say three? Well, one was Instagram, one was photography. Um, but you know what I mean? It’s weird. The weird thing is that none of that has anything to do with actual clinical, but that’s what’ll get you, you know, get you seen and noticed by the bosses. Interesting [00:14:00] time.

Speaker1: It is interesting time. And I mean, I wonder why do you think that is?

Speaker3: Because that stuff’s super important. Yeah. You know, it’s it’s the you know, we can we can moan about it. But it is super important, you know?

Speaker1: I agree, I mean, I think, you know, on the communication side, 100% agree and you’ll be a lot more successful as a person, whether it’s in life or in dentistry, if those communication skills are harnessed and [00:14:30] refined and all of that, I have no doubt. But on the on the photography Instagram side, you know, yes, having nice or photography skills and being able to produce a good set of images is important from a documentary point of view, from a patient communication point of view, just to display your skill set. But but equally, I think there’s a lot of fudgery that goes on with photo with photographs as well. And you know, I am a cynic, 100% self-proclaimed cynic. And [00:15:00] you know, when I do see photographs, I always wonder why, um, we don’t see complete sets of photographs, why we don’t see photos of the teeth in the proper occlusion, why we don’t see photos of twins in guidance and things like that. And, you know, I think while it’s great to be able to post this up on Instagram, and I understand that maybe the the point of posting is attracting customers or attracting attracting.

Speaker3: That’s the answer. The patient facing the [00:15:30] dentist facing. And there’s plenty of wonderful dentist facing stuff. Yeah. By the way I see I see your Instagram games quite strong, but I don’t know if it is. Yeah it is, it is. But what what being strong isn’t necessarily is being strong is turning up. Yeah. Yeah. And you’re turning up you know you’re doing consistent stuff. Consistent stuff brings in its own audience. You know, it’s like this podcast, dude, we didn’t sit and sort of masterclass it out and say, what would be the most compelling format to to attract [00:16:00] listeners. We just do it. We do it and we do it every week, and it finds its own audience that way. You know, turning up so important in social. No, I think you play a good social game, dude. Have you got like a guy with a camera, you know, comes in every Thursday? How how do you do it? Just let’s talk about that. What’s your execution on.

Speaker1: All my all my social stuff, number one. I mean, I think you’re paying me a compliment, but the compliment, which is not due. But, you know, my my social stuff, you know, if you have a look at my Instagram, I don’t. [00:16:30] I’ve posted a bit in the last couple of months, but not nearly consistently enough. I was much better earlier on this year, but I think that’s the way sometimes, you know, you get distracted by things, and I was distracted by renovating my house, having a second child and so many other things. And that’s not an excuse. I suppose you still got to turn up. You got to turn up, as you say. But no, um, you know, we obviously have different kinds of posts, and obviously I’ve got the patient images, then I’ve got a couple of, um, but what’s your process?

Speaker3: What’s your process? What’s your process?

Speaker1: I [00:17:00] don’t have a process, a process.

Speaker3: You got a process. You’re posting. So. So do you. Just do you just process?

Speaker1: I think of what post am I okay I have a patient images. So I find a case that I finished and I and I just edit the images as I need to crop them whatever. And then I post them the other videos which are of me with talking.

Speaker3: To people and stuff.

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, with me with this, uh, dentist called Doctor Arnold. Louis. Nice guy. He’s up in Lancashire and he’s he’s got his own little podcast going top guy. He he invited [00:17:30] me onto his podcast. And so they came to the practice, uh, and they recorded it. And actually some of my posts are from me speaking to Arnold. Are that there? That’s his footage which I’ve edited and put onto my own, which I thought was a great usage. You know, uh, and people like this kind of conversation is and it’s much easier for me to have a conversation with someone than with a camera. Yeah. Me too. I find that much easier. And then the last kind of post is basically my stuff from my courses and some stuff that my delegates have sent, something educational, [00:18:00] um, that I’ve recorded, and I’ll put that up. And so I try to maintain those three types of content over, over my page. And, uh, you’re right, it is about consistency. I think, you know, I will try to get into doing more videos, speaking to the camera type of videos. I don’t know if anybody really wants to hear my voice that much or wants to see my face even less, but my I have an ambition to start doing more orthodontic posts like information [00:18:30] posts to say this is a body retainer, not for patients, but for dentists to say these are the considerations you need to have a body retainer. How do you do a best bonded retainer? What are my tips and tricks? So I have an ambition to do that kind of stuff more regularly. But do you have any team working?

Speaker3: Do you have any team working on it at all other than yourself?

Speaker1: No whatsoever.

Speaker3: Well, that’s your area. You know, that’s your area. Um, you’re probably right. I’m not saying go higher right now. A social media ninja, if I am saying that actually if you’re if you are if [00:19:00] you’re if you’re man enough, if you’re man enough. Right. But let’s say you’re not man enough, right. You know, Upwork or people per hour put an ad out saying I need someone to edit videos. I need someone to make posts. I need someone to, you know, you can get someone doing that for you for almost nothing. Like it’s very little about money. People want to do that sort of work. You know your time, your orthodontist per hour time shouldn’t be wasted on this now. Yeah, not not as much 100%.

Speaker1: But at the same time, you know, to.

Speaker3: Learn it, you [00:19:30] need to learn it so that you’ve got the the right words and vocabulary. That’s what I take care of the post for this podcast specifically to feel the pain of a social media person. Yeah, but we’ve got four full time social, you know, people doing all the all the stuff. But you know, dude, my point when I say you’re good at it is, I don’t know many other consultant specialists posting regularly on Instagram very well. So added in that category, you’re like, number one.

Speaker1: You don’t have to leave a [00:20:00] strong point. It’s a really strong point. And I think, you know, historically there’s been a divide between the consultant group or the academics versus, you know, people in primary care. Yeah, there has been a big divide. But now actually and I think it happened over lockdown a little bit more, I think that divide is is becoming a lot narrower. And we’re beginning to converge. And we don’t have that chasm, that canyon between us as much anymore. And I do. There’s a couple of colleagues now, orthodontists, [00:20:30] very well known academics as well, who are posting very regularly now, in fact, far more regularly than I am. So I think they they have also recognised, you know, the power of this, both in terms of reaching the profession and also reaching patients. So I think it’s great. I think we need to have that variety across social media, and I follow those pages. I follow those academics to say, you know, this is really good work. This is a great post. I’m learning from them as well. So I like having that variation of maybe [00:21:00] some posts and some posters who just have cool cases or cool mechanics. Orthodontically. And then you’ve got sort of the Kevin O’Brien’s and Patrick Flemings of this world, the academics who are posting more orthodontic geeky, you know, scientific research and evidence. And I want to read that stuff as well. So actually having that variation is amazing. And I probably somewhere in the middle, uh, I want to show some nice cases. I want to reach the dentists. I still want to be evidence based. And I’m [00:21:30] trying to, like, capture all of that within my sphere of Instagram and Facebook or whatever. So, I mean, that happy zone somewhere. But you’re right. I’ve got to show up. Maybe I should get someone to do it for me. But I also think, you know, like, it’s not that hard. You know, editing photos and cropping them isn’t hard. And, you know, that takes me five minutes to do what takes me ages. And what I still haven’t really mastered is speaking to a camera.

Speaker3: Yeah, but you don’t have to do like, you know, I can’t speak to a camera, so I just don’t.

Speaker1: That’s a really [00:22:00] strong feeling. Yeah.

Speaker3: So look, the thing is, you know, do you know, I don’t know if you know Matty. Um, Parsons, he’s a he’s a he’s a general dentist, does a lot of composite bonding up in Liverpool. And he this guy, his Instagrams fantastically strong because he did a couple of competitions. He’s a he’s a great, great guy. You know could talk to camera if he wanted to. Maybe. Yeah probably. But all he has is before and after. Before. After before. After. [00:22:30] Before. After before after. That’s all he has on his Instagram. Um, yeah. 90,000 followers. Yeah. Like what I’m saying is you just whatever, whatever is comfortable is the thing you should do. And and you know, enough, you know, enough stuff, right? To, to have it without having to talk to the camera. Although it would be good if you could. I can’t. I much prefer this format.

Speaker1: This is a nice format and I mean, I enjoyed the conversational style of it. I think with Matty, um, I’m not familiar with this. I think I’ve heard the name for sure, but, you know, with someone who has [00:23:00] serial before and after photos and it’s just a chronic post-stroke before and after photo. That’s amazing. And obviously his work is, I’m assuming, is primarily clinical. And so the purpose of his social media is just to attract new clientele, I’m assuming. Yeah. Whereas mine is, uh, and maybe for the academics, it’s a little bit more nuanced or a bit more niche in that my posts also need to cover some of the educational stuff. And what that means is, I mean, I’m I’m so aware [00:23:30] that he, myself included, I prefer to listen or watch something than to have to read the information. You know, you might be in the car, you stick on a podcast. Yeah, um, or put on a book or something. So I guess the consumers of this information or of the content or my content probably wants some videos, and that’s where I’m a little bit stuck. You know, maybe I should, maybe I can just try some random posts and see if that works. But I really want to make the videos. I just feel like that’s that’s what I need to do. That’s what I, that’s [00:24:00] my engagement is with videos. You know, I’m so passionate about teaching. I love it more than orthodontics. I love teaching, really. And I think that when you have a passionate teacher, that’s when you learn best. And I really, really want that to come across in my social media and all my contacts and my emails. I want people to know that this is his actual passion is actually the teaching. Um, and I don’t think I get that from the static post. I think I get that from from voice, from video, from facial expression. Yeah.

Speaker3: Um, or, you know, from an online course that would be the ultimate, [00:24:30] right? You just buy buy the online course and sell it all over the world, by the way. Dude. Yeah.

Speaker1: So why not, though? You’re right, you’re right. Yeah. Because what I need to do now is hire a film crew and get them to do it for me.

Speaker3: Don’t worry. I’ll do it for you. And we’ll do, like, a revenue share model.

Speaker1: Why not? Why not? Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about it.

Speaker3: The wrong meeting? No. After the. No, [00:25:00] no. Um. No. Dude, that. Really. That is a good, good, good thing to do for someone who who adores teaching so much. But the thing about teaching what you adore about it, yeah, is the interesting point, I find, because, you know, like, let’s, let’s, for the sake of the argument, say you want to feed the hungry. Yeah. Or you could be the guy driving the the truck to the village and literally feeding the hungry, you know, because that the buzz of the person grabbing the food, you know, that might be the [00:25:30] thing that drives you. Yeah. But if, if actually you want to feed the most people, go be an orthodontist and pay 50 of those guys to. Yeah, hand out the food. Yeah. And with teaching it’s a similar story. Yeah. Because if you want the maximum number of dentists to learn from you, an online course would be the best way. You know, thousands could learn from you that way. But it’s the fun of teaching is actually watching the person when they suddenly realise light bulb moments in students. Yeah, and [00:26:00] that’s the actual fun of it. It’s not, you know, so the fun doesn’t align to the impact sort of thing.

Speaker1: Yeah, that’s really true. That is very true. It’s that, um, you know, when you see them becoming cognisant of something, you see the penny drop. Yeah. Uh, you’re right that that is the fun of it. And actually, you know, um, I think the thing with teaching is it’s a very social activity when you talk about adult education, you know, it’s not like we’re talking about teaching kids in a room, which is sort of didactic. Adult education and postgraduate education is all about the [00:26:30] interaction. Yeah. It’s a very social activity. Um, and there’s a lot of fun in that. And I think one of the nicer things about it is apart from, you know, watching the penny dropped in front of you. Yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s how it’s building those relationships. Yeah. Uh, and it’s kind of you make new friends out of it. And a lot of the people come to my course, I end up sort of mentoring them. I get to know them over a much longer period. So you’re right that, you know, the the value that I see from it or the fun of it doesn’t really align with, [00:27:00] you know, the financial impact or the delivery of teaching on a wider scale. Yeah.

Speaker3: In fact, you know, I for me, the fun of it is the brilliance of the event. Yeah. And the brilliance of the event in many ways is dictated by how much money you spend on making it a brilliant event. Yeah. And so that the better the event is, the less money you’re making. But but you know, it’s that balance where you just because if it’s not a brilliant event, why even be there that weekend. You know what I mean. Definitely yourself.

Speaker1: 100%. [00:27:30] I mean there is you’re right. Because, you know, I was thinking about the last event. I’m like, I want to do it. Last time I didn’t do a delegate meal like two, two courses ago. And this was like, look, I need to really do a delegate meal this time. It’s got to be nice. And, you know, by the end of the two days, we couldn’t physically eat anymore because the main thing that I’d done in, in true sort of Asian capacity was made sure everyone was well fed at all times and we were [00:28:00] rolling down the stairs at the end of the event. Did you get way too much food? Did you get the.

Speaker3: Wedding caterers in?

Speaker1: I might as well use the banquet. It really was from start to finish. It was just there was just no space at all. But you know, that made the event for me. You know, I want I want people to go back and have a smile on their face and say, remember that time that course we went on, we ate so much. Oh, yeah. And there was something about aligners as well.

Speaker3: But okay, dude, you [00:28:30] know, you say you want people to feel that about you. Yeah. Tell me this dude, how does a how does it align. Right. The, the growing up in three different countries changing school that many times having to make new friends. And were you on one of those US military bases in Saudi. Is your dad a doctor?

Speaker1: No, no. Um, uh, my dad was an anaesthetist, so he was a doctor out there. And, uh, we were in, in, in Riyadh at that time. He used to live in sort of hospital compounds. So and the hospital had housing [00:29:00] associations of compounds all over the city. And you were in one of those. Um, and there were other people that were employed by the hospital in the same compound and an.

Speaker3: International school full of expat types.

Speaker1: That’s right. So there was two main international schools. One was the American and one was the British school. And we went to the British School, which was amazing, by the way. You know, um, a good school. Oh, I mean, the school was fantastic. And the facilities were I mean, we’re talking we know we think about the Saudis these days. [00:29:30] These days we talk, we think about they’re buying Newcastle. You know, AJ and Tyson are going over to fight in Jeddah or Riyadh, you know, but even at that time, you know, life in Saudi was amazing, amazing. As kids growing up, we went to this amazing school with really high quality education. The. Teachers were fantastic. The school was so well decked out. At such good facilities. You know, I can’t even begin to tell you, you know. So it was a great time growing [00:30:00] up in the, in the Middle East at that time, you know, the in your in your house in compound, you had swimming pool, you had tennis court or basketball court, you had friends your age. It was totally safe. You know, they were talking about 15 or 20 houses in a within four walls, locked gates, completely safe. You knew absolutely everybody. Um, and as soon as you got home, there was a race to the swimming pool. And then in the evening, there was a race to the courts. Uh, and so as sort of an eight, [00:30:30] 11 year old, you know, you couldn’t ask for more than that or you wanted to do was get home and start swimming or playing football or doing something with your friends.

Speaker3: What kind of a kid were you? Top of your class?

Speaker1: Um, yeah, they were thereabouts most of the time. Um, yeah. Was it that was it that.

Speaker3: Kind of house where the parents just incentivised study more than everything else? Or was it?

Speaker1: I think they.

Speaker3: More rounded than the.

Speaker1: I think they de incentivised underperformance is probably the way to put [00:31:00] it. And you have to and you have to read between the lines on that one. So yeah so and that’s it’s interesting actually because that mean in, in any, in any walk of life, there’s two ways to get the job done right. Either you incentivise carrot stick or carrots or the other way around. Yeah. And we weren’t really kids who were incentivised for performing. Well, that was just, uh, an expectation. That [00:31:30] was an expectation to say, well, you know, these are the grades you need to get, and if you get them and it was even a thumbs up, it was like, uh, you hit the mark now. Yeah. Stay there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But God forbid the thumb starts pointing down. And it did, it did on occasion. So, you know, you have to be careful. Um, but yeah, our household was like that, you know, you had to sort of achieve the grades. And I suppose it’s that classic, uh, you know, South Asian or Asian type of pressure that we [00:32:00] all have spoken about and probably within our friends or elsewhere to say, oh, yeah, my parents expected me to get ten A’s or whatever it was. And we were we were no different. Uh, and from that point of view. Yeah.

Speaker3: Um, so then the thing I said about changing schools, meeting new people. Yeah. Yeah, you it probably means that you’re quite good at that, you know, like meeting new people. I’m obviously can go in one of two directions. Right. But but. You know. What are your [00:32:30] reflections on that? Like how it how it transfers to you today?

Speaker1: Um, I think as a, as a child, it’s very unsettling because you do have to build those relationships every couple of years. You know, there was times when I moved school, so every nine months or something for a couple of years. Um, so yeah. So that’s very difficult to do. So you don’t really build those long time bonds. Having said that, some of my some of the people that I’ve known the longest time in my life are from that three year stint in Saudi from [00:33:00] 20 years ago. Yeah. So you made some really good connections and you can build them over years. I suppose the nice part of it is that, you know, number one, having moved around so much, but also having moved around internationally, um, you get exposed to a lot of different types of people and different cultures, different race, ethnicity, different religions, particularly in Saudi. You know, in an expat school, you have the Muslims, you have the white British expats. Um, you have people from Africa, you have people from everywhere. [00:33:30] Yeah. And it’s really nice to have that because you don’t really get that everywhere. And now in this country, we’re very, you know, sort of cosmopolitan. We have different, different exposures and depending on where you are in the country. But it was great to have it at that time. And I think that makes you a much more rounded person for sure. I and, you know, you you do also then get a sense of what it’s like to have to build those relationships again and again. So there is that benefit when you grow up that maybe you can do that. But I do [00:34:00] feel like it’s a little bit of faking it and that you sort of almost have to you have to be confident and you have to feel or tell yourself that you feel okay with constantly meeting new people, constantly making new friends.

Speaker1: And as an adult, you sort of you’re still doing that a little bit. You’re still saying, look, it’s okay to go and meet a stranger at a conference and say, hey, what’s up? Hey, man. You know, um, uh, so it’s it’s it does give you that something to fall back on and say, I’ve done this as a child. I can [00:34:30] do this as an adult. Almost. Yeah, but I still feel internally like I’m still I’m still moving to a new school. Every time I go to a conference and I meet somebody new. Yeah. And, you know, I’m going to have to introduce myself and develop that relationship with them. And the funny thing is, you know, Payman like, you know, with conferences, uh, most people know a lot of people at various conferences. Um, orthodontists don’t know that many people at conferences because our speciality has historically been [00:35:00] quite isolated. And whether that’s self-imposed or not, I don’t know. But it is relatively isolated, and we don’t share that many conferences with the General Dental Forum. And so when I come to dental tubules or I go to somewhere else, there won’t be I might find 1 or 2 other orthodontists at the most, but everybody else is a prosthodontist, or an oral surgeon, or a general dentist or a marketing guy or something like that and don’t really know anybody. So when I do go to these conferences, I’m in that I’m in, I’m at another new school. [00:35:30] Ah. And, and I have to find some more new friends.

Speaker3: Though I know the feeling, but I know the feeling because I’m painfully shy, you know, I know what you said, what you said. But I’m. I’m painfully shy, I hate it. I’m really, really shy. There are people enlightened here that I haven’t introduced myself to. Employees of mine, you know, because. Because no one’s sort of introduced me to them. I’m really, really shy person as well, man. Um, you know, [00:36:00] it’s just one of those things, man.

Speaker1: Yeah, I guess, I mean, it’s got to be careful with your employees that it doesn’t get to a point where, you know, when you’ve met someone or you know them, and then you’ve had interaction with them. You’ve now known them for 3 or 4 years, but actually you still don’t know their name. You probably get to that point.

Speaker3: That’s happened to me as well. That’s happened to me as well, because we’re on different sites as well. Yeah. There’s um, you know, like I might see our warehouse maybe once every two years. I just don’t go there. It’s like it’s [00:36:30] not where I go. Um, yeah. So listen, man, how do.

Speaker1: You get around that? How do you get around that sort of feeling of, I.

Speaker3: Don’t like it.

Speaker1: Or shyness.

Speaker3: I don’t like it, dude. I’m really bad at it. I mean, now in a Dental environment, it’s it’s, you know, we’re I’m getting a bit senior, right? But I still don’t like it. I still don’t like it. And I find it really weird to hear people come to me and say, hey, I listen to your podcast. I’ve listened to 100 episodes. Yeah. And I like it’s a nice feeling, of course, [00:37:00] when someone says that, right. But I feel really, like really weak in that situation because I feel like they know me really well. I don’t know them. I’m pretty shy again. You know, it’s weird, man. It’s nice. A little bit of therapy for both of us. Uh, the new school therapy. Tell me this, but let’s get to a little bit of author. Let’s get to a little bit of author. I’m interested in this, you know, question of your average GDP is a funny, funny thing to say, right? A relatively junior GDP. Yeah. Coming. Your course for two [00:37:30] days. Is it a two day course?

Speaker1: It is? Yes.

Speaker3: Okay, so that guy or someone who’s done 100 Invisalign cases. Comes to you? Of course. Do you, do you start from the beginning and people get from it what they get from it? Or how do you manage that, the difference between those two? Or do you get a typical avatar type that comes and they’re all similar, similar bit of their of their career?

Speaker1: You know, I, uh, we get a full range. And one of the courses that I did, [00:38:00] I had a newbie I mean, I think sort of one year qualified. Yeah. Anna had a consultant orthodontist in the same room.

Speaker3: Well.

Speaker1: So you can imagine the spectrum that was there. Yeah. And the truth of the matter is that the majority of people who do aligners, I mean, the vast majority were above 90%, I would say haven’t spent the time to investigate and understand what it is [00:38:30] they’re actually doing. And that encompasses the materials, you know, the attachments, the biology of tooth movement, the mechanics of tooth movement. And not. And we haven’t even started talking about the aligners and how they move the teeth and how to stage treatment and IPR and also other things just yet. We were just talking about the basic scientists, a bit like when you go down to school and you have to learn the anatomy, you have to learn some physiology, you have to learn the histology, you have to understand what enamel prisms [00:39:00] are and what the hybrid layer is. If you’re going to do company, you have to set all these things. Yeah. And until you do well, you’re probably going to do pretty rubbish dentistry. Now. It’s not it’s not knowledge that you might need when you’re doing that filling. But if you don’t have that knowledge, you probably won’t know why you’re doing a good filling or why your fillings keep failing, for example. And in the same way, it’s the same with with with aligners. If you’ve done a hundred cases, hopefully you’re you’re you’re very good at managing your workflow. You might have done a bit of trial and error [00:39:30] and figured out what works and what doesn’t work.

Speaker1: But your approach to case management or clinical care is unlikely to be scientific, because you haven’t taken a scientific approach to your learning. You haven’t understood what the principles are and what the steps are in approaching your case in a systematic and scientific manner. So that was the problem. And I remember when I was at GDP, that was GDP for two years before I left and went to hospital, uh, into speciality training, I [00:40:00] did I did two aligner cases when I was a GDP back then. It was a company called Clear Step who went bankrupt. I’m sure everybody remembers. And um, and I spoke to Arnold about this, actually. And, you know, I did these two cases and they, they just they just were they were awful. They were awful. Horrible. And, you know, I remember the training. It was here, take a silicone impression and we’ll send you back a plan. Here’s a great consent form you can use. But that’s not treatment planning is it. [00:40:30] That’s taking an impression and signing a form. That’s what that is. And so the idea of the course came from this concept that actually I was GDP, I wasn’t appropriately trained to do something and actually something went wrong in those cases. So when I saw that happen, I thought at that time, this is not for me. I can’t do more alignment.

Speaker1: So I know what I’m doing. And that was one of the triggers that led me down the specialist pathway. Um, and then when I was in the last couple of years, when I decided to do [00:41:00] this course, I was, I tried to capture that feeling of what was it that I didn’t know? And I realised that what I didn’t know was everything in orthodontics, everything got to do with material science, everything got to do with biology and mechanics of tooth movement. So the course then basically was designed to answer all those questions and give people the building blocks they need to actually deliver proper treatment, not just focus on a brand of aligner treatment. So actually, you know, you can have a consultant in the same room [00:41:30] as a year one GDP or year two GDP. And a lot of the material is relevant to everybody. Um, because, you know, they haven’t covered it before. And yes, there will be some stuff which is irrelevant to the consultant or to somebody a bit more experienced. But unless you are that consultant, most people aren’t. They’ll just be more experienced GDP or even some specialists. Um, then that knowledge will will apply to you equally as much as it will to, uh, that junior colleague. But the one thing I’d say is kudos to the junior colleague for coming on on [00:42:00] year one and two rather than waiting for 100 cases.

Speaker3: Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. But the first time I did an Invisalign case, I could not believe I was doing an Invisalign case after the two days. They basically it was a one day course, one day course where they were basically showing you how to use the software. There was. There was nothing I couldn’t believe I was doing. Ortho. I mean, it was a long time ago. It was, I don’t know. Yeah. Before you qualified even. But now, [00:42:30] nowadays. Right. The the number of cases that are going through the importance of it, dude, like if you had to sort of put your finger on the very important critical difference between someone who understands materials, biology, tooth movement, what’s the critical point? I mean, you know, the way a line are talking about it is that, you know, that their supercomputer, AI is has analysed 5 million cases and [00:43:00] just knows where to put everything. So there it is.

Speaker1: You’re right there. But then why do we do refinements?

Speaker3: Yeah. True. True.

Speaker1: Why would you refinements if they’ve got, you know, 1,000,000,000 million cases and they’ve got the scans at the beginning, they’ve got the scans at the end. So surely, you know, uh, their supercomputer can work out what has gone wrong, what has gone. Well, yeah. What attachments were there and [00:43:30] what do we need to to modify here? Surely. Now, what’s really interesting is that I’m sure you’ve heard the line, you know, that you know, the the lie is halfway down the street before the truth is out of bed. Yeah, yeah. And it’s it’s true in every walk of life in dentistry is no different. And so with aligners, you know, if you, if you, if we say that we’re going to get a certain amount of tooth movement or they can do this or they can do that, it’s not really true. The evidence is now coming out to say, well, the predictability of treatment is actually [00:44:00] quite poor, and we can now begin to grade how effective or how predictable individual tooth movements are. So is overbite reduction going to be 100% of what we’re seeing on the treatment simulation? It’s not it’s going to be, you know, roughly half of what we’re seeing or so on and so forth.

Speaker1: What about rotations, what about angulation etc., etc.. So we know that that’s not true because the science is actually now there. The the thing that aligner companies had was they had the benefit of a lack of science so they could say [00:44:30] whatever they wanted. Um, but now the science is there, so you can’t just say whatever you want because the science is, is, is obviously existing. Anyone can go and research it. Um, and as clinicians, you know, we shouldn’t be, um, hesitant to apply the science. We shouldn’t say, well, aligner is saying this or clear corrector saying that, and spark is saying this, so it must be true. And the last thing I’d say is that, you know, AI doesn’t have an understanding of the biological limitations [00:45:00] or the biological parameters around treatment. It doesn’t have an understanding of patient compliance. It doesn’t have an understanding of the various failures that can happen during treatment, doesn’t have understanding of any of this. And all of these are massive factors when you consider what kind of treatment we want to deliver and how we want to plan to deliver that movement. So give me that example.

Speaker3: Give me that example here where knowing the just an example, one of many right, where knowing about the materials, about the bone with something, [00:45:30] what goes wrong, what’s the what do dentists commonly do wrong that they shouldn’t with aligners? And if they knew what they know with your bit, they wouldn’t do? Go on, give us an example.

Speaker1: Well, you have to come to my course to find out. No, I’m only joking. No, no, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what it is. The number one thing I see is overexpansion of the upper and lower arches, which we know is unsafe because you’re you’re violating the biological and periodontal parameters. That’s the number one thing. Yeah. And the second thing I see is really [00:46:00] poor finish or really poor occlusion. And the caveat is, well, the patient was okay with it. Um, and I feel that that is a get out of jail card that a lot of us are using. And it’s not really justified to say, well, the patient didn’t say anything. The patient didn’t complain because you’re actually the health care provider. You should be providing the optimal level of care and to say, well, the patient didn’t really care what the patient wasn’t too bothered. So I left it high in the occlusion or whatever. That’s not really a satisfactory outcome for me. I think [00:46:30] that’s a cop out. I think it’s really a poor standard of care to be delivered in that kind of service. And I think that that’s where you want to deliver. Then you shouldn’t you shouldn’t do the treatment. Let someone do the treatment. You can actually deliver it to a to the right standard. And who holds themselves to a higher authority than patient? Not complaining.

Speaker3: Agreed. I mean patient not complaining is is is you know down here and patient delighted. And sending you another patient is a long way away from there’s a big space between those two.

Speaker1: Payman isn’t it. I mean you can straighten [00:47:00] someone’s teeth, but if you leave them with a lip trap that they’re not complaining about, they may not even realise it. You know, they might just accept that, you know, or sometimes, you know, they dentists or people will say, well, I told them they’re going to have a lip trap. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean it’s okay in my book doesn’t mean it’s okay. So a negative outcome.

Speaker3: So dude, you know, it’s kind of similar to. To Indo, isn’t it? Right. So, you know, some general dentists can do Indo and want to do Indo. And then there is a point where they feel like referring. Yeah. But [00:47:30] with, with ortho you’ve got, you know, you’ve got the kind of dentist who doesn’t do any ortho and he’s going to have to refer, you know, earlier, but then you’ve got the kind of a whole spectrum of dentists who do ortho. What do you tell them. What do you tell them is the time that they should be referring to a specialist, or is it different for each person? I mean.

Speaker1: Yeah, it’s different for each person, their experience level. Some people have mentors that help them along. So I mentor a lot of dentists, for example. So maybe they’re tackling an increased complexity of case as their skill level increases. Yeah, I think the [00:48:00] difference, for example, is that with endodontics, you know, the outcome even with a specialist is not necessarily guaranteed. You know, even if you go and see one of those, you know, if we see Sanjiv down in Manchester and he’ll still tell you there’s I’m sure there’s a risk of failure here because it will eventually fail. The thing with orthodontic treatment, though, is that generally speaking, it’s a fairly traditionally a predictable treatment. You kind of know what to movements are going to occur, what kind [00:48:30] of tooth movements need to occur, what’s the final overjet going to be like? What’s the final overbite going to be like? If there’s any spaces left, you kind of know where they’re going to be and how big they’re going to be as well. And if you can’t, you know, really plan in that way. And if you’re saying, well, let’s give you some aligners and let’s see what it looks like, let’s see what it looks like, and then we’ll see if we need some more aligners. And and then we’ll see if maybe we need some composite afterwards. That’s not really a roadmap to success. Really. That’s a hidden hope. You [00:49:00] know, when you go to London from Manchester, you you have your satnav on and satnav tells you the route that you need to go on.

Speaker1: And yeah, you might encounter a problem in accident. You might take a little detour to get to the same end point, but you still have an overall route. And a lot of the times with aligners, the mentality seems to be, well, we’ll see how much we get done and then the rest of it we’ll see. You might need some veneers, you know, we might might need some full coverage crowns, you might need some composite. And for me that’s not really a satisfactory way of planning. I think that you can plan with a [00:49:30] much higher degree of predictability, because orthodontic tooth movement is generally quite predictable in terms of what moves are going to occur. So why can’t we do that? Why can’t all dentists plan in that way and say, actually, we know what the final occlusion is going to be like because we planned it. We didn’t just align the teeth and hope for the best. We planned it. We told the patient in advance exactly what it’s going to be like, or almost what it’s going to be like, and we plan the restorative face as well. And that to me is high quality [00:50:00] treatment. That to me is informed consent that really ticks all the boxes of communication and everything else. So I guess that’s my my inflection point. Yes. Well said.

Speaker3: That’s lovely man. Um, so when they come on this two day course. What do you teach them? How long does it take you to teach them the, you know, the basic science bit? I mean, it doesn’t seem long enough. Does it do that?

Speaker1: Oh.

Speaker3: Is there a continuum? Is there a continuum, by [00:50:30] the way? We do ours is our composite course is a two day course, but there should be a continuum. We haven’t got round to, you know. Yes. Is there more than two days.

Speaker1: My, my my course is two days. And what I, what I always say to anybody, whether they’re mentoring or whether they’re coming onto courses to say, look, I can’t, you know, Rome was built in a day and I can’t teach you orthodontics in two days. What I can do is give you the essential building blocks. You need the essential. And I’ve got this picture of a of a of [00:51:00] a of a road map, uh, much like our London to Manchester or vice versa analogy. I know there’s a car and it’s going from point A, and it’s got a marker and point B where it’s going and, and actually what I say is actually what I started saying now is that point B shouldn’t really be there. It should just be a road. And the point is, isn’t it? Is an infinity somewhere. Yeah. Because even for me, as the person providing the teaching, I’m still on that road. I’m just further along the road. Yeah, [00:51:30] yeah, yeah, yeah. So the continuum is there, I think, you know, so when you say how long does it take to teach you. How long does it take to teach the basics? I’d say the two days. The two days is what it takes to teach the basics. Because, yeah, each topic or each lecture or each part of the conversation that we have is about something different.

Speaker1: And all of those things are essential. They are absolutely essential to dilute, to do any of the Leaders. So I would say the two days is what you need to learn the basics. And actually, [00:52:00] um, more recently I’ve had a thought to do a second course which is going to be aiming to cater for those people who have grabbed the basics, who understand the right way to do the treatment, who understand the biological and orthodontic limits and parameters that you should be working to understand the importance of not, you know, insulting the periodontium and and then going through a more advanced type, of course, where actually we’re showing you more specifically how to use the 3D controls, how to do things in [00:52:30] greater detail to really refine your cases, minimise the number of treatment phases that you need, making them more comfortable with the software. Because truthfully, most of the planning they need for orthodontics is done in your mind. Most of its mind is mind work. The rest of it is just a bit of clicking on the computer. Once you’ve mastered the mind work, starting the second course will be great for people who want to really master the software as well.

Speaker3: So do you do things like massive over corrections, change the shape of the attachments, all of that sort of stuff?

Speaker1: Yeah, absolutely. [00:53:00] Absolutely. And that that part is key because we know in the same way with with braces, you know, braces, under-deliver fixed braces, they under-deliver on what we want them to do. So it’s up to the clinician to understand where their underperformance is going to be and to manage that appropriately. And aligners are no different. They underperform massively, far more than fixed braces. So again, it’s just a matter of understanding how, when and why the underperformance is going to occur and then [00:53:30] build in the mechanisms to try and account for that during your treatment. So, you know, modification of attachments and adjustment of the tooth positions. All of these things account for the underperformance within the appliance system itself. And it’s no difference whether you use Invisalign or clear, correct or spark. It doesn’t matter. Or sure, smile and forget or say all the big boys and no one feels left out. They all underperform in a similar way. And so if you understood the science behind why you’re doing what you’re doing, well, what [00:54:00] I say to everyone is every case becomes the same case because all you’re doing is applying your knowledge to that particular case. You’re you’re doing things in a systematic way to account for underperformance. And so my aim is to give you tell me this, tell me.

Speaker3: This, dude, if you’re saying you can be so sure about the outcome at the outset, that’s what you’re saying. Yeah.

Speaker1: Notice I’m saying, oh, you know, now, what I’m saying is that, you know, that there’s going to be underperformance. Yeah. Because the science [00:54:30] is now telling us where the underperformance actually is. There’s research out there to tell us where it is. So you can try and build in mechanisms to correct that. Yeah. Because there’s biological variation between you and I for example. Payman. Yeah. That overcorrection or that that mechanism to address underperformance may not be expressed in the same way between you and I. So I’m still going to introduce some refinements. I’m still going to have to do some of some corrections later on, but I should know where the outcome is going to be. I should know what my overjet overbite are going to be at the end of treatment.

Speaker3: So do you do? [00:55:00] Do you do that service where you do the treatment planning for the dentist?

Speaker1: No, I don’t believe in that whatsoever. Why not? I think that I think that’s, uh, that’s a that’s a quick ticket to litigation. Um, I’ll tell you why. It’s because, number one, you know, as a dentist who’s providing treatment, you need to be in control of your treatment. And if you’ve got someone else to do your plan for you, and you don’t understand why they’ve put in those attachments, or why you might need to use elastics at a particular point, then [00:55:30] when it comes to using those elastics and when it comes to monitoring the treatment progress, um, how will you do that if you don’t know why you did it in the first place and what to look for? And so I don’t think it’s a good service to as an educator, as a consultant, as someone who teaches Post-grads and everybody else. I don’t think it’s the right service to offer our profession to say, here’s a quick plan that I did. Hopefully it works for you. If it doesn’t really sorry, scan it again. I’ll charge you another [00:56:00] £200 to do another plan for you. I’ll only take 20 minutes to do the plan. Hopefully it’ll work if not refined in three. Comeback. I’ll charge you another £200 or whatever my fee is. And I don’t think it’s teaching the dentists or teaching the users of that service to be better clinicians. I don’t think it’s good necessarily achieve better outcomes, so I don’t really believe in that as an approach to education or approach to care. I think clinicians still retain legal responsibility for that. So if I did a plan for you and it doesn’t go doesn’t [00:56:30] go well, well, the patient’s going to come after you. I’m going to have my, you know, contracts in place to make sure that I’m fine. You’re the one that clicked the approve button. Yeah.

Speaker3: But still I’m still more confident with your plan than mine, so I’ll take that risk.

Speaker1: Well, you might, but, uh, I suppose that’s a philosophical divide, isn’t it? Yeah, I just, I feel that I get it. There’s a business and there’s a market for that. I totally understand that. I just, I think, [00:57:00] I think I disagree with it from an educational standpoint or from from a, from a clinical standpoint, from a patient care standpoint that you don’t know what you’re doing with your patient. And I don’t really want to be part of that. You know, my my whole ethos is on providing high quality care, high quality education that’s ethically driven, that does the right thing, you know, say no to drugs. That’s my thing. So I don’t want to be even perceived as someone that thinks that there’s a shortcut [00:57:30] to doing good treatment, because there isn’t. And I think everyone should be responsible for their own care.

Speaker3: That’s a good point, man. Let’s talk about darker times. We have a thing on this pod where we talk about errors. Clinical errors? Yes. In the hope that we can all learn from each others a little bit rather than hiding our errors like that black box thinking idea. Yeah. What comes to mind when I say clinical errors?

Speaker1: You know what? I only have two [00:58:00] that stick in my mind over my career. Really? I’m sure I’ve made plenty of errors, though, and. But there are only two which stick to mind. And I guess it’s because part of those are the two cases, or the two examples that led me to where I am, and they’re the two aligner cases. I mean, nothing crazy. I mean, um, you know, so please, I don’t want there to be a suspense around what I’m going to say, but clinical errors, you know, it was those two early aligner cases that I did. And, um, I’ll tell you about them, should [00:58:30] you wish. Yeah. Um, you know, it was one. I think the first case I did was this, uh, Middle-Aged, uh, lady. And, um, uh, she had some periodontal disease historically, and I, I was a happy go lucky associate, uh, you know, and I said, yeah, pull the trigger, get the aligners done. Uh, bonded her up with the attachments, and I think, I don’t know how many number of aligners in, you know, the upper lateral incisor was mobile. Oh, and I thought, oh, God. And, you know, I was, [00:59:00] you know, I’m not sure you allow swearing on this, but, uh, you know, I was yeah, I was shit scared. I thought, what have I done? I was a year 1 or 2 associate after, I mean, very junior. Not a clue why these tuples mobile. And, you know, thinking back, I’m thinking, was it a problem because teeth are actually mobile during orthodontic treatment. Anyway, that’s how foolish was I to number one to panic. I mean, teeth are meant to be mobile during orthodontic treatment, right? But I think this was a bit more mobile than I wanted it to be [00:59:30] because she had a bit of perio or whatever in the past. And even now, I think thinking back, I probably wasn’t a problem, but I panicked and I sort of froze. The treatment referred her on to a specialist orthodontist, referring to a special.

Speaker3: Expansion like you just said. Is that what it was?

Speaker1: No, it was it was expansion. I was rotating a lateral. It was rotating a lateral. Um, but it might have proclaimed a bit, you know, outside the bone. I don’t know, I don’t know because I didn’t have a cone beam. So what what massive thing happened?

Speaker3: Did you say what [01:00:00] happened with the patient?

Speaker1: I stopped the treatment. Yeah, but I stopped confidence and I. And sorry.

Speaker3: Patient confidence. Did they sort of twig that you’d made an error or what happened? Did you tell them I’ve made an error?

Speaker1: What happened? I think I’m so, like, blinded by my sheer panic that time. And I’m managing my own feelings. I don’t even remember how the patient handled it. I think we could have been good. Yeah, I think I think we said, look, I did, I did that thing which I tell dentist not to do, of course, which is tell the patient it’s okay. Yeah, we’ve got a good improvement [01:00:30] and we can manage the rest with a bit of restorative work, but go and see a periodontist first. Something along those lines. Um, and yeah, we aligned the rest of the other incisors. There was an improvement, but that’s not a good outcome. No. And anyway, I stopped doing the aligners for a little while. After a few months, I saw another case, and this one was a crowded case, and I sort of got my confidence back and I said, okay, there’s no perio here. This is a this is a go. Um, and uh, again, I took the took the impressions and got the aligners [01:01:00] made. And again, lateral incisor, which are the bane of aligners, but it just would not align. It would not align no matter what I did, no matter how many elastics I used and bootstrapped and informs that I went on it, I couldn’t get it to go.

Speaker1: And in the end, you know, the patient needed to have fixed. So it’s a failed at that point, isn’t it? Financially, it’s a fail. Clinically it’s a failed patient with losing confidence in you. It’s just not a win or whatsoever. Yeah. And you know, if you think about it, you know, [01:01:30] those failures uh, those cases, you know, led you to become an orthodontist. Yeah. Now I’m a consultant. At that time, I was a GDP. I didn’t know any better. And, you know, there’s failures in diagnosis. There’s failures in understanding how teeth move. There’s failures in understanding the physiology. You know, understand that the teeth are going to become mobile. There’s failures in monitoring the treatment. There’s failures at every single stage, the Payman. So I don’t think it gets any bigger than that. And you know [01:02:00] what both cases they didn’t end up, you know, with, with uh, any sort of, uh, claims or anything like that. Both patients had decent outcomes at the end of it. But from my point of view, you know, that’s that wasn’t where I wanted to be as a clinician, certainly not as a young, enthusiastic practitioner. That’s not what you want.

Speaker3: And the lesson we have to learn from this is know your shit before getting into stuff. Is that the lesson or.

Speaker1: Yeah, the lesson is that, you know, if if something sounds number one, if something sounds too good to be true, [01:02:30] it probably is. Yeah. And the second thing more importantly is, you know, it’s okay to not know the answers. It’s okay to not have the information, you know. That’s fine. Not knowing is never a problem. The problem is not seeking the knowledge. So seek the knowledge. Seek help. And then. And then go for it. Because you’ve done the right thing.

Speaker3: So interesting man. When I talk to whoever I’m talking to, it could be a lawyer. It could be whoever. I’m talking to a marketing guy. [01:03:00] And if I ask a question and they say, I don’t know, yeah, my respect for them goes straight up instead of instead of what we think is that, you know, if you say you don’t know, the patient’s going to feel, why doesn’t why don’t you know? Yeah. That’s you know, your instinct says, I can’t say I don’t know. But from the other side of it, I’ve personally when someone says, I don’t know, I just, I like that. Yeah. Um, it’s a bit like Andrew Darwood was saying, uh, when I spoke to him, he said, if you’re going through [01:03:30] all the things that could go wrong during treatment, and you’re saying it with some authority, and you’re saying this could happen, that you’re not putting the patient off, you’re actually giving the patient confidence because they think, you know, this guy’s been around the block, knows what he’s doing, knows what’s possible, what can go wrong. You know, it’s a bit like that.

Speaker1: Absolutely, absolutely. I think I think you’re right on that. And actually, I mean, the thing is. Right. If how would you feel if your dentist somehow was delivering health care to you? Dad, I don’t [01:04:00] know. Appetising is one thing, marketing is one thing. But what if they said, I don’t know if I asked.

Speaker3: Him a question and he said, I don’t know, I I’d be totally cool. Um, you’d be cool if you said, I don’t know, but I’ll find out. Right? That’s the the kind of thing you want from them. Um, I’d much rather that than think he just made it up on the spot, which I guess people, for sure. People are good. People are good at hiding that, right? They are good at hiding that. But like I say, I I’m, I like it, I like hearing I don’t know from professionals personally. [01:04:30]

Speaker1: Um, no, I do think it’s a good thing I yeah, I do, and you’re right. You know, when you do tell your patients, you know, what is the difference between it’s a difference.

Speaker3: Between knowing your stuff and saying, I don’t know. It’s very different to not knowing your stuff and saying, I don’t know.

Speaker1: Isn’t it? I love that, I love that. That’s very well put because you.

Speaker3: Know your stuff, dude. You’re so when you’re saying, I don’t know, you’re telling the guy, you know.

Speaker1: As someone who knows a lot.

Speaker3: I don’t know. It’s a totally different [01:05:00] story, you know?

Speaker1: Yeah. I suppose it’s like that concept of, you know, for example, when I send my patients, I tell them, look, one of the risks is tooth loss. Yeah. Right. I say it, I say that’s the worst thing that can happen is tooth loss. And it’s never happened in any of my cases. But it’s a theoretical risk. I always say, you know what the risk is root resorption. And they say, what are the chances? I say in your specific case, I don’t know. But here’s what the evidence says about it generally. What is it? It’s it’s 100% of cases [01:05:30] will get root resorption really 100%. Um, and very, very, very small minority will get severe resorption. In other words, 50% of root loss or more.

Speaker3: How many?

Speaker1: I don’t know. Well done, well done.

Speaker3: Well, I love that dude. I love having just with what I just said. Well done man.

Speaker1: I think it’s I think it’s less I don’t I don’t want to quote it, but I think it’s less than 2%. It’s less than 2%. But I don’t want to I don’t want to because people are listening to this. I don’t want to say, [01:06:00] like Sean said it and he’s a consultant. So so I’m going to say, I don’t know, but it’s around by less than 2%.

Speaker3: Sure, man. Sure. You know, I always find it interesting your author has this wonderful position in our profession. Yeah. Oh, refer the kid for ortho. Ortho this, ortho that. And in a way, like, as if it’s not cosmetics. Yeah, you know, it’s not Payman. Ortho is cosmetics, buddy. Yeah, ortho is cosmetics. Yeah. If the cosmetic benefits of ortho weren’t there, we would send their kid to have a 2% risk [01:06:30] of root resorption.

Speaker1: You’re right. I mean, look, look, what I’m saying is.

Speaker3: I’m very happy with ortho being cosmetic studio, but but there’s a there’s a bunch of people in our profession who refer to authors with some sort of wonderful thing. And then you say, hey, how did you ask about teeth whitening? They’re like, oh, it’s like a massive shark or something to that. We’re talking about cosmetics outside, for sure.

Speaker1: I think I know, I agree with you. Look, a lot of adult orthodontics in primary care is cosmetically [01:07:00] driven. The huge, huge child and.

Speaker3: Child and child. Let’s not be.

Speaker1: Silly and child look for the children. You know there is there are there is some psychosocial benefits. It’s not to say that that’s the primary factor, but you know, kids who have their teeth straightened are a lot more confident, seem to be generally a lot happier and probably have less teasing as well. So there is some clear societal or psychosocial benefits there. That’s the first thing. And then if we talk about orthodontics as a speciality, [01:07:30] I think what most of the profession are exposed to is, uh, you know, referring the kids at the age of 10 or 11, you know, for an orthodontic assessment, they come back with braces, maybe some teeth out straight teeth, or the adults have a bit of ceramic or aligners or whatever, or incognito and, you know, they have their teeth done. It’s it’s cosmetic. But don’t forget that a lot of the cases that consultants are treating are in secondary care or even in private practice, we see a huge amount of multidisciplinary cases. Huge. [01:08:00] Let’s not forget cleft care. Let’s not forget the craniofacial centres. Let’s not forget hypodontia patients.

Speaker1: Let’s not forget multidisciplinary patients. Otherwise, you know, all of that is orthodontics. And you know, privately I see so many referrals for just even routine secondary care NHS patients who don’t want to wait in the waiting list. Now they’ve got hypodontia or they need orthognathic surgery. Um, these are patients with proper functional deficit or facial deformity. And particularly as consultants, we treat a huge number of [01:08:30] those patients. So yeah, I think from the broad spectrum that the most of the profession sees, there is a significant component of cosmetic orthodontics. And that is that is what’s led to aligner explosion. But as a speciality, you know, we have a huge portion of our time dedicated to complex malocclusion, multidisciplinary treatment or just complex dental alveolar stuff. I mean, the amount of central incisors that I have to align every year or every couple of years is massive, you know, and, [01:09:00] uh, and I suppose that, you know, no one should say, well, that central incisor for that kid, it shouldn’t be done or is purely cosmetic. I mean, the kid hasn’t got a front tooth. Yeah, okay.

Speaker3: But I get it.

Speaker1: And yeah, that is cosmetic. Right. But but that is cosmetic. But but it’s, it’s but it’s, it’s outside the norm of what society expects for that kid.

Speaker3: I get it. Look, I’m just bitter, that’s all. I’m just bitter about my my bleaching.

Speaker1: My bleaching thing. I’m an orthodontist. I mean.

Speaker3: You know, they should have just said, you know, [01:09:30] as part of an examination, take shade, and then everyone would be doing that and that’d be the end of it. But and Pei Pei wouldn’t have to sit here and bitch on the podcast.

Speaker1: I don’t think I don’t think anyone is, you know, you know, I’m voting for people who can’t see me, but I’m currently twitching the world’s smallest violin between my index finger and my thumb. So can you imagine? But you know what? You should be happy. You should be happy. Because the explosion in aligner treatment has led to even more patients having their teeth whitened. What, the free [01:10:00] whitening.

Speaker3: Yeah, the free whitening. Yeah, but they’re.

Speaker1: Paying you for it. No they don’t, they don’t.

Speaker3: They go for the cheapest, crappiest one they can find. Yeah that’s true. There is a, there is a thing called the upgrade conversation which is hey start with free whitening. And then at the end say, hey, do you want to upgrade to, you know, vivera and light and that combination. Yeah. Um.

Speaker1: Very enlightened. Yeah. Why not? Because when you start doing is start giving those little, you know, those little tiny toothpaste tubes you get on aeroplanes, like the time they cost.

Speaker3: Money to make those, you know, people think they just they.

Speaker1: They can just do a couple of teeth, [01:10:30] you know, and.

Speaker3: The number of times people have asked for those. Yeah. And you know that that just costs extra money on top of all the other money. You have to make those on top now. Yeah. It’s tell me about I quite enjoyed your dark period there. So tell me something else. You know, career wise I mean okay that was patient error. Yeah. When was the darkest day in your career? Because a lot of ups and downs, dude. Yeah, I’m looking at your CV here on my other screen Masters [01:11:00] in dental public health.

Speaker1: Those were dark days. And you’ve done.

Speaker3: Three different ortho like an MSC, an ortho an morth and then a fellowship as well. Yes. Um, there must have been some dark days in this, in this little career.

Speaker1: Yeah. Look, I think academically, yeah, I think the Masters at Dental Public Health was I did that while I was an associate, and I did that. Yeah. In my second year of associateship [01:11:30] and. My first year as show and Max Fox. I did that Masters and it was good because it gave me a really good academic grounding in research methods and biostatistics and all this kind of stuff. And it also bolstered my CV because I needed to do that to get into orthodontics, which is obviously competitive recruitment process. It’s highly competitive writing. Mhm. Um, so I had to do that. I mean, the other stuff is kind of more routine, you know, now that actually taking it out. But historically you had to do a master’s [01:12:00] as part of your uh, your speciality training in orthodontics. And you also then had to do the membership exam from the Royal College as an exit exam, essentially. And then the FDS is the fellowship. That’s sort of your consultant examination.

Speaker3: What about your advice to someone who wants to get into ortho?

Speaker1: I mean, um, I think how hard is it?

Speaker3: How hard is it? Like.

Speaker1: You start working as hard as you can as early as possible and make sure it is something that you really want. You really want. Because I have [01:12:30] to admit to you that, you know, I do have colleagues, you know, consultants, colleagues. And sometimes, you know, we’ll chat and we’ll say, guys, was it worth it? Because it’s a long time Payman it’s a long time. And the opportunity cost of specialist training in orthodontics is massive. Yeah, it’s huge, particularly if you’re a hard working, enthusiastic, highly skilled associate. Yeah. Who has really good work ethic. The opportunity [01:13:00] cost is massive. The life afterwards is really good, I have to tell you. And in terms of dark days, you know, just going back to your first question, you know, the dark days in my career don’t really relate to. I mean, I talked about the two clinical cases, but the rest of it doesn’t really relate to cases or clinical care. It relates more to, uh, how should we say? I think. Relationship management. Um. [01:13:30] Go on. And and, you know, when you’re when you are someone junior in your career, when you’re, uh, when you’re answerable to trainers and, and supervisors and stuff like that, I think, you know, and particularly as an adult, you know, uh, when we go to university, we’re still kind of kids, aren’t we? We’ve just left school. We don’t mind someone telling us what to do and where to be. We almost need it because we’re still kids. Yeah. As an adult, you know, it’s sort of someone in [01:14:00] their late 20s, early 30s, and it can be difficult to to absorb instruction in the same way.

Speaker3: Are you are you are you telling me you have a problem with authority?

Speaker1: I’m not saying that. But look, I know I don’t think it’s a problem with authority, but I know what I’m saying. I have difficulty absorbing instruction is what I expect. No, no, look, look, I think I think, um, uh, [01:14:30] spit it out.

Speaker3: We’ll cut it out. We’ll cut it out. What happened? What happened? Just say it. No, no, I think I’ll cut it out.

Speaker1: Just say it and we’ll cut everywhere. I’ve lived around the world. Right? A little bit. Not around the world, but I lived in different places. British society has a very sort of unique structure. And they we still have a very hierarchical society that’s reflected within the academic institutions. Yeah. And there isn’t much place for individualism.

Speaker3: Well, you say that, dude. Yeah. But I mean, I don’t know if [01:15:00] you’ve ever been come across like the French. Right. The very, very, very conservative man. I mean, you know, at least in London, you see the odd people with, you know, a punk or a skinhead or something. The French are just homogenous from what I’ve seen.

Speaker1: You know, that’s interesting. You know, I think, yeah. You’re right. Maybe, maybe I maybe I’m sort of generalising, but I society I hear what.

Speaker3: You say, I hear what you say. And the problem that I see with it is almost like there’s no middle. Um, yeah, there’s the best restaurants in the world are in London. Yeah, but if you randomly [01:15:30] walk into a restaurant, you probably have a terrible experience, you know, like this. Or the best universities we have or the best, uh, you know, we do have the best of a lot of things. Best healthcare. Yeah, but then a big middle bit, which isn’t very, very, very good. And it’s just reflected in every part of society. So, you know, I don’t know whether you’re thinking about the, you know, the class system and all of that stuff. I find it’s so interesting after 40 [01:16:00] years, 50 years, however long I’ve been living here. Yeah. That like only recently understanding properly, understanding that people are more interested in the school you went to than the university you went to. And it’s like it’s it’s a that’s the biggest divide here, you know, of course you have the people who go to university and the people who never, never go and haven’t been yet, but go on the dark day. What happened? What happened? You did you.

Speaker1: Get a job.

Speaker3: You didn’t get a promotion. You didn’t get a [01:16:30] recommendation.

Speaker1: I don’t think any of that. I think I think sometimes in in institutions and you know, and the NHS is not immune to this because it is a huge institution. Yeah. You know, you get institutional bias. Yeah. And that can be if you’re not tough skinned that can be very, very difficult to to swallow. And bias occurs in many different ways as you know. Yeah. Uh, whether that’s gender, whether that’s race, whether that’s just the way you do [01:17:00] things that, you know, you’re not following a set guideline or a set pathway or a set style of behaviour or a set style of communication or whatever it is. Okay. But what happened? There’s a there’s a, there’s a bias there which, you know, which is, which is difficult to to get around. I think, you know, I just I think that in some ways I struggle to fit in in, in certain scenarios and certain situations. And when you don’t fit in, then, um, you know, you start [01:17:30] questioning whether this is the right job for you, whether this is the right place for you, whether this is the right training for you. And I think in some circumstances, you know, without getting too deep into it or giving away too much because I think, uh, a lot of people are still working. I think that there are there are I think there are times when you have to just stand up for yourself. And those are the darkest days, because actually you’re challenging behaviours that are unacceptable or you’re challenging people or personalities [01:18:00] that are or biases that are unacceptable. And those were the darkest days where as someone who is maybe come from Ireland or come from elsewhere, and if you’re being treated differently to other people within the same environment, within the same context, and you know what that different treatment means, it doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t mean you weren’t given an audit project or you weren’t given the same type of patience. You weren’t given the same type of training, or you weren’t given access to, uh, to education or access to consultants or whatever it is that could come.

Speaker3: Down to anything.

Speaker1: Tonality [01:18:30] if you come out and reality is, uh Payman that it comes down to everything, not anything. It comes out to everything, doesn’t it? Because bias affects everything. And so I think those were the dark days. And that really is, is a test of character actually. Because what’s your reflection on that.

Speaker3: What’s your reflection on that. Is your reflection on that. That’s the way it was. And I just, you know, I lived it. And as a Pakistani guy in Saudi, for instance, I’m sure there was some some bias there too, right. Yeah. Or, or is it that you got bitter about it because, you know, it’s interesting talking to [01:19:00] you now I see you’ve got like very clear sort of right and wrong thing that you’re putting out or you’re feeling I guess. Yeah. And you know, almost like very sort of binary sort of black and white about things in your, in your and I don’t think you are that but in your, the way your delivery is, you know, your delivery is that, you know, because talking to you, you’re very nuanced. And does that maybe rub people up the wrong way or something? I don’t know.

Speaker1: No, I think you’re right. I think there’s, there’s I probably am speaking in that black and white way. I think, um, I’m [01:19:30] also being, uh, intentionally careful.

Speaker3: Incredibly sensitive boy as well. Uh, sorry. Incredibly sensitive as well. I feel like you’re quite sensitive.

Speaker1: I think I am, um, uh, and I think I’m being very intentionally careful with my choice of words as well. Sure. Um, I think my reflection on it is this. It’s that sometimes you’re in a situation in which you don’t see a way out, and you have to just you have to accept where you are, whether whatever bias you’re facing, whatever [01:20:00] negative personality you’re dealing with, you don’t see a way out of it. Yeah. Uh, but ultimately, I think the nice part of where we live in the UK, the nice part of the society we’re in, is that you? You there are ways out of it, you know, and actually dealing with those biases makes you who you are. Um, uh, and figuring out how to manage those personalities around you, uh, is what builds your character. And in a way, I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful for it. Because [01:20:30] where I am now is, you know, I have my own trainees, you know, whether the dcts or whatever. And I’m so hypersensitive about how I speak to them, how I come across to them, how I deal with them, making sure I’m fair with everybody, whether they’re male or female or how I speak to my colleagues within the department or whatever. You know, I’m very I’m much more sensitive about that now than I was earlier on. So it’s been an education for me to say, actually, this is I’ve been faced with things and it’s been an example [01:21:00] to me on how not to behave. Absolutely. So my, my, I think when you’re in that situation, sometimes it’s hard to see the wood from the trees, but on the other end of it, you know, it makes you a better person and makes you a more sensitive person and probably means that you’re you’re better as a dentist, you’re better as a father, you’re better as a as a as a member of society. I’m sorry. I’m not being more specific.

Speaker3: No, no, I get it, I get it. Um, what would you have done differently if I could rewind you 20 years, 15 years, career wise? What would you have done [01:21:30] differently? Or earlier or later or not at all? Or.

Speaker1: I’m not sure. Knowing what I know now, retrospect, is such a beautiful thing, isn’t it? Yeah. I think, um, I would have I don’t know if I would have. I may have, uh, um, maybe gone into that private practice. I may have learned how to do the networking that I didn’t know earlier on, and that would have changed my career path and my life path. So that’s the one thing. The second thing is, I would probably say, [01:22:00] and this is probably in part answering one of the later questions you might come to, but I’d probably ask for help. Sooner and faster. And part of that is being more self-aware and self-critical about what you’re good at, what you’re not good at, and where you need to develop. So I wasn’t really self-aware early on my career, and that was both in terms of my behaviour, in terms of my own development. So I want to be more self-aware and ask for help on those things [01:22:30] a lot sooner. That’s those are the two things I would say, um, I would have done differently. Everything else, you know, I think I made my mistakes, but, uh, I stand by them as well. I do stand by them. Uh, I don’t think there’s a major things. I think those two things are really important, you know, build those relationships early and look inside and figure out what you need to develop yourself. So look.

Speaker3: You’ve got a five month old and a six and a half [01:23:00] year. Is that right? Six and a half year old.

Speaker1: Yeah. Well, the, uh, just over six. Yeah.

Speaker3: So do you get any time to do anything other than teeth and kids?

Speaker1: While we’re doing this podcast on a Monday.

Speaker3: This is teeth. This is teeth. Yeah. So like, you know, like what if you had if let’s say I know this will sound really strange, but if you had half a day to yourself. Oh, man.

Speaker1: That’s impossible.

Speaker3: Let’s say you had half a day to yourself. I don’t know, wife and kids were in another city and [01:23:30] you could do whatever. You weren’t working. Do whatever you want. What would you do?

Speaker1: I’d probably tidy the garage. It’s a mess. But you know. You know what?

Speaker3: Let’s say? Let’s say the garage was clean as well. Like. No, no.

Speaker1: Joking. Of course. Um, you know what? I probably go see some friends because, uh, all of my friends are pretty much all of them are married. They’ve all got kids. And we as a group don’t spend enough time together. Um, I know some of our wives are friends and stuff, and they actually have social and we don’t, [01:24:00] you know, and part of that is actually just spending some time with your with your friends. It’s not it’s not actually therapy, but it kind of turns into it by, you know, by by design or just by default. And, um, it’s fun to do that. So number one thing I do is I, you know, I see my friends and in February my wife is going to be away while I’m here. And, you know, I’m already thinking about, okay, how many times can I see the boys? So I need to put the feelers out there. But, you know, if, if, if [01:24:30] time allowed, you know, in the garage actually is is, uh, is is a motorcycle.

Speaker4: Oh, okay.

Speaker1: And, uh, it’s just gathering dust. It’s gathering dust and my brother and I have a twin brother sports bike, so it’s a Ducati monster. So it’s like, uh, it’s like it’s kind of like a more comfortable type of bike, but quick enough. Um, and, um, I have a twin brother, Zohaib. He’s a he’s a specialist. Prosthodontist.

Speaker4: Oh.

Speaker1: And, um, [01:25:00] so he got me into the motorcycles because he was on them first. So what I’d love to do is, you know, half a day or ideally a week, and I’d love to just I would love to just ride over to Scotland and just go and see Scotland for a few days or go and do Europe, because that’s something that I wanted to do for so long, is on a bike to a bit of touring, and I never get the time to do it, so that would be my sort of my wish list.

Speaker3: Amazing. Um, is your brother does your brother work with Costas?

Speaker4: He does. Oh. [01:25:30]

Speaker3: It’s amazing. Amazing. That’s your brother?

Speaker1: That’s my twin brother.

Speaker3: Yes. Amazing man. Well, we had Costas on just two episodes ago. Or 1 or 2 episodes ago. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker1: Costas is such a nice guy. Zoheb is all right. Yeah, yeah. No no, no. I’m kidding. Yeah, they do. Obviously they do their injection moulding course together.

Speaker4: Yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker3: Oh wow. I didn’t realise I said well you look exactly the same.

Speaker1: Yeah I mean when I go to conferences I’m, I’m constantly [01:26:00] being stopped and people sort of saying hey how’s it going? I sort of have to say, do I know you? And then after, oh yeah, it’s a twin thing. And then, then I have to get my phone out and show them the photographs and then and then at that point, they’re no longer offended that Zoheb or my twin brother doesn’t recognise them. So it happens all the time. I mean, it’s happened in different cities. I won’t I don’t remember which city I was in. Someone came up to me randomly in a European city, said, hey, you know, I said, I said, yeah, honestly, I can’t remember where it was. Did he. [01:26:30]

Speaker4: Did he study.

Speaker3: In Cork as well?

Speaker1: No, he studied in Dublin.

Speaker3: Oh. So that’s when you split?

Speaker1: Yes. That’s where we split. And he I can’t imagine just straight away he came after a year. So he followed me over at that point.

Speaker3: How did it feel splitting were you like trying to sort of establish yourself as an individual?

Speaker4: No, I think it’s a good thing because.

Speaker1: I definitely think it’s a good thing because as twins, you, you know, you share a room, you share a room, man, and then a room, and then you share friends and your life for the next 18 years.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: Uh, [01:27:00] you share the same teachers, you know, you have. It literally is like a side by side experience. Um, so I think it’s good for everyone to have some of their own space, some of their own friends, and just to develop independently.

Speaker3: And what’s what is he like you? Is he is he similar to you or is he different to you?

Speaker1: I think in many ways it’s similar and in some ways is different. Yeah, it’s hard. And I think as the years have gone on, we’ve probably become a slightly more different. But we share a lot of the [01:27:30] same personality traits. And yeah, I think it I mean, you should do a podcast with him and then you should tell me.

Speaker3: Yeah, I think I will. I had Kostas, I didn’t have him, but he was talking about him. So listen man, it’s been an hour and a half. That went quick. Let’s get to the final questions. Fantasy dinner party. Three guests, dead or alive. Who would you. Who do you want to chat to? [01:28:00]

Speaker1: I think that’s such a. Difficult question because. I don’t know, I sometimes I feel like with these questions it will be a case of never meet your heroes, but now we can only go on the information that that we kind of have about various people. And, you know, to be honest, I could really only think of one person really, that would really care to. I would love, and I think it’s unparalleled to listen [01:28:30] to or to speak to or to learn from. And that, of course, you know, being a muslim for me would be our Prophet Muhammad. Peace be upon him by knowing. His biography is obviously well written by various authors. You know, whether that was his organisational ability or his motivational abilities or his military abilities or whatever abilities you have. I think as someone in history that is well documented and highly respected. So I think when I thought about, you know, the various characters throughout history, [01:29:00] whether it’s the Mother Teresa’s or the Nelson Mandela’s, I mean, Nelson was up there as well. Hi. You know, um, just I think for someone who has faced massive bias himself and for what he represented, um, but then, you know, I guess I am a muslim, and that is my primary identity is not an orthodontist. It’s not an Irish person or a Pakistani person. My primary identity is as a muslim. And then I thought, well, you know, I am a muslim, and who do I hold in the [01:29:30] highest regard? And by no means am I the perfect Muslim. By no means, but that is the person I hold in the highest regard. And so I know I was asked to pick three, but then I said, well, I can’t really draw parallels here. So that is the one that I picked. Um, and I suppose to justify that, surely.

Speaker3: You want some loved ones with you on that day, you know, why do you want to be one one on one?

Speaker1: Well, I think the loved ones I have with me are the ones I have already. [01:30:00] And really, what I would want from a fancy dinner party. This is a hypothetical situation, is I would want to meet people who have not met before and gain from them. You know, having their loved ones there is.

Speaker4: Well know your your grandfather’s.

Speaker3: Grandfather or whatever, you know. You know what I mean?

Speaker1: No, I do know what you mean. Payman, uh, and in fact, my grandfather was up there because he was somebody that I never really got to spend time with. Super intelligent man, a scientist emeritus. Uh, your dad’s dad. My my father’s [01:30:30] father? Yeah.

Speaker3: Was he a doctor as well? The scientist?

Speaker1: No, he was he was a geneticist. He was essentially an agricultural scientist who became a geneticist.

Speaker4: Whoa.

Speaker1: Um. And he developed this, uh, he needed the vaccine most of his life. He did his PhD in the US in the 50s and 60s. And, uh, he developed this cotton seed, which didn’t require pesticide, and put the pesticide companies out of business through genetic modification. And he became a scientist emeritus. So and I never got to spend much time with him. And he was I [01:31:00] really respected him, but he was highly respected within the country. So my grandfather was was up there just because I really loved and respected him. And my mother says I looked a lot like him. And and he died before I really got to have that connection with him. And that was one of the the downsides of moving around so much is that we lost touch with our grandparents and with our extended families who were still there. So, you know, obviously the prophet’s up there, but beyond that, I think, as I said, Nelson, [01:31:30] for what he did or what he stood for for so many years and the lasting legacy of that, whether that’s. You know, what is his his assets, what his successes are now talking about in Palestine or elsewhere. And my grandfather’s up there just because someone that I just aspired to be like, and I never really got to spend some time with it. And I think, you know, I am this. Like you said earlier, I seem to speak about ethics in black and white and the right and wrong and black and white, and he was someone who was extremely intelligent and [01:32:00] could have had a lavish life and set me up quite nicely. But he didn’t. And I came down to him, you know, refusing the commercial aspects of his, of of his invention and giving that to the people. So he lived a very, you know, modest life for his until his death. And that’s something I find really inspirational, you know.

Speaker3: Absolutely, man. So, look, you know, your grandfather was a, you know, was a geneticist, agricultural geneticist. Your dad was an anaesthetist. You guys both specialists, [01:32:30] you and your brother. Is that is that expectation of doing something, you know, massively significant? Is that is that are you pushing that now to your kids as well? I know they’re too young. I know they’re too young.

Speaker1: No, no, I think, you know, um, I don’t think what I do is significant is the truth of the matter.

Speaker3: It’s quite significant.

Speaker1: No it’s not I mean, I do.

Speaker4: I do.

Speaker1: I do some cleft care and a little bit of it, you know, that’s referred into me locally. Not much. That [01:33:00] stuff is really important. But the rest of it, it’s teeth. I don’t think, in the grand scheme of things.

Speaker3: But I’m in kind of the pursuit of excellence, if you like. Yeah. I mean, as far as.

Speaker4: I think that the kids, as far as I’m concerned, you.

Speaker3: Could be you could be the best shoemaker in Karachi. As long as you’re the one who’s trying to be the best, you know, whatever, whatever you do. What do you think the reflections on kids, what would you what would you encourage them to do?

Speaker1: I think I want the kids to be [01:33:30] at the top of their game in whatever they want to do, but I’m not going to force them into dentistry or science or medicine or anything like that. But I do believe that they have to be at the top of whatever they do. I think every every parent wants to believe their child is special and intelligent and whatever. And I think my children are intelligent and they’re performing at an above average level. At least the six year old is at the moment, uh, thank God. So so that kind of pressure coming together.

Speaker4: Yeah. Is it going to be said that. Did I say that out loud I did.

Speaker1: So [01:34:00] so so whatever they want to do is it’s cool. It’s cool, but be a success. Make sure you can take care of your family and be the best at at that. And that’s good enough for me. That’s good enough for me. What’s not good enough for me is that you achieve less than what you are able to do. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker3: But does it resonate with you that there were times where when your dad was being the best he could be, he wasn’t around with you, and you know, the sacrifice. You know, I’ve got, uh, Depeche on my course here. [01:34:30] The guy wants to be the best in the world at teaching composite, right? There’s massive sacrifice in that massive sacrifice. And often the sacrifice ends up being one of the family, right? Whether it’s your wife or kids or, you know, because you don’t let work go or yourself, of course, that’s, that’s that ends up being the biggest sacrifice sometimes. Do you recognise that. And and are you going to adjust for that.

Speaker1: Yeah, I think that’s a very, very valid point. And um, and like you say, I don’t think I’m [01:35:00] the best orthodontist in the world or the best educator in the world, and I’m probably have found a balance in looking at family life and all those things. Yeah, I think I think we can we can always adjust our compass a little bit, accounting for those sorts of parameters and accounting for family life. And that probably is important because, you know, you can look at you can look at Steve Jobs, um, and what he said on his deathbed, and you can look at all these people. And actually, what do they talk about in those final moments is not really developing [01:35:30] the iPhone or MacBook or being a trillionaire. Uh, it’s probably the other things in their life, uh, which they have missed.

Speaker4: Um, apparently.

Speaker3: Apparently he apparently he never said that stuff, but but but it’s still it’s still relevant, man. It’s still relevant.

Speaker4: He he should have said it.

Speaker3: He should have said it. Even if he didn’t, he didn’t.

Speaker4: Then he should.

Speaker3: Have. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Let’s get let’s get to our, um. Final. Final. Yeah, it’s a deathbed question. It’s difficult with someone so young to talk about deathbed, but. But let’s just [01:36:00] go there on your deathbed. Surrounded by your loved ones. Hopefully your kids will be very old by that time. Your friends and family and loved ones. Three pieces of advice you’d leave to them or the world.

Speaker4: I had to.

Speaker1: Really think about this as well. I mean, uh, you forced me to go into deep places, and I think the three things that I would say, I think that probably moulded partly by your own experience, I think naturally. And [01:36:30] I’m sure if you ask me this question, in 20 years time, I might give you a different answer. I don’t know, but I might. Um, I think the first thing I’d say is that it ask for ask for help sooner. Whatever that means to you, whether that’s professionally, whether that’s something you’re struggling with, you’re not feeling well mentally. Whatever it is that you need help with is to ask for that help as soon as possible. That’s the first thing. And [01:37:00] because, you know, if you can’t do anything without that support, without that network around you, without feeling well, you can’t. So the first thing is to ask for that help. And then, um, the second thing is to be probably more vigilant or pay more attention to the people around you and maybe your impact on them. So, you know, how are they feeling? What are they actually asking, asking you for? You know, when you’re when you’re a six year old is crying [01:37:30] or she’s upset or, you know, understanding why that is that she’s really happy, really understand why that is. Don’t just know that she’s happy or upset.

Speaker1: Figure out what it is that’s driving that emotion. So be attentive to people so you can help them, or you can support them, or you can just connect with them, um, and just build your bonds. And then the last thing is, once you build that bond is, is to remind each other of of those bonds that you’ve built, you know, whether it’s your friends, whether it’s your brother. Whomever [01:38:00] it is, because I think a lot of the time we kind of just forget to remind each other of. Our relationships or the love you have for each other or whatever you’ve been through. You know, I’ve got friends who’ve who I’ve known for 20 years or and I’m sure you have as well, for even longer. And you kind of just take it for granted after a while, where it’s good to sometimes sit down. And I don’t think you have to get emotional every time or sentimental, but it’s good to maybe look back and remind each other where you came [01:38:30] from and why you were like, and what those bonds actually mean to you. Ah, yeah. And I think that’s sort of that probably would give, I think if I did that earlier and sooner, I knew these things that bit faster in my life, maybe I’d have greater satisfaction or, you know, before or achieve that happiness sooner.

Speaker3: That’s nice, man. I could stay in touch with your buddies. Kind of one. Right? And family and all that. Yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker3: It’s an interesting [01:39:00] question. That one. Yeah. Because it’s perhaps question perhaps my other my my co-host. Right. And uh, you can either answer that question with I did this and you should too. Or you could answer it in I think you’re more skewed this way. I didn’t do this, but you should.

Speaker4: Yeah. Which is which is the way.

Speaker3: I would answer this question as well. I’d be like, yeah, go right to the gym.

Speaker4: Because that’s the thing, right?

Speaker1: I mean, it’s and that’s [01:39:30] what I was thinking, like, this is what I haven’t done. And it would be better. I mean, I don’t know, I assume a little self-deprecating. Uh, you.

Speaker4: Say you are.

Speaker3: You are, buddy. You are. Um. It’s nice. It’s a nice thing. It’s a nice thing. Because, again, much better than. Much better this way than the other way. But, um, you know, dude, a lot of times I feel like, uh, punishing yourself sometimes. Not you. One one punishes oneself, sometimes a bit too much. Life’s too short to punish yourself too much. But you know that [01:40:00] just amount of. I’m looking back on it. Yeah. Looking back and thinking the things that you were thinking 15 years ago and you realise, God, all of that was wrong.

Speaker4: Yeah. I mean, uh, not just that.

Speaker1: I mean, sometimes you look back and you cringe on some of the stuff you’ve.

Speaker4: Done or thought about.

Speaker1: You know, and I really sort of try to shake some memories. I thought, what were you doing.

Speaker4: Or what.

Speaker1: What did you do that for? What were [01:40:30] you thinking? And I just I sort of just had to almost shake the cringe off my back.

Speaker4: Shake the.

Speaker3: Cringe. Oh, nice way to end it, my buddy love. Lovely conversation. I really, really enjoyed that. Man. Really did know that.

Speaker1: Was amazing man. I think, um, I think there’s there’s so much scope for more of this. And I to be honest, I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would. So I thank.

Speaker4: You for having me on.

Speaker3: You’re a natural. You’re a natural talker, buddy. You are a natural teacher. Thanks a lot for taking time. Cheers, man.

Speaker2: This [01:41:00] 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.

Speaker5: Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing. And just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we’ve had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value [01:41:30] out of it.

Speaker3: If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so so, so much for listening.

Speaker4: Thanks.

Speaker5: And don’t forget our six star rating.

In this week’s Mind Movers, Tara Francis recounts a tumultuous year of study at dental school while struggling to live up to her parents’ high expectations, followed by the eventual realisation that dentistry wasn’t her calling.

Tara also explores the challenges of delegating and letting go in business, career lows and highs, and the many links between her passion for facial aesthetics and mental health. 

 

In This Episode

01.46 – Leaving dentistry

05.44 – The Middle-Eastern Experience

13.47 – Transitioning to facial aesthetics

18.06 – Aesthetics and mental health

21.37 – Control and letting go

26.11 – Low points

28.43 – Image and aesthetics

32.22 – Finding balance

33.59 – Teaching vs practice

36.08 – When things go wrong

44.45 – Toxicity and resilience

50.48 – Alternate careers

53.41 – The aesthetics industry

57.01 – Introverted entrepreneurs

 

About Tara Francis

Former dentist Tara Francis is a facial aesthetics practitioner and founder of Enhance by Tara. She is also a London Academy of Aesthetic Medicine (LAAM) trainer.  

Speaker1: I remember saying to my assistant at the time, I said, I’m not going to be able to pay for this month because I’m not going to work this month. I just need to not do anything like I’m about to break. And funnily enough, two weeks later, lockdown was announced. So if it had to happen at any time, it was then for me.

Speaker2: This is mind movers. Moving the conversation forward on mental health and optimisation for dental professionals. [00:00:30] Your hosts Rhona Eskander and Payman Langroudi. Welcome to another episode of Mind Movers, the mental health podcast for dentists. Today I have one of my very good friends, my esteemed colleague, the beautiful Dr. Tara Francis. Tara and I had connected a few years ago. We actually had mutual patients. We had a lot of mutual patients. So Tara and I were [00:01:00] first early adopters, first mover advantage of treating influencers and doing all that stuff. We both built a profile online and in our clinics and our following, so we have that very much in common. Loved her energy. Loved her vibe. We got on really well. We ended up becoming really good friends with the influencers we were treating and we have like a little group together. So it’s really great. And Tara has been a very aspirational and inspiring figure within the dental arena. [00:01:30] But she also was one of the dentists that was very brave enough to leave dentistry and move solely into facial aesthetics. And she was very early on in that. I know a lot of people do that now, but I definitely think that you inspired a lot of people to do that. So welcome, Tara.

Speaker1: Thank you. What an intro. Thank you so much.

Speaker2: It’s so fantastic to have you here, Tara. So as I as you know, there’s a massive onus on mental health within our platform. We really want to help people. But I want you to kind of describe a little bit your journey into [00:02:00] how you left dentistry and why you left dentistry.

Speaker1: Sure. So I’ll start, I guess, into why I went into dentistry, firstly. And, um, do you know what? I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I just knew that I liked people, I liked art, and I loved science, and it kind of the combination of the three worked. I was very lucky to have work experience with a family friend of ours who is a dentist. Um, and kind of [00:02:30] like, oh, I like this. He dealt with patients really nicely. You could see the personal approach. You could see it was more than just fixing a tooth or whatever it may be. Um, and again, coming from a middle eastern background, that kind of expectation that me and you, um, have experienced meant that, okay, dentistry fits the bill on all parts, so let me just do it. I actually failed my first year of dentistry, really, and I had never failed anything in my whole entire life. So [00:03:00] that was a huge struggle to deal with. My dad didn’t talk to me. It was yeah, it was tough and I was fortunate enough to be allowed to re-enter. So I repeated my first year completed dentistry, really disliked the whole dental university experience, and I speak quite strongly about that because that was my personal experience. I yeah, and when I speak study Kings King’s is a great uni. It’s not about King’s. It was just my experience. [00:03:30]

Speaker2: I really resonate. Right. Because and I speak about this a lot and people get really shocked. I never felt like I fitted into dentistry. In fact, I still don’t feel like I fit into dentistry, although people feel that I have this massive like platform. And wait, I applied for dentist. I wanted to be a dentist since I was 12. Then I applied to dentistry and then I got the the interviews because I got the grades and then they didn’t give me the job. But why didn’t they give me a job? Well, they just didn’t think that I’d be a good dentist, but they didn’t give me a reason why. I’m pretty sure it was judgement because I was a bit more creative and [00:04:00] worked. You know, the is it the right sort of part of your brain that’s more creative? I’m pretty sure the left, the left side of the brain. And then I pretended to be someone I wasn’t. Then I got a job, then I got a position in dentistry. And then when I got that position in dentistry in dental school, I had no friends. I literally had no friends. All my friends were in the arts, and I was just so drawn to people that had a critical way of thinking, were a bit creative and like, believed in magic, as I said, you know? And then what happened was, again, I got all the grades. [00:04:30] But then when it came to applying for a job, I had to go through clearing. So I totally resonate with what you were saying. And when people say university is the best time of your life, I’m like, I don’t really think it is. And I actually think also as a female, you don’t really know who you are during your university years.

Speaker1: I still don’t know who I am.

Speaker2: I know I’m still working it out.

Speaker1: Yeah. It’s so interesting that you say uni is the best time of your year, your years or your life. My mum said that to me and while I while it was leading up to university, [00:05:00] because coming from a middle eastern background, my parents were a little bit more strict. I wasn’t allowed to do certain things that my other, more English friends were allowed to do, and she was like, don’t worry, when you get to uni, you know it’s going to be all great. And then it wasn’t. It just wasn’t. So yeah, the jump from secondary school where I felt quite at home with the friends that I had created, I was that person that was friends with the dinner ladies and like friendship, lots of different friendship groups, um, to then go to university. That was mixed [00:05:30] because I went to an all girls school. It was just a big jump. I was in a very controlling relationship that I didn’t realise that. The time I didn’t move out, so there were loads of things that contributed to me failing my first year. But I, you know, repeated it.

Speaker2: And how did you handle that? How did you handle that failure? Because there are so many people that think that it defines you. And I think the narrative within dental school is that you feel like you’re a failure in life when you fail your exams. So how did you handle it?

Speaker1: Um, I [00:06:00] just really struggled. My mum communicated with me effectively. Um, my dad, however, did not. And that was the biggest struggle because I felt like I had let him down. But then I also felt like, why are you angry at me? Like I’ve done so much, like I’ve done so well so far. You know, I’ve been this daughter that you’ve wanted me to be. Um, and I know after having therapy and stuff, like, it was just his way of dealing with things. And I absolutely love him so much. And he’s done so amazingly for me and the family. Um, [00:06:30] but yeah, that was the toughest bit. So I just had to get through day by day. I was thinking of, okay, if they don’t allow me in to repeat my first year, what can I do? What degree can I kind of apply to next? And it was going to be maths, which is completely off topic. I was like, it’s just easier. You can just be right or wrong and that’s it, you know? Um, so yeah, I just tried to get through.

Speaker2: I think the Middle East and struggle is strong. Right. And I’m going to say as well, you’re a hybrid of me and Payman, right. Because Payman is an Iranian [00:07:00] and I’m Lebanese, so you’re the hybrid. But I think the Middle Eastern thing is super strong. And it’s, it’s it’s interesting because as somebody that’s done a lot of work in therapy and really understanding, we actually had a guest that talked about it. I really think there’s something like cultural and generational trauma as well that’s passed on. And most of us come from a family of immigrants in some way. They came, you know, to the Western world to give us opportunities. And there’s definitely this heaviness that all of us carry with needing to perform and [00:07:30] do well. And there feels like a conditional love, which it’s absolutely not. Because, like you, we have parents that give us unconditional love. But there was also very much like do well in your grades. And I remember I was sick at school when I was young and my dad goes, I had chickenpox, actually. My dad goes, one day of school costs this much you have to go to. He sent me to school with chickenpox and they sent me straight back there like he’s going to she’s going to infect the whole class, you know, like, you know, and it’s good for their [00:08:00] immune system, you know. But the point is, there was such an onus. And that’s a blessing and a curse because I definitely think, you know, we work really hard and we really push the boundaries. So, you know, on the one hand it makes us very ambitious. It makes us like really want to care for people around us. But then the curse is we burn ourselves out, we feel guilty, and we feel that love is conditional in, you know, in some senses as well. And it’s something one.

Speaker3: Thing we shouldn’t we shouldn’t sort of typecast as Middle Eastern or Asian or I mean, there are British [00:08:30] dentists, right, who passed exams and get straight A’s to get into dental school and, and all of that. And so that family where that kid is growing up, you know, somehow we get this feeling that, oh, in that family, it’s a different situation, totally in our families. And it’s not necessarily true.

Speaker2: Um, we fight a lot, by the way. So you’re going to see this. I love this, but no, but what I’m trying to say is yes and yes, yes and no. Yes and no. Because as you know, like when we spoke to our previous [00:09:00] guest that was talking about being from like an Indian family and how much weight that carried for him in different senses. And therapists and psychologists will tell you now, like different people carry different traumas from different cultures. It’s just a fact. Payman, you know, so if you are from a white, privileged background, there is nothing wrong with that. That doesn’t mean that you’re not hard working. They don’t carry, they may carry other traumas, but they don’t carry the same sorts of traumas that’s been passed on from generation to generation with us.

Speaker3: You’re right. There’s something about an [00:09:30] immigrant mentality. Yeah, there is something about that. Um.

Speaker1: I think where it stands is that, generally speaking, as an immigrant, you come with less, you are completely in a new environment. You have to learn your way. And most immigrants come here for a better life, for either themselves or for their offspring. So I think the pressures are passed on to the children, whereas someone who was born here, perhaps whether they’re Middle Eastern or English [00:10:00] or Asian or wherever, um, maybe they’re a bit more settled and those pressures are eased off slightly. Um, that’s that’s what I found anyway, normally.

Speaker3: That failing that first year colour the rest of your journey in university as well.

Speaker1: Um, kind of I think it’s actually made more of a profound effect now, because I speak to a lot of Dental students, and I can pass on the fact that actually, you don’t have [00:10:30] to have you don’t have to pretend to have the best time at uni. And it’s okay to struggle during university because the. Pressures all there, especially with certain universities. So I feel like it’s had more of a profound effect now because students can resonate, and not many people talk about the fact that they didn’t enjoy Dental University in the environments I’ve been in anyway.

Speaker3: I mean, I struggled a little bit, but can I just say they were the best years of my life? I love that.

Speaker1: View.

Speaker2: I love [00:11:00] that for you, babes. But listen like it’s not. Yeah, like literally good for you. Good for you. But also I think, you know, like the one thing that I really struggle with as a female, I talk about this a lot. I think that I really struggle because society has placed this emphasis that women are the best in their 20s. They’re the most fertile. They’re the most desirable. They’re the most beautiful. We talk about this a lot, right? Yet I feel like my brain was so undeveloped, and I actually feel like I’m more attractive [00:11:30] now because of the things like knowing who I am and my confidence. And that radiates a different type of attractiveness. And I think that that had an impact because I didn’t know who I was. And also at university, I was thrown into this environment where I was with like boarding school people. I’d never been with boarding school people. They were all white. They were all like, oh my gosh, you are so exotic. P.s I made Prince Harry’s books. I used to live with his ex girlfriend, I made it, I’m in spare.

Speaker2: Did I ever tell you that I [00:12:00] am in spare? He said he said he trusted me well, he trusted us. The girls that we lived with. I’ve got it somewhere here. I’ll read it to you. Anyway, the point is, is that I lived with those sorts of people, which was like a great thing. But also I had a massive identity crisis. I was really embarrassed to being Middle Eastern. I was like, no, no, I’m British, I’m British. I became way posher. I used to talk a bit north London before I left, like when I was at school. And now I’m like, you know, like sort of Queens, elocution, English. But there was definitely like that sense of really not knowing who I am. [00:12:30] And I think that those are. That’s why I think I find those years so difficult. Maybe it is different for men. I don’t know, because I’m only speaking on my own experiences that shape me. But I definitely didn’t feel like I knew who I was at uni, which contributed to my experience.

Speaker1: Yeah. Completely resonate. Also, I came from even at school, primary school. I came from a school that was predominantly white, Caucasian, and even with exception to a few other students that I knew of, everyone’s [00:13:00] families were living in Knightsbridge, Sloane Street, and then we’re in Acton in like a humble two bedroom house, you know. So even the struggle with my parents working so hard to put me through private school, um, but then I didn’t fit in with them. But then I didn’t fit in with friends that I had made outside of of my private school. So I was kind of like this in-between. And it’s not me feeling sorry for myself or anything like that. And actually, I’m really grateful that I got to experience two different worlds, [00:13:30] almost because I feel like it shaped me to who I am. I feel like I can actually engage with so many different people and truly connect. Um, but yes, being a female does have its certain implications. I guess being a male does to.

Speaker2: 100%, and we talk about that all the time. But let’s talk a little bit about how you transitioned into facial aesthetics, because I think what a lot of people realise, including Payman, is that they do dentistry and they’re like, I don’t actually like the dentistry.

Speaker3: So I didn’t mind the dentistry. [00:14:00]

Speaker2: Why did you quit then after like five minutes?

Speaker3: Five years. Yeah, but but the the work took over.

Speaker2: But. Okay, so tell me though, Tara, what made you transition?

Speaker1: Um, so I graduated and immediately after graduating, literally two months later, did a facial aesthetics course. I had to borrow money from my mum.

Speaker2: What was the thing that inspired you to do it, though?

Speaker1: I there was a tutor at uni and he would choose her head and neck anatomy outside of university. [00:14:30] So in his home country he was head of anatomy, but then in the UK was doing clinical teaching and a friend of mine and I had tutoring with him for anatomy because I was absolutely terrible at the time in learning it. And he used to do dermal fillers and toxin on the in his own clinic, and we watched him do it. And the way he applied the anatomy to how he was injecting and what he did, and I was like, oh my gosh. And I always loved things like beauty. And it just worked, you know?

Speaker2: Um, [00:15:00] did you dislike dentistry or is it just that you had more of a love for this?

Speaker1: I felt a bit neutral about dentistry. Didn’t love it, didn’t hate it. Just felt quite neutral. When I got into practice, I loved again the people side. Like I loved seeing the families coming in throughout the years. And like, you know, I’d, I’d genuinely, like, make friends with the families. Patients would come in just to see me. It was so nice. But I guess the practical side of it wasn’t it wasn’t, I don’t know, inspired [00:15:30] to to do.

Speaker3: More dentistry as.

Speaker1: Well. I dabbled, I dabbled and. Had I not gone into aesthetics, I’m quite sure cosmetic dentistry would have kind of helped me feel.

Speaker3: How many years were you a dentist before you stopped?

Speaker1: Um, about four years or so, I started to cut down and gradually cut down further and further. And in 2018, I decided to stop dentistry as a whole for a year to see how aesthetics would actually build, because I found myself getting quite drained. [00:16:00] I was kind of doing a clinical day, travelling an hour and a half back home and seeing patients until like 11 p.m. for aesthetics. So I was like, okay, this needs to stop. Let me full focus on aesthetics. I’m a strong believer in the more you give, the more you get out. And that was kind of my trial run and it just took off.

Speaker2: So tell me as well, because when I first saw Tara, she was practising out of a gym. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker1: So had a room within a gym. So how did.

Speaker2: You. Because I think one of the things that people find most [00:16:30] difficult in life is taking that leap of faith and going out of their own comfort zone, especially when they don’t know what the outcome will be. Right. So the thing is, is that we’re lucky, right? Because in dentistry, you study for six years and you’re sort of conditioned to the next step, you know, like best practice, then you’re going to find a job and then that’s it. Like it’s all set out and you feel really comforted. But for those people, especially as you were like one of the earlier adopters [00:17:00] working out of something like a gym, like, how did.

Speaker1: You parents house at first?

Speaker2: Yeah. So how did you take that leap of faith? How did you work it out?

Speaker1: I saw that it was becoming successful and it was just becoming so unprofessional having people coming into my family home. I felt terrible for my parents. Like ringing people ringing on the doorbell at 10 p.m., my dog barking like it just didn’t make sense. And I thought, If I’m going to give this a proper go, I need to look into renting. So I rented that room.

Speaker2: How did [00:17:30] you make it work financially?

Speaker1: Aesthetics pays well, yeah. So I saw the money coming in. I figured out how much I can afford per month, found a space that could accommodate my financial budget. And yeah, it just worked. It did mean that I had to be more kind of conscious of, okay, I really need to see these extra aesthetic patients after work today, even though I didn’t feel like it because you’re tired from a whole clinical day. But that’s how it worked out. And then the more I was seeing patients, the more my diary was getting [00:18:00] full, the more I realised, actually, I can stop dentistry for now and and just yeah, take it from there.

Speaker2: Do you feel that working in aesthetics has impacted your mental health in a negative way?

Speaker1: I think most jobs can impact your negative, your mental health in a negative way depending on your mindset. So I could say yes at times it has, especially now as the industry is [00:18:30] becoming bigger, which is a benefit. But also imposter syndrome kicks in. There’s new kids on the block. I was the one that was kind of like at the forefront of it, I think in the dental world. Well, one of the few for sure, that put myself out there on social media, which is what allowed me to grow if I started out now, probably wouldn’t have grown to two the person or the the establishment that I’ve got now. But yeah, I’d say sometimes it affects [00:19:00] my mental health. I live in this kind of am I doing the right thing? Am I doing the wrong thing? Because I’m all for like embracing ourselves and embracing who we are and ageing gracefully. But then I’m here injecting people with with filler and toxin. But I also think I’m doing it properly. I’m doing it ethically. I’m consulting with the patient. I’m doing it in a medical kind of background, looking for red flags, saying no when I don’t believe it’s the right thing. So that’s how I make myself [00:19:30] feel like it’s okay.

Speaker2: I think that there’s like two folds to it, right? Because I think that also like social media, I know you feel like sometimes disconnected or so now you’ve got like automated messages, whereas I’m like heavily indebted to my followers as like, you know, someone like Karen and Bognor Regis will message me and I feel like I’m having an argument with her sometimes, you know, whereas Tara has an automated message basically says, this platform is not regulated. You know, one of those I’m sure you’ve seen it like if you want to [00:20:00] contact. So I know that you’ve been good at putting that in place. Was that for your mental health or was that more to kind of deal with, like the capacity of like, I don’t want to deal with bookings or was it also like I’m actually putting a boundary.

Speaker1: It was a boundary which I actually really struggled to put in place because similar to you, I was like, no, this is how I connect with people and this is how they feel like they can trust me if they can contact me. But it became like I was on, I’d be on holidays and anyone who I was on holiday with would know, right? Tara needs an hour and a half to, like, sort [00:20:30] through her bookings, to sort through her messages, because I used to do everything on my own. So it became it impacted my life. And yeah, I had to do it. And I was that person that didn’t have Facebook when everyone had it. But I got social media. I got Instagram for work. Yeah. So I am actually quite a private person.

Speaker3: Yeah, but did you not have a team?

Speaker1: No, not at the beginning. Nothing. I had no one got.

Speaker3: That busy without you having a.

Speaker1: Team. Yeah. It’s really.

Speaker3: So did you hire after that?

Speaker1: Yeah. So I hired [00:21:00] someone who’s now become my really good friend. She was actually a patient of mine at first, and she kind of assisted me with the back side of things. So taking bookings, responding to messages, changing appointments. I had no automated like book online system I had. Everything was paper notes. Um, so yes, I got her on board and we’re still friends and she works for my other company where I teach now. Um, and then eventually, kind of now I have [00:21:30] a PR like it’s moved from PR treatment coordinator. Um, you know, I work in a clinic where we’ve got great support.

Speaker2: So I think, you know, the one thing that I’m hearing as well, it’s very difficult for us as health care professionals to relinquish control. Yes. Control is a big thing. Like, we like to control every element and we don’t like to outsource that much in the beginning. Now I’m like, I will pay everyone everything to do everything, you know, but it’s a really difficult one, you know? And I was the same. And I didn’t even [00:22:00] like when I first graduated, like people doing my hygiene cleans, you know, I didn’t want to refer them to the hygienist because I wanted to do it myself. And it’s a funny thing because I think the control is such an important part of what we do. But also letting go of that control has been one of the best things for my mental health as well. You know, I think it’s been one of the best things because it’s allowed me to be more productive, and it’s allowed me to build the team of people. And I think you’ve got to just have some. You can’t live in fear. And what I’ve seen amongst the board [00:22:30] and in dentistry and medicine is people live in fear that if they let the control go, somehow the quality will be reduced or someone will steal their patients to.

Speaker3: Face the fact with delegation that the quality will drop. I disagree to start with. Yeah, to start with depends who you hire. Like if I go and hire the marketing manager of Procter and Gamble, the quality will go straight up. Right. But I’m saying the way the way these sort of businesses tend to work, we tend to give it to someone. Right. And so what you have to get yourself clear with is that the quality will drop to start [00:23:00] with. But once that person settled in and once you’ve developed that person, the quality will be up. Yeah, yeah, I think it’s that drop that we all worry about, but it’s understanding that having eight people at 70% is better than one person at 90% or whatever, you know, that’s that.

Speaker1: It’s nurturing, isn’t it? It’s nurturing your relationships. It’s nurturing your your company to be what you want it to be with the right people around. And I think when you know someone’s not right for you, that’s when you have to try and make that decision [00:23:30] to not try and make you make that decision to kind of maybe part ways about.

Speaker3: Taking that one step further. Have you managed to work out a way of delegating the actual work?

Speaker1: Yes.

Speaker3: So if someone wants to come and see you, do you somehow it’s hard.

Speaker2: It’s hard, man. It’s so.

Speaker1: Hard. But we’re getting there slowly. I’ve got two other dentists who do facial aesthetics within my team.

Speaker2: And did you train?

Speaker1: This is what I’m starting to love even more, and I’m realising I actually want to go more towards mentoring and I’m mentoring at the moment, so [00:24:00] I’ve trained them. I have kind of again nurtured them, I’ve helped them, I take them on courses, I invest in them, and I love watching them become who they are, becoming confident and obviously credit to them because they’re doing the work in the background also, but it allows me to feel really confident for my patients to see them, and that rubs off. If I’m talking about, you know, you should see doctor X for this. Sometimes they’re better at [00:24:30] me than me and I’m like, you know what? They’re actually the person I got here to do this treatment because they’re better than me. It transpires the patient believes me because they’ve come, because they trust me. And we can kind of then build that really lovely working relationship where we’re treating all around. So yeah, but it is taking time. It’s it’s a tough one because patients just don’t always want to do that.

Speaker2: I think also like what you’re saying there is also like letting go of ego. And I think that that’s a really important [00:25:00] thing to do, because when you realise that there are people around you that can do what you do better or will compliment the work you do, and you give it willingly, willingly, and you allow your team to have autonomy to make decisions. That’s always been my philosophy, and I’ve noticed that that’s not the philosophy of many other practitioners or practice owners. And I think that actually gives allows you to provide the best care for your patients. Absolutely. And it helps you and your mental health and [00:25:30] prioritise the things that you love as well. Because like you were saying. I realised I love podcasting surprise, surprise and being on television. And because I’ve decided to do like three days work, which means that my associates get more work and I kind of like, you know, like you said, there’s some patients that are really stuck. I can focus on the things that I love. And, you know, people are like, but you’re not like, you’re not monetising the podcast. And you could be in your clinic. And I’m like, it’s not about the money. It’s about the fact that, like, I just love being in here and winding Payman up in a room, you know? So [00:26:00] it’s just, you know, it’s such a fulfilling thing to do. And when I did like my mini series with Shivani, you know what I mean? It’s something that I genuinely love to do. You know, I love to talk to people and to connect to people. Having said that, though, Tara, have what was the lowest time in your life mental health wise?

Speaker1: So interestingly, it was just before Covid or the pandemic really became what it did when we got into lockdown. It was February, and [00:26:30] I remember saying to my assistant at the time, I said, I’m not going to be able to pay for this month because I’m not going to work this month. I just need to not do anything like I’m about to break. And funnily enough, two weeks later, lockdown was announced. So if it had to happen at any time, it was then for me it was like almost perfect timing because I just couldn’t take it anymore. I have worked a Saturday up until Covid every day until the age, from the age of 16, even [00:27:00] during uni. I don’t know why. I just felt this need to work, work, work and. I was very lost. I have been in a few abusive relationships in different ways, one of which was absolutely terrible and I don’t think I’d fully recovered. I was still like going through processing what had happened. Um, and I was finding myself. I was I mean, I’m still we’re always finding ourselves. Right. But it sounds really cliche, but I was finding myself and I didn’t give myself that time [00:27:30] to find. And yeah, I’d say that was my lowest time.

Speaker2: Yeah. And so do you feel like lockdown in a way, was helpful?

Speaker1: Oh, it was amazing. I moved in with my parents.

Speaker2: Some people loved it. Did you?

Speaker3: I mean, I was very worried for the business, but then once, once that sort of went out of the way, then you enjoyed it. Yeah.

Speaker1: I think what helped is that everyone was going through it at the same time. So you kind of had a bit of reassurance in that sense, and it felt a bit united. [00:28:00] Um, but yeah, no, it was best I was with my family. And, you know, we’re really lucky we have a garden, so I could just be in the garden and I would work out every day and cook, bake, listen to podcasts. And, you know, our industry, the aesthetics industry are adapted very, very quickly. They were doing online. Yeah.

Speaker2: Yeah. We did online.

Speaker1: Courses and stuff. So you still felt like you were in the know. It actually allowed me to delve deeper into skincare, which is something I’m so passionate about. Now I got the time to read up on it. I got the time to educate. [00:28:30] I got the time to consult patients, um, remotely. And you know, we could send them skincare. So I made the most of it, um, in both business, but also personal.

Speaker3: Tara, tell me about the difference between one skin doctor and the other. I mean, in terms of do.

Speaker2: You have do you mean facial aesthetics or do you mean.

Speaker3: Skin facial? Sorry. So do you have a style and do people come to you for your style?

Speaker1: Yeah. So my kind of tagline is enhance the [00:29:00] natural beauty. God, I can’t even remember my tagline. Enhance the beauty, natural beauty you already possess because I believe everyone has natural beauty and I’m not there trying to change anything. I just want people to feel more confident in their own skin. Um, so.

Speaker3: So if someone said something to you that you disagreed with, you actually wouldn’t do it or.

Speaker1: Yeah, no way. I think I’d say I say no to about 70% of the things people ask for. Um, yeah. They could come in and say, I want my nose and my lips done. And I’m like, you know what? Your lips [00:29:30] are actually great. Let’s just leave them. I’m not saying no, but let’s reassess in 6 to 9 months, because to me, I’m not going to make them any better right now. So yes.

Speaker3: In your experience, the difference between facial aesthetics patient and a cosmetic dental patient, insomuch as both of you have to look out for both, well, have an.

Speaker2: Interesting story to tell you. Go on. I have to.

Speaker3: Look out for that sort of body dysmorphia. Yeah. Where the problem isn’t the face of the teeth. The problem is something we have.

Speaker2: We have a mutual with this. Do you remember this? We do. Same [00:30:00] patient. Yeah. So listen, this this woman trapped, this woman travelled really far. She was from like, Wales or something. And basically she travelled really far to see me for the teeth. But she basically had a rhinoplasty and I think she had a revision as well. But she was obsessed with, like, this part of her face. So she booked a consultation with me. Her teeth were fine, right? But I think she felt like if she got her teeth done, it would change her nose. Do you see what I mean? Because of the way, like, the lip length is and stuff, meanwhile. But I just knew from her character [00:30:30] and the way she was presenting that she was someone not to be treated. You know, you’ve got those red flags. Yeah. And weirdly enough, she’d contacted Tara and I don’t know, we were both worked out that she contacted she talked, she contacted Tara for like surgical non rhino as well. And I think like we both sort of were like, right, we need to try and get rid of this patient because we need non-invasive filler.

Speaker2: So basically we both knew through our like assessment that this patient was like troubled because [00:31:00] you are going to get patients. And I really do feel for them as well. Like you do that get obsessive and I’ve got I’ve got two on the go right now when you’re just like, why am I doing this? Like obsessing over like minutiae detail. And, you know, I think like the more experienced you are, the more you’re going to be like, oh, but it’s really difficult because sometimes you’re in too deep. But when they start showing their true colours and you’re like, oh, this is a bit weird. And I think that has a profound effect on your mental health as well, because you’ll get texts and emails where, I mean, I’ve got someone. She presented a word document with her temporaries [00:31:30] and the Tryon and what she wanted compared and annotated at all. And you’re like, this is going to be a headache. Do you know what I mean? Because she’s never going to be happy. But you will get that. Do you know what I mean? You will get that.

Speaker1: You absolutely do. I think the more you’re in it, the more you can pick up. Similar to dentistry, you can pick up whether you, you know, it might not even be that you feel you can’t give them what they want. It might just be, you know what? You’re a personality that I’m not sure I can manage very well. Exactly. And we’re both going to be a bit unhappy with this. [00:32:00] So let’s just kind of I’m going to refer you on to someone who I think would be better suited, who I think could provide you with the care. That you deserve. Um, and that’s okay. I think we struggle, especially when we’re starting out. We feel like we have to say yes to everything, and we’re scared if if we don’t say yes, that patient’s going to go elsewhere and we’re going to lose business, but we end up saving ourselves so much more.

Speaker2: Yeah, exactly. Because along the way, the mental health aspect of it is so like it’s so, so much more important. You sound [00:32:30] now like you’ve got a little more balance. Would you say you’ve got more balance or not in your personal and work life?

Speaker1: I do have more balance. You know, I don’t think we’re ever I think we find balance. And then whoa, something comes in and you’re like, okay, now I have to rebalance. Yeah. And that, that, that period of time can be quite challenging, but it also allows to more growth. So yeah, right now I feel quite balanced. I’m you know I’ve really in the last year focussed on relationships and last the year [00:33:00] before I kind of became a bit of a recluse. I didn’t go to any industry events. I was just, you know what? This is my time. But I realised that didn’t necessarily make me that happy. And the more I read, the more I listen to podcasts and listen to professionals. You know, relationships are really important. So I try and invest my time in my relationships with friends and actually, it’s the best thing ever. I feel so lucky. Yeah, I feel so lucky. I say lucky, but you know, you know, I put the work in. I nurture again, nurture those relationships. But [00:33:30] I find, yeah, I’m getting it. I’m getting the balance. And with work I don’t work as many hours in clinic, but I take time in the background to do the admin side. And I like dedicate a day to that. So my Mondays are normally my admin days, and then the people that work within the companies I work with know that, okay, if we need to contact Tara to do anything, it’s on a Monday. Yeah. So there’s more boundaries in place. People can expect the right things from me. And yeah.

Speaker2: You also you [00:34:00] also have your facial aesthetics academy.

Speaker1: I do with a lovely Waseem.

Speaker2: So tell us a little bit about the the stages of that, how that happened, how that was born, the genesis as it were. That was the word I was looking for, the genesis of the lamb. Yeah. Um, and do you prefer your teaching over your clinical?

Speaker1: I think they go hand in hand. I think if you want to teach, you should still be doing along [00:34:30] the way, because so much can change in the world of aesthetics. We’re constantly finding out new techniques. New fillers are on the market, for example. Um, so I feel like that’s important to me. So they go hand in hand and that makes me enjoy them both, I think, just as much. But I’m definitely preferring the mentoring side as opposed to just teaching someone who comes on a day course. Um, so I’m the more kind of deeper aspect. I can help them with the business growth. I can help them treatment plan with a patient, I can help them [00:35:00] with their confidence and be like, you know what? You did a really good job there because I didn’t have that. It’s quite a lonely industry. Um, you’re in a room on your own. You don’t even have a nurse.

Speaker2: Competitive industry to so competitive.

Speaker1: We don’t.

Speaker2: Do well. There’s not enough cheerleading going on. And I think what what really shocked me within the aesthetic arena. And I think aesthetic facial aesthetics has worse, actually. And when I dabbled in it, I was like, I don’t want it. I don’t want to do this. People like really compete with each other. They use each other. Payman thinks I’m too sensitive, but that’s fine. You know, [00:35:30] I know that’s what you’re thinking, but it is really crazy because I’ve always been a cheerleader. I’ve always said, like, whenever I see someone doing really well, especially women, I’ve always cheerleaded and I’d want to learn from them. And what I realised is there’s so many relationships which are like transient people use you, people judge you, people gossip. And I really hate that about the sort of industries that we work in. But it might be the case in every industry. I don’t know, like my friend’s a jewellery designer, the one, you know, and she I [00:36:00] remember her saying, like, the jewellery industry is cutthroat, like the jewellers, like really compete with each other. So maybe it’s just every industry or successful in who knows, I think.

Speaker3: So I’ve got a I’ve got a question for you. Maybe it’s a bit Dental Leaders and mine movers. What are the things that go wrong the most often and that people should be looking out for more? And what’s been your biggest mistake that you’ve made with the with the facial aesthetics? Patient.

Speaker1: Oh, um, I can tell you the biggest mistake for us because it comes straight to mind. So there [00:36:30] was a patient who I had really built trust with. She’d gone elsewhere, wasn’t happy, came to me, you know, so thankful. Messaged me after I was like, you know, you made me feel so comfortable, etcetera, etcetera. Really happy with the results. That was her first time with me. Second time, um, we did a lip enhancement and I think a few days later she had messaged and sent me pictures and said, I’m really unhappy. There’s this, this, that. And I was like, this is not my work. Like, I [00:37:00] know my work. I’ve got my before and afters. Her afters are here. This does not look like this could happen. So I kind of jumped the gun and became very defensive because I feel very confident in the work that I do, and I kind of called her a liar without calling her a liar. And then I realised what I had done. So I kind of said, try to explain where I was coming from, and I said, please come in. Can I just see it in person? Let’s talk about it. And she was she was no, she was [00:37:30] as sweet as she could be. And but said her piece and I really appreciated that she said her piece saying, you know, I feel a bit disheartened that you you said that. I said, I’m sorry. And yeah, I checked in on her like a month or two later, she replied, but I had lost, lost that. So I think that’s the biggest mistake, is becoming defensive very quickly. So because I care about my work so much and it was such a small thing in person, it didn’t look anything like the picture she had sent me.

Speaker2: But that’s the thing patients will also scrutinise, [00:38:00] and I think that’s the danger about like iPhones and social media like, which obviously you didn’t have, they’ll be there. You see this photo in this lie on a selfie in this angle, and you have your professional, like, 4K photos and you’re like, no, like anyone can make like, I could even make my composite veneers look bad from certain angles. Do you know what I mean? Like, you have to, like, recognise we’re also dealing with like, Snapchat dysmorphia, you know, like filters [00:38:30] and lights and all these different things being used. And I think that that’s extremely challenging. But like what you said, I sometimes find it really hard because with the recent stuff that’s been going on in the news, I have found it really hard to function. I find it really hard to function like, as you know, like my grandfather’s like Palestinian Lebanese. I have Middle Eastern family. I found it really hard and seeing human suffering has always really affected me. Like I’m a massive empath as payments are like massively like, if you started crying right now, I’d probably [00:39:00] start crying like I’m such an empath so I can just like I’m absorbing all the stuff that I’m seeing constantly. And I’ve worked in refugee camps, so it’s very hard hitting. Anyway, I had a patient come in and when the patient came in, they were the most beautiful veneers that we tried in like stunning. And I wouldn’t just say because when they’re not good, I’ll send them back. Beautiful feldspathic like trans, like all the stuff I try them in, I’m like, they’re amazing. She’s going to love them. She’s there with the mirror like this, right? And I’m [00:39:30] just like, and she’s pointing at an embrasure, not knowing. And obviously I called my technician.

Speaker2: He’s like, you better send the whole lot back instead of cementing everything. And I think I became a bit short with her because I didn’t shout. I didn’t get defensive, but I think I became short, you know what I mean? And you could tell sort of from my like, sort of like body language because energy doesn’t lie. And then afterwards I was like, you can’t behave like this, Rhona. You’re the dentist. Like they the patient is always right, you know, and I had to send the I felt really bad, like you said, because I was like. [00:40:00] I obviously called him like, I’m just checking in. I’m really sorry if it was a bad experience. Yeah. Overcompensating. But it’s really hard. And I think that’s one of the reason too. Yeah, exactly. I think that’s one of the big things, is that we really struggle with our own mental health because we can’t show emotion. And sometimes when I come home, my fiance, fiance can say that now my fiance, I end up shouting and screaming and he’s like, she goes, don’t take this out on me. And I’m like, but I need to express myself. I need [00:40:30] to express myself. And the thing is, is like, it’s just true. Like anger is a healthy emotion and we spend all day long suppressing our emotions for patients. But it’s healthy to be sad and it’s healthy to be angry, and it’s healthy to be happy. And like, I don’t believe in toxic positivity where we’re happy because like you said, like we have to sometimes express it. And I was like, how do we deal with it though, when a patient has also upset us? Scream into a pillow? I don’t know what the answer is. By the way.

Speaker1: I think you find your own coping mechanisms mechanisms, don’t you? What works for you? [00:41:00] So for me, it might just be like having a moment, taking some deep breaths, writing some like, I hate this person, you know, and just get it out the system, rip it.

Speaker2: Payman said. Actually, he writes out the text message of anger and doesn’t send it.

Speaker1: Yeah, that’s what I do. Yeah, I do exactly that.

Speaker3: Somehow it helps me. Yeah, I.

Speaker2: Get it, I get it. Today I started writing notes to a person that’s no longer in my life that I still think about. That triggers me. And I wrote it all out. It was like a stream of consciousness. Quite poetic actually. One day I might publish it, but. But I was like, I’m [00:41:30] writing it out and I’m hoping this is going to like, let out my emotions because I’m hurt.

Speaker3: Interesting. I’ve recently been on the other side of the coin where my son had his braces off.

Speaker2: And you’re not happy.

Speaker3: It wasn’t me, my wife. But but but the nicotine, like, you know, she she got down to this point of it could just be a little bit more, you know, a bit more like this, a bit more like that. And we went back three times to the orthodontist.

Speaker2: And they know your dentist’s. Both of you.

Speaker3: Do you here? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, but [00:42:00] but it was it wasn’t Invisalign. It was. You know why. So he was he was bending wires and and all that. And I remember by the. She was right the first time I thought the second and third time, I was like, you know, come on guys, done this work. But but but she was she was like, you know, you only do this once. We got to get it right. And then the weird thing was once it was all finished, no one ever talked about it ever again. It was. We built.

Speaker1: It up. We built it up.

Speaker3: To something really important.

Speaker2: There are, there are, there are those rogue people as well. I think also, if you’re [00:42:30] on social media, the worst thing that ever happened to me and I’m going to open up, you know, a little bit, I don’t want to start crying because it was the worst thing that’s happened to me. I had a patient turn against me because of another dentist, because the other dentist who’s not, who’s newly qualified, by the way, one year had commented on my work and guided the patient towards a hellish year for me, a hellish as in to the point that I wanted to quit and felt [00:43:00] suicidal. And I thought this person, this dentist, just looks at my social media and assumes for some reason something or other and thinks that I’m dead. Because one thing I’ll never do, and I think that there’s probably a common understanding, even if you do not like the work another dentist has done. Never. It is not your place to comment or turn them against. I mean, I saw some a patient last week and she had a blatant root fracture and a six millimetre eight millimetre pocket had been going to her dentist every three months. [00:43:30] Dentist hadn’t picked it up and she kept saying, but she’s like, why? Why hasn’t he picked up? She was a new consultation. I said, do you know what? It could have just happened recently. That’s all I said. I said I wasn’t there to comment, but I was like, don’t worry about it. I’m sure he’s done the best job, you know, because I really believe it’s so important that we have each other’s back. Knowing the statistics that dentistry has one of the highest suicide rates, you know, it could be.

Speaker1: Us that misses it one day. I mean, I’d like to think we wouldn’t, but you just never know. Like nothing is impossible. So. Yeah, it’s it’s kind of like, hopefully we can [00:44:00] kind of give that other dentist a heads up and be like, listen, just wanted to let you know x, y, z. I think that would have been the nicer, more kind, more kind of camaraderie thing to do.

Speaker3: Yeah, probably the inexperience of the other dentist though. Yeah. Because when you when you’re newly qualified, you might not have even heard this before, this idea, you know, you might say something that where your words are incorrect, you know, when you’re newly qualified, it was.

Speaker2: A little bit more malicious than that. It was a little bit I mean, you know, we can we can share details. But I was just I was just really shocked. And [00:44:30] look, at the end of the day, I mean, like I’m a massive believer in karma anyways. And that’s what guides me. Calm has always been my guiding like force where I’m like, I don’t want to do bad on other people because I believe that it could come back to me. I genuinely believe that, you know, there’s some people that constantly commit stuff like fraud or like they’re serial cheaters. I’m like, I’m just too worried about, like the guilt and like the guilt and the like, you know, the repercussions of it all, you know? Yeah. Um, so you’ve talked a little bit about how [00:45:00] you’ve had some toxic relationships. Yes. And how they have shaped you. I recently saw a quote and saying, they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But I would say, what doesn’t kill you makes you deeply traumatised, hypervigilant and, you know, constantly worried about being in pain. It’s sort of like funny, but not do you know what I mean? You know that statement. Would you say that those experiences did shape you, or do you feel they have left you somewhat traumatised and unable to move on in some parts of your life? [00:45:30]

Speaker1: Um, so. I’d say what? And I realise this maybe a few years later. Is that what it does is it makes you question your own worth. Worth, but also your own integrity and understanding who this person is to you. So you would you’d put yourself in this situation and make yourself believe that this person is okay. And you know what? They’re just doing it because they love me. Or you know what? He said he’s going to get better [00:46:00] or he’s not going to do X to me again. Um, and you question your own, like, what’s the what’s the word I’m trying to say.

Speaker2: Integrity.

Speaker1: Yeah. It’s like your own judgement. It makes you question your own judgement on the people around you. And that was the hardest thing. Also. Yeah, there are things that I didn’t realise were affecting me like I’d be. There were moments I was scared to drive down my street. I would turn my lights off on my car just in case that [00:46:30] person was there. You know, my ex was there because he would like he’d literally be waiting out there because I didn’t reply to his message. So I was scared to even go home. And like, that’s only just starting to wear off, you know, and in future relationships and the relationship I’m in now, I’m in such a like, caring, loving, safe, safe relationship. I had to seek therapy because I was like, I could ruin this relationship. Yeah. Preaching to.

Speaker2: The choir. Preaching to the.

Speaker1: Choir. Yeah. And interestingly, go ahead.

Speaker3: Yeah.

Speaker1: No. Please do.

Speaker3: No, no, go ahead.

Speaker1: I said interestingly, yeah. [00:47:00] One of those relationships, the worst one I still kind of have to be around or be reminded of because they’re within the industry. Well, partly within the industry that I’m in now. So that is a major struggle because, whoa, you don’t realise the trauma that like triggers, it’s like, whoa, go into fight or flight. Um, so yeah, it’s it’s been interesting but very challenging. And I’m really proud of myself.

Speaker2: We talked about we had a guest on as well that talked. I’d asked him about [00:47:30] this. I asked him about gut feelings and anxiety, and I said that I struggle because I don’t know if it’s my gut feeling because people say, you know, when you know. And then I say, but I don’t know when I know, because also sometimes it’s my anxiety. But I’m like, is that my gut? Should I listen? But then in hindsight, it’s my anxiety. Do you know what I mean? And it’s a really difficult, challenging thing because sometimes you can feel it like physically. But if you suffer from anxiety, it couldn’t be, you know what I mean? Because you’re constantly in fight or flight. Yeah. And I think that that’s a difficulty. And also there’s like safety somehow like also if you are used [00:48:00] to trauma or you’re used to uncertainty, it’s actually feels safer than certainty sometimes. So for example, if you’re in a safe relationship you’re not used to it. You somehow feel unsafe because you’re used to chaos. And chaos is familiar, and we always want to go back to what’s familiar to us. So it’s quite an interesting dynamic. Payman doesn’t have these issues, but I know what you mean, you know? And so and I find that I try to go back to chaos sometimes, you know, I’m interested in.

Speaker3: Okay, first of all, you were worried about your judgement. I how didn’t I see [00:48:30] it and all that. But I mean, it sounds like you’ve done some work with therapists and all that. Yeah. Is there something that you think that I’m guilty of attracting the wrong person?

Speaker1: Oh, absolutely. Now I realise I’m not guilty. But there was a point where I was like, why did I let myself go through that? That was the hardest thing. Like, how could I let myself stay in that for however long and then go into another relationship that was abusive in a different way?

Speaker3: But when I say guilty, not not necessarily that it’s your fault, right? More in so much as like [00:49:00] is there is there is there something from your childhood? Is there some, some, some standard you were trying to reach, some something you’re going to please your dad or whatever it was that that made you more prone to accepting this from from your partners. Yeah.

Speaker1: So I’m a really big believer in everything stems from childhood to the point. My friends are like, okay, Tara, like, you don’t need to psychoanalyse me right now. Um, so yes, I do believe that. I think I was so used to conforming to what [00:49:30] what I thought my parents wanted from me that this was kind of like my rebellious phase. And this was excitement. This was, yeah, a way for me to just, like, even when I was angry, I’d shout, like, to the point I’ve never shouted before. I remember I was in a room and I was screaming and I hadn’t. I would never do that at home. Like that was my way of just like releasing. And maybe I didn’t think I was worth enough to be worthy enough to be loved. And those men in my life, unfortunately, kind of helped me [00:50:00] believe that I wasn’t worthy enough trauma bond.

Speaker2: He was asking me what a trauma bond was earlier. Yeah. And I was trying to explain, yeah, that that’s exactly what a trauma bond is. And we sometimes mistaken that like deep. You’re like, this is the one. I have to make it work. And again, it’s actually a trauma bond. I compared it to Johnny Depp and Amber heard. You know, like that was such a toxic trauma bond relationship. And you see a lot of those in the public eye, by the way, you know, super toxic, super fiery. And that’s the thing. Like, you know, you just [00:50:30] you want something to be like that. That uncertainty somehow makes us really engaged as human beings, and we see that in all aspects of our life. And if you could choose another career, what would it be and why?

Speaker1: Something to do with dogs? Love it because I just love them. They are just are the best things. Like they make me happy. They’re just so loving. [00:51:00] Yeah. Dogs. A dog walker. Maybe like a dog. Home.

Speaker2: Would you be a vet or not?

Speaker1: I’ve thought about that, but I don’t know if I’d be able to deal with the kind of saddest stuff.

Speaker2: Oh, really?

Speaker1: Yeah, I did think about that. But no, just something like, you know, like a play den or like something like that. And who knows, maybe it will happen. Yeah, I even looked into dog cleaning.

Speaker2: I love cleaning, yeah. No, literally, you know, they can get perio. Dogs can get really bad.

Speaker3: Perio. Yeah I can imagine. Yeah.

Speaker2: You know and carries. They can do. My family [00:51:30] would tell my friends to brush their teeth. Do you brush your dog’s teeth?

Speaker1: Yeah. My my dog. Yeah a family dog. We didn’t do that unfortunately. Did he.

Speaker2: Get carries? Império.

Speaker1: He had 16 teeth pulled down.

Speaker2: See, you got to brush their teeth.

Speaker3: Yeah, I’ve seen those things where they do almost like a doggy spa thing. Yeah, I love those. See? What?

Speaker1: Like, how fun would that be?

Speaker3: Can’t get enough of this.

Speaker2: Literally. Do you have a dog?

Speaker3: No. I want one really badly. But my family aren’t.

Speaker2: I know dogs do bring one home. And dogs, dogs? Dogs are therapy now, Tara, you said you were also quite introverted person. [00:52:00] Yes. Yeah. Do you have a social media profile? Yeah. Um. And you have to talk to patients all day. How do you manage that? Are you an extrovert? Introvert? Is that what they call them these days?

Speaker1: I don’t know which way around it is, but I’m definitely an introvert. I am extroverted when I feel comfortable, when I know the people I’m around in work, I kind of have to like fake it till you make it kind of thing. It’s a thing and I believe in it. And, um. Yeah, I’d [00:52:30] say at work I’m confident in what I do so I can maybe be perhaps a little bit more extroverted. Um, but family home. I’m quite a quiet person, but I can have my moments. Like, I can just be, like, silly. I’ve got, like, my cousin and my sister, who I guess are my, like, who I’ve grown up with. They’ve seen, like, the silly side to me. So I think it just depends on who I’m around. However, being at work, constantly talking to patients, engaging with them, it’s a bit different to dentistry [00:53:00] because dentistry, they’re like with their mouth open. You’re not really talking to them for for the time you’re treating. However, during what I’m doing, people are nervous of what they’re going to look like, of what it’s going to feel like, um, of what people are going to think of them if they’ve had it done. So I’m like trying to overcompensate and just make them feel so comfortable because I want them to feel comfortable. I want them to feel excited for this journey and for something that they want. That at the end of the day, I’m pooped. Like I go home and I’m ready [00:53:30] to just go to bed.

Speaker2: And not talk to anyone.

Speaker1: Just pet my dog, have some food. I don’t even watch TV. It’s too much stimulus. I just, you know, put some candles on and then I just write journal. If I can read, go to bed.

Speaker3: How many different clinics do you work in exclusively?

Speaker1: I work in one at the moment for facial aesthetics, and then I teach with the Academy, so that’s in a different location.

Speaker3: Yeah. And would you say overall, is it is it just you or would you say, would you advise someone that it’s a better life than being a dentist?

Speaker1: I [00:54:00] think wherever your passion lies, it’s important to focus on that. I think financially aesthetics can be great. And as a woman who is thinking about, you know, maybe one day having a family, I think aesthetics works better for me in that sense, because I can kind of choose my own hours. I mean, if I had my own clinic, dental clinic, it might be a bit different, but I can choose my own hours. I can choose how long I want the day to be. [00:54:30] I don’t need to sit in a certain position for a certain amount of time. Um.

Speaker3: It suits you.

Speaker1: It suits me.

Speaker2: Yeah. I really hated aesthetics.

Speaker3: I dabbled pretty surprised at that.

Speaker2: Now I just, like, thought it’s right.

Speaker3: No.

Speaker2: Do you know what? First of all, like Tara said, like, I really hated anatomy. I don’t have a 3D brain. So as in, like, when I’m looking at you now, I don’t actually really know where the nerves and stuff are, even though we sort of deal with it. So I find it really hard. In school, I had to work much harder at biology than I did chemistry. Chemistry [00:55:00] came natural to me because I found biology really difficult. Like I was sort of just seeing words I didn’t really understand, you know, where they were. So it never came to me naturally. And then when it came to injecting, I just found like I couldn’t see anything. Whereas like with the tooth and dentistry, do you know, I mean, you can see the enamel and dentine, you can see the pulp, you can see a prep, you can see your margins. Yeah. It’s to blind. That’s probably why I stopped. Endo is like years ago. Do you know what I mean? I fractured loads of files in my time. Yeah, exactly. So I prefer [00:55:30] that element of it. I didn’t like the industry. I found the industry like worse than dentistry, which says something. And I also found it very challenging dealing with people that were so obsessed with their face. Like, for some reason, I still think there’s more of a stigma with getting stuff done to your face than your teeth. Have you noticed that, like, people are very like, oh, I’m having Invisalign, whitening and bonding or like I’m having minimal prep veneers that don’t involve. But whereas now they’re still be, as you know, like with other guests that we talked about, like they’re having like their lips done or a [00:56:00] rhinoplasty or anything like that, there is some sort of stigma related to the anti-aging or enhancement of the face compared to the anti-aging or enhancement of the teeth. Definitely. So I think like for me as well, even though cosmetic dentistry is also cosmetic enhancement, the type of people you attract are somewhat different. It’s different.

Speaker1: So different people don’t want to tell people that they’ve come to see me. Yeah, well, most of them, which is actually quite a struggle to build a business. A lot of it is word of mouth, but I’ll have patients. Obviously everything is confidential [00:56:30] anyway, but they’ll come out to exclusively say, please don’t tell them that I’ve had this done. And of course I wouldn’t do that because we’ve been taught patient confidentiality and we understand the importance of it. But it’s it’s yeah, it’s really hard to actually grow a business in aesthetics because of that. You know, I have so many influencers, so many like, you know, people in the on TV, but they might come and talk about going to a dentist, but they wouldn’t come and talk about getting the facialist facialist. Yeah, facial aesthetics done. So it’s a shame, but it’s [00:57:00] changing.

Speaker2: So, Tara, yes, it’s been amazing to have you. We could talk for ages. I want to ask a final question as well. And I think this is really important. One thing that really strikes me as you’re speaking is that you’ve overcome a lot of adversity, but particularly because you’ve built a successful clinic, being naturally an introverted person, I’m going to go back into this because a lot of people would say that they look up to certain people on social media and they. Feel that they can’t put [00:57:30] themselves out there because they don’t have the confidence. But you just said that you’re naturally introverted. So what would be your advice for somebody that wants to create, you know, a business of their dreams but doesn’t necessarily have the confidence because they feel that they’re limiting factor is that they’re not outspoken?

Speaker1: There are so many businesses out there where you don’t know who that person is behind it. You don’t have to be the face of a brand. I think you have to understand what you want. Success is different to everyone. [00:58:00] Some people, success is having a really lovely home life and, you know, having that time to themselves for three days a week and some it might be a business. And I think look at businesses that you admire. Look at what they’ve done and look at how you can emulate that. And if you can’t do that, if you’ve got the means to find a way to help yourself by getting someone else on board to help you do that, if it’s public speaking that might be involved, get some training in public [00:58:30] speaking like there’s no harm in bettering yourself in different areas. I mean, I’ve looked into public speaking not because I want a public speak, but because I want to improve on how I can put myself across. And you never know what opportunities might come just like that. Why not kind of arm myself with that skill?

Speaker2: And you know what? It’s funny because one of our guests, we were saying we were trying to have empathy for the kind of like unconfident boy that looks up to toxic [00:59:00] men now in society and blame women and hate women because they can’t speak to women. And she said, oh, just stop being pathetic. Like you want to learn how to talk to women. Literally go on YouTube and people will provide videos and provide videos on how to talk to women. And you can find it from a woman and from a man. So there is no reason like we have.

Speaker3: You see there if I, if I if a woman had said something like that and I say stop being pathetic, you would have you would have broken, you would have hit me down.

Speaker2: Listen, listen. Yeah. Because it’s a.

Speaker3: Guy you can say.

Speaker2: Stop being. No, no, no, I know, listen, I have [00:59:30] a lot. I listen, I have a lot of empathy for that, that kind of, you know, for that kind of person. Anyway, Tara, it’s such a pleasure to have you. You have been a great mentor and friend and continue to build a really successful business. Your insights have been so valuable. Speak up more. We love it.

Speaker1: Oh thank you. I’ll drive.

Speaker2: Thank you for coming on my much.

Speaker1: Thank you so much for coming. Thank you.

Mydentist associate Luisa Mateescu says she inherited a can-do attitude from her father—a shrewd entrepreneur with a head for numbers.

Not content to stay in her native Romania, Luisa followed her heart to the UK, diving headfirst into mastering new skills and tech.

Luisa recounts her story so far, chatting about the contrast between UK and Romanian dentistry, achieving a healthy work-life balance, and thoughts on where her burning ambition may take her next.

Enjoy!  

 

Oana Luisa Mateescu

00.46 – Backstory

07.48 – Study

16.38 – First job

20.32 – Moving to the UK

30.09 – Romania Vs the UK

35.39 – Mindset

40.43 – Work-life balance

46.28 – Clinical progress

49.17 – Working culture

53.15 – Patient wants and needs

56.38 – Five-year plan

01.00.55 – The worst thing about being a dentist

01.05.20 – Industry predictions

01.09.47 – Blackbox thinking

01.24.57 – Fantasy dinner party

01.27.46 – Last days and legacy

 

About Luisa Mateescu

Luisa Mateescu graduated from the University of Bucharest in 2017. She is an associate dentist at mydentist.

Speaker1: If you can excel, it doesn’t matter on what. If you want to be a dancer, be a great dancer, right? Go to Juilliard, be a great dancer or anywhere else. But be good. Be out there and enjoy what you’re doing. And I think part of the education is very important to try a little bit of everything. Try to learn a bit more from all the subjects because that builds your general knowledge, which is important.

Speaker2: This is Dental [00:00:30] Leaders. The podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Speaker3: It gives me great pleasure to welcome Luisa Mateescu onto the podcast. I first met Luisa at a my dentist event and at Mini Smile Makeover, and what struck me about Luisa [00:01:00] was that you were so, so up for it, so into doing the best. And, you know, like someone who wanted to learn like a hunger for learning, that I sometimes see that in people’s eyes, a glint in their eye, you know. And I was very interested in your story of coming over from Romania, joining my dentist and and all the other stuff you’ve done. Massive pleasure to have you on the podcast. Thank you for inviting me. So, Lisa, take me back to your [00:01:30] backstory, sort of where you were born. Why did you even think medical, let alone dental, was what was what was the thinking as a child or you were you were you? Do you have family members in the field or no backstory?

Speaker1: Not really. So I come from Romania. It’s a small city very close to Bucharest, which is the capital of Romania. Um, we don’t have doctors in the family. We have a distant relative that [00:02:00] is a dentist. I found out about him later, but it’s simple as this. My parents and their parents were quite old school. So if you want to do something with your life, you should be either a doctor, either a lawyer. Obviously, there’s more about that. But my parents wanted me to be a doctor and they kind of implemented that to my head, so I don’t know if I want. I always wanted to be a doctor or I’ve been educated [00:02:30] that I wanted to be a doctor.

Speaker3: But yeah, I’m trying that with my daughter right now. Yeah, not very easy. Were they dropping little hints? You’re going to be a doctor, Mrs.. Doctor.

Speaker1: Well be to actually have the title as a doctor, even if I’m not like, I’m not I don’t have a PhD. I’m not a general practitioner. I’m a doctor of the teeth. Right. I’m a I’m a doctor of dental medicine. So it’s still good enough because it gives you more flexibility. So that’s why I actually chose dentistry [00:03:00] in the end, because my parents wanted me to be a surgeon, obviously, obviously a neurosurgeon or something, that you don’t have a life, you just stay in the.

Speaker3: What do your parents.

Speaker1: Do? Well, my parents, my father has a business. Well, two actually, it’s quite funny, actually. This is a interesting story. My father is actually a bodybuilder, so he loves going to the gym. He eats very, very healthy. And he won and [00:03:30] participated in multiple competitions. Well, he actually won third prize into a worldwide competition bodybuilder for his age like over 50, which was really good. He now he quit. So he’s not the same, but he’s still very good in shape. He still goes to the gym like four times, a four times a week. But he was really into it. But he’s also a businessman, so he has a business. Basically. He sells construction materials and everything [00:04:00] that deals with that and also builds houses or small numbers of houses or block of flats.

Speaker3: Was it was it not a thought of going into the family business?

Speaker1: No. Well, actually there are three brothers. So yes, I have two other uncles. So when me and my cousins, when we were little, they kind of decided that the kids will not go into the family business. So I always had that in mind. So my parents, because.

Speaker3: There’s so many of [00:04:30] you.

Speaker1: Because it would have been arguments. Yes, probably. That’s why. So we were very tiny at that point. So my parents said, okay, so no family business is fine. So she’s going to become a doctor. That’s what I’ve done lately. Like lately, almost 15 years ago, I think he opened the gym as well. So we have one of the fanciest gym in the town. So everyone goes there and it is a very good gym, so he can train and have whatever he wants for his training, like properly, because [00:05:00] no other gym was supplying with what he wanted. So yeah. Your mom.

Speaker3: Work as well or no.

Speaker1: My mom quit working when I was born and she dedicated all her time for me. Are you the only child step? Yes.

Speaker3: Are you.

Speaker1: Right? And. But now she’s helping at the gym. So basically, she’s managing the gym as much as she can. Whenever they have a new girl hired or something, she’s teaching them. It’s just. Like a manager. She goes there whenever it’s busy because it became become very busy. So she helps the family business. [00:05:30]

Speaker3: So your dad sounds like one of these sort of pure bred entrepreneur types, you know?

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: He can’t stand still. Yeah. Does any of that rubbed off on you? Do you feel like you’ve got a bit of that in you as well?

Speaker1: Maybe. But I’m not to the point of opening a business on my own. I don’t think I’m there yet, but I would never exclude that. So we’ll see.

Speaker3: So when you when you watch someone operate, you learn by sort of by osmosis in a way. Right. Like it’s it’s a bit like sitting on the kitchen [00:06:00] table watching your mum cooking. Yeah. She’s not necessarily teaching you.

Speaker1: But you see things.

Speaker3: You see things, you learn things you learn.

Speaker1: By watching. Yeah.

Speaker3: What did you absorb from your dad? Like? Is it the way he treats people. What is it. Well he’s.

Speaker1: Very straightforward. He’s very he’s very good at math. So he can do. He can.

Speaker3: He’s good with the numbers.

Speaker1: He’s very good with the numbers. Exactly. So he knows exactly if like because I once said, oh, I would like to open this type of business. So [00:06:30] basically it’s not very popular here in the UK, but in Romania it is. It’s called like you go to a place you put like electrodes on yourself and you do small movements. So it’s like an intense gym session linked to a machine. It’s called X body. There here, not very popular again. So I wanted that. But the machines is very expensive. And I said and he asked me a few questions like how much is going to be a session, how much you’re going to pay the trainer, how much [00:07:00] that and that. And that is like, that’s not a good business. Stop. He had the instinct in a in a second. Yeah. So are you going.

Speaker3: To open that in Romania or here.

Speaker1: In Romania? I wanted to do that in Romania. That was I was still in uni. I was thinking to do that a little bit to get, I don’t know, just to, to have something like a passive income coming and maybe he’s.

Speaker3: Definitely got the bug that means.

Speaker1: Yeah, well I do maybe, I don’t know, I’m still young, so I have time. [00:07:30]

Speaker3: Yeah. But for someone to think like that in university, in university, I wasn’t thinking at all about starting businesses. I was busy enjoying myself.

Speaker1: Why not?

Speaker3: Well, yeah, you know what I mean. Like, what I’m saying is it’s in you that you weren’t thinking like that. Wow.

Speaker1: I’ve never thought about it, but, yeah, that would be good. I hope it is so.

Speaker3: Okay. Where did you study?

Speaker1: So I studied in Bucharest at the. Not the private university. The state one is called University Carol Davila. It’s supposed [00:08:00] to be one of the best universities in Romania. So. And it was quite a close one. And it’s in the capital of the city. So it would have been like a good fun in uni. Is it is.

Speaker3: It, is it very competitive to get in to dentistry.

Speaker1: Used to, used to be when I applied. Yes and no. So you need to pass the exam. The exam in school. Yeah. So you finish high school which is you finish it at 18. Yeah. Right. So it’s like after college [00:08:30] here. Yeah. You’re 18. It doesn’t matter what you did before. If you want to go to dental school you just need to pass the exam. One the exam is very simple. You have 100 questions multiple choice choice. And you have two subjects biology. Well anatomy. And it’s either chemistry either physics. I chose physics because chemistry involved a lot of chemicals. No. Yes. But also involved a lot of things to remember that you would probably forget. [00:09:00] And also you needed to do difficult math like 2.056 multiple 5.021 and without a calculator or anything.

Speaker3: 5.13 yes.

Speaker1: Exactly. But with physics was very simple. It was more logic. It was it was more obvious. So I chose that. It was very it was simpler. It was less to to study as well, whatever reason. But the biology was the like [00:09:30] the anatomy, it was the biggest subject. So whatever you get, whatever grade you get at the end is just going to be your entrance point. So you need to pass 50. So you need to do better than 50 points. But the first 140 places would be would not pay anything, so it couldn’t be the universe. The first year of uni is going to be free. So I got 89 and I got a free spot. Oh, nice. Yeah. So every year, negative marking. [00:10:00]

Speaker3: You know what I mean by that.

Speaker1: No.

Speaker3: So here are now exams in dental school. It’s multiple choice. Yeah. If you get it wrong you get minus one.

Speaker1: No it was just simple like you get right plus 1 or 0. Yeah. We had that during uni.

Speaker3: Oh you did. Yeah. Yeah. So you know about that. All right. So then you got in.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker3: And when you got there what were your impressions or what were you like as a dental student. Well top of your class or not I’ve.

Speaker1: No. So I always [00:10:30] been the top of my class until I was in high school, I was probably one of the best of the best. And then I kind of tried to relax a little bit. When high school, I wanted to have a little bit of fun, but I kept my grades quite high. When I went to uni, I had a shock because the volume of study was completely different, like what I needed to learn in a semester. I needed to learn there in a week, and I really went on top of it. Like first semester, I really dedicated my time and I [00:11:00] really like I had good grades. I wasn’t like, we don’t have A’s and B’s, we have 1 to 10. Yes. So I wasn’t maybe ten, ten, ten, ten in a line, but I had above eight. So I had good grades. So that was good. The first semester was quite hard, but then the second semester I kind of got the gist of the uni, so I was quite comfortable and I started to. I wanted to enjoy the uni life a little bit more. So I found myself that at the end of the second semester I just failed a few exams, [00:11:30] most of them because I didn’t go. Now because I didn’t study.

Speaker3: The first time. You’d ever failed anything in your life, right?

Speaker1: Yeah, maybe. Yeah. So in Romania, in dental school, if you don’t manage to pass one exam, it doesn’t matter. You just need to repeat the whole year with all the subjects. So for failing.

Speaker3: One exam, for.

Speaker1: Failing one exam you have a few times you a few chances. So I managed to pass all that. And then I woke up. I was like, right, I’m not going to fail my career. For some parting, I did some [00:12:00] parting. It’s all good. I’m happy. Let’s concentrate on what is important. So I started to be on top of the things. What was.

Speaker3: The years? Which years were you in university?

Speaker1: So you do six years of university? Was it was the year starting with year two? Yeah.

Speaker3: But which year? Which year was it 20.

Speaker1: Oh, right. 2012.

Speaker3: You started.

Speaker1: I started in 2011. 2000. Yeah. 2012 was the second year when I and your.

Speaker3: System in Romania, the first 3 or 4 years [00:12:30] are very like general medical, right?

Speaker1: Yes. So first three years is mainly general medicine. You have all the modules dermatology, endocrinology, all of that. You have a bit about teeth. Like basically let’s count the teeth anatomy and how they look like what how many cusps and nothing important. But it’s mainly general dentistry. So you have the flexibility of if you want to swap in year four, you can just go and carry on and move to general medicine and you just carry on and become a doctor.

Speaker3: So you literally having the same [00:13:00] classes as the medical school.

Speaker1: More or less. It’s not that important anyway. So they don’t they don’t question if you want to move in year five you would be a year four. Yeah, yeah. So you need to go back.

Speaker3: Yeah. So then which year is it that you see your first patient year four.

Speaker1: Well that’s an interesting story. We first patient as a Dental. Yeah. Yeah. So well that’s what I thought because in the past what I thought about the universities that I’ll finish uni and I’ll know what to do with the patient. That was [00:13:30] a big lie. No. When I first started in year four, you’re supposed to start dealing with patients I’ve never touched. A patient in uni.

Speaker3: Seems late to start with patients in year four five year.

Speaker1: Course. I’ve never touched a patient during six years. I’ve never done work on a patient at all. At all. Well, because, well, it’s considered that most of our professors and everything were too scared about the the possible competition. So they just stopped [00:14:00] the work. So in the past it used to be free for the patients and then they started to put charges. Yeah. And there were not enough patients for us and for the people that were specialising in something. So they would get the patients and also all the chairs they had, most of them would have a room with 20 dental chairs, but only two of them were working, so there was no space.

Speaker3: So you qualified without doing much dentistry at all?

Speaker1: Well, I did on my own. I took care of myself [00:14:30] basically. So I went to school in year two. As I said, I started to concentrate on on the studying. But in year four you start to do dentistry. So I realised that we have a lot of subjects that. It don’t really matter, and they don’t deserve my time. So I can concentrate on what I know I’m going to use and I’m going to train myself on my own. So apart from the usual with subjects and everything, you have another exam in the summer and sorry, in autumn in September, which is not [00:15:00] that you fail something else, it’s just a different exam. So it’s like your practical exam. So you’re supposed to finish uni and then go and do shadow. Shadow. Someone wherever you want is supposed to be a specialist or like a fellow specialist, and you would learn whatever, and you go to the exam and answer all the questions and you pass the exam. That’s an easy exam. Everyone kind of passes that one. Yeah, but I did some shadowing like a month every summer or two months. Didn’t [00:15:30] really get much of that. I was just tired. And yeah, because in the first 2 or 3 years you don’t do any dentistry. You don’t know what the dentist is doing. No one has the time to explain to you. And. Yeah, but, um, I just took care of myself and basically I applied to be a dental nurse. So I went and worked in a dental practice as a well as a whatever. I was a dental nurse. I was a manager, I was the cleaner, I was everything, I was scrubbing the floors and I was driving [00:16:00] a more expensive car than the owner, you know. But it’s funny, you know, I did everything I needed.

Speaker3: To do in the Third World. I mean, I don’t know if you can call Romania Third World, but in the third World. Yeah. I mean, I’m from Iran. So, you know, in the third World, there’s many situations where you have to take it into your own hands. Yeah. Like, I don’t know, I’m thinking of family member goes to hospital, but the family make a massive difference to that care of that patient in hospital, obviously, because, you know, there’s not enough nurses [00:16:30] or not enough doctors. And so you might.

Speaker1: Get the, the, the single room and you might even get a toilet there or a clean room.

Speaker3: Yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker4: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: And many other situations like that where you have to take it into your own hands in the third world, that’s what. Yeah. So okay. Where was your first proper job?

Speaker1: Proper job as a dentist. As a dentist. Right. It was. It was in the UK. Oh really? The proper one. It was in the UK. So I’ve worked in Romania as a dental nurse. [00:17:00] I worked as a dentist as well, but I’ve never been paid for it. So when I finished university, I got a job in my hometown for a very important guy in Romania. Gdc is is not one entity, it’s one entity, but it’s split in regions. So I got a job for the president of the GDC for that region. So it was really good because I could do everything I wanted as long as he was happy with me doing that, and [00:17:30] he was close to retirement and he didn’t want to work. So he.

Speaker3: Was it your region?

Speaker1: Yeah, yeah. It was.

Speaker3: Did you know him because he knew your dad and that sort of thing?

Speaker1: I no, I actually no, I know him because my mother’s brother used to be his postman.

Speaker3: That’s even better.

Speaker4: It’s even better.

Speaker1: But he’s a lovely guy. He’s a he’s a surgeon, actually, he’s a surgeon. But he was having a general dental practice there, and he was doing a lot of things.

Speaker3: And what was he doing? Implants.

Speaker4: The whole he was doing everything.

Speaker1: He was doing the small surgeries as well. Quite [00:18:00] a lot of oral surgery impacted wisdom teeth. Removal, all the disgusting stuff. Oh love that. Implants as well obviously. But then fillings and cleans and he was doing everything. But obviously because I was there he was trying to pass that more towards me. I actually did two cases, two implant cases with him and I did them.

Speaker4: Wow. Yeah, that learning.

Speaker3: On the job.

Speaker4: But if I tell.

Speaker1: You how I did them, you know. No, no it was impeccable. [00:18:30]

Speaker4: Impeccable.

Speaker1: So the second case, it was one of his friends. But the first case, I don’t think she knows I did the implant.

Speaker4: Oh, really?

Speaker1: Because he put something on her, but she was absolutely fine. And he was my nurse, so we worked together very well in the implant. It’s beautifully placed. It was that exact ideal case.

Speaker3: So look, I’ve got an uncle who’s a dentist or who was a dentist in Iran. He went he ended up in Canada. But while I was in first year dental student, I [00:19:00] visited and he took me to the state clinic. You know where the the people queue up to have teeth taken out, right? You know, the pain clinic if you like. But basically it was an extraction.

Speaker4: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: And I went there for two days. Yeah. And in two days I took out more teeth than the rest of my dental course put together. Yeah. And he basically showed me what to do. I’d never taken a tooth out. Yeah. And he was just like, keep pushing. It’s [00:19:30] interesting because. Because then I learnt that thing. Yeah. And it’s amazing how much you can learn more. Yeah.

Speaker4: Doing had a had.

Speaker1: A similar job like that. Yes because I worked for him. So he’s. I was like, I want to have more patience. It’s like in Romania you get a lot of experience if you go to the countryside and which is like a pain clinic. Yeah. So you just go there one on one morning a week. People already wait for you. So he put me in contact with the person that owned that practice. [00:20:00] He just wanted to have a cigarette or like a hundred and coffees. And I was doing everything. But he gave me a nurse, which was great. So I was going there and I worked until I finished the patients once a week. And it was brilliant.

Speaker3: I remember this, my uncle going out into the street, giving blocks and infiltrations to the queue in.

Speaker4: The street, just in the street to get them ready.

Speaker3: Get them ready so that by [00:20:30] the time they. Yeah.

Speaker4: Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Speaker3: So tell me about the move. Number one. You told me off Mike that, you know what you just told me now, your dad was an established guy. You you could have stayed there, opened your clinic. You knew loads of people. Yeah. Had a very good life there. Yeah, but you chose to move here.

Speaker1: Think about when I finished uni, we finished 300 from [00:21:00] that uni. There was another unit. Students, dentist, new dentists, 300.

Speaker3: Yeah.

Speaker4: Big year.

Speaker1: No, normally. Yeah. Another. You name the private one probably had another 200 and that was just in Bucharest. And there’s so many other dental schools everywhere in the country.

Speaker4: So there’s too many dentists.

Speaker1: Yeah, there’s too many dentists. And in Romania is very popular. You finish uni and then you need to become a specialist. But because everyone’s a specialist now they go for a second specialist, [00:21:30] they have to. Yeah. So it’s just and then they go for a PhD. But I swear to God they, most of them don’t have the clinical experience that they should for the amount of years they studied. So no thank you. And also being in uni and year four, five and six, I can’t speak for other universities, but I can speak for my year, for my personal experience. It’s not fair. You don’t get the grade fair, fair and square. It’s not fair. [00:22:00] Also, the material, the support material that you’re supposed to study and you’re going to be asked about is not the same. So if you know an older student, you might get the actual stuff. If not people.

Speaker4: Just we’re back.

Speaker3: To that same thing, aren’t we? Yeah. About having to take things into your own hands.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: So it’s not fair. You. I got a grade. I got a good grade once. Just because the professor in front of me was. It was a bit late, and she got a phone call, so. Yeah. Finished [00:22:30] nine by. I was good. You had the exams where if you, you need when you go to the exam, you need to buy the professor something to drink or something to eat. Right. But we have this specific professor that she actually become the dean at some point, that she couldn’t drink normal water. It needed to be imported Evian water. Otherwise. Aristocrat, I don’t know. And then macarons. Like she had a thing for French. Yeah. So she wanted [00:23:00] French dessert. French was everything. So.

Speaker3: So we’re getting to the crux of the matter is that inherent sort of corruption of another third world country, right? Yeah. And it’s.

Speaker4: Not fair.

Speaker3: It’s not fair. Right. And you said we we spoke about that off mic as well. But I’ve got friends who love it.

Speaker4: Oh yeah.

Speaker1: Because you, you bend the rules however you want.

Speaker3: Yeah. And also like the immediate, you know like my friend was I went to Iran the last thing I wanted to have anything [00:23:30] to do with police. Right. I did not want to meet a policeman. Right. I didn’t want to have any questions to answer. And my friend was telling me, listen, the problem. Right? Anything happens with the police, just give us some money all over. Yeah. And I was like, well, that’s terrible. What if that’s the guy who can’t afford it or whatever? Yeah.

Speaker4: What if you.

Speaker1: Give them the wrong amount and it’s too less?

Speaker4: But he was saying get upset.

Speaker3: He was saying he likes it because it means the thing is over. Then. Whereas if he was in London, he’d have to then go to court. And. Yeah, so so.

Speaker4: I like it here.

Speaker1: Because it’s fair and [00:24:00] square. It’s more fair and square for everyone. Yes. And it’s the same procedure everyone goes through. Yes, of course you get your shortcuts here as well if.

Speaker4: You but we get to this.

Speaker3: Question then. Right. And know it’s kind of a selfish way of thinking about it. You could have thrived in Romania. You could have.

Speaker4: I could have, yeah, I could have had the easy life, had the.

Speaker3: Means to pay whoever you needed to. Yeah, you had the connections, and yet you chose to go live [00:24:30] in Birmingham and find a job, you know, the first place you could, I guess. What was that? Why leave? Because. Because you inherently don’t like corruption. Is that is that what you’re saying? That.

Speaker1: Is as well. Yes. And also because I want to do things on my own. I want to prove myself, I want to. Why? Just because I know I can and I don’t need anyone to. Is it is it that?

Speaker3: Is it that somewhere along the line any anything you achieve? People said, oh yeah, she’s got a rich dad or like that you [00:25:00] didn’t get.

Speaker4: The credit did.

Speaker1: Came across a few things like this. Yes. Like, oh yeah. You got that because of your parents or you got like, do you even know how to do that? Or you look at you, you’re too young. You’re you’re a girl. What, like. No. And here my. Yes, that’s quite interesting. So one of the first patients that I’ve ever had in the UK told me that I was impressed. Well, I know they do this all the time, but that was for me was the first he said, well, what [00:25:30] would you do in my case? Because like, I don’t, I don’t know. You are the expert. They just come to you. You are a dentist. They assume you’re the best. They don’t look. They know their dentist is well prepared. It’s there in that job because they know what they’re doing.

Speaker4: They don’t question it. Yes.

Speaker1: And the patients in Romania, Romanian patients are a nightmare, especially if they’re Romanian patients. In Romania, they’re a nightmare. They don’t come for recalls. They don’t care about prevention. They don’t trust [00:26:00] you. And I actually really, really hate to sell myself in front of someone for half an hour or an hour. And in the end, well, I’m going to go to the guy that I know and I know I can do a better job. They were going for a clean to the max tax guy that I was working with. He wasn’t even doing it very. I would have taken an hour to airflow and everything sparkling clean, but they would go to him because he’s [00:26:30] a max. So that’s the Romanian patient is they go for the max box for the filling. No, that’s not right.

Speaker3: It makes me think of back home that I remember once I had a tummy ache or something. They brought a doctor in. Honestly, the guy was 85. Yeah, like he was old.

Speaker1: He knew what he was doing.

Speaker3: Yeah, but this is the thing. Like my my training told me this guy’s out of date because he’s 85, and I kind of in my pain. I brought it up with my grandmother. I said, who’s this guy? He’s an old guy. She said, exactly. You know, he’s [00:27:00] an old guy. That’s what you want, someone with experience to be old.

Speaker1: And the guy.

Speaker4: Especially if you’re.

Speaker1: Young and the lady is just not a bad combination.

Speaker3: So explain to me, when you got to England, you landed in London?

Speaker4: Yes.

Speaker1: And I landed in Birmingham, actually.

Speaker4: Why? Because my my.

Speaker1: Partner was already.

Speaker4: Here. Oh, okay. Right. Okay. Okay. So.

Speaker1: Well, the process of coming here, well, back then, like, five years ago, was way easier than it is now because England, well, UK [00:27:30] was part of the EU, so I only I registered with the GTC within a month. I just need to pay a fee, do some documents, job done. But then the problem comes when you want to become when you want to get your performance number because everyone said it’s good to have it and I agree. Yeah. So you need to find a practice. You need to have find a job that has an available mentor for you. Yeah. So I went to job fairs like every year. They were always selling finish your university. Come back. [00:28:00] Then I was going again next year finish university. And then when I finished I was like, I finished, I’m here, let’s do this. And she said, okay, we have this big corporate that I know it’s serious. And they have like 600 practices or even more all over the country. So you have flexibility. So they might have the resources for you. So I said fine. And I wanted to be a corporate because an independent might have just shut down after a month or you don’t know where you go. It’s a it’s a different country. It’s a different world. You can’t trust someone overseas. So I chose the corporate. [00:28:30] I had an online no, I had a phone interview last good. And then they said, fine, let’s start the process. You need to apply for performance number because you have a job now. Well, they found me a job in Bristol and yeah. So where I was working in Romania, I had the understanding with the owner that whenever I need to leave to the UK to do documents or something, I just go, so he doesn’t say anything. So that was good. So I had, I was working there, but when I needed to leave I just [00:29:00] needed I would have just gone. So yeah, just came to the UK, landed in Birmingham, got questioned at the airport like, yeah, what are you doing here? Because I only had one way ticket. I’ve never been questioned before.

Speaker4: Have you. No, no.

Speaker1: They asked me like was like, do you have a job? It’s like, yes, I do have a job. Like what do you do? Dentist okay. We need you here. Welcome. That was nice. And then. Yeah, I moved to Bristol, so [00:29:30] my partner was living in Birmingham and I just moved to Bristol because I’ve had the job in Bristol with a mentor available and everything, and my start was very rocky. It was a lot of mix ups and, but. In the end, I made it happen because I again actually took the matters in my own hand and called the area manager and discussed because they gave me a job, and then they said, oh, the position is not available anymore. I was like, are you kidding me? I just rented an apartment, paid three months in advance, bought a car. I’m ready. [00:30:00] You need to be ready for me because I came from Romania. Yeah, it’s far away. So it happened in the end. So it was good.

Speaker3: So then you were reflections on the difference between being a dentist here and being a dentist there. What was your initial reflection? Was it was it as you would expect it as you were expecting it to be? I mean, look, I think all of us are surprised when we go into to general practice, even even if you come from here. Yeah. First job [00:30:30] I did. Yeah. Whatever they call it. Yeah. I couldn’t believe that this was the practice that I was working in. Like, you know, in terms of and by the way, great guy. I’m still in touch with the guy. Yeah. But nonetheless, it was an NHS practice and the timings for the appointments, you know, five minute, ten minute exam. I couldn’t believe it. Could not believe it. What were your reflections.

Speaker1: So I knew all that from the beginning.

Speaker4: I knew, I.

Speaker1: Knew, yeah I did do my research properly, [00:31:00] so I knew it’s short time for any exam. I knew NHS needs to be quick, quick, quick, quick, quick and money wise to be worth it. You need to be thorough. You’re not allowed any mistakes.

Speaker4: Do you know about the legal nightmare?

Speaker3: Yeah.

Speaker4: Yes, I was intrigued.

Speaker3: Told you all that.

Speaker4: Well, was.

Speaker3: There, was there an induction where they.

Speaker1: Had an induction as well, but they didn’t tell you that at.

Speaker4: The induction.

Speaker1: They only tell you band woman to band three. You claim like that and this is the system you just click. [00:31:30]

Speaker4: On complete.

Speaker3: Research taking you to the question of British dentists sued a lot.

Speaker1: It was the company that I applied through like the recruitment company was someone from my dentist. Actually, that’s the company that I got the job with. It was someone from their recruiting department that talked with me through a lot. And then. I did speak with someone that was already working in the UK, so he told me a few [00:32:00] things I didn’t really understand at that point. But after I talked with the recruiting lady, she made me understand what was that about? And I did read a lot, and I read a lot of forums, and I knew the I knew I knew everything in Romania. I don’t have any litigation. It’s like, well, you have some, but.

Speaker4: Have you.

Speaker3: Been to the UK before that?

Speaker4: No, it was.

Speaker3: Your first time.

Speaker1: It was the. Well, yeah, it was the well it’s been once like for a London like three days but I knew I’m going to come here. So. [00:32:30] No not properly.

Speaker3: No Bristol great town I love Bristol.

Speaker4: Bristol is lovely. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker3: So all right move on. Well what happened next.

Speaker1: Right. So I started my first day was. Yeah. So the first practice I started it was in Avonmouth in Bristol. Small practice. Three Romanian dentists, including me.

Speaker4: Really? Yeah. And six nurses.

Speaker1: And. Yeah, all British nurses. Yeah. Yeah, it was okay. It was. It wasn’t very busy. So [00:33:00] the room, the surgery I was put in, it was the it was the storage room.

Speaker4: Right.

Speaker1: So they opened that surgery because I complained to the area manager that they made my contract disappear. And I came all this way like it needs to happen. And he went to the practice, said, this room is a surgery. Clear it up. We have a new dentist job done. So the practice didn’t have as many. It wasn’t that busy for three [00:33:30] dentists at a time. It was very busy for two dentists at a time. So I had more time with each patient. So I wasn’t having like five minutes and ten minutes per appointments. Yeah, it took me a while to understand when to stop dealing with a patient because I was on and on and on, and let’s do some more and more. I didn’t I didn’t know when to stop, but I got that after a week or two. I was simple. I was very slow at the beginning, didn’t understand how to operate the computer. We don’t have. In Romania [00:34:00] where I work we didn’t have a digital is nothing. It’s the nurse, right? Filling up a research done good. Not.

Speaker3: Not like the good old days.

Speaker4: Yes. Simple.

Speaker1: Yeah. But here, like I knew about the notes, I was ready. I had templates already. I’m very organised. I know exactly what I’m going to expect. I had templates for any treatment possible. I requested shadowing before two weeks so I knew how things go. I looked around the practice. I know I knew everything. I called the labs [00:34:30] to speak with them just to understand how how it works.

Speaker4: Before you. English.

Speaker3: Was it quite.

Speaker4: Good? Actually, I.

Speaker1: Wanted to say that. No, no, my my English is horrible. Like I make myself understand, but it’s not great. Do you.

Speaker3: Speak French?

Speaker4: No, I wish Spanish.

Speaker1: I understand.

Speaker4: Spanish. A lot of.

Speaker3: Romanians speak a lot of languages, don’t they?

Speaker1: Well, we can speak. Yeah, we’re good with languages.

Speaker4: Yeah, because it’s.

Speaker3: Kind of a Roman language itself, right?

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: So I can understand a lot of Spanish. I understand a bit of Italian, but because I don’t speak them, [00:35:00] I just, I can’t. No, I don’t speak Spanish. No, but I understand a bit. Yeah. Prior to coming to the UK, I actually started my own dictionary, medical terms from Romanian to English. So I was part of a lot of Facebook forums, a lot of any forums, any groups, any speciality dentistry, speciality things. I was part of them and they were posting and writing in, in English. So I was like, oh, Dental court, right. [00:35:30] Like a court. Oh, this is what is court. So I was writing in my so I had the dictionary already. I knew the terms before because I prepare myself.

Speaker4: Yeah. So I mean this.

Speaker3: This picture you’re drawing of this sort of determination and ambition. Yeah, I can see. And by the way of what I saw that day, you know. And you what do you think it comes from? What’s the origin of that?

Speaker4: I’ve always.

Speaker1: Been competitive, I don’t know, I like to.

Speaker4: To do more.

Speaker3: Only child. It’s a bit weird because normally competition [00:36:00] happens a lot between children. Well, tell me about only child reflections here, because I speak to some only children and they talk about how lonely they were and. Oh no, this. No. And then I speak to other.

Speaker4: It’s more for me. It’s okay. I speak to.

Speaker3: Other only children. They say something like they they ended up in adult conversations that other children didn’t because the children were playing together. What are your reflections about only child? Would you have an only child, for instance, or not?

Speaker4: Um, if you were thinking.

Speaker1: About having children. But if I were one, I think [00:36:30] is more than enough.

Speaker4: Really? Yeah. So you didn’t suffer.

Speaker3: With the only child syndrome?

Speaker1: No, no, no, no, not at all. No. I had a very good friend. She was living right across the street. So she was an only child. We were always together. It was fine. We go to school. We have a lot of kids around you. You go home, you like at the end of the day, it’s if you’re the only child, whatever. Sources that family has.

Speaker4: It’s all a.

Speaker1: Revolving around you. You get the first bit of everything, right.

Speaker4: But also.

Speaker3: The hopes [00:37:00] and fears and expectations. Oh yeah, Mount up right.

Speaker4: Obviously.

Speaker1: So it wasn’t a nine right? When I needed an A or an A plus here. A nine was an unacceptable. It was no.

Speaker4: In your house. Yeah.

Speaker1: No no they always wanted more like if I would bring a nine home as like right. So who got the ten. Why didn’t why didn’t you get the ten? Like. Well it was very difficult. It was like. Well was it. You could have done more.

Speaker3: Lisa, [00:37:30] do you think that that’s going to just translate straight into I know you don’t know if you’re going to have kids, but is that is that going to be you with your kids as well then.

Speaker4: Now if I would.

Speaker1: If I’ll have kids or kid child. Well, I’m going to give them a little bit more freedom, probably into choices wise. I’m going to smartly try to guide them towards what I think is best, but obviously they will do the last choice. They will have the last choice. But yeah, I would, you know, if I [00:38:00] always picture myself if I would ever have a child. He’s going to go to Harvard.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: So no pressure.

Speaker3: No, I hear you, I hear you. It’s weird because, you know, when you become a parent, these sort of things start, start happening to you, where you start thinking, hey, why not?

Speaker4: What? I would.

Speaker1: Like if I have a child, I would like the.

Speaker4: Him.

Speaker1: Or she to actually go to university abroad. Well, I’m already abroad, right.

Speaker4: So even if you continue that. Yeah.

Speaker3: So the question I’m really asking though is, you know, [00:38:30] you know, you said your your parents said doctor lawyer or failure. Right.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker3: If that just continues into the next generation and the next generation, there’ll be no film makers, there’ll be no musicians, there’ll be no. And the reason I’m talking about it is because, you know, I’m a first generation migrant, right? So my parents moved here. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn’t born here. Yeah. And so with us, with my group, everyone was maths, physics, chemistry, doctor, [00:39:00] engineer. But then what I would hope is the next generation to be.

Speaker4: More creative.

Speaker3: Be more creative, to have more things going on to, you know, it’s not limited by that. And we know these days with ChatGPT and all that stuff, right? That education isn’t what it used to be.

Speaker4: No, it’s that’s.

Speaker1: Where we’re heading anyway. Like now being like, know social media anything. It’s a job.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: You don’t learn that. You know, 50 years ago. No. [00:39:30] 20 years ago you would have never even imagined that like, marketing is super important. Yeah. It’s not something like nothingness or.

Speaker4: You know what I mean about.

Speaker3: Breaking that spell.

Speaker1: Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, it depends. If you can excel, it doesn’t matter. On what? If you want to be a dancer, be a great dancer, right? Go to Juilliard, be a great dancer or anywhere else. But be good. Be out there and enjoy what you’re doing. And I think part of the education is very important [00:40:00] to try a little bit of everything, try to learn a bit more from all the subjects, because that builds your general knowledge, which is important. It’s good to go to, I don’t know, anywhere you go have a conversation you can keep up with the an important of politics, I don’t know. I would never be able to talk about politics because I have no clue about no, I’m not following politics. I’m bad at that. So no.

Speaker3: Do you have an inherent right wing or left wing swing?

Speaker4: What [00:40:30] do you mean?

Speaker3: So are you inherently more socialist or more business life?

Speaker1: Have no.

Speaker4: Opinion of.

Speaker3: I’ve got a feeling you’re more on the right wing side. Entrepreneur, dad.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker3: All right, fair enough. So let’s talk about how did it go to Birmingham from from Bristol. Did you just ask the company can I move?

Speaker1: Yes, yes, mainly so pandemic started. I did like it, to be honest. At the beginning I needed [00:41:00] a break. I was very tired. That practice I was working, it was quite busy and I, I loved it, it was a lovely practice. My colleagues were amazing. I loved every second of it, but it was very busy and like I remember I was leaving with a massive headache every single day and I started to have back pains as well. That’s when I bought my first loops as well. But pandemic started and everything shut down and then my partner was sent home. He could just work from home and [00:41:30] I said, well, just come to Bristol because I’m still need to go to the practice. So come here. And I had the nicer apartment anyway, and we had the sea view, and that helped a lot with our mental during pandemic because we were in proper, we were in proper lockdown. I did have my social bit because I was still going to the practice now and then like once or twice a week, and then we started to work a little bit more and more and then just back to normal. But he had a long, long period of working from home and he hated every second [00:42:00] of it. So he moved to Bristol. But then when things got back to normal, we decided on whoever gets the job first in the other city. We’ll just move there. And I just spoke with a, I think it was a business manager from my dentist and I said, look, no one knows I want to move, but is there any chances you can put me in contact with someone from Birmingham? And then the other manager from West Midlands called me and she was like, [00:42:30] yeah, we have this place there, would you like to join? I’m like, yeah, can I give my notice? Yeah, fine. Job done. That was it. It was simple. And also my partner’s an engineer, so it’s better for an engineer too. It’s more opportunities for an engineer in a in West Midlands specifically.

Speaker4: Actually because of the engineering. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker3: So so I’m interested in what you’re saying about the pandemic and the break you got in the pandemic, because the number of people who say that.

Speaker4: Oh, I loved it.

Speaker3: I mean, it’s almost the majority of people you [00:43:00] speak to.

Speaker1: I felt bad by trying like I was thinking.

Speaker4: Oh, just.

Speaker1: Just another month, please.

Speaker4: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: Me too, me too. But I’m quite interested in the idea that, you know, we all need a break the whole time, right? We don’t realise it, you know, because every single person you talk to who didn’t have someone get ill during the pandemic, you know, obviously the obvious parts, right? Yeah. The business didn’t go under. Everyone says, I really enjoyed that break. It was.

Speaker4: Quiet.

Speaker3: Yeah, well, people, you know, thought about their lives. For instance, our business, the majority [00:43:30] of our people now work from home, whereas before, before if someone said, oh, can I have an. Are off to go see the would be a bit shaky now. People work from home completely. And and you know that question of what are we carrying right now. Yeah. What stress are we carrying right now that we’re not really aware of? Because we’re just running. Yeah. The whole time.

Speaker1: Well, I’m. Yeah. My week is very much concentrated around work. So I work five days a week. So.

Speaker4: Have [00:44:00] you got the.

Speaker3: Option to work four days a week?

Speaker1: I have the option of not working if I want, I just quit.

Speaker4: But yeah.

Speaker1: I can drop a day.

Speaker3: Obviously recommend it.

Speaker1: You don’t want to do it now. I feel like I can’t. You really recommend it? Yeah, I think you see, I work four days in my dentist where I’m very comfortable and comfortable in the sense that I’m comfortable enough to try new things. I can do whatever I want, like dentist who can [00:44:30] improvise. I know I have the stuff because I buy a lot of things for myself, because instead of waiting for that to come through and I just buy them and I have, I could have a day off and somehow I couldn’t leave it off. So I just got another job and I work in a private independent practice as well. There’s a lot of opportunities, but it’s a very long schedule as well. Like I work, I leave at seven eight.

Speaker3: I really recommend that everyone works four days as a dentist, because I feel.

Speaker4: Like it’s not the time yet.

Speaker3: Dentistry is really [00:45:00] hard work. Yeah. Number one, number two, it doesn’t affect earnings at all. Yeah, it’s almost well documented that you earn the same on four days as you do in five days. How come. Because you’re just so much fresher. You’re so much more.

Speaker4: You work the faster.

Speaker3: You work faster you talk better. And all of that, plus your treatment plan better because you’ve got that extra day. But I can 100% guarantee you there would be no enlightened smiles if I was working five days a week. Oh yeah, that’s because I was working [00:45:30] four days a week as a dentist. On that fifth day, I was plotting. In my case, I was plotting to open a whitening something. Yeah, yeah, but in whatever it is in your case. Yeah, that that fifth day, it just gets in the way. And, you know, there’s plenty of people who work six days. No huge.

Speaker4: Error.

Speaker1: I was asked so many times about the Saturday and I always said, no, I’m all I’m going to stick with this. No. And it is a mistake. Yeah. It’s too much.

Speaker4: I mean, I don’t know.

Speaker3: You can judge for everyone because there’s probably someone listening to this who works six [00:46:00] days a week and there’s happy good.

Speaker4: I know someone.

Speaker1: That works seven days.

Speaker4: A week. Oh, my God, it’s fine.

Speaker1: It’s okay. It’s whatever. You feel comfortable, but I feel like five days a week. I’m focussed on the work and when I come from work, I just want to relax. I don’t want to do anything else apart from whatever related to work, dinner and go to bed. But during the weekend, I want that to be either just chilling time or going out or something. Just forget about.

Speaker4: Work. Tell me about your.

Speaker3: Clinical progress [00:46:30] from okay, you weren’t very experienced. You started to get some experience. But then when I, when I sort of got in touch with you, you know, you’re doing Invisalign, you’re doing loads of composite bonding. You’re doing loads of things. Yeah. So at what rate did you take these on? Did you have a plan that, you know, you’re going to learn all these things and not necessarily.

Speaker1: So at the beginning root canals were my nightmares right.

Speaker4: Like all of us.

Speaker1: But now I love it. [00:47:00] I get referrals like I relax. No, I just did a lot. Did it I just did it. Yeah. I used to have very similar to a panic attack before I was starting. So putting the rubber down and then I needed to count to ten, do some breathing exercises. I’m not joking and then start the treatment. But now that is relaxing for me. Like when I have a root canal is like, oh okay, I can relax now for an hour and a half. I’m just me and myself. It’s all job. I sing, I am, yeah, [00:47:30] I tell the patient to ignore me. And so is that your favourite treatment? No, no not necessarily. I like composite and I like posterior composite a lot. I do a lot of anterior cosmetic work and everything, but posterior composite is just something about building by custom.

Speaker4: Oh, it’s just.

Speaker3: Like biomimetic type.

Speaker1: And I’m really good at it. And I can make mistakes. If I make a mistake, it just doesn’t look very good. That’s what I’m talking [00:48:00] about. Like mistakes. Like aesthetic mistakes. It doesn’t count. No one cares. No one sees it. It’s lovely. It’s all about the functionality and the posterior composites. And I really, really enjoy those. But I like everything I do. I’m not a fan of crowns. I do crowns and veneers and everything. It’s just I’m not a fan of things that I need to depend on. Other people like the lab. Okay, so if I do it myself, if I do a composite veneer, I know it works. I know [00:48:30] what I do, I have full control. Yeah, I have full I like to have full control.

Speaker4: I can see that.

Speaker3: See I’m the opposite, right? For me, if I’m doing something by myself, I know some aspect of it is going to drop, but I.

Speaker1: Can fix it. There’s not a problem.

Speaker4: Personally, I just can’t fix it.

Speaker3: I need partners, right? Like I can imagine you. Yeah. If you start your own business, you can do it by yourself. You’re not going to have a partner.

Speaker4: No, I will.

Speaker1: I will need, I will, I need people, but.

Speaker4: Partners.

Speaker1: Partners.

Speaker4: Yeah, but we all need to.

Speaker3: Yeah, I need partners. [00:49:00]

Speaker4: Right? I need to.

Speaker3: Rely on people for the bits that I’m terrible at. Because I’m terrible at a lot of things.

Speaker4: You can’t get my get my trust.

Speaker3: Control freak person, right?

Speaker1: Maybe a little bit and without even noticing. But like, I trust I trust my nurses now. Like, after a long time, I do.

Speaker4: Trust the.

Speaker3: Relationship with your team. Were they your team that I saw at that event in my Dental? Yeah. You seem so, so friendly with your team.

Speaker4: Well, my.

Speaker1: Nurse, well, she’s the treatment coordinator, but she [00:49:30] used to be my nurse and she still works with me whenever she she can. She’s my best friend and my manager is a very, very close friend. She is my work mom. Like, we’re very close.

Speaker3: Okay, let me let me put this to you. Yeah. I was that dentist too. Yeah, I was that. Me and my nurse. Wonderful friends, I loved it. Yeah. When you become the boss, it is a different situation. It’s different.

Speaker4: Yeah. No, it’s not the.

Speaker3: Same in a way. In a way. It’s you and your nurse in the same team. And there’s management above you. Yeah. And you know, you treat her well and she treats you [00:50:00] well when you start a practice. Which is it in the plans or what.

Speaker4: Yeah. We’ll see.

Speaker3: Oh excellent.

Speaker4: So when you to that.

Speaker3: Relationship as a boss. Yeah. And a friend is a really hard one to pull off.

Speaker1: Well if I would start a business and she would be part of it, she would not be the nurse or I. Yeah, I would be the boss, obviously. Well now she’s she’s pretty good. I know what you mean. I understand, but you never know until you try. Yeah. So if it works, it works. If not, just split it there, remain friends or just break the other one. [00:50:30] It’s whatever. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: I mean, when we’re when we’re associates, it’s there’s always this issue of control. Yeah, a lot of people open their own practice because. Because of control, not necessarily because of money. Yeah. And it ends up being that you want to do things your way.

Speaker4: Well, yes.

Speaker1: But it depends. Even as an associate you can have control.

Speaker3: Well, not full control.

Speaker1: Not full, never full. But. Well, when whenever they don’t [00:51:00] want to do what I ask, which is? Go and buy it.

Speaker3: For the sake of the argument. I want amazing coffee in the in the waiting room. Right. You can’t do that in my dentist, can you? You can’t bring in amazing coffee.

Speaker4: You can bring.

Speaker1: The actual coffee, boil the.

Speaker4: Water and just mix it. You know what I mean?

Speaker3: Yeah, there are patient journey type stuff that they do.

Speaker1: No, they do respect everything you want to do.

Speaker4: I’ve been very impressed.

Speaker3: With my dentists. To tell you the truth.

Speaker4: You need to prove yourself. [00:51:30] Maybe it’s before your time.

Speaker3: Yeah, before your time. My dentist should have a quite a bad reputation as far as working for them. How? What it’s like working for them.

Speaker4: But now they’re changing a lot.

Speaker3: They turned that around. I come across dentists who say, I went to a my dentist, went to work at a my dentist from an independent. Yes, because it’s a better place to work, you know, where you stand and all of this.

Speaker4: You do know where you stand.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker3: And it’s so impressive to see that, you know, [00:52:00] but, you know, you work in both.

Speaker4: Independent.

Speaker3: And corporate.

Speaker1: Full private and mixed and private, but mainly private for my, in my surgery. Yeah. In my practice.

Speaker3: What are the NHS patients. Do you sell private items to.

Speaker1: So I have my NHS list with patients that come for regular check-ups and everything and whatever it goes from the check-up like if they need a treatment, they have the option. 75% of my income comes from private, from new patients, full [00:52:30] private or from my NHS patient, which is fine because if your sound, you know how to brush, because I do insist a lot on prevention with my patient. I like do demos and I really insist on that. So once everything’s so getting better and better, they and also I have leaflets everywhere and I do mention casually like sometimes I do a long treatment and I speak with my nurse about Invisalign. It’s like, oh, do you do that? Okay. And then I have enlightened everywhere and whitening [00:53:00] is and I always give them they always leave with a leaflet with like, have you ever consider whitening? Just so you know, you are eligible for that because not everyone can.

Speaker4: It’s like, oh like that.

Speaker1: Yeah, well not everyone can have whitening straight away without other issues to consider.

Speaker3: Because I was going to ask you this question. You do a lot of whitening.

Speaker4: I do, yeah.

Speaker3: And it’s not a big surprise, is it? The people who do a lot of whitening talk about whitening a lot. Well it’s the simplest thing.

Speaker4: Yeah, but.

Speaker3: Loads of dentists have difficulty talking about whitening [00:53:30] because loads of dentists like to talk about needs rather than wants. Yeah, yeah. It’s easier. We tend to we tend to say if you don’t do this, that terrible thing will happen. Yeah. If you don’t do this, that terrible thing will happen. Whereas once the opposite, if you do do this, something brilliant is going to happen. Yeah. And we’re not really good. Most of us clinicians aren’t really good at saying that. Plus people have got this sort of embarrassing story where they don’t want the patient to think. They’re saying they’re ugly.

Speaker1: Don’t [00:54:00] say you’re ugly.

Speaker4: Yeah, I know.

Speaker3: How do you get around it? Why does it not bother you?

Speaker1: I do it so casually.

Speaker3: So like, this eligible thing is brilliant.

Speaker4: Yeah, I.

Speaker1: Do it casually, I.

Speaker4: Do I.

Speaker1: Mention composite bonding casually as well. Any chipped teeth? Or we can do bonding. Just. Just like if you ever consider we do that here, just let us know.

Speaker4: And then if.

Speaker1: They ask a second question, I give them a leaflet as well. And then we talk about finance and it’s all going there. [00:54:30] But you casually I always casually mention a few things and then there’s like, yeah, yeah that’s fine. They leave, they come back in six months, they don’t say anything. They come back again like a year later. It was like I was actually wanting to ask you about, you know, a year ago you mentioned that in that. Yes, you planned it and it’s it just comes it seems like it comes from them, but they I’m sure they, they thought about whites and why not?

Speaker3: Look, people are more interested in the colour of their teeth than everything else you talk [00:55:00] about.

Speaker1: And it can change so much. You think you want composite bonding, composite veneers. They’re like, what don’t you like about it? You. The shade is like, what about the shape? The shape is fine. So let’s do whitening. I’m saving you money.

Speaker4: Oh, okay. So when I.

Speaker3: Was a dentist, my view on whitening was if I didn’t bring it up, I was doing a disservice to the.

Speaker4: Patient.

Speaker1: That’s a good point. He as.

Speaker4: Well. Yeah.

Speaker3: And that way I’d had no problem. And the other thing was, every time I met someone outside the practice, I said, I’m a dentist. They would ask about whitening, but not that [00:55:30] many patients were asking about whitening. Yeah. And I used to think, well, there’s some sort of disconnect there. Yeah.

Speaker4: And might be a shame to.

Speaker3: Connecting it by in the UK people just do what they’re told in a dental practice. You know, they don’t necessarily come out and ask for something. Or if they do ask for it, I would class that as a red hot lead. They’re going to they’re going to take that thing if they ask for it. But most people ask for an examination and they let the dentist do the talking.

Speaker1: Also, some patients, for whatever reason, they think that their [00:56:00] routine, like, you know, the dentist, the dentist doesn’t do, so they choose to go or just Google like jokes, cosmetic plays completely. But that’s that’s wrong. They need to know we have the options. And I do like everything I do. Like you need a filling. I start from nothing to only. So I go through all NHS private, super superior private. I just give them so many options that they would definitely choose like a mid one anyway, so you get some private out of it. And it’s not [00:56:30] about the money, it’s about the it looks good and it lasts.

Speaker4: Yeah, yeah yeah it lasts.

Speaker1: It just doesn’t come out.

Speaker3: So now clinically are you thinking about your sort of five year clinical plan. Are you thinking about going from single tooth to comprehensive. Like where where are you at in this in that.

Speaker4: I think I need to.

Speaker1: Go to comprehensive. So I’m not doing single teeth. So I’ve done ten [00:57:00] composite bonding at a time. I’ve done full mouth rehabilitation as well in the sense not with crowns, I’ve done it with dentures, slash composite bonding, well, root canals, whatever else. But that’s kind of it’s still full mouth rehabilitation from the.

Speaker3: Training sort of pathway perspective. Are you thinking maybe, you know for instance, spear and choice in the US.

Speaker4: No pathways never.

Speaker1: Considered that. [00:57:30]

Speaker4: You should.

Speaker3: Brilliant pathways expensive but but you know that treatment planning on the whole.

Speaker4: Mouth. Yeah.

Speaker3: Perfect. Someone like you who’s so keen. Yeah.

Speaker1: You do need to have where to apply it as well, because I’ve done a I’ve done a certificate in restorative and aesthetic dentistry.

Speaker4: Which one did you do Dominic.

Speaker1: Hustle.

Speaker3: Oh you serve. Yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah. And I was very impressed. I was very very, very good. And I was very [00:58:00] impressed by the fact that he was there with us. 1 to 1. He was eating with us the same thing. He was staying with us. He was he was checking on us and he was happy. And he’s such a charismatic guy. And. Yeah, and I do refer a lot of patients to him when I know it’s above me and I know their expectations is high. I like, go there and he’s going to tell you exactly what he can do and what it’s achievable. So go for that. But there’s things that I still can’t apply because there are so many things [00:58:30] to buy the patients. There’s so many things to buy. There’s a lot of I have probably one of the best nurses everyone can have, but it’s just so much more. My surgery is quite tiny. It’s just literally just no more space to bring more stuff and control freak. Why not? Probably yes. I just don’t like people touching my stuff. I just don’t like it. I hate when people work in my surgery and there’s one colleague, bless her, she’s so good, and her nurse as well. They only [00:59:00] go there for one afternoon and she doesn’t. She avoids doing treatment as well. It’s just my my drawers are full of different birds and different stuff. It’s just I don’t like people I have.

Speaker3: You said you buy your own stuff a lot, like give me example. What’s what’s the craziest thing you’ve bought for yourself?

Speaker1: Well, crazy. The biosphere matrix system. So I spend over £2,000 on that.

Speaker3: Is it £2,000?

Speaker1: Well, with the whole thing that they convinced me to buy. Yeah. The posterior, the interior [00:59:30] kit, you need the instruments as well. But then it’s the magic mix that’s very important. This is a polishing bird. And then those polishing little birds does £50 per barrel or something. It’s just very expensive.

Speaker4: What else?

Speaker1: I bought a camera. Well, every dentist should have a camera.

Speaker3: For instance, I’ve come across associates who’ve bought scanners.

Speaker1: I was very tempted. I was I want to buy a liqueur now, which is.

Speaker4: Again a strong one, like a.

Speaker1: £2,000 one, like a valley one. So I want that. There’s [01:00:00] a lot of there’s a lot of bits and bobs that I buy. Yeah, that work for me, that I know how to use them and they just get away with, for example, very deep broken down teeth on one side. I have some matrixes that I buy them on. Well, sometimes Amazon, sometimes eBay. But they have this extension. It just goes right under the gum line. Oh, I just know how they show how they look like I don’t know, I think they come from China so very deep.

Speaker4: Yes.

Speaker1: So they’re like sexual matrixes. They have [01:00:30] like a ring sort of.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: But the matrix is sexual. But then it has an.

Speaker4: Extension, an.

Speaker1: Extension. So it just goes underneath the gum line. It’s just brilliant. Have you come.

Speaker3: Across the greater curve matrix from my friend Sonny?

Speaker4: No.

Speaker3: You should have a great curve matrix.

Speaker1: Okay.

Speaker3: You should have a look at that. It handles a lot of different situations like.

Speaker4: Because.

Speaker1: It’s very difficult to do.

Speaker3: What’s the thing you hate about being a dentist.

Speaker1: It’s some [01:01:00] it’s just sometimes it’s it’s overwhelming. Sometimes you just have one of those days when everyone has a problem and then the lab calls and they reject your impression, and then the nurse drops everything. And it’s just sometimes you just I just want to scream. But then I calmed down and then start all over again, which is fine. But and also it’s the pressure of the notes litigation as well. I know everyone knows that, but it’s very, very, very overwhelming. [01:01:30] And I had touch wood. I’ve never had a complaint like a proper complaint. I had small ones, nothing and never ended up by being. And I only wrote a letter towards the patient. That was it. But touch wood, anything can happen and it can be really bad and but you need to create that relationship with the patient. Not saying that if you do that, they won’t see you. They might.

Speaker4: It is the key, but it helps.

Speaker3: The relationship is the key.

Speaker1: Yes, spending the time to talk with them like [01:02:00] just. And I know my patients like me because even if I’m late, if I’m 40 minutes late, they never leave. They are informed. It’s like, no, no, no, it’s fine.

Speaker4: In this way.

Speaker3: You relate a lot.

Speaker1: No, sometimes I do, because I’m not going to.

Speaker4: We all do sometimes. Yeah. No.

Speaker3: You know, there’s some, some dentists constantly run late.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker3: No, that or every day run late to some extent.

Speaker1: I have lazy days when I run late just because I just don’t start when [01:02:30] I’m. Yeah. And just take a longer break in between. Yeah. But like it’s a five minutes.

Speaker3: Although, you know, I don’t, I don’t think there’s any situation where it makes sense to run late. You know, even if you’re treating loads of patients here, it doesn’t make sense to run.

Speaker4: Late.

Speaker3: Because, because because if you’ve got a lot of work, it’s better to have long appointments and do the work. Yeah. Yeah. You save a lot of time. Yeah. Yeah. Because if I’ve got two fillings, deep scaling and [01:03:00] whatever to do, it’s much better to book an hour and do all that. Then book 15 minutes and do one of those. Oh, no. Late. Yeah. So? So if you’ve got loads of work, it’s better to book long appointments. Yeah. And if you haven’t got loads of work, it’s better to book long appointments. Yeah. Because then you talk to the patient, find out about you’ve got time.

Speaker4: If I run.

Speaker1: Late, it’s only for the mostly for the private work.

Speaker4: Like as in you’re.

Speaker3: Paying attention extra. Yeah, but then the next patient’s private patient you’ve left. Let that one be late.

Speaker4: Okay? He’s fine. You. Ten [01:03:30] minutes.

Speaker1: Is okay.

Speaker3: Ten minutes is okay. But I’ve been in situations where I’ve been ten minutes late and the patient’s walked out and complained.

Speaker4: Oh, yeah, it can happen. It can be.

Speaker3: Nice to work in the city. Yeah, in the city, in London.

Speaker4: Yeah. I believe that.

Speaker3: Type of patient. Yeah. The other thing is though, I if I go somewhere to a GP my GP always runs late. Yeah. So that half an hour late and anger builds up inside my tummy. Yeah. Thinking why, why, why is this time more precious than my time. Yeah. And I know the [01:04:00] answer. I know the answer to that. But nonetheless, by the way, never show him.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker3: No, I’m very sweet.

Speaker4: Yeah, but yeah, you.

Speaker1: Do have a good.

Speaker4: Point. You know.

Speaker3: It’s a horrible thing. Why did you tell me to come at 11 and you’re not available till 1130? Yeah. The following time you told me to come at 12. But you can.

Speaker4: Have.

Speaker1: A medical emergency.

Speaker4: Sure. I understand, understand the.

Speaker3: Reasons. Yeah, but in our situation, and sometimes it happens, isn’t it? Something breaks. And now you’ve got a situation. Of course, in that situation run [01:04:30] late. Yeah, but definitely don’t book shorter appointments than you know.

Speaker1: But sometimes you have a surprise. For example, I’ve done a posterior composite today. I was supposed to be a basically a replacement of an occlusal amalgam that chipped, and I didn’t I didn’t even think to think why the occlusal half of the amalgam came out because it was cracked underneath.

Speaker4: Of the tooth.

Speaker1: Yeah. So from an occlusal, it got to an mod. It [01:05:00] was like a massive crack in the middle. And well, I’ve done an overlay, so I drill it down. It was a complete different procedure.

Speaker3: Overlay and pray.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: But yeah, no pain, no symptoms. It’s just got discovered accidentally. The patient just lost feeling a bit. But yeah, it can happen. But I’m not lately.

Speaker4: What’s what’s.

Speaker3: Your. View on where the industry is going.

Speaker1: And you can everywhere. A more digital [01:05:30] probably.

Speaker3: How are you with all that?

Speaker4: I’m okay with the liners.

Speaker1: I trust them because I said I don’t trust the lab, and I do trust the lab that does the aligners, so I’m okay with that.

Speaker4: Have you got.

Speaker3: Into DSD or any of that digital.

Speaker4: Stuff? Not yet. I would.

Speaker1: Like to. I’m not really sure where to start from.

Speaker4: Like coachman.

Speaker3: Right. Christian.

Speaker4: Coachman okay.

Speaker1: So I just need a system first. I just want to get a little play with that before I actually do a proper training. So yeah, more digital definitely. It’s [01:06:00] going to be more, more like what you see in America because at the minute it’s a lot right. Align bleach composite. It’s going to go towards the aesthetic more and more.

Speaker4: Rather than I’m.

Speaker3: Increasingly hearing people talking about these sort of lifestyle practices where it’s not just dentistry, it’s facial. Yes, but it’s not just facial. It’s lots of machines that do things to your skin. And then there’s the idea of sauna [01:06:30] and plunge. And you know, that sounds.

Speaker4: Good.

Speaker3: Lifestyle. I’m hearing that question coming up a lot more. To me. It seems more high risk. If you’re going to open the centre, it’s going to have a sauna. Yeah. And you know, we’re not specialists at operating those those sort.

Speaker4: Of you need to have people that.

Speaker3: Have that. But what I’m hearing a lot more of that recently. So that’s a trend that looks like.

Speaker4: Yeah probably it’s.

Speaker3: It’s happening. And then question I’ve been asking a lot is dream practice. Like what would [01:07:00] it be for you.

Speaker1: Dream practice like.

Speaker4: Where like.

Speaker3: If you bumped into a billionaire and he said, listen, I trust you. Yeah, here’s here’s money. Do whatever you want. Go berserk. What would you do? You must I would.

Speaker4: Yeah, I would open.

Speaker1: A practice obviously. Yeah I would like, like a proper centre. Like a proper proper beauty centre. Like not not quite what you said, but like a bit of everything. Yeah. So you would have the radiograph room and you have everything you need there [01:07:30] like beautiful, like a hotel lounge. It should be. Yeah. A bit of parking as well I think that’s very important.

Speaker4: And that’s. You drove.

Speaker3: Here. You love your car.

Speaker4: Yeah. Well it’s convenient, isn’t it.

Speaker1: Just put everything in there.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah. And your beautiful surgeries.

Speaker4: Yeah. So Planmeca there?

Speaker3: Yeah. We talked about this before.

Speaker1: If we’re talking a billionaire. So.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: Money is not a problem.

Speaker3: So look, I don’t know if you’ve come across the idea of, like they call it blank canvas.

Speaker4: No, it’s. [01:08:00]

Speaker3: About it’s about venues. Right. Okay. If I’m, if I’m going to do a mini spa makeover, I can do it in a hotel.

Speaker4: Yeah, but I.

Speaker3: Can do it in this thing called a blank canvas. Right. A blank canvas venue means there’s nothing there. Okay? And you can put whatever you want, wherever you want. Yeah, in that place. So let’s say I want to have a bar. You can bring in a bar. Yeah, yeah. Or let’s say I want to put a wall here. I can put a wall there. It’s blank. It’s blank. So that’s becoming a thing in dentistry, right? Yeah. People, people, people getting [01:08:30] into buildings that are more from like the, the industrial side. Yeah.

Speaker4: One like an open space, a massive.

Speaker3: Open space.

Speaker4: Like uni.

Speaker3: Well, open. Just open, open. You can decide yourself where to put the walls. So you.

Speaker4: Could you used to work.

Speaker1: In a practice like that in Romania. Oh I was the shadow. Yeah. So he had like a whatever it was level five in a block of flats and he has open up like a massive apartment. Everything was open space apart from his surgery. His surgery had walls [01:09:00] and some of the offices, but the rest, it was all interconnected. It was like three dental chairs there. And then another one. There are no walls, no nothing.

Speaker3: But the interesting thing about blank canvas is you can decide if you want walls, put walls. Yeah. Or if you if you want your corridors to be wide because that’s the feeling you want. Like this hotel. Yeah.

Speaker4: Like reception. Yeah.

Speaker3: Or if you want your waiting room to be very private, because one person can sit all the way there and sit all the way. Whatever your particular dream [01:09:30] is of what makes an amazing practice, you can’t do it in a normal building, right? Because there’s walls everywhere and you have to negotiate those walls, this blank canvas, like, yeah, I’m hoping there’s going to be a lot more of them.

Speaker4: Yeah, it should be.

Speaker3: There’s been a few already. I’m really interested to see more of them.

Speaker1: We can do it. Whatever you want.

Speaker3: Let’s get to darker times. Okay? We like to talk about mistakes on this pod, right? Because of a book called Black Box Thinking, which is about plane crashes. And [01:10:00] the way they, they deal with plane crashes is they try and find out what went wrong. Yeah. Not whose fault was it, but what went wrong. And then once they figure out what went wrong, they spread that information across all the pilots to say, look, this thing went wrong system wise. We don’t. We’re not blaming anyone. The system was like, how can we improve the system? And in medical, we don’t tend to do that. We tend to run away from [01:10:30] Amazon or try and hide our mistakes because we don’t want to be blamed for them. We definitely don’t talk about our mistakes because it’s kind of a shameful story. So to buck that trend on this pod, we like to talk about mistakes.

Speaker4: Well mistakes. Yeah.

Speaker3: So let’s say clinical mistakes. What comes to mind.

Speaker1: Clinical.

Speaker4: Well I don’t.

Speaker1: Think I’ve had major mistakes that I’ve done. I’ve had well I had a lot of sleepless nights. But I usually get that just because I try a new procedure [01:11:00] and just things, even if I expect it might go wrong, it actually went wrong. And it was just I consider I was the worst day of my life. For example, first time I’ve done small, fast, simple, right? So I tried everything. I booked a long appointment, I had everything ready. I even had the instructions in front. So I knew the procedure and everything. But I had it there. Everything went well until I actually put the stent with the composite in. So they actually teach you the course at [01:11:30] one of the metal separators can just bend. Yeah. When I tried the stent first, it went perfectly in. I had like a case with receding gums as well. So the gum margin was quite high. When I tried it and it was fine, it was sitting fine. When I put the composite in one of the separators bent and it just didn’t go all the way up.

Speaker4: Did you realise it? Yeah.

Speaker1: Okay. And then I felt I get this thing. When I get annoyed, [01:12:00] my ears start burning and they get red. And I feel like, yeah, my brain is on fire and I just want to. I just want to jump off the window, but I don’t show it. No one knows. I said that to my nurse once. She’s like, really? I feel very calm, like, oh God. So I carried on like your everything took it out. And then I needed to add gingerly all the way up to the gum line, and then the upper right one and upper left two were completely [01:12:30] stuck together. Well, they actually tell you what to do. Just breathe. Finish, send the patient home, bring it back, break it, redo it. Which is fine. It’s simple. But that was that was a miss. I don’t know what went wrong. I really don’t know why that. Separated, broke, broke, bent I was, I broke.

Speaker4: I’m not clear.

Speaker3: On it with small fast. Is there an element of IPR before you put the thing?

Speaker4: I’ve done all that.

Speaker3: You’ve done that as well.

Speaker4: All was.

Speaker1: Perfect. Because then you try the stent. After you [01:13:00] prep everything, you try the stent in, you do a bit of you open up the contact. So it’s all like divergent smooth diverge. Yeah. You don’t have any undercuts or anything. So yeah I don’t know what went wrong.

Speaker4: So what did you do.

Speaker3: You send them home.

Speaker4: Or send them home.

Speaker1: And patient didn’t even notice. She was so happy when she came back and I was so stressed I couldn’t sleep for a week.

Speaker4: It’s still a lie. Tell me this as well.

Speaker3: You know. You’ve got the stent in place. Yeah. Obviously there’s no oxygen inhibition layer. So you [01:13:30] can’t add can you add composite to it after.

Speaker1: Not after.

Speaker4: Yeah. Yeah. So so you.

Speaker1: Take the stent out. So you’ve done like it’s like layering the composite. You just apply another layer.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker3: But because you know because the stent was on there, you haven’t got that sticky layer of composite that you have to wrap it somehow.

Speaker4: So you the.

Speaker1: Stent is clear. You like you’re.

Speaker4: Through it I know, I know, I.

Speaker3: Know, but you know, let’s say I put some composite on a tooth and I cure it. Yeah. There’s a sticky oxygen emission. Yes. Yeah. Then I can put the next layer of composite sticks to it because [01:14:00] of that sticky layer. Right. When you’ve got a stent, that sticky layer doesn’t form. Yes. Adding to it.

Speaker4: How did it work?

Speaker3: It’s different. It’s not it’s not.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: You polish the margin. It’s bone composite again.

Speaker4: Not delivering like a repair.

Speaker1: Yeah. Like a.

Speaker4: Repair. Yeah.

Speaker1: No it’s still there. It looks beautiful even now. I’ve seen the patient. You left.

Speaker4: It. No it didn’t break it up. No no no.

Speaker1: Like ask the patient to come back I said look things happen these guts together. She didn’t even notice. Not even. I don’t think she understood what [01:14:30] I said.

Speaker3: That’s a massive mistake at all, though.

Speaker4: It wasn’t. When I say you must have.

Speaker3: A more juicy mistake than that one. Come on.

Speaker4: Mistake. It went.

Speaker3: So well. Something that didn’t go well, you know.

Speaker4: Well, I did.

Speaker1: Break a of file, but I don’t consider that as a mistake either.

Speaker4: Because you just.

Speaker3: Tell the patient.

Speaker1: Yeah, of course I’ve sent her to have a second opinion. And because I was towards the end of the prep, they said, it’s fine, leave it there. Each patient is absolutely fine even though [01:15:00] there was two canals prepped. One, you’re very band like very, very band like neat like that. I don’t know how I got the other canal done properly. I don’t know, it just spent, like the rotary file broke.

Speaker3: Did you use that famous word? It’s separated.

Speaker4: No, that’s.

Speaker3: That’s what they teach you. You don’t say broke, they.

Speaker4: Don’t.

Speaker3: Separate.

Speaker4: They don’t teach it.

Speaker1: No, it just said one of the files broke. Like, [01:15:30] what do you want me to do? Want me to finish? It was like, yeah, finish that.

Speaker3: Did you never fracture a tuberosity when you took a seven out? No. Oh, wait for that one. Yeah.

Speaker4: No, I know.

Speaker1: What to expect. I know faults, I know what to expect. Oh, yes. So what I did. Yeah that was.

Speaker4: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker1: So a mistake, right? Oroantral communication and nasty one. So I had three cases [01:16:00] of that one. I’m very sure it happened. Patient never felt anything. So I reviewed him and he was absolutely fine because he had a very long teeth and I took an x ray. I was like, he was a private patient. I was like, look, if I take this tooth out, you will have a communication between your sinus and your mouth. And I said, I need to refer you. And the NHS refused to do it. Said, no, it’s fine. Do it is the sinus is not there. I [01:16:30] was like, what? Yeah. So I took the tooth out. It came out in one piece. It was an upper left six. But then I was seeing whenever he was reading. Yeah, it was obvious to connect straight like took a PG did take care of the patient until he actually got bored of coming back for reviews. I was like, look, I’m absolutely fine. Like, let me go. I was like, okay. Second one was a lady that I didn’t do the oral communication. What happened [01:17:00] was she had the upper right seven that needed to be extracted was under the gum line decay, root decay. It was it needed to come out. It was very little bone left. But because the number six, five and four were missing, the sinus was really it was tangent to the bone.

Speaker1: So I took the seven out. Everything was fine, goes out, but you got a dry socket, but the seven was angled like that and the sinus was coming right [01:17:30] very close to the angulation of the tooth. So she came back to the dry socket and she saw someone else. And the intent is to go with the alveolar straight. Not on. She didn’t maybe she didn’t check the x ray, I don’t know. She didn’t go in the proper socket. She went straight into the sinus. So I think so. Yeah. Because after that is when she started to she patient panic. She came to see me. She was like everything I eat and drink is [01:18:00] really not fine. My, my speech is different. Like I, I do a lot of screws and yeah, we reviewed everything. It healed up. I put her on antibiotics. She declined the referral. She said, look, I’m like, I’m going to be fine. As long as you know it’s going to be fine and you keep going to review me, it’s fine. I spoke with another colleague, which she works at a hospital as well. She’s very good with oral surgery, so she says going to heal up. It’s all good. And it was all good until again she said, I’m [01:18:30] okay. I don’t need to come back for reviews. The third one was a good one, so the third one.

Speaker3: Unlucky to have three, isn’t it.

Speaker1: Three cases like ever about linked to this. Yeah, the third one was an upper right six extraction broke one of the roots break the apex and then I don’t really like extractions. I’m not a fan of them. I don’t mind them. I do them all the time. But [01:19:00] I don’t like extractions. I prefer to try to save it, just build it back from nothing or orthodontically extract it or something like that. But when it breaks I get like, oh, now it’s getting interesting. So let’s nicely and nice and gentle. Yes. So I was very close to actually get the root out and I don’t know what happened. I know what happened. It went straight into the site. It’s just disappeared.

Speaker3: Yeah. The number of times I’ve heard that I’ve heard, no.

Speaker1: It gets sucked into the sinus. And I knew [01:19:30] the stories and I knew that’s going to happen. And. I run late. First of all, because I said, look, I told the patient what happened. And then I said that we need to pack it. However it is. I’m going to send you to the hospital. They will probably need to do a search. So I’ve never referred the case here, but I know in Romania what they do, they do a proper surgery. They remove the they remove the fragment completely and or sometimes they don’t find it. I’ve heard stories [01:20:00] like that, but I packed it and I sutured it and I’m very rubbish. That’s what I really rubbish at suturing. So I didn’t have enough gum to close it. So I needed to raise a flap quite bad. It was just, I think.

Speaker3: What a nightmare.

Speaker1: It was, my nurse says. And my nurse doesn’t know how to retract. Couldn’t see anything. It was just a nightmare. I felt like a butcher.

Speaker4: Tissue kept tearing.

Speaker1: I felt like a butcher [01:20:30] and it got really inflamed. Luckily, the patient was very nice, very good. He came back for the review. He was still he was still very sore because again, I was a butcher and I really, really. But he didn’t come back again. I referred him and I think it was accepted, obviously, but I think because he got an appointment with the hospital, he just never came back for a review because I said, I still want to see you just to see how everything goes. Not that I can do anything after [01:21:00] this point, but. He really needed that extraction. I sent him because I said, let’s save the tooth. I’ve sent him to a specialist, and the specialist gave him 20% chance of success with endodontic treatment. So we ended up with the extraction. So it was just. Oh, that was, uh. I’m not. I need to practice sutures more. And if I practice them, they’re beautiful. I just need to practice on a patient, which is difficult, isn’t it?

Speaker3: I did a oral surgery job, [01:21:30] my first job, so I did some suturing. But just listening to you there, it’s PTSD back of. Not that I’ve even made that mistake or done that myself, but the moment when you know something’s gone wrong in dentistry and when it goes wrong, it can suddenly go very wrong, right? That’s the problem. Yeah.

Speaker1: It’s not necessarily because I’ve never I didn’t do a yeah, probably I put the elevator in the wrong position and that. Pushed it.

Speaker3: But you can’t tell. You can’t tell when is the wrong [01:22:00] position and when it’s not. Yeah. Often we’re told to push hard, right?

Speaker4: It was the.

Speaker1: Palatal root as well. And usually it’s the medial ones that get in closer to the sign. It was the belly was very safe. The x ray didn’t show. The sign is very close or well, this is what I thought it was just everything went wrong. Yeah, but I didn’t get a complaint.

Speaker3: In your short career so far, have you ever had a time where a patient did lose confidence in me?

Speaker4: Well, I.

Speaker1: Assume this patient lost [01:22:30] because he never came back. I think this is what most patients do when they lose confidence. They just don’t show up. They don’t come.

Speaker3: Back. Some write letters and some sue and some, you know, some cause all sorts of problems, right?

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: I’ve had three complaints in all my career, but again, nothing was nothing worth mentioning.

Speaker3: I think it qualifies this latest one. This last. No.

Speaker1: That was a proper mistake.

Speaker3: Does qualify. On [01:23:00] reflection, do you think you could have done something differently or. No.

Speaker1: Yeah, I could have. Have a break. I needed a five minutes break. I could have put a gauze there. Put the patient up and myself to have a break. And then if I would have a break, I could have actually find a proper retractor or actually positioned the nurse in the right position so I can see if I could see better. It would have been way better. But EastEnders never retracted the [01:23:30] cheek. In order for you to get there to see, like to actually have the full visibility. She didn’t really know what to do and she did it with a mirror and it was okay. But when I used to assist the surgeon I used to work with, I had a proper cheek retractor. So when I was going, he would see everything. It was perfect. It was like lip. Oh, yeah. In this case was the lip. It was like the lip was never existed. I could have put a proper cheek read or an optic. I’ve never thought about that.

Speaker4: It’s actually. You see, now, that’s [01:24:00] actually a very good point.

Speaker3: Yeah, but when you’re in that situation, you just.

Speaker4: Stop.

Speaker3: Take an x ray maybe. Yeah, in that time.

Speaker4: But you don’t.

Speaker1: Want to take an.

Speaker4: X ray or whatever it is.

Speaker1: You don’t want it because you don’t want to see that. Yeah, you want it to see it, but you don’t want.

Speaker4: To see it.

Speaker3: Yeah, but but it’s a good point. It’s a good point. I mean Depeche even talks about it in composite bonding. He says look halfway through stop stop stop.

Speaker4: Sometimes you can’t see properly. Yeah.

Speaker3: Your eyes are so zoomed in sometimes.

Speaker4: And everything looks the same.

Speaker3: Yeah, yeah. It’s actually a very good point that when you’re in trouble [01:24:30] to stop because it’s the last thing you feel like doing right, you’re just trying to get out of trouble. And then.

Speaker1: You look at the clock, and then you look at the next patients are waiting and they go, because the system that we have, they go from, well, I have pink when they arrive and then they go on purple and then they go on.

Speaker4: Red.

Speaker1: And then you see red, red, red, red.

Speaker4: Which system is that. Sorry.

Speaker1: There are.

Speaker4: 404. Yeah. So that’s stressful. Yeah.

Speaker3: All right. Let’s let’s finish it off with our [01:25:00] usual final questions. Fantasy dinner party. Three guests.

Speaker1: Do they need to be like from Dentistry World? No no.

Speaker4: No. Okay. Fantasy.

Speaker3: Dead or alive.

Speaker1: Dead or alive.

Speaker4: Right. Who would.

Speaker3: You have?

Speaker1: I would have Queen Elizabeth.

Speaker4: Queen. Yeah.

Speaker1: The queen. I love the queen. I was so sad when she died. I was just getting home and I started crying. I would like to hear [01:25:30] a little bit more about what she can say. Like like a full on conversation story. Exactly. And she lived so long, she could actually tell you so much more.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: She lived so much.

Speaker4: She said so much by way of not saying.

Speaker3: Right. Not, not not giving opinion.

Speaker4: But I would.

Speaker1: Like her to just.

Speaker3: You want to get everything.

Speaker4: Yeah. But. Queen. Okay. Queen. Yeah. Um.

Speaker1: What else? Another two. You said. I [01:26:00] would be quite intrigued to find out about that area. 55. In America 51. Yeah.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: I know, maybe.

Speaker4: Someone who has.

Speaker1: Someone who has. Yeah. I don’t know, Barack Obama maybe.

Speaker4: Yeah, I doubt he has.

Speaker3: He’ll it’d be like some some CIA, FBI guy or.

Speaker4: Yeah, that would be that would be good. Yeah.

Speaker1: And what.

Speaker3: Regarding? So you think there are aliens?

Speaker1: I think there is a. Do you actually think we’re the only species? No, no. It is a very good [01:26:30] possibility. I would yeah. Yeah. Space is nice to explore. Would be nice to explore. Apparently we know less about space. No, apparently we know more about space than we know about water. Another the ocean. Another interesting subject. Yeah.

Speaker4: So we’ve had.

Speaker3: The Queen before. We’ve never had area 51 before. So who’s your third guest? The Queen. The guy from the CIA.

Speaker1: Right.

Speaker4: Who’s your third guest?

Speaker1: Third guest. I think someone [01:27:00] from the film industry. I’m really intrigued about how all that Hollywood actually works. I don’t know, like Scorsese or someone. Someone that’s. Well, I know we talked about, like, the dentists that are all there. Not necessarily, but someone old enough that went through all that change.

Speaker4: Different eras?

Speaker1: Yes.

Speaker3: So who’s your favourite director? Scorsese.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah, I’m very good with names anyway, so we’ll go with that.

Speaker4: Sure, [01:27:30] sure.

Speaker3: It’s a good combination. It’s a good. The Queen, Scorsese and.

Speaker4: The Queen is just.

Speaker3: And the dodgy guy from the.

Speaker4: Guy from the CIA. Exactly. And what about, like, a James Bond?

Speaker1: Kind of.

Speaker4: Yeah, but like.

Speaker1: Our, like, the the.

Speaker4: Actual James.

Speaker3: And the final question. It’s difficult with someone as young as you, but if it was your deathbed and you had all your family and friends and loved ones around you. And you had to give him [01:28:00] three pieces of advice on life. What would you. What would you say?

Speaker1: Be happy. Do things that makes you happy. Stay away from trouble. Like stay away from people that have problems as well, if you can. I don’t like people with problems because I take their problems into mine. And I then feel that I’m upset. I don’t want to be upset. I just want to be happy. So. Yeah. And. Life [01:28:30] is more than I know I do. I am a workaholic, but life is more than work and enjoy. Take time to go and enjoy your holidays. I love holidays and that’s it’s very difficult. It used to be very difficult for me to actually disconnect completely. So I always choose like a least two weeks off because a week I’m still thinking about work. I’m getting better now, like I it only takes me a day [01:29:00] or two. I just sometimes I just forget about my phone completely and it’s great. Just forget about your phone. Just put your phone. I leave my phone in the safe in the room. We have one phone with us for the Google maps, for pictures for something. But enjoy your holidays.

Speaker3: Take someone taught me. One of my friends taught me about this year. Once I went on a weekend away with him and I started enjoying myself on the plane on the way back because like you say, I hadn’t. I was so wound up that [01:29:30] I couldn’t really enjoy my time. And he he pointed out to me, he said, look, what you need to do is you need to slow down from around ten days before you go.

Speaker4: You can. Yeah, but you can’t. Slowing down. Very difficult.

Speaker3: Start slow, but now try and do it.

Speaker4: It’s very difficult to slow down so that on.

Speaker3: The day I get on holiday I’ve already unwound. Whereas before I used to do what you do, my my parents have got a place in Spain. I remember when I get there, when I used to get there, I used to be walking around the swimming pool with my phone.

Speaker4: Yeah, just [01:30:00] checking.

Speaker3: Answering no answering questions and doing things and and just. And then it would take me 4 or 5 days before exactly what you said, where I start forgetting where my phone is. Yeah.

Speaker1: I remember I was like two, three years ago, I went to Greece. I arrived, just arrived on the island and my manager texted me. How are you? Are you okay? No. How are you? And I was like, what happened? So I was like, I’m just wondering, how are you? It’s just a friendly [01:30:30] text. And I was like, oh my God, what happened? Who complained? Something like, you know, just you go straight there, disconnect. Because that complaint or whatever happened, it’s going to be there when you come back and you actually can, you know, take a few, like a step back and actually think about what you’re going to do next is more calculated move than just react on the spot. Yeah.

Speaker3: So that’s to enjoy yourself. Enjoy your holidays.

Speaker1: It’s all about.

Speaker4: Enjoyment.

Speaker1: And [01:31:00] to be honest, I think the third one would be don’t be afraid to try new things just to even to change career completely. Yeah, that’s fine, that’s okay. Try to consider to know, maybe relocate I think because I relocate. So I moved from Romania to UK and I’ve never regretted it. And I’m very happy with this. I would like to move again and that’s my [01:31:30] regret regarding the career I chose because I can’t go anywhere I want, just I can’t go to.

Speaker4: America or.

Speaker1: No, I can’t go to America. I can’t even go to Australia because I finished in Romania. So they don’t accept the university that I finished. I might be able to go to New Zealand, but again, you just need to start lower again and I’m not going to go and start. Just try to do the equivalent of the AWS there. Spend two years trying, spending a lot of money and find with the spiders.

Speaker4: Isn’t [01:32:00] it?

Speaker1: But I would like to have the opportunity to work from home. I would like to have the opportunity to move, to relocate. So whenever you if you if you can, if you’re thinking about if you’re not happy with the job that you’re doing, if it’s not enough, if you if you have the flexibility of maybe move towards a different domain quite easily. Yeah. Why not try? Why not? I always tell this to my nurse. You could.

Speaker3: Take six months.

Speaker4: Off, right?

Speaker1: As you see, I don’t see [01:32:30] it like that. I know I can, but I don’t see it like that. It’s like, who’s going to finish my aligner case? It’s like I.

Speaker4: Can’t finish them off yourself.

Speaker1: Yeah, and then take six months off. No, I’m not going to do that. Not not soon anyway. No, I don’t think it’s that I’m. No, because I’m, I’m not tired. Not yet I want.

Speaker4: More but you know I’m still into it. Sound.

Speaker3: Sound crazy. So you sound tired. You don’t sound tired. But you this yearning for travel. Yeah. Part of that is you’re [01:33:00] working too hard.

Speaker4: Yes. Because we only have, like, a month off.

Speaker1: A year.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker3: There’s another part of it that’s like discovery, right? Yeah. To see and feel what it’s like to live in San Francisco or Bali or wherever. Wherever. Yeah, yeah, there is part of that. But there is another part of it of working too hard.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: You know what? I’m afraid that if I disconnect for six months.

Speaker4: We’ll never come back.

Speaker1: Not necessarily, but I don’t know how to come back after pandemic, I forgot. Yeah, but you see, I [01:33:30] forgot how I used to do things. I forgot I needed to ask a.

Speaker4: Colleague for five.

Speaker3: Years and went back.

Speaker4: It was. Did you remember everything?

Speaker3: No, no, it was difficult. It was difficult. But that was five years.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker3: And listen, it’s a hypothetical. Yeah. My hypothetical is you could do it.

Speaker4: Yeah, you can do it. Yeah, of course I can.

Speaker3: Yeah. And you know what we said about the pandemic, what we said about stopping in many ways. Do you have any guilt about leaving your parents? No.

Speaker4: Because you’re fine. Yeah.

Speaker1: They’re they’re they’re [01:34:00] well accomplished. They don’t need.

Speaker4: Me. Yeah.

Speaker1: They have friends. They don’t need me.

Speaker4: They can’t miss you. They do.

Speaker1: But they can visit me any time. It’s not like they can’t. I can go there as well, and I do once a year. We do usually go.

Speaker3: If you go home like four times a year and holiday six, seven times a year, like that’s, that’s what would really accomplish me.

Speaker4: I’m okay if I go home. It’s just they’re.

Speaker1: Happy to see me for [01:34:30] like.

Speaker4: Five minutes and.

Speaker1: Then.

Speaker4: They.

Speaker1: Start talking about how am I a failure.

Speaker4: So really? Yeah, it’s.

Speaker1: Never enough for them. So it’s just I can’t be bothered.

Speaker3: So we’re going to have to cut this out so you can send it to them.

Speaker4: Yeah yeah yeah. No they don’t.

Speaker1: They don’t, don’t speak English. It’s fine.

Speaker4: No no but well we.

Speaker1: Might get it translated. Okay.

Speaker3: It’s been a massive pleasure to have you.

Speaker1: Thank you so much.

Speaker4: Thank you so much.

Speaker3: For being so open as well. It’s been [01:35:00] a lovely conversation. Thanks a lot.

Speaker4: Thank you.

Speaker2: 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.

Speaker5: Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing. And just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we’ve had to say [01:35:30] and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

Speaker3: If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so so so much for listening. Thanks.

Speaker5: And don’t forget our six star rating.

Sahil Patel says he was disillusioned with dentistry by his first year in dental school. But finding a dusty old scanner in the technician’s room at his university changed everything, igniting his curiosity to venture off the curriculum and delve into digital dentistry.

In this episode, Sahil recounts the ups and downs of his journey from associate dentistry in Cornwall to the proud owner of Harley Street’s Marylebone Smile Clinic.      

 

In This Episode

02.29 – Backstory and training

22.06 – Into practice

31.44 – Practice ownership and building trust

36.30 – Patient journey

44.21 – The daughter test

46.30 – Career moves

50.57 – A regulatory case

01.02.03 – Clinical a-ha moments and tips

01.09.55 – Blackbox thinking

01.17.00 – Learning

01.20.45 – Fantasy dinner party

01.26.42 – Last days and legacy  

 

About Sahil Patel

Dr Sahil Patel is a multi-award-winning BACD-accredited dentist and owner of Marylebone Smile Clinic on Harley Street, London.

Speaker1: And I’m glad that it’s now probably more accepted to go outside the curriculum and get some learning through mini smile makeover or other means. Because with clinical exposure reducing since I left and since you left, dentists coming out are not as experienced with all the procedures, so they have to do more learning when it comes to private education, shadowing, reading. So if they can do that early whilst they’re in dental school, in this protected environment it’s all the better.

Speaker2: This [00:00:30] 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.

Speaker3: It gives me great pleasure to welcome Sahil Patel onto the podcast. So he a young dentist who’s making lots of waves from where I can see he’s just got accredited at the OECD, which [00:01:00] I saw, which is a massive achievement. Having watched Dipesh Parliament go through that process as a what a massive achievement that is. So congratulations on that. So he’s opened his own practice in the West End, Marylebone Smile Clinic Clinic, Melbourne Smile Clinic recently, where he’s focusing on aesthetic and restorative dentistry. I actually was in the lift at the OECD and a couple of the examiners were asking too, so how was the Hills work? And there was a [00:01:30] knowing nod. And in that lift, knowing little knowing nod saying, you know, it was it was excellent work and we could see your work online. The other thing so he has done a lot of is, you know, just get himself out there and educate the public on, you know, all the different parts of dentistry. But this time, you know, our audience is mainly dentists. So maybe a bit different to the focus you’ve had. Thanks a lot for coming in for this.

Speaker1: Thanks, Payman. Thanks very much for having [00:02:00] me on. And the comment about the lift I haven’t heard about, and I thought it would be a different answer because they gave me a specially a hard time during the viva, and I’ve been telling stories about it since. I enjoyed it a lot. I wish there was a recording of it, because such useful debates and discussions amongst very knowledgeable people asking me questions about cases. I found it helpful and yeah, stressful.

Speaker3: So take us back. [00:02:30] Give me. Give me your backstory. Sahil. As a kid, where did you grow up? When was the first time dentistry came on your radar?

Speaker1: Grew up in north London, and dentistry came up relatively late in the thought cycle or application cycle. When kids go through lower sixth form and are asked, what do you want to do at university? I was encouraged to do medicine. I looked around me. Lots of my friends. My older brother had gone to medical school. Yeah. Me too. And one [00:03:00] thing I asked myself at that immature age was, how do I want to spend my time outside of work and inside work? And I always knew I had interests outside of dentistry. So quite selfishly, at the time, I thought, I’m being told I’m good at biology. I like working with people, but also would like to do things at my own time as well. Dentistry seemed to allow for that, or at least on the face of it. And those were the core reasons why it appealed to me. There was no innate passion for teeth, I don’t think. I don’t think anyone has that.

Speaker3: I [00:03:30] asked this question a lot. Right. And you do get there tends to be three answers to it. One is kind of the one you gave late, being sort of soberly looking at how you want your career to turn out. There is another one which is I had a great experience at the dentist myself, and from then I decided to be a dentist, which is a lovely story, right? Which means people are treating people well. But then sometimes you do get these people who say, I want to be a dentist since I was five years old. It’s rare. I find that.

Speaker1: Hard to hard to relate to because [00:04:00] many people ask me to this day, why would you want to spend your time looking in people’s mouths? You know, on the face of it, it seems like quite a squeamish thing to do. So at a young age, having a passion for it or innate passion for teeth. It’s exceptionally rare for me. That came a lot later. Was there anything.

Speaker3: Else on your radar apart from medicine, dentistry? When were you thinking maybe, I don’t know, engineering or law? Some some other angle in another life?

Speaker1: I would love to have gone into film production. Oh, really? [00:04:30] In another life, I would have loved to have tried to become a professional performer in some way. I did a lot of dance through university and through school. I continued to this day and Hollywood used to be Bollywood house and locking through university and then competing in Latin and ballroom through university. So that’s what I do. More recently, a couple of colleagues I know did go pro and you know, I live vicariously through them. It’s a tough life, but also an amazing and very different life to clinical [00:05:00] dentistry. So those are the two things I would fantasise about.

Speaker3: So performing. So that really puts it into sort of focus that like watching your social media, how comfortable you are. And I remember looking at it when you started really going in all in on it. I remember thinking, these youngsters are just so comfortable in front of a camera, you know, they just find it so easy. But were you lots of plays and school plays and that sort of thing as well as you were growing up?

Speaker1: No, I’ve actually [00:05:30] never been into acting or singing or dancing specifically. Dance. Yeah. Which has an element of acting to it. Yeah, but coming to recording yourself on camera, I didn’t think of it so much as performing and it didn’t. Come naturally to me. Although you said it does.

Speaker3: Seems like it does.

Speaker1: I think having confidence in what I knew and what I was discussing seemed to help, because it didn’t require me to rehearse lines. None of the videos I do.

Speaker3: Was it ad lib?

Speaker1: 95% of it. [00:06:00]

Speaker3: Oh, that’s so interesting. Sam Jethwa said the same thing to me and I couldn’t believe it, man. I was like, Jesus. Even the bigger achievement.

Speaker1: People can see very quickly. When you’ve rehearsed something, you can see through it. People know when it’s not authentically you. It’s true. And I was very aware of that when I did try to write something out that was, let’s say, complicated. You look at, you watch yourself back and you think it doesn’t look genuine and you wouldn’t buy it. And I think when it comes to health care, people are looking for relatability. Very true. They could see if you’re not being [00:06:30] truthful in that moment just through body language. So I was very aware of that. And I think if it doesn’t, usually when if it doesn’t come through in the first or second take, it’s not going to be better than that.

Speaker3: It’s funny because there’s a camera on right now, isn’t there? And somehow I can ignore it because I feel like we are just chatting and then it happens to be recorded. Whereas if I’m standing in front of the phone, it’s not just me. Maybe that’s the way to think of it. And maybe that’ll be the the my answer to my problem. But [00:07:00] I can’t talk to the camera as I hate it. Completely hate it.

Speaker1: I had a little bit of the same issue because you’re looking into a lens which is not looking back at you. Yeah, exactly. But right now I’m looking at you exactly. When you look at a lens, you’re just seeing a very small reflection of yourself, and there’s no one there. And I’ve had to break that down by repetition. And I think that’s probably how most people do. You then become more related to the camera, which is an odd expression, but these days I don’t think of it much.

Speaker3: Well, I can see that you do look comfortable now. [00:07:30] So tell me, you decided to go for dentistry. Was there a thought process of I’m definitely leaving London for university or what? How did you end up in Bristol? Why Bristol?

Speaker1: It was the only university that gave me an offer. Yeah. I desperately wanted to go to King’s College because all my friends were going there. Yeah, it has a good reputation, especially amongst secondary schools. Yeah. I was really upset to go to Bristol. I was torn and I was at the time I was childishly. [00:08:00]

Speaker3: Though now, in retrospect.

Speaker1: Very much so. I think as a teenager growing up in north London, you think you.

Speaker3: Know it all.

Speaker1: And the world revolves around London, outside the M25. Nothing exists. And I was of that mindset and foolishly, it was the best thing I could have done to separate from a circle that I knew very well and find out that actually, outside London, there are all sorts of worlds which are just as good, if not better. And I threw myself into Bristol life, and it took a couple of years to actually [00:08:30] become settled and feel like it was more comfortable there than I was at home. And afterwards I didn’t want to leave, and I was really sad to leave after five years, just as torn to leave and go to a new, new place, which was even remote area. Cool. Yeah.

Speaker3: To get to. I adore Bristol. I love Bristol, it’s one of the towns in the UK that I could live in. Me too. I studied in Cardiff and we used to visit Bristol sometimes for whatever [00:09:00] it was. But I love Bristol so much. I visit Alfonso and the Touraj and Richard Field and it’s a great town and there’s great restaurants, great people, great people. So, okay. How were you as a as a dental student? Were you top of your class or not?

Speaker1: No, I would say I was average right in the middle. As time went on, I became disillusioned with dentistry. In the first three years, I think. I didn’t know if it was something that I enjoyed. [00:09:30] I knew there was an academic component, which you’re trained just to go through the phases of that, and then you start to see patients and you start to realise what the job and the task really entails. And I struggled. I was not particularly good with the practical learning of my hands. I was I was lagging behind and a couple of colleagues who I stay in touch with today, the three of us were comparing notes as to how bad we were because we were just rocking right at the bottom. And [00:10:00] as time went on, I had some influence from a couple of dentists. You may know Nick Claydon, he has a practice in Cardiff. He made an impression on me early on and I was lucky enough to go and visit his practice, and that changed my mindset as to what dentistry could be. It was a stark contrast to how the dental hospital ran things, and something in that gave me a lot of motivation to explore what’s outside of the dental school. And he actually was the first one who pointed me towards the British Academy of [00:10:30] Aesthetic Dentistry, and he just said the name and I didn’t know what it was. And that academy is not particularly well known compared to the BCD, which you mentioned earlier. And then from there I met Richard Field and became a student rep. All of that, and that gave me a lot of motivation to become quite rebellious as a student in the final clinical years. I was trying to break out of it early, I’d say, which is good and bad, but.

Speaker3: So you’re saying that Nick sort of inspired you to go after excellence, whereas the dental school [00:11:00] didn’t?

Speaker1: Nick encouraged a patient journey and he showed me that journey from his practice. What happens when the patient walks through the door, sees him, sees the treatment coordinator, and then leaves with a treatment plan? I’d never seen that in my life. As a student, you’re you’re arranging the appointments. You’re trying just to get them to a point where you can have a treatment plan that you can actually.

Speaker3: The experience side of it kind of seduced you, that you want to create the best experience for the patient.

Speaker1: Yes. And until then, I felt dentistry was [00:11:30] quite barbaric in the, in the methods we’re using. And I felt it’s just quite aggressive and it didn’t seem very pleasant for the patient. And he made it seem so pleasant in his practice, the way he designed it, the workflow. He had a lot of chairside CAD cam never seen that before. When you see that for the first time, I think everyone is very, very impressed. Yeah. You see a cerec machine for the first time, or you see a scanner for the first time and you’re and, you know, you go back to our dental schools and we’re mucking around with silicones and things.

Speaker3: What did [00:12:00] you call it for 2015? And there was no mention of scanning or anything. I suppose scanning wasn’t what it is today. Well, it’s.

Speaker1: Interesting since seeing Nick use Chairside cad cam, I went to go I went to the lab in Bristol and I asked them about this and they said, yeah, we’ve got a machine, but no one uses it apart from our head technician for some some inlays and onlays and he showed me it. It was a red cam from 2002, gathering dust in the corner. And he used it every so often. Not on not [00:12:30] on technician. Technician used it kind of in the lab setting too. Never, never, never scanning a patient. And I did a lot of research at that point. And I got what I would call obsessed by the aim of using this machine on a patient as it was intended. I must have read so much stuff on Cerec, doctors from Scottsdale, all those guys, and I just searched for a case that I could do this on and tried to get competent with something that no one would teach me. So I got models, I prepared models, I did it on a model. [00:13:00] I showed the technician. The technician took me under his wing and actually gave me advice on what to do. I found a case in fourth year and we did it. Three hours start to finish and only from preparation to fit. It caused a lot of upset in the dental school because it had never been done.

Speaker3: You haven’t passed it by anyone?

Speaker1: No. Well, I’d passed it by people, but it just never been done before. And people were just certain people were understandably confused as to why a dental student is calling [00:13:30] the shots. And in hindsight, I can see why I don’t have a license. That being said, I’m being supervised by dentists, so I still I still feel it was okay and clinically it was the right treatment for that. But that was that was a great moment. And then I did it again before graduating. And then unfortunately, I think think didn’t manage to pass on that to anyone else because the barriers are just so high when you’re a dental student. But all of that led to all sorts of different things, such as clinical photography. Richard was guiding me quite a lot at that stage.

Speaker3: So [00:14:00] you were in touch with Richard Field as a student because of the student rep situation? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker1: Richard was just recently having been a student rep and he was recruiting for student reps, I believe, in Cardiff, in Bristol, and I remember at the time you’d have to write a short application. And Richard being the relatively intense guy that he is, I remember having a conversation with him and he mentioned a few things. I just never heard of things like deep margin, elevation and as a fourth [00:14:30] year student at the time, completely alien to me. Then I started reading about them and I realised there’s a whole world of information, techniques, clinical teachers who are far, far beyond the UK and the UK is playing catch up and lagging behind. That was what I felt then. I feel that now.

Speaker3: So and you were accessing these people on social know or did you go on courses abroad or what did you do.

Speaker1: Courses, a lot of reading of literature, a lot of [00:15:00] shadowing of dentists. I found didactic learning was helpful for giving background, but for me, seeing what people do chairside made me confident enough to actually do it. And one thing I noticed was some clinical teachers do slightly different things on a training course, or they teach different things versus chairside. And particularly with composite resin bonding, so many techniques out there, some people actually are more pragmatic with a patient versus in teaching where you’re learning Floss ties, let’s say technical gold standard. Yes. [00:15:30] Then when you have the cold face with a patient, you may do different things.

Speaker3: And so how did you go about asking people if you could shadow them, literally DMing them, or how was it? I mean, because in my day, shadowing people wasn’t really a thing. Whereas I spoke to some dental students and they were saying, yeah, any time I get a minute off, I go and nurse for a senior student or or shadow a lab, go to a lab and just watch a technician building. [00:16:00] Building a. Lab work, which is like it sounds amazing education. But when I was a third year dental student, you wouldn’t have caught me in a lie. The thought didn’t even cross my mind, let alone doing it. So tell me about that. That shadowing process where you pick picking people you really respected a lot, and just directly asking them if you could shadow, was that it? Yes.

Speaker1: The first one was Nick Layden. He gave us a lecture on oral hygiene instruction as think second or third years, and I dropped [00:16:30] him an email to really say thank you for the lecture. And he did talk about his practice during the lecture. And I thought if he was willing to allow me to shadow him, that would be great. I was just intrigued. At that stage, I didn’t realise I would learn so much. And he kindly said yes. And I think from his point of view as a referral clinic, it made sense as well because I have referred patients to to his clinic since then. So I think it was a win win there. When it comes to being post qualified, it’s a little bit more complicated because I think a cold [00:17:00] or a cold email probably will land flat because there’s no particular reason dentists would would allow it, because there are complicating factors and having another clinician in the room, it can it can cause patients to feel as if the dentist is being supervised, depending on the age difference between you two. What I tend tended to do, I think if I had a pre-existing, even a relationship with that dentist, such as if I’d seen them on a course, met them socially, or conference conference. And at Bard when I went, I went to that as [00:17:30] a 50th student, and I met so many dentists who were significantly senior to me, and they all seemed eager to pass on what they’d learned to someone who’s the youngest there by ten years. And I’m thankful for that because many people said yes, the majority said yes. People such as Jason Smith’s and Teju Manku, Mark Hughes, all these people. I learned plenty from Chairside.

Speaker3: Wow.

Speaker1: And my approach. And how long were.

Speaker3: You shadowing each of these guys?

Speaker1: Probably varies from 2 to 10 [00:18:00] days.

Speaker4: Wow.

Speaker1: And, you know, at the upper end of that, if you if you shadow someone for ten clinical days, that’s a lot of clinical dentistry. You’ll see and you’ll see a lot of different approaches and complications. And it’s interesting to see again.

Speaker3: Bloody good point about being as as a dental student getting as much sort of, you know, exposure to conferences, meeting people, going by the way, we do this for many spa makeover. We let students come for free. Okay. [00:18:30] It’s almost for me. It’s almost like a like a laboratory rat situation. I want to know what happens to these people. There’s one in particular. I got him in the first year of dental school. Wanted to know. I wanted to know what would happen. So on the hands on in the first year of dental school and unfortunately, unfortunately, he was holding the composite gun upside down and stuff and you realise, you know how much you actually everyone in the room does know. Whereas usually when you’re teaching you’re thinking, oh, well, [00:19:00] I’ve got to teach all this new stuff to people. But he’s gone on to do, he’s in his fourth year now, so he’s gone on to do a lot.

Speaker1: And as he stuck with the mini saw makeover group.

Speaker3: I’m just trying to expose him to as much stuff as possible just to see what would happen. Yeah, okay. But anyway, the guys have come and watched. They’ve been firstly keen, taking notes, asking questions, meeting people and there’s pleasure in it, man. There’s pleasure in in propelling people forward. You know paying [00:19:30] it back. I mean you must be getting people asking you now right?

Speaker1: I do and how do you handle it? Just like you, I, I like to give it back as well. Yeah. And most cases I say yes and I say most because the only situations which can be problematic is certain personality types who may not wish to have other people in the room, even if they are a dentist. Also, as a young, younger dentist with a young dentist in the room, sometimes that can be a [00:20:00] miscommunication as to who is watching who and who is actually who is mentoring who patients can. Sometimes it can cause a problem for yourself, and I’ve seen that happen for sure. So it’s usually helpful if there’s a big age disparity because there’s no miscommunication. But when it’s quite close it can be problematic.

Speaker3: So yeah, you can have to wait a few years because now now you’re going to get loads of people asking. But it’s it’s important though. It’s important. I don’t know why. In my day just was not a [00:20:30] thing. And it really is the best way to learn.

Speaker1: It’s good to hear that people are doing it. Early years I remember when I was doing it, I was very much the black sheep in the year. I wouldn’t to the point where I wouldn’t tell anyone because I was already being criticised for going outside the curriculum. And for example, I was speaking to Heraeus Kulzer at the time, and they were helpful to lend me some composite to try and use instead of using 0.4, which they still use in Bristol, just to try and improve the quality of outcomes in posteriors. And I was really criticised heavily by clinicians and students. [00:21:00] I’ll just keep it all to myself. And I’m glad that it’s now probably more accepted to go outside the curriculum and get some learning through. Mini smile makeover or other means. Because with clinical exposure reducing since I left and since you left, dentists coming out are not as experienced with all the procedures, so they have to do more learning when it comes to private education, shadowing, reading. So if they can do that early whilst they’re in dental school, in this protected environment, that’s all the better. [00:21:30]

Speaker3: Absolutely. I mean, the early years are so formative. And we were discussing off mic, you know, what advice would we give to people? And you made the very good point that we tend to give the advice that’s based on our own experience. Although, you know, I’m not advising people to go start a teeth whitening company, but you’re right in that, in that we all have our own sort of lens that we put in front of the advice. But you went from university [00:22:00] to, I guess PT in Cornwall.

Speaker1: Yeah. Df1. Yeah.

Speaker3: Df1. That’s right. And and then from there straight to cosmetic private dentistry. So. Right. Yes. Okay. So so so tell me about why Cornwall first of all and how was the experience?

Speaker1: Just like my upper sixth application to dental school had one offer then and the only offer to Cornwall at 50 a dental school. I desperately wanted to stay in [00:22:30] Bristol and I was, I think I cried the day that I found out that not that I was going to Cornwall, but I actually didn’t get a position. I was one of those few who didn’t get a position because you ranked so low in the country. And at the time, if you, you know, I was possessed with dentistry and all these different things, and I was just really sad for a period of time. And then after graduating, after passing finals, I found out it was Cornwall. On one hand, I was sad to be leaving Bristol, but number two, on the flip side, I thought it’s a new place, [00:23:00] why not go head first into it, just like I did at Bristol, maybe there for one year or two years beyond. And then I knew Jason was there as well. So that was one of the first things I had on my on my list was to introduce myself to Jason. Before that, I hadn’t met him. I worked in a practice in Wadebridge and two trainers, both of them were lovely, taught me loads about clinical dentistry, and what’s nice about the sticks is that you often get exposure to a wider group of people because [00:23:30] there are less dentists per area per square mile, and in Cornwall in particular there are, there’s a severe lack of certain specialities. Periodontics, prosthodontics or surgery. So those things we would try and bounce the referrals to, to Exeter or Treliske in Truro and sometimes get bounced back to us saying, sorry, we can’t take this patient on for X, Y and Z. So my trainers and I would say, well, let’s let’s give it a try. And as a result you get [00:24:00] amazing exposure to learning.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: Which I’d heard in big cities you don’t. So for dentistry it was great. And although I was the youngest person I knew in Cornwall, I got some nice exposure to triathlon. Cycling is amazing out there, so there are lots of positives from it, and I threw myself into a lot of courses at the time, and shadowing did a lot of miles that year in the car. And to answer your question, to then apply for positions I. My priority was not so [00:24:30] much to go into cosmetic private practice, but to find a practice that would support the, let’s say, the educational pathway I was on, which was essentially to treatment plan comprehensively. That was sort of where I was at at the time, improve my skill sets. And and in order to do that, I wasn’t focussed on finances, not one bit. I would spend a lot of time and a lot of stuff, and that doesn’t work with a lot of practices because practices are businesses. And at that time I was jaded for that. That was not really on my radar. So I was searching [00:25:00] for practices that would accommodate that, which there aren’t many. So I sent out a lot of a lot of cold applications. I guess I got some very nice responses, actually, because I did put together a portfolio of sorts based on what I’d done and since fifth year to end of Df1. And I did eventually have people respond positively, and I took on, I believe, three positions, one in south London, one in central London and one in Hertfordshire, and split my [00:25:30] time for that for, for those three practices and, and started a very, very steep learning curve.

Speaker3: And when you said portfolio, are we talking Instagram at that point or. No. What, what how what shape did it take this portfolio. Was it when you you’d send an application, would you just send the photos or on hard paper.

Speaker1: Oh paper I hard paper I’d got them printed professionally. Oh and in hindsight I’m not sure if it was a good move. I think it was, because [00:26:00] I remember. Getting some phone calls.

Speaker4: People who stood out.

Speaker1: Who actually thought what I was doing was the right way. And and a couple of people come to mind. Nick gave me a call from Cardiff. Yeah, yeah. He didn’t have any space at the time, but that’s understandable. Kamal Suri gave me a call. I’d never met her before, so. And she invited me over to have a chat to her, which was great. And through BCD it was sent out as well digitally through through. Suzy and I received several calls from them because I [00:26:30] didn’t know a few of them by that point, so I had it printed.

Speaker3: And what were the cases?

Speaker1: The cases were the cigarette case, the one that I worked so hard on and it turned out great. There was a fibre post core and crown, which by fluke was a good shade match. Um, and I think there was a single tooth bonding which I used enamel on, I believe. Oh, nice. Yeah. And I think I may have sent it to you at the time as it.

Speaker4: Just rings a bell. Yeah. [00:27:00]

Speaker1: Years ago, I remember I spoke to you about it. So, so very simple things. Things that turned out well. And at the time I was photographing different stages of things which most people are not taking any photos at all. So I think, you know, even producing one case from a dentist. Now, if I see one case from a dentist, you know, it elevates them so high because I think 80% do not.

Speaker3: It’s interesting man. We can you can track that way of progressing your career right back to being a student rep at BCD because [00:27:30] of the people you were meeting and the lectures you were watching and and so forth. Get yourself a camera, get yourself some loops or whatever it is, and meet all these people to shadow. So the three practices Hertfordshire was with Rahul?

Speaker1: Yes. Perfect. Smile Studios, Hertfordshire. Yeah. So at the time it was girls Sammy, oh Sam Jethwa and I and interestingly, as I entered that practice, I, Rahul was planning the last ever cohort of the course [00:28:00] that he used to run. You may not have you may have heard of the course, but no one else will have because the course has not been running since 2016 and it was an internal only course. So it was just 4 or 5 of us. And I went straight into that, and that was treating a live case for ceramics. So that was a very steep learning curve, but it was amazing.

Speaker3: I used to visit the practice with the enamel for that course. Yeah, a few times. And what were the other two jobs?

Speaker1: Oh, the 210 Dental Clapham and oh [00:28:30] nice, Nick and Martin. I’d credit them with teaching me much of what I know about implants. And yeah, two great practices there and then Harley Street small clinic with Maurice Morris. Johannes Morris. Johannes.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker3: What a group of people you’ve been you’ve been exposed to because and we’ve obviously we’ve had both Nick and Martin from ten Dental and two different angles on Implantology. Right. But then Maurice, Johannes, a lot of people don’t know Maurice, but Maurice was one of the original guys in dentists, [00:29:00] which was one of the.

Speaker4: You say.

Speaker1: Dentists, not dentex.

Speaker3: Dentex was the original cosmetic shop front practice in London. The the first really that did it shop front. I mean, there were definitely cosmetic dentists before that, but in more sort of West one locations. But this shop front and he partnered with a PR person and they gone into the at the time it was you know Vogue and and all of that. They used to get their story. But when I, when I was trying to get enlightened into that [00:29:30] practice because I’d made this ridiculous thing in my head that if I can’t get into that practice, I might as well just give up. Right? And I had they put me in front of Chris Hall, okay, who was the clinical director and had Chris sore asking me, where’s the evidence for this? And it was at the time light activated teeth whitening as well, which okay, doubly difficult. I remember I visited that practice so many times trying to get this product in, but um, but Maurice was one of the original guys there. He was.

Speaker1: Yeah, I think it was [00:30:00] him. Joe Oliver and.

Speaker4: Joe Oliver.

Speaker1: Mervyn Drian. But he may have not been in the same practice.

Speaker3: Anything but.

Speaker4: But Mervyn was, you.

Speaker1: Know, I believe he’s older than. Yeah, he’s older than Maurice. But he was always in Swiss.

Speaker4: Saint John’s Wood, Hampstead. Yeah.

Speaker3: Yeah, yeah. But so Maurice Wood at the time was just doing Paul Simon ears all day.

Speaker1: To this day, to.

Speaker3: This day. And so you were perfect smile cosmetics, Maurice veneers. Were you doing veneers also?

Speaker1: Yes, [00:30:30] I was his support in the sense of people who did not want veneers. So let’s say composite bonding, tooth contouring, gum lifts. I was on that side. But as time went on, I did more and more ceramics cases and as yeah, as a result, I did a mix of cases there and then at ten dental restorative general dentists. So a combination of things that practice is full service. So it’d be working alongside specialist plan sometimes working alongside Martin’s plans which can be quite complex. It’s a very. Edifying [00:31:00] experiences across the three and working alongside people with different approaches and finding which parts you want to take into your clinical practice is what forms you as a clinician. And I think I said it in my post for accreditation, you’re usually the sum total of the people who have exposed you to their workflow. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes we forget who those people are, but they will have had an impact. And you know, I made my list.

Speaker3: It is a long list of people I saw there.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: So when I sat [00:31:30] down and I thought, who has impacted my practice in a significant way, that I remember something that they’ve taught me and I made that list. And, and it’s a very earnest list because there are tangible things they’ve all given me and I do to this day.

Speaker3: And so let’s pick up on I mean, yeah, clinically, all of these guys are different. Let’s pick up one on the other side of it, because you now are a practice owner yourself. What are things you learnt regarding patients, staff on the practice [00:32:00] management from these three different characters through these three different.

Speaker4: Places on the.

Speaker1: Non-clinical side?

Speaker4: Yeah, we’ll get to clinical.

Speaker1: I had a mentor of sorts. My name is Jill and she isn’t a dentist. You could say she’s a practice manager treatment coordinator, but I’d say she’s much more than that. She’s been at London Smile Clinic, I believe dentists before that and Welbeck Clinic after that and then Harley Street Smile after that. She’s had experience across the top cosmetic clinicians across her career, and [00:32:30] she has enough knowledge to be a dentist, pretty much, and to look at things like a dentist would. But from a customer service point of view, she imparted a few things as to how to make how to make a procedure that is expensive, not very comfortable, as easy as possible for someone who is anxious. We don’t get taught that at university. So specifically I learnt how to respond to complaints, which they don’t teach, how to read someone’s personality as to what they’re really upset about. Sometimes [00:33:00] it’s not written down for you to actually unpick. You have to read between the lines, and how you respond will dictate the outcome in many ways, not from a litigation or a regulatory point of view, but from.

Speaker4: Patient management.

Speaker1: Patient management, patient expectation and the goodwill of the practice. And that goes a long way.

Speaker4: So just just to drill.

Speaker3: Into that, it’s kind of that question of why are you trying to fix it now kind of question, isn’t it, where someone might say, well, [00:33:30] I’m going to get married or I’m I’m at a stage in my life where I’m not feeling like so understanding these sort of soft things around.

Speaker4: That’s right.

Speaker1: Yeah. So I think why fix it now is probably an Ashley lattice sort of. Is it probably. Yeah. Something that he would say is, you know, drill down into what is the motivation to do it now. Yeah. And with a complaint letter it’s a similar approach. What are they actually concerned about. It may not be verbalised. And sometimes you have [00:34:00] to bring them in and just have a have a conversation over a cup of coffee and try and understand how to fix things and finding out what the different routes are to to fix things. And with cosmetics, it’s slightly different to health orientated treatments because the complications are more to do with dissatisfaction over aesthetics or a miscommunication of what the intended outcome could be. And this is not this is a very fine margin stuff. This is these are, you know, as well as I do, the types of things we can be asked for would not [00:34:30] be noticeable by the majority of the population, but it’s important for that person. So understanding that person exceptionally well, the outset is important. And I think, you know, I’d credit her and the other two clinics of giving me that kind of rounded approach as to how to take feedback from a patient in a way that can positively be spun into a way to move forward. You can’t always fix it so.

Speaker4: You know when you can’t.

Speaker3: So now you’re a bit more seasoned. Yeah. Are you almost looking for that nugget [00:35:00] to feed back to the patient? Almost like it’s such a long time since I’ve done a dental examination. But but now that you’re saying it this way, I mean, people are kind of pre-qualified. By the time they come to you. They’re already talking about a makeover of sorts, I suppose. Right. So then you’re almost in, in the, in the assessment process, looking for that key that’s going to sort of switch them into fully trusting you. Is that.

Speaker4: Right? Yeah.

Speaker1: I try not to [00:35:30] prejudge anything. I try and keep an open mind. So even though we’ve got data from them sending their first inquiry or referral into the practice, my treatment coordinator may give me some information about what she thinks about the patient. I’ll take that and I’ll park it. We’ll put it into a note. But when the patient comes in, I really just want to give them a clean slate and just let them tell me about themselves. I want to listen. And another thing I learned from Jane Sproson, you know, is first listen. To understand, [00:36:00] then respond. Dentists have a great ability to pre-empt what someone’s going to say to us, because we know if they give us this list of symptoms, it’s irreversible. Pulpitis so we just know what we’re going to say. You need a root canal treatment. Et cetera. Et cetera, et cetera. I try and disengage my brain from that. Just let them tell us where they’re at. It might be simple. It might be complex. And if those nuggets come up at that time. Okay, hold them in your mind and talk to them about that later, or use it to progress the plan.

Speaker3: But, [00:36:30] I mean, I spoke to Basil Mizrahi and he told me, look, the kind of treatments that I end up doing for patients are so involved. They take such a long time, and they cost such a lot of money that it sometimes takes him three assessments before he’ll want to go ahead on that patient. So do you ever do that? Do you ever get them back in again or what’s the what’s the patient journey. [00:37:00] Let’s go into it. What’s as far as the patient’s met you. You’ve had the chat. You’ve had a look.

Speaker1: One thing I’ve missed out is before the patient sees us in person, there may be a video call. Oh, really? Okay. Video call with myself or the treatment coordinator will uncover many of the things there. And when we go into our consultation phase, we’re doing a barrage of data collection, photographs, occlusal analysis. And then if it’s a complex plan, such as the ones you mentioned Basil might be involved with, I [00:37:30] would give them a skeleton framework to work with. One thing I’m hesitant to do is to give them no plan and say, really? Well, we need to get you back to study models and do a wax up, which I know is an approach that some specialists take. And I think in today’s world, people want to be sure that there is a solution here, and I try and give them that. And sometimes it means that I have to give a treatment plan. That is. Yes, it’s an estimate, but I’m held to it and I give it as accurately as I can. I may refine it later with the second visit. So [00:38:00] to answer your question, in a complex plan, I would do the consultation.

Speaker1: In most cases, 90% of cases I will know the broad strokes of the treatment plan. What I might not know is what’s underneath some of these restorations. I might not know if I can identify this implant, if I can uncover and dismantle this implant in. There are several cases that come to mind right now, but that doesn’t stop me. Treatment planning for every eventuality, I can give the patient a couple of options and say we may not need both. It may just need one. We will find out later. And patients [00:38:30] normally understand. And the other one is we don’t have a cbct in front of us. I can’t tell you if you need a bone augmentation, soft tissue augmentation just yet. We may need to ask you to see our surgeon. And it doesn’t stop me giving them a prosthetic plan. There just may be bits added later, and I just try and communicate that clearly and people seem to understand. So the first consultation is top heavy. Give them all the information then and refinements later with Basil’s approach. You mentioned of a three stages. I can’t comment specifically, [00:39:00] but horses for courses?

Speaker4: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: So just fill in the patient journey for me a little bit. Typically, what’s the most typical route by which a patient finds you? Word of mouth or social media or.

Speaker4: Google okay Google.

Speaker3: So you’ve got a good Google game to start.

Speaker4: We’ll give it a try. Yeah.

Speaker1: I think the difference with Google people are actively searching for something. So they’re usually quite they’ve done some research [00:39:30] attention. Yeah. They’ve got some Dental intelligence. And when they come in they actually they’re engaged. So that’s the most common.

Speaker3: So okay the email comes in or something.

Speaker1: Email comes in, we ask for a photo normally and maybe a 1 or 2 concerns they might have. And the photos may range from lots of photos to no photos to a video. And based on that, our practice manager who clinically trained and we’ve worked together for many years, she analyses the photo, gives her best guess as to what she thinks. I would [00:40:00] say she may run it past me before she writes a response. She would give some indication to the patient as to what she feels could be an option. And if it’s something not so straightforward, such as something involving tooth replacement or ceramics, she would suggest a video call with myself. We arrange a video call. I try to glean more information from a video, which usually is helpful but limiting, and the next stage is a in-person consultation. So from there, we’ve had three touchpoints of consent, I’d say, [00:40:30] which I think is really important because sometimes the consent forms we give are so verbose and so detailed that no one could absorb that much information. I wouldn’t I wouldn’t read it quite right. So when they come to the clinic in person, they already know a lot of the disadvantages and advantages of, let’s say, implants versus bridges or ceramics versus composites. So when I have that discussion with a photograph and a radiograph in front of us, they can actually engage and understand what I’m telling them. After our data collection, [00:41:00] I would issue a treatment plan based on what they think is good for them. And if they’re not sure, I might issue two two treatment plans if they’re thinking of both.

Speaker3: But when? So how far? When does that appear? When does that land? Is it at the end of that visit? Is it one day later?

Speaker1: Is it on the day?

Speaker4: On the day?

Speaker3: Okay. Perfect. Because you’ve had these touch points. You kind of know which way which direction you’re going.

Speaker1: Yes. And I try and give my advice as well because many, many people will defer to us even though we are. Supposed [00:41:30] to give the options and the patient makes their decision. Yes, they do, but they may ask us for what their advice is, what our advice is, and I.

Speaker3: Yeah, and I think Prav talks about this a lot, and I totally agree with him that in that moment. We should give the answer, we.

Speaker1: Should.

Speaker3: Whereas that’s not specifically taught. I mean, there’s a lot of people who say you give them the three options. It’s their decision, you know, but, you know, with every other supplier I’ve ever had, right? [00:42:00] I’m going to ask that supplier, okay. What would you do in this situation yourself?

Speaker4: It’s so interesting.

Speaker1: Ollie Harmon and I were discussing this at accreditation. Viva. Oh, really? Yeah. Because there was a case which I did, which was very debateable as to which approach to take. And we were having the debate open forum, three examiners and the ten of the accredited members at the back of the room listening in. And we were.

Speaker4: Let’s be nerve wracking.

Speaker1: It was it was when you have that much knowledge in the room to temper my answers very carefully.

Speaker4: Choose your words.

Speaker1: Not as much as I have today. And [00:42:30] we were asking ourselves the question, to what extent do we respect the patient’s autonomy to make a bad decision?

Speaker3: Well, if they have informed consent, right?

Speaker4: Correct.

Speaker1: Informed, informed consent. But there must come a line where we are no longer comfortable to actually do the procedure ourselves. So we have patients. Let me give you an extreme example.

Speaker4: Oh, I get it. I get the.

Speaker1: Extreme. One is a patient comes in and says, I’d like to have all my teeth removed in favour of implants. You could give them informed consent and they [00:43:00] may still continue with that decision. But how many dentists would be comfortable actually physically doing that procedure? Not many. So there comes a line where a dentist would not be willing to cut a tooth back, or to remove a tooth for reasons of elective informed consent.

Speaker3: But but I mean, just in that it’s an extreme example, right? But if you thought you explained to the patient the benefits, the costs and benefits and advantages and many disadvantages of that [00:43:30] route of action, and then they they said, yeah, I hear all that, I understand all that, and I still want to have my teeth taken out. Then you need to refer them to some sort of psychologist to see. Are they, are they actually understanding something like that? It’s madness.

Speaker4: But yes.

Speaker1: But also don’t underestimate people’s ability to make a bad decision and to have a different set of values that we may do as dentists. We’ve been through a very specific training pathway [00:44:00] to understand dental health, medical health. We have that information that patients do not. They also may have different set of values in the sense of I’ve seen people be prepared to take much more physical risk with the aim to get 10% of aesthetic improvement, whereas they may never do.

Speaker4: It came up in.

Speaker3: Dental trauma, didn’t it? We both.

Speaker4: We both. Yeah. You were there.

Speaker3: Both. We both commented on it. Yeah we.

Speaker4: Did. Yeah.

Speaker3: You’re right, you’re right. It’s an interesting it’s an interesting area. Right. And that daughter test that came up. Yeah there’s there’s sort of it’s [00:44:30] the daughter’s choice.

Speaker4: That’s right. It’s not your choice. Well the point.

Speaker1: The one in Dental Rama. I didn’t explain too well. Maybe I can explain it here. Yeah. The daughter test is problematic because the act of the patient being the daughter is not what should guide your decision making. It has to be the patient’s values and circumstances in their personal, professional and social life, not the fact that they are a loved one of yours. Yeah.

Speaker4: Agreed.

Speaker1: So Martin Kelleher had an unfortunate experience of having his career exposed with lots [00:45:00] of ceramics cases that got complicated, and he had to replace all of them. So he published the articles that he that he published and Daughter Test was one of them. And that article is infiltrated all dental schools. And that’s now how we make decisions. But I’m keen to write a response to it, to say that we need to come away from the daughter test in favour of something along the lines of Montgomery’s judgement, which is to take into account the patient’s values in that point in time informed consent, as you said, and [00:45:30] respect their autonomy to make a decision you don’t agree with. Yeah.

Speaker4: Agreed?

Speaker3: Agreed. Like, for instance, if, let’s say the person is a model. And is thinking career wise, this will help my career loads and I accept the health cost for it.

Speaker4: I would be much more that they’ve.

Speaker3: Got agency in that decision.

Speaker4: That’s right.

Speaker1: And your ability to be more aggressive with your treatment plan in the aim of helping the cosmetics should be much broader than someone [00:46:00] who is not in that in that professional work.

Speaker3: That said that said, I think the infiltration of the daughter test into all curriculums probably overall net net, a big positive. It’s a good, good, good thing to keep pointing people to. But you’re right, there’s nuance. There’s nuance especially. You’ve got to understand that in your situation, you’re seeing that the very edge of I mean, I know you understand this, but you’re seeing a very edge of the total. The people who are coming for specifically this sort of treatment. [00:46:30] Talk me through now the rest of your career after that. So you were in these three practices. What was the next career move?

Speaker1: One of the dentists, Harley Street Small Clinic, was departing, and I was asked to do more days there in a hurry. And I had a decision to make whether to say yes and consolidate my time to that one practice, which is what it would take or to decline. And I took the decision to consolidate to one practice at [00:47:00] that point. So that’s what I did. And what.

Speaker3: Was the driver of that decision.

Speaker1: In Hertfordshire in ten Dental? Whilst my exposures to dentistry were excellent and I had a good time, both of those practices, Harley Street Smile was not a general practice. It operates as a little bit like a referral clinic. Patients come to us for their elective treatment and they usually have a GDP they go to afterwards. And I was intrigued by that approach, and I thought it was good in the sense of it allowed us to really become experts [00:47:30] at a very small select group of treatments. So I can tell you what those are. It’s it’s tooth contouring, gum lifts, composite bonding and ceramics implants was my bag. I did a bit of that as well. That was it. It’s a very small group of treatments. And I thought to myself, those are the areas I’m developing most in. I should do more of.

Speaker4: That was all.

Speaker3: Did it? Did it spill over into full mouth rehab, or were you referring those?

Speaker4: It did.

Speaker1: It did a little bit. And depending on different [00:48:00] clinicians risk appetite, people would take it on or not take it on. And that’s where some things would go in Basil’s direction or not. And we had a referral relationship with Basil’s practice at the time. To clarify, it was Maurice Gilmartin and myself, those practices, and Jill’s actually one of the people that pushed me towards accreditation.

Speaker4: Oh, nice. Nice. All right.

Speaker3: So so then at what point did you think I’m going to break out by myself? And did you go all in or did you keep doing a few days circumstances? [00:48:30]

Speaker1: I stayed at Harley Street Smart for five years, so it was quite, quite a big gap between consolidating my time and thinking about starting my own. I think the first inkling of it was when dentex became involved with many of the practices across the country. They struck a deal with Maurice’s practice, and they they took over us. Yeah. And and no particular issues as such. But what did happen was I wondered what happened at the end of that road for dentex. What was the outcome going [00:49:00] to be for the practice? And it was kind of unknown at the time. And I was I was relatively happy. So I was not I was not thinking of starting my own. It wasn’t really on the cards. But I did think to myself, is the long term in anyone’s sort of radar? Dentex. Maurice, what’s what’s their outcome here? I didn’t really know what it was. The thing that tipped it for me was having a regulatory case occur in 2019, and I didn’t know what the outcome of that would be. The two outcomes were I [00:49:30] stay at the current practice or I need to start my own for reasons of being let go of that practice as a result of the case, and I didn’t know what it would be.

Speaker3: So you started mentally thinking, worst case, I’m moving. But you weren’t moving to an associate somewhere. You were going to move and do your own place.

Speaker4: I also considered.

Speaker1: Moving as an associate as well. When the case did break out publicly, I did get a lot of calls of support, and people did actually say to me, if you if you need a position, give me a call. Which is really kind, actually [00:50:00] at time was quite difficult, you know, quite difficult time. Having said that, Harley Street Smart were very supportive. They had no intention of.

Speaker4: Letting you go, letting me.

Speaker1: Go. And I give the clinic and all the team a lot of respect for that, for for going through a very tough time with me. But we didn’t know what the outcome of the case was until 18 months after we knew there was a case. So we just continued as normal until that time. And but in my mind, I thought to myself, well, either I stay at this practice or I become an associate or I start my own. Which [00:50:30] one of those was I didn’t know until I knew how long, how much time was going to be suspended for if I was going to be suspended at all. And what the. Fallout would be with the practices involved, because the complicating factor for a business is if a dentist is not there, they can’t leave the position open. It’s not viable. And I totally understand. So how long can a business leave a space for a dentist financially and still have me come back.

Speaker3: To go into the case? Sure.

Speaker1: Plymouth. [00:51:00] What would you like to know?

Speaker4: Tell us about the case.

Speaker1: In a in a nutshell. The case was me not maintaining a professional boundary with a patient combination of poor judgement on my part and bad luck. I think I’ve learned some hard lessons from it. I’ve learnt a lot about our regulators and how the system works. I’ve taken some positives from it as well. I think if the case hadn’t happened, I think I would be at Harley Street. Smile.

Speaker4: Oh really, I think so.

Speaker1: And I wouldn’t [00:51:30] have taken a six month sabbatical ever. I can’t see why I would, but having taken that six months or been given that six months, it was one of the nicest and most memorable times of my life because I legally wasn’t allowed to give any dental advice either. So I had to actually ignore all my emails.

Speaker4: I mean, I love how you’ve.

Speaker3: Drawn a such a positive out of out of that, but take me through the darkest part of that time. So, I mean, do you understand that people say it’s the most stressful time of their life? Did you feel that [00:52:00] or not? Did you manage it differently?

Speaker1: It came in different ways.

Speaker4: Moments.

Speaker1: Yeah, because a case starts at a point in time and only a handful of people know about it. It’s not so stressful at that point. And then it continues on. You don’t really think about it. You continue practising as normal. And that was one of the most supportive things, is that even when the case broke out publicly patients, it didn’t change a thing in the practice, which was encouraging. The most stressful time was, I think, when the [00:52:30] press picked it up and decided to spin it and spread it everywhere. And this was in November 2020. We’re just coming out of Covid at this point and just starting back up. Things are quite busy in dentistry, and I didn’t expect it to get a.

Speaker3: Stressful period for everyone, wasn’t it? Let alone having this on top?

Speaker1: I think so, and we were not expecting it to go national and viral and international. It was more than what we had expected and as a result, that had to have some very difficult conversations with everyone [00:53:00] from other dentists I knew to family to my commanding officer in the Navy, because I hadn’t told people in the Crimson what what was happening. I in broad strokes I may mention it, but I wouldn’t give the details. And that was the toughest time.

Speaker4: You mentioned the.

Speaker3: Navy. Were you a Navy dentist? Were you that cut?

Speaker1: I’m a general entry. I am not Dental in the Navy. Oh. Non dental.

Speaker3: Oh I see. How interesting. So, [00:53:30] okay. Advice to others who are getting that letter because many, many, many of us are getting this letter now that you’ve been through this awful experience. What are your nuggets that you’d advice that you’d give others who are going to get these letters?

Speaker1: I have had conversations with people who have had these letters and they ask for advice. And each case is very specific. And me, having been through one to do with professional conduct, is [00:54:00] very specific and many cases are clinical performance related, which is an entirely different arm of the GDC, one that I don’t know about to the point of. The panellists are very different as well. So on the clinical performance ones, I’d say my knowledge is as good as yours, but the ones on professional conduct, I always went into my case trying to be open and honest, and to hold my hands up to what I did wrong and to apologise, seeing in the judgement what has been decided [00:54:30] to be a fact and what’s not a fact. Part of my mind thinks is that which was was my approach correct? Because it didn’t pan out in my favour, and I’m not sure what I could have done to make it any better. I’m not sure. I’m not sure I could have. I could have made it worse. And I think probably being candid and honest is probably a good way to go.

Speaker3: Yeah, I can see. Look, just talking to you, I can see you’re choosing every word very carefully. Not just about this. On every subject I see, you know, any, [00:55:00] any point you’re. I can see honesty is a massive thing to you. It seems. It seems obvious. But when I’ve been involved with a legal problem before. Nothing to do with dentistry but a legal problem, which it was dentistry. It wasn’t. It wasn’t GDC. Um, I was shocked at how the system didn’t just bring the truth out. I thought, you know, in my naivety, I thought, look, I’ll just tell my side of the story. The truth will out and [00:55:30] that will be the end of it, and it doesn’t. Whereas my adversary had loads of experience in legal and played that experience really well and didn’t necessarily tell the full truth, and mud stuck. So so, you know, this question of could you have done something differently in that case, I don’t know. I don’t know because I’m not expert. But I was shocked, I don’t know, how did you feel about number one, the legal ramifications, because, you know, before you were ever involved [00:56:00] in anything legal, you just think, well, it’s just it’s just this wonderful place where the truth comes out. But that certainly isn’t the case. It’s a place where the best lawyer is wins, is what I found out, like the one, the most expensive lawyer. But but number one. But then number two.

Speaker4: Most compelling lawyer.

Speaker3: Compelling.

Speaker4: Compelling. Aggressive. Compelling. Yeah.

Speaker1: Verbose.

Speaker3: Yeah. Number two. What about the press? Did that surprise you as well? I mean, what were the what were the the [00:56:30] ingredients of that virality? Was there was there someone in the press that acted outside of what you would have expected or what? Did it just go viral because it did or salaciously what was it, what what are what are your reflections on the law and the press after having been through this?

Speaker1: Interestingly, with the press, I thought if we ever did a PR campaign to get some positive press on myself post the case, would they ever would they ever do this? Because I’m sure, you know, [00:57:00] if you have the, let’s say, the Daily Mail and they have an article about you and you say, okay, let’s do a, let’s do a piece about dental health education. And they may just link related articles about me at the bottom of that, which spins the old negative press at the same time. So my team and I were really worried when we launched the practice as to how can we launch a PR campaign without risking the negative press getting resurged. Encouragingly, we found out that the press are not personal. They [00:57:30] really are not. They are business entities that are looking to.

Speaker3: Driven by their own goals, driven.

Speaker1: By other goals. Bigger than you, bigger than me. They do not particularly care about the case or even about the the truth element you mentioned. So when we decided to do a PR campaign to the positive, The Sun, the Daily Mail didn’t spin anything from the past and as a result I learnt something about it. So that was what I learnt about the press. And when it comes to legal matters, it’s, you know, circling [00:58:00] back to your very first point about your case and you truth not necessarily coming out. I think when it comes to things that don’t have hard evidence, when it’s your word against someone else’s, humans are going to be humans. And I’ve learned that that is the case of panellists as well. It’s not that they’re trying to make it hard for you or have someone else’s side necessarily. They’re going to be guided by human factors, how you come across in cross-examination and in hindsight, I didn’t come across so [00:58:30] well in cross-examination because I was under extreme pressure and extremely stress. So as a result, it became very sort of robotic in my answers, which didn’t come across well.

Speaker4: I mean, you.

Speaker3: Started the clinic, you went for some positive PR when you say you went for PR, did you hire a PR agency? Yeah. And then I mean, look at now I look at your social media, you’ve got many, many thousands of followers and your output is extraordinary. Were you doing [00:59:00] that? From what point was it, was it was it when you opened the clinic that you went ballistic on the social media, or were you already doing a lot? Was it was it kind of a redemption thing where you wanted to just say, hey, I’m, I’m out here and I’m, I don’t I’m not I’m not shy after that that’s happened, you know, how did how did it how did you feel about it? All of.

Speaker4: The above.

Speaker1: I remember speaking to a friend at the time and thinking, I post clinical cases like many dentists do. Yeah. [00:59:30] Before and after. Pretty mundane these days. But not a lot of people go on camera and talk about things. A handful of people do as we know. And I thought, can I add anything? And I kind of really racked my brain. An offer, put some ideas down and started recording some stuff. I just thought, I’ll upload it, see what happens. Then I got some traction on it and then it continued. And that’s really it. Redemption. I don’t think of it like that because I had such a rich time in that six month period. I don’t think of it as like a negative in [01:00:00] my mind. It’s actually a time I really relished and I had such a great time travelling. I know we talked about it when I was away. It’s such a positive in my life now. All the things to do with the case just almost kind of gets, you know, cornered into nothing. And, you know, the time I’ve spoken about it, today is the first time I’ve spoken about it in a long time.

Speaker3: Did you come here today planning to speak about it or did you? When I asked you this morning, did you decide there and then? You’re. You’re cool.

Speaker1: Given the subjects you’ve brought up on [01:00:30] this podcast before, I thought it would be on the cards. I didn’t know if you’d actually do it, though.

Speaker3: It’s incredibly brave. Incredibly brave of you to to be happy to talk about it, because you can understand why someone would want to sweep this under the carpet, but also incredibly helpful to others. And then, from my perspective, incredibly impressive what you’ve done with it. You’ve sort of used it to propel yourself forward in a way, you know, as a as a driver that you’re going to prove us all wrong or [01:01:00] prove whoever was was saying anything about you wrong. Something like that. And what kind of a person are you, dude? Are you are you the kind of person who gets involved in back and go up the the, you know, what do you call it? The committee and.

Speaker4: I do.

Speaker3: That sort of.

Speaker4: Thing.

Speaker1: People usually go committee or accreditation way. I’ve chosen the latter.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: So I think I’ll continue on that. On the education side, I do enjoy passing on what I’ve learnt because so many people, as we talked about, you know, passed on what they, [01:01:30] they, they learnt. And I’m doing a bit more teaching with the, with a little bit more with, with other teaching academies as well. And that kind of blends in quite nicely with the oral health education for the public, which is on social media. So I quite like just getting better information out there, because one of the things I find is misinformation is problematic, and the industry in the UK is lagging behind mainland Europe and the rest of the world in terms of clinical standards, but also knowledge. So I’m [01:02:00] trying to change that for the public and dentists.

Speaker3: I’m going to ask you a really, really unfair question now. Yeah, but I kind of like this idea, right. Of if you had to put it in a nutshell, your clinical not value add, but your clinical aha moment, what would that be? And let me give you an example. When I asked Sam Jethwa this question, he gave a lovely answer. It was about the occlusion being outside in as well as [01:02:30] inside out.

Speaker4: Oh really? That was his when.

Speaker3: When he when that clicked for him, it it made a big difference. And it was funny because at the time I’d never thought about the outside. So I’m sure you had but but I had. Can you think of, like what comes to mind when I say that?

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: Occlusion comes to.

Speaker4: Mind because it’s.

Speaker1: An area which, you know, shrouded in mystery. And Sam and I kind of went through a kind of together. Almost together. Yeah, a journey on that. But we never spoke about it too much because clearly we have different experiences. But a big [01:03:00] thing in my mind and other people’s minds. How can you fit a restoration and know if it’s going to last with confidence? As a dentist, you’re coming out of dental school. How can you know it’s going to last? What are the parameters that we should check aside from? You know, how the teeth come together? That’s just not enough. And I think the aha moment is understanding guidance, pathways, steepness, interferences, how people posture their teeth. If there is interferences, how [01:03:30] that gets deflected to other teeth. It’s a very generalised way of saying why things break down and you look at enough cases and look it in a certain way and you realise why things have worn in a certain way, why that cusp is broken. Once you realise that you can treatment plan so much clearly so.

Speaker3: So again we are talking occlusion.

Speaker1: Talking occlusion. Yeah.

Speaker3: But give me an example. Like it’s often, it’s often the lateral that’s broken okay.

Speaker4: Here’s here’s one. Have you ever.

Speaker1: Seen you have seen those cases where patients got no worn teeth [01:04:00] at all except the lower anteriors. We wonder why. Okay, they’re clearly posturing on those front teeth. Right. What’s what’s up with that? And I found out why. Constricted chewing envelope. Class two, Division two. Retrogradation of the upper central incisors. Creates less space for those lower incisors in function. As a result, you get that shearing effect. You get that incisor buckle where that shiny surface, and you multiply that over 20 years. What do you get? You get localised anterior tooth [01:04:30] wear. These cases are primed for a certain approach to be treated. But that was a clear moment of now I can see all those cases. As soon as you see that you know exactly what’s going on. And before you would think, oh, well, there are attrition. It’s. And it’s not just that.

Speaker4: You doll.

Speaker3: Do you doll as well or not?

Speaker1: I do, and I’m developing or formulating a slightly different approach on doll, which is what I’d call accelerated doll. Typically doll is with the cobalt chrome appliance onto the top teeth. You get the [01:05:00] space built up through that way, and then you restore them indirectly or directly. I think Hemmings then developed that process to have doll direct composite build-ups, which is now the preferred approach instead of the appliance. So I’ve taken that one step further and I take it to ceramics instead of composites. Increase video, and I’d hope to publish it at some point. But if you direct the forces in a certain way, the intrusion and extrusion effects you have will not compromise your aesthetics. [01:05:30] That’s the main concern, and I’ve.

Speaker4: Got pretty good.

Speaker1: Recall. It’s fine.

Speaker3: The other thing Sam said was his sort of value add was, if I remember correctly, the temper ization phase where he thought he had a pretty could give the patient a very accurate representation of what their final result was going to be with his temporaries, even though I think he doesn’t directly not not in that sort of Gallup career way. What would you say? It’s your sort.

Speaker4: Of.

Speaker3: Value [01:06:00] add if I if a patient comes to you specifically for aesthetics, what is it that you do that adds value? You know, it’s an interesting question because in a way I’m asking for, okay, you’re standing on the shoulder of giants. There’s all these people who’ve given you tips. What’s your tip? You know, your tip that you’ve come up with? I know you’ve got many.

Speaker1: My approach to understanding ceramics as they are today, I think I go a little bit [01:06:30] deeper than most would. Ceramics are developing very fast, and one of the things that have eluded most ceramics cases is getting fluorescence on the result. Now, if people are wondering what that means is when light goes through a natural tooth, it internally refracts in the dentine and then emits back out as if it is its own light source, and that gives the appearance of vitality. So what makes something look less flat? Emacs Press has always had a problem with [01:07:00] this because it looks grey at high value, right? And it has quite low fluorescence, but it’s a great material because of biomechanical properties. Feldspathic porcelain is awesome for a fluorescence because it’s got so much natural feldspar in it that that internal refraction can be emulated. But it’s got biomechanical issues, right? Super weak, and you need to cut heavy margins. All this stuff is it doesn’t really fit with minimally invasive dentistry. And you can’t you can’t do it. Accelerated [01:07:30] dull and feldspathic ceramics. I wouldn’t advise it anyway. Ceramics are developing. There are ceramics out there and I would say my tip and my my value add is understanding those ceramics, knowing which combinations work best. I keep a list of my ceramics and I are aware of which combinations will work best for different skin tones, different types of makeup, different lighting and that is what will make a nice looking smile, smile, make over look sort of world class versus, you know, kind of just really good. [01:08:00]

Speaker3: Now I’m really interested in if there was a way of doing an experiment. If I removed your ceramist from you, how long would it take you to get back to where you are now? And vice versa, if we remove you. Yeah. And there’s a ceramist working with another dentist. What would be the situation, how long it would take him to get back to?

Speaker4: I’m glad you.

Speaker1: Asked that, because I can answer your question. I can.

Speaker4: Answer I can answer.

Speaker1: The first one anyway, if I get removed.

Speaker4: I’m not sure. That as well.

Speaker1: The [01:08:30] first one. If the ceramics gets removed, how long does it take to train a new ceramist to the same workflow? Six months.

Speaker4: Six months.

Speaker3: And that’s someone who starts already. Quite good, right?

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: Someone who’s free thinking, creative, good at their hands. Quite a long time.

Speaker3: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah for sure.

Speaker1: And that’s why I would always advise people doing a lot of ceramics cases to have multiple ceramists, because 1st May go on go off sick or something will happen. [01:09:00] And you need, you need several. And usually ceramics are not good at everything. So an occlusion doll case is going to be someone very technically minded, not necessarily creatively minded, versus a single tooth ceramic case. You need to have, you know, a really careful.

Speaker3: Chairman versus an Italian.

Speaker4: That’s right, that’s right.

Speaker1: So German Swiss approach would be very, very. Yeah. And okay, so the typical one a lot of South African ceramics in the UK, they are very good with occlusion and things like that. But [01:09:30] creatively they all have one way of making teeth look and that’s it. And that and one of the Holy Grail in ceramic work is for ceramists, is having creative diversity in how you build teeth. We get taught how to build a tooth and we make it the same way each time. Having variation is one of the hardest things. I’ve only ever seen it a couple of times and if you get it, those people are worth their weight in gold.

Speaker3: Let’s move on to darker days, even darker. I know we’ve [01:10:00] been through some, but we like to on this. On this pod, we’d like to discuss errors so that in medical we we don’t have to share our errors very much, mainly because we’re sort of trying to run away from blame. But it’s based on black box thinking where if there’s a plane crash. The community tries to find out what happened without blame, and then the information goes out to the whole community so [01:10:30] that you don’t have to learn only from your own mistakes. You can learn from other people’s mistakes. With that in mind, and outside of your case, what comes to mind? Clinical error wise.

Speaker1: The one that comes to mind was in my last couple of months as a foundation dentist, I was on a steep learning curve. As we discussed. I was keen to, you know, they say after a course patient who’s most in need of that treatment is on Monday, right? And I was succumbing to that as well. [01:11:00] I thought I’d take on a full mouth rehabilitation case in ceramic, and at the time I was working alongside a ceramist who was very high achieving as well, and was working at a high standard. So the pressure was on, you know, in various various ways. It was prosthodontic. It was it was it was quite complex collusion and my knowledge was definitely lacking. And the issues that came out of the case was that I didn’t know enough about how to take [01:11:30] complicated impression of multiple abutments, to the extent that I could never get a good working model. So as a result, the restorations never fit perfectly. And this is a combination of bridge crown on veneer. So you’re asking the to go into different nooks and crannies and directions. And as soon as you have that you often need to take to use other methods. And I and I couldn’t get my head around it. And I also had a limitation in terms of the standard of materials I was working with. Now they say they don’t, you know, don’t blame your tools. [01:12:00] To an extent you should for sure. And with one of the things that I realised as soon as I went to a practice with something that was a high standard material, wow, my technique or the material seemed to make a big difference. It probably was both.

Speaker3: I mean, listen, imagine if I took away your favourite instrument or your favourite loops or your favourite composite, or you would affect you, it would affect you.

Speaker4: You give me a.

Speaker1: Turbine instead of a speed increasing handpiece, I’ll be there for a [01:12:30] lot longer. And the burr is going to do this. You know, it doesn’t matter how steady your hands are, the burr is doing this.

Speaker3: So go ahead. Go. What happened?

Speaker1: So the case, the case I was up against the clock because I was leaving to go back to London, and I was aware that I wanted to finish the case. It’s not really one you can pass on to someone else. The good thing is about the case is that it was pretty much as a Df1 any private work you do, you are not paid for. So it’s pro bono from my point of view. For me, I just wanted to learn. And, you know, as a result, the patient gets a huge discount [01:13:00] on the treatment. The case was was fitted. The margins were incongruous, not not fitting as well as they needed to be. And I’m thankful to my trainer for taking on the case and redoing it, which is what I believe happened.

Speaker3: So the mistake.

Speaker4: Was a disaster.

Speaker1: There was no disaster that.

Speaker4: You know, what.

Speaker3: Was the mistake? You didn’t know how to take the impression with a special tray or something.

Speaker1: Oh, I had all of that. Yeah.

Speaker4: What was the mistake?

Speaker1: Not understanding the complexity of how to prepare for restorations [01:13:30] of different shapes around the arch. How to transfer the relationship when you’re preparing upper and lower teeth. I was going to learn that about six months from that point, and I wish I knew that before that. So the lesson I took was probably to not jump ahead too fast. It’s hard to know where to where to pitch it, because in many cases, you know, that was smaller than that. You know, they worked worked out really well. How do you know when it’s too much or be beyond your scope? It [01:14:00] clearly was took a lot from it, and I think it was a safe environment to do so because the patient was not, you know, had a significant discount on the treatment. I was working under two trainers who were very experienced, and the only problem was it was just a combination of limited time, limited knowledge.

Speaker4: Perfect storm. Yeah.

Speaker1: Yeah. And if I had more time, I probably would have fixed it. But but I was lacking knowledge for sure. And I was biting off more than I could chew. And as a result, you know, ceramist is frustrated, team are frustrated. [01:14:30] The trainers are frustrated because I’ve then left the practice and you know, it did haunt me a little bit when I was back in London thinking, you know, you’ve left this, you’ve left this case knowingly in a bad state.

Speaker3: And we never know, do we, until we try something for the first time. We never know what the outcome of that is going to be. I remember my first cerec was horrible with all the powder.

Speaker1: Yeah, I use powder.

Speaker4: Yeah, yeah, I remember.

Speaker3: My first Invisalign. I could not believe that they were letting me loose on a patient with a two day course on [01:15:00] how to use the the portal, you know? Yeah. At the time, Invisalign was quite a hard thing to put in place and take out and all that.

Speaker4: So yeah, but I think, like.

Speaker1: You say, the black box thinking approach is lost in health care. Yeah. Why is it lost? I remember writing a reference to Black box thinking in my reflection for the GDC. Don’t know if they they read that part, but.

Speaker4: It’s.

Speaker1: Something that we could take a lot of lessons from that industry, and it would [01:15:30] reduce a lot of the issues people have when they have litigation regulatory cases, by not encouraging them to hide. Many of the typical pieces of advice are came up in Dental AMAs. Don’t change the notes. Don’t try and cover up anything that’s happened. Be be candid. And why is it that people are thinking about covering things up in the first place? You’d think because there’s a there’s a blame culture. There’s the clinician is is liable. [01:16:00] The buck ends with that person. So it creates this culture of people not wanting to own up to mistakes. Which is why I’m glad you asked this question. So what is the mistake? Many people would just never talk about it. You know, how many study clubs have you been to where they talk about failures only? None. None.

Speaker4: You know, I was thinking, Emily.

Speaker1: Rena and I, you know, we run a study club and we’ve talked about it for years doing a study club just on our failures. And we just, you know, we said, oh, no, we’ll do that another time.

Speaker4: Another time.

Speaker3: I’m thinking of doing a conference on failures. Only [01:16:30] failures allowed. Yeah. You call it something fun.

Speaker1: There are two ways that can go, though. Either someone comes up with a real failure, or they come up with a case that actually is awesome. They say, oh no, this is not quite right, and it’s almost like a show off. It’s like a.

Speaker4: Humblebrag.

Speaker1: Exactly. It makes you seem even better because you think failure is this awesome case and it makes everyone feel worse. So you’ve got to put it as a failure. But don’t mean a I mean a failure in the sense of it’s an unfixable or, you know, a failure.

Speaker4: I hear where you’re coming [01:17:00] from here.

Speaker3: I’ve also had another idea, which I think is a wonderful idea, but what do you think of this? I really want to run this by someone. Yeah. You know, you go to a lecture and the rate at which the lecture is being. You’ve been to so many, right? The rate at which the guy is speaking. And my particular bugbear is this four bulleted points. And these reading the four bulleted points out, you know, maybe putting a bit of detail around each one, but I can read them quicker than you can tell me them. Yeah. [01:17:30] So but if everyone in the audience has a button for more than 50%, press the button. The slide just goes forward. It would be nerve wracking as the lecturer would be horrible, but in the audience it’s really good.

Speaker4: It’s really good. It’s good. That is good. You know, there’s a.

Speaker3: Number of times you just think, okay, okay, we got that move on. It’s such.

Speaker4: A good idea because it allows the people.

Speaker1: Receiving the information to receive at their speed.

Speaker4: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: And I’ll tell you the other thing.

Speaker4: And it gives feedback.

Speaker1: To the lecturer.

Speaker4: Of, you know, you’re [01:18:00] rambling.

Speaker3: Yeah. And I’m talking to loads of loads of speakers in my time. Right. And I sometimes hear people say, oh, I filled it out with that. And to me I just see red when when I hear that. Right. Because. What are we doing here? Like wasting each other’s time. Going to fill it out with stuff, you know, like, don’t fill it out, make it a shorter conversation if it’s like that. Yeah.

Speaker1: I’m doing a course for the BCD on ceramics courses that don’t exist on ceramics these days, and I’ve got one day to do [01:18:30] as much as I can. Yeah, it’s the complete opposite approach. I was looking at my slides the other day and thinking.

Speaker4: Editing out which which parts can.

Speaker1: I must keep because I need.

Speaker4: I.

Speaker1: Can’t fit everything in. It’s only one day and that’s the problem we should have.

Speaker4: Exactly.

Speaker1: Not having too, you know, too much time.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker3: You know, like traditionally back in my day it would be like, oh, we’re talking about ceramics. Let’s start with the history of ceramics. Yeah, yeah. But by the way, probably, you know, it makes some sense if we’re talking relating the history to the future and so forth, and the trends happen and so [01:19:00] forth. But come on, man, I think.

Speaker1: Chris, Chris finds a good balance in that. He gives you a, you know, a stack of reading material. Very good. Before before you come in. And it’s your choice whether you read it or not. But then he’s going to run with it and talk about everything, you know, assuming you’ve read it. And that’s great because you’ve engaged before coming in. And he doesn’t have to recite to you the history of ceramics. He can.

Speaker3: The thing about Crystal is the presentation is not you know, I’ve seen many more beautiful presentations than his. It’s all about the presentation. It’s not I mean, I [01:19:30] know many more charming, funnier. He’s a funny guy. Yeah, but it’s not about his charm. He somehow manages to for me, he manages to to cover depth and breadth to the right amount. You know, you think it’s either depth or breadth, and sometimes it’s too much depth and not enough breadth and sometimes the other way around. But his his proportion ratio of depth to breadth is perfect.

Speaker4: I think people appreciate his common.

Speaker3: Sense sort of.

Speaker4: Degree [01:20:00] of.

Speaker1: Rationality when it comes to different approaches. You know, you ask him about any, any subject or any teacher and he’ll he’ll give you a very measured response.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: He’s not one to get on a bandwagon or fleetingly move from, you know, from, from one approach to something else. You know, as I was chatting to him the other night about biomimetics and, you know, that’s that’s all the rage right now, he’ll come up with an answer which is, you know, quite sympathetic to everything. And but he’ll he’ll give his opinion.

Speaker4: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker3: But a lot of respect for him. We’re coming to the end of our [01:20:30] time. We tend to end these with the same two questions. The first is a frivolous one fantasy dinner party. Three guests, dead or alive. Who would you want to have a chat to?

Speaker1: First one is straightforward Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Speaker4: Arnie. Yeah.

Speaker3: I had him recently on politics. Do you ever listen to. Yes. Yeah. Leaders leading. Leading. Yeah. I never I never used to understand anything about Arnie until Prav [01:21:00] told me. He’s he’s one of his heroes. And I thought, man. And then I really enjoyed listening to him though.

Speaker1: People think of him, you know, he’s misunderstood as being the kind of the movie guy or the weights guy. But behind all of that, he’s someone who’s kind of he’s lived three lifetimes when one person would be happy just with one third of what he’s done. And all of that is testament not to kind of good luck or anything like that. He’s forged it out of nothing.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: So I have a lot of respect for someone like that. And he’s had his fair share of turbulent times [01:21:30] as well. And he’s come out of it and he’s he’s an interesting character for sure.

Speaker3: Didn’t he father a child with his nanny? That’s right.

Speaker4: I think a year.

Speaker1: Or two before he became governor.

Speaker4: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Who else?

Speaker3: Michael Jackson for the dancing.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker1: And I think creatively, you know, dancing wise, but creatively, you know, think about the best performance in the world right now. He still seems to stand on their shoulders. I know many people. You know, Beyonce is probably one [01:22:00] of the best these days. But you take into account his musicality, his acting ability, his dancing ability. It kind of he did things which very rarely happen, and he developed from his dance style, a whole range of different things in dance kind of developed and it kind of came the roads led from him and.

Speaker4: So, so listen.

Speaker3: I’m no expert in dance, but you are. Yeah. So. Okay. Michael Jackson dance. What about, like, proper professional dancers? That’s all they do. Dancers do they are they [01:22:30] not more impressive than Michael Jackson’s dancing?

Speaker4: No, really.

Speaker3: Because, I mean, his style was his style.

Speaker4: You’re right.

Speaker1: Michael Jackson’s ability in dance was in succession of of professional dancers. And where he where he shines a lot is his ability to develop innovative choreography, which people have not seen before. And he, you know, he developed certain certain dance moves which are very famous now. But branching from that, you had different dance styles. That whole style would come from, from Michael Jackson.

Speaker3: I guess the reason [01:23:00] I’m pushing back is because I was a massive Prince fan and Prince at the time. It was either one or the other.

Speaker4: Yeah, no. Fair enough, fair enough.

Speaker1: When when you had his final concert, a lot of his backing dancers who he chose were some of the best. Dance in the world and remember seeing the interviews of them. Then one of their all of their biggest influences was always him, because maybe because of their age.

Speaker3: But he definitely was special.

Speaker4: They said that. Yeah, an.

Speaker1: Influence on on on dance and also the music that he’s come out with. You think about his like three main albums [01:23:30] musically. Pretty impressive.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Speaker3: But but there was no Billie Jean.

Speaker4: We’ve got to think back to there was no kid.

Speaker3: Yeah, there was no one who ever told him. Beat it. None of this stuff ever happened. Yeah, for me, it was like comic book stuff. Whereas with Prince, yeah, I felt like everything happened to him that he sang about. Yeah, there was an authenticity. But by the way, pop is pop. Pop is not supposed to be about about authentic stuff. So. So [01:24:00] I get.

Speaker4: It. It’s a bit like.

Speaker1: Watching a movie, you know, the movie is fiction doesn’t need to happen to the past.

Speaker4: It’s just, can they.

Speaker1: Transport you somewhere.

Speaker4: Somewhere.

Speaker1: And show you a little glimpse into something and can you believe it? And if you can do that, that’s cool. You know, like thriller and bad to the kind of best music videos probably ever made. Yeah. And you watch them back today and they still stand up. Still good. I mean, from the 80s they stand up. That’s incredible stuff. Stuff from the noughties doesn’t stand out right now.

Speaker4: Right.

Speaker1: And who are we at? We’ve got a third person. Third person. Okay. [01:24:30] Steve Jobs I am not a fan of Apple, but I’m a fan of Steve Jobs.

Speaker3: I’m not a fan of Apple.

Speaker1: Not really.

Speaker4: No. You don’t have an Apple phone.

Speaker1: I used to I gave it up for a OnePlus, Google, OnePlus. It’s one.

Speaker4: Plus.

Speaker1: Yeah.

Speaker4: Chinese thing.

Speaker1: Chinese company. Yeah.

Speaker4: What’s better than Apple?

Speaker1: It’s it’s pretty much an exact copy.

Speaker3: Us is not better than that.

Speaker1: No, it just doesn’t restrict you to all the different things you need to do. You have to. You have to use their charger. You have to use their computer. They’re always it’s kind of a bit de-conflicted. [01:25:00]

Speaker4: Steve. Why?

Speaker3: Steve Jobs I.

Speaker1: Think, was very I was very taken aback by his biography from Walter Isaacson.

Speaker4: I read it, I thought.

Speaker1: His his his approach to. His work, and his life was very against the grain and people. Walter paints a picture of him being someone you like, but it’s something you can really hate as well. And I thought to myself at the end of the book, you know, has he done humanity a good service or not? You know, having alienated all these employees [01:25:30] and from a business point of view, you know, take a few lessons from that into my own business as to how far to push. And where not to. It’s slightly different in health care, but he would find solutions for things by pushing people beyond breaking point. And I think we need people like that. This needs to be everywhere. But we would not have these products if it wasn’t for him saying to his employer, his programmer and his dev make it happen.

Speaker3: I [01:26:00] think Stanley Kubrick, people talk about him pushing actors beyond the pale, you know, like, and, you know, his.

Speaker4: Movies to tears. Yeah, yeah. Real tears. Actual tears. Yeah.

Speaker1: And they would not he would stand back from the actors and he wouldn’t give them too much direct direction. He would do it through one of his assistant directors. So as a result, he was a slightly feared by the crew. And does that give a better performance? Well, maybe you know, who knows.

Speaker3: The results speak for themselves.

Speaker4: Yeah. I mean.

Speaker1: His films are incredible.

Speaker4: That’s the thing.

Speaker3: Lovely, lovely group.

Speaker1: B, funny, [01:26:30] funny. Dinner.

Speaker4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: Annie and Michael Jackson. Yeah.

Speaker4: I’m not sure they know.

Speaker1: Or Steve Jobs, maybe I know Steven Schwarzenegger. No. Know each other.

Speaker4: That’s about it.

Speaker3: The final question, then. It’s kind of weird with someone as young as you, but it’s like a deathbed question on your deathbed. All your friends and family and loved ones around you. Three pieces of advice that you’d leave the world with.

Speaker1: My [01:27:00] first one is not short, but can I can I can give it to you. Prioritise being happy and having a lot of fun. We’re in this life for a period of time and things will happen, but our only job really is to be happy and have a lot of fun in my view. So make sure you just prioritise that. Which sounds selfish but actually think it’s important. Number two, I can’t take full credit for, but I think it rings true. Stay [01:27:30] hungry. Which means. Always look to be. To be better or. Look to progress, be it whatever you’re doing. There was a book which analysed the failure of major corporations, and they they found that invariably when the company started to kind of plateau and get comfortable BlackBerry or something, that’s when they get surmounted by another entity which is really pushing themselves and [01:28:00] behaving like they’re very hungry for success or for for whatever it may be. So that would be my second. Did you watch.

Speaker3: The BlackBerry.

Speaker4: Movie? I did, what did you think? Loved it. Yeah, it was good. Really interesting. Charming.

Speaker1: Amazing, amazing film.

Speaker4: The story.

Speaker1: The story as well.

Speaker3: I think in your case though, that stay hungry. I would if I, if someone was asking me about you having now had this conversation, I’d say you’re very curious. Person you know. So stay curious. It’s for you [01:28:30] to have wanted to figure out that cerec machine in dental school. I think a degree of curiosity, you know, for you to start with a blank slate with your patient and just feel what they’re saying. It takes a level of sort of intellectual curiosity that not everyone has or not everyone keeps, you know? So it’s a it’s lovely advice. What’s your third piece?

Speaker4: Third piece.

Speaker3: I think it’s kind of such an interesting question. I was telling Prav, it’s [01:29:00] perhaps a question that some of it could be, you know, I’ve done this, so you do it too. But another way of answering that question is I didn’t do this, but you should. You know, like when you know yourself really well, that’s that’s another way of answering the question. You know, I tell my kid, hey, I didn’t go to the gym, but you do, you know, for the sake of the argument.

Speaker4: It’s interesting you say that because I’ve.

Speaker1: Always tried to live life, to not have those regrets. Yeah, and it’s hard. It’s [01:29:30] easy to say, but hard to.

Speaker4: Act on for sure.

Speaker1: And that’s why I look back to my six months. And I remember thinking to myself, I’ve got I may have one, three, 6 or 12 months off. And I had a plan for each one, like skeleton plan on paper as to what I would do, where I would go. And and it landed on six. And I just followed that plan.

Speaker4: And it was a quick summary.

Speaker3: Of what you did in that.

Speaker4: Six months, quick.

Speaker1: Oh, so I’ve always wanted to get into mountaineering and I did a little bit with the Navy, you know, small [01:30:00] stuff. So I thought, okay, I’ve got six months, let me see what I can do. So I started with Mont Blanc as a training climb, which was super fun to learn about, kind of all the equipment side of things. And then I did a big one for two months in Nepal, Mt. Manaslu, which is, if you’ve seen 14 peaks with Nims Dai, he was with us out there. He’s it’s one of the 14 peaks, basically. And that was incredible. Just such a great experience with the Sherpas. Lovely.

Speaker4: Had you climbed at all before this?

Speaker1: Nothing high, nothing high altitude. So I’d never used kind of supplementary oxygen [01:30:30] or done rotations until that point, which is why the Mont Blanc climb was a training climb, so physically quite demanding. So I had to do a good amount of training before then. I did some scuba diving with a friend in the Maldives afterwards as a bit of a holiday, and then the final trip was Antarctica in December. In January we’re doing some mountaineering out there, pulling sleds along, getting very cold.

Speaker4: Oh my goodness.

Speaker1: Which was which was awesome.

Speaker4: Oh my.

Speaker3: Goodness. Wonderful.

Speaker4: And you couldn’t.

Speaker1: Couldn’t have done and could have gone Antarctica without having done the high altitude stuff in Nepal. [01:31:00] Because you’re not allowed, you’re too dangerous because you need to have experience in cold environments, tent living because Antarctica has no fixed structures at all.

Speaker4: So is your third piece.

Speaker3: Of advice take a six month sabbatical?

Speaker1: Yeah, it’s kind of along those lines is to not live with any fear of losing something because we really have nothing to lose, although it seems like we do. You don’t want to get into a point where you think, oh, well, I should have done that. I should have tried [01:31:30] that.

Speaker4: Yeah. You know.

Speaker3: I’ve found now I’m getting to that age where you start regretting stuff. Yeah. Like, okay. Much as you try not to. Yeah. The not having gone for something regret. Yeah. Tends to come from a position of fear and just decisions. Decisions that come from a position of fear in general are pretty bad decisions.

Speaker4: And it comes from all.

Speaker1: From the simplest decision as asking someone you like out for a drink. Yeah, all the way up to buying a home or [01:32:00] trying to buy a home or starting a business. All these things, and they all come with risk of rejection, failure and financial ruin. All these things that I’ve kind of been through all the three scenarios and you feel better having even even if it doesn’t go your way.

Speaker4: Yeah. Having tried.

Speaker1: Yeah. You feel better if you tried and failed, if you haven’t tried and failed and you go back and think, oh, well, what if it could have worked, then what?

Speaker4: Yeah, very true. I’d say.

Speaker1: I’d say give it a punt. Take a try, take advice. Be careful. [01:32:30] Don’t be, don’t be, don’t be kind of reckless. Yeah, but give it a try.

Speaker3: Very good advice. It’s been lovely. Lovely chatting with you, man.

Speaker4: It’s been great.

Speaker3: I’ve really, really enjoyed that. Time flew by. Thank you so much for doing that, buddy.

Speaker4: Hey, it’s been great being so open.

Speaker3: Wonderful.

Speaker2: This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts. [01:33:00] Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Speaker5: Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing. And just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

Speaker3: If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so so so much for listening. Thanks.

Speaker5: And don’t [01:33:30] forget our six star rating.

If you had a feeling in your gut that today’s podcast is for you, you’d be right. 

Sunni Patel’s journey from optometrist to leading wellness, lifestyle and nutrition coach was the result of a brush with ill health. 

Sunni chats with Rhona and Payman about the challenges of getting and giving diagnoses, the links between nutrition, gut health and well-being, and why love is just a four-letter word!

Enjoy!  

 

In This Episode

03.12 – Medical gaslighting

06.19 – Backstory

12.02 – Patients, practitioners and health

22.39 – Gut-brain axis and stress

27.53 – Fasting

40.43 – Eating disorders and body positivity

47.27 – Identity and body dysmorphia

52.57 – Stigma

56.16 – Gut feelings, trauma bonds and love

01.06.19 – Nutrition and microbiomes

01.19.17 – Probiotics and prebiotics

01.22.26 – Advice

 

About Sunni Patel

Dr Sunni Patel is a wellness, lifestyle and nutrition with certifications in nutrition, eating addiction, personal training and fitness.

His expertise on a range of issues has been featured on Ready Steady Cook, Newsround, ITV News, and BBC Radio.

British culture is very meme culture. Like, we always like to take the piss. Take the piss. Whereas if you go to America, it’s very opposite, right? It’s like, yo bro, you got this. And I think the problem is both aren’t great because you go to America and you’re told you’re going to be the best at something, and then at 30 years old, you haven’t made it. And it’s like, well, what happened to the American dream, 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. And today we have the incredible Henry Wade. So Henry is a very, very known content creator. I actually met Henry. I didn’t meet him. This is a funny story I became when I first split up with my first boyfriend, I went to fitness first. It was a bit of a rough gym in Clapham, and I used to see Henry and his twin working out there all the time. And interestingly, I looked at you both and I was like, you just had presence. I just felt like you both were going to do really well. I didn’t even know what you had done. And then serendipity has it. We actually ended up meeting later on in life through friends, etcetera. And I was like, you were the one that was working out of Fitness first, and I had seen his content online. Henry’s extremely hard working. He’s become very successful in what he does. And interestingly, he transitioned from having, you know, quite a sort of generic career, I’d say, and, you know, making it online and, you know, really taking a leap of faith against what his family believes. Because I know you come from family in Cambridge and, you know, saying, like, I’m going to make this work and I’m going to make a career out of content creation. And more recently, he has focussed on fitness as well. Fitness has been a massive part of his life, has been doing marathon running, documenting that as well, which we’re going to cover. So welcome Henry.

Thank you very much. That was a very nice intro, so I really appreciate it. I was like smiling. They’re like, oh, I haven’t had this kind of compliment in a long time. So I really appreciate it.

Well, you know, a lot of love for Henry. We’ve known each other for a while now. So, Henry, I want to start from the beginning, as I do with a lot of people. Tell me a little bit about your childhood. I know you grew up in Cambridge, but tell me about, like, where you come, your background a little bit.

Yeah. So for the record, I’m 31 years old now. He keeps saying that.

Like he’s old. I’m like, do you know how old I am? Okay. Go on.

And I’m initially from Cambridge, so I grew up there and I then moved. Well, sorry, I went to Cambridge. Been there since all the way to college, then went to university and then went travelling and then I moved to London. So yeah, I’ve been grew up and grew up in Cambridge with a family of four, and I’m an identical twin, and I’ve got an older brother and an older sister as well. And then there’s me, the youngest one with mum and dad. So yeah.

Amazing. And you worked in nightlife, didn’t you? So after, was it after or during university?

It was actually during. So when I was at uni, that was the first time I separated from my twin brother. I kind of got the chance to build my own identity a bit and went to university, went to Newcastle, had an amazing time. I be honest, I kind of chose university life because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do next in my career, so I just chose a standard business and marketing course and I kind of went because of the nightlife. I watched one episode of Geordie Shore and thought, this will be epic, like me and Gaz of Geordie Shore, like going to get on anyway. I started becoming a co-promoter because I thought, you know what? This is a great way to meet people, make friends and I then did quite well, became a junior manager and then because I sold so many tickets, I had so many people on my guest list and then I became a senior manager. So I started essentially running my own nights, and it only took me to like a few years ago to really realise how important that job was for me, because while everyone was getting placement years at university and going to like all these amazing companies, which I didn’t actually get, I tried to, but I couldn’t get them. And I actually realised, like the communication skills I learnt during this job, some of the best I’ve ever done in my entire life. Like I can talk to anybody now and it’s I think that’s a really powerful tool to have, and they’re the kind of skills I probably don’t think I’d have got, or having the confidence to go and speak to anyone is I probably won’t have got those skills. If I’d have gone to like a corporate company and kind of just worked and seen how their business runs.

And do you know, that’s interesting. I’m going to I’m going to interject there because I saw a post. So as you as I told you, like the majority of people that tune in with me in Payman are dentists and a lot of them have been confused because within dentistry there’s loads of courses, right? Because obviously clinical skills is like a big part of our career. So, you know, you learn how to do like crowns and veneers and bonding and Invisalign and all the stuff that you know about. But the one thing that they really lack is that communication skill that you said. And even though we go to university for like five, six years or longer, if you want to specialise, they still feel they can’t communicate with people you know, they still feel they can’t talk to patients. Why do you.

Think? When I was a kid, I used to be so scared to go to the dentist? It’s the very thing, isn’t it? Yeah. The dentist is the scary place to go. Like they’re not the nice people. They put their fingers in your mouth and it’s just like all these tools go in. Whereas I think that’s definitely changing now. I think you’re doing a great job in the industry of doing that. And other dentists as well. I know, and.

Your dentist, Henry didn’t choose me, that’s why.

Yeah, but yeah, a couple of you do great. And I think that’s amazing for the industry to kind of change that thing about it. But yeah, as you were saying, I think those communication skills are really, really important. But do you.

Think the communication skills were because you worked in nightlife, or do you think it was because you went to university? Do you see what I mean?

Think it’s a little bit of both. Like when I went to university. As I said before, it was the first time away from my twin and we were always together. So it was always like, oh, okay, I’ll turn up to the party or I’ll turn up to school with Will. And we always kind of had each other to bounce off of, whereas going to university, I had to really come out of my like, oh shit, I haven’t got a twin with me. Yeah, everyone’s going to know me as just Henry. I’ve kind of got to be this, who am I? Like, so I was like, all right, I’ve got to be the communicating and energetic and outgoing guy I think I am. And I was, and I became confident because I had to grow my own confidence and because I didn’t have will. So I was like turning up to university lectures on my own, making friends with those people and those university lectures, heading on nights out and meeting people on nights out. Actually going to university again is one as well, I think really makes you step out of your shell because you are stepping into an environment where there’s no one else you really know, none of your friends are really there, so you kind of just do it by yourself, and you are thrown into a situation where you have to make friends. And I think for everyone who goes to university, I think there’s so much topics right now and people talking about how you don’t need to go to university and you don’t have to be successful to go to university, but I think there’s so many benefits of still going in personal development and self growth. And I know a lot of people, not just myself, have gone to university and been like.

I’m massively pro it, I think, I think I’d be interested to see what you think. Like obviously for vocational degrees like dentistry, medicine, etcetera. Oh, 100%. You got to go. Yeah, totally. But a lot some people say they think it was a complete waste of time. But I think that the connections that you form and the experiences you had, there’s something in that 100%.

I think for me, I’ll be totally honest. I don’t think I learnt that much about business and marketing, like sitting in a room. I think with business you learn by doing, you generally do like I’ve done that through all my content creation. I’ve learnt by doing and if you don’t do it, you never know. So you’ve got to put yourself through the through the process and learn. And then so which is great. And I think that’s perfect. But um. Oh sorry. Where was I?

Perfect. The business and marketing. Yeah.

That’s right. I didn’t really feel I learnt so much from actually doing business and marketing the actual degree, but like I said, the meeting people, the job I did, that was the stuff I really learnt. And I wouldn’t ever say to anyone, not go to university. But yeah, if you want to go, go. But if you don’t, you don’t have to.

But I think as well, maybe it is a stop gap for people that don’t know what they want to do. Yeah, yeah, maybe it is a stop gap because maybe you need that time to go through like your growing pains or, you know, but also like university can equally it was pretty traumatic for me. Like I think being thrown into an environment like I’d never university for me was like a really weird experience because I’d, I’d grown in a multicultural society in central London in a day school. The halls that I was put in was very much like everyone was like from public school. I was like the only brown person. And I was very much, like, treated like in a certain way, like I had all friends, you know, I had a great social life, but it was a different experience. And there was, there was, there was like a kind of difficulty and like somewhat, but obviously that shaped me as a person as well. So I think, you know, there’s definitely like pros and cons to it. But yeah, what I want to know as well is you’re an identical twin. Yeah. Right. And I don’t know if you know, like as an I’m really interested either one of you about studies because being an identical twin is that difficult. And like in terms of like identity, you remember there was a documentary. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, either one of you where there was triplets. Yeah. That was amazing. I can’t remember.

Three identical strangers. Yeah, I haven’t.

Actually seen it, but I’ve heard it’s amazing.

It’s amazing.

So basically, the therapist keeps telling me to watch it. Yeah.

Yeah.

So so so so it’s really amazing because those three, those those triplets were separated at birth. It has a dark turn in the end because it was a social experiment by someone that kept doing these experiments. And when they got reunited, it was all great. And then there was a huge problem with like identity crisis, etcetera. Do you think that, like biologically there is something about being a twin, a triplet or whatever, you know, and how it affects who you are and who you believe you are? And like whether you have that sense of like being oneself.

Oh, that’s such a good question because no one will ever know unless they’re an identical twin. What it’s physically like to be an identical twin, right? Yeah. And growing up, Will and I always had this thing about us where we weren’t really known as Henry or Will. It was always the way twins. Oh, it’s the two twins. The two twins. And in school, if one of us did something right, or most, most of the time, if one of us did something wrong, then it always threw back on the other person. So if we all got told off in a class that teachers instantly going to categorise him as being naughty and they’re going to think I’m naughty as well, because we come in pairs, right? Yeah. Very normal. We pushed down the pram together. Oh, those two look so sweet. Do you know what I mean? It’s never like oh, one of you or whatever. And then, um, as I said earlier, the only time we really got to find ourselves as our own identity was when we went to university. But the funny thing is, by, yeah, we were building our own, building our own identity and becoming our becoming our self. What was funny was we still did the exact same thing. So he did a business course. We both began our first year working at Nando’s. So? So did he. So did I. And then we left Nando’s both. Club promoters both got promoted to junior manager. And then it was weird because those two companies, we became like top of those companies, both knew each other as well.

So it was like, oh, we tried to become ourselves, but then we kind of have our self identity, but we can’t forge back into it. And then when travelling together, we got home from travelling, went to London. We both had similar kind of jobs to begin with whilst we were becoming creators, and then we realised we’re probably better off together. I think the thing with being a twins is you’re very competitive and growing up like Will and I both wanted to always be the winning one, whether it be grades or 100 metre races or whatever. We did all sports and it would always be like, I want to beat Will, but I want him to come second by like five, just just a bit. But I don’t want him to beat me. And it was every race, every run, every football team. We wanted to get picked first, but over him will be the captain or whatever. But the older we got, we started to really compete and it made us get to who we were. Like we did really well in sports and achievements and academics. We weren’t so bad either. However, we realised instead of like keep battling and competing, collaborating with each other so much more beneficial. And that’s when we started to grow, like our Instagram and TikTok following by actually being together. Because don’t get me wrong, it’s cool being a white male in today’s industry. However, there are so many other tall white males doing what I do in fitness and fashion.

So what can make you really stand out from the crowd? For me, I’m very fortunate to have an identical twin, so and it’s great. And we are best friends. Like you’ve heard. I’ve heard horror stories of twins having like hating each other, whereas Will and I, we get on so, so well. We’ve. Yeah, don’t get me wrong, we bicker like 13 year old boys still, which is very family. But we’re definitely learning learning to navigate that a lot better. And I think that’s so important. I think we always will in our entire lives because, yeah, I never talk to Carmen. How I sometimes talk to Will, and it sometimes takes me to realise, like if he leaves something in the sink, I’ll go will clean it up. Whereas if Carmen did that, my girlfriend, I’d be like, I’ll just grab it and put it in the dishwasher. But because he’s my brother, I feel like I need to tell him. However, I’ve like now started to realise I look at that and go, is this worth picking a fight for? No it’s not. Pick it up, put it in the dishwasher. Like if I wouldn’t talk to him like that, my girlfriend like that, why should I talk to him like that? Just because he’s my brother, I shouldn’t. And. Yeah, so. But it’s it’s a head game because like I said, I’ve known him my entire life. I’ve been in the womb with him. Like we are so close. But can I ask you something?

Do you know if biologically there’s any studies to show, like whether, like, you can ever fully be, like, separate or separated? Like, is there any studies around twins? You might not know this I don’t.

Know, do you know? Well, I thought, you know, all this stuff about gut microbiome. Yeah. And the guy was saying that his his research interest was twins because twins end up getting different diseases. And his question was, why do twins get different diseases if they’re genetically the same? Environmentally very similar. I’ve got something for.

You there, like Will. My family has this, I don’t know.

One second. That was all right. Okay. Go ahead.

My brother has this really bad eye condition called keratoconus, I think. I think that’s right. Maybe I’ve pronounced it wrong. So if anyone on here knows that, please pronounce it correctly.

Keratitis.

Similar, but I’m not sure. But basically it basically means the his eyes, the pupils are shaped, I think like footballs instead of rugby balls or the other way around. I can’t remember which one it is. And the doctor is like the number one surgeon who tests who does his eyes for him, because we had to go privately, and because it was so he got so bad, he had to be jumped into hospital straight away and put under the knife and have it sorted. It got that bad and the doctor was like, we need to get you twin in here ASAP because he’s going to have something and it’s so funny that I don’t have it. And I still now get tested every 18 months and the doctor goes to me. I’m still have no idea why you don’t have it. And they’ve realised it’s in my system, but it hasn’t quite triggered. So Will’s will got it and it triggered, whereas I haven’t had it and it triggered and he’s still so shocked, which is so weird.

So so so this this researcher found the microbiome was very different in twins, so different bacteria. And so he was he was blaming, he was saying, well that’s where he could see that the effect of different bacteria on people. When you look at the effect of different bacteria on twins, because the one thing that’s very different in the measurements between twins is the bacteria that lives in their gut.

Yeah, maybe. I think there’s so many studies now coming up about gut and how it’s one of the main factors. Controlling everything, controlling everything. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s become only in the last real year. So it’ll be interesting to see.

Well, we’ve talked as well. You’ve had a lot of like stuff with your gut. You know, we kind of had that conversation and you know a lot around that with mental health, which I want to go into 100%. But before we actually delve into that. So I just want to know, how did you rise? I know you might think like, I don’t say this, but how did you rise to TikTok and Instagram fame? Oh so and like, how did you make that transition? Because a lot of people want to know that. They want to know how to, like, make a living out of just being a content.

So in America, the number one most wanted job now apparently is like a YouTuber, TikToker, Instagram like an influencer. People want to be kids.

Yeah.

For kids. Your kids too.

Not my kids, but kids in general.

Yeah, your kids are probably all right, I think. I think the thing is, people see this lavish life we all post about, like, you get the free products, you get paid to work with these amazing brands. Your life is sorted, like, almost like you get free dinners and you think it’s all glamorous. And don’t get me wrong, it can be at times, but there is a very stressful side to it that I think a lot of people don’t don’t show. But we’ll go. We’ll move on to that. But the question you initially asked was, how did I rise to stardom, essentially, as you said. So back in, oh, when I was travelling the world, because obviously TikTok came after Instagram. So this is our Instagram story. We were travelling Australia and we and all the world.

And you’re working in nightlife still then? No, no this.

Is we packed our bags came backpackers. And this was when Facebook was big. Instagram was kind of just coming up and it was like Twitter, everyone’s on Twitter promoting the news or whatever. And we basically got to Australia after doing Cambodia, Thailand, all the Southeast Asia countries. And honestly, we were just alcoholics, like all we did was drink booze, get pissed and not really see these countries for what they were. And we got to Australia and Will and I were in such bad physical shape, like we were weighty. And I was like, what the hell? I went for a run and almost puked. And I’ve never been this like this before. I’ve just been drinking for six months. I had one night off in like six months because all I was, all me and my mates were doing was getting pissing in Thailand or whatever. And don’t get me wrong, it was amazing. Still had the best time ever and I’ll never change that experience. But I got to Australia and Will and I, we suddenly went from being in the worst shape ever to being so obsessed with fitness and got into the best shape of our lives. We were so lean, like 4% body fat, like we were walking down the Aussie beach. These fitness trainers have been on the front of mental health for telling us we’re too lean, we need to put on some weight and we’re going, no, not lean enough, not lean enough.

I’m sure we all wanted the six pack of dreams, which you never we thought we didn’t have yet, but we did looking back and we were like, right, let’s start documenting some fitness and doing these, like twin workout things. And we had a page, the Weight Twins. Then we had our own personal Instagram as well, and we then left Australia and we started travelling back. And instead of seeing the world being like alcoholics again, we thought, let’s really like be normal. Like do it well, get up for sunrises, do yoga’s, do runs on the beach or whatever, and see this place with the real beauty it is, and you don’t always have to be pissed essentially on the on the booze. So we picked up a camera in Japan, picked up a little canon in Australia, and we started documenting our journey. Just like selfies, we didn’t have a clue how to use this equipment, and I was YouTubing how to use Lightroom and Photoshop and change colours and stuff, and I was making everything oversaturated, and we started documenting and and doing all these things. And it was, it was quite funny at the time was all our friends were commenting on our photos being like, lol, this is a joke. We started a website as well called the twins.com and where we wanted to write blogs on our travels and everyone was like I was getting emails.

I remember the first ever email I got through it was you’re a joke from a fake account being like, you’re never going to make it. This is the biggest laughing thing I’ve ever heard, and I’ll never. I wish I still had a screenshot of that, but obviously I was so embarrassed at the time. Like I was like, am I doing the wrong thing? And it makes you really question whether you’re doing the right thing. And but luckily I had willed Fall Back On. He was like, when he had a bad day, I was there to pick him up and go, no, don’t worry, just keep going, keep going. When I had a bad day, it was the opposite. He was the one picking me up, which was great. So we started documenting our journey and we got back to London, Cambridge, where we lived, and we had about maybe ten, ten, 11,000 followers by this time. And I remember we were ordering these clothes because we had cool wardrobes at home. We really wanted to get back into our main fashion and we were like taking photos on our back garden. And we were like, what are we doing? This is a waste of time. We need to be in London. And we ended up both moving to London and literally had about £2,000 in my bank. Not much money at all, and Will had probably less because he spent a lot more and we both lived in different areas in the most tiniest bedsits in the world.

I had a single bed and I was living with five other people with one bathroom, and I remember just having to bang on the door, please let me into the bathroom. We used to have to literally run outside, sometimes just to go to the bathroom, because I was so desperate because this, this girl next door would take so long and we were like, right, how can we really continue this Instagram and content creation we’re doing? And but we need to make a living, right? So we had to get a job part time. He worked for an events company, and I worked for a start up company with a drinks company, and we’re both working five days a week. And I was like, right, we still need to create content. So every day we would like essentially go for a meeting. And that meeting would be like, we would go for a meeting with some drinks brand or whatever, and I’ll go for a meeting with like Tesco’s CEO, one of my clients, and I really would just be sneaking my camera out and going to meet Will and shooting around London. And then also we’d do it in the evenings, we’d do it on the weekends all the time. And we were like, right? So we kept shooting content.

And whilst this was happening in the evenings, there was always events on H&M, Topman, All Saints or whatever these events and fashion brands would be. And we were like, right, we want to work with these brands, but how can we get put in the face of them? And we were networking with other creators at this time, finding out how London works and. What their experiences of, or if we wanted to collaborate with them and shoot content with them. And we’ll get sent all these events. But we weren’t invited to them. So we would just be like, should we just turn up and see what happens? Because what’s the worst that’s going to happen to us? We’re just going to get a no, and they’re going to just go, all right, screw it. We’ll go for a drink by ourselves. Whatever. Yeah. So we would turn up to these events and our analogy was who’s going to turn down two well-dressed six foot three lads, and every time nine out of ten will get in even without an invite, because we’ll just show them like the thing and all your name’s not on the list are. We’re so, so, so weird. Like, anyway, what we’ll do when we were in that room would not just go for the booze and go for the free nibbles, which 18 year old Henry would have done.

It was right. Who’s the PR marketing? Who’s the PR manager? Who’s the marketing manager and who’s the head of brand? And I want to meet that person in five minutes. Get their email, have a good chat with them, show them the content I do right there and then, and then schedule a meeting with them. Within two weeks, I’ll have a meeting with that person, whether it be coffee or a lunch, and then within like a week after that, I’ll have free clothes from them, and then after that I’ll put you have a job with them as well. I love that that was for me. Like I think now moving forward, I can put that what I did there into other areas of my life as well, and other businesses I do because it’s the same thing. It’s all like you initially start doing things for free. If you’re a dentist, you may want to do something free for your free for a client. Show them. Show someone what work you can do, how good these teeth are. And then someone sees that and they go, oh, I like that. I’ll then pay for it. It’s the same with any business. It’s the same kind of process. And then our following was going up and up and we started to get more followers. And then we got a few viral videos and then that kind of blew up.

And how did you know back then in Australia where you started filming that that’s what you want to do? I mean, because it wasn’t influencer land, wasn’t exactly what it is now. Yeah. Which year are we talking? Oh.

Wow. This must have been 25. So about seven years ago maybe.

Okay. So there was.

Something it was just started I think. Well, and I would say we’re phase 2 or 3. There was a phase one who were like.

That was that was your stated goal, you to become a big on these platforms?

It wasn’t necessarily a goal. It was more of a we wanted, didn’t want to be pretty boys just prancing our thing around because that’s quite easy to be done. But we wanted to offer value where we could because I think there’s a fine balance of offering value, but also showing off on content creation. And it’s okay to do both because a lot of people want that. Oh, I wish I had that live or oh, I wish I had that kind of moment. But then also if you offer value, it’s like, okay, that was that was a good piece of content. So Will and I were initially started when we’re in Australia was like, right. We saw everyone in the UK posing on the streets of London and show off fashion, and I was just and no one was English, no one had a personality. It was like I just saw all these people who were from Europe doing it in England, and I was like, well, why are they all doing it? There’s no English British lads doing this. Like and I think there was.

Probably a taboo though, because you said even like people were taking the piss out of you like, oh yeah, totally. Your friends.

Always do.

But but that’s the thing. But I think that’s a male thing, right. Because they see they see like that career or doing that stuff online as being very feminine I think. Do you know what I mean? As in like and then.

It’s just that I think it’s also like British culture is very meme culture. Like we always like to take the piss, take the piss. Whereas if you go to America, it’s very opposite, right? It’s like, yo bro, you got this. And I think the problem is both aren’t great because you go to America and you’re told you’re going to be the best at something, and then at 30 years old, you haven’t made it. And it’s like, well, what happened to the American dream? Right? So they need a bit of like downgrading, whereas we need a bit more of that boost because everything’s a meme. You get taken the piss out all the time, but the way Will and I stopped. That was just like we encouraged each other and we’re like, we know what we want. We had our goal, we had our view and we had our vision. And if you’ve got that, I think sometimes when people look at you and laugh, it is one of the best things that can happen to your career. It’s one of the best things that happen because you know you’re on the right path. It’s like that old saying.

In dentistry Rona’s managed it. Yeah, but but I come across hundreds of dentists and I asked him, do you have an Instagram? And they say, no.

Yeah, so do I. I’ve actually got a friend who’s a dentist right now. And I said, why don’t you set up your Instagram friend? Her name’s Hannah. She’s my girlfriend’s, one of my best friend’s girlfriend, best friend. And I’m like, I’m like, it’s like a hairdresser set up an Instagram account for hair.

But then the reason why often there’s a they don’t want to share their work, you know, because everyone’s very critical. The judgement, the judgement. Very true, very true. And and often it’s being uncomfortable in front of camera. So how did you get over these questions or did that not bother you at all? You were like, no.

Before Henry goes on with that, his story reminded me of mine in terms of like people say, how did you get on TV and the easy cop out way? As you know, people say she paid PR. I’m like, hun, I didn’t have PR back then. I went outside ITV studio and I stood outside that studio for about 5 or 6 hours until Zoe Williams came out. The doctor. Yeah, yeah. And she came out.

Telling me that story. I was like.

I had messaged her loads to meet me, and she took a chance and she met me for coffee and I said, I want to do this. And she was like, well, why do you want to do it in the same way that you just asked Henry? Why? Did you want to do the content? For me, it was the bigger vision. And I’m going to be completely honest. I wanted to leave a legacy. I wanted to leave a legacy within my field. I didn’t want to be in a life where I was like, I got up, I drilled a few teeth, I did a few small makeovers. Impact. And the fact is, no matter what anyone says, platforms such as social media, TV, radio, etcetera, they give you that platform to reach more people and therefore have a bigger impact. And I’m not talking just about a narcissistic way, but it’s just that value add that you just said to me, it’s giving value to people.

But it’s a particular flavour of impact. So I want to have impact. That’s why I started this company. Yeah, but it’s a particular flavour where you’re you are the product. And that’s what a lot of people suffer with, with you two don’t.

So what you said there about offering value is so difficult in the world I live in, I think because there are times where I’ll create a piece of content and I’ll sit there and I’ll go, I really like it, but where’s the value? There? And I’ll show a friend it or I’ll show you it and they’ll go, but it’s so entertaining. That’s the value. And I’m like, is it, is it like, yeah. And I’m like, is it like, should I not be doing. I go to the gym all the time. Five best ways to grow your chest as a male or something because there’s value there but may not be entertaining, but.

Education, education, entertainment but there’s different.

Value. Well, yeah, there you go. But I sometimes struggle to see that because I’m always I think we’re always critiques of our own work. And what you’re saying there about why not all dentists set up their, their accounts. Because we are the worst critique. Like, you have a spot on your chin. Who sees it? You. Does anyone else see it? No. Because we we worry about so much what other people think about us. And it’s it’s detrimental to our success.

But validation is a form of addiction. Right. And I’m going to go out there because everyone’s like, what’s your addiction, Raina? You don’t drink, you don’t take drugs, you don’t, you know, and I’ll tell you right now, I’m going to say to the world, my addiction is validation. So I do get a dopamine hit when I get approval online on something. You know, if a video does well, I’m like, that’s done. Well, great. I have a great day. Comments. You look good. This is I love this. Your work looks great right? Because that is mine.

I thought you.

Didn’t like it when someone said you looked good because I’m not Trustpilot or something.

Now, I said you don’t need to leave. Oh, here we go, here we go. I said, you don’t need to.

Ever since I heard you say that, I don’t tell you if you look good anymore.

So he basically I said to him, no, I said, when people give you well, this is the thing, right? Because on the one hand, and I’m sure Henry can relate to me right on the one. Like I’m saying, you know, when people give negative views, I’m like, I don’t need your opinion. I’m not. What’s the one for the travel agents, the reviews. You know, I’m talking about travel.

Tripadvisor.

Tripadvisor. I’m not TripAdvisor. I didn’t ask you for a review. Just you. I mean. Yeah, but that would be like, you know, if you get some kind of review, someone would be like, you look much better with brown hair. Like, oh, I don’t like your copper hair. Do you know? I mean, of course it’s an opinion. But then, like, at the same time, if people are like, you look great, it validates the decision I’ve made.

We love that. That’s why. Why do we go out? Why do we get a new haircut? Why do we? Why do we go to do our teeth? Why do we dress up? Well.

I thought you didn’t want it in either direction.

Shower me. Show me the compliments.

Look. Great. What was.

What was interesting? What you said there about validation. You want validation is something that I’ve realised about myself is wanting. Wanting to impress. So when I was a kid growing up, I was. Will and I were always in trouble. We were the naughty kids at school and we always wanted to impress our mom and dad every time something bad happened. So give you an example when I was, and I’ve got these childhood memories in me distilled and it’s probably who I who I’ve why they’ve shaped me, who I am today. Because I remember being told by our like when I was in year two or year three, my teacher head teacher said, you are you don’t know the difference between right and wrong. And she told that to my parents in front of me. And she said, my mum and dad were distraught, not knowing as a kid I didn’t know the difference between right or wrong, whatever came to year six. And the woman told my mum and dad, I’m so sorry about making that comment. Your two boys are the politest I’ve ever met and things like that. And so we changed her perspective. But we always. So we always, always wanted to impress. So growing up, I’ve always wanted to impress. So when I run a marathon, I want to get a good time because I want to impress people watching me.

When the content I create, I want to get loads of likes. I want people to be impressed. So now my growing up, I was wanting to press my mum and dad. I was predicted E’s and F’s in GCSEs. I got a B’s and C’s and that for me was like I told you Mum and Dad. I knew I was going to get those F’s predicted. So there’s my proof. I’ve impressed them by doing that. Got into a great university, impressed them by doing that, got a good degree, impressed them by doing that, got set myself up a business and doing what I do in London, and managed to bring my mum down to do a fragrance profiling with some of the best high end profiles where she gets to pick out a £200 bottle. So I’m going to buy for her. That for me is impressing my family. And so now instead of impressing my family all the time, I feel I need to do it to my followers to impress them with good content. Or. And that’s similar to the validation thing. And it’s not a bad thing. It’s just I want to impress how? And I do it for me instead of do it for others. Sometimes it can be okay to do well.

Carrying on from that. Now let’s have let’s be real, right? There’s a dark side to social media, and you have your career right now is very much with your face, your body, you know, at the forefront. Has your mental health taken a turn since you have exposed yourself on social media, or do you ever worry about certain things being online?

I think it’s such a good question because as I said earlier to you guys, people, this is the number one job people want to do in their like now as kids, they look up to social media influencers more than they look up to actors and celebrities they look up to. They look up to influencers because we see so much of their life. But what you don’t see is always the bad parts or the. And a lot of people are doing it better now. A lot more people are showing you the struggles they do have in this industry, because there are so many like I have been, social media doesn’t sleep like sometimes as a dentist or as a corporate person. You can close the laptop at 5:00. That’s it’s another day tomorrow, right? Social media is 24 hours like it does not sleep seven days a week, 365 days a year. And I am trying to put out content. And if I don’t put out for six seven days, I’m forgotten about, like I guaranteed. Like if your favourite influencer deleted their account tomorrow, you may for a second go, oh that sucks, but you’ll find another one within three three days or two minutes. It’s just like, and I hate this. Like Kobe Bryant, one of the best basketball players in the world. Unfortunately, he died. But there will be other best players in the world. There were basketball still live on. It’s the same as me as my job. It will still live on if I don’t create content.

But I need to keep creating because that’s my job and my work. And if I stop, then I’m not going to be at the money or anything. So it’s like all the all grow my brand and it can keep you up at night. There’s new platforms coming, there’s new kids popping off. Your content you created the other day doesn’t get as many views. The algorithm isn’t working in your favour or something or some something out there isn’t working to your favour. And then you start questioning going am I? Do people not like me? Is my content not good? Is Instagram just hating me or is TikTok hating me? And then you start seeing other people do something and you’re like, oh, maybe I should follow that content. Should I start doing that now? And it’s like, no, stick in your lane. And it’s so hard because you see other people’s success and you want to get a bit of that success. So you may start dabbling into that type of content. But I think it’s really important to stick in your lane and keep authentic. Keep authentic. But oh, can you be authentic on Instagram now because so and these creating platforms because you’re selling yourself to an algorithm. Like sometimes you want to create the content you want to create because because in that moment you’re like I really enjoyed creating that. And that’s authentic. But then when you but then it doesn’t perform well, you go, oh, that must be the algorithm.

I think thinking dentistry there is like that risk of that. Right. And we see it as well. Like there’s a lot of disgruntlement because there’ll be like the dentists that are sort of like a little bit more on the geeky side, the academic side. And they like the content that’s like really like, like the tooth zoomed in like a million and then like, oh, let’s talk about this. And then they hate on the Instagram dentist like me that do better because their content is a little bit more clickbait or it’s just a small makeover. But I understand my audience. I’m not there to impress dentists. I’m there to impress patients. I’m there to get a following of people like they want to engage, because also I’m going to lose a big part of my audience and some patients that come to me, they don’t feel afraid to cry to me in the chair or like, hold my hand or something. And the reason why they don’t feel that is because they see the like type of authenticity that I put out on social media, so they don’t feel embarrassed. Do you know what I mean? But your personality as well?

Totally. So when I see you on Instagram, I don’t just see teeth, I see Rhona’s personality. And that’s when I meet you in person as well. I see that personality because it’s exactly what you are.

I feel like you’re massively needy for for professional validation.

Oh, totally. But I’m not because you.

Don’t want to be known as only Instagram. Good at Instagram.

Just like Henry said. What I resonate was is that like the teacher said, he was going to get E’s and F’s. Dentists thought I didn’t have any clinical skills, so I upped my clinical skills. I made them better. I’m pretty good now. Do you know what I mean? Now you have.

An entire dentistry and have people dentists working for you. That’s how good you are. Yeah, but the thing is.

Is that I still have. But there’s still those other people that are like, I’m looking at like the one fifth of this, like, angulation of the enamel or whatever, but I, I’m, that.

Means nothing to me, by.

The way. You know, like what.

What is that English.

But the point is, I know that my work is good because patients as well can now tell the difference between a good before and after. I don’t think before they really could. But now people are like, I like you because you put translucence in your teeth. They understand things a bit better. Do you see what I mean? And I think that of course, like Payman asked me earlier. Right. Because as you know, I’ve released my own course. Yeah. Interestingly enough, the majority of people that bought the course was on the first day I released it. 95% were young females that had been on the courses of loads of famous dentists. Why did they choose me as an. You’ll know them. I’m not going to say why. I said, well, why did you go? Why do you want to do my course? Because they also feel that there is not a strong female leader within the field, and they feel that I’m more personable when it comes to stuff, because as part of my course, I have like, you can do like one on one and contact me on WhatsApp and send me and they like that. So the interesting thing is with the cohort, because he said to me, are you getting criticism for your course? And I’m like, of course I’m going to get criticism, but I don’t care.

I don’t think you’re doing anything right if you aren’t getting criticism.

Yeah, no, 100%.

You can’t please everyone. Like even content I do like 50% may like it, 50% may not. And that’s okay. Like you can have things you can’t be. You can’t have everyone like everything you do. So I think the great thing.

About content is it finds its own audience in a way. Very true. Yeah. I mean, when you said mental health as you remember, it wasn’t really my subject. He was.

A bit like, why.

It’s not my subject. So I know it was your subject.

Do you suffer from it? Do you ever suffer from anxiety? No, I.

Realise I do now.

He does now he does. Before this I me damaged goods babes on this before.

But then. But then. But then because. Because I had the experience with the previous pod that, you know, we weren’t trying to do anything. We were just having some conversations. And those conversations found audience.

That’s so true.

And this pod will find audience. And then what you do find and people who are not into it will stop following you. Okay, so here’s the thing.

This is the one way I always bring it back to you. Right? And why I think people like us probably will be successful in life is because there is still a cult out there who believes the world is flat. And if they can build a following, even though it’s scientifically proven that the world isn’t flat and they can build a following and a cult around it.

That’s a nice way of saying.

Someone will buy your product or will follow you like it’s so so facts like yeah, so.

But so those because I think like one of the important thing is like you took that leap of faith, Henry. And I think, like even so many young dentists, as he said, are so afraid to start content production. But I always say start with something. Even if you get two likes, don’t worry about it. Just do it. You know what I mean? So what advice would you give for people that want to start a similar journey? Because this could be within any field, right? Because you could be. There are doctors, by the way, Dr. Ali is her name. His name is he’s the one. He’s the one. He’s huge. He gave up medicine and he didn’t.

Yeah. My friend was on his podcast the other day. He said.

Listen, do you know about him?

He’s done great.

So he’s done amazing.

I watched a video on him this morning.

So he has a YouTube academy. He gave up medicine. He did a video. He’s brilliant.

He’s brilliant.

And he did a video on how much he made. Like it was like £50 doing his NHS work and how much he was making on like on, like on that. And I’m not saying not everyone’s money driven. Right. So it shouldn’t be about that. But he had a very transparent video about like this is what I do. This is how much I make. This is why I do it. But for those that want to start that sort of journey and question number one is what would you say is the most important thing to start? How do you start it? Second question is, do you have to have a certain amount of mental resilience to do it?

Okay. Number one, I would definitely say be okay with being shit. And what I mean by that is you have to start off being shit because your first 100 posts will be shit like your first 200 maybe shit and you may got any like get no likes, but you have to be consistent. Like you may not be successful by being consistent, but there is a 100% fact and chance you won’t be successful if you’re not consistent, right? Which is so true. So you may have the risk of not being successful if you if you don’t try it, but you’re never going to know if you aren’t. So you just got to make sure you keep going. And my dad says this saying all the time, and we did it when I had exams. If you throw enough shit at the blanket, eventually some of it’s going to stick and some of it will. So you’ve got to keep going and then you learn from it. Every post you do, every podcast you do, you learn a little bit more about it. And it may take you a thousand podcasts before you suddenly get that curve of success and it goes up. Right. But then if you if you quit it, 999, you’d have never known. And it’s like that hole that, you know, that photo, someone digging for the gold. And then he stops at the very end when he would have been there. So yeah, I think consistency is 100% key. Like be consistency, always be consistent. And what.

About mental resilience do you think you.

Get? I think you definitely need it because you’re going to get no likes at the beginning. You’re going to get no listens on your podcast. You’re going to get no views on your YouTube channel. And then you’re saying to yourself, oh, I’m putting all this work in, I’m doing all these camera angles, I’m doing this and I’m getting nothing back from it. And you have to have that resilience to keep pushing on. It’s in it’s almost self-belief, like if you don’t have that self belief in yourself, then how are you going to push forward and convince the world that they should watch your stuff? And if you have that self belief, then you’ve just got to keep going and going and going. And I think that will that will push you on.

So. So now you’ve got this audience that’s engaged with you. What are the steps to monetising that.

And okay, so there’s a lot of ways you can monetise on social media. And it depends what. Of Omicron. So number one is brand deals. So it’s good to do your. The content you do should align with the brands you want to work with. So for example I’m massive into my health and fitness. I’m never going to go work with McDonald’s because unless they unless they wanted me to promote some sort of healthy, healthy thing, then maybe that’ll be right. However, 90% of the time I’m never.

Salads have more calories than the burgers. Just saying.

There you go. Yeah, maybe they do, but I’m not going to listen. I’m not going to hold a burger and be like the new Quarter Pounder, even if they pay ten grand, because it’s probably not really worth it. Maybe it is to some people, but everyone’s got their price now, so you’ve got to align yourself with those certain brands. I think you can also get paid from, like Rona is doing courses. It’s a great way. And then you can set up other things like plans. You’ve got a website you can set up, fitness brand. If you’re a fitness fitness courses, you’re in fashion. You can set up your own clothing brand. Yeah. These endorsement product endorsement. Yeah. So do you have.

Someone who represents you?

I have a manager. And that manager kind of deals with all my logistics and deals with all the brands I work with, and can also get me brand work as well. And they’ve been great. They’re lovely people and I’ve been with them for 3 or 4 years. And yeah, so me and my twin are the same manager, and then there’s different ways of making money on different platforms like TikTok actually have a marketplace where and a creator thing where if your video blows up, you can get some money. It’s very small, but YouTube’s even better. Youtube has a platform where if you create for that brand that that you can get thousands of pounds if your video goes off because the YouTube algorithm is great, like your videos, can you remake money? So your video, if you make a video five way five, if you go on Veganuary, it’s always big Veganuary right? If you make a video. Five recipes for making Veganuary, which are cheap. Let’s say that that video will be big from January and you made it so 2019. But also if it’s gone well in the algorithm, it will pick back up the next year because people will be researching again. Veganuary recipes oh 2020 2021 so that video could kill it as seven years later. So yeah, so there’s a lot of ways to make to monetise monetise it.

Yeah. I’m going to ask you something. I like to be controversial. Right. Oh here we go. So you were talking about platforms right. And platforms that control the livelihood as you know. Like what’s your view on censorship. Right. Because also you think about a case like with the recent news of like Russell Brand at the moment with what’s going on and the allegations YouTube have pulled him. Right. They’ve actually stopped and YouTube was his biggest source of income. Okay. So he’s now saying because Rumble’s the new platform where they don’t allow any censorship, right? Yeah. Do you believe so? First of all, do you ever get scared? I mean, you’re not obviously. Henry, I know you you know, you’re not a controversial slash immoral person or whatever. Do you do you ever get worried that you’re going to get cancelled online or not? Really. And secondly, do you believe that censorship is a good thing or not.

To censor yourself when you’re talking? Yeah.

Do you feel like, oh, I’m going to actually like I’m not going to.

Say say that.

Say that. Yeah.

Listen, I think the world we’re in now, if you are so straight line and boring, your content isn’t ever going to get, you’ve got to be left or right polarising. You have to be like, look at Piers Morgan, but you’ve got to be very careful about what you say, because if you aren’t educated in that topic enough and you say something which is one thing or the other, then it’s more likely you’re going to get cancelled. Like the reason why James Smith does it so well and Piers Morgan does it so well is because they are so good with words and they’re educated on the topics they talk about, so they’re less likely to get cancelled. Whereas if it was someone like me and let’s take an example, it’s the politics and you vote Labour over conservative or vice versa. And you document, oh, I voted conservative because of this, but do I really know that much about politics? No. But if I made my opinion about it that I’ve voted on conservative, then people are probably going to go, well, you’re right, you’ve clearly uneducated. And that’s the thing I only ever would be talking commenting on or something if I’m well educated on the topic. It’s the same with all the I can’t remember what it was. Now, somewhere in one of these Middle East countries where the woman couldn’t women couldn’t wear their masks.

No, no, no, they couldn’t wear the burqa or something like that.

I remember what it was, but these women couldn’t wear their hair. And people, if I were to make because people were DMing me going, why aren’t you why aren’t you commenting on this? And I’m going, it’s got nothing to do with me because I don’t know this industry. I don’t know it until I’ve done my education on it, and I now know to talk about it, then I’m okay to make a comment, whether it be this or this, but people on their podcasts and I watch it all the time, or on their Instagram stories or whatever, they’ll make a comment about something and I’m like, bro, just don’t even and I stay out of it.

I got trolled about something like this. This is really interesting. So this is the little insight because you were like, what were you getting trolled about? I get asked quite a lot to go on national television to make comments about like the NHS crisis. I worked on the NHS for ten years. Okay, so I did my I paid my dues. Like I said, I worked really hard. I left in 2020 for like health reasons. Up to 2021 I was doing NHS work. Yeah. Now people. So basically there’s like a meme account. On Instagram, which does really well. It’s a Dental medium account run by young boys. Young Dental boys. And basically they said that they were sort of the opposite of what you were saying. They were saying like, are you not like, doesn’t it infuriate you so much that these private dentists that don’t realise the shitstorm of what’s going on are going on TV and commenting on what’s going on, right? I got sent it by a few people because they were like, I think this is targeted at you. And I was like, listen, I don’t care, because at the end of the day, if they want to go out and speak about it, go out. There is freedom of speech. If you want to talk about it on your social media, do. Why do news channels approach me? Because I’m vocal about stuff. Because I’m the one that’s out there saying I left because I was depressed and suicidal working on the NHS and I can. I stood up to Jeremy Kyle, who was basically saying, dentists are greedy and that’s why they leave the NHS. I’m putting myself in that position. How does he know.

He doesn’t work in?

Exactly. But the thing is, is that after that interview he was like, I can see your point now. I found it really weird because I was like, they can say all they want and they control and whatever, but what they were saying is the opposite to you. They were saying, because I’m not in it. Whereas, you know, the people that are saying to you, you can’t win, you know, I mean, because they’re saying, why aren’t you commenting? You know, so.

There’s no the thing is, no matter what you do in this world, there’s going to be controversy. Like this girl the other day actually posted a photo in her lingerie in a public street, street. And it was a I my first initial thoughts were it’s a sick photo. Yeah. Whereas the comments under it were had to unfollow because of this, this, this. And I’m like, what is wrong with the world? Like and my older brother is actually a teacher, and the things he has to now do about child safety and security is so different to what we had in our lives back in school, where the teacher could probably hit us still and it would be okay, but now it’s just it’s all so different and it’s like you do one thing wrong in any industry or make one comment about something and you’re more likely to be cancelled.

I saw I saw a thing. It was it was like a picture of Kate Moss in the 90s with Calvin Klein next to her. They were taking a photo in his hand. Was like on her, on.

Her, on her arse or.

Something just above her arse. Yeah. And the comments that came in, who’s the creepy guy with the octopus hands? Yeah. Octopus. Calvin Klein, a gay guy. Yeah. Number one, Calvin Klein. Yeah, he probably designed that very dress. And his hands have been all over, like, to fix that thing, and and, you know, the the notion that, you know, maybe the person watching it was offended or had had some, maybe something had happened to that person.

Okay, here’s another thing.

Could have happened. Yeah. Someone someone might have put their hand inappropriately on on that person. That doesn’t mean that was going on in that photo. But like.

It’s just that pictures tell a thousand words, right? Everyone’s got their own opinion about it. But. So here’s another one. When I went to Dubai during the pandemic and right now people are watching, going, oh, you went to Dubai during the pandemic. But the facts are I went when it was okay to go, but I started posting photos when I was out there when we went back into lockdown. So I left on like, I don’t know, 23rd or 26th or seventh thing from Cambridge, which essentially was like a tier two level, whatever it was, which was legal for me to fly. And because I booked this months ago, by the way, and it was I made that vocal booked Dubai back in November and I made it on my social media, booked Dubai buzzing to get out there for Christmas New Year. And so it was legal to me. Book. We had no lockdown, we’re all okay. And then Boris suddenly announced bam this day, certain tiers, certain people. Yeah, long time ago. So I went to Dubai, but again, it was fine. I was flying from Cambridge, I was allowed to leave, so on and so on and got to the airport, got to Dubai.

Fine. And then I started posting content. Me on a beach. Nothing like drinking booze, partying, which a lot of the some influencers were. It was just again, clean content, show my outfits, whatever. And I got the biggest backlash on my on my photos being like, how dare you escape the country? All this, all this. And I was like, I, have you been following me for a long time? You’d have seen that on my post. Like I booked this months ago and I left legally like so. I’ve done nothing wrong. Like I wasn’t the one jumping out of my bed and doing it on January 3rd and sneak into Dubai and suddenly appearing on a beach. I booked this months ago, so. And then people were commenting on it and going, oh, you should be ashamed for yourself. You raised all that money to climb Everest. I did a charity challenge and and now you’re and your mum’s going to work. My mum was like, the boys did nothing wrong and my mum was actually in the NHS. I wouldn’t have done that to her. Raised all this money for charity, sent it to the NHS and then buggered off to Dubai just for a holiday.

The thing that you said about the NHS, dentistry and people saying who is this private dentist to talk about? I mean I did, I did one year of NHS dentistry and vet, then went to private, then stopped being a dentist. Now I manufacture teeth whitening products so doesn’t mean.

You can’t ever comment.

Being a dentist. I want to talk about the NHS. Yeah. If I want to talk about the NHS, I’m allowed to comment about the NHS, even though I’m not working in that system. Yeah. And maybe they’re saying why did ITV ask her and not one of us. Well ITV asked her because of everything we just said. Yeah. All the 15 years work.

You’ve put I think, I think like, you know, people don’t realise that the nuances of situation but also like in terms of like so there’s two, there’s two different things. Also I want to cover with the content creation before we move on. There is I’m not going to say her name because she blocked me. Say her name. No no no.

Who’s this? Say her.

Name.

We’ll cut it out. We’ll cut it. I really want to know who’s blocked it out.

We’ll cut it out.

I’ll tell you afterwards. Okay. There was content. You’ll definitely know by a certain female. She’s doing a brilliant job. Just listen. Listen. Just listen. Sorry, sorry. She’s very beautiful. She’s very articulate. And she claims to be a psychologist. Okay. Initially, I was like, fantastic content. You. I love it when I see strong, empowered women doing this. She then got called out. She went on Chris Williamson’s podcast. Ah, okay.

Is it okay? I think I know who it is with Chris Williamson podcast.

And someone called it out because there were certain things she was saying and I was like, she’s not a psychologist. And her response to other people was like, medical professionals don’t respond in this way. You just know, pay. Like, you know, the way that we have to respond to stuff. So I did my own little research, found some TikToks. She’s a psychology teacher now. She has gone on some of the most famous psychology teachers.

A psychologist, no.

But clinical psychologist is what she’s kind of like, portraying herself as.

Doctor.

Like psychiatrist. No, no.

It’s the woman I’m thinking of. I’m sure her. I won’t say her name, but I’m sure her title is doctor.

Yeah, or something like that. Listen, listen, listen. So she’s basically misleading, but it’s incredible because she’s been on Lewis Howell’s podcast. Yeah. I think even Joe Rogan like interviewed her like there’s been loads. And the thing is no one has done their due diligence and there’s only a few people calling her out. I called her out in a really nice way. I dropped her a DM and I was like, hey, love your content. And I was like, but you’re not a psychologist. And I think it could be quite misleading to the public. You know, as you said that she said she blocked me direct. Yeah. She direct.

Messaging.

She blocked me. But the point is, without replying, without replying me saying you’re not a dentist, I’d be like, actually, here I am and this is my credentials. Shivani was obviously like, of course she’s going to block you. Like it’s like saying you’re a fraud, you know what I mean? And I was like, okay, but I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it like that.

How block happy are you? Oh I’m.

Sorry. Block happy now? I blocked so many times.

I don’t block at all. Do you know what I block? I do, you know, I always say I block a lot.

Block, block, block.

My way to deal with things is killing with kindness. And the reason why I do that is because this girl. Yesterday I put on my story. It was hilarious. She actually DM’d my girlfriend because I don’t really tag my girlfriend much and. But I do sometimes just tag her and people can find that by tagging my girlfriend’s private. Anyway, she got a DM saying hey lovely, I don’t you don’t know me, but I follow your boyfriend’s page. And just to let you know, I think you should be concerned that I think he sways both swings both ways as it like gay and yeah, and I put it on my story and she sent it to me. And I could not stop laughing at this because it was hilarious. But she. The thing is, I could have messaged this girl back because I’ve got her Instagram handle now being like, how dare you? Whatever. But something seriously troubled with those people who have to give you hate because they’ve taken the time out of their day. We have 24 hours a day and.

But you could say that about the psychologist. But I wasn’t giving hate. I was more concerned.

No, yours is very different. Your messaging out of. Yeah, a concerning way. This is something way worse. Like someone, someone going out of your way to hate someone is a complete like something’s troubled with that person. 100% truly troubled of that person. 100% truly troubled. So when you always get on TikTok, you’ll see you probably get it as well on your Instagram, it’s it’s fake accounts commenting on your stuff. 1234512 lol. It’s the emails I got from those people when I first started my website going you’re a joke mate. This is the biggest laughing stock. Those people have troubles and there’s one kid from university, his name is Gus and I’m going to say it out right now actively.

Then respond and be kind.

Be yeah, yeah yeah. So this one Kick-Off Gus from University I went to University of. Never spoke to him, but I’d always see him on shake his hand on nights out. He or he was no one at university, but he was just friends with these two guys and these two Joe and this guy Gus. If they listen to this, I hope they do. They will. They always, they always, always, always would comment on me and I would just comment back lol haha. Or hope you’re well mate. Or one of them was. Once I was, I was blessed are your well skinny or something like that and lol this is the biggest joke he. Whatever and I’ll be like, thanks mate. Appreciate your support. Always killing with kindness. And I got it for like two years straight and I haven’t for a while now. But it’s like, you know what? I love that because they’re taking time out of their day to message me out of their precious day. What are they probably doing? Nothing. They’re not trying to achieve any goals. They’re just doing their life and board. So they think they’re better off blasting someone else and hating on someone else. Never hate on someone. Success. And the one thing I would say anyone above you if you’re hating on someone, they’re above you. You never hate on someone below you. There’s no point. You never hate on someone below you. You always hate on. So you always know if you’re being hated. You’re above.

That person. In dentistry, it happens so much and it’s so sad. And I’ve tried so hard. Have you?

Have you never not hated? Hate is a big word. Have you never thought that something someone said needed calling out in dentistry?

As in like the things they say to me or the things they say to me?

They say they’re saying to the public that they’re saying to their audience, you know, we’ve had a few things in dentistry recently, like the the twins. Um, maybe you’re not. You don’t follow them.

Yeah, exactly. See, I stay so far away.

But you know what I mean.

What was the twins tell me.

There are, there are there are things people say that you might think I think that’s wrong or I think that’s, I don’t know, self promoting or. I think that’s totally so. So do you know why has there not been in dentistry a time where.

You wanted listen, listen, listen. And Henry will be the same. Of course you’re going to see people online. I get I mean.

In your industry. Yeah.

But listen.

But nutrition and stuff. But listen.

But the thing is like, okay, for example, the reason why the psychology thing triggered me is because I genuinely believe if you’re going to give medical advice you need, like you said, people should comment things that they’re on an expert. There is nothing wrong with being a psychology teacher. Just say you’re a teacher. Do you see what I mean? But misleading people and people that are going to look up to you. So I do have a problem with people like saying that. However, maybe I shouldn’t have, but I was like like for me, like psychology and psychiatry and psychotherapy is so important. Okay. Well, what about fitness?

Do you have to be a PT to essentially give personal trainer advice? But I know so many people in unreal shape. But the thing.

Is, it’s like but it’s also about transparency. It’s about like, I have a lot of experience. I’m giving you advice based on my experience. Do you see what I mean? Yeah. So I think that like it’s just the, you know, but you’re not going to lie about being a PT no. Do you know what I mean?

I, I actually went and got my license just because I sometimes couldn’t be bothered. Well, sometimes I get people commenting to me being like, you’re not even a PT bro. And then you’re.

Like, actually I am.

Well, actually, now I actually do have the level three qualification and I’m trained to do this if I wanted to. So you know what? I can talk about it even though that course isn’t great. Like it’s like going back to school and learning. You don’t learn much, but it’s just like you got it and it’s a credential. And if you do want to talk about it, you can. And if I want to release my plans, how about.

Same question to you. Have you ever thought someone in your industry needed your hate? Yeah.

But listen, listen a Payman I’m not done with that. I’m not done with that because it was going to lead on. Right. It was going to lead on. You see something you don’t like or someone online, you unfollow and you move on. Yeah, that’s my philosophy. So you don’t like the content. Why should I call out if someone doesn’t like Henry? I don’t like these fashion stuff I don’t like. I don’t like the fact that you’re talking about running and you’re not doing a million marathons. I don’t like the fact that you’re giving this advice and you don’t work completely in fitness. Just unfollow. Henry. Yeah.

Don’t follow me. So true. Why? Why do people want to hate so much? It’s. I just don’t get it. Like. Well.

There are nuances to that as well. Well.

Here’s what I did. And it made me really realise this when I was probably 13. I remember, um, Twitter was huge and X factor was on and I used to go onto my Twitter and I would slate the contestants. I’d be like, you have the world’s worst voice at Frankie Cocozza. And I only realised, but no, listen, this is 13 year old immature ten year old.

Trying to get something.

Yeah, trying to get something back. You never know. But I didn’t realise how badly this can affect people’s mental health until it started happening to me. So. Yeah. So as a kid I was like slating these famous people. If they’d had a rubbish football game, I’d comment, look, you guys have a football match. Everyone swears at the players, right? Because they don’t get it and you’ll see tweets. And if someone’s missed a missed a penalty or whatever in your club’s missed it, you’ll get hate from so many seeing so much hate. So think about how much that impacts that player. Like we all have the same minds and brains and we all are so similar. Really. Like it’s going to affect you like and people are probably told by their managers people stay off social, stay off Twitter. But sometimes you’re just on it and it’s natural that you may read that comment about you or something and you’re like, ah, it’s always the one bad thing, the one bad comment that stays in you as well. It’s not the good ones. Yeah, you could get your amazing tonight, mate. Well done. Or you were great at singing tonight or you played really well, but that one bad one can’t believe you missed that penalty.

You’re dead to our team. It’s going to stay with you for so long and it’s so traumatic. It’s the same in social media as it taught me. Massively. Like, if you’re not going to say something nice, don’t even bother saying it at all. And it’s so simple to say and it’s harder for people to do, especially at young kids. And. Stuff like that. And you do get that hate on TikTok all the time because it’s such a Gen Z platform and you get hate all the time, but you just got to for me, now is like, kill them with kindness and just whatever and whatever. Like they’re not my friends. I’m not worried about them because they’re not my I don’t see them every day. I’m not going to see that person. I’m just worried about who what my friends think of me, what my family think of me. And am I being a good person to my girlfriend or my brother or my mom and dad? That’s what you should really be caring about, not about what user 101 things. Do you know what I mean? Like that’s the least.

What’s your in this journey where you’ve come from? Just making some content and then getting really successful at it and then brand deals and modelling and all that. What was the darkest?

Yeah, I was just about to ask, what was your darkest moment? Yeah.

Oh.

I tell you what I think it’s honestly it’s the the followers. Because I think the the more you get, the more pressure you have to feel like you need to perform to that audience. Like if you looked into a room and you had 100,000 people in one room, you’d be like, Holy shit, I’ve got to talk in front of 100,000 people. Like you wouldn’t be able to do that. It’d be like you’d be nervous, you’d be sweating. So it’s the same as going on your Instagram story and talking on there, but you’re doing it in to an audience of 100,000 people. So I felt when I got over 100 K, I felt almost had pressure on me. And the better I got at doing things like it’s the same as when I run or create content. When I first started, I wasn’t very good, so I had nothing to compare to. I had nothing to lose. But when I start getting good at it, every video I started posting, if it wasn’t as good as the last one, I’d put pressure on myself and go, don’t post it. It’s not good enough, which isn’t the way to do it. And I still do it today. So I’ll then because I’m at the top, I’ve got 178,000 followers or whatever. I’ll compare myself to other people have 170 K, and I’ll look at their content and I’ll be like, God, this is better than mine, or that guy’s better than mine, or he got to 200 K, his is better than mine. And I’ll go because I’ve got to that number, but then I’ve got to I got to remember, well, what was I doing when I had one follower like or two followers, my content look back at my content from ten years ago. So bad. So for me, it’s the pressure from feeling like I need to perform all the time. When you don’t like you don’t. You need to have days off, you need to have time off. And I’m I’m.

At some point on one day. Did that become like overwhelming and yeah.

Do you ever get did you ever get like severe crippling anxiety from social media.

So I yeah I get it all the time. Like I am a really anxious person quite frankly. And I hold it in well and I can’t control it.

You wouldn’t realise.

I think I do a lot. I think I’ve done a lot of things to help me balance it. So I see a therapist once a month. She’s been incredible. Same therapist, only ever. One I’ve seen and I haven’t seen anyone else since. So I see her about once a month. And for people who can’t afford or have the privilege of doing therapy, then I think just a good conversation with a friend is equally as important or can actually help as much. Or starting a new hobby, or taking your mind away from things that aren’t causing you anxiety, and waking up and not touching my mobile phone first thing in the day. Going to sleep one hour before no blue light or no screens again. Doesn’t have your mind wandering with all these thoughts and same when you wake up. You’re not jumping into your emails is another thing that’s really kept me anxiety at bay. And if it does come, just let it be. It’s a bad day, not a bad life. Like there’s going to be some times in life and days and years where you have that day where you can’t get out of anxiety and people go, oh, just breathe, breathe, go meditate. I’m telling you right now, you cannot go meditate. When you’re anxious. You cannot do it. You do the meditate. You do the meditation in the morning or whenever you fancy doing it too. So when you are anxious or in those bad thoughts that you remind yourself when you’re in that state of flow and state of chill and calm, that’s the state you can try and get back into, but you can’t go and just breathe it out because it’s not going to work. And you can you can lose a day and say, oh, you know what? That day, today’s not been good, but that’s okay. Just knowing that it’s okay.

My question for you is, though, you said like all these great coping mechanisms tell us how you ended up on this marathon journey. So first of all, like how many marathons you do, why you decided to do a marathon and how that’s helped your mental health.

So running for me, I actually started it when I got an injured shoulder and I couldn’t lift weights and I this was gyms, a part of my routine. I like training and I just lifted weights and I was in quite good shape, bodybuilder esque, like big, not not stacked, but like big. And excuse me. And I started running because I couldn’t lift weights and I was a bit slow, wasn’t I was always okay at school, but I wasn’t great now. And I started to get okay. So I set myself a challenge of a half marathon and I wanted to do it in sub one hour 30, and I did it in one hour 27 across the line, absolute gassed I was, I see I did it, but then I started right, right. So I did a marathon and I did my first ever marathon with not much training because I got given like a place with a brand very last minute, did it in three hours, 37 and my first ever one was like 302 only two years ago, actually two and a half years ago maybe. And I was like, oh my God, I’ve got to get into this. I trained for this. I could be a okay runner. And I started running. I set myself a target last year about seven, 8 or 12 months, 14, 15 months ago, set myself a target to do a sub three hour marathon. And I this is my first ever trained one. So I did about seven weeks of training to get this sub three and everyone was like, yeah, you’re never going to get a sub three on your first attempt.

I remember telling my mates, If I’m ever going to train properly for a marathon, I want to do it sub three. And I never forget the face they all went, no chance mate. Yeah. And so I put the work in and I got sub three on my first attempt. I did a 2 to 58. And anyway, the reason why I started to run was one because the shoulder. But also this moment of peace. I just have like there’s a lot of run clubs and I think it’s great running with people. But something incredible about running and present, about running by yourself first thing in the morning or after a long day at work where you can’t physically look at your phone or touch it, or compare yourself, or scroll media or whatever. It’s just you, your breath and your feet and the tap, tap, tap, or a bit of music or podcast in your ear or whatever. And I think that is just incredible. And I love it. Whether it’s raining, whether it’s cold outside and the sun’s rising and you see the sunrise or whether it’s a beautiful day, I think there’s just something empowering about it. And there is. Leaving the gym is great. After lifting weights, you feel great, but leaving after a run that runner’s high is the best feeling I’ve ever had in my entire life. They talked about. I think it’s massively made my mental health just feel a bit like, have a stressful day, go for a run, go.

For a run. Yeah, that was so I mentioned to Payman earlier. So did you have you listened to the latest Steven podcast with Dr. Tara Schwartz?

I haven’t yet, no.

It’s amazing, but she talks about the impact of aerobic exercise on the mind. I don’t know if you guys knew that. Not weightlifting. So first of all she talks about different studies. So with weightlifting with people that lift heavy, even if they didn’t lift just thinking about it, they had muscle growth.

Yeah. That’s that’s I’ve heard about that. Yeah. Apparently if you if you picture yourself in the gym and think about yourself lifting weights, they do say you can something like psychological empowering about I think it’s like a placebo though I think she talks.

About the effect of aerobic and actually causing. I think it is neurogenesis. So we were talking about this earlier how like you can get like increased neurones. And with aerobic exercise in particular, you have more of that impact of neurogenesis where you can get like an increase of like your neurones. And then if you go for like have a break from running and then you like run again, like it can do that even more. So there’s a huge benefit. Like people overlook cardio because they’re like, don’t do cardio, don’t do cardio. And I think that’s actually a really because we’re not thinking. We’re not talking about just physique. Why? The most toxic thing that’s happened with exercise is that we’ve completely related it to physical and aesthetic goals, when actually it has huge, because I know people that aren’t in great shape and are amazing at sports.

You know, let’s talk about. So for me, this is when I got into a really unhealthy place of fitness. It was when I got to Australia, as I told you guys earlier, and I got into the best shape of my life, I was like 4% body fat. Me and my brother, we were counting all our calories. We only really lifted weights and that because if you lift weights, it will aesthetically get you into the place you want to be 100% fat like you are growing each specific muscle, lifting each specific muscle to grow to where you want it to. And you will look the best. That’s just fact. But I got so unhealthy with it. It was beyond belief. Like every time I go out for food, I would I would probably eat chicken salad dressing on the side, nothing else because I was worried about the calories and I knew that I was like calories. I would barely drink because I was I was in Australia, I wouldn’t drink, I’d do nothing. I was so boring. All I wanted to do was go to the gym, and the girls upstairs used to come downstairs. This is how bad it got.

The girls upstairs who lived above us would come down. Go. Do you guys want to go out tonight? And me and my brother would go, oh we can’t. We’ve got something on tomorrow. Got to go to work in tomorrow. Unfortunately. When really we had sushi dinner that we wanted to save because it was our calories and it can get so caught up in your mind. It actually makes you have a bit of an eating eating disorder. So for me, it was like every time I had a burger, I’d be thinking about the calories. So I actually completely stopped counting calories. And what I do now, I think, I think it’s not bad to go through it, because once you go through it, you understand what you’ve done, you’ve learnt about it, right? And now, like I’ve got such good balance between running fitness, eating aesthetics, drinking it all, and I think you need to go through the bad times in this journey to learn it, and you won’t learn it by someone telling you on YouTube. You can tell it, but then you’ll be like, I don’t get it until you go through it. And I’ve gone through.

It all now. Level of obsession that you’re discussing, it has its positives, right?

Yeah, totally. In the meantime, in the moment it doesn’t until you can digest it and be like, oh, that’s why I did that or that’s why I’ve done that. Yeah. Looking back, I remember I was honestly trying to get shredded for a holiday to Marbella when I was 21. I’d go on this egg white diet where I just ate egg whites and broccoli 800 calories, diet like because I wanted to have abs. That is so unhealthy. What am I thinking? Yeah, you don’t need that at all.

So as well, do you? Have you ever tried alternative modes of therapy to help your mental health? Like, we’ve had a few people on this podcast talk about like plant medicines and other things like that. Like what’s your view on that?

Yeah. So I actually I’ve dabbled a little bit in psychedelics and now it’s quite a taboo, taboo thing to really talk about or discuss because there’s not been a lot of like science based evidence, especially with mushrooms. More coming out.

Yeah. Psilocybin. They’re going to be using it for depression MDMA.

They are in certain. But it’s it’s how our body reacts to it right. If you drink alcohol for the first time, you don’t know how you’re going to react to it, and 90% of people are probably going to be sick or drink too much, and it’s going to make you have a bad headache. So you you learn from that experience. And it’s the same with psychedelics. You don’t know how your body’s going to cope with it or what your mind is going to do. So you get a bit panicky, maybe until you understand what it does to you. So the first time I went on it, it was in a controlled environment. And I think that’s the best thing to do with any drug or anything you do should be in controlled environment. And that’s why in America now in like Texas or Houston or Austin, it’s like the psychedelic Mecca of the world in and they do it all under control people. So you have like therapists doing it for you. So I was going for a bit of a rough patch of and I was a bit anxious, worried about what’s the next part? I didn’t have a girlfriend at this time.

I was I felt a bit lonely. And in London you can probably know. It can be a very lonely place. And I was like, screw it, I’m going to go on this retreat. My friend Louis, who, you know, who had this podcast, he was like, mate, come. You’ve got nothing to lose. I was like, you’re right, nothing to lose. Turned up. And I went on this amazing retreat in Wales and I knew no one there. Went by myself, told my friends all last minute, I’m actually going on this retreat to do psychedelics and do mushrooms. And they were like, you fucking what? And I’m like, I don’t even know what I’m doing, but I’m going to do it. I’m all about new experiences, right? And I went on this thing and I sat down. They were like, right, we’re going to do a sharing circle. And as soon as the sharing circle started, I was like, what the fuck have I entered into? This is not me. Like, get me out of here.

Woo woo!

It felt a bit woo woo and it felt a bit, a bit like a bit intimidating, like, why do I need to share my thoughts and feelings? And I did it and I felt really good. And I was like, this is, this is before I’ve done any mushrooms, by the way, or any psychedelics. And I was like, wow, isn’t it great to just let your thoughts off your chest to strangers? Because we’re all doing it and.

We’re all connected.

And we all had similar thoughts. It was like, this girl to the left of me have nothing in common, but the thing she was saying I could completely resonate to, and it was like, isn’t that funny? Like, we all are so connected in this world. And then the next day you go to bed. You don’t. I took off social media. I turned my phone off, left it in the car, didn’t touch it for two days. So the conversations I’m having are so raw, so real and amazing. And because I think for me, for one, I get judged quite a lot because I like to dress well, take care of my skin, and like to do fitness and groom myself. Self-care quite, quite. Probably too extreme. But anyway, I do. And so a lot of the initial judgement is people think I’m arrogant and that’s okay. I don’t mind that. Anyway, I thought it was a really good place for me to actually tell these people who I truly am and the personality, because actually, at the end of the trip, a lot of people were like, damn, man, I judged you as soon as I walked in, like, I thought you were just this good looking guy at this retreat, thinking he’s someone else. And I was like, I’m so sorry about that. And I was like, I was so honest that you’re like that because I think we all do it. Like we judge people walking down the street for having pink hair.

And actually there could be the loveliest person or having something. They’re just going fancy trying something new. Yeah. And anyway, did the psychedelics and during the experience, it’s very like I first I was quite nervous because I’ve never done this, but I just said to my body, in my subconscious, in my mind, surrender, surrender to this and let it be. Whatever happens is lean into it. Because if you step away from it, lean away from it. You’re going to block the drugs out. Because the way I say it is, if if you’re smashed out of your face, right, and you’re boozing with your mates and your mum texted you saying your dad’s in the hospital, get home now you’re going to snap and you’re going to go, I’m not I’m not drunk anymore. I’m sober. I’m alert, I’m focussed. So your mind can take you out of certain situations if you want it to. And it’s the same with the psychedelics. If you want to be taken out of it, you will. But if you surrender to it and just say mushrooms, like whatever you do, do your thing and it will work really well. So the first hour I’m taking it and I’m like, oh, can I go to the toilet? Should I go to the toilet? I’m not a bit sure. And I was like, just Henry, stop and do what you want to do.

And I went to the toilet, came back, went back into this like kind of weird trance. And it takes about a week to really digest what you’ve seen and done and to really put it into work. And the moment, the first time I did it, I’ve done it twice now, and each one I’ve had different experiences, but the first was a very special one because I think the other people around me were really significant. Have, since I’ve done it, have been a real significant part of my life, and they’ve all been friends now and they’re all really interesting people on it. Some were entrepreneurs, some were, I don’t know, some celebrities or whatever, and there were some really cool people there, and I connected really well with these people. And I think for me, it was like that sharing circle the next day after you’ve been on it and everyone again sharing their experiences was just such an amazing, amazing thing to hear. And it was just like such an eye opening experience. And I left and I sat down and I was like, because I didn’t touch my phone this entire week and I was like, wow, the world doesn’t actually go that fast. We just think it does because we’re always scatty we’re on phones, we’re running at 100 miles an hour. But actually, you know what? It’s slow. You can have it. I’ve had about 13 incredible conversations before 1130.

In the morning. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I know what you mean. But we’re so busy doing things.

And was everyone’s experience similar or different after.

Everyone actually had very different experiences? I think. I think, you know.

The thing is with psychedelics, as they have shown, because they’re doing so many studies on it, particularly with psilocybin and mushrooms and stuff like if you have on those levels, because there’s like there’s different levels, right? And there’s a really famous psychologist at Imperial that does studies and there’s like certain doses. So you have a recreational dose. So that’s when you’re like, ha ha, I’m having fun. Yeah. Then the dose that Henry would have taken, which is more like your ego, they call it ego death. So the ego dies, right? So the ego dies.

A heroic dose.

Yeah, exactly. So then you get pushed, you get pushed, you get pushed into the closet, as they said, with your skeletons, and things will come up. Like you might see things that are uncomfortable, your parents or stuff about your relationships.

So that.

Doesn’t happen to.

Everyone, though. Everyone has different appearances, a lot of the time you can go and have intention. My intention may have been I want to find the future wife, what type of girl I should be with that. Maybe everyone, but you don’t choose how the mushrooms.

Control your brain. They’ll take.

You somewhere. They’ll take you somewhere else. It could be completely different. It could be you as a child playing football and how you got tackled by a boy. And that caused your trauma for the rest of your life because you’re now scared to play football? I don’t know, um, pretty bad example of that, but you get my point. Um, for me, the first I’ll take you back to my first experience, because I actually did mushrooms in Thailand, jokingly, recreationally, recreationally. And when I was travelling and again, all I did was get the giggles. It was hilarious. We had the funnest time ever. It was really good fun. Um, but this was very different. Didn’t get any of that hilarious moments for me. It was more deeper, very deep. So things I actually saw, um, was the type of girl I need to go for because I’ve had two relationships, but by this time one of them was really good. But we broke up because I went to university. The other one was a bit toxic, a bit fire on fire, and it was. And at the time I was dating these type of girls and in my vision it was like, you need to go back to someone like your first ever girlfriend, because that’s exactly what you need.

And now so you saw that in your second.

I saw that and know first trip, first trip, and then what else I saw was my dad on his deathbed. And that was horrible because I was crying in the trip and it was like, okay, so again, a week later, what does that I’m writing these down and I read it afterwards and I was like, what does that mean to me? And in that moment that was like, your parents aren’t here for a long time. Maybe go and spend more time with them. Maybe that’ll make you happy. Maybe that seeing your mom and dad more often is going to make your.

Dad was perfectly fine. Fine? He still.

Is fine. He still is. But it’s just like, maybe that is like.

There might be a worry, though. Do you see what I mean?

I haven’t got many. You haven’t got many experiences left with your say. If you see your parents, say if you’ve got parents still and I’m 31, my parents are 67 and 66. Say, if I only see them twice a year and they live till the average age of, say, 75, that’s only 29 more times I’ll see my mom and dad. It’s crazy. Isn’t that scary? And then it’ll be 28, 27. And that’s sad. Exactly. So it was like, I need to make a more conscious effort to go see them all the time. Not all the time, but more of a conscious effort. Pick up the damn phone and call your mum and dad because they want you to call them. Like my mum is always like, oh, you never call me anymore. And I’m like, I know, I.

Know, I put you on that guilt and you feel so bad.

But you should. Do you know what? It’s not hard when you’re walking down the street to pick up your groceries or something to go. You know what? I’ll give my mum and dad a call because they all really appreciate you.

Not call your parents every day all the time.

But you know what my mum’s like? My mum’s like, you never see us, you don’t want to hang out with us. And the thing is, is like my like, I’m so like, death is such a taboo subject, right? As in, like, we don’t talk about, we can always see our parents getting older and it’s a few little struggles. You know, me and my sister are like, dad looks a bit old. Do you know what I mean? He’s looking a bit more frail. He’s forgetting things a bit more, you know.

Yeah, same as what my me and my brothers are doing.

The thing is, it just. It is a really scary thing, but it’s also like a part of life, like we are going to lose our parents. And this is.

One thing I talk about with people of success and doing things as well. It’s like there’s only one inevitable thing that’s going to happen this one, we’re all going to die, right? So go do what the fuck you want to do anyway. Like, why are we stopping ourselves from thoughts of what other people think? Because like, go fucking do it like you want to start that business and all your friends think it’s crazy. Fuck it. If it doesn’t work, you’ve learnt something like go do it. And I’m saying that sometimes for myself because I need.

You to say it to me, Henry.

Yeah, like. And me and Rhona talk outside this podcast and she goes, me babe, sometimes I have imposter syndrome. And I’m like, what? You you’re a successful entrepreneur. You have this amazing parlour business, you have this amazing tooth business. Sorry. Dentistry business. You’ve got a podcast. You, in my eyes, are the most successful person I know. And then she’s like, Henry, I look at you and think, your content is amazing. This is amazing. How do you get imposter syndrome? And I’m like, I think we are the worst own thoughts.

But we also think people are thinking about us, you know.

Are we overexaggerate our own importance? There’s far too much.

There’s an amazing woman I found online. Her name’s Sarah, something, and she’s a woman that is in Dubai, and she talks about how she has dealt with stigmas all her life. She’s a divorced Middle Eastern woman with 27 tattoos that doesn’t cover up. And she was saying that, like people, especially in the Middle East. In culture like where I’m from, have always judged her for things. And then she said that she did like a massive detox because when she lost a lot of people being her authentic self, she lost a lot of people. She goes, but it felt so good because the people that stayed were the people that loved me for who I was authentically. Do you know what I mean? And then she goes on to say that, like, your brain is like tofu. Be careful what you marinate it in, because if you marinate it in shit like toxicity, it absorbs that, you know what I mean? It’s like a sponge, right? Yeah, exactly. And I think, like, you know, that that is the most important thing. But you’re right. We forget that we have one life. And over and over again, people on their deathbed, as you know, they get asked, what do you regret? You know, and the regret is always doing the things that they wanted to do that they didn’t.

Living for other people’s expectations. But, you know, you get you guys are a bit younger. You get to my age and you start to regret the things you didn’t try. Yeah. That definitely what?

Well, I’m already seeing it already in my.

Products or companies or whatever. It was. Many things we haven’t tried.

Yeah, I think it’s so true though, because I always look at it like this and it’s easier to say than it is to do. It’s like money will come and go, like just fucking spend it and give it your best shot on whatever you want, like, because you can go back and make money. That’s the Middle.

East in a way. By the way. My mom’s Lebanese. She spent she’s like, Alex, buy me the Chanel. We might die tomorrow. Which really justifies everything, you know, like everything. Because Lebanese, by the way, they grew up in war, like, their whole life. Like Payman knows it’s the most bougie country in the world. Yeah, a bomb will hit. They’re still clubbing because they’re like, you know, you’re like, Yalla, we might die. You know what you were saying?

There is like buying me that thing anyway. So I think there’s a lot of, again, ways to look at that. Like there’s two ways to look. Oh, the first thought is £1,000. That’s, you know, maybe I shouldn’t do it. But then the other thing is, if I wear that Chanel bag, my confidence is going to go through the roof. So will that confidence make you better at work? Maybe. Will it make you get that boyfriend, your girlfriend you really want? Maybe. Will it make you walk with confidence? Maybe. And I think confidence is so key in anything we do. We talked.

About that. We talked about exercise and confidence because people were saying that. We say, oh, you shouldn’t have aesthetic goals. But then if aesthetic goals make you more confident and the confidence brings you other things in life, is it.

Bad, do things bad. But I do think every everyone who starts in the gym probably has some sort of low level of confidence and the and they’ve got some sort of validation they want to have to have. And I think I do.

Anything at the beginning of anything. It’s very difficult. Yeah.

Maybe. Yeah I think I was like that as well. Probably I was a skinny lad at uni and wanted to get all the girls, so I started lifting weights.

So when you look back on the journey, what, what, what are the high points? What comes to mind when you think of like the moments where you can take real pleasure?

So was it was like when I first started this, I was like, one day I’m going to work with this brand and this brand. And the moment I started working with them, it was like, fair play. I’ve done what I said I was going to do this brand, was it what was All Saints? And quite cool because and Ralph Lauren and I was like, you know what, fair play. Because I’ve always wanted to have the email being like, oh, we invite you to this or you can wear our clothes. And it was like, I remember 18 years old, I bought a All Saints leather jacket, my mum bought me one for my birthday and I was like, mom, there’s a lot of money, £330. And now and I’m not saying this gloating or anything, but it’s like I can contact them and they’ll send me one. And it’s like great feeling. It’s like, you know, I worked for that. And people look at it.

And the thing you work for, that’s the thing, people.

Look at it straight away, go, oh, you got this easy. I’m like, mate, I did it exactly.

When people are like, you should get in the TV gig.

If it was easy, everyone would do it.

Yeah, it’s it’s the same people, right, who complain. Right. So there’s two types of people. There’s the person who has the wife, who has the two kids and still manages to work out. And there’s the other one who what you were saying, and there’s the other person who comments on everyone’s post, but you don’t have kids and it’s the person. But there’s still, I guarantee there’s someone out there still finding the time to get the work in and do X, Y, and Z, even if they’ve got kids in a job and everything. Exactly. It’s just what you prioritise and what you spend those other little minutes doing that could save you on other certain areas of your, of your, of your life.

So what does the future hold for you?

Yeah.

I think it’s a really good question because for me, the future. I’ve been doing content creation for a while now, and I’m seeing all the changes and things like that, and I almost feel like I want to pass the baton down to the younger generation in content creation. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to do it. I think it’s going to be a part of my brand and what I do to showcase things, but for me, I really want to get my own fashion brand. I’ve got an idea to implement, like running kind of wear in more of a fashion wear fashion aesthetic, not like Nike, like performance clothing, but cool aesthetic in the running kind of space and fitness space, but also fashion space as well for like holiday wear and stuff. So I’m working on some designs right now for my own fashion brand, and I really want that because I think it’s for me, it’s like I love creating content and stuff like that, but I really want to have something which is bigger than my name and grow a brand, and I can impact. Impact? Yeah. Like I can always if I see someone wear my jumper down the. Street or something. And they bought that. I’d be like, fuck yeah. Like, and I get that now. I get people messaging me online and it’s like, that’s.

A dream lots of people have had. Right. So but now that you’ve started that process, what are the things about that that surprised you or you weren’t aware of or I mean, for instance, just for the sake of the argument, you want to make that jacket? Yeah, you got to make that in seven sizes and four colours. Yeah. Suddenly you’re talking 28 SKUs of that jacket.

Totally. Well, so far what I’ve learned is like, start small. Like you can’t expect to have a jumper, a t shirt, a pair of trousers, a pair of shoes off the back of it. Right. You have to start small. And again it’s just consistency like we talked about earlier. It’s starting small and being consistent with it and learning along the way. There’s going to be mistakes. I’m not going to I know for a fact I’m just not going to be all plain sailing because like you said, everyone would have done it. So it’s just and if it doesn’t work, it’s okay.

But in specifically in fashion, what are some things you’re starting to learn?

Okay, so I’ve got a sample made the other day. Samples can come back really shit. And they’re also really expensive to make. You know I think they look really good. So I get this jumper and I’m like, not not what I thought. And that’s £130. And I could have bought a nice jumper for £130, which is. Yeah. So it’s things like that. Um, the, the logo, the, the branding, the, the name having meaning behind the name is really important. Like I could just slap. I don’t know, there must be a reason why you started. What was the reason for you starting in lightning and lightning smile. Is there a reason behind it? Is there a brand behind it?

Yeah, yeah, but but I mean, one thing that’s very interesting. When we try and make something, there’s two ways of going. One is you stick your name on something that exists. Yeah. And the other way is where you make something completely new. And making something completely new costs us maybe five times as much. Totally sticking our name on something. I think with.

Fashion, you don’t actually need to reinvent the wheel all the time, because if you look at fashion, what actually happens is it goes in circles, just it goes in cycles. Right. So certain trends right now will probably go in May, maybe stay like there’s always some things that are going to stay leather jackets, things like that. But there’s certain trends and styles which will go round in cycle. So it’s like understanding what’s big now and then. You never know. It could become big in ten years, but for teeth to making them whiter or something, maybe a complete like you said.

You want to do a t shirt or a shirt, let’s say. Yeah. And you’ve got a specific idea about the way you want the stitching on the on the shirt or something. Unless you unless someone makes that specifically for you. Yeah. You’re not going to get that right. So is that the way it is that that is ready to go. Things that you can stick your name on got you or there’s like, you know, cutting new shapes and is that is that how it works? Well essentially.

Yeah. Like the manufacturer I’m speaking to at the moment. I said to him, listen, I want this, this, this. And he’s like, yeah, we can do that. So there’s just certain certain things people can do. If they can’t do it, then you find someone who can. Yeah, yeah. And it may take a long time to find someone who can. The thing which is really tough with any business, I think, is let’s take content creation for an example. You want to get better at photography, but to learn it. I learnt a lot of mine off YouTube. But what do you type into YouTube if you don’t have a clue about the terminology? Yeah. So there’s things on a camera which is ISO, aperture and things like that. But if you had no idea what aperture was, how could you say, make my photo look cleaner in YouTube? And then you get all these videos. It’s the same as like starting a clothing business. What is the word for this? Like, do you know what you need? Almost a dictionary of your words and everything. But it’s also about dentistry as well.

It’s about starting like Paula was the most like difficult thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. Because also like with dentistry, like I so had like a clear idea. And then I went on courses and then I invested. But like with business, especially a Start-Up like know it’s all it’s it’s all this new terminology and you kind of learn like on the go. And like recently I learnt all this stuff about business, like, you know, like shares, articles of association. Do you know what I mean? I had no flipping clue at that.

Richard Branson started a business and he made it to the top. And he still doesn’t know the.

Difference between Net and.

Gross. So do you know what? If you if you’re here and you make that, you’ll be all right.

Yeah, I think I think one of the big things like that Henry has brought today, like a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of great tips. But you know what you’ve shown a lot of people just start and also have the like, have the vision in mind, because I know that when he was that guy at Fitness First that didn’t have like he wasn’t going to be one of the biggest, like, content creators in the world. He just knew he wanted to do it. So you have to start somewhere.

So as I said earlier, self-belief is so important and we’re always going to feel something every day. We’re going to feel like, oh, we don’t deserve to be here. But if you can control your mind and just stay in that zone, you’ll you’ll get there. And that’s what I got. Mind over feelings tattooed on my under my bicep here first ever one. I love it because I think we feel something all the time. But if you can say to your mind. Your mind. You can do anything.

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Henry. It’s honestly amazing.

I really.

Really, really.

Enjoyed that chat.

With you both. And yeah. And, like, probably have to bring you in for like, part two. Let’s do.

It. I’d love that. Thank you very much. Amazing. Thank you.

Lovely to chat to you both.

Thank you.

FMC’s Craig Welling discusses his journey from sales rep to managing director at the leading dental communications organisation.

Craig gives the lowdown on the equity-backed management buy-out at FMC, gives his view on the group’s hotly debated awards and Top-50 list, and reveals why you should never play ping pong with Payman Langroudi. 

 

In This Episode

03.56 – Backstory

09.50 – Education Vs experience

13.54 – Starting at FMC

22.18 – The media landscape

25.10 – FMC buyout

51.23 – Awards and Dentistry’s Top 50

01.02.23 – Motivation and culture

01.09.53 – Dealing with large and small organisations

01.13.13 – Looking back

01.14.27 – The competitive landscape and the future of FMC

01.21.33 – Black box thinking

01.26.25 – Fantasy dinnerparty

01.29.12 – Last days and legacy

 

About Craig Welling

Craig Welling is managing director at FMC Media – a leading global multichannel media and communiations company serving the dental community.

You look at the energy we generate about 98,500 unique users, of which about 68,000 of them are logged into the site. So we know the details and we can track them. That’s going to become incredibly powerful when cookies are available because you can’t pixel. And obviously what you’ve done where you’re giving the money to Mark Zuckerberg, if you can’t pixel, you know, all of these things that you’re doing, you’re going to need an organisation that has that data, has that infrastructure. And we’ve been doing that for the last 4 or 5 years. And we have a data team that’s just constantly looking at that user journey and harnessing data and. You know. So I think it’s it’s more about how people are preparing for the future. And, you know, I know how hard that journey has been over the last four years and the development and the infrastructure and the team and the investment that’s gone into developing that. You know, I wish anyone luck was going through that now because it’s not easy.

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 Craig Welling onto the podcast. Craig has really lived the British dream. We talk about the American dream sometimes. Craig’s lived the British dream. He joined FMC who anyone who’s in dentistry will have some contact with as a cold caller, a marketer telemarketer, and I’ve known him since that time when he was just just a young lad. And over the last ten, 15 years, he’s worked his way up that company, culminating in a management buyout of the company where he’s become the boss of the company, along with Tim and Jason, which is amazing. It’s a beautiful, beautiful story, but if you’ve ever picked up a Dental magazine, it’s likely to have been an FMC title. If you’ve ever been to an awards ceremony, it’s likely that that’s an FMC award. The Dentistry Awards Private Dentistry awards. If you’ve ever been to a massive event, you know they’ve got big events in Manchester and London and so forth, along with loads of other activities. And avid listeners will remember on episode 130, we had Ken Finlayson, who’s the F in FMC? No longer is Ken the boss. So lovely to have you Craig.

Thanks, Paddy. What a what a wonderful introduction. I’ve never been introduced like that before so yeah, appreciate the words. Shall I give.

You my intro? Craig?

As long as if you can top that, that’d be lovely.

Not a freaking not a fricking chance, mate. So before we started this, Craig said to me, either in his late teens or early 20s, his recollection of us last meeting was in a curry house in Manchester, and it was and it was a brilliant curry. And we were in the gym and we were just we were just talking about Craig’s journey. And I said, what you joined as a young kid hitting the phones and now you’re the boss of the company. And he goes, yeah, one of three. I mean, that just blows my bloody mind, right? And I’m sure during today we’re going to talk about that journey. What happened. You know, what what have you done specifically to make that happen. You know, what have been what have been the ingredients of that? And was that a goal? Was that a dream? Did it happen? Right place, right time, hard work, probably a combination of all those things, but really, really interested to learn your story, Craig, and hear what it was. And look in you know, dentistry news travels fast, right? So I’d heard about this on the grapevine and I was like, bloody hell, I really want to know what happened and how and why. Right. So yeah really curious. And Craig, we usually we usually start this podcast by asking, you know, where did you grow up, what was your childhood like and all that sort of thing. So so just give us your backstory. Early days of Craig as a as a young lad growing up.

Yeah. No worries. So I mean, I grew up in a in a small town in Hertfordshire called Elstree, Borehamwood come from a really traditional working class family. My dad worked for the Royal Mail as a as a lorry driver and my mum worked for a company called bowerbirds actually, which produces coffee, but two really hard working individuals. And I think for me, you know, I was always about people, you know, at school, I loved the engagement, I loved interacting with people. I found it really hard to focus, if I’m honest, in terms of knuckling down on the educational side. And I’ve battled my way through school, quite honestly. And, you know, the work ethic was always there, but it wasn’t something I particularly enjoyed. So I got got through my GCSE, stayed on A-levels, and I remember I did my A levels and I just thought, you know what this is, this is not for me. I’m not going to go on to be an academic. And I remember I went went back home and I said to my mum, that’s it, I’m out, I’m tapping out. And she, she said, right, jump in the car. And she took me down to next and she bought me a suit and went to the library and made me print out my CV. And she said, you’ve got a week to go and get yourself a job if you’re leaving school. And I’ll never forget that. I think that was quite a pivotal moment in my in my adolescence, really. And, you know, I remember walking into estate agents and different, different organisations as a young guy in a, in a really cheap suit, not I and criticism, but for a job. And I remember I got the phone call actually, and I started at an estate agents the week after which, which was a which was a tough role. But yeah, you know, like I’ve got both my parents still together. I’ve got a sister. We’re really 2.4 children, working class family from a small town. Nothing really exciting, to be honest. It’s just. Just. Yeah.

So your mum, your mum took you to a took you to next. Got you your suit and what job. What, what was that process of. Right. I’m going to start applying for jobs. What was going through your mind? Was it always sales? Was it was that your thing because you were a people person? That’s what, you know. Like back in the day when we were at school, we’d go to like the careers adviser and they’d say, oh yeah, you’re Asian, so you’ve got to be a doctor or an accountant, or do you see what I mean? And are you doing well in your A-levels or whatever? What was going through your mind there in terms of you dropped into the estate agent job? That’s all sales orientated. And then you ended up I think it was.

I remember I had a few of my friends were older and a couple of them were in the sales, and I quite liked that you could make your own destiny, you know, in the sense of if you could see, you know, driving nice cars, wearing a nice watch, nice clothes and, you know, ultimately come from a very similar background to me. And I quite like that, that, you know, they they’d been able to achieve that from, from, I suppose hard work. And it’s something I’ve never really reflected on if I’m honest. Prav it was more I saw an opportunity in that and looked at recruitment agencies, looked at estate agents. But I don’t think I ever thought, oh, it’s a people’s thing. I just kind of saw other people doing it, doing well and thought, I’ll give that a crack that that might work out.

But both of those roles, I’m sure there were others, but recruitment estate agent, you need communication skills, people skills. You need to be able to get on with people. A bit of banter and sales, right? So whether whether that was deliberate or not, there must have been some subconscious there, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, like I think I started with always like that at school that you had your group of friends, you saw each other every day. You’d have a good laugh. And that was really my my purpose to school. It was to connect, have fun. You know, the academic side was never the thing that was driving me. So I suppose, yeah, subconsciously it was to get into a sector that you could communicate with people and, you know, enjoy ultimately. And, and yeah, a state agency was it was tough. I was very it didn’t, didn’t, didn’t quite um, you know, the first couple of years was amazing. I think, you know, you kind of get that stereotypical view of an estate agent. And to be fair, it’s not wrong. You know, they are, as people say, and actually ended up doing quite, quite well with the estate agency. And then the just late 2007, actually, the recession hit. And I remember we went from like four branches and about 70 employees down to a core group of like ten of us. And it got incredibly tough. And, um, I remember sitting there thinking like, I’m earning way less than I was earning. This is not going in the direction that I anticipated. And so I went to a recruitment agency, and I just started starting to apply for a few jobs and then a telemarketing sales role come up for a media company. And I thought, I’ll you that that sounds quite cool. And, you know, fast paced and a movement. And then I found out it was in venture into media. That’s big niche. But anyway, come in and met with Ken and then that was it.

You when you look back. If you could rewind by 20 years, knowing what you know now, would you go on and do a degree and all of that? Has it held you back in any way? What would you tell your children about that?

Yeah, you know, that is something I’ll definitely reflect on and I think. I would definitely have tried much harder at academics. And and I think that that would have put me an even greater step down. And I think education is important. And now I’ve got two young children, you know, that that is a big focus for me. But personally, I don’t think it’s the be all and end all. I think it’s a combination of education, you know, work work ethic and application is, is and also just just common sense. Right. You see a lot of these people that go off to Oxford and Cambridge and they’re super intelligent, but they can’t they can’t sit in a room with them.

Just totally dreamy.

People like Prav, man. People like probably Oxford boy, you snobs can’t no common sense. But listen. Listen what?

What I was about to say, Craig, was this right? You know, I run a business, a few businesses, and I also have a lot of friends. Well, let’s just go to my business, right? More than half the people in my business do not have a degree. But I would say I shit you not some of the smartest human beings I’ve ever met in their craft. Whether it’s software development, whether it’s design, whether it’s user experience, having those people skills. And so even though Craig, you might sit back and reflect and actually one one of my team members who’s been with me the longest, James has always said to me, oh, do you know what? It would have been nice if I, if I had my time to go back and get any way smart enough to go and get his degree and postgraduate degrees and all the rest of it. But let me tell you, it is his experiences and his exposure to having not done that and being exposed to other things in early life that has shaped him to be who he is today and. Your path would have been completely different as well.

If you’d have slapped a degree on the end of your name. You may not be sat where you are today because the estate agent role, the recession, the fact that then you went looking for a recruitment job and then you landed in telesales and the the butterfly effect of the way the stars aligned. Right. Had you where it is. But you know, as a father, we all want I guess we all want better for our kids, don’t we? And perhaps the opportunities that were not afforded to us. And you think, okay, well, let me push education your way. Right. But but it may be that, you know, you have a you have a couple of kids and you think, do you know what one of them’s cut out for the academic route, but the other 1st May not be. And that’s cool, you know, and and that’s my take on it, even though I’ve, I’ve gone deep into education and thrown a ton of time to my education, I don’t necessarily believe that that is what is required for success.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it’s a really good point. And it’s funny you say that actually, because my daughters are still so young. I’ve got a six year old and a four year old, and I can already see their personalities that the the eldest, you know, she is quite academically driven, really enjoys school is where I see a lot of the a lot of me and the younger one, you know. Much more chatty. And, you know, she she wants to be in the room and be in the thick of it. But but you know, education is second. So it’s. Yeah, it’s a really good point. I think it’s playing to their strengths isn’t it. And I think that that comes into business as well, looking at people’s core strengths and values and making sure you’re equipped in, in the right way to, to fulfil what they can.

Craig, on that first day when you went into FMC, what were your first impressions of the Dental market? I mean, we’ll talk about FMC as well because it’s such a special company. But the Dental market, what were your first impressions of it and how right or wrong were you?

I suppose first is a tough one because, you know, I think. You kind of learning the ropes and you’re understanding what the products are and why we produce the products that we produce. Obviously, I remember making those calls and being hung up on a few times thinking why these people are not very nice and but, you know, you learn the role and you understand that, you know, dentists in particular are incredibly busy people, and they’re only making money when they’re in the chair. So they’re the last thing they really want to do is speak to someone who’s going to sell them a subscription. So but I think as I’ve gone through the profession and, you know, as you introduce Payman and we hold lots of events, we hold lots of awards, and I think the dental community is an incredibly powerful thing. And, you know, amazing people, you know, there’s a lot of collaboration and people are there to help each other. So I’ve come to be incredibly fond of this sector. And yeah, I think it’s full of great people.

What about FMC as a company? I mean, there’s a certain buzz about that company. You’ve got to take your hat off to Ken and Kimberly. I guess the the way that they made that company a meritocracy, I think. Yeah. The fact that you went from the bottom to the top of that company shows that, right? Yeah. But also I feel like, you know, very hard working. This is from the outside, right? You tell me if it’s a very hard working and yet lots of fun at the same time.

Yeah. I think you just absolutely summed it up. I think, you know, Ken’s become an incredibly close friend of mine. And, you know, I’m a close family friend and he knows, you know, my and my family. And, you know, we’re continue to be friends, you know, as we are. But I think the one thing that that Ken and Kimberly instilled was, you know, one is work ethic for sure. You know, and what one thing you can’t say about either of them is, is that they didn’t lead from the front. You know, I think Ken was the guy. And, you know, that that guy’s work rate and effort and being relentless was was something that really rubbed off on me. And but, you know, through my career looking at him, just thinking how was he got the energy, you know, 4 or 5 in the morning in amounts out for a run working on this, doing that. And. And you know, I’m a competitive guy by nature and, you know, incredibly skilled as for him as his business. But he made me want to beat him, you know, in return as a business owner was phenomenal because it and I remember sitting there thinking, I’m going to absolutely smash in this week. I’m going to see more people. I’m going to do this. You know, chances are it didn’t in the early days because he was it was he was on it. But you know, with hard work come a lot of reward and a lot of fun. So, you know, the team culture is, you know, you see everyone at the awards that they will be Uber professional and Uber slick and they all work their socks off. But as soon as the job’s done, we have a good time. And, you know, and I think that’s what it’s all about. You got to do that. And they all get rewarded really well for that.

What do you think it was about? I mean, you jumped around a few jobs before there and then you stuck there. What do you think it was about it that kept you there whereas all the other jobs lost you? Was it the progression?

Yeah. I mean, it’s not something like, you know, like with with progression. It’s not something that’s like unless you’re on like a gradual scheme and everything’s completely mapped out and you’re going to get to this point and then you’re going to go there, you know, thinking in kind of small to medium sized businesses, it doesn’t really operate like that. And I don’t think we really operate like that now. So I don’t think so much it was the progression. I’ve just really enjoyed it, really enjoyed the culture, and I really enjoyed being around Ken and and the team and, you know, the sense of being part of something that was successful and playing a part in that. And I think, you know, big, big learning for me is if you can get everyone on that journey and, and everybody feels like they’re part of that success, that that goes ahead of a long way on top of salary, on top of bonuses, which obviously are important as well. But I think that self esteem and and being part of a success is, is just as important.

You mentioned earlier might have been offline that you had two stints at FMC. You joined in the early days. You went away for a bit. You came back. What happened in between and what pulled you back?

Yeah, it’s actually Prav. It’s quite funny. I remember I come for the interview and, and I actually interviewed for the digital advertising display role and, and then there was also a telesales role. And I really wanted the display role but didn’t quite make it, so actually got rejected for the position. And then I got a phone call to say, actually, you think you’d be suited for that? And I remember I come in on my induction and Payman you probably remember James Howell.

Yeah, yeah. And Beth.

So, so Jane James Howell and Beth. Yeah, he was a sales director at the time. And he turned around and he said, the thing is, Craig, I’m. The people have been FMC for ten years. This is our culture. Nobody lives. And about three weeks into my role, I found out that the business has been sold to Springer and. What was going on here? And and then James left and a couple of people left and I asked him, this is not what I got told. In fairness, you know, the core team was still here. And yeah, we carried on working, but I think I went from education straight into work, and I never really got that time to do anything for myself. So, you know, like people that goes to go on to uni, they get that time and living away from home and, and the rest of it. So I decided that I wanted to take a year out and travel so, so handed by noticing I went went travelling for just over a year and then come back. Same thing as I’ve kind of got got out of system, had a lot of fun memories for life. And then I dropped Ken a line and just said, oh, I’m back, you know, are you doing anything? And then he said, oh, actually, we’ve got this position. And he had a company called Premium Practice Dentistry.

I remember.

Yeah, yeah.

So I went there and I said, yeah, really. You know, we had a good chat and we met over, over a drink in Hartford, and he offered me the role. And about two weeks before I started, he got, I got a phone call from Tim and he said, oh, Ken’s just reacquired FMC. How would you feel about working from Shenley? And at that point you don’t really understand anything and also start. Yeah, that’s closer to home. Perfect. You know that that works really well. And and walked back into the organisation and it was literally like nothing could change. You know, the same faces were there. Ken was back at the helm, Julian English was around and and then. Yeah, come back. So it was, it was a it was a for me. I didn’t really understand the whole nuance of what had happened and the challenge of reacquiring the company and redeveloping the culture. But but yeah. So it was a, it was a the first stint was more of a just kind of getting into a new role from a state agency. And it was really when I come back from travelling and kind of had a thought that, you know, I need to take on my career now in my early 20s and wanted nothing.

So. But how does it feel? I mean, it was from, you know, we’re talking 2008 till now where the landscape in media has changed so massively. And, you know, in many ways there was, you know, I was advertising with FMC from the day we started. Yeah. But in in many ways, some of the dollars that I’ve been was giving to FMC, I’m now giving to Mark Zuckerberg, you know, and such a big change and navigating that change. And, you know, every industry is going through it. But media kind of first in that. Have you’ve watched that happen. Right. You’ve watched the transition from print to digital.

Yeah. And I think that’s a very broad question. But you know, I think it doesn’t take a rocket scientist. Right. That print media isn’t it was I think there’s still a big part of print media that that remained, you know, with the profession and even going out talking to dentists, you know, they could still consume print media. It’s just not what it was. And I think the issue now where you’ve got with, with, with marketeers and, and business owners is everyone’s looking at that final 3% of the funnel. Yeah. Everyone wants to know I put in x pound and I get X pounds back. And there’s only certain types of media that can perform that. Right. And you look at in the funnel marketing and lead generation. And I suppose our job as a, as a, as a media company is really to show facts and educate that you can’t just focus on that final 3%. You know, we can deliver campaigns that will deliver you your ROI. But, you know, I think there was a podcast that Steven Bartlett did when he was saying, you know, people have forgotten about the the 97% at the top of the funnel, you know, and you look at the big brands like Apple, like Coca-Cola, like Google, you know, they’re everywhere and they’re everywhere for a reason because they’re they’re building that brand. So for us, we’ve really had to adapt to make sure that, however, a Dental professional consumes media, we want to make sure that we have a LinkedIn channel and a leading approach. And really our job is to work with companies to to identify what their need is and make sure that we, you know, we put together a solution that will tick all the boxes. We’re not going to just work with a company on a one month campaign to do the final 3% because, you know, the world doesn’t work like that. So I think we’ve had to adapt our products, but we’ve also had to adapt to becoming more of a solution sales organisation rather than just a media sales company, if that makes sense.

So, Craig, back to your back to your story, back to your journey. So from that sales, what how did you evolve? So so I want you to give me a almost like a potted history of sales professional doing well, hitting your targets, getting your bonuses, enjoying your role to now being one of three bosses of the company. Right. What what happened in your evolution as a human being and as a professional? And then how did that even come about? Like like what was the what was the what was the journey? If that’s the question, you can sort of articulate and answer for us.

Yeah. So I think if you, if you, if you spoke to Ken and asked him about me, he would say I was an absolute annoyance for years because I think I got went into the role and to me, sales was always a numbers game. You know, if you if you believe in your product, which I did and you know, we’ve developed and I’m more passionate about our products than we’ve ever been, but if you’ve just got to get through to the people to explain it, and if you can do that, you’re going to do all right. And I remember my first role was selling tickets to the World Aesthetic Congress, which was held at the QE two. And I think we used to charge some £600 a ticket, and it was really looking at those kind of top end high, you know, cosmetic orientated professionals. And we did really well. You know, we see a huge turnout and and you know the brand was really strong. And then we went on to, to sell in subscriptions. And again it started to get a lot of traction. And I think probably my ego got got in front of me from, from a, you know, a young age from seeing success and, and earning quite well and saying to Kenya, I want to do this, I want to head this up, I want to I want to do this. And I suppose, you know, looking back now is is I was in the job for about a year, didn’t have a clue about anything. And it. Credit to Ken. He managed that situation really well and, you know, he’d be really kind, but it’d also be really honest.

So he’d say, you know, it kind of said, you know, things are going really well, but you need to work on this. You need to work on that. And, you know, let’s do this. Let’s put you on that course. You know, he was really instrumental in kind of my development. And then Kimberly was involved in the organisation. And for anyone who met Kimberly will know that she was a very unique character. And, you know, she she’d become a dear friend of mine and was was, was again instrumental in my personal development and my, my growth. And she really, really pushed me. And she, you know, she, she’d set outlandish targets, you know, that you just. And there’s a fine balance, right? I’m sure you guys have it with you with teams and the products that you sell to say, you know, this is what we want to try and generate in terms of new customer acquisitions. And if you go too high, you switch the team off because they go it’s just ridiculous. And then but you don’t want to sell it too low because obviously, you know, you want to deliver what you set out for. And Kimberly used to set outlandish numbers, and I’d go home and I’d be like, she’s mad, absolutely mad. And but then you get to the end of the month and you do hit them. And then there’s the realisation of, you know what? If you put the effort in and you’re home still and you try really hard, it is achievable.

And that was something that really stuck with me. He’s like, you know, you hear people about this blue sky thinking and, you know, shoot for the stars and all of these cliche sayings. But, you know, Kimberly was was, you know, she was someone who did that. And, you know, we weren’t always him, but but it showed that you could. So so that really stuck with me. And I’d always try coming through, whether it be with, you know, tele sales. And then I moved on to head up a magazine called laboratory, which was like our next title. You know, what was about 2000 labs and probably 50 suppliers in the lab? Well, back in 2008 and again, I grew that title and had phenomenal success with it. And, you know, the more people that you get out and see and the more people that you can show your proposition to, and you believe in your product. And then, you know, ultimately the end user believes in the product, you’re going to get results. And we got really good results from that. And then again moved on to another title and then saw a really big opportunity with exhibitions. So, you know, I think conference is a kind of paid for conferences and, you know, moved out by then and you had two big, large national exhibitions. And we we launched like the digital dentistry show. So we went a bit more niche, and then we launched the private dentistry show. And again, that was out seeing companies selling space, but really developing a proposition and going out to market.

And I then got appointed as commercial director. I think that was 2015, 2015, 2016, so really stayed on the events and supporting media and worked really closely with Joe Lovett, who was a great guy, you know, very charismatic, and I’ll learn a lot from Joe as well, just the way that he’s with people. And I think, you know, again, it’s all these cliche sayings, every day’s a school day. But, you know, I think in seeing things with, with, with people and, you know, that that works really well. It’s just adapting it to your own style and thinking, you know, I’ll utilise that and I’ll try that. And that doesn’t quite work. And just being authentic. And so I went on to do that and then. Obviously then the pandemic hit in 2020. And you know, I’m sure everyone’s aware that unfortunately Kim passed away in that period and can add a very, very tough time. So Kim has actually stuck over in in Bali at that point. And it was I mean, one of the most challenging times, one, to deal with losing a really close friend and then trying to support a friend and a colleague who’s going through absolute hell, but then also looking at the business and thinking, you know, fuck, what the hell are we going to do? You know, it was a and I’m sure everyone went through that. And, you know, looking back, you know, taking out all of the terrible things that happened with Kimberley, Covid was actually one of the most enjoyable times at work, I’d say.

And we as a team will sit there and we agree with that because, you know, our backs were against the wall and we just saw the spirit in the team come together and and we innovated and we launched new things. And you know, we got some things wrong, but we we got some things really, really right. And, you know, that really propelled us into this, this new era post Covid. And then following that, Ken returned from Bali and sat down with myself and Jason and just said, you know, I need to be there for my family and I can’t be as involved. And and he appointed us as NDS of the business, you know, and he kind of took a back step. So he wasn’t involved really from 2020 onwards. And again, I think that was quite a steep learning curve from 2020 to 2022 that you just got to work it out and you’ve got to make mistakes and you’ve just got to keep trying and keep pushing and don’t give up. So it’s it feels like therapy. Yeah. You know, like, you know, just explaining it that way. I think it’s been a real roller coaster of a journey because you learn things off so many different people and you adapt it into your own technique and your own way of, you know, your own values and what you believe in and how you position things, you know, coupled with just just taking risks and going for opportunities and just working it out. And ultimately here we are.

And but the thought of private equity backed management buyout, whose idea was that who first came up with that idea. Was that you guys or was that Ken’s idea or.

Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t really an idea. I think obviously, again, going back to what what happened with Ken. And then he had another tragic loss, which his son.

Yeah.

Because as parents, you can’t even imagine and you don’t even want to imagine, you know, but we still had the business to run. And we stood up, Ken, to support. And I think, as you just mentioned, that the media landscape was has changed dramatically over the years. And, you know, we we come out of Covid and much, much stronger business, you know, from from our offering and our multi-channel approach and the results that we were delivering and our transparency of results and looking at the end of the funnel and our social and our content creation and all of these things are either the modern media business should offer. And like anything, we had a big community. You know, we had a big following. And that’s really how we’ve always commercialised. We monetise our community, so we’ve always offered education. And we looked at developing an online platform for education. We felt like, you know, there’s some really good platforms out there, but there was nothing that was really simple and effective for the for the end user. And credit to Tim, you know, he really spearheaded that project along with Lori, who’s our marketing director, and he’s kind of like head of product. And they developed this phenomenal platform, which was like a Netflix interface, e-learning platform. And obviously, we’re really lucky that we’ve got an abundance of content from some of the leading clinicians globally because of the magazines that we publish, and we put that into an online platform and really without much effort and energy, we generated thousands of subscribers. So I remember sitting there and looking at the numbers and thinking, well, we’ve got the vast majority of the advertising market, you know, in the media landscape because of the size of our portfolio and, and our multichannel offering, there isn’t any, you know, and I think everybody there’s space in the market for everyone. So and I think there’s some really strong other publications out there. But in terms of the breadth and the reach. Wasn’t anybody that could really come close to what we had to offer.

So the growth.

Opportunity in media wasn’t really there unless we looked at other verticals, so looked at similar markets like veterinary or optical or. But then there was just this, this, this moment of saying, well, we haven’t really pushed the education side and we’ve generated this, so what could we do if we really went for it? And myself, Tim and Jason and Ken sat down and, you know, it needed a lot of energy, a lot of investment. And I think, you know, we collectively agreed that if we could raise the funds that Ken would be willing to because, you know, he’s he’s he wants to be with his family and he’s gone through that, that time. And so we went through a crazy. A crazy period, and it was really eye opening and fascinating. And I actually listened to your brother’s podcast, Prav, about obviously when he joined the.

Dental.

And he talked about, you know, the, the model of private equity. And I think you hear all these things about private equity. And straightaway everybody gets their back up and they’re like, well, yeah, it’s scary. But you go through the process and it’s fascinating. Absolutely fascinating is the only way that I can describe it. And I actually loved every minute of it. I thought it was phenomenal. So we we went out and we put our proposition to ten different private equity firms. We also looked at other ways of lending. And out of the ten, I think we got eight offers, which was, you know, it was great. It really showed that we had a solid business and a solid growth plan, and they really liked what we were doing, and we gelled really well with two guys, a guy called Abbott and a guy called Alfred, and Alex, the founder and CEO of a company called Coniston Capital. And and they battled management buyout. And then yes, it was the end of August and we’re yeah, we’re right in the thick of it.

But how did you know what to do? Did you have corporate finance?

Yes. We used a company called Castle Finance and Lake Victoria. And so again, if anybody’s looking at going through a process I couldn’t recommend hard enough. She was absolutely phenomenal. Phenomenal. She you know, you go through, you meet with them, you talk about the business, you talk about your growth plans, and you know what you’re looking to achieve and timelines and and then they basically challenge you on so many points and, and really gets you to really understand the business deeply and look at all of the different. Levers that you can pull in the opportunities that there are, and then you pull together an. So an information memorandum, which they then share out to their network of private equity firms. And then they invite you to come in and you basically present a bit like Dragons Den. And then they sit there and they grill you for half an hour in a nice way. They’re there to get a job done as well. Yeah. You know, they’re looking to make investments and then and then, you know, you kind of shortlist it and then you go, you might go for dinner with them. You go and have a beer and you see what they’re like socially and make sure that you kind of values are aligned and you really believe in, in the direction that, that you’re taking a business and that they believe in that and they’re not going to come in and try and change that. And then, yeah, we’ve picked them and so far they’ve been phenomenal that let’s get on with it.

But you said.

They’re majority shareholders right. So they they can do whatever they like. They can they can pull the plug on you or sell you or whatever it is. Right. So if you say to them, this is my growth plan, within x number of years, Y will happen. If you don’t hit that plan, they can literally mess you up, right? Is that correct? Is there someone on your board now from them? How does it work?

No. So yeah. So so it sits on the board. But then we also we have a Non-exec chairman James Tyler was CEO of Dennis Media. So Dennis Media was published a title called The Week. And I think they they exited for 330,000,002 years ago. So you know massive subscription business. It’s got a wealth of experience and knowledge from from media. And, and he sits on, on the board with us as a conduit. I suppose the thing is, Payman is, is like any partnership, right? Is you’ve got a team, you could fire all of your team tomorrow if you wanted to. You went out of business.

Yeah, I know, but then, you know, like, are you having to answer to them now or, you know, people talk about the downside of this sort of thing is that they will interfere with you and so forth.

Yeah.

So they could write is the honest answer if they wanted to. But they’re not they’re not. You know, we’ve got we outline a budget and we outline an approach and we outline an investment. And as long as we stick to that and we don’t, you know, draw £1 million extra investment out to go and, you know, set up a business in UAE without, you know, with you anyway. So, you know, we’re completely aligned on our, on our, on our journey and where we’re going to go. And I suppose, you know, let’s not be foolish that there’s going to be some ups and downs in the next 5 to 10 years, and I’m sure there will be difficult conversations and I’m sure we’ll have difficult conversations with them. But but we’re all aligned to where we want to get to.

And have you suffered with imposter syndrome in the middle of all of this? I would yeah.

It’s a it’s a real interesting one because I had a chat with James last week and and honestly, looking back, I think I’ve suffered with it my whole life. Generally, I think, you know, I’ll sit in meetings with, you know, Harvard grads and people that develop, you know, all of these incredible platforms for dentists. And they’re Uber intelligent and some of the brightest people I’ve ever met. And I’m sat having dinner with them and they’re buying. I always leave there just feeling frustrated, saying, you know, what the hell just happened there? But but yeah. So I think that is in you know, obviously I think that is still something that I’m getting to grips with.

So, Craig, I just want to want to ask a few more questions about the process. I’ve been through that process with a dental practice. Right. And, you know, you have this idea. You go to an advisor, corporate finance, a broker, whatever that is, right? And they put, you know, you produce a pitch document essentially, and then you went to how how many people you said eight people said yes or whatever, we’d like more information or whatever. Yeah.

So we went out to ten. So we met ten. And then I come back to say that they were interested.

So your pitch, your pitch was, hey, we need some dough to buy Ken out. This is how the business is going to grow and provide you, the investor, with a return on investment. Right. Because if that model, if that story wasn’t there, they they ain’t just going to stump up the cash for no reason. Right. Yeah. So, so so you’ve got to prove to them that, hey, whatever you’re putting in here, you’re going to get that back. And so in a period of time, an eight out of ten people said, I think your story is great. Yeah, and we won in. Right. Just talk me through the process. You’ve now got eight on the table. Yeah. Was it a really easy decision like the one that stuck out as, like they’re the clear winner because, you know, we’ve had a pint with all eight of them and these were the coolest guys. Or was it, you know, the questions they asked or the direction in which they wanted to take the company was aligned with yours. What was talk me through that process.

Yeah. So a couple that we met and straightaway you just, you know, like you’ve got interesting territory. These are not people that we can work with. They’re just not, you know, they’re just they didn’t come across as really nice, genuine, authentic people. So they was off. So I think there was three that were left. And, you know, all really nice companies. I think the thing that stood out with Coniston was one they. Like. I suppose the other two felt like it was more lip service, like they you could see it was a solid business with, you know, a market leading brand, really engaged community, you know, and a big potential for, for growth on that, on the on the professional side. And I felt like a lot of it was lip service just to try and get a deal over the line. And then with Coniston and the thing that I really liked about those those guys is they were straight talkers, you know, they challenged, they didn’t just say, yeah, that’s great. What would you do in this scenario? What would you do in that scenario? Have you thought about this? You know they challenged on that media change from social. And obviously, you know we’ve got a business plan for for all of these elements. And ultimately just I think just we just clicked with them. You know, I suppose this when you say you’re going to buy a house, you know, you do get a feeling and an instinct and, you know, you go through the facts and the figures and ultimately they were the guys that one could meet Ten’s demands. Because, you know, this, let’s be real, can add a number that you needed to achieve. And that was a number that they had to be willing to pay, which they weren’t. So that was great. And then they really had to believe in us and that to challenge what we wanted to get to.

So of the three people that you shortlisted, did all three hit the magic number? Yeah. So so it was so, so the number was the number went out of the equation then. And then it was about the right fit.

The right fit. Yeah.

Obviously the number was the first thing that needed to be agreed. Yeah. And then that was agreed. And then and then it was a case of like who can we Gerald? Who do we believe we can work with and obviously gambatte to to payment point of, you know, they can do this and that. We need to make sure that we were comfortable in, you know, picking the right partners and.

So when you pick the partner, is there a whole process of due diligence that they went through? They tore through your finances, the books, the team, the the structure. What was that process like? The thing.

Is, the Craig Cairns sold that company a couple of times before already, so he must have dotted all the i’s and cross all the T’s several times before. Right?

Yeah.

And the thing is, you know, you can’t build a brand like FMC half heartedly, you know, so we have lots of structures and everything was in place. I think you know, me, Tim and Jason will bring quite a different element to the business from very operational. So I think if you ask Jason about how the process went, it’d be very different answer to mine. You know, I thought it went pretty well. They challenged a couple of things like, but Jason’s really the guy that was in the thick of that, pulling all of the packs together, providing information, and did a phenomenal job.

How long was that process, Craig?

This was the just over 11 weeks.

And was was this 11 weeks of day in and day out, constant information requests, providing this, providing that. And during that due diligence process, was there ever any point where you thought, fucking hell, this ain’t going to happen?

Yeah, multiple times. Multiple times. I mean, the challenging thing is I still got the business to run and and you’ve still got the magazines out the door. You still got put the events on. You still got planned for the awards. You know, you still got to keep innovation. You still got to keep the team motivated as well as get through 200 questions a day. And, you know, of course, I think anyone who’s gone through that process who says that it’s just easy and you’ve never questioned yourself, I wouldn’t believe, or I’d want to know what their secret sauce is, because there was multiple times we’d sit there and think, Jesus Christ, is this worth it? This is like, what’s that? What’s this? Why have they raised that? And then you get through it and you realise that, you know, there’s tactics that are involved. But also, you know, anyone who’s dealt with lawyers, buying a practice, selling a practice, you know, they asked questions they’re had to ask and become irrelevant over a period of time. But again, you learn a lot through it. Right? And and you start to understand, you know, I’ve never done an acquisition, I’ve never done a buyout, you know, and we’re going through our first acquisition now, which is incredibly exciting. Which, which, you know, I can’t go on too much into the detail of it because it’s due to complete next week. But, you know, all of these things, you’re then on the other side of becoming a buyer and not a, you know, so it’s. Yeah. Just just a fascinating fun.

And Craig my my sorry my understanding of of from what you’ve told me, the plan that you presented to them was that you’re going to shift to more of an AR model annual recurring revenue model. Is that right?

Yeah. No.

I wouldn’t say a shift because, you know, the heart of what we do is media, right? And we will never lose that. And that is something that we need to maintain and continue to innovate. And, you know, one of the big things that I really liked about this process was understanding your why. Why do we do what we do? And ultimately we do what we do to help businesses grow. You know, from a media perspective, we work with brands to help build their brand, grow recommendations, generate ROI, and and educate the profession on the services that are available. And then we looked at the professional side. And if you look at the the offering in the market, again, there’s great solutions in the market. But what we believe is there isn’t really anything that really empowers that, that that professional development from a practice or an individual side. So it’s how can we create solutions to really help practices and individuals grow. You know, and I think from, from developing that this, this naturally that becomes a subscription led model. So you know, we will never drop and we will never forget about media. That is the heart of what we’re doing. It will always be. But we will have an assumption of professional services where we will really look to help and grow the professional side of the business.

We can’t have someone from FMC on and not talk about things like Dentistry’s top 50. Yeah. And and and other controversial subjects like awards themselves. I mean, there’s a love hate relationship in the profession with both of those two things, right. And I guess I don’t want to be the, you know, the the guy who asks you this unpopular question, but what do you think? I mean, what do you say to the people who say, look, that all of this stuff pitting dentists against each other, implying one dentist is better than another, is sort of fake? It’s not. It’s not real.

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, like like like we went back to, I suppose, the beginning of the conversation, like self esteem and recognition is a big thing. And I think really people don’t understand why we launched the awards when, when we launched them and what, what what you know, going back to why why is on that. It’s not to put people up against each other. It’s we’re getting to the publishing awards and we have done since, since I’ve been in the business. And you with any awards. Right. They’re self nominated. You have to write about yourself and we enter brand of the year. We enter publishing company of the year. And when you sit there and you write about your business, it really makes you reflect, like going back to what we did with this, you know, talking about corporate finance at the end. And you look at it and you think, actually, you know what? I think we can improve on that. And I think we can we can do this a bit different. And it’s only when you actually take the time to sit there and write down and really reflect on why you think you are the leading business in, you know, the South, or why you think you’re the leading practice in the North or whatever it may be.

And that led us to really up our game on, on, on the brand side of things and look to the bits that we weren’t really happy with and what we like, what we didn’t like. And I’ll tell you that we improved our brand position by about 10% off the back of entering those awards and every year. And that’s really the aim of the awards, right? If we if every dental professional that enters those awards, or any practice that enters those awards can sit down and reflect and actually has an impact of making them try harder, 1 or 2%. That’s a good thing for the profession and a good thing for patients. Okay, whether people think is right or wrong to put people up against each other, it’s a good thing because everybody’s trying harder, everyone’s producing better dentistry. And the only winner in that is the patient.

Yeah. But do you have do you have sympathy for the, you know, for the for the dentist who’s sitting in Yorkshire who hasn’t even entered the awards because that’s not what he does. And you’ve called some his his next door practice. Best practice Yorkshire or something. Do you have empathy for that guy? He’s not into going for awards. He’s into taking care of his patients. Do you have do you have empathy for the position of that guy who thinks, you know, what the hell?

Yeah, absolutely.

But I suppose, you know, we can only judge what’s put in front of us, right? And we’ve got a panel of 20, 25 leading clinicians, you know, chaired by David David Houston. And it’s a vigorous process. You know, they all take the time out and they come to the office and they go through these awards. And. Estate and I cannot tell you like I’m in credit to all of them that take their time out because of the love and passion that they’ve got in sector. And you know they will ultimately choose who they believe is the best that’s in front of them. Yeah. And you can’t pick the guy that didn’t enter. And you know, I suppose you’ve got to feel for these guys that are you know, there’s probably some of the best clinicians out there, right, that aren’t on Instagram, aren’t on Facebook. Yeah. Their clinical skills are way above anybody that’s ever won an award. I can only imagine. And no one really knows who they are. And that’s that’s fine. Right. Because that’s that’s the lane that they’ve, they’ve chosen and that’s what they do. And, and you know, that’s it. There’s nothing else really to say, is there. It’s like we can only judge and follow a process that’s in front of us. And, you know, if he was at the awards on Friday night in Leicester, it was incredible. You know, like looking at people’s reactions when they’re shortlisted and when they win. But like that is one of the best feelings of the job. Like means everything to them.

I mean, one thing’s for sure, you guys have really got that process down to a tee. When you go to one of those award ceremonies, you just feel like there’s a buzz in the air. And particularly that Leicester one, it’s a loads, loads of fun that night. Loads and loads of fun. All the teams are out and so forth. Tell me about the process of actually hosting something like that. I mean, you guys must be very slick in it right now, by now. But you know, there’s massive productions and teams and everyone’s stressed out. Well, tell me the process. How far ahead are you working for the awards?

Yeah, it’s about six months. And again, I cannot take any credit. And to be honest, I don’t really understand.

The love that.

I’m just being honest. Right. I just, you know, we’ve got the production team, you’ve got Leander, who’s our event director, who also hosts the awards. You know, they’re be in the office till like 9:00 at night, like a good month before the awards. So, you know, every day and they’re making sure. And they’re perfectionist and they really care. So in answer to your question, I don’t really understand the whole process of it, but I know that they work incredibly hard to make deliver that as you see it.

And what about the top 50, man? Because I’d say the top 50 is even more controversial sort of thing. I mean, do I need to spell out the charge?

Just what’s your.

Thoughts on top.

50?

I think it probably sells loads of magazines and things. Right. It’s one of those things that everyone’s interested in. So, you know, it’s got attention. It’s definitely, definitely an attention grabber. I’m sure everyone reads it. I’m cool with it, dude. But, but but there’s a lot of people who don’t know what I mean. Well, I can spell out the problem, but the idea, the the idea that it’s voted for or was voted for now, now you guys just just announced it for yourself. And again, it comes back to the same question of really, is number 14 better than number 67.

Yeah. And I think, you know, when it was numbered I don’t think that was right. And I think everyone’s always misunderstood how the top 50 worked and no one’s really ever knew. You know ultimately and I think can explain this when when he was on the pod we’re we’re incredibly well connected. Right. In terms of we know what’s going on in the sector and we know what, you know, people that are having an impact, people that aren’t having an impact. So we utilise our network of our awards judges, our editorial board, and we’re asking people to put forward who they believe had a big impact in the sector. And then ultimately, the content team will sit down and they will go through and they basically shortlist and they will pick 50 people that they believe has had the biggest impact on the sector. And I think if we can’t pick that list, there’s not many people that can. And I suppose we would always challenge anyone that has something to say about it, to say, well, who don’t think it should be on the list. And we’re having that conversation to understand, you know, why they believe they shouldn’t be on the list. And, you know, we always take that that feedback and review. Now, ultimately, every time that’s happened, no one’s been able to answer the question because, you know, I think the 50 that have always been picked have had a big impact on the sector, and they’ve done great things for the profession.

I think part of your problem is the brand dentistry. Yeah, because if we’re talking about dentistry is top 50, there’s all sorts of people who missed out. You know, academics, you know, people in dentistry is such a big subject. Whereas I think maybe, maybe you guys are more sort of general practice oriented. But listen, dude, I’ve got no problem with it myself. I know loads of people do though. Do you get a lot of blowback about it?

Oh, every year. Every year.

And so what are what do people say? What’s the criticism? Is it having them at all or is it who’s on the list?

I think you’ve.

Seen a lot of comments on social around top 50, and.

I’ve sent you quite a lot.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

There’s always going to be people like, I think if you put yourself above the parapet and you’ve got a big social following, whether you know, or you’re a big media company and you do these things, you’re always going to have a big fan base and people that love what you do. But you’re also going to have people that detractors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we’re we’re really comfortable with that because you, you know, you cannot please everyone. And ultimately we are we’re in the market of eyeballs. And when the top 50 is launched, that is the number one most visited day on that website. And I’m pretty sure all of the detractors will jump on that site to see who’s on the list.

Yeah, that’s for sure.

You know, so if it was that big of an issue and, you know. You know, they really care. You know, obviously it means a lot to people. And we’re only ever trying to do good things. We’re never we’re never going out with the attention to say, let’s do this is how many people we can wind up. People think, you know, generally think people sit there and think, oh, they’ve done it again. They’re doing this is controversial. Like everything we do, we’re just there to try and do good for the profession. Whether it’s the award, whether it’s recognising people in the top 50. Whether it’s putting people on a speaking program, I think it’s all there to try and do good for the profession. And ultimately we’re never going to be able to please everyone. But, you know, we keep trying and we work really hard and, you know, we don’t always get it right. Nobody gets it right all the time. But but one thing we won’t do is we won’t stop. And we keep trying really hard. And we make sure that we do the best that we can to keep elevating the dental profession. And I think, you know, if I’m being biased, I think we do a good job of it, and we want to make sure that we keep doing that.

And we definitely do. Before Prav jumps in, tell me, how do you get people to come in and stay till 9 p.m.? I mean, how does that work?

Yeah, not not not once ever till now.

I think it just goes back to culture and and care and, you know, just, just. It sounds corny, but just just the love of what you do. If you really enjoy what you’re doing, you love it. Stay until 9:00 and having a bit of food and a couple of drinks with your peers while you get something together. It’s not. It’s not horrendous, is it? Yeah. You know, we’re going to get a Nando’s in and have a couple of beers while we do this. It’s like it’s fine with people you really enjoy working with. And you know what you’re going to what the output is going to be at the end of it, and what that means to, to us as a company, but what it means to the profession as well. So, you know, I think we’re really lucky in the fact that the people that we’ve got here, as James told me all those years ago, have stuck around and they’ve been here a long time. You know, I think every everybody’s been here ten years plus. And, you know, we’re building a team now. We’ve got a lot of positions open and we’ve got, you know, a new kind of era of FMC starting. And it’s really exciting. You know, not not everybody makes it, if I’m honest. And you can see that straight away. People come in if they don’t fit the culture.

You know, loving this 9:09 p.m. story, because we had one episode where we were talking about Prav recruitment process, and it turned out his number one concern is he doesn’t want people to leave at 530.

Absolute bollocks.

Absolute bollocks.

Honestly.

Listen, I urge everyone to listen to that episode. He was his number one point. Do you know what time saving employees. But go on, Trav, go on. Absolute shit. Payman.

Absolute bullshit. Um.

So, look, my take on this is during recruitment, right? And I think what pays alluding to is, is I don’t want to talk watcher. Right. And so and so there’s, there’s a culture thing that you’re talking about. So are you here because you love what you do or are you here to collect a rate. Yeah. And if you’re here just to do your job and collect a rate, you’ll fucking know it’s 530. In fact, at 525, you’ll hear your bag packing up. And when it hits 529, the fucking door’s gone, right? Yeah. And and I definitely don’t want to hire anyone like that. Right. But I’m a massive believer in in, um.

We mustn’t fetishise it, though. We mustn’t. Let me listen. Let me.

Carry on. Let me carry on.

Let me let me finish.

Just for the sake of the argument. Yeah. An enlightened 530. Everyone gets up and leaves. Yeah. Unless there’s something going on. Like. Like he’s saying, like if there’s a go on. But.

But the point I’m making, I’m a massive believer in switching off from work. Right. And I tell all my team this year, I mean, I’ve got a new guy who’s just joined the team. Ross Yeah, fucking hell. Like this. Geezers on slack at 6 a.m. messaging me. Yeah, 9 p.m. he’ll be messaging and he’ll be working and messaging me. Right.

He’s figured you out.

No, no, no, it’s not that.

It’s not that at all. Yeah, it’s not that at all. But but he tells me he absolutely loves what he does. Yeah. He feels a sense of responsibility for the projects he’s got. There’s no deadlines being given to him. But he does it out of and there’s no requirement there. Right. But I guess for me, you know, I want people to be there because they love what they do. That’s really, really important to me. Right. And you know, in that episode we’ll have mentioned that, you know, whatever it is. Right? But I’m not interested in Clockwatchers. Right. I’m not interested in someone who just wants to come in. Boom, out the door. That is what it is, right? Maybe enlightened. The work is done at 530 or whatever, right? Most of my team. Yeah, finish at 530. Since we’ve gone remote, things have changed, right? Since we’ve gone completely remote, some team members say, hey, I’m doing the school run. I’m not going to be in at this time, but I’ll get my work done right. And you’ll find some of my team are working until 7 or 8 at night. So some of them finish at four. Yeah. On certain days, whatever doesn’t really matter. Yeah, but but I think the important thing is you ask Craig the question, how do you get those people to stay tonight? You don’t have to. Yeah, you don’t have to. You don’t have to get them to do that. It’s because they want to do that because they feel either a sense of responsibility. They love it.

Yeah. Yeah. But you know, guys, the reason I ask the question was if that’s the culture in the company, then you can understand why how a junior will end up. If everyone if all the seniors are staying till nine. A junior will end up staying till nine as well. Yeah. Doesn’t necessarily mean that they want to. Yeah it could, it could be that the culture is pressuring them to.

They’ll go they’ll they’ll get filtered out.

I think the. If you look at the organisation and is now what’s the time now is 518. It’s probably three, 3 or 4 people I guess, right, that are there because there’s certain projects that need delivering or we’ve got the industry awards coming up next Thursday. You know, we do flexi time, we do remote working. We have all of these benefits. What’s the like 60% of the team will leave at 5:00. Right. They’d do a solid day’s work. Phenomenal operators. And you know that’s that’s that’s that’s that’s great. You know they’re so instrumental to the business. And then you’ve got another layer of people like you say Prav that it really brought in to what we do, what our our vision is, where we’re trying to get to. And they’re putting the extra yards to make sure that the projects finessed and, you know, they take the extra time and effort. And if they’re in the office an hour later just to get that extra level of detail and delivery that they do that. And I think it’s, you know, you can’t have everyone in an organisation being a racehorse or being there till 9:00 at night and you know, you need to have a good blend of people that come in and they do a really solid job and they they give good output and they like what they do. It’s a nice environment. And, you know, ultimately they’re it’s a job for them. And I think every organisation will have that. And you have another layer of people that you know that are a little bit more career minded, that want to put in the extra effort and the extra hours. And they care about the journey, they care about the, the, the overall outcome. And obviously, you know, people in those categories are rewarded different, different positions within the organisation.

And also different times, different days. You know, there might be a day that, okay, I’m going to stay behind because I just need to get this shit done. And other days they finish on time. Some days they finish a bit early, some days they need an early day on a Friday. That’s cool. And it’s that give and take, right? That’s what’s important.

Yeah, absolutely. Craig, tell me this.

Sometimes, you know, you’re visiting people or you have been I guess maybe you don’t do that anymore, but you’re visiting people, selling them events, ads and all that. And sometimes you’re talking to, I don’t know, global head of marketing for Invisalign, who’s a $20 billion company. And then another time you’re talking to a lab owner, tiny business, 12 people. Would you say the fundamentals of those two situations are the same? Or have you learned how to handle sort of the giant company? You know, the way the way they move slowly or whatever. Give me some thoughts on the on. It’s such a different types of people, aren’t they.

Yeah, definitely. I think.

You know, overall the fundamentals are the same. Right. Everybody’s got an objective and they’re seeing us because they need help with that objective. And whether that is they need to grow their brand. They need to get, you know, more sales. They need to drive more traffic to the website. They need to help content creation. So, you know, ultimately the fundamentals are the same. I think the language that spoke to, you know, the chief marketing officer at align. You know, to the language of Alabama is that the is not going to be talking about setas and cap and, you know, churn and and the rest of that that that kind of marketing speak. And the CMO alone is so, you know, I think it’s just adapting the language and the output to the end user. But ultimately the fundamentals is exactly the same, right? We’ve got a product that can help them with their objective, and it’s just presented in a way that they understand, okay. If I do that, you know, potentially this is the outcome that I’m going to get. Or if I do this, this is what I’m going to get. Is this exactly the same, whether you’re talking to a lion or you’re talking to Barry’s lab in Scunthorpe.

I guess you’re not playing ping pong with the eyeliner.

No. I want that rebound. I want that. Prav.

He’s lost so much. He’s lost so many ads and exhibition. Now that he owns the company, we can be open about it. Because before we play a game with him. Before we used to play a game of ping pong. He used to lose, lose like an exhibition space to me. And then he go, don’t tell anyone about this Payman.

And really.

He really suckered me in. It’s a yeah, and I don’t really play play that much.

So man.

Play. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely play. Shocking. I think I’ve got this. Go. I’ll give you six points. Head starts with six points. You see. Yeah. Yeah. Those mental.

Listen he tried that. He tried that bullshit with me years ago. Right. But can barely hold the bloody bat in my hand.

Yeah.

He’s got two left two left fingers.

And then and then and then when I’m playing table tennis, I play it as though I’m on a full flipping size tennis court. Yeah.

That’s exactly right.

So absolutely useless, you know. So, um, yeah, I give him about 10s of entertainment and then.

Yeah.

Amazing. Craig, knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently in your career?

Oh, said Bill Gregson.

What I’ve done differently, I’d have been I’d have been more patient at the beginning, in the in the early days definitely would have been more patient. And.

You know.

And impatience is a disease of the 20s. It is.

Yeah. I think I think like believing in the process. And I think obviously these are the things that you learn as you go through it. But I think, you know, if you believe in yourself and you work really hard and you get the results, you know, good things are going to happen, right? You’re going to get noticed whether you’re in in writing, whether you’re in FMC, whether you’re in a line, whether you’re in Google, you know, if you if you if you put the right level of application in and you try really hard and you get results in your area, you’re going to get noticed and good things are going to happen. But I wouldn’t rush into things thinking, this needs to happen now. Now, I think it’s good to have a level of urgency, but don’t put too much pressure. I think I put too much pressure on myself in my early days, trying to get to somewhere that didn’t quite mean to get to.

Yeah.

Yeah. And you know, you’re definitely the market leader in Dental media, but you’re no longer the biggest company in Dental media, from what I can see. I mean, some of these gigantic companies that are now involved with exhibitions and all that. What are your views on the competitive landscape?

Yeah.

I would say we are the largest Dental communications company from a from a media perspective in terms of Dental media. I think the competitive landscape, again, it’s a really interesting one, right? Because I think as you alluded to, we are general high street practice. We’re not that IT media and we do regional shows. And I think if you look through the market since Covid, there’s been a huge transition, right, including exhibitions. And I think you look across the board, not not just in Dental, but in all of these other, other sectors that the big large shows have all taken a massive hit, right, because of this end of funnel 3% ROI. And I remember when, you know, you would go to many early shows and yeah, in life and you must have spent some serious dough with these parties. And I think, you know, when you look at the way that the market is now and everyone’s focussed on that ROI and the funnel is you can’t drop a hundred K investment on a show for two days to speak to 300 people, because you’re not going to get that return. And I think we noticed that quite early on, and hence why we launched our regional model, that we’re not trying to be massive and 10,000 stans and the rest of it, we’re just trying to get people to to affluent and populated areas in the UK that don’t tend to travel. So I’m really excited about the future of the shows. I think they’re gaining really solid traction, and I think our content program for next year is looking incredible, which again now. So I’m really excited about that.

And then I think on the traditional publishing side, I think, you know, there’s some great, great magazines and there’s some great titles out there and they they do a phenomenal job. And I think we do really well with what we do. I genuinely don’t believe there’s anybody that can touch us from a digital perspective from Dental UK, our social reach, you know, our data and our investment in, in in that approach. So, you know, we’re constantly pushing the boundaries and obviously as we move into a cookieless future which which we all know has come in and, you know. If you look at the entry, we generate about 98,500 unique users, of which about 68,000 of them are logged into the site. So we know their details and we can track them. That’s going to become incredibly powerful when cookies are unavailable because you can’t pixel. And obviously what you’ve done, where you’re giving the money to Mark Zuckerberg. If you can’t pixel, you know, all of these things that you’re doing, you’re going to need an organisation that has that data, has that infrastructure, and we’ve been doing that for the last 4 or 5 years. And we have a data team that’s just constantly looking at that user journey and harnessing data and. You know. So I think it’s more about how people are preparing for the future. And, you know, I know how hard that journey has been over the last four years and the development and the infrastructure and the team and the investment that’s gone into developing that. You know, I wish anyone luck who’s going through that now because it’s not easy.

Yeah.

What’s the future of FMC? Craig, you alluded earlier to a situation that obviously you can’t talk too much about, but I’m sure we’ll be announced in the in the near future. You mentioned an upcoming acquisition. So what’s the plan moving forward? Is it is it acquiring complementary businesses to increase your footprint and exposure? Obviously to grow it. Where do you see FMC between now and the next five years? What’s the plan?

So I think, you know, as I said, I think media and now and awards and events and that side of the business is at the heart of what we do. And really diving into the education and and building solutions that allow individuals and practices to to really become better clinicians and, and better practices, whether that’s through education, whether that’s developing systems that can make their life easier through compliance or HR and or asset management, and really trying to build that infrastructure of products that can help practices perform better and taking our hassle. So I think, you know, I think there’s great product out there. I generally do, and I’m not just saying that for lip service, but I think that there’s a there’s definitely an opportunity for a slicker, easier interface and platform with content that can help a lot because I think a lot of the platforms that are out there at the moment and feedback from clinicians is that they’re great. They tick a box, but they’re quite clunky in their hearts and views. And so I think, you know, developing that side of the business and really having it led by dentists for dentists is going to be something that that will ultimately help the profession.

Okay. And so you talk about platform there and obviously having a better platform improving the platform and so on and so forth. But if you could just paint a picture in five years time, what would FMC be doing something fundamentally different through its acquisitions?

Yeah, I think.

It would really it would really break into the professional offering. So at the minute, if you ask people about FMC, they probably know us through the private industry awards, or they might know Dentrix or they know dentistry magazine. Yeah. And I think in five years time we’d be known for that, as well as offering market leading solutions for practices.

So you mean B2B as well as B2C?

Yes. Yeah. Well.

I mean.

As in as in.

As in dentists. Yeah.

As in.

Yeah, but but but so, so so the offering rather than FMC being predominantly a company that allows businesses that want to advertise to dental practices, also directly helping dental practices to improve their businesses as well. Correct. Yeah.

That’s you articulated that much better than I did.

Sometimes I just want to wrap my head around things in a really simple way. So just for my simple mind to understand. Um, so. Yeah, that’s that’s brilliant.

Before we move on to the final questions, before we move on, what would you say is your biggest mistake you’ve made in your working life, Craig?

It’s been a few. It’s definitely been a few things. A couple of.

Ping pong, ping pong games.

They do fun games.

And. Yeah, I think two biggest one one was being too obsessed. I think in two ways is, is is is panned out for me really well. But then it’s a big a big impact. You know, it has an impact on the family. Right. And I think you know we we touched on it just before I lost my brother in law 18 months ago, which is really impacted my, my, my family at home. And I think, you know, you. I would say big mistake is being too obsessed with with the end goal and the mission and not actually taking time back to to probably being a bit selfish. In all honesty, I’d say that’s a big mistake. And then the other one is is is getting going at things too quick. So making rash decisions. And, you know, we made a rash decision with launching the Cardiff Dentistry Show. Absolute shocker.

And.

Craig, have you have ever had the biggest? I always ask so asks this question. Then I try to dig into the detail. Right? So rather than a mistake we made as a collective, a mistake Craig made as an individual, and when you made that mistake, you had an oh shit moment. So like, like almost like you’ve just made a mistake, right? Whether you’ve jumped off a phone with a, with a supplier or a dentist or whatever, and then you think, fuck, I can’t believe I’ve just done that. Yeah. Any of those?

Yeah, yeah, definitely been one of them. Actually, I had a meeting today and I won’t I won’t name any names, but we had a, um, we had a leadership team meeting, um, last week, and we had, you know, the idea was to be really open and honest and understand as a business where, you know, to basically to align everyone to say, this is the journey, this is where, where we’re going and let’s get everything on the table. And a lot of, you know, I’m quite a simple character, and if there’s an issue, I’d like to raise it. And I raised an issue with an individual in a fairly direct way and didn’t really show too much empathy with with the way it was delivered. And I remember leaving the meeting and I knew that it had to be said because it was generally there to help. And I remember I left the meeting and I went back and I spoke to my wife and I said, I think I’ve really messed up there. And, um, so I called this individual on Thursday and in my head, I had this plan that I was going to apologise for the way that I delivered it. They explained why I said it and and in my head I was like, the conversation is going to go like that. It’s all going to go fine, man. It it should. And it went the complete opposite. We ended up having a huge argument, really unprofessional.

And, um, exactly what you said. I got off the phone and I thought, I’ve absolutely messed this up, but I’ve really, really let the team down there because they felt that I’d been untrustworthy and and betrayed them. And it was not my intention. And and I felt awful. Absolutely awful. And then a senior member of the team and I have a really important role. And I had a really important role with the awards on Friday. And then, you know, you know, that feeling when you go home and you just feel sick, you just like, you know, you’ve really messed up. And I felt sick and, and and we had a meeting today and I explained it and, and I tried to articulate it and I apologise and I haven’t and it’s all fine and it’s all settled. But I’d say in, in recent times that’s been the one that’s really, um, you know, as a mistake, I think, not rushing into things and dealing with everybody in the same way. Right. Everyone’s got different emotional levels. And the way that you approach people is, I can talk to someone in one way and be really direct, but in other ways I need to adapt the way I say it and still get the same outcome, but I need to be more sensitive to their situation. And yeah, so hopefully that answers the question.

It does, it does.

It’s lonely at the top, my buddy.

Um.

Let’s move on to the final questions. Prav. Let’s let’s start with mine. Let’s start with mine, because yours is more profound. Yeah? Yeah. Craig. Fantasy dinner party.

Yeah.

Three guests. Dead or alive. Who would you have?

Yet, so I’d have my brother in law out of the way. He’s, um. You know, he was a good way. And he was a fun, fun guy. But in all honesty, I want to understand. But not not to get too deep into it. But, you know, he he suffered with, with depression, which we wasn’t aware of. So I’d like to get into that because I know mental health is obviously a big thing within our profession, but, um, to try and understand what happened there and try and give those answers to my wife and, and then then make my life easier there and then on a more positive, uplifting guess, I’d say. Reed Hastings. So, so CEO, founder of Netflix. I think we spoke a lot about culture today, and obviously they released the book, Netflix culture and, you know, just fascinated in the way that he did. You know, it doesn’t have a number of holidays, doesn’t have a time machine. You know, he lets his team do what they want, when they want. They can take their voting, voting, you know, their holidays whenever they like. Just that mindset of how we develop that. And I think that’d be fascinating. Fascinating. Just really getting into into those details. Um, and then Elon Musk, you know, that that vision of, you know, like your reaction there is, you know, he’s crazy, but the vision that he’s got and how he sees things from such an early point on, before anyone who had thought of that, how does that work? And what is it that he sees and he believes? And is it is it a gut instinct that, you know, I just would love to understand that in more detail.

I like that. Prav Prav wouldn’t have much, much, much sympathy for the pick your own holidays. Prav I’m joking. Just a joke. It’s just a joke, buddy.

Lucky you.

You see, one thing I’ve noticed is your Prav has to be very careful with what he says on this pod. Yeah, because members of his team listen to this pod as they’re editing it and so forth.

But listen, mate.

I’m absolutely cool with it. Yeah.

Absolutely cool.

You’ve changed man.

There you go.

Craig. It’s your imagine. Yeah. So she last day on the planet and you’re surrounded by your loved ones, the kids, and you have to leave them with three pieces of life advice or wisdom? What would they be?

Oh three. So I’d say be authentic. You know, I think we probably all going through life when you’re with groups of people and you’re trying to make it and try and do things and saying things to impress and to to have an impact. But ultimately it’s not you. And and I think these people always get found out. So I always say to them, be authentic, be yourself. No. Trust what you believe in. And and everything will come good. Because, you know, I think people understand when when someone’s being authentic, like you can, you can see the bullshit life and it irritates me. So I think be authentic. I think the other thing is, I’d say cherish the moments. You know, I think we’re all in a world of of, you know, living in the fast pace and a fast pace and looking at the next goal. And where are we going to get to and how are we going to do this? But actually, you know, just just cherish the small things, you know, like having a cup of coffee in the morning with your wife and your kids in the garden, like just, you know, it’s simple, but just just enjoy the moments because you don’t know when they’re when they’re going to end and then you don’t know what’s around the corner. And, you know, we’ve obviously gone through tragic times the last few years with, with you know, Ken’s lost and my brother in law. And I think that really heightened the fact that, you know, just just enjoy the successes and enjoy the small things because, you know, what’s it all about, why you work so hard and you do all these things and but you know what? No one’s going to ever going to remember half of it. But your family will remember the the little holidays, the walks on the beach, the coffees in the morning. And so I’ll definitely need to start doing that more. And then lastly. I’d say.

Just work hard.

And then be consistent. You know, I think there’s there’s too many of this, this next generation coming through that, trying to get these get rich quick schemes. And, you know, they they see the success on social media and they don’t see the, the ten years of growth and just just work hard and be consistent. And I think even when you don’t want to get up and you don’t want to go to work, get up, go to work, try your hardest and then go home. And you do that every day. You’ll be all right. Don’t don’t cut corners. Don’t try and cheat. Just just be consistent and work really hard.

Incredible advice.

Thank you Craig.

And really, really the way you’ve lived your your career there Craig. Right. I’m so, so very proud of the three of you having dealt with you so over the years and and always enjoyed dealing with you. I’m so proud of what you guys have achieved. You know, it’s a wonderful thing and it’s a wonderful thing that you’re carrying on Ken’s sort of work. Really well done man.

Thank you Matt.

I think it’s really inspirational mate. And yeah, I think we need to I think we need to have episode two of that Curry, mate.

Yeah, definitely. We’ll have him.

Back in five years and see if any of the stuff he says comes true or not.

But that’d be gone and I’d enjoy that. But thanks. Thanks so much for having me on. I’ve really enjoyed it. It was, you know, good to actually go back and reflect on the things, because I think without the these platforms and talking about it, you actually forget about, you know, how things be working career. And it’s actually yeah, it’s been really enjoyable.

Amazing man. Thanks so much for doing this, buddy.

Thanks, Craig.

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

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

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

And don’t forget our six star rating.

Fitness fashion and lifestyle content creator Henry Wade chats with Rhona about his journey to being a successful content creator and leading a life in the social spotlight. 

Henry also chats about navigating controversy online, the search for validation, and why kindness is the best antidote to haters and trolls.   

 

02.05 – Henry’s story

04.21 – Learning Vs real-life experience

07.45 – Being a twin

15.09 – Starting in content creation

24.59 – Validation

30.41 – Social media, openness and mental health

40.24 – Monetising

42.35 – Controversy, censorship and de-platforming

50.53 – Trolls and haters and calling people out

01.01.13 – Darkest moments

01.04.41 – Marathons

01.10.57 – Alternative therapies and psychedelics

01.20.33 – Imposter syndrome

01.23.55 – High points

01.25.25 – Fashion, branding and business

 

About Henry Wade

Henry Wade is a fitness fashion and lifestyle content creator and marathon runner.

British culture is very meme culture. Like, we always like to take the piss. Take the piss. Whereas if you go to America, it’s very opposite, right? It’s like, yo bro, you got this. And I think the problem is both aren’t great because you go to America and you’re told you’re going to be the best at something, and then at 30 years old, you haven’t made it. And it’s like, well, what happened to the American dream, 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. And today we have the incredible Henry Wade. So Henry is a very, very known content creator. I actually met Henry. I didn’t meet him. This is a funny story I became when I first split up with my first boyfriend, I went to fitness first. It was a bit of a rough gym in Clapham, and I used to see Henry and his twin working out there all the time. And interestingly, I looked at you both and I was like, you just had presence. I just felt like you both were going to do really well. I didn’t even know what you had done. And then serendipity has it. We actually ended up meeting later on in life through friends, etcetera. And I was like, you were the one that was working out of Fitness first, and I had seen his content online. Henry’s extremely hard working. He’s become very successful in what he does. And interestingly, he transitioned from having, you know, quite a sort of generic career, I’d say, and, you know, making it online and, you know, really taking a leap of faith against what his family believes. Because I know you come from family in Cambridge and, you know, saying, like, I’m going to make this work and I’m going to make a career out of content creation. And more recently, he has focussed on fitness as well. Fitness has been a massive part of his life, has been doing marathon running, documenting that as well, which we’re going to cover. So welcome Henry.

Thank you very much. That was a very nice intro, so I really appreciate it. I was like smiling. They’re like, oh, I haven’t had this kind of compliment in a long time. So I really appreciate it.

Well, you know, a lot of love for Henry. We’ve known each other for a while now. So, Henry, I want to start from the beginning, as I do with a lot of people. Tell me a little bit about your childhood. I know you grew up in Cambridge, but tell me about, like, where you come, your background a little bit.

Yeah. So for the record, I’m 31 years old now. He keeps saying that.

Like he’s old. I’m like, do you know how old I am? Okay. Go on.

And I’m initially from Cambridge, so I grew up there and I then moved. Well, sorry, I went to Cambridge. Been there since all the way to college, then went to university and then went travelling and then I moved to London. So yeah, I’ve been grew up and grew up in Cambridge with a family of four, and I’m an identical twin, and I’ve got an older brother and an older sister as well. And then there’s me, the youngest one with mum and dad. So yeah.

Amazing. And you worked in nightlife, didn’t you? So after, was it after or during university?

It was actually during. So when I was at uni, that was the first time I separated from my twin brother. I kind of got the chance to build my own identity a bit and went to university, went to Newcastle, had an amazing time. I be honest, I kind of chose university life because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do next in my career, so I just chose a standard business and marketing course and I kind of went because of the nightlife. I watched one episode of Geordie Shore and thought, this will be epic, like me and Gaz of Geordie Shore, like going to get on anyway. I started becoming a co-promoter because I thought, you know what? This is a great way to meet people, make friends and I then did quite well, became a junior manager and then because I sold so many tickets, I had so many people on my guest list and then I became a senior manager. So I started essentially running my own nights, and it only took me to like a few years ago to really realise how important that job was for me, because while everyone was getting placement years at university and going to like all these amazing companies, which I didn’t actually get, I tried to, but I couldn’t get them. And I actually realised, like the communication skills I learnt during this job, some of the best I’ve ever done in my entire life. Like I can talk to anybody now and it’s I think that’s a really powerful tool to have, and they’re the kind of skills I probably don’t think I’d have got, or having the confidence to go and speak to anyone is I probably won’t have got those skills. If I’d have gone to like a corporate company and kind of just worked and seen how their business runs.

And do you know, that’s interesting. I’m going to I’m going to interject there because I saw a post. So as you as I told you, like the majority of people that tune in with me in Payman are dentists and a lot of them have been confused because within dentistry there’s loads of courses, right? Because obviously clinical skills is like a big part of our career. So, you know, you learn how to do like crowns and veneers and bonding and Invisalign and all the stuff that you know about. But the one thing that they really lack is that communication skill that you said. And even though we go to university for like five, six years or longer, if you want to specialise, they still feel they can’t communicate with people you know, they still feel they can’t talk to patients. Why do you.

Think? When I was a kid, I used to be so scared to go to the dentist? It’s the very thing, isn’t it? Yeah. The dentist is the scary place to go. Like they’re not the nice people. They put their fingers in your mouth and it’s just like all these tools go in. Whereas I think that’s definitely changing now. I think you’re doing a great job in the industry of doing that. And other dentists as well. I know, and.

Your dentist, Henry didn’t choose me, that’s why.

Yeah, but yeah, a couple of you do great. And I think that’s amazing for the industry to kind of change that thing about it. But yeah, as you were saying, I think those communication skills are really, really important. But do you.

Think the communication skills were because you worked in nightlife, or do you think it was because you went to university? Do you see what I mean?

Think it’s a little bit of both. Like when I went to university. As I said before, it was the first time away from my twin and we were always together. So it was always like, oh, okay, I’ll turn up to the party or I’ll turn up to school with Will. And we always kind of had each other to bounce off of, whereas going to university, I had to really come out of my like, oh shit, I haven’t got a twin with me. Yeah, everyone’s going to know me as just Henry. I’ve kind of got to be this, who am I? Like, so I was like, all right, I’ve got to be the communicating and energetic and outgoing guy I think I am. And I was, and I became confident because I had to grow my own confidence and because I didn’t have will. So I was like turning up to university lectures on my own, making friends with those people and those university lectures, heading on nights out and meeting people on nights out. Actually going to university again is one as well, I think really makes you step out of your shell because you are stepping into an environment where there’s no one else you really know, none of your friends are really there, so you kind of just do it by yourself, and you are thrown into a situation where you have to make friends. And I think for everyone who goes to university, I think there’s so much topics right now and people talking about how you don’t need to go to university and you don’t have to be successful to go to university, but I think there’s so many benefits of still going in personal development and self growth. And I know a lot of people, not just myself, have gone to university and been like.

I’m massively pro it, I think, I think I’d be interested to see what you think. Like obviously for vocational degrees like dentistry, medicine, etcetera. Oh, 100%. You got to go. Yeah, totally. But a lot some people say they think it was a complete waste of time. But I think that the connections that you form and the experiences you had, there’s something in that 100%.

I think for me, I’ll be totally honest. I don’t think I learnt that much about business and marketing, like sitting in a room. I think with business you learn by doing, you generally do like I’ve done that through all my content creation. I’ve learnt by doing and if you don’t do it, you never know. So you’ve got to put yourself through the through the process and learn. And then so which is great. And I think that’s perfect. But um. Oh sorry. Where was I?

Perfect. The business and marketing. Yeah.

That’s right. I didn’t really feel I learnt so much from actually doing business and marketing the actual degree, but like I said, the meeting people, the job I did, that was the stuff I really learnt. And I wouldn’t ever say to anyone, not go to university. But yeah, if you want to go, go. But if you don’t, you don’t have to.

But I think as well, maybe it is a stop gap for people that don’t know what they want to do. Yeah, yeah, maybe it is a stop gap because maybe you need that time to go through like your growing pains or, you know, but also like university can equally it was pretty traumatic for me. Like I think being thrown into an environment like I’d never university for me was like a really weird experience because I’d, I’d grown in a multicultural society in central London in a day school. The halls that I was put in was very much like everyone was like from public school. I was like the only brown person. And I was very much, like, treated like in a certain way, like I had all friends, you know, I had a great social life, but it was a different experience. And there was, there was, there was like a kind of difficulty and like somewhat, but obviously that shaped me as a person as well. So I think, you know, there’s definitely like pros and cons to it. But yeah, what I want to know as well is you’re an identical twin. Yeah. Right. And I don’t know if you know, like as an I’m really interested either one of you about studies because being an identical twin is that difficult. And like in terms of like identity, you remember there was a documentary. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, either one of you where there was triplets. Yeah. That was amazing. I can’t remember.

Three identical strangers. Yeah, I haven’t.

Actually seen it, but I’ve heard it’s amazing.

It’s amazing.

So basically, the therapist keeps telling me to watch it. Yeah.

Yeah.

So so so so it’s really amazing because those three, those those triplets were separated at birth. It has a dark turn in the end because it was a social experiment by someone that kept doing these experiments. And when they got reunited, it was all great. And then there was a huge problem with like identity crisis, etcetera. Do you think that, like biologically there is something about being a twin, a triplet or whatever, you know, and how it affects who you are and who you believe you are? And like whether you have that sense of like being oneself.

Oh, that’s such a good question because no one will ever know unless they’re an identical twin. What it’s physically like to be an identical twin, right? Yeah. And growing up, Will and I always had this thing about us where we weren’t really known as Henry or Will. It was always the way twins. Oh, it’s the two twins. The two twins. And in school, if one of us did something right, or most, most of the time, if one of us did something wrong, then it always threw back on the other person. So if we all got told off in a class that teachers instantly going to categorise him as being naughty and they’re going to think I’m naughty as well, because we come in pairs, right? Yeah. Very normal. We pushed down the pram together. Oh, those two look so sweet. Do you know what I mean? It’s never like oh, one of you or whatever. And then, um, as I said earlier, the only time we really got to find ourselves as our own identity was when we went to university. But the funny thing is, by, yeah, we were building our own, building our own identity and becoming our becoming our self. What was funny was we still did the exact same thing. So he did a business course. We both began our first year working at Nando’s. So? So did he. So did I. And then we left Nando’s both. Club promoters both got promoted to junior manager. And then it was weird because those two companies, we became like top of those companies, both knew each other as well.

So it was like, oh, we tried to become ourselves, but then we kind of have our self identity, but we can’t forge back into it. And then when travelling together, we got home from travelling, went to London. We both had similar kind of jobs to begin with whilst we were becoming creators, and then we realised we’re probably better off together. I think the thing with being a twins is you’re very competitive and growing up like Will and I both wanted to always be the winning one, whether it be grades or 100 metre races or whatever. We did all sports and it would always be like, I want to beat Will, but I want him to come second by like five, just just a bit. But I don’t want him to beat me. And it was every race, every run, every football team. We wanted to get picked first, but over him will be the captain or whatever. But the older we got, we started to really compete and it made us get to who we were. Like we did really well in sports and achievements and academics. We weren’t so bad either. However, we realised instead of like keep battling and competing, collaborating with each other so much more beneficial. And that’s when we started to grow, like our Instagram and TikTok following by actually being together. Because don’t get me wrong, it’s cool being a white male in today’s industry. However, there are so many other tall white males doing what I do in fitness and fashion.

So what can make you really stand out from the crowd? For me, I’m very fortunate to have an identical twin, so and it’s great. And we are best friends. Like you’ve heard. I’ve heard horror stories of twins having like hating each other, whereas Will and I, we get on so, so well. We’ve. Yeah, don’t get me wrong, we bicker like 13 year old boys still, which is very family. But we’re definitely learning learning to navigate that a lot better. And I think that’s so important. I think we always will in our entire lives because, yeah, I never talk to Carmen. How I sometimes talk to Will, and it sometimes takes me to realise, like if he leaves something in the sink, I’ll go will clean it up. Whereas if Carmen did that, my girlfriend, I’d be like, I’ll just grab it and put it in the dishwasher. But because he’s my brother, I feel like I need to tell him. However, I’ve like now started to realise I look at that and go, is this worth picking a fight for? No it’s not. Pick it up, put it in the dishwasher. Like if I wouldn’t talk to him like that, my girlfriend like that, why should I talk to him like that? Just because he’s my brother, I shouldn’t. And. Yeah, so. But it’s it’s a head game because like I said, I’ve known him my entire life. I’ve been in the womb with him. Like we are so close. But can I ask you something?

Do you know if biologically there’s any studies to show, like whether, like, you can ever fully be, like, separate or separated? Like, is there any studies around twins? You might not know this I don’t.

Know, do you know? Well, I thought, you know, all this stuff about gut microbiome. Yeah. And the guy was saying that his his research interest was twins because twins end up getting different diseases. And his question was, why do twins get different diseases if they’re genetically the same? Environmentally very similar. I’ve got something for.

You there, like Will. My family has this, I don’t know.

One second. That was all right. Okay. Go ahead.

My brother has this really bad eye condition called keratoconus, I think. I think that’s right. Maybe I’ve pronounced it wrong. So if anyone on here knows that, please pronounce it correctly.

Keratitis.

Similar, but I’m not sure. But basically it basically means the his eyes, the pupils are shaped, I think like footballs instead of rugby balls or the other way around. I can’t remember which one it is. And the doctor is like the number one surgeon who tests who does his eyes for him, because we had to go privately, and because it was so he got so bad, he had to be jumped into hospital straight away and put under the knife and have it sorted. It got that bad and the doctor was like, we need to get you twin in here ASAP because he’s going to have something and it’s so funny that I don’t have it. And I still now get tested every 18 months and the doctor goes to me. I’m still have no idea why you don’t have it. And they’ve realised it’s in my system, but it hasn’t quite triggered. So Will’s will got it and it triggered, whereas I haven’t had it and it triggered and he’s still so shocked, which is so weird.

So so so this this researcher found the microbiome was very different in twins, so different bacteria. And so he was he was blaming, he was saying, well that’s where he could see that the effect of different bacteria on people. When you look at the effect of different bacteria on twins, because the one thing that’s very different in the measurements between twins is the bacteria that lives in their gut.

Yeah, maybe. I think there’s so many studies now coming up about gut and how it’s one of the main factors. Controlling everything, controlling everything. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s become only in the last real year. So it’ll be interesting to see.

Well, we’ve talked as well. You’ve had a lot of like stuff with your gut. You know, we kind of had that conversation and you know a lot around that with mental health, which I want to go into 100%. But before we actually delve into that. So I just want to know, how did you rise? I know you might think like, I don’t say this, but how did you rise to TikTok and Instagram fame? Oh so and like, how did you make that transition? Because a lot of people want to know that. They want to know how to, like, make a living out of just being a content.

So in America, the number one most wanted job now apparently is like a YouTuber, TikToker, Instagram like an influencer. People want to be kids.

Yeah.

For kids. Your kids too.

Not my kids, but kids in general.

Yeah, your kids are probably all right, I think. I think the thing is, people see this lavish life we all post about, like, you get the free products, you get paid to work with these amazing brands. Your life is sorted, like, almost like you get free dinners and you think it’s all glamorous. And don’t get me wrong, it can be at times, but there is a very stressful side to it that I think a lot of people don’t don’t show. But we’ll go. We’ll move on to that. But the question you initially asked was, how did I rise to stardom, essentially, as you said. So back in, oh, when I was travelling the world, because obviously TikTok came after Instagram. So this is our Instagram story. We were travelling Australia and we and all the world.

And you’re working in nightlife still then? No, no this.

Is we packed our bags came backpackers. And this was when Facebook was big. Instagram was kind of just coming up and it was like Twitter, everyone’s on Twitter promoting the news or whatever. And we basically got to Australia after doing Cambodia, Thailand, all the Southeast Asia countries. And honestly, we were just alcoholics, like all we did was drink booze, get pissed and not really see these countries for what they were. And we got to Australia and Will and I were in such bad physical shape, like we were weighty. And I was like, what the hell? I went for a run and almost puked. And I’ve never been this like this before. I’ve just been drinking for six months. I had one night off in like six months because all I was, all me and my mates were doing was getting pissing in Thailand or whatever. And don’t get me wrong, it was amazing. Still had the best time ever and I’ll never change that experience. But I got to Australia and Will and I, we suddenly went from being in the worst shape ever to being so obsessed with fitness and got into the best shape of our lives. We were so lean, like 4% body fat, like we were walking down the Aussie beach. These fitness trainers have been on the front of mental health for telling us we’re too lean, we need to put on some weight and we’re going, no, not lean enough, not lean enough.

I’m sure we all wanted the six pack of dreams, which you never we thought we didn’t have yet, but we did looking back and we were like, right, let’s start documenting some fitness and doing these, like twin workout things. And we had a page, the Weight Twins. Then we had our own personal Instagram as well, and we then left Australia and we started travelling back. And instead of seeing the world being like alcoholics again, we thought, let’s really like be normal. Like do it well, get up for sunrises, do yoga’s, do runs on the beach or whatever, and see this place with the real beauty it is, and you don’t always have to be pissed essentially on the on the booze. So we picked up a camera in Japan, picked up a little canon in Australia, and we started documenting our journey. Just like selfies, we didn’t have a clue how to use this equipment, and I was YouTubing how to use Lightroom and Photoshop and change colours and stuff, and I was making everything oversaturated, and we started documenting and and doing all these things. And it was, it was quite funny at the time was all our friends were commenting on our photos being like, lol, this is a joke. We started a website as well called the twins.com and where we wanted to write blogs on our travels and everyone was like I was getting emails.

I remember the first ever email I got through it was you’re a joke from a fake account being like, you’re never going to make it. This is the biggest laughing thing I’ve ever heard, and I’ll never. I wish I still had a screenshot of that, but obviously I was so embarrassed at the time. Like I was like, am I doing the wrong thing? And it makes you really question whether you’re doing the right thing. And but luckily I had willed Fall Back On. He was like, when he had a bad day, I was there to pick him up and go, no, don’t worry, just keep going, keep going. When I had a bad day, it was the opposite. He was the one picking me up, which was great. So we started documenting our journey and we got back to London, Cambridge, where we lived, and we had about maybe ten, ten, 11,000 followers by this time. And I remember we were ordering these clothes because we had cool wardrobes at home. We really wanted to get back into our main fashion and we were like taking photos on our back garden. And we were like, what are we doing? This is a waste of time. We need to be in London. And we ended up both moving to London and literally had about £2,000 in my bank. Not much money at all, and Will had probably less because he spent a lot more and we both lived in different areas in the most tiniest bedsits in the world.

I had a single bed and I was living with five other people with one bathroom, and I remember just having to bang on the door, please let me into the bathroom. We used to have to literally run outside, sometimes just to go to the bathroom, because I was so desperate because this, this girl next door would take so long and we were like, right, how can we really continue this Instagram and content creation we’re doing? And but we need to make a living, right? So we had to get a job part time. He worked for an events company, and I worked for a start up company with a drinks company, and we’re both working five days a week. And I was like, right, we still need to create content. So every day we would like essentially go for a meeting. And that meeting would be like, we would go for a meeting with some drinks brand or whatever, and I’ll go for a meeting with like Tesco’s CEO, one of my clients, and I really would just be sneaking my camera out and going to meet Will and shooting around London. And then also we’d do it in the evenings, we’d do it on the weekends all the time. And we were like, right? So we kept shooting content.

And whilst this was happening in the evenings, there was always events on H&M, Topman, All Saints or whatever these events and fashion brands would be. And we were like, right, we want to work with these brands, but how can we get put in the face of them? And we were networking with other creators at this time, finding out how London works and. What their experiences of, or if we wanted to collaborate with them and shoot content with them. And we’ll get sent all these events. But we weren’t invited to them. So we would just be like, should we just turn up and see what happens? Because what’s the worst that’s going to happen to us? We’re just going to get a no, and they’re going to just go, all right, screw it. We’ll go for a drink by ourselves. Whatever. Yeah. So we would turn up to these events and our analogy was who’s going to turn down two well-dressed six foot three lads, and every time nine out of ten will get in even without an invite, because we’ll just show them like the thing and all your name’s not on the list are. We’re so, so, so weird. Like, anyway, what we’ll do when we were in that room would not just go for the booze and go for the free nibbles, which 18 year old Henry would have done.

It was right. Who’s the PR marketing? Who’s the PR manager? Who’s the marketing manager and who’s the head of brand? And I want to meet that person in five minutes. Get their email, have a good chat with them, show them the content I do right there and then, and then schedule a meeting with them. Within two weeks, I’ll have a meeting with that person, whether it be coffee or a lunch, and then within like a week after that, I’ll have free clothes from them, and then after that I’ll put you have a job with them as well. I love that that was for me. Like I think now moving forward, I can put that what I did there into other areas of my life as well, and other businesses I do because it’s the same thing. It’s all like you initially start doing things for free. If you’re a dentist, you may want to do something free for your free for a client. Show them. Show someone what work you can do, how good these teeth are. And then someone sees that and they go, oh, I like that. I’ll then pay for it. It’s the same with any business. It’s the same kind of process. And then our following was going up and up and we started to get more followers. And then we got a few viral videos and then that kind of blew up.

And how did you know back then in Australia where you started filming that that’s what you want to do? I mean, because it wasn’t influencer land, wasn’t exactly what it is now. Yeah. Which year are we talking? Oh.

Wow. This must have been 25. So about seven years ago maybe.

Okay. So there was.

Something it was just started I think. Well, and I would say we’re phase 2 or 3. There was a phase one who were like.

That was that was your stated goal, you to become a big on these platforms?

It wasn’t necessarily a goal. It was more of a we wanted, didn’t want to be pretty boys just prancing our thing around because that’s quite easy to be done. But we wanted to offer value where we could because I think there’s a fine balance of offering value, but also showing off on content creation. And it’s okay to do both because a lot of people want that. Oh, I wish I had that live or oh, I wish I had that kind of moment. But then also if you offer value, it’s like, okay, that was that was a good piece of content. So Will and I were initially started when we’re in Australia was like, right. We saw everyone in the UK posing on the streets of London and show off fashion, and I was just and no one was English, no one had a personality. It was like I just saw all these people who were from Europe doing it in England, and I was like, well, why are they all doing it? There’s no English British lads doing this. Like and I think there was.

Probably a taboo though, because you said even like people were taking the piss out of you like, oh yeah, totally. Your friends.

Always do.

But but that’s the thing. But I think that’s a male thing, right. Because they see they see like that career or doing that stuff online as being very feminine I think. Do you know what I mean? As in like and then.

It’s just that I think it’s also like British culture is very meme culture. Like we always like to take the piss, take the piss. Whereas if you go to America, it’s very opposite, right? It’s like, yo bro, you got this. And I think the problem is both aren’t great because you go to America and you’re told you’re going to be the best at something, and then at 30 years old, you haven’t made it. And it’s like, well, what happened to the American dream? Right? So they need a bit of like downgrading, whereas we need a bit more of that boost because everything’s a meme. You get taken the piss out all the time, but the way Will and I stopped. That was just like we encouraged each other and we’re like, we know what we want. We had our goal, we had our view and we had our vision. And if you’ve got that, I think sometimes when people look at you and laugh, it is one of the best things that can happen to your career. It’s one of the best things that happen because you know you’re on the right path. It’s like that old saying.

In dentistry Rona’s managed it. Yeah, but but I come across hundreds of dentists and I asked him, do you have an Instagram? And they say, no.

Yeah, so do I. I’ve actually got a friend who’s a dentist right now. And I said, why don’t you set up your Instagram friend? Her name’s Hannah. She’s my girlfriend’s, one of my best friend’s girlfriend, best friend. And I’m like, I’m like, it’s like a hairdresser set up an Instagram account for hair.

But then the reason why often there’s a they don’t want to share their work, you know, because everyone’s very critical. The judgement, the judgement. Very true, very true. And and often it’s being uncomfortable in front of camera. So how did you get over these questions or did that not bother you at all? You were like, no.

Before Henry goes on with that, his story reminded me of mine in terms of like people say, how did you get on TV and the easy cop out way? As you know, people say she paid PR. I’m like, hun, I didn’t have PR back then. I went outside ITV studio and I stood outside that studio for about 5 or 6 hours until Zoe Williams came out. The doctor. Yeah, yeah. And she came out.

Telling me that story. I was like.

I had messaged her loads to meet me, and she took a chance and she met me for coffee and I said, I want to do this. And she was like, well, why do you want to do it in the same way that you just asked Henry? Why? Did you want to do the content? For me, it was the bigger vision. And I’m going to be completely honest. I wanted to leave a legacy. I wanted to leave a legacy within my field. I didn’t want to be in a life where I was like, I got up, I drilled a few teeth, I did a few small makeovers. Impact. And the fact is, no matter what anyone says, platforms such as social media, TV, radio, etcetera, they give you that platform to reach more people and therefore have a bigger impact. And I’m not talking just about a narcissistic way, but it’s just that value add that you just said to me, it’s giving value to people.

But it’s a particular flavour of impact. So I want to have impact. That’s why I started this company. Yeah, but it’s a particular flavour where you’re you are the product. And that’s what a lot of people suffer with, with you two don’t.

So what you said there about offering value is so difficult in the world I live in, I think because there are times where I’ll create a piece of content and I’ll sit there and I’ll go, I really like it, but where’s the value? There? And I’ll show a friend it or I’ll show you it and they’ll go, but it’s so entertaining. That’s the value. And I’m like, is it, is it like, yeah. And I’m like, is it like, should I not be doing. I go to the gym all the time. Five best ways to grow your chest as a male or something because there’s value there but may not be entertaining, but.

Education, education, entertainment but there’s different.

Value. Well, yeah, there you go. But I sometimes struggle to see that because I’m always I think we’re always critiques of our own work. And what you’re saying there about why not all dentists set up their, their accounts. Because we are the worst critique. Like, you have a spot on your chin. Who sees it? You. Does anyone else see it? No. Because we we worry about so much what other people think about us. And it’s it’s detrimental to our success.

But validation is a form of addiction. Right. And I’m going to go out there because everyone’s like, what’s your addiction, Raina? You don’t drink, you don’t take drugs, you don’t, you know, and I’ll tell you right now, I’m going to say to the world, my addiction is validation. So I do get a dopamine hit when I get approval online on something. You know, if a video does well, I’m like, that’s done. Well, great. I have a great day. Comments. You look good. This is I love this. Your work looks great right? Because that is mine.

I thought you.

Didn’t like it when someone said you looked good because I’m not Trustpilot or something.

Now, I said you don’t need to leave. Oh, here we go, here we go. I said, you don’t need to.

Ever since I heard you say that, I don’t tell you if you look good anymore.

So he basically I said to him, no, I said, when people give you well, this is the thing, right? Because on the one hand, and I’m sure Henry can relate to me right on the one. Like I’m saying, you know, when people give negative views, I’m like, I don’t need your opinion. I’m not. What’s the one for the travel agents, the reviews. You know, I’m talking about travel.

Tripadvisor.

Tripadvisor. I’m not TripAdvisor. I didn’t ask you for a review. Just you. I mean. Yeah, but that would be like, you know, if you get some kind of review, someone would be like, you look much better with brown hair. Like, oh, I don’t like your copper hair. Do you know? I mean, of course it’s an opinion. But then, like, at the same time, if people are like, you look great, it validates the decision I’ve made.

We love that. That’s why. Why do we go out? Why do we get a new haircut? Why do we? Why do we go to do our teeth? Why do we dress up? Well.

I thought you didn’t want it in either direction.

Shower me. Show me the compliments.

Look. Great. What was.

What was interesting? What you said there about validation. You want validation is something that I’ve realised about myself is wanting. Wanting to impress. So when I was a kid growing up, I was. Will and I were always in trouble. We were the naughty kids at school and we always wanted to impress our mom and dad every time something bad happened. So give you an example when I was, and I’ve got these childhood memories in me distilled and it’s probably who I who I’ve why they’ve shaped me, who I am today. Because I remember being told by our like when I was in year two or year three, my teacher head teacher said, you are you don’t know the difference between right and wrong. And she told that to my parents in front of me. And she said, my mum and dad were distraught, not knowing as a kid I didn’t know the difference between right or wrong, whatever came to year six. And the woman told my mum and dad, I’m so sorry about making that comment. Your two boys are the politest I’ve ever met and things like that. And so we changed her perspective. But we always. So we always, always wanted to impress. So growing up, I’ve always wanted to impress. So when I run a marathon, I want to get a good time because I want to impress people watching me.

When the content I create, I want to get loads of likes. I want people to be impressed. So now my growing up, I was wanting to press my mum and dad. I was predicted E’s and F’s in GCSEs. I got a B’s and C’s and that for me was like I told you Mum and Dad. I knew I was going to get those F’s predicted. So there’s my proof. I’ve impressed them by doing that. Got into a great university, impressed them by doing that, got a good degree, impressed them by doing that, got set myself up a business and doing what I do in London, and managed to bring my mum down to do a fragrance profiling with some of the best high end profiles where she gets to pick out a £200 bottle. So I’m going to buy for her. That for me is impressing my family. And so now instead of impressing my family all the time, I feel I need to do it to my followers to impress them with good content. Or. And that’s similar to the validation thing. And it’s not a bad thing. It’s just I want to impress how? And I do it for me instead of do it for others. Sometimes it can be okay to do well.

Carrying on from that. Now let’s have let’s be real, right? There’s a dark side to social media, and you have your career right now is very much with your face, your body, you know, at the forefront. Has your mental health taken a turn since you have exposed yourself on social media, or do you ever worry about certain things being online?

I think it’s such a good question because as I said earlier to you guys, people, this is the number one job people want to do in their like now as kids, they look up to social media influencers more than they look up to actors and celebrities they look up to. They look up to influencers because we see so much of their life. But what you don’t see is always the bad parts or the. And a lot of people are doing it better now. A lot more people are showing you the struggles they do have in this industry, because there are so many like I have been, social media doesn’t sleep like sometimes as a dentist or as a corporate person. You can close the laptop at 5:00. That’s it’s another day tomorrow, right? Social media is 24 hours like it does not sleep seven days a week, 365 days a year. And I am trying to put out content. And if I don’t put out for six seven days, I’m forgotten about, like I guaranteed. Like if your favourite influencer deleted their account tomorrow, you may for a second go, oh that sucks, but you’ll find another one within three three days or two minutes. It’s just like, and I hate this. Like Kobe Bryant, one of the best basketball players in the world. Unfortunately, he died. But there will be other best players in the world. There were basketball still live on. It’s the same as me as my job. It will still live on if I don’t create content.

But I need to keep creating because that’s my job and my work. And if I stop, then I’m not going to be at the money or anything. So it’s like all the all grow my brand and it can keep you up at night. There’s new platforms coming, there’s new kids popping off. Your content you created the other day doesn’t get as many views. The algorithm isn’t working in your favour or something or some something out there isn’t working to your favour. And then you start questioning going am I? Do people not like me? Is my content not good? Is Instagram just hating me or is TikTok hating me? And then you start seeing other people do something and you’re like, oh, maybe I should follow that content. Should I start doing that now? And it’s like, no, stick in your lane. And it’s so hard because you see other people’s success and you want to get a bit of that success. So you may start dabbling into that type of content. But I think it’s really important to stick in your lane and keep authentic. Keep authentic. But oh, can you be authentic on Instagram now because so and these creating platforms because you’re selling yourself to an algorithm. Like sometimes you want to create the content you want to create because because in that moment you’re like I really enjoyed creating that. And that’s authentic. But then when you but then it doesn’t perform well, you go, oh, that must be the algorithm.

I think thinking dentistry there is like that risk of that. Right. And we see it as well. Like there’s a lot of disgruntlement because there’ll be like the dentists that are sort of like a little bit more on the geeky side, the academic side. And they like the content that’s like really like, like the tooth zoomed in like a million and then like, oh, let’s talk about this. And then they hate on the Instagram dentist like me that do better because their content is a little bit more clickbait or it’s just a small makeover. But I understand my audience. I’m not there to impress dentists. I’m there to impress patients. I’m there to get a following of people like they want to engage, because also I’m going to lose a big part of my audience and some patients that come to me, they don’t feel afraid to cry to me in the chair or like, hold my hand or something. And the reason why they don’t feel that is because they see the like type of authenticity that I put out on social media, so they don’t feel embarrassed. Do you know what I mean? But your personality as well?

Totally. So when I see you on Instagram, I don’t just see teeth, I see Rhona’s personality. And that’s when I meet you in person as well. I see that personality because it’s exactly what you are.

I feel like you’re massively needy for for professional validation.

Oh, totally. But I’m not because you.

Don’t want to be known as only Instagram. Good at Instagram.

Just like Henry said. What I resonate was is that like the teacher said, he was going to get E’s and F’s. Dentists thought I didn’t have any clinical skills, so I upped my clinical skills. I made them better. I’m pretty good now. Do you know what I mean? Now you have.

An entire dentistry and have people dentists working for you. That’s how good you are. Yeah, but the thing is.

Is that I still have. But there’s still those other people that are like, I’m looking at like the one fifth of this, like, angulation of the enamel or whatever, but I, I’m, that.

Means nothing to me, by.

The way. You know, like what.

What is that English.

But the point is, I know that my work is good because patients as well can now tell the difference between a good before and after. I don’t think before they really could. But now people are like, I like you because you put translucence in your teeth. They understand things a bit better. Do you see what I mean? And I think that of course, like Payman asked me earlier. Right. Because as you know, I’ve released my own course. Yeah. Interestingly enough, the majority of people that bought the course was on the first day I released it. 95% were young females that had been on the courses of loads of famous dentists. Why did they choose me as an. You’ll know them. I’m not going to say why. I said, well, why did you go? Why do you want to do my course? Because they also feel that there is not a strong female leader within the field, and they feel that I’m more personable when it comes to stuff, because as part of my course, I have like, you can do like one on one and contact me on WhatsApp and send me and they like that. So the interesting thing is with the cohort, because he said to me, are you getting criticism for your course? And I’m like, of course I’m going to get criticism, but I don’t care.

I don’t think you’re doing anything right if you aren’t getting criticism.

Yeah, no, 100%.

You can’t please everyone. Like even content I do like 50% may like it, 50% may not. And that’s okay. Like you can have things you can’t be. You can’t have everyone like everything you do. So I think the great thing.

About content is it finds its own audience in a way. Very true. Yeah. I mean, when you said mental health as you remember, it wasn’t really my subject. He was.

A bit like, why.

It’s not my subject. So I know it was your subject.

Do you suffer from it? Do you ever suffer from anxiety? No, I.

Realise I do now.

He does now he does. Before this I me damaged goods babes on this before.

But then. But then. But then because. Because I had the experience with the previous pod that, you know, we weren’t trying to do anything. We were just having some conversations. And those conversations found audience.

That’s so true.

And this pod will find audience. And then what you do find and people who are not into it will stop following you. Okay, so here’s the thing.

This is the one way I always bring it back to you. Right? And why I think people like us probably will be successful in life is because there is still a cult out there who believes the world is flat. And if they can build a following, even though it’s scientifically proven that the world isn’t flat and they can build a following and a cult around it.

That’s a nice way of saying.

Someone will buy your product or will follow you like it’s so so facts like yeah, so.

But so those because I think like one of the important thing is like you took that leap of faith, Henry. And I think, like even so many young dentists, as he said, are so afraid to start content production. But I always say start with something. Even if you get two likes, don’t worry about it. Just do it. You know what I mean? So what advice would you give for people that want to start a similar journey? Because this could be within any field, right? Because you could be. There are doctors, by the way, Dr. Ali is her name. His name is he’s the one. He’s the one. He’s huge. He gave up medicine and he didn’t.

Yeah. My friend was on his podcast the other day. He said.

Listen, do you know about him?

He’s done great.

So he’s done amazing.

I watched a video on him this morning.

So he has a YouTube academy. He gave up medicine. He did a video. He’s brilliant.

He’s brilliant.

And he did a video on how much he made. Like it was like £50 doing his NHS work and how much he was making on like on, like on that. And I’m not saying not everyone’s money driven. Right. So it shouldn’t be about that. But he had a very transparent video about like this is what I do. This is how much I make. This is why I do it. But for those that want to start that sort of journey and question number one is what would you say is the most important thing to start? How do you start it? Second question is, do you have to have a certain amount of mental resilience to do it?

Okay. Number one, I would definitely say be okay with being shit. And what I mean by that is you have to start off being shit because your first 100 posts will be shit like your first 200 maybe shit and you may got any like get no likes, but you have to be consistent. Like you may not be successful by being consistent, but there is a 100% fact and chance you won’t be successful if you’re not consistent, right? Which is so true. So you may have the risk of not being successful if you if you don’t try it, but you’re never going to know if you aren’t. So you just got to make sure you keep going. And my dad says this saying all the time, and we did it when I had exams. If you throw enough shit at the blanket, eventually some of it’s going to stick and some of it will. So you’ve got to keep going and then you learn from it. Every post you do, every podcast you do, you learn a little bit more about it. And it may take you a thousand podcasts before you suddenly get that curve of success and it goes up. Right. But then if you if you quit it, 999, you’d have never known. And it’s like that hole that, you know, that photo, someone digging for the gold. And then he stops at the very end when he would have been there. So yeah, I think consistency is 100% key. Like be consistency, always be consistent. And what.

About mental resilience do you think you.

Get? I think you definitely need it because you’re going to get no likes at the beginning. You’re going to get no listens on your podcast. You’re going to get no views on your YouTube channel. And then you’re saying to yourself, oh, I’m putting all this work in, I’m doing all these camera angles, I’m doing this and I’m getting nothing back from it. And you have to have that resilience to keep pushing on. It’s in it’s almost self-belief, like if you don’t have that self belief in yourself, then how are you going to push forward and convince the world that they should watch your stuff? And if you have that self belief, then you’ve just got to keep going and going and going. And I think that will that will push you on.

So. So now you’ve got this audience that’s engaged with you. What are the steps to monetising that.

And okay, so there’s a lot of ways you can monetise on social media. And it depends what. Of Omicron. So number one is brand deals. So it’s good to do your. The content you do should align with the brands you want to work with. So for example I’m massive into my health and fitness. I’m never going to go work with McDonald’s because unless they unless they wanted me to promote some sort of healthy, healthy thing, then maybe that’ll be right. However, 90% of the time I’m never.

Salads have more calories than the burgers. Just saying.

There you go. Yeah, maybe they do, but I’m not going to listen. I’m not going to hold a burger and be like the new Quarter Pounder, even if they pay ten grand, because it’s probably not really worth it. Maybe it is to some people, but everyone’s got their price now, so you’ve got to align yourself with those certain brands. I think you can also get paid from, like Rona is doing courses. It’s a great way. And then you can set up other things like plans. You’ve got a website you can set up, fitness brand. If you’re a fitness fitness courses, you’re in fashion. You can set up your own clothing brand. Yeah. These endorsement product endorsement. Yeah. So do you have.

Someone who represents you?

I have a manager. And that manager kind of deals with all my logistics and deals with all the brands I work with, and can also get me brand work as well. And they’ve been great. They’re lovely people and I’ve been with them for 3 or 4 years. And yeah, so me and my twin are the same manager, and then there’s different ways of making money on different platforms like TikTok actually have a marketplace where and a creator thing where if your video blows up, you can get some money. It’s very small, but YouTube’s even better. Youtube has a platform where if you create for that brand that that you can get thousands of pounds if your video goes off because the YouTube algorithm is great, like your videos, can you remake money? So your video, if you make a video five way five, if you go on Veganuary, it’s always big Veganuary right? If you make a video. Five recipes for making Veganuary, which are cheap. Let’s say that that video will be big from January and you made it so 2019. But also if it’s gone well in the algorithm, it will pick back up the next year because people will be researching again. Veganuary recipes oh 2020 2021 so that video could kill it as seven years later. So yeah, so there’s a lot of ways to make to monetise monetise it.

Yeah. I’m going to ask you something. I like to be controversial. Right. Oh here we go. So you were talking about platforms right. And platforms that control the livelihood as you know. Like what’s your view on censorship. Right. Because also you think about a case like with the recent news of like Russell Brand at the moment with what’s going on and the allegations YouTube have pulled him. Right. They’ve actually stopped and YouTube was his biggest source of income. Okay. So he’s now saying because Rumble’s the new platform where they don’t allow any censorship, right? Yeah. Do you believe so? First of all, do you ever get scared? I mean, you’re not obviously. Henry, I know you you know, you’re not a controversial slash immoral person or whatever. Do you do you ever get worried that you’re going to get cancelled online or not? Really. And secondly, do you believe that censorship is a good thing or not.

To censor yourself when you’re talking? Yeah.

Do you feel like, oh, I’m going to actually like I’m not going to.

Say say that.

Say that. Yeah.

Listen, I think the world we’re in now, if you are so straight line and boring, your content isn’t ever going to get, you’ve got to be left or right polarising. You have to be like, look at Piers Morgan, but you’ve got to be very careful about what you say, because if you aren’t educated in that topic enough and you say something which is one thing or the other, then it’s more likely you’re going to get cancelled. Like the reason why James Smith does it so well and Piers Morgan does it so well is because they are so good with words and they’re educated on the topics they talk about, so they’re less likely to get cancelled. Whereas if it was someone like me and let’s take an example, it’s the politics and you vote Labour over conservative or vice versa. And you document, oh, I voted conservative because of this, but do I really know that much about politics? No. But if I made my opinion about it that I’ve voted on conservative, then people are probably going to go, well, you’re right, you’ve clearly uneducated. And that’s the thing I only ever would be talking commenting on or something if I’m well educated on the topic. It’s the same with all the I can’t remember what it was. Now, somewhere in one of these Middle East countries where the woman couldn’t women couldn’t wear their masks.

No, no, no, they couldn’t wear the burqa or something like that.

I remember what it was, but these women couldn’t wear their hair. And people, if I were to make because people were DMing me going, why aren’t you why aren’t you commenting on this? And I’m going, it’s got nothing to do with me because I don’t know this industry. I don’t know it until I’ve done my education on it, and I now know to talk about it, then I’m okay to make a comment, whether it be this or this, but people on their podcasts and I watch it all the time, or on their Instagram stories or whatever, they’ll make a comment about something and I’m like, bro, just don’t even and I stay out of it.

I got trolled about something like this. This is really interesting. So this is the little insight because you were like, what were you getting trolled about? I get asked quite a lot to go on national television to make comments about like the NHS crisis. I worked on the NHS for ten years. Okay, so I did my I paid my dues. Like I said, I worked really hard. I left in 2020 for like health reasons. Up to 2021 I was doing NHS work. Yeah. Now people. So basically there’s like a meme account. On Instagram, which does really well. It’s a Dental medium account run by young boys. Young Dental boys. And basically they said that they were sort of the opposite of what you were saying. They were saying like, are you not like, doesn’t it infuriate you so much that these private dentists that don’t realise the shitstorm of what’s going on are going on TV and commenting on what’s going on, right? I got sent it by a few people because they were like, I think this is targeted at you. And I was like, listen, I don’t care, because at the end of the day, if they want to go out and speak about it, go out. There is freedom of speech. If you want to talk about it on your social media, do. Why do news channels approach me? Because I’m vocal about stuff. Because I’m the one that’s out there saying I left because I was depressed and suicidal working on the NHS and I can. I stood up to Jeremy Kyle, who was basically saying, dentists are greedy and that’s why they leave the NHS. I’m putting myself in that position. How does he know.

He doesn’t work in?

Exactly. But the thing is, is that after that interview he was like, I can see your point now. I found it really weird because I was like, they can say all they want and they control and whatever, but what they were saying is the opposite to you. They were saying, because I’m not in it. Whereas, you know, the people that are saying to you, you can’t win, you know, I mean, because they’re saying, why aren’t you commenting? You know, so.

There’s no the thing is, no matter what you do in this world, there’s going to be controversy. Like this girl the other day actually posted a photo in her lingerie in a public street, street. And it was a I my first initial thoughts were it’s a sick photo. Yeah. Whereas the comments under it were had to unfollow because of this, this, this. And I’m like, what is wrong with the world? Like and my older brother is actually a teacher, and the things he has to now do about child safety and security is so different to what we had in our lives back in school, where the teacher could probably hit us still and it would be okay, but now it’s just it’s all so different and it’s like you do one thing wrong in any industry or make one comment about something and you’re more likely to be cancelled.

I saw I saw a thing. It was it was like a picture of Kate Moss in the 90s with Calvin Klein next to her. They were taking a photo in his hand. Was like on her, on.

Her, on her arse or.

Something just above her arse. Yeah. And the comments that came in, who’s the creepy guy with the octopus hands? Yeah. Octopus. Calvin Klein, a gay guy. Yeah. Number one, Calvin Klein. Yeah, he probably designed that very dress. And his hands have been all over, like, to fix that thing, and and, you know, the the notion that, you know, maybe the person watching it was offended or had had some, maybe something had happened to that person.

Okay, here’s another thing.

Could have happened. Yeah. Someone someone might have put their hand inappropriately on on that person. That doesn’t mean that was going on in that photo. But like.

It’s just that pictures tell a thousand words, right? Everyone’s got their own opinion about it. But. So here’s another one. When I went to Dubai during the pandemic and right now people are watching, going, oh, you went to Dubai during the pandemic. But the facts are I went when it was okay to go, but I started posting photos when I was out there when we went back into lockdown. So I left on like, I don’t know, 23rd or 26th or seventh thing from Cambridge, which essentially was like a tier two level, whatever it was, which was legal for me to fly. And because I booked this months ago, by the way, and it was I made that vocal booked Dubai back in November and I made it on my social media, booked Dubai buzzing to get out there for Christmas New Year. And so it was legal to me. Book. We had no lockdown, we’re all okay. And then Boris suddenly announced bam this day, certain tiers, certain people. Yeah, long time ago. So I went to Dubai, but again, it was fine. I was flying from Cambridge, I was allowed to leave, so on and so on and got to the airport, got to Dubai.

Fine. And then I started posting content. Me on a beach. Nothing like drinking booze, partying, which a lot of the some influencers were. It was just again, clean content, show my outfits, whatever. And I got the biggest backlash on my on my photos being like, how dare you escape the country? All this, all this. And I was like, I, have you been following me for a long time? You’d have seen that on my post. Like I booked this months ago and I left legally like so. I’ve done nothing wrong. Like I wasn’t the one jumping out of my bed and doing it on January 3rd and sneak into Dubai and suddenly appearing on a beach. I booked this months ago, so. And then people were commenting on it and going, oh, you should be ashamed for yourself. You raised all that money to climb Everest. I did a charity challenge and and now you’re and your mum’s going to work. My mum was like, the boys did nothing wrong and my mum was actually in the NHS. I wouldn’t have done that to her. Raised all this money for charity, sent it to the NHS and then buggered off to Dubai just for a holiday.

The thing that you said about the NHS, dentistry and people saying who is this private dentist to talk about? I mean I did, I did one year of NHS dentistry and vet, then went to private, then stopped being a dentist. Now I manufacture teeth whitening products so doesn’t mean.

You can’t ever comment.

Being a dentist. I want to talk about the NHS. Yeah. If I want to talk about the NHS, I’m allowed to comment about the NHS, even though I’m not working in that system. Yeah. And maybe they’re saying why did ITV ask her and not one of us. Well ITV asked her because of everything we just said. Yeah. All the 15 years work.

You’ve put I think, I think like, you know, people don’t realise that the nuances of situation but also like in terms of like so there’s two, there’s two different things. Also I want to cover with the content creation before we move on. There is I’m not going to say her name because she blocked me. Say her name. No no no.

Who’s this? Say her.

Name.

We’ll cut it out. We’ll cut it. I really want to know who’s blocked it out.

We’ll cut it out.

I’ll tell you afterwards. Okay. There was content. You’ll definitely know by a certain female. She’s doing a brilliant job. Just listen. Listen. Just listen. Sorry, sorry. She’s very beautiful. She’s very articulate. And she claims to be a psychologist. Okay. Initially, I was like, fantastic content. You. I love it when I see strong, empowered women doing this. She then got called out. She went on Chris Williamson’s podcast. Ah, okay.

Is it okay? I think I know who it is with Chris Williamson podcast.

And someone called it out because there were certain things she was saying and I was like, she’s not a psychologist. And her response to other people was like, medical professionals don’t respond in this way. You just know, pay. Like, you know, the way that we have to respond to stuff. So I did my own little research, found some TikToks. She’s a psychology teacher now. She has gone on some of the most famous psychology teachers.

A psychologist, no.

But clinical psychologist is what she’s kind of like, portraying herself as.

Doctor.

Like psychiatrist. No, no.

It’s the woman I’m thinking of. I’m sure her. I won’t say her name, but I’m sure her title is doctor.

Yeah, or something like that. Listen, listen, listen. So she’s basically misleading, but it’s incredible because she’s been on Lewis Howell’s podcast. Yeah. I think even Joe Rogan like interviewed her like there’s been loads. And the thing is no one has done their due diligence and there’s only a few people calling her out. I called her out in a really nice way. I dropped her a DM and I was like, hey, love your content. And I was like, but you’re not a psychologist. And I think it could be quite misleading to the public. You know, as you said that she said she blocked me direct. Yeah. She direct.

Messaging.

She blocked me. But the point is, without replying, without replying me saying you’re not a dentist, I’d be like, actually, here I am and this is my credentials. Shivani was obviously like, of course she’s going to block you. Like it’s like saying you’re a fraud, you know what I mean? And I was like, okay, but I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it like that.

How block happy are you? Oh I’m.

Sorry. Block happy now? I blocked so many times.

I don’t block at all. Do you know what I block? I do, you know, I always say I block a lot.

Block, block, block.

My way to deal with things is killing with kindness. And the reason why I do that is because this girl. Yesterday I put on my story. It was hilarious. She actually DM’d my girlfriend because I don’t really tag my girlfriend much and. But I do sometimes just tag her and people can find that by tagging my girlfriend’s private. Anyway, she got a DM saying hey lovely, I don’t you don’t know me, but I follow your boyfriend’s page. And just to let you know, I think you should be concerned that I think he sways both swings both ways as it like gay and yeah, and I put it on my story and she sent it to me. And I could not stop laughing at this because it was hilarious. But she. The thing is, I could have messaged this girl back because I’ve got her Instagram handle now being like, how dare you? Whatever. But something seriously troubled with those people who have to give you hate because they’ve taken the time out of their day. We have 24 hours a day and.

But you could say that about the psychologist. But I wasn’t giving hate. I was more concerned.

No, yours is very different. Your messaging out of. Yeah, a concerning way. This is something way worse. Like someone, someone going out of your way to hate someone is a complete like something’s troubled with that person. 100% truly troubled of that person. 100% truly troubled. So when you always get on TikTok, you’ll see you probably get it as well on your Instagram, it’s it’s fake accounts commenting on your stuff. 1234512 lol. It’s the emails I got from those people when I first started my website going you’re a joke mate. This is the biggest laughing stock. Those people have troubles and there’s one kid from university, his name is Gus and I’m going to say it out right now actively.

Then respond and be kind.

Be yeah, yeah yeah. So this one Kick-Off Gus from University I went to University of. Never spoke to him, but I’d always see him on shake his hand on nights out. He or he was no one at university, but he was just friends with these two guys and these two Joe and this guy Gus. If they listen to this, I hope they do. They will. They always, they always, always, always would comment on me and I would just comment back lol haha. Or hope you’re well mate. Or one of them was. Once I was, I was blessed are your well skinny or something like that and lol this is the biggest joke he. Whatever and I’ll be like, thanks mate. Appreciate your support. Always killing with kindness. And I got it for like two years straight and I haven’t for a while now. But it’s like, you know what? I love that because they’re taking time out of their day to message me out of their precious day. What are they probably doing? Nothing. They’re not trying to achieve any goals. They’re just doing their life and board. So they think they’re better off blasting someone else and hating on someone else. Never hate on someone. Success. And the one thing I would say anyone above you if you’re hating on someone, they’re above you. You never hate on someone below you. There’s no point. You never hate on someone below you. You always hate on. So you always know if you’re being hated. You’re above.

That person. In dentistry, it happens so much and it’s so sad. And I’ve tried so hard. Have you?

Have you never not hated? Hate is a big word. Have you never thought that something someone said needed calling out in dentistry?

As in like the things they say to me or the things they say to me?

They say they’re saying to the public that they’re saying to their audience, you know, we’ve had a few things in dentistry recently, like the the twins. Um, maybe you’re not. You don’t follow them.

Yeah, exactly. See, I stay so far away.

But you know what I mean.

What was the twins tell me.

There are, there are there are things people say that you might think I think that’s wrong or I think that’s, I don’t know, self promoting or. I think that’s totally so. So do you know why has there not been in dentistry a time where.

You wanted listen, listen, listen. And Henry will be the same. Of course you’re going to see people online. I get I mean.

In your industry. Yeah.

But listen.

But nutrition and stuff. But listen.

But the thing is like, okay, for example, the reason why the psychology thing triggered me is because I genuinely believe if you’re going to give medical advice you need, like you said, people should comment things that they’re on an expert. There is nothing wrong with being a psychology teacher. Just say you’re a teacher. Do you see what I mean? But misleading people and people that are going to look up to you. So I do have a problem with people like saying that. However, maybe I shouldn’t have, but I was like like for me, like psychology and psychiatry and psychotherapy is so important. Okay. Well, what about fitness?

Do you have to be a PT to essentially give personal trainer advice? But I know so many people in unreal shape. But the thing.

Is, it’s like but it’s also about transparency. It’s about like, I have a lot of experience. I’m giving you advice based on my experience. Do you see what I mean? Yeah. So I think that like it’s just the, you know, but you’re not going to lie about being a PT no. Do you know what I mean?

I, I actually went and got my license just because I sometimes couldn’t be bothered. Well, sometimes I get people commenting to me being like, you’re not even a PT bro. And then you’re.

Like, actually I am.

Well, actually, now I actually do have the level three qualification and I’m trained to do this if I wanted to. So you know what? I can talk about it even though that course isn’t great. Like it’s like going back to school and learning. You don’t learn much, but it’s just like you got it and it’s a credential. And if you do want to talk about it, you can. And if I want to release my plans, how about.

Same question to you. Have you ever thought someone in your industry needed your hate? Yeah.

But listen, listen a Payman I’m not done with that. I’m not done with that because it was going to lead on. Right. It was going to lead on. You see something you don’t like or someone online, you unfollow and you move on. Yeah, that’s my philosophy. So you don’t like the content. Why should I call out if someone doesn’t like Henry? I don’t like these fashion stuff I don’t like. I don’t like the fact that you’re talking about running and you’re not doing a million marathons. I don’t like the fact that you’re giving this advice and you don’t work completely in fitness. Just unfollow. Henry. Yeah.

Don’t follow me. So true. Why? Why do people want to hate so much? It’s. I just don’t get it. Like. Well.

There are nuances to that as well. Well.

Here’s what I did. And it made me really realise this when I was probably 13. I remember, um, Twitter was huge and X factor was on and I used to go onto my Twitter and I would slate the contestants. I’d be like, you have the world’s worst voice at Frankie Cocozza. And I only realised, but no, listen, this is 13 year old immature ten year old.

Trying to get something.

Yeah, trying to get something back. You never know. But I didn’t realise how badly this can affect people’s mental health until it started happening to me. So. Yeah. So as a kid I was like slating these famous people. If they’d had a rubbish football game, I’d comment, look, you guys have a football match. Everyone swears at the players, right? Because they don’t get it and you’ll see tweets. And if someone’s missed a missed a penalty or whatever in your club’s missed it, you’ll get hate from so many seeing so much hate. So think about how much that impacts that player. Like we all have the same minds and brains and we all are so similar. Really. Like it’s going to affect you like and people are probably told by their managers people stay off social, stay off Twitter. But sometimes you’re just on it and it’s natural that you may read that comment about you or something and you’re like, ah, it’s always the one bad thing, the one bad comment that stays in you as well. It’s not the good ones. Yeah, you could get your amazing tonight, mate. Well done. Or you were great at singing tonight or you played really well, but that one bad one can’t believe you missed that penalty.

You’re dead to our team. It’s going to stay with you for so long and it’s so traumatic. It’s the same in social media as it taught me. Massively. Like, if you’re not going to say something nice, don’t even bother saying it at all. And it’s so simple to say and it’s harder for people to do, especially at young kids. And. Stuff like that. And you do get that hate on TikTok all the time because it’s such a Gen Z platform and you get hate all the time, but you just got to for me, now is like, kill them with kindness and just whatever and whatever. Like they’re not my friends. I’m not worried about them because they’re not my I don’t see them every day. I’m not going to see that person. I’m just worried about who what my friends think of me, what my family think of me. And am I being a good person to my girlfriend or my brother or my mom and dad? That’s what you should really be caring about, not about what user 101 things. Do you know what I mean? Like that’s the least.

What’s your in this journey where you’ve come from? Just making some content and then getting really successful at it and then brand deals and modelling and all that. What was the darkest?

Yeah, I was just about to ask, what was your darkest moment? Yeah.

Oh.

I tell you what I think it’s honestly it’s the the followers. Because I think the the more you get, the more pressure you have to feel like you need to perform to that audience. Like if you looked into a room and you had 100,000 people in one room, you’d be like, Holy shit, I’ve got to talk in front of 100,000 people. Like you wouldn’t be able to do that. It’d be like you’d be nervous, you’d be sweating. So it’s the same as going on your Instagram story and talking on there, but you’re doing it in to an audience of 100,000 people. So I felt when I got over 100 K, I felt almost had pressure on me. And the better I got at doing things like it’s the same as when I run or create content. When I first started, I wasn’t very good, so I had nothing to compare to. I had nothing to lose. But when I start getting good at it, every video I started posting, if it wasn’t as good as the last one, I’d put pressure on myself and go, don’t post it. It’s not good enough, which isn’t the way to do it. And I still do it today. So I’ll then because I’m at the top, I’ve got 178,000 followers or whatever. I’ll compare myself to other people have 170 K, and I’ll look at their content and I’ll be like, God, this is better than mine, or that guy’s better than mine, or he got to 200 K, his is better than mine. And I’ll go because I’ve got to that number, but then I’ve got to I got to remember, well, what was I doing when I had one follower like or two followers, my content look back at my content from ten years ago. So bad. So for me, it’s the pressure from feeling like I need to perform all the time. When you don’t like you don’t. You need to have days off, you need to have time off. And I’m I’m.

At some point on one day. Did that become like overwhelming and yeah.

Do you ever get did you ever get like severe crippling anxiety from social media.

So I yeah I get it all the time. Like I am a really anxious person quite frankly. And I hold it in well and I can’t control it.

You wouldn’t realise.

I think I do a lot. I think I’ve done a lot of things to help me balance it. So I see a therapist once a month. She’s been incredible. Same therapist, only ever. One I’ve seen and I haven’t seen anyone else since. So I see her about once a month. And for people who can’t afford or have the privilege of doing therapy, then I think just a good conversation with a friend is equally as important or can actually help as much. Or starting a new hobby, or taking your mind away from things that aren’t causing you anxiety, and waking up and not touching my mobile phone first thing in the day. Going to sleep one hour before no blue light or no screens again. Doesn’t have your mind wandering with all these thoughts and same when you wake up. You’re not jumping into your emails is another thing that’s really kept me anxiety at bay. And if it does come, just let it be. It’s a bad day, not a bad life. Like there’s going to be some times in life and days and years where you have that day where you can’t get out of anxiety and people go, oh, just breathe, breathe, go meditate. I’m telling you right now, you cannot go meditate. When you’re anxious. You cannot do it. You do the meditate. You do the meditation in the morning or whenever you fancy doing it too. So when you are anxious or in those bad thoughts that you remind yourself when you’re in that state of flow and state of chill and calm, that’s the state you can try and get back into, but you can’t go and just breathe it out because it’s not going to work. And you can you can lose a day and say, oh, you know what? That day, today’s not been good, but that’s okay. Just knowing that it’s okay.

My question for you is, though, you said like all these great coping mechanisms tell us how you ended up on this marathon journey. So first of all, like how many marathons you do, why you decided to do a marathon and how that’s helped your mental health.

So running for me, I actually started it when I got an injured shoulder and I couldn’t lift weights and I this was gyms, a part of my routine. I like training and I just lifted weights and I was in quite good shape, bodybuilder esque, like big, not not stacked, but like big. And excuse me. And I started running because I couldn’t lift weights and I was a bit slow, wasn’t I was always okay at school, but I wasn’t great now. And I started to get okay. So I set myself a challenge of a half marathon and I wanted to do it in sub one hour 30, and I did it in one hour 27 across the line, absolute gassed I was, I see I did it, but then I started right, right. So I did a marathon and I did my first ever marathon with not much training because I got given like a place with a brand very last minute, did it in three hours, 37 and my first ever one was like 302 only two years ago, actually two and a half years ago maybe. And I was like, oh my God, I’ve got to get into this. I trained for this. I could be a okay runner. And I started running. I set myself a target last year about seven, 8 or 12 months, 14, 15 months ago, set myself a target to do a sub three hour marathon. And I this is my first ever trained one. So I did about seven weeks of training to get this sub three and everyone was like, yeah, you’re never going to get a sub three on your first attempt.

I remember telling my mates, If I’m ever going to train properly for a marathon, I want to do it sub three. And I never forget the face they all went, no chance mate. Yeah. And so I put the work in and I got sub three on my first attempt. I did a 2 to 58. And anyway, the reason why I started to run was one because the shoulder. But also this moment of peace. I just have like there’s a lot of run clubs and I think it’s great running with people. But something incredible about running and present, about running by yourself first thing in the morning or after a long day at work where you can’t physically look at your phone or touch it, or compare yourself, or scroll media or whatever. It’s just you, your breath and your feet and the tap, tap, tap, or a bit of music or podcast in your ear or whatever. And I think that is just incredible. And I love it. Whether it’s raining, whether it’s cold outside and the sun’s rising and you see the sunrise or whether it’s a beautiful day, I think there’s just something empowering about it. And there is. Leaving the gym is great. After lifting weights, you feel great, but leaving after a run that runner’s high is the best feeling I’ve ever had in my entire life. They talked about. I think it’s massively made my mental health just feel a bit like, have a stressful day, go for a run, go.

For a run. Yeah, that was so I mentioned to Payman earlier. So did you have you listened to the latest Steven podcast with Dr. Tara Schwartz?

I haven’t yet, no.

It’s amazing, but she talks about the impact of aerobic exercise on the mind. I don’t know if you guys knew that. Not weightlifting. So first of all she talks about different studies. So with weightlifting with people that lift heavy, even if they didn’t lift just thinking about it, they had muscle growth.

Yeah. That’s that’s I’ve heard about that. Yeah. Apparently if you if you picture yourself in the gym and think about yourself lifting weights, they do say you can something like psychological empowering about I think it’s like a placebo though I think she talks.

About the effect of aerobic and actually causing. I think it is neurogenesis. So we were talking about this earlier how like you can get like increased neurones. And with aerobic exercise in particular, you have more of that impact of neurogenesis where you can get like an increase of like your neurones. And then if you go for like have a break from running and then you like run again, like it can do that even more. So there’s a huge benefit. Like people overlook cardio because they’re like, don’t do cardio, don’t do cardio. And I think that’s actually a really because we’re not thinking. We’re not talking about just physique. Why? The most toxic thing that’s happened with exercise is that we’ve completely related it to physical and aesthetic goals, when actually it has huge, because I know people that aren’t in great shape and are amazing at sports.

You know, let’s talk about. So for me, this is when I got into a really unhealthy place of fitness. It was when I got to Australia, as I told you guys earlier, and I got into the best shape of my life, I was like 4% body fat. Me and my brother, we were counting all our calories. We only really lifted weights and that because if you lift weights, it will aesthetically get you into the place you want to be 100% fat like you are growing each specific muscle, lifting each specific muscle to grow to where you want it to. And you will look the best. That’s just fact. But I got so unhealthy with it. It was beyond belief. Like every time I go out for food, I would I would probably eat chicken salad dressing on the side, nothing else because I was worried about the calories and I knew that I was like calories. I would barely drink because I was I was in Australia, I wouldn’t drink, I’d do nothing. I was so boring. All I wanted to do was go to the gym, and the girls upstairs used to come downstairs. This is how bad it got.

The girls upstairs who lived above us would come down. Go. Do you guys want to go out tonight? And me and my brother would go, oh we can’t. We’ve got something on tomorrow. Got to go to work in tomorrow. Unfortunately. When really we had sushi dinner that we wanted to save because it was our calories and it can get so caught up in your mind. It actually makes you have a bit of an eating eating disorder. So for me, it was like every time I had a burger, I’d be thinking about the calories. So I actually completely stopped counting calories. And what I do now, I think, I think it’s not bad to go through it, because once you go through it, you understand what you’ve done, you’ve learnt about it, right? And now, like I’ve got such good balance between running fitness, eating aesthetics, drinking it all, and I think you need to go through the bad times in this journey to learn it, and you won’t learn it by someone telling you on YouTube. You can tell it, but then you’ll be like, I don’t get it until you go through it. And I’ve gone through.

It all now. Level of obsession that you’re discussing, it has its positives, right?

Yeah, totally. In the meantime, in the moment it doesn’t until you can digest it and be like, oh, that’s why I did that or that’s why I’ve done that. Yeah. Looking back, I remember I was honestly trying to get shredded for a holiday to Marbella when I was 21. I’d go on this egg white diet where I just ate egg whites and broccoli 800 calories, diet like because I wanted to have abs. That is so unhealthy. What am I thinking? Yeah, you don’t need that at all.

So as well, do you? Have you ever tried alternative modes of therapy to help your mental health? Like, we’ve had a few people on this podcast talk about like plant medicines and other things like that. Like what’s your view on that?

Yeah. So I actually I’ve dabbled a little bit in psychedelics and now it’s quite a taboo, taboo thing to really talk about or discuss because there’s not been a lot of like science based evidence, especially with mushrooms. More coming out.

Yeah. Psilocybin. They’re going to be using it for depression MDMA.

They are in certain. But it’s it’s how our body reacts to it right. If you drink alcohol for the first time, you don’t know how you’re going to react to it, and 90% of people are probably going to be sick or drink too much, and it’s going to make you have a bad headache. So you you learn from that experience. And it’s the same with psychedelics. You don’t know how your body’s going to cope with it or what your mind is going to do. So you get a bit panicky, maybe until you understand what it does to you. So the first time I went on it, it was in a controlled environment. And I think that’s the best thing to do with any drug or anything you do should be in controlled environment. And that’s why in America now in like Texas or Houston or Austin, it’s like the psychedelic Mecca of the world in and they do it all under control people. So you have like therapists doing it for you. So I was going for a bit of a rough patch of and I was a bit anxious, worried about what’s the next part? I didn’t have a girlfriend at this time.

I was I felt a bit lonely. And in London you can probably know. It can be a very lonely place. And I was like, screw it, I’m going to go on this retreat. My friend Louis, who, you know, who had this podcast, he was like, mate, come. You’ve got nothing to lose. I was like, you’re right, nothing to lose. Turned up. And I went on this amazing retreat in Wales and I knew no one there. Went by myself, told my friends all last minute, I’m actually going on this retreat to do psychedelics and do mushrooms. And they were like, you fucking what? And I’m like, I don’t even know what I’m doing, but I’m going to do it. I’m all about new experiences, right? And I went on this thing and I sat down. They were like, right, we’re going to do a sharing circle. And as soon as the sharing circle started, I was like, what the fuck have I entered into? This is not me. Like, get me out of here.

Woo woo!

It felt a bit woo woo and it felt a bit, a bit like a bit intimidating, like, why do I need to share my thoughts and feelings? And I did it and I felt really good. And I was like, this is, this is before I’ve done any mushrooms, by the way, or any psychedelics. And I was like, wow, isn’t it great to just let your thoughts off your chest to strangers? Because we’re all doing it and.

We’re all connected.

And we all had similar thoughts. It was like, this girl to the left of me have nothing in common, but the thing she was saying I could completely resonate to, and it was like, isn’t that funny? Like, we all are so connected in this world. And then the next day you go to bed. You don’t. I took off social media. I turned my phone off, left it in the car, didn’t touch it for two days. So the conversations I’m having are so raw, so real and amazing. And because I think for me, for one, I get judged quite a lot because I like to dress well, take care of my skin, and like to do fitness and groom myself. Self-care quite, quite. Probably too extreme. But anyway, I do. And so a lot of the initial judgement is people think I’m arrogant and that’s okay. I don’t mind that. Anyway, I thought it was a really good place for me to actually tell these people who I truly am and the personality, because actually, at the end of the trip, a lot of people were like, damn, man, I judged you as soon as I walked in, like, I thought you were just this good looking guy at this retreat, thinking he’s someone else. And I was like, I’m so sorry about that. And I was like, I was so honest that you’re like that because I think we all do it. Like we judge people walking down the street for having pink hair.

And actually there could be the loveliest person or having something. They’re just going fancy trying something new. Yeah. And anyway, did the psychedelics and during the experience, it’s very like I first I was quite nervous because I’ve never done this, but I just said to my body, in my subconscious, in my mind, surrender, surrender to this and let it be. Whatever happens is lean into it. Because if you step away from it, lean away from it. You’re going to block the drugs out. Because the way I say it is, if if you’re smashed out of your face, right, and you’re boozing with your mates and your mum texted you saying your dad’s in the hospital, get home now you’re going to snap and you’re going to go, I’m not I’m not drunk anymore. I’m sober. I’m alert, I’m focussed. So your mind can take you out of certain situations if you want it to. And it’s the same with the psychedelics. If you want to be taken out of it, you will. But if you surrender to it and just say mushrooms, like whatever you do, do your thing and it will work really well. So the first hour I’m taking it and I’m like, oh, can I go to the toilet? Should I go to the toilet? I’m not a bit sure. And I was like, just Henry, stop and do what you want to do.

And I went to the toilet, came back, went back into this like kind of weird trance. And it takes about a week to really digest what you’ve seen and done and to really put it into work. And the moment, the first time I did it, I’ve done it twice now, and each one I’ve had different experiences, but the first was a very special one because I think the other people around me were really significant. Have, since I’ve done it, have been a real significant part of my life, and they’ve all been friends now and they’re all really interesting people on it. Some were entrepreneurs, some were, I don’t know, some celebrities or whatever, and there were some really cool people there, and I connected really well with these people. And I think for me, it was like that sharing circle the next day after you’ve been on it and everyone again sharing their experiences was just such an amazing, amazing thing to hear. And it was just like such an eye opening experience. And I left and I sat down and I was like, because I didn’t touch my phone this entire week and I was like, wow, the world doesn’t actually go that fast. We just think it does because we’re always scatty we’re on phones, we’re running at 100 miles an hour. But actually, you know what? It’s slow. You can have it. I’ve had about 13 incredible conversations before 1130.

In the morning. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I know what you mean. But we’re so busy doing things.

And was everyone’s experience similar or different after.

Everyone actually had very different experiences? I think. I think, you know.

The thing is with psychedelics, as they have shown, because they’re doing so many studies on it, particularly with psilocybin and mushrooms and stuff like if you have on those levels, because there’s like there’s different levels, right? And there’s a really famous psychologist at Imperial that does studies and there’s like certain doses. So you have a recreational dose. So that’s when you’re like, ha ha, I’m having fun. Yeah. Then the dose that Henry would have taken, which is more like your ego, they call it ego death. So the ego dies, right? So the ego dies.

A heroic dose.

Yeah, exactly. So then you get pushed, you get pushed, you get pushed into the closet, as they said, with your skeletons, and things will come up. Like you might see things that are uncomfortable, your parents or stuff about your relationships.

So that.

Doesn’t happen to.

Everyone, though. Everyone has different appearances, a lot of the time you can go and have intention. My intention may have been I want to find the future wife, what type of girl I should be with that. Maybe everyone, but you don’t choose how the mushrooms.

Control your brain. They’ll take.

You somewhere. They’ll take you somewhere else. It could be completely different. It could be you as a child playing football and how you got tackled by a boy. And that caused your trauma for the rest of your life because you’re now scared to play football? I don’t know, um, pretty bad example of that, but you get my point. Um, for me, the first I’ll take you back to my first experience, because I actually did mushrooms in Thailand, jokingly, recreationally, recreationally. And when I was travelling and again, all I did was get the giggles. It was hilarious. We had the funnest time ever. It was really good fun. Um, but this was very different. Didn’t get any of that hilarious moments for me. It was more deeper, very deep. So things I actually saw, um, was the type of girl I need to go for because I’ve had two relationships, but by this time one of them was really good. But we broke up because I went to university. The other one was a bit toxic, a bit fire on fire, and it was. And at the time I was dating these type of girls and in my vision it was like, you need to go back to someone like your first ever girlfriend, because that’s exactly what you need.

And now so you saw that in your second.

I saw that and know first trip, first trip, and then what else I saw was my dad on his deathbed. And that was horrible because I was crying in the trip and it was like, okay, so again, a week later, what does that I’m writing these down and I read it afterwards and I was like, what does that mean to me? And in that moment that was like, your parents aren’t here for a long time. Maybe go and spend more time with them. Maybe that’ll make you happy. Maybe that seeing your mom and dad more often is going to make your.

Dad was perfectly fine. Fine? He still.

Is fine. He still is. But it’s just like, maybe that is like.

There might be a worry, though. Do you see what I mean?

I haven’t got many. You haven’t got many experiences left with your say. If you see your parents, say if you’ve got parents still and I’m 31, my parents are 67 and 66. Say, if I only see them twice a year and they live till the average age of, say, 75, that’s only 29 more times I’ll see my mom and dad. It’s crazy. Isn’t that scary? And then it’ll be 28, 27. And that’s sad. Exactly. So it was like, I need to make a more conscious effort to go see them all the time. Not all the time, but more of a conscious effort. Pick up the damn phone and call your mum and dad because they want you to call them. Like my mum is always like, oh, you never call me anymore. And I’m like, I know, I.

Know, I put you on that guilt and you feel so bad.

But you should. Do you know what? It’s not hard when you’re walking down the street to pick up your groceries or something to go. You know what? I’ll give my mum and dad a call because they all really appreciate you.

Not call your parents every day all the time.

But you know what my mum’s like? My mum’s like, you never see us, you don’t want to hang out with us. And the thing is, is like my like, I’m so like, death is such a taboo subject, right? As in, like, we don’t talk about, we can always see our parents getting older and it’s a few little struggles. You know, me and my sister are like, dad looks a bit old. Do you know what I mean? He’s looking a bit more frail. He’s forgetting things a bit more, you know.

Yeah, same as what my me and my brothers are doing.

The thing is, it just. It is a really scary thing, but it’s also like a part of life, like we are going to lose our parents. And this is.

One thing I talk about with people of success and doing things as well. It’s like there’s only one inevitable thing that’s going to happen this one, we’re all going to die, right? So go do what the fuck you want to do anyway. Like, why are we stopping ourselves from thoughts of what other people think? Because like, go fucking do it like you want to start that business and all your friends think it’s crazy. Fuck it. If it doesn’t work, you’ve learnt something like go do it. And I’m saying that sometimes for myself because I need.

You to say it to me, Henry.

Yeah, like. And me and Rhona talk outside this podcast and she goes, me babe, sometimes I have imposter syndrome. And I’m like, what? You you’re a successful entrepreneur. You have this amazing parlour business, you have this amazing tooth business. Sorry. Dentistry business. You’ve got a podcast. You, in my eyes, are the most successful person I know. And then she’s like, Henry, I look at you and think, your content is amazing. This is amazing. How do you get imposter syndrome? And I’m like, I think we are the worst own thoughts.

But we also think people are thinking about us, you know.

Are we overexaggerate our own importance? There’s far too much.

There’s an amazing woman I found online. Her name’s Sarah, something, and she’s a woman that is in Dubai, and she talks about how she has dealt with stigmas all her life. She’s a divorced Middle Eastern woman with 27 tattoos that doesn’t cover up. And she was saying that, like people, especially in the Middle East. In culture like where I’m from, have always judged her for things. And then she said that she did like a massive detox because when she lost a lot of people being her authentic self, she lost a lot of people. She goes, but it felt so good because the people that stayed were the people that loved me for who I was authentically. Do you know what I mean? And then she goes on to say that, like, your brain is like tofu. Be careful what you marinate it in, because if you marinate it in shit like toxicity, it absorbs that, you know what I mean? It’s like a sponge, right? Yeah, exactly. And I think, like, you know, that that is the most important thing. But you’re right. We forget that we have one life. And over and over again, people on their deathbed, as you know, they get asked, what do you regret? You know, and the regret is always doing the things that they wanted to do that they didn’t.

Living for other people’s expectations. But, you know, you get you guys are a bit younger. You get to my age and you start to regret the things you didn’t try. Yeah. That definitely what?

Well, I’m already seeing it already in my.

Products or companies or whatever. It was. Many things we haven’t tried.

Yeah, I think it’s so true though, because I always look at it like this and it’s easier to say than it is to do. It’s like money will come and go, like just fucking spend it and give it your best shot on whatever you want, like, because you can go back and make money. That’s the Middle.

East in a way. By the way. My mom’s Lebanese. She spent she’s like, Alex, buy me the Chanel. We might die tomorrow. Which really justifies everything, you know, like everything. Because Lebanese, by the way, they grew up in war, like, their whole life. Like Payman knows it’s the most bougie country in the world. Yeah, a bomb will hit. They’re still clubbing because they’re like, you know, you’re like, Yalla, we might die. You know what you were saying?

There is like buying me that thing anyway. So I think there’s a lot of, again, ways to look at that. Like there’s two ways to look. Oh, the first thought is £1,000. That’s, you know, maybe I shouldn’t do it. But then the other thing is, if I wear that Chanel bag, my confidence is going to go through the roof. So will that confidence make you better at work? Maybe. Will it make you get that boyfriend, your girlfriend you really want? Maybe. Will it make you walk with confidence? Maybe. And I think confidence is so key in anything we do. We talked.

About that. We talked about exercise and confidence because people were saying that. We say, oh, you shouldn’t have aesthetic goals. But then if aesthetic goals make you more confident and the confidence brings you other things in life, is it.

Bad, do things bad. But I do think every everyone who starts in the gym probably has some sort of low level of confidence and the and they’ve got some sort of validation they want to have to have. And I think I do.

Anything at the beginning of anything. It’s very difficult. Yeah.

Maybe. Yeah I think I was like that as well. Probably I was a skinny lad at uni and wanted to get all the girls, so I started lifting weights.

So when you look back on the journey, what, what, what are the high points? What comes to mind when you think of like the moments where you can take real pleasure?

So was it was like when I first started this, I was like, one day I’m going to work with this brand and this brand. And the moment I started working with them, it was like, fair play. I’ve done what I said I was going to do this brand, was it what was All Saints? And quite cool because and Ralph Lauren and I was like, you know what, fair play. Because I’ve always wanted to have the email being like, oh, we invite you to this or you can wear our clothes. And it was like, I remember 18 years old, I bought a All Saints leather jacket, my mum bought me one for my birthday and I was like, mom, there’s a lot of money, £330. And now and I’m not saying this gloating or anything, but it’s like I can contact them and they’ll send me one. And it’s like great feeling. It’s like, you know, I worked for that. And people look at it.

And the thing you work for, that’s the thing, people.

Look at it straight away, go, oh, you got this easy. I’m like, mate, I did it exactly.

When people are like, you should get in the TV gig.

If it was easy, everyone would do it.

Yeah, it’s it’s the same people, right, who complain. Right. So there’s two types of people. There’s the person who has the wife, who has the two kids and still manages to work out. And there’s the other one who what you were saying, and there’s the other person who comments on everyone’s post, but you don’t have kids and it’s the person. But there’s still, I guarantee there’s someone out there still finding the time to get the work in and do X, Y, and Z, even if they’ve got kids in a job and everything. Exactly. It’s just what you prioritise and what you spend those other little minutes doing that could save you on other certain areas of your, of your, of your life.

So what does the future hold for you?

Yeah.

I think it’s a really good question because for me, the future. I’ve been doing content creation for a while now, and I’m seeing all the changes and things like that, and I almost feel like I want to pass the baton down to the younger generation in content creation. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to do it. I think it’s going to be a part of my brand and what I do to showcase things, but for me, I really want to get my own fashion brand. I’ve got an idea to implement, like running kind of wear in more of a fashion wear fashion aesthetic, not like Nike, like performance clothing, but cool aesthetic in the running kind of space and fitness space, but also fashion space as well for like holiday wear and stuff. So I’m working on some designs right now for my own fashion brand, and I really want that because I think it’s for me, it’s like I love creating content and stuff like that, but I really want to have something which is bigger than my name and grow a brand, and I can impact. Impact? Yeah. Like I can always if I see someone wear my jumper down the. Street or something. And they bought that. I’d be like, fuck yeah. Like, and I get that now. I get people messaging me online and it’s like, that’s.

A dream lots of people have had. Right. So but now that you’ve started that process, what are the things about that that surprised you or you weren’t aware of or I mean, for instance, just for the sake of the argument, you want to make that jacket? Yeah, you got to make that in seven sizes and four colours. Yeah. Suddenly you’re talking 28 SKUs of that jacket.

Totally. Well, so far what I’ve learned is like, start small. Like you can’t expect to have a jumper, a t shirt, a pair of trousers, a pair of shoes off the back of it. Right. You have to start small. And again it’s just consistency like we talked about earlier. It’s starting small and being consistent with it and learning along the way. There’s going to be mistakes. I’m not going to I know for a fact I’m just not going to be all plain sailing because like you said, everyone would have done it. So it’s just and if it doesn’t work, it’s okay.

But in specifically in fashion, what are some things you’re starting to learn?

Okay, so I’ve got a sample made the other day. Samples can come back really shit. And they’re also really expensive to make. You know I think they look really good. So I get this jumper and I’m like, not not what I thought. And that’s £130. And I could have bought a nice jumper for £130, which is. Yeah. So it’s things like that. Um, the, the logo, the, the branding, the, the name having meaning behind the name is really important. Like I could just slap. I don’t know, there must be a reason why you started. What was the reason for you starting in lightning and lightning smile. Is there a reason behind it? Is there a brand behind it?

Yeah, yeah, but but I mean, one thing that’s very interesting. When we try and make something, there’s two ways of going. One is you stick your name on something that exists. Yeah. And the other way is where you make something completely new. And making something completely new costs us maybe five times as much. Totally sticking our name on something. I think with.

Fashion, you don’t actually need to reinvent the wheel all the time, because if you look at fashion, what actually happens is it goes in circles, just it goes in cycles. Right. So certain trends right now will probably go in May, maybe stay like there’s always some things that are going to stay leather jackets, things like that. But there’s certain trends and styles which will go round in cycle. So it’s like understanding what’s big now and then. You never know. It could become big in ten years, but for teeth to making them whiter or something, maybe a complete like you said.

You want to do a t shirt or a shirt, let’s say. Yeah. And you’ve got a specific idea about the way you want the stitching on the on the shirt or something. Unless you unless someone makes that specifically for you. Yeah. You’re not going to get that right. So is that the way it is that that is ready to go. Things that you can stick your name on got you or there’s like, you know, cutting new shapes and is that is that how it works? Well essentially.

Yeah. Like the manufacturer I’m speaking to at the moment. I said to him, listen, I want this, this, this. And he’s like, yeah, we can do that. So there’s just certain certain things people can do. If they can’t do it, then you find someone who can. Yeah, yeah. And it may take a long time to find someone who can. The thing which is really tough with any business, I think, is let’s take content creation for an example. You want to get better at photography, but to learn it. I learnt a lot of mine off YouTube. But what do you type into YouTube if you don’t have a clue about the terminology? Yeah. So there’s things on a camera which is ISO, aperture and things like that. But if you had no idea what aperture was, how could you say, make my photo look cleaner in YouTube? And then you get all these videos. It’s the same as like starting a clothing business. What is the word for this? Like, do you know what you need? Almost a dictionary of your words and everything. But it’s also about dentistry as well.

It’s about starting like Paula was the most like difficult thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. Because also like with dentistry, like I so had like a clear idea. And then I went on courses and then I invested. But like with business, especially a Start-Up like know it’s all it’s it’s all this new terminology and you kind of learn like on the go. And like recently I learnt all this stuff about business, like, you know, like shares, articles of association. Do you know what I mean? I had no flipping clue at that.

Richard Branson started a business and he made it to the top. And he still doesn’t know the.

Difference between Net and.

Gross. So do you know what? If you if you’re here and you make that, you’ll be all right.

Yeah, I think I think one of the big things like that Henry has brought today, like a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of great tips. But you know what you’ve shown a lot of people just start and also have the like, have the vision in mind, because I know that when he was that guy at Fitness First that didn’t have like he wasn’t going to be one of the biggest, like, content creators in the world. He just knew he wanted to do it. So you have to start somewhere.

So as I said earlier, self-belief is so important and we’re always going to feel something every day. We’re going to feel like, oh, we don’t deserve to be here. But if you can control your mind and just stay in that zone, you’ll you’ll get there. And that’s what I got. Mind over feelings tattooed on my under my bicep here first ever one. I love it because I think we feel something all the time. But if you can say to your mind. Your mind. You can do anything.

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Henry. It’s honestly amazing.

I really.

Really, really.

Enjoyed that chat.

With you both. And yeah. And, like, probably have to bring you in for like, part two. Let’s do.

It. I’d love that. Thank you very much. Amazing. Thank you.

Lovely to chat to you both.

Thank you.